Prog 1476: Shadows & Frag.

[Bolt-01]

So Far:

Dredd has made me laugh out loud and I was right about the new character. He looks a bit different than the sketch Boo did for me in Brighton.

More later...

Bolt-01

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[Bolt-01]

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Bolt-01

[Capt.Zeep]

Funny Dredd, good new story from Sir Pie Suppers & Boo C, Bit of an eh? for last ep. of Synammon, 10 seconders continues well, fab bit of bullet time shenanigans in new ABCs as well as some nice humorous bits.
That was quick.
Is it really a whole week till next prog?

[Proudhuff]

and Special Variant Cover!! Double cover for me!!!

striaght to ebay!!

[thrillpowerseeker]

Nice covers..but ABC left me a bit non plussed, and the page layout was atrocious..it was like a preview..is Steelhorn turning into The Mess again?..I was really looking forward to this returning as its been the best thing in the prog for the last 3 years but the storytelling style of this prog didnt sit right

[Funt Solo]

And the alt:

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It's a good prog, this one, starting as it does with a couple of corking covers.  Of course, I'm going to have to out and buy the two seperate variants, so Tharg - the plastic cups are on me.

Judge Dredd: PF
Laughed my ass off at this (pun intended).  *WHIRRRR* "Unnnh!"  (The Judge could have been anyone, but it wasn't about him.)

Synnamon
This is the first time I've seen a story crawl out of the prog on it's belly.  Synnamon is not a character.  There is no story arc.  Three pages of solid exposition doth not a thrill make.  

The "nnnnaaaghhh!" panel is supposed to be showing me what, exactly?  She's climbing up the wall?  What's the point of the Justice Department iconography anyway?  Saving grace:  Cromwell's codpiece raises a titter.

ABC Warriors: The Shadow Warriors
I'm going to need to dig out the back progs as I have no idea who any of the shadow warriors are, except for Doc Maniacus, who killed some people in a hospital once.

This is generally great fun, if a bit abstract at times.  The bit with the sledgehammer shells eating up Steelhorn just doesn't look good, and the bottom of the last two pages seems over-layered.

I love how the first six bullets are explained in great detail and then it just says "Warmonger uses bunker busters" and let's the art do the talking.

Tharg missed an obvious trick here, though.  Swap the order of things around a bit, and it would have been possible to have the 5-bullet spread sitting in the centre pages.  C'mon, Tharg - play the game.

The Ten Seconders: The American Dream
I thought Jen was a young girl, from the first few episodes - but now she appears to be a young woman - how long did that Atlantic crossing take, anyway?

"I love everyone here...yes...I think I'm a bit pissed".  Another quote of the prog.

Am I right in thinking that Mr Stretch has a crush on Jen, and is about to become insanely jealous?

Harry Kipling (Deceased)
Woohoo!  Fun, imaginative, about as far removed from Bix Bloody Barton as you can get, but still awfully British - this is wonderful.  Give them extra oil rations, Tharg, me olde mucker, or ye're an atomic ponce!

[The Amstor Computer]

Is there any chance this will be the last we see of Synnamon? It's now had three shots, it's gotten progressively worse & now doesn't even have the saving grace of Laurence Campbell's artwork.

Experimentation is great, and giving a strip room to grow is admirable, but I really don't think this deserves another appearance.

[Leigh S]

Synnamon:  can someone tell me the point of this strip?  I  mean, an actual point?  It  features a generic non-character who's only attempt at back story is a cliched brainwipe thing.  She gets up to space larks, because she's a secret agent.  Some kind of spy anyway.  Except people know her.  Maybe she's some kind of troubleshooter.  Or general friend of the galaxy.  Or something.  Please, for the love of God, no more Synnamon!  

I can understand that Tharg might be drawn to commissioning 'reliable' stuff - but this even fails at the most basic making sense level -  Those last two panels are possibly the worst thing to appear in the prog this century - "Naaaargh" indeed.  After some scrutiny, shes pulling down the thing behind Cromwell - but hweres he gone?  He dismissed her, not himself.  And bringing it crashing down on the poor dead guy is just adding insult to (fatal) injury - very, very poor

Wasn't very taken by the Kipling thing - A Devlin Waugh as zombie rather than vampire lead, with a mass of clunksome expositionary flashback stuff going on.  The turnaround of the "family" was a nice idea, but it didnt work for me - whether the art or the script blunted it, I'm not sure.  I find Si's stuff increasingly overwritten or convuluted to be honest, where a bit if simplicity would sell the ideas better.  

ABC Warriors is just great - I can see why people have trouble with Slaine (though the letter writers "new age crap" rant suggests he gave up on the strip sometime before the latest run, given its change of direction away from all the Goddess stuff), but ABC was just plain bonkers - The ingenious bullets and Bootlegs "motivation" were pure Mills, and it had  some funny lines and a sense of fun that is either missing (Synnamon) or seemed forced (Kipling)

 

[Dudley]

Variant covers don?t rock my boat, and Henry Flint?s always seem particularly poor (compare and contrast with the variant Judge Death Meg covers a while back ? now that was worth having!).  So funny to see the Shadow Warriors gathered together and understand how widely the designs vary between the ones designed by Flint and the ones designed by Ezquerra.
The little Nerve Centre note seems blue? cheer up, Robo-Keef!

