As of yesterday, Pat Mills has launched is own blog (wordpress) and his first article is a MUST read because he comes back to how Dredd has came to life in every details.
https://patmills.wordpress.com/ (https://patmills.wordpress.com/)
Yeah, a fab read. I'd LOVE Wagner to do a blog...
Everything he says sounds good and makes sense. Amazing.
Thanks for that, will give it a read later.
Very cool read. And yeah, you'd think Pat would get more credit as one of the creators of Judge Dredd.
Also a random note, did that musician Judge Dread ever comment on Judge Dredd?
Pat Mills's always entertaining blog chooses highlight the release of Marshal Law by drawing parallels between the first story's burlesquing and perversion of the forms and rhetoric of US superhero comics to critique US foreign policy and the brilliantly named Dan Hassler's Capitalist Superheroes. I like the embarrassed look on Colin Powell's face:
(http://patmills.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/der-spiegal-bush-warriors.jpg?w=625)
" Law was always more than a satire on men in capes, it is also a critique on the fortresses of the establishment – hence the hero hunter's attack on the US corporations trading with the enemy in World War 2 and the role of the US in Vietnam. So it was good to see this book once again delineate how these costumed crusaders have a questionable and unwholesome role in society. They are so much more than a harmless power fantasy designed for our entertainment: in reality a disguise and an endorsement for much that is wrong on our planet, which is why I/Marshal Law loathe them. I explore this further in the afterword to the Marshal Law deluxe edition due out this April
Traumatic military conflict from the American point of view is presented as unavoidable, in which Americans are both innocent victims and heroic protagonists, for reasons that remain incomprehensible and, and ultimately even irrelevant. For the superheroes depicted on the page or on the screen provide fantasies that offer the illusion of momentary escape from the powerless nature of the modern subject, but do so in ways that are defined by their fundamental removal from historical reality, and in forms that are grounded in capitalist processes of passive consumerism. This contradiction is recognisable at the narrative level as well, where characters like Batman, who are made attractive by the rebellious non-conformism of their vigilante behaviour , actually do "little to destabilize accepted notions of justice."
In spite of the film's surface rejection of the military-industrial complex, Iron Man's ideal soldier is presented as a cyborg figure who has incorporated this military technology into his outfit and made it into an essential, even natural part of his physique. As in Batman's use of "immoral" surveillance technology, the film's superficial rejection of the military-industrial complex is contradicted by its ongoing celebration of militarized (and privatized) cutting-edge technologies."
Interesting bit there in the blog. It is kind of ironic in a way that these comics do on the surface try to act like they're taking a stand against things like police abuse or military-industrial complex, but at the same time end up glorifying the whole process. I liked his example with Iron Man, I never gave that much thought.
He ends with the bit about "Right now, Marshal Law seems to be one of the few mainstream comic books that runs counterpoint to this stream of lethal and insidious jingoistic propaganda. I only wish there were more.". I know Dredd can be seen as a dark humor and subtle parody along those lines, but are there any other comics that have done that? This might go beyond 2000 AD of course, just curious.
"john simpson March 11, 2013 at 11:55 pm
Why do you always have to produce such trite Marxist wank-fantasy? Really enjoyed your basic story-telling skills as a teen, but the politicization and hippy bollocks has always demeaned you. Now I'm more politically aware and can see how you were trying to use the comics medium to indoctrinate young minds, I can tell you with a degree of satisfaction that it manifestly failed with myself. In fact, this sort of shit, and the awareness of it, has turned me to the right. In fact, I'm heartily sick of pc bores and alp their works, ukip for me from now on. I guess it's too late in the day to change your style, but my advice would be sick to the story telling and leave the political indoctrination to the experts ..."
Strong words, from the BBC's chief foreign correspondent, who appears to have become a little bit right wing just to spite someone he's never met.
I agree with most of that. Even when Pat Mills still knew how to write, I got a bit tired of him trying to preach a red/green gospel to me.
I think Finn was about when he lost me.
Quote from: sauchie on 15 March, 2013, 11:41:04 PM
"john simpson March 11, 2013 at 11:55 pm
...my advice would be sick to the story telling and leave the political indoctrination to the experts ..."
