195. Catching up with the Meg

July 2009: It has been several chapters since I popped by to check on the mighty Megazine and tell readers how it was doing. The answer is "not too shabby." It's been a little more than a year since Tank Girl took up residency, and, as yet, the majority of readers are not too sick of it yet. The Tank Girl experience is going to provide ample evidence that the readers really prefer a regular turnover for the Meg, with lots of different stories from the gigantic bank of recurring series available to the editor. Unfortunately, with only thirteen issues a year, and consequently just 26 slots for new stories in the Dreddworld, we've reached the point where giant gaps between stories in a series is just the natural state of affairs.

Issue 287 comes just after a really risky experiment, where the two slots were given over, for five months, to two brand new series instead of bringing back Devlin Waugh or Anderson or one of the big names, or even a known quantity like one of the once-in-a-long-time series such as Bato Loco or Johnny Woo. Fortunately, it worked out all right, because one of those slots was for Insurrection by Dan Abnett and Colin MacNeil. The other was, unfortunately, Citi-Def by Tony Lee and an artist who goes by the name Jackademus, which wasn't very good at all, but at least it had dinosaurs in it. Insurrection was extremely popular with readers, particularly ones familiar with a strategy game called "Warhammer 40k," because it's allegedly a lot like a Warhammer campaign set in the outer space fringes of Dredd's universe. I don't know what the heck Warhammer is, but I liked this comic just fine. A second story will run in 2011, and a third and final run is expected later this year.

As these stories wrapped up, it was back to the well for a pair that were more recognizable, even if the first was only just so. Meet Darren Dead by Rob Williams and John Higgins had been introduced more than three years previously, in a one-off episode published in Meg 240. In the days before any of the atomic wars that shaped Dredd's world, Darren had been a British celebrity, apparently something akin to Russell Brand (about whom I know nothing other than what Wikipedia can tell me), only known for stage magic and escape artistry instead of being outlandish and marrying Katy Perry. He had been buried alive in a stage stunt when the bombs went off, and he remained locked up for many decades, radiation both keeping him alive and unkillable, and giving him the power to talk to the dead. This high concept is not mined for drama, but ridiculous and fun comedy. Darren Dead is a very reluctant hero. He's a rich, easily offended, pretentious idiot.


Sadly, Darren Dead seems to have been retired after this three-part adventure. Admittedly, the concept is a tiny bit limiting, and the character is just a little bit obnoxious, but this story is huge fun. He's blackmailed into solving a series of murders involving a villain in a robot panda suit, and leaves the story alive but decapitated, and relying on his assistant to carry his head around. Not too many protagonists in any comic are bodiless heads. Well, there was the melted fellow in a bucket in the Wagner/Grant/Kennedy Outcasts series for DC Comics, and that's about it.

Armitage has had a much more frequent run than anything that's been in the Meg for some time. This is the second of Dave Stone's stories to be illustrated by John Cooper. Cooper will draw one more story, in 2010, before Patrick Goddard steps in for the terrific "Underground" in 2012.


"The Mancunian Candidate" sees the writer doing his usual trick of juggling more dense plots than anybody else in the business. This time, we've got dark revelations about Armitage's partner's childhood coming at the same time when our hero could really use her assistance. Instead, she's been institutionalized for her incredibly violent behavior, and he's been saddled with some upper-class twit who carries around an antique firearm for some fool reason.

While Tank Girl is kind of entertaining, there are signs that it's wearing out its welcome. The ten-part "Skidmarks" story ended with a very aggravating cop-out ending, the sort of thing that might have been okay had we been following the story for two or three issues, but dumping an "it was all a dream" variant after ten was a guaranteed way to start some ill-will. Online and in the letters pages, we're starting to see some resentment seep through. It's evident that Tank Girl has run too long already, but there's still much more to come. On one hand, there's the question of why this series should proceed uninterrupted for so long, but on the other, if Armitage or Devlin Waugh were to get this sort of residency, would readers eventually turn on it as well?

Well, they might, but I'd love to see a ten-month run of both of 'em.

Next time, Judge Dredd is exiled to the Cursed Earth, and Lulu takes off her clothes again. See you in seven!

187. Skidmarks!

August 2008: Here's one of the biggest things, potentially, to ever happen to the Judge Dredd Megazine: the irrepressible Tank Girl joins the lineup with all-new episodes. Helpfully, Meg # 275 features not only the first episode in a wild new series of Tank Girl by Alan Martin and her new artist, Rufus Dayglo, but also a new series of articles written by Ed Berridge about the history of British adult comics, which helps put the new story in some context.

