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The completely self absorbed 2000ad re-read thread

Started by Colin YNWA, 22 May, 2016, 02:30:29 PM

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Colin YNWA

Yeah have to be honest I've not been getting on with the 'comedy' strips at all. Even Kev O'Neill's Madesque artwork on Dash Decent feels lost in The Prog and Captain Klep was just woeful. There's been the odd thing that felt really out of place in the Prog but which services as a reminder of the comics target audience at the time. These short humour strips and things like the 'Space Olympics' guide which just jarred with the edgier stuff in the comic, BUT may well have been very welcome to younger readers at the time coming from Buster, Whizzer and Chips and the like.

All feels a bit like the comedy ending to Wolfie Smith, just not in context.

Colin YNWA

Oh what interesting times we have in the Prog. Dredd is back from his space travels (and I have to say I'm very happy with that) and I think we're about to enter another years worth of shorts that I'm very much looking forward to.

Strontium Dog is back with us in a series of shorter stories too as I recall, though actually Portrait of a Mutant can't be too far off.

Elsewhere we have three long term stories starting, or freshly started, one of which I adore, Return to Armageddon, one I run hot and cold on, so very much looking forward to getting into. Meltdown Man has made an okay start. Finally Mean Arena, which as I recall goes a bit wayward quickly losing sight of any potential it might have had.

Put the thing I want to talk about is Dredd's return to Mega City One in Block War in Prog 182. What an absolute cracker. A beautifully rendered story which fantastically captures Dredd's character. It also felt like it started something that would be a reoccuring theme in Dredd, that being him being at odds with large chunks of the Judicial System and though he's a hero he's also a thorn in the side of many. For a variety of reasons. This theme may have been dealt with before (?) but it really stands out here and this is one of the best Dredd's to date and still one of my all time favourites. Truely brilliant stuff.

Anyway I'll be back soon as I've a big question to ask you all...

sheridan

Quote from: Colin YNWA on 01 October, 2016, 04:31:36 PM
Yeah have to be honest I've not been getting on with the 'comedy' strips at all. Even Kev O'Neill's Madesque artwork on Dash Decent feels lost in The Prog and Captain Klep was just woeful. There's been the odd thing that felt really out of place in the Prog but which services as a reminder of the comics target audience at the time. These short humour strips and things like the 'Space Olympics' guide which just jarred with the edgier stuff in the comic, BUT may well have been very welcome to younger readers at the time coming from Buster, Whizzer and Chips and the like.

Better stay away from this month's art competition then! ;)
Quote
All feels a bit like the comedy ending to Wolfie Smith, just not in context.

Can't say I remember there being a comedy ending to The Mind of Wolfie Smith?

Colin YNWA

2000ad 1980

Quote...we beckon in a new decade and I think and interesting time for a Prog now finding its direction and balance as it totters on into its 4th year.

This is what I said after having read the Progs from 1979. Half right, not bad. See in 1980 2000ad did indeed start to find its balance. The trouble is it was all that interesting. Its not that its been a bad year, its just lacked the extremes of the first three years. Nothing was terrible... though much was pretty poor. Not much was stella.

There were absolute highlights but not that many. First half of Day of the Droids, start of Return to Armegeddon. Strontium Dogs return is a real high and the new shorter stories are really working. The absolute peak was three short episodes of what would become Nemesis. Tharg knew what he was onto here with 'Comic Rocks', even with only 15 odd pages, all of a sudden posters of the characters started springing up. Oh and I guess we should also mention some block call Alan rocks up. We might come back to him.

So yeah I've discussed the highlights without mentioning Dredd. Which is wonky. Cos Dredd is still of course great, its just so... so... not as GREAT as what had gone before. Well the start of the year was still exceptional but as I've already discussed I'm not a big fan of Judge Child and while 'Block War' is an absolute classic some of the shorts after his return to Earth aren't as strong as I'd expected. Notable by some I simply don't remember at all. Loonie Moon escapes my memory. The Maze story I only remember cos I think The Maze was a location in the Dredd boardgame. So yeah Dredd, by its own standards... well those of the previous 2 years just ain't that good.

There's a lot of rot as well, often by the GFD but I've already lambasted much of that so I'll not retread that old ground. So yeah in finding its feet 2000ad has lost a bit of its excitment. Oh there's still the moments of course but they aren't as frequent. We head into 1981 with a very steady line-up of hit and miss strips so when will this steady streak end... well actually that's a question I will be returning to soon. A question for you lot. But first I've got a couple of annuals to read and I know at least one of ums a blinder...

