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"All editors tell writers to rewrite stuff"

And they all sub scripts as well - nature of the job. But within that basic framework there are basically two types of editor (and be warned, this is grossly over-simplified): hands-on and hands-off. The question is, to what extent does Matt get involved in directing (or ordering changes) to writers work? None of us here know, and it's not really up to us to speculate. But I don't see anything to suggest that Pat Mills is treated any more deferentially than any other writer (not that I'm saying that this isn't necessarily the case, but just that we don't know).

Anyway, it's probably not really worth arguing such an unknowable point - it's Christmas, let's all get pissed and tell each other we love them!

Yeah but you're just being pedantic now, rather than addressing what we're really talking about; you said that if it had been anyone else, Matt would have told them to rewrite it. But let's be honest, all of this is just pure speculation, because none of us really know how Matt edits the prog.

I'm not having a personal dig, it's just that I don't like assumptions being made about how the comic's put together when we're not really in a position to speculate.

"if any other script droid tried getting away with "Remember! The world has passed the tipping point! The oil is finally running out! It's why the A.B.C. criminals have invaded our country! To steal our oil!" they'd be told to rewrite it"

Unless you're the editor, how is it that you know so much of the intricacies of the editorial processes?

The cheeky Baathist!!

Well, he could probably afford all the ponies you could fit in a presidential palace back in the day...

"San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run...but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant... History is hard to know, because of all the hired bull, but even without being sure of â??historyâ?? it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the timeâ??and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happenedâ?¦. There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda... My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights - or very early mornings - when I left the Fillmore half-crazy and, instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at a hundred miles an hour...booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which turnoff to take when I got to the other end...but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and wild as I was: no doubt at all about that. You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning... And that, I think, was the handle â?? that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didnâ??t need that. Our energy would simply PREVAIL. There was no point in fightingâ??on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave... So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water markâ??that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."

"Hey, that black heart is due to a Black-Jack addiction in my youth!"

Tsk! You'd have turned out alright if you'd been chomping on Mojos when you were a 'bairn'...

Course, you wouldn't have the secret hi-tech base inside a hollowed-out volcano, so it's swings and roundabouts, I suppose...

No, NO!! He's not camp - he's MELANCHOLIC!

Damn you, my crazed arch-nemesis - is nothing sacred to you...*nothing*, curse your black heart...?

"Soylent Green has a fantastic title sequence"

So has Halloween III: Season of the Witch. And that was written by Nigel Kneale.

I'd stick with the original Harry Harrison story, if I were you.

The original Planet of the Apes was great, The Omega Man was stupid but fun in a sort of pointless manner (still not as good as Last Man on Earth though), but Soylent Green was just rubbish. Really dreary, boring rubbish. I can't believe I was so excited to watch that film originally - such a disappointment. Only thing worth wathcing it for is Edward G. Robinson.

"The Price version was horrible"

Damnitt! No wonder you're my nemesis...

He's not making it up. Course, a decade ago it was supposed to be Schwarzenegger, so...

"What you need is the good old 'Omega Man' before the Will smith remake taints the property."

NOOOOOO!

Watch The Last Man on Earth instead - it's a much better film, stars Vincent Price, it's an Italian-American co-production that was originally supposed to be produced by Hammer, was one of the influences on Night of the Living Dead, and best of all, it's 100% Heston-free!

Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058700/" target="_blank">Do you dare to imagine what it would be like to be

Is this in any way related to the Italian fumetti neri?

Well, that's me put off my lunch. For life.

"can you get gift vouchers for soliciters ?"

I'm pretty sure that Tescos do. Or if they don't, they will any day now.

Ummm...I don't think DC *do* own the rights to Trigan Empire, do they? Or has something happened recently that I'm unaware of? If so, wouldn't that conflict with the ongoing (and very expensive) reprint series?

The Spider and The Steel Claw were owned by IPC, which is now the property of Aol/Time Warner, but as far as I know Look and Learn wasn't and isn't.

Yeah, but I'm handing out free copies, fool!