Multiver-City One: 2000 AD Prog 1949

Welcome, citizens, to this week’s installment of Multiver-City One! Every Wednesday we examine the latest offerings from Tharg and the droids over at 2000 AD, the galaxy’s leading producers of Thrill-Power entertainment! Between the weekly “2000 AD” itself, the monthly “Judge Dredd Megazine”, an extensive library of graphic novel collections, and new US-format one-shots and mini-series, they have decades of zarjaz comics for you to enjoy.

Quick programming note: next week’s Prog 1950 is another one of Tharg’s jumping-on points for “2000 AD”! All of that Prog’s strips are specially selected to be even more new-reader-friendly than usual. We’ll go into more detail next week, but consider yourself warned that in seven days you’ll be getting a slab of Thrill-Powered goodness you won’t be able to refuse!

We’ve got a brand-new Prog this week, so we’ll jump right in after a quick public service announcement!

I. AN EARTHLET’S GUIDE TO 2000 AD

We understand that having such a large selection of comics to choose from can make knowing where to start with 2000 AD seem daunting. What do they publish? Where can I get it? What’s up with Judge Dredd? Can I still read “2000 AD” if I don’t like Judge Dredd?

So to help new & potential readers, we’ve put together An Earthlet’s Guide to 2000 AD. This FAQ collects everything you need to make your initial foray into the 2000 AD Thrill-verse as simple as possible.

II. THIS WEEK IN PROG 1949

Cover by Dave Kendall

NOW DEPARTING

The Alienist: The Haunting of Hex House, Part 6

Not exactly an epic length to this first full ‘Alienist’ strip, but when your adventures takes place inside a pan-dimensional entity taken the form of a house to feast on the poor souls who venture inside before pulling up stakes and moving to another dimension to rinse and repeat, you probably don’t want to hang around any longer than absolutely necessary.

The creative team has done a solid job in setting up not only the premise of ‘The Alienist’ for future installments and seeding the impending doom Madelyne Vespertine keeps trying to protect us humans from, but also building the relationship between her and her partner Reggie (aka Sebastian Wetherall). He doesn’t have the powers she does, nor does he seem to lack the common sense that should tell him Madelyne and the circles she travels in are very dangerous. But he genuinely tries to aid her without the mental suggestion she’s clearly capable of forcing on him. Now that this dynamic has been set up, Beeby & Rennie would be wise to not wait too long filling in some of the backstory. Going total flashback story would probably be too much, but a lot of information could be seeded into a present-day story without too much trouble, I think.

In addition to wanting to know more, I also want to see more of Coveney’s art. I’ve mentioned seeing bits of Garcia-Lopez here and Castellini there, but that panel above gives me a little hint of early Bolland in the detailing of the face and tentacles of…whatever the hell that thing is. I know I said ‘pan-dimensional entity’ earlier, but that manifestation looks like one of the Zuul dogs from Ghostbusters crossed with the Beetlejuice snake from, well, Beetlejuice. With all these flavors of other artists’ work in his own, I’d love to see who else Coveney riffs on to make his own brand of Thrill-Crazy for this strip. Hopefully Tharg won’t wait too long before putting out the next one!

Credits: Gordon Rennie & Emmy Beeby (script), Eoin Coveney (art), Simon Bowland (letters)

Dreams of Deadworld: Death

And finally: Death.

What’s been interesting about all of these strips so far is that they’ve given us a more ‘human’ look at the Dark Judges than we’ve ever seen before. We’ve seen Fire deal with heartbreak, Mortis cope with his isolation, and Fear grapple with paranoia. All of these themes loosely tied back to what these Judges are, a personification of symbology, if you will. So with this set up, I was intrigued by what Death’s story would be.

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Unlike the other three Dark Judges, we’ve gotten peeks behind Death’s curtain before. I mean, we’ve gone so far as to see what he’s like as a roommate, for Grud’s sake! So with that in mind, I don’t really know if I was expecting some sort of introspective, quiet story about Death making his way in a post-apocalyptic Deadworld. Sure, isolating a character and letting their own neuroses take over is a good way of examining the core of a character, but in a way, Mrs Gunderson’s already done that for us. So Kek-W and Dave Kendall did the next best thing: an origin story.

