Forgive the lack of slog today....

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

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

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

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

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

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

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