Sunday 15 April 2018

2000 AD - March 1980.

March of 1980 was not a good month for lovers of illicit broadcasting because it was the month in which legendary pirate music station Radio Caroline went off air after its ship Mi Amigo ran aground and sank off the Thames Estuary.

How well I recall listening to Radio Caroline in my teenage years, trying to make out what it was actually playing as, thanks to the miracle of night-time atmospherics, radio broadcasts from such far-flung lands as Russia, Turkey and Romania would overpower its signal, drifting in and out like rude but casual visitors. How big and mysterious those ghostly signals made the world seem back then. How much smaller modern technology has made it become.

But lovers of the enigmatic need fear not, because there are still mysteries in this world.

And one of them is what the galaxy's greatest comic was up to thirty eight years and one month ago.

Somehow, I suspect it's still going to be a mystery, even after I've completed this post.

Interesting to see that Prog 154 features Judge Dredd's Hall of Heroes. I have absolutely no idea what that involved. Was it a collection of Judge Dredd's heroes? Were they just general, all-purpose heroes? Were they my heroes? Were they your heroes? Were they real? Were they fictional?

Whoever they were, Prog 155 tells us their hall involves 2D holograms, which sounds very futuristic, although I was under the impression that the whole point of holograms is that they're 3D. That's definitely what they told us on Tomorrow's World whenever they went on about them.

Also on that cover, it's nice to see you can, "Vape a space-invader," which conjures up images of aliens being made to use e-cigarettes. How the English language can change in thirty eight years.

Prog 156 launches the epic tale of the Judge Child. I remember the title but recall little of the actual story. Did Dredd have to guard him, or did he have to stop him? Did he have to do both?

Prog 157 was, apparently, not for sale on Earth. And yet my local newsagent was happily selling it. I have a good mind to report him to the authorities.

Finally, Prog 158 gives The Fiends of the Eastern Front a rare cover appearance. After all these weeks, I still recall nothing of their strip.

2000 AD Prog 154, Robo-Hunter

2000 AD Prog 155

2000 AD Prog 156, Judge Dredd, the Judge Child

2000 AD Prog 157

2000 AD Prog 158

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Excuse my ignorance but I didn't realise Radio Caroline had lasted till 1980 - I assumed it disappeared when Radio One came along.

Steve W. said...

Radio Caroline is still going. It's the radio station they can't kill.

Charlie Horse 47 said...

Hi Steve, Can you post a blog about something I can opine on like "Favorite memoirs of alcohol?" I feel like typing something,

Steve W. said...

The problem is I don't have any favourite memoirs of alcohol to write about. You are, though, free to post your own experiences here. As long as they're fit for public consumption, of course.

Charlie Horse 47 said...

HI Steve, As long as there ain't much happening...

Do ("Did" in the internet era) you guys have "Cliffs Notes" in the UK? In the USA, prior to PCs and the internet, college kids would buy these b/c they provided all the key points on various works of literature e.g. the Iliad, the Odyssey, The Aeneid... Basically a mini-crash course of study.

Now that I think about it, my most memorable alcohol related events are painful to remember. bag that idea, lol.

Steve W. said...

I vaguely remember there being something like that back when the state was trying to educate me. Whether they were called Cliff Notes or had another name, I don't recall.

Charlie Horse 47 said...

Steve, they just reported on national public radio in the United States that the queen of England's last corky dog just passed away from a generation of 15 of them that she had. Is this national news in the UK also ?

Steve W. said...

I have heard nothing about it at all in the British media. Clearly, these people don't have a clue as to what constitutes a major global news story.