Do you remember your first time

[JOE SOAP]

Earliest I remember actively buying -from the newsagent in Bally Brack- is prog 266 at the "jesuitical" age of seven but I'm sure I had encounters before that since I remember pevious stories.

Ballybrack, eh? Me too! In fact, I was very probably the first person in the whole of Ballybrack to read 2000 AD - because I arrived at the newsagents on a Wednesday evening at the exact moment the bundle of Prog 1s was delivered. The newsagent knew it was my sort of thing and opened the bundle there and then, rather than make me wait until the next morning when the comic was officially on sale.

- Mike, formerly of Oakton Park, Ballybrack (wow, it's been a few years since I typed that particular address!)

I'm across the "dualler" (dual carriageway) from where ya was Mike, Elm Grove, been there since '77. I went to St. Johns primary school, then Sallynoggin Comprehensive. I assume you bought prog 1 from the shop in Ballybrack village? since Gubay's (billionaire shopping centre magnate) shopping centre hadn't been built yet. I had a few friends in Oakton Park, long since drifted. Maybe ya read your progs on Killiney beach, when it was infested with flies!

[SamuelAWilkinson]

Prog 1332 was mine. I recall as a nipper my older brother used to read the prog, but left during the whole men-in-black-as-editors debacle. I can't remember reading any of his issues but I did end up inheriting a copy of the 1992 Dredd Yearbook (I think - it was the Brit-Cit special one) when he moved away to university. It was in the station on  the way back from the open day of my own eventual alma mater that I picked up the prog, and was blown away: Dredd vs Aliens, Caballistics, Atavar (which, ok, didn't blow me away, but I instantly recognised Chris Weston's art from my own Sonic the Comic collection years earlier), and that Tale of Telguuth that I can't now remember exactly but had cracking art. Not missed a prog since.

An outstanding cover, too - I'd pay for a print of that on my wall.

[Devons Daddy]

GOOD START 1332 !!!!! my personal milestone. as it featured art work with DEVONS DADDY DINER in the dredd strip

my first prog. 1

saw it there on the shelf,it was more then summer love,
(not just due to the fact it was not summer).
nearly 32 years ago.
despite our ups and downs,and lest i admit my occasional lapses to other younger fun little things.
we are still together.

[brendan1]

Yes, several encounters with earlier progs (borrowed from older friends/ relatives whatever) but the first of "mine" bought with the hard-earne money my parents gave to me, was this one:

At the grand old age of 9 and a half.

[Richmond Clements]

Good thread!

Prog 1 for me.

[uncle fester]

Mine was 226.

Widow Grundy gets swarmed as the walls of her room are "Covered in flies!" in Nemesis (who is hanging from a gallows at the time)

Judge Dredd had a colour centre-page of the four Dark Judges, who then go about dispatching folk in a way I'd never seen before.

I don't think my mum was aware of the content of that prog or I'm pretty sure I'd've got the Beano or something.

I didn't sleep very well that night, as I recall. Other comics are a bit tame after that sort of introduction.

[Grant Goggans]

Prog 406: Last parts of City of the Damned, Nemesis and Rogue Trooper, first part of Halo Jones II and a middle part of Helltrekkers:

[Mattofthespurs]

Prog 1 for me too. Was getting "Planet of the Apes" before that but changed the minute I saw that bright red spinner.
Fell off around the 500 issue and got back on at 700 or so.

[Dash Decent]

My brother was the 2000AD collector, but our practice was to read each others comics after we'd read our own.  We used to occasionally revisit the prog pile for a big re-read; I can remember the good old Ron Smith cover above was tattered and ripped.  After several years he hit gold when he managed to buy a whole run of back issues from prog 1 onwards from the local secondhand bookshop - for 5 cents each.  I remember for one birthday I bought him the original Judge Dredd game (for C64).

I went to Uni away from home, so fell out of the habit of reading 2000AD.  When I returned home between semesters, there were lots of things to do other than catch up on back progs.  About the only 2000AD thing I did for a long time was catch up with my brother to watch the Stallone movie.

Many years later I was out shopping and came across the Dredd vs Death game & bought it on the spot.  I mostly enjoyed it (though not all the zombies), and it led me to the Big Finish audios.  I bought a couple of those to try, then a few more, then eventually the lot.  I picked up some of the graphic novels, then a few more (and more and more).  I bought a couple of big lots of progs from different places, and a kind member of this forum even gave me a couple of big boxes of his spares.  I now have a couple of shelves of GNs, some of the 2000AD figures, a mug, the Termight Replicas Dredd badge and a few other cool bits besides.

My collection is now a lot better than my brothers.  His wife made him keep them somewhere silly (laundry?  garage?) and they got flooded.  He didn't know anything about it until later, after she'd thrown most of them out.

Mean time, I now have a five year old son and I'm looking forward to when he's old enough to start reading the early progs!

[Jim_Campbell]

Isn't Prog 164 either the last one to appear before, or the first one to appear after, the NUJ strike that seemed to last about six months to my eleven-year-old self?

Every Saturday, scampering to the letterbox when the paper hit the mat, only to find ... no prog. Bloody traumatic, that was!

Cheers

Jim

[Bad Andy]

690.

One of the houses on my paper-round got it, I liked what I saw and fell straight into the middle of Necropolis.



Although with Harlem Heroes, Dry Run and Medivac 318 in there as well it's amazing I stayed on looking back.

[brendan1]

It's more than amazing. It's fucking HEROIC.

[Colin Zeal]

First prog was 772 which was given to me by my sister. Stopped reading around the mid 830s, not sure why. Means I didn't have a particularly long run of reading the prog. Got given a few issues a couple of years later which had Big Dave in, and I remember thinking the prog overall was a load of crap and didn't get back into buying it. Last year my sister who started me on the prog had a baby, and when he was a few months old I saw 2000Ad in a shop and bought it, as I thought it would be nice to give to him in a few years time. Been buying it since about December last year, and am periodically buying up back progs that I didn't read before. I'm justifying spending all this money by saying I'll give them to my nephew when he's older, but if I'm being honest I have changed my mind on that and want to keep them for myself.

[Jim_Campbell]

It's more than amazing. It's fucking HEROIC.

I'll stand up for Medivac, which is by no means universally disliked round these parts, but I don't know if I'd have stuck with it through Harlem Heroes and Dry Run, the latter being seared into my brain as possibly the worst-written strip 2000AD has ever run.

Cheers!

Jim

[Colin Zeal]

I read those stories recently, and they were both terrible. HH just seemed to go on forever. Not sure they were worse than Wireheads though.