Thrillpowered Thursday returns for the dog days of summer

Grant Goggans · 05 July, 2012, 10:14:03 AM

Thrillpowered Thursday is back for July and August! For the next eight weeks, I'll be looking at various stories and things from 2000 AD's 30th birthday year of 2007, which is the year that I started that blog. In other words, the snake's begun eating its tail. First up, a not-entirely-positive look at a weird one-off episode of Flesh...

The Monarch · 05 July, 2012, 03:35:38 PM

wow...was it really that long ago you started that blog....

Colin YNWA · 05 July, 2012, 04:14:44 PM

I like to your 'silly opinion' about getting some new Tharg strips I'd love to see some of those again. Great fun in the past and I'd love to see them given a modern make over (or not actually come to think of it).

Grant Goggans · 12 July, 2012, 09:58:35 AM

Today's installment of Thrillpowered Thursday looks at the hilarious Robo-Hunter story "Casino Royal." In typical Sam Slade fashion, it really looks like everything is going right for our hero, both on the page and behind the scenes...

TordelBack · 12 July, 2012, 10:10:03 AM

Well Grant, it's taken long enough, but you've finally done it. You've made me want to dig out some Samantha Slade for a re-read. That final 5-of-Spades gag really is a classic.

Grant Goggans · 19 July, 2012, 08:18:49 AM

Love letter to Japan! It's more than just a great song by the Bird and the Bee that I can't get unstuck from my head, it's the latest Thrillpowered Thursday, wherein Ian Edginton and Steve Yeowell come up with a tribute to 1970s Japanese giant robot comics.

The Adventurer · 19 July, 2012, 09:00:36 AM

Man. You and I, we're on such a similar wave length when it comes to Savage. The Adlard series was far and away the best single Pat Mills production I've ever read. And the Goddard series tries hard, but just does not live up to the expectations set by the first three books.

Also, it sounds like somebody is a real old-school anime fan. You rattle off those 70s toon titles like it ain't no thing. Before my time of course, but I certainly respect that period (Mmmmmm... Captain Harlock...). Giant Robo the Animation is one of the greatest things I've ever watched. Strangely enough I have a hard time enjoying Big O. (I think because they set up this great notion about an entire city losing their memory. But never really play up the hardships/ramifications of this in any believable way)

But I can't agree with...

QuoteThen there was Naoki Urasawa's 20th Century Boys, a comic that ran from 1999 to 2006 (at least four years too long)

20th Century Boys is one of the most epic comics I've ever read. I don't want it too end. I've got the 21st volume sitting here next to me. I'm trying really hard to pace myself on reading it. But the temptation to just bomb it in one sitting is very high.

As for Detonator X. I recall being very disappointed in it at the time (that cover promised so much). But I've been itching to give it a reread (I don't think I've read it since it ran the first time). I've been kinda hoping it gets a Megazine Reprint.

Colin YNWA · 19 July, 2012, 09:33:02 AM

Catching up a bit but good to see you waxing lyrical about Samantha Slade, who, as I've said here before, I'm almost as bigger fan of as you. Shame how things played out. As ever the rest is a great read.

Grant Goggans · 19 July, 2012, 04:08:59 PM

The problem with the overwhelming majority of Japanese comics - like, damn near every man jack one of them - is that they run for far, far too long. "20th Century Boys" is no exception. Although Urusawa's "Pluto," another revisionist take on old properties (which I didn't mention in the article, as Astro Boy predates the period that Edginton is playing with in Detonator X), actually really is an exception to that rule. I believe it was told across just two years and is collected in seven volumes, and is a stone cold masterpiece. But even it could have ended sooner - if the episode that closed book six had been the finale, it would have been unforgettable. Open-ended and with lots of unanswered questions, but man alive, what an ending that would have been.

"Planetes" by Makoto Yukimura is another good title that doesn't run past its sell-by date, but that's because I believe it was canceled.

Other than "Pluto," my absolute favorite Japanese comic is "Maison Ikkoku" by Rumiko Takahashi, but even that's too long and with too many fool subplots dragging it out. The first nine collections are hilarious and completely brilliantly-observed comedy with a slapstick bent, and then there's about six volumes of padding keeping the two leads apart really unnaturally and really obviously. This is an obnoxious theme with Takahashi's work... she starts off strong and consistently with every one of her series, and just keeps collecting the checks and phoning it in for years at at time after about eighteen months of gold. Urusawa is nowhere near as obvious, as crass as Takahashi has become, but both "Monster" and "20th Century Boys" needed to pick up the pace, a lot, in my book.

It's not like the Japanese comic artists don't understand brevity... Go Nagai used to do an annual one-off horror comic, and Takahashi does an annual one-shot, and she'd do a three-part "One Pound Gospel" adventure every two or three years. I think the anthology editors just send around a truckload of money with a note reading "please do fifty more episodes next year." Hard to say no when pitching a new series, from what I understand, is a right royal pain in the ass even for established creators. I read somewhere that Takahashi spent something like a year pitching and developing "Rin-Ne" to replace "InuYasha," and that darn thing wasn't even good for eighteen months. Weird industry.

Then again, NO DAMN WAY we'd be waiting for word on when Indigo Prime would be coming back in Japan. If Indigo Prime was running in Young Ace in Japan, they'd have Smith chained to a typewriter with a gun to his head.

Grant Goggans · 26 July, 2012, 09:53:00 AM

This week's Thrillpowered Thursday looks back at the work of the sadly missed John Hicklenton on the occasion of his last Megazine work, "Blood of Satanus III," and Massimo Belardinelli, who passed away at this time in the narrative. I hope you like what I've found to say.

Grant Goggans · 02 August, 2012, 08:28:27 AM

This week, a short chapter looking at the debut of two Pat Mills series in the summer of 2007: Defoe and Greysuit.

Grant Goggans · 16 August, 2012, 09:35:39 AM

In this week's Thrillpowered Thursday, we look at two really nasty, double-dealing jerks working, for the moment, on the side of the good guys: ABC Warriors' Blackblood and Caballistics Inc's Magister. Enjoy!

The Adventurer · 16 August, 2012, 05:46:44 PM

That Absolam is an alternate universe then Cabs, thing. Is that true? Or just speculation? I'm not sure why both can't co-exist.

And yeah, where is our Cabs conclusion Rennie?! Longest pregnancy EVER.

The Monarch · 19 August, 2012, 11:47:27 AM

wasn't there a cameo from Jenny, ravne and a baby carridge in the first absalom solo story?

Grant Goggans · 23 August, 2012, 08:17:54 AM

I recall GRennie saying so last year, but very briefly. You formalize such things with nerds, the next thing you know, they'll be wanting the numbers of the parallel earths so they can demand a crossover.

Today, the eighth and last Thrillpowered Thursday installment of the current run, looking at the final appearances of Button Man and Stone Island. Enjoy it!

The feature will be back in October. I looked at the calendar, and I didn't specifically plan this, but I'm basically "going off the air" and switching to contemporary 2000 AD reviews at the Bookshelf for the weeks when Doctor Who is back.