Future Shocks Subscribers Exclusive Vol.2
Cover by Grant Perkins and Jamie Roberts

The stories in this exclusive collection are plucked from various Progs published between 1987 and 1989 (prog 539 – 648) and features such writers as Mark Millar, John Smith, Jim Campbell and future-Tharg Alan Mackenzie. As well as Belardinelli the art duties include such luminaries as Glenn Fabry, Mike Collins, Will Simpson, Richard Elson, Kev Walker, Jose Ortiz, Paul Marshall and the classic Dredd artist Ron Smith.

Art from Futureshocks Subscribers Exclusive Vol.2 – (clockwise from top right) by Will Simpson, Paul Marshall, Glenn Fabry, Mick Austin, Ron Smith, Kev Walker, Chris Weston, Massimo Belardinelli, Nigel Dobbyn, Richard Elson, Massimo Belardinelli, Mark Farmer

Tharg’s droids have made a fine selection from the time and the collection marks how Futureshocks were being used to test new talent rather than being given to old professionals. Indeed only Jose Ortiz and Belardinelli feature from the group who handled duties on the first 200 progs. Names such as Weston, Fabry, Marshall and Elson would all go on to have successful spells on strips such as Dredd, Slaine, Kingdom and Indigo Prime as well as successful careers in US comics. As for the Shocks themselves, well reviews of those will have to wait till the blog gets to them but there are many quality thrills, several of which will ping instantly back to the minds of former readers. Sadly the large Belardinelli count does not find room to include the magnificent Smith / Belardinelli ‘One Man’s Meat‘ from Prog 563, surely the finest strip to ever feature a cute alien-hippo with a gun to its head. For this delight from the Era check the still available Best of Future Shocks. 

One Man’s Meat – Prog 563 – Art Massimo Belardinelli

Wisely avoiding overlapping the Best of Future Shocks can be seen to have taken a few of the better tales from the Era out of consideration but that doesn’t mean there aren’t gems aplenty in the subscribers exclusive and the art work, especially from Weston, Belardinelli, Smith and Marshall is top notch. Fans of Golden Era comics will especially appreciate the formalism and style jokes in He Met the Moonmen, a strip which demonstrates Paul Marshall’s neat flare for aping past stylisms that would also feature so effectively in Prog 2010′s festive Dredd tale O’ Little Town of Bethlehem. Future Shocks Vol. 2 is, like its predecessor volume, a great reason to make the move to a full subscription with the House of Tharg.

Of course the primary reason to subscribe to 2000AD is the content of the weekly Prog and Monthly Meg and the proof of value is best illustrated by looking back on ‘what you would have won’ had you taken the plunge last year. Subscribers hauled in 50 editions of the Prog:

13 Issues of the Judge Dredd Megazine:

and 13 reprint Graphic Novel ‘floppies’:

As with last year, a sub buys you just over 1800 pages of new comics, and an additional 700 plus pages of reprints, as well as interviews, star scans, the odd gift (this year Chris Weston’s magnificent multi-cast cover as poster) and advanced delivery a few days before it hits the shelves in town. Be the envy of squaxx everywhere by spoilering Dredd for them on a Monday morning.

However pretty covers and page count don’t make up for content (hiya Clint readers!) so what was contained in 2000AD in the last year? As with the 2011 review we’ll pick a top ten list of moments in Dredd and a slightly expanded top 12 of non-Dredd stories. Feel free to quibble over the choices and let Futureshockd know what you’ve have had in the lists instead! For those that take exception to our selections there is plenty of pretty artwork for you to enjoy instead.

The Year In Dredd

Dredd in 2012 was dominated by two towering achievements – the first half of the year saw John Wagner’s Day of Chaos leave readers reeling while the months of November and December brought Dredd, The Simping Detective and Lowlife into an astounding cross-over that left everyone applauding just how darn clever it was. Very few strips managed to deal with the post-Day of Chaos expressly. Robbie Morrison’s Innocent contained some flashbacks and Michael Carroll’s Debris made best use of the ‘new’ city so far but still there was very much a feeling of writers not yet having got around to Wagner’s new rules. Given the length and impact of the stories that book-ended the year a great many other shorts can’t make it into a ‘best of’ but there was a great deal of good stuff outside of this list. Mark Harrison produced fantastic art in a rare strip appearance for Asleep (Prog 1804-05), Michael Carroll grabbed former exile Judge Doleman and returned him to assist in the clean-up (Debris, Prog 1792-1796) while Alan Grant took Ratfink out of his cell for a run-around before returning him for safekeeping (Ratfink’s Revenge: Meg 328-330). Gordon Rennie and Paul Marshall’s Killer Elite (Meg 328-331) only narrowly missed out on the list and ensured the Meg ended in rude health with a great tale of humour, revenge, stonewalling Dredd and a high body-count.  Whether it also marked the end of Rennie’s ‘Global Psycho’ stories will be intriguing to see.

10) Prog 1786 – Wot I Did During the Worst Dissaster in Mega City History: Script: John Wagner, Art: Henry Flint

Right on the cusp of the ‘actual’ Day of Chaos John Wagner throws a curve-ball at the fan-base who had speculated that arch-foe PJ Maybe, elaborately escaped from prison during the prologue to the epic, would play a significant role in its conclusion. However Wager punts Maybe and the long-absent Dark Judges into the long grass via a comedy 6 pager where Maybe outfoxes the slightly naive Fear Fire and Mortis and goes back to stealthy wealthy domesticity. Wot I did, blessed with the ever excellent Henry Flint on art duties, was a fun change of pace and showed that while Dredd’s world may be going to Hell, PJ’s wealth and cunning allowed him to, yet again, be relatively unfazed by the fate of Mega City One.

9) Meg 328 – Top of the World, Ma-Ma: Script Matt Smith, Art Henry Flint

2012′s investment into Dredd saw different versions of the character emerging, both IDW’s take and this movie-prologue which appeared online and in the Megazine. Written by Tharg’s earthly ambassador, Matt Smith, and illustrated with a ‘movie-uniform’ look by Henry Flint, this was a very different Dredd world, much more in keeping with the low-rent broken tenement look of the movie and notably with contemporary curse words aplenty. A simple tale, elaborating the movie’s brief synopsis of Ma-Ma’s career given by the Peachtrees’ Paramedic, it gives a creditable world-view of what a ‘Dredd the Movie’ comic spin-off would have been. Ah, if only. Well, at-least it filled the void between the movie closing and the DVD release. It also acts as a very nice tester for Smith’s forthcoming IDW Dredd mini-series in Dredd: Year One.

8) 1806 – The Cold Deck pt 1: Script: Al Ewing, Art: Henry Flint

The Cold Deck morphed into something bigger and wider but the first episode’s handling of  low-level crime shows why Al Ewing is the 2i/c when it comes to writing Judge Dredd. Ewing’s nails Dredd’s retreat into isolating tasks down to one-at-a-time as his way to deal with the harrowing destruction, emergency and new rules needed to survive in the post-Chaos Day city. His mantra of ‘One Job at a time’ make Dredd a near automaton dealing with the post-traumatic order by concentrating on what he’s good at… kicking ass and dealing with dumb perps. The McKluskys Brothers certain fit the bill of the dumbest of the dumb and it takes one page for Dredd to dispatch them with ruthless efficiency and a dry wit. ‘Not on your best day…. dummy‘. Fantastic.

7) Prog 2012 – Choose Your Own Xmas: Script: Al Ewing, Art: John Higgins

The Xmas Dredd has always been a special case, a rare time the Prog affords Dredd more than 6 pages and fine tradition in linking to either festive citizen joviality or brooding winter reflection. This time Ewing made each panel a ‘Fighting Fantasy’ style chapter and readers could role-play being gormless lab tech Jackson Packard as he ventures into the unforgiving Mega-malls in search of finding X-mas presents and avoiding Christmas Day in the Iso-cubes. An ambitious exercise in subverting the unique nature of sequential panels and with wonderful goofy Cam Kennedy-alike citizenry from John Higgins Choose made for a very different, ambitious and, most importantly, hugely fun tale to add to the 2000AD banks. If ever Diceman gets a revival Ewing probably has a few drafts mapped out already.

6) Prog 1798-99 – Innocent: Script: Rob Williams, Art: Lawrence Campbell

Rob William’s Innocence is both a fantastic read and a great missed opportunity due to the savvy and style with which it dangled a concept, a drug making citizens incapable of crime, and swiped it away. The tale side-stepped tackling that fascinating issue, despite setting Dredd’s objections to it front and centre in the set-up, to switch into a ‘who-dunnit’ as the Judge advocating the measure is slain after a show-down with Joe. The art from returning driod Lawrence Campbell and coloured atmospherically by Chris Blythe helps lift an already well written tale into the best of the year. Campbell’s use of shadows and Blythe’s use of harsh lighting emphasise that MC-1 is broken and what light there is is glaring and artificial.  Evoking past tales of attempts to chemically pacify citizens (Oz) and Dredd’s reflections on the influence of his Apocalypse War actions on the Day of Chaos the tale flirts with something greater but eventually settles for being a straight forward murder mystery all too quickly resolved. Pairing the murder with the conduct of the drug’s trial and the dilemma’s of doping a population to such an extent could have made for a great multi-part story but alas we’ll never know.. unless William’s decides to ‘rediscover’ the missing formula for the drug. If so, get Campbell and Blythe back on board and see what dark broken corridors of docility can be explored.

