Mean Team

[Colin Zeal]

Whilst looking through some old progs over the weekend I was reminded of this strip. I have to say it is one of the worst I have ever read. Was someone taking the piss with this story? Characters called Ding Dang Dooley, Bloo Baloo and something called the rod of power? The script drawer must have been running on fumes for Tharg to let this one through. Then out of nowhere comes an ending well out of keeping with the rest of the strip. [spoiler]All but one of the main characters killed off? What the heck was all that about[/spoiler]

[TordelBack]

First series quite entertaining with great art, all the subsequent muck not worth the water used to clean Bellardinelli's brushes afterwards, never mind the application of his genius.

[Colin YNWA]

For me its another example of Bellardinelli being placed on a strip he wasn't suited to. He struggled to make his heroes and villians look powerful or dynamic which in a sports strip (well it started out as one) is vital.

[Grant Goggans]

Actually, that second story has one of my favorite moments of just plain dumb overwhelming anything good.  It's the bit where Jack Keller and the girl called Emerald Eyes learn why they're unkillable - that business with the totally arbitrary "batch names" EE-1 and JK-1, and some people just pulling the names for the children out of the blue.  "Oh, I don't know, let's call 'em, well, Emerald Eyes and... I dunno, Jack Keller.  That's the ticket!"

[Dandontdare]

For me its another example of Bellardinelli being placed on a strip he wasn't suited to. He struggled to make his heroes and villians look powerful or dynamic which in a sports strip (well it started out as one) is vital.

Agreed - I'm a great fan of Belardinelli but when I saw some of these again recently I was amazed at how wooden and lifeless the artwork was. Nothing wrong with the designs or details, but the posing and composition of the panels was woeful - characters tended to stand in a row like a police line-up to have conversations and the sports action was never convincing.

[TordelBack]

Ah here lads, this strip had problems a lot bigger than Bellardinelli's alleged shortcomings!  The sports stuff was the best bit - the rest was completely nonsensical rubbish that flip-flopped like a dying haddock.

[Colin YNWA]

Ah here lads, this strip had problems a lot bigger than Bellardinelli's alleged shortcomings!  

That's an undeniably fair point well made.

Its always been a source of frustration to me that Bellardinelli was very rarely given strips that played to his strenghts, Ace Trucking and The Dead aside (well and lead characters not with standing Blackhawk and Meltdown Man). Towards the end of his time with 2000ad he was just given what in my opinion was weak stuff like this to draw which brought the best out of no one involved.

[Jim_Campbell]

Towards the end of his time with 2000ad he was just given what in my opinion was weak stuff like this to draw which brought the best out of no one involved.

See also: Ron Smith.

Cheers!

Jim

[The Monarch]

for the sake of sanity lets not mention survivor....

[Peter Wolf]

If you look at different belardinelli strips and compare them all there are distinct differences in style and you can see differences in his figures and how well or badly they were drawn.

You can see this for yourself if you compare a page from Inferno when he was at the top of his game especially with dynamic figure drawing and then compare that to a page from Mean Team.

Its my opinion that his style had changed for the worse in some of his later strips.

For me its another example of Bellardinelli being placed on a strip he wasn't suited to. He struggled to make his heroes and villians look powerful or dynamic which in a sports strip (well it started out as one) is vital.

I think Inferno proved that he could do a sports strip but in the case of Mean Team there were clearly unknown factors [to me anyway]that got in the way of producing art as good as Inferno.