The Forbidden Planet International Blog

D’Israeli on cover duties. Bloody great. Even better is that it’s a wraparound. Cover of the year? Certainly another strong contender!

Five strips, all on the very end of their stories this time round; Brass Sun and ABC Warriors finish this prog, Dredd, Lowlife, Simping Detective all finish in one huge, issue spanning tale next prog. Seriously, this is a wonderful, wonderful time to be reading 2000AD.

Brass Sun first, and it’s an ending, except it’s not, merely the ending of Book One. Which is good news, not just because it’s a really good series that I want to see more of, but mostly that it needs Book Two to give us the satisfying ending that we don’t get here.

But we’re nowhere near finished yet, nowhere near. This is mere intermission, not an ending, There’s so much world-building been done so well in this first book, but the second book will hopefully be hard on its heels, to keep the momentum of a fairly slow moving story. Not a criticism, I’m enjoying the slow unfolding of a world. But keeping it going, keeping the lumbering giant of a story rolling slowly along is key.

All in all, Brass Sun has been exceptional storytelling, wonderful art from Culbard, like I said – it’s world-building done so well, a mechanical universe at the core of the tale, and that still makes me go oooooh.

(Brass Sun by Ian Edginton and INJ Culbard)

Right, now onto the main deal here and the best thing(s) in the book for a while. Because although Brass Sun was so spectacular in scope at first, once the whole intertwined nature of the Cold Deck storyline in Judge Dredd, Lowlife and The Simping Detective came out, there was no getting away from it – if writers Ewing, Morrison and Spencer could keep the intensity and intrigue going, this was going to be so special. They did, it is.

Congratulations all involved, writers, artist, editor. This has been wonderful. It has one more to go after this, and the events this issue do everything they should, whipping us into a frenzy of expectation for next prog.

This prog? You want to know what happened? Oh, trust me, it was ace…. Bachman, “kill them all”, military coup, Hershey and a horrible feeling. Bullet to King Four. Twice. One last small thing for Frank, Jack Point piecing it all together as the icthyoid object from the moon gets closer……

Absolutely fantastic. Roll on next week for the final piece of the puzzle.

Now, I can’t help thinking I’ve forgotten something? Another strip? Something to do with the ABC Warriors? Oh well.

Here’s the trail piece for next week’s Prog 1812, and the cover to the Christmas Prog 2013 out 12th December. The Dredd/ Lowlife/ Simping Detective story in 1812 is taking over the whole prog. The only problem with that is that we’re losing the artists on the three stories, and getting Carl Critchlow. Nothing against Critchlow, and what I’ve seen so far from the issue looks great, but I was loving each strand of the tale having its own distinct feel, and was desperately hoping there was some way to carry that through to the inevitable conclusion as Dredd, Frank, Jack, Bachmann amd everyone else come together underneath the Godcity.