Solid, solid prog, full of action.
Dredd has a nice welcome return from Mike Carroll - who prefers his full name these days it would seem - one of the things that I've really enjoyed about his Dredd's is he's building quite the supporting cast and with Paul Marshal (who does a brilliant job but makes Dredd's badge look like an emoticon on page 4!) is returns a character I've been looking forward to him bringing back since their first appearance.
Grey Area brings on the action, always feels like he's stronger on the less energetic episodes where his skill on character, dialogie and story really shine, but he does a good job here and while Mark Harrison isn't always the clearest of artists by and large he carries the pace off. Last page provides a nice epilogue and a taste of where things are going I suspect. Once again a top thrill.
As is Grey Suit. In this case Pat Mills seems stronger when he's masking his preaching with a lot of action as with last week he balances the two deftly here. A spoon full of violence helps the polemics go down, polemics go down, poolemics go down...
Nice to have a Future Shock by a new team in the Prog and while its utterly predictable and has a sizable plot hole I utterly enjoyed this one. Helped by the fact that the art was fantastic. Happy to see more from both.
Hunted should have been good, but its left me behind, its just not doing anything for me now and it feels like this is the episoe that really should have brought it all home a bag. Also too late and while in isolation it was no doubt good stuff I've stopped caring.
A post Brink Prog was always going to have an up hill struggle. But this one does as good a job as could be hoped for.
Could somebody please point me in the direction of the Dredd returnee's previous appearance? I think I'm muddling up 2 previous storylines in my mind.
Prog 2016 (and 2017)
Four weeks of progs and a megazine... and a trounce from the comic shoppe, I'm never going on holiday again :-X
Great prog - I really enjoyed it!
Dredd - This was a good solid start. Nice artwork and an interesting beginning to a new story. I did really like seeing [spoiler]vega[/spoiler] appear at the end - only then did the unicorn on the letter make any sense! She's kind of crazy but I like her.
Grey Area -/b] I am really loving this. I think a strip's always great when I find myself genuinely hating one of the characters and caring about the others. I thought the action was nicely handled and I really enjoyed the way Mark Harrison's art displayed the violent confrontations. This is my favourite strip at the moment. :thumbsup:
Grey Suit - Wow - this was really great too! I'm loving Pat's story in this strip. :cool: John Higgins' art works well with the subject too. It was really really helpful for me to have that introduction in Prog 2040 - it just gives another whole dimension to the action when you know the backstory. Really great job guys!
Future Shock - I do quite like Future Shocks so this was lovely to see. The story left me a bit non-plussed (just a really guessable twist) but the art was excellent!
Hunted - I'm just looking at the artwork nowadays - I don't really know what's going on with this one. I've kind of lost the thread.
So, generally another excellent Prog.
Really fantastic cover.
As to the Prog - pretty much what Colin said.
Objectively it was a good Prog but I'm really missing Brink, so that unfairly marks the whole thing down.
As to the future Dan Abnett has started work on the next book of Brink and INJ Culbard on the next book of Brass Sun which is due at the end of the year. Yeah great, but what does that mean for when we will actually see more Brink (assuming/ hoping he is doing the art)? Hope we don't have to wait a year.
Quote from: JoFox2108 on 22 July, 2017, 06:04:27 PM
She's kind of crazy but I like her.
Loved the gag about the [spoiler]brick "accident"[/spoiler] being already written into the letter.
(https://i.imgur.com/lC3UbXy.jpg)
Any other digital subscribers getting a failed download and a message saying "the downloaded data is corrupt"?
I'm pretty excited to be told my latest 2000 AD is corrupt, actually. Looking forward to seeing all the Caligula-style debauchery once I actually get to download it.
Quote from: Muon on 26 July, 2017, 02:17:30 PM
Any other digital subscribers getting a failed download and a message saying "the downloaded data is corrupt"?
I had a couple of failed attempts last night but got it in the end.
Very nice
cover from Alex and a thoroughly enjoyable opener to the new
Dredd with some nicely judged Mega-City comedy.
Quote from: I, Cosh on 26 July, 2017, 02:32:08 PM
Very nice cover from Alex and a thoroughly enjoyable opener to the new Dredd with some nicely judged Mega-City comedy.
That incredible cover's going to end up on the front of a trade collection. Always a fan, but replacing the airbrushed geometry of recent years with painterly abstraction is paying off beautifully. Ronald's working his way back to the days when his color work looked like he'd spent a week flicking a toothbrush at each page.
Look at the depth and variety of shapes and textures in the jungle*, and the composition's so much more sophisticated and dynamic too. Ronald's expressed a desire to get back into strip work - he better mean black line, because nine panels like this per page would leave his finances and emotions in the same state as Greg Staples' following
Dark Justice.
* inna jungle, inna jungle, inna jungle, inna-inna jungle.
