I have been reading and collecting a lot of 2000 AD lately and have only read a little bit of Big Dave a long time ago, I am wondering why this book is not collected? It seems weird that a book that features big name writers like Morrison and Millar does not have a collected edition.
Quote from: ted5536 on 15 May, 2014, 06:13:55 PM
I have been reading and collecting a lot of 2000 AD lately and have only read a little bit of Big Dave a long time ago, I am wondering why this book is not collected? It seems weird that a book that features big name writers like Morrison and Millar does not have a collected edition
Same reason none of Millar, Morrison and MacKenzie's other nineties
2000ad work has been reprinted:
http://comicsbeat.com/mad-mental-crazy-the-true-life-of-the-fabulous-zenith/
Hmm interesting read thank you! I was hoping with Zenith release we might get a reprint of Big Dave but sounds like it is time to hunt down the Progs it was published in.
Zenith isn't creator-owned; Big Dave is. The only way we'd see a reprint is if Morrison and Rebellion came to some agreement, which doesn't seem terribly likely. (That said, I imagine Big Dave would be a risky collection, for all sorts of reasons.)
Quote from: IndigoPrime on 15 May, 2014, 06:49:05 PM
Zenith isn't creator-owned; Big Dave is
You sure? As far as I know, all the Summer Offensive strips were created under the same terms as
Zenith, and it wasn't until the end of the nineties that Millar and Morrison decided to take their ...
principled stand for creators' rights.
2000ad editorial were certainly under the impression Millar was a work for hire lackey when they handed script chores on Millar and Weston's
Canon Fodder to Kek-W at the fag-end of the nineties, causing Coatbridge's favourite son to throw his toys out of the pram.
If their logic is that they thought they owned the work they produced for 2000ad, I'm sort of curious if Millar and Morrison thought they owned their Judge Dredd or Rogue Trooper strips, too.
Quote from: sauchie on 15 May, 2014, 06:22:36 PM
Same reason none of Millar, Morrison and MacKenzie's other nineties 2000ad work has been reprinted:
Because it was mostly shite?
Quote from: hippynumber1 on 15 May, 2014, 07:46:39 PM
Quote from: sauchie on 15 May, 2014, 06:22:36 PM
Same reason none of Millar, Morrison and MacKenzie's other nineties 2000ad work has been reprinted:
Because it was mostly shite?
Little bit harsh there. Most of Morrison's Future Shocks were outstanding, and Zenith remains one of 2000ad's finest strips ever.
As for MacKenzie, there was Bradley and Luke Kirby.
And I'm even going to stand up for Mark Millar here: His Dredds were shite, yeah, but he did some really, really good one-prog horror strips. There was the Terror Tale about the Lovecraft dark gods, for example, and the Amazing Dr Doctor.
And, though I must have said it a hundred times on this forum, I liked Big Dave.
Quote from: JayzusB.Christ on 17 May, 2014, 04:04:03 AM
though I must have said it a hundred times on this forum, I liked Big Dave
Big Dave is one of the best strips ever to grace the pages of
2000ad, displaying all the satire and irreverence for authority/the establishment which the usual suspects always insist are the strengths of Tharg's magnificent organ. The gay bomb, the robot royals, zombie Bobby Charlton raised from the dead by Nelson Mandela's voodoo taking on a German eleven comprised of actual tin helmet wearing Waffen SS in a replay of the 1966 World Cup final ... all genius,
genius stuff.
Well, series 1, 2, and 4 were genius - the third one, where Big Dave fights another guy on holiday in Marbella, seemed like a quickie rushed out to fill a holiday special and was pretty awful, lacking the wit, invention, and satirical intent that characterised the series. Diana and Fergie reimagined as Tracy and Sandra from
The Fat Slags sums up the strip's appeal;
Big Dave was basically an admission that the most culturally significant British comic since WWII was
Viz.
