Damn, that cover’s a difficult one to assess. It’s certainly not what I expected our eventual Slaine cover to be – in my head I’d imagined some action-packed monstrosity of art too good to be true, whereas this is arguably a little dull looking, particularly with the unusual choice of colours. Most oddly of all for me is that Sinead’s profile combined with these colours actually makes the cover look startlingly similar to a Native American themed series of paintings I did back in high school, indeed based on how they would be portrayed on shields and cloths, etc.; though a few people on 2000AD’s forums also pointed out the resemblance of Sinead to the Queen as she appears on stamps and coins, not the last we’ll be seeing of her in this Prog if you can believe it. Either way, a strange cover. Not as exciting as what’s inside, but I do quite like it and think that’s it quite a memorable little thing.
Over on 2000AD Covers Uncovered there’s a brilliant entry for this really worth checking out. There’s only one other idea that Davis had in mind for the cover, but the highlight of the post for me is seeing a couple of his roughs, particularly that of the two page spread in Prog 1877 that I loved so much. What I found really great about that was seeing his idea for the placement of lettering which, if you compare to the finished spread in part four of the story, you’ll see Elle De Ville has ignored, placing it all along the bottom, which I mentioned in my review at the time as letting us enjoy the art in its full glory. Was quite surprised to see that he paints the roughs themselves too. It’s not something I paid any thought to admittedly, but most artists just work it out by pencil first, don’t they? Must cost the guy a fortune in paints if you take into consideration that he probably makes several variations of those.
Ach, it’s a shame that this Judge Dredd tale is only going to be four episodes in length. Such quality writing from Wagner, though I suppose that’s always to be expected when it’s Dredd he’s penning. This week isn’t much cheerier than the last, though still incredibly tense in tone. Loved seeing Dredd making his way through Zane’s apartment – thought the baby itself had been killed too when we came to that panel, but thankfully there’s a small amount of mercy given there. Not sure what could happen in the next two parts of the story but I suspect it will be ending with as many flowers and daisies as Mega City Confidential did.
Loving John McCrea’s artwork on this for reasons that I briefly discussed last week. The interesting thing that came to my attention about his line work is that most of it – hell, most of everything – is done in the inking stage, as is best illustrated in this photograph he posted on his Twitter feed of his pencils for a page in the third episode of the story. Quite interesting to see just how much he leaves out, yet how brilliant the final pages are. Big thumbs up to colourist Chris Blythe who I somehow neglected to mention last week. As usual, he does bloody tremendous work.
First of two new series’ filling in the space left by Sinister Dexter and Jaegir is John Smith’s Indigo Prime, which has everything from crucifixion and a ghost hovering over a bed, to a stuffed version of our queen in a Britain ruled by Nazi lizards. In other words: what the fuck did I just read?
Yeah. In my review of Prog 1473, my jumping back on point for the comic, I actually mentioned having read the return of Indigo Prime in a story called Dead Eyes (which Tharg mentions here as being the last time Smith and artist Lee Carter collaborated), and how my dear ol’ father all but squealed in delight to see it, whereas it meant nothing to me. It still doesn’t, as I haven’t bought either in-print collection of that series, though if Wikipedia’s Prog numbers of the original run are correct (also re-learned from here that the revival in Dead Eyes in 2008 was the first Indigo Prime story since 1993, a year after I was born – that’s a long time! (plus: the follow up to Dead Eyes came three years later)), then the recent lots I bought collect them all. Still, probably best that I get myself acquainted with the series quite soon, because I have not a single scooby how these folk operate in their multidimensional policing or what the hell terms like “glancers” and “imagineers” could possibly mean.
That said, if all the weird shit that happens in this Prog is of any indication, then it doesn’t look like Smith cares much for making sense, preferring to throw out wild ideas at every opportunity, which I’m certain will make for one hell of a fun story (Osama Bin Obama pretty much confirmed it), not to mention give Carter the opportunity to go completely nuts with his art. Indeed, his work on Dead Eyes was gorgeous stuff – absolutely packed with detail – and this is too. There’s a few details that seem unimportant, though are very cool (there’s the graffiti of an eye behind Mickey Challis, and a tiny face behind Trixie, as he talks about feeling watched); but the ghost and a face on the large monitor behind Arcana seem to be when you consider the talk of the agency’s HQ being haunted. And I may have accidentally spoiled the reveal of who the “haunter” could be over on the forums, a few people mentioning a “Nihilist”, who I presume is the bad guy? If so, what a fucking great name.
