2000 AD Online Forum

Only read Dredd and Citi-def so far, but I had to bag the thread to highlight a most remarkable bit of Dredd dialogue; "Don't feed me the mouldy munce Citizen!". Is Dredd turning into Frank Butcher? ("wot am I, some kind of pilchard, creep?") A nice 'fascist overkill' type story from Wagner, and great to see Cliff Robinson on art duties.

I think Citi-def is a load of fun if you don't take it too seriously. Not generally a fan of manga-style art, but I quite like Jackademus' (???) work, apart from the over-bulbous judge helmet.

Quick word about Insurrection - when did this trend appear for putting the titles on the last page of a comic rather than at the beginning? It annoys me probably more than it should. Stop it!

Quote from: "dandontdare"Quick word about Insurrection - when did this trend appear for putting the titles on the last page of a comic rather than at the beginning? It annoys me probably more than it should. Stop it!

IIRC, Tempest also had the titles at the end of the strip.

Dredd, nice little story but a bit light.

Citi-Def, possibly one of the worst Dredd World stories ever and thats saying something.

Insurrection, nice art and will hopefully read better in one chunk.

Articles and interviews, month by month I read these less and less. If I wasn't such a sad fanboy I'd have dropped the Meg at the start of the year.

In contrast to Logan's now-obligatory "I'm not enjoying this very much" post, I'd like to say that I'm thoroughly enjoying the Meg thus far in 2009, with Insurrection in particular being a surprise highlight. This month brought the added pleasure of a Chopper reprint that I had largely forgotten despite it being excellent.

Good stuff ... my only quibble is that maybe some of the Dredd-world stuff that's currently in 2000AD would be better placed here, whilst some of the stuff that's been in the Meg (I'm thinking Fiends of the Eastern Front particularly) would have been more suited to 2000AD ...?

That is -- however -- a very minor niggle. For me, at least, the revival in the Meg this year has been startling in its suddenness, but most welcome.

Cheers!

Jim

Quote from: "Jim_Campbell"Good stuff ... my only quibble is that maybe some of the Dredd-world stuff that's currently in 2000AD would be better placed here, whilst some of the stuff that's been in the Meg (I'm thinking Fiends of the Eastern Front particularly) would have been more suited to 2000AD ...?

I'm generally with Logan in that I could do without the Meg and am just getting it for the Dredd. There are some good things that pop up from time to time, such as Insurrection, but they are few and far between.

I've probably said this before, but I think one of the Meg's problems is the Judge Dredd part of the title. It encourages, if not enforces, Dredd World Stories, and the vast majority of these are not that interesting. Oddly, enough, the best of them don't actually need to be part of Dredd World. Devlin Waugh would probably work a lot better without the Dredd World baggage, and Insurrection would also work fine outside Dredd World (and it was probably imagined, if not originally written, as a Warhammer 40K strip, anyway). What's more, it would avoid the issues of continuity and tone.

Your point about placing series appropriately is a good one, but I wonder if what's needed is a change of focus, with the Meg becoming a comic for 2000AD stories rather than Judge Dredd Stories.

Regards

Robin

Hey, as of this week we have 6 ongoing Dreddworld stories across the two titles - 2 Dredd strips, Cit-Def, Marauder, Insurrection, and Low-Life - not even counting the Chopper reprint.  Is that a record?

My only complaint is I wish the chopper story was a proper gn in its own right

Does the Chopper reprint mag contain Dead Man's Curve and Soul On Fire, or is it just Song of the Surfer?

QuoteMy only complaint is I wish the chopper story was a proper gn in its own right

Agree completely - I'd buy that GN in a second - especially so if it was bundled with the stories mentioned above.

I just noticed there was a new Chopper (by Wagner and Patrick Goddard) story published during the late 1300s (during my time away from 2000ad) was it any good?

Quote from: "radiator"I just noticed there was a new Chopper (by Wagner and Patrick Goddard) story published during the late 1300s (during my time away from 2000ad) was it any good?

Not bad, if a little needless (it didn't really tell us anything new). Not much of note happened, but hey, it's Wagner, Chopper and Mega-City One, so it's worth reading.

Hm. Can't believe I'd never heard of it, and that I've only just discovered [spoiler]Jug McKenzie is dead[/spoiler]. Would like to read this - I've really enjoyed the recent collaborations between Wagner and Goddard. I actually wouldn't mind seeing all the Chopper solo material collected together - perhaps excluding the rather weak Supersurf 13 strip by John Higgins and Alan McKenzie(?) from the mid-nineties.

What are you people talking about?  Chopper died at the end of Song of the Surfer, inches from the finish line - it was very sad, but there you go.  All this other twaddle is make-believe nonsense.

The Big Meg was actually good though, and more importantly, it featured boobs.

I , for one am enjoying it... except the film review of course!

