Space Spinner 2000AD

[WhizzBang]

Fox's list looks grear although it is sad to see Robo Hunter in the list of -ve thrills.

[Leigh S]

Conrad's list look of positive thirlls looks like this:

1: Halo Jones              70%
2: ABC Warriors            58%
3: Judge Dredd             33%
4: Anderson                 25%
5: Strontium Dog          24%
6: Nemesis                  20%
7: Invasion                 18%
8: Zenith                    9%
9: Slaine                     7%


Stainless Steel Rat  gets kicked from the lists by scoring 0%!

Conrad's Negative Thrills by this measure:


1: Mean Arena                       -52%
2: Ace Trucking                     -29%
3: Dan Dare                          -27%
4: Rogue Trooper                   -26%
5: Meltdown Man                 -25%
6: Robo-Hunter                      -18%
7: Tharg                              -14%
8: MACH 1                           -13%
9: Future Shocks                   -12%
10: Bad Company                    -8%

[Leigh S]

It's  an imprecise measure as it can never take into account the competition! Robo-Hunter was almost always running against very strong strips.   And if you look at some Negative Thrills like Rogue and Ace Trucking,  if they had bowed out with their original runs, they would probably be safely positive.

Fox's list looks grear although it is sad to see Robo Hunter in the list of -ve thrills.

[Leigh S]

Anyway, Sorry, Conrad for bowdlerising your Data! Happy to keep this up to date for you

[Leigh S]

Mean Arena really suffers from this I feel - odd man out in a run of stone cold classics

It's  an imprecise measure as it can never take into account the competition! Robo-Hunter was almost always running against very strong strips. 

[SpaceSpinner2000]

Anyway, Sorry, Conrad for bowdlerising your Data! Happy to keep this up to date for you

Fine with me! Simple charts are about the limit of my stat ability, to the despair of my teachers. This is excellent stuff!

Robo-Hunter's rating got absolutely murdered by both "Play it again, Sam" and "The Slaying of Slade." By that point it had become the second regular comedy strip in the prog, with Ace Trucking being far shinier and with more places to go.

Must keep telling myself - 'bottom thrill' does not mean it's bad, just that everything else is better...

I can't stress enough that listening back there are literally years of the show where we're quick to say that a bottom thrill is an A- in a field of A+ thrills, or something like that. That's part of why it changed from "Best and Worst" to "Top and Bottom." It means sometimes we have to make hard choices, and other times we make the easy choice of going after a whipping boy! Honestly having the hard choice of what to put bottom is what I was hoping we'd have when I suggested the format. If I had my full druthers we'd rank everything in order, like the actual comment card, but then the wrap up part of the show would take like 30 minutes!

Great work guys, and only right that Dredd and SD are the top thrills. Ant Wars is in Fox's bottom thrills chart but didn't he doa Mega City Book Club podcast on this? The highs must have outweighed the lows in the long run for him.

I know you were only joking but I can confirm that Danish is a language since I have been learning it for the last year. It is pretty hard aurally but not so bad to read.

I think both this and my not having Meltdown Man as a top are important points about the format. Top and Bottom choices are very much in the moment. I come to an episode with a pretty complete script, but I never write out my top and bottom choices, I let the mood take me during the show! Just because something can be top in the moment is no accounting for what sticks with you in the long term, and a thrill not getting the top spot is in no way an indication that it's bad or should be forgotten!

[Dandontdare]

Now look what you did, you gave locked down nerds statistics to play with!

[Funt Solo]

There's some oddities in there: Harry 20 placing above Zenith?

I get what others have said: Halo Jones has the benefit of having left everyone wanting more, whereas Ace Trucking (despite the creators best efforts to shut it down) stayed on the shelf long past its sell-by date.

Nice pie charts, though.

[SpaceSpinner2000]

There's some oddities in there: Harry 20 placing above Zenith?

I get what others have said: Halo Jones has the benefit of having left everyone wanting more, whereas Ace Trucking (despite the creators best efforts to shut it down) stayed on the shelf long past its sell-by date.

Nice pie charts, though.

There's no accounting for taste certainly, and I'll mention that Fox gave DR & Quinch Go to Hollywood both Best Writing and Best Thrill that year (Alan Moore was also in my Best Writer). As always, I can't stress enough our opinions should be taken for entertainment purposes only!

And yeah, Ace Trucking is deeply hurt by the fact that it was a constant in 1986 and not very great.

[sheridan]

There's some oddities in there: Harry 20 placing above Zenith?

I get what others have said: Halo Jones has the benefit of having left everyone wanting more, whereas Ace Trucking (despite the creators best efforts to shut it down) stayed on the shelf long past its sell-by date.

Nice pie charts, though.

There's no accounting for taste certainly, and I'll mention that Fox gave DR & Quinch Go to Hollywood both Best Writing and Best Thrill that year (Alan Moore was also in my Best Writer). As always, I can't stress enough our opinions should be taken for entertainment purposes only!

No, dammit!  This is the internet and everything must be taken seriously at all times!

[Leigh S]

Now look what you did, you gave locked down nerds statistics to play with!

The worst part of it is - I'm a key worker so don't even have lockdown as an excuse!

As others hve said, approach drawing any conclusions with caution - One  thing I think perhaps it does show is how week on week anthology format taking week on week based more purely on "the feels" shows that every strip has it's place and also how strong the prog was durng this time, with some brilliant classics failing to dent the positive ratings because there was just so much good to choose from!

[SpaceSpinner2000]

In our thrilling two hundred and first episode Fox and Conrad continue their journey through the Galaxy's Greatest Comic with Progs 625-628 of 2000AD, covering May of 1989. This episode we remain in filler country even as two huge stories begin, Zenith Phase Three and Sláine the Horned God! I hope you like episodes where Conrad and Fox are all over each other!

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Please let me know what you think of the episode!

[sheridan]

Decisions - May the Fourth and I was going to listen to the Star Wars Radio Drama but just after Biggs arrived in Anchorhead I got the update that the Horned God was starting in Space Spinner!





(Space Spinner first, then back to Star Wars).

[sheridan]

For the record, first time I read Zenith Phase III I had no idea that all/most of the superhumans were parodies.  I knew Archie already from the text feature in the 1985 annual about pre-2000AD comics, and I recognised one or two of the parallel characters, but the extent of it...

[The Monarch]

it also amuses that recent mcbc subject johnny future keeps showing up just to moan about how shite all this is