REGARDING THE LATEST BIG-SCREEN TRANSLATION OF JUDGE DREDD

Here's the trailer for DREDD, the latest attempt to bring 2000 A.D.'s classic JUDGE DREDD character to the screen (and hopefully erase the dire memory of that piece of shit starring Sylvester Stallone and Rob Schneider).

If you read this blog with any regularity you know I'm a huge 2000 A.D. booster, so I have a great deal of desire to see any of the magazine's characters adapted at all and adapted well. Just by its mere existence this film is already better than the Stallone bomb, but after seeing this trailer I nonetheless feel a certain amount of trepidation. As a comics series, JUDGE DREDD at first looks to some newcomers like nothing more than the rote adventures of a heavily-armed cop of the future, and to me that is what this trailer seems to be giving to us. The comics, however, are far more than what they seem to be at first glance. Much, much more.

The elements that made the comics so interesting are many but front and center would be that when it's not concentrating on epic story arcs, JUDGE DREDD is a darkly-humorous and wildly exaggerated social satire that's aided and abetted by the undeniable fact that the series' setting, the sprawling Mega-City One, which stretches all the way from Toronto down to Florida, is itself a major character. Densely populated, the city is claustrophobic to an insane degree, with practically every inch of its landscape taken up by its citizens — a good percentage of whom are crazy and/or homicidal — traffic, advertising and towers that practically reach the sky. It's a place where pretty much anything can happen and it's unashamedly writ large, as is the look and feel of virtually everything in it, including its police force, the Judges.

The Judges are the ultimate arbiters of law and order and what they say goes. Or else. The outrageousness of the series' visual aesthetic was partially born out of Britain's original punk rock era, so the look of the judges bears that influence. They're decked out from head to toe in fetishistic skintight black leather with assorted accents, such as a huge golden eagle on the one shoulder, a large badge, and massive boots that you just know would be perfect for stomping the living shit out of perp.

Judge Dredd, as rendered by Cliff Robinson. An excellent look at the iconic Judges' uniform.

For the upcoming movie, once again we get a hero's totally badassed comic book look kicked to the curb in favor of unnecessary realism.

Karl Urban as Judge Dredd.

The visual kick in the face delivered by the comics design has been utterly lost and now Dredd looks like either a generic SWAT team member or some dude who's geared-up for a weekend paintball getaway with his office's co-workers. The Judges' intimidating motorcycles, the Lawmasters, are also not beyond the reach of designs that strip them of their unique flavor. Here they are seen as sort of future-fitted Japanese racing bikes — possibly influenced by Kaneda's famous bike from AKIRA — instead of the fearsome and intimidating hogs that they should be. Even Mega-City One is also divested of its dense, visual cornucopia aspect and now looks like a slightly futuristic Los Angeles, which to me registers as a tremendous "so what?" Again, part of the magic that made JUDGE DREDD a classic series was its exaggerated flavor, and the apparent lack of that in regard to the look of its protagonist, his ride and his very world is heartbreaking.

It is, however, too early to be able to accurately get a handle on just what they're doing with this movie and my quibbles are those of a fan who knows the source material quite well, so this all may register as perfectly acceptable to the civilian. To me it looks like a fairly generic cop movie with a futuristic slant and GAME OF THRONES' Lena Headey as its big bad — an aspect that intrigues me because Headey's performance as Cersei Lannister on GAME OF THRONES has proven in no uncertain terms that she can knock it out of the park as an evil character — but DREDD could very well prove to be more than the sum of the glimpses seen in the trailer. Misgivings aside, I will give this film a chance and I will definitely see it when it opens. At least there's no Rob Schneider this time around...

HAPPY 35th ANNIVERSARY, 2000 A.D. !!!

2000 A.D. Prog #1771.

Borag Thungg, Earthlets! Today is the 35th anniversary of Britain's venerable 2000 A.D. weekly sci-fi comic, home of some of the very best comics I have ever had the distinct pleasure to read. I've written on the myriad pleasures of the magazine many times and at considerable length, so I'll let it suffice to say that it's responsible for first exposing me to the work of Alan Moore, Pat Mills, John Wagner, Carlos Ezquerra, Dave Gibbons, Mike McMahon, Kevin O'Niell, Ian Gibson, Glenn Fabry, and the kickass adventures of Judge Dredd, Johnny Alpha, Slaine, the A.B.C. Warriors, Nemesis the Warlock, Halo Jones, D.R. & Quinch, and more recently Nikolai Dante, Shakara, Gene the Hackman, Zombo... And the list just goes on and on and on. So here's to 35 more years! Splundig Vur Thrigg!

Oh, and the above is the anniversary edition's cover, drawn by my dear friend Chris Weston. Muthafukka can draw!

2000 A.D. Prog #1. From this humble beginning sprang some of the best comics ever created. BELIEVE IT!

ZOMBO: CAN I EAT YOU, PLEASE? (2010)

Britain's venerable weekly sci-fi anthology comic 2000 AD has unleashed many memorable series and characters since its inception in 1977, but it's often been argued that its best years are behind it and it continues on solely based upon the strength of its past achievements and its status as a landmark in British comics publishing. For the most part I would agree with that assessment, but every now and then there appears a new strip that reminds me of what 2000 AD can be like when it's firing on all cylinders, and its most recent strip to place a huge, stupid grin on my face is ZOMBO, a welcome return to the mag's signature blend of compelling narrative, twisted humor, and serious lashings of the old ultra-violence.

Debuting in Prog #1632 (April, 2009), the series opens with an inter-planetary charter flight crash-landing on planet Chronos, an incredibly hostile and sentient "deathworld" that lures in hapless victims and where damned near everything on it is lethal to man. In other words, the planet knows exactly what it's doing and has fun doing it. The spacecraft's thirty-three passengers all survive the crash, but in literally no time the planet starts whittling their number down one by one in alarmingly gory and painful ways. Help comes in the unexpected form of Zombo, a decomposing super-zombie who is the ship's top secret cargo.

