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Messages - Dudley

#47
Film & TV / Re: Doctor Who Series 11 Discussion
05 January, 2019, 08:45:47 AM
A great New Year special that had my kid jumping up and down with excitement (that'd be my boy who just had a Dr Who themed birthday party and sleeps with his sonic screwdriver on the nightstand). We loved the stripping back of the Dalek emphasising their essential deadliness once more, and this older fan liked the return to shooting Dr who in a quarry. The team has really come together well, as shown in the way that the Ryan plot about family held our interest even though it was mostly a static two-hander. Wish the next series would come sooner!
#48
Film & TV / Re: Last movie watched...
21 December, 2018, 10:56:13 AM
Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse.  My boy's first superhero film in the cinema and it sets a really high benchmark. The animation mixes multiple styles in the same frame to really beautiful effect, the characters are all well drawn, and any child watching this will be instantly sold on the idea of future Miles Morales movies. The finale maybe gets a little confusing, but I was impressed with how solid a grasp I had on the space where it was all taking place considering that it was [spoiler]multiple Spidermen swinging through a multiverse crash[/spoiler]. Kingpin was a truly evil-hearted bastard and the secondary villain reveal was a brilliant surprise. Hoping for much, much more of this.
#49
Film & TV / Re: Doctor Who Series 11 Discussion
19 November, 2018, 06:10:43 AM
I'm still a few episodes behind, but can I just declare my love for Chibnall? No idiotic playing with time travel concepts too large to satisfactorily do in 45 minutes, no love saves the day shenanigans, no massive overarching continuity that leaves my kids puzzled and annoyed... just an odd, intellectual, kind hero with a box that means they can have an adventure at any time, and in any place. And some friends who allow for explanations of the complicated stuff. The doctor is for kids again, thank goodness.
#50
Prog / Re: Prog 2106 - End Times
10 November, 2018, 12:38:18 PM
Quote from: Tiplodocus on 08 November, 2018, 01:35:15 PM
Cylinders
In
Droids
And
On
This
Firing
Are
Tharg
His
Prog
All

Rearrange the above to form a sentence that gives my Prog review.

All droids in cylinders are firing on Tharg and this, his Prog!
#51
Film & TV / Re: TWD series 9
06 November, 2018, 07:23:45 AM
Total reboot 5 episodes in?
#52
General / Re: Goodbye Carlos
06 November, 2018, 07:19:08 AM
OBITUARY - The Times

Carlos Ezquerra obituary

Comic-book artist who left Franco's Spain and was inspired by the British punk scene to create the brutal enforcer Judge Dredd

November 6 2018, 12:01am,
The Times


If most of the best-known characters in the universe of comic-book superheroes were American inventions, Batman, Superman and their ilk met their match when Carlos Ezquerra created Judge Dredd, the crime-busting character whose exploits have entertained readers of the leading British comic 2000AD for more than 40 years.

The brutal law enforcer in the post-apocalyptic future urban dystopia of Mega-City One was first drawn by the Spanish-born cartoonist when the weekly comic launched in 1977. Ezquerra's character pursued dastardly villains without the sanctimonious, goody two-shoes style of Clark Kent and the Caped Crusader. When Dredd caught criminals, he did not hand them to due process, but dealt out a violent justice as judge, jury and executioner.

Ezquerra's design for the unsmiling character was partly based on illustrations of soldiers in ancient Greece, but the edgy zips and chains that adorned his black body armour were inspired by the mid-1970s punk scene in suburban Croydon, where the cartoonist was living. Dredd's costume was completed by oversized knee pads, a huge eagle on the epaulette on his right shoulder and a distinctive helmet, which meant his full face was never seen.

"You can recognise Superman by the shield on his chest, Batman by his hood and Dredd by the helmet," Ezquerra said. "He's a bastard, but the kind of bastard we'd all like to have near us when we're in trouble."

It took him just a couple of days to come up with his original drawing for Dredd, chain-smoking his way through tins of Spanish cigarillos as he did so. "When I create a character, I do it quickly, because the longer you stay working on an idea, the more chances you have to spoil it," he said. His creation is still appearing in 2000AD as the comic's longest-running character and has its own spin-off title, Judge Dredd Megazine.

