Prog 1778 : Thief, Scoundrel...Tsar

[DrJomster]

Brilliant prog this week, simply brilliant.

Have to give a special mention for those dinosaur panels in Flesh. Gorgeous work.

[WhitBloke]

Congratulations to the cover artists who managed to make Dante look Asha from Spartacus.

Nice!

Cover - Fun in a simple way, I guess, but perhaps a little too soon after the last Dante cover which has left me wondering about Tharg's cover scheduling and what delights are to come in the next two or three weeks as the current crop of stories continue/start to ramp up.
Dredd - John Wagner, Henry Flint, Chris Blythe, Annie Parkhouse.  It's the Beatles of Dredd.  (Not that this makes Steve Parkhouse the Yoko, mind you!)  These six pages of quickfire, darkly flowing brilliance are nothing short of proof-positive of the anthology format.   This team just compliment each other so damn well. 
Wolf - I'm not enjoying this.  Perhaps you are.  Fair play to you, though I did really enjoy the Snarky Old Bitch page a couple of weeks back, just not much else.  Still worrying we'll end up with kind of "Oh, shut your trap" moment in the dialogue.
Flesh - The centre-page spread is a winner but the flashback sequence was a touch lazy of Brother Mills.  There could very well have been more involving ways to lead into the cliffhanger-y ending this week. 
Zilk - Fancy that!  Fancy pants!  Tripping along very nicely.  I haven't done this for a while but I'm only skimming it from now on until the end so I can have a full-on dive-on pig-out when we've got the whole series.
Dante - Children, avert your eyes!  [spoiler]"Shame on you, Private Spatchcock."  Such wonky flying, bless 'im.[/spoiler]  All making for a perfectly entertaining diversion in the build-up to the Main Event. 
High - "Bastards!"
Low - Disappearing plasters.  Or maybe the fact that there are any plasters left.

[Spaceghost]

Thoroughly enjoyed this weeks Thrill Blast.

Cover - I know Dante's supposed to be winking rogueishly but to me, he looks like he's having a stroke. Or maybe it's those two swords stuck in his head causing discomfort.

Judge Dredd - Oops. Just as things were looking like they were under control...
Is the footage of people being gassed and dumped completely faked, or has Francisco taken the advice of the Judge from a couple of weeks ago?

Age of the Wolf - Blam! Blam! [spoiler]Two supporting characters gone just like that. Surprised to see Ash get killed like that, especially after a whole episode last week was devoted to saving his life.[/spoiler]

I'm liking this more with every episode. Rowan's clearly going to survive the wolf pit and go on a quest for BLOODY VENGEANCE.

Flesh - I like the pictures of Dinosaurs. I find it a bit odd that the Dino-riders who've been following our 'heroes' turn up and just sort of stand around not doing anything.

Zaucer of Zilk - I love it. The art, the humour, the whimsical, Lear-esque, fairy tale nature of it all. The thing I love the most is I have no idea where it's going from week to week.

Nikolai Dante - At least it's a happy ending for Spatch. Wonder what Dante has up his sleeve to defeat Constantin...

Brilliant prog. I'm excited about The Brass Sun too.

[Pete Wells]

I loved those drippy panels in the rainy world in Zaucer of Zilk this week, genius!

[The Sherman Kid]

Dredd Run out of words of praise for this epic -very intrigued to see where we go from here though, talk about painted into a corner-Dredd will need his thinking cap on more than his daystick to overcome here methinks -great stuff

Dante Great, but pretty well sign-posted whats about to happen here I think.If any character desreves a long send off it's Dante.

AOTW Just Ok not developed as well as I hoped

Flesh Pat Mills + One Dinosaur that just won't die mmmmm haven't seen this before have we?Talk about done to death Pat, please come up with something new.

Zilk I did try to like this ,I really did but I absolutely hate it.The one thought that recurs to me over and over whilst reading it is that the writer seems to be saying 'aren't I clever?'. Well um no actually ,your not , your really quite annoying actually and the artwork was entertaining back in the 70's and 80's but not now.Please end soon.

[Hawkmumbler]

Cover: From the people that gave you Pedo-Tharg.....give you Feminist-Dante.
Utter shite. Dante cover's arn't doing well this year, eh? **

Dredd: Hooooooooolly mother. Scrotnig! ****
Oh, and Flint continues to be a freaking machine. The guy's a legend.

AotW2: Slab head kill's off the only character I actualy gave a shite about. Rapidly losing interest. **

Flesh: Did Judas just ram a horn up Goreheads ASS?! 0.0
Oh, evident plot twist make's it's appearence at last.
One more panel of the Midnight Cowboys, bringing the total in five weeks up to 3. Hurry up! *** and a 1/2

Zaucer: I'm giving this one more week before I give up. Hating every moment of it.
Wait, cancel that. The series get's point's for breaking the fourth wall in a way that actualy made me laugh.
** and a 1/2

Nickolai Dante: Spatchcock's arc is finaly complete. Huzzah! Though to be honest, it's a good send off.
Konstantin's entrance instantly made me think "Mortal Kombat!". This is a good thing.
Dante has some cracking line's as well. ****

Thrills of the Future: Looking forward to Brass Sun. Will this bring all the Edgington strips together?

