Welcome, citizens, to this week’s installment of Multiver-City One! Each and every Wednesday we will be examining the latest Prog from Tharg and the droids over at 2000 AD, and giving you all the pertinent information you’ll need headed into this week’s Thrill-Zine!
I. THIS WEEK IN PROG 1857
Damnation Station: Another Lifetime
Payoff time, Earthlets! This week we finally learn the backstory of Commander Joe Nowhere and his connection to both sides of this interstellar conflict. To say he is no ordinary Joe is an understatement. Ewing showcases the tightrope Joe walks as someone both pulling strings and having his own strings pulled by forces beyond his control. Will the ends justify the means Joe has gone through on all our behalfs? Keep reading and find out!
Credits: Al Ewing (script), Mark Harrison (art), Simon Bowland (letters)
II. IN OTHER NEWS
Every year, in conjunction with The Thought Bubble Festival in Leeds, Image Comics co-publishes The Thought Bubble Anthology. This annual is home to strips from some of the industry’s finest, printed alongside comics from young artists in several age categories. So why bring it up here? Because some old friends from the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic turn up front and center! In a story written and lettered by Richard Starkings, with art by Boo Cook, Judges Dredd and Anderson cross over with another character from the future, Hip Flask! If you’re unfamiliar with Hip, he’s the human/animal hybrid at the heart of Starking’s series, Elephantmen. If you’re a fan of the Progs but don’t follow Elephantmen, change your ways! This strip is a perfect primer for any of the characters involved, blending time travel and psychedelia to give readers a short burst of thrills. And how about Cook’s homage to Mike McMahon?
The week got off to a great start over at the 2000 AD Facebook page. On Monday an image was posted in reaction to what J. Michael Straczynski had to say about writing Twilight Zone stories as 10-page shorts, or even 22-page single issues. It went a little something like this…
Now, in this humble comic pundit’s opinion, I totally understand where Tharg and the droids are coming from. They have, for your consideration, a whole book filled with twist, O. Henry endings from one of the greatest comics writers of all time. Are they saying that anyone can write a solid Future Shock? No. But they are saying it’s totally within reason to expect that type of story to fit into a tight and tidy little package and still deliver the goods. Well, JMS caught wind of this intercontinental ribbing and made his case…
Now, to be fair, the guy’s right: he specifically said “Twilight Zone” stories. His case is that a 22-minute anthology TV show (which was the length of most of the best Twilight Zone eps) needs more than the 22 standard-comic pages if you’re directly translating the execution of the same story from one medium to the other. But is this math accurate? Who knows. It’s impossible to ever know, like how many centimeters are in a foot. Let’s just say 25 and get on with our lives. Except there was no getting on. Oh no, only digging in…
Again, in the interest of fairness, this response came after the unfavorable comments that followed JMS’s initial response. I’d be a little salty, too. He continued…
Boy oh boy. That’s a chunk of text. If you want my opinion on the matter, I’m of the mind that a Twilight Zone comic should be a series of one-and-dones. Can JMS deliver on that story type? Sure. Some would point at his run on The Brave and the Bold as his strongest body of work. But he seems to have taken the argument that a Twilight Zone comic can only be some sort of direct translation of made-for-TV scripts, which I don’t buy. Comics thrived for years on stories that very easily could have their titles changed to ‘Twilight Zone’ and still work. Even discounting 2000 AD’s Future Shocks, there are mountains of old EC comics that pre-date Twilight Zone and fit the bill just fine.
Continued belowSo what do you guys think? Were JMS’s words taken out of context to drum up the sales on an already awesome book, or is he relying on semantics to back out of sounding silly? Are Twilight Zone stories a very specific type of beast, or are they merely a subset of an already well-defined story type?
III. AN ORAL HISTORY OF JUDGE DREDD
The tale of Judge Dredd has been continually published since 1977, and has been brought to us by some of the most creative minds to ever work in comics. As a result, there have been some out-of-this-world story beats woven into the fabric of the character. We thought it would be interesting to talk with the writers and artists behind Mega-City One and see what their favorite bits of Dredd’s history are. This week PJ Holden stops by to talk City of the Damned, vampire Judges and to tease Dredd’s square eyes! This is the first of a few chunks of history we’ll be getting from PJ.
[audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/robotsfromtomorrow/pj_holden_history_1.m4a]
IV. FUTURE PERP FILES
ATTN: ALL CITIZENS OF THE MEG! Be aware that there is always a Judge watching you. Each sector is equipped with millions of HD-CCTV and bioID units. They are there for your protection. If your intent is upright citizenry, then you have no qualm with our surveillance. And remember: if you see something, you are now an accessory to a crime. That’s six months in an Iso-Cube, creep! Random CPU algorithms has selected this citizen for immediate surveillance and assessment…
That’s gonna do it for us this week! Prog 1857 is on sale today and is available from finer comic shops everywhere, from 2000ADonline.com, and via the 2000 AD Newsstand app for iPad and iPhone. So as Tharg the Mighty himself would say, “Splundig vur thrigg!”
