At last, a cover I like! Lovely painting by Colin MacNeil - I particularly like the vampire hands reaching out as if we are that vampire. Alan's editorial letter this issue bigs up fan sites on the Internet - which given the context of this blog - is quite apt! The fansite www.2000adreview.co.uk that Alan mentions has sadly passed on, but plenty of others exist to fill the void. Check out the box to the right for links to the ones I know about - and if you have a fansite you'd like added - just drop me a Tweet or comment.
Right - on with this month's Meg. Let's get the stuff I wasn't impressed with over and done with. Family. There - that's done... I detailed in my last post why this was and nothing has happened to change my mind...
Everything else was of the highest quality. Firstly, I should mention Slaine - which I was not a big fan of when it appeared in Meg 202. However, as I have read more and understood the characters and got into the story more I have become a fan. In fact, I'm completely besotted by it and can't wait to get to it in the next Meg. And, hooray and hurrah, everyone in this edition was all in the same part of the space-time continuum! So not having to worry who was where and who was who (because I've figured that out) freed me to enjoy the action. Sticking with the reprints, Darkie's Mob had some interesting twists in it, and looks to be building to an interesting climax. The future of the group of soliders seems to be in the balance as the regular army catch up with them... A Daily Star Dredd and a short article on Rogue Trooper completed this section. I'd forgotten to mention this previously, but each week a character or story is chosen from the 2000 AD archives and profiled. This is very useful for people new to the comic who don't have the history and want a short profile of the main protagonists.
The Dredd Monkey On My Back concluded, and I'm sad to see it go. Still, it was 45 pages so it wasn't a short story, but I can't help thinking it could have carried on a bit more and explored some of the parts that happened quite quickly more fully. I don't want to give too much away, but some more of Judge Cal would have been good and a bit more mileage could have been had in dealing with the Muties, which seemed to take about two frames. Be interesting to see if the high quality can be maintained next issue...
Of the other regular thrills, Devlin Waugh is more of the same. It's a constant - it doesn't seem to be building or flopping, but consistently delivers dapper one liners and fighting vampires. The underlying story of the captured vampire is the thread that connects them, as well as someone surfacing from Waugh's past, otherwise they could just be one-offs. I like them - don't love them - but they are fine as they are. Young Middenface is intriguing. Perhaps I'll cover that a bit more in my next review. Black Siddha is developing into an interesting story and I'm really into it now. What looked initially like minor characters are now coming to the fore and will certainly make Rohan's life a lot more complicated!
David Bishop turned his hand to a Dredd text story this month, and I enjoyed it. Gordon Rennie continued to vent his spleen too...
And finally...Dreddlines has lots of complimentary letters this month, defending some of the criticisms of previous letters.We'll see if the positive vibe continues!
I'll take you up on that offer! No list of fan sites is complete without the astonishing - albeit on hiatus for now - Thrillpowered Thursday:
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Keep up the writing - there's some great stuff in the Megs ahead!
An absolute pleasure to add you to the list, Grant. A cracking mission you have yourself there! Good luck with it!
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