2000 AD Online Forum

Nobody got theirs yet? Hurrah for the fine postmen of Paisley who have brought me three publications in two days.

Won't say much as I've only read the Prog so far. It does have Fink and Ratty on the cover and a well reviewed letters page!

The Hicklenton article is superb and throws some light on his creative juices.

Hicklenton article?  Who did that one?

Mike Molcher, and a bloody good job he did too. It didn't shy away from pressing Hicklenton on the reaction to Satanus, or the (IMO, sometimes valid) criticisms of his recent art, but it never came across as critical of the man himself, and indeed praised him for being an artist unlike any other on the comic. Really nice work, and definitely the kind of text piece that belongs in the Meg.

Is it worth buying? I'm afraid I'm fickle when it comes to the Meg. It was only PJ Maybe that has kept me going recently. I'm sure I can pick another one up in 3 months time and still find Anderson fighting the same robots and Dredd fighting the same illegible demons. And I don't really care what's happening to Fink as we all know he ends up in Pa Angel's Mark 1 Super Scream Torture Machine.

as usual - a cover scan please?  thank you

Is it worth buying?

Weeeeellll...

-- Naff Robbie Morrison Dredd w. art from a new artist (style similar to Inaki Miranda)
-- A pair of good articles from Mike Molcher on Phonogram and Hicklenton
-- The rather dull conclusion of Big Robots (plus a nice Bolland pin-up of Anderson)
-- Movie reviews and a Takashi Miike piece from Alex Worley - neither saying anything really new or interesting
-- Blood of Satanus part VIII. You know what you're getting by now!
-- A naff Small Press strip
-- A reprint of an old Hicklenton/Morrison Future Shock
-- The Dredd Files
-- Fink Angel. Lovely art, quite funny but ultimately rather pointless.

Really not a very strong issue, especially without a good Dredd or secondary strip to anchor it.

On the other hand I found the small press fun, not naff.

Tan Eng Haut was a little bit of a let down for me, I was expecting something closer to his Doom Patrol work, but artists change their styles all the time,

So that's a no, then.

"Nobody got theirs yet?"

Mine's just turned up. Still two progs short, mind you.

I'm sorry to say that, further to my previous statements of Meg disillusionment, this was unreadable rubbish.

I have no idea why I'm still handing over cash for this. Primarily because I don't have the time to cancel it. Partly because my affection for the Meg is such that I can't quite bring myself to pull the plug.

But ... I just cannot be bothered to read a single fucking thing in here. Maybe that's me, rather than the comic, but it's a sad state of affairs either way.

Bah.

Jim

Not a good result, was it Jim?

10 million England euro 2008 flags on eBay as well as a few thousand kilt hires on hold.

Prog 1558 - 28 pages of new comic for £1.90
Meg 263 - 30 pages of new (paid for) comic for £2.99

"Not a good result, was it Jim? "

I'm assuming that's a footie reference? Not my thing, I'm afraid.

I have a feeling England are going to get pasted on Saturday in the Rugby, mind ...

None of which changes the fact that I would have had enough money for an extra pint if I hadn't bought the Meg this month!

Cheers

Jim

I thought the artist for Dredd had a very Kev O'Nielly quality.

I've yet to read features. I think a featured writer or artist should have an early version of his of her work in the meg that very month.

Lastly the conversation between writer of The Angel Gang and artist.

Writer- ...Yeah and can you give it an etchy quality to is Steve?

Artist- Yes Si but that's gonna take me for-frikkin-ever...!

Ahaha. It was made up, though using factual names the whole conversation is a product of my own making. I do not refer to either artist as  somebody I am vaguely familiar with.

To be honest, I'd rather find out how to or how not  to present a graphic story, than another piss up the wall.

Another fairly dire Megazine.

JD in Tribal.  I was reading this and thinking "hasn't this been done before", and then the author goes ahead and admits it.  It's the same story we had a few issues ago, but with rad scorpions.  Talk about money for old rope.  And - MC-1 realism - the Judges just allow a gang of scorpion/human hybrids to wander around in the city, do they?  I don't think so.  Pish.

The whole Big Robots thing is just odd.  I mean, it's just not easy to take it in any way seriously. And the colours in the art were just horrible.  It's like MC-1 constructed out of anaemic puke.

Various articles done better in specialist magazines that are built for purpose, small press knocking exactly zero socks off, reprint and other pathetic-excuse-for-a-comic padding.  Snafu.

JD, BoS III - creator takes piss out of reader for most of a year.  The sad part about this is, the writer of this shit got paid, and I'm donating money to his further adventures of egomania.

Finally, Fink.  Remember when Fink Angel first turned up, he was actually quite disturbing.  Like Judge Death?  And now he's like a comedy cadaver.  Like Judge Death.  Tales from the Black Museum - comedy.  The Black Atlantic - comedy.  The Angel Gang - comedy.  Fuck off!  Give us some drama.

Nice Bolland pic.