The survivors meet Zombo, the most polite flesh-eating undead guy you could hope to meet.

Once awakened and out of his container, Zombo is instructed by his government handlers to protect the survivors, and from that moment on it's a chapter-by-chapter festival of creative and beautifully-illustrated carnage, punctuated by Zombo's incongruous good manners and generally cheery attitude. Sure, he's a super-strong mouldering re-animated corpse, but he's also a self-described "good boy."

The second arc is "Zombo's 11," a gloriously ludicrous parody of the original OCEAN'S ELEVEN (1960), with side-splitting jabs at YouTube JACKASS-wannabes and AMERICAN IDOL thrown in to hysterical effect. To give away more would spoil the fun, so I'll just shut up now.

Zombo's first weekly cover appearance. (art by Henry Flint)

Written with considerable verve by Al Ewing (JUDGE DREDD), who seems to be having a ball doing it, and gorgeously drawn by Henry Flint, the cruelly-underrated illustrator of 2000 AD's SHAKARA (among other projects), ZOMBO is the most fun regular strip to appear in the magazine in ages and it cracks me the hell up. The only complaint I have about this collected volume of the series is that there's so little of it to be had, solely by virtue of its relative newness, but that works to the advantage of new readers who would otherwise have to slog through, in some cases, literally decades of JUDGE DREDD, STRONTIUM DOG, SLAINE, THE A.B.C. WARRIORS and several others to have even half a clue as to what the hell was going on. And, frankly, many of 2000 AD's cornerstone series started out strong and then majorly screwed the pooch, some continuing to run interminably when for ages there's been no good reason to continue them (yeah, I'm lookin' at you, SLAINE and THE A.B.C. WARRIORS!), so this is the perfect place to get in on the ground floor.

In short, ZOMBO: CAN I EAT YOU, PLEASE? is a thoroughly entertaining breath of fetid air and I wholeheartedly recommend picking up the collection, the first of what I hope will be many. Now, if only they'd put out CRADLEGRAVE in a collected edition...

A VAULT RERUN-"KISS MY AXE!": THE COLLECTED SLAINE VOLS. 1-4

Vaulties-

I'm about to start reading the most recent collected edition of SLAINE and will review it when I'm done, but here's the review of the earlier stuff for those who missed it the first time around.

Bloodthirsty Celtic warrior Slaine Mac Roth, as beautifully delineated by the one and only Glenn Fabry.

There is much to love in Britain's venerable weekly sci-fi comics showcase 2000 A.D., especially during its "classic" period. JUDGE DREDD's futuristic cop-on-the-beat exploits, STRONTIUM DOG's "Sergio Leone in space" stylings , heavy metal robotic action with THE A.B.C. WARRIORS, tense deep-space warfare with THE V.C.'S, a curious blend of science-fiction and the occult in NEMESIS THE WARLOCK, intergalactic fun with sociopathic alien juvenile delinquents D.R. & QUINCH... The list goes on and on, but perhaps the most unexpected and unique series to crop up during that era was SLAINE, a major break with the magazine's established sci-fi format in that it was a more or less straight-up sword and sorcery yarn. (There was an earlier Two Thou strip, BLACKHAWK, that kinda went there, but with far more of a sci-fi flavor to it.) Anyway, 2000 A.D. is slowly putting out collected editions of its major series and SLAINE is among the chosen, so here's one SLAINE-fan's assessment of what's up with the current wave of reprints. (Much of the first few years-worth of SLAINE have been reprinted in various formats since the mid-1980, starting with issues of THE BEST OF 2000 A.D., so keep in mind that this is the first time the run is being collected in sequence in trade paperback form.)

VOLUME 1: WARRIOR'S DAWN

The foundation from which the entire SLAINE series springs is laid out in this first volume, therefore making this book vital to really "getting" the series. Despite being rather visually uneven due to the series going through inevitable growing pains and a run of three artists whose talents suit the strip in wildly varying ways (a state of affairs that could cripple a 2000 A.D. strip in that era, most notably and unfortunately THE A.B.C. WARRIORS), SLAINE gets off to a very entertaining start by introducing us to its protagonist when he's a nineteen-year-old drifter, making his way back to his tribe, the Sessair, following three years in exile for committing a grievous breach of tribal etiquette. Accompanied by Ukko the dwarf — a seriously unscrupulous and unwholesome companion if ever there was one, but somebody had to chronicle Slaine's adventures — Slaine wanders from one misadventure to the next, acting like a complete asshole the whole time, and Mills rescues the narrative from what could easily have been yet another rote barbarian story by injecting it with liberal and legitimately funny doses of levity. What makes that angle work is that the art is rendered totally straight, supplying the perfect counterpoint to the series' considerable goofiness. But the initial "comedic Conan" feel gives way to a rich mining of Celtic and other endo-European myth bases (which would later be run into the ground to disastrous effect) and plants the seeds for plot complications that would rear their heads a few years down the line, most notably the introduction of Drune sorceress Medb (who carries a bitter grudge against Slaine for rescuing her from being ritually sacrificed, a process that would have made her a full-fledged goddess of evil).

Massimo Belardinelli's balls-out crazy visualization of Slaine's ultra-bizarre "warp spasm."

This volume's art chores are handled by Angie Kincaid (series co-creator who was on board only for the initial installment) and 2000 A.D. mainstay Massimo Belardinelli (who turned in an utterly inspired, completely balls-out mental/insane visual for Slaine's warp spasm, a supernatural berserker fury allowing him to channel the power of the earth goddess, Danu), but the real kudos here belongs to Mike McMahon, formerly best known for his seminal work on JUDGE DREDD during that strip's glory years ("The Cursed Earth," anyone?). Using a heavily textured and sketchy style that veers far afield of his earlier work, McMahon grants his SLAINE installments a legendary quality that is wholly right for the series in a way that has not been seen since, with each panel looking like its subjects were either carved into stone tablets of ancient woodcuts relating the story's heroic events.

