Main Menu

Prog 2209 - Bad Blood!

Started by broodblik, 25 November, 2020, 02:57:08 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

IndigoPrime

Niemand gets Dredd. Although his reference to Iceland was quite something. Clearly, the country changes a bit between now and then.

Barrington Boots

It's days of glory as multiple missing progs rocked up this morning! Quick thoughts on this one:

Dredd - whilst I agree with comments that the Simp story is feeling a bit stretched, I'm really enjoying it. There's enough background Megacity wackiness going on in the background to make it fun. I think Dredd works best when it tackles a serious subject with a big injection of farce and this really gets it.

Skip Tracer - neat ending, we all predicted the bit with the [spoiler]acoustic resonator[/spoiler] but none of us predicted [spoiler]violent death-fisting[/spoiler]. This has been the best Skip story so far imo, but it's still lagging behind the rest of the prog. Nolan himself is a bit of a nonentity but so was Nick Stone. As a knockabout thrill I'm not unhappy to see it return.

Stickleback - to quote the man himself, that was... unexpected. Has the rest of the cast just been wiped out (again)?

Hookjaw - mildy anticlimatic ending after the peak horror of last week but overall I thought this was great: effective storytelling with the slow build, incredible art and comedy accents. If it had run under a different title, would it have had less people moaning about it? I've no great affection for the original having only read it within the last 12 months but as already said, we didn't need a rerun of that and this really worked for me.

Fiends is the absolute best thing in this prog and I can't say anything that hasn't already been said about it really. Superb.

Cover is awesome too!

You're a dark horse, Boots.

TordelBack

Are many people moaning about Hookjaw? In a year that's given us copious (almost unprecedented?) novelty in the shape of Feral & Foe, Proteus Rex, Megatropolis, Dreadnoughts, Full Tilt Boogie (the series), The Diaboliks, Pandora Perfect, Department K and the sublime The Out, it is a strong contender for my favourite new strip*. Just a clever, compact, unexpected, and all-round fun tale.


*I know it's a reboot,  but not of a 2000AD story.

Barrington Boots

I'm not sure if people are moaning en masse, it may just be that I see a lot of this on Facebook.

When listed like that, that's a lot of quality new strips this year. I'd rank Hookjaw up with Feral & Foe as my favourite newcomers.
You're a dark horse, Boots.

IndigoPrime

Most people aren't moaning. People who want the Prog to be identical to the one they enjoyed as children are moaning. As was Pat Mills, who on Twitter was seemingly arguing that because Hookjaw had a format that worked wonders in 1976, a strip called Hookjaw should be doing precisely the same thing 44 years later.

SmallBlueThing(Reborn)

It's been a standout year, as far as I can see. The Out was the high point, but HookJaw, Fiends, Feral & Foe, Lawless, Dreadnaughts, Megatropolis... that's an embarrassment of riches, that is. The House of Tharg is in rude health- and that's not even touching on the Specials Rebellion have released.
What is also an embarrassment is the attitude of several people on social media, who take every opportunity to berate the comics for being "woke" and "not as good as (insert year they last read them)". My 'favourite' was the guy claiming to cancel his subscription because of Hookjaw. I say 'favourite', but in reality I just wince when I see that kind of stuff, and more often than not, just block them. Cant be arsed.

SBT

IndigoPrime

Nostalgia can be a cloud. I saw one person a while back ranting about 2000 AD, saying it wasn't as good as it was in the old days. For him, the 'old days' were the shitshow leading up to and after the Morrison/Millar mess. I can understand people who want the Prog to be like it was during the 300s or something, but pining for the summer offensive? That's just bonkers.

Barrington Boots

Quote from: SmallBlueThing(Reborn) on 04 December, 2020, 02:13:20 PM
My 'favourite' was the guy claiming to cancel his subscription because of Hookjaw.

This guy was my favourite as well, came across as an absolute bellend.
You're a dark horse, Boots.

Barrington Boots

And I didn't mean to start up this debate again (although i think we're all of one mind). I was more pondering, had it been called BLOODFIN or something, if said minority nostalgics would have had quite as much vitriol towards it.
I really liked it, anyway.
You're a dark horse, Boots.

