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Cor, a nice surprise when this flopped through my letterbox this morning, here we go then:

Cover: Blimey, a Sean Phillips cover! Very nice it is too. *Cough-wish it was Dredd though-cough!*

Dredd: Psycho-Block part 2. I'm loving this tale, Wagner's script is great and Wilson's art suits the story brilliantly. I said it last month, I love how he (mostly) keeps McBride's face in shadow, it adds real menace to the character. The last page is aces too!

Tanky: Crackers one off by Team Tank with some wonderful mental roller coaster action. I miss the 'free' colour swatches from Rufus but enjoyed all the little bonus comments in the page margins and the lettratone - very retro!

Black Museum: A nice, suitably creepy script by Tony Lee and great art from Jon Davis Hunt (though I'm never keen on slanty-eyed Judge masks.) This really reminded me of the Joke Shop Owner episode of the League of Gentlemen and I loved the obvious Star Wars reference. Great stuff.

Armitage: Really nice John Cooper art and a canny old script from Dave Stone. The smart arse bird may become a little annoying but her actions on that last page were great. Looking forward to finding out more about her...

Articles: Interrogations with Richard Elson and Dave Stone, New Comics AAAAAGGGHHHH* showcases lovely D'Isreali art in Torchwood, You should be Watching - 24 and the fillums bit.

Bonus Graphic Novel - The Art of John Higgins. Yay, one of my very favourite Dredd artists gets his own floppy book. As hoped for, we get the Ripperjacktastic Last of the Bad Guys (a real classic - I always loved the Meet the Guys section), The Blob (from a JD Special?), Scales of Justice and finally Generation Killer. A great collection but I'd have loved to have seen Caught Short in there, it truly is a fave of mine. Looking at John's profile on Barney, I reckon we could have got a full price GN of John's work, a shame.

In all, a very good Meg, well worth the cash.

*AAAAAGGGHHHH Explanation. A tummy bug has hit Wells Towers and this was the moment I farted spraying shit into my dressing gown and all over the living room carpet. Just wanted to share that precious moment...

Yeah I got mine too - the Megazine not a dose of the shits. Wasn't due until Saturday but it must a knock on from the bank holiday or something. Not had a peek yet, been to busy trying to get the image of Pete's lovely dressing gown out of my head. Claim your house insurance I'm sure they could do with a laugh!

Yeah, go for the house insurance.

Say you sprayed the old telly... no way an engineer is going to come out to check that out... result, a new LCD telly!

RESULT!

Read it now.

Dredd is Ok stuff with the story maybe fleshed out a bit too liberally. The Warden taking a heart attck was a bit contrived but overall it's got a nice atmosphere and some cracking art.

The tales from the Black museum was a good tale well told but ultimately it was the old 'your beating heart' story rehashed once again.

Armitage did say it was a Prologue but I expect a bit more to be going on for my money. Armiatage doesn't even show up apart from on Sean Phillips' aces cover.

Long, and that's possibly too long, Richard Elson piece which was OK but did contain the line "Cartoony is an ugly word used by people with ugly limited vocabularies". No it's not it a word used to describe something with the look or style of a cartoon. The superiority and twatishness of that line fair got my gander up.

I see they are changing the film critic to someone from Empire - hope they're not just buying 'off the shelf' reviews rather than ones written especially for a Meg audience.

Three letters, yay, Beeching, Bunn and Clarkson take a bow.

Good but not a stellar meg for me with perhaps too much cartoony (!) stuff going on. I enjoyed the John Higgins book a lot, possibly the best of these so far. Good to see a few hard to find strips getting an outing.

Had a quick check, the following people are included in a group of around 250 who have limited and ugly vocabularies:

Buttonman
dandontdare
Daveycandlish
James
Mardroid
WoD
M.I.K.
Peterwolf
+Rufus+ (should know better)
FuntSolo
Krombasher
The Cosh
radiator
Cthulouis
Keef Monkey
Tweak72
Tordelback
JamesC
Robin Low
DavidXBrunt
King Trout
Tiplodocus

Hang your collective heads in shame!

