Yeah, I'm actually shocked that a professional would come out and rip on the place he got his start - whether he felt that way or not.
Oh, it's better than that, my pestilential friend -- he (and Morrison) were doing this while they were actually working for the comic, giving interviews where they said "2000AD was shite until we came along".
For Morrison, not that I think it's an excuse, I get the feeling that this was as much about his unerring ability for self-promotion, since he very rarely exhibits actual contempt for previous versions of series he works on. Millar, not so much.
Indeed. As best I can tell it was a routine the two did to paint themselves as the "enfant terribles" of British comics (although I suppose if you go for a more literal translation that could just be "terrible babies" 
) hence the Summer Offensive. The whole thing was piss, vinegar and cock swinging - not my idea of a night out but tastes may differ.
When I went through those old interviews what amazed me was the contempt shown (faked?) about Morrison's Arkham Asylum, which he pretty much dismisses:
Not exactly the easiest way to get yourself into the comic industry, but he's reaping the benefits now, with a super champagne lifestyle and a posh house in Glasgow's trendy west end - his Batman graphic novel Arkham Asylum has sold over 200,000 copies worldwide and earned him a fortune. No small fish, despite being a remake of the Lewis Carroll classic Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
Grant: "Well, I'd read the Alice books and decided to put Batman into a similar situation - where he goes into a strange place, strange things happen to him and then he comes back out at the end, none the wiser - and by the time everyone got the shrink wrap off and realised that they had been ripped off, I was already rolling in it."
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/fish1000/index/lostcontent/gm-mm-XStatic1-May92.txt
Anyone interested should take a skim through these:
http://fish1000.blogspot.com/search/label/Lost%20and%20Found#gminterviews
The previous link (from a 1992 interview) includes such classics as:
They are even working on a massive re-launch for 2000AD which will see the light of day mid 1993. Mark outlines, with a certain degree of fervour, the character who will spearhead the campaign.
Mark: "Grant and I are co-writing a strip called 'Big Dave - The hardest man in Britain'. Dave comes from Manchester and wears shellsuits and trainers. He's got two pit-bull terriers and he takes on everything from aliens to Spaniards."
Grant: "We're both sick of the way 2000AD is full of poofs these days. Judge Dredd's turned into a poof and so has everyone else. All the stories are about Buddhists, Feminism and Ecology - it's a real drag. These old bastards keep complaining about how 2000AD is not as good as it used to be - well, who do they think is writing the bloody thing these days! -THEM! - Pat Mills and company, that's who!"
...
The atmosphere soon lightens when I buy the lads another drink and they soon forget their differences. Getting on to the subject of rubbishing the efforts of those present, I ask them what they think of the claim by the original 2000AD team that the younger writers don't have the talent to create new characters.
Mark: "I'm sick of listening to them bleating on about how bloody great they are. Take a look at some of the stuff they've created. Only Judge Dredd is any good. If they had their way, they'd turn 2000AD into WOMAN'S OWN! We want a kicking comic with teeth and big bastarding Doc Martens boots."
Strong words, but if Mark's dream sounds too much like the late unlamented Toxic, then you could be in for a shock.
Mark: "Toxic was done by old poofs for old poofs - and it showed. We're going to make 2000AD more like The SUN - with a 'Dear Tharg' problem page and Page Three birds done up like Judge Anderson and Halo Jones with their tits hanging out. We're going to fit some bingo in there, too. There's plans to give away free gifts like stick on tattoos and a cassette of Big Dave singing 'Fly me to the Moon' on a Karaoke machine."
Grant: "2000AD has been out of date for years - it's more like 1800AD these days - we want to liven things up a bit."
They both smile and say "Solid!". (I'm not entirely sure if 2000AD is safe in the hands of these two.) It's like giving your firstborn child to Charles Manson to babysit - but if anything, it should prove to be... well, interesting.
I know it is all an act (and Grant likes to wear his fiction suits - this was "young, cocky and arrogant" he went to "wild psychonaut" at the end of the nineties and has evolved into "corporate suit" now but "cocky" is till only a letter away from "cock" and I'm surprised no one offered to chin one or both of them at the time.
What never occurred to me is that the interviewer for that last piece was Martin Conaghan, who went on to helm Insomnia's Vigil imprint and wrote the Burke and Hare graphic novel. He revealed today/yesterday that it wasn't just an act, it was actually largely fictitious:
I wrote that interview, and a few others with Grant and Mark in the following years. What people failed to realise at the time was that it was almost entirely fake. The whole thing was pretty much made up after I had forgot to take my dictaphone along to a signing session in Edinburgh that also featured Duncan Fegredo John Smith and Pete Doherty. I had been out boozing with Mark the night before and split my head on a wall trying to find somewhere to take a piss down a dark alleyway, so we just chatted on the train on the way to Edinburgh and on the way back and I made up an interview based on what we had been chatting about. I then posted it to Grant and he added more stuff in. The stuff in the restaurant about the hair and the lipstick, and the train journey home with the book of surrealist games is true - but the rest is pure theatre. It was the same with the Summer Offensive interview for Comic World.
www.bleedingcool.com/forums/showthread.php?p=124783#post124783The Comics World interview being this one, in which Martin is described as "The Grand Vizier of Verity":
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/fish1000/index/lostcontent/gm-COMICWORLD18-Aug93.txtOf course, I'd been taking it as largely fictional adopted personas but it doesn't make it any less insulting to those they were slagging off, it may even make it worse as they didn't just come up with it when out boozing but actually collaborated with it afterwards. I suspect Pat Mills has killed people for less, with just a withering stare...
