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I picked up a BSG box-set recently (the mini series + complete seasons 1-3) for a bargain £20, and have been chundering my way through them ever since. I want to get the final season, but the writers strike delay meant the DVD issue was a bit odd.

So far on Amazon I've found the first and second halves of season four in individual box-sets. Looks like they put out the first half when the strike derailed production and then put out the rest later in a second set. Some of the review comments seem to suggest that you'd only be able to find the full season four in the complete four-season box-set that has since come out, but I don't want that as I have 1-3.

Does anyone know if it's possible to get the whole of just season 4 in a single edition?

Well Manchester's covered under 6-10 inches of snow, everything's closed, parts of Oldham and Rochdale are completely cut off ... but on the bright side it's perfect snowman-making snow!

At one point I stood in Hulme park and could see 18 different snowmen from one spot. I wonder how many people have been leafing through their Calvin & Hobbes for inspiration! Took loads of pictures today but my favourites have been:

One (snow)man and his (snow)dog:


"Hello? I'm snowed in!" (note twiggy arm pushing buttons)


This one was during the first snow a few weeks ago:


...and my favourite is this 8 foot snowcock with realistic hairy nutsack:


So did anyone build a snow-Dredd or see any other good ones or have you all been sensible and stayed in by the fire?

Anyone been watching Paradox on BBC1? It's like a cheap version of Flashforward with that bird wot used to be in Eastenders. The plausibility levels are stretched to breaking point - oddball scientist says he has received pictures of the future and within hours a whole team of detectives are racing around the country trying to identify a train which may crash (rather than locking him up or getting him to fill in a hundred forms and promising a visit from a community support officer).

I do find it oddly compelling though - as the deadline draws near at the end of each episode, all the pieces slot into place and we see the images in thiir context as the ineveitable (or is it?) disaster happens.

Tamsin Outhwaite is no more convincing as a detective inspector than she was a military poolicewoman though. I'm not saying she's wooden, but her co-stars are checked for splinters at the end of each day's filming.

I found the promotion of Norman Osborne at the end of Civil War to be a rather odd decision, and I'm not sure I can stomach another "cabal-of-egotistical-supervillains-sitting-around-a-table-having-an-implausible-fucking-business-meeting" series.

I'm also rather in awe of Marvel's sheer brass neck in roping in just so many different titles under the Dark Reign banner, there's bloody hundreds of them!

My question is this: which handful, if any, would you recommend to someone who isn't a completist by a long chalk, but likes to buy the 'main event' books and occasional others (for example, I can never resist the Fantastic Four versions of any epic)?

A question on a recent welcome thread got me to wondering....we've got a number of boarders from outside the UK and I'm curious how they first discovered Tharg's mighty organ. How did the likes of Grant Goggans, Devon's Daddy and Goaty discover 2000ad, not to mention our very own mayor, Thryllseeker? Was it a childhood spent in the UK; an evangelical pen-pal; a life of dedicated geekery  in the import section of the local comic shop or some random exposure to thrillpower after which life would never be the same?

It's great to have you all around though - continue to spread the word in your native or adopted lands and be true ambassadors for The Mighty One!

Okay I'm hooked - anyone have the faintest idea what this is all about?

OpusAndBill has just drawn my attention to the news that a new company has bought the rights to Dan Dare.

Now I know this is a looooong way from saying that a new series is coming, but it's an idea.

Could be ace, could be shite. Any ideas of who we think should be involved? Or who should have court order taken out to keep them away from it at all costs? Yes Mr Davies, I'm looking at YOU!

Recent threads about the older annuals prompted me to sing the praises of the very first one. I would have received this on Christmas morning 1978, and repeated readings were probably responsible for my decision to place a regular order and actually start collecting the progs, rather than buying the odd one and throwing them away afterwards. Never has so much thrillpower been crammed between two hard covers! (Even though said covers sported a rather naff generic sci fi pic to which someone has added the letters DD to make it look like Dan Dare, even though NOTHING ELSE IN THE PICTURE bears any relation to the story.)


