Next up on the reviews is Ratty Cole. As always, click the link below to check it out as it does contain plot spoilers. Might I also recommend queueing up a bit of Queen on your mp3 player as background.

Cover

A dynamic eye catching cover by Mr Gallagher. I do like it but the more I look at it more little niggles pop out. Like whilst at first glance, the shield style visors on the judges look cool but then I start to think, how would they see through it. There are more but I don’t want to ruin it for anyone else as on the whole I do think it is a good cover and does its job of standing out on the shelf.

Dredd

I have to say, I didn’t see this coming. I was all set for weeks of Borisenko pulling the strings from afar whilst Mega City 1 is brought to its knees. So to see the Judges steaming in and capturing him already was a quite as it is so early I suspect there are a few twists yet to come. Whilst following Henry Flint is always tough and I prefer Flint’s version of Borisenko, I do love Ben Wilshers take on Dredd himself. The splash page of raining judges is very cool, as is the head to head shot of Dredd and Borisenko. Not sure if it is the panel layouts or the colouring but the rest felt a little flat, which is not something I would normally say about Ben Wilsher’s art.

Grey area

I loved Karl Richardsons art on the previous Grey Area stories but as nothing is really happening with the story itself, a change of artist does make it feel like a change of pace. It is also nice to see Lee Carter get to produce some art with vivid colours after the murky greys of Necrophim. He also makes it a little easier to tell the male characters apart. Sadly, although again I like the characters and the setting and even the situation, it just feels like it is dragged out far too much. Maybe it is because it is between Dredd and Dante but to me you could have told that story in 2 pages and had 3 other pages to fit in some actual plot to go with the nice art and alien bashing.

Dante

Again I saw this twist coming but I don’t care because I wanted Dante to have joined the party and instigated some friendly fire. To me at least this final arc of Dante has the same vibe as the 80′s Flash Gordon movie with it’s bright colouring, the epic battle scenes and the glimpses of oppressed dignitaries having to bow in front of a dictator they hate. I could almost hear the queen soundtrack as Dante and Viktor pilot the Imperial palace on a collision course with the Winter palace. (Glad that wasnt just me – RMc)  The double page spread of the crash with everyone’s reactions is amazing. There can’t be much more of this left but it is definitely going out on a high.

Absalom

I said last week that Gordon Rennie certainly knows how to write an opening panel and he just keeps out doing himself. I don’t even know what bit that was that Harry has decided that Mr Lytonn doesn’t need at his age and I don’t want to know. The art throughout is incredible and totally suits the tone of the strip. The scenes of the battle of cable st are especially good and Terence is having far too much fun beating the s@!t out of Nazi’s. I didn’t see the intervention from the henchmen coming but I like the idea of prehistoric beasts vs Nazi demons. Want more now!!!

Strontium Dog

As usual the Ezquerra’s art is top notch, the colouring for the opening 2 pages is particularly good. Also because of the action and amount of interaction with supporting characters this is the first time in a while that I have enjoyed an SD strip for what it is rather than dwelling on why they bothered bringing Johnny back from the dead. Not sure if it is just me or bad positioning but I had to re read the panel where Johnny gives the kid his SD badge as on first reading I didn’t spot the badge and thought where the hell did he pull that bear from? Maybe it is another of his new powers

Top Thrill

For me this week Dante and Absalom were both way ahead of the rest but I will go with Dante if only for that double page spread of the crash.

I was initially going to start this review by referencing the one I did of this trade a few weeks back… but checking the archives I have a horrible feeling I never actually posted the thing.

I’ll check again and if not I’ll post up a counter review to this one as I actually kinda enjoyed it… which may tell you where this review is gonna go. To be fair it is a 2000AD fan reviewing Mark Millar’s Dredd which is like going to a Metallica gig and asking what people think of Jedward.

Anyway, brace yourselves. I’m handing you over to Orlok :

This as originally posted on the 2000AD website HERE …like I have to tell anyone who reads this where the 2000AD website is.

