Judge Dredd Megazine 273 - 22 July 08

Cover by PYE

Floyd Kermode: Floyd's thrilltastic Megazine 273 review!  Packed with reviewerly goodness!  A new grizzle starts inside! 

....that's not an introduction, just me trying to get in the mood for reviewing a Megazine which has many good points but doesn't really grab me.  Well, not enough to have me telling people that they must drop everything now and buy this comic.  You'll see..... 

With regards to the cover, the useful look-at-every-cover 2000AD site is down, so I can't check, but I am sure that this is the first cover that doesn't suck in ages (being a scatty type, I'm writing this and dogpiling (it's like googling, but you use dogpile)  'megazine covers' at the same time).  This is not one of the Megazine's great covers (which are legion) but coming as it does after some absolute dogs, it's good stuff.  Spooky eyes, foul hilbilly teeth, satanic red, a poisonous spiked ball, a cockroach – what's not to like?    Well done PYE! 

Robert Fraser: As part of the 2000AD stable, the Megazine has a natural position on the comic shelf in your newsagent. That entails either the burning dayglo sugariness of Simpsons Comics and The Beano on the one hand, and umpteen thousand different Marvel titles on the other. Neither superheroes nor children's comics really lend themselves to horror (unless you count how horrifyingly awful their contents are, hoho), and so this month's cover definitely stands out amongst the crowd.

The cover is distinguished artistically as well as thematically. The glowing eyes and looming pall are stock effects, but the use of the spiked ball, both tangible entities, inject the scene with immediacy. These bring the background figure forward with a real sense of threat for those anticipating adventure, whilst the cockroach promises 'ickiness' for the gorehounds.

This is a practically effective and artistically nuanced cover, and an all-round success.

Ratfink - Part 1 Script: John Wagner Art: Peter Doherty Letters:Annie Parkhouse

Ratfink should have used more pizen...

Synopsis: A group of Helltrekkers in the Cursed Earth are attacked by somone who looks like Fink Angel and uses all his tactics - especially the talent with "pizens". He paralyses the group and then kills them all except one boy who watched everything hiding from the sidelines. This boy later tells judges that the attackerd identified himself as Ratfink. The judges analyse some DNA left at the scene and identify him as the son of Fink Angel...

FK: I have to take an extra does of 'criticine', which is for critics what 'Creatine' is for bodybuilders, because the Angel gang cause suspension of my mean, sceptical critical instincts.  I suspect the Angels do that to a lot of readers – that's why we don't mind them coming back again and again and forgave their super-silly resurrection from the dead way back in the day.  Well, I forgave it anyway.  For me, the Angels are like the ABC Warriors – bring 'em back as often as you like, do with them what you will, I'm happy to see them. 

Art and story blend together well, with spare Wagner dialogue, a lot, but not too much darkness and a fair bit of humour from artist and writer. I love the juvenile music nerd bragging about how he “mixed Tragic Colons, Tree Meat and the Murdering Scum”. 

Really we don't need the Peter Doherty interrogation to tell us he's good when we have this.  He's good.  All the things that were good about 'Young Death' are good here. If I had to quibble, I'd say that he's much better with dark than with light. The art is a lot less impressive when the action switches to the next day. 

Fink Angel has an even creepier looking son with a funny nose and his own bowler hat (or did he inherit it from Fink? There can't be that many bowler hat suppliers in the Cursed Earth) and I say 'yee-ha'

RF: It's a trite but true observation that music is much more than just a sequence of noises. At first you may just bop your head along to the tune, but then familiarity, knowledge of the players and composers, the basis inspiring the piece and the moods driving it swells the strength of the sound so that it suffuses the soul as much as it sends ripples through the body. I don't come across "Ratfink" as a young boy neck craned over the latest Beatles LP and ardent and anxious for some stirring sensation, or thrown heavenwards in the thunderous swell of the 1812 Overture's climax, but rather as some random song that squawks out when tuning the radio - and it's less a full band than a lone busker plinking away at a banjo.

