Prog 1614: JUDGEMENT DAY!

[Buttonman]

Tuesday Prog for me! Oh the humanity!

I too snickered at the Judges' research especially when they went back to the native Americans. Just waiting for him to pull up an old cave painting. Must be a bugger finding 72 candles in MC1 - maybe he got a bag of tea lights at Ikea before he sets off. It also beggars belief that the judges would let out a guy who hasn't aged in 150 years - techs would be all over him along with Psi division etc. Is that a typo in panel 6 of page 3? 'Not' not 'Hot' surely.

Stalag ended with the whole caboodle being shown to be a flashback in a decent last offering. The killing of the unarmed snake was a war crime, but they're only bad when other folk do them to us.

Not warmed to ABCs or Ampney as of yet but a solid Dante brings up the average. Good workmanlike Prog with promises of greater things to follow in 2 weeks.

[Dandontdare]

I've always a bit nervous with nudity in my favourite comic, as it's one of the reasons parents can't really pass their progs on to young children,

Because obviously if a young person sees a drawing of someone with no clothes, on they'll inevitably start smoking crack and raping kittens.

[JOE SOAP]

I think parents can have more probem with the nudity than the kids.

[JamesC]

I'm really not enjoying the artwork on this Dredd story. Especially the Judges on their LawVespas.
Other than that it was an enjoyable prog with Dante being the highlight.

[caiuscosades]

I seem to be in a minority here -

The teaser for prog 2009 only makes me realise how much I'm enjoying reading at the moment, and doesn't fill me with great enthusiasm for the winter prog.

Dredd - loving the art & the story.  Would like to see more of Vince Locke in the prog, and much prefer Pat writing Dredd than Robbie Morrison or (dare I say it) Gordon Rennie as a stand-in for Wagner.

ABC Warriors - I can usually take it or leave it, but seem to be enjoying it more recently.  Clint's art always seems messy to me for its storytelling - too much happening, or too indistinct.  Pat's writing doesn't always help.  However, I do like the style, and nice use of b/w here.

666 - Loving it.   Don't care if it's cliched, it's fun and deserves to be in the prog.  It's certainly no more cliched than a lot of 2000ad regulars, and these are new characters in a type of story we haven't seen in a while!  Will be sad to see it go.

Ampney Crucis - Doesn't do anything for me.  Yawn.

Dante - Was never a huge fan of Dante, but things have been heating up recently, and I much prefer these drama and character stories to the action-adventure ones.

Overall, a very nice prog.

[Old Tankie]

Cover - Great work by Jon Davis-Hunt.

Dredd - Okay.

Stalag 666 - Really enjoyed this.  Nice, easy to follow story, not trying to be pretentious, loved the artwork.

ABC Warriors - Lost me yonks ago!

Ampney Circis -  Good clean fun!!  Good story and good artwork.

Dante - Not made my mind up yet, but looks promising.

Overall - 8/10

[Proudhuff]

Dear oh, dear...

Cover : Not my bag of gruel at all, too static.

Dredd : Tish and tosh, where to start? ARTIC-B, I know Mr Mills had a hand in Creating Dredd but that was 30 years ago, they have both changed since then, ie would the PM of then put this in the 2K of then? I think not.
The artwork is great but not for MC1 and Dredd, maybe Luke Kirby or Armitage who should have pulled this case. Pedant corner: do the Americans spell authorised with an 's'?


Stalag : Move along please nothing to say....

ABCs : The black and white art is great, but what is all that at the end? someone's been watching too much of the Bejing Olympics. The questions mount up, who organised all that, how: without speaking?, is thhat a popular song on Mars? why when we never see anyone smoking does everyone have a Zippo? I could go on...

Ampney : Loving this really the highlight of the Prog and nudie bits!! also Mr Davis manages to slip in (Matron!) a knob! Top right last page, yes its supposed to be a tougue...

Dante Six pages of talking heads then a child gets threatened... Nick isn't the only one who pines for his swashbuckling days

Over all not my bag at all, Ampley only thing that floats my boater

[Mardroid]

I've always a bit nervous with nudity in my favourite comic, as it's one of the reasons parents can't really pass their progs on to young children,

Because obviously if a young person sees a drawing of someone with no clothes, on they'll inevitably start smoking crack and raping kittens.

If you're going to worry about kiddies reading 2000 AD I'd think there were more problems with the ultra-violence than nudity. There is generally more of that.

I'm not suggesting that it would make kids violent though, it's more subjecting them to the imagery (although many of them probably rather like it.)  

It's certainly an adult comic nowadays though.

[Mardroid]

ABCs : The black and white art is great, but what is all that at the end? someone's been watching too much of the Bejing Olympics. The questions mount up, who organised all that, how: without speaking?, is thhat a popular song on Mars? why when we never see anyone smoking does everyone have a Zippo?

Bear in mind that new crowd were people protesting Zippos's treatment. They probably bought their lighter especially. (I think we can assume smoking still occurs and lighters are still available for sale.

Dante Six pages of talking heads then a child gets threatened...

I think that was a grown woman, albeit a young one. That's the woman who hinted at Dante's fate... last Christmas prog if I remember correctly. Doesn't time fly?  Point taken though (although I thought it was valid in showing the cruelty of the Tsar.)

[TordelBack]

The Trout actually said:  "...as it's one of the reasons parents can't really pass their progs on to young children."  - that hardly rules out violence being another, even the main, reason. But there's no denying some parents are going to find the former a concern.

