Read the text article promoting Philip Bond's Geezer, then went to the site to see about ordering. They wanted $90 to ship a $10 book to the UK! (Oh and the $16 tax). Is this Brexit at work?
No. That's a stupid set-up at work. First, there should be no tax. This is a VAT-free item. Secondly, $90 is more than I paid for my priority FedEx orders from InStockTrades, which included several omnibus hardcovers. You'd expect some hefty postage if this is packaged well. But even so, $90 is bloody ridiculous. Maybe see if Gosh in London has any copies left and is willing to send one out to you.
EDIT: The tax is presumably US sales tax, thinking about it. 15% isn't current UK VAT. But also, god knows what would happen when such a comic reached the UK. There's a reasonable chance you'd be hit for import duty if this lot don't know what they're doing. This is as bad as the horror show that was Atomic Robo's Kickstarter.
Thanks, there was no mention of a UK supplier in the article. I'll try Gosh.
Philip Bond says you can get Geezer here if you're in the UK: https://geezerblimey.bigcartel.com
Meanwhile, in the Meg itself ...
The current lineup is not massively to my taste in all honesty. I can't quite get into the current crop of Devlin Waugh tales, try as I might. In all honesty I've never been a major fan but as things stand right now I'm completely lost. The same goes for Death Metal. It seems to have drifted in ways I can't quite get my head around.
Completing the supernatural trilogy for this month is Storm Warning. Normally Langley's artwork leaves me cringing when he is on anything but cover duties but this works well. He seems to have turned back the clock to his pre-digital era. Colours are better suited to the work. It's actually something I can follow for a change. Of the three in this genre it's far and away the best.
Which leaves an Edgington / D'israeli Dredd and Wagner / MacNeil on Chopper. Two strong creative teams. Both at the top of their games. Wagner running some oldies that suit Macneil's talents. Edgington going with some fairly predictable elements too that let D'israeli strut his stuff. One moving on their tale, the other wrapping theirs up.
All round then this month's left me a bit flat (although it might still be me rather than the meg). The text piece on McMahon's Apex edition makes me wish I had the cash to spare. Looks like a thing of beauty. An interesting little piece on Baikie's connection to Scapa Flow and an advertorial for the Dredd boardgame round out the text pieces along with Bond's latest comic endeavour.
It's going to be interesting to see how things go with the return to the square bound format next month. In all honesty I'm not too disappointed to see the loss of the floppies. The news that the reprints are going to take in IDW's Dredd stuff as well as bits from the Treasury are certainly welcome. I'd be more than happy to see variable quality treasury stuff if it means we get some lost gems from the past and as far as the IDW stuff is concerned whilst it hasn't blown me away in the past I'd be happy to see if does improve with a revisit.
Cover by Tom Foster:
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FhM3F70XwAAQCwh?format=jpg&name=large)
Cover and Logo:
(https://dyn.media.forbiddenplanet.com/61vN4oew3xGKWocjrQvJQzbqz_U=/trim/fit-in/779x1024/filters:format(webp)/https://media.forbiddenplanet.com/products/2f/76/85df187f04c4412526107b2966c46d11436c.jpeg)
i got this in but not the prog i still have yet to read it but i think theres some time travel shenanigans going on with some of the ads in the meg. An advert for the christmas prog and an advert for an ultimate collection book thats not due out til the beginning of december
A few things are also confirmed in the meg as well:
- From next issue the IDW Dredd Year One and Mega-City 2 stories will be in the meg
- Joe Pineapples are going to be part of the xmas prog (and The Out as well)
Quote from: The Monarch on 16 November, 2022, 05:30:11 AM
an advert for an ultimate collection book thats not due out til the beginning of december
Which is —what— two weeks away...?
Yep, and the Christmas prog also comes out a week before the next issue of the Megazine does.
Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 16 November, 2022, 08:57:18 AM
Quote from: The Monarch on 16 November, 2022, 05:30:11 AM
an advert for an ultimate collection book thats not due out til the beginning of december
Which is —what— two weeks away...?
you lie it can't be two weeks away....oh my god where is the time going
Maybe it's covered in the story and I missed it but why is Storm Warning set three years in the future of the Dreddverse present?
Quote from: JudgeJudi on 16 November, 2022, 02:43:41 PM
Maybe it's covered in the story and I missed it but why is Storm Warning set three years in the future of the Dreddverse present?
