Sideshow Vote: Igor, are you a loyal servant?

[sheridan]

I'm not one of you oldies, so...

I started in the 80s and I am still reading

I've gone over my 2000AD origin story a few times on various Space Spinner 2000s and Mega-City Book Clubs, but I was given a non-sequential batch of progs, bought a prog a few weeks later then started getting regularly a few months after that.  So my first prog is 308, 330 or 350...

[Proudhuff]

   I started in the early 80s and I am still reading

No idea which prog popped my cherry, my good friend Dode Coleman used to get the Prog on a Saturday and bring it to work at the Tollx Post Office, this was  pre Dredd's Apocalypse War in MC1.  I moved offices so I started buying my own copy.

[Rogue Judge]

I started in the Rebellion years, have a terrible time with getting physical progs consistently here in Canada (kind of hate digital) so generally I only get the collections, BUT I do get a LOT of the collections. I have gone back and forth digitally, and still do read the digital progs now and then, but nothing compares to a physical prog in the hands, alway happy when I can get one. Probably need to try reading the prog on something larger than my phone.

[Colin YNWA]

Probably need to try reading the prog on something larger than my phone.

Oh definately I can't read comics on a phone (well clearly I can but hate it) but on a nice shiny tablet its a perfectly nice experience. If you are lucky enough to be able to get one the largest screen possible works for me - I have a 12' screen (Samsung Galaxy S7 Pro folks here with more tech knowledge swear by iPads) and its basically the same size as a regular US comic. For the Meg (and by extension I assume the Prog, but I get those physically) the dimensions aren't quite as well suited as they are broader and so you lose a little off the height to fit it in, its still absolutely lovely and the images so sharp as to make reading a delight on Tablet.

I do get the desire for physical and if I really like a series or comic I will track down phyisical but where here are barriers to that entirely happy to read digital on a good tablet.

[Aaron A Aardvark]

-   I started in the 70s and lapsed but I am back

Thanks for making me feel old. Loyal reader until Apolcalypse War, on and off through my college years, took the Long Walk after Necropolis, sporadically from the Movie until The Pit and loyal since then.

[broodblik]

Thanks for making me feel old.

Do not fear we all are "old"

[Leigh S]

I started in the 80s and I am still reading.

Early 80s mind - First Prog of my newsagent order was 195. Prior to that, I'd been buying humour titles then Doctor Who magainze, until that went monthly and Tom was canned.

At the point I should have canned the prog in the early 90s, things were pretty tumultuous on the home front and mental health wise, so I kept reading out of the need to keep a timer ticking and some sense that not everything was falling apart, even if the prog really, really was at that time!

By the time the prog had started a slow recovery, so had I

[SmallBlueThing(Reborn)]

Started with prog one, lapsed a bit, picked it up again off and on from #50 to #178. From #178 to about #300 I was a weekly reader, but soon after I was gone. Picked it up again in the early 400s and have been a weekly reader ever since. Did have a year off a few years ago (2018?), just to see if the prog was as still an important part of my life- it was and I missed it, so I grabbed them all at the first opportunity.

These days, even when the line-up is more miss than hit for me (like the first three months of this year), I know better than to give it up. There's always something more to my liking coming up.

SBT

[Dash Decent]

-   I started in the 80s and lapsed but I am back

When we were kids, my brother and I used to buy a couple of comics each.  That's about all our pocket money stretched to.  We'd read the ones we'd bought ourselves, then swap and read each others. We lived in a small country town in rural NSW.  I was always amazed that these comics had come from the other side of the world, and that several copies of each would arrive every week in the town newsagents, so far away.

My brother was the one buying 2000AD.  I'm pretty sure he started with prog 164.  I didn't read much of it to start with, it took me a while to get into it, but he kept getting it every week.  The done-in-one stories hooked me in, Future Shocks etc, as did Meltdown Man, Dash Decent and others.  Dredd was okay but Strontium Dog was much better, and Rogue Trooper drawn by Cam Kennedy was the pinnacle. I never read a page of Slaine, Nemesis or Ace Trucking Co. One day about five years later, my brother came home with a huge collection of back progs he'd found in Mrs Tulloch's second hand bookshop.  They went back to prog 1, were in brilliant condition and only cost him 5 cents each!  I loved the smaller, glossier progs from the Starlord merger.  They looked amazing.  Dan Dare, Johnny Alpha with Mr Sun and Mr Moon, all sorts of things to catch up on.  I think it was prog 8 where Tharg says in the letter page that Betelguesian woman have tentacles, so we were very annoyed by the lack of continuity when a female Tharg (Marg?) turns up later on and just looked like Angelina De Griz plus Rosette of Sirius and eyebrows.

I kept reading little bruv's progs until 1988 when I went away to university, and just stopped. I don't think I bothered to read his back progs once I came back on semester breaks, but I'd stopped buying the comics I used to buy anyway.  I can't remember what was still around to buy at that time, but Buster was drawn by someone else and looked wrong, Sweeny Toddler was drawn by someone else and looked wrong, Eric Wimp (Bananaman) had hair...  I was still vaguely interested.  I remember buying a sort of newspaper that was going at the time that was just a big collection of all the sorts of strips you'd get on the comics page of the daily newspapers, but that was about it.

Fast forward to many years later and my wife and I are out shopping and I spy the "Dredd vs Death" game.  I bought it (and a copy for my brother too, I think), and really enjoyed it.  That led me to discover the Big Finish audios.  Thankfully they were all released, or mostly released.  I picked up a couple and they were really good.  I'm glad I didn't hit the ones I consider patchy or woeful first, as I would never have continued.  But I got them in some random order that meant I didn't go through a run of the rubbish ones all at once.  That led me to get some of the reprint books, which I think had just started out under Rebellion.  And I'm still here!

[Magnetica]

My first ever Prog was 86 following the Starlord merger, bought it for a few weeks and gave up after missing a few issues. Tried it again with 120 or 122(can't remember which) and then came on board from 127 and have bought it every week since.
I don't count the period before that as being a reader, lapsing and coming back - I wasn't  a 2000AD reader then, I was a Starlord reader being "forced" to read something else.

So I consider that I fall into then category of:


I started in the 70s and I am still reading.

[Southstreeter]

I started in the 80s and I am still reading

My brother got it from somewhere near the start, and I think I started also reading his progs round about the Judge Child - was that about 1980? And eventually bought it for myself from late 80s, and never stopped.

[The Mind of Wolfie Smith]

was a sporadic reader for much of my life (it always irked me that the prog was on sale on various planets but not anywhere in central or eastern europe - and i am allergic to digital comics). the summer offensive repelled me for a long time, anyway. and while nothing will ever again compare with moore and belardinelli, i've had a weekly fix for a few years, now, and i guess we should always remind ourselves how lucky we are.

[sintec]

I started in the rebellion years, and I am still reading

More accurately I started with the Hachette ultimate ollection. Got several books into that and then picked up prog 2100 at an airport. Haven't looked back since.

[The Enigmatic Dr X]

I started in the 80s and I am still reading

August 1981. Prog 224

[Barrington Boots]

It seems most of us are pretty old here.