Fine cover:
(http://www.propstore.com/content/liveauction/lots/367excaliburmordredgoldarmour/img1med.jpg)
Nerve Centre: TotF: Geeks are coming back!
Damage report: telling it like it is: Millertime!
Dredd: wrapped up nice and quick, with PSU down and the whole Day of Chaos fallout I'm glad Records are keeping on top of things. Great work by Colin and Chris .
Defoe: more madness and mayhem
Brass Sun: Who is that Mordred chappie again?
SinDex: the promise that this is the end of Moses has got me interested, and Rich's pleading ;)
Bad Company: enjoying the artwork but champing at the bit for the resolution
Seven out of ten
Excalibur - my favourite Arthurian film (I like to think the Sláine story follows directly from the film).
I could have stood a fair few more weeks of this most delicious of Dredd thrillers, but unlike a certain pair of gunsharks, Wagner knows when to leave us wanting more. [spoiler]PJ lives to fight another day[/spoiler] and Dredd is left to grind his teeth. Wonder what's to come next week?
Defoe worldbuilds a bit more and tantalises us with a bit more panel time for the new Brethren members, without actually introducing us. Hopefully that's to come next week when we see them in action. Gallagher's zombie panels are just fantastic - and the hanged reeks, with their stretched necks, are just the creepiest things ever.
Brass Sun chugs onward. Perfectly fine acton romp, but this strip's always a bit decompressed for my taste. Too few panels per page for my taste.
I give it a lot of grief these days, but Sin-Dex was really good this week. In isolation, a taught and engaging crime thriller; it's in the grand scheme of things that it annoys me. It's the continuation of a storyline that's been dragging on for far, far too long (Eleven bleedin' years!!!!) and it resolutely refuses to tell the more interesting story at every turn. Fair play to Goddard though, giving it his all at every turn.
Bad Company really picks up. We get a brief-but-fascinating flashback to pre-Bad Company days and a convincing explanation for Flytrap's ressurection (if we're inclined to believe it), finishing with some promise of an all-action episode next week.
Well we're at one of those glorious points when reviewing the Prog gets a little tricky. Its all so good that I find I'm quibbling over small stuff to find something to say other than BLOODY BRILLIANT.
Cos well its BLOODY BRILLIANT
This week Dredd finished which was a shock, okay so it set up an end to the 8 killer last week and well we get... oh you can read it, BUT when read the craft of the writing makes you wonder why this would be going on any longer. Its perfectly formed and as has been said leaves you begging for me. Supreme.
Defoe has a bit of a dip. For whatever unreasonable reason I do find I don't like this as much when the settling drifts from the historically correct. Which is unfair as I'm normally not arsed about this, after all its bloody fiction and its not as if its not established that in this story its perfectly fine. BUT show me that Temple of Solomon and I find my teeth grating. Happened last week with the spider clockwork people in the background, but I let it slip as that as a background detail. This though, nah bugged me. Which again I acknowledge is bloody stupid, but if its there you can't ignore it. Still hasn't thrown me totally off the story so this is still the Defoe that I've enjoyed more than any other.
Brass Sun, was fantastic, absolutely fantastic. How scary was Septimus, how broken Wren, how sad it all is. I'm really pulling for these two, but don't see how they can get back from this. The sort of tension the story has crafted is absolute testament to the brilliance of the creative team and the world they are architects to and the characters with which they have populated this world. Bloody love this and HOW great was that ending.
Sinister Dexter, well almost like above its building the tension, loved the focus on Moses and the way Abnett remembers to tell us what a horrible man he is (and thus great character). In doing so he also crafted tension and the cops conversation added to this with subtle ease. Unlike some I'm also left hankering for more and can't wait to see were we go with this. Its building brilliantly and we know were it goes from here... the thing is I don't know quite what its destination is. I think I know, I assume I know... but the tension and seed of doubt has been planted and that is another testament to craft. Oh and Goddard is perfect.
Bad Company has teased and tantalised and last week we started to see were the resolution was coming from and this week we continue to build to that. All the time while doing this Milligan and co throw in the violence and action in a smart way. This is getting better and better and again I'm left desperate to know what's to come.
