Wednesday 11 November 2015

2000 AD - October 1977.

In October 1977, the Sex Pistols released a legendary album whose title was such a challenge to public propriety that I cannot even name it here for fear that the skies themselves shall spin out of orbit and crash into the sun.

But what of the galaxy's greatest comic? Did we find it in equally stroppy mood?

Well here's where we find out. I shall though make no comment on each individual issue this time, on the grounds that I can't remember anything at all about what happened in any of them.

However, the estimable Comicvine informs me that issue #34 features a schematic of Judge Dredd's Lawgiver, which is handy for those of us who may one day wish to venture out into the terrors of the Cursed Earth and will need to make ourselves a weapon with which to face it.

The big news, however, is that issue #36 sees Shako being dropped from the comic, to make way for the return of the Harlem Heroes.

What kind of madness is this?

They'd drop the world's greatest homicidal polar bear to make way for a bunch of basketball players? Surely a deadly form of space insanity must have claimed Tharg for him to commit such an atrocity against literature.

Regardless, here are those covers...

2000 AD #32

2000 AD #33

2000 AD #34

2000 AD #35

2000 AD #36

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Borag thung, Steve - good to see you're still doing 2000AD; thought you might have given up on it since it seems last time was your least viewed post ever or something (yeah, I had a look at your twitter - thats just the exciting kind of life I lead).
Maybe thats because of these dumb supercovers, and you'll get more interest when Judge Dredd and whatnot are back up front. Still a little while to go though....

Anyway - yeah, no more Shako. What were they thinking?
To be fair though, it wasn't quite Harlem Heroes that returned. It was actually Inferno which had some of the same characters (and pretty much the same plots!) but was much better than just basketball with jetpacks. Largely because it was drawn by the much underrated Massimo Belardinelli (before he got predictable)

-sean


Steve W. said...

Borag thung, Sean. Before that tweet, I think that post had had twelve views in two days. After it, that total shot up to around fifty views. This post's currently on twenty four, so it's already a runaway success in comparison.

Paul R. said...

I was happy when Shako was dropped for Inferno, I loved Belardinelli's artwork. Which is one of the reasons I just brought the Dan Dare, complete 2000a.d years hardback. Great looking book with top talent but I only wished that Rebellion had the colour pages redone but someone like Gibbons because they do look a bit shoddy.

Richard Williams said...

I bought the first 4 issues of 2000AD then skipped it until around Prog 500 so I missed out on lots of early stuff. I bought the Shako collection a few years back on the recommendation of a friend (a lifelong 2000ADist!!!) and wasn't disappointed! That's why I started picking up the Megazine again, their reprints of old series' is a must for me and I hope it continues for the forseeable future!