Prog 1798: Mecha Death!

[TordelBack]

A moral compass say's Lenny would get his comeuppance, but I doubt it.

I don't think 2000AD has ever gone in for moral endings.

All the same, a crisp new Fargo note says Lenny doesn't get more than a single cred out of this scheme. 

[Zarjazzer]

Lovely cover mech blasts giant beastie which can never go wrong. Dredd was I thougt a touch up even on last week a mysterious murder and some excellent visuals (the statue of judgment head as referred to by others),  More mech- a- tastic(see what I did there  ) beastie blasting with 3thrillers and Lenny Zero had more bonking Judges but the star is still the giant vehicle which should have it's on mega epic in a Bolo's style way.

Ichabod has lost me but Aquila was tops this week.Lovely art and last panels.

[Zarjazzer]

oh boo-I just realised he ain't a blasting it on the cover just battling the alien mega-beastie-still lovely though. Inside it's a blasting- with nuclear bullets!

[staticgirl]

Interesting how there's an Innocence drug and a Sex drug in the same issue. It would suggest a general social anxiety about an individual's free will being eroded is peaking at the moment.

Lenny Zero has been making me feel increasingly uncomfortable. I don't like how the women are portrayed in it visually anyway (Mink especially) and the drug is icky. Maybe I'm a prude but I read 2000AD for fun not to feel nervous. It's a shame because I like the setting (albeit I don't get many of the shout outs to the past - which might actually be good as it's fresher to me) and the polar bear is ace. MORE POLAR BEAR LESS LENNY!

The other stories are great. MC1 finally looks like it's had the stuffing knocked out of it in the Dredd story and I was surprised by the last panel. The 3riller is a bit light on depth but looks gorgeous. Aquilla is putting down roots but it's still early days. If it carries on like it is now it will be a slight but fun story but if it carries on for a long time it could have the chance to become an epic. I love the art.

I love Ichabod. I just love it. I think it's the most romantic thing I've seen in 2000AD in years, even with the strong competition from Dante. If Shelley had written comics (and been given a kick up the arse first) they might be like this. Maybe Byron would have written Dante. He'd have been doing the arse-kicking.

[Pete Wells]

Bah, I wish I'd never read this thread now, it's absolutely ridiculous!

It's awful what happened to the person that James knows and the effects it's had on him and I'm sure others. However, another boarder may have gone through similar trauma as someone they know may have been shot, should we ban/admonish Sinister Dexter now? Another may have witnessed a friend who's been stabbed, should be ban Nikolai Dante who flippantly stabbed a fair few of his enemies? I'm sure there's been some casual hit and runs in Dredd, we gonna slate that now? Nukes in DR and Quinch, ay yi yi!

Since Prog 1 there's been several victims of something pretty bloody horrible every week. ALL violent crimes are appalling and wrong, are we going to take them all out of 2000AD or just the ones that affect us personally?

[jamesedwards]

Crap and generally void of a point as it was, Sinister Dexter was at least clearly advertised. It's definately a precursor to Lenny Zero. But! There are vast differences between getting shot and getting raped. Not least that there's no social stigmata to getting shot. Right now in America nobody is arguing to remove medical treatment for gunshot victims. Most gunshot crimes get reported, etc etc. I've been mugged and I've narrowly escaped after having my drink spiked by a girl who resembled grotbags and only the latter made me feel dirty and ashamed. My dad didn't laugh down the phone at me after I got mugged.

There's rape in Dante. It always drove home the human impact of the horrible things that happened. It also subverted Dante's revenge arc in order for his mother to pull the trigger on Dimitri. I appreciated that.

[The Prodigal]

Bah, I wish I'd never read this thread now, it's absolutely ridiculous!

