So now that the show is done with the Summer Offensive, and our beloved hosts have expressed clear opinions on it, I've been desperately trying to remember what it felt like at the time. Bearing in mind that I was 15 years old (just), and the only opinions I had access to were my big brother + Tharg's input page. Big Dave may have been "shocking" but it didn;t make the news or get the comic discussed in Parliament or anything.
Both of us loved Slaughterbowl, which got zero love from Tharg at the time, glad to have that vindicated!
I had a vague feeling that we at home thought Inferno was just a bit silly, but that plenty of readers liked it, only to find that in the last 20 years it has become perhaps THE most despised Mega Epic. Really & Truly I've an idea people kinda thought was cool at the time? Maybe it was just that Rian Hughes's art was so unlike anything else in the Prog, and the concept of a drug-fuelled road trip itself felt novel. I wanted to like it but didn't get it - and now it turns out it's just smug and dull. No one then or now has any opinons on Maniac 5. Sure it's violent enough but it's neither clever nor stupid enough to stand out in any way.
Which leaves of course Big Dave, and I'm pretty sure the vibe at the time was 'if you're one of the cool clever kids, you think this is GREAT.' If you don't like it - and plenty didn't - you're just not getting it. Mostly I remember not understanding the joke, although I'd side with Conrad vs Fox in that at the time I was definitely aware of the 'Sun' style speech and got most of the topical/political references, even if I didn't find them funny. I think the only joke that landed for me was teaming up Big Dave with a steroided version of Terry Waite. In hindsight, it feels like Grant n Mark new what they wanted to do, but didn't really know how to do it. At least it actually WAS offensive. And I will say that the way Tharg hyped the whole thing, combined with the utterly non-serious tone of all the strips, did kind of work to make the Prog feel more vital and fresh for those 8 weeks.
Very tempted to vote for the whole lot as the year's MVP, it's still a focal point for discussion. Go on Tharg, dare you to do a special Regened 'totally offensive' Prog for the 30th anniversary next year...
