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 3
Credits Rob Williams (script), Henry Flint (art), Chris Blythe (colors), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Greg Lincoln: “The Small House” Part 3 is some pretty clever storytelling. The overall effect of writing and art on its six pages makes it feel much longer. Williams’ recap of the story thus far expands our view on the the chat that Judge Smiley had with Dredd in part two in ways that deepen the story, rather then bore the reader. They hit a lot of the same beats as Smiley did in his examination of Dredd’s relationships.
Henry Flint and Chris Blythe make “Robot Man’s,” Ex-SJS Gerhart’s, last walk seem pretty dire, they put a lot of desperation into Gerhart’s expression. The very Mad Max like lone stand he is making against an impressive looking band of mutants is played over text that all but says that Judge Smiley was instrumental in the investigation that landed him there (see “Fit For Purpose” 2000AD 2073-2974). Between the story and art you feel for him and his thought that he has failed Dredd.
The narration and art come together again to lead you to another though with their treatment of Chief Judge Hershey. The coldness of the panels showing her love aloof image do make you wonder. The script implies that Dredd may suspect that his oldest friend and partner may know about the actions of the invisible spy Judge, Smiley, and be complicit in doing nothing about them.
This part of ‘The Small House’ clearly spells out that Dredd is not cowed by his face off with Judge Smiley. Williams makes it clear that despite the authoritarian methods of the Judges he believes in his dedication to protecting the citizens of Mega-City One. The visit he makes to his old adversary, the clone of WarMarshal Kazan alludes to a sense of fear in Dredd but none of the art implies that. The bearing of the old Judge is resolute and determined as drawn by Henry Flint. And speaking of the art by Blythe and Flint do explore the panels in this chapter again, they created a lot of cool background action and characters worth paying attention to . If there is anything to quibble about in this part it’s the similarity in the depictions of Judge Sam and Giant in the final image, they look just a bit too much the same.
Brink: High Society Part 3
Credits Dan Abnett (scrip) Inj Culbard (art) Simon Bowland (letters)
Michael Mazzacane: The formal elements of Inj Culbard’s art to highlight the lack of space in ‘Brink’ is turned its head this week, as it is all about highlighting immense space. All while still drawing a conversational strip. The thin vertical paneling in the previous strip created a claustrophobic feel, here Culbard knocks everything over 90 degrees and uses short but wide horizontal rectangles. The different effect these two types of paneling create is evident on the first page as Sinta is called into sweep security quarters and works her way through the cramped domestic hallways, shown as three thin vertical panels. That trio of panels is contrasted by the wall to wall length the other panels have on the first page.
The room Sinta has been asked to sweep, a pretext for a brief from Gentry, is unlike other rooms and offers with it some interesting elements to highlight the size while still drawing a conversational sequence. Most rooms in ‘Brink’ have been square like, traditional housing. Gentry’s security suite is a circle, functionally a panopticon. Culbard keeps the horizontal rectangle paneling, but cuts it to about half page length making for pages of about 10 panels in two columns. It gives them enough space to show Sinta and Gentry in medium shots together or alone without feeling claustrophobic. Culbard smartly rotates the perspective around them for their conversation, with the curved meeting point between wall and ceiling acting as guides and markers of how big this room is. This general setup is one of the technically smartest things I’ve read in these strips.
Continued belowOne minor highlight from the strip, Simon Bowland’s lettering. For a strip that is all about corporate spooks, throwing in black bars were a word is supposed to be is highly effective. The redaction is because it’s a curse word, but also opens the possibility if Abnett wants to share something without sharing with the reader and it feeling perfectly natural.
Fiends of the Eastern Front 1812: Part 3
Credits: Ian Edington (script), Dave Taylor (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters).
