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Topics - Greg M.

#1
It's a known fact that the harder times get, the more people want to read about the adventures of a Roman-obsessed 1930s pulp hero fighting Nazi leprechauns. (And alternate versions of himself. And girls. And Babar.)

With that in mind, myself, ultra-talented art-chap Scott Twells, and lettero-designo-guru Filippo have compiled four of our two-fisted 'Spencer Nero' stories from recent issues of PARAGON comic (which also feature an appearance by lettering supremo Jim Campbell.) We've slapped them together with some all-new intro and recap pages and a brand-new cover, and now present them as a COMPLETELY FREE digital download. They are yours to peruse at your leisure. Let us know what you make of them.



https://www.dropbox.com/s/wb5oknwnmwue0tb/Smidgen%20of%20Spencer.pdf?dl=0

And if you enjoy that... you might enjoy the spin-off comic featuring Spencer's fan club, which you'll find here: https://www.comicsy.co.uk/martillo/

(That's not free, unfortunately – need to make the cash back to do issue 2!)

Vale!



#3
Film & TV / Red Dwarf XII
13 October, 2017, 05:57:57 PM
"Playing soft rock? That's never the right thing to do!"

The Boys from the Dwarf return in 'Cured', an episode which has all the strengths and all the flaws of the series XI episodes - not too surprising, given XI and XII were all shot at the same time.  On the plus side - feels like classic Dwarf, Cat is up-front and centre, and Lister jamming with you-know-who is going to be hard to forget. On the other hand, it starts to unravel in the later stages and has one of show's now-patented super-abrupt endings. (Feels like it needs a closing speech from Lister on the subject of evil, in the manner of his closing monologue in 'Justice'.)

Still great fun though, and on balance more plus than minus - I liked it better than XI's opener.
#4
Books & Comics / Small-press pimping - MARTILLO
30 October, 2013, 08:39:51 PM
It's almost Halloween – and that means it's time for some small-press pimping! One of the highlights of last year's Xmas on the forum was the page-a-day Judge Dredd epic by megabus aka David Broughton. David and I have now teamed up to create our own small-press action / horror epic – Martillo: Devil Smiter!



The year is 1948, and Spain is under Fascist rule – a fertile breeding ground for supernatural wickedness. Enter Martillo – a former member of the Civil Guard, a servant of the Saint of Labourers, and Madrid's least subtle priest. When Martillo encounters evil, he lives up to his name - 'The Hammer' - and smites it good. This collection of stories sees him smiting pagan storm-gods, metal-obsessed spectres, sadistic thorn-monsters, gold-eating devil-weasels, hungry bogeymen and the ungodly terror of Pablo Picasso himself! But can even Martillo save a nation still bearing the psychic scars of the Civil War?

Featuring scenes of goat-defenestration and Cubism gone bad, I am honoured to note that this beauty even contains a piece of interior guest-art by none other than Judge Dredd supremo Ben Willsher!

Anyway, here's some of David's cracking art as a preview – I think this comic features some of the best work he's ever done (and readers of 'Zarjaz' and 'Dogbreath' will know he's done some good stuff.) What's more, he's lettered the bloomin' thing himself too - he does not sleep!





This 52-page US format comic is £5 + P&P, available from Comicsy:
http://www.comicsy.co.uk/martillo/store/products/martillo/

It's a bargain, I tell you! Go on – try a bit of continental evil! General Franco approves!
#5
As announced over on CBR:

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=45933

Quite a cool team line-up. Whilst I do have issues with Marvel's frustrating inability to launch a title without labelling it 'Avengers' these days - the oversaturation of the line is ridiculous - the presence of Mr. Ewing makes this a clear buy for me, and I do like some of the oddball choices for the team.
#6
Help! / Hook Jaw / Action Annual Art Query
26 August, 2010, 06:22:20 PM
Hi folks. Was wondering if any of you knowledgeable souls can help me with some info? I recently bought a few original pages of a Hook Jaw story from one of the Action annuals off eBay (they were cheap and had a big shark in 'em, what more can I say?) However, I haven't a clue who the artist is or which annual it appears in. I have tried to look this stuff up, but all the sites I found deal largely in Action pre-ban, meaning that the later neutered, 'boy's adventure' incarnation is not covered, and I assume these pages hail from an annual in that era. Here's the pages, if you'd like to see 'em bigger, they're on my Comicartfans site (link in sig.) Thanks in advance. Cheers.


#7
Other Reviews / The Complete Harlem Heroes
13 August, 2010, 02:17:08 PM
I've wanted to see this reprinted in full ever since reading the first few parts in one of the 80s annuals, and am hugely impressed to see it in a collected volume. Major thumbs up to Rebellion for some of the less obvious stuff they're putting out in trades, like this, Flesh, Stainless Steel Rat - can't wait for the complete Meltdown Man! So, a few observations:

The artwork is superb – twenty four consecutive Dave Gibbons episodes, showcasing all that wonderfully crisp, clean dynamic drawing skill? Yes please! And then Belardinelli takes over and leads Giant and co into 'Inferno', and things get, frankly, increasingly insane, with some of the most wonderfully grotesque art of the Italian master's career. Belardinelli's take on Artie Gruber is absolutely hideous – Gibbons's version looks like a fairly plausible cyborg-zombie but Massimo's  is like something that crawled out of a nightmare.

As for the story... well, 'Harlem Heroes' ironically keeps its feet more or less on the ground, and while a bit repetitive (oh, another aeroball game!), is delightfully bloodthirsty and cracks along at a fair pace. 'Inferno', on the other hand, is completely mad, and takes all the little eccentricities present in HH and supersizes them till they dwarf everything else. Men in shark costumes, the Philadelphia Freaks, flying robot wolves on motorcycles (!) – it's all here. Scripter Tom Tully's trademark seems to be killing characters off in an incredibly sudden and abrupt matter (see 'Mean Arena'), but I would love to know what was going on behind the scenes in the last episode of 'Inferno'  – it's as if Tully loses control of what's going on entirely, as some fairly major things happen off panel, [spoiler](Slim and Zack are killed)[/spoiler] and Tharg starts narrating halfway down one page!

Very much of its era (love the jive-talk), but great to see it out there. Anyone else picked it up...?
#8
Welcome to the board / Howdy
12 August, 2010, 11:45:32 PM
Hello all, how's things? Was a longtime 2000AD reader (and used to post on the old newsgroup) till I shamefully drifted away from the fold maybe six years ago (mostly 'cos I became a student for the second time and had no money for comics for a while!) Returned to 2000AD very recently, lured back entirely by the new Strontium Dog series. Looks like I missed a blinder in 'Tour of Duty' though... oh well, guess the catch-up trades are coming out soon anyway. Now I'll just have to try and work out what's happened in Nikolai Dante over the past half-decade...