Pat Mills - Interview 2012

[flintlockjaw]

Mr. Mills has agreed to another interview. Any questions you'd like to ask him?

[ICONIC_TM]

What did He Get For Christmas? 

[Proudhuff]

How come grownups are always right even when they're wrong?

[Lee Bates]

Will Claudia Vampire Knight be released in the UK now that Requiem has been released and is selling so well?

[vark]

When can we expect new stories from his regulars ? (ABC, Slaine, Defoe, Flesh, Savage ..)

[Emperor]

I'm sure there has been an interview with him discussing this but I can't find it.

I'd be curious about the ownership of some of his stories.

He got Terra Meks and Dinosty back - was there a reason why those two? Any others?

What about the situation with Third World War?

Would he like to see more experiments with creator-ownership elsewhere, like the slot in the Megazine American Reaper is running in? If he started 2000AD today, for example, would this be an important factor?

[TordelBack]

After 40 years of consistently producing exciting, challenging comics with no sign of slowing down, is there some sort of prose equivalent of the Picture of Dorian Gray in his attic, perhaps some hideously bland tale of clean-cut conformist superheroes who protect the status quo?  And if so, has he considered selling it to DC?

Was he as happy with how James McKay's art on Flesh turned out on as I was? 

If he could get any artist, living or dead, to draw a future run of Sláine, who would it be?

I'm intrigued by the 'tyranny of the voting coupon' that he alludes to in many of his introductions.  Does he have any recollection of the type of numbers involved in these votes?  Who was taking direction from these things, the editor-of-the-day or the Fleetway/IPC management?  Speaking as someone who feels guilty for never having filled one in.

[James Stacey]

Why 'The Darkness'

[chris_askham]

Any regrets?

[fonky]

Why 'The Darkness'

Come on James get over it! Maybe he's used them in the plot for ironic purposes.

How does Pat manage to write so many stories? Or has he a team of art slaves writing them for him. Talk about prolific.

[marcc]

I haven't posted here much (yet, but I hopefully will now), but Mills is one of my favourite comics writers (alongside Wagner), and has been for over 25 years. The recent Savage books have been great, and I hope he'll keep writing for a few more decades, at least.

Feel free to ask him if he's willing to drop some hints about the next ABC Warriors storyline, which was announced by Tharg in prog 2012(?). Will Blackblood abandon his vacuum cleaner for that female droid who was hitting on him in the last book?

[marcc]

I did have one more question which has haunted me for a while, but I didn't want to start out sounding too negative, since I'm not that bothered about it. It's about the nature of Deadlock's attitude to Khaos, and book-learning.

In "The Gothic Empire", Nemesis tells the Warriors that Deadlock studied ancient scriptures and meditated on them for years, leading a monk-like existence, before he was able to join with his master Khaos.

Later, after Deadlock has rejoined the Warriors and shows them around the Khollege of Khaos (in "Khronicles of Khaos") he basically tells them book-learning is the antithesis of Khaos, and that he himself is illiterate. His attitude to worldly pleasures also seemed to change a lot in the 1990s Warriors episodes, to the point of decadence (nothing wrong with that, necessarily...).

This is not just restricted to the ABC:s, Nemesis tells Purity in book 9 that he stands for "fun"... and Finn sometimes seemed like a "join the Khaos movement" pamphlet, complete with sexy witches.

Was this in part due to the influence of Tony Lee as a co-writer? I'd like to hear more about their collaboration, how it worked, etc.

[The Legendary Shark]

Do you ever dream about your characters or storylines in your sleep?

How much time do you spend staring off at nothing, just daydreaming? Does daydreaming help, or is it an impediment to actually getting things done?

Is the current paradigm of the Future Shock outdated? That is to say, do you think that demanding a FS MUST have a twist is deleterious to looking for a good story, well told - or is the ability to write a good twist essential for any aspiring comic writer?

Can you tell us a bit more about the 'organic UFOs' you once saw? How has that experience affected or influenced your work, if at all?

How would you fix the financial crisis either in fiction or for real?

Is humanity doomed or poised on the edge of a New Golden Age?

(Sorry about the last ones, I ran out of questions about comics...)

[marcc]

I meant Tony Skinner in my last post, btw, not Tony Lee. Sorry

[jmean]

The very first comic story i read, was Pat's & Wagner's "Dan Dare Return of the Mekon" in the Eagle, Pat, on a rear occasion has been credited with other writers on comic scripts e.g. John Wagner, Tony Skinner, its common knowledge how a number of artists can work on the same story like as a penciler, inker and colourist, but how do in your (Pats) case do 2 writers work on the same script?