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Cover - Beautiful! I'm a sucker for a Christmas Dredd image and Greg Staples is one of my favourite artists of all time!

Dredd - Beautiful art by Dave Taylor but I beg you all - [spoiler]please read until the second-last page then skip the final one! Nasty horrible Wagner![/spoiler]

Citi-Def - I don't think this'll be everyone's cuppa synthicaf but I really enjoyed this. I liked the manga style art and the colours were superb. I'm more than willing to give this a chance.

Tanky - Fun, fun, fun with some beautiful layouts from our Rufus. Ace!

Insurrection - As I flipped through the meg I saw giant Gorillas and thought "Here we go again..." however, on reading the strip I really enjoyed it. MacNeil is on fire too.

Other Stuff - Dreddlines (that nutjob from Paisley is in there again), interview with Greg Staples, films, Manga and Spirit articles. Toilet reading ahoy!

Bonus Graphic Novel - I was excited for a bunch of Christmas Dredd but it's really hit and miss. We have Dredd: Auld Acquaintance (cool!), Cal-Hab Justice: Hogmanay (noooooo!), Dredd/The Creep (erm...), Tharg's Christmas Tale (yay!), Dredd: The Santa Affair (good), Dredd: A Christmas Carol (ace!) and two Richard Dolan Christmas Covers, the second of which has always been a favourite of mine!

A very enjoyable Meg indeed!

The creep?!? no....they seriously didn't reprint that did they?!?

My overriding thought about this month's Meg is that Insurrection may be the most interesting new Dreddworld strip in a loooong time... Really looking forward to seeing where this goes.

Citidef also impresses - I like the dynamism of the art, even if everyone looks a little too 'clean', and the Judge looks far too young to be out on her Long Walk. But a reference to 'Andrews, Chapman and Corden' makes me wonder seriously if that Tony Lee fella is running short on names already! Someone buy him one of those 'baby name' dictionaries for xmas.

Dredd is a cracker (seasonal Wagner always is), the GN is a mixed bag to say the least, and Tank Girl is starting to drag a little now, although this is certainly no comment on the creators - if I'm going to invest in something for six months or more, I prefer something a bit more substansial to get my teeth into than 'madcap humour'.

Quote from: "Dark Jimbo"But a reference to 'Andrews, Chapman and Corden' makes me wonder seriously if that Tony Lee fella is running short on names already! Someone buy him one of those 'baby name' dictionaries for xmas.

i think tony will be very wary about any parcels he opens this year!!!

I'm having my Xmas pressies vetted by ninjas before opening this year...

Fun fact. Stalag 666 was written/plotted after Citi Def was started, but around the same time as I was working on it. Andrews, Corden and Chapman were going to be members of Citi Def before I decided to use them in Stalag. (This was all in the planning stages)

When I realised that Stalag was out first, I thought it'd be an amusing nod to have them all killed off in issue #1

Of course, there are still those who wish that I did that in the first issue of Stalag....

Cover - I like it.  :shock:  Classic Wagner.

Citi-Def - I hate this kind of artwork, looks like a kiddie cartoon.

Tank-Girl - I know the strip has a history, but I don´t get it and this isn´t for me.

Insurrection - great art. When does Abnett sleep?

The articles were hit and miss as usual. I liked the history of The Spirit, which I never read and could never be bothered to read about, and the nerd-hate for the Miller movie has long stoped to be amusing, so it was nice to read some facts.

The bonus reprints were all new for me, but it sure was a mixed bag. Auld Acquaintance was a lot of fun, but some of the others were very boring or one-note.

Flicked through the Meg on Saturday morning; liked the Dredd tale even if the ending was somewhat predictable - I was expecting a spin on O Henry's classic The Gift of the Magi - and the rest of the Meg was so-so and I didn't feel compelled to read anything else there and then (but rather come back to it over the coming month at my leisure) until I reached 'Insurrection'. Talk about saving the best 'til last! Wow! Gorgeous monochrome art from Colin MacNeil and a storyline that looks like it could be a classic. Very much looking forward to future instalments and, of course, I'll be rooting for the colonists - even if they don't stand a snowball's chance in hell! Gotta love an underdog.  

