a 2000AD question

[Mister Six]

I was talking to a pal of mine about the 2000AD comics, and in particular how its writers have to work incredibly hard to boil stories (standalone or serialised) into six or seven-page chapters.

He's interested to see some examples, so... do any of you know the prog numbers for some choice standalone (eg. Future Shocks) and serialised stories? Ideally from yer Alan Moores, Grant Morrisons, Pat Millses and other notable folks. I'll dig 'em up on That Site and send them over to him... I'd like to present a bit of a mix, which is why I'm not just throwing a D.R. and Quinch collection at him.

[13 schoolyards]

There's been a couple of collections just of Alan Moore's future shocks, which would probably be a better guide than hunting down the individual progs for his stuff.

Otherwise my advice would be to just throw a whole bunch of progs from, say between 100 and 520 at him? You'll have a pretty good strike rate across the board there and if he likes anything in particular that'll encourage him to keep reading, which will introduce him to more stories, and so on.

Possibly a good starting point is with the first book of Nemesis the Warlock, which is prog 222, though you might want to throw in the lead in stories, which are in progs 167 and 178-179. Dredd is pretty much firing on all cylinders in this period and a lot of them are one-offs or shorter stories so that's another way in, and if they start with 222 they're not fair off Block Mania, which leads into The Apocalypse War and is one of the best Dredd stories of all time (if not really a typical Dredd story).

(or you can just look up whatever stories interest you on Barney, which is the 2000D database - this is the Nemesis listing: https://www.2000ad.org/?zone=thrill&page=profiles&Comic=2000AD&choice=NEMESIS)

To be fair, I'm suggesting that approach because that's how I got into 2000AD - I started reading almost at random (it was with prog 393, which is around when the Dredd epic City of the Damned started) and then went backwards as well as forwards to get caught up

[Wentworth Smith]

There's a recent Best of 2000AD series which seems pretty good. The first had some Dredd, Halo Jones, and the more recent Brink.

[Norton Canes]

First standalone story that springs to mind is John Smith, Edmund Bagwell and Ellie de Ville's incredible urban horror tale Cradlegrave. Far from typical 2000 AD fare (if such a thing exists) but unmissable.

Appeared in progs 1633 to 1644 (2009), also collected as a trade paperback

[Wentworth Smith]

Yes! One of the best things to have ever appeared in the prog. Might be the only horror comic I've ever read that is genuinely unsettling, real under your skin repulsion. Has the feeling of an early Cronenburg but set in a council estate.

[Mister Six]

Ooh fucking hell that does look good.

Possibly a good starting point is with the first book of Nemesis the Warlock, which is prog 222, though you might want to throw in the lead in stories, which are in progs 167 and 178-179. Dredd is pretty much firing on all cylinders in this period and a lot of them are one-offs or shorter stories so that's another way in, and if they start with 222 they're not fair off Block Mania, which leads into The Apocalypse War and is one of the best Dredd stories of all time (if not really a typical Dredd story).

Cheers, I'll try the Nemesis one, and check out that site for other ideas.

[Norton Canes]

Yes! One of the best things to have ever appeared in the prog. Might be the only horror comic I've ever read that is genuinely unsettling, real under your skin repulsion. Has the feeling of an early Cronenburg but set in a council estate

Didn't read it at the time is first appeared (which was during my 27-year proglapse) but was fortunate enough to get the whole story in a couple of dozen back progs I recently bought for a few pounds in Oxfam

[Mister Six]

my 27-year proglapse

Didn't realise NHS waiting lists were that bad.

BTW I don't know if it's much like CradleGrave, but if you like comics about scary council estates, check out Sink.

[Gladys]

Yes! One of the best things to have ever appeared in the prog. Might be the only horror comic I've ever read that is genuinely unsettling, real under your skin repulsion. Has the feeling of an early Cronenburg but set in a council estate.

John Smith also wrote probably my all time favourite Hellblazer issue. Very unsettling. I also missed Cradlegrave when it first appeared as i'd long stopped reading 2000AD by then but he'd always been one of my very favourite writers. His Straitgate in Crisis is one of my favourite strips from back then and some of the later Devlin Waugh stuff is amazing (Chasing Herod etc). I'd recommend his Indigo Prime: Killing Time as a great serialised story. Beautiful Chris Weston art as well.

