Wraparound Defoe cover by Stewart Kenneth Moore. The ship and cityscape below looks pretty good.
Droid Life by Cat Sullivan.
Dredd - carries on in great style. Top stuff!
Defoe - The Divisor, Part 2. Reek-Light episode, and all the better for it. The artwork doesn't seem to be everyone's cup of tea but, for the most part, I like it. Clock-work man looks particularly excellent, drawn in exquisite detail.
Brink - Hate Box, part 2. This is a thrill I run hot and cold on. The end of the last series was interesting enough but now we're back to talking heads which isn't to my taste. It all seems a bit like a soap opera rather than a space opera, IMO. Others love the strip and that's fine.
Hope - Under Fire, part 2. I loved the first series of Hope and so far this one is shaping up to be of at least equal quality, if not better! Is it just me or does Alberto Modi look like John Wayne? Excellent panel layouts and lettering. This and Dredd would be tied for top thrill if not for...
Deadworld - Doomed, part 2. This strip has become one of my all-time Prog favorites. Apparently you can kill that which does not live but I reckon old Sydney isn't quite finished yet. Stunning artwork as always!
There's half a letters page and an advert for The Fall Of Deadworld - Red Mosquito by Matthew Smith.
Cheers
(https://i.imgur.com/JNdEijd.jpg)
SK Moore
(https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WsilCBHsprQ/XYqm82vltsI/AAAAAAAAlks/z6YaS3aPTnoKkdMtNwwYeRMMckq9l1kQACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/2000%2BAD%2BProg%2B2151-1.jpg)
sadly - yet again No Prog arrived for me .
So no review yet .
I hear the 'Eastenders' theme in my head, every time I see the rear of that cover.... :D
Good Prog.
Dredd was always going to be a little after the lord mayors show after the power of last week but this sets the upcoming story up really well.
Defoe is pretty much exacty as last week, which is a little disappointing.
Brink is pretty much exactly as last week, which is astonishingly good. The return of Bridget looking angrily over the pile of papers is just perfection. Wonderful episode.
Hope is brutal in the best way.
Deadworld is hideous in the good way.
So even carrying a duffer this is a very good Prog back slaps all round droids, now back to work.
Dredd and Hope carry the prog for me, I'm sure Brink will be good but it's still only warming up again after its absence...
Still no prog on a Monday!! :(
Prog finally arrived today ( Monday ) overall I really enjoyed it
Judge Dredd - a continuation of a great story from John Wagner - its getting better and better !
Defoe - The Divisor, Part 2.
The artwork has settled down and above all , you can clearly work out what is happening -
the story itself is very good from Pat Mills and I look forward to it next week.
Brink - Hate Box, part 2.
The first episode now has the rookie joined up with our heroine and I am sure things will hot up soon
( I like the Talking heads style - its a nice change and cerebral )
Hope - Under Fire, part 2.
Just very good story telling that happens to have sublime artwork , one of the top stories in the prog
Deadworld - Doomed, part 2.
I also agree with others that along with Jaegir - This strip has become one of my most favoured stories . I also agree that Dave Kendall , has produced great artwork yet again !
overall Prog Marks - 4 and half out of 5
Quote from: Darren Stephens on 28 September, 2019, 07:17:29 PM
I hear the 'Eastenders' theme in my head, every time I see the rear of that cover.... :D
Reeekyyy!
Quote from: Darren Stephens on 28 September, 2019, 07:17:29 PM
I hear the 'Eastenders' theme in my head, every time I see the rear of that cover.... :D
[/quote
Agreed. The front cover should have portrayed a Zombie Barbara Windsor roaring: "Get ourra' my pub!"
Quote from: Link Prime on 01 October, 2019, 11:54:27 AM
Quote from: Darren Stephens on 28 September, 2019, 07:17:29 PM
I hear the 'Eastenders' theme in my head, every time I see the rear of that cover.... :D
Reeekyyy!
Bianca-a-a-a
(makes baleful expression)
Dredd Classic Wagner, mad droids and a firefight while setting up the rest of the tale, all with top drawer drawing!
Defoe Slightly muddled, but enjoyable stuff
Brink Enjoying this too, some nice use of colour and as mentioned the escapr hatch was well done.
Hope Up there with Dredd for me, and yes he's supposed to look like The Duke.
Deadworld isnt my cuppa but a couple of nice easter eggs there...
