I may have spelt that right.
The tagline might be a word that falls out your cake hole in very clumsy fashion, but man its a lovely cover all the same from Boo Cook. So atmospheric and evocative of Turner, which I assume was the plan and given Turner is one of my all time favs then I was always going to love it wasn't I.
Anyway its taken me a while to fall in line with this line up - though to be fair its taken a wee while for the line-up to settle in itself. Whatever this week its on a blinder.
Dredd is grim, horrific and utterly enthralling.
Full Tilt Boogie has really hit its stride in the last couple of weeks and has the gloriously energetic feel of the story I loved in the Special. Its fantastic this week, just fantastic.
As is The Out. I mean you see the influence of old sci-fi novel covers on that openning splash and the tone is so fresh and lively. Its fun, different (for 2000ad) and a blast. Loved it.
Oh as I do The Order while I've been getting used to other things, or other things have been getting up to their potential, or whatever its been The Order has been there as a rock. Just the best thing in the Prog over these last 4 weeks. The fact that its not this week is nothing to do with it - its still as good, its still as brilliant and this epsiode so much is packed in - its just the other strips have raised their game! Fantastic stuff.
As is Diaboliks which really benefits from shifting focus to a completely different character giving the series a break from wicked and thinking their cool or wicked and just being wicked. Its a blast this week... but can it last? Well lets hope.
So a clear five out of five and all the strips are just superb. All the more so as they all feel so utterly different from each other. The balance is just fantastic.
Oh and I might have forgotten my Hail Tharg last week. So
All hail Tharg
All Praise the Mighty One
Thank you Droids and all. lockdown might be breaking down, but we still need to be mighty grateful we're getting thrills of this quality.
can't really add more than colin did utterly fantastic week this week
Loving Dredd but the pace is a bit of a challenge. No doubt it is going to read much better as a full and completed piece.
Diabioliks and The Order were the low for me. The former confused the living daylights out of me. Took a bit of time to get my head around what was going on. Not so much the same with the Order. Feel a little like I've lost the plot here. Having said that, even for a low it is a solid and enjoyable read. Plus Burns on art duties ...
... and here we get to the meat of the problem. Full Tilt Boogie and The Out are for me what Tooth does best, just out and out bonkers world building. Cracking artwork and stories that pull you in. FTB has a fresh, vibrant feel to it. The Out is one of those strips that takes a completely different look at the place of the Human race in the universe. [... and I keep feeling like there's a bit of a riff on Halo Jones here ... "where did she go? ..."]
FOTF - next series of The Brink!!!!!!
Quote from: Colin YNWA on 27 June, 2020, 05:39:05 PM
Dredd is grim, horrific and utterly enthralling.
One thing that this Dredd saga has got me pondering is why Necropolis was so astonishingly good and worked on so many levels. Apart from probably Carlos's finest hour, It was the interwoven back stories and then the Prologue warm ups before kick off proper that lead us in so well.
Rob Williams is so adept at doing this with his Dredd-world stories, I'm slightly suprised that we headed into End of Days somewhat cold this time. The sudden nature of the quest has a slighty rushed feel about it all and I'm pleased that the saga will last all summer long to peice it all together 'On the road' so to speak.
It's great to see Anderson teamed up with Dredd again and their experienced but aging minds and bodies will be severly tested once more.
Just please don't kill Giant Rob, it would be most appreciated if you were to leave a few established characters for future saga's!
Diaboliks was great! Full Tilt Boogie just keeps getting better. The Out is already developing a plot, and [spoiler]the last panel is funny (read the hologram above her head).[/spoiler]
Dredd
Enjoyed muchly. Feels very 1980s. That's a good thing.
Dredd not affected by famine microbes feels a step up from having flea bites and not scratching.
Surely he's the incarnation of Death? If you were going to choose a human personification of a rider of the apocalypse, then the planet's biggest murderer would be a go-to choice.
Maybe famine didn't want to hurt the boss?
The Order
Surely the worst named story ever?
This feels a chaotic shambles. I've no idea what's going on. Stuff is dropped in at random and so many folk have died or been reincarnated that I'm lost. If Bobby Ewing stepped out a time shower, I'd not be shocked.
The Out
Good fun. A very 2k strip.
Diaboliks
Scene setting still but it's great to have any Cabbalistics.
Full Tilt Boogie
Not for me. Feels light and stodgy at the same time. It's as confusing as the Order but with the draining zaniness of a kids' cartoon instead of ominous historical figures.
Quote from: The Enigmatic Dr X on 28 June, 2020, 11:23:31 PM
The Order
Surely the worst named story ever?
Could be worse. They could have called the story
Dire Bollocks. Oh, hang on ....
