Prog 2344 - Infernal Engines!

[Colin YNWA]

So yeah holiday catch up and if I'm honest I could just copy and paste everything I've just typed about Prog 2344. Its a fine Prog, but feels like it should be more.

Dredd is good but not as good as a Niemand / Foster story feels like it should be.

Things happen in Portals and blackgoo, if I cared more I might know how they interelate and connect. I don't alas.

Maxwell's Demon - yep it fine.

Hershey BANG, explosion - then Dredd. Sometime I think Rob Williams needs to remember he can do so much more interesting than BANG Explosion and Dredd. Looks amazing.

Azimuth solid action number. It felt like it should be more though.

[Tjm86]

Y'know Colin, I think you've captured the prog fairly succinctly.  Part of me feels like maybe there should be a joke somewhere in Portals and Blackgoo.  If there is I've definitely missed it.  It probably doesn't help that it then runs into Maxwell's Demon which has the advantage of not being Gwilli.  Other than that though, and some decent artwork, I'm with you on that one.

What does surprise me is that I'm now starting to warm a bit more to Azimuth.  Considering that Sin / Dex lost me a while back with this current AI storyline and it started off as a dated Cyberpunk story, it's starting to pique interest.  Not amazing but worth more attention it seems now.

Curious to see how Niemand is going to pull of this final arc.  Considering the general convention in Dredd-world, the good money is on a poor ending for Ash.  Will that be the case or is Niemand going to throw us a curveball?

[broodblik]

Cover by Lee Milmore:

[IndigoPrime]

I'm with Colin YNWA Block! Or something. But, yeah, there's a feel that this line-up isn't quite as much of a heavy hitter as it possibly could be. It's still mostly good though.

The cover was interesting. Dredd barrels along and while it feels a bit by-the-numbers, it's good by-the-numbers. (And, yeah, Asher is either going to end up dead or incarcerated. Almost certainly the former.) Portals has now totally lost me. I just don't care about any of it. I'm still reading it, primarily because I have a rule of reading everything in 2000 AD – even Wireheads.

Maxwell's Demon works for me. It's probably not going to be up there with Nikolai Dante or whatever, but it feels wrong to consider it 'filler', because it's better than that. The dynamics are interesting. The art is great. The biggest problem is that it does the supernatural weirdness thing a whole lot better than what preceded it in the Prog. (And Portals has already had five parts, to MD's two.)

Hershey... As this series began, I wasn't expecting Dredd to show up. Given his stance in the past with McGruder et al, he'll probably be happier with Hershey going out in a blaze of glory rather than quietly slipping away in her bed – even if some readers won't be. (And Dredd might feel irked that he was lied to. Assuming he was. Perhaps he always knew of the plan but was nonetheless saying goodbye.) Anyway, I've enjoyed this.

And then, Azimuth. I'm not sure I'll ever fully reconcile this. I was excited by something that looked different and new for 2000 AD. Instead, it's something different and new for one of the most long-running strips that for me ran out of steam years ago. So it feels a bit like wasted potential and yet is one of the best Sin/Dex strips to date. I simultaneously like it and wish it didn't exist in this form.

Hershey > Demon = Dredd = Azimuth >>>>> Portals 4/5 for me this week.

[Richard]

My main issue with Hershey (well okay, my second issue after the fact that she died in Guatemala) is that Rob Williams's Hershey thinks Dredd is a dick, whereas Wagner's Hershey looks / looked up to him. It sometimes feels like two different characters.

[Barrington Boots]

Now fully caught up. Not much to add that others haven't already said.
Really liked the cover on this one.

Dredd is wicked. Asher evidently has a plan, and intruiged to see what it is, but the last couple of frames suggest it's all going to go wrong for him.

Portals Found this to be an especially messy episode. Not digging this, sadly.

Thriller This is alright, barrels along at a real pace, looks lovely. Dialogue still seems clunky to me, but its enjoyable.

Hershey Feels very cinematic, and in a way, anticlimatic, given the story has been running at a more personal, low level pace for its duration. I also wasn't expecting Dredd.

Azimuth perfectly fine episode without being anything special. Tazio Bettin draws brilliant action.

[AlexF]

I really like all the strips at the moment, without quite loving them. The superlative art on Azimuth and Hershey means I almost don't care about the stories, but they're easy to read. I especially admire the 3riller for really packing in a lot of ideas into a short space, not least taking the time needed to go for comedy.
Portals and Black Goo is classic J. Tomlinson - there's a fun hook and a neat mix of situations - but he can't quite seem to create a character that one cares about. 'Guy in his 20s who needs a job and is OK taking risks' is not cutting it for me. Tell me something about his inner life, his hopes and dreams! It's making me think I only liked Frank Weitz from Armoured Gideon becaus ehe lived near Brockwell Park and was drawn by Simon Jacob to look deeply odd...

[IndigoPrime]

Armoured Gideon also had better and clearer storytelling. It wasn't a classic, but it was at least fun and readable. Portals is increasingly turning into a mess.

[broodblik]

My major problem with Portal is that I cannot see where the story is going, it is 3 different stories that should interact but is not.

[norton canes]

I do like the idea of alternating between the two main storylines every couple of pages - it makes the strip feel fast-paced. The bigger problem, I think, is that we're five episodes in now and the narrative has just been the ongoing events of a single night. There haven't been any breaks, no time to catch a breath. Even for a largely action-based strip that's too protracted. It needs variety.

 

[norton canes]

I should add that I got a proper laugh from "So I've been waiting like ten minaaats?"