Messages

[309]

...but the simple fact is that it was Skizz that made my future purchase of Prog 292 inevitable, and the one after that.

Yes folks,  I made a post about my first prog for at least the 53rd time,  and somehow got the numbers wrong. I started buying with 309, the next one was 310 etc.

I wouldn't call tens of millions of dead under Stalin and Mao as tiny stumbles.

Versus the extinction of most life on this planet, and the destruction of human civilisation that capitalism is delivering?  Yeah, stumbles.

My Dad was (is, just about) great for pushing comics and SF on me, although history was (is) his thing. Alongside the period-standard diet of war stories and school comedies, I was exposed to a diet of Jet Morgan, Flash Gordon, Dan Dare and eventually Star Wars, and when I was off school with the exaggerrated ailments of the '70s child he would buy me an armful of comics. One such was Prog 291, my first sight of 2000AD.



The contents both disturbed and enticed me. Ezquerra's Blanch Tatum was coldly murderous and prifoundly sexy in a way I'd never seen in a comic before. But elsewhere strips were deep in their own weird continuity,: Fort Neuro,  Ace Trucking and Harry 20. There was one standalone thing, a short story by some guy called Alan Moore,  but I never looked at the names of the creators, if I even knew such people existed back then. It didn't really grab my timid self in the way the New Eagle did.

It wasn't until I saw this in the newsagent:


...that my life was changed. Magnificent, peerless, irresistible, unique; wouldn't you say, Colin?

And behind that non-story that I desperately wanted to imagine, there was this incredibly realistic thing about a cute girl in Birmingham, by that Moore guy again. It was the second part of Skizz, although I wouldn't learn that I had missed the good Interpreter's actual crashlanding the previous week for at least another year.

I could wax lyrical about the welcomingly simple opener of Starborn Thing, the fact that the impenetrable Fort Neuro was somehow still going all those months later, that there was yet more from Moore, or that the amazing artist that did that momentous cover had another equally bizarre strip about Nazi microbes and (crucially) the strange people that actually made the comic, but the simple fact is that it was Skizz that made my future purchase of Prog 292 inevitable, and the one after that.

And here we are.

The terrible failures of Communist systems operating under relentless external economic and military assault from the moment of their birth are tiny stumbles compared to the universal global annihilation that unchallenged Socialised Capitalism has brought us to.

That's the real End of History; not a metaphor, not an imaginary story.

[Kevin 4 : 1 Patrick.]

I shan't mince words. Goddard does fine, fine work, with stunning detail and complete distinct, but Kev's transition from lumpen  leathery Anderson through the best ever I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-Warhammer* colour art on ABC Warriors, spiky Tor Cyan and Sin City to the sublimely moody minimalism of Mandroid and The Connection is just mind-blowing.

Kevin 4 : 1 Patrick.

*This must have been Pat's corporate revenge.  I'm doing an episode-a-day slow thoughtful re-read of Nemesis** at the moment, and holy shit Games Workshop, you were naughty naughty boys. Have some of your own medicine,  care of Kevin.

**It's a sublime work, since you ask, maybe 2000AD's single best long-running strip.

-Okay, this is fairly subjective, but "Morrison's Batman run is the best." 

Stick around, you may hear this one again from sources sharing spatial co-ordinates, volume and appellation with yours truly.!

Conversely I had no problems for the first time in ages - normally I have to restore purchases and/or logout before the current prog even appears. There was an update for me yesterday (Android), which I was putting it down to.

Also consider this Tordel: If you cancel Colin you must become the "new" Colin and run with the tourney ...

Strange you should say this, as I've had a sudden change of heart. That Bellardinelli, he was nought but a beardie Italian hack. I'm a Swiftie now. Just like Colin.  Whose taste is impeccable.

...there's not a strip done by Massimo that I don't think would be elevated if it was done by Brendan M...

For the love of Grud, stop this madness! 

