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[Dredd]

Wow there seems to be divided opinions on this one and having saved it for X-Mas days as I do these days I have to say I got a right X-mas treat. Which is a nice surprise as this being a continuation of all but Dredd ran the risk of it not being special. Far from it in fact!

Dredd - I thought that this was a blinder. Neimand is my fav no Wagner Dredd and its episodes like this that make why completely clear. Still very much seated in Dreddverse, yet brilliantly refreshing and adding to things. Also this is setting up something big one feels. Tom Fosters art is of course superb, if some of the design, particularly of the perps as a little to clean and neat, but that's nit-picking.

Azimuth well if you're going to land us with what feels like a bit of a fan-service twisty introduction you can get away with it if you do it as well as this. Just superb.

It was always going to be hard to match an opening like those two but Anderson does its best, pretty decent story and lovely art BUT why oh why can't folks draw Cass as a mature woman as she is. Its pretty sad, especially when it lets down an otherwise great piece of art.

Fiends takes the quality right back up to top notch with a blinder with glorious evocative art.

Strontium Dog - damn that was so close to being great. Dan Cornwell was of course absolutely brilliant. That opening was fantastic, well crafted tale. Middle colour hallucination bit was unecessary, showed the inexperience of the writer in trying WAY to hard. Then the ending was fantastic and as good as the openning. A really good story with a bit of try to hard in the middle, but you can forgive that I guess.

Rogue Trooper solid story with great art.

Now thw biggest issue is the ongoing stories don't really hold up the quality we have had to this point.

Well okay Helium continues to be a delight and WOW that ending!

Enemy Earth, well ... its there.

Devil's Railroad I'll still stand up for this one. Fittingly pantomine fun for this time of year and I'm enjoying it.

Feral and Foe entertains.

Overall all I'm calling this one a big win. Do miss the fact we're not getting a new line-up to be excited about in the new year but that'll come when it comes and this one was a belter.

I've spent the entire morning searching high and low, across thesauri and Dictionary.com for superlatives to describe my admiration for Dash Decent (and family) and failed to find one. You sir are the best of us (well aside from Trooper Mcfad who we have to thank for setting up the platform for your brilliance*)

John W your entry shouldn't get forgotten and Andy Lambert gets a second (new) piece of wonder as well.

Its been a Christmas miracle folks - thanks to each and everyone of you who have made the Advent Calendar not just what it used to be but amazingly even better! There's life in the ol' Forum yet.

*from best-I-can-do.com

Lost amongst the brilliance - though I said I'd post the full version - was waiting luckily very needlessly to see if there as a quiet day. What a year for the advent!

That is a glorious cover!

Just goes to show you were an absolute superstar straight out the gate Andy!

[Underheist 1]

Lots of ending this time. But also a beginning.

Anyone who reads my nonsense here knows what a fan of David Lapham I am so it will be no surprise that I picked up Underheist 1. Decent start, a LOT of ground covered, need to see how it develops.

Declan Shalvey's Alien 2 continues his story and it... solidly okay.

And so to the endings. Scrapper 6 end this series as it gone. Its fine, nothing more.

Danger Street 12, well its an intereting ending, I need to re-read the whole thing to see if its a satisfying ending though.

The Man from Maybe 3 another one that needs a bit more of a revisit to unpick quite how successful it is.

The real class comes from the comics that are still going. Rumpus Room 4 typically brilliant Mark Russell.

The Enfield Gang Massacre 5 horribly brilliant as this one shots to its grizzley end. Brilliant as the main series (That Texas Blood).

Best comic of the lot is defo not the saccharine sweet I mean there's no way I'd fall for such a cheap trick of Tom King showing us how compassionate Wonder Woman is, taking a day to give something to a terminally ill young fan, while the forces marshally against her make big cynical moves. I mean come on even though this is exquistitely executed and absolutely superb I'm far to long in the tooth to fall for a simple trick like that aren't I... BLUB no - this was absolutely beautiful and the perfect examination of what makes Wonder Woman the character she is...

Just so great that so many folks are keeping this the strongest Advent calendar for years and years. Too much good stuff to mention individually but both Dash Decent and Judge Woody deserve calling out for their relentless creativity. Oh and how brilliant is that Jake Lynch (and co) image. The man is such a talent and that just shows he's getting better and better.

Trooper McFad your endless drive to promote this throughtout the year is really paying off. Take a bow sir, I for one am so grateful for how this has all paid off and its a treat everyday.

Well wow what a way to make your 10,000 post JayzusB.Christ - quite lovely and yet terrifying at the same time (and I don't mean the story, you are Finnegan Sinister!).

