slaine out...halo jones IN

[CGI_squirrel]

Hi everyone! This is my first post on the boards.

I'm pretty new to 2000ad, been reading it on and off for the last year or so, and there have been some big gaps in between the progs I bought, but now i've finally subscribed!

Anyway, I decided to do a bit of catching up with the old classics of 2000ad, so I popped out and got the complete halo jones from the library. Have only read two parts of it so far though, so I couldn't really say whether I would want it to carry on due to it being really good though.

At the moment I say 'no!' If it was carried on people would most likely be disappointed with it in some way, and it would leave a bad mark on the other three books! That won't be good!

P.S. You can't go and take AM's character off of him and give it to someone else! It wouldn't be right!

[Dounreay]

Despite thinking Slaine's been rubbish for ages, for some reason I'm much enjoying the new series. This may be related to the summer heat and the profusion of blue nippled Egyptian princesses- who knows.

However, if I show any signs of saying Rogue Trooper is good, well I'll eat my hat. With the monkey still wearing it.

While we're on, bring back Zenith. Yeah, Dredd, Zenith and Leviathan. And nowt else for weeks and weeks.  

[Matt]

If Alan Moore gave his consent to Ian Gibson writing/drawing book 4 of Halo then I'd be happy to see that. It wouldn't be the first time it's happened, Jim Baike took over the writing of Skizz book 2. I'm sure I read somewhere that Ian was happy to do this if Alan was.

[Oddboy]

Yeah if Ian wanted to do it solo then that's okay (so long as Tharg watches over him VERY carefully, we can't just give pencil monkeys a free-reign now, can we?)

I don't think anyone else should write it though, if it continued then I'd like to see the continuation of the story, not someone else's story.

[Mikey]

"Despite thinking Slaine's been rubbish for ages, for some reason I'm much enjoying the new series"

Absolutely-I think this is Slaine back to good form.Gollamh has more coherencey than 1st two books IMHO,well,more going on in each episode.It does remind me of why it was good,different levels of reading etc.

I don't think Halo Jones should be continued in any long way if at all.Some short stories would be good-in fact *prose* Halo stories I think would suit the character,especially if'n Moore done them.

M.

[paulvonscott]

No, artists taking over writing duties is all well intentioned, but it wouldn't be the same.

I think we should just all realise we won't get any Halo Jones, RoboHunter again, or Zenith for the forseeable future.  

Halo Jones and Robohunter both end nicely, Zenith ended nicely despite it going wonky in the middle and the few throwaway one-offs that followed.

It think it's right to try and revive and restore the stories which ended badly (Rogue and Strontium Dog).

[Matt]

...add to that list Ace Trucking Co (Gibson on art duty this time please!). Would love to see Ace, GBH & Feek for one last outing.

[SmallBlueThing]

While, of course, my comments re any old sod writing Halo were written with my tongue nudging my cheek, I have to say that I don't see the problem if such a suggestion were taken at face value.

After all, Moore rose to prominance in the US with his work on Swamp Thing- a character not his own. Letting someone else have a go at a strip that Moore clearly has no wish to continue seems fair to me. After all, it's not like he owns the bloody thing. Creators rights are a very wonderful thing and we should all support them- but we can't change history. HJ is owned by Rebellion (I assume), not Moore and Gibson. If Rebellion wanted to do a new series they could. It's only a comicstrip, after all.

And as to the comment that it wouldn't be a good way to tempt other creators back to the fold- "shatting" over their peers- well, We're not talking about people with hugely fragile egos here. These are industry professionals who spend their whole early careers trying their damnest to secure big contracts with American publishers- where they won't own the rights. It's part of the business- and hasn't stopped Grant Morrison working on the XMen, or Alan Grant doing Batman etc etc.

Rebellion would be completely within their rights to put out HJ book 4. With the right creators it could be even better than books 1-3. If Moore didn't like the idea, then one would expect him to issue a statement to the effect, similar to the one he did for the LoEG movie.

I really don't see the big deal- and refuse to believe comics creators would shy away from the prog because they sanctioned it, in some kind of united front over the perceived "rights" of Alan Moore. And if they did, well, there are plenty more out there to take their place.

Steev

[Woolly]

"I think we should just all realise we won't get any Halo Jones, RoboHunter again, or Zenith for the forseeable future."

Sad, but probably true.

Sad also to read that Alan Moore has bad feelings still towards 2000ad regarding creator rights, surely this issue has been dealt with already?
Weve already seen, and continue to see, creator owned strips (Mazeworld, for example), and for a strip like Halo Jones, it would be nice to think that Rebellion would give in to any demands the creators have.

And thats another point. 2000ad is now owned by Rebellion, not the people and company that Alan Moore was pissed off with. Cant he just swallow his pride and try to strike up a new deal?

[Art]

Cant he just swallow his pride and try to strike up a new deal?

I suspect its more a matter of can Moore be assed than can he swallow his pride. I doubt it would have been that lucracitive for him, and I beleive he's pretty much retiring from comics now anyway, with the exception of anything he enjoys writing for fun (LOEG being, thanbkfully, amongst the titles he enjoys writing).

[Leigh S]

I get the sense that it wasnt so much the creator rights and ownership that bothered the creators - they all said they were well aware that they were paid more than the going rate on the understanding that they sold the rights (except it seems Mr Morrison, but thats another story).

It all seems to come down to the money that came from the reprints - much more than anyone expected.  If IPC had cut some of the cash back to creators as a thankyou, I expect a lot of this bad feeling might have been avoided.

AS for what Mr Moore says, the jist of it (if I've got this straight) is that in the past, he would have considered coming back if the right deal was offered, but he feels that since Rebellion have paid for the characters, the last thing they would do is give them away, and even if they did, he still wouldnt: "...they've burned that one." Its on page 59 if you get a chance to sneak a peek...

[paulvonscott]

"Cant he just swallow his pride and try to strike up a new deal?"

Why does he have to swallow his pride and do anything, why would he want to?  This is crazy talk.  Why are we having this fantasist conversation again?  

He's one of the most famous names in comics, he can do pretty much any project he wants to without digging up old ones (of course try telling that to a bunch of victorian authors spinning in their graves) and as the watcher points out, he's semi-retiring, which seems to mean he's going to do less, when he feels like it (sounds a good way to spend your time to me).

As far as I can see, he doesn't give a toss about working for 2000AD, which is fair enough.  He doesn't need to, he doesn't want to.  Same with Marvel.

I think it's time to get over this Moore obsession.  He wrote some of my favourite stuff for 2000AD.  Halo Jones works well as 3 books, Skizz is a great kids story, DR and Quinch is fun and he wrote some definitive future shocks and some entertaining one offs from other series.  

You compare his acheievements with people who still create for the comic like John Wagner, Alan Grant and Pat Mills you get a better perspective on where it all stands, about 20 years in the past.

I doubt very much Alan Moore is going to write for 2000AD again unless large parts of his brain dissolve and he thinks it's 1983 again or his Snake god tells him otherwise.  That's your best hope, he becomes mentally deranged, has a religious experience or suffers from selective senile dementia.  That's how unlikely it is.  

I appreciate this is all largely wishful thinking and idle fantasising, but it's too easy a trap to fall into.