Prog 1712 - Vote Tanenbaum

[TordelBack]

For 'Best of the Prog' I'm torn between HOLY SHIT IT'S BRENDAN McCARTHY and Ewing on an amusing-enough Dredd, or the Worley and Pleece on an excellent Dandridge, which this week avoided most of the pitfalls of previous episodes.  Stranded though it is on an unforgiving iceflow somewhere between Bix Barton, Ampney Crucis and (dare I say it) Bec and Kawl, I think the inclusion of such clever pop culture refs gives it a chance of carving out its own niche.

SinDex was more of the same, which is all I ask.  May it never end.

The Future Shock was badly scheduled, which wasn't its fault, but Yeowell seemed to be in Detonator X mode, which made it unnecessarily confusing.

Slaine apparently ended, which was nice, but then it should never have started.  Oh who am I kidding, it was nice to see the Guledig again.

Good Prog, and oh that Rogue image!

[Paul faplad Finch]

Almost forgot to do this.

Cover : Very nice. I'm becoming quite the fan of Karl Richardson.

Dredd : Don't have the nostalgia factor for McCarthy that others might and taken on it's own I'm afraid I can't rave about it. Not saying it's bad, in fact I quite like it and could stand to see more but if I hadn't been told it was a big deal, I wouldn't have thought it was, if you know what I mean. It would have been just another art job.

As for the script, I loved it. As a 'more than casual but not obsessive' fan of Who I was chuckling along merrily to the refs I did get, while knowing there were probably plenty more going straight over my head. Very good stuff.And for those who think that the nods are a little too blatant or that there are too many of them - I reckon that a story of this type has got to go for it. Doing something like this subtle would be neither one thing nor the other, it needs to be full blooded and a bit over the top.

Sin/Dex : I really do love this strip. I'm not going to go into a big list of all the thing that are great here but I would like to single out Anthony Williams, and possibly Rob Taylor although I'm not sure what he does, sorry, for having made the strip his/their own. I have always loved the story with this series but have sometimes had a problem with the artistic choices (notably Simon Davis) but this is cracking stuff.

In terms of the Charon/Dex connection, I've been thinking about it since it was mooted on here, though I confess it hadn't occured to me before, and I have to say that I doubt it. First of all, and this may be my memory going squew-with but wasn't Charon already cropping up in the strip from time to time before all the duplicate stuff started happening? If I'm right about that, it could just be Abnett playing the very long game but that wouldn'yt adress the fact that the two characters are presented as having  markedly different skin colours. Wouldn't either Dan Abnett or, ahem, Tharg, have given the artist a nudge on that score if that was the way the story was headed?

Future Shock : Better than last weeks in that the ending actually made sense but not so good in that it wasn't all that much of a shock.

Slaine : This strip actually got some goodwill from me last week. Lost it again this week. A nothing ending to a pointless story. The monster looked cool though, I'll give them that.

Dandridge :  I'm really enjoying this series. I'm a big fan of what I'm seeing here artwise from Warren Pleece, not having seen much of his stuff before (did he do parts of Lucifer?) and Alec Worley s script is, now that it's gotten going, really grabbing me.

Yeah, there is the overriding impression that this serial is essentially a pilot for the Dandridge series proper, with Dandridge, Shelley and the ghost child as regulars, but it's no less fun for that.

So all told, I loved 3 stories, kinda liked one more and disagreed with one. Not bad at all, so I'll not be adding my name to the 'weak run' brigade.

[Mardroid]

Okay, just puchased and read. Actually downloading the latest Meg from Clickwheel too. They're very early this month!

Anyhow:

Cover: Lovely art. Nice detail and tone. He looks more like The Kingpin (Fisk) from Daredevil than Moses Tanenbaum but it's a good take on the character.

Thrills of the Future: Nice panel one-shot of the upcoming Rogue Trooper, although I've seen it before on-line. I'm looking forward to this anyway. So far my only exposure is the great game (I never did get beyond that train though) and one or two on-line comics, one of which was a parody featuring a soldier called 'Butt-Plug'.