Strong words, from the BBC's chief foreign correspondent, who appears to have become a little bit right wing just to spite someone he's never met.
Wait a minute, which
experts?
Quote from: sauchie on 15 March, 2013, 11:41:04 PM... but the politicization and hippy bollocks has always demeaned you.
What a complete arsehole. You might not enjoy this aspect of Mills' work and that's fair enough, I feel that way about specific stuff, and you might not approve of the message being conveyed, but in what way does it
demean Pat?
Also,
indoctrination?
Really? Does he think everyone else who writes or creates produces entirely neutral apolitical work intended merely to amuse, that no-one has a point to make or a view to communicate, a way of life to promote or expose? What a dull world he must yearn for. Probably thinks
V for Vendetta is utopian fiction.
Quote from: TordelBack on 16 March, 2013, 09:48:40 AM
Quote from: sauchie on 15 March, 2013, 11:41:04 PM... but the politicization and hippy bollocks has always demeaned you.
What a complete arsehole. You might not enjoy this aspect of Mills' work and that's fair enough, I feel that way about specific stuff, and you might not approve of the message being conveyed, but in what way does it demean Pat?
Also, indoctrination? Really? Does he think everyone else who writes or creates produces entirely neutral apolitical work intended merely to amuse, that no-one has a point to make or a view to communicate, a way of life to promote or expose? What a dull world he must yearn for. Probably thinks V for Vendetta is utopian fiction.
Wow. Did Simpson really say that? He's come off as a massive prick in my opinion.
Quote from: Slip de Garcon on 16 March, 2013, 08:10:27 AM
I agree with most of that. Even when Pat Mills still knew how to write, I got a bit tired of him trying to preach a red/green gospel to me. I think Finn was about when he lost me.
The clunking political allegories in early
ABC Warriors, Robusters, Nemesis and
Slaine suggest Pat lost you around 1978. Everything you've ever read has an idealogical slant to it, even something like Gerry Finley-Day's
Rogue Trooper, although if the world view expressed is close enough to that promoted by the culture in which you are immersed that might not be immediately apparent. I enjoy the way Mills uses political ideas in his work in the same way I enjoy any of the thousands of ideas which pour out of Mills and into his work - for new technology and entire cultures based on puns - because each is just another story element.
I'd agree that
Finn was a story where the world view was not so much expressed as laid on with a shovel, but that's also true of that story's exploitative genre elements, and that slapdash construction is the reason I lost patience with
Finn - not the author's politics. Other stories Mills was writing around that time, such as
Accident Man, and more recent work like the Hammerstein flashback and
Savage, manage to get the balance right, with the description of a certain kind of discourse serving the story being told and being driven by character. I don't share Mills's politics, and I've certainly never been indoctrinated by anything he's written - just entertained.
Quote from: Mabs on 16 March, 2013, 10:09:11 AM
Wow. Did Simpson really say that? He's come off as a massive prick in my opinion.
Mabs, I don't think it was the same John Simpson who claimed to have single-handedly liberated Kabul, or who revealed that Colonel Gaddafi used farting during interviews (http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2011/10/21/female-bodyguards-flamenc_n_1023585.html) in the same way aircraft deploy chaff.
Mills was undoubtably an influence on developing my political awareness. A lot of his work served to highlight a viewpoint on the world I was unaware of and cast doubt on the acceptance of authority and taught me that heroes are defined as much by expedience as actions. It encouraged me to challenge accepted ideas and to consider how and why information is presented as it is. If that was indoctriation-well,there you go.
FWIW I don't agree with everything he says and sometimes feel like I'm being shouted at,but that's Pat-never backward with his passions!
