He was a great Labour leader, and brews a nice bitter.
But back to our John Smith.
I often wonder why he wasn't snapped up by the yanks and elevated to Morrison-like levels of splendour. The one thing I've ever seen him do for the Big 2* was a Hellblazer one-off, and it was brilliant and very scary, despite only being about John Constantine doing his washing down the laundrette.
Prog-wise, there are very few writers of his calibre. A few of his achievements:
Devlin Waugh: First openly gay lead character in the Tharg-verse, and an incredibly atmospheric story to go with him.
Killing Time: Just excellent.
Cradlegrave: One of 2000ad's best stories ever, in my humble opinion. And the first piece of chav fiction I'd ever seen, beating Attack the Block by a year or so,
Cinnabar: The best Rogue Trooper story every published.
Most of his Dredds: Very good. Captures Dredd's nature perfectly.
The old Indigo Prime stuff like Fervent and Lobe: Enjoyable and managed to fit some really, really filthy jokes into what was still essentially a kids' comic.
Revere: I liked it, anyway. Nobody does disturbingly atmospheric like John Smith. Also a great message for all the kids: Chew glass and you can spit corrosive stomach acids like a boss!
While I'm absolutely baffled that Mark Millar is an international superstar and John Smith isn't, I'm not complaining. I want him in the prog forever.
*And suddenly it dawns on me why Kenny Who's would-be publisher was called Big 1.
John Smith is a top writer, unmissable storyteller, big thumbs up Z
Won't get any argument from me. John is in my all-time Top 5 2000AD writers - I've greatly enjoyed pretty much everything he's done, and always get a thrill when I see he has something new on the way.
Personal favourites are Firekind, New Statesmen, Cradlegrave, Fervent and Lobe (prefer them to Winwood and Cord), later Devlin Waugh, most of Tyranny Rex and A Love Like Blood. I also rate Slaughterbowl quite highly. He has a unique skill with mixing concepts and language to create rich little worlds, and he gives artists superb things to draw. He also has an Alan-Mooreish ability to create intriguing characters with nothing more than a name and a passing mention.
Smiffy also wrote Scarab for Vertigo. This was a re-tooled version of his Dr Fate proposal and, from the sounds of it, John didn't find himself a good fit with the US for some reason, given that the book was curtailed from an ongoing to an eight-issue mini which he was only too happy to wrap up.
(I haven't read it, so I've no idea whether it was any good.)
Cheers
Jim
Yeah as rumour would have it the fact that Karen Berger didn't get on with John Smith's work (how true that is I don't know but somehow that's my understanding) is Vertigo's lose and the Galaxies Greatest's gain. I've said it here before but John Smith is very possibly my favourite 2000ad writer - he is quite brilliant.
When recently(ish) I did a re-read of all his 2000ad (and related) works that I have in roughly chronological order the quality of his material grew and grew until around Firekind it hit a real Zenith (pun intended). At that point he produced the aforementioned Firekind, Devlin Waugh - Swimming in Blood, Deux Machina, New Statemen over a few years. A set of stories that are frighteningly good.
He's continued to produce wonderful work with Cradlegrave and the Sirius Rising trilogy for me joining the above as some of the greatest, if not the greatest stories we've ever had in 2000ad.
I'm tired and emotional so I'll not go on anymore except to say I. LOVE. JOHN. SMITH!
It actually isn't too surprising John Smith isn't a international superstar like Millar or Ennis. His rather a bit... deliberate with his content output. I mean, over the last 10 years he's had, what? 4? 5? strips run in 2000 AD? And that's considering Dead Eyes and Indigo Prime as separate strips.
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE John Smith. Leatherjack came out at a formative time for me, and Firekind got reprinted in the Extreme Edition at the same time. Both were killer. Cradlegrave was creepy as fuck (though it ran during my 2 year hiatus and I read it for the first time in trade form). and the return on Indigo Prime has been a breath of fresh air.
But I've been waiting, what? 7 years for Devlin Waugh to make his big return. And, man, now I remember the return of Tyranny Rex back in 2004/5. That also went nowhere (hey, can we at least get Deus Ex Machina reprinted in the Meg floppy Tharg? That'd be killer.).
You can't become a super star if you don't, you know, put out content at a reliable pace.
