Dead'll do

New adress

2011-09-30T13:51:00.000-07:00

Yep I am changing this websites name to thrill power overdose officially and thus have imported all of the past entries to the new blog...

I will be starting with six entries over the course of three days

I hope to see you over there!

Your pal

David page

http://thrillpoweroverdose.blogspot.com/

1277: Evil Eye

2011-09-29T12:38:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caz97Iq3eQU

1276: Altered States

2011-09-26T10:07:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwEoqiT8MZk

1275: Talk to the gun creep....

2011-09-20T08:20:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfEGoYb-lLA

1274: Weapon of choice....

2011-09-19T13:35:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEvbWIqQJbY

1273: JOCK-STRAP (okay no tag this time..)

2011-09-16T09:00:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9DucxqQhsw

Thrill power overdose 2: KILLING TIME

2011-09-07T12:01:00.001-07:00

The most in-depth series of videos this cracking series will ever likely to get

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z40zebN46ew

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JN_fjyKI3i4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeZ9k7VJaBc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAosVfhnCKg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W31P8-W5xis

Prog 2002

2011-09-02T12:44:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohPMvHp_qpg

1272 Heartbreaker!

2011-09-01T05:45:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UTyrqxBkB8

1271: Cop tease

2011-08-31T11:43:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz0VY_6VXEs

1267: Smoke em

2011-08-30T09:38:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZLY8lAPbfE

1266: Gladiator!

2011-08-29T13:00:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VUSljpt2jM

1265: Monsters from the id

2011-08-19T09:46:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDObB2in9dw

Thrill power overdose 1: Canon Fodder

2011-08-17T12:08:00.000-07:00

The first in a series which looks deeper into specific 2000ad thrills starting with Canon fodder....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lx86pOUtCHo

1264: Rough justice

2011-08-16T06:17:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvqCtA2MbHU

1263: Maximum thrill power

2011-08-14T10:19:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPaYCvwo434

Weird ads prog 1262

2011-08-10T07:25:00.000-07:00

Even the elderly love mario kart!

1262: Baby boom

2011-08-10T07:19:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Wy3g0a_x8o

1261: Bloodlust

2011-08-05T11:23:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liRN6MLhRPE

1259: From Russia with love

2011-08-04T04:56:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2N6klrT4qs

1258: One man army

2011-08-03T04:52:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I36n4ExsXhk

1257: A living legend in pest control

2011-08-03T04:46:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZaUoW04xqQ

1256: To the death

2011-08-01T09:04:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vN6AI_REWZ4

1255: Legacy of evil

2011-07-30T12:27:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaKqk3LbgDs

1254: World of hurt

2011-07-17T14:11:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yom6Gk6ygMo

1253: wanted: Judge Dredd

2011-07-06T12:58:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0o4XIvV6tE

1252: Vamp

2011-07-04T11:20:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34AGVC0qQ80

1251: Hot Damn!

2011-06-29T08:14:00.000-07:00

I am quite proud of this one...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtDdqKCWcjE

1250: FEATURING JUDGE DREDD (yeah no tag line)

2011-06-26T07:06:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BX4-q83kb6U

1249: Hells teeth

2011-06-19T05:00:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J43YjvJmgGE

1247 Flamin' Hell

2011-06-12T05:03:00.000-07:00

A very special prog slog...let me know if you want more like this or not...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsPIyGlix1w

1246: Zero Tolerence

2011-06-04T11:37:00.000-07:00

John Wagner begins to play a long game on Dredd this issue as we are in part three of the chief judge’s man. The story goes that there appears to be a clandestine assassin who is used by the chief judge to wipe out some targets that need to be kept shut.

Dredd gets involved in the case and attempts to track down this mysterious killer unaware of his ties to the justice department. A tense story, which really makes you think Hershey, could really be behind all this until the very end…

Next slog

Carver Hale concludes…

Judge Dredd Megazine VOL 4.1

2011-05-28T12:14:00.000-07:00

In the summer of 2001 it was clear someone in rebellion was pleased with the end of year progs because the judge Dredd megazine after years of printing any old crap from the files or being stuck with reprints of recent mega epics (necropolis) or stuff which while awesome does not deserve to be in a book called JUDGE DREDD MEGAZINE (Preacher) It was clear it was time for a change and thus the Meg undergone its forth such regeneration turning into a mammoth 100 pager.

For your £3:95 you got over 90 pages of comic strip about 50 of which were reprint. Over half of this reprint would come from 2000ads own archives. For this first issue Robusters was dusted off for the first time in years joined by over exposed awesomeness from Dr and Quinch.

The other half at first came from other British books as we say hello to Lazarus Churchyard. I didn’t enjoy it much though it was interesting seeing D’israelis early art which looked nice but nowhere near as good as his current stuff. This British reprint thing took a backseat after Churchyard ended but we’ll come to that in 4.9 as we officially begin the Meg slog.

The remaining 40 pages of strip were all brand new. We got a 15 page Dredd strip featuring the return of the fatties and in particular a training camp for speed eating contests. Lenny Zero returns as he comes face to face with a certain Lawman…who? Well his name is on the front of the magazine.

The final brand new strip was wardog which I believe was supposed to be based on a Rebellion published videogame which never happened as far as I know which is a shame because despite the cornball insane premise it was a neat little strip. What was that cornball premise? Well our hero has a bomb in his head and if he fails to complete a contracted mission before the timer hits zero, he dies. Better than it sounds believe me!

The meg slog will continue in 4.9 the first officially bought by me issue

1245: Illegal alien!

2011-05-28T07:00:00.000-07:00

Dan Abnett begins his very long game in this weeks sinister Dexter as Dexter faces off against a crazed alien ambassador who gets high on tomato sauce. This one story sets off a chain of dominoes which still topple to this day. For you see this episode proves the existence of aliens in the hitmens world. This leads into various other stories which leads them into an adventure through space and dimensions. This of course leads us into the ongoing war of the Moses storyline. Which shows up in the prog when Abnett is not busy in America plotting the destinies of Marvels space characters Ohh full circle…

Next prog slog: Another long running story begins as the chief judges man is on the loose.

1244: Dino might!

2011-05-27T08:39:00.000-07:00

The nastiest tyrannosaur of Dredds world is back and stalking the deadliest game around. Pissed off creators!

Yes overshadowing the return of Satanus in Satanus unchained was a backstage battle. Each episode of the serial came with an American style tag stating that Satanus was created by Pat Mills and artist Mike McMahon, but that didn't seem to quell Mills' aggravation that the character was used without his permission.

Andy Diggle and Pat Mills failed to find any agreement on the subject, and Mills, who was already unhappy with the current ABC Warriors debacle (see 1240 for vague details or search online), declined to write for the comic again until after Diggle stepped down at the end of the year.

It’s a terrific story and Gordon Rennie got the pure joy of doing an almost affectionate parody of the style of writing done by Mills on the original flesh series.

Next Prog slog: The (very) long game begins in Sin/dex

1243: Fear the vampire king!

2011-05-21T09:51:00.000-07:00

Underworld is a film starring Kate Beckinsale about a war between vampires and werewolves and how the love of one vampire and werewolf screws it all up. A love like blood is the story of a war between vampires and werewolves and how the love of one vampire and one werewolf screws it all up.

Written by the usually fantastically bonkers John smith this is a fairly pedestrian affair without some of his crazier ideas. It is more like one of those one off stories which makes you wonder why they are even here in the first place.

There is some genuinely lovely Fraser Irving art though.

Next slog: Diggle vs. Mills Unchained!

1240: Meks and violence

2011-05-13T12:36:00.000-07:00

1240

All aboard the disaster train woo woo!

