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Meanwhile, here are the results from Round 1, (in blocks of ten)...

[Deathbringer]

Deathbringer is hard enough to understand for someone who lived in London during Thatcher's regime - what on Earth do they make of it in France I wonder?

Also, since you may in fact be able to answer, what is the French for 'Oy Boys'?

Fine work, GGG!

I wonder if, as a proportion, the members of Class of '79 who are still going is similar to the number of Prog Oners who are still reading the Prog today...

[Go Machine]

There are a few episodes of Mercy Heights that are really very good, but both series end up going off the boil once the actual plot starts to take over. Go Machine's only crime is that it's so very short, we don't get enough.

I'm voting against 2000AD's second-best medical soap opera, and in favour of it's best 'televised future MMA' drama: Go Machine.

I think it's in later volumes of the RPG series where Pat's credit disappears. Or at least, that's what the man says.

No arguments here, that there's a right solid list o' thrills!
And don't worry about sharing the Google Doc - part of the fun is seeing what's in the draw on a weekday morning 

Aaaaah - I see! So there was a long list of thrills that got put into a hat, some picked for Round 1 and some given a bye just by chance. That does make total sense, you've gotta have a rnadom factor at play.

And yes, Round 2 is gonna be ENORMOUS! Looks as if I'll have plenty more picture hunting to do yet 

Pat Mills mentions this in 'Kiss My Axe'. Apparently the guy who put it together failed / chose not to credit Pat Mills anywhere. This does not go down well with Pat!

Art credits, in order from the top of your page:
Greg Staples
Paolo Parente (it's the cover of Prog 1091)
you've written Glenn Fabry but I think it's actually Dermot Power (doing his best Fabry impression!)
Jason Brashill (it's the cover to Prog 1024)
Dermot Power
I recognise this but can't remember what MG stands for - Mark something I think?
Paolo Parente again
Clint Langley (It's the cover of Prog 998)

Words can't express just how much I'm loving this epic tourney. Indeed, I've spent far too many hours when I should've been working drawing up a chart of what's happened so far. But, in doing so, I am fully racking my brains for what will be in the final Heat of Round 1. Colin has explained that he's had to make some judgement calls about certain thrills that get a bye into Round 2, and that some of his choices may be controversial. Cool!

But here's a list of thrills I think qualify for the tourney that we haven't seen yet. Some might question their chances of lasting even a millisecond in the next Round (given that we have already lost e.g. Stone Island and Dept K), which is opening up to EVERYTHING... (or are the BIG thrills getting a bye into Round 3?)

Two of these names will appear tomorrow morning - but what of the rest? All that said, In Colin we trust!

RAM Raiders
Dry Run
Brit-Cit Babes
Moon Runners
Dead Meat
Holocaust 12
Janus, Psi Division
The Corps
Citi-Def
Samizdat Squad
The Inspectre
Soul Sisters
Soul Gun Warrior
Bison
Carver Hale
Darkness Visible
Dead Men Walking
Hap Hazzard
Mother Earth
Valkyries
The Straitjacket Fits
Strange & Darke
Wireheads / Parasites (not sure if this is two thrills or two series of the same thing. Both are quite BAD.)
(and this is leaving out a handful of quite good 2-3 parters that might qualify? Maze Dumoir, Danzig's Inferno, Psi Testers, Go Machine... anyone?)

[Red Razors]

I'm sure the Anderson stories were decent, but I'm voting Red Razors.
Mark Millar struggles to tell coherent stories (both series here being a case in point), but he really does know how to create memroable characters and moments, and by gosh Steve Yeowell was a good fit. Dobbyn too, but that second story was so bad. Points for Dobbyn's punking of the ending.

[Blunt]

Just checkin'... this is for the Middenface solo stories that are not 'Young Middenface', which we already voted on a while back?
So basically that one fun John McCrea strip from way back in Volume 1 of the Megazine?
Which certainly deserves a reprint airing one day... but is not as imaginatively weird and wonderful as

Blunt

Mega-congratualtions to Cyber Matt! Agree that by all measures, he's bloomin' great at his job, and we're lucky he's stayed on as long as he has, and I hope has no inclination to leave...

[Shimura]

It's also McNeil vs McNeil (didn't he design and draw a series of Shimura before Frank Quitely was asked to work on what would become the first series to see print?).

And it's also cliché vs cliché as both Vanguard and Shimura indulge in some pretty basic character conflict stuff. But Shimura did it better, and then after the first couple of series it got pretty weird, in a good way, and there's some AMAZING art in there from Robert McCallum, Simon Fraser and Andy Clarke, not to mention those early belters from Quitely and McNeil.

Shimura by miles.

[Medivac 318]

I too can barely remember Badlands, but it lingers in my head as Dan Abnett being serious rather than funny, which is rarely his best mode, and Kev Walker being stuck in between his polished painted ABC style and his super trimmed down clean line Dredd style. So yeah, average + average = average.

Medivac 318, like Zippy Couriers, is better in my memory than it actually is when you read it, but most of the first series is pretty great and the rmabling second series would have been a good prelude to something if it had ever continued. And Dobbyn's characters desgns are top notch.

Easy vote for Medivac 318.