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Thrillpower Overload: the missing chapters

Started by Frank, 21 November, 2016, 01:55:35 PM

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Frank





I had a picture of Smiley for the cover but it didn't look right. I preferred the secrecy and mystery, so I decided it best to leave him out. An image of the Grand Hall of Justice was the important thing. I wanted this to be an 'intrigue' cover [instead of] an action one. A few targets dotted around here and there seemed appropriate and made a connection with one of Dredd and Smiley's big scenes in the firing range. I felt Rob wrote the story to pivot around this scene, and any effort to draw eyes toward it can only help with story-telling.

Henry Flint, speaking to Previews





... and Jake Lynch's 2104 image repurposed for the cover of the US edition:






Bolt-01

oh, curious as to why Jake got the cover for the US edition?

Those sketches are lovely as well.

Colin YNWA

Quote from: Bolt-01 on 08 September, 2019, 09:54:28 AM
oh, curious as to why Jake got the cover for the US edition?

Those sketches are lovely as well.

Yeah that's really an interesting choice. Maybe they were just after a more generic shot of Dredd. But even if so you'd have thought there was plenty of those around from Henry?

Leigh S

maybe the "this is special" quote from Millar was lot in Henry's busy (but beautiful!) cover?

Funt Solo

Frank - I think I've got that 2000 AD changed publisher like this:

1977 IPC Magazines
1987 Fleetway (Robert Maxwell)
1991 Egmont UK
2000 Rebellion

But do you know the specific progs that the changeovers took place?

---

Second question: is this list of Thargs correct?

++ A-Z ++  coma ++

Frank

Quote from: Funt Solo on 08 September, 2019, 04:53:26 PM
Frank - I think I've got that 2000 AD changed publisher like this:

1977 IPC Magazines
1987 Fleetway (Robert Maxwell)
1991 Egmont UK
2000 Rebellion

But do you know the specific progs that the changeovers took place?

FASCINATING QUESTION!

No irony. Let's do the Egmont/Rebellion one first, since I've done that before and have the answer(s) It's difficult to answer because Rebellion didn't ram Egmont amidships, like The Crimson Permanent, and throw the scurvy naves into the brine, as Vikings deserve.


Prog 1204 (2nd Aug 2000) was the last prog to bear the Egmont indicia:





From then until later that year, the indicia declared 2000ad to be published by Egmont under licence from Rebellion, indicating the period when Rebellion had bought the company but didn't have the infrastructure in place to publish a weekly comic for themselves:





The address given during the first part of that period is Egmont's Tavistock House premises. That changes with prog 1224 (10th Jan 2001), when the address given switches to Chapel Court, London. This, presumably, is the period Diggle describes in Thrillpower Overload, when Rebellion found new London offices but neglected to provide luxuries like working phone lines, which staid tradition holds necessary for the function of any business:





The now-loyal Rebellion staffers were still forced to produce the comic for Egmont under licence, like slaves in some latter-day gulag, until the happy advent of prog 1263 (Oct 10th 2001), when the hated Egmont imprimatur is shrugged off and Rebellion staff declare themselves unashamed of who and what they are:





1269 is the last prog tainted by the stain of Chapel Street, which sounds like one of the locations where Alan Moore despatches The Five in From Hell, beginning Tharg's glorious residence in Oxford with prog 1270 (Nov 1st 2001):





... although the address given is Brewer Street, not Tharg's present digs in Osney Mead. That doesn't happen until prog 1579 (March 2008).





Which, he informs us in a recent prog (2144), now involves taking the stairs to the newly constructed second floor:





I'll do the other change-overs and the editors later, although if anyone wants to crowd source this and share in the inevitable cash rewards and sexual favours that accompany such endeavours, feel free to chip in.



broodblik

Quote from: Funt Solo on 08 September, 2019, 04:53:26 PM
Frank - I think I've got that 2000 AD changed publisher like this:

1977 IPC Magazines
1987 Fleetway (Robert Maxwell)
1991 Egmont UK
2000 Rebellion

But do you know the specific progs that the changeovers took place?

---

Second question: is this list of Thargs correct?

I can say with certainty that prog 1 is IPC   :D
When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.

Old age is the Lord's way of telling us to step aside for something new. Death's in case we didn't take the hint.

