Sunday 17 June 2018

2000 AD - May 1980.

This is going to be the worst ever instalment that even this feature has ever seen, as I must confess I don't have a clue what happens in this month's issues of 2000 AD, and the covers give few hints, other than that Judge Dredd is still in search of the Judge Child.

Frankly, I'd give up if I were him. It all looks like far too much inconvenience to go through.

But, as regards the rest of the contents, what happened to the good old days when 2000 AD covers featured great hordes of captions that I could comment upon?

Obviously, they're gone.

However, that aside, there is one huge great big thing that leaps out at us about May 1980.

And that's that there were only two issues of the galaxy's greatest comic published that month.

Why was this? Was there industrial action? Did IPC run out of paper? Did they run out of ink? Did they run out of artists? Did they just decide to experiment with  a radical new schedule that involved the comic randomly disappearing from the newsagents for weeks on end?

Whatever the reason, it means there are only two covers available for me to post. So, here they are...

2000 AD Prog 163, Judge Dredd

2000 AD Prog 164, Judge Dredd

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Meet the alien boss, same as the old boss!
Yes Steve, those were still the days before everyone started surrendering to the "free market" and the missing progs were indeed the result of industrial action at IPC in May 1980. If you're interested, you can find out more at
www.thrillpoweroverload.blogspot.com/2006/08/getting-good-groove-going.html
Of course, David Bishop was himself management at Tharg's organ later, so its worth reading through to the comment which questions some of his details.

Good to see the most militant part of the workforce at IPC was the 2000AD lot. Bravo comrades Mills and Wagner!
Workers of the galaxy unite - you have nothing to lose but your thrillsuckers!

-sean

Steve W. said...

Thanks for the info and the link, Sean.