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The price of the Full Colour Omnibus Edition (hardback) has come down to something reasonable so I bought it on a whim. No regrets, no complaints.
It's a lovely volume – pink and blue and solid.
But how about that colouring? Ideologically, I am not opposed. Damage is not being done to the legacy. The b&w version still exists.
But does the coloured version look good?
It tends to work less well in Book 3 where Gibson's inks were more delicate, and there are more than a few instances where things look downright odd, if not wrong. But on the other hand there are plenty of places where it undoubtedly enhances the art.
What mattered to me is that the colouring made the story fresh. It made me pay attention. It made me see things I'd forgotten.

What else is there? Well, there's introductory matter that Moore wrote for earlier editions, there are the scripts for a couple of episodes from Book 3*, and there are various creator notes and sketches.
All nice to have.

Steve MacManus writes the foreword and Kieron Gillen provides the introduction. Both these people are Our People. Both of them Get It. Both are well worth the inclusion.
And then you've got the puff pieces and all that stuff in the blurb proclaiming this to be a groundbreaking feminist work.
Is it? Was it?
In the context of British boys' comics of the '80s this was undoubtedly groundbreaking. Was good use made of the broken ground thereafter? Was the cause of the greater sisterhood advanced? Don't ask me – I'm just here for the words and the pictures.
But let me emphasise, my brothers and sisters, that the words and the pictures are sweet indeed.
I am revelling in a story that I've loved since I was a teenager.
Grace Jones is singing in my head and Miami Vice is on telly later on.

*with one honking great printing error that replaces a page of Chapter 9 with a page from Chapter 10. We never do get to see that page from Chapter 9.



Admit it: doesn't the colouring here just look nice?



Whereas this to my eyes looks off somehow.


And I include this one as a reminder of how Ian Gibson, for all his talent, just wasn't much good at drawing plain women.

The bar has been raised too high.
Back when I was first old enough to stay up for the Eurovision, a young man presented himself in the whitest flariest white flares in all of Europe and rightfully took the trophy home to Ireland.
Forty-four years later we field a balletic transgender Drune and yet we somehow can't place better than sixth?
I ask my fellow Irish squaxx: what must we, as a nation, do now?
What can we do?

Bit dark, JW

Apologies – I got carried away. I forgot that you were ill and delicate and thus less likely to appreciate misplaced frivolity.
It is highly unlikely that Hachette warehouse staff are even now surrounding your house with crudely fashioned weapons in their hands.
Highly unlikely.
Rest easy and get well soon.

Bizarre how such an issue can occur really.

Embittered warehouse workers taking out their frustrations on fat complacent customers who can afford to indulge their childish fancies, while they themselves toil for minimum wage as they watch their own dreams shrivel and die.

The torn pages were a warning.
These people hate you and they have your address.

I had my first wallop with the big COVID stick in January. Boring symptoms included that dry persistent cough (which persisted for a week or more, kept me from sleeping, and pissed me off no end).
A more colourful symptom involved hawking up blood, but that was in the early stages when I was too fucked up to care.
Hives I could certainly have done without.
Sympathies to both Finks.

Forgot to look out for the northern lights last night but I mightn't have seen anything anyway. There's a big hill directly to my north and the light pollution is constant.

Blitzkrieg in the Low Countries Day!
Celebrate by dressing up as a German paratrooper disguised as a Belgian nun.

I try to avoid killing stuff

Harden your heart.
When it comes to moths the chemical route is the only route.
Exterminate the little buggers without mercy or all your quality clobber is gone to dust.
Think of your tweeds and your broadcloths; your morning suits and your evening dress.
Think of your cravats!
Think of what Worcester society will say.

Tough break.
Sincerest sympathies sent from somewhere safely upwind.

[we]

Sorry, been away from the board for a couple of days. 

You spend a weekend cavorting with young witches and you forget who your real friends are?
Just remember: that when the ecstatic music dies down, the sun comes up, and the drugs wear off, the pretty young things are going to put their tops back on and forget about you.
But we'll still be here for you – a cohort of middle-aged men with earnest opinions about old comics.
Now be honest: which would you rather?

If Yosser Hughes was indeed the inspiration for Cornelius Cardew, then we have a genuine 2000ad connection here.

A voice spake from the thunder and asked if I was finishing those crisps.

If Tengri, Lord of the Blue Sky, came to you in a vision and demanded that you subjugate all the people of the steppe and build a pyramid of skulls in His name, I doubt if He'd be fobbed off with such cheap confectionery as a Love Heart.
Pick'n'Mix is the very least that would appease Him, I think.

Have you considered a box of sweets? I mean, do the gods really want raw meat?
OK – Abel's offering was accepted instead of Cain's vegetarian option, but it wasn't like there was an extensive menu.
And did the Feathered Serpent ask for all those human hearts? Would he not have been happier with – I don't know – a choc ice?

if you fancy a nice bank holiday break...?

A licentious neo-pagan hoolie?
I could hand out improving tracts extolling the virtues of temperance and corduroy, I suppose.
But alas, prior commitments and all that. Delighted to be asked though (y'know, provided you weren't planning on ritually killing me).

I take the burning a wicker man approach to May Day (which is exactly what I'll be doing as part of the Kerry celebrations this weekend).

So is it petty criminals you burn or Presbyterian policemen?
Either way, I'm all for freedom of worship, me.