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The completely self absorbed 2000ad re-read thread

Started by Colin YNWA, 22 May, 2016, 02:30:29 PM

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Funt Solo

Things that kept me reading in 1995 (in order of importance):

1. Force of habit
2. Loyalty to the brand
3. Armoured Gideon
4. Luke Kirby
5. Slaine

(Actually, I've never considered giving up 2000AD.  Even when some of it's a bit meh, it's still tons more entertaining than "Mr. Twisty!  Galaxatron has eaten the moon and is shitting the leftovers onto Earth!  We're doomed!"  "Don't panic!  Galaxatron is a physical impossibility - how could a giant man float through space with nothing to propel him?  And where is the shop that makes his outrageous headgear?"  "Wait - you mean - this isn't really happening?"  "That's right, Susan!  You're completely delusional!  In fact, there is no Mr. Twisty!  I'm just one of those stretchy fruit sweets you bought in a vain effort to be healthy while you eat lumps of sugar.  Susan?  Why are you weeping?")

So, you know.  Even Urban Strike is better than that.
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

Colin YNWA

Funt Solo I think you underestimate now how great Mr Twisty and Susan vs. Galaxatron sounds. I'd buy that in a second AND especially if it turned out to be a comic strip based on a helicopter computer game... which would make as much sense as Urban Strike actually did!

Genius sir.

Anyway the first thing I want to talk about in very early 1996 is PARAsites I've enbolden it just so I remember I've typ...

...sorry where was I this seemed to be some sort of sequel to Wirehe...

...so I was saying something was I ... but nothing nothing about it is memo...

...hold on was I talking about something...

Anyway I forgot to mention in 1992 that there was no way that Wireheads was ever coming back and thank God it never did hey...

Hold on what's that next to new Flesh its PARA...

...so did you say something...

AlexF

Yup, it's a proper contender for worst thrill ever, that one.
-and I kind of like Wireheads.

Colin YNWA

Prog 979

So 1996 starts off with a number of short(ish) stories hiding behind a long form Dredd - which is magnificent and put all behind it in the shade.

None of them are bad... well most of them aren't band... but again they provide definition of the middle order elevated by not much else around them ... aforementioned Dredd aside.

I've always has a real soft spot for Flesh - Chronocide its not especially great I just really enjoy it for all its action movie cliche. If nothing else Gary Erskine use of shadows is just superb. I do wonder how angry Uncle Pat got about it as his name suddenly pops up in the margines after the first few parts.

Speaking of movie action cliche that's the very thing that Kid Cyborg works so hard to avoid. I'm not sure I enjoy it but by heck it earns points for trying to be something different. Its like its trying to be along form version of Shaky's Beyond Belief. The difference is Shaky Kane's single panels are effortless delights, Kid Cyborg is straining to be leftfield and that's why it feels forced rather than carefree.

Darkness Visible is a really fun little five parter (don't get many of them). Its refreshing in its tone, dark and close. Simple and chilling. Nice change of pace and doesn't over stay its welcome.

Best thing to say about Venus Blue Genes is it really emphasizes how much Dan Abnett and Simon Coleby have both come on since 1996.

Fungus

Quote from: Colin YNWA on 09 November, 2018, 09:10:02 PM
If nothing else Gary Erskine use of shadows is just superb. I do wonder how angry Uncle Pat got about it as his name suddenly pops up in the margines after the first few parts.
How do you mean? (could be me being thick of course)

Enjoying the stroll through the Dark Times. Interested how the next year or so turned out, you're just beyond the point I stopped even buying (and years after reading)...


Colin YNWA

He does some really nice effects with shadows during the story. So for example showing the dabbled shadowing of folks standing under leafy trees in bright sunshine. Some really nice, very labour intensive lighting effects like that - all done with ink I should note not that there new fangled computer colours that... eerr graces... so many strips of this time.

If its the Uncle Pat thing its margins of course, don't know where that 'e' comes from. But about 4 parts into the story in the gutter we get 'Flesh created by Pat Mills' stuck as a clear after thought into the margin (no 'e'). I'm guessing he got upset about the strip being resurrected and kicked off at David Bishop? I'm guessing there of course.

Yeah I'd all but stopped reading at this point, back in the day, and soon at the point where I'd stopped even getting the Prog. I have read them all since then, but I'm not as familar with the stuff I'm covering now.

Funt Solo

This is a weird era for me: I was wandering around Oz for a year and got back to a pile of progs.  So, it wasn't a week-in, week-out kind of thing. 

