2000AD

[Levin]

Does anyone read 2000AD? Is it the sorry of thing you can just pick up and get into?

On a similar note, if one wanted to read some Judge Dredd (having never done so before) would one stay with the complete case files or are they for the completist?

[delicatemoth]

I read it from 1980 to 1990 or thereabouts, so I can't say what it's like now. I love it, it is as important to me as The Fall or Doctor Who.

The Complete Case Files actually collect the stories in chronological order. I'd only describe them as 'for the completist' if someone just wanted to read the big epics (Judge Child, Apocalypse War, Democracy, Necropolis to name a few) that the strip is most famous for. An actual completist would have to buy a LOT of comics. So don't worry about that - I suggest browsing in a comics/book shop to find one book that appeals to you.

In my view the secret of Judge Dredd is that he's not really the star of the strip - the city itself is. Having looked at this handy list (https://2000ad.fandom.com/wiki/List_..._in_Case_Files) I would suggest that volumes 3, 4 or 5 would make a good starting point - plenty of stories showing the wild and wonderful ways Mega City One's denizens find to entertain themselves and bring down the wrath of the Judges. These stories are 1979-82. Later the writers took the decision to address the judges' violent authoritarianism more directly with the 'Democracy' stories. They are excellent and moving, but personally I prefer the more off-the-wall approach of the earlier material.

[Toby Gymshorts]

I read 2000AD for years and Dredd was obviously a favourite (along with Strontium Dog and Rogue Trooper).

DM is (as always on matters 2000AD) completely correct; you'll spend a lot of time and money trying to get all of Dredd's backstory when what you could do is just buy some select titles. If you've never read it before, there's absolutely no shame in picking up a copy of The Best of Judge Dredd. In fact, I have a copy you're welcome to borrow at your leisure and if that gets you into it, then that's a cool thing and I'll have been happy to help.

[Sits]

I do remember my mate buying the very first edition, and noticing it was a bit different to your average comic. Bet he doesn’t still have it.

[Sits]

There was a dinosaur strip in it at the start which was given a lot of prominence.

[delicatemoth]

That was Flesh. It was basically Jurassic Park with a Wild West twist, I think.

Thing about The Best of Judge Dredd.is that it appears to include excerpts from stories, which I can see was necessary (don't think you can have a 'best of' that completely ignores the epics) but might be a bit frustrating. If you're OK with that it looks like a good introduction (and maybe goes a bit later than us 'early material' heads do) - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/...of-judge-dredd

[Bored Of Education]

I used to read Starlord (where Strontium Dog first started) and 2000AD after Battle and Action (a very violent comic that pinched contemporary film ideas such as Jaws for the Hookjaw strip, Dirty Harry for the Dredger strip and Rollerball for the Death Game 1999 strip) folded. What it's like now, I can't say but, as has been mentioned, there are enough graphic novels of most of the characters but especially Judge Dredd to get yourself immersed in the story. Not being an expert but, for many fans of the early stuff, I think the Cursed Earth issues were classics and certainly were the first graphic novels I can remember. The only issue with Dredd and some of the other characters was that that they chopped and changed artists regularly (and, to a lesser extent, writers) which meant that the quality could be variable.

Just checking something here, I found this explanation for the origin of Dredd which is worrying -

Mills initially based the characterisation of Judge Dredd on Brother James, one of his teachers at St Joseph's College, Ipswich. Brother James was considered to be an excellent teacher but also an excessively strict disciplinarian to the extent he was considered abusive. In his blog Mills detailed the moments of rage for which Brother James had a reputation and his own experience witnessing them.

[Gangster Octopus]

I bought 2000AD from the first episode until I moved to London in 1982. Mike McMahon was my favourite Judge Dredd artist, but I think that he'd stopped doing it by about 1980.

Flesh was about going back in time to farm dinosaurs, bringing their meat back to current (within the story) times. It was ok, but the ending was daft.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

My overriding memory of 2000AD is reading it as a kid and just accepting Ro-Jaws and Hammerstein as the names of two robots (one had big metal jaws and bit people, the other had a massive hammer for a hand). It was many years later, probably at college, I first heard about Rogers and Hammerstein and realised it had been a pun. My family weren’t much up on musical theatre.

