2000 AD - The Ultimate Collection

[sintec]

Got through the rest of Mean Arena and Strontium Dogs 2.

The Darkest Star had some superb art but I'm not sure it was a story that needed telling. The whole book reads like it's trying a bit too hard and the Gronk's transformation into action hero was a big mis-step imo. Certainly didn't sound like Ennis was particularly proud of any of it, (is this the first case of creatos dissing their own work that we've had in the UC?) Hoping the next Strontium Dogs book will be more like the first one.

Mean Arena did pick up a bit but it still wasn't really great. Matt Talon is a fairly unlikeable protagonist and I'm not all that invested in his quest. There are some cool deaths but that's not enough to keep it going. Guess there's one more of these to slog through in the coming months, meh. First complete miss in a while though, shame it's taking up 2 books.

[IndigoPrime]

War Machine after all I'd heard about it was just soooo disappointing.

A lot of nostalgia leaking in there. I was looking forward to this one. I read it and, well, yeah. I mean, it's not bad. It's a lot better than what followed, and definitely my third favourite Rogue thing (after the IDW take and Cinnabar). But the 'voiceover' is overbearing and one of the twists at the end ([spoiler]Earth[/spoiler] is a bit Captain Obvious.

On the rest of the volume, John Smith's Rogue Trooper always took place in a much weirder and horrific take on Nu-Earth. It's certainly a lot more interesting than what Fleisher did, mind, and in another universe where Smith was the main Fr1day scribe, it might have at least been more fondly remembered.

The Wagner Dredd is an odd one. It's not a bad tale, but it feels entirely divorced from any Rogue Trooper continuity. The John Higgins art feels a bit flat too.

Then it all finishes of with Glimmer Rats. I'd not read that in years and... it's OK. I can't imagine Gordon Rennie wouldn't agree he's done much better work for the Prog since. It does at least have some nice ideas and the art's solid. But it doesn't feel like anything I'm going to return to soon. Given that I'm now cherry picking, I think this volume's going to find its way on to eBay.

Certainly didn't sound like Ennis was particularly proud of any of it, (is this the first case of creatos dissing their own work that we've had in the UC?) Hoping the next Strontium Dogs book will be more like the first one.

It is interesting that much of what's been in the back matter for this run has been broadly positive, which presumably reflects the quality within – unlike with maybe 20–25 of the Dredd books. Strontium Dogs is an odd one – I wonder why it was selected over, say, Armoured Gideon?

[Tomwe]

Got my subs copies at the weekend. There's quite a bit of moiré patterning in the Finn book. I'm sure when I was at uni our scanners had the capability to somehow scan without picking this up - it was a setting. Or does that simply mess with the quality of the scan? Is this just the best that's possible?

[IndigoPrime]

Possibly. It depends on what the source is that's being used. The first Devlin Waugh book had dreadful moiré. Some of the early pre-digital Dante volumes suffer from it a bit as well. I suspect Finn was probably scanned from the comics. Getting rid of it, even in these days of tech isn't that easy – although I'd hope it wouldn't look as bad as the aforementioned Waugh volume.

[davidbishop]

The Devlin pages were a nightmare to scan 30 years ago. Lots of collage, different levels and heights on the page, colour photocopies incorporated into the artwork. Plus some of the pages were huge, which added another layer of difficulty for the repro house. Technology at the time wasn't really up to the challenge of Sean's pages. A shame, as they looked incredible IRL!

[The Amstor Computer]

Moire is a repro headache that isn't always fixable. Some of the methods for combating it lead to a loss of clarity in the art, and some border on superstition (rotate the material being scanned to x angle, then correct that in post etc.) I've tried a few, including scanning at super-high-res then reducing to print res, but it tends to be an exercise in minimisation rather than elimination, and with some original source printed pages you just aren't going to get a completely clean scan.

[IndigoPrime]

It could be worse: Hachette could have outsourced to India, whereupon a semi-automated process could have been run across all the colours (and, er, dialogue balloons), thereby removing the moiré (and, er, lots more).

(Yes, I'm still pissed at IDW's treatment of Transformers.)

