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It's very, very clear that Pat writes for the collections, and treats each 180-page book as containing three 60-page episodes.  This is clearest with Savage, where the Taking Liberties collection has all the Adlard-drawn stories set in 2001, and The Guv'nor, drawn by Goddard, begins three years later and starts all the ABC Warriors tie-ins.

This is what McKenzie posted as a public comment on my LiveJournal on Sep 4 2007:



"An issue I will take a much bigger exception to is your pronouncements about the ins and outs of British copyright law, which you state as though you had a degree in that subject. The copyright did not get signed over - as you state - when the cheque was cashed. That is not possible under European law. Copyright is only ever reassigned when the creator (that's me) signs away his rights in a legally binding contract (which I didn't).

Publishers only ever publish material to make money. Not to please fans and certainly not so kids can take my stories to school in a conveniently portable package. If they're able to publish without paying the creators, they will. But I'm not going to sit around a get ripped off in the process.

Look at it this way. You're a cab driver. I get in your cab and pay you $10 to take me downtown. The next day I get in your cab again and expect you to take me downtown again. "That's ten bucks," you (rightly) say. "No," I reply. "I already paid you yesterday."

Can you see what I did there?

Really, creators get a raw enough deal in publishing without the customers cheering on the publishers to screw the talent even more.

And people wonder why I got out of the comics business ...

On a lighter note, there probably will be more Luke Kirby stories. Possibly not in comics, but certainly not for the owners of 2000AD. But that's a story for another day ..."

Now in 1980 I'm pretty sure the 30p difference in price between the Dredd and the 2000ad annual would have bought you a decent family car, but it, even to my 8 year old mind, would surely have been worth it for the Mike McMahon art over those 30 pages.

I just wanted to say that I bought the complete Sweeney on DVD earlier this year and a few episodes have some scenes at dodgy used car dealers.  I'm fascinated by the prices of cars in the 1970s.  Colin's statement may read like hyperbole, but it's actually true.

I really enjoyed this.  Everything in it was just glowing, like all the artists and writers were having a ball contributing.  My eyes are still returning to normalcy after McMahon's page.  And since you're here, David, I'll say that Tharg should have called on you to draw Anderson regularly as soon as Arthur Ranson stepped down.  If that means you couldn't have gone out anymore over the last decade, so be it.

That said, I'd have loved this prog even more if it had eight more pages.  That's my quibble.  It really needed a one-off episode of something more recent than Sin Dex to help the balance.  I'm hopeful the 40th anniversary prog really shows off how zarjaz the last several years have been, too!

There was a Gobots / Robo-Machines strip in New Eagle, wasn't there?  Does Dan Dare Corporation somehow own that, too?

I just realized this means Rebellion now owns The Amazing Three from Jackpot: the Blue Wizard, Oakman, and Tanya who showed up in Zenith Phase III.  Somebody get a script to Steve Yeowell to draw, soon, please.  I love those characters.

Hey, everybody!

I wanted to re-invite everyone to check out our fun TV blog.  We've been having a ball watching all sorts of family-friendly stuff, including Gerry Anderson's Secret Service, all of Land of the Lost, and some classic Disney live-action films.  Earlier this month I introduced my son to The Goodies, and the current lineup is Ark II, Isis, and the new Thunderbirds are Go series.  I hope you'll bookmark us and tell your friends!

https://firebreathingdimetrodon.wordpress.com/

Sorry folks but I just can't abide an attitude that spits on hard work.

Then it's a good thing that Pete's attitude did nothing of the sort.

My take: it's a real roller coaster.  When Sinister Dexter is great, which it is but only very sporadically, it's amazing.  The nine episodes that John Burns did in 2013 aren't just my favorite episodes of the series, they're actually my favorite thing to appear in 2000 AD in the last five years.

But you have to go back to 2005 to find a peak anywhere near that high.  "...and death shall have no dumb minions" is also completely amazing.  It's one of my four or five favorite stories of that entire decade.

Between them?  Nothing I'm in a rush to read a third time.

I do dearly wish they'd start a proper reissue program in Case Files collections with everything.  The stories they skipped in the first three collections are annoyances.  The ones they skipped in Eurocrash is maddening.  Rebellion's collected editions program is otherwise perfect; I would really love to replace this infernal volume with Sin Dex: The Complete Case Files Volume 2.

Ant Wars...wasn't that the non-Dredd world stripper that got retconned into conti uity via Ciuded Baranquilla and Banzai Battalion? I'm kind of vague on none Judge Dredd strips of this period i'm afraid.

Via Zancudo, not Banzai Battalion, but yes.

Damn.  Logan was a fan among fans.  We'll all miss him.

That Mighty One cover is just amazing.

(Putting 2 and 2 together)

Oh, that makes sense.  The Saint and Danger Man (as "Secret Agent") were the only two that got successful network runs in America.  Some of the others did appear on networks here (like The Persuades) but weren't hits.  (And I just remembered Space: 1999, which wasn't on a network, but was one of the most successful direct-to-syndication shows in the seventies.)

But weren't some of the others hits in the UK as well?  Even if Randall & Hopkirk didn't do well in America, if it was a ratings hit on ITV, wouldn't they want more of it?

This is an odd question, and there may be individual reasons for each series, but my wife and I have been watching The Saint (got the entire series, 35 DVDs, in one lovely R1 set), as well as Jason King, which I'd heard about for years and had no idea was so incredibly entertaining.  ITC made so many of these shows, but I wondered why, other than The Saint and Danger Man, none of them was ever renewed for a second season.

Sure, there are some that time has forgotten, like The Strange Report, but so many of these old shows were - I thought - really successful at the time in the UK and are very fondly remembered by old fogeys like me.  Jason King is a sequel series to Department S, neither was renewed.  Randall & Hopkirk, The Champions, Man in a Suitcase, The Baron, etc.  Why are there only 26 episodes of each of these shows, and not hundreds?  Were they all actually flops with a really active fan base? 

Even though the music stuff in Deadline is very dated, some of it was written by the late, great Steven Wells.  Even his stories about bands I never heard of before are excellent reading, which is why I always pick up a Deadline if I see it in a box of beat-up magazines in Great Escape or that place in Knoxville where I always find neat things.