All language subtitles for Documental - Paul Goodwin - 123

'Once the '70s hit,

'and you started seeing
things weren't going to be hippy-dippy

'and flowers in the hair
and love-peace man

'and the Charles Manson gang
had massacred Sharon Tate...

'No, that died in the '60s.'

'Britain in the late '70s
was a troubled country to say the least.

'We'd had major political tensions,

'there was also a lot of dissatisfaction
amongst the young,

'many of whom were unemployed

'and perhaps seeing
little future for themselves.'

'We'd just come out
of power cuts and strikes

'and it was really horrible,

'with bin bags piling up on the streets
and really ugly clothes.'

'Of course. it was
the Queen's Silver Jubilee.

'There was this feeling
of a clash of cultures, I think, around.

'There was the feeling of

'the established order
being ready to be overthrown

'and new stuff coming up from below.'

Comics in the '70s, particularly boys comics,

were going through a really bad time.

They weren't selling very well.

"'Lion", "Jet" and "Valiant"
were becoming increasingly silly'

and they were losing their way.

Up until then, comics had been written

by people who really didn't want
to be writing comics,

they wanted to be writing proper novels
or articles for proper magazines.

The artists really wanted to be
proper magazine illustrators

who were largely slumming it in comics.

The editors were all waiting
till they could get into a proper job

like editing "Practical Gardening".

It was a pretty bleak period.

A lot of people... Certainly there wasn't
an expectation of growth

or the market developing
in the way that it subsequently did.

You had a story in "Jet"
called "Paddy McGinty's Goat".

'So it's about a boy
who looks like an Enid Blyton character

'who goes around with his goat
who is actually an alien!

'What ten-year-old red-blooded boy
is going to be fascinated by that?'

I think I've actually sort of erased it
from my mind

because it's just so awful.

And I wrote some of those stories
because that was what people wanted.

"'Wham", "Smash",
"Pow", "Fantastic" and "Terrific",'

and you had
a really interesting mash up

of things like
Leo Baxendale-inspired strips,

'like "Grimly Feendish"
and "The Man from B.U.N.G.L.E."'

'and a very odd one called "Rubber Man",
cursed by an Indian fakir,'

who was very stretchy.

It literally was rotting my brain.
I'm really convinced it was.

If you think about it, if you're writing
complete crap day in day out,

it is going to have an effect on you.

Pat is such a workaholic

and if you're going to work with him,
you've got to keep to his pace.

John and I realised
we could actually clean up,

'so we produced all sorts of stories
and we sold nearly everything.'

I couldn't carry on writing this rubbish

so I had to actually
create my own vehicles.

"Action" of course tapped into all the
movies that kids couldn't see at the time,

like "Jaws" and "Rollerball"
and "Dirty Harry".

'Pat Mills and his team of creators said,

"'Let's give them
the boiled-down essence of these movies

"'but also give them an extra twist

"'and particularly push the outsider hero,
the underdog,'

"as an identifying figure for kids."

I wanted it to be a comic of the streets
and it became this rollercoaster,

because it was incredibly successful
because of its savagery,

but also because it was saying
that to the establishment,

and the establishment recognised
that we were saying that

and they retaliated.

So they looked for an opportunity
and they didn't have to wait too long.

"Action" comic
was mostly contemporary stories,

quite a level of ultra-violence
going on in it.

I mean it was the '70s,
that's what a lot of culture was like.

'You only needed to look at
the sheer level of nihilism and brutality

'in culture at the time.'

I particularly like writing violence,

so there is always a lot of violence
in my stories, because it's fun.

There was this cover:
"Kids Rule O.K.!".

'So you've got a kid
swinging a bicycle chain,

'which is risky enough in the first place,
beautifully drawn by Carlos Ezquerra,

'and there is a guy lying on the ground
looking up at this kid.

'Near the guy is a policeman's helmet.

'But then the colourist,
who I'd like to strangle,

'paints the guy in the suit blue
and paints the copper's helmet blue

'so it looks like there is
a policeman on the ground,'

and I went, "Oh my God,"

and they said, "Hey we've got
a really cool cover here.

"We've even shocked Pat Mills!"
And I was thinking, "Oh, fuck!"

Well those were
very funny times in England.

It was Mary Whitehouse trying to
save the souls of everybody

and it was a cover,
it just said, "The Kids Rule!"

The day "Action" got banned,

there were kids
running down the high street.

They said "'Action's got banned,
'Action's got banned!"

It was an event for kids

that this comic
that they had really gotten into

'had been banned.'

It was the sort of
slightly misguided prototype

that allowed "2000AD" to exist

and I think in that regard,
it is extraordinarily important.

"2000AD" was a retreat
and I knew it was a retreat.

For me personally,
there is a lot of regret

that we have to
retreat into science fiction

to be able to say something.

'What happened was that'

Kelvin Gosnell had read
an article in the "Evening Standard"

'which said that "Star Wars"
was going to be huge,'

but to do a science fiction comic
was a very risky thing,

because it's worth knowing
that things like "TV 21" had died,

"Eagle" had died

'and there was a reaction
from the readers.'

In other words,
they often saw science fiction,

with some justification,
as being a bit silly.

Pat Mills really, for his model,
wasn't looking at America.

He didn't look at the superhero material,
he doesn't like superheroes.

'He was looking much more to France

'where you had magazines that began
around '75 or so, like "Metal Hurlant",'

where artists like Moebius had done
spectacular, visionary science fiction,

'science fantasy material

'unlike anything seen anywhere
in the world at that time.'

The people that I chose
to work on the comic

had to have a certain,
what shall we say...

...counter culture attitude.

We were this gang of reprobates

dropped right down in the middle
of this totally conservative comic group

which had done things
its own way for many, many years.

The "2000AD" offices were literally

'a couple of desks
and a filing cabinet in a corner.

'Pat was full of energy,
full of enthusiasm,

'full of colourful language,'

which I think, again, was a bit of a shock
to the other people on the floor.

But a man of huge enthusiasm.

In the building we were hated,

'because we were there to usurp the role
of the existing boys comic structure'

and understandably they didn't like it.

But the way we saw it,
it was their own fault

'because they let their comics
fall into such a poor state.'

It wasn't just that we were doing stuff
that they didn't like,

'but we enjoyed doing stuff
that they didn't like.'

'The more they tried
to push things down,

'the more I kind of worked against it,'

and that actually is responsible
for a lot of the energy that "2000AD" has,

which the readers have responded to

and was recycled in so many ways
over the decades.

They had various titles in mind,

but the one that came out eventually
was "2000AD",

which, in 1977,
was 23 years into the future.

Far enough into the future
for IPC to be confident

that the comic would definitely
not last until 2000 AD.

I just knew
that everything had to be good,

primarily because there were
so many people who were wishing us bad,

who really wanted this comic to crash.

People thought, because we were
a science fiction comic,

we were going to be rather nice
and middle-class,

and boy, were they in for a shock.

It was dangerous.
I was a bit scared about it.

I could feel my brain just going,

"'I don't understand this,
what's going on?"'

It was an assault on the senses.

For a nine-year-old boy,
it was life-changing.

It was like you hear '60s rock musicians
dropping acid for the first time

'and having their horizon
suddenly explode outwards.'

Because it was so edgy,
you didn't quite know

what was going to happen with it.

It took those risks, and there was
a welcoming audience

just busting to have
something to relate to.

I loved the art: Ezquerra and Cam Kennedy
and Bolland and Kevin O'Neill.

'They were just
the coolest things I'd ever seen.'

'Once I saw "2000AD", I decided
I wanted to draw comics for a living,'

so I've totally got "2000AD" to thank
or to blame, I'm not sure what.

To me it was just this small little
independent thing that kicked ass

'and I felt like I could really identify
with what they had going on.'

I'm buying it for "Halo Jones",

'the glorious twisted
social commentary of "Dredd"

'and for the madness
and the glory of "D.R. & Quinch".'

When "2000AD" came out,
the readers loved it.

'It was the biggest hit
that juvenile comics had had

'for a very, very long time.'

We sold, I think, around 200,000 copies
in the first week.

I very quickly realised that, for me,
Pat Mills was the man.

I just thought that his imagination
was quite incredible

and the concepts and characters he was
coming up with really appealed to me.

I was treating the readers as equals
and saying,

"I'm not going to talk down to you,
I'm going to reflect what you want.

"Obviously I'm going to give it
my own subversive spin

"because that's important to my soul."

There were no rules written down,
you just wrote or drew what you wanted to,

and you wouldn't have thought so,

but it did become
a recipe for success for "2000AD".

We enjoy pushing it to the edge.
That's the only way things move forward.

Shake it up a little bit,
go a bit too far, you know.

Then go a bit further.

'The publisher said to me,

"'Write a story about
a Russian invasion of Britain.

"'Include...," he said, "...a scene.

"'Have Margaret Thatcher shot
on the steps of Saint Paul's Cathedral."'

I said, "John, I think I could
get into this story, you know?"

A paper which is now right behind
graphic novels, the "Guardian"...

Back in those days,
they'd do anything to cut our legs off.

The "Guardian" rang me up,
John lzzard, and said,

"These Volgans...
They're Russians aren't they?"

And I said, "No, no, no, they're Volgans."

"But they've got Russian uniforms."
I said, "They're just totalitarian guys."

And he said, "But there is
a River Volga in Russia."

I said "Yeah, but there is
a Volga Republic in Africa."

He said, "Yeah but they're not black,
are they Pat?"

'There was
a tabloid backlash to that,

'that this did have
a political element to it'

and that it was, "Is this
what our children are reading?"

But of course,
if you're launching a new publication,

to get slagged off by the tabloids
is a wonderful thing.

Very quickly, the age range for "2000AD"
started to rise,

older people started to read it.

There always was that kind of kitchen sink/
Alan Bennett level to British comics,

and there was also the anarchic element
coming from the "Bash Street Kids"

and those kind of strips,
where it was children against authority.

