Messages

...although I feel the need to clarify that I remember really enjoying Armoured Gideon.

I'm looking forward to the Dead Meat reboot. "Donald Trump is ba-aa-aa-aad".

Noooo! Anything but Inspector Raam! I'd even go for a reboot of the '90s reboot of Sam Slade above that 

http://www.2000ad.org/?zone=thrill&page=profiles&choice=GIDEON

The '90s comeback continues.

"Hello Agent Cooper... I'll annihilate you again in 25 years."

Appt Polly loggies for the double post, but I just wanted to address the points about balance in the political satire in 2000 AD.

I listen to a few satirical radio shows and subscribe to Private Eye as well as toothie, and I think this is a difficulty most satirists are having at the moment. The "right" is not only ridiculously powerful at the moment but it's also shat out figures like Trump, who are so cartoonish and reprehensible that it would almost be neglectful not to ridicule them.

On the other hand, the "left" is so ineffectual at influencing public discourse right now, it just doesn't offer much content for interesting satire. Private Eye persisted with a very poor feature called "focus on the old left" for a while until they clearly realized that all it did was draw attention to stuff Jeremy Corbyn said 35 years ago every week and present it as some kind of massive revelation. I guess the liberal preoccupation with identity politics can generate some funny stuff (and I think there was a Sam Slade story in one of the specials that had a bit of fun with that), but I guess even that is pretty limited in scope and you can come across as pretty callous if you ridicule people for calling for social justice.

I've enjoyed some of the political stuff we've seen in 2000 AD recently. It seems pretty broadly done and not particularly cutting but quite fun at the same time.

I'm looking forward to seeing the mysterious fourth book of The Horned God.

Was great to hear Mills and Bisley chat about Slaine. Every image they mention came into my head straight away as they were talking, fully formed. Just shows how powerful and memorable the imagery was. I can even remember the severed fingers flying through the air.

And Simon Bisley has the delivery of a stand-up comedian. I'd pay to watch an Edinburgh show of just him talking.

Great to see Hope back. Every week there's a one-liner that cracks me up.

The new Dredd story looks like it's going to be a good 'un.

Interesting perspective, Colin. I'd never thought of it that way, but with the stories you mention I can see a definite shift away from some of the sillier stuff to slightly more grown-up stuff. That run of stories has quite a trippy, psychedelic feel, from Slaine's weird hallucinations during the ceremony described in loving detail in Slaine the King (and that art!) to Danny Franks' philosophical battlefield musings in Bad Company. And the Krool were like no villains seen in 2000 AD before, with those weird, bubble-blowing eyes of theirs (or whatever the hell they were). And then there's The Dead, which blew my mind. As you say, it was almost the perfect story for Bellardinelli's art.

My take is that I'm pretty chill whatever happens in the strip. It's a bit of entertainment that puts a smile in my face every week and I can understand how difficult it is to write.

Okay, now I'm feeling really guilty about inadvertently starting the "prog 529" threadjack, but my thumbs are itching to clarify my own position and my smartphone's winking at me seductively...

My thing is that I love most of prog 520 to around 700 because that was the first peak of my fandom. Things dropped off for me after around 700, in the era of Fleischer's Harlem Heroes seeming to go on and on and on (what a waste of Steve Dillon's awesomeness, looking back) and that dumb sheep policeman thing. If I force myself to look at it dispassionately, however, I have to admit there was a very gradual period of decline that started around then and accelerated massively in the mid to late 1990s.

Disclaimer: I'm sure a lot of it had to do with identity crises brought on by the growing idea at the time that comics was a cool conversation topic that might get you laid, having to adjust to the demand for more and more colour pages and creators being poached by the Americans. Also the 500s came at the tail-end of a long period of ridiculous consistency and awesomeness. And then there are al the highs that Frank mentions, which probably wouldn't have been possible in the bog paper kids' comic of just a few years before.

Okay, I finished The Four Faces of Eve as well now. Damn, that was a good story. Great art with interesting settings and really expressive faces, and the story had a great pace to it. I'm hooked now and I'm going to get the second volume of Misty reprints when it comes out.

I remember reading a lot of similar strips as a kid, and I remember this being kind of a trope in stories like this, but the abuse and neglect the characters suffer was the real horror for me reading the comics as an adult. Poor kids! You've got Moonchild getting beaten by her mother and then going to school to get picked on by that scarily sadistic punk girl. Then you've got Eve, with her pretend parents who never show her any affection and the other guy who refers to her as "it"! Somehow it's far worse than seeing blokes with suits getting decapitated in Greysuit. And the writers always rub it in by allowing the characters a brief moment of happiness before the really bad shit happens. They're really well-constructed stories.

Its a glorious Prog in and of itself but more importantly for me with Tharg's Head Revisited and Bad Company its a harbinger of times coming, changes in the order of things and the start of a changing of the guard. As it should be Prog 500 still feels like a very important issue.

I shall read your musings from this point onwards with particular interest, since this is the beginning of 'my' era - the period from 500-700 is very much the period I've got the strongest attachment to. Is this the beginning of the post-modern era of 2000AD?

That's kind of "my" era too. I have fond memories of sitting on the floor one summer holiday with a load of progs from around the late 400s to the mid 500s fanned out in front of me and getting my mind blown by strips like Bad Company. I started getting the prog for myself not long after that.

It's interesting that most people trace the "decline" of 2000AD to around prog 520 when that was around the time I was getting into it. There was certainly a tension between old and new in that period, looking back. It'll be interesting to see what Colin makes of it.

Just finished Moonchild and it was surprisingly good fun and zipped along at a really good pace. The dialogue and characters really reminded me of the spiky girls' comics I used to nick off my sister. And thanks to this, I'll never be able to watch Carrie again without half-expecting one of the characters to suddenly go, "lumme, crash us a fag will ya mum?"

I know I can catch up on Sky Go but the momentum's gone for me. (Same with GoT S7 actually except I never made it to the first episode and now the impulse to watch has gone.)

And there I was thinking that new episodes of Game of Thrones and Twin Peaks make Mondays almost bearable.

I'm getting the feeling that this season of TP will be good to return to and savour as a binge watch while pulling a sickie on a Monday. The psychological damage you sustain in doing so might necessitate taking the rest of the week off, though...

"You'll Never Walk Alone" is a Ro Jaws and Hammerstein tune. Sorry Rogers and Hammerstein tune

I suspect that the songwriters are more of a (very) happy coincidence.

Given that the story focuses on "The port of Northpool" -- a thinly-veiled Liverpool equivalent, complete with docks & token Irish priest -- it's clearly intended to reference the anthemic use associated with Liverpool FC, which was triggered by the Gerry & The Pacemakers version.

Well given the time travel associated with 2000ad and I don't don't Tharg's omniscience not restricted by time or space I've always assumed it was a tribute to my forum name...

Mind putting ego aside its clearly a reference to both the Liverpool FC connection AND Rogers and Hammerstein. I suspect Pat Mills is more than smart enough to have been aware and combined both* happily. Note there's no mucky Z Cars references.

*I mean all three as its clearly all about me me I I me.

I endorse Colin's theory!

However, seeing as I'm the one who entertained the thought of Pat Mills bothering to sift through prog review threads for story ideas, my endorsement probably doesn't count for much 

Very much enjoying this series, but I'm quite happy with this being the swan song for Twin Peaks.