Pat Mills in The Times

[Jim_Campbell]

I see your point, and I'm not trying to be obtuse about it: but I wonder about the direction of travel of the thread given the subject of the article.

No, I think I agree with you, and I'll leave it at that.

[Dudley]

In this particular case, I'd forgive Mr Mills for claiming to have created Superman, Batman and the internet, assuming it got his case against the bastards who abused him a high profile airing like this one.

[sheridan]

As mentioned in the article, this has been featured on Mills' blog for some time now (didn't realise it had been eight years though).  Interestingly I'm sure some of the blog posts had said that Mills was the victim of physical abuse but knew of other boys who had been sexually abused - this article has it the other way around.  I wonder if this is misremembering or if Mills was still blocking it out in those earlier posts?

[Colin YNWA]

First and foremost sorry for setting this thread off on the wrong foot. I started with a comment and about creation of Dredd and that trivialised what should have been the focus here and I'm sorry for that.

I've been reading about the abuse Pat Mills suffered at the school for some time via his blog and its terrible that he had to endure this and credit to him for pushing the information out there into the public. I imagine that took an immense amount of courage and its something - as Sheridan has said - he's been doing for quite some time now.

Again sorry for my crass and insenstive opening remark.

[Dark Jimbo]

First and foremost sorry for setting this thread off on the wrong foot. I started with a comment and about creation of Dredd and that trivialised what should have been the focus here and I'm sorry for that.

In all fairness, this is a board about 2000AD and Judge Dredd, and the conversation was/is always going to skew that way.

[nxylas]

'I had created all the strips with the exception of Dredd, which I developed,' Mills says

Bishop, David. Thrill-Power Overload. 2007.

And he repeated that comment on his Twitter in response to this article. It is simply untrue that he did not seek to correct the error.

[Jim_Campbell]

And he repeated that comment on his Twitter in response to this article. It is simply untrue that he did not seek to correct the error.

Then I stand corrected. My apologies. I stopped following him on Twitter some time back when I'd had enough of him constantly belittling and berating fellow creators.

[Proudhuff]

Also, if I'm honest, I'm disappointed that Pat chose to at the very least allow an inaccurate creator credit to stand in an article of some importance to which that point is more or less irrelevant.

I have nothing but sympathy and will give nothing but support to him on the actual point of the article, but this "I co-created Judge Dredd" thing has been part of Mills' largely fictitious version of UK comic history for some years now, alongside the whole "David Bishop and Andy Diggle 'dark days' destroyed 2000AD" crap that he's been peddling for a couple of decades.

What Jim says.

[Richard]

Bishop and Diggle saved 2000AD and kept it going long enough for Rebellion to buy it. It was their predecessors Richard Burton and Alan McKenzie who nearly destroyed it. (I don't know which camp John Tomlinson falls into.)

[GordonR]

Bishop and Diggle saved 2000AD and kept it going long enough for Rebellion to buy it. It was their predecessors Richard Burton and Alan McKenzie who nearly destroyed it. (I don't know which camp John Tomlinson falls into.)

John’s one of the good guys.  Nicolai Dante was created on his watch. when Burt & Mackenzie wouldn’t even look at Robbie’s stuff.

[nxylas]

Bishop and Diggle saved 2000AD and kept it going long enough for Rebellion to buy it. It was their predecessors Richard Burton and Alan McKenzie who nearly destroyed it. (I don't know which camp John Tomlinson falls into.)

Now, that I do agree with. Mills's definition of 2000AD's "dark age" is very different to mine.

[IndigoPrime]

Mills’s definition of 2000 AD’s dark age appears to be “editors who don’t like my work”. But then I temporarily dipped back into his Twitter again recently, and he’s still spending quite a lot of time slagging off the comic’s modern incarnation, so…

[Jim_Campbell]

John’s one of the good guys.

Frankly, he deserves some kind of medal for being the poor bastard that had to roll up his sleeves and start working through the mouldering piles of accumulated Michael Fleischer scripts and flat files full of sub-par artwork largely painted in mud that had been stuffed away by the previous editorial team. A task that was still ongoing when Mr Bishop ascended to the Right Hand of Tharg.

[nxylas]

Mills’s definition of 2000 AD’s dark age appears to be “editors who don’t like my work”. But then I temporarily dipped back into his Twitter again recently, and he’s still spending quite a lot of time slagging off the comic’s modern incarnation, so…

Yeah, it's funny because he has previously praised Matt Smith as "the best editor 2000AD has ever had". But then, he's full of contradictions and double standards; for example, with regards to writers other than John Wagner writing Dredd. He's justifiably proud of his work on The Cursed Earth, but seems to object to newer writers such as Rob Williams and Kenneth Niemand putting their own spin on the character.

I tend to cut Uncle Pat a lot of slack because of all the brilliant work he's produced, and because I think some of his anger at the way the comics industry treats creators is justified. But I'm not blind to his faults, and don't want to come across as some squeeing fanboy who thinks he can do no wrong.

[IndigoPrime]

I was done a while back cutting him slack for his past achievements. Don’t get me wrong—they are massive. Without Mills, etc. But. That is no justification for consistently and constantly slagging off other creators and frequently positioning Rebellion as some kind of modern-day evil.