An example of McMahon's woodcut-like SLAINE visuals.

Sheer genius, McMahon's SLAINE work could rightly be judged the finest of his already impressive career. McMahon's SLAINE output is a relatively scant eighteen chapters but its quality ensured classic status, especially the breathtaking "Sky Chariots" and its stunning imagery of flying longboats brimming with heavily-armed warriors engaged in savage combat.

More of the excellence of Mike McMahon.

VOLUME 2: TIME KILLER

Having gone from an entertaining barbarian actioner to full-blown epic in virtually no time, SLAINE's scale only increased from this volume onward. Slaine's path back to his tribe continues apace, but that journey becomes totally beside the point when our hero gains a fearsome dragon as his flying steed and takes on trainee druid priestess Nest as a traveling companion just in time to become embroiled in a battle against the Cythrons, a pack of other-dimensional Lovecraftian wigglies who seek to subjugate our world and feed off of the human energies of hatred and violence (read "war") throughout the ages. This conflict proves quite a test for our hero's well-honed martial ferocity and his goddess-given super-powers, bouncing him back and forth through time and unleashing scads of inhuman carnage and brutal violence. For sheer unbridled thrills and completely out-of-control action that barely gives the reader a moment to breathe, this arc ranks among 2000 A.D.'s finest hours and will leave you wondering just where the hell the creators could take Slaine and his companions after they faced a threat that would have given the most powerful of superhero teams pause. The art here starts off with Belardinelli doing the chapters introducing the Knucker (the aformentioned dragon), but "Time Killer" proper gave readers the bone-crunchingly violent and visceral borderline-"underground" artwork of David Pugh, which was simply fucking excellent and perfect for this arc's Lovecraftian flavor (and inexplicably underrated).

The singularly visceral art of the inexplicably underrated David Pugh.

But then they handed us Glenn Fabry and all bets bets were off. Let me put it this way: Glenn Fabry is one of the comics biz's best illustrators and his art on this arc kicked in the skulls of all who witnessed it when it came out. His ultra-detailed, imaginative-yet-realistic style was just what a fantasy epic like SLAINE was calling for, and to this day I don't think anyone has come within light years of injecting the series with the visual charge Glenn provided (though Pugh comes in at #2 for me), and I very much doubt anyone ever will again. (There are those who champion Simon Bisley, but more on that shortly.) What's really amazing is that Fabry was just getting started here, and with a debut like this a legendary status was assured.

VOLUME 3: THE KING

After the ultra-violent (for a kid's comic) events of "Time Killer," the battle against the Cythrons continues in "The Tomb of Grimnismal," in which Slaine and his companions must make their way into a deep stone sepulchre where a vastly powerful and totally evil elder god is regenerating. If they fail to kill Grimnismal, the horrifying Lovecraftian thing will destroy all life on Earth before going on to once more conquer the stars (which previously happened in some long-ago era and led directly to Grimnismal's imprisonment), so failure is definitely not an option and the skills and powers of Slaine and friends get put to the test like a sunavabitch during this adventure that reads like a Dungeons & Dragons campaign (I mean that in a complementary way). Following "Tomb" comes "The Spoils of Anwynn" — drawn in a serviceable but somewhat generic style by Mike Collins and inked by the now-famed Mark Farmer — , a spiritual quest that tests our hero's wisdom (?) and other qualities as he makes his way to the book's main attraction. After being told by the half-Cythron/half-human wizard Myrddin (Merlin) that he is destined to rule his people, Slaine embarks on a journey of enlightenment and tests of worthiness that will prepare him for his inevitable role, but a thick-headed and violence-driven barbarian lout is not exactly the ideal candidate for teachings, so it's up to druidess Nest to guide him. After that the series returned to a much more down-to-earth setting, but lost not one iota of its legendary/mythical punch in the balls. In "The King," following his mystical quest, Slaine finally returns to his tribe but finds his people under the heel of the Fomorians, repulsive land-walking sea monsters who have all but extinguished his people's fighting spirit. As the tribe's leader falls under the baleful spell of his creepy bride, Megrim (actually the evil Medb from Volume 1, now in disguise), it becomes apparent that he is no longer fit to rule and must be ritually sacrificed so a stronger leader can take his place. As Medb prepares to take the throne, Slaine returns and a blood-omen indicates that it is he who should lead the Sessair. Once approved for his role as ruler, Slaine wastes no time in putting his boot right up the ass of his Fomorian enemies and revives the Sessair's gumption, but he also comes face-to-face with the reason why he fled years earlier and is shocked by what he finds...

One of the Holy Grails of my original art collection: a Glenn Fabry page from "Slaine The King."

"The King" sets up everything that followed in its wake for the next two-plus decades, but that should not be held against it; Glenn Fabry's labor-intensive artwork here is the main selling point and it's the kind of piece that would deservedly and instantly elevate its creator to the highest ranks of comics illustrators (or illustrators of any kind, if truth be told), and as such it's a must-read for comics readers. It's simply stunning and I cannot praise it enough, so if you have no interest in reading the overall run of SLAINE there are several collected editions of "The King" dating back to the 1980's, so if you're willing to pick it up I would recommend the hardcover version that came out a few years ago under the title SLAINE: THE KING.

The highly recommended hardcover edition, including just "The King" and skipping both "The Tomb of Grimnismal" and "The Spoils of Anwynn."

