I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one tired of being late to the reviews on account of not getting my progs until thursday or friday, by which point it's all been said by the subs who get their progs on the monday. To this end, I'm giving my tuppence worth in a separate thread, so I can pretend I'm bringing something new to the table, and not just giving the same old opinions everyone else did on the other thread. Bitter? ME?
Dredd - I assumed that the main character was one of the (curiously absent) Psis, and this was going to explain what the Psi division was up to during Total War, but it seems to be going somewhere else - unless it's a red herring by Wagner. Good opening episode, though, with Dredd only glimpsed in passing for the most part - it's too early to tell what's going on, however, and Brashill's art has a cleaner look to it than I remember - even if it still seems to lean towards caricatures rather than characters. A good start.
Second City Blues - I was a bit disappointed here. A whole episode of a future-sport strip, and no-one extremes it to the max or busts a bitching/fly/flash move at any point. There's some bit with a big space-slug type of thing, where it looks like the writer has taken a few cues from Chris Claremont's approach to writing ethnic-minority female roles, but it might be something sci-fi, rather than just some kid getting an anal probe by a Venusian paedophile... like, er... I don't know, maybe she just got measured up for a porno-hologram. Or something.
This looked like being a really funny strip before I actually read it. I know it's only early days yet, but the era of the 26-part story is long gone, so it should really have made more of an impact by now. It's great to slag stuff like this off before it starts proper, but there's always a palpable sense of disappointment when the slagging proves justified. Disappointing, yes, but the premise doesn't let it down - just the execution.
The art's not great, either.
Slaine - Bad dialogue, nice art. Not as good as it used to be.
I read this, but it just fell out of my brain immediatly afterwards. It's okay, I suppose, but nice art doesn't guarantee the reader's interest. Plus, and I'm probably in a minority of one here, the digital art just seems too much at times. There's no depth or emotion to it, and I miss the organic look of paints. Probably just me.
Cabalistics INC - Only the opening episode, but I suppose it's a good thing I was happy enough with the set-up for a larger tale, as that Rennie looks like a right nutter. There's a story thread at the start that needs to grow yet, but the Ozzy/Axel Rose thing looks pretty self-explanatory. Demons and stuff coming up, I bet.
Nikolai Dante - I never realised how much I liked this strip until I read Morrison's 'Authority' run. It was just so bloody appalling that I couldn't believe it was the same writer - at which point, I realised that Dante, although variable in quality over longer stories, was always - at the very least - entertaining. There aren't any revelations in this episode, as it's pretty much just confirming backstory that most readers had already figured out (the hostage kids, a deal with the tattooed bint, Dante's betrayal of his mum), although it's good that I'm not entirely sure where Robbie Morrison is going with the Dante/Dante's mum storyline. Good stuff.
Droid Life - I love the absurdist tendancy in this cartoon, it's a great little space-filler, and far more worthy of it's place in the comic than below-par stuff like Second City Blues.
Letters page - I'm confused - has Floyd stopped writing letters to Tharg or what?
