2000AD (Doctor Who “Gridlock” Edition)

Sometimes you just get a weird confluence of circumstances. With a high improbability factor, this weeks collaborative viewing offers City of Death and Douglas Adams other work, Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. It has a distinctive late 70s feel which is complemented by RTDs Gridlock. Wait… Gridlock!?

Yep – Gridlock. The one with Ardal O’Hanlon as a cat. Released in 2007, this episode made a few deliberate call-outs to another cultural Sci-fi Icon – 2000AD, to celebrate its then 30 years of publication. I thought a general explanation of the comic, some content I’d recommend, and some handy spots in Gridlock would be in order.

tharg_the_mightyA year before Ford Prefect appeared in the Radio version of Hitch Hiker’s (1978), a fellow Betelgeusian, Tharg The Mighty, founded the Galaxy’s greatest comic. He was a hoopy frood who drove his writing and art droids hard to deliver maximum thrill-power to thrill-seekers such as me. Zarjaz!

Both Hitch Hikers and 2000AD benefited from the sudden explosion of commercial interest in Sci-fi whipped up by a small, low budget affair called Star Wars, both were peculiarly British, and both would have an impact on future writers of Doctor Who.

2000AD is a serial anthology, released weekly in “Progs”. The only character who appears regularly is the most popular – Judge Dredd, hard-as-nails cop of the future. Typically it contains five or so strips, a mixture of ongoing shorts and longer arc stories by a mixture of writers and artists. It was joined much later by the Judge Dredd Megazine, a monthly that uses the same blend of stories, but expanding the Dredd universe.

The roll call of talent that has featured over the years is a true who’s who of British writers and artists, many of whom have gone onto bigger and more lucrative careers in the US. Neil Gaiman, for example, had his first comic strip (A “Futureshock” short story, “You’re never alone with a phone”), published in Prog 488. Many of the early regulars also had a big impact on Doctor Who in comics, as @wolfweed discusses in his blog.

Many of the contributors and their story strands deserve their own blogs, and all I can do is feature but a small sample of the wonders that Tharg has presented over the years. Two have distinct relevance to Gridlock, but let’s take a diversion first.

Skizz (Alan Moore – Jim Baikie)

I was 13 in 1983, living in the West Midlands. It was rubbish. Unemployment was high, opportunities seemed few. Nihilism looked like an attractive lifestyle choice. 2000AD regularly made plays on what was occurring in other media at the time, and a film called ET was doing well. 2000AD decided that they too would have some stranded alien action. It could have been awful. Then Alan Moore was commissioned to write it and this happened:

skizz1

Interpreter Zcchhz of the Tau-Ceti Imperium crashes on a small blue planet his people have assessed as a Hellworld. The Planet “Burmy Gam” (as he comes to know it) is a strange and terrifying place, alleviated only by meeting a young ape who seems to want to help him, Roxy. Through her he meets Loz (Jack-the-lad, endlessly trying to impress Roxy) and his mate Clarence Cardew.

skizz_roxy

I guess as a teenager I was meant to identify with Roxy or Loz, but Clarence was the one I immediately recognised. Unemployed at 37, he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box, got one O level, learned a trade and was unsuitable for anything else. Increasingly introspective and a mountain of barely suppressed rage, I think everyone in the industrial heartlands knew someone like Clarence in the 80s. Someone who couldn’t adapt to changing times. He too, wonders if he’s from another planet.

skizzclarenceIt’s a condition that spreads, as Roxy finds her compassion alienates her from friends, family and wider society. With Skizz captured by the authorities it’s up to Roxy to forge alliances with strange new lifeforms (that’ll be Loz and Clarance), convince them to do the right thing and help her free him. In doing so, they rediscover what’s important in life. To get your dreams back.

Baikies artwork is masterful. His Birmingham is instantly recognisable to me, capturing iconic landmarks, but above all the dirty reality of the UKs Second City in that period. It always surprised me when he said he’d had limited exposure to the City. A friend of his took the time to wander around and send him extensive pictures of it to work from.

