Pat Mill's unsung heroes of 2000AD

[TordelBack]

A great read, as always with Pat, but boy do I disagree with some of his ideas!  My dislike of Finn and Blood of Satanus III weren't because I wasn't ready for paganism and far-out visual craziness (I like plenty of both, including other strips by Mills), or because I had something against Skinner or Hicklenton, but because they were strips I did not enjoy at all.   

Also, never mind the contra-examples in 2000AD itself, no-one point him at a comic shop if he thinks Alan Moore and Grant Morrison's characters are out-of-bounds for other creators...

But I wouldn't have him any other way; he's the honest business.

[Colin YNWA]

Its a very Pat list and good luck to him. As with all these sorts of things I find as much to disagree with as agree but one thing is Gerry Finley-Day really unsung? Really?

I'm not GFD's biggest fan by some mark, but he has many and I'm always conscious when I comment on the things in his work I don't like that I'm really going against the flow and many, many hold his work in high esteem.

[Jim_Campbell]

I never knew there was a backlash against Johns art as even in my youth I thought "That's stuff is fucked up, but in a good way".

I remain unconvinced by the idea that Hicklenton didn't get a lot of work because of editorial's inability to appreciate him (and ISTR his work on Nemesis, at least, was generally pretty well received by the fans) and/or some nebulously-defined hostility towards some equally-nebulously-defined spirit of artistic rebelliousness.

The fact is: 2000AD (and the Megazine) is a machine that demands to be fed large quantities of original content with metronomic regularity. Marshalling the output of the number of creators those demands require can be like herding cats at the best of times.

If you're simultaneously dealing with hostile senior management and cuts to editorial staff and budgets, then dealing with one of those (metaphorical) cats who likes to take industrial quantities of acid, deliver pages when they feel like it, and has a propensity to draw literally nothing that was in the original script may well feel like a luxury you simply can't afford.

[JLC]

Don't always agree with Pat but I love how he sticks to his strong opinions & age doesn't appear to have dampened his anger!

[Frank]

I ran Peter Harris' story as the first Judge Dredd in Prog 2 because it literally created the Dredd world. The whole Judge system, the bike on automatic GPS, the mutants, the Empire State road, Dredd as hero – all that came from Peter. Previously Dredd had been a solo Judge but I wasn't happy with either John's vision of Dredd or my own ...

After that, Peter disappeared. I have no recollection of him submitting more scripts, although he may have tried after I left. Then, very recently, Future Shock! director, Paul Goodwin, tracked Mrs Harris down and we learnt the sad news that Peter had passed. But his widow was thrilled to hear of her husband's success.

I must ask Paul to pass on her details to Rebellion as his estate may be due some royalties for that first episode. I was able to facilitate some royalties to Malcolm Shaw's widow in a similar way.

http://www.millsverse.com/10-of-the-best-celebrating-some-of-2000ads-unsung-heroes/

I've always wondered about this. It's strange to think even Harris himself might not have been aware of the success the character went on to enjoy.

Given the top selling status of Case Files 1, Mrs Harris can hopefully look forward to an annual pension top-up for many years to come. Just don't introduce her to a good lawyer, or let them see a copy of Pat's remarks, above.

[rogue69]

CalHab Pat's dislike of Dave Bishop has been going on since Dave was editor, Pat did not like the way he was taking the comic as a whole, pushing out the older writers & artists for newer younger ones who were clearly there just to try & make it into American comics, hence the NME bit & also the poor choices of artists he was "making" Pat use such as putting Siku a devote Christian  on Slaine with all it's Pagan overtones which obviously ended up badly.
I am not one for normally speak ill of Pat Mills but I think 2000AD needed to go through that stage no matter how bad it got because it was like it was in it's rebellious teenager phase with Pat as it's Father  & he is upset that it was not the vision he had for it.
With Gerry Finley Day he is still upset with the way Gerry was just dumped from the comic as the story goes he was told that they did not need any more Rogue Trooper stories as they had a new war story starting DR & Quinch go to war, also Gerry's wife doesn't want him to have anything to do with comics any more

[TordelBack]

...the poor choices of artists he was "making" Pat use such as putting Siku a devote Christian  on Slaine with all it's Pagan overtones which obviously ended up badly.

