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re: Darkie's Mob missing episodes

IIRC, the reprints in the Meg are from Best of Battle. Several of the more violent episodes were cut from the original when it was reprinted in BofB and I don't think they were included in the fresh reprint.

I don't know whether this was due to concerns about the level of violence - unlikely IMO, given the rest of the strips in the Meg - or because good quality sources for the missing were unavailable. To be honest, I'm not even sure how Rebellion have been going about the reprinting of old material - whether reprints are sourced from original artwork or from copies of the comics themselves.

Maybe Alan could enlighten us?

A *massive* thank-you to my postie who dropped off a lovely bundle of comics today, including the new Megazine. First impressions:

Cover:

A nice Goddard/Teague tribute to the classic Reservoir Dogs image, featuring Mr Dredd and Mr Woo. It's just a shame it appears between Meg 209, with a gorgeous Greg Staples cover, and Meg 211 with *two* Frazer Irving Judge Death covers - I have to say, it pales a little in comparison.

Editor's Letter:

I don't normally pay much attention to the letter (sorry Alan!) but this is a lovely little piece that really sums up what I think a lot of older 2000AD fans feel about the weekly. Funny how there's a big gap between prog 431 and 1014 though - I wonder why ;-)

Dreddlines:

Oh dear - a rather stuffy letter from an American reader about criticism of Ronald Reagan (or "Ronaldus Magnus", as she refers to him!) Another letter from Floyd (how many is that now?) and another complaint about Darkie's Mob. I guess we're going to be seeing more of the same when Charley's War appears.

Dredd: Hong Tong

A bit of a disappointing end to this tale. Art is still impressive, even if it's not my particular favourite. A couple of funny moments make up for some slightly stilted dialogue and the feeling that this is treading on awfully similar ground to previous Dredd stories.

Judge Death: The Wilderness Days

Still the highlight of the current lineup. More gorgeous Frazer Irving artwork - can't wait to see From Grace - with a couple of wickedly funny panels (first panel on page five - "Wisssdom of the ancientssss" indeed!)

John Wagner & Frazer seem to have pulled off exactly what they talked about - Death is back to being genuinely horrific, but the black humour that characterised the very best Death stories is laced through the strip (Death sitting by a pile of self-help books on achieving your goals, reading about Great Mass Exterminations - chilling but beautifully funny)

Devlin Waugh: Red Tide

Hmmm. Still plodding along here. I tend to agree with the comments about this reading better in a single go; many of the problems this strip has could disappear when you don't have to wait a month between episodes. I'll reserve judgement until I can read the whole lot in one go.

Darkie's Mob:

Well, it's the end of the road for the Mob. It's a shame to see this go, but I'm really looking forward to Charley's War. I still feel the Mob might have been better received if we'd had a bit of spacing between installments, but I'm delighted it got reprinted and I look forward to seeing what else emerges from the archives.

Harry Twenty on the High Rock:

Another minor classic. There's not much to say about this, but I'll enjoy reading this over the next couple of months. One request - don't dump too much on us in one go. Variety is the spice of the Megazine right now, and too much of one strip - even an old classic like Harry Twenty - tends to unsettle this.

Tharg's Future-Shocks:

Another nice little FS - and one I can't remember reading before. It looks a little hackneyed nowadays, but the idea is still quite engaging.

Blazing Battle Action:

Another interesting installment - probably because I'm less familiar with the history of British war comics than I was with 2000AD. It's also been good having it running alongside Darkie's Mob for the past two issues, and I hope we see similar tie-ins in the future (reprints of classic strips with some explanation of their origin and development would be interesting)

XTNCT:

Fckng xcllnt stff! (sorry, couldn't resist) Always been a big fan of D'Israeli's artwork, and this strip is perfectly suited to his style. After a little confusion on the first two pages (yes, I'm a little slow this morning :-)) I really enjoyed this episode. I'm very impressed with Paul Cornell's work so far - is this his first comic strip? Can't wait to read more.

Preview & Incoming:

Some interesting things coming down the pipeline. The Extreme Edition looks promising, and there are a few new strips appearing in the weekly (I didn't realise From Grace began so soon)

Bad news? Sin/Dex are back in 1356 (but with Simon Davis - hurrah!)  Good news? Simon Fraser and PJ Holden are doing Dredd one-offs and Carlos Ezquerra returns for a multi-parter on Dredd in Meg 211.

