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Prog 2291 - Heart of Darkness

Started by Colin YNWA, 18 July, 2022, 10:03:09 PM

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Colin YNWA

Half the Dexter, added Jaegir and there we have our key difference.

There's an interesting comparison better Dredd and Brink the first two thrill. Both have story elements weaving in and out, twisting and turning and require close attention. Dredd uses a time gimmick as a crutch to distill its story elements through. Its not bad at all, it just feel convulated for convuluateds sake. Like its really trying to intrigue. Which is fine BUT when sat next to Brink which weaves its turns and twists its tale in a far more organic closely observed, natural way it exposes however decent the Dredd is it can't compare to Brink. The craft is more clumsy... clumsy is unfair, its just not as beautifully deft.

It also makes for an interesting, dense opening to the Prog.

That dense, attention demanding opening is immediately relieved when Skip Tracer pops up next and define disposible stuff. Its so not bad its painful.

Dexter harks back to one of the great twisty turny tales 'Fist full of Dollars' and yet wonderfully avoids the gun play. Its great.

Jaegir gives us a darkly grim opening to enjoy to wrap things up...

funny things is a love a 5 thrill prog, a 4 thrill, even with a double hitter always feels light... but much as I love Jaegir this Dexter is on fire and I almost wish we had more of that!

Good prog.

Richard

Tharg confirms in the letters page that the Penitent Man / Honest Man stories by Ken Niemand and Tom Foster will be a trilogy!

Trooper McFad

Quote from: Richard on 19 July, 2022, 11:16:03 AM
Tharg confirms in the letters page that the Penitent Man / Honest Man stories by Ken Niemand and Tom Foster will be a trilogy!

That's good news and a collected "web shop" edition would part me with some cash 😁
Citizens are Perps who haven't been caught ... yet!

broodblik

Cover by Cliff Robinson and Dylan Teague:


When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.

Old age is the Lord's way of telling us to step aside for something new. Death's in case we didn't take the hint.

broodblik

When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.

Old age is the Lord's way of telling us to step aside for something new. Death's in case we didn't take the hint.

broodblik

A good prog

Dredd – Jumping around between timeslots can be a little bit confusing at times as a Dredd-less Dredd story continues to weave its different characters into one. Good Dredd story form the team.

Brink – Just as I thought we might get some background the episodes take us back to Maz. Then again, the episode does end with another cliffhanger. I can see that a lot of folk feels that this is going nowhere but I am enjoying to longer run and will re-read the whole shebang when it is released as a collection. Top notch from Dan

Skip(me)– Mmm, looks like [spoiler]zombies/walking dead[/spoiler] are going to be the main menace. I hoped for a more interesting premises but then again it is Skip Tracer. This episode left me a little cold and so far Valhalla might not welcome all the warriors.

Sin/Dex – Another good episode with both sides being "played". Wonder how this episode will fall into the bigger story but enjoying it even if it does not push the plot forward.

Jaegir – Great start to the new arc and hopefully this will run longer than just a few episodes. Already my favorite thing in the prog (and shame on you if you voted my one of my favorites out 😊)
When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.

Old age is the Lord's way of telling us to step aside for something new. Death's in case we didn't take the hint.

The Corinthian

Is it too much to hope that Jaegir will be longer than three episodes this time?

Jim_Campbell

Quote from: The Corinthian on 20 July, 2022, 08:30:36 AM
Is it too much to hope that Jaegir will be longer than three episodes this time?

It is. :-)
Stupidly Busy Letterer: Samples. | Blog
Less-Awesome-Artist: Scribbles.

Jim_Campbell

Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 20 July, 2022, 09:51:45 AM
It is. :-)

...Longer than three episodes, I mean. Not that it is too much to hope...!
Stupidly Busy Letterer: Samples. | Blog
Less-Awesome-Artist: Scribbles.

Jacqusie

Quote from: broodblik on 20 July, 2022, 04:51:07 AM
Cover and Logo:




What a great cover and really pleased Jagir is back with the bio-wire

Whilst Rob Williams back on Dredd is very much welcome, I do feel I am missing chunks of this story, which is a shame as it's a good premise.

It's got no rhythm, dances with two left feet and it's like listening to that bloke who used to pretend his microphone was broken and you'd only hear every other word, like a bad connection on a zoom meeting where you're not sure who anyone is, or indeed if you are in the right meeting...






SmallBlueThing(Reborn)

Very, very good prog. Dredd, Brink, Dexter, Jaegir all hugely entertaining. Do I have to put them in order? Oh, okay then, for me: Dexter> Brink> Dredd> Jaegir, then Skip Tracer quite a way behind... but even with Skip, now it's close to the end, I'm sort-of looking forward to rereading the whole lot in one go. No doubt in a couple of Meg floppies some time in 2023.

Can't complain when the quality is this high.

SBT

norton canes

Yeah, don't know if my thrill interpretation circuits have been scrambled by the recent heatwave but 'Special Relationship' has been a real effort to follow, with the time frames constantly shifting, Brit-Cit characters I'm sure I should know more about, and events to remember from 'The Hard Way'. I feel the Williams droid is just trying a little too hard to obfuscate the storyline in an attempt to generate mystery, and there's in fact a simpler and much more enjoyable tale lurking there.