Ezquerra's character has spawned two feature films, in which Dredd was portrayed by Sylvester Stallone and Karl Urban, several video games, a series of novels, audiobooks, a board game and even a pinball machine. Dredd has also been celebrated in pop songs by the Human League, Madness, Anthrax and the Manic Street Preachers, among others, and was one of ten British comic characters commemorated in a series of stamps issued by the Royal Mail in 2012.

When Stallone portrayed the character in the 1995 film Judge Dredd, it was widely reported that he would be sure to get the role because Ezquerra had based his original drawings on the actor's impressive physique in Rocky two decades previously. Sadly the story turned out to be untrue.

"The idea came from a joke I made when I was in London for the film premiere," the cartoonist said. "I suppose my English is not good enough to make jokes."

Working with the writer John Wagner, Ezquerra created a pantheon of other memorable comic-book heroes, including Johnny Alpha, a mutant bounty hunter in the Strontium Dog comic, and the Stainless Steel Rat, one of just two characters he drew that were inspired by a flesh-and-blood role model. The other was Major Easy, and both were based on the actor James Coburn. "Mostly I visualise the characters in my mind, but I loved his look in The Magnificent Seven," Ezquerra explained.

While many of 2000AD's most successful artists used the comic as a launch pad to work in the bigger and more lucrative US market dominated by Marvel and DC Comics, Ezquerra remained loyal to the publication that gave him his break. Even after he had returned to continental Europe to live in Andorra with his wife, ConcepciĆ³n, he continued to work for 2000AD. He is survived by his wife and two sons, one of whom, Hector, has often inked his father's drawings.

Born in the tiny town of Ibdes in Spain in 1947, Carlos Sanchez Ezquerra was enthralled by comic books from an early age and began drawing for Spanish publishers when in his teens, working mainly on war stories and westerns.

By 1972 Ezquerra had a British agent, who found him work in the UK market illustrating soft-focus, romantic stories aimed at young girls for the magazines Valentine and Mirabelle. He also undertook work drawing a variety of adventure strips for The Wizard, which offered an outlet for the dark humour and abrasiveness that were to become Ezquerra's hallmark.

His dislike of Franco's fascist regime at home and a growing number of British commissions led him to move to London in 1973. He was soon drawing the comic strip Rat Pack, inspired by the film The Dirty Dozen, and Major Easy for the newly launched war comic Battle Picture Weekly. When the magazine's editor Pat Mills and chief writer John Wagner launched 2000AD, they turned to Ezquerra to visualise Judge Dredd.

When another artist was employed to work on the strip there were ructions that resulted in Ezquerra walking out, but he was soon back. He not only drew Dredd through what fans of comics regard as the character's quintessential era in long-running storylines with titles such as The Apocalypse War, Necropolis and Judgement Day, but by 1980 had added Strontium Dog, Tharg The Mighty, ABC Warriors and The Stainless Steel Rat to his portfolio.

A lifelong cigar smoker, he had a lung removed after contracting cancer in 2010. After the operation, Ezquerra shrugged, picked up his pens again and asked his readers: "Who the hell needs two for drawing?"
Carlos Ezquerra, cartoon illustrator, was born on November 12, 1947. He died of lung cancer on October 1, 2018, aged 70.
#53
Off Topic / Re: Podcasts
03 June, 2018, 06:15:05 PM
The Beef and Dairy Network. Deadpan comedy about beef and dairy farming. Quite a lot funnier than it sounds.

Last Podcast on the Left is great as long as you have a very very dark sense of humour and avoid the dull creepy pasta episodes.

How Did This Get Made? is my weekly guaranteed laugh.
#54
Film & TV / Re: Black Mirror Season 4
21 January, 2018, 12:15:59 PM
Best: Hang the DJ. Very well handled twist that I didn't see coming.
Favourite: USS Callister. Just good fun throughout.
Least favourite: Arkangel. Good premise, unbelievable characters.
#55
Quote from: Buttonman on 14 January, 2018, 05:42:31 PM
Paul's letter footprint stretches waaay back to Prog 268 in 1982. He has been awarded the Beast Code MMM, which was stripped from James Mackay who has been stuck on 9 since 2008. Sorry James but it's a tough old world in the letters game.