And half a letters page but no Butt'man :D
A good overall prog. 5/5
Hey now, could it be? Yes, it's a 5/5 from me too - a rare and treasured occurrence.
Everything beds in nicely this week for a comic that's just cover-to-cover satisfying: lots of chat, lots of worldbuilding, decent amount of action, every page a thing of beauty. >40% B&W too, I approve!
Cover: Excellent Eastenders credits in the world of Evelyn and Wren's alt.occult.London.
Droid Life: oh my, that is some tortuous punning!
Dredd: Well what can be said about perfection: world-building, action, plot threads, great new characters, the gentle gag of a junta robot called Colonel (Kernel?) Dos. The subversion of the potentially dodgy "Third World, old school, you know the type" being applied to an emancipated robot! No-one writes robots like Wagner, and as always MacNeil's mechanicals are simply and beautifully designed (is Gomez the Guatemalan Boots?), the open space of the airport appropriately reminiscent of shootouts in the original Mechanismo. Just drinking this in, it's everything I want in a Dredd strip and more.
Defoe: Moore's art style and my eyeballs become aligned this week, some terrific OTT imagery (those tats!) and solid storytelling to boot: I get it, and definitely see that it's a good match for this run of Defoe. Some lingering blur effects aren't even that intrusive. The plot sprints along too, with some nice recapping for good measure. S'good.
Brink: Really thought we'd seen the [spoiler]last of Bridget for a while[/spoiler], delighted to be proved wrong. No-one, and I mean no-one, can write a 6-page chunk of bureaucratic frustration like Abnett, and very few can make it as visually interesting as Culbard does here. The partnership seem to revel in seeing just how much characterisation of people and their milieu they can squeeze out of a series of office conversations. Bravo.
Hope: Okay, so a lot of this week's episode is made of static images backed by a bar conversation. But blimey such fantastic images, and for my money conveying a much better picture of Hope's world than the previous run.
Deadworld: More effortless recapping mapped onto crushing horror, and all the while the nukes are flying and Lopez's 'tache is in the ascendant. Am I totally invested in a palace coup between the Dark Judges of a doomed world? You betcha.
Obviously that second Brink is actually Hope. EDIT FUNCTION FOR THE REVIEW SECTION PLEASE.
WHO WORE IT BEST?
(https://i.imgur.com/hq1RLjb.png?2)
(https://i.imgur.com/npsz6dG.png?2)
Quote from: Frank on 02 October, 2019, 10:16:16 PM
WHO WORE IT BEST?
Dunno Frank, but I'm pretty sure only one of them regretted it.
Even I'm sick of hearing myself sing Brink's praises but there's something about that strip that just hits all my buttons.
Great prog.
Dredd's the standout this week. John Wagner owns the strip, literally of course but also metaphorically - he continues to set the standard to which others aspire. Love the way the Ambassador refuses (or feels unable) to address the Mechanismo droid personally. MacNeil provides the superb artwork the script deserves. Brink is also beautifully written and rendered, though this chapter is perhaps lacking a gruesome opening hook that previous installments gave us. Hope is living up to its own high standards too but again, a couple of episodes in and plenty of scene setting but no concrete plot. Deadworld ploughs its own macabre furrow and while I am getting a bit of multi-chapter amnesia I can enjoy each episode on its own merits. Finally Defoe thankfully reinforces its credentials as by far the most enjoyable of Pat Mills' strips though. While the SKM droid clearly possesses bags of talent, I wish he'd rein in the Photoshop effects a bit.
Oh, the cover. Very reminiscent of a Leigh Gallagher cover, I thought. It took me a few moments to realise it was a wrap-around as the art on each half doesn't blend especially well.
Quote from: wedgeski on 03 October, 2019, 09:01:22 AM
Even I'm sick of hearing myself sing Brink's praises but there's something about that strip that just hits all my buttons.
Again, I deeply wish there was a market for 2000 AD hardcover volumes, and especially omnibus editions. Brink books 1–3 in a single HC volume would be wonderful.
What I read was brilliant.
DREDD is a lot of fun and looks like it will continue to be.
HOPE continues to enthrall me. Evil John Wayne indeed.
BRINK continues to be comic story telling at it's best.
Sure there aren't giant splash pages and explosions and superteam line ups, but it is great comics nonetheless.
Reminds me of Hitchcock's REAR WINDOW in the expert way it tells a story brilliantly using the cinematic form (try telling that story without the edits, the POV and he frsming unique to cinema and it would be flat as hell) but, you know, for comics.
