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Well sorry about the delay but here's my two cents on the Meg this month

Dredd:as with last months story fine , throwaway fun.

PJ HOLDEN INTERVIEW : Again fine , Pj's a good artist and I hope fearless works out for him , it does show the difference to the old days when Fleetway ran the show, they would have acted like he didn't exsist for going to an American Company.

Simon Davis : Once again fine , an interesting Article and Davis shows what a fine artist he truly is ( How much does he charge for portraits?)

Black Museum: As always one of the stronger strips the Meg Prints.

Blood of Satanus : discuss after class

Sci Fi Deaths : utterly pointless!?!?!

Small Press : Grey Days , Not Bad needs some work but still fun especially the "Secrets" gag

New Films : Fine again you either agree With Mr Worley or you don't , on Thirty Days of Night I strongly disagree ( which brings me to his earlier article on Vampires which he praised Thirty Days but then dismisses it in his review well which is it Alec?) On shrooms I agree wholeheartedly ( but that's because I've actually met the Director once or twice and personally don't think he's very talented!)

Dredd Files : Again totally pointless filler

Fink Angel: A ridiculous ending but the story did end before it wore out it's welcome.

Overall an Average Meg but I do think there may be with the new line up a comeback on the cards . However I would like to adress one thing here ...In last Months John Hinkleton Interview and in this months Simon Davis Interview they refer to Pat Mills and his " Detractors" with the letters page trying to drum up support for Satanus ( And to a lesser extent Black Siddah)  Well I for one am not a " Detractor" but a fan of Mr Mills  but the simple truth is ..SATANUS was the greatest load of old shite that I have ever seen dumped on the reader , from start to end Nine months later this has been an  embarrasment to Mills , the Meg and the fans who had to read it...like I said  I have been a huge fan of Mr Mills work since I was Seven years old  ( Charleys war ( Bring that back by the way) , Invasion, Ro Busters, Abc Warriors , Savage)  all great characters but I know when Shit is Shit and Satanus was Shit! It's over now , lets hope Pat gets on form soon and writes great characters again but I do wish the editor would come out and admit that it was a mistake and that it will never happen again.!

But why is it the last issue?

On Stalinism
 ah yes the revisionists now claim that far less died under Stalin then was thought ( I heard a member of the Irish Communist party say that realistically it was only 1.5 million, oh one and a half million oh thats ok then isn't it!"
 the truth is that Millions died under Communist rule through the purges, famine (more people died from famine in the thirties in the soviet union than every other famine of the twentieth century put together) and the complete mishandling of the second world war which officially twenty million russians died however it is believed the figure is closer to between thirty and forty million, each year  russian university teams  find thousands of bodies of soldiers killed in the fighting that were never calculated, ( the russian army refuses to comment or to aid these recovery squads and has in the past obstructed their work.

peterwolf , you see you are unsure of an afterlife but you do not force it down peoples throats , it is the dogmatism of atheists I find as disturbing as any Religous fundementalist, as unwilling to listen to any arguement but their own.
 
Just because you do not follow an organised religon does not mean you don't believe in an afterlife , look at Martin Sheen a devout catholic who believes in an afterlife but if you ask him what'll be like ,he's been known to answer " well it's not a old man with beard crap" the religion you practice is merely a way of understanding something that cannot yet be explained by science
 
personally Whatever happens in the end I win because if the atheists are right and there is only nothing than I'll never know I was Wrong and if the church is right and there is an afterlife than I'll know I was right so I win whatever happens...now  all I need to worry about is hell..ah Shite!

Please do not misunderstand what I said , I was at a convention where there was a religous panel and a good chunk of atheists who view the belief that we are slaves to evolution and that we are barely better than apes , that is which I have a problem, and that appears to be Dawkins view as well.

As for my arguement with Communism, it isn't to excuse religous wars but to show that those high minded people who think that religion is the source of all evil that it is not religion but Man himself.

As for proof , well  I have no proof there is an afterlife  I simply have faith there is , but those that argue against it have as much evidence as I do yet they would be willing to proclaim they are right and call me a fool on the simple belief they are right!! As for scientific evidence , Science is limited by the times , yes at the moment an afterlife does not look plausible , but forty years ago if you even dared to mention the Big Bang theory to physicists or astronomers , you would have been laughed at as a loon , Fred Hoyle was the leading astronomer at the time , his argument was that there was no such thing as the big bang , instead the universe always exsisted. if you questioned him on it the answer many got was " It just has ok!" Sometimes Scientists put as much faith in Science as most people ( Still do)put faith in God but their faith is in a belief that is limited and is still growing , how do we know in a hundred years someone may work out an afterlife exsists , is it as ridiculous as the scientists who first said it could be possible to split the atom?