In defence of the word 'cartoony' - hey, I don't dare speak for him, but my experience of people using the word is, usually, it's said in a negative way 'yes, it's nice - bit cartoony, though'. So much so, that it's easy to get defensive when you hear the word - leaping to fight for your honour and reject the epithet (as much as you'd once embraced it.)

I've done work which I'd thought was very solidly grounded in reality and been told 'hmm... little cartoony' (when an editor says that then you're in trouble ... )

-pj
(ps should point out, 2000AD is one of the few venues where the editor and readers seem happy to embrace cartoony - though in context and as long as it doesn't go all the way towards beano-esque)

As I think I said in the past when I last used Cartoony it isn't an unsult, merely meant to be descriptive. I'd describe Herge that way and D'israeli too. If that's not good company for any comic book artist then I don't know who is.

Heh. Well, I've been known to refer to things as cartoony on occasion myself, but I know exactly what Elson is saying there, and quite agree with him - it's pretty annoying when people mis-use it as a snidey pejorative to dis perfectly good art.

know exactly what Elson is saying there

...or Mike, as the case may be.

I absolutely love Elson's art, he's one of my favourite 2000AD artists. Marauder was great, but it's Kingdom that I feel is his best work, maybe because the story is so frakkin good when read as a whole.

Good, solid lines, clear images, good colouring - there's room for this alongside any amount of gritty stuff.

From the other Meg thread:

I was a bit taken aback that, although he's on the cover, Armitage doesn't seem to be in the comic. The strip under his name was readable stuff, though. I'm interested to see where it goes.
(Side note: I laughed when I saw in the press the Labour party disciplinary panel for MPs' expenses has been dubbed the Star Chamber. Brit Cit here we come!)

I don't tend to get to all of the Meg nowadays, unless I'm at a loose end and it's lying around, but the John Wagner Dredd story is worth the cover price on its own. It's perfectly-paced, as ever, and the art's that great grungy Colin Wilson style we love. I do wonder if he'd intended the commandant guy's uniform to be in those colours, but that's a minor quibble.

I also liked Tony Lee's voodoo story. That's some nasty mutilation. Nice horror stuff.

Tank Girl's a treat. I realise not everyone's a fan, but it's loads of fun every month. I enjoyed seeing a one-off, too. I want to play F*ck A D*ck now!

Cheers

- Trout

Cover: Great cover love the white space and movement ...the wee red lines are an eye catching niggle tho

Dredd: Psycho-Block part 2. The highlight of the prog for me, what has happen to Weather control these days?

Tanky:    This is a fine addition to the Megazine and should be the only 'light' in the Megazine to contrast the darker tales around it , however...


Black Muse maybe I'm not getting it, is this a 'funny'  or a future shock in meg clothing? shouldn't all the megacitz be smoke/meat free anyway?

Armitage: Not really doing it for me, maybe yet again perhaps I don't get the humour? am I missing something?  The Jane-esque artwork doesn't help if it's serious nether does the Northern pride stuff. If it is a 'funny', it doesn't float my gourd, sorry chums!

Interrogations with Richard Elson and Dave Stone,( keeping these for teabreaks etc...)  Torchwood: may buy this for Minihuff and deek it myself, You should be Watching - 24:  fair enough statements for the 1st series but the rest ?? I'm not convinced. I don't mind the Film reviews, but surely this slot should be for recommending classic DVDs and or/ under the radar stuff comic fans might otherwise have missed?

Bonus Graphic Novel - The Art of John Higgins bedside for future reading.

Overall a bit of a disappointment after the high high standards set in the Megazine recently.

With Armitage I always felt it could be a really wonderful Morse/Bladerunner cross over in a run down and cruddy Disney-esque England laced with Dickens-like poverty and BF robots with BF guns, instead I feel this series is a, well, blancmange and the over all feel of this Meg issue in particular along with the other 'lite' strips give this issue an Insubstantial feel even when the publication itself has a fair o heft to it.

The Meg was a mixed bag for me this month.