Alan Moore is perhaps best known for his darker material, but Skizz is a reminder of the lighter touch, the sense of humour and keen observer of absurdity. It’s warm, funny, sad and inspirational. I’ve managed this far without using the phrase “It’s ET meets Boys from the Blackstuff”, which has become a cliché for Skizz. That’s because I think it massively undersells it.

Originally published in Progs 308-330, many collected editions over the years.

The Ballad of Halo Jones (Alan Moore – Ian Gibson)

Ian Gibson contacted Moore on the strength of Skizz, particularly the down to earth characterisations. He wanted to pitch an idea of a future heroine who might feasibly be considered real. Alan Moore agreed, suggesting he didn’t want to unleash “yet another tough bitch with a disintegrator and an extra Y chromosome” upon the world.

Starting out as a relatively ordinary inhabitant of “The Hoop” – a kind of vast floating estate/ghetto for “increased leisure citizens” in the 50th century, the three books cover her everyday life, her desire to escape the mundane to get out among the stars, her experiences as a soldier, with occasional flash forwards to a future where her story has achieved near mythical status. For a strip that was initially aimed firmly at the small but loyal female band of thrill seekers, Halo seemed universally popular. The only criticism I can really remember was the uncompromising slow start to the books, with its own language. It relied on the reader having patience to get a feel for the society gradually.

halo

Halo had a massive impact on many. One of them was Andrew Cartmel who apparently made his new band of screen writers for Doctor Who read it as an example of the kind of storytelling he wanted to aim for. Ace (and by extension the type of newer companions) owe Halo a lot.

Cartmel himself went full circle, and in 1995 ended up writing for Dredd in the Megazine (Blood Sports). The same issue saw a strip by Paul Cornell (Father’s Day, Human Nature/Family of Blood). In the episode Gridlock, the holo-vid character Sally Calypso shares more than a few traits with “The Hoops” holo-vid presenter Swifty Frisko.

swifty_sally calypso

Halo, while I firmly stand by and recommend it, also shows one of the downsides of 2000AD in that sometimes things don’t pan out. The Ballad was envisaged as 9 “books” covering key points of her life from young to old age. We got three. A dispute about creator control and rights forced a parting of the ways between Moore & Gibson and the publishers of the time, Fleetway. The problem seems intractable, unfortunately. Decades later, Halo often tops polls in characters readers would like to see return to the fold. Think of your typical disgruntled Firefly fan, and that’s how I am about Halo.

Book1 Prog 376-385 Book2 Progs 405-415 Book3 Prog 451-466 Many collected editions available.

Judge Dredd (Created by John Wagner – Carlos Ezquerra)

Dreddintro

Probably the best known character in the 2000AD stable, and the longest lived.

Following a nuclear war in the late 21st century, most of the world’s population live in vast Mega City conurbations under the totalitarian control of the Judges. Mega City One occupies the eastern seaboard of the United States, centred and built above the ruins of New York. Basically, Russell T Davies asked the CGI team to go look at some picture of Mega City One in developing the look of the New New York.

megacityonenewnewyork

Most of the inhabitants of the City live in cramped conditions in vast City Blocks with entertaining pop culture names. Dredd himself used to live in Rowdy Yates Block (Clint Eastwood, who played Yates in Rawhide, was the inspiration for Dredd through the Dirty Harry movies). Some inhabitants can go from birth to death without leaving the block as they contain shops, indoor parks and other amenities. In many ways they’re the lucky ones. An alternative existence gives us our next reference point, as some inhabitants have to live forever on the move in “Mo-Pads”. If you have access to enough cash, you could have a luxury model (complete with roof pool) but living your existence in a transit bijou apartment is no life at all.

mo_padgridlock

Dredd and his fellow Judges are such an extreme solution to law enforcement (being Judge, Jury and occasional Executioner) that the society they patrol has to be similarly extreme. The reasons are many, but the high unemployment in the City is a key factor. The story Sunday Night Fever gives us an insight into this, with a depressed citizen losing it and accidentally killing someone.

jobless

A case of mistaken identity with the victim results in a “Job Riot” at a facility to produce a rodent control gas. The riot causes a leak and 15,000 causalities result. The job opportunity? To be a canary-person to test for gas leaks (robots and automation do all the work). It’s that streak of black humour and social satire that makes the world of Dredd so engaging to me.