5) Prog 1774 – Day of Chaos: Eve of Destruction Pt 10: Script: John Wagner, Art: Ben Willsher

The remarkable Day of Chaos had already been through 29 episodes (or 32 including the PJ Maybe prologue) and was still the ‘day’ itself had not arrived but Prog 1774 marked the turn of the screw in brilliant fashion. For long-term readers the toppling of the Statute of Judgement (not for the first time but far more important since the role of PSU had been constantly increased) came as a blot from the blue, with the majority of the tale before concerning biological warfare. However the grand sweep of the Statute toppling is brilliantly counterpointed by the stomach turning lonely inglorious demise of one of MC-1′s ‘beautiful’ adversaries. Having slinked her way into MC-1 as rich-man’s plaything, then danced infection in skimpy attire the beautiful Titiana dies alone, decomposing and pecked at by a pigeon destined to spread her deathwish further. Willsher’s art is mercilessly intense as he depicts her leg breaking in a high impact fall and then the once beautiful body rotted like the fate of MC-1. A brilliant page of art, a brutal passage of Wagner prose and six pages that show the scales of death, large and small.

4) Meg 325-327 – Great Executions: Script Robbie Morrison, Art Dave Taylor

Outside of The Day of Chaos / Trifecta one Dredd story towered head and shoulders about the rest, that was the Dickensian riffing, heart crushing sadness of the tale of reluctant hitman Charlie Wackett in Great Executions. Wackett’s unwanted assignment to kill the woman he loves, and the betrayal of those few close to him, made for a compelling story with the years most beautiful art drawn by the peerless Dave Taylor. Morrison easily matches the language of Dickens with the vocabulary of MC-1 and keeps Dredd to a effective background role until his low-key contributions to the tale’s conclusion. The final panel deserves to be added to the pantheon of the very very best of Dredd. Prog-only readers should seek out these three Meg’s and see what a modern classic they missed.

3) Prog 1812 – Trifecta: Script: Al Ewing, Si Spurrier, Rob Williams, Art: Carl Critchlow.

Trifecta was HUGE. Huge in all sorts of ways. A single story prog, a rare multi-author script collaboration, a finale to three existing major series arcs of very different Dredd-world stories and, seemingly, a massive publicity bonus for the House of Tharg. As a story it deserves applause on all sorts of levels, most notably the retention of the distinct voices of the different characters within the concluding tale. Returning, and all too-long absent, artist Carl Critchlow nails each character and maintains the depth of personality imbued by their regular weekly artists.  A real risk of switching away from artists as distinct as D’israeli and Coleby would have been to have disengaged the audience but Critchlow and the power of the tale sweep the characters out of their respective strips and into this cross-over conclusion. Whether the deus ex machina of Judge Smiley is convincing or not remains another matter but in 28 pages Trifecta has more good lines, more whip and zing and more than enough success to pass over whether Smiley has really been able to evade and supervise through all the disasters since Judge Cal. The one shame of the tale is the all-too soon exposure of Bachmann who had far more potential than to be introduced and disposed of in 18 months (see last years praise of Ewing’s establishing strip The Family Man). The Simping Detective and Lowlife would have made it into this years non-Dredd top list were it not for Trifecta, Ewing’s Bachmann machinations (Prog 1803′s Bullet to King Four) likewise for this list. Together there can be no doubting the impact and success they had on Dredd in 2012. Trifecta was tri’riffica.

2) Prog 180 – The Cold Deck Pt 2 (Script: Al Ewing, Art: Henry Flint) / The Simping Detective: Jokers to the Right Pt 4 (Script: Si Spurrier / Art: Simon Coleby)

You have to feel a tad sorry for Lowlife‘s Rob Williams and D’israeli. Dirty Frank is in so many ways the heart of readers affections for Justice Department. He’s long since become a prog favourite, gets many great lines in Trifecta and is the constant hero throughout the story yet still it fell not to his tale of moon-side machinations with which to finally reveal to readers that Ewing, Spurrier and Williams had been playing a cold deck on us all. Ewing audaciously flags it up in his very first line (Prog 1806′s victim staring directly at the reader and asking ‘you know what a cold deck is‘) and yet is there anyone who can creditably say that, until the first panel of The Simping Detective carried on from the final panel of Dredd, they saw what was coming? Not here. Not in this household. Nuh-huh. Futureshockd ain’t ever going to be playing Ewing, Williams or Spurrier at poker. Of course a few pages on and Dirty Frank gets in on the act by receiving the message that the Simping Detective sent that Dredd tried to stop but… well by then it was out. We’d been duped, long-conned, played, dumped on our butts like chumps and our mouths open in amazement. Poor Dirty Frank. Late to the party as ever. Even more so than the excellent conclusion (Trifecta) Prog 1807′s ‘moment’ will remain one of ‘those’ 2000AD things people will discuss years from now. Do you know what a Cold Deck is? You do now.

1) Prog 1788 -  Chaos Day, Part 2: Script John Wagner, Art Henry Flint

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper

In Chaos Day Part 2 the city whimpered. In Chaos Day Part 2 Judge Dredd, the Judge Dredd (as the movie’s Judge Lex so admirably snarled) whimpered. Chaos Day ended just as it started. It ended because there was nothing left but fall. No redemption. No saving. Nothing but a whimper and the city father, John Wagner, laying out the dictum: ‘This city is dying before his eyes‘. The end of the Day of Chaos wrong-footed so many who assumed that the long-running  ‘Nadia‘ and ‘Eve of Destruction‘ were mere preludes rather than the ‘mega-epic’ itself. But by the time the Day of Chaos arrived so much had been torn down, the vestiges of power and authority so dismantled that there was no force left to save the day. There is rot and containment. Small stories and despair. Wagner’s tale is post-hollywood, post-post-Watchmen, not everything needs to have significance, not everything needs to be foreshadowing, some things become important, some wither and die. PJ Maybe wasn’t relevant, the Dark Judges just fizzled out, the villains died by their own actions not those of heroes. Are there even any heroes? The Day of Chaos was messy, a bombardment of varying successes and failures for the characters, a scramble for survival and at the end the answer is did the city survive? Maybe not. 2013 should be the year writers sit down and really reflect on what Wagner has done to his plaything. This isn’t just another ‘carry on with what’s left’, not another post-Necropolis, Post-Apoclaypse War. Or it shouldn’t be. Sit down with all 50 issues and applaud the greatest Dredd tale yet.

12) Meg 319 – 321 – Fay Dalton’s American Reaper Adverts

The Megazine featured a great deal of excellent art this year, Jock’s dynamics on Snapshot, Boo Cook’s lush colours on Anderson and Patrick’s Goddard’s magnificent inks on Armitage to name but three, however each instalment of Pat Mills / Clint Langley’s American Reaper also featured mock-adverts from Tharg newcomer Fay Dalton. In a year when the Prog had an abundance of naked ladies these gloriously sexy retro-sirens showed other droids how to put the fetish into the female form. Dalton’s retro technique contrasted beautifully with Langley’s own fumetti style and added an extra world-building layer to yet another joyously insane Mills-verse. More Dalton please Tharg.

11) Prog 1805 – Hammerstein’s still a comedy Target.

Mills / Langley also served up another helping of The ABC Warriors with Langley turning to retro inks to evoke both Bisley Black Hole era Warriors and then stripping back even further for the return of Ro-Busters as more threads of the Savage / Ro-Busters / ABC Warriors / Nemesis patchwork were pulled together. In the midst of a tale came this sublime moment where Mills, who clearly never forgets 2000AD’s roots as a boys comic and knows exactly what boys want, puts the over-proud hero in-front of a gert big tank and repeatedly fires shells into him at point blank range. Detractors will call it silly, any kid reading with think GUN! ROBOT! x100! FANTASTIC! Once more Hammerstein’s pain and pomposity are the readers gleeful joy. ‘BOOM!’ and ‘DANG!’ indeed.

10) Prog 1797 – Aquila  vs Eryri

Prog 2012 saw the debut of Gordon Rennie / Leigh Gallagher’s Aquila and its popularity soon ushered in a full strip which took an unexpected turn when the muscular near-immortal hero started taking a beating from just about any other magical creature he encountered. Eryri, attack harpy of Boudicca, was the first to best him and suitably, as the strip rocketed to its conclusion,  a re-encounter with a different outcome signalled the eponymous hero’s return to form. Gallagher’s switch of panel style and dynamic composition added to that 2000AD classic storytelling economy of ‘done and dusted on a page’ made this a thrilling moment in an excellent new strip.

