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Underground > Comic Books >

One for all you 2000ad bastards out there: JS=GM-MM

17:06 / 06.08.02

grant morrison - mark millar = john smith

do you agree? or even know what i mean? and where is john smith now anyway? does he just do vampirella? anyone

yawn - thing's buddy

07:47 / 07.08.02

john smith is a nice boy.

I'll have to give New Stateman a read again.

09:50 / 07.08.02

What did he do after New Statesmen, anyhow?

yawn - thing's buddy

09:50 / 07.08.02

anyhoo, yer point's inneresting. When I read new Statey back in the day, I was aware of the watchmen shadow cast across it. I also reckoned it was a tad contrived etc. but i wanted to like it - I can't remember what I thought.

An while I thought that Smith was trying to be 'Alan', because he was young and spunky there was always a bit of Grantiness to him as well.

Actually, I don't know what I'm on about.

Just desperate for comic chat.

10:36 / 07.08.02

Yawn will confirm my penchant for John Smith's stuff. He's good at setting the scene, introducing interesting-sounding characters and invoking a strange, intriguing atmosphere ripe with potential - less good at coming up with actual plot, so he often seems to fall rather flat.

After 'New Statesmen', he did 'Devlin Waugh', 'Tyranny Rex', 'Killing Time' - and a rather fine one-off launderette story for 'Hellblazer'.

ONLY NICE THINGS

10:44 / 07.08.02

Smith is probably a better writer in some ways than Morrison or Millar, but is too easily impressed and overborne by the stylistic affectations of others.

Yawny - brief flirtation with Vertigo that never quite seemed to work. The Scarab, a fill-in issue of Hellblazer, that sort of thing. What he's doing at the moment I have no idea (Vampirella? Really?), but "Indigo Prime: Killing Time", "Devlin Waugh: Swimming in Blood" (OK, it was the art that made that one, but...), "New Statesmen (natch)" and "Cinnabar" (best. Rogue. Trooper. Story. Ever) were textbook examples of a particular and very 2000AD-y style that fed into the Doom Patrolly vertigo stuff.

yawn - thing's buddy

10:50 / 07.08.02

maybe we should 'big up' smithy boy.

does he have a fan base?

does anyone (part from ganesh) rave about him?

11:16 / 07.08.02

Oh yes, Cinnabar was a great Rogue Trooper story – IIRC, the first part ended with some other soldiers finding Rogue nailed to a X-shaped thing in the rain ? Couldn’t agree more. Very strong stuff.

And I think he said that Fervent and Lobe, in their Will Simpson-drawn 2000AD series, were meant to be gay necrophiliac cowboys ? Eeh, them were the days.

I think he’s resurfaced in 2000AD in recent times, writing some Dredd stuff and the like (didn't he write Pussyfoot 5, or whatever it was called?). Can’t remember if it was at Comics 2001, or in an interview around that time, that he said that David Bishop (then-editor of 2000AD) had said that if he was more disciplined, he’d be in 2000AD more often. John said he agreed with this assessment, which I thought was pretty honest. Though whether it was in terms of getting scripts in on time or tightening plots and/or characterisation was never made clear.

But yes, a very decent writer, who brings some interesting ideas to the table. Can’t knock that. Big up indeedy.

DBC

yawn - thing's buddy

11:23 / 07.08.02

and tannhauser - you were responding to the glazed onion, not me I reckon, but ta for information.

11:27 / 07.08.02

God, yes, Scarab. Had forgotten about that. Fell into my period when I was picking most of Vertigo's output up but only giving it a cursory glance, prior to abandoning comics altogether for a couple of years before the Invisibles came out.

I quite liked it, as I recall. Might have to go dig it out again. Horror-based superhero thing, wasn't it? Old bloke with insectoid super-armour?

yawn - thing's buddy

11:32 / 07.08.02

so andy diggle has written 'lady constantine' for vertigo. He's the former editor of 2000AD. Anyone up on his skill, craft, technique, imagination etc.

For some reason i think he's probably cack. Could it be his name which is causing me to dis him with no reason?

Never comfortable with editors becoming writers.

Never.

(not that I can think of any other examples)

11:55 / 07.08.02

Wasn't it Diggle who was responsible for getting rid of original stories on 2000AD and plumping for regularly recurring characters, like yr Sinister Dexters and Nikolai Dantes? That said, I got a couple of complimetary issues through the post from the subscriptions dept t'other day, trying to woo me back, and all the usual suspects are still in place. One of July's progs, for example, has Dredd, Tor Cyan (Rogue Trooper in all but name), Dante and Durham Red, so it doesn't look like the Rebellion boys have gone out their way to increase the amount of original content.

Anyway, John Smith. Agree with Ganesh here; Smith's not too good at holding a coherent storyline together. Killing Time and the Dredd story, Fetish, work best out of his 2000AD stuff because they're tight and he keeps the weirdness under reigns. Mind you, nobody can touch him when he lets the weirdness truly breaks loose (as in the second proper Devlin Waugh series, the 26-parter).

Didn't David Bishop try his hand at writing? Some Megazine series with nuns in it. Shaky Kane did the art.

ONLY NICE THINGS

12:15 / 07.08.02

gay necrophiliac cowboys

They weren't necrophiliac. They were *dead*. Honestly...

But yes. Tyranny Rex had some top moments, and when he was basically given Carte Blanche to be weird and not worry about the plot it worked very well (Revere had no plot worth mentioning, but was very lovely indeed).