So Andy Diggle current editor of the prog (and a really good writer on his own) wanted an old school ABC warrior’s storyline and that’s what Pat Mills gave him reluctantly. You see Mills didn’t like writing this story and Diggle hated editing it and Mills hated Diggle editing it and the vicious carousel just goes round and round…but more on that another day…

So ABC warriors return to mars (or the third element as later gns would call it) is a failure but at least it’s a nice looking failure. Even then most of the artists don’t exactly bring their A game to the strip. So by this point in the story Mick McMahon and his odd art style (at this point his art looks like a mesh of that horrible cubism phase and his great old school style) is drawing a confused story involving “Martians” from war of the worlds blowing up shit on mars. Oh and for some reason steel horn is no longer the mess and back in his old body and is dragon to the main villain…

Ugh all aboard the disaster train…

Next Prog slog: Underworld unleashed…wait wha?

1236: We all have our Demons...

2011-05-11T10:27:00.000-07:00

Mike Carey's short-lived series Carver Hale grabs the cover of this prog. Anyone living under a rock may not know this but Mike Carey is the writer of sandman spin-off Lucifer. The truly astonishingly good Unwritten and one of the major writers in X-men at the moment His turn in 2000ad was short lived due to an exclusive deal he signed with dc to write amongst other things the already mentioned Lucifer.

Our hero of this story is Carver Hale. A criminal who is wiped out by rival crims He is brought back to life and is mixed into some complicated demonic goings on when he discovers those rivals have made deals with demons. He now shares his body with one of these beasties and decides to get revenge on those who killed him.

It is a tragic shame this story was put out to pasture after this one story arc. If there was one single story thrill from this time (and there was a lot) that deserves to be revisited it’s this one. Of course if Carey didn’t take that exclusive we may not have got the unwritten so it is a good sacrifice.

Next slog: ABC WARRIORS oooh boy…

1230: Feeding time!

2011-05-07T11:38:00.000-07:00

In the year of our lord Nineteen twenty six four figures from this period in time face the terror and the ancient other worldly evil of the old ones. Harry Houdini, H.P Lovecraft, Charles Fort and Arthur Conan Doyle are our only hope and one of them will not survive the battle against the evil of the old ones human servants the illuminati. Guess who when you see the cover which heralds this final part.

Necronauts one of my favourite all time 2000ad series so good I have bought every trade version of this story, which has, came out. Gordon Rennies writing is tense and atmospheric and is ably paired with Fraser Irving who is one of the best artists to come out of the Nerve centre in the past eleven years and the perfect artist for an excellent horror tale such as this.

If you have never read this story, track it down. It is worth it!

Next Prog slog: Mike Careys short stint as a droid

1228: The Joy of Dex

2011-05-06T23:54:00.000-07:00

Sinister Dexter get a contract to whack (heh) a porn star called buster cherry in their latest two parter called Money Shots. They are trying oh so very hard to ignore all the lesbian antics and porn scenes filmed around them but considering it is an Andy Clark drawn strip (heh) I can understand their pain. So they finally catch up to their man and find out the truth. Buster has been doing these films for so long that he is no longer aroused at all the sight of the Clark drawn females. He hired the gun sharks to attack him hoping to get a thrill and it worked…Too well as what you think happens to Poor Buster happens…

Yeah a very silly story, which exists only for Andy Clark to draw hot women…not that I, am complaining of course.

Oh and World of warcrap returns…

Next Prog Slog: Necronauts for reals nuff said

1226: Zombie hell!

2011-04-29T10:28:00.000-07:00

So necronauts one of the greatest…Nah kidding it is a good cover though isn’t it? Do not worry Sloggers I will be covering Necronauts during its final episode.

Today let’s talk about Calvin and Hobbs…sorry Kelvin and Hobbit. Yes, Judge Dredd does one of its regular parodies of existing characters and of course, this time it’s a young boy and his imaginary friend. A gang plans a heist and one of those perps has to baby-sit his young son at the same time. The young boy Kelvin pretends he is a tiger and bites the leg of one of the perps. His father throws him into his room where his imaginary tiger friend Hobbit visits him…

Holy crap the tigers killed all the perps. Dredd is called in and has to fight the suddenly very real tiger. He hi-exes the tiger and it turns into a toy tiger. Turns out Kelvin has latent psychic powers, which created the imaginary creature for both someone to look after him and someone to wreak his murderous revenge.

As Kelvin is scheduled for a lobotomy his cell is torn apart and Hobbit frees his young friend to have new adventures or (more likely) go on an unpublished killing spree.

A nice fun and slightly horrifying take on a classic comic.

Next Slog: Sinister Dexter vs. the porn industry

Note: Yes this was originally supposed to be an april fool slog entry when I thought I was continuing in March...

Prog 1224: FIRE FIGHT

2011-04-25T09:10:00.000-07:00

Harry Exton was a button man. A player in a lethal killing game sick and tired of being manipulated by the backers of this game known as voices Exton quit and decided to have a quiet life away from the killing. The voices are still pissed though and now Harry is on the run as other button men hunt him across America.

Button man one of the best 2000ad serials returns for a third series after six years gone from the prog. This was my personal favourite of the Button man trilogy. Arthur Ransons art looks slightly ropier than it usually is but the story more than makes up for it.

In addition, here is an image from the latest sin/dex story in which the boys try to protect a horribly disfigured man from a group of torturers…

Next Prog slog: Mars is amazing…Mars is amazing!!!

prog 1223: Blue Murder

2011-04-24T11:01:00.000-07:00

From the pages of Mercy heights comes Tor Cyan. Originally, an ambulance driver on Mercy heights He bore a strange resemblance to Rogue trooper and ended up with a much larger role in the sequel. Tor got a one off story in prog 2000 which had him visit the original planet of Rogues adventures Nu earth and now he gets a spin off as he crashes on a planet at war!

And it’s boring oh so very boring…

Admittedly, I was never a fan of Rogue trooper but even that had its charm. This is just dull really dull. I hope my memory is just lazy and it gets better as it goes on but for now…

Meanwhile in Dredd Ian Gibson draws a typically fun episode where an (as usual due to Gibson’s art) Hot woman asks Dredd to help her boyfriend Joe who is planning to commit euthanasia. She is in such a rush to save him she breaks speed laws and is fined and given a warning from Dredd.

When she spots her boyfriend, she speeds again. Dredd catches up to them and gives a damn awesome speech in order to change Joes mind. He then promptly arrests the girlfriend for speeding the second time.

Dredd is tough but fair he helps one person but never forgets the law. The girlfriend may be well intentioned but crimes a crime…

Next Prog slog: the call comes out to Ex Harry Ex!

Prog slog: Prog 2001 part 3

2011-04-23T13:04:00.000-07:00

Welcome back to the prog slog and at last let’s cover the final three one off stories inside the issue

First off Sinister Dexter return in possibly one of their more memorable adventures and they barely say a single word in it. In bullet time a single battle between the two hit men and a bunch of Tobies* is chronicled by captions which explain where each bullet goes during the battle.

It is truly an unusual angle in which to explore a story but it works and it is truly one of the best Sin/Dex tales of the time and still stands up there in my personal top ten today.

* Gun shark lingo: To be whacked

The nerve centre, which we all know, was a spaceship in the middle of London hidden in plain site as kings reach tower was finally abandoned by the mighty one when the Rebellion mob moved in. What would happen when our fave alien editor and his inept crew of droids have to move the thrill vaults containing all the greatest thrills in the galaxy*

Chaos utter chaos is the answer as the very foolish droids loaded in the artwork for prog 2001 and causes a thrill power overload!

London bridge tube station warps into the terror tubes of termight!

The dinosaur statues in crystal palace turn into the dinosaurs from FLESH!

Judge death is on the loose in the millennium dome!

Only one Alien can sort the chaos loosed upon our world…

Yeah as you can tell by now this is fluff, which is a nice reminder of the old days when Tharg fought the thrill suckers, the dictators of Zrag and the purple nurples in six page space filler. Not that I am complaining fluff it may be but fun fluff.

