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Prog 1941 - Green and pleasant land

Started by Eamonn Clarke, 25 July, 2015, 11:52:36 AM

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Eamonn Clarke



Cover by Tiernen Trevallion

There's a Droid life

Dredd is great, Henry Flint's use of colour and panel layout continues to blow my mind

Absalom has a quiet moment with a bit of the old Parklife

Helium's dogfight continues with a great last page.

Outlier is in the green as they approach the Hurde ship, or the Doomsday machine from Star Trek OS

And it's all hitting the fan in Jaegir

Another great prog all round this week

Proudhuff

I think Pat won't be happy with that slagging on the from page.

Damage report 15 more!!

Dredd: wonderful layer work on the story telling and stunning art, Whittle will lurve that SJS Lawmaster  :D

Absalom: excellent tale and art, loved the wee dug.

Helium: Frying pan to fire, and beautifully done may I say

Outthere; indeed, just not my thing man.

Jaegir: dark and troubling, but in a fine storytelling sort of way

Top Prog-age!

DDT did a job on me

Colin YNWA

There's just so much good stuff in the Prog at the moment, I can't be bothered to decide what's my favourite anymore. Outlier, which is probably the weakest... I guess... does a very nice reset, its been nicely twisty and turny this time round. It took me a while to find my feet with the story, though I was enjoying doing so. This week however it stops for a second, a gives us a recap, of what we need to know, for what I assume will be a barnstorming, or is that Hurde Storming conclusion. Nicely done and I can't wait for whats to come now.

Both Jaegir and Absalom are thrills that, while I've enjoyed to date, I'm not as sold on as being modern classics, the way others seem to be. The current run of both has me hankering for a re-read, to re-access. Both have been superb and both have stella episodes. Absalom echos Outlier, in that it stops, pauses for breathe and gives us a re-cap, in this case of the series as a whole. Its beautifully done stuff. Like Proudhuff "loved the wee dug", though I'd say it proper like, mind those geese were my favs! Jaegir just blasts us into action, but does so with a fantastically deft touch so its told in a nice refreshing way, quite brilliant. Sets up a nice tense ending too one suspects.

Dredd is a joy to behold. We're only two episodes in, but somehow Williams and Flint make it feel like we're in the midst of a 20 part epic, but not at all lost. Of course we are, given how this story has built on its two predecessors, what makes this great is that it also feels like a perfectly tight second part of a story in its own right. Henry Flint is just perfect and this is Dredd at its very, very best.

But then Helium is thrillpower at its very very best. Wow just wow, break neck action, with the main plot being built on in a supreme ending and just breathtakingly good.

The Prog may be saluting the past 15 years under Rebellion's wing, but no words need to have been said, as the contents of the Prog are a very clear celebration of what the comic has become over that time. Five utterly different stories in one comic, all brilliant, all entertaining and all sitting so comfortably next to each other. The Prog is this good and not a Wagner or Mills in sight, we're in good hands.

Eamonn Clarke

Ha! the little lost dog has (/eccles voice on) fallen in the water(/eccles voice off)

Nice one, Harry

Geoff

Another great prog!

Especially enjoying Dredd at the moment. If Mega City 1's bad luck continues though, there won't be any Judges left (or perps or cits for that matter).  MC1 will have the population of a small English town at this rate, with the Judges waving hello and popping round to see the citizens for a cuppa.. Dredd of Dock Block Green! 

ZenArcade

Ed is dead, baby Ed is...Ed is dead

Ghost MacRoth

Cover: Nice.

Droid Life: Still fails to raise a smile.

Dredd:  Damn, that Gerhart's a tough bastich!  Art and tale still going strong.

Absalom: Nowt new to say here, moving along nicely.

Helium:  Less fond by the episode.  Doubt it's the tale, more likely the fact I just can't get along with the art.

Outlier: While the art is still crisp...the story is losing me somewhat.  It's not so much I don't get what's going on...I just care less than I did when the tale started.

Jaegir:  Very nice, but think I'll be going back over this in one hit once it ends to get the most out of it.

I don't have a drinking problem.  I drink, I get drunk, I fall over.  No problem!

Dark Jimbo

Dredd is the dog's proverbials. End of.

Absalom enjoys a nice breather. Part exposition, part recap, part set-up. Outlier could take a few pointers here about how to do interesting, character-heavy exposition. Loved watching Trevallion amuse himself during these quiet moments with the sagas of the dog and the geese.

Helium has improved massively in the past few weeks as it finally makes good on the potential offered by the premise and lets Dizzy really cut loose. I think we could have done with getting the Prof's backstory told to us mid-plane trip (perhaps during a lull in the middle of the battle); that would have saved us the many weeks spent in the police cells.

There's more necessay exposition in Outlier, but it feels a bit much coming off the back of last week's equally heavy exposition. It just about gets away with it thanks to that splash page, but I hope we get an action-heavy episode next week.