"The whole Big Robots thing is just odd. I mean, it's just not easy to take it in any way seriously."

It was a strange series in that the title character was virtually irrelevant to the story. However, I thought the last two episodes were actually very, very good, with the final pages of each being outstanding. I agree with your comments about the colouring.

"Finally, Fink. Remember when Fink Angel first turned up, he was actually quite disturbing. Like Judge Death? And now he's like a comedy cadaver. Like Judge Death. Tales from the Black Museum - comedy. The Black Atlantic - comedy. The Angel Gang - comedy. Fuck off! Give us some drama."

To be fair, there always was an undeniable comic element to the Angel Gang and Fink; it's just taken too far here. I'm trying to think of a better approach to the character(s) and all I can think is Moore's The Killing Joke.

Regards

Robin

Well, when it eventually turns up it sounds like its going to be an anti-climax.

THis Months Meg

Judge Dredd : Tribal : Fine its a Dredd story with very little Dredd which doesn't affect the quality , entertaining but throwaway as with all Meg Life stories.

New Comics phonogram: it does exactly what it says , it is an interesting article on a new series but never have I felt so old when they describe the Nineties as being ripe for nostalgia!
 
The Hinckleton Article: Interesting but then I've never been able to warm to his artwork unfortunately , by printing his previous artwork it shows just what an unholy mess Satanus is.

Big Robots : What the..? how in the hell was this even an Anderson Story , seriously the character has lost her way!
 
Takashi Miike Article. Interesting but again why?

Satanus: I will discuss this in a moment

Small Press: feh it was alright

Future Shock: Read It the first time and wasn't impressed

New films : Ok I like the film review section but Mr Worley what have you been drinking in your Tea , Stardust is the most wretchedly shallow film this side of Dungeons and Dragons?? and yet Planet Terror is Gorgeous Fun!?!?!which part of it is gorgeous fun? is it the shite acting , the too many times repeated print flaw gags or prehaps it's the "Hilarious" Comedy rape scene with Tarantino....but no matter how wrong Mr Worley is , his review section is always interesting.

The Dredd Files : You know since the case files were printed this has become pointless! interesting but absolutley pointless.

Fink Angel:Its fine , not as good as the previous angel gang story but still fun.

Now I come to a huge complaint about the MEGAZINE , Satanus and to a lesser extent other stories like Big robots....over the last few months I have been harsh in my criticisms of the whole Satanus Debacle ( and I believe deservedly so) What I found maddening was the Hinkleton article in which it is  claimed that it has sharply divided reader opinion and then you print one letter in support and one attcking it?!?!?! does the editorial staff actually read this thread ,  it is safe to say that the audience is not sharply divided , not when the Majority of readers who post on this forum agree that Satanus is one of the greatest pieces of Shite that has ever graced the pages of british comics!I know the Meg has to defend printing this thrash but is it even listening to its readers?
  Are there not any young writers out there anymore eager to get their Ideas printed rather than let Mills print any old shite he wants, at this point with Satanus and again with Big Robots it gives the appearance the Meg is the dumping ground for strips not wanted in 2000ad.
  And this is a serious problem, last year the Meg recieved a cut to pages and we as readers were promised a rise in quality and for a short while it did rise but is quickly and rapidly plummeting , the stories are not helped by the monthly gaps, as I have pointed out before except for Dredd which has ten pages , every other story is forced to live with six pages a month hence It took eight Months to print all of Big Robots thats 48 pages in eight Months!!!! If you want to keep readers interested then you need more variety and more stories told more quickly , so the answer is quite simple .. dump a strip! Satanus will be over next issue , thats been taking between 8 to ten pages for the past eight months , when its over give those pages over to the other strips  and extend them by four pages each..you have seventeen pages of articles,  get rid of the Dredd files and the two page articles on film makers ( Which has nothing to do with Dredd or the Megazine) and you have another five pages to have other reprint material ( Why not Bring back Charleys war or reprint early Ro busters hell even Invasion 1984!) Anything would be better than
 the drek that is Satanus or the painful gaps between each story we are currently suffering.

"does the editorial staff actually read this thread , it is safe to say that the audience is not sharply divided , not when the Majority of readers who post on this forum agree that Satanus is one of the greatest pieces of Shite that has ever graced the pages of british comics!"

Not wanting to defend the strip, but if we imagine that the Meg had a circulation of around 10,000 readers (give or take the odd thousand), there can't be more than a couple of dozen people who post on this messageboard, and whilst I'm not saying that your point is wrong, I can't imagine anything *less* representative than listening to the mentalist ravings of boarders like us.

After all, if we did the prog would be nothing but Strontium Dogs and 'Judge in a funny hat' Dreddverse spin-offs...

