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The completely self absorbed 2000ad re-read thread

Started by Colin YNWA, 22 May, 2016, 02:30:29 PM

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AlexF

Those early Robo Hunter in Brit Cit stories are some of my favourite ever comics ever. Shame it lost its way with the longer runs. I have read these Progs on a re-read once in the past, but really my exposure to a lot of this golden age stuff - Ace Trucking, Robo Hunter, Nemesis, various Future Shocks - was all through the Best of 2000AD Monthly. So I never had a problem with the pacing / story sequence you've observed. I do remember the interminable wait between episodes of Necropolis, when I first became a weekly-Prog devourer. I can image your Apocalypse cliffhanger agony!

Colin YNWA

Quote from: AlexF on 15 December, 2016, 11:24:12 AM
Those early Robo Hunter in Brit Cit stories are some of my favourite ever comics ever.

Have to say you're not wrong. Just finished 'The Filby Case' and its probably my favourite Robo-hunter story to date (I suspected it would be going in) and it really is glorious comics. Quite a superb, well timed, supremely executed short. Devine.

If it wasn't for Mean Arena's seemingly endless run, I always remember it being a chore after the first few stories, but by gosh i didn't remember it going on quite as relentlessly as this and Rogue Trooper starting to show its true colours in 'All Hell on the Dix-I Front' (mind still not as bad as I remember it fair to say) the Prog would be knocking it out the park. With ACE Trucking and Dredd Wagner and Grant are on fine comic form. The others, while weak, at least give balance in tone and there's alwasy a nice future shock or two to give the comic balance.

Colin YNWA

So the X-mas holidays slowed me up some but I'm getting to the end if 1982... or was it Mean Arena that was slowing me. I mean it went on FOREVER, for-bloody-ever. By the end it was just hideous... but its over... at last.

One problem out the way but next I land full into the racist sterotypes in 'Football Crazy' and the terrible thing is I don't mind them. Sam Slade has been absolutely fantastic, this run of stories has been even better this time around, and yes the representation of the Japanese in the latest story is pretty shocking... by todays standards. I'm not going to excuse them by suggesting its okay cos the parody is savage on all fronts. That really doesn't work as the way the Japanese characters are presented is based on pretty pathetic racial slurs. The thing is however I'm completely unaffected by that as I've read them some many times during a time when we didn't care and to that end I'm immune to it all. In the same way I am to Mammy Two Shoes in Tom and Jerry. They have become wallpaper. The same thing done now I'd be appalled (that Strontium Dog story recently got very close to the bone) but here they wash over me.

I'm not sure what that says about me but there you go.

The 1982 Special ain't too good either.

Colin YNWA

All the talk of Strontium Dog elsewhere has reminded me of something I meant to say a while back and ever since BUT the strip always surprises me with its lack of regularity. I always think of it as such a mainstay that I'm always surprised when it is disappears for so long, so often. Clearly Carlos was very busy in 1982 with Dredd and that explains its absense... doesn't stop it surprising me...

AlexF

Ezquerra, Belardinelli and Gibson were just staggeringly prodigious during this time. Between the three of them it's as if they were juggling strips and very rarely missing a week. I think all of them had something in either 2000AD, Starlord or Tornado practically every issue from the beginning til around Prog 500. Mental. Makes me wonder if they really were droids, it's an inhuman combination of craft and work ethic!

(You won't see any more Stront for a while, but when it comes back, you'll see it nearly every week for years to come!)

Colin YNWA

2000ad 1982

So the byword for 1982 is consistency. Bloody hell the Prog has been consistant. For the vast majority of the year the Prog has consisted of just 6 thrills being:

Dredd (of course)
Rogue Trooper
Mean Arena
Robo Hunter
Ace Trucking
Future Shocks (or associated shorts that might not have exactly been Future Shocks but fall into that wheel house)

At the start we has a glorious Nemesis story and by the end Harry 20 on High Rock has joined in, but that aside that's pretty much it. That's pretty incredible when you think about it, certainly compared to say the last ten years, when we've had many stories that feel like they've had many one 10-12 part story per year. Even things like Sinister Dexter and Nikolai Dante the last stories that spring to mind, with anything like that sort of regularly are either gone or on a go slow.

