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Even Judy Janus would be, like, wholly pushing 50 by now.

John Smith was a massive loss for me too. I do understand he had very valid reasons, which are personal to him and I won't go into here, but he was one of the main reasons I kept reading during the (otherwise) bad years.

Happy Paddy's Day, everyone.  I generally avoid Dublin for it - after the parade finishes, it all gets a bit Block Mania / Lemming Syndrome - but I'll head in today for a bit for a pint with my rocker brother-in-law, who's over for a Judas Priest gig.  I'm not a regular Guinness drinker, but feck it, I'll have one for the day that's in it, so I will, so I will.

Aw, man, they're just lovely, aren't they?  I was never mad about how Belardinelli drew Sláine himself but I absolutely loved how he drew everything and everyone else in Sláine's world.  Likewise, and I'll be crucified for saying so, I don't think McMahon's Sláine character looked how Angie Kincaid envisaged him and all the artists since McMahon developed him, but I mean, it's feckin' McMahon's Sláine, and as such it's some of the best artwork the prog has ever had to offer.

EDIT to include a Thing That Went Over My Head - I didn't realise the Beltain Giant was a real thing when I read the strip first, much less that it had a massive stalk-on that McMahon wisely obscured with smoke.  Though looking into it further, it may only date back to Cromwell's time, but who cares?  I seriously doubt there were dragons and sea-demons in Slaine's time either.

Sad to hear you're going, Robin. I do understand - I don't love the prog nearly as much as I used to, and skip far more stories these days, but I don't think that's the prog's fault*.  More a combination of my getting older and the absolute avalanche of alternative entertainment sources available these days.  Anyway I'm glad you're sticking around the board - you'll always be a Squaxx and, if you're anything like me, you'll read your back progs over and over again forever.

*Certain things do irritate me, though, such as the refusal to let Anderson age - if you want a sexy young judge, Tharg, there are plenty of freshly graduated cadets out there.  There are also certain things that can't be avoided, like the lack of any real plot development in MC1 without John Wagner at the helm, the loss of classic characters like Nemesis and Dante, and the flogging to death of others like Sláine and SinDex.  This is all just my own opinion, of course, and SinDex has picked up a bit with this new Azimuth thing so i haven't quite given up on it just yet.  There's still the likes of Thistlebone, though, and I really enjoyed the recent Maitland Dredd epic even if it did divide opinion.

[Strontium Dog: Tales From the Doghouse: Maeve the Many-Armed: Niall of the Nine Sausages]

Strontium Dog: Tales From the Doghouse: Maeve the Many-Armed: Niall of the Nine Sausages (progs 636-638)

1. That's clearly not got enough sub-titles.
2. It's obliquely referencing Niall of the Nine Hostages, who I first heard of today*.


* Because one of his descendant's castles is fa'in doon.

Because Niall was the guy who brought Dt Patrick to Ireland, his name was drilled into us throughout primary school.  The 'Nine Sausages' thing is an old one - I first heard it from my dad who heard it in his own primary school, and spotted Niall of the Nine Sausages in a Wanderly Wagom annual long before he appeared in the prog. (Balor was in the same annual, looking more like a giant cyclops than a baboonm'n.)

I suppose I'd best review the prog at some point.

Dredd was a nice little upbeat one-off to follow up the grimness of the Maitland story. Wasn't mad about the art though.

The two Kek-W stories are losing me a bit, I'm not entirely sure who is who and what's happening in either - both still lovely-looking and worth the read though.

Thistlebone is great, despite the very slow pace - hats off to creators and Tharg for trying something different and making it work.

FTB is just not my thing, sorry.

It begs the question....how DO you attract new younger readers? Us old farts don't be around forever.

One angle would be that you don't necessarily need to attract very young readers - they'll already be into comic-formats from other media (graphic novels) and then they just need to angle in to 2000 AD.

I think the quality of 2000 AD is the main selling point, but it's a teenage to adult age rating at the moment. Regened worked best when it was established talent with 2000 AD's best aspects of chaos and non-conformity. Fundamentally, I think there's a problem with presenting "all ages" as being squeaky clean. Cadet Dredd was a bit Judge Pal - which is supposed to be a disturbing critique of a "dob-in-your-neighbor" totalitarian state, but in Regened we were supposed to whoop. Chopper's parents got twisted around from out-of-touch wasters into loveable eccentrics. Instead of him being a sullen teenager looking for some meaning in his life, he became a happy-go-lucky cut-out from Whizzer 'n' Chips.