 Drawn nudity in the 2000AD sense doesn't concern me at all (as a parent), and where a genius like SBD is concerned it's no different than 'regular' 'art' of the National Gallery variety, while I do have niggles about the occasional ultra-violence.   I won't pretend that occasional skin in the Prog wasn't a bit of a thrill when I was a youngster (Maze Dumoir sticks pleasantly in the mind), but the violence never made much of an impression.  Oddly, the first time I remember being bothered by violence in 2000AD was the Ennis Death Aid story, where a perp was rather graphically blown up and then (IIRC) kept alive in a tank - and I was well into adulthood by then.

[JOE SOAP]

In Milligan's & Bellardinelli's "the Dead" everyone was naked.

[TordelBack]

COVER was striking.

DREDD was an entertaining enough continuation, but a sloppy mess on all fronts.  Mills... Mills Mills Mills, worshipping you is a tough gig sometimes.  The idea is a good one, but honestly, we get two-and-a-half pages  in a 6 page episode of three guys silently riding tiny clown-bikes through a non-descript cityscape into an innocuous-looking underpass and onto a movie backlot while Control delivers exposition.  And two of the remaining pages are talking heads.  Tighten it up man, Cry of the Werewolf this ain't.  Would anyone else get away with this?  Didn't Locke do the Sexmek Slasher Dredd last year?  That seemed a much better take on MC-1 than his novelty mopeds this time out might suggest, although I do like his faces a lot, particularly his ragged Dredd.  For some reason the whole thing reminds me of the DC Dredds.

STALAG 666 would have been a very nice one-off at 10 parts - 15 was just too many for such a simple tale, even if it did keep moving, and has a satisfying conclusion here. I am however left wanting to know all the things that intrigued me at the start - why do the Snakes keep prisoners at all, being the main one.  PM me, Tony!

ABC WARRIORS - Hmmm.   It's good that Kinski still has work, and it's good that Pat loves a bit of stadium rock.  Mad as a bag of frogs, and nice to see Pat continuing to develop his Mars setting.  When the hell is Tubal Cain going to show up?

AMPNEY CRUCIS - see, this sort of thing is why I buy 2000AD.  Crazy imagery, foppish Wodehouse-meets-Waugh-meets-Lovecraft types wandering about freaky English villages and estate houses full of naked pre-Raphaelite women and swarms of bees.  

DANTE - and this sort of thing is why I buy comics in the first place.  When Dante works, there's just nothing better.  Chilling gripping, and I even remember who everyone is this time.  There's me giving out to Mills for waffly decompression, and here's five pages of the Tsar chatting to folk and I think it's the most exciting thing in the Prog.  No pleasing some people.

[Kerrin]

Cover - You would have thought as a reptilian he would have recognised the value of regular moisturising.

Dredd - "Well the records are a bit sketchy.......oh hang on, here it is, exactly what we were looking for". Not overwhelmed by the art but it's not bad. One thing I would say is that in the panel where the trio leave the sector house Dredd's bike appears to be going left while he goes right, this almost always leads to serious injury, don't do it.

Stalag 666 - That's got to be a cliche record for 5 pages. Duff.

ABC Warriors - Christ! That was all flashback? I think Clint's art works much better when the subject isn't overwhelmed by the background and subsequently some of the panels in this episode work brilliantly, others not so well. Glad the warriors are back but still don't really have a clue what the hell is going on. Nothing new there.

Ampney Crucis - A brace of Webleys? Yer gonna need more than a couple of air pistols to sort those buggers out y'damn fool! Wonderful painting again from Si Davis and the last two pages work especially well (and not just because the pre-raphaelite floozy forgot to put her undies on), lovely stuff.

Nikolai Dante - More fantastic painting. That Tsar eh? What a bastard. With reference to this month's art comp, the first panel of the last page of this episode looks like Nikolai Dante as done by Joseph Wright of Derby... See, I knew that degree in art history and binge drinking (hons) would come in handy one day.

S'not a bad prog. Last two strips save the rest.

[Roger Godpleton]

Cover: Good Stuff.

Dredd: Talking. Love how Dredd automatically knew all the answers and was fluent in Millsian pseudoscience. Not really keen on Vinny L's Dredd, kinda looks like Statham. Bad Stuff.

Gunstar 666: This has two things going for it. 1). It's a timely reminder that racism is always good. 2). The ending reminds me of the ending to Gunstar Heroes. That game is awesome. I always used the laser/seeker rounds and I was the motherfucking overlord of the jumping punch attack. Gunstar Heroes is better than Stalag 666. Bad Stuff.

ABC: Pat, we've had complaints from the other residents again, you can't keep behaving like this. Bad Stuff.

Ampney: Why did Ampney Crucis cross the road? To get to the other vagina (whut), vagina (whut), he wants to have sex with your vagina. OK Stuff. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=jvjDr8KKtsE (NSFW)

Dante: Best story of '08 by miles. Really Great Stuff.

[Mardroid]

The Trout actually said:  "...as it's one of the reasons parents can't really pass their progs on to young children."  - that hardly rules out violence being another, even the main, reason. But there's no denying some parents are going to find the former a concern./quote]

Fair do's. I should have looked closer.  I was mainly thinking when I wrote that about how culture will often put a strong safeguard on sexuality and not violence. It's as if the latter is considered more acceptable somehow. It's understandable I guess since the former can involve private parts of the body and secrecy, but it's curious nonetheless.