Best to? not the best:
1. The Shadow Warriors take on the ABC Warriors in fine fashion.  I remember playting this game with my toy soldiers as a kid ? take seven of them, give each one special powers, send them out against armies.  When you get bored of that, invent seven really powerful baddies to stand against ?em.  That?ll keep the game going for a bit.  It?s all awfully silly, in a good way.
2. Wagner, Ranson, Judge Dredd.  Even when it seems a little stretched (wouldn?t this have been a much better 3-pager?), that team-up?s still class in a glass.  This is them coasting on their talents a fair bit, mind.
3. Well, we?re in New York, and it?s quite clear that Mark Harrison didn?t pay much attention to the latter half of the script when he was designing the young female character.  Either that or this is really quite pervy.  Or some weird game is being played with time.  All the way round, The Ten-Seconders isn?t quite living up to its initial promise.  I assume that this is Book I of a planned long-running arc, and hope that Book II lays some of the grumbles to rest as the writer and artist bed in.  Please, please, Mr Williams, can you set all scenes outside in a desert at midday, so Mr Harrison can?t get away with drawing all these black cats in a coal mine?
4. A new character from my two favourite ?new? creators: gotta be genius, right?  Well, um, not on the basis of a shockingly tired preview episode that reminded me of nothing so much as Dinosty, and didn?t engage my interest at all.  Hopefully this is a teething problem ? certainly Tharg seems to think it?ll be genius, and he tends to be right.  
5. I?ve defended Synnamon many times before, but this story was cack from beginning to end.  Why?  The set-up is so full of promise, the character has a good balance of light and dark, the tech is like nothing in any other 2000AD story.  It?s a great premise all the way round.  Why ruin it with rubbish, clich?d, pointless, boring, overly complicated, plain silly, information over-heavy crap like this?

Overall, not the greatest prog, with only the ABC Warriors rising above a ?5? on the Thrillpowerometer.  Hopefully next prog?s 2 new stories will prove a bit more enjoyable.

[IndigoPrime]

DIdn't Tharg's intro suggest that Synnamon was a reboot? If so, perhaps it's a last throw of the dice, to see if the character could work.

Frankly, I didn't find it all that bad (although I still wonder why a new character was needed when Rose O'Rion is still in the vaults), just somewhat "meh". I wouldn't start gnashing if it returned, but I'm also not excited about the prospect either.

[Dudley]

Oh, and Watcher, I think what?s happening in the final 2 panels of Synammon is that she?s attacking Cromwell, forgetting that he?s a hologram, and thus going straight through him, hitting the bulkhead behind him, and pulling it down onto the prone body of the duplicate captain.

Arthur Ranson said in the interview he did for 2000adreview a while back ? ?Angus Allen, John Wagner and Alan Grant. 99.99% of my work has been with these writers. Inventive, professional, prolific, original, idiosyncratic and inventive writers who know how comic strip works. I once had a script that started ?Frame 1: He comes into the room, takes off his coat, kisses his wife and sits down at the table where he opens a newspaper?. But these guys understand frame by frame narrative.?  I can guess what he?d say about the Syn writers.  

[Banners]

forgetting that he?s a hologram,

He's not a hologram, or else he couldn't have shot the Captain. Nah - it was a symbolic gesture - Synnamon throwing a strop and signifying the death of justice. Deep, huh?

M@

[Funt Solo]

I don't understand the negativity being levelled at Harry Kipling (Deceased) - but then when do we ever all agree on something?

The art is gorgeous and beautifully detailed and imaginative - from throwaway Belardinelli-isms such as the eye-stalk triplets to that amazing scene of the steam-tech british army with it's dali elephants.  

The script has gorgeous twists and turns, lulling us into initially thinking that the aliens are cutesy beings and then blind-siding us with the hume-munching, which reveals not only the true nature of the gods, but also the scale of things.

I call it a stunning, bravuro new thrill, right up there with the excitement generated for me by the opening episodes of Ace Trucking, Rogue, Slaine and Nemesis.

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I like the ABC Warriors - but that's not really got a story - it's just an excuse to show us some beautifully drawn toy soldiers going head to head.

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Thrill-Order (beast to worchester):

Harry Kipling (Deceased)
The Ten Seconders
Judge Dredd
ABC Warriors
Input
Cover
Nerve Centre
Advert
Staples
Copyright text
Anything I've Missed
Synnamon

[Leigh S]

I considered that, but Cromwell shoots the guy, so he can hardly be a hologram... can he?  Sadly, I'm not entirely sure! :)

[Leigh S]

I did quite like the idea behind the family telling one side of the story, for it to be revealed that something else was going on - But it's a bit of a con really - they are cutesy until the script demands they aren't.  Who is the cutesy 'show' for, other than the readers?

I really like Boos colouring, but I'm not too keen overall - still some stodgy figures and sausagey hands. Brendan McCarthy on this could have papered over a lot of the cracks, though whether thats a good thing...