Everything comes back after 20 years: The Prog's New Dark Age

[broodblik]

For me the strip that broke the camels back was Big Dave. I utterly despised the strip. The rest of the strips did not even leave the slightest impression on me. Even Dredd was meh.

[Leigh S]

In many ways, it is just maths.  Crisis turns up and takes Carlos from Stront (and Stront from us all in short order) and stretches the pool a bit....

Then the Megazine turns up and stretches things further...

Then Toxic(!) snaps things

If you could condense the talent from that period down to 28 pages of prog (admittedly a lot of old talent) things wouldnt have seemed half as bad - it was the dilution that really did it.  Bless Dark Days Bishop for keeping teh comic floating, but I don;t think the "match bad artist to good script and vice versa" helped matters, thgouh I can see why it might appeal as a way to try and paper over some cracks

[Proudhuff]

TB's take that JSmith saves the day (paraphrasing!) doesn't apply for me or Fungus...

That'd be indigo Prime's take,  not mine: I truly love John Smith's work, but in the period in question I found it pretty uneven,  and other than Firekind and Slaughter Bowl,  not nearly enough to lift overall proceedings to an acceptable level.

oooops appolies to both  and thank Frank for the heads up....

[Blue Cactus]

Still, it couldn't get worse... expect it did. 883: The execrable and wantonly sexist Babe Race 2000 (Millar); The Clown Book 2 (two books too many); Dredd in Manchu Candidate (which, fortunately, didn't go any further); Grudgefather; Millar Robo-Hunter. That's zero out of five for me.

One of the worst Progs ever – can anyone find one that's even worse?

Heh heh heh. This prog was actually the one that made me return to 2000ad having realised it was still on the shelves after several years. This and the Best of 2000ad featuring ABC's in the Black Hole. Obviously its a rubbish prog, but I was just so delighted to find 2000ad was still going that I placed a regular order with my newsagent straight away! I mean some of the artwork was actually painted! PAINTED! IN A COMIC! Sam Slade was still around! I describe this experience in unnecessary detail over in the 'introducing yourselves' thread. I guess I got back on board at a good time to watch things improve and improve!

[sheridan]

My only complaint would be about the massive gap between some books of stories in the program - hello Ampney Crucis. And Bix Barton. I think we're due another book of that soon.

They'll be returning next to Dan Dare (still trying to clear his name) and Return to Return to Armageddon.

[Tiplodocus]

So the "Dark Ages" listed above doesn't quite register with me... not sure why but possibly because I was buying and enjoying other comics along with 2000ad.

Now I'm pretty much just down to 2000ad and the occasional trade, I really feel it if my weekly dose of Thrill power doesn't hit the spot.

Maybe other people are the same?

[Tiplodocus]

Another thought is that, apart from the increase in pace afforded by digital delivery once things are commissioned and produced, has the strip selection criteria and model changed over the years?

In software development everything is Agile. It's ok to fail because another good version will be along in a minute.

So if new talent is the solution (and I'm not saying it is), maybe that's where a shakeup would help. Change the slushpile to future shocks model in some way to get more talent trying more things more often. Ditch the bots that don't work, progress with those that do work.


Yes, I know I am doing Agile a whole dis-service in this simification.

[JamesC]

The prog these days, even if there are some strips I don't personally enjoy, just doesn't feature content that's objectively crap.
I know people are frustrated at some of Mills's output (personally I'm still enjoying it) but it still has its fans and I think that Tharg is justified in including it in the weekly.
I don't think the same can be said about Space Girls, Babe Race 2000 or many of the other strips from the true dark age. I think everyone involved knew those strips were shit.

[IndigoPrime]

I agree that nothing in the Prog is as bad as 2000 AD's worst, but ABC Warriors is now skirting with mediocrity alarmingly regularly. Perhaps scheduling is part of the problem – running two bursts of Mills with crossover. I dunno. I'm just utterly bored of the treadmill/repeating background of ABC Warriors, and that's a strip that shouldn't be boring. By contrast, Savage has some massive plot holes and resolution issues, but is at least readable.

I think everyone involved knew those strips were shit.

It's hard to know what everyone at the time thought of specific strips. We do get interviews where people talk in hindsight about their time (Ennis being notably candid about his 2000 AD work, noting he was too young to do the likes of Dredd justice), but it would be interesting to somehow be a fly on the wall back then.