Many happy returns... and I guess I mean keyboard returns there!

...I don't know how you can write them so quickly that i don't even have time to comment in between....

Well I tend to find not worrying about good spelling and grammar, sentence structure and whether what I write makes a jot of sense to anyone else is a real time saver!

BRILL to see you here Pete. Don't see enough of you these days. Keep your eyes peeled you get name checked soon in a post coming up in the none to distant future!

My favorite Battle character, wish Rebellion can do a similar collection to the Charley's War collection.

I reckon we'll get there when the schedule allows. Then we'll have the dilemma I had with Charley's War as to whether to replace the hardcovers with the new editions.

Thanks for another great write-up Colin - your love for this one really shines through. It's not too long a write-up - make 'em longer! It wouldn't have the nostalgia factor for me so I'll not be massively seeking it out but that art looks bloody good so if I happen upon it I'll certainly give it a look. When I was a kid it was the beano, dandy, whizzer and chips, no war comics, alas. Clearly I missed out!

I mean any one could do worse things with two quid burning a hole in their pocket!

There are rumours Dark Horse are reprinting all the previous Concrete stories before Chadwick's new story next year.

WAIT WHAT... HOW WHEN... new Concrete SUPER Cool. How do we know this, is there any details. Oh I'm super excited for new Concrete.


I saw it mentioned twice on Cartoonist Kayfabe a few months back, where they talked abiut Library Editiins coming out alongside new stuff. Nothing on any websites beyond that this far, though...

Oh I watch cartoonish Kayfabe - you have them to blame for this list - but haven't seen the episodes they mention. I mean who has time to watch everything they do coming out daily as they do, and there's so much to catch up on. So cool, this has me so excited, can't wait. Though however good any Library editions are going to be I must be strong, I must be strong i don't need them... do I...

...I guess you could say nothing concrete. Ahem

Oh you are good!

[Number 118 - Johnny Red]

Number 118 - Johnny Red

Keywords: World War II, Battle, Formative, Boys own adventure

Creators:
Writer - Tom Tully (and others apparently but...)
Art - Joe Colquhoun, John Cooper (and Carlos Pino apparently, but...)
Colours - All in that lovely black and white so no colour here.

Publisher: IPC, now owned by Rebellions but I'm really talking about the Titan reprints

No. issues: Not sure to be honest, there are however 4 lovely hardcover collections from Titan as mentioned above which cover the first couple of years.

Date of Publication: Originally 1977 - 1987

Last read: 2016

There are certain comics that form cornerstones of your memories of reading comics as a young kid. However well or otherwise they hold up to the modern eye with an objective view they remain endlessly enjoyable to you ... well in most cases The Sarge didn't make this list as in re-read I didn't enjoy it half as much as I remember. A number of these that do hold up will appear on this list as we go on and the first to appear is


Copyright - Rebellion these days

So we all know Johnny Red right, particularly since his adventures also appear to be a cornerstone of Garth Ennis' childhood reading and as such he appears more than any other Battle (or Battle Action) character in the Treasury's ongoing and increasingly fantastic revival of British comic classics. The story centres around Johnny Redburn, a cook onboard an arctic convoy vessel. When his convoy is attacked he takes to the 'catapult' Hurricane fighter on the ship he serves on, resisting attempts to stop him.

Flung into aerial combat, he could fly the plane as he'd trained with the RAF before being kicked out, he saves the day but must then flee as he knows he'll be court marshalled for his actions. He flees to Russia, crash lands and before you know it he's flying and saving the day countless more times with the Falcon Squadron, within the Russian Air Force. It's real boy's own stuff.


Copyright - Rebellion these days

I read Johnny Red in my brother's copies of Battle (hi Robin), it started when I was 3 years old, I'm not sure if we got it then, I think it might be later in the run as I'll return to. If I'm honest I can't remember too much about those early experiences or those comics. Except to say that there are images from the stories burnt into my mind. There is also a distinct impression that these comics mattered to me an immense amount. Most of this review will be based on having read these stories in the four Titan hardcovers releases between 2010 and 2016 and I'll not really go much beyond those, except in the vague terms of the impact of those early reading (or I imagine at first just looking at the pictures!) experiences left on me.

It can be all too easy when doing a list like this to just throw things on because they feel so formative, but from those more recent readings I'm going to try to work out quite why they had such an impact and why therefore these stories make the list. What made them so good then, that they still impact on me now? Stories that if I'm honest if I read them for the first time today I'd find very of their time and while I'd enjoy the craft wouldn't, possibly, get too much from them, certainly not enough to get onto this list.

