Prog 2002: Retaliatory Strike!

[JUDGE BURNS]

My subs copy actually arrived on a Saturday !!!!!   My prog 2001 only arrived on Thursday, so 2 progs to read on a Saturday  :-)

The cover is one of my favourites for the year.

[Jacqusie]

The cover is one of my favourites for the year.

Me too, really pleased to see Jim Murray back and no spoilers out there beforehand to make a nice surprise, great stuff indeed (although I'm not sure what's going on with his eagle!)

The back story coverage was brilliant too, simple things like this warms the cockles of an old fanboy...

...the Williams/Hairsine/Teague Dredd team is pretty splendid too! 

[CalHab]

I'm really enjoying Counterfeit Girl. It's got an appealing mix of sci-fi tropes and off-the-wall inventiveness. Rufus Dayglo's work is brilliant, as always.

[Magnetica]

Very good Prog this week. Can't really choose which is best as they are all good.

Pity Barry Kitson is not contributing to the art this week on Dredd. (I assume he was inking Trevor Harirsine's pencils last week.). Would be great to see him back in the Prog on a more regular basis.

Flesh - so far so good. Not feeling lost yet and getting on agreeably with Langley's art. Apart from one bit I didn't understand. On page 5, the dinosaur attacking Sunday has a completely different looking jaw on the last panel to the others. Or is that meant to be another dinosaur (which doesn't make sense)???

Hunted - good, but probably my least favourite strip in a strong line up.

Savage. Just great. Is it me or has Patrick Goddard changed his style a bit - this just looks great. Packs in a lot into its 6 pages. See Pat can get on with it when he wants to!

Counterfeit Girl - yes nice twist. Having been not too sure about this after the first episode it is shaping up nicely and seems to now be set to do something original.

Minor gripe - the synopses in the Nerve Centre are to bring new readers up to speed. So why does what has been written for Savage and Conterfeit Girl contain events that only happen in this week's episodes?  Ok they are only minor spoilers but I would prefer it if there weren't any spoilers at all.

[sheridan]

COUNTERFEIT:  Very Milligan set of ideas make this ideal for Rufus - always love a prog that spills out onto the back page!

Love it too.
When was the last time we had a story go to the back cover?

I can't actually think of one since the Cam Kennedy Traitor General / Bland and Brass story (I want to say Eye of the Traitor but not too sure).

This is as opposed to Sooner or Later which spent all its one-page episodes on the cover.

[sheridan]

... not sure of Savage's jukebox - I mean, I love Tom Waits and PJ Harvey, but would salt of the earth Bill?  War has changed him!

Arh but don't forget its not Bill's bar and taste its his cover's ... who clearly has the same taste in music as me!

Berlin has all the best bars!

[Taryn Tailz]

COUNTERFEIT:  Very Milligan set of ideas make this ideal for Rufus - always love a prog that spills out onto the back page!

Love it too.
When was the last time we had a story go to the back cover?

I can't actually think of one since the Cam Kennedy Traitor General / Bland and Brass story (I want to say Eye of the Traitor but not too sure).

This is as opposed to Sooner or Later which spent all its one-page episodes on the cover.

Pretty sure there's been one much more recently than that. I seem to recall one of the last Nikolai Dante stories went to the back cover...so sometime around 2013?

[Echidna]

COUNTERFEIT:  Very Milligan set of ideas make this ideal for Rufus - always love a prog that spills out onto the back page!

When was the last time we had a story go to the back cover?

I can't actually think of one since the Cam Kennedy Traitor General / Bland and Brass story (I want to say Eye of the Traitor but not too sure).

Pretty sure there's been one much more recently than that. I seem to recall one of the last Nikolai Dante stories went to the back cover...so sometime around 2013?

That must be the last time as I don't remember seeing a story on the back page since Prog 2014* when I jumped on board the Thrill Train. No ads this week either, just wall-to-wall comics - well worth the extra ten pence!

really pleased to see Jim Murray back and no spoilers out there beforehand to make a nice surprise, great stuff indeed (although I'm not sure what's going on with his eagle!)

