Prog 1891 - Here Be Monsters

[Eamonn Clarke]

Inside
Judge Dredd: Student Bodies part 2
Sinister Dexter: Congo part 3
Aquila: Carnifex part 2
Brass Sun: Floating Worlds part 4
and new thrill
Black Shuck part 1

[JamesC]

Cover - I really like this image but I'm not sure how well it works as a cover. Feels like it needs some bright colours to make it stand out. It's really well painted though.

Dredd - Student Bodies concludes this prog. It's well written and the art is absolutely lovely but it's such a horrible story that I can't say I really enjoyed it.

Sin/Dex - This feels like the calm before the storm. The art's really good and there are some great puns again (Lane Closure!)

Aquila - Wonderful centre spread this issue. Dylan Teague and Leigh Gallagher seem to be a match made in heaven. The story's good but I'm struggling to remember why everyone is there and what they're all doing.

Brass Sun - A bit more action packed this week but I can't help feeling detached from this story. I don't feel like I know any of the characters or care about their predicament.

Black Shuck - A promising start to this thrill. I'd assumed it would have a big dog in it but it seems not. The whole thing looks lovely and I'm interested to see where it goes.

We also have a letters page this week and a Thrills of the Future teaser for more Ichabod Azrael.

Solid Prog.

[IronGraham]

Paper quality was different or is it just me?

[Darren Stephens]

Blimey, s it Saturday already? I'm only halfway through last weeks Prog! 

[Frank]

Paper quality was different or is it just me?

Didn't you ask the same thing last week, neebs? Do you mean different to that time or different to all the other times?

Cheers for sticking the cover up, eamonn; it's as technically astonishing as everything else Alex Ronald has done in recent times, but there's something about the pose and characterisation that makes all the other good work feel a little inert. I know what James means about the feeling of detachment from the characters and quest storylines of Aquila and Brass Sun, which only emphasises what a feat Mills and Davis pulled off with their tightly focused take on a similar format in Slaine: A Simple Killing.

[IronGraham]

It just seems differant again like thinner

[Chris Tresson]

I've only read Dredd and Black Shuck so far (still reading last week's prog!)

I like this Dredd story, got a case of the feels for Lenny McTick in this story... Not sure about Black Shuck from the first part though, I can't really pass judgment on it yet, but it feels like it's not one for me (so far)...

[Colin YNWA]

Solid Prog. Dredd I thought was a pretty pedestrian number. Nothing too interesting. Not bad but far from Wagner at his best.

Aquila and Brass Sun were steady, which is fine for Aquila but a surprise for Brass Sun, the last couple of episodes have been okay but not spectacular as I expect of this thrill. The action is okay but I want to know more about Arthur with whom we were teased a couple of weeks ago.

Black Shuck was a pretty good opener, lovin' the art of course and the story started to build a little mystery before packin' a punch at the end. No surprises that I really enjoyed Sinister Dexter again this week, nice banter and tension building well, what are the boys up to, what will happen. Unlike many here I can't wait to find out!

[judgerufian]

I know what James means about the feeling of detachment from the characters and quest storylines of Aquila and Brass Sun, which only emphasises what a feat Mills and Davis pulled off with their tightly focused take on a similar format in Slaine: A Simple Killing.

Did we read the same story which took 12 weeks for him to cross a bridge and get defeated by someone insulting his dad? I wouldnt call that tightly focused, more like extremely decompressed to showcase the art of Simon Davis. Luckily the painting was so good it made me forget why Slaine was travelling around so slowly.

[Frank]

There are lots of stories with lots of plot twists, reversals, and tangents, and Pat Mills has written a lot of them. They weren't necessarily his or Slaine's best strips, and I'm glad someone recognised that the convoluted, epic, world-shaking narrative form wasn't working for the character anymore, or at least that it wouldn't work for this strip at this point in the character's history.

You're probably right about the importance of the change in artist in the decision to tell a different kind of story, but comic storytelling is all about the interplay of diegesis and mimesis, and A Simple Killing got the balance just about right for me.

Unlike other instalments, ASK was actually about Slaine and what makes him tick - labouring the points it raised with long passages of explanatory psychobabble would have made for a mawkish and deathly reading experience. There are writers who will soapy wank you with the cliches of quest and sub-quest all day, and run you off explicatory dialogue as if they were charging by the yard. I'm glad Mills isn't that kind of writer and Slaine isn't that kind of strip. Anymore.

[ZenArcade]

Sorry sauchie just skimmed over your last: is there a soapy w**k in this weeks prog??? Jesus they'll soon be selling the prog from the top shelf. Z

[Jim_Campbell]

but comic storytelling is all about the interplay of diegesis and mimesis

And there was me thinking it was about the words and the pictures.

Cheers

Jim

[Frank]

Comic storytelling is all about the interplay of diegesis and mimesis

And there was me thinking it was about the words and the pictures

I see what you did there.

[Steven Denton]

but comic storytelling is all about the interplay of diegesis and mimesis

And there was me thinking it was about the words and the pictures.

Cheers

Jim

Scott McCloud eloquently argues that comic story telling is not about words and pictures but about what happens in the space between the words and pictures.

[GordonR]

but comic storytelling is all about the interplay of diegesis and mimesis

A friend of mine - PhD, lectures in Film Theory at Glasgow Uni - writes:

I use both terms when writing academically, but that statement is meaningless.  The "is all about" should set off alarm bells - I feel like it ought to end with "yannowwaddamean?"