To cope with the endless boredom there are myriad opportunities to keep yourself engaged, but inevitably most of these will bring you into conflict with the Judges. You could meet with like-minded people and do charitable work, like a sponsored suicide. Or join the Hunters Club and do a sponsored kill.

charity

You could partake in a competitive sport, such as the highly illegal sky-surfing championship, or take up human taxidermy to Olympic level. You could lose yourself in the various fashions and fads (cosmetic ugliness, competitive eating, extreme fashion). Many Citizens select utter insanity as the only sane option.

The odd eccentrics of Gridlocks motorway are familiar enough that they wouldn’t raise an eyebrow in Mega City One . Particularly as one shares a look with Dredds one time Nark, Max Normal – Pinstripe Freak.

max

Originally conceived as a satire of Police brutality, and the increasing authoritarianism of Government, it can be odd to find yourself cheering for a fascist in some of the Epic stories. However, the world of Dredd evolved to meet him. A wonderful strand of stories in the 80s and 90s saw Dredd begin the question the rule of law as the Judges were shown to be corrupt and their leaders increasingly mad. The suppression of a political movement for the return of democracy (through peaceful and violent means) is presented in vivid, uncompromising detail in stories like the wonderful “America”.

america

These lead up to Dredd, after one of the frequent apocalypses that engulf Mega-City One, supporting holding a referendum on the Democracy question even though he opposes it. He fights to prevent ballot rigging by rogue Judges to let the people have their say.

devilyouknow

Political Cartoonist for the Guardian, Martin Rowson, said of it:

“Maybe we should see it as a dark satire on the failures of democracy, not as an ironic celebration of the triumphs of fascism… The greatest enemy of democracy is not fascism, but apathy. In the referendum, the Judges won with 68% of all votes cast. But there was a turnout of only 35%. In other words, the Judges won with the backing of only 23.8% of the possible electorate. And that is just 2% less than the percentage of the American population which first elected Ronald Reagan in 1980.”

I was reminded of the story a while ago, as the UK directly elected, for the first time and to a groundswell of apathy, Police Commissioners. The National turnout? 15%.

Producer Phil Collinson remarked that Gridlock displayed Russell’s ability to write about topical issues in a fantastic way. Referencing 2000AD in the story gives us a good indication, perhaps, of where some of that drive came from.

Most of these stories I’ve highlighted come from the 80s/early 90s. Your teenage years are spent trying to make sense of the world and forming your own opinions on life. 2000AD certainly helped me with that while keeping me entertained. It still continues to plough its own way, although I think it’s lost some of its immediacy for me. That, I think, is pretty natural. New generations of writers highlight their own concerns and satirise aspects of life I’m possibly disconnected from. Like Doctor Who, interpretations of 2000ADs “heyday” can vary with your age.

I hope others familiar with the worlds will recommend other material.

Dredd Credits:
The PitJohn Wagner, Carlos Ezquerra Prog 970 (Entire story Progs 970-999)
Sob StoryJohn Wagner, Ron Smith (Progs 131-132)
Max Normal – The Pinstripe FreakAlan Grant Jose Casanovas (1983 Dredd Annual)
Death AidGarth Ennis, Carlos Ezquerra (Progs 711 to 720)
Sunday night feverT B Grover and Cam Kennedy (Progs 416 to 418)
AmericaJohn Wagner Colin MacNeil (Judge Dredd Megazine #1.01 – 1.07)
Twilights Last Gleaming Garth Ennis John Burns (Progs #750-756)

Many thanks to @wolfweed for help with the Mo-Pad image.

