Thrillpower Overload: the missing chapters

[Frank]

FROM THE DESK OF CHARLES LIPPINCOTT

Charles M Lippincott went to film school with Spielberg and Lucas, and his first job was as an assistant to Hitchcock on Family Plot. Lucas hired him to wrangle publicity and stoke anticipation in the fan community for Star Wars, a role he reprised for Ridley Scott's Alien.

While in London for Alien, Lippincott picked up 2000ad and was so taken by Judge Dredd he bought the feature film adaptation rights from IPC. After a period working for Dino De Laurentis, on projects such as Conan and Flash Gordon, Lippincott began work on what would become the 1995 Judge Dredd movie:


'So Howard Chaykin, of the Marvel Star Wars comics fame, went to Hollywood and got involved in doing stuff other than comics. A multi-talented guy, Howard not only draws, he also writes stuff like AMERICAN FLAGG, which I understand has just been greenlit for production.

So we're doing Judge Dredd. This is in the early days. Howard comes in for a meeting with this friend of his. They sit down, and then Howard proceeds to pitch this story idea for Judge Dredd. He really gets into it. He gets wound up and tells this great story. It's really great. It's got everything. Action. Good vs evil. Great characters, the whole works, with a great story arc. 

As is our habit, rather than discussing the pitch with him and his buddy, we wait until the meeting is over to see how we all feel. Eureka! We have a consensus. We all agree Howard gave a great pitch, capturing the essence of Judge Dredd in the exact kind of movie we want to make.

We decide to jump on it. We let Howard and his buddy know we love it, and want to work out a deal. Send us a synopsis or treatment, and we'll start the paperwork. Well, a few days go by, and we haven't heard from Howard.

So I have to track Howard down and ask him, "What's the deal?" Turned out Howard was stoned when he did the pitch. He did it off the top of his head,and couldn't remember what he said. Which was too bad, because it was really a great pitch'.


Follow Charles on Facebook or his blog, From The Desk Of Charles Lippincott.

[JOE SOAP]

'Judge Dredd as The Lone Ranger' is an old yarn but it's a good 'un.

[Frank]

Dredd's the opposite of the Lone Ranger. He's like a plumber. A very violent plumber.

[Frank]

TILTING AT PAT MILLS

What we're finding with Millsverse, printing things like Dave Kendall's Psycho Killer (from Toxic) and Carlos Ezquerra's Judge Dredd and 2000ad Colouring Book, is that you can have print on demand for full colour books. So the days when you were in hock to a publisher are completely gone.

People think they need to get a publishing deal, then they discover that the advance isn't enough to live on and the marketing you'd expect them to do is your responsibility - you're expected to run the social media campaign. If we're going to take back control, we have to develop those skills.

In the case of Psycho Killer, we arranged distribution ourselves, and the advance orders were higher than Accident Man, which is printed by Titan (and has been adapted into a film starring Scott Adkins, out in January). So a major publisher is holding us back.

I met Carlos and he told me Rebellion didn't have the capacity put the book out on his behalf, so had given him their blessing to publish it himself. There's lots of things to learn; for example, we discovered that if we called it an adult colouring book, the tax man would want a chunk of it.

I revealed in my book (Be Pure, Be Vigilant, Behave) that I hadn't had a pay rise in twenty years, and surprise-surprise, my page rate shot up significantly and I got a message from Rebellion saying it was 'long overdue' - with which I heartily agree.

Various creators got in touch to say they'd had similar experiences to me. In one case I asked if it was okay if I mentioned what happened to them in a future edition and they said no. This was something that happened around twenty years ago; that's how down trodden creators have become.

Freelancers today are isolated individuals, & hence down trodden. John Wagner, Alan Grant and myself were all members of the NUJ. Nobody in their right mind would touch DR & Quinch or Halo Jones, and there's a sorry history of other creators taking over my strips and proving a disaster.

Would anyone want to follow Dan Abnett on Sinister Dexter, or any of Gordon Rennie's various occult series? If these or my strips are so important to the survival of the comic, the way to do that is the French model, where the original creators receive a share of the profits.

