2000 AD - The Ultimate Collection

[Colin YNWA]

Hilary Robinson's last prog credit was 699 - her work didn't make it into the era in question. (And whilst no-one is ever going to argue Chronos Carnival was anything other than a dud, I'd maintain most of her other work was good, sometimes great.)

She gets a bad press but I agree with Greg here.

[Frank]

Hilary Robinson's last prog credit was 699 - her work didn't make it into the era in question.

Millar and McKenzie contributed around 1000 pages each between 700-1000. That seems enough to put a dunt in reprint from that era.

[TordelBack]

Hilary Robinson's last prog credit was 699 - her work didn't make it into the era in question. (And whilst no-one is ever going to argue Chronos Carnival was anything other than a dud, I'd maintain most of her other work was good, sometimes great.)

She gets a bad press but I agree with Greg here.

Thirded.

A thousand pages of Millar 2000AD.  There's an image you don't want in your head as you wind down towards sleep...

[Frank]

... most of (Hilary Robinson's) work was good, sometimes great

I agree with Greg here.

Thirded. A thousand pages of Millar 2000AD.  There's an image you don't want in your head as you wind down towards sleep ...

If the above exchange proves anything, it's that every strip is somebody's darling. Prepare to learn that Silo was the Halo Jones of the nineties or that Babe Race 2000 'is what it is'.

[Jade Falcon]

Looking through some of the suggested greatests in that thread:

335 & 339 - Next volume of Rogue Trooper should give us 5 from both of these
228 - We've got everything but the Mean Arena already and we're not getting that
503 - I don't think we're getting that Dredd but I think we'll suspect we'll get the Slaine and Bad Company soon
653 - No Zenith and I'm not convinced we'll be getting that Rogue Trooper either
1634 - Don't think we're gettng Cradlegrave and with only 1 book of Savage getting to Book 5 seems unlikely
178 - No Dash Decent or Mean Arena but we already have everything else

Seems ironic that 415 is right in the middle of Time Killer.

We're only getting one Savage book?  I've already got Invasion, the Guv'nor and Taking Liberties, so I guess that means I'll be getting nothing new then?

[sintec]

We're only getting one Savage book?  I've already got Invasion, the Guv'nor and Taking Liberties, so I guess that means I'll be getting nothing new then?

That's what wikipedia has listed (although it's reference doesn't specify the number of books so I'm not sure where the figure came from).  I don't think there are any unknowns left though so unless there's going to be an extension 2 books is almost certainly all we're going to get.

Out of interest when did the MC announce it's extension?

[IndigoPrime]

The official 2000 AD announcement was on 5 July 2017. That coincided with issue 65 hitting stores. So about seven months from the end of the original run. The equivalent date with the 2000 AD collection would be 12 Feb 2020, so some way off. It's also impossible to know how different the economics are, although I would say that arguably the potential for an extension here is much greater. Sure, the last ten Dredd books were mostly pretty great, but it felt like that was a final burst. By contrast, you could easily get another 20 books or more out of 2000 AD. At the very least, I hope we get enough to add whatever new Kingdom and Strontium Dog has run by that time, and for some kind of John Smith output to be included. (I still reckon Leatherjack/Firekind would make for a superb volume.)

[James Stacey]

The original Marvel run is _still_ going isnt it?

[IndigoPrime]

Yep. And to confuse matters, there's a second iteration of that as well. To some extent, the original Marvel run has turned into "get a nice hardback of a year-old strip for ten quid", which isn't too bad if you like enough of them.

[sintec]

At the very least, I hope we get enough to add whatever new Kingdom and Strontium Dog has run by that time, and for some kind of John Smith output to be included. (I still reckon Leatherjack/Firekind would make for a superb volume.)

Very much with you on the Kingdom and Strontium Dog top-ups.  I'm not familiar with the John Smith stuff but given the comments in this thread I shall probably hunt down some trades if this stuff doesn't get included in an extension because it's clearly highly rated but many long term readers.

[IndigoPrime]

Smith is one of the more divisive script droids in 2000 AD's history, not least because of his frequency odd use of language, but he's also one of its most creative. He's capable of creeping horror (Cradlegrave), oddball science fiction weirdness (Indigo Prime), and also wrote Avatar before the Avatar people (Firekind).

I'm not sure why he's been excised so thoroughly from the UC. It seems a weird decision to me. In the earlier issues, sure; but late on when it's just subscription fare, would it really have killed them to whack in those early Indigo Prime strips (Killing Time still being a standout of the Prog) or Firekind (what with the Avatar connection)? Bah. Here's hoping this is rectified somewhere between issues 81 and 90.

[The Monarch]

its so bizarre to me that the MC has more john smith than the UC has

[christy2002b]

Just purchased the DR / Skies issue direct - this only came out last week but is now listed as only one issue left in stock. I normally pick up issues  at Forbidden Planet in London but here also the staff told me this morning that they were out of stock. Anyone know why this issue is seemingly in short supply?

[IndigoPrime]

Frankly, Hachette's stock levels are… odd. I bought two issues at FP listed as out of stock on Hachette's site, but they told me they had some. A couple of days later, the site changed back to showing stock. This happens quite a lot, and so their system must be a bit odd.

Also, I still have no idea if I'm subscribed again or not and no-one will tell me. Sigh

[sintec]

Made another pretty picture, this time a histogram of the page count for each volume.  These are counts of comic strip pages based on the page counts for the strips in Barney so don't include cover gallaries, articles, title pages e.t.c.

It'll be interesting to see how the 2 collections compare once the UC is complete.  The page counts on the MC are fairly tightly clustered, nearly half the books are between 180-195 but I suspect the UC might be a bit more spread out.  We've already had the shortest volume of the 2 sets with Shakara at 154 pages and the next volume of Strontium Dog could potentially be the largest depending on what they do with Rage.