The Dredd was good, as is usual for Wagner, but it wasn't stand out good.
Tank Girl was brilliant, but then I was always a fan and I feel Rufus has the art down for this perfectly.  Everything about it harked back to it's glory days in Deadline, without it feeling stale.
The Black Museum... you know something? i'm really tired of the voodoo as evil horror nonsense.  It's lazy at best, racist at worst.  I'd like to see a story about Voodoo that's well researched and shows the religion accurately.  As it was, it was just the usual, 'Oh those black people and their scary heathen ways.'  There are plenty of other ways of doing that particular storyline without resorting to cliches.  A pity really as the basic premise was actually quite sound, with the ambiguous end and all, but the evil black voodoo man angle spoiled it for me.
Armitage... I enjoyed the opening episode and it was quite brave I thought to not even have Armitage in the opening episode.  I'm intrigued.

The features... I will read them at leisure over the month.
The reprint... looks good.  Will do likewise.

Tanky wins for me this month.

By far the most entertaining thing about this month's Meg was the idea of Pete Wells shitting all over his own living room. Even the Dredd's pretty shite so far.

Quote from: "Toni Scandella"Tank Girl was brilliant, but then I was always a fan and I feel Rufus has the art down for this perfectly.

Yep. Suitably cartoony.

I was terribly sad to see Worley's last article. I know the 'movie reviews' spot isn't the most vital piece of the meg...but I always thought Worley summarized opinions very well. Since I went to see Beowulf months back and was speechless.

"I HAVE AN OPINION" My brain screamed.

"fair enough, what is it?" I inquired.

However the brain went silent. Only enlivened again with the consumption of comics. When I came across the Beowulf review I remember the old brain going "THAT WAS IT!" and we danced.

Me and my brain danced thanks to Alec Worley. What a wonderful night.

Aside from that the meg can't really do much wrong, relevant articles, COLIN WILSON on Dredd (whose very name merits capital letters), Mr Davis-Hunt possibly loosening up his style which has GOT to be a good thing, Mr Dayglo clearly in his element in Tank Girl (which I'm fairly indifferent to, but it's like The Boat That Rocked, y'know, everyone's having so much fun it's hard to be cynical about it), and the return of Mr Stone who seems to be the most cocky man alive if his interview's to be believed.

Also - Sean Phillips?! When did THAT get requisitioned? I love it when the old 2kad gods raise their mighty hands and do little covers and whatnot. It's like they're sprinkling blessings from on high down to us lowly mortals. I, for one, lap them up. As we all should.

Finally - John Higgins, that man can paint. Nuff Said, surely?

Quote from: "Buttonman"Long, and that's possibly too long, Richard Elson piece which was OK but did contain the line "Cartoony is an ugly word used by people with ugly limited vocabularies". No it's not it a word used to describe something with the look or style of a cartoon. The superiority and twatishness of that line fair got my gander up.

Er, dander, not gander.

But otherwise, what you said. It's always a tragedy when a chap whose adequately spongy draughtsmanship makes pompous unwarranted assertions regarding the merits (or lack thereof) of one's vocabulary, when all one is attempting to do is draw a simple and easily comprehensible comparison between two art styles.

Or, to express the sentiment in a less verbose manner: Richard, you're a tit.


Regards

Robin

No gander. I had my goose on my forklift truck and the comments made caused me lash out and hit the 'elevate' button.

Pretty sure it was Micheal Molcher who made the comment rather than Richard Elson. He's obviously doing a bit of suck up while  taking a snooty view over we mere mortals, who buy the thing and get talked to like it's us who are the twats.

Quote from: "Buttonman"No gander. I had my goose on my forklift truck and the comments made caused me lash out and hit the 'elevate' button.

I should have guessed.

QuotePretty sure it was Micheal Molcher who made the comment rather than Richard Elson.

Oh dear, I'll edit as soon as I find the appropriate button. Apologies to Richard, whose adequately spongy draftsmanship I do actually like.


Regards

Robin

Quote from: "Buttonman"Pretty sure it was Micheal Molcher who made the comment rather than Richard Elson. He's obviously doing a bit of suck up while  taking a snooty view over we mere mortals, who buy the thing and get talked to like it's us who are the twats.

Well, to be fair, some of you are.

