Okay we're going to use spoiler tags properly on this one. We're going to need them...
Love the cover, really striking (I decided not to go with arresting so you should count yourselves lucky)
Dredd - nice little one off. Nothing special but fun if it felt a little bit done before, just turning out a new way for the Meg to grind you down.
The Order - continues to be magnifient - no need for spoilers there as if you don't know that already you are daft! But we're going to need them...
Terror Tales... well again no real need for spoilers here, this looks great and I really enjoyed it but when the twist is clumsily slapped on us, very clumsily, its main saving grace is we'd seen it comin' like the 88 Bus down Eccie Road. For all that as said actually really enjoyed this?!?
Deadworld - again no need for spoilers here as I've said all you need to know in my review for The Order. Great stuff.
Finally the magnificent return of Grey Area... I want to wax lyrical about how happy I am about its return. How much this has a fun opening, how it mixes snappy amusing dialogue with high octane action. I want to do all that but[spoiler] IF YOU KILL OFF RESTING BITCH FACE[/spoiler] I will be [spoiler]MOST BLOODY ANGRY[/spoiler].... don't you dare [spoiler]KILL HER OFF.[/spoiler].. or I'll go all caps lock on [spoiler]YOUR STUPIDLY TALENTED ASSES[/spoiler]... you hear me, you hear me [spoiler]DON'T KILL HER OFF.[/spoiler].. I'm not sure you will [spoiler]BUT DON'T[/spoiler]...
(https://i.imgur.com/nqXoyJt.jpg)
Cover by Matt Ferguson
Cover - fine, remarkably flat looking due to the vehicle design. Meh.
Dredd - unremarkable. A nice twist on sleeping pills but the action was too murky, the conclusion to the action you sorta have to guess at exactly what happens physically and if she was just a walk away why didn't she walk it anyway. The art is okay but lacks clarity signalling the bus and the denouement. Also I hate MC1 cits looking so dull and c20th ordinary, no colour, no simps, no crazy. Making everyone look like they are queuing for a JD Sports winter sale makes for a dull MC1. Jazz it up lee, you've got the skills.
The order - Skipped till it's concluded. Props to John Burns as always
Terror Tales - nice art, absolutely dross story. Astounded it got commissioned - 6 pages of a scenario a 10 year old would dream up and then a resolution deus ex in the last panel. Actually don't understand how this isn't a tale Tharg hasn't heard and rejected 1000 times already.
Deadworld - all out amazing. The two panels with the appearance and disappearence of fear - the use of the red on his body.. spooky as hell. Just great.
Grey Area - even better than all out amazing. The writing is peerless and the art glorious. And a real gut-punch character wise.
Solid prog with some ace stuff and some meh stuff.
Grey Area, man. Dan Abnett, man. Please, just more of this.
Quote from: BPP on 17 July, 2018, 01:07:46 AM
Dredd - ....Also I hate MC1 cits looking so dull and c20th ordinary, no colour, no simps, no crazy.
But in the context of this story I really think it worked and this is one of the great things about Dredd and MC 1. If you want it to be colourful and crazy it can be. If you want it to be dull and downbeaten it still works. Depends on the tone of the story and for me this was drop dead perfect.
Quote from: Colin YNWA on 17 July, 2018, 12:35:16 PM
Quote from: BPP on 17 July, 2018, 01:07:46 AM
Dredd - ....Also I hate MC1 cits looking so dull and c20th ordinary, no colour, no simps, no crazy.
But in the context of this story I really think it worked and this is one of the great things about Dredd and MC 1. If you want it to be colourful and crazy it can be. If you want it to be dull and downbeaten it still works. Depends on the tone of the story and for me this was drop dead perfect.
The rest of the cits don't stop being what they are just because one is depressed. Classic Dredd writing would have had a simp or Juve rub their face in madness to compound their misery. Here EVERYONE looks like they're depressed racing pigeon fanciers from 1970s Hull.
Dredd – not a bad once-off. Lee Carter's art suites the tone of the story
The Order – brilliant stuff. I especially like the hybrid sci-fi almost fantasy like setup of the story with enough little quirks with time.
