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Not at this early stage.  More details as they come on.

Something in the horror/occult/paranormal genre, I believe.

He's scheduled to do a brand new series for 2000AD later this year.

Yep, it's a great cover.  One of the best in years.  Really strong and eye-catching, and goign back to the comic's old punk vibe.

>>So basically no one outside of the 'Big Five/Six' can write for toffee, or if they can, they bugger off over the water to better paid gigs ??<<

I don't think that's what I said, nor would I agree with it.

I think Andrew Lewis' Future Shock showed promise - and I remember thinking it sounded pretty good when I first heard it at the pitchfest last year.

There's also Simon Spurrier, of course, and a new guy called Jaspre Bark who's just sold his first Future Shock to 2000AD, and who's already writing for Warhammer and Dr Who.  I think he could be a fully-graduated scriptdroid of the future.

Rob Williams, who wrote Class War for com.x, is also doing at least one new series for 2000AD/the Megazine.

Some veteran droids do seem to be fading away into the wallpaper these days, but I still think there's potential new talent coming through to repalce them and keep the comic fresh.

The Brothers Gurr and Andrew Lewis were the winners, respectively, of this year's and last's year's Dreddcon pitchfest competitions.

Not sure about any of the others.  At least one of those Future Shocks - the one about the mercenaries attacking the monastery - has been sitting in the 'use only in the case of emergency' drawer for a _long_ time.

There was a Tharg story with Burt being sacked by Tharg, not any of the Mac droids.

He's very much wrong, I'm afraid.  Sonny Steelgrave was then 2000AD editor Alan Mackenzie, up to his usual tricks of commissioning himself to write for the comic.  As well as Steelgrave and his own name, he also wrote under the pseudonym Sidney Falco, and possibly one other name also.

Interested observers may notice that John Wagner only returned to writing for 2000AD after Alan had been removed as Tharg.  Read into this what you want.

Also, that South American Dredd story, with its stereotypical corrupt South Americans and comedy-Latino dialogue caused quite a lot of aggro, with one notable Spanish-speaking Dredd contributor taking great personal offence at it.  Especially since two of the characters in it apparently had the same names as him and his wife...

I wonder if any of this will be appearing in the official history articles in the Meg?  ;->

I think the idea of online comics generally, free or otherwise, is a bit of a non-starter.  The very expensive failure of Cool Beans kind of illustrates that point.

I'm not so sure about them being ahead of their time.  I think the 'subscribe-to-comics-on-the-net' idea was always a bit iffy.

The allegendly miniscule number of subscribers they had would seem to back up this idea.

And, as someone pointed out to me, the Curse of Marshall Law strikes again.  

Well, Disraeli was working for Cool Beans, but they went bust last week, so who knows where he'll pop up next.

Oh, and I think Alex Ronald's stuff was generally bloody atrocious.  Can't draw faces so you couldn't distinguish one character from another, bodies are always just lumpen shapes, no movement or dynamism in his lines at all, and always either going in too close in things so that sometimes you weren't sure what you were actually looking at, or going the opposite way and pulling back too far so that you weren't getting a good look at what was going on in the panel.  A bit of an all-round disaster, really.

The first two Mechanismo books, with great art by Colin MacNeil and Pete Doherty were collected.

The third one wasn't because, as far as I know, the art was thought to be too substandard, a verdkict I'd pretty much agree with.

Can't remember the name of the artist, but I think he was Spanish, maybe drafted in as an emergency replacement after someone better dropped out.  Certainly, his work isn't a patch on that of Colin and Pete.

If I'm wrong, I'm sure the Bishop droid will be happy to correct the errors of my failing memory circuits.

>>Titan must be running out of Ennis Dredds. Just Raider and Babes In Arms to come, and both of these were collected as part of larger books by Hamlyn in the 90s...<<

Oh my god!  Whaat will they do then!?

Really?

Oh lordy.

Ain't it great when you land one bang on target.

Yep.  Derleth introduces 'goodie' Elder Gods, which is in direct contradiction to Lovecraft's whole idea about the universe being a bleak horrible place where humanity counts for less than nothing.

Lumley goes one big step further, and gives us - I kid you not - Cthulhu's good twin brother who helps people against the dastardly cosmic plans of his evil twin.

It kind of beggars belief, really, just how much Lumley misses the entire point.  

>>The second one was a massive laugh... and was actually more like what Robert Howard actuall wrote, though. It was pulpy, low budget, camp. Great fun.>>

Disagree completely, I'm afraid.  Some of Howard's imitators and successors may have written their Conan stories as camp pulp - Lin Carter and L. Sprague de Camp (appropriately...)come to mind, but Howard himself was 100% serious about his work.

Read some of the very best original Howard stories - esp. stuff like The Frost Giant's Daughter, Rogues in the House, The People of the Black Circle etc - and compare it to the pastiche stuff by other lesser authors.  Howard writes it straight, while the others go for a bawdy romp, and miss the point entirely.

Conan the Barbarian has its problems, but comes closest to Howard's work.  Conan the Destroyer plays like something written by Lin Carter (or even, gawd help us, Roy Thomas...) on a very bad day.