Sorry for starting a new thread, but I couldn't get my comments to 'take' on the established one.
My verdict on Prog 1403 is: not as good as Progs 1400-1402.
Judge Dredd drags on a bit. This was a very slow episode. I know Dredd isn't normally given to self-doubt, but wouldn't it have been funny to have him turn over a card like a seven, and have him say "...and when I see the seven (oh stomm!) I am reminded of um... sector seven, where last week I broke up an organ-legging racket single-handed"? Alternatively he could actually have sat down and played cards. That might have kept the crooks busy for a while.
Strontium Dog wasn't at the top of its game this week, or for that matter during the whole run of The Headly Foot Job. Is it just me, or did anyone else find it distracting that Headly Foot kept going on about Wulf Sternhammer being fat when Headly himself was carrying a spare tyre?
ABC Warriors had a dire episode this week. It makes no sense, nothing's happening, and like the man said - what's keeping these Shadow Warriors? I'm getting bored with these kids whining about their stupid sky-dancer friend. Just shoot him already. What? He's dead? About bloody time then.
Caballistics Inc. is the best thing in the Prog. As I said on another thread, I don't buy this simultaneous adaptation of The Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Island of Dr. Moreau. But the attribution of the excerpt to Kim Newman was good for a laugh, and the sci-fi setting looked Quatermass enough (even if it's unlikely that Quinterman and Quatermass movies could exist in the same marketplace without a lawsuit being the result - I'd surmise that in the Cabs/Inc. world the Quinterman movies got made instead).
Bec & Kawl has won me over to the extent that I don't actually hate this storyline and I don't actually think it's the worst thing in the comic.
From references in two previous Caballistics stories, the suggestion is that Quatermass really existed in the Caballistics universe, hence you can assume that the 'Quinterman' film is a fictionalisation of something that's supposed to have really happened.
All will hopefully made clearer in the UK horror film history excerpt that kicks off the next episode.
And was there ever a third edition of Nightmare Movies? THE PUBLIC DEMANDS TO KNOW!
aaah, yes. I remember now. That clears that up then! My memory for this stuff is rubbish: I must have a lot on my mind at the moment.
"And was there ever a third edition of Nightmare Movies? THE PUBLIC DEMANDS TO KNOW!"
Only in the Caballistics universe, I'm afraid.
I was careful about that one, although Kim Newman and Stephen Jones, whose Ultimate Monster Movie Guide book gets used next week, were kind enough to give the thumbs-up to the use of their names and work.
It's good that you asked them. To be honest, I just assumed you'd use them without asking!
Still can't quite see Nigel Kneale doing an adaptaion of Rue Morgue and Moreau though.Just doesn't seem quite like his other adaptaions, which were always a bit too plain and (relatiely) normal, compared to his works of his own fiction.
Still, just don't make any more comments about Hammer's rubber bats, okay?
They weren't exactly used with the same frequency as Amicus' disembodied hand, were they?
All this continuity-fetishism is something I don't understand. If it's not American comic fans harping on about how Tim Drake shouldn't be Robin because Batman has never been seen on camera, it's british soap opera buffs telling us that Eastenders now takes place in an alternate universe where the 'Carry On' films never existed.
Why can't you just enjoy the f*cking things on their own terms, eh? The continuity isn't important because IT ISN'T REAL.
Sorry, wee bit of a rant, there. I should have put this in the 'I don't get it' thread.
It's to do with suspension of disbelief. I can suspend my disbelief regarding the conflation of The Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Island of Dr. Moreau in the Ludgate film adaptation because it doesn't contradict anything and I find the idea amusing. Similarly I can suspend my disbelief regarding Joan Collins and Peter Cushing making a Robespierre film in 1964.
Frankly, Hammer making its Quatermass films at the same time as Ludgate making Quinterman films with near-identical plot and design would have been too much to swallow, and I don't think Gordon would disagree.
OVERTHINKING!!
Did you like the bloody strip or not?
"Caballistics Inc. is the best thing in the Prog."
I'll take that as a yes.
Continuity errors are inevitable in anything that goes on for a bit - just look at that whole Crisis on Infinite Earths thing DC did a while back. Utterly pointless to anyone but the most anal comic fans, and it's affected the scripts that can be written about the DC universe ever since. WHY? It's just a bloody comic. Get over it.
The whole Quinterman/Quatermass thing is small potatoes by comparison, of course, but you get my point, right?
