I'm not enjoying the prog these days - and I know why.

[JamesC]

There's a really quite succinct summary of the last series of Brass Sun on the inside front cover. Everything else you should be able to infer as you go along.

I'll confess to some frustration with this relatively modern complaint that you should be able to understand every single aspect of an ongoing series by reading six pages of it. My first issue of 2000AD was Prog 104, in which Strontium Dog was the only series starting. Everything else was in the middle of something, Robo Hunter and Dredd were quite a long way into quite involved storylines. There was a little bit of recap text at the start of each story, and we, as readers, were expected to pick the rest up as we went along.

- I just went with it, and it piqued my curiosity about what had gone before and where it was going next.

I think what Sauchie says here hits the nail on the head - and is expanded upon by what Radiator and Jim have said.

For me, the whole problem with Damnation Station is that is doesn't pique my curiosity. This weeks episode is just a lot of talking and some pretty but not particularly original looking visuals. I don't feel like, by following this strip, I'm going to see anything that I haven't seen before.
To put it more succinctly, it lacked Thrill Power.

This weeks episode of Brass Sun wasn't my cup of tea either. I find the strip dull but I can't deny it's originality. That's fine - I don't expect to enjoy every strip but I do expect them to be '2000AD'. 

[JamesC]

So after 8 pages, what we all seem to agree on is that Ten Seconder-style four year gaps between series should be avoided and that writers should try to write series and individual episodes which advance the story but are satisfying and comprehensible when read in isolation. All that seems fairly uncontroversial and very possible.

...or in other (better) words, this^^^

[Recrewt]

I know that we have seen this in the past with the Prog but I think some of the reasons for the unhappiness is that things tend to get a bit 'samey'.  Most people can handle big gaps between stories but this is happenning a lot more often.  I agree it would be nice to have another long-running story or stories just to mix it up more.

Also we get stories like Age of Wolf and Cadet Anderson which chew through the page count but don't seem to have much substance to them - again, not a massive issue if they are suitably mixed with more complex tales.  I was a little surprised with Prog 1849 to see that all the stories seemed to end in a similar fashion - vague and not really a conclusion.  I like an open ending as much as the next person but when it happens on every story then it just rubs a bit. 

[AlexF]

I don't post often on here, but this has been quite the thread.

A) I agree with the original sentiments expressed by Big Jim (are you big?) and whoever it was that started the thread. There is just something chore-ish about reading the prog at the moment. The art's still, on the whole, far more interesting than that in the US comics I read frantically/guiltily - which is as it ever was, and ever shall be Amen. So I don't resent the Prog for being a bit dull.

B) I have a more-than sneaking suspicion that every time Tharg asks for pitches based on a simple idea (space war or what have you), or every time a writer pitches a new idea, both are really hoping/trying to come up with something that will be the next Stront/RoboHunter/Dante/SinDex. I'm sure it's true than modern comics writers are more interested in telling a complete story than they used to be back in the 70s (when they got paid by the page), what with trade collections and all - but who wouldn't want to be the creator of a new character that could potentially become a household name, or at the very least the chosen avatar of one of us forum-botherers?

The problem is it's cussedly difficult to do, as I'm sure 1975-1977 era Pat Mills could tell you. I remember being struck by the info from Thrill Power Overload and the odd annual about how much time and effort went into the creation of the comic as a whole, but then in particular both Rogue Trooper and Slaine, both created with the specific aim of getting them to be lasting, regular characters with a set-up that could run and run. 

I haven't read Prog 1850 yet, but I'm very excited about the new series of Brass Sun. Edginton's best work since Leviathan, a serial that should/could have been a series. Brass Sun looks desperatley as if it's set up to be one long story, but I'd welcome the chance to spend more time in its clockwork worlds enjoying mini adventures.

[SuperSurfer]

So after 8 pages, what we all seem to agree on is that Ten Seconder-style four year gaps between series should be avoided and that writers should try to write series and individual episodes which advance the story but are satisfying and comprehensible when read in isolation. All that seems fairly uncontroversial and very possible.

...or in other (better) words, this^^^

And getting the balance right must be even more difficult as strips are then collected as trades.

The brief: we need you to write short, satisfying tales that progress the storyline, that new (or regular!) readers can comprehend, in a handful of pages which have to fit seamlessly when collected to form a well-paced larger volume.

That really is a tall order for writers that should not be underestimated.

Sometimes I think US writers have it easy in that regard.

[Jim_Campbell]

All that seems fairly uncontroversial and very possible.

Slightly less flippantly:

Given that Matt Smith is a smart chap, the longest-serving Tharg in 2000AD's history, and has presided over some of the titles most glittering periods in terms of quality (one of which being just last year), doesn't it stand to reason that he knows this?