I struggle with the art on DEADWORLD and DEFOE so I'm going to save them and do them four episodes at a time.
Quote from: TordelBack on 02 October, 2019, 05:27:47 PM
Dredd: Well what can be said about perfection: world-building, action, plot threads, great new characters, the gentle gag of a junta robot called Colonel (Kernel?) Dos.
I thought it was weird for a baby boomer to serve tech-bro yucks, too. Thankfully, the previews for tomorrow's prog reveal the naming convention of Guatemalan droids trades in the trad comedy racism* we expect and love from the author of
Football Crazy and
Darkie's Mob.
+++ SPOILER (https://i.imgur.com/lb9aKZj.png) +++ (not major)* joke
Ha! Well it doesn't rule out the former also being a pun, does it?
Good prog all around with Dredd standing out.
I didnt really take to the first series of Hope, too stylised for me, like it was trying too hard for that retro cool. This one is slightly better and the art is good if too heavily reliant on photo ref, and am I the only one to find the stereotype black guy (Little Richard?) on drugs a tad on the racist side
I really don't like the new Defoe artist but then again I really don't like Defoe so I'm happy to skip that for the glories of Brink and Deadworld
Dredd really is excellent and McNeill's fifth era style* is a masterpiece in style and mood, or rather it would be if Chris Blythe didnt ruin it with terrible colouring. We know its digital, the fake brush strokes don't make us think anything other than "oh, that looks really wrong" and distracts from the art. It's like when letterers use stadard fonts such as Impact and Times New Roman, it looks odd and takes away from the reading experience. There's a Yeowell drawn Devlin Waugh that is a prime example of this. I don't want the colourist showing off what he thinks looks cool, I want colours that reflect the mood and feel of the story and art.
* the five eras of McNeill are 1, Ezquerra lite on his early Stront stories with lots of little lines that Alex Ronald took on. 2, Fully painted lush colour work eg Chopper/America/Final Solution. 3, Fully painted grayscale Insurrection/Defoe, 4, Chunky B&W Days of Chaos. 5, His current looser, more open almost Mignola inspired big flat blacks and shadows
Quote from: metcalfecarr on 05 October, 2019, 01:39:11 PMThere's a Yeowell drawn Devlin Waugh that is a prime example of this.
Blimey, that's going back a bit though! Yeowell must be an absolute nightmare to colour, even his own colouring of his work is pretty terrible. Unless I'm wrong, Yeowell's colourist on Devlin was the D'Emon D'Raughtsman D'Israeli himself - and if that living god of colour can't can't get it right! (John Charles has played a blinder on this task recently).
As to Chris Blythe's work, it definitely suits some artists better than others, but it's improved beyond all recognition from the old texture-heavy days and as a body of work it's really remarkable for its consistent quality. Personally I think he works really well with MacNeil's current style. Loved the Five Eras of MacNeil, BTW!
Quote from: metcalfecarr on 05 October, 2019, 01:39:11 PM
Dredd really is excellent and McNeill's fifth era style*
* the five eras of McNeill are 1, Ezquerra lite on his early Stront stories with lots of little lines that Alex Ronald took on. 2, Fully painted lush colour work eg Chopper/America/Final Solution. 3, Fully painted grayscale Insurrection/Defoe, 4, Chunky B&W Days of Chaos. 5, His current looser, more open almost Mignola inspired big flat blacks and shadows
Great to look back on Colin McNeils style changes as his work is always a joy to behold.
Just out of interest, where would you put:
His B&W Shimura work
The Pit / America II - 90s era (great art woeful colouring)
The blocky type line and colour work on The Corps and Vanguard
The wonderful painted run he did on Devlin Waugh - Red Tide?
He certainly is an artist for all seasons, and to think I once read he was considering packing it all in a while back.
Quote from: Jacqusie on 05 October, 2019, 07:39:50 PM
He certainly is an artist for all seasons, and to think I once read he was considering packing it all in a while back.
That'd be a bad day for the Prog alright. I am firmly of the opinion that Colin has been one of the most important artists in the comic's history, almost from his first page, and definitely from
Song of the Surfer, a full 30 years ago now. His work somehow combines weight and lightness in the service of atmosphere, environment and pure storytelling.