Bugger. (9? Are you sure they were all me?)
#56
Film & TV / Re: Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
28 November, 2017, 11:11:24 AM
Since when has Scarlet Witch been played by Julianne Moore?
#57
Film & TV / Re: Wonder Woman 2017
30 July, 2017, 10:24:00 PM
Quote from: Frank on 30 July, 2017, 01:10:24 PM
As soon as someone proves there's a paying audience for action films with female villains, The Rock will be wailing on Meryl Streep's face with a 2x4.

Fast and Furious' most recent outing was with a villainess I think.
#58
Quote from: radiator on 19 July, 2017, 09:56:27 PM
Why would Stannis sacrifice his only living heir if his goal is to be king?

Because he was persuaded by Melisandre that destiny and the Red God required him to be king, the better to see off the coming darkness.  His goal was never to establish a dynasty.

Quote
Why would the Boltons - an upjumped minor house with a tenuous claim on the North - immediately turn on the Lannisters with little to gain from doing so, and when they have only just forged an alliance?
What the hell is Littlefinger even up to in the North, and why did he think marrying Sansa to the Boltons would be a good idea? Isn't he supposed to be the mastermind behind basically everything that has transpired so far? What is his endgame here exactly? Chaos for the sake of chaos?

All explained in this scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dcs4lnXebY
Roose was persuaded by Baelish that the Iron Throne was weak (which made sense at that point, with Tommen just crowned), that Cersei had lost power to Margaery (who favoured Sansa and would bless the match), and that consolidating his power in the North was most important.  Marrying Ramsay to Sansa legitimised his rule as King in the North, which is the largest and most powerful of the Seven Kingdoms (so not a jumped-up little house any more).  Baelish, meanwhile, explained his strategy quite clearly to Cersei at some point: pit opposing forces against each other and move in to mop up the remains.  Here he wanted to put Stannis against Boltons, then use Lannister forces to move in and become King in the North.  This is consistent with his modus operandi since season one.

Quote
Why doesn't Jaime seem to be particularly bothered about the atrocity Cersei just committed?
Give it time.  He's been hopelessly in love with Cersei since he was a kid, he can't just turn on her immediately.

Quote
How could Euron build 1000 ships in the space of a few months, on an island that has few trees or natural resources?
Yeah.  Poor scripting there.  They could easily have had him return with a big fleet and just add a few more ship to it.  No way round this one.

Quote
Why didn't the Lannisters immediately retaliate against the Martells for killing Myrcella?
What with High Sparrow etc, they had a few other things on.

Quote
If Alliser Thorne and his cronies' grievance with Jon was that he allowed the Wildlings through the Wall, wouldn't it have been a better idea to assassinate him before he did that rather than after?
Alliser Thorne spent his entire life defending the rules.  It takes a lot of time and conspiring to overcome that.

Quote
What possible reason (other than a contrived way of upping the drama) would Sansa have for not telling Jon about the Knights of the Vale before the Battle of of Winterfell?
She didn't trust Baelish to actually bring them until they arrived.

Quote
Why did the Faceless Men have an inexplicable change of heart about Arya, and let her go after she killed the Waif?
I think Jaqen had a serious soft spot for her: it was the Waif who insisted she be allowed to kill Arya.  In that last scene, Arya had a sword to his heart, which also may have helped his decision.

Quote
Why does everyone seem to know exactly what everyone else is up to at the moment?
Ravens got faster, and there are things people don't know - nobody knows about the Brotherhood, or who killed the Freys, etc. 

QuoteFor that matter, why does everyone assume Tommen committed suicide and was not murdered, when no one was there to see it happen?
Nobody else in his heavily guarded apartments, and nobody would dare accuse Cersei of such a thing.

#59
I was confused to see The Twins turn up in the credits, given Arya's opening action, but then I realised hapless ol' Edmure is going to have a very interesting season...
#60
Film & TV / Re: New Doctor
17 July, 2017, 11:09:23 AM
Quote from: Leigh S on 16 July, 2017, 11:25:24 PM
The Doctor as an identification figure for geeky/spectrum kids like myself shouldn't be underestimated.  It is hard to think of another character in popular fiction who fulfilled that asexual/non aggressive male persona.

There's a lot of talk about just how important representation is for minorities, so if you wanted to be geeky about it, you could say the Doctor was fulfilling just that for atypical boys.

If you had asked me a while back, I'd have been wary just on that basis. but then you realise there are geeky/spectrum females who haven't even had the luxury of one role model - the fact we can share ours with them is rather wonderful, no?

That is really very well put.