One perfect, unseen ending, three endings that have left we wishing for next week already AND another thrill punching above its weight. Best line up in years (well possibly but its defo up there.)
Great prog, I thought. Call me crazy, but I still think that guy at the end of Dredd[spoiler] is PJ Maybe....[/spoiler]
Quote from: Darren Stephens on 24 October, 2015, 08:21:24 PM
Great prog, I thought. Call me crazy, but I still think that guy at the end of Dredd[spoiler] is PJ Maybe....[/spoiler]
That would be quite brilliant if that was the case.
Quote from: Colin_YNWA on 24 October, 2015, 09:41:12 PM
Quote from: Darren Stephens on 24 October, 2015, 08:21:24 PM
Great prog, I thought. Call me crazy, but I still think that guy at the end of Dredd[spoiler] is PJ Maybe....[/spoiler]
That would be quite brilliant if that was the case.
Yeh....[spoiler]I'm just thinking, if he can access Justice Dept records so easily, he can alter the historical records too....maybe! [/spoiler] ;)
Quote from: Darren Stephens on 24 October, 2015, 08:21:24 PM
Great prog, I thought. Call me crazy, but I still think that guy at the end of Dredd[spoiler] is PJ Maybe....[/spoiler]
That was absolutely my conclusion as well.
Still no Prog here. Anyone else missing theirs?
No cover image yet I'm afraid.
Yes, I'm missing mine. Usually comes first thing on a Saturday.
:( so far no copy hopefully today it'll be in the mail
Nothing here, the digital prog is going to beat it this week
Better late than never?
(http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r182/Caliban_photos/526bf0f37c5c3cb30d9317e3c5d4b6ff_zpsw8grux5d.jpg)
I do wonder if perhaps we've gone to the well once too often with PJ-alters-the-records for these cool theories to be correct. Especially as seemed like it was one of his CB associates that arranged documents for 'Roberto Smith' back in the post-Mayor pre-Chaos days. Roberto never was (in theory) a beach attendant in Ciudad Barranquilla, and was never officially in MC-1 until he 'arrived' in the city as the freshly married Mr. Allegra Strepsil - at which point PJ's DNA presumably went on file as his, and matched whatever invented CB records were available, presumably the source of the confusion.
IIRC the last time he pulled an identity switch was using judges suborned by SLD-Whatever to physically swap things, and was much later caught out by an examination of DNA in an old evidence box. This time he would have had to accessed and tampered with another evidence box for [spoiler]Gillo[/spoiler] to actually be Maybe, and I think that'd be stretching it.
Quote from: eamonn1961 on 28 October, 2015, 01:47:40 PM
Better late than never?
(http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r182/Caliban_photos/526bf0f37c5c3cb30d9317e3c5d4b6ff_zpsw8grux5d.jpg)
I think mine was better....
Wow Dredd was awesome, with biggest question!
Remind me again who is/was that robot in Brass Sun? Why does robot need the leaf?
And I prefer Proudhuff version!
The whole planetary system was supposed to be watched over and controlled by a mechanical moon called Modernity, an artificial intelligence which, according to the Kurt Vonnegut blind watchmaker character, went mad and believes itself to be a God. Calling itself Merlin it activated its agent Arthur to track down Wren and destroy the key that can reboot the system.
"And I'm afraid I can't allow that, Dave."
Or something like that.
(http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r182/Caliban_photos/ba48c66dda8b792236be76570d82ca63_zpsx26ddlpa.jpg)
I also thought the guy at the end of Dredd was [spoiler]P.J[/spoiler]...
A cracking little story all told, with MacNeil's best work yet.
Quote from: wedgeski on 26 October, 2015, 11:46:47 AM
Quote from: Darren Stephens on 24 October, 2015, 08:21:24 PM
Great prog, I thought. Call me crazy, but I still think that guy at the end of Dredd[spoiler] is PJ Maybe....[/spoiler]
That was absolutely my conclusion as well.
It would make that last panel
really cool, but it would be a very high risk strategy for I'm-not-sure-what reason. Warren Gillo/PJ Maybe was seconds from death before an unprompted hunch from a previously entirely disinterested Dredd saved him from getting 240V of direct current up the arse.
