Autiumn offensive: Was it?

[Bolt-01]

It is amazing what a couple of nights without sleep will do, last night was the first time this week that I have been able to sleep for more than 3 hours solid and a though popped into my tiny little mind. "Was the autumn offensive that bad?"

Okay, back this up. I'm not going to go digging through threads looking for quotes but I have received the impression that the last offensive of 2003 wasn't very good. In fact some comments have gone so far as to say that it was awful (IIRC).

Why?: Dredd had a dodgy run with an artist. Fair enough. Siku has come into some right stick on this board and that may have even caused him to avoid Dreddcon. Shame. Yes his Dredd is at best a parody, and some of his storytelling is a bit weak, but did that really deserve some of the HATE that was vented here? Logan was at least able to back-up all his comments, which is more than can be said for some.

Dead men Walking also got a lot of stick, mostly for its plot. It may be a case of the strip was run at a bad time, seeing as it coincided with the nostalgia fest that was Harry 20 over in the meg, but at least some of the comments on the board seemd to think that the prison thing had been done before and that the characterisation was not so hot.

However, the biggest thing for most was the choices made for the faux curses (Vuck, shiv et al). These are poor but anybody reading the board lately will have seen numerous instances where the stylings have been adopted for 'board speak'. Same goes for the 'I'm top Bitch now!' Catchphrase.

Does that mean that Dead men Walking is a failure as a strip? Not in my eyes, Boo Cook did another stand-up job and the story, although cliched, did the job it needed to do. I liked it by the end.

Synnamon: This was worried about from day 1. The second story from the team that produced 'BISON'. I admit that when I saw the preview image in the prog I was a little concerned, but I was more bothered that it was going to be pasted before it got started. At least the board held judgement on that and waited.

The worst thing about Synnamon in my humble opinion is that it, like Dead men Walking (DMW), suffered from being something less than an instant classic. The story was well told, the pace was steady and I found the art to be stylish and for the most part dynamic and clear.

Durham Red: This is the most jarring of the line up in that it is not a stand alone tale, it is the next chapter in the tale. This lead to confusion as to plot and back-story and The Harrison droid was held to task over his changing faces artwork.

Personally I enjoyed this, though I do find Harrisons storytelling to be weak at times, and I thought the art was much clearer and easier to follow.

Sorry for going on but I don't want to give the impression that the last set of tales was a failure. 2000ad is an anthology, and the nature of the beast is that we will inevitably get stories that don't work for an individual. Moreover, the message board irregulars are a very vocal, but small, grooup out of the readership of the comic and the comments raised should not be held as the watermark of the entire readership.

Phew, rant mode off.

Bolt-01

[Steamboy]

I'm in the middle of the offensive right now and I think it only suffers bcos of the previous run of strips was so good. Dont mind Dead Man Walking and think it's a good story helped imensly by Boo's top art.  Synnamon seems like a cool story so far aswell definite step above Bison(which I didn't mind) for it's creators, and I've liked Durham Red since the whole sleep, wipe out continuity reset saga started and it seems to be developing quite well.
All up liking the offensive but still cant wait for prog2004...

CU Krestel

[Floyd-the-k]

Well ranted Bolt! Siku was well below par in that story but didnt deserve the HATE as you put it. Usually hes brilliant, for mine. Anyway, some of the blame should have gone to the writer. the story wasnt THAT bad.
  The Durham Red story could be good, we will see. I too am enjoying it so far. Dead Men Walking wasnt bad.
  Syannmon really, really blew in my opinion, but it didnt last long (and the forgettability of the characters made it seem shorter)
  Youre right about the message board irregulars being a vocal minority.  they definitely have a different perspective to people who dont compare current issues to everything else the comic has done.
 I think the other factor was that the Autumn offensive came just after a brilliant summer offensive. Anything that followed that was bound to be disapointing.

dang, some students have shown up.

yours hampered by a wonky keyboard,

[Woolly]

Overall, i found the offensive a bit of a let down.
DMW certainly started to get better after what felt like a rushed beginning, but was let down by an ending that i saw coming from a mile off.

Synammon was boring. I honestly preffered Bison! (no, really!)

Durham Red is a bit of a weird one, as this is the first time ive found myself reading a Durham Red story and i dont have anything to compare it to. A bit like soft porn, but fairly enjoyable. (Great last frame!)

No offence to either Siku or John Smith, but the less said about that Dredd story the better!


