Pat Mills early material

So I am a compulsive collector of whatever the man has written or co-written but I experienced some difficulties in finding what stories he has written in the early 70 (and late seventies if it's not registered in the fabulous 2000ad's Barney's database). I'm currently building a would be exhaustive bibliography of the author (I have created and mostly managed the French wiki page of Pat Mills) so I am after magazine references, stories title and publication date as well as the artists involved.

Following Crikey's #12 interview I will start with his work at DC Thompson. Apart Horoscopes and the music pages is someone on the board is aware of written or co-written credits for comic series, in Romeo for instance?

I'll do some digging tomorrow and see what I can come up with...

Thanks, that's very nice of you, and of course there is absolutely no hurry, all in your own time!

To help with the researchs, I've also re-read the BEM interview (#35, interview conducted by Adam Pirani in March 1981), so I think I have the basic timeline skeleton to work with.
- born March 7th 1949, and surprisingly he hasn't written anything this year
- before 1969 "all sorts of boring office jobs" and then got into journalism.
- 1970 junior sub editor for a year at DC Thomson on Romeo (weekly picture-story paper), met John Wagner (aka John Howard) who was chief sub on Romeo
- 1971 went freelance with John Wagner's help, working for D.C. Thomson and IPC. Between them they develop the freelance markets and when there was sufficient work (after three months), John went freelance too. They work together for a year after John moves South (he then had been editor on IPC's 'Sandy'). Pat Mills stays in Scotland until 1973/1974 and move down too. In the BEM interview, Pat mentions that John and he wrote a few episodes of a story for 'JET' calles 'Partridge's Patch'.
- 1974: John Sanders publisher at IPC came along to Pat and John and asked them to produce Battle as a response to DC Thomson 'Warlord'. Pat and John originate the stories and Battle was launched in 1975 and then Pat went to starting up Action (he had only six weeks to put it together).
- 1975-1976: from the excellent best of battle site I have sorted out 6 strips (see the French Pat Mills wiki page, 'Battle' section, I can't post Internet links yet) written or co-written by Pat Mills for Battle, but I haven't got the exact corresponding issues of the title
- 1976 Action; In the BEM interview Pat didn't mention his exact role about the series regarding who has written what (spitfire's 'Hook Jaw' collection give him the writing credits but I have my doubts). The staff to produce that weekly magazine was consisting of only Pat Mills and the editor, so when he has the opportunity to start up another comics (2000AD) he gladly says yes.
- 1976 a freelance 'Valiant' script 'the final victim' (Valiant Book of Magic and Mystery).
- 1977 2000AD
- 1981-1982 IPC photo-strip comic GIRL '9 TO 4'

(I will continue to edit this post with further digging)

Well, I can add one pretty significant thing to that list without even cracking open my files: the groundbreaking girls comic 'Misty' (Feb 78-Jan 80). Pat wrote 'Moonchild' and 'Hush, Hush, Sweet Rachel', amongst other strips, as well as actually developing the title. Then there was 'Dice-Man' (a 2000AD related role playing game comic in 1986, which he wrote pretty much all of, though it only lasted five bi-monthly issues), and of course 'Crisis' (1988), which Pat basically created and for which he wrote 'Third World War' (one of the main characters from TWW later got a solo series in 2000AD, eco-terrorist 'Finn'). Then there was the launch of 'Toxic' in 1991, and of course Marshal Law, which has had several publishers. And he and Kev O'Neill created the limited series Metalzoic (about alien robot dinosaurs) for DC Comics in the early eighties, but that's possibly best forgotten...

Thanks for that Tony.
Bullseye regarding 'Misty', that's exactly what I'm after!

From 1980 I think I have referenced (and bought, saddly for my not so wealthy family) all of his works in the wiki French page, but don't hesitate to check the page and correct me if I'm missing something. These references include Toxic! (I own the all run), Crisis (one story from TWW was published in French GN format 'black man's burden' drawn by the late John Hicklenton), Dice Man (I own them all + their French translation in the newsstand magazine 'chroniques d'outre-tombe'), DC, Dark Horse, Corman Comics, Black Flame and Marvel material (I own all of them for these US publishers).
And as of Marshal Law I'm always after bits and peaces that has eluded me, but I have reached the point where I also collect ML adds from magazines.

As for original French market material, I think except Biankha and Broz, all of his works has seen the light of day in English form (Shadowslayer, Sha, Requiem, Claudia).

Now that's dedication!

Misty was a terrific title, a real jewel in the crown o British comics. I'd really recommend tracking some down. There's even a dedicated fan website: http://www.mistycomic.co.uk

Also in BEM interview, Pat Mills mentions another magazine 'SPEED' which "was awful" and "so was 'Tornado'. Tornado is of course in 2000ad's database (with his Planet of the Damned strip) but I have never heard of this SPEED magazine. Was he a contributor as well? It seems to be a photo-strip comics.
And that will be all for today because I have a fan website to check (thanks Tony).

Speed was an IPC title that ran from Feb-October 1980, just 31 issues (it then merged with Tiger). It wasn't a photo strip title, though it had quite a few photo features, I think. It focused primarily on strips related to amazing feats (the lead strip being Death Wish, about a disfigured racing driver who will perform any seemingly impossible stunt he's offered because he doesn't care if it kills him) though it also had an SF strip called Journey to the Stars (by Ron Turner) and a war series called Baker's Half Dozen (drawn by Mike Western). I'm not sure who wrote any of the strips, but I think Pat may have been involved with the launch.

Speak of the devil, Pat Mills talks about Misty as of today in is blog patmills.wordpress.com.

Thanks for the heads-up, Vark-I hadn't seen that, yet...