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I've picked this up a couple of times in the shop but the fact you can't really see what's in it and the £7.99 price tag put me off.  I think it is too expensive but I'm not expecting them to drop the price - the lack of wallet might mean I pick up odd ones that are of particular interest when I flick through.

HaHa!  An excellant tale of Man v Nature Simeon. 

It's always a right bugger getting a tree stump out and this is why you see so many of them in other folks' gardens - cut it to about ground level and that will do.   I suspect a good iron bar would have helped make the job easier but hey, its done now. 

I am a bit concerned about this pipe though - what diameter and material was it?  I am hoping you won't say 6 inches and clay or you might have damaged your sewage outlet - not nice when that starts bubbling to the surface!

Well, finally picked up the first one of these today and I'm well impressed.  I do wish they wouldn't use an A3 card back for these first editions, bloody thing was huge!! The model looks good though and is more weighty than I was expecting.  I don't think I will stick with them for the long run but going by what I have seen so far - the full £9.99 price tag is not even that bad.

I was well pleased to see that the next issue 1701 refit is only going to be £5.99.  I was planning to go for this and the bird of prey with #3 but its now an even better deal. £2 for the 1701-D, £6 for the 1701 refit and £10 for the Klingon Bird of Prey only comes to £18 so I'm looking at a £6 average for the first three models and I get three mags to browse through - Happy Days!   

[MILLER'S]

This all makes me wonder if this new movie is going to be based on Millar's MILLER'S Dark Knight returns.

Quite an important distinction, there... :-)

Cheers

Jim

Doh! 

You know I meant Miller's. 

Was flipping through one of the missus's gossip mags the other day and there was a comment that Christian Bale had been offered 50 million to join the cast of Batman Vs Superman.  It was the Vs part that caught my eye - have there been any other rumours about this being a Vs movie?

Also, looking at that release about Ben Affleck on BBC:
"(Affleck) has the acting chops to create a layered portrayal of a man who is older and wiser than Clark Kent and bears the scars of a seasoned crime fighter, but retain the charm that the world sees in billionaire Bruce Wayne," said Snyder. "I can't wait to work with him."

This all makes me wonder if this new movie is going to be based on Millar's Dark Knight returns.

The ship in STI-STIII is still pretty gorgeous

Still my favourite of the lot.

Yup, and after stating incorrectly in the opening post that issue 2 of this series was the 1701 from the original series, its actually the 2271 refit from STI-III! 

This is the one I like the look of myself and if I'm correct in thinking that the Klingon Bird of Prey in issue 3 is the same as from STIII then I might just make do with them.

We've got 29 bullets left
Call them shells
29 shells

Anyone else noticed this being advertised recently?  I figure that there must be a few Trek fans on this board.

"This incredible new fortnightly collection of STAR TREK models includes all the most significant ships
from the five STAR TREK television series. Every ship has been painstakingly recreated in die-cast
and high quality ABS materials then hand painted with an incredible level of detail."

Anyone seen these in the shops yet?  Apparantly it's one a fortnight and the first was is £1.99, then its £9.99 each after that.  First one comes with USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D), which I'm sure I don't need to tell you is from the Next Generation series.  If it's not too bad, then I might get this one at least.  Issue 2 has the classic USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) from the original series - that's the one I would really want, why can't that be £1.99? 

http://www.startrek-starships.com/eng/index.asp

[Dredd:]

Dredd was okay. Really nice art but a bit too much future slang in the script.

Dredd: Good start, good art, but again, looks like this one is gonna be fairly predictable.  Good cop (Lock) and bad cop (bender) team up, Bender will go too far, Lock will Challenge, but will be tempted to go the way of Bender due to past events.  Or it's the past events first, Lock does something bad, and Bender uses it to control him or whatever.  Hope I'm so very wrong.

I dunno, man. [spoiler]You may be right - but with Judge Lock you've got  a borderline frootloop with a grudge against whoever decapitated his mother under the wing of a bad judge. I'm guessing Lock's capacity to raise the stakes on Bent to psychopathic proportions may escalate this in interesting ways.[/spoiler]

As others have said, with Wagner's Dredd tales there is aften a lot more going on that at first glance.  Clearly this episode has set up Bender as a ban 'un but as ever, it is not just that clear cut.  The city is struggling after DoC and we have seen from other strips how the Judges have altered their behaviour/actions in response to this.  What at first glance seems outright excessive behaviour is less so when compared to the Judge's actions clearing the blocks in Wastelands.

I was also reminded of the recent Wastelands story where Dredd is questioning the old guy and threatens him with cube time.  The old guy is not threatened by this as the offer of bed/food in a cube is not as bad as what is going on outside.  Dredd responds by threatening to break his legs (or something like) instead and the old guy gives up the info.  I always wondered what Dredd would have done if the old guy had still kept quiet - he's not normally one for empty threats.  So, if beating up an old guy for information is acceptable, why not someone else for public disobedience?

Interesting stuff from Mr Wagner and I look forward to seeing how this story progresses.

