More Claw

I Missed A Trick

Whilst blathering on about Santa and his claws, there was a perfectly good source of content sitting out in the open, and I missed it until this afternoon, when the word "Claw" caught my attention.  Art!

     Yes, that's a Tyrannosaurus Rex, being ridden like a horse by young Cadet Dredd.  This bundle of stories features Ol' Stonyface when he was a mere Cadet, alongside his clone-brother Rico.  Rico is definitely the more personable of the two, and there are hints of how his character will lead him to -

     That would be telling.  Meanwhile, Art!

          More Law and Claw.  Thus far, not enough to - why a Cadet version of Dredd?  Because in the comics he's hitting about 70, having been around for 47 years in real time, and this is a way of coining it in with the 'pre-quel'.

     ANYWAY as I was saying, not enough material for an Intro, until I recollected one of the first trade paperbacks I saw that concerned either Dredd or "2000AD".  Art!

Dredd and his best friend

     No, Dredd has not travelled in time back to the age of dinosaurs.  That would be silly!  These are dinosaurs that have been created by scientists Meddling With What Man Ought Not To Muck Around With, or something, which is why they can exist in the 23rd century.  Obvs.  The cover artwork is by Mike McMahon, one of the biggest talents from the comic's early years, as is Brian Bolland, credited on the front cover.  

     What's going on here?  Welllll I can't detail the full story of "The Cursed Earth" because it ran for nearly six months, but Dredd and a party of Judges have been entrusted to carry a vaccine to Mega-City Two on the West Coast.  There, the 2T(fru)T (yes an horrendous pun) virus had caused the airports to be over-run by raging raving homicidal cannibalistic killers (do I get the point across?), so - no air delivery.  Art!

     Predating "Jurassic Park" by years, these dinosaurs are the descendants of the cloned population of an amusement park, and the purplish example you see above is 'Satanus', who tries to dine on Dredd.  Unsuccessfully.  You can tell McMahon enjoyed drawing dinos, because they crop up repeatedly.  Art!

More horns than claws, methinks.  Satanus was popular enough as a character, because teenaged boys are utter ghouls, to be brought back from the dead and even crops up in "Nemesis The Warlock".  Now, because Hom. Sap. are awful, and turning a profit is almost a religion in South Canada - yes, even in the Cursed Earth - you can bet your rad-proof boots that someone will try and make money from dinosaurs.  Art!

     These were modelled on a real dinosaur, 'Deinonychus' which is Greek for 'Terrible Claw', because they had two of 'em.  Art!

The ghost of Dog and Chicken look on with puzzlement

     Fending off a pack of savage dino predators is pretty wild, hmmmm?  Well, just imagine that more Meddling Scientists got hold of a large sample of Satanus' blood, and did not secure it properly.  That makes it their fault when one of their minor minions ponders aloud what would happen if someone drank that blood.

     Conrad is prettttty sure that, in real life (which is boring and usually avoided in comics) doing this would make you ill.  However, in "2000AD" - Art!

Art by Ron Smith

     Who knew that necking Tyrannosaur blood would have a truly terrifying transmogrification upon the hapless victim?  Art!

     Claws, talons or over-grown fingernails?  Take your pick.  Matey turns out to be a minor matter, as he's considerably smaller and more vulnerable than Satanus.
     We're not done yet, because Conrad remembers another story, artwork by Ron Smith, about a visiting attraction that arrives in the Big Meg, said attraction being - Art!

     In this story they lay a little flesh on the bones (cringy metaphor there) of the dinosaur's backstory, complete with a David Bellamy spoof to illustrate the exposition.  Art!

     In the cover picture you can see the dino being - ah - 'controlled' by an Obedience Collar, which is activated by a small hand-held remote.  Gosh, wouldn't it be awful if the batteries went flat or someone trod on it!

     Yeah yeah, huge slavering meat-eating monsters restrained by a collar.  What can possibly go wrong?
     We haven't even covered "Flesh" yet - a tale for another day.

     That went quite well, I wasn't sure there was enough material but we managed.

How The Black Sea Gets It's Name

You may recall BOOJUM! sitting in judgement on a couple of the orc's 'Shadow Fleet' of ancient oil tankers sinking in the Black Sea a couple of days ago.  The only surprise about this event is that it hasn't happened sooner.  Now a third one has sunk.  Art!

     The black gunk is crude oil and it's already washing ashore on Crimean beaches.  People on Twitter have been muttering darkly about eco-terrorism and where Greenpeace are?

     "NAFOViking", who seemed to know what he was talking about, said that these decades-old tankers are not allowed to sail by any reputable business nor country, as they do not have double-hulls.  This means any crack in the hull will propagate, likely dooming the ship.  A double-hulled construction means a breach is bad, yet fixable.  Art!

     It's winter on the - or is that 'in the'? - Black Sea, so you can expect storms, bad weather and high seas.  Thus if the Ruffians continue to send these rustingbuckets out, there may well be other losses, but they cannot afford to pause operations for two or three months.  Estimating their carrying capacity at circa 4,000 tons, that's 84,000 barrels lost and 12,000 tons capacity lost for future operations.

What's Not Wrong With This Picture?

Conrad was perusing the BBC News website, the font of all that's fit to be writ, and noted an absence.  Art!

     In case you can't read print that small, let me explain that there is NO coverage of the South Canadian feral fathead feeding frenzy about 'Drones' being seen at night near airports.

     This is because they are not drones, they are PLANES COMING IN TO LAND OR TAKING OFF.  It's not rocket science to associate airborne objects at airports to be airplanes, except apparently it is.

     I wrote above that Hom. Sap. are awful, and they are awfully stupid.  This level of painful drivel is about the same as the bafunes who were targeting 5G phone architecture because it controlled the chemtrails laid by Satanic bio-engineered mosquitoes.

Our Journey With Bernie

Wrightson, that is, the artist chap and his run of FPG cards.  Yes, I did my due diligence and #50, "Mausoleum" is present on teh Interwebz.  Art!

     Oooops.  Available, just not in high-definition.  I can confidently state that the first word in this note is "I" and that's it.  

     Conrad is unsure how the sinister skeletal creatures can sense the young lady, since they don't have eyes or ears.  I bet she goes up that ladder a lot faster than she came down it.  Or - perhaps she's the villainess of this piece and they're just startled and anxious? and will either scuttle off or offer her a cup of tea and a biscuit?