Messages

Firstly, Longman, how I envy you, coming to these epics for the first time. Read Watchmen in a day, did you! Ah, if only I could press some button and erase my recollection of it - everything bar the knowledge that what I'm about to read is so fucken good... and then be able to experience it all for the first time again.

I trust you will be reading Halo Jones and From Hell soon.

You ask: "what EXACTLY is it that you like about his stuff? Is there a panel where - like me - you feel the last fifty pages click into place and make very clear (and often quite chilling) sense?"

One of my favorites is during Dr Manhattan's time on Mars, when he mentions his watch, with the hands stopped, "frozen in time" and then later repeats this caption over the picture of the young lovers clinking their glasses together. Just beautiful; raises the hair on my neck every time.

Or the bit in V when SPOILERS!!!!!! you realise Evie's been tortured by V, and you think "what a bastard!" but can't help acknowledge the freedom he has conferred on her. Or that letter, y'know: "every inch but one;" or when the detective takes acid in the extermination camp;
the chapter in From Hell when Gull gives us an arcane travelogue to London; or the ending of just about every chapter of Halo Jones...

As Steve Coogan says in The Day Today, I could go on.

Moore is the best ever; a genius.

I've read the first 2 collected Rising Stars and they are very good.

His B5 writing was occasionally a little lame, but there were a great many awe-inspiring moments. While he often fell down with the dialogue (esp the "funny" bits) he was fantastic on the epic stuff.

I only read the preview, but that was certainly my impression, too.

Mother-in-law, eh? Semper Fi, mate.

Always liked that Slaine cover, too. Recall being very excited when that story - The Spoils of Anwwn? - started... only to be *seriously* disappointed.
That was back when Slaine always looked and sneered like Billy Idol.
And at a time when every 2k character seemingly had to sport a shoulder pad.
Great days, indeed.

"The re-juve job was only ever hinted at, as its supposed to be illegal, explaining why no one else has them done. And who says Dredd had one anyway?"

Don't have the required progs to hand. Can anybody (looking at you, Logan) confirm or deny that Dredd had a rejuve?

I'm betting a kilo of prime munce to a ratburger that he did...

"Also theres the full body transplants that Bennet Beeny had in America. That could be done for Dredd, into a cloned body from the same stock, so no organ rejection."

That's a much better idea, erm, titgibbon, than what Wagner went with. Bet he wishes he'd written America first and thus established that precedent....no, wait, I recall a Barry Kitson drawn tale where some kid was abducted on a helltrek and was bodysnatched by some old guy. Before or after America?  As it was in B&W, I suspect before....Logan?

"I reckon Dredd to be in his mid to late fiftes. And with rejuves (Dredd has had at least one, after the Dead Man/Necropolis) and advanced medicine, I think he's got a few decades in him yet."
Anybody else feel cheated when Dredd got the rejuve job? Now, of course he was never going to be knocked off or retired, but this wondrous - but never mentioned before or since - deus ex machina was, I really felt, a terribly lame way for Wagner to resolve what had been, for me, the most interesting development in Dredd's character.
Surely the treatment means judges never need to get old, so no need for Morphy or Minty to go. Or for McGruder to get so damn senile.
As soon as he started to get back pains etc he should have been given a mandatory rejuve.
Just lame, I tell you.

Easy: 1304

61 just reminds me of a story that profoundly disappointed me as a boy of 12.
"Farewell 61, you were ... NOT THE GREATEST COVER EVER!!!"
As Dredd might have put it.

204
626

148
204
595
626
987
1188

"And the ass saw the Angel."

Mikey, be you a Cave fan, perchance?
The book is must-reading if you are, and you'll spot many lines from songs spanning the period 1982 - 1988 (ie Mutiny to Tender Prey).

I agree with you Grant about the pre-Summer Offensive time: not great, but not terrible.
Although didn't Firekind run then? That's one of my favourites.
Of the Summer offensive, I only liked Slaughterbowl which, to me highlights perfectly the difference between the good writing of the period and the bad. Smith's stuff was as violent and gruesome as Millar's or Morrison's but the story gave it a grounding, a reason. The others' just seemed nasty and sadistic for shock value.

Post-Summer Offensive and the only script I liked was Tyranny Rex. I'd never liked her before, but this one - difficult as it was to follow at times, had a great atmosphere and sense of doom that played out right to her unexpected death.

In fact, that really was the beginning of a long, long bad period. Fabry's Slaine art was wonderful but it was around this time I was beginning to realise the Mills I used to know was gone on extended leave (and who was that succubus Tony Skinner?), and probably wouldn't be back for a long time.

So for me, without John Smith 2k had very little to offer for ages.
Have to say, don't know if Smith has done anything particularly good since then.

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?

The Hardy Boys and the Case of the Flaming Footsteps. ;)

Ah the memories; great stuff.

23
148
204
387
469
595
661
786
848
987
1009
1188
1242

Yeah, it's a good read. Let me know when you are finished.
Ben Cortman is a fantastic creation.