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Prog 2170 - Regened (2020)

Started by Tjm86, 23 February, 2020, 09:39:20 AM

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Tjm86

Well it's not completely uncommon for a day to go by before the weekly review thread is started but it is rare.  Not going to read owt into that mind.  Surely just a coincidence that it coincides with the first (!) of this year's Regened progs.

Cover - courtesy of Mark sexton.  Simple yet effective.  Old School logo once again.

Dredd - artwork works well on a fairly serviceable one off.  Isolated cadets face off against an inter dimensional threat to save MC1.

Bek and Kawl mc 2 - Sorry, Finder & Keeper.  Okay, that is a little unfair but the parallels are a little too obvious.  Moore, Reppion and Tinto serve up a supernatural tale.  Works okay but nowt spectacular.

Future Shocks - Living Your Best Life. Karma, reincarnation and a spoilt little scrote.  Stock and Horsman show how the format works in a reasonable little tale.

The Gronks - The Trouble With Gronkses.  Personally it felt like Baillie and Davis gave the best of the prog.  Artwork works well and there's a nice little nod to some early Stront strips.  It also served up the only LOL moment of the prog which will no doubt go over pretty much the entire intended audience's head.  [spoiler]The Elderses of Dobbyn.  [/spoiler]

Rogue Trooper - Scott and Roche's take is another that works reasonably well.  Linking back to Milli-Com memories with a couple of nice little artistic homage's to Kennedy's work.

Sorry if this seems a little underwhelming.  TBH the first reading did not inspire but taking the time and trouble to dig out the positives does give a better feel.  To me though this is the real problem, it is very rare that such effort is needed to appreciate the prog.  A little unfair perhaps and it would be interesting to hear the take from someone that it was intended for (as opposed to us old fogey's who were that age when we started!)

Eamonn Clarke



This must be the cover that Mark talked about doing when he was on my episode about the Dead Man.
Have I mentioned that I do a podcast at all?  ;)




Bolt-01

Well, I really enjoyed that. Especially the Gronk strip - the standout for me.

Proudhuff

The lack of comment maybe the lack of Proggage?

With half of Engerland under water, there maybe some trouble getting the prog thro...

Certainly no sign of it here in the wastes of East Lothian
DDT did a job on me

IndigoPrime

Mine only showed up this morning. Mini-G's Phoenix was also late this week.

IndigoPrime

I assume ep3 of Finder & Keeper will be about treatment for concrete burns? Yikes.

Colin YNWA

Yeah only got mine today and alas I'm in the less than impressed camp. Now to be clear I've been a fan of all the Regened issues to date and am happy with the plan for four this year. Timing of this issue mid-flow aside its great that Tharg is doing something different and experimenting with reaching different folks and experimenting with different types of story - this is all good and I approve wholeheartedly.

The trouble is all this only works if the content is good and while the content here isn't bad its so solidly okay the excerise lacks the inspiration that it requires.

Cadet Dredd - Solid action fun.

Finder & Keeper - The best thing about it is it reads like an extended version of Folklore Thursday. Its harmless but lacked thrill.

Future Shock - Kind lack much of a Shock - its okay though.

The Gronk - This is fun but nothing new, but well executed.

Rogue Trooper - is fun action nonsense but again just solid at best.

So yeah its not a failure as such on its own terms its okay. Its just to win over the crowd it needed to be more and so as such its a real missed opportunity.

IndigoPrime

Dredd: Felt quite old-school in nature. Suited the 'Cadet' setting, but with a few very minor tweaks would have worked fine as a 400-era Dredd. Enjoyable. Nicely illustrated. Good to see one of the senior judges was a woman (something that is still bafflingly rare in the Prog). Good also that it got room to breathe.

Finder & Keeper: Aside from the cement incident, fine. Wouldn't feel out of place in the standard Prog if the protagonists were aged up a little.

Future Shock: Not terribly shocking, but a nice enough yarn. Could easily have run in the Prog as-is, rather than here.