You could argue that satire aimed down at the poorest is more bullying than satire.. aren't the petty ignorances of the unwashed hilarious - but then, we are having our cake and eating it as we are satirising the perception of the underclass rather than the underclass itself - it The Sun wot did it. So for me it comes across like the work of smug sixth formers rather than anything that would epitomise Pat Mill's class war ethic
Quote from: JayzusB.Christ on 17 May, 2014, 04:04:03 AM
Quote from: hippynumber1 on 15 May, 2014, 07:46:39 PM
Quote from: sauchie on 15 May, 2014, 06:22:36 PM
Same reason none of Millar, Morrison and MacKenzie's other nineties 2000ad work has been reprinted:
Because it was mostly shite?
Little bit harsh there. Most of Morrison's Future Shocks were outstanding, and Zenith remains one of 2000ad's finest strips ever.
As for MacKenzie, there was Bradley and Luke Kirby.
And I'm even going to stand up for Mark Millar here: His Dredds were shite, yeah, but he did some really, really good one-prog horror strips. There was the Terror Tale about the Lovecraft dark gods, for example, and the Amazing Dr Doctor.
And, though I must have said it a hundred times on this forum, I liked Big Dave.
The key was my use of 'mostly'! I'll agree with you on McKenzie, I even enjoyed Brigand Doom! Morrison's Zenith goes without saying and 'Candy and the Catchman' but the only thing, in my opinion, that Miller ever produced that was worth reading was 'Silo'.
Leigh S is spot on with Big Dave. That's exactly the vibe I got off most of the Morrison/Miller output - smug sixth formers!
Quote from: Leigh S on 17 May, 2014, 09:08:54 AM
You could argue that satire aimed down at the poorest is more bullying than satire.. aren't the petty ignorances of the unwashed hilarious - but then, we are having our cake and eating it as we are satirising the perception of the underclass rather than the underclass itself - it The Sun wot did it
If Dave himself is the target of the humour and disapproval of the strip, then
Airplane is a searing condemnation of medical and aviation industry professionals. Humour or satire doesn't necessarily involve contempt or condemnation. Do you think the creators of
Viz held the UK tabloid newspapers and comics they lampooned - or sexist men, or TV presenters, or feminists - in the same contempt you imagine Millar and Morrison directed towards the British white working class?
Big Dave critiques the world view expressed by tabloid culture with the same good humour, familiarity, sneaking regard, and by similar means as Russell Brand's hilarious deconstructions of The Sun's letters page (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvrpHqRJ9qk) - by imagining what it would be like if the views expressed bore any resemblance to reality, dramatizing what that reality would be like, pushing the logic which underpins it to its illogical extreme, and highlighting the absurdities which underpin that world view.
But Sauchie also makes a valid arguement!
Quote from: sauchie on 17 May, 2014, 09:50:50 AM
Quote from: Leigh S on 17 May, 2014, 09:08:54 AM
You could argue that satire aimed down at the poorest is more bullying than satire.. aren't the petty ignorances of the unwashed hilarious - but then, we are having our cake and eating it as we are satirising the perception of the underclass rather than the underclass itself - it The Sun wot did it
If Dave himself is the target of the humour and disapproval of the strip, then Airplane is a searing condemnation of medical and aviation industry professionals. Humour or satire doesn't necessarily involve contempt or condemnation. Do you think the creators of Viz held the UK tabloid newspapers and comics they lampooned - or sexist men, or TV presenters, or feminists - in the same contempt you imagine Millar and Morrison directed towards the British white working class?
Big Dave critiques the world view expressed by tabloid culture with the same good humour, familiarity, sneaking regard, and by similar means as Russell Brand's hilarious deconstructions of The Sun's letters page (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvrpHqRJ9qk) - by imagining what it would be like if the views expressed bore any resemblance to reality, dramatizing what that reality would be like, pushing the logic which underpins it to its illogical extreme, and highlighting the absurdities which underpin that world view.