Also, something which didn't really come out with New Statesmen because the art was so fucked around with, but Smnith has a great ability to bring the best out of the artists he works with. Chris Weston hyas struggled to beat "Killing Time", Harrison (?) was actually not just tolerable but actually at times attractive in Revere...given the absurdly variable nature of 2000AD art his was a very useful talent to have.

12:17 / 07.08.02

>>>Never comfortable with editors becoming writers.

Never.<<<

Back in the Good Old Days of comics you had to put in your time as writer or artist before you could advance to an editorial position. Minimum of 10 years experience or something like that. I think he died before I ever started doing comics professionally, but one of the names that I always hear when people talk about great editors is Archie Goodwin, who wrote comics for absolute ages before he edited them.

Not that I'm saying Diggle is going to be any good, but I find the outright rejection of editors also writing rather odd.

(Of course these days it seems they hire editors without much - or any - writing experience at all, which makes me uneasy. I'd much rather be told how to write by someone who knows how to do it themselves...)

Disappointingly, ex-Barbelither October Ghost was asked to write a proposal for the Lady Constantine project which was by all accounts totally kickass, but lost out to Diggle because the OG hadn't had any previous published work...

12:21 / 07.08.02

Think I agree about Smith and artists: Mark Buckingham's stuff on 'Tyranny Rex' was exquisite.

yawn - thing's buddy

12:46 / 07.08.02

cam stew: thats a shame bout the ghost-face(raw fawkes?) and that also why diggle is probably going to bug me.

as for my outright rejection - it was tempered with self-doubt - hence the

(not that I can think of any other examples)

tagged on.

As for your example: you showed a reverse situation: a writer becoming an editor: this is a good model: it makes sense. Playing it in reverse sees more noise stick to the equation.

I reckon.

13:30 / 07.08.02

If memory serves, Andy Diggle wrote a one-off story in the Dredd Megazine called ‘Lenny Zero’ which he said was meant to serve as an example of the kind of standard he hoped to get from people making script submissions to 2000AD. It was, as I recall, pretty decent.

DBC

No star here laces

14:10 / 07.08.02

God, I never realised the same guy had written all those comics, many of which are all time 2000AD favourites (for me).

Perhaps his career has been blighted by his instantly forgettable name?

Revere was fucking incredible. Full kudos for getting something so utterly sexual printed in a little boys magazine...

ONLY NICE THINGS

15:50 / 07.08.02

There was a famous moment when he lost his access card for a comics convention when he was pushing Crisis, and the security guards refused to believe that his name was, in fact, John Smith.

No star here laces

16:19 / 07.08.02

Thinshaver.

17:18 / 09.08.02

very glad you all love him too. perhaps the reference to 'ill discipline' comes from his seeming utterinability to write stories without lots of strang moments when he goes on about 'the MEAT', and stuff. the last devlin waugh story was the last 2000ad story to get any of my money. he does futurpop better than only one other writer i reckon.

20:47 / 13.08.02

John Smith certainly had his moments on 200OAD. I particularly remember Cinnabar and Killing Time. Then again, Tyranny Rex was really, really, really bad.

Andy Diggle - I can remember him holding court on the 2000AD newsgroup falling out of his pram everytime anyone criticised the comic.

I haven't read anything he's actually written though so I'll reserve comment there. I will say that it worries me that he appears to have leapt to the front of the queue in this case on the basis of simply working in an editorial capacity.

02:44 / 14.08.02

Isn't John Smith the bastard who dropped dead and left The Smiler in charge of Nu Labor?

yawn - thing's buddy

14:58 / 10.03.03

isn't Tony Blair actually Alan B'Stard of New Statesman fame?

00:40 / 22.04.03

Was New Statesman ever made into a telly programme, with Rik Mayall? Is this the same thing?

I was too young for Crisis.

But I got all of Scarab the other week for 80p a copy, and really liked it. Think it may have influenced some of Richey James lyrics, actually.

He also wrote an X-Men story a year or so ago, in X-Men Unlimited #35. Which isn't too fab.

Incidentally, I'm sure 'Fetish' is a Morrison/Millar collaboration. 'S the one in Egypt, right?

yawn - thing's buddy

07:21 / 22.04.03

duncan, I'll pretend you never asked that.

Dan Fish - @Fish1k

09:46 / 22.04.03

I always found his stuff a bit hard to get into

Duncan:The tv programme 'New Statesman' with Rik Mayall as Alan B'Stard is not related to the comic that was serialised in Crisis.

Fetish was not a morrison/millar collaboration, it was by John Smith.

I'm Rick Jones, bitch

18:04 / 22.04.03

John Smith - Drugs - William Gibson= Morrison

His Dredd vs Zombie Dredd story was pretty good.

The Natural Way

18:10 / 22.04.03

Were those minus's or dashes?

18:21 / 22.04.03

Incidentally, I'm sure 'Fetish' is a Morrison/Millar collaboration. 'S the one in Egypt, right?

Nah, that was Book of The Dead. And it was shit.

19:36 / 22.04.03

Smith impressed me as a young'un with his ability to describe the indescribable. Truly psychedelic. Once showed him me and my mate's little comic we'd done. He was dressed all in purple which matched the rings around his eyes. That and the one arm left a real impression on me.

01:57 / 23.04.03

But... but... are there characters in both called Alan B'Stard? Are they both called New Statesman/men? I were only about 13 when this was on the go.