M
Quote from: sauchie on 15 March, 2013, 11:41:04 PM
"john simpson March 11, 2013 at 11:55 pm
Why do you always have to produce such trite Marxist wank-fantasy? Really enjoyed your basic story-telling skills as a teen, but the politicization and hippy bollocks has always demeaned you. Now I'm more politically aware and can see how you were trying to use the comics medium to indoctrinate young minds, I can tell you with a degree of satisfaction that it manifestly failed with myself. In fact, this sort of shit, and the awareness of it, has turned me to the right. In fact, I'm heartily sick of pc bores and alp their works, ukip for me from now on. I guess it's too late in the day to change your style, but my advice would be sick to the story telling and leave the political indoctrination to the experts ..."
Strong words, from the BBC's chief foreign correspondent, who appears to have become a little bit right wing just to spite someone he's never met.
Hello Sauchie, where does this comment originates? I can't find it on Pat's blog newer posts. Older posts?
It echoes a conversation on another topic in this forum, and I still thinks that people often sees political views in Pat Mills writing while he is simply stating facts.
Quote from: Mikey on 16 March, 2013, 10:53:35 AM
Mills was undoubtably an influence on developing my political awareness.
This. And not because he 'indoctrinated' (this makes me so angry) me with his specific viewpoint, but because he showed me that it was possible to make other interesting interpretations of what I saw around me, and that it was possible for explosions and politics to co-exist in a
good way. I know people get annoyed when Pat's heavy-handed points seem to take control of his stories, and worse, his dialogue (it's happened to me), but for all the times he actually makes you think I believe the trade-off is well worth it. Some of my least favourite things in the Prog have been doled out by Pat, but
so many of my favourite things have too.
As I frequently drone on about, there is
nothing as interesting as hearing someone who really loves their subject talking about it - you just can't fake it. And that's Pat.
Pat
is 2000AD, as much as John Wagner is, and the continual presence of his unedited iconoclastic style in the Prog is one thing that Matt Smith has got absolutely right.
Quote from: vark on 16 March, 2013, 11:19:29 AM
Hello Sauchie, where does this comment originates? I can't find it on Pat's blog newer posts. Older posts?
It echoes a conversation on another topic in this forum, and I still thinks that people often sees political views in Pat Mills writing while he is simply stating facts.
Sorry,
Vark, it's always polite to include
a link (http://patmills.wordpress.com/2012/11/17/why-are-we-the-good-guys-new-from-zero-books/?replytocom=947#respond).
'Facts' is a problematic term, since your own personal history and cultural context are going to shape your perceptions of the world. Like
Mikey, my own appreciation of what Mills was doing with his work on stories like
Nemesis and
Marshal Law is based on his demonstrating to me (at an early age) how that cultural conditioning works, and showing how seeing familiar fictional archetypes and political institutions from the perspective of others allows the individual a more nuanced understanding of how they operate and what their true function is.
That insight served me as well during the Thatcher and Major years as it did during the Blair and Brown years, and I'm constantly amazed at the number of educated adults who are either incapable or do not understand the value of that kind of imaginative sympathy. Pat Mills didn't make me think like him regarding specific issues, but he did equip me with a useful skill which applies as much to personal relationships and working life as it does to politics and fiction.
Quote from: TordelBack on 16 March, 2013, 11:44:10 AM
Quote from: Mikey on 16 March, 2013, 10:53:35 AM
Mills was undoubtably an influence on developing my political awareness.
This. And not because he 'indoctrinated' (this makes me so angry) me with his specific viewpoint, but because he showed me that it was possible to make other interesting interpretations of what I saw around me, and that it was possible for explosions and politics to co-exist in a good way. I know people get annoyed when Pat's heavy-handed points seem to take control of his stories, and worse, his dialogue (it's happened to me), but for all the times he actually makes you think I believe the trade-off is well worth it. Some of my least favourite things in the Prog have been doled out by Pat, but so many of my favourite things have too.
As I frequently drone on about, there is nothing as interesting as hearing someone who really loves their subject talking about it - you just can't fake it. And that's Pat.
Pat is 2000AD, as much as John Wagner is, and the continual presence of his unedited iconoclastic style in the Prog is one thing that Matt Smith has got absolutely right.
Reading your post after mine, I can see the truth in
Jayzus's assertion that I'm duplicating an existing service.
Thanks for the link!