VOLUME 4: THE HORNED GOD

Okay, here's the arc that serves as a milestone for several reasons, among which being that this is considered widely to be not only the creative high-water mark of SLAINE's entire run, but also for the entirety of 2000 A.D. (an opinion that I do not share!). First of all, "The Horned God" was perhaps the story most representative of 2000 A.D.'s period of shift in format from square-shaped and printed on newsprint (or as Garth Ennis puts it, "bog roll") to regular magazine dimensions, as well as the whole mag going from gorgeous black & white to occasionally dodgy color. Those of us who consider ourselves hardcore 2000 A.D. fans almost universally agree that the magazine's classic period lasted until the switch to full color and tend to cite this story in particular as sounding the death knell of the once-kickass sci-fi weekly. "The Horned God" was blessed with some initially alluring painted art by Simon Bisley, who seriously channeled his obvious Frazetta influence straight onto the canvas and threw in a dash of Richard Corben and animated cartoons for good measure (Bisley's version of Ukko the dwarf is a triumph). But what started out as major eye-candy swiftly devolved (in my humble opinion) into an overblown exercise resembling a combination of by-the-numbers HEAVY METAL-style illustration and the stuff rendered in high school by metalhead kids who found inspiration in the rather sophomoric albums of Saxon and Manowar.

Is it the cover of the new Manowar album? No, it's the "groundbreaking" art of Simon Bisley on "The Horned God."

As for the story, this is where Pat Mills begins his long descent into neo-pagan claptrap that would try the patience of even the most tolerant of mythology buffs and pan-theists (like Yer Bunche). What starts out as promising grows lugubrious, pretentious and turgid with each turn of the page, and it appears that Mills forgot that all of this was supposed to be fun. Sadly, that state of affairs has pretty much continued unabated since Bisley's run and not even a brief, painted return engagement by Glenn Fabry could restore SLAINE to its former glory. Since "The Horned God," the series has plodded along endlessly and inexplicably remains one of the magazine's most popular recurring features despite murky and nigh-illegible computer-manipulated artwork, and considering how completely excellent the first few years-worth of SLAINE were, that's a goddamned shame.

The bottom line on all of this is that the first three books are indispensable and should be added to the shelves of any serious comics collection as soon as possible. The import prices can be a bitch, but believe me when I tell you they're absolutely worth it. Now if only 2000 A.D. would settle things with Grant Morrison so they could publish the complete BIG DAVE...

TWO CLASSIC PAGES FROM 2000 A.D. AND THEY'RE MINE! ALL MINE!!!

Have you ever made up your mind to finally get your shit together financially and be more thrifty, only to have that plan sent straight to Hell in a burning septic tank when confronted by something that your geekish collection just could not be without? Plus the item or items in question that have been made available to you will absolutely be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, thus making getting them that much more agonizing? Well, dear Vaulties, just such a thing happened to me right after the Christmas holidays and the expenditures that went with that, so here's my tale of woe and eventual sense of validation at spending as much as I did on what may seem a pair of trivial items to the non-geek.

I entered 2010 with every intention of being more frugal than I had been in years past, but then a certain contact in the UK alerted me to the availability of an original page from STRONTIUM DOG, my oft-mentioned favorite feature in Britain's 2000 A.D. sci-fi weekly, and not just any page, but a page from "Portrait of A Mutant," the story that got me hooked on the magazine back in the summer of 1981. Pages from STRONTIUM DOG are not easy to come by, especially ones from the "classic" period and ones from the protagonist's origin story, so I said "Fuck frugality!" and agreed to purchase the item in question. Then, no sooner than I'd agreed to buy the piece, the same contact told me h'd gotten his hands on a Glenn Fabry page from his legendary run on SLAINE, probably my number two all-time favorite Two Thou series, and when I asked him which page it was, he described one of the five that I considered to be among my five "dream" SLAINE pages, so I agreed to buy it on the spot. What followed was a lean period of living virtually hand-to-mouth while I scrimped and saved for the pieces in questions, which I assure you were not cheap and I do not command anything resembling a princely salary.

Then, after what seemed like an interminable wait as the international money transfers were processed and the art was shipped across the Pond, the package arrived and all of the belt-tightening and living on ramen noodles and cans or corned beef hash were suddenly worth it.

The first of the two pieces is the STRONTIUM DOG page, featuring a young Johnny Alpha making his first kill during the mutant uprising of 2167, the baby step on his path to becoming a highly-skilled commando leader of the Mutant Army and the badassed inter-planetary bounty hunter he's best known (and feared) as.

Drawn by series co-creator Carlos Ezquerra, the page is from 1981 and in the years between then and now, its pasted-on lettering has become partially see-through in some places, revealing an organic "hands-on" appeal that is lost in today's original comics art, the majority of which is digitally lettered, thus causing the lettering to appear only on the printed page and not the actual art boards.

The other page is an incredible tour de force of a SLAINE page by Glenn Fabry.

This one speaks for itself and sums up the incredible quality of linework and visceral majesty that Glenn imparted to the series. Seriously, when I pulled this page out of the package and held its large, heavy illustration board in my loving hands, all doubts about whether I'd made the right decision in buying it were completely erased. Unlike Carlos Ezquerra, I know Glenn Fabry socially, so the next time I see him I'd like to get him to sign this page on the back.

NY Comicon 2008: Glenn Fabry and Yer Bunche, getting loose at Jesus o'clock in the morning.

"KISS MY AXE!":THE COLLECTED SLAINE VOLS. 1-4

Bloodthirsty Celtic warrior Slaine Mac Roth, as beautifully delineated by the one and only Glenn Fabry.

