2000AD Prog 1642 - 2 July 2009

Cover by Anthony Williams

Floyd Kermode: All kinds of awesome for me personally because I’m happy to see Sinister Dexter back again.  Looking at it through my general reader glasses – ah, well, it’s alright.  Two men in a gunshop, Sinister looking cool – punny headline and matching punny tag-thingy at the top (‘hollow-point thrills’).  They both look cool but Sinister more than usual.    It’ll do. 

Stan Bastion: I like Anthony Williams’ art – it reminds me oldskool Tooth days gone by. This is a fun picture – good composition, nice idea. I don’t know if it would make me pick it up in a newsagents if I weren’t already a reader, but then not every cover can do that I suppose. I don’t know why but the typography over the illustration annoys me, I think it just doesn’t fit. I’d have preferred it to stand on its own.

High Spirits - Part 3 Script: Ian Edginton Art: Dave Taylor Letters: Annie Parkhouse

Lamia summarises...

Synopsis: Judge Lamia was apparently once killed, returned from the dead and can now see the dead herself. Dredd realises the recently dead perps will be watching and gets Lamia to question them. They tell him that some "thing" was trying to get at them, which is why the went on the rampage, and blamed it on the drugs they got from Rahls. Meanwhile Symberline is testing her batch of special drugs and sends out her symbiote to take care of Rahls...

FK:  I have been told off online for assuming that the art here was by D’Israeli. It isn’t, but have a look at the first page and you could see why I might make that mistake.  Besides, isn’t Edginton half of D’Israeli?  A glance at Wikipedia, where he’s easier to find than the famous British Prime Minister, assures me that it isn’t so. 

Anyway, the art has that D’Israeli mixture of vulnerable and grotesque – like the evil alien for the latter, the female Judge for the former and the evil alien’s assistant looking extra-D’Israeli-ish for both. Lest I incur the wrath of Dave Taylor, which would never do, I should say that the art reminds me of D’Israeli, not that I think it’s pinched from him.  I like this art, me. Hope that’s clear.  There’s a sort of foggy feel to the world here that really suits the psychic goings on.

I also like the story, which is following a familiar Dredd shape – evil group up to something dodgy in Dredd’s city, Dredd getting help from a Judge who’s something out of the ordinary, baddies trying to cover it up.  The familiar outline has a deep creepiness to it which is Edginton’s own.   I can sort of see where things are going but I can’t wait for them to get there.    Edginton’s script is good, although Dredd himself feels a little uncomfortable here with self-assured half-dead Judgettes and the most grotesque alien I’ve seen since….well, I can’t remember but there must be a more unsettling alien out there somewhere.  She reminds me a little of Ruby Thursday (look her up).    The female Judge gets the good lines in the exchange with Dredd.  Leaves me wanting more, which is kind of the theme for this prog. 

The short review on this is – it’s good.  Best line of the whole prog is "dead or alive, no one sticks their neck out for a newbie".   

SB: Edginton writes Dredd dialogue that doesn’t sounds quite right (or, I suppose, like Wagner’s Dredd – but maybe that’s no bad thing), however I do like this story. It’s taken some nice turns and it’s a good premise.

Dave Taylor’s art is just lovely. I’d love to know how he creates these ethereal images. 2000AD would really benefit from more European style artists, and Taylor’s about the best I’ve seen from this side of the Channel. Although his backgrounds do have a tendency to disappear for a few panels at a time, you cannot fault the amount of detail he manages to fit in. Also, his take on Mega City 1 is just beautiful!

Wish You Were Here - Part 1 Script: Dan Abnett Art: Anthony Williams & Rob Taylor Letters: Ellie De Ville

Croak lets loose with another zinger...

Synopsis: In a parallel world, John Croak takes Moses Tenenbaum's old acquaintance, Philly O'Fisch, to the crossover point and they take the "D Jump" into Sinister and Dexter's Downlode - another Downlode ripe for the picking. Meanwhile, Sinister and Dexter are shopping in the supermarket when they run into Kutter and Cane. They tell Kutter they've already warned him to leave Downlode and a gunfight breaks out..

