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Howdy y`all,

We`re off to a Marvel Art exhibition today. Any requests? Anything I should especially try to pick up (like Rebecca Rojin-Stamos, ho ho)

Floyd

Dang,I`ve done it again.
  SOmeone wrote to me asking for something from Japan (a magazine about manga and anime) and I`ve gone and lost their emails.  Whoever you are, please email me again soon! I asked a student about the magazine yesterday, they said it`s easy to get and only about 540yen.

yours vaguely,

Hello there all - charging ahead on the big reread.  I`m up to about prog 962 - I`ve just seen the back of Luke Kirby. Which is good as the story has much too much yammering on about paganism for my liking.  Luke doesn`t really do very much - just walk around while a knowitall tramp tells him how pagan England used to be.  The art is interesting, although it can`t be sexy, so scenes in which Luke finds a Chinese girl attractive are very unconvincing because she looks as attractive as he does.
  By the way - I`m sure it`s come up on this board before - has anyone noticed the strong resemblances between Luke Kirby and Harry Potter? Boy wizard, marked for greatness, attractive young Chinese girl...Just wondering.
  Oh well - there is still more Durham Red ahead which is good. There`s also that strange cyberspace story .... I must get it together and buy progs 21 to 894 sometime.

hoo roo,

yours Australly,

Floyd

Well, the title says it all.  I`m sure its been answered before elsewhere but can someone help me?

yours listening to Suede on the radio,

Floyd

the title says it all really. That new Judge Dredd newspaper strip - can I see it online anywhere?  Help please?

yours orientally,

Floyd

Link: help ai become reality...maybe

the big reread is proceeding at an orderly 2 progs a day.  Now I`m up to 940 or thereabouts. Only 6 years ago but it dates so fast!  I guess sci fi always does.
  One dated touch is that nanotechnology keeps cropping up everywhere.  Although it has never gone away (being used as a lazy plot device in the appalling Syammon story now), nanowhatever seemed to be big thing then, in a small, nano kind of way.  What killed it off?  Either people got tired of it or the fact that no nanothings materialised I guess.
  I think where you start with 2000 AD makes a huge difference to preferences.  I`m told that Skzizz book 3 is lame, but, not having read books 1 and 2, I find it delightful.  Likewise with the Strontium Dog stories - I`ve only read some of the originals in reprints but I really enjoy the rambling, disconnected SD stories without Johnny Alpha in them.
  The Harlem Heroes have finished their last story.  The story was extremely dull but the art (by Siku and someone else) was brilliant.
  Someone should start a thread for great scenes in poor stories.  Mambo is overall pretty boring and lazy (biowhatsits make people extrude stuff and kill other people) but there`s a great scene coming up in which the bad guy makes his toadying scientist die with a new disease - the scientist admiringly catalogues the symptoms as they appear on his body.  

cheers,

Floyd

Here`s another "life imitates 2000 AD" link for you all.

cheers,

Floyd

Link: http://www.crayon.net/read.cgi?floydebo@gol.com" target="_blank">facially challenged

 The big reread has progressed, from progs 1 to 20, via my graphic novel collection (so there`ll be some repeating. I couldn`t bear to throw out Midnight Kiss and the Pit just because I had the progs) to progs 895 onwards.  Now at prog 925.  
  Timehouse is as annoying as ever - all fey jokes and fey expressions.  It`s better than Syannon, but not much.  Was there only every one Timehouse?  I hope there aren`t any more.
  The Dredd story is very dark - Dredd, Hershey and some others have gone back to the recent future to kill everyone who was on a space flight (they caught a plague there which only posed a health problem in Megacity 1).  Dredd bumps off all sorts of innocents, young black kids, small children, the lot.  Terrific story.
  Skzizz is absolutely brilliant. Kangaroo based creatures with a strange civilisation, extremely peaceful and advanced but easy to subvert.  Dredd makes a guest appearence. Were the previous Skzizz stories this good?  If so I must buy the graphic novel.
   My only problem with Skzizz is one that comes up everytime Australia gets mentioned in British publications and 2kad in particular - this strange Australia in which every second person is a full-blood aboriginal, all the men are called Bruce and all the women sheila and everyone uses Aussie slang for the naive tourist such as "drongo" and "stone the lizards" and other things I`ve never heard anyone say in a lifetime of Australianness.  But this is something I`m used to and doesn`t detract from Skzizz`s strange brilliance.
  Finn is also funn, much as I dislike the pagan theologising, Mills tells a good story here.
hoo roo!

