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[Wake]

Really chuffed for you, Wake, it's a cracking page. I hate to think what you paid for it, but worth every penny I've no doubt

The old scanner has been working overtime, as I have another Willsher to share with you. This is the cover to Prog 1768, and continues my current obsession for all things Day of Chaos. Originally drawn on two seperate pages, before being bought together by the magic of computing.

My computing is slightly less magic, but I've fudged it together as best I can. If you want to see the original pages as they were drawn, check the "Additional Images" on the CAF page



As published:

[Meg 226 - Mobster's Goon]

It's been a little while, but I finally made it through this Meg. So, onwards...

Meg 226 - Mobster's Goon



http://www.2000ad.org/?zone=prog&page=megprofiles&choice=226

A great Frazer Irving cover showing where we left Jack Point in the last Simping Detective episode. Don't you think the guy with the syringe looks like Keith from The Prodigy?



An interesting Dredd, drawn by Goddard and Teague and written by Wagner, had me disorientated [spoiler]as it opens with Dredd having a family! The poor little boy trying to eat his breakfast gets a real Justice Department work over. I won't say much more as it might ruin the central kicker, but suffice to say Dredd ends up dealing with a crime that happened many years ago[/spoiler]. I liked this story, I liked the opening few pages where you don't know what's going on and I thought the pacing was good. Nice art too.

The Simping Detective story Innocence: A Broad finished this issue and wrapped up nicely. I really liked this story, perhaps not as much as Jack's previous outing, but very good nonetheless. As I have said previously, this is a complex tale and certain panels needed reading more than once, but I do tend to rush stories I enjoy so I will shoulder some of the blame. Come back to the Meg soon, Jack!

I can't believe Shimura finished! Another example where a story needed more space to be told. It had been set up brilliantly in the first two episodes, then rushed to a conclusion in this issue.  To be fair, it wasn't the worst offender as the story flowed reasonably well but it could have been so much more.  I really liked the end and [spoiler]there is some unfinished business between Dredd and Inspector Inaba. I did find the big fight scene a little confusing as to what actually happened, but apart from that[/spoiler] Andy Clarke's art has been pretty good.

We then had a complete story called Mega City Noir: Goons, Goons, Goons... This was written by Spurrier and set in the same district of Mega City One as The Simping Detective - Angeltown. Spurrier introduces the district (perhaps with half an eye on the trade collection as we know all about the area from Jack Point's adventures) and sets about telling a story of informers, gangsters and good old revenge and betrayal. An excellent story this one. Lovely art too (Cliff Robinson on pens, Esteve Polls on pencils).

Young Middenface DIDN'T finish this issue. I was really expecting it to as usually they are three episode stories. However it finished on a cliffhanger and I'm looking forward to the next instalment.

WMD, the Anderson story, ended its six part run. [spoiler]The mysterious magician part of the Justice Department seem to be playing a strange game in relation to this half-life virus and it stated at the end of this episode that a new Anderson story begins next issue.[/spoiler] We have had a lot of Grant and Ranson Anderson stories recently[spoiler], none of them actually involving Anderson herself (in her physical form anyway)[/spoiler]. Be interesting to see where this goes next. By the way, the conclusion worked for me but I think the story was still too long. However, there may be plot devices in there that will be used later...

Charley's War continued to be brilliant, and it was nice to see Smith Seventy back. [spoiler]He has moved from machine gun, to tank, to training rats! And everything is all still 'a bit technical'.[/spoiler] In the sea of misery that is the First World War, it's characters like Smithy that provide a little light relief. Metro Dredd featured a pirate-themed block war which was quite fun.

Onto the text articles, and the Dredd fiction was a reasonable story. If you don't normally read these, I wouldn't recommend starting here was it was a pretty good yarn if you like them already. In Heatseekers, we re-visited The Box Of Delights in the Cult TV section, which freaked me as a kid and the author, Jonathan Morris, compares in quality to Lord of the Rings. Orient reviewed Fist of the North Star TV series saying it was rubbish, but because it was released at the same time as the brilliant Akira got a lot of viewings it didn't deserve. I'm not really in to Manga, but I am liking these articles as I am getting a bit of an insight. I skipped the Si Spurrier Movies column, having decided his writing style isn't my cup of tea. Sorry fella, but please feel free to keep writing The Simping Detective! I read the first few paragraphs of the Comic section about The Goon, but I didn't maintain interest.

The highlight was You're Next, Creep. After a load of issues going on about comic characters, Gordon decided to unleash the spleen and have a right go at comic artists. When Gordon goes off the deep end like this, it's highly entertaining! He comes up with some gems! He lists all of his anti-artist grudges. I'm sure not all artists are like this, but it gave me a giggle!

Robin Smith returned in the Interrogation slot where David Bishop interviewed him about life as a freelancer. He has drawn some interesting strips, the vast majority of which he seems to hate. He is very self-critical and finds an awful lot to moan about, just like in the last issue. I hope next time we find a creator who seems to enjoy what they do! I thought some of his work featured in the article was pretty good. The Dredd Files ground ever onwards.