Dredd story: three driods to create the artwork? must be the levels of thrillpower, a bit like Monty Python's 'deadly joke'  This story is one for those of us who work in Libraries, me thinks.

Skimmed the Frank Q interview, it seemed more of a potted history that anything else.

Citi Def: Apart from the threatened rape (why is it never the males who get threatened in this way?) and the odd racist stereotype, I'm surprisingly enjoying this, I'm not a fan of manga, but it has been turned down enough here to make this readable,  in fact the story telling is better that a lot we've see recently from better 'admired' artists.
Ponder this, Why would a young Judge take the long walk?

Tank girl: Enjoyed this up to now, but feel it should natu'rally' have ended at the finish/half way line.

Deadwood article, great series, but I don't feel this will turn anyone on to it, sorry but it doesn't capture the essence of the series

Marshall Law: Really enjoyed this Pat Mills creation at the time, so a nice wee wander doon memoryloss lane for me, Should the M'Law strip be in the Megazine, I think so!

Warhammer insurrection, the only niggle with this is the whole MC1 resources thang once you ignore that and think of it as a Space Marines Adventure its the bee bollocks!

hey Buttonman, There's a letters page, anyboarders there?

Quote from: "TordelBack"What are you people talking about?  Chopper died at the end of Song of the Surfer, inches from the finish line - it was very sad, but there you go.  All this other twaddle is make-believe nonsense.

I'd kind of agree with that, BUT if you have Chopper stories set after SotS (which we have, mostly rubbish), it was fantastic seeing John Wagner giving him a quality sendoff.
It's a decent read and I like it a lot for giving one of my favourite fictional characters a [spoiler]happy ending[/spoiler].

I, for one, will not sit on the bus reading a copy of CHOPPER! especially when that knee pad on the cover looks like its a codpiece

QuoteThe Big Meg was actually good though, and more importantly, it featured boobs.

I know, and it tears me up inside.  But I've made my decision - Marlon Shakespeare is dead to me these past 19 years, and no amount of boobs will bring him back.

That's an amazing cover!  SO cool.

The first thing I did with my Meg was turn to Insurrection 40,000. It may just be one big battle, but it's oozing with thrill-power.  They just can't win, though, can they? The alternative reality MC-1 SJS force seems to be about the size of a small planet, and hardly breaking a sweat.  My guess: [spoiler]they'll enlist the help of the aliens they've just defeated[/spoiler].  Probably not, but I don't want them to lose.

Dredd story: I'm glad I didn't read this one first.  Oh dear!  When I can guess the punchline on page 1, frame 1, you know there's something wrong - I'm usually really slow on the uptake.  This is just an MC-1 cliche: small time perp gets in deep by trying to evade the law. Yawn.  And if you think that's harsh criticism, at least I'm not threatening to stab Ted Raimi in the face, or whatever it was the Meg film reviewer was saying in their highly constructive criticism.

Citi Def: "Ponder this, Why would a young Judge take the long walk?"  Either because the writer doesn't know enough about the setting, or because the artist can't draw anyone under the age of 21.  I'm not sure. Uhm ... where did the zombies suddenly appear from?  Why are peaceful looking norm townsfolk allowing zombies to wander around in their town anyway? If this is their attitude to self-defence in the Cursed Earth, how have they survived this long? And "Me likee! Me likee!"?  Obviously not aware of the "Blakee Pentax!" moratorium on stereotyped drivel, then? Having said all that, I've relaxed into reading this strip, in the same way as I might relax into reading the Beano if I saw one lying around.

Tank girl: I haven't read all of this yet - I'm saving it up later.  Love the art (it's really beautiful), love the madness of the stream of consciousness plot. Don't care that the finishing line wasn't the finishing line. Where did Booga's new sorta girlf come from again?  I'll need to re-read.

Two great, 1 mediocre, 1 laughably bad. A fifth would be lovely.

Quote from: "radiator"I just noticed there was a new Chopper (by Wagner and Patrick Goddard) story published during the late 1300s

Sheeesh. Not only do I open my copy of Zarjaz #0 to read "zarjaz is back!", suggesting there's a a previous run that I now need to track down, but now I find that 2000ad itself was being being published 600 or so years ago...

Will this collect-o-mania never end??

 

Steev

Quote from: "SpookyTheCat"

Quote from: "radiator"I just noticed there was a new Chopper (by Wagner and Patrick Goddard) story published during the late 1300s

Sheeesh. Not only do I open my copy of Zarjaz #0 to read "zarjaz is back!", suggesting there's a a previous run that I now need to track down, but now I find that 2000ad itself was being being published 600 or so years ago...v

Hey, we needed something to take our minds off the Black Death...

Quote from: "TordelBack"

QuoteThe Big Meg was actually good though, and more importantly, it featured boobs.

