Prog 1964 - Big Jobbed (Like Turds in the rain)

[Tjm86]

This has got to be far and away the most action packed prog in a while.  A cracking cover from Langley to start off.  Shortly followed by chaos and mayhem in Dredd as one of the ghosts makes a move.  Sexton's art is cracking again and Carrol shifts the pace albeit with a fairly predictable ending.

Kingdom is probably the slowest after last week with a bit of exploring and more questions than answers.  Nice little nod to Damnation Alley at the end.

The Order on the other hand cranks the gears up again.  Loads going on. Enough to make me reconsider my view of this strip.

ABC Warriors has to be the laugh out loud one though.  Ro Jaws doing a Roy Batty.  Clearly Mills has recalled the incept date and decided to pay homage.  Another helping of chaos and mayhem follows.  Langley's art is working really well now.  Starting to look forward to seeing where this is going.

Strontium Dog is another slower paced episode with a guest star from Stretch Armstrong.  Lot's of sneaking and hiding as it moves cautiously towards its conclusion.

Overall a cracking prog.

[Ghost MacRoth]

Cover: Nice.  Eye catching and reminiscent of covers of old.

Dredd: Love it, art is just all kinds of brilliant, and the tale is hinting at more intrigue to come.  Minor quibble....why wouldn't Grayden use a high ex or incendiary?   In the third page, second panel, we see the layout of the room, and a well placed hi-ex would have made that room clearance far more effective.  Guess it's just one of those things that perhaps Carroll had a different room in his head when he wrote it, than Sexton did when he drew it.  As I say, minor.  And am I grasping at straws, or does that wee hover unit have a Hondo look about it?

Kingdom:  Continues to be engaging. 

The Order:  Heaping mystery on intrigue and dousing it with grated puzzle.  Unlike the first run, which took me a wee while to get onboard with, much quicker to get into it this time.

Ro-Busters:  Meh.  Amusing as it is, gotta be the weakest thing in the prog.  The art is good, and there's nowt overly wrong with the tale, it's just ....meh. 

Strontium Dog: More setup, but hey....it could be 6 pages of a queue slowly shuffling to a counter, and as long as it's draw3n by Carlos, I'll happily check it out.

[Eamonn Clarke]

[Tjm86]

  Minor quibble....why wouldn't Grayden use a high ex or incendiary?   In the third page, second panel, we see the layout of the room, and a well placed hi-ex would have made that room clearance far more effective. 

Two thoughts spring to mind.  Either she was trying to minimise the noise, hence the closing of the blast doors.  Alternatively she was concerned about being caught by shrapnel in an enclosed space.

[Ghost MacRoth]

Yeah, thought both those too....but as we've seen hi-ex used in far tighter situations, I kinda dismissed that.  Noise....meh...she's going Tonto with some rapid fire in there, dunno if that's a concern.  I guess it's the far more obvious answer.....she couldn't be allowed to kill Dredd, and it'd be hard to have him survive a surprise hi-ex up the arse!

[ZenArcade]

Jeez that cover is old timey scrotnig zarjazzness. Z

[Skullmo]

A good prog all round. Dredd did that thing again 'There's a conspiracy in the justice department' and that other thing  'a load of well trained judges were shot and killed with minimal effort.' I like the stories where dredd investigates stuff rather than just has endless shoot outs, but maybe that is just me. Nice art though, it reminded me of the much missed from 2000ad Cliff Robinson.

[Geoff]

Nice old-school cover and more quality art on Dredd. 

As someone else mentioned, we have had rather a lot of bent judge/conspiracy stuff in recent times though and it seems that poor Joe can barely get through a few months without getting the shit kicked out of him!  I think he's due a good solid period where he's dishing it out to the perps..

Ro-Jaws doing Blade Runner was funny and good to see Mek-Quake get a smushing. The look and feel of the robot hunter character reminded me of the Hinkleton run on Nemesis for some reason..

Strontium Dog disappoints, painful as that is to say, but nothing much happens in the 6 pages.  Bit of a slack episode sadly.

Is it just me? It's seems to just be me...but I haven't got a Scooby about what's going on in the Order!

 

[Colin YNWA]

Well it all pretty much as you were, though as Tjm86 says with all the action. Dredd is basically a well choreographed fight scene which quietly slips a little bit of plot in there, but basically is all guns blazing and quite stunningly rendered.

