Prog 1877 - Someone Call a Cop?

[amines2058]

Curious that some people are directly tying in the cover (which is really good and eye catching) to the present Dredd story, to me its unrelated and just a cool image on the cover similar to the recent-ish Cliff Robinson covers.

Dredd - After having had my appetite whetted for another week, its even more curious to see what Section 7 is all about and for me the most telling thing was the fact that Dredd doesnt seem too supportive of what this shadowdy section of the Justice Dept is doing. Anyway looking forward to Max Blixen's big reveal next week. Another chuckle vote for Dale Whiton Underhang!

Outlier - Nice to have the tables turned on the main character, goodie or baddie? Undecided so far! Liked the double page spread and the pace of this week after two very quick 'I visit you and youre dead' weeks.

Slaine - The art has started to click with me but the story hasnt. I'm even having trouble working out which 'time' this is in ie is it Slaines most recent adventure or a flashback?
Sinister/Dexter - Enjoyable but still feels like the story is another run of the mill jolly jape for our unkillable gun-sharks. C-bomb should have learnt to not make a betraying phone call IN THE NEXT ROOM to where all his mates are...blimey.

Jaegir - Really like this, its building up well and the cast is a good one. I do miss the Nu-Earth setting though as it was quite a unique arena for future war.

Even though I dont have thousands of posts, I am a long time reader and subscriber and even a bad 2000ad is better than most other comics I read so more power to it. I love receiving it on Saturday and usually read it immediately!

Judgerufian, I agree with you on Slaine. I am also confused as to when it is supposed to be set??
That especially rung true this week when deciding on his battle-cry, he referenced that his father had said, 'His blade killed 10 and he did not think it to many!' (or similar), but instead chose the other quote 'that their bodies shall pollute the sea'?? (Quotes may not be exact as only read it once so far!) I thought it was almost like an alternate universe Slaine we were seeing??  Still am enjoying all the same, especially the painted art! 

[Dandontdare]

just consider it "olden times" and don't worry too much! 

[TordelBack]

What a terrific prog.  Not that everything is in 'best episode evah' territory, but the whole thing just exudes quality and variety: every single story is solid, enjoyable fare.

Pick of the bunch has to be Slaine. I honestly didn't think I'd ever enjoy Slaine this much again.  Terrific fight-scene, just exquisite art.  Sinead's fabulous design puts me in mind of Fabry's wonderful Niamh, while the new Sea Devils in the light of the bonfire are just breathtaking.   

As to the setting, it's the shores of Galloway in Slaine's 'present'.  Slogh Feg and Medb are defeated, the Flood has come, he's back from his time-travels as warrior for the Goddess, Niamh has been killed and avenged, he's seen the tribes of the Tuatha De Dannan (including his own Sessair) leave our reality and pass into myth, he's wandering Albion doing nothing in particular.  Possibly the events of Book of Scars have accentuated his, having recently been reunited with Ukko who is (IIRC) running a tavern.

Dredd:  Arrrgh, the tension.  I just love Dredd's ambivalence, how do Wagner & McNeill convey so much with so few words and lines. 

Jaegir finally works for me this week with some intriguing backstory, glad to see Tracy remember she's a top cop in Sinister Dexter, and Outlier continues to entertain.

Oh, and a grand arresting cover.

I love this kind of competent, satisfying week: in many ways I prefer these middle-weeks where all cylinders are firing, over the spectculat starts and finishes.  All that's missing is a Futrure Shock, and even then Outlier kind of fills that role

[TordelBack]

Ugh, that third paragraph should read:

"As to the setting, it's the shores of Galloway in Slaine's 'present'.  Slogh Feg and Medb are defeated, the Flood has come, he's back from his time-travels as warrior for the Goddess, Niamh has been killed and avenged, he's seen the tribes of the Tuatha De Dannan (including his own Sessair) leave our reality and pass into myth, he's wandering Albion doing nothing in particular, having recently been reunited with Ukko who is (IIRC) running a tavern.  Possibly the events of Book of Scars have accentuated his natural tendency to brood.

[Frank]

Curious that some people are directly tying in the cover (which is really good and eye catching) to the present Dredd story, to me its unrelated and just a cool image on the cover similar to the recent-ish Cliff Robinson covers

They are? I suppose you could relate the imagery to Erika, Max, and their blabbering lips, but disembodied mouths seem more like Willsher making an oblique reference to The Haunting Of Sector House 9.

[Frank]

Pick of the bunch has to be Slaine. I honestly didn't think I'd ever enjoy Slaine this much again.  Terrific fight-scene, just exquisite art.  Sinead's fabulous design puts me in mind of Fabry's wonderful Niamh, while the new Sea Devils in the light of the bonfire are just breathtaking

Completely agree; and no-one's even complained about the (gorgeous) orange and teal colour scheme. That rule obviously only applies to film posters

[JamesC]

Pick of the bunch has to be Slaine. I honestly didn't think I'd ever enjoy Slaine this much again.  Terrific fight-scene, just exquisite art.  Sinead's fabulous design puts me in mind of Fabry's wonderful Niamh, while the new Sea Devils in the light of the bonfire are just breathtaking

Completely agree; and no-one's even complained about the (gorgeous) orange and teal colour scheme. That rule obviously only applies to film posters

I'm just relieved that Simon Davis is running out of purple.

[Dark Jimbo]

Week-by-week the current thrills are not doing all that much differently to previous weeks, so I'm finding it hard to think of new things to say about them. This is especially true of current Dredd, Slaine and Sin/Dex - but I was struck this week by the parallels between Jaegir and Outlier and thought it worthy of comment...

