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Hmmm, working from memory here, so apologies if any of this is off, but :
According to an interview Ian Gibson gave in (fanzine) Arken Sword in the mid-80s, Alan Moore had planned the series as a set of seven volumes, each ten or so episodes long, as this was coincidentally the same length as the average Titan Book volume. Ian said that Alan had planned it this way to get the royalties from the reprints (though if memory serves this wasn’t exactly the fast route to riches, which is why the writers and artists were apparently asked to contribute introductions and new covers and the like, as a way of getting them more dosh).
Halo got a mixed reception from 2000AD readers, I think, and I must admit that as a reader of it in weekly chunks at the time Book 1 left me hmm, though I thought Book 2 was more accessible and enjoyable. Perhaps partly because of this, or perhaps because of the oft-mentioned disputes over ownership (Alan wanted he and Ian to have the copyright, but IPC/Fleetway weren’t into that idea), it was decided that Book 3 was to be the last book – though with more episodes (15, I think). A shame, as we never got to see how the story panned out, and what seeds that were sown in Books 1-3 would have flowered.
Silly personal aside : as the squiggly-language on a lot of signs in the background of Halo Jones (especially in Book 1, in the Hoop) is a coherent language invented by Ian Gibson, and as a squiggle of it appears in the final panel of Book 3, I once asked Alan if he knew what it said – something like ‘That’s all, Folks’, perhaps ? He replied that he didn’t know, and that I’d have to ask Ian. I haven’t, but if anyone else ever has – or if they’ve decoded it, like Doop’s language in X-Factor/X-Statix – I’d be interested to know…
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