Prog 2211 - Stay Brave. Stay Strange.

[IndigoPrime]

Not exactly a festive Prog, but a solid one as we head towards year's end. The Dredd switch worked very nicely, and I was happy the strip had room to breathe. I maintain that Mr Pen Name is the closest script droid we have to Wagner, even if his Dredds often don't feature much of the man himself.

Deadworld, meanwhile, was gruesome in a peerless manner—Kek-W must have terrible nightmares.

Dexter exists. It's vanishingly rare that Abnett pens something I find easily the worst thing in the Prog, but there we are. Time to put this strip down.

The Future Shock wasn't very shocking. Strikes me this might have sat better under a different one-off banner. I dunno. It was nice enough though.

And then Fiends. As others have said, this was masterful storytelling and beautiful art, throughout the run. This strip/framework has provided some great moments, but this might have been its zenith. Looking forward to its return.

[TordelBack]

Dexter exists. It's vanishingly rare that Abnett pens something I find easily the worst thing in the Prog, but there we are. Time to put this strip down.

I'd agree with the judgement, but not the conclusion. Instead give the story the kind of 10-12 part runs other strips enjoy, in some cases several times a year, instead of expecting a continuous narrative to feel compelling doled out in 2-3 episode chunks every few months. SinDex feels like the reliable team member who you can count on to stay late/come in Saturday and fix other people's problems, but when the annual review comes around gets told they aren't generating sufficient returns on their own projects. 

[JayzusB.Christ]

Very nice ending to Dredd, I thought. Old school and emotional, like that one-off with the medical test zombies all those years ago. And Niemand writes those robots perfectly.

Future Shock was ok, not very shocking though. Also, as has been stated before, that's not science.  It's an annoying internet shite-spouter's erroneous idea of science. But yeah, not a bad story.

Deadworld : Sweet Jesus on a unicycle, we ain't in Kansas any more. This is dark, dark stuff.  I love it - touch of Alan Moore here too; show us an utterly bizarre world then jump back in time to show us how we got there.  Looking forward to more.

Haven't read the other two yet.

[DrJomster]

This was a really strong prog in my books. And a nice ending to a great little Dredd. Caught the classic Dredd vibe very nicely.

[Darren Stephens]

Enjoy that Dredd immensely. Hopefully we see much more of the Austin droid in the new year. Have to say though, Fiends has been the standout during its run over the last few weeks. Absolutely brilliant.

[JayzusB.Christ]

I've read the other two now.  Fiends was brilliant- I loved the Interview with the Vampire-style progression to the 20th century, with a little bit of Past Imperfect stuff thrown in.  Constanza may well have [spoiler]caused WW1 and WW2 [/spoiler]for his own ends - brilliant.

Dexter - it's ok, but I'm not getting on with Steve Yeowell's artwork here, even though he's a freaking legend. Also can't help feeling that everything will soon be back to normal, just as it always is eventually when things get all upended in Downlode. 

[TordelBack]

Dexter - it's ok, but I'm not getting on with Steve Yeowell's artwork here, even though he's a freaking legend.

No indeed.  It's his usual fine fare when we're concentrating on the characters themselves, but the background and zombie-action are barely there - and as noted upthread, absolutely no-one can create environments out of a few perfectly-judged strokes and some swathes of solid ink like Steve Yeowell - but in this story, there were none to work with. Speaking as a big fan of Abnett, Yeowell and Charles, and with SinDex as one of my favourite strips, this felt like it was just filling a gap.

I really do hope the storyline, strip and team get the space they deserve next year.

[Tiplodocus]

One thing that drags me out of the artwork in Sin/Dex is the terrible fonts used on the shop signs. But yeah, not often this is my least favourite thrill.

Everything else was great for me even the relatively slight Future Shock worked because of the theme.

[JayzusB.Christ]

So is next prog the big Christmas one then? I must say I'm starting to enjoy the prog again, and was close to giving up on it recently. Without wishing to take away from all the other excellent creators, a good Dredd writer makes a big difference, and makes the prog feel like a proper prog. I hope Kenneth sticks around longer than Al Ewing did.

[TordelBack]

One thing that drags me out of the artwork in Sin/Dex is the terrible fonts used on the shop signs.

I started out thinking that the shopfront fonts were part of the consumer-satire of the mall-zombies, in a kind of They Live way. But by the end they seemed to more reflect the almost entropic-end-of-Samantha-Slade ambience.

However, after I had been whining away about this last night, and essentially accusing everyone involved of being bored or frustrated beyond the point of caring, I started to wonder about all the unknown factors that might be at play. Given the obvious unanticipated delay in Sláine making to the page, was this strip thrown at Abnett & Yeowell with an almost-zero deadline because, let's face it, they are both absolute troupers? Or worse, could there be other real-world issues affecting Steve's workflow in this year of years that had caused Assirelli to step in earlier. 

So I may well have been unfairly critical to the creators, all of whom are counted among the brightest stars in the comics firmament, and for this I apologise. My own disappointment is really about the way a strip I always enjoy being chopped about and dragged around during what is be a critical storyline, instead of given the room it needs to build tension and deliver resolution.

[Colin YNWA]

The key issue for me is this story has been set up, and seems structured to be a single, continous story. Similar views about choppy scheduling were thrown at Sinister Dexter during The Moses War, but I think that was fundamentally different. The Moses War was an overarching story, designed to be made of smaller chunks and I think Dabnett and Anthony Williams handled that superbly.

Here however this has been advertised as a single epic. the story feels structured like a single epic. We know both creators, given the opportunity, can deliver a single epic - remember the astonishing work Steve Yeowell produced over 30-40 weeks on Devlin Waugh Sirius Rising storyline and yet here we are. Fill-in artist - on the privetal point of the story, and art from the mighty Yeowell that feels very rushed - especially given the quality of the work he's been doing so far on Sinister Dexter.

Who knows the reasons, the schedule does feel like its to pot and in the circumstance that's understandable BUT if that is the reason I just wish Tharg wouldn't make a strip as great as this, a story with such significent at this point - the whipping boy for sorting out any issues.

I'm repeating myself, but Tharg you got Slaine in the bag now (one hopes), fingers crossed everything else is in place and ready to run and now if at all possible give Dabnett, The Mighty Yeowell and this these magnificent characters the time they need to get it right and get it delivered as intended - it was certainly billed as a single epic. It feels like a single epic, allow it to be a single epic...

and breathe Taylor, breathe....

[broodblik]

The current Sin/Dex series the world feels barren and empty especially this last episode. Hopefully we can get a proper run next year as already said we do not know how the scheduling where effected this year.

[Andrew_J]

I just want to tag Fiends of the Eastern Front here as one of the best strips in the prog in recent times. Ian's story is epic and the dialogue has been brilliant. Tiernen's art is gorgeous in particular; the line art has a lovely old school ink-on-paper look to it and the colouring is quality stuff. I really, really love this strip; this is the sort of storytelling that keeps me coming back to the prog again and again.
Here's to more Fiends in 2021.