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The 2000 AD Messageboard Advent Calendar 2019!

Started by Pete Wells, 30 November, 2019, 11:01:28 PM

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Mardroid

#30
Here's my bit. My apologies, it's later than intended.

I think it could use a bit of work but I hope you like it.

The Bearded Man Job_ Part 1

Mardroid

I can't edit above any more, so apologies for the second comment. If you follow the link and click the 'download file' it should download a pdf to your browser.

SpaceSpinner2000



Happy Holidays! As part of the 2000AD Forums Advent Calendar Fox and Conrad recorded a commentary track to be played alongside the 1995 Judge Dredd movie, starring Slyvester Stallone, Diane Lane, and Armand Assante! All you need is a copy of the movie and you're ready to watch along with your chums from Space Spinner as we check out this much maligned piece of Thrill-Cinema.

Direct Download
iTunes
Google
Stitcher
Spotify
Or on your favorite podcast app!

Please let me know what you think, and happy holidays!
2000 AD recap podcast, from the beginning!
Check out the show here! Or on iTunes, Google Play, or your preferred podcast app!

Bolt-01


Bolt-01


Many thanks to David and Scott, and Merry Christmas to all Squaxx!

Below is a link to a complete pdf of the strip

Rogue Trooper - Silent Night

The Monarch

It's that time of the year again. after an unexpected break last year I managed to force my american non scrot friend to read something from the deep thrill vaults. What did I make Kazan who remember barely knows anything 2000ad wise read this year?

https://youtu.be/0UgweejQnpM

Merry christmas folks..... :lol:

redbaz

Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind?


flip-r mk2

Merry Xmas to all you wonderful drokkers on here .

filippo
It's all right, that's in every contract.
That's what they call a sanity clause.
You can't fool me, there ain't no sanity clause.

http://flip-r.deviantart.com/

http://forflipssake.blogspot.com

http://weeklythemedartblog.blogspot.com/


Time flies like an arrow, Fruit flies like a banana

broodblik

When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.

Old age is the Lord's way of telling us to step aside for something new. Death's in case we didn't take the hint.

David Broughton

As with every year the contributions to the 2000AD advent calendar are AMAZING! To everyone on the forum, have a great Christmas and a happy 2020.


Mike Carroll

Unfortunately I don't have time to create anything new this year, but here's an older one with a new coat of paint and the serial numbers filed off...



(Which reminds me: you can check out my awesome Cambermeg Green video on YouTube... amazingly, it's now five years old!)

Lotsa love,
Mike
My website
Rusty Staples comics blog

shaolin_monkey

From Judge Lau on Facebook, a nice riff on that Brett Ewins QC cover:


The Legendary Shark

Christmas isn't Christmas without a good ghost story. Unfortunately, I haven't got a good ghost story so you'll have to make do with this pretentious pile of piffle instead. Sit back with a glass of the necessary and enjoy this chilling seasonal tale of supernatural doings, cowboy diplomacy and really big bombs...
Dreddy Byes
Hunched high on craggy cliffs hard by the seething Sea of Reverie, braced against a roaring hurricane of death-black nightmares, stands the Fortress of Consequence. It is not a very old fortress, as these things go, but certainly looks it. The blocks of grimite from which it is made have been worn smooth by the ceaseless hurricane, kept slick and slimy by the relentless advance of envisalgae, and deeply stained  by periodic gales of wet dreams.

In the damp and smelly bowels of the Fortress, huddled around a miserable fire that doesn't so much radiate heat as absorb cold, three weird figures sit in uncomfortable silence. Or as uncomfortably silent as it's possible to get sitting inside what is basically a stone echo-chamber in the really windy part of a hurricane made of nightmares. Which is, unsurprisingly, far more uncomfortable than it is silent.

The first of the three purloined protagonists in our Annual Advent Calendar tale, a pathetic, childlike wraith of a thing with sad eyes and a luminous head, clears his throat like a sparrow choking on custard powder. 'How standeth the hour?'

The second, a Titan with itchy green robes, an itchy crown of ivy and a flaking red rash covering his flabby cheeks and bulbous nose, sighs. 'What difference does it make?'

'I mean,' the pathetic wraith says, his voice thinner than midsummer night, 'what be the hour up above?'

'Time you were going,' says the green clad Titan, his fingers scratching absently at his ribs.

'Right then,' says the wraith, but makes no move to rise from his nest of damp and mouldy Teddy bears. The nightmare enhanced silence descends again, resting over the three like a used fire blanket thrown into a ditch. 'Art we of a mind? Doth our mark truly require our attention 'pon this Eve of Yule? Most certain, there must be others with whom our truck wouldst be more... agreeable?'