So I think what "2000AD" just did
was to take those ideas

and then put them into adventure strips,

in a way that hadn't really been done
like that before.

It was quite a wild time, because we knew
we had a hit on our hands,

but we also knew that the old regime

were going to do their damnedest
to destroy it.

I do believe that punk was a sort of
motivating factor with "2000AD".

It had that sort of violent, satirical edge.

Punk existed in "2000AD",

'and it's not exactly
that it led me to the music,'

but a certain kind of wanting
to smash things up.

Pat had a character called Judge Dredd,
who was an occult detective

and we didn't feel the story was working.

So I said to Pat, "Well, it's
a great title for the story... a judge."

Carlos came up with this
absolutely astonishing character

'and this incredible city'

and I was just like,
"My God, where has this come from?"

'The helmet,
it was based more on

'the kind of hood
of a medieval executioner.

'The eagle is also a symbol
from the Americans, the US.

'The eagle also has been
a symbol for the fascist states,

'the Roman empire,
the Germans.'

To our dismay, John hated it.

He said, "The guy looks like a fucking
Spanish pirate, I'm not writing him."

I made the first story.

I established the clothes,

I established the bike,
I established the city.

They never published that story,

because it was considered,
at that stage, too violent.

Carlos also backed away from "Dredd"

because he got a better offer
to work on a character for "Battle",

and so we're left with this character

that has kind of emerged
from these two very talented individuals

and they've both walked away
from their creation.

Whatever they say,
that's what happened.

'And to our astonishment, Mike McMahon
came out of the woodwork

'and was actually drawing
in this kind of punk equivalent of Carlos'

and I thought, "Wow."

Instead of asking me for another one,

or maybe they didn't have time,
I don't know,

but they published the first one
from Mike McMahon

'and they even asked him
to follow me very, very closely.'

So I felt angry, I really felt cheated.

John came back, realising the character
was going to survive without him,

and eventually came up
with this incredible story

about a robot rebellion,

which was full of a dark comedy
that had never really appeared before.

'That was
a tipping point for two reasons.

'One, it established "Dredd"
as the number one strip,'

and it was that period onwards
where you could see,

"OK, they get it now and we can
more or less do anything we want.

"They'll follow us."

In 1977, you're talking about

the heart of punk rock music,
certainly here in Britain.

I mean, that's when things
were really kicking off,

and here they come
with a guy that's basically like,

"Fuck all that punk rock, left-wing shit.
I'm really punk."

'They created a character that
would have killed everybody in real life

'that was involved in punk rock music.'

To come out with something like that
took a lot of balls,

and, to me, that's what punk is.

The magic of "Dredd"
is it was one of the very few places

where you were absolutely allowed
to have your cake and eat it.

It could be the thing
that was being commented on

while also being the commentary.

Judge Dredd
was based on Margaret Thatcher.

'Dredd is a fascist,

'and the more fascistic we made him,
the more right-wing we made him,

'the more the readers loved the character.

'We were driving it further
and further towards the edge.'

The good thing about Dredd
is that he does have a strong moral code,

albeit not one
that we would necessarily agree with.

Yeah, OK, he might kind of work
for a semi-fascist state or whatever,

but he's actually a good guy.

And he's a massive, massive
mass murderer!

If you add up all the people
Dredd's killed...

'Just look at the Apocalypse War
at the end.

'It's one of the best Dredd moments.

'The Sov-judge says something like
"You can't do it Dredd! My people!"'

'and Dredd just pushes the button
and says, "Request denied."'

You just go, "That's amazing!"

Dredd said very little,

but what he said
felt to the point and accurate,

'and you kind of trusted him,'

you felt in a safe pair of hands.

When I was writing a "Dredd" story,
I'd write down every factor.

The two main ones were 'Dredd as Hero',

but the absolute main one
was 'Dredd as Villain'.

Within the context of the action
of reading a "Dredd" strip,

you have to read it literally.

You have to kind of be willing to say,
"Yes, I'm on the side of the judges,"

even as you watch them
summarily executing somebody

for having sugar in their house
or whatever.

I'm continually surprised by people
who I meet and who write to me

and say, "Oh, yeah man, 'Judge Dredd'
was so influential on me growing up."

That's shortly after
they get out of prison.

There are people out there
who see "Dredd"

as an actual aspirational vision
of how our world ought to be policed.

I'm a bit alarmed about that.

'That's largely where the
whole democratic storyline sprang from.

'No reader could think,
"Yeah, go get 'em Dredd."'

When Dredd is saying
to the husband of the dead terrorist,

"'Let this be a lesson to you, citizen:
democracy is not for the people,"'

you think, "Only John Wagner
could write that

"and only Judge Dredd could say it."

Over the years, the consistency of good
writing and great artwork in "Judge Dredd"

'makes it just one of the major
comic book creations of all time.'

I wrote a fucking song about Judge Dredd.

I didn't ever write a song
about Batman or Spider-Man.

All my craziness,
I was actually getting from "2000AD".

I mean, I would hear people
talking about "Enter the Dragon"

outside the arcade on holiday,

and "They've got it
on Betamax," and stuff,

but never see it.

But this was happening every week.

One of the big appeals
for me for "2000AD", as a child,

was the fact that it was insanely violent.

We don't call it violence in comics,
we call it action.

There is still a lot of violence in "2000AD"
and there always has been.

It's always been pushing
the limits of what it could get away with,

so that started from Prog 1,
and it's been like that ever since.

The really early stuff
that Pat put together,

things like "Flesh" and so on,

were just full of the most horrific ways
a person can die:

being tossed into fleshdozers

'and eaten by dinosaurs
and giant scorpions,

'and all this kind of stuff.'

It was just insanely violent
and that's great,

because when you're
eight years old in 1977,

you can't get that anywhere else.

"Action" had given comics
such a bad name

that they were looking really, really closely
at everything we were doing.

Things had to pass through
all these kind of censors

and our excuse that, "Hey it's only robots
that are getting their legs blown off,"

'we didn't always get away with it.'

We had someone pickled
in a large jar of vinegar

'and the managing director decided that
that was going to encourage children'

to put their brothers and sisters into
giant jars of vinegar and pickle them.

I don't know if you remember the
Nemesis story where he stabs his wife?

'When that appeared in the original comic,
you saw his sword going in

'and it wasn't coming out the back!'

I did the sword coming out the back
with the blood going 'Pffff"!

Hey, do you want to show
these kinds of things,

or do you want to just have everything
like, Enid Blyton or Walt Disney?

I love horror,
I love violence in movies and comics.

I love watching "Jackass" and seeing
people getting kicked in the balls.

Why?
It's funny, I don't know.

There is something marvellous about it.

I think, if you do it well
and make it fun to look at,

and not just a load of people
kind of with their fists up, grimacing...

Because that is always boring, isn't it?

I think it becomes a problem when
you're revelling in it for the sake of it,

and you can usually tell
when that happens.

The next really big issue
where violence came to the fore

was when we started getting fully painted,
very realistic artwork.

'That's when you get things
like "Sl�ine: The Horned God".

'The late '80s and into the early '90s.'

Once you had people who could get
red paint and a toothbrush

and just go flicketty flick, flick,

and then you've just got exit wounds
all over the page,

'then it becomes
a lot more of a challenge

'for editorial to decide
how far you can go.'

If anything, I felt like
it wasn't violent enough in the '90s!

Kevin found,
when he was doing "Nemesis",

that they would often see
strange things in his artwork,

which, strange as it is,
actually weren't there.

It was a cover with two terminator statues
with a bridge between them,

'and I think Nemesis and Torque
were fighting in the middle'

and I looked at it and said, "Well...what?

You know...

And he said, "Well, Gil thinks
the bridge looks like a cock."

And I said, "But it starts there.

"Is this some weird medical condition
or something?"

I mean... "Well, you're going
to have to... It's too thick."

So I got my white paint
and I was thinning it down, thinking,

"I've hit a new low, this is pathetic.
I shouldn't at my age be doing this."

He was very aware that some of the censors,
one of them in particular,

was actually writing for porn magazines.

I don't want someone who is into pornography
telling me I'm going too far, you know?

That's unacceptable, I think.

I remember there was one strip
that Simon Bisley drew.

What we didn't realise,
the first time it was published,

is that written in graffiti, because
Simon loves a bit of cheeky graffiti,

he had written the name
of a popular British entertainer,

who I won't name for legal reasons,
and underneath, "Bum bandit".

Just for a laugh.

And eventually we saw it and went...

"This could shut us down, this person
could sue and shut the lot down forever."

So we got hold of all the copies
of the films, and a scalpel

and scratched it out of the film

so it could never be
reprinted by mistake.

'One thing we talked about
a lot in the office was the editor's page,'

which we all absolutely fucking hated.

Tharg the Mighty
is the alien editor of "2000AD".

'Tharg was
one of those ideas,'

which I think sounded
like a good idea at the time,

which I have since regretted.

He's the host of the comic

and that was commonplace for boys comics,
particularly in the '70s, to have.

After I think about three or four years,

I increasingly realised how Tharg was,
in my view, a bit of an anachronism.

One of the things I really wanted to do
was to get rid of Tharg.

Readers were quite angry.

'It was part of the package,
it was part of "2000AD".

'He's an intrinsic part
of why "2000AD" is what it is,'

and the moment you change
anything like that, they freak out.

They just go bonkers ballistic
bat shit crazy.

The multiple levels of reading
are what made "2000AD" work.

I'm quite sure,
if you were eight or ten,

you'd just like things blowing up
and guns, etc, and action

and you wouldn't necessarily pick up
on all of the other levels of meaning.

It was very sneaky.

You know, people tend to think of comics
as being throwaway entertainment,

but this was some deep political stuff.

It's got subtext
in a way that nothing had before.

Just like most other kids,
I read Dickens,

and he is talking
about the social evils of his day,

so why shouldn't we talk
about the social evils of our day?

There is the old Roman maxim

about bread and circuses
keeping the population subdued

'by making sure they're fed
and making sure they're entertained.