FK: My first observation here is that, just as the 80s and 90s had a lot of ‘Japan will rule the world’ type fictional futures, so our present tomorrows will start to have a lot of ‘The Future belongs to China’ flavouring added.  Sure enough, the ‘Chin.Com forces’ are advancing on Asbestopol, which either means the Chinese are coming or is an obscure dig at Dredd, (which would be an unheard of level of subtlety for D’Abnett, so can be discounted).   This is the beginning of a wave of this sort of thing, so we’d better get used to it. Besides, if the Chinese really do take over, we can placate them by saying we saw it coming.

Not that that’s Abnett’s fault.  He’s just a sign of the times.

All else is just as I like S n D to be.  The guys themselves just quip and shop here, but promise us explosions next week.  I still miss S n D’s glory days of silly amoral killage, before gigantic plot arcs, and unsustainable levels of nobility on the part of the prima killerinas.  Those days are gone forever and I can only be grateful that there are no references to the need to keep the peace in ‘mother ‘lode’ here.

Anyway, this week is the set up, so S n D don’t get to do much.  The story looks like the beginning of a fairly well-plotted big story, pulling together that previous story about an alternative world mobster Holy Moses and John Croak, his alternative world super hitman associate who trained the guys.  It’s all well told and well drawn in a cool set up to more interdimensional trouble to come.  . The fast and funny six panel fight between John Croak and two funnily-named hitmen is vintage Abnett.  Remember the story about the fate of six bullets?  It was a one-off S n D story where each bullet gets a little story to itself, in between leaving the gun and winding up in some goon’s head.  The six panel fight (depending on how you count it)  iss charming like that.  The page full of old 2000AD characters is lovely. I believe it’s called  ‘fan-service’, but perhaps that’s too negative, as this page would be interesting even if you’d never seen any of the characters before.   I’m not a fan of fan service so I took a look at this with my ‘never seen it before’ glasses on and still liked it.  I’m cheerfully waiting for more.  

SB: I know lot of people will groan when they see the return of this series, but I’ve been waiting to see where Abnett is going with his alternate reality plot. (I’m also kind of hoping that it’s building to a proper conclusion for these two characters, after so many false endings, but we’ll see). So far this is Fun with a capital ‘F’ so much so that I can almost excuse the terrible ‘spelt’ pun (In fact it was so much fun, that I only just noticed that it’s a double length episode!).

I really enjoyed the nice 2000AD gallery page we got during the D Jump scene. I especially liked seeing a nod to Babe Race (am I the only man alive with fond memories of that series?) It also served as a reminder that Mr Williams needs to draw Dredd again soon. I’m assuming that Rob Taylor is handling the colouring of this series, and if so he’s doing a great job!

Part 10 Script: John Smith Art: Edmund Bagwell Letters: Ellie De Ville

Shane sees things spiralling out of control...

Synopsis: Craig had visited Mary, then cut up Ted and fed him to her. He's also got some kind of growth on him. Meanwhile, the estate is gradually getting worse, while Cal and Shane have been sent on an errand to sell drugs for Skully. But Shane has had enough and heads home. Elsewhere, something is seeping out of Mary into the ground of Cradlegrave...

FK: Wow, part ten already?

It’s a pleasure to review this because I feel a smidgen of guilt.  I’m a fair minded person, really I am.  The internet is a temptation to great negativity and in Smith’s case I’ve given in to that in letters and numerous message board posts.  I’m sure he hasn’t noticed, but I feel that I should be nicer.   

Although John Smith has been genius on occasion, when the occasions are Firekind or Revere, he’s also been responsible for a fair amount of absolute rubbish, strewn with run-together Gerard Manley Hopkinsisms*, which while fun, are no substitute for a good story.  My heart sank when I saw Cradlegrave (hey, there’s another one), and I resigned myself to the emergence of a self-congralatory bisexual mollusc fairly early on.  O me of little faith!   As anyone who’s read parts one to nine knows, Smith has given us more and more and more British suburban misery with very slow burning menace beneath it.   I almost thought the story would end with nothing mystical/alien/sci-fi at all happening, which would have been a great achievement. 

Well, that’s not what’s going to happen, but it’s still really good.  Things are still coming to a head very gradually.  In episode 10, the hidden menace has emerged, mostly, and we still don’t know what it is.  Well not exactly. Some kind of ghastly-yet-transcendent climax seems to be on the way for the next prog, but given the rubbishness of my Smith-related predictions so far, he’ll probably stretch it out for another five episodes.  I sometimes have trouble telling supporting characters apart but that may be because I’m so into the atmosphere of the story.  Eeek!  And well done JS.  I am queasily waiting for more.   

