Interview with former Tharg, Richard Burton (questions needed)

[Old Tankie]

Enjoyed that, thank you.

[AlexF]

I've only just started part 2 but part 1 was a cracker! Thanks for bringing this to my attention as I wouldn't have stumbled across it otherwise. Burton the man really doesn't come across like Burt-1 the droid, does he?

That said, I'm still not persuaded that he has upended the existing narrative that the Burton/McKenzie years saw a downhill slide which only turned uphill once Biship/Diggle were on the scene. Although I think one can only lay so much credit/blame to any editor. I reckon a certain amount of it is down to personal taste - Burton just liked different kinds of stories to Bishop.

I am now disabused of some notions I may have had that Bishop was uniquely interested in identifying and developing new creators; clearly Burton was equally on the lookout.

When are interviews with Alan McKenzie and John Tomlinson going to come?? The latter in particular straddles both eras and I'd love to hear how he compares the two.

[DarkDaysBish-OP]

Never would have said I was unique in identifying and developing new creators! Steve MacManus asked me to do that for the Megazine so we wouldn't be nicking creators from 2000AD to fill our pages. The weekly has always brought on new talent, especially once the title become a stepping stone to US comics [or computer games or film work, in the case of artists]. Richard and Alan found and nurtured plenty of great new talents in their time at the Command Module, IMHO.

[Frank]

I'm still not persuaded that he has upended the existing narrative that the Burton/McKenzie years saw a downhill slide

Good point, Alex. I think Flint has the right idea; asking the questions and letting listeners evaluate the responses for themselves.

Burton's stated purpose in giving these exhaustive interviews was to challenge the narrative of events presented in Thrillpower Overload and the Future Shock documentary. Despite, as soon becomes apparent, having never read/watched either ... [1]

... that means softball questions inviting him to refute said narrative are mostly fumbled. Instead, Burton comes across as every inch the charming and erudite man Alan Grant describes, but someone who understands/remembers things in generalities rather than specifics.

One minute, running the few completed episodes of a larger series until they run out then swapping them for another strip is a great way to mix up quality material (01:52:41), just a few minutes later it's the worst thing you can do (01:55:20).

US comics are rubbish because they're still using the same old characters (01:46:55), but rebooting Harlem Heroes was okay because younger readers wouldn't remember the original series (01:41:55). None of that's intended as a slight towards the affable Burton; I'm just not sure he ever devoted the same amount of time and anguish to these matters as some of us here.

Andy Diggle quotes Burton's advice to him as 'remember, it's just a comic'. That's probably fair enough; being Tharg was one of dozens of jobs Burton did in more than forty years. That means he's delightfully vague about some things, specifically the number of copies the comic was selling during his/McKenzie's tenure.


[1] To be fair, his reasons are understandable. He looked at the dominant voices in each project - the editor who replaced him and 2000ad's most obstreperous creator - and decided he was never going to get a fair shake.

[Leigh S]

It was Mick Austin who did the porn swipe cover wasnt it? I know he is the first to admit to faulty memory n the interviews, but hey ho!

It is fascinating listening - as others have said, it hasnt challenged the overall narrative as I see it, mostly because my personal narrative is of a massive decline in standards during that period - It is a real pity that Burt and MacKenzie werent more involved in the other "official" histories, and from that one point, they are both to my mind always going to be somewhat skewed.  Doesnt mean they are necessarily wrong, but including their persepctives would have allowed a more rounded account.  I would love to see Burton/MacKenzie sit down and fact check their own version (Burts wonky memory shows up more than once in interviews so far).

i always thought it was Garth Ennis who got the "Only a Fucking comic" pep talk, though maybe that was a Burt mantra! Could they have done anything to stem the tide?  Hard to say - If someone halved your household budget (the talent brain drain) and doubled your bills (publish the weekly, a fortnightly and Crisis etc), could you keep a roof over your head? 