*Plus the Space girls

And speaking of throwbacks….

Strontium Dog the sad case features an untold tale of Johnny Alpha and his hetero life mate Wulf Sternhammer team up with Kid Knee (mutant power: He bites low) against slippery “Dok” Dikkory in a truly old skool Strontium dog story almost predicting the old school revival Andy Diggle will instigate in his proper run as editor.

And of course it has the glorious moment when Kid Knee uses a blow up doll as a distraction as in his words “While they’re popping at the dummy I’m blowin’ em away!”

Genius…

And that’s Prog 2001 now we’re moving into a period of time where there are huge gaping holes in my collection…but as chronicler of all the 2000ads I have during this time bare with it!

Next prog slog: A good man goes to war…

Weird ads prog 2001

2011-04-19T12:34:00.000-07:00

Nothing makes me want to buy a game more than an opened up dead body...

wait

WHA???

New slog entry finishing 2001 Friday!

An ominous portent

2011-04-03T14:11:00.000-07:00

todays post is cancelled

2011-01-17T13:32:00.000-08:00

My brother is in hospital I am too bummed to write anything

coming up!

2011-01-16T06:20:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow will be the final part of the prog 2001 slog entry covering the final three thrills

after that the slog and this blog will be back on track with the following

Monday: Slog entry

Tuesday: Random madness (whatever is bothering me on that day

Wednesday: Slog entry

Thursday: What David read/It came from the filing cabinet (see below for explanation)

Friday: Slog entry

Saturday: it came from the filing cabinet/The Radge

Sunday: Day off

So yeah the new things

What David reads will be my fortnightly look into the american crap I collect I did a few of them before

Take its place during a comicless week ie this week coming is...

It came from the filing cabinet in which I take a random non 2000ad comic and review it slog style. This week will be Megazine vol 4.1 which would never be covered in the slog otherwise other weeks will include a lot of american stuff and some crisis and even cunt...sorry clint

and speaking of clints...

sharing the cabinets space on alternate saturdays is

The Radge: He hates comics and with good reason he is here to rip into the crap and will even set some sacred cows alight...

Maximum thrill power: Prog 2001 part 2

2011-01-05T12:06:00.000-08:00

In the year 2010 David page embarked on a crazy mission to read every issue of 2000ad and the megazine which he owns. Losing a computer to virus he had to stop for a while but now he returns and begins his plunge into a very controversial era…
This is the Prog slog…

Welcome back to part two of the slogs progress into the greatness known as prog 2001. A time before the end prog became stagnant and just an excuse for Tharg to take a three week holiday in his timeshare flat on Mars.

Today we will be focusing on two classic characters making a very special return

First off Grant Morrison and Steve yeowell take Zenith on a comeback tour as we find out what happened to him and his other surviving supporting cast in ZZZ.ZENITH.COM

Britney spears has been raped by a superhuman but Zenith doesn’t care about that all he cares about is his new reality TV show (like dredd and the celebrity big brother prediction in part 1 this was before every wannabe got their own show) He meets with Peter saint john who reveals that he has been in control of every PM since he left parliament including the infamous piss taking of Tony Blair before he truly became a hate figure.

A less welcome return in my opinion anyway was Bad company a truly classic thrill and one of my all time favourites. But it was clear the creators hearts were not in it this time. Kano finds a piece of the planet Arrarat and is then haunted by Danny Franks. Kano decides to go on one final mission to put Danny out of his misery…

Wish they did that with the strip instead…but worse was to come a year later…oh boy was it ever…

Never had a coming soon ever sounded like a threat

Next prog slog: Sinister Dexter count bullets Tharg deals with a thrill power overload and a novel use for a sex toy in strontium dog as the look at prog 2001 concludes

Maximum thrill power: Prog 2001 part 1

2011-01-03T09:51:00.000-08:00

In the year 2010 David page embarked on a crazy mission to read every issue of 2000ad and the megazine which he owns. Losing a computer to virus he had to stop for a while but now he returns and begins his plunge into a very controversial era…

This is the Prog slog…

In the present as I type this we have just past prog 2011 the latest in a diminishing line of “special progs” which began as a celebration of all that is great about the prog. luring talent long gone to feature classic characters (this tradition kept alive at least by the surprising return of Gerry Finley day to write Rogue trooper)

I have to be honest aside from the as always fab SHAKARA, the already mentioned Rogue trooper and Max Winwoods badass pimp coat I did not like this years end prog

But let’s not speak of this year let’s hop in our tardis and look back at prog 2001!

Under a particularly demonic looking tharg cover by the Flint droid which handily lists all the contents of this issue.

A note: I’m not covering Nikolai Dante’s amusing story as I’ve over covered his adventures last year. I will also not be covering Necronauts or Button man as I will cover them in later slog entries…

Judge Dredd ends up trapped inside the bad mother house…

Dredd ends his year In a story which believe it or not predicted the celebrity version of the show it parodied by a few years.

A group of thinly veiled parodies of celebrities of the time are captured and forced to participate in bad mother. Similar to a certain reality show which closed it’s doors for the final time. It’s hook? You can vote for which celeb you want dead!

Surprisingly most of the celebs are still recognisable today (except for Lolly pophead was she supposed to be Billie “pre who” piper?)

Dredd investigates and also ends up in the house. There he hatches a daring plan to act like a prick so he can take on the sinister bad mother droid himself!

Next slog: A not so thinly veiled celeb is raped and an old soldier plans a final death for a friend as two classic stories return…

From the guy who ruined 2000ad!!!

2010-12-28T06:43:00.000-08:00

Coming this Monday...

2010-12-28T05:22:00.000-08:00

I finally got a brand new laptop and am raring to go...

there is going to be a lot of stuff both good and bad coming up in the slog and I hope you will be back to experience the good the bad and the bison with me!

Have a happy new year and I'll see you on monday with the long...long awaited prog 2001 slog entry

Stick it to the man...literally...

2010-11-24T06:17:00.000-08:00

My entry for the stick it to the man competition on the official 2000ad forums!

And for those missing the slog...fear not it shall be back in time for christmas when I shall be doing a five part look at prog 2001...

1220 Rocket Dan! 22/11/00

2010-08-04T08:19:00.000-07:00

Book 2 of the tsar wars strand of Nikolai dante concludes with a rather astonishing turn of events which shatter the Family Romanov forever. Nikolai in a shocking moment of ruthlessness stabs his brother Konstantine in the stomach.

Hmm don't really need to say more than that do I other than Nikolai Dante is awesome read the trades....do it....do it now!!!

Coming friday: prog 2001

1216: Drop dead Gorgous 25/10/00

2010-08-02T09:02:00.000-07:00

Rain dogs is one of those done in one series that 2000ad likes to throw into the mix now and again. It is set in a flooded New York City populated by desperate scavengers, It is about one survivor in perticular and her attempts to get to safety from a crash by a fellow survivor. It is a great story By Gordon Rennie with truly fantastic art by Colin Wilson. It is one of a few one offs from this time that I felt could have been good ongoing series. Another such story is coming up in a few slogs time which was funnily enough written also by Gordon Rennie....

That was you mini slog for today....

Next slog: The most shocking ending to a Nikolai dante story (at this point anyway)

No slog today

2010-07-31T06:31:00.000-07:00

But all next week I will be doing a slog a day which will take us to the first few issues of 2001 including the big prog 2001

In orbit every saturday

2010-07-24T05:25:00.000-07:00

Yes you wearn't going crazy until I can free up a bit more of my time I can only do the slog on a saturday....

Sorry folks!