Of all Jaegir's outings so far, this has grabbed me the least. It's enjoyable but doesn't feel essential. I don't think it's helped that we've been in a single setting since we started, and not a visually interesting one either. One of those stories where, if you ask me in six months what happened in it, I'd genuinely struggle to remember.
@jamesfeistdraws

Mikey

Fantastic cover contains yet another fantastic prog.

Absalom and Helium continue to be absolutely brilliant and I'll take the opportunity to highlight just how good the art is on Jaegir, which I'm continuing to enjoy. Outlier is grand, but for me it's got lost among what are total classic stories for me.

Now, onto Dredd. I gave a little whoop of joy at the return of Enceladus last week and was genuinely excited to get my mitts on the second episode.

Quote from: Colin_YNWA on 25 July, 2015, 08:17:31 PM
Dredd ... We're only two episodes in, but somehow Williams and Flint make it feel like we're in the midst of a 20 part epic, but not at all lost. Of course we are, given how this story has built on its two predecessors, what makes this great is that it also feels like a perfectly tight second part of a story in its own right. Henry Flint is just perfect and this is Dredd at its very, very best.

But that's the thing - this isn't just two episodes in, or even the third instalment overall. This started with Low Life in 2004. I was just regaling Mrs Mikey with how utterly brilliant the whole epic has been so far, how it's kept me guessing and provided one of the finest reading experiences of my life in Trifecta, then made my jaw drop further with the Enceladus thread beginning. It's bloody marvellous. It's went beyond being a great Dredd saga and onto One Of The Best Stories Ever In The Comic roster for me. In case you were wondering, it took the top thrill spot for me this week.

This is why I'm still buying, Tharg.

M.
To tell the truth, you can all get screwed.

Magnetica

A truly great Prog this week.

Stand out for me is Dredd.

Absalom - finely we get down to business on a plot thread that has been dangling for what two, three years?

Now maybe I am just being thick but I didn't understand the the first panel. Who was meant to have been in surgery? Was it Daniel, because that doesn't really follow on from the end of last week. All I can think is it was a ruse by Harry to have a word with Daniel, but that doesn't really make sense as the conversation only required two minutes and surely he could have done that without going to such lengths.

Helium and Outlier - good episodes moving things along nicely.

Jaegir - great twist - didn't see that coming. Very intriguing for next week. Liked the way it showed what might have happened,  but what did?

Dark Jimbo

Quote from: Magnetica on 28 July, 2015, 09:49:11 PM
Absalom - Now maybe I am just being thick but I didn't understand the the first panel. Who was meant to have been in surgery? Was it Daniel, because that doesn't really follow on from the end of last week.

Don't forget that Daniel had gone to ground in that warehouse because he was basically bleeding to death from a demon-bite.
@jamesfeistdraws

Magnetica

Thanks Jim, I had forgotten that. Must re-read the whole thing when it ends.

Dark Jimbo

One of the quirks of weekly serials, I suppose - it may only have happened twenty pages or so back, but in real time it was also a month ago!
@jamesfeistdraws

Muon

What a great cover. I love the unusual combination of colours, the great attention to detail and the way it really communicates the atmosphere of the strip and the personalities of the characters. It really stands out from the usual static portraits and pictures of Dredd looking angry on his lawmaster. It made me think that the covers have tended to be a bit samey in the last couple of years.

For me this was one of those masterpiece progs that come around every so often. Dredd was a masterful bit of weekly storytelling. I love how Henry Flint draws Hershey, with the pinched face, bitten bottom lip and haunted eyes showing how high the stakes are for her. This correction of storylines about Nixon is already a Dredd classic for me.

Absalom had a fair bit of exposition without seeming clunky. I don't know how Gordon Rennie manages to cram so much into one weekly installment without detracting from the entertainment value. Nice touch of comedy with the duck attacking the policeman, too.

Helium is just great fun, although I found the sky battle a little hard to follow this week. Last week the sunlight filtering into the plane with the shadows playing on the characters' faces had me purring like the Queen on the phone to Cameron. It really pulled me into the story and I could almost imagine being in there with them with the sun on my face. This week it was a bit distracting when the main character seemed to miraculously age and become younger between panels, though  :P

Outlier lost a bit of momentum this week, although this outing seems more focused and entertaining than the last one.

The current Jaegir outing is not as engaging as past stories but I like how this one show's Jaegir's colleagues as a kind of A-Team, each with their own roles and talents. The acrobatic woman with the strange knife weapons is a really cool character. With what happened at the end of this installment it looks like this story is going to go up a gear from now.

Monsieur Tharg, with this prog you are really spoiling us!

Dandontdare

I can only echo what others have said - top proggage. Even Outlier entertained me this week, and I've not been enjoying (or following) this so far.

Quote from: Magnetica on 28 July, 2015, 09:49:11 PM
Jaegir - great twist - didn't see that coming. Very intriguing for next week. Liked the way it showed what might have happened,  but what did?

Do you mean [spoiler]the other team member's dying as they make a last stand?[/spoiler] I didn't see that as a "what if" scenario, just a depiction of what was happening while she was talking about it.