Colin YNWA

A little epilogue to 1980 and that's

A Tale of Two Annuals - 1981 Annuals

Well bloody hell I knew this was the case but the distance between the two Annuals of 1980 (labeled 1981 of course) is staggering. Lets do the tale of the tape.

2000 ad Annual 1981

Length: 128 pages
Cost: £1.50
Apparent value: 1.17 pence per page

Judge Dredd Annual 1981

Length: 96 pages
Cost: £1.80
Apparent value: 1.86 pence per page

So its clear right, the Dredd Annual is an over-priced rip off. None of it, not a piece. Its interesting I've no idea anymore how these would have been recieved as a kid, but I strongly suspect that even then the 2000ad Annual may have pleased parents with it size and cost, but by God it all filler no thriller. 8 pages of decent but not great Dredd, a couple of barely passible Future Shocks and a fantastic Brendan McCarthy splash page for the Strontium Dog text story - the rest, including almost all of the text features is utter codswallop. This took me (admittedly a 44 year old man) about 20 minutes to read... well call it 25, adding five to account for the various bits I started and decided I had better things to do with my time and skipped. Now to its intended audience there's probably more to appeal and better value to be had. But I reckon even as a kid I'd have seen through most of this. Some really dull reprint, soft text pieces and so much recycled art.

Now over at the shorter, more costly Dredd annual - well it took me of an hour half to read and its an absolute masterclass. Even G P Rice, normally pretty hit and miss, turns in a nice Eisner pastiche in his Walter The Wobot strip. Elsewhere we have a lovely Dredd history including the first unused story, Shok which while not a great story is a delight on the eye and of course a wonderful curiosity since 1990. A fantastic Max Normal tale, even if I'm not Casanovas' biggest fan. Okay there's a little filler after that but... BUT

There is also 30 pages of some of the most beautiful (well until next year as I recall) Dredd you will ever see. Now don't get me wrong the stories by Mr Wagner are simply fantastic, particularly 'Compulsory Purchase' which is quiessential Dredd. Its the art however that rules the day. Now in 1980 I'm pretty sure the 30p difference in price between the Dredd and the 2000ad annual would have bought you a decent family car, but it, even to my 8 year old mind, would surely have been worth it for the Mike McMahon art over those 30 pages. Simple devine.

Jesus the 1981 2000ad Annual must have broken kids hearts while the 1981 Dredd Annual must have elevate Christmas' across the land to levels of excitment impossible to equal unless you got a Big Track (I never did, always wanted one).



TordelBack

Great Sunday morning read there Colin, keep it up. Completely agree about the 1981 Dredd annual, which I only came by some years later in a parish sale: an absolute gem.

Fungus

Much repeated here, but the first Dredd annual is a thing of wonder and I adored it. 1982's, almost as much.

Steve MacManus's book is a revelation on how it came about, too.

AlexF

I'm loving this thread, but am curious to know other readers' thinking on one question:
When you look back over 2000AD, do you break it up into chunks by year of publication (as Colin is doing here), or by sets of 100 Progs (my instinctive way of thinking) - even though that usually means lumping two years' worth of stuff together)?

I suppose this might be a function of me not being a Prog one-r, and indeed being so young when reading my first progs that I didn't have much of a sense of real-world dates.

Frank


Eras of 2000ad are determined by how many issues stack comfortably on my shelves. More than 50, less than 100 per stack.



Magnetica

The way I think about it just isn't all that neat.

Roughly it goes like this:

1)Stuff before I started reading it and before it merged with Starlord (pre Prog 86) - not as mad as it sounds as I have collected editions of most it of it and have subsequently bought the odd Prog.

2) my this is being forced on me and I don't like it period, Progs 86 to 92 when I bought it only as a transferring Starlord reader, missed a couple of weeks and gave up.

3) the "lost period" upto Prog 126 when I didn't buy it (apart from 2)

4) Prog 127 to Mid 200s. The really getting into it phase, loving it all, knowing what story was in what Prog instaneously from memory (then not now)

- Judge Child, great Dredd one offs, Pirates of Black Atlantic, Judge Death, Return to Armageddon, Melt Down Man.

5) Golden Age. Mid 200s to 519 (last newspaper paper Prog).


Nemesis, Slaine even Rogue Trooper.

6) 520 to 699

University days.

Zenith.

7) 700 to when ever Rebellion took over.

Read it but don't really remember it

8) Rebellion years - not sure what Prog to present. New golden era.


Fungus

I probably think of eras mainly by the logo. It's only a title but it does set the tone and evokes a time. And almost as much, the paper stock.

