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I may have mentioned this before but a rather large burgh in england (liverpool, maybe?) held a referendum on local taxes - reminding the population that if they voted for a 0% tax rise, then all their services would be utter shit.

The stunning result:  0% tax rise and utterly shit services.

So, The Sun have printed a list of the sanest MPs in the UK?  Good on 'em - now I know who to support.

What gets me about this is that the media seem to be willingly missing the point:  the bill was a success for Labour.  Blair's out anyway, so we needn't give much of a toss about his popularity - the bill DID go through - and the maximum period in custody without charge has been DOUBLED.

So, the powers that be can now hold a suspect for 28 days (yes, a whole month) with no trial.  The key word here is 'suspect'.  Remember that old guy that spoke out at the labour conference?  He was held be police as a "terror suspect".  So go ahead and tell me how this new power won't be mis-used.

It's all a far cry from 90 days (thank f*ck) but I doubt very much that labour thought they'd get that anyway.  Aim high and score exactly where you intended to.

Tony really is Teflon Tone now:  he can do whatever he wants, and if he goes too far and has to resign, well, no problem - he has his replacement waiting in the wings anyway.

It was credited to an Al Ewing.

I chanced upon this in Prog 1227's Input page:

"Dear Tharg,

I've never written a letter to 2000AD before, although God knows I've been tempted.  I was one of your biggest fans - way back in the 400s - but then you betrayed me.  BETRAYED ME.

I realise your bizarre alien sense of fun is beyond even the sickest Earth humour - but Wireheads?  Dry Run?  Junker?  Trash?  The Clown?  Tharg's Dragon Tales!  Dear Jesus Christ, you put your name on that one! How could you do that to me, you space harlot? Peter Hogan's Robo-Hunter! Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha! I nearly died thanks to that.  The cardiologist said even the slightest exposure to Timehouse could kill me.  (As it turned out, he read the last episode and died himself - of hatred.  They found a picture of Hogan in his clenched, bloodstained fist...)

Finally, after so many desperate attempts to stay loyal, Witch World finally destroyed me.  
In the same issue, I believe Anderson thought of the CHILDREN yes, THE CHILDREN will NOBODY think of THE CHILDREN?

I tore up that pernicious prog, along with all the fingers of my right hand, in case I ever had the urge to turn a page of 2000AD again.  Or masturbate.
I admit it.  I made a terrible mistake.  I've been sneaking peeks at friends' progs, and 2000AD is great again.  I'd totally written off Sinister Dexter and Nikolai Dante, but I was a fool.  Not to mention missing the return of Strontium Dog ... the new Rico ... and as for Red Fang being dull - I don't remember Outlaw being attacked like that, even though every episode consisted of:

Outlaw faces the ENEMY.
He draws his GUN.
SFX:(enormous) BANG!
CAPTION:OUTLAW is VICTORIOUS once MORE.
Cue 206 moody painted panels of Outlaw looking TOUGH.

Anyway, enough of this show-off nostalgia.  Suffice it to say I'm buying the weekly again.  I'm enjoying the tasty, addictive Thrills, and the blandishments of the enticing script whores!  THARG IS MY PIMP! You wouldn't shaft me again, would you Tharg?"

There is such a thing as bad publicity.

Hey Bou - no fair having a go at Nikolai  - her boob has slipped out of her bodice and he's simply being a gentleman by covering it up for her.

In fact, I'm surprised he's not telling her off for sticking his nice clean rifle butt in her crotch.

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It does sort of depend on when you started reading - I was in the late 100's, so there was no definitive Dredd artist for me.  (Ron Smith was the first I saw, and then a mixture of Bolland, McMahon, Gibson and Dillon, amongst others.)

Ezquerra was the definitive Strontium Dog (and he still is), but after the interminable dullness of Bitch (a one-prog joke about Ronald Reagan stretched thinly over 24 episodes), The Rammy (a concept which had been tackled far better previously in The Killing and The Big Bust Of 49) and Stone Killers (a painfully tedious collection of puns about how hard the stone killers were) it was really refreshing to see Simon Harrison's very different art style on what seemed like a new and important story arc.

Little did I know that it would herald the death of Johnny Alpha and the long-running thrillsucker-fest that was Strontium Dogs.  Ah well...

Aye, it used to happen all the time.  On reflection, I think unfair comparisons have been made:  for example the classic Bisley vs. SMS on The ABC Warriors 'The Black Hole'.  Both great artists, but SMS was overshadowed by the newer style of Bisley.

These days, with hyper-awareness of TPBs (and maybe a respect for consistency) it's rare that different artists are used on a strip arc, never mind jarringly different styles.

Modern examples tend to be different artists on specific arcs, and that sometimes grinds (although personal taste is key).  The art on the Slaine saga The Secret Commonwealth I found appalingly misplaced and, frankly, harmful to the script.  That resulted in someone declaing in Input that they "thought it too many".

My other artistic bugbear is Henry Flint's stunning opening work on the new run of The VCs being replaced on subsequent outtings with a very different style of art.

Still, sometimes it's really interesting to see a new take on an established artist.  One of the joys of the JD mega-epic Oz is all of the different artists that took part.

Very fragile, yer common or garden stick person.

Honestly Krust, that's sooooo derivative of my work on "The Sticky World", volumes I through XVII.

Still, I suppose you've got to start somewhere.  *sigh*

I sent in a much better villain than that, as well!  Mine was called Mr. Sticky!!!  He was a stick-man, and as such could get through very narrow spaces, and thus escape the law!!!

My god, but my blood boiled when I saw they'd chosen someone who could draw gorgeous alien beasties - I mean, who needs gorgeous alien beasties when there's something as original and wonderful and clever as my Mr. Sticky!

Why I oughtta...[shakes fist at sky]

Classic Hicks:

Waffle-Waitress: "Why you readin', mister?"
Hicks: "Erm...so that I don't end up working in a waffle bar?"

My username is a spaceship/AI from the Iain M. Banks book "Excession".  I think the 'fate amenable to change' was a member of the Interesting Times gang, and therefore probably an eccentric.

My username over on 2KReview is from the same book, but it's an Affront warship:  Xenoclast.

I chose the name Doggy Carrots because there's nothing in the world I like more than doggys and carrots.