9) Prog 1801 – RoadGrave

There were many fine Futureshocks and other associated shorts this year, including the continuation of the very welcome 3hriller extension to the concept but none hit the mark quite as sweetly as the return of John Smith and Edmund Bagwell (Cradlegrave / Indigo Prime) with the slight but superb Blackspot. A simple tale of a road accident that isn’t as it seems and reminiscent of the opening salvo of many a modern horror movie the five pages of downfall reinforce what a major pairing these two talents are. Bagwell’s realistic noir match’s Smith’s bleak damp tales of woe perfectly. Blackspot acts like a coda for Cradlegrave and reinforces why this creative pairing need kept together.

8) Prog 1774 – 1785: James Mckay Gives Good Dino

Pat Mill’s revival of the Prog 1 hit Flesh has been a clear success and in no small part must that be due to the fantastic dinosaur art of James McKay. Despite cramming in the arrival of strange dino-humanoid ‘reptoids’, the future anti-corporation plot and giant spaceships shaped like Stetsons, as well as a great deal of male and female bodice-ripping, the series started with dinosaur carnage, continued with dinosaur carnage and finished off with a great finale of dinosaur carnage. Its a damm good thing McKay is prodigiously talented when it comes to depicting dinosaur carnage.

7) Prog 1768: Absalom Vs Racists

Gordon Rennie / Tiernan Trevallion’s Absalom second full-length outing for grumpy dying cop Harry Absalom reinforced its position as a new fan–favourite with much the same recipe of ghouls, diseased toffs and corruption as before but with a focus on fascism and racist near-do-wells from England’s past. Harry, naturally, comes down on the right side without need for drama or grandstanding, just witty pointed Rennie dialogue when Absalom visits his ex boss at HMP Wormwood Scrubs. While the series gets much due praise for Trevallion’s distinct style, the character would be useless without the great lines given to him by Rennie. Absalom is as good as any twist on the Detective genre in any medium.

6) Prog 1771 – The Invisible Boner (aka: ‘Everything that is wrong with comics today’).

35th Anniversary Prog contained a slew of nostalgia treats, from Chris Weston’s character montage cover to the ‘what if’ series but none was more welcome than the pairing of Pat Mills and the diseased afterbirth of a 2000AD artist orgy that is the splendid Henry Flint on the long absent The Visible Man series. Prog’s 1771 outing, with glorious faux drama ending, may or may not be the full-time return of the unlucky translucent experimental guinea-pig Frank (since returned for a second one-off in Prog 2013) but fears must exist for Flint’s tenuous grip on sanity if he has to draw this insane level of detail every page on a ten week strip. But sanity be dammed, lets hope these two masters of mania keep showing us with treats like the moment when Frank meets his future boo, the (obviously) Visible Woman. Phowar!

5) Carry On Up The Valleys

John Smith specialises in dank weird unsettling tales of urban horror or alternate realities. Colin MacNeil is one of John Wagner’s go to men for brooding Judge Dredd and all-out action. So quite how this delightful comedy soufflé of suspenders and satanic goat sex  came about is not high on the list of ‘Obvious Stories Soon appearing in 2000AD.’  To even begin to describe what is going on in Strange And Darke is too complex to attempt but its mix of cheek, cheeks, rude subconscious voices and  Beryl Cook-like picture postcard art was a riot and one of the best strips to appear this year. Benefiting from the slightly more adult nature of the Meg to sustain its (mild and comic) sexuality the good-natured rudeness demands a quick sequel.

4) Prog 1781 – The Zaucer goes Zick

Brendan McCarthy’s return to a long-form 2000AD strip, The Zaucer of Zilk, was every bit as deliciously oddball and colour saturated as his many admirers hoped. With Al Ewing on board to help lyrical flow and Len O’Grady invaluable assistance on vibes the Zaucer oscillated wildly through worlds and dimensions as if not very much could touch him. However Ewing and McCarthy had a bad hand ready to deal to Zaucer’s instagram generation super-fan TuTu as her adoration caused her to turn into something something much much worse.

3) Prog 1804 – Brassed Off Planet

Brass Sun, a new strip from longtime Droid Ian Edginton and  I.N.J. Culbard seems destined to replace The Red Seas  in the ‘fantasy twist’ strand of the Prog as Jack Dancer’s crew sail to their final confrontation early in 2013. The series took an assured and expansive leap from Game of Thrones fantasy to steampunk mechanics with endless planets possibilities in Prog 1804 as waif protagonist Wren discovers there is much more to her world than fleeing a murderous Theocracy and finding somewhere less in need of central heating. Culbard’s stellar year (with Image’s The New Deadwardians) found his minimal neat style find favour with an audience who often criticised the more fluid work of Yeowell on The Red Seas and brought a distinctly different look to 2000AD. Wren’s adventures seem set to run for many years as Edginton strikes winning formula yet again.

2) Death To Everyone, Will Come.

Icabod Azrael is 2000AD black turned up full whack. Despite delays, losing its iconic primary artist and an unfortunate incidence of art plagiarism the character itself retains the potential to be a 2000AD icon.  Book II chronicled the dead killer’s travels through time looking for the embodiment of his love (who, naturally, turns out to have merely been a fiction constructed to trap him and return him to Purgatory). And upon it all unravelling and Icabod and the Ferryman of the river Styx being returned, the series ended pure black in heart and fired by Icabod’s brutish ignorance and love as he, marvellously, declares his intention to kill everyone in Purgatory and what lies beyond. Given his record in the first two series one wouldn’t count against it.

1) Goodbye

Much of this top 12 could have been taken from the last flourish of Nikolai Dante which graced the Prog in three passages in its final year. Simon Fraser’s magnificent spread-pages, John Burn’s final cover, the various deaths, the victory, the final page, the reference right back to the first page fifteen years ago… But to pick one moment of the many to sum up the joy of the series Futureshockd plumps for the departure of the gentle faithful believer in Dante, his mute half-brother Viktor who, having lost his wife in the penultimate battle, finally breaks his silence, embraces Dante and then departs civilization for good. In a page Viktor breaks the Russian Rogue’s heart in ways few women managed through the odyssey. Morrison, Fraser and Burns constructed something truly magnificent over the years and could well have taken the strip into another decade or more but sacrificed the comfort of a guaranteed fan-base to bow out on a finale which, if open-ended, took out the support characters with swaggering aplomb. Dante, now available complete in 11 trades, deserves a place at the high table of not just UK comics but the whole of the genre. It simply is that good. Goodbye Nikolai.

Elsewhere…

Picking 12 moments naturally leaves out a lot of other great strips and fantastic artists: Yeowell, Jock, Goddard, Holden, Cook, Harrison, Willsher and more. So the following is a role call of other tales which appeared in 2000AD in 2012 listed in order of appearance. If they catch your eye their start issue is listed in the Barney link contained in their title and they are available to purchase on the iphone app or by direct download from the 2000ADonline shop.

The Prog:

Strontium Dog – The Life and Death of Johnny Alpha pt 2: The Project : Script: John Wagner, Art: Carlos Ezquerra

Grey Area – Script: Dan Abnett, Art: Karl Richardson & Lee Grabett

Dandridge – A Christmas Ghost Story: Script: Alec Worley, Art: Jon Davis Hunt

Sinister Dexter- Now And Again: Script: Dan Abnett, Art: Anthony Williams

Age of the Wolf – She Is Legend: Script: Alec Worley, Art: Jon Davis-Hunt

Cadet Anderson – Algol: Script: Alan Grant, Art: Steve Yeowell

Durham Red- The ‘Nobody Wants This Job’ Job: Script: Alan Grant, Art: Carlos Ezquerra

3Hrillers – 1947: Script: Kek-W, Art: Michael Dowling

The Rea Seas – Beautiful Freak: Script: Ian Edginton Art: Steve Yeowell

Lenny Zero -  Zero’s 7: Script: Andy Diggle, Art: Ben Willsher

3Hrillers – 15:  Script: Tom Taylor, Art :Jon Hunt Davis

Bob Byrne’s Twisted Tales: Script & Art: Bob Byrne

The Judge Dredd Megazine

Armitage: The Underground: Script: Dave Stone, Art: Patrick Goddard

Snapshot: Script: Andy Diggle Art: Jock

Samizdat Squad – Grey Zone: Script; Arthur Wyatt, Art: PJ Holden

Hondo City Justice – Project Behemoth: Script: Robbie Morrison, Art: Mike Collins and Cliff Robinson

Judge Anderson PSI - Stone Voices: Script: Alan Grant, Art: Boo Cook

That was the Prog and Meg in 2012 – as strong a year as there has been and one showing no signs of weakening as Prog 1813 launches into the new year with Dredd, The Red Seas, Ampney Crucis, Strontium Dog and Savage forming the opening salvo.

Prog 1813 – In shops and the 2000AD ipad app / 2000AD digital direct download site now.

The rest of the year promises the return of firm favourites such as Mills and Gallagher’s Defoe, Edginton and D’Israeli’s Stickleback, Abnett and MacNeil’s Insurrection as well as Edmund Bagwell taking over art duties on Aliens-as-Gods-as-Superheroes-Gone-Bad apocalypse strip The 10-Seconders….