There is much to love in Britain's venerable weekly sci-fi comics showcase 2000 A.D., especially during its "classic" period. JUDGE DREDD's futuristic cop-on-the-beat exploits, STRONTIUM DOG's "Sergio Leone in space" stylings , heavy metal robotic action with THE A.B.C. WARRIORS, tense deep-space warfare with THE V.C.'S, a curious blend of science-fiction and the occult in NEMESIS THE WARLOCK, intergalactic fun with sociopathic alien juvenile delinquents D.R. & QUINCH... The list goes on and on, but perhaps the most unexpected and unique series to crop up during that era was SLAINE, a major break with the magazine's established sci-fi format in that it was a more or less straight-up sword and sorcery yarn. (There was an earlier Two Thou strip, BLACKHAWK, that kinda went there, but with far more of a sci-fi flavor to it.) Anyway, 2000 A.D. is slowly putting out collected editions of its major series and SLAINE is among the chosen, so here's one SLAINE-fan's assessment of what's up with the current wave of reprints. (Much of the first few years-worth of SLAINE have been reprinted in various formats since the mid-1980s, starting with issues of THE BEST OF 2000 A.D., so keep in mind that this is the first time the run is being collected in sequence in trade paperback form.)

VOLUME 1: WARRIOR'S DAWN

The foundation from which the entire SLAINE series springs is laid out in this first volume, therefore making this book vital to really "getting" the series. Despite being rather visually uneven due to the series going through inevitable growing pains and a run of three artists whose talents suit the strip in wildly varying ways (a state of affairs that could cripple a 2000 A.D. strip in that era, most notably and unfortunately THE A.B.C. WARRIORS), SLAINE gets off to a very entertaining start by introducing us to its protagonist when he's a nineteen-year-old drifter, making his way back to his tribe, the Sessair, following three years in exile for committing a grievous breach of tribal etiquette. Accompanied by Ukko the dwarf — a seriously unscrupulous and unwholesome companion if ever there was one, but somebody had to chronicle Slaine's adventures — Slaine wanders from one misadventure to the next, acting like a complete asshole the whole time, and Mills rescues the narrative from what could easily have been yet another rote barbarian story by injecting it with liberal and legitimately funny doses of levity. What makes that angle work is that the art is rendered totally straight, supplying the perfect counterpoint to the series' considerable goofiness. But the initial "comedic Conan" feel gives way to a rich mining of Celtic and other endo-European myth bases (which would later be run into the ground to disastrous effect) and plants the seeds for plot complications that would rear their heads a few years down the line, most notably the introduction of Drune sorceress Medb (who carries a bitter grudge against Slaine for rescuing her from being ritually sacrificed, a process that would have made her a full-fledged goddess of evil).

Massimo Belardinelli's balls-out crazy visualization of Slaine's ultra-bizarre "warp spasm."

This volume's art chores are handled by Angie Kincaid (series co-creator who was on board only for the initial installment) and 2000 A.D. mainstay Massimo Belardinelli (who turned in an utterly inspired, completely balls-out mental/insane visual for Slaine's warp spasm, a supernatural berserker fury allowing him to channel the power of the earth goddess, Danu), but the real kudos here belongs to Mike McMahon, formerly best known for his seminal work on JUDGE DREDD during that strip's glory years ("The Cursed Earth," anyone?). Using a heavily textured and sketchy style that veers far afield of his earlier work, McMahon grants his SLAINE installments a legendary quality that is wholly right for the series in a way that has not been seen since, with each panel looking like its subjects were either carved into stone tablets or ancient woodcuts relating the story's heroic events.

An example of McMahon's woodcut-like SLAINE visuals.

Sheer genius, McMahon's SLAINE work could rightly be judged the finest of his already impressive career. McMahon's SLAINE output is a relatively scant eighteen chapters but its quality ensured classic status, especially the breathtaking "Sky Chariots" and its stunning imagery of flying longboats brimming with heavily-armed warriors engaged in savage combat.

More of the excellence of Mike McMahon.

VOLUME 2: TIME KILLER

Having gone from an entertaining barbarian actioner to full-blown epic in virtually no time, SLAINE's scale only increased from this volume onward. Slaine's path back to his tribe continues apace, but that journey becomes totally beside the point when our hero gains a fearsome dragon as his flying steed and takes on trainee druid priestess Nest as a traveling companion. Those developments occur in time for our hero to become embroiled in a battle against the Cythrons, a pack of other-dimensional Lovecraftian wigglies who seek to subjugate our world and feed off of the human energies of hatred and violence (read "war") throughout the ages. This conflict proves quite a test for Slaine's well-honed martial ferocity and his goddess-given super-powers, bouncing him back and forth through time and unleashing scads of inhuman carnage and brutal violence. For sheer unbridled thrills and completely out-of-control action that barely gives the reader a moment to breathe, this arc ranks among 2000 A.D.'s finest hours and will leave you wondering just where the hell the creators could take Slaine and his companions after they faced a threat that would have given the most powerful of superhero teams pause. The art here starts off with Belardinelli doing the chapters introducing the Knucker (the aformentioned dragon) but "Time Killer" proper gave readers the bone-crunchingly violent and visceral borderline-"underground" artwork of David Pugh, which was simply fucking excellent and perfect for this arc's Lovecraftian flavor (and is inexplicably underrated when the history of this series is discussed).

The singularly visceral art of the inexplicably underrated David Pugh.

But then they handed us Glenn Fabry and all bets bets were off. Let me put it this way: Glenn Fabry is one of the comics biz's best illustrators and his art on this arc kicked in the skulls of all who witnessed it when it came out. His ultra-detailed, imaginative-yet-realistic style was just what a fantasy epic like SLAINE was calling for, and to this day I don't think anyone has come within light years of injecting the series with the visual charge Glenn provided (though Pugh comes in at an extremely close #2 position for me; sorry, Mike), and I very much doubt anyone ever will again. (There are those who champion Simon Bisley, but more on that shortly.) What's really amazing is that Fabry was just getting started here and with a debut like this, a legendary status was assured.