Many collected Graphic Novel formats exist for Dredd, and they are currently undergoing a new series of “Complete Case File” Collections in print and digital download. Learn more at the 2000AD shop.

All images found on this blog are copyright of their original publishers and are used for review/promotional purposes only


30 comments

  1. @PhaseShift

    Great blog. The way you’ve overlapped the pictures & speech-bubbles for comparison is brilliant.

    The fact that much of the talent of early 2000AD & the Dr Who comic strip of the time were the same, and that they’ve both fed back into both Old Who and New New Who, makes them all close relations.

    Didn’t 2000AD feature a strip called ‘Medivac 318’, which featured some cat people based in a future Sci-Fi Hospital?

    It’s also noteworthy that (ace) Dr Who director Saul Metzstein was the Second unit director on the film ‘Dredd’ (2012).

    (As I’m sure you know) RTD (as well as a writer) is also a cartoonist, and another of his favourite strips is ‘Peanuts’ by Charles Schultz. I’m sure he raided that too, for it’s observations on human psychology.

    My favourite 2000AD strips were ‘Slaine’ and ‘Nemesis the Warlock’, both by Pat Mills.
    The very 1st strip to feature Nemesis, ‘Terror Tube’, also reminds me of Gridlock.
    View it here: http://www.2000ad.org/?zone=thrill&page=thrillviewer&choice=terrortube

  2. The Mo-Pad picture is from their first appearance in the tale ‘Sob Story’ from prog 131 (22 Sept 79).

    Mo-pads can be set to drive on automatic. Some mo-pads are luxurious with huge vid systems, waste disposals, pools and onboard computers. (DreddAlert)

  3. Great blog and you’ve rather uncannily picked out many of my favourite artists to illustrate it — Gibson, Ezquerra, Baikie and the mighty Cam Kennedy. Was going to echo @wolfweed and add that ‘Terror Tube’ was surely a big influence on Gridlock too.

    Apart from the strips mentioned in the blog, I’d also give a shout-out to Nemesis the Warlock, Strontium dog and the ABC Warriors as three of my favourites from the comic.

  4. @wolfweed, thanks for the confirmation on where the pic of the Mo-Pads came from. I was looking through back issues and couldn’t find a good one, but that was perfect.

    You’re right about Medivac 318 and Nemesis (which I also love). At the time of broadcast the confidential got away with mentioning the Mega City comparison directly, but left it at that (you know the BBC – other comics are available, etc.) and Russell has confirmed others since he left the role, but has said he doesn’t think anyone has ever got a lot of the jokes and references he made.

    To be fair, I think it’s possible he almost storyboarded the entire episode through back issues of 2000AD 😀

    I’ll confess that Slaine was one of the strips that I never got to grips with. I keep telling myself I’ll have to go back and try it all again with a fresh eye.

  5. @JimTheFish

    I tried to get a good mix of the artists to show a representation, and I’m glad you approve. So much good and idiosyncratic material in one home. It was quite good at encouraging reader submissions as well (although I never was good enough to be published). Fascinating fact though – I discovered behind the scenes that @Craig managed it! Multi-talented Emperor. It’s enough to make you sick. 😀

  6. @TheKrynoidMan

    It was one of those things, that I could only really talk about a tiny fraction of what’s been published and leave to comments for others to recommend and maybe bring out other references.

    In compiling it, I got caught up in some of the Short stories (Futureshocks and Time Twisters) quite a few of which were done by Alan Moore. Some of them funny and some of them absolutely haunting.

    I’ll mention two, the first of which is “haunting”, Ring Road in which an escapee from an institution kills an old woman in a car, steals it and proceeds to take a drive through the fogs of time:

    The other, The Reversible Man, is about a man who seems to be living his life in reverse, from death to birth. It inspired the Red Dwarf episode “Backwards”.

    Moore’s have all been released in one volume.

    http://shop.2000adonline.com/products/alan_moore_the_complete_future_shocks_paperback

    Highly recommended if you like Sci-Fi short stories.

