Whats everyone reading?

[Frank]

Well done for reaching inside my head and expressing some of my thoughts as if they were your own, Third Estate Ned. Origins is great fun to read, but- as noted elsewhere- it was very much establishing the necessary conditions for the last five years of unparalleled excellence from Wagner. I was never entirely convinced that Fargo had to undergo the pre-and-post-mortem indignities heaped upon him just to facilitate that brilliant final exchange with Dredd.

Dredd taking a mixed lot of young judges into the Cursed Earth is a reliable shortcut to storytelling gold, but the real thrill of that story was in seeing Dredd and Rico working the streets together; and Tour of Duty called back to that, with the twist of pairing Dredd with a younger version of Rico/himself. I wouldn't complain if we're treated to more stories showing the two Dredds' early days in the Academy or patroling the slab.

I'm can't remember Kev Walker talking about the change in his approach (I'd be grateful if anyone can provide a link), but in David Bishop's useful Thrillpower Overload he talks about the experience of producing countless painted art pieces for the 1995 Judge Dredd film as an exhausting and traumatic one.

It's possible Walker felt he'd taken his painted style as far as he wanted; and, from an economic perspective (even taking Radiator's point into account), the advent of computer colouring means it's more cost-effective to produce coloured line art than spend hours fiddling with an air compressor and masking film. It's pure speculation on my part to suggest that the sight of US artists like JH Williams III and Mike Mignola bringing their high-contrast, heavyily inked styles to Dredd- and making much of the painted art then-dominant in 2000ad look awfully mediocre- could have played a part too.

MacNeil's early take on the city is always going to rank right up there with McMahon for me, but new(er) guns like Bagwell do equally impressive (if less colourful) work too. You do know The Final Solution doesn't end .. well, don't you?

[Third Estate Ned]

The build up to the notorious ending is the main reason for getting my hands on it. I only ever read bits of it at the time because I bought the prog sporadically then. Simon Harrison's sometimes derided artwork was actually one of my first points of access into 2000ad. I saw the Prog 620 Revere cover in a comic shop (Nu Earth in York) and it made me pick it up.

[Frank]

I loved Simon Harrison's art too, Third Estate Ned. Everyone read The Final Solution sporadically; for various reasons- not least the change in artists and the move to full colour- it took Alan Grant two long years to finish poor Johnny Alpha off. Once it was clear where the story was headed, it just felt plain sadistic.

The Final Solution is one of the few comics I'd recommend reading using the Joey Tribiani method, and I've never gone back and read all of it in one go- let us know what you think when you're finished.

P.S, the Kev Walker quote Radiator alluded to earlier from Megazine 290: "Painting comics is even more labour intensive than drawing them and, at a rate of a page every four days, something had to give. "The decision to go to ink drawing was purely out of practicality. I was broke and needed to earn money quicker than I was capable of doing while painting ... I was going into insane detail, and I just needed to change ... it's not as easy as it looks. I have to labour over every pencil line ... there's none of the speed and vigour I'd wanted when I was painting comics. ". So Walker stopped painting to speed up his process ... but it didn't.

[HOO-HAA]

More Richard Laymon, this time his Mummy chiller, TO WAKE THE DEAD. It's what you'd expect from Laymon - good fun so far.

[Davek]

Just started Our Man in Havana.

[SmallBlueThing]

A stack of old british comics i bought today for 50p each- most notable for 2000AD fans is a strip in Champion from 1966 called 'return of the stormtroopers', that may be drawn by eric bradbury, and is summed up thus:

"in the year 2046, general otto von stern and his stormtroopers awoke from a century of frozen sleep and invaded england. Young bill churchill was doing his best to oppose them..."

I must find more of these now, and find out how closely it mirrors Invasion.

Also The Skipper, from 1931, which is going for the record for the number of times things can be described as "queer", and under the column heading "queer trade" promises a exciting story next week, called "the pants that raised a riot".

Oh, and Walking Dead #96.

SBT

[Zarjazzer]

Wow I'm reading another Warhammer 40k novel the Battle of Calth by Dan Abnett. How surprising  some might say but even though it's the upmteenth novel in the Horus heresy series I'm still enjoying it. Betrayal, epic battles and warp demons so fun all round.

[House of Usher]

I'm reading some cack high school novel for adolescents written specifically for the schools market, as if there were not already an abundance of actual literature kids could be reading in school instead.

After that I'll be reading Touching the Void, by Joe Simpson, for this year's GCSE exam marking, and probably not enjoying it very much, but no doubt learning a lot about mountain climbing, about which I don't really care to any extent.

[Roger Godpleton]

Glad to see House of Usher shows the same enthusiasm for educating people that he does for moderating this forum.

[House of Usher]

You are such a rude young man, Roger.

[TordelBack]

You are such a rude young man, Roger.

He's just crying out for some moderation, HoU.  Moderate him good!  Moderate him back to the Stone Age!

[Roger Godpleton]

Rude is taking a £70,000 per annum moderating job and then not doing any moderating.

[judgefloyd]

Dunno if this calls for moderation or not,but I'm reading 'Another Self' by James Lees-Milne, in a beautiful Slightly Foxed edition, as part of my read-every- book-I-recieve-as-a-gift project. So far it's not very engaging, but maybe it'll grow on me.  I'm also reading 'A Princess of Mars', which is much more fun.
  And a big hello to HoU, who I remember as a funster in the chatroom way back

[NorthVox]

Why, Harry Kipling (Deceased) of course! 

[SmallBlueThing]

Currently, im nearing the end of Judge Dredd: Bad Moon Rising, a novel from the Black Flame range, written by David Bishop.

I love comics, and i love books. However, when comics and books collide i nearly always dont love the results. Previously, my favourite of the Dredd ranges has been the old Virgin Dredd one also written by David Bishop, so i had not-unreasonable hopes for this. So far, it's not let me down- perfectly readable, nothing jumps out as being 'wrong' and with a clear (if obvious) through-line. I dont think ive finished a single one of the BF Dredd books previously, so this is already beating the others hands-down.

SBT