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Prog 2223 - The Root Of All Evil

Started by Goosegash, 14 March, 2021, 12:21:33 PM

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Leigh S

Everything comes back to Rebellion Hating.

Quote from: wedgeski on 25 March, 2021, 04:32:05 PM
Quote from: IndigoPrime on 25 March, 2021, 02:10:35 PM
It was nice to see that—and his positive words about Matt Smith. But he also branded Rebellion as "profit first and creativity second", which is quite something. If Rebellion only cared about profit, it wouldn't take any risks, and that slew of specials and niche reprint—a chunk of which is Mills's work—definitely sits in the 'risk' category.
I just can't get on his side when he lobs out jabs like that. Is there a Rebellion-hating audience he's trying to pander to with those kinds of comments?

Colin YNWA

Quote from: Barrington Boots on 25 March, 2021, 04:27:06 PM
My money is on a Mean Team style ending. Slaine is victorious and then in the final panel a dragon flies down from out of nowhere and kills him.

I thought you were going to say Slaine is revealed to be Mad Jack Kellar and the Land of the Young actually the fantasy island from Mean Team. We'd all then start crying out for a series about Ukko after he's had his mind transfered into the body of a Shoggey Beast....

... but you weren't...

broodblik

I am sure that is not true the real truth must be that Slaine is actually Vex's Flesh Pilot's Flesh Pilot.
When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.

Old age is the Lord's way of telling us to step aside for something new. Death's in case we didn't take the hint.

IndigoPrime

Slaine gets hurled through time and tuned into the dinosaur he kills in the very first episode.

Magnetica

Quote: "profit first and creativity second".

The thing about this is - business exist to make money.
Businesses that go a long time without making money eventually end up out of business.
So yes in an ideal world, the comic should be all about creativity; but the best way for it to survive to bring is the thrills we want, is to make a profit.

The Corinthian

Quote from: I, Cosh on 25 March, 2021, 09:04:45 AM
The forum doesn't like Twitter links so here's a screenshot courtesy of our friends on FB



Of course it's impossible to say how much of any statement can ever be called true. Or what truth is.

I'm not sure there's ever been a Pat Mills series that came to a natural end. 'Charley's War' is probably the closest and even then he'd been planning to take it further until circumstances got in the way.

While I'm tempted to say that he's never met a dead horse he couldn't flog, I can totally understand why someone whose formative writing experiences were in the sweatshops of British kids' comics of the 1960s and 1970s would be ruthlessly pragmatic about finding, honing and exploiting ideas that work for as long as possible - and equally ruthlessly pragmatic about walking away when they stop working.

Which makes me wonder if the abrupt conclusion to 'Nemesis' was down to his abrasive working relationship with David Bishop and/or a fortunately unfounded suspicion that 2000AD wasn't going to be around much longer?

Jim_Campbell

Quote from: The Corinthian on 25 March, 2021, 11:37:24 PM
Which makes me wonder if the abrupt conclusion to 'Nemesis' was down to his abrasive working relationship with David Bishop and/or a fortunately unfounded suspicion that 2000AD wasn't going to be around much longer?

I have a vague recollection that Kev O'Neill said he'd draw the 'last' episode on condition that it was the last episode.
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broodblik

Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 26 March, 2021, 06:10:13 AM
Quote from: The Corinthian on 25 March, 2021, 11:37:24 PM
Which makes me wonder if the abrupt conclusion to 'Nemesis' was down to his abrasive working relationship with David Bishop and/or a fortunately unfounded suspicion that 2000AD wasn't going to be around much longer?

I have a vague recollection that Kev O'Neill said he'd draw the 'last' episode on condition that it was the last episode.

Interesting he only drawn the last episode so basically this was a "reward" for being the artist whom created the look of Nemesis. I might have to revisit this and put book 10 on the re-read batch since I can not recall that it was abruptly ended.
When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.

Old age is the Lord's way of telling us to step aside for something new. Death's in case we didn't take the hint.

GordonR

Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 26 March, 2021, 06:10:13 AM
Quote from: The Corinthian on 25 March, 2021, 11:37:24 PM
Which makes me wonder if the abrupt conclusion to 'Nemesis' was down to his abrasive working relationship with David Bishop and/or a fortunately unfounded suspicion that 2000AD wasn't going to be around much longer?

I have a vague recollection that Kev O'Neill said he'd draw the 'last' episode on condition that it was the last episode.

That's the one.  Trust me, if Kev hadn't imposed that condition, Nemesis would have been joylessly grinding on to this day, like Slaine and ABC Warriors.

