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Topics - SmallBlueThing

#1
Prog / Sci-Fi Special 2015
24 June, 2015, 11:47:52 AM
Can't believe a thread doesn't exist already, so if I've just missed it please feel free to merge.

Picked up this morning. Lovely.  All stories bar one hit the target for me,  with Dredd and Ace Trucking taking the top spot equally.  So nice to see Ace and crew back, and this was a fitting continuation or pastiche or whatever it was. Nick Dyer's art does not pale in comparison to the Great Bellardinelli- of which he should be very,  very proud.  I'd be very happy to see this strip back on  regular basis.

Dredd felt very old school,  especially the final panel gag,  and again I would like to see More of This Type of Thing.

Future Shock was brave in its central conceit,  and didn't outstay its welcome.  I'd be lying if I didn't say it was John Higgins's art that thrilled me most though. 

Robot-Hunter actually made sense and was fun!  Hooray for Alec Worley! 

Survival Geeks is not for me.  Would have preferred old-style quizzes,  crosswords,  droid profiles or a poster,  frankly. Or a classic reprint.  Or perhaps Bonjo?

Cover was magnificent.

8 ejaculations of excitement out of ten! 

SBT
#2
Other Reviews / IDW Dredd Classics: The Dark Judges
21 January, 2015, 06:41:19 PM
#1 is out today,  I understand. And I Imagine big JB will be along any second to review it in his own inimitable Big Beary "John of Finland Margate" style,  but until then some questions to ease my mind:

How many issues are scheduled?
How's the colouring?
Are they still printing off the original layouts without re-editing them to fit the page? 
What's in #1?
And,  has a hardback been listed? 

The Apocalypse War singles were a washout for me,  but the hardback collection is bloody gorgeous and has pride of place on a shelf in my lounge. 

SBT

#3
Couldn't see an existing thread, but please merge is there is one.

I have no idea what I have just read. None of it made sense and all of it was terrible. Really, really terrible.

Positives: it was short and Doug Wolk's bit at the back was worth a read.

New creative team needed please.

SBT
#4
Help! / Wanted: Dark Horse Conan
11 July, 2014, 11:13:59 PM
I'm on the beg. Anyone got copies of DH's first Conan series #30 and 31? Will pay cash!

SBT
#5
Suggestions / ABCs Volgan War 4?
18 March, 2014, 09:44:20 AM
No idea where to put this, but is there any movement on a paperback release for the final Volgan War book?

SBT
#6
Other Reviews / STARLORD: Holocaust
01 March, 2014, 04:40:16 PM
Taking advantage of a slow afternoon at work, I've just read through the entirety of Alan Hebden and Lalia's 'Holocaust', which ran in the second half of Starlord's life, and which I remember skipping at the time due to the presence of stereotypical "ufos" and a lack of mutant bountyhunters, robots and monsters, etc.

I'd been meaning to give this a go for a number of years, and thought I may as well read it before maryanddavid produces a lavish, coffeetable edition that I then have to buy to satisfy my damned compulsion.

So, um, yes, was it worth the wait? Well, yes, in a way. The fairly standard (pre-X-files, pre-independence day remember) plot involves a hard bitten private eye, Carl Hunter, who used to work for the cia, investigating a man's disappearance out in the desert near one of them pesky secret American bases. Ufos appear, followed by aliens who are crippling earth's food production in an attempt to take over. Helicopters, the president, tractor beams, disintegration rays, a friendly alien telepath and a late plot twist all follow, with some predictability, and it all wraps up suspiciously quickly in time for Starlord's merger into 2000AD.

Carl Hunter is an odd one. He punches out cops before he has an inkling of any conspiracy, threatens them with their guns, nicks their squad car... And then immediately checks into a hotel using his own name. If it hadn't all been aliens, what did he think would happen next? Also he mentions early on that he's half native American, but this has absolutely no impact on the story, and informs neither his actions nor the plot. And I was hoping for some exciting redskin hunting action.

Amusingly, my phone had that as "exciting redskin twerking action", which sounds like huge fun and I want some right now.

Other plot elements fall out of sight too, including the poor woman with the missing husband who started Hunter on his adventure. Were this a John Carpenter film, she'd have tagged along and fallen into bed with him once her hubby's corpse had been discovered. And as I say, it all wraps up too quickly in Siberia, with a silly ending involving comedy rats.

The tone is uneven throughout- it should have been a paranoid thriller, of the kind that later would become so popular o tv, but in 1978 could only be alluded to through the motifs of 'close encounters'- but instead it reads like a bog standard action story that every so often tries to be funny, but isn't.

