A note to Mr Bishop

Jayzus B. Christ · 06 August, 2002, 07:59:42 PM

Alright, Dave.

Now before I start, don't get me wrong: you were a very good editor for both the Megazine and 2000ad, and commissioned some excellent stories. I even enjoyed The Straitjacket thingy you wote. But when you were editing 2000ad, was there ever a conscious, spoken decision to follow the 'new lad' trend? THis was, after all, when Nikolai Dante started out, and when the Sex Prog was commissioned. I also recall the Loaded interview (heavy emphasis on the nudity / sex elements of 2000ad from yourself, Dave), and the full-page ad in same lads' mag: '2000ad - women just don't get it'.
Anyway, if this was a conscious approach, did it improve sales? I have to admit, 2000ad has been vastly improved in quality since the early 90's, and your time as Tharg's minion (for whatever reasons, I don't know if it was the 'laddization' of the comic) marked the start of the improvement period.

davidbishop · 07 August, 2002, 12:14:57 AM

Did 2000 AD jump on a New Lad bandwagon during my time in the hotseat? At times, yes. Let's face it, the Sex Prog (#1066 and all that) was pretty blatant stuff. Of course, I could point back at the infamous Femme Fetale supplement given away with Meg 2.64, way back in 1994 as prove of my baser instincts - so hardly a new trend for me!

However (and a lot of this will be covered in Thrill-power Overload when it reaches the relevant period)...

Nikolai Dante is entirely the creation of Robbie and Simon and was already being discussed when I joined 2000 AD in December 1995. The plan was always for the character to mature over time, so he had to start as quite the lad to make that transition more apparent. Though Dante still has lapses, he's older and wiser now than he was five years ago. so I don't accept Dante as part of a New Lad trend.

The Loaded interview ran to coincide with the 20th anniversary. I deliberately couched my answers in Loaded-friendly phrases, giving them exactly the copy they wanted, to ensure max coverage in the mag. It got us the cover and six pages inside, IIRC. Ironically, Loaded added 50,000 sales with that issue while we lost 500 sales the week that Loaded came out.

The big push in 1997 (driven entirely by marketing, which ran Egmont Fleetway) was to create stories with media-friendly hooks. Hence B.L.A.I.R. 1, the Space Girls, the Sex Prog, A LIfe Less Ordinary - all designed to get free publicity via airtime and column inches. They achieved that aim but alienated regular readers. Any sales gained were temporary and offset by sales lost by pissing off our hardcore audience. As a policy, it sucked. I signed up to it, so I'm just as culpable as my bosses.

The 'Women just don't get it' ads are another story. IPC owed Egmont Fleetway a five figure sum and settled this by offering free ad space in Loaded to match that amount - a golden opportunity, you might think.

The powers that be employed an advertising agency to create the campaign, excluding editorial from the process. We were shown the ads once before they ran and protested long and hard. I was furious and recall Andy Diggle and Steve MacManus being equally indignant. The ads ran over our protestations.

We got hate mail from regular readers who saw the ads, men and women. They saw this as the last straw and stopped reading - more alienation. Worst still, we were ordered not to reply to those letters or published them or offer any explanation. We just had to take a lot of shit-slinging from readers for something we had nothing to do with and had tried to stop.

I managed to block the whole incident out until Andy reminded me of it recently. Boy, will we have some dirt to dish when I reach the late 90s in TPO!

davidbishop

The Amstor Computer · 07 August, 2002, 10:22:51 AM

---The 'Women just don't get it' ads are another story. IPC owed Egmont Fleetway a five figure sum and settled this by offering free ad space in Loaded to match that amount - a golden opportunity, you might think.

The powers that be employed an advertising agency to create the campaign, excluding editorial from the process. We were shown the ads once before they ran and protested long and hard. I was furious and recall Andy Diggle and Steve MacManus being equally indignant. The ads ran over our protestations.

