Prog 1672 Blood Sisters

[Emperor]

The future shock was a little weak (how did those two, and only those two, survive the explosion that killed everyone else in the room, and are we to assume he had a second exploding pen stashed on his person?)

It wasn't the pen that exploded, it was the ink  - the clicky thing on the end was like the plunger to set the ink off (from the #cough# penultimate page "nano-explosive in the ink. Micro-detonator in the pen"). They survived because they were the only ones not to have something signed. Which led to the twist because as he struggles with her (top panel of last page), he signs her jacket which we see in the final panels with him clicking the plunger in the very last one.

[jon haward]

thanks for your comments  , yes carman has abit of the woman from space 1999 with her eye brows it was abit of humour on my part not in the script ,she's not a stun bomb like megan fox she uses her power to make muties and humans think she's a stun bomb.
this episode was drawn under alot of stress due to a family member being very ill i screwed my deadlines and i admit i could have drawn better if my mind was totally fixed on the job, all i can say is i tried my best at that time

part 2 is better with more action

i drew the strip with a more humour take as i found the script to be very funny i have always liked Dredd when the humour was in the stories sorry it wasn't drawn in a more edge/ gritty style for some peoples taste.

anyway after 7 years it's great to be back in 2000ad

all the best
jon

[Richmond Clements]

Good to have you back, Jon!

[mygrimmbrother]

Sorry to hear about your family troubles Jon.

[vzzbux]

We need some 'Dragonwind' chronicles to start in 2k
Lord Karnath and the Philoso-Raptors need some prog time.





V

[TordelBack]

I do think the current portrayal of the Cursed Earth is preferable to the hugely more wild and wacky one seen in The Hunting Party, with its boy scout militias, symbiotic spider-people and time portal whirpools(!)....

Man has a point.  A middle ground maybe, something like Bubbletown in The Dead Man?

Great to see Jon Haward on here!  In complaining about the repetition of the wild west motif, I'm not knocking the art Jon, which had some awesome muties (the two T-Bone lookalikes in particular were a treat) -  just maybe a lack of editorial oversight of that element of the Tour of Duty scripts.  As Krombasher suggests, there's no reason this story couldn't have been set in the townships themselves, or in some sort of pueblo cave settlement, or a shanty town of abandoned planes on a pre-war airfield...  A SF setting, in other words. 

[The Cosh]

I've no problem with these diversion stories, it makes Dredd's exile seem a lot more believable, long-term and significant.  If it was just Dredd vs. Sinfield And One Must Die!  it'd be a yet another epic that fails to change the status quo

This is how I see it too. I think many of us were probably expecting Tour of Duty to be a standard epic but the way these last couple of stories have played it's looking like more of a long term shift with the ongoing plotlines played out in between the standard business of policing the Cursed Earth and the townships. For my groat, both Rennie's story and the first episode of this one have been quality fun.

Sorry to hear about the family problems, Mr Haward. However, it's nice to see you here and it was a very pleasant surprise to see you back in the Prog. Some of the stories began to get repetetive, but you and Siku both did cracking work on the old Tales of Telguuth.

[Roger Godpleton]

Cover: Well drawn but it seems a tad stocky. Feels a bit like it could just be a panel from the strip with a bit of titivation. Terrible byline. Good Stuff.

Dredd: Really love the art and would like to see more. Script is fun but I think we could have had a snappier set-up like what Wagner would have done. Good Stuff.

FS: Did have to backtrack a bit, but in a good way because I was interested. Laughing at nerds is a bit tired but the literary pretensions added a pleasing soupcon of not-tired. Good Stuff.

Dante: The double page is nice but again it feels somewhat like a Tsar Wars retread. I would really prefer Simon to be drawing all this in order to avoid more DeTsar-vu. Good Stuff.

Stickleback: Ingenious (sp?) cliffhanger. Said it before but Edginton works a lot better when he doesn't lapse into expofests. Good Stuff.

Gross Photoshop Robots: I really do not enjoy this formula where the action revolves around whatever half baked notion Pat farts out this week. I really think we need to find out who is enjoying this so that we can at least stop them using scissors. Bad Stuff.

[Jim_Campbell]

Some of the stories began to get repetetive, but you and Siku both did cracking work on the old Tales of Telguuth.

Mr Haward has done some rather splendid work on a couple of bard-related projects for Classical Comics that are worth checking out.

Cheers!

Jim

[Emperor]

Some of the stories began to get repetetive, but you and Siku both did cracking work on the old Tales of Telguuth.

Mr Haward has done some rather splendid work on a couple of bard-related projects for Classical Comics that are worth checking out.

A line which also features John Stokes on art for Great Expectations (with some fine colouring from Jason Cardy and I'm forced to admit neither of them are let down by the lettering either):

www.classicalcomics.com/books/greatexpectations.html

You can place him on the list of ex-droids we'd like to see back (if only for a Future Shock or some such) - he could show the young whipper-snappers a trick or three.

[COMMANDO FORCES]

Future Shock - was the writer supposed to look like Dabnett?

Sorry to disappoint Pete, at this moment in time Dan looks more like Brian Blessed.

[JayzusB.Christ]

I would really prefer Simon to be drawing all this in order to avoid more DeTsar-vu.

I'd very much disagree - I've always been a Burns man.  It's the script that's causing DeTsar-vu.   Not knocking Dante, though, it went from one of my least favourite strips to one of my favourites and it remains that way.

[Van Dom]

Just checking - have other Irish readers been able to get hold of a prog this week?
Hasnt turned up in the local Easons are any of the other newsagents where i live...?

[Tiplodocus]

I thought the art on Dredd was great (with the single exception of the art of Dredd which seemed a bit strangely proportioned but it was overall a thumbs up).  Thanks for the WILD WEST comments, it's been bugging me what I don't like about TOUR OF DUTY and that WILD WEST theme park is about the only thing (OK, that and that the Pinky thing was too drawn out for a minor villain).

Future Shock was too slight for me to really enjoy but it had a couple of good gags and I like Ant Wills art a lot.

Stickleback continiues to amaze me by being enjoyable (I've thought it sucked up until this series - especially the terrible deus ex ending for the last tale).

I too would prefer Dante with Fraser on art.

And ABC WARRIORS is so far away from what I enjoy in a strip that even Joe Pineapples couldn't shoot me from it's pages.  

[TordelBack]

Just checking - have other Irish readers been able to get hold of a prog this week?
Hasnt turned up in the local Easons are any of the other newsagents where i live...?

Sure did, Easons in Tallaght on Thursday.  Saw some in FP Dublin as well.