And finally... Lord Barnes' editorial was an interesting account of a book he acquired called Its A Mans World that is all about post war men's mags from 70 odd years ago. They make Nuts sound like Horse and Hound!

Great stuff, Mabs

I summoned Nemesis Complete Vol. 1 unto my local library and got the email today saying its ready and waiting!

You gotta love libraries....

'The Streets of Dan Francisco' was excellent.

Is there a follow-up planned?

Link beat me to it - so if Luke could ask it twice, that would be grand

Hi SimonB, Is the 'Bertha' you spoke of a mattock? It sounds like one, great tool for digging roots out..   

Yeah - that's the one, Stew. I had to Google a mattock, but yep that's Bertha alright. I managed to scrape my leg on her getting the garden shredder out today. She's a vicious cow...

More "gardening" today... Mrs B informs me that the large pile of branches in the back garden from the 10 foot conifer 'won't get rid of themselves'. Frankly livid about this...

So I have to dig around in the shed (which is the modern equivalent of Mary Poppins' carpet bag the amount of rubbish that is in there) to find the garden shredder. Oh yes, this is a beast. It has a hopper at the top and a big spinny blade thing that mangles up branches and leaves to fine shreddings.

Spent two hours feeding the thing branches, unclogging it when it got stuck, giving it a bit of kicking when Mrs B wasn't watching. Got through about half the pile of branches. Thank Grud I filled the recycling bin up as this meant I was allowed to finish for the day. Am not thinking about the rest of the pile - hopefully they will 'get rid of themselves'...

It's Sunday - it's eBay day in my house!

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/SimeonB/m.html?_sop=12&rt=nc

Comics (including the complete Prog run of Firekind), cycling stuff, a bike, and other odds and sods.

Don't forget, I'll happily listen to offers via PM...

Never mess with a dude who brings the vengeance of an entire species - that's what I say! I love the bits seemingly flying off him as well. Like he's moving so fast he's breaking apart...

Have I mentioned I love Shakara? Well I do

I like Bishop's creator interviews - even the miserable ones Haven't read a Dredd Files since they started. If I had, I'd probably be 5 Megs back from where I am now!

Yeah, the movie and TV stuff can drag a bit - depends on what is being discussed. The Orient (manga) and Comic section I like, though.

Gonna have to up my game

[Greg]

Lovely Rogue pages, Greg, and those Bradley pages too Dale. Great stuff!

If you don't like Henry Flint or Shakara - move on... Me? I get tingles just looking at the scans

The Assassin - Episode 10, Page 3



The Assassin - Episode 10, Page 5



Love that last panel of Shakara screaming...

...wait for it....

SHAKARA!

Are you now down to 2 megs a week . .. . this is going to take a long time

With all these extra wordy articles, they now take 1.5 train journeys - not just 1. This is throwing my whole routine!

[Meg 225 - Ladies Who Punch]

Meg 225 - Ladies Who Punch



(LINK to BARNEY)

(LINK to Blog)

In the words of Bart Simpson, "Aye Kurumba!". What a slinky cover from Cliff Robinson. I guess some may tut and say that, once again, the Meg has put some nice looking ladies on the front cover holding guns, looking smokin', hoping to entice male readers... The Duke of (Alan) Barnes is very clear in his editorial that he wishes to reflect a different side of heroes rather blood, guts and gore. And these ladies aren't just pretty faces, they really do kick ass in their stories...

So lets kick off with the heroines. The Simping Detective, where Jack Point and Galen DeMarco (left side cover star, oddly a red head, not the peroxide blonde of the strip) get off to a bad start before being forced to work together in the second part of Innocence: A Broad. [spoiler]But after it all goes a bit pear-shaped, Point and Cliq (the super-nasty alien killing machine that took a shine to Jack in the last adventure) are left with a tricky task[/spoiler]. Quite a bit of scene-setting in this episode, quite a lot of dialogue to read and I rushed through the first pages in an excited haze only to back and have to read bits again... Worth the effort though, some really great characters and dialogue.

Our right-hand side cover star turns up in Shimura Executioner and she is Judge-Inspector Inabai of the Hondo Cit Justice Department. [spoiler]Having failed to keep a eye on Dredd, she has been busted down to traffic duty, until she a receives the call to start hunting down the Ronin known as Shimura[/spoiler]. I really hope this story is given the space to breath as two episodes have pretty much been setting the scene. If it rushes to a conclusion in the next episode, I shall feel a bit grumpy. There seems to be plenty of material to work with, so I hope this one runs for a bit.

To the Dredds! Bite Fight concluded, and it concluded well I thought. I still thought the art worked well, despite painting not being my favourite comic medium, and it seems to have finished with a couple of loose ends not tied up. I wonder if we will return to those, or whether they were loose ends that weren't tied up. I thought Smith got the pacing of this story right over the two episodes, so a good job all round.