The art, by Lalia, is solid but uninspiring. And part nine looks to me drawn by someone else entirely, but I've no idea who. On the whole, not a wasted hour and an interesting curiosity. But it seriously needed a second pass on the script, and perhaps an Ortiz on art, who may have given it that askew- aesthetic it so desperately cries out for, but which it fails to capture.

SBT
#7
General / Question about Titan Rogue Trooper reprint.
23 February, 2014, 02:03:56 PM
Hey all, I'm looking at picking up the old Titan Rogue books (the thin ones, not the omnibus versions as I prefer the design), due to the superior print quality. We're there only six? And was it a straight run with no omissions? Where did they stop? And finally, at what point would I need to get the recent phonebooks to complete it?
Ta.

SBT
#8
Games / LEGO MARVEL SUPERHEROES on the PS3
24 November, 2013, 03:02:05 PM
Got this for the boys yesterday- it's crap. Buggy as all hell. Characters with things on their backs- Doc Ock, Odin, Thor, Superior Spider-Man, Beetle- lose whatever it is that's on their back- capes, arms, tentacles, etc- and are rendered therefore unplayable. Further, an online check reveals loads of other bugs that the boys haven't picked up on yet. Anyone else having this, and any suggestions? Do they usually patch this type of thing? Videogames are massively overpriced as it is, and I really resent paying forty wuid for this kind of amateur shit- didn't they test it?

SBT
#9
Nattly.com- the search engine end of a particularly pernicious piece of adware/ malware/ whatever is squatting on my computer and I cannot get rid. I've tried everything- every online piece of advice and every bit of software "guaranteed" to remove it. Nothing works. I'm running Firefox. Any help?

SBT
#10
New Comic Heroes is out- and now unpackaged, lacking any huge cardboard sleeves or cracker-tat keyrings/ magnets/ Marvel-branded butt plugs. Wasn't it £8 back in the day? It's a tenner now, anyway. Yep- a tenner.

Plus points include thickness (they've shoved the 'Sidekick' freebie comic into the mag proper, where it uses up 30 or so extra pages at the back), and lack of DC novelty gonks. Minus points include it being a tenner.

I have no idea how much (if any) 2000AD or UK-related content there is, as I couldn't get past it being a tenner. There is a feature on what looks like "best Spider-Man team-ups"- which could actually just be an overview of Marvel's 'Marvel Team-Up featuring Spider-Man and...', which ran for much of my early comic-collecting life, and was always ignored as "not important", but which now looks to have been a lot of fun, but as my wallet was screaming for me to put the magazine down and back the fuck away, I didn't spend long looking.

Also, I really don't like the design or overall "look and feel"- as it reminds me of all those "POW! BAM! SMASH!" TV graphics they use when The News covers comics for some reason. And it's a tenner.

SBT
#11
Books & Comics / Request: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #699
05 January, 2013, 10:49:55 PM
Technically should be in the 'Help' section, i know, but please bear with me! If anyone is in comic shop and they have ASM #699 (NOT #699.1 with the Morbius cover) at a reasonable price (ie, not a tenner, or twenty quid! More like £2.20 as it should be, being a month old) could they PLEASE pick it up for me? I will pay cover price plus postage. I cannot believe the blatant profiteering going on online!
SBT
#12
Off Topic / Operation Yewtree
27 December, 2012, 04:06:07 PM
The ongoing police investigation into the Jimmy Savile case seems to have gone very quiet over xmas. Last person taken for questioning for Max Clifford, i believe. There were reports online a few days later that at least one other had been arrested, but- barring Paul Daniels' seemingly panic-stricken confession of underage fumbling- nothing has broken via legitimate news outlets.

If you do a bit of googling, however, you'll find accusations that just about everyone sexually active and in showbiz during the seventies has been arrested.

So- can we please have a reliable, unalarmist, non-accusatory place to go to see what's what. Like here. No random names, no "i reckon..."s, just a regularly updated list of facts.

If for no other reason than we can tick off the 'operation yewtree bingo' cards we all carry in our heads when watching the types of tv shows that get a lot of airtime at this time of year, and lay odds on what classic popsongs we wont be singing next xmas.

SBT
#13
Film & TV / TEXAS CHAINSAW 3D
17 December, 2012, 08:32:18 AM
...coming Wed Jan 9th and with advance previews Jan 4th and 5th.

Advance previews? For a Chainsaw sequel? World's gone mad! Not only do i remember when the original was banned, and the first sequel was banned, and the second sequel was banned,but when any mere mention of the dreaded word was banned and films had to be released with a little graphic between the 'innoffensive' words of their title to denote the power tool in question.