Because I feel ill served by previous publishers of 2000ad, I've made it so damn difficult for any hungry hack to follow me on ABC Warriors or Sláine. I've deliberately blocked the usual routes hacks take reviving a series - if you're so bloody talented, go create your own characters!

There's a slow process of killing me softly; Greysuit, Visible Man - one by one, my characters are falling. Colin MacNeil did one series of Defoe and didn't want to continue; Matt has been looking for a successor since the Spring, but it's fallen by the wayside.

I have to find artists and arrange samples myself, but I no longer enjoy the influence I once did. SMS has said he'd be interested in working on Misty material, which Keith Richardson seems receptive to, but Fay Dalton is doing pulp covers for Titan.

I learned just today that Rebellion have no plans to reprint Finn in 2018 or the foreseeable future , although they will reprint it at some point. They assure me there's no agenda to this; other strips, including some from Valiant and Lion, have priority.

Provided Clint Langley gives his approval, we'd like to publish American Reaper through the Millsverse imprint, and the success of Be Pure means we're looking at whether a book looking more closely at Sláine, Marshal Law, or girls comics could do the same.

Simon Bisley assures me he's working on our Joe Pineapples solo story, but if we had a better rights deal he'd have finished it long ago. He's doing it as a labour of love, so every time someone offers him better money to work on a film or something, it gets put to one side.

I can't remember the last time Rebellion asked me to create a new character, because they know I'll ask for a better deal. That's why it's a challenge getting fresh ideas and creators into the comic, and new ideas & characters are what used to have film people interested in adapting strips.

The pay and rights situation is why creators don't give 2000ad their best new ideas. That's why you have so many old strips coming back, but there's only so long you can run on empty. The days when creators were knocking on 2000ad's door are gone, and sooner or later the well of people who grew up wanting to work on the comic will run dry.

With regard to Simon Roy's recent Dredd strip and Ben Willsher's ghost cover, I have sympathy with artists cutting corners, because they're paid so poorly. I can tell from some artist's work that they're depressed; in some cases, they're subsidising 2000ad's low page rates.

Fay Dalton's already building a name for herself in advertising and with Titan; there's going to come a day when creators like her are no longer even walking through the door.


The rest of the interview's light hearted and entertaining; I've just excerpted the doom laden sections because I'm a miserable sod. Listen to the unabridged version of this Patchat, including Mills's thoughts on the Misty Special, HERE

[Tiplodocus]

Just a suggestion/some feedback but (given most people are fans of the work itself and not too bothered* about the behind the scenes stuff) wouldn't it be better to extract the light hearted and fun bits of the interview? And then add a post script that says "Pat also expands on issues he has experienced with rebellion and the state of the comics industry in general and that makes for an I interesting read; follow this link"


* that's not to say creator's rights is not an important issue. Is there somewhere we could actively assist them in their campaigning?

[Frank]

Doula, Michael Carroll, celebrates his nation's landmark decision regarding hatching and despatching by memorialising the embryonic titles that didn't make it to full term and were harmlessly reabsorbed into the rich uterine wall of IPC/Fleetway.

The Rusty Staples blog brings you The Eaglution Of British Comics

https://michaelowencarroll.wordpress.com/2018/05/26/eaglution-of-british-comics-part-1/

[Richard]

My favourite bit is "it's possibly there might be some mistakes."

[Frank]

My favourite bit is "it's possibly there might be some mistakes."

Arf!  Carroll's very funny and self-aware.

While I'm using Tharg's virtual real estate to create an easily searchable place to dump stuff that I'd otherwise be unable to find when I dimly remember it three years from now, here's Carroll's most popular blog-post ever; an authoritative and entertaining list of the longest running British comics of all time:

NUMBER SEVEN WILL ASTONISH YOU!!!  https://michaelowencarroll.wordpress.com/2018/05/09/the-british-comics-top-11-longevity-chart/

[Richard]

Thanks for posting that, I really enjoyed reading that one. And thank you MC, just in case you read this.

[Frank]

Carlos Ezquerra's Johnny Alpha is the most passive-aggressive act in British comics.