As Magnetica says, before-and-after your First Prog feel like different times, which is odd indeed.

Frank

Quote from: Magnetica on 11 October, 2016, 03:30:41 PM
6) 520 to 699

University days.

Zenith.

7) 700 to when ever Rebellion took over.

Read it but don't really remember it

That's pretty much my own mental model*. 520-700 - the odd interregnum where painted colour cautiously, uncertainly replaced line art - is my own golden age, with the run of progs containing the finales of Horned God, Final Solution, Zenith: phase three, War Machine, and Necropolis** representing a mini-golden age within a golden age.

It's terrifying how quickly the quality threshold vanishes after prog 700.

To continue the spooky, 127-200 is the only significant run of back issues I ever purchased***. I bought some to plug the gap between 500 and my first prog (511), but they never really felt like they were mine.


* Although I wasn't at uni, grandad

** And, for the sake of balance, Chronos Carnival and Dry Run

*** ... from another kid at school, who hit puberty and decided White Lightning and Rave records represented more pressing demands on his pocket money than a prog where Simon Harrison had replaced Carlos Ezquerra

Fungus

Quote from: Frank on 11 October, 2016, 05:11:50 PM
they never really felt like they were mine.

Hah! It is true that once those early-prog gaps are filled, they never quite feel genuine, with their defaced cover declaring 'Ferguson' in newsagent biro...   :)

Suppose some must have a stray 'Bobby Bolland' or 'Eric Ezquerra' just to confuse the droids at signings  :|

Magnetica

Quote from: Frank on 11 October, 2016, 05:11:50 PM
* Although I wasn't at uni, grandad
Ho-ho-ho. I may be older than some on here*, but I have always considered there are advantages to having been born when I was. e.g.

- witnessing Liverpool's years of domination first hand**
- listening to 80's music first hand**
- watching 80's telly first hand**


but most importantly being of the right age to have read early 2000AD when it came out. ***

And I totally agree about Progs you didn't get at the time not feeling "yours"

* and I am sure there are "plenty" older than me. Well some anyway...by a couple of years at least
** yes I know if I was born at another time I would have been into something else or shock horror a different team
*** even though I missed the first couple of years, but that wasn't because I was the right age, just because I hadn't been introduced to it yet.



Quote from: Frank on 11 October, 2016, 05:11:50 PM

That's pretty much my own mental model*. 520-700 - the odd interregnum where painted colour cautiously, uncertainly replaced line art - is my own golden age

Yes I did toy with defining an era at Prog 589 when they introduced more colour, but if you do that then really you have to consider that the phoney war and that it really starts with Prog 626 and the first episode of the Horned God. A friend of mine at university also read 2000AD and I always remember his comment that he had never seen anything like it.****

But that then lead to the era of the Bisley clones, which wasn't necessary the best idea ever.


**** if a bit murky if we are being totally honest

Colin YNWA

Well this era thing is making fine reading. While this time I'm dividing by years I'm typically an 'in groups of 100' man myself. I do diverge in quieter moments to periods that are defined by my reading of the comic (though oddly my golden ages are normally defined by the times I've not read the comic regularly, which get an almost mythical presence in my mind... well until I've read them all).

So the early issues (up to around issue 100) are the defining age, when my brother first got the comic and its influence on the way I think and I things I enjoy can't be underestimeted. Then the early 200s until around 300, the second stint of our reading. Finally 416 - 1000 my longest stretch but there's too much change in that run to think of it as a consistent thing. So my thought processes normally default to 100s.

I'm currently only reading in years as its a more practical chunk to read in my 'reading / re-reading list' and makes for a nice way to reflect on the comic as I re-read and the times it fits into.

ANYWAY all this chat and this first comment

Quote from: Magnetica on 11 October, 2016, 03:30:41 PM
5) Golden Age. Mid 200s to 519 (last newspaper paper Prog).

has nicely segued into the question I've had lingering. My question is therefore... one which you must all answer damnit

When does the first Golden Age of 2000ad start?

My understanding is that commonly held opinion is that the first golden age of 2000ad starts some time in 1981. So as I approach by re-read of that year I'm intrigued to learn when people think this time (the golden age, not 1981 I can answer that one myself) started. What marked this period, can people pin it to a particular Prog? Maybe 222 or 224. Is it 228 or would some people even wait as late as 245? I'm particularly interested as I strongly suspect I won't agree ... which will make the whole reading of 1981 all the more interesting.

Its possibly the year I'm most looking forward to reading, even if I'm not sure it will be close to as good as one might hope? We'll see.

So yeah if you were there at the time, or not, when does the golden stuff get goin'?