Prog 1908 versus Megazine 354

Covers: Boo Cook versus Greg Staples

Wow. This is a tough choice. Cook gives us a magnificent image full of movement and action and a lovely interpretation of the 2012 uniform, but look at that Greg Staples image. It's a stunner. I could quite easily choose a top five Prog covers of the year with just Dredd images alone. This one gets the win for the Prog.

Result 1-0 to the Prog

Block Judge by Wagner, Carlos Ezquerra and Annie Parkhouse versus Dead Zone by John Wagner, Henry Flint and Annie Parkhouse.

In the Prog John and Carlos continue to ramp up the action in the ongoing Block Judge story which features the slowly evolving police procedural investigation that Wagner is so fond of at the moment, and so good at. It's lovely to look at, the action is great, and the ongoing development of Beeny and Corrigan is fascinating. Top stuff all round.

The Megazine story takes a strange turn with the activation of a sleeper time agent from the future, which is what I think is happening. As Dredd closes in on his target this other rogue element threatens to derail the subject at the same time as explaining the magic bracelet. Henry Flint continues to produce the only Dredd artwork that can rival King Carlos. I was lucky enough to see him working at Thought Bubble and the range of improvised techniques he uses to produce his inked sketches was just fascinating to behold. This is the cracking Judge Death he did for me, and it was free!

Result: Impossible to divide the two creative teams but the future cop thread in the Meg has thrown me slightly so it's a narrow win for the Prog

2-0 to the Prog

Stickleback by Ian Edgington, D'Israeli and Ellie de Ville versus Lawless by Dan Abnett, Phil Winslade and Ellie de Ville.

The two black and white stories go head to head. In Stickleback the stakes are raised as the three furies (or whoever they are) take out the dragon leaving D'Israeli's artwork to rule the airways. There are some charming background details like George Formby playing his ukulele outside Mr Wu's laundry and an appearance of the fish paste in-joke for regular readers of the Edgington and D'Israeli universe.

In Lawless Abnett and Winslade continue to build an impressive Deadwood like world as Marshal Lawson treads a fine line between the different cultures in the community. Her hair still looks ridiculous but the amount of detail in the background is staggering. The suggestion that Lawson may not be able to use her Lawgiver is intriguing and I wonder if this is going to come back in later episodes.

Result: this one is a tie so it's 3-1

Greysuit by Pat Mills, John Higgins, Sally Hurst and Ellie de Ville versus Tales from Megacity One: Wendell Says by T.C.Eglington, Darren Douglas and Simon Bowland.

I confess that the current Grey Suit story is not catching my attention in the same way that the first trade paperback collection did. I'm all for Pat Mills' attacks on the establishment but I'm skipping much of this, and I don't like John Higgins' colour palate plus I'm getting bored by the punching someone's jaw off.

The Tales from the Megacity story is a also a puzzler which I've read twice and it's still not made much of an impression on me.

Two stories that missed me this month, another tie.

Result 4-1 to the Prog

Uprise by Arthur Wyatt, Paul Davidson, Chris Blythe and Simon Bowland versus Ichabod Azrael by Rob Williams, Michael Dowling and Annie Parkhouse

Ichabod Azrael is an immense story spread across a battlefield in hell, or purgatory, or somewhere. The artwork is stark and striking and it's had a couple of great covers, but I confess I am lost and will have to promise one of my usually unfilled rereads from the start.

The Uprise tale comes to a satisfying conclusion and although some of it is wrapped up a bit quickly it does show Dredd and his rookie working effectively and doing the smart things. These are well trained and well organised law enforcers so it's nice to see them acting that way. Much better than the Underbelly story. Well done to all. And it's a win for the Megazine.

Result 4-2 to the prog

Kingdom by Dan Abnett, Richard Elson, Abigail Ryder and Simon Bowland versus the Megazine bonus material

I am beginning to have my doubts about Kingdom when every instalment ends with Gene exhorting his pack to "Get whet!". However it is beautifully illustrated and wins over the Meg interviews, a text story, and the free floppy which I haven't read and don't really plan to unless someone tells me it's a cream cracker.

Final result 5-2 to the Prog.

