Fav Thrill Round 4 round-up

[AlexF]

The scores so far in Round 4...

[Colin YNWA]

Man that quality is getting SO high!

[Jim_Campbell]

Man that quality is getting SO high!

What's interesting to me is the number of recent, or relatively recent (let's say the second twenty-ish years rather than the first twenty) that are making it through. So far, we have Brink, Insurrection, Lawless, Feral & Foe, plus Fiends (which is an outlier, with a foot in both camps).

It looks like it'll take a draw against one of the real heavyweights to put out either Brink or Lawless at this stage. It's a scarily strong showing by the Abnett droid, TBH!

All of which is interesting, given the vocal "2000AD just isn't as good as it used to be" crowd. (Most of whom, admittedly, aren't on this forum. I imagine you'd see a very different result if you ran a similar thing on some other 'fan' groups... but since many of them, by their own admission, haven't read the bloody comic in decades, a stronger showing for the nostalgia vote would hardly be surprising.)

[Colin YNWA]

Yeah I find that really encouraging. There seems to be a prevailing attitude that the old Golden Age has much stronger thrills - and indeed it had very strong stories. An exercise like this, in part, is about trying to breakdown that 'easy' view and let folks think and discuss things thrill by thrill. When you do you see the Rebellion years are as good... well I would say better ... than any period the Prog has known.

Rebellion years has reached the stage were thrills are no longer growing with their audience and rather are just bloody good comics. On that basis, with nostaglia stripped away, its a vastly superior comic. That's not to say that nostaglia isn't important and valid in these things, its great to understand the formative nature of this stuff, but its just as important to be able to set that aside and allow the new stuff the credit it deserves.

Now how this holds up in the later Rounds coming up... well we'll see.

[Proudhuff]

Interesting stuff there and a few hard decisions coming up!

[IndigoPrime]

Now how this holds up in the later Rounds coming up... well we'll see.

I suspect when we reach a point of nostalgia twinned with quality, that might edge more modern strips with objectively higher quality. But who knows?

[Magnetica]

Yeah I still think very big hitters are the nostalgia tinged ones (or at least the bits of those strips from the early days):

Strontium Dog
Nemesis
Slaine
ABC Warriors
Zenith

Etc and only a few modern strips will be able stand shoulder to shoulder with them.

[Jim_Campbell]

What's interesting to me is the number of recent, or relatively recent (let's say the second twenty-ish years rather than the first twenty) that are making it through. So far, we have Brink, Insurrection, Lawless, Feral & Foe, plus Fiends (which is an outlier, with a foot in both camps).

And I see we've added Thistlebone to the ranks of newer thrills that have made it through their current ties. As Magnetica says upthread, it'll be a minor miracle if any of these topple the big hitters, not only for nostalgia reasons but also because the newer thrills are competing against ones with a huge volume of high quality episodes.

It's definitely going to be fascinating to see how these all shake out in the final stages.

[broodblik]

One of the newer thrills Brink can maybe cause an upset

[Jim_Campbell]

One of the newer thrills Brink can maybe cause an upset

I'm also wondering where Nikolai Dante sits in all of this. Not a 'new' thrill by any stretch of the imagination, it also doesn't have its roots in the 'Golden Age' (in fact, it squeaks past my arbitrary "first twenty years" cut off by a month!) and I could see it giving some of the Golden Age heavyweights a run for their money.

[IndigoPrime]

I suspect Strontium Dog will win. But something like Nikolai Dante could make it to the semi final or even the final. As ever, it will depend how much people's nostalgia and interest in consistent quality (vs occasional highs) influence their choices.

[Colin YNWA]

One of the newer thrills Brink can maybe cause an upset

I'm also wondering where Nikolai Dante sits in all of this. Not a 'new' thrill by any stretch of the imagination, it also doesn't have its roots in the 'Golden Age' (in fact, it squeaks past my arbitrary "first twenty years" cut off by a month!) and I could see it giving some of the Golden Age heavyweights a run for their money.

Yeah its the only one I see having a chance against the 3 'golden' age favourites I think have nay chance here. There is one clear favourite though I just can't see slipping up.

[AlexF]

Final scores from Round 4...

[AlexF]

Some tallying:

If you count Nikolai Dante and Sinister Dexter as 'newer' thrills, then there are 17 New Thrills still in it, competing with 15 older thrills. Quite the balance!

There are still 4 Megazine thrills holding on in there, (although Anderson and Low Life are perhaps more fondly remembered for their Prog appearenaces).

Of the creators still strutting there stuff, there are vansihingly few left with more than 2 thrills on show.
Clear standout is that irreprissible
Dan Abnett, with 7 thrills to show for himself
Ian Edginton not far behind with 5
Uncle Pat Mills still has 4 serious contenders
And loveable ol' Gerry Finley-Day still showing off 3, and that's not inlcuding his best effort, Ant Wars...

(Madly, there are only 2 Wagner/Grant thrills still in contention. Wouldn't have seen that coming!)

For artists, we're down to
Henry Flint, Steve Yeowell and Simon Davis all with 4 thrills left each (and that's somewhat generously suggesting people voted for Nikolai Dante based on the handful of Yeowell and Flint-penned episodes...)

WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN IN ROUND 5???

[Colin YNWA]

Brilliant stuff as ever AlexF - I do love these summaries and its revealing how Dabnett is dominating things - and Wagner and Grant have slipped so far down the list, in terms of volume at least. I would still have one of theirs as favourite mind. A Moore also has two through.

I did the draw for Round 5 just a couple of hours ago and... well it will bring tears and nashing of teeth. Though maybe not yet as much as it might have!

What also stuck me as I started to write up the first week of ties is  Firekind is both the last John Smith, amazingly and IF you don't count Meltdown Man, the last done and gone thrill. I never think of Meltdown Man as such with its 50ish episodes, but it wasn't broken into chapters so I guess if you were being literal it would be included in that category. I think that's more a matter of scheduling and incredible art production than intent!