I'm not familiar with Murray (due to my years spent under a rock) but this reminds me of Bisley and Kev Walker's best. I love the crazy-paving shoulder eagle despite (or because of) the fact that it wouldn't really work as interior art.

Solid Dredd, although the reveal of Anderson was no great surprise - to be fair, the subterfuge was more for the Sovs than the reader - and, as Geoff suggests, she's looking somewhat younger and more waiflike than her last appearance in the prog.

Elsewhere there's plenty of old-school baddassery on display, from the Traitor General taking dudes out while ON FIRE, Claw Carver icing a quilled raptor (kudos to Langley for aknowledging current scientific consensus where Jurassic World chickened out) and Savage pumping his boomstick. With Counterfeit Girl shaping up nicely too I'm feeling very optimistic about the next few weeks.

* That's the Prog 2014 published in December 2013, not the one coming in January 2017. So confusing...

[dweezil2]

COUNTERFEIT:  Very Milligan set of ideas make this ideal for Rufus - always love a prog that spills out onto the back page!

When was the last time we had a story go to the back cover?

I can't actually think of one since the Cam Kennedy Traitor General / Bland and Brass story (I want to say Eye of the Traitor but not too sure).

Pretty sure there's been one much more recently than that. I seem to recall one of the last Nikolai Dante stories went to the back cover...so sometime around 2013?

That must be the last time as I don't remember seeing a story on the back page since Prog 2014* when I jumped on board the Thrill Train. No ads this week either, just wall-to-wall comics - well worth the extra ten pence!

really pleased to see Jim Murray back and no spoilers out there beforehand to make a nice surprise, great stuff indeed (although I'm not sure what's going on with his eagle!)

I'm not familiar with Murray (due to my years spent under a rock) but this reminds me of Bisley and Kev Walker's best. I love the crazy-paving shoulder eagle despite (or because of) the fact that it wouldn't really work as interior art.

Murray did some fantastic work on the Batman/Judge Dredd crossover, of which this is one of my favourite panels:

[dweezil2]

I should add, that's the crossover 'Die Laughing'.

[James Stacey]

He also did all the artwork shown in show (along with Brashill) for Spaced. Which is pretty cool

[Banners]

Funny to think that the novelty of a strip going onto the back page was done so we could all enjoy the majesty of a page featuring six near-identical images of empty shelves.

[scrotnig]

I do love strips on the back page. No idea why though!

I noticed the lack of adverts. And whilst this is great from a reader perspective,mi really hope it's not because there are no "takers" for advertising slots. I can't think of any other business reason why it'd be ad-free like that. As nice as an ad-free prof is, I'd rather they sell a few ads for a decent bit of income.

[sheridan]

I do love strips on the back page. No idea why though!

I noticed the lack of adverts. And whilst this is great from a reader perspective,mi really hope it's not because there are no "takers" for advertising slots. I can't think of any other business reason why it'd be ad-free like that. As nice as an ad-free prof is, I'd rather they sell a few ads for a decent bit of income.

I'm not sure that ads really generate that much income - long gone are the days when 2000AD featured adverts for things which weren't 2000ad-related (no weetabixes lately).

[Frank]

As nice as an ad-free prof is, I'd rather they sell a few ads for a decent bit of income.

I'm not sure that ads really generate that much income

Thanks to social media, newspapers and magazines with circulations 5-10 times greater than 2000ad have seen ad revenue plummet.

That said, 2000ad is seen by more eyeballs than most TV shows outside peak viewing times. The problem might be us: Thrillpower Overload hilariously describes a costly marketing report categorising Squaxx as The Undefinables*.

The people who buy advertising space like to know exactly who will be seeing their wares.


* As this forum demonstrates, we're unmarried software engineers, litter pickers, and librarians, who divide our time between cruising the Indian ocean in our yachts with the wife and kids and shivering in rented sheds on sodden caravan sites. We watch a lot of sci-fi and fantasy TV shows/movies, but we think they're rubbish