Ended up creating probably the most acclaimed Slaine story of the post-Horned God era, you mean?

(Also, in its 'original' version Children of Lir is a Christian story, the pagan curse is finally lifted by a Christian priest and/or bell).

[dweezil2]

I never knew there was a backlash against Johns art as even in my youth I thought "That's stuff is fucked up, but in a good way".

There were some particularly nasty things written about Hinklenton, during his run on Satanus III and in The Meg letters pages at that time that went well beyond constructive criticism and appeared more of a targeted, personal attack.

[Richard]

This is great news:

Accident Man, now being made into a film starring Scott Adkins and currently in post-production.

[GordonR]

This is great news:

Accident Man, now being made into a film starring Scott Adkins and currently in post-production.

I see Martin Emond's name somehow seems to have fallen off the 'Created By' credits on this project.

[The Corinthian]

Also, never mind the contra-examples in 2000AD itself, no-one point him at a comic shop if he thinks Alan Moore and Grant Morrison's characters are out-of-bounds for other creators...

It makes sense in a 2000AD-only context. No one's going to touch Halo Jones or Zenith again.

[Woolly]

I never knew there was a backlash against Johns art as even in my youth I thought "That's stuff is fucked up, but in a good way".

There were some particularly nasty things written about Hinklenton, during his run on Satanus III and in The Meg letters pages at that time that went well beyond constructive criticism and appeared more of a targeted, personal attack.

I do recall posts on this board during the Satanus III run (from myself included) that were calling Hicklenton's work sloppy (or words to that effect).
However, when we were informed of his struggles with MS we instantly saw this work under a new light, and soon realised just how lucky we were to have his work in the Meg.

I really hope this wasn't the criticism that Pat was referring to, and I hope he knows just how much this board loves John's work.

For what it's worth I'm not the biggest fan of the story for Satanus III, but it's by no means a bad Dredd story.

[Smith]

I do honestly admire the ability to plug in all his works in the article.
-Btw,I hate superheroes.I wrote a comic,Marshal Law,about it.Available now in all better store.

[Steve Green]

Also, never mind the contra-examples in 2000AD itself, no-one point him at a comic shop if he thinks Alan Moore and Grant Morrison's characters are out-of-bounds for other creators...

It makes sense in a 2000AD-only context. No one's going to touch Halo Jones or Zenith again.

Well there are 2 Mooreless Skizz sequels, a couple of non Wagner/Grant Robohunters...

[Frank]

... never mind the contra-examples in 2000AD itself, no-one point him at a comic shop if he thinks Alan Moore and Grant Morrison's characters are out-of-bounds for other creators...

It makes sense in a 2000AD-only context. No one's going to touch Halo Jones or Zenith again.

As TordelBack alludes, Skizz and Ulysses Sweet took second (and third) bows with other names in the credit boxes. Your point stands, though - Halo and Zenith are much higher profile and more closely identified with their creators*.

Mills' original point was about Gerry Finley-Day, and Rogue Trooper is certainly the work with which he's most closely associated.

Tharg wasn't wrong to try the strip in other hands, but Mills is right that it never worked again. It didn't work for the last year of GFD's run either, so I can't agree with Mills' diagnosis or prescription for its recovery. The strip had its Day.


* To be fair, I get the impression Tharg only hired Guy Adams to disinter the corpse of Ulysses Sweet as a warning shot across Morrison's bow (at the time they were reprinting Zenith), rather than because he thought the character had life in him or was worth $$$. 'See what I could do, if I wanted - let's see if you want to waste money in court over that!'.