1794 - Warzone!

[Cactus]

Loved it. Every single page. The last three progs have been oozing thrill power and I'm really into all five stories.

The "KRAKK" on page four of Aquila got an audible "yooooowwwch" from me.

It was pleasing to see the aftermath of the destruction of the Statue of Judgement fitted so neatly into Lenny Zero.

One-word review: FRAKAKAKAKOOOOM! 

[Pete Wells]

Cover - A beauty from Lee Garbett, I suspect that Dredd head owes an awful lot to Jock's Dreddhead from last years San Diego T-Shirt though (as seen here: http://toyanxiety.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/judge-dredd-t-shirt.jpg but a beautiful image never the less. Love the colours too.

Dredd - More fast paced action, with Dredd being particularly cool this week. I love the premise of the gun, it's like something from half life, ace! Judge Easter, the leader of the Space Corps judges is an utter cow this week as she plays the typical OTT sergeant role, hows this story going to end I wonder? Great stuff, as you'd expect, from Mike and PJ.

Red Seas - A very enjoyable episode, with a genius 'Cone of Silence,' I thought there was a printing error on my prog! It's all coming together nicely for a cracking finale.

Aquila - Really beautiful art by Leigh Gallagher, the settings and characters look amazing. A great script from Grennie too, Aquila is a real hard case and quite an unlikable character, as well he should be. More great stuff!

TGJOIAATDLIHW - I love this story, I really do, but maaaan, is it slow! However, I don't mind the pacing when a) the script is as funny as it is this week and b) we get to marvel at Dom Reardon/Peter Doherty's glorious artwork (ironically, a match made in heaven working on a story about hell!)

Lenny Zero - Just brilliant! It's like Diggle was born in the Megacity with the amount of Dreddworld trivia he manages to cram into each and every episode. This week we get Chaos Day, SJS, Kramer, Buell, Sleep Machines (with a tip of the hat to Cal) and one very naked fatty! Diggle's script is dense and interesting as Lenny's plan takes a real left turn, what the hell is he up to?

Ben Willsher continues blow me away with his artwork, getting the 'cool' vibe of the story absolutely spot on. AND there's naked lesbo hottines, which is probably everything that is wrong with comics but is damn lovely to look at! Man, do I wanna go to that club!

A mighty fine prog, looks like we're on a strong run to the end of the 1700s!

[Trout]

Yep, another great prog. I woke up in a bad mood and the thrill power has helped me enormously.

My favourite story is Dredd, but Aquila is a close second.

Also, Thrills of the Future has one for the Spurrier fans: [spoiler]Simping Detective is to return with Simon Coleby art.[/spoiler]

[Darren Stephens]

No prog at Stephens Heights today.....typical. That was the only thing getting me through overtime this morning. 

[IndigoPrime]

Same here. Mind you, no 1793 yet either. If 1794 doesn't show up, that'll be three Progs in six weeks that haven't arrived from my subscription.

[Colin YNWA]

No surprise that its pretty much as we were really, though with a slight up turn. Funny really I sometimes suspect its all about my mood when I approach the Prog rather than subtle differences in the Prog itself.

Dredd was just superb. Mike Carrol ramped it up and deftly handled all the little plots cranking along. In essence its nothing new but the Dredd taking on a Block theme has been weaved into a wonderful piece. Love it and PJ is on top form.

Lenny Zero is still competent but uninspiring, Aquila head wasn't quite so small and the story was on fire, Ichabod is just masterful and I can't wait until this is all done so I can read it in one go and I'm loving Red Seas as ever.

Having just read the Simping Detective trade I'm very happy to see its coming back, assuming its in the Prog not the Meg.

[Dark Jimbo]

Dredd not really working for me. The art increasingly looks rushed to meet a deadline, and the plot doesn't ring quite true. After doing so much to save as many citizens as possible during DoC, he's suddenly back to offing them with impunity? I'd rather see how the city's dealing with the food shortages or the piles of corpses, or reacting to Rico's mutant army, or how Hershey's rejigging the council, or how the department's coping with its losses. Not my cup of tea.

Red Seas is a bit plot-lite, innit? This week we had almost no dialogue and a load of vast, empty white panels - and events that could have been covered with a single line of dialogue; 'Seems the macguffin was somehow stolen from the British Museum earlier today.'

Aquila - great stuff. Maybe top spot this prog. Wasn't too sure about part one but really liking how this is developing now. Rennie manages to master that fine art of imparting huge chunks of historical flavour without it seeming like infodumping or showing off. Felix is already a great character, though Ukko comparisons seem inevitable. My one quibble - and it is only a quibble - was the line 'spear chucker mumbo-jumbo', which doesn't really work in context; it's only a disparaging term if you're a more technologically advanced civilisation, surely? British Empire carbine rifles against zulu spears, for instance. In 69Ad, I imagine everyone were 'spear chuckers', Romans included, so the insult's meaningless.