A runaway victory for 2000AD which just reflects how good it has all been since prog 1900 and we've got Dark Justice on the horizon. Mr Tharg is spoiling us at the moment and long may it continue.

The Bojeffries Saga

Reams have been written about Alan Moore's two main stories for Dez Skinn's 1980s Warrior magazine. But while Marvelman and V for Vendetta were tearing up the rule books and redefining British comic books he also created a third, often overlooked strip for Warrior. The Bojeffries Saga first appeared in issue 12 and was illustrated perfectly by Steve Parkhouse. The set-up was deceptively simple as a boring, bureaucratic rent man attempts to collect long overdue back payments from the family who live in a nondescript British terraced house.

The Bojeffries are a bunch of madcap individuals including a werewolf, a vegetarian vampire and a daughter who may be the most powerful being in the universe. It was as if the Adams family had come to England and moved into a house on Benefits street. Only four episodes were printed before Warrior folded but over the years Moore and Parkhouse have published extra stand alone tales in a variety of other books. Earlier this year all of these stories were published in one reasonably priced volume giving us a chance to catch up with this weird oddity.

The early episodes set in Moore's home town of Northampton are the best and the most bizarre. The Bojeffries family appear to inhabit a version of a much earlier Britain with council houses, rent collectors, works' Christmas parties, and the remnants of light manufacturing industries it seems that Moore is recreating the life he grew up in during the fifties and sixties. The later add on tales bring the family into the 21st century and the world of reality TV and ASBOs. I have to say although Parkhouse's art is still marvellous these episodes seem more forced and have less of the weird wonder of the originals.

Still this is a great opportunity to discover these strange tales from two 2000AD droids, especially if you get the Kindle version which is currently cheaper than a cup of coffee.

2000AD - Prog 213 Retro Review

I visited that London again to get Ben Willsher to sign my ongoing Art of Dredd charity project book and popped into Orbital comics to check out their Pre-Code Horror gallery exhibit and to buy a couple of ancient Progs from their £2 box. Here is 218 from May 1981 with a Brian Bolland cover that is linked to a simple half page text story buried in the middle of the comic. It's not one of the iconic Bolland images but it does have a nice Flash Gordon feel to it.

The first strip is Strontium Dog: Portrait of a Mutant part 11 by Alan Grant, Carlos Ezquerra and Steve Potter, and it's lovely to see those jagged black edges on the panel borders that have made a major reappearance in the current Judge Dredd story. It's an all action episode as young Johnny finally comes up against the oppressor of mutant-kind, Nelson Kreelman.

After a full page ad for some amazing train-spotting binoculars there's a Steve Moore Future Shock with art by Mike White and letters by Pete Knight. The twist can be seen a mile off but it's all done with the usual black and white verve and ends with a bit of fun.

The Nerve Centre has some high praise for Meltdown Man as well as details of the Buck Rogers stickers given away with this issue. That explains why every cover image I can find had sellotape on it, mine own included. There is also a half page ad for the battle holiday special which was probably worth picking up for Charley's War alone.

Ron Smith gets the colour double page centre spread on Judge Dredd who is after Umpty dealers in a story written by John Wagner and Alan Grant, with lettering by Tom Frame. Classic Ron Smith mayhem ensues with one particularly lovely image of Dredd and a host of fellow Judges all on their Lawmasters.

The half page text story that explains the cover follows, along with a listing of the comic and science fiction convention going on in 1981. Now if only I had gone along and bought some original artwork back then.

Return to Armageddon is next by Malcolm Shaw, Jesus Redondo and Bill Nutttall and I've blogged about this elsewhere. And then it's the weirdness of Meltdown Man as Nick Stone uses some unorthodox techniques to board a train to Snow City which he has to reach for some plot point or other. Written by Alan Hebden, art by Belardinelli and letters by Tony Jacobs, it's more whacky and wonderful stuff from those heady days of the Prog.

On the back cover we get more Brian Bolland art although I suspect they are two images lifted from the first Judge Death story and then neatly coloured for this pin up version. The pick of the Prog has to be Judge Dredd with that wonderful Ron Smith art, and there is a Whittle circular panel count of two.