But I stand by my use of the word "facts". Marshal Law's world for example is really deeply fueled with south american warfare facts (CIA archives like the one Alan Moore has used for his 'Brought to Light' book). Charley's war has shown us how good and extensive his research works are.
Quote from: vark on 16 March, 2013, 12:13:16 PM
Thanks for the link!
But I stand by my use of the word "facts". Marshal Law's world for example is really deeply fueled with south american warfare facts (CIA archives like the one Alan Moore has used for his 'Brought to Light' book). Charley's war has shown us how good and extensive his research works are.
And in CW, all these facts put together (a great deal of the stories are simply based on testimony and reports) give us the political view that WW1 was indeed a "war of the classes" (so for me it is no longer just a political view, it is a fact).
Quote from: sauchie on 16 March, 2013, 10:43:13 AM
Quote from: Mabs on 16 March, 2013, 10:09:11 AM
Wow. Did Simpson really say that? He's come off as a massive prick in my opinion.
I don't think it was the same John Simpson who claimed to have single-handedly liberated Kabul,
Aww, thats a shame, ;)
When i first read the related post(s), it did leave me scratching my head a bit, and thinking - 'really!?'
Quote from: sauchie on 16 March, 2013, 12:05:29 PM
Reading your post after mine, I can see the truth in Jayzus's assertion that I'm duplicating an existing service.
As I understand it the
real Roberts is retired 20 years and living like a king in Patagonia.
Quote from: vark on 16 March, 2013, 12:13:16 PM
Thanks for the link! But I stand by my use of the word "facts". Marshal Law's world for example is really deeply fueled with south american warfare facts (CIA archives like the one Alan Moore has used for his 'Brought to Light' book). Charley's war has shown us how good and extensive his research works are ... And in CW, all these facts put together (a great deal of the stories are simply based on testimony and reports) give us the political view that WW1 was indeed a "war of the classes" (so for me it is no longer just a political view, it is a fact).
I wouldn't argue with that statement, but obviously the political points being made by depicting capitalists establishment figures as alien parasites (in the story to which the outraged and functionally illiterate Mr Simpson made specific reference) is only true in the broadest possible metaphorical sense.
Even the examples you cite aren't entirely unproblematic. While there's no denying the fact that millions of lower class men were needlessly slaughtered in WWI for no good reason and no real purpose, the attrition rates for recruits drawn from English public schools and the officer class were (proportionally) greater than those from the working classes who made up the rank and file (most of whom enlisted willingly, motivated by patriotism). That doesn't invalidate Mills's characterisation of events, but it does allow you to understand that he's looking at the facts from one particular perspective.
Similarly, few of those who perpetrated or sanctioned the horrors detailed in the Christic Institute's catalogue of abuse and malign influence would deny they took place, but they do argue that those tactics were a response to greater atrocities carried out by the forces ranged against them and that their efforts prevented the greater evils which would accompany Soviet domination of The Americas. I don't share that analysis, but it's undeniable that our own subjective political perspectives affect our interpretation of the contested ideas which lie behind the established facts.
I agree, including facts doesn't make you neutral or devoid of an agenda. There are always other facts. Any writer working facts into fiction does so to create an effect. You select whatever facts that help you create the effect you want and include them, arranging them and associating them with fictional elements to that end. Any facts that don't help you create that effect you leave out as irrelevant. Historians, trying to construct a coherent and meaningful narrative out of diffuse data, do the same. This isn't dishonest, unless you are deliberately excluding facts that you know undermine the point you're making. It's just part of writing. You have to make choices.
A much wiser man than me (which really doesn't narrow it down) once said,
"Everybody's entitled to their own opinions, but nobody is entitled to their own facts."
Sauchie, Patrick, I have to admit that your arguments make sense to me, and indeed I dont believe there was a secret agenda to make WW1 a war of classes. But in the end, one' s can put anything in perspective, it was the result.
