Prog 2369 - Turning the World Upside Down

[norton canes]

Two phenomenal stories bookending a trio of lighter strips. It's a shame The English Astronaut was a bit sketchy, both in script and art - the concept was strong and if it were a bit tighter I think it could have supported a longer run. Full Tilt Boogie, by comparison, is able to unfold at a more leisurely pace. Love the flora and fauna detail in the three panels at the bottom of the third page, very nice. Yes, the montage on the second page of Thistlebone looked a bit gratuitous but more importantly, I think, though the elements were as evocatively rendered as one would expect from the Davis droid, the overall layout wasn't particularly well realised. Great stuff overall, though. 

[Link Prime]

I really enjoyed Thistlebone this week.

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[Doomlord66]

I really enjoyed Thistlebone this week.

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I'm waiting till I can read it all complete

[Magnetica]

Dredd is great. One of the best in recent times.

The English Astronaut wasn't great.

I like FTB. The art is nice and I'm happy enough with letting the story develop.

Enemy Earth does nothing for me. Glad it's finished.

Thistleboneis great.

[Tjm86]

Now that The English Astronaut has finished I've gone back to re-read it.  TBH it didn't really seem to land that well.

The overall concept seems reasonable enough.  Admittedly it is a fairly well-trodden "investigating the future to prevent a catastrophe" framework, it starts out fairly soundly.  Whether the significance of the dates lies in the Whoniverse is a little unclear.  Certainly it is fair to say that there are strong links to Dr Who in the tale, parallels with UNIT and so on.

Then of course there are the cultural divergences.  Shifting from modern protest through historical schisms and into full-blown cultural-icon manifestations seems a bit chaotic.  There is a definite sense of dislocation and discontinuity in the tale.  The shape of the modern comics industry seems to take a bit of pasting in that middle episode with talks of 'porny comics' and 'fifty quid statues'.  There is also the play with the standard scientific and military types.  Archetypes that are pretty much the staple of Dr Who at times and quite a bit of British Sci-Fi to boot.  Throw in a flying saucer and a giant cat being attacked by (Sherlock Holmes / Alan Turing / Quatermass?) and it is chaotic and then some.

It's hard to figure out whether Cornell is being incredibly clever or quite lazy.  The tale closes with a character as confused as the reader.  There is no real sense of closure, is that the point though?  Major Thomas Anderson never returned home but someone has, possibly?  Is that closing scene the modern day or the time at the start of the tale?  It ends with a fairly standard "and then he / she woke up ..." that has the potential to simply negate everything that went before.  It sort of undermines the whole story to some extent.

Overall it feels overloaded as a tale.  A little too much going on and not enough thought given to getting across the central idea.  It's still a little unclear what that idea actually is.  Is it questioning the possibility of achieving change?  There may well be multiple realities but ultimately we only ever inhabit one?  Why are we fighting over ideas rather than trying to find lasting solutions?  All of these at the same time?

It's a provocative tale to be sure but perhaps not for the right reasons.

[Grush]

Two thrills came to an end. I probably won't miss either of them. Enemy Earth kind of grew on me, due to its sheer energy. Really can't get along with the art style though. The English Astronaut ended a bit of a mess I thought.

Both replaced by the Kek-W power hour next prog which really doesn't thrill me. I've found that droid's scripts completely impenetrable and inaccessible over the last couple of years.

Thank TMO the rest of the prog is so strong. Loving Full Tilt Boogie , Thistlebone is horrible (in a good way) and Dredd is just perfection.

[JayzusB.Christ]

I have to admit I skip more and more these days.  Probably to my own detriment but I just find it hard to get into a lot of the strips in my old age.

Right now I'm only reading Dredd and Thistlebone with any real conviction but just those two are worth the cover price.

[A.Cow]

[...] and it is chaotic and then some.

During the second part it dawned that the years 1989, 2005 and 2016 also correspond (respectively) with the creation of the World-Wide Web, launch of YouTube & Facebook (under that name), and launch of TikTok.  Is the whole thing a commentary that social media leads to the fragmentation and breakdown of reality?  It would certainly explain the "after 2016 it all goes downhill" comment in the first part.

[Funt Solo]

I didn't think Thistlebone was being gratuitous. It's all about getting inside the character's head. He's woken up in hospital, confused and in pain. Suddenly, he's flashing back to the attack. The confusion in the second page, with a lack of panel borders, and flashing back to past, present, past, past, pills - lets us experience the confusion and the fear that he's reliving.