I remember liking Chronocide & Darkness Visible quite a bit.  I don't remember Venus on the Frag Shell: so much of that era of Rogue (or Friday, or Venus) seems like a lot of military jargon, quite cool in a way but lacking any heart.

The Pit was a great idea.  Kid Cyborg I disliked: not my cup of tea in either art style or story.

But we're heading for the recovery aren't we?  Sin Dex? 
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

Colin YNWA

Quote from: Funt Solo on 09 November, 2018, 10:38:16 PM
But we're heading for the recovery aren't we?  Sin Dex?

Yeah but that strip will take some time to develop to the classic it is. The recovery will be a very bumpy and uneven thing to as I recall.

We'll see.

Colin YNWA

So Prog 981 comes along and something a little bit special is with us... well something special that isn't The Pit which I really must get around to typing about soon.

So its clearly not Venus Bluegenes even if its got Henry Flint's lovely early art. Its clearly Janus PSI with its too shiny logo. I can't be sure if it Cannon Fodder yet but it might be by the end - at least one board member I remember fondly thought it was.

It is however of course the first appearance of Sinister Dexter in the Prog itself and the starts a long and deep affection... well not in real time I accept... but in Prog time. A deep affection.

Of course its not very good yet... but then neither was most early Dredd so ya know that grow big and strong enough to have a thrill like The Pit, so we give these thing time...

Magnetica

I recently re-read Canon Fodder in a floppy.

Have to say I wasn't a fan back in the day. And you know what...I'm still not. Of the writing or the art. Chris Weston is one of the most improved artists on Tharg's books (sorry I have said that before...) and this is before that.

Oh and engaging nit pick mode - sorry -

it's Canon Fodder not Cannon Fodder...Canon as in a religious minister, not a big gun and yes I know its a play on words, but that is how it is spelt.

TordelBack

You can lead a librarian to where the dictionary is shelved (019), but you can't make him read it...

Colin YNWA

Even more embarrassing as my father in-law is indeed a canon (one n)

Anyway to try to win back some points dictionaries can indeed be at 019... kinda... its actually dictionary catelogies. Actual dictionary dictionaries are normally at 403 OR 420 for English dictionaries and through the 400s for dictionaries of different languages.

BUT you can also construct different numbers for dictionaries based on the subject of that dictionary by adding 03 at the end. So for example a Business Dictionary is 658.03, or a Science dictionary os 503 (science being 500 you can drop the 00 after the 5 as 503 isn't used for anything else)...

... I hope I've got that right its been a long time since I did any classifying!

ANYWAY to matters less dull... well maybe but I'm getting down to some detail, which is odd for me.

Anyway after Sinister Dexter starts in 981 in 984 we get another first which I'm very fond of. It marks what I think is Alex Ronald's work in the Prog. I'm a big fan of his work, I love his current covers, but I'm an especial fan of his pen and ink work. In 984 its not quite there yet and its interesting after having two superb artists in Ezquerra and MacNeil The Pit does seem to get used for less experienced artists. Seems weird for such a superb story to be used for try out... well I'm sure it wasn't, but it does feel like that a bit...

...ANYWAY... what particularly struck me was Alan Craddock's colours. Now they come in for a LOT of stick and to be honest looking back you can see why BUT so many others struggled to get to grips with the new computer colouring and Craddock does seem to get the worst of this. Junior Tomlin (is that John Tomlinson?) in the same Prog does some pretty grim colouring on Sinister Dexter. John Higgin's used a colouring team on 'Supersurf 12' that was just horrendous. And lets be honest even an absolute master like the late great Carlos Ezquerra struggled at time with the new medium.

So anyway what I particularly noticed is what Alan Craddock and all those who tried to master this then new technology, don't get credit for and that's being bold enough to experiment and stretch things and that particularly stood out to me here as one. A good few panels in the Dredd strip you can see him trying different things. The tone of the opening silent Dredd panel still too shiney but somehow more subtle and muted. Dulled tones on some of the street panels that really work to highlight the fire used by the homeless. There's a panel were Patel is speaking to his dad and it looks really nice, again more muted and with softer tones. Next to it (across the fold) there's an almost Higginsesque panel of a hoverporter exploding... etc etc.

Now of course having so much experimentation in one story doesn't led to a consistent tone and is itself a problem BUT it did serve to remind me what prioneers these folks were ... even with our 2018 eyes alot of what they did, didn't work.

Oh and Janus Psi Division finished this Prog... turns out I had more I wanted to say about Dewey Decimal and Alan Craddock than I did about that... mind Paul Johnson's colours are nice.