The first thing I read was the Higgins supplement, always been a big fan of his work.
I thought the art standard of the first story was far better than the last though.





V

Quote from: "Matt Timson"

Quote from: "Buttonman"Pretty sure it was Micheal Molcher who made the comment rather than Richard Elson. He's obviously doing a bit of suck up while  taking a snooty view over we mere mortals, who buy the thing and get talked to like it's us who are the twats.

Well, to be fair, some of you are.

yer ma

Children, children....

Buttonman stop stroking your long necked goose and crank up that spreadsheet, you know the one without your name on it? Time for the six monthly review of letters I feel!

Wow I just realised I've been so busy with other things that I haven't written into 2000ad for months!

I'll have to fix that problem....

QuoteI was terribly sad to see Worley's last article.

Don't worry, Shakara. I'm not going anywhere. I'm still writing features for the Meg, albeit on a more irregular basis. (I've also got a Terror Tale coming up over at 2000AD!)
   The chap who's taking over the film column from me - Andrew Osmond - is a much more accomplished film journalist than me. He writes regularly for the likes of Empire and Sight & Sound and really knows his genres.
   Please give him a warm welcome, boarders...

Quote from: "Matt Timson"

Quote from: "Buttonman"Pretty sure it was Micheal Molcher who made the comment rather than Richard Elson. He's obviously doing a bit of suck up while  taking a snooty view over we mere mortals, who buy the thing and get talked to like it's us who are the twats.

Well, to be fair, some of you are.

I'm all for healthy constructive criticism, but sometimes comments towards creators are downright nasty. It's not suprising so many artists and writers fuck off to America, where they get a bit more respect.

[spoiler:18yzg7gj]It's not suprising so many artists and writers fuck off to America, where they get a  bit more respect.[/spoiler:18yzg7gj]

Do you have any proof for this statement whatsoever?

Quotewhere they get a bit more money

I think it works better like this..!

Quote from: "Buttonman"Had a quick check, the following people are included in a group of around 250 who have limited and ugly vocabularies:
.
.
WoD
.
.
.

Hang your collective heads in shame!

You're right you know...I did use that when defending Timson's 2nd distinct art style when some prat accused him of having little talent...I'd forgotten about that.

You sure, Rac?

Quote from: "Roger Godpleton"[spoiler:xzi7r7f2]It's not suprising so many artists and writers fuck off to America, where they get a  bit more respect.[/spoiler:xzi7r7f2]

Do you have any proof for this statement whatsoever?

Remarks made against John Hicklenton and Pat Mills spring to mind.

Quote from: "dweezil2"

Quote from: "Roger Godpleton"[spoiler:1us1xt5a]It's not suprising so many artists and writers fuck off to America, where they get a  bit more respect.[/spoiler:1us1xt5a]
Do you have any proof for this statement whatsoever?

Remarks made against John Hicklenton and Pat Mills spring to mind.

Two creators who've famously fucked off to America and made it big...

As for getting more respect, well, there are a lot more fans to be obsessive over the Yankee comics.

Quote from: "dweezil2"

Quote from: "Matt Timson"

Quote from: "Buttonman"Pretty sure it was Micheal Molcher who made the comment rather than Richard Elson. He's obviously doing a bit of suck up while  taking a snooty view over we mere mortals, who buy the thing and get talked to like it's us who are the twats.

Well, to be fair, some of you are.

I'm all for healthy constructive criticism, but sometimes comments towards creators are downright nasty.

I called Richard Elson a tit in error and I've apologised for that.

With regard to the specific comment that triggered this, I object to being told by anyone that I have an ugly vocabularly just beause I've used the word cartoony to describe art, especially by anyone who automatically assumes it's a hostile description.

Warner Brother's animations and Tom and Jerry are cartoony, but they are also some of the greatest pieces of visual art ever created. Ian Gibson's art is cartoony as is that of Massimo Belardinelli, but they remain two of the greatest artists to appear in 2000AD or any other comic. Cartoony is not an insult, but it is a reasonable, if simple, description of some styles of art. There are times when cartoony art is not appropriate - could you honestly see Gibson of Belardinelli bringing off Bury My Knee at Wounded Heart? - but that's not a critcism of the style.


