Posted on December 20, 2024

2000AD Progs 1601-1700

This batch takes us from August 2008 to August 2010, another two years of strong stewardship by Rebellion that further strengthened the quality and variety of the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic. All the classic characters got their turn with Judge Dredd as the tentpole in every prog. There were no format or logo changes, but the cover price creeped up from £1.90 to £2.25.

The strongest Dredd story came at the tail of this run, depicting the turmoil around the choosing of a new Chief Judge of Mega-City One. As a cypher for modern-day elections, this perennial event provides as much white-knuckle tension as any action story. It always reveals more about the fragility of MC1 and the tension of Dredd’s complicated relationship to power. Since he’s the star of the strip you know he’ll pull through, but the stability of his world is increasingly at stake with every turnover. You know, like what American elections have become.

Other highlights for me were the start of a new strip called Kingdom (think Mad Max meets Planet of the Apes if the apes were dogs), and Clint Langley’s exquisite digipainting on A.B.C. Warriors. At the opposite end of this spectrum, however, were two strips that sort of made me crazy for different reasons.

First, a pirate adventure titled Red Seas, which was an obvious take on Pirates of the Caribbean. 2000AD is well known for putting their own spin on popular action and SF movies (Judge Dredd, for example, was heavily inspired by Rollerball), but every time I witnessed that in past progs, it was always well after the “inspiration” had come and gone. This time it was linked directly to a contemporary franchise that I was heartily sick of so it felt cheap and gimmicky.

The other strip was Stickleback, a historical supernatural crime story. The artist, Matt Brooker (under the pen name D’Isreali), is highly accomplished and versatile, but here his art was so full of Photoshop tricks that I found it impossible to focus on the story. As a career Photoshop user myself, I was so distracted by parsing his technique that I literally couldn’t read a single word. I never had that issue with Clint Langley’s work, since his magic is beyond my reach. Hopefully I’m the only one who has this problem since I wish Matt only the best of luck in his career.