Forum’s Fav Thrill - Brass Sun vs. Flesh Rd 3 Heat 37

[Trooper McFad]

Flesh

[Blue Cactus]

Flesh originally was a dynamite formula and while and while hadn’t discovered the prog at that point I loved the Quality Comics reprint I picked up a few years later. When I finally read the phonebook edition the early stuff was good early 2000ad fun. Later series - Shamana didn’t grip me but I’ve not read the complete series I don’t think, unless it was in a floppy in which case I have read it and don’t remember. Really liked James Mackay’s art when the strip relaunched but wasn’t so keen on the story itself. I seem to remember some of the treatment of the lead character made me a bit uncomfortable.

Brass Sun - like others, I would like it to continue and build into the huge epic it deserves to be. I think objectively I prefer it and would certainly rather reread before Flesh.

Brass Sun

[Proudhuff]

Brass Sun.

[Dark Jimbo]

Hmm. Two strips whose execution hasn't always thrilled me. Early Flesh is goofy, retro fun, but I suspect even more fun if you've got nostalgia for it, too, which I don't; and later Flesh badly drags down its batting average by being among the very worst of Mills' modern output. Brass Sun never grabbed me in the way it did some others (or in the way I wanted it to), but it has at least been consistent across its run.

Brass Sun, by a narrow margin.

[Proudhuff]

The biggest problem with Brass Sun is that it just stopped. That said, even if it’s abandoned at this point, I still like it more than Flesh. I’d like it even more if we got some new episodes, mind…

[Rogue Judge]

Flesh. But Brass Sun if it ever continues...

[AlexF]

So when I'm scouring for images to use for the Tourney round-ups, it's telling that Brass Sun is very much not full of panels that lend themselves to either summing up the series, or promoting its main characters in fun ways, or showing off moments of climax. Flesh, on the other hand, is almost entirely made up of ridiculous fun/silly panels that do all those things at once.

That said, Brass Sun is telling an amazing story and centres around one of 2000AD's best-ever imaginative ideas for a setting. Flesh is barely telling a story at any point, beyond 'humans sure love to make money and screw people over, and never mind any safety protocols'. Which is fun but moreso on a week-by-week basis and not when read in large chunks.

I'm finding it almost impossible to compare these two thrills, but on the grounds that a) Culbard has another, even better offering in the Tourney and b) Flesh is just great weekly action comics FUN, I'm voting Flesh...

[Funt Solo]

Tricky - this is early Flesh (the first two books) mostly for quality - although I have a soft spot for Legend of Shamana and Chronocide - balanced against the ridiculous drum-banging of the 2011-2016 books.

Up against that we have Brass Sun - which has the unfortunate habit of not really having coherent arcs, but continually leaving us on a new cliffhanger. That might be okay if the writer would then continue the work.

I have to flip a mental coin here and think about which one I'd like to see back in the prog with the same creators as their most recent series...

Brass Sun clinches it.

[NapalmKev]

Brass Sun.

Cheers

[Colin YNWA]

with just a day to go I think we are going to lose another Prog 1strip... and my fav. There are plenty of votes for both so who knows what could happen, well we'll find out in the morning.

[davidbishop]

Brass Sun.

[paddykafka]

Flesh

[Colin YNWA]

VOTING CLOSED

Well done everyone.This went as well as it possibly could. And no doubt Old One Eye would approve. If you are going to go down, go down fighting and fighting hard. Nornally I try to think of thrills in the round, to think of all corners, good and bad BUT those first two books of Flesh, particularly Book 1 are so fundamental to what I consider good entertainment its hard to think beyond them. All of Flesh (well almost) has something to offer, but Flesh Book1 is just perfect comics for a young person at that time, and I was that child who just wanted to see dinosaurs fighting cowboys... who didn't.

Brass Sun is better though and we want it back and so I'm sad and happy to say

Brass Sun

will being heading down the tube into Round 4.