Simping Detective

[Colin YNWA]

Read this trade as well (as well as Insurrection that is) while on holiday. Arh Si Spurrier how you have hits and misses, this one however is a mighty hit, a mighty mighty hit. Maybe not quite on a par with the genius that is Lobster Random but its as close as he's got I'd say.

The structure is so perfectly refined form the noir detective novels he emulates, but twisted perfectly into 2000ad territory and so perfectly and atmospherically realised by Frazer Irving. Not really a great deal to say about this except so glad to hear recently that its coming back and hope they get enough new stuff to put another trade out as this is a perfect addition to Dredd's world.

[Hawkmumbler]

PISS piss piss piss piss piss piss piss piss PISS! 
God I love this series.

[I, Cosh]

Yeah, really liked this too. The pastiche of hard-boiled detective fiction was a really good fit for Spurrier's overwrought word-mangling and the visual style of it is very arresting. My one reservation about bringing it back is who they're going to get to fill Frazer Irving's sizable shoes. Normally I'm all for different artists getting a turn on a strip but, in this case, I think Irving's style, particularly the colouring (or blacking, I suppose) is such an important element of the strip that I'm not sure how it'll work. That blacker on black sequence of the raptaurs in the first story, for example.

[maryanddavid]

Loved this too when it came out. I didnt know its returning, and as Cosh says, the art is part of the appeal, Is Frazer definatly not on it?

[Colin YNWA]

I suspect he'll not be given the falling out they had over 'Gutsville' (although that might well have blown over), also Mr Irving is so busy stateside these days (I assume) he may be gone from us.

I do agree that he plays a very important part in the series but I'd hope someone else could capture the atmosphere, guess we'll have to see. The points you two raise made me think about this article over at Robot 6 the other day and quite how far down the writers side I sit, rightly or wrongly!

http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2012/05/how-artists-contributions-to-the-creation-of-comics-are-overlooked/

[Hawkmumbler]

Give it to D'Isreile I say! 

[Steve Green]

Always tricky when one artist has had an unbroken run on a title - I loved this take on the Dark Judges