Messages

Yes, despite there being a wee bit too much big text and a few covers curiously absent, i'd say this was the best book about the comic ive ever read, and should immediately be bought by any squaxx.

SBT

Yeah, im simply going by the art and the bits ive read in the uk reprint titles, and am probably doing them disservice.

SBT

Not a clue! But the cover is up in the 'coming soon' section of this here site, so...

SBT

[imagine]

Yep, that'd be 'The Courtship of Jena Makarov'- currently out of print and there don't seem to be any on eBay at the moment. However, it's one of those that is continually in demand, so I would imagine it's fairly high on the list of titles that Rebellion want to get back into print once the kerfuff around the Dredd movie dies down. Keep an eye on the shop here. The final volume is out next month, so I'd imagine sometime soon after that.

SBT

Welcome!

And yes, I'm pretty sure you're right about both Dredd's survival and Dante being the best thing you missed. Dante is so worth tracking down it's unreal.

SBT

['WHITE FURY']

Since Shako is one of my favourite 2000AD things ever, I will of course be buying this as soon as it comes out. However, I would just like to make a very late-in-the-day call for the inclusion of 'WHITE FURY' from the 1978 2000AD ANNUAL. I know it's a reprint from some old guff, but the ten pages of story are sublime and serve as an origin story of the bear we know and love. He is referred to as SHAKO within the strip (although obviously that just means 'killer bear') and the final caption is curiously poignant in the light of the actual 'Shako' strip.

Visually, it looks like the same strip- and even though it's got that annoying pre-prog typeset lettering (crying out for a Campbelling) it would fit in perfectly. The actual Shako strip is relatively short, so rather than fill up the pagecount with some decades-later "ironic" appearance from the dark days of the nineties (of which I feel sure there was at least one), this well-drawn and serious "alt.origin" would be most welcome and extra value for readers wondering why they should buy it and not the EXTREME EDITION the strip featured in.

SBT

Reading Swamp Thing, Animal Man, Wonder Woman, Frankenstein and have just finished (and thoroughly enjoyed), Night Force.

I'm pissed off that I'm being forced to buy Animal Man during "Rotworld"- but that's merely my Swamp Thing completist mentalism, so is hardly DC's fault. I'm even more annoyed that Swamp Thing and Animal Man are basically indistinguishable from one another, when previously I'd not even really considered them part of the same universe. I'm not a fan of this particular iteration of Swampy, and would very much like it to hurry up and move on, losing the horns and comedy body armour in the process. Also mildly perturbed that we are getting a "Swamp Thing Annual #1" this Halloween, and not "#8", as it should be.

Wonder Woman and Frankenstein continually vie for the title of Most Entertaining American Comic I Buy Each Month- I sincerely hope Frankenstein continues past #16, as I think I'd be genuinely heartbroken if it were cancelled. Of them all, Wonder Woman is the revelation. What a comic! It never seems to put a foot wrong, and becomes more tear-inducingly brilliant each month. I've said it before, but if you'd have told me at any point in my life up til now, that at the age of 42 I'd look forward most of all to a Wonder Woman comic each month, I'd've probably shit myself laughing at you.

I've dabbled with one or two of the other titles- I don't get on with DC Superheroes in general, so things like Superman and Aquaman and wotnot aren't things I'd be attracted to- and the plethora of Batman titles baffles me, considering they all seem to be exactly the same. I've never seen a "house style" so rigidly enforced- it's laughable. I guess no one accepts Batman these days unless he's a humourless steroid-laden hulk in riot cop body armour with no lips and a permanent frown. Why the hell these Americans can't just read Dredd and leave Batman to be a bit more experimental I don't know.

I got bored with Dial H for being so terribly overwritten and nowhere near as clever as it thought it was, and All Star Western was just another Batman title. I'm just waiting for DC to rebrand absolutely everything they put out with a bat symbol and be done with it. I'm sure Swampy will grow a cape to go with the horns and find out that his swamp comes within Gotham city limits any issue now.

Loved Night Force though- anyone out there got a volume 2, #12 (final issue)? It's the only Night Force thing I need...

SBT

Those worried about my toe, fret not. I spoke to a nurse while at the hospital yesterday (for an unrelated matter) and she kindly informed me 'it might be broken, but whether it is or not all we will advise is to strap the hurty ones together'. So i've done just that.

SBT

I mostly always go to the cinema on my own these days- and see nothing sad in it at all. Long since stopped bothering with how others may see me!

SBT

Fuck! Will pm you in a bit.

SBT

None of the changes were made for the Case Files specifically - it purely depends on which film we were using to scan from (those Death episodes were possibly scanned from Best of 2K film, as opposed to the original prog film). All the panel shunting around and balloon tweaking was done long ago (presumably by IPC) for the various formats the stories were to be published in.

Brilliant! Thanks, Cyber-Matt, that's what I figured. Now to find out when and where they WERE done- and which edition featured the altered speech balloons... A shame that a bit of Bolland art got erased for the Case Files version, but it's given me something to do while my toes heal- which is always good for the soul*.

SBT

*Heh, do you see?

[Death's dialogue only]

I'm guessing it was changed for the Case Files so the gutter didn't harm readability.

But that doesn't make sense- as the Titan version reads fine and, as the dimensions are the same for the Case Files, a straight transfer would have worked. If anything, the "new" Case Files version places MORE text in the gutter (two caption boxes, a credit shield and Death's dialogue), whereas the "original" has Death's dialogue only in that position. And, the "original" has a good inch between the speech balloon and the gutter, while the Case Files version places four lots of text right up to the line!

Seriously, get out your copies and take a look.

SBT

[OrinAGN]

Glad they got to you- and hope you enjoy them. I was quite shocked at how many doubles of things I had laying around- and this seems to be a good way to get rid while at the same time spreading the word of ThrillPower!

OrinAGN and davidblack- due to it hurting like sodding arsing buggery to walk about at the moment, there will be a small delay getting to the post office, so please bear with me. Will aim for the weekend. Apologies for this, but my swollen, purple appendages are screaming and my wife has flat out refused to do it for me.

Walter The Wobot, I still need your address!

SBT

Also, if you look, the dark judges' speech balloons have been changed to white on black, and the 'part II' caption also.

Does anyone have any idea where the spread from case files 5 comes from?

SBT

Surely Jim, you of all people understand that there are just some things you KNOW arent going to appeal. Im 42, and i know myself quite well by now- neither The Raid nor Taken (nor many other things) appeal to me at all, so given the strict choice of them or Prometheus, i'll go for the latter. I'm sure both films are wonderful for an audience that responds  well to such things, but not for me thanks.

Im equally sure there's a  damn good chance Prometheus will be every bit as terrible as people are saying it is! It's a moot point anyway, as i have werner herzog's 'encounters at the end of the world' to find time for first- a movie ive been waiting years to see, then hammer's 'the gorgon'.  and before even them, i promised the boys 'sharktopus', 'pirates of the caribbean on stranger tides' and 'silver bullet'. Nothing has the remotest chance of being watched before theyre all done.

SBT