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I never want to see Chris Weston's art sullied by superfluous colour again.

What's the point?  This is the best strip art he's ever created for Tharg.

Just in case there's any doubt how I feel about our economic miracle:

I was talking to a guy, recently. He lives in a tiny village, about twenty minutes drive from anything larger than a Spar shop. He is, if you'll pardon my bluntness, a head with a withered vestigial limb attached.

He was in a state because he had a benefits review coming up, and there's a real chance he'll have his specially adapted mobility vehicle taken from him and his incapacity benefit stopped.

The idea that he might soon be paying a taxi driver to take him to work at a city call centre every day fills me with personal shame. All to produce essentially meaningless headlines like the one Pro Bear reported, the only purpose of which is to placate the kind of ranting pub bore who imagines benefits claimants living it up watching daytime telly while he's stuck at work.

That at least sounds amusing, but BBC News in my region tonight led with how wages were rising faster and more people were in work than ever before.

Wonder where they got that idea? The ONS end of year report is published every December.

I found that link in an article on the economics section of the BBC website, which notes that this is due in part to a reduction in the number of students, carers and the long-term sick being forced back into work, and pensioners putting off retirement.

That story was alongside Pound sinks after no confidence report, UK economy slows as car sales fall, November shopper footfall 'worst since recession' and UK economic growth 'stalls' as service sector slides.

Brexit's pretty weird anyway, but seeing the news lead (two nights in a row) with a chorus of pensioners from the home counties singing Twisted Sister* outside parliament is David Lynch-level weird:

https://youtu.be/4xmckWVPRaI?t=97


* I admit, I had to google it

For everyone that is still waiting for their prog (like me), here is a nice preview: http://www.comicon.com/2018/12/11/the-weekly-2000ad-prog-2111-previewed-simply-having-a-zarjaz-scrotnig-christmas-time/

I must say that the preview of Slaine really looks good. The art is by Leonardo Manco and it just looks great (he did an once-off Rogue Trooper in prog 2050).

.. and Manco gave good Dredd in Rory McConville's A Better Class Of Criminal (2091-2099)



Colours on that were by Chris Blythe. Hopefully, these images offer a better idea of where Manco will take Slaine than the preview (which, I note, features the Bisley version of the logo):

Christmas

The Holidays, you racist bigot.

The Betamax copy of Star Wars I taped off the telly* featured the old STV logo with a bit of holly in the corner of the picture that flashed up to signify adverts were about to happen/had just happened.

Don't think anyone at Cowcaddens thought Wookies were especially Christmassy; the two big channels just rinsed the hell out of any films they bought and they saved the newest/biggest ones for Christmas. For around six or seven years**, a Star Wars film would have qualified as at least one of those.


* Which we watched 120 times - official!

** As TordelBack's discussed a few times, by around 1990, Star Wars was old hat. Couldn't give the shit away. It took a conversation with one of my brother's friends - the first hardcore Star Wars fan I ever knew - to make me realise it was actually a great film, rather than just another stupid thing I remembered fondly from a time when I couldn't be completely trusted to go to the toilet by myself. That and Alan Martin's memorable re-christening of the slacker demographic as Generation X-Wing, in Planet Swerve, positing that George Lucas had at least as much influence on the developing psychology of our 3-year-old selves as Kurt Cobain had on our 16-year-old selves.

It's all fucked, and nobody has a clue how to fix it:

Theresa May is doing well as Prime Minister - 33
Theresa May is doing badly as Prime Minister - 55

Jeremy Corbyn is doing well in opposition - 26
Jeremy Corbyn is doing badly in opposition - 60

Theresa May negotiated a good Brexit deal - 25
Theresa May negotiated a poor Brexit deal - 45

A different leader would get a better deal - 23
A different leader would not get a better deal - 52

Theresa May should not resign - 36
Theresa May should resign - 44

David Davis should be Prime Minister - 15
David Davis should not be Prime Minister - 34

Sajid Javid should be Prime Minister - 15
Sajid Javid should not be Prime Minister - 33

