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With Dredd, it was also a case of: what was the point in setting up the cadet? She's good. She's different. She's not a show off. He liked her. He didn't like many. Etc. Oh, and now she's dead. Could have been supporting cast. Could have grown. But no: dead. Yet another in the long, long, long list. I don't know why it annoyed me so much, but it just did. Maybe it was just: hey, this character seems intriguing. She could be interesting. But she was just more cannon fodder. Another red shirt to get killed in the service of the story. (Honestly, it wasn't even that shocking/surprising either. It was just sad.)

[Dredd]

Spoilers ahead. Look away now, Earthlet, if you've not read the Prog...



First up, nice cover. Second up, new Mike Carroll/Joe Currie series Silver gets trailed. And then we're on to Dredd. And I'm sorry, but I hated this ending. All of it worked really well, but that first panel on the final page killed it for me. I'm not even sure what the message is here. That Dredd is unkillable? (Well, sure: he has plot armour.) That he's dangerous to be around – especially if you're a supporting character female judge, apparently? Or that by breaking character from being cautious to leaping into the fray, the Cadet sealed her own fate? Maybe it's the last of those, but I'm not sure how it benefits the story itself to wipe her out. And, good grief, 1) Who would agree to go on a mission with Dredd now? And 2) Why would the Chief Judge allow Dredd to take prominent Cadets off when he's just got another killed?

Anyway, a weird one, because I loved parts one through five, but part six just made me feel a little sick.

Aquila meanwhile, twists in a surprising way by dialling down the body count. Some thoughtful words from the key protagonists add depth to this strip and ensure it has the capacity to surprise – rather than the more obvious path of Aquila killing everyone. And Indigo Prime twists as well, to its end – although I'm not sure to what end. A new cast list? I don't know. I'm... not sure I care any more, even if that last frame did feel very old-school Indigo Prime.

Brink continues to be wonderful. As ever, Abnett/Culbard are masters at creating intrigue and interest from a lot of talking heads, and then ramping up the horror and pace with that last (and chilling) page. It's excellent compacted storytelling. And you can see why newcomers from the US might sometimes struggle with 2000 AD, because this would be an entire 20+ pages of strip in an Image floppy.

But Proteus Vex is the masterpiece this issue. Yes, it was a feint (phew). But there's then another within this single episode. And good grief at that masterful last page. I can't wait to see what happens next with this one.

In all, then, another pretty great Prog, even if what happened in Dredd felt... unnecessary at best, even cruel.

I'd not heard of him before but really want to check his work out

His most recent thing for 2000 AD was Pandora Perfect (although he only wrote it and didn't draw the strip). His personal work includes Abigail & The Snowman, which my kid got out of the library and we both adored. Long OOP, mind. He's also created hundreds of semi-autobiographical dailies, which you can read on his website. There are currently three properly chunky HC collections on his web store. (They are superb. His packaging... less so. Although mine arrived OK.)

I noticed on Ebay that "Muppet Mash" and "Four Seasons" are the cheapest trades, would it matter if I didn't read the series in order?

My recollection – I bought the book a decade ago – is it's much like The Muppet Show, in the main. So it doesn't really matter in which order you read. FWIW, someone on eBay is selling five trades for 25 quid right now.

I absolutely get what you mean, and Thor may well have benefitted from being one of the first Marvel comics I'd read in a very long time.

I think had that been the case for me, I'd have enjoyed it more. I remember I largely did the first time around – although it was perhaps also boosted by running alongside a Captain America arc I abhorred (the Hydra thing). I'm into the Unworthy arc now, and it's very readable. But it's not "buy it in HC and put it on the shelf worthy" for me. (I one day had the option of buying just the God Butcher deluxe or the entire Aaron Thor run, for equivalent per-page prices, both of which were reasonable. I'm glad now I went for just the one book. Not sure I would have wanted to keep the others long term.)

I've really got in their comics, starting with Unbeatable Squirrel Girl (which I love beyond words)

I have the first HC of that. I need to get back into it. Not sure I've ever been in quite the right mood. (Also, annoyingly, Marvel did its usual thing and cancelled the collections in that format. There was – maybe is – an omni, but it's about the size of garden shed, so no thanks on that.)

I'm definitely suffering from Marvel burn-out when it comes to the films (though I have just started X-Men 97 and find it fun) but it's yet to happen on the comics side.

Mm. The films feel like going through the motions. The best of the recent ones for me was The Marvels, but mostly because Iman Vellani is such a joy as Ms. Marvel. And that just made me sad that she only got one TV series. I think apart from the Spidey films, I've not really annoyed one in a big way since Ragnarok, back in 2017.

The TV shows, though, I've mostly really liked. There are exceptions (Falcon/Winter Solider did not click with me at all), but I enjoyed She-Hulk's subversion, WandaVision's strange set-up, Hawkeye borrowing from my favourite run of the comics (bro), etc. But even there, we're now several series behind, and I'm honestly not sure if I care enough to watch Secret Invasion, Loki 2, What If 2 and Echo, not least given that no-one at Disney now seems invested in the Eries, and certainly not to the degree they will be ongoing and built upon.