I was considering posting a complete story-by-story review until I realised I'm totally crap at identifying uncredited artists and would just expose my ignorance throughout, and some stories don't need much comment. So I'll confine myself to a brief rundown of the contents and several random thoughts and opinions.

So just what did a crisp pound note buy you in late '77? I'll tell you what: Two new Dredds (more later); a rather silly Dan Dare (Star Trek rip-off) with some very nice art; brand new episodes of Invasion, M.A.C.H. 1, Shako and Harlem Heroes (the dead subtle Nazi story); an episode of Flesh about buffalo hunting in the Wild West (seriously!); six, count 'em, SIX Future Shock type stories between 3 and 10 pages long; all rounded off with several text articles, mainly about the space programme, and a couple of pages of puzzles and cartoons.

So what are the things I love about the 1978 annual?

 :arrow: The alien in Dan Dare that looks just like Peter Gabriel in very early Genesis.

 :arrow: Even the cartoons are space-related, as is the generic 'boys comic' content with a SF twist - there's an article about stamp-collecting, but it's about SPACE stamps, see!

 :arrow: Judge Dredd predicts 9/11:


I'd love to find out who drew all these strips - they range form the fabulous (Dan Dare, Dream Machine) to the goddawful (The Symbiote), but only Kev O'Neil manages to sneak in a signature in some very nice art on Hunted.

In the following years the annuals were full of older crapper filler reprints. I could (and still can't) understand why it was so hard to write one book full of new material a year featuring regular characters. They did get batter in the mid 80s, before going all Ooh-la-la when they became "yearbooks"

Enough warbling. Comments? Which do you guys reckon is the best of all the annuals? And I'm going to attempt the cover for the comp so I hope nobody else is (haven't started yet, so pipe up if you have!)  

I've been mucking around trying to create a new avatar but I'm having a hard time getting any definition or detail in a tiny image. Can anyone advise the best file format and pixels-per-cm ratio? Most images I tried began as too large, but when reduced to 64x64 pixels they were either too blocky to be show any detail at all; or if the pixel-per-cm was increased, the file-size was too large.

I'm not too unhappy with my latest attempt, but it still seems a little undefined. How do I get more detail in a 64x64 square and a reasonable file-size?

And if anyone can explain those cool moving GIFs, that'd be great! I'm feeling very old and techno-phobic right now!

[In Brightest Day - tales of the Green Lantern Corps]

Since getting In Brightest Day - tales of the Green Lantern Corps recently, I've been really getting into GL and trying to buy a few books that cover most of the major events. My first question I guess, is which book(s) cover the Parallax story? I got Emerald Twilight which leads up to it but I'm unsure which is the next volume. I bought Emerald Dawn assuming it preceded it, and whilst good (the extended Hal Jordan 'origin' story), it wasn't what I thought - so which book covers the destruction of Coast City? I can find a hundred and one listings for all the books to buy, but can't be arsed wading through that bloated DC site to identify them all to the continuity.

I have also just bought Revenge of the Green Lanterns, and I've pre-ordered The Sinetsro Corps War TPB - any other must-haves out there you guys recommend? Are the ones from around when he became the Spectre any good? Any weird one-offs, such as 'elseworlds' type stuff?

Amazon dithering....canvassing opinions.

Some of the reviews compare it to one of my favourite books, Marvels by Busiek & Ross, but the synopsis and descriptions sound a bit, I dunno... twee. Now I know there are a lot of Mark Millar haters round these parts, but I'd appreciate opinions of anyone who's actually read this.

I've been wallowing in nostalgia lately since I rediscovered this old flyer and clipping from my first ever festival in 1984:


The 'special guests' on Monday were Marillion, Phil Lynott's Grand Slam, The Pretenders, Midge Ure and Alvin Lee. Oh and Doctor and the medics (pre their big hit when they were more punky) were on before the Damned. I've given up trying to enthuse my workmates about this mightily impressive line-up, as many of them are too young to have heard of most of these names. *sigh*  8-)

Well, today marks one whole year since I signed up for the insanity that is 2000adonline!