[Gladys]

BTW I don't know if it's much like CradleGrave, but if you like comics about scary council estates, check out Sink.

Adding to the scary council estate comics - i'd recommend Klaxon by Dix and Si Spencer.

[13 schoolyards]

Cradlegrave is not quite typical Smith, but everything Smith has written is well worth it. He was pretty much the only writer that kept the prog worth reading in the early 90s, and the way he was given the heave-ho from the prog more recently, while understandable (he vanished after a bereavement while half way through a story, and when he returned a year or more later he discovered Tharg had given it to someone else to finish off) is still a massive shame. So definitely a name to look out for.

If you want something else really good that's not really usual 2000AD fare, I can recommend John Wagner's "game of death" style thriller Button Man, which has been collected a few times and I think is currently available in a omnibus collecting books 1-3 (4 is still good, but is inessential and drawn by someone who's good but not Arthur Ranson good)

[Ron Maels Moustache]

Judge Dredd- "America" (Judge Dredd Megazine 1.01 to 1.07)
There's a good reason this keeps getting reprinted, not least Colin MacNeil's incredible art. Essentially John Wagner's thesis statement for what Dredd is really all about, making text what had previously been mostly sub since the character's inception. It's usually reprinted with it's sequels but the original works perfectly as a standalone.

Nikolai Dante - "The Great Game" (Progs 1101 - 1110)
The character/world of Dante was well established by this point, but this is arguably where it goes from being good to great. Whenever I do a re-read I always think, "Yep, this is the one where it really starts."

The Order - "The Order" (Progs 1912 - 1922)
The first and IMO the best entry in this series, a great high concept fantasy/historical full of weirdness and memorable characters, with art by the legendary John Burns.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I was talking to a pal of mine about the 2000AD comics, and in particular how its writers have to work incredibly hard to boil stories (standalone or serialised) into six or seven-page chapters.

He's interested to see some examples, so... do any of you know the prog numbers for some choice standalone (eg. Future Shocks) and serialised stories? Ideally from yer Alan Moores, Grant Morrisons, Pat Millses and other notable folks. I'll dig 'em up on That Site and send them over to him... I'd like to present a bit of a mix, which is why I'm not just throwing a D.R. and Quinch collection at him.

For Morrison it has to be Zenith book 1, which (discounting Dredd) ties with Pat Mills' Nemesis The Warlock as my all time favourite 2000AD series.

The comic I've written is a homage to Wagner and Grant's Doomlord and so is divided in to five 5 page chapters (and one 8 page finale), I really liked the challenge of telling the story that way and having a cliffhanger every five pages, but then it is very tongue in cheek and not a serious comic at all.

[Wentworth Smith]

British comics greatest achievement is the panel of Doomlord atomising the crap comedian on a chat show.

[Norton Canes]

Of course if you want to discover the real connoisseur's self-contained 2000 AD stories you have to go back... right back, to masterpieces like The Visible Man, Shako, Return to Armageddon, Meltdown Man, Colony Earth, Death Planet... Angel...

[Brundle-Fly]

Of course if you want to discover the real connoisseur's self-contained 2000 AD stories you have to go back... right back, to masterpieces like The Visible Man, Shako, Return to Armageddon, Meltdown Man, Colony Earth, Death Planet... Angel...

Good calls. I'll add Peter Milligan and Massimo Belardinelli's The Dead

[13 schoolyards]

Seconded ("second-dead") for The Dead. Sooner or Later is another Milligan (with McCarthy) classic, I always wondered why 2000AD didn't do more one page strips but I guess it doesn't work out financially.

A lot of the hardcore fans don't have much love for the Morrison / Millar Summer Offensive (which begins in #842), but John Smith's take on the venerable 2000AD genre of death sports in Slaughter Bowl is a great little done-in-one story. Maybe the last death sport story in the prog, though that can't be right.

The Summer Offensive also gave us Big Dave, which is very much, uh, of its time (but as someone who read it during its time, it's by far the best thing in 2000AD with Millar's name on it)

[Head Gardener]

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