So as we near the end of one nail biting tourney so we must start the new and so what's nexrt i hear you cry. Well...
...to mark the anniversary of all this tourney nonsense we're going back to the start and since I enjoyed the Artist Ryder Cup so much AND we can't really repeat the Fav writer tourney so soon and expect a different result I'm going with
Writers Solhiem Cup
Same format as the Artist Ryder Cup - but fewer rounds as there's fewer writers - just 16 ties - we'll be done within four weeks and onto the next thing which I've already started planning.
Oh and I've made some decisions I worry will annoy folks BUT we'll come to those in a bit.
So buckle up as the result of hangs in the balance, we now decide which pool of writers is our favourite Team Current or Team Classic?
Prepare to enter copy and paste territory as I explain...So here, over the course of a standard number of posts I'll lay out the format of the tourney. Who's in which Team. The rules, for what they are. A NEW VOTING SYSTEM - ahem the same voting system. A way to ignore the new SAME voting system if you think it's rubbish, or can't be bothered and anything else that comes to mind.
This one will kick-off Monday 21st June with a fair wind. Just in time to mark the 1st anniversary of the original Godpleton Cup finals (actually the 21st marks when the semi-finals started but no bugger is going to bother to go back and check that so I'm well safe...).
The answer is John wagner. Next.
[copynpaste[minoredits]]
Why the Solhiem Cup - repeated Tourney Format
I don't like golf, let's just get that said off the bat... or club... whatever.
I'm still fascinated by the idea that nostalgia rules so much of 2000ad fandom and want to test that as far as possible. Was the Prog really better back in the day? Is the Prog really as strong now as it's ever been (yes is the right answer by the way) - well that's incredible hard to determine with a simple process BUT I enjoyed testing things with the Artists Ryder Cup and want to carry that on... who knows one day down the pipe I might do a similar thing with series but that will need some thought. I'll go with the same way to test this - like 'singles match play' in the Ryder Cup.
There are two teams playing in the tourney, Team Classic - made up of Classic writers whose time with 2000ad appears to be over and the Current Writers - the winner of individual ties don't really matter (well ish) , it's which team gets the most points that determines which team wins the tourney.
There will be 16 ties in the tourney each consisting of a current writer playing off against one classic writer and while some individual ties might be one sided, hopefully we'd have enough ties for things to balance out over all. The winner of each tie, scores a point for their side, Current or Classic. Draws get ½ point to each side, no need for a casting vote (I get to vote again!).
So this is going to be a simple tourney, no rounds, no qualifying (we've done that already) just 16 straight head to heads and as we go on we'll get an ongoing score between Team Classic and Team Current.
Each tie will be drawn at random, so no seeding or anything like that. Again over the 16 ties that will balance out I figure.
Does that make sense?
The points scored across the 16 ties will give us a simple metric of how many ties the current crop of writers can take off the classic scribes.
We will also have the total votes scored as a secondary metric as well though the victory will be based on who scores the most Points by winning the most ties regardless of the margin of victory.
Quote from: Colin YNWA on 16 June, 2021, 09:17:31 PM
Does that make sense?
Nope. But lay on MacDuff etc.
We'll find a way to twist, loophole or otherwise annoy you back, rest assured!
Not to prejudge a tournament, but my money's on Team Current to win the Solheim Cup quite comfortably. And that's even if one might consider listing P. Mills as a 'Team Classic' ringer, at least in 2021. Will you be doing that?
Quote from: AlexF on 17 June, 2021, 10:32:16 AM
Not to prejudge a tournament, but my money's on Team Current to win the Solheim Cup quite comfortably. And that's even if one might consider listing P. Mills as a 'Team Classic' ringer, at least in 2021. Will you be doing that?
Yeah I think the qualification for being "current" or "classic" is going to be key here.
Will Wagner and Mills be counted as current or classic?
We could also get strange situations where Pat is classed as classic, but loses votes for his more recent stuff. Which would be a bit mad.
city of the damned 5-0
Cheers as always, for running these Tourney's, Colin.
Now if you really want to indulge your inner sadist, what about a Writer VS Artist Tournament?
(I can't even imagine trying to choose a favourite from between, for example, John Wagner & Carlos Ezquerra. :o :D)
Quote from: BPP on 16 June, 2021, 03:24:30 PM
The answer is John wagner. Next.
T.B. Grover, shurely?
Funny folks should mention they whole Pat Mills things - I've got a whole post about that prepared BUT before we can get to that...
Who are the 'players' for each side?
The 16 members of each team are decided by volume of work (which leads to some interesting inclusions) provided they qualify for each team (see below). So those who wrote most (as determined by Heroes of 2000ad's AlexF a year ago) get in regardless of any perceived quality of their work.
As Current has a much smaller pool to choose from if you qualify for Current it does not matter how long you've been writing for Tharg, if you still are you are considered Current. I'm using the same dividing line for the definition of whose Current and whose Classic for the writers as I have for the artists. Which begs the question - what is that dividing line?
What qualifies you for Team Current?
