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'Allo chap and greetings. The average age of a 2000AD reader these days is probably at least double yours and then a few years, but don't let that put you off. Welcome.

I think that's about as accurate a summary of the issue are you could have!

Now I am a fan of Steve Yeowell's work but I do prefer it with a heavier line in B&W (Zenith vs Red Seas, although I still love what he is doing in the latter) or with a richer colouring job (so I do think his coloured art does work - see Devlin Waugh and Tyranny Rex: Comeback as especially fine examples - D'Israeli and Len O'Grady, pre-moire, on the crayons there). The rather limited palette here does give it a bit of an old school feel, which might the intention here (it has a bit of a Maniac 5-vibe), but it just looks unfinished - like someone added the flats and forgot to come back and do the rest of it. Not a deal-breaker (that might come with the twist ending - [spoiler]if it is his brother in the super-werewolf[/spoiler]) but I am enjoying this one more than the other two and I think getting one of the many colouring droids in to ride shotgun on this could have really made Steve Yeowell's linework shine.

I may be the lone voice of dissension here, but I really like the colours on this, far more than I've enjoyed seeing Yeowell's work coloured by others in the past. I really enjoy the apparent simplicity of it, the limited palette to my eye being a perfect match for the linework.

Phase I, Part 12: Mind Games, Prog 547. An all-time 2000AD highpoint.

Robot Moron from 'Robostory'

For years I couldn't find anyone else who had ever seen Robostory, or even heard of it. I was starting to think I'd imagined it till a couple of episodes appeared on Youtube

I loved that series... vaguely forlorn French sci-fi animation always works for me. I always remembered (probably not accurately) the dressing down the White Wriggler would get from his boss, the Revered Reverence. "And never forget, you are the lowest of the low." I'm hoping it makes it to DVD eventually.

Any picture that can include both Robot Moron from 'Robostory' and a security 'bot from 'Chopping Mall' makes me happy. And it's gotta be a British artist... there's stuff there from 'Galloping Galaxies' and 'Rentaghost'.

There was that Jimi Hendrix strip in Revolver, of course.

Yeah, I seem to recall really enjoying the first run of Finn and then really not enjoying the later ones. I liked the oddly chatty (albeit adversarial) relationship the web-footed arch-enemy had with Finn's high priestess. However, by the time we got to the story featuring the Crusadeer, I was no longer a fan. 90s-era Pat was a very hit-and-miss phenomenon.

Pretty sure Megadeth's mascot, Vic, had his own comic book. Glenn Danzig (of Danzig, Misfits, Samhain) had a whole line of comic books, and I'm pretty sure both he and the Misfits have been represented in print. Never gonna be as cool as KISS appearing in Howard the Duck though.

This is a tough one, but I've always loved:

Love 'Hammer House of Horror', particularly 'Children of the Full Moon', a story that had been described vividly to me by my father many years before I actually got to see it. It was one of those rare ones that actually lived up to his version of it (normally the combination of his storytelling and my imagination created something feverish and ridiculously exciting, beyond the actual capability of tv or film.) There's also the closely related 'Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense'. And, of course, Nigel Kneale's 'Beasts', which has some very unnerving tales - 'During Barty's Party', featuring an invasion of rats that you never quite see is a good one, but 'Baby' is the the standout, probably about as quintessentially Nigel Kneale as it's possible to get. (Mysterious unidentified creature's remains unearthed in the wall of an old house, strange things start happening....)

It's the 1965 Harry Alan Towers version, 'Ten Little Indians', directed by George Pollock. They called it the 'Whodunit Break'. Same idea used particularly memorably as the 'Werewolf Break' in Amicus's 'The Beast Must Die'.

Edit: Beaten to the punch on the 'Beast' reference!

I've been very unsure about this whole 'Hellboy is descended from King Arthur via Mordred' idea Mignola's been pursuing of late - it struck me as a bit daft, really.

I'm not sure why people find this a hard idea to accept when HB was established from the outset as the son of a 17thC witch and a Duke of hell, which is hardly any less believable. And if he's already established as being descended from a witch, it's not much of a stretch to have him related, distantly and tangentitally, to Morgaine. And by association, that would in turn mean he's related to Arthur. Genetics is a funny thing at the best of times. One in every 200 men is supposedly related to Genghis Khan, after all.

Everything you say above is wholly logical, Dark Jimbo, and your chain of connections is undoubtedly sound, particularly when the big Hellboy picture is examined. And yeah, thematically, it fits, Hellboy having always been a character who struggles to throw off the weight of destiny. And yet, as mogzilla says, there's just something about it that didn't quite sit right (with me anyway)... if you're going to reveal a connection with a figure from British mythology (or possibly history, the debate rages on), Arthur seems just too obvious and well-used a character to choose, not 'unique' enough for HB. It's sort of like those folk who claim to have lived previously declaring Julius Caesar as one of their past lives... or indeed a bit like when Marvel revealed Peter Rasputin (Colossus of the X-Men) was a direct descendent of Grigori Rasputin.

But yeah, it doesn't spoil the strip for me or anything, it was just a bit of a swerve that I suspect seemed more exciting to a non-British creator, to whom Arthur might appear more exotic a choice.

Ah well, some cracking art to look forward to anyway. I've been very unsure about this whole 'Hellboy is descended from King Arthur via Mordred' idea Mignola's been pursuing of late - it struck me as a bit daft, really. But [spoiler]'Hellboy In Hell' [/spoiler] sounds like a winner.

The buggers! Sad to see even Dark Horse succumbing to the Big Two's inability to keep anything secret.