I'm a practicing Catholic lets get the clear , I do believe in a dvine being and I do believe in an afterlife but I also believe in physics and evolution but what I can't figure out is those athiests who have an almost missonary zeal in their disbelief.
 It is fine not to believe in an afterlife but what I notice is those who have to proclaim there is no god and those who believe in a god are Idiots!! ( I point out one Richard Dawkins in Particular for this) What would happen if I said that everyone who didn't believe in my version of God was an idiot. I would be rightly attacked  and yet a growing number of atheists are doing just that.
 There is an almost evangelical passion to those who proclaim there is no afterlife and yet what proof do they have?  a simple arguement that goes like this "There is no god!, Trust me I'm an Atheist I Know!" yet they refuse to accept the arguements of those who believe on the basis of that same arguement.
  Of Course Religion has been responsible for some of the greatest evils of all time , and religous wars  still devastate the planet but if you please care to remember the greatest loss of life in the twentieth century was carried out by the communist parties of Russia and China , an atheistic society that condemned Religon ( Nazi beliefs  were actually not atheist but deeply Pagan)
 And for every act of evil by religion there is also good based on Faith , the education of Ireland was down to the Catholic Church ( There are those who want Irelands education system to be secular  but forget or are unwilling to acknowledge that Irelands primary School system and secondary system would collapse immediately if the religous were to withdraw!)
 What of the religous orders who saved lives in Africa when colonial powers would not or the abolition of Slavery ( which was carried out by what were considered in the 19th century a bunch of religous right wing nutters!). or the stance taken by the church took against Communism in eastern Europe when those on the left refused to acknowledge its evils, or the opposition to Reagans Policies in south America in the Eighties.
 What i also find odd is the belief that there is no god , that man is merely a preprogrammed machine , living by instinct alone , a slave to thousands of years of evolution, well what does that say of everything Mankind has achieved , yes there has been wars and Death but there has also been Art ,advancement through the quest for knowledege, the development of basic laws and Human rights, to say that we are animals and that it is only genetic coding that we are slaves to is to rob Humanity of all it has achieved . all of its dreams and what it could become.
  I'm not saying that religion is the only way forward , I'm not but what I am saying is that those that push that it is the source of all evil do so with a fervour a fundementalist of any organised religon would be proud of.

The woman with the Necklace ( Actually it was a watch) was in fact the Pilot for the Eighties Twilight Zone and it was terrifying with the Nuke in the Sky...there was also the one with spreading homicidal madness by a simple sentence..

Threads May have been Terrifying when it was first shown ( I was not allowed to see it  As I was only Ten) but the truth is , it's a very silly little story today ...not the nuclear attack but the ridiculous post apocalyptic world in the finale , it made Mad Max look realistic, so children no longer speak todays english but a pidgin dialect because of the devastation but they still have limited Electricity ..oh good grief!!! if you want to be freaked out by a Nuclear War Drama Try the dvd recording of  George Clooneys live broadcast remake of Fail Safe prehaps because of its stage setting or the power of it's acting it's unnerving but what makes you jump is the last shot as the credits role.Terrifying in it's Banality.

Personally I ended up watching Dog Soldiers last night because it's good to have a laugh as they try to scare you.

Anything But Demarco  the question is a Talking Ape Butler any worse than Satanus?

 Ah but if you take as so many opinion pollsters do quite lazily the percentage of boarders  opposed to Satanus and use that as a percentage of the general Readerships opinion you'll find it represents the Majority of readers. ( And really is that theory any less insulting than printing two letters one for and one against and saying opinion is sharply divided)
 On a serious note , its not just on the Board , I've been at one or two conventions recently and the general opinion is that Satanus does stink.
  And I'm not looking for Strontium dogs and Judges in funny hats but I started buying the Meg in 2000 because it had gotten away from the poorly written reprint filled nineties and had variety, what happened to Lenny Zero? Demarco PI?  Heck even Sprouts Articles were funny! As I said we want variety so why not have longer stories with shorter runs than Anderson or god help us Satanus which has now run for most of 2007, thats a waste of a year!

THis Months Meg

Judge Dredd : Tribal : Fine its a Dredd story with very little Dredd which doesn't affect the quality , entertaining but throwaway as with all Meg Life stories.

New Comics phonogram: it does exactly what it says , it is an interesting article on a new series but never have I felt so old when they describe the Nineties as being ripe for nostalgia!
 
The Hinckleton Article: Interesting but then I've never been able to warm to his artwork unfortunately , by printing his previous artwork it shows just what an unholy mess Satanus is.

Big Robots : What the..? how in the hell was this even an Anderson Story , seriously the character has lost her way!
 
Takashi Miike Article. Interesting but again why?

Satanus: I will discuss this in a moment

Small Press: feh it was alright

Future Shock: Read It the first time and wasn't impressed

New films : Ok I like the film review section but Mr Worley what have you been drinking in your Tea , Stardust is the most wretchedly shallow film this side of Dungeons and Dragons?? and yet Planet Terror is Gorgeous Fun!?!?!which part of it is gorgeous fun? is it the shite acting , the too many times repeated print flaw gags or prehaps it's the "Hilarious" Comedy rape scene with Tarantino....but no matter how wrong Mr Worley is , his review section is always interesting.

The Dredd Files : You know since the case files were printed this has become pointless! interesting but absolutley pointless.