Great Meg - really liked this issue

Cover - perfect, my little lad thought it was funny that Judge Dredd was arresting Santa

Dredd - Bitter sweet, always makes me wonder what kind of Christmas Wagner has

Tanky - love TG, Rufus is ace

Insurrection - wonderful story, but if muties are made freeman in MC1 surely they should be in colonies? Also, and I love Colin McNeils art, but isn't it just a tad...

Oh yeah forgot, Citi-Def - nice art, unsure yet though...

Other bits - Meh!

Does this mean we'll ever get to see the return of guy in a vest and at the end a flight jacket?

I've got it but I just beed time to read it.  Love the contents of the GN.  That'll get me in the spirit when I go off for Christmas.

A bleak Christmas Dredd from John Wagner... that's the stuff!

Utterly wonderful. The last frame of the second-last page had me going, "Oh noooooo..."

Overall, not a bad Meg at all. I really enjoyed Insurrection, too.

- Trout

Everything Pete Wells said... plus+

Citidef: Isn't that the wrong Judge doing the double take when his buddy waxes on about the gun?

How come MC-1 can afford all that space hardware?  petty, I know but  that's the service we supply  

Quote from: "Pete Wells"Other Stuff - Dreddlines (that nutjob from Paisley is in there again)

'tis true but alas the content was edited by a maniac with a pair of shears. Here, for the first time, is the full expurgated text complete with less fawning and comments that make almost sense.


"Meg 277 : Wheely Good - Tanks‏"

Dear Dreddlines,
 
Many thanks for the top notch Megazine 277.
 
I enjoyed the graphic novel of Lawcon a Dredd tale from perhaps a weaker period of Megazine history. I didn't buy the Meg at this time and my later ebay gap filling meant that the story didn't receive my full attention. It is a good way to use the format to showcase less well known strips or even as a way of collecting scattered episodes into a handy package.
 
Dredd's Ratfink adventure ended strongly and although I didn't believe that Dredd had been killed off panel (as if I was supposed to!) it was still a clever ruse to out wink Ratfink. I liked that his back story remains largely unknown and I'm sure the iso-cubes will do their usual bang up job of letting criminals escape just in time for their next adventure.
 
Elsewhere Anderson started well in a distinctly un-psi filled adventure but I'm sure she'll be melding with the plant life consciousness in no time! I was a bit confused by 'James Anderson block' is this the name of a lucky reader or a tribute to the cricketer? If it's the latter I'm sure the reference was missed by 95% of your readership. Maybe the Anderson is a relative of Cass' and all will be made clear.
 
Tank Girl continued to earn her Meg stripes in a fun story with some cracking Rufus art. I especially liked the splash of the skateboarder who's so good that he doesn't even need a back set of wheels!
 
All in all a great offering and with Canon Fodder up next month this are looking brighter still!

Quote from: "Proudhuff"Citidef: Isn't that the wrong Judge doing the double take when his buddy waxes on about the gun?

Nope. He waxes about the gun oil and then goes "...what?" at his partner's expression...

Tank Girl continued to earn her Meg stripes in a fun story with some cracking Rufus art. I especially liked the splash of the skateboarder who's so good that he doesn't even need a back set of wheels!
 
Just to put your mind at rest.. It was covered by the logo...

Ha ha - cheers Rufus - thought as much, but in the best Roy Walker tradition 'Say what you see'!

Quote from: "Buttonman"Ha ha - cheers Rufus - thought as much, but in the best Roy Walker tradition 'Say what you see'!

Fair play! My apologies...Logo had to go somewhere!

Nice pic don't understand what all the commotion was for, but it served for a little show and tell.

To my amazement they are stocking meg in WHSmiths when I'm sure the last two months have not seen shelf life for it in that store. What's going on, can anyone say? I've just got mine today.

Not a bad Meg at all.

Bloody Grinch Wagner, what a miserable ending! (great stuff, obviously).

