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Topics - Funt Solo

#201
General / Caballistics Inc.
14 July, 2005, 07:43:45 PM
I've had a bit of a downer on Caballistics Inc. recently because I'd lost touch with the characters.

However, I've just re-read the entire series all the way from Prog 2003 to present day, and I heartily recommend that anyone feeling a bit lost do the same.

It's a real slow-burner, with tons of little snippets of information given away over time.  Having gone over it there's a lot more to each of the characters than I was giving credit for given my feeble memory.

So that I never lose track again, I've built up a collection of character profiles which I'll post on this thread for anyone who's interested.
#202
Help! / DK2: who hell they?
12 July, 2005, 05:26:02 AM
DK2 (The Dark Knight Strikes Again) features several superheroes that I'm not familiar with:

Professor Palmer:  The Atom
Barry Allen:  The Flash
Ralph Dibny: [Some kind of Mr Stretch like Reid from FF]
Sage [guy with no face]
The Thanagarian family (winged angel-a-likes]
Eel O'Brien: Plastic Man
Guardian
The Creeper
John Jones:  Manhunter From Mars [looks like The Thing from FF)


My question is:  did all these characters exist before DK2?
#203
Prog / Prog 1447: Something Wicked...
11 July, 2005, 04:47:15 PM
Gordon Rennie - you mad bastich!
#204
Help! / Hunters Club Question...
01 July, 2005, 10:22:47 PM
Is Death Aid a spin-off of The Hunters Club?
#205
Help! / Lining Up 2K and the Meg
01 July, 2005, 05:46:13 PM
Does anyone know of a resource that shows where 2K and the Meg coincide.

I know it's every 4 weeks now (which is very helpful) but it used to be variously monthly or fortnightly and it'd be great if someone had already made a list something like this:

2K:      Meg:
1441     233
1442
1443
1444
1445     234

(except taking in every single Meg).
#206
General / What Makes A Mega-Epic?
30 June, 2005, 07:58:53 PM
What is the definition of a mega-epic?

If Total War is a mega-epic (coming in at 72 pages over 12 progs) then so is Darkside (same stats), but does anyone consider Darkside to be a mega-epic?

Block Mania was only 55 pages over 9 issues (although that is tied so closely to The Apocalypse War that it's difficult to consider it as a lone story).  If 55 pages was the measure of an epic, then Goodnight Kiss and Destiny's Angels aren't far off.

If we leave aside statistics, is it instead what happens in the story that marks it out as epic?  Total War had great implications for MC-1 and was historically important.  Destiny's Angels less so.  There was (pardon me) fallout from Total War.

IMO, here's the list of mega-epics (with bracketed page counts):

(164) The Cursed Earth  
(129) [Judge Caligula]    
(163) The Judge Child  
(208) Block Mania & The Apocalypse War
(199) Oz
(297) Necropolis (& Tales of the Dead Man & The Dead Man)
(150) Judgement Day
(165) Wilderlands
(191) [The Pit]
(285) Doomsday

epic-cases
(104) [Luna 1]
(093) [The Mega-Rackets]

mini-epics
(93) City of the Damned
(73) Inferno [although this never really happened]
(60) Crusade
(72) Darkside
(72) Beyond the Call of Duty
(??) Sector House
(72) Helter Skelter
(78) Sin City
(72) Total War

micro-epics
(41) Robot Wars
(50) Destiny's Angels
(47) Cry of the Werewolf
(45) The Graveyard Shift
(40) Dredd Angel
(43) Midnight Surfer
(42) Death Aid
(48) Book of the Dead
(57) The Exterminator
(54) Midnight Kiss
(42) Dead Reckoning
(48) The Scorpion Dance
(49) Revenge of the Chief Judge's Man
(42) The Satanist
(49) Terror
#207
General / Mega-Epic Originality
23 June, 2005, 05:25:06 PM
The Pit was the first epic since The Apocalypse War that wasn't trying to outdo it.

Total War is the most original Mini-Mega-Epic since The Pit.
#208
Books & Comics / The Algebraist
21 June, 2005, 04:26:19 AM
I've just finished The Algebraist by Iain M Banks.  With this, his latest sci-fi novel, he's surpassed himself, extending on a theme of intelligent airborne alien fauna first explored in Look To Winward, his last Culture novel.

But this is not a Culture novel, and turns many of the stalwart themes of those stories upside down.  Here, the "hippies with guns" civilisation is not humanoid, but a galaxy-spanning billions of years old species called Dwellers that live in gas giants.  Humans have spread amongst the stars and joined a heirarchical totalitarian empire called the Mercatoria, which hunts down and kills AIs.

The main plot is a quest for something the entire galaxy is willing to go to war over, but other plots weave in to the story, which start relatively slowly before ramping up a notch at key points until, in the second half, it's almost impossible to put down.

