Meg 246: Invasion!

[paulvonscott]

"It's still not exactly good though, and, for me, it's really beginning to distract from the story."

Like artwork, as long as it improves, it's hard to complain, everyone has to learn somewhere.  In a year's time, MacNeil's lettering will no doubt look fab.  Quite a few artists I once thought of as 'a bit crap' are all these years later, bloody amazing.  Same with writing, people apparently like to read Mark Millar stories these days (chortle, guffaw etc.).  You can argue against learning on the job, but it's probably often the only way to learn.

As for the lettering, I thought it was much better (pretty bad last month), but I hate the use of the serif 'I' in comic strips if it's not being used as the word 'I'.  Is this picky, or just weird?  I prefer a sans serif '|' in other words.  Anyone else have this?

This months Meg.  

I have got out of the habit of reading most of my prog and meg lately, so made the effort this month.

Dredd - Ambitious stuff from Mr Rennie, he does love his kick arse action-thrillers.  'Regime Change' didn't have to be in bold to get what he was talking about.  Art was good, with some abherrations (Dredd).

Fiends - Please let something happen soon, Mr Bishop, Pleeease :)  It's okay though.

Black Siddha - Oi need me clever head on for this one, but I think it's a really refreshing strip. Once again at Mills goes out there and we have an invitiation to follow.

Ghost Girl - 8 pages!  Looks lovely, nice enough story, twist in the tale type of story which might have made a better 5 part FS.  But nice to see something different in the Meg, and it's an intriguing glimpse at what is presumably a bigger series.

Ah, nice Dredd tale, agree with the weird cropping, on the one with Dredd's face you could have moved it up half an inch maybe.

Moore article, a very professionally done summary of Moore's work from Mike.  Moore's work may have been familar to some of us, I have at least 3 books on him, but for the general readership it must be good summary of his deeds.  I thought Mike still managed to say a few new things, not easy.  Oh and I lionized Moore and my leg dropped off.

Sprouts thing may have been dragged out a page too long, but I love the pictures he mocked up, my favourite part.

[Proudhuff]

Best cover in ages thargy a real Golden prog feel to it more indeed!!

Dredd; great story lots of shooting, big boots and a wee bit more background to Dredds world, the artwork reminds me of the days when Dredd looked different each week due to different artist, not a bad thing there was/is a creeping standardisation to dipictions of JD of late this is a welcome change: over all a fabby story.

reprint good too.

Fiends Great stuff as well, great art ( not lost in that normal orange background fug) and Stalingrad and vampires, Thargy you spoil us!

Moore stuff... hmmm top ten  funny but a bit of an anti cilmax after the cracking first two stories in the issue dipping towards the back of the prog,

Over all a good start to the revamp especially the fiends...
Huffula
rest of the issue c  

[W. R. Logan]

Well move over Siku I now have a new droid to replace you as my least favourite Dredd artist ever, well maybe thats a bit strong just shuffle over and you can both share the same step on my list of artists.

[Bico]

I found Rennie's Dredd politically simplistic.  Certainly, those people were living under a corrupt communist regime which was basically a glorified personality cult with a dictator oppressing and murdering his people and political opponants, but what about all the good stuff he probably does, eh?  Like open the country to tourists and stuff.  And there's probably a great health service, too.
Give him a few years to kill off loads of people and crush dissenting voices entirely and the crusty students of the world will be saying how great the country is.

[Funt Solo]

The negative over-simplification of Cuba is just as ignorant and lazy as the positive over-simplification of Cuba.

As it is, if your theory of "a few years to kill off loads of people and crush dissenting voices" actually worked in practise, then how come Batista was toppled in the first place?

[Bico]

Who said anything about Cuba?  I was talking about the made-up political state in the latest Judge Dredd story in the Megazine.

People shouldn't slag Cuba off, in my opinion.  It's supposed to be a lovely place to visit and has a great health service.

[Rex Banner]

"Right up until the point that all the other creators realise a precedent has been set"

A precedent has been set. Garth Ennis. Troubled Souls.

[Jim_Campbell]

"As for the lettering, I thought it was much better (pretty bad last month), but I hate the use of the serif 'I' in comic strips if it's not being used as the word 'I'. Is this picky, or just weird? I prefer a sans serif '|' in other words. Anyone else have this?"

Yup. Absolutely. I don't object to a consistent sans serif "I" throughout, but a serif "I" is just, well, ick, and should be reserved for the word "I" ...

MacNeil's lettering looks horribly, horribly like Comic Sans MS, a font which should be hunted down and destroyed throughout all creation.

Particularly when there are so many lettering fonts available free from Blambot.

Cheers

Jim

Link: http://www.blambot.com/fonts.shtml" target="_blank">Will someone please forward this link to Colin?

[Bolt-01]

At Bristol I had to terribly restrain myself from Telling Colin about his lettering woes several times. It is a valuable skill, and Jim actually has a great tutorial that I used a heck of a lot when I was learning to cnstruct lettering in Illustrator.

Bolt-01

[I, Cosh]

"Right up until the point that all the other creators realise a precedent has been set"

A precedent has been set. Garth Ennis. Troubled Souls.

Slightly different, being as it wasn't originally published in 2000AD and (if memory serves) part of the ethos behind Crisis was to publish creator-owned material.

[W. R. Logan]

I know with the amount of small pressers that frequent here this may be sacrilege but I?m really not enjoying the small press section. This is the third one so I?ve waited to see if anything appeared that I liked as I know that you cant enjoy every story printed in an anthology, but I?d be glad for another price cut and drop the feature altogether or put the price up and put something new and Dredd world related in it.

Whilst I?ve enjoyed the Sprouts little features they do smack of the old annual features that too save money you spread as little information as possible over the maximum number of pages.

Drop the small press stuff as for me it just doesn?t fit in the Meg and humorous features are good to read but most of these could have been fitted on one page.

Fave part of this months Meg was Molcher?s 'Moore' interview.

I also thought Rufus did a cracking cover and I?d rather have seen his art on the inside of the cover as well as the awful rendition of Dredd by Inaki Miranda.

[opaque]

Ignoring Dredd in Regime Change (which I agree is well over the top in many ways) what do you think of the artwork and the personification of the Judges in general?

[Steve Green]

Chiming in late on this, I thought Rufus cover was ace, and I'd like to see him do a Dredd strip.

I wasn't wild about his work on the Giant story, but it would be interesting to see how he's developed and I'd certainly prefer it to Inaki Miranda on Regime Change.

Apart from Dredd himself, I didn't think it was terrible - but I thought it wasn't particularly well suited to that type of story, I think a more gritty style would have worked on a story set in Banana-Cit.

- Steve

[IndigoPrime]

This is the second time I've felt that Rufus's art is akin to a time warp, dragging us back to the time of classic McMahon and Kennedy. Frankly, I'd like to see him do a Dredd series BUT only if he gets to colour it, too. There's far too little vibrant comic-book colouring these days -- everything's all faux realism.

[Trout]

The cover and the lead Dredd story were both terrific stuff. It's fairly thoughtful stuff, IMO.

More of that sort of thing, please, Meg-Tharg.

- Trout