It will be a bad day in prog heaven when Colin decides to quit. I agree with tordel's take
I've always found MacNeil's figure work weirdly stiff, but otherwise am a big fan. I actually prefer his new stripped back approach to the fully painted America days. And, yeah, he'd be a colossal loss to Dredd and the Prog alike if he decided to stop. (Amazing to think how long he's been working with 2000 AD, now I think about it.)
Quote from: IndigoPrime on 06 October, 2019, 11:48:14 AM
I've always found MacNeil's figure work weirdly stiff, but otherwise am a big fan. I actually prefer his new stripped back approach to the fully painted America days.
Agreed - both in terms of your assessment of early MacNeil and his current strength. I think he's been on a career high ever since Day of Chaos.
I would disagree with a previous comment about Chris Blythe's colours - I think he probably the best colourist currently working on 2000AD. Never heavy handed and always respectful of the artwork.
Quote from: NapalmKev on 28 September, 2019, 11:19:20 AM
Wraparound Defoe cover by Stewart Kenneth Moore. The ship and cityscape below looks pretty good
... and pretty evil, too. If you treat the image not as a two-dimensional plane but as a five-dimensional hypercube. An Occult Mathematician explains:
Squaxx!....Hold up PROG 2151. Hold it up at an angle and look across the plain of the back cover....
Pat's London follows the post-fire city plan of John Evelyn, but in reality Evelyn's plan was rejected. In the real-world Sir Christopher Wren*, a renowned astronomer at the time, won the day. Evelyn, it would seem, drew a SEPHIROTIC MAP. See links below for plans and examples of 'sacred architecture'.
The John Evelyn map is the Sepher Yetzirah but only takes up a small part of old London....too small for me, so in my version of 'clockpunk' London the Evilyn map forms the centre point of a much vaster London-sized Sepher Yetzirah -- one that has special engineering importance.
British engineers have put it to work! LONDON IS A MACHINE that bridges the Thames in several places. In this way it is like a tesseract, a mathematical object and personal obsession of mine for decades....the tesseract is already closely related to the tree of life. It is a HYPERCUBE -- a cube within a cube.
In casting its shadow we make a 2 dimensional animation of a 5 dimensional object, you have to HOLD UP THE TESSERACT JUST THE RIGHT WAY. But that's another story. You will see many tesseracts everywhere in The Divisor - the panels are detailed for a reason, filled with easter eggs just for you!
The bite point of EXTRUDED cubes appears on page 4, panel 5 of episode 8 because an extruded cube can also be.....well, you will have to read episode 8 of The Divisor.
I have alluded to many things in science fiction and horror, horror comedy, and classical art. I am a comic fanatic and an art history fanatic. Here's an example. Do you see it?
SQUAXX, If you hold up Prog 2151 and you look across its picture plain you see another dimension, not a cube. You see Death:(https://i.imgur.com/TCgW6XA.png?1)
It is a homage to a great master - Hans Holbein the Younger. Buy the Prog and visit the National Gallery in London to see the original, The Ambassadors (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ambassadors_(Holbein)), by Hans Holbien. More to come in COVERS UNCOVERED ... (https://i.imgur.com/49deOIj.png)
Hypercubes: https://youtu.be/UnURElCzGc0
Sacred architecture: https://www.eyeofthepsychic.com/treelifecities
* The Sephirotic Union Jack that runs up the side of the Sir Isaac Newton (SIN) contains the legend 'as above, so below'. In EC comics letterforms could become images - most famously with THE END made of the water ripples and bubbles that follow a drowning man. Will Eisner was the master of it, though he wasn't an EC artist. When I was drawing one sequence I saw a possible word emerging, I didn't define it. I leaned into it though. In The Shining suggestions are placed throughout to make you uneasy. Similarly I suggested SIN If you look at the Defoe episode in which they descend into the pit the lamplight of the the 3 bottom panels hints at the letters S ... I....N.
That is groovy! Although I managed to get a papescutcheon on my nose on the process, it was worth it. NoWorth engaged on an interim re-read...
Ah FFS, this out of hand - how do I turn off this predictive shite? Why would it think I was trying to write 'escutcheon'when I wanted 'cut'? "Paper cut".
I for one think 'papescutcheon' is an excellent word.
Cheers, Frank, that's actually amazing. Reminds me of the hours of fun I would have with my parents' Steeleye Span sleeve as a kid. https://www.amazon.com/All-Around-Hat-STEELEYE-SPAN/dp/B000000E7L (https://www.amazon.com/All-Around-Hat-STEELEYE-SPAN/dp/B000000E7L)