Over all an average prog. Looking forward to Brass Sun.
Hating Zaucer. Something extra good had better happen next week.

[W. R. Logan]

Cover: if your going to do a Dante cover then get Simon Fraser to do it.

Dredd: Wagner is on fire, and nothing the Prog produces at the moment with the exception of Dante comes close.

AOTW: yawn.

Flesh. If this contained anything other than the usual rehashing of ideas and themes I might care. The best thing about this strip is the logo.

TZOZ: waiting to read it in one go as it just isn't working for me.

Dante: the only other strip besides Dredd that contains any Thrill Power.

Once again it's Dredd and Dante that make me hand over my groats each week.

[moly]

loving this run of judge dredd amazing story feel like a kid at present waiting for the postie to arrive on saturdays.. damn bank holidays

[radiator]

There's just nothing quite like following a Dredd epic in serialised weekly installments is there? Even the sub-par ones like The Hunting Party - nothing else in pop culture quite hits the same spot does it?

Savour it!

[Aonghus]

Woo, I'm finally a board member long enough to give my 2 cent on the Prog

Here goes then:

Cover: Extremely off-model, and entirely inconsistent with the art of the actual strip. It made me a bit sad. Lee said it best re. strokes.

Dredd: Always a joy, and it's got my cogs whirring. time to sit down and reread the last 20 or so to get the overall-arc-so-far experience! Classic art, classic story, go go Dredd, go go.

AOTW Weakest it's been, but I still enjoyed it, and I do like the art.

Brilliant series. But I was a bit unsure about that wolf trap on ROwan's arm - where the hell did that come from?

That's been there the whole time, in the background. It was one of the things I liked abou the strip in it's first few installments actually!

Flesh: This week was the first time it made me care at all, and the first time it felt like there was a story, rather than someone having fun drawing dinosaurs fighting. Unlike some of you, I haven't read the earlier Mills work, so these tired old tropes are fairly fresh to my mind. Despite that, it hasn't been my favourite strip by a long shot, but I'm going to milk it for every Thrill-erg it's got!

Zaucer: I really like this tale, actually. I know it's divisive, but the art, the colours, they just made me grin like an idiot as I sat in the library skiving off and reading. Also I love [spoiler]puns and fourth-wall breakage[/spoiler] so this really did it for me this week.

Dante: Oh dear.[spoiler]"Spatchcock? You'll be Splitcock by the time I'm done with you!"[/spoiler] I know what I just said about [spoiler]puns[/spoiler], but that kind of puerility has always been one of the reasons I've never loved Dante. (the other, arguably, being that I came to it quite late and can TASTE the backstory I'm missing, and that makes this arc fun for you lot.) Still, it was a bit of fun, as Dante always is, and I do love John Burns' art.

In conclusion: An entertaining Prog: were it to be shorn of the fab Dredd stories it'd just about keep me buying it, but it'll have to pick up a bit (as it was during the last Low Life run, say) to shatter my Thrill-circuits.

</tirade>

[The Sherman Kid]

There's just nothing quite like following a Dredd epic in serialised weekly installments is there? Even the sub-par ones like The Hunting Party - nothing else in pop culture quite hits the same spot does it?

Savour it!

Spot on 

[SmallBlueThing]

Last week i moaned about dredd- this week i loved it. Last week i moaned about zilk- this week i loved it. Last week i loved dante- this week i loved it too. Last week i loved wolfie- this week also. Last week i loved flesh- and i still do. The covers smiles at me like a naughty mate about to get us into trouble and i want the thirtieth birthday party for slaine next year very much as i like the thought of the 'infamous tits and tartan girls' or whatever it was.

Last week i had a very bad back, but tonight, tonight, i have two powerful medications that seem to be reacting with one another. Wheee.

SBT

[Satanist]

Cover – Looks like someone who has never winked before giving it a bash. Not good.

Dredd – Wow, seems like its gonna kick off big time with threats left right and centre.  Plague, sovs, PJ and now the Cits are revolting. This can just run and run as far as I'm concerned. Mr Wagner is on fire and I really do treasure a good epic. Arts no bad either 

Zilk – Script reads like it was written by stoned brothers Grimm & art looks like LSD sneezed on my prog. I love it!

The rest are doing their usual schtick but I just don't care enough to be offended or enjoy so lets leave it there.

Oh ok then AoW lifted its game this week with a few surprising deaths but that's it.

[ming]

Apart from the cover, a crackingly cracking Prog.

Zaucer was clearly the best thing as far as I'm concerned; witty, light-hearted with a sinister undertone and most definitely getting into it's groove now.  Who wears the Fancy Pants in the writing team, I wonder!

Dredd was a close second; having recently re-read Judgement Day it's a privilege to be treated to such a great modern epic.

Anyway, great stuff this week.

[radiator]

The cover was weird this week - agree with all the comments about the awkwardness, and the fact that it looks like Dante is having a stroke more so than winking. Forehead looks bloody massive too.