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I wonder who'll be first to review it this week?  One of the subscribers, probably.

Full review forthcoming but I wanted to SPOILER the latest issue by pointing out what I said in my review of Sin/Dex last issue...

Sinister Dexter - Plot takes an interesting turn this week with the revelation of Croaks ghost. Is this an apparition, a set-up from someone who knows their connection with him, or is this the alternate dimension Croak come back to take revenge? If it's the latter than means Holy Moses and the younger Sin/Dex might be lurking somewhere...

I`m a subscriber but I get it after all the UK subscribers so not me. But let me be the first to review your `free kpfa` image.
  Nice image. Good hippo positioning. What`s it about?

cheers,

Floyd

Sinister Dexter - Plot takes an interesting turn this week

so you mean . sin and dex manages to get back to being crap again shocker basically?

Rightso - Yeowell cover but despite that seems a bit bland, great colour job.

Droidlife - hyuk hyuk hyuk.

Dredd - Oh, very good. I look forwards to the investigation continuing. Bring on the Flintygoodness.

Sin/Dex - Can't say I didn't see the ending coming but of all the possible conclusions this is by far the most interesting to me. I look forwards to the continuation, as all these new elements have boosted this strip no end. Knowing there could be an appearance out of the blue should make for interesting reading.

Tyranny Rex - Good ending. One to re-read I think but a nice revival. I definatley want to see more from Smith, Yeowell, and Rex.

Terror Tale - An entertaining tale with atmospheric art and a neat ending. Good work fellas.

Low Life - the perfect ending. Just perfect. Another request for more - bring back Williams, Flint, and Nixon soon.

A very good prog. Maybe I'm just in a good mood but for an end of run prog this is spectacular. And the hinted cover - is that a Langley Tharg? Roll on the next assault.

Don't really know what it means, Floyd, I just posted a random image.  I figured I'd go for an animal motif in the same way that you've gone for teen bimbos in your recent random image posts - the pics of goth cosplay lasses were nice, by the way.  I haven't drawn any more pics of monkeys in hats, but here's a picture of the monkey who produced the new Thunderbirds movie 'brainstorming'.

To stop the website getting into trouble, obviously I'm not slandering anyone, just joshing about the seemingly random nature of modern moviemaking.

Make a Thunderbirds movie without the original characters and stripped of all the charm.
Gotta admit, that wouldn't have occurred to me.  Guess that's why I'm not producing movies, eh?

Here's one for the Viz 'up the arse' corner.

I take it this is going to become the "Monkeys in illegal situations" thread?

I don't know about illegal, but I do feel it's more a matter of morality - in purely subjective terms, you understand, I'm not judging.

It's like snails and oysters.  Is it moral to eat oysters?  Is it immoral to eat snails?

It's all relative.

the monkey looks like he should be saying; give me the money or I'll break the dogs neck...

I'll have more to say later once I've re-read, but I'm *really* getting tired of Sinister Dexter now.

The one-offs are occasionally amusing, but the attempts to craft an ongoing story just reek of desperation. I can't be the only one who is completely turned off by the introduction of the parallel dimension & their foes from their past?

Please, someone dump this strip & get Dan Abnett working on something fresh - hell, even another series of his cliche-ridden VCs would be preferable...

I was quite glad to see the return of Sin/Dex..which surprised me really..Abnett needs to forget trying working 'new' angles for the pair though..let them get back to whacking bad guys off..its what they do best..

hmmm looking that last post you realise when I say whacking bad guys off that I meant killing them..obviously

Cover:Oh dear, looks very rushed.

Droid-Life: Funny as hell.

Dredd: A good ending to a great story and a lead into the next. Excellent stuff.

Sin/Dex: Why are there zombies? I didn't get it at all. Agree with TPS, they really should keep to *ahem* whacking.

Tyranny Rex: Er...riiight.

Terror Tale: Great, moody art from Thomas and a creepy script from Al. Good stuff!

Low-Life: This has really become one of my favourites. Excellent ending to a three parter that had more substance than most five or six parters.

Here's to Prg 1400!

Tyranny: Nice to see John Smith up to his usual trick of stringing random mis-placed adjectives together for nasty horror effect.

Tyranny Rex - I THINK I get the story but one thing bothers me - If they can just keep uploading her conciousness to a new clone body, why should we care if she lives or dies (again)?

Pete.

Cover - I've actually forgotten it.  Seriously, I know it's got Tyranny and... not, wait, I'll get it...  nah, it's gone.