Regards

Robin

Quote from: "Old Tankie"You sure, Rac?

Yup.

John McCrea in an interview (admittedly from a couple of years ago):

QuoteSteve Pugh came back recently... And I did it too, I fucked off for ages. But the main reason for it is the exchange rate. It's so bad at the moment, that working for 2000AD is a viable proposition again. And most people do want to work for them, but they just couldn't afford it, when they could be doing a story for the States.

http://www.2000adreview.co.uk/features/ ... rea4.shtml (http://www.2000adreview.co.uk/features/interviews/2005/mccrea/mccrea4.shtml)

I also noticed that earlier in the interview, PJ Holden himself uses the C word to describe art...

Cartoony, cartoony, cartoony, cartoony, cartoony, cartoony, cartoony.

Ooh, I'm a bad person.

- Trout

Quote from: "Buttonman"Read it now.

Dredd is Ok stuff with the story maybe fleshed out a bit too liberally. The Warden taking a heart attck was a bit contrived but overall it's got a nice atmosphere and some cracking art.

The tales from the Black museum was a good tale well told but ultimately it was the old 'your beating heart' story rehashed once again.

Armitage did say it was a Prologue but I expect a bit more to be going on for my money. Armiatage doesn't even show up apart from on Sean Phillips' aces cover.

Long, and that's possibly too long, Richard Elson piece which was OK but did contain the line "Cartoony is an ugly word used by people with ugly limited vocabularies". No it's not it a word used to describe something with the look or style of a cartoon. The superiority and twatishness of that line fair got my gander up.

I see they are changing the film critic to someone from Empire - hope they're not just buying 'off the shelf' reviews rather than ones written especially for a Meg audience.

Three letters, yay, Beeching, Bunn and Clarkson take a bow.

Good but not a stellar meg for me with perhaps too much cartoony (!) stuff going on. I enjoyed the John Higgins book a lot, possibly the best of these so far. Good to see a few hard to find strips getting an outing.

What's wrong with artwork looking cartoony?

I like cartoony.. I'll take Ian Gibson over John Burns any day.

And one bad word said about Peter Bagge and I'll see you outside at breaktime!

It's all part of the grand 2000ad tapestry surely. Get over it.

You've got your cartoony artists like Ian Gibson, Steve Roberts, Boo Cook etc etc and you're incredibly serious artists. It's the variety in creators that's kept 2000ad going for seven billion years. It's what got me reading it, my first issue had Henry Flint, Colin Wilson, Carlos Ezquerra and Colin MacNeil in it. All very distinctive styles of art - and you've always got these nuts fellas with amazing individual styles and I lap it up. If one looks more cartoony than another it's not really relative. It's always been to me more about the artists themselves.

That's what makes 2000ad a thousand times better than American comics. I can't tell a single Spider-Man artist apart. Aside from the occasional 'breakthrough' oddity which they then spend years getting boring artists to imitate it's all bland and by-the-numbers.

so - 2000ad is more about the artist themselves over their 'type'. You don't go "I loved the cartoony guy and the life-like guy on Dredd's early epics" - you say "I remember Mike McMahon and Brian Bolland".

I'm fairly cartoony as an artist. More cartoony than some, less cartoony than others. Or maybe not 'cartoony' at all maybe I just draw as I've learnt to draw.


- - oh and thanks for that reassurance Worley, the new man has yet to make my brain dance

Just read the Elson interview and my thoughts are that he is far too harsh on himself.





V

Generally underwhelmed by the Meg this month, although I did get to read the Higgins & Higgins Dredd two-parter in the reprint floppy that I'd never seen, and enjoyed it greatly.

Agree with vzzbux about the Elson article - way too hard on himself.  S'true that his work on Shadows might not be as good as his current stuff, but I thought it was brilliant at the time - one of my favourite one-offs, and lwould make a welcome reprint.  And everything he's done in the last decade has been stonkingly good (his aliens are O'Neill-grade awesome), and generally better with every page.  Still, an interesting read in a lackluster month.

