Messages

DREDD - better than last week; Dollman's (back?) shooting of an (unarmed?) perp was rather callous...

FUTURE SHOCK - not bad; cliched names/words like Flarg and Quantum didn't bother me

SINISTER DEXTER - looking good; a bit early to comment on the storyline, but very nice art from Andy Clarke

VALKYRIES - they love it really

ROGUE TROOPER - less said the better

I think this could have done with it's own thread, but alas I haven't really many technical reasons why SIKU'S ART IS BLOODY EXCELLENT - it just is.

He creates a unique dynamism in his action, and has an undeniable skill in making characters look hard and mean - witness Dredd's chin!

His brush strokes are all in the right place, and I like his (sometimes garish) colouring.

More Siku ASAP - especially on DREDD and SINISTER DEXTER.

Come up with a beginning, middle and an end.

You should be able to visualise these cornerstones from the conflict in your story.

Then just beef up the bits in between with characterisation, good dialogue and appropriate pacing to suit the action.

Not much more I can add really - the descriptive simplicity of Mills' dialogue is refreshing, and sometimes daringly to the point.

The suspension of cliches and in my book far more corny lines (like "get him!") is arresting when squashed between stories full of them.

I'm referring to SLAINE more than SATANUS II, but wanted to point out a few flashes of Mills' trademark dialogue made that story readable whereas lesser authors would not have pulled it off.

["...and our survey said: UH-URRR!!!"]

"...and our survey said: UH-URRR!!!"

Pat Mills has a certain directness in his dialogue, as does Steve Moore.

This technique rams home the action of each frame, and can lift even their most trite offerings (SATANUS II, VALKYRIES) above similar attempts by the competition.

Simplicity never goes out of fashion.

DREDD: bland again - there have been some good stories with Joe & Co. overseeing "on location" at shows and sports events, but this one was just plain dull. I don't think D'Israeli's art suits JD at all either - he's overrated as it is, and I'm not keen on his coloured work on this strip.

COOKIE: doesn't appeal at all.

ANDERSON: now yer talkin'! Grant and Ranson deliver again - great ambiguous ending.

BLOOD OF SATANUS II: some nice dialogue from Mills... will please a few people that it's finished. Bizarrely gory execution on the final page!

REPRINTS: couldn't get into CHARLEY'S again now... DREDDs very average - there are much better ones to choose from.

I think thrillpowerseeker may just be saying goosegash has gone a bit far in his review by using OTT remarks such as "embarrassingly bad" and "parody of poor writing" when the story is hardly THAT bad.

But it IS by Pat Mills, though... and if a writer has ever been subject to a slating around here, it's Mills!

Re: The Matrix:-

I would suggest the constant conflicting mind-activity occuring in the human-farms generates more/better energy than it would from dosile and unoccupied minds.

Thus the human minds are the processing power of the machines.

War - never been so much fun, has it?

Escubria seems well up on the ins-and-outs of the Bush/Blair agendas.

Since most of us must draw our conclusions from the media and limited coverage of debates, I opt out of scrutinising reports I would consider to be inaccurate anyway (particularly where the Bush administration is concerned).

But rather than use the rumours of conspiracy and corruption to call for the heads of our world leaders, I look at the plus side of involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan and Yugoslavia and see worthwhile descisions being made.

It is not "warmongering" - I feel for the repressed people living in poverty under rich and violent dictatorships and want to see their freedom and liberation.

That this may be a convenient excuse for Bush to go stomping into "undesirable" countries may well be so, but I am more comfortable with that in my world at the moment than knowledge of the non-lives endured by many races in some countries who persecute the innocent in the name of obscene power or whacky religion.

Ultimately, humans will likely blow themselves and their planet to smithereens - but I'd rather see this happen in the attempt to restrain menaces to humanity rather than by an insane network allowed space and time to develop their devastating weapons to kill simply in the name of protest against the free world.

Unfortunately there was little faith in the Iraqi people able to take control of their own country should Saddam Hussein have been assassinated.

He has many loyal to him and years of supression would have meant little support for an uprising even if the man himself was removed.

Put simply the Iraqi people needed liberating  and their fear of the dictatorship dissolved so they can become fit enough to run their own country again.

Money is an ugly but inevitable side of any modern war between human beings - I don't doubt there are financial aspects to the US-led invasion, but I do not believe all the theories of Bush's greedy agendas.

America has become the world's only superpower and that is certainly unsettling, but since they have achieved that power can use it to remove repressive dictatorships for the good of humankind - that should be the ultimate goal.

If that is such a naive and misled opinion, tell me your alternative to stamping out deranged murdering regimes by force and occupying if necessary while stability is worked upon.

Regarding the recent war in Iraq, I think the bigger picture is sometimes ignored - that ultimately "peace" must sometimes be fought for to be retained, and George W. Bush is at the arrowhead of that fight.

I don't trust him very much, but I do approve of his actions regarding the forced removal of Saddam Hussein's regime.

I would raise question with gay church weddings, as the ceremony is a religious one and such an act would be at odds with the holy guidelines of God and His messengers.

If homosexuals want to "marry" through other means as a declaration of commitment to one another, then I don't see a problem.

But aren't students supposed to be the ones who will inherit the control of the earth?

The students I know couldn't take control of opening a plastic bag.

Yeah, if we can find 'em, we'll sharp crush those stinking little trolls under belly and wit!

Woe betide any who get under my feet at DreddCon!

Surely if the words form a coherent point or question, then it is of value?

In fact without personification, prejudice or familiar expectation opinions can be judged on their content without bias.

Sure it's a spoof - the film lampoons the George Romero movies and exploits the zombie genre with its tongue firmly in cheek.

Comedy/horror crossovers rarely work, but hopefully that it's a British production may give it an edge over the many inanely tedious American fanboy "tributes" to Romero.