Yeah, Sue Bananas isn’t really any sillier than the name of our protagonist, is it? Very Mills thought to have a full page of this new character so we know we need to be excited about them. I imagine she’s either going to turn up, coincidentally right after Joe has mentioned (for the first time ever) this important character from his past that he’s never mentioned before, or we’ll get some flashbacks. Having said all that I’m not minding having this in the prog. It seems like what was meant to be a short inconsequential and quite silly story has gained this weight of significance since we’ve been waiting for it for eight years or something and because it’s probably Mills’s last for the prog. Put all that aside and it’s just a kind of silly knockabout few episodes a bit like Nemesis and Deadlock. I feel a bit bad for Clint Langley having to finish it off, because it wasn’t his project and it’s a bit of a rubbish script. I like Langley’s work itself though- he seems to have kept Bisley’s colour palette and is making it work, no mean feat. And it does feel like a throwaway 90s strip, but it’s a strange little curio and I’m ok with it being there. Even though it’s not very good, and doesn’t make much sense, it certainly brings a change of tone!
Elsewhere Dredd’s great. True enough things could look a lot more futuristic but I really like Assirelli. His work on The Returners was very decompressed with lots of splash pages and big panels; the storytelling here with a more traditional 2000ad ‘condensed’ style is just as clear and flowing.
Like others, I enjoy The Out best when it captures that sense of Cyd being hopelessly lost in a vast universe, drifting further and further away to stranger and stranger places. The war stuff keeps things grounded a bit. Still a great story and happy to see where it goes. I cannot fathom how Harrison does what he does.
I’ve not given up on Hope but I have lost the plot a bit and thought the bottom two frames of page two where Broxton has just kind of tilted the same static image was really jarring. Some of the repeated headshots and images in this story have drawn me out of it a bit - people with exactly the same facial expression and lighting in multiple different scenes and such like. I like Broxton’s work a lot though, would be interested in his thoughts behind this. It’s certainly added a nightmarish quality to the story.
This is the first series of Vex that I’m genuinely enjoying. Not sure why that is, probably I just wasn’t concentrating enough, but it seems like there are multiple plot strands here and at the moment and I think Im keeping up with them. Vex himself remains an enigma and Midnight is fantastic. Jake Lynch is excelling himself too and Jim Boswell’s covers are nice. Good stuff - I wonder if Carroll had a whole overall storyline planned for this strip or is just seeing where it goes at present.
Anyway. I’m enjoying the prog right now.