I can see that, but contempt is ultimately where you are - the Sun letters page is written by real people, so their unreal beliefs are being mocked..but tehy are real beliefs, so there is a target and its an ill educated one. not a bad thing in itself, but as someone from the same kind of estate that Big Dave lives on, the views satirised by BD are the same the Sixth formers from the better side of Birmingham used as their blanket understanding of where I came from - I'm not sure mocking and dismissing the prejudices of a White working/underclass do much more than increase the divide. The voice of the far right that appeals to Sun readers, the voice that tells them they are the real victims of prejudice.... I think that is stoked more than illuminated by something like Big Dave. That may be a personal interpretation of it based on my own circumstances - certainly Russell Brand doesnt strike me as a Working Class Hero, but I don't really know a huge amount about him to be sure of that - again, he would definitely fit the sixth former bracket in my own prejudices! :)
I suppose it's that argument that you hear that runs "you wouldnt tell that joke about Jesus about Mohammed"... which is a stupid argument on many levels, but again feeds the root cause of a lot of that divide - Attacking a prvileged group is one thing - the white working class might not be the country's hardest done by, but they are far from privileged. Some small section of that group may be bigoted and ill educated (and who is responsible for that ill education?) but if you want to satirize any group by the worst actions of their communities... I'm not saying there isnt a great idea in Big Dave.. but its a garbled one - Big Dave is not teh hero of a Sun strip - he is the benefit scrounger the Sun hates - the angle of the strip that is attacking the EMdia, that's fine, but it's is a blunt attack when the hero should be the strips villain. If it had been a strip about IDS fighting the brave fight against Big Dave, fine... as it is, it reads more like those Sixth formers opinions of the place I was dragged up in.
To be fair, I'd agree with Leigh's characterisation with regard to Millar strips like Babe Race 2000 and his work with Morrison on Dredd stories like Crusade. There was definitely an air of condescension toward the readership and the material in the half hearted way they hacked out those strips.
I thought BIG DAVE was hilarious to be honest!
I'm what would be considered 'white working class' by popular definition (not my own opinion). I could also be 'classed' as extremely Left-Wing, a hippie, a pot smoking metal head, or any other Bullshit label.
And I still thought BIG DAVE was funny!
Cheers
Quote from: Leigh S on 17 May, 2014, 10:28:05 AM
Big Dave is not teh hero of a Sun strip - he is the benefit scrounger the Sun hates - the angle of the strip that is attacking the EMdia, that's fine, but it's is a blunt attack when the hero should be the strips villain
I don't know about you, but I've found those who complain loudest about scroungers and immigrants are often those who are most dependant upon the state or contribute least to the Treasury themselves. That applies just as much to those at the top end of our social hierarchy as it does to those at the bottom or middle, and they usually appear entirely unaware of the irony.
Quote from: Leigh S on 17 May, 2014, 10:28:05 AMI'm not saying there isnt a great idea in Big Dave.. but its a garbled one
That mirrors my own feelings about
Big Dave: it's inconsistent. I liked the strip, some of it is very funny and cleverly satirical, but other parts just seem to undercut the satire with, well, run of the mill LCD mockery. I don't think Morrison and Millar really had a grasp on what the joke was supposed to
be, at least not all the time: they're so busy coming up with funny stuff and out-Vizzing Viz that the target of the humour drifts uncomfortably. The amazing Colin Smith explored these and similar issues at his usual far greater depth over at his much missed blog (http://toobusythinkingboutcomics.blogspot.ie/search/label/Big%20Dave).
All that said, there are images and sequences in there that are among the finest and funniest in 2000AD's history.
Read absolutely no Big Dave as yet and frankly was dreading it. But when the slog gets there (it's a read as opposed to a re-read) I'm now intrigued :eh:
Aside. Button Man 1 is - I can exclusively reveal - sensational.