Funt Solo

++ A-Z ++  coma ++

Frank


The change from IPC to Fleetway happened, as far as the indicia was concerned, in the week between prog 539 (Sep 12th 1987)





... and prog 540 (Sep 19th 1987), when everyone suddenly felt their pension pots were much lighter than they had been a week earlier. There's no change of address, the move from IPC's plush HQ in King's Reach Tower to Irwin House*, nicknamed Vermin House by disconsolate staff, having happened some time earlier:





As a side note, the change of address from Kings Reach Tower only shows up in the indicia with prog 535, even though Steve MacManus's Mighty One memoir confirms the move happened prior to his departure from Tharg's chair with the landmark prog 500 (p231), so these dates and prog numbers should be treated with caution.


* Incorrectly identified as Clarendon House in my post above ^

Frank


And, to round off this thrilling journey into obscurity, the change from Fleetway to Egmont takes place in less than the time it takes for a fat bloke to fall off a yacht, with the change from poor old prog 799 (Sep 5th 1992) and the shiny new landmark prog 800 (Sep 12th 1992):





An appropriate cover^ and suspiciously neat timing, which underlines my point about not taking changes of indicia and cover dates as absolute gospel. For what it's worth, wikipedia says the still dripping-wet Maxwell brothers sold out to Egmont in 1991. Note the change of location from Greater London House to Egmont House in Tavistock Place, where 2000ad would be left to rot until the turn of the century.






Frank

Quote from: Funt Solo on 08 September, 2019, 04:53:26 PM
Second question: is this list of Thargs correct?

Pat Mills, #1–16 (1977)
Kelvin Gosnell, #17–85 (1977–1978)
Assistant editor Nick Landau largely edited the comic himself in 1978 while Gosnell was occupied with editing new sister title Starlord.
Steve MacManus, #86–519 (1978–1987)
Richard Burton, #520–872 (1987–1994)
Alan McKenzie, #873–914 (1994)
John Tomlinson, #915–977 (1994–1996)
David Bishop, #978–1199 (1996–2000)
Andy Diggle, #1200–1273 (2000–2002)
Matt Smith, #1274–present (2002–present)


Barney's dates seem as accurate to me as possible. Old Dark Days confirms his dates here and he treated readers to a column to mourn his departure in 3.15 (March 1996), Nick Landau clarifies that he was effectively editing half the comic under Gosnell in this month's Megazine and, as said above, MacManus thinks his last issue was 500 (Mighty One, p.231).

All Thrillpower Overload has to say about the switch from Diggle to Smith is that it happened at the same time as the move from Chapel Court to Oxford, which the indicia suggests happened around prog 1270 (Nov 2001). Given the three or four week difference between the time each issue of 2000ad is put to bed and when it goes on sale, that seems to corroborate the date listed above.

With all those transition dates, the point made by Bishop regarding his assumption of the mantle is pertinent. There's no clear cut-off between one editor's final issue and the first of his successor, since most material is commissioned and scheduled months in advance.

Bishop's generous in his description of the influence Diggle exerted over the direction of the comic as lowly sub-editor and both John Tomlinson and Bishop (at least in his first year) served under the supervision of a returning Steve MacManus, whose role and influence are described here.



Richard

Blimey Frank, you don't do things by halves!

Funt Solo

Thanks, Frank: all fascinating and of course it doesn't measure too well against the realities (for example, of moving premises or of dealing with a huge backlog of commissioned material) to just plug in a prog number and say who was in control.  (But it's nice to plug in the prog numbers anyway and then sit back and get a sort of 50,000 feet view of things.)

It's staggering, given all the stumbling blocks, that we still have 2000 AD.
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

CalHab

It does underline what an achievement it is for Matt Smith to run the prog for that length of time and to the quality he has managed. Given the challenges he's faced, he's got a reasonable case for being the greatest Tharg.

Proudhuff

Quote from: CalHab on 09 September, 2019, 11:07:50 AM
It does underline what an achievement it is for Matt Smith to run the prog for that length of time and to the quality he has managed. Given the challenges he's faced, he's got a reasonable case for being the greatest Tharg.

This^^^^ :thumbsup:
DDT did a job on me