Ichabod - Second best in prog this week, run closely by Zero. The circular nature of the time shenanigans are really clever; the WWII plane was an oddity in the first series, but Rob Williams clearly had the whole plot worked out in advance, because it suddenly makes perfect sense. Feels like it's heading toward a conclusion already but I hope it sticks around for a while yet.

Lenny Zero really really good stuff. I love the idea of having Kramer be one of Zero's gang without her even realising it. That's damn clever stuff.

The one area the strip suffers is being explicitly post-DoC but not really feeling like it; I want traumatized citizens burying loved ones and resorting to cannibalism in a city with no food or power - not boogying the night away in trendy nightclubs like nothing happened. Like the follow-up Dredds we've had so far, I still reckon this was an existing script tweaked to fit DoC, but to be honest it suffers for it - it would have felt better if just set slightly before. The scheduling must have been a nightmare all told, but DoC is feeling increasingly cheapened by the fact that it doesn't really seem to have had any visible impact.

[Rog69]

I'm loving the Lenny Zero strip too, it's the best thing in the prog for me at the moment. I'm assuming this is set a little way into the post DOC future, what with the SJS already having a nice shiny new building and the city generally not looking like a warzone?

[JamesC]

I'm glad others are enjoying the current prog but it's on a bit of a downer for me at the moment - I'm looking forward to the next line up change.

Dredd: I'm not enjoying this story despite loving all of Mike Caroll's other Dredds. I find the characters very under developed and the space marine judges seem to be just that - the characters from Aliens chucked in to Dredd's world along with all the cliche'd dialogue. I find the art quite difficult to follow too - If I were a new reader I'd have absolutely no idea what the first panel was supposed to be and the block collapse, probably the most dramatic part of the episode, is shown in a smalll wide angled panel with nothing to give it a sense of scale.

Red Seas: Enjoying this but not much happened this week. Despite liking black and white artwork in general I always thing Red Seas is crying out for some colour.

Aquila: The best thing in the prog by a country mile. The artwork and colouring are lovely, you can tell exactly what's going on in every panel and the characters are interesting. Looking forward to a collection of this already.

Ichabod: Does this story have any actual characters? I mean, I can put names to faces but I couldn't care less about what's happening to them. A very boring strip.

Zero: Ok I suppose. I like the art, the script seems a bit fan-fiction with the satelat and all that. It reads like a Meg back up strip (which is why I don't buy the Meg any more).


A pretty harsh review, but after the recent heights that the prog has reached I feel we're in the middle of a lull apart from Aquilla which seems destined to become a classic.

[JUDGE BURNS]

Lenny Zero is the top story for me again this week.

Although the rest of the  prog is very good,I am enjoying this run of new stories at the moment.

[Mikey]

Dredd - Good, solid action Dredd with a novel weapon to tackle to boot. Great stuff!

Red Seas - I enjoyed this episode a lot. Maybe it's charming me...

Ichabod Azrael - Best instalment so far if you ask me.

Aquila - Brilliant. Third week in the top thrill spot for me, this is shaping up superbly.

My one quibble - and it is only a quibble - was the line 'spear chucker mumbo-jumbo', which doesn't really work in context; it's only a disparaging term if you're a more technologically advanced civilisation, surely? British Empire carbine rifles against zulu spears, for instance. In 69Ad, I imagine everyone were 'spear chuckers', Romans included, so the insult's meaningless.

Ah, but what the Roman Legions were really good at was marching up to a bunch of barbarians and turning them into chunks of munce with their gladii, once they'd chucked their pila. They may have been using the same principles to kill, maim and conquer as the natives but arguably the tactics of the Roman Foot could be seen as a technological advantage. Maybe. Anyhoo - Aquila give you smush!

Lenny Zero - Great episode, the plot's thickening nicely.

5/5 this week Tharg. Keep it up.

M.

[Mikey]

No modify button, so I'll double post to say I'm really looking forward to the Simping Detective returning with Simon Coleby on art.

M.

[Something Fishy]

Has this failed to turn up for anyone else?

I read of people getting theirs on Saturday but might didn't come then or in today's post which is really unusual for the prog.  Wondering if mine has got lost this time.

[Something Fishy]

ah I see above i'm not alone.  Some problems creeping into the subs service?

[Eamonn Clarke]

"Home to 50 million citizens."