2000 AD Online Forum

Inspired by the Prog Slog, and because I'm about halfway through my own complete big reread, I've decided to do a weekly writeup of my own.  Can I find a good thing or two to say about the dark, Millar-infected days of 1993?  You bet!

Link: Thrillpowered Thursday

Thrillpowered Thursday is back this week with an amazing attempt to rehabilitate the reputation of Shaky Kane's Soul Gun Warrior.  Dare I dream to succeed...?

Link: Thrillpowered Thursday

Why would something as bonkers and cool as that need rehabilitating?

It's got a thrillpower rating on this site of a lowly 3.26!  It's nevertheless excellent, and it's due a rethink!

Agreed.  The campaign for a Shaky Kane EE starts now!

::"Why would something as bonkers and cool as that need rehabilitating?"

Because instead of characters in a story, it had abstract concepts in an abstract concept.  Plus, the art's very much a love it or loathe it style.  I loathed it.

It's like all the weird bits from the Avengers, but without Steed or Peel, drawn by a pretentious art student with more access to LSD than talent.

Thrillpowered Thursday is back again today with a quick look at some of 2000 AD's creative links with Doctor Who.  Plus, blatant droid swiping!

Link: Tooth and Who

I loved his stuff- like the wierdness of the Pinheads and the A-Men in Deadline.

A pizza place in Dublin, Pinheads Pizza, has framed pages from Deadline on the walls and they look great!

Thrillpowered Thursday is back today with another look at an unappreciated gem - The Journal of Luke Kirby.  Plus, another random Doctor Who connection!

Link: Open the Journal!

Each time I try to access these the hour glass pops up and I have to close down Internet Explorer.

Is anyone else having this prob and any idea what's causing this.

I get the same problem.

That's odd.  I view it at home with Firefox with no problem and at work with Internet Explorer, again with no problem, although there is a small delay there, maybe 15 seconds, as it loads the images.  It could be that style sheet doesn't like the browser.  Sorry it's giving you trouble!

I haven't mentioned my blog for a while, but I wanted to let everyone know there's a new entry today, about the short-lived Mills & Langley take on Nemesis...

Link: Thrillpowered Thursday

Hmmm... I wonder how that murky painted art of Langley's is going to look in Grayscale in the Complete Nemesis volume. I like what Langley was going for there too.

The site works for me - and reads much better than TPO.  
  I can't share your enthusiasm for Shakey Kane though

I was wondering that, too.  What I'm thinking is that since that first Complete volume had books 1-4, then the second will have 5-8, and then the last could have 9-10 and this color stuff in the middle.  Since the page count will only be about 2/3 what the first volume was, if that, maybe they can afford to do these pages in color.

The Chris Weston one-off looked really good and might reproduce well in B/w, but these certainly will not.  I don't know whether you've seen the Carl Critchlow "Nemesis and Deadlock" 7-parter, but that thing is so brown and deep red and flat that it reproduced like crap in the comic itself.  If they grayscale that, it'll look like solid black panels.

Eesh. I vote color collection for volume 3. If only because it seems most what it'd contain needs it desperately.

Interesting point about the alienness of Langley's Nemesis. Even with O'Neill I always thought Nemesis looked more like a robot more than anything else. (That's not to say that it was bad at all).

This week in Thrillpowered Thursday, I shoot for the stars and defend Peter Hogan and Rian Hughes' time on Robo-Hunter.  But have I done enough to elevate it from the lowly 4.33 rating that the wonderful "Robopolis" has on this site...?

Link: Thrillpowered Thursday

Very good - another interesting opinion, and one i kind of agree with.  I'm not Rian Hughes greatest fan, and there's always the "anything's better than Millar" factor, but I did think these had a charm to them.  

There's a line in the Samantha Slade strips about a rogue slade robot? - that one passed me by!  Can you pinpoint it?  

I'm glad someone enjoyed it - but it just reminds me too much of Tin Tin.  I've never considered anything since Farewell, My Billions (ending in prog 443) to be real Robo-Hunter.

(At a stretch, I'd accept Samantha Slade, purely on the grounds that Grant and Gibson might say so - and who am I to argue.)