It depends on whether or not you think writing is a craft. If it's just hack work, then anything goes: why not?
Ah, but sometimes the hand was green, and sometimes it was all wrapped up. Theres a lot of variety there...
Well, fair enough. If you think that it's important to cover every minutia in a script, that's your prerogative, but I think the Hammer/Ludgate thing alongside the supposedly 'real' finding of a spacecraft in central London is just a minor slip in the script, rather than a fundamental undermining of the story itself.
What I want to know, though, is if the events of Quatermass and the Pit have actually taken place in Cabalistics continuity, why hasn't it come up in conversation more often? I mean, it must be like the British version of september 11, surely it's impacted upon the culture in some way? The movie version of QATP had a giant tripod Martian insect causing the collapse of society into genocidal fascism, while the tv version had an American air pilot describe London as being 'aflame' and had anarchy on the streets as humans regressed to a prehistoric mental state.
If the events of either are compatible with Cabs inc continuity, then surely someone would have mentioned it beyond "that Martian thing they dug up in Piccadilly"?
Ah, no: I was merely inferring from the story that Hammer's back catalogue in the Caballistics world should differ somewhat from the one we're familiar with, in light of the fact that Ludgate made Quinterman movies. I'd completely forgotten about extraterrestrial relics having been dug up in excavating for the London Underground.
And now you've got me started, what - exactly - was going on in QATP anyway?
Was it a computer programme from the ship somehow embedded in the structure of the houses and ground of Hob's Lane that was attempting to terraform Earth (it couldn't have been in the ship itself, since it was established that the technology was destroyed by the normal passage of time) and had been responsible for all the paranormal incidents in the area dating back to prehistory, or was it a pre-programmed communal impulse within human genetics, implanted by the Martians for their return to Earth (except they never did, since their civilisation collapsed in a genocidal purge that triggered a war)?
It could have just been Martian ghosts or something, though.
++SPOILERS FOR QUATERMASS AND THE PIT++
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God knows. But whatever it was, it had energy, because the hero was able to 'earth' it using a crane from a building site. Energy was also implicated in the electromagnetic disturbances at the excavation site. Source? You tell me. Whatever it was, it promoted the 'culling' behaviour apparently pre-programmed into the primitive Earth beings just as it was programmed into the Martian insectoid race.
*Shrugs*
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Yeah, the energy thing was what prompted me to assume perhaps it was the Martian's ship's operating programme, that had somehow 'leaked' into the surrounding area, and was dispersed (grounded) by the iron in the crane.
That was what happened in the movie, but in the tv show, though much the same thing, it was the ship that was 'grounded', not the Martian apparition that appeared in the film.
But as you say, God knows.
Now go easy on the woodland maulings, Bear Boy, but if we're going to get picky about the Quatermass events and their effects on British society, doesn't the appearance of the Brigadier in the first storyline mean that London (and for all i know Somerset too, not much of a Whohead, me) have frequently and oft been invaded by Daleks and various other Who-gums? The references to old British genre stuff as "real" are part of the flavour of the strip, it isn't necessarily a logical part of the story, in the way that the reality of contemporary fiction is central to LoEG.
Frequently I even bore myself with these ramblings.
I agree with you Usher, def step down from the past few weeks...although I quite liked Dredd and Caballistics Inc. was for me an improvement over last week's ep.
Btw, Nice to see CI kept your 10 for The Meg.
Will
Hmmm, I have the novelisation at home... might go and check what that has to say on the subject.
I thought the current Dredd story was a bit pap when it started, even Cam Kennedy's art didnt seem to shine as much as usual, but the current episode with the cadets risking their careers for Dredd has lifted this for me. Best episode yet in what seems like unusually long filler.
ABC Warriors is just confusing at the moment. The current episode is good, but the story itself is dragging its heels. The glimpse of the final 2 shadow warriors was interesting though. Is it just me, or did one of them resemble Mek-Quake?
Caballistics - We all know just how good this is by now surely? You dont need me harping on about its brilliance!
Dont read Bec & Kawl so i cant review it...
Strontium Dog has been a bit of a letdown to be honest. Everything seemed obvious throughout this one. It was obvious that Johnny and Wulf wouldnt normally help this arsehole, ex-stront or not. It was obvious they had something else up their sleeve, and it was obvious that Wulf would kick the shit out of Headly at the end. So no surprises there.
All in all, im not all that impressed by things at the moment, apart from Caballistics.
Sorry if im just covering whats already been said!