2000AD and Tornado Prog 161: "Find the Judge Child or your city dies!"

This prog has an extreme close up of Dredd’s face by Brian Bolland, head-on, the image of Owen Krysler reflected in Dredd’s eyes (or what passes for his eyes on his visor). The cover date is 19 April 1980.

Tharg’s Nerve Centre confirms what we would have suspected, Blackhawk and Fiends of the Eastern Front are on their last episodes in this prog, to be replaced by new thrills next week.…

2000AD and Starlord Prog 104: Death on the Mutant Express!

Strontium Dog is back, and hopefully with some of the equipment that makes the story distinctive! The cover is by King Carlos and shows Johnny fighting Fly’s-Eyes Wagner atop a train (or what passes for a train in the future on an alien planet).

In the Nerve Centre we find out that 2000AD (10p in the UK) costs 60c in the USA, with the exchange rate that’s roughly 30p. Exchange rates have…

2000AD and Starlord Prog 103: Turn up the heat! The robo knackers yard is— Hell on earth!

Kevin O’Neill brings us a very red cover, with melting droids screaming in the furnace while humans look on.

In the Nerve Centre we get instructions on how to put the four parts of the poster together (cardboard, painted black to stop print showing from the other side, stick on to cardboard) plus a warning from Tharg for Earthlets not to copy art from other comics. He also says something about…

Star Lord No 13: Let Me at him, Billy! Quit jawing, jack-ass! He won’t escape the laser lash!

Our first view of Billy Joe is on the cover. His most distinctive feature is that he has two heads – I can’t help but feel that this is going to be a big reveal in the story within, except it’s already been revealed, right on the cover… Ezquerra provides the honours and it’s a great cover, apart from my reservation.

Mind Wars has a confusing start – Doctor Varn and others on Earth appear to…

Star Lord No 11: ‘My brain is a time-bomb – programmed to DESTROY ALL HUMAN LIFE’

In general I’ve not been doing any research on each prog or issue, partially because books such as Thrill-Power Overload and The Mighty Oneexist but mainly because I have about three thousand comics (progs, megs, Starlords, Tornados, Crisises, annuals, specials and the rest) to read for this blog already, without adding to the reading material. For this I tried to find out who the uncredited…

Occasionally I get reminded that this is technically “the future” by headlines such as these. When AI starts acting like Homer Simpson, you know it’s the future.