Prog 1702: The Law at Your Door!

[vzzbux]

If Frank survives this story arc I believe he will be pulled off Wally Squad and slowly re introduced into uniform.
Give him his own strip in the meg that's what I say.




V

[Proudhuff]

naw, the long walk... dirty Frank in the Cursed Earth, worshipped as a god he would be!

[Colin YNWA]

naw, the long walk... dirty Frank in the Cursed Earth, worshipped as a god he would be!

Man now there's a story waiting to be told. That'd be chuffin' brilliant.

[Guru Mog]

I'm loving the Dredd story;

Great artwork and beautifully coloured.

Justice Dept Snipers picking off perps from a mile away is a brutal and sinister concept to bring to Dredd lore...excellent!

A female Judge that actually wears while her helmet on duty is almost a novelty!

Also liking Dredd's exploiting of the Mega City Press to get his message across and seeing him stand and deliver his speil to a camera is quite novel too; "Blocks are chosen at random. Next one could just as easily be yours."

Skinner himself, obviously, is straight out of Silence of the Lambs - but why not?  And I strongly suspect Wagner will build on his "Tooth Fariy" homage and twist it into something new and disturbing as the story continues.

There's a lot to love about The Skinning Room and some fresh, new ideas and concepts there wrapped up in the familiar plotline.  Great stuff!

I'll have to settle down later and read the rest of the Prog...!

[Ochs]

Damn! Thursday and still no prog, have had to phone subs for a replacement. Subs said there have been a few calls about missing progs this week.

Must be the Dictators of Zrag attacking the Post Office.

[Kudos]

That incitement gag's been used before. Can't remember exactly when but it was during a cadet assessment. Dredd told him he'd have failed if he hadn't picked up on it.

It's in one of the Daily Star strips too, I think.

Kraken(as Dredd)did the same in one of the countdown to Necropolis stories.

[sdOOK]

Age of the wolf.

Werewolves. Hmm. Mary sue character. Ok not interested.

I know there is currently a werewolf, vampire, zombie overload at the moment. And while defoe is a great example of a story that can run with the trend and do something great with it. Age of the wolf just strikes me as trying to catch that twilight crowd. And I especially hate mary sue characters. One of those strips I will just skip past till it goes away.

No surprise this story is running alongside Dante. Which is excellent as usual. Dante at his lowest. It isnt the first time he has been brought to his knee's but to see him literally a broken man I find quite moving.
The world around Dante has always been a very dark and harsh world but he has always been that point of light hearted bravado.
I cant see him bouncing back quickly this time. And I somehow doubt the Dante of old will ever return. Essential and gripping.

[Kerrin]

Scrotnig prog. Stand out strips for me. Lowlife and Dante. It would appear that Dizzy has got his arms mixed up again (didn't he do that with the big zombie fella in Stickleback as well?) but I'm willing to forgive him 'cause he rocks. I'm guessing Thora ices Stewart to stop him spilling the beans, but then I'm invariably wrong.

Dante action figures please Tharg. Chop chop.

[uncle fester]

The way I saw it with Riggs' helmet, he'd whacked her with something usually used for cutting up bones and sinew when the Resyk machines get clogged. So if it's that good/sharp and you have a good swing at it, a judge's helmet wouldn't put up much more of a fight.

Loving this story!

[leebrown1990]

Dante action figures please Tharg. Chop chop.

Seconded.

[Mardroid]

Cover - Great as I've already said (apart from that odd gun/wrist angle and it being too high.)

Dredd- Very good. I wasn't sure of the extreme sentencing but in context of the crackdown it makes sense. (The head shots last week were ridiculous though.) This story is really taking off now, I like it.

[spoiler]Defoe:  I really enjoyed this episode. Amusing... and drunk Defoe showing a different side to his personality.
"It's bleedin obvious innit?
It's a shapeshifter that's gone wrong!"

Snigger. Right. Cos they come across these creatures all the time... (This isn't a criticism, I found it amusing.)[/spoiler]

Age of the Wolf:  Some great comedy this week.
[spoiler]"Rowan, when your own mother returns from the dead to recite a thousand-year-old prophecy, the least you can do is stay and listen! I like the American Werewolf type undead antics, albeit the haunting is for a different reason."[/spoiler]
Very intriguing take on werewolf horror.

Low-life: Another intriguing story with great art. I think Nixon looks like a man though. (Well a man with breasts.) I didn't notice the wrong arm, good catch! Very good.  [spoiler]Looking at Thora's expression at the end (and considering the end of episode one) I wonder if she is on the take now as well.[/spoiler]

Dante: Quite sad, and then it got really really saucy and Lulu's got her mouth full.
Considering the end, I know Lulu is amoral and opportunistic which means she will likely side with Dmitri, but I kind of hope she doesn't as that would be a bit predictable.

[leebrown1990]

Cover: Like it. Not my style but the guy is obviously very talented.

Dredd: Wagner can juggle so many things at once, so if he threw in a little more political conflict or seomthing new, this could reach Tour of Duty level awesomness i.e perfection in my eyes.

Defoe: Leigh draws some pretty good body language and he always turns the creepiness up to 11 on the final page. Defintley getting intresting.

Age of the Wolf: Some of the foreshadowing in the prophecy caught my intrest, but the comedy lost me. That and all Rowan seems to have done is run around in circles for 3 parts.

Low Life: Great again, love seeing Disraeli's orignal takes on the different Judges and his stroytelling is impecable.

