Sad Day for Megazine

[broodblik]

I have basically given up on the Marvel stuff (at least the Star Wars stuff is better than the current movie stuff).  The DC stuff is close by still trying to enjoy Batman. All the Marvel/DC is more about the big events plus the million characters cast fighting for their one panel in the sunshine.  Most off these events does not make sense. How many times do they want to destroy/rebuild/reset/restart the universe/multiverse/omniverse/darkverse/or whatever verse ?

[DrJomster]

I do find I get more befuddled than I used to, but I'm fairly sure that's just me. Doesn't happen all the time, just for a couple of current thrills across the Prog and Meg. Re-reading is the answer. Like back in the day, when you'd pour over every prog several times and lock it into the memory for decades! The detail I remember from about prog 130-300 is a fine thing for example, at least in my books!

[Funt Solo]

I'm two years behind on current Meg, but for the other half of the discussion - I find I would like better catch-up clues. We do sometimes get a "previously on...", which is very helpful. The worst offender for me is Dredd, because you often get a different author, who has their own stable of characters, but they only get like one turn a year (or two) to present them. Who even is Judge Krupke?

As for Meg content (from my 2018 perspective), it's actually strong. We just closed out a Cursed Earth Koburn, the Dredd [movie] Dead World piece (which was an interesting alt-take), The Returners is really good so far, there's the Bad Company / Chopper crossover (not my favorite) and I'm really enjoying the Dredd/Razorjack crossover.

Looking into my crystal ball, I'm pleased to see Devlin Waugh, Strange Brigade, Storm Warning, Lawless and The Torture Garden coming up. Not so enamored of more Blunt, but it's an anthology - and I didn't hate the first series. Oh - and I'm really looking forward to the Operation Overlord floppies.

Does it really go that badly downhill in the year after that?

(I'm not so keen on the Treasury of British Comics malarky. There was a reason I got into 2000 AD - it was better than anything else on the market. So, the TBC is everything else that was on the market. So, by definition, it's all worse than 2000 AD. It's like a historical curio. Like Citizen Kane - sure, it's genius and all that - but I'd rather re-watch Aliens. All day. Or this.)

[Jim_Campbell]

Does it really go that badly downhill in the year after that?

With my fan hat on: no. The headline Dredd strip is never less than readable, and Lawless maintains a semi-permanent presence that really keeps the quality up. The other strips that rotate in and out almost without exception have great art and the stories may or may not be to your taste, but I'll single out the Devlin Waugh revival (with obligatory sad footnote about the lack of John Smith) as having been surprisingly successful. The Ales Kot/Mike Dowling (and very recently Patrick Goddard) stuff, in particular, has been great.

With my non-fan-but-still-a-fan hat on: I think Lawless takes a break after the upcoming anniversary issue but, if it does, there's something from Ken Neimand and Dave Taylor that I think you're going to like a lot.

[Funt Solo]

Ken Neimand - an anagram of "Naked In Men".

[Dandontdare]

I can't imagine ditching the Meg, Dredd is always solid, and Lawless is superb, but I don't devour it like I used to. I have read all the way through some awful strips since 1977 with the attitude of "I may not rate this, but it's in the comic I paid for so I'm damn well going to read it". Only recently have I started actually skipping.I struggled through Blunt 1, but doubt I'll ever read the rest, and I abandoned Pat'n'Clint's Moody Movie Storyboard about halfway through.

My failing memory may be to blame, or maybe the trend away from self-contained episodes with a wider arc, to more continuous stories designed to be collected, but I do find it harder to remember what's happened after a month. As a consequence, I've parked a few stories - Returners, Devlin Waugh - for a re-read at some undefined point in the future.

One odd thing I've noticed, is that when the prog is fielding a weak team, the Meg seems to step up it's game, and vice versa - currently, the prog's on top by some margin, but in recent years, it's been the other way around.