Fungus (22 years behind the curve)
I find Big Dave the exception that proves the rule. I normally think 2000ad is robust enough a format to hold just about any strip in context of what surrounds it. Big Dave just didn't seem to fit though, I think because it so clearly that another home that it seemed to be hankering after. Like it was being snuck into 2000ad 'cos the creators didn't have an in on Viz. Or maybe that it was taking a Viz strip to what they thought was its natural conclusion that Viz of course wasn't the place for... whatever didn't fit for me.
Should say I like it, after all Steve Parkhouse, just not as a 2000ad strip.
Must say I am rather surprised by a lot of the comments on this thread as I thought reader opinion was more divided on Big Dave.
Agree with Colin. I just can't see what Big Dave had to do with 2000AD. I can handle the odd strip veering from the comic's usual themes but I wouldn't have liked Big Dave wherever it was published. And I don't think it would've been good enough for VIZ, especially in those days.
For me, it was one dimensional and completely unfunny.
I do like risqué humour if it is making a point. But I really don't believe there was much of a point to Big Dave other than trying to shock.
To quote Colin Smith: "Rather than illuminating bigotry with any wit or depth, they'd often ended up appearing to connive with it". Sums it up for me.
http://sequart.org/magazine/30320/two-tickets-for-my-next-performance-mark-millar-shameless-part-32/
Speaking as a white working class guy (albeit a queer gothy one) who grew up on Action and 2000AD, I liked Big Dave.
I totally understood it was a satire on the way the Press pretends to be for and by the working class while upholding the values of the - lets face it, pretty far right.
I knew it was not making fun of people like Dave - there aren't any people like dave, just as there aren't any peole like San and Tray or Buster Gonad. There are people with some of his attitudes, but they don't represent everyone else, even on the estate where I live, and they are generally more like petty minded bullies than scourges of estates. They tend to grow up eventually.
Big Dave was very clearly an attack on the press (and the royal family, and establishment) and - while not brilliant - was sometimes fun, like Viz mostly is.
I've always felt that big Dave diluted the name of 2000ad, as if it was trying to grab readers from loaded, or viz - but if I wanted to buy a viz story I'd have bought viz. when twothy made it in the news in those days it was always for something like big Dave or Blair 1 - ooh controversial - but that only damaged the name of twothy as it actually bore little resemblance to the intelligently written, fantastically drawn, eclectic strips of the galaxy's greatest. I have no interest in big Dave as a strip and it don't hate it per se, but I do hate the fact that it was in 2000ad and Morrison and miller were idiots for putting it there. It made me extremely angry at the time that a childish and idiotic strip like this got into the prog. I say we take off, nuke the strip from orbit. Only way to be sure...
Dave
Quote from: Toni Scandella on 18 May, 2014, 06:59:28 AM
Big Dave was very clearly an attack on the press (and the royal family, and establishment)
I'm not sure that it was. Like you, I enjoyed
Big Dave, but the negative comments upthread about folk not understanding where the target of the satire lay -
where the authors were coming from - is probably valid. That's one of the things I ended up liking most about it; that there's no coherent ideological agenda being pushed on the reader is a strength, as far as I'm concerned, and it points up many of the contradictions inherent in the world view expounded by papers like
The Sun.
Big Dave was taking the piss, on every level and of everyone.
Quote from: Proteus4 on 18 May, 2014, 09:27:47 AM
I've always felt that big Dave diluted the name of 2000ad, as if it was trying to grab readers from loaded, or viz.................................... but I do hate the fact that it was in 2000ad and Morrison and miller were idiots for putting it there.
To be honest I don't think Loaded actually existed when Big Dave was first published. I thought 2000ad flirted far more shamelessly with the Loaded readership during the Bish-OP years; and that sat a bit uneasily with me. Viz was going strong during Dave's time, of course, and you're probably right about that. Personally speaking though, I've always been a huge Viz fan and really didn't mind seeing its influence in 2000ad (it was a bit better than the influence of Spicemania, for example).