A lack of context harms this strip and diminishes its impact. The Angel Gang have been amongst Dredd's oldest (and most persistent) enemies, but as a relative newcomer to 2000AD I'm not fully appreciative of their pedigree. I'm aware of the Angel Gang's notoriety and legacy, of course, but my direct experience of them prior to the neutralised Mean Machine in last year's "Fifty Year Man" was limited to one appearance of Mean in the "Judge Dredd: Lawman of the Future" spin-off. That children's version Mega-City One was such a cheery and welcoming place that Judges used stun bullets and only deployed Hi-Ex and AP rounds on robots (Aw. Bless.) so I doubt that I appreciated Mean in full terrible display.

As a consequence, the supposedly dramatic declaration that the "son of Fink" is making mischief loses much of its resonance, and it fails to generate much of the oppressive aura that it seems to have intended. Instead, I'm relying on Fink the Younger's actual actions, rather than the dread of the Angels as being Very Bad People, to gain a sense of his villainy. This might not at first seem to be a bad thing - after all, why would I be reading the comic if I wasn't interested in its contents? - but the problem is that those actions don't quite match the drama.

Ratfink is conveyed with some success. His dialect's an able rendition of the yokel andd his paralysis drugs show some backwoods skills. The suggestive lingering on Epiphany quivers with a transgressive thrill and the locking of her trailer to use her cries as a lure shows some cunning. When bait usually takes the form of something attractive and enticing, you could say that this disconcerting type particularly demonstrates Ratfink's dirty, filthy black-grime character.

The problem lies in that there's little here to distinguish Ratfink from any other generic predator who has stalked the pages of the progs over the years. Ratfink's an Angel, and they're - or so I've been told - supposed to be a cut above the usual flicknife-waving neds and scallies. All Ratfink does here is harry at people's heels like some scavenging prarie dog. Maybe that's the idea - he is, after all, gutternsipe, but the fact that his targets are fairly idiotic to begin with (charging off into the Cursed Earth night alone?) don't flatter Ratfink's backwoods expertise. There is absolutely nothing here to suggest why Ratfink is special.

Doherty's art has a little more distinction as well. Everything is well-proportioned and enjoys a strong level of detail, and the fire casts out light effectively and convincingly. The panelling of the night-time scene also lends it a great sense of atmosphere - the black borders and plain rectangular shapes framing everything in a cinematic lens, which combined with the nubile abductee lend Ratfink's predations a suitable 'slasher' sense.

This story is entirely competent, but presently betrays 'filler' characteristics. Ratfink better have some more tricks hidden in the pockets of that new halfjak to revive interest in the next part.   

War without Bloodshed - Part 3 Script: Rob Williams Art: Rufus Dayglo Letters: Ellie De Ville

Dredd casts a shadow...

Synopsis: After the bomb, Nixon is locked in a portable cell while Dredd talks to her, so as not to give her cover away. Dredd wants to take the docks down immedietely but Nixon, who barely hides her contempt for him, says that they need to find out if there are any other cells around the city. Dredd reluctantly agrees.

She returns to the docks and a union meeting is taking place. After looking through Bernie's office and only finding some blank ID cards, she goes to the meeting and publicly backs Bernie's actions. Later Bernie tells her that the men now trust her and that he sent her on the mission so that he could trust her too. He promotes her and later Nixon takes the opportunity to interrogate Naz. She learns that Bernie's only been getting the unions sturred up in the last month, but that he's been working the docks for two years. Nixon realises that he could have smuggled in hundreds of suicide bombers in that time - and indeed another attack is about to take place elsewhere..

FK: Judge Dredd has been borrowed by a few hardy souls. He casts a bleak eye over some killer kangaroids in Skizz II, he's appeared in Diggles 'Lenny Zero', he has been treated like a patsy in a Spurrier story about a female super-spy which never really took off, and here he is in Low Life. 

I like this outing – we get a page on how the citizens feel about Dredd.  This is a subject which has been done before many times, but which feels new here.  The musings on how cits see Dredd is illustrated  with a beautiful, almost touching picture of some awe-struck ordinary schnooks watching Dredd stride by. Then he meets Aimee Nixon.  I'd like to say “...and it all goes down the gurgler” because that would make a symmetrical review, but it all goes well – Nixon does her hardbitten Lowlife bit, Dredd does his tough, full of integrity stuff and all is as it should be.  John Wagner could have written it (and Jock could have drawn the shot of Dredd at an angle in the rain).  

