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Prog 2008 Mind Craft

Started by Mattofthespurs, 19 November, 2016, 09:08:29 AM

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Mattofthespurs

Not my favourite cover (or even close for that matter) of the year but bright and would stand out in the newsies (trying to be positive)

Damage report says what, I hope, we are all thinking.

Dredd: Too early in the story to tell whether it's going to be excellent rather than just good but I adore Jake Lynch's art.

Savage: I'm enjoying this quite a bit.

Hunted: Again, another story I'm digging quite a bit. Feels quite old skool in a 90's (but good) way.

Flesh: Not a fan a photographic artwork myself but this episode works and feels quite cinematic.

Counterfeit Girl: I've tried hard with this story but it's just not my cup of tea I'm afraid. Don't like the art nor the story. It's me not you guys. Sorry.

Solid prog in my opinion. A good 7/10.

Trent

Frustrating prog run at the moment.
Cover is okay - bound to get Counterfeit Girl at some point.
Dredd is excellent. Sensible links to Chaos Day and lots of Mega City inventiveness and lunacy. Lynch's art is lovely and really suits Dredd channelling Hairsine and McMahon. Excited to see how he develops.
Hunted, as Matt says, is good old school while remaining sophisticated enough to work today.
Counterfeit Girl is due a full read but I suspect it might not be my cup of tea. I have never really taken to the wackier tales other than admiring the art of the likes of McCarthy.
Otherwise we have 40% Mills which show so many missed opportunities. Mills has written some genius work in the past but the last few years he seems to have disappeared up his own backside in either showing how clever he is (which isn't clever) or dragging out stories and recycling his weary tropes to death. The nearest I have had to a surprise from him recently was that Prog 2001's cover featured 8 figures rather than his usual 7.
Savage is going all scifi losing any of its original raw energy in the process but presumably necessary to form part of Pat's universe where everything links together no matter how daft. Just tell a fecking story man!
Flesh could be brilliant but isn't. Story is childish and the dialogue jarringly unrealistic. The art is way too murky which is a further frustration as Langley clearly has bags of talent but as a storytelling medium his grey photo art does not work. The odd glimpses of brilliance just add to the feeling of irritation.

Hadn't planned on a rant but the ideas are great - scifi dinosaurs and realistic future war in occupied territory but the execution is woeful.

Roll on the end of year prog, sadly. The Meg is thrashing the Prog right now in my opinion, even without Lawless.

Eamonn Clarke



Rob Davis might make a mint from the original art for a Counterfeit Girl cover?  ;)
My coat? Again? How kind.


A.Cow

Quote from: Mattofthespurs on 19 November, 2016, 09:08:29 AM
Dredd: Too early in the story to tell whether it's going to be excellent rather than just good but I adore Jake Lynch's art.

Loving the Lynch-droid's art here too.  It's like Mike McMahon & Trevor Hairsine got married and had a baby.  Beautiful art!

Quote from: Mattofthespurs on 19 November, 2016, 09:08:29 AM
Savage: I'm enjoying this quite a bit.

Same here.  The song lyrics (which started great) are wearing a bit thing but, for me, the Savage saga is IMHO the most enjoyable thing Pat Mills has written this last 20 years.

Tjm86

This was a cracker of a cover.  A touch of McMahon in the feet methinks.

Dredd goes all predictable.  The old [spoiler]Soylent Green[/spoiler] angle and the [spoiler]Traumatised Psycho killer[/spoiler] trope.  Lynch's artwork is working so much better.  I really did not like the B&W stuff he did for Orlok but it is clearly developing.  Although there is a brief 'does my bum look big in this?' moment for Dredd at one point.   ::)

I'm in full agreement on the quality of Savage at the moment.  Makes up for the tedium that is Flesh.  Much as I try, it aint working.  Hey ho.

Hunted and Counterfeit Girl chug along neatly towards their conclusions.  CG has been enjoyable enough again I find myself in agreement on the quality of Hunted as a new dimension to the RT narrative.   

Overall a quality week as we barrel on to the end of year prog again.  Bugger but it's gone quick this year.

Colin YNWA

Well I'm guessing that's what you call a marmite cover cos while others seem to dislike it I bloody love it. So striking and stylish. Superb cover and will be up then in a few weeks when we're thinking about or covers of the year.

Inside its a top Prog to match the cover. Everything is on top form. Its been a great line-up over the last few weeks, loved it. There's been ups and downs in the individual stories but lets face it there's not been a duff Prog amongst them and when all the strips hit their stride like this week its been absolutely blindin'.

