Prog 2010: The Eye of the Storm

[sheridan]

And wouldn't the perp have died of dehydration after 9 days? I don't even want to thing about the toilet situation).

Doesn't it rain in one panel?  And we definitely get to see the toilet situation at the end of the second page.

[sheridan]

The bigger problem I have is so many unfinished strips the prog has in a holding pattern.

Cliffhangers are one thing, but at least you have a good idea when a TV series is coming back.

Stickleback
Brass Sun
Brink
Kingdom
Absalom (Though on that one it Gordon has said it's going to be wrapped up)

I can't honestly remember where Slaine or ABC Warriors left off

Ampney Crucis - ditto, something evil/duplicate universe?

Greysuit

At the moment it feels like every other strip is in a Dan Dare will return mode.

Unfortunately I have to agree with you - as much as I enjoyed Helium, Scarlet Traces and Brink, it's been two years since we had that revelation in Stickleback and it'd be nice to see a few of the older stories concluded before we get the new stuff.  I think the general feeling when I read a great new strip is "I like it and all, but I liked that other thing that's been on hold since last year - does that mean neither of them are going to ever be completed?"

[Jim_Campbell]

We keep having this argument about the gap between returning series... I think I'm definitely in favour of the model we saw in the 200/300s, where, in addition to Dredd, there would be two or three series on extended/semi-permanent runs. Rogue Trooper, Strontium Dog, Nemesis, Slaine, Ace Trucking and Robo-Hunter would all rotate in and out on long-term runs that, I think, helped cement their popularity.

I get that not many artists can hit the schedule that Belardinelli, Gibson or Ezquerra maintained, but I don't think Rogue or Slaine were hurt by a roster of artists.

[Banners]

Why is no-one talking about the back cover and last page of Counterfeit Girl? It's absolutely incredible!

[Timothy]

It's a great last page, although I seem to remember Rufus commenting somewhere that he regretted making Libra's original costume too intricate and fiddly to draw. He's not done himself any favours with her new jacket.

[James Stacey]

I was unsure about Counterfeit Girl but it totally won me over by the end. Great stuff. I also found myself enjoying Savage again by the end. Totally bonkers fun even if some of the dialogue wasn't very natural and the shoe horned lyrics were annoying. Art was as always superb.
A good Dredd, always nice to have a 'lighter' (was it lighter?) Cit focused one shot to break up 'THE CITY IS IN DANGER' storylines. Flesh was just painful. Some beautifully rendered dinosaurs, some oddly static photoshopped faces and one character with a drawn face which stood out against the photoshop. 'To Be Continued' .. please no, but if a giant asteroid can't kill off the strip, nothing can. More hits than misses but I'm looking forward to the new batch of thrills.

[The Amstor Computer]

We keep having this argument about the gap between returning series... I think I'm definitely in favour of the model we saw in the 200/300s, where, in addition to Dredd, there would be two or three series on extended/semi-permanent runs. Rogue Trooper, Strontium Dog, Nemesis, Slaine, Ace Trucking and Robo-Hunter would all rotate in and out on long-term runs that, I think, helped cement their popularity.

I get that not many artists can hit the schedule that Belardinelli, Gibson or Ezquerra maintained, but I don't think Rogue or Slaine were hurt by a roster of artists.

See also: early Sin/Dex and Nikolai Dante for a (relatively!) more recent example of strips that took up semi-permanent residence for a while and benefited from it. It requires a lot from the writers and artists - particularly from the artists, as a long-term commitment to a series can essentially rule out any other work in the meantime unless they're very prolific - but it can establish characters and strips in a way that gives them greater longevity, even if - as with Dante and Sin/Dex - the pace falls off later.

[Proudhuff]

Can't we all club together and buy those negatives of Mrs Mill's laddie? That way Cybermatt can move on to using new talent...

Why, when a lot of his other stuff is of a high quality?