I certainly wouldnt put the Hogan/Hughes robohunters into a "canon" with the original.. but then, i'd be loathe to put the (IMO) underwhelming Samantha Slades in there either!

They had a nice feel to them that wasnt quite Robohunter, but was likeable enough - probably have been better served by being its own thing rather than a relaunch of an old character (and as pointed out, already sullied by a recent  terrible reinvention).

I should probably give them a re-read at some point.  

Shaky Kane EE?

I'd buy two.

It's in part three of Like a Virgin - the implication is that Slade was replaced by a robot and his body sold off to collectors.

This week, Thrillpowered Thursday reaches the end of 1994 and talks about the fallout from that TV ad campaign along with the brilliant "Son of Mean" story.  Drop on by!

Link: More 2000 AD chatter

Hey there hipster! You is gettin' pimped ol' boy!

Bolt-01

Link: FPI Blog talks about Thrill-powerd Thursday

which reminds me-- they really should compile the Stainless Steel Rat stories

ain't there a rights issue with reprinting stainless steel rat?

36 episodes, one big book, I'm all for it.

Bump.

Tough guys in Antarctica!  I'm afraid to say that the new Thrillpowered Thursday has reached "Crusade" in the latest installment... can I say anything about it, good or bad, before my brain switches off in protest?

Link: Crusading Nowhere...

Thrillpowered Thursday returns from vacation today!  unfortunately, prog 933's pretty weak, so I talk about London newspapers and the Daily Star strip this week instead...  Enjoy!

Link: That Time in London

Yeah - that nobody without the original progs gets to read all of Zenith is a bit of a crime.  (And then there's Halo Jones...)

Yay! another daily Star Dredd that i havent seen!  You didnt get any more did you HD?

My calculations make that part 2 of the story (out of 42, the standard length they were running at by this time) - If only you'd remembered and bought Saturdays edition, we'd have another story title by now!  :)

I'm sorry the scan's not better, but that's the only one I saved, on account of it being so stupid, and it's on one of my scrapbook pages, which wouldn't lay on the scanner evenly.

Each of my three trips to London had a similar "duh" moment... when I visited in December 1993, I bought the oversized Christmas editions of both the Radio and the TV Times, not knowing that the Radio Times had added listings for commercial television since my previous visit.  Durrr.

This week in Thrillpowered Thursday, Heap Molinsky goes to the White House, Armitage vanishes without a trace, and Alan McKenzie clears up the mystery of Sonny Steelgrave.  Don't miss it!

Link: Thrillpowered Thursday

They were planning to renumber the prog (log)?

I'm glad that never happened.  (Mind you, I can see the reasoning - being on issue 1553, and with Dredd having started in issue 2, one could consider that an intimidating barrier to entry.)

Thrillpowered Thursday continues this week... it's movie time for Judge Dredd!  And advertising time for Urban Strike!

Link: Thrillpowered Thursday

uggh urban strike...

Also I remember in that return of rico redux story that there is a massive time paradox in it which I am shocked that Mills did since it invoves his own story...

I usually stop by the board every other week to remind the Hive Mind about Thrillpowered Thursday.  But this week, I remembered because a strange man in an old black suit told me that I'm supposed to.  He was very odd.  It was 10 pm and he still wore sunglasses.  And his skin was pale blue.  And he told me that UFO I saw last week was really a weather balloon...

Link: Secret government conspiracied Thursday

Good stuff, oh Hipster.  I like the generous observiations on your son's reactions.  I also agree that a Vector 13 TPB would be good stuff

I also agree that a Vector 13 TPB would be good stuff

You're dealing for a peeling there, Floydy.  Maybe an EE to remind us all of teh Dark Times (I presume this is the logic behind reprinting Mean Team II), but no further.

Oh, I disagree hugely.  Firstly, the film seems to mark the turnaround; by September 1995, the comic's moving out of the "Dark Times" you mention.  All of the worst moments - Michael Fleisher, three Millars a week - are in the past.  But more importantly, Vector 13's really not bad.  It's got work by a pile of good creators, including some of Dan Abnett's first work for 2000 AD.  Of the first nine episodes, at least six are really good.  Check out "Marion" in prog 956, the story by Abnett & Sean Phillips about coincidences driving a housewife mad.  It's creepy as hell - the best one-shot in 2000 AD in many years.  And there are four or five other V13s in that first run that are of comparable quality.  "Circle of Evil" by Nick Abadzis and Kevin Cullen is another great one.

