MEG 286 - Psycho Killer

[Kev Levell]

Very nice Colin Wilson cover - another classic.

Clive Barker interview - I'll be interested to read this although I've liked a lot of his stuff, I think he's never been better than 'Weaveworld' and Abarat was a bit below par despite brilliant illustrations throughout. There's no arguing with his horror/fantasy genius though.

John Cooper interview looks good too - I'm hoping for some pearls of wisdom from him - he's a bit of a legend from the early days of 2000 AD, so it should be pretty cool.

Having only flipped through only one other thing caught my eye - a lovely DPS by Nick Dyer - top notch!

[Buttonman]

Hoo-ray I got my first letter of the year published. The joy was short lived however when I realised that I was under Tom Proudfoot - eurgh, never a nice place to be!

[pauljholden]

That Black Museum is brilliant, gorgeous artwork (great double page spread) and a great little, fun story...

-pj

[Proudhuff]

Your rightful place butt man!

fine cover  

Dredd: what great layouts bled right off the page in every sense of the word.
Big Bugs taking on robots and Dredd there to tidy up... loverly.

Interrogation: John Cooper, fine interview, lots of excellent references to the comics I read as a lad too. Seems like a very nice chap.

Tankie: heehee, must be linked to the Astronauts wee thread , non?

Capt Britian: not my bag of chuickies, so skimmed it, didn't know The Mighty Mr Moore worked on it at one point.

TOTBM: This is the first TOTBM that I've really enjoyed, mining the back progs seems to be in vogue just now and why not? if it delivers outstanding stories like this? brillant  double page spread/salute

You should be watching: hmmm, yet again the first series of this (CSI) was great but it has become so formulaic its lost its edge.

Mr Barker: I've never been a horror fan, but I imagine this is a major coupe  for the Meg, must admit he looks nothing like I imagined him too.

Film review: normally I'd go off on one about this but as its ripping T4 to bits tis welcome!!

Armitage: I must say the soap opera element of this is a bit wearing, and as much as I've  liked Mr Cooper work from my sprogdom til now, I prefer his work with painted backgrounds.

Now the best bit: The letters page...

[Richard]

Good interview, but I'm pretty sure that One-Eyed Jack was set in 1970s New York, not 1960s London.

[longmanshort]

D'oh ...

mm

[Richmond Clements]

Armitage: I must say the soap opera element of this is a bit wearing

Whereas I thought the family scene at the beginning was the best thing about it!

The TotBM was superb. Brilliant explaination of the Death Belt from Art, and incredible art as always from Nick.

[Proudhuff]

[
Whereas I thought the family scene at the beginning was the best thing about it!

 

Fair enough, its just i like a bit of escapism, i read comics to get away from that stuff, which could be just me as I can't stand soap operas (except The Archers).

Doesn't seem as there are many boarders reading the Meg and commenting here, is it just there's nothing to moan about?

[Richmond Clements]

Fair enough, its just i like a bit of escapism, i read comics to get away from that stuff

Yup, I share your hate of the soaps. I'm not a big fan of Armitage, but this scene was something actually happening to someone, rather than Armitage being surly.

[Dark Jimbo]

Did anyone else think that the last part of Dredd... didn't really read like Wagner? Some really over-ripe dialogue - "A monstrosity - with the shreds of cube uniform hanging to it! What kind of lunacy has been going on here?" And then that last panel - "You're a sick little degenerate who deserves never to see the light of day again." I'd have expected something subtler and more deadpan. Something more like "Yeah - don't count on it."
If there had been another name in the credit box I'd be writing now about how writer x clearly doesn't 'get' the character, but as it's Wagner... don't really know what to say. Great tale for all that, though. More Colin Wilson!

Tank Girl... meh. Wee and poo jokes? No thanks, I'm not three years old. It's Beano-esque humour with none of the charm, twice as immature and only half as funny.

There are not enough superlatives to do justice to Black Mueseum. Awesome, awesome stuff. A cracking tale in its own right that shows a sensitive understanding to Dreddverse history, and manages to satisfyingly tie up the loose ends of some hokey old continiuity problems.