Cant really remember anything else from the offensive at the moment, work keeps getting in the way!
So, overall a let down, but not terrible and certainly readable and JUST worth the cover price!

Got high hopes for 2004!!

[Mr C]

I didn't mind the offensive, certainly not the "worst run ever" by any stretch, it was just bad timing I guess.

The reason I didn't reckon much on Meatmonger was not just because of the Art, which disrupted the flow of the narrative and looked too murky, but the story itself which felt slightly lazy, a by the numbers job.

Dead Men Walking ended up my favorite out of the whole offensive, probably because the great Art and plethora of cameos smoothed out the bumps in the story.

Synamon didn't really do anything for me, it was just cliche after cliche, again, it wasn't helped by the artwork.

I just dislike Durham Red's current "Space Slut" incarnation because it feels like Abnett hasn't concentrated on this as much as he possibly could have. Harrison's art is improving greatly though and I've finally managed to work out what's going on.

Kibblelogistics was great, lesbians and flesh eating cats always impress me :)

So, the offensive to me, flet lazy and half done apart form Caballistics and DMW.

[Woolly]

Of course!! Cabbalistics!!

How could i forget that gem of series?!?
Hats off to messrs Rennie and Reardon for one of the highlights of the year (and this year, hopefully!)

Feeling quite ashamed of my poor memory now!

Wul

[Mikey]

Well for the first time in absolute years I was skipping stuff over-Synammon and DMW.I really thought these were weak (and I didn't despise Bison at all)
I would defend Siku to a certain extent,but as you say Bolt,Logan seemed to be the only one who made coherent points about his work.As I've said previously i just *like* Sikus style(same way as I liked Steve Sampsons stuff*duck*)and as for Durham Red,I'm reading it as a separate story ie not having trouble with continuity and have enjoyed what Dabnett has done with it as space opera...Funny how Harrisonn doesn't get the same level of criticism for his storytelling as Siku...

Cabbalistics was just pure class as usual,and not because of the variable quality of the other strips.Extra bananna for the Rennie,I'm sure you'll agree.

M.

[Leigh S]

While the last thing I?d want is for the Prog to be run on the word of the folks here, I?m not too sure you can make many assumptions as to whether the views here are representative of a wider readership or not ? for a start, there isn?t usually much agreement here, anyway.  About the only thing we do know about the people here is by being here, we know what they think, and that?s about it.  Are the 99% of people who aren?t apathetic or contented or just as annoyed but don?t have the time, will or ability to sign up to a message board? Maybe they don?t think their opinions would be valued, or don?t feel the need to express them for a variety of reasons.  The only real answer is we just don?t know.

I?d say that since 2000AD is a quite small audience, and generally has a long standing readership (?85%!!!?? 85%!!!???!!!!?*) there?s a chance that the views here might be a little more representative than elsewhere ? the real truth is we just don?t know, but there?s little else by way of feedback but here these days.  Of course, you could argue that in the olden ?Golden? days, 2000AD was run by a similar ?vocal minority? ? those who filled in the voting slips.  This definitely affected what appeared in the progs, with the lowest scoring stories being dropped.

If there?s anything that can be said about the faults of the Autumn Offensive you?ve probably highlighted them yourself in a way ? at best, you?ve  damned it all with faint praise (excluding Caballistics).  Following on from a Summer offensive didn?t do it any favours sure, but isn?t that  like saying a dunces score is only bad in relation to a genius, so we should let the dunce pass the test? :)

My disappointment with the Autumn Offensive is probably down to the number of potentially controversial/divisive strips being ran all in one go.  If you're going to have a run of non Wagner Dredds, then get a "sure-fire" artist.  If not, then make sure you've got something else "sure-fire".  as it was, there was an overload of stuff with either no track record, or a track record of mixed receptions.

* Message board/Dreddcon  in-joke #145

[Mikey]

Sorry Dom,forgaot to praise the pencil monkey,who'll probably appreciate the bananna more

M.

[ukdane]

Following on from a Summer offensive didn?t do it any favours sure,

This year, they should move the autumn offensive to spring, and move the summer offensive to autumn, leaving that space for the winter offensive. That way the prog will get progressivly better as the year goes on ;-)

[Devons Daddy]

i would say
each stroy was good.art on the whole good. but as a whole not fantastic. except caballists which was outstanding.

each script with its art would have stood well on its own.but as a collective it was not really outstanding, also with its comparison to the last two offensives, it did not stand up to the high levels set.

not really poor, just not as good as we had come to expect.

