Prog 1803 - Splashdown

[The Prodigal]

The dialogue btween Dredd and Hershey was incredibly engaging for a "low-action" Dredd piece. The bit about threatening to hand over his badge but never following through over issues whose complexity he fails to engage with-man that's worth the price of the comic. That's writing.

I continue to be in love with Brass Sun. There is something old school about it for me but it continues to include sub-text and themes for the modern day.

I haven't read the rest but its already a great prog in my eyes.

[a chosen rider]

Yay, the digital prog's up early enough for me to read it in the morning.  (For values of "morning" meaning I am now late going to lunch.  Oops.)

Cover - Striking and atmospheric; does the job nicely.

Dredd - Ooh, internal politics among the Judges - my favourite thing!  (This is not sarcasm.  I really enjoy this stuff.  Much more interesting than shooting matches with external bad guys.)  I love that the Judge with the eyepatch (Is she new? Don't recognise her, but I like her already) looks so shocked while Hershey's bawling Dredd out.  Dredd deserves it and Hershey's dead right, but at the same time, what other power does Dredd have to make himself heard when they completely ignore his - inevitably correct - advice and he's too confined by duty to protest in any other way?

Thinking on it, this is actually a neat demonstration that Dredd's real problem working within the Judicial System is that it's not enough of a democracy.  It's set up for a top-down authoritarian structure - those with the highest ranks get to make unilateral decisions - but Dredd's temperamentally unsuited to a top government job, so he goes continually unheeded because the system just doesn't have a place for anybody who's outside of the traditional power structure yet ought to have greater or equal authority in some areas.

Great Dredd, and very promising setup for a substantial story to come.  I adored the "bullet to kind four" manoeuvre, which is a glorious demonstration of exactly how it would go if you invited Dredd to play chess, and the mystery of the biscuit dunker is intriguing.  I have no clue who it might be.

ABC Warriors - Suffers a bit for coming after such a great Dredd, since not much happens in this part, but it's nice art and an enjoyable enough read.  Solid stuff.

Brass Sun - I have no idea where this is going!  Everything that seemed like setup for the story has already been torn down by this point, so where do we go from here?  I dunno, but I'm enjoying the ride.  Still loving the colouring on this art.

Twisted Tales - Seems an odd scheduling choice to have this coming directly after another TT last week.  The art is beautiful, but I struggle with the storytelling in these; the detailed art is busy enough that without any captions or dialogue it takes a fair bit of puzzling and rereading to follow the thread of the action.  I think I might have been more charitable towards this if I hadn't just had the same experience with the last one.

Grey Area - Ooh, this has come together at last.  Be more like this all the time, Grey Area, and I'll be very satisfied!

Overall, strong prog with a fabulous Dredd - and can I just say how much I've been loving the mix of art styles that we've had since 1800?  Every story is immediately vividly distinct and different in both colouring and style.  Keep up the good work, Tharg.

[Montynero]

The cover is amazing: composition, texture, colour. Genius!

Like Dark Jimbo, Pete Wells and most of the other posters I found Dredd to be mindblowingly good, both as an episode in its own right and as a teaser for forthcoming thrills. I've got no problem at all with writers using well worn metaphors like [spoiler]a chess game as long as they bring something fresh or artful to the table, as Al does here. The dialogue is delightful and Dredd's 'bullet to king four' was perfect in every way. Hershey's assertion of authority was pitch perfect. I took the 'not in the official history' line to mean its a new character from the post Cal era. Hope so, because weaving seamless new[/spoiler] tales around Dredd lore[spoiler][/spoiler] is exactly what Al should be doing. Feel hugely blessed to have talents like Ewing and Flint carrying the comic forward in such a powerful way. Hugely enjoyable episode!

ABC warriors was cool too, and I thought it was going to be a classic prog. But the Brass Sun and Grey Area were good, not great. So much to love with Twisted Tales but basic storytelling issues sadly confused events for me. [spoiler]All it needed was an establishing shot of the monkey and his pets alone in his castle. As it was its not clear where the monkey was in a succession of close ups, or who's doing what in other panels.
[/spoiler]
Good read overall though, with Dredd the pick of the prog.

Sweet cover from Simon Fraser for Sympathy for the Devil too!

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

Loved the Swampstein (Hammerthing?) cover. Good to see Stickleback's (finally) coming back to the prog too.

When I read this week's Dredd, I automatically assumed it was Wagner's work. I think that's the highest praise I can give Ewing's work on Dredd. Him and Flint are quite the team.

An Ode to Henry Flint
Henry Flint, Henry Flint,
His art is so great,
You never squint,
When perusing his expertly rendered guts,
And his pouty women with voluptuous butts.
The level of talent drives you nuts.
From frightful monsters, to fearsome beasts,
To freaky aliens, his art's full of treats.
Bullet-holes, torn flesh and gore,
Dear Tharg, please Tharg,
GIVE US MORE

Ahem....anyway, I liked the three distinctive versions of Hammerstein (marks I, II and III presumably) but that corrupt political type fella with the glasses, is it just me or does he look a bit like that Outlaw fella from a few years ago? Obviously it's not the same character, just his appearance reminded me of him, which is suprising since it was such a forgettable strip.

