Messages

You and me both.

davidbishop

Sigh. Once and for all - those aren't the final covers, nor the final colours. Okay?

db, in crotchety old man mode

Black Flame do some weird thing with the early versions of their covers, to prevent easy duplication.

For example, early cover visuals for the first Fiends of the Eastern Front cover were bright blue. Web fu permitting, you'll see the final version is somewhat browner...

davidbishop

Link: http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/1844162745.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg" target="_blank">http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/1844162745.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/1844162745.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg">

FWIW, I've had several very pleasant encounters with Ian Rankin through the Crime Writers' Association (and no, I'm still not sure why they let me in). Whatever his public image, in person he was perfectly nice, not at all up himself and rarely if ever talked about himself. An example from this year's CWA conference in Glasgow - he sat on the floor for three hours stuffing goody bags, even though he couldn't attend the conference itself.

He professed himself to be a longtime 2000 AD reader during the 70s and 80s and enthused, unprompted, about several strips to me. He was green with envy when I told him another Scottish crime novelist, Denise Mina, had gotten the Hellblazer writing gig at Vertigo.

If the TPO book ever happens (ha! Ha!), I have vague hopes of asking him to write the foreword...

davidbishop

IIRC, the option fee was one dollar a year.

Perhaps you can hear my hollow laughter where you are?

davidbishop

Outlaw was a videogame waiting to happen: you are the deadliest man alive on a quest to rescue your kidnapped lover. You must fight an ever-escalating range of foes, culminating in a big gunfight showdown, followed by final face-off with the Big Bad Boss.

The most irritating thing about Outlaw? It was some crap I made up in the bath and then gave to Paul Neal to script. In total we spent a few thousand pounds on the entire series. Some American producer paid 75 thousand dollars to the guy who adapted it into a screenplay. 75 THOUSAND DOLLARS.

Verily, there is no justice.

davidbishop

Outlaw was inspired by the trailer for "Desperado" and a viewing of the film 'The Quick and the Dead'. The decision to make Outlaw black was made extremely late in the day. Alas, Professor Bear, your Will Smith/Bad Boys theory is inaccurate.

Personally, I quite like Bad Boys, in a dumbass, guilty pleasure kind of way. I've yet to see BBII.

davidbishop

Before the advent of email, when reader response came via the postman, we rarely got more than one letter per thousand copies sold of the Meg. With email and the internet, you get a slightly greater level of response, but it tends to be the same people over and over again. With snail mail those who did write in were rarely the same person (notable exceptions: Floyd Kermode and, before him, Matt Nixon and Sloano). So, if anything, letters sent via the post were a more representative sample of the readership as a whole, if only by virtue of variety...

Does that make any sense? No, probably not. I'll get my coat.

davidbishop

davidbishop

Re: Soul Sisters - I was young and foolish. Now, I'm older. Beyond that, I can make no great claims of having changed... sorry.

As for the strip not being strongly connected to Dredd's world, well, neither were Al's Baby. Or The Straitjacket Fits. Or Armageddon: The Bad Man.

davidbishop

david page wrote: "tooth at the time had a feeling of any old crap that was left in the drawer was printed"

Ahh yes, the trough of despair that was the 18 months after the Dredd movie came out, when 2000 AD was obliged to burn off almost everything accumulated and then left to fester over the preceding five years. Relive such gems as paraSITES and Time Flies II.

Or, beter still, don't.

davidbishop

New Trout wrote:
Another concern is its absolute lack of objectivity. Where else has anyone ever "interviewed" himself in the first person? It doesn't happen anywhere, for good reason. It's not exactly insightful, detached reporting, is it?
It was bad enough when it happened in TPO, but at least the early days of 2000AD didn't involve David Bishop. He's been so involved in the Meg, though, that the exercise of trying to write about it in the third person is fatally flawed. It's even silly. I met David at Moniaive for the first time and liked him very much. Also, his contributions here have always been valuable. So I feel bad for being so critical of this piece of work, but, in my opinion, it is extraordinarily bad. There also appears to be an agenda there, too. Perhaps it could even be unintentional, but the parts about new talent bother me a bit. I know David is rightly proud of introducing new talent to the Meg, but I'm uncomfortable with the possibly self-serving nature of interviewing yourself for an article about it.

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I wouldn't dream of challenging your opinion of the Meg history articles - if you didn't like them, you didn't like them. However, I do wish to take issue with one point you make.

I did not interview myself. Alan Barnes and I spent five hours interviewing each other, about our respective stints as editor, to avoid having me interview myself. He asked questions that would never have occurred to me and challenged my long-held view on events. I then wrote the articles, based on a transcript of the tapes.

You didn't like the results - I have no argument with that. You may think the method chosen inherently flawed - it may well be. You may believe somebody else would have given a more objective overview - you're probably right.

But, please, don't state something as a fact when you have nothing to support this supposition.

BTW, nice to meet you at Moniaive - all hail the New Trout!

davidbishop

You are special. Separate envelopes for me.

davidbishop

In my own defence, Soul Sisters was co-written with Dave Stone. So you should only half kill both of us.

david"don'tcallmedave"bishop

This appears in Hollywood trade paper Variety today...

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'The Losers' wins its way to WB
Berg to pen screenplay, co-produce
?
By PAMELA MCCLINTOCK

DC comic 'The Losers,' about a rogue CIA unit, will get a shot at the bigscreen.

A double-crossed CIA black ops team known as "The Losers" is the latest DC Comics property to be tapped for the bigscreen by Warner Bros. Pictures.

Peter Berg and Akiva Goldsman will produce the pic for the studio, with Berg to pen the screenplay with an eye to direct. Also taking producing credit are John Cameron and Sarah Aubrey for Berg's Film 44, and Kerry Foster for Goldsman's Weed Road.

Film will follow the exploits of the highly skilled CIA team members as they are attacked by their own agency and left for dead. They set out to learn why they were betrayed, and to avenge the wrong, as well as other injustices they encounter.

DC Comics, a subsid of Warner Bros., and home to numerous comicbook heroes including "Batman" and "Superman," revived "The Losers" strip several years ago under the Vertigo imprint after a 30-year hiatus.

Warner Bros. Pictures' Dan Lin and creative exec Matt Reilly are overseeing "Losers" for the studio. Gregory Noveck is the development exec at DC Comics.

Berg, also an actor, is set to direct upcoming projects "The Kingdom" and "Bran Mak Morn." He penned and directed "Friday Night Lights" and helmed "The Rundown" for Universal Pictures, where he has a deal.

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Feel free to use the concordance, Si. I think it stops around Prog 2004, but it fairly comprehensive up to then...

davidbishop