Prog 1492: Ghoul Britannia!

[GermanAndy]

Cover: Nice

Droid Life: Great as always

Dredd: Well, what was this? Looked a bit rushed and frankly a bit by the numbers storywise.

Kipling: Sorry, I don?t get the joke. Guess you have to be a Brit to fancy this. But the art is nice.

V.C: skipped it.

Red Seas: Good as always.

London Falling: Maybe it is that I just read Vertigos Fables for the first time that I don?t find this very interesting. I don?t say it is the same, not at all, but fairy tales characters messing with everyday-life? This don?t push my buttons in any way.

And can someone explain the last two pages for me? I just didn?t get them. Was this an assault on Buckingham Palace? But as an flashback? Or is this an alternate England?

The gift was very interesting. A nice promo for the first Abaddon Books. Sigh. I don?t want to sound like a miserable old bastard bored out of his skull, but this was ... underwhelming conceptwise. Especially in contrast with the Rebellion Books.

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The only series which just sounded a little bit interesting was Tomes of the Dead, the other three were kind of blah.

I am frankly burned out on Post-Doomsday stuff, so The Afterblight Chronicles holds zero interest for me.

Dreams of Inan read like too generic fantasy. And I read one of writers Andy Boots Executioner and thought it boring.

Sniper Elite is another Game novelisation. It can be okay or not, but isn?t very interesting conceptwise. And Fiends on the Eastern Front just filled my WWII-novel slot nicely.

Tomes of the Dead is Zombies on a frigate.Well, can you say Pirates of the Caribian? But the excerpt was okay, so this is a maybe.

But the covers are great!

[ming]

London's Falling: I think two of the characters got dropped off at Buck Hice, then we only see one of them in Her Maj's boudoir...

[scutfink]

If I took my Prog on a boat, would it be a Union Jack then?

[Floyd-the-k]

Dammit, and here was me all trolly waiting for someone to call it a Union Jack. Curse

Okay, I'll bite. Isn't that a Union Jack? If not, what is?

yours enlightenably,

Floyd

[Quirkafleeg]

Well you can now expect someone to drone on that a 'jack' is actually a small flag that is only flown from a ship and the correct name for national flag of the UK is the 'Union Flag'

However there was a act of parliament that allow both 'Union Flag' and 'Union Jack' to be offical terms as they had both been used for so long.

There's no definitive answer as to which came first either... (well according to the web site I read it from when I was really board once)

[I, Cosh]

I like it. That's two weeks in a row.

Dredd: story continues to be reasonably good fun, in that I want to know whose hand it is and what the Sovs are up to. Art is all over the place.

Kipling: Found this slightly disappointing. Maybe a case of looking forward to it too much. Hopefully it'll improve again once we've got the whys and wherefores out of the way.

VCs: Meh.

Red Seas: Pick of the bunch again. As somebody else remarked, dinosaurs with shurikens. What more need be said, except to note that Steve Yeowell's art once again stands head and shoulders above anything else in the issue.

London Falling: Got very nasty, very quickly and none the worse for it. This is top stuff and I may be way off the mark here, but I predict the crux of the story being Shuck trying to get Jack to do away with his family and the outcome hinging on the efficacy of Monster-Zap. It might be made-up, but so are they. Or I could be wrong. Monsters look nastier this week too, so that's a good thing.

[HiEx]

Cover: Fantastic.

Dredd: Coming on nicely. A minor niggle in that the Lawgiver doesn't look at all like a MKII. Nice to see those dirty Sovs back in action again. My enjoyment of the story may be spoilt slightly by my impatience for Origins to start. Hope the Bungee guy gets taken out by the Sovs next week. I've never liked extreme sports weirdos and the guy has shown himself to be pretty stupid as well.

Kipling: Best thing in the prog this week. I'm lovin it! Fantastic art from Boo as usual (give him more Dredd to draw please).

VC: An improvement over last weeks episode. The pace is picking up and I'm actually looking forward to finding out what happens next. For a gritty war story like this, I'd really love to see either Henry Flint, Cam Kennedy or Colin Wislon on art duties though.

Red Seas: Storywise, 2nd best thing in the prog, but I still can't get into Yeowell's art. Never have been able to. As others have mentioed, great Dinosaur shiruken action.

London Falling: Strong continuation from last week, but art is a but blurry in places.  Looking forward to seeing what happend next.

Overall: Best prog in a while, no real weak stories.

Hi-Ex

[scutfink]

I just bought the Prog (Well Last night), boy Harry Kipling?s arrived (And he wants YOU, apparently.)
Tell the dinosaurs, they just wont survive (Another week on the cover.)
So on to Dredd, and please just bear with me
You know that I can?t stand
To see him written this way
I think its second rate.

