2000AD Prog 1582 - 16 April 08

Cover by Nick Percival

Joe Saxton: This is a striking piece from Nick Percival which only suffers slightly from being a bit dark.  It even looks like it might have benefited from the addition of text, and it's also representative of what’s inside.  I’m finding a lot of positives and very few negatives. 

Robert Frazer: An interesting design, quite dense with detail but not at the expense of clarity. The watery background sets the desperate scene well, the taglines quip neatly (the "credit crunch" joke in the top band is oddly appropriate!), and Kolnikov's hair seems electrified, charging the page with a certain energy. The oversized goggles and the mucky environment bring to mind the image of a fly overlaying the character, but they still create quite a buzz!

Road Stop - part 1 Script: Gordon Rennie Art: Dave Taylor Letters: Annie Parkhouse

Feeding the family pet...

Synopsis: A rad storm is approaching a Mega City freeway called The Link. The Judges are moving those vehicles without sufficient rad-shielding to the "Rest and B Thankful" stopover until the storm subsides. However, the owners of the place have a carnivorous creature as a pet, one of the visitors is a serial killer, and another is a hitman carrying three heads from his previous hit. Dredd is on babysitting duty...

JS: It's nice to see there’s still some Rennie work left to run, and also good to see this strip in general because Dave Taylor’s art is sumptuous, interesting and well defined. It's amazing how much he fits into some of these panels. 

Story-wise there’s not much to say as it’s a setup piece, but Rennie rarely disappoints.  Although Wagner’s recent run has been superb, variety is the spice of life. 

RF: A psychopath with an inferiority complex, a shadow-shrouded hitman, a ravenous and ornery carnivore, several busloads of expendable bystanders - and Dredd.

It's going to be a looooooooong night...

It seems almost churlish to criticise Taylor's art after his tale of woe in this month's Megazine, and in all fairness there's little to crticise. I'm not overly fond of his more organic way of drawing the city, but that's a case of personal preference more than anything substantive, and in all other respects he puts in a strong show with fine detail - the two elderly hoteliers are astoundingly withered (I enjoyed the deadpan delivery of the Foodle Noodle line as well) and the 'class reunion' villain's design is effective. The two studs on his nose are minute but just noticeable enough to be distracting, suggesting that something isn't quite right with an outwardly normal character.

This is a superbly effective introductory chapter, setting all of the pieces in place with economy and efficiency and ably conveying itself as the calm before the storm in content as much as in setting - I'm already awaiting the coming progs with relish.

The Guv'nor - Part 6 Script: Pat Mills Art: Patrick Goddard Letters: Ellie De Ville

Savage keeps quiet...

Synopsis: Savage returns to his pub when the Volgs descend on it and take Strangeways away for robbing a bank. He tells Savage that he's innocent and pleads for some support, but Savage refuses. Later, Savage's ex partner Mike Hanson is killed by the General and Savage leads an assault on what appears to be a geriatric hospital...

JS: No, I don’t really know what’s going on either.  But I’ll see if I can figure it out...

After the end of Double Yellow the Volgans had to scale down the brutality of their operation, or at least the visible side, hence commanders drinking in pubs and acting all friendly, etc.  Beneath this is a battle of wits between Savage and the general with the scar on his forehead. The latter is attempting to root out the resistance commando, and probably suspects that it's bill the landlord.  Hence the battle of wits which includes shooting Savage’s old commander to try and (successfully) provoke a response. 

Having said that I might be completely wrong and this is not as coherent or gripping a story as either of the last two.  Goddard’s art is nice but I have a little trouble finding distinction between some characters. 