Gordon Rennie:

Sorry, not liking this at all. I'd rather see an extra page of Blazing Battle Action if the Meg needs to fill space.

The Bendatti Vendetta:

Bleh. This still isn't doing it for me - and that's in spite of some lovely art from John Burns. I just can't really get interested in it. I think it's more to do with the choice of targets for vendetta - who wouldn't like to see a Nazi commandant get what he deserved for his crimes? I'd like to see something a little more ambiguous, because at the moment, it just reads like some kind of revenge fantasy with villains who are too clearly "evil" and "deserving". Maybe I'm taking it too seriously?

Interrogation Cube: Patrick Goddard

Fairly interesting interview - the most interesting part of which being the news (unless I'm really behind) that Patrick is working on a new Chopper series for 2000AD with John Wagner!

Anyway:

Another damn good Megazine, in spite of a few low points. There are going to have to be some pretty stunning strips coming down the line to follow this up, but for the moment I'll just enjoy the Meg at its peak.

"The wraparound cover was nice and now Slaine is over, I hope they will do wraparonds of others..."

I could definitely go for that. The last few wraparounds have been excellent, and (of the current thrills) I'd love to see a wraparound for Stront or Leviathan.

I'd also love to see a reappearance of the old Supercovers. I'd rather see Cliff Robinson doing one of these in place of his usual Dredd-themed covers. Link them with a brief text piece inside the weekly (just a couple of paragraphs) and you've got scope to do something brief but fun. Anything but *another* stock pose for whichever character is appearing that week.

Bring a bit of innovation to the covers: How about a wraparound map of Downlode by S.B. Davis? Why not grab some inspiration from classic Battle covers like those in this month's Blazing Battle Action? Be a little daring and do a playing-card lineup of current characters, like the US deck of cards in Iraq - do something fun & experimental, it's what 2000AD should be about.

Good prog overall - even if Dredd seems to be slipping a bit.

BTW - anyone else think this might *really* be the end for Slaine? The death of Niamh and the comments this issue about finding a way to stop the invasions forever seem to be setting up Slaine sacrificing himself for his land - and rejoining Niamh.

What do you reckon - is he really going into the ground this time?

Sorry Jamie - last time I spoke to you here, you were with Titan. I'll drop a line to Titan and see what they've got to say.

Jamie, if you're reading - any chance of a reissue of Action: The Story of a Violent Comic?

Oh, and PVS - a follow-up on your point:

Does anyone know what kind of price the Dandy & Beano are these days? What kind of stock are they using? As - I think - two of the highest-selling titles in the UK right now, maybe it's worth asking questions about why they're capable of holding such large audiences?

Sorry - I completely forgot about the other Hellboy series in the pipeline, The Island. IIRC, it's a two-part direct follow-up to The Third Wish, so it seems likely that the two stories will be collected in one volume, again maybe with some of the shorter stuff.

"After that I'll hold out for a collected Hellboy The Third Wish which I can imagine will be a while off yet- unless anyone knows different ;)"

If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say that we're unlikely to see Third Wish collected until the the release of the movie. There are still a few Mignola Hellboy bits 'n bobs to collect, including the new Hellboy story in The Dark Horse Book of Hauntings, and I suspect they'll all be bundled into a "Hellboy: The Third Wish & Others" volume at some point in the next 12 months.

After that, it'll be about time for the beginning of the next Hellboy tale (maybe even the beginning of the "Hellboy goes to Hell" series Mike Mignola keeps talking about...), but in the meantime we've still got the Weird Tales series (the first four issues of which are due to be collected in the next few months) and the BPRD one-shots.

"To that end, I've bought a few titles based purely on who the author is as opposed to the actual title"

I tend to still do the same with Alan Moore - though I've pretty much stayed away from Promethea, Tom Strong and Terrific Tales & I doubt I'll be going near Smax. On the other hand, I've already got Yuggoth Cultures on order... ;-)

I go through a similar patch at least once every 12 months - I get disillusioned with what's currently available, I start to get tired of whatever series I'm reading at that moment and I start to go off reading *anything*

I tend to do what I do when the same thing happens when I get disillusioned with anything else - I set what I'm currently involved with aside & strike out for something new. grab a copy of Previews, flick through and pick something I'd not normally look at - if you normally stick with manga, run out and pick up a Robert Crumb trade collection; if you enjoy Hellblazer, drop it for a while & start reading The Girly Comic.