Armitage is pretty good stuff, but I don't like the way they all talk like Americans, and I don't like the way the Judges are all shown as slack-jawed simpletons in order to make Armitage look good. Intrigued to see where it's going, though.

[SmallBlueThing]

I'll moan!    As usual, on first glance, nothing much in The Meg for me- only this time I foundly it oddly satisfying.

Dredd was okay- I liked the story, but Wilson's art was a tad confusing. This is the kind of Dredd that will benefit massively from a reread all in one go, whereas in episodes it just seemed to be hacked into three simply due to the format. Armitage was alright- but then I read the John Cooper interview and immediately felt bad for not liking it more, went back, read it again and thoroughly enjoyed it. Black Museo felt a bit like a stretch- I dunno, like an attempt to rectify the blatant decades-long ignoring of the Death Belt, that didn't really convince. And Tank Girl still doesn't work for me- though since Mr Dayglo became my friend on Facebook, I'm at least reading it now!

CSI- no thanks.

Reviews: Waste of space, again. And the Drag Me To Hell review was borderline insulting! I see very little point in reading a reviewer whom I so obviously disagree with, other than to make myself cross, so yet again I resolve to skip this in future. But I won't. I must like being cross.

John Cooper: If only the Meg's feature pages were ALL interviews with comic creators. Lovely stuff, and I appreciated the style in which this was written. Such a shame then, that it's not possible to tie the interviews in with the freebie floppy- a 60 page collection of classic (non-2000AD AND Dredd/ Probe) Cooper strips would have been lovely... if, obviously, not within Rebellion's powers. Cooper seemed a genuine bloke and it's great to hear that he's still busy. Always liked his foreheads!

Captain Britain: What? Are Rebellion pimping Panini/ Marvel now? I love CB from years back, but this stuck out as something that really should have been in Deathray. Which is odd, as Deathray always has features that should be in the Megazine.

Clive Barker: Another phoned-in interview with the arch-procrastinator. Has any creator ever been more over-rated? Although it did give me my biggest chuckle of the whole Meg: "Each weekend I photograph nude men for a magazine called Imagining Men. I have 23,000 nude man images now." Christ Clive, at that rate, by this time next year you'll have run out of nude men to photograph, and will be phoning me. The answer, by the way, is "no".

The freebie was excellent- Dredd strips that I read and then forgot about. Thoroughly enjoyed it- in the abscence of a complete reprint of all the covers/ Lawman of the Future strips, I'd be happy with it collecting these somewhat passed-over strips, with loose-or-strong-connections. Passed a happy 45 minutes, that did.

So- a mixed bag, then. As usual I expected not to like it and as usual I liked it more than I thought I would. That's got to be positive, surely. It still seems to be a very unattractive package- not helped by ugly cover-designs and unremarkable cover-art, but it's improving, I think. Just wish they'd ditch the film/tv reviews, promo crap and use the feature pages to interview people of direct linkage to the comic's subject matter.

But... y'know. Not bad.

Steev

[Dark Jimbo]

Ach, I forgot to mention the Bad Manners freebie. Lovely stuff (whatever happened to Wayne Reynolds, I was a big fan?) and I'd rather have mores story-centric collections like this than artist-themed collections. Makes for a more satisfying read.

[Bolt-01]

Seconded. I really enjoyed this, despite having read the individual strips fairly recently in the eternal re-read. I'd like to re-state mt request for a Mrs Gunderson collection.

[pauljholden]

Capt Britian: not my bag of chuickies, so skimmed it, didn't know The Mighty Mr Moore worked on it at one point.

*SPLUTTER* What??? The Moore Captain Britain stuff is fantastic - I heartily recommend the collection, there's some amazing stuff in there (a Rag, a Bone and a Hank of Hair is just glorious).

-pj

[Bolt-01]

What PJ Said. I think that Moore/Davis delivered a superhero series every bit as solid as Marvelman with that series. Awesome work.