As for Marvel, I was an addict, a True Believer, a FOOM, but when they magnificently destroyed the entire universe (and all the other alternates like the Ultimate universe) after a couple of year's build up, it was my excuse to jump ship. It was like I had finally reached the last page of a single book I had been enjoying for decades -sad, but satisfying. I haven't invested at all in this new mash-up reality and it's such a weight off my shoulders (and wallet). I can walk past an Avengers crossover without needing to have it! I still buy the odd book, like the magnificent Immortal Hulk, but I feel liberated from the continuity.

[broodblik]

Jim's summary of the state of the meg is how I feel. Some of the strips might not be up your alley but I can say that the art in the meg is always off the highest quality. Lawless is one-off the best ever comic strips I have encountered irrespective the publication.

[Robes]

I have changed the way I read both the Prog and the Meg in recent months. Partly to address this issue, partly driven by late delivery of some Progs.

I now do a re-read of previous episodes in a run and reading them in blocks of each story in turn, rather than a complete Prog or Meg, and then the next Prog or Meg.

It takes more time, but makes everything more understandable.

I subscribe digitally and I literally edit my comics so that all the stories are in sequence. Generally I wait until a jumping on point before sticking them all together and going back and reading them. I was struggling with the episodic format too until I did this, my memory these days can barely remember 5 mins ago let alone several weeks (or months), having young kids seems to have wrecked it! I've been really enjoying it, and the editing process is quite enjoyable in a nerdy collectors way too.

[broodblik]

I do not have the patience to wait. If it is available I read it, I do download them so that I have a quick reference. I do go back quite often to catch-up with what is going on. The digital format gives you other advantages to do these type of things.

[MumboJimbo]

I've already talked about the problems with keeping up with the Meg's stories month on month, but as the state the Meg's roster itself, in the two years since I've got back into 2000 AD after a nearly 30 year absence, the slate of stories in the Meg has been very solid indeed and has often, for me, trumped the weekly prog. Not recently though, but that's because the prog itself has been very good, rather than a decline in quality of the Meg.

Lawless has been the single best thing for me, over both publications, by a significant margin.

Blunt is very good if you read it wholesale. It got a bit trippy and weird in the first two arcs, but Blunt 3 is very tightly plotted and deals with a single premise very well: how do we get out of here?

The Torture Garden was also a very decent read that works much better read in one sitting. Lawless, Blunt and the Torture Garden together also give you a sense of an entire Dredd galaxy, really expanding the whole world building of Dread.

Ales Kot is doing fine work on Devlin Waugh, and is turning into a real find for Tharg. Also, he doesn't seem to get talked about much, but Patrick Goddard is one hell of an artist. He doesn't have a very idiosyncratic style so it maybe why he doesn't get much attention, but he's one of the best for me, and it's always easy to follow what's going on with his work - crisp and clear. His work on Waugh, Aquila and Anderson has been stellar.

The Dredd strips in the Meg I may actually prefer than the prog ones. They're a bit more "let's just get on with telling a good action story without much fuss". Kind of like a Detective Comics Batman story.

Those 5 have been the standouts for me, over my 2 years. Diamond Dogs was ok, and I liked it more than Skip Tracer. The huge panel sizes in The Returners annoy me as it means there's not much happening each month, but it's fine when all read together. Tales from the Black Museum seems to have a better hit rate than it's prog counterpart, the Future Shock. Storm Warning is an easily digested police procedural with a supernatural twist and handsome art. Many of the written articles come over as promotional material for other Rebellion ventures, and I'd probably like more articles on older 2000 AD matters, but I guess all those tales to tell have already been told many times. As a newish reader, I have the advantage that the Floppy content is all new to me, and it's generally been great.

The Meg is always destined to be the optional extra for the committed 2000 AD fan, but it's been going for 30 years and that's an amazing achievement. I hope it gets to take centre stage out of the prog's shadow during the 30 year anniversary year.

[MumboJimbo]

And, though there hasn't been much of either, Meg Anderson has been head and shoulders better than prog Anderson.

