Meg 299

[Proudhuff]

No sign of the postie yet but yesterday's mail brought a big fat Case Files No 10, so the letters page is looking good 

[Buttonman]

No sign of the postie yet but yesterday's mail brought a big fat Case Files No 10, so the letters page is looking good 

No it bloody is not you treating creators with respect line stealing, shhh there are people reading, nose picking (probably) east coast a-hole. I mean well done Tom, your letter was seemingly far better than this overlooked gem :

Meg 298 Hello Mrs MacKenzie‏ (play on the band 'Goodbye Mr Mackenzie' clever that)

Dear Dreddlines,

Meg 298 had a pretty jolly cover but I wish the space station hadn't been so dark. I only made it out after some close scrutiny and I imagine most casual browsers would have mistaken the cover for 'Teen Dream' or some similar trendy magazine. Young, good looking, smiley people - we don't want their kind here!

New strip Lilly Mackenzie started in somewhat sedate circumstances with eight panels of speechless pictures of our heroine's booty. I'm not complaining (yet) but couldn't we have had four booty panels and four of bloody murder? The strip already has a bit of a 'Halo Jones' vibe with the action of the low key variety. I like Simon Fraser's art and the concept of the inescapable planet was a good one, so sign me up.

The Dredd strip 'Meat' was an instant classic and certainly of the 'can't believe they never did that one before' variety. Dylan Teague is always welcome in my Megazine and Rob Williams is certainly finding his Dredd 'voice'. Dredd's final 'Meat Wagon!' comment had me laughing and summed up so much about the character in a single panel.

Johnny Woo returned and although he's never been a celebrated Megazine character, I have high hopes for this outing. I liked the occasional splash of red and wondered if this was a homage to my favourite Kurosawa film 'High and Low'? No? 'Weekend at Bernie’s 2' you say? Who'd have thought it?!

All the best


Too cerebral that my problem!

[Pete Wells]

I haven't read the rest yet but had to stop to say Arthur Wyatt's Black Museum tale is absolutely fantastic! It has beautiful art by Jon Davis Hunt and the page of could-have-beens was absolutely brilliant!

Spurriur's Dredd tale is a cracker too, though a little at odds with the rosy Mutant Camps picture that Wagner paints...

Another excellent cover by Ben Willsher too.

Right, back to my read!

[Keef Monkey]

Haven't read it yet, but I did get Ace Trucking Co. vol.2 for my letter, which was a bloody marvelous bonus! As if the prog and meg arriving together isn't awesome enough. Hail Tharg!

[Richard T Field]

As regards the graphic novel Brit Cit Babes surely it should have read written by John Wagner and David Bishop.

This from the horse's mouth Meg 237 The Megazine Story

'"John wrote the first few scripts but gave up half way through an episode saying he would finish it later", Bishop recalls. "I soon leanred this was a sign he had lost faith in the story. Steve was still learning, he didn't know much about story telling. When John saw the art-work it killed any lingering enthusiasm. Eventually we were so pushed for time I wrote the final pages of Brit-Cit babes myself with John's permission"'.

[Bolt-01]

Got my Meg at the weekend and have to say I really enjoyed this the whole way through. I've got high hopes for the next few issues and by the standard here they are going to be met.

Brit-cit babes was a stinker though. Was this some of Sampsons earliest interior work? His storytelling is shocking in places and I'm not a fan of his use of photo ref (Kim Basinger, anyone?) though the Bolland coverwork does pretty much describe what we are going to get inside.

[James Stacey]

Very good meg this month. A good balance of Dreddworld stories and something fresh and new which is exactly what they should be striving for. As Bolt says, it's just a pity it's bagged with such a stinker of a freebie graph. Never been a fan of Mr Sampsons stripwork, and this was no exception.

[House of Usher]

A clever and inspired one-off Dredd by Spurrier and Doherty. The glimpses of other worlds in Tales from the Black Museum were mind-boggling. I felt no desire to re-read Brit-Cit Babes. I don't remember it being a decent read, and the artwork was very off-putting. I'm not especially looking forward to the new line-up of strips. More Armitage, more Hondo-City judges. Pretty soon the Meg may be full of everything I don't like.

[James Stacey]

I'm not especially looking forward to the new line-up of strips. More Armitage, more Hondo-City judges. Pretty soon the Meg may be full of everything I don't like.

I'm with you on that one. I'm just hoping the new Anderson strip will be worth the admission on its own. I've always loved John Coopers artwork, but his recent stuff with added photoshopping does nothing for me.

[Richard T Field]

Someone should write a Meg inspired story for John Cooper to illustrate which is to Johnny Red what Cursed Earth Koburn is to Major Easy.

Oh and can we have a Cursed Earth Koburn/Missionary Man crossover with Ezquerra and Ridgway on alternate episodes.

[Lee Bates]

I thought Spurrier's Dredd was a bit poor. Parts of it seemed very contrived. Are we expected to believe the whole township was convinced that this lunatic was a bonafide prophet because he said he'd been exiled from the city like them? All of them? Sorry, it didn't ring true. Dredd pandering to the mutant uprising didn't seem realistic either.

I enjoyed the Black Museum story but didn't really understand the significance of Dredd going off on a space mission. What did that have to do with anything? And it never actually explained how the protagonist got hold of Mattellus' badge. I'll have to read it again more slowly...

Lilly MacKenzie is great, I hope it goes on for a while. I'm already believing in the world that Simon Fraser is creating and I love his art.

Johnny Woo was all well and good but felt a bit like filler. I liked the scratchy, heavily shaded art but struggle to see any of the manga influences that people have been mentioning. Manga is usually sparce with shading and full of clean line work, the very opposite of PJ's art on this strip. It seems like the 'manga-inspired' comments always come out when a strip is set in Japan or China. You could just as easily say that Pete Doherty's art was influenced by French comics.

Anyone else miss the film reviews?

[James Stacey]

I enjoyed the Black Museum story but didn't really understand the significance of Dredd going off on a space mission. What did that have to do with anything? And it never actually explained how the protagonist got hold of Mattellus' badge. I'll have to read it again more slowly...

It won't make much sense unless you have read the City of the Damned Dredd story.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_the_Damned_%28Judge_Dredd_story%29

[Lee Bates]

It won't make much sense unless you have read the City of the Damned Dredd story.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_the_Damned_%28Judge_Dredd_story%29

Oh dear, I have read it! Several times in fact. First in the original progs back in the day and more recently in the case files. Still didn't get the "Dredd going off on a space mission affected things" line.

[Richard T Field]

Is it because he killed the Grunwalder and stopped his experiments.

[Dandontdare]

I think I'm in a minority in being a big fan of Steve Sampson's style. I particularly liked his Hershey stories in the Meg, one I remember was almost entirely done in red and black, very effective.

The Black Museum story was the highlight of this month; and I think I'm falling in love with Lily McKenzie - Hubba hubba!