Nikolai Dante: Dimitri is becoming still more menacing, and Nikolai is throwing up on his mams shoes. Brutal stuff. You can tell LuLu always liked Nikolai though, so I think she will be looking to betray Dimitri.

Top Thrill: Probably Dredd again. Closely followed by Dante.

[TordelBack]

Lots to argue with this week - in the review thread, that is.  The Prog itself was wall-to-wall brill.

Cover:  the naysyers are mad - that's a great cover.  Maybe there's issues with the pose, but as an eyecatching draw for teh Prog it's a stonker.  And maybe it heralds the return of Mark Harrison to some strip work?  We live in hope.

Snipers and Incitement:  Nah, don't see this as remotely inconsistent with previous Dredds.  In part one we established that the city is close to anarchy, as a result of Sinfield's policies of tolerating anti-mutant crime and having PSU focus on judges rather than perps, and basically taking his eye off the ball, possibly coupled with civic uncertainty in a Year of the Three Emperors kind of way (Hershey, Francisco, Sinfield, Francisco again in maybe a year, then the loss of Mayor Ambrose).  

To curb this Dredd is making an example of Sector 50 - this isn't standard justice, this is zero tolerance MC-1 style.  It's no different from executing collaborators during the Apocalypse War (tangentially referenced in this episode), looters and rapists during the Atomic War, or the torture and violence applied against the Dems and latterly Total War - to prevent widespread chaos and loss of life, normal process is suspended - this is what Justice Department is.  Like Fargo said, it isn't meant to be forever - but it's what's needed now.  It's a 59C writ large. I like it, for all its unpleasantness, and it emphasises that 'bleeding heart' Dredd is nothing of the sort.

Ugly Aimee:  Poor old D'Israeli, he has absolutely no luck with severed arms!  From Scarlet Traces: The Great Game to recent Stickleback, they're constantly disappearing, reappearing and swapping about.  That aside, Aimee is frequently drawn just as ugly by others, but in the first page of the first  of the current D'Israeli masterpiece she looked more attractive than she ever has. I'd to suggest that the distressed mangled face is part of her 'current' look.  That robotic arm-block was a classic scene.  Williams is mixing comedy and real drama brilliantly here.

Age of the Wolf:  

Mary sue character. Ok not interested.

?  Unless I'm behind in my fanfic terminology, Rowan is just yer average prophecy-haunted protaganist, with an AWiL-homage from The Nagging Dead.  I see no evidence of authorial wish-fulfillment fantasies, unless Alec has always fancied flowing auburn locks and nicking motorbikes?

Defoe:  Leigh Gallagher is a chuffin' marvel.

Dante:  Boobalicious.

[BPP]

4 out of 5 thrills more than doing the business - defoe and dante out in front with dredd a snipers shot behind (putting my money on this guy being another 'BAD JUDGE'.)

Have to say that after 3 weeks Wolf is moving into rare 'nope' territory. A mixture of art and script issues but several things really got to me - some of the art seems weirdly inconsistent - the dogs head as the wolf exited the tube train seemed way too small, the people exiting the station onto the road didn't seem panicked at all (not one screaming open mouth, infact they looked like old computer game NPCs who 'got aggitated' by walking faster) and the page transitions are really unclear - the jump from Pg 1 ep1 to pg2 - i wasn't aware we were with another character straight away, ep 3 - when she moves from inside the building to outside, again it was totally unclear at first. And the wolf biting the blind guy - the vic's head just dosn't seem rightly placed given a fupping werewolf is chomping down. Maybe just me but JHD is now on a substantial number of pages in 2000AD (his 4th long serial) and while technically there is alot nice and some images are well done i'm moving towards the 'nope' corner. Indeed fear there is more competence with digital art than comic art. 

The script also has lost my interest - soon as star-mum appeared spouting mythology bobbins it was definitely a thumbs down. Hoping it turns around. If 2000ad is doing werewolves it needs a feisty bitch chopping those mothers down NOW not a flight-from-fight odyssey. 

Great cover too - pete's blog on it is mind-boggling in detail and kudos to MH for putting in the time to explain. And to pete for maintaining it.

[Mardroid]

The script also has lost my interest - soon as star-mum appeared spouting mythology bobbins it was definitely a thumbs down.

I wasn't sure how that would be, but I thought that ended up a great source of quirky comedy. (Particularly the contrast between the olde style prophesy narration and her reaction in seeing her daughter had scarpered.) I understand that type of thing is a bit of an acquired taste, but I like a bit of tongue in cheek comedy in my scripts.

Hoping it turns around. If 2000ad is doing werewolves it needs a feisty bitch chopping those mothers down NOW not a flight-from-fight odyssey. 

Here's the thing, the heroine is on a journey. Obviously it's a bit too early to tell yet, I reckon by the end of the story she'll be a much tougher cookie.  She has already made some progress. Last week she was in a state of panic, saving herself and shoving other people out of the way, and leaving a blind guy who was crying out for help. Okay, if she had helped she'd likely be dead too, but point is, it was pretty selfish and self-serving... albeit realistic and very human.

Sure she's still running away this week, but under the circumstances that's probably the best thing to do. She could have just cowered in her house and waited for the fulfilment of her undead mother's prophesy, but she decided to challenge it, to do something instead. She is doing something brave. She is taking the time to hot-wire a scooter and as such is starting to take charge of her life.



Great cover too - pete's blog on it is mind-boggling in detail and kudos to MH for putting in the time to explain. And to pete for maintaining it.




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