[Ginger Yellow]

I think the Complete Case Files 2 would actually be a pretty good entry point. A good chunk of it is The Cursed Earth, so it's mostly a somewhat self-contained storyline. That said, it was released as a a standalone TPB, which may still be available.

As far as 2000AD collections go, I also like The Complete DR And Quinch

[Eggchaser]

My overriding memory of 2000AD is reading it as a kid and just accepting Ro-Jaws and Hammerstein as the names of two robots (one had big metal jaws and bit people, the other had a massive hammer for a hand). It was many years later, probably at college, I first heard about Rogers and Hammerstein and realised it had been a pun. My family weren’t much up on musical theatre.

I've only just got that now you've explained it and I have approximately 20 2000AD graphic novels upstairs....

DR and Quinch's Guide to Life remains a stone cold classic.

[Bored Of Education]

If you like 2000AD, Battle, Action or Starlord, Warrior was also good which featured Alan Moore's MarvelMan and V for Vendetta and Axel Pressbutton.

[Patrick Thistle]

There were some paperbacks issued in the 90s of various storylines that grouped things thematically. I had one called Judge Dredd versus the Fatties.

The Judge Child storyline is awesome. Absolutely crazy and takes you out of Mega City One on a weird quest like adventure to the Cursed Earth, the Texan megacity and even into space.

[Gangster Octopus]

I've a book version of The Cursed Earth, but it doesn't have either the Burger Wars or the one with the living logos in.

[Levin]

There is an Uncensored Cursed Earth now, it only came out a couple of years ago.

There is just do much stuff that looks cool and interesting. I mean that is fairly obvious given that it is a magazine thats been going for over 40 years.

I was reminded of this blog about different styles of Megacity 1 by different artists which I read years ago.

[Gangster Octopus]

By the way, where's mumpo?

[Eggchaser]

There is an Uncensored Cursed Earth now, it only came out a couple of years ago.

There is just do much stuff that looks cool and interesting. I mean that is fairly obvious given that it is a magazine thats been going for over 40 years.

I was reminded of this blog about different styles of Megacity 1 by different artists which I read years ago.

That's a really good read, even with a decade more of art on top that's not there. You could argue that all of the styles involved are accurate, since Mega-City One is so vast and essentially made up of the remnants of the entire East Coast cities that architectural design and fashion would differ according to the age and area Dredd found himself in.

[Mumpo]

By the way, where's mumpo?

Hi! I have been around on and off lately (OK mostly off). Not in Books much though, only just noticed this thread.

Does anyone read 2000AD? Is it the sorry of thing you can just pick up and get into? On a similar note, if one wanted to read some Judge Dredd (having never done so before) would one stay with the complete case files or are they for the completist?

So... I came back to 2000 AD in 2017 after an absence of 27 years - the WH Smiths here on campus started stocking it and I liked the look of that week's Dredd cover (it was prog 2016). Having read the comic from the first prog up to early 1990 I was well-versed in the foundations of Judge Dredd and Mega City One, but the other strips were completely unknown to me.

The first thing I did was order the previous five progs from the 2000 AD website, taking me back to the last jumping-on prog, the 2016 Christmas Special; which at least meant the storylines I'd been dropped into the middle of made some kind of sense.

But the problem with the way stories run in 2000 AD these days - and it's been the case for the last 20-odd years - is that ongoing strips are scheduled in chapters; and how much time elapses between those chapters depends very much on the script and art droids' other commitments. It's not unknown for there to be years between a strip's appearances, and even seasoned, long-term readers complain they've forgotten what's going on. So what I ended up doing - and this is very much how publisher Rebellion's strategy is devised - was buying a lot of the collected editions (containing previous chapters) of the strips I liked. Which can prove expensive, but they're nice to have.

At any one time I'd say there'll be around a dozen or so ongoing strips that are 'resting' between appearances, so it can be frustrating for a newcomer when they re-appear with only a very cursory recap.