Now he's headed for a mental health facility. If that was part of his plan all along, I'm not sure I can offer a plausible explanation for why a psychiatric ward is exactly where this criminal mastermind wants to be (or why he had to risk death to get there).
The way Gillo replied to the news his death would be painless -
"That's not right! I've been so bad! I deserve to die in agony!" - certainly sounds more like Wilbur Hoss's good natured compliance when he was doped up on SLD88 than PJ Maybe taking the piss in the face of imminent death:
(http://i.imgur.com/A9HVwFr.png?1)
I certainly took the final panel/speech to be the brainwashed Gillo acting as PJ's mouthpiece and explaining his motivation in shopping Lung. While I still can't see how PJ would have tampered with yet another evidence box to get someone else's DNA in there, there are some things that don't sit right with me. The idea of PJ altering Roberto's records to have his own fingerprints and DNA for a start - Roberto Smith, if he ever existed at all, was never an MC-1 citizen separate to PJ, so there were no MC-1 records to change (unlike Ambrose, for example).
When PJ left to go to Ciudad Barranquilla with Mrs. Strepsil, he was already facechanged to resemble her late husband (Smith's only known face, since PJ invented him) but even if he'd used the Smith ID on the way out (which would have been tricky), it would still have had his DNA/fingerprints. It was only on re-entering MC-1 as her new hubby with CB-criminal-provided papers that Roberto Smith could have come to MC-1 attention and started generating records, and he was already PJ at that point.
My brain hurts.
Quote from: Colin_YNWA on 24 October, 2015, 07:33:43 PM
Defoe has a bit of a dip. ... BUT show me that Temple of Solomon and I find my teeth grating.
I'm a bit baffled here. Are you saying that you're annoyed about a building which doesn't exist appearing in a story which didn't happen? Or have I missed something?
Oh yeah, very good Prog all round I thought.
Quote from: The Cosh on 29 October, 2015, 10:35:14 AM
Quote from: Colin_YNWA on 24 October, 2015, 07:33:43 PM
Defoe has a bit of a dip. ... BUT show me that Temple of Solomon and I find my teeth grating.
I'm a bit baffled here. Are you saying that you're annoyed about a building which doesn't exist appearing in a story which didn't happen? Or have I missed something?
Even *I* don't have a problem with Pat's inventive blurring of fact and fiction and the grinding of my teeth nearly made last week's Doctor Who inaudible.
That PJ Maybe eh? He's done it again and is damned elusive.
Prog is chugging along nicely.
Quote from: Molch-R on 29 October, 2015, 10:48:16 AM
Quote from: The Cosh on 29 October, 2015, 10:35:14 AM
Quote from: Colin_YNWA on 24 October, 2015, 07:33:43 PM
Defoe has a bit of a dip. ... BUT show me that Temple of Solomon and I find my teeth grating.
I'm a bit baffled here. Are you saying that you're annoyed about a building which doesn't exist appearing in a story which didn't happen? Or have I missed something?
Even *I* don't have a problem with Pat's inventive blurring of fact and fiction and the grinding of my teeth nearly made last week's Doctor Who inaudible.
I know, I know as I say in my post its unreasonable and makes no sense. As I also say its not as if I'm bothered in other situations, so give me a flying horse in Red Seas and not only am I fine with that, I'm positively happy. So yeah there you go.
I think, maybe... mayyyyyy beeee its the fact that some of the stuff in Defoe is so far from the rest of the world it jars? So The Temple of Solomon existing would be fine if it wasn't so over the top? The steam cars I could live with if they weren't so majestic? Who knows its there and so I can't ignore it. Silly I know.
A vizard did it.
Excellent prog. Nice end to the Serial Serial storyline, though I'm slightly disappointed it took Joe so long to realise that the real PJ wouldn't be caught so easily. That said I'm with everyone else, it wouldn't surprise me if Gillo was actually PJ in a double/triple/quadruple bluff! It would have been risky, but maybe Maybe had something else up his sleeve in case Dredd didn't have his lightbulb moment?
