Pat Mill's unsung heroes of 2000AD

[Richard]

I don't agree that Rogue never worked again. John Smith's take on the character is highly regarded, and Dave Gibbons did a brilliant job with the first Friday story, a brilliant and updated new version which was unfortunately squandered by other writers in the follow-up stories. And I quite liked the recent Hunted, even though (or because?) Rogue wasn't the main character. (Was that Gordon Rennie?)

[Smith]

IMO,Rennies revival in the 1300s was pretty good.

[The Corinthian]

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*.

I totally get that, but I'm trying to articulate Mills' mindset that certain creators have produced work that's basically untouchable by anyone else. I'm not sure that Ulysses Sweet would even be on Pat's radar.

[TordelBack]

The reason Tharg hasn't assigned Halo Jones Book IV to anyone else probably isn't out of concern for Moore's good opinion (that ship sailed long ago), it's more likely because he rightly judges that it would be crap.

Rogue Trooper, much as I love it, was crap long before GFD stopped writing it, and as noted both Smith and Gibbons did better than the later stories, and Rennie is on to a winner with his current reworkings of the universe.

The prime example of a writer whose strips don't get farmed out is Mills himself (with memorable exceptions), and the reason there is fear of an explosion that might take the whole Prog with it. A useful  counterpoint might be to wonder whose strips have been written by more different people than John Wagner?

I don't see 2000AD as particularly obsessed with any creators' claims, but rather with the practicality of producing quality stories: if there was a Zenith Phase V pitch out there that was worthy of the name, I doubt Tharg would turn up his nose at it.

[Frank]

I don't agree that Rogue never worked again. John Smith's take on the character is highly regarded, and Dave Gibbons did a brilliant job with the first Friday story, a brilliant and updated new version which was unfortunately squandered by other writers in the follow-up stories

I like those one-offs too (and others speak highly of the IDW iteration), but they didn't (or couldn't) translate into continuing series, which is sort of the point of a house character*.

Where I part company with Mills is his contention that the comic dropped three quarters of its sales in a decade because it abandoned mainstream readers. If he wants to make that one float, he'll have to explain why every other comic lost readers too.


* Gibbons never committed to any kind of long-term writing gig, and good luck convincing John Smith to button down to the grim slog of bashing out 25 episodes of Nort stabbing action heroics per annum. Maybe that gets to the heart of the matter; Tharg doesn't really do house characters anymore (Dredd being the exception that proves the rule). Rory McConville's Rogue Trooper would look as out of place alongside Edginton's Stickleback as the first incarnation of the character looked in the age of Morrison's Zenith. I much prefer the model of moving on when the creators decide the well's run dry.

[Colin YNWA]

IMO,Rennies revival in the 1300s was pretty good.

Yeah I'd defo agree with that.

[JayzusB.Christ]

* Gibbons never committed to any kind of long-term writing gig, and good luck convincing John Smith to button down to the grim slog of bashing out 25 episodes of Nort stabbing action heroics per annum. 

Pity, though. Smiffy even made Friday interesting. His text story in the Fleischer-heavy Rogue annual was, frankly, a pearl among pigshit.

[Tony Angelino]

Could never get back in to Rogue (I think) after the strip that Ortiz drew. I remember that and the one drawn by Steve Dillon which, with all respect, I don't think was among his best work.

I then remember the strip written by Dave Gibbons and drawn by Will Simpson but I didn't think it was that good and I couldn't really understand if it was a reboot of Rogue Trooper or a different Rogue Trooper or what it was.

[Frank]

I couldn't really understand if it was a reboot of Rogue Trooper or a different Rogue Trooper or what it was.

WE FOUND HIM, GUYS!!!

Congratulations, buddy - you're the reader editorial had in mind when they were plotting the unnecessary contortions of the final Fr1day stories:

[JayzusB.Christ]

It was very definitely a reboot. But as the Friday stories dragged on Tharg first tried to convince us it was the same Rogue, until the original Rogue turned up and met Friday, till the whole thing just imploded in a soggy mess.

Cinnabar was, in my book, the best Rogue story ever published.  More Vietnam than WW2 in its moral ambiguity, and incredibly non-child-friendly in places for a comic that still didn't swear. 
Also, biowire turned out to be far more interesting than we'd previously thought, the Norts had a few new tricks up their own tech-sleeve while the Southers were working on genetic engineering, and Bagman is a fucking maniac.

[Richard]

Frank and Jayzus have hit the nail right on the head there!

Meanwhile:

Gibbons never committed to any kind of long-term writing gig

Neither did Wagner, and yet other writers did a stellar job with Dredd in his absence.

Gibbons wrote one of the best stories to appear in 2000 AD, with a great hero (and a decent villain for him to pursue, not unlike a certain traitor general I could mention), and then (like Wagner in 1977) he fucked off. But he left enough material for other writers to work with and write more good stories. Instead, somehow, we got Mike Fleischer, and so all that promise was wasted. It didn't have to be that way, but it was.

[Jim_Campbell]

Cinnabar was, in my book, the best Rogue story ever published.

It pretty much was. And the Dillon/Walker art combo was a revelation. It all felt fresh and new, but somehow like the Rogue Trooper we knew was always hiding in there. (I thought some of the short-lived Rennie revival hit the mark, too. Particularly the Staz Johnson/David Roach illustrated episodes, which strongly channelled that original Gibbons aesthetic.)

[rogue69]

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.
[/quote]
that was what upset Pat the most as John took it all to heart & sent him into a down wood spiral with his depression. The only problem I saw with the artwork was that it was originally drawn in a3 so a lot of the detail got lost

[Jim_Campbell]

The only problem I saw with the artwork was that it was originally drawn in a3 so a lot of the detail got lost

Not sure I understand that. All traditionally drawn art is done over-size, usually on A3 boards, and the scanning tech available latterly was a lot more forgiving than the 'camera' repro of the 80s and early 90s, which was little better than sticking the pages through a photocopier.

[rogue69]

There was a lot of small details in the original artwork that did not come out as noticeable as they could have as they were drawn quite small un the first place . Don't get m wrong I love John's artwork, I was one of the few people who stood up for his work on Satanus I am just saying that I can understand that some people may have missed the finer details in his work