2000 AD - August 1986.

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

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Pablo Picasso famously created a painting called Weeping Woman and, in August 1986, she had plenty to weep about.

That's because she was stolen.

I can give few details of the crime because the culprits were never apprehended but I do know that, just two weeks after vanishing, she was found in a locker at the Spencer Street Station in Melbourne, Australia. How she got there, I would struggle to tell you but it all sounds a rum do and no mistaking.

There were, however, works of art, that month, where there was no doubt at all where they could be found.

And that's because they were movies.

Which meant they could be found in movie cinemas.

August saw the release of a whole slew of the things, both celebrated and shunned but, amongst them were Flight of the Navigator, Friday the 13th Part VI, She's Gotta Have It, The Transformers: The Movie, The Fly, Manhunter, Night of the Creeps, Stand by Me, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 and legendary Madonna/Sean Penn flop Shanghai Surprise.

But, of course, what really mattered was the release of just one film. 

And that film was the one we'd been waiting all our lives for.

At last, the world got to know the thrill of being able to go to a picture house and see a movie dedicated to Howard the Duck!

To be honest, I feel it probably wasn't the best movie released that month. Or possibly any month. In fact, it'd probably struggle to be the best film released in a month in which it was the only film released.

Still, at least it tried

For my pick of the month, I suspect I'm going to have to go for Manhunter, even though it has nothing to do with a certain comic strip of the same name. However others may disagree with my choice. Especially as I know The Fly has its devotees.

And, amazingly, so does Chris de Burgh. Or at least he did back then. Despite being terminally unhip, he managed to spend a large chunk of that August at Number One on the UK singles chart, thanks to his track The Lady in Red, before subsiding before the challenge of Boris Gardiner's I Want to Wake Up With You.

On the accompanying album chart, just two LPs ruled the roost, that August. The first being Madonna's True Blue which was then forced to make way for the inevitable rise of Now That's What I Call Music! 7. Truly, there was no escaping from those albums, back then.

But what of the galaxy's greatest comic?

To the surprise of absolutely no one, it's still giving us Strontium Dog, Tharg's Future-Shocks, Judge Dredd, Ace Trucking Co, Sooner or Later and Nemesis the Warlock.

Surely worthy of mention is that Prog 484 features a Judge Dredd tale titled The Fists of Stan Lee in which the redoubtable upholder of the rule of law must battle a martial arts expert named in honour of "The Man" himself.

But the biggest news is that Prog 483 sees the start of the new series Metalzoic which has the distinction of being serialised and reprinted from the DC book of the same name, a 62-page graphic novel by Pat Mills and Kevin O'Neill with a cover by Bill Sienkiewicz. There's fancy for you.