Interview with former Tharg, Richard Burton (questions needed)

[Darren Stephens]

Really enjoyed listening to this. I worked for Mr Burton briefly on the Sonic mag, and he's a lovely chap. 

[Tony Angelino]

I enjoy the ECBT podcast although Flint always sounds as if he is sitting in a different room to his microphone. I don't mind that it isn't solely about the prog and John and Steve are always entertaining.

The interview with Richard Burton has been okay so far. Sounds like a decent bloke although he was editor at the time the comic took a massive nose dive in terms of quality. I don't think this was solely down to the readers growing up as the interview suggests. I remained a comic reader (mainly US comics) long after I stopped reading 2000AD in the late 80's/early 90's.   

[Magnetica]

Just listened to the first part. I haven't listened to any ECBT2000AD podcasts before. The interviewer doesn't introduce himself, so I have a question: who is he?

[JayzusB.Christ]

Stephen Reid, aka Flint. Used to post here as flintlockjaw.  An Irish expat in the States who is in the animation business. That's all I know really

[Robin Low]

None of the ECBT crowd post here anymore because they don't get on with Rennie and Campbell. 

Entirely understandable. Right pair of wankers them two.

As a consequence, they never miss an opportunity to put the boot into Rennie's strips. Listening to them review the early episodes of Hunted was quite funny, because they clearly quite enjoyed it but struggled to find ways to say otherwise.

Couldn't find ways to say otherwise? What kind of comic fans are they? Hunted is quite clearly a lazy-arse piece of fanwank, desperately trying to link two separate strips into the same continuity. I mean so what if Jaegir uses terms like 'Nort' and 'Souther' and 'Nu-Earth' and 'Blue'. Doesn't mean they're part of the same universe. Hey, Johnny Alpha's appeared in Judge Dredd three times now, and Middenface has been to Mega-City One in that Megazine strip with the over-rated art, but that doesn't mean they're all part of the same continuity. That's just too logical to make sense. Almost as ridiculous as Savage, Ro-Busters, ABC Warriors and Nemesis the Warlock all being part of the same setting just because the characters have all appeared in the same stories. And besides, the Norts in Rogue Trooper are clearly space-Nazis while the Norts in Jaegir have got this faux-Russian thing going on. See, totally fucking different. Couldn't find ways to say otherwise? Call themselves fans? Fucking amateurs I call them.


Oh, and by the way Jim, you had a chance yet to look into the problem of the missing speech bubble in America: Fading of the Light?

Oh, and by the way Gordon, you got a couple of hours to look at this Judge Dredd script I've written? I'm having a bit of trouble with the action sequence. None of the characters will stand in the right places for me.

It's not as if Campbell and Rennie haven't got the time to help me out. Way I hear it, the two of them just sit in front of a computer screen all day long. Jim's busy masturbating over typefaces ("Dirty, dirty Comic Sans! I'm gonna increase your point good, you cheap nasty FONT!"). As for Rennie, when he's not busy rewriting other people's characters (poor, gentle Pat Mills still weeps tears of blood over Satanus Unchained) he sits there gloating over how Absalom will die of old age before the story can come to any kind of conclusion.

Coat-hangers,

The Marmalade Moose (that's copyright, Rennie, hands-off!)

[Frank]

(Burton) sounds like a decent bloke although he was editor at the time the comic took a massive nose dive in terms of quality. I don't think this was solely down to the readers growing up as the interview suggests. 

I think it might have been Flint who suggested that. From memory, Burton says something like it might have been a period when your favourite strips disappeared ... (ellipsis).

That's sort of true: Burton's Thargship is noteable for the number of indisputably great strips he ran, but they were mostly strips by the old guard and creators who were about to decamp to Vertigo/Toxic. The new stuff Burton commissioned is not fondly remembered*

This was the opportunity Burton wanted to address criticism of his tenure; because of his patchy recall of the strips he ran and the circulation figures during this period, I don't think he achieved that.