Aimee and her improbable punky hairdo infiltrate a very On the Waterfront gang of dockworkers who are being used by some Sovs. Lowlife has been very entertaining before, here it also feels like a Dredd story without Dredd – in the wider Dredd world but with his presence looming over it. 

RF: Just as "Ratfink" has been my first real introduction to the Angel Gang, so is "War Without Bloodshed" my first taste of Judge Nixon's undercover antics. I've been exposed to the proclivities of the Wally Squad before, of course, but "the Simping Detective" is more preoccupied with whiplash quips and analogies as increasingly barmy as Judge Point's costume, and in the main Judge Dredd comic it's hard to focus on anything other Judge Hollister's beachball of an afro.

Low Life opens on the promise that it's going to demonstrate the nitty-gritty of undercover work as much as it will expose not so much the seedy underbelly of the Mega-City - that's been done innumerable times already - but the dirt-encrusted and callused feet that keep the it plodding along. While the distinction between The High- and Low-Life is something that seems to exist solely in this strip, it's nonetheless been conveyed with fair and even-handed frankness. The dockwork is done by robots but they're the only ones who can do it safely; the people are desperate for jobs, but as Nixon observes, who in their right mind would want to trouble themselves with a job anyway? This has made it a genuinely interesting portrait of life, love and labour instead of just being either a cardboard backdrop for action or a one dimensional 'X = Y' allegory.

The promised detective work over the last three instalments hasn't disappointed. While some elements seem redundant (did Nixon really have to dangle someone over a drop to learn about someone's employment history?), by and large Nixon displays a capable mix of analytical thought, covert skill, ballsy gusto and independent mentality to survive and succeed convincingly. She provides procedure as much as the policemen. Nixon has demonstrated herself to be quite an interesting character in her own right, seen in this month in how she witholds knowledge of the dockworker's union being a front for Sov infiltrators just because special knowledge of a crucial detail might prove useful. She's a loyal Judge, but on her terms; it's nicely nuanced.

There are some elements of the plot which don't gel well together. Aside from the concealed Sov element (which most of the ordinary workers seem to be unaware of) there seems to be no reason 'secrecy' of the union. Work's not illegal in the Mega-City, it's just uncommon, and yet they're acting as if the very fact that they have jobs is a destabilising influence. The final page is also quite bizarre - if they were dropping a bomb out of a passing aeroplane, why did a suicide have to be attached to it? From Dredd's stern bearing to Nixon's tellingly flat expression when Bernie relates Mao's empty doublespeak (the sort so effectively lampooned in the film "Mystery Men") it has been a solid and atmospheric tale.

Wiierd - Part 1 Script: Alan Grant Art: Boo Cook Letters: Simon Bowland

Anderson monkeys about...

Synopsis: Anderson plugs into Hyven, leaving Aicer to check out the company records. With a virtual ape as her guide, Anderson visits the victim's world, haunted by old faces from 2000AD. Meanwhile, Aicer starts looking through the records for details of deceased Hyven users when an alarm goes off. Another user of Hyven has been killed - and suddenly Anderson is wisked off somewhere else in the virtual machine...

FK: You know it's good to look at the credit boxes. I was going to complain about the sketchy art for this story, then I looked and saw that it was Boo Cook.  My respect for the art increased a lot, since it doesn't make everying look like it's covered in salad oil as has been the case with some of his other work.  Anderson goes into a – gasp – virtual world in which there has been a murder.  The virtual world seems like second life, except that one of the worlds is filled with unsuccessful 2000AD characters.

Not much to say here – the old 'death in cyberspace' idea is dusted off and made new-ish with a resemblance to Second Life- but things really just trundle along.  Anderson is her usual smart self, mercifully taking a break from introspection.  Usually Anderson is so self involved that a bit of one-dimensionality is a relief.   A pretty tale, signifying not much, except that we like Anderson and so does Alan Grant.