Not just that, Death Metal is set in the future as well.
Because that is set so far - twenty years - I think we will find it's either not real or will turn out to be something where they end up traveling in time to avoid being a dark future.
It cannot be "real" because there is no chance that Dredd never encounters them again in the 'present'.
Storm Warming I just find weird because nothing in the narrative as far as I can tell needs it to be slightly in the future.
The upcoming price rise slightly concerns me. £7.99? That's a 33% increase. The inclusion of strips I've already got may push me ever-so-slightly towards perhaps, possibly, maybe, giving it up. Can't buy these things forever, and sixteen quid a month (I buy my eldest a copy) may prove too much.
SBT
Quote from: SmallBlueThing(Reborn) on 16 November, 2022, 06:23:35 PM
The upcoming price rise slightly concerns me. £7.99?
I think the price it is just for xmas meg since it is going to be 144 pages
Quote from: broodblik on 16 November, 2022, 07:02:27 PM
Quote from: SmallBlueThing(Reborn) on 16 November, 2022, 06:23:35 PM
The upcoming price rise slightly concerns me. £7.99?
I think the price it is just for xmas meg since it is going to be 144 pages
That sound you just heard was my arthritic fingers cracking as I crossed them.
SBT
In the new year the price drops to £6.99 - according to Forbidden Planet website.
Enjoyed this one.
Storm Warning was probably the weakest of the strips, but it was enjoyable, moved things on nicely and looked great Clint Langley's art really working here. So yeah if that's the weakest we're in good shape.
Death Metal Planet is pretty good too. Maybe not as strong yet as previous stories in this series but the only real problem is these Death Metal Band baddies are all a bit cliche. Still the whole thing is very enjoyable and I'm really looking forward to seeing how all this drive Roscoe's development forward. Its good stuff.
As is Dredd, mind of the pack but its good stuff from Edginton and D'Israeli. Brill colourful design for bright colourful characters. The whole thing zips along very nicely and is just place fun.
Surfer next, its just pure craft from two absolute masters. Superb stuff.
So what can beat that well Devlin Waugh of course. Ales Kot just gets Devlin while not being slavish and making the whole thing his own. Its rich, intriguingly ploted, character driven, scary and just plain brilliant. Add to that Rob Richardson's Yeowellesque art perfectly setting the story in motion and you have just plain amazing comics.
Decent text pieces, and so what if the floppie is story we've read recently all that's about to change as the Meg gets a revamp. Exciting times and the old era has been wrapped up in fine style.
B/W Cover:
(https://2000ad.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/4.jpg)
Quote from: broodblik on 17 November, 2022, 07:51:27 AM
B/W Cover:
That's SO good in black and white. Wow!
(Not that the colours are bad I should say, but that line work...)
Agreed.
Slapping a big old title over that foreground ribcage does the picture no favours.
Cover: Yep. The combination of massive logo and massive coverline marginalises the art. A pity.
Dredd: Very enjoyable. This could easily have run to one or two more parts, but its succinct nature worked well enough. Given one of the reveals, it almost felt like there was a tangential Scarlet Traces crossover!
Storm Warning: An odd one. Something about Langley's art propels me back to the vol. 2 days of the Meg, although it's clearly far better in terms of storytelling. The strip itself works well enough.
Devlin: This hasn't grabbed me as much as the previous run, but it's really days yet. I'm curious to know how the twist will be shifted back to some kind of status quo – assuming that happens.
Death: Urgh. I'm not keen on this at all, I'm afraid. The enemies are cliches. And we're back on the Dark Judges escape treadmill.
Surfer: Good stuff – unsurprisingly, given the team.
Floppy: You'll be missed, kinda. I'll admit my patience was wearing thin a little when we got things like Feral and Foe, but by grud those Robin Smith cover books were fantastic. This month's was solid. I liked the first strip a lot more than the second and, to be honest, didn't remember much about them.
It'll be interesting to see how the new format shakes out next month. That would have seemed a good moment for a full refresh, rather than starting with part three of four ongoing stories, but there you go. I'm not really looking forward to Mega City Two and the price rise, but it is what it is. (I guess as a subscriber, I'm at least insulated initially from the latter of those.)
So John Reppion says Storm Warning set at same time as Strange and Darke and so I think this is actually in the past and 2137...