(https://i.imgur.com/KFw6jgD.png)
Boo Cook
The cover with the logo:
(https://i0.wp.com/www.comicon.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Screenshot-2020-06-19-12.16.21.png?resize=768%2C1023)
Good cover illustration, but the design feels a bit knocked-up-in-five-minutes. Maybe the result of technical problems alluded to in previous Damage Reports?
Dredd- The lack of build-up feels like an issue, as mentioned earlier in this thread. It's a bit like those Anderson stories where something world-changing occurs but isn't mentioned anywhere else (all the kids disappearing was one example).
Full Tilt Boogie- Brilliant. Love the art and the script is witty & fun. Hope this gets a second (and more) story.
The Out- Sci-fi instagrammer is an interesting concept. Curious to see where this goes.
The Order- I struggle to see where the story is in this. It just looks like a bunch of half-baked ideas chucked on a page. I look at this purely for the Burns art now.
Diaboliks- I liked this- the Bond-esque paranormal investigator getting a comeuppance. Again, a fun story.
Quote from: Colin YNWA on 27 June, 2020, 05:39:05 PM
I may have spelt that right.
So atmospheric and evocative of Turner, which I assume was the plan and given Turner is one of my all time favs then I was always going to love it wasn't I.
Turner wasn't the only art historical nod in the prog this week. The last panel of The Out was definitely a nod to Edouard Manet's "A Bar at the Folies-Bergere.
https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/a-bar-at-the-folies-bergere-207293/view_as/grid/search/keyword:a-bar-at-the-folie/page/1
I've just had a catch up read on progs 2184-2188 (and dug out part one of Full Tilt Boogie in 2130) and am loving the current line-up of thrills, particularly Full Tilt Boogie and The Out. The Diaboliks won it for me this week though. The first few pages had me chortling.
Also, in non-prog prog-related news, I'm thoroughly enjoying the Fall Of Deadword novella omnibus by Matthew Smith but only midway through. Grpping but grim thus far.
Nice cover, might pull in a few more punters
Dredd: so Judge Giant and Anderson out the picture or is there a magic bullet? Great to see Osbourne getting a suitable place in a Future Brit-Cit. Art is amazing on this tale, the silhouettes and Blythe's colour work a treat.
FTB: enjoying this change of pace for 2K, and fine storytelling and art, I feel if this merges with The Out we'd have Halo Jones!
The Order: no idea which side is which anymore or who is on who's side and why. Giant robots appearing out of the blue would normally appeal to me but not this time.
The first two pages of Diaboliks had me thinking oh no, really? But the third restored my faith in the Grennie droid!
Six great but different artists involved, really is a bit of a showpiece prog.
Maybe it's just an "artist" thing but I really like the cover, the framing is quite smart.
A prog! I actually have a prog! After 13 weeks of lockdown downloads I've been to Smiths and I finally have a real, paper copy of 2000 AD here in front of me!
Excited.
Quote from: norton canes on 01 July, 2020, 12:50:58 PM
A prog! I actually have a prog! After 13 weeks of lockdown downloads I've been to Smiths and I finally have a real, paper copy of 2000 AD here in front of me!
Excited.
That's very cool. Hope you enjoy - have you been getting digitally in the meantime or have they been backing up on order?
Oh I've got 2175-2187 digitally, I haven't missed anything :D
It's just lovely to have the 'real' thing again. It was nice being able to zoom in on the artwork but there's no substitute to seeing it on the page.
Wondering whether to pick up the 'missing' 13 progs now. Probably no point in spending on them twice over. Guess that 13-prog gap will be another testament to the legacy of the pandemic.
I'm gradually starting to catch up on my back progs now, as the comic shop guys with whom I have a standing order are getting back to normal and they are managing to restock on back progs. Not their fault at all. Just something to do with distribution and postal problems...or something like that. To be honest I lost track of what they were saying, as I was so excited to get the first four back progs into my excited little mitts. :)
I am repeating myself here but then again then the only consistent thing for me this year is the quality of the prog.
Great prog, even if there are a couple of series I'm not really following intently at the moment.
Dredd is so, so, so cool and MacNeil's art is majestic this week. Loving The Out, again the art is glorious and it's such a good setting and such a refreshing pace-change from everything else.
The Diaboliks I'm enjoying too, although not as much as I expected to given how much I loved Caballistics, but that might be the problem. As I'm reading it I'm sort of missing that series and while this has ties it's its own thing and I'm still adjusting to that!
Full Tilt Boogie and The Order look really nice so I enjoy looking over the art, but I have absolutely no idea what's going on in either of them to be honest. The Order I used to follow but it got away from me a while ago, and FTB confused the heck out of me immediately and I've never got a grip on it since. I read the special it debuted in, but I still don't seem to have any idea who any of these people are or what they're up to. Still, it looks nice and others seem to be following it so that's probably my bad.
