Hmmm ... a bit of a run-of-the-mill prog this week, IMHO. But an average Galaxy's Greatest is still head-and-shoulders above some other publications.
Cover -- Unusual choice of cover. Alex Ronald's talent seems like overkill on such a simple brief; I imagine he spent ages on the ripples & background detail to avoid feeling guilty when sending the invoice. And, based this week's Greysuit episode, I'm left wondering [spoiler]if it's spoiled a possible opening twist for next week's finale.[/spoiler] (The Fast Show tagline pun, if I'm not mistaken, first appeared as a potential headline in the Daily Sport following Gianni Versache's murder (https://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/apr/01/daily-sport-history).)
Nerve Centre -- Looking forward to Prog 2050.
Judge Dredd: War Buds (part three) -- Another enjoyable episode. As someone else mentioned, it's amazing how John Wagner gets you to care about a bunch of characters you hardly know.
The Alienist -- Inhuman Natures :: Part 6 -- Not sure why this needs two colons. Have Rennie & Beeby been reading too much John Smith? Or maybe they've taken up C++? Anyway, enjoying this run more than the last one.
Greysuit: Foul Play, part eight -- in contrast to current Dredd, I find myself having total disinterest in these one-dimensional characters. And yet, somewhere in the concept of Greysuit, there's the potential for a powerful Edge of Darkness (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_of_Darkness) style political thriller, if only it had been handled with more subtlety and better pace & characterisation. Pat Mills' mix of genius & codswallop can be so frustrating at times!
Tharg's 3hrillers present Mechastopheles (part three) -- don't have a clue what's going on in this and not sure I care. The first two parts washed over me.
Hope ... for the Future (Part 10) -- just not my cup of tea. I presume it just needs a solid read but, like Brink, it just rings my style-over-substance alarm bells. Nice that Tharg allows a bit of experimentation, though.
Quote from: A.Cow on 02 September, 2017, 02:58:16 PM
Hmmm ... a bit of a run-of-the-mill prog this week, IMHO. But an average Galaxy's Greatest is still head-and-shoulders above some other publications.
Agree with that.
Quote from: A.Cow on 02 September, 2017, 02:58:16 PM
... somewhere in the concept of Greysuit, there's the potential for a powerful Edge of Darkness (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_of_Darkness) style political thriller, if only it had been handled with more subtlety and better pace & characterisation. Pat Mills' mix of genius & codswallop can be so frustrating at times!
I think it's a case of us knowing too much about the author. Because we're all aware Mills
genuinely believes every conspiracy theory from Roswell to Grenfell Tower, we all read
Greysuit as a serious drama. A failed serious drama.
This despite the sheep shagging, song tourettes, and malapropisms. Yet every week we sigh and express regret that all the silliness means we just can't take the plight of a superhuman public schoolboy with a twitter account seriously.
Like we're supposed to.Greysuit's really a weekly gag strip. It takes British counterintelligence as its theme in the same way
Dash Decent* used
Flash Gordon as a springboard for yucks.
* Like Dash Decent and Sooner Or Later, there's an overarching storyline, but it's really best read as self contained episodes.
'Shoots you , sir!" - is this a deliberate steal from The Daily Sport?
Its funny I really enjoyed the Prog but its kinda a case of being greater than the sum of its parts when you break it down story by story. That's a fantastic balance of strips here, each distinct and different. When that's the case its rare that they will all be absolute winners and while there is nothing bad here, there's not a great deal that's great, but its struck me that overall its a fantastically varied read.
That said that's hack at the individual parts.
Dredd is one of the things that is great. Its just a superb story. Characters I'm engaged with and rooting for with a sense of dread given that its ... well ... Dredd. Its dark, tight and exciting just fantastic stuff.
The Alienist is pretty good again this week. Not top thrillage but good enough and benefiting from having dispensed with all the poory veiled 'whose the baddie, whose the goodie' stuff and now cutting to the chase and promising a statisfying conclusion.