Ironically given the issue is so action packed Kingdom takes a moment to calm down and explore a little, though that ending promises this story will turn into one glorious Mad Max tribute.

The Order is slowly interograting its past, well when its not blowing things up. This really is a superb series and I love the way this story is closely linked with the past while offering up something new. Hope we get more so we can see this time hopping develop more.

Ro-Busters luxuriates in its 7 pages when you suspect as last week 5 would have done. Still while its excess is all about Hammerstein tearing it up as seen by Clint Langley its hard to complain too much.

Finally Strontium Dog's action is more of the sneaking creeping kind, as the Dogs put their plan into action.

Overall a wonderfully balanced, fantastically crafted Prog. Keep it up Tharg.

[Proudhuff]

Fine Prog, I had to skip Ro-jaws weary nof it all, but apart from that cracking Prog Gromit!

All this and a salute to Kim Wilde and a killdozer, nice.

[Jacqusie]

Tis a good 'nuff cover, but I'm getting a bit weary of these cliffhanger 'is this the end for?' type scenarios that we know fo sure that it ain't (Slaine - I'm looking at you...)

We also had the same cyclops Hammerstein version (cut and paste?) a few progs ago prodding his hammer around for RoBusters.

I kinda lost the plot a while ago with the ABC warriors & with it the will to be bothered about these characters really, although Ro-jaws being a spy/unknown warrior or something had legs (or wheels) I thought...

I'd really like to see Carlos do a Stronty Dog cover while some of the OUTLAW gang is back together, now THAT would be smashing...

Si

[Skullmo]

I'd really like to see Carlos do a Stronty Dog cover while some of the OUTLAW gang is back together, now THAT would be smashing...

Si

Yes please! More Carlos covers on the Prog please!

[Dark Jimbo]

I liked the conspiracy blowing itself open so soon in Dredd. The art continues to be gorgeous, but as always with a multi-part Carroll Dredd the ultimate success of the story is going to hinge on how good (or otherwise) the conclusion is...

Really pleased that the tick-things plot thread was picked up again in Kingdom - that always felt like a bit of a narrative dead-end as it was. Maybe it's going to point the way to the ultimate destruction of Them...?

The Order gets really twisty and turny this week. Intuitor Browne is a really intriguing character, I'd like to know more about him. Burns is clearly having a blast with 16th century London - he looks so much more at home in the past than struggling with Dredd's robots and future tech.

ABC Warriors has been good fun but fairly lightweight, so it's great that this week the plot finally kicks in. With tighter plotting we could have been here a week earlier, but Pat is clearly indulging Langley a bit with some luxurious 4-panel pages to strut his stuff in. Can't honestly begrudge that when it all looks so flippin' gorgeous. I really hope we get to spend some time with the other Ro-Busters though (Dr Feeley-Good!!) - Mek-Quake scenes are always good fun, but we could do that in the present day.

Strontium Dog was a bit lightweight this week, to the extent that I'm struggling to know what more to say about it! Good fun though.

A good solid 'as you were' prog, with nobody really putting a foot wrong.

[Bad City Blue]

Really enjoying the prog at the moment.

I don't read The Order as I didn't like the first series.

Kingdom is my favourite "new" story of the past decade and it's still right up there for me.

The Dredd was good, and I'm intrigued as to what the drokk is going on.

ABC Warriors/Ro Busters was superb, mainly because of Ro Jaws hilarious Blade Runner pastiche.

Strontium Dog is always, always good, even with a lull in the action.

[wedgeski]

The prog continues to impress.

Quite a shocking turn of events in Dredd, and those lines, just fantastic. Is the Justice Department *ever* going to stabilise into the institution of old?

I hope The Order maintains this frenetic pace. I kind of lost interest in the last series but this one feels fresh and energetic.

Kingdom is my least favourite. Nothing about it has ever struck a chord, despite looking great. This one looks like it might be developing the world a bit, so I'm interested to see where it's going.

ABC Warriors - I could add milk and sugar and just eat the art for breakfast. I enjoyed the pastiche this week, but the story is a bit of a muddle, and my memory of what ABCW used to be is very hazy. Can anyone summarise for me?

Strontium Dog is lightweight, but I'm enjoying it a lot. I'd like to see this kind of accessible strip in every line-up.