'But the reason that works

'is that people always prefer
to be entertained rather than engaged.'

So one way of making sure
that they have some sort of understanding

is to actually encapsulate
some of this stuff into the entertainment.

Alan Grant and John Wagner
were very influenced

by what was going on in the present day.

Before they used to write in the morning,
they'd sit down and read the news.

We always tried to write stories

so that the young could appreciate them
and older people could appreciate them,

and the kind of satirical edge
that goes in most "2000AD" stories

is largely what attracts
the older audience.

John and I went out of our way to make
Johnny Alpha a repressed character

because he was a mutant,

'and the normal people of the time,
whipped up by politicians, hated mutants.

'So he was very much a second-class
citizen in the world that he lived in,'

and bounty hunting was the onlyjob that
was open to him and to other mutants.

It was quite a neat way of doing it

without getting too involved
in race or, you know, actual issues

that the management might have thought,
"We don't want to touch this."

You just bring in mutants
as the disadvantaged minority

'and it works the same way.'

So yeah, we tried to
make a big deal out of that

and it was a very popular story
in the comic "2000AD".

I hadn't realised, actually,

that it had been released
in South Africa, uncensored.

Johnny Alpha being a mutant
and the resonances of that with Apartheid,

which I grew up under
in the late '80s and early '90s

was absolutely
just devastating to see,

'and to see that kind of
allegorical comparison.

'It was a deeply racist,
deeply repressive regime.

'There was hectic censorship.

'It was interesting how people
managed to slip around that.'

To be able to explore it in inventive
storytelling, that was really exciting.

It does seem to be
very important to a lot of people.

To me, it's just a job
and a pleasurable job at that,

but when you hear
what effect it has had on people,

it makes you think.

People were engaging with politics,
with social circumstance,

with poverty, with segregation,

but in a really fun way

and it didn't feel like watching the news.
It got around that whole issue fatigue.

And the other place that you had
that same demand for intelligence

and that same weird
and wonderful sense of humour

was with "Nemesis the Warlock".

Nemesis is a catharsis
for a Catholic childhood.

The aliens are the good guys
and all humans, the whole human race,

are the evil bastards.

The human empire is run
by Torquemada and his terminators

'and they are
the most extreme combination'

of racists and the Catholic Church.

'Pat's stroke of brilliance

'was having the real-life Torquemada
as a basis for our Torquemada.'

And Pat's "Be pure, be vigilant, behave"
which ended up on the Berlin Wall -

somebody had written it on the Berlin Wall
years later, which delighted us.

"Nemesis the Warlock" is clearly about
xenophobia of different kinds.

Xenophobia and racism.

And it's all kind of
very broad brushstrokes,

but I think it is great that that kind of stuff
is dealt with on some level.

You know, even if it's as simple as
"Hating people is bad,"

that's actually quite a good message
to get across.

The good thing about the story is

we side with him against the humans,

because the humans are all fascists.

I think Pat did
some amazing stuff with that.

They had one bit where they had
Torquemada giving this amazing speech

where he was talking about the human race,
saying, "We're all white men now!"

This is at the height of the National Front,
and things like this, you know,

and it was also the height of Apartheid.

With Kevin, he was drawing
such astonishing things,

that there was really no need
to direct him in any way.

'I like movies that
are big and I like science fiction films

'and the Ray Harryhausen stuff,
like people being dwarfed by statues.

'And you can see it in "Nemesis"
where I could finally let rip,

'I could finally do what I wanted to do.'

The horns, the cloven hooves, everything,
is a medieval devil figure

'and you know,
when you think of it in the future,'

if he's the enemy of the human race,
he is somehow the Devil.

But the readers loved it,
they loved it

and we couldn't go too far, it seemed,
we just couldn't go too far.

What becomes plain in the later books
is that he's taken his war too far

'and in the end, the difference
between Nemesis and Torquemada

'is shown as being next to nothing.'

They both end up just trapped
endlessly in this cycle of hate,

one no better than the other,
which I thought was a fantastic ending.

But again, it doesn't actually give you

a comfortable moral conclusion
that good prevailed.

It doesn't even tell you what good was.

You've got to explore
real themes of good and evil.

That's a particular obsession of mine.

I think because, having grown up
in the '50s and '60s,

where a lot of people were
presented as Mother Theresas,

and by my personal experience,
they were anything but.

'Nuns, priests, monks, you name it,

'and they were all,
for the most part, frauds.'

Not one bad apple in a barrel,
they were all rotten. Rotten to the core.

There are times in your career

when you get a bit of a platform
to be able to say what you want

about something that really moves you,
or really angers you,

and I think that, if you decide
not to do it at that point,

what the hell
are you doing this thing for?

It was talking to kids and presenting
the images in such an appealing way,

that it was actually getting through

and turning us all
into a generation of anarchists.

It was kind of like
the slightly bad kid in class going,

"Take a look at this!

"Never mind your homework,
take a look at this!"

To encourage young people to
question authority is no bad thing.

You should always ask questions
and why,

and just don't accept things as they are,
don't accept the status quo.

I think it's good for kids

to have those blinkers torn off
at an early age, frankly,

and grow up prepared for
how messed up the world really is.

'Sometimes those lines
between a good guy and a bad guy

'are really blurred.'

Very early on, it pushed
those questions into my brain.

It's definitely still there,
you can see it in the stories.

'Rob Williams' "Dredd" story
from a year or so ago,

'the one with the gay club.'

That caused so much hoo-ha,

and you just think,
"Well, what is the problem with that?"

But it was great
because it was just like

it's sticking a stick in a wasps' nest
and stirring it up.

Maybe parents might disagree,
but I think you should be giving kids

the opportunity to understand
that there are alternative viewpoints,

and maybe the stuff on TV
and in the newspapers

might be mediated a lot more
than you imagine as a younger child.

And to see that kind of material
being confronted and being dramatised

was always very exciting.

'There was a feeling in the air'

that "2000AD" was something
radically different

from anything that had been done before,
either in America or in Britain,

'You were living for the moment.'

'People were having a good time.'

It seemed to kind of represent
a certain kind of demi-monde, you know?

It was that sense of kind of brotherhood

that I think was very, very important,

'and, I think, was a huge factor
in the success of it.'

You've no idea how much
we all loved working on "2000AD".

We ate, slept, drank it.
We just talked about it all day long.

'We stayed after work, we went to the pub,
we talked about "2000AD".

'That's all we did.'

But because "2000AD" was a weekly comic,
it had weekly deadlines

and at that time
there was no Federal Express.

And the artists all used to bring
their work into the office on a Friday,

and at lunchtime, we retired to the pub

where we stayed until the pub closed
at eleven o'clock at night and threw us out.

If you were in that group, then you felt
like you were in a circled wagon,

that could cope with anything.

It was a mad time and everything.

At the comic conventions we'd stay out
drinking until half seven in the morning,

and then get up in two hours
and go and do sketches for people.

It was crazy.

You needed certain camaraderie
to produce your best work.

I think that was actually
really important.

What was great in those days
was turning up with your...

'I remember turning up with my artwork,
whatever it might have been,

and there was a pile
of Mick McMahon's "Judge Dredds"

and we were all thinking, "That's great."

Everything was hot.

And everyone was looking at
each other's work and ramping it up.

I'd go in the office and I would see
what Dave Gibbons and Mike McMahon

and Brian Bolland were doing,
and think, "OK, got to up the game."

It was friendly
and competitive at the same time.

My memories
of working in the studio with Mick

were basically arguing over
whose turn it was to make the coffee

and listening to Derek and Clive all day.

But amazingly,
when I look back on what we did,

that was where "Rogue Trooper"
was created,

'in the little shed we called the studio.

'It was where Mick drew "Block Mania",

'which was one of the most celebrated
"Judge Dredd" strips -

'it's where he did
some early work on "Sl�ine",

'which was another wonderful strip
that he did with Pat Mills.'

And we had this kind of rivalry
where I'd sit there drawing

and Mick would come and look
over my shoulder, and belch, and sniff

and I'd go,
"Well that's a pretty good drawing,"

and he'd go... "Is it?"

'Mick always used to say to me,

"'Dave, what you're drawing there,
it's only going to take you an afternoon,

"'but it's going to be in print forever.
It's going to be there to haunt you."'

And he was under a deadline

and he had to draw
this picture of Judge Caligula

lifting a goldfish bowl above his head,

and I told him it was crap,

and when it came out,
I told him it was crap again,

and he realised it was crap,

- so whenever he would give me...
- "What's that then?"

I'd go "Judge Caligula
and a goldfish bowl."

I think it was one of those rare cases where
you could transfer the joy and enthusiasm

actually in the office
and in the freelancers,

in everybody working
to do the best they possibly could...

We transferred it directly to the readers.

It was important that we did a good job,

but it was something
that we were having fun with.

'It just felt like being on
a really, really good team of friends.'

"2000AD" has always been...

...a bit of a boys own club.

These were comics for boys,
made by boys really,

and we didn't know
how to write about women.

Most of the stories were about men

and there really weren't often
even female side-kicks.

And I didn't really notice that
so much growing up as a kid,

but it was those stories
which did feature female characters

'which I was most drawn to.'

For some reason a lot of women
didn't seem to work on boys comics

and I don't know why, because J.K. Rowling
has written the adventures

of one of the most popular
boy characters in the world,

and if she wrote a story for "2000AD",
it would be huge, I guess.

But it didn't attract
women writers and artists

in the way that maybe now,
it's broken down a lot, you know.

Comics has been a boys club
for a lot of years

and even now,
it's still something that's kind of...

There is still work to be done.

I think some of that comes from
the corporates at the top,

the big bosses and what they think
people want to read about.

'We still see so many heroines,
specifically in superhero comics,

'just with giant tits
and not much personality,

'and they're actually interchangeable.'

Change her costume and you wouldn't
be able to tell the difference.

I've found often that
if you try to represent,

what tends to happen is that
people point fingers at you and say,

"How dare you write from the experience
of something you'll never understand?"