Dredd - Perfect ending.  Sad story.  Want more.

Sin/Dex - didn't think it was that bad.  Don't understand why Cam Smith didn't read the script, though - if Croak and his men were only half-manifesting but were otherwise perfectly normal, why were they bent over in zombie poses?  And why does Moses appear in front of Vee/Sin/Dex when it clearly states that he didn't go through the gate himself a page or so later?  Still, while it may seem early in Sinister Dexter's career as a strip to be reaching for the "war on infinite earths" card, there's enough here to make me hope it'll be entertaining.  Loved the banter here - some nice verbal sparring in the face of creeping evil.

Low Life - another perfect ending.  Interesting to see Williams chose to go from tragedy to comedy when the route in 2000ad is usually the other way round.  And the guy's fetish on the last page is worth the price of admission alone.

Terror Tale - really, really, really good!  I particularly enjoyed re-reading this and seeing how the ending was carefully set up.  Not a single panel of the gorgeous art was wasted, which was a nice surprise.

Tyranny Rex - John Smith rocks again.  What a superb opening page of Smith verbiage!  (You may know he's going to do it, but it works, my God it works!).  And having Tyranny actually detonate the device was a masterstroke I didn't see coming.  Admit it, you didn't see it coming either.  
To answer the question above about why we should care if she can always be reborn again - the question is about universe-wide psychospiritual  death at the hands of the warpspawn (etc), not about one green-skinned lizard.

Bloody excellent prog all the way round.  Not excellent "for the end of an offensive", just bloody, bloody good anyway.

Rock on 1400 - if Tharg's using this kind of quality machine oil on the droids, it should be explosive...

I admit to being astonished.

For a prog number like 1399, I would have expected filler shit and weak endings with captions like "end of book one".

However, despite this being a "wind-down" prog, it was bloody good stuff!

Dredd saw a strong ending to a strong tale, and Tyranny Rex, although the sort of "pure SF" I generally don't go for, had lots of action and held my attention.

I'm always happy to see Steve Y art, so I liked the cover, too.

Yet again, I laughed out loud at the wonderful Droid Life and was entertained by SinDex, despite previously hating them with every fibre in my being. I must have missed David's prediction last week, as I didn't see the end coming.

Meanwhile, Low Life read like a perfectly serviceable Dredd tale, with good twists and lovely art.

Finally, I want to single out that Terror Tale for special mention.
In this case, guessing the end wasn't a problem, as it came as a sort of sinking feeling - pun intended.

It was strong, strong stuff, genuinely creepy, and just behind Dredd and Droid Life as best in prog.
Well done, Al! You can fair spin a fine yarn.

It's really nice to see a bit of painted art once in a while, too.

Roll on 1400!

- Trout

Yeah the Terror Tale was feckin' awesome!

Genuinely chilling, I thought. The best Terror Tales in my opinion are the ones that you can guess the end to - that's were the 'horror' comes from: knowing what terror is just about to happen, and not being able to stop it.
It builds up nicely to the characters' realization of what is going on. Really chuffed with this one.

Dredd - brilliant & shocking ending I thought - really didn't expect Sonny/Gil to get killed.

Tyranny - I didn't really get it on the whole, but it was fun enough anyway. I'll be reading it again soon anyway, as my back-prog reading mission is close catching up to present (I'm at 1374 now, and I much prefer Yeowell on The Red Seas to Tyranny!).

Low Life - great story - hope there'll be more soonish.

Sinister Dexter - pretty fun all told.

P14 was great.

Sweet!

My copy's yet to arrive so I don't know how it turned out or who the artist is yet, but it's good to know it's gone down well. Cheers!

Turned out nice again, Al!

Art's by Shaun Thomas, who I believe did APOCALYPSE SOON in the Meg.

J-Bo-1

The zombies weren't the soldiers that tried to get through to 'our' Downlode. The dimension hole was through a deadworld type dimension and they were trying to get through as well. They saw Moses and Croak because it wasn't working and the field of the portal was casting around wildly.

That's my theory anyway, wouldn't be surprised if we learn more about what was going on at a later date and there are no explanations in this tale because at the moment they're not needed.

Ah, OK.  That could be interesting... more interesting than the reality, I'd bet, but still you're keeping me hopeful...

I can't help thinking Tyranny Rex has turned into the Dying Game. :)

ooh, that does look nice.

Anyone got Shaun Thomas' email? And if so, can they send it to me?

Was Calcutta an exorcist reference?  I still havn' got round to watching it.