And much-in-demand cover artist Greg Staples returning to strip work with the highly anticipated Dark Judges by John Wagner:

Physical Subscriptions are available from the 2000AD online shop and from the i0S app for apple users.  Apple users can also fill the void between weekly prog’s by playing the free Judge Dredd shoot-em-up game which received a movie-related tarting up at the end of the year as well as appearing in an android verison.

In addition tons of additional reading hours can be wasted enjoyably on the 2000AD readers forums, the excellent Everything Comes Back To 2000AD news / podcast /reviews site and the stunning cover-art tips, treats and insights blog Covers Uncovered – which has just revealed the results of the readers ‘Cover of the Year’ vote. From there its just a short link the the scary Cellar of Dredd, Dread Reckoning, HipsterDad’s Bookshelf… Hell, by the time you’ve done with all those, spare 5 minutes to come back to Futureshockd as we return next week with our quest to document every short tale to have appeared in The Galaxy’s Greatest Comic…

Credo!

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Thargs Future Shocks – Subscriber Exclusive

The first reason for any tempted comics fan to subscribe this winter is the current ‘subscriber exclusive’ gift – a unique ‘B-Format’ (19.5 x 12.5 cm) Future Shocked graphic novel which comes wrapped in a glorious wrap-around cover from the talents of Grant Perkins & Jamie Roberts. A hefty 128 pages of Future Shocks and contains a great many formerly un-reprinted works by the likes of Brian Bolland, Massimo Belardinelli and Kevin O’Neil.

Happily the book contains a good many of the Future Shocks already discussed on the blog -

• FS 4 – Wings (Kev O’Neill),
• FS 5 – Just Like Home (Peter Harris, Ron Turner)
• FS 7 – A Promised Land (unknown / Horacio Lalia)
• FS 9 – Fangs (Chris Lowder, Carlos Ezquerra)
• FS 11 – Play Pool (Kelvin Gosnell, Kevin O’Neill)
• FS 13 – Space Prospector (Martin Lock, Trevor Goring)
• FS 14 – The Runts (Steve Moore, Pat Wright),
• FS 15 – Time Past (Martin Lock, Jose Luis Ferrer),
• FS 17 – Time Was (Martin Lock, Ramon Sola)
• FS 18 – Enemy Agent (Nick Tufnell, John Cooper)
• FS 19 – Substitute (Robert Flynn, Giorgi)
• FS 21 – The Guardian (Mike Cruden, John Cooper),
• FS 23 – Solo Flip (Chris Lowder, Brian Bolland),
• FS 25 – Stasis (Charles Swift, Brendan McCarthy, Brett Ewins),
• FS 26 – Space Bug (V Wernham, Jose Luis Ferrer),
• FS 27 – Monkey (Alan Hebden, Mugallanes),
• FS 29 – Tin Can (Mike Cruden, Jose Luis Ferrer),
• FS 30 – Timeless Secret (SJ Grimes, Ramon Sola),
• FS 33 – Dead Hit (Robert Flynn, Pierre Frisano),
• FS 34 – The Illusion Man (Martin Lock, Pierre Frisano),
• FS 36 – Nothing On Earth (Chris Lowder, Pierre Frisano),
• FS 37 – Breaking Out (Jan Garczynski, Carlos Pino),
• FS 41 – The Fourth Wall (Mike Cruden, John Cooper),
• FS 43 – Date With Destiny (Mike Curden, Massimo Belardinelli),
• FS 47 – Cold Kill (Mike Cruden, Garry Leach),
• FS 50 – Dear Mum (John Richardson),
• FS 55 – Colin’s Dream (Chris Stevens, Massimo Belardinelli),
• FS 56 – Hand of Friendship (John Richardson)

A hearty 28 of the 57 Future Shocks that constituted the first swath of Future Shocks are included, with Tharg doing his best to plunder the gems of the early strips. It’s hard to argue with the choice of strips for inclusion – 7 of the 9 ‘best’ strips selected in the periodic Futureshockd summaries are chosen and the exclusion of one of the remaining 2 (FS 2 – First Contact) is likely down to it being a colour strip. It is however a great shame that FS 48 – Brain Drain (Steve Moore, Ron Tiner) isn’t included as it stands as one of the best early stories and much more indicative of the black humour of 2000AD than other stories. The other notable absence is ‘Many Hands‘ (FS 32) which features some beautiful Jose Casanovas art that certainly deserved a reprint. Also absent is the famed Alec Trench tale, but perhaps Tharg has other plans for the work of his best-worst ever writer. Aside from those three Future Shocks the selection well-considered with some of the best stories and much of the best art. Both early Massimo Belardinelli strips appear as well as great art from Pierre Frisano, Garry Leech, Trevor Goring and Carlos Ezquerra. It is particularly nice to see both the stories of Mike Cruden and the art of Pierre Frisano well represented as these are two names who have largely been forgotten about in 2000AD lore but whose contributions to Future Shocks early days was particularly strong. The same is also true of Martin Lock and Jose Luis Ferrer who are likewise well represented in the selection.

The remaining stories in the book come from the second wave of Future Shocks and contains work by the likes of Ian Kennedy, Jose Casanovas, Garry Leech, Mike Collins, Mark Farmer, John Ridgway, Grant Morrison, Alan Davis and Will Simpson. The collection concludes with a fantastic six-page strip by Massimo Belardinelli (Resentment, Prog 537) which is chock full of future cityscapes, weird aliens and, yes, dead bodies. In the hands of the departed Italian master that combination is as strong a conclusion as any omnibus could hope for. The three Belardinelli entries alone make this book a must-have for a 2000AD reader.

The stories have been reproduced beautifully, despite the smaller size, and the reproduction team deserve great credit for the crisp look of the lovely B&W artwork. The only small shame is that some of the tales which work best by hiding the reveal behind a page-turn have their ‘shock’ image printed on a facing page, robbing the impact of the reveal. However that doesn’t detract from the overall fun of the collection. It’s a lovely book, a real incentive to take out a subscription, and a nice companion piece to anyone who has been enjoying this blog.  And yes, it does contain that wonderfully weird drawing of Neil Armstrong (FS 19).

However the real reason for getting a subscription to 2000AD is the strength of the modern comic. Probably the easiest way to show just why any comic reader should be subscribing is to show you just what you missed in 2011. In pure numbers thats 50 progs:

A year of Judge Dredd Megazines

A year of  Megazine Reprint Comics

All of which weighs in at a whopping 1862 pages of new comics and a generous 766 pages of reprints. Which, for the statistically minded, works out at 8.5p per new page or 6p a page if you throw in the lovely shiny reprints. Plus the famed ‘Star Scans’, old cover art reprinted, interviews with creators and the odd free-gift from the House of Tharg.

But cost per page is an odd way to judge a comic, tempting new readers to 2000AD very much stands or falls on the stories and art, which in 2011, as every year, consisted of a whole heap of Judge Dredd.

2011 in Dredd

In 2011 Dredd included the massive new on-going epic ‘The Day of Chaos‘ (Wagner, MacNeil, Willsher, Flint, Gallagher) which kicked off with a prologue that saw PJ Maybe break out of captivity (The Further Dasterdly Deeds of PJ Maybe- Prog 1740-43) before kicking off proper with ‘Nadia‘ (Prog 1744 – onwards) in July. Returning old droids saw the psychotropic madness of Brendan McCarthy in The Walking Dredd (Rob Williams, Brendan McCarthy(Meg 311)), the return of Bryan Talbot in Caterpillars (Mike Carroll, Bryan Talbot & Alwyn Talbot (Prog 1730) and Mike Collins team up with Dredd stalwart Cliff Robinson (In the Absence of the Sacred (Meg 315)). King of the returnees this year was undoubtably Liam Sharp with two astounding graphical turns in Blaze of Glory (Al Ewing, Liam Sharp (Meg 305)) and  Dredd Set (John Tomlinson, Liam Sharp (Meg 309)). Prior to Wagner’s embarking on The Day of Chaos his only other strip was the atmospheric 30 page ‘Hot Night in 95‘ (Meg 307, 308 & 310) which saw Dredd and the returning Hershey team up to crack some skulls. Dredd’s other elder-statesman writer, Alan Grant, chipped in with several short tales including the wonderful dark ‘In the Absence of the Sacred‘ (Meg 315) and the sweet crazy-citizen tale of ‘The Pusher’ (Prog 1736). Relative newcomer Michael Carroll scripted a flawless one-off in Downtime (Prog 1752) and returning champion Gordon Rennie gave laughs in Persistent Vegetative State (Prog 1726-27) and a procedural meets PSI with vintage Dredd dialogue in Scream (Prog 1737-39). Taking the ‘best non-Wagner’ crown for the year was undoubtedly the 48 page Parker-esque noir classic from Al Ewing (Served Cold – Al Ewing, John Higgins, Prog 1718-25) which showed the young tyro can do gripping procedural drama every bit as well as the sick humour he is more associated with.