[Frank]

It was Mick Austin who did the porn swipe cover wasnt it?

Yep (DANGER: boobs). To be fair, Burton has a point (00:56:15).

As he says, David Roach is a fantastic fine artist, but his beautiful strip work could be a little stiff in terms of storytelling. Burt's charge of slowness leading to scheduling difficulties rings true; Engram was split into two parts, which ran almost a year apart.

Individuals and events seem to retain a firmer hold on Burt's memory circuits than the stories he published (00:32:00). The best example of that is the point where it becomes clear that he doesn't really remember what The Dead Man was (01:18:26).

The prestige of the Dredd/Batman deal means more to Burt than specific stories, which is fair enough. When the ex-Thargs meet up for the monthly dinners Burton describes, I'm sure they reminisce about the politics of the job*, rather than how great Revolution was.

Burton's main interest was getting the comic out each week and keeping out of trouble with management (00:47:15), trusting that the readers would have forgotten the odd rough (Mark Millar) episode by next week (00:36:00). Like anyone else doing a job of work:

LINK TO THE INTERVIEW (since the page changed)


* and thus that's what remains fresher in the memory

[AlexF]

The irony is that Burton himself doesn't get a kicking at all in either TPO or Future Shock!. But perhaps by not being present in either, his overall contributions to the Prog, both good and bad, are inherently overlooked. The interviews are both great but frustratingly vague on details. Burton seems reluctant to take credit for any specific stories that ran while he was Tharg, and there were some all-time greats in there. Did he suggest giving Chopper a solo slot, for example, or was that all Wagner's idea and he simply agreed to run it? But of course from his popint of view it was a very long time ago, and I doubt he ever re-read Progs 400-900 as obsessively as I did in the 90s...

It's interesting to note that three of the artists in particular that he championed early on, Steve Dillon, Alan Davis and Barry Kitson, have all gone on to be US comics superstars. Given that Burton grew up as a fan of superhero comics it makes sense he'd have an especially good eye for that style of art.

Oh, and the comment about Bishop being an especial champion of new talent is only something that's ever existed in my head! A moment's thought makes it clear that, in fact, all editors of weekly comics have to do this to keep the damn thing ticking. One could argue, based mostly on Megazine Volume 2, that Bishop was either more forgiving or less discerning in this area. Or perhaps simply more desperate!

On the stockpiling of work in left in the drawer, I feel Burton got the wrong end of the stick. The complaint wasn't that work had been stockpiled, rather that what happened to have been left at the time of the handover was not good quality stuff. Of course, Burton himself was long gone (onto Sonic the Comic) at the time Bishop took over on 2000AD, so that's perhaps more of a charge aimed at McKenzie/Tomlinson. and of course Steve MacManus, who was still in charge at the time, even if fairly hands off.

[Jim_Campbell]

On the stockpiling of work in left in the drawer, I feel Burton got the wrong end of the stick. The complaint wasn't that work had been stockpiled, rather that what happened to have been left at the time of the handover was not good quality stuff.

No... I was very much under the impression that the complaint was that there was a lot of inventory material and that most of it wasn't very good.

[Fungus]

Yet to listen, but the impression of a laid-back Tharg being painted here is one I like  Good on him.

[COMMANDO FORCES]

I finished the second one last night at work and found them very enjoyable.
Loads of interesting stuff talked about and as said, great to see another side of things, from the actual horses mouth.

[Frank]

On the stockpiling of work in left in the drawer, I feel Burton got the wrong end of the stick. The complaint wasn't that work had been stockpiled, rather that what happened to have been left at the time of the handover was not good quality stuff. Of course, Burton himself was long gone (onto Sonic the Comic) at the time Bishop took over on 2000AD, so that's perhaps more of a charge aimed at McKenzie/Tomlinson

I was screaming at my phone in frustration, but you can't play Paxman when someone's doing you a favour by agreeing to a chat.

