Across The Pond: Back To Where It All Began

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Back to Basics

Here I am living in a comics paradise. Comics to the left of me, in expensive comic shops, comics to the right of me in public libraries, comics behind me in the comics wardrobe in my study. This last week I decided to get back to basics, back to where it all began. 2000 AD.

In my first column, I mentioned the bright morning in which I bought one Capt America comic and one 2000 AD, whilst procrastinating on my way to work. I sat down to a caffe latte and read both. The Capt A. was memorable in a bad way, as if Marvel had asked themselves the question ‘how bad can a comic be and still be available for sale?’ The 2000 AD was interesting, exciting and so good that I’m still hooked ten years on.

Flash forward to now and I’m reading two lots of 2000 AD. The weekly ‘progs’ (that’s their ‘it sounded futuristic in 1977’ name for issues) and some back issues – sorry, progs, from1987.

The back progs first. In 1987, for only 26 pence you could get:

“Metalzoic” – a completely mad story by Kevin O’Neill and Pat Mills about robot dinosaurs. The story is sort of Lion King-ish trek by a giant ape/robot with a buzzsaw in his head, who is trekking to find the giant robo-Mammoth who connects him to the metal spirit who guides the planet and….I think I’ll stop there. It’s a story that can be read just for the illustrations or, if you’re in a Pat Mills mood, for the riffs on myths and cultural hubris in the script. Mills often shoves his Big Ideas and research down his readers’ throats, but in this story he just shows us the ideas and we have fun going along. Highly recommended. There is a graphic novel, which came out before the story. If I had unlimited funds, I’d buy it, as the paper quality of old 2000 ADs is not up to much. There was a misprinted cover that read ‘I operated on my own Brian !’, which would have been even better than the corrected version. Recommended for fans of Mills and O’Neill’s Marshall Law and fans of odd comics.

Judge Dredd: Atlantic. Lovely black humour from John Wagner, as Dredd tracks down a killer in the Atlantic tunnel stop over. Here I must jump forward to 2000 AD as it is now because the great news is the last two Dredd stories which are by Simon Spurrier. Not once, but twice, Spurrier has turned in Dredd stories which could have been by the great John Wagner himself.

I should add here that I feel an enjoyable ‘in at the beginning’ feeling with Spurrier, having read his letters to the editor of 2000 AD and then his ‘future shocks’ (one off stories they usually give to new writers) up to his current output, which includes the genius creation of Lobster Random ( a fun future torturer and rogue), the inexplicably popular ‘students smoke dope and are lazy’ ‘Bec and Kawl’ Harry Kipling, Deceased, which has an interesting premise (a corpse who kills gods) and ‘the simping detective’, an original character in Dredd’s world who is a Chandleresque undercover Judge. El Spurioso (as he calls himself online) has sometimes outsmarted himself with wordplay and mangled metaphors but the overall impression is of great talent developing at great speed. I forsee more good Dredd stuff from him.

Back in 1987, we also have Ace Trucking Co, a sci-fi comedy based on the CB radio craze of the 70s and 80s. Here the jokes mostly consist of wordplay, future versions of the CB slang (‘throw the critical croak’ for ‘kill’ that kind of thing). It’s more fun than a Burt Reynolds film, but not much more.

But there’s also:

Strontium Dogs! Whoo hoo, as my kid says when he’s having fun. Johnny Alpha is a mutant who can see through walls and into people’s minds. Because mutants are unpopular,they get the dirty jobs and can join the Search and Destroy agency (hence the nickname Strontium Dogs). Alpha is hunting the gang that killed his partner. The gang has taken control of a monastery of affable men called The Chums of Dennis, who are dedicated to being ‘chums’. So there’s a nice combination of cowboy movie vengeance, with Alpha being all grim and unforgiving, and sci fi goofiness from the chums. Great stuff.

Fairness obliges me to point out that there is a one-page piece by Milligan and McCarthy called ‘Sooner or Later’ which is absolute crap. It must have seemed terribly cutting edge and surreal to the creators when they were stoned.

Moving up to the present day 2000 AD, we have, as I said, Simon Spurrier doing good things with Dredd and moderately interesting ones with Harry Kipling. We also have Ian Edginton and Steve Yeowell’s Red Seas. This is a gorgeous boys own romp, about some pirates who get involved with Satan, Aladdin and the Land that Time Forgot kind of thing. Not only are there pirates and dinosaurs, which is all that your inner eight-year old boy could ask for, but there are beautiful pictures by Yeowell in elegant black and white. Alas it’s just finished, but I’m sure there’ll be more. There is also a cynical Future Shock from Al Ewing. Like most Future Shocks, it’s not a reason for buying the prog in itself, but is fun to read. An interesting story with a twist that wouldn’t be out of place in Twilight Zone.

All up it would be perfect if they’d just print my latest letter. So I’ll finish with an appeal to my readers. If you are handing over perfectly good money each month to keep up with DC and/or Marvel, stop at once. Just take out a subscription to 2000 AD and read the other ones in the comic shop. Go on!