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[Detonator X]

Detonator X wasn't great but Mayflies has literally had only two episodes? My vote for the big DX.

[Dredd]

Cover + tagline get full marks from me this week.
The prog within:

Dredd I've enjoyed this story a lot, but the ending didn't really land it for me. After what was quite a breakneck story of crazy ultra-violence it wrapped up on a very sombre note with the bulk of the antagonists unaccounted for. I guess it's leading onto the next story and we'll see how that goes. That aside everything about this tale was satisfyingly old school. Superb art again and a nice little tribute to Bolt as well, I think?

Diaboliks Not a fan anyway, but I thought overall this was far weaker than the previous Diaboliks run which I rather enjoyed despite the cast. Agree with Colin about Ravne, not really a cliffhanger when you hope he's had it!

Pandora Perfect Great ending to wrap things up. Especially digging Pandora's evil laugh at the end. An awful lot happened over these six episodes and I've found it a bit less concise than I hoped but overall this was a very enjoyable run and I'd not object to it being back in the Prog: a bit like Full Tilt Boogie was it's been a pretty unique strip within 2000ad (in a good way) and if we're to have Regened strips crossing over this is what I'd want them to be like: fun.

Scarlet Traces - This is terrific. The action scenes I find a bit dreamlike: they don't have the sort of movement and grit of, say, Patrick Goddard's stuff but I feel like that wouldn't suit this. Nice to see plot threads coming together here. Feels pretty excellent all round.

The Out - I also thought we were done with the vignettes about humans so was a suprise to see it return. The cock joke reveal was a bit naff but the second section with the door I thought was excellent. You really can't predict what you're going to get with this week on week and I think that's fine. Strong episode that played to the writer and artists strengths.

Well this post turned me onto a Kickstarter for Catfood Comics, the tier I got including 'The Seven Sagas of Silverbeard' and read it this morning - just BRILLIANT - absolutely amazing fun and highest recommendation from me.

Yay!

Are there any gamebook purists out there?

When I was digging around Fighting Fantasy Reddit's and the like last year I found there were a lot of these people out there who are full of scorn for those who don't fix their stats!
As a kid I just rerolled endlessly until I had at least max skill or stamina... there really is no point having minimum stats, especially in some of the books where there's loads of tough fights.

I've never played Armies of Death and it sounds great. Agree that Scorpion Swamp is pants. Talked to a mate about this in the week and he's given me a really tatty copy of Seas of Blood, which I have never played either. Winner!

I have emerged from the uncharted deeps of my storage bin with a slightly cobwebby box of FF books. How do we want to do this? Fixed skill scores and then everyone gets to choose their own potion? Start with Warlock and report on how far you get?

This sounds like a plan, lets do it! I'll kick off my read this week. Are we maxing skill scores to stop us being killed by random goblins?

I didn't pick this as a possible winner at the start!
It's been a lot of fun, this - gave me an excuse to reread the entirety of SD as we went along, expound the merits of some of my most beloved stories and see the merits of tales I didn't rate so highly brought to the fore so I could see them in a new light. It's really, really brought home my love for Strontium Dog.

Some lovely words there about Bolt Colin, and a lovely tribute. Do we know what Dave's favourite SD story was?

Thanks Colin, for all of this!

I haven't read Past Imperfect so not voting, but it would have to be really bad to be worse than Necrophim.

I hate those bloody Ganjees.

[Last Driver]

I enjoyed Last Driver, nice one Colin!

Hmmm. <removes Hatchet from his 'to watch' list>

Train to Busan is one of those films that's great, but such a psuedo-traumatic watch I couldn't ever watch it again. Unlike, say, Army of the Dead which I would never watch again for other reasons.

Poor old The Blob.

It was exactly the same rush as buying a new 10 game for my Commodore.

This is such a retro statement, I know exactly what you mean.

In the spirit of contributing to the rest of the thread, I have never been to a goth club in Bury St. Edmunds.

[Dredd]

Dredd - I'm still really enjoying this. Dredd's speech is deeply cheesy but this is a great, knockabout story full of fun and violence. One of my favourite Dredds for a while. Did I mention last week Jake Lynch is killing it on this story? He so totally is.

The Diaboliks I'm still not enjoying this, apologies. Nothing here for me whatsoever.

Pandora Perfect Nothing wrong with this episode but I'm finding the series as a whole somewhat lacking in cohesion. It looks terrific however and I am into the sausage moon idea - that last panel is excellent, especially with Pandora's little ship sticking out of it, cartoon style. Overall it's alright, but feel this could be better as the one-offs set a high standard. 

Scarlet Traces I'm really into this now. The art is just fantastic, it feels like next level stuff. Big fan of Aaron and Icarus's dialogue too and literally no idea what will happen next.

The Out I might have said this last week but feel like this series of The Out isn't up there with the last one. It's still got that way of flipping from one scenario to the other, which I like a lot, but the dialogue seems a bit more self aware and comedic, which I like less.. I guess I just thought the first series was more interesting. This is still a good read, with loads of crazy ideas and images.

[22. Robot Commando]

22. Robot Commando - every time you find a new mech you get an interesting decision, weighing up the pros and cons.

This book RULES.

I didn't know that about Joe Dever, I'll be all over those! Really enjoyed Lone Wolf at the time. I do have snazzy hardback versions of three of his Freeway Warrior books, although I've yet to replay them...

I've got a couple of the Duelmaster sets as well - these are essentially a set of two 'PvP' gamebooks where two players read at once and are competing against each other. Typically when you reach the end of a paragraph you're given a command to wait until the other player hits a wait command and then you both proceed. Actions give you keywords that effect what the other player encounters, with players prompted to ask the other if they have keyword in various locations, and then if they do they'll move to a different paragraph describing a monsters body or an empty chest and so on. You win if the book kills the other player, or you can meet and fight each other to the death. They're great.

If a few of us guys do want to do read through of one (Warlock?) then i've dug my books out ready.

I hadn't thought that far ahead but I think whatever the most people who are interested can get their hands on! Warlocks got a massive maze in the middle which is annoying but it's a good one to start!