This will probably prove to be even more irregularly updated than the TMNT thread, but I thought it might be fun to do once in a while.
The Earth Year was 1977. Some film called Star Wars was a mere few months away from arriving in cinemas. kick-starting a sci-fi craze the likes of which the world had never seen. Betelgeusian entrepreneur Tharg The Mighty correctly saw this as an opportune moment to descend upon our planet bringing with him THE FUTURE! Operating from his spaceship cunningly disguised as the London headquarters of IPC Publishing Ltd, Tharg would dispense pure unadulterated THRILL-POWER to the Earthlets of the United Kingdom in the form of a weekly publication, the self-proclaimed Galaxy's Greatest Comic, 2000 A.D.!
I don't think it's too much of an exaggeration to say the impact of 2000AD on the staid British comics industry was not unlike that of punk on the music industry around the same time. It had an innately anarchistic, anti-authoritarian quality to it (largely thanks to original editor and creator Pat Mills) and continually pushed against the boundaries of what could be allowed in a boys action comic of the time. An earlier Mills-created effort, the ill-fated Action, had fallen foul of the moral outrage brigade for daring to show realistic violence in every day, down-to-earth settings, and indeed the initial publication of 2000AD saw similar attacks from the right-wing press and it's mouthpieces, but the fact that it was science fiction gave the publishers an instant rebuttal, because, well, you can't really call it "realistic" violence if it's happening on an alien planet or thousands of years in the future, can you?
That's not to say it completely hit the ground running, there was a fair share of ropey material throughout the early years before the comic found it's footing, and Mills' ongoing battles with management to stop his vision getting watered down were legendary, but there's plenty of interest even in these first faltering steps.
From what was initially expected to have run of maybe six months before getting folded into another title(as was the fate of most similar comics of the time), 2000AD has had an unprecedented 46 year run, outliving every one of it's competitors of the time. It's a testament to the strength of the original concept that a loyal readership has stuck by it through thick and thin, and that it continues to publish high quality content from some the best talent in the comics industry (and also thanks to current publishers Rebellion who recognised the value of it as a property and saved the title from cancellation at the turn of the Millennium)..
But anyway...we're going to look at where it all started. Programme 1 (shortened to Prog for subsequent issues), published 26th February 1977.
The first ever cover has a somewhat odd layout to modern eyes, largely because it's missing a key element, a free gift used to promote the launch issue (standard practice with British comics of the time to hook new readers in). In this case, a Thargian Space Spinner (basically a mini-frisbee). Here is what it looks like with Spinner included:
If we squint hard enough we can just about make out the tiny form of a peculiarly simian countenance, imploring the readers (addressed as "Earthlets") to "enjoy [their] Space Spinners!"
This is of course none other than Tharg The Mighty himself making his first appearance in the comic(depicted here by none other than future comics legend Kevin O'Neill, then employed as an art assistant), but the Earthlets would not learn of his identity and mission for another 18 pages. Tharg is nothing if not a master of suspense.
Scattered around the edge's of the Spinner's circumference are strident declarations of what the reader can expect encounter in this bold new world of the future. First of all, placed prominently by the masthead is what was assumed at the time to be the title's MVP, a dramatically revised version of fifties comics icon DAN DARE. However, this radically altered Dare proved to be not all that popular despite several attempts to tweak the formula to something more conventional, and was eventually put on indefinite hiatus with an overly-optimistic caption promising "Dan Dare will return!" He never has.
It wasn't long before another contender would unexpectedly rise over Dare to take the lead as the comic's star character, name escapes me at the moment but I'm sure it'll come back to me.... Joe something?
Travelling clockwise around the spiral, we next encounter a somewhat alarming corner caption announcing "STOP PRESS! GREAT BRITAIN INVADED!" but providing no further details. This is in fact a teaser for INVASION!, the first story readers will encounter upon turning to page 3. Invasion! takes place in the at-this-point impossibly distant future of 1999, in which Great Britain has been invaded and conquered by Rus-sorry, VOLGAN forces. Originally it was going to be a straight-up Russian invasion story but the publishers got jittery, prompting a last-minute name change).
Continuing our journey strapline "SPACE-AGE DINOSAURS! READ 'FLESH'". This is somewhat misleading - it would be more accurate to call them "Dinosaur-Age Dinosaurs", as FLESH is a time-travel story concerning hunters from the future travelling back in time to hunt dinosaurs herds for their meat, which is then transported back to the present/future to feed a starving population.
Finally, we come to M.A.C.H - 1 - and if you haven't guessed from the illustration that bares more than a cursory resemblance to Lee Majors in his 70s prime, this is 2000AD's answer to the Six Million Dollar Man. Except in this case it's British Secret Service agent John Probe, the first Man to be Activated by Compu-Puncture Hyperpower!! One thing 2000AD was very big on was taking things that were extremely popular at the time and "adapting" them - shameless rip-offs in other words. Probably none more blatantly than in this case.
So crammed is this cover with the promise of THRILL-POWER that they haven't even found room to include the fifth story (2000AD usually has five stories on the go per issue, and in the early days they even crammed in a sixth, which is quite impressive for a 30 page comic) in this line-up, HARLEM HEROES. The "Future Sports" saga is often recurring trope in the first decade or so of the title, essentially taking the tried and tested format of the standard sports comic (think Roy Of The Rovers) in which the story would follow the up-and-downs of a struggling underdog team, but with a sci-fi twist. In this case the twist is basically "What if the Harlem Globetrotters had jetpacks?"