1215: blood brothers 18/10/00

2010-07-24T05:01:00.000-07:00

This Issues Dredd begins an eight part story called Sector house which features the first full length appearance of an character who still appears in the Dredd strip today. That character is Judge rico a younger clone of Dredd himself. Similar in tone to classics like the pit and its sequel beyond the call of duty, Sector house follows the drama of a small group of judges who are not exactly pleased when Dredd the younger joins them....

Elsewhere Family troubles brew in Nikolai Dante when tensions between Dante and his Brother Konstantine finally explode!.

I know I seem to be mentioning Dante nearly every entry at the mo but its been that good!

Next prog slog: It's raining (WO)men halleujah!

1214: Chainsaw biker 11/10/00

2010-07-17T06:01:00.000-07:00

Deadlock gets his own series in order for Pat “the overlord” Mills to tie up some final loose ends from the final series of Nemesis and also to set up the Grand wizard of Termights role in a future ABC warriors epic (well epic for the wrong reasons but that’s in the near future). Aiding Mills is Nemesis artist Henry Flint who draws this crazy future earth and the alien inhabitants on it with relish

Deadlock returns to Termight to fulfil the last wishes of his master Nemesis to plunge the planet into chaos and gets sucked into a story involving the new president of the planet Purity Brown and a mysterious killer called the accountant who may or may not have ties to the late Torquemada. Alongside this story is a snapshot into the true weirdness of this future which includes Aliens who eat your toes after sexual intercourse and alien fruit!

Meanwhile the ages old story of the “mutiny on the bounty” is played out on a spaceship in the future in a series called Vanguard. Written by Robbie Morrison and featuring stunning art by Colin MacNeil. Vanguard is about a cruel commander of a space battleship, obsessed with tracking down an enemy ship, He overworks and brutalizes his crew to mutiny. He's cautioned about the crew's growing unrest several times along the way by his new second-in-command, Lt. Elizabeth Vanguard, but ignores her until it is too late.

Watching the unfolding (although slightly unoriginal admittedly) drama is pretty fun and it is tragic that this story is among the elite few 2000ad stories which ends with a cliff-hanger and yet never returns to resolve it.

A shame as it was a nice series

And a bonus image from Nikolai Dante with the Family Romanov posing for what may very well be their final picture as a family...

Next prog slog: There's a new Dredd in the sector house and his name is Rico...

1213: From russia with Lurve 4/10/00

2010-07-10T04:39:00.000-07:00

In the year 2010 David page, a 26 year old 2000ad fan took the baton of slogdom from Paul Rainey and ploughed his way through the sum total of his collection of 2000ads and Megazines which marked his own return to the galaxy’s greatest comic. Through hail, shine, problems in real life and brrr BISON this is his journal of the mighty task which faces our Beloved comic book nerd….

The prog is back to its mighty five band gang of stories with Rain dogs and Nikolai Dante joining Dredd, Deadlock and Vanguard. Rain dogs will be covered in a later slog so for now let's turn our gaze towards the cover boy himself...

In battleship Potemkin the war takes a slightly darker turn though you wouldn’t know it by reading its first chapter. In a light-hearted (well for the current war arc anyway) Prelude Nikolai and the Irregulars battle in Britannia to save mad king George from being executed as a Romanov ally. Aside from Gorgous work from series creator Simon Fraser it really is just a light hearted filler episode before the darkness which hung over the rest of this story....

The war and the story took a darker turn after this fun interlude but that’s for another entry entirely….

This chapter of the Tsar wars was hit by a rather unfortunate continuity cock-up which I have to admit I never noticed until it was brought up in the 2000ad lovers holy book known as Thrill power overload. The initial plan of the Tsar was had been to tell the storyline in five series of eight episodes. John Burns was to paint the first, third and fifth series and Simon Fraser was to handle the second and fourth. However, Fraser was in the process of relocating to Africa when the deadlines for his first story came up, and as a result, this adventure, "Battleship Potemkin," had to be postponed and War and Love (the previous story) had to be made the second chapter. Also chapters four and five were meshed together to form one final book four. Due to the switching of books two and three this unfortunately has Nikolai renouncing his old name and referring to himself as “Nikolai Romanov” as a cliff-hanger for the final book. But in this story Nikolai and his group of irregulars always refer to him as “Nikolai Dante” It’s so obvious in hindsight (and with the knowledge from TPO) but I genuinely did not notice on my original reading.

I now await the comments saying “You thicko!” but I genuinely did not know…

Next slog: Deadlock ties up some loose ends from a fallen warlock series…

1212: Smoking Joe: 27/9/00

2010-07-05T08:23:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the long delay Loads of other things I had to do but I'm back and will try to update the slog whenever I can!

Again sorry for the lateness!

There's nothing Like a promo prog!

Three bumper length stories begin this prog and I will be covering both Vanguard and Deadlock in later slogs. The other Story is a very cool Judge Dredd story called generation killer....

The story features a promising new villian (who sadly appears only in this story) a Mega-citizen panics when his wife tells him that she's expecting, because of what he thinks is a family curse. It turns out that all his ancestors died right after the birth of their first child. This is because thousands of years from now one of their descendants commits some atrocity or other. the legal system decides that his crime is so great that all of his ancestors have to be punished as well!

A time-travelling future Judge (the generation killer of the title) is sent back in time to execute everybody in the line as soon as their first kid is born

A genuinly clever little story and as mentioned above it is a shame the generation killer never returned after this one story.

Next slog: Nikolai Dante gives a big sloppy kiss to Britania!

1211: Shell shock! 20/9/00

2010-06-16T06:18:00.000-07:00

The psychopathic boy genius has returned to 2000ad and boy has he grown up!

As you are all aware events in Dredds world run simultaneously with ours. When it is a new year here it’s a new year in Dredds world. When we last saw Pj maybe in 1993 he had just turned sixteen as Dredd caught him and threw him back into a cube. Flash-forward to now and he is in his mid twenties and using the chaos left over from the second robot war has escaped yet again. By the time the Judges worked out that he was gone he was on the first plane to banana city.

This had the feel of being Pjs last hurrah having finally escaped the judges with a new identity and a pacemaker (He cut his own heart out to fool the judges into thinking he was dead.

Luckily this was not the last we saw of Pj….He would be back….

This prog closes up all the current stories and clears the slate for a new line up but more on that next slog….

Next prog slog: Theres nothing like a relaunch prog....but theres a generation killer on the loose

1209 Thrill power overload 6/9/00

2010-06-15T05:40:00.000-07:00

Very short entry today as I am still ill but I promised to be back on track and I never break my promises ever…..

Frazer Irving contributes this progs stunning cover which kind of gives away the ending to the Future shock it is from. Now in the past (and in the future you have been warned gang) I have always moaned about covers that give away the plot of a story. But there is something so awesome about this cover that I genuinely cannot moan about this one. Okay I tell a lie that is a terrible pun in the circle at the bottom….

Inside Ramone Dexter is busy talking to a shrink to unload all his problems. The discussion then takes a turn and turns into the origin of how sinister and Dexter first became gun sharks. Finnegan was a street punk who met Dexter in an earlier flashback story where Dexter saved his brothers life. To repay him he said that if Dexter ever needed a gun shark come to him. In this story Dexter takes him up on that when his father is killed by a gang boss. He is of course horrified to learn that Sinister is not a gun shark at all and he even barely remembers making that promise….

This is one of those rare Sinister/Dexter stories that genuinely goes into the minds of the two characters instead of relying on bang, bang, shooty plots….sure there is still some of that but the much needed background on the two characters is a rare treat….

One final note during my flu influenced last slog entry I accidently said that Steve Moore was responsible for road kill. As pointed out in the comments It was of course Dan Abnett who wrote this story. That was the first ever correction on this slog. Let’s hope it’s the last….

Next prog slog: That Maybe boy is back and he is causing problems for Judge Dredd...

Still ill

2010-06-14T09:43:00.001-07:00

The slog will return tomorrow I promise!