Sure, there are occasional misses - I'm not gonna defend the one about the sabre-toothed tigers - but there's a danger in letting the quite justifiable boredom with the MiBs and the way they got run into the ground in 1996-97 obscure the quality of the actual stories.  As a harbinger of editorial excesses to come, yes, Vector 13 is pretty cringeworthy.  But as a collection of stories by some 2000 AD's best creators, it's very good and deserves reconsideration.  Sez me, anyway.

::"the film seems to mark the turnaround".

A turnaround from shite to shit ain't that positive.  If the film was the high tide mark of crap, then there was still a long way to go before the shore was clean.

That really is still a terrible era, and The Men In Black epitomise that by replacing Tharg for no good reason other than the new editor just didn't get it.  (To be fair, he relented and reinstated Tharg eventually.)

Post prog 950 we enter an era of repetetive nothing-but-action Friday (RT) strips, Chopper in Supersurf 13 (which many people deny ever happened), Hellbringer trying to repeat Khronicles and falling chronically short (although it's the best thing in those progs) and dull Dredd strips backed up by a sequel (a fucking sequel!) to Wireheads.

I mean, give me strength.  You couldn't make the prog much worse if you actually planned for it.  By the time The Pit comes along, it's just as well - because it's the only thing in the prog worth reading.

And Vector 13 suffers from the same problem Tales of Telguuth and Tales from the Black Museum suffer from.  The need to repeat the gimmick every time.  Whether it's "we're on Telguuth" or "here are the Men in Black" or "here's your comedy zombie", it's a gimmick that wears horribly thin incredibly fast.  Something that Time Twisters, Future Shocks or Terror Tales don't suffer from.  (Their gimmicks take far longer to wear thin.)

By the time Vector 13 was in the comic, cynically trying to cash in on the success of The X Files, that television show had already started to show signs (it would never shirk) of it's central lie.  The truth wasn't out there.  There was no solution to the mystery.  We were being strung along for the sake of ratings, not told a story.  What a crap thing to emulate.  What a horrible period of 2000AD history.

(Kinda wish more people would comment in the LJ itself, where I could actually reply at work!)

That's one of the reasons I'm enjoying this reread as much as I am - you've highlighted a number of unfortunate failures-to-come, but I'm seeing these very good early V13s, and very good Wagner/Ezquerra Dredds, and the Slaine stories "Name of the Sword" and "Lord of Misrule," which are both better than I remembered them, the last Luke Kirby story, which is great, etc.  Even the most recent Rogue Trooper story I read has some great art by Charlie Adlard.  (And the one before that is "Ascent," which is the only post-Gibbons Friday story that really works at all.)

In the fourteen weeks after the relaunch, the only things that I don't enjoy are Maniac Six (and who, over the age of 12, does?), the V13 about the cats, and the fire people rescuing Pa and Junior, which is at least drawn by one of my two favorite artists.  Considering these are 44-page progs, I'd call that a good track record.

Does it start to stumble under the weight of Burton-commissioned nonsense in months and years to come?  Sure; the Wireheads sequel is awful, and so might Time Flies II turn out to be.  (I haven't read it since it first ran.)  Was using the MiBs in Kid CyBorg and Black Light a colossal mistake?  Probably... although I don't think Bish-Op uses them to replace Tharg for almost a year after this prog I reviewed, and I don't think those excesses should be held against Vector 13 itself, which, as one-shots go, maintain a consistent quality that the one-shots hadn't had in simply ages.

I think the high tide water mark, by the way, is actually in the 880s, when you have the most Millar, Babe Race 2000, Grudge-Father, etc.  I struggled through those some weeks ago and it was rough.

I suppose my problem with this period is that I just gave up at the time.  I hated the logo/design, I hated most of the strips, and I hadn't a red cent to my name to support notions of loyalty-no-matter-what  - so all I have from the period are bad memories and sporadic progs that disappointed me so much at that time that I didn't buy the next one.  So it's very hard for me to reappraise them in the way you've done here.  