I get it all the time,

but I still keep trying
to put diversity into the comics.

But really, honestly,
it's been nothing but a flail.

People just get mad at you for doing it

and then they get mad at you
for not doing it.

I often worry when there is
a very deliberate policy

to try and do something, like either
include or exclude women, as an example.

Why not just write stories?

The first point we realised I'd be
the first female writer of "Dredd"...

'It certainly wasn't
when we came up with the idea,

'but when it was commissioned,
or just after we pitched it,'

I thought, "Hang on..."

It's become almost this vicious circle.

There aren't comics for girls or women
so they haven't tended to read it,

so therefore it hadn't occurred to them
to create for that.

For me, I never thought I'd write "Dredd".

To be completely honest,
it never occurred to me.

And equally if you look at something
and you see nothing that reflects you,

if you're not in it, then you think, "Well,
I don't exist" or "I don't belong in this world."

When I did the Glasgow Comic-Con
a couple of years ago,

I was on a panel, and afterwards
all these women came up to speak to me,

all these girls came up to speak to me

and I thought, "You've just not seen
a female creator on a panel.

"Maybe you just needed to see someone
to think, 'Maybe I can do this."'

And it does help
to know someone else is doing that.

Being able to see them
and being visible.

I would love to see
more women working for it,

because there are
tons of creators out there

who would absolutely give their eye
to work on it.

So I think, you know,
if Tharg were to employ a few more,

then I'm sure
that would go down very well.

"'Halo Jones" was
very much a story about a girl,'

and an ordinary girl
in a slum future world.

'It was really just about her life
and it expanded from there,

'and that was really amazing
to see how it expanded.

'She ends up in a horrific war zone

'and what that does to her
is just horrible,

but it was all from
a very feminine perspective

and that was fascinating to see.

If you create something
that is iconic enough,

nobody else can finish it.

'And I just remember feeling honoured
one day, chatting to Alan,

'and I said, "What would have happened?"'

And he took a couple of hours

and told me and Dave McKean
the story of the rest of "Halo Jones",

'all the way to the end,
when she is an old woman,

'and keeps going out
and keeps going further and further out

'and walking away from things
and what happened.

'And there were tears in my eyes
at the end of "Halo Jones"'

and I was imagining
this beautiful Halo Jones,

and just thinking what a huge tragedy
it was that it didn't get finished,

because Alan chose to walk away
from working conditions

that were essentially archaic.

He has said that he had it
all planned out and he could do...

I think he had another six books planned,
quite an astonishing amount planned,

'and I think she was going to end up...

'The last book...
It was going to be her whole life.

'I'm possibly the most gutted
that it's not going to see the light

'and if I could actually persuade him
to write it just for me,'

then I really would,
but I don't think he's got time.

Had Alan finished "Halo Jones",

I think that completed "Halo Jones"

would have actually been
one of the first great comics.

It would have been
up there with "Watchmen",

it would have been up there
with "V for Vendetta".

You know, things that we talk about
when we talk about comics -

"Halo Jones" should have been one of them.

They had that whole thing worked out.

That would have been a major work
for Alan Moore and for "2000AD",

and the fact that it's only
a truncated version is a bit sad.

But I wish
he'd finished telling that story,

because when he told it to me

just in a this-happens-
and-that-happens kind of voice,

it still made me cry.

Comics have got a terrible history
for treating people really, really badly.

We had endless chiefs
and very few Indians.

There were all these managing editors
and super-managing editors and so on.

And they were all
doing fuck all, basically.

They didn't really treat
the artists very well at all.

We just turned up with the artwork,
we weren't going to get it back.

They paid... Somebody paid us...

And then they decided that the vaults
were just so full of artwork

that they were using some of it
to soak up floods and stuff up drafts.

They would be using
absolutely beautiful full colour artwork,

drawn on and painted on
really thick illustration board

as a cutting mat.

I've seen artwork like that
put down in a doorway

for people's muddy feet to dry out on.

It's unbelievable how badly
and poorly valued original artwork was.

I've discovered that over 100
of my pages have been stolen.

The people that were treating them badly

were not fit
to clean their shoes, you know?

There were people employed
to relentlessly go through artwork

and white out any signatures,
or any in-jokes,

or people's names
on shop fronts or on the sides of vans.

And one of the people who was employed
to do that was Kevin O'Neill,

who had worked a lot as
what we used to call an "art bodger".

A bodger was not...
I was never happy with that job.

Even though I was very young,

I didn't like taking people's signatures
off strips. I thought that was wrong.

There was this absurd idea
that by keeping the comics anonymous,

the competition, for one thing,
wouldn't know who was doing it,

so they wouldn't try and headhunt
or track down the artist.

But also there was even the idea
that readers might get confused

that this wasn't real
and was being made by people,

which is another bizarre idea I think.

The credit story
is the single most important story...

...in the history of "2000AD",

and in the history of comics generally.

Basically what the credit cards were,

'were a way of crediting the writers
and the artists and the letterers.

'This had never been done
in British comics.'

'I said,
"What about calling it a credit card?'

"I'll just stick them on
and we'll see what happens."

It was perhaps his disgust

at all those years of denying people
credit that spurred him on

to make sure that people did get credit.

We gave the artists
the writers' phone numbers

and the other artists' phone numbers.

It all kind of hooked up.
That hadn't happened before.

It seems astonishing, given how long
comics have been around,

that that was so rare.

But they didn't like it.
It was bad news.

It probably was bad news
because we'd all compare rates.

The publishers were against giving credit,

because they probably realised
the way things could go

'if you could put a name to an art star

'and thereby make the artist
into a commodity.'

'Once people could write in

'and say, "I really like
Dave Gibbon's artwork,�

David Gibbons becomes
much more valuable

and they don't want that,
they didn't want that.

So it started as stealth and ended up
just as blunt trauma.

And now it meant
that the individual creators had,

if you like, in contemporary terms,
a brand of their own

and people like letterers,
who were just the invisible men of comics,

now got a credit.

They also knew who were the crap writers
and crap artists,

and so you'll see,
after the by-lines are introduced,

that, what should we say,
some of the more iffy writers,

they don't appear no more.

Then there's a turning point around '86, '87,
where a bunch of things happened

and the ripples from that
continue to this day.

If you want to create for "2000AD",
you have to surrender all rights.

And that had been a niggle and it turned
into a real problem for the comic

and people said,
"I'm not going to create anything new,

"I'm not going to work for it anymore."

You know, "Fuck you," basically.

Yachting Monthly, Newsagent Monthly,
anything at all...

The writers and artists
always kept their copyright.

Photographers kept their copyright
on their work.

And comics was the only division
where you didn't keep your copyright,

and it's still exactly the same.

The reason why publishers buy all rights

is because then they can do
what they like with it

and they own it in every conceivable way.

The rest of the world looks at us
like we're quite pathetic.

Somebody in the distant past
didn't properly get the rights

for a lot of stuff in "2000AD"
and I don't know who.

This was in the '80s
and the contracts weren't great.

In fact, they didn't have contracts.

When you received the cheque,
there was a box on the back of the cheque

which said "I understand
by cashing this cheque,

"I give up all rights to copyright
in this character or in this story."

If you didn't fill in the box that said
you were giving away your copyright,

you didn't get paid.

Hang on, you mean
I don't own any of this at all?

And people would go, "Surely you knew
that when you got the thing?

"There is a notice
on the back of the cheque

"saying, 'By the way, we own all this'
and, you know, 'Fuck off."'

It didn't actually say

"We own all this and fuck off,"
that's me paraphrasing the legal.

But the legal was
"We own all this and fuck off."

If you don't own your own material,
you're just treated like dirt

and they can take
your beloved characters off you

because they're not your characters now,
they say they're their characters

and they can give them to anybody.

Somebody was reprinting
"2000AD" stories for the American market

'and I noticed
some of my stories got reprinted.'

I discovered that actually you didn't
get paid if your stories were reprinted.

That was the point where I thought,
"You know...

think I'll stop working
for "2000AD"."

A lot of creators don't create
new strips for "2000AD" now.

People have worked for it in the past.

Getting the likes of John Wagner

to write a new strip
and surrender the copyright,

why would they do that?

I know I've held stuff back thinking,
"I don't want to give this awayjust yet.

"Could I write a novel out of it,
could I pitch it to Image or Vertigo?"

So I think people have held stuff back

and probably are sitting on
a lot of decent material.

There's an alternate world in which they
send me a quid for the "Future Shocks"

and a copy of the magazine it was in,
and I went on and created some kind of...

"Neverwhere" would have been
a "2000AD" strip or whatever.

The story of how so many of us
got to work for the Americans

is almost unbelievable to me now.

In, I think, 1981 or so,

'a couple of DC's head guys,
Dick Giordano and Joe Orlando,'

came to Britain, set up court
in a hotel in London

and invited British artists
to come and see them,

not to present their samples
and maybe get some work,

but actually just to be offered work.

They, I think, rented a hotel room
and invited a lot of guys over,

looked at their art, drank a lot of beer,
had a great time.

All the artists and writers
afterwards said,

"We had such a great time
when Joe and Dick were over,"

and they came back
and they brought back "2000AD".

The social commentary,
the political commentary,

the class commentary,
all those things...

You didn't get those anywhere else,
that wasn't being done anywhere else,

not on TV, not in film,
no other kind of comics.

Very soon these artists
were being headhunted,

another word for stolen I suppose.

Obviously America
could offer fantastic rates,

the chance to work on characters
that, for many, were their dreams.

Dreams come true for these artists.
They were fans as well as pros.

The first two to go
were Brian Bolland and Dave Gibbons.

Oh, it was terrific,

because, as a little boy,
I was a DC comics fan,

and to suddenly find

'that I was drawing
the cover of "Green Lantern",

'even though I was
27 or something at the time,

'It was a thrill.'

The first time I went to the States,
I was in awe of it.

What I loved were not the Statue of Liberty
and the Empire State...