Since my original post I've read the Higgins collection too. I had fond memories of Last of the Bad Guys from whatever Christmas it was and it still looks lovely.

Re: Elson. I regularly say all sorts of silly, misguided and downright unpleasant things about writers and artists so fair's fair, I can't see any reason for them not to say whatever they like about me.

Quote from: "vzzbux"Just read the Elson interview and my thoughts are that he is far too harsh on himself.





V

Yup, he certainly is! My own, very limited, experience of the man backs this up too.

I read most of the interview this morning- and I got to say that I was a bit annoyed at being described as an 'ugly person' because I would use the word cartoony.

There's quite a lot of whining in the Meg interviews this month. "Oh, I'm rubbish. Woe is me."

What a shame. I just skimmed a lot of it.

- Trout

Having just read this......

QuoteTALES FROM THE BLACK MUSEUM: WHO DO THE VOODOO THAT YOU DO?
Mega-City One, 2131 AD. Deep in the heart of the Grand Hall of Justice lies the Black Museum, Justice Department's permanent exhibition of the relics from bygone crimes. Whether it's a notorious serial killer's trophies or the weapons of the Dark Judges, the violent history of the Big Meg is laid bare here. Let guide Henry Dubble show you around

Quoting from the front page.

I was wondering about the Black Museum.

Is it only a exibition of relics from bygone crimes?

As I worte in short story thig I put earlier that it might be the right place to have the monolith from "2001 Space Oddessy" should it evr end up in Mega City One.

Considering how many have commited murdered under it's trance or am I just reaching.

It's based on the real one in scotland yard
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Museum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Museum)
My friend who works for the Met has been around it and says it's very cold (chilled to preserve the exhibits) and scary as fuck.
Anything that has a criminal association is fair game for the museum.

Quote from: "Toni Scandella"The Black Museum... you know something? i'm really tired of the voodoo as evil horror nonsense.  It's lazy at best, racist at worst.  I'd like to see a story about Voodoo that's well researched and shows the religion accurately.  As it was, it was just the usual, 'Oh those black people and their scary heathen ways.'  There are plenty of other ways of doing that particular storyline without resorting to cliches.  A pity really as the basic premise was actually quite sound, with the ambiguous end and all, but the evil black voodoo man angle spoiled it for me.

In fairness, (and spoiler quoted for those who haven't read it...)

[spoiler:1vbe0psr]If you read it one way, he's an evil black Voodoo man - but the other, more likely to be read way was that it was all in the mind of Throome- as the arm in the display is white. So technically he was a DEAD black voodoo man. At no point was he evil. He might ahve been quite nice. After all, he didn't seem to have any vices. He might have pressed flowers.

Actually, in the first draft he wasn't black either, but we needed to ensure that the reader could see a definite change in the skin between 'attached arm' and upper arm, and thus it changed...

As for research, I have a couple of friends who practice aspects of the Voodoo path in various forms and I've always been told that the best voodoo is the one that's allowed to grow in the mind - ie if the person cursed believes he's cursed, then he'll BE cursed to the level you want - as he'll create the circumstances and symptoms himself. It's faith in the product, not the ability of the seller.

So, by having it all in Throome's mind, technically I kept to one of the basic tenets of Voodoo.  [/spoiler:1vbe0psr]

hats off to you Mr Lee for explaining that, shows how easy it is for thing to be misunderstood

I tend to avoid reading the artist interviews these days - they're a cool idea in theory, but too often they're so downbeat, and completely put me off ever wanting to be a comic artist. Why can't they focus on the positive aspects rather then suggesting all comic artists live in a state of poverty, depression and self-doubt?

At this point I think I'd rather see behind-the-scenes style articles looking at the techniques and sketches/designs etc of artists like D'israeli, Henry Flint etc. Or how about 'The Making Of' style articles for current series - for example how about a piece about Cradlegrave talking to the writer and artist about influences, working practices etc - would make a nice companion piece that could then be bundled with the graphic novel.

QuoteAnd completely put me off ever wanting to be a comic artist

Don't let 'em do thar Radiator, I love your work and really hope to see you in my prog one day!

