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Pat Mills interview @ Sabotage Times

Started by Emperor, 28 July, 2011, 05:18:59 PM

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Emperor

As always Pat gives good copy:

QuoteAll of your earliest 2000 AD stories – ABC Warriors, Nemesis The Warlock, some of the most famous Judge Dredd sagas – have been unrelentingly dystopian in nature. What would you say were your precursors?

When I started 2000 AD I did a crash course on all popular science fiction – I read Philip K Dick, Harry Harrison, Isaac Asimov and so forth, and that gives you the vocabulary... I think the dark ideas come from somewhere else, though. I mean, you either have them or you don't. If you look at some writers' material, it's quite upbeat or positive about the future, but if you look at mine it's darkly cynical, and I think that just comes the nature of your character. If you are that way inclined, you look for something – whether science fiction, horror, or even soap opera – to express that cynicism. If I try to write something that's more lighthearted or jovial, it usually stiffs at the box office – it's not meant to be.

...

When you were writing 2000 AD, was it always part of the plan to channel revolutionary ideas into young minds via the back door?

It was totally, absolutely deliberate, but I didn't think of that as being particularly special or unique. I mean, I was listening to all kinds of music – a lot of which was quite subversive and critical of the status quo – so when I got into comics, I thought, why aren't we doing the same thing in this form. Of course, it's the British creators who have largely added some depth to the American superheroes, but I would like to see the British comic industry have more of its old identity back. I'd love it to go back to the roots of 2000 AD, and I think it will probably be digital comics that will do it. I've been doing a fair bit of work on this for various people and I did a straw poll on digital girls' comics, as in how they would appeal to an audience not that different in its age group to the original 2000 AD audience – more or less 8-12 years old. The response was very positive, so we're hoping that will go forward – what I'm thinking is mystery, suspense, the occult... Stephen King-style girls' comics.
if I went 'round saying I was an Emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!

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locustsofdeath!

Oh let it come to pass, oh let it come to pass, oh let it come to pass...

John Caliber

Hooray for Pat! That's exactly the sort of thing I'm aiming to publish after I get my first few graphic novels on the market  :D
Author of CITY OF DREDD and WORLDS OF DREDD. https://www.facebook.com/groups/300109720054510/

Mangamax

Yeah, he was talking about that on Saturday. Reckons the biggest challenge would be the hook to pull readers in and now, in a rapidly developing digital world, that would be a tricky trick to pull off.
Best of luck to him and them though
The perspective on that chairs all wrong