  7. I mentioned Human Taxidermy in the Dredd section, so I’ll also recommend The Taxidermist collection, which collects a number of stories about the trials of Jacob Sardini, who practices the quite legal human taxidermy. It’s bizarre and very funny with a lot about “what is art?”. It’s one of those extremes that made me laugh as a kid, and then shows like the Body works exhibition turned up, and I just thought John Wagner was a predictive genius.

    My favourite has to be Return of the Taxidermist which features Sardini at the MegaCity Olympics, with art by Ian Gibson of Halo fame. Jacobs story is cut with other examples of events in a future Olympcs including gratuitous insulting, staring, housework, and, in tribute to Nigel Kneale, sex.

    The Taxidermist

  8. @Phaseshift — good point about Skizz and 2000AD riffing on popular film hits of the time. (Not the only ones doing it, of course, as Action* comic, which shared many of the same talent as 2000AD did the same thing, riffing on sources as different as The Sweeney and Jaws). But 2000AD are still doing it today with the current Grey Area essentially being a take on District 9.

    (Check out http://www.sevenpennynightmare.co.uk It’s a great resource for comic lovers of a certain vintage.)

    I’d also agree with @Phaseshift‘s slight ambivalence with Slaine. I’ve always wanted to love it a lot more than I actually do, especially being a Celt type. It’s always had great artwork though.

  9. Zarjaz blog @Phaseshift, thanks so much for posting. 2000AD was groundbreaking and hugely influential, in writing and artwork.Even just for crediting the droids. I always loved the sneaky Scottish (and other contemporary cultural) references they’d put in eg Middenfaced McNulty (yay! Strontium Dog).

    I’d always thought of Mega City 1 when watching Gridlock but I didn’t pick up on the specific refs – nicely laid out illustrations as well. Dredd (Tale of the Dead Man, the Judge Child, Apocalypse War, Judge Death), Halo Jones, Skizz and ABC Warriors were also faves. Halo was gobsmacking for a female reader, I loved the slow start, with a world that wasn’t a million miles away from 80s UK; it fizzed with original ideas and artwork that had obviously been given enough time; the “different drummers” and the war on the planet with massive gravity still resonate. It also managed to sneak in a lot of subtext about gender/sexuality, war, politics. It’s a real shame it got stuck in copyright limbo. Even just showing a female main character who actually looked and acted about 30 (by the final chapter) was groundbreaking.

    I recently gave a copy of the collected stories to a young friend of mine who is very into modern comics and she was as blown away by it as I was at the same age.

    I liked Gibson’s other strip, Robohunter (another John Wagner script) which was a fun riff on Dashiell Hammett’s classic 40s gumshoe Sam Spade. And Button Man (John Wagner again and beautifully illustrated by Arthur Ranson).

    Grant Morrison’s Zenith, Nemesis I loved, wasn’t daft on Slaine; I loved Bellardinelli’s big full page set piece artworks on Blackhawk and Ace Trucking could be great (with a nod to T Baker’s scarf perhaps?).

    Funnily enough I was at the Comics exhibition at the British Library the other week. I liked it… but I prefer this blog 🙂

  10. @scaryb — yes, Halo was a truly ground-breaking piece of work. I especially loved the character of Glyph in Book Two. Her/His sacrifice for Halo really touched me at the time and I guess still does to this day. Also, a big yes to Sam Slade. Another big favourite of mine when I were a lad. I also like the loose sequel following the adventures of Sam’s granddaugther Samantha. Also drawn by Gibson and well worth hunting down.

    The Scottish references in 2000AD are probably due to the fact that many of the core writers — Wagner, Pat Mills and Alan Grant all started off with DC Thomson in Dundee before moving on to IPC etc. Some of the references can be incredibly oblique — a mate of mine when I was growing up who was actually Wagner’s cousin used to insist that the minor Dredd character of Mad Bob was actually based on his dad. And I’ve no reason to doubt that.

    And as a vaguely related aside, the regular Weegie Wednesday networking event for publishing professional types in Glasgow will have Alan Grant as their guest of honour this month….