Twisted Tales. I give up. What's it about? Some sort of battle? Why should I even care which side wins?

Grey Area's still taking its time getting to the point, but I liked this more than the last few.

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

I take it the edit function is gone completely. That was never 10 minutes.

I left out Brass Sun. What the hell is going to happen next? This is brilliant. Long may it run.

[coastguardjackuk]

Of course. "Birdhouse in your soul", I recognised the words but couldn't nail it. Excellent work from that squaxx assuming this knowledge was non-internet related. It is a very annoying song indeed. I seem to recall they had another annoying hit called "She blinded me with science" but I could be getting muddled up with a different annoying 80s band. Anyway I have decided I'm going to dust off  "The day the law died" and have a crack at deducing who the bullet dunker is.

[Satanist]

Dredd was great eh? This is what I want post DoC. Ive always wondered if they would come back to this story and here it is and it was really great eh? Not a clue who the secret dunker is though.

Twisted Tales is another thing I have not a clue about but gave up caring ages ago. It fills 5 pages of my prog now and again.

Rest is ticking along.

[Mabs]

It serves me right for checking out this thread (before reading this weeks Prog) as i've just spotted a massive spoiler for Brass Sun!    I'm really enjoying it, and cannot wait to get my hands on it (hopefully tomorrow). None of my bloody newsagents near to where I live sell 2000AD and I have to make a near kilometre walk to my nearest W.H smiths to buy a copy. It really pisses me off, we can buy all the American comics without any hassle, but when it comes to THE GREATEST BRITISH COMIC, I have to go on a mission. 

[Eme]

It serves me right for checking out this thread (before reading this weeks Prog) as i've just spotted a massive spoiler for Brass Sun!    I'm really enjoying it, and cannot wait to get my hands on it (hopefully tomorrow). None of my bloody newsagents near to where I live sell 2000AD and I have to make a near kilometre walk to my nearest W.H smiths to buy a copy. It really pisses me off, we can buy all the American comics without any hassle, but when it comes to THE GREATEST BRITISH COMIC, I have to go on a mission. 

postal subscription

[Mabs]

It serves me right for checking out this thread (before reading this weeks Prog) as i've just spotted a massive spoiler for Brass Sun!    I'm really enjoying it, and cannot wait to get my hands on it (hopefully tomorrow). None of my bloody newsagents near to where I live sell 2000AD and I have to make a near kilometre walk to my nearest W.H smiths to buy a copy. It really pisses me off, we can buy all the American comics without any hassle, but when it comes to THE GREATEST BRITISH COMIC, I have to go on a mission. 

postal subscription

Yeah I did think of that, but i've had some problems in the past with subscriptions, namely magazine taking time to arrive and on one occasion, not arriving at all. I'll give it a month or two, see if I can persuade any local newsagents to stock it.

[Frank]

I'm sure the biscuits are a clue. Who eats biscuits?

Frank Gilbret, self-styled Private Shrink to Jeffrey Jacobi - the fame obsessed psychopath who tried to assassinate Dredd in Hitman (571-573). Gilbret goes for the dunk on the centrespread of part two; in fact, his biscuit munching is a crucial plot point (i). The doc's last appearance was as a smouldering corpse, so it's safe to assume he's not our dunker. Could it be Marcel Proust, dunking his madeleine? If so, expect The Cold Deck to run to seven self-indulgent volumes.

(i) "You've got your biscuits. Always munching away all the time, like a security blanket"

[SmallBlueThing]

Fantastic prog, not even ruined by Twisted Tales (which annoy me even for being called Twisted Tales, as that was the name of the best horror comic ever until WD came along).

Dredd was magnificently good- i thought only Wagner could do one like that. I'd not really rated Al Ewing before, except as a displayer of huge beard, but this was superb in every way. No idea who biscuitman is, but looking forward to finding out. Best bit was when Hershey tore Dredd a new arsehole, and he turned to storm out with the trad lightning zappy flashes going double-bonkers in his eyes. Haha! Fab.

Brass Sun was great again- i reread the whole thing up to now before this week, which i havent done for ages with anything.

ABCs- hmm, i feel like im reading a bad photocopy of langley's art at the moment, so im obviously not in the right headspace for it as yet. That'll come in time.

Grey Area- yes! Brilliant! Kick his scummy alien arse Bulliet (if you live).

Top prog (except Twisted Tales, but each to their own ).

SBT

[Judge Olde]

Waiting to see this weeks prog, I've lost count of the amount of times Dredds offered up his badge though. I always liked the idea that Dredd was more of just another Judge rather than the top bad ass Judge in MC1.

[Fisticuffs]

but that corrupt political type fella with the glasses, is it just me or does he look a bit like that Outlaw fella from a few years ago? Obviously it's not the same character, just his appearance reminded me of him, which is suprising since it was such a forgettable strip.

He's the dead spit of Morpheus from The Matrix for me, so much so that I imagined his lines in the voice of Lawrence Fishburne.

[Mikey]

Frank Gilbret, self-styled Private Shrink to Jeffrey Jacobi - the fame obsessed psychopath who tried to assassinate Dredd in Hitman (571-573).

Good work there! The biscuits definitely seemed important.

M.