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[Human Target]

Apparently they're making Milligan's Human Target as a TV show, starring Jackie Healy Ray.*

*I may have got his name slightly wrong.

Spared from insanity because he was brutal and unimaginative and a barbarian to boot. Slaine, in 1986, and it was one of the coolest things I'd ever read. Dredd could be similarly described, at least in terms of lack of imagination and brutality.  Johnny Alpha was relatively compassionate, albeit in flashes, but always deadly.

It made me wonder why these British comic characters are so different from the average American one, who is almost invariably a geek, a put-upon loser with a magnificent alter ego.

The appeal of such American comic book characters is obvious: they speak to the potential within the -- let's be honest -- guy who is probably getting a tough time in school.  And yet the British comics characters have as their heroes the guy who is probably making your life hell.

Of course, most of the iconic early 2000 A.D. characters were written by two men: Wagner and Mills, and thus would share some common traits, but why have they been so popular in Britain and Ireland, and less so in the States?

I got some ideas, but would welcome yours.

I was just reading through the 1993 Tyranny Rex story -- and enjoying it immensely; it's one of the best stories to appear in the comic during that troubled time -- and I was thinking how fine the art by Mark Buckingham was.  It's really detailed, atmospheric and quite unlike anything appearing in the comic at the time.  Then suddenly in prog 856 the artists are changed to Paul Marshall and Gina Hart.  It is very jarring, to the extent that it affects the enjoyment of the story.  It's not that I don't like Paul Marshall -- his work on Firekind was fantastic -- but there is too great a discrepancy between styles. The Termagant in particular, goes from a Giger-esque nightmare to a big hound with foolishly large claws.
Now I know why this happens a lot in 2000 AD; they work on a tight schedule and often the more detailed artists can't complete the job in time but... well, I just don't like it.
Can anybody think of any other examples of this?

Wagner's "Whubb" - that great chubby sound as a fatty knocks a dult aside; John Smith's "Hrotch..." as a blade goes up through someone's chin & on into his brain in the brilliant FIREKIND; and Grant Morrison's "Lop," as Lord Fanny gives a forced blowjob in THE INVISIBLES. Got any more?

This sounds too good to be true:
http://www.empireonline.co.uk/site/news/newsstory.asp?news_id=15913

Just had a biggish quake here in my part of Japan; one minute being facetious on someone else's thread (that'll teach me) the next my apartment bucks wildly, everything rattles and bangs, and my legs turn to rubber.
We had a big one at almost the exact time 3 weeks ago - that one was so fucken scary, difficult to walk - and that was when I found out there is a big fault line nearby with a massive quake predicted and overdue.
God's teeth, but they are not nice.
Anyone else experienced something similiar?

...cos I've grown rather attached to my enigmatic, little gray box and I'd prefer to be the only one sporting it.

I know this has probably been done a million times here but anyway (for us newbies, eh?):
IMO & in order, best first:

Watchmen
The Sandman
Preacher
Halo Jones
From Hell
Zenith
Firekind
Killing Time

The Invisibles, eh? Finished it there, about a month back. Prior to reading vol. 7, I reread the first six.
And I still don?t get it.
Now, I am ? if you?ll forgive me saying ? a pretty smart guy, educated to a quite high level (MA in lit) and by the end of The Invisibles I still don?t know what the Hand of Glory was or what it did.
Morrison has apparently said you need to read the whole thing at least 3 times before you can ?get it,? but, frankly, no thanks.
My honest feeling is that he threw us a disposable hook in the form of the Archons ? which he dealt with less and less as the series wore (and it really wore) on - something to draw in the punters, but his real agenda, Mills-style, was the message that we are slaves to language, blinkered by symbols.
I?ll admit some of The Invisibles was wonderful, and that the very last page has a resonance that suggests there is a deep intelligence operating behind it all, but my over-all feeling is that Grant should remove his head from his nether regions.
Discuss.

Little bit worried about the forthcoming Dredd game. It?s the subject matter: Death. Way I see it (and I could be wrong) the only way he (Death) can be fully integrated into the game is as a boss. And I hate, really hate bosses in games. Why? Because they can only be killed at certain, scripted times, often in certain, scripted ways.
Take, for example, that thing in Resident Evil 2. He?d pop up ? or out of walls ? quite regularly. The player?d take shots at him to no avail; the trick, we soon learned was merely to dodge him, to not even waste our ammo. He?d be back, with annoying regularity until the climax, when we were finally allowed to dispatch the fuck. Something similar blighted Metal Gear Solid on PlayStation and also Aliens vs. Predator 1 & 2.
Bosses suck, in the real world and in the virtual one.
I?d much rather have the Half-Life way of things: scores of tasty foes in cool arenas. Half-Life had the odd big creature that could only be killed after X-lever and Y-button had been pressed or pulled just so, but really it was about the combat, the challenge of the battles. Bosses do NOT make for good gaming. Usually they can only be defeated by identification of a pattern.

Now, as I said, I could be wrong about this. A possible way around limited gameplay would be to have Death raising zombies to fight Dredd but - *yawn* -  how old is that?
Perhaps the 3 other Dark Judges will be sacrificed as minor bosses, but yawn again.
In short, is Death really the right choice for a game?

All this has been written in the knowledge that Rebellion may well have something very cool in mind that will make me look very foolish indeed.

I hope.

I've pre-ordered the Collected America Titan are putting out and today - according to AMAZON - is the day. Will it ship today, or is this more Amazon tomfoolery, skylarking, if you will?

Hello, I?m a first-time poster, though I?ve lurked for a bit. Seems like a good place. And there is something that?s been really bugging me:

Apparently ? and please correct me if I?m wrong ? The Cursed Earth is still one of the all-time favourite Dredd stories. Now what?s going on with that?
I remember as a boy of 12 in 1987 finally getting my hands on a Titan Book One collected edition. I was so keen; I?d been aware of its basic plot for some time (there?d been a synopsis in ? I think! ? the 1986 Dredd annual), and it sounded great ? y?know, dinosaurs and all.
Oh, the disappointment!
Firstly, the daft, daft plot. Okay, the crazies had taken over the spaceport, but do you mean to say that in a city of MC2?s size there?s only one landing zone? L.A. today has maybe half a dozen, not to mention the possibility of privately owned runways.
And how would a bunch of crazed goons be able to stop a landing of highly trained, awesomely equipped Judges? Even if it was going to be bloody and costly, it couldn?t have been as arduous as the actual journey Dredd took.
Indeed, why not simply fly to the edge of the city and drop Dredd & the boys outside, or ? even easier ? paradrop in supplies and/or men?
Fuck, we can do it today, have been doing it for 50 years.

Secondly, the awful dialogue: ?Nothing impresses the judge,? said by another judge, odd.
And ? my memory is a little sketchy here: ?Farewell Spikes, you were THE GREATEST BIKER EVER!? Or something. There were other examples; the bottom line being this was ropy, early Dredd, scripted by Mills who history has, in my perhaps controversial opinion, not looked kindly on.

Now, I suspect what some of you might say in rebuttal ? and please say it! I welcome debate ? that it?s only a comic, you shouldn?t look for too great a plot, realism has no place in a pulp medium etc.
I disagree; surely the better a story is told the more enjoyable it is, the more we can immerse ourselves in it?
In short, as far as great Dredd stories go, look to ?The Pit,? ?America,? ?Midnight Surfer? ? hell, I even like ?City of the Damned.?

Finally, as a wee child I had a matchbox toy that was the Killdozer, detachable front and all. What happened there? Did Mills, McMahon, Bolland nick the design?