So yeah its interesting and makes the decision on whether you think 1982 has been a golden year pretty straight forward, do you like those strips? Well do you?

For me is been okay, not Golden. See Dredd has been superb, Robo-Hunter has been glorious (until... we'll get to that), Future Shocks have been by and large fun and provide at least some variation, ACE Trucking is not up there but consistently fun and entertaining. I've found Rogue Trooper more tolerable than I have before... tolerable being the word though (until... we'll get to that) and Mean Arena was a bloody chore, an endless chore at that.

So on paper not too bad you'd think, I mean this reading of Rogue still exposes the strips real, deep weaknesses but its looked great and I've almost enjoyed it at times. So one middling at best and one poor strip aside its been pretty good right... well no see its missed one of the Galaxy's Greatest's key strengths the variety. Its lacked that quick step, that bounce. The bad strips are better, or more engaging when they don't hang around, the good strip more thrilling when they leave you gasping for their return, its all so much fresher.

By the end of 1982 this is really showing. ACE has been pushed aside and probably just it time, it was begining to lose it lustre, Rogue Trooper is becoming the almost unreadable mess I remember with Neuropia following on from the weak Dix-i or whatever they were all called. Even the glorious Robo-Hunter is singing its way to a bit of a low. Mean Arena finally crawled away and dies in a corner... so yeah 1982 had a real consistancy, which I have called for in the past (the past of the current reflection on the past if you follow) but maybe I didn't mean quite like this.

Still the changes are clearly coming and to be honest I'm more than ready for them... as I recall they're going to be pretty bloody exciting too... can't wait for 1983.

Hawkmumbler

Well 1982 was the year of the Apocalypse War. When you have a Dredd story like that everything else is going to seem somewhat pedestrian afterwards.

Colin YNWA

Annuals 1983

So the convergence in quality continues. The 2000ad annual is continuing to improve, helped greatly by a couple of fine Alan Moore stories, Bo-Busters with Bryan Talbot and an interesting Rogue Trooper with Brett Ewins, a pleasent Strontium Dog and some other okay bits and bobs. Okay there is STILL a lot of filler, but the 2000ad Annual continues to improve.

The Dredd annual is still comfortably ahead, but that gap is closing. Swap Carlos for Mike McMahon as the artist on three Dredd's and you'd think they'd be little drop in quality. Trouble is the stories aren't as strong, I'd forgotten all about the proto Helter Skelter in here, which is pretty surprising. The rest of the book is dropping in quality too. There's more filler and the text and 'back up ' stories are quite as good.

Really intrigued to see if the 2000ad ever catch the Dredds... I just can't remember... we'll see 'next year'

Happy 1983 fellow boarders, I'll see you in the New Year.

Colin YNWA

Quote from: Colin YNWA on 15 January, 2017, 08:27:47 PM
Annuals 1983

...The 2000ad annual is continuing to improve, helped greatly by a couple of fine Alan Moore stories, Bo-Busters with Bryan Talbot and an interesting Rogue Trooper with Brett Ewins, a pleasent Strontium Dog and some other okay bits and bobs. Okay there is STILL a lot of filler, but the 2000ad Annual continues to improve.

Well my perennial dumb assedness meant I forgot to mention the glorious origin of Blitzspear... dumbass its bloody fantastic!

Colin YNWA

Well 1983 starts pretty slowly. Dredd shines, but Robo-hunter sings itself into a bit of a corner with a sluggish and stumbling story. There's nothing sluggish about Harry 20 which loves great but really is a bit of a farce. Rogue Trooper is currently terrible and I'm burly reading it... the Future Shocks have even lost some sheen...

...things will pick up I know.

The one thing that stands out to me is Abelard Snazz gets another showing. Its not that its particularly good, in fact its fairly pedestrian, its just that I'd forgotten quite how much he showed up.