VOLUME 3: THE KING

After the ultra-violent (for a kid's comic) events of "Time Killer," the battle against the Cythrons continues in "The Tomb of Grimnismal," in which Slaine and his companions must make their way into a deep stone sepulchre where a vastly powerful and totally evil elder god is regenerating. If they fail to kill Grimnismal, the horrifying Lovecraftian thing will destroy all life on Earth before going on to once more conquer the stars (which previously happened in some long-ago era and led directly to Grimnismal's imprisonment), so failure is definitely not an option and the skills and powers of Slaine and friends get put to the test like a sunavabitch during this adventure that reads like a Dungeons & Dragons campaign (I mean that in a complementary way). Following "Tomb" comes "The Spoils of Anwynn" — drawn in a serviceable but somewhat generic style by Mike Collins and inked by the now-famed Mark Farmer (who's often well-paired with superstar penciler Alan Davis) —  a spiritual quest that tests our hero's wisdom (?) and other qualities as he makes his way to the book's main attraction. After being told by the half-Cythron/half-human wizard Myrddin (whom we realize will later be better known as Merlin) that he is destined to rule his people, Slaine embarks on a journey of enlightenment and tests of worthiness that will prepare him for his inevitable role. But a thick-headed and violence-driven barbarian lout is not exactly the ideal candidate for such heady teachings, so it's up to the druidess Nest to guide him. After that the series returned to a much more down-to-earth setting, but lost not one iota of its legendary/mythical punch in the balls. In "The King," following his mystical quest, Slaine finally returns to his tribe but finds his people under the heel of the Fomorians, repulsive land-walking sea monsters who have all but extinguished his people's fighting spirit. As the tribe's leader falls under the baleful spell of his creepy bride, Megrim (actually the evil Medb from Volume 1, now in disguise), it becomes apparent that he is no longer fit to rule and must be ritually sacrificed so a stronger leader can take his place. As Medb prepares to take the throne, Slaine returns and a blood-omen indicates that it is he who should lead the Sessair. Once approved for his role as ruler, Slaine wastes no time in putting his boot right up the ass of his Fomorian enemies and revives the Sessair's gumption, but he also comes face-to-face with the reason why he fled years earlier and is shocked by what he finds...

One of the Holy Grails of my original art collection: a "money shot" Glenn Fabry page from "Slaine The King."

"The King" sets up everything that followed in its wake for the next two-plus decades, but that should not be held against it; Glenn Fabry's labor-intensive artwork here is the main selling point and it's the kind of piece that would deservedly and instantly elevate its creator to the highest ranks of comics illustrators (or illustrators of any kind, if truth be told), and as such it's a must-read for comics readers. It's simply stunning and I cannot praise it enough, so if you have no interest in reading the overall run of SLAINE there are several collected editions of "The King" dating back to the 1980's, so if you're willing to pick it up I would recommend the hardcover version that came out a few years ago under the title SLAINE: THE KING.

The highly recommended hardcover edition, including just "The King" and skipping both "The Tomb of Grimnismal" and "The Spoils of Anwynn."

 

On the piss with Glenn Fabry after the NY Comic Con (2008).

VOLUME 4: THE HORNED GOD

Okay, here's the arc that serves as a milestone for several reasons, among which being that this it is widely considered to be not only the creative high-water mark of SLAINE's entire run, but also for the entirety of 2000 A.D. (an opinion that I do not share!). First of all, "The Horned God" was perhaps the story most representative of 2000 A.D.'s period of shift in format from square-shaped and printed on newsprint (or as Garth Ennis puts it, "bog roll") to regular magazine dimensions, as well as the whole mag going from gorgeous black & white to occasionally-dodgy color. Those of us who consider ourselves hardcore 2000 A.D. fans almost universally agree that the magazine's classic period lasted until the switch to full color and tend to cite this story in particular as sounding the death knell of the once-kickass sci-fi weekly. "The Horned God" was blessed with some initially alluring painted art by Simon Bisley, who seriously channeled his obvious Frazetta influence straight onto the canvas and threw in a dash of Richard Corben and animated cartoons for good measure (Bisley's version of Ukko the dwarf is a triumph). But what started out as major eye-candy swiftly devolved (in my humble opinion) into an overblown exercise resembling a combination of by-the-numbers HEAVY METAL-style illustration and the stuff rendered in high school by metalhead kids who found inspiration in the rather sophomoric albums of Saxon and Manowar.

Is it the cover of the new Manowar album? No, it's the "groundbreaking" art of Simon Bisley on "The Horned God."

As for the story, this is where Pat Mills begins his long descent into neo-pagan claptrap that would try the patience of even the most tolerant of mythology buffs and pan-theists (like Yer Bunche). What starts out as promising grows lugubrious, pretentious and turgid with each turn of the page, and it appears that Mills forgot that all of this was supposed to be fun. Sadly, that state of affairs has pretty much continued unabated since Bisley's run and not even a brief, painted return engagement by Glenn Fabry could restore SLAINE to its former glory. Since "The Horned God," the series has plodded along endlessly and inexplicably remains one of the magazine's most popular recurring features, despite murky and nigh-illegible computer-manipulated artwork Considering how completely excellent the first few years-worth of SLAINE were, that's a goddamned shame, but I guess everything eventually reaches a point of diminishing returns.

The bottom line on all of this is that the first three books are indispensable and should be added to the shelves of any serious comics collection as soon as possible. The import prices can be a bitch but believe me when I tell you they're absolutely worth it. Now if only 2000 A.D. would settle things with Grant Morrison so they could publish the complete BIG DAVE...

"ONE...STEP...BEYOND!!!"

This one came from my pal (and fellow 2000 A.D. junkie) Namegon:

If you're not familiar with classic Judge Dredd or the late-1970's/early-1980's UK ska revival this gag will probably make no sense. It's a fusion of the first Madness album cover and characters from the seminal Judge Dredd epic "The Cursed Earth" and there's too much to explain regarding the characters used from it, so forgive me if I don't bore you with the whys and wherefores (although I must say that I love Tweak's facial expression). Just enjoy it for its "madness." Oh, and here's the album cover it's goofing on:

In fact, if you've never heard the album, it's one of the most fun entries from the ska revival movement and is certainly light years better than their later crap like "Our House."

