Nice little Prog - to say we started the year with such a stella line-up, most of which has moved on and we still have a Prog of this quality is quite something!
Dredd turning into a really nice little story this. Love all the insights into what the Titan surgury does to folks. The idea of not being able to laugh is curiously chilling. All moving along at a good pace, but all with room to breathe and explore. Just brilliant stuff.
As is Hope love the way it plays with the way it presents its tale is fantastic and what a tale it tells as well. Superb
Brink well however good those strips are they ain't Brink. What a chilling episode after some nice relaxing intimate character moments the horror just hits home all the more. Just staggeringly good.
Dexter I mean this is good, good comics too. Dabnett has really upped his game on Bulletopia of late. I don't know if these current strips have been written knowing the change in format for this series (it has changed right?) and if so it shows. nice self contained (one assumes) tales built onto the ongoing premise but with space to do its own thing and here the horror set up of the first episode pays off in spades.
Fiends wraps things up really nicely thank you very much. That this is the 'weakest' strip here, as opposed to the best thing as it might well be in many a prog is testament to how good the Prog is at the moment.
Just a blister Prog and a lovely letterer from one of our finest to boot.
Yeah, credit where it is due, a much better Prog for my tastes
Dredd is still a bit verbal, Fiends drfits further and further from any connection to GFD/CE original in my brain and Hope I need to start reading this run, but otherwise, all decent stuff!
Now all they need to do is sort out the subs ...
Cover by Tiernen Trevallion:
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FSjDZJtXIAMeXBB?format=jpg&name=large)
Cover and Logo:
(https://dyn.media.forbiddenplanet.com/xueXiD6g10H1zbC53hhtIJgPB-w=/trim/fit-in/779x1024/filters:format(webp)/https://media.forbiddenplanet.com/products/7d/2a/1bd69cb5f8e054ed308ee23c7d9d03eb8a35.jpeg)
Was a bit confused by the final panel of Fiends, should that be someone we recognise (i.e. from the extended Edgiverse)? It didn't ring any bells.
Dredd is great. I don't think it's too verbose. Squint and you could be reading a classic Wagner/Bolland strip here. Hope is creepy and grim, with interesting storytelling devices, although I suspect it'll read better collected. Brink continues to be a very different angle on the greater universe, which I hope manages to continue the careful balance between new surprises and maintaining a sense of mystery.
Dexter is more interesting than recent Sin/Dex to me. Him falling for Sinister's ex is cliché city (he could still have cared for her as one of a dwindling team who have each other's backs – men and women in media don't always have to want to fuck), but the rest of this strip works well and the reveal was suitably icky. Which leaves Fiends, which I've enjoyed immensely. Sure, it's moved a long way from its originals, but... good? I don't care about its origins if it's a great strip.
So that's a 5/5 Prog for me, with a rough sort order of Dredd > Fiends > Brink | Dexter > Hope, but it's all good.
I got my Prog yesterday so I can participate in the review thread again! Alll starts off with a dramatic and generally excellent cover.
Dredd Excellent story so far. Asher is a sympathetic character - he's smart and regrets his previous actions - and the stuff about his appearance and losing his ability to laugh hammers home how dreadful the Titan treatment is. Meanwhile Dredd is still competent tackling his own side of the investigation, instead of being sidelined or looking a bit useless as he is sometimes criticised for in Neimand tales. I agree the art is has a touch of Bolland to it and just so good, from the old school Meg punks to the judges wading through all the human gunk. Best thing in the Prog this week and I enjoyed almost everything else in it too.
Hope isn't doing anything for me at all. I was a fan of the previous runs but not this one - there's no menace here for me, only tedium and masses of supporting characters who aside from a couple I am finding somewhat homogenous aside from their likeness to real world counterparts. Lovely art and layouts but struggling to continue with this.
Brink on the other had is superb. Nice offhand reference to the 'healthy' water leading to the horror of the final sequence. We're at the point where almost anything referenced feels ominous - characters talk about going somewhere or doing something and it could be a foreshadowing. Great stuff.
Dexter I've previously voiced my disinterest about Dexter but this has been a nice little story so far. The barn reveal is something far more grotesque than I imagined, a real nightmare despite it's little hat. Really like Tazio Bettin's depictions of combat in the last story with the dinosaurs and he's good here too.
