Messages

I'd go a bit further. Not only are the eggs unfertilised, but they're the eggs of what I assume are amphibians - no amphibian 'expects' all of several dozen eggs to mature, it's a high-volume high-loss strategy, so anthropomorphising them as "babies" is doubly crazy. 

I fully understand the sensitivities involved in human fertility issues, I've been up close and personal on that one, but this is part of a franchise where the main character butchers not one but two groups of children, before having a loving deathbed reconciliation with the son he mutilated and ascending to eternal life. It also repeatedly makes gags out of individuals being killed in various gruesome ways. I don't think we should be taking these space-wizard stories too much to heart.

My own view is that people have created their own picture of the Child as a sweet and cuddly soft toy to be snuggled, which has nothing to do with how he has been portrayed thus far, which is appropriately amoral, and this is why this looks like a heel turn to them.

This is the same issue that arose with adult Yoda in Phantom Menace where many folk were annoyed that he came across as nasty, judgemental and just plain wrong, and not a loving sage of peace and light that they believed him to be.  I can only conclude that these people saw a different version of TESB than I did, 'cos in my copy a maniacal swamp goblin bullied, lied, belittled and manipulated a young man in order to use him in a vicarious act of vengeance. And was proven wrong about basically everything.

I don't remember that in the Meg, and it's not listed on Barney. Are you sure it wasn't somewhere else?

Entirely possible!

EDIT: Just checked, it's there alright, 6 pages in Meg 245. I did think there was more than a few pages, though, remember enjoying it - I may be confusing it with a collection?

He's had versions appear in at least 3 2000AD strips too (Zenith Phase III,  London Falling and Absalom), as well as David Hitchcock's excellent eponymous comic reprinted in the Meg.

I did think of Nemesis, but because it wasn't really written as a first episode of a series I put it to one side... But yeah, it's right up there.

NO SPOILERS: S02E03/Chapter 11 is quite simply ridiculously good on every possible level. Effects,  design, action, awesomely awesome guest stars, wider continuity (I know, I know, I said I didn't care for this, but this is the good kind), costumes, tantalising dangly bits, more Firefly homages... Never did I think would see anything like this in live action telly. Off for an instant rewatch.

[Bob Byrne]

Was trying to put off buying this until I've paid my tax, but the Art Droid threads reminded me of how good Higgins is on Dreadnoughts, and I caved. I'm sending the Revenue after you, C.YNWA.

This is an incredibly strong comic, helped along by my love for Bob Byrne and delight at rediscovering Tales I'd forgotten. I have no idea what's going on in The Returners (only caught the odd episode before), but it looks nice (great designs on the BritCit bikes, although maybe 4 splash pages in an episode is pushing it pacewise), and the rest is -clichéd chef's kiss-. I haven't even started into the articles yet.

Dredd is just, fecking hell, why does nobody else write full-bore action Dredd like this? You see 'Beeny' in the title,  you're thinking oooh America IV, thoughtful interpersonal drama and socio-political commentary, instead it's pages and pages of shooty robots, stub guns and moronic citizens exploding and it is wonderful. Just utterly wonderful. Hats off to Cornwell, there's not many artists that could talk me down from bemoaning the switch from MacNeil, but here I am, besotted.

No matter how much fun Carroll, Williams, Niemand, McConville et al deliver, Wagner still towers over his strip, unassailable great.

Megatropolis. Metropolis meets LA Confidential, sign me up, it's the strip Taylor was born to draw, delicious SF noir dripping with corruption. But I'm sorry, I know I'm alone here and I've tired to adapt my aporoach, but the endless name dropping still pisses me off by constantly pulling me out if the story. Who will this new character be, oh look it's Pappy Giant, it's Volt, it's Faro, it's Narcos, it's Booth, it's PJ Maybe, it's Sinfeld, it's Cal, it's not a Sebek mask it's a drokking Klegg isn't it, make it stop, let me enjoy this story.  It's the only flaw in an otherwise completely stonking strip. Ah well.