Now, to stick with Mr Mills case, a lot of what is saying is enumerating facts (like in WW3 or the latest ABC Warrior arc), casualties or statistics and I agree with you, these facts are put in such a perspective that the reader is leading to make only one conclusion regarding what Pats wants to say. Thing is, everytime I can't think of valid counter arguments. There are so much facts, numbers and statistics that validate his implicite points of view. And I have reached a point in my life where I am also tired to argue against the obvious just for the sake of it (I am not talking about our conversation here). For example I dont want to debate anymore wether the war in Irak was a war for oil or not. In my opinion, it is highly reductive to think that when Pat Mills evoke invading countries for their strategical values (Savage, Volgan war), it is just him stating a political opinion or taking a side.
Quote from: sauchie on 16 March, 2013, 10:34:59 AM
Quote from: Slip de Garcon on 16 March, 2013, 08:10:27 AM
I agree with most of that. Even when Pat Mills still knew how to write, I got a bit tired of him trying to preach a red/green gospel to me. I think Finn was about when he lost me.
The clunking political allegories in early ABC Warriors, Robusters, Nemesis and Slaine suggest Pat lost you around 1978. Everything you've ever read has an idealogical slant to it, even something like Gerry Finley-Day's Rogue Trooper, although if the world view expressed is close enough to that promoted by the culture in which you are immersed that might not be immediately apparent. I enjoy the way Mills uses political ideas in his work in the same way I enjoy any of the thousands of ideas which pour out of Mills and into his work - for new technology and entire cultures based on puns - because each is just another story element.
I'd agree that Finn was a story where the world view was not so much expressed as laid on with a shovel, but that's also true of that story's exploitative genre elements, and that slapdash construction is the reason I lost patience with Finn - not the author's politics. Other stories Mills was writing around that time, such as Accident Man, and more recent work like the Hammerstein flashback and Savage, manage to get the balance right, with the description of a certain kind of discourse serving the story being told and being driven by character. I don't share Mills's politics, and I've certainly never been indoctrinated by anything he's written - just entertained.
You've probably got a point - he was always preachy, but he used to be a better writer. Now his stories just sort of waffle along with very little tension or varaiation in pace.
Quote from: Slip de Garcon on 17 March, 2013, 07:43:25 PMNow his stories just sort of waffle along with very little tension or varaiation in pace.
In your opinion. I don't see it myself, particularly with things like
Savage or
Defoe, where each book has a very distinct tone and pace. I'd agree that the earlier stuff was much denser, but the five-or-ten-page stories that make up most of the individual chapters of the original
ABC Warriors are as much a feature of their time as they are of Pat's writing.
Quote from: TordelBack on 17 March, 2013, 08:26:14 PM
things like Savage or Defoe, where each book has a very distinct tone and pace. I'd agree that the earlier stuff was much denser, but the five-or-ten-page stories that make up most of the individual chapters of the original ABC Warriors are as much a feature of their time as they are of Pat's writing.
Mills burned his way through more ideas in individual pages of the early Nemesis stories than most writers have in their entire careers. He's at his very best when he has collaborators like O'Neill, McMahon and Flint, whose creativity gives him even more ideas to bounce off and story telling options to explore.
Quote from: sauchie on 17 March, 2013, 09:41:24 PM
He's at his very best when he has collaborators like O'Neill, McMahon and Flint, whose creativity gives him even more ideas to bounce off and story telling options to explore.
Absolutely. He's a writer whose relationship to each artist is essential to the way the strip develops - its one of his most fascinating qualities.
Quote from: TordelBack on 17 March, 2013, 08:26:14 PM
Quote from: Slip de Garcon on 17 March, 2013, 07:43:25 PMNow his stories just sort of waffle along with very little tension or varaiation in pace.
In your opinion. I don't see it myself, particularly with things like Savage or Defoe, where each book has a very distinct tone and pace. I'd agree that the earlier stuff was much denser, but the five-or-ten-page stories that make up most of the individual chapters of the original ABC Warriors are as much a feature of their time as they are of Pat's writing.
Well yes, most posting on internet message boards is
someone's opinion, isn't it?
Defoe is a good example - re-reading a few old progs before answering, the pattern seems to be:
Waffle - battle - waffle - battle - waffle - battle...then the story ends, seeming arbitrarily.