;-)

 Ah but if you take as so many opinion pollsters do quite lazily the percentage of boarders  opposed to Satanus and use that as a percentage of the general Readerships opinion you'll find it represents the Majority of readers. ( And really is that theory any less insulting than printing two letters one for and one against and saying opinion is sharply divided)
 On a serious note , its not just on the Board , I've been at one or two conventions recently and the general opinion is that Satanus does stink.
  And I'm not looking for Strontium dogs and Judges in funny hats but I started buying the Meg in 2000 because it had gotten away from the poorly written reprint filled nineties and had variety, what happened to Lenny Zero? Demarco PI?  Heck even Sprouts Articles were funny! As I said we want variety so why not have longer stories with shorter runs than Anderson or god help us Satanus which has now run for most of 2007, thats a waste of a year!

I still think that any story in the Meg that runs longer than three parts max starts to outsty its welcome due to the monthly format.

I'm hoping Tempest will be good but if I don't like it its going to be in the Meg for six issues which is a long time for a story you could take or leave.

I really hope Armitage is only returning for one issue.

Agh! The Meg thread! I've had my Meg for weeks and meant to post, but forgot.

Anyway, I wanted to say I really enjoyed the Hicklenton article. It was topical, well-written and interesting. The man himself comes across as a decent bloke, and it's refreshing to hear he's listened to the fans.
We have been saying on the board that the last few parts of Satanus have had better art, and it's good to know that's because we criticised the earlier stuff. More creators should be up-front about how they react to feedback.

As for the content of the comic, I still think Satanus is dull and difficult to read, although the art is easier to follow. The Dredd here simply isn't what we've come to expect. It's not the standard of Wagner. It's hard to recognise the character.

The lead Dredd story was okay, if a bit weak, and that always lets the Meg down. I did enjoy the Fink Angel story and I thought the small press thing was better than we've had in that slot. It was fun.

I'm relieved Big Robots has ended. It wasn't really thrilling, was it? It suffered, as others have said, due to the monthly Meg's time-lag effect.

The best thing in the comic was the Bolland pin-up, IMO. Oh dear.

But I'm more optimistic about the Meg than I have been for a while. I feel like there may be light at the end of the tunnel, as the new(ish) editor starts to clear out the leftovers from his predecessor.

- Trout

"I still think that any story in the Meg that runs longer than three parts max starts to outsty its welcome due to the monthly format."

My thought (as probably expressed before) was to print three strips with a greater page count - say 8-15 pages - but which therefore never need to be published over more than three months. Probably unworkable though.

"what happened to Lenny Zero? Demarco PI?"

Good god, anything but Demarco...!

>Good god, anything but Demarco...!

demarco could have been great, but her first solo outing was so bad.

Anything But Demarco  the question is a Talking Ape Butler any worse than Satanus?

DeMarco as seen in Doomsday was brilliant stuff - DeMarco with talking gorilla butler was awful.

Talking apes, thats so passe

There's all these intelligent apes, right - all (despite the stringent anti-mutie laws) allowed to live in MC-1.  So, they'd interbreed with humans, wouldn't they?  How come there's been no Romeo & Juliet stylee Don Uggy Apelino's daughter romantically involved with Two-Time Tony's son?

I'm still confused about the mostly missing, and yet highly popular Cursed Earth Koburn.  I mean, you look at something like Sin Dex or Nikolai Dante in the weekly - an instant hit with readers so the editorial run and run with them.  

But didn't Rennie himself decide to 'give the series a rest'?

Quoted from the 2000AD Review site:

"Probably taking a hiatus also, after the end of the current story running in the Meg."

There's all these intelligent apes, right - all (despite the stringent anti-mutie laws) allowed to live in MC-1. So, they'd interbreed with humans, wouldn't they? How come there's been no Romeo & Juliet stylee Don Uggy Apelino's daughter romantically involved with Two-Time Tony's son?

There was, in a Mean Machine filler story during the dying days of the Megazine's volume 3. For no particular reason, he was a gumshoe, and was hired by a mob boss to get his daughter back, who'd run off with an ape mob boss.

I seem to remember a story with a Judge going undercover in Apetown and falling for a female ape.

- Steve

For some reason DeMarco seems best as a supporting character - her PI incarnaton is actually good in Simping Detective.  I'd really like to see a solo series work, but the ex-judge / billionaire-heiress / PI / ape-botherer is just too much in the mix.  A straight MC-1 PI gig (as set up at the start of Doomsday) would have been just grand.

"...it is safe to say that the audience is not sharply divided , not when the Majority of readers who post on this forum agree that Satanus is one of the greatest pieces of Shite that has ever graced the pages of british comics!"

What?! I absolutely love Satanus, the best strip I've ever read bar none...


Just joking.


...I'll get my coat!

Finally Meg 264 arrived.

I thought the Hicklenton interview was one of the best so far.  Really enjoyed that, I'd always assumed he'd maybe spent ten years in an asylum after a nervous breakdown and he did the Blood of Satanus on day release as part of 'art therapy' so pleased to find out otherwise.  Glad things are going well for him and glad he's going to stick around.

Also enjoyed the David Goodman small press strip strip, as always, charming stuff.

And that's all I'm doing.