It was the fire plugs in the street,
the big clunky fire hydrants

with big nuts and bolts on them,
and chains,

'and the water towers
on top of the downtown buildings

'that Steve Ditko used to draw
in "Spider-Man".'

So, to a British creator, there was always
this otherworldliness about the States.

And by the time they got to Alan Moore,
they realised they'd hit paydirt.

One of the great treats
was meeting Dave once a month

and he would have
even more new pages from "Watchmen".

'And he was so excited
by this new thing he was doing,

'and we could all tell
that it was going to be so good,

'an extension of "2000AD" really.'

'What Alan and I were able
to really let loose on'

was the outsider's view of superheroes
and costumed heroes.

Much though we loved them,
we were a step back.

We could question them a bit,
we didn't take them as gospel,

we could see the wood for the trees.

'And "Dark Knight"
was roughly the same time as well,'

and suddenly, everything changed
because they hit big, those books,

they hit mainstream big.

The intellectual level
and the level of narrative ambition

ramps up in comics dramatically
at that point,

and everybody wants to be doing that.

So "2000AD" figured that
they wanted to get involved in this

and try to come up with a superhero,

which is something
they had never done before,

so it had to be specifically "2000AD".

And, fortunately for me,
I happened to be

the apprentice who'd reached
the end of his apprenticeship,

and they came to me
and obviously I loved that stuff,

so I'd been working on
my own superhero story

'called "Zenith",
since like 1982.'

'You had a future western,'

you had a future cop story,
you had a future...

...war story,

but "Zenith" was about 1998
and it was about Britain

and superhero comics I'd read had never
been about contemporary Britain before.

I would say "Zenith" was the most
exciting thing I had seen fictionally

since "Star Wars" ten years before.

I think he was one of the first, really,
of the new type of superheroes.

You see them everywhere now,

the media brat-type superhero
who is constantly on TV,

but nobody had done that before.

Superheroes were guys
who came and saved your cat,

and at best they would save the galaxy,

but Zenith just wanted
to shag page-three girls and drink

and just happened to have super powers.

I figured honestly, if I had superpowers,
would I go out and fight? No.

'And as Zenith says in the strip,

"'You don't ask Daley Thompson..."
who was the major Olympian at the time,'

"...just because he's tough and strong
and fast, to go out and fight crime,

"so why the hell are you asking me?"

The vogue at the time
was for the what has been referred to

as the 'dark superhero'
so "Watchmen", "Dark Knight"...

Zenith, in a lot of ways, is the
antithesis of the dark superhero.

'It was a very bold,
confident debut by Morrison and Yeowell.

'It's like they knew this had to be brilliant,
and it was brilliant.

'It was just so full of energy
and cleverness and style.'

So much of the American work
that is revered

is actually unreadable pap, you know?

So yeah, I think it was kind of cool
when our boys went over there

and shook everything up a little bit.

'The American
comic scene felt comfortable.'

It felt staid and comfortable and dull.

And what "2000AD" did
was just kick it in the face.

Everything the Americans
didn't dare touch,

because it was almost sacrosanct,

we touched and molested
and dressed in a dress

and molested again.

I think Karen Berger
was a very significant figure

in that she recognised what we could do
and gave us a way of channelling that.

I went back to England for about
three or four years every six months.

'I'd reached out to Alan Moore

'and I said, "Alan, who do you see
out there that's really talented?"'

And he goes, "Oh, you really should
meet this guy Grant Morrison.

"He's really got something,
he's only done a few things..."

But you know, they'll both
probably hate me for saying this!

They had a kind of day
where they just gathered everyone,

and people like me
and Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean

all went in on the same day
to pitch ideas.

And I'd come up with the
"Batman" thing, "Arkham Asylum",

'and on the train down

'I'd also thought something to do
with this old Animal Man character

'that I'd liked as a kid.'

So I pitched these two projects
and just sold them straight away,

even though Karen claims
she couldn't understand my accent.

That's how you do it.

Go in and go...
and you'll get a job at DC.

So it turned out,
where I went to England for us

to be as an ambassador of DC
and a talent scout,

I ended up editing
so many new projects

'with UK writers and artists.'

There was a really great response

from comics readers
and comics retailers.

At the time it was known as
the 'Karen Berger books'

or the 'Karen Berger line',

which I thought was
actually completely accurate.

My vision for Vertigo was,
"Let's make a home

"'where creators can
create their own material

"'and have a stake in it,

and just take comics
to different levels."'

There wouldn't have been a Vertigo
if there wasn't a "2000AD".

The subversiveness, the anarchy,
the rebellion against authority,

'all came through to Vertigo.'

I would read Vertigo comics
as the closest in American comics

as you would get to "2000AD".

Or, certainly, a lot of "2000AD" creators

that have gone on
to work in the American market,

often Vertigo is their first port of call.

I think a fundamental thing,
looking back now,

we can see that
what the British Invasion brought

was a sense of authorship,
or auteurism, to American comics.

They were talking about stuff
that you really wanted to talk about.

You didn't self-edit a bit,

or you didn't have to couch it in metaphor
as you might have to do in "2000AD",

you know, you could let loose a bit more.

There were two DC comics
I then read obsessively.

'One was "Swamp Thing"
and the other was "Watchmen".'

But it was Alan Moore
that pulled me there

and that's why I read them,
and frankly that's why they were good.

Alan was the first writer that people
started following... following the writer.

In comics, people mostly were really,
I guess back in the '70s,

or '60s, '70s,

were following artists.

If one makes an argument

that Vertigo at least has
a lot of the genes of "2000AD" in it,

one could say that "2000AD" therefore
has had this huge effect,

or its children have had a huge effect,

on comic books worldwide.

Some of these writers went on to write...

They might have started off

writing at Vertigo,

'but they became some of
the top superhero writers

'and that ended up
influencing superhero comics.

'DC characters and Marvel characters
started getting darker

'and more psychological,
more introspective.'

They were so shocked
that this could do this.

It was like they hadn't imagined
these characters being capable

'of the moves we were
putting them through.

'And there was
a love for it,'

for all the anarchic stuff
and the rebellious stuff.

We'd all grown up
with Superman as a friend.

Deep down there was a love for them

that I think
the Americans themselves had lost.

In a lot of cases,
they were just going through the motions

to earn paycheques or to produce material,

and we just set it alight again.

'We did a series
of Judge Dredd/Batman team-ups

'which were very, very successful.

'And the difference between the two
came out in that,

'because there was no room
in Dredd's world view

to accept the concept of justice

and there was no room
in Batman's world view

'to accept the concept of
"obey the law or else," you know?'

"Batman" is built on a premise
which is inherently problematic:'

a white billionaire deciding to
spend his money on military equipment

to carry out a war on crime
which is because his parents died,

which doesn't really stop crime at all,

because he doesn't want to stop crime,
he wants to keep fighting crime.

Whereas at least in "Judge Dredd",
that premise is questioned,

so there is a kind of...

The problem in "Judge Dredd"
is never far from the surface,

whereas in "Batman",
I think it is held away.

Americans trust heroes.

The English would not be able
to give Superman

that sort of glorious crown
that Americans give him

of "Yes, you can go off
in your lovely suit

"and your wonderful flappy cape

"and you can fight for truth, justice
and the American way

"and you can represent us."

Then you discover that they spent
50 years molesting small children

and you just go, "Uh, I don't want
any part of this hero thing."

So I think it's that, in some ways,

that's the giant engine
that drives "2000AD",

because one of the wonderful messages
of "2000AD" is "Do not trust your heroes."

There is a prestige thing in a career,

and you do want to work
for Marvel and DC, because...

it just seems that people
take you more seriously if you are.

It feels like the top of the industry.

Whether that's right or wrong,
you could argue.

When Dave Gibbons and Brian Bolland
first left for the States,

I said to John Sanders, the publisher,
"You're going to lose them.

"These are two of the greatest artists
we have on "2000AD"."

And he said, "Well, what can we do?
We lose them to America."

No! You've got to fight back!
You've got to say, "Hey!"

You know, why do we have to play
poor relation to America?

I really object to that.

Well, once you've lost Brian Bolland,
you've lost Brian Bolland.

That's it, he's really
never going to come back.

And I think the staff could see
the writing on the wall.

You know... "Oh God, this is really,
really bad news for '2000AD',"

because then it becomes a shop window.

If you got a chance to shine in "2000AD",
you would get noticed by America.

So it created this kind of
Simon Cowell-ish ascent tube

through which we could reach America,

and it was a bit of a shame
for "2000AD" to be treated that way.

I remember being quite rattled

because I still had a very paternal attitude
towards "2000AD",

and I thought,
"God, this could really destroy us."

It became a sort of career path

and I'm definitely guilty
of falling into that mindset.

I definitely felt, "Yes, I've taken
that next step in my career,

"from '2000AD' to America."

You know, "Tomorrow: the world."

Basically, we were
nursery slopes for Vertigo,

and so, if I found
a new artist, I'd think,

"Right, how long have I got him
before he gets pinched by DC?"

And that was life from '87 onwards.
"2000AD" became your apprenticeship.

Even with contracts
and royalties in place,

people still wanted
to go and work for America,

go to San Diego Comic-Con,
go to New York Comic-Con.

It was all much more glamorous than
dowdy old "2000AD", still stumbling along.

Pat recoiled from the Americans.

He seemed to have a thing
about not wanting to go to America.

It was important to him
to stay working for Britain.

"2000AD"! You've arrived!
You don't have to go anywhere from there!

If you want to, that's fine,

but to use it as a stepping stone,
I think is quite questionable.

In other words,
"Well, I'm just doing this story

"so I've got something
to show someone else."

I don't think any publication
appreciates being used in that way.

But the truth is, ultimately the American stuff
was making more money for us,

and, to a certain extent,
it was more fun

to be able to grab "Batman"
or the "Justice League of America"

and do things with them
for a much wider audience.

I think... Yeah, I think
it made American comics a lot better

and it made "2000AD" a lot worse.

