Meg 408 - Hard Country for Old Men

[sheridan]

Saving Mind Wars until later, but so far so good and with pages and pages of Redondo art things are looking good.

It's been a while since I read Mind Wars - really looking forward to it, though trying to decide whether I should read tonight or leave it 'til the weekend...

Who is that masked man, Kenneth Neimand does it again with another fantastic Dredd - I will be so disappointed if he turns out just to be a bloke with a name of vaguely German origin. Oh and Nick Dwyer channels Ian Kennedy and knocks it out the park again. Slips in a nice personal (I assume) tribute too. Loved this one.

I liked the tribute too - RIP David Dyer.

As for Kenneth Neimand - presumably not Mr Smith, as Tharg's right-hand droid seems not to be shy about claiming credit.  Keith Richardson has one or two known aliases.  Who else is there?  Molch-R?  Or, y'know, as you say, a real person whose real surname is Neimand.

[IndigoPrime]

Some good stuff in this issue, but I enjoyed the text pieces too. It made me wish we got more Senior comics (and it seems if he could, he’d pen more); Senior on ABC Warriors would be fab. Also, I want to see an entire run of Gums by the team who did that one-off in the special.

[Frank]

Dredd is really unreliable here as he is so true to the law and the Judges it got me thinking that even when faced with the possibility that they are corrupt at the core and controlling the population would he even truly question it?

Dredd has questioned the system a number of times.  Most notably the first time he took the long walk.  The second time resulted in mutants being allowed into the Big Meg.

Dredd was playing dumb to get Harrigan so angry he regained his focus and directed it into proving himself against their common enemy:



Harrigan's treatise on the real purpose of Megacity One's petty laws and Justice Department's co-dependent relationship with organised crime was great stuff; the kind of deep cut someone very familiar with the material gets into. The writing's assured, too. He's definitely done this before.

Want to hear something crazy? Winslade works at 1:1 scale. That meticulous hatching and stupid amount of detail in every panel is the same size when he pops it in the post as it is when you read it in the comic. I imagine he's half blind and has a hand like an irate Judge Grice.

[Jim_Campbell]

As for Kenneth Neimand - presumably not Mr Smith, as Tharg's right-hand droid seems not to be shy about claiming credit.

As has been noted before, an editor handing themselves prize writing jobs in their own title, pseudonym or not, is a thing unheard-of since the dark days of Alan McKenzie (Andy Diggle only got away with Lenny Zero because he didn’t take any money for it) and would prompt Millsian floods of ire from the freelancers.

[Colin YNWA]

I think we've had confirm from both that its not them... I think...

My bet is its David Benioff worried that a back up plan might now be in order?

[Anthony Garnon]

(I work at Forbidden Planet, and am equally inspired most days!)

Which branch?  Do you get many Squaxx in there, or do we tend to subscribe or pick up from certain stationery/newsagent chains?

I don't know about customers - but this Squaxx still subscribes!

I'm based at head office. Formerly of the marketing department, where I ran in store signing events and digitalised their signing archive (available to view for free on FP's website!).

These days I'm the company's Licensing Manager, leading the creative on the t-shirts you see in store (sadly no 2000AD).

When I worked in store we got two types of 2000AD customer:

1) the die-hard regulars, in every Wedsnesday/for signings. A healthy amount of them, too.

2) young tourists (15-30 years old) who have heard about the comic and now they are in the UK want to try it out.  (They almost always asked where's the best place to start on Dredd)

[WhizzBang]

  (They almost always asked where's the best place to start on Dredd)

What do you tell them? Case Files 3 is a good starting place.

[Anthony Garnon]

  (They almost always asked where's the best place to start on Dredd)

What do you tell them? Case Files 3 is a good starting place.

Strangely enough it was Case Files 3! We'd get folk returning for 4 and 5 pretty quickly.

At signings when asked about more recent series I'd say Zombo, Low Life,The Simping Detective and - if they fancied any of those - I'd suggest Trifecta "to read last"! Sadly we didn't often have much Nikolai Dante, or I'd have offered that too.

[broodblik]

Finished Mind Wars and a real classic. The art of Redondo is awesome with a very lively paced script by Hebden. Cannot wait for the last part next month.

[Keef Monkey]

A good meg, although I haven't read the floppy just yet.

Dredd and The Torture Garden were the highlights for me, and I'm really looking forward to reading all of The Torture Garden in a oner because I think it'll work great that way. It's definitely suffered a little for being so spread out, in one sitting I think it'll be a great horror sci-fi gem.

[sheridan]

I don't know about customers - but this Squaxx still subscribes!

I'm based at head office. Formerly of the marketing department, where I ran in store signing events and digitalised their signing archive (available to view for free on FP's website!).

Is that the one in the flyers-for-forthcoming-signings-racks?

These days I'm the company's Licensing Manager, leading the creative on the t-shirts you see in store (sadly no 2000AD).

When I worked in store we got two types of 2000AD customer:

1) the die-hard regulars, in every Wedsnesday/for signings. A healthy amount of them, too.

2) young tourists (15-30 years old) who have heard about the comic and now they are in the UK want to try it out.  (They almost always asked where's the best place to start on Dredd)

Good news on both fronts!

[metcalfecarr]

Things I didn't like - the repro on some pages of Mind Wars where in part it was like someone had run off pages of the brown paint era Slaine on a crap photocopier

John Charles' garishly bright colours on Dredd taking me back to ALan Craddock and his early days of computer colouring

Things I did like - the genius of Redondo on Mind Wars

The Torture Garden.  I'm not usually a fan of Nick Percival's soft focus approach but this was great stuff

Lawless - how the hell does Phil Winslade do it?  Excellent script as well.

Tom Fowler's slightly thicker art, it's provided solidity to his work,

Cliff Robinson's cover - epic.

All in all a great issue that only had niggles rather than gripes

[Keef Monkey]

I got a few chapters into Mind Wars and realized I had no idea what was going on from panel to panel for some reason, so I stopped! Possibly I just wasn't very with it when I sat down to read it, but I just wasn't taking it in at all.

[metcalfecarr]

Also, nice to see Matthew Badham back on interview duties.  You could alwaus be guaranteed an interview that wasnt the usual suspects with him.  I would never have expected to see an Abby Bulmer feature but I'm glad that it happened

[Bolt-01]

Following that feature I made sure I picked up the first issue of Abby's self published book and was not disappointed at all. A cracking read that if I still had younglings in need of introducing to comics I'd pass over. Heartily recommended.