For me this is the toughest draw of the round by far. Two writers who have dominated the Rebellion years and for all the attention given to them from the major US companies have stayed with Tharg and created some absolutely top thrill. Alas only one can progress to the Semi finals. So thinking only of their writing for Tharg (and go on I include Roy of the Rovers in that) who will it be:
Dan Abnett - http://www.2000ad.org/?zone=droid&page=profiles&choice=dana (http://www.2000ad.org/?zone=droid&page=profiles&choice=dana)
OR
Rob Williams - http://www.2000ad.org/?zone=droid&page=profiles&choice=robw (http://www.2000ad.org/?zone=droid&page=profiles&choice=robw)
What is all this nonsense you ask well we're finding out whose 2000ad (Meg and associated items) writing do you prefer? Voting - just add a comment here with whose work you prefer (and anything else you might wish to say to discuss their work). This vote closes some time early Saturday 20th June?
Want to know more https://forums.2000ad.com/index.php?topic=46527.0 (https://forums.2000ad.com/index.php?topic=46527.0)
Semi finals start early next week.
Dan Abnett for Lawless, Brink and Kingdom.
Dan Abnett! For Kingdom! (and Insurrection...and Lawless..and...)
Abnett. For my money Dan Abbott is the best writer in Tharg's current roster.: I look forward eagerly to every story he writes. Williams and others can certainly give him a run for his money, but for sheer consistency across so many different strips for so long, he takes the title.
Dan Abnett, for creating a dog-man called Clawed Rains.
Dan Abnett
Dan Abnett...Tharg's current MVP.
Brink, Lawless, Kingdom, Sinister Dexter, Grey Area, Insurrection, Feral and Foe.
That's 7 top series.
Much as I enjoyed Low Life and still enjoy Williams' take on Dredd, including where he's going to take it next, Abnett has provided numerous consistently great thrills. So Dan Abnett.
Has to be Abnett for me. It was discovering Kingdom and Lawless via the Hachette Collections that led to me to buying the Prog and the Meg as I just had to get the latest parts.
If Abnett gets through to the next round, as seems likely,, we should all refuse to vote for him again until he clarifies what Old Man Gary was called when he was a pup (and Gary Nu-Man is taken).
I really enjoy Wiliams' work for Tharg, but Abnett swings this for Lawless, Brink and many others.
I feel like Williams is the current second key Dredd writer and so I at first thought to go for him, but when you look at all the top thrills currently coming from Dan Abnett's pen I can't deny he's the winner here.
Abnett, although I very highly rate an awful lot of what Williams has brought to the Prog.
Dan Abnett.
going to give it to Dan Abnett
Abnett for SiniDex, Brink, Kingdom, Lawless, etc etc etc. This is going to be very difficult if it's an Abnett/ Mills final.
And here I thought today's other quarter final was the foregone conclusion.
Here we have two Prog mainstays, both of whom started out pretty ropey if I'm honest (Sancho Panzer, Atavar, Asylum, Breathing Space, Family... they had potential but ended up merely... OK), and then began banging out masterpiece-level thrills on the regular. The biggest difference is perhaps that Abnett has been doing it for longer and perhaps only for that reason has scored more hits. Abnett gets an edge of his lead with Sinister Dexter, a sustained effort in mixing up comedy shorts with long-form action thrills. But then Williams pulls it back with his writing for Judge Dredd, also banging out one-off comedies alongside thrilling epic-length tales.
So this isn't an easy one.
I'm casting my vote for Rob Williams, and here's why.
I like a bit of subtext and pretentiousness, and Williams always gives it some on that front. Not saying Abnett doesn't add thematic essence to his stories, but he doesn't seem to pour his soul into it the way Williams does. Sometimes, for Williams, it doesn't really work - I can see the mood he was going for with Hershey, and liked that mood, but the story got lost along the way.
Abnett never loses his way with a plot, and bow howdy does he know his way around a twist and a turn. But even at his very very best - Lawless and Brink, for me - the thrill IS the story, the characters and the conflict. What poetry comes through is in the jokes and the imagination. Williams scores big with me because his thrills deliver all that and thematic poetry too. I'm talking the apocalyptic heaven-hell of Ichabod Azrael, but also the humanity of poor old Harris in 10 Seconders (a story I didn't even like much at first), just trying to get his pint. And of course the outer/inner monologues of Dirty Frank, a man at war with his own selfhood.
Or maybe I'm just penalising Abnett because I don't like Feral and Foe much, and worry that he doesn't seem to know how to end an epic: Kingdom and even Lawless are in danger of running beyond their natural course and I really don't want that to happen with Brink.
Anyway, here's my lone voice crying out for the Welshman.
Dan Abnett. Because Brink. And because Hershey.
Quote from: The Mind of Wolfie Smith on 17 June, 2020, 10:38:28 AM
Dan Abnett. Because Brink. And because Hershey.
I did not know Abnett wrote Hershey >:D >:D >:D
Rob Williams for producing more stuff that I prefer, but only just.
Abnett.
Tough call, but it has to be Abnett. And that was the scrapping of that day.
Rob Williams is great, but Dan Abnett is even better. Arguably the most important writer for 2000ad in the second half of its history.
Quote from: Funt Solo on 17 June, 2020, 03:48:39 PM
Tough call, but it has to be Abnett. And that was the scrapping of that day.
Ha great comment
Williams. Has put his own spin on Dredd without losing anything. Very few have managed that.
Rob Williams. I find Dan can be very hit and miss.
Rob Williams, he didn't write Sinister Dexter. Z ;)
Abnett.
Abnett. Sinister Dexter has got better again.
Dan
VOTING CLOSED - but feel free to add votes and comments but the call is made.
So there we have it the final Quarter final and while I thought this would be the most challenging, if we're honest it was never really close, well aside from a spell in the middle of the voting when the brilliant Rob Williams got on quite a run. Much deserved to as his work for the Prog has been sublime. Howevee good it is though the winners work, especially of late has been argubly the best of the Rebellion years and for that.
Dan Abnett
makes up the semi-final line up.