Really starting to enjoy Tank Girl now.  About that art: either the double-page compositions or the faintly out of focus pixellated effect makes the Tank Girl pages somehow seem bigger than normal, almost like reading a broadsheet instead of a tabloid.  Odd sensation, but I like it.

Alec says an odd thing in his Watchmen preview notes, when he notes that the movie characters are  "ever-so-slightly superhuman", "no doubt aware that non-powered crime-fighters in silly costumes might work on the page but can't be taken seriously on screen". Isn't that the point, or at least one of them?  There are only two players in Watchmen, Jon as the real superhuman and Veidt the self-made genius/athlete, a sort of optimised human.  The other folk are just people in silly costumes who don't make any difference in the long run, and at the end Jon makes it clear that Adrian isn't actually any different.  It is a worry I had from the first moment I saw Nite Owl's flying drop kick, but this seems to confirm it. That said, I'm impressed and excited enough by the trailers to withhold any judgement.

Hi TordelBack! Yeah, what I mean to say is that Snyder's kind of tweaked the world itself, plasticised it slightly so that it works more along the lines of animation than photo-realism (in the same way that 300 with all its slo-mo and hyper-real action was kinda like a live-action cartoon). However, those character's don't literally have superpowers within the story, he's just stylized them in keeping with the tone of the film. I hope that makes sense - he made it sound very convincing at the time...

good cover but surprised its taken so long for dredd to get him...strange man breaking into peoples houses AND sneaking into our childrens bedrooms AND WE LEAVE HIM A DRINK AND MINCE PIE OUT!!!!!!!!!  

hence its called the silly season!

I really like the art on Citidef I can identify where characters are and what they aspire to immediately. The "what?" bit caught me unawares at first but i didn't mind hovering over it a second as the artwork glowed off the page. And it's funny!

Elsewhere, on the Dredd story I thought Dave Taylor took me into a vile dystopia, cramped and full of frustrations the kind honed by Wagner's precision writing. The apococriptica had me reeling at the last. I liked how DT stuck in a mini story of Dredd's dented helmet, which he had replaced by the time of the arrest.

Insurrection looks very much Warhammer and I think this could be great in a fantasy roll play arena too. I myself would love an SJS death'shead squad of figurines addorning a K-Alpha planetary model landscape.Monkeys,mutants and robots too? Ace! Nevermind the rebelling mega-city marines. I think the premise is there for a stonking story with MacNiell on the art, who is a legend, as definitive as D'Isrealli IMO. Love the Y-fronts in the uplift dorms.

One complaint I have is there was a fading on the bottom of the sixth page of Tank Girl. Is that supposed to happen? Rufus Dayglo has revved up that pacing and consistantly, creating stunningly designed pages. Alan Martin is a very wacky writer isn't he?


Having the Greg Staples interrigation to lookforward too is another good thing as that man really is all out for the limits and taking no prisoners.

And the rest of the features are balancing up nicely as I'd hoped by the end of this year. Really good package and well measured editing.

I'm sorry about the printing mistake.. that's out of my hands sadly... It's on all the copies I've seen which was a bummer, but worse things happen. LOL

Anyway.. my apologies. I hope it didn't detract too much..

It's not your fault- so you don't need to apologise you crazy man!

Hah, I thought it was intentional -  a sort of fading-out associated with Tankie's battered noggin getting subjected to too much madness.  Shows know ought about aht.

Well if Rufus hadn't so kindly cleared up the matter, Tordle, then I would have thought the same thing.

Interesting comment about sales rising since the move to bagged megs. I'd love to know what the figures actually are.

Quote from: "flesario"Interesting comment about sales rising since the move to bagged megs.

Not a big surprise to me. It appears people are way more likely to buy bagged magazines with 'free' gifts, as pretty much proved by the games mag industry.

Quote from: "Pete Wells"Citi-Def - I don't think this'll be everyone's cuppa synthicaf but I really enjoyed this. I liked the manga style art and the colours were superb. I'm more than willing to give this a chance.

Defnitely not mine, sadly, but I've never really got on with stories that take a group from the Dreddverse (Wally Squad, Holocaust Squad and so on) and put them centre stage. Here, it's even more of a problem, as Citi-Def has never made much sense as a group even with Wagner using them.