A VAULT RERUN-2000 A.D.'s SHAKO

"Shako! The Eskimo word for the Great White Bear. It means simply...KILLER!"

Thus opened the 1977 serial SHAKO, a sixteen chapter, virtually plotless excuse to depict a Polar bear biting people's heads off, and I'll be damned if it wasn't funny as hell.

Running during the first year of Britain's legendary weekly sci-fi anthology comic 2000 A.D., SHAKO was unique since its sci-fi hook was tenuous at best — the bear had swallowed a container of a deadly germ warfare culture and had to be hunted down by the CIA — especially when weighed against the other serials that populated the magazine's pages, most notably the nascent JUDGE DREDD.

2000 AD came hot on the heels of the unfairly-canceled ACTION, another weekly mag that catered to bloodthirsty young boys, each strip filled with wall-to-wall carnage and graphic violence, factors that made it the target of UK parental outrage, and no strip in the book was more notorious than the flagrant (to say nothing of fucking hilarious) JAWS ripoff, HOOKJAW (note the imaginative title).

That series was nothing more than a body count on the high seas and its plot histrionics appealed to its laddish audience not merely thanks to its outrageous level of gory mayhem, but also because it read like a strip a ten-year-old could have written, and therein lay the balls-out fun. But all good things must end or get canceled by a bunch of parental pussies, so HOOKJAW went to the Davy Jones's locker of comicdom, and was resuscitated with an ursine stand-in for the shark in 2000 AD #20-35.

I first discovered Two-Thou (as us fans/geeks affectionately call it) during a trip to England in the summer of 1981 and have been hooked ever since, and in '86 an abridged version of SHAKO was printed in that year's 2000 AD annual. I was in my third year of college when I picked it up, and one of my fondest memories of introducing my friends to comics has to be seeing my pal John Gibson convulsed with laughter as he read the bear's murderous rampage, occasionally stopping to giggle and exclaim, "Shako!!!" in his best movie trailer narrator's voice.

No joke, each chapter of the story has no purpose other than to depict a startlingly intelligent polar bear staying one step ahead of his pursuers, sadistically setting traps for them, chomping on their heads like candy, and just generally being a big, white menace.

Among the many laugh-out-loud highlights, the two funniest bits have to be the one where a guy is in the shower and, soap in his eyes, gropes about to find what he thinks is a fluffy white towel, and the one where a Russian whaler named Sergei actually gets into a fist fight with Shako because he wants to fight an American (???) and shouts, "A left to the fish basket, Yankee!" as he punches the bear in the gut shortly before Shako quite literally tears him a new one. Chapter after chapter goes by, each topping the previous for ludicrous action, memorably culminating with CIA man Buck Dollar blowing the shit out of Shako with a bazooka, only to die when the bear's carcass falls on him. What's not to love?

Remembered these days only by Two-Thou diehards, SHAKO has become a cult favorite for all of the previously stated reasons and the entire serial was reprinted in 2000 AD EXTREME EDITION #18 (Oct. 31, 2006), the magazine that re-presents the harder-to-find offerings from Two-Thou's bygone days. When I saw the bear's face on the cover, I let out a yelp of surprise and delight, scooped it up and bought the motherfucker, reading it on the subway and laughing like a madman.

And in a true testament to SHAKO's cult status, there's even a T-shirt available, featuring bloody claw marks and the bear biting a guy's head off, emblazoned with the slogan,"Shako! The Only Bear on the C.I.A. Death List!"

My kind of merchandising tie-in! Trust yer Bunche and read the motherfucker, already! It'd make for an hilarious film adaptation, especially with buckets of spewing red paint, and the title character played by a really bad animatronic, the less realistic, the better.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAVE GIBBONS!

Living legend comics illustrator Dave Gibbons hits the big six-oh today, and I'm sure I speak for comics appreciators the world over when I extend him a very happy birthday. Best known for his seminal work on WATCHMEN, Dave's career has birthed many indelible efforts, but if you ask me his crowning achievements are WATCHMEN (well, duh!) and three other stories that kicked my ass when I first read them and still blow me away to this day.

SUPERMAN ANNUAL #11, containing one of the all-time classic Superman stories.

First is "For the Man Who Has Everything" (SUPERMAN ANNUAL #11, 1985), written by Alan Moore — Gibbons' future collaborator on WATCHMEN — and featuring Superman on the wrong end of one of the most diabolical bits of psychological/emotional torture on record. I won't spoil the surprises, but this one was a classic right out of the gate and the struggles against the world-conquering Mongul while Superman is incapacitated are truly impressive, particularly the complete and utter defeat of Wonder Woman after she suffers a broken arm and gets launched through one of the Fortress of Solitude's walls. And if you ever wondered how scary it would be if Superman ever got really, really angry, this one is a must-read.

In another unforgettable Alan Moore collaboration, the TALES OF THE GREEN LANTERN CORPS backup story "Mogo Doesn't Socialize" (GREEN LANTERN Vol. 2 #188, May 1985), readers learn of the reclusive Mogo, a member of the intergalactic/inter-species Green Lantern Corps police force who may be the most unique of the Corps' members by virtue of being a sentient planet.

The simultaneously ridiculous and awesome Mogo.

The setup for the reveal of Mogo's true nature is quite intriguing and when the punchline comes it is at once both totally laugh-out-loud ridiculous and completely awesome in every way. Simplicity itself, I just plain love this one.

Though it gets mentioned third, my absolute favorite Dave Gibbons story is a four-part Pat Mills-scribed installment in 2000 A.D.'s classic RO-BUSTERS series, "The Terra-Meks" (2000 A.D. Prog #98-101, Feb. 1979), featuring the greatest giant robot hero ever, namely Charlie, a sweet and humble mechanical colossus who acts as a sentient tugboat for the harbor of the future city of Northpool.

Balls of steel and a heart of gold: Charlie at work.