Given you can fill several posts with what happened in Dredd in 2011 Futureshockd will limit itself to a top 10 of Dredd moments (be they art or script) that made up the best of Dredd 2011

10) Scream – Gordon Rennie & Lee Carter – Prog 1737-39:  Dredd & PSI Judge Hamida investigate an illegal Brainbloom operation. Immersive art, classic Dredd qips and antagonism towards indulgences of PSI Judges from Dredd.

9) The Family Man – Al Ewing & Leigh Gallagher – Meg 312-13: Al Ewing installs his first major long-term opponent for Judge Dredd in the sinister whiter-than-white black-op’s fronting administration Judge Bachmann after a meaty two-part ‘someones killing mutants’ tale set in the under resourced townships.

8 ) The Pusher – Alan Grant & Peter Doherty – Prog 1736 – Classic 6 page ‘citizens are crazy then Dredd shoots them’ from veteran Alan Grant as a perp pushes citizens to their death to measure their reactions. Doherty’s understated european realism is the perfect foil

7) The Return of Liam Sharp – Blaze of Glory (Meg 305, Al Ewing & Liam Sharp) & Dredd Set (Meg 309, John Tomlinson & Liam Sharp) saw the return to Dredd, after a near 20 year hiatus, of the co-creator of PJ Maybe. After Brendan McCarthy’s return in 2010 the trend of returning droids shows how much love there is for old stoney face amongst the very finest of industry talents. Sharp’s art encompassed a mass of different styles and techniques and excitement bleed off each panel.

6) Persistent Vegetative State – Gordon Rennie & Cliff Robinson – Prog 1726-27: Corporate Politics, The Wally Squad, Dredd itching as he has to act as security for an unworthy subject and the return of the MC-1 fad ‘couch potatoes’ make for a fun two-parter beautifully drawn by Cliff Robinson

5) Hot Night in 95 – John Wagner & Staz Johnson – Meg 307, 308 & 310:  John Wagner slides former Chief-Judge Hershey back into MC-1 with a  low-key night on the streets along side Dredd, with ruminations on the events in the past and unsaid lessons on their ages. Majestic.

4) Served Cold – Al Ewing & John Higgins – Prog 1718-1725: Al Ewing goes for the noir police procedural in this tale of an escaped perp seeking revenge on those that double-crossed him as the Judges close in on his re-capture. Riffing on Parker and echoing the best of John Wagner this tale confirms Ewing as not just a great fun Dredd writer but a heavy hitter likely able to carry the strip for years to come.

3) Brendan McCarthy is (still) back – The Walking Dredd, Rob Williams & Brendan McCarthy – Meg 311: Following on from his acclaimed return to 2000AD last year Brendan McCarthy indulged the Meg with more unique Dredd art in a fun tale that exists only to show off his art and make the pun in the title. The even better news is that McCarthy returns to the Prog in 2012 with his own series.

2) It’s Maybe Time – The Day of Chaos – Elusive Pt 5 – John Wagner & Henry Flint Prog 1757: Three months into the Mega-epic and the absconded PJ Maybe makes his move against the Presidential candidates seeking to replace him. Henry Flint brings a touch of the Zombo and Shakara gore-fest madness to the Presidential-debates-gone-wrong. It’s very likely he enjoyed drawing it every inch as much as you enjoyed reading it.

1) The Day of Chaos – Nadie Pt 7 – John Wagner, Ben Willsher – Prog 1749: There could be no other moment from 2011 at the top of the heap. The always excellent ECBT 2000AD podcast has a reading of the script, by artist Willsher, of the day they blew Old Stoney Face’s head off. John Wagner told Willsher to make sure Dredd’s head is a thing of the past and boy did he excel at the task.

(continued in post below)

However the days when Dredd had to carry the comic are long since gone, nor is 2000AD living on past characters – with the exception of brief appearances by Slaine and Rogue Trooper in the festive Prog 2011 none of the ‘key’ characters associated with classic era 2000AD was called upon to fill the pages of Meg or Prog. 2000AD has cultivated a new slew of key strips – some revived classics, some spin-offs of Dredd, some unique stand-alone tales of the best of Sci-Fi comics. From the bowls of hell to the insanity of driving planets into an alien Armada, the contents of 2000AD in 2011 was, by turns, funny, sad, exciting, eye-opening, daring, imaginative and always mercilessly violent. Every reader will have their favourite strips, and no doubt one or two they don’t like so much, but the strength of the prog in 2012 is assured. If you are tempted to return to the comic then the simplest most enticing thing is to show you the eye-candy you missed in 2011:

Shakara – Robbie Morrison & Henry Flint

Necrophim – Tony Lee & Lee Carter

Kingdom – Dan Abnett & Richard Elson

Ampney Crucis Investigates – Ian Edginton & Simon Davis

Flesh – Pat Mills & James Mackay

Dandridge – Alec Worley & Jon Hunt-Davis

The Red Seas – Ian Edginton & Steve Yeowell

Bob Byrnes Twisted Tales – Bob Byrne

Nikolai Dante – Robbie Morrison & Simon Fraser

Absalom – Gordon Rennie & Tiernan Trevallion

Subscibe!

2000AD do subscription packages in three varieties - Prog alone - Meg alone and a combination of Meg & Prog. The latter has a saving of over 26 pounds on the shop-price as well as insulating against any cover price rise. Plus the exclusive Future Shocks book reviewed at the start of this post for subscribers to both comics. All this and the 35th Anniversary of 2000AD comes up in 2012 so no doubt there will be some special plans to mark the occasion. North American readers can find The Judge Dredd Megazine on the shelves of their local Barnes & Noble and digital editions of both comics are available directly from the Rebellion website.

2000AD is the finest in contemporary comics, pick up Prog 2012 over the New Year period and see for yourself.

Script: Gary Rice

Art: Brendan McCarthy

Letters: Tom Frame

Plot: In 1820 an unnamed man mourns the loss of his only child. Whilst brooding over how fate has robbed him of his wife, in labour, and their only child, he decides to create a replacement son from steel and steam. Eventually he emerges from his workshop with a large lumbering humanoid device he calls ‘Robert’, named after his son. Taking the machine to his friend Herr Wilhem he is pleased with its’ reception, even though the elderly gentleman mispronounces its name as ‘Robot’. However, on his return home he finds the local peasants take the machine’s coal fire engine and smokey emissions as a sign that it is the devil’s work. They begin to rally against the defenseless ’Robert’…

Ending: The locals destroy ‘Robert’, leaving the inventor, once more, all alone. However the whole event has been overseen by two observers, one a dignified aristocrat, the other his man-servant. They ponder re-creating the ‘Robert’ experiment but with flesh and blood instead of steel and steam. As they leave the aristocrat is assured of success by the servant, after all he is Baron Frankenstein!

Thoughts: A very curious Robo-Tale, surrealistically introduced by Ro-Jaws in a Judge’s wig, is written in a most unusual style as a ‘lost journal’ with extensive textual exposition of the images contained beneath each passage. It looks very similar to the ‘illustrated prose’ technique that would be used by Ian Edginton’s Twas The Fight Before Christmas (Prog 2009), or even the word/picture juxtaposition in Alan Moore’s The English / Philondrutian Phrasebook (Prog 214), also illustrated by McCarthy. However by the middle of the second page the separation of text and image has broken down and word-balloons creep increasingly into the story. Adding to the unusual visual effect is the fact that none of the images have a panel boarder and the sides of the pages are made to look like the inside of a ring-binder journal. Why a ring-binder is being used for something seemingly written in 1820 is unclear. By Prog 166 McCarthy had contributed to several substantial stories in the Prog (ABC Warriors, Judge Dredd) but his art here isn’t terribly impressive, certainly a long way from the style that would firmly establish him as a reader favourite. The story itself suffers from having Ro-Jaws act as interlocutor as this limits the narrative’s ability to link the un-named protagonist and the observing Baron Frankenstein. Had not Ro-Jaws told the story it would have made more sense to have had either the Baron or the robot’s builder relate the tale and then explain their link to each other. Certainly it would have been cleverer to have had Frankenstein be a descendant or associate of ‘Robert’s’ creator than just ‘passing by’ as it would have allowed his voice to link into the tale earlier than simply as observing the final act. As a causal character thrown in on the last three panels his presence does strike as an after-thought in a story that was already clearly riffing on Mary Shelley’s classic yarn.  The story also loses points for managing to posit Baron Frankenstein being inspired some two years after his own tale had been published in 1818. Basic research from the writer could have set the story in 1810 without altering any key elements. Future Shocks had already re-grounded the Dracula myth (FS 50) so Frankenstein’s turn was always on the cards, sadly this wasn’t the greatest attempt at having fun with the well-trodden source material.

Thrill Power: Pretty minimal. The strange story-telling device makes for a plodding technique which is constantly interrupting the flow of the tale and neither the prose nor the art is compelling enough to compensate. It deserves credit for attempting to play with the form but with the story so obviously echoing  The Modern Prometheus and the tacked-on appearance of the Baron constituting the twist it is all quite uninteresting and dull. Easily the best thing about the tale is the unexplained appearance of Ro-Jaws in a Judge’s wig.

