Comics UK

Prog 1830 has just come through the door and I love the cover.

To me, the original logo and design is just as good as the current one.

SID wrote:Prog 1830 has just come through the door and I love the cover.

To me, the original logo and design is just as good as the current one.

That's excellent! It'll be interesting to see if that issue attracts new readers.

I agree about the logo. I've always liked that original one. Apparently some IPC editors felt it looked like the comic was called Zooom. Perhaps it did, if they'd mislaid their glasses, but even 'Zooom' would have been a great name for a sci-fi comic aimed at kids (as it was back then).

It's interesting to note that in the early years they regularly discussed the vital question of what to do about the title's built-in obsolescence in the unlikely event of the comic lasting beyond the year 2000 (of course, nobody really believed it would). I still can't understand why, but the millennium has been and gone and 2000AD has turned out to sound just as futuristic today as it did then. Go figure!

- Phil Rushton

I'm sure I read a magazine article or blog post somewhere, where somebody recalled a conversation they had in the late 80's
"What are you going to do about 2000AD's title in 2000?"
"That's 12 years in the future, we'll think of something!"
Going on to say that 2000 was now 12 years in the past, and what they'd actually done was nothing at all!

Though during the late 90's the letters page had plenty of messages suggesting new titles such as 3000AD, Beyond 2000 (which had already been used by a Canadian technology show) or Sci Fi Action (which Tharg warned would be shortened by fans to SFA)

I seem to remember that when Warren's 1984 continued past that year they changed the title to 1994. As it never lasted to the 1990s, however, no further changes were necessary!

- Phil R.

I don't think that Wagner and Mills [and the other early contributers] ever seriously expected the title to ever actually reach the next Millenium way back in 1977--it was intended as a quick cash-in on the then new STAR WARS trend, and the concept of readers 'maturing' and staying with the same comic as they aged over the next 35 years was simply unthinkable at the time----apparantly an early title for the comic was AD 2000.

Yes a great satirical cover--dig that '235 Earth Money' reference---for sheer satire on our own society, 2000 AD can give the almighty MAD Magazine a run for it's creds at times.......

Terrible-leftist-satire-rag-disguised-as-nostalgia Solar Wind did something similar a few years ago, with a monster shouting "YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS!" over the 300p price XD

John Wagner - so left-wing. And what about Judge Dredd. He's always giving suspended community service orders.

I still remember how excited I got when I saw the first advertisment for the comic back in 1977 - especially the logo. I think it was on the strength of that which got me to place a regular order at WHSmiths (which got all my comics at that time) before the first issue actually came out.

I was desperate to read Dan Dare. Too young for the Eagle but DD was still spoken about. A bit slated now but that Biogs adventure was terrific. Much prefer that DD to the 50s.

At the time I hated the early issues of 2000AD - as did most people who'd grown up with the 50s/60s Dan Dare. Though later issues won me over I still think the first few progs read like the house organ of the National Front!

- Phil Rushton

LOL. I forgot about Dan Dare.

It was the striking logo with the accompanying words "Starring the New Dan Dare" that got me hooked even before I got the first issue. I got to know Eagle's Dan Dare through my father who bought me the Best of Eagle a few years earlier.

Nor was I disappointed when I finally got that first issue. True, Dan Dare was a completely different character but to a young teenager, he was exciting and fresh with great artwork. The whole comic was and it certainly knocked the socks off any other comics out there at the time and for a long time to come. The only exception was Starlord but of course you know what happened to that.

Quite a coincidence that the Beano has just done a retro cover as well. Is this something to do with next week's Free Comic Book Day?

- Phil R.

SID wrote:
It was the striking logo with the accompanying words "Starring the New Dan Dare" that got me hooked even before I got the first issue. I got to know Eagle's Dan Dare through my father who bought me the Best of Eagle a few years earlier.

The Best of Eagle was published in 1977. Perhaps it was the 1974 Dan Dare Annual that you'd seen?

philcom55 wrote:Quite a coincidence that the Beano has just done a retro cover as well. Is this something to do with next week's Free Comic Book Day?

- Phil R.

Nope. I don't think either Rebellion or DCT participate in that?