The first ever Dead'll do competition!

2010-06-09T06:10:00.000-07:00

Yesh folks I've got some doubler 2000ad gns to give away and I thought it would be cool to give them to actual fans...

but I didn't want to make it too easy....

so here is the first ever dead'll do (I have too many doubler gns!) competition.

To enter all you need to do is either in the comments section of this post or on the link at the end of this post Tell me in 100 words or more your favourite moment of 2000ad or the meg from the period of time covered in this slog!

you have until AUGUST 1ST to enter this competition

good luck there are some fantastic gns that I am giving away!

http://www.2000adonline.com/forum/index.php/topic,28763.0.html

1208: kiss my butt! 30/8/00

2010-06-09T05:41:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the disappearance. Been feeling ill the past few days and needed a serious rest. But I'm back now and got some major news in the next post above this. So enjoy this slice of nostalgia and then look above for the first ever Dead'll do competition...

So yeah mean machine is back in the house and he is not alone...

Turned out quite nice again features several short stories set in the quite nice bar which tie up together...what are these stories?

So while escaping from Dredd, Mean runs into Walter and Mrs. Gunderson who are in the bar at the same time as one of Mrs G’s judge deaths goes crazy. The bomb goes off flooding the bar and killing both urban terror and randy (the judge death impersonator) die from the flooding.

If this sounds chaotic it truly is….

Elsewhere Steve moores return to 2000ad continues with a future shock (unmemorable apart from the first 2000ad work of boo cook) and a future shock expanded to several parts called road kill.

Road kill is about a man called Guy Newman whose new fully automated car tries to kill him….

If this was a single future shock I think I may have enjoyed it but as a multi part story this truly smells of filler and not very good filler either.

Yeah short entry today, sorry about that I’m still recovering from rain induced flu and my head is feeling a wee bit light as I type this.

Don’t forget the competition folks it’s a good one!

Next prog slog: Frazer Irving returns with a future shocked cover!

1205: Squids in 9/8/00

2010-06-01T07:04:00.000-07:00

You would think a story which involves a double dealing backstabbing crime lord and his attempts to rule all crime in a futuristic city would be interesting wouldn't you?

Unfortunately it really isn't and it sadly is another lemon in Steve Moore’s 2000ad comeback (believe me there’s a fair number of them coming up....)

It is truly sad in Red fangs case. Some of the characters are genuinely interesting and could have worked in stories of their own but they are truly wasted in this story...

As Grant Goggans points out though there is a truly nice table in the story...

The fact that I am talking about another bloggers thoughts on a piece of furniture kind of shows you how much I felt about this story...

Elsewhere inside the prog Steve Moore writes a genuinely cool future shock which involves Jesus crashing onto an alien planet and attempting to get the aliens (which look like the monkeys from 2001....) to be more civilised. There is more to it than that but it’s just too funny to spoil....

The big news on this future shock is a genuine comic superstar artist made his first appearance in the prog with this story and that superstar is the fantastic Frazer Irving...

Just check out his art...

It was clear Dig-L knew he had found talent as he commissioned Frazer to do a second future shock (and a cover for the story, A rarity in the past few years) but more on that next slog.

Next prog slog: Insanity in the quite nice bar and another Steve Moore car crash (literally)

David reads comics: Making fun of a truly shit comic from amerika...

2010-05-29T04:52:00.000-07:00

So yeah justice league: the rise of arsenal was goddawful this week. in honour of it I decided to have a laugh at its most bizarre scene. Roy shot up full of heronin beats several drug dealers to death with a dead cat...I kid you not...in the original comic Batman tells him he needs to stop this...Me being a sadistic bastard felt the dialogue needed punching up a bit...

and hey if you want to do your own version of this heres a blank page go nuts and put links in the comments....

Monday: your regular dose of prog slog

Special thanks to krpykrwly from the panels on pages forum for the blank bubble version of this insane page....

1202: Gator bait: 19/7/00

2010-05-27T06:59:00.000-07:00

In Feeding Frenzy Sinister/Dexter face a blast from the past as their attempts to protect Billi octavo from a mysterious beastie conclude. Billie has moved into downlode to become the boy’s tech person replacing the sadly dead nervous rex. She has been having some problems moving into her new home thanks to a mysterious creature which has been munching on anyone who has came to her door. Turned out said creature was the robotic crocodile from the gun shark vacation story from a few years back and it was continuing its programming of protecting anyone with the Octavo name.

So yeah another Sinister/dexter story over and done with….

I almost killed myself laughing when I first read this page. I know I ragged on this strip earlier for the steriotyping in the mangapore story but this page killed me...

So thats it for a pretty short entry today. I'll leave you with this awesome image of the Irregulars charging into action from Nikolai dante!

Next prog slog: The proper return of future shocks introducing a very talented artist indeed...

1201: Target Dante: 12/7/00

2010-05-26T06:34:00.000-07:00

Missionary man returns to the prog as does Jesus Redondo. Redondo is another one of the "guys from the early days" who returned during this period of the slog. He did a lot of early work but is possibly best remembered as the artist on the one Nemesis storyline that never got reprinted until recently.

Well here he is drawing the aftermath of Preacher Cains search for the Promised Land. While the survivors reached the Promised Land. Cain himself turned round and decided to walk off into the sunset. This story shows what happened next. Cain is dying from severe radiation poisoning when he is attacked by muties. He is saved from this by a mysterious army base and err...I don't know what happened next as I'm missing two issues so if anyone can fill me in on the comments I will be very happy.

This was Preacher Cains last story in the prog. After this he appeared in a one off in a Meg issue that will not be covered here and then in one final story called place of the dead which will be covered here.

Heres some Redondo art...

Meanwhile Nikolai Dantes Tsar Wars continue as Dante and Jena are destined to face each other on the battle field but this issue deals with one of the red shirt irregulars going nuts and a sniper who turned out to a young kid so Dante spared him. As far as I know this character never reappeared. I wonder if he showed up in the mysterious fifth volume of tsar wars that never happened...

more on that another day....

Next prog slog: Sinister/Dexter faces the mysterious beast of bopota wharf...

1200: There's nothing quite like a relaunch issue...5/7/00

2010-05-25T06:27:00.000-07:00

Unless of course it’s this relaunch issue!

New editor! New owners! New cover logo! New stories!

Pretty much a new beginning for 2000ad!

Inside this issue are new stories for sinister/Dexter, Nikolai Dante and judge Dread. Alongside them is new story Red fang. I shall go into more detail on each of those in the next few slog entries but for now I shall talk about the Dredd story

In SABS a group of citizens who don't like being watched by surveillance cameras decided to band together to destroy all forms of surveillance. They go on night runs using sky surfing gear and call themselves the surveillance action brigade or SABS. Tonight’s run is complicated by the fact that one of the members brings her baby on the run after the babysitting service lets her down.

In a world where security cameras are all over the place I can sympathise with these people although bringing a child on a run this dangerous is something I can’t sympathise with…

Seriously….

The art is by the glorious Cam Kennedy and its fantastic….

Finally another link to Grant Goggans thrill powered Thursday (seriously he should start paying me for free advertising LOL_) in his entry for prog 1200 he included some interesting background info on the run up to the new owners taking over so here it is…

http://thrillpoweredthursday.blogspot.com/2009_02_01_archive.html

Next prog slog: Missionary man returns and Dante faces love on the battlefield in the second salvo of Tsar Wars

Forgive the lack of slog today....

2010-05-24T05:48:00.001-07:00

I stayed up all night to watch the final ever episode of lost....I'm bloody tired

But I gotta ask gang was I the only one expecting them all to turn to the camera begin to clap and say well done?

1199: The final conflict: 28/6/00

2010-05-22T06:03:00.000-07:00

A note before we begin this is the second of two entrys today due to my laziness...

