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Next few books have just appeared on the Hachette site

• 143: Harlem Heroes Vol 1
• 165: Button Man Vol 1
• 141: Slain Dragontamer + Black Siddha

From the credits on the Dragontamer book I suspect it'll also have the Lord Weird Sloug Feg story from the Villans special and The Bogatyr.

So it's all of the Machine Law trade and some of the Guatemala one missing out:

• By private contract
• The trouble with Harry
• Get Jerry Sing

Apparently, it's also pretty good at debugging code. Sort of a super-debugger. Why spend all day searching for an elusive logic-bug when the AI can point at it within seconds?

Be careful here - anything you upload into ChatGPT it will retain a copy of and it will be added to the training pool so bits of it could get regurgitated at other people. Depending on what code you're working on this could be a major problem. I'm pretty sure my boss would be unimpressed to find I'd given copies of the companies IP to it and I'm pretty sure it could be grounds for dismissal under my contract. Certinaly not something I'd like to test anyway.

Latest books (Return To Armageddon and Mazeworld) arrived yesterday. Had a quite evening so cracked into Return. I was anticipating it might be a bit of a slog but it was anything but. Ended up reading the whole thing. It cracks along at a terrific pace and is full of mad twists and turns, the ending is a bit lame but given the time/audience it was written for is fine. Redondo's art is superb throughout. Really glad this one got included.

Also recently got through Snow Tiger which was similarly awesome. Nice to still get the odd surprise in the collection and this one definitley delivered. If you're cherry-picking I'd highly recommend adding this one to your list.

Can anyone confirm the contents of Zenith volume 1?
I'm not likely to get it as I have the hardback set, but I'm curious about the contents and the back matter.
Did they include the Winter special story? Any commentary about Grant Morrison's ownership claims?

Contents follow the first 2 hardbacks so; Phase 1, Interlude 1, Interlude 2, Phase 2, Maximan. That last one was in a Winter Special so I'm assuming is the story you're referring to.

Back matter talks about super hero comics in general, the design of Zenith (and links back to Paradax), the influence of pop culture on the story and some general blurb about Morrison and Yeowell's careers. Nothing about the ownership claims.

Mean Team, I haven't read all of it yet, but so far...no wonder this thing got such a bad name.  I kept thinking that it couldn't be THAT bad could it.  I guess I was wrong.

It's a strong contentder for worst book in the collection - the Bellardinelli art might be the one thing that saves it from that ignominious title.

Following the trend of recently seen as opposed to upcoming.

Caught Benefits at the weekend. A friend raved about their show in Manchester a few days earlier and he wasn't wrong. If you like your music noisy and confrontational then you need to see this band. It's like Sleaford Mods crossed with industrial noise. https://benefitstheband.bandcamp.com/track/flag-3

Very happy to see we're getting a 3rd volume of Kingdom. That's one of the few cases where I've resisted the urge to buy the trade. Given the inclusion of Shako I guess we'll also get the cross-over one off from the special which is sweet.

What will be in Machine Law?

At a guess (given the art credits):

Harvey
War Buds
Machine Law
Guatemala

Industrial doom cover of Portishead's Glory Box by Author & Punisher https://authorandpunisher.bandcamp.com/album/kr-ller

As someone that didn't read it in the Meg, what is the forum verdict on The Returners?

Both The Returners and Blunt read much better in the collected editions than they did in the Meg (imo). Wasn't expecting to enjoy either of them as much as I did. Far more likely to reread those than trash like Mean Team. The Middenface book was also a pleasant surprise, it's by far the best of the recent SD books in the collection.

This one is definitely in the running for worst book in the collection for me. It's final position all hinges on Bad City Blue at this point.

Well the book did get better after the end of Return of Mean Team; Survivor is probably the best thing to come out of that whole sorry mess and it's a shame it didn't get a longer run.

Bad City Blue is... fine. It's a perfectly serviceable thrill that doesn't overstay it's welcome. Not going to change the world or anything but does at least mean this book isn't a complete waste of shelf space.

Heh. I never thought to look at the tab titles.

Same - although scanning back it looks like it's only a recent few which have been done that way.  A lot of the old ones are just random numbers.

Oh, nice! Looks like Snow/Tiger will also have Bendatti Vendetta (Morrison/Burns). Not sure why Abnett and Sullivan are on the cover though...?

Black Light?

Return to Armageddon must have that along with Project Overkill and Death Planet.

Can't say I'm excited to see Death Planet on the list - seem to recall that being a bit crap when I read it in a meg floppy.

Barney only has the one entry for it http://www.2000ad.org/?zone=thrill&page=profiles&choice=darke

I guess it stalled when John Smith stopped writing for the prog

I think Bellardinelli's lovely artwork is far better in the risible part 2 than in part 1.

On the flipside though, we could use more Henry Moon!

Yeah I think book 2 plays towards Bellarindelli's strength for crazy alien worlds and weird creatues a lot more than book 1 did. If it wasn't for the art I think I'd have given up a couple of episodes in.

This one is definitely in the running for worst book in the collection for me. It's final position all hinges on Bad City Blue at this point.

Return of the Mean Team really is drivel isn't it   The first book was at least readable but this is a real struggle. What a sad waste of Bellardinelli's art.