Not sure how anyone could get away with breaking an MC1 custom official's legs without being cubed - was it just a  gag?

Vaguely annoying that Citi-Def are all apparently children, but that might just be middle-aged prejudice and artistic quirks.

Regards

Robin

Dredd: up yours Xmas!  Good stuff.

Tank Girl:  kind of distracted by the art, which is good in a mental way and very playful, but the story needs a bit more oomph, entertaining as it is.  Still good stuff.

Citi-Def:  Not a criticism of the story as much as it is the timing so soon on the heels of ratfink - every Cursed Earth-set story will now seem to me to be a riff on cinema opus The Hills Have Eyes, as the place seems to gone from being a dangerous anarchic sci-fi fantasy world of giant flying rat-swarms and wandering clone dinosaur packs to a wasteland of stubble-faced gap-toothed rapists, and it's a bit of a step-down, in my opinion.  I like Jackademus' art, although more background details would have been advisable, and Lee's story whips along nicely in a good mix of compressed and decompressed.  Good Stuff.

Insurrection:  Named after the best Star Trek movie - that's a good sign!  Good strip, all the same, with a nice idea at it's core.  Was this a Warhammer strip originally?  It looks like it could have been with a few art tweaks.  Space fleet looks too large for MC1 - it'd take years to build something like that, and if they'd had it during events like Doomsday, it makes you wonder why they had to go cap in hand to Brit-Cit for help.  Also, during Total War, the Dems would have had to factor a large fleet of hostile ships waiting to bomb them to buggery and back after they'd kicked the Judges out, so it's a bit odd no-one mentioned it at the time.  Still, shaping-up to be the standout strip of the Meg.

No offence to wrly_bird, but I'd argue with some of the conclusions of the manga article - pointing out the low-quality of proofing and translations for western manga collections would have helped explain the reluctance of extant comics audiences to fully embrace them, rather than saying they can't wrap their heads around reading pages backwards.  I'm constantly taken out of manga strips by having to stop and mentally rearrange the order of speech balloons because they're placed inside the  'balloons' in the western reading model (and not the Japanese one) in random panels - that impacts on the narrative and flow of the story for me, and if it was the kind of thing that went on in a western comic, I'd call that comic as being poorly-made and stop buying it.  Just my tuppence' worth, all the same.

A good meg all round, and for my money ahead of the weekly in terms of quality.

Quote from: "Proudhuff"How come MC-1 can afford all that space hardware?  petty, I know but  that's the service we supply  

Perfectly valid point, I thought - if MC1 had that kind of military power they'd rule the planet.

Great art, though, and the story seems good. I suspect that the much-maligned Hershey has absolutely no idea what's been going on out in the colonies, and Senior Judge Kulotte is ultimately responsible for the lack of support and the order to withdraw citizenship.

Regards

Robin

QuoteNo offence to wrly_bird, but I'd argue with some of the conclusions of the manga article

It was actually Matthew Badham who wrote that piece, Bongo Jack. So feel free to be as offensive as you like.  

Dredd strip was great - I really could do with seeing more and more of Dave Taylor's art.

Citi-Def strip was also a good introduction and looks fun - it wasn't all hillbilly cannibals - they were flying dinosaurs pirates and big T-rexs.  However I didn't like teh art at all. I don't like Manga stylings and it all seemed to clean and colourful and young.

Insurrection was just a brilliant, brilliant first episode from Dabnett.  Funny well observed dialogue, great brief character introductions (already I like them) and with a great sense of impending disaster.  Artwork is just brilliant as well - I know I'll be asking for an Uplift in a battle suit as my next sketch.

Don't think I'll be reading the Manga article and I always but always disagree with Wrly_Brd on film (except, I think you liked Dark Knight?) and I will get round to reading the Greg Staples interview eventually.

A bagged set of Christmas tales? No thanks?

