Prog 2223 - The Root Of All Evil

[broodblik]

As longs as something is popular most of us will be milking it.

[Leigh S]

Yeah, this:

I saw Pat saying that it would take 6 weeks to come up with the new direction for Slaine, so put his effort into space Warp instead - fair enough.

But it's clear that this story is the start of a new direction/chapter, introducing new villains and set up that he has already invested in (and indeed so ahve his fans) - If he is willing to shit on that story to make a point to the "Man", well, let's just hope that isnt the case, but if it is.... cheers Pat.

Only been a loyal fan for these 40 years. Pat is the creator, but if no one actually buys and enjoys your comics  then no one will ever want to exploit them I suppose...

If Pat had/has said "right, ths is it" and worked up this final Slaine to  fitting climax, then he is doing a service to his creation and his fans - if he is throwing his toys out the pram?  Not sure what that acheves - noses/faces/sharp implements and all that

I don't mind it in comics—for me, it's all down to whether or not the end result is any good and, ideally, whether the original creator is OK with it. As for Mills, it remains to be seen how Sláine ends, but if he just gets a Gáe Bolga up the bum out of the blue to stop anyone else playing with Mills's toys, that's not going to be good. Whatever else I think about this particular run, it's clearly the beginning of a new chapter and not designed to be the end of the entire run.

[broodblik]

The Slaine series definitely feels like a start of a new arc and I would rather have an open-ended ending than a tantrum ending. You never know in life you might want to double back on the bridge you just crossed, oops I burned it.

[TordelBack]

The Slaine series definitely feels like a start of a new arc ...

FWIW I read Dragontamer as Brutannia Bk IV: the Brutus/Llandin thing was introduced (and visited) in Books of Invasion, and touched on occasionally in Wanderer, but Sláine was lost in grief for Niamh and the entire vanished tribes of the Earth Goddess and pretty much ignoring his role as champion of the Goddess. He rediscovered his purpose on Mona, where his friend Gort turned out to have been twisted by the teaching of the Drunes in the very College he's currently rampaging around, and through Sinéad connected with his mother and his hitherto unknown druid father. Book IV of Brutannia ended with him issuing a challenge to Brutus, Who is enabling the rule of the Drunelords and this is exactly where is where Dragontamer starts. 

In my opinion the only reason Dragontamer looks like the start of something new rather that the climax of that whole storyline is the change of artist (and title). Now I'd suspect Pat had actually planned this to play out over at least another book (The Web of Weird Book II") before thinking "I'm fecking Pat Mills, why am I still making money for these keniggets after 40 yrs when I could be creating my own IP to flog to Netflix? ". But even so Dragontamer so far has made a good fist of pulling together the strands and themes of Sláine's past (with the regrettable omission of Kai, the Alexander Rozhenko of this saga).

So while an ending at this point can only feel abrupt, I don't see the itself as a false start, instead more of a rather rushed conclusion. But aren't we always complaining about decompressed unending multi-book series anyway?

But most likely I'll be back in a few weeks to cry Ochón,  Ochón!

[The Corinthian]

It doesn't seem that long ago that Mills basically abandoned the idea of a multi-book epic conclusion to 'Nemesis' and wrote the whole thing off in three months.

[broodblik]

FWIW I read Dragontamer as Brutannia Bk IV: the Brutus/Llandin thing was introduced (and visited) in Books of Invasion, and touched on occasionally in Wanderer, but Sláine was lost in grief for Niamh and the entire vanished tribes of the Earth Goddess and pretty much ignoring his role as champion of the Goddess. He rediscovered his purpose on Mona, where his friend Gort turned out to have been twisted by the teaching of the Drunes in the very College he's currently rampaging around, and through Sinéad connected with his mother and his hitherto unknown druid father. Book IV of Brutannia ended with him issuing a challenge to Brutus, Who is enabling the rule of the Drunelords and this is exactly where is where Dragontamer starts. 

The last 4 pages of Brutannia Bk IV almost serves as a prologue to Dragontamer - prog 2060.

[Dark Jimbo]

In the afterword to the final Hachette Slaine volume, Matt Smith talks about the imminent 'next phase of the woad warrior's adventures' starting in 2020, 'The Web of Weird, first book of the Dragontamer arc.'

So the original plan was definitely for this to be the start of a new phase, rather than any sort of epilogue.

