Tuesday 28 December 2010

From the guy who ruined 2000ad!!!

Coming this Monday...

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

Wednesday 24 November 2010

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



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...

Wednesday 4 August 2010

1220 Rocket Dan! 22/11/00



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

Monday 2 August 2010

1216: Drop dead Gorgous 25/10/00



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)

Saturday 31 July 2010

No slog today

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

Saturday 24 July 2010

In orbit every saturday

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



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!

Saturday 17 July 2010

1214: Chainsaw biker 11/10/00



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...

Saturday 10 July 2010

1213: From russia with Lurve 4/10/00

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…

Monday 5 July 2010

1212: Smoking Joe: 27/9/00

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!

Wednesday 16 June 2010

1211: Shell shock! 20/9/00



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

Tuesday 15 June 2010

1209 Thrill power overload 6/9/00

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...

Monday 14 June 2010

Wednesday 9 June 2010

The first ever Dead'll do competition!

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

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!

Tuesday 1 June 2010

1205: Squids in 9/8/00



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)

Saturday 29 May 2010

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



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....

Thursday 27 May 2010

1202: Gator bait: 19/7/00



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...

Wednesday 26 May 2010

1201: Target Dante: 12/7/00



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...

Tuesday 25 May 2010

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



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

Monday 24 May 2010

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?

Saturday 22 May 2010

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....

Thursday 20 May 2010

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...