Boris Johnson should be Prime Minister - 22
Boris Johnson should not be Prime Minister - 57

We should take May's deal - 20
We should not take May's deal - 51

We should have a hard brexit - 23
We should not have a hard Brexit - 53

We should leave the EU - 39
We should stay in the EU - 42

A general election would resolve the Brexit problem - 18
A general election would not resolve the Brexit problem - 64

A 2nd referendum would resolve the Brexit problem - 31
A 2nd referendum would not resolve the Brexit problem - 51


In summary: May should resign, but nobody else would do any better; we should reject May's deal, but all the other options are awful  -  and we still can't even agree on whether we should stay or leave.

You're missing the bigger story, which is that at least one area of Fife now, apparently, has the internet*


* Replace the word 'Paris' with '1000 videos about how Disney DESTROYED Star Wars

but we all know how Wagner and Grant wrote - whoever got his name on the credit box was the one who actually wrote the script.

I believe it was whoever typed it up got the credit, but it was impossible to sort out which ideas were whose within each story.

'Whoever did the typing got the cash' is their wonderfully dry way of describing their creative process. Might be underselling their individual contributions just a little:



https://web.archive.org/web/20050412215234/http://www.2000adreview.co.uk:80/features/interviews/2005/grant/grant3.shtml

I've re-read it a couple of time but in the interview I found Richard Burton's assessment of Alan Grant bordering on offensive.

"like so many double acts, the talent lay with John, and I'm sure Alan would agree with that."

Really? Well how about a statement from Alan himself to either agree or challenge that opinion.
I think I find it incredibly biased as he has already stated he didn't get on well with Alan.

Just odd given:
a) Alan went on to do incredible runs on Batman, Anderson PSI Division and others
b) Alan is credited with being a great early supporter of everyone from Alan Moore, to Morrison and Millar. Taking the time to give feedback and handwrite replies etc.

Seemed a bit of a sour note to go unchallenged.

To be fair, Alan Grant hasn't held back on his criticism of Burton's professional abilities (while making it clear they like each other as people):





As for underestimating Grant's contribution to the Wagner/Grant partnership, that's something most of us are guilty of, too. While Grant concedes his Dredd is just lacking something (above), Grantless-Wagner eventually proved to be missing the fun, weirdness and invention we loved as kids*

Grant also wrote some incredible Strontium Dog. That tends to get smoothed over in our justification of Wagner bringing the character back at the turn of the century**, but we all know how Wagner and Grant wrote - whoever got his name on the credit box was the one who actually wrote the script.

If Wagner was really the one who wrote Dredd, then Grant was really the one who wrote Stront.


* Wagner's early solo work and latter-day epics more than compensated for that loss by finding different kinds of stories to tell, but there were long stretches during the nineties and early 21st century where Wagner was lost and trying (with varying degrees of success) to recreate TB Grover stories without the magic ingredient that made them work.

** 'Wagner's written Strontium Dog for 40 years, so the character's his to do with as he pleases'

[THREE points]

https://shop.2000ad.com/catalogue/2000-ad/2018

I'd like you to CLEARLY list your THREE favourites, in order. THREE points will be awarded to your fave, TWO points for second and ONE point for third. Please try and be explicit with this and maybe give a little comment to say why you chose each cover as it makes it a bit more interesting for the rest of us!

The easiest way to avoid the usual confusion is to expend the extra effort needed to type the word POINTS, rather than just listing numbers. Of course, if we used the Eurovision system of DOUZE POINTS, rather than the multi-valent 1-2-3, there'd be no ambiguity whatsoever - but, as a native of Sunderland, Pete Wells wants no more to do with Europeans and their foreign muck.





I'd like to give Alex Ronald one.