Script: Gary Rice

Art: Brett Ewins

Letters: Tony Jacob

Plot: The spaceship Freya has crashed hundreds of miles from the nearest base and the robot EZ1 combs the wreckage to see if it is the only survivor. Finally it finds the badly injured Lieutenant Nash, the sole human left alive, and, picking up his broken body in its arms, EZ1  begins the long trek to get Nash to safety. Nash is disgusted at being aided by a robot, making clear that he hates machines like EZ1; but, as EZ1 fends off predators and fierce weather conditions to protect the Lieutenant, gradually he comes to respect his metallic guardian. WIth its power supplies nearly depleted, EZ1 finally arrives at the base. It’s circuits breakdown as it enters the safe-haven having successfully saved the life of Nash.

Ending: Lieutenant Nash comes to in the camp’s hospital and enquires into how EZ1 is doing after their arduous trek. After being told he was ‘put to good use‘ the Lieutenant looks down at his first meal and see’s EZ1′s serial number stamped on the plate. EZ1 has been scrapped because ‘droids are disposable‘. 

Thoughts: Gary Rice’s second Robo-Tale is a nicely executed story which returns to a theme of early Future Shocks - that humans are utter bastards – in a tale that echo’s much of the humanism Sci-Fi of the 1970s. The story of Nash and EZ1 bonding through survival is not so much traditional buddy movie material, as Nash is incapacitated throughout, as A Boy and His Dog or Silent Running. It’s a well executed tale with the antagonism to EZ1, despite his heroics, foreshadowed by Nash’s own initial reactions. The script throws in a fight with a  winged beast to keep the tension high as well as reinforce why Nash learns the lesson the people at the base then neglect. In terms of story the use of a robot talking to itself is a tad clunky but this expository device is thankfully curtailed by the discovery of Nash. Ewins’ art is more problematic than the script, there is a major issue with the relative scales of Nash and EZ1, sometimes they look 1:1, sometimes EZ1 seems twice the size of the human. There also seems a complete inconsistency in the inking, sometimes faces are over-inked and at other there is a very clean line deployed. EZ1′s face also seems some peculiar mix of malleable human and Hammerstein, an unfortunate case of neither fish nor fowl. Ewins does appear to have drawn a USB connector and slot some 20 years before their ubiquity which at least draws a smile. One very effective panel is of EZ1 clutching the limp Nash to its chest. Filled with powerful symbolism of the robot as guardian this panel centers the emotional lesson of the story and, whether it was the choice of the artist or in script, the decision to focus page two around this image makes a very strong impact right at the half-way point of the tale. As ever with Brett Ewins any criticism of his early art comes attached with the acknowledgement that he would go on to be an excellent artist for the Prog.

Thrill Power?: Sadly the art rather dates this otherwise nice if functional tale. It’s a solid script and one an aspiring art-droid should maybe have a bash at re-drawing for a trial submission to Tharg.

Script: Gary Rice

Art: Dave Gibbons

Letters: Tony Jacob

Plot: Having been accidentally built with an advanced logic circuit, a ‘Monkey Bomb’ anti-personnel device brags that he isn’t going to detonate around the neck of the enemy human he is deployed against but will use the threat of detonation to get out of the war-zone and into a better body. As planned he attaches himself to an enemy solider and uses his ‘tick-tock’ noise as a threat of detonation to ensure he is taken to a safe factory where he can be transplanted into a humanoid robot. En route the Monkey Bomb forces the solider to kill anyone standing in their way, but eventually the recipient body is ready..

Ending: Just as the robot is about to transplant into his new body a commander at his army’s headquarters notices he has failed to explode when deployed and operates the remote detonation. The Monkey Bomb and his nearly-freed host solider are consumed in the massive explosion.

Thoughts: Dave Gibbons 2000AD career is known for two phases, his early work on The Harlem Heroes & Dan Dare and then his iconic work on the initial Rogue Trooper stories. In the period between Dare ending and Rogue Trooper‘s début he would complete a Dredd (The Mob Blitzers, Prog 130), an ABC Warriors (Cyboons, Progs 130-1) and a welcome number of beautifully drawn Robo-Tales of which this the first. Gibbon’s art elevates a fine but simple tale, one marred with a very poor deus ex resolution, into something worth reading many times. The wonderfully titled Revolt of the Tick Tock Monkey Bomb is a real Curate’s egg of a script. It has a great premise, a delightfully mean-spirited protagonist and carries itself entertainingly, but it’s resolution is among the very worst of the genre. The ‘suddenly someone at base remembers to hit self-destruct’ is such a hoary old cliché that the fact the strip has entertained so much until that point makes it all the more disappointing. With a great set-up and central character it is a shame Gary Rice couldn’t think of anywhere else to take the tale. Gibbon’s art is fantastic, and in formal terms a notable change to most of the art so far seen in the series. He uses techniques such as splitting a single image over several frames, removing backgrounds to emphasise emotion, and breakout frames in a restrained and masterly way. As with much of his work there is a convention and tradition evident in every panel, never too grotesque, never too flashy, always a beautiful story-teller. The manner in which he manages to combine modern techniques with a traditional illustration style makes his art very appealing to both reader and fellow-professional. Gibbon’s début on the series is a sign that good times are ahead.

Thrill Power?: A really good tale, another of the gems of Tharg’s back catalogue. The out-of-the-blue ending is frustrating but the Monkey-Bomb has the same malevolent charm as the Robo-Hunter‘s Teeny-Meks, Dredd‘s SAMS and all the other vicious smart-talking explosive robots. It is a grand 2000AD sub-genre and Tick Tock … is, largely due to the beautiful art, a fine entry.

Script: Oleh

Art: Casanovas

Letters: Peter Knight

Plot: Witnessing a gang of children stoning another robot, the android Gree-C tells them they should stop because he knows of ‘someone’ who will punish them. Prompted into elaborating, he tells the group that he was once a ‘Ro-Waiter’ and that, while being bullied by a loutish human client called Walker, a mysterious stranger came to his aid. The Stranger makes a simple bet, that Cree-C can beat Walker in any four competitions they choose. Should Cree-C lose any of the four tasks then the Stranger will forfeit his own life. If Cree-C can manage to win all four then Walker be the one to die. Confident of success in the two tests of his own choosing, Walker accepts and they begin with the two tasks selected by the Stranger. Despite attempts at sabotage, the competitions to serve every table and mop the floor quickest are won by Gree-C. Walker chooses that the first of his selections is to be shooting a coin in the air. Gree-C is worried he’ll fail until the Stranger reminds him he as telescopic arms which he can use to stay close to the flipped coin. Walker complains that this is cheating but the adjudicator rules in favour of the android. Still confident, Walker nominates poker as the final competition and the last test begins. Triumphantly, Walker displays four Kings…

Shock: Gree-C has ‘only’ got four ‘ones’ (Aces). Infuriated Walker attempts to shoot Gree-C but the Stranger blasts the gun out of his hand. With Walker at his mercy the Stranger listens to the man plead for his life. When Walker blabs that the stranger wouldn’t ‘kill one of his own kind over this‘ the Stranger flips open a face-plate to reveal that he too is an android. Casually he shoots Walker. 

Thoughts: An extended six page, spread over two Progs, tale that really amounts to very little but is adorned with some of the most sumptuous Casanovas’ art seen in 2000AD. As a story the tale is pretty much an unmitigated failure, a series of panels where a linear narrative occurs but one without any real internal logic nor convincing reasoning. Why would Walker agree to bet his own life for that of killing a stranger? Why would the final task be a game of chance? Are young readers meant to understand the rules of Poker? Why would a bunch of kids think anyone was going to kill them based on the story of the bar-room bet? None of it makes any sense and then to wrap it up in a format where Ro-Jaws introduces a tale where Gree-C then introduces a tale makes the whole thing far too complicated and necessitates too much exposition where a better plot could have been fleshed out. With the tale split over two Progs there is even a re-appearance of Ro-Jaws in the middle of the story but this time he returns the reader to the central tale without the re-appearance of the Gree-C ‘warning the children’ narrative. Worst of all is that the ‘twist’ is the reveal that the Stranger is a robot! That’s something new (bar FS 12, 31, 34, 35, RT 2).  The writer, credited as Oleh, may have been Oleh Stepaniuk who was published in the 1981 Annuals and Specials but it is not clear from Barney if this is the case. Saving the tale for a modern reader is the art which packs every panel, especially the Salon bar, with rich inventive detail. Every bar customer, every ornament and furnishing, every detail of clothing is rendered in the minutest detail. Much like his debut Future Shock, Casanovas gives us an ‘alien’ world which looks familiar yet definitely different. On the ‘down’ side Gree-C is a ringer for C3PO and the robot being stoned at the start of the tale is clearly R2D2-on-telescopic legs. A result of this, in the year The Empire Strikes Back conquered the box-office, is that it impossible to read the tale without every panel screaming ‘isn’t this a rubbish tale with C3PO’. The whole problem is compounded with Gree-C having the same shambling apologetic demeanour as has celluloid kin. So blatant are the influences that the strip forces you to look at other background characters to see if they look like the inhabitants of the Mos Eisley Cantina. Indeed, some of the girls do look like Princess Leah in her skimpy dancing-girl outfit and the ‘Stranger’ looks like Dr Strange! Whats he doing in Star Wars? Maybe this was down to the script or just Casanovas having fun but in retrospect it does detract from the otherwise stunning art.