I'll give them points for having Slaine cut the old logo in two....

In sinister/Dexter the long healing period after Eurocrash continues as the duos cop friend Rocky Rhodes (groan punny name alert!) who lost his legs and used his retirement fund to get some robotic ones buys the bar none (groan) which used to be the duos favourite bar. He also hires Wendy go (groan) and of course gets into trouble right away. He wants his new bar to be a violence free bar and uses some clever talking to get out of his problems....

Meanwhile at the back of the prog is the elephant in the room. One I have been dreading talking about since deciding to keep the slog going (not true theres something much, much worse coming in 102 progs time....)

So yeah I could say the art was terrible and I could say this is not the strongest slaine story ever but to tell the truth Grant Goggans pretty much says all I could have said here....

http://thrillpoweredthursday.blogspot.com/2009/01/84-commonwealth-that-wasnt-secret.html

SO heres the best bit about the secret commonwealth at the corner of this page....

So that’s it the end of both David bishop and Egmont Fleetways time with 2000ad. David doesn’t completely disappear he returns as both a freelance writer of some bad strips such as dead man walking and that stupid one off with the robots in the Meg which I can’t remember the name of and more importantly the work of god known as THRILL POWER OVERLOAD. I will of course cover all of this as I get to it. Egmont fleetway is gone for good though. The droids continue to work there for a few weeks as the new overlords prepare oxford for its new nerve centre but apart from that adios Egmont Fleet way!

I wanted to cover this period even though I didn’t get it originally to cover these last few issues before I returned to the fold. Now that the wilderness years are over its time for me to begin the new slog altogether….

Next prog slog: David pages Prog and Meg slog begins properly as rebellion hits 2000AD!

The Rebellion LOOMS…

1196: Fungus attack: 7/6/00

2010-05-22T05:18:00.001-07:00

A note before we begin there will be two entries today due to my laziness yesterday of not putting up an entry....

Stark is kind of a fun guy...oh sod off the gags in the actual episode!

So yeah here we are on the final episode of the Judge Dredd story Judge Dredd and the Shirley temple of Doom. I explained the main plot of it in my last entry so let's dig into the big problem I have with this story....

Judge stark was one of Judge Dredds group of rookies who went hunting for those dune sharks during the hunting party storyline. After that he went back to Brit-cit (England in Dredds future you should see Scotland….brrr and I thought it was a pit today…) He recently (at this point in the slog) returned to help Dredd during Nero Narcos second robot war.

Now he is back in the Meg working on an undercover mission to expose some loan sharks and unfortunately gets infected with Grubbs disease. A disgusting and horrifying future illness which as you has seen on the cover covers you in mushrooms. It also drives you insane before you die releasing spores which infect anyone around you. Not a happy way to die unfortunately….

This is the problem I have with this story. The casual way John Wagner kills off Stark especially after his role in doomsday. John also did something similar to Judge Castillo in a megazine story called Lawcon round about this time although it was a much more pointless death then as Castillo at that point was a major recurring Judge in the Megazine….

Not that my gripe affects the story in anyway it’s a damn good story and the artwork by Americas favourite Jock is utterly fantastic (Am I right in thinking this is some of his early work?)

Meanwhile elsewhere in the prog the strontium dog is back and his quest to find his father the mutant hating Nelson bunker kreelman continues after a few weeks absence from the prog.

Back in 1999, the Showtime cable network was developing TV series based on Strontium Dog and Paul Neal's Outlaw (remember that stinker gang? How that got a shot at a possible TV show is beyond me….). They came to nothing, but Wagner had assembled a pilot treatment and series bible for the proposed series, and, not wanting to waste a good thing, agreed that the time was right to bring Alpha back to action. Thus we got this storyline!

Nothing much else to say about this one other than Carlos Ezquerra (is it just me or does he look like a Spanish doc brown from back to the future with a moustache?) art is as usual fantastic! Err don't let the lopsided scan fool you otherwise....

Next prog slog: Slaine the secret commonwealth ends and Downlode faces a new beginning....

Four progs til the rebellion....

David reads comics: A moment of silence please

2010-05-20T04:51:00.000-07:00

Warning spoilers for the final episode of Nikolai dante below

In place of the weekly look at my comics (which aside from tooth was both quiet and unremarkable) I have to talk about Nikolai dantes final episode of the heroes be damned story...

Not since the death of the going merry in one piece have I cried man tears for something that isn't even real...

Goodbye crest may you rest in peace you magnificent computer you!

I promised myself I wouldn't cry...

David page's ant wars journal of Insanity Day 2

2010-05-20T04:48:00.001-07:00

The ants have gotten into my filing cabinet....I am seriously losing this war against them....god knows if they get into the extreme edition which reprinted ant wars...if that happens I am screwed

Prog 1194: Caught short 24/5/00

2010-05-19T05:47:00.000-07:00

I really can't say much more of this cover other than its Dredd on the crapper! Bwah-ha-ha!

So yeah last Slog post I said I would look at Slaine: the secret commonwealth. But then I remembered my personal art god Chris Weston had drawn the Dredd in this episode and thought “screw that!” so now you get my rambling on how awesome this Chris Weston drawn story is for this entry. But first that editorial flux I hinted at in my first entry...

David Bishop originally planned to leave 2000ad with prog 2000 and thus didn’t plan for the fifth slot in the prog. So when he was asked to stay on for another few months while Egmont Fleetway looked for a successor he had to hastily fill in that fifth slot. First it was Badlands the short cowboys and dinosaurs story. Then it was Double missionary man for a few weeks. Then double sinister Dexter, a feature length opening to world of warcrap….err I mean tales of telguuth and for the last few progs….

Due to this ongoing editorial flux there are two episodes of Judge Dredd in this issue. At the back of the issue is part two of Judge Dredd and the Shirley temple of doom in which Judge Stark a judge who appeared in two previous mega-epics investigates a protection Racket in Shirley temple block and gets more than he bargained for. More on this story next slog.

The Dredd story at the front of the prog however is what I’m going to talk about today. Rest stop features a small gang of perps planning a robbery in sharpiros house of hotties. What they don’t bargain for is Mega city ones top cop popping in during his patrol to….well you’ve seen the cover right?

The perps of course freak out thinking that Dredd is here to arrest them and decide to get the drop on him while he is doing his business. The judge of course is ready for them after hearing the perps shooting one of their own guys who get cold feet after the Judge appears.

This story teaches us that you really, really should not mess with Judge Dredd. He has proved that he is still dangerous while having a bath in an older story and does the same here when he is using the public facilities.

Of course as mentioned at the beginning of this entry Chris Weston is the art droid on this story and this may be the inner Weston fan boy in me but my god I love his art. One of my dreams in life is to meet Mrs Smith and Weston and shake both of their hands then thank them as killing time has pretty much influenced my own writing style.

Well that’s enough for this slog

Tomorrow I shall be putting up my weekly comics list and commenting on them. But come back on Friday….

Next prog slog: Johnny Alpha returns and a Judge Falls in Judge Dredd!

Six progs to the Rebellion

prog 1191: Scales of justice: 3/5/00

2010-05-18T07:14:00.000-07:00

I think he means it don't you readers?

