The Meg articles

[pauljholden]

Being a selfish sort, I quiet fancy the idea of the Meg turning into some sort of combination of 'Draw' + '2000ad' running comic strips as well as articles about the process of making comics (I'll happily lose an article about movies/tv if we can get more interviews with comic artists)

So, anyhue, here's some articles I'd love to see (which are probably unlikely, but anyways...)

1. The Slushpile

Once a month Tharg and minions trawl the slushpile for the best and worst - printing details about them along with a decent commentary/breakdown of what's right/wrong. Obv you couldn't do this without people's approval - but the reward is that you'll actually start seeing something come from the slushpile. (You could run two versions of this: one for scripts and one for art)

2. Art Attack!

Get artists to go back over some of their oldest work and take it apart, figuring out how they'd approach it now.

3.  How To...

Things like the famous Ian Gibson double page spread 'how to draw' dredd from the annuals - let's see how Henry approaches a page of ... well... anything...

4. Sketchbooks

Let's see lots of sketches by the 2000AD art droids...

Your turn...

[locustsofdeath!]

I like the slush pile idea...

I'd like to see a few script-to-strip breakdowns (Marvel did a few of these a few years back) in which we can read the actual script page and then see the page of art and then the final colored and lettered version.

[Jim_Campbell]

Your turn...

I'll have a think about that, but I have to say that most of your suggestions are brilliant, PJ. I understand the economic need to run feature pages instead of strip pages in the Meg -- the issue is whether those feature pages add value to the comic or whether you just see 'em as filler between the strip. The problem with the review stuff is that -- no matter how well written they are -- this is stuff you can get all over the place. The feature stuff that I gravitate to tends to be creator interviews or articles poking about in the more obscure corners of comic book history.

The stuff you're describing would also fall under the category of "stuff I can't get elsewhere" and would, in my mind, absolutely add value to the title in a way that much of the current feature material doesn't (for me).

Good ideas, and thought-provoking stuff.

Cheers!

Jim

[IAMTHESYSTEM]

Great idea indeed. ImagineFX magazine has none other than the special effects maestro Ray Harryhausens sketchbook in this month's issue. There's always lot's of 'How to's' in that publication plus readers questions and of course their art.

[Emperor]

I have mentioned this before but I'd like to see something on the Dredd universe, possibly from a non-fictional perspective. It was inspired by D'Israeli's inspired look at the different takes on Mega-City One (and digging out that thread might uncover more such suggestions). If he wasn't interested in polishing it up (although he has already done most of the work) I'm sure Tharg could task one of the other article-writing droids to finish it off. It strikes me this is exactly the kind of thing that should be in the Judge Dredd Megazine.

I'm sure there are a lot of other things that are simmering away at the back of droids minds like this which could be developed (Rufus, for example, is fiercely knowledgeable about British comics art and if you could tap into that you'd have enough material to keep you going for a while). If a theme emerged then some kind of book wouldn't seem outrageous somewhere down the line (perhaps, say, a book looking at the creation and development of Dredd's world from a less - in-universe perspective - it could be fleshed out with interviews and even a kind of "director's commentary" going through the stories discussing what they were thinking planning at each stage).

2. Art Attack!

Get artists to go back over some of their oldest work and take it apart, figuring out how they'd approach it now.

That is a great idea (OK they all are but this one in particular) - I remember enjoying the one page feature in Marvel UK's Daredevils where artists showed off some of their earliest work (and the thread on Dave Gibbons early work made me feel there was an article just in that). Perhaps do a kind of "before they were droids" feature? How they started, what training they had, how they broke into the industry and then finish it off with how they feel their art has evolved since. It'd also be a chance to reprint any art the droids sent to 2000AD - we dug out Lee Carter's drawings that appeared on the letters page and there are others (Buttonman has a list doesn't he?).

[Buttonman]

(Buttonman has a list doesn't he?).

Yes, yes I do, although the last year of data was lost in a recent drive wipe disaster that also cost me some of my choicest internet finds - boo-hoo. At least someone is bringing porn to the Hell Trek!

I like the slush pile idea too - they could pull out a random script and have a droid bash it out. Shitey aspects could then be pointed out.

I'd like a readers' art page which could embrace the good and less good works from this board and the redership in general.