The Gronk: I had no idea what to expect from this. I despised the Gronk solo strip back in the day, but this was great. Amusingly stupid throughout, with a nice nod to Dobbyn, and great dialogue. Best thing in the Prog for me. Again, I'd have been happy to have seen this one-shot in a standard Prog or special.

Rogue Trooper: I'm not a big fan of the strip in general, bar Smith-penned weirdness, The War Machine, and Jaegir. So this felt a bit by-the-numbers, but it was nice enough with decent art. It felt sanitised over the RT that the current Prog might have, but again had a kind of classic vibe.

Again, I don't like the scheduling, but I find it odd how much pushback there is against these 'regened' Progs, especially from people who mostly spend their time bellyaching about how 2000 AD isn't as good as it was in the old days. To a great extent – with the exception of some mildly sanitised art, and the sheer amount of colour – this kind of felt like a Prog beamed in from the old days.

Frankly, The Gronk alone was worth the price of admission. But I certainly don't feel short-changed by how the entire issue turned out.

Magnetica

One thing I noticed is that the art seemed simpler compared to what we get in the normal Prog. I don't understand the need to so that, if indeed it was intentional.

Overall, it was ok I guess, but as Colin says, it wasn't  particularly thrilling.

I did find the dialogue in Finder and Keeper referring to the phone company a bit jarring - no-one talks like that. I know it was an attempt to avoid mentioning an actual company, but surely a made up name is normal procedure.

Richard

Quotethis kind of felt like a Prog beamed in from the old days.

Not to me. This felt too sanitised to compare it with 1980s progs. The best stories to read as a kid were the ones you knew your mum wouldn't approve of you reading. Stories where the art is detailed and doesn't look like your artistically-inclined mate could have drawn it himself. Stories where the lead characters are adults not kids.

I hope this sells lots of copies and inspires a generation of children to read or keep reading comics, but it's not like the comic we grew up with.

judgeurko

I don't see the point of these Regened progs. If young readers enjoy it then next week they pic up the prog & it's completely different. They should just be specials or a separate prog running alongside the real one.

Bolt-01

From my perspective the reason for these replacing the regular prog for a week is to ensure that the Regened issues get as wide a distribution as possible by being in the place of 2000 AD in the likes of WHSmiths etc.

Rebellion are testing the waters this year with what, 12 specials AND the four Regened progs? That is a huge commitment to both new and vintage content.

Without new readers, attracted as young as possible and given time to form the habit of buying comics, then all of this work will be wasted as existing readership passes away (quite literally given enough time).

So while I would love to see these as a stand alone strand, I can appreciate what TMO is pushing for and applaud.

broodblik

It was one of those progs where I never felt connected to it. I cannot say what was missing it is just a case that it was not as enjoyable as the preceding progs. The Cadet Dredd story was the best by far.
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.

pauljholden

Quote from: judgeurko on 26 February, 2020, 12:54:13 PM
I don't see the point of these Regened progs. If young readers enjoy it then next week they pic up the prog & it's completely different. They should just be specials or a separate prog running alongside the real one.
It's been discussed before but it's enormously (prohibitively so) expensive to create a brand new comic and distribute it to newsagents, if it was as simple as just printing it they'd do that, but it's not. You'll hit inertia with the distributers and the newsagents, and newsagents - let's remember - frequently charge for magazines to be located in prime spots - https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/feb/14/wh-smith-moves-telegraph-titles-to-magazine-section ) so I suspect (and I have zero inside knowledge) the hope is they can get these on the shelves in place of regular progs and build the momentum to have the readers/distributers/newsagents ask for more...

(It may be pure wishful thinking to hope we'd get a weekly regened, it could be the fact they're specials is what's making them ...uhm./.. special)

Bolt-01

I know it might not be the done thing# - but I'd love to see an ABC warriors strip. The slightly longer format used in Regened would lend itself to a strip introducing the Warriors and telling tales from the original Mars mission.

#Given the unnofficial, hands off approach to 'Pat Mills' characters.