  11. @JimtheFish
    Ah the Glyph. Forgot about him/her 😯
    *sniff*

    You’re not going to argue with someone who claims a family connection with Mad Bob! (It’s maybe a bit narrow-minded on my part, but it’s the same with Dr Who and Scottish connections. It seems to open the door just a little bit, for aspiring artists/writers etc to see it in mainstream publications. If nothing else in a writer context – there’s life after DC Thomson! It was always worth a good look at all the small details of block names, street names, headlines in discarded newspapers etc)

    So… is the Weegie Wednesday just for you writery types to keep Alan Grant to yourselves…? 😈

  12. @arbutus

    I’m not sure how you would have coped in Canada during this period, because I think your own distributors were so tied to US distribution. I’ve got a few reprints the US market did of Dredd and Nemesis, and the censors occasionally went a bit scissor crazy on tone and content. The “British Invasion” of US comics, which saw a lot of talent going over, coincided with a resistance against the Comics Code Authority, with Alan Moore’s run on Swamp Thing being one of DCs first rejections of it entirely.

    It certainly helped revitalise US comics, with Moore, Garth Ennis, Grant Morrison, Neil Gaiman and many others knocking out wonderful stuff.

    @ScaryB

    Some great choices. I remembered you were a fan of Halo especially in an earlier discussion (I think on the McCoy period).

    I was always a bit hesitant about pushing some of the stuff I have on younger readers, thinking they may not particularly find it relevant, but as time has gone on I’ve done it more, and those stories really do have lasting power.

    I read a bit of blurb in the G about the British Library exhibition a few weeks ago. Is it good?

    @JimTheFish

    Alan Grant – what a bastard!

    Only kidding, but he had me in tears at 19 when he killed off Judge Corey, the Empath Judge in Leviathan’s Farewell. It was a real sucker punch because it was in the Sci-Fi special, and 2000AD specials could often be lighter in tone.

    It was great to see they’re reprinting all his Anderson stuff in similar case files to Dredd. Shamballa, Satan, etc.

  13. @Phaseshift
    I liked the exhibition and it’s good to see comics getting that sort of recognition in the British Library. But its very wide scope (comic-type publications from mid 1800s) meant I thought it lacked a bit of focus; I’d like to have seen more on the impact of 2000AD and more original artwork. I’d also like to have seen more context in the sense of what other countries like France, Japan and US were producing at the same time, but that’s probably beyond its remit in concentrating on British comics. It’s quite disconcerting walking around with groups of V-masked figures lurking in gloomy corners tho. There were a lot of girls’ comics missing which was a shame. I thought the Graun covered it well.

    @JimtheFish
    Link for the Glasgow comic con?

  14. Well @Phaseshift this was great – thank you for covering the galaxy’s greatest comic!

    A very important part of my growing up (i’d spend hours with a pencil copying some of the artwork, copying every pen-nib scratch).

    I was never really aware of the quality of the writing (in the sense of saying at the time “oh this is good and better than the other crap”) as my main response was to the artwork. As others above have said, O’Neil, Dillon, Bolland, McMahon, Kennedy, Gibbons, Fabry etc were (and are) awesome. In fact is that a Ron Smith depiction of Mega City traffic (tried googling to see if after 30 years I can still recognise stuff but can’t find the image)?

    The British Library exhibition was interresting, and does show a debt to 2000AD/ PatMills/ Alan Moore, but like @ScaryB I’d have liked to see more original artwork.

    My favourite characters all had strong artists such as Slaine (after Belardinelli’s tenure), Strontium Dog (Ezquerra’s never been bettered), Nemesis (O’Neil is just too deliciously fun – I also loved his Flash Gordon spoof serial).

  15. @Whisht
    I think you’re right about Ron Smith on the mopad panel, well spotted. Agree with you about O’Neill, and Bellardinelli was a disaster on Slaine (and that’s speaking as a fan!). I was really happy when they found Ace trucking for him. I also spent a lot of hours copying artwork, not very well mostly.

