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Thrillpower Overload: the missing chapters

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

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Frank

Quote from: Funt Solo on 23 June, 2019, 03:14:15 PM
All of that historical data begs the question: what number the current readership?

The most recent (self) reported figure was 15,000 in August 2013. Tharg's since let it be known that although retail sales are down subscription numbers increased to compensate for this, but didn't offer figures on either.

Rebellion Publishing has reported net-losses in recent years.



Jim_Campbell

Quote from: Frank on 23 June, 2019, 03:32:17 PM

Rebellion Publishing has reported net-losses in recent years.

Almost certainly owing to heavy investment purchasing things like the IPC/Fleetway back catalogue, as has been mentioned before. You can't infer any direct information about sales revenue from this.
Stupidly Busy Letterer: Samples. | Blog
Less-Awesome-Artist: Scribbles.

Frank

Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 23 June, 2019, 03:40:30 PM
Quote from: Frank on 23 June, 2019, 03:32:17 PM

Rebellion Publishing has reported net-losses in recent years.

Almost certainly owing to heavy investment purchasing things like the IPC/Fleetway back catalogue, as has been mentioned before. You can't infer any direct information about sales revenue from this.

Yeah, I'm not trying to make any kind of point, just share the information. It would help if I'd supplied the correct link:

https://suite.endole.co.uk/insight/company/06993175-rebellion-publishing-limited



Funt Solo

Thanks for the links, Frank - that Grauniad film I hadn't seen before, and was well good.  (It also had a couple of older articles linked below it, for Judge Dredd gets first female writer and Is Judge Dredd gay?*)

Thanks for the additional context, Jim.


*Which follows Betteridge's law.
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Frank


Only tangentially related to 2000ad, but then so was Toxic and that got a couple of pages all to itself in TPO.

Pat Mills & Kev O'Neill own all rights to Marshal Law ... except the publishing rights* (including the right to produce new material). Comics are a funny old game.


* Which reside with DC. Mills always says it's up to DC whether any more Marshal Law is ever produced, so I think he and O'Neill entered into something like the arrangement Edginton and D'Israeli struck with Tharg over Scarlet Traces to get the DC reprint of existing material into production, with the promise of new material - a Batman crossover - that, because of DC, never materialised.

Frank


The year they revived the Eagle awards, in the Best Writer category, I won third place, second place, and first (laughs). John Wagner was third, TB Grover second, and John Howard came first!

John Wagner speaking to the 1977 group



Leigh S

Bought Grant Morrison's "Super Gods" for 50p at the charity shop - will report back any interesting Zenith/2000AD snippets if I can make it that far!

TordelBack

Quote from: Frank on 12 July, 2019, 07:58:47 PM

The year they revived the Eagle awards, in the Best Writer category, I won third place, second place, and first (laughs). John Wagner was third, TB Grover second, and John Howard came first!

I didn't think it too many.

Frank





John Wagner & Brian Bolland's Punks Rule (110) rewrites and redraws Peter Harris* and Mick McMahon's** Judge Whitey (002). A criminal gang challenge Justice Department's rule by setting themselves up as a parody of judges; Dredd refuses the Chief Judge's offer of help and takes them down alone as a display of superiority.

In terms of ideas, Harris & McMahon outdo Wagner & Bolland. From the killer one-two of Carlos's Bank Raid image and the Empire State lost in a sea of massive starscrapers, Dredd's Roy Rogers trick of sending his horse on ahead, and the neat twist of marooning Whitey on Devil's Island, Whitey's an objectively better strip.

Dredd (and Wagner's) entire plan is to walk very slowly into Punk territory, dishing out insults and kickings as a garbage truck trundles behind him, filling up with unconscious Punks. Rather than devise an apposite punishment for Gestapo Bob, he just humiliates him. Yet Wagner's story is better written and it's a better Dredd story.

After two years of variable quality and subject matter, Wagner's just found the character and the tone of the strip. Dredd's a bully but it's kind of fun to watch him at work, and his cruel exile of the Punks leaves the reader feeling he's come out on top, rather than emo-Dredd whining that they're all going to end up like Judge Alvin***


* With heavy subbing and original ideas by Pat Mills & Kelvin Gosnell

** With an incredible, impactful opening image by the irreplaceable King Carlos

*** And that's why Wagner remained the dominant Dredd writer. You could write a better story than him, you could dream-up more and better ideas than him, and his Dredd stories would still be better than yours

Frank


The idea that Dredd's gun was booby-trapped first featured in Malcolm Shaw and Mick McMahon's Wreath Murders, prog 24. Thanks to Lee Jones of the Megaverse group for the leg work - Lee also points out that Shaw created the statue of Judgement (prog 7):






Frank


Who can really say what the Bash Street Kids (i) are parodying here - Dredd, Star Trek or Starship Troopers? I'm not sure the artist knows either:



Thanks to Adrian Lee of Dale Jackson's 2000ad Tat & Chat Group for the find.

And thanks too to comics mercenary John Freeman for his latest update on UK newsstand comic sales. As usual, Tharg doesn't report figures, but Freeman notes that's an increasingly common position, since falling advertising revenue means the utility of letting everyone know how many (or how few) copies you shift is reduced:

Fascinating feature

Freeman's invaluable 12-year database of comic sales


(i) Bash Street Kids Summer Special #1, 1994

Dandontdare

Oh god, I must be middle-aged ... I've just spent 20 minutes analyzing a spreadsheet of retail sales and finding it fascinating
:o

Frank




Prog 762, December 1991. Series 3 of Alexei Sayle's Stuff had just finished a few weeks previously. Thanks to Dave Campbell of that awful Megaverse group, who came up trumps with the link:


https://youtu.be/olTKyKidpJM




The court artist appears to have encountered Jim Baikie's Judge Dredd, judging by that eagle detail. While we're doing this, here's recently unearthed clips of 2000ad on the BBC's Artifax (i) (1992) and The Money Programme (ii) (1985).

And, just to get every odd clip I can think of in one place, here's Steve Green's find of Judge Dredd arresting Danny John Jules at the end of the Tongue-Tied video.


(i) Featuring the Nerve Centre (Clarendon House variant) and three Thargs (Bishop, Burton and McKenzie)

(ii) Nerve Centre (King's Reach Tower) at 37 seconds, featuring MacManus, Geller & Church at surprisingly close quarters

Funt Solo

David Bishop looks approximately five years old in that clip.  I was trying to figure out why two school children were interviewing each other and when the grown ups were going to arrive.

I now forgive all Thargs past and present for any prog-related problems they were having during their forced child labor and/or unpaid internships.
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