It Came From The '80s: Roachmill

[@tommcweeney6213]

The tonal shifts in Roachmill were due to the never ending struggle between Rich (Head-en, not HEED-en) and myself. Rich wanted to it to be wacky and over the top, while I was constantly trying to reign him in. Also, keep in mind, we were in our early 20's and had zero editorial control beyond ourselves. The main reason we stopped doing the book was financial. We were splitting $85 a page for writing, pencils, letters and inks. The book was bi-monthly and not as erratically published as you make out. The Blackthone books were always on schedule and it was only towards the end of the Dark Horse issues that they began to be more spaced out. That was because we needed to take on TMNT jobs to pay bills. Also, for anyone interested the Blackthorne issues were recently reprinted in a collection from Comicmix.

[@ajjothikumar]

Thanks for joining the conversation to clear things up. I loved both of your work on the books a lot. It's awful to hear about how financially difficult it was to produce a book like this.I hope there's some joy in knowing that your work is remembered after all these years.

[@tommcweeney6213]

@@ajjothikumar It's always nice to hear from Roachmill fans.

[@MrBracey100]

Oh man I remember this book! Fantastic art!

[@SchizoMelody]

Roachmill is awesome, I have every issue

[@jikorijo4516]

Thanks for sharing, Mr. McWeeney!

[@jamilfrost6217]

Not even a minute ago I was just reading this comic. What a coincidence.

[@StrangeBrainParts]

That's serendipity for you!

[@Metalliumzer0]

This probably will sound silly, but I always love it when you go "Untill next time" after a significant pause at the the end of a video.

[@samwill7259]

I can only imagine making a whole comic book, ending up publishing through Dark Horse and then realizing...wow this was not as good an idea as I thought it was. I kinda respect them for pulling the break

[@tommcweeney6213]

The idea was a good one but we were just kids fresh from art school with little control or discipline to pull it off the way we should have. Read my top comment for more details.

[@3amapplecam]

Love hearing an honest discussion about a comic, that has positives to note and negatives to note. Not everything is an explosive earth shattering masterpiece or an abysmal disaster of a comic, some works have good and bad to discuss.

[@davidfausel9029]

Have not read it in decades but in the b&w glut of the mid eighties, I remember falling in love with this book (the Blackthorne issues). The art I especially found especially engaging. Thanks for doing an episode on this one!

[@1travstone]

Man. The ink and pencils in this are really impressive. This comic looks cool as hell.

[@karlosn5579]

I love this comic so much

[@thevasic]

Great episode...hope to see more 80's Black and White comics covered in the future

[@whyherewhynow7418]

I'd love to see something from you about the 80's indie comic book boom and crash!

[@russellsmith1605]

I’d love to see a feature on Doug Rice’s series Dynamo Joe

[@fengusburnt]

The art for this is sick!

[@carlgibson285]

Roachmill is worth reading just for the art. There aren't many better-looking comics out there.

[@AndresAnLozadaLopez]

Hope soon you get through this rough time. Your work is amazing and inspiring. Few content creators put so much effort and quality into their videos as you do

[@ChesterLivingstonIII]

I just read the reprints of the original 6 issues and really loved it.

[@hank1541]

Uneven as it is, I have a whole lot of fondness for Roachmill. Also good timing, since they just released a collected edition of the first few issues back in December. McWeeny’s even said returning to it is a possibility… though I’m not necessarily holding my breath.

[@radjose]

You have a fondness for a book that mixes wacky and serious stories about a hitman in a future containing aliens and robots? I couldn't have guessed that from your user picture... (p.s. Scud is GREAT!)

[@hank1541]

@@radjose Oh, it rules. Scud was one of the first independent comics I actively sought out, and had stayed a favorite for almost two decades since.

[@troycruikshank1027]

I love finding b&w oddities inbold bins. There is gold in there!

[@thenemosix6835]

Love this comic! Thank you for doing this video.

[@macsnafu]

Well, I missed out on Roachmill--it looks interesting.

[@DeathAlchemist]

Yet again you pull out something interestimg that i have never heard of.

[@wernersiegmund9544]

I hope you do a video on The Goon comic

[@RogerioPereiradaSilva77]

I read the few initial issues of the DarkHorse run which had a semi-serious sci-fi vibe and enjoyed it quite a bit. The artwork was top notch, indeed. One of my favorite independent comics from the '80s, for sure. I had no idea that this goofy, over the top, slapstick stuff even existed. And yes, now it is obvious that this comic never really found its stride so the creators putting it out to pasture and write it off as learning wasn't such a bad decision...

[@RAlanBryan2112]

wow.... i thought nobody read this series back then but me............. Thanks for a cool video

[@thetrixter2012]

Is it came from the 80s a new series on this channel? Or just a tagline

[@MrBallofa]

love these mid size highlight videos

[@TitularHeroine]

Wow! Look at that cover art! And the type of heavy blacks in the interior have always appealed to me. Thank you!🙏 Edit: Yours is one of the greatest channels I've ever. ;)

[@StrangeBrainParts]

Yours are the greatest comments I've ever. :)

[@yggdrasil2]

A shame your channel didn't do so well last month, I finally sat down and watched your Cerebus series, one which I ended up rewatching several times because it was so good.

