Meg 264 : Angel of Death

[Robin Low]

"The whole Big Robots thing is just odd. I mean, it's just not easy to take it in any way seriously."

It was a strange series in that the title character was virtually irrelevant to the story. However, I thought the last two episodes were actually very, very good, with the final pages of each being outstanding. I agree with your comments about the colouring.

"Finally, Fink. Remember when Fink Angel first turned up, he was actually quite disturbing. Like Judge Death? And now he's like a comedy cadaver. Like Judge Death. Tales from the Black Museum - comedy. The Black Atlantic - comedy. The Angel Gang - comedy. Fuck off! Give us some drama."

To be fair, there always was an undeniable comic element to the Angel Gang and Fink; it's just taken too far here. I'm trying to think of a better approach to the character(s) and all I can think is Moore's The Killing Joke.

Regards

Robin

[paulvonscott]

Well, when it eventually turns up it sounds like its going to be an anti-climax.

[johnone]

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.

[Byron Virgo]

"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!"

Not wanting to defend the strip, but if we imagine that the Meg had a circulation of around 10,000 readers (give or take the odd thousand), there can't be more than a couple of dozen people who post on this messageboard, and whilst I'm not saying that your point is wrong, I can't imagine anything *less* representative than listening to the mentalist ravings of boarders like us.

After all, if we did the prog would be nothing but Strontium Dogs and 'Judge in a funny hat' Dreddverse spin-offs...

;-)

[johnone]

 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!

[Rio De Fideldo]

I still think that any story in the Meg that runs longer than three parts max starts to outsty its welcome due to the monthly format.

I'm hoping Tempest will be good but if I don't like it its going to be in the Meg for six issues which is a long time for a story you could take or leave.

I really hope Armitage is only returning for one issue.

[Trout]

Agh! The Meg thread! I've had my Meg for weeks and meant to post, but forgot.

Anyway, I wanted to say I really enjoyed the Hicklenton article. It was topical, well-written and interesting. The man himself comes across as a decent bloke, and it's refreshing to hear he's listened to the fans.
We have been saying on the board that the last few parts of Satanus have had better art, and it's good to know that's because we criticised the earlier stuff. More creators should be up-front about how they react to feedback.

As for the content of the comic, I still think Satanus is dull and difficult to read, although the art is easier to follow. The Dredd here simply isn't what we've come to expect. It's not the standard of Wagner. It's hard to recognise the character.

The lead Dredd story was okay, if a bit weak, and that always lets the Meg down. I did enjoy the Fink Angel story and I thought the small press thing was better than we've had in that slot. It was fun.

I'm relieved Big Robots has ended. It wasn't really thrilling, was it? It suffered, as others have said, due to the monthly Meg's time-lag effect.

The best thing in the comic was the Bolland pin-up, IMO. Oh dear.

But I'm more optimistic about the Meg than I have been for a while. I feel like there may be light at the end of the tunnel, as the new(ish) editor starts to clear out the leftovers from his predecessor.

- Trout

[Byron Virgo]

"I still think that any story in the Meg that runs longer than three parts max starts to outsty its welcome due to the monthly format."

My thought (as probably expressed before) was to print three strips with a greater page count - say 8-15 pages - but which therefore never need to be published over more than three months. Probably unworkable though.

"what happened to Lenny Zero? Demarco PI?"

Good god, anything but Demarco...!

[W. R. Logan]

>Good god, anything but Demarco...!

demarco could have been great, but her first solo outing was so bad.

[johnone]

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

[Leigh S]

DeMarco as seen in Doomsday was brilliant stuff - DeMarco with talking gorilla butler was awful.

[W. R. Logan]

Talking apes, thats so passe

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[Funt Solo]

There's all these intelligent apes, right - all (despite the stringent anti-mutie laws) allowed to live in MC-1.  So, they'd interbreed with humans, wouldn't they?  How come there's been no Romeo & Juliet stylee Don Uggy Apelino's daughter romantically involved with Two-Time Tony's son?

I'm still confused about the mostly missing, and yet highly popular Cursed Earth Koburn.  I mean, you look at something like Sin Dex or Nikolai Dante in the weekly - an instant hit with readers so the editorial run and run with them.  

[Byron Virgo]

But didn't Rennie himself decide to 'give the series a rest'?

Quoted from the 2000AD Review site:

"Probably taking a hiatus also, after the end of the current story running in the Meg."

[Dark Jimbo]

There's all these intelligent apes, right - all (despite the stringent anti-mutie laws) allowed to live in MC-1. So, they'd interbreed with humans, wouldn't they? How come there's been no Romeo & Juliet stylee Don Uggy Apelino's daughter romantically involved with Two-Time Tony's son?

There was, in a Mean Machine filler story during the dying days of the Megazine's volume 3. For no particular reason, he was a gumshoe, and was hired by a mob boss to get his daughter back, who'd run off with an ape mob boss.