August 2000: Prog 1208, with its wonderful Cliff Robinson cover, holds the unfortunate distinction of being the rarest of all 2000 AD issues. Fan lore has it that the printed issues were stored in a warehouse waiting to be shipped, but the space flooded, and two of the three pallets of comics were ruined. Subscribers got their copies, but not many other people did, and the comic, when it does show up second-hand, routinely goes for around £20.Since I don't have a copy myself, I think I'll take a break from writing today. I'll note that the Judge Dredd episode, by John Wagner and Henry Flint, was reprinted in Rebellion's wonderful Henry Flint Collection last year, but the rest of the comic has never seen a second outing.
Next week, Nikolai Dante returns and I'll look at the new collection of Ro-Busters. See you then!
August 2000: With prog 1205, the Andy Diggle era of 2000 AD is well under way, and he's got Steve Moore as his secret weapon. Moore's principal contribution at this time is the new character Red Fang, and to be honest, it is among one of the comic's greatest missed opportunities. The pieces are all here for what could have been a 2000 AD classic. Fang is a strategist for a criminal empire in Earth's future, locked in an underworld war with other organizations, the police, and a strange alien race that looks like squids. The artwork is by Steve Yeowell, one of this blog's favorite illustrators. The characters and situations are engaging, but it all somehow fails. Hugely. Looking back on it, I think that the problem was that Moore decided to write a twelve-part serial, dumping far too many characters and a great big situation on readers' heads in one swoop. The result is incredibly convoluted and confusing, and nobody is surprised when the series is quietly retired after it wraps up in prog 1211.
Red Fang is notable for one thing, however. Yeowell and colorist Chris Blythe conspired to decorate these crimelords' offices with some downright amazing furniture. It was a running joke in fandom for months after the series concluded that nobody wanted to see Red Fang return for a second series, but his table was welcome back anytime.
July 2000: And suddenly, things change in a very, very big way. It goes like this:
June 2000: Prog 1196's deliciously ugly cover by Cliff Robinson features the final fate of Brit-Cit Judge Stark. Stark had appeared as a supporting character in two earlier Judge Dredd storylines and was brought in as an undercover agent in the four-part "Judge Dredd and the Shirley Temple of Doom" to bust a protection racket. Unfortunately, he and his partner are contaminated with Grubb's Disease, an incurable fungus which drives you mad and leaves mushrooms growing out of your body. Grubb's was initially depicted, with gleeful, black humor, by Carlos Ezquerra back in the early 80s, as one of a number of fantastic maladies which future citizens could find infection from in any given prog. Compared to jigsaw disease or the one that turns you into a spider, Grubb's is at least over quickly.
May 2000: Meanwhile, over at the Megazine, some very interesting things have happened. Andy Diggle is now the editor of this publication, while also working as assistant editor on the weekly, and he's beginning to put his own, inventive stamp on things. Much of Diggle's perspective on what 2000 AD should be would later be summed up with his expression "a shot glass of rocket fuel," about which, more another time. What it means in practice is keeping one eye trained on what the comic did best in its 1980s heyday, and how they did it as well as they did. There's plenty of room for nostalgia under Diggle's watch, but principally nostalgia for the fast-paced storytelling style that made early 2000 AD so memorable, and not necessarily for old characters. There will be a few old faces and names showing up again over the next couple of years, but the emphasis will be on new series and storylines, and when classic thrills are resurrected, it will, arguably, be done with a little more attention to detail and respect than some of the second-rate comebacks from the early 90s. Although you might want to watch this space; there'll be a riproaring argument about that point regarding a certain big, mean tyrannosaur in due course.
April 2000: Sinister Dexter are on the cover of prog 1190. It's a very silly piece by Greg Staples which uses word balloons for just about the first time in living memory. The story inside is part two of "Mission to Mangapore" by Dan Abnett and Andy Clarke, and it continues the long investigation into the criminals that were behind the carnage of the epic "Eurocrash" storyline which appeared about a year previously, and reintroduces Finnigan's estranged wife Carrie Hosanna as being in the employ of the series' latest underworld kingpin. Sinister Dexter has a long history of playing with puns and stereotypes in its multi-ethnic, European cast, and this is the first time it's really played with Japanese stereotypes. It hits the expected targets, including yakuza and ninjas and rock gardens and five-mile-high buildings and a liquid metal Terminator II-type robot killer which chooses to hang out in the shape of a big-eyed schoolgirl, but it's all a bit predictable and dry, really. Clarke has a really hard time adjusting his style, which is gorgeously realistic and natural, to accomodate Polly, who's supposed to be some sort of generic "anime" stereotype. She looks deeply out of place. My feeling at the time, and it's echoed as I reread it, is that Ray and Finny aren't enough out of their element, that Abnett didn't make Mangapore as bizarre as it could have been. Obviously the island-city has that name for comedy identification reasons, but "manga" doesn't mean "just another Japanese thing" to me, it means "comics." It's a shame that this world wasn't populated by a culture as obsessed with comics as Downlode is by hitmen and kingpins. Maybe it's just me, but while "Mission to Mangapore" isn't a bad story, it's really just any other Sin Dex adventure, albeit one with ninjas in it. File them off and the story could've been set in Downlode.
March 2000: The cover of prog 1185 features a wonderfully old-fashioned composition by Cliff Robinson which evokes any number of 1980s IPC comics. The little gunmen are the action figure-sized heroes of Banzai Battalion, who are this week wrapping up their second run-in with Judge Dredd in a three-part story by John Wagner and Cam Kennedy. They are actually semi-sentient pest control droids who keep finding themselves thrown into situations where human criminals become the pests they need to stamp out. Since their human owners died during the events of the recent "Doomsday Scenario," and since they keep making themselves useful, the droids are sent by Dredd to join Justice Department in some capacity, but when they reappear in their own series in 2001, they'll have to take the initiative to strike out on their own. The subsequent Banzai Battalion series will run for thirteen episodes, most of which were reprinted in a 2005 hardback by Rebellion.
