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Underground > Comic Books >

2000AD: 30 Years of Thrill-Power!

13:36 / 19.02.07

So where were you on the 26th of February 1977? Me? I was mewling and puking in my cradle having only recently been launched on the stands myself.

Looking at the history of 2k it's only marginally less probable that the Hitchikers Guide. It should, all being fair, have closed down years ago and be another piece of nostalgia for those of us who still care about being a Whizzer or a Chip-ite.

From the early days of M.A.C.H. 1's dominance of popularity, through the Apocalypse War, the coming of the Beard of Greatness, the fallow years, and the Bishop led fight back and the ressurgence of strength under Rebellions ownership 2k has always been different from everything else on the shelves. And I, for one, am glad of it.

So, what are your memories of the G.G.C. and will you be buying issue 1526, with Dredd, Savage, Nikolai Dante and a return for the original creators of Flesh? Did I mentiion the Philip Bond cover?

15:00 / 19.02.07

Memories of 2000AD? Varied, I have to say.

I grew up with it from prog 200ish to about 700 or so, after which I just kind of trailed off. Things started getting a bit less frantically-paced, I felt – too many of Pat Mills’ stories seemed to feature panels with one speech bubble or caption, and as if in anticipation of the way the USA comics market has gone over recent years, seemed to be written with an eye on the collected edition.

Whilst I remember being at the Convention when Richard Burton (then-editor) showed some of Simon Bisley’s painted pages for Slaine and there was an audible gasp in the room, arguably for me that was the beginning of the end of interest – multi-part sagas with gorgeous art but the stories just didn’t feel as ‘compelling’ as a lot of the pen-n-ink stuff, and whilst the eye felt compelled to dwell on the art of the panel, the lack of text made it feel like a slightly wasted effort, really.

And whilst I liked the inventiveness of the Summer Offensive, a lot of the newer characters like Dante just did nothing for me. I’ve read many of the year-end extended issues, but they don’t seem very ‘new’-reader friendly, as they often don’t seem to give much of a précis or details of character names.

All that said, I wrote for 2000AD a couple of times, and it was always nice to see oneself listed as a Script Droid, and it is, obviously, one hell of a birthing ground for UK talent; aside from the well-known magician writers of varied hirsuteness, Pat Mills is (despite my decreased enjoyment) a comics legend, and John Wagner’s scripts are almost the textbook definition of un-decompressed, as it were. And as for the artists, I can think of very few UK comic artists of note who haven’t been published in 2000AD, and names like Gibbons and Bolland and Ezquerra have to have caps doffed in admiration.

Residual affection remains, but I’m much more likely to buy the Xtreme reprints than buy the regular comic now, as it feels more satisfying – the serials feel like they’re too thinly sliced for my tastes. But I wish the comic well, if one can do such a thing…

09:16 / 21.02.07

Cheers, some very interesting points. Rather bizarelly for a time when 2k has started full frontal male nudity and real world swear words the comic is featured on tonights Blue Peter. Biddy Baxter would be turning in her grave. If she's dead. I don't know. Anyway, Schrodingers Biddy...

10:50 / 21.02.07

I got into 2000ad at a young age, picking it up amongst the weekly pick ups of Eagle and Battle and the such, but didn't start collecting until, let's see now, around about 1985 or so. This coincided with me hanging around with arty older kids, smkoing, listening to rap music and calling thatcher an old fucker - one of the older kids, who was a bit of trouble, took a like to me and gave me his entire run of old issues, going back to something like issue 60 or so - so I devoured them over the course of a year, and got up to modern day issues, and became a collector - this also was about the time of my first visit up to london to a real comic shop, when Cult and Killing Joke were coming out - I must have been about, let's see, 14 or 15 maybe?

One of the older kids raved about Strontium Dog all the time, and it was the most human of all stories in the comic in the early days, but I always had a soft spot for Rogue Trooper - the great wandering soldier stuff really hit something in my head and I was hooked - I loved the story where Bagman unloads after being shot, and Helm's heroics in covering the grenade - there was just something so sad about his quest, that most stories ended in one issue, but the overall story would never be resolved.

Later on Zenith simply blew me away - having read a few Lovecraft stories around that time, the first phase was such a new take on super heroics that I think in many ways is better than Watchmen and those other real world super heroes stories.

I haven't read an issue for something like ten maybe more years - I lost interest after Freaks and The Master of the Rum and Uncanny (Bix Barton) - around the time that other comics like Crisis and the other monthly one with Jimi Hendrix in it went under.

It's a shame that it seems to have lost some of its edge over the years - I think tying up character's stories and trying to get a sense of continuity didn't help - and you'd think that a politically active punky comic book would still have teeth in today's world - but it just seems too establishment now days.

Still - I wear my Nemesis teeshirt with pride, and would drink out of my Judge Dredd letter-printed and won mug with pride too if I knew where my parents had put the damn thing!

Janean Patience

11:34 / 21.02.07

2000ad was something of a childhood obsession for me. I remember even the most glancing contact with it quite vividly - the sight of the Otto Sump ugly spread or ABC Warriors ranching spread on the bedroom walls of a kid I met only once, for example. It wasn't until Prog 348, and shamingly all this is from memory, that I persuaded my mum that my brother would like it delivered weekly. Prog 349 had an overview of all the Thrills that had appeared that year, and that was it. I read those two pages again and again and convinced myself my life's goal was to track them down.

It helped my addiction, of course, that the following Prog 350 was absolutely packed with quality and part of the comic's golden age. Again from memory, it had DR & Quinch, Halo Jones, Dredd in Citizen Snork, which for my money is one of the most poignant portrayals of the brutal reality of life in the Mega-City and much better than the histronics of America, and Strontium Dog in The Killing, which I loved. (There must have been something else as well...) Our household received it weekly from then right up past Prog 1000, by which point I'd left university and it really had to stop.

At some point I bought a load of back issues for 10p each from a friend - 100 to about 150, then 228 upwards - and about six years ago I gave most of the issues from 600 onwards to a charity shop, because they were mostly rubbish. The rest I still have, and this is making me very, very nostalgic for them.