Nostalgia of course plays a big part of that. I remember loving this strip and so they can throw a warm blanket around me when I revisit them. That's too simplistic though. I think stories of this type that make this list do more. They've shaped the way I approach imaginative fiction in any medium to the extent that I still see them as great comics now, however much I see their problems. They have built the foundations of what I look for in story and I still see those fundamental elements so clearly today. So what are those elements?


Copyright - Rebellion these days

Well since I suspect when I first saw Johnny Red I was just looking at the pictures let's talk about the art. Johnny Red is synonymous with two artists Joe Colquhoun and John Cooper. The Titan volumes are mainly drawn by Colquhorn and that disappointed me so much and I was so relieved when we eventually got to the fourth volume which showcases John Cooper's art... okay, okay that statement clearly requires a LOT of qualification. Joe Colquhoun's art is astonishingly good on the series. He's simply magnificent. For all the energy, dynamism and meticulously realised hardware he most importantly nails the human horror of war with a power that few others, if any, have ever bettered.

John Cooper picks up those traits and runs with them. His work, certainly in his early time on the strip when he's taken over, is very influenced by Colquhoun and feels tighter than his work on say 'One-eyed Jack'. To be very straightforward he's not as good as Colquhoun objectively, but his work just feels right to me on this series. He's a perfect fit because I assume of those early impacts his art had on my forming brain. I do wonder if I read many of the Colquhoun stories as a kid, certainly it's John Cooper's art I see when I reflect back.

It's more than just that though the art of both feels so real. The war they portray feels so scruffy and dirty. Everything feels covered in oil, mud. The filth of war permeates far deeper than outward appearances though. It's etched on characters' faces, subtly carried in their broken body language. It fills every corner of the world and the people forced to inhabit that brutal world. Growing up in the 70s that was how the world looked to me. It was dirty and broken so this felt right. We were also starting to be exposed to a more honest view of the brutalities of war but rarely was it presented so clearly then in comics like Battle.


Copyright - Rebellion these days (not my original art alas!)

Secondly the 'boy's' own high paced adventure action starts to be tempered by ongoing long plots and subplots that build and develop genuine tension. The stories themselves stand up today for their craft regardless of how naive they may seem at times.

The high paced action really works for this strip; it doesn't feel rushed and compacted to the modern eye... well okay it does a bit, but it still works. Johnny and the Falcon Squadron's life is lived in quick bursts of fast moving action and the 3 to 4 page weekly instalments force that to the fore. The fighters go on these missions at high speed, cutting through the air and when they enter combat it is quick, brutal and finishes with sudden deadly accuracy. So unlike a lot of strips of the time the compressed storytelling really works to enhance the tales, not compromise them.

Add to that Johnny Red builds longer running stories that keep you hanging. They go on these high octane missions and flights but know they will return to have to deal with the evil squadron leader, or evade the secret police when they are back at base. The characters seem to develop and grow over time and actions have real consequence. Johnny Red is one of the first, if not the first UK strips that handles that balance masterfully. I'm not Tom Tully's biggest fan. Much of his 2000ad work doesn't quite get that balancing act right for me and in 2000ad his work does feel old to my modern eye. Here though he nails it. The stories, both plots and subplots working together to drive you along. To make things feel driven and breathless, but also grounded and 'real'.


Copyright - Rebellion these days (not my original art alas!)

I'm going on way too much about this now, so the final thing to reflect on is the characters. I love these characters. Johnny 'Red' Redburn himself is just so damned cool, then and now regardless of nostalgia. He's a tough, rugged anti-hero, then so at odds with the norms I came to expect, now so in keeping with characters I love. He's rough around the edges, coarse even, but under that brash exterior is a heart of gold (cliche maybe but it's hard not to love him). He has a strength and determination to not only fight hard, but to fight for the right things however difficult that may be. He pushes back against authority, when authority is wrong, with a braveness I've admired since I was a kid, and I do now, though I lack to the extent that Johnny has it. He's to be admired, even if I can't quite live up to him. The type of hero I'd not really seen as a child, and the type of hero I love in fiction to this day. Heck he's Han Solo flying a propeller plane... except harder... and cooler.

Heck he's from Liverpool too and that's always been cool and I didn't see that as a kid*, heroes from working class cities like my own Liverpool (well I'm Wirral but...) so I thought that made him even cooler. He was even a Liverpool fan to boot!**

So yeah there's Johnny himself but there's also a cast of fantastic supporting characters as well. From the Falcon Squadron, Yakob, a bear of a man being the standout, but others come and go. Nina Petrova and the Angels of Death - I mean a girl in my comic yuck... but okay she was kinda a cool girl... but NOOooo I didn't want to kiss her or anything.... The villains might have been a bit moustache twirling but they did it so well and the Russian military leaders seemed as much of a threat to Johnny as any German pilot, which spoke to a boy hearing tales of his dad's bosses. They all felt so real, like folks on my street at home. They all feel like characters, however simplified, I can translate as real now. It's a fantastic set up.