(I want to reiterate from my first post in this thread that I am still enjoying the prog and I'm certainly not wringing my hands over the future of the comic, merely indulging in a little speculation and backseat Tharging.)

Editing a weekly title, you have to fly by the seat of your pants a bit. You may have a lovely chart on the wall scheduling all the strips for the next 52 weeks, but when Writer A phones you up to say "I've been offered a six-issue stint writing for DC/ Dynamite/ Whoever" your choice is to burn those bridges and hand his project off to someone else, or re-shuffle whatever strip he now can't commit to completing in accordance with your lovely chart.

At the same time, some projects look like absolute gold dust on paper but somehow lack that vital spark in execution. We've already established that the UK comic business is not in the habit of binning commissioned material, so all you can do is polish it as best you can and run it anyway.

So, editorially, you can have all sorts of plans, but how those plans turn out can often be a very long way from what you expected. Sometimes those unexpected outcomes can be serendipitous and delightful, and sometimes they can be a bit 'meh'.

Add to that the fact that one man's 'meh' is another man's 'best thrill in thirty years' and it's a wonder Tharg didn't piss off back to Betelgeuse years ago.

Cheers!

Jim

[Recrewt]

I think this is a really interesting thread - at first glance it can seem negative but I think if Matt Smith were to read through it then he would probably find a lot of people saying they think that something is not quite right at the moment, they understand they will not love every strip and it is difficult to describe what is wrong. 

But, they do love the Prog - they are not leaving and appreciate the great work that he does.  I know we are only a small percentage of the readership but perhaps what we fell is echoed in the larger community?  I would have thought that would have been some good/interesting feedback for Matt rather than us just talking about the size of Dredd's helmet all the time!

[Fisticuffs]

My subscription ran out with 1850, and I will not be renewing. I started buying 2000AD towards the end of the Day Of Chaos story, and then with Trifecta I was thoroughly spoiled for quality reading for the next few months. Since Trifecta ended though, I have found that the only strip I've enjoyed most weeks is Dredd, and even then it's not every week. It's just not pushing my buttons anymore.

This, combined with other reasons, for example I'm soon to be a mature student so need to save money,  plus I'm getting more and more annoyed with Pat Mills inability to keep his political opinions out of EVERY SINGLE strip of his I've read, means that I'll be leaving the weekly readership for the foreseeable future.

I'll still pick up Dredd-universe trades and others that catch my eye, it's just a shame that the weekly prog no longer manages to hold my attention.

See ya'll chaps, it's been fun.

[SmallBlueThing]

Jim's absolutely right about the cost of Bisley et al, but I'm still shocked that Book of Scars wasn't longer- using cheaper artists to tell a more celebratory tale. After all, how many of Tharg's strips play to such big European numbers and last thirty years? I was expecting at the very least an episode of S B Davis at the end. Maybe the tale isn't told yet, who knows.

As for Pat's political views- it's what separates him from every other writer the comic has, and is why I personally follow his work beyond any other writer in comics. With all due respect to all the rest of them, no one other than Pat's name sells me comics. I'd buy fucking Batman if Pat wrote it.

SBT

[radiator]

The issue for me is how the stories are conceived and written. 2000ad suits a certain style of storytelling - broad, action-packed sci fi with a twist. It's hard to articulate, but a lot of the more modern series feel a bit, I dunno, wishy washy to me. They lack that certain spark of what makes a good serialised story work.

I'll be honest — I think there's something to this. I think a more 'mature' approach to storytelling sometimes works against a weekly serial format.

I was thinking about Damnation Station (keeping in mind that my love for Al Ewing's work borders on the unhealthy) and, whilst I remember quite enjoying it while it was running, I can remember almost nothing about the characters or even much about the milieu (undeniably clever though it is). Some key visuals stick in my mind, but that's about it.

Compared with the (broadly equivalent) VCs, which basically had Snow White and the Seven Dwarves levels of characterisation. The VCs were: Normo, Grumpy, Sneaky, Loony, Baldy and Chinese. That was it. You could infer all these complex character traits by looking at them.

Can I claim that any part of the VCs was great literature? No, of course not, but, by God, I didn't have any trouble keeping the characters straight in my head. Motivation? Not getting killed by the Geeks.

All the stories took place in the space created by those simple characters and premise. There's definitely merit to it.

Cheers

Jim

Very much agree.

Kingdom - that's a proper 2000ad story.

Button Man - that's a proper 2000ad story.

Tonally, thematically, they're poles apart - but there's a certain simplicity and clarity to them, and they both have instantly memorable lead characters.

[Hawkmumbler]

I found Damnation Station very hard to follow, not having read any of the previous series. Everything else flowed just fine.

[Grant Goggans]

I'm sorry to see there's so much typed resistance here to my suggestion of longer runs for thrills.