Now, I'm standing at a busstop in my piddly little hometown watching double deckers go past with 20foot long banners for Leatherface's new adventure on the side and promise of 'advance previews'!

What would Mr Ferman say? Haw haw! Dawg will hunt! Dawg will hunt! Bringing in the sheaves!

Needless to say, im there first chance i get. The original cast are in this one too- minus dear old Jim Seidow, sadly gone from us. But! The role of the cook has been taken by Chop-Top from TCM2, Bill Johnson! INCOMING MAAAAIL!

SBT
#14
Film & TV / The Call of Cthulhu: THE MOVIE!
02 December, 2012, 09:43:53 PM
http://www.cthulhulives.org/store/storeDetailPages/coc-dvd.html

... is already out there. It's a 47 minute, silent, 1920s-style movie made by the HP Lovecraft Historical Society. They also do full-cast audio 1930s-style plays of HPL's stories. Speaking as someone for whom Innsmouth, Dagon, C.o.Cthulhu and At The Mountains of Madness are among the most important things in the world and who has just downloaded the atMoM audiobook for listening later, I have just cum in my pants. This is mine. Oh crikey yes.

Follow the link above, or just go to http://www.cthulhulives.org/ and start there.

SBT
#15
Books & Comics / The Death of The Dandy
29 November, 2012, 07:06:24 PM
I know we have a thread about this around here somewhere, but given the circumstances and my inability to locate it, i didnt think anyone would mind. Next Tuesday, Dec 4th, marks the death of the Dandy as the final issue- #3610- goes on sale.

I know ive been pretty scathing of the newer Dandys in the past, but this is still a ridiculously sad event that deserves being marked here in some way.

This week's, #3609, which i bought for the boys, is marked improvement on the ones ive seen recently- 31 pages of strip for £1.99 (as opposed to far less in The Beano) and pleasingly dense in places too. Not all of it is angular shapes either, with several strips being quite well-drawn.

One thing though: where is the cross-advertising between this and the The Beano? Id've thought with one dead, they'd be trying to make sure any readers at least knew there's another comic out there! And in all my time buying The Beano, i cant remember a single advert for The Dandy either.

I actually had to check the indicia to (cont)
#16
Film & TV / DC Films thread.
27 November, 2012, 05:27:52 PM
That bloke what you lot all went girlie over when he was in that film with Bruce Willis that came out the same time as Dredd, is Batman in the Justice League film, apparently.

People online are ranting over him being someone other than Bruce Wayne, because apparently he can't be Batman due to something that happened in the last Nolan Batfilm. Anyone who's ever read a Batman comic knows that there's only one Batman and to use another one would be stupid.

Let the arguments begin!

SBT
#17
General / Nikolai Dante in today's Metro
23 November, 2012, 04:52:36 PM
Fucking phone- im on a train and have been trying to ext this thread in for the last half an hour. Anyway- today's Metro contains a big pic of the cover of Dante: Too Cool To Kill, as part of a spread on graphic novels. It's the choice of a mr david bishop of an edinburgh university. Doesnt mention him being an ex-tharg though. Also, reviews of Grandville: Bete Noire and the Nao of Brown later in the paper.

SBT
#18
Books & Comics / Batman: Gotham After Midnight
22 November, 2012, 08:02:32 PM
Now then, this should really go in 'Help!' i guess, but i know for a fact there are some boarders who dont read those lower subforums.
I recently bought all twelve issues of the titular series (doug moench and kelley jones) off ebay, from three different sellers. All paid for and waiting for delivery.
Then.
I get an email from one seller saying they'd refunded me the three quid i paid for #2 because, on inspecting it, the last two pages were found to be torn and they "couldnt sell in that condition".
Now- i a rwandan first and foremost. In this case i dont care, as long as it's readable. Im left with ten comics i cant read (3-12) until ive paid over the odds for #2. Cheapest i can find is six notes, otherwise it's import for fifteen-ish! Firstly, shouldnt they have given me the opportunity to cancel or accept, not just refunded without asking? And secondly, has anyone got a copy of said comic hanging about in whatever state, so i can read the fucker?

SBT
#19
Help! / An old query (probably): virus protection?
16 November, 2012, 06:34:08 PM
My bullguard year is up and i really dont want to pay nearly fifty quid for protection again. Any recommendations for cheaper/free easy to install virus protection software that i could download and install easily tonight?

SBT
#20
Books & Comics / Charley's War Vol IX: Death From Above
10 November, 2012, 12:14:33 PM
...is out and in my bag. And i am on my way home to fix lunch for my boys, make pot of tea, and relax for the whole afternoon reading it!

SBT