2000 AD - September 1982.

Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon.

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Has there ever been a more emotional month than September 1982?

No, there hasn't.

And the reason for that is it was the month in which someone called Scott Fahlman posted the first-ever emoticons.

Exactly where he posted them - and why - I've no idea. Nor do I have a clue who he was or where he was, but where would the world of the internet be without the ability to post things like 😐, 😭 and👽?

Nowhere. That's where.

The sharp-eyed will have noted that one of those emoticons was an alien.

And that's no coincidence because September 1982 also saw the launch of the organisation known as the United States Air Force Space Command. I don't have any knowledge of what that was but it sounds like something that'd give Space Force a run for its money and make sure those pesky UFOnauts had better watch out.

On the film front, the month saw the release of two movies which attract the attention of the supreme being who runs this blog.

Those are Pink Floyd – The Wall and Amityville II: The Possession. I must confess I've only ever seen the latter of those two movies but have always been frustrated that it never occurred to the producers to call it Amityville II: The Repossession. Could those people not see an open goal when it opened up in front of them?

When it came to music, that month's UK singles chart was dominated by Survivor's Eye of the Tiger although that track was finally dumped from the top slot, in the month's very last week, by Musical Youth and Pass the Dutchie.

It was a similar tale on the UK album chart where Kids from Fame by the Kids from Fame spent nearly the whole month at Number One before being dethroned, right at the death, by Dire Straits' Love Over Gold, giving that band their fourth consecutive multi-platinum selling album.

But what of Tharg and his cast of intergalactic misfits? What were they up to while all this was going on?

Inside the books, we were still getting Robo-Hunter, Judge Dredd, Ace Trucking, The Mean Arena, Rogue Trooper and Tharg's Future Shocks. It would seem Dredd was on the trail of Fink Angel but the Judge Child was causing all kinds of trouble.

Amazingly, the front covers were still going on about the Fruit Gum Mystery. Never has fruit gum mysteriousness been dragged out for so long.

The front of Prog 283, meanwhile, was promising us the chance to see Tharg as we've never seen him before, thanks to something called, "The Shedding." Frankly, the mind boggles.