I'll see if we can get him up to speed, so he can get more specific in his follow up podcast(s). Any questions gratefully received.


* Except by Hawkmumbler. It's worth pointing out Burton gave fantastic artists their break - like MacNeil, Weston, Coleby, Elson and Bagwell - but they were dominating the prog and working on big strips before they'd shaved the rough edges off their technique

[Colin YNWA]

Finally got around to part 1 today and for all the ups and downs of an interview by Flint; he does get a great deal stuff out of folks and that's to his credit, but jez if he'd just learnt to shut up at times he'd get so much more! Anyway for all those ups and downs very much looking forward to listening to the next 2. Great to have a different view on 2000ad's history besides the Millsian norm.

One thing I don't feel I can let slide however is the fact that he (Flint) rips people on the board for dissing Alan McKenzie. This I find very interesting given a few years ago I found myself in an online discussion with him (not here) defending Mr McKenzie from Mr Flints statement he was the worst writer in 2000ad's history. An opinion that seemed at least in part fuelled by his views of Alan McKenzie's time in editorial. Now it's possible he's changed his mind since, but he was quite passionate about it then!

[Jim_Campbell]

One thing I don't feel I can let slide however is the fact that he (Flint) rips people on the board for dissing Alan McKenzie.

Gordon and I are both quite critical of McKenzie's time as editor, so of course Flint is going to take the opposite position, even if that means a quick volte face from a previous stance.

[Frank]

.
Thanks, Colin - I'm really more interested in what Burton has to say than personalities and grievances amongst fandom.

Stuff I'm going to ask Burton about next time will definitely include the change of writer credit on Judge Dredd from TB Grover on Attack Of The 50 ft Woman (492) to Wagner/Grant on Dead Ringer (493). It's difficult not to see that as prefiguring their impending split. Did anyone see that coming?

[Tony Angelino]

I enjoyed listening to the interviews and hope Mr Burton comes back for more at a later date.

[Frank]

I enjoyed listening to the interviews and hope Mr Burton comes back for more at a later date.

Cheers, Tony - they were talking about doing a follow up around the end of the year. Anyone with any questions for Burton should feel free to post them here.

[Frank]

Anyone with any questions for Burton should feel free to post them here.

Actually, that's a bit prescriptive. Even if you just want to reminisce or debate the merits of the early nineties, feel free to post your thoughts here.

Recent discussion of Luke Kirby has made me realise that it and strips like Armoured Gideon, Brigand Doom, The Clown, and Bradley - which I considered typical of the mediocrity that rushed to fill the Wagner/Grant shaped void in the nineties - were/are regarded more favourably by others.

Burton seems to think he was replacing quality with quality and keeping the wheels on the road - maybe he was right and I'm wrong.

[Colin YNWA]

.
Thanks, Colin - I'm really more interested in what Burton has to say than personalities and grievances amongst fandom.

Errr here maybe, but I think we both know elsewhere you're quite happy to... mind as you say maybe not for here and best to focus on the delights of hearing from Mr Burton.

[Tjm86]

I guess ultimately whatever else you want to say about the prog at the time, it kept its head high enough above water to escape culling.  The cover of the Year 2000 prog by Bolland is a reminder of how many titles fell by the wayside over the years.  Editorial must have been doing something right to achieve that, surely.

[Jim_Campbell]

Editorial must have been doing something right to achieve that, surely.

Which editorial? Tomlinson and then Bishop inherited, frankly, a mess. Cratering sales, drawers stuffed with sub-par scripts and piles of muddy painted art commissioned under Burton and McKenzie that senior management insisted be published, hampering any effort to reverse the calamitous fortunes of the title.

There was a period in the second half of the 90s when the question was not what 2000AD would be called in the year 2000 but, for anyone who knew much about the behind-the-scenes situation of the comic, whether it would get there at all.