I would describe the dark ages
of "2000AD", and have done,

as "The Dave Bishop-Andy Diggle Era".

The best David Bishop story I heard
was off a friend of mine, Trev Hairsine.

And Trev owed David Bishop some artwork,

and this was when they had fax machines.
so you'd fax things back and forth.

So Trev was off making a cup of tea
and he could hear his fax machine,

going "Chig chig chig...,"

and Trev's mum said,
"Oh you've got a fax, Trev."

And she goes over to the fax machine
and pulls out the sheet,

and it said, "Where are my pages,
you cunt?"

I was an arsehole in a hurry effectively.

Such is life.

And I was a bit of a shit
to several people.

Sorry.

But yes, a few people got
the harsh end of the shitty stick from me

because I had a vision
for what I wanted the comic to be,

and they were in my way.

The thing about Pat's work on "2000AD"
was that he was a really good editor.

In the '90s that fell away.

They just didn't have
that standard of editorial control.

It had an identity crisis in the 1990s
where it didn't know who it appealed to,

because the old audience
was drifting away,

was, I suppose, growing up.

Nobody wanted to be the editor
who turns the lights out at "2000AD".

Nobody wants to be the grave digger
who leaves the shovel

and walks away with a dead comic
behind them in the ground.

There was a definite
kind of..."pfff"...crash at that point.

"2000AD" did get
close to cancellation in the '90s,

when Egmont Fleetway was running it.

They didn't get us, we didn't understand
anything they wanted to do,

and every year was
another salami slicing exercise

trying to do better with less,

with idiots in charge.

Obviously, it was a very worrying period.

I think everyone was convinced...
I was convinced

we only had
a few more months of a job left.

Sometimes when things are struggling,
those decisions aren't the best decisions,

because you're actually a bit desperate,

and that kind of time reeked
of the title being a little bit desperate

and not really selling
what maybe its owners thought it should.

At one point, "2000AD" tried to be
all things to all people,

and just diluted itself and became
crass and very, very shallow

and frankly embarrassing.

The publisher thought the way to fix this

was to find a new readership
and bring them in from outside,

'which seemed wrongheaded to me.

'They were trying to appeal to this
laddish "Loaded"-reader kind of mentality,

'which I thought
was a really terrible idea.'

'We only saw
the ads for the first time

'when the proofs came in
and they were just about to send them'

and they were two of the most offensive
things I've ever seen in my life.

Me and David Bishop were arguing
with the marketing manager, our boss,

basically the publisher,
over these ads,

pointing out that not only was it
not going to win us a new readership,

it was going to alienate the one we had.

"Please. No, don't do this.
This is going to backfire.

"This is everything
we are trying not to do."

And then the ads ran

and then the protests began,

and they forbid us responding
and they forbid us from running

any of the letters or the emails
that we were getting about it,

so we just had to sit and have
pies of shit thrown in our face.

'The Summer Offensive
came about with Mark Millar.

'We thought "Wouldn't it be great to see
if we can take over the entire comic."'

And they let us get away with it.

I don't know what it was, if everybody
was just on rave drugs at the time.

Even though in subsequent years,
people have castigated it,

I think it was great, I loved doing that.

People like Grant and Mark Millar,
they were naughty boys.

They were like, "Oh, it's all
beardy weirdies and old men.

"We're going to kick against that."

We were all part of
the, sort of, bratty newcomers

that came along to "2000AD" to fill the void
left by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.

Wagner in particular
just saw me as a disgusting fop,

and made no secret of letting me know.

Because I would go about dressed
in these velvet jackets and frills,

'psychedelic, 1967 Rolling Stones stuff
that later became Austin Powers.'

God knows what they thought of me.
I was a bit of a pain in the arse.

It got a bit too slick, and in, and hip
and it forgot what was at its core.

We saw these guys
as being part of an older generation

that we were deliberately annoying,

and I feel slightly ashamed about it now.

But we were young,
you have to fight back somehow.

It's 32 pages a week. It's a monster.

It eats story and it eats writers
and it eats artists

and finding people who can
sustain and keep that going...

And, as editor, your first priority
is "I must fill the pages."

Your second priority is "I must fill
the pages with something worth reading."

'Let me see, we did... This is my fault,
this is entirely my fault...

'We did a strip called "The Space Girls".'

Shudder, shudder...
The shame, the shame...

Carry that one to my grave,
that was a bad idea.

'We did "Blair One" where we turned
Tony Blair into the Bionic Man,

'the Six Million Dollar Man.'

It's "2000AD" not "Private Eye", you know.
That was too on the nose.

I think satire works better
when it's slightly more subtextual.

There was a point where we seemed
to be getting a legal letter every week,

which was quite daunting.

Every week it was like, "Oh, look!"
Lovely thick parchment envelope.

Lawyers' name in the top corner

from the firm of Bastard, Bastard
and Fuck You Limited,

and you'd think,
"Oh God, here we go again."

'There was a "Future Shock" that ran
which featured a psychotic dentist.'

Somebody somewhere thought
it was a good idea to use the name

of the dentist whose clinic
was around the corner from our office.

And then the dentist in question saw this,
and, unsurprisingly, was not best chuffed.

'We'd run a cover and it had "Star Wars"
as the big, bold headline on the cover,

'because it was about wars in space,'

and we got a cease and desist letter
from LucasArts for that one.

I think at that time, that was kind of
make or break time for "2000AD"

as far as Egmont was concerned.

I mean, it was predicted to die by '96,

but it kept making money
for people at that point,

and I think the "Dredd" movie didn't hurt
because it brought a lot of money in.

So that got it over a hump there,
even though it didn't become a big hit.

All we kept hearing was occasional
rumblings about a "Dredd" movie.

I don't think anyone believed
it would happen,

and when it did, I thought,
"I kind of wish it hadn't."

'There was a whole
bunch of folks from "2000AD".

'We all went to this big showing
in London.'

Everyone came out and said,

"Oh, brilliant, fantastic,
it's all on the up now!"

Coming out of the "Judge Dredd" film,

me and the other creators said,
"Wow, that was really good, wasn't it?"

I think there was only a couple of us
that went, "No that's shite.

"That's just shite."
"No, no, no... It will help the comic."

"No it won't. It's shite."

I am the law!

I just wish somehow
John Wagner could have said,

"No, you can't do this to my character.

"Sylvester Stallone as Judge Dredd
is the worst idea ever."

I can remember me and my two daughters
being the last people in the cinema,

waiting for our names
to come up on the screen.

'And they were there,
right at the very end in tiny lettering,

'which, to me, was a calculated insult,'

because I wouldn't help them
in the development of the film.

But then they wouldn't pay me
to do that so I thought, you know,

"Well... sod you."

'The problem is that
after ten minutes he takes off the helmet.

'It's like if in a "Superman" film,

'if he was, all through the film,
dressed like Clark Kent.'

If you're a well-known actor
and you're going to play Judge Dredd,

then your agent says,
"'Hey, I've got to see my boy's face."

'The plot was all wrong.'

It was a dynastic power struggle,
which "Dredd" has never been about.

'It wasn't even
a movie that was so bad it was good.

'It was just terrible.

'It was terrible and a disgrace

'and an insult to great writing
and a great character'

and a great idea,

and an insult to any fan
that has ever read a "Judge Dredd" comic.

You know, "Dredd" doesn't translate
so well in terms of America.

Certainly both movies didn't really
get any traction in America at all,

and I wonder whether that's because

"Dredd" represents an element of America
from a British point of view.

Maybe the world
is just not ready for that.

Trying to adapt anything for television
is difficult enough

when you're trying to remain true to
the story that you're developing it from,

but it becomes much more difficult

once various executives, managers,
secretaries and everybody else

get their fingers in the pie.

You've got these hundreds of
character universes, all this potential.

Surely some of this can be activated

and turned into films
or video games or whatever.

You know, it's a gold mine
and we're not making the best use of it.

Absolutely true.

So they set up a company
called Fleetway Film and TV.

Fleetway Film and Television...

Jesus.

They paid this production company
to put "2000AD" characters into Hollywood.

That is insane.

A deal was put out and offered
to all the creators:

"Sign this deal.
Sign away the..."

They wanted conformation that Egmont held
all the audiovisual rights and everything,

and they went about it
in quite a cask-handed fashion.

Which really got up the backs
of a lot of creators,

and crucially, the unholy trinity
of Wagner, Mills and Grant.

The writers and artists
were kept out of the loop,

and the managers, senior editors
and executives

tried to do it all on their own,

and of course they had no idea

why "2000AD" was successful
in the first place.

As I remember, everything that they
touched turned to dust rather than gold.

They employed people
who were the wrong people to employ.

They were working for the other side.

A part of you thinks that's a shame,

the other part thinks
it serves them bloody right.

It was a good idea done badly,
mishandled a lot,

and editorial got a lot of stick for it.

Kevin and I were involved
with a Hollywood producer

'who wanted to produce "Marshal Law", and...'

I wrote a screenplay for her
and the character was optioned and so on,

and we actually did very well financially.

When I've had dealings with Hollywood,

I thought, "I'm a bit of a beginner,"
but I was way ahead of them.

And as I say, Kevin and I made
thousands and thousands of pounds

from dealing with the same people,

and Egmont made one pound.

Yeah, optioning a property
like "Strontium Dog" for a pound,

or a dollar I think it actually was...

Whichever,
it's not great money either way.

It doesn't seem like a work of genius.

Doing it is a way to kick-start the deal,

but it does mean
that the creators get nothing.

'Then you get somebody who gets paid
a five-figure sum to write a script

'and the creators get no money.'

So if you're the creator
of whatever strip it is,

you know, "Bohunk Adventures",

and they've optioned it for a pound

and you get 20p or 17.5p
in your royalty statement,

meanwhile, somebody's being paid more
than you've been paid in your entire life

to write 20 years of "Bohunk Adventures",

then yeah, I'd be fucked off too, frankly.

That thing that you do
when you're like 2O or 25...