I don't have specific memories of V13 stories, other than my ever increasing hatred for the concept.  Which I suppose is what makes projects like Thillpowered Thursday so interesting.

well, I'd find one readable. Not 'tell all my friends they must read this' readable, but it would be okay

The problem I had with the V13s is two fold.  

Firstly, I dont think that they are really comic strips for the most part - Lectures dont make very exciting comics to my mind. Though doubtless there are some quite entertaining ones if I trawled through em, mostly they were a sequence of "and then this happened" captions with a suitable illustration.

Secondly, the timing of their appearance, with it pretty blatantly riding the X files hype struck me as a little un2000AD.  When 2000AD starts following rather than setting trends, its on dodgey ground for me (2000AD as Deadline being the worst and most obvious example).

Still, I think I detected signs of life after the lows of the 800s.  At least Dredd was by Wagner again, and the really bad writers had vacated the building mostly.  It looked like someone was trying to do things right, even if at this point, they didnt have the tools or experience to do it.

Really enjoying the blog, Hipster, and between yours and Paul Raineys Prog slog covering my favourite, theres enough well informed comment to get me itching to start my own reread.  

"When 2000AD starts following rather than setting trends, its on dodgey ground for me"

Like, for example, ripping off the Six Million Dollar Man or Dirty Harry? No, that would never do...

well, yes!

Early 2000AD is also on dodgy ground for me - theres a great charm and energy to those strips, but its only when the 2000AD part of the mix takes over that the comic takes off.

Dredd may echo Dirty harry, but he's soon transported well beyond being a clone.  MACH 1 never takes off for me because he's too close to the gravity of his source.  

Well, thanks!  I always like hearing that the work gets people wanting to read.  Paul's progslogblog is awesome.  I've been missing it this week.  
One thing I've enjoyed is finding the chance to look at the stories that history has judged to be failures with a fresh outlook.  Having the very fresh pair of eyes that my son possesses is nice, too, even if they're not always "right."  On the other hands, it's amazing just how much Maniac 5 informs Millar's modern writing.  It feels exactly like the issue of Civil War I read.

I'll certainly concede that most - but not all - of V13 violates the "show, don't tell" rule.  But good comics can do that if they're well done.  Some of Alan Moore's one-offs are also lectures or presentations ("The Hyper-Historic Headbang" and "They Sweep the Spaceways" come to mind), and he still does it from time to time.  I think there's a First American strip or two which tells the action more than it shows it.  (That's possibly a bad example, as First American is clearly the weakest of the Tomorrow Stories...)

I have to agree with Watcher - it's when 2000 AD starts to tell new stories that it really takes off.

Flesh is the best of the early strips, to my mind.  It takes a few great concepts popular with kids (dinosaurs, cowboys and time travel) and produces something unique.

---

I don't think it's fair to compare Moore's Hyper-Histronic Headbang or They Sweep the Spaceways with any of the Vector 13s.  That's like comparing Shakespeare with "The World Atlas of Mysteries by A. Nobody".

For me, it's not how well any of the Vector 13s are told, written or drawn - it's a more visceral hatred than that.  It's those fucking twats in the hats I can't stand.  The "men in black" - characterless avatars that don't even make sense.  I mean, who the fuck are these pale blue, or grey people?  Where did they come from?  They're not FBI agents, cos FBI agents are human.  So, they're just nothing. As a story-telling device, I find them insipid.  (I know Tharg is fictional - but at least he's got a backstory and a bit of character.)

Add them to the context - that it was obvious someone had come along and said "let's shake up how we do things around here" - and you get the added taint of new managment, reeking of pointless exercises in domination and the marking of territory.

So... You want a 37 part ongoing series filling in the backstory of the Men In Black?
By Mills & Hicklenton?
Fully painted in a wide range of browns?

It'll be gold, I tells ya!

Yes please!

On an entirely unrelated topic, I was just watching a strange video of someone called the Technoviking, and in the ensuing "debate" about whether he was a Dance God or a (not my words) complete e-tard, I spotted my favourite insult of the week:

"Look at your face! You look like the asshole of Borat!"

