Megazine 289 - Armitage Shanked?

[Leigh S]

Not much to commetn on... Nice to see Kev Walker on the Dredd, though sad to see Robbie Morrison on there too, as its a sequel to a previous tael that I found pretyy uninvolving, and doestn seem to fit into current conituity (or previous continutity for that matter!)

The Black Museum is a bit too obvious a riff on Innsmouth.. Frankly, I'm tired of Lovecraft robbing in most of its forms - dont mind if its doing something with it, but here we just get a mostly straight transplant - Does HP get half the writer droids oil?

Interesting Smith second part, though need to read it thoroughly to make sense of some bits - something that might be of interest given Smiths comments re Wagner about the Arkensword interview in 85... I dont think he actually calls RD Lowe Mr. shitface... but maybe thats my reading of it - the full quote:


"A lot of us naturally became very anti-DC Thomson so we joined the NUJ.  We had union membership forms sent to every employee whose address we could get hold of, and we recruited something like 17 members. When this came out there was a meeting of the editorial board, with all the Thomsons there. Mr. Derek and Mr. Brian and Mr Shiteface and all the editors including R.D. Lowe, who was the managing editor of all the comics (beano,Dandy, Hotspur)
someone said, "what are we going to do about the union?". A minor editor was foolish enough to reply, "why dont we just let them join it?"  R. D. Lowe turned red and bellowed : "take-that-man'-s name!"  That's DC Thomsoon.

[radiator]

Armitage Shanked? That has to be one of the best cover straplines ever!

I haven't got this Meg yet, but can anyone tell me which Dredd this one is a sequel to or which villain is returning? Can't think of any candidates off the top of my head.

doestn seem to fit into current conituity (or previous continutity for that matter!)

How come? Thought it was supposed to be set during the Cursed Earth posting?

[Jim_Campbell]

How come? Thought it was supposed to be set during the Cursed Earth posting?

It is.

Cheers

Jim

[Leigh S]

well, its set in the Cursed Earth, and a character makes reference to the fact Dredd has been "kicked out" of Mega-City One.  The rest of the set up doesnt exactly contradict the events in Tour of Duty, but for my money, it feels a bit tangential theyd send him on this unrelated side mission.

Forgot to add - like the Mignolay, (and therefore Walkery) art in the Black Museum - maybe a bit too much of the Mignolas for one issue, but still a neat enough effort.

[Pete Wells]

Read it last night and really enjoyed it.

Cover - SB Davis is a genius and can do no wrong in my book. However... didn't we see a close up of Dr Sawbones with Sin/Dex's refections in his knife a couple of weeks ago and a MacNeil close up of Dredd with a perp's reflection in his boot knife not long ago too? A minor quibble as the cover works just fine for me!

Dredd - Hats off to Robbie, I thought his writing was excellent here, coulda been a Wagner. I thought it tied into the current epic just fine too, intelligently mentioning current events on more than one occasion. The returning villain is Snakebite, hence the original story being included in the Colin Wilson collection a couple of months back, well done Tharg!

I found the story itself most enjoyable, the set up at the start was great and I'm hoping to see the redemption of the lapsed judge. I admit I wasn't bowled over by the villain in the first strip so I wasn't amazingly excited to see him in the final panel.

Walkers art, as ever, is top notch and it seems that, as Leigh says, with his Mignola-esque trappings, he's the perfect choice to illustrate the strip.

Black Museum - Man, I really loved the art here (with the exception of the down turned 'eyes' on the judges' visors.) It really reminded me of Jock crossed with Emilio Frejo (who did The Exterminator Judge Dredd story.) There were some really clever touches - the underwater searchlights, the glass effect on the bell jar, I'd love to see more of this artist.

The story itself was great too, well done Arthur! I don't know much about Lovecraft so it was fine for me.

Darren Dead - After being a bit 'Meh' about the first two parts I absolutely loved this final one, it was balmy! To have the 'hero's' head in a plastic bag of pretty much the whole episode was very brave and really funny. The whole hypnotism thing was hilarious too. Really funny stuff.