Someone is American,
they're from Hollywood and you think,

"Oh wow!" You know...

Fuck off, it's bollocks,
do you know what I mean?

I used to regularly get phone calls
from production companies in the States,

"Hey, we're Global Entertainment,
or "We're World Pictures"...

You think, "Fuck off, how much
are you going to pay me?"

That's how you deal with these people.

Unfortunately the ill-feeling
from that lingers to this day,

certainly with Pat.

The people who lost out there
are the readers

and I've never had one reader ask
what happened to Fleetway Film and TV.

'What's actually important
is that your comic

'has had a whole load of bullshit in it
for a while,

'and, as a result, all that money'

which could have gone
into reinvesting in characters,

it could have gone to writers and artists,
even editors, as a bonus...

'...was just frittered away.'

Thankfully, Andy Diggle turned up
as my assistant.

I hired Andy and he said,
"What are you doing?

"You are betraying the soul of "2000AD"."

And he was right.

I knew "2000AD". I'd been reading it
for 15 years or something by this point.

So I had quite a strong gut feeling
of what I felt the comic was

and what it should be and could be,

and also, to a degree, how it had lost
its way slightly in the '90s.

The famous catchphrase that he sent out
to everybody when he took over,

which was "The shot glass of rocket fuel."

That's what he wanted to do to "2000AD",
was turn everything up to 211.

I doubt very much any of us as creators

have still got a copy
of his original circular.

I certainly don't have it,

because I would have used it
either to burn or as lavatory paper.

The first thing I did
was to write a mission statement,

just explaining to all of the creators.

I sent it to the writers and the artists
but also to all the creative talent.

It basically said, "You're all crap
and I'm the new broom, so I kick arse."

That's basically the summary of it.

And instead of being addressed to,
"Dear Pat" or "Hi Pat, here's my thoughts,"

it was marked, "Mills."

I'd experienced what can happen

when Pat doesn't like something
and disagrees with a decision,

and in the office
it was known as a Mills Bomb.

In the old days it used to be a letter
or a package that he would send.

In my day, it was usually a phone call.

Basically being on the receiving end
of an hour-long harangue

where you're kind of
holding the phone like this

and your hair is being blown sideways.

When Pat's not happy, he lets you know.

You suddenly think, "Hey,
that's my child you're fucking with,"

and realise, "Actually,
I'm quite angry about it,"

because it's something you've created.

You have to let it go,
but you don't want to see it disabled.

You don't want to see it run over,

and you don't want to see it
wearing stupid clothes or something.

I can speak my mind and
Andy can certainly speak his mind

and Pat loves speaking his mind.

And him and Andy did not
get on at all after I left.

At all, at all, at all...

I didn't want to replace Pat,

but at the same time I wasn't happy
with the work he was doing.

I certainly wasn't happy
with our working relationship.

But he is, credit where it's due,

obviously hugely important
to the history of "2000AD".

It's not about bearing a grudge,

but I think it was such an awful period,
it does need recording.

And hey, you know,
it hasn't been recorded up until now.

I was the assistant editor when Rebellion
were negotiating to take over "2000AD".

'We desperately wanted
Rebellion to buy,

'because we didn't have
a future at Egmont.'

Egmont had only bought "2000AD"
as part of a job lot of children's titles,

including Disney titles,

and they simply didn't understand
that an adult readership bought "2000AD",

not because of a plastic toy on the front,
but because it was fucking good.

We managed to convince the owners

that they had a comic book
that wasn't very valuable to them,

would be quite valuable to us,
but not that valuable,

and we'd take it off their hands.

Rebellion bought the comic
and signed the rights over

'and I became the editor of "2000AD".

'Suddenly it was a complete change -
it was a new publisher and a new editor.'

So that was great for me
because it was kind of like a clean sweep.

I finally got the power
I had craved all these years.

The key thing was
really it was a rescue mission.

The policy really was to stabilise,

a bit like hospital, actually,
stabilise the patient first,

and then work on
getting the patient better.

'But you don't work on that
until you've stopped the bleeding,'

and you've noticed there's a bit of bone
sticking out that's got to be put back in.

Instantly I've got a boss who is a fan,

and wants to build it back up again
instead of tear it down.

They've actually, for the first time
in their entire history,

actually had a publisher
who's valued them as a property.

'It's become a tighter ship -

'they've focused on their audience,
they know what people want.'

The last few years,
I genuinely believe,

'the standard of work that's been in it
is really, really exciting.

'You look at people
like Henry Flint and D'lsraeli

'and you just think there are
world-class artists working in the comic.'

The freedom to do what you want
gives me the freedom to relax

and just to have a good time
with the artwork.

'I don't feel restricted in any way,
and that's a wonderful feeling.'

You've also got a very interesting
new generation of writers coming up,

'and you've kind of got a willingness
to engage with change as well.'

It's just got such a brilliant formula.

It's just seamlessly bringing
these new things in,

keeping the old stuff rolling along
and not trying to reinvent itself.

'I think as soon as you
try and reinvent yourself,

'you're probably in trouble.'

'They've worked hard,
they've built up their IP...'

They've really pushed it
and I think that's what is needed,

and the movie has really helped.

'The second "Dredd" movie...

'What really comes over is that'

everyone concerned with it
really believes in it.

It's true to them
and they're burning with it.

Control: Paramedics to my GPS.
Multiple wounded and bodies for Resyk.

'Copy.'

Andrew MacDonald said he could
get hold of the rights for "Dredd"

and would I be interested
in working on it?

And I immediately said yes,

and I said yes quite aggressively.

Sort of like, "Do not talk to anyone else,
I want to work on this."

He listened to things I said.

You know, he didn't always
comply with them,

but at least he listened.

And I think what we got there

was a much truer reflection
of Judge Dredd and his world.

I was determined to present something
that was authentic and true in spirit

to what Wagner had created,

and thankfully, I found an amazing
collaborator in Alex Garland.

I made a kind of conscious decision:

I'm going to think of myself
as one of the artists.

'Ezquerra and Ron Smith
and Mike McMahon and Brian Bolland

'all draw "Dredd" their own way.'

I thought that gave me licence to be like
one of those guys and have some freedom.

I love the new "Judge Dredd" film.
I feel like it was made for me personally.

It's really fucking violent,

'It's "Judge Dredd"
the way it's supposed to be.'

Karl Urban was great.

He had balls enough to say,
"I'll play this character

"and never see my face
through the whole movie."

The film has garnered
a real cult status and a cult following

'and I couldn't be more proud
of the film that we've made.'

"2000AD" has always tapped
into cultural things going on,

it's never just been a comic.

It's brushed against music,
it's brushed against current affairs,

it's brushed against pop culture

and that's informed the comic,
and the comic has informed that.

I just think that "2000AD"

has successfully gone
beyond comic culture, juvenile culture

and has truly become
a force in wider culture.

"Spaced". The sitcom "Spaced"
by Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg

'and Nick Frost,
who've done the "Cornetto Trilogy" since.

'And that was massively...
"2000AD" is all over that.'

And Jim Murray and Jason Brashill
did the art for that.

'They basically did the art
for Simon Pegg to pretend to be drawing.'

We take for granted now
that so many Hollywood movies...

There are so many science fiction movies
out at the moment,

that in many ways
have the look of "2000AD".

'That kind of lived-in, destroyed,
threatening,'

oppressive vision of the future,
which is so associated with "2000AD".

Unmistakable really.

It's had so much pinched from it
over the years.

You know what I mean?

So when the first "Dredd" movie came out,
well, you know,

"Robocop" had been there
a little bit beforehand.

"'Roboc0p"
had stolen "Dredd",

'I mean, outrageously.
Outrageously.'

The original sculpt of Robocop's helmet
is Dredd's helmet.

It's just absolutely identical.

'It's astonishing!

'It's got the little cross hairs
of the "Dredd" helmet.'

Ed Neumeier's script
is deeply influenced by "Dredd" -

just the combination of extreme violence
and kind of political satire.

"'Robocop"...

'Everybody said it was
more "Judge Dredd" than "Judge Dredd",

'and when it was in the theatres,

"'Judge Dredd" had to be
postponed five years later

'because if not,
the public would say it was a copy.'

Come quietly, or there will be trouble.

How on earth did they get away with it?
I don't know, all's fair in love and war.

You know, they got there first.

'Paul Verhoeven identified it.'

'They did a far better job than they did
on the Stallone "Dredd", a far better job.

'You know? He got it.'

"2000AD" started in 1977.

Whether they admit it or not,
it has influenced a lot of people.

They've read it.

People will say, "I never saw that before
we came up with such and such a character."

Yes, you did.

Is it "Blood Rayne" which basically
bears a stunning resemblance,

purely coincidental I'm sure,

'to Mark Harrison's version of "Durham Red"?

'Gosh, what a surprise.'

'Even "Transformers"
is a bit more like "ABC Warriors"

'than it is like "Transformers".

But it's not enough like "ABC Warriors"
to be as good!

The film critic Alan Jones approached me

and he said "They've made a film
of one of your comic stories."

I said "I don't think so, Alan."

He said "Yeah, I saw a screening
the other night in Soho."

I said, "What's it called?"
He said, "Hardware."

At the time, I thought, "This is ripped off
from a "Future Shock" I've read

'called "Shok",
with Kevin O'Neill artwork.'

So then I start getting phone calls
from lawyers telling me

that if I don't sign off on "Hardware"...

...I'll be sued.

I thought, "Oh man,
this is typical isn't it?

"You get no respect, you get no money
and you're going to get sued as well,

"even though this is something
you've not even seen."

'I remember
there was some controversy

'and the director of the film had to admit
he'd taken it straight from a "Future Shock".'

'It was very, very close.

'But there were no hard feelings,
I didn't feel bad about it'

because, as usual,
we were all treated like scum anyway.

Didn't really matter.
Good luck to Richard Stanley and his film.

I think it's seen
as the first "2000AD" film,

which is a bit silly really
because it's completely unofficial.