Terror Tales – when reading the story, I always felt that I was once step ahead of the story almost like I can see into the future what is going to happen. I still enjoyed this
Deadworld – continuing unabated. This story shows you how important is it the get the right artist for the right story. Kendell's art fits like a glove.
Grey Area – see Colin's first comment on this one.
Again the current line of progs have all been solid
(https://i.imgur.com/xtxWWww.png?2) (https://i.imgur.com/ko7Xh6X.png?2)
(https://i.imgur.com/DPBIAzx.png?2) (https://i.imgur.com/8voqotW.png?3)
Quoteif she was just a walk away why didn't she walk it anyway?
Er, she was only a walk away when she got
off the bus, not when she got on. That's how buses work.
Speaking of buses, I liked the Terror Tale, it was silly. And I don't think
deus ex means what you think it means. It was a perfectly good final panel to me.
Dredd- a nice little one-off that harkended back to the strip as it used to be.
The Order- nope, sorry, dont understand and am not engaged with a single page of this.
Terror Tale- really liked that. Simple, and with a funny twist.
Damned- again, nope. I have no idea what any of this is about. Gave up properly reading a long time ago.
Grey Area- top thrill, always great to have it back. Cliffhanger a punch to the guts. Can't wait for more.
3/5 Zarjaz.
SBT
Quote from: Richard on 18 July, 2018, 01:23:16 PM
Quoteif she was just a walk away why didn't she walk it anyway?
Er, she was only a walk away when she got off the bus, not when she got on. That's how buses work.
Speaking of buses, I liked the Terror Tale, it was silly. And I don't think deus ex means what you think it means. It was a perfectly good final panel to me.
Snide much?
- you've no idea how far she travelled, maybe I've more faith in the justice department being able to stop a rogue bus sooner. However it's all part of the vagaries of the story - much like the sudden road block / barrier / whatever that does stop her.
- I'm well aware what deus ex means, tah. But next time I want marked like grade school i'll give you a bell.
Love the cover, really arresting :-X the flat planes give it focus (in my view) and there is great feeling of speed and impending collision.
Dredd - nice one off. I feel Lee's art suited the downbeat story and reflected the story's drive also the main characters state of mind.
Last Orders - Still reading it and this one at least made story telling sense... till the chopper appears!
Terror Tales... actually enjoyed this too, nice twist at the end without a heavy foreshadowing that often spoils TTales.
Deadworld - actually getting into this a bit...finally with the promise that this might not be the world that D'eath and the 3 stooges came from so could end differently on this alternative world, with the Judge Child fulfilling the prophecy.
Finally the return of Grey Area... too much text and all the wrong kind of exposition... but anyway the chopper from The Order turns up here too... so much for time travelling live saving robots!
Sorry BPP, I wasn't being rude on purpose.
BEST PROG IN AGES for me... been getting downhearted with it again in the last few weeks, but a great Dredd, hilarious Terror Tale, and suddenly The Order and Deadworld are forgiven any sins. Only Gray Area, usually one of my faves, is the weak link, thanks to a hefty overdose of exposition and some (for me) kinda shoddy art. Still, I really enjoyed this week, extra oil for all droids concerned.
Coupled with this fortnights Ultimate Collection (ABC's volume 2), which I really didn't think I'd enjoy but absolutely LOVED, I'm one happy Squaxx tonight. Cheers, Mighty One!
Lots of quality in this prog! That's a well-written Dredd story, IMO, with the nice layer of irony that future shocked people lead to more future shocked people.
I loved the Terror Tale, too, because it had a nice pace, strong art and a good payoff. I'm a major fan of The Order and Tales of Deadworld and I can't get enough of both stories. I feel lucky to buy a comic with Burns and Kendall art, too!
- Trout
Quote from: DrRocka on 18 July, 2018, 07:40:20 PM
Only Gray Area, usually one of my faves, is the weak link, thanks to a hefty overdose of exposition and some (for me) kinda shoddy art.