Quote from: The Adventurer on 08 April, 2014, 11:02:30 PM
You can't become a super star if you don't, you know, put out content at a reliable pace.
Bang on the money. The quality/popularity of his work is rarely in question, but he must be one of the slowest writers out there. Devlin Waugh's always great fun and the new Indigo Prime was some of my
absolute favourite prog stuff of the last ten years, but none of it's got any momentum behind it as the appearances are so few and far between.
Mores the pity (no pun intended). I remember his stuff in the prog and crises from the start. He was, I think, at his apogee with Firekind and Tyranny Rex and was for a 5-6 year period, fairly prolific. Z.
Quote from: The Adventurer on 08 April, 2014, 11:02:30 PM
Leatherjack came out at a formative time for me...
Criminally I missed out Leatherjack out of my list of the ultimate John Smith stories and it needs to be that list.
Yeah. I imagine Tordelback and Colin have already told you my thoughts on the matter: basically, John Smith's great.
Aside from an element of luck, I don't think it's too difficult to see why he hasn't caught on in the same way as his peers. His stuff doesn't have quite the same shiny, populist edge which the likes of Grant have. Added to that he is, anecdotally, a fairly slow writer and, to me, generally seems more interested in creating a whole world for his story to inhabit than in expanding that into something ongoing. Firekind, Revere and Cradlegrave are all fantastic partly because they are complete in themselves.
Yep. Firekind, Leatherjack and Cradlegrave (all three titles use the Smith trick of stapling two words together to form a new word that your brain thinks it's heard before that pepper his eloquent scripts) are three of my all time favourite 2000 AD strips.
Each one confounds reader expectation and takes the story to places you never expected. Each one features stand out characters and scenes that will forever be etched onto my brain. Love the man and his work.
Truly a fantastic comics writer. A great gift for both high concept sci-fi and disturbing body horror, with wonderful use of language. I love that you always get the sense that you're never quite meant to know what's going on. He's like 2000ad's own William Burroughs.
As is customary whenever threads about Smith turn up, can I just repeat my call for a collected Tyranny Rex and a "Collected Smith" trade featuring Revere, Firekind and Slaughterbowl (plus his Future Shocks).
In my opinion, the reasons he's not up there with Morrison et al in the success stakes are his somewhat esoteric writing, and his tendency to write completely new works. I mean, his only recurring stories are Waugh, Tyranny Rex and Indigo Prime (and the last of those has, until recently, been a revolving cast list). Writing pace is always going to suffer when you cram in so many new ideas in each story.
I'd like to throw into the mix his Rogue Trooper (Friday) one-off Shock Tactics from the '93 Sci-Fi Special, which is creepy, kinetic, haunting, and made quite an impression on me as a twelve-year-old.
Quote from: Spaceghost on 09 April, 2014, 08:18:29 AM
Yep. Firekind, Leatherjack and Cradlegrave (all three titles use the Smith trick of stapling two words together to form a new word that your brain thinks it's heard before that pepper his eloquent scripts) are three of my all time favourite 2000 AD strips.
To be fair, sometimes your brain HAS heard them before. I'm pretty sure there were leatherjacks in a previous John Smith strip (possibly a Devlin Waugh one?) and
Lokkk'hs in more than one strip too. Even character names are recycled: There's a Hendrik Larsen in both
Firekind and
Cinnabar.I'd forgotten about
Firekind! Pure brilliance, and better than Avatar, which is
ripped off from COINCIDENTALLY QUITE SIMILAR TO IT. It was John Smith who pretty much single-handedly kept me buying 2000ad in an era of low-quality Ennis Dredds and stories about sheep police.
Indigo Prime is one of my favourite comics. Ever. Their I said it.
Also, Firekind is hella rad. Devlin Waugh to. Yeah, Smithy is our golden nugget of brilliance that only get's brought out every once in a while.
Also, didn't Scarab get absorbed into Indigo Prime when John got board of it?
Huge Firekind, Indigo Prime & Tyranny Rex fan here too, and Slaughterbowl was the highlight of the Summer Offensive.
Wish Tharg would give him a slot every single week.
Quote from: The Cosh on 09 April, 2014, 08:08:00 AM
Aside from an element of luck, I don't think it's too difficult to see why he hasn't caught on in the same way as his peers. His stuff doesn't have quite the same shiny, populist edge which the likes of Grant have. Added to that he is, anecdotally, a fairly slow writer and, to me, generally seems more interested in creating a whole world for his story to inhabit than in expanding that into something ongoing. Firekind, Revere and Cradlegrave are all fantastic partly because they are complete in themselves.
