THROWBACK THURSDAY: Happy Birthday to 2000AD

The latest issue of the ever-brilliant Judge Dredd Megazine

This week issue 2470 of the weekly 2000AD sci-fi comic anthology comic, along with issue 489 of the Judge Dredd Megazine - the monthly Dredd-centric spin-off - popped through my letterbox just in time for 2000AD's 49th birthday celebrations today (February 19).

I can't recall if I purchased the first issue of the Megazine when it was launched in 1990 (I suspect not), but I certainly remember picking up the very first issue (prog) of 2000AD, back in 1977, when I was 10.

One of my few remaining vivid memories from that age is of sitting in the back of my parents' car, eagerly reading this comic that was unlike anything I had seen before.

I suspect mum and dad were taking me somewhere "fun", but I was more interested in my copy of 2000AD.

Via

Early issues often came packaged with gifts, such as "biotronic" stickers with the second issue, so you could emulate John Probe (the star of the comic's Six Million Dollar Man clone M.A.C.H. 1) with the illusion of robotic parts peeking through your skin!

It's weird now to think that the big selling point of 2000AD initially was its Dan Dare strip (which, despite some striking visuals, ran for less than two years), and Judge Dredd - now a pop culture icon - didn't even appear until prog two.

2000AD was gritty and darker than my usual fare at the time, and thus felt more 'grown up'.

There are stories from those early days that have firmly cemented themselves into my psyche: such as Flesh (about time-travelling cowboys harvesting dinosaur meat), Shako (soldiers versus a man-eating polar bear in the Artic), and some of the more twisted of Tharg's Future Shocks (self-contained Twilight Zone-like stories with an inevitably bonkers surprise ending).

I read the title weekly for a long time, but, as is my wont, eventually found something else to hold my attention (probably American comics, roleplaying games... and girls).

Judge Dredd's debut in prog #2

I can't pinpoint exactly when I stopped reading 2000AD regularly.

However, I do remember devouring several of the early, important, Judge Dredd story arcs, such as The Judge Child, Judge Death Lives, and the Apocalypse War, which would have taken me to at least prog 270.

Sláine, Pat Mills' mythical Celtic berserker, first appeared in prog 330, and I know I followed his early adventures in the magazine, as I immediately grokked the fact that the ideas presented there could be ported over into a redefining of the "berserker/barbarian" character class in Dungeons & Dragons.

So that's six or seven years of loyal reading.

There was one aspect of the magazine that I never really bought into: the fact that it was supposedly edited by an alien called Tharg (a pseudonym adopted by all the actual editors), who arrived on Earth with his arsenal of "cool" alien slang.

He was an extraterrestrial Stan Lee, but gregarious Stan was always 'The Man', whereas, for me, Tharg was a pale imitation.

I've mellowed rather now and the cringe I felt as a teenager about this whole idea now simply makes me smirk a bit.

In subsequent decades, it was primarily Sláine and Judge Dredd that brought me back into the 2000AD fold, picking up either single issues from newsagents or graphic novel collections of stories from bookshops (or later, Amazon).

Although, for many years, there wasn't the same frisson of excitement picking up and reading the odd prog here and there compared to when I was 10.

It felt as though so much geeky media - and society in general - had shifted in that similar ("don't talk down to young readers") direction, even though 2000AD was the trailblazer.

However, in the last year I have resumed my subscription to 2000AD, paired with my longer-running one to the Megazine, as I'm now finding the various stories - on the whole - in the anthology title are gelling more with my tastes.

I also love the fact that 2000AD's still going strong, and that new readers are discovering the joys of its gritty, British adventures every week.

Can't wait to see what the publishers, Rebellion, have lined up for 2000AD's 50th anniversary next year.

This week's 2000AD "prog"

2000AD, prog one, cover date: February 26,1977

Future Shock! The Story Of 2000AD (2015)

Released on DVD in 2015, Future Shock! The Story Of 2000AD is a gleefully foul-mouthed oral history of Britain's foremost home-grown comic book.

Through a series of talking heads, the documentary charts the comic's growth from its birth in the depressing and anarchic days of the late 1970s.

After 2000AD's founder Pat Mills' first attempt to kick back against the turgid state of boys' comics - Action - had been crushed by the establishment, he realised that sci-fi was a better avenue for his style of storytelling.

Eventually, the success of 2000AD attracted the attention of American comic book companies, particularly DC, and the local talent was quickly poached (Brian Bolland, Alan Moore, Grant Morrison etc) and 2000AD began to suffer because of this.

And it's not really until the title was brought by video game company Rebellion in the year 2000 that the comic started to regain some of its former glory.

A veritable galaxy of comic book talent appears in this documentary, from Pat Pills, Alan Grant and John Wagner, to Grant Morrison, Dan Abnett, Brian Bolland, Kevin O'Neill, Carlos Ezquerra, and Dave Gibbons, to name but a few.

First and foremost this is a historical document, presenting the story of the title, its struggles, its inspirations, and the targets of its subversive satire, but it's also a joyful celebration of a counter-culture icon, a scrappy little niche comic book that has endured for decades, and retained its uniquely British accent, despite occasional great adversity.

It also looks at the enduring legacy and influence 2000AD has had on the comic book landscape (interviewees from DC Comics acknowledge there'd be no Vertigo imprint without 2000AD, for instance) and cinematic aesthete (pointing out that Robocop was a better Judge Dredd film than the first actual Judge Dredd film etc).

Growing up with 2000AD, this was the first comic I read regularly. I still fondly remember the 'free gifts' with the first few issues (a Frisbee, 'bionic' stickers etc) and, in those post-Star Wars days, early strips like Dan Dare and, of course, Judge Dredd had a massive impact on my imagination, my writing, and eventually my gaming.