But – gah! I’m going to have to buy the collections of the old and new series, aren’t I? What’s that? I already have?!? Well…shit.
Though Indigo Prime may have fried my mind (in a good way!), we at least have Slaine here to be as simple as its subtitle suggests. All that happens this week is this: Slaine crosses the causeway to Monadh, killing the most part of an army of Slough Thruc’s weird creatures along the way. The writing’s as top notch as ever, one particular highlight being that one of the Drune lords is actually quite clearly Sean Connery in dishguise, what with that schmashing voicesh. So, now that I’ve made that joke , let’s talk about that art, huh?
You know, I was pretty certain that Davis couldn’t possibly trump the beauty found in part four of this story in Prog 1877, which you may recall I named the best of his art I’ve ever seen. I was positive. Well, somehow, this chapter in our tale now ties with it. It was a nice surprise to see another map of the world, this time a closer look at Monadh, but an even bigger surprise to turn the page and find myself looking at an absolute belter of a spread, packed with all sorts of creatures making their way across the causeway. Oh, but then I turned the page again and found a lovely shot of a really pissed off looking Slaine; and a splash page opposite that that’s simply incredible, of our unhappy hero now making his way across the causeway alone, leaving total slaughter in his wake, the sky ahead cleverly imbued with an image of his fury. To finish things off Davis then has four panels up his sleeve – all positioned from the same overhead angle – of the waves clashing against the sides of the causeway as crows high above swarm the two pages as Slaine makes his way safely across for the next chapter.
I’ve quite liked a lot of Davis’ artwork that I’ve seen in the past. It’s not always been perfect, but the first Stone Island series (I can’t remember how good or bad the art may have been on the second), first Ampney Crucis series and some of his stuff on Sinister Dexter was astonishing looking. But has he secretly been waiting for this one job his entire life or something? I’m serious – the guy has poured has heart and soul into this, and I think it’s actually what I’ve been looking forward to the most each week. I try not to spoil other stories but I cannot help but have a look at what madness he’s done this week. It would be a crime to let him amaze us like this and then have another artist take his place for the next series. For god’s sake, Mills, don’t do it! If not for us, then for him. It’d be like giving a child presents then stamping on them in front of him or her, so don’t you do it to the man!
Like my mind was read, the other story filling in for those finished last week is my first Tharg’s 3riller, a story called Colony by “Kek-W” (actually someone by the name of Nigel Long who seems to have been credited for stories long ago and then again fairly recently), with art provided by Vince Locke and colouring by Guy Adams. I’m very intrigued to see what the deal with the space capsule is, and why apparently coming in contact with it has driven at least one character insane. Looks like it’s going to be a Terror Tale-like twist of pure horror, which I wouldn’t mind at all.
The art is pretty good. The only time I can remember seeing Locke’s artwork was for a Dredd story about a serial killer who preyed on sex-meks, but it hadn’t been very amazing there, whereas here it looks pretty nice, especially with Adams’ suitably murky colouring. If I have one complaint, however, it would be the digital addition used to create realistic looking snow, which I found to be a bit of an eyesore against the dominantly normal colouring. Otherwise, it looked great, and I’m looking forward to seeing what happens next, particularly since these 3rillers are only three episodes long, meaning Kek-W / Nigel has only two more episodes to impress us.
Last and, um, least of all I care for is Outlier, which begins to limp to its end. Gotten bored of this by now and have sod all to say for this week’s episode – just hoping that Eglington has some little twist or other planned, anything redeeming in quality, that will at least make its ending good. In my catching up of the Megazine I’ve came across a few stories by Eglington (including a two-part prose tale that I loved) and the thing is, I actually quite liked them. There’s a story in the backlog of Progs that I bought recently called Gunheadz (a 3riller) that’s right up my alley too by the look of it, so reading this saddens me even more, knowing that he’s not a crap writer. Really hope that whatever he comes out with after this series ends will be much higher in quality.
Pick of the week is Slaine for that ridiculously amazing art, though I feel like Indigo Prime will become a quick week-to-week favourite, even if I don’t understand it. It’s just mental, and the little I’ve read of John Smith in the past (including one of my favourite Dredd tales, Jumped) has been brilliant, which I feel like this will be too. ‘Til next time.
Jordan Smith 