The other issue to bear in mind is that the quality of the strips can vary enormously. Actually, let me clarify that - thankfully very few out-and-out bad strips slip past quality control (hello, 'Skip Tracer') but since the writing style of the script droids varies so much, there can be stints when some of the current strips just don't hold much appeal, and when that's two or three out of five, you do end up feeling a bit short-changed until a new cycle begins. Pat Mills, the comic's originator has four ongoing stories (Slaine, Savage (featuring Bill Savage from the ealry progs' 'Invasion' story), the ABC Warriors and Defoe, a steampunk strip about a zombie hunter) but I'm not a huge fan of his polemic writing style, so when a couple end up appearing in the same run of progs I have to read through gritted teeth (if you see what I mean).


Hmm. I feel like I'm not doing a particularly good job of talking 2000 AD up. You know what - as good a recommendation as any is just go buy the current week's prog, see what you think, and if you like any of it, carry on buying. There are actually some very good strips currently running so now's a good time. In fact last week was the latest jumping on prog (prog 2150 - ignore the hideous cover) so go out and grab that if you're near somewhere that stocks back issues. Although beware - although it's billed as a 'jumping on' prog most of the strips are resuming after previous chapters so you'll likely want some details filling in. In that case definitely visit the official 2000 AD forum where there are lots of people ready to answer your questions about backstories and how best to find them, or fill you in on important plot points.

And as for Dredd specifically - the strip is a microcosm of what I've described above, really. Creator John Wagner writes it only occasionally now and there's a roster of half a dozen or so other script droids taking care of the rest, and most of them have their own story arcs running; so again, picking up the plots can be difficult without access to collected editions. At least with Dredd there tends to be more self-contained one-shot or 2 to 3 episode stories that can be understood without knowledge of ongoing arcs. The general consensus - and it's one with which I thoroughly concur - seems to be that Wagner remains the undisputed master of writing Dredd and it's his stories that garner the most acclaim.

In summary: definitely start buying it, but expect to be a little bewildered.

I should do some recommendations...

[Mumpo]

Oh, one thing you could get hold of if the price doesn't put you off is THRILL-POWER OVERLOAD: 2000 AD - THE FIRST FORTY YEARS


The definitive history of the most influential British comic ever!

From 2000 AD's humble and rocky beginnings to its current position as the Galaxy’s Greatest comic, Thrill-Power Overload charts the incredible history of this ground-breaking comic. With exclusive interviews, hundreds of illustrations and rarely-seen artwork, former 2000 AD editor, David Bishop and journalist Karl Stock, guide the reader through four decades of action, adventure, excitement and the occasional editorial nightmare!

Told by the people who were there, this is the definitive history of the comic that launched a thousand talents including legends such as John Wagner, Pat Mills, Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Carlos Ezquerra, Brian Bolland, Dave Gibbons, Mick McMahon, Grant Morrison, Kevin O'Neill, Simon Bisley and continues with 21st Century breakthrough talents such as Jock, Rob Williams, Andy Diggle, Al Ewing, Henry Flint, Frazer Irving - and many many more.

Unfiltered, uncensored, and with remarkable frankness, Thrill-Power Overload demonstrates how 2000 AD’s creators went on to change not only British comics, but also the American comic book industry and its multi-billion dollar movie franchises.


It's a great read full of nice illustrations taken from a multitude of stories and if nothing else, it'll give you the lowdown on every strip to have appeared in the comic (until 2017, at least).

[Alex Anderson]

Not bought it since I was a kid and am cowed by some of the expertise on here but, yeah, I also bought the first ever 2000 AD.

Harlem Heroes is what I remember from that one (and I'm sure there was a free gift? Some sort of thing to be chucked, Frisbee-style? I could be getting this confused with Warlord/Victor/Battle - other regular non-football reading back at the end of my first decade, also keen on the free gifts) but was swept up by Dredd soon enough.

Found myself posting YouTube clips of the Human League's I am the Law after that Supreme Court judgement last week. Not exactly arch social commentary but an indictment of how deeply those strips got under my skin in the five or so years I read them - ordered at the local newsagents - as was my unexpected whiff of anger at the 2012 Dredd movie.

A quick glance tells me I've still got three 2000AD annuals, one Judge Dredd annual and about half a dozen Battles and three Warlords. They'll all be circa 1978 to 1984 (Moved house in May - still haven't decanted all the books properly).Sure I have at least one Action somewhere, Bordeaux - you've got me wanting to dig that out. But while I couldn't remember much more than Harlem Heroes, Dredd and the main man Tharg, when first catching sight of this thread, the posts are seriously Proustian:

Bill Savage and Invasion! The cockney taking on the Volgans (??). My mates and I let that bleed into our traditional, 1970s PC "British and Jerries", running about the scheme with Woolworth's plastic sub-machine guns shooting Volgans rather than the Wermacht (although Bill used a sawn-off, didn't he?)