Grey Suits is another highlight of the Prog. Its rattled along from it gloriously over the top action beginning, to its glorious paranoid villian building middle and now in its fantastic over arching story concluding ending. Its never been subtle, but its momentum has distracted from Uncle Pat's now cliched raving really effectively I'm really enjoying this and hanging on tender hooks to see how it concludes.
Unlike Mechasopheles that's either and over extended Future Shock, an over extended pitch for an ongoing, or and under explioted longer form story. Whatever it is it just felt uncomfortable as a 3riller, though had a great deal of potential as one of the others. Personally it feels like a test for something more.
Hope is the black sheep, the slice of Vertigo in the 2000ad double decker sandwich and pleasently refreshing in the Prog therefore, if not wholely original outside its current context. Decent part to a decent story and one I feel, as I've said before, I need to re-read to give fair judgement on.
So yeah 2 great stories, 2 good stories and 1 muh... but still averages at a great Prog. That's 2000ad for ya!
(https://i.imgur.com/shA4r0d.jpg)
Another Prog with a variety of settings, which helps raise my overall enjoyment. Dredd is ticking along nicely. I really liked the full page of the Meg - it feels like MC1 is becoming a character once more.
The other stories tick a lot of the right boxes. The Alienist is a story I would like to see make more frequent appearances. Really like Grey Suit. Mecha-thingy less so.
Hope is rather fab. The only thing that leaped out was the 'titilating' whores. It would have been more in keeping with the mood of the strip if they had been more realistic humans, rather than the air-brushed porn stars. That's just a small point, though.
I'm enjoying this run of progs more than the previous line-up. Let's hope that 2050 lives up to the hype & we have a strong line up to see the year out.
I liked the twist in Greysuit this week. Probably the best episode of this story, and a highlight of the prog.
Hope is brilliant. I feel like I need to reread all the previous episodes again later though, as I think I've missed something.
Today's cover image comes from the splendid new:
https://2000adandbeyondsite.wordpress.com
I'll be posting them here instead of on the other blog site.
Quote from: WhizzBang on 02 September, 2017, 03:52:17 PM
'Shoots you , sir!" - is this a deliberate steal from The Daily Sport?
...which is what the original poster said?
wonderful varied Prog: liking the cover a real change of pace but in keeping with Frank's Greysuit is a larf theme.
Damage report: Cyber Matt is a caravan peeper? send your camel to bed!
Dredd: War Buds. just like to say Dan's the man for the artwork, and Abigail is no slouch at colouring in either. Some great page layouts which dont feck up the storyline but enhance it while showing the cityscapes, would be good if Mr W sorted out the gender inbalance in the Justice Dept tho.
Alienist: getting to the meat now, great how we're seeing both sides of the hunt em down story. artwork reminding me of 1970's Jackie at times... not a bad thing.
Greysuit, now FRnk's explained it to me, its a laff!
£riller feels like it should be from the pages of Hellboy, again not a bad thing.
Hope: someones been keeking into my FRiday night sessions caravan haven't they? you naughty boy!
Any subbers still waiting for their prog? Usually a Saturday without fail.
Aye. Long time since it's been late. Not turning up tuesday either is even more unusual. Monday missed was peculiar enough. :|
Lucky for you guys, mine hardly EVER comes on the Saturday now.
Got it this morning (Tuesday) though.
One more prog and my sub is over and I can rely on my fix on Wednesdays without getting annoyed with the first world problem of the local postal service!
Im sure its not intended as such,but Greysuit is downright hilarious.With its talk about Twitter and Tor and Dark Web.Its CSI Cyber on crack. :)
Right wing,left wing.They are wings on the same bird of prey.That's kinda deep,actually.
Quote from: user2000 on 05 September, 2017, 09:03:06 PM
Lucky for you guys, mine hardly EVER comes on the Saturday now.
Got it this morning (Tuesday) though.
