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[Best Art:]

Best Art: always a tough choice, but I'm going with Massimo Belardinelli, specifically for the Doppelgarp, which is stuffed full of deliriously manic goings-on. Plus, although we will get more from Massimo over the next couple of years, this is the last time we'll get him in every Prog all the time.
But I'm feeling bad for not calling out Ian Gibson's work on Halo Jones III.

Best Writing: since they wrote something like 3/4 of all stories for this entire year, it has to be Wagner and Grant! But specifically I'll give it to them for Judge Dredd. 1986 is, for me, the best year of fun, inventive, witty, and occasionally moving one-off Dredd tales.

Best Overall Thrill: no question, Strontium Dog RAGE! - what more need be said?

Best Month: May. My fave one-off Dredd, It Pays to be Mental, plus the start of the supremely gorgeous 'Possessed' story for Anderson, and the good opening bits of both Sooner or Later and Bad City Blue. Not to mention the kick-off to Rage!

Best Overall Year: The dead weight of the Garpetbaggers was holding me back, but looking at the list of all-time great thrills in 1986, I have call it as Tharg's best year yet.

Frank, I continue to admire your Frankness, and I do actually think you've made the ghost of a good point, buried in the hyperbole of an attention-grabbing thread-head.

You've made one mistake, though - the Abnett/Flint/Williams VCs was both longer in episode count and superior in thrill-power to the original run! For me it's a rare example of a revival/reboot/continuation by a new creative team that was genuinely worth all of our time.

Anyone with solutions to the problem of how to arrange fair pay for both creators (always noble and impoverished!) in publishers (always evil and loaded!) in a capitalist world, good luck! I'm sure there's a Future Shock story in there at least...

Although Action is an important part of 2000AD's history, the stories weren't that great really.

I feared this might be the case!
Is there mileage in, perhaps, a bagged mini-trade with the Megazine, that reprints a handful of individual episodes of some key stories, interspersed with some comics history articles about the impact of the comic at the time - you know, a bit like Matt Smith's excellent Nemesis treatise (or whatever he called it)?

So who DID collect up Hookjaw a bunch of years ago..? I fear my copy is stuck in a box in my attic so not easy to check just now. Anyway, that strip at least is every bit as good as Shako!, and, for me, better even than Flesh...

Now I'm sure this question has been answered somewhere before, but in amongst all the many goodies being collected for the first time by Rebellion's Treasury wing, why haven't they reprinted anything from Action! yet?
It's always being touted as the precursor to 2000AD,and surely they must own the rights as part of the giant bundle. No?

I know Hookjaw has been collected by Hibernia (the edition I have, and lovely it is too), and I think again by Titan comics, and I gather that's by far the best strip from Action, but what of the rest? I've long wanted to read Dredger, Kids Rule OK and Death Game 1999 in particular, and I can't be alone in this, can I?
Is it just that these stories aren't really good enough to merit the reprint treatment, or is there some rights issue going on?

Assuming that the question on the table is whether or not to continue telling the story of Johnny Alpha, what actually is the status quo of Strontium Dog as things stand?

He's come back to life, and more or less worked through his emotional issues about being dead for a while. His current best buddy Middenface is more or less surviving as a recovering alcoholic. He seems to be working for the SD Agency again, and has lately taken Wulf's son under his wing as a bounty-hunter in training.

Are we essentially back to where things were at the beginning of StarLord - i.e. telling tales of Bounty Hunting on frontier worlds, with the occasional trip to future Britain where everything is super racist against mutants? 'cos that's fine and all, but I kinda want a writer who'd dare to explore more world-building stuff about human-mutant relations on Earth (and around the galaxy) etc...

Basically, I want more 'Strontium Dog as war comics', less 'Strontium Dog as wild west comics'. On balance, I'll take what I'm given!

Strong second for Phil Winslade as a fella would could definitely bring something new and yet respectful to the Johnny Alpha table. Assuming Alan Grant isn't interested in tackling the writing duties (and if he is, I hope he decides to resurrect Feral just for the sake of a cheeky dig at Wagner ), are there perhaps any new voices from the pages of Dogbreath who might just be ready for the big stage..?

I note no one seems to be sad about the new Durham Red strips continuing, with good work from Worley, Willsher and Carter. Is that not, in a way, a continuation of Strontium Dog?

Another long delay, but I hope this one's worth the wait - partly slow because I had a lot to say, and wanted to get it right, inasmuch as that's possible with no less a legend than...

John Hicklenton

https://heroesof2000ad.blogspot.com/2019/05/no-129-john-hicklenton-rip.html

I know this Prog was technically aimed at my children rather than me, but I enjoyed it much more than I expected, and it's the first new Prog in a while that I will actually bother to re-read soon because it has piqued my interest. For what it's worth, my children a) aren't really into 2000AD at the moment (sad for me!) and b)  if they were, I'd be getting them to look at the regular Prog as well as the Regene version, as I suspect they'd find as much story and art to enjoy in one as the other. 

I have a strong suspicion that the way to do a Prog Slog is NOT to read the Annuals! And maybe not the Specials, either - although there are bound to be some exceptions at some point, where there are key chapters in the sagas of Rogue Trooper and Tyranny Rex to name two examples.

Sadly I can't pick out that mystery Coburnesque character at the back - I'm guessing one of the crew of the Rat Pack or perhaps the fellows who accompany Bloody Mary?

Overall I agree with Bolt - the whole package was maybe one edit away from being up to Prog standard, but the whole thing was saved for sure by stellar artwork.

Chalk me up as another happy Dad with both children (9 year-old boy and girl) happy readers. Perhaps even better, the strips I looked through didn't really tickle me all that much, basically in the same way that the Beano leaves me cold now (after LOVING it as a nipper). This kind of comic shouldn't be written for grown-ups to enjoy!

I picked up both volumes of Scarlet Traces at the Xmas sale and reading them through was quite the treat I can tell you. I've never actually read Wells's original novel, but it seems it was a lot more nihilistic than the 1950s film I watched umpteen times as a child.

Anyway, hard agree with all the comments above - stunning art and colour, Edginton really pushing himself with all the time jumps and political machinations with each series, and it's all 100% easier to follow when read in collection.

I've also got absolutely no idea how it's all going to end? One the one hand I really want the 'Martians' to lose, but the humans aren't exactly much better - at least, the British leadership - and what possible happy ending could there be for the Venusian refugees on Earth, the humanoid martian clone-people, or indeed anyone at all?

It does feel a bit like someone is going to press the wrong button somewhere causing the Sun to flare up so much all the planets get swallowed...

In terms of total numbers of pages, it doesn't come close to Dredd, but Alejandro Jodorowski is a contender - his 'Jodoverse' series of interconnected comics are all in the same Universe, with a consistent tone, and have been going on and off since 1980 I think.
The Incal, The Metabarons, Technopriests being the core series, all written by one guy (with a few co-writers here and there, which you'd have to count if you're comparing to John Wagner).

How good these comics are compared to Judge Dredd is a matter of taste, but they've been highly influential on comics and movies. Some might say the stellar art carries some rather silly scripts, but then I've only read a couple of albums out of a total of like 36.

I'm inclined to agree with everything you just said!
In defence of Jeff and Graeme, have a read of their own blog entry about the episode, in which Graeme admits that he's being way too curmudgeonly in his hate for Tweak...
http://www.waitwhatpodcast.com/drokk-ep-2-im-a-cheap-punk/

Agree!
Does it also talk?