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Interesting news from Bleeding Cool about the 13 episodes of the next 'season' of Doctor Who being split into two chunks. One starting Easter as normal the other in the Autumn.

Hmmm. I'm not 100% convinced this is a great idea - can't help but feel that a meagre 6 / 7 episode run will feel a bit inconsequential. Then again, I guess it depends on the quality: the last series was the most schizophrenic I've ever seen in terms of how good individual episodes were or weren't - some terrible ones mixed in with some outstanding ones. I suppose you could argue it's been like that for a while, but not, to my mind, to such an extreme degree.

It was Mr Throat, I think.

Ah, that's it! I had the name 'Mr. Fist' in my head for some reason, but I knew that wasn't right. Thankfully.

Ok - absolutely loved this series, but it's been a long time since I read it, so there may be a few inaccuracies...

In the final episode, Stanley [spoiler]wins Slaughterbowl, flipping out near the finish line and animalistically attacking his arch-rival (totally forgotten his name, Mr. something), while both of them are half-crippled from the competition. It is at this point that Stanley starts to remember his previous crimes and it becomes clear that he was completely guilty of all the serial-killing he was accused of. The final panel shows a twisted-looking Stanley longing for "meat in his belly".[/spoiler]

What I loved about this series was that in retrospect there was [spoiler]obviously no way Stanley could have been innocent, but because he was the hero and was so mild and likeable, you just went along with it and assumed he was set-up somehow.[/spoiler]

Thanks guys, I'm really grateful for the responses (and for your raking through your annuals and giving me a suggestion for further research, David! Cheers!)

What a bloody nice place this is. 

I don't know. I like Ridgway but in 'Junker' he draws the least sexy Sexy Alien Babe in the history of art.

So are you saying you'd kick her out of bed? C'mon, if you squinted you could pretend it was Venus Bluegenes... 

I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me...

...the dreadful prospect of 'Junker: The Michael Fleisher Collection' at some point.

Not that I want to be seen to be encouraging such a thing in any shape or form, but maybe one with all the captions and bubbles taken off?  The art is rather fine.

Agreed, it says something that even John Ridgway's prodigious talents weren't enough to save it.

[is]

For my money, Joe Colquhoun is 'Charley's War'. If Joe was still alive, I could see it might be enjoyable to have a little 'flashback' series or one-off, but without him... no, let it rest.

I was thinking they could do collections of these stories by era or author - I'd love to have, say, a 'Best of Pete Milligan', covering Tribal Memories, The Dead, Freaks and Shadows, for instance, or a 'Best of John Smith' with Firekind, Slaughterbowl and so on.

So when to we get "the Dead" in a collection, either stuck to the back of the Meg or on a shelf in some snobby shop?


Belardinelli's finest hour FFS.

Seconded. And a rather fine scripting job by the great god Milligan too.

Hi folks. Was wondering if any of you knowledgeable souls can help me with some info? I recently bought a few original pages of a Hook Jaw story from one of the Action annuals off eBay (they were cheap and had a big shark in 'em, what more can I say?) However, I haven't a clue who the artist is or which annual it appears in. I have tried to look this stuff up, but all the sites I found deal largely in Action pre-ban, meaning that the later neutered, 'boy's adventure' incarnation is not covered, and I assume these pages hail from an annual in that era. Here's the pages, if you'd like to see 'em bigger, they're on my Comicartfans site (link in sig.) Thanks in advance. Cheers.

The best way to measure the CF's worth is how often do you pull it from the shelf.

Oddly, the one I pull off the shelf the most is actually CF 1, mostly because the stories in it are the least familiar to me. There's a real thrill from seeing all the early, tentative appearances of themes, characters and concepts that will solidify a bit further down the line. The first story with The Brotherhood and the as-yet unnamed Cursed Earth is one I often come back to. Not, I should add, that I think CF1 is even remotely in the running as one of the best overall though.

Whilst Vol 7 is unquestionably extremely good when it comes to the day-to-day madness of Joe's existence, for me, the pinnacle of Dredd remains Vol 14. 'Tale of the Dead Man', 'Countdown to Necropolis', 'Necropolis' itself... not only isn't there a weak point, but every single story and every part of every story is up there amongst the greatest ever published in 2000AD. I appreciate that it isn't the kind of thing you'd give to someone as a taster of what the strip is normally like, as it's the culmination of so many plot threads that to fully appreciate it you probably ought to know about the Democracy storyline, Oz, Judge Death, Question of Judgement, ex-Chief Judge McGruder, the Long Walk, the Cursed Earth (ad infinitum.) Plus Dredd isn't even a Judge for about half of it. Nonetheless, I don't think any mega-epic, even the Apocalypse War, has topped it. (Of course, I've not read most of Tour of Duty yet...)

I'd definitely wait until some reprints appear. Fear and Loathing is one of my all-time favourite comics, but I felt that much of what followed ruined the character and was more about Pat Mills taking the piss out of superhero comics, but this time without anything interesting to say.

That said, Marshal Law Takes Manhattan and Marshal Law - Kingdom of the Blind are very entertaining piss-takes.

I think 'Kingdom of the Blind' in particular still has enough of an edge, despite mostly being a merciless parody of Batman: the final line regarding Kiloton is quite telling. '...Takes Manhattan' includes the line "Assholes assemble!" which pretty much meant I could never read Avengers in quite the same way any more. I would say that 'Super-Babylon' is where it starts to go a little bit wobbly, but even that has its charms. I must confess, I actually really enjoyed the crossover with Hellraiser, mostly because O'Neill does a fine cenobite, and Pat gives Pinhead some great dialogue. I am also very fond of Razorhead.

He gets crucified in "Goodnight Kiss" if I recall, does that count? Or having his own bullet pressing against his heart in the Apocalypse War? Raptaur also brings him to the verge of death.

I don't think Andrzej Żuławski and Alejandro Jodorowsky are in the same league. Jodorowsky's films always seemed imbecilic to me, more like slapstick comedy with some vacuous symbolism thrown into the set design, never going anywhere. Żuławski knows his shit when it comes to craft, acting and how to move that camera. All his films are worth a watch whereas I couldn't make it through 10 minutes of Jodorowsky's tediously silly "El Topo".

I would agree that tonally they are very different, Żuławski's work, from what I have seen, being considerably more existentially intense and grim, though I can't I say I'm an expert on either film-maker.  I mentioned the comparison simply as a frame of reference and because it's one I have seen made a few times in regard to '...Silver Globe', presumably due to a mutual sense of the surreal and the often jaw-dropping nature of what is put on-screen . I do agree that there is a certain fundamental (and I would say quite intentional) daftness and sense of the ridiculous to Jodorowsky's crazed spiritual odysseys, but I suppose the elements you find imbecilic in his work, I find quite endearing.