I don't think any creators are idiots for putting something non-2000ad-like in 2000ad. I think there should always be room for something new and unformulaic. It may not work all the time (Dave worked for me, but that's a personal preference), but I like the fact 2000ad is brave enough to give it a shot.
Also, as I've said before, Big Dave got some of my nonscrot friends into 2000ad, which is a good thing in my book. They started reading it for the same type of cheap, bad-taste laughs* they got from Viz, and then started noticing the quality of the other strips.
*In Viz's case, at least for me, those cheap and bad-taste laughs are served up beautifully and provide many hilarious conversation topics.
Quote from: JayzusB.Christ on 18 May, 2014, 10:41:06 AM
Quote from: Proteus4 on 18 May, 2014, 09:27:47 AM
I've always felt that big Dave diluted the name of 2000ad ... if I wanted to buy a viz story I'd have bought viz ... that only damaged the name of twothy as it actually bore little resemblance to the intelligently written, fantastically drawn, eclectic strips of the galaxy's greatest. I have no interest in big Dave as a strip and it don't hate it per se, but I do hate the fact that it was in 2000ad and Morrison and miller were idiots for putting it there. It made me extremely angry at the time that a childish and idiotic strip like this got into the prog
I don't think any creators are idiots for putting something non-2000ad-like in 2000ad. I think there should always be room for something new and unformulaic. It may not work all the time (Dave worked for me, but that's a personal preference), but I like the fact 2000ad is brave enough to give it a shot
Many folk's favourite strip of the last few weeks has been about an Iron Age hard man trying but failing to kill anyone. See also
Button Man, Zenith, Al's Baby, Sooner Or Later, and
Fiends Of The Eastern Front, none of which are
2000ad. I'm not sure they're any less
childish or more
fantastically drawn than
Big Dave either.
To all super villans if you capture James Bond, do not devise some convoluted, improbable execution scenario and then leave without witnessing his actual death, instead kill him immediatly.....I am paraphrasing a Top tip from zonks ago in Viz.
Never did like Big Dave, and I don't think he should have appeared in the prog. Juvenile stuff, and poorly conceived.
While I'm not sure I would like to see the return of BIG DAVE (as much as I enjoyed it, it has had its day) I still think it was a worthy inclusion to the Prog.
For me '2000ad' means diversity, pushing boundries, and trying new things. Not every strip can or should be the likes of 'Slaine' (which is ok) or 'Dante' (I wasn't a huge fan) or any other long running fan-service tripe!
Ulysees Sweet is probably the closest any strip can come to the likes of BIG DAVE, on a modern level. And I enjoyed that as well.
Cheers
I'm all for diversity and range. I just felt that Big Dave didn't fit the scifi brief of twoth. Neither did button man, neither did zenith - but I loved them. Big Dave was just a step too far. And it was in my opinion total shite. Lol.
Peace
Dave
I've found over the years that many of my fave 2000AD strips have either been ones that haven't fit the "SF brief" - Button Man, Savage (at least, it did initially) - or the ones that have gone flat-out for laughs. Much as I like the last decade or so of the prog, I do often wish there'd be a bit more variety, and a bit more room for strips that really were outside the brief. With five slots each issue, I could live with having new series that really were nothing like the other four. Plus 2000Ad to me's always been in part about a way of looking at the real world and having a certain attitude to it - it's why I've really been enjoying this current run of Wagner Dredd's where he's clearly been influenced by goings-on in the real world and wants to talk about them rather than straight action or furthering the continuity.
So I really liked Big Dave. It's one of the few stories from that period that I still go back and re-read.
The clearly devisive nature of Big Dave and its ability to provoke debate on the strips' wider issues is an argument in favour of its existence.
A point illustrated by the fact we're still discussing the strip 20 years after its last appearance in 2000AD.
Not as good as Bonjo from Beyond The Stars or Captain Klep...