Whats everyone reading?

[Sideshow Bob]

Re-read Bryan Talbot's Alice in Sunderland.  And then had to read it again.  Wow.   - it's almost everything I think worthwhile set between two covers, exploration of place, myth, the intersection of local history and global history, art, identity, and the stories we fabricate, perpetuate and forget about who we are and where we come from.

When you think what Talbot has in print these days:  the Luther Arkwrights, Dotter of her Father's Eye, Tale of One Bad Rat, Sandmanand Hellblazer, Nemesis and Dredd, the Grandville books, Alice...  an incredible body of work, both broad and deep.  What a guy.

Absolutely and totally agree with this Tordleback....
and with Link Primes' sentiments on Alice in Sunderland also....
A truly remarkable read......and definitely in my all time Top Reads List ....

Also extremely fond of the Grandville series as well.................and the artwork in it is ludicrously wonderful !!......For example the artwork in Grandville Mon Amour in the prologue section is about the best 6 pages of consecutive artwork I've seen .....     Astonishingly good.......Another 'Must Read' GN.
Cheers

[TordelBack]

Speaking of Brian Talbot, has anyone read the graphic novel he produced under a pseudonym, Metronome?

Went totally over my head, that - I'd seen Metronome connected to Talbot, but vaguely assumed it was some collaboration from his underground days.  Quite an effective jape, when you read all the fictional bumpf, although 30 seconds looking at the art would give the game away!  Cheers for the enlightenment, Otter.

[Frank]

It still seemed to me that it would be very hard for any other city-state to attack any other city-state. Let alone be able to develop the technology to travel to another dimension. Why didn't the Sovs just conquer that peaceful dimension & live there? I guess my musings lead me to the realization that Dredd & Mega-city 1 was created at a time when logic & realistic detail weren't considered when writing for children's comics.

... and at a time when logic and realism weren't factors in the thinking of the people running the USA and USSR. The Apocalypse War's taking the piss out of the insane attitudes which led to the doctrine of MAD being taken seriously, and a time when the folk with their hands on the levers of power and their fingers on the buttons seemed to expend so much more time, energy and money on frustrating the other guy's plans than they ever did on improving the lot of their own populations. 

Hence the idea that someone with one foot in the doorway to an unspoilt Utopia would be more interested in how they could use it to shaft their enemy than escaping the nightmare they'd created for themselves. Both Megacities are run by bitter, paranoid, bellicose tyrants - what place would there be for folk like Kazan, Griffin, Thatcher and Brezhnev in hippie Heaven? What would they do all day? If you're absolutely no fun, if you need everyone else to be at each others' throats to give you a sense of purpose and maintain your grip on power, why would you ever want the world to be any other way?

As Satan once said, "better to reign in Hell, than surf in Heav'n".

[Link Prime]

Speaking of Brian Talbot, has anyone read the graphic novel he produced under a pseudonym, Metronome?

Hadn't heard of it either AO, and I thought I had Talbot's complete body of work.
Will track it down.

[TordelBack]

...what place would there be for folk like Kazan, Griffin, Thatcher and Brezhnev in hippie Heaven? What would they do all day?

Take all your overgrown infants away somewhere
And build them a home
A little place of their own
The Fletcher Memorial Home for incurable tyrants and kings
And they can appear to themselves every day
On closed circuit TV
To make sure they're still real.

@Judge Brian.  While there is certainly a large element of the contortions required by a kids' weekly comic, I think the MC-1silliness works far more successfully as satire than a 'realistic' hard SF future.   Why is it any sillier that sugar is illegal im MC-1 when alcohol is not, than it is that cannabis is illegal in most of the real world when alcohol is not?  Stories including the former are entertaining and potentially eye-opening, those about the latter dull in the extreme.

It's much the same reason that Swift's Houyhnhnms are intelligent horses rather than cultured Africans.

[Hawkmumbler]

Senior TordelBack? I'm stealing that.

[TordelBack]

Senior TordelBack? I'm stealing that.

Send the royalties to Roger Waters, Hawkmonger!  I am merely a voice crying in the wilderness.

And apologies all for the mountain of typos in that post.

[Tombo]

My copy of the new printing of Camelot 3000 arrived today and I'm very much looking forward to devouring some vintage Bolland art this evening.  Camelot 3000 was the first non-2000AD GN I ever bought (I had previously "borrowed" a copy of Fungus the Boogeyman from a friend and have yet to give it back after 20 odd years).  My old copy vanished sometime ago so I was delighted when I learnt it was been reprinted again.  This printing has a foreword by Mike M. Barr (from the 2008 edition) and a sketchbook gallery at the back.  Classic stuff.

[Simon Beigh]

My copy of the new printing of Camelot 3000 arrived today and I'm very much looking forward to devouring some vintage Bolland art this evening. 

I'd be interested to see if you think it holds up, Tombo. I recently acquired an old 80s copy off eBay for a very small amount of money and enjoyed it immensely. I mean, it's very 80's, very silly in places, but it really did tick the 80's comic boxes for me. I leant it to a friend who thought it was god-awful and questioned my sanity!

[sheldipez]

I got the first three issues of DC's Dredd in a big bulk lot of comics, anyone read em?



I have to say I enjoyed em more than the IDW series! At least it was a different spin on their being cops and Judges (#3 sets up the normal cops' demise) and I got a giggle or two from a trigger happy granny.

More interestingly though is an interview with a producer Charles Lippincott (who claims to be a massive fan) on the other Dredd movie (which they state is starting principle photography) which sounds like he is pre-empting or responding to fan complaints about a certain actor: "Dredd is the focal point, and thus the story concept demands that a star play the part in order for the movie to work successfully at the box office".

[JamesC]

I like Oeming's take on Dredd. Those first two covers are great IMHO.

I seem to remember he came back and did a Dredd one off in one of the end of year progs.

[Link Prime]

Even teenage obsessive collector me couldn't make it past issue 2 of DCs Dredd.
What were they thinking?

IDW's Year One currently stands as the only non-Tharg Dredd that is readable (and not just readable, but bloomin great).

[TordelBack]

...the only non-Tharg Dredd that is readable ...

The ironing is delicious.

[Link Prime]

...the only non-Tharg Dredd that is readable ...

The ironing is delicious.

You know what I meant! 

[JOE SOAP]

...the only non-Tharg Dredd that is readable ...

The ironing is delicious.

Totes.