The Titan produces a scrap of grubby paper from the folds of his grubby green robes and carefully unfolds it with thick grubby fingers. Wiping a dew drop from the end of his bulbous red nose with the back of his itchy green sleeve, he coughs up a glob of brown phlegm, spits it into the ailing fire and then holds out the scrap of paper towards the wraith. 'See? Just one name.'

'Thou knowest I am without letters,' the wraith says, folding his pathetic arms and sliding into a deep sulk. His luminous head fades slightly.

The Titan sighs and holds the paper towards the third figure, an angular assortment of dull yellow bones clad in robes woven from the deepest subterranean shadows. 'Affirmative,' the bag of bones says in a voice that sounds like an elephant farting into a tin barrel, 'just the one name, Dude.'

'Maybe He hath an error made?' The wraith's voice is as quiet as he can make it, his sad eyes darting about as if trying to locate an invisible wasp.

The other two suppress gasps. 'Shh,' says the Titan urgently.

'Grud the Almighty ain't given to makin' mistakes,' the bag of bones says, loud enough to be heard clearly yet not so loud as to sound desperately sycophantic. 'Chronology dictates that your departure is at hand, Old Lad,' she continues. 'Now get gone, before events nucleate into a knotty perplexion.'

The wraith huffs and raises himself from his nest of mouldy Teddy bears. 'Why canst thou not speak in the proper fashion?' he asks sulkily. Then his luminous head flares to such brightness that the other two have to shield their eyes. When they look back, the wraith is gone.

'Brave little fellow,' says the Titan, scratching at his scalp.

The bag of bones snorts and returns to the task of evicting spiders from her ribcage. 'The guy's a nukedweeb,' she says, shuddering as she pulls yard after yard of dusty cobwebs out of herself like a horrid magician. 'Your turn next,' she adds in an absent tone, her constant fixed smile seeming to glint with malice.

The Titan shudders and falls into deep thought, his piggy little eyes drawn back to the feeble conflagration in the hearth.

***

'I be ye Ghost of Christmases Discarded,' says the wraith.

Judge Dredd looks up from the perps he's beating into submission, his visor spotted with blood. 'Is that so?' he growls, his lip curling into a snarl.

'Indeed it be,' says the wraith, his head glowing like an all-nite slapshop sign. 'Thou must change thy ways or be forever damned! My undertaking is to transpose thee back in time and present unto thee...'

'First and only warning, Creep,' Dredd says, clubbing the last of the nine perps into unconsciousness, 'get lost now or face the consequences, understand?'

'But thy eternal soul stands in dire danger,' the wraith says, 'and Almighty Grud hath charged me and my brethren with the duty of saving it.' The wraith holds out his spindly hand. 'Come hither and witness...'

'Okay, Creep,' Dredd says, reaching into one of the pouches on his utility belt, 'you asked for it.'

Judge Dredd scoops out a Boing® Bombᵀᴹ and throws it at the wraith. The bomb explodes and envelopes the wraith in a sphere of sticky plastic, paralysing him completely. 'Interfering with a judge in the lawful execution of his duties, five years in the juve cubes, for a start,' Dredd says.

The wraith squeals in alarm and disappears, taking the sphere of Boing® with him.

Dredd looks at the space where the wraith used to be and grunts, half in frustration and half in satisfaction. 'Control,' he says into his helm-comm, 'patch me through to Psi Division. Got a possible Code Dickens over here.'

***

The wraith pops back into existence inside the Fortress of Consequence, still encased in a solid bubble of Boing®.

'Good Grud,' says the green clad Titan, scratching at his wrists, 'what happened to you?'

'Mmmm, mm mmm mm mmmn!' says the wraith.

'Best bust him loose,' says the bag of bones, barely able to control her glee.

The Titan grips the sphere of Boing® and, with no small measure of effort, rips it apart. 'What happened?' he asks of the wraith, who crouches in his nest of mouldy and damp old Teddy bears, gasping for breath.

'I hath failed,' wheezes the wraith, 'failed to show to him a single event from his juvelinity! Didn't extemorise to present to him the lessons Judge Tutor Fezziwig strained to teach him, or how Cadet Belle opined and lamented upon him! He's a bastard,' the wraith says, 'a complete and utter bastard! 'Tis impractibable,' he concludes with feeling.

'Shit,' says the Titan, scratching at his elbow.

'Your turn next, Dawg,' says the bag of bones with unconstrained glee.