Floyd

Link: make a movie

Hi all,

I took a holiday from the board what with work and study and life in general, but not from the big reread (I have so much train time it`s essential).  I`ve moved from progs 1-20 to all of my graphic novels and back to the progs, starting with prog 895.
  It`s interesting the way people keep referring to the future in the early progs.  I mean, sure, people do really say things like "this is 2003 for God`s sake" in conversation.  but in the early 2000 Ad progs, everyone seems to be constantly reminding themselves that they really are in the future - in Flesh a mother says to a father "We don`t chastise children in the 22nd (or whatever it is) century"  Dredd does it too.
   Anyway, things are much hipper in the early 900s.  Damn I miss those large size progs.  Everyone talks about nanobots, which were about to be the next big thing.  Roxilla`s record reviews seem dated already and I haven`t even heard any of the sounds (or soundz as she would say).
  There`s some way cool stuff in there.

yours chirpily,

Floyd

Link: http://www.geocities.com/matsushimaonline2/indexB.htm" target="_blank">some hot totty

Totally off topic here.  I`m reading Charlotte Bronte`s Villette.  A good book (although I wouldn`t recommend 2000AD adapting it) but there`s a reference in it to Mause Headrigg that baffles me.  Who was she?  Who was the sergeant she defied?  She seems to have been a real person.
  I`ve tried to find this out on the web, something I`m usually pretty good at, but with not much success.  Can anyone help me?

yours irrelevantly,

Floyd

Link: http://www.geocities.com/matsushimaonline2/indexB.htm" target="_blank">A nice Japanese person

I`m not much of a threat starter but this is a natural corollary to that other threat about war movies.
  What is your least favourite war movie?

my candidate for the worst is Force 10 From Navarone, featuring Edward Fox at his most annoying, Harrison Ford as a yank who doesn`t say anything and...who cares.

Link: http://www.crayon.net/read.cgi?floydebo@gol.com" target="_blank">the paper

smee again!  I bought some Phantom comics during my recent visit to Australia and noticed the one was written by David Bishop.  Is this the same man?

If you look forward to letters this is a spoiler.  I`m posting it here because I feel strongly about it and it probably won`t get printed.  Don`t worry, I won`t make a habit of it.

cheers,

Floyd


Dear Dreddlines,

  Many thanks for Megazine 209.  You`ve really got it right from go to whoa.  The cover is excellent and uncluttered (I don`t know much about art but I know you`ve put too much stuff over yours sometimes).  Hong Tong looks good.  Judge Death; the wilderness days is just brilliant.  I always enjoy Judge Death stories but I had come to believe that there wasn`t much new you could do with him.  How wrong I wassss!  Judge Death`s inner narrative is fascinating, for the same reason the Anne Rice vampire books were so gripping; in  both cases we get possible answers to the question we all wonder in passing, ie `What is it like to be Judge Death/ a vampire? `.  The moment when Death says he realizes the immensity of his task was one of the best in comics.  Fraser Irving`s art is terrific too, some of the best he`s done. Devlin Waugh has great art but the story seems to be a little slow.  
  As for Xtinct, it`s a wonder, full of surprises and dark humour.  Very Disraeli! It leaves me looking forward to Megazine 210.
  As for the Bendatti Vendetta, the art is lovely but overall the effect on me is the same as synchronized swimming or ballet.  I know it`s very difficult to do, I know I couldn`t do it, I know they`ve worked very hard but it`s really boring and I don`t care if I never see it again.  
  Your reprints are cool - Harry 20 is excellent, once I`ve gotten used to the DR and Quinch artist being used in serious stuff.  As for Darkies Mob, I still like it.
  I`m sorry you`re having agony over people not liking the Mob`s adventures.  I`d especially recommend not worrying about Debito Arudo`s vaporings.  I used to admire him for fighting discrimination in Japan (he forced a group of bathhouses which had banned all foreigners to change their policy), but in your letters page he comes across as a monomanical goof.  It`s obvious from the first page of Darkies Mob that this is a war comic for boys.  It`s fine to dislike that kind of comic, but what`s the point of getting upset about it not being a fair and realistic portrayal of the war in Burma?  Arudo`s letter makes as much sense as my complaining to Salman Rushdie that his last book didn`t have any zarjaz artwork or sound effects!
 Arudo says the war was a long time ago (never mind that the action in Slaine is even further back). Well how true.  Maybe he could tell that to his Prime Minister who drops in on the Yasukuni Shrine to revere Tojo once a year.  He could mention it to the powers that have enforced a defacto ban on a book about the Rape of Nanking, or to the xenophobic loonie who governs Tokyo (who spends a lot of time talking about how the war wasn`t so bad).  Japan spends a lot of time unapologising for the war - if they want people to put it in the past they could try leading by example.
   The funniest thing in Arudou Debito`s letter is the part where he complains about "nonexistent Japanese words".  I`ve lived in Japan for six years and I too noticed those words.  Two other nonexistent Japanese words are Arudou and Debito, David Arnold`s attempt to make his name seem more Japanese (reversing the names to fit with Japanese order, family name first).  For a man whose name comprises two non-existent Japanes words to complain about it in a comic is the pot calling the kettle black.  Keep up the good work and  don`t waste any agony on the bats in David Arnold`s belfry.