One more prog and my sub is over and I can rely on my fix on Wednesdays without getting annoyed with the first world problem of the local postal service!
Went through a spate of that but it seems to have settled down. Been a long time since this has happened. Now Wednesday and still not turned up. Wondering if postie has delivered it to wrong address. Wouldn't be a first. Several similarly named streets round here and there is the odd mix up but usually we just drop 'em round quickly.
Quote from: Smith on 06 September, 2017, 08:57:05 AM
Im sure its not intended as such,but Greysuit is downright hilarious.With its talk about Twitter and Tor and Dark Web.Its CSI Cyber on crack. :)
Put like that, it sounds more like having your Grandad quoting stuff he's vaguely heard that the young people are into. :P
Quote from: Taryn Tailz on 06 September, 2017, 09:13:23 PM
Quote from: Smith on 06 September, 2017, 08:57:05 AM
Im sure its not intended as such,but Greysuit is downright hilarious.With its talk about Twitter and Tor and Dark Web.Its CSI Cyber on crack. :)
Put like that, it sounds more like having your Grandad quoting stuff he's vaguely heard that the young people are into. :P
The joke is that the character is a grandad* discussing stuff he's heard about but only vaguely understands.
Depeche-toi.After episode one of
War Buds, I said Dan Cornwell was great on character but maybe wasn't so confident handling big visuals. After this week's episode, it's clear I have no idea what I'm talking about.
That cornea-warping cityscape recalls the impossible perspective of Ron Smith and Kim Raymond, yet the facing page offers a South wall that looks more solid, forbidding and immense than any version we've seen before.
Impressive, assured work, and the character acting I loved so much in part one is even better here.
I couldn't have picked the members of the Apocalypse Squad out of a line up, never mind name them, but Cornwell's invested their sagging jowels and bellies with more individual personality than reams of back story about gas masked nuns and clockwork daddy issues can achieve.
So I've become invested in the individual fortunes of the Jolly Boys just in time to watch them being murdered individually**, as the advertised Road to Texas turns into the road to Basra.
* It's actually a Twitter maven pretending to be a technological pygmy, doubling and twisting the joke back in on itself, like a Möbius strip.
** The laws of dramatic irony mean [spoiler]Costa's[/spoiler] probably going to be the lone survivor of the outing.
I like you Frank.
Cover: Very Invisibles.
Dredd: A simple story, but so well-told. I always get the impression with other Dredd writers that they're trying really hard to prove themselves worthy of the accolade, and sometimes too hard. John Wagner, of course, does not have to do this, and as a consequence his stories flow so effortlessly.
The Alienist: The first couple of episodes were decent enough but I've really grown to like this since then, as the story becomes more intriguing and the boundaries between the good guys and the bad guys remains blurred.
Greysuit: Why does this get six pages?
Mechastopheles: Not so much an extended Future Shock, more a pilot for a full series? Potential sabotage aboard a walking robot demon... yeah, I'd be up for more.
Hope: Gaze into the face of fear!! So often the highlight of the prog, it's riding high again. Though I might have to have a re-read to understand exactly what's going on in the last page.
Quote from: Taryn Tailz on 06 September, 2017, 09:13:23 PM
Quote from: Smith on 06 September, 2017, 08:57:05 AM
Im sure its not intended as such,but Greysuit is downright hilarious.With its talk about Twitter and Tor and Dark Web.Its CSI Cyber on crack. :)
Put like that, it sounds more like having your Grandad quoting stuff he's vaguely heard that the young people are into. :P
But everyone talks like that here.Except Blake who started outright yelling: Wake up,sheeple! :lol:
Quote from: norton canes on 07 September, 2017, 11:28:49 AM
Greysuit: Why does this get six pages?
Because people complained when American Reaper got half the meg devoted to it, month after month :)
Dredd - is that 'Brexit Block' partly obscured by a speech bubble?
Has anyone received prog 2048 yet
Yes, I have!!!