Crisis Point

What on earth am I doing with a drawing tablet and a program called Manga Studio 5? For some mad reason which seemed like a good idea at the time I have been tinkering on and off for a few months with a 2000AD parody of the famous George Pérez cover to issue 7 of Crisis on Infinite Earths. Here is the original:

And here, after a lot of cursing, rubbing out and terrible penmanship, is my 2000AD version. Click to embiggen etc.

I've learnt a lot about the Manga Studio programme along the way, and a very healthy respect for what real comic book artists can do. It's pretty clear that if I was to try another project I would set about it in a much different way. There was a fair deal of tracing involved and the background Judges are all a bit rubbish and obviously just clone stamped. Despite all it's faults (which are many) I have entered it in this month's art competition on the 2000AD forums so watch this space to see if my crappy artwork can do better than my short stories.

Going Viral

Satan's Island by John Wagner, Kev Walker, Ben Willsher, Paul Marshall, Cam Kennedy, Chris Blythe and Tom Frame.

Here's another collection from my 2000AD gap years, and it's one I picked up after a suggestion from Flintlockjaw from the ECBT2000AD podcast about other Dredd stories which featured biological warfare. This one concerns the arrival of the floating Sin City in the waters off the coast of Mega-City One. With no laws on board it allows visiting citizens to gamble and debauch themselves to their hearts content while the Judges can only look on with disapproval. Chief Judge Hershey ostensibly allows it because it brings in much needed revenue for the Meg's coffers but her ulterior motive is the hunt for a wanted terrorist agent rumoured to be on board the pontooned palace of perversion, and naturally she sends Dredd to head up the investigation.

As ever the civilians get up to all kinds of futuristic nonsense and inevitably the terrorist is revealed and there is mayhem aplenty as one of Dredd's oldest foes steps out of the shadows. Look away now if you don't want any spoilers but it's that man again, Orlok the assassin is back and he's carrying vials of another deadly microbe to unleash on the unsuspecting citizens of the big Meg. This time it's a bacterium as opposed to the block mania neurotoxin that kicked off the Apocalypse War but it does seem that the Sov Judges are a bit repetitive in their attacks. Presumably all meetings of the Polit bureau feature some bright spark asking if they have ever considered weakening their enemies by poisoning their water supply first?

The recent IDW collection of the Apocalypse War led me to muse on how these comic book stories reflect society's fears at the time they were written, and made me almost nostalgic for the nuclear paranoia of the 1980s. Even further back in the 1950s when the space race was just getting started comics were full of mysterious invaders from other planets, and all sorts of heroes were gaining powers from strangely glowing meteorites. In 1963 the amazing Spider-Man, like most of his fellow Marvel superheroes, gained his powers from radioactivity but by the time it came to his first big movie in 2002 we seemed to have all lost our fear of the power of the atom and the spider that bites Tobey Maguire represents another branch of scary science, genetic modification. Although ten years later when they rebooted we seemed to have decided that GM was no big deal after all and it was, once again, an atomic powered arachnid that led Andrew Garfield to don the red and blue unitard. Maybe it was the fear of some terrorist with a dirty bomb that pushed radioactivity back to the top of the lethal list, or perhaps the writers just loved that line about radioactive blood from the cartoon show song. And to continue my theme I bet there were all sorts of comics in the 1970s about environmental concerns, Swamp Thing was created in that decade and he would go on to be at the forefront of Alan Moore's stories about man's careless attitude to his home planet.

One of John Wagner's great talents is how he uses the Dredd strip to satirise so many of the stranger aspects of our own modern lives, and he certainly knows what frightens us. Whether it is the horrors of nuclear war or the flesh eating terror of a contagious disease with a 90% mortality rate. This series originally appeared in 2002 so possibly Wagner had New Labour's plans to introduce super-casinos to the UK in his mind rather than our fear of a microbiological catastrophe, but reading it now when Ebola victims in Africa are literally bleeding from their eyes is a sobering experience.

In the case of Orlok the agent he releases here is said to be a bacterium which means that Wagner has run the full gamut of different microbial menaces. It was a virus with the catchy name of 2T(FRU)T which infected Mega-City Two and led Dredd to make his epic trek across the Cursed Earth. In 1982 the Judges had to deal with a lethal Fungal infection that left victims growing a nasty crop of mushrooms on their skin. And to bring things right up to date the Chaos Day organism was based on a Protozoa called Toxoplasma Gondii. The Block Mania agent is, I think, just referred to as a toxin so I presume it was something pharmacological that sent the citizens crazy and not a bug. That only leaves a few rare wee beasties for the Sovs to try unleashing on the big Meg.

