Megazine 204

[ukdane]

Yipeee! I got mine today.
Review to follow...

[DavidXBrunt]

How the shickety-brickety does this happen? The Meg can get to Denway or Norland or wherever but can't get to Manchester on time? It's a mad, mad, mad, mad, mad, mad world alright.

[stodge]

huh,  don't get me started.....

i'm not expecting mine until at least wednesday and i live in bloody altrincham (near manchester for those that have never heard of it!)........

[DavidXBrunt]

Oh, Altrincham - so much to answer for.

[ukdane]

Excellent postal service over here (see current Prog thread for my praise of them)

[DavidXBrunt]

Ah, funt you, you smug funt. With your funting prog and your funting Meg and your funting decent postal service and your funting Dan Cakes. Funt.



FUNT.

[stodge]

like what DXB?  what has altrincham ever done for us?

[Mangamax]

Read it and...

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What's the point of setting the tale back in 2099?
I thought we were going to have a retro look or some nod to the past or maybe filling in the blanks in Dredds history or something like that. But, going by this first episode, all we have are a new apperance by Cal and Chief Judge Goodman. On the present evidence this story could be set at any time couldn't it?
Mind you, Ennis is a bit of a fanboy so hopefully there's some twists to come.

[paulvonscott]

Is there a page missing from that future shock?

Only read TPO and Darkies Mob so far.  Top stuff.

[HiEx]

Got my Meg 204 and Prog 1331 yesterday (Monday) here in Hong Kong as well!

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Haven't read the whole thing yet, only the Dredd story which I'm enjoying, byt one comment (two actually).

Doesn't Chief Judge Goodman look a little too buff? I sort of remember him as this rather frail kindly old guy, but here it looks like he's either been attending the Devlin Waugh school of body building or been hitting the steroids rather too much!  

Also, and as this story is set in 2099, shouldn't Dredd be drawn a little younger as well!

HiEx

[davidbishop]

No, the Future Shock is complete at two pages long. It's the only FS Bolland ever drew and one of the few non-Dredd strips he ever did for 2000 AD. IIRC, it's from a prog where he drew and shared art credits on three of the strips - a Big Bollo record!

davidbishop

[Oddboy]

BIG POINTY SPOILERS AHEAD!




Dredd: Yeah I thought that this story would be better set in the 'present' (ie 2125) - Dredd seems too old & bitter rather then the keen young thing he was back in 2099.  "On MY authority" he snarls, as if he's got the experience of a handful of epic disasters (Apocalypse War/Necropolis/Inferno/Judgement Day/Aliens/Sin City) under his belt.  Surely at this time in his career he wasn't that cocky - look at Cursed Earth & Day Law Died: sure he was a natural leader & the best judge around, but he hadn't had the experience yet to proove it, & wasn't so cocksure.  I reckon if you're setting Dredd in '99 they should try to capture his personality (& uniform - although the helmets were more 'rounded') as it was in the early progs.
And as someone (was it Slippo or DXB or Watcher? - I forget) pointed out in the chatroom - the west wall hadn't been built in 2099.
All that aside - it's looking like a good tale.

Devlin: BRILLIANT.  Art brilliant.  Story brilliant.  Just brilliant.

Family: What's this all about then?  I don't understand & can't keep track of who's who.

Phoenix Falling: Another brilliant one, shame it's ended - & double shame that it doesn't look like it will have a sequal :-(

Bad Karma: Didn't read it (didn't read it last month either).  Might try & catch up before next month but I kinda lost interest 1/2 though ep.1

TPO: Good stuff, really interesting about the secrecy of the Rebellion deal.

SinDex: Funny - the way Sin Dex should be - these 1 pagers capture what's good about the strip without dragging it pointlessly over 5 pages, ruining the joke.

Time Killer - didn't read it, but that's because I read it last year...

Darkie's Mob - Top stuff - love the colour mix, enjoying these immensly (sp?)

Future Shock - I like this one (read it last year aswell though)

Daily Star Dredd - okay, great filler material

Apocalypse Soon - BRILLIANT!  Took a few panels to work out wtf was going on but then I read it again from the top & loved it  -  Can't wait for more of this.
Anyone know if this is reprinted from something else or was intended for something else or if it was commissioned or what?  I'd've appreciated a word from Alan B. editorial about it rather then it just poping up from nowhere...

That's what I thought about Meg204/Gold004 - really pretty good on the whole

[DavidXBrunt]

Great Issue. Covers okay but nothing special.

Dredd - I'm assuming the reason it's not set now is that it involves possesion of the Chief Judge by some Mutant or another (

[paulvonscott]

Okay, seemed a little bit dodgy from page 1 to 2.  I have read it before a long time ago and thought I was maybe missing something.  Nice to see it again though.

Incidently, how many more episodes of TPO are there left?  I forget.

Up to Devlyn (nice) and Black Siddha and half way through the amazingly groovy Slaine story.

Enjoyed Siddha more this week, photorealistic characters always seem to drain the energy from a strip for me, because they appear static, but I really like the look of the Siddha, so it looks like it's going to be fun.  

The gods can talk of people justifying their wars, when it looks like they are about to let loose the Black Siddha for more mayhem against others.  Nice of them to provide an example for us.

I have to say though, what will be the targets?  George W. Bush or just insitutional racism?  I suspect the targets may lie between the scope of Finn and Third World War.  Brother Mills is about to begin his sermon!

[DavidXBrunt]

Just one more part of T.P.O. to go.