Quote from: Muon on 26 July, 2017, 02:17:30 PM
Any other digital subscribers getting a failed download and a message saying "the downloaded data is corrupt"?
Mine says the same at the moment.
Quote from: Eamonn Clarke on 26 July, 2017, 03:17:46 PM
Quote from: Muon on 26 July, 2017, 02:17:30 PM
Any other digital subscribers getting a failed download and a message saying "the downloaded data is corrupt"?
Mine says the same at the moment.
Mine was earlier, but seems to be fixed now - had to restart the app though.
thanks
got it now
Quote from: Frank on 26 July, 2017, 03:12:21 PM
Always a fan, but replacing the airbrushed geometry of recent years with painterly abstraction is paying off beautifully. Ronald's working his way back to the days when his color work looked like he'd spent a week flicking a toothbrush at each page.
Look at the depth and variety of shapes and textures in the jungle*, and the composition's so much more sophisticated and dynamic too. Ronald's expressed a desire to get back into strip work - he better mean black line, because nine panels like this per page would leave his finances and emotions in the same state as Greg Staples' following Dark Justice.
* inna jungle, inna jungle, inna jungle, inna-inna jungle.
Not entirely sure what you're getting at here..
The Ronald droid's recent work is 3D modelling used as a basis for a digital painting (at least, thats what I've taken from the covers featured on Pete Wells's marvelous blog).
Brilliant as this cover is, I don't think it represents a departure from Alex Ronald's current methods.* It's just a really [spoiler]fucking[/spoiler] good image!
I've also never heard/read that the Staples droid was financially or emotionally drained after Dark Justice (in fact, I heard his payment was a massive car - anyone know if this is true?).
Still, a brilliant cover.
Good Dredd.
An OK Future Shock.
Nothing else gripping me at the minute.
*I may have completely misread your post, so apologies if thats the case.
Quote from: Woolly on 26 July, 2017, 06:15:45 PM
I may have completely misread your post, so apologies if thats the case
Yep*, but no need for anyone to apologise - we're only nerds talking shite on the internet.
Advertising revenue has dried up, but was devoting the final page of
Dredd to a (crotch) shot of a popular character endorsing Always Ultra great product placement? Given the reader demographics, Tena Lady seems more appropriate.
Talking of taking the pish,
Pandas in a club called
Monium is Dan Abnett level punnery. Daphne acting as drug buddy to a dehydrated Shaggy raised a laugh - and was that
This Is England '90-era Gadget, in his Mani clobber?
I suppose if you want everyone to love a character you can't have them shooting judges, but
pushing? Lot of pushing going on this episode. That wasn't a pun about drug dealing, was it?
* I'm glad Staples doesn't look as if he's down to his last muscle car, but he described the laborious process he employed on Dark Justice, which came in over three years late, as having almost broken him. I took that as referring to the arduous nature of the project, but in his Megazine interview with Michael Molcher (Meg 279), Staples says he earns more producing a trading card illustration the size of one comic panel than he does drawing comics for a month. Dark Justice was a labour of love, but it represented a (relative) sacrifice.
Ronald described his superb Paradox Vega cover for prog 2016 as a stylistic departure. Compare the way that image and this week's belter build up confident slabs of bold colour in recognisable shapes of varying tones - it's most evident in his handling of the crowd of onlookers and the background detail of the jungle. By comparison, Ronald's excellent Sensitive Klegg cover (1969) and Jaegir image (2015) have a much finer, granular approach to light (and a more muted palette), hence my use of the term 'airbrush' as a metaphor. I love all those covers - I just love the two most recent covers more.
Hopefully the royalties from the Dark Justice graphic novels will overtake the trading cards in time.
Quote from: Frank on 26 July, 2017, 07:55:45 PM
Given the reader demographics, Tena Lady seems more appropriate.
Maybe as a Golden Wedding present.
A reasonable prog...Best thing about Dredd for me was the Pandas in club Moniums, and still enjoying Grey Area, the art and the story itself.
Grey Suit is a fun old-fashioned action tale...but one thing really struck me as being, well, really very old-fashioned (tired even..) and that's the idea that the world is still run by people called Sir Giles who sit in clubs in St. James drinking brandy. Now I appreciate that such people do still exist, but these are the exact same villains as you'd find in the comics of the 1970s...and even then they were somewhat on the wane.
There are many contemporary trends that could be explored in 2000ad, threats to free speech in higher education / the media / comedy, the divisiveness of certain types of politics (of many stripes), the disconnect between political parties and those they claim to represent.
I appreciate that some of those topics will fit better with an enjoyable comic more than others and I don't want to get political (I understand there's a thread for that..) but I don't just want to think of 2000ad in purely nostalgic terms (posh villains in a gentleman's club are fun after all) I would also like to see 2000ad keep some of its EDGE.