When the solution to a key puzzle is finally played out, you realise (as if often the case with Banks) that he's already provided you with all the information to solve it yourself.

Add to all that some seriously cool battles, bizarre alien cultures, sub-plots, riddles, freedom fighters, espionage, plausible deniability on a grand scale, nerdy weapon tech and an evil warlord and you might just end up wishing for more from this galaxy rather than the one portrayed in the Culture novels.
#209
General / Can You Measure Thrill-Power?
16 June, 2005, 10:53:12 PM
In a recent thread, I said:

"The bad guys will eventually get together, confront the [good guys], appear to beat them and then (somehow) things will get over-turned and the [good guys] will emerge triumphant despite the overwhelming odds because their cause is just."

Someone quickly asked the pertinent question:

"So you don't think that's going to be the plot outline of .... an awful lot of other 2000AD stories as well?"

So, if there are only ever a few core storylines, what makes or breaks a comic strip?
#210
General / TBTD: Like, wow, man...
15 June, 2005, 04:43:08 PM
As I was nodding off to sleep lastnight I had this, like, amazing revelation, man, about a great topic for The Big Thursday Debate, but, like, when I woke up, I'd totally forgotten what it was.
#211
General / IS THIS SHOUTING?
06 June, 2005, 05:47:51 PM
Why is it that when people use chat rooms, text messaging, bulletin board systems or any form of typed text that if they use all caps IT LOOKS LIKE THEY'RE SHOUTING but in 2000AD, the speech bubbles are (nearly) always done in all caps and it doesn't LOOK LIKE THEY'RE SHOUTING?

Ah, the mysteries of context...how they help me avoid work.



#212
Suggestions / A novel idea (ho ho)
01 June, 2005, 03:57:54 PM
Okay, you all remember the comic versions of Harry Harrison's "The Stainless Steel Rat" novels, published in the hallowed pages of 2000AD in the 100-500 era?  I mention these as a precedent.

Well, how about comic versions of some of Iain M. Banks books?  Specifically, I'm thinking about his 'Culture' novels, although he has written other sci-fi books that aren't set in that particular universe.

That's it:  that's my suggestion.
#213
http://eve-online.com/" target="_blank">Eve Online
#214
Film & TV / Serenity
02 May, 2005, 07:54:03 PM
http://www.apple.com/trailers/universal/serenity/" target="_blank">Serenity trailer
#215
Suggestions / Let us see the "Dummy Prog"
21 April, 2005, 05:10:58 PM
At the back of the first M.A.C.H.1 Extreme Edition, there is a sample of art from what is described by Pat Mills as the "surviving 2000AD dummy prog" [paraphrasing].

Let's see it then, please, Tharg.

You could release it in the same format as the Prog 1 replica and the 3000AD replica (from progs 1033 & 1034).
#216
Suggestions / Extreme Articles
21 April, 2005, 02:29:28 AM
The first Extreme Edition had a great article relevant to the reprinted material (by David Bishop, in the style of the Thrill Power Overload series from the Megazine).

None of the subsequent Extreme Editions have had the equivalent, which I think is a shame.
#217
Books & Comics / V For Vendetta Question
19 April, 2005, 06:05:51 AM
I was at the bookshop and they've got some classic graphic novels I've never read before:  V For Vendetta and Sin City stand out because I hear they're utter class, but in both cases, I just don't fancy the artwork.

So...question:  Is V For Vendetta like the Citizen Kane of comics (in that it's regarded as a classic but really, most of it's tricked have been copied so many times that they don't really seem original anymore and whilst it's impressive on first viewing, it's not really something you'd bother watching again) or am I missing out?

Instead I bought Ministry Of Space, War Stories Vol. 1 and 1602:  all of which I highly recommend (if you're into deconstructing the Dan Dare myth, a modern take on WWII comics and a sword & sorcery alternity for the Marvelverse respectively).
#218
General / Potential Portrait Of A Mutant Glitch
18 April, 2005, 10:55:12 PM
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
?

In Portrait Of A Mutant, part 2, it says that a global atomic war starts up in 2140.  That same year Johnny Alpha is born, a mutant because of radioactive fallout from the bombs.

Now, I had always assumed that all the mutants in the story were mutated for the same reason.  Only, if that was the case, there would be no mutants older than Johnny Alpha, and his father wouldn't be head of the anti-mutant brigade, because the only mutants would be toddlers.

So, there must have been mutants around prior to the 2140 war - which is nice, because that would tie in neatly with the Dreddverse, which is already heavily populated my muties, and already had a nuclear war.

*phew*
#219
Suggestions / Extreme Diceman
15 April, 2005, 06:04:12 AM
The subject heading ("Extreme Diceman") says it all.
#220
General / Wednesday Night Nightmare
14 April, 2005, 02:53:55 AM