Forum’s Favourite Thrill - Purgatory vs. Mind of Wolfie Smith Round 2 Heat 65

[Colin YNWA]

Week 9 and it might be the excitement wearing off, or just exhaustion with the relentless nature of all this but this week is a little weak. By a quick count only two of the thrills here were in the Premier league entrants who passed straight into Round 2. That said it's the lesser thrills, those that cause you to stretch the Thrill Bank to remember that these early rounds are designed for. So let's embrace these lesser lights and discuss things that are otherwise consigned to the past.

That saids we start the week with a thrill I love. Mind of Wolfie Smith comes with a bad rep. However I love its downtrodden, teen git ways and man does it look fantastic. As does Purgatory, but reading it was... well I'll let you finish that one yourself...

Purgatory - more info

Vs

Mind of Wolfie Smith - more info

Just reply in this thread naming your favourite thrill of these two series at the beginning of your post (or use Bold tags so I can spot it easily) and say what you like about these wonderful stories after that.

Match ends early on the morning of Thursday 17th March  and the winner gets a place in Round 3 (of 9!!!).

What on Earth is ALL of this?

For those that need 'um and can be bothered to follow 'um there's some simple rules

Any questions, just ask as ever - and have FUN

[broodblik]

Purgatory. Never read The Mind of Wolfie Smith, hopefully this will be collected some day

[abelardsnazz]

Purgatory - it was way over the top but it was Carlos and does have a sort of manic glee to it.

[IndigoPrime]

Purgatory has some reasonable Ezquerra art, but the script was woeful — one of the worst to appear in the Prog, lacking in logic even within its own universe, and packed full of tiresome Millar cliches. At the time, there was an interesting tale to be told about Titan and even its ex-judges attempting to then inflict terror on MC-1, but this wasn't it. Rob Williams showed how something like that could be done some years later.

So: Mind of Wolfie Smith, mostly by default.

[Magnetica]

Hmmmm didn't realise / had forgotten Purgatory was a strip in its own right. I had thought it was a Judge Dredd story.

Anyway, such distinctions make no difference to my vote:

The Mind of Wolfie Smith.

[Barrington Boots]

Wolfie Smith for me too. Purgatory does look great, but script-and-plot wise it is seriously terrible. Absolutely abysmal on every level.

[AlexF]

Interesting to consider this tie in a week when SpaceSpinner has just finished its coverage of Purgatory, and quite gleeful coverage it is too, makes me think on it pretty well. I confess I remember enjoying its silly nastiness quite a bit when it first aired, and it's definitely one of the few almost good Mark Millar thrills. But the plotting and basic set up for it are annoyingly un-Dredd-world. And the whole thing is rather dragged into the mud by Inferno, my least favourite Mega Epic. On the other hand, that bit where Grice plunges his hand in lava and doesn't care is a hoot.

Of course, Wolfie Smith is another thrill that I think of fondly but then remember, when actually reading it, that it's rather boring and suffers from the repetitive plot stylings of T. Tully. Still, it's doing more than Purgatory, and in Jesus Redondo has art that can match up to King Carlos so I've no real hesitation in voting for

The Mind of Wolfie Smith

Bring on the low-tier thrills!

[IndigoPrime]

Mm. That lava moment was quite something. Then again, Grice bore no resemblance to the character Wagner had created, who was a plotter and a schemer. That showcased not only Millar's lack of respect for anything that went before (which was well documented at the time) but also his lack of ability to craft an interesting story on multiple levels. Grice could have been the brains behind a breakout, but Millar was obsessed with 'hard men' (along with fat shaming, being fucking horrible to anyone who might be gay, etc), and so we got what we got.

I have no problem with characters being mean-spirited shits. But when the production (and the producers) are of the same mindset, that's a concern.

[rogue69]

The Mind of Wolfie Smith

[paddykafka]

Mind of Wolfie Smith

[SmallBlueThing(Reborn)]

Wolfie Smith- one of the only comic strips to make little me hide the comic under the big cushions on the sofa because it scared me so much.

SBT

[The Mind of Wolfie Smith]

(i'm not a teen git anymore. i'm a bitter and mostly forgotten old man, my powers have waned, i haven't even been collected - not even in a floppy - and i'm too scared of link prime to vote).

[Dash Decent]

I hate to vote against something drawn by Carlos Ezquerra, but...

The Mind of Wolfie Smith.

Hopefully Tharg will choose to reprint it soon.

[Dark Jimbo]

Wolfie Smith always seemed ripe for an early-2000s revival, written by Simon Spurrier and illustrated by Frazer Irving.

[Richard]

Neither!

Disqualify them both!