2000 AD - November 1984.

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

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Do you know it's Christmas?

Of course you do. You're a wise and erudite person who stays in touch with the latest developments.

However, in November 1984, there were those who weren't convinced that everyone was cognisant of the fact.

And those people were the assembled hordes brought into the studio to record that year's big Yuletide hit.

That hit was, of course, recorded by Band Aid and I suspect that, from this post's woefully clunking introduction, you've already guessed what it was called. Recorded to raise money to combat the famine in Ethiopia and featuring all our favourite singers - and Bono - it would go on to be released on December the 3rd and sell squintillizillions of copies.

Also released that month, were a bevy of movies; among them, The Killing Fields, A Nightmare on Elm Street and a cult favourite of mine Night of the Comet.

However, for fans of comic books, there was only one film to buy a ticket for.

And that was Supergirl, starring Helen Slater as the Maid of Might. Many have slaughtered the film for being total cobblers but some of us would argue it does a pretty good job of capturing the feel of the comic, even though, tragically, at no point does Comet the superhorse show up.

On the UK singles chart, I Feel for You by Chaka Khan held dominance for almost the entire month, before being toppled by Jim Diamond's I Should Have Known Better which is a single I shall be happy to never hear again.

I was also not totally sold on Frankie Goes to Hollywood's Welcome to The Pleasuredome which crashed onto the UK album chart at Number One. The singles were classics but, for some of us, the LP had a distinct air of the cynical cash grab about it. Surprisingly, it only held on to the top spot for one week before being deposed by Wham!'s Make It Big which, itself, was then dethroned by Various Artists' The Hits Album. Various Artists were having a hell of a year and seemed to be topping the chart on a regular basis, with the public never growing tired of them, no matter how many records they released.

But what of the galaxy's greatest comic?

It was still giving us the now-familiar thrill-power of Judge Dredd, Nemesis the Warlock, Ace Trucking Co, The Hell Trekkers, Rogue Trooper and, inevitably, Tharg's Future-Shocks.

But perhaps the development that most caught the eye was Prog 393's long-awaited return of the Stainless Steel Rat, in a serial titled The Stainless Steel Rat For President. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that it involves the Stainless Steel Rat running for president.