2000 AD - December 1982.

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

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History was made in December 1982 when ABBA gave their last-ever public performance, on the BBC's Late Late Breakfast Show.

Some of us can still remember watching it, and many have highlighted the band's clear awkwardness, while being interviewed by Noel Edmonds, as proof of the internal divisions within the band but, then again, I remember every interview Noel Edmonds ever did on that show being painfully awkward.

But it wasn't the only historical event going on, because, also in that month, we got a taste of the future, when Time magazine's Man of the Year award was, for the first time ever, given to a non-human.

That non-human was the computer.

Which computer, Wikipedia doesn't tell me, so I shall assume they meant every computer, even mine, which was rubbish. So, well done to my Commodore VIC-20 for winning Man of the Year.

Over in the cinemas, we were ignoring this technological threat to our award-winning chances and burying our faces in both popcorn and the following: 48 Hrs, Gandhi, Airplane II, The Dark Crystal and Tootsie. To be honest, I'm not too keen on any of those films but, if given a choice, I'd opt for Airplane II because I'm shallow.

Over on the UK singles chart, December launched with the Jam's final single Beat Surrender gripping the highest of the high ground. Could the recently defuncted band hold on and take the highly prestigious Christmas Number One spot?

No, they couldn't. For, just as it seemed they might triumph, they were pipped to it by Renée and Renato who snatched that prize from them with the genuinely ridiculous Save Your Love.

And, with that one move, the Christmas Number One spot suddenly became a whole lot less prestigious.

Things were far less silly on the British album chart where, serenely, The John Lennon Collection reigned supreme for the whole month. 

But what of the galaxy's greatest comic? Just how was it preparing for Christmas?

It was still giving us Robo-Hunter, Harry Twenty on the High Rock, Judge Dredd and Rogue Trooper, while Tharg's Future Shocks now seems to have been re-titled Tharg's Time Twisters.

Less typically, Prog 296 gave us a strip called Homer the Barbarian of which I know nothing, while Ace Trucking Co vanished after Prog 293.

And I see that Prog 293 promised us the chance to win a video game that would talk to us, and Prog 294 gave us a review of E.T.

What more could a man demand in life?