The other Dredd, 2%, was also a painted story and I didn't much like this one. The Alan Grant script wasn't great, but I also really struggled getting through Shaun Thomas' art. It may have been the reproduction, but some areas were very dark and I found it a struggle to see what was going on in the panels. It wasn't a long story, and it was an extremely dark subject, discussing those Judges that go down under the strain of the job, but it didn't work for me. Maybe I like my Dredds action packed rather than moody and dark [spoiler]and I didn't agree with the sentiment that the only judges that were successful were "natural aggressive psychopaths". I don't think Dredd enjoys killing people, not in that way. He's certainly not adverse to it. Other judges in other story lines, such as Judge Manners, are nut jobs - but Dredd is too controlled for all that.[/spoiler]

In the Anderson tale, WMD[spoiler], we finally got to meet the half-life virus[/spoiler]. And it's a whopper. Again, lovely art by Ranson, but again, I'm not really gripped by this story. I will read it still to see what happens, but am still waiting to be excited by it. I'm fearing it just may not happen.

Young Middenface [spoiler]turned very nasty with the muties in full rebellion against the norms, told through the impassive commentary of a member of their parliament. I liked that as a story telling medium. The politician narrating one thing, the art panel showing you what really happened. I've seen this technique used before and I like it. I have a horrible sense of dread (not Dredd!) for the muties. Surely the norms won't stand for all this, and the commentary - which is being told by the narrator looking back on events in his past - would seem to indicate my fears are not unfounded.[/spoiler] The difference between this strip and Anderson couldn't be more pronounced. Genuine tension in Middenface versus genuine apathy towards Anderson. Ah well...

Not much Charley's War, but the episodes were pretty brutal, so perhaps it was all the reader could take. Another relatively decent Metro Dredd too.

Onto the text articles. Didn't enjoy the Dredd story, Passive / Aggressive, as much as the last issue's fiction, but it wasn't too bad. Certainly not the worst short story I have read. In the Heatseekers section, the Cult TV was Spooks (which passed me by so I skipped it) and the Movies was Hellboy (as with last issue's, written by Si Spurrier and it was OK). The Orient article gave us a brief history of Monkey, the strange Japanese TV show that I loved as a kid. It was a great read. Comics profiled Bernie Krigstone, and was an interesting insight into a subject I knew nothing about. You're Next Punk saw our Gordon tackle 2000 AD characters who were killed in action. As with a lot of Gordon's stuff lately, if you have a great knowledge of the Prog from issue 1 this is a great trip down memory lane. If, like me, you don't, it's vaguely interesting - but not much more than that.

David Bishop paused long enough from reading through old Progs for The Dredd Files to interview former 2000 AD art editor, Robin Smith, for Interrogation. Smith had some interesting insights into those early days producing the Progs, but it did feel at times like it was repeating ground covered in Thrill Power Overload. Smith didn't seem to like many strips either, ones that many people have fond memories of. He didn't think much of Meltdown Man or Halo Jones describing the former as "bloody awful, absolute rubbish" and the latter as "okay" (after saying Alan Moore was a cult favourite so Halo Jones was thought to be better than it actually was). To be honest, Smith came across as quite negative about the way the Prog was produced, the people he worked with (particularly Pat Mills and Richard Burton) and some of the creators. That's his opinion, he was there, and that's fair enough - but I can't say the article was particularly entertaining for it...

And finally... Floyd Kermode was back in Dreddlines rallying against people who thought he had too much airtime in Dreddlines. Please, can we stop now, and get back to letters about the Meg. Although, to be honest, nobody has anything interesting to say in most of them, so they are a touch dull. Can't we have some children writing in? Those early Prog letters pages were way more fun...

Oblivion is pretty messed up. It's not the drop, it's that pause on the edge that gets you

Yep. If you weren't terrified enough already (and I was just waiting in the queue) they pause it long enough for terror to become something beyond terror. We bought the ride photo afterwards and I look in fear of my life whilst Mrs B is laughing her head off.

Looking back now, it's quite funny....

No - actually - it isn't...

I'm sure I must have that photo somewhere...

I like that a lot, although I have to say the guy with the four eyes makes my head spin a bit! What's it from?

Abelard Snazz, the guy with the multi-storey brain, the man with the high rise head (with Edwin).
http://www.2000ad.org/?zone=thrill&page=profiles&choice=abelard



http://shop.2000adonline.com/products/alan_moore_the_complete_future_shocks_paperback

Cheers fella. I'll add it to my reading list!

And I think the robot has a little look of your good self..

Really?

Nah! Course not

So looking forward to seeing a bit more of your art on here, but hope work picks up for you soon, buddy...

I like that a lot, although I have to say the guy with the four eyes makes my head spin a bit! What's it from?

And I think the robot has a little look of your good self..