Dreadnoughts is just spot-on, I'd go so far as to say it's Carroll's best work to date, and Higgins & Hurst rise to the challenge with a believable mix of the present and future.

Deliverance looks amazing, shiny digital banishing any of my lingering reservations about Percival's art being too heavy. I've no idea what the backstory is here, but I see Warhammer 40K, Alien and the Dark Judges, and no more is necessary. It works fine for me.

That's one hell of a lot of top comics pages for less than €5 digital. I don't think the Meg has been this strong in years: maybe ever.

[Dave Gibbons]

Dave Gibbons for the first episode of Rogue Trooper.

A truly extraordinary piece of work. I don't think I saw it until it appeared in Best of 2000AD, my Rogue had been Ewins, Wilson and Kennedy (gods to a man, don't get me wrong), and it just blew me away. Vies with Sláine, and maybe Shakara, for the most perfect first episode.

[Dave Gibbons]

Cooper was a treasure, but despite Armitage the work of his I liked best was outside of 2000AD: One-Eyed Jack was just a great strip in all of its many homes (which I'm not allowed to take into consideration).

Gibbons likewise makes the biggest splash in a larger pond, but I could go on for hours about the genius of his Ro-Busters and Rogue Trooper, even Dr. Dibworthy. But I won't, because one strip is enough to earn my vote here: Chronocops. This was like nothing I'd ever seen, it looked like a Mad Magazine strip but you could read it over and over again and see something new every time.  And I'd never even heard of Dragnet!

So Dave Gibbons it is.

 Who?  A fucking nobody whose name should be forgotten.

[D'Israeli]

So many pivotal Dredd stories, plus the original run of Freaks, would be enough to put Higgins up there,  but for me no-one ever drew Mega-City 1 at the sweeping scale that he did, and even his technicolour Cursed Earth was genuinely beautiful. Seeing the opposite end of that vision in the realism of Dreadnoughts is a current treat.

But my heart belongs to D'Israeli, an artist for whom the word "unique" was created. There's nobody drawing for Tharg whose current work I love more.

Carl.
For *that* prog.

Completely forgot that was him!  What an achievement.

[Simon Coleby]

Sheesh, I dunno. I really like Dom's style, it's right up my street, but I haven't been that moved about any of the strips he's done. Whereas I actively hated some early Coleby strips, and then really loved other later ones. It evens out as a tie.

On balance, only one of them gave us Dirty Frank versus Nazi Babies, and that's enough to ensure a vote for Simon Coleby.

Ach, please ignore my previous post.  I'm in a right grump this morning, bleating on about what's just part of everyone's life these days is pointless whining. Seeing viral posts about how the Army are mass-microchipping kids in schools when all this is going on, the repetitive stupidity just knocks me down, and sitting in the house alone all day I end up spewing out shite here.

Fascinated by how eager people are to ensure a third wave of this shite in the new year. Sitting here watching 600 deaths in the UK yesterday (that's over 25 times the average UK suicide and road deaths rate combined, BTW, "with Covid" fans) and my Irish news feeds are basically just people lobbying to have December be business as usual here. How can anyone look at European deaths today and think: "let's forget about restrictions, it's Christmas!".

Halfway through the current lockdown today, and I'm sick to fucking death of it. Not a single person I know personally is adhering to the guidelines, not one, and secondary schools are approaching 50% with confirmed cases and still effectively no testing in the school setting.  Meanwhile HSE just now *considering* including identifying sources of transmission in contact tracing, when this has been established as a priority goal for controlling spread since the spring. Another year of this beckons.

[Brett]

I've loved Critchlow's work from the White Dwarf days, and once he escaped the brown murk of the 90s his style only gets better. I rate his art on Lobster Random as a true classic of the modern era, and he draws great Mega-citizens too.

However Brett Ewins gave us Haunting of Sector House 9, The Wally Squad, the first Anderson Psi Div, The Possessed, Venus' bikini, Major Magnum and Bad Company. That's a resumé that takes some beating.

Brett all the way.