In slow crime day the Judges are getting a bit restless as Mega city one for once is not getting attacked by zombies or Robots or even Robot zombies. Sadly for a Mr. Punk punkley (yeah that’s his name) the judges spot him carrying some fish food and decide to make him their bitch for the day. Poor punkley gets put through the wringer in this story as his home is trashed and one judge even goes as far as to suggest a cavity search. By the time the story ends the bored judges get a call about a fire fight in the city and rush off leaving Dredd to actually apologise to punkley giving him a number to call to fix the mess the judges made and a ticket to the black museum in compensation. The last image of poor Punkley is sad, an innocent citizen sitting in the rubble of his own home because some bored Judges investigated “a hunch”

Item: Steve Moore returns to the prog this issue writing a new series of one offs called tales of telguuth. Steve as Tharg (who is still David bishop at this point despite giving notice on the prog that was Pauls last entry) helpfully points out in this weeks nerve centre wrote the first ever future shock and wrote an early Dan dare adventure. Telguuth was a very weird sword and sorcery Anthology story apparently set on the same planet. I personally found this hard to believe as the planet looked different from episode to episode. What didn’t change from episode to episode was the basic plot. Sorcerers conspire with dozens of powerful demons and were invariably hoist on their own petard after five or fifteen pages Wash, rinse repeat. Sure you may get the odd story about some hero on a quest that encounters a demon and gets hoist on his own petard (ahem) but it was pretty much the same every damn week.

About a year or two after this first episode of telguuth I gave a couple of doublers of 2000ad issues (including this one) to an American friend of mine who was interested in reading this “insane comic that you keep talking about” He liked Dante, He loved Dredd but when it came to Telguuth he had a very funny name for it that I almost named this entry after it but decided not to for taste reasons…..

What was that name I hear you ask?

WORLD OF WARCRAP

Next prog slog: Groan its time to talk about the secret commonwealth...

9 progs to Rebellion

Prog 1190 Triumph and tragedy for Nikolai Dante:26/4/00

2010-05-17T05:11:00.000-07:00

Man a time when the matrix was still pretty fresh and it hadn’t suffered the matrix reloaded syndrome yet. Its weird blogging about stuff that happened ten years ago sometimes…..

This issue heralds the triumphant return of Thargs future shocks….err sort of space dust doesn’t actually have the banner of Thargs future shocks but it’s pretty much a return to those kind of stories after the dour vector 13 which seemed to infect the middle half of the 90s.

So anyway space dust is a rather insane one off which has the earth bombarded with bizarre space dust (well the clues in the titles friends!) after a meteor is destroyed over the earths atmosphere. The effects of the dust turn the world into one large hippy commune for a few days until it wears off and everyone returns to normal. Blaming one another for using the dust as some kind of chemical agent the world ends up beginning world war 3 and then the aliens show up to fleece the planet of everything they’ve got.

It’s a fun little one off which was according to Grant Goggans Thrill power Thursday site was written by a regular at alt.comics.2000ad (which I think was the precursor of the current message boards which exist today) It’s a shame Andrew Ness never wrote anything else (to my knowledge anyway feel free to challenge me on this commenters!) I think from the strength of this story alone he had potential. Sikus art (which usually bugs me) is quite good in this too.

Meanwhile Mother Russia begins to bleed as the epic Tsar Wars reaches the end of its first act. Nikolai is now fighting on the front lines of the war alongside his new regiment nicknamed the RUDINSHTEIN IRREGULARS. In this first story the Irregulars and Dante go on a treacherous mission to destroy the tsar’s conqueror cannons. One of the most dangerous weapons the tsar has. Dante hears that Ingrid Wagner (The Romanov spy Dante himself had created and who was partially responsible for the war starting) is being held in the same fortress as the cannons And breaks off the mission in an attempt to save her. The mission is a success and Ingrid and the irregulars return victoriously.

But there is no happy ending in this story as the guilt Ingrid feels is too much….

and on that slight downer of a note the slog ends for today....

Next prog slog: The rather unfortunate nickname an american friend of mine had for Steve Moores Tales of Telguuth....

10 Progs till the rebellion begins....

David page's ant wars journal of Insanity Day 1

2010-05-17T05:02:00.000-07:00

As I type this I am being besieged by Ants….I hate ants….ants suck hard. They crawl up your bed and make you feel unsanitary and it sickens me…

I have no idea how the hell they get into my house but believe me I have begun fighting back….

Thus begins the David page Ant wars journal of insanity. A semi regular feature as long as the wee bastards continue to attack….

(Why ant wars 3 I bet you’re asking? Megazine readers know the answer to that but I can’t possibly give it away here…..)

Normal slog service resumed after this....

Prog 1189: Twisted firestarter!

2010-05-15T04:04:00.001-07:00

In Judge Dredd: Pyrokinetics we are introduced to psi division auxiliary fire starter Juliet November. She can create fires by using the power of her mind; sadly she is quite frankly kind of useless at her job due to serious stress issues. Her job was to make sure the identity of a justice department snitch inside a major meeting of gang bosses was kept quiet by burning the information which gives him away. It goes very wrong very fast.
Juliet was in my opinion a very fun character who could have been a pretty interesting running Dredd character. Unfortunately Alan Grant got his hands on her and pretty much destroyed the character in a later story. But that’s an entry for another day. Also for an entry another day but I cannot gush enough about how much I love Arthur Ransons gorgous art....

Item: Thanks to the uncertainty of the editorial staff at the time (which I shall cover next week….) there have been double episodes of certain strips since prog 2000, in this issue the double episode slot is given to sinister Dexter.
Downlodes deadliest duo returns for the first in a run of Euro crash epilogues. In this story they are on a mission to mangapore to wipe out the mangapore Yakuza boss who started the events in eurocrash which caused the death of Demi octavo and half of the series supporting cast.

So yeah if you thought the bad puns and stereotypes would be left behind at downlode just for this story then part one makes sure that you are very stupid to even think that. We have ninjas, Yakuza, rock gardens and a shape shifting robot that looks like it should be in a bad Hentai film with tentacles! (Now there’s a horrifying image for you all!) So yeah business as usual for Sinister Dexter.

Next prog slog: The return (without the name) of a 2000ad staple and a shocking end to the first salvo of The Romanovs war against the Tsar

Welcome To the prog slog 2.0

2010-05-14T06:20:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!

Climb on board the good train Corlioanus and buckle up as it’s gonna be a heck of a ride!

My name is David and I shall be your conductor as we continue the Journey begun by Paul Rainey (poor guy thrill power overload got to him in the end….nah I kid Paul!) to read every single Prog and Meg published between the space year 2000 and the present day.

So ground rules for this Journey, Progs and Megs will only be covered as long as I have the originals in my vast filing cabinet of doom. Several graphic novels will also be covered as long as I also have the originals. I will also cover background details on various thrills and name check the original source of info if needs be. Also I will be scanning some pictures so expect plenty of spoilers from stories from ten years ago…

I also hope you guys continue to comment as you did with Paul the comments section were usually as fun as the original blog itself and that is a tradition I hope we can keep up on this trip

Also final rule for our trip….please folks under no circumstances should you conduct a séance on the train….and if we happen to crash please don’t split up….seriously bad idea….

So yeah enjoy yourselves and remember Paul’s journey may have ended but the slog never ends!

and yeah hopefully this isn't a visual metaphor....

GERONIMO!!!!

2000ad art contest:page 50: David does killing time

2010-05-13T08:29:00.000-07:00

Every month The 2000ad forums have an art contest and despite my shit art and zero chance of winning I still try to enter it every month.

This month we were to take a specific page of a 2000ad story and do our own version of it. I have taken the bait and thus bring you page 50 of killing time. And in a bit of odd irony its a favourite page of mine.

Here is the original as done by the master Chris "draws fucked up shit with his eyes closed" Weston

And heres my slightly crap effort...

Miss deeds

2010-05-12T05:08:00.000-07:00

Miss Deeds

A character from Daark quest, A story which I wrote when I was at school and I periodically steal from for Ideas....

Changes are afoot

2010-04-27T08:15:00.001-07:00

stay tuned....

Thrill power overdose one: Canon fodder

2009-05-27T03:28:00.000-07:00

Mark Millar born in Coatbridge, Scotland…..

His best known works include: The Authority, Wanted, and Civil War. But everyone had to start somewhere and he started in 2000ad (okay he did a few independent projects before that but this is a 2000ad based column and I focus on that thank you very much.)