The Prog feels rather fresh right now. Lost of new stuff, even if one of those (Diaboliks) is connected to some old(ish) stuff. Good all round, even if I really need to re-read The Order to figure out what's going on.
Only read Dredd so far. I'm not always totally on board with Rob Williams's Dredd but this is good stuff. So... Have I got this wrong, or is [spoiler]Giant dead[/spoiler]?
[spoiler]No. He was punched out. Wan was shot[/spoiler]
Ah, ok. Thanks
Anyone else think 'Chronoclysm!' would have been a better title for the strip than 'The Order'?
Pleased to say that I am definitely feeling the warm fuzzies for my tactile, all-analogue prog. Though perhaps the admittedly atmospheric cover doesn't 'pop' quite as much as it should. AG seems a little crowded out of the frame - perhaps the camera could have pulled back a little, or shifted the focus onto the ship. Ah well.
Actually pleased that there's been no prologue or other preamble to 'End Of Days'. While it's always nice to extend a story, sometimes it's better just to get stuck in. Although the narrative gets a bit confused this week in terms of who suffers which fate, I love the revelation (or should that be 'Revelation') that this time it's basically us, the stupid humans, causing our own downfall. Airborne nano-food? Yeah, I can get with that. It'll probably happen one day.
The Out rocks up with a stunning first page - and belatedly, a proper logo. However although we get
a big picture we're still not given
the big picture, as a plot proves elusive. Is the whole thing going to be loosely-structured in the vein of Halo Jones book II? Or... I'm not quite sure
why, but... I've got a tiny inkling at the back of my thrill-synapses that we're being lulled into a false sense of security and this is going to take a really dark and unexpected turn at some point. Any anagrams of 'Cyd Finlea' which might give the game away?
Quote from: JimmyNailz on 30 June, 2020, 12:35:47 PM
Turner wasn't the only art historical nod in the prog this week. The last panel of The Out was definitely a nod to Edouard Manet's "A Bar at the Folies-Bergere
Nice spot. Also, Cyd's backpack has the same 'CYD' logo she uses as her signature.
I'm definitely of the school of thought that The Order (did such a disjointed strip ever have a more ironic title?) is best enjoyed on a prog-by-prog basis and that I don't need to refer to previous instalments or otherwise make attempts to recall the storyline. In fact I'm certain this was the way it's
meant to be enjoyed.
Full Tilt Boogie gets a little cutesy this week, which is OK, 'cause it's still brilliant, but I hope it bears its teeth again soon.
Thrill levels at optimum in the house of Diaboliks, with a nicely structured instalment.
All this and more Brink to come (that's the 2020 'best strip' poll sewn up already then) - business as usual for the GCC!
(the
what?)
Quote from: norton canes on 02 July, 2020, 11:07:33 AM
Anyone else think 'Chronoclysm!' would have been a better title for the strip than 'The Order'?
Its too hard to say out loud!
Quote from: Tjm86 on 27 June, 2020, 07:34:56 PM
FOTF - next series of The Brink!!!!!!
IKR! And shouldn't we have heard about a collected Volume 4 by now?
Quote from: CalHab on 30 June, 2020, 11:06:34 AM
Diaboliks- I liked this- the Bond-esque paranormal investigator getting a comeuppance. Again, a fun story.
I'm pretty sure Damien Dellamore is a Dylan Dog (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dylan_Dog) analogue, (based on the limited knowledge I have of the character - never actually read any of the comics).
Quote from: M.I.K. on 07 July, 2020, 01:34:57 AM
Quote from: CalHab on 30 June, 2020, 11:06:34 AM
Diaboliks- I liked this- the Bond-esque paranormal investigator getting a comeuppance. Again, a fun story.
I'm pretty sure Damien Dellamore is a Dylan Dog (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dylan_Dog) analogue, (based on the limited knowledge I have of the character - I've never actually read any of the comics).
Quote from: The Enigmatic Dr X on 28 June, 2020, 11:23:31 PM
Dredd
Surely he's the incarnation of Death? If you were going to choose a human personification of a rider of the apocalypse, then the planet's biggest murderer would be a go-to choice.
Well done on your prediction Dr X, you were spot on!
I'm just reading this prog for the first time proper and it struck me on the brill McNeil close up panel with Dredd where his internal thoughts mention "all the bio-tech in that old, creaking body".
How this is in direct contrast to the rejuve malarky that went on a few years ago and more aligned with the Wagner school of character development of Dredd's aging process.
Nice one as ever Mr Williams!