Okay, here goes:
Dredd: Not bad. The ending was like a boot in the groin though. However, i don't think Prog 2008's Christmas Dredd last year will ever be beaten.
Insurrection: Never been a fan of 'Space Judge' stories, or indeed most 2000ad space stories in general (except Halo Jones and Nemesis), but this looks good. Great dialogue, which is something i always appreciate.
Citi-def: Too early to tell. Nice to see the return of the more scary parts of the Cursed Earth like dinosaurs, but it just hasn't seemed such an epic place since the 80's. More a flat, boring wasteland, which i suppose most of it would be.
Tank Girl: Used to love it in Deadline but it's not doing much for me now. Maybe I'm just getting old. Where's all the extra bits, like Bert saying to Ernie 'Why don't you shut the fuck up with that "Hey Bert" shit'?  Love Rufus's artwork, but the story and art seem a bit lacking in the superfluous but very funny details they used to have.

Merry Christmas!

As usual Mrs Logan has my Christmas Meg and its presently trying to burst out of the wrapping paper thats trying to contain it.
Roll on Christmas morning.

Hey, I wanted this story in the graphic novel.

That was my first 2000ad Xmas. Brings back memories as I read Dredd in a break one evening when we were preparing for the school Christmas play. Walter's present to Dredd was an automatic nose wiper as Dredd had the sniffles. Story art by McMahon if I remember correctly. The issue was ruined throughout by small X Wing Fighters which were plastered in the strips for a competition.

Quote from: "wrly_bird"It was actually Matthew Badham who wrote that piece, Bongo Jack. So feel free to be as offensive as you like.  

Ah, cool.  I wasn't going to mention it, but since I have a free pass...

The article smelled of wee.

I thought maybe it was just the printing ink, but it's just those pages, and none other that stink of urine.  Urine and '"non-manga thickos can't their heads around reading backwards! Ho ho!"
I still read a lot of manga, but wouldn't reccommend most of it to anyone on account of the poor proofing, atrocious dialogue/translation, and the fact that most of it's quite superficial as a result of the western reproductions clearly being aimed at kids, regardless of the occasionally-commendable ambitions of the source material.  It's this low bar that keeps 'regular' comics readers away and not the scary backwards pages, because those of us who read the likes of 2000ad are used to editors and writers doing something more than just turning up for work.  Manga audiences not so much (if the quality and sales of Naruto comics - for example - are anything to go by).

A creep story....

bloody hell quality control must have took christmas off early

I find both the Creep and the Cal-Hab stories strange choices. They are both christmas specials from old stories that I can barely remember the plot to. To anyone who hasn't read the main stories they must just be confusing.

Liked all of the stories in the main meg though

Hi there,

I am from germany (sorry for the not so perfect english) and want to ask how the bonus reprints are presented?

Are they a TPB ore a magazine?

Thanks!

You're English is better than my German...

The reprints are presented in a magazine format but one that matches the style of the new collections. So they have a stapled spine but otherwise bear a resemblance to the Rebellion graphic novels.

Thank you very much!

Merry Christmas.

Overall, this is a good meg, but I doubt I'll start buying regularly.

I picked up Meg 279 as a Christmas treat (having dropped it with the recent price increase).

A decent Judge Dredd story, better than the one that appeared in Prog 2009. One thing that rankled a bit was that it appeared [spoiler]the girl thought her boyfriend had got his ill-gotten gains selling drugs rather than stealing from the dealers; but maybe she was better off not knowing, and thus not worrying about reprisals. Either way, they'd still have ended up in the cubes for bribery.[/spoiler]

An okay Cursed Earth story. So far, nothing we haven't seen before. The Citi-Def members looked too young to remember Block Mania thirty years before, so presumably they're referring to accounts they've read or holo-vid footage they've seen on tri-D.

The space judges story was not bad either, but I have the same reservations other people have expressed. Why bother to revoke citizenship on the colony world? How come Mega-City One can afford such a huge military commitment to put down a rebellion when it couldn't commit troops or ships to help with the war? How can that message and decision have come from Hershey? It seems a bit unlike her.

Text bits: film reviews good as ever. As I've said before, I don't get out much, I'm too busy to keep up with new entertainment, I don't read and can't afford film magazines, so I appreciate them in the Megazine (which I no longer buy!).