Thrill Power? The only way to enjoy this tale is to revel in the beautiful artwork, the story itself is ill thought out and terribly dated. A story so bad even the sound effects are deeply unconvincing (‘F-SHAM!‘ anyone?) With readers having had The Omen last Prog and Star Wars in this story they probably feared a robot-disguised-as-The Jazz Singer next week.

Script: Kelvin Gosnell (as W.Gosmore)

Art: Mike White

Letters: John Aldrich (as Aldrich II)

Plot: While Rolf Harris is happy with his busy career as a ‘top electronics engineer’ his wife Mary pines for them to start a family. Faced with Rolf’s intransigence she pleads for some compromise and, several years later, Mary is overjoyed by the arrival of her baby Damien. Damien grows up a talented but slightly distanced teenager, one focused, like his father, on designing and building electric gadgets. Damien’s distance and cold nature lead to a row with his mother over having taken and melted down her wedding ring. Eventually Rolf intervenes and takes Damien off to dismantle him. Damien is just a robot built by Rolf. As Damien’s head comes of the robot cries out for his parents to stop.

Thoughts: A very traditional but thoroughly entertaining sinister Robo-Tale doubtless appealing to the revenge fantasy of many of the then readers. In a series called ‘Robo-Tales‘ it is pretty obvious from the start that Mary’s ‘compromise’ must be a robot; so the revelation, on page three, about Damien having been built isn’t terribly surprising. The story delivers its ‘shock’ with the abandoned robot’s head stating that his ‘parents’ disloyalty will see them replaced by robotic versions of themselves. Children as central characters have been remarkably rare in 2000AD stories and this tale has the honour of being the first one where a child gets around to killing his own kin. Given the amount of death lashed out weekly in the Prog that it took until Prog 147 for parenticide to feature is pretty remarkable. The final touch of suggesting the neighbours will be next gives a nicely sinister coda to the tale. The only real problem with the very traditional art of Mike White is that not only do Rolf and Mary not seem to have aged while Damien grows up but poor Mary seems to have had the same haircut and wardrobe for the whole time. Damien’s lack of school friends was probably down to his shame from having parents who looked a decade out of date.

Thrill-Power?: After the left field antics of Ro-Jaws and Hammerstein in the series debut this is much more traditional Future Shock fare. Without ever being top-drawer, the ending and the malicious joy of the young Omen-bot’s triumph over stern adults make it a great kids comic even if they may not have been of the age to recognise that the Damien-bot is the exact spit of the infamous celluloid anti-christ.

Script: Pat Mills

Art: Kevin O’Neill

Letters: John Aldrich

Plot: Ro-Jaws is feeling unwell, a fact Hammerstein suspects may be down to having eaten the war droid’s missing war medals. After trapping his hand while trying to examine the contents of Ro-Jaws’ stomach he eventually takes the ill robot to a robo-garage. The mechanic deploys a team of ‘Thunderbots’, tiny singing robot repair droids, into Ro-Jaws system. Faced with a sea of sewage and waste in Ro-Jaws’ guts the Thunderbots take decisive action, exploding in his stomach

Ending: The explosion causes Ro-Jaws to throw-up Hammerstein’s war medals and he promptly gets beaten up and dumped in a trash can by the angry war droid.

Thoughts: The Inside Story is one of the great curios of 2000AD. It was the first time a one-off tale had appeared under a non-series banner outside of the Future Shock branding, but is in total contrast to any of the other stories printed as Ro-Jaws Robo-Tales. Whereas the rest of the short series (2o stories across the Prog and specials / annuals) would be  ‘Future Shocks-with-a-’bot’ as introduced by Ro-Jaws instead of Tharg, this is a straight character comedy piece featuring two well-established characters taken out of their usual dramatic story context. Ro-Jaws & Hammerstein were clearly a hit with the reader, used in editoral branding such as ‘Ro-Jaw’s Laugh In‘ (Readers Jokes) and ‘Guide To Robots‘ (Info Booklet), but this tale was unique in moving their love-hate rude banter from an aside in their action stories to being the focus of the strip itself. In a way it relates to Ro-Busters the way Terror Tube & Killer Watt does to Nemesis The Warlock; part of its world but slightly askew. It seems a shame it was left out of the recent The Complete Ro-Busters although it had featured in previous Titan collections. The story itself, a rare Pat Mills outing in these one-off stories, is quite astounding; full of profanity, belching, throwing up and even the most obvious masturbation cock-gag ever seen in 2000AD. In the anarchic hands of O’Neill and Mills it is, naturally, one of the greatest things to have appeared in the Prog. The art is packed full of rewards for the attentive reader, a small picture of Deadlock on a wall,  ‘C3PO was a Hume‘ (human) graffitied in the background and volumes of comedy robot designs through-out. The script is similarly wonderful; rude, funny, constantly inventive with language, and seeped in the Ro-Jaws and Hammerstein tradition of ‘daft nerks‘ and cockney robo-speak. At all times knowing what it’s audience is and at all times knowing how to make them laugh. It certainly is a world away for the last Future Shocks‘ weeping child and lament for good parenting.

Thrill-Power?: Off the scale. There is no twist, shock or even dramatic denouement. Ro-Jaws gets dumped in the bin we knew he’d end up in from the very first time Hammerstein asks has he eaten the precious war medals. But the three pages it takes for him to get there will be a sumptuous treat for anyone who ever took to these classic 2000AD characters.

Script: Roy Preston (as P. Wildbeest)

Art: John Cooper

Letters: P. Bensberg

Plot: Johnnie Collins plays with his toy metal frog while his mother prepares a special meal for his father’s return from work. However when Jim Collins returns home he curtly informs his wife that his project with The Time Monitoring Department means he will have to go straight to his study and continue working. As Chrissie Collins explains to young Johnnie why his father has come and gone so quickly she breaks into tears and is comforted by her son. Johnnie, with his toy frog, march to his father’s home lab as Jim Collins is about to start another time machine test. His father angrily shouts at him and smacks ‘Mister Frog’ from his hands. Jim then finishes working on the control desk and moves to enter the time machine capsule. Convinced he can stop the machine, Johnnie moves to the desk to reverse his father’s settings.

Shock: Johnnie’s well-intended meddling firstly places his father in an infinite loop and then accidentally break the controls. Jim Collins is trapped in the time machine in his basement, free to be seen by his family all day, every day.

Thoughts: The final Future Shock before a year and a half absence from the Prog is an unsatisfying meld of various established tropes. Mechanical problems with time machines have been seen several times and John Cooper has been the ‘go to’ artist for Shocks involving small children twice before. However a key element of the script’s failure to engage is that this time the child isn’t a cipher the reader can identify with. Whereas previous stories with children have had stroppy, defiant, independent kids, here Johnnie Collins is a wimpy mewlling child carrying around ‘Mister Frog’ much like Linus does a blanket. It seems unlikely any reader who thrills in the action of Dredd or has picked out a favourite ABC Warrior is going to have much time for Johnnie Collins. An additional problem is that the shock itself, in terms of the fate of Jim Collins, isn’t really well explained. Is Jim trapped in a ground-hog day scenario? Is he in stasis while the world grows old around him? Why is there a smiling image of Chrissie and Johnnie on the screen? Regardless of how negligent a parent and partner he had been, wouldn’t they be upset that he is trapped? Can’t the damage be undone by fixing the damaged box? With three pages there was more than enough room to have set up a clearer fate for Jim’s comeuppance but the strip is too busy showing weeping gal and Johnnie in their emotional distress. Cooper’s art is of its usual excellent standard, Chrissie Collins being a particularly pretty young mum and Johnnie as wide-eyed as it is possible for an innocent child to be. However three pages of talking heads and one panel of violence against a child is pretty hard to make interesting.

Shock’d?: The cause of the shock, the well-intended meddling of an upset child, is a novel one but the actual execution is neither clear nor visually very interesting. A more central problem is that Time Machine Shocks only end a limited number of ways and this one is particularly obvious and not very engaging.

Script: John Richardson

Art: John Richardson

Letters: Peter Knight

Plot: Brant and Jones, two Earth spacemen drifting in their Survival Pod, finally have their distress signal answered by a large alien war craft. The battleship informs them it cannot stop but will send them some supplies, as well as despatch their own supply ship when it becomes available. Concerned about alien foodstuff toxicity, the humans tell the aliens they can ‘give them a hand with just some bread and water‘ for now. A pod sends them over the food and they munch on the new supplies before turning to find out what was for dessert…

Shock:  They open an alien container to find several bagged human hands. Grant and Jones realise the ‘supplies’ craft coming for them might not be good news.