RF: I'm puzzled as to why the murder victim in Hyven is said to have been wallowing in nostalgia: 2000AD has already lasted 31 years - surely it'll still be in print by 2131?

The story for "Wiierd" is rather light and perfunctory - while we have a mystery in the form of the murders that shouldn't be possible, there are no clues or suggestions made available to us for what might be causing it, frustratingly shutting us out of the plot.

Bob The Galactic Bum
Peter Doherty Interview
Cat Sullivan Interview
New Books
New Movies

FK: Interrogation; The Boy Done Good, interview with Peter Doherty. 

Normally I baulk at seven pages of interview with an artist or a writer, no matter who they are.  I'd rather see the art and/or read the writing.  After years of comics-reading, I've become fannish enough to enjoy reading any Alan Moore or Pat Mills interview, even though they always say pretty much the same things, and to be interested in some of the background to the 2000AD stuff. Overall, I'd still rather have a reprinted comic that I haven't read yet than any interview. 

All of which is background to my saying that I really liked the Peter Doherty interview.  For a start,  the piece is lavishly illustrated by Doherty's art, which is always a good thing, with a glorious Death and Young Death page.  For another thing, Michael Molcher lets Doherty tell his story without much interrupting, bar a nice 'young Death' pastiche in the introduction. Molcher explains what is needed and the interview thrives.

Also Doherty himself is a good subject, especially for a non-artist like me.  He seems very interested in stories and not so much into the technical ins and outs of drawing tablets, inking versus colouring and other stuff which to me is about as interesting as listening to someone tell me how a projector works instead of watching the movie.  So we get a lot of Doherty on various stories, his role in them and the inevitable Problems With America  (one of these days we'll have an interview with someone who worked for 2000AD and then went to America who says “it was fantastic. DC were really nice to me and so were Marvel.  They really know how to treat an artist/writer over there”.  Then the world will end). 

He has had a reasonably interesting life too.  All up  a satisfying read, and all the more so for being next to a Doherty-illustrated story. 

Alien Nation, review of Jeff Hawke 'Overlord' by Ed Berridge 

Very knowledgeable, well-written review, which tells us who Jeff Hawke is and why we should give two hoots about him. 

My only question is this; haven't we had this all before, very recently?  Again, I bemoan the official site being down, but I knew a lot of this stuff and I can't think where else I could have got it if not from the Megazine.  Hmmm.  Anyway, leaving to one side the open question of whether I have memory problems or the Megazine is chewing its cud (of course these propostions are not mutually incompatible), the story article does the job well. 

I want to read this story for another look at vintage British sci fi.  I would love to know why the Italians like it so much.  A few quotes from Italian reviewers would be good.  Come to that, an entire article on the Italian comics/sci fi scene and any overlap it has with the British-centric world of 2000AD fannery would be great.  Shades of the old 'British Icons' series here, and none the worse for it. 

Bob The Galactic Bum, The Piker Part 8 

It's always a pleasure to see the Windsors made fun of. That's why people do it so often, with the poor old huns, as Julie Burchill once called them, joining in from time to time. 

Despite this, Bob the Galactic Bum left me cold for about the first four episodes this reprinting (I had gotten along fine without it until the Megazine bought it back).  The humour seemed too forced and Bob, who was supposed to be alovable rogue type, a kind of WC Fields in space, just seemed like a bit of a nob.  However things grow on you and I always like Lobo, even when he's wearing women's breasts for copyright reasons.  Besides, nobody draws large silly noses like Carlos Ezquerra.  Assuming we're not in for more of it next month, I'll miss it a bit. 

Giant Judge Death Pin-up by Brian Bolland

Do I have to review this? If so, it's excellent! 

Interrogation:  This Droid's Life, Matthew Badham (interview with Cat Sullivan 

Okay, that's enough. Reprint Every pretentious Warren Ellis comic you can get your hands on. Fill the Megazine with bad text stories. Get John McRea to draw the most rubbish cover ever.  But please, please please, stop interviewing people who came down in the last bloody shower!

