I’ve been reading 2000AD regularly for a few years now, and I noticed that more and more of the stories are being written by Rory McConville. First a Future Shock here and there, then a 3-part Tharg 3riller, and now multi-part Dredd stories. Since more than a few Black Gate readers are 2000AD fans, so I wanted to chat with Rory about his success and caught up with him online. Welcome to Black Gate, Rory!
Cheers, Derek. Thanks for having me!
2000AD is a weekly anthology book, typically with 4 stories running at a time, with some at the middle while others are ending, which makes it hard to find a meaty run to review. Several times a year, 2000AD publishes issues (pronounced progs if you’re speaking with a British accent) for new people to jump on — where every story is beginning.
Prog #2050 is such an issue and will be hitting newsstand (and the internet as a digital issue) on September 25th, so I thought I’d get into it. This was a large-sized issue (48 pages) and contained 7 new stories that you don’t have to know much at all about the world of 2000AD to start reading.
I love comic book history. I’ve got a few books at home of the golden and silver age of American comics I reread every so often.
I recently got the chance to check out Thrill-Power Overload, the history of the British comic book series 2000AD in honor of their 40th anniversary.
I usually read only American comics, but over the last two years, I’ve been reading 2000AD and Judge Dredd comics, both the recent ones, and some of the their collected volumes, so this was a timely discovery for me, and a fascinating one.
2000AD was an experiment when it launched in 1977. British comic books were weekly publications, and not glossy, and until the launch of 2000AD, they were very much targeting younger readers with pretty tame, conservative stories with production and artistic values that didn’t even credit the creators.
2000AD‘s editorial and creative team had a vision of a far edgier anthology science fiction comic book, one whose tone I can best describe as punk rock sensibilities seen in sequential story, or an anti-authoritarianism giving the finger to the world. The creators of the time call the tone comedy and violence.
It featured genetically-engineered soldiers, robot fighters (and fighting robots), soldiers, assassins, and most importantly, Judge Dredd, a futuristic police officer of centuries in the future, stopping crime in the combined roles of police, judge and executioner.
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In this gaming review from Black Gate 14, Robert Rowe explores the world of Mega-city, the home of “the law,” Judge Dredd. I admit that I personally have never read the comic and am one of those sorry souls who only know of Judge Dredd through the Stallone film, but this review makes me want to explore the world in a bit more depth.
Lawrence Whitaker
Mongoose Publishing (268 pages, $49.95, 2009)
Reviewed by Robert Rowe
Judge Dredd is an iconic comic book character – a marvelous piece of fascist certainty in the absurdly dystopic future of Mega-City One. This new book from Mongoose Publishing is the third attempt to recreate Dredd’s world for role-players. The first was a stand-alone game, the second an RPG based on the d20 system, and this installment is a meaty tome based on the Traveller rules. Take note: you will need the Traveller Core Rulebook to play this version of Judge Dredd. As such, this game will benefit and/or suffer from the strengths and shortcomings of Traveller according to your own personal feelings about that system.
Onto the book itself. The production values are outstanding, treating the reader to full-color artwork from the inside cover’s world map of 2131 to the panorama of Mega-city one sprawled across the last page and back cover. The layout is clear and clean and after a very brief introduction jumps right into Judge creation.