Flesh! Always remember one of the cowboys got into some kind of personal duel with a T-Rex or such back in the day, killed it, but then - when he came back to the "present" day to gloat over its fossil in their fancy museum - he tripped on something while inspecting its skull, fell onto its mandible and knocked the top teeth down into himself. Split him in two. The last line was about how the T-Rex had waited millions of years but still had the last laugh.

Maybe these storylines are actually in the annuals and I ended up flicking through them when I should have been packing four months ago so I'm not actually remembering stuff from forty years ago, but I do remember paying near-morbid attention to the artists each week. As said above by someone who seriously knows what they're talking about, it made a hell of a difference to Dredd and my absolute favourite was Carlos Ezquerra ... and I'm 99% sure he was responsible for my absolute all-time favourite 2000AD strip, which I loved so much I cannot remember its name:

I'm sure it was some sort of pun on All Quiet on the Western Front and it was about a Romanian army division in the first world war who were, of course, vampires*. My main pubescent fixations were Hammer Horror and World War II - I'm nothing if not original - but I've never really outgrown a love of the gothic - so this was the strip of my dreams. Clearly remember getting a day off school because of snow and being sat at home copy-drawing scenes of blood-sucking infantrymen into a jotter with more gusto than I'd copied any other 2000AD illustrations (a habit among a few friends back then).

Tharg would never say "Thanks for the memories, guys" but I'm off for a rumble through the unpacked boxes...



*Apparently the internet's a thing which lets you look this stuff up: It was World War II and it was Fiends of the Eastern Front. That's my Christmas sorted.

[Sits]

We used to write/draw our own “comics” in our early teens and I remember one of the group arriving excitedly with the new dinosaur story he’d “created”. Unaware of course that another had also bought issue 1 of 2000AD, and all the dinosaurs were traced.

[Alex Anderson]

Ha! Exposed!

Yeah, I probably attempted that move myself (the rank plagiarism, that is - no way I had the drive to create my own comic) and I do remember a dystopian story-writing phase when my protagonist was called Johnny Memphis.

But attempting to replicate some of the most eye-catching illustrations was standard practice among my wee group around Primary 6 & 7 time. One of those childhood addictions as brief as it was intense.

Dug out the 1978 annual last night for a quick nostalgia-fest before lights out. Judge Dredd rumbling a gang of body-snatchers supplying illegal organ donation - the freshly sewn-up millionaire on the operating table asks why he's being arrested too:

"Receiving stolen goods!"

Where's my HB pencil and that maths jotter? ...

[Gangster Octopus]

They did a re-boot of Dan Dare in that first issue too. That didn't last too long.

[Alex Anderson]

Yeah he's all over the 1978 annual. Bit of a legacy transfer. Soon realised they didn't need him.

[Mumpo]

Ha! Exposed!
Dug out the 1978 annual last night for a quick nostalgia-fest before lights out. Judge Dredd rumbling a gang of body-snatchers supplying illegal organ donation - the freshly sewn-up millionaire on the operating table asks why he's being arrested too:

"Receiving stolen goods!"

That's 'Frankenstein II' from prog 6. The '78 annual features a couple of Dredd stories which were intended for the weekly but didn't make the cut - 'Videophones', in which a meeting of "all the Judges in Mega City One" shows about a dozen of them sitting round a table (four of whom are promptly killed) and 'Whitey's Brother', where we witness the destruction of the World Trade Centre.

The '78 annual also includes a Dan Dare story with great artwork by the inimitable Massimo Bellardinelli, some eerie Future Shocks and a Harlem Heroes tale pitting the titular team against the Berlin Blitzkriegs, whose captain at one point refers to Giant as "black boy".

Some decent stuff overall - in fact the only thing that marks the strips as clearly being not from the weekly is that in the early annuals the speech bubble lettering is typeset rather than being done by hand.


Edit: see the weird pose adopted by the perp as he 'surrenders'? That's because in the original artwork Dredd is firing a bullet right through him...