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I always like to assume that in the future, as now, people make far grander claims than match reality.
So something marketed as a 'total annihilation device' will, in practice, only be a 'partial annihilation device'...

I'm totally on board with the idea that MC2 was not completely destroyed by that TAD, just large parts of it. Probably enough city structure remaining that rebuilding is not completely pointelss?
e.g. the LA section gone, but the San Fran region still remains-ish?

Given how bad the 2T-FruT virus was back in 2100, one can imagine that half of the buildings in MC2 were still unpopulated 20 years later when Judgement Day (and presumably hordes of 2T zombies) came calling - so no need to blow up every part of the city.

You know, if we're overthinking things. 

Grobbendonk?

Is it true that 'Old One Eye' was Pat's nickname for his penis?

I'll take an accidental double-post if it generates a tiny bit more publicity! 

Oh man such a tough choice! For me, Verdus aka Planet of the Robots is one of the best comics of all time, ever, but just in the world of RoboHunter, I'd say the Filby Case is the next best.

Of course, 'essential' is kind of irrelevant here, there are no stories you HAVE to read in this series to make sense of or even just plain enjoy the rest.

I also have to say that the physical editions of the Droid Files - at least, the ones I had before I sold them to go digital - were not very well printed. In particular the Hogan/Hughes reboot strips at the end of Droid Files 2, that are actually pretty decent, were near-illegible thanks to smudgy blacks used to reprint was was originally in spanking colour.

Best bet might be to buy the newest Robo-Hunter book, and hope it sells well enough that they do a volume 2, and skip on the Droid Files entirely...

I'm also sad there isn't a collection of 'Terrorists', the most recent Bad Co outing. I get that many readers seemed to hate 'First Casualties' and then utterly despise Terrorists, but they're wrong.

However, I can agree that neither is essential reading if you want the Bad Company experience.

Agree! But Pat M has earned the right to decide it's too much effort to research and write more Defoe, guess I just have to live with that!

[The London Hanged]

Locust, to answer your original question, there was kind of an ongoing storyline of Defoe that was basically ended with Book 5 'The Damned'. Those first 5 books of Defoe are utterly brilliant, as good as any Nemesis or Slaine or ABC Warriors if you ask me.
The next three books of Defoe could be read pretty easily as standalone tales of "Defoe, anti-monarchist Zombie Hunter'; their quality varies and none are quite as amazing as the first 5 books but well worth reading.

The London Hanged (final book drawn by Leigh Gallagher) is about posh people acting as superheroes in 17th-century England. Mills as you know does not like posh people or superheroes, so you can imagine how that goes. Fun times.

Diehards, with art by Colin MacNeil, is sort of about the 17th century comics industry. As you can imagine, Mills mostly focusses on the concept of unscrupulous publishers/editors getting one over on hard-working authors. I cannot for the life of me remember how or why Defoe gets involved in this. Something to do with literal graverobbing masquerading as metaphorical graverobbing? I didn't like it much myself.

The Divisor, with AMAZING art by S.K. Moore (and don't let anyone tell you otherwise) is about Defoe going to the Moon - based on genuine 17th century speculations about how and why one might do such a thing. It being a Defoe story, the crew accidentally bring zombies on board. The story here is mental, if not necessarily good.

Credo!, this is another astonishingly thorough piece of work. Get it published in the Megazine, and it ought to prompt reams of story ideas!
We've had plenty of tales set in the radiactive wastes of teh Cursed Earth, but not enough, I feel, in teh bombed-out sections of Florida. Might there not be even one part that survived the Apocalpyse War, with mutant Judges running a small city sector... perhaps using mutant alligators and living in a swamp-base..? Or, you know, DisneyWorld..?

I can't speak to 2000AD or any vaguely similar comics, but in the world's of children's books my company work with freelance artists all the time and from what I know most if not all have side gigs - often teaching 2/3 days a week.
The most intense art projects I work on involve 8 double-page spreads filled with detail and flaps with new art under each one. There's no 'standard' fee for this job but typically we're talking around £10,000 for everything (inlcuding a cover), on a job that is likely to last 8-10 months. That's not a living, if it's the only thing you're doing for that whole time - but it's also, from what I can tell, a competitive rate of pay. (Certainly the agents we negotiate with aren't telling us we need to pay more)

I strongly suspect the artists we work with will definitely be working on at least 1 other similar-scale project at the same time, or if not are doing some other employed work.

But I'd tell your students they definitely CAN make a living as illustrators, but it'll be easier if they find an agent, if they can turn around any given paid sample job in a week or two (Obvs if it's unpaid work make it amazing to impress people!!) I'd say don't spend time getting your samples perfect, better to show editors/art directors that you're quick and competent - once you've landed a job you'll get more leeway to be a perfectionist. Also best if they expect to have to do other paid work alongside illustration.

The only H Hogan material I've ever partaken in was a viewing of Suburban Commando in the Harrow Cannon Cinema, age 12. It was... fine. I do recall an older teen in the queue extolling the virtues of 'No Holds Barred'.

P Hogan all the way!

My old Progs aren't even in an attic anymore, they're relatively easy for me to access - but I still tend to turn to a collected eidtion these days if I want a re-read of anything. Can't quite believe it but I'm getting to the point of wanting to shift them...

...might start with the set that are all available as digital editions, baby steps...

Me neither - except in British seaside towns, for some reason. And possibly Dalston.

A Ron Smith Dredd collection would, potentially, be an ideal 'Intro to Dredd' book. As long as it DIDN'T include 'the Sugar Beat', though... (one of the last strips Smith drew for 2000AD in the still-openly-racist mid-90s)

I am biased because my own intro to Dredd was mostly through the early 'Best of 2000AD Monthly' reprints, which typically had at least one Ron Smith comedy Dredd one-off.

But seriously, you'd get Cityblock and Graveyard Shift in there, two of the purest 'what is Judge Dredd all about?' strips ever, but also: Unamerican Graffiti, the Otto Sump stories, the original Hotdog Run, Blobs/Jimps, the Stupid Gun, the Invisible Man, Alien Seeds and, yes, the Question of Judgement trilogy - some of my all-time favourites. Plus you could maybe throw in a bunch of the original newspaper strips?

Hey JWare, pleased to hear my recommendation went down well!
But I wouldn't trust my opinion - I'm one of those who is full of praise for almost everything (especially within the pages of 2000AD), and just avoids talking about the things what I don't rate.

Come back to me when you've bought and read volume 3 of Strontium Dogs 
(It's not good, but parts of it have lingered in my memory surprisingly well)