I know I'm wrong, because I've been told so already :lol: but I just don't think he's got what it takes any more to write good stories.
Quote from: Slip de Garcon on 18 March, 2013, 07:29:18 AM
Well yes, most posting on internet message boards is someone's opinion, isn't it?
Indeed, but you'll forgive me for observing that Mills being a bad writer
is an opinion, rather than a statement of fact, on the official forum of the comic he created and writes about a sixth of the strips for.
I'm not trying to shout you down, you're entitled to enjoy or not enjoy what you want (it's your money, and Mills always gets a reaction), but rather to put the opinion in context.
I have this theory that he is the only one to remember that he is basically writing for a boy comics magazine.
Quote from: vark on 18 March, 2013, 09:04:39 PM
I have this theory that he is the only one to remember that he is basically writing for a boy comics magazine.
This^
I think Pat Mills is a phenomenal writer; I may not always like what I read, I may not always agree with what I read but the skill with which he does it is undeniable.
Pat Mills have put on his wordpress site part of a story he wrote for a short lived newspaper News on Sunday called Scatha who was a female Slaine & was drawn by Glen Fabry
there is also a 2nd story called Summer of Love by Bendan MacCarthy & Peter Milligan
http://patmills.wordpress.com
Quote from: rogue69 on 26 March, 2013, 03:26:43 AM
Pat Mills have put on his wordpress site part of a story he wrote for a short lived newspaper News on Sunday called Scatha who was a female Slaine & was drawn by Glen Fabry. There is also a 2nd story called Summer of Love by Bendan MacCarthy & Peter Milligan
http://patmills.wordpress.com
That's fantastic, well done
David (and Mary). That deserves a repost on the McCarthy thread too.
Cheers Sauchie, there wiil be more in the forthcoming Comics Archive about Scatha and the News on SUnday, and mayby some unpublished episodes too.
David
Quote from: maryanddavid on 26 March, 2013, 02:27:19 PM
Cheers Sauchie, there wiil be more in the forthcoming Comics Archive about Scatha and the News on SUnday, and mayby some unpublished episodes too.
David
Keep us in touch!
Quote from: maryanddavid on 26 March, 2013, 02:27:19 PM
Cheers Sauchie, there wiil be more in the forthcoming Comics Archive about Scatha and the News on SUnday, and mayby some unpublished episodes too.
David
More about
Scatha. I was wondering if
Pat Mills and
Glenn Fabry were ever going to continue this story.
I actually asked Pat Mills on his blog wether he would ever continue Scatha and he said he and Glenn Fabry were too busy on other projects.
Pat Mills never disappoints, and this irreverent and timely blog entry contains some great Hunt Emerson artwork too.
YOU ARE MAGGIE THATCHER: a dole-playing game (http://patmills.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/ding-dong/)
Pat must be at a loose end at the moment. A fantastically bitchy tease about what might be coming out of the Mills gob in the new Futures Shock documentary about 2000ad (http://patmills.wordpress.com/2013/04/11/futureshock-the-story-of-2000ad/) (the accompanying photographs reveal that Mills is a Mac Man) and another post concerning the Nemesis dolls (http://patmills.wordpress.com/2013/04/11/nemesis-the-cute-warlock/), which also cunningly shows you what that inexpensive Marshal Law collection you're expecting Amazon to deliver any day now will look on your bookshelf.
Matt Smith aside, has Pat Mills ever spoke kindly of
any Tharg, or failed to accuse them of conspiring to destroy him personally and spike all his best work? This is vintage Mills, even better than his
Thrillpower Overload and ECBT2000ad outbursts:
QuoteMM: When you later paired Nemesis with the A.B.C. Warriors, was it done in order to give you extra freedom crea2vely and allow you to explore a mul2tude of different ideas with the team? What do you think it brought to the stories and added to the characters?
