Messages

Regardless, of any of my opinions, I genuinely apologise to those who I did cause offence to whether that be Andy Diggle, Grant's Mum, the one handed wizard*, whoever, unreservedly and without bitterness or rancour.

If anyone does want to tell me an accurate assessment of the situation (and I can perfectly understand why they wouldn't, why should they, it's none of my business) then my e-mail address is handy :)  Or I'll read about it in comics international in sixth months time, when the whole matter is resolved.

As a lot of these conversations on fan boards, are largely speculation based.  I did want to pursue the details about contracts and how fair they are (and whether whatever action Morrison may or may not be involved with, whether he is or is not the aggrieved party has precipitated that)  I don't understand why they aren't fair and why it prevents people doing creator owned strips.  I'd like to know, but am resigned to the fact I probably won't find out.

Okay?  Okay.

Paul

*And I'm just being light hearted, not snide

The problem is, for me is that I say stuff, then people but forward a conflicting viewpoint and then some greater understanding is reached (at least by me).  

Just saying NO! You are the ball-lickers!  And having access to ethereal knowledge isn't enough to make me roll over and do tricks.

With all the rumours, gossip and backbiting that goes on, the comics scene even with a just a narrow peek through the crack appears to be at best the equivelant of imperial rome and at worst a not far removed from a Womens Insitute meeting, bitching over cake recipes.

"And what 'realities' are they? Are you aware of the details of the contract in question? If not, I would humbly submit that you are not in a position to judge. It's not Grant Morrison who is coming off looking like a 'c*nt' here."

I did say above I didn't understand the details of any of contracts.  Neither the new rebellion one, nor the legal issue with Grant Morrison.

The 'realities' I mentioned was that there has to be a balance of Creators rights and publishers rights.  If it goes either way, then it's bad news for everyone.  

Form what I know and base my ideas on (which I agree may be wrong/innacurate/bullshit/hearsay) Morrison is contesting his contract or lack of contract.  

He's not a mate of mine, I don't know him and I may well be wrong for calling him a c*nt.  He may have some high and noble motives for his actions, personally I'm not sure what they could be.  As with most things in life, arguments usually come down to money.  I'm sure it'll all come out after the event.  And if I'm wrong then fair enough.

To be honest, if I come across as a c*nt on an internet chat board, I wouldn't be the first Andy.

This is a fan board, if you can't or won't tell me why I'm wrong (from what you say I assume I am), why bother turning up just to rattle yer chains?

If there is no longer room for creator own strips, that's a shame, but let's face it, 2000AD havn't had many bankable hits for a while, if creators just want to keep their best stuff for themselves and give AD pedestrian stuff, you can understand why this is in the best interests of the artists and not AD.  Again, AD profits only in the short term by having what is effectively a space filler and offering a wider audience for something it doesn't own.

I certainly don't claim to really know anything about all of this, but I'm happy to be proved wrong.  I certainly believe that some strips should be creator owned, but if they all were, AD's garden would be choked to death by the comic equivelant of weeds.  They stifle the profitable crops at the expense of something that they don't own.  

Having said that if someone was to say do a creator woned series and an AD owned series (of euqal worth) then both parties would get what they wanted.  Perhaps.  There has to be a balance between creators and publishers, if you can't look at the needs of both objectively.

These contracts are here BECAUSE of Grant Morrison, to tighten up contracts which may have been acceptable in the seventies, but not in the 21st century.  

Grant Morrison was happy to take 2000AD's money for work for hire, for no royalties (though that's changed, so why do this now?) and use it to build a reputation over here (a superhero story is always good for the CV) and then go onto fame and glory and undoubtable riches in the states.

If while you were on holiday and I found a legal loophole to break into your house, occupy it and take it over, it may be legal, but it wouldn't stop me being a c*nt.  

Basically the effects of morrisons action can already be felt and it seems to be spreading bitterness among brithish publishers and creators.  He has enough money, he did it for work for hire, what else can the bastard possibly want?

I don't think they are, I mean I got the impression this is just saying, in print, that AD owns the characters and Intellectual Property.  This must be partly due to that arch c*nt grant morrison trying to steal zenith back, when he knew full well at the time he wouldn't own the series he was writing.

I would imagine that all royalty payments etc. would remain as before.

Without owning intellectual property 2000AD would rely ONLY on the goodwill of the creators, i.e. it would have been fucked and folded years ago along with all the other UK creator owned comics.

I am all for rewarding creators for what they've done (is profit based royalties been taken away,  if not, then what has changed?), but they all wrote for 2000AD KNOWING FULL WELL that they didn't own the characters they created.  Whining like Alan Moore that it's not fair AFTER the fact really isn't good enough.  He still cashes his royalty cheque on reprints.

People deserve a slice of the rewards of what they have created, IPC didn't give that, later regimes have.  It doesn't make up for past injustices and maybe it's not as much as American creators like Marvel and DC give, but the UK is a one horse town, if it was posible to grow fat on the efforts of others, don't you think there'd be ten other similar titles in whsmiths?

I also can't imagine them trying to take back creator owned strips like Button Man and Big Dave, again, tell me if I'm wrong.

Creators deserve proper respect and rewards, I'd be well pissed off if they didn't, but even the most catarract blighted mole can see the realities behind the situation.

We, she's a Pis Judge she has a completely different mind set to a normal judge, she hasn't been conditioned by the judges.