I enjoyed the Greg Staples interview. I certainly wouldn't be complaining about a gig that paid $1,000 an illustration! Nor would I care if the audience appreciated the artwork or not. I'd happily flush my drawings down the bog for $1,000 a go.  

The Manga piece: I don't give a stuff about Manga, and this article did nothing to change my mind. Manga still seems to me to be typified by badly made comics with stilted dialogue and interchangeable and generic situations and an ethic of 'anyone can have a go', which is reinforced by the publisher of the 400-page anthology the article promotes. The popularity of Japanese comics in the US and UK, and the eagerness of western youth to imitate them, is partly attributable to orientalism - a fascination with the style, form and content of something foreign for the sake of its foreigness, and partly attributable to said youth's lack of familiarity with or sense of belonging to a culture or tradition of their own. Ironically, the same thing happened in Japan at the end of World War II, when Japanese children began to hero-worship American cartoon heroes like Popeye the Sailorman.

QuoteThe popularity of Japanese comics in the US and UK, and the eagerness of western youth to imitate them, is partly attributable to orientalism - a fascination with the style, form and content of something foreign for the sake of its foreigness,

I agree, at least in part. I haven't liked much of the Manga I've read (although to be fair I haven't read much.) To be fair, I think the stilted dialogue might be in part to the poor translation. or maybe even too literal translation. (I.e. certain styles of saying things might be common in one country but sound hokey in the next. Hence a further translation should be required.
I did read a really chilling Manga horror book last year though, which was pretty good. My experience with Anime has been mixed.  I've no doubt there is Manga and Manga, and probably other stuff I'd like if I could find it.

Quoteand partly attributable to said youth's lack of familiarity with or sense of belonging to a culture or tradition of their own.

Maybe. I think it's a bit of a 'grass is greener' thing really.  It's kind of like the fascination a lot of Westerners have with katanas (Samurai swords.)  They certainly are beautiful to look at, and well made, but they're often touted as being 'the best sword ever.' Actually the European and British swords of the past were just as good, and the knights of the past just as well trained (at least some of them were.) They even had their own martial arts although they didn't call it that. Martial art- the art of war. They knew how to fight. That's what it means.

QuoteIronically, the same thing happened in Japan at the end of World War II, when Japanese children began to hero-worship American cartoon heroes like Popeye the Sailorman.

Heh, that's interesting, because often in Manga the heroes are actually depicted with a Western appearance. The villains are often depicted with slanted oriental eyes.  And these are Japanese artists!

Quote from: "Mardroid"To be fair, I think the stilted dialogue might be in part to the poor translation. or maybe even too literal translation.

That, and imitation in western-originated material. British Manga-inspired comic book artists seem to go out of their way to write dialogue that is oblique, cryptic, or merely descriptive of the actions shown: "He moved lithely, and pressed the space between us." or "Ha! I am punching you in the face!"

QuoteThe popularity of Japanese comics in the US and UK, and the eagerness of western youth to imitate them, is partly attributable to orientalism

That is a relief, I thought it might have something to do with all the schoolgirls' panties and tentacle rape on display.  I've tried to like Manga, I really have, but aside from some of the funny animal stuff (Gon, What's Michael) it just doesn't work for me.  Meg articles aside, can anyone here recommend something that a fogey like me might honestly enjoy (and please, no schoolgirls or spurting appendages of any kind).  Bearing in mind that my favourite current/ongoing non-Tooth non-Star Wars comics are Age of Bronze, Berlin, Incredible Hercules, Ultimate Spiderman and Umbrella Academy. I'm also favourably disposed to Fables, Mouse Guard and (may the good lord have mercy on my soul) Crossed.

Quote from: "TordelBack"I thought it might have something to do with all the schoolgirls' panties and tentacle rape on display

I'm led to believe that's not the reason for its popularity among teenage girls! Teenage boys who leave school with no qualifications, in between arrests for drugs and joyriding offences, yes. Part of Manga's attraction for a large part of the teenage market is the soppy romantic escapism it offers, where standing around with flappy coats and floppy hair blowing in the wind equals profundity, and clenched fists, a round, wide-open mouth, and beetroot-red, tear-streaked cheeks conveys the very height of human emotion. It's not all tentacle-rape.