See this allegorical work below?   The stag represents good taste, and the Mata, that's you that is.

[PJ 4 : 1 Jock.]

PJ 4 : 1 Jock.

Jock is obviously a great artist, working very much in the scratchy style I favour,  but PJ"s contribution is vast, diverse and just more fun.

[Massimo Belardinelli 0]

Massimo Belardinelli 0

Colin is cancelled.

The Elson droid's eye for character design is just amazing  [....] there's so much care and attention lavished on making them distinctive. It's a pleasure to work on these pages.

It's not that often I look at a new supporting character design and instantly want to know all about them - Midnight indicating Shame being the most recent prior example - but the Necromancer grabbed me from the first panel. And in our post-scarcity era of magical fantasy 'baddies', that's no mean feat.

Bah, a vigilant correspondent points out that in my gathering senility I have unconsciously swapped Abnett for Ewing. Either man should take it as the highest of unintentional praise.

[Massimo 4 : 1 Brendan 1]

Massimo 4 : 1 Brendan 1. 

Which reflects only the scale of my boundless love for Bellardinelli, rather than any shortage of affection for the incredible McCarthy.

[cover]

Downright excellent prog, cover to cover. 4.8/5, I reckon.

Superb Robinson & Teague cover, movement, perspective and colour lift a generic Dredd subject.

Dredd itself is an absolute treat, Carroll finally getting a chance to return to his excellent Kindred/Parliament storyline, with another perspective distinct from Barbarbara Grimm or Sage. This is one ongoing scenario I don't want to see resolved any time soon, backgrounded Dredd and bent judges bedamned, and I hope Mike gives us many future instalments this good.

The Fraser/Caldwell chimera is just magnificent on this: that shot of the city's architecture through the windowed office, the ornate desk, the procession of well-designed and outfitted characters, the subtle shift in tone for the colours through glass (or glasseen polypropylene), the mauve floor, is as perfect a calling card for this partnership as you could wish for.

The amazing reversible shoulder pads are just plain amusing - IIRC Simon had a pencil rough of the big panel up last year with Dredd's shoulder pads switched too, so he's actually gone back and fixed this but left the other! At this point I'm taking this teensy repeating quirk as an endearing Persian Flaw in the otherwise perfect work of a modern master. 

Thistlebone throws us a genuinely unexpected (by me) twist - we all knew Roger was a wrong'un as soon as we saw those cages, but this..!  Satisfying to see that the pedestrian ending to Malcolm's flashback adventure was pure misdirection. Incredible that Davis can keep to this quality of painted detail week after week: those cartoony segments must have helped, even if only as a change.  This is Eglinton's masterpiece, so may it too run and run.

And then we come to Intestinauts. Wyatt is building a great world here, and gently reminds us of its parameters and players as the story goes along, but Pye Parr takes these seeds and goes into absolute beast-mode. Those spaceport backgrounds, sound-effects, colours, kinetic blobs... purest of pure 2000AD.

Is that Sonny Steelgrave I spy in the middle, with his first prog work in more than a decade? And it's a prettt good 'un! An old chestnut to be sure, but twisty and sufficently flavoured to satisfy. Is this Anna Morozova's second or third outing on the one-offs? Either way her art feels very polished here, and she dances through a dense story keeping appearance-changing characters well-defined, and the backgrounds rich and well-shaded. Good stuff all round.

(Obviously Tharg is working through a backlog of classic FS themes here, with last week's VR prison tale followed by a double-crossing mind-swap, I confidently expect a complicated spin on "And I shall call you... Eve" next week, or possibly someone trying to kill/save Hitler/Kennedy).

Ewing and Elson recapture that sense of despair in defeat that provides the backbone to Feral & Foe's FRPG tomfoolery, and for me makes it such a strong strip. Campbell's lettering here goes a long way to establishing the physical identities of the characters, when the words they use clearly belong to someone else.

Keep this up, Thargy.