Meg slog 2o1: Return of the writer!

Back by popular demand the text entries and let us start with the completely new beginning of the megazine. A new renumbering, a new page size and a whole page size and that are just the beginning of the changes. The reprint has been branded together as 2000ad gold and through the coming months, we would get classics such as fiends of the eastern front, Harry 20 on the high rock and err slaine time killer…

What makes this period in the reprinting of strips more interesting is the reprinting of battle classics. Darkies Mob is reprinted and so is the classic Charlies war but more on those in a future entry.

As for the new strips inside this issue, we have two dredd stories. Phartz, which is one huge poot, joke gone horribly awry by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra. And an apocalypse war anniversary tale by Gordon Rennie, which ends up being better than the John Wagner strip…seriously.

There is Family a strip, which is written by the Nikolai Dante team. But more on that in a future entry and finally there is a one off story called the Kleggs which is a comedy strip featuring the alien race once hired by crazy judge cal during the day the law died storyline. It is….not my cup of synthe tea I am afraid. It is not a daily hate crime but I still am not a fan of it.

Devlin Waugh begins a new story with a text feature, which explains the long torturous life, the strip has had. More on this story in a future entry although I would be remiss not to mention that the supposedly reprint free 201 has an old Waugh text strip inside its pages…perhaps the no reprint rule didn’t count for text stories? Moreover, speaking of text we get a double shot of thrill power overload this time round including a special episode, which never became part of the eventual book. It focuses on original IPC publisher John Sanders and is well worth a read.

Well that is the first written slog in a long time. Do not get used to the length they all won’t be this long…see you next time as some alien bastards hit the big meg…

Thrill power overdose 2: KILLING TIME

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

1251: Hot Damn!

I am quite proud of this one...

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

1243: Fear the vampire king!

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!

Prog 1194: Caught short 24/5/00

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