The home of Thrillpower is a venerable British institution, published weekly since 1977. It's an anthology title too, which sometimes makes it a little hard for new readers to jump on board, because in the average issue there'll be some stories starting, some ending and some mid-way through.
Fear not, my lovely new readers. Indeed, rejoice – Prog 1900 is one of 2000AD's periodical, purpose-built, handy-dandy jump-aboard points, where all the stories are fresh starts. You get the kick-off of a new Judge Dredd epic by the mighty John Wagner and Carlos Esquerra (drool), and double helpings of a new Stickleback series by Ian Edginton and D'Isreali (yum), and the new Kingdom story by yours truly and Richard Elson.
Yes, I have a horse in this race. Shall we see the horse? (Yes, please, Dan)
Oh, nice. Shall we see some more of the horse? (Go on, then)
That Elson chap does a lovely job, doesn't he?
Anyway, I'm not plugging it simply because I have a story in it. Well, all right, but only slightly. I'm mainly drawing your attention to it because it's a splendid place to start or renew your relationship with this venerable British Comic Institution. If you've never read 2000AD before, or were put off trying because you didn't know where to start, then go get yourself a copy. You can subscribe to it and all sorts, but, incredibly, you can just go down to your local newsagent and buy it. Off the stands. Like in the olden days.
And if you used to read 2K but have lapsed for whatever reason, here's a great excuse to un-lapse yourself. Re-lapse, if you will.
Ian Edginton, Tharg (2000AD's zarjaz alien editor who is actually real and not a made-up thing AT ALL) and myself will be doing a comic creator AMA ("Ask Me Anything") about this prog on Reddit this Wednesday. Not sure when exactly, so I'll post the details and links in the comment thread to this post when I learn them. Check back, or check me on Twitter.
Kingdom, by the way, is a fave strip of mine. I love working with Richard on it – he's been the artist since it first began. It's post-apocalypse dog-soldiers ("Aux") fighting giant insects. The main character, our hero, is an Aux called Gene the Hackman. Okay, it's more than that, but those are the key things you need to know to get going. Kingdom has proved so popular, in fact, Rebellion commissioned me and Nik to write a novel this year, expanding the Kingdom universe. The novel is called "Fiefdom", and you can happily read it and understand it without having to know anything about the strip. Of course, if you do know the strip, the novel develops the world for you more fully. Fiefdom looks like this:
And you can get it here. Or here. Or go and buy it from your local Waterstones. Or, if they haven't got it on the shelves, order it, and while you're doing that, remind them it was pretty bloody daft of them not to be stocking it in the first place.
This has been a Monday Morning "Making Your Life Unreasonably Better" Public Service Announcement.
8 comments:
Just want to say - that it's a nice piece of delightful writing, and beautiful drawing. Thanks for your efforts
Exciting stuff :D plus it has an awesomely cool cover. Hope all's well, Dan.
Very, very glad I recently subscribed.
Advertising works too, Fiefdom reserved in local Waterstones, great success!
It's been a season dry of fiction, so looking forwards to some 'oh yeah' moments.
Welcome back indeed.
I used this opportunity to re-lapse into 2000AD. It's been too long and seems like a great place to start.
To be frank, I picked it up again mainly because Kingdom is back. It's the best piece of dark SF I've read in ages.
I also loved Fiefdom. Keep them coming :) Get whet.
Follow up: the 2000AD Reddit AMA is now set for tomorrow (Wednesday the 24th). Here's what 2000AD says about it:
"With tomorrow seeing the release of 2000 AD’s special 1900th edition, two of the legendary weekly anthology’s biggest creators are joining the alien editor of 2000 AD, Tharg the Mighty, for a very special ‘Ask Me Anything’ on Reddit’s comics forum.
On Wednesday September 24th from 1pm GMT (8am EST) , Dan, Ian, and the green-skinned alien being known only as Tharg will be taking questions from Earthlets to mark the publication of Prog 1900, the perfect jumping on point for new readers. This is a rare opportunity to grill the editor of the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic about the line-up for this special issue and his plans for future Thrills!
Abnett is known not only for creating Sinister Dexter and Kingdom for 2000 AD but also for having his reinvention of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy turned into the summer’s biggest movie. Edginton is the New York Times bestselling writer behind Hinterkind and Leviathan.
Tharg the Mighty is originally from Quaxxann in the Betelgeuse system. He landed in the UK in 1977 and established 2000 AD as the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic to bring Thrill-power to the people of Earth, and combat Thrill Suckers everywhere. His teams of creative robots, called Droids, put together every issue of 2000 AD from the Nerve Centre, deep in the heart of Oxfordshire.
The Reddit comics forum can be found here: www.reddit.com/r/comicbooks/ "
Found, and read, "Fiefdom" while on vacation last week, without having ever ever heard of "Kingdom". I was not disappointed, except by the fact that I want to find out more about the Aux, Them, and who the Master was/is.
Great to have you blogging again, Dan. :-)
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