I like ‘2000AD’ and the ‘Judge Dredd Megazine’, I really do. For all their occasional patchiness, they have something to offer that other comics don’t, a certain sensibility that you can’t readily find elsewhere.

But it can be hard to love something that’s so, so in love with itself. And, oh my, ‘2000AD’ and its monthly stablemate don’t hesitate to love themselves, often at the expense of their perceived rivals.

It’s unbecoming, it’s embarrassing, and they should really rein it in. By all means, keep the boasts about thrillpower and the galaxy’s greatest and all that alien hucksterism. But spare us the barbed, chippy comments about how much braver and bolder you are than [insert name of more popular thing here]. And for Grud’s sake, don’t give us actual articles built around your own inflated self importance.

The last straw, and the inspiration for this little ramble, was an article in the latest ‘Megazine’ about US superhero comics, and how Marvel and DC have become increasingly reliant on events and crossovers. It’s just the latest in a series of text pieces in the ‘Megazine’ over the last few years that have tried to translate the worldview of the comic strips into factual articles. Some of these have been good – histories of British comics, interviews with key creators. But others have been ill-advised attempts to write as if, say, Strontium Dog was reviewing the latest movies, which is a pretty horrible prospect. Others, like this month’s piece by Michael Molcher, have been rather blatant attempts to view the world of comics through a ‘2000AD’-centric lens, portraying all others as bland midgets in a tired plateau of mediocrity, through which the two old British SF titles stride like a creative colossus.

Now, you won’t find me complaining about a lot of the actual points made in Molcher’s article, so uncontroversial and oft-made are they – event fatigue, shock tactics, too many deaths and resurrections, aging audience, blah blah.

The problem is that these snipes are in the pages of the ‘Megazine’, a spin-off from ‘2000AD’, and together those two comics represent pretty much every vice of self-indulgence that blights American superhero comics, but ossified into a tiny British niche.

Old characters and repeated themes? Check, the status quo of Mega City One may shift now and again but the basics of Dredd’s world were the same as it ever was. Shrinking, aging audience? You don’t get much more hardcore than the ‘tooth’ readership, and the comics are so far from reaching a young audience that the levels of nudity and gore have slid steadily up as inevitably as the hope of a renewing, younger audience has slipped out of the publications’ grasp. Shock tactics that backfire? Well, Johnny Alpha may never have returned from the dead, but they have gone back and crowbarred a series of new stories into his past.

Here’s the thing: print media in general is beleaguered and declining, and comics doubly so. Leaning on an older, smaller and obsessive readership to replace the self-refreshing audience of kids that used to be the main readership for comics is a reality on both sides of the Atlantic. It’s easy to take the piss out of the way DC and Marvel pander to balding fanboys, but it’s frankly unbecoming when you’re the withered, last man standing on UK shelves where the only comics actually bought by kids are licensed titles or ‘lifestyle’ versions of old mainstays that are light on text and actual comic strips and very heavy on free gifts.

‘2000AD’ has been going for thirty-odd years, the ‘Megazine’ for a good long run in its own right. That they are still going after the UK comics scene is pretty much dead and buried is an achievement, and one to be proud of. But these comics are old warhorses now, reliant on long term fans and old staples. Swaggering around pretending to be the young innovator, jeering at ‘rivals’ across the pond who are dealing with the same problems, but are actually putting out twenty times the titles you are, is just embarrassing.

So cut it out Tharg, you silly green sod, and stop throwing stones in the tiny, fragile, house of comics.