Turning back to this volume there is terrific art from the accomplished Kev Walker and some very early Ben Willsher on the sequel Orlok story from Prog 1303. Then Paul Marshall and Cam Kennedy illustrate the last stories which puts Orlok on trial. All three of these back up stories are coloured by Chris Blythe and the whole volume is lettered by Tom Frame. It's another fine Dredd collection which was a pleasure to read, and so cheap and easy to download on the iPad app. Four stars and recommended.

Meg 353 Vs Prog 1903

Double thrills from the postie again and time for the monthly head to head.

Covers. Phil Winslade on the Megazine versus D'Israeli doing Stickleback on the Prog.

Two dramatic and eye catching covers. Winslade delivers something that recalls all those great science fiction pulp magazines or cheap paperbacks from the sixties and seventies. It's a great image and the colours make it pop off the newsstand. Normally I'm an absolute sucker for D'Israeli's richly textured black and white covers but this one suffers from not having the title character himself. In fact the three bad pennies haven't really been delineated in the strip so their significance is vague at the moment. If it was last year's marvelous image of Stickleback emerging dripping from the tank it would be a different matter but the colourful Megazine cover scores the first goal this month.

1-0 to the Meg

Judge Dredd Dead Zone by John Wagner, Henry Flint and Annie Parkhouse versus Block Judge by Wagner, Carlos Ezquerra and Annie Parkhouse.

What a surfeit of riches. The best classic era creator team up against the best modern team. It is impossible to tell them apart. In Block Judge Wagner and Ezquerra deliver the day to day details of Dredd's police work in fascinating sequences. And Dead Zone evolves into something different to what we first thought it would be. Both stories are maximum thrill power from the house of Tharg. This one has to be a draw, one point each.

2-1 to the Meg

Lawless by Dan Abnett, Phil Winslade and Ellie de Ville versus Stickleback by Ian Edgington, D'Israeli and Ellie de Ville.

Now we have two proponents of the best black and white artwork you will see in comics anywhere this month. And such different styles, Winslade produces incredible details in the crowded backgrounds and the story runs on nicely in its Deadwood in space style. Meanwhile D'Israeli produces another master class of texture work in the latest installment of Stickleback. I love all of Edgington and D'Israeli's output and this is no exception. Superb stuff from both comics but a win for Stickleback.

2-2.

The Man from the Ministry by Gordon Rennie, Kev Hopgood and Simon Bowland versus Greysuit by Pat Mills, John Higgins, Sally Hurst and Ellie de Ville

I have really enjoyed The Man from the Ministry series and like the Matter of Life and Death references in this last episode. I could have done with some more British science fiction nods along the way but surely they will turn up in future stories. Greysuit looks good and it is written by Uncle Pat but it is only just getting going so I'm going to give this round to the Meg.

3-2 to the Meg

Uprise by Arthur Wyatt, Paul Davidson, Chris Blythe and Simon Bowland versus Ichabod Azrael by Rob Williams, Michael Dowling and Annie Parkhouse

All forms of Judges on display in Uprise: undercover, corrupt, rookie, robot and hard as nails Dredd himself. This is so much better that the Underbelly story. Wyatt seems to be developing a feel for how this different Dredd universe works and I'm hooked. Strangely I even prefer Davidson's artwork, I like Henry Flint to be on classic Dredd and not the film version.

I'm still not on top of the back story of Ichabod Azrael although Michael Dowling's art still reminds of the beautiful John Ridgeway work on the Dead Man saga. It's astonishing how different his black and white stuff looks compared with the recent colour landscapes he did in Dead End.

The result is another surprise win for Uprise which is good stuff, and look at what's coming next month with Boo Cook's action packed cover.

4-2 to the Meg

Lobster Random by Simpon Spurrier, Carl Critchlow, Ian Richardson and David Roach versus Kingdom by Dan Abnett, Richard Elson, Abigail Ryder and Simon Bowland.