[@holdenturner8190]

I love finding out about new comics, the maxx was great! Thank you

[@ajjothikumar]

I really enjoy your content, so I just became a Patreon member of yours. It's just mid tier, but the best that I can do at the moment. Thanks for the hard work and good luck!

[@TheLDpwnz]

Thanks for covering this series. I picked up what I thought was the first issue while going through dollar bins a while back, but I quickly found out it was actually the first issue of Vol. 2. I'm a stickler for starting stories at the very beginning so I've been trying to hunt down the Blackthorne issues before reading any further without much success. (That seems to be a running trend for me...I wonder if my area had especially poor distribution for Blackthorne stuff?) Now I have a better idea of what I'm getting myself into here and, fortunately, this seems right up my alley despite its flaws so I'll happily keep hunting. Also, I don't know much of anything about it myself, but apparently there's a new third volume of Roachmill that came out in 2022 under the publishing name "It's Alive!" Were you aware of it? If so, what do you think of it compared to the original volumes?

[@vicaldama9314]

Yes oh yes ! Please more of these great b/w from 80$ to early 90$ . And actually thanks for all you been posting.

[@russellsmith1605]

This looks amazing!

[@troycruikshank1027]

Thanks!

[@rickytoddbotelho9555]

Excellent job 👍 ❤

[@kcvic]

everyone please like and subscribe.

[@Heavy-P]

Super cool.

[@TheGeekyAmreeki]

Looks like the darker more merc style issues were better. Might have to pick this up.

[@jiivannelson4774]

yay finally! thank you!

[@NemesisMvC]

good shit!

[@BrazenBull001]

Anyone else read Roachmill vs The flaming carrot?

[@tommcweeney6213]

Roachmill never did a Flaming Carrot crossover.

[@BrazenBull001]

@@tommcweeney6213 yeah but they should have

[@ctbinary42]

I was introduced to Roachmill through my collecting of Dark Horse Presents. I really liked it until the publishing started to get uneven. It's too bad it never found it's footing since it had such promise

[@ethantidlund6388]

Strange Brain Parts Are you familiar with Billy Tucci?

[@jakepalermo9181]

Was something planned after 10:36?

[@StrangeBrainParts]

Nope. That was a screw up on my end. I'm fixing it right now. :)

[@dbensdrawinvids8390]

"We would like to take our comic about a bug-armed hitman in a more serious direction." Comic writers are smoothbrained I swear.

[@holaestoymuerto]

Buen video

[@amanzeihedioha]

Sooo Doug TenNapel's Creature Tech but with guns?

[@WickiLeaks]

Vamo arriba

[@alistairrobb3169]

And I thought it was just ne that read this.

[@TomNook4200]

Krazy kat video?

[@kasrasadrehashemi174]

Uhm you might want to re edit.4 minutes of black.

[@TitularHeroine]

You mean at the end, while the theme was playing? I rather enjoyed that. And, used the time to write comments instead of trying to skip ads or whatever that might be there :)

[@StrangeBrainParts]

Thanks to you (and others) for pointing that out. KZbin is processing the edit right now. (Edit: Spelling mistake.)

[@tompuce84]

[@Bonzulac]

'80s

[@Steve_Vendetta]

"80's?" It's *'80s.* Do better.

[@chimpbrain]

I love how you invested your time in typing this instead of actually watching the video.

[@Steve_Vendetta]

@@chimpbrain Is this your burner account, Allan? Anyway, you've made an incorrect assumption. And do you really "love" what you mistakenly believe happened? Instead of being disingenuous, why not shoot straight? Plus, your unfounded remark does nothing to fix the problem I pointed out.

[@StrangeBrainParts]

Nope, not a burner account. I'm not that type of person. Anyway, I fixed the typo in the title. Not much I can do about the typo in the video.

[@chimpbrain]

I think it is unfair to comment something like that considering all the effort the video must have taken. It sounds unnecessarily mean-spirited towards something minimal.

[@Steve_Vendetta]

@@chimpbrain Unfair? I think you're reading an awful lot into a comment that doesn't exceed five words, and assuming much more on top of that. It's not difficult to edit a video's title; Allan has already done so. I pointed out a mistake, and he fixed it. If you're someone who doesn't know the proper usage I highlighted here, then hopefully you've been educated. So many "Pros" make the same mistake, it's quite astounding. Although I see it routinely, I don't routinely correct the person who's erred. I did so here because I care, with a mind toward helping rather than harming. If you somehow glimpse a mean spirit in my feedback, then perhaps you're overly sensitive to criticism - even when it's constructive and, moreover, not directed at YOU. I could have identified a couple more of Allan's oversights in this video. He neglected to mention the recent crowd-funding campaign to relaunch ROACHMILL, which succeeded in late 2022 and carried over into 2023. New editions of the book were released in comic book stores last year, which refutes Allan's claim that the character never resurfaced. Also, the video that Allan originally posted contained several minutes of inconsequential, virtually-dead air at its close. He's since deleted that odd outro and uploaded an improved version. But I didn't mention these things, even though I had grounds to. In different circumstances, that kind of input would cost Allan, since I don't work for free. I suppose you're lucky that I spared YOU the grief.

[@transopticon13]

McWeeny was always a good inker, even when he had to ink a bunch of Jim Lee clones