Or maybe Gillo was just an innocent patsy after all. PJ's assertion that he just ran away from Death still strikes me as a trifle lame so I wonder if he is even still alive? A spirit PJ would be a heck of a foe.
Thanks for the explanation up thread about Arthur, I'd forgotten who/what he was! Defoe continues to look gorgeous. Still not sure where Bad Company is going but really enjoyed Sinister Dexter this week.
Quote from: Tordelback on 29 October, 2015, 12:01:35 AM
My brain hurts.
As does mine.
I cant quite shake the feeling, though I can't join all the dots, that that last page in particular has a hidden meaning to it. And that Gillo's capture was planned, and very deliberate.
It could well be just exactly as it seems, I guess.
Awesome proggage.
Thank you Tharg and droids.
Quote from: Starkers on 29 October, 2015, 03:10:32 PM
it wouldn't surprise me if Gillo was actually PJ in a double/triple/quadruple bluff! It would have been risky, but maybe Maybe had something else up his sleeve in case Dredd didn't have his lightbulb moment?
Perhaps, but what would PJ Maybe get out of being banged up in a psych ward? And if he wanted, for some reason, to get banged up in a mental institution, why would he have to risk capital punishment to get there - rather than (for example) just saying he heard voices telling him to murder Chief Judge Hershey?
Wagner didn't give the explanation of Maybe's motive a big OF COURSE, HOW COULD I BE SO STUPID (!) moment, but it's much more plausible than the brain-hurting contortions you have to pull off to rationalise why Maybe had to risk death (then endure incarceration) in order to end up back exactly where he started - as innocent loser Warren Gillo:
(http://i.imgur.com/Yb0m4KV.png?1)
I think I'd prefer to believe that Wagner has given us the genius confection of a PJ Maybe story in which PJ doesn't appear, rather than a credibility-stretching puzzle with several missing pieces.
"What would PJ get from being banged up in psycho cube"
He's PJ Maybe. Logic and common sense are not mandatory when discussing this man.
Damn you, John Wagner!
Quote from: Tordelback on 29 October, 2015, 06:20:18 PM
I think I'd prefer to believe that Wagner has given us the genius confection of a PJ Maybe story in which PJ doesn't appear, rather than a credibility-stretching puzzle with several missing pieces.
Yes, this works.
Tonight I shall sleep!
[spoiler]The real real PJ Maybe is dead, and this one is a backup created by him, months (or even years) ago.[/spoiler]
Nailed Spikes. Preferred the first cover pic....sorry.Eamonn. Good prog sans Sin Dex. Z
I think Serial Serial was just utterly brilliant from start to finish. It is amazing that after 38 years of weekly and 25 years of monthly Dredds, the strip can serve up something so engaging and fresh. There have been some great Dredds in the last couple of years e.g. Titan / Enceledaus, Block Judge, Dark Justice, The Cop, El Maldito, but this tops the lot and is probably the best since Trifecta.
it's been said recently and I would agree PJ has now got to be considered the best all time Dredd villain (even without actually appearing). Wagner's writing is as good as ever and Macneil's art is just sublime (even if it's not fully painted a la America...)
Loved it and strangely Sin-Dex, a strip I have never really liked, grabbed me big-time-what's that about?
A week and still no copy even the replacement isn't :'(
Quote from: Prodigal2 on 31 October, 2015, 02:24:43 PM
Loved it and strangely Sin-Dex, a strip I have never really liked, grabbed me big-time-what's that about?
One of us, one of us...
Here's our take on Prog 1954:
http://www.popculturebandit.co.uk/2015/10/2000ad-prog-1954.html (http://www.popculturebandit.co.uk/2015/10/2000ad-prog-1954.html)
Really loving this fourth book of Brass Sun - Arthur is "clock punk" Terminator and the two Ians know how to ratchet up the cinematic tension when needed!
Nice ending to "Serial Serial" - I, too, was trying to see mysteries and patterns where there were none. I think this was just a PJ Maybe story, in which he wasn't the main thrust. Like Dredd, the reader is meant to have a unsettled feeling of unease that he may strike again, without clear motive, at any time... Rather than tipping too much of Maybe's hand, Wagner has returned an aura of mystique to the character and I love it!