I've read this Lobster Random before and it's all just mental nonsense from Spurrier's twisted imagination, and that's a good thing. In Kingdom Gene and co, catch breath before it's time for them to "Get whet!" again and the big onslaught of Aux Drift begins. It's a pity this can't transfer to the Meg and have a few more pages for each installment which might allow some more story elements to develop in between bug slashing mayhem.

Final result is a 5-2 walkover for the Megazine but the quality in the Prog is astonishingly high as well. It is a new golden age for 2000AD and long may it continue.

Apocalypse Now

IDW's licence to produce Judge Dredd comics for the US market includes some reprint material. They have produced a number of impressive hard backed volumes including this one which collects the classic Apocalypse War story. The creators involved represent most of the 2000AD hall of fame: it's written by John Wagner and Alan Grant, the artists are Mike McMahon, Ron Smith, Steve Dillon, Brian Bolland and Carlos Ezquerra, and the letterers are Steve Potter and Tom Frame. The majority of the original pages were black and white so here they have been sensitively coloured by Charlie Kirchoff and Tom Mullin, and the whole thing is topped off with a striking new cover image by Jim Fern and Charlie Kirchoff.

The large format allows the pages to be reprinted pretty much in their original Prog size instead of the reduced format of the black and white Case Files, and they certainly look fantastic. Kirchoff and Mullin have done a lovely job with the colouring. They have clearly taken their palate from the original colour centre-spreads so that the colours perfectly suit all the different artists. And the artistic lineup is unbeatable: McMahon begins the Block Mania story and then Ron Smith takes over before Steve Dillon and Brian Bolland introduce the character of Orlok and reveal the truth behind the craziness afflicting the citizens of Mega-City One. And then in steps King Carlos Ezquerra returning to the character he co-created for the first time since his original designs. He drew all 25 successive parts of the Apocalypse War and it's an absolute artistic tour-de-force, and his pages beautifully coloured by Tom Mullin are worth the price of admission alone.

Wagner and Grant wrote an intense story line which swung from some typical Mega-City madness to the overwhelming devastation of nuclear war and then the resistance fight back led by Dredd. My memories of this epic were mainly about the Block Mania episodes and then Dredd's mission to East-Meg One. I had forgotten the horrors that Wagner, Grant and Ezquerra depicted in the middle section when the nukes fly back and forth. It is strange to think about now but in 1982 we were living in the shadow of the Cold War and the real possibility of nuclear war. The protest at Greenham common had started in 1981 and membership of CND was almost compulsory for me and my fellow students at university. It seemed an inevitability that one of the two super powers would at some point be pushed to the brink of war. Wagner and Grant took all of this unease and gave us a devastating portrait of a nuclear holocaust in the pages of a simple comic book. Two years later television viewers would be terrified when ITV broadcast the film Threads. And in 1985 the BBC finally had the guts to release Peter Watkins' The War Game which it had kept on a shelf for 20 years. But before all that 2000AD showed us the full horrors of nuclear war in the Judge Dredd strip. Reading it now is a genuinely unsettling experience and it really makes this epic tale stand out from the crowd.

And that is all before Dredd gets to do his stuff and save his city in his usual stoic and unstoppable fashion. Dredd is particularly brutal in this story as he wipes out Sov Judges, dying citizens and collaborators alike without even a flicker of emotion crossing his stony face, And of course his no negotiation policy with his retribution would return to haunt him in later life as that faithful button push would lead to the events of Day of Chaos. There's also a disdainful attitude to the citizens of the opposing Mega cities as both the East-Sov leader and then Dredd are asked about making announcements to the public about the war. Their replies are remarkably similar along the lines of "What has it got to do with them?". This is despite knowing that millions of the citizens were going to die as the missiles flew.

There is a long running debate about which book is best to hand to a new reader who wants a good introduction to the Dredd character. This beautiful hardback gives us the artwork at pretty much the original size and with the colouring job that the artists themselves would have done, and it has Wagner and Grant writing the epic tale against which all future Dredd epics would be judged. All this is available on Amazon for a mere £16 so this is the book I will be recommending to new readers from now on. Well done to IDW for a beautiful presentation of an immense story. Five stars to everyone involved.