Ultimately, it felt like Regened (in some cases) meant Neutered.

While I have no idea what modern-day kids like, I used to really enjoy the merciless cynicism of Dredd when I was a kid, even if I didn't know what 'cynicism' meant.  Of course I still liked the monsters and the explosions too, but The Exploding Man proved you could have both in a story that still had poignancy and depth.

BAD Company was absolutely rivetting to me, despite the relentless brutality and the harrowing evolution of innocent recruits to ruthless killers.

But who knows - maybe modern-day children have a very different mindset.  We clearly had very different tastes from 50s Eagle kids, after all.

And in case you haven't heard it, here's Stew interviewing He Who Knows The Score: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lblq9

Thanks for this - I thought it was a different Lee / Moore one, and have edited this post accordingly.  Stew is without a doubt my favourite stand-up comedian ever, but the Great Beard steals the show in the interview I saw, which was mainly about the sock puppet he ostensibly worships.  He was duly handed the role of belligerent interviewer for an episode of Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle, easily filling the shoes of the regular hostile interrogator Chris Morris, my favourite non-stand-up comedian ever.

I really like Doomsday. It's objectively crap, but its very enthusiastic.

There's a quote for the film poster right there.

You see that Tony Blair? That's you that is. That's your mum. That's your mum on a good day.

You wouldn't let it lie.

Fair enough.  I haven't really watched 'normal' telly, with a watershed at 9pm, for a very long time.  I expect I'd be surprised at what gets through the net these days.
I'll tell you who I like to get through a net, though - that old Tony Blairs.

[Words You Cannot Say]

Growing up, I always thought twat was just a synonym for idiot. Now living in the US, it's very clearly a synonym for c*nt, and is therefore one of the Words You Cannot Say. (Well, you could, but you'd shock your relatives and get disciplined by your colleagues.)

I think it's a lot more frowned on in the US than it is in the UK. I had BBC America when I lived over there, and they dipped the sound for it in the same way they did for real swear words.

I thought it was considered a swear word over this side of the pond too. I could be wrong though.  Lee and Herring were the first people I heard use 'arse' and 'piss' before the watershed too both in the same sketch where Anthony Hopkins is excitedly expressing his sexual fantasies to a female penfriend.  'P.S. I am (BEEP)king as I write this.'

This takes me back to when I was 14 and my English teacher organised a class debate, and a young lad publicly announced his opposition to 'dildoes like Kylie Minogue'. Unlike him,  I had recently learned that 'dildo' wasn't just a synonym for 'dumbo', and had a knowing chuckle to myself (the teacher let it go).

I still can't work out how TMWRNJ wasn't immediately pounced on and shut down when 'twat' was shouted, or when Rich introduced the 'King' by singing 'Fa fa fa fa fa fa - King' then getting the audience to chant 'fa-king' over and over again. Or how a character said 'fuck all', barely muffled at all by his mouthful of donut. 

A lot of potential viewers back then in this country at least would have just come back from Mass and been getting the Sunday dinner ready. In fact I remember having to quickly switch over from one of the Jesus bits as my mate's Opus Dei parents came in the driveway.

Been rewatching This Morning With Richard not Judy on YouTube - an old Stewart Lee and Richard Herring Sunday lunchtime show.

Some of the recorded sketches don't hold up, but a lot of it remains absolutely hilarious.  The Jesus and Apostles sketches are some of my favourite comedy sketches of all time.

I'm still not entirely sure how they got away with the blasphemy, the explicit references to wanking and bestiality, the use of the word 'tw*t' (not twit or twot) and a few very thinly disguised f-bombs on BBC2 on a Sunday afternoon, in 1998. Also a very early joke about Jimmy Saville's alleged necrophilia.

Great to see the two of them are still going strong, if looking a bit shook these days - i prefer Stew as a shabby old curmudgeon than as a vain young fop.  I've met him once, and he's a far nicer and friendlier chap than he pretends to be on stage.

Nice one, Eamonn. Looking forward to it. I enjoyed Big Dave anyway, though I suspect Grant was being more ironic than Mark in retrospect.