[TordelBack]

In the afterword to the final Hachette Slaine volume, Matt Smith talks about the imminent 'next phase of the woad warrior's adventures' starting in 2020, 'The Web of Weird, first book of the Dragontamer arc.'

So the original plan was definitely for this to be the start of a new phase, rather than any sort of epilogue.

Good info, cheers Jimbo!

[Leigh S]

Yeah, part of my interest in finally catching up with the Slaine HBs was to get all the Brutania tales together on the shelf and read them as a single piece - It's clear that new characters were being introduced here for the purpose of future plottage - a book or probbaly two more would make sense knowing how Pat formualtes these things - so he has done the "research" you would think - this is part 1 of an new arc, so that "development time" has surely already been done to a fair degree?

if we're getting what appears to be a Poochy ending, well what a great f**k you to the comic, but just as great a f**k you to the fans, those fans you'll want to be buying your Spacewarp product

[Jacqusie]

I'd no more want to read non-Mills Sláine than I would non-Morrison Dante, non-Abnett Kingdom or (more pertinently) non-Smith IP/Waugh.

I thought the first Non-Smith Devlin Waugh's were pretty good efforts by Rory McConville, and the art by Mike Dowling captured the essence of Devlin rather well. Not too over the top and pretty faithful to what we might expect from the Vamp and it was a hard gig to folllow the story with his brother and fill in the blanks left by John Smith.

Why McConville then lost the gig I'm not sure we ever found out, but the next chapter's by Aleš Kot were somewhat of a radical departure and try as I might to enjoy it, there was a feeling throughout that the character had moved too far away from Swimming in Blood, Red Tide and Chasing Herod (one of the best stories in the prog ever I reckon)

You can over-do a premise and the whole "spirit of the demon Titivillus" thing is being stretched out on every panel to the extent where we are in the realm someone telling the same joke for the 248th time. Waugh has sadly become a pastiche of his former self which is rather unrecognisable and contains little of the charm that endured when we had the excitement and verve of the original writer.

[Max Headroom]

I must agree with Jacqusie that I preferred McConville's take on Devlin to Kot's. Some of the latter's story-telling is not too bad, but the whole 'Demon in a Dildo' thing has become a bit ridiculous. Of course, nothing even comes close to John Smith's early work on the character (but I guess this goes without saying).

[IndigoPrime]

The problem for me with McConville's Waugh is it immediately decided it was despite to explain all the vague hints at weirdness Smith had enjoyed using as background colour since the strip's inception. Sometimes, things don't need explaining. Strips are better off if you don't.

[TordelBack]

Especially true of Smith's writing, where he works almost like a Foley artist on a radioplay, building a sort of mental sound:scape out of throwaway names, unseen events and scientific/arcane-seeming terms. You could imagine the vast and complex universe that these things were alluding to, but if you actually opened the front door to see what sadistic Chadarisq-Khan abomination was lurching up the driveway, all you'd find would be a stagehand jumping up and down in a box of gravel. Better not to look, it's the sound effects that make Smith's stories so great.

To be fair I haven't really read any of the ersatz Devlin, just glanced through the odd episode, and don't intend to. If one of my absolute favourite current 2000AD writers couldn't make anything worthwhile out of continuing an ongoing IP story, I don't feel even residual curiosity for the new adventures of Devlin.

[The Corinthian]

Despite the Revere misstep I've made my peace with Kek-W's Indigo Prime, but I find post-Smith Devlin hasn't held my interest at all.

I'm curious though about why - Sci-Fi Special aside - no one's had a crack at Tyranny Rex yet, as it's potentially the Smith series most amenable to being written by someone else. He even left it on the verge of big skiffy adventure rather than decapitated nun weirdness.

[Goosegash]

The frustrating thing for me re: Slaine is the strip already had the perfect ending in the finale to the Book Of Invasions - Slaine defeats Odacon, has a touching farewell with Niamh and vanishes from written history into the realm of myth and folklore. I remember putting that issue down and thinking "Wow, what a fantastic ending to the whole saga Mills pulled off there."

And then it carried on for another fifteen years!

I have no idea how Mills intends to leave things, but I have a horrible such a hasty wrap-up tagged onto a story that was clearly not intended as any kind-of grand finale can only disappoint. I'd like to be wrong, but...