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I can only agree with Roger Langridge's assessment of The Straightjacket Fits - that strip would have been so much better if he had written and drawn it, rather than let some raw wannabe loose on script duties...

...still, lovely art and amazing lettering!

Shaky Kane's Soul Gun series would be perfect!

Careful. You go down that path and somebody will suggest Soul Sisters, the writers of which should be...

Oh. I was one of them, wasn't I?

My bad.

He did some lovely work on Doomsday, ISTR...

Actually, Virgin Books offered a pretty good deal. Authors routinely retained the copyright in their text, although any licensed elements e.g. Judge Dredd, Doctor Who, remained the property of the original owners.

IIRC, I took a flat fee on my first Dredd novel for Virgin [£3000?], but argued for and got a much smaller advance [£1600] against royalties for my second and third novels. One of those earned back its advance in sales and paid out royalties, the other didn't.

davidbishop

Fiends of the Rising Sun was meant the first in another trilogy, or even more books, set in the Pacific theatre of war. But then Games Workshop shut down its Black Flame imprint, and all rights eventually reverted to Rebellion - hence the new(ish) Kindle editions.

Even though I didn't get royalties on those 2000AD novels, I was told the Fiends books sold well in North America - like a 6 to 1 ratio for UK sales. I'd be happy to write the Fiends again [if someone asked!].

I understand the old Virgin Dredd novels might be getting Kindle editions at some point...

[Operation Vampyr]

Don't forget the novels by David Bishop, Operation Vampyr, The Blood Red Army and Twilight of the Dead. He followed those with Fiends of the Rising Sun, which is set around Pearl Harbour. 

All the Fiends novels are available on KIndle. Alas, I get my royalties for these - but I knew that when I signed the contract!

Tsk! That should have read I get *no* royalties for these...

[Operation Vampyr]

Don't forget the novels by David Bishop, Operation Vampyr, The Blood Red Army and Twilight of the Dead. He followed those with Fiends of the Rising Sun, which is set around Pearl Harbour. 

All the Fiends novels are available on KIndle. Alas, I get my royalties for these - but I knew that when I signed the contract!

Though Judge Dekker bought the farm (not that she'd appeared much in the previous years).

I'm more annoyed that it killed off Bruce, to be honest; probably the most charismatic of the 'world judge' characters at that point and he gets a throwaway death in a corner of one panel. Sadu could also have become one of the great long-running Dreddverse characters (but at least he got to go out in style).

(Only for Mike Carroll to whack him off-screen decades later). 

That's taking love of a character a bit too far...

Joycean.

Yes.

I only have vague memories of the yearbook Straitjacket Fits story. Think it was black & white, not sure it resolved anything - sorry!

There's hope for Straitjacket Fits one day, if HH post-700 run is hitting the floppy... 

Can't help thinking QR codes would soon look as incongruous as the Akklaim logos painted into Book of the Dead.

Does anyone know if the new "parody" exceptions recently introduced to UK copyright law might now allow the Cursed Earth episodes to see the light of day again, protected by clearly being satire?  I only ask because Burger Wars may very well be the greatest thing Pat Mills has ever written, and roughly ninety percent of the panels featuring Ronald McDonald belong on t-shirts.

Burger Wars may very well be the greatest thing ever written, but it wasn't by Pat Mills - either T. B. Grover [a/k/a/ John Wagner] or Jack Adrian scripted that two-parter, can't remember which...

Perhaps the Justice Department's dirty little secret is covertly using Stookie glands to keep its best Judges on the streets, but calling them Re-Juve treatments...?

Like I said - whippersnappers.

Now get off my lawn!

Pah, whippersnappers! Fast approaching the 24th anniversary of my first day on the Megazine as Steve Mac's assistant editor - July 25th, 1990. A Wednesday it was.

I can remember when this forum was just an empty digital field, etc...