That sums it up, for me. Smith's is an enormous but undisciplined talent, and he seems much more interested in the childhood reverie of creation than the solid graft required to construct a continuing narrative. He's like Brendan McCarthy in that respect, and in the alternate reality where
2000ad is the kind of multi-media IP factory that Marvel has become, he and Smith would spend all day fashioning new characters and worlds for more ordinary talents to take forward.
Quote from: sauchie on 09 April, 2014, 06:44:01 PM..and in the alternate reality where 2000ad is the kind of multi-media IP factory that Marvel has become, he and Smith would spend all day fashioning new characters and worlds for more ordinary talents to take forward.
Man, there's a vision of some beauty and no mistake.
Still, I think I prefer the notion that John writes what he wants when he wants. I can see that that fits the definition of 'undisciplined', but I would never want to weigh a writer's worth by the number of words they type.
Yeah you do kinda get the feeling that John Smith is so good cos he writes what he wants to write when he wants to write it and doesn't compromise.
The work of his I get on with least (and this is all relative my not getting on with something of John Smith's is like me really liking someone else's work!) tends to be the stuff he does for other people's characters. his Dredd has had its moments but its amongst his weakest for me.
I dream of a world where there's a John Smith story in the Prog every week, but I accept and cherish the fact that what we have is probably what makes him so good.
Colin, his Dredd had some seriously creepy Gila munja. Oh how I'm basking in the sheer remonisancely coolness of this thread. Jesus the calssic Tyranny Rex in the nunnery story....that haunts me even still, Ganzfeldters wow! Z
I would like to see a collected Tyranny Rex. I assume it has not been done yet because it would mean scanning the artwork for the later series.
if you need reminding of the amazingness of Tyranny Rex...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjqTVcmVb7c
I always hoped she'd be folded back into Indigo Prime. I love so much of the art - Will Simpson, Dillon & especially the Buckingham stuff.
That's beautiful. Get on it ASAP, Robo-Keef.
I had no idea so much of Tyranny was in colour - if you'd asked me I'd have sworn everything but the last series was B&W.
Quote from: robert_ellis on 10 April, 2014, 12:17:00 PM
I always hoped she'd be folded back into Indigo Prime. I love so much of the art - Will Simpson, Dillon & especially the Buckingham stuff.
To me, the 'classic period' Paul Marshall stuff is tops.
This and Firekind, his other collaboration with Smith, are his very best works.
Quote from: Colin_YNWA on 09 April, 2014, 09:27:58 PM
The work of his I get on with least (and this is all relative my not getting on with something of John Smith's is like me really liking someone else's work!) tends to be the stuff he does for other people's characters. his Dredd has had its moments but its amongst his weakest for me.
Not so sure about that. Apart from a couple of niggles (letting that Karaoke killer car do the dirty work of killing gangsters; [spoiler]letting those[/spoiler] bungee thieves [spoiler]go scot-free[/spoiler]) I've found his Dredd to be pretty much spot-on; he was my favourite 'other' Dredd writer till Al Ewing came on the scene. Also, I found his gallows-humour take on Robohunter to be far superior to the stuff Millar was doing on the character at the time (I know that's not saying much, but still...).
And Rogue Trooper... well, I've already mentioned that. Cinnabar, despite all the crazy sci-fi elements, actually felt like a real war. (Or at least a realistic war film; I can't say I've ever experienced a real war.) For the first time in Rogue history, the soldiers seemed human and the violence was shocking and sickening.
Where JS has really shone, though, is when he was given other writers' universes to play with, without necessarily including the usual main characters. There was a lovely MC1 text story in a special called Animal House, and another Strontium Dogs one.
Quote from: robert_ellis on 10 April, 2014, 12:17:00 PM
I always hoped she'd be folded back into Indigo Prime.
So many wonderful things to take away from this thread ...
1. We need a collected Tyranny Rex
2. It would be utterly fantastic to have Tyranny reappear as a recurring character in the current Indigo Prime run
3. A John Smith/Brendan McCarthy collaboration needs to happen now and I'm utterly shocked no-one has made this happen sooner.