I probably didn't do the topic justice, but the abandoned "rebuilding of Mega-City Two" is the subject of this week's Thrillpowered Thursday, although I don't think I covered it well, and may revise things later on.  Also, if you missed it last week, 2000 AD's most surreal printing error!

Link: Whatever Happened to Mega-City Two

Just before I take a few weeks off, I wanted to let y'all know that this week's Thrillpowered Thursday looks at the end of the John Tomlinson era, and four series which might have been intended as the recurring strips of their day, but all of which were quietly shelved after their first run: Darkness Visible, Flesh, Kid CyBorg and Venus Bluegenes.

Link: More of me saying nice things about unpopular stor

Hey everyone - Thrillpowered Thursday is back from vacation today!  This week, the debut of Sinister Dexter, with some surprising guest stars in Downlode and in Sector House 301...

Link: Kenton Quaranteeno and Roxy Music

finally welcome back to thrillpowered thursday! I mean I regularly check out your blog (its even listed on my blog) but I kind of missed thrillpowered thursday

i enjoy your musings hipster, so i'm glad thrill-powered thursday is back and enjoy it popping into my rss reader

ok, so i have to read your opinion on other non-2thou related rubbish, but you can't have it all ;)

thinky

I'm glad you guys like it!  I started sketching out next week's entry today, and now need the time to write it.

Join us today on Thrillpowered Thursday, where I do the impossible and attempt to say nice things about RAM Raiders!  And question what the heck Dan Abnett thinks he's doing, trying to fool us that Moses Tanenbaum was ever a major villain.

Link: R,A,M. Ridiculousness?

Good point there about the re-cap pages - my first consecuitve prog was 1212, and both that and the next issue contained re-cap pages for virtually all thrills. I'd have been totally lost without them; Deadlock, for instance, was set in the aftermath of Nemesis' death, and never having read Nemesis back then it would have been horribly incomprehensible to me otherwise.

Bring 'em back!

Yep, I agree about the Re-caps too - although I think they could be limited to the Nerve Centre, rather than breaking up the strips with dodgy spot-illos.  I often spend the first few episodes of a Cabs or Dante run wondering what the hell I've forgotten.

By the way, Hipster Dad, your excellent run-through of Canon Fodder is the first time I've ever understood what the hell was going on with that strip - makes me want to see an EE.

But I do wish you hadn't unearthed Moses Tannenbaum's dirty little secret... I'm enjoying Sin Dex so much these days!

Sometimes the spot-illos in this period are pretty good!  Prog 993, for instance, has a great little Henry Flint piece of Middenface McNulty and the Gronk that I don't think's been reprinted.

Actually, the main thing I should do with Sin Dex, since I've got the progs out, is keep a running tally of how many bullets the two of them take over the course of the series!

Hipster, they are called rounds not bullets. Just thought I would get that one in before Commando Forces.




V

Wikipedia: "The word "bullet" is sometimes erroneously used to refer to the combination of bullet, case, gunpowder and primer more properly known as a cartridge or round."

Well, I had no idea there was a distinction.  Thanks!

Hipster is right, surely?

By that definition, you shoot rounds, but get hit by bullets?

Bolt-01

Yup, rounds. For example when training people to use any magazine fed rifle you always start the drill by saying "with a magazine of  rounds, load"

if i'd read everything properly then I'd side with hipster, rounds are what you load, bullets are what you get hit with.

Ok then I concede. Every day is a school day etc etc.



V

Over in the Michael Moorcock thread, it's pointed out that some of Grant Morrison's Invisibles is a bit like Moorcock.  Over in Thrillpowered Thursday this week, I realize that some of Grant Morrison's Invisibles is a bit like Finn.

So there - Moorcock and Mills have something to agree on: Morrison's ripped 'em both off!

Link: Finn...