It's awful what happened to the person that James knows and the effects it's had on him and I'm sure others. However, another boarder may have gone through similar trauma as someone they know may have been shot, should we ban/admonish Sinister Dexter now? Another may have witnessed a friend who's been stabbed, should be ban Nikolai Dante who flippantly stabbed a fair few of his enemies? I'm sure there's been some casual hit and runs in Dredd, we gonna slate that now? Nukes in DR and Quinch, ay yi yi!

Since Prog 1 there's been several victims of something pretty bloody horrible every week. ALL violent crimes are appalling and wrong, are we going to take them all out of 2000AD or just the ones that affect us personally?

Pete I am going to put my hand up and say like static I may be prudish but the issue for me goes even beyond the plausible reading of the story as a de facto rape as revenge plot. I just don't want to see scenes that look like something out of a male fantasists porno flick. Sex is a fundamental and its going to feature and its an adult orientated comic but I would like some sense of proportion and not feel kinda sleazy while I'm reading it.

Where that puts me in relation to the violence component of the mag that you refer to I don't know (and you make very good points). I lived in north Belfast at the height of the troubles in Northern Ireland and have been very, very close to multiple shootings and bombings with all the visual and other impacts of those events that you might imagine. For me having experenced and survived those real things has made me regard things that feature in dredd etc as remote, fantastical and not remotely triggering. for me the sexual thing in Lenny does transcend the fantastical story context much, much more.

Dear me I haven't half gone on with this. Does anyone know what I am trying to say?

[BPP]

That Dredd could only have been more Wagnerian had a fleet of Valkyries delivered the Prog to my hands. MAGNIFICENT.

5 really good strips. JHD's art looks incredibly better when he doesn't have to draw the human body. He's a crazy mix of Dillon and Belardinelli that kid! As for poor Ichabod! Eeeks! I really would have loved more and more of Ichabod trudging around the afterlife killing stuff and this 'worlds collide' stuff has seemed a bit 'final' (and also hampered by it being hard to distinguish era's with an art style that doesn't do detail or background too much) but these final few eps have ramped up the suspense... come on crazy mean gun-man, we're rooting for ya!

And stop all your bellyaching about sex. Its grand. Try it.

[Richmond Clements]

And stop all your bellyaching about sex. Its grand. Try it.

It is, but rape on the other hand , which is what the conversation is actually about, is a completely different thing. I trust you can see the difference between the two.
Sorry to drag this up again, but I've just read this prog today, and found the comedy sexual assault in Lenny Zero to be pretty disgusting.
I suppose it doesn't help that I haven't really been enjoying the whole 'cool bits I remember for 2000AD 20 years ago' feel to it. And I'd be surprised if this would have been commissioned if anyone who was not a 'name' writer had pitched this plot.

[BPP]

And stop all your bellyaching about sex. Its grand. Try it.

It is, but rape on the other hand , which is what the conversation is actually about, is a completely different thing. I trust you can see the difference between the two.

Err... nope, plenty of comments about the sexual content of the panel before that ridiculous rape debate cropped up. If I wanted to talk about that I'd being in Foucault, Rose, Wendy Brown and all sorts of arguments on the construction of violence and the governance of the body in Dredd's 'world'. Just to show I'm all learned and things etc etc. But I'm just talking about the 'adult' content of the comic. So keep me out of your Rape debates please.

[Richmond Clements]

So keep me out of your Rape debates please.

Maybe you should refrain from making flippant comments about it then, eh?

[IndigoPrime]

I suppose it doesn't help that I haven't really been enjoying the whole 'cool bits I remember for 2000AD 20 years ago' feel to it. And I'd be surprised if this would have been commissioned if anyone who was not a 'name' writer had pitched this plot.

Quite. With this and Flesh and then even the absurd stance of Anderson on next week's cover ("LOOK AT MY ARSE, WHICH I'M CONTORTING TOWARDS YOU!"), I'm hardly surprised Mrs G feels no desire to read 2000 AD, when she's very happy sitting down with Hellboy. I don't think 2000 AD's anywhere near as bad in this area as a lot of US dross, but that almost makes it more of a disappointing surprise when uncomfortable things like Lenny Zero do show up. Still, this is also the comic that's been running Ichabod alongside it, so I guess no-one in editorial noticed. That in itself might be considered a little worrying, but perhaps it's down to pretty much everyone involved with the comic being a bloke—something that's not going to change any time soon.