I also find the art a little bit messy. I enjoyed this much more when the series started back in the Christmas prog 2012 (end of 2011)
Cover: Nice, reminds me of those 1930's travel posters
Dredd: An enjoyable one-shot, tonally a bit different to the usual craziness
The Order: Rattling along brilliantly. Is it me or does John Burns' art look a tiny bit more rushed than in previous books? Even so, gotta love that crooked finger.
Terror Tale: Bit sketchy. Think it should be expanded into a ten-part series so we get more depth.
Deadworld: Exquisite
Grey Area: Haven't read it yet - didn't start on the prog 'till late last night and got a bit sleepy. It'll be brilliant though.
Quote from: broodblik on 19 July, 2018, 07:10:57 AM
I enjoyed this much more when the series started back in the Christmas prog 2012 (end of 2011)
Grey Area started in 2011??? Get the fu*k outta Earth!
Quote from: Link Prime on 19 July, 2018, 10:24:56 AM
Quote from: broodblik on 19 July, 2018, 07:10:57 AM
I enjoyed this much more when the series started back in the Christmas prog 2012 (end of 2011)
Grey Area started in 2011??? Get the fu*k outta Earth!
https://shop.2000ad.com/catalogue/2000-ad/2011/BI2012 (https://shop.2000ad.com/catalogue/2000-ad/2011/BI2012)
Quote from: norton canes on 19 July, 2018, 10:01:07 AM
Terror Tale: Bit sketchy. Think it should be expanded into a ten-part series so we get more depth.
That would be cruel and unusual punishment for the Cornwell droid!
Just a great prog, that!
That Kek-W is a fuppin' beast, giving the comic a solid spine of high-concept crazy. He'll need to use the multiple pen-names trick soon, good job he has a head start. And the art on those two strips! I know Deadworld is very much a two-hander creatively, and both Kendall's Fear and Death pages show that off to great effect: terrifying and fascinating in equal measure. Then in The Order we get panels like Daniel's face as he turns towards the stage, his hair simple flat colour, his face exquisitely built out of brushstrokes. Outstanding: this is the real magic of collaborative comics, what happens when writer and artist are inspiring each other, like in the glory days of Mills et al.
Over on Dredd you could swap out Carter for Cam Kennedy and this would pass unnoticed in Casefiles Vol 9. That's a huge compliment to McConville, BTW. As it is, I think Carter's moodily coloured art really works here. I agree, some of the set dressing is very 21st C (laptops and flatscreen TVs etc), but the vehicles and Dredd himself are stonking.
Abnett returns to Grey Area just to remind us all why he is a colossus of the modern prog, with a hit-to-miss ratio second only to Wagner himself. Harrison continues to make this his definitive 2000AD work.
And I liked that Terror Tale, simple and familiar, but fun, and lovely to look at.
I still think Harrison's best work was on Glimmer Rats.
Quote from: Richard on 20 July, 2018, 09:53:05 PM
I still think Harrison's best work was on Glimmer Rats.
It's a lovely thing to be sure, but in Grey Area there's a perfect marriage of Harrison's two main modes, strong linework characterisations and crazy largescale paintscapes, and for my money the combo tops anything he's done before. Sometimes I do have to look at a page twice to understand how it should read, but when it clicks it's all clear as crystal.
Quote from: TordelBack on 20 July, 2018, 10:02:34 PM
Quote from: Richard on 20 July, 2018, 09:53:05 PM
I still think Harrison's best work was on Glimmer Rats.
It's a lovely thing to be sure, but in Grey Area there's a perfect marriage of Harrison's two main modes, strong linework characterisations and crazy largescale paintscapes, and for my money the combo tops anything he's done before. Sometimes I do have to look at a page twice to understand how it should read, but when it clicks it's all clear as crystal.
Yeah his storytelling is by far his biggest weakness. I think this has improved over time, I really struggle with Glimmer Rats. I think in part its due to colouring choices. As Tordelback says once you get past that things can be clear.
Quote from: Colin YNWA on 21 July, 2018, 07:35:33 AM
Quote from: TordelBack on 20 July, 2018, 10:02:34 PM
Quote from: Richard on 20 July, 2018, 09:53:05 PM
I still think Harrison's best work was on Glimmer Rats.
