Messages

You know what? I'd give you 100 pennies to fuck off, all "three" of you.

Answering your questions is probably giving you more time than you deserve, but I'll do it in the hope that you'll read them & piss off:

"What do you lot have against Striker? Is it the fact that Nashy has the balls to stand up to the sun?"

Well, since most of the boarders here hold the Sun in contempt, I doubt we're going to be lining up to stomp on one of their critics...

There are plenty of posts on this thread explaining why people don't like Striker - why don't you take five minutes to go back through the thread history & read them?

I was going to reply to the rest of your post, but it's just a shite sales pitch, and I don't see why I should waste any more of my time on it.

I don't have *any* problem with Striker existing - I think it's dull, ugly crap, but that doesn't mean there's not plenty of room for it in the newsagents.

I have my doubts about how much influence its success would have on 2000AD or newstand comics in general - I'd guess that Striker readers are football fans first & that their enthusiasm for this particular footie comic isn't going to lead them to pick up another title.

2000AD, the Meg & a bundle of small-press titles all get my support - I buy them regularly and promote them to my friends - but I don't see what good I'm doing by *not* voicing my opinion of Striker. I don't wish it would fold, but I'm not going to feign support for something I don't enjoy.

Oh, and Starscape might not be getting ?25, but I've got the first three issues on my shopping list :-)

"First off, Striker is not based solely on sport, it explores all aspects of life whihc is what makes it so interesting, comical and in my opinion inspiring."

So Striker isn't a football comic? Looking at the contents for issue 35, I don't see anything that doesn't involve football in some major way. It may not be on-pitch action each week, but the sport is the backbone of the comic.

"And please explain to me blackblood how you can call it so bland etc when you don't even read it?"

I can call the artwork "bland, static & uninspired" because that's my opinion, based on the strips that I've seen in the Sun and the first several issues I flicked through in the newsagent. I've also taken the time to check the Striker website, just to be fair, and I still stand by my opinion.

"And also, if it is so bland and uninspired why is it that it has now been going for nearly a year, and selling around 20 000 copies a week, with no funding or advertising."

Because it's a strip that ran for 18 years in one of this country's most popular tabloid newspapers? Because it took a chunk of this audience with it when it moved to the weekly standalone format? Because it focuses on the most popular sport in the country & attracts people who wouldn't touch any other comic with a bargepole?

I'd also point out that sales figure don't necessarily reflect quality, a year is hardly a long time in publishing & 20,000 copies a week isn't a particularly noteworthy achievement for a strip that used to reach 3,000,000 readers a day.

"Carnivore, I don't get your post. Was it meant to be funny?"

I hope Carnivore doesn't mind me speaking for him, but I suspect it was a reaction to your post pimping Striker.

Both you & Razorfox have appeared out of nowhere to drag a months-old thread to the top of the board. Neither of you seem particularly interested in 2000AD, but are keen to promote Striker & the coming sale of shares in the comic. You probably didn't help by calling one of the boarders "small minded & jealous", but it's the pushing of Striker that rankles.

Right, short & sweet:

Not interested in a comic focused on sport. In fact, the only sport strip I ever really enjoyed was Look Out For Lefty, back in the days of pre-ban Action.

Not interested in the art I've seen in Striker. I've no problem with computer assisted artwork - when they're on form Mark Harrison & Masamune Shirow show just how good it can be - but the strips in Striker are bland, static & uninspired.

PVS & Steevhopper - Sorry guys, I think I came at that one from the wrong angle. I *do* like the idea of helping boost readership by distributing extra progs - evangelical 2000AD strikes me as quite a nice concept. I'm also probably being too po-faced about "artifically inflating readership".

"Fair enough PVS, but you could equally argue that it'd be more in the interests of supporting the industry to just go out and buy a couple of extra copies of the prog this week. After all, I spend a fiver on fags every day, how's an extra three-twenty per week going to hurt me?"

I don't think either approach supports the industry; in fact, in a roundabout way it could damage it. Artificially inflating readership figures is destructive in the long-run.

How about this - for just one week, buy an extra three issues of a prog and *give* them away to friends. It might result in three new readers, and if it doesn't, it's only a fiver.

No new comics since 1978? Gosh, that must be a shock to Revolver, Blast, Scream, Crisis, Deadline, Judge Dredd Megazine, Tornado, Toxic, Starlord and God knows how many others...

Even if they mean new weekly, they're still wrong - is it too much to ask that they DO SOME FUCKING RESEARCH?

Do I sense a theme in your recent posts? ;-)

Sounds good. I enjoy it when 2000AD plays around a bit with the conventional 4/5 thrills an issue lineup, and little things like the letters page, supercovers & one-page thrills add to the fun of the prog.

Any chance of this making a return? Maybe in the Megazine? Or am I the only one who liked this? :-)

Thanks for the pointer Logan - I'm ordering a deck right now. Particularly liked:

Simon Gurr - why he isn't in the weekly more often, I don't know...

Frazer Irving - if you ever needed convincing that Frazer would be perfect for a new Dark Judges tale, this is it.

S.B. Davis

Henry Flint

"It isn't great these days, but they're more honest with their opinions than the sewer press of PS2 magazines, where the score equals the size of the backhander"

You're not suggesting that game magazine reviews are less than honest, are you? The mind boggles ;-)

**Blackblood reminiscing about ACE**

"The Ronald Reagan letter: Oh good god. Is this the kind of people that 2000ad attracts these days? Maybe it's time to stop reading"

Hmmm... the idea of the Meg being comic-of-choice for die-hard Reaganites is rather off-putting, isn't it?

To be honest, by the time you get to prog 700-900, you've got bigger problems than gore - how about:

JUNKER!!

UNIVERSAL SOLDIER!!

WIREHEADS!!

ROBO-HUNTER!!

SOUL GUN WARRIOR!!

MOTHER EARTH!!

Plus dozens of other thrillsuckers :-)

I stand corrected - I was sure there were several episodes missing from the reprint.