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Saying hello, and blethering about my Prog relationship

Started by Blue Cactus, 17 February, 2018, 01:26:17 PM

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Blue Cactus

Hello all, I've been skulking around the board for a few years and decided it was time to take the plunge and sign up. Here begins my history with the prog.

My first issue was the Best of 2000ad Monthly number 8, featuring Nemesis book 1 and an astonishingly grotesque O'Neill cover which disturbed my Nana. Checking the dates, this was 1986, so I would have been six years old and travelling down to Ayr for the Easter holidays. The issue starts a few episodes into the story with Nemesis in full-on action mode, and the battle with Torquemada switching corpses was mind blowing. This issue also contained my first Dredd story, The Invisible Man, not to mention the first episode of DR and Quinch and a Werewolves in space Future Shock. That summer my mum and I travelled down to Ayr again and this time I got Best of number 12, featuring Bolland's Dark Judges and some Robo-Hunter. Awesome stuff. For most of the 80s I would pick up the monthly every now and then, but equally significant was the fateful day my Mum's friend visited, I would be in about Primary 3 or 4, and she dropped off a bin bag full of weeklies. Having had a look, this treasure trove contained issues 297-301 and a whopping run from 393-495, plus about eight Tooth and Dredd annuals. You'll all know what was in those issues, so between those and a few monthlies a year, I was in comics heaven. Having said that, the thought never occurred to me to actually get 2000ad weekly, because I was similarly obsessed with the Transformers UK comic, and later on the Fleetway Batman reprints featuring all the Grant/Breyfogle stuff.

Fastforward to 1993. I hadn't thought about 2000ad much for several years when I spotted another Best Of in John Menzies news agent. Was that really Hammerstein on the cover?? Was 2000ad really still around??? I was hit by about a thousand memories of characters and stories. The issue was 103, featuring The Black Hole, and needless to say that Bisley art (and the very fact that the ABC Warriors were still going) absolutely blew my mind (sorry SMS – I appreciate your stuff now!). Not long after I discovered the weekly was still going, and without a second thought I started collecting that and the Best Of Monthly every issue. This was the first time I had really become aware of writer and artist credits, so I began religiously pouring over all my old issues to figure out who had worked on what strip, who my favourite writers and artists were, etc, and just reading all the old stuff again.

Now, somewhat oddly, when I jumped back on board my first weekly issue was prog 883, April 1994. Hardly a high point in thrill power – McKenzie Dredd, THREE Millar stories (Grudge Father, Babe Race 2000, and Robo-Hunter), plus the Clown. The thing is, I was so excited that 2000ad was still going, and that characters I recognised were still having adventures, that the actual quality of some of the stories didn't make much impression on me. I'd never seen painted comic art before, so Robert Bliss's Clown and Simon Jacob's Robo-Hunter looked different and disturbing and wonderful to me. And the fact that the monthly was concurrently bringing me stuff like Ranson's Anderson, new (to me) Strontium Dog stories, Cinnabar, and characters I'd never seen before like Tyranny Rex, Zenith and Luke Kirby, meant I was absorbing new and older strips for the first time, all at once. Thrill power overload, indeed.

Dredd had never been my favourite as a kid – I thought it was unfair he was in every issue when my favourites were things like Nemesis, Slaine, Strontium Dog and Rogue Trooper. So it took me a little while to come round to properly liking Dredd. Wilderlands probably swung it for me, starting not too long after I'd returned – a good long Wagner story, and it got me buying the Megazine as well.

Since then I haven't missed an issue and I've filled most of the gaps too through graphic novels and reprints. There do remain a few stories I haven't read though... Mainly outliers from the 600s and 700s. I've read the odd episode here and there of things like Dead Meat and Junker, but I missed out on what many consider the nadir of the prog. Having said that, selfishly I'd be happy if the Meg floppy did reprint some of this stuff just so I can tick it off the list at no extra cost, but reprinting Trash and Moon Runners might not be a shrewd business decision!

Apologies if this was an overlong read, just my little love letter to the Prog. I'm often reminded of a Ryan Hughes ad that used to appear from time to time in the 90s that had a wee Tharg floating in space, his space suit connected to his ship by a tube, the 2000ad logo above and the simple word 'lifeline'. That sums up what 2000ad means to me.

Big_Dave

this man has porved
hes not a spambot!
makehim a memnber

Colin YNWA

Blethering about the Prog is always welcome around these parts and something I'm particularly fond of, so good introduction.

Welcome aboard.

SmallBlueThing(Reborn)

I have something in my eye.
Sob.
That has warmed the heart of my cockles this unpleasant day. That's is, and very much welcome aboard!
SBT

TordelBack

Quote from: Big_Dave on 17 February, 2018, 01:59:24 PM
this man has porved
hes not a spambot!
makehim a memnber

Nah,  pretty clear this poster is an algorithm designed to say all the things ageing prognards want to hear. 

But I'll take it.

Welcome,  Blue Cactus!

Blue Cactus

Thanks folks. I'll attempt to prove my non-botness over the coming weeks and months. Glad to have had a positive effect on your cockles, SmallBlueThing.

ZenArcade

"Nah,  pretty clear this poster is an algorithm designed to say all the things ageing prognards want to hear. 

But I'll take it.

Welcome,  Blue Cactus!"

Endorse the Tordel, good to see another Irish contributer....kidding, Dude. Z  ;)
Ed is dead, baby Ed is...Ed is dead