Welcome, Earthlets, to Multiver-City One, our “2000 AD” weekly review column! Every Wednesday we examine the latest offerings from Tharg and the droids over at Rebellion/2000 AD, the galaxy’s leading producers of Thrill-Power entertainment. Let’s get right to it!
THIS WEEK IN 2000AD
Judge Dredd: The Small House Part 2
Credits Rob Williams (script), Henry Flint (art), Chris Blythe (colors), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Greg Lincoln: Much of ‘The Small House’ Part 2 is dominated by the uncomfortable chat that Dredd has with the Black-Ops Judge Smiley. Smiley has a lot to say to Dredd and one simple statement casts a pall over the entire story. Smiley reminds Dredd that they, the Judges, are not the “good guys,” they’re fascists. It’s a moment that overshadows the rest. Smiley, in essence, is not wrong about his assertion, but it’s a moment of calculated cruelty. He also alluded to himself as a strategist where Dredd is not, so as such he’s obviously attempting to manipulate Dredd towards some action. Their conversation overshadows the arrest of Dirty Frank in Sino-City and the revelation that another past ally of Dredd, the pacifist Sensitive Klegg, is in the foreign Mega-City.
Henry Flint and Chris Blythe’s art, or at least their collaboration this issue ,is a bit inconsistent. For the most part the grimy, gritty, shadowy look of the characters and world works a visual treat but one aspect just falls flat. Judge Smiley’s odd bowl cut does solidify his mild, nerdy, innocuous appearance, but the mottled coloring that Blythe carried over from the rest of his work this issue looks odd. The way that Blythe colored his hair is just off-putting, and that impression stays with you. So much of the rest of the talking heads scene works so well; the tight in closeups of fists, teacups, shoulder-pads, Dredd’s chin, Smiley’s face and Lawgivers amp up the tension and helps the dialogue work, but that hair is, again, disturbing. Much like the word fascist, the hair colors the experience of reading ‘The Small House’ Part 2. There is a lot of good development this week, but there are some unpalatable things about the execution both for the benefit and the detriment of the story.
Brink: High Society Part 2
Credits Dan Abnett (scrip) Inj Culbard (art) Simon Bowland (letters)
Michael Mazzacane: Space is a premium in ‘Brink’ and artist Inj Culbard does an excellent job representing that fact in the art of ‘High Society’ second strip. Abnett and Culbard use only single panels for some scenes, smashing them up against more extended sequences on the same page. Getting four to six panels out of a sequence is a premium. There is one panel, the title reveal, that stands in decadent opposition by taking up a half a page. The uniqueness of that panel and the context of all the other panels tells you how much a premium space is.
Ruminations on limited space is the kind of idea that fits for a “2000 A.D.” strip. They’re only limited to 5 pages putting a real premium on space. Culbard manages this budget by making long thin panels, arranging them either vertically or horizontally. As Davia Sinta and her trainer work through a very rich persons quarters, they’re shown in horizontal panels, pushed up against a full page vertical panel. The horizontal panels lack of height doesn’t allow for much environmental ques, but the flat lack of depth helps to emphasize the distance between the two by using Davia’s face in the foreground. Later when Davia is in her apartment with Lalla, their conversation is shown through thin vertical panels. Their apartment is so small that even in these thin panels Culbard manages to squeeze them in.
All of these visual ques help reinforce Abnett’s smart script as the characters work through their experience in these larger spaces and the psychic strain it can have on them.
‘Brink’ is shaping up to be a very well put together strip that considers the use of space on all levels.
Fiends of the Eastern Front 1812: Part 2
Continued below
Credits: Ian Edgington (script), Dave Taylor (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters).
Tom Shapira: One of the sheer joys of reading 2000AD is the brisk pace. Sure, sometimes things feel over-rushed, but we know our time will not be wasted on nonsense. How long did it take Major D’Hubert realize that Captain Constanta and his men are vampires? The second page of the second strip. “Bravo!” I say. We came in to see vampire action and the creative team is going to deliver, not waste time on building up a sense of mystery when the audience knows perfectly well that there are undead involved.