I can't really tell you much of anything about contemporary manga, but the Marvel reprint of Akira was one of the first non 2000ad comics I fell in love with, I still look at them now. I like the Kazuo Koike samurai stuff too, I just got volume 1 of Lady Snowblood. In my experience manga is like ITV: You have to wade through an awful lot of excrement to get to Harry Hill.

Meg: Incredible art on the Dredd I thought, and I enjoyed Insurrection a great deal, maybe because I'm really into John Adams at the minute. I'm rooting for them dumbass colonists...
I'm a real sucker for a Christmas Dredd story, so I had fun with the reprint collection. The Creep was abysmal however, but whatever happened to Kevin Cullen? Nice stuff.
And seeing Ro-Jaws kicking the shit out of The Dictators of Zrag made me laugh out loud too.
Cheers, Greenbonce!

Quote from: "satchmo"In my experience manga is like ITV: You have to wade through an awful lot of excrement to get to Harry Hill.

Jesus! That doesn't really sound like a journey worth embarking upon.  :lol:  :D
Jet Girl and Dee Dee Ramone driving a 1973 Matchbox 'Flying Bug' is the coolest thing to have appeared in the Megazine this year, and reminded me of seeing the Matchbox Adventure 2000 vehicle in The Cursed Earth. Slickly drawn and confidently written, Tank Girl was the best thing in the Megazine, bar none. Makes me want to read the parts I've missed.

Cheers Usher,

The Matchbox car was certainly a nod and wink to the Cursed Earth story..and to my childhood favourites... Superfasts, and Rollamatics!

PS - I hope everyone has a fab New Year.

Rufus... still scribbling...

**In my experience manga is like ITV: You have to wade through an awful lot of excrement to get to Harry Hill.**

I could say the same thing about Marvel and DC comics and I have no aversion to superhero comics. Lots of good manga out there if you know what to look for. That's the problem with manga: you can't go in blind. If you do, you end up saying jeezuz why would anyone bother.

Very true, I make an effort to catch some recent manga now and again and usually feel seriously out of my depth.  
But I feel like that with Marvel and DC all the time and I've been reading those since I was a kid

**But I feel like that with Marvel and DC all the time and I've been reading those since I was a kid **

Seriously. When someone suggests a Marvel/DC title to me I ask, "Is it continuity free?" Much in the same way a home buyer would ask if their new house had been checked for lead paint and asbestos.

Comic Book Resources is doing it's top 100 comics of the year rundown which I'm looking at to get ideas for good reads. That wheelchair basketball manga sounds class, I might have to check it out. I need to broaden my horizons, I do tend to mostly read stuff about men who stab other men

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page ... e&id=19308 (http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=19308)

Finally found time to sit down with my Meg and all I can say is thank god for Wagner & Taylor because I was hugely dissapointed in the rest of the Meg.
Interviews I like but the rest of the text features I just skip over as they dont interest me.
Ive never liked Tank Girl so whereas I like Rufus' art thats all im looking at
Insurrection im hoping wins me over but Citi-Def looks awfull and the story isnt doing anything for me

HumBug 8-?

Quote from: "TordelBack"Meg articles aside, can anyone here recommend something that a fogey like me might honestly enjoy (and please, no schoolgirls or spurting appendages of any kind).  

The horror Manga I mentioned earlier was Tomie by Junji Ito. If you like horror you might like this. The main character is a schoolgirl though, so maybe not...  I dare you to read it and not feel disturbed though.

TordelBack, you might try Monster by Naoki Urasawa. It's a straight ahead thriller without a tentacle in sight.

Thanks for all the input, gents - i'll make a list, and do some previewing in the comic shop this morn.  I know it's like only reading a Dan Brown and a John Norman and saying "these book-things are all shite", but I I don't think I've ever enjoyed Manga with a human protaganist (Akira looked nice), so here's hoping.