The Secret History of Comics: Marshal Law 3
Toxic! was a breath of fresh air...
Welcome to Part 3 of Chapter 1, of my new book And Where Will It All End? The Secret History of Comics, where I take you behind the scenes to show you how your favourite subversive characters were created.
I published the intro a couple of weeks ago, available to everyone. Part 1 and Part 2 cover the Marvel Epic era, and you can read a decent-sized chunks of them for free: the full posts are for paying subscribers only, so if you’d like access to ALL of my Secret History of Comics as I release it every week (plus other benefits, check them out here), please consider subscribing: it’s £5 per month or £50 per year. I’m offering a free seven-day trial on Iconoblast, so you can try it out. You will need to select a subscription plan and provide your payment details to do this.
APOCALYPSE COMICS
Publisher Apocalypse gave us a chance to be part of a start-up company producing the weekly Toxic! comic which would include Marshal Law.
The story of Toxic’s significance and what went wrong I discuss further in Pageturners, the companion volume to these Secret Histories.
I’ll just give a brief impression now.
Those directly involved were John Wagner, Alan Grant, Kevin and myself. There was an outer circle of creators, too, which included Tony Skinner, Simon Bisley, Jeremy Banx, David Leach, and Dave Kendall.
None of us wanted to be editor and that was the crucial problem. No one wanted to be the driving force. And with good reason – my then wife, Angela Kincaid, remembering what a shit time I had creating 2000AD, had sternly warned me not to get involved as editor. Never again. So Margaret Clark from Marvel Epic was the first editor.
I remember when I met up with Margaret, she presented me with a gold card case with cards specially printed:
Pat Mills
Artist therapy always available
Even back then, my skills were known! And on the other side of the pond, too.
Then there was a middle period where there was no editor and to Angela’s annoyance, I very reluctantly filled the gap as acting editor. Finally Dan Abnett became editor.
Kevin was art editor throughout the lifetime of Toxic!
Even at the beginning the comic fell into two sections: Kevin and I in one, John Wagner and Alan Grant in the other. These sections overlapped creatively, but in retrospect, not enough to create a thematic entity, which is vital for any kind of anthology comic.
Kevin and I largely came up with the tone – which you can see in his art editing. I came up with the title Toxic!, later used by Tharg McManus for a juvenile comic he headed for Egmont.
It was a rights deal to dream of. After the grim, selling all rights conditions on 2000AD and other IPC comics, Toxic! was an unlikely breath of fresh air through the comic sweatshop.
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