Prog 1923: Get Me Savage!

[Link Prime]

I'll buck the trend with a bit of love for Bob Byrne and his Twisted Tales.
I'm always delighted when they show up- fantastic art, and the tales are almost always worth an immediate re-read.

A perfect fit for 2000AD in my opinion.

[Dandontdare]

I agree. It's nice sometimes to have to slow down and actively follow a story. Occasionally they overstretch themselves and just become confusing, but most of the time they amply reward the effort of concentration and are little gems.

[TordelBack]

Agreed. I thought 1923 was one of his best - was genuinely thrilled to see the Monkeyish King make a return, his first outing is probably my favourite out of all the Twisted Tales.  I  thought the designs here were almost at a Jim Woodring level of  disturbing. And I also think that problems with storytelling have more to do with people misjudging the pace of a wordless story - if you give reading it as much time as you would a 'talkie' I think everything is brilliantly clear. These tales are almost like little visual riddles, and I love teasing them out.

[Spikes]

A nice and strong cover by Mr Percival - though I do feel, as others have said, that's its maybe a little under defined.
Dredd is another good one-off. Always good to see both Mr Critchlow's art, and MC1 craziness abound. The latter seems to have been AWOL for a while..
3rillers, for me, are a hit and miss affair, but really liked this one. And having Culbard on art duties has no doubt help in that respect.
Savage ends - for now, and its been an enjoyable romp to date. Glorious art throughout courtesy of Mr Goddard. 
Survival Geeks ends OK, though the art can be hard to follow some time, and this week's helping suffered in that respect, though Googe is a proper talent. The Twisted Tales kinda passed me by, but I need to re-read this, I think.

So all told, a pretty decent prog.

[Jacqusie]

I'll buck the trend with a bit of love for Bob Byrne and his Twisted Tales.

A perfect fit for 2000AD in my opinion.

I agree, 2000AD has always been diverse and divisive & long may it continue. I love the Twisted Tales. The art is beautiful in it's world building way and truly mesmerisingly horrific in others. Put it next to the Geeks & I know which I would rather see, but that's taste and thankfully, we are all accounted for it...

[Professor Bear]

Thought the Dredd was a nice throwback to an earlier age of storytelling in the strip, though the lever to flood the cabin did take me out of the story a bit, and the ending seemed off.  I presume the title is a deliberate anachronism, too, otherwise upon seeing the word "videotape" any readers under thirty will be wondering - oh wait never mind.
3rillers - I don't the significance of the title of the strip - is it because the bad guy is rich and thus a member of the 1%?  I would imagine that in the future wealth distribution would be even more unequal than it is now and the rich would account for a decimal point of an even larger population, so I'm probably off there and it was a reference to something else in the script I've forgotten about (so that's a sign my critical appraisal is well thought-out).  I can't shake the feeling that the first page exposition should have been in an earlier episode rather than revealed in the final leg of the story, as in mystery stories this is usually decried as being a cheat on the reader, and here it makes the full strip feel thrown-together and a bit insubstantial, but that's probably just me.
Survival Geeks - by rights this is the kind of thing that should annoy me, but it's not a webcomic written by Americans and seems an equal-opportunity offender when it comes to shitting on nerds rather than just highlighting things that nerds like, so I quite enjoy it.  My only gripe is that in making fun of all tropes equally, the message about how old hat steampunk and Lovecraftian elder gods truly are is somewhat lost, but I appreciate they have a lot of ground to cover and many nerds to insult in five pages.  I also like that the central premise of the dimension-hopping house is identical to the central premise of Kamen Rider Decade, which is probably not deliberate but gives it another level of nerdiness anyway.
Twisted Tales - again the best thing in the comic.  I suppose it hasn't really got a traditional "twist" ending, but then neither do any of the other stories so I don't suppose that's a prerequisite anymore.  Everything from the wordless story to the visual style is unique and far from the house style of Tharg these last couple of decades.  Apropos of nothing, I like to think Byrne has gone worldess because Illustrator is annoying to use.
Savage - Mills on good form.  Not sure about the greatest hits montage, but reading the Twinkletoes bit is always a pleasure.  I never knew about the Edelweiss Pirates, but in my defence, my knowledge of the German resistance movement is informed by the fact I made it 8 minutes into Swing Kids before turning off, a decision I stand by.  Still, fascinating subject.  Been a while since I read anything featuring the "old" version of Howard Quartz, but in Ro-Busters he always seemed to be portrayed as a cowardly opportunist more than an evil forward planner, so the schemer he appears to be here seems a bit off - though I grant you I'm on a road to nowhere arguing I know better than Mills how Mills should be doing his job.

Decent issue all round.

[Professor Bear]

Hmm.  Bit of my 3rillers review seem to have buggered off somewhere and the "modify" option has gone walkies again...

[Magnetica]

3rillers - I don't the significance of the title of the strip - is it because the bad guy is rich and thus a member of the 1%?  I would imagine that in the future wealth distribution would be even more unequal than it is now and the rich would account for a decimal point of an even larger population, so I'm probably off there and it was a reference to something else in the script I've forgotten about (so that's a sign my critical appraisal is well thought-out).

The title is a reference to what the hostess thought their chances of survival were after they got lost. She says so in the first episode.