QuoteBehind-the-scenes style articles looking at the techniques and sketches/designs etc of artists like D'israeli, Henry Flint etc. Or how about 'The Making Of' style articles for current series - for example how about a piece about Cradlegrave

Ooooh yeah, I'd love to see that too, especially a Langley one...

Finally got around to reading the published version of the interview with me in the latest Meg (thanks Matt). Christ, I can be a whinny bitch sometimes.

Somebody said that reading stuff like this was enough to put them off becoming a comics artist. I really hope that that isn't the case. The thing to realise is that any interview is one writer's interpretation of fragments of a single conversation between two virtual strangers. Unless you are some kind of manipulative, practiced self-publicist who can trot out platitudes at will (Stan Lee), chances are that you will be in a certain frame of mind and attempt to answer the questions as honestly as you can given your mood and feelings at the time. This is just how human beings work. Well, it's how I work. I agree that this sort of interview rarely lives up to expectations. The fact of the matter is that the least eventful part of any cartoonists life, is the part where he/she sits at the drawing board for hour upon hour. Unfortunately, that's the bit that people want to ask about. Personally, I find creator interviews irrelevant. Who gives a flying fuck about Neal Adam's lunatic Earth-formation theories? Who cares what pen tip Mike Mignola uses? Buy a crate load, you still won't draw like him; and if you do, what have you achieved?

It's probably a recurring theme to hear creators state that they feel they are struggling to improve. And, obviously, the repetition makes for tedious reading. But, in my own experience, artists who do think that they are good, usually have very little of lasting value to offer.

Just to clarify. I didn't say anything bad about the use of the word 'cartoony'. I always describe myself to people I meet as a cartoonist and spend a section of this interview defending my more cartoony work as the work that gave me the most enjoyment and attacking those in comics who look down on work of that type.

Also realised (too late to tell Mike), Miranda is a moon of Uranus, not Saturn. By the way, Mike, if you read this, it was a pleasure talking to you.

All the best.

Richard Elson

I can only assume you haven't been around that many artists, Radiator! You'll never find any worse self-doubters.

It was interesting that at Uni, the only artists on the course who weren't constantly second-guessing themselves and doing their art down were the ones who weren't particularly good at it! Like Richard says, in my expierience if an artist is constantly and consistently happy with their stuff, it usually follows that they're no great shakes.

Quote from: "Mort Janus"Who gives a flying fuck about Neal Adam's lunatic Earth-formation theories?

Well, you've piqued my curiosity now that you mention it. What's all that about?

Regards

Robin

Please, no!  Not here too!  I had to listen to a highly intelligent architect colleague hold forth on this appalling tripe for an entire evening just last week.  Having a degree in geography and having taught a course on plate-tectonics at third level (hey look, it's not often I get to sound qualified for something!) I felt I was reasonably well equipped with the contrary evidence (scratch that: just evidence), but no.  Apparently the You-Tube video is so convincing (it is pretty cool, BTW: http://www.youtube.com/user/nealadamsdotcom (http://www.youtube.com/user/nealadamsdotcom)) that mere science (hack-spit) cannot stand against its seductive graphics.

Quote from: "TordelBack"Please, no!  Not here too!  I had to listen to a highly intelligent architect colleague hold forth on this appalling tripe for an entire evening just last week.  Having a degree in geography and having taught a course on plate-tectonics at third level (hey look, it's not often I get to sound qualified for something!) I felt I was reasonably well equipped with the contrary evidence (scratch that: just evidence), but no.  Apparently the You-Tube video is so convincing (it is pretty cool, BTW: http://www.youtube.com/user/nealadamsdotcom (http://www.youtube.com/user/nealadamsdotcom)) that mere science (hack-spit) cannot stand against its seductive graphics.

What a remarkbly odd man. You'd have thought he'd have better things to do at his time of life.

Regards

Robin

The man's deluded. Everyone knows it was all down to D.R. and Quinch.

I think I can afford to start buying The Megazine again.  

Quote from: "Robin Low"What a remarkbly odd man. You'd have thought he'd have better things to do at his time of life.

Regards

Robin

Thats not a nice thing to say about Tort and he's not that old either