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Meg 428: Trail by Fire!

Started by broodblik, 20 January, 2021, 04:21:56 AM

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broodblik

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.

broodblik

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.

broodblik

Another good meg to start the year

Dredd - Another good one shot by Niemand and Goddard. Just like the part where the one Trump look-a-alike creep gets some off the rough stuff.

Megatropolis – Dave Taylor effectively usage of more grey-scale colours illustrates us this alternative, noir world created by Niemand and Taylor. The very striking rain scene sums up the dark sombre mood. Great storytelling.

Dreadnoughts - This is a great story told very well by Carroll. John Higgins art is complementing the story to his fullest ability. This has been the stand-out story in the meg the last few months. The story just gets better and more intriguing as we are heading to the final.

The Returners - Rather than having a lot of script the art is being used to tell us the story. This whole series the art was good but this episode the art really steals all the focus.

Deliverance - The dark tales continues its path towards the ultimate goal, death by Death. What a sad, dark, morbid story and why is it so entertaining?

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.

Colin YNWA

Well we are doing okay aren't we. we really arh.

For a change I'll deal with the back matter first. The John Sanders interview is certainly interesting and makes me look forward to getting the book soon. A different perspective is always helpful, even if I suspect I'll disagree with much he says.

Then the Encyclopedia looks like it might have hit its stride. Its weird after craming some entries into one page in previous volumes here everything - even some interestingly obsure choices - gets two pages, often the second used for a full picture - which is great in a comic encyclopedia. There are still some curious gaps and large white spaces - but this is much more like I'd wanted. I wonder if the early volumes will be updated before this gets published as a seperate volume... assuming think this is as much as a success as I did AND it gets a standalone collection at some point... we'll see.

As for the comic content well this continues to be the best line-up - without Lawless I can remember.

For a Dredd that doesn't especially do much its a damned fine read from Neimand and Goddard and looks fantastic.

Megatropolis - the only negative is the habit of dropping a few to many cute nods to established characters that seems to reach a peak here. But some beans this is brilliant.

As is Dreadnoughts - its just hard, bitter and entertaining.

The Returners really opens up the art and has its best episode of this story to day. Its magnificent. 

and the same can be said of Deliverance which has a blinder.

This has been a good line-up and this is the best issue of that fantastic line-up. Welcome to the new year!

JimmyNailz

Loving everything in the prog at the moment. I just wish I'd read the first Returners series because I'm not sure I entirely understand what the premise is (something about a curse and memory wiping?), yet I still enjoy it. Was that [spoiler]the Black Museum curator [/spoiler]making a cameo? /

And yes, the encyclopedia felt a lot more "readable" this month too.

JimmyNailz

Reading the above back, I meant to write "loving everything in the MEG"
Apologies!

DrJomster

Very strong Meg this month, droids. Sterling work.

Gorgeous Dredd one shot. Really liked the colours on the wings. Nice little story indeed with a very Dredd ending.

Megatropolis is just wonderful though. Some of the panels... the rain above the grey cityscape... particularly that shot straight up into the rain...  happy sigh.

Dreadnoughts is strong too, although not sure panel 2 needed quite such an obvious judge's bottom shot while they're putting pressure on that wound....  and the Returners worked really well this month with those huge panels.

Some great portrait work in Deliverance in some of the panels, I have to say. I also loved Whisper's hesitance at being sent on a mission by himself... "Jussst me?" Fraid so, mate. Off you pop, there's a good lad.
The hippo has wisdom, respect the hippo.

Fenscape

The Meg is great but can we talk about the floppy? Its billed on the wraparound as 'a bonus graphic novel inside' but its not is it? It's the umpteenth attempt to list the Tooth universe which, while very interesting, is a cop out (And has always fizzled out after a few editions too). Rebellion is groaning under the weight of fantastic strips and stories and we've been lumbered with a load of unsolicited bibble on a monthly basis instead. By all means put it somewhere online where it can be evolved and added to as time goes on but please... let's not bundle it with the Meg for the foreseeable, its not what the floppy is there for!

Bolt-01

On the other hand - in the current climate it would be easier for Rebellion to fill the floppie with 'to hand' reprint files of things we have seen before than to commission the design droids to work the text provided and build legible, eye catching pages for the encyclopaedia.

Yes, we've had things like this before and yes the content will be out of date possibly before it is finished, but do not presume that this is being done because it is 'simple'.

Speaking with my small press hat on, this sort of thing is actually really hard to do well. I've not done a lot over the years but the mighty Amstor Computer gets all the praise for the work he puts into his design and building skills for the Hibernia editions.

Another thing to consider is that during the current apocalypse Rebellion will not be able to access the archive of files to make the necessary scans to present new work in anything like the quantity it would before.

The fact that Rebellion are not only maintaining a normal (mostly) publishing schedule but also presenting new works almost monthly is amazing and if TMO wants to present the encyclopaedia via the floppie, then who are we to question his verdant majesty?

AlexF

Yeah, what Bolt said. Personally I'm the sort of list-maker/obsessive who loves the sort of thing the Encyclopedia is doing, although ultimately I'd prefer it to be an online resource that can be updated more efficiently. But it passes the time nicely as a floppy and I don't resent it for taking up space of other reprints. I think if it was every month I might, but alternating with other things feels right.

MumboJimbo

I caught up on my megs the other day - did Dredd, Megalopolis, the Returners and Dreadnaughts in quick succession- all excellent, although the low panel-per-page ratio of The Returners does trigger me somewhat!

Anyway, when I came to the Dark Judges strip I realised I was massively confused about what was going on, so treated myself to a day of gorging on Dark Justice, Dominion, Torture Garden and Deliverance. And, my word, what a great series this is. When it comes to Death and co, the Deadworld stories seem to get more prominence (and they are excellent too), but read the modern adventure are top notch too. I would say my fave of the completed series is Torture Garden, but Deliverance has every chance of equalling that. David Hine and Nick Percival doing excellent work here. What started as a more action based affair in Dark Justice has really grown in depth, with the airbrushed art really ramping up the nightmarish sense of dread. I loved the idea of Death being trapped in Boing® having to read life-affirming poetry! Of course, he's out again now, though...

Sean SD

Like with the Prog, in 2021 I'm going to do a top 3 for the Megs as well starting with this one

My Top 3 for Meg 428

1st - Megatropolis - noir, alt universe Megacity. I like the namedropping myself
2nd - Dreadnoughts - great insight into early years of the Judges
3rd - Dredd - cool villain, Niemand doing great stuff again