Certainly, I get the feeling no-one much cared about the comic's history. There's a feeling of "I can do better than what went before" by tearing down the comic's history. And although it's very clear that some things look better in scripts than in their final comic book form, the sheer amount of crap during the comic's nadir suggested that either standards were low, or there just wasn't enough material coming in to fill the pages.

One thing you certainly cannot accuse the people involved in 2000 AD these days of is a lack of passion. From the editorial team up to the Kingsleys, it's obvious everyone cares, and is also respectful to the comic's history. On that basis, beyond something very bad happening to 2000 AD from a financial standpoint, or Matt leaving and being replaced by someone who doesn't know what they're doing, I can't see how another actual 'dark age' would occur. As for what some people perceive to be a current state of 'a bit grey', that's anthologies. Even through what people would consider 2000 AD's best years, there were always periods that just weren't as exciting as the others.

[Proudhuff]

I'm looking forward to the new jumping on Prog myself, the next Golden Age awaits!

[broodblik]

I agree that nothing in the Prog is as bad as 2000 AD's worst, but ABC Warriors is now skirting with mediocrity alarmingly regularly. Perhaps scheduling is part of the problem – running two bursts of Mills with crossover. I dunno. I'm just utterly bored of the treadmill/repeating background of ABC Warriors, and that's a strip that shouldn't be boring. By contrast, Savage has some massive plot holes and resolution issues, but is at least readable.

I agree with your sentiment.  Although I enjoyed the current ABC Warriors more than previous runs, the story reads like all the recent Mills stories (just with different characters), nothing feels fresh.

I still enjoy the prog.

[Aaron A Aardvark]

Perhaps scheduling is part of the problem – running two bursts of Mills with crossover. I dunno.

I think that's certainly part of it. Warriors, Savage, Defoe & Slaine with three months each would be enough to keep Mills busy.

I'll certainly carry on reading through the Grey Age. I don't think 2000AD has had a great new story since Kingdom but the next one could be just around the corner.

[AlexF]

I feel as if people are giving short shrift to the artists involved in their dismissal of both 2017 and 1993-5. Not to say it was the best era of 2000AD art or anything, and yes, it would have been nice to have better scripts to match a lot of that art, but comics stand or fall on their artwork I reckon, especially when it comes to grabbing the attention of new readers.

I agree with may here that P. Mills has not been delivering his best writing in the last few years, but you can't deny his knack for finding and keeping the loyalty of some stellar artists. I almost don't care what's happening week to week in Slaine when Simon Davis is delivering such gorgeous stuff, and I could read Patrick Goddard's Savage all day, it's so frantic and moody. Sure, I miss the early books of Savage when it was all about fighting off invaders, guerilla war and less about military-industrial complex conspiracy theories (which Mills seems to strongly believe in, and he's earned the right to a soapbox I reckon, even if it makes him look a little loopy).

The same goes for the 1990s dark age era. Divisive stuff, yes, but you had the balance of insanely dramativc painting from Dermot Power and Greg Staples with chunky and bold work from Shaky Kane and Jim McCarthy (I'm going to bat for the Grudgefather, even if Millar mangles the plotting on the first book.), and then fluid and graceful comics from Rian Hughes and Paul Marshall.

One of these days we need to dissect this era in depth, looking at every single story, alongside the Megazine, Toxic and such, and of course comparing and contrasting the Image boom going on over in US comics, and the emerging impact of Manga/Anime that was really hitting the sci-fi geek world hard at that time, not always for the best (because, to my eyes, it wasn't until the 2000s that we in the west got to sample a wide range of manga beyond hard SF, school girl hebephilia, tentacle rape and noirish ultraviolence).

Of course, I'd have to persuade some people (including me!) to do a hard re-read of all this stuff. And, for all my defending of the time, in pure 2000AD terms these few years were just not as good as what had come before or came after...

[JamesC]

Perhaps scheduling is part of the problem – running two bursts of Mills with crossover. I dunno.

I don't think 2000AD has had a great new story since Kingdom but the next one could be just around the corner.

Kingmaker, Brink, The Alienist, Grey Area? I think there are loads of good new and new-ish strips. Sometimes it takes a few stories for strips to be established as favourites but there's a ton of potential in those mentioned above (and probably a load of others I've forgotten).

[TordelBack]

I don't think 2000AD has had a great new story since Kingdom but the next one could be just around the corner.

Brink?
The Order?
Brass Sun?

And in the possibly-exempted spin-off category:
Jaegir?
Absalom?
Deadworld?

None of those are great?