I know, and it tears me up inside.  But I've made my decision - Marlon Shakespeare is dead to me these past 19 years, and no amount of boobs will bring him back.

See, I've never got that. It looked like he could well have been dead, but it was always open for him to come back. Never liked Song of the Surfer myself but, given how popular it appears to be, I'm surprised they didn't go for the full GN treatment rather than this. The Big Meg was pointless.

Agree with Logan about the Dredd. A decent enough story that would've been fine in the Prog but seems a bit on the thin side for the Meg. With all the wordless pages in The Ecstasy and Blood Moon, it makes you wonder if the Wagner droid's pension fund is running low! I also can't believe nobody's done an overdue library book story before.

I'm liking Insurrection a lot but it's not got me creaming my jeans the way some folk seem to be. Whenever I sit and think about an Abnett story I'm always struck by how well put together they are, yet they very rarely jump out as my favourite strip when they appear. A reliable and underrated droid in my opinion.

QuoteIt looked like he could well have been dead, but it was always open for him to come back.

For me the problem is this:  With Chop dead, Song of the Surfer is a magnificent tragic epic - literally the ultimate Supersurf;  with Chop alive, it's a pretty pointless mess.   I didn't like the stories that followed it over in the Meg, although there was some nice art from time to time, and  the more recent Big Meg story was okay but aimless - so I'd rather have Chopper's story end in one big gory mess in Mega City 2 (as I thought it had at the time), than limp on through various Neighbours jokes and sort of putter out.

Aaargh, double post (albeit three days apart).  Got the Meg yesterday, and it's really all about Insurrection this week.  Best cover of the year to date (just ahead of Brooker's Dirty Frank and Holden's Dredd), and a great little strip.  

The other comics are pretty meh fare, and while the picturesque Tank Girl keeps my interest far better than any previous incarnation I feel it's suffering from the familiar curse of the Meg's glacial publication sechdule - nice twist this week too.  Film reviews were useful (wife a huge Campbell and Raimi fan), Deadwood piece told me nothing I didn't already know but I appreciate the effort, 86ers piece was timely, Quitely interview was good.

But the real value (other than that cover and a few pages of Insurrection) this week was the Chopper reprint.  I'd completely forgotten Soul on Fire, and it must be ten years minimum since I read Song of the Surfer - and both were absolutely brilliant. I demand proper GN treatment, maybe even including the Ennis stuff and the recent Wagner (if it has to).  Looking forward to next month!

Insurrection is the best thing I've read for ages. I may have to get some back issues to get the full picture or wait for the TPB.I found Tank Girl the least interesting IMHO but they are all good in their own way. Perhaps i should just bite the bullet and subscribe.

Never really liked Chopper all that much, it just never interested me.  Interesting article on the much missed Martial Law-a great read if you can  find it. Though it was printed originally by a Marvel off shoot I'm glad 2000AD took time to remind us of it's dark genius.

Quote from: "Zarjazzer"Insurrection is the best thing I've read for ages. I may have to get some back issues to get the full picture or wait for the TPB.I found Tank Girl the least interesting IMHO but they are all good in their own way. Perhaps i should just bite the bullet and subscribe.

Never really liked Chopper all that much, it just never interested me.  Interesting article on the much missed Martial Law-a great read if you can  find it. Though it was printed originally by a Marvel off shoot I'm glad 2000AD took time to remind us of it's dark genius.

Original was a 6-parter issued by Epic (DC off-shoot for mature comics because superwhoreos hadn't become 'mature' yet) that also put out The last Americian and some lovely Cam Kennedy art. Needless to say nobody bought it despite being brilliant.

As for people complaining about word-less  Wagner - you outta read The Last American....... a study in silence. "maybe he'll find someone to talk to this issue..... do be do be do...... do be do...... hummm. Nope".

Cheers for that BPP shows my memory is going. I vaguely remembered EPIC as the original publishers but convinced myself it was Marvel rather than DC. Oh well.  The Last American is another overlooked classic. I do have the notorious Kingdom of the Blind but my copy was published by TOXIC! who i seem to recall published alot of good stuff.

Epic's a Marvel offshoot - they tried reviving it recently but it didn't quite work out.

I'm really enjoying Insurrection but the way it's been shoehorned into being a Dreddverse strip erks me a little.
Tank Girl is always good fun and the art is lovely. Citi-Def isn't bad but the art just isn't right for the magazine in my opinion.

ah so my brain hasn't turned totally to mush! Cheers Al Ewing. I didn't realise until having read up on it now,  they published some cracking stuff the first Akira runs and the Light and darkness war by 2000ADer Cam Kennedy. Bless wiki.  :geek:

I loved the cover, I just am a massive MacNeil fan, I think he's the awesome sauce, yes he is!  

