Main Menu

I may get shot for this...

Started by marko10174, 23 April, 2017, 09:52:14 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Molch-R

As the person who wrote the multi-part interview in the Megazine and had the extraordinary privilege to have met Ron several times, I can confirm these comments are being taken wildly - nay, egregiously - out of context.

Those interviews prove beyond doubt that Ron loved his work, gained a great delight from it, and has always been astonished that he is held in such high regard by fans. But this never stopped him being upfront that it was his job. His candor and honesty has always struck me as being refreshing.

As someone who sat in Ron's living room and saw him get tearful with joy over his time at 2000 AD, don't ever tell me he didn't love his work.

Bolt-01

#151

Jim_Campbell

Quote from: Bolt-01 on 27 April, 2017, 05:42:32 PM
Move along.

Pausing only briefly to nod sagely at the Molchinator's deployment of the word 'nay', however. :-)
Stupidly Busy Letterer: Samples. | Blog
Less-Awesome-Artist: Scribbles.

Molch-R

Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 27 April, 2017, 05:51:33 PM
Pausing only briefly to nod sagely at the Molchinator's deployment of the word 'nay', however. :-)

I'm between musters so have to keep in character.

SIP

#154
Amen!

Now I can stop looking at this angst inducing thread.

JayzusB.Christ

"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

Goaty


Definitely Not Mister Pops

Me personally, I just think the 2000AD artists from the late 70s to late 90s, that refused to use digital, computer based time saving techniques in their work, clearly hate comic book fans.
You may quote me on that.

JayzusB.Christ

Nah, it was just you they hated.  They told me.
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

terryworld

Quote from: positronic on 27 April, 2017, 04:39:51 PM
If that's the way you really feel, have the decency to keep it to yourself.

take a bit of your own advice

Tjm86

What I've always personally loved about tooth is the varied but quality artwork.  Personally I'm a massive fan of the old greats; Dillon, Bolland, Ezquerra, McMahon, Bellardinelli, Redondo, Kennedy, Gibbons, Wilson, Gibson ... but over the years the sheer variety has helped evolve my tastes.  Ron Smith is an artist that I've never been fussed on.  I can't quite put my finger on why.  Perhaps it's just the strips that he has done over the years outside of the tooth that I've come to associate him with.  Weird I know!  Then again, I like Haribo's and Cadbury's chocolate together so who am I to talk?

positronic

Quote from: Molch-R on 27 April, 2017, 05:39:39 PM
As the person who wrote the multi-part interview in the Megazine and had the extraordinary privilege to have met Ron several times, I can confirm these comments are being taken wildly - nay, egregiously - out of context.

That's fair. Perhaps I should be criticizing the editor of Thrill-Power Overload for choosing to print that quote out of context of the rest of a lengthy interview, which would have presented a more balanced picture. Since he didn't choose to print any counterbalancing comments in which Mr. Smith warmly expressed his appreciation of the medium or the fans of his work, without any context it tends to paint him in a negative light.

Then again, it would probably be fair to characterize TPO as somewhat of a 'warts and all' Mega-City Babylon approach to the 2000 AD history, not afraid to air the dirty laundry behind-the-scenes. For an authorized company history, that's pretty unusual, but when we get to the point where Rebellion acquired ownership of 2000 AD, things become substantially more subdued and reserved. That may or may not be truly reflective of a less-turbulent period in the magazine's history, or it may reflect the point at which David Bishop's editorial choices of whom to quote, about what, were no longer a factor.

At any rate, there's nothing to be lost in digging up dirt on tempestuous relations with former editors or publishers, and it makes for more interesting reading than the kind of carefully-vetted and tidied-up-politely histories of other comics companies. But it also does make me wonder if Bishop chose to highlight that quote of Ron Smith's specifically because it sounded so "just business; it-was-all-about-the-money", if he couldn't find anything else the least bit provocative. I did notice just a few instances in the book of creators or editors who "declined to be interviewed for this book".

positronic

I hasten to point out that I refer here to the newly-updated (by Karl Stock, with David Bishop's blessing, but without his actual participation) 2017 edition of Thrill-Power Overload. I haven't seen the prior edition from eight years earlier, so I couldn't say what might have been left out of the new edition that may have been in the previous edition, but the new expanded version contains a substantial amount of new text, including of course, all of the events covered since the first edition was written.

JOE SOAP

Quote from: positronic on 28 April, 2017, 07:51:55 PMAs for Ron Smith, well... he certainly drew a LOT of Judge Dredd. Somehow I never felt like he "fit in" with the other great Dredd artists, though (diverse though they may be). I think ultimately the most telling indictment of his work to me, was when I read in Thrill-Power Overload that he used to set himself a specific amount of time to work on each page, based on his page-rate from 2000 AD. When that time elapsed, he was done, regardless of what the page looked like at that point.

Quote from: positronic on 28 April, 2017, 07:51:55 PM
Perhaps I should be criticizing the editor of Thrill-Power Overload for choosing to print that quote out of context of the rest of a lengthy interview, which would have presented a more balanced picture. Since he didn't choose to print any counterbalancing comments in which Mr. Smith warmly expressed his appreciation of the medium or the fans of his work, without any context it tends to paint him in a negative light....it sounded so "just business; it-was-all-about-the-money", if he couldn't find anything else the least bit provocative. I did notice just a few instances in the book of creators or editors who "declined to be interviewed for this book".

Is it not really the case that Ron Smith's aesthetic is just not to your liking –perfectly fine– and that Ron's comment on his working method –even when in his own words– is just a modest anecdote rather than a valid criticism of the quality of his craftmanship as evident on the printed page?




SIP

DAMN! I looked at the thread again.......😭