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I've read Pat's statements, and while I understand and respect his feelings re: one of the greatest (and my favourite) of his creations, I can't believe it'd be sustainable for Rebellion to retire its top IP as soon as creators no longer want to, or can't, write it. Again the clusterfuck of comics rights rears it's head: if there was a proper royalty situation for creators, Pat & Co could step back when they wanted to, and still benefit from the monetization of their genius.

But I didn't want to divert the review thread into this overcrowded siding yet again! Apologies! 

Rather, I wondered if anyone else thought how easy and natural it would be for the Ever Living Ones, or even the Guledig, to pop up in this story and describe Wilson or Constanta in terms of their respective trans-time causes. And how if you were going to set up a universe of fantasy spin-offs that eventually spiralled (geddit) back to the big man in an otherwise drear post-Pat future, this might be how you start.

Here, ye don't think there's any chance Edgy is positioning Fiends as part of Sláine's universe, in advance of Pat's alleged swansong in the upcoming Manco-drawn series?

(I ask more in a spirit of fun speculation than anything serious, and don't mean to impugn Ian's professionalism in any way at all).

I know there's no shortage of triple goddesses (there's 2 (or 6) in the current prog alone), but this wonderful run has had such a heavily fantasy bent that I can't help wondering if it's laying groundwork. If you remember,  Myrddin describes the Nazis as an incarnation of the Cythron's plan, so Constanta and his fiends could fit right in there as immortal enemies of the Goddess.

I can't believe Rebellion could leave Sláine fallow,  as a Top Three Most Widely-Recognised Character, and it's not like Ian is a stranger to linking worlds that initially appear entirely unconnected (hitherto just his own - which neither Fiends nor Sláine are). Could this tall tale be a tentative backdoor into Sláine-related shenanigans, a sort of proactive Strontium Dogs? 

Meant to say, I had done exactly that.  And believe me, between all their various tendrils,  Disney get a nontrivial amount of my cash.

This is an appalling situation. I greatly enjoy Disney's overall output, and between myself and the family have happily shovelled cash at them, despite moral qualms about the impact if their increasingly huge influence. Even aside from the general immorality of their royslties position, I have personally loved ADF's two SW novels (the novelisation was the only way I had to watch SW, pre-video) and two of his Alien ones, as well as his Trek and Spellsinger work, and feel deep anger about his treatment. 

This situation has to be remedied, and if it is not I will cancel our subscription to Disney+ and stop purchasing all their licensed products.

[Patrick Goddard]

I like 'em both fine, both have solid realistic approaches and a talent for making B&W art sing.  Roach draws great faces resulting in some mighty purdy ladies, while if Goddard has a fault it's that his faces can be quite action-hero bland, which may be why I prefer his Dredd to his Savage. Both have very impressive back catalogues.

On balance though I think Patrick Goddard handles action the better of the twain, and so he gets my vote.

Great post, Alex, very interesting.

[Anthony Williams]

Much like Simon Coleby,  I never really liked Williams back in the early '90s, when Tharg seemed intent on having him draw only the most boring or irritating scripts that wandered by. Revisiting those years a while back I was forced to change my mind and accept that it was Ennis, Millar and McKenzie that I had a problem with: like Ron Smith of the same era, Williams never gave less than his best on the sub-par shite he was handed, and on the rare occasions when he had decent material to work with, he shone.

Of course it was his unmatched marathon on Sinister Dexter that really sold me on his strengths, strong expressive designs and crystal-clear storytelling, but I also enjoyed the VCs and his later Dredds. Be great to see him do something new for Tharg.

He's up against Davis here, whose 'Hyper-Historic Headbang' and DR & Quinch were already firm favourites before I ever set eyes on Harry 20. However, throw in a bat-mugger, and progwise that's basically your lot.

I'd be tempted to give the nod to Alan for Marlon's physical acting alone, but you know, in terms of his overall contribution as an artist, I think it has to Anthony Williams for me.

Think I've found one I can't vote in. There's no way to split these two: never mind how there are both inseparably integral to Dante,  for every 'Blood Cadets' there's a 'Scorpion Dance',for every Bendatti Vendetta a Family, for every The Order a Lilly McKenzie,  for every T an A.  For two such different artists, almost coming from different eras, it's amazing close their work is.

Persuade me with your thinkenings, oh partisans. I'll get back to you.

I'm not sure I'd have predicted how spectacularly one-sided this is so far - I thought everyone loved the man with the great-and-correctly-spelled first name. (I mean, yeah, Jesus is a pretty good name too.)

Greg is beyond great, and by all accounts a righteous dude to boot. But he's up against my nightmares:

Touch of Langley about that redesign, but not in a good way.

I'm not averse to the Justice League film, it has some fun moments amongst all the murk, and I love Leonard Cohen to an unreasonable degree, but it's very hard to believe that this trailer is professional work.

I'll just leave this here. You'll see why I thought Jim must be the culprit.

Addendum: For example, Greedo was the first alien named on screen, but his species was just described as 'Martian' during production, and later 'a Greedo' in the RotJ production, but his current species name 'Rodian' was invented by WEG in their RPG, before appearing in (I think) the Shadows of the Empire novelisation, then used in the production notes for Episode 1, before finally entering 'canon' in Clone Wars Season 1, 30 years after the character's first appearance.

You're right about the character design originally being intended for Ackbar, but it's deffo Ree Yees on the toy packaging. Like most of the background aliens, he's named for obvious physical descriptors, i.e. he has (Th)ree (E)ye(e)s. Sometimes this is because it's a version of the name on the shooting call-sheet, but usually it was up to Kenner and Topps Trading Cards to give these guys names, rather than anyone at LFL. West End Games built on this foundation, and being roughly contemporary their sourcebooks had a weird entwined existence with the golden age of the novels, and in our modern era passed into 'canon' via the need to fill endless hours of cartoons.

Um, actually.

[Stickleback]

Another terrific wee prog, everything works.

I'd make particular note of the following:

- Edginton and Campbell sneak some very naughty words into this week's luminous Stickleback. Very naughty indeed.

- You know when you read a story about a giant shark, and you don't really get to see the shark properly for like 7 episodes, getting weird hybrid monster versions, and odd blurry glimpses instead,  and you think, well maybe sharks just aren't as interesting as they were in the '70s,  or maybe the artist just doesn't want to draw sharks?  Well, this isn't that story. Wow.

- Check out that opening panel in Dredd. Fab teamwork from Austin and Blythe.

[Brendan McCarthy.]

There's basically nothing that McCarthy has ever drawn or designed* that I haven't loved, so my vote is assured. I'll mention 'Atlantis' as one of my favourite Dredds, but I might also note that his 'She-Devils!' (with Brett and Riot) ranks comfortably alongside Gibson's 'Amazing Maze Dumoir' as the downright sexiest art to ever appear in the comic. It was a bright Christmas morning indeed when that one popped out of the stocking.

Brendan McCarthy.