 *in case you didn’t know – no shame in that, it just means we went to different high schools – GMH was a repressed Catholic convert who became a Jesuit and wrote poems full of run-together words like ‘dovewinged’ and ‘hardy-handsome’.  No I’ve got no idea if Smith is actually influenced by Hopkins or by any of the thousand other smarty pantses who’ve artsed up their writing this way. 

SB: This slow burn urban horror story is still burning slow and still horrific. In fact it has become something more than horrific, but my vocabulary isn’t good enough to do it justice. I’ve long been a fan of John Smith, and this might just be his finest moment so far. I can’t wait to see what horrible growths the main characters have developed!

My only previous complaints about the fabulous art were that I couldn’t tell the characters apart (which no longer seems to be the case, as they’ve started to look a bit more distinct in recent episodes) and that Edmund used too many photoshopped backgrounds (he still is, but he’s disguising them better and doesn’t really interfere with the story). Top work!

Queen Of the Zombies - Part 3 Script: Pat Mills Art: Leigh Gallagher Letters: Annie Parkhouse

Bodie had to work on his poker face...

Synopsis: As Servitor and Defoe head after the Queen, the rest of his crew finish off the super reeks. We discover that Gallowgrass knows a secret about Bodie, that he was once the most hated man in London, and is blackmailing him. Meanwhile, Servitor and Defoe have found the Queen's "larder".

FK: How very apt that Shakara is coming back as announced on the inside front cover, because, like Defoe, it’s one of those stories that mainly involves very simple bashing yet which I could read forever.  It’s not that I don’t have standards for non-stop fights in comics or elsewhere – Godzilla’s later fights go on so long I feel like I could go and see another movie and still get back before the fight finishes.  Shakara and Defoe both get under my ‘interminable fight’ defences.   As do the ABC Warriors.  Yet Slaine doesn’t.  I think it’s something to do with the characters, but would have to read a story not by Mills about an interminable Defoe vs Zombies punch-up to be sure.  Since that’s not going to happen any time soon, your guess is as good as mine.

Mind you, it doesn’t make things easy for the reviewer.  ‘There’s a long fight against loads of Restoration-era zombies’ just about says it all for Defoe.  Non-zombie fun includes the super-grotty sidekick Gallowgrass, some feisty Irish griping from Tomazine, and the lovely rhythm of the various Captain names throughout (Spoiler alert; they are, Captains Corruption, Sepulchre and Despair), these being nicknames for some extra hard to kill zombies. Sounds silly when just read like that, but the name at the beginning of one of the fights gives the story a bit of pace. 

What with that and some sub-plots involving angst in the various zombie-killers’ pasts, there really is much more than a long fight here. There’s looking forward to Mr Mills’ next inventive Restoration super weapon for a start.  Mills seems to have done his usual thorough research and anchored it to his usual strong opinions and the two give the story an underlying pressure.  If that’s too fancy to you (as it almost is for me) I should say that there’s a lot going on in Defoe in a very pacy way. 

I’m on the verge of getting tired of all the zombie-hacking but you guessed it, I’m waiting for more.   

SB: Defoe has suffered from some very ‘on the nose’ dialogue, which of course is a specialty of 2000AD grandmaster Pat Mills. Sometimes it’s charming and sometimes it falls flat, here I don’t think it’s working as well as it does in, say, the ABC Warriors.

There is some very nice period detail in both the story and art – allusions to historical figures and events, and I do like that. I’m also enjoying the story, although I am beginning to wonder if it will lead anywhere interesting.

Leigh Gallagher’s art has really improved since he first showed up in 2000AD and this is fine stuff. His understanding of form and shadow is impressive and the page is very readable. It’s a shame that the lettering gets messy in places.

FK: A cracker of a prog.  Each story is interesting and Sinister Dexter is fun to boot.    Everything here makes me wish it was next week already, which is how 2000AD should leave me.  

Best Story: If I have to pick a best, I’ll pick Cradlegrave, with Sinister Dexter coming close behind. 

SB: Great prog – value for money, some smashing art and story. I won’t be cancelling my order at the Thrill merchants any time soon.

Best Story: Cradlegrave