RF: In my first review of the current Savage story I said that a problem I have with connecting with the story was Mills's politics, so in my second I should admit to another - I'm not a Londoner. I can't stand the horrid reeking abscess of a city, in fact. But while I as an individual can't necessarily entirely empathise with the workhouse being grandad's worst nightmare (inasmuch as it being any different from the rest of the city), I appreciate that many people can and admire what Mills is achieving in making his tale a celebration of the city (the "I'm an East Ender..." line in an earlier part was genius). Indeed, I'm enjoying "The Guv'nor" well. The only part of this week's strip which strikes an off note is Cath's remark about Bill having a "secret room" - good grief, it's a pub, not Chatsworth House. I'm astonished that the General hasn't yet realised who Bill is despite these repeated face-to-face encounters. Surely they have a photo of the resistance's greatest hero somewhere on file? However, suspension of disbelief can capably carry that load.

People have complained about the lack of detail on the reoccupation, but it's a misplaced criticism. After all, what is there to say? If Book Four had been set in Mill's 2006, then we'd just have had ten weeks of us getting licked again and Bill hiding in a ditch instead of blatting off his trusty 'shootah', and it'd hardly be an elevating experience. Similarly, we're given the stolen 'dustcart' in this instalment without any meandering about how to acquire it - it's just a device to transport the heroes to the next encounter, not worthy of attention itself. So, in both the general background and the advanced plot, Mills is showing capable economy of style, efficiently trimming away the fat and ensuring we only enjoy the richer meat of the tale.

We do see a revival of Mill's politics in this Prog - referring to the reoccupation as "The Surge" - but I have no objections to it this time around, as it's handled a lot more subtly than previous books.

The General lost his edge of menace with his mooning about in an office while Volgan tanks were sent to the scrapyard in the last two parts, but it's capably restored here with his killing Hanson out of frustrated spite. Goddard's art makes good use of forbidding shadow to accentuate it as well. While the General seems to be being played a little off-focus as an Aryan Superman more than a Tartar Terror, his reputation as a villain is immediately restored and we're left looking forward to the next confrontation.

Part 6 Script: John Smith Art: Lee Carter Letters: Simon Bowland

Following the seer...

Synopsis: Danny and Geoff head to Castlerigg and decide to camp until nightfall. Later, Danny sees the UFOs again, unaware that they are being watched by the military. Later, Danny is woken up and there are even more lights in the sky - along with what appears to be some sort of caveman called Unthur - "Come with Unthur if you want to live"

JS: Ah Dead Eyes. I want you to be great and I see flashes of it all the time but this has to be one of the slowest moving stories to see print in a while. Six parts and still no real idea of what’s going on - and it's all further complicated by a caveman with monkey skulls on his belt.  This could all end up being a masterpiece, but it needs to be read in one go, when the long talky bits can be taken in and their repercussions seen before everyone reading it has forgotten what’s been said.

I’m enjoying Lee Carter’s art as well.  It’s not perfect and it’s certainly murky at times, but those times are often night.  There’s also plenty of detail there, you’ll just wreck you’re eyes looking for it.

RF: What I find stealing over me in this strip is a disquieting sense of just how remarkably... unhurried everything seems to be. Our two heroes have absconded from a secret research facility, are in the midst of a bewildering cocktail of two parts Masonic Plot to one part Government Conspiracy, are having weird visions of another world and are supposedly paranoid of pursuit... and yet here they are, having lies-in, sauntering about a campsite, knocking back a few bevvys and generally having a right old lark. It's all so safe - it's hard to distinguish the observer's rifle from the fabric of his tent. If I'd known that being on the cusp of a radical unearthing of a hidden civilisation was so laid back back when I was in the Scouts I'd have had inspiration for a few activity days when we were on camp!

It does make the closing line "come with me if you want to live" quite ridiculous, seeing as recent events have been about as dangerous as a Swallows and Amazons novel, but it's perhaps unfair to consider it entirely a criticism. I don't doubt that it's a welcome change of pace for a comic overstuffed with sprinting thrills'n'spills, and while it may seem contrary to a comic's basic nature it's immediately apparent from the denser speech bubbles that what the characters are saying in Dead Eyes is more important than what they're doing. A sedate character piece, enhanced by the gentler tone of Carter's painted art - Dead Eyes maybe isn't the most thrilling of Thrills, but it's providing something solid to chew on.

