Another Action Special?

[JayzusB.Christ]

Just had a re-read of the Action Special.  Great idea, brilliantly executed.

For anyone who missed it, it was a dark, mature re-imagining of pre-2000ad British comics characters, long before Alan Moore's wee 'un was doing it. I loved it at the time, and I still do.

It featured both Peter Hogan and John Tomlinson doing their best 2000ad work ever, both outshining even John Smith's contribution (which was also aces, mind you). Mark Millar played one of his rare toothy blinders for it too.  It's not often horror works for me in a comic, but by Christ that Tomlinson Cursitor Doom left me unsettled.

Also the best title possible for an article about old comics characters: 'Tales Before Dreddtime'. He shoots, he scores.

I want another.  Hard to see it surpassing the first but I'd definitely buy it.

[Link Prime]

I loved that comic.
I forget who wrote it, but 'The Spider' was really good- always stuck in my head for some reason.
I second the motion for a follow-up, but won't hold my breath!

[Trout]

Yeah, I liked the Spider story too. Was that Millar?

I doubt it could be done again, though. There are all sorts of copyright issues. IIRC they found out after the fact that they didn't have the rights to do the first one!

- Trout

[JayzusB.Christ]

The Spider was indeed Millar, with art by John Higgins and David Hynes.  To be fair to the Millar lad, he was good at the horror one-offs.  That one also seemed to be by Higgins for the first few pages, then Hynes for the rest.  And it worked very well, somehow.