I was confused last week, am I only one?
See, it seems to me, there was only one
Investigating the misdemeanour, and finding a dead journo
I thought there's no more mention of that spectacular death scene
It was caught on camera by PSU though (Nice eye motif on their headquarters, and a good likeness of Roffman too?)
And all sorted in between (Panels)

Anyway, this weeks ep.
Take it as it comes and hope (For improvement.)
Dredd?s suspect has got away?
Sorry, but he?s on a rope! (An elasticated rope at that?)
While they were teaching at the Academy
They should?ve watched some Looney Tunes
What?s a sin or two in the review of the Prog

On to Kipling, I love it ?cos the art?s so loud.
That?s what we want to see
To stand out from the crowd
So is the implication here that Harry?s kind of a God?
And if so don?t you think that that?s a little odd?

I Left it of at the VCs
Corporal Smith (Is he a Corporal, or have I missed a few promotions?)  and Hoff the newbie
It?s fairly easy to follow
Without ?What?s going on?? or ?Who might you be??
No-one alive and no-one left (on Jimmy Cart.)
No on else cares much for the art (But I love it.)
Now just Red Seas and London Falling left
In the reading of the Prog
(But that was?)
The review.........of the Prog...........part one

[Proudhuff]

No No No!!

Dredd does shout warnings to perps who shoot at him and the misses them 3 times where's the heatseekers?

grrrrr and that bit about 'rad rats' is just mince

oh, and the rest is fine except that cartoony style in Londons falling doesn't match the acts of violence

Otherwisw spiffing...

[judge dreddd]

yea,what was all that 'final warning' stuff about, you shoot at me, i shoot back

[Bico]

Yeah, the art's fine in London's Falling, but it jars with the story a bit.  If you're doing a story with urbanised folk tales, something gritty and scratchy that captured the essence of the city would be best, but I suppose you'd be constrained to whoever was available to draw it at the time.  The script's good, though.  During Kipling, I found myself zoning out the dialogue of the main character, but not so with LF.  I spotted a Terry Pratchett reference - I'd ask if I win a prize, but a comment like that is more likely to get me a punch in the mouth.  And rightly so.  Bit Gaiman-ish (American Gods, mainly), but good despite that.

I wasn't convinced by Dredd, but then he is a marginal presence in the story so far, so it doesn't really matter.  Art's a bit gloomy.  Story's alright.

Red Seas is good, if a bit decompressed.  Liking the art.

VCs can suck my ass.  It's really bugging me that this gets prog space when so little happens to justify its seemingly eternal presence - even though it's only been back a few weeks.  I didn't used to mind, but I do now.  Ah well.

Long may the digs at Skinn continue.  He's not bitter that he couldn't keep his own comics afloat as long as Matt Smith seems capable of doing with 2000ad, ohhhh no...

[Wils]

Well you can now expect someone to drone on that a 'jack' is actually a small flag that is only flown from a ship and the correct name for national flag of the UK is the 'Union Flag'

Well I've always called it the Union Jack and always will. Tbh, I only heard about it being referred to as "Union Flag" a couple of years ago and that was some twat on the telly saying that everyone *had* to start calling it that and nothing else.

[Emperor]

I am getting worried about Boo Cook's output (as this issue highlights) - if he keeps up such a high quality then it just means the 'Mericans are going to steal him sooner rather than later and I know its just me being selfish but still...

Simon Spurrier's writing is dense and rich like a big cake and I suspect I'm going to need another sitting (with the aid of the Dictionary of Slang) to figure it all out (but I'm sure it'll be worth it). Oh and I thought "gypsy" was a piss (via gypsy's kiss) - she is a river monster after all so having a slash in the shower first thing in the morning is probably not too big an issue especially when we then see all the other things she gets up to in the rest of her day (lots mor slashing going on). I had also been worrying that 2000AD's royalty bothering quota was slipping this year but things look to be getting back on track.

The episode of the VCs was a bit of a transitional episode so I'm looking forward to the unleashing of some major space war violence in the next couple of installments (battle in space leads to the ship being forced down and a battle to the death across some alien planetoid with a both sides pulling surpises out of their sleeves, as the balance tips one way and then the other, leading to a rollicking action packed conclusion setting things up nicely for the next series) so not much to say about that yet.

I get my issue delivered from the newsagent (have done since I was just a lad) so it is in pristine condition but no freebies - swings and roundabouts.

[El Spurioso]

Gypsy warning, morning.


Best bit of rhyming slang weirdness I ever heard was the explanation for "aris", meaning "arse".

It goes like this:

Aris, Aristotle, Bottle, Bottle & Glass, Arse...

Bloody convoluted cockneys...

[scutfink]

Well, the second half of this weeks prog seems to?ve plodded along well enough, there?s really nothing I can comment on which hasn?t been mentioned already?

So it looks like this will work a little better than I expected, with no apologies whatsoever to PaulGadd (Who has a few bigger problems than a little plagiarism just at the moment.):

Prog review Pt II

Prog review... Red Seas! Prog Review.
Prog review... London Falling! Prog Review.
Prog review... Input Page! Prog Review.
Prog review... Prog Review.
Prog review... Prog Review.

Prog review... Nerve Centre! Prog Review.
Prog review... Droid Life! Prog Review.
Prog review... Damage Report! Prog Review.
Prog review... Prog Review.
Prog review... Prog Review.

Repeat ad infinitum?