My god we end up talking about weaponry all over the shop. I never thought Thrill Powered Thursday would have mentions of this.
You are correct vzzbux I would always use the term round (on threat of 50 press ups) as that is what all military bods are taught.
We could mention the declaration,
I have no live rounds or empty cartridge cases in my possession Sir.
We then move onto, rockets in my pockets, schmoolies in my goolies.
Anyway I always say rounds as that's the military terminology and as you can see from the above declaration it says live rounds and empty cartridge cases. There be no mention of bullets in there.
Also when I came back from the Falklands (No, not the war) some twat put a load of, lets just say bullets for ease of argument into my kit bag and when it was scanned I had to explain to the RMP's why I had spent rounds (their official term) in my bag. I got off, but it just goes to show you that bullet is really just a civillian term nowadays.

I like what you say about Finn - the villains are two-d and the story is immensely readable. I have a mate here for whom Finn is the only thing he remembers about 2000AD.

Did Pat Mills really write Punisher 2099? Tell me more!

I don't agree with you about Skizz III, but I seem to be the only person on earth who liked this, with the possible exception of the artist/writer.

keep up the good work!

Over in the Michael Moorcock thread, it's pointed out that some of Grant Morrison's Invisibles is a bit like Moorcock. Over in Thrillpowered Thursday this week, I realize that some of Grant Morrison's Invisibles is a bit like Finn.

Tee hee! Good stuff as usual, but I think you're stretching it a bit thin there*: it was hardly an original idea on either part and The Invisibles had already been going for a couple of years by this point. I've always thought Robert Anton Wilson's Illuminatus Trilogy was the most obvious source for vast swathes of the Invisibles. The only Moorcock connection I can see is the Jerry Cornelius analogue, which Morrison freely admits to being a shameless rip off.

I always got the impression that Finn was intended to be a latter day counterpart or avatar of Slaine and that there would have been some sort of Titanic Earth Warrior Team-Up somewhere down the line. God that would have been shit.

*NB I've never read the story in question, or the one before it.

"it was hardly an original idea on either part and The Invisibles had already been going for a couple of years by this point"

Well, in my defense, I am right on the dates - the first series of Finn began in Feb. 1992, and the first issue of The Invisibles is cover-dated Sep. 1994, so there's plenty of chance for Morrison to have cribbed the conflict between the covens/cells and the rich old men in houses, should he have done so.

Considering Paul's history as a very well-read character in Third World War, I'm having trouble imagining that he was Slaine all along, though Mills clearly was working from the same lines with each.

Floyd, I'm afraid that what little I know of Marvel's 2099 imprint is what Wikipedia has to say about it.  Mills and Skinner wrote the majority of the 34 issues, and Tom Morgan was the artist, and it ran from 1993-95.  Lots more at Wikpedia...

Link: Marvel 2099

I always got the impression that Finn was intended to be a latter day counterpart or avatar of Slaine

Me too, and thank God Mills didn't go that way.  Then Moorcock really would have had something to complain about...

thanks for thatk, Hipster. Has anyone here read it?  I notice it features a few ideas pinched from Crisis and 2000Ad, ie 'Barrio Man' and organlegging.

This week in Thrillpowered Thursday, my daughter joins us as we reread the stories which began in prog 1000.  Remember Outlaw and Black Light?  I do!  Plus, the Hipster Son reads the Complete Nemesis vol 2 and learns a thing or two about marriage.

Link: Bomb in yer head!

that made me chuckle the whole  "You only just now figured out that Torquemada's a complete freak?" bit

Am I the only person alive who liked Crusade? It is fragile and the head of Judge Whatsit is a complete maguffin, but I enjoyed it. I also liked the talking mine car and the ridiculously hard Sov judge.  It must be partly to do with it being the first Dredd story I bought (I'd seen a page of a Judge Death story before that)

I am with you on that on floyd. We need more Vatican  judges.





V

I wanted to let fans know that this week in Thrillpowered Thursday, it's the moment we just shake our heads and admit, sadly, "Yeah, that happened..." Tharg vanishes and some po-faced government investigators start running our comic.

Link: Lights Up!

I haven't mentioned my blog in a few weeks, so I wanted to remind everybody that I'm still trucking along, and this week we wave goodbye at long last to Mark Millar, and learn that Slaine's Treasures of Britain was better than we remembered it!

Link: Gunshark Vacation

HD's blog has now moved into very interesting territory for me.  After a brief return to the fold for the Prog 1000 festivities, Prog 1019 is where I bowed out for a long, long time - I didn't start reading regularly again until 1141, I think, although I may have picked up the odd issue in a train station.  