Loving Jake Lynch's art on Dredd. While me may not have been 100% ready when he first hit the Prog he sure as heck is now and he gets a nice little Dredd tale as reward. Really enjoying this.

Savage has one of those wonderfully high octane episodes with a nice twisty turny thrown in and a little character stuff. Its a great episode.

As is Hunted, let down only by the fact that this is all a bit Roguey, whose always bored me and not enough Traitor General who has plenty of room for work and interest. That said all the elements of the story nicely play off each other this week and its really nicely done and good fun and places things in a rather lovely position for the series to finish off.

Flesh has one of its really good episodes. Normally a favourite of mine this story has been a bit hit and miss. But this week big hit for me, both visiually (in the main) and the lovely moments nicely helding together and again another great ending.

Finally Counterfeit Girl is another perfect finish. I've been loving this series and as it heads to its conclusion it just gets better and better. So the only problem with the Prog is the fact that we don't get this strip back next week as it skips a week ... wonder what happened there? Might just be Tharg spreading the conclusions out so we don't get a three one off Prog or some such? Who knows.

All this and another Ian Edginton strip coming our way while I'm sure Kingmaker will offer much I kinda want to see Mr E getting some of his other stories back in the Prog. He's got a load of great stuff on the go but more Brass Sun. More Helium please before we start adding to the pile!

The Enigmatic Dr X

Mills is an enigma. The heights of Savage are matched by the oddness of Flesh.

Odd because, frankly, I'd have thought stealing a time machine and getting back would be the order of the day, not petty and poorly thought out vendettas.
Lock up your spoons!

Trent

Colin - I wish I could see the Prog as you do.

Colin YNWA

Quote from: Trent on 20 November, 2016, 11:58:57 PM
Colin - I wish I could see the Prog as you do.

What you mean sitting on a sofa in Sheffield... its not that exciting, aim a little higher!

Trent

It must be a particularly comfy sofa to create such a benign warm glow over the prog.

sheridan

Anyone else spot (or think they spotted) Vegas and somebody who looked rather like Owen Krysler on the cover?  If they are, I wonder what other characters I'm missing...

TordelBack

So this is a pretty fine run of stories we've had lately.

Dredd is a grand little offbeat tale of mechanically-assisted cannibalism, lifted to greatness by lovely Lynch art.  Everything works here, very enjoyable.

Savage shifts into Terminator 3 territory, with Mills stretching his premise as far as it will go, and then... just... a bit... further... Fun, though!

Hunted takes Top Thrill laurels yet again, silly, exciting, cohesive and lovely to look at. I love that I'm wondering about connections and possibilities all the time in what previously was a closed book of a character to me: will Rogue slot Helm's biochip into Dron's head-slot to get a second pair of hands?  Will Dron survive as an amnesiac to eventually turn into Tor Cyan? What the hell is going on with Atalia?  So, so good, it's like the 90's never happened.

Flesh was about 6 pages too long to get us to yet another familial-standoff-with-conveenint-dinsoaur, but you can't deny Langley's skill with a pixel.

Counterfeit Girl has really blossomed in my affections over the last couple of weeks, and I'm glad to see Tharg is pulling some kind of clever scheduling switcheroo to allow it to finish it properly.  Such a delightful colourful dessert to close out a prog.




Keef Monkey

Hunted is the current highlight for me by quite a long way. Really enjoying it, always really like PJ's art on Rogue-related strips (was a big fan of The 86ers), and always love these extensions of the Rogue world like Jaeger. Great series.

Other than that nothing really did much for me this week unfortunately. It's rare I can say that, but it just felt a bit flat. The Dredd story is decent and I always enjoy Savage, but the use of song lyrics in this run hasn't really worked for me, and Savage yelling that 'funk with my heart' line just seemed a bit mad and silly to me. I'm not particularly getting the references or significance I don't think.

Counterfeit Girl I like, and probably would have liked more if it hadn't felt a bit stretched storywise. It'll no doubt work really well on a binge-read, but it feels like there were two or three weeks there where the story didn't really move forward. It gets by on the energy and vibrancy of the visuals though, and like I say, look forward to giving it a re-read and no doubt enjoying it a great deal.

Unfortunately I have no idea what's happening in Flesh anymore or what anyone is up to. Possibly due to the massive panels Langley uses or maybe it's the script but the pace from week to week feels positively glacial, and I've drifted away from it a lot.

Not a great prog for me then, but most weeks I enjoy it a ton so can't really complain (there's every chance I wasn't in the right mood for it too I guess)!

Smith

Hunted continues to be the best.Savage is also pretty good so far.And Im a bit lost as to whats going on in Flesh.