In my opinion, Blood of Satanus III, currently running in the Meg, is:
Link: Click to vote
Apologies for not breaking it down for story/art, but I wanted to keep it simple.
This story's polarised the board, so I think it would be valuable to have as many opinions as possible, including from people who don't want to get into long, involved debates.
- Trout
Pat Mills will eat your balls for this Trout.
People like you don't deserve him! He says so in the meg!
I opted for 'bad', because I haven't read the two most recent parts, so I don't feel qualified to pronounce it to be 'terrible'.
I've gone for Average, as it fails to offend me the way it does some people.
Dweezil(Pat Mills raped my goldfish).
I regret only the lack of a 'complete arse' button.
I have more of a problem with the writing, as Pat can write good stuff, and this isnt good. Hicklenton has never been my cup of char, so I dont feel qualified to call it bad or good reliably, but it is a mess.
I put bad, because although I like the art as art, it's hard to follow in places as a comic. Add to this that BOSII was a complete waste of my free time to read- the art on it was pretty dull and the story about as entertaining as daytime TV, IIRC BOS1 was ok, but certainly not original enough to warrant revisiting. So there was very little incentive for me to try.
Also- I haven't got part 1, so I started at part 2, and with the contrived, anachronistic and superficial 'soundbite' dialogue it made little sense. So I haven't bothered to try any harder. Had the art or dialogue been easier to read, I may well have stuck with it.
The art is gruesome and has a certain awsome wickedness about it- although there are a few places it really hasn't shone at all. I think Hicklenton might be worth a try on a one off Caballistics, I think his twisted vision could work really really well on the right kind of twisted story for this series.
I voted for "Terrible".
If either the script or the art had been acceptable, I might have commuted the sentence to merely "Bad", but for me, Blood of Satanus 3 is risible on every level.
I'd be disgusted with it if it appeared in a fanzine, and doubly so in the Meg.
Bad.
Mainly because the character clearly isn't the Judge Dredd I've grown up reading.
I'm trying to pretend that it isn't really Dredd in this story but some hardass Excorcist Judge instead. It helps. Slightly.
Going off topic slightly, but what happened to the Excorcist Judges anyway? Would have thought this kind of this thing was their bag.
I voted 'Bad', which was a bloody painful decision giving that i used to love Hicklenton's artwork, and Pat Mills is capable of so much more than this.
One hell of a missed opportunity!
Average.
The script is a bit ropey. I like Hicklenton and fucked up art in general. but he's gone a bit too far with the fucked upness here.
It's not the fucked-upness I find disagreeable, it's the fact that it's badly drawn.
His stuff on Nemesis was undeniably fucked up, and the anatomy in that series was still decidely, er, creative, but for all that, it was still drawn well.
BOSIII, on the other hand, looks like it was scribbled on a sheet of tatty A4 with a biro.
In the pub.
After a heavy session.
Scribbled on a sheet of tatty A4 with a biro. In the pub. After a heavy session.
Hmmm... where's my sketchpad from that Dreddcon where Noisy and I got wasted...?
;-)
Well John Hicklenton is a guy getting back into comic art after some time, and a big story as well, so he deserves to be cut some slack.
Sadly, despite my huge respect for both creators, it's not a great strip, it's pretty bad. And I say that with no joy, as I really don't want to fuel some of the anti-mills nosnense that goes on.
This Judge Dredd has nothing to do with the one of the past, or the new and mature strip that Wagner writes, nor is a direction anyone really wants to see the strip go in I imagine. So it's a bit of a non-starter, and nobody is going to come away happy.
A real shame both their twisted energies weren't put into something new and original, because there is original work in there from the pair of them and stuff that could be developed. It's just unfortunately shackled to Judge Dredd.
Anyway, I hope to see both Pat Mills and John Hicklenton again in the meg soon on something else. I'd like to see something in the mould of Nemesis book 8 (? the bonkers coss dimensional Thatcher one), I think this storyline could have worked quite nicely (or quite horribly rather) in a more modern setting with some work.
There's stuff I don't read every month in the meg ands almost every week in the prog. This has just turned out to be one of those stories.
Shudder
Yeah, but you didn't pay me the going page rate for my tatty A4 biro daubings. And anyway, I didn't draw it in the pub...
***This Judge Dredd has nothing to do with the one of the past, or the new and mature strip that Wagner writes, nor is a direction anyone really wants to see the strip go in I imagine. So it's a bit of a non-starter, and nobody is going to come away happy. ***
You're sounding like Scojo, except....you're right of course.
Ouch.
I can't read it. I mean physically it's got darker and harder to read. I like his artwork but either he's using more and more ink or it's not reproducing very well.
And from what I have managed to read it's going on about some major event in MC1 whilst they're in another dimension? I do wish people wouldn't do that.
You're sounding like Scojo, except....you're right of course.
Errâ?¦ not really, I mean, Scojo is given to making pronouncements on whatâ??s wrong with Dredd stories but what makes him Scojo, asides from usually being wrong, is that heâ??ll say the same thing at least half a dozen times, with an increasing degree of urgency (especially if he feels no one is paying him enough attention at the time, so that by the end Scojo would be saying â??They put a writer and artist not particularly suited to do Dredd together, ITâ??S THE WORST THING THAT HAS HAPPENED TO DREDD EVER! Dredd is ruined for all time! 2000ad and the magazine are now doomed! My life is over!â? etcâ?¦ etcâ?¦
Thanks Art, I was desperately hoping someone would come to my aid there.
***Errâ?¦ not really, I mean, Scojo is given to making pronouncements on whatâ??s wrong with Dredd stories but what makes him Scojo, asides from usually being wrong, is that heâ??ll say the same thing at least half a dozen times, with an increasing degree of urgency (especially if he feels no one is paying him enough attention at the time, so that by the end Scojo would be saying â??They put a writer and artist not particularly suited to do Dredd together, ITâ??S THE WORST THING THAT HAS HAPPENED TO DREDD EVER! Dredd is ruined for all time! 2000ad and the magazine are now doomed! My life is over!â? etcâ?¦ etcâ?¦***
'twas a joke.
For my money, Blood of Satanus III is not a Judge Dredd strip, it's a strip about Judge Dredd, in a metafictional manner. So, rather than trying to reproduce either his own earlier take on the character, or Wagner's increasingly subtle portrayal, Mills writes in a wild style that riffs on the perception of Dredd both by the readers and the citizens of MC-1, rather than the established "actual" character of Dredd. I think it works, and Hinklenton's art is an excellent companion for it.
It's just rubbish. I like this style of art so it is not that, but the 'story' is bloody awful.
Yeah , I really like the art but the dialogue is very child-like and stunted in places. It's probably the only Mills I've thought was poor. I didn't like Black Siddha for instance but it's just not my cup of tea rather than poor.
Chris