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Messages - TordelBack

#16
Film & TV / Re: Current TV Boxset Addiction
31 May, 2021, 10:32:40 PM
Quote from: TordelBack on 11 May, 2021, 10:25:27 AM
Mare of Easttown. Best cop thing I've watched in ages, a very contemporary smalltown Cagney & Lacey, without Cagney. Helps that its long episodes are being doled out weekly, there's a lot of misery to digest.

Finished this this evening, and just to update: it was completely satisfying. Maybe a bit too long a running time, and very understated by the standards of massacre/bloodbath that are de rigeur for cop drama these days, but that time is so well spent developing the minutiae of the community setting,  and you do get one good shock and a really solid twist. Like I say, it's just complete in every respect.

Really hope they do more of this, both Winslet and the entire cast are superb.
#17
Wilson's Dredd circa Crime Files,  plus Rogue circa All Hell are among my favourite 2000AD artwork of all.  Magnificent grasp of SF gubbins and mechanised wotsits. The early 2000s stuff I like but I'm not so completely crazy about,  and I'm not allowed consider his very best work in other venues.

Until recently TT would have had no chance against CW, despite his excellent Absalom and entirely admirable Mignola/Craig Russell leanings. But the most recent Fiends changed that for me: absolutely wonderful,  pulling that excellent McMahon Sláine trick of somehow looking like it was drawn at the time, despite being in no way being any kind of archaic pastiche.

It amazes me that I'd ever even think it, but I'm going Tiernen 3 : Colin 2.
#18
Quote from: sheridan on 29 May, 2021, 12:20:31 AM
... The photo was taken from a German bomber, with two more German bombers in the frame...

Terrific true life tale, Sheridan Psychogeography a-go-go.
#19
Off Topic / Re: RIPs
28 May, 2021, 07:13:19 PM
Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 28 May, 2021, 06:44:32 PM

An old saying goes -  a good fence lasts for three years, a good dog lasts for three fences, a good horse lasts for three dogs and a good man lasts for three horses.

New to me, and quite excellent.
#20
General / Re: Things that went over your head...
28 May, 2021, 03:43:01 PM
Quote from: Colin YNWA on 28 May, 2021, 03:19:12 PM
I figure calling me a scholar is missing that fact!

When it comes to Jack & Co, you are more than a mere dilettante.
#21
Finally saw the business end of a (first) needle this morning (Moderna, if anyone is keeping score - thanks Dolly!  :thumbsup:), in the truly impressive Citywest Conference Centre location (the vaccination operation, not the ugly planning-permission-defying dump itself).

I won't get into the bizarre mental double-vision I'm struggling with these days, suffice to say if there's an opposite to anti-Vaxxer or Covid-denier I'm it, but filing silently into an army-manned processing centre still left me with an unwanted insight into the upsetting view of the world that some people must experience.

The flip side of this was how heartening it was to see so many individuals, and so much effort and organisation, contributing to a national and international project. Maybe there's some hope for the bigger battles to come, if self-interest can align with sense on this scale.
#22
General / Re: Things that went over your head...
28 May, 2021, 12:42:34 PM
While all this and much more besides is true, it makes the assumption that Red Seas is about actual 'historical' mythology, rather than evoking a pop cultural, and specifically '50-70s movies, version of same. 

I believe Colin (and perhaps the Cosh?) to be our pre-eminent Red Seas scholars - perhaps if YNWA could spare a moment from his endless tabulations he could offer an insight?

For my own thruppence: Erebus is a cool name, in Greek myth the child of Chaos himself and a dark part of Hades' realm, and while it clearly is intended to call Cerberus to mind when used in conjunction with a multi-headed dog who is instrumental in the guarding of the nether/afterworld, it's enough to set this particular urbane clock-punk hound apart from his more animalistic namesake, while suggesting that what we think we know about Cerberus and his role may not apply.

As an aside, one of my beefs with many 'Mythological characters in modern days' stories is that IF they are true to their (contested, polysemous, partial) mythological origins, then their stories are known or done. I point a withering finger of judgement at Percy Jackson (film versions) in this regard, and raise a glass of a moderately priced Malbec to Eddie Campbell for navigating that fine line.

