Cameos in early progs

[Steve Green]

Man
Activated by
Compu
Hipster-power?

[rogue69]

there is quite a few cameos in the RoboHunter story Football crazy including Jimmy Hill, Elton John Kevin Keegan, Ray Wilkins & other famous English & Italian footballers. Also in the story Play it again Sam you Have Margret Thatcher  & Oswald Mosley

[edgeworthy]

Depending on how early?

How about all the talk show hosts who interviewed Walter the Robot in "The Day the Law Died"

[positronic]

There is the "Christmas Party" story in DAN DARE ANNUAL 1980, which has a whole slew of cameos. I guess you could file this under a "crossover story", but the party (taking place on Xmas 2099, while Dredd is still serving as a Luna City Judge-Marshal) included a mob scene with Bill Savage, Dan Dare, Digby, The Gronk, Hammer-Stein, Johnny Alpha, Mach Zero, The Mekon, Mek-Quake, Mr. Ten Percent (Howard Quartz), Ro-Jaws, Sam Slade, Starlord, Tharg, Walter the Wobot, and Wulf Sternhammer (and I might have missed a couple), so most of them get little to do in the actual story.

Notably, Ro-Jaws offers Judge Dredd a drink, neglecting to tell him first that it's a vintage grade of oil, and Dredd spits it out in disgust, only to be offered another drink by Tharg, "a special Thargian recipe" made from old tyres and a secret ingredient (also explained too late, after Dredd spits it out). Mek-Quake chucks Dan Dare across the room before apologizing and admitting he loves reading his adventures (it's already established in "The Terra-Meks" that Mek-Quake collects old war comics, and has almost completed his collection of Sgt. Rock). And Wulf (playing what looks like some sort of electronic bagpipes) and Johnny sing their rendition of "Home on the Moon" (to the tune of "Home on the Range).

A "Mills Script-Droid" (drawn to resemble Pat Mills) gets beaten up by Mach Zero, while Ro-Jaws trashes an otherwise unidentified Art-Droid (whom I'm sure by the cannister-like design bears no resemblance to story artist Keith Page), and a Lettering-Droid likewise gets assaulted. Oddly, the story has no writing credits or lettering credits in reprint. Also making a cameo appearance at the end is O'Gosnell (another Luna City Marshal (after Dredd is forced to turn himself in for arrest to for disturbing the peace on Xmas).

[Lobo Baggins]

a mob scene with Bill Savage

That's not Bill Savage, that's James Blocker from Timequake.  The woman dancing with Sam Slade is Ardeni Lakam from  Mind Wars, who's actually wearing more clothes than she usually does.

[positronic]

a mob scene with Bill Savage

That's not Bill Savage, that's James Blocker from Timequake.  The woman dancing with Sam Slade is Ardeni Lakam from  Mind Wars, who's actually wearing more clothes than she usually does.

Thanks. Some of these characters look pretty off-model as drawn by Keith Page, whose work I was totally unfamiliar with. There are some real head-scratchers in there as to what they might have been thinking (like why would Wulf Sternhammer, a Viking, be playing what amounts to the 22nd Century equivalent of a traditional Scottish highland instrument?) 

I was also unfamiliar with both Timequake and Mind Wars (have they ever been reprinted? ... or is that for the best?) so I knew I missed the woman. There were also a couple of alien critters in there I was unable to identify. Some of the cameos are so stuck in the background (like Digby) that they were hard to pick out.

The appearance of the "Mills Script-Droid" leads me to think Pat was the perpetrator here, but I could see where he might understandably not want to be "credited" (or blamed) for it in retrospect.

[sheridan]

a mob scene with Bill Savage

That's not Bill Savage, that's James Blocker from Timequake.  The woman dancing with Sam Slade is Ardeni Lakam from  Mind Wars, who's actually wearing more clothes than she usually does.

Thanks. Some of these characters look pretty off-model as drawn by Keith Page, whose work I was totally unfamiliar with. There are some real head-scratchers in there as to what they might have been thinking (like why would Wulf Sternhammer, a Viking, be playing what amounts to the 22nd Century equivalent of a traditional Scottish highland instrument?) 

Because the Christmas season (especially New Years) are particularly associated with Scotland?

I was also unfamiliar with both Timequake and Mind Wars (have they ever been reprinted? ... or is that for the best?)

I love Mind Wars and think it is some of Jesus Redondo's finest work.  At the 40th he made it clear (via his translator) that it's the story he's proudest of working on.  I hope it gets a wider audience with the Treasury of British Comics.  Timequake has its moments, and is good if you like 'what if Aztecs took the place of the Roman empire' or 'the Nazis won the second world war' stories.

so I knew I missed the woman. There were also a couple of alien critters in there I was unable to identify. Some of the cameos are so stuck in the background (like Digby) that they were hard to pick out.

I'm not sure Digby had even appeared in 2000AD, unless in part of a single panel flashback somewhere, so that's on odd inclusion.

[SpaceSpinner2000]

We just covered the holiday party on our podcast! It's really weird piece of inside baseball imo. It's especially odd because it seems to be so old, Dredd being on Luna and the Starlord gang seems to put it as x-mas '77, but it was in the 1980 Dan Dare annual (released in September 79), and the labor dispute it seems to be satirizing was at the end of '78 (where there was only one Prog released in the whole month).

I think there are only two or three Digby appearances in the progs, he has a cameo in a Captain Klep page, and then shows up during the final Dan Dare story (Servant of Evil) when things come up relating to Dan's lost memories. Also in the 1979 Dan Dare Annual (released in '78) there's a story linking classic Dan Dare to 2000AD Dan Dare, which involves Digby being injured by the Mekon.

[Lobo Baggins]

Oddly, the story has no writing credits or lettering credits in reprint.

Dredd's uncharacteristic ejaculation of 'What the Kronj?' point to it being by Jack Adrian.

[Lobo Baggins]

We just covered the holiday party on our podcast! It's really weird piece of inside baseball imo. It's especially odd because it seems to be so old, Dredd being on Luna and the Starlord gang seems to put it as x-mas '77, but it was in the 1980 Dan Dare annual (released in September 79), and the labor dispute it seems to be satirizing was at the end of '78 (where there was only one Prog released in the whole month).

Yeah, I seem to recall that there was a rule at IPC that once artwork had been bought and paid for it had to be used at some point or other - I suspect that this one had been hanging around in a drawer for quite a while before they found an obscure enough spot for it.  That's also why there's things like Death Bug in the first annual - this was in the mock-up 'prog 0', but didn't make it into the true line-up.  There has also been speculation that the Doctor Sin story was originally named 'Judge Dread' as it doesn't appear to be an actual reprint.  I've also always had the distinct impression that Colony Earth was something left over from Lion or something (it has a ship in it called the HMS Lion) - it reads like a story from a different era, anyway.

[TordelBack]

Yeah, I seem to recall that there was a rule at IPC that once artwork had been bought and paid for it had to be used at some point or other -

In TMO McManus recounts having to make a written commitment to this effect when he was caught stockpiling enough art from the slow-movers like Bolland to do unbroken runs of a particular story,  and how annuals were a way of abiding by the letter of the law and using up the leftovers, effectively hidden in the larger page counts of a one-off parent-buy (while lamenting the decline of the Fleetway annual).