With Flesh and the most recent book of Sláine, Mills is pushing his luck, but he's been here before and pulled it back. The insane Savage has been everything those books weren't, with something exploding on every page and plenty of plot to get through.

I think the difference might be the artists. Mills is trying to showcase Langley and Davis's work and let them tell the story, but that slows the story to an arthritic limp. Mills just seems to be having more fun with Savage too.

Does Tharg have an embarrassment of talent struggling to break through? None of the original strips the chasing pack* have put out - Outlier, Age Of The Wolf, The Order, Samizdat - suffer any less from the pacing, tone, or narrative confusion some recent Mills strips exhibit.


* Old hands Abnett, Edginton and Rennie all have 3-5 regular returning strips per year

I'd suggest that there is not much room for new talent to expand and learn if the dinosaurs are still stomping around, I don't mind the odd hit or miss that is a short run but so many of the long running stories are misses now its embarrassing. Time for another Offensive Summer?

[Smith]

Flesh is pretty much just two panels stretched out.
-Oh no,T-Rex-es are coming
-Oh no,they are here
Savage did pay off in the end.
Dredd was pretty sharp too.

[TordelBack]

The Dredd was okay, but we've had this basic idea twice (?) before (a rookie was even failed for leaving a perp cuffed on Hate Street) and Dredd's sentencing at the end was a very rare Carroll misstep in handling a convincing Joe  - a citizen can't be held responsible for action that was obviously due to delirium directly caused by a failure of Dept procedures- there's even an ongoing investigation! He could easily have come up with something else, as it was he may as well have charged him for fouling the slab or causing obstruction.

[Smith]

Maybe Dredd was just being a dick because the guy was negating Chaos Day?Still,not exactly by the book.

[Dandontdare]

It's a great last page, although I seem to remember Rufus commenting somewhere that he regretted making Libra's original costume too intricate and fiddly to draw. He's not done himself any favours with her new jacket.

I once asked Carlos Ezquerra if he regretted the design of Dredd's uniform for the same reason (I can never get that bloody eagle to look right!), to which he replied "nothing good is ever easy"

[Frank]

See also: early Sin/Dex and Nikolai Dante for a (relatively!) more recent example of strips that took up semi-permanent residence for a while and benefited from it

Which was fine if you liked those strips*. Advocates of that system might consider that (whatever the consensus here) Mills and his characters are very popular (and bankable). I'd enjoy a six month ABC Warriors residency ...

I think I prefer Tharg's new model, where popular writers are given residencies, rather than popular characters. Gene the Hackman might not be in the comic for six months out of every twelve, but Dan Abnett is.

Creators don't burn themselves out on a character, churning out stories to demand, and if I'm reading a story by a top creator which I'm not keen on (Brass Sun), I know it'll be soon be replaced by another of his works which I like (Helium).


* I'm in a minority, but I only ever thought they were okay, and eight years of their semi-permanent residency convinced me I wasn't the kind of reader 2000ad was looking for.

[Banners]

So regarding the back cover, who is in the pic just up from the almighty Bamber Boozler?

[Greg M.]

I think I prefer Tharg's new model, where popular writers are given residencies, rather than popular characters. Gene the Hackman might not be in the comic for six months out of every twelve, but Dan Abnett is.

Creators don't burn themselves out on a character, churning out stories to demand, and if I'm reading a story by a top creator which I'm not keen on (Brass Sun), I know it'll be soon be replaced by another of his works which I like (Helium).

My view is the exact opposite of yours: my current attitude is "Oh, it's another Ian Edginton story, I'll skip that," because I'm not a fan of his work. If, on the other hand, he was consistently writing a much more limited number of strips, the chances are far higher that I'd be pulled in by the narrative, despite myself. That's exactly what happened to me with Sinister / Dexter - started off disliking it, wasn't that into Abnett either, was very fond of it by the time of Eurocrash, now regard Abnett as someone whose work I'm interested in outside of 2000AD.