I'm surprised to find that I apparently gave up in the middle of Darkside, a story I enjoyed, but there's literally nothing else in the line-up that I could claim to be even half-interested in.  Treasures of Britain was an unnecessary continuation of a Slaine saga that had already AFAIWC, story and art on Rogue did nothing but annoy me, Mazeworld was ponderous (if pretty), and it'd be many years before I grew to like Sinister Dexter.  And yes, Mambo's Hypernet plot was horribly dated, even then.

Just saying that I am a regular reader of your blog and enjoy it

Well, thank you!

This week, Thrillpowered Thursday dares to ask the burning question... who's cuter, Durham Red or Jo Guest?  Well, actually it doesn't ask that at all, it just has pictures of girls.

Link: Invading the Oxford Union Society

I haven't hyped the blog lately, but thought lapsed readers might want to know that for the next three weeks, we'll be talking about the really weird period at the end of 1997, when suddenly all the new strips were commissioned with press releases in mind, and the comic was labelled NOT FOR SALE TO CHILDREN...

Link: Girls Less Ordinary

Grud on a greenie!



I had absolutely no idea that had ever happened - that's fucking atrocious!

Thrillpowered Thursday is one long blast from the past for me, at present. Interesting to see that period from an outside point of view, with the added perspective of time having passed.

One point I should make about A Life Less Ordinary - the reason why Steve Yeowell's characters bear little resemblance to the photos of Ewan McGregor, Cameron Diaz, et al. Steve wasn't allowed to likenesses of the actors, as they hadn't signed over their image rights for that purpose.

Instead Steve found himself drawing what's known as a non-likeness likeness: characters that look vaguely like real people, but not enough to be legally actionable. [Ron Smith and Carlos Ezquerra found themselves in same invidious position while doing their Dredd movie adaptations.]

Plus the need to get approvals created a mental schedule whereby Steve had to pencil and ink four pages a week, instead of a more comfortable three. I felt he did an amazing job under incredibly difficult and trying circumstances.

The less said about my scripts adapting the screenplay, the better...

davidbishop

That must've been a bit of a kick in the knackers, though - getting the adaptation of the next big thing from the makers of the Trainspotting phenomenon, and then it being utter pish.

I don't know what today's equivalent would be - adapting Run, Fat Boy, Run on the strength of Shaun of the Dead, I suppose.

the equivalent would be doing an adaption of Snatch on the strength of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels AND not being allowed to draw any of the casts faces properly and not having enough time to do it and using Steve Yeowell, who is a genius for some things (such as Red Seas and Zenith) but rotten for others (ie he's done some very bland Dredd stories)

the job might have been amazing from the poor artist's point of view, but was certainly not much chop.  As for the script, I haven't seen the movie. Is it as bad as the adaption suggests?

that Durham Red lady seems like a nice person.

by the way, how is it that the prog was allowed to use photographs of Diaz and MacGregor but not allowed to draw them? Some legal distinction I guess. Would it have cost that much extra?

Yes. :)

To be fair I've seen worse, but it's an example of that semi-indie mainstream slop that dominated the 90s.

"Ron Smith and Carlos Ezquerra found themselves in same invidious position while doing their Dredd movie adaptations."

Ron Smith did a Dredd movie adaptation?

I have one of those in a (new, £0.49 from Ikea) box at home - I must check to see who the art is by.

I don't think I've ever read it - I must have bought it out of either loyalty or the mistaken belief that the movie wouldn't be a travesty.

And before anyone says anything - the shots of the city at the beginning don't make up for it, unless 50p in a barrel of turds is worth it.

Ron Smith did a Dredd movie adaptation?

For the News of the World Sunday magazine if I remember rightly.

Well, I'll be.

I will add a footnote clarifying that point.  Thanks very much, Bish-OP!  Please let me know if I make any other howlers!

Cool.

the equivalent would be doing an adaption of Snatch

Hey!  Snatch is an underrated work of genius!  Brad Pitt's greatest role, and some of the best accents in movie history.