    The writing was so good, partly because you hardly noticed the actual words – sparse, pared back to the essential.

    Re the BL exhibition, I didn’t mean to be too snarky about it, but much of it just whetted my appetite for more! Like the bits of original script pages from Alan Moore – with every panel and angle worked out in detail before it went to the artist, and Neil Gaiman, who just outlined concepts and riffed on ideas and inspirations a bit.

  16. Anyone else remember Chopper? (John Wagner (again!!), originally drawn by Ron Smith but given a whole new life thro Cam Kennedy)
    aka Marlon Shakespeare, disaffected Megacity 1 teenager, wall scrawler and surfer, who repeatedly came up against Judge Dredd; ended up exploring ancient songlines in Oz

  17. @ScaryB — do indeed remember Chopper. Great incidental character and yes, it’s Kennedy’s version that seems to pop into the mind’s eye. The sad news about Kennedy is that he’s suffering from a degenerative eye condition these days (glaucoma I think) and is losing his ability to work as much as he used to.

    But glad Smith has been brought up. He often gets overlooked in comics discussion and he made quite a profound influence, especially on Dredd.

  18. @ScaryB – yes those pages from Watchmen from Moore alongside the artwork are really interesting to see the decisions Gibbons makes (he doesn’t follow the directions exactly to the letter, but its obvious Moore has a clear vision in his mind).

    And Chopper – absolutely.
    Unfortunately I’ve lost my collection in a house move a few years ago, but there was an anniversary issue (or xmas or something) where there was one of those naff story ‘all the 2000AD characters milling around in an office party at IPC towers with Tharg), as I can’t remember which female character is asking him
    “So Chopper, how did you get your nickname?”

    🙂

    as Chopper might scrawl

  19. @whisht @ScaryB @Jimthefish

    You all have good eyes with the Mo-Pad image. It is Ron Smith. I’ve added credits for the story, Sob Story now to the blog, so thanks for reminding me.

    Thanks for the responses on the exhibition as well. It’s interesting the approaches the writers take to “scripting” comics, and the fact that they profiled Moore and Gaiman as comparisons. Occasionally you see examples of their original scripts in collections (so Alan Moore I’ve seen a few different ones for V for Vendetta and Watchman, for Neil Gaiman, his script for Sandman: A Midsummer’s Nights Dream in the Dream Country collection. For those two its obvious Gaiman is less prescriptive, and I found it odd to discover it was Moore who showed Gaiman how to script a comic in a café somewhere.

    If I’d had a bit of time, I’d intended another montage showing the hobbies I’d mentioned (Skysurfing and Taxidermy) and the image I would have picked was from the Cam Kennedy work on Midnight Surfer. Really memorable story that.

    And, @JimTheFish, that is really sad news about Kennedy.

  20. Just to add that went to see 2000AD stalwart Alan Grant talk last night and he was very entertaining. Highlight of the night probably was:

    ‘Where did you get all your ideas from?’

    ‘Smoking dope and drinking vodka mostly.’

  21. BTW. It’s Glasgow ComicCon the weekend after next. Any Forum-ey types planning on going?

  22. @JimtheFish
    Glasgow comic con – any idea what day Alan Grant’s appearing?
    LMAO at his sources of inspiration.
    (Thanks also for the update on Cam Kennedy, really sorry to hear tho)

  23. @ScaryB Not sure what day Grant will be there. Possibly both as he’s relatively local. I’m planning on only going on the Saturday though so I’m hoping that he’s going to be in attendance that day….

  24. @JimtheFish
    Glasgow CC website is a masterpiece of underinformation! (no times, no venues, no tel no!)
    Tho it does say John Wagner’s supposed to be there too.
    Might give it a shot though…
    @Wolfweed – are you planning a trip to the wild west next weekend?

  25. @ScaryB I’m afraid I’m trapped here in the tame east.
    It’s probably for the best, as I doubt the CC would appreciate a ‘tumbleweed’ rolling through their doors…(!)

Leave a Reply