To be honest, if Tharg were to announce that the next Slaine, painted by Simon Davis, would be running for nine or ten months next year, I'd probably be disappointed because (a) I don't like Slaine and (b) that's an awful long time to go without Davis working on Ampney Crucis or the all-new, once-again-amazing Sin Dex, both of which I really enjoy.

But I'd take it!  Anything to shake things up.

I'd love to see a really long Ampney Crucis case - "Entropy Tango" was second to Sin Dex as my favorite thing in 2013 but it wrapped up far too quickly and needed another three or four episodes - or a six-month residency for Dandridge tackling all sorts of weird cases, mixing one-offs and other short stories, each as long as they need to be.

I think that's what's missing - the sense that the writers don't really have a comfort zone to both stretch and compact things.  I mean, there's just no place in the prog anymore for a one-off Strontium Dog like the classic "Mutie's Luck."  I like the idea that, once upon a time, Wagner/Grant/Ezquerra would be trusted to just keep assembling story after story, and the editor would quickly find room for them, a ten-parter followed by a one-off, followed by a three-parter.  And they just keep running until the editor says "Let's take a break and do something else."

Abnett does, in both Grey Area and Sin Dex, change the episode count and tell short stories, but it's still pushing against the confinement of a set 12-week commission.  And I'm really feeling the walls of that structure and its artificial boundary on how the story is going to be told.  I'm tired of the momentum being killed.  Now, I'd argue that it actually works well in Kingdom because of that series' peculiar and beautiful structure.  You can imagine each tale of Gene being told around a fireside.  Each one stands apart in its own way.

But good grief, Sin Dex is suddenly, amazingly, brilliantly, vital and amazing again... and it's gone?  For heaven knows how long?  No, I'll gladly take 52 more weeks of that.  I'd love for Abnett to be given a completely open-ended commission.  Tell the story.  Do it the way you want to, take as long as you want to, just keep writing, and we'll tell you when (or if) it needs a break.

* * *

Now that I've read prog 1850, I can see how each writer has approached the time off since the last one.  I think that Ewing's done it really well, starting things from scratch and focusing on each of who we can assume are the major players, while the narration explains the situation.  Edginton did it even better.  I loved the lyrical story of the creation of that universe, and the moving from fable back to continuity.

Mills did it unbelievably poorly.  Yeah, I kind of remember the half-dinosaur half-human gang hanging around the fringes of the last story (back in the middle of Chaos Day!) but I had completely forgotten that Vegas has switched sides (?) and is working with them now.  That almost useless paragraph in the front just explains that's the status quo.

Remember that Past Imperfect two weeks ago, "Origins"?  No disrespect to the creators of that story, but honestly, the space would have been better served with a two-page "Previously" for Flesh and another two-page "Previously" for Damnation Station.

[Jim_Campbell]

I like the idea that, once upon a time, Wagner/Grant/Ezquerra would be trusted to just keep assembling story after story, and the editor would quickly find room for them, a ten-parter followed by a one-off, followed by a three-parter.  And they just keep running until the editor says "Let's take a break and do something else."

Yes. This is exactly what I understood you wanted when you talked about long runs: not some interminable 18-part story, but multiple stories of different lengths for the same characters. These can still lead into jumping on progs, too, as long as you wrap the current storyline and start a new one.

In my head, you'd have maybe four strips that could work like this, two of them running alongside Dredd at any given time and the remaining two slots for Future Shock style shorts, 3rillers, or one-offs like Cradlegrave.

It seems to me that Indigo Prime would be a perfect candidate for a semi-residency, since you could focus on different teams within the organisation, and swap artists for stories of different tone. Sin/Dex could do it (and, obviously, has in the past).

Cheers

Jim

[IndigoPrime]

Mills did it unbelievably poorly.

Again. It's been a long time since I entirely skipped over any 2000 AD story (probably Wireheads or the execrable Grudge Father), but I'm so close to that with Flesh now. This episode managed to be a terrible part one, clunky, and boring, and McKay's still clearly very infatuated by the boobs of his lead character. It's a strange mix of juvenile and really tired, when Flesh should arguably be 1) the standout in the Prog, and 2) exactly the kind of ongoing strip people have been talking about, when what we'll get in ten weeks is "END OF THIS BOOK! NEW BOOK SOONER OR LATER". Gnh.

In general, I have to say that I think Smith has been a truly spectacular Tharg. 2000 AD has been on something of a high for the majority of his run. But, yeah, I do also wonder if it'd be good to try and get some more ongoing stuff into the Prog, rather than turning everything into a trade-sized mini-epic. Hell, I'd love to see Strontium Dog's current run end somehow and to get back to smaller, simpler tales again.

[Hawkmumbler]

Bring back Big Dave! 

But in all seriousness, Grants and Jims idea fits how I feel an anthology can be best utilised outside of a fresh slate each week and is how I would like to see the prog venture in the future.