Working tirelessly and selflessly, Charlie is beloved by the townspeople, and he repays that love a thousandfold when evil and unscrupulous developers set out to raze Northpool without caring one whit for the homes or safety of its inhabitants. As the gigantic and destructive Terra-Meks (sentient and uncaring demolition robots) launch a campaign of urban renewal that amounts to heavily-armed assault, Charlie violates his obedience programming, picks up a construction girder and sorts out the Terra-Meks in a symphony of robotic carnage that still leaves me breathless. The climax is one of comics' greatest tear-jerkers, and while he may not agree with me, I consider the work done on this story to be the finest of Dave's career. WATCHMEN may be the work of a more seasoned draftsman, but the story of Charlie remains unparalleled in 2000 A.D.'s annals for the depth of feeling and humanity it puts out there. This story stuck with me from the moment I first read it in a Titan Books collection in the mid-1980's, and when I first met Dave at a con sometime around 1988, he was doing sketches for the fans, mostly of WATCHMEN's Rorschach. When my turn on line came, I asked him for Charlie and he looked rather surprised that an American knew that story, but he made my day by rendering the Hero of Northpool. I have nothing against Rorschach, but given a choice of having an original drawing of his psychotic ass or one of the genuinely heroic Charlie, there's only one choice for me.

The cover of the reprint edition where I first encountered Charlie.

My Gibbons original of Charlie, one of the crown jewels of my collection.

So with that I'd like to conclude by stating how fortunate I was to have worked with Dave in a professional capacity on his graphic novel, THE ORIGINALS, and I can tell you honestly that he was a delight to work with. In fact, next to John Romita, Sr., Dave may be the one titan of the comics biz about whom nobody has even one bad thing to say. Consummately talented, an editor's dream to work with and an all-around terrific guy, I salute Dave Gibbons on this day of days and wish him continued success and nothing but the very best.

THE V.C.s BOOK 1: YOU'RE HIT, YOU'RE DEAD! (2008)

England's 2000 A.D. sci-fi weekly is no stranger to "war in space" stories, but the short-lived original run of THE V.C.s gets my vote as the best of the lot. Clocking in at a mere twenty-two chapters, THE V.C.s scores high points for all of the elements that make for a great military science-fiction story and has the common decency not to glorify warfare in the least, instead showing it to be the ugly, wasteful and inevitably destructive ravager of lives and cultures that it is. When measured against the majority of strips considered classics from 2000 A.D.'s golden age — 1977 through roughly 1984 — THE V.C.s is a surprisingly quiet series, much more interested in the dysfunctional dynamics of its battle-hardened protagonists than the zero-G shoot-'em-up pyrotechnics that go part and parcel with the genre.

Written by Gerry Finley-Day (co-creator of 2000 A.D.'s most famous space-war series, ROGUE TROOPER) and Steve McManus, the series kicks off in the year 2531 and follows raw recruit Steve Smith as he enters a savage conflict between our solar system and the vicious invasion forces of the mysterious "Geeks," a multi-form race who can correctly be read as extra-terrestrial Viet Cong. Expecting to be placed within a standard combat unit, Smith receives an unpleasant surprise when he finds himself assigned to the ship of The V.C.'s, a motley crew composed of men from several colony worlds, each of whom bears no love for native Earthmen like Smith. Derogatorily referred to as "Earthworm," Smith is treated like he's lower than dogshit by every one of the ship's crew (except for their gruff-but-tolerant commanding officer, Jupe) and his complete lack of actual combat experience does not gain him any fans or sympathy. The philosophy of the V.C.'s is simple, "You're hit, you're dead," and damned if it isn't the truth; during the course of the narrative there is much death on both sides of the battle and Smith takes all lessons learned during all the deep-space horror to heart, gradually evolving into a space trooper every bit as ruthless and capable as his crewmates, but that's to be expected when dealing out the kind of carnage necessary to keep the spaceways of our solar system clean of would-be-conquerors. Oh, and in case you were wondering, the term "V.C.'s" is the crew's self-deprecating nickname that's short for "vacuum cleaners."

Displaying surprisingly little of the levity that 2000 A.D. was known for at the time, THE V.C.s is a taut and tense entry that deserves its place in the pantheon of early Two Thou winners and the art by Mike McMahon — whose unique style contributed immeasurably to the success of JUDGE DREDD and later SLAINE — , Cam Kennedy (also a contributor to ROGUE TROOPER) and Gary Leach (who memorably illustrated the stunning first story arc of Alan Moore's classic MIRACLEMAN) certainly did the series no harm, creating a gritty and unpleasant galaxy in which the heroes fight and die, and occasionally looking so grime-encrusted that you'll want to climb into the strip's panels and force the characters to bathe at gunpoint.

The original run of THE V.C.s is complete in this volume and serves as the essential primer for what comes when the series was revived in 2002, some twenty-two years after it was last seen. I have no explanation as to why the series lay fallow for so long, especially considering how 2000 A.D. is notorious for bringing back some strips year after year — and in the case of some, running them into the ground well after they ceased to be of any interest or worth, most notably the once-excellent SLAINE which is now an interminable and incoherent mess — but the second V.C.s series is just as much fun as the original, so I'll be on board for when those are collected (I only read the second run's first story arc, but that was enough to convince me that's it's worth keeping up with).

And a final word of caution to would-be collectors of these current collections of classic 2000 A.D. material: the one downside to having so many of the magazine's most celebrated series becoming available in the U.S. is their comparatively steep import prices. The thicker phonebook-sized volumes can go for as much as $35.00 and a smaller collection like THE V.C.s retails at $22.50 (both prices are the in-store cost; if you order via Amazon expect heinous overseas shipping costs on top of the import rate), so unless you have cash to burn in these uncertain times, as much I recommend most of what Two Thou has to offer I also recommend choosing what you buy with frugality in mind.