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Oookay...  Weird I-haven't-been-reading-since-day-#1-question number 2:

The Stix brothers.

The impression I've formed from the (admittedly few) SD stories I've read is that there are an indeterminate number of Stixes - all of them being stone cold bastards who look exactly alike.  A new one tends to spring up whenever the previous one gets croaked - usually by Johnny - and thereafter pursues a) lucrative SD contacts and b) revenge upon Alpha.  Correct so far?

So... has there ever been more than one Stix brother in one place at one time, has there ever been reference to how many of them there actually are (or where they come from, etc), and just generally speaking ANY details that people can provide would be gratefully received and perhaps even rewarded...

Cheers,

-si.

Question, the answer for which will be rewarded with a year's supply of Respectalot KudosSpray(tm).

What are the details of the job that Johnny Alpha undertook in which he met and teamed-up with Wulf?  I'm guessing some sort of weird time job, but who was the mark, what was Wulf's involvement, etc etc?

Any help much appreciated.

So, c'mon then.  It's out in Italy, nobody's allowed to talk about it on UK TV - it's GOT to be all over the Internet like a rash.  So which one of you zany netheads will be the first to tell me:

What did the butler (well... royal aide) see?

Just wanted to say: "Woo-hoo."

England 25, South Africa, 6.

Bugger me, that was a nail-biter of a game and no mistake...

So, I've been thinking.  Following the ongoing relationship trauma in another thread, I've started thinking about exactly how much of the 2000AD readership is female.  I can't think of any easy way of conducting a nationwide poll, so a straw-poll here will have to do.  I can think of.... four?  Maybe five of our regular number who are of the fairer sex.  Are there more?  Lurkers, etc?  Ladies - what introduced you to the comic?  Where are you based?  Are you single, gorgeous, etc?  Am I really this shameless?

And a more general question:  are there major demarcations between the sorts of thrills the ladies like and the sorts of thrills blokes like?  Is it *possible* to draw boundaries these days?

Discuss.

Forthcoming covers:


http://www.2000adonline.com/covers/2000ad/mediumres/1360.jpg>

http://www.2000adonline.com/covers/2000ad/mediumres/1361.jpg>

http://www.2000adonline.com/covers/2000ad/mediumres/1362.jpg>

No comments passed from this respectable droid...

I assume this is really old and I wasn't around when it appeared, or it just never made a splash, or whatever... but it's worryingly funny.

http://www.2000ad.org/thrillpitcher/?

Folks - apologies for off topicness but I turn to the collective web fu skills of you all.

First one who can find me a photo of the 1957-8 season West Ham United team (2nd Division Champions, apparently), will win great respect.

This is not a windup.

I'm far too nice to inflict this on you all without a warning, so don't use the link whilst you're a) at work, b) in a library or c) with your spouse.

What it *is* good for, is sending to co-workers you don't like much, and telling them it's a really funny joke about naked policewomen.

Get the fuckers fired!

http://www.richstevens.com/NAKED.swf

Folks-

Off topic *ish*...   I've just been killing some time by browsing around for details on the author China Mieville (okay, okay... I finished re-reading a book of his and enviously wanted to double check that he's at least 10 years older than me) and found various references to the fact that he dabbles as a comics artist.  Particularly fond of buildings and monsters, by all accounts. ;)

Given that he's a British writer at the forefront of Weird-Fi (and yes, I am a fan, and yes, you should pick up and read his work, and no, I'm not going to gush any more), with an interest in comics, it seems impossible to me that he hasn't at least *heard* of 2000AD...  I wonder whether anyone amongst us has seen any of his artwork?  He's been printed in 'several fanzines and semi-prozines'...  No other details, I'm afraid, but my interest is piqued.

Anyone any the wiser?

Oh, and he is.  Ten years older than me, I mean. ;)

During a moment of drunken idiotropy, I started thinking about epitaphs.  Has anyone got a fave that they'd like scrawled on their gravestone?

I quite like the refreshingly honest: "REMEMBER ME, YOU BASTARDS!"

Folks - can someone refresh my memory?  How many years ahead of us is the Dredd world?  Something like 122, IIRC?

Any help appreciated.

Off topic *ish*.  I haven't seen or read it, but apparently Gaiman's new graphic novel with Dave McKean 'Signal to Noise' is all the rage these days.  It's all about a film director who, dying of cancer, begins to visualise the one big film that he'll never make.  Pretentious?  Surely not!