There was so much scope in Ms. Marvel, but the TV show was ultimately just a way to introduce the character and shove her into a movie. This feels a lot like what happened in the comics, where she started as a really interesting character in her own book, before becoming subsumed into teams and ending up being just another superhero.

It's Lonely at the Centre of the Earth by Zoe Thorogood

Wonderful book. I hope everyone her owns a copy.

I think I'd like to draw a line on this now. I'm considering what to do about the thread but I'm likely to splice it so the Kickstarter thread won't just be people arguing. If maybe below can just be a discussion about the Kickstarter, that would be good.

The Muppets omni is a wonderful thing. I love Roger Langridge's stuff. As for the other Thor, I did like her a lot (and her story). It's a lot of the other bits that kind of bored me – all of the war bits. But I might have just had too much of it after trudging through literally hundreds of Marvel comics since the autumn. Sometimes that stuff is a bit like a repeating background on a cartoon. "Oh look: Mysterio back! Again! Yawn."

If nothing else, it really makes you appreciate when people do something different. Or, for that matter, ongoing series like Dredd and Usagi Yojimbo where returning characters are used relatively sparingly.

and thanks to Indigoprime mentioning the titles of other work by Brubaker & Phillips, I've now added The Fade Out, Pulp & Fatale.

My apologies to your wallet.

Anyway if anyone else has recommendations for comics or graphic novels like KOBK or ones that have a different take on the superhero story I'd be interested

Black Hammer is perhaps an obvious one, and pretty great. Ordinary, if you've not read it in the Meg, flips superheroes on its head quite nicely, and is currently two quid if Forbidden Planet for the hardcover. Eight Billion Genies flirts with similar territory. Not really superheroes per se, but plenty of crossover, given how things go. I imagine you've already read Umbrella Academy?

I got Usagi Yojimbo Saga Volume 5 this month as I'm trying to make sure I get all of them before the start to disappear (same for Giant Days Library Editions).

My understanding is the Saga books are evergreen, although you never know with Dark Horse and the reprints can be sporadic. Always hard to know what Fantagraphics is doing. I think I pre-ordered the new set the second it showed up, having annoyingly missed two second-hand copies on eBay by seconds.

Ms Marvel is another one I must get around to trying at some point.

It's a fun read. Probably don't expect it to blow your mind or anything. It very much is what it is. Kind of like if someone was trying to do a modern-day Spider-Man, but instead of a young man getting bitten by a spider (and, frankly, whining about how difficult his life is while juggling multiple supermodels), the protagonist is a Muslim girl trying to find her way in a multicultural society. And even her powers are really cleverly designed, in being analogous to the awkwardness of teenage existence. (I think it all goes a bit pear-shaped around the time of Champions, when she becomes just another 'Avenger'. And that strip in particular was a big right on, in an on-the-nose fashion. But the original run gets the balance right in a very appealing manner.)

I do think this is the biggest problem with Batman.  There is just so much stuff out there it is hard to find anything consistent.

I managed to get about half of the Eaglemoss set for an embarrassingly low price, from someone locally who just wanted shot of them. I carefully put them all in order and... I dunno. Maybe I'm just not familiar enough with it, but I often found I just didn't care. I also didn't click t all with certain writers who on the strip had been heralded as a second coming. Morrison's run was... OK. I read it. It was fine. But I liked Paul Dini's stuff a whole lot more. Some of those books, along with Black Mirror, and a few random others (City of Owls; Doom That Came to Gotham) remain in my 'keep for now' pile.

I only got into the whole Ed Brubaker Sean Phillips relatively recently, but am now totally addicted and trying not to binge.

I'm sure something will suck eventually, but that pairing is currently one of precisely two things I buy blind and know I'm going to like. (The other being Usagi Yojimbo.) Long may that continue. And I do like the dinky little HC format. It's nice to have a book you can read in a single sitting, which has a start, middle and end, and where the story is engaging but also so smartly told that you're never left puzzled about what happened.

I think it's fantastic Rebellion continues to constantly explore new territory for the IP it owns, and creating new work based on it, rather than just churning out reprint. And I think it's exciting that the company is now exploring crowdfunding, which isn't always great but can sometimes be an excellent way of creating new work and funding relatively niche collections. (And by niche, I mean stuff that won't sell insane amounts – Boom is largely in the same space.)

Ha! I mean, there are still copies in the channel, so it's not like you need to buy it tomorrow. But if you start to see it vanish from various stores, I wouldn't hang about too long. When that happened last time, it was years until a reprint happened, and the set went for silly money on eBay. (There are the paperback trades as well, of course, although I've no idea how easy – or not – they are to source these days.)

