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The Mighty One: My Life Inside the Nerve Centre by Steve MacManus

Started by sheridan, 02 September, 2016, 01:33:50 AM

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james newell

Finish it last week, thoroughly enjoyed it, thanks to Steve for giving us a great in sight in to comic publishing in the 70's, 80's, and 90's.

Spikes

And popping down to London for the Prog 2000 signing, I managed to snag a signed copy. Mightily looking forward to reading this.







Fungus

Only 3 chapters in, but this is a joy to read. Who knew Tharg was so entertaining?!
Makes this comics publishing lark sound like the Best Job in the World  :)

Dash Decent

- By Appointment -
Hero to Michael Carroll

"... rank amateurism and bad jokes." - JohnW.


Michael Knight

Bought this from the 2000ad Store, but yet to finish. Enjoyed it so far. Those Winter nights drawing in will be perfect chance to catch up  :)

AlexF

Anyone who's read the book might appreciate this little Nerve Centre in-joke that I stumbled across in Prog 1029:



It's part of a spread showing a spaceship design by Chris Foss

Magnetica

Just finished reading this. Thanks for the recommendation Sheridan. I enjoyed it very much. I did think it wrapped up quite quickly and would happily have read more.

Tiplodocus

Enjoyed this quite a bit. Lots of stuff (mainly not 2000ad) that I Didn't know before. 

Some bizarre daydream sequences seem a bit like padding. And "Bad Steve sounds like a cop out equivalent to me referring to any of my past indiscretions being performed by "Him".

But overall a fast paced and enjoyable read.
Be excellent to each other. And party on!

Funt Solo

Sorry to necro-thread, but I'm in the middle of reading this and need somewhere to decompress.

It's both completely believable but also quite surprising how little Tharg (i.e. Steve MacManus) knew about or had control over the comic at a meta level. I mean, I know he was the one editing it, but in terms of promotional items he just discovered them like everyone else when he saw the ads.

And I've just got past the part where the art department was centralized and so they lost their cohesive design narrative. And their's was a real best seller (2000 AD, I mean) - this idea of management from on high fucking with their own golden goose by assuming they knew best how to do things (when actually they weren't the ones at the coal face) feels frustrating, to say the least.
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

sheridan

Quote from: Funt Solo on 17 July, 2020, 06:58:49 PM
by assuming they knew best how to do things (when actually they weren't the ones at the coal face) feels frustrating, to say the least.


Yeah - who would ever think management of any company, government or anything else would act in such a way and ignore those who actually have day-to-day knowledge?  ;-)

Richard

The company where I work is slowly being destroyed by senior management, who are clueless about the disastrous effects of everything they're doing. It's amazing how these fuckers are so arrogant that they think they know better than the people who actually do the work that the company exists to provide. How 2000AD survived being owned by people like that for 23 years is beyond me.

broodblik

Quote from: Richard on 17 July, 2020, 09:03:22 PM
How 2000AD survived being owned by people like that for 23 years is beyond me.

I think mostly of the quality of creators he had available. At on stage we literally only had 6 thrills that interchanged between each other. Good "managers"  shield their "workers" from the politics and intrigues
When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.

Old age is the Lord's way of telling us to step aside for something new. Death's in case we didn't take the hint.

broodblik

Quote from: broodblik on 18 July, 2020, 05:30:25 AM
Quote from: Richard on 17 July, 2020, 09:03:22 PM
How 2000AD survived being owned by people like that for 23 years is beyond me.

I think mostly of the quality of creators he had available. At on stage we literally only had 6 thrills that interchanged between each other. Good "managers"  shield their "workers" from the politics and intrigues

I wanted to add that this interchanging thrills created a very stable publication. It helped a lot that these thrills were very popular as well: Strontium Dog, Saline, Nemesis, Robo-hunter, Ace and Rogue
When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.

Old age is the Lord's way of telling us to step aside for something new. Death's in case we didn't take the hint.

sheridan

Quote from: broodblik on 18 July, 2020, 05:34:51 AM
Quote from: broodblik on 18 July, 2020, 05:30:25 AM
Quote from: Richard on 17 July, 2020, 09:03:22 PM
How 2000AD survived being owned by people like that for 23 years is beyond me.

I think mostly of the quality of creators he had available. At on stage we literally only had 6 thrills that interchanged between each other. Good "managers"  shield their "workers" from the politics and intrigues

I wanted to add that this interchanging thrills created a very stable publication. It helped a lot that these thrills were very popular as well: Strontium Dog, Saline, Nemesis, Robo-hunter, Ace and Rogue

Yep.  As much as I like some individual Future-Shocks and Time Twisters (Alan Moore's greatest were running in the very first progs I ever read) my prog slog is at the stage where the line-up is The Graveyard Shift, Sláine, Nemesis Book III, the Moses Incident and Rogue Trooper, week after week for some time to come.