Dredd- As I haven't watched a whole lot of older Who I'm sure some of the references would have passed me by. I got the Susan ref. I think. That was the name of the Doctor's daughter, right?

I don't quite buy the idea that a nano-cloud* would give a man time powers just from the knowledge in his head, but it's just the kind of pseudo science one would see in RTD written Who and actually works well with the parody nature of this story.

A nice, start, I like it a lot. I Like how Doctor Watt actually looks like a bit of an amalgamation of different Doctors. It is also great that Doctor Watt actually works as a self contained character in his own right, very much part of Dredd's world  rather than just being a Doctor parody. The bright colours in the art threw me a bit, but I'm getting used to it and it fits the tone of this episode well. I think the Dredd looks a bit weedy though and could use a shave.


Sinister Dexter: Not a whole lot happened this episode, but the bit that did was interesting. I'd like to know what the smeg is going on with Charon though! I'd also like to say, I enjoy the art of this a lot. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea for some reason.

Future Shocks: Universal Masterchef:  Ha, ha! Loved this! I like the warped humour although it's a bit stomach churning. I'm not sure why the presenter lady is so small though. Is she a hologram? Despite the futuristic nature of this world Steve Yeowell's art gives it a very old-school flavour (no pun intended) especially where Plastic Fran is concerned. (Oh wait, the penny has dropped. She's an ickle robot right?) She wouldn't be out of place in a burlesque show. And it works!

Slaine: I like the art, although it's not great for action. I haven't minded this story either... but I found the ending decidedly 'meh'. I mean, how did they miss the king of the Cyth in their earlier exorcism?

Dandridge: Good. I thought the Shelley character might look weird or deformed under his mask but apart from a scar he just looks... well his face fits the suit. I hope we get more answers concerning what he is about. I'm enjoying this though. (And why is the little girl ghost so small? Okay, why not. I guess ectoplasmic entities can be any size.)

Great all round. Only duffer for me was Slaine (apart from the art). And I'm not usually a hater of that strip.




*Actually, didn't something similar appear in (relatively) new Who too? What were the nano machines that appeared in that world war 2 Ecclestone Episode debuting Captain Jack? If this has been answered, never mind. I haven't read the rest of the thread  not wanting other peoples reviews to colour my own.

[Mardroid]

Concerning Shelley, I had an idea that it might be Frankenstein's creature, or rather an equivalent a while back, largely due to the ice-flow reference.

Seeing the name 'Shelley' actually threw me a bit instead of confirming my guess, as I found myself thinking of Mary Shelley's husband. I realise now I was just over-thinking it. It's likely not the Frankenstein's creature (which perhaps explains why this one is illiterate) but based on him. This is a parallel world after all. And if it is the same, 'Shelley' is a good choice of name, what with the fact the creature is nameless in the book and all.

[Martin Howe]

have no idea what the bit about an arctic shore refers to either. Presumably somebody will spoil it some day.

Or maybe you'll work it out for yourself one day. Which, to my mind will be much more rewarding than having it spoon-fed to you through lazy journalistic research.

Lazy? For doing something one has no duty to do in the first place? Reading 2000AD is not meant to be a job, chore or task, surely? If there is to be a "great reveal" at the end then OK it is necessary to keep the reader guessing; but if not, perhaps writers could make fewer assumptions about what readers have already read.

The consensus here seems to be that Shelley is [spoiler]"Frankenstein's monster"[/spoiler], but for those who have never read the book..., references like "arctic shores" will go over the head and Googling that a couple weeks ago gave up nothing sensible.

Maybe it's just me; but mystery, suspense and a possible "Great Reveal" seems a bit over-the-top when applied to light-hearted fluff; it works great in serious works of empire building and galaxy spanning and universe shattering stuff like Shakara or clever detective stuff like various Dredd.

[chris_askham]

Hm, you'd have thought that the reappearance of the Guledig in Slaine after all this time would be something rather special, but just like Ro-Jaws return in the ABC's recently, it seems to have a been a completely wasted oppurtunity. Thanks again, Pat...