Prog 1907 - Dog Fight

[Frank]

what the hell is going on now in Ichabod?

The female on the hill wants to prevent the leader of the four horsemen glimpsed behind The Hunter from "staking his claim ... ascending and claiming his prize", and so created the impossible buffalo to try to smash through the invisible barrier (the comic panel border) between the town and The Hunter/the horsemen. Turns out Williams was referencing THE OTHER, much less cool, video featuring stampeding buffalo (which, like the strip, is also in black and white).



Poor Ichabod, having that voice stuck in his head all day, although the implication is that it's Zoe singing to Ichabod, rather than Bono Vox. Dowling's art does a great job of selling the reality of things which are inherently unreal, but it's the utterly unique style D'Israeli has adopted for Stickleback which steals pole position this (and every) week.

What started as a stylistic experiment to see if he could manage without black lines has developed into an incredible visual language that marks the strip as something distinct, creating a world all of its own. This week's obvious big visuals are the dragon and the three sisters dropping into almost photo-negative abstraction, but the grot textures, the subtle pattern on Miss Scarlett's face, and the white panel borders within panel borders which allow Sticky's chin to break the frame without breaking the frame - everything about his art on this story is furiously creative and vital .. mitigating against the story, which is essentially familiar stuff arranged in a slightly different order.

Talking of which, I'm not sure whether the purpose of Block Judge is to incorporate narrative and visual elements of the 2012 film into the more versatile and fecund environment of the comics, or vice versa, but the similarities are there for all to see. RE Minkyboy's query regarding the whereabouts of "skinny" Jack Skelton in that line-up of fatties; I assumed that was irony.

[-Dunk!-]

Don't usually comment on these review threads but have to say the combo of Kingdom and Stickleback with a solid slice of Dredd - reminding me of Graveyard Shift - has made the prog most readable recently.

Won't be letting my digital copies stack up for the mo.

Dunk!

[Eamonn Clarke]

Got the digital version today and the Kali statue from Golden voyage of Sinbad is in there as well.
Don't recognise the little armoured beetle guy with her and the Cyclops though

[Minkyboy]

RE Minkyboy's query regarding the whereabouts of "skinny" Jack Skelton in that line-up of fatties; I assumed that was irony.

Ah, so I was being dense. Thank you.

[Fontwell Magma]

Got a spare moment so I thought I'd do a quick review that probably won't add much of interest but hey ho!

Dredd - Awesome stuff - so much dialogue but finding it occasionally difficult to keep up with all the name dropping - i.e. whether we are supposed to know the characters yet or not. There's a lot going on.. and it's building towards something special.

Stickleback - Although there are complexities and back stories here, it's nice that I am able to follow the main storyline fairly easily now.. was struggling with distinguishing some characters a few progs back but I think I'm back on track!

Greysuits - Now, I've not read any previous Greysuit - but this week did seem fairly anti-climatic and obvious. Others say that it's pretty much a repeat of a previous storyline.. I enjoyed the first few episodes but this is going to have to pick up next prog I think.

Ichabod - As I said previously... huh? Love the premise, like the artwork.. but can't really tell what's going on now tbh. When I think I've got the jist, something else happens. Meta-tastic. I'd like to read this all in one. Epic horse though..

Kingdom - I've slagged this off previously - I still don't like the weird dialect used throughout but at least the storyline has moved slightly so I enjoyed it this week.

Pretty decent - waiting for Prog 2015 though!

[Proudhuff]

Don't recognise the little armoured beetle guy with her and the Cyclops though

So not the one-eyed guy on page one of this thread? 

[Dark Jimbo]

Ichabod - As I said previously... huh? Love the premise, like the artwork.. but can't really tell what's going on now tbh. When I think I've got the jist, something else happens. Meta-tastic. I'd like to read this all in one. Epic horse though..

I don't think we're really meant to know yet. I can imagine it must all be especially confusing for anyone who hasn't read the previous books - at least then you'd know who Crow, Beauregard and the Hunter were - but even if you'd been reading since the start, the buffalo and the Indian girl would still (currently) be as much of a mystery.

[Eamonn Clarke]

Don't recognise the little armoured beetle guy with her and the Cyclops though

So not the one-eyed guy on page one of this thread? 

Sorry. My phrasing may be wrong (although I believe punctuation is correct).
I don't recognise the little guy who is standing in a group with Kali and your correctly identified Cyclopean friend.

[Proudhuff]

My misreading, though I may have got the wrong Cyclops as the scale is a bit off

[TordelBack]

It's all very good this week, under a glorious cover - even perennial runt of the litter Greysuit was well-drawn amusing stuff. 

However Ichabod stands out for me, and I wasn't a major fan of the earlier runs.  This last book has been an utter delight. I'm always in two minds about fourth-wall shenanigans in comics, it can be very hit-and-miss, but the lads do a really great job of making it work here.  The use of panel edges as unbreakable walls, even as the omniscient narrator/the writer tries to break those very barriers with modern lingo and appeals to narrative necessity, creates a really enjoyable sense of mystery and strangeness that transforms the simple image of the after-afterlife as old-western town into something quite fascinating.   

Anyone know why the woman might be directing the buffalo towards the barrier, when I'd formed the impression that it was she that created it in the first place?

[Tiplodocus]

Ichabod
I'm always in two minds about fourth-wall shenanigans in comics, it can be very hit-and-miss, but the lads do a really great job of making it work here.  The use of panel edges as unbreakable walls, even as the omniscient narrator/the writer tries to break those very barriers with modern lingo and appeals to narrative necessity, creates a really enjoyable sense of mystery and strangeness that transforms the simple image of the after-afterlife as old-western town into something quite fascinating.   

[spoiler]All of which makes me think that it's the writer who is God (mainly because we don't have a character called "the artist". I would imagine the writer says what's going on in a panel but it's the artist who decides (mostly) how the boundaries between them look, whether they overlap, whether they have thick lines with gaps between them or do tehy form a grid or do they run into one another).[/spoiler]

One thing that gets me is I can't get beyond thinking that the barrier only works when viewed as the gap between two panels side on.  Surely there is no barrier in the over shoulder view from the Hunter with Ichabod in the foreground?

Either way, the art in Dredd, Stickleback and Ichabod is giving us much more to read than is just plain old presented on the page (and similarly, the way Gene's ongoing fall from Alpha and subsequent rise is being portrayed).  It's like a clever film where they use the editing and sound design to convey an extra sense of feeling that just isn't there in the individual frames.

Keep it up, Tharg.

[The Cheat]

Wow, don't think I've ever done quite such a complete 180 on a story as I have over the current Kingdom story. From bored, and oh so close to starting skipping, to loving it in the space of 2 progs. Nice