Yes. Saga is the UY DH content. The Fantagraphics set is basically everything that came beforehand – the first seven trades with a cover gallery and interview in the second book. The set was also OOP for years and so I imagine it would be smart to buy it sooner rather than later if you're interested.

EDIT: Er, sorry, PsychoGoatee. I wasn't trying to duplicate your post – my browser didn't see it. *kicks the cache machine*

The other thing I've found is they don't always hang around. I was slow to buy Pulp, but I'm glad I did because the thing was OOP a few days later. (It's still in paperback.) But given that I've not disliked anything by the pair yet – and have actually really liked most of it – I'm good buying blind.

Yeah mean like the deluxe hardcover Nikolai Dante we NEED and the Complete Sinister Dexter Files we also need.

We're in fantasy land now, and I don't really want to double dip, but... I'd find it hard to resist a set of Nikolai Dante books in a format akin to Image's deluxes. (Oversized, but still readable. 300ish pages each. And no bloody dust jackets. Horrible things...)

A couple of friends use Kickstarter for projects and have complained they take a decent cut of revenue, but the main challenge they've faced is promoting in failry saturated markets which I assume Rebellion will have no real issue with.

Indeed. I think it's tough for individuals. You have to spend a lot of time promoting your Kickstarter, to the degree it's almost a full-time job. You have to account for manufacturing issues and changes in costs. Postage and replacements can eat into profits. And so on.

All of those are still relevant for publishers, but they have more people and presumably a lot more experience in dealing with these things. And judging by how things have been going for Boom, this stuff can work out really well. The only thing that hacks me off sometimes is when folks running these things don't bother considering anyone outside of the US. I'd have bloody loved an Atomic Robo HC set, but the postage was monstrous. (I know books are relatively heavy, but the cost of a full set of books effectively doubled the price, and the shipping was 2–3x what it much later cost me to have a pile of omnis shipped over from IST via trackable courier.)

Kill Or Be Killed: I thought that was great and it was the series that really got be into the whole Brubaker/Phillips thing. I'm now... probably a bit obsessive. Note quite a completist, but I've bought Pulp and the entire run of Reckless. Some other one-shots. All of Criminal (which I assume from "in which I bemoaned them only appearing once more" isn't in this list?), Fatale and Velvet. The Fade Out is missing, mostly because it's so bloody expensive on the second-hand market.

The only downside to KOBK is the HC book's construction is trash. If there's ever a reprint, I hope that's addressed. Either that or they release it as two deluxes, like Fatale.

[Doctor Strange]

Colin: I've been reading through hundreds of Panini Marvel reprints that cover the 2000s, and figuring out which I want to keep. Turns out, the answer is 'none of them', including the mostly strong Mighty World of Marvel. However, I have used them (and 'temporary' ownership of the first 60 volumes of the original Hachette Marvel collection) to govern some deluxe/omni purchases, most of which are relatively standalone own nature. I really enjoyed:

Doctor Strange (Aaron/Bachalo): quite grim and a divisive run, but one that for me really worked with the gorgeous art and mystical flavour.

Hawkeye (Fraction/Aja): just really smart comics, trying different things and mostly succeeding. I couldn't give two hoots about the character normally, but this just worked. The come down for the following volume was palpable.

Ms. Marvel (G. Willow Wilson): a smart take on the young superhero theme, despite part-way through getting caught in the end of the universe BS Marvel pulled around the time. I'm not keen on what they've done with the character more recently, but those early volumes were great.

Rocket Raccoon (Young): I mean, it's Skottie Young, even if he's just writing. I picked this up as two little HCs. Fun.

She-Hulk (Slott): A solid modern run that doesn't take itself too seriously, and that has interesting enough ideas and stories to keep the momentum going.

Silver Surfer (Slott/Allread): Basically an excuse to do Marvel Doctor Who. The omni recently got a reissue and so should still be in print. Personally, I'm no major fan of that format, but I had to have this one complete and in print. It's a lovely run.

Thor: The God Butcher (Aaron/Ribic): So I remember reading the Aaron run when I first subscribed to the Panini Marvel Legends series and liking it a lot. On re-reading it, I ended up buying just The God Butcher (deluxe, which also includes Godbomb) rather than the entire run, because that was the most impactful. What followed didn't quite do it for me, despite the uptick when the new Thor arrives.

Vision (King): A genuine surprise when I originally read this, and one I had to own. A great exploration that goes deep into what it means to belong, and the difficulties within a 'realistic' world of superpowers. Alas, I did not get on with DC equivalent Mister Miracle.

(On Marvel, I also of course have Langridge's Muppets, which is as close to The Muppet Show as it's possible to get in comic form. And I've also enjoyed but haven't yet fully read the Gwenpool omni.)

Tharg wanted him on horseback but here is the full article

That's quite the development for a single cover. I wonder what happens to the other completed one? It's surely good enough for a Star Scan when there's an empty page begging?