Pat Mills: It was a desperate means to bring the characters back! You see ABC Warriors ended with a conflict between myself and the editor. I had been promised one or two ar4sts, but then it was scheduled too soon and it ended up with mul4ple ar4sts. The self-contained stories saved the story from total annihila4on - and actually makes it look as if it was designed that way, but it wasn't. I made it work to fit the various ar4sts, but I was not happy. Then, as I got to the end of the story, I saw it had long term poten4al and wanted to con4nue. The editor - (Steve) McManus - said "no", even though it was wildly popular, probably because of our disagreement. I actually swore never to work for him again I was so pissed off with his cavalier a6tude to an important new story.
So there was a break before I finally, cau4ously, came back on Nemesis with one shot stories. Subsequently, if you look at the editorials of the 4me, you will see they were constantly telling the readers the ABC Warriors were coming back which was simply not true. They were bullshi6ng the readers as no one on the editorial - neither the editor nor his assistant editor - actually wanted me to write a new ABC saga. I think because this very popular robot team were taking the shine away from other stories and their other plans at the 4me. And they knew I would insist on "ge6ng it right this 4me" which meant too much work at their end. It was easier to just let the ABC Warriors quietly fade away into the sunset. That kind of passive aggression response is hard to prove and may seem bizarre, but it did go on at that 4me, I'm afraid.
But worse - Kevin, Mike and Dave were all doing new projects and no other ar4st wanted or was capable of drawing the robots. They were incredibly difficult to draw - just one group shot could take up half a page! No one was interested. And, more significantly, no one was ever offered to me - which kinda proves my point. So when Bryan said he was interested in drawing and featuring them in Nemesis I jumped at the chance! It was a way out. It was the only way to get them back. "Through the back door" if you like. So they were in a "holding pattern" in Nemesis un4l new opportuni4es and a more suppor4ve regime came along. The ABCs and Nemesis went together okay, but like I say it was a desperate measure on my part to stop the Warriors being quietly filed away and forgo5en about which was a very strong possibility at that 4me!
http://massmovement.co.uk/mass-movement-40-now/ (http://massmovement.co.uk/mass-movement-40-now/)
The Millsverse (http://millsverse.com), Pat Mills's new website, begins with a big bang, and contains a special thank you to one of you lot:
QuoteI think the name 'The Millsverse' originated on the 2000AD forum as a way of describing the numerous stories I've written for 2000AD and the way they often inter-connect with each other. So, first up, a special thanks to whoever came up with that name.
I've wanted to do a website for some time to keep readers up to date with what's happening to stories I'm connected with. For instance, there's always interest in some of my classic comic strips and whether they will be reprinted. Here's the current position on three I'm regularly asked about.
Metalzoic: There's an 80% chance of it being reprinted next year in a new colour version wit the original black and white 2000AD version.
Misty: 70% chance of two of its lead stories being reprinted in a similar time frame.
Third World War: 50% chance of it being reprinted. Sorry I have to be a bit vague, but I think there finally is some progress on all three. I'll be sure to post as soon as I have more details.
http://millsverse.com
Cheers for the link, sauchie. Pat goes on to mention various obscure and highly eccentric-sounding strips that are past favourites of his, but I am not entirely convinced they are all real. For instance:
QuoteThe Caning Commando (The Spanker) A teacher at a posh boarding school during World War Two is renowned for his caning skills. He is sent by the War Office – aided by his Cockney, fish and chips eating assistant 'Corporal Punishment' - on secret caning missions against the Nazis.
I tried to google it. I regret that now.
Quote from: Greg M. on 11 August, 2014, 08:14:00 PM
Cheers for the link, sauchie. Pat goes on to mention various obscure and highly eccentric-sounding strips that are past favourites of his, but I am not entirely convinced they are all real. For instance:
QuoteThe Caning Commando (The Spanker) A teacher at a posh boarding school during World War Two is renowned for his caning skills. He is sent by the War Office – aided by his Cockney, fish and chips eating assistant 'Corporal Punishment' - on secret caning missions against the Nazis.
I tried to google it. I regret that now.
That sounds simply awesome.
I mean the story' not the googling bit.
Quote from: sauchie post office on 11 August, 2014, 08:01:02 PM... contains a special thank you to one of you lot
Earliest use of the term that I could find was from Godders, back in 2005, and while Roger is unquestionably an inventive bugger it seems like it's been around longer than that. Can someone with better google skillz push that back?
