Prog 1764: Customd & Exos

[The Enigmatic Dr X]

Saving Prog 2012 for tomorrow? What you gonna do when this prog plops  onto your door-mat?

It's a bit of a damp squib, really. Not the prog's fault - Prog 2012 was a hard act to follow.

DREDD

This mini-tale ends, and as such there's a feeling of ends being tied up. It looks like it could be about to crack up a gear. And , oh dear, our precog was 100% accurate - she's pan breid! Betcha she gets cloned. Great art.

DANTE

I want this to end, in a good way. I feel like we've been at the vinegar strokes on Dante for years. When is the explosive climax? Anyway, this carries on in its own way. Nothing really happens and it's all portentous. This could be the new X-Files: I liked it, I stayed with it, but when it was all tease and no product I got bored of it.

GREY AREA

Too early to tell, really. Karl Richardson's art is great, and it's got a nice 24 vibe.

PAST IMPERFECT

I didn't get it. What was the compound? Were we told? A bit too talky-heady for me.

STRONTIUM DOG

More happens in this six pages than the rest of the Prog. Oscars in the Doghouse!. You get the feeling that Wagner is focussing on the passage of time a bit, as in Dredd, with all these young stronts. Are all the old guard really dead?

LETTERS

The reply to the letter about Beeny made me smile. Never doubt Tharg!

[Colin_YNWA]

Much to my surprise 1764 has just fallen through my letter box too?!?

Am I right in thinking we shouldn't be getting this for another week at least?

[Rog69]

Mine just arrived too, I was sure we had to wait another week but I'm not complaining .

[Pete Wells]

I thought it was an excellent prog, I'm very happy with the line up. I'll do a full review later, but the compound in the Past Imperfect tale was the potion that Dr Jekyll used to transform himself. The nasty doctor was Jeckyll's son. Quite clever I thought...

[Trout]

I got one, too. What a nice surprise!

I may not read it, though. I haven't decided.

- Trout

[Alien Goodness]

I'm jealous that you've got Prog 1764 already. I'm resigned to waiting another two weeks before I read it via Clickwheel. But this gap is giving me an opportunity to get hold of old progs & tradebacks and begin the process of filling in a 20 year gap in my memory circuits.

[DrJomster]

Just read this and thought it was excellent! Will try to cycle back with more thoughts in a few days. Cracking prog!

[Colin_YNWA]

Managed to hold off reading this until today (I think it should have arrived today right?). Steady start to the year (well as I think we need to see it).

Dredd continues. Nothing different to where we left it unsurprisingly. Excellently crafted but ultimately not engaging. The Past Imperfect was very solid, but far from surprising also. Still always a delight to see Warren Pleece. Grey Area is still settling in but there's an intriguing element dangling in front of us this week.

Strontium Dog seems to have moved on in different direction than I was expecting. We'll see. Some brilliant touches mind.

Dante delightfully sets the scene but doesn't really move things on too much. Still looks wonderful and was the clear highlight in a steady start to 2012.

[SmallBlueThing]

Maybe im just in a particularly good mood today, but i felt this was a very strong start to the year. Nothing bugged me, and i enjoyed every page. My highlights: Past Imperfect, because it was by a new-ish writer, was black and white, and set in the first world war; all things i respond to. Let's hope 2012 brings us many more strips by new writers, stretching the comic's format a bit.

Also, the double page spread in Dante made me very happy. Beautiful stuff.

But everything was on good form- even Grey Area, which had promise in the bigprog but could easily have gone tits-up when it got going, managed to be intriguing and entertaining.

SBT

[TordelBack]

By giving up the very last vestiges of my rampant consumerism (i.e. my sole weekly coffee-and-scone while I wait with my son for his swimming lesson), I have been able to justify the expense of getting the Prog again. A present of Prog 2012 showed me that I can live without most things, but not this. 

So, this was a good week to exchange oils, fats and stimulants for a comic, coming as it did on the Wednesday my Jobseeker's Benefit was stopped without notice because I missed an appointment with an employment officer despite the fact that I had not missed it but rather agreed to reschedule it to a different time other than that of my son's Christmas play, which I did by visiting in person the offices of two separate government agencies two weeks in advance and asking their permission and receiving their approval, but even so I was made to sit for 2 hours with my 5 year old and my 2 year old in a toiletless building ('use McDonalds across the road, but if you leave the building you'll have to take a new number') before being forced to sign a document agreeing that no such 'excuse' was acceptable and if I ever 'did it again' I would lose all benefits permanently.  Deep breaths. Deep breaths.  Don't mind me, just a little angry that my taxes have been cheerfully paying for this agency to be this incompetently offensive for the 25 years prior to this the first time I have ever had the poor judgement to be unemployed. Deep breaths. Deep breaths.

So.  This Prog was so good it made all that go away temporarily so that I could subsequently interact with my family as a rational human being and not the boiling bile-filled pressure-cooker of humiliation and rage that I was before making myself sit down and read it.  There aren't many comics that could have pulled that one off.

[SmallBlueThing]

From http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employment/Jobseekers/ContactJobcentrePlus/DG_186391 :

Making a complaint

Unfortunately, there may be times when you're unhappy with the service you receive from Jobcentre Plus.

In the first instance you should:

    get in touch with the person you have been dealing with
    tell them, or their manager, your complaint

You should expect to get a full reply within ten working days of telling Jobcentre Plus about your complaint. Hopefully you will be happy with your reply.

If you are still unhappy after receiving your reply, you will be given the opportunity to take your complaint further. Further information about the next stages of complaint can be found in the Jobcentre Plus leaflet 'Our service standards'.
Unhappy with the service you’ve had from a DWP contractor?

If you’re unhappy with the service you’ve had from a DWP contractor, like a Work Programme provider, you should complain to them first. This will give them a chance to put the matter right.

If you are unhappy with their response they must tell you how you can take your complaint further.

--------------------------

Tordleback, check out the link and make a complaint. If people don't complain, these fuckers get to do it to more people.

SBT

[TordelBack]

Cheers SBT, different jurisdiction but be assured that I am making a complaint. 

Didn't mean to derail the review thread, just wanted to highlight the true healing power of a weekly Prog after too long in the desert! 

[paddykafka]

Hi Tordel, sorry to hear about your bad experience with those prats in Social Welfare. Hope that your complaint  to them yields some satisfactory result - an apology at least is what you should get, if you ask me. However, just in case that doesn't work out, then you should contact the Ombudsman. Their details are available at ombudsman.gov.ie

Best of luck with that anyway, and just to add that I completely agree with you on the healing merits of the Prog. Here's to another 12 months of Thrill-Power and a Happy New Year to you and all our fellow boarders.

Cheers! - Paddy Kafka

[mygrimmbrother]

Jesus Tordelback, that sounds f*cking terrible mate. Sorry to hear you've gone through that. There are few things as demoralising as being at the complete mercy of an utterly impersonal and completely callous system.

[Banners]

I continue to find that one is worse off if you do the right thing and play by the rules. A shame.