Reason I bring it up is that I've just had an enlightening lecture at uni with an industry producer who's working with McKean and Gaiman to create the film based upon the story.  He showed us a 10 minute pilot directed by McKean and jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeezus!  Big blocks of collage-style interspersed imagery, revolving digital screen pixellated madness, teenage-angst voiceovers, devils wearing masked and chanting, siiiiiiiiiiiiigh.

It's a Student Film, basically, which is pretty depressing given that the producer dude is a) quite cool and b) is convinced that Gaiman and McKean have what it takes to redefine the way we look at contemporary cinema and blah blah blah.  

Just thought you might be interested.

Help!

I shan't go too far into reasons because they are mulifarious and boring, but I could *really* do with some help:  what I'm after is a reference to a 2000AD story from the last five years in which a large panel (or splash page) shows the interior of a church or cathedral.  The grander, the better.

Any ideas?  Many thanks in advance.

-si

Apologies if this is old news, but this is from Comics2Film:


"THE PULSE has just confirmed that 2000 AD Films plc has been set up to produce live action films based on selected characters from the successful 2000 AD magazine.

2000 AD Films plc, which recently announced a share offer via the 2000 AD website, www.2000adonline.com, has been set up to develop and produce live action films based on a selection of the magazine's legendary characters and stories. 2000 AD's most famous character, Judge Dredd, is the only strip so far from the magazine to have ever made it to the big screen, in the 1995 Judge Dredd movie, starring Sylvester Stallone, though the British sci-fi film Hardware was based on a story from 2000 AD, and references to 2000 AD have been made in many other films.

Jason Kingsley, CEO and Creative Director of Rebellion, the home of 2000 AD magazine, says, "2000 AD has been responsible for some of the most awe-inspiring sci-fi storytelling and stunning graphic art that has been seen in the last quarter century, so it is surprising that in all that time there has only been one official feature-length adaptation of a 2000 AD character. 2000 AD Films plc gives us a chance to balance out that equation by realising the dreams of many a fan of the comic, including myself, and putting some of these great characters on the big screen, where they deserve to be. It also allows us to make sure that any 2000 AD adaptation will be faithful to the story it is drawn from, which has always been an important factor".

Though 2000 AD Films is currently keeping its cards close to its chest on which of the many 2000 AD properties it will be producing, it is expected that the first major projects from the new company will be announced soon."

How-do.  Slightly peculiar question for the French-speakers amongst you...

Is there a suitably French-sounding phrase meaning "son-of-a-bitch?".

Alternative gallic insults, if anyone knows them, would be appreciated too.  Shit-head, asshole, degenerate-demonic-filth, that sort of thing.  There may be a namecheck for the best-sounding answer...

Okay - so when you're a sad gimpus-maximus like me, desperately attempting to waste time instead of doing any real work, flicking through the messages on the messageboard until someone - okay, PVS - arrives in the chatroom to prop-up the metaphorical bar for several hours, there are some things that are VERY important.  Specifically, when you're a time-waster, it's important to fool yourself into thinking that you're actually being as efficient and quick as is possible: otherwise your brain twigs that you're deliberately distracting yourself and the whole charade falls-apart.

Sooo, how's this:  It occurred to me that an enormous amount of time is spent returning to the 'main' messageboard page before clicking on another thread.  Wouldn't it be a little easier if each thread had a "Previous Thread/Next Thread" link, to save me the three seconds it takes to do it the long way?  Thinking about it, having written this post probably consumed more time than I'll ever save if my fantastic suggestion is implemented, but I can rest easy in the knowledge that everyone else is shaving copious amounts of time off their site-usage all thanks to my supreme sacrifice.

Haythangew.

Especially about-to-be-fragged thrillsuckers.

Righto....

Figured I'd reply to this little lot, more to thank everyone for their comments and honesty than anything else.  I'm not going to stand on a soapbox and tell everyone exactly why it is that 'Bec and Kawl' is the best thing since sliced bread (taking notes, Scojo?) but hopefully you'll allow a starting-out hack the liberty to ramble a bit.  I'm going to display startling honesty in every bit of this in the hopes that the discussion which I hope will follow might provide some solutions to the difficulties I will doubtless encounter in future, so:


Bec&Kawl:
The seed of the idea came from Tharg himself, which was essentially in response to the idea that pop-culture is becoming something of a free-fer-all with regard to comedy and comment.  2000AD's readership has 'elements-of-the-unreal' expectations, however, and if we'd just comic-ised 'Spaced', say, it wouldn't have gone down well at all, so after some discussion we settled upon 'occult' rather than sci-fi to spice it up a bit.  Coming from an art-college background myself it seemed high-time to have a bit of a crack at the wa-... people that surround me everyday.  So, there's point 1 on my list of defences: Bec and Kawl are *supposed* to be annoying bastards.  The idea was to make them flawed (Kawl's an irritating bugger who quotes movies every other sentence and Beccy's a pretentious goth with a complete lack of morality) but at the same time ever so slightly likeable.  It's been suggested by certain people that all the movie quotes are included because Si Spurrier thinks it's funny to drop references into conversations.  I don't.  It pisses me off something ROTTEN and there really *are* people who do it.  The sort of gimp who has a Monty Python quote for every situation and won't stop doing fucking South Park impressions.  Rrrrr.   Aaanyway....  

Point 2 is this: When referencing pop-culture, the best way of making it funny is to make it subtle.  If you're referencing film, the best way to make it subtle is to employ filmic techniques and alter them slightly.  Using the example of 'Spaced', you can get away with referencing filmic situations because you're using a filmic medium: it's all down to progressions of shots, camera actions, positioning of characters, tones-of-voice, etc.  In comics, the liberty to do these things simply isn't there (at least, not quickly).  For example - say I want to reference the infamous 'Shower Scene' from 'Psycho'.  If I'm doing-so using a video camera I'm sorted - there are about, what, 12 quick-cut shots crammed into a thirty-second sequence?  But in a comic the same visual 'gag' takes-up two pages.  Big no-no.

So I thought long and hard about it and realised this:  In a static medium like a comic, the only *visual* references that don't require enormous amounts of space are ones that are ingrained upon the film-audience's memory as *static* images:  ET crossing the moon, Arnie sinking into molten steel with his thumb raised, that sort of thing.  Fine, but few-and-far between.

So what are you left with?  Dialogue.  Buuut, again, there are a plethora of conditions which a comic simply can't hope to reproduce - tone of voice, speed of delivery, volume, etc.  When it comes right down to it, unless you have a great deal of space to play with, any film reference used in a comic-book medium is going to stick-out like a sore thumb.  Which is a bit of a problem when subtlty is the name of the game...

So my solution was, as I've said, to turn Kawl into the sort of irritating fucker who quotes movies every five seconds (that way it doesn't matter that the references stick-out like sore thumbs and their inevitable unsubtlty becomes something of a feature).  Whether it worked or not is something everyone appears to disagree on: I'm gratified in that Bec and Kawl appears to be a 'love or hate' type gig rather than just a middle-of-the-road damp squib, if nothing else. ;)

So that's my slightly shonky defence: fulfilling a quota of dynamic references in a non-dynamic media is bloody difficult.  ;)

Now, to the future...

I can think of two solutions to the problem, and I'd love any suggestions people can think of.  The solutions are as follows:

1) Use non-dynamic media to reference-source.  Books.  Magazines.  Posters. Cultural images.  Etc.   Thus-far the two 'pilot episodes' of Bec and Kawl have referenced all these things and, I think, did-so with rather more success than some of the film quotes.  The problem is that, like it or not, most people associate popular culture with things they've seen on the TV or movie-screen.  Turning Bec and Kawl into a literature-student's wankrag is tempting but would not, I suspect, go-down very well with the majority of readers...

2) Use *situation* references rather than single 'momentary' ones.  Base an entire story, say, around your characters turning-up at a dodgy motel owned by a schizo loon, rather than trying to cram 10 sore-thumb references into every story.  This technique would probably work, but at the expense of original storylines.  I really don't think that what people want to read is a series of protracted movie-spoofs...

The questions, then, become these:  

- Can Bec and Kawl, the series, survive without film quotes?
- Are non-filmic references enough to sustain a series which has pop-culture at its core?
- Are situation-references preferable to 'single panel' ones?
Aaaand any other market-research type stuff you feel might be handy.

On a personal note, writing 'serious' stories comes a lot easier to me than writing deliberately light-hearted ones, but I also think the world sometimes needs a bit of non-earth-shattering fun, so hopefully Bec and Kawl can satisfy a niche.  Whether you agree or not, or whether you think the series-concept will sink-or-swim depending upon this thorny 'pop-culture references' issue: I'd love to know.  I have plenty of ideas for B&K stories, but it suddenly occurred to me that we, as writers, are often strangely reluctant to ask the readers exactly what it is that they *want*.  So this is your chance to tell me, one way or another.  Cheers.