[John Caliber]

I would assume most of the Megazine's readership have no interest in the 'behind the scenes' workings of comic strips--they just want to read the finished article? Being an artist/writer, of course PJ's ideas appeal to me, but to the wider circle, would this not just sound the Meg's protracted death tolls more urgently?

As very occasional features certainly, but not habitual.

[pauljholden]

I would assume most of the Megazine's readership have no interest in the 'behind the scenes' workings of comic strips--they just want to read the finished article? Being an artist/writer, of course PJ's ideas appeal to me, but to the wider circle, would this not just sound the Meg's protracted death tolls more urgently?
As very occasional features certainly, but not habitual.

It's hard to know anything about the Megazines readership (all I'm going on is what I would want to read), but given one of the most popular Megazine articles was Dave Bishops excellent Thrill Power Overload*, it could be that that kind of behind the scenes stuff is EXACTLY what the Meg audience want...

Still, I'm not here to defend what I'd like to see, I was asking what other people would like to see...!

-pj
(I assume it was popular, at the very least it ran far longer than originally intended and was collected into first a hardback then a softback...)

[Paul faplad Finch]

Just from my own perspective, the behind the scenes stuff is exactly the kind of thing I'd like to see. I'd imagine thats the case with most people on tihs board and in the general meg readership, although I'm only guessing and am prepared to be proved wrong. It just seems like the sci-fi/fantasy genre, be it comics or other media, does attravt people of that kind of mentality. You only need look at the number of mags on the shelves with Who, Lost, Trek etc on the cover to see that. It's a level of interest you don't seem to get with other genres.

[John Caliber]

I see what you're getting at, PJ. I think that perhaps investigating the technicalities of the processes behind the comic strips might be an 'unpeeling' of the 2000AD onion too far (as opposed to the gossip and bad-mouthing packed accounts of 2000AD's history, which will always appeal to our dark sides

Too many inward looking articles might turn off new readers, only consolidating the existing readership (which I assume is--in any respect--ebbing slowly away).

It's the same state Marvel and DC Comics are in, targeting their existing, older customers and writing to a level of complexity that children or those not familiar with the comic bok form can't enjoy (the few titles aimed at new readers or youngsters--who should really be considered one and the same--are confined to one-shots and fringe titles; isn't that an 'ass-about-face' long-term business model?

[TordelBack]

Some good ideas, but do all the articles have to be about PJ? 

[pauljholden]

I see what you're getting at, PJ. I think that perhaps investigating the technicalities of the processes behind the comic strips might be an 'unpeeling' of the 2000AD onion too far (as opposed to the gossip and bad-mouthing packed accounts of 2000AD's history, which will always appeal to our dark sides

Too many inward looking articles might turn off new readers, only consolidating the existing readership (which I assume is--in any respect--ebbing slowly away).

It's the same state Marvel and DC Comics are in, targeting their existing, older customers and writing to a level of complexity that children or those not familiar with the comic bok form can't enjoy (the few titles aimed at new readers or youngsters--who should really be considered one and the same--are confined to one-shots and fringe titles; isn't that an 'ass-about-face' long-term business model?

DOOMED! DOOMED! We're all DOOMED!

I'd like to try and keep this thread to 'Articles you'd like to see in the Meg' - I'm not sure I'd agree that anything I've suggested would do harm to the Meg (maybe if it was wall to wall that stuff, but I'm not really suggesting that) and I think the discussion of whether the meg is in fine fettle or otherwise really belongs in a different thread....

-pj

[pauljholden]

Some good ideas, but do all the articles have to be about PJ? 

I'm not sure I can see the problem...?

[The monarch]

I would take anything over those pointless film reviews that are currently in the meg

[Emperor]

I see what you're getting at, PJ. I think that perhaps investigating the technicalities of the processes behind the comic strips might be an 'unpeeling' of the 2000AD onion too far (as opposed to the gossip and bad-mouthing packed accounts of 2000AD's history, which will always appeal to our dark sides

Too many inward looking articles might turn off new readers, only consolidating the existing readership (which I assume is--in any respect--ebbing slowly away).

I don't know - something like D'Israeli's history of the design of Mega-City One would, I'd have thought, help ease new readers into the history of the way Mega-City One has been portrayed (and might get them interested in digging through the Case File if they haven't already). It might also help give people a more rounded feel for what goes into Judge Dredd without getting nit-picky over tiny continuity issues (it may even iron out some of those - by presenting side-by-side comparisons you can see how each artists brings their take to the design of the city).