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Staying with my grandparents and sleeping in my uncle's bedroom when he was away at university. He had one of those big wooden beds raised something like four or five feet off the floor. He kept his 2000 AD collection in the right hand cupboard underneath.

Pretty tame by today's standards but David Roach gives us a glimpse of Purity's nipple while she's being pursued by the Mimesis.

>> Alan will be on the credit box as he typed up the script.

It's a wonder then that the various dates in Strontium God had the continuity they did.

Alan Grant's approach to Dredd is annoyingly schitzoid. Yes, he is prone to portraying Dredd as a tiresome fascist boot-boy but on too few occasions he does write something with the humanity of 'Zombies', 'Through A Child's Eyes', and 'John Cassavetes is Dead'. In fact, the one thing that Alan does better than Wagner is keep the sentimentalism in check.

Johnny Alpha's toying with Max Bubba and THAT line of dialogue is quite possibly Alan's finest moment, elevating what would have otherwise been a fairly average revenge thriller to its, perhaps undeserved, classic status.

>> My only quibble with the end of Rage (and it stems from my first reading of it) is that Alpha is obviously shooting Bubba multiple times yet there's only a singular large sound effect.

Ezquerra's artwork in that frame is so dynamic the sound effect is pretty redundant anyway.

>> I think I actually prefer the hastily redrawn ones over the originals

Yeah, definitely. And talking of Dillon, I'd say his best work on Dredd is 'Trapper Hag' and 'Cry of the Werewolf'.

In fact, just about every page of the latter could be a contender for the single best piece of art. The first werewolf attack in Episode 1, the montage at the bottom in particular; and the double page spread in Episode 2, as Judge Fogg fires at the werewolf scaling a city block, are just two images that spring to mind.

I'm not sure I remember this or if I'm confusing it with that aftershave ad which had lots heroic blokes doing heroic things.

Floella Benjamin! Floella Benjamin!

I not sure how the recent undefined efforts by John Burns would make for a suitable replacement to Arthur Ranson. Perhaps c. 'The Cal Files' or even his Magnum PI days in Look-In.

. . . When a monster dressed as a Nazi stabs your nurse when she pulls back the curtains?

Looking like my icon's less handsome brother, I have no need for hairdressers.

Despite my no longer acting as an intergalactic judge, jury, and executioner, the old Energizer Ring still comes in handy.

>> The 80s Eagle Dan Dare alternated between the great Ian Kennedy and someone who wasn't as good, and whose name I forget.

Ian used to alternate with Carlos Cruz, once Eagle started being printed on bog paper.

>> Ian Kennedy . . . I don't seem to remember him ever drawing for 2000ad, anyone know if he still illustrates?

IIRC, Ian drew the second episode of MACH 1, two episodes of Invasion!, a one-off for the 1978 Dan Dare annual, and that Judge amok Dredd story.

I think someone, possibly Grant himself, stated that it was the Dan Dare equivalent of The Dark Knight Returns. Which might explain why it's so fucking dreary.

>> I can remember a surreal moment on the radio about a decade ago with Dan Dare and Digby interviewing Garth Eniss about Judge Dredd...

I've still got that on tape somewhere. And yeah, that was pretty much the gist of it.

>> putting any kind of modern edge or cliched added irony will only be a disservice.

Despite Tharg's three misfires, Mills was able to do so in the Eagle relaunch once Wagner left.

>> merrily enacting genocide without question.

Genocide? Well, if protecting one's home planet from the latest alien invasion is classed as genocide, so be it. The only time I can think of in which Dare imposes his own will on an alien race is when Sondar thinks that he's having an emotion in the first story arc.

>> A middle class hero is not something to be.

How incredibly classist. And true only in that a 'hero' is not something to be. I am John Byrne and I claim my five bucks.

>> Virgin Comics . . . plans to publish a new line of comic books and develop a feature around the intergalactic flyer.

Heh. After thirty years, they're still trying to get rid of all those space-spinners.

>> The two characters are totally different.

From the brief interview clip I saw, Damon acknowledges this. The Bond comment seemed merely observational, not a criticism.

Through all his incarnations, Bond still remains the suave and increasingly outmoded bastard he has always been. GoldenEye was the first Bond movie to acknowledge this, Casino Royale the first to show the brutal reality of it.

From what I remember, I enjoyed the first half hour of The Bourne Identity then found the remainder of the movie pretty dull until, towards the end, Clive Plywood adds some belated intrigue. As much as I enjoy the exploits of 007, Casino Royale is more fun when it's pretending to be Identity. It almost self-destructs halfway through only when Martin Campbell remembers he's supposed to be directing a Bond film.

Anyone any idea how the Damon version compares with the Richard Chamberlain mini-series?