[Tjm86]

I really can't fault a lot of the logic here.  Quite a bit of it crops up from time to time as we see changes to the content of the Meg and Prog.  Like many others there are periods when I relish every single strip and look forward to the next month / week.  Then there are times when it is a little more patchy for me and there might be more content that I could quite happily leave alone.  On balance it tends to be more toward the former and when it is the latter it tends to be only the one or two strips that I just skim over.

The reprint issue is almost as old as the meg and has never really found a satisfactory conclusion.  I appreciate that for newer readers it is a tidy introduction to the vast back catalogue of Tooth strips in handy form.  Now that it is more frequently interspersed with tasters from the wider IPC catalogue I find myself begrudging the floppy far less.

I do get the point as far as this choice is concerned though.  The point that Tooth has generally been the best offering from IPC for many of us is valid.  Then again there are some hidden gems in those other titles that we've missed over the years.  Plus Rebellion get a chance to test the waters and grow the UK comic market possibly. 

I'm also the same as many others in terms of the diversity of my comic reading these days.  TBH Hickman has finally killed off my long term affinity for x-titles.  A combination of non-dimensional characterisation, bloated publishing schedules (an insane number of titles and many of them bi-monthly), mediocre writing and artwork, high pricing, exchange rate issues and Covid-19 have pushed me to the point of paring down to my Tooth / Meg subscription.  As for GN's, it tends to be old and obscure titles acquired second hand.  Not to mention a lot of re-reading of ones from a while back.

Is the Meg worth giving the push too?  Personally I'm in the 'no, keep with it' camp.  Some of the future stuff looks enticing.  I can give the Returners a miss.  Blunt may well be worth going back and trying again.  Waugh tends to wear its puerility a little too much for my tastes (Tittivilius ...) but is generally an okay read.  Lawless is outstanding.  Aye, overall there is plenty to like.

[JayzusB.Christ]

I've found it hard for a while to get into the Megazine.  I remember the early years when it was something special; you'd spend a month looking forward to the next one.  When it went bi-monthly it was still quality stuff, despite the occasional try-out filler strip (how's O'Rork these days?). 

Its Preacher-filled days weren't great but it came into its own again with the 100-page relaunch.  Nowadays, though, I don't really care about it.  The Devlin strip is good; and an incredibly confident approach from a new writer on the strip, Lawless is great of course and Dredd is usually good.  Most of the rest of it, though, isn't really doing it for me.

And it's expensive in Ireland - very bloody expensive - if you want to buy a physical version.  But I'll stick with the digital version for now.

[AlexF]

Yeah I'm in the 'sometimes it's hard to rememnber what's going on from episode to episode' camp - but I'm also in the 'I really like 80% of all the strips' camp, so no question I'm sticking with the Meg. Frankly it would have to get really bad to be as difficult to follow as the later half of Volume 2 of the Meg (Maelstrom, Shimura, Calhab, Pandora - I'm looking at all of YOU) - and it was fortnightly in those days!

I've found I enjoy letting episodes wash over me, and if I liked something enough it's usually possible to get hold of a collection to read it in one go, which often does iron out any 'what's actually going on' problems.

But you know, I'm keen for Tharg to push his drioids to put more caption boxes and thought balloons into their work. 2000AD has ever stood apart from the crowd, and this is a good way to do it. Plus with today's software it ought to be easy anough for the collections editor to just remove any 'recap captions' from panels for a collected edition.

I still think the Megazine's on the same high it's had since Volume 4!

[TordelBack]

Like Jayzus, I find the Megazine's physical price-point as just too high for me, and I've never been the biggest fan of the monthly format. I've been picking it up digitally and irregularly lately, but i still struggle to be engaged with a lot of the material. It probably doesn't help that I have a deep-seated grudge against non-Smith Devlin Waugh (and Indigo Prime), regardless of how good the new team is, and feel pretty I'm much done with Anderson.

The last run I recall being really addicted was in the 360-370s, with things like Demon Nic, Realm of the Damned, Storm Warning etc. - and even then I was mainly getting it in delayed chunks from online sales. These days I tend to get most out of the floppies, which seems a bit daft: part of me feels that I'd get as much out of just saving up for future collections.