TordelBack

Quote from: IndigoPrime on 04 December, 2020, 02:06:12 PM
As was Pat Mills, who on Twitter was seemingly arguing that because Hookjaw had a format that worked wonders in 1976, a strip called Hookjaw should be doing precisely the same thing 44 years later.

Heh, he didn't see it that way when Rennie wrote Satanus as a Hookjaw/Shako story!*

I do however agree with Pat on the general point that if something is going to be so different in genre and style, just bite the surfer bullet nd call it something else (one might cite Invasion/Savage and MACH-1/Greysuit as good examples), or make it something new. What gets modern Hookjaw off the proverbial fishing tackle is that the original strip is pivotal to the whole endeavour: Action's Hookjaw is cast as a part of the 'belief' in the Hookjaw 'myth' that is at the core of the current setup. It's less a tired reworking and more an expansion that incorporates the original as part of the 'truth' (much like Gaiman's Sandman and Moore's Swampie - although I may be stretching an analogy a teensy bit too far there).

But yeah,  let's not do this feudin' n' flatin' again,  it's Christmas!

* Yes, I know that wasn't actually  the issue there....

broodblik

When any story is re-image, we will always get people who will pitch with their pitchforks and torches because somehow their childhood was utterly destroyed and ruined by this sacrilege. I loved this new take on Hook Jaw completely different than the original and 100 times better than the original.  Yes, it is true in most cases the re-image does not always give justice to the original but here we have something that was quite unique for me and different. 
When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.

Old age is the Lord's way of telling us to step aside for something new. Death's in case we didn't take the hint.

The Amstor Computer

Quote from: TordelBack on 04 December, 2020, 02:31:39 PM
What gets modern Hookjaw off the proverbial fishing tackle is that the original strip is pivotal to the whole endeavour: Action's Hookjaw is cast as a part of the 'belief' in the Hookjaw 'myth' that is at the core of the current setup. It's less a tired reworking and more an expansion that incorporates the original as part of the 'truth' (much like Gaiman's Sandman and Moore's Swampie - although I may be stretching an analogy a teensy bit too far there).

...which would be an argument again for Pat reading some of the stuff he's criticising instead of basing his opinions on a quick scan through the contents, the title or whatever one of his Twitter followers fires his way. I suspect he'd still be anti-Hookjaw, but perhaps he'd have a better understanding of what the team on it were aiming for (and perhaps even appreciate it, as I think it's one of the more intelligent and thoughtful attempts to revisit a classic strip in recent 2000AD history).


TordelBack

Quote from: The Amstor Computer on 04 December, 2020, 03:09:33 PM... I think it's one of the more intelligent and thoughtful attempts to revisit a classic strip in recent 2000AD history.

Soitantly. Not only does it play to the Worley & Gallagher droids' exquisitely gory horror-steeped strengths, but it's structured in such a way as to offer successive visual shocks using the same monster week after week, and simultaneously build the magical 'rules' of its world without the need for blocks of exposition. It's just a good well-constructed 2000AD strip that could happily stand on its own as a one-off, or become a template for related stories.

I actually suspect Pat would like it if he gave it a try: it has a working-class outsider hero, social commentary, good episode structure, cliffhangers, eye-catching visuals, vernacular myths and female-dominated rural magicks.   

I, Cosh

Quote from: TordelBack on 04 December, 2020, 03:23:18 PM
I actually suspect Pat would like it if he gave it a try: it has a working-class outsider hero, social commentary, good episode structure, cliffhangers, eye-catching visuals, vernacular myths and female-dominated rural magicks.   
So you're saying it's actually a double reboot? Hookjaw and ... Finn...?
We never really die.

TordelBack

Quote from: I, Cosh on 04 December, 2020, 03:29:01 PM
Quote from: TordelBack on 04 December, 2020, 03:23:18 PM
I actually suspect Pat would like it if he gave it a try: it has a working-class outsider hero, social commentary, good episode structure, cliffhangers, eye-catching visuals, vernacular myths and female-dominated rural magicks.   
So you're saying it's actually a double reboot? Hookjaw and ... Finn...?

Quadruple really, since Finn is a reboot of both Third World War and Sláine. It's what Pat would want. I imagine.