Tom Shapira: And so we come to the (metaphorical) meat of this serial. D’Hubert is governed by naïve notions of warfare – honor and glory and noblesse oblige and the other things that appear mostly in books and myths. For all his brutality Constanta is war as is – he knows how evil the whole thing is, he might even enjoy it, but at least he’s being honest. The revelation that the generals high-up are completely aware of the vampire is also an interesting one, this might be the push needed to give actual dimension to D’Hubert as a lead – the man who must learn the truth of things.
The other revelation, the reason Constanta has joined this war, is potentially less interesting: it concerns another mythical being who has been slightly overused in comics, certainly when it comes to Russia. I reserve judgment to when we see the strip’s version of it in full, but it is not a particularly fresh direction.
Dave Tylor’s art is as lovely as before – the transformation scene will probably get the most attention. But for my money the solitary headshot of Constanta later, blood dripping from lips, abstract background of the darkest forest and the whole neck and face slightly longer than humanly comfortable, that is the real moneymaker. This serial seems to be gathering steam, and I am liking it.
Skip Tracer: Legion, Part Three
Credits: James Peaty (script) Colin MacNeil (art), Dylan Teague (Colors) Ellie De Ville (letters)
Rowan Grover: “Skip Tracer” separates itself from blending in with other generic sci-fi stories this week by embracing its delightfully weirder side. Peaty’s story starts off a little over dramatic. We explore Nolan’s connection to his brother that he’s now trying to save, and also get to witness Kennan’s six-month girlfriend get intensely emotional and perhaps a little too dependant on the Nolan’s comatose brother. However, after a somewhat militant, Matrix-esque sequence, we see Nolan go through a psychic connection, and Peaty fares well at transcribing the experience through a normal human’s comprehension. The chapter closes out with a terrifying yet mind-bogglingly hilarious depiction of all of Nolan’s irrational fears come to life, making “Skip Tracer” feel truly unique and interesting for the first time in this series.
MacNeil clearly has a ball shifting from the decidedly straight edged normal world to the psychic landscapes of Kenan’s mind. The first sequence is much like the first two chapters, with lots of conventional shapes in the environment intermingling with heavy shadows. MacNeil then creates a fantastically composed page as Nolan slips into Kennan’s consciousness, depicting an almost symmetrical cone shape over the page almost visually depicting Nolan’s perception expand into the psychic realm. Teague handles this change fantastically on colors, too, giving a more faded, purple tone to Kennan’s mind that feels evocative of hazy psychedelia. The gradients used in the backgrounds are nicely textured and enhance the ethereal quality of the environment even further.
“Skip Tracer” may have been a serviceable sci-fi tale before, but with part three, it’s launched itself into high-level 2000 AD weirdness, telling a unique tale whilst being oddly hilarious at the same time.
Kingdom: Alpha and Omega, Part 3
Credits: Dan Abnett (script), Richard Elson (art), Abigail Bulmer (colours), Ellie de Ville (letters)
Kent Falkenberg: It may be a dialog-heavy week in Dan Abnett and Richard Elson’s “Kingdom.” But that just means that things are set to sizzle, instead of the all-out flare-up we’ve seen before.
The bulk of ‘Alpha and Omega, Part 3’ takes place as an extended interrogation. Gene, captured by Them-Riders, spends the strip bound to a tree. Skinnner, the interrogater, is revealed to be their leader. And what could easily devolve into a rote, expository exchange, instead crackles with philosophical musings on the nature of free will. Abnett’s writing deftly outlines the symbiotic relationship between Skinner’s pack and the Ticks, all the while asking larger questions about evolution versus genetic manipulation, what freedom means and at what cost is it actually achieved.
“The Ticks are Freedom Gene, and we accept them freely,” Skinner implores. Of course, this is said as Elson pulls back the panel’s focus to foreground a few Them, which have been broken and domesticated as service beasts. Clearly there’s a statement being made about the freedom of some coming at the expense of others.
As usual, Abnett’s scripting in ‘Alpha and Omega, Part 3’ finds a clever balance between the fantastic and the philosophic. All the while, Elson plays enough with his framing and panel compositions to make a strip largely consisting of talking heads feel much more momentous than it actually is.