Just stumbled across something I'd never read before: A John Smith Rogue Trooper text story. Really, really enjoyed it; though it is extremely disturbing. There's something about it that really captures the absolute horror of being born and bred a killing machine with human emotions. It's very possible a reworking of the Justice Department Cadets idea JS had for the Megazine that never came to fruition.
And it was Friday Rogue Trooper, too. Maybe if the series had been handed to John Smith instead of Michael Fleischer after The War Machine, things could have been very different.
Quote from: JayzusB.Christ on 06 May, 2014, 10:19:54 AM
Just stumbled across something I'd never read before: A John Smith Rogue Trooper text story. Really, really enjoyed it; though it is extremely disturbing. There's something about it that really captures the absolute horror of being born and bred a killing machine with human emotions. It's very possible a reworking of the Justice Department Cadets idea JS had for the Megazine that never came to fruition.
And it was Friday Rogue Trooper, too. Maybe if the series had been handed to John Smith instead of Michael Fleischer after The War Machine, things could have been very different.
Why was anything handed to Michael Fleischer . . .
May I play Devils Advocate and say that sometimes his work is a little too high brow? He is a fan of the disjointed panel with an unrelated image and unrelated text.
You only have to see this Progs first issue of the new Indigo Prime to see those two sci fi/storytelling staples which should be avoided as TOO obvious, Crucifixion and Nazis.
Still would prefer to see him write for 2000ad rather than be poached away though!
Quote from: Skullmo on 06 May, 2014, 10:55:24 AM
Why was anything handed to Michael Fleischer . . .
It's not
what you know...
Cheers
Jim
I still struggle to think of a single page of Fleischer's 2000AD work that I enjoyed - I'm pretty sure that's a distinction he alone holds*. Every other forum whipping boy has produced something of merit for the prog, even Millar.
So by definition John's Friday would have been an improvement, but it also might have been good, even though I don't think he's an obvious fit, Cinnabar and annual stuff notwithstanding.
* Miller doesn't count since his single commission was rightly binned before it saw print.
Me, I can only think of four Rogue Troopers by John Smith: That text one I was talking about, Cinnabar, and two more Friday ones illustrated by Chris Weston ( One had a character called the Magdalene, and the other had a sort of haunted house full of meat ghosts). They were all good, though.
And to veer off-topic a bit, I thought Mark Millar's one-off about the alien-run torture chamber was great too; though quite clearly lifted from Bad Company.
Can anyone remember where this Rogue Trooper text story was? Don't recall that at all.
Quote from: oshii on 25 June, 2014, 05:10:18 PM
Can anyone remember where this Rogue Trooper text story was? Don't recall that at all.
Barney says... (http://www.2000ad.org/?zone=thrill&page=profiles&Comic=Specials&choice=friday) the 1993 Yearbook
You're a gent, sir. An absolute gent.
Just realised JP Maybe mentioned that text story on the very first page of this thread. Completely missed it; sorry. It was a horrific story, but really really good - I'm not sure if I mentioned this before but I bet some of the ideas for Smiffy's never-completed Cadets (planned for the first Megazine ever) were recycled here.
http://forums.2000adonline.com/index.php/topic,40355.msg820583.html#msg820583 (http://forums.2000adonline.com/index.php/topic,40355.msg820583.html#msg820583)
Quote from: The Cosh on 25 June, 2014, 05:28:34 PM
Quote from: oshii on 25 June, 2014, 05:10:18 PM
Can anyone remember where this Rogue Trooper text story was? Don't recall that at all.
Barney says... (http://www.2000ad.org/?zone=thrill&page=profiles&Comic=Specials&choice=friday) the 1993 Yearbook
Barney is mistaken - the text story is indeed by John Smith, but it's an Indigo Prime. It's got the Smith and Weston "Enfleshings" story in it, though.
The Rogue Trooper text story 'Marching as to War' is in the 1991 Rogue Trooper annual.
Quote from: Lobo Baggins on 26 June, 2014, 02:07:34 PM
Quote from: The Cosh on 25 June, 2014, 05:28:34 PM
Quote from: oshii on 25 June, 2014, 05:10:18 PM
Can anyone remember where this Rogue Trooper text story was? Don't recall that at all.