I enjoyed that Al, enjoyed it a lot.  Good choice of artist for it.

Something different from the man who killed the Future Shock ;)

Cheers

Paul

Calcutta was pulled completely out of my arse, I'm afraid. It might be in Exorcist II: Pazuzu...

Well, I think this offensive has ended almost as good as it started.  There has been some rubbish along the way, but this was a pretty good prog.

I hate to say it, but while I thought the previous Low Life was an emabarresment, I enjoyed this one a lot more.

Good Dredd, bit anti-climactic maybe, but pretty good.

Tyranny wasn't bad, as strange as I'd expect, don't mind seeing her face now and again.

Al's Terror Tale was as I said, pretty good.  Not saying it was perfect, but it's been so long since I enjoyed the ending of one of these things, it's barely worth quibbling about.

Sin Dex, Can't Read it! Won't read it!  Part of me liked the art, part of me didn't, my real problem with it was it had that Coleby over-exposed feel to it.  Those zombies at the start were lovely.

Oh and all the other art was good too.  Yowell getting a bit too minimal for my liking maybe.  Cover for next issue looks a treat, time to stop buying it?  Well, I might have been tempted a few weeks ago, but oh, go on, I'll give it a go.

No, that's okay Al, I just wondered.  I'm sick to death of people referencing other fiction, so I'm glad it's not.

I was in the dentists today reading a 2 year old copy of Empire magazine and there was a good comment about how the movie industry loathes fans, as they are an annoyance with opinions and much prefer the vast majority of people who just buy their product and have no opinions about it whatsoever, a bit like comics then.

I've avoided reading most of this thread lest I spoiler something for myself, but 1399 still hasn't shown up in my neck of the woods.
Subscription beckons, I shouldn't wonder.

Cover- terrible.
Droid life- mildly amusing.
Dredd-OK
SinDex-decent art, some witty dialogue, forgetable plot.
Tyranny Rex- complete turkey. Always thought this character was crap,of all the stuff that could have been fetched back- why this? As someone else has already pointed out, who gives a shit about an "unkillable" character anyway. Also despite plot being reasonably interesting, artwork does little for me personally.
Terror Tales-  best thing in the prog. Decent art and I didn't quite guess the twist.(Thought they'd fall screaming to their deaths as the house vanished)
Low Life- OK. I know everyone else rates this, I like the art but think it really needs a kickass story that'll grab me by the balls to make me rate it as highly as everyone else does.
Overall verdict- usual mediocre offering that makes me wonder why I still bother. When I can vividly remember strips I read 20 years ago but can't remember what happened 2 weeks ago in the prog it really makes me question my loyalty. I really hope prog 1400 lives up to the hype.
Regards Jim.

Cover : Probably one of the poorest this year

Droid Life : Raised a smile

Dredd : Cracking stuff with a real downbeat ending. Really enjoyed this.

Sin-Dex : Never a fan and dont really know the history, but alternate versions of earth? Come on, 2000AD can do better than this surely.

T-Rex : I never liked her and if this is anything to go by I never will. I find the dialogue makes me think poor mans Grant Morrison and I couldnt give a toss about her. Some nice art along the way, thats the best I can say about this.

Terror Tale : Lovely art and the story was onto a winner straight away with me, as Im a sucker for haunted house stories. I really, really liked the first page with the history.

Low Life : Well I never saw the end coming. I quite like this as well & laughed out loud at the Jokers fetish.

All in all an alright end of run Prog...actually better than most ends but by no means great. I suppose it doesnt help that I dislike two of the stories but hey,roll on next week.

Cover: Average fair.

Droid life: It's always a nice distraction. Like a little bonus to ya prog.

Dredd: Great, but wonder if it was really 8 issues worth of story.

Sin Dex: Gosh! who will Sin Dex kill next? Who cares. Pointless.

T-rex: Wah wah wah wah wah. And a whole page to show the bomb going off. Is Steve Yeowell sleepwalking through the artwork?

Terror Tale. Erk! Has this been lying in the vaults since the days of the Bisley Clone epidemic?

Low Life: Cool. Like the murder mystery that wasn't. Keep up stories like this and Aimee Nixon could be climbing up to join the ranks of the great 2000ad characters.

Cover - meh.  Functional, bit shlocky and generic.  I think it needed a few textures in the colour application to stand out, but as it is, it looks too flat and lifeless.

Droid life - always good to see.  Like it.

Dredd - usual downbeat ending for a Wagner multi-parter.  All loose ends tied up, evil punished, etc.  Damn good.