We got hate mail from regular readers who saw the ads, men and women. They saw this as the last straw and stopped reading - more alienation. Worst still, we were ordered not to reply to those letters or published them or offer any explanation. We just had to take a lot of shit-slinging from readers for something we had nothing to do with and had tried to stop---

Good to know that the editorial staff loathed the ads just as much as the regular readers.
When I first saw them, I couldn't believe that they were for 2000AD. After all, this was the comic that brought us Halo Jones - would they really run an ad like that?

The gagging order afterwards was pretty rough though. At least you'll be able to put the 2000AD staff side of the story in TPO.

2000AD Online · 07 August, 2002, 10:29:37 AM

since you've already dished the dirt here, any chance of skipping it in TPO? It's rapidly getting less interesting as it gets closer to the present.

davidbishop · 07 August, 2002, 01:18:54 PM

Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence, Floyd. Strangely, not every Megazine reader reads every post on this message board. So excuse me if I feel the story has sufficient merit to be worth retelling in TPO, especially with Andy's version of events. To me it illustrates significant interference in how 2000 AD editorial was being run and the effects of this.

Not wishing to bore everyone by repeating myself, I shall have to refrain from answering questions on this forum in future.

Bye.

davidbishop

Devons Daddy · 07 August, 2002, 03:10:36 PM

since you've already dished the dirt here, any chance of skipping it in TPO? It's rapidly getting less interesting as it gets closer to the present.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
not all readers of the megazine also come here, as much as we like to believe we are the only ones who make a differnce, there must be literally thousands of others who have not spent time here,

its great to see david bishops reply,s here, informative and friendly, focused and in a small way, a bit selfish that he answer our questions,.

but the statement
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Not wishing to bore everyone by repeating myself, I shall have to refrain from answering questions on this forum in future.

XXXXXXXXXXXX
please do carry on, you are just one more aspect of this board that makes it specail,
differnt to the idle banter and fun threads,
your particpation adds creditbility to the entire web site,'
im sure im not the only one who feels this way.

davidbishop · 07 August, 2002, 03:20:34 PM

My apologies to Floyd. Bit of a rattle out of pram moment there. I blame insufficient sleep and an ego more brittle than an eggshell.

davidbishop

John Caliber · 07 August, 2002, 10:16:18 PM

Aye, you went all girly tantrum on us there David. Still, nice to see an incarnation of Tharg flip now and then :))

Link: http://www.jdrpg.com/jdss" target="_blank">THE JUDGE DREDD STREET SIM

paulvonscott · 13 August, 2002, 06:05:00 AM

Well, I wanna here it.

All the dirt! All of it!

Cheers

paul

Pagangirl · 13 August, 2002, 04:35:02 PM

Gosh, I missed all that stuff back then, well this girl is getting it now (the comic, at the moment I'm not getting any of the other it, and no I'm not looking before anyone says anything lol).

It would be nice to see a return of some DECENT female characters in the comics though, apart from Hershey they seem to have wandered off, (I wonder if Bison now counts as a srong female lead?) The return of Andersens, Galen DeMarco (minus the talking ape), even Kenzie from HS had potential, she was a very well developed character for such a short run. Don't mention Durham Red to me though, there is a Freudien metaphor waiting to happen.

As for Dante, he suffers from Bison syndrome, when I first read him he pissed me off to such an extreme I wont even read any current stories and in fact will skip buying the mag that week if it has a weak supporting cast and just read Dredd on the shelf.

Trout · 13 August, 2002, 05:46:38 PM

David, please stick with us. We value the input, sincerely so.

By the way, are you a megalomaniac, like me? We could form a club, if you like. :-)

- HM The Trout

Matt · 13 August, 2002, 06:24:12 PM

The 90's really were 2K's darkest hour. I'll be interested to find out how the editorial team managed to keep the mag going in the face of all the crap they had to suffer. When i look back over that period I'm amazed that I even kept reading. Kola Commandos, Dino Race, Wireheads, Firekind...the list just goes on. We even had to sit back & watch 2Ks stable of strong characters destroyed, Strontium Dog, Rogue Trooper, Robo Hunter. I never realised how bad it was at the time, I kinda just hoped things would get better.