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That's cool. Certainly fits with what I think an H-Wagon looks like.

Yay!

That's a Manta Prowl Tank. H-wagons are blockier and more functional-looking.

Boo!

I must confess I thought pretty much all JD flyers were H-Wagons. A quick google just brings up the shoebox designs. I can remember a streamlined, stripey flyer - mainly from Carlos art in Necropolis crashing into citi-blocks and so on - but I'm not sure on that one either (without the Progs to hand, my best and very obscure point of reference is that it's similar to Big Cat's ship from the Freefall Warriors)

EDIT: The Carlos beetle above! A classic design but not very exciting, really..

Pat Goddard drew some awesome flying vehicles recently in Working Girl but I have to confess I'm not sure if they're H-Wagons or not. That's the coolest one that springs to mind...

Edit: This one

Looking forward to meeting you dude!

I'm a fan of Flashman on the March. Definitely top 3 Flashman books for me.
The story hits all the usual beats but Flashman is less odious than usual, I agree. I didn't know anything about the British in Abyssinia before reading it either, so it's an interesting read.

Whoops! Sorry!

Johnny Red in the Meg? Is this reprints do we know, or some kind of tie-in to go with the new Battle releases?

Lawless and Spector should get me buying the Meg again despite the drag factor of Death Metal Planet.

Interesting. I think it's the weakest of the three I've played, but not by a significant amount. The shift to the polar setting is a nice one: there's some interesting encounters and as ever the lore is very consistent and so feels deep. Gary Chalk art so obviously that's great as well. The mission itself feels less epic that the first two books and a bit more sidequest, as you're basically tying up a loose end from book 2. If the first two could have been an film with a continuous narrative, this one felt more like a tv episode where Lone Wolf goes into the Frozen North, if that analogy makes sense.

I think what made it the weakest book is partly the difficulty level - at this point I've got the Somersword and loads of Kai disciplines so I walked through most of the combats and got a lot of help with the other choices: having Sixth Sensedoesn't break the book but it gives you a huge benefit, and I had to stop using the Healing power as it did break the book. When you've got those two, plus Hunting, you can breeze through most of the encounters.
It also felt very short - partly because I went through it at first attempt due to the above difficulty. To balance that there's a couple of insta-death by random roll segments, but that's a feature of all Joe Dever's books. Combine all of that (bit easy, short, sidequest feel) and it made it feel a bit underwhelming.

Structurally it is a bit tighter than the other two books in its path, and it felt a bit more FF-ish in that it required you to have a couple of items to finish. I wouldn't say it's bad but it's far from essential.

I have the hardback editions of the first three (second and third one were a monthly treat to myself) but an old 80s paperback copy of book 4 - if you do play book 3 I'll happily send you my book 4 so you can wrap up the first arc.

I've been playing Crypt of the Sorcerer on and off, and I was going to do a writeup, but it's been so frustrating - I must have tried it dozens of times - I've decided against it.

Repeat difficult combatants, a huge number of roll-to-not-instadie parts, multiple skill penalties, a shopping list of items / clues as long as your arm: it's ridiculous. I resorted to using a walkthrough and still lost because the battles are insane. The end fight is bonkers, but the clay golem fight should have a special place in hell.
It's a shame because some of this book is very cool. It's steeped in continuity and has some fresh encounters and set-pieces (the balloon ride is great for example) and the art is fantastic throughout: some of the images are really dynamic and Razaak himself looks utterly gross.
It's all new books to me from now on and I'll be moving onto Star Strider next.

I've also done the third Lone Wolf book. They're good books - consistent with their lore and always reward careful decision making - but feel very short and dare I say a bit easy if you carry your character and gear over: I feel distinctly overpowered at this point and I'll probably give up after book 4.

Yes, that is a bit of an uneasy read. Manco's a really talented artist, I hope things can be sorted out and we haven't seen the last of him in 2000ad.

I wouldn't be surprised on this either although I never made the connection: I just assumed Charley was picked as a common name to further highlight the focus of the strip on a common man.

Pat Mills is writing about Charley's War on his Substack at the moment and it's interesting stuff.

That rules.

I'm pretty sure I saw The Go! Team years and years ago with an old girlfriend. Not my thing but very cool to hear they're still going.

I've just got tickets to see Jungle Rot in a couple of months - last time I saw them in the UK there were only three paying customers in a pretty big venue (Dudley JBs, for old Midlands gig-goers). This time they're at the much smaller and more suitable Black Heart in London.

Appreciate your comments on Returners all. Sounds like I should check it out, but not as any kind of priority. The Hachette volumes are pretty affordable to I'll pick up a copy.

This is AMAZING!

I don't remember it coming from Tharg, but I do remember Milton Keynes being the butt of a lot of jokes in the 80s.

I'm pretty sure it was related to a tv campaign encouraging people to move out of London and into Milton Keynes, which was being pushed as some kind of utopia instead of the ultra-bland, characterless town that it was.