FINAL - Dan Abnett or Pat Mills - For the Godpleton Cup

[The Mind of Wolfie Smith]

Pat Mills.
Behave.

[Citi-Def_Joe]

Pat Mills may be the godfather but I am going for Dan Abnett

[Funt Solo]

Both great, prolific writers that (because of the volume of their output) have hits and misses over the breadth of their careers. Pat usually has a strong message and a clear ethical stance whereas Dan seems more of an out and out entertainer.

As is often the case with trying to think of who's better when both of the people under consideration are so highly talented, I need to use a gimmick. I'm going to use the "whose work would I most like to read if I opened a new comic today"?








It's Dan Abnett. And that was the scrapping of that day.

[robprosser]

The legend that is Pat Mills is my choice.

[JayzusB.Christ]

Well, this has all gone quite 2016 so far, with the less established choice getting an unexpected surge. The main difference, of course, is that Dan is a great writer, rather than a tiny-handed wannabe dictator or a decision to impose sanctions on your own country.

I voted Pat but I get the impression he wouldn't be at all happy to see how well Dan is doing.

[Huey2]

Pat Mills.

[TordelBack]

This is the most awful of choices. Pat has given me by far the most joy of the two writers, of almost any writer, with Sláine inarguably diverting my life down its current path [wait, this is all his fault..?], and Third World War heavily shaping my worldview. But Abnett's work is often what I look forward to each week.

It's maybe worth noting that at different times I have disliked the work of both writers: on Abnett's side I hated (hated) Sinister Dexter when it started (love it now), didn't like his Durham Red, didn't think much of Black Atlantic or Roadkill, never bothered to read Sancho Panzer. For Mills I also really disliked Blood of Satanus, Greysuit, and Finn, and any Judge Dredd after about 1979, and parts of mid-period ABC Warriors bored me rigid. So it's a tribute to jus how much I like all the other stuff they've done that I think we've picked the right two writers to be vying for the top spot. 

Looking at Funt's approach as a way into this conundrum, if I picked up (downloaded) the Prog next Wednesday, and it turned out that it was Dredd and four other strips by just the one author, would I rather that it be Abnett or Mills?

Say it was Sláine, ABC Warriors, Defoe and one all-new creation, versus Brink, Kingdom, Sinister Dexter and yet another new strip? Sad to say, i'd probably be happier to see the latter lineup - and if it was Mills or Abnett on the Dredd as well, there's no question.

I love Defoe, still enjoy Sláine, but I just prefer Abnett's current writing to Mills'. But then I previously voted for Mills over Alan Moore on the basis of his 40 year catalogue of wonder, and I love Moore's work in a decidedly unnatural way. So why not vote for Mills over Abnett as well?

It really does come down to choosing between the heyday of each writer: Mills in the '70s to the early '90s, creating [as a writer] and sustaining the uniqueness and identity of the Prog with everything from Flesh to the Cursed Earth, Sláine and Nemesis; and Abnett late '90s to now, providing so many modern classics in Kingdom, Lawless, Insurrection, Brink, Grey Area and Sinister Dexter. 

If you took Pat's writing out of the Prog's history, the comic simply wouldn't exist as we know it- Future Police Officer called-something-other-than-Dredd ft. Strontium Dog weekly is what we'd have, and probably not even that. 

And if you took Abnett out of the Prog and Meg today, you'd have a gaping hole that'd make Al Ewing and John Smith's departures look like a minor inconvenience (I imagine a torrent of Kek-W and Edginton strips pouring in to fill the gap, so it wouldn't be all bad).

Crucially, I think the comic without Abnett's writing would still be recognisably 2000AD, weaker, far poorer and less enjoyable (and the heavens only know what Tharg would use to plug those awkward two-or-three week holes in the schedule without Sinister Dexter), but it'd still be the Prog.

But have Thoth go back in time and get Satanus to gobble up Uncle Pat before he wrote a single page of script for 2000AD, and the comic would be something else entirely. Even with Mills in the editor's chair, a 2000AD without his writing wouldn't be possible.

So it's Pat Mills for me, and damn the consequences.

[Buttonman]

Pat has the history but he also has the sexy ostriches. Two piles of trades - what do you pick? Got to be Dan Abnett for me.

[AlexF]

It's kind of an unfair contest in one key way, as expressed by many others here:
Pat Mills got there first.
And by 'there', I mean 'inside my brain'. It's his work on Nemesis in particular, but also some key Ro-Bustin' and ABC Warriors tales, a smidgeon of Slaine and Judge Dredd: the Cursed Earth that pushed me into 2000AD megafandom and arguably even comics obsessiveness.

It's also hard to get over how much research he does, and how well he puts it across. Even the preaching that goes along with that research is something I relish. I LIKE going to lectures, and if I can get my lecture with a plateful of gore and sloganeering all the better.

And yet, and YET

Dan Abnett is just a force of nature. He has written so much, and unlike Mills he did a lot of his learning in the pages of 2000AD so we got to see a fair bit of his untested early work, which Mills got out of his system in the 60s and 70s on titles I've not read much of. Late 70s/early 80s Mills is like 2000s Dan Abnett, from VCs onward when he's got nearly everything right.

Page for page it's possible that I have had an continue to have more fun with Abnett. Although it'll be hard even for him to generate a heftier stack of collections than the Nemesis, Slaine and ABCs volumes that fill most of shelf in my room.

To be honest my heart has always been to vote Mills and it's going to stay that way. And it's the preaching that does it. If Pat Mills wants to educate me about food terrorism, even if it's too dense and too nasty and too silly all at the same time, part of me just respects it more than the delights of plot, character and the imntersection of cults and madness that is Brink.

But I will say that today's Abnett is far superior than today's Mills at writing epsiodes that satisfy in single chunks, as opposed to only really holding together in long form. Something Mills was SO GOOD at maybe 20 years ago, when that's how comics were designed.

Yeah. I'm with Pat Mills Block.

[oshii]

The Progfather.   Big Pat

[leethomson]

AlexF makes an interesting point about Mills "getting there first". When I was reading the Prog, a credit from either writer was the last thing I wanted to see. Pat Mills was in his "& Tony Skinner" period, and Dan Abnett was churning out Vector 13 and early Sinister Dexter, both of which I regarded as cheese of the highest order. Both have bounced back/developed, but nostalgia really plays no part in my decision here. So although you could say I'm voting from a position of ignorance, having not read enough of Mills' defining work for Tharg, on the balance of what I have read over 25(!) years, I've got to give it to Dan Abnett. Wildly inconsistent in his early days, it took him a ridiculously long time to "get good", but now he constantly blows me away.

[DrJomster]

So many of the above posts echo my thoughts here, I have to say. They have both made seriously strong contributions to the prog, they really have and, thinking about it, this makes for a good final match. I dearly love both their work, but I think the fact that Pat lay the ground works and showed how it was done has to take the day. So, I'm going with Pat Mills block!

Having said that, I would like to give a shout out for all the other creators. 2000AD is really blessed with its talent. I couldn't wish for more, honestly.

[Andy B]

The anarchic and fun first half of 2000AD history vs the more slick and grown-up second half...

Let's face it: it's the first half - I'm going for Pat Mills

That said, Dan Abnett would have been a worthy winner of the "Ultimate not Wagner or Mills Tourney" that this could easily have been: this was the right final.

[The Enigmatic Dr X]

Abnett

I have spoken

[Ghost MacRoth]

Mills.  Even though he is a bit repetetive these days.