'Now, just hold on there for one minute,' says the Titan, making a show of rearranging his itchy green robes into a semblance of order, 'maybe we could...'

'There ain't not no maybe,' the bag of bones says, waving her skeletal hand in a most dismissive fashion, 'time for you to bring home the bacon, Bud.'

The Titan sighs, knowing that his time has come, and disappears in a flash of fairy lights and a puff of forest dust.

***

'I am the Ghost of Winterfest Present,' says the Titan, scratching at the back of his ankle with his other foot.

'Figures,' says Judge Dredd, looking up from the Democracy Now! nuke he's disarming.

'This the sap you saw earlier?' asks Judge Anderson, suddenly taking an interest in Dredd's narrative.

'Nope,' says Dredd, 'different creep, same schtick.'

'Okay, classic Dickens. You were right,' says Anderson, closing her eyes and pressing two fingers against her temple. 'Give me a sec.'

'It's my job to show you how your actions have effected people in the present, and how a small but significant alteration in your attitude could make this world a much better place,' says the Titan, scratching his ear. 'For example, one of the so called perps you just sentenced to twenty years in the cubes could improve the overall well-being of all the citizens in Mega City One by promoting a sort of communal acceptance of...'

'Got it,' Anderson says. 'It's a kind of pan-human subdimensional morphic field parasite with...'

'Just get rid of it, Anderson,' Dredd says, extracting the nuke's detonator core. 'I ain't got all night.'

'Now, just you hang on a minute...' the Titan says, holding out both hands. 'The fate of your eternal soul...'

'Begone!' Anderson shouts, her brow furrowed. Slim rivulets of blood trickle from her nose and ears as she strains to impose her psychic will on the invading spectre. The Titan shrieks and collapses in on himself with a dim but significant popping sound.

'Got it,' Dredd says, laying the disconnected nuclear detonator to one side. 'Control, Dredd. Tek Division to my location, fusion device for safe disposal, priority two.'

Anderson massages her temples, weary to the core of her bones. 'Probably one more to come,' she says. 'What do you want to do about it?'

'You fit for a pre-emptive retaliation?'

Anderson frowns. 'What you got in mind?'

'These things come at us all the time, Anderson. More and more every year.' Anderson raises her eyebrow at this. Dredd's lip curls and he says, 'I pay attention.'

'I never doubted it,' Anderson says, waving away the comment with an airy sweep of her hand. 'Again, what you got in mind?'

Dredd looks down at the disassembled nuke and says into his helm-comm, 'Tek Division, change of plan; scrub the disposal and get an armourer down here at the double.'

'Isn't that a bit drastic, Joe?'

Dredd shakes his head. 'These things are a nuisance, a nuisance that's turning into a threat. They've succeeded, though, made me see the error of my ways. Time I stopped being so soft on these goofballs.' He looks up as the whine of a Tek Division shuttle increases from above. 'When I'm done, they'll think twice about comin' back.'

'Or take offence,' Anderson says, her hair whipping in the shuttle's exhaust.

'That's up to them,' Dredd says, returning the shuttle pilot's curt wave. 'Either way, I want these creeps out of my city for good.'


Cont.../
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The Legendary Shark

  /...Continued




The Titan blinks back into existence inside the Fortress of Consequence, panting heavily and bleeding from his eyes, nose, and ears. 'Jovus,' he says through ragged breath, 'that guy's a right bastard and no mistake.'


'Thou seest?' says the wraith, whose head is beginning to regain some of its former glowy glory. 'He be a proper bastard – I told thee thus!'


The Titan and the wraith turn their eyes upon the bag of bones. She smiles. She raises a hand and bows her head, and takes a step back. 'Now,' she says, speaking with the utmost care, 'we must apply strict and unerring logic to every situation in itself, as it were...'


'It's your bloody turn,' booms the Titan, rubbing the back of his neck.


'But, we're a team,' the bag of bones says.


'Aye,' says the waif, 'and thou art up, Sister.'


'No, you misunderstand.' The bag of bones draws herself up to her full height which, even though only coming up to the Titan's chest, makes her dull yellow bones look tough and solid and unyielding. 'We operate as a team, in strict order. The success of each is vital to the success of all. And you two have failed.'


'How dare you!' The Titan has to bend almost double to shout into the bag of bones' hood, blowing it off her dull yellow head. She does not flinch.


'There's nothing for it,' she says, folding her arms, 'I'll take my turn, of course. But first, you two will have to try again.'


'My brethren,' the wraith whispers, pointing a pathetic and spindly finger at a strange distortion forming in the depths of the gasping fire, 'what do you suppose that be?'