This then let's us understand better his disgust when the director rocks up and basically tells him he deserved it, and that being gay isn't a decent way to behave.

Removing the second page would be to dilute some incredible storytelling, and actually some of the most responsible depictions of violence in the comic. (Compare it to Dredd's rather blunt "I thumped the bad man and made everything better".)

[Le Fink]

I didn't think Thistlebone was being gratuitous. It's all about getting inside the character's head. He's woken up in hospital, confused and in pain. Suddenly, he's flashing back to the attack. The confusion in the second page, with a lack of panel borders, and flashing back to past, present, past, past, pills - lets us experience the confusion and the fear that he's reliving.

This then let's us understand better his disgust when the director rocks up and basically tells him he deserved it, and that being gay isn't a decent way to behave.

Removing the second page would be to dilute some incredible storytelling, and actually some of the most responsible depictions of violence in the comic. (Compare it to Dredd's rather blunt "I thumped the bad man and made everything better".)

I think the main motivation for these particular panels (broken leg, noosed naked woman, face punches) is more homage to Hammer/giallo films myself, rather than storytelling, or getting in the victim's head. They're all from the perspective of the aggressor, or a voyeur, rather than the victim and are intended to be fetishtic.

In the films those scenes are there for shock value and/or audience titillation. Often they're the only reason for watching the film in the first place! This chapter of Thistlebone is evoking those movies, so they've decided to put some similarly provocative scenes in. Which is fair enough. It just happens to take me out of the story a bit. Unlike those films, Thistlebone is interesting and wonderful enough without resorting to those tactics.

As to responsible depictions of violence, this is 2000AD, not Crisis. I prefer unrealistic violence - A large THUD! accompanying a ridiculously OTT daystick strike is one of the reasons I come here.

[Le Fink]

I prefer unrealistic violence - A large THUD! accompanying a ridiculously OTT daystick strike is one of the reasons I come here.

This brought to mind my Dredd art stars entry. Here it is, tidied up a bit. It's a whap rather than a thud.

[JayzusB.Christ]

Lovely work, Le Fink.

Just to return to Indigo Prime (the story, not the forum member):

Sorry if I'm being thick, but in this particular universe, is Johnny Depth an actor but Patrick Bateman a real person, albeit one who looks like the Christian Bale of our universe?

Also, because I can't really remember the details of the last few stories, us there a reason why Tyranny Rex looks way more alien than she used to? 

[Funt Solo]

I think the main motivation for these particular panels (broken leg, noosed naked woman, face punches) is more homage to Hammer/giallo films myself, rather than storytelling, or getting in the victim's head. They're all from the perspective of the aggressor, or a voyeur, rather than the victim and are intended to be fetishtic.

Ah, we're just reading it differently. Fair enough.

Sorry if I'm being thick, but in this particular universe, is Johnny Depth an actor but Patrick Bateman a real person, albeit one who looks like the Christian Bale of our universe?

That's my reading of it, yes. (Clive Vista looks like someone famous, as well, but I can't place it.)

Also, because I can't really remember the details of the last few stories, us there a reason why Tyranny Rex looks way more alien than she used to?

No reason given - it looks like a character redesign. We last saw her in prog 2270 - with yellow eyes and some cranial ridges (or perhaps green dreads). Before that she seemed more like a normal humanoid but with a big lizard tail. (Given the milieu, this could be an alt-Rex, of course.)

[M.I.K.]

I think the main motivation for these particular panels (broken leg, noosed naked woman, face punches) is more homage to Hammer/giallo films myself, rather than storytelling, or getting in the victim's head. They're all from the perspective of the aggressor, or a voyeur, rather than the victim and are intended to be fetishtic.

Ah, we're just reading it differently. Fair enough.

I'm not getting the fetishistic thing myself, but I suppose it could be argued that both ways of reading it are equally valid, given that the entire story is about the intersection/parallels of real and fictional horror.

[Funt Solo]

I like that way of reading it (both ideas being valid), because then it's even more brilliant than I thought.

Just as well it's positioned in the last pages of the comic, because nobody would want to follow that.

(I was at a conference recently, and one of the speakers made us laugh, made us cry, sang to us and smashed a chair to pieces to demonstrate how filled with rage he was as a young man railing against injustice. The guy on after him was just blinking into the headlights of the turd reality had just served him.)