[Blue Cactus]

It could be worse: Hachette could have outsourced to India, whereupon a semi-automated process could have been run across all the colours (and, er, dialogue balloons), thereby removing the moiré (and, er, lots more).

(Yes, I'm still pissed at IDW's treatment of Transformers.)

Yep, I hear ya. Put me off buying the collections it was so bad - I'll stick to my tatty old original uk issues from the 80s!

[13school]

Got my subs copies at the weekend. There's quite a bit of moiré patterning in the Finn book. I'm sure when I was at uni our scanners had the capability to somehow scan without picking this up - it was a setting. Or does that simply mess with the quality of the scan? Is this just the best that's possible?

Did Finn have this problem when it (just the first book I think?) was reprinted as a floppy?

[IndigoPrime]

Yep, I hear ya. Put me off buying the collections it was so bad - I'll stick to my tatty old original uk issues from the 80s

It's a real shame. Had the UK Classics books continued (themselves with some pretty dire decision making, alas), I'd have stuck with them. But I did want the entire classic run in HC. Not sure getting rid of my Titan books was the best move given what I now have in return but there you go. (Furman's decisions on story order were also deeply suspect. I understand them from an individual issue standpoint, but straight chronological would have been better. Sigh.)

[AlexF]

I don't remember the Finn floppies (books I and II) having any art issues. What's in this volume - is it the whole boiling lot of Finn? Which might just encourage me to have a go, moiré and all. I don't remember loving those last stories but Mills later work often reads much better in collected form.

[sintec]

This one is just books one and two. The intro states there'll be a second volume colllecting the rest.

[Blue Cactus]

Yep, I hear ya. Put me off buying the collections it was so bad - I'll stick to my tatty old original uk issues from the 80s

It's a real shame. Had the UK Classics books continued (themselves with some pretty dire decision making, alas), I'd have stuck with them. But I did want the entire classic run in HC. Not sure getting rid of my Titan books was the best move given what I now have in return but there you go. (Furman's decisions on story order were also deeply suspect. I understand them from an individual issue standpoint, but straight chronological would have been better. Sigh.)

I was totally oblivious to the Titan volumes coming out so I missed them. But yes, the full run in a decent collection would be a treat.

[IndigoPrime]

Titan released pretty much the entire US run between 2001 and 2003 in TPB and HC formats, with the latter being a nightmare to find. It also released key UK strips during 2002 to 2004, but with Furman being Furman, earlier stuff was ignore – even the Wrath stories. Those go for a lot of money on eBay now, and I sold mine a while ago. Give wee black and white paperbacks were also released.

It's a real shame the classic Transformers comics never got a great reprint run. Titan arguably came closest, with fairly good repro, but it was incomplete. IDW churned out rubbish US reprint and oddball UK books that got abruptly canned before they were done (a pity – they included a ton of front matter). Then Hachette blundered in and ended up halfway between the two, with an almost complete run, but in an odd order, and with IDW's repro issues coming along for the ride. _Sigh_

(Getting the original comics bound would probably be the best bet, if they weren't so terrifyingly expensive to buy these days.)

[sintec]

From a post on one of the 2000ad FB groups it looks like The 2nd Mean Arena volume also contains John Smith's Slaughterbowl. Hadn't spotted John and Paul's names on the cover previously - but they're there. I'd assummed (wrongly it turns out) that this would get bundled with Revere for another Smith themed vol. Seems they decided to go with a future sports theme instead. Wonder if Revere will be joining Leviathan and Necronauts for a 2nd horror themed vol. If that's the case then I've gained an unknown slot in my speculation (up to 7) as I had Leviathan and Revere down as separate books!

Also spotted on the collections own FB page that Hachette have confirmed Storming Heaven won't be included in the collection. Don't think that had been mentioned here before.

Read the first book of Finn over the last couple of nights. It contains Origins in addition to the first two books. Enjoyed it more than expected. It's good silly fun. Story wise I think it's actully better then the Warriros tales Pat did with Tony around this time (although the art isn't as astounding). It's quite tropey but I'll take that over supergronk. Repro isn't great though - Origins is very murky and there're issues with moire throughout. I'm guessing this maybe part of the reason it's not previously had a TPB.