Err..anyway maybe it's just me, funny the train of thought a few panels in a comic can lead you on. I did like the way that John Higgins made him look exactly like Ian Richardson in House of Cards though.
+++ SPOILERS +++
Cover: It was Alex Ronald's cover for prog 2016 that tempted me back to 2000 AD after 26 years so I'll always love him for that.
This one looks like... OK, this one looks like if a particularly vain Premiership footballer had a fantasy that he was a James Bond-style secret agent, and he commissioned a huge portrait of himself for his lounge in a secret agent style action pose. This is how I imagine the result.
Dredd: Again, it was prog 2016 with Carroll writing Dredd and the introduction of Vega that got me hooked on the progs again so this is particularly exciting. This already looks brilliant, let's hope it's three or for episodes long. I need to read through it carefully again to pick up all the jokes! Excellent.
Grey Area: And with a swift one-two, the prog deals another thrill-powered blow. Staring to enjoy this immensely now I'm understanding the characters - the one-shot episodes of the last few weeks were a brilliant idea. Note to other script writers: this is how to re-introduce a strip after a long break - not with a tedious full-page written summary.
Greysuit: And here we are. It's a pastiche, right? Mills is sending up his previous work on things like M.A.C.H.1 and Invasion? Have I only just got the joke?
Future Shock: Never easy to cram a whole plot into four pages but this does a decent job, with an admirable attempt at some world-building. Predictable? Perhaps, yeah... but the final lines coming from a radio speech are a nice stylistic touch. Are the creators completely new to 2000 AD? Encore!
Hunted: It's sort of doing the right things, in places at least, but it's just not grabbing me.
Quote from: norton canes on 27 July, 2017, 12:07:49 PM
Greysuit: It's a pastiche, right? Mills is sending up his previous work on things like M.A.C.H.1 and Invasion? Have I only just got the joke?
The pedant in me is compelled to point out that you mean
parody. (Pastiche celebrates the work it imitates; parody mocks it.)
Something tells me that there is no joke intended. Like Michael Jackson's
"Heal The World", which also bore all the hallmarks of self-parody,
Greysuit seems to be a little too earnest in its execution.
Quote...and that's the idea that the world is still run by people called Sir Giles who sit in clubs in St. James drinking brandy.
Who do you think runs the world today? As long as these people still exist, it's legitimate to keep writing about them. (Of course Jeremy Corbyn is topical too, but he doesn't have people murdered by government hitmen. Pat could write a story in which he does do that, but would it seem believable?)
How come the letter apologises for hitting Dredd on the head with the brick, when the letter was obviously written before the brick was thrown?
(Perhaps she's being facetious and actually did intend to hit Dredd on the head.)
Only read the three thrills so far.
Dredd is off to an excellent start with an intriguing opening episode-great writting from Carroll.
Grey Area was equally compelling, with some internal corruption serving to build the tention.
Grey Suit featured trademark Mills black humour which elicited the chuckles!
Three for three on the excellence scale so far!
DANGER: POLITICS +++ DANGER: POLITICS +++
Quote from: Geoff on 26 July, 2017, 11:09:03 PM
There are many contemporary trends that could be explored in 2000ad, threats to free speech in higher education / the media / comedy, the divisiveness of certain types of politics (of many stripes), the disconnect between political parties and those they claim to represent.
I appreciate that some of those topics will fit better with an enjoyable comic more than others and I don't want to get political (I understand there's a thread for that..) but I don't just want to think of 2000ad in purely nostalgic terms (posh villains in a gentleman's club are fun after all) I would also like to see 2000ad keep some of its EDGE.
Err..anyway maybe it's just me, funny the train of thought a few panels in a comic can lead you on. I did like the way that John Higgins made him look exactly like Ian Richardson in House of Cards though.
That was a nice touch, although it adds to the impression that this is an unused
Accident Man script that fell out of a box during the move to Majorca.
Nothing delights some boarders * more than raising their hands and complaining
'PLEASE, SIR, MILLS IS USING POLITICS AGAIN' whenever Rojaws offers a five page critique of monetarism.
Which is fair enough, but this week features one strip where the only character who isn't
completely uncritical of immigration is Breitbart made flesh and the punchline of another explains the suicide bomber is only driven to murder because of coercion in his homeland.
Maybe one reason the politics of these,
Sons Of Booth,
Scarlet Traces, and even
Deadworld pass without comment is that the sentiments expressed toe an ideological line. Nobody takes flack for reflecting the reader's existing world view back at them.
My contribution to
Steve Green's
IS IT ME? thread was that I miss creators with a distinctive voice. I mostly meant relying too much on other people's old stories, but I'd apply that to politics too. I disagree with almost everything Pat Mills says, but there's nobody like him.
* Not Geoff; his post is thoughtful and raises several interesting points