Messages

Aye, well, I think it's a no-brainer:  I'd love to see star-scans, covers or even strips by those artists (although rumours of Belardinelli's death continue to circulate).

Either that or new talent so that I don't have to look at any more art from ... well, the ones I don't like.  There are also a few I'd add to that list (McMahon, Kitson, Dillon & McCarthy, to name a few).

Plus, we could hire someone to draw backgrounds for Ian Gibson, because he obviously can't be bothered anymore.  Remember in Tom & Jerry cartoons when the artist would become part of the cartoon, by brushing out Tom's legs or some such, and then you'd end up with just Tom on a blank canvas, having a battle with ink pots and paint brushes wielded by the artist?  That's more or less what Gibson's art reminds me of, these days.  My point is that "old school" artists aren't always what you want.

To carry on that point, McMahon came back and did that strip about the shouty alien in the Meg a while back - and he got slated by half the letters page because he'd changed his style to something quite abstract and yet minimalist.  They wanted giant judge boots or spikey art (a la Sky Chariots).  Not everyone complained, but you see my point, yes?

Aside #1:  "Tharg's Illustrious Organ" has long since ceased to be an amusing joke.  It's almost as if his replies are written by a computer program:  "With this level of thrill-power, Earthlet, my illustrious organ has never been so swollen".  Ha ha - oh, sooo funny - no, wait, I've heard that one about a million times now so in fact it's just annoyingly repetitive.

Aside #2:  I don't mean this in a patronising way, but you should split your large paragraphs into smaller ones so that they are not so intimidating, and place a blank line between paragraphs.  A wise old man in Tibet told me that.  Ohmmmmmm.

Watcher - yes, you're quite right (better memory than me) - it was the Kitson drawn story where Dredd punches half the guys teeth out before shooting him in the chest at point blank range.  It was just wrong.  Incongruous.

Moving onto the Iso-Block aside:  again, this is portrayed differently depending upon the needs of the creator, it seems.  When I first saw those perps in that story playing in the prison yard, I thought "eh?" because up until then all I'd seen were iso-cubes (like the one Fink Angel crawls out of in Dredd's Angels, was it?)

Of course, it might be 80% isolation, 20% in the yard:  the creators can redefine it as needs be.

I think if you look closely you'll find that there are what might be termed legal anachronisms in the world of Dredd, dependant largely on what the writer wants to happen in the story (ie don't let logic get in the way of a good story).

In the recent Meg story about Kenny Who, there is a robotic lawyer and a court case, and in other stories, rich perps have legal counsel.  And yet, the Judges are literally "judge, jury and executioner" when it suits.

I remember one story in which Judge Dredd executes a perp for causing (thousands of?) casualties.  According to everything that had gone before, and also according to the late 80s Judge Dredd RPG, the perp would recieve life imprisonment, not death.  He was defenceless when executed (by a standard execution round through the chest).

Judges are judged, though, if they are deemed to have taken things too far.  There are mutliple cases of judges being sent to Titan for breaking the law, and there is also the SJS for internal investigations of the Justice Dept.

Mechanismo illustrated what an extreme version of Judge Dredd might be like:  "Littering - gotta make an example - sentence is death!" kind of thing.

Tiger Sun Dragon Moon

I loved that series - loved it loved it loved it.  I just have to point that out when it gets a slating.  No plot, you say?  Read on...

That Khan fellow and his wizard are invading civilisation - and murdering the Royals is top on their agenda of "things to do whilst invading civilisation", but they're well defended by mystical hoo-hah, those Royals, so the wizard fellow uses a magic sword to confrabumodulate the woman goody.  She then goes on a murdering spree, only to be confronted by her ex-lover (is that right?) and they end up killing each other in a deathly embrace, the Royals escape and the mad wizard bloke gets de-confrabumodulated, which kills him.  The Khan dude might be a little bit pissed off about this but he's still got some giant stompy robots so I don't think it's going to stop him.  Bring on the next series!  

(And that, by the way, was a plot, you oh-so-harsh critics you!  There may not have been much overt characterisation, but there was a plot.)

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:: "is it worth tracking down the first V.C. volumes?"

Aye, it most certainly is.  It's one of the series that got me hooked on 2000AD in the first place.  It sometimes has that old fashioned thing where the cliffhanger from one episode is then repeated at the start of the next - so it makes a collected version odd to read sometimes.  That's my one and only criticism. The Titan GNs have lovely cover art, so are worth tracking down on E-Bay or whatnot.

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:: "... Bec & Kawl are all very British-specific"

The whole cones thing was just crap:  it didn't matter which culture you came from.  (IMO, of course.)

Carlsborg:  I went to EVE-online and found it all self-explanatory.  Paying via PayPal is a bit of a pain, as they use a middle-company called PayByCash  - but it all worked out fine after clicking a few things and being a bit confused.  The client and then patch downloads took a while.

As for the game itself, RTFM (Read The F*cking Manual) because it's a complicated game with a vast (not that steep) learning curve.

EVE-online.

For Feqbarr:

I could be wrong, but many Tharg covers don't feature him inside the comic (unless you count the Nerve Centre).

Also, are all the characters on this cover portrayed inside? ...

If by "appeared" you mean in graphical form (as distinct from text), then perhaps all of the supercovers qualify.

Oh - I thought that was from The Young Ones...I knew I'd heard it somewhere.

You'll find "modesty" between "mode" and "Monet" in the dictionary.

Well, I'm prepared to eat my skeptic hat and also stop calling you "Doggy Carrots", if you'd like.

I particularly like the rose in that logo.  

aorry - I'll stop that now

[I've got a dog that's more like a carrot than a dog. 1 It's hairy, 7 but only very slightly. 2 It's got no personality 1 to speak of, 6 no bark to bark of, 3 no head 8 no legs 8 no tail 8 and it's all 6 orange 9 and 10 crunchy. 8]

I've got a dog that's more
 like a carrot than a dog. 1
       It's hairy, 7
  but only very slightly. 2
 It's got no personality 1
      to speak of, 6
   no bark to bark of, 3
        no head 8
        no legs 8
        no tail 8
      and it's all 6
         orange 9
          and 10
        crunchy. 8

[I've got a dog that's more like a carrot than a dog. It's hairy, but only very slightly. It's got no personality to speak of, no bark to bark of, no head no legs no tail and it's all orange and crunchy.]

I've got a dog that's more
like a carrot than a dog.
It's hairy,
but only very slightly.
It's got no personality
to speak of,
no bark to bark of,
no head
no legs
no tail
and it's all
orange
and
crunchy.