Messages

[Glimmer Rats]

Glimmer Rats has some art issues. Not that it's bad art (although it rather pales in comparison to Harrison's work on Grey Area + The Out), it's more that in those days Harrison's digital art printed rather murkily. A new GN might be able to fix that, although maybe it's a better bet for a digital collection?

Still it's a decent story, and deserves to defeat the rather indulgent if generally fun 'Whatever Happened to...' sequence. (Which in turn was superior to the even more indulgent 'What if... stories)

Glimmer Rats, please.

I confess I couldn't really choose and ended up voting for Savage partly because I was convinced Devlin would walk it and wanted to give Mills some love after Finn fell. A sad loss!
But still, Savage IS a great bit of 2000AD, hard to overstate how exciting it felt reading a story about Britian being invaded right as we were ourselves invading Iraq, quite the exercise in wearing someone else's shoes.

By coincidence I also saw the film Red Dawn for the first time in that period too, and came away finding it to be another great storytelling example of empathy for anyone being invaded. When apparently it's usually taken as a massively anti-communist US right-wing dream of a story. Context is everything, huh!

Yes, but since then he's had hs face put through a face change machine and rejuve jobs several times, so it seems that even if 2099 tech couldn't fix his mug, they were able to later.

[Survivor]

Shame on me for not expecting Survivor to get its own slot outside of Mean Team! Also shame on me for now voting for Survivor. I know it's not as accomplished as Numbercruncher, which really is a clever and fun story. But I just love me some Henry Moon, and the gleeful revenge he takes on Richman Von. I maintain it's the best thing Hilary Robinson wrote for the Prog (although it might be the worst thing Ron Smith drew, sadly. Not his finest hour).

[Missionary Man]

I've a real soft spot for the simplicity of Mean Arena - or at least, what Mean Arena started out as. (Not that I ever really made any sense of the rules). But it really is a turgid swamp of a story on a read-through.

Missionary Man's a series where I never quite understood what the original set-up was. He's a dude who appears to love Jesus a whole lot but also likes killing bad guys even more, but I've no sense of if his personal faith has much to do with anything other than giving GRennie and excuse to spout Biblical phrases along with his gunplay (to be fair, this was a couple of years before Quentin T did it in Pulp Fiction).
And as a man of faith I was always said this side of Preacher Cain didn't get pursued more.

But, you know, the individual stories are pretty fun, and the art's real good. And it's just plain weird enough as a concept that I can get into it more than Matt 'no, look, I'm cool, I'm a cyborg, honest. Hey, will you like me more if I staright up murder some kids and abuse a man in a wheelchair?' Tallon.

The point is, Missionary Man.

The last two? series of Kingdom feature a cat-man who has something of the Nikolai Dante about him.

But none can best Henry Moon!
Mean Team/Survivor is the correct vote here.

As for dead folks wot should've stayed dead...

I'm still voting Johnny Alpha.

Hoping he ascends to glory in a rocket ship of his own design, he really did draw the best planes.

[Fall of Deadworld]

I'll confess that Fall of Deadworld is starting to lose its charms - just fall already! But boy has it had a good run. If you like to find beauty in the bleakest of situations, there's no comic in the world to match it.
Fervent and Lobe is a mere comics footnote by comparison.

Fall of Deadworld

[the Out]

I love that strips like Zaucer of Zilk have a home in the Prog, and I hope they always will, but the Out is just classier and cleverer and very nearly prettier.

[Fiends]

Tough draw for Bob, but it's hard to stand up to the gleeful horrors of Fiends. I'm someone who still thinks the first series is the best, but I'm also enjoying the tone that later writers have picked up and run with, scary but with a hint of silliness.

[Savage]

SO torn here! Honestly, I'm not in love with either series, but the best bits of both (The Herod epic, Kot/Dowling/Dildo demon; the premise/tone of Savage, the Grinders, the stuff where he's a psycho hanging out in Volg-held Germany) are really good.

Even the 'what would I like to see back in the Prg/Meg' test doesn't help. I suspect more Devlin will be more fun, but I really want at least one more book of Savage to tie things up, or at least to bridge the gap from humans at war to full-on robot war.

While I'm thinking on it, let's get Ales Kot to write that next series of Savage. I'm sure he's got interesting things to say about murderous conservatives fighting against totalitarian oppressors.

I think...
Savage.

Gonna be keeping a CLOSE eye on those thrill ratings there...
but I reckon if anyone;s earned the right to pass judgement on all these thrills it's you.

Can I put in a vote for Mean Team to receive MAXIMUM THRILL POINTS

[Johnny]

I've no problem with either character returning to the Prog. Personally I was happy enough with Alpha just being back in, telling new adventures. I did NOT liek the story of how Alpha was brought back to life, although where that story went, and what came after, were decent enough. So I guess I'm voting Johnny?

The characters I really think should have stayed dead are Gunnar, Bagman and Helm at the end of 'Regene'. If they'd just died, with no messing about trying to find an antigen on Horst, and sending his own series into a mirthless tailspin of boredom, Rogue could've had his own 'Rage' where he went rampaging through Millicom (and presumably ending up rampaging through Nort high command as well).

This is hard, and for my money you've missed off one of the big contenders, the VCs.
Not sure what kind of voting resposne you're after, but I'm refusing to commit any less than a top 5!

1. Brink
2. Lawless
3. Sinister Dexter
4. The VCs
5. The Out

[Logan]

In terms of the most great storeis, it'd be McGruder for me - but I'm actually going to vote for Logan. I just love the stuff iunfolding under his tenure where he's desperately trying to be a nice/sensible guy, especially the way he thinks/knows the new Mecahnismos are a good thing and should have more sway. I can't wait to see where his story is going...