Strontium Dog Agency Files

[Dark Jimbo]

That is indeed the plan - I think there's four (maybe five) of these chunky case-files type releases, then a final colour GN to round off the series.

[Robin Low]

"That is indeed the plan - I think there's four (maybe five) of these chunky case-files type releases, then a final colour GN to round off the series."

That's great news. By my rough calculation, The Final Solution plus the post-Alpha colour stuff by Ennis and Hogan amounts to about 300 pages, so that would make a fantastic final volume.

In the event that Rebellion doesn't have access to the Strontium Dogs Poster Prog (it might be an obscure item, I don't know) I'm happy to help out if they need a copy to scan.

Regards

Robin

[TordelBack]

Best.  Collection.  Evah.  Looks great, feels great, reads great.  I thought the Casefiles were great (they are), I thought Nemesis was excellent (it was), but this, this is the absolute business.  I wouldn't be the greatest SD fan, but for sheer value and utter coolness, this takes the biscuit.  Well done all!

[IndigoPrime]

Oh, man, I'm getting REALLY itchy feet now. Come onâ??you lot have got to start saying how utterly crap the collection is, at least until mine finally yomps on in! (C'mon, FPI! C'mon!)

[gerhaw]

got my copy on friday, SD was my favourite in 2000ad better than JD, love Carlos work and this case files is amazing, the front cover just shows Johnny, but the when advertised the cover had background images why the change?  Cant wait for book 2, and read somewhere (2000ad review??) that Final Solution would be released as a seperate book to Case files.  Compliments to all involved in putting this together.

[moonbeam]

Re Stront:

This is probably the greatest Carlos Ezquerra Strontium Dog image....

:)

Link: http://www.2000adonline.com/functions/cover.php?choice=469&Comic=2000ad" target="_blank">Don't mess with Johnny!

[W. R. Logan]

That cover is on alan grants staircase

[Kambei]

I have had my copy for two weeks now. Had some book tokens from Christmas to use up so i went to my local bookshop on the 15th. An independent, I might add. They contacted the suppliers who told them that it wasn't available. So they phoned the publishers and I had it 5 days later. With the release of these case files, it seems to me that the right hand and left hand are on completely separate planets at the moment. These are the only books I have ever had any problems getting via Amazon. I can get American publications from them easier. Something really needs to be done about it.

Although I am happy to have all of those stories in one place, I am a little disappointed about the quality of the reproductions, especially from the colour stories from Starlord. It looks as if someone has spilled a pot of ink over the pages in some cases. Very much brought into perspective if you have any of the Marvel Essentials books where the reproduction from colour to black and white is generally excellent, and they also work out about £3 cheaper per volume.

[Leigh S]

to be fair, Id assume that the Marvel comics art was never fully painted, like the double page openres of the Starlord stories - If you've never seen the originals, it might be hard to imagine just why they are so difficult to reprint satisfactorily - anyone got colour scans they could post up to show just how...colourful and dark they were.  I'm not enough of an expert to know if theres any advanced "tweaking" of contrast and brightness that might make things less dark, but even so, I suspect it would be tricky.

Plus, the Marvel books probably sell twice as many, so I suspect the price is higher due to this fact alone.  Â£13.99  (£11.99 at FP at the mo!) seems pretty good value for near 400 pages of strip.

[TordelBack]

I have some of the Starlord colour spreads (lovely they are too), and I really can't see how they could be represented in B&W any better than they are in the Agency Files.  Certainly didn't impair my enjoyment of some great stories.

Seeing all the Starlord episodes together I was struck by how fully-formed the strip is right from the get-go - the setting, technology, characters and designs barely change.  

If anything, the early 2000AD stories seem more incongruous, with Galaxy Killers in particular being a very unusual departure - no gadgets, interstellar politics, Star Wars-style plotline.  Good yarn, but definitely a change from what went before, and what came after (well, after Journey into Hell, which was itself odd).    

Interested to hear from experts on how the scripting chores break down - does TB Grover mean a Wagner-and-Grant two-hander, or is it sometimes just Wagner, and does A. A. Grant mean just Grant on his own?  Or are we talking co-plotted and just solo-scripted?   If Grant means just Grant I'm surprised how much of the wider Doghouse stuff seems to be Alan's.  All very interesting.

[Dunk!]

Got mine at the weekend.

Never knew Ian Gibson had drawn Strontium Dog. Weird! Seems as out of place as any other artist doing Robo-hunter.

It's a joy to have such great strips collected in one place, especially The Doc Quince Case my favourite SD story for many years until Incident on Mayger Minor - just a Clint Eastwood Western in space.

Roll on Book 2 - hopefully with a nicer cover colour?

[Leigh S]

ISTR reading that Grant got the credit on Strontium Dog purely because he was the one who typed it all up?

Why the Grant/Grover mix exists elsewhere, I'm not so sure

[Leigh S]

Argh - please don't change the colour cover!  

The Dredd ones would have been much more appealing to me if they'd stuck to the red.

Its not the greatest colour, but stick with it

[Dunk!]

"Argh - please don't change the colour cover!"

Nah, like the Dredd Casefiles but with more earthy colours I'm guessing. Just not Diarrhoea Brown again, please.

[TordelBack]

Yeah, I'd forgotten how good The Doc Quince Case is.  I'd also forgotten how nicely the individual stories are linked - spending/giving away the Hitler Bounty in the excellent Mutie's Luck, then  picking up the Doc Quince warrant at the end of that story.  

These connections cast all sorts of light on Johnny's dubious motivations - going hell-for-leather to get the million for Hitler, then literally throwing it away, before taking on a case that he knows looks dodgy, but insists on following through anyway.   Cool guy!

In fact, there's a lot more consistancy in SD than I ever thought there was.  For example, I had no idea that Ruth appeared prior to Portrait of a  Mutant, so that was a nice surprise, if a weak story.  

 
I also note that Wulf's constant reflections on having the 'blood of the ancient Vikings' and 'beserker ancestors' doesn't really contradict the Ragnarok job in the way I thought it did - presumably ancient Vikings have even-more-ancient Viking ancestors too (leaving aside the implication in The Schickelgruber Grab that he lived through the Great Atomic War (2150 version) - maybe he went on a Time Job to that period - bound to be plenty of CUR candidates about then).

Some of the violence is pretty shocking (in a good way), Exhibit A being the Bad Boys Bust (gotta love those titles) - naked deputies being cooked alive, ouch.  Damn, I'm enjoying this collection!