I should draw breath here, calm down and explain what's annoying about the Cat Sullivan interview, lest anyone get the wrong idea.  Of course, I'm not against Cat Sullivan.  That would be like complaining about Christmas presents, like walking out of 'Lost in Translation' because of the Scarlett Johanssen bottom scene at the beginning.  Cat Sullivan is a Very Good Thing and it's a sad day when I open 2000AD to find no Droid's Life nestling in the inside front cover.   I live for the day when he gets to do an entire actual Dredd story and have written to Tharg asking for this.

However,  as I said earlier on, I'd rather have art and writing than interviews with artists and writers.  I'd especially rather have art and writing than interviews with artists and writers that I've only just been reading.  I've read all the Droid life cartoons. I like them so much, I'm considering buying the book, but there's really no background that I want to have here.  This competent little piece would be good in, I don't know, a website for people more fanatical than I am? A professional cartoonist's magazine?

Still one must be positive.  There's a cute Cat Sullivan Viz cartoon here.  I hadn't seen that.  I hadn't known that he studied engineering – this is knowledge that is bound to come in handy sometime.  Probably.  The other good thing about this recent trend of interviewing everyone who's done something in 2000AD or the Megazine, no matter how little or how recently, is that they're bound to get around to you and me sometime, as soon as they've finished doing double page interviews with the lady who answers the phone at subscriptions.   

New Movies

Did you know there was a new Narnia movie out? Had you heard that they've done a fourth Indiana Jones movie, that's not much chop compared to the other three?  If the answer to both questions is 'no', you're either an ordinary North Korean (I bet Kim Jong Il knew), on a retreat of some kind, or in a coma.  Either way, do you need another review of either movie? I didn't.  I've already seen at least three reviews of both movies in various papers and websites and I recent my Megazine dollar going to yet another review.  It's all very well for Tharg to tell us to be 'armed and aware' by reading his 'utterly independent' reviews.  By the time the Meg rolls around, all I need to be armed against is the echo of yet another review I don't need, but paid for.

This is a shame because  Alec Worley writes charmingly.  I wish he reviewed blockbusters for some of the other publications where I've already read and read and read about Indy Jones being so-so despite Cate Blanchett wearing a black wig. I still chuckle over Worley's review of the Adam Sandler movie 'Click', which is quite a tribute to him, since I've got no intention of ever seeing an Adam Sandler film if I can help it.  But Worley is not so cute that I need to hear him say what pretty much everyone else has said about movies that are reviewed by every media outlet on the planet.

On The Spirit and The Forbidden Kingdom, he's more worthwhile, since these films aren't so widely reviewed.  Indeed, since the House of Tharg is the only sci fi-ish thing that I read, Worley is a help here – I hadn't known about Forbidden Kingdom and I value Worley's opinion about The Spirit (which seems to be that it looks like a Sin City knock off, but there is hope)

RF: Bob the Galactic Bum has been a singularly tiresome exhumation of an already-underwhelming strip, but this last part can be responded to more fondly. This is not just because we can breathe a sigh of relief that it's (finally) over, but because it does finally pull itself up to make itself presentable and leave some favourable impression as its final departing memory. The entertainingly absurd pantomime of the coronation scene and the final epilogue itself - which, after Bob has cheated and bullied his way throughout the comic, can't help but be seen as just deserts - is a pleasingly appropriate twist.

I enjoy how the main Interrogation article showcases an artist in the strip - after regaling his art, it's nice to see the mechanisms working away under the bonnet, so to speak.

FK: A tough one for Best Story, but I chose Low Life for newness, with Ratfink coming in a very close second.  The Dredd story could have been done at any time, the Lowlife outing is a recent character used well and still developing. 

Best story: Low Life

RF: Wagner unexpectedly proves to be the weak link in this Prog, but with a solid story from Low Life, delicious art in Anderson and a raft of interesting articles the Megazine still manages to take the strain without breaking. Now that the Megazine has also finally divested itself of the onerous burden of Bob the Bum, it can not help but be buoyed up higher.

Best story: Low Life