Messages

1

General / Re: FFT - ROUND of 16 - Lawless vs Firekind - Heat 01

« on: Today at 09:21:31 AM »

Oh by gosh yes, Nerys Pettifer is an all-time great character, every new episode I'm holding out hope that she gets a win! Not many comics where you tune in regularly just to keep abreast of the emotional state of one character! (And frankly this is true of Metta "Lawson" too).

Yep much as I love Metta, Nerys is the star of the series in my mind. There is such a rich cast of other characters as well. For me that's what makes it stand out from Dabnett's other star turns at the moment - I'm guessing Sinister Dexter aside but that's not quite up there at the moment for different reasons.

I mean yes, let's be honest Lawless feels more traditional than either Brink or The Out, with its glorious wild west action but its the characters in addition to that which put it ahead of either of those two for me, brilliant though they are. Its thrill perfection in my eyes.

2

General / FFT - ROUND of 16 - The Out vs Brink - Heat 02

« on: Today at 06:34:09 AM »

Sponsored by 2000ad in Stages* - see links below.

The Out - more info

VS

Brink - more info

OUCH - this modern Dabnett Derby (and clue this isn’t the only Dabnett Derby this round) is arguably the tie of the round. Sure it's a shame they have been drawn together, but it answers a fascinating question in its own right. Dabnett is surely now undisputed king of Tharg Current Thrill-menagerie, but which of this two latest do we think best?

Form book - Thrill vanquished to date (in order of round met earliest to latest):

The Out: Zaucer of Zilk; The Order; Jaegir; Low Life
Brink: Mercy Heights; Shako; Taxidermist; Stickleback

Round 6 - or “Round of 16” as folks seem to like to call the last 16 these days (?!?) will feature just one thrill a day. I’d like to pretend this is to give these epic thrills more space and time to be commented on… but really it's to buy myself a bit of extra time to plan what comes next!

To Vote Just reply in this thread naming your favourite thrill of these two series at the beginning of your post (or use Bold tags so I can spot it easily) and say what you like about these wonderful stories after that.

Match ends early on the morning of Friday 19th August and the winner gets a place in the Quarter Finals.

What on Earth is ALL of this?

For those that need ‘um and can be bothered to follow ‘um there’s some simple rules

Any questions, just ask as ever - and have FUN!

*Important Note - this is done with neither permission, or money changing hands (damnit). Apologies for the former, I also meant to do this much earlier but… well ya know how it is…

3

Prog / Re: Prog 2295 - Burns Black

« on: 15 August, 2022, 08:32:28 PM »

Well forget the rest Brink - a double length episode too - just rules this... wow such a powerful episode. I'll not say more but suffice to say it leaves as many questions as it answers... well more in fact. There's characters in the story I really hope come back. In part because of the ending, in part as they are great. Wow just wow. I really need to make time to read the whole of Brink again soon. Stunning comics.

Saying the prog is all about Brink this week is a little disrespectful to an excellent Dredd with Dan Cornwell and Ken Niemand returning to Moe Hallam the security guard who sees you naked. It seems like a fun aside but pushes the characters overall story along too and demands more. Niemand and his co-creators really are filling Mega City One with a host of simply wonderful characters. Its making the strip so rich and colourful, while never losing sight of the deep dark underbelly of it all.

Skip Tracer is in the Prog too... but thankfully that even deeper, darker underbelly that is Jaegir wraps things up nicely...well not nicely clearly but wonderfully grimly...

... which does rather make for an interesting juxtapostion with the back inside cover - presenting the cover to next weeks Regened. Its a chuffin' brilliant cover just exploses the contrast in the tone to come.

Top prog and not just because of Brink.... but I mean largely because of Brink which is stunning.

4

General / Re: FFT Round 5 Round-Up

« on: 15 August, 2022, 08:20:14 PM »

Oh and for anyone that wants to see here's the results from Broodblik tournment

https://forums.2000ad.com/index.php?topic=46763.msg1035323#msg1035323

Worth noting as this was a 2000ad vote Lawless is the wildcard here and as you know I think it should win... I mean it won't ... and Nikolai Dante is probably better... but who knows... mind voting against Firekind has swung as the day has progressed so a long way to go still...

5

General / Re: FFT Round 5 Round-Up

« on: 15 August, 2022, 08:16:26 PM »

It will also be interesting to see the final rounds the results versus the top 20 vote we had in the beginning  of lockdown

I’ve just looked it up and h the thrill I have as the nailed on favourite here was only second. And the only thrill I can realistically see challenging it was the winner.

So it might not be as clear cut as I’m expecting.

Oh one of my potential finalists and one I think could beat the favourite isn't even in the top three. The final rounds will be fascinating - well assuming we don't get some drawn together before that... we'll see...

6

General / Re: FFT Round 5 Round-Up

« on: 15 August, 2022, 01:45:33 PM »

It will also be interesting to see the final rounds the results versus the top 20 vote we had in the beginning  of lockdown

Yeah - they are different types of tourney so in theory your vote will be more 'accurate' at displaying the correct answer beyond top spot, but I do plan to reflect on the differences in position.

