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Question:  how long is Charley's War?

It's good and all, but it doesn't half last a long time.

[Judge Dredd: Warzone]

Judge Dredd: Warzone
This is an exciting adventure for Dredd - although the setting, and his job, seems more like something Johnny Alpha would do.  It seems a bit odd that the goodies essentially walk straight into an ambush, where the enemy have a tactical advantage in terms of numbers, terrain and firepower, but the goodies still win just by charging headlong into battle, rather than doing anything smart (except for JD with his heatseekers).  There's a good cliffhanger.

I'm finding the art incredibly hit and miss, with some very odd angles.  The ruined city and the heatseeker frames are sublime, but that close-up of Dredd with an over-sized chin and just about any shot at all of the giant GI just seem wrong.

Shimura: The Harder They Come
or Robbie Morrison: My Pitch For Marvel

It's been a while (decades) since I bought american superhero comics - I'd got quickly sick of those ridiculous stories where The Hulk (essentially a loner) would team up with The Goodie Gumdrops against a team of super-villains (who would never really work together because they were all megalomaniacs and would just never agree on anything).

So, everything moves along pretty fast in this extended superheroes vs. superbaddies fight fest, and is good fun at that level.  A shame that the excellent cover image promise of Shimura & JD scarpering from the dragon, is replaced in-strip with the dragon getting nixed by Dredd's first shots of the fight.  Pah!

Also, Stan Lee has really lost his touch as a great assassin.  His target is the woman - so what does he do when he has her at his mercy?  Talk.  Brag.  Boast.  Threaten.  Uhm - how about killing her, Mr Best Assassin In the World?

Then he has Dredd at his mercy ... obviously another opportunity to wax lyrical rather than actually kill him.

Then he faces off against Shimura - who voices my frustration as he says "Are you going to talk me to death?"  Well, yes, apparently.

There then follows a deus x rescue that only serves to extend this big superhero battle for another instalment in 4 weeks.

The arts great, and I am enjoying this - but it's all a bit WWF wrestling.

Anderson Psi-Division: Lucid
Okay - so 5 Sisters Of Death now.  Bit of a stretch - but then this is turning into a sort of mythology all it's own - so I'll roll with it.

Any chance of a happy Cass story set in the caribbean?  Ranson must run out of beige soon, and it'd be nice to have some bright, primary colours in this depressing world.  Love the "switch off the drokkin' machine" line.

Young Middenface: A Scottish Sojer
Is that a head in the fridge in the last frame (well, 2nd last, because the last frame is just black)?  Why's it there?

I'm enjoying this as Middenface has so many weaknesses in his character - he keeps fecking things up for his comrades.  Loving Shaun Thomas's art - especially the opening frame, and the wicker man on the last page.

Cursed Earth Koburn: Malachi
Eek.  It's a bold dramatic choice to show the final firefight from the perspective of listening to it over the radio.

This is excellent - mixing so much stuff up in one episode - a real smorgasbord of a story - with the funniest thing in the Meg added in for good measure:  "He's doing his best old stoney-face impression".

15 years, Creep
A very interesting article exploring the heyday of the Meg.  I absolutely loved Missionary Man: Place of the Dead (both art and script) and thought it the best of what were mostly very good stories.

I found it a bit ironic that Darkies Mob was hailed as a complete success story for the Meg - with no mention of the uproar it caused in Dreddlines.  (The irony being that Darkies Mob features a complete reversal of the actual fortunes of British soldiers in Burma.)  Ah well - paint it positive, I guess.

::"Is that an incredibly uncharacteristic bit of dialogue from Joe on the last page of the Dredd tale or what?"

He didn't put his respirator down when the mandroids were smoking the pot, that's the reason.  The editor cut out the following piece of dialogue for space reasons:

Dredd: "Like, look at the stars, man, they're making shapes in the sky, and those trees - you can see them breathing!"

Oor Wullie, your Wullie, a'body's Wullie!

I think an RTS in the mold of Warcraft / Starcraft would work well in a MC-1 setting - although there's not much in the way of open ground - that would be the main issue.  Be difficult to give a sense of height.

There's also the thing that Judging is a constant battle:  there's no real end point.  You'd need scenarios, I guess:

Helltrekkers
Sov Invasion (a la Apocalypse War)
The Pit

That idea for The Block is an absolute corker!

Like SimWhatever, it has the potential to be highly addictive.  What about the relationship with neighbouring blocks - watch out for enemy citi-def teams planting explosives underneath your block, or troggies breaking in from the undercity.  And all the epic disasters you mention would work really well, I think:  from Block Mania to rad-flea infestations; the Apocalypse War to Necropolis - you wouldn't be short of disasters to inflict on your creation.

Mind you, it would be a bit of a bummer if you got nuked out just for forgetting to install a sonic cannon.

Cheers for the tip, Cosh - I'll try it out and see if it makes a positive difference.

Oh, go ahead and knock - it's really just for personal use.  (If anyone else finds it useful, great, but that's a secondary consideration.)

Uhm - how does one export an Excel page as a jpg image?  I have no idea and google isn't being helpful.

http://www.amenable.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/twoKindex/" target="_blank">2K & Meg Full Index

(Just finished adding in all the Megs.)

(For those with slow download, some of the pages are half a meg because they're saved directly from Excel.)

Wait just one minute - the head of antiques is called Ned Kelly?  My god!  This is all some kind of bizarre time-travelling conspiracy - and it hasn't even been used as the plot for a Future Shock yet.

Could this actually be the remains of Slaine and Ukko (not actually a dwarf - just a lot shorter than Slaine)?!?

MY girlfriend is also in the advertising industry...

http://www.amenable.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/orangArray.jpg" />

I didn't want to be the first to admit that I'd looked that closely, Max - but yes.

Also available - the new cuparray:

http://www.jagpro.com/mug%20tree.jpg" />

Haud yer wheesht!  Looking at the photos of T's flat - he's getting on just fine without my help.