By page 3 we are well into beautiful bloodletting and Dave Taylor keeps being the best thing on this strip: It might not be as gory as I want it to be, but it’ll so well composed and well rendered, there’s almost a sense of John Burns quality to his figure-work. Though there is one shot with a burning skeleton which is rather unclear – you can figure out what happens from the context but it rather gave me a pause during the narrative
My complaint remains the main character, it seems like we are supposed to care about him but he fails to evolve into anything beyond the cliché of a seasoned soldier and the lines in his caption boxes could’ve come from any random old story; if we are to spend time with him he should have more of a personality, more zest to him. Otherwise – a fine effort.
Skip Tracer: Legion, Part Two
Credits: James Peaty (script) Colin MacNeil (art), Dylan Teague (Colors) Ellie De Ville (letters)
Rowan Grover: Peaty does a good job here of taking the series and Nolan himself in new directions. Already we’ve established familial connections from the first issue, but what’s surprising and quite interesting is that Nolan’s brother Kennan is something of an undesirable. He’s helped someone who’s in ill favor with Nolan, and now Nolan stands in a situation where he must help revive him. Peaty handles this well, with neatly stripped back dialogue to keep the pace flowing consistently. The final page itself feels like a well choreographed finishing move, with a flourish that puts Nolan in an uncomfortable situation that occurs so smoothly you almost don’t see it happen. Peaty is working at making Major Merrick a calculating and efficient antagonist, and he succeeds greatly.
MacNeil continues with the stylish, subtle aesthetic that was established in the first chapter. Much of what we see here is heavily inked, and works at conveying environment through suggestion rather than overloading us with intricate details, and it gives this series a unique tone that separates it with a lot of the other hard sci-fi styles in 2000AD. This works well when highlighting the minimalist scenes, like the migration scene on the first page, and the silhouetted cityscape at the top of the second page. Teague once again supplies fantastic neon-tinged colors, which work especially well at distinguishing things like the migration in the first page, and making Nolan’s display of psychic powers against thugs feel dynamic and pulpy. I love how clinical the final scene looks however, it gives the scene an unsettling tone which ties in well to having Major Merrick strutting from panel to panel with Nolan.
“Skip Tracer” is already heading in some interesting new directions, and establishing a wider world for Nolan and the series as a whole. MacNeil proves he can bring a sleek style with pencils, and Teague on colors makes them look and feel like a neon powerhouse.
Kingdom: Alpha and Omega, Part 2
Credits: Dan Abnett (script), Richard Elson (art), Abigail Bulmer (colours), Ellie de Ville (letters)
Kent Falkenberg: Gene the Hackman, Pause, and Leezee Sower find themselves overrun and under siege in the propulsive ‘Alpha and Omega, Part 2.’ Last week, Dan Abnett and Richard Elson tempered the pace of their reintroduction to this world. This week, they show no such restraint.
Elson’s linework is in bloody, fine form. There’s a jagged, uncanny menace to the way he’s designed the hellbeasts. And he devotes the bulk of the first page here to a visceral portrait of the savage Them-Riders charging in for the kill. Abnett’s script barely lets up from this point either. As powerful as the Hackman can be, there’s a frantic, scrambled energy to his reaction. Sure, he’s still more than capable of crushing someone’s torso with a giant bolder – which, Elson depicts with such impact you can almost feel the viscera flying off the page – But in facing this new enemy with a new crew at his back, there’s an uncertainty to his action that helps heighten the tension.
‘Alpha and Omega, Part 2’ charges forward at breakneck speed. For now, Abnett and Elson offer little explanation for why the Them-Riders surge forth like rabid dogs of war. But in the midst of a chase as vicious as this, who would really have to time to stop and ask.