It's all getting a bit weird at the moment....
Strangely 'inflated' prices and other pieces priced more realistically,  and some really 'odd' pieces appearing....
People realising that original artwork is worth ( a bit of ) cash, or people just 'chancing their luck'....??
Cheers

People seem to assume that comic art is worth more than it actually is.  It's the same with old 2000ad Progs as was demonstrated by that Prog 800-odd which came with a pencil - up for £80.  After a while of watching art on ebay you start to see trends with artwork going through several un-bid auctions and the price keeps coming down. 

The biggest problem is folks have got something, search ebay to see what it's worth and then price accordingly.  The mistake there is that they should search ebay FOR COMPLETED AUCTIONS as that is what shows you what something is worth. 

Bought it!  Reading it!  But brother is there a lot of it!

I haven't had time to digest or even look at everything yet, but it really is extraordinarily good value.

I can understand how the £5.60 price tag can put some people off but with the amount you get it really is great value.  As it's a monthly title I look at it as the equivalent of 4 tooths = £9.40. 

That said, the Meg has been good of late so I suppose if you get one or two duff ones then it would make you start to wonder. 

[Thir13en Ghosts]

Thir13en Ghosts
It is worth pointing out that this film is not scary, but it does make you jump in a couple of places. 

I quite like that film! I thought the ghosts were quite scary. That whole thing with the special glasses (or was it goggles, I forget) that allow you to see into the spirit world added an extra 'brrr'. Factor.

I seem to remember a scene with a character in the bath tub. Cue: vision of the spirit world with a female suicide ghost in a bath full of blood. Dear me.

Indeed - I very much like this film myself but I didn't think it was very scary.  As you say though, the ghosts themselves were superb and really helped raise this film up from the usual dross.

How did I forget to mention the glasses?? You are correct, they need to wear special goggles otherwise they cannot see them.  This was employed well a few times in the film.

[Thir13en Ghosts]

Thir13en Ghosts

Firstly, this film holds the rare record of 'film I have seen twice at the cinema'.  I don't tend to see films more than once at the cinema but due to some planning mistake between friends, this became the only film that I have. 

OK, so the basic setup here is that some bloke and his family are not doing too well after a fire took their house and his wife.  A Lawyer turns up to say that a Rich Uncle has died and left him a house and fortune.  So we arrive at a fancy looking glass house, however all is not well.  There are actually 12 ghosts trapped in the basement and the house is actually a machine that will open a gate to hell.  As you can imagine, the ghosts escape and start to run amok.

It is worth pointing out that this film is not scary, but it does make you jump in a couple of places.  I would probably describe it as an action horror, in a similar vein to House on Haunted Hill or Ghost Ship.  What is good about this film though is the visuals - especially the house itself and the ghosts.  I checked IMDB and if the $20 million budget stated there is correct then they did very well for the money.

Having a glass house is a nice touch and the walls are meant to be inscribed with spells to keep ghosts out which leads to some good cat-and-mouse play.  The ghosts also tend to be real actors in make up so you don't get any silly CGI wobbly-ness, they look real and substantial.  Make-up is really good - the ghosts look fantastic and I would happily spend a couple of hours just watching them walk around. 

The plot is silly but if you want something lightweight and entertaining then you can do a lot worse than this.  Horror (if you want to label this as such) tends to come in batches and I am as unexcited as the next person when yet another zombie movie comes out.  This is what makes this film so good.  OK, it's basically a haunted house film but there is so little like this out there that it feels like a treat simply because it is more unique.

You're a star in Tharg's firmament as always, Ming, but there's no need.  I am going to grab one tomorrow, and if it takes my fancy once again I'll probably go digital with it after that.  I've missed the Meg badly, and it regularly taunts me from the shelves in its inviolable chastity bag, but the paper version is just too darn expensive month on month. 

When I'm rich and famous, I shall enjoy collecting the 50 Megs I've missed, along with the dozen progs from late 2011 ( a really bad time to take a leave of absence:  Low Life, Indigo Prime, Sin-Dex, Angel Zero and Day of Chaos!).

The Meg has been steadily improving through the year and is really good at the moment.  Recent Dredd's have equalled if not surpassed the Prog ones and Dan Francisco and Insurrection are both stonking stories. 

Regarding digital - I have experimented with both Prog and Meg and although it provides a good cost saving, the Meg was the one I liked least.  I don't enjoy reading a lot of text (outside of comic panels) on an ipad and the Meg tends to have more.  Also the floppy gets tagged on the end which makes it 100+ pages in total so it can be a bit of a chore swiping through. 

Does 'Beyond Zero' tie in with Night Zero? If it does then count me a happy man too!

Yeah, I was actually a little sad after reading last month's floppy to see that Beyond Zero was not next as I was hoping they would go through all 3.  Glad to hear it will be coming up soon.     

Some lovely Rich Elson AHAB there Simeon.  I know from your other posts that you are a big Meg fan - I wonder if the recent Meg reprint is what made this appeal?

Great to have all the pieces of the artwork in that deconstructed way.  Very nice - embrace the chaos!