Pat Mills moving onto new things it would seem

[judgeurko]

Except that they all have, including Pat, for 43 years.

I didn't say they hadn't I asked why they would. & we don't know what other stuff they have 'up their sleeve' that they are holding on to because they want ownership. Or indeed how hard they would work on these other projects.

[Robin Low]

Requiem Vampire Knight (any good?)

It's absolutely brilliant, but unfinished.

Thanks. Given the date of the last volume, I'm going to assume it unlikely it will ever be.

Regards,

Robin

[Rately]

I do wonder whether the recent spate of assigning new creators to legacy characters has undermined Pat's relationship with Rebellion. It's always been something he's been nervous about, back to the old days when he would be anti-fanzine because he thought it was a training ground for his replacement, and seeing how brutally John Smith was treated must have raised hackles.

Sorry, Don't want to derail the thread, but just wondering what happened with John, as I'm a massive fan of his work. Since I've been back reading, I've been a bit disappointed to not see his work, and been strange seeing some of his creations be assigned to new writers.

[Robin Low]

Except that they all have, including Pat, for 43 years.

I didn't say they hadn't I asked why they would. & we don't know what other stuff they have 'up their sleeve' that they are holding on to because they want ownership. Or indeed how hard they would work on these other projects.

I think if you have a living to make, you probably don't keep things up your sleeve for long, unless you can afford to.

Regards,

Robin

[sheridan]

Sanders is surprisingly unprofessional with his swipes at Alan Grant and (Robin?) Smith as well as Alan Moore, who he explicitly asks to be shown this memo calling him a whinger (again it will be interesting to read his book to get his side).

This is a very wordy thread so I may come across the answer further down, but I was stuck between whether Grant and Smith referred to Alan Grant and Robin Smith or Grant Morrison and John Smith (seem like the most reasonable pairings of the two names).

[sheridan]

Sorry, Don't want to derail the thread, but just wondering what happened with John, as I'm a massive fan of his work. Since I've been back reading, I've been a bit disappointed to not see his work, and been strange seeing some of his creations be assigned to new writers.

This was discussed in another thread and best not to derail this thread (unless somebody has the link to hand).  Suffice to say, John has gone through a very bad period in his life meaning he couldn't work while Rebellion had a few episodes they'd paid for but couldn't do much with unless somebody else completed.  Bit more complicated than that but there are no real winners and further discussion would upset those involved.

[IndigoPrime]

If you write a novel you have ownership not the publisher.

That depends entirely on the contract. You might retain rights. You might not. You might retain some rights, but leave some permanently with the publisher. Comics have variable rights, too, but as I said earlier in the thread, there's a big risk/reward balance for both creator and publisher. There's nothing to stop writers approaching Rebellion with author-owned properties and giving Rebellion first-publication rights and nothing more. But at that point, they're going to get much less back from Rebellion. That's the way the publishing industry works.

I agree 2000AD is a comic for middle aged white men. They have given up trying to attract new young readers apart from half-arsed attempts at regen issues which appear infrequently & must confuse young readers who buy them only to find that the very next issue is completely different with, as will be the case with the next regen

Yep—Regen is not ideal. But you know what? It's something. It's Rebellion attempting to get young readers in. And those issues are the biggest sellers. To go from that to an ongoing publication, though, is a massive, massive risk under ideal economic circumstances—a six-figure (or more) punt. In a world of COVID, it would be madness.

I wonder if we will see Slaine killed off? Would anyone dare to take on the character?

I'm not sure anyone should, frankly. Sláine is too iconic—too Mills. I'd be interested to see what a writer who isn't bored could do with ABC Warriors though.

I do wonder whether the recent spate of assigning new creators to legacy characters has undermined Pat's relationship with Rebellion.

I don't see why, given that it only really happened with Flesh, and that was a pre-Rebellion blip. It's not like Rebellion has ever 'given' his characters to anyone else to write.

and seeing how brutally John Smith was treated must have raised hackles

Smith was non-communicative at the best of times. From what's been aired in public, he went through a terrible and distressing period. But also, he stopped halfway through a series, and didn't communicate at all with the editor. I don't remember the exact timescale, but seem to recall it was 18 months or so before Matt Smith figured John Smith just wasn't going to finish the strip—and be mindful, completed work is a big hole in your budget on a modern comic; so he reassigned the strip.

I've no idea what happened after that point. John seemed to give his blessing to other people playing in his sandpit, while being not terrible impressed by the first chunk of non-JS Devlin Waugh. Personally, I still hope there might be some kind of relationship there. I'd much prefer JS-penned Indigo Prime over anyone else tackling that property. But I think it's a bit much to refer to Rebellion's handling of the situation as "brutal", based on everything that's in the public record. Similarly, I don't think Mills has been handled particularly badly—just in a standard fashion for the industry. Should that be better? Probably. But then Mills could have pitched ideas to Image and others. There's no reason why he had to stick to 2000 AD for all these years.