ONE POINT for his up-above-the-streets-and-houses cover for April's prog 2076, in which Glasgow's real-life Alec Trench threw caution to the wind and pushed the slider on the colour saturation all the way up to 11, making John Higgins's retina-searing palette on the original printing of The Killing Joke look like the great Brian Bolland's drab colours for the reprint of The Killing Joke. Beyond making Dr Who's braces and the LGBT flag look like the first 20 minutes of The Wizard Of Oz, Ronald's recent work sees him introducing painterly textures to his already fine composition and draughtsmanship, adding new dimensions to his art and assuring him a place on this list for as long as Pete's good enough to organise the annual vote. Ronald's also embraced the tilt, lending his exquisitely rendered images fresh energy and dynamism. I like a tilt as much as any Dutchman.





DEUX POINTS

The Sauchie jury's TWO POINTS go to Chris-Journey-To-The-Weston's overly Dian Fossey rendering of that time Judge Dredd fought a monkey for some reason (2089). It's a chimp, not a monkey, but SHUT-UP!  In reality, my second slot was doubly penetrated by Weston-super-Mare's Skittles-themed cover for last week's comic, but after choosing Ronald's cover for the colours, I don't want to look like a complete colour tart (or someone who can only remember last week). If the older cover has an edge over the gremlins, it's in the quality of the draughtsmanship. Look how solid an object that Lawrod is, how Dredd's shifting weight is conveyed in his stance, and how the entire composition, even the background, bends to reflect and reinforce the movement this illustrates. That's where this image wins out over the more static gremlin art, while it's the sense of fun and energy in both those images that elevate them above Weston's meticulously rendered but ultimately pedestrian cover for January's 2065. Like Bolland, you get the best out of Weston when he's given a weird image to sink his impressive creative chops into.





Born in 1947, in the Zaragoza region of Spain, Carlos Sanchez Robo-Stogie Ezquerra IS CARLOS-FUCKING-EZQUERRA. Which would be reason enough to make the THREE POINT turn in his direction, but fortunately, the last cover the King left us is a real beauty. I almost prefer the obnoxious old-punk energy BLAM! of Rey Carlos's 2078 image and its hairy-leg shading, where Ezquerra's constant evolution of the character's look saw him incorporate a flaccid penis into the design of Alpha's helmet, but the classic handshake pose and that wonderful image of Wulf's cascading locks radiating out like the rays of the (red) sun, conferring his blessing upon the union like a saint from on high, win the day. One last red circle as the compositional focus of a cover before he took his leave, ending as he began all those years ago.


Sorry to go on at such length.  No I'm not.




Honourable mentions:

      

... especially new-old-boy Pye Parr's arsetastic cover and its depth of field, which pushes it out ahead of its more static rivals, like a twerking Boris Johnson. Like my top three (and the Carlos BLAM! cover), Parr's image uses that depth and perspective to draw your eye into the image and (imaginatively) inside the comic itself. If you're considering the cover as a means to entice readers to look inside at the contents, it's such an obvious and effective technique it seems odd that all artists aren't mandated to utilise this effect on every cover image.

[Dan Abnett]

It seems that the latest series of Brink is the last (From Amazon): "Humanity is on the brink in the thrilling conclusion to the smash-hit epic"

Kingdom, too.  Abnett's in demand elsewhere, I suppose:

'Dan Abnett: Yes, (Brink's) pretty much a trilogy. Book 3, "High Society" debuts soon. But the world is so rich, we've found we have strong ideas for at least three more volumes after that. We'll see how the audience reacts. It all builds into one, big ghastly picture, whichever characters are ultimately around to witness that. We'd love to continue exploring the Brink.'

https://2000ad.com/post/3845

Just noticed I have a mesaage from Imgur about the cover image:

"Thanks for sharing your post with the community! Just a heads up -- it looks like you forgot to mark your post (https://imgur.com/gallery/wMqUBRe) as "mature," so we went ahead and marked it for you, which ensures it will be available to those who have opted in to see mature content. This is a friendly reminder, not an account warning. For more information on Imgur's Community Rules, please check out https://imgur.com/rules"

I presume because the gremlins are naked?

You only see their arses. My mum has a ton of baby pictures Imgur would find very sexy.

... outstanding art on Slaine by Chris Weston -- have we seen him do black and white before?

Not since the days of Gulf War 1 and Adamski:




682, June 1990