Also, it pains me to say, but I think I'm joining the small but growing minority of readers who reckon 'Mercury Retrograde', high quality thrill though it is, has become a little protracted and inert. Perhaps a 24-week run was in fact just a little too ambitious. And if anyone thought that the uncomplicated pleasures of Skip Tracer would provide a remedy to this discombobulation, even that manages to conclude this week's instalment with a final panel that belies its eminently all-ages friendly pedigree.

Fortunately Dexter is there to assuage the turmoil, its sinuous plot spiralling lithely from page to page. After Hope took some flak for referencing likenesses of well-known actors, is Tazio Bettin playing the same game by using Ron Perlman and Christopher Walken as the Plunderland gang leaders?

Finally, it's back, it's the best, it's Jaegir and it's pumping frag shells from all tubes as usual. Though even here, The Rennie droid risks thrill interpretation overload by packing three different plot strands into five pages. When you're delivering old school thrills like this though, you can get away with it.

Mr Campbell, may I ask: are you experimenting with a new lettering style here? Without hauling out previous instalments of Jaegir, I'm sure it looks a bit different - though this could of course be down to disorientation caused by rapid cooling of my typeface recall circuits...

Jim_Campbell

Quote from: norton canes on 21 July, 2022, 11:10:55 AM
Mr Campbell, may I ask: are you experimenting with a new lettering style here? Without hauling out previous instalments of Jaegir, I'm sure it looks a bit different - though this could of course be down to disorientation caused by rapid cooling of my typeface recall circuits...

Although I do kind of have a 'default' style, I'll always have a ponder as to whether something different would better suit a particular strip that I'm coming to new (so Megatropolis is very different from Zaucer of Zilk, which is different again from Diaboliks, or Stickleback).

This is my first time on Jaegir, but I'd used something close to this style* on Simon's Black Max work in the various Scream specials — he told me he liked it, and I thought it seemed to suit the character of his art, so I wheeled it out again. :-)

*Same font (Blambot's Tough As Nails BB for font-watchers out there) but (I think) slightly rougher balloons on Black Max. The letterforms are fairly tall and thin, which puts me in mind of the hand-lettering of Frame/Aldrich/Knight, and the bold is really quite bold, which pleases me in an old-school kind of way, and suits the... inkyness of Simon's work.
Stupidly Busy Letterer: Samples. | Blog
Less-Awesome-Artist: Scribbles.

Barrington Boots

I got 2289 and 2291 together yesterday so read those and 2290 all at once.

Dredd isn't difficult to follow, but it's not straightforward. I'm not sure if I should know who the guys in Brit-Cit are or not. It's an intrguing and very interesting story so far that seems to be very much setting up Dredd / MC1 as the bad guys. I'm engaged and want to read more. The dog bit seemed a bit unnecessary! Lovely work from Pat Goddard, although I think given the tone and his style, would have loved to have seen this in B&W.

Brink is as it always is, but I also am starting to find this run too long and too slow to maintain momentum. It's all very good and interesting, but I also feel like I could skip a week and not be the worse off for it, and the central character is yet to really be empathic or interesting in himself.

Skip Tracer is weak stuff and I'm at a loss as to why we're even getting this final series. I'm sad to say I don't care about anything here. Also why is the anime pop star there?

Dexter is something I've been critical of in the past but this tale is a great one so far. Just the right amount of wit in the writing, a good balance of story and gunplay: really nejoyable stuff. Big fan of Bettin's artwork here, especially his character designs and combat.

Finally Jaegir is back, hooray! There was a little bit too much going on in the opening episode I thought, but it all bodes well so set up the story and I am so excited to have this back.

(just seems Jim's response re. the lettering here, that's pretty cool and interesting stuff. The lettering stood out to me as being a little different too, but I'd have struggled to elucidate how. Thanks for the insight!)


You're a dark horse, Boots.

norton canes

Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 21 July, 2022, 11:21:56 AM
Although I do kind of have a 'default' style, I'll always have a ponder as to whether something different would better suit a particular strip that I'm coming to new (so Megatropolis is very different from Zaucer of Zilk, which is different again from Diaboliks, or Stickleback).

This is my first time on Jaegir, but I'd used something close to this style* on Simon's Black Max work in the various Scream specials — he told me he liked it, and I thought it seemed to suit the character of his art, so I wheeled it out again. :-)

*Same font (Blambot's Tough As Nails BB for font-watchers out there) but (I think) slightly rougher balloons on Black Max. The letterforms are fairly tall and thin, which puts me in mind of the hand-lettering of Frame/Aldrich/Knight, and the bold is really quite bold, which pleases me in an old-school kind of way, and suits the... inkyness of Simon's work.

Thanks for the swift and enlightening (as always) reply! Sorry, as I say I didn't have previous Jaegirs to hand so wasn't aware this was your first time on the strip.

Great to know Blambot is still the font source of choice - I remember it from when I was designing websites and Flash games years (almost decades, crazily) ago.