Thoughts: John Richardson becomes the first droid to have a second ‘joint credit’ for scripting and drawing duties. This time his art isn’t as impressive, although not bad it lacks any real dramatic set-pieces or outstanding panels, but the story is much better.  In the modern 2000AD this would be a Terror Tale rather than a Future Shock but back then that remained the sole banner for short stories; although that would soon change with the introduction of Ro-Jaws RoboTales (Prog 144). The simple visual joke of ‘being given a hand‘ plays out nicely and is tweaked that little bit by introducing the concept that a ship that was to supply them may now become a ship to supply them to the warship’s kitchens. Eight panels and 1.5 pages make this an excellent efficient early Terror Tale.

Shock’d?: Whether the ‘give us a hand’ prompt would have been picked up depends on how attentive the reader is; certainly the story on page one could have been the set-up for a longer different type of Shock but on turning the page the reader gets a half page of bagged hands floating towards him and the strip is done. And no less enjoyable for it.

]]> http://futureshockd.wordpress.com/2011/11/16/fs-56-many-hands-makes-strip-work/feed/ 0 croziermartin shocked 056 - Prog 117 - Art John Richardson - Copyright Rebellion copy http://futureshockd.wordpress.com/2011/11/14/fs-55-la-piu-bella/ http://futureshockd.wordpress.com/2011/11/14/fs-55-la-piu-bella/#comments Mon, 14 Nov 2011 12:05:06 +0000 croziermartin http://futureshockd.wordpress.com/?p=786 ]]> PROG: 119 – Colin’s Dream

Script: Chris Stevens

Art: Massimo Belardinelli

Letters: Peter Knight

Plot: While his wife shouts for him to wake up, Colin Ross continues in his slumber. He dreams of hand-to-hand combat against a fearsome massive many-tentacled beast, finally decapitating the monster. Inevitably awoken by his wife’s incessant calling, he moans about being disturbed just as he had seized victory in his dream-battle.

Shock: Colin’s wife enters the room, she is the same species as the monster from his dream! She warns him in the future she’ll make sure he gets up when he is told. Tharg warns the reader that in the 25th century Human-Alien marriages were common ‘but not always happy‘.

Thoughts: Two pages, seven panels, including one magnificent full-page panel, an epic battle, a gruesome monster, a decapitation and a joke about annoying wives / mothers makes an absolutely magnificent Future Shock. The ‘waking up and…’ device has been regularly used in early Future Shocks (FS 53, FS 37) and the ‘pestering wife’ has featured in Casanova’s beautiful debut in FS 32 however this is still a great entry into Future Shocks largely due to it’s efficiency and the stunning work of Belardinelli. Futureshockd never shows the ‘shock’ panel in a story but the temptation to here is almost overwhelming. The full-page of image of a ‘pretty’ version of the above alien, all extended eye-lashes and pouting-lips and a domestic-goddess pinny, towering over a terrified Colin is a complete joy. Never reprinted, it is a neglected classic sitting in the 2000AD vaults. Readers at the time could clearly substitute ‘parents’ for the ‘wife’ element and empathize with Colin’s wish to keep dreaming rather than go to work / school.

Shock’d?: Strongly reminiscent of the twist in FS 1, the domesticated alien does come out of the left field as the nagging is not given enough time to establish itself as the ‘counter’ narrative to Colin’s dream; however it is a great visual shock due to the space given to allow Belardinelli to draw a truly marvelous monstrous image.

Script: Alan Hebden

Art: Mike White

Letters: Jack Potter

Plot: The Planetary Assessment Group approach Tarka III, a dust-bowl planet that they have funded the gradual reclamation of by paying billions to let settlers attempt to colonise. They have arrived to assess progress and decide on future funding. Met by Reed Benson, the colonial leader, they immediately take against the thin air and small pockets of growth they witness. Benson explains to them how they are unleashing deep pockets of air from underground and another ten years will see the planet flourish with growth. Distinctly unimpressed they tell Benson they will give their verdict in the morning. Deeply frustrated, Benson returns home and joins his daughter at a nearby archaeological dig. Wandering alone in an uncovered ancient chamber he uncovers a room where a mysterious  ’telepathic recording’ informs him it is the voice of the ancient inhabitants and they are offering him a choice – if he sacrifices himself the ancient’s mining devices will be reactivated and massive amounts of oxygen will be released; if he refuses the planet will be destroyed rather than fall into the hands of the unworthy…

Shock: Benson makes the sacrifice and the aliens unleash their technology to furnish vast amounts of air on the planet. The PAG representatives reverse their decision to cut funding when they realize the sudden re-oxygenization will make the cost of the program much less. As they depart the planet they scoff that Benson would be delighted as ‘he couldn’t care less about the cost of anything’  Their craft flies off as Benson writhes in pain, enduring the cost  he has shouldered for saving the planet he loves.

Thoughts: A luxuriant seven pages given to a slightly strange scoff at penny-pinching accountants as opposed to the sacrifice of the idealist. The story has doesn’t have a ‘shock’ per se, more a choice for Benson and a juxtaposed disparaging comment by a PAG member on the final panel. Outside of that the story fails to make a lot of sense. Searching hard one could think of reasons why the aliens just didn’t re-inhabit the planet themselves (since they are able to do it almost instantaneously after Benson’s decision) and why Benson must actually suffer a painful fate rather than be excused after having shown the requisite commitment, but none of it is explained by the story. At seven pages the story-telling is extremely flabby by the standards of 2000AD; Benson isn’t introduced until the bottom of page 2 and by the end of page 4 the tour of the agricultural facilities is just ended. High on tension and drama this tale is not. The art has lots of nice individual panels showing a similar ‘space meets Midwest America’ as seen in Angel Zero and a fantastic panel where Benson steps up to make his choice but for seven pages there is a lot of talking heads and shots of farmland. An interesting Shock in the context of the series, both for page count and political content,  and featuring two creators who would go on to work on many more one-shots for the Prog, but overall not a great outing for the series.

Shock’d?: The story doesn’t read at all like a Future Shock. The nearest thing to any formal shock is the callous remark of the departing PAG member. It seems more a general small sci-fi tale and perhaps was originally commissioned for something other than Future Shocks.

Script: John Higgins

Art: John Higgins

Letters: John Aldrich

Plot: Two Astro-Pliots, Dave & Ron, are on route to Proxima Centauri when a meteor storm causes their craft to crash. An alien spaceship surveys the wreckage and lifts the living biomass aboard. Unsure of the species they are dealing with, but confident of a similarity to their own physiology, alien surgeons try to save the life of the crew. Hours late Dave awakens and asks what has become of Ron.

Shock: The four-armed doctors don’t know of Ron’s whereabouts but a shocked Dave finally realises he has had Ron’s limbs grafted onto his own torso to create an eight-limbed body much like the aliens.

Thoughts: Long-haul Droid John Higgin’s first work in 2000AD is the third Future Shock to be written and drawn by the same person (FS 4 – Kevin O’Neil, FS 50 – John Richardson). For a début in the comic its a remarkably strong piece of work. His unique drawing style, most clearly visible in his technique for drawing faces, has clearly changed little over thirty years; probably because it is so good it has little need to. The art is clearly a strong point; there is an excellent panel-breaking swooping spaceship in the first page, a pair of surgeons who look remarkably like Bryan Talbot’s rendering of Blackblood from the ABC Warriors, and the reveal panel is a great multi-limbed alien doctor with, it has to be said, a neck and face like a swollen beaten male appendage.  The inking is magnificent and the most remarkable thing is that Higgins would only pick up the odd Future Shock and Time Twister before his prolonged stint on Judge Dredd from the mid-400s. It is clear from work like this that he would have been ready long before that. As for the story, it has a fairly retro vibe and is quite conventional but there is also a lot to praise. The shock itself is fairly easy to spot, certainly as the reader turns to the last page they know that something awful is going to be the result of the alien’s good-natured attempt at aid.. just look at those looming surgeons (above), how could something sinister not result. Naturally ‘waking up in hospital to something bad’ isn’t the most original of framing devices but the drafting and execution are superior. It also deserves praise for being a great example of a story that comics can tell that the purely written medium cannot. A drawn image can hide descriptive detail, creating ambiguity from what it doesn’t show and what it leads the reader to imply; whereas the word, with its need to specify simply cannot achieve the same degree of implication. Where a writer would have to specify what the aliens looked like in considerable detail, the image can lead you to assume they have 4 limbs not 8. This is one of the great joys of comics, one of the skills that talented comic writers and artists can create and it this small tale is a magnificent example of it.

Shock’d?: The specific shock is fairly corny and the story makes no attempt to hide that something terrible is going to come from the operation, what that specifically is being gloriously revealed on the last page. In many ways the story telling is of its time and the shock isn’t as gorily rendered as it might have been but it is still a great moment to turn to the final page and find out Ron and Dave’s fate.