SIKU to be honest i felt was taking the P**s. it was not even a parody, just shoddy. im no fan of his artistic ways. but he has produced some outstanding art in his style.the dredd was lazy and had so many errors it would have failed at a CSE art course.
the starborn thing was there then not.
the number of bike tracks where less the script called for. so many basically i dont give a damn errors.

to be choosen to work on 2000ad is a priveledge,the finest scribes and artists in this medium have done so over the years and still do.
to take it and waste it as he did with this was unacceptable.
though Tharg should have been more willing to say NO!.it was not an aceptable level of effort.

[Woolly]

Perhaps spring and summer should give autumn a miss and go straight to winter?


Wul(definately NOT stealing Python materiel!!)

[Slippery PD]

Actually you say this as a joke, but there has been a problem with scheduling hasnt there.  Tharg (or at least editotially) has poorly scheduled the Autumn offensive, swapping round something like DMW and/or Synnamon with slaine or Stront or something else; may have improved the reception of the autumn offensive and only slighlty decreased the summer offensive.

Of course having said that you can only publish what you have really......

YEr Slips  

[paulvonscott]

"but as you say Bolt, Logan seemed to be the only one who made coherent points about his work."

So Logan's 'Oi Siku, it's a fucking eagle' comment was backed up with an in-depth criticism of eagles was it?  Or the rest of the people who made a criticism of Siku's artwork were incoherent hatemongers were they?  One person posted 'Siku must die' as a joke.  It's a poor joke, in very bad taste and it didn't get much support, but it's obvious that's what it is.  Why don't you go back and read those comments before making lame assumptions like this.  

I enjoyed Siku's previous go at Dredd in the tree story, but didn't think the artwork was good enough or coherant enough in this one.  I said that at the time.

As for the chin, Siku has set out to deliberately provoke ('piss off' were the words I've heard) readers by drawing Dredd with a stupid chin, recently and in the past.  That's fine, but when you do piss those people off and they say where you can go stick your chin, then going off in a sulk doesn't get my sympathies.  

I'm sorry Siku wasn't at Dreddcon, but it was his choice.  If he'd pulled off a masterclass Dredd with a stupid fucking chin, he might have got away with it, but he didn't.  Very few people want to see their favourite characters drawn as a joke.

[paulvonscott]

Personally I didn't think much of the Autumn Offensive, I thought it probably looked OK on paper, but didn't come off in reality.  I'm not going to dismiss it as rubbish, but I didn't read three of the five strips in it to their conclusion.  

Dredd was okay, but was overlong by two episodes and the art as has been said could have been tighter.  Caballistics wasn't bad (I know lots of people like this one, so it was a bit of a silver lining for them), and I've never been so pleased to see a Tales of Telguuth in my life.

As it is, it didn't really gel and basically not long after the feedback came in we started seeing the carrot of prog 2004 being waved.

It's basically the problem with offensive programming that you'll end up annoying just about everyone eventually.

If you have runs of stories that tie up the mag for two months solid that's going to piss a percentage of people off as they wait for something they like to come along (if you have a block of old traditional characters followed by a block of new experimental characters then chances are you might upset everyone).  

If you actually shake up all 2003's strips and had a proper anthology magazine (as in different types of strips at different times) with strips starting and ending all the time (not in blocks) you could have had a comic where just about everybody could have been happy all year round and when they weren't happy they knew that in a week or two something they like might be starting.  

As slips said you can only work with what you've got and I'm guessing there isn't much leeway to hold strips back for long, so Tharg doesn't have this luxry.  As was said at Dreddcon, they have a limited budget for strips that have yet to be published.  If the offensives are being dumped as is rumoured, then I believe that's a positive thing.

There really is no point getting the hair shirts out, it was just a pretty insufferable time for certainly some readers, but once it was over I think just about everyone was pleased with the Meg and Prog 2004 line ups, or at least some part of it.

We all appreciate that the comic will be better at some times for us than others, that's the nature of an anthology comic.  The offensives just made the sunny days sunnier and the gloomy days gloomier.  And though the Autumn offensive may have been pretty gloomy for some, it's over and so for most people I imagine is the problem.  

I reckon 2004's going to be a great year from what I've heard at Dreddcon, the Autumn offensive progs are all safely piled away, and I'm off to visit the Postie to see if they have the next prog.

Thrill Ho!