Colin YNWA

R.A.M. Raiders

I quite like RAM Raiders. I mean okay lets be honest from the off its not close to a classic, but I do enjoy it. Firstly I'm a sucker for Calum Alexander Watt's work, there's something so engaging and easy on the eye about it. When you compare it to the hyper-realised sub-Bisley stuff that's been polluting early Sinister Dexter. Its clean, calm colours are a real palette cleanser.

Alan McKenzie's story is like so much of his work is firmly in the middle ground, its pretty good but has significent problems. His muscle bound computer engineer, sent to try to 'debug' a building's computer system is square in the dickish led that so blighted the early 90s, his female partner at first played poorly does pull around by the end. The scenario however is refreshing and pacing spot on.

So yeah I feel a bit apologetic but I like it.

Much more than the overwrought Canon Fodder that overlaps with it that's for sure.

Colin YNWA

A few years ago I did a re-read of Sinister Dexter and in doing so I wrote up some thoughts I posted on 'Everything comes back to 2000ad' on finishing the first run of the series I popped across to check out if my thoughts remained the same or whether I had anything else to say and if the 7 years inbetween had changed by view... they haven't. My thoughts are therefore here.

https://2000ad.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/sinister-dexter-drawing-too-early/

For anyone with more sense than to read all that in summary.

It all looks a bit horrible (a few exceptions aside) and is while laying foundations for this classic series is far from fully developed and feels a little souless... or very much of its time to put it another way!

Colin YNWA

Prog 999

Well here we are tonight we're going to party like it Prog 999... which back in the day seemed an unimaginable amount. Now less than half way and we have a Prog 1999 which would make that sentence much better anyway!

We get two endings I'd like to talk about. I should also mention that Finn finished in this Prog as well (and I think that's it for the series?) but have to be honest by now I'm barely reading it, so haven't got much to say.

The two ending I'd like to mention are therefore The Pit and Strontium Dogs. The Pit is just glorious, Dredd soap opera. By apparently reducing scale and giving us a closer, tighter view on a smaller world we actually get raised stakes. We can hardly begin to imagine what 400,000,000 deaths means. Its too big, beyond imagination even. Show us a team of Judges running a guerilla war, or a hand picked crack squad on a suicide mission and the impact of Apocalypse War is felt all the more.

The Pit does this even better. We get closer and tighter to characters. By throwing Dredd into a situation he doesn't belong in, by giving him a true ensemble cast of well defined character, each with a tale to tell, an arc to go through a world is built and we are completely immersed. Then we get to the ending... and what's superb is its so Dredd. So big, so brash and bold. Its not exactly something we haven't seen before, but it works. Having been sunk into the world, so superbly crafted by John Wagner we get the explosive finale to throw us back into Dredd and what makes his world work. Of course having been sunk in so deep it has all the more impact.

The Pit is everything its said to be. Maybe not my all time favourite Dredd epic, but its sure as heck up there.

Then contrast that with Strontium Dogs. Over a much longer time we have also had an ensemble cast created. We're had characters thrown in different directions and situations. We also have lots of interconnecting character arcs. And as I've said I've enjoyed it, it'd been fun and once you get past the fact that its not Strontium Dog and is meant to be something different its really fun.

Now I'm not saying for a moment that the world is crafted as deftly and engagingly as the one Wagner creates in Sector 301, but its still fun and sure things could have been said to have been allowed to drift, but it deserved a better send off than it got. Now the reasons for this are well known to those who have read their 2000ad history and David Bishop has said himself he could have handled the specifics a lot better. The one thing that gets over looked is to make matters worse (and I say this as a Bishop booster - always remember he left the Prog in a much better place than he found it, at what was a very challenging time by all accounts) he bloody wrecked the story that had been developed.

I've no idea what ideas he'd kept of Peter Hogan's and which he added himself (or whomever he gave the story over to) but I'm reasonably positive it would have been given more space and time to end properly. Characters and situations slowly drip feed into life are snatched away so quickly and clumsily. Now you'd imagine if you weren't happy with what was being done and how long it was all taking your best bet was to cut your loses and wrap it up toot sweet. If however you have been enjoying it you feel robbed of what might have been.

So it goes.

Kinda get the impression that Trevor Hairsine wasn't impressed either. Now if this was with the way things were to start with, or how things were wrapped up I can't say. I prefer to think the latter.

Anyway lets move on from both the good and the bad as we got a big celebration coming up next time... I think I'll give myself a quick break and re-read Si Spurrier's sublime X-Men Legacy before cracking on with the 2nd millenium AD. See ya soon.