[Tjm86]

I work in publishing. I have sold on rights, in a manner that was writer-hostile, to pay bills. It's shit when you're exploited. But. I also did that fully knowing the business proposition being made, and it's just the standard in the industry.

The thing is, it isn't just publishing what this applies.  As a teacher I've created lesson resources for our department during school time as a result of direction from on high.  Consequently they are considered the 'property' of the school.  If that is something I don't want to happen then I do it on my own time.  The simple fact of the matter is that exploitation is commonplace across pretty much every sector.

[broodblik]

I do not think we will ever get to a point where we have a model working with ownership of material. This can only work in a world where each party respect each other. Copyright and ownership is like world-peace an almost unattainable reality.

[Professor Bear]

Mills has every right to renegotiate the terms of his own labor, but regarding "Pat knew the deal" for his work for hire material, I think the point - made not just by Pat but by various creators' unions and guilds over the last few decades - is that he didn't, because how his work is monetised has changed in a way he was not aware of as being possible when he signed his contract, IE: US screenwriters didn't know home media platforms were just around the corner waiting to exploit their work all over again, so they withdrew their labor and renegotiated with media companies to remunerate writers for work they did decades before.
That, of course, was a renegotiation of residuals rather than property rights, but there's precedent in the comics industry of creators suing for the return of their characters - albeit with various degrees of success depending on whether you're Neil Gaiman or Joe Shuster.

[Link Prime]

I would say the absence of at least one regular Mills strip in the Prog for the past year or so is one of the reasons I haven't enjoyed reading 2000AD as much as I used to.
Don't get me wrong, TMM (Too Much Mills) in any one Prog can also feel excessive - the right balance of either ABC Warriors / Slaine / Savage / Defoe taking one of the slots hits just the right balance.

Whats the cliff notes on this anyway?
The forthcoming Slaine series with Leonardo Manco will be his last 2000AD work?

[Magnetica]

I guess in an ideal world creators would get paid well for the work they produce and retain rights, but it sounds like the economic reality doesn't allow for that. I think that is what Sanders' memo was trying to say. I have to say I am shocked at how badly written it is (in terms of the phrasing used).

As for Pat, I am very quick to acknowledge his contribution to 2000AD and count Nemesis, Slaine and ABC Warriors in my top 5 strips. But that is largely on the strength of the early parts of those strips, ignoring the approximately the latter half of each one.

In his blog Pat says the reason the standard on Spacewarp is so high is because the creators own their own work and get a share of the profits. The corollary of that, is when that doesn't apply, the work submitted won't be of a high standard. If that is the case, personally I find that disappointing, but maybe that explains why Slaine and ABC Warriors recent strips have not matched their early stories.

The lack of ownership doesn't seem to stop Dan Abnett from doing stellar work.

So let's see how Spacewarp goes. I wish Pat well in it. If he can't make it work, I can't see how anyone else could. As for Work For Hire, something like 2000AD provides a platform for creators to do work and get paid for it. It would be great if the rate was higher, but I guess the circulation of 2000AD doesn't allow for that. There aren't many creators with the ability to launch their own comic and make it a commercial success taking all production, marketing, distribution and retail costs into account.

[Bolt-01]

Spacewarp is an interesting beast. It 'feels' great, but for me the execution of the strips is variable. I also think that having the stories be deliberate first episodes for all is a mistake given how long the time will be between phases.

[Bolt-01]

The closest thing to what Pat is talking about (that I'm aware of currently) is the apparent runaway success of the '77. Again, a flawed beast but I thought the second issue was much stronger than the first and if the team are able to maintain this level of growth I think it could become something pretty essential.

[MumboJimbo]

Pat Mills had a very big influence on me at an impressionable age, and I very much wish him all the best in his post-2000 AD ventures. I returned to the prog two years ago after an absence of 27 years so I don't have the perspective of his recent work for 2000 AD that others do, but I very much enjoyed the recent Defoe and the reprints in the floppy, and I bought the Books of Invasions Ultimate Collection volumes and thought they were great too. So from that sample, my impressions were that he's still very much "got it". I'll be checking out his new comic when I've cleared my reading backlog a bit.

I guess then we'll still be getting the delayed Slaine series that was meant to start a few months ago and that will be it?

I'd be happy, though, if all his 2000 AD characters were retired, if Pat's not around to write them. We've had so many great new strips recently: The Out, Proteus Vex, Full Tilt Boogie, Thistlebone etc. I'd rather we had more of those or other new strips than someone else doing Savage, Slaine, ABC Warriors etc. And I want to see what happens in more established ongoing fayer like Deadworld, Grey Area, Kingmaker, Kingdom and like without huge time gaps between series, so retiring some stuff would probably be a good idea as there are a lot of 2000 AD story plates spinning, some of which, like Scarlett Traces, just kinda stopped mid-narrative.

Let's embrace the new, as that's what a sci-fi anthology should be about.