Fink Angel:Its fine , not as good as the previous angel gang story but still fun.

Now I come to a huge complaint about the MEGAZINE , Satanus and to a lesser extent other stories like Big robots....over the last few months I have been harsh in my criticisms of the whole Satanus Debacle ( and I believe deservedly so) What I found maddening was the Hinkleton article in which it is  claimed that it has sharply divided reader opinion and then you print one letter in support and one attcking it?!?!?! does the editorial staff actually read this thread ,  it is safe to say that the audience is not sharply divided , not when the Majority of readers who post on this forum agree that Satanus is one of the greatest pieces of Shite that has ever graced the pages of british comics!I know the Meg has to defend printing this thrash but is it even listening to its readers?
  Are there not any young writers out there anymore eager to get their Ideas printed rather than let Mills print any old shite he wants, at this point with Satanus and again with Big Robots it gives the appearance the Meg is the dumping ground for strips not wanted in 2000ad.
  And this is a serious problem, last year the Meg recieved a cut to pages and we as readers were promised a rise in quality and for a short while it did rise but is quickly and rapidly plummeting , the stories are not helped by the monthly gaps, as I have pointed out before except for Dredd which has ten pages , every other story is forced to live with six pages a month hence It took eight Months to print all of Big Robots thats 48 pages in eight Months!!!! If you want to keep readers interested then you need more variety and more stories told more quickly , so the answer is quite simple .. dump a strip! Satanus will be over next issue , thats been taking between 8 to ten pages for the past eight months , when its over give those pages over to the other strips  and extend them by four pages each..you have seventeen pages of articles,  get rid of the Dredd files and the two page articles on film makers ( Which has nothing to do with Dredd or the Megazine) and you have another five pages to have other reprint material ( Why not Bring back Charleys war or reprint early Ro busters hell even Invasion 1984!) Anything would be better than
 the drek that is Satanus or the painful gaps between each story we are currently suffering.

Hang on John Coopers back !!! I seriousl think I'm going to have a wee cry of joy!

Lads it could be worse
 I'm 33 and I can tell you this was far worse in the early eighties , I'm only thirty miles from Cork city and they used to get 2000ad and Battle (Which was my main comic, this was the early eighties where my parents allowed as I'm sure many parents  did  only one comic a week , and a second comic was a treat) a week ahead of us! and of course there was the constant danger of the issue never arriving , I'd miss out on about five to ten issues a year just because they never arrived from England, which made no sense because other ipc titles for that week would be there on the shelves?
  Ah yes the eighties , missing comics  and the never ending threat of impending  nuclear war...grreat days.
 

Tordelback
It's actaully his brillant History of the Civil War written in the 1980's however he was able to revise it after new files were opened both in spain and Russia (Covering Stalins Interference with the republic) so there's over 150 new pages of Information .so far it appears to be far superior.

God bless play!
I preordered this months ago and lo it arrived here today at the original uk price of £14.49
  course I also got in the same Box Anthony Beevors new history of the Spanish Civil War which I only ordered monday (And I'm in Ireland) so something odds going on at Play.

C'mon Satanus isn't that bad (Pause for laughter, there is feedback from the Mic as the single audience member coughs with embarrasment)
  No seriously , I know the Meg has contractual obligations but could you not just forget to publish it, or better still just pay Pat NOT to write such shite!

To Mike Collins
Chuffed you commented , I like the God Fish just why the Meg why not Extreme?
 Oh and as for Action Force , thanks a bunch Mike , now I'm fighting back tears of Nostalgia  thinking of the Old Action Force ( They were never GI JOE to me) ahh happy days of reading classic lines such as " no , no aieee!" seriously  though they really were the stories I read as a kid so thanks.

Alright

Dredd Night School
Brilliant story which looks at Dredd, his family, the justice system and the effects of Judicial training all in nine pages!!!!and a brilliant final HMPH!, Its these stories that make dredd what it is.

Carl Critchlow  an Interesting article

History Of Horror Ok Now compared to last months horror article far more interesting , prehaps because anyone with an interest in the history of comics know about the American horror comics debacle , this covered a  far less well known aspect.

Big Robots ...Why do I get the feeling this is going to be very very silly before it finishes.

New Comics hardly anything new or revealing

Blood of Satanus....Trouts comment "Fucking Shameful" is being too kind to what is quickly becoming the worst thing ever printed by the house  of tharg.....Gentlemen HANG YOUR HEADS IN SHAME!!!

Small Press... a lovely piece of writing by Robert Curley  topped off by some brilliant artwork by Declan Shalvey.

The God Fish...The God fish?!?!?!? bizzare  choice for the Meg , not a bad story but for the Meg???

New Films: Same as always

Dredd Files: This is just pointless filler really.

Angel Gang: This has become the second Lead strip as far as I'm concerned  it really is enjoyable and is the way the Angel Gang should be written.

Overall a fair issue except for Satanus which is dragging the Meg Down but I fear no one is listening to the readers complaints otherwise why do they keep printing it? Guys I promise you if you drop it now no one would complain , no one would notice because no one would care!