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Gerry Finley-Day or Kenneth Niemand - Writers Solhiem Cup - Tie 11

Started by Colin YNWA, 05 July, 2021, 06:34:24 AM

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Colin YNWA


milstar

Wait... Is Kenneth one of the regular 2000ad droids? Like Alec Trench stood for Alan Grant? Quick search on the Google was fruitless, except I found this:



I now wait for the John Wagner vs TB Grover thread.
Reyt, you lot. Shut up, belt up, 'n if ye can't see t' bloody exit, ye must be bloody blind.

Colin YNWA

Quote from: milstar on 06 July, 2021, 05:43:21 PM
I now wait for the John Wagner vs TB Grover thread.

That was actually discussed as an option to better distribute the writers that spanned the generation.

The best piece of Gordon evidence was Michael M himself naming Kenneth - Gordon - to PJ Holden (or vice versa I forget). The trouble is with this a proof of identity is there is more than one Gordon in the world and to be honest I'm more and more inclined to listen to Indigo Prime's points about stylistic differences - which is not to say that a writer can't change and develop their style of course...

Anyway can't talk now getting all trussed up for my hot virtual date with Pink Lime - such a shame that she's hit financial problems, I'm sure I can help though...

Funt Solo

So much of the febrile side of fandom (whose Lord and Master is a Mr. P. Mills of Europe) is absolutely determined that Niemand is Rennie that I've adopted it as a joke fact.

Maybe there was an accident using a teleportation device and Niemand is some weird combination of a pot plant that used to sit in Rennie's office, and him. Like Brundlefly. Rennielemonbalm. Aloegordon.
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

Colin YNWA

Well there may be some mysteries swimming around this one, who is Kenneth, is Gerry really in the Pacemakers? But one thing we do know this one is being counted up in the morning (if I find any votes amongst all the intrigue) so if you haven't voted yet then do so today.

Also if you dare vote. See this is where I get run out of town. I love Kenneth Niemand's work. I think he's one of the best things to enter the Prog for a while - and that's not because there has been a lack great things being added to Tharg's arsenal, rather that Kenneth (who he?) is the best.

When it comes to GFD as anyone who has the endurance to read my self absorbed re-read knows I really struggle with his work. I know full well this puts me down as an outlier and what he did clearly works but for me it doesn't. I love so many of his ideas but the excecution is so often, so very often very poor and I struggle on re-read to get through it at times. I do however love Ant Wars... I know, I know. Forgive me Tharg for I have sinned. On that basis:

Kenneth Niemand 5 : GFD 0

IndigoPrime

If this all turns out to be an elaborate prank and Rennie is Niemand, I'll be astonished at 1) Rennie getting someone else to fill in for him on the Thrillcast and doing a great job (a fine actor) and 2) Rennie being a better writer than I thought he was (and I already consider him a very good writer) by managing to create two very distinct styles for Dredd and other strips.

Mills just embarrasses himself in that tweet. And as Niemand himself explained, he just wants to not complicate his existing work, where he's a prominent writer elsewhere, and so is using a pseudonym. This is pretty commonplace in media—I even used to do it myself when I first started writing for magazines. (Back then, there were very clear "don't cross the streams" rules, but also newbies being treated a little over-cautiously. So for about a year, I wrote under a pseudonym for MacUser, because by then I was already writing for MacFormat. The editor forgot about that until he didn't, whereupon he felt I'd built a reputation that was much more asset than risk, and so he asked me and we ditched the pseudonym. Different circumstances for Niemand, obviously, but this isn't a rare thing.)

sintec


DrJomster

Niemand vs GFD??? Bit of a toughie this.

Niemand is producing very solid work, but I think there's still a bit longer to go to take on the GFD legacy. About 1-2 years will probably do it for me as the Niemand Work is very good and accruing at a rate of knots.
The hippo has wisdom, respect the hippo.

milstar

But shouldn't we then vote for the "real guy" instead of pseudonym? I mean, pseudonyms are pretty commonplace today and we never take for e.x Robert Galbraight as someone on his own when we all know it's none other than JKR.
Reyt, you lot. Shut up, belt up, 'n if ye can't see t' bloody exit, ye must be bloody blind.

Colin YNWA

Quote from: milstar on 07 July, 2021, 11:06:04 AM
But shouldn't we then vote for the "real guy" instead of pseudonym? I mean, pseudonyms are pretty commonplace today and we never take for e.x Robert Galbraight as someone on his own when we all know it's none other than JKR.

We essentially are - given the assumption that Kenneth Niemand isn't an existing creator., which is the best information we have to date. Whether he's actually Kenneth (well we know he's not) or Gordon McScribbler is academic?

Link Prime

Aside from the Occam's Razor reality that Niemand is a very accomplished and prolific Dredd writer, I have it on good authority that the open secret rumour is in fact true.

Why keep it going?

The "Brian Skuter" theory: 2000AD has had known writers use pseudonyms in the past, albeit generally employed as a ruse to help convince the reader they were not in fact reading a Sinister Dexter / Lobster Random / Indigo Prime story. Not to mention that our old pal T.B. Grover wrote most of our favorite early Dredd stories.
The "It's only a prank, Bro" theory: Relax, Earthlet.
The "I said I was going to eat my shoe - and I will!" theory: I can't recall exactly, but I remember it was mentioned previously that the Rennie Droid would be stepping down from writing Dredd stories after his (superb) collaboration with Ezquerra on 'El Maldito'.
The "Too Mannie Rennie" theory: The Rennie Droid has always had a prolific presence in both 2000AD and The Megazine - having so many stories written by him in recent years could give the impression of a creative monopoly, as there has been in the past with both Abnett and Mills to various degrees.

Any or none of the above reasons could be why TMO has agreed to continuing the pretense. No skin off my shin - I generally enjoy his stuff quite a lot.

Anyway, that's just my 2 Creds.


IndigoPrime

On voting for a pseudonym, I see no issues. It's not like this a Paul Sumner for Zzap!64—a 1980s C64 games mag. If you don't know that story, when Zzap!64 moved to Ludlow from Somerset, half the editorial team didn't follow. So they invented a third reviewer, Paul Sumner, whose comments were written by Gary Penn and Julian Rignall, the actual reviewers. Any imagery of Paul was based on another writer at the publisher—which caused problems later on when he eventually became editor of another title. Eventually, 'Paul' became a means to test new writers, and so I imagine today no-one really knows beyond those first few issues who 'Paul' was at any given time. That's not the case with Niemand, who clearly isn't several different people—just one, writing under a pen name.

As for the Niemend = Rennie thing, I'll chuckle if I'm wrong about this, but it still makes absolutely no sense to me. His style is different. And then there was the interview on the Thrillcast, where the very dull explanation was effectively "actually, I write other stuff and am quite well known, and so 2000 AD might interfere with that". As for the thinking Rennie would have a creative monopoly, that'd be absurd in the extreme considering how much Abnett pens for the Prog.

The Mind of Wolfie Smith

could the admittedly very different style of writing actually be a reason for the pseudonym (be it gordon or anyone else)?

and anyway, more importantly, who wrote shakespeare?

Colin YNWA

Quote from: The Mind of Wolfie Smith on 07 July, 2021, 01:06:21 PM
and anyway, more importantly, who wrote shakespeare?

Oh we are not going Bacon down that road again...

... see, do you see... do you see what I did there...

(Though actually it was infact William Shakespeare)

The Mind of Wolfie Smith

oh. i always assumed it was seventeenth century writer and philosopher, rennie descartes ...