Tank Girl, as a strip, debuted in 1988 in the premiere issue of Deadline, although the character had been used in flybills and promotional tat for punk groups for a while before. The creation of Martin and artist Jamie Hewlett, she then became a regular player in the magazine. A heady mix of anarchic comics, left-wing politics and indie rock - one of Melody Maker's most celebrated writers, the late Steven Wells, contributed several features and interviews - Deadline is, decades on, an absolutely wild and occasionally impenetrable time capsule. It's much loved by those who were able to embrace it at the time, albeit somewhat baffling to those of us on this continent even if we were the right age to have loved it or the music that it championed. Tank Girl was the star player, and apparently the most regular feature - I have never seen a proper "database" like those that we trainspotter 2000 AD fans assembled - but other series, including Johnny Nemo by Peter Milligan and Brett Ewins, Wired World by Philip Bond, and Hugo Tate by Nick Abadzis are all well-remembered by many, although, if we're honest, I recall an article about the group Kitchens of Distinction written by "Swells" more clearly than any of the comics.

Deadline didn't survive either homegrown indie rock's breaking into the mainstream in the mid-90s or Tank Girl's debut as a remarkably poor feature film. The movie was such a bust that the backlash helped sink the comic. The movie flopped in April of 1995 and Blur had their first number one with "Country House" in August. The moment had passed, and Martin and Hewlett granted DC's Vertigo imprint.a license to publish Tank Girl. They released some poorly-received comics written by Milligan and retired the character in early '96.


Eleven years later, Tank Girl returned. Hewlett had, by this time, become a hugely successful multimedia artist, and regular collaborator with Blur's Damon Albarn, and gave Martin his blessing to continue without him. Now published by IDW, Martin hooked up with artist Ashley Wood for some mini-series adventures. But Tank Girl works best when it regularly appears in a larger context, and in shorter bursts of material. So, while the IDW releases continued as occasional mini-series, Tank Girl began a residency in Judge Dredd Megazine unlike any seen before. With a couple of single-issue breaks, she was a regular player for almost two full years.

It's difficult to say how much of Tank Girl's original success was down to Hewlett's art, but, while it may be unfair for everybody to downplay Martin's considerable, and ongoing, contribution, it's accurate to say that people do. I recall pointing out IDW's Ashley Wood-drawn Tank Girl to a group of comic-reading friends and acquaintances, and, without Hewlett, none of them were interested. True, Wood's stylized take on the character was a pretty radical departure, but conservative comic readers get their notions and hold onto them for dear life. Dayglo's version resembled Hewlett's a little more closely, and the shorter episodes, usually nine pages each month, more closely evoked the non-linear, anything-goes feel of the Deadline days.


The new Tank Girl launched with a ten-part epic called "Skidmarks" that drew inspiration from the old Hanna-Barbera TV cartoon Wacky Races and the Burt Reynolds film The Cannonball Run. It's the most straightforward, and by far the longest, of Tanky's Meg adventures. Subsequent stories, which appeared through the spring of 2010, would be shorter, much looser, and also quite controversial among readers, but more of that down the line.

I recall being both very excited and very frustrated by the launch of Tank Girl in the Meg. I won't claim to have ever been a fan of the character, though I really appreciate the nice way that Titan repackaged their series of reprint books at the same dimensions as Rebellion's line, which was very thoughtful of them. I think I'm too linear (and boring) of a reader for most of the carefree and bizarre Deadline material, no matter how much I love, for example, Philip Bond's artwork. (I would certainly like to see a Wired World collected edition prove me wrong, though.) Since I did love Rufus Dayglo's artwork, and saw such sales promise in Tanky joining the Meg, I was cautiously optimistic.

But I was incredibly disappointed when, again, Rebellion failed to capitalize on their newest star by, you know, promoting the living heck out of her. The IDW books were selling to some small audience in the States. Even if my anecdotes suggested some resistance, the books still moved, but, as 2008 ended and I began a lengthy look, incorporating several states, at comic book shops across the southeast and up north, I saw many places that sold IDW's Tank Girl but not Judge Dredd Megazine. Retailers had no idea, as per usual, that the character had new adventures here. Rebellion failed to promote it in any real way. If ever there was a time for full-page ads in the Previews catalog from Diamond Distributors, this was it. Another opportunity was lost. This would not improve for another couple of years.

Oh, yeah, and the Meg was now bagged with a "free graphic novel," usually 64 pages and printed at the same dimensions as their line of reprint books. The "Meg Floppy," as it's often called, is still going today, four years later, and seems to serve the dual purpose of gauging reader response to material that might be served by the larger bookstore market, and also getting old material scanned in and resized for the reprint world. This format - 64 pages and bagged with a reprint - has been the standard for the Meg since issue 275.

Next time, Tony Lee gets some hate mail. See you in seven days!