Even if you find the particular title you pick up, it'll open up a new avenue to explore and you're likely to find something that *will* kick your arse. It gives you a fresh take on the art, gives you something novel to enjoy and brings you back to your regular reading with a fresh appreciation for what's available.

Whoops - forgot publishers. They are:

Ghost In The Shell II - Dark Horse
BPRD - Dark Horse
Black Hole - Fantagraphics
Bedlam / Usher - Chimera Arts
Dharma Punks - self-published

No worries:

Ghost In The Shell II

A follow-up to the original Ghost In The Shell series by Masamune Shirow, a renowned manga artist. Published by Dark Horse, and currently up to issue 5 of - I think - 12. All issues should still be readily available, so if you're interested, you should be able to track it down easily. Issues 6 & 7 are due in the next few weeks, barring any delays.

It's a tale of espionage and cybercrime in a future Japan, and it's probably more techy & concerned with ideas than with the more traditional girls 'n mecha sci-fi manga you may have run into. Think Neal Stephenson or William Gibson rather than Timothy Zahn (to use a Star Wars analogy.)

BPRD

A spin-off series from Hellboy, telling one-off stories about the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defence (the agency Hellboy works for).

Quality can be a bit up and down, but generally the stories are fairly high quality. At worst, they can be like a cheap Mike Mignola - and compared to most other comics on the market, that isn't too bad.

If you like Hellboy, check them out - you might be pleasantly surprised.

Black Hole

A very strange series from Charles Burns. It's the tale of a group of teenagers in the seventies caught up in a weird sexual "plague" - an infection that only infects teens, and causes peculiar mutations in the sufferers. It's powerful stuff, but very, very strange. It's got absolutely *gorgeous* B&W artwork, but it has a terribly irregular release schedule - even more frustrating than LOEG!

All 10 issues so far are available from Fantagraphics - in fact, there should be a pack of all ten released in the next few months, so you could catch up easily if you wanted to. I would suggest picking up a single issue first though - it's certainly not to everyone's taste.

Bedlam / Usher

Small press horror comics. Very much in the vein of the old Scream mags published in the 70s. Usher has a strip that continues the adventures of Lilith from Razor Blade Smile, and both comics publish stri ps in the same vein - slightly campy, gory and seedy. You should be able to pick them up direct from Chimera Arts - do a web search for their official site - at about ?2.00 a pop. There are currently four issues of Bedlam and two of Usher.

Dharma Punks

Another small press effort, this time from New Zealand. Written and illustrated by Ant Sang, this series is the story of a single night in the life of a gang of young anarchist punks in NZ. They're involved in a scheme to set off a bomb at the opening of a fast-food restaraunt, and the comic is about what happens that night, and what happens to this group of friends.

It's a little unusual, and quite rough around the edges, but I really enjoyed it. The series just finished, but all 8 issues should be available, either from Ant himself or through one of the New Zealand small press distributors (try moonrocket.co.nz)

You can see a few previews at Ant's own site - www.antsang.co.nz

Phew! Hope this gives you an idea of what these titles are like.

Oh, and recent TPB? I'd recommend Marshal Law: Fear & Loathing.

The first, and best of the currently available ML collections, both in terms of art (Kev O'Neill is consistently good in F&L, whereas in the others the quality is a little... bouncy, shall we say) and writing (Pat Mills on form is always a pleasure to read, and he's storming in F&L)

The Losers
Ghost In The Shell II
LOEG Vol. 2 (fucking delayed AGAIN! :-()
Hellboy: Weird Tales (started well, quality a little shaky now...)
BPRD
The Filth
Global Frequency
Megazine & 2000AD (obviously... ;-))
Black Hole
Bedlam
Usher
Dharma Punks

Umm... that's probably about all at the moment. If you include trades and back issues the list would probably double or triple (and be a bit more interesting...)

Of the list above, I'd recommend Black Hole or Global Frequency (couldn't pick one...)

Black Hole kicks arse, but the one-issue-a-year schedule makes it hard to follow. For a regular read, even if it is a bit more uneven in quality, pick up Global Frequency.

Of the comics above, I probably open up The Filth first, then always come back to it when I'm finished reading the others to go over it again.

If you're looking for a current favourite of *all* of the comics & collections I'm reading, it would have to be Creepshow by Stephen King & Berni Wrightson. I've only just got my hands on this, and it was well worth the hassle tracking it down.