Barney says... (http://www.2000ad.org/?zone=thrill&page=profiles&Comic=Specials&choice=friday) the 1993 Yearbook
Barney is mistaken - the text story is indeed by John Smith, but it's an Indigo Prime. It's got the Smith and Weston "Enfleshings" story in it, though.
The Rogue Trooper text story 'Marching as to War' is in the 1991 Rogue Trooper annual.
Let's not blame Barney for what is, quite clearly, operator error. I suppose the artist credit should have alerted me...
That text story isn't listed at all. Any idea of the page count so I can update the listing?
Imagine waking up on Christmas morning to a whole annual full of Fleisher Rogue (http://www.2000ad.org/?zone=prog&page=specials&choice=ROGUE91)! No wonder people stopped buying them.
Quote from: The Cosh on 26 June, 2014, 02:32:11 PM
Quote from: Lobo Baggins on 26 June, 2014, 02:07:34 PM
Quote from: The Cosh on 25 June, 2014, 05:28:34 PM
Quote from: oshii on 25 June, 2014, 05:10:18 PM
Can anyone remember where this Rogue Trooper text story was? Don't recall that at all.
Barney says... (http://www.2000ad.org/?zone=thrill&page=profiles&Comic=Specials&choice=friday) the 1993 Yearbook
Barney is mistaken - the text story is indeed by John Smith, but it's an Indigo Prime. It's got the Smith and Weston "Enfleshings" story in it, though.
The Rogue Trooper text story 'Marching as to War' is in the 1991 Rogue Trooper annual.
Let's not blame Barney for what is, quite clearly, operator error. I suppose the artist credit should have alerted me...
That text story isn't listed at all. Any idea of the page count so I can update the listing?
Imagine waking up on Christmas morning to a whole annual full of Fleisher Rogue (http://www.2000ad.org/?zone=prog&page=specials&choice=ROGUE91)! No wonder people stopped buying them.
'Marching as to War', 8 pages, Text by John Smith, Illustrations by Chris Weston.
There's also a couple of GFD era reprints in it too, and a couple of Future Shocks... but yeah, it definitely seems to be a cynical way of disposing of a few bought but unwanted Fleisher scripts as quickly as possible (Steve Dillon is clearly quite annoyed and has spent maybe five minutes a page on his strip...)
Quote from: JayzusB.Christ on 26 June, 2014, 01:36:31 PM
Just realised JP Maybe mentioned that text story on the very first page of this thread. Completely missed it; sorry. It was a horrific story, but really really good - I'm not sure if I mentioned this before but I bet some of the ideas for Smiffy's never-completed Cadets (planned for the first Megazine ever) were recycled here.
http://forums.2000adonline.com/index.php/topic,40355.msg820583.html#msg820583 (http://forums.2000adonline.com/index.php/topic,40355.msg820583.html#msg820583)
I'm mistaken too. It was a different one he meant. But yeah, everyone should read 'Marching as to War', it makes up for all the Fleischer scripts that surround it
Quote from: The Cosh on 26 June, 2014, 02:32:11 PM
Imagine waking up on Christmas morning to a whole annual full of Fleisher Rogue (http://www.2000ad.org/?zone=prog&page=specials&choice=ROGUE91)! No wonder people stopped buying them
The decision to produce a Rogue Trooper Annual always baffled me. Do you think they put it out just to get rid of all the scripts Fleisher was inundating the Command Module with?
I have it sitting in the 'water closet' incase of a toilet paper drought! Seriously though apart from the Will Simpson cover, one of the future shocks? About the time slip and the missiles revisiting the general and the J Smith story it isnt good. Z
Quote from: ZenArcade on 26 June, 2014, 06:34:50 PMSeriously though apart from the Will Simpson cover, one of the future shocks? About the time slip and the missiles revisiting the general and the J Smith story it isnt good. Z
"What has the Rogue Trooper Annual ever done for us?"
Oh Tordel arent you the wise old devil.
Quote from: The Cosh on 26 June, 2014, 02:32:11 PM
Imagine waking up on Christmas morning to a whole annual full of Fleisher Rogue (http://www.2000ad.org/?zone=prog&page=specials&choice=ROGUE91)! No wonder people stopped buying them.
Well, quite. That this product exists hurts my brain.
There is some great art in it, though. Chris Weston, John Hicklenton, Steve Dillon... lots of high-class talent, bafflingly given to Mr Fleischer.