2 out of 5

Okay, I guess that Tharg, in his eternal wisdom, had decided to taper my thrill allotment with this last run of progs, given that it was pretty much a collection of all strips I loathe,  topped off by some average Dredds.

Let’s get the stuff I ain’t a big fan of out of the way first, from most tolerable to least:

Brass Sun.  I know artist INJ Culbard is tied to the creation of Brass’ world and characters, but his nondescript style is such a mismatch, to me, for the high concept; I can’t believe how boring these images of such strange things and brings are.  At least there’s an endgame initially at play – as my problem with this thrill is that it seems to be a continually amount of bluster for very little plot movement – and it’s moderately tense, with characters making final decisions and last ditch efforts.  But, alas, we jump the shark with a flash forward into the future, and a crash landing on some remote planet where there’s just another steampunk threat to replace the old one.  Yawn.  But: Edginton, at least, doesn’t bloat us with words, and the positive side to INJ’s lack of detailing is there’s no reason to waste time looking at the art.  (Oof, backhanded.)  So it’s a quick read.

Maybe tied for this last (first?) place: another new Bad Conpany joint, from Milligan and Dayglo.  Now, I’m going to rag on Milligan for delivering a pointless, pointless, pointless fucking story, but that’s sort of his m.o.  However, whether its because Dayglo is no longer trying to 100% emulate Ewins or because he’s got pro Dom Regan coloring him, the art looks fantastic, and is a garish, underground comix dream of imagery deserving of a better script.  Instead, Bad Company hunts for someone who wronged them (Gasp!  Just like before!), Milligan gives us some dumbass, loosely literary-referencing satire (…just like before…!), and then Kano pretends like nothing happened because WAR NEVER ENDSSS Y’ALL.

Mills takes up the trophy for most interminable reads ever with his two linked thrills – Savage and ABC Warriors.  I’ve generally been okay with Savage, honestly, as its seemed to balance Mills’ cheesy jokes and political commentary tendencies with straightforward action, but damn, here he’s just guilty of going nowhere for 11 weeks, after successfully backing Savage into a semi-interesting Quartz-captured corner.  But then it’s just prog after prog of Quartz prattling on…. But Patrick Goddard’s art and, I guess, the promise of something happening makes it readable, which is a notch above ABC Warriors.  ‘Cause jesus fuck, stuff does happen there, but Mills’ social media manipulation “barbs” are as old man fogey obvious and obnoxious as ever, and count me in the group of non-fans of Clint Langley’s computer art.  His layouts’ are awful for serialized work, his action is static, his sound effects are layered distractingly (and whether they’re his or Mills, the “dang” effect for bullet ricochets is… amusing), and his coloring is like looking at the leftovers in the paintbrush cleaning water.  So while there are fights and twists, the strip is akin to reading endless dad jokes as illustrated by someone who likes to cut and paste cool robots into questionable battle poses.  This particular Mills / Langley brew is an acquired taste, and one that I have not.  I could hardly make it through these strips.

Finally, ol’ reliable, Mr. Dredd, had some good but too abreviated adventures.  Michael Carroll continues to become the non-Wagner premiere for scripting JD, stringing together two fairly gripping stranger-in-a-strange-land 4-parters of Dredd getting stranded and imprisoned in Siberian territory.  The shame here is that these bits weren’t scripted for a full 12 week run, as it felt like Carroll was holding back from bigger revelations, but the story’s two, four-week halves were still definitely full of the kind of skillful snap characterizations and harried scrapes that the writer has proven effective at.  Edginton takes over the last four weeks with exo judge Lamia talking to the dead to solve a possessed-killer crime.  Dave Taylor’s Quitely-esque widescreen art is initially impressive, but his panels are actually kinda empty… much like the story, yuk yuk.  Lamia is a sub-par Anderson, and a good build up leads to a sort of deus ex machina use of Lamia’s powers, making the ending shrug-worthy.  But again, maybe with more than four weeks of space, things could’ve been smoother.

Now please, please, let me have a Mills / Edginton / Milligan break for the next set of thrills… surely my thrill meter has been sufficiently drained.