Meg 252: A Bullet For Beeny

[Art]

Heh. For a second there I thoiught you were congratulating me on inspiring those terrifying words from your wife.

[ukdane]

Retropollâ?¢ Time:
Meg vs Prog, which is best?

As of 19:00 17/11/2006, the result was:

2000ad 45 42 %
The Megazine 62 58 %

Based on 107 votes

Link: http://www.2000adonline.com/index.php3?zone=fan&page=poll&choice=1076361555" target="_blank">Meg vs Prog

[SIP]

Congratulations Art!

And  good luck - I'm still REALLY tired two years later.

[paulvonscott]

Congratulations Art, you have successfully reproduced.

[Goosegash]

If people really think the Meg is the worst it's ever been, then cast your minds to 1999, when it got so bad they could only afford one new strip a month and a bunch of unrelated reprints. Surely the very definition of "rock bottom".

[TordelBack]

Hopeless proof-reading (endemic across both titles these days) and the (probable) inclusion of Black Siddha (I don't even look anymore) aside, I enjoyed this a lot.  One point is absolutely clear from the foregoing, and I agree wholeheartedly:  weekly installments in monthly comics are generally painful. Repeats of the Devlin Waugh disaster we do not need.

Cadet Beeny was a great story, well drawn and true to its heritage, and I thoroughly enjoyed Fiends - Bishop's best work to date, and equally good at moving its source material forward.  I don't think the pacing was a huge problem here, because of the soft pace of the story, and the framing device of the interpreter holding it together - but it would have been better (classic, even) in the Prog.   Id like to see more.  

Is nobody sort-of stunned that McNeil has drawn both headline strips for the past three months and both look wonderful and different?  That's quite a talent.

Black Museum was okay if samey, at least Ormston saw the need to give characters lower torsos for a change.

Small Press was a bit of a miss - a prosey attempt at an Moore future shock with no real need to be illustrated.  But that's okay: I expect this section to be hit-or-miss, and I've enjoyed the majority to date.  Job done.

Enjoyed all the text pieces, as I currently can't afford any other SF or movie mags, so it's nice to get a bit of copy here.  Must. Get.  Kidnapped!  

I don't remember the Dredd reprint, but it's always nice to see Mrs. Gunderson, so this was a good point for me.  Would greatly prefer to see Charley's War in this and Black Siddha's slots.  Sorry.

I won't mention Black Siddha because I have no idea if it was even in there. I never want to see it again.

Bottom line:  The good is very very good, the okay was okay, and only one thing was awful (I assume, not having read it).

[Bad Andy]

Thank FUCK Siddah's finished. I didn't mind the second series, I guess I quite liked it, but this last series has been impenetrable tosh from both writer and artist.

Good riddance.

Agree with all the pacing comments, but having encapsulated episodes is also true of the weekly's best series - I'm thinking Zenith and Halo Jones here.

I can just about put up with one film column a month, but not two. I would have rather have had four fewer pages.

Tales from the Black Museum has been okay bordering on good. This one was just okay though with the twist being a) a wee bit confusing and b) the reveal of an ancient, obscure character rather than the horror aspect.

America was more of a 2.5 than a 3, but worked well. Can see why this wasn't bigged up as a sequel, just an intriguing continuation. The knife of the arse was rather jarring.

I kinda tuned out of the Fiends story for a while, although the artwork was sumptuous. The Golem was the best thing about it though. Agree that the original pitch would have been better than this. What were they thinking?

Still, no one has seemed to mention the best thing of the Meg - the announcement that Jack Point is in the next one!

[dweezil2]

Personally. I'm getting a little tired of these 'Dredd-verse' strips, with the need to shoehorn them into some kind of wider continuity. I'd prefer more variety and experimentation, with strips, such as, Bandetti Vendetta, holding more interest for me!
Countering all the doom and gloom, if you consider the poor state of the Meg in the mid to late 90's, it's in a far healthier state now.
Dweezil.

[Dudley]

The knife up the arse was rather jarring.

For the recipient, certainly.

[Trout]

Splendid news from the Wyatts!

Congratulations to you all!

- Trout

[TordelBack]

"The knife up the arse was rather jarring."

That was a bit of a bum note (yuk-yuk).  I initially assumed America lopped 'em off, as t'were, putting him in a sorta 'tween-gendered space that echoed Bennett's odd fate.  But it did appear to just be an almost Ennisian proctological unpleasantness.

Congrats to Art and family!  An adventure to be sure!

[davidbishop]

Should anyone be interested, they can read the script for the final episode of Fiends: Stalingrad by visiting the link below...

davidbishop

Link: http://viciousimagery.blogspot.com/2006/11/script-for-fiends-stalingrad-8.html" target="_blank">Final Fiends in Stalingrad script

[JOE SOAP]

Thanks Bish look forward to reading this.

[Goosegash]

What the hell happened with Black Siddha? I really enjoyed Books 1 & 2, but by the last page of Book 3 it was like Mills had totally lost interest in the whole thing. It was almost the equivalent of "And then everything was cleared up and he went home for his tea. The End." What was the Bollywood subplot all about? Did any of it matter? This probably bothers me more than it should...