TordelBack

I take the point about Nemesis (and to a large extent the Warriors), but has Sláine really been grinding joylessly on? There's been a lot of development and excitement these past few books, and for a certain constituency of readers, of which I am a tragic example, it continues to be a treat.

Even back in the mid 90s when I'd given up on the rest of the comic, a Sláine cover was enough to spark an opportunist train-station purchase. The nadir of the strip occurred in the very early Rebellion era, but with a few exceptions everything before and after that remains an enjoyable occasionally thought-provoking  read.

I get that I'm in a minority here, but seeing as the comic trades on a blend of novelty and nostalgia, I think Sláine continued earn its place.

broodblik

I can not remember a Slaine series which I did not enjoy and it never felt like it is grinding forward. Dragontamer is the first time a Slaine arc just felt empty with endless battle scenes and no real endpoint
When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.

Old age is the Lord's way of telling us to step aside for something new. Death's in case we didn't take the hint.

IndigoPrime

To my mind, Sláine's natural end was Horned God. When he became Doctor Who with an axe, a great many of those strips were not that good. Book of Invasions was a return to form, which provided another exit point. I don't think the strip was "joylessly grinding on" though—it's been more of a quality rollercoaster.

ABC Warriors, on the other hand, really has been a trudge for years now. It's the comic equivalent of a looping background on a cartoon show, and it's such a pity, given the set-up and the cast that it's so dull.

Ironic, though, about Nemesis, given that the final episode didn't look as good as Flint's work on that series. (And I say this as a big fan of Kev's artwork elsewhere.)

Magnetica

I am fairly relaxed about Pat's exit from 2000AD on the basis that:

My love for Slaine is based almost entirely on everything up and including the Horned God.
My love for Nemesis is based almost entirely on the first six books.
My love for ABC Warriors is based almost entirely on the first series.

I have never really warmed to Defoe; I did enjoy the last couple of series of Savage, and not seeing the development of the ABC Warriors in that is going to be the big miss for me; but not yet another saga for Slaine.

I said up thread I would be miffed if Slaine's death is just tacked on, but reading Pat's latest Tweets it seems like that isn't the case. (Not sure how the ending will make further adventures no longer possible though.)

The thing with Slaine is that it has never really felt like one big story that was heading somewhere anyway. Pat gas said further adventures would have required him to come up with a new theme and research it, so it's not as if we will be missing out on the eventual ending he had in mind, because actually that doesn't exist.


Mikey

Maybe the end of Sláine will be a rug pull of Ukko getting killed, thereby making him unable to chronicle further adventures? I've no idea if that conceit was somehow abandoned at some stage!
To tell the truth, you can all get screwed.

TordelBack

Quote from: Magnetica on 26 March, 2021, 12:43:37 PM
The thing with Slaine is that it has never really felt like one big story that was heading somewhere anyway. Pat gas said further adventures would have required him to come up with a new theme and research it, so it's not as if we will be missing out on the eventual ending he had in mind, because actually that doesn't exist.

Absolutely!  I'd argue that Pat is extraordinarily good at seeding future elements* of the strip (the Time Monster being summoned in episode 1 leading to Time Killer, Myrddin's pool itself leading to the idea of warriors for the goddess being "dispatched" to different times in the struggle against the Cythrons, the idea of gaolers of the Dark Gods in Tomb of Grimnismal leading to the Archons in Brutannia, the introduction of the New Trojans and London in Gollamh leading to Dragontamer etc etc), but this is largely by way of world-building, rather than some overall structure. The early years did have the arc that chronicles Sláine's journey home and eventual showdown with Slough Feg and Medb, but even within those 6 years were some huge diversions, and now represents a pretty small chunk of the series.

And this is entirely approriate for myth (and folklore), even 'invented' myth: the stories of gods and heroes are meandering, episodic and disjointed. They may have a beginning and (sometimes)  an end, but there is seldom an consistent biography or theme, let alone plot. Look at Fionn MacCumhaill: he starts off the earnest outcast student who gains all the knowledge of the world from a salmon, becomes a war leader of a band of heroes, and shags a deer-woman; but as often as not he appears in stories as a giant hurling boulders to shape the landscape, but then as a hen-pecked husband of a different wife gets into comedy scrapes with even bigger giants. Then he appears as a tyrannical lech vengefully pursuing a prospective third wife whose father-in-law is the father of the gods themselves. nd then his son (with the deer) travels into the future via Tir nan Óg and learns that his father and the Fianna exist only myths,  meets St Patrick and dies.

It's not exactly a three-act structure.

And nor is Sláine.


*Or mining past ones, Who knows,  time is a spiral ever-turning.