Prog 1780 : PSI : Mega City One

[worldshown]

Havent recieved prog 1780 yet and starting to suspect it wont show up at all.

Anyone else still waiting?

Not received mine either, although I did get the Meg on Saturday.

[metcalfecarr]

Loved most of teh prog this week, especially Bagwell's cover.  I personally think the washed out colours make the cover better, giving it an air of melencholly. I've always seen Anderson as someone who'd rather not be a judge as she's too human, but is resigned to her career and makes the best of it.

Dredd was firing on full cylinders, something major is about to kick off, and I'm thinking that the Chaos in the title isn't the virus, but rather the DJs coming back.

Cadet Anderson - I like Yeowell's more open work that he started when he was doing US work, but I pine for the dark, angular Zenith days to return. Lovely colours

AOTW - Poor structure, uneven art, bad stortytelling and stereotypes in clothes.  Not impressed. I wish JDH had a quality control on him as he seems to have drawn some of the worst strips on 2000/Meg - Tempest, Stalag 666, Dandridge and this.  I wish Alec Worley wouldn't bother.  His interview in this months Meg makes him out to be a decent chap, trying to continue to improve, but AOTW2 is weak on all levels from characters to plot and dialogue.

Flesh - like AOTW but worse on all levels. This is sub sub sub small press quality.  It's like two drunk blokes in the pub have cobbled something together

[Hawkmumbler]

Cover: Good old Bagwell! Loving the Lawmaster. ****

Dredd: Daaaaamn. This is seriesly crancking up the tension this weekwith the DJ about to make there return. make's you wonder if Giant or Guthrie or Hershey may pop up at some point to play a role in the fanale. ****

AoTW: Giving up. Davis-Hunt let me down this week in term's of quality of art work. **

Zaucer: Fuck it!

Flesh: Dumb fun. The Transformers movie(s) of the prog. ***

Cadet Anderson: Usualy dislike Yeowel in colour, love this. Really compliments his style.
Looking forward to how this plays out.
*** and a 1/2

[DrRocka]

Been a while since I chipped in my tuppence worth on a Prog, so thought I might break the silence....

Dredd - nothing much happening this week, but this is still shaping up to be THE best Dredd since Apocalypse War, in my opinion. Loving it loving it LOVING it!

Flesh - does nothing for me. Not a fan of the art, and this story seems to be growing more nonsensical by the week. A far cry from the original two early series. Hoping it'll soon draw to a close and be replaced by some Kingdom (please, Tharg?)

Zilk - again, not to my taste, although I usually LOVE McCarthy's art. This just seems to remind me of all the tat that stopped me buying the Prog and Meg in the nineties. Reckon I'll probably change my tune though when i read it as a whole.

Age Of The Wolf - LOVE this, my second fave in the Prog since it came back. Great art, compelling story. In fact, I think I prefer this arc to the first - that went far too "Mother Earth" for me in the last few episodes. This one ticks along nicely and I want more.

Anderson - Great art, promising opening chapter. Can't go far wrong with this series, I reckon.

Overall, the Prog's been in it's best shape for twenty years over the last couple of years. In fact, ever since "Tour Of Duty", I struggle to think of anything I've actually skipped over. There's usually something I'm not keen on, but the ones I like more than make up for it. And that's the point, innit? Hope it keeps up the quality for the next few years!

[Goaty]

Late to the thread, as I am doing trial this week on Switch over to Digital with prog online. (Wish clickwheel release it on every Wednesday!) And love it, better than too many progs at home!

Dredd looks fab! AND cant wait for next week! Is it end in sight for Logan?

[Alien Goodness]

I misread the intro in the Nerve Centre to Flesh as being set in The Curvaceous Period. When I read the story I'm not sure that I misread it after all 

Day of Chaos is now up there with Apocalypse War as an epoch making adventure that sends the Dredd universe into a new direction. I still can't work out what that direction is going to be...

[a chosen rider]

Yay, the digital prog has landed!

