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Glad this is happening. I wish Oli was still around to see it.

He won't have to. Surely a 'Finny is back' reset button is going to get prodded at some point.

[Future Shock]

There's a decent Future Shock by Ned Hartley (is he new?)

I think he might have done stuff for Regened. Those of us with smol people will best know him as the Bananaman guy.

Perhaps the pacing is the problem for me. Sin/Dex has turned into Dredd, but if 80%+ of Dredd was mega epics and massive and sometimes convoluted arcs.

I never really cared for it originally. And I found it trickier when you later somehow had to care about two vicious assassins, because they had some kind of scruples. That said, some of the longer arcs were fine, and somewhat worked in giving some depth to the series. For me, all the alt-world stuff became too messy, and I kind of ceased to care about any of it. I kind of sigh when it returns.

But. I know it had lots of fans, and so that's fair enough. And given the wealth of great stuff Dan Abnett brings to the Prog and his apparent desire to continue contributing (rather than just heading to the US and waving goodbye to Tharg and co.), I'd happily take Sin/Dex as a permanent fixture in 2000 AD if it also meant getting The Out, Kingdom, Lawless, etc.

Curious but possibly coincidental that PJ is of a similar age. Mini-IP has enjoyed a few classic strips from 2000 AD stablemates, such as the Misty books and Sweeny Toddler.I don't recall her reading any classic 2000 AD as yet, mind, but she's perhaps a bit young. Plus I'm not sure she'd be that interested anyway.

Judging by one of the comic books I occasionally visit over on Facebook, this issue has gone down well with a couple of people. Notably, they are lapsed readers. Perhaps there's something in that, or it may just be a coincidence.

Ha! Good point. Clearly, my memory isn't once it once... er... what was I talking about again?

Also good from FP: the second Witchfinder HC omni for £12. And Destroy All Monsters and (bookplate) The Ghost In You for £13 each.

They had a bunch of the non-signed editions in the London store for 50 quid. I didn't buy one. And then I ended up in London, with TCR being on my route back from a meeting. I just had to go in and... they had one left. Because of course they did. Damn it. (They had a couple of signed ones too, but I wasn't fussed about a signature.)

I'd love to know how they mail these. Last time I ordered a book from FPI, it was a Doctor Who Complete Year One. That's a chunky book, for sure, but it rocked up in a MASSIVE box, with tons of packaging. I half wonder if an Apex would show up on the back of a lorry.

[Dredd]

Dredd hasn't quite hit the heights of previous entries in this series, but I'm fine with the pace. We often complain when stories are blazed through. Stuff is happening. The net is closing.

I just want Portals to end now. I suspect there are some good ideas in the mix, but I don't care about any of the characters. That in itself isn't enough to put me off (The Boys on TV...), but I'm also not that interested in what's happening either. It all still feels quite messy and directionless. Perhaps it should have been a 3hriller.

Hershey works its way to a conclusion, presumably in every sense as far as the lead goes. Some nice lines here ("What'd you just say?" "Good boy."), although it was odd for Hershey to reference the title of a strip. Shorthand for long-time readers, I guess!

Die Hoard started well. Lots of stuff going on. Solid cliffhanger.

Azimuth moves into its own path towards a conclusion – or at least, I assume so. This is good, but I still wonder what might have been had it been its own thing. There's a big ol' status quo switch on the horizon. Fantastic art, as Blue Cactus said.

And then extra Dredd. Which in all honesty was my favourite thing in the Prog. Tight. Simple. Perfectly executed. Here's hoping Kerr gets more work from the House of Tharg.

Kerr Dredd > Azimuth > Die Hoard > Hershey > Dredd >>>>> Portals

I really hope Dante and Slaine get the same treatment nemesis definitive edition is getting

I was curious to see how that would stack up. What surprised me is how compact Nemesis is, coming in at about 800 pages (which splits neatly across five books). Sláine is sprawling: close to 2500 pages. So that'd be a dozen volumes of this size (and I do wonder if there would be a drop of in sales after Horned God).

Dante surprised me, though – I knew it was hefty, but I didn't realise its page count rivalled Sláine's – from what I can tell, it's around 1800. So that'd make for nine deluxe volumes.

I'd love to see it, but to be honest I'm happy enough with the Hachette volumes for HC 2000 AD. And I'd be concerned about the series just stopping, given that we'd get, what, maybe a book a year? Nine years seems a punt, to say the least, even for one of my favourites.

[DeMarco]

Perhaps I'm missing the point, but I don't get a lot of this. Like Regened, it's so referential and reverential to decades-old properties the readers will be unlikely to have seen. Why bother bringing in Anderson and Hershey? Why not have someone new?

DeMarco has some good art but problematic lettering. The story didn't really click with me though, although it had some good moments (like the notepad drop). Feels an odd lead too. Would a new reader struggle without knowing any of the context? More worryingly, how much would they care?

Walter... I mean, I *love* Roger Langridge's work, but this was just strange. Are teens quieting up to read a comic about a robot that's a wannabe stand-up being advised by an old bloke in a suit who talks in rhyme? It felt like something I'd have probably quite happily read in an annual circa 1993, but feels weirdly out of place here and today.

Devlin absolutely has to be thought of in isolation. Compared to proper Devlin, this is almost an insult. BUT taken on its own merits, it had something. Energy, mostly. The punch was funny. The whack from the bride. It felt like his personality needed dialling up a notch or two though. Best thing in the comic by some margin.

I liked Cranium more than Colin, with its attempts to be visually different and do something with MC1 crazes. It felt like a modern take on an Otto Sump story – or at least something that might happen adjacent to it. That said, it felt more Regened than Max. Anyway, quite good.

And then Harlem Heroes. I don't like sports strips anyway. This one's nice and colourful, but it lacks dynamism.

Devlin > Cranium > Walter > DeMarco > Harlem

In all, I guess this isn't aimed at me. I'd be interested to know what the target audience thinks.

there's terror in the skies in Helium

Blimey! That'll be over eight years since the previous series ended. Maybe we'll get some more Brass Sun in — *checks notes* — 2026.

It looks like the upcoming US edition of the first book will be HC. But it's been a bit random with the British ones. Machine Mayhem got that treatment, but Multiverse Mix-up didn't. Impossible Pig will, though, as will next year's Bunny Bonanza. Natch, I didn't buy my own Machine Mayhem, though, and that's now hardly available anywhere. I'm still wavering. (I'd sooner grab them all in paperback than have a mix of formats on the shelves. But I'd MUCH prefer HC volumes.)