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I'd hoped to have this framed and done ahead of Lawless but my framing dude has had to have his toe amputated(!!!) - but here's a magnificent Simon Fraser Hershey page with a glorious cityscape, fed up chief judges and my name on a badge to boot. The colour looks great IRL and this will look badass on my wall, eventually.

I also like this Armitage better than the current Armitage. Nice work!

Anyway after a 2 weeks binge I'm up to podcast 32 

This is some serious listening work, dude!

Interesting read this. Swamp Thing is something I've often thought about checking out. I've only ever read a single issue - a girl gave it to me as a gift and given I'm not hugely into superhero stuff I didn't want to taint it by reading around it and finding I didn't care for the series, if that makes sense - I rather like it in isolation.

As ever Colin you've got a very thoughtful take - I don't always comment on these posts but I always read and enjoy them.

[Dredd]

Looks like a raft of Saturday Progs this week. As a sub the Prog always seems that little bit better on a Saturday.

Dredd I'm in the minority and going to say I'm not into this at all so far. Dredd is being a complete prick - which I expect to an extent but he's really dialled it up here. The childrens dialogue is a bit overly wordy and the villain doesn't excite me. I'm actually glad most others are digging this though, as it means it's a personal taste thing.

Intestinauts Absolutely terrific this week. I loved the CYOA bit - bonkers and very imaginitive, yes! The art is superb here too. My favourite bit is the robot using the saw robot as a weapon but its packed with cool, crazy little touches. Top thrill for me this week.

3riller I thought this was a really, really good opener. Great and unusual premise, mystery set up, cool artwork, great stuff all round.

Brink Very engaging episode. My favourite one so far. As a vegetarian the stuff with the meat plant was just so horrible - synthetic meat is something I like the concept of, but the part where the workers shock it to produce fear / pain response - for some reason this appalled me so much. Great writing. I am deeply suspicious of Wade with his knowing everything and everyone.

Proteus Vex continues to be top notch. Very visceral episode - the flashback scenes of Silk murdering her way to conquest alongside those of Midnight doing more or less the same, with the terrified faces of the Citheronians as she rampages through them was not lost on me. Glad to see the little axe-wielding bandana guy survived at the end.

Very strong Prog again. Thanks Tharg!

Such cynicism for a classic jungle canyon rope bridge scene!
Love this episode. Skar ridiculously shouting his name like a pokemon. Guys fighting each other on giant prehistoric monsters. Arkady super slimy. That great flashback, and that great reveal - and Edie's reaction to it.

As Colin says, this Podcast is pure joy to listen to. Looking forward to Lawless!

This much is true.

I think Jim has the film review nailed there. It's got some very good adaptations of a couple of bits, but it displays little of the skill or subtlety of the comic. Definitely seek it out!

Really good writeup and analysis there Colin. I've not read this for a long, long time - it's a book that at it's core has a heart of stone and as I've become older I've looked for a more comfortable read, I admit. I must revisit it, and soon.

Final series? Say it aint so! I feel like there's a lot left to explore here.
Something else in the same universe would be great.

Yeah I managed to book to late to get a ticket for the VIP bash - so Barrington if you fancy playing out in the evening that would be super cool.

It'd be a pleasure!

Boots defo meet up for a drink after the VIP thing

Definitely! You can tell us all about hobnobbing with the big names

No evening do for me I'm afraid mate, I didn't fancy dressing up! I'll catch you after for some drinks in the bar?

Looking forward to meeting some of you guys for the first time!
Last couple of years I've worn my heavy metal jacket for easy identification but it's hot and heavy for going round a con, so I'll tag up what I'm wearing on the day. I'm sure I'll be easy to find in a room full of similar-looking men.

[Black Vein Prophecy]

I've now wrapped up Black Vein Prophecy. No writeup on this one, as I went through it quite a few times and didn't especially enjoy it.

The book is very ambitious: it begins with you awakening in a sarcophogus with no memory and no statistics - you roll these up during the book itself - and quickly disgorges you into a ruined city and a surreal experience full of nonsensical creatures and odd happenings. After dealing with a talking horse and catapulting yourself into the sea where you fight a man trapped in a giant zorb ball the book settles down a bit, but remains incredibly strange thoughout.

I went round and round in circles for ages in this book - there are a lot of instadeaths and false paths, and choices at many times seem very arbitrary, meaning you can easily die or get derailed - until, reaching my wits end, I looked online and discovered that to succeed you need to FAIL the very first luck check in the book. That's not cool. Even if you do pass that the almost-final battle involves selecting from a list of magical powers in the correct order with no hints as to what to use where.

It's a shame as the story itself is quite clever at its heart - once you've got to the end, a lot of it makes more sense and there's a very good bit at the end where you can help yourself (I won't spoil that, just in case). I don't think the writing helps though: stuff isn't spoon-fed to you (for example, a character who is your friend can later kill you because you've killed a friend of theirs, but you need to be paying attention to work that out otherwise it seems very random) but mainly the text is quite terse and when combined with the obfuscating nature of the plot it can initially read like a lot of surreal unconnected encounters. There's not enough description to carry the atmosphere of what is a sort of wizardly Creature of Havoc, and whilst I had a better feel for the story by the time I'd read it several times, by then I was a bit sick of the book. The fights, at least, are easy.
There's also a bit where you're asked if you have an item but it's described a bit differently, which tripped me up first time.

Terry Oakes does the art, which is cool throughout: mainly of humans and has a bit of a Japanese feel to it with the costumes and the like.

Bit of a disappointment after a few really good titles.

Tell me about it!

Just shy of £1400 for the page I was bidding on, I think.