Man, that was cool to read. Thanks for posting it! I wish he woulda talked more about working with Biz, mostly I'm curious about Batman: Lobo. Since, y'know, it's my favorite comic of all time and all.
Glad you liked the interview, Uschi.
The BATMAN: LOBO book has art by Simon Bisley. Even mycomicshop.com and milehighcomics.com don't seem to keep it in stock. But I did see several of them available at varying prices on e-bay.
I also enjoyed this portion a lot:
- Q: I believe you turned down an offer of a job as the chief sub-editor on Tornado within a month of starting work for 2000AD. What were your reasons for remaining with 2000AD?
ALAN GRANT: I did, and it caused considerable consternation at IPC. Nobody had ever turned down a promotion before, especially when it involved a large percentage hike in wages. I was called before the managing director to explain myself. For me, 2000AD was the comic of the future...what I'd seen of Tornado marked it as a comic of the past.
(Tornado's original title was 'Heroes'. It was changed about a week before publication of issue *1, after one of the directors' grandsons said he didn't like Heroes.)
I felt that any sensible publisher would be focusing all of their assets and abilities onto their strongest title; at that time, 2000AD had immense potential. IPC could have taken over the world if they'd played it correctly. Instead, IPC was intent on the short-sighted policy of creating a sub-standard clone. I told the MD outright that
Tornado would fold within 6 months; he bet me £5 it wouldn't. When it did, he paid up, and asked how I could possibly have known it would fail. The answer was simple:
2000AD was conceived, created, written and drawn by a gang of relatively young creators who were passionate about what they wanted to do, who loved doing sci-fi satire, who'd have done it for nothing if IPC had only asked. Tornado, in contrast, was created for no other reason than that 2000AD had been a success. It was a shame--I hate to see any comic being closed down--but nobody loved it enough to make it a success.
It's funny that Grant, as the new kid, was able to see what the old pros couldn't.
And his boldness, in turning down a promotion, that he accurately predicted was a dead-end job.