Quote from: Greg M. on 11 August, 2014, 08:14:00 PM
Cheers for the link, sauchie. Pat goes on to mention various obscure and highly eccentric-sounding strips that are past favourites of his, but I am not entirely convinced they are all real. For instance:
QuoteThe Caning Commando (The Spanker) A teacher at a posh boarding school during World War Two is renowned for his caning skills. He is sent by the War Office – aided by his Cockney, fish and chips eating assistant 'Corporal Punishment' - on secret caning missions against the Nazis.
I tried to google it. I regret that now.
Do you think they'll meet up with Alex's Vampire Vixens?
Quote from: TordelBack on 12 August, 2014, 07:59:48 AM
Quote from: sauchie post office on 11 August, 2014, 08:01:02 PM... contains a special thank you to one of you lot
Earliest use of the term that I could find was from Godders, back in 2005, and while Roger is unquestionably an inventive bugger it seems like it's been around longer than that. Can someone with better google skillz push that back?
Oh please let that be ground zero for the concept of the Millsverse. A photograph on the Input page of Mills grinning amiably as he pumps the fist of a scowling Roger Godpleton would make my decade.
Mills on fine after dinner form, recounting all the times producers have sworn they're going to put his characters on the silver screen:
We got it wrong on Marshal Law when we backed McG who was very serious about doing it - just before he released Terminator 3. His take on Law made it all the way up to the studio boardroom where it got the thumbs down. And meanwhile we turned down The Rock, who wanted to option Law, although I have to say – in our defence – he was in Tooth Fairy mode at the time.
http://millsverse.com/blog/4585194099
Doesn't this sound a bit like Mill's American Reaper?
http://cultfix.co.uk/intruders-creeps-on-to-bbc-2-27335.htm
Quote from: IAMTHESYSTEM on 07 September, 2014, 11:44:16 AM
Doesn't this sound a bit like Mill's American Reaper?
http://cultfix.co.uk/intruders-creeps-on-to-bbc-2-27335.htm
Michael Marshall Smith's novel, The Intruders (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Marshall_Smith#Novels), was published in 2007.
On the Comixology Millsverse front, volume 3 of Requiem Vampire Knight is in the shop since yesterday evening (and still 2.49£).
It contents another new exclusive intro and a bonus illustration (from the ex libris in French first box set).
I only got volume 1 of Vampire Knight... a couple of weeks back. I don't realise they were that far ahead on Comixology...
there's an interesting 2 part interview on the Millsverse site Pat done with an Australian station Radioactive Lounge were he talks about his writing process, Girl's comics and falling asleep in a Marvel meeting with Stan Lee
http://radioactivelounge.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/radioactive-lounge-episode-4-pat-mills.html
Rob Williams refers to it as 'process', Pat Mills terms it a 'formula' here. I call it:
HOW TO WRITE COMICS
THE PAT MILLS WAY (http://www.millsverse.com/blog/4585194099/THE-FORMULA-Part-1---Inspiration/8943123)
TL;DR version: rip off something popular, think who you want to piss off, think who you want to draw it
"On Battle, John Wagner, creator of Dredd, and I wrote a great Rat Pack story. Beautifully drawn by Ezquerra, it had well-researched techno detail and a relatively sophisticated story. To our chagrin it wasn't that popular.
The next week, having run out of time, we quickly threw together in an afternoon a really crappy Rat Pack story set in a Gestapo torture cell with every medieval torture cliche imaginable. Worse, it was drawn by a B list artist, the only one who was available in the time. To our astonishment it was hugely popular with the readers. It was a harsh reminder that the readers may have different, lower or simpler expectations to us.
So it's vitally important to really study the market, the demographic and what readers are looking for. The answers may surprise us and may not always be what we want to hear. But they pay our wages so we must listen to them. That's how I've managed to stay in business."
http://www.millsverse.com/blog/4585194099/THE-FORMULA-Part-4---STEPS-and-STRAW-POLLS/8981713
Pat Mills is always worth his tuppence, great link Sauchie.