He like many writers started out on what are pretty much the tryouts for writing in 2000ad called thargs future shocks. In my opinion the best of his was "Nightmare On Ses*me Street " after this he created silo a short horror series which managed to rip off two different films and yet was still pretty good. He then relented robot hunter but that never really happened in my revised history of 2000ad so we shall skip that.

In 1993, Millar, Grant Morrison and John Smith created a controversial eight-week run on 2000 AD called The Summer Offensive. It was during this run that Millar and Morrison wrote their first major story together, the highly controversial strip Big Dave. This story is wrong on so many levels and deserves a column on it alone.

Now we skip to the end of 1993 as we look in on today’s subject. He is the only surviving member of the priest patrol. He is canon fodder!

Our story begins at the end of the story with a scary looking bloke in fetish gear soundly thrashing our hero. We do not know much of what has happened aside from the canons rather cryptic words

After this flash-forward we go back to the beginning as Dr Watson (yes that one) is called in by the police to investigate a gay suicide pact the victims….

Yeah this story is gonna piss off a lot of fans of Conan Doyle’s fictional detective. Which leads into plot hole one. Holmes, Moriarty, Watson, lestrade and Mycroft are all fictional characters how the hell can they be around? This is not meant to be a League of extraordinary gentlemenesque story this is supposed to be set in the future…..

Back to the story and we meet the good canon for the first time and he is just doing his thing…..

The canon getting away from the scene is harassed by the paparazzo and just brushes them aside. He then gets a call from Watson

Part 2 begins with an explanation of what happened. In the glorious far off space year of 2004. Judgement day happened, all the worlds dead risen hoping to be taken to their final reward but it was not to be for god never showed up. Pissed off at this Holmes and Moriarty committed suicide to go to heaven and kill god. This is of course plot hole 2 as no one can truly die in this story and they would certainly not go to heaven if they tanned in their wrists.

Watson is invited back to priest patrol hq and meets the canon and his housekeeper Sadie. It is revealed in a caption that there were once four priests who shocked and horrified at the dead sticking around after the rapture decided to form their own task force. The canon is the only one left the others disappearing after a battle with the anabolic atheists. We find out the whole story of this battle in the sequel.

Another thing explored a bit more in the sequel is the unspoken love between the canon and his housekeeper. Enjoy it folks this is all the character development the good canon gets in this entire story!

The canon decides to go recruit someone who claims to be Mycroft. Err anyone who has read a book can tell you that Mycroft is not a skinny Hannibal lector wannabe!

Part 3 begins with more pipes being laid by Watson who appears to be in purgatory now writing down the events of this story. He explains a bit more about the state of the world after judgement day and how it pissed off Holmes and Moriarty….

The scene changes to Holmes shooting an angel just for laughs and the two explaining their plan. Holmes is badly written in this entire story you got to wonder what he and the other Conan Doyle characters are doing in this story. This isn’t supposed to be some kind of League of extraordinary gentlemen type story. Which makes the appearance of the Conan Doyle characters even more odder….

Meanwhile the canon busts into some kind of weird festistic club. Inside the cellar is a place where Mycroft did research into opening a gate to hell. They walk through the door and end up in hell which is strangely empty….

Part four reveals the reason for that…..

Holmes and Moriarty reach heaven only to find the pearly gates have been broken into and the place itself in a right state of decay. Angels are being tortured by inhuman creatures and it is quite clear that the men who came to kill god are a little bit late to the party.

And who killed god?

Yep its that scary looking bloke in fetish gear from the beginning of the story and he reveals himself as Lucifer himself. And what did he do to the lord?

Phallic imagery overload!

Meanwhile in the abandoned hell the canon finds Judas Iscariot and gets the low-down on what happened.

After this bombshell the canon and his two cannon fodder friends make it to heaven and witness what Lucifer and his chums have done to Holmes and Mycroft

They are then attacked Watson is dragged under by demons, Mycroft is eaten alive by rats and the canon himself loses an arm to the demons.

The next part is one long fight as we go back to the beginning of the story and witness the canon getting his arse kicked by Lucifer.

Just as Lucifer was ready to pluck the canons eyes out a blast of light fries all of Lucifer’s demon army and suddenly Deity ex machina happens as god is revealed to be harder to kill than chuck Norris….

God is rightly pissed off at the cheek of what Lucifer did and he kills the first of the fallen once and for all.

He turns his anger on the canon and threatens to wipe out humanity as a failed experiment but some quick thinking on the part of the canon saves the day!

The epilogue reveals that Watson was brought back alongside some of the greatest minds both alive and dead to work on the riddle asked by the canon. Watson’s job was to catalogue every single soul who has walked on the earth and what we read was one of his journals.

As for the canon…..

Next time dark matters as the canon faces off against evil creatures while a new writer writing the series upsets mark Millar!

This ones for you jaydee.....

2009-03-13T04:58:00.000-07:00

Hes in the same pose as Hal jordans figure awesomesauce!

With full apologies to carlos.....

2009-03-10T06:56:00.000-07:00

Well bugger me!!!

2009-03-02T07:24:00.000-08:00

The uk reprints are going to do final crisis after all!

going by that list I am guessing that alongside the seven issues we'll get submit beyond and the already announced jla prologue as well

the iscariot....

2009-02-05T03:33:00.000-08:00

Really admires his wasting skin chandelier

superboy prime hates.....

2009-02-02T06:26:00.000-08:00

Titan ruining dc collector editions.....

Take that titan

The bell tolls for whom?!? in which David hammers in the nails of titans dc reprint coffin

2009-02-01T03:32:00.001-08:00

I believe that the UK reprints of Both batman and superman are coming to an untimely end soon....

Its kind of tragic to think that way but Titan have had it coming to them for a good while now. Seriously a freaking monkey could run a reprint better than Titan could. From the bizarre choice of printing up to date stories (in the case of several such as all star goddamn batman, all star superman and the superman confidential kryptonite story a little too up to date)

I mean look at the cover above we are on part three of R.I.P part three!!!!

incidentally its the contents of this issues batman legends which has convinced me that the comic is ending soon. Last issue we were promised part three of R.I.P and parts 1 of both the R.I.P robin tie in and the heart of hush storyline (see too soon) However that particular story never appeared this issue and instead we got both parts of the robin story instead.And next issue has two parts of r.i.p and the jla final crisis tie in for no reason whatsoever (nail)

Superman legends seems to be having a story clear out in their next issue out in February (yes titan went to a bi monthly schedule with their two books more on that nail in a moment) With the end of superman and the legion of superheroes and what I am guessing are the two concluding parts of the third kryptonian (which makes bugger all sense in the context of superman legends as the actual story in which the auctioneer showed up was never reprinted in its pages another nail folks)

As mentioned above titan went to a bi monthly schedule with their two titles slowing things down to a grinding halt. Now call me insane but I do believe that flooding the shops with four reprint titles in secession is not the greatest idea in the world. First was batman, then superman followed then justice league (which I will talk about in a future post ohhh boy did that title have problems of its own) and finally dc comics presents....

Justice league and dc comics presents were cancelled fairly quickly but both batman and superman managed to hang on despite a minor controversy involving Titan stupidly putting goddamn batman (and the general violence)into what they were marketing as a kids comic (I know if a Jli era bwah-ha-ha was needed it would be now right?)

So all we can pray as the nails are finally hammered into titans bloated coffin is that Panini buy back the license and we get a good batman comic like the old days...

Special thanks to the panini forums cover image database for the covers

It is returned

2009-02-01T02:57:00.000-08:00

Welcome to dead'll do a comic blog with a difference

what's that difference?

Well its done by an insane scotsman for a start

heh I kid really

I will be focusing on the uk comic scene mostly with the odd plunge into the murky world of the usas big two