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Prog 2190 - Slice n' dice!

Started by Colin YNWA, 11 July, 2020, 05:30:37 PM

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Colin YNWA

Steady Prog,  so stories felt like they were taking a breather.

Which is a weird thing to say when you consider Dredd. Our emaciated squad health and reflect, but trying to tackle the next 'horseman' from the air and releasing a deathy plague... and I call this taking a breather. Well it did feel like it to be honest. Rob Williams is joined by the wonderful Henry Flint in a solid episode that lacks the immediate tension that made the previous few work.

Full Tilt Boogie deals are reached, beaches sort, enemy contact made. Solid episode but not as good as the last few.

Diaboliks lacked a bit of the 'charm' I use the term loosely here of course of the last two episodes. Seems to be back to a nasty off between the opposing sides. Decent.

And then we get two thrill that just don't know how to let up.

The Order keeps its relentless entertaining pace as the desperate regard action is made and loses counted. The big frustration here is the final panel.

'Armoured Gideon! Turn and face me... Face your Doom!' but from off panel as if we're about to get a reveal. Or is it just Bacon from afar having released his army against him, the turn and face me suggests not. Bit of a weird cliff hanger.

The Out gets better and better as tone shifts and we get a sense of Cyd as a desperate refugee. Brilliant stuff.

So yeah not as strong as the last couple of Progs but nothing to worry about as nothing has taken a particularly bad turn, just episodes that aren't quite as strong.

NapalmKev

Dredd goes in all guns blazing and seems to make the situation much worse. As another boarder suggested a while back, perhaps Dredd is the Death character of the strip? Or perhaps not. Good episode.

Full Tilt Boogie does nothing for me at all!

The Diaboliks. This is the first episode I've liked (we're only three parts in). The artwork seems to catch my eye more so in this part, which isn't a complaint about the artwork, It's more of an observation on my part. Keep reading the strips your not keen on, it's only a few pages and you might grow to like it. I realize that same rule of thumb should also apply to Full Tilt Boogie but there's a lot about the strip I'm not keen on; Characters, dialogue, even the artwork. Others are enjoying the strip and that's fine.

The Order is quality of the highest order! Yes, it is too warm for a coat, etc. I wonder if Armoured Jeruubal is the unseen foe for Gideon?

The Out is a great new series. Visually striking with an interesting premise and lead character.

4/5 for me.

Cheers

"Where once you fought to stop the trap from closing...Now you lay the bait!"

BPP

Dredd - great but I think Colin's art isn't the best suit for the pace of the tale - his Dredd is iconic but it's not action packed high octane. No complaints tho, I just think that's partially behind why others are bemoaning this old school saddle-up and ride Dredd.

Cabs - love. The Monday-sunday joke call back is great. The art nicely echos Doms (who I hope we see back).

The out - absolutely love -the style, the dialogue, the art, the sheer alienness of it. You can see big chunks of the grey area dynamic in the writing and style. Just love.

Full tilt boogie - like the art, enjoy the story to a degree but it's too much like a teen version of Prophet meets Saga meets Di Campis smug twitter prose. Just can't take to it.

The order - never a fan, too many historical figure with little sense of who they were or why, too much fight or flight without any grounding in narrative buildup, too many characters jumping around too much. Too much talking of meta story then deus ex machinas regardless. Every series I try but for me it's a nope and sorta a waste of Burns.
If I'd known it was harmless I would have killed it myself.

http://futureshockd.wordpress.com/

http://twitter.com/#!/FutureShockd

BPP

Quote from: BPP on 12 July, 2020, 02:28:41 PM
Dredd - great but I think Colin's art isn't the best suit for the pace of the tale - his Dredd is iconic but it's not action packed high octane. No complaints tho, I just think that's partially behind why others are bemoaning this old school saddle-up and ride Dredd.

Cabs - love. The Monday-sunday joke call back is great. The art nicely echos Doms (who I hope we see back).