As soon as I got my home internet connection set up last year, "Judge Dredd" was one of the first things I googled, this site was one of the first I visited and I've never left. There are too many highlights to mention them all, but I have particularly enjoyed ladies in pants, the definitive debates on biscuits, cheese and crisp flavours, Thryllseeker's ability to find a Slaine reference in every topic, Godpleton's reasoned and mature debating style, and of course my own stunning victory in the art comp with the Lowest Ever Turnout

My resolution for the coming year is to attend at least one convention and hopefully meet some of you fine people in the flesh.
   

Another one for the nostalgia buffs:
 //http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/mar/23/roy-of-the-rovers-collectors-edition

A new idea for a comp, let me know what you think! I'm not sure how this should be organised really - do you think it should be  an ongoing open thread, where whoever guesses one then posts the next? Or a 5 or 10 picture quiz on a regular basis? If the latter, I'm happy to keep scanning and posting these till the cows come home, so let me know your views on what you'd all like. Also, are the examples below too easy, too hard or just right?

To kick off here's a five-pic Dredd-only quiz - simply identify the Judge Dredd story from the detail!
1....
2....
3....
4....
5....

Post your answers or simply brag about how many out of five you got!

PS - Comp title courtesy of  Satchmo!

The wonderful line in this month's meg -  "Don't feed me the mouldy munce, Citizen" - led me to reflect on some of Joe Dredd's greatest one liners. Who said he has no sense of humour or the dramatic? You just know that he stays up late in Rowdy Yates some nights thinking 'ooh, that's a good one, I'll use that tomorrow!'

What are your all time favourites? I'll get the ball rolling with one that always stuck in my mind, namely: "One more step and it's knee-popping time, creep!"

Only read Dredd and Citi-def so far, but I had to bag the thread to highlight a most remarkable bit of Dredd dialogue; "Don't feed me the mouldy munce Citizen!". Is Dredd turning into Frank Butcher? ("wot am I, some kind of pilchard, creep?") A nice 'fascist overkill' type story from Wagner, and great to see Cliff Robinson on art duties.

I think Citi-def is a load of fun if you don't take it too seriously. Not generally a fan of manga-style art, but I quite like Jackademus' (???) work, apart from the over-bulbous judge helmet.

Quick word about Insurrection - when did this trend appear for putting the titles on the last page of a comic rather than at the beginning? It annoys me probably more than it should. Stop it!

I work in a company for which data protection checks are vital, and I note that nowadays a user's profile (if they've completed one) is visible on the board - isn't it a bit risky to publicly list everybody's real name and date of birth, as these are the 2 most important bits of info used when confirming identity? I'm not sure if it's a breach of data protection as boarders don't HAVE to supply DoB, but still a bit risky isn't it?

[Front Line]

In the traditional Mighty Marvel Manner the TPBs of this will be numerous and cover every corner of the Marveliverse. Amazon currently shows 20 titles available for pre-order, and at least another 3 "currently unavailable". I ended up buying more and more of the Civil War books, but only regretted one or two (Yes, Thunderbolts, I'm looking at YOU!), but this is just getting silly.

Has anyone been following this and can guide me to the more relevant books? I don't buy the monthlies and try to avoid spoilers until the collected paperbacks come out and I know i'll just be unable to resist this. I'll maybe limit myself to about 6 (I'll definitely be including the outstanding Front Line series - the Civil war and World War Hulk ones were excellent). Needless to say, the War Machine and Deadpool books are unlikely to make the cut. Don't give a flying FOOM if those guys are skrulls or not.

Tried a search for this topic as I'm sure it would have come up before  - found several variations of the question, plus bumps, but no reply (though admittedly i gave up the search rather quickly!)

My question - how do you post re-titled links; ie links that don't look like long URLs?

I tend to copy the link from the browser address bar, click on the URL button in the post and paste it between the brackets, but this just shows the whole address.