To my mind, it's a real pity, too, because it soured the return of a great character, with a suitably absurdist old-school MC-1 set-up.

[BPP]

So keep me out of your Rape debates please.

Maybe you should refrain from making flippant comments about it then, eh?

Maybe you should moderate yourself.

[CrazyFoxMachine]

All this talk most certainly makes me think I'm right to be prudish when editing stories - rape and sexual violence can be as artistically justified (or not in this case) as it wants, but it's got to be in context, and done correctly. Now - whether this IS  "rape" - which I'm not sure that it is - given that all involved are under the influence of the same drug. What Zero does turns it from a mutual breakdown of inhibition into a scenario where his ex has been deliberately and viciously humiliated. You could argue that the males involved are being equally exploited but obviously this isn't the intention. Before this part it was a knockabout heist thriller with continuity cake - why skew it?

It's there for a reason. But in my opinion it's not justified. That's what makes it stick out. If Diggle has put that there just to shock and cause this kind of lengthy and self-perpetuating debate then it's worked. But now for many many readers that's all this story will ever be remembered for - not for the heist, not for Max Normal, not for the polar bear or the Fargo notes, but for overly-eroticised drugsex which may-or-may-not-but-certainly-looks-like-gang-rape. Which, I think, would be disappointing. If not for Diggle, then for the creators of the four other stories which shared this issue and that have been overlooked in it's favour.

I've seen it in some submissions I've got - give some writers five pages and one out of ten of them will try and get either sexual violence, graphic sex, or rape in. Why? Because it's shocking and it causes this kind of reaction. It instantly, without really having to do much, makes the story seem provocative. But more often than not it's a massive shot in the foot. Well done, you've reduced your story instantly into something people will only harbour queasy feelings for. Not naming names but there was a small press comic I recently tore up after reading because not only did it swear every other caption (SHOCKING) but it featured perpetual and graphic references to rape (HOW SHOCKING). I certainly don't remember that for it's plot or art. It's why I don't like Spurrier's Crossed webcomic. Bunch of arse.

I didn't want to add to this debate as it certainly doesn't need another voice - but if the thread serves to make one aspiring writer look at their "edgy" exploitation-themed script and say "this really isn't worth the hassle I'd be better off just telling a good story that doesn't rely on cheap tactics" then it'll have done it's job.

[Frank]

rape on the other hand , which is what the conversation is actually about, is a completely different thing. I trust you can see the difference between the two. Sorry to drag this up again, but I've just read this prog today, and found the comedy sexual assault in Lenny Zero to be pretty disgusting

Maybe he didn't use the term rape because he wasn't convinced that's what was depicted. As I understand the description of the drug's properties, it lowers inhibitions, rather than rendering the subject insensible or incapable of resistance. There's no suggestion in either gang bang scene that anyone is acting against their inate desires or their own volition, and it's Kramer who initiates sex, expresses desire, and undresses herself.

Analogies with Rohypnol seem misplaced, since the introduction of Dizzy's chemical agent as a party drug that lowers inhibitions figures it as something more akin to ecstacy- which increases empathic responses and sensual awareness without violating individual will. That said, I'd agree with everyone who's made the point that sex (even consensual sex) and revenge narratives are uneasy bedfellows.

This week's events would have been entirely in keeping with the playful tone established by the rest of the series if it wasn't for Lenny's decision to take a tour of the cockpit- placing him in that room complicated what should have been the straightforward enjoyment of seeing the hubris of a bunch of uptight fascists ascetics undermined by their own natural desires. A-a-and as I was typing, I see Fox has made some pretty similar points.