Get Mills and Wagner to write a one-off story each. Don't tell anyone, but swap the names over on the credits.
Now sit back and watch everyone praise the Mills story that has Wagners name on it and slag off the Wagner story that has Mills name on it.
Just a theory.
That's a rubbish theory. How could either write a story without putting his own hallmarks on it?
Nah, you'd be able to tell, unless they deliberately imitated each other. Hmm, now THAT could be funny :o)
Ooh, it's like the "popular brand of cola" challenge!
No one would believe John Wagner would write about feminism, crystals and hippy ideology.
It might work if they knew what was going to happen, because they might try to alter their style a little.
Otherwise, I reckon the average fan could always tell the difference.
- Trout
Mills is quite good at getting cool ideas and even presenting them first time but he starts to spank the monkey pretty quickly as he tends to go past the sell by date and milk it too much
Wanger however is a God of the one shot he can make you laugh cry and applaud in just five pages
Don?t get me wrong Mills is a force to be reckoned with (lets face it we are all here because of him) but it?s just his Hollywood sequels syndrome that fecks it up
he is American isn?t he?
"No one would believe John Wagner would write about feminism, crystals and hippy ideology"
Steady on! Not for the sake of it, he wouldn't; but if it made a good subject for a piss-take in a Judge Dredd story, sure he would.
If it made a bad subject for a piss-take in a Judge Dredd story, then Alan Grant, come on down.
"Wanger however is a God of the one shot"
Best.Typo.Evah!
Oh ma sides
ah cursed lexdixia
but yes i see the humour :D
Mills and Wagner co-wrote four of the first five stories for Doctor Who Weekly and I've always enjoyed figuring out who brought what to each story.
The Iron Legion is probably mostly Wagner. City of the Damned mostly Mills, as is Star Beast, which is incredibly fun and the best of the four. Having Gibbons on art helps - compare the last episode of that to the second part of the ABC Warriors "Cyboons" story. Dogs of Doom is probably Wagner - Joe Bean's CB slang was reused almost entirely for Ace Garp.
The differences between their approaches has always been there. Compare The Return of Rico to the stories which preceded and followed it, and it's obvious the same person wasn't behind them all.
Or look at the early 1990s, where Wagner was exploring the nobility in standing up for one's humanity against oppression in "America" while Mills was so jaded that his heroes (Deadlock, Slaine, Finn) could only stand up for themselves if a superhuman beastie (Khaos, Danu) had given them both permission and special powers to do so.
Mills has improved tenfold since that slump; his recent work has been much more entertaining and exciting, but he's no more capable of writing Bogie Man than Wagner is of writing Black Siddha.
--Grant
I suspect I would notice.
Ten years ago it would have been harder.
You could tell fairly easily I suspect, irrespective of time.
be interesting to see if people are as good at spotting Rennie and Wagner I suspect.
I'm sure someone suggested something similar the other day....
Have a completely uncredited prog, with all one off stories and have a competition to guess the creators.
I think that was me as well, Oddboy: once I have a new drum I like to bang it a lot.
Funnily enough, Tweak old boy, it's the other way around.
Wagner originally hails from the U.S.
ah i thought it was summit like that
Mills
Now Wagner.
"Then" Mills.
I'm just a comic WHORE apparently...
Mills I said!!!
christ I remember the days when just saying his name provoked a nuclear crisis..times they are a changing..
i only notice the names when somethings annoyed me.
I'd be like " oh look a females about to be raped for nagging someone it must be Mills .... Bloody hell ! its wagner ! how wierd !"
I was going to mention the Doctor Whos as a good (if very old) test of this kind of thing. IIRC, you can tell who actually wrote up the stories that Mills and Wagner came up with for Doctor Who by looking at who gets the credit first.
If correct, that would make Mills the 'main' writer on Iron Legion and Star Beast and Wagner main writer on City of the Damned and Dogs of Doom
See also 'Return of the Mekon' from Eagle (1982), a Wagner/Mills collaboration. There's a scene in which the Mayor of London says that, despite a mometary lapse, his heart still belongs to the melon-headed one. The Mekon then says summat along the lines of "Very well, cut out his heart and dispose of the rest". Compare that with Chief Judge Cal saying much the same about Mayor Jim Grubb's hands in 'The Day the Law Died'. So I guess that's Wagner's.
Likewise, when Mills is wrapping up the storyline long after Wagner's departure, the Mekon, having captured Dan Dare, divulges his plan to turn Dare into a Treen. Similarly, Call-Me-Kenneth threatens to make Dredd a robot in 'Robot Wars', so I guess that one's Pat's.
[sorry]
That Deafndumb Lad sure plays a mean thrill-ball.
[/sorry]