‘2000AD’ is in an odd position as the only ongoing original comic in the UK. As the last title standing from Britain’s once thriving weekly comic industry, ‘2000AD’ and its sister title, ‘The Judge Dredd Megazine’, often try to act like standard bearers for the nation, a reflection of British culture in a US dominated industry. However, as much at it would like to rally every Briton who reads comics to its cause, ‘2000AD’ is still very much a niche product that will always have a limited audience. ‘2000AD’ may not have superheroes, which lets it stand apart from most of the US mainstream, but its content is extremely narrow compared to the diversity of output from an American indie publisher like Oni Press or Drawn & Quarterly. If you like violent, adolescent and cynical SF and fantasy, then ‘2000AD’ is your thing. If you’re after something else, move along, creep.
This 1500th ‘prog’ demonstrates, for the most part, the best of what the title has to offer, and makes for a favourable sampler. The lead strip is, as always, ‘Judge Dredd’, beginning a new storyline this issue. ‘Dredd’ creator John Wagner is scripting, and is as reliable as ever, here teamed with artist Kev Walker, who also illustrated the best of Wagner’s recent ‘Dredd’ output, the atmospheric ‘Mandroid’. In the last few years Wagner’s ‘Dredd’ stories have focussed more and more on themes of family, with a more thoughtful approach than you might expect, and ‘The Connection’ continues this thread with Dredd experiencing dreams of his clone ‘father’, Judge Fargo. Balancing out such a potentially ponderous storyline is a characteristically topical terrorism plot, with a mutie sleeper cell sneaking into the city. It’s a steady but promising start.
Next up is the first of this issue’s new properties, ‘Malone’ by Cal Hamilton and Simon Coleby, which is also the issue’s token black and white strip. An SF noir, ‘Malone’ combines the genres well with some oddball moments and punchy dialogue. Coleby’s artwork is pleasingly, and appropriately, reminiscent of ‘100 Bullets’ artist Eduardo Risso, while being distinctive in its own right. The best thing in the issue, ‘Malone’ is instantly appealing.
Also pretty good, but not quite up there, is ‘Stone Island’, a contemporary prison drama with a supernatural twist, not unlike ‘Porridge’ rewritten by a young Clive Barker. Ian Edginton is one of the more reliable ‘2000AD’ writers, and his scripting is well paced and characterised, with more than enough intrigue to keep me reading. On the down side, I’ve never been a fan of Simon Davis’ painted artwork, although that could be because I’ve always seen it on dreadful strips like ‘Sinister Dexter’. Some pages of ‘Stone Island’, the opening sex/murder scene for one, showcase him at his atmospheric best, and Davis manages to inject some motion into a fight scene. However, a fondness for grotesquery lets him down, with characters gurning instead of expressing any readable emotion, and his splashy, murky art seems out of place in scenes which would benefit from being illustrated in a more clinical way – the supernatural isn’t a surprise when even mundane scenes look unreal.
Finally, the return of ‘Nikolai Dante’, appropriately titled ‘The Depths’. While I’ve enjoyed some of Robbie Morrison’s ‘Dredd’ fill-ins, and John Burns’ artwork has a kind of archaic charm, ‘Dante’ remains rubbish, a charmless swashbuckler that’s not funny, exciting or interesting. Quite why this exists when the far jollier and better executed strip ‘The Red Seas’ covers similar piratical ground, I’ve no idea.
Three out of four isn’t bad, certainly by recent ‘2000AD’ standards. With a couple of very promising new strips, and ‘Dredd’ leading up to Wagner’s much hyped story ‘Origins’, anyone who might ever fall for the very particular charms of this long-running oddity of a comic should give it a try now.