Sinister/Dexter - where did all those zombies come from?  I understand that everything else was just random images from the other side of the dimensional gate (Croak, Moses, etc), but what about the zombies?  Or thos hands coming out of the walls at the end of part one?  Still good, if not to everyone's taste.

Tyranny Rex - Is that it?  I expected a bit more from Smith, but this wasn't up to much at all.  The first page was crawling with his usual "poppadom seaweed, scraping the glass of children's eyelids" babble, too.  Poor.

Terror Tale - guessed the end by the time he was looking at pictures of blue sky, but it wasn't the ending that Ewing wrote.  The point is that it's supposed to be a surprise, though, isn't it?  Good effort, and I loved the visible textures from Thomas' acrylic board - a nice change from the ever-present dodgy digital colour.

Low Life - Liked it.  I was worried it was just going to be some leftover from the Megazine, but it's chucked off the Sin City trappings and Williams has turned in a good 'un.

Nice wrap-up to the stories, good prog overall.

With reference to Al's comments earlier, Why didn't he know who was drawing his script? Surely good manners would mean that Shaun Thomas (Who turned in a stand up job) would drop Al a mail to say hi, or at least someone on the rebellion end would.

Or am I being too naive?

Bolt-01

You're being too naive. I've got no problems not knowing who's drawing it - the biggest worry I have is 'are they going to buy the next one off me?' Anyway, there's not much I could do with the knowledge besides badger the guy over the e-mail...

Also, I did actually write that ending - the nooooo-we're-falling ending was nixed at the synopsis stage and Matt suggested that one, which I went off and did.

No offence, but the new ending was better.
Not that the old one would've been terrible, you understand - it's not like you wanted to destroy the world in the last panel or anything.

"Oh no!  The WHOLE WORLD is a ghost!"
(copyright Steve Moore)

None taken. But why stop there? Why not have the whole universe as a really big were-universe - and it's - choke - A QUANTUM FULL MOOOOOON!! GRRARRR!!

I have a funny feeling that one might turn up at Dreddcon as a pitch.

ZARJAS/HOUSE/BINGO! etc...

Were-universe sounds brilliant actually. Entirely stupid, but brilliant nevertheless.

>Or am I being too naive?

Unless its a specific project most writers are to busy working on their next pay cheque to worry to much about whose doing the art to a script they may have turned in weeks ago.

[YT-2]

Thoroughly enjoyed this prog myself.

Can I just add my voice to the praise for the Terror Tale.  I really have got pretty sick of Future Shocks these days - especially the predictable "Oh no, my greed has condemned me/us all" endings - but I've found the Terror Tales and Past Imperfects a bit of fresh air. Especially as I don't think they always have to have "a twist".  I found this one creepy and unsettling and though I guessed the house was a ghost, I din't guess the actual ending.  And I liked the art - just right for this.

DREDD - all loose ends lovingly wrapped up - nice to see that the job goes on and on even after Sonny's tale ends. I think the art in this episode isn't as good as in the first ep - back to those whole panels of red or blue (or green) that cursed Devlin.

SIN/DEX  - the odd funny line doesn't stop me from thinking this is flogging a dead horse.

TYRANNY - Heh heh - the Dying Game indeed.  Might be interesting to see more of this but it still seems like every other chick with a gun story we've had recently.

LOW LIFE - interesting twist on this one (i.e. it was just suicide) but I'm sure twenty years agoe this tale wou;d have been told in 6 pages.  I still find the art a bit too ragged

And I looked at the list of creators who will be appearring in PROG 400 and thought wow!


PS: Al, did you send in a script for your "He's a funny guy" pitch? How did you get on?

That was pitched during a time when Tharg was up to his eyeballs and didn't have a slot, so you'll be able to find it in FUTUREQUAKE #3, whenever it appears... that's right Wyatt, isn't it? ISN'T IT???

prog 1399..

Dredd - mmm aren't the democrats going to get a bit suspicious that another one of their members gets stung by a scorpion fly. Disappointing end to a disappointing story.
Sinster Dexter - don't care
Future Shock - pretty filler
Tyranny Rex - Better than I expected it to be
Low Life - it's dead simple handcuff Flint to Dredd. He is easily the best "Judge" artist in either the Meg or the Weekly. Rebellion should take advantage of this obvious talent before he up sticks to the state

Philt - not sure without reading back, but dont think that Sonny even mentions the Scorpion fly to anyone but Zondra...