Armitage - Yup, enjoyable enought though the flat caps and black pudding thing really pissed me off. Us simple folk oop north really don't do that so please just stop it, we tend not to breed pigeons either!

GN - Armitage so it'll be like Marmite for most!

Oh, I really missed Tanky this month. I kow the scripts can be hit and miss but it's always great to see Rufus' work - sob!

Last thing - Tharg's non-response to a certain letter made me laugh out loud!

[Dark Jimbo]

Only had a skim-read so far, but the best bit in the issue had to be that non-response on the letters page.

Brill strapline, too!

[Dandontdare]

The supplementary Armitage reprint was new to me as I wasn't getting the Meg when these first appeared. Easily the best Armitage storyline in my opinion, but the artwork is so dark it's hard to tell what's going on a lot of the time. Page four apparently depicted a fight between 2 cyber-beasties, but I couldn't make much of it out, and Treasure Steel regularly disappears into the background. Is this a reproduction problem, or was it like this originally? The B&W story featuring Hershey was good - nice to see you can have a "mismatched cops team up" without the cliché of them learning to like and respect each other by the end!

[radiator]

The returning villain is Snakebite, hence the original story being included in the Colin Wilson collection a couple of months back

Relentless? Eh? But that guy was called Snake Eyes, and also decapitated and the end of the story!

[Batman's Superior Cousin]

The returning villain is Snakebite, hence the original story being included in the Colin Wilson collection a couple of months back

Relentless? Eh? But that guy was called Snake Eyes, and also decapitated and the end of the story!

Proberly his son or something

[Proper Dave]

Yup, enjoyable enought though the flat caps and black pudding thing really pissed me off.

Yes, well, but if you expect me ever to set something north of Watford Gap without a distant cry of 'Ecky Thump', and damn the consequences, then you little know your Menk.

Pax Scriptatum.

[mygrimmbrother]

Would I be alone in thinking that Tiernan Trevallion is a pseudonym for Kev Walker? I know the judges' helmets were drawn differently, but everything else was - for my money - identical to Kev's stuff. No bad thing, he's a cracking artist IMO, and to get him twice in one issue is just spoiling us. But I could be wrong?

I know what you mean Leigh, about the Lovecraft-lifting, but personally I can't get enough at the moment (but that's probably because I'm going through a bit of a Cthulhu-heavy phase)

[Jim_Campbell]

Would I be alone in thinking that Tiernan Trevallion is a pseudonym for Kev Walker? I know the judges' helmets were drawn differently, but everything else was - for my money - identical to Kev's stuff. No bad thing, he's a cracking artist IMO, and to get him twice in one issue is just spoiling us. But I could be wrong?

I have to admit that as soon as I turned the page, I was struck by the Walkerness of the artwork, right down to the city block design. However, I'd be surprised if a droid of Kev's experience would perpetrate pages as lacking in contrast as some of these are, which my old eyes found very difficult to resolve out of a 60-70% grey fog.

Cheers

Jim

[Art]

Tiernan Trevallion is indeed a seperate person from Kev Walker and, IMHO, a damn fine artist - I'm hoping the art hasn;t come out too muddy on the page because on screen it's fantastic.

http://tiernentrevallion.co.uk/

Previous works include some dodgy space nun nonsense Jim should be familiar with  .

[Jim_Campbell]

Previous works include some dodgy space nun nonsense Jim should be familiar with  .

What, after GW booted me off my own strip without even having the decency to tell me they were doing it?

Strangely, I never read any more of their stuff after that happened.

Cheers!

Jim

[Emperor]

Tiernan Trevallion is indeed a seperate person from Kev Walker and, IMHO, a damn fine artist - I'm hoping the art hasn;t come out too muddy on the page because on screen it's fantastic.

http://tiernentrevallion.co.uk/

Previous works include some dodgy space nun nonsense Jim should be familiar with  .

He also drew Jaspre Bark's story collected in "Tales From The Ten-Tailed Cat" and also his recent Future Shock but in a very different style - a light penciled feel if I recall.

http://comicbookdb.com/creator.php?ID=19887