Make Believe - Part 6 Script: Robbie Morrison Art: Shaun Thomas Letters: Ellie De Ville

Heading for a swift end...

Synopsis: In Baltimore, a "god" called Arachne kills two men searching the wreckage where Lense was killed - he's tracking the Ten Seconders and Kane. Meanwhile, Malloy realises that Kane has stolen his disc while he slept and is aware that they are heading for Missouri - he holds a gun to them asking for the full story. Elsewhere, the scientist tells Jen that it's time for her to rejoin her friends...

JS: Arggh... I want to like this so much. I enjoyed the first series and this keeps parading one beautifully designed god after another in front of us, but it still seems to lack any particular direction. I'm also not too fond of the way Shaun Thomas keeps using blur effects on faces. 

Needless to say it could turn out well in the end but I can’t tell you now. 

RF: The Ten-Seconders erupted onto our pages with a veritable tsunami of liquid concentrate Thrill-Power, breaking the panel edges and flooding out over my morning toast and jam with a fabulous fanfare of fan-factor. Being a newcomer to 2000A.D., I was left mourning over my soggy breakfast more than I was basking in the warm wet afterglow of gods zipping about and blowing shit up, but over the last few weeks instead of being carried along on with the rest of the Thrill-Seekers a spring flood tide of enthusiasm as the strip progressed I've been left stranded on a drying rock and wondering what all the fuss is about.

This wasn't a problem of a lack of backstory - the strip itself isn't opaque and the recap in Tharg's Nerve Centre at the start served well enough for specific information - but rather a lack of actual story itself. Earlier installments came across as a shuffled assortment of scenes with barely any relevance between them, as if Williams had sat down for a brainstorming session and thought up a lot of impressive events but not how one led to another; the result was a montage of people looking pretty and acting cool, which was nice enough but still unfulfilling.

In this week's Prog we have some more actual narrative, which is welcome. The middle scene is genuinely strong, with appealing banter from Harris and Kane conveying himself with care, assurance and determination - he's by no means an bumbling heavy. The first page is a useful piece of background colour about the world, and the last page's electroboobies are fairly gratuitous but a decent art-showcase all the same.

You have to wonder, though - if New York is a ruin, where does The Scientist get all of his martinis from? Then again, he probably uses Science.

Part 2 Script: Al Ewing Art: PJ Holden Colours: Eva De La Cruz Letters: Annie Parkhouse

Kolnikov vs the network...

Synopsis:Kolnikov runs from the Debtcopter while trying to work out why his money hasn't transferred. He knows he hasn't got a chance, but manages to escape for a few minutes until he's trapped in an alleyway - when suddenly the Debtcopter disappears...

JS: After showing us all how to open a series last week, we now get a chase sequence.  But what a very nice chase sequence it is. Holden really can draw and is being well supported by de la Cruz in the frequently unsung colourist role.  There’s good use of doves and some of the best words-in-the-image-to-create-effect that I’ve seen.  FZZZK:  What indeed? 

RF: ...I'm still having difficulty getting over the Abortrons.

De la Cruz's colours are employed quite masterfully in this Thrill - rather than smothering everything in back-alley grime, there's a deft balance of central colour which prevents the view from becoming dull, while still keeping enough urban gloom around the edges to keep us aware of the environment.

The twist is interesting - I'm anticipating that the debtcopter hunt was deliberately staged so the network could remind Kolnikov to leave a bigger margin on his next payment. Whatever the true outcome, though, it's stark enough to make the reader cry out with Kolnikov himself and provoke interest in the coming week.

JS: There are stories that bang out a cracking episode every week and there are stories that really only work in one sitting, after a glut of the former we’ve hit a patch of the latter.  There’s nothing I would call bad but in isolation it’s not a great read.  Easy week for picking the best: Dredd.

Best Story: Judge Dredd

RF: A good prog all-round - not the most memorable, but satisfying while I read it. Judge Dredd and Dead Signal show the most potential as they're still developing, but the other strips are ticking over nicely still.

Best Story: Judge Dredd