Meg 291 - Hang 'em high

[Martin Howe]

Generally good; Dredd was awesome; TotBM was good; Bato Loco leaves me cold, neither loving it nor hating it; Amperduke the same, but at least that is imaginative enough to be interesting. Bob Byrne seems to be an acquired taste and I'm not sure if I have yet.

So mostly good and since the Meg has always been a mixed bag, the fact that it isn't all round perfect is excusable. What isn't excusable is Tank Girl. Everything in an anthology arguably has a place, but Tank Girl stretches that rule to breaking point. I just can't STAND it anymore

<futsie>
Tank Girl. I mean Tank Girl. Drokking Hell, Tank Girl. Twaddle. Stomm. Drivel. Rubbish. Nonsense. Childish. Purile. An orgy of tapeworm infested cancerous dog stomm that would disgrace the Sunday Sport, never mind the Beano.

It's like the result of a sordid alcohol fuelled one-night-stand between What do you mean, it wasn't made on drugs and So Bad It's Horrible; it's been a long long time since I hated anything the way I hated this.

I'm off to the kook cubes to recover
</futsie>

Canon Fodder was funny but has a serious edge to it; good choice of reprint.

[Tjm86]

So mostly good and since the Meg has always been a mixed bag, the fact that it isn't all round perfect is excusable. What isn't excusable is Tank Girl. Everything in an anthology arguably has a place, but Tank Girl stretches that rule to breaking point. I just can't STAND it anymore

<futsie>
Tank Girl. I mean Tank Girl. Drokking Hell, Tank Girl. Twaddle. Stomm. Drivel. Rubbish. Nonsense. Childish. Purile. An orgy of tapeworm infested cancerous dog stomm that would disgrace the Sunday Sport, never mind the Beano.

It's like the result of a sordid alcohol fuelled one-night-stand between What do you mean, it wasn't made on drugs and So Bad It's Horrible; it's been a long long time since I hated anything the way I hated this.

I'm off to the kook cubes to recover
</futsie>

Man, and I thought I had a dislike for it.  Poor old Rufus, puts so much effort into it.  Not that bad surely .... Ok, so I don't COMPLETELY disagree.

Would anyone else object if they simply lost the pages of the film reviews and made the meg shorter?  I mean, does anyone else actually read them?  I am struggling to remember the last time someone had a positive comment about them.  Better yet, replace them with selections from small press titles.  Most of them would probably chew off their right arms, sell their granny and mother and even vote nuLabour ( OK, so maybe that one's a bit extreme, then again, it could have said Tory! ( quick game of spot the difference ensues)  ) for that sort of exposure.  Puts a hole in the old, 'got to keep costs down' argument. In fact did they not do that before?  The only problem I can see is trying to pick the best to showcase, simply because there is so much good stuff out there.

Anyhoo, apart from that this was the first meg in a while that had me thinking 'maybe the sub can keep going'.  A nice Dredd one parter, Bato Loco was not as bad as it looked to shape out ( short and sweet, not outstaying its welcome ), TotBM was even mildly enjoyable.

Looking forward to seeing what they do with some of the historical stuff from next month, the preview ad a few months back looked interesting.   

[Proudhuff]

 'I am struggling to remember the last time someone had a positive comment about them'

I did five posts up 

[Jim_Campbell]

I say again my four words for Meg text column success:

Dave
Langford
Book
Review

I'm pretty clued up about films, and I'm afraid I have no investment in the validity of the opinions in the film review column, but there are a LOT of books published every month and I'm not clued up about them. And, more importantly, I absolutely trust Langford's opinion.

Cheers

Jim

[mygrimmbrother]

Cover - didn't hate it, but the helmet just looks odd, a wee bit asymmetrical. Not a massive Williams fan anyway, though.

Dredd - excellent, cold brutal hard-bitten frontier justice, Al delivers once again. Goddard's art I find perfectly serviceable if a little uninspired (but with Blythe adding the colours the end result here pisses on Savage)

TOTBM - loved it, abso-bloody-lutely loved it. Referencing one of my favourite storylines/eras of Dredd history, and with perfectly pitched art from PJ. I spoke to him at BICS and he was quite humble about his stuff - far too humble really, as this evokes the spirit of classic twoth strips, especially golden age McMahon.

Tank Girl I still haven't read and can't be arsed with.

Bato Loco - meh.

[Robin Low]

I say again my four words for Meg text column success:

Dave
Langford
Book
Review

I'll see those four words with:

Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes

and raise with:

Andrew
Rilstone
Examines...


And I rather enjoy Lew Stringer's comics blog, so can we have something from him, too?

Regards

Robin

[Tjm86]

'I am struggling to remember the last time someone had a positive comment about them'

I did five posts up 

Ok, fair dues, take that back ...  would you settle for on balance they are generally disliked and the space would be better used for an alternative purpose? 

[TordelBack]

I absolutely trust Langford's opinion

+1 from me.  It was always the first thing I read in the old White Dwarf, and I still follow the Ansible religiously.  He's pointed me at more great SF books and authors than anyone else, and he's never let me down.  If he was in the Meg it would settle the 'cost-effectiveness' wavering I'm feeling (it's a lot of money out of a very tight budget at the moment).  This sounds like a good idea for a writing campaign.

BTW, I liked the Movie section when Alec Worley was doing it, but I haven't been able to warm to it lately.

[Tjm86]

got to agree with the sentiment but already subscribing to SFX kind of duplicates it.  That is my main problem with the reviews.  I always take them as the writers own personal opinion and respect them as such, I just don't see them as belonging to the meg.

[Art]

Langfords okay, but he's no Kim Newman.

[Art]

Also if you think PJ's art on the Black Museum story is good you should see some of the stuff he has coming up.

[Mike Gloady]

Yes please. 

Hurry Tharg.  Hurry and print the PJ stuff.

[HOO-HAA]

Reference to a damn fine Clint Eastwood movie as well. Probably the first of Eastwood's "subverting the genre" westerns, and its from 1968!

I have so much time for Clint Eastwood.

I always thought that clint would have made a great Dredd.

But, no. They gave us Stallone, instead...

[Mike Gloady]

Even in the mid-nineties, Clint would have JUST about made a good Dredd (albeit an older one than we were seeing in the prog, but there's nothing wrong with that, the character's ageing is one of the best things about the strip).

Now?  Just a tiny bit too old I think.  Which is a shame, as it's a role the man was CLEARLY born to play.  Especially as Clint himself was one of the inspirations behind Dredd...

[Robin Low]

Langfords okay, but he's no Kim Newman.

Langford does books, Newman does movies. I say get 'em both.

Regards

Robin