Cover - Seemed a little bland at first reduced-size glance, but at the proper size, the more I look at it, the more it's growing on me. A

Dredd - Interesting little snippet that Haldane was one of Sinfield's recruits.  Just world-building, or hints there's more to come from Sinfield?  Liked the bike jump, and especially the detail of the judges accidentally helping Haldane; helps underline just how easy it is for a rogue judge to pass untouched in the chaos.  I also love the idea of the Dark Judges being kitted out with Dark Judge party costumes: that perfect Dreddverse touch.  And this is a perfect Dreddverse tale. A+

Flesh - Gah.  The art for Carter is getting more and more unpleasantly skeevy even before this instalment gets to the seduction scene.  I might have lived with it easier as a plot development if, A, there was more of a coherent plot, B, Carter had more of a character, and C, the exploitative art hadn't been creeping me out for the last few progs to begin with.  As it is, ick.  If I tried to grade on a semi-objective level, those parts of the art that don't involve female characters are nice and there is some evidence of plot movement, so it might merit a C; on a personal enjoyment level, even the better aspects have grown old with nothing really changing or evolving from prog to prog, and the taint of the bad is far outweighing them.  Waiting for this to be gone.

Zaucer of Zilk - Though I'm not getting much out of this one either, I've got no particular objection to it: it's just not my thing.  Pretty art - with slightly more pastel colours this time around, which I found a real improvement - but no compelling reason to care about the characters or what's happening to them. B-

Age of the Wolf - Still enjoying this, still the same merits and flaws; art that looks really nice but has some big problems with conveying action clearly. B+

Cadet Anderson - I just missed the first series of this since I jumped in at 1740.  First impressions, seems solidly decent but hasn't really got going enough to form much opinion yet.  As for the art... hmm.  I like it, and I think the colours suit it well, but I find the broken line inking really distracting in places when paired with colouring this subtle.  Overall, a provisional B+ for this first instalment.

The Meg will sadly have to wait for tonight or tomorrow, since I'm technically supposed to be working right now.

[Arkwright99]

I don't usually comment on the Prog here but my reaction to this week's was so OMG/WTF I had to check out this thread to see if I was alone in my reaction. It seems not.

Cover: Liked this; didn't recognise the artist however; thought it might have been Dave Taylor; a bit muted perhaps but nice clean artwork so gets the thumb's up.

Dredd: Excellent. Cranking up to a terrific 'climax' once the [spoiler]DJs[/spoiler] get released.

Flesh: This was OMG! and not in a good way. 'Fraid I've never been a fan of McKay's art; he draws a mean dinosaur but his (human) figure work just looks amateurish to me, and Mills' script/dialogue here is woeful (Pastor Sunday is such a one-dimensional caricature I can't believe Tharg let's Mills get away with him). Carter's 'offering' of herself to McGurk actually lowered my opinion of her as a character but could be redeemed if this is some kind of ruse at Sunday's expense. Personally I have my doubts. I had great hopes for 'Flesh' when its' return was announced but sadly this version can only tarnish my memory of the great Earl Reagan. (I'd like to nominate last week's appearance of the dino-cowboys as the moment this strip 'jumped the dino', btw.)

Zilk: Lovin' it! Classic McCarthy and currently the best strip in the Prog at the moment. Madcap, surreal and gloriously zarjaz! Wonderful stuff.

AotW II: WTF?? Didn't dig 'AotW I' so I wasn't expecting to like this but the second book has been so disjointed in its narrative that I find it practically unreadable. I often can't tell what's happening from one panel to the next, and sometimes the jump from one episode to the next doesn't make any sense either when read concurrently, but I don't find the characters very interesting so its hard to care about any of them.

Anderson: Yowell's art looks so much better when it's coloured that I'm actually looking forward to this.

Back Cover: FCBD; I'll be picking this up from eBay like I did last year as I don't have a LCS near me.

[staticgirl]

I've said before that whilst I've really enjoyed the dinosaur action, I don't like how all the women are portrayed in Flesh at the moment. They seem to be clones. However, I don't particularly mind how Carter Jr was shown as acting in this episode as it's already been explained what sort of background she's got and as the story has been told you've seen how manipulative and secretive she is. I just wish the other women had been given their own stories and looks so it was as easy to tell them apart as it is the men. I have been quite confused at times.

Love love LOVE the cover. I'm such a Bagwell fangirl now.

[TordelBack]

Ratings are cool! 

