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2000 AD - The Ultimate Collection

Started by Molch-R, 27 February, 2017, 06:03:27 PM

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Colin YNWA

Quote from: karlos on 06 December, 2017, 11:50:56 AM
As if you cats need reminding, Nikolai Dante vol. 1 is out today.

(No idea if my local Smiths have had some sort of tip-off, but there were markedly more copies of this than any other Ult. Coll. volume to date).

Wow missed this. Gotta track this one down. I'm so excited to have Dante complete in hardcover!

TordelBack

It's another glorious volume, and since my incomplete Dante TPB shelf is currently made up of all sorts of oddball collections (big skinny Hamlyn, thick purple DC/Rebellion, shiny repackaged Rebellion etc.) it feels great to get such a long unbrokn run of the strip under one very pretty hardcover.  The amazing revelation here for me is that all these stories came out in one year:o

Hard to imagine what that would be like were it to happen nowadays.

IndigoPrime

Having not read Dante yet, which version did we get? Is it the original Rebellion take, or the US-oriented 'Too Cool to Kill' version, which removed a ton of the captions?

Jamie1000013

Kingdom was awesome, beautiful artwork and great story. The unique dialogue is also really thought out and gets stuck in your head. This and Shakara are awesome, after the 9th delivery gift I may cancel and then pick up issues I want though. I can't take reading any more Slaine, Savage. or others I am not too keen on.

I wish Rogue Trooper volume came out close to when the new game came out would of added to it.

IndigoPrime

I just read Kreeler last night. If you're new to these strips and haven't delved in yet, avoid  the intro and text article  alike, unless you want spoilers up the wazoo.

Arkady

I must say I found Strontium Dog Vol.1 to be a bit of a slog. It got a bit better half way through once the art quality improved - not sure whether that was due to reproduction issues or production values at the time. But it still feels pretty juvenile. Without the benefit of nostalgia I think I'm going to struggle with the early volumes of some of the classics.

Dante, on the other hand, is ace.

Dark Jimbo

Quote from: Arkady on 10 December, 2017, 11:29:00 AM
I must say I found Strontium Dog Vol.1 to be a bit of a slog. It got a bit better half way through once the art quality improved - not sure whether that was due to reproduction issues or production values at the time. But it still feels pretty juvenile.

Aye, Galaxy Killers and Journey to Hell are really not the best introduction to the characters and set-up. Such an odd way to introduce them to 2000AD readers. It does get loads better.
@jamesfeistdraws

Tjm86

They are the first two Stront stories in the merged 2000ad and Starlord.  It is fair to say that they are not the best example of the strip's strengths.  That generally came with the Johnny Alpha origin story and from there on.

IndigoPrime

In particular, Portrait of a Mutant through Rage is, for me, one of the strongest runs of any character in 2000 AD's history.

abelardsnazz

I guess the early stories of any character that's had the longevity of Alpha or Dredd read a bit oddly in the light of more recent developments, but I think they had to take place to become the characters we know and love today. Reading early Dredd now feels a bit odd, but with that and SD, the creators were finding their way and working out what did and didn't work.

For me, the first SD volume has a fun vibrancy to it, particularly the humour with the Gronk. Undoubtedly some of this is nostalgia, but I'd be interested to know if this is a starting point on discovering 2000AD for anyone, and what their thoughts are.

Tjm86

I think you've hit the nail on the head in some respects.  For those of us who read Stront in Starlord, then followed over to Tooth, it's hard not to read those stories with a sense of recollection.  It's interesting that some of the comments about Ezquerra's art at this time have compared it poorly.  Personally I always thought that it was some of his strongest and that the more recent stuff lacks something. 

Not completely surprising considering the gentleman's age.  I suppose as well, it was written for a different audience.  Today's readership has a maturity / sophistication that wasn't expected back then.  That does come through at times with the narrative but perhaps for some of us, nostalgia makes us a little more forgiving.  Pre Tooth it had a bit of a Wild West feel to it at times.  Post Portrait it had a harder political edge to it, laced with black humour.  Galaxy Killers and Journey to Hell seem to be very much trying to find the right voice for the prog, perhaps that is why they seem a bit ''off key".

Steve Green

A look at any of Carlos' commissions and I would say it's got little to do with age, and more with how much he gets paid on strip work.

You get what you pay for.

Richard

QuoteIf you're new to these strips and haven't delved in yet, avoid  the intro and text article  alike, unless you want spoilers up the wazoo.

I've never understood why people put spoilers in introductions without spoiler warnings. Is it because they assume the only people buying it are fans who have already read the stories before? That seems like a pretty silly assumption. Or is it because they aren't familiar with the story and don't read comics themselves, and so they assume that any story in a comic must be so poorly written that it can't possibly have any interesting moments or unpredictable plot twists so there's nothing to spoil? In which case why are they working in that field?

I used to have a Titan Books collection of "The Complete Judge Child Quest" which had an intro that gave away the twist ending [spoiler]that Dredd leaves the child behind on Xanadu[/spoiler]. Fortunately I had already read the story before, but I was still furious on behalf of all the other purchasers of that volume who would not have read it before and who would now never experience the shock of that great ending.

Basically, never, ever, ever, read any kind of introduction to a graphic novel unless and until you've read the whole story.

IndigoPrime

It was particularly problematic in the Dredd partwork. "As you'll see in a book you don't have yet, and which is set chronologically before this one, X happens. And in the next book, which you'll get in a year, Y is how it all ends up." Very odd. And, yeah, it does seem written under the assumption you already know. (The Strontium Dog intro does basically say SPOILER ALERT, you'd have to be the world's slowest reader to then not get to the bit where it reveals [spoiler]Alpha gets skewered in The Final Solution[/spoiler].)

Anyway, to reiterate, if you're reading this thread and new to the 2000 AD strips, best to avoid the text bits in the partworks until each series is done.

Colin YNWA

Quote from: TordelBack on 08 December, 2017, 12:40:45 PM
It's another glorious volume...it feels great to get such a long unbrokn run of the strip under one very pretty hardcover. 

Arh man my first adventure into the land of these Hachette collections arrived today with the first Dante volume... and wow if I don't do trades (normally) I'd be back for more of these.

I've made an exception for Dante and the idea that in only 2 1/2 years we'll have a a complete set of the series like this warms the cockles of an old mans heart. Okay the spine will look weird but christ I'm getting over that as I don't image this would exist in any other way.

Such a happy bunny today.

EDIT to say:  Smells bloody great too!