Messages

Would be lovely to know when these were authorial suggestions (as I suspect with Zenith and Fervent & Lobe) and when they were editorial.

A good pun feels like it's one of the joys of being on the editorial staff.

OK, I can do without repeating titles and next progs, but I still want episode breaks the same way I want chapter breaks in any book I read. They're necessary for structure, keeping the story for being one great lump.

The next progs can be such a great part of the tale though. Ones I remember would be Zenith, Phases 1-3 (next progs were songs, films and TV shows, respectively) and John Smith's Fervent & Lobe story, where all the next progs were titles of Sonic Youth songs.

["SHAKARA!!!"]

We've not had "SHAKARA!!!" yet, have we? Or BIG JOBS!!! for that matter.

Thinking of Mek-Quake, one of the other Terra-Meks also gave us the snazzy "I have ten forward and five reverse gears and I must complete my work quota!"

[Firekind]

Firekind

[Revere]

I got plenty of time for Hewligan but my gosh the art on Revere is something else, and also like nothing else.
There are times when I wish we had either spent more time in the world of Revere Book 1, with our hero just being a rebel tussling with bad cops and spitting acid on them. But the ultra-trippiness of Books II and III are their own kind of special.

My thoughts exactly! Revere

[Dante]

Dante

[Nemesis the Warlock]

This isn't going how I'd expected! Zenith is almost perfect from the start of Phase 1 to the end of Phase 4 (although who thought it was a good idea to put Jim McCarthy on that Mandala story). Nemesis certainly can't lay claim to that, but was so utterly original and is still so unlike anything else I've read in comics* that I can't help but vote for it. Its highs were so, so high and its characters were so, so good.

Nemesis the Warlock gets my vote.


*so unlike anything else, that even a thrill accused of being derivative of it (Shakara) is still breathtakingly original.

[Dante]

Dante

Are its highs as high as those of the Warriors? Yes. Are its lows as low as those of the Warriors? Not by a long shot.

ABC Warriors is full of iconic comic book moments (even at its worst) and that might swing it for some, but Dante is just great storytelling.

[Firekind]

I was abstaining, having not read Lawless, but I have to vote for Firekind in the hope that we see some John Smith representation in the quarter finals.

[Dante]

Dante

[Zenith]

Early Anderson is wonderful, but Zenith is so good it gets past my distaste for Morrison's Morrisonisms.

[ABC Warriors]

We're now getting to the stage where I'm forced to ask myself "would the prog still be the prog if one of these strips never existed?" ABC Warriors is much more definitive of what the prog means for me than is the case for Skizz. I can imagine a prog where Skizz never existed, but not one without the Warriors.

[Firekind]

Firekind is perfect little jewel of a story.

[Luke Kirby]

Books 1 and 2 of Luke Kirby are utterly brilliant. Wouldn't it be great to see a TV adaptation of this thrill?

[Zenith]

Zenith