Can we find a character or strip that NO-ONE likes?

[colcool007]

I will stick up for Trash. It was a great eco-story. A story of an eco-cooper trying to stop the nasty industrialists carving up what little was left of the natural world. Miles better than Junker (great art, but how long did that story go on for? Felt like forever.)

Other dires are Slaughterbowl. Haven't seen a defence for that one and can't think of one either.

Shako was brilliant as was Invasion but Disaster 1990! was a cringe-maker at times.

[Floyd-the-k]

Life Less Ordinary was awful. I watched the movie out of curiosity (also awful, but better than the comic)

[Floyd-the-k]

I thought I`d already defended Skizz III spiritedly. If not, here goes.
Skizz III was a an enjoyable shaggy dog tale. It had a bit of intriguing sci fi and some droll characters (the foppy princes back on skizz`s world, the gunlords of tau ceti, the Birmingham-accented robot). The Australian stuff was cringe inducing (ie the lovable aboriginals who add `fella` to the end of every other word), but that`s par for the course in 2000 AD. The ending was a bit of a fizzer (although the way the gunlords get theirs is funny) but the journey there is fun. I think it suffers from comparisons with Skizz I, especially since that was written by Alan Moore. I came to Skizz III with no expectations, I hadn`t read I or II, and didn`t know who Alan Moore was at the time and I enjoyed it.
Is that spirited enough?
I`d like to take Space Girls off the list because it`s better than a lot of other stuff in 2000 AD (ie zzenith.com,valkyries, wireheads, grudgefather), had a few funny moments and has been unfairly stigmatized as the Official Bad story.

yours as spirited as he can be at this time of the morning,

Floyd

ps all those issues Steven brings up are terribly important, but have nothing to do with zzzenith.com, which was lazily written, boring nonsense

[petemaskreplica]

Much as it pains me to advocate the removal of the likes of Return to Verdus from this list, surely many of the stories mentioned here are crap renditions of much loved strips, rather than inherently unlikeable series?

I'd argue that such things as Millar's RoboHunter or Fleisher's Rogue, i.e. bad renditions of popular characters, are far more offensive than plain old bad ones.

I guess I'd nominate Grudgefather as an irredeemably bad strip, especially as it wasted an otherwise good artist.

Ditto Chronos Carnival.

[Floyd-the-k]

no argument on Grudgefather.

Here`s two entries; how about Time Flies and that terrible House of Time thing, where they just hang around making wet jokes about the Beatles meeting Shakespeare etc. Do those have any fans?

[Devons Daddy]

CHRONOS CARNIVAL
no redeeming features.at all.

[Tordelbach]

Go-on then, SOMEONE defend Chronos Carnival, if such a thing is possible!  It has to have Ron 'Graveyard Shift' Smith's worst art ever (and I'm including the despicable 'Golden Fox Rebellion' here), and really is the single strip I have least time for in the whole history of 2000AD.

I'm not in general adverse to Hillary Whatsername's work, having enjoyed (you heard me) Zippy Couriers' light-and-wholesome 'Mechanics'-style inconsequence (it had a cool cat, y'know) and been mildly intrigued by the background to Medivac 318.

On a similar Tooth-gets-in-touch-with-its-feminine-side note I would offer Moonrunners to the pack, except that the art was frequently wonderful, the flashbacks sometimes approching promising, and the ridiculous catchphrases 'Prepare to embrace the Bitch!" and "Sling yer 'ooks!" rather fun.

[The Enigmatic Dr X]

That one with some bloke called Tanner who had a metal arm.

So bad I can't remember it's name.

[Dudley]

Kola Kommandos - bad. Very, very bad. Actually, it was about this time I decided that I hated Anthony Williams' art, mainly because he seemed to draw all the worst stories. I still haven't got over that.

I'm in complete agreement with that reasoning.  It just seemed that, for a very long time, if it was an awful script with no point, they gave it to Williams.  Now they've got him on VC's, which is not-bad-not-good, but he should feel really hard done by in general.  The Dredds were about the only time he ever got to have any fun.

[Byron Virgo]

Slaughterbowl was one of the best stories to appear in the Summer Offensive. No, I'm not joking.

It had great understated art by Paul Peart, and an intelligent script by John Smith. If it had just been criminals savaging each other on the back of dinosaurs, it would have been crass and uninteresting. But Smith pulls the rabbit out of the hat by making it a reality tv event, orchestrated by a fascist police state. And the main character is one of the most pittiable, put upon characters to ever appear in a comic, and who may or may not actually be a vicious serial killer.

It's of a much higher calibre than most of the dross on this list, and it's certainly the only story that seems heartfelt.

[Also, in a list of crap stories, where Witchworld?]

[Tordelbach]

I second Byron's defense of the nicely drawn, rather disturbing Slaughterbowl.  It was my favourite strip of The Offensive too, virtually the only thing (other than Big Dave) that was worth reading at the time.  It had dinosaurs!  And serial killers!  And creepy accountant-next-door serial killers!  What's not to like.

Anyway, "disposable comics" me arse.  W**kers.

[colcool007]

Just to go off-topic. Big Dave was a brilliant send up of the yob culture. I still can't believe that so many people got so up-tight about it and couldn't see the joke. It was the best spoof that I have seen in many a year.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch.  I can accept that people have different tastes to me so if you want to keep Slaughterbowl in then I can hack that. Just don't ever try and stick Invasion on that list or I will gnaw your ankles off! *l*

[Grant Goggans]

I'll stick up for both Repo-Mex and Slaughterbowl.  The former was admittedly pretty forgettable, and it's hard to tell whether it would have made a good series, but it was no worse than most any other average one-shot.   Slaughterbowl took a pretty neat premise and gave it a lot of power with the human interest in the Stanley character.  I felt a lot of sympathy for the poor schmuck, and then the ending came around and kicked me in the teeth and I didn't mind at all.  Great stuff, and miles better than its reputation.

--Grant

[Grant Goggans]

Well, I don't know whether you've read Mark Millar's "Serial Stunners" or Mike Fleisher's "Apocalypse Dreadnought," but those would have sucked like vacuums had they starred "Dirk Diamond, Droid Detective" or "AWOL Combatant."

--Grant

[Bad Andy]

Junker
Medivac 318 (or whatever friggin number it was)
Dry Run
Wireheads

As for Time Flies - I really enjoyed it.

Bradley though was pants. And Dinosty come to that.