Floyd Kermode

this is my take on the much talked about already letter from Keane.  I`m writing it because the letters page may not print my letter on the subject (they often don`t, believe it or not).
  The problems with the letter are these;
- The story `Asylum` did not imply that anyone with `rational` concerns about immigration was crazy or evil.  It implied that crazy and evil people are.  You could hardly deny that there have been and are now people with twisted views on immigration.  Anyway, it`s a comic - exaggeration is part of the job.
- Asylum seekers are not the same as `economic` immigrants, as Keane states.  Asylum seekers are leaving a country because of persecution.  
  Of course `economic migrants` can pretend to be asylum seekers.  Keane`s slur on asylum seekers assumes that there is something innately wrong with leaving a country because it`s an impoverished dump and you`d like to make more money.  With a name like his I`d be a bit more careful about that.  His ancestors were probably economic migrants from Ireland, as mine were.
- It`s not true that people with concerns about immigration are persecuted everywhere.  They are feted in the right-wing press.  In The Spectator magazine, immigrants are routinely blamed for crime and assumed to be swamping the country.  Just because you don`t like Asylum, don`t feel persecuted.  Buzz off and read the Telegraph!
- concerns about immigration are often (if not always) bigotry dressing itself up as the voice of reason.  

- errmmm

- that`s it

Floyd

this Dredd/Death thing they just announced, will subscribers get it?  If not, what`s the best way for a fan living in Japan to get hold of one?
  yours tremblingly,

Floyd

Hey Wake, lately it takes longer for each prog to be up on the website.  Is this a temporary thing or should I get used to it?
  I used to enjoy zipping on to the website and rating the latest prog right after I read it but now I have to wait.  

otherwise, keep up the good work.

cheers,

Floyd

I`ve just reread prog 1.  I`m going to work my way through all my progs and Graphic Novels, digital archives etc to the present.
  nb prog 1 is good stuff, in spite of not having Dredd.  I can`t believe they thought calling Russians Volgans would fool anyone (although they got to have a skull flag).

hello there
  I`m looking for interesting trivia so Mitsuko (my wife) can enter it on a Japanese tv show.  The blast episode featured these facts:
- baby koalas eat their mothers` poo
- there uses to be a cable car in shibuya
- naiio slime can stretch amot four metres

come on - you guys should be a mine of good trivia

floyd and roy (who says hello there!)

A bloke called Paul emailed me with some questions about Japan.  I answered but I checked with my wife later and got some more information.  Now I don`t have his email address.  Does anyone know who or where he is?
  In case you`re reading this, Paul; Japanese comedians NEVER make fun of Sony or any other big company.  They`re too afraid of losing their jobs.
  Sony is quite well regarded in Japan, it`s associated with good quality stuff.

I`m making this a separate post because I can`t answer any of the posts on the TPO thread.
  Yes, maybe I could have been more kind, caring and thougtful about the bad parts of Thrill Power Overload.  On the other hand, if I was always k,c and t about things, I`d never write anything.
  I would buy a TPO book if it was the last book on earth - I like reading very much but I wouldn`t do it happily.
  I guess (I should say, `Floyd Kermode recalls guessing) I expected more of TPO whereas I have no expectations of curry rice, calories aside.
  Yours still wanting to read the Bishop Dredd novels when he can,

Floyd Kermode