7

General / Re: FFT Round 5 Round-Up

« on: 15 August, 2022, 12:00:35 PM »

Almost all thrills at this point have had LONG runs spanning mutiple books and years. Firekind the obvious exception...

And early voting today - and early voting is always a tricky beast to trust - suggests things won't go well there...

To use one random cut-off, I've noticed that there are exactly 8 thrills that enjoyed runs of longer than 10 years, squaring off against another 8 that didn't / haven't had that longevity. Is quantity going to beat quality? Have any thrills managed to maintain high quality over such a long time?

Its interesting I think folks are much more forgiving of some thrills lows than others and sometimes vote for the highs regardless and others balance things out over the entire run of a series.

8

General / Re: FFT Round 5 Round-Up

« on: 15 August, 2022, 11:26:30 AM »

Some of those panel choices are the best yet. I giggled out loud in work!

Thanks so much for doing these.

9

General / FFT - ROUND of 16 - Lawless vs Firekind - Heat 01

« on: 15 August, 2022, 06:23:44 AM »

Sponsored by 2000ad in Stages* - see links below.

Lawless - more info

VS

Firekind - more info

What an opener… but then they will all be great from here on in. From the dust bowls of colony world, 43 Rega to the jungles of Gennyo-Leil come two giants of Tharg’s Thrill-garden. Each holding the flag for something important. Lawless is the last true Meg thrill and Firekind the last single ‘book’ story. One must fall…

Form book - Thrill vanquished to date (in order of round met earliest to latest):

Lawless: Samizdat Squad; Chimpsky's Law; Mazeworld; Thistlebone
Firekind: American Reaper; Mean Team; Harlem Heroes; Meltdown Man

Round 6 - or “Round of 16” as folks seem to like to call the last 16 these days (?!?) will feature just one thrill a day. I’d like to pretend this is to give these epic thrills more space and time to be commented on… but really its to buy myself a bit of extra time to plan what comes next!

To Vote Just reply in this thread naming your favourite thrill of these two series at the beginning of your post (or use Bold tags so I can spot it easily) and say what you like about these wonderful stories after that.

Match ends early on the morning of Thursday 18th August and the winner gets a place in the Quarter Finals.

What on Earth is ALL of this?

For those that need ‘um and can be bothered to follow ‘um there’s some simple rules

Any questions, just ask as ever - and have FUN!

*Important Note - this is done with neither permission, or money changing hands (damnit). Apologies for the former, I also meant to do this much earlier but… well ya know how it is…

10

General / Re: Forum’s Fav Thrill - Nikolai Dante vs. Survival Geeks Rd 5 Heat 16

« on: 14 August, 2022, 06:36:35 AM »

VOTING CLOSED

As straightforward as they come this one. And to be honest fun as Survival Geeks is that's hardly surprising. In the end, as predicted they just couldn't keep up with the epic meladrama and

Nikolai Dante

will be facing tougher challenges in Round 6

11

General / Re: Forum’s Fav Thrill - Zenith vs. Anderson PSi Division Rd 5 Heat 15

« on: 14 August, 2022, 06:31:28 AM »

VOTING CLOSED

As you might expect its been very close and a right ol' battle

Both these thrills are absolutely superb

Zenith has the advantage of being contained, control and therefore consistantly brilliant

Where as Anderson has run and run. A character who for 20 years was served by great stories, but then couldn't be retired and no one seems to know quite what to do with?

I SUSPECT THAT'S WHAT HAS COST IT HERE

Such a shame as it was so good, so good, for so long. In the end though

Zenith

will be checking his biorhythm for Round 6

12

General / Re: Showing Meg covers in Barney by year

« on: 13 August, 2022, 10:03:35 PM »

I don’t think there’s any way to do this. With Progs, you can add a FirstProg and LastProg value to the URL but Megs don’t work the same way because of the volumes.

Thanks Cosh - I did wonder if I was missing something but it seems not. Oh well I've a back up plan and the Shop has the megs from 2003 onwards by year so only 13 years to cover... if you'll excuse the pun!

13

General / Re: Showing Meg covers in Barney by year

« on: 13 August, 2022, 08:29:55 PM »

If you're trying to figure out which Megs belong to which year I can tell you that, but next week cos I'm on vacation from my spreadsheets. Or you could reverse engineer that info from the Dredd pages on the 2kstages site.

Thanks I've got the issue numbers covered. Just wondering if there's a neat way to display them on the live site so folks can link through to the issues if they want.

Might not be possible, but worth an ask.

14

General / Re: Showing Meg covers in Barney by year

« on: 13 August, 2022, 06:14:40 PM »

The format on Barney for the first 200 issues is volume number, decimal point, issue number, for example 1.1

Go that much. Alas its showing all Megs from 1990, all Megs from 1991 etc that I need, rather than the individual issues.

15

General / Showing Meg covers in Barney by year

« on: 13 August, 2022, 05:55:25 PM »

Okay a request for help... bit of an odd one, but all will become clear.

I'm trying to list all the Megazine covers in Barney by year. Now this is easy enough to work out for the Prog but for the Meg as they are listed in volumes I can't figure it out?

Does anyone know if its possible? I've tried a few variations on that used for the Prog but can't make that work for the Meg... any help appreciated...