The out - absolutely love -the style, the dialogue, the art, the sheer alienness of it. You can see big chunks of the grey area dynamic in the writing and style. Just love.

Full tilt boogie - like the art, enjoy the story to a degree but it's too much like a teen version of Prophet meets Saga meets Di Campis smug twitter prose. Just can't take to it.

The order - never a fan, too many historical figure with little sense of who they were or why, too much fight or flight without any grounding in narrative buildup, too many characters jumping around too much. Too much talking of meta story then deus ex machinas regardless. Every series I try but for me it's a nope and sorta a waste of Burns.

Which is, of course, a review for last weeks prog as running a week behind here in NI subs-land...
If I'd known it was harmless I would have killed it myself.

http://futureshockd.wordpress.com/

http://twitter.com/#!/FutureShockd


IndigoPrime

I wonder at what point Armoured Gideon became a cyclops. (Not keen not that rendering. The rest of the art in the strip is very nice.)

The Out remains my favourite thing in the Prog right now—suitably alien and nicely fresh.

Link Prime

Quote from: IndigoPrime on 13 July, 2020, 09:50:46 AM
I wonder at what point Armoured Gideon became a cyclops.

I haven't caught up with the new series of The Order yet, but I had somehow assumed that the version of Armored Gideon introduced in the last series was a precursor to the character featured in the 2000AD series.
Has it been confirmed either way?

JimmyNailz

Dredd - served as a great epilogue to last week's shenanigans, as we see the strain it's clearly putting on Giant.  Then a lovely little speech where he puts no pressure at all on poor Dredd - that close up of Dredd's eye on the bottom of page 2 manages to convey so much! Then we're treated to a bombshell moment that, for me, carried similar weight to recent speech bubbles as "We're fascists" or "I know longer recognise your authority". The Williams droid knows how to deliver dialogue that makes me gasp.  And whilst i've thoroughly enjoyed Colin MacNeils art on the opening chapters, I think Henry Flints art served well to make the whole cast look  that bit more beaten and dishevelled.
A slight "breather" it may have been, but they were some deep breaths ;-)
   
Full Tilt Boogie - I'm really enjoying this series. I love the art, I enjoy the "zingy" dialogue, the cat n mouse chase has me invested and I love the universe it's building and crew we're flying with. Can't wait to see where we end up next. Honeymoon beach planet?

Diaboliks - Another great episode.  A quick heist to open that ends with a fun punchline of sorts, and then some gangster horror to end leaving me excited for more to come. What more could I ask for in a thrill?

The Order - Had a fantastic sense of urgency and peril.  I agree with someones earlier comment that the final panel left me confused, but generally enjoyed being pulled along by the chaos the story otherwise.

The Out - Continues to be amazing and my current favourite series running in the prog.  Had a feeling of Grey Area, but from the refugee side of the story.  Like Full Tilt Boogie, I just love the universe that's being built here.

A great prog, thats left me excited for next week.

IndigoPrime

The Out so far feels like a spiritual successor to Halo Jones in many ways. I really hope it continues living up to this early promise. No pressure, Mr Abnett!

Richard

The Out is fabulous. I'm keen to see what the Tankinar are like, and to find out what's happened to the heroine's employers. I'm not sure the story needs [spoiler]a second human character[/spoiler] in it, but we'll see. I'm sure the writer knows what he's doing.

Full Tilt Boogie is fun as always. I'm already hoping for a second series of this!

Judge Olde

I've only read Judge Dredd so far. I'm usually a huge fan of Flints work, maybe it's just the change from MacNeil, but Giant in two panels towards end of page two, & Dredd on page 3 (panel 1) look just so different from his usually might tighter style. It will be interesting to see his take on the Mechanismo Judges though.

CalHab

Full Tilt Boogie and The Out are the clear highlights of the prog for me, at the moment. Both of them look stunning and have a fun angle on some sci-fi tropes. I'd happily see a lot more of those.