It's a lovely thing to be sure, but in Grey Area there's a perfect marriage of Harrison's two main modes, strong linework characterisations and crazy largescale paintscapes, and for my money the combo tops anything he's done before. Sometimes I do have to look at a page twice to understand how it should read, but when it clicks it's all clear as crystal.
Yeah his storytelling is by far his biggest weakness. I think this has improved over time, I really struggle with Glimmer Rats. I think in part its due to colouring choices. As Tordelback says once you get past that things can be clear.
I think that is one of the reasons why the last series of Grey Area I did enjoyed it as when it started due to Harrison art. I find it strange since his work on The Ten Seconders where really great. As you said it can be due to his use of color schema or even his line-work.
Don't think I've ever seen a bad Harrrison 2000ad strip. He dosent get mentioned enough as a top tier artist probably due to his absence from the prog for long patches but really the man has skills to burn. Grey Area really picked up when he came on board as it dialled back the hyper-machismo of Richardson and dialled up the alien. Before, for me, it was 'this is fine, I like abnett's jokes' now it's 'this is great, I love these characters'.
It's all subjective, but I preferred Karl Richardson and Patrick Goddard on Grey Area.
For me they are two of the most under rated 2000AD artists.
They all have lovely bottoms.
I never really liked Richardson's hyper-detailed WH40K stylings on GA (or Dredd TBH) despite his awesome alien designs, but by the middle of Outlier his looser art had transformed into something special, and I reckon he'd do a magic job on the strip now.
Goddard is always serious value for money, and he perfectly suited the more mundane Earth-based scenarios of the period of the strip he drew.
But Harrison... he delivers instantly recognisable characters and expressive faces, consistently tech, batshit crazy alien visuals against a lived-in dusty background, and everything is bursting with energy. He's the man for the job right now.
He also had two naked humanoid characters roaming around the strip for months before hardly anyone noticed, always offering kudos for that low.
"...that kind of low cunning."
Quote from: Magnetica on 21 July, 2018, 10:50:51 AM
It's all subjective, but I preferred Karl Richardson and Patrick Goddard on Grey Area.
For me they are two of the most under rated 2000AD artists.
I am with Magnetica on this one
Quote from: Richard on 18 July, 2018, 01:23:16 PM
(The protagonist of the Dredd story) was only a walk away when she got off the bus ... Speaking of buses, I liked the Terror Tale
Top scheduling from Tharg. Dan Cornwell says the
Terror Tale script dropped through his letterbox the day after he quit his (hated) former career as a bus driver, which proves The Mighty One has a sense of humour
[1].
The names of Martin McDonagh and Woody Harrelson locate
Commuter Pain (ouch!) in Oscar season
[2], adding further to the observation that Dredd shorts seem to take about six months (https://forums.2000ad.com/index.php?topic=45252.msg985173#msg985173) to see print. The end of year prog's Dredd story will be called
Sov Hacking at Harlan Ellison Block and will introduce Judge Mbappé.
I think Harrison's work is his best since pre-digital
Durham Red, and, in that, the fine painted technique was covering up some crude figure work. No such problems with his fantastic current style, although legibility issues are valid. I think some of that is down to a palette that aspires to be cinematic but sometimes ends up a little murky
[3].
Cornwell cheats by not using colour at all. The one reservation I had about Cornwell's work on
War Buds was his fluffing of the nuclear blast montage (https://i.imgur.com/hRMouSo.jpg). Non-representational imagery is tricky, and I wrote it off as the kind of thing he'd get right eventually.
'Eventually' turns out to be page 3 of
The Ticket, where the city makes like Cubist Inception (https://i.imgur.com/pJulWbw.png?1).
There's a cartoony quality to Cornwell that currently precludes him from getting more heavyweight assignments, but that's an observation I would have made about the infant Henry Flint's art on Fr1day
Rogue Trooper (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Yojw8I3ALrI/VXF9u5RhacI/AAAAAAAACEs/jIIq6qMRnQ0/s1600/all%2Bthe%2BGIs.jpg), and will change as Dan adds variety of line and the consequent control of mood to his impressive armoury.