Anyway…. is this our first look… well, listen at Karl Urban as Judge Dredd? You gotta imagine he’s doing his Dredd voice for the video. Either way, ALL KINDS OF NERD COOL!!

And a big nod to 2000AD PR Droid Molch-R who I’m pretty sure was the instigator of this vid. There’ll be no talking to him after this 

Latest comp over on the 2000AD boards asked for collaborations between people who enter the art comps and people who enter the writing comps. I thought it might be fun to grab Conor Boyle with whom I did the two Dark Judgement books and see if he was up for swapping roles.

So… he wrote this one and I drew it. And as you can see the only thing worse than my art is my lettering.

Anyway, hope you enjoy it. It’s a free Judge Dredd comic, what do you expect?  And yeah, I did rein in the scope of some of the panel descriptions as I had no idea how to draw them 

This site automatically resizes pics so please click each one to read if the text is too small

and yeah, the script kind of implies the two bad guys live at the end. Um….. future medicine! Very good you know. Fixes anything  -cough-

Next up is M.Allen with his take on prog 1770.

As always its hidden so as not to give spoilers for anyone waiting on the digital copies so click the link below to check it out.

COVER:

There are a few awful looking poses in the background, but at least Dredd came out ok.

It stands out certainly, and I do love the eagle on Dredd’s shoe, but it looks odd at first glance (before you work out that the Judges are dropping from the above).

Let’s put it this way, I wouldn’t want to introduce someone to Dredd using this cover.

DREDD:

There was a lot I liked about this episode, so I’ll begin with them.

Willsher has made a great first impression on his return to artistic duties. If page two wasn’t enough to convince you, the posing throughout page three should do the job – notably the excellent shot of Dredd as he touches down. Credit to Blythe as well, who kept these six pages rich with colour. If these standards are kept it’s going to be another good few weeks of Dredd as far as artwork is concerned.

Dredd’s exchange with the android operative was almost touching. It seemed to give the man a sense of duty to results – that good work should be praised regardless of the operative in question. It’s also refreshing to see someone(thing) perform well, given all the mishaps earlier in the story.

It’s also of note that Dredd seems to place more care on Borisenko’s survival than Yurges’, suggesting that his first concern is fulfilling the system of justice, and the people it’s supposed to protect come second.

What I didn’t like was how quick and easy it all was. Not too long ago the Judges were fretting over the loss of their psychic link to future events and despairing at how far ahead of them Borisenko has been (progs 1764 & 1767 for reference). All of a sudden they’re dropping in from the skies and taking the man and his agents alive. The possibility was mentioned in 1767, but it still seems all too easy. If this capture directly leads to the Chaos Bug being largely prevented it will all seem a bit cheap.

GREY AREA:

Once you’ve read one episode of Grey Area you’ve read them all. This isn’t slow paced writing; this is groundhog day writing.

However, if there’s one thing Abnett can do it’s waste the talent of some excellent artists.

Lee Carter achieves a couple of the things that Richardson did so well on Grey Area: he adds a lot of grime and dust to the overall appearance of the comic, and he puts effort into showing a variety of alien species in the backgrounds. I spent a lot of time just pouring over all those little extras that have been added in. Top work there.

Of course the biggest change is to the ETC officers themselves, but I think they’re all represented well enough. Although Feo’s red ribbon is missing from a couple of panels, and I preferred Richardson’s riot shield design (less practical thought it may be).

Importantly, it will be good to see Carter’s take on other aspects and species.

NIKOLAI DANTE:

What you won’t be able to do with the trade paperback of this story is put the double page spreads from 1770 and 1764 side by side. If you haven’t done this already I suggest doing so now.

Odessa Zhirinovsky has allowed a little rhetoric into what otherwise seemed to be an objective recount of the unfolding events, which I find a bit of a shame but ultimately another reminder that this is how things work in the universe Morrison has established for Nikolai Dante.