MacabreMagpie

Quote from: Judge Olde on 15 July, 2020, 11:28:26 AM
I've only read Judge Dredd so far. I'm usually a huge fan of Flints work, maybe it's just the change from MacNeil, but Giant in two panels towards end of page two, & Dredd on page 3 (panel 1) look just so different from his usually might tighter style. It will be interesting to see his take on the Mechanismo Judges though.

They're emaciated, after facing famine. They're supposed to read as skin on bones, pretty much.

judgeurko

Still not getting into this Dredd epic at all. I just don't really care what happens to be honest. In fact so far its the worst Dredd epic I can recall reading.

TordelBack

Cover is dynamic, but somehow also a bit nondescript.

The Out is just spectacular. Not for nothing is Dabnett the proud holder of the Golden Goatse. In some ways I wish Cyd had [spoiler]never met another human[/spoiler], but equally it's an indication that series isn't going to coast along on any kind of status-quo. The reality of being a refugee is succinctly punched home, and the SF Book Cover concept really hits its stride, with Harrison making me feel like I've actually been to Outer Outer Space.  Best thing since, well, Brink.

Full Tilt Boogie is really very enjoyable indeed.  It fairly jogs along, gently building characters and situations in often unexpected ways, and always looking sharp. I'm not sure there's ever been a 2000AD strip quite like it - maybe what Zippy Couriers could have been. Keep 'em coming.

Diaboliks. Not much happens this week, and most of the expanding cast just stand around, but it's somehow still a decent read. Fuso is good, no question, but at the same time I feel a bit like I've been the victim of a bait'n'switch. And that logo remains just wildly intrusive.

By contrast The Order has lots going on and everyone gets something to do, but it all feels a bit unsatisfying this week. There's something about the use of Armoured Gideon that doesn't feel right. Rather like Vissini says about Vissek, he was supposed to be this great legendary thing; instead he's just another quite large robot with a human consciousness. Maybe he should have been left where Kek-W presumably found him: unemployed, in Greenland.

Dredd: This week End of Days is the most interesting it's been for me, with Flint's emaciated crew a genuine shock. I don't know if the Great MacNeil kept this debility under literal wraps to heighten the impact in this quieter part of the story, or whether Flint has just gone to town on the idea, but either way it's something new to the strip and it's truly horrible and I like it. Especially good juxtaposed with the musings on the ravaged post-apocalyptic world on the opening page - this kind of thing is what the Williams & Flint team are best at. 

But look away now, gentle reader. I feel an unjustifiably pedantic rant coming on.

Unfortunately the word salad in the second half of the episode almost severs my new engagement entirely: Ice breaker? Ice shelf? Permafrost? Gas pockets? Ancient disease layers?

Ice-breakers, (even giant future versions of the current Xue Long series), break through Arctic sea ice, several metres thick, as Flint's lovely drawings show. Ice shelves OTOH are glaciers extending out onto the sea from the land at continental margins, usually over 100m thick (those big ice cliffs you see in documentaries) - it seems pretty unlikely that the Xuelong 3000 is bobbing along on top of/through one of those. Submarine permafrost, essentially flooded ice-age land-surface, does indeed lie along some Arctic coasts - but where are these 'ancient diseases' coming from, germs/viruses sublimated into gas pockets which escape (from where?) when the overlying ice-shelf, floating on water, get broken up?

In short it's tosh, a mish-mash of all-too-real current environmental concerns pressed into service in a story where most of the world has been a toxic and radioactive desert for decades, following at least three successive large-scale nuclear exchanges and frequent pandemics. 

Meanwhile, Thug Dredd has a nostalgic muse on how all his past crises have been solvable by hitting things really hard- except the cited Chaos Day most demonstrably was not solved that way, or indeed any way. The dying only really started after he'd run out of 'some creep' to punch.  I'd much prefer it if passive introspective Dredd had a better memory.

Plus points: really shocking imagery. Minus points: apparently not set in Dredd's world.