Flint does put Bishop's charge to Burton - that the material was so bad he asked management if he could bin it (01:58:20) - but Burton doesn't really respond (having earlier implied Bishop just didn't understand how to exploit this 'legacy'). At least he walks back his initial description of Time Flies 2 and Goodnight Kiss as 'a treasure trove'!

I'm not sure Burt can be absolved of responsibility for the unused inventory. Strips like PARAsites (a renamed Wireheads) and Fleisher Harlem Heroes are Burton era strips [1] that only reappeared in the first 12 months of Bishop's Thargship - 3 and 5 years after their last appearances, respectively. They're obviously 'legacy' material [2].

I suppose the reason Burton doesn't engage with the charge those strips were weak is that he genuinely doesn't think they were. Again, that's partly a result of the fact that he doesn't seem to have devoted as much mental energy as us to these strips (and the direction of the comic) in the last quarter of a century ... or at the time.


* Sonic The Comic launched in May 1993, so Burt would still have been advising the Mighty One when second series of both were commissioned. Burton seems to have continued some kind of supervisory role during the early era of McKenzie/Tomlinson too

** Heroes in particular was obviously a Burton commission that was only finished in 1995, since colourist Siku had just recently started working for 2000ad at that point, while penciler Hopgood hadn't worked for Tharg since 1990.

[CalHab]

The irony is that Burton himself doesn't get a kicking at all in either TPO or Future Shock!. But perhaps by not being present in either, his overall contributions to the Prog, both good and bad, are inherently overlooked.

I was a bit confused about that as well, particularly in the case of TPO. Maybe Burton and McKenzie should read the book before dismissing it?

[AlexF]

Finally got to the end of the 2nd interview only to learn there's going to be a third! I'm enjoying the hell out of this, although I do feel for poor Flint having to maintain an air of being super-nice to Burton even as he misremembers things. Again, no slight on Burton as it'd be like me trying to remember what essays I wrote for which teacher in my GCSE years, and whether or not they were actually any good (I'm sure I thought they were at the time!) But he should surely own up to some of the blame for the travesty of the RoboHunter reboot - and then some credit for swapping out Mark Millar for Peter Hogan.

As a younger reading during Burton's tenure, I do in fact applaud his policy of deliberately putting in strips for under 12s (Junker, Night/Beyond/Below Zero etc) to counterbalance the more grown up Shamballas and Hewligan's haircuts, which I chose not to read at the time as I couldn't make sense of them at all.

[Frank]

(Burton) should surely own up to some of the blame for the travesty of the RoboHunter reboot ... I applaud his policy of deliberately putting in strips for under 12s (Junker, Night/Beyond/Below Zero etc) to counterbalance the more grown up Shamballas and Hewligan's haircuts

Maybe Burton and McKenzie should read (Thrillpower Overload) before dismissing it?

To be fair, Burton is only responding to questions put to him by readers ... who tell him their cheeky enquiries were inspired by something they read in Thrillpower Overload*.

The all-ages thing is interesting; the idea that he was bringing on new, young readers doesn't really square with the drop in readers from 100,000 to 50,000 over the 8 years of Burton/McKenzie or his acknowledgement that kids stopped reading comics.

These interviews have allowed me to make peace with the Burton era - he's a lovely man who had a series of lovely jobs at a lovely time to work in publishing, commissioning a lot of work from lovely people**. That lots of that work wasn't very good doesn't seem to trouble his memories, and I feel rotten for puncturing his bubble even a little.


* I believe this is genuinely the first suggestion Burton's heard that his time as Tharg was anything other than an unqualified success. Vague reference to Garth Ennis's criticism of Burton and McKenzie was met with a puzzled request for evidence of these sentiments ... followed by stunned silence.

** Some of whom went on to do much better work than the stuff he got out of them

[terryworld]

just want to say thanks to all involved for bringing us these interviews, some really fascinating stuff in them. cheers.