Prog 2265: Worlds at War

[Leigh S]

Well, Toxic is a great example of creator owned not being the sticking plaster it might be - Marshall Law himself is also a good example of having a character that flits about from publisher to publisher.

I'm also a big advocate of the idea that the publisher is the one taking "the risk"  - I kind of see why IPC saw their comics as mass market commodity and hadn't really factored in anyone taking the stories seriously, let alone the creators themselves - they saw it as a place where Tom Tully could genuinely boast at parties that he earned more than the Prime Minister  - stack it up high!


I wouldn't ever have expected Rebellion to spend Millions purchasing the Rights then hand back all the characters.  It's just a shame there wasn't a compromise between those two positions that wasn't hashed out in the 80s or the 2000s. 

I suppose I want the prog to hit me with some favourites and some new stuff and nurture some of that new stuff in a way that isn't just setting it on a seemingly endless conveyor belt of "End of Book x" - as you say, Pat used to get reasonably roasted for much the same thing, but at least I was usually invested in those characters, even if it was coasting on that to a smaller or larger degree

[Funt Solo]

I think the vast majority of stories have a coherent, readable arc - but then often end with some continuation breadcrumbs - they don't tend to require a back-read in order to get on board. I suppose I'm arguing that The Order, Scarlet Traces, Brass Sun & Kingmaker are outliers - in that they often end on a serious cliffhanger before a years-long wait for a follow-up.

Even there - The Order does do little arcs but has so many characters that it's difficult to track who's who without a re-read. The most recent gap was 67 weeks between Land of the Free and Fantastic Voyage.

Kingmaker had a serious cliffhanger at the end of Ouroboros, from which we had to wait 127 progs for the follow-up. Brass Sun is 194 progs and counting - it feels like the creators must have lost interest. Scarlet Traces was (only) a 112 prog wait from another tall cliffhanger.

I like all these stories - but waiting 2+ years between instalments is ... quite a wait.

[broodblik]

The wait between series is for me the most frustrating thing and feels like a series killer.  At least my new favourite Vex are getting more love in the release department.

It the latest prog's letter page it was mentioned that Brass Sun will return but due to a certain droid's commitment to other projects that is causing the hold-up.

[Funt Solo]

The golden age span displayed below had a span of 52 progs with 14 titles:




The most recent jump-to-jump stage from 2021 had a span of 38 progs with 30 titles. (Even removing the Regened strips, you still have 22 titles. That's 14 fewer progs but at least 8 more titles.)




So - the prog is more disjointed than it was. More variety, less stability.

[Colin YNWA]

So - the prog is more disjointed than it was. More variety, less stability.

Small sample size but intuitively that seems right. The question is is that a bad thing?

More variety, less stability leads to more innovation and variation. That's a good thing in a anthology surely?

[Funt Solo]

It's a compelling argument - and it's perhaps unfair to place a mirror up to the golden age. Nobody would argue with that Slaine run, but most people wouldn't wish for Skippy-T to have run all the books back to back.

[Leigh S]

what happens if you isolate out the REgeneds which by their very nature are offering a smorgasbord of self contained and "new" strips?

[Jacqusie]

Scarlet Traces was (only) a 112 prog wait from another tall cliffhanger.

I like all these stories - but waiting 2+ years between instalments is ... quite a wait.

Which prog did we last see Helium? The ending was pretty much written with a second series in mind I seem to recall, but then it was a very long time ago!

[Colin YNWA]

Scarlet Traces was (only) a 112 prog wait from another tall cliffhanger.

I like all these stories - but waiting 2+ years between instalments is ... quite a wait.

Which prog did we last see Helium? The ending was pretty much written with a second series in mind I seem to recall, but then it was a very long time ago!

I think we need to let Helium go, it was like 7 years ago almost. For me of more immediate concern are Brass Sun and Kingdom. The former we've been promised back, but half that creative team is currently focusing on Brink it would seem. The later, Kingdom gave what was for me a nice ending, but we've been told there is more to come. Trouble is that creative team is now focused on Feral and Foe and Dabnett has Brink, The Out and Lawless.

So yeah I miss both those thrills and would love to have them back, but look what the forced patience has brought us!

[Leigh S]

The early 2000s avoided this by using multiple artists on Sin Dex and Dante, allowing them to have much more presence in the progs - is part of the issue that strips tend to be tied to certain artists?

[broodblik]

As much as I want Brass Sun back I would prefer that Culbard is still on art duties but yes using different artist on a series worked before so why not?

[Jim_Campbell]

The early 2000s avoided this by using multiple artists on Sin Dex and Dante, allowing them to have much more presence in the progs - is part of the issue that strips tend to be tied to certain artists?

Yeah... I was going to mention that people tend to forget how many artists worked on Dante in the early days because so much of the run is (rightly) dominated by the Fraser/Burns duo. I mean, off the top of my head, in addition to Simon F, there were stories by Henry Flint, Steve Yeowell, Andy Clarke, Charlie Adlard and Chris Weston, plus some I've doubtless forgotten...

The point being that Dante was a very regular fixture in the prog, which allowed the strip to build some momentum at the start and churn through a lot of the very necessary world-building that paid off so richly in later stories, and I suspect that roster of artists was a large part of what made that possible.

(IIRC, Simon's wife's work took her to somewhere fairly remote in Africa with limited internet access making it hard for Simon to get pages into the Command Module, and it wasn't until someone hit on the genius idea of putting the seemingly indefatigable John Burns on the strip, and Simon moved to somewhere with more connectivity that Dante settled into that familiar two-hander.)

[Blue Cactus]

It's a compelling argument - and it's perhaps unfair to place a mirror up to the golden age. Nobody would argue with that Slaine run, but most people wouldn't wish for Skippy-T to have run all the books back to back.

Whether or not I enjoyed Skip Tracer I did like the idea of having a strip with fairly self-contained 8 of 10 part stories turning up pretty regularly. It counteracts the presence of more open ended stories with long gaps between series. I'd happily see this type of semi-regular thing tried again, maybe with a variety of artists. I always enjoy seeing different artist interpretations of a strip, particularly if their styles are quite different.

[Blue Cactus]

Something like Jaegir would suit that format I think. You'd lose the consistency of Coleby, who is a perfect fit of course, but you'd have a series developing regularly in fairly self-contained chunks. But a new series designed for that kind of slot could be very welcome too.

[Jim_Campbell]

Something like Jaegir would suit that format I think. You'd lose the consistency of Coleby, who is a perfect fit of course, but you'd have a series developing regularly in fairly self-contained chunks. But a new series designed for that kind of slot could be very welcome too.

Slightly tangential to that, I've thought for some time that a 'Tales of Nu Earth' anthology series would be a great candidate for a semi-permanent resident — you could encompass a wide variety of stories and art styles, and even drop the blue guy in a couple of times a year. If the Rogue Trooper movie ever makes it out of development hell (and I'm not holding my breath on that score — it looks like Duncan Jones might have moved on to other projects) then it would be a neat way to cash in without having to revive Rogue as a full-blown series.