Add to that real situations from World War II which I was starting to understand and learn about, largely from my older brother and it's a period that I have a grim fascination with to this day. Everything about the series felt built for me, or in part build me, or the way I approach fiction at least, and those foundations still work and translate into a strip that works for the reader that has grown from those foundations. We could discuss cause and effect here, but there's little need. Whatever early paths these laid in my route to being a massive comics nerd today, whatever building blocks they laid to how I would engage with imaginative fiction in all media, however much that anti-authoritation streak reflected the life I was being brought up in, well that doesn't matter. What matters is the craft on display here is superb and nostalgia is weak in and of itself, nostalgia with great storytelling and art, when that's a powerful and potent mixture that helps us understand who and what we are and what we love today.

*I did always wonder how come you never saw the train station on Lime Street where the Leopard lived!

**Well he wasn't explicitly but come in it's all there, surely...


Copyright - Rebellion these days

Where to find it

As said this is all really based in the four Hardcover volumes from Titan published between 2012 and 2016. I'm not aware of these being available digitally yet alas.

I reckon you can get that second volume in the aftermarket easily enough. Or just wait for Rebellion to think enough time has passed and they can start reprinting his stories.

I will go off track here and note that thanks largely to Garth Ennis' love of the character he's making quite a comeback. There's a collection of Titan's 8 issue mini-series written by Ennis and drawn by Keith Burns in 2016.

Johnny Red also appears in a host of Rebellion's Battle Action publications, with more on the way. I'll link to the Battle Action 2022 special but there are others and these are available digitally and the more we buy um the more Johnny Red we'll get!

Learn more

Obligatory Wikipedia page

The smarter Colin has a really good write up of the first volume on his excellent 'To busy thinking about my comics.' blog.

A short interview short interview with John Cooper on the sadly abandoned (I think) Johnny Red Fan Page.

Down the Tubes has lots of different things if you follow this tagged link and scroll down. Including reviews of the volumes I've discussed here.

[Lawless]

Yep this one is all about Lawless this story had a steady start, one I suspect will read better now this is done. But its really picked up over the last three months and as Le Fink says it absolutely nails the ending. Its has absolutely everything. I was genuinely worried about a couple of characters I love. The action was perfectly delievered. The art outstanding as ever. Just everything about this one screamed perfectly about everything that makes Lawless the very, very best of comics.

I adore this series and this episode is yet another highlight from it.

There is more in the comic but none of it can live up to that, however good it is.

Niemand shows once again why he's the best Dredd writer we have outside Wagner himself. A 'standard' Dredd, nothing special on the surface, but the execution by Neimand ably assisted by Paul Marshal is just fantastic.

DeMarco is okay. Loving the art, the story is... steady...

Spectre has been getting better and better as the series has gone on but this week has a bit of a misstep for me. The premise from the start seems great but then any tension is finally ripped from the strip as we establish Spectre is pretty undestructable AND the baddies are fooled all too easily. Shame, still we'll see how the ending goes.

Read both the reprint strips, but if you hadn't they'd be a right treat for you. Decent back matter.

None of that stuff matters Lawless makes it worth the price of entry alone!

Oh interesting. I'm assuming I'll have that in reprint somewhere, but now need to know!

According to wikipedia it was reprinted in Concrete: Complete Short Stories 1990-1995, and also Killer Smile which I also have, it seems.

Yeah did a quick search on Comics.org and saw that I do have it (have the both the Short Stories collections AND Killer Smile) BUT also ordered Within Our Reach Anyway and its has an 8 page norm Breyfogle story and lots of other interesting looking stuff - so its on that way!

and more importantly...

There are rumours Dark Horse are reprinting all the previous Concrete stories before Chadwick's new story next year.

WAIT WHAT... HOW WHEN... new Concrete SUPER Cool. How do we know this, is there any details. Oh I'm super excited for new Concrete.

Even though I've not even heard of 86.66^r% of these titles, this thread has been an excellent read! I've got at least Orbital on my list of things to find in the future (once I get through the acres of comics I already have and the gamebooks and the regular books I'm always reading :)

Cool Beans - thanks Fortnight. Loving chatting away on your thread too. I promise if you keep read those comics you have a load more will appear... just some might be a while yet!