Anyone who's ever tried to draw Johnny Alpha's helmet soon realises the only solution is to copy a Carlos drawing. Copy it *exactly*.

Then you realise the way you've drawn Alpha, which looked alright before, looks stupid with the Carlos helmet on his head. So you copy the way Carlos draws Alpha. Copy it *exactly*.

Then you realise the whole thing doesn't work unless it's inked the way Carlos does it. So you copy it *exactly*.

You soon realise it's quicker, easier and cheaper just to pay Ezquerra to draw the fucking thing himself.


* Then you realise you have to put a Viking in there, too, and try not to make that look stupid.

[Frank]

Almost had a heart attack when I realised the link I normally use to access these dead links has fallen off the end of this site too. It's criminal that this invaluable and fascinating interview with one of the all-time greats is unavailable through general googling.

Alongside John Wagner's interview with the late Stewart Perkins for Class Of '79, this is the Rosetta Stone of understanding the working relationship between Wagner & Grant during that classic era.

Sample questions and answers below, follow the links for the full interview:

Interview by Edward Berridge

How exactly did the writing partnership between John Wagner and yourself work? What was the dynamic: did you each write alternate episodes, or did one of you come up with the scenario and the other with the dialogue? I heard that whoever typed up the script got the cheque, is that right?

We sat down on the floor opposite each other at the start of the working day, spent an hour cracking jokes and combing the newspapers for ideas, then started writing. Sometimes one or other of us would come to the session pre-armed with an idea, a sequence, or a character; it was just as likely that we'd create it there and then. We did in fact write some --not many-- scripts on our own, though they were published under our pseudonyms. I honestly can't remember which we did alone, and which together. All dialog was acted out, each of us taking different parts.

The entire script was handwritten, usually by whoever would be typing it up that night. We have never written a single script where one of us did the scenario and the other the dialog. The only time we ever did alternate episodes was on Last American, when our partnership was teetering on its last legs anyway. If we hadn't done it that way, it still wouldn't have been published today, we argued so much about it.

And yes, whoever typed the script got the cheque--usually John on Dredd, me on Stront, a combination on Robohunter ...


I believe you had a falling out with 2000AD editorial during the Steve MacManus/Richard Burton period, when you stopped writing for the comic? What actually happened?

Hard to remember why there was bad feeling between me and Steve. It may have been that I made derogatory comments about 2000AD's publishers. I do remember him boasting that he was going to break my and Wagner's stranglehold on British comics, which he did by creating the critically admired but financial black holes of "Crisis" and "Revolver".

Easier to recall why there was bad feeling between me and Richard. Although socially he's a charming and erudite man, when it comes to comics editing he's an asshole. (continues)

[Leigh S]

2000AD review! that's a rabbit hole!  Need to stop reading my own reviews and trying to work out just what the hell was going on in pre having children Leigh's world!

[davidbishop]

IN ORBIT EVERY SATURDAY, MONDAY, AND WEDNESDAY

Prog 1000 dropped the pretence that the comic was in orbit, probably because Dave Bishop is a boring bastard (who tried to get rid of Tharg too).

Bishop describes prog 1000 as the issue he chose to stamp his identity on the comic, and these changes signalled that 2000ad was growing with the audience. It was now aimed at the discerning, more mature reader, who thought aliens landed in Roswell and watched Star Trek TNG.

A minor correction: David Bishop is a boring bastard. Not sure who this Dave bloke is you mention.

[Funt Solo]

Serious trepverter, there.

[Frank]

 

From Comic Scene issue 0. Art archaeology by Rufus Dayglo, who thinks the superb original portrait was covered up by an establishing shot to give the reader a sense of the impact on the wider city.

You can now order a FREE copy of Comic Scene issue 0 by emailing comicsceneuk@gmail.com with the subject heading ‘I Want One’. Comic Scene issue 1 out August 1st, including articles on Rebellion's The Vigilant, by Simon Furman & Simon Coleby, Pat Mills's feature on the origins of Slaine, and an interview with newly-minted Eisner winner Karen Berger (congrats).

Pre-order at https://comicscene.tictail.com/.