Hey! Snatch is an underrated work of genius! Brad Pitt's greatest role, and some of the best accents in movie history
  Sorry about that. It would be perhaps like doing an adaption of Godfather III on the strength of I and II.  I was looking for an example.

so, what A Life Less Ordinary, the movie, better than or worse than the comic adaption?

I remember liking the movie, but the funniest scene is this hilarious karaoke bar sequence, which, erm, isn't in the comic.

I haven't hyped the ol' blog lately, so I reckon everybody should know that Thrillpowered Thursday reached its 75th entry today, with talk of Preacher, Rebellion, Colin Wilson and Daily Star Dredds.  Plus another appeal to see nine missing Megs wing their way to me soon.  And scroll down for Devlin Waugh, graphic novel reviews, Eurocrash and more!

(//http://pics.livejournal.com/hipsterdad/pic/0029d6sf)

Get a-readin'! (//http://hipsterdad.livejournal.com/tag/2000+ad)

Did you know that I've started doing some reviews of the newer collections from Rebellion in the pages of Thrillpowered Thursday?  You didn't?  Well, that must be because you're not reading!  Recent entries have hit on the return of Strontium Dog and Prog 2000, along with thoughts on the new ABC Warriors and Ace Trucking collections... so bookmark me and tell all your friends and fiends!

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The Dog is Back! (//http://hipsterdad.livejournal.com/tag/2000+ad)

I've just spent the last several hours reading reading every Thrillpowered Thursday entry since Grant started it, along with several other random entries that caught my eye in his LiveJournal archive.  I don't normally do blogs cos I've never really been entirely sure what a blog actually is if I'm honest but this has been talked up quite a lot here so I decided to give it a go.

Needless to say, I was hooked straight away and it's now firmly in my favourites list. Good stuff all round, even if we disagree on that most fundamental question.  Pat Mills  - Hero Or Hack?  Still, I can get over that for the wealth of good stuff to be had. I realise I'm probably preaching to the converted here but if there is anyone on this site not reading this you owe it to yourselves to give it a look.

Oh, and  I never realised how much of a headache our overseas cousins can sometimes have getting hold of their dose of thrillpower. Grant, and anyone else in the same boat, you have my sympathy.

I've never understood why so many people hate A Life Less Ordinary, I love that film.

"I'm.....Tod.....Johnson....."

//http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKzu1qAwWc4

Quote from: "radiator"I've never understood why so many people hate A Life Less Ordinary, I love that film.

"I'm.....Tod.....Johnson....."

//http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKzu1qAwWc4

Not read the strip yet but I think its a really fun movie never understood the hate either?

Well, I've never understood why Diamond just cannot ship stuff in a timely manner, either, but we're talking about a company that recently shipped the third issue of a Wolverine miniseries to a nearby shop before the second, so you can imagine how, if they can't manage something as big as Wolverine without screwing up, 2000 AD must completely baffle them.  Anyhow, I appreciate the kind words, faplad!

Just wanted to let everybody know that Thrillpowered Thursday is back from its first vacation of the year with a few words about Banzai Battalion and the bloody end of Nikolai Dante's Tsar Wars.  Bookmark it and tell all yer friends!

Pests!! (//http://thrillpoweredthursday.blogspot.com/2009/06/102-pests.html)

Next week, I'll get back on the stick with some more graphic novel reviews.

Nice not spoiling the fact that one of the dead you mentioned isn't actually dead....

incidently is the newest dante gn out yet I can't seem to find it anywhere?!?

Just read the epic account of the Hipster Wedding - great writing, Mr. Goggans, and many congratulations!

"The Beast of Rudinshtein" is out.  This book reprints the story which confirms that one of the dead I mention is not actually dead.  

I remember when "The Romanov Empire" was first published and everybody was saying how Viktor couldn't be killed by just throwing him off a building... he'd turn into a bird, right?  Then the next year, Simon Fraser drew an episode which memorably showed his body all mangled and broken in a bird-shaped dent in the snow.

I reread the episode last night where Dmitri's crest slowly vanishes from his shoulder while he said goodbye to Arkady.  Dante's been one of the biggest pleasures in this reread, just for the "if we knew then what we know now" factor!

Thanks so much, Tordleback!  I enjoyed writing it.  And, you know, getting married and stuff, that too.