Both involve a set of characters on the trail of an semi-human killing machine that has been picking off victims one by one since the start of the strip. Knowing who the creature is likely to hit next, both strips have characters staging an ambush for said creature, hoping that when it arrives the hunter will become the hunted. Where they differ completely is in the execution, and I have to say Outlier comes off much the worse for the comparison.

Jaegir has managed to craft an incredibly strong sense of place and atmosphere in only five pages - the castle is beautifully designed by Coleby; with those eerie woods and (presumably deliberate) echoes of Colditz and other Nazi strongholds, it's such a well-defined location and I can't wait to see the showdown with the strigoi kick off there. By contrast Outlier is taking place in a rather off-the-peg jungle that doesn't really excite me, and to be honest I don't really know much about the wider universe it's set in, either. All the designs have been incredibly generic so far and nothing's really made an impact.

The comparisons threw into contrast how excited I am for the rest of Jaegir, and how uninvolved I am with Outlier. I don't really care whether Caul(?) kills his targets next week or whether they kill him - wouldn't make a blind bit of difference to me either way as nobody's had enough character build-up to make me care. At least I'm interested, if not invested, in him as a protagonist - the trouble is he's not the protagonist, that 'Carcer' police chap is, and so far he's even more uninteresting. Couldn't care less if he died next week. Carcer seems as though he's meant to be our audience identification figure but he's just dead weight - the strip'd have been better off having us follow Caul's revenge mission from the beginning. By contrast, I've only known the cast of Jaegir for the same length of time, but each and every one is so much better defined, and that's the reason I want to know what happens to them all next week. Atalia Jaegir herself already feels as though she's been in the prog for years - she has a strong character, a backstory, a history, a team - but ask me in six months' time about Caul or Carcer and I'd probably say 'Er, what strip were they from, again?'

As I say, just thought it was interesting. Although it's made me look as though I'm just indulging in a character-assasination of Outlier, so apoligies to the Eglington or Richardson droids if they're reading. Prove me wrong in the next few weeks, lads! And extra oil rations for Rennie and Coleby.

[TordelBack]

Interesting views on Jaegir, Jimbo - while I'm enjoying Outlier too, it's definitely the slighter strip, but I'm not sure that's a bad thing, since it goes down pretty easy. 

I've been thinking a lot about Jaegir myself this week, and the thing that strikes me is how like a Banks Culture novel it feels: one of those awful protracted wars in dynastic societies that seem to rumble on in non-Culture worlds to which SC agents seem inevitably to be drawn.  This was especially true this week, with the castle-setting: I wouldn't have been surprised to see a boating lake full of working miniature battleships, or a great metal warship becalmed in stone...

[Frank]

Atalia Jaegir herself already feels as though she's been in the prog for years ... but ask me in six months' time about Caul or Carcer and I'd probably say 'Er, what strip were they from, again?'

Her name's in the title, which gives her a head start. I'm not sure I'd be able to bring Canon Fodder's name to mind if he was called Greig and the strip's name was something like Flat-top God Botherer. I definitely prefer the art in Jaegir to that of Outlier, but the question of the lead character's distinctiveness does make me aware that - scar aside - she's indistinguishable from the other female character with the same haircut, and I'd struggle to identify her in Matt Groening's famous test of good character design.

[TordelBack]

Too cartoony.

[Dark Jimbo]

Interesting views on Jaegir, Jimbo - while I'm enjoying Outlier too, it's definitely the slighter strip, but I'm not sure that's a bad thing, since it goes down pretty easy. 

I was enjoying Outlier more until I realised how similar the set-up was to Jaegir this week, and then the inevitable comparisons began. I don't begrudge it prog space, and I really enjoy these one-off multi-part thrillers that we get from tme to time, like this and the likes of Angel Zero. Not everything has to be a pitch for future outings, and it's nice to have something self-contained to balance out the latest installments of the ongoing stuff.

[Spikes]

Well, another belter. Why the subscribers hate the prog so much, I just don't know....

So, A cracking cover by Mr Willsher. Good to see Ben back. (When was the last time we saw some of his art in the prog? Towards the end of the DoC, or am I forgetting a story or two?).

Nice little reminder in 'Thrills...' for some Grade A loveliness heading our way soon-ish.

Dredd, again is slow burn to the max, but loving every panel. Ive still no real idea as to what the big secret is, but hopefully it'll be worth the wait. Maybe something that will tie-in to the forthcoming 'Death' strip somehow? Dunno, but next Wednesday it is, then.
Outlier again continues in fine form, as is SinDex. Slaine continues to be a treat - something I thought I'd never say.
But just pipping Dredd to the number one spot is Jaegir. Which continues to dazzle. Perfection.

[staticgirl]

The only one I am not enjoying so much (and I am still enjoying it a fairamount) is Sin/Dex because I never did like it a lot and I am having trouble remembering who the women are. It took me a week or two to work out which one was Tracy and I couldn't remember what the other one was called. Neither looks much like the previous interpretations of the characters. The story is fun enough and the designs for the menfolk are really great. I like the deranged Ken doll look of the Pastor.

The rest of it is fantastic. I think that may be Simon Davis' best ever action scene in Slaine - there's so much movement and the colour work is lovely.  I really love Jaegir's depth and Dredd is rather tense. I like the creature designs in Outlier. It might not be the most important story in the Meg but it rattles along pretty fast. That splash page was fantastic.

[A.Cow]

Well, another belter. Why the subscribers hate the prog so much, I just don't know....

It's because we subscribers are used to getting it served to us on a plate.  We've become decadent.

Those hungry souls who have to hunt down the weekly prog (and it can often be quite a quest, from personal memory) have already got their adrenalin pounding, and are surely already thirsting for thrill-power.  Therefore they enjoy it more.