I'm kind of envious of these guys
in the media who've taken sparks,

or certainly been inspired
by sparks of "2000AD",

and they bring their own
creative forces to bear

and they can develop it so much further.

"2000AD" has probably, on some level,
influenced everything I've ever written.

"'28 Days Later" was very "2000AD" really,'

because it was cheap,
and it was home-grown

and we couldn't do everything
as big as anyone else,

so you do it more aggressively
than anyone else to compensate for that.

Making the zombies run,
that sensibility to make them run,

that comes from "2000AD".

That's a "2000AD" approach
to a zombie movie.

On our last record,
there is a track called "Machine Gun",

and I completely direct that back
to "2000AD".

'It's like the wasteland of the blue planet
that Rogue Trooper was on.'

My first movie, "Timecrimes"...

Some people say, "This is like
a 'Twilight Zone' episode,"

'and I think to myself,
"This is like a 'Future Shock' story."'

If I hadn't read "Chronocops"
back at the time,

I would never have been
the director of "Timecrimes".

'In that specific panel in "Chronocops",
in which two guys are hidden,

'but you don't see them
because you're reading the text,'

when that same panel gets repeated,

but you are following
the people in the background,

'you're reading the same panel
in a totally different way.'

That, for me, is maybe one of
the biggest influences on "Timecrimes".

I storyboarded
a film called "The Book of Eli",

'which is a post-apocalyptic thriller,
starring Denzel Washington.

'When I got the script, the first thing
that went through my mind was

"Yes! This is my chance to put
"The Cursed Earth" on the screen."'

See? It's amazing!

"2000AD"...

You find out
these people are "2000AD" fans,

and then it all totally makes sense.

"2000AD" has itself now become
part of that pop culture

from which it quoted all those years ago.

So I think it's to be expected,
and perhaps lauded,

that "2000AD" now will be
one of the things that's quoted

by other forms of pop culture.

It just feels like
the rest of popular culture has caught up

with what "2000AD"
was doing 30 years ago.

There is definitely an influence
to the "Batman" movies,

'to the "Superman" movies,
the "X-Men" movies,'

even the "Iron Man" movies, whatever...

There is a dark tonality to a lot of it.

Warren Ellis was
a huge fan of "Dredd" growing up

'and then he does
"The Authority".

'And Mark Millar took a lot
of the tones of "The Authority"

'into writing
"The Ultimates" for Marvel.

'Then they end up
making the Marvel movies

'and suddenly
you've got this tone

'of "Dredd" and
"The Apocalypse War",

'and it filters its way down
through the mainstream.'

Whether the moviemakers
are directly influenced by "2000AD" -

they don't even know that they are,
but they are.

It's like the influence of
"Heart of Darkness".

Novel by Conrad, becomes
the film "Apocalypse Now".

More people have contacted
"Apocalypse Now" than "Heart of Darkness",

but the influence is "Heart of Darkness",
if you trace it back

and I think that's probably
how it works with "2000AD".

"2000AD"'s audience...

It had stopped being a mainstream title,
it was a niche title.

And once you just relax
and embrace the niche,

and go, "OK, so these people
love what we do

"and they're going to keep loving it
and most of them will stay loyal to us"

and you give them what they want,

but also what they don't realise
they want yet,

which is the real trick
in commissioning new stories -

giving them what they don't realise
is missing from the package.

They've stuck with you this long,

they'll keep going until they're
in the ground themselves, so on you go.

I would maintain
the auteur nature of "2000AD".

It's one of its great strengths.

And allow people to just do their own
characters and express them that way,

and not necessarily continue them

in the way "Superman" or "Batman"
have been continued

through generations by different art.

Matt Smith is doing
a great job of continuing now.

He's the longest running editor
the comic has had, and he totally gets it.

I think all it ever needed
was an editor that just really gets it.

It's a comic that very much is open

to freedom for people to tell
the kind of stories they want to tell.

'So that in itself makes "2000AD"
a unique comic.'

There is an enormous churn of talent
coming through all the time,

'and the fact that "2000AD"
can still make space for new creators,

'that's important, that it makes space
'for new work to come through all the time.'

They do continue
to be willing to experiment

'and you know, you've always got
the possibility of something new

'coming round the corner
and changing the game.'

I think it appeals to a smart,
kind of savvy,

maybe politically-interested reader

in a lot of these things
we're talking about, but that's not...

That will never be
the mainstream of any media, you know?

Not television, not books, nothing.

In order to become mainstream,

it would have to become
palatable to the mainstream,

and in order to become palatable
to the mainstream,

it would have to be
just as bland and generic

as everything else
that's popular out there.

And I don't want to see it
turned into fucking "Twilight".

It's given me
these weird laws to live to.

I don't want to...

You know, if I can,
I don't want to sell out.

I don't want to
give my music to corporations.

"'2000AD", I think, totally shaped that,
that "No compromise".'

Why should you compromise?
"2000AD" didn't compromise.

There is something British
about an underdog, you know?

A marginalised figure, you know?

Supporting something
which is never going to be big.

But it's plucky, it's a plucky comic.

The people who are into it,
we like the fact that...

There's a certain sick part of us that likes
the fact that not everybody else likes it.

I never wanted to be one of these people
who would turn my back on "2000AD".

'And I know a lot of people have,
but I just never saw the point in that.'

And aside from everything else,
I enjoy writing for "2000AD",

and that's the bulk of it.

I have carried on reading
the comic and thinking,

"I wish I was drawing that," you know?

Sometimes I regret locking myself
into that fixed career path

that was created by other people.

Sometimes I wish
I had stayed longer at "2000AD",

or come back to it more often.

We have a lot of people coming back.

You know, they go off on their travels,
they go and work for other people,

and then they go, "I'm fed up with just
writing another superhero story,

"I've got this really great idea

"about something totally crazy
that will only fit in with '2000AD'."

You know, occasionally
I'll ring up Matt Smith

and say "Shall I do you a cover?"

In fact, I think it's about time
I did another story.

I'm a little bit nervous about doing
a little story, but maybe I should.

Oh, it's celebrated 30 odd years now,

it's going celebrate another 30
because it will adapt,

it will change
very much like the best of punk,

to remain fresh and relevant
in a very, very difficult market.

'There's always
going to be people out there

'who want a comic book you can move on to
from the "Beano", when you're 14.'

Suddenly, "Oh my God, there is this thing
and it's talking about David Cameron,

"it's talking about
how we all feel today."

And now you're left with licensed comics
and "2000AD".

It's just a very odd state

for what was once probably
the greatest comic business in the world.

Pat's still working for "2000AD".
It's like he never left.

Even if something awful
were to happen to it,

it's going to carry on in some shape,
form or another,

because it's come too far to say,

"OK we'll just pull the plug on this
and forget about it."

It's still there, it's lasted,
it's absolutely lasted.

"Eagle" didn't last half as long
and it was much more respected.

And it was a fucking terrible comic.

We've always tried to be
the best comic out there,

the galaxy's greatest comic.

And I think most people would say
we're probably achieving that.

Certainly I've got nothing
but good memories of "2000AD",

and I met some people who, to this day,
are friends of mine.

It was a lucky break for a lot of us.

It was just sheer unadulterated fun

because it was just a direct connection
between you, your mates and the readers.

It doesn't get any better than that.
That is the best you can possibly have.

Working for "2000AD",

I am doing the job
I wanted to do when I was 11

and it's as good as I thought it would be.

If I wasn't writing for "2000AD"
and wasn't working in comics,

I would still be buying "2000AD".

It just gets better and better.
I can't believe it, I am a lucky lad.

Just something
that has always been in my life, really.

Even if nothing else,
it has given a generation,

or more than one generation,

incredible stories, incredible memories.

You could still get together
with people who read "2000AD"

and talk about those stories,

as if you knew the same people,
as if you were at the same school,

and as if you have the same friends.

I remember a moment in UKAK,
probably about 1990,

and it was me and Simon Bisley
and Mark Millar and John Smith,

and Jamie Hewlett, Milligan,

and Bisleyjust lifted his glass and said

"I've never seen
so much talent in a single circle ever."

And I still remember it.

"I've got friends here, this is great,
I've got pals in this business."

The people is one of the best sides
of working in comics, I've found.

There are very few arseholes in comics.

That's what binds
the whole industry together -

it's not a desire to make money,

it's not because we want
careers in publishing,

it's because we love comic books.

The British comic landscape now
would be a wasteland without "2000AD".

"2000AD" is all that remains
of a grander plan, I think,

which is a pity, it's a great pity.

You might have
a British comic industry left now.

They couldn't see it coming,
but by Christ, we could.

We knew it was dying,
but too slow.

It's tough and it's strong
and I don't think it's going anywhere.

I've grown up with them
to such a degree

that they are
just part of the background.

I can't imagine comics
without "2000AD", I really can't.

All those cool things feel like that.

The British Invasion
or the punk scene in the '70s...

You know,
these things just happen, weirdly.

I don't know why they happen,
but thank God they do, right?

Probably the greatest legacy for "2000AD"

is that it created
the modern comic book as we know it.

I have no idea what its legacy will be

apart from that it just made an awful lot
of really good comics over the years.

Oh that's... I think legacy
is a big word for "2000AD".

I think "Eagle" has a legacy,
"2000AD" just has a stain.

It feels like the product
of passionate people doing what they love

and I think that really shows,
and you can't fake that, I think.

You can't fake it.

It's the Sex Pistols being signed
to the major label kind of thing.

That is the brilliant thing
about "2000AD".

It's still getting away with it.

It can be considered
a British success story.

The fact that it's still here
after all this time.

Anyone can make a comic,
but there is only one "2000AD".

If Pat Mills hadn't had
the courage and guts

and crazy enthusiasm

to put "2000AD" together,
against the odds really,

then we wouldn't have "2000AD".

So I think we owe him
a massive debt of gratitude.

Fuck off, leave it alone.
We got it right.

You don't know what the fuck
you're talking about, so just piss off.