I always thought Anderson was a great character, I can't say I've enjoyed her solo romps since The Haunting of Sector House, and the Gargylaxx Kid or whatever he was called.  I don't even think her adventures fit in with mega city and the world that's been created, but then I ain't read em all either.  Wasn't the last one her talking to an eight headed monkey or something?

Is that what it is?  The drawing was good, but it has a real ropey rough feel to it.

I dunno, I liked this Dredd story.  Nice art, some funny visual jokes, having spent a few hours of my life on abysmally cramped tube trains, I felt all the claustrophobic horror :)

Rogue, picked up in this story, I wondered when his illness was gonna appear.  He didn't even swear (dissapointed in helm though, I thought better of him, where did he learn to synth like that?).  One thought that just struck me is that Rogue Trooper is a bit noisy, theres always some chatter distracting you away from the scene, and I'm not sure it adds to it (I'll spare you the irony of this statement) much better to have some emotional reaction to the bleak scenes of Nu-Earth than an intellectual one.  Am I talking crap?  let's move on...

Cover was v.nicely drawn this week (You Dylan teague have been found GUILTY of being able to draw, you are hereby committed to LIFE on Rogue Trooper!), still think it would have been more exciting if there had been speech bubbles :)  helm synthing 'Nort Dust Devils!'  Gunnar 'Dammit Rogue, shoot him!' and Bagman 'Synth out guys, rogue's life signs, they're failing!'  Okay that's crap, but it would have been more fun if something like that had happened.  Made it into an engaging story in itself.

Scrap was good again, god it's depressing.  Someone give Si some happy pills before he writes his next series.

Future Shock, killer transference syndrome again, I kinda liked this one, art was a bit rough but you could see the talent in there trying to get out, story was undertsandable and had flashes of genuine horror and humour.

Sin Dex, looked interesting, but I didn't read it.  To be honest I don't even want to like it any more.

I've seen that aliens preview before an I'm still excited.

Incidently at least two message boarders got letters in this week, Roystead and another that seemed funnier when I wrote it.

Where's the subtext?

Ah well, more positive than about last weeks prog, sometimes you just get a duffer, can't be helped.

I liked the Dredd cover to be honest, made a change.  Yeah I'd like to see a Scarlet Traces Cover, may be a bit late in the day for that though.

To me it feels later than it is.  About 11:30, must be these early nights creeping in.

Actually, I meant to ask before, but is there any chance of another Dredd Sampler at some point.  Maybe one that features snippets from three different stories?  Just so some of us who weren't keen at the start could see how it's going.  Not after stuff just fer free y'know.

Could always have snippets on this site I suppose rather than cost you a new CD.

Anyway, just a request, no biggie :)

Erm, I'd say a good strong series with humour in it, whether light or dark is better than a series whose whole point is humour, because if you don't find it funny, then you have bot all else to keep you entertained on those cold winter nights.

I use a spectrum emulator to play the best game ever, rebelstar (forerunner to UFO) and I have an Atari 2600 I drag out occasionally.

Rogue Trooper's a great character (and background) to turn into a game.  It would be cool if your biochip slots were empty and you could pick up biochips as you go, cutting them out of the heads of dead men...

I'll get me coat.

Okay a couple of more things from me (while hoping to avoid a rigellian hotshot for trying to teach beteguesians to suck eggs).

Dead Space.

Those five introductory paragraphs that are there every week.  It would be nice when a new story is starting to use that quarter of a page to give you an interesting and informative summary of what's been going on in one strip to bring people up to date and really make them understand.

When writers used to add enough to a strip to make them self contained as caliber said and have a short recap of events, you didn't need these boxes, but I guess times change.

At the very least, these paragraphs could say something different every week about the strips.  if there's a bit you don't read (legal mumbo jumbo aside - though viz still manage to make this bit funny) then what is it doing there?

Also, if half of the nerve centre and input pages weren't already dead space and wiggly waggly designs (which look nice but aren't very exciting), we get a big slab of corporate speek from Tharg and some of the dullest letters under the sun every week.  There's space ebing wasted where someone could be saying something, what's the point in it looking nice if it's all bloody boring.

Miserable 30 year olds droning on with their tepid reviews and slightly agitated opinions, may be good enough for a message board (da-daahhh..., I should know) but are they really fit for the galaxies greatest comic?

Those pictures of postcards, yeah great.  Why not Use soem of that space to at least advertise some of the other stuff currently available in the shop, cahnging it around every week and adding on some betelgeusian bollocks on the end about it.  "These Judge Dredd fleeces will prevent even the feeblest of cursed earth mutants getting purple nipple rot"

The Megazine AD, well, I like the megazine, why not cut the bottom third off and actually say how good it is, have some letters, show off a strip.  How many people who are only AD readers will get a taste of this months strontium dog or Scarlet Traces?

When there's some dead ad space, why not have page features on something, anything that might be interesting.  "What Shako is doing now..."  "The Wit and Wisdom of Bill Savage" "The Ten worst pieces of Judge Dredd merchendis ever" "The 2000AD Guide to horrible ways to die, with illustrations"

People moan about bringing old characters back, what they really want is that sense of excitement back, something happeing.  2000AD is rarely rubbish and rarely great, it just totters on being not bad, with rises and dips in quality.

As someone mentioned to me recently why not have a second slot reserved next to Dredd so you almost always have a classic strip running, stront dog, rogue, abc warriors, whatever.   As we all know, these one off offensives die out failr yquickly and we sit like glum penguins looking over the icy horizon waiting for the next batched of promised thrills.

Ah the whole thing pisses me off.  Sorry for the rant, I'm off to bathe me fingers.