Better in general to present a story that uses the keywords, but writes a new mythology around them without pretending faithfulness.
#23
Dan Cornwell fills me with old-school eye-joy, every corner of every panel and page jammed with activity, everything always moving and emoting: it took me a while to fully appreciate how good he really is, but he's one of the greatest of the new-model droids and a future colossus.

While he did some sharp-edged design and powerful action on stuff like 13 and Snow Tiger I never really warmed to Andy Clarke's idiosyncratic mouths, or his stints on SinDex and Dante,  so I'll take this rare opportunity to go all-in...

Cornwell 5 - Clarke O.
#24
Dunno about zombies,  but it plays over the SETI sequence in Independence Day,  if that's any use.
#25
Off Topic / Re: The Political Thread
27 May, 2021, 10:38:37 PM
Lord Julius' particular style of obscurantist misrule being in turn closely based on President Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho) in the brilliant Duck Soup. It is indeed a parallel that makes a lot of sense.
#26
Unexpected but appropriate outcome!
#27
'90s TordelBack, that curly-locked rake and infamous aesthete-about-town*, would probably have thrown up on you had it been suggested that Coleby was any kind of competition for Davis, but that was then.

While DR & Quinch and contemporary Time Twisty strips are absolute masterpieces, and genuinely my favourite 2000AD humour strips ever,  there's nary a Nazi baby in sight. (Although there are probably a few in Excalibur,  but I'm not allowed take that in the consideration).

Coleby has not only transformed beyond recognition, he's also racked up a massive contribution over the years, and in the midst of his dense, smoky, ugly, moody violence,  he's created or developed reams of memorable, distinctive characters, from 'Malone' to Frank to 'Mortal' Coil to Atalia. His always-strong inks are aided and abetted by a successful partnership with Len O'Grady, and taken together that gives Coleby a surprising (to me)  edge of:

Coleby 3 : 2 Davis.





*Actual contents may differ from description.
#28
General / Re: Anyone seen Judge Dolman?
26 May, 2021, 12:19:35 PM
When Wagner himself couldn't get more than a single episode out the DeMarco PI concept, it was perhaps foolish to try. DeMarco as billionaire philanthropist acting as a different pole to Justice Dept at least had the virtue of potentially being different (from undercover stripper-pole DeMarco etc) , but I suppose Chimpsky's one of those now too (billionaire,  not stripper,  although who knows),  and by a similar unlikely act of fiat...

Quote from: JayzusB.Christ on 26 May, 2021, 12:15:23 PM
Quote from: Link Prime on 26 May, 2021, 10:18:11 AM
Final panel of 'Long Live the King' by Wagner & MacNeil will of course be a fully painted rendition of a now middle aged Rico removing Dredd's blood stained badge and pinning it on his own chest.
"More than a man...a symbol"

If there had to be a last ever Dredd story, I'd buy that one for a cred.

Swap out taking the badge for putting on the bloodied helmet, and that's at least two sales.
#29
General / Re: Anyone seen Judge Dolman?
26 May, 2021, 08:16:15 AM
Quote from: Woolly on 25 May, 2021, 10:07:21 PM
Dredd's family has been getting all the more positive and nice ever since Origins. Maybe time for a clone he doesn't get on with?

I'm still waiting for Rico II to turn bad, and I'm impressed that he hasn't. If I had my druthers, I'd have Joe go rogue (on a point of principle, naturally) and Rico be the one to finally take him down, but I think we all know that's never going to happen.
#30
Percival's current work is another great example of what happens when an artist gets space to develop and play to their strengths - he works in a style that's frankly near the bottom of my personal preferences, but he has mastered it to such an extent that my biases don't matter: it just looks amazing, inspired imagery rendered nauseatingly horrible. Result.

Talbot on the other hand is one of my all-time favourite comiksers, working largely in two of my favourite styles,  a massively important figure in the development of my own relationship with the medium, and possibly the first creator whose work I went grubbing for in the dusty longboxes of foreign comics shops and expos.  However, while we're being honest, his 2000AD output is pretty limited, outside of his legendary tenure on Nemesis and a handful of Dredds  (mainly in annuals IIRC).

Unfortunately for Nick, there are bits of Gothic Empire, Torquemurder and the Bosch -inspired Diceman strip which rank among my favourite ever prog pages, so Bryan pips him at the post.  But it's no mean feat to run such a close race against a living legend.

Talbot 3 - Percival 2.