Storm Warning is really strong at the moment. I think it might actually be the perfect match for Clnt Langley's ethereal style, a character who sees ghosts everywhere.
New Devlin Waugh artist also killing it.
Death Metal Planet is making very little sense, and frankly between these three strips I feel like I'm in the 90s again, where comics looked cool, sounded grown up, and I hadn't a clue what was going on...
Anyone else getting Pat Mills vibes off David Hine's scripting - espeically the sequence where 'Fish' loudly attempts to prove his metal bonafides? It's a bold writer who's angling to take that mantle on!
Quote from: AlexF on 25 November, 2022, 09:34:16 AM
Anyone else getting Pat Mills vibes off David Hine's scripting - espeically the sequence where 'Fish' loudly attempts to prove his metal bonafides? It's a bold writer who's angling to take that mantle on!
You mean having a character in the far future giving a little lecture on something obscure from our own day in order to prove to the reader that the writer knows his hardcore edgy stuff and thus should not be dismissed as one of those fuddy-duddy middle-class writers that he most certainly is
not?
A good effort from Hine, but I think he'll to have to Mills it up a little more.
Quote from: JWare on 25 November, 2022, 09:47:51 AM
You mean having a character in the far future giving a little lecture on something obscure from our own day in order to prove to the reader that the writer knows his hardcore edgy stuff and thus should not be dismissed as one of those fuddy-duddy middle-class writers that he most certainly is not?
You mean like that Dredd story Pat wrote where he had a judge quoting Sepultura...?
That didn't stick out like a sore thumb, oh, nosiree... :-)
Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 25 November, 2022, 10:17:02 AM
You mean like that Dredd story Pat wrote where he had a judge quoting Sepultura...? That didn't stick out like a sore thumb, oh, nosiree... :-)
You mean like Dredd quoting Hollies lyrics to establish 2000AD's punk credentials?
Fish once really pissed off my mum by taking far too long in front of her in Haddington Post Office.
Quote from: M.I.K. on 25 November, 2022, 12:13:02 PM
Fish once really pissed off my mum by taking far too long in front of her in Haddington Post Office.
Kayleigh, it's too late to say I'm sorry.
Quote from: M.I.K. on 25 November, 2022, 12:13:02 PM
Fish once really pissed off my mum by taking far too long in front of her in Haddington Post Office.
He's known for that. JK Rowling once got the last couple of pieces of salmon out the fishmongers when in front of me... it must be a fish thing.
Quote from: JWare on 25 November, 2022, 11:41:44 AM
You mean like Dredd quoting Hollies lyrics to establish 2000AD's punk credentials?
To be fair, i would have been a bit weird if Dredd had carried Rico saying "God save the Queen, the fascist regime."
Quote from: nxylas on 25 November, 2022, 03:13:14 PM
To be fair, i would have been a bit weird if Dredd had carried Rico saying "God save the Queen, the fascist regime."
To be fair, you have a point.
How about we split the difference between the Hollies and the Pistols and go for, I dunno – early Bowie or something?
Joe shoots Rico and delivers the searing line, '
The papers want to know whose shirts you wear'.
(This could refer back to Rico's criminal activities and leave things open for a a follow-up story that would answer the question.)
Quote from: AlexF on 25 November, 2022, 09:34:16 AM
Anyone else getting Pat Mills vibes off David Hine's scripting - espeically the sequence where 'Fish' loudly attempts to prove his metal bonafides? It's a bold writer who's angling to take that mantle on!
Just read the interview with David Hine where he says death metal is 'parodic' and he doesn't seem to know anything about it, which explains why his death metal characters are such shitty, goofy stereotypes.
I mean, I don't expect anything beyond broad strokes and piss-take in a comic about interdimensional murdering ghosts but this has been really poor stuff.
The 'parodic' line feels lazy. Good parody requires a knowledge of what it is you're taking the piss out of, otherwise you're into generic stereotyping and punching down.
Agreed IP. Metal is ridiculous, and has a fine tradition of taking the piss out of itself, but there's a difference to being on the inside laughing at yourself to being on the outside laughing at.
Tbh I don't really care. A lot of other stuff I like has been mocked in 2000ad that didn't annoy me, but here I just got briefly wound up by what felt like a Daily Mail-esque treatment of something I'm passionate about.