These are Droids who are still active in the Prog. So those who've done a series or significant number of Dredds since used Prog 2000 [the one from 2016 that is], or the equivalent Meg 376(ish). These are Droids that we'd not be too surprised, though we'd be delighted to see gracing the Prog at any point still. There may be other reasons why, alas, we know a Droid's work for Tharg has finished, these will be in the Classic section, even if they have had a series since Prog 2000.
So the 16 in Team Current are:
John Wagner
Pat Mills*
Dan Abnett
Gordon Rennie
Ian Edginton
Rob Williams
Kek-W
Michael Carroll
Emma Beeby
Alec Worley
Guy Adams
Rory McConville
Peter Hogan
James Peaty
Kenneth Niemand (wildcard)
*Yeah okay, okay I'm coming to this in a bit... okay just hold ya horses...
Quote from: Funt Solo on 17 June, 2021, 03:38:56 PM
Quote from: BPP on 16 June, 2021, 03:24:30 PM
The answer is John wagner. Next.
T.B. Grover, shurely?
Oh actually I might have missed a trick there...
Actually, I might abstain altogether- at the risk of being burned for heresy, I just can't judge 'story' separate from art. By and large, if I don't like the art I don't like the story and exceptional art can make a basic story very enjoyable. The things that stick in my mind to make stories memorable are overwhelmingly images rather than the words.
There will always be exceptions- "because I hate you", "And he didn't think it too many", "I'm too cool to kill", "I knew you'd say that"... no wait... not that one.
American Reaper, Shakara, pretty much any of Fleisher's 2k output all had good art but were just boring and I lost interest.
Hell, I even enjoyed Purgatory/ Inferno- big, dumb, fun ideas cut from the same cloth as early Dredd epics. It has the freewheeling aroma of 'enjoyment of doing' about it and it had great art- I enjoy that far more than some convoluted, tightly-plotted, boring-ass story with art I dislike.
Ace Trucking Co should not have worked and probably wouldn't have with any other artist at the time, except (perhaps) Ian Gibson. But it was great and it was Belardinelli's art that made the goofiness of it work.
It doesn't have to make sense, taste is emotive.
There is no reason why I like green and dislike celery, I just do- so I'll probably just watch and shout abuse at the linesman from the sidelines, then scoff at the outcome regardless of what it is.
On that basis, put me down for City of the Damned ftw as well.
I think I'm guilty of being mostly at the opposite end of the scale - when I review a story, I tend to focus on the plot rather than the art. Which is why, with Purgatory, I wrote:
QuotePeople say: "...but I like the Ezquerra art." Quite an interesting premise (a riot on the Justice Department penal colony of Titan) is lost beneath a heaving, grunting pile of illogical rage as ex-Judge Grice gets angrier than a barrel full of bees rolling down a mountain and proves it by burning his own hand off in lava, but not feeling the pain!
Dropping the Statue of Judgement is a cool idea, and it looks amazing. When they do it during Day of Chaos it's hugely affecting, and tied directly into the plot. When they do it in Inferno, it's because Grant Morrison failed his Geography O-grade.
Or ... you can't polish a turd.
I tend towards the writer end of the spectrum. But I can defo appreciate a story more with good art, however bad BUT bad art can wreck even the best story and make an average story unreadable BUT you can be a great story with average art cos great writing has a bigger influence on me.
Who qualifies for Team Classic?
So the divide I went for was Classic, essentially artists who we don't really expect to appear in the Prog, or Meg anytime soon. Whose work for Tharg seems to be done, the odd one off, or occasional Dredd aside. We'd welcome many of these back with open arms - just not expecting it anytime soon. These 16 who meant this criteria AND have the most content make up the team.
So Team Classic consists of:
Alan Grant
Robbie Morrison
Gerry Finley Day
John Smith
Garth Ennis
Alan McKenzie
Mark Millar
Si Spurrier
Tom Tully
Grant Morrison
Alan Hebden
Al Ewing
Alan Moore
John Tomlinson
Steve Moore
Michael Fleisher
So of course there's not room for everyone in this 32-droid line-up, but I wonder if in your 'Current' team your fingers slipped and you meant to type 'Milligan' instead of 'Hogan'??
Of course both people could be in either team, making it all a little fiddly. I'm still holding out for 'The Devil's Railroad' to appear out of the blue one day...
Let's talk about the Uncle Pat in the room
So one question that needs addressing is why is Uncle Pat still in Team Current? He's told us he's retired has he, done with Tharg and off to pasture creator owned. Well yes - except we know he has work lined up - the Joe Pineapples story that was going to be Biz but is now... was it Clint Langley - I forget. He's also mentioned that he has ideas to wrap up a couple of other series. Now whether we'll see them remains a consideration BUT given that he's said Joe Pineapples is being drawn I think we will see it at some point.
How long he'll be in Current is open to debate but for now in my mind he still qualifies (I have a backup identified if that causes trouble.
Similarly there are a lot of writers that straddle era and I did debate setting John Wagner aside BUT he qualifies, he's still writing, we know he has material coming and is still a present force so fo me he is still Team Current.