Cover:  Beautiful cityscape, lovely non-pervy Anderson. Would have lured me into buying the prog. A 

Dredd:  There are at least three pages here that rank amongst the finest in the strip's history.  I think the page with Stalker and the journos conveys more about the situation, Justice Dept, the citizenry and the City in a handful of panels than many other teams could fit into a multi-parter.  That drokker Haldane and his pals make me wonder what MC-1's own sleeper agents in other cities are like - do they also have this fey glee built in?    Amazing, heart-stoppingly tense, completely wonderful stuff. A++

Flesh:  Not enough dinos this week - dino-cowboys don't count.  I'm usually quite high up in the queue to moan about gratuitous flesh or distastefully sexist claptrap in comics, being a wannabe feminist running-dog, but I can't find it in my heart to object to the depiction of Vegas.  It makes perfect sense both in terms of the characters, the genre and the plot.  Plus, hubba hubba.  I find it hard to square folk's objections to this portrayal in the comic that gave us Durham Red, a character whose later adventures seemed to be based entirely around wearing less and less pants each week, not to mention underage Anderson's upskirt action.  Different strokes for different blokes, I suppose.

Now I really could live without the Midnight Cowboys, who dance a tango through my suspension of disbelief, and go against my preference for just one-or-two crazy start-points for a fantasy set-up (Point 1. the economics of time-travel sourced meat vs. any other method of getting it; Point 2. 'time-radiation' making Gorehead invulnerable; Charitable Point 3. the ludicrous mortality rate of TransTime enabled by institutional drug abuse: all these I can accept).  Time radiation causing individuals to, uh, re-evolve along a, ehm, different evolutionary path that just happens to lead to, ahh, a half-dozen largely unrelated species of dinosaur on humanoid bodies?   Just one crazy thing too many.  I didn't like it when Star Trek did it (twice) and I'm not mad about it here either.  I'm prepared to embrace it since the designs are so nice, but it does try my patience a tad. That it's demonstrably Flesh earns it a strained B.

Zaucer of Zilk.  I hope this never ends. Fun, witty, unspeakably glorious to look at.  It's the proper sequel to Sooner or Later that Swifty's Return emphatically wasn't.  A.

Age of the Wolf.  Some of the action required a bit of work to decipher this week, but I'm really enjoying this for what it is.  And I hope that what it is is the middle part of a longer work - it's not really building on the sweeping mythic themes of the first book, but it is a fun post-apocalyptic action tale with light satire and werewolves. I'd like to see subsequent outings return to what exactly Rowan's significance is in all this, and how she can influence the wider situation, but a run of Robin Riding Hood will do very nicely as an interlude. B+.

Cadet Anderson:  Wow, Yeowell's ever-more minimalist style works surprisingly well with a sensitive colourist (i.e. not himself) on board, and is a remarkably good fit for this strip.  I'm not much of a fan of Alan's writing these days, but I like the Cadet Anderson concept, and I like the old-school tunnel-stunt.  Good stuff.  B.

As you can tell, I'm a very happy reader this weather.  The Prog is a weekly liferaft of pure quality at the moment, and as the one elective thing that I buy these days, I'm clinging to it like a bastard. 

[DrJomster]

Liking the exam style grading that's just popped up. Nice! Although, shouldn't those A+'s be A*'s?

[vzzbux]

Liking the exam style grading that's just popped up. Nice! Although, shouldn't those A+'s be A*'s?

It'd always been A PLUS as far as I can remember. A TIMES or A ASTERISK doesn't quite have it.




V

[DoomBot]

Liking the exam style grading that's just popped up. Nice! Although, shouldn't those A+'s be A*'s?

It'd always been A PLUS as far as I can remember. A TIMES or A ASTERISK doesn't quite have it.




V

It's definitely an A* in these days, although it'll probably be possible to get an A*+ in the near future

[vzzbux]

Gosh Darn you youngsters.
Why does the man have to change the status quo.





V

[DoomBot]

Gosh Darn you youngsters.
Why does the man have to change the status quo.





V

Youngsters? The only reason I know is that my 16 year old daughter is sitting her GCSEs. When I was at school an A was rarer than a Really Rare Thing.