Quote from: Eric Plumrose on 04 April, 2017, 07:18:58 PM
Well, quite. When I were a young squaxx I had no idea all this stuff was being cobbled together on the fly. References to other strips were often throwaway yet complementary, which just added to that sense of there being some thought-through shared universe occulted to all accept those prepared to initiate themselves.
Quite.
I have been reading / watching quite a lot recently about how the Prog was put together e.g. Steve MacManus' book, Thrill Power Overload, Future Shock documentary, 40th panels etc.
What really strikes me is the production line feel of "we have to get this out every week, come what may" (a couple of strikes notwithstanding) and the impact that could have on quality. Also of note were why
- some stories wrapped up really fast e.g. Inferno because management had had enough of it(s violence)
- others wrapped up or were placed on hold to make way for incoming stories from mergers with Starlord (The Cursed Earth for goodness sake!!!) and Tornado (Project Overkill and Dan Dare)
- some stories were spun out for 20 to 30 episodes rather than the 6 their content justified (because a particular writer twigged he got paid by the episode and so set out to make stories last as long as possible)
And there I was viewing them as all meticulously planned out.
So really, it is amazing they all hang together as well as they do. They certainly weren't written to be endless debated by the 8 year olds they were read by, on an Internet (what's that then?) forum 38/39/40 years later by the same 8 years who are now in their late 40s, who seize on fleeting details and use them to imply whole time-lines and connections.
But it's fun to do so and beats watching EastEnders.
