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This thread is EIGHT FRIGGIN' YEARS OLD.

And now it's FOURTEEN! 

[Dune]

Funnily enough I read Dune for the first time a few months ago - only reason I didn't review it here was that I struggled to say anything about it without writing an essay! There is just so much going on, and so much to think about afterwards - my head was in a whirl for days.

I struggled initially, I have to admit. Didn't much like the prose style, and there were a lot of narrative pet hates in evidence (primarily skipping constantly between different character's thoughts/pov mid-scene and mid-chapter); and although there was an awful lot of stuff happening, it seemed to be taking an age to get to the meat of the story. I was enjoying it well enough but not hugely engaged up until [spoiler]the Baron's assault on the Atreides[/spoiler], when absolutely everything gets turned on its head and the narrative just explodes into action. I was utterly hooked from that point on, right up to the end, and I'll definately be back for parts II and III of the initial trilogy.

There's certainly nothing else quite like it!

It really does look tiny in that picture in proportion to Dredd.  Hadn't noticed that before.

Strangely, me neither.

I think that's because, in itself, it actually looks fine. It's only in comparison to the Mezco lawmaster that the 3A one looks a bit tiddly.

3A's lawmaster is truer to how Dredd actually looks on the bike in the earlier (classic) strips in my opinion. Mezco is more a modern, self-consciously 'cool' Ben Willsher-esque kind of design.

There's a few copies of "A Natural History of the Unnatural World" going cheap on e-bay... I've had a copy for over twenty years and it's still interesting.

Adore that book!

While Case Files 12 used the original prog art films for those episodes, the Hachette book has used the remastered pages that Liam Sharp did for the 2006 Rebellion release of 'The [then] Complete PJ Maybe'. Relevant excerpt taken from his huuuuuuge afterword -

For this edition I've had the luxury of being able to remaster most of my colour pages digitally. I hope you enjoy the tweaks. I can't change the flaws in the drawings - there's only so much you can do! - but the blacks are blacker and the colours, sharper. There are a few additional elements of photoshop trickery and generally it's closer to how I intended they should look like at the time.

Liam Sharp, July 2006

[Sláine]

Carroll's a decent writer though, and I'm sure he'll pull it back. Speaking of ill advised pacing decisions, I'm one of the few folk who enjoy the hilariously camp and non-naturalistic dialogue and action in Sláine, but the way Mills has broken down this story into individual episodes baffles me.

What really confuses me about recent Slaine is that in previous years and previous series (most notably Marshall Law, but also ABC Warriors and Nemesis among others) Mills has gleefully ripped into the tradition of an extended fight scene which the characters use to spout endless exposition and dialogue at each other. He knows it's corny, he knows it's unrealistic, he knows it makes for bad comics. So why is he suddenly doing it?!

I'm wildly out of step with the rest of the readership when it comes to Brass Sun though - about as far from my taste as is possible (as, admittedly, are many Edginton stories.)

Its continued adulations just baffle me. How can you take a premise and setting that promise the kind of constant invention and wild flights of lunacy rivalled only by the likes of Nemesis the Warlock - and then produce a strip so consistently dull...?

Actually, having filled my basket with the issues I needed I was pleasantly surprised at how low my total was! 50p an issue goes a long, long way!

...I did not really need to know about this. 

4) any reccomends for post 1997 Dredd Storylines I should read asap?

Dredd Case Files 27, just released last month, covers the period from July 1997 to February 98. Case Files 28, out at the end of the year, will cover March-September 1998.

We're currently getting about three Case Files released per year. Long-term it's going to be a great way to catch up right from where you left off. In the shorter term there are bloody loads of semial stories you need to check out that I'm sure some kindly souls will shortly point you towards...

That's one's been on the cards for a while now... We've got four pages of thread about it!

This is the first that we have heard  of the inclusion of Rojaws.

Not if you bought the new Ro-Busters collection late last year - Pat gives it all away in the intro. Those are great for spoilers - Pat revealed Tubal's identity as Happy Shrapnel in an intro, about three years before it actually happened in the strip!

As it says on the tin!

If anyone's interested I can send you pictures and more details.

I enjoyed Damnation ~Station until the last book, which lost me with the change of art and direction of the plot.

Mmmm. I absolutely loved the first run of Damnation Station, episodic stories with different artists and a big plot bubbling away underneath: my Thrill of the Year, I think.  While the final run definitely did stick to that plot and bring it to conclusion, the -for want of a better phrase- Rogue Trooperness was lost.

Huh. Well there you go.

I really hated the first run, and thought the artists chosen were a really bad fit; rolled my eyes a bit at the arrival of the second and was almost instantly won round. Thought Harrison was a perfect fit and really made the world his own.

NEW
SIMON BISLEY
ABC WARRIORS

That's one's been on the cards for a while now... We've got four pages of thread about it!

https://forums.2000adonline.com/index.php?topic=41565.0
https://forums.2000adonline.com/index.php?topic=41572.0