The nastiest, goriest, most horribile EVER aka Ban this sick filth

[CalHab]

A Mark Millar Rogue Trooper story (possibly in a special?) springs to mind. If I remember right aliens were torturing POWs by sewing rats in their stomachs. I won't check the details, as I've no desire to read it again.

[AlexF]

Yes that sounds familiar. Millar seemed to have a knack for copying a surface level idea that worked - such as dreaming up nasty torture ideas - but rarely managed to copy the ideas or poetry that made those nasty ideas really stick, or at least have some sort of thematic weight. He managed it on Canon Fodder, I think, and came clsoe on Grudgefather, talking of extreme body horror.

[Rately]

I don't think anybody draws gore with the ability to repulse me as well as Colin MacNeil.

The scenes with Bennett Beeny in America, the Judges getting ambushed in the same story have stayed with me.

[JayzusB.Christ]

A Mark Millar Rogue Trooper story (possibly in a special?) springs to mind. If I remember right aliens were torturing POWs by sewing rats in their stomachs. I won't check the details, as I've no desire to read it again.

Yep, I remember that one - it was in a Sci-Fi Special or something like that, around 1992 I think.  IIRC, it was called 40 Days and 40 Nights, or if not, that was the first line in the story.  It was very much a BAD Company crib (made even more apparent by having Brett Ewins on the art), but as the man says, without the depth.  Still not bad though; some good ideas going on.  I thought Millar was generally OK on Rogue Trooper.

Yes that sounds familiar. Millar seemed to have a knack for copying a surface level idea that worked - such as dreaming up nasty torture ideas - but rarely managed to copy the ideas or poetry that made those nasty ideas really stick, or at least have some sort of thematic weight. He managed it on Canon Fodder, I think, and came clsoe on Grudgefather, talking of extreme body horror.

Not quite sure about him managing it on Canon Fodder - it was an enjoyable read, with loads of good ideas and, of course, amazing artwork, but it was a bit light plotwise IMO.  Holmes and Moriarty's quest basically consisted of them [spoiler]dying, going to heaven, then immediately dying again,[/spoiler] and the way that the protagonists (I can't remember who they were - Watson and LeStrade maybe?) outfoxed [spoiler]God - leaving him to muse on who created HIM[/spoiler] - wasn't particularly inventive. Had that really never occurred to the man upstairs before?   

I thought the Grudgefather was Kek W. Or did he do the second series, Canon-Fodder-wise?  Sadly I don't really remember anything about it.  I never really got on with Jim McCarthy's art when he switched to colour, so that kind of put me off a bit.

[Greg M.]

First Grudgefather was Millar, from an idea by Jim McCarthy. Second was Kek-W (as with Canon Fodder.) I don't think Millar was very happy his stories got passed on.

I was looking at bits of Maniac 5 recently - it's spectacularly mean-spirited and vicious, but Millar is successful in creating a memorably unpleasant atmosphere.

[paddykafka]

I don't think anybody draws gore with the ability to repulse me as well as Colin MacNeil.

The scenes with Bennett Beeny in America, the Judges getting ambushed in the same story have stayed with me.

And, most memorably for me, Johnny Alpha's death scene in "The Final Solution".

[Proudhuff]

A lot of the recent Judge D'eath/Deadworld/Groundhog Day has been gory if unmemorable.

[sixmo]

Who can remember the name of the Dredd story where some fellow is put onto the Resyk conveyor belt, but he isn't quite dead yet and he starts to revive as these robot hands start ripping his teeth out? I'm reckoning it was around '88/'89. It's the stuff of nightmares, really made me wince.

[JayzusB.Christ]

First Grudgefather was Millar, from an idea by Jim McCarthy. Second was Kek-W (as with Canon Fodder.) I don't think Millar was very happy his stories got passed on.

I was looking at bits of Maniac 5 recently - it's spectacularly mean-spirited and vicious, but Millar is successful in creating a memorably unpleasant atmosphere.

To be fair to him, that was kind of the point of the Summer Offensive where Maniac 5 started.  John Smith's Slaughterbowl was spirit-crushingly nasty too (but a better story).

My problem with Maniac 5 was that it was, like so many other Millar prog stuff, written by someone who didn't seem to care much about what he was writing.  I seem to remember Tony Blair committing suicide in the first series, then appearing again alive and well in a later one.

[Rately]

Millar was perfect for something like The Authority. Just relentlessly nasty, vile and brainless.

Yes, it is nearly always beautifully drawn by a Quitely or a JRJR, but when you go back to it with a decade or twos distance, it is just the kind of stuff that makes you wonder what made you enjoy it, or approach it with no criticism  or thought, at the time.

Maybe its just a purty picture book, but if it has Mark Millar's name to it, it is not being purchased, even if Frank Quitely is drawing it.

[JayzusB.Christ]

I have to say, I enjoyed his Kick-Your-Arse and, to a lesser extent, Superman: Red Son. Civil War was a good read too, though I'm not particularly versed in the Marvel universe.   Haven't really read much else he did since he left the prog, other than some old Swamp Things which were, once again, all horrible scenes and not much plot to string them together.

[Rately]

I have to say, I enjoyed his Kick-Your-Arse and, to a lesser extent, Superman: Red Son. Civil War was a good read too, though I'm not particularly versed in the Marvel universe.   Haven't really read much else he did since he left the prog, other than some old Swamp Things which were, once again, all horrible scenes and not much plot to string them together.

I've not read Red Son since it was first published, and never ventured into the Kick-Ass books, despite loving the artist, JRJR.

If i remember correctly, was his Swampt Thing co-written by Grant Morrison? It might have been the book that ended their working relationship.

[Barrington Boots]

Who can remember the name of the Dredd story where some fellow is put onto the Resyk conveyor belt, but he isn't quite dead yet and he starts to revive as these robot hands start ripping his teeth out? I'm reckoning it was around '88/'89. It's the stuff of nightmares, really made me wince.

Snap! That's 'A Total Near-Death Experience' and it's one of the Dredd stories that both shocked and hooked me as a teenager and stayed with me ever since. There's a frame later in the story where Dredd punches the now-toothless perp in the mouth and he's just pictured kneeling on the floor with blood or spit pouring out from under his mask, unable to talk and tears streaming down his face, and it's just horrible. Steve Dillon drew it, can't remember the writer offhand.

[Barrington Boots]

Snap! That's 'A Total Near-Death Experience' and it's one of the Dredd stories that both shocked and hooked me as a teenager and stayed with me ever since. There's a frame later in the story where Dredd punches the now-toothless perp in the mouth and he's just pictured kneeling on the floor with blood or spit pouring out from under his mask, unable to talk and tears streaming down his face, and it's just horrible. Steve Dillon drew it, can't remember the writer offhand.

Looked it up in the Case Files (Alan Grant) and funnily enough this story was immediately followed by A Childs Tale, which was another episode that horrified me as a youngster. Nothing gory in it, just bleak as all hell.

[Funt Solo]

A Mark Millar Rogue Trooper story (possibly in a special?) springs to mind. If I remember right aliens were torturing POWs by sewing rats in their stomachs. I won't check the details, as I've no desire to read it again.

Maybe House of Pain in Sci-Fi Special #15 (1992)? I summarized it as "Rogue is captured by egg-headed mutant hillbillies who stick him with forks until he gets irritated and retaliates."