It's a pleasure to watch an artist discovering new dimensions to their work and travelling so far so soon.
[1] ... as well as being a good guy and supportive of new talent. The odd synchronicity between JD & TT doesn't end at the concern with public transport and first names of the protagonists, pointed out by Tharg in the Nerve Centre - the surnames of both characters are also the names of towns in north-west England.
[2] As do the dates on those Lee Carter images I posted earlier.
[3] I'd point to fellow compuscribbler Alex Ronald as an example of how embracing a bold use of non-naturalistic colour, modelled on the colours available in the Fruit Shoot range, can make already great work (as Harrison's work is) a luscious treat for the peepers (https://2000ad.com/post/1429).
Quote from: Frank on 21 July, 2018, 11:49:58 AM...although legibility issues are valid. I think some of that is down to a palette that aspires to be cinematic but sometimes ends up a little murky
It's not so much legibility itself, it's
instant legibility: sometimes pages need a second look to be clear, bit everything is always where it should be when you look again. I know many wise folk see immediate clarity and encouraging rapid progress of the eye through a tale as a key skill in comics storytelling, but I've always enjoyed puzzling out a page, as long as it actually does make sense: adds value for me, I don't want a 6 page story to be over in a flash. This has been a thing with Harrison since
The Travellers in WD, so I'm sure jumps in viewpoint, scale and angle are things he applies deliberately.
I find Mark Harrison's art on Grey Area has a certain cartoony quality, which it didn't have on stuff like The Vermin Stars or Glimmer Rats.
I think it is that quality that is one of the reasons I prefer Karl Richardson or Patrick Goddard. What I also like about their stuff is the crisp, clear style.
Now I am absolutely not saying I dislike Mark Harrison's art, just that I prefer the other two artists I have named.
But really I am happy to see any of them in the Prog. Indeed generally I think the art is overall of a really high standard right now and I would struggle to name a regular artist I don't like, which wasn't always the case.
Quote from: TordelBack on 21 July, 2018, 12:01:54 PM
Quote from: Frank on 21 July, 2018, 11:49:58 AM...although legibility issues are valid. I think some of that is down to a palette that aspires to be cinematic but sometimes ends up a little murky
It's not so much legibility itself, it's instant legibility: sometimes pages need a second look to be clear, bit everything is always where it should be when you look again. I know many wise folk see immediate clarity and encouraging rapid progress of the eye through a tale as a key skill in comics storytelling, but I've always enjoyed puzzling out a page, as long as it actually does make sense: adds value for me, I don't want a 6 page story to be over in a flash. This has been a thing with Harrison since The Travellers in WD, so I'm sure jumps in viewpoint, scale and angle are things he applies deliberately.
Just to be clear, I really like Harrison's work, his most recent style especially.
On the value of inscrutability, John Hicklenton's
Two Torquemadas is a favourite, some pages functioning as Magic Eye posters. After returning to the same image for months/years, staring blankly at it for hours on end, a sudden moment of lucidity strikes and you exclaim
OH, HE'S BENDING OVER WITH HIS ARMS BEHIND HIS BACK AND THAT'S HIS HEAD!
Quote from: Frank on 21 July, 2018, 09:49:00 PM
AND THAT'S HIS HEAD![/I]
...And not an enormous but grotesquely deformed cock, as I'd previously assumed.
Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 21 July, 2018, 09:57:02 PM
Quote from: Frank on 21 July, 2018, 09:49:00 PM
AND THAT'S HIS HEAD![/I]
...And not an enormous but grotesquely deformed cock, as I'd previously assumed.
But on the
next page...
Quote from: TordelBack on 21 July, 2018, 11:08:16 PM
But on the next page...
Ah, Hicklenton, we misses ye...!
Quote from: Magnetica on 21 July, 2018, 05:56:42 PM
I find Mark Harrison's art on Grey Area has a certain cartoony quality, which it didn't have on stuff like The Vermin Stars or Glimmer Rats.
If you look at Prog 1872 and 1873 I believe that was his first work on Grey Area, his art for me was much more clearer and the coloring was much less abrasive. His work here was quite excellent.
ZARJAZ!