Please join me next time as we will find out the answer to this and many more(some) questions as we delve into the pages of Prog. 1.
Farewell, or as we aliens say, SPLUNDIG VUR THRIGG!
The Earth Year was 1977. Some film called Star Wars was a mere few months away from arriving in cinemas. kick-starting a sci-fi craze the likes of which the world had never seen. Betelgeusian entrepreneur Tharg The Mighty correctly saw this as an opportune moment to descend upon our planet bringing with him THE FUTURE! Operating from his spaceship cunningly disguised as the London headquarters of IPC Publishing Ltd, Tharg would dispense pure unadulterated THRILL-POWER to the Earthlets of the United Kingdom in the form of a weekly publication, the self-proclaimed Galaxy's Greatest Comic, 2000 A.D.!
That's not to say it completely hit the ground running, there was a fair share of ropey material throughout the early years before the comic found it's footing, and Mills' ongoing battles with management to stop his vision getting watered down were legendary, but there's plenty of interest even in these first faltering steps.
From what was initially expected to have run of maybe six months before getting folded into another title(as was the fate of most similar comics of the time), 2000AD has had an unprecedented 46 year run, outliving every one of it's competitors of the time. It's a testament to the strength of the original concept that a loyal readership has stuck by it through thick and thin, and that it continues to publish high quality content from some the best talent in the comics industry (and also thanks to current publishers Rebellion who recognised the value of it as a property and saved the title from cancellation at the turn of the Millennium)..
But anyway...we're going to look at where it all started. Programme 1 (shortened to Prog for subsequent issues), published 26th February 1977.
The first ever cover has a somewhat odd layout to modern eyes, largely because it's missing a key element, a free gift used to promote the launch issue (standard practice with British comics of the time to hook new readers in). In this case, a Thargian Space Spinner (basically a mini-frisbee). Here is what it looks like with Spinner included:
If we squint hard enough we can just about make out the tiny form of a peculiarly simian countenance, imploring the readers (addressed as "Earthlets") to "enjoy [their] Space Spinners!"
This is of course none other than Tharg The Mighty himself making his first appearance in the comic(depicted here by none other than future comics legend Kevin O'Neill, then employed as an art assistant), but the Earthlets would not learn of his identity and mission for another 18 pages. Tharg is nothing if not a master of suspense.
Scattered around the edge's of the Spinner's circumference are strident declarations of what the reader can expect encounter in this bold new world of the future. First of all, placed prominently by the masthead is what was assumed at the time to be the title's MVP, a dramatically revised version of fifties comics icon DAN DARE. However, this radically altered Dare proved to be not all that popular despite several attempts to tweak the formula to something more conventional, and was eventually put on indefinite hiatus with an overly-optimistic caption promising "Dan Dare will return!" He never has.
It wasn't long before another contender would unexpectedly rise over Dare to take the lead as the comic's star character, name escapes me at the moment but I'm sure it'll come back to me.... Joe something?
Travelling clockwise around the spiral, we next encounter a somewhat alarming corner caption announcing "STOP PRESS! GREAT BRITAIN INVADED!" but providing no further details. This is in fact a teaser for INVASION!, the first story readers will encounter upon turning to page 3. Invasion! takes place in the at-this-point impossibly distant future of 1999, in which Great Britain has been invaded and conquered by Rus-sorry, VOLGAN forces. Originally it was going to be a straight-up Russian invasion story but the publishers got jittery, prompting a last-minute name change).
Continuing our journey strapline "SPACE-AGE DINOSAURS! READ 'FLESH'". This is somewhat misleading - it would be more accurate to call them "Dinosaur-Age Dinosaurs", as FLESH is a time-travel story concerning hunters from the future travelling back in time to hunt dinosaurs herds for their meat, which is then transported back to the present/future to feed a starving population.
Finally, we come to M.A.C.H - 1 - and if you haven't guessed from the illustration that bares more than a cursory resemblance to Lee Majors in his 70s prime, this is 2000AD's answer to the Six Million Dollar Man. Except in this case it's British Secret Service agent John Probe, the first Man to be Activated by Compu-Puncture Hyperpower!! One thing 2000AD was very big on was taking things that were extremely popular at the time and "adapting" them - shameless rip-offs in other words. Probably none more blatantly than in this case.
So crammed is this cover with the promise of THRILL-POWER that they haven't even found room to include the fifth story (2000AD usually has five stories on the go per issue, and in the early days they even crammed in a sixth, which is quite impressive for a 30 page comic) in this line-up, HARLEM HEROES. The "Future Sports" saga is often recurring trope in the first decade or so of the title, essentially taking the tried and tested format of the standard sports comic (think Roy Of The Rovers) in which the story would follow the up-and-downs of a struggling underdog team, but with a sci-fi twist. In this case the twist is basically "What if the Harlem Globetrotters had jetpacks?"
Please join me next time as we will find out the answer to this and many more(some) questions as we delve into the pages of Prog. 1.
Farewell, or as we aliens say, SPLUNDIG VUR THRIGG!
