2000ad Yearbooks 1992-5

[Colin YNWA]

So the annual came to an end with these glorious objects. The only trouble being the content was no match for the format.

The annuals overall had been on a downward spiral highs of the era I've called the 'Golden Age' and 1985s masterpiece. There was always gold to be had, or interesting distractions at least but the quality was dipping. Many would say that that this echoed the comics as a whole. The Yearbooks are a particular case in point.

The format was just superb. They are simply fantastic objects with those massive fold out covers, giant size and nice paper quality. The trouble is just like the comic itself (and I guess this is no real surprise) the content is very inconsistent to say the least.

Take the last one in 1995. Behind that beautiful Mike Austin covers this book starts with two simply fantastic strips. A glorious 8 page Dredd by the classic team of Wagner and Baikie. So much packed into 8 sublime action packed pages that are a delight on the eye. Quite possibly one of my favourite one off Dredds ever. Followed by a fantastically spicy Tharg story, again one of my favourites of this type. So far green bounce is playing a blinder. It goes steadily down hill from there however, an enjoyable Brigand Doom strip aside, culminating in frankly terrible Rogue Trooper story hidden almost ashamedly behind a mass of reprints, via Babe Race 2000 and some very mediocre one-offs. Such a shame but somehow a fitting end to the annuals. What was once a star filled showcase for the comic ending on what looked like a try out story thrown in as filler, that even the exciting format couldn't save it.

I'm actually glad that there weren't any more after this in some ways as things may well have got worst. Still just like the comic itself best to remember that even in these dark times you can skip back across the Babe Race 2000s of this world and still find some Wagner, Baikie, T.M.O. and Eric Bradbury delights tucked away.

[IndigoPrime]

I felt ripped off my those last few 'yearbooks'. From the mid-1980s annuals, where you got a mix of reprint and great new stories, it was a huge fall to the yearbooks, which were clearly dumping grounds for crap that needed clearing out. A huge shame.

[Arkwright99]

Coincidentally I retrieved my Yearbooks from the garage the other weekend but one look at the content - in the worst cases by a bunch of non-name art-droids who must have been sent to Mek-Quake after handing in their submissions (because they were never heard of again) - reminded me why they'd been relegated to the garage in the first place. And to think Tharg actually charged money for them. There is the occasional gem among the grot but the Hit-to-Miss ratio in the Yearbooks is, generally, pretty poor.