Another case in point: even though Dante missed the traditional point of interruption he still manages to turn up at just the right moment, despite how implausible the relative timings seem to be. Because Dante seems to be set up around these kind of things, it doesn’t disrupt the enjoyment of the story – which is exciting throughout..

Back to the double page spread, the various reaction of the ten notable onlookers is another testimony to Fraser’s abilities – no two reaction are the same, even at a glance.

Overall, damn enjoyable.

ABSALOM:

Well that’s an episode to get you looking forward to the next prog. It’s as if Rennie has taken a week to take the madness up a notch just to prepare us for what’s about to happen. This could have been quite slow going, with Lytton rambling over his fascist ideals and then a whole lot of discussion over what everyone else plans to do about it, but instead of that Rennie leaves a couple characters inside a street brawl and makes sure we get a real good look at the lizard chaps.

There’s a curious sense of things spiralling out of control (in that after some exposition in the last couple of weeks, we’re now quickly losing the details of what’s going on) alongside everything being carefully controlled -we’re being blindly lead into something.

(That probably made more sense when I wrote it than it does being read.)

The final panel is reminiscent of Aquilla’s in Prog 2012, offering us a glimpse of the (hopefully near) future, and even though this isn’t an introduction story I approve of it just the same.

STRONTIUM DOG:

A flick through Strontium Dog showed no Middenface. Time to start reading.

It looks like we’re getting into that period of understanding now, where all the pieces start to come together, which is helpful because it means I can kind of work out what’s been going on.

I can see Johnny’s excuses for talking to himself getting tired quickly – his replies to this inner voice could be dealt better by captions or thought balloons of some sort.

It’s good to see plenty of progress on the story however. Johnny quickly builds on his knowledge of the situation, makes reasonable assumptions, and acts on what he knows.

The artwork does the job, with clarity during the action and enough variety for the exposition parts. I’m also a fan of the colouring here; the Ezquerra’s seem to do night-time very well.

In 1977, something amazing happened. All across the land the first issue of 2000 AD, dated 26th February, arrived in newsagents. And your world has never been the same since.

Thirty-five years on and The Galaxy’s Greatest Comic is still going strong, still packed with top-notch Thrills by some of the world’s greatest comic book artists and writers, and still bringing intense weekly bursts of Thrill-power to the starving masses.

To celebrate this milestone, this Wednesday sees the anniversary edition, Prog 1771, hits newsstands in the UK (7^th March in North America) with the choice of two amazing variant covers – one by Chris Weston (The Filth, The Twelve), riffing on a classic image by Brian Bolland and showing some of the classic characters of the past 15 years. The second cover by 2000 AD legend Mick McMahon shows the alien editor, Tharg the Mighty, surrounded by his loyal editorial droids!

This week will also see 2000adonline.com give away some exclusive prizes to Squaxx Dek Thargo everywhere, including:

• copies of Kingdom: The Promised Land signed by New York Times bestselling writer Dan Abnett

• copies of dinosaurs-farmed-by-cowboys-from-the-future classic Flesh: The Dino Files signed by 2000 AD’s creator and first editor, Pat Mills

• copies of the hilarious mobster comedy Al’s Baby signed by Judge Dredd creators John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra

Thanks to Planet Replicas, we’ll also be giving one lucky Earthlet the chance to get a custom made Judge badge – featuring their own surname! These high-quality fully licensed badges are a must for budding agents of the law, and the winner will get one embossed with their own name.

And as we head toward 2000 AD’s official birthday, we have the pièce de résistance – an exclusive Mongrol figure from Ashley Woods’ threeA Toys. That’s right, we’re GIVING AWAY one of the most hotly desired piece of 2000 AD merchandise in recent years. Standing over 11-inches high and over 13-inches wide, this fully articulated 1:6 scale figure has been drooled over by fans since its release last year and you’ll get the chance to try and win this stunning figure!

Keep your glues glued to 2000adonline.com, as well as our official Twitter and Facebook feeds, as we gear up to mark 35 years of Thrill-powered awesomeness!

Happy birthday, 2000 AD – it’s going to be a zarjaz week!