I agree with Proudhuff that the Frank Quitely interview is more a potted history, though I still enjoyed it - a "proper" interview would have been really nice.  

I liked the Dredd, it was mostly just a big chase scene but nicely done. Also I get where he's coming from having just had a £10.80 library fine (and I work in a library which makes it worse really!).  

Still enjoying Tank Girl and still not sure at all by Citi Def.  I liked Stalag and I like Tony Lee very much and I don't *hate* it, I'm just not very sure.

Insurrection rocks the big one.  I just love it, I think visually it's outstanding and it's a cracking story.  I am in love I am!

I know this sounds disloyal to Anthony Williams, an artist I like a great deal, but since I've seen Insurrection I can't help imagining McNeill drawing the recent VCs sequels.

Quote from: "TordelBack"I know this sounds disloyal to Anthony Williams, an artist I like a great deal, but since I've seen Insurrection I can't help imagining McNeill drawing the recent VCs sequels.

Yeah, he is rather good at drawing them...

QuoteThat is -- however -- a very minor niggle.

That's racist.

As Meg reader, sadly i did sold megs last year as there was story in it i didnt like to re-read again, guess what that was!

but this year, I got hooked into it, as there a best story, Insurrection. brilliant artwork! not know how it will ended, but after see that Apes does fight in flashback, but now see the Robots does really well! what next?

Insurrection is rollicking along like a war classic. Lovely swathes of battle smoothly interspaced with each sides control room dramas, relentlessly amping up the moral issues of this conflict.

I for one am glad to finally see what a Dreddverse looks like in Magma or just plain well made cartoon form. The Judge has white/grey hair so I'm not concerned about age, I agree with the lazy charactization of the ninjas but on the whole I think its a welcome breath of fresh air and would not mind seeing the style in the Meg again. I think if it was to go into the weekly it would overbear in its immaturity. Well this story would. I love it for its energy and zeal and courage. The pace of it fits with its style and the judge is wizened in the writing. I like it and consider it a valuable addition to the Meg.

Tank Girl strumpets along with as many twists as the race track its set upon. The art gets better n better. Nice change to red as Martin may be turning a serious corner of the absurd.

Dredd was amazing to behold. All that talent working on what looked more like a fun exercise than a concerted bit of continuity. I for one won't be looking out for the aiders and abetters of this loathsome act getting their just desserts in future months.What I did enjoy was the fact that little things pile up to make extraordinary amounts of stress. Nice utilization.

Read the Frank Q interview and agree that more analysis into why he went for the stories may have been more interesting. Only because I'd like to learn more about We3.

Looking forward to 4colour and Final Flight. I already disagree with movie review as I've bought My Name is Bruce and like the utter tosh that it is.

Readers letters being the final pleasure.

Seemple.

DREDD was just waaayyy to slight for the length of the tale.  Did anybody not figure out that it was a really minor crime for which he was being pusued after about two pages?  But the art was great.

KROMBASHER has hot it on the head when he used, somewhere in his usual meanderings, the word IMMATURITY to describe CITI_DEF. Tht's way I don't like it.

TANK GIRL amused me in several places (Texas Hold 'Em) but I feel the gags to page ratio isn't quite right. It's been good, but I din't think the gags have come quickly enough.

INSURRECTION continues to amaze me.  I like the fact that there's nobody coming to the rescue (at least not that we know of) and it's up to Luther and the colony alone. And the artwork is magnificent - even makes the big bulky armour look workable.

Text pieces - OK to pass the time but Marshall Law excepting the comic ones didn't delve into the places I wanted.  More on WE3 and All Star Superman would have been great and I wasn't sure the 86ers needed a piece really.  

+++Whore Alert+++   +++Whore Alert+++  +++Whore Alert +++
But Art has a nice idea in the Nort Sven Hassel type story. It's one I feel would have some legs - I did a short piece for Zarjaz (even called the Nort Sergeant Hassell) and was lucky enough to get Nick Dyer doing the pictures.

+++Whore Alert+++   +++Whore Alert+++  +++Whore Alert +++

And again, someone else was spot on when they said that the DEADWOOD piece didn't actually leave me wanting to watch DEADWOOD. Surely some mistake?

Oh and I thought the cover was absolutely fantastic.

Just typed a huge review of this issue then ost it when my connection died. Can't be chuffed to retype now

Only particularly fussed about one thing.  A four page puff peice just as we are finally getting a break in the Prog. Nice one.  You know who I mean.

Quote from: "Tiplodocus"But Art has a nice idea in the Nort Sven Hassel type story. It's one I feel would have some legs - I did a short piece for Zarjaz (even called the Nort Sergeant Hassell) and was lucky enough to get Nick Dyer doing the pictures.

Funnily enough, it was that story that I immediately thought about when I read that comment. What a great little tale on all counts that was.