'Try... try again? I've never heard... that's the most idiotic...' the Titan bellows into the implacable bag of bones' smiling face.


'He's in the fire,' the wraith says. 'Oh Grud and all his Heavenly Rangers protect us, he's in the fire...'


'What are you babbling...'


'You three,' shouts Dredd through an undulating psychic hole in the fireplace, 'this is your only warning. Earth, including and especially Mega City One, is hereby off-limits to you and all your kind. If I see any one of you again, you'll all regret it.'


'See?' says the bag of bones, 'there's not a single logical, mathematical or philosophical argument for me to go up there now.'


'You creeps spread the word,' Dredd barks, 'and just in case you think I ain't serious, you got thirty seconds to get clear.' Dredd heaves a hefty silver cylinder through the undulating psychic hole and it clunks down the hearth and turns over a sad table, upsetting a sad repast onto a sad floor. 'Stay out of my city.'


The three gawp at Dredd, who turns away and says, 'Okay, Anderson, shut it down.'


'Yeah,' a fainter voice says, 'I'm working on it.'


'We should get out of here before that thing goes off.' The Titan turns back to the bag of bones, scratching at his knee, but she is nowhere to be seen. 'Margaret?' He sighs and mumbles, 'Bloody typical,' before turning to the wraith. His sad eyes are locked onto the bomb's holographic countdown display. 'Come on, Old Boy,' says the Titan.


'It's pretty,' says the wraith, his head glowing softly, like the promise of shelter on a stormy night. 'I might stay.'


'We don't have time,' says the Titan.


'My point,' says the wraith, his sad eyes never wavering from the relentless display. 'We don't have the time. Not any more. We use time, to help people, in exchange for a bit of psychic energy. You, me, even her. Wherever she is. Always looks after herself, that one.'


'It's her nature,' says the Titan. 'Can we talk about it later?'


'I failed. I'm no good. Might as well, you know? You go.'


The Titan sighs. 'Without you, I'll never find her, and without us, she'll never survive. You know that.' He holds out his mighty hand.


And the hypnotic holographic nuclear countdown dances on.




***


High on craggy cliffs hard by the seething Sea of Reverie, burning against a roaring hurricane of death-black nightmares, where once stood the Fortress of Consequence, a star arises. It is not a very old star, as these things go, but certainly looks it. It shines bigger and brighter and hotter in fractions of seconds and is ragged and ugly.


It punches out in every direction, atomic physics in a world made of thought, a bubble of rage spewing dread in its wake. The psionic boom rips into the hurricane of nightmares and tears it to shreds, smashes the Sea of Reverie into a trembling millpond beneath its Justice Department enhanced fury.


The star suddenly fades, its energy spent in a single act of brute destruction, and eventually fizzles out with a few unimpressive pops and sparks. But the tranquillity remains, the sea is calm, the breeze is soft and the sky is blue.


For a time.




***




'Anderson to Dredd,' the voice cuts into Judge Dredd's helm-comm.


'Kinda' busy here, Anderson,' says Dredd, leading a squad against the entrenched gang of zizz-crazed and heavily armed Steve Austin Development Snowman Appreciation Club members.


'Quick update on your little, er, diplomatic exploit, I hear that's what we're calling it?'


'Just get on with it, Judge Anderson. Bartelli! Left!'


'Incursions down sixty two per cent in the last forty eight hours,' Anderson's voice says. 'Looks like it worked.'


'Sixty two per cent worked,' grunts Dredd.


'Not all incursions come from the same place,' Anderson says, 'this is a win, Joe. Take it.'


Dredd grunts and Anderson listens to the sound of a door being kicked in, shouting and gunfire. 'One more thing, that nuke had a weird effect. For a full twenty four hours, not one human on Earth suffered from nightmares. Not one.'


'Swell,' says Dredd. 'Cooper, break right! Maybank, with me!'


'The fist night in recorded history, probably all history, when the entire human race had a peaceful night's sleep. They're calling it the Dreddy Bye Effect...'


'Like I said, swell,' says Dredd, his breath and motion growling at the transmission, 'but if there's nothing else, just tell me how to get that last thirty eight percent and copy me a report.


'Dredd out.'


***


Enough loose ends to maybe justify a sequel next year, methinks! I hope you enjoyed my humble tale and I sincerely wish each and every one of us a very merry Christmas and a New Year bursting with potential and joy.


I love you all.


Sharky (Legendary)
A Shed Somewhere
Cloud Cuckoo Land
2019




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pauljholden