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2000 AD's Thrills per Year 1977-2021

Started by Funt Solo, 30 January, 2022, 03:44:30 AM

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AlexF

Love a good bar chart / line graph in the morning.
Seeing patterns like this does have a way of making a person worry we're heading into bad times or the Prog...
...even as the weekly read is still something I enjoy a whole lot.

Mind you, circa 1991-1995 I was happy with my weekly Prog, too, so what do I know.

Colin YNWA

Quote from: davidbishop on 31 January, 2022, 08:52:53 AM
amazing work! suspect the 90s would look very different if split into two halves...

In my head there was a period of a year or two in the 90s when Sinister Dexter had very nearly as much page space as Dredd - possibly even a smidge more. Far too lazy to try to prove the point!

Funt Solo

Quote from: Colin YNWA on 31 January, 2022, 09:31:03 AM
Quote from: davidbishop on 31 January, 2022, 08:52:53 AM
amazing work! suspect the 90s would look very different if split into two halves...

In my head there was a period of a year or two in the 90s when Sinister Dexter had very nearly as much page space as Dredd - possibly even a smidge more. Far too lazy to try to prove the point!

Both Rogue and SinDex had hefty residencies (although so did Meltdown Man with its 50-prog run). Rogue was in every prog (bar one, I think) in 1983 and SinDex hit almost every prog (bar three) of 1998 - quite often in double episodes.

I feel like doing a five-year breakdown and excising Droid Life...
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

Funt Solo

Okay, so this is mostly five-year spreads as percentage of the prog's content (on an episode basis). Given that we usually see 5 stories per prog, that means JD is often hovering around 20%, which means he's in every single issue (barring the odd exception). So, everything else is measured around Dredd. These are top tens, so lots of significant thrills simply aren't listed. Also, I excised Droid Life from the lists.









++ A-Z ++  coma ++

Colin YNWA

Wow interesting to see how hard on the heels rogue was on Dredd between 81-85.

Leigh S

Now thats what I call bar charts!

Interesting to see Slaine was most active during those "Dark Days" when the editorial were actively working against it according to Mills - clearly, they didn't do a very good job of that!

Not to knock Pat too much as having three of his thrills in the 2006 -2010 and 2011-2015 was very welcome in my book. 


sintec

Not many thrills break that 10% line do they.
Dan Dare (77-80)
Rogue Trooper (81-85)
Strontium dog (86-90)
Sinister Dexter (96-00)

It's also interesting to note that the modern graphs do indeed look a lot like 91-95 in terms of shape with nearly all the thrills hovering somewhere between 2.5% and 5% with maybe one pushing past that mark. I'd argue we're in a very different position though. In 91-95 the leaders just behind Dredd (Fr1day, Rebooted Robo-Hunter, Strontium Dogs, and Finn) are not hugely well regarded moments in the progs history.

Funt Solo

You make a good point, sintec - variety doesn't speak to quality. As others have noted, you don't get to do long-span thrills without varying the artists - probably the only artist capable of generating five pages a week year-in, year-out was our long lost Belardinelli.

I suppose modern Tharg values artistic consistency over narrative cohesion.
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

IndigoPrime

Quote from: Leigh S on 31 January, 2022, 04:55:47 PMwhen the editorial were actively working against it according to Mills
This being the same Mills who quite recently fumed at Rebellion for not reprinting some of his stories, despite him having more of his stories reprinted than most other 2000 AD writers.

Leigh S

Indeed...

these are % of the overall output per prog, but what about as % of progs over that period the stories appear in?  Presumably, having a lot of other stories that we dont see here might skew it one way or the other?