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I have to agree. Planet Ace is a great shop.

"Dont get me started on Dredd artists. I've gone on for years that Dredd is Britains best comic character and deserves the best artists."

Totally agree. IIRC Barry Kitson talking about "Oz" said that the editors were trying to get THE best artists on that epic. There did actually seem to be some thouht as to who got what episodes.
Many of the epics since then have had a different approach. We've even seen some newbies cut their teth on Dredd during an epic. then they improve and are shipped off to lesser thrills.

as for the character profiles: I'm not sure 1 page can really do any character justice. It's not long enough to really be informative. I'd rather a behind-the-scenes look of the length of a TPO on each character covered.

"All I would like to see is the Meg building up its own stable of characters. The loss of new Shimura & Armitage material is a real shame. Armitage in particular never got to see its full potential"

Ah, Missionary Man (Though appearing in great stories) was the one which,for me, still had a lot more milage. There were loads of hints about his past, but many never got followed up: his curse, him killing his brother, his past as a judge.

Then again, maybe that was the point and I'm just being thick.

Hmmm,...
You know, whenever I read the letters page on the latest prog or meg I wonder if I'm reading the same comic as everybody else. Maybe I keep getting the copy printed for Mars. In my prog the Balls Brothers were brilliant, as were Big Dave, Teenage Tax Consultant and Ace Trucking. Going by the letters page they sucked in the Earth copy. On my world Dante was OK. for everybody else a work of genius.
I'm getting the same feeling here. IMO the latest megs have been the best ones since the first volume. For me, any of the stories mentioned would have been the stand out stories in tooth ( bar Dredd).
Favourites:
Middenface - of the many flashback stories in either title this seems the best. Unlike others it's not totally boxed in by continuity. there's a whole cast ofcharacters to which anything can happen. It's also been pretty adaptable. the first stories were really funny and now we have a quieter tone.
Siddha - ( Again IMO) Mills seems at his best when he's starting something new. It's such a shame that he hasn't created anything new for tooth in 20 years. This is fresh, original, funny and unlike any other comic I've seen recently.
As for reprints, I'd say a good percentage of the megs readers have read the back catalogue of both publications ( Maybe I'm wrong). so I'm more happy to see things I don't already own and haven't read. The Daily star Dredds were great, but most of the ones chosen had already been reprinted. the Battle stuff is a good second best. Looking forward to "Charley's war".
- H

It does mean "The badge rules". There was a Dredd story back in the early 700s where Dredd takes on a couple of gangs having a rumble. They get the shit kicked out of them and he scrawls the message on a wall to remind them who's top dog.

I'm guessing Gill hadn't escaped before as he'd only just been imprisoned outside. Most of the guards staying out of the rain probably helped too. A bit of a coincidence that it all kicks off when Dredd's on the scene, but a cracking tale anyway.
Lobster Random was this week's highlight for me though. It's been too long since we had this much Sci-Fi wierdness in what is a Sci-Fi comic. A lot of recent stories would only need minor rewrites to be set in the present day.

"Dredd - Script is brill, but Burns art is not that clear. Prefer him on dante, TBH, or another strip."

aw,... have to disagree with you there. Burns is a genius. I've seen his panel layouts used on more than one occasion to illustrate "How to draw comics" articles. And with damn good reason. Whilst many others just lump ilustrations down hap-hazardly, Burns guides the readers eyes around the pages perfectly. His splash-panels never attract attention before you're supposed to see them, the pace speeds up when it's supposed to and slows down when it should.
The guy should be cloned a dozen times and each of these clones chained to a drawing board kept awake 24/7 with strong coffee and strong drugs.
In short: I liked it.

That is a damn cool cover! Elson's artwork just keeps getting better and better. It's also the first cover in ages that might entice me to pick up the prog if I wasn't a regular reader.

"You cant accuse Red Dwarf of continuity errors"

You can and pretty glaring ones. After the first couple of series the writers looked at what they hadn't liked and changed it. Their view was that they'd ignore a past imperfect to get a decent present.

It does seem that it's only the Sci-Fi fans who worry about this continuity thang. No "normal" people give a toss. The lives of any characters in a long running soap are a mass of contradictions and innaccuracies, yet I don't see "Points of view" clogged up with moans about it.
Mainstream comics don't suffer from it either. Garfield (Yeah, I know it isn't "Watchmen" but it'll serve as an example)started off as just a cat who had human-style thoughts. 20-odd years later Jim Davis has mined the cat jokes fully. We now see Garfield using the 'phone, sitting in airplane seats and conversing with his owner (Though still, strangely, through thought bubbles). Again, nobody cares.
- Huey
( I'd better add, before anybody assumes I am, that I am NOT a fan of Garfield. That republican dinosaur of a cat is long overdue retirement. give me Larson, Waterson or Breathed anyday).

All this continuity guff at the start is surely just the creators making it up as they go along and getting rid of what doesn't work or make sense. Nemesis is the same. an early episode has some guy warning his son off liking the Terminators whereas later episodes prove that's the attitude that's expected/required.
Should even big glitches matter if the story's a good 'un?

As far as re-vamps go I'm only happy to see something return provided:
a) the original creators are involved. The VCs was OK, but I'd rather have seen Abnett create something of his own. There was very little left from the original series to do anything with.
b) The creators have a story they want to tell. Wagner has decided not to do Robo-Hunter because he hasn't got a new story. It's a shame Milligan didn't feel the same with the last batch of Bad Company.

O.K. evil trout,  "nice" was obviously the wrong word here. But I can remember a time when the comic did have a few more heroes in it. if the lead characters from most new strips turned up in a Dredd story we'd cheer on as he blew them away.
I still find the concept of two hitmen murdering innocents whilst cracking jokes a little dubious for a comic strip.

That said: I did enjoy Lobster Random. There's a lot of potential there and the wealth of Sci-Fi ideas gives it an old-school feel.
-H.

Lobster is the first character is ages that doesn't just look like some bod off the street. The first prog I read had alien bears, gangs of robots and Dredd being the most normal looking. Now it all seems to be blokes in trenchcoats and sunglasses. More wierdoes please!
What I would like to see though, is some new characters who are actually nice. Does everybody in the comic have to be a bastard?
- H

I think by necessity an audio adventure would have to be a very different beast to a comic. The comics are written knowing that a lot of the info will be carried visually ( Check out this week's Dredd. Many of the panels lack any wordage). The audio dramas have no visuals. Imagining the best stories without the visuals often leaves a pretty stale story.
I think that Big Finish need to capture these strange worlds through sound. From the few I've heard they haven't done this. A lot of Dredd's world could sound really wierd and impressive if done properly. at the moment they play like a castrated comic strip.