Fiends Top notch. I still feel a bit like the setting has been wasted a bit - I was expecting more of a spy type story before we swerved back into mythical territory- but what we have got is excellent. Constanza is just horrific. The art is next level awesome. I also have no idea who that is at the end btw.
Cain from Genesis?
Quote from: Richard on 17 May, 2022, 03:42:15 PM
Cain from Genesis?
Getting a bit Vampire: The Masquerade if so...
Good prog with another fantastic cover by Tiernen. Interesting prog where all the episodes end on a "cliffhanger"
Dredd – All the parts of the story are slowly starting to form, and it will be an interesting few weeks to see how everything works out (or not). I also feel the Wagner/Bolland vibe here great story so far.
Hope – The investigating is going slowly with no real indication where it is headed towards and who is responsible. Mostly a slow burner as another attack on Hope with the episode ends on a cliffhanger.
Brink – A lot of talking until the final few panels ending on a creepy note. Abnett likes to keep us on the edge of our seats.
Dexter – A good sideshow from the main event. Another episode that ends on a cliffhanger.
Fiends – I am enjoying the mythology of the world created by Edginton. We have a more action-oriented episode as we have another story ending on a cliffhanger. As with the first sinner I believe that this is Cain from the Bible (book of Genesis as Richard said).
Quote from: IndigoPrime on 17 May, 2022, 08:24:24 AM
Dredd is great. I don't think it's too verbose. Squint and you could be reading a classic Wagner/Bolland strip here.
For me the look of this episode was closer to 80s era Cliff Robinson. Those bar punks could have stepped right out of
West Side Rumble.
On another note, I loved that framed portrait on the apartment wall of his dear departed droid pals from the previous story.
B/W Cover:
(https://2000ad.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/thumbnail_Fiends-63-cover-3-col-778x1024.jpg)
Trevallion is of the best artists working for Tharg right now. Can't get enough of his work!
Quote from: Richard on 17 May, 2022, 03:42:15 PM
Cain from Genesis?
Yep definitely Cain. As referenced earlier in the strip he is the original sinner in the bible.
https://www.baslibrary.org/biblical-archaeology-review/43/4/9
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/cain-first-biblical-sinner/
Had to look that up!
Here is a breakdown by Tom Foster on the current Dredd episode:
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FTCfPEKX0AAS4C1?format=jpg&name=large)
Seriously, that inking is like someone cloned Brian Bolland and now there's a younger version of him nipping about and drawing Dredd. So good.
Another set off linework by tom Foster for the current Dredd:
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FTHuOPaXsAAu7fd?format=jpg&name=large)
I didn't get the Droid Life :(
Quote from: JayzusB.Christ on 31 May, 2022, 11:17:17 PM
I didn't get the Droid Life :(
I wish I didn't.
It's about folk complaining about the way things are nowadays and demanding the right to return to the original way of doing things, when there is, in actual fact, absolutely nothing stopping them from doing things the original way anyway and they're complaining about a problem that doesn't actually exist, (or something along those lines).
Eg; using imperial measurements (https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/supermarkets-imperial-measures-price-rises-075337481.html).
Quote from: M.I.K. on 01 June, 2022, 01:47:40 AM
Quote from: JayzusB.Christ on 31 May, 2022, 11:17:17 PM
I didn't get the Droid Life :(
I wish I didn't.
It's about folk complaining about the way things are nowadays and demanding the right to return to the original way of doing things, when there is, in actual fact, absolutely nothing stopping them from doing things the original way anyway and they're complaining about a problem that doesn't actually exist, (or something along those lines).
Eg; using imperial measurements (https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/supermarkets-imperial-measures-price-rises-075337481.html).
I think I got the bit about older folks complaining but wasn't quite sure about the bike thing - was it that it had feet now when it already had perfectly good wheels?
I don't know if the feet are particularly important but aye, it probably works better as an analogy when they're there - believing something's been taken away when something's actually been added and you're free to choose from either.
Trust me, it makes more sense if you're constantly exposed to folk saying stuff like "You're not allowed to say Merry Christmas anymore!" or "We've got our blue passports back!" or "Restoring little pictures of crowns to the side of pint glasses shows what can be achieved now we're out of the EU!"
Ah, OK. Thanks for the explanation! I'm sometimes a bit slow off the mark with Droid Life but this one had me stumped, so I really do appreciate it.
Anyway I love Droid Life. Even the mediocre ones are worth reading and I hope it lasts forever.