Colin YNWA

So Prog 308 is just what 1983 needed. The year has taken until mid March to kick into gear BUT this Prog sure shows signs of what's to come (as I recall). Last Prog we shed Harry 20 on High Rock a series I can't excuse GFD for, regardless of Alan Davis' developing art. Sam Slade stopped all the silly singing nonsense, which had really been a shame after a run of quite superb stories... okay so Rogue Trooper is still trudging through Neuro a new low for the series, but even there this Prog builds hope, after all its part 17, this has GOT to be over soon... right.... surely...

Anyway elsewhere things are fine... well okay we have a particularly weak Dredd in 'The Prankster' a story that I have to say had completely slipped my oh so slippy memory. Nice mind... anyway a weak Dredd is hardly anything to worry about is it. You can be pretty sure the that next Prog things will be back up to top, top form...

Okay so the next up we have a fun but not astonishing Tharg story... well Thrillsuckers, fun nowt more...

...so yeah so far it doesn't really sound like 308 is much to herald... but then you get to one A. Moore. By george he earns his chops this prog. In The Reversible Man we have a Time Twister that sets the standard by which his Future Shocks are remembered by. Up to now many have been good, very good. But not as astonishing as their reputation if you ask me. They've tended to be good fun.  The Reversible Man is a really wonderful, powerful story though and really raises the bar.

The fantastic thing is though Mr A Moore has already leapt over that bar in this very Prog. In the opening episode of Skizz Mr A Moore has already reminded me why this is probably my favourite Mr A Moore story (more to come as I read on of course). But fuckin' hell this is a way to introduce a strip. Quite brilliant. In an episode he crafts humour, excitment, AND an entire world I want to know more about, drawn wide with some simple dialogue between alien and ships computer. While doing that Mr A Moore makes me care about said alien and exciting predicament his crashing on Earth casts him into. Being crashed on Earth is the least of his immediate problems however and that makes the episode a little micro-story full of tension. Mind Mr A Moore ALSO manages to make it quite clear why being crashed on Earth is going to be such a problem for a creature from a hi-tech race and interstellar technology. He deftly sets the creature adrift and helpless. In 6 chuffing pages.

And that my friends is why Prog 308 sends the Prog back into oribit. Well done Mr A Moore.

Frank

Quote from: Colin YNWA on 25 January, 2017, 09:32:32 PM
we have a particularly weak Dredd in 'The Prankster' a story that I have to say had completely slipped my oh so slippy memory

You might have been reminded of The Prankster (308) when you read Ladykiller (1995) - note the two robot butlers. The detail of staging an event on a significant date to entrap the perp recalls Maybe's penultimate outing, Serial Serial (1953).

Also, Moore and White's Reversible Man predates Martin Amis's Booker prize-nominated Time's Arrow by some 8 years. Borag Thungg, Earthlet Amis!



JOE SOAP

Quote from: Frank on 25 January, 2017, 10:22:58 PMAlso, Moore and White's Reversible Man predates Martin Amis's Booker prize-nominated Time's Arrow by some 8 years.


And Philip K. Dick's Counter-Clock World goes all the way back to 1967.


sheridan

Quote from: JOE SOAP on 25 January, 2017, 10:33:49 PM
Quote from: Frank on 25 January, 2017, 10:22:58 PMAlso, Moore and White's Reversible Man predates Martin Amis's Booker prize-nominated Time's Arrow by some 8 years.

And Philip K. Dick's Counter-Clock World goes all the way back to 1967.

If I write something in a decade's time, does that mean I'll have got there first?

sheridan

Quote from: Colin YNWA on 15 January, 2017, 08:27:47 PM
So the convergence in quality continues. The 2000ad annual is continuing to improve, helped greatly by a couple of fine Alan Moore stories, Bo-Busters with Bryan Talbot and an interesting Rogue Trooper with Brett Ewins, a pleasent Strontium Dog and some other okay bits and bobs. Okay there is STILL a lot of filler, but the 2000ad Annual continues to improve.

Was that the rogue story with the Waldos?