Quote from: AlexF on 18 June, 2021, 09:32:13 AM
So of course there's not room for everyone in this 32-droid line-up, but I wonder if in your 'Current' team your fingers slipped and you meant to type 'Milligan' instead of 'Hogan'??
Of course both people could be in either team, making it all a little fiddly. I'm still holding out for 'The Devil's Railroad' to appear out of the blue one day...
Not far off - I actually omitted Peter Milligan from that run down but fear not he is very much in the Current Team line-up - as is Peter Hogan.
Thanks for the catch.
Voting in the Writers Solhiem Cup
Voting will be the same as last time - in the Artist Ryder Cup:
Essentially rather than a binary a over b, each voter will have 5 votes to distribute as they please. NO HALF MARKS though, only whole numbers.
So if Current Writer A is MILES better than Classic Writer A you can award all 5 votes to Current Writer A = 5 : 0
If Current Writer B is a LOT better than Classic Writer B, but you want to give a nod to Classic Writer B then maybe you'd go for a 4 : 1 split
If it's really tight and there's a hair's breadth between them maybe you'll go Current Writer C - 3 votes, Classic Writer C - 2 votes = 3: 2 split
NO HALF MARKS whole numbers only, but you can allocate your 5 votes between the two options in that tie as you like, but have to state a preference. I suppose you don't even have to use all 5 votes if you don't want to.
If you can't be arsed with that faff - that's fine just name the artist you prefer but I'll only award them 3 votes - none to the other writer.
I'm going to let reduced tied votes stand for now. If we get too many though I might make an executive decision mid tourney to encourage as few ties as possible.
Writer with the highest number of votes wins that round and scores a point for their team in the overall score.
Anyway cos the voting is more faffy we'll just have one tie a day. Over 16 ties that's 4ish weeks for this one (I'll skip weekends as ever). Each vote will be 3 days as normal.
Rules(ish)
Look this is for Fun (I've copied and pasted this, from a copy and paste... and done edits, so ya know if this feels familiar...) this means the rules are what the rules are. Guidelines to help us all chug along and enjoy this and find some consistency and understanding of what the heck we are doing.
1. MOST IMPORTANTLY - any writer who appears in these votes is a better writer than we'll ever be AND YES THAT INCLUDES MR MILLER and so even if you really don't like someone's work (which is fine) keep it lovely like I know you can.
1a. The art of writing is massively subjective so we won't agree on what makes a good story, but we're talking favourites here. So by all means disagree with each other, be surprised about folks' decisions, debate and chew over, but be lovely and remember you ain't going to change anyone's mind about whose art they prefer so why try!
1b. Runner privilege means that yes I do whinge like no one's business when votes don't go the way I want them to... I need to learn to get over these things!
2. I will start one thread a day - Monday to Friday - all you need to do is allocate 5 votes between them (as whole numbers) to say who is your favourite and by how much.
2a. We are only considering work for Tharg here, so Prog and Meg - defo counted. I don't however give a fig if you think Skreemer or Outcasts is the best EVVVEEEERRRRRR, it's not for Tharg so we shouldn't consider it here - though you can of course discuss it.
2b. When we consider sister publications it gets a bit fuzzy, so I take a much more casual - decide for yourself - attitude. For me I'd say Crisis, yeah sure include that, Starlord and Tornado, you know why not. Revolver... maybe, I wouldn't, but if you do, heck how the hell will I know?!?
3. For each tie simply type the allocation of your 5 votes for each Script Droid so for example:
Woolly 4 : Colin YNWA 1
- feel free to say what you will after that, but it will help me (being lazy and all) if you type the names and the votes at the top of the comment - or make it clear otherwise by adding Bold tags.
3a. If you can't be bothered with that, just name the artist you prefer - clearly - and I'll award them a default 3 votes (the other artist getting nowt)
4. I will count up the votes for each artist in each thread after 3 days of it starting and announce the winner of the tie and the overall tourney scores:
Classic Writers x Points (i.e. ties won): Current Writer Y points
5. In the event of a tie both teams score ½ point each.
6. We are voting for our favourite, so not whose had the most impact, or is most important. There are no scales for objectively who's the best writer. It's art, it's whose stuff you like to read the most. We won't agree and there are no right answers (except where I say there is so I can bitch and moan about some writer I love not getting as many votes as I think they deserve.)
7. I'm winging this so anything thing I've forgotten I'll make up as we go along.
See you Monday when this all kicks off...
Damnit - when typing up the ties it occured to me I've made another mistake on Team Current. To that end rather than swop someone out there will now be a bonus 17th tie (which I'll drop in the middle) and add in the next qualifying Team Classic Droid to match up with them!
Sorry folks!
Quote from: Colin YNWA on 17 June, 2021, 03:33:37 PM
Quote from: The Mind of Wolfie Smith on 17 June, 2021, 01:32:07 PM
city of the damned 5-0
Get out now....
... just get out...
GO!
Although perhaps there's room for a
Best Frame From City of the Damned Tourney?