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In complete contrast to this week's prog, I found this an absolute delight from start to finish. Bought an extra copy for my eldest, and ordered the Fabry cover from FP for the collection. So they've made me buy it three times, and I'm not sore about it in the least.
Not a bad strip in there- with my favourites being The Thirteenth Floor, Black Max and The Sentinels. The Death Man strip serves as a pilot for a series I very much hope gets the go ahead- to see The Leopard and Blake Edmonds again made my day.
The feature pages were brilliant, and I even cast more than a cursory eye over the Spot The Difference. I did wonder, though, if knowing the age of the people most likely to pick this up, a Sudoku would have been more appropriate.

All in all, a lovely package, and seeing as I bought my copies from exactly the same papershop from which I collected my reserved copies of Scream in 1984, and in which I expressed my horror when I was told it had been cancelled all those years ago, it could not have been better.

More, please.

SBT

I'm afraid I also thought the art on the Dredd strip, er, "not to my liking". I could say more but for some reason feel like that would be unwelcome. I hope we never see the like in the prog again, unless he tries a completely different style.
Cover also stuck out for me as being absolutely appalling. Not sure if the subject matter (sheets) or the cluttered straplines, but I've not seen a prog cover that would have forced my money back in my pocket so hard as that in a very long time.
Slaine was okay (will read better in the collection), Grey Area was a decent end to a game changing story and I look forward to more, Indigo Prime still seems to be telling a story in the most obtuse way possible, and the highlight was the return of Harry.
Usually when the prog is middling, I'll give it the benefit of the doubt, but with that cover, that Dredd art, Indigo Prime and that font in Slaine... this gets a double raspberry from me.
SBT

Aw, if we have Simon Davies- even with all his hi'fallutin portraiture, surely we can get Mick back?
SBT

With regards to that Purity cover- yes, but Mick Austin can do no wrong. Seriously, he's magnificent. What's he up to now?
SBT

From the perspective of continuity, yeah why not. Sometimes it's easy to forget that some readers haven't been fed this stuff week on week since they were seven years old. Coming to 2000AD for the first time as an adult could be daunting, in the sense that it may seem "important" to have to "catch up". Personally, I have faith that most of the longest running stories, ABCs included, stand well-enough on their own to be picked up with any given story. Or at least, in the case of the ABCs, as individual stories when the artist changes. I'm not sure the more recent Clint Langley books could be just as easily dipped into, as Pat seems to be in the process of tying everything together now.
Ro-Busters and the ABC Warriors are a brilliant, clever, funny and mesmerising couple of strips that tell a long and rhythmic saga over decades. But I don't think you lose everything by starting at later points.
SBT

Just picked up Vol 4, The Kreeler Conspiracy, and am sat reading it while waiting for my GP appointment (which is by Skype, annoyingly. I hate living in a Tory future).
Sometimes, collected editions don't live up to the weekly prog experience (The Apocalypse War, ferinstance, is never as good as it was in the prog, where the wait between weeks was horrible), and others read so much better. This is the latter here, as it's absolutely stonking. When this ran in the prog, I disliked it immensely- and it started a phase of me skipping Stront- which I never imagined I'd ever do, having been a fan since Star Lord #1, when Ezquerra's art scared the absolute shit out of me.
Reading it now, I'm totally in love. I'm only 60 or so pages in, but already it's the best tenner I've spent this week.
SBT

Thanks Mr Mod!

The whole issue of Sinister Dexter continuity would be a damn site easier to follow if Tharg would get off his fat green arse and publish a series of trades- in order and missing nothing- like he does with just about everything else.
SBT

Always nice to write this down, if only to have a record of what they are *at this moment*.


The Apocalypse War (but not Block Mania)
Cry of the Werewolf
Trapper Hagg
Monkey Business at Charles Darwin Block
Chaos Day
Tour of Duty
and at number one, probably forever, The Pit.

SBT

Of late, I've been running a bit hot and cold on the prog- skipping The Alienist, bored of Dredd, only really liking Hope and Greysuit. You know how it is, it's the lament of the long term Squaxx.
This one though, was fantastic. A jolt to the circuits, with nearly every strip Thrilling in a way they haven't done for a while. Only Indigo Prime didn't float my boat, but that's because I really can't remember a sodding thing about the last series and have no idea what's going on.
Top Thrills: SiniDex, Grey Area, Slaine.
Bubbling under: Rogue- the art was phenomenal and I've not enjoyed a Rogue strip as much as that in years. Also Dredd, which seemed invigorated after that last one.
Better than I expected: Deadworld, which made sense and featured characters I recognised for a change, and Zenith, which wasnt an insult to the original and made me smile.
Indigo Prime will improve once I've reread the last series. Anyone remember which progs it was in?

Great prog, better than #2000 I reckon. Hope it's similarly successful for Rebellion.
SBT

Me too please, I can't even post in the prog thread. Reckon I'm no bot.
SBT

Regarding The Phoenix, it's been on regular sale in my WH Smith's for at least a year. I've bought it for my youngest a few times, but he really doesn't like it, he says.
He has recently asked me to stop getting him the Beano, which he's been reading since he was about seven, because "it's now full of fads and trendy stuff like fidget spinners" (his words, he's 12) and despite my offering to buy him any comic whatsoever, said he'd prefer a games magazine. His brother (14) has had 2000ad weekly for the past three years or so, and gets upset when I ask him if he still wants me to get it for him, because "duh, obviously". We are currently negotiating my buying him a subscription if he goes to uni in four years.
SBT

I think you need to interview Chris Catto from Edinburgh, since he has a place in Tharg's history book. There's an Edinburgh-based chap on Facebook with that name, who seems about the right age.
I wonder if he ever outshone his high initial peak? I wonder if he ever sees the prog on the racks and has to wipe away a small tear?
SBT

They don't all live with us, and are split between her ex husband and my ex wife, so we only have my stepdaughter in the house. Except when they all come to stay, which is on a weekly basis at the moment...
My own two are here at the moment and are ecstatic. Especially as they're due around Halloween.
I have no idea how we are going to cope, but it'll be fun.
SBT

Nothing "drokkin' fantastic" appears to have happened to anyone in over a month, so please allow me this.

I've just found out my wife is expecting twins! This means I will be a father/step father to eight children in total, four spewed from my own loins.

I am a little shellshocked, and may need a drink, but- wow.

SBT