This isn’t an origin of Judge Death; instead, it’s a story about getting the band together. We see how Death established himself as the leader, and how the other Dark Judges of Deadworld met their end. It’s through this approach that we scratch at the core of Judge Death and his motivations. He’s driven by order, and the control that comes with being the force behind that order. He wants purpose, and for others to fall in line with his own reasoning. It seems like he understands that there’s a problem with his worldview, but feels that if he can force others to comply with it, then he can have a support system to justify his actions.

These stories have been a real treat. Kendall’s art and designs have really impressed me. Here’s hoping for more work from him soon!

Credits: Kek-W (script), Dave Kendall (art), Ellie de Ville (letters)

Judge Dredd: Ghost Town, Part 2

After last week’s semi-stiff set up, it feels like Edginton has loosened up & gotten to have a little fun. Well, as much fun as one could have while examining the oppression of humanity, I guess. To balance out Dredd as a symbol of life-crushing fascism, Edginton managed to work robo-looters, a talking gorilla, and Black Atlantic pirates into the story. Now, while this stuff IS a lot of fun, I don’t want to mislead you into thinking it was all done for laughs. As off-the-wall as this week’s ‘villains’ are, they all serve to act as a mirror to Dredd. The robot master sits with his hand on the control of a mindless mass of automatons, all of which are willing to blindly fight for reasons that are not their own. Then the pirate queen, marked with the third eye of enlightenment, is a weathered and aged leader who will reward her underlings with her favor, but also shows no concern for their lives. Through subtlety and humor, Edginton has painted an absurdist portrait of Judge Dredd by showing us how ridiculous he can be out of context.

Of course, all of that character work would be lost if not for the work of the artist, and Dave Taylor was absolutely perfect for this story. I said last week that his Dredd reminded me of an earlier era in the Judge’s life, and this week really cemented that. The round helmet, the slender extremities, the gaunt appearance, it all harkens back to a by-gone era. There’s one exception, though: Taylor’s Dredd really shows his age. His skin looks old and leathery, with deep creases and a little sag. It’s impressive how Taylor pulls this off, sparely using lines to give us information with as few marks as possible. That’s not to say that these pages are minimal in any way, the labor put into them is plain to see. What I mean is that his rendering is masterful and smart, never muddying the water with too much information. He knows exactly how much to give, and when to only use a few lines and ticks to make us understand what we’re looking at, which shows a great confidence on his part.

All in all, this was an enjoyable little side trip. The story helps to push us forward, past the fall out of ‘Titan’ and into the next phase of Dredd lore kicking off in next week’s Prog.

Credits: Ian Edginton (script), Dave Taylor (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)

Future Shock: Re-Incarn-8

Future Shocks: one-and-done strips, small page counts, big twists.

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The premise? We’ve cracked reincarnation. When someone dies, their soul (or memories or whatever) is captured by the electronic soul-net we have surrounding the globe and gets downloaded to a baby in the birthing labs. But that info is locked away until the person’s 18th birthday, with the assumption that this is the point where a person is mentally mature enough to handle the reality of reincarnation and what their past lives entailed. Obviously these memories only go back as far as lives that were able to be caught by the soul-net, so nobody’s having visions of being Cleopatra or anything.

Baillie and Brokenshire set up a neat little premise with this one and insert an interesting dilemma in the scant number of pages allotted. I know where they are going with the ending, but I’m not 100% sure it actually has the finality they wanted. It’s a good ending, but it feels more akin to the first part of a Tharg 3riller than a Future Shock. That could just be me not correctly adding up the math they laid down in the story. Feel free to let me know if I’m wrong in the Comments.

Credits: David Baillie (script), Nick Brokenshire (art), Ellie de Ville (letters)

III. REBELLION BUYS “SCARLET TRACES”

H.G. Wells’s “The War of the Worlds” has seen numerous adaptations and alternate takes in all forms of media, be it film, TV, radio, or even comics. DC put out a particularly nice Superman Elseworlds oneshot by Roy Thomas and Michael Lark with the Man of Tomorrow going up against the Martian invasion at the time of his first appearance and the Welles radio broadcast. Marvel went a different route and came up with the character of Killraven fighting Martians after they’d already had their way with humanity. But my favorite comics version of “The War of the Worlds” has to be “Scarlet Traces” by Ian Edginton and D’Israeli (aka Matt Brooker). This should surprise no one who’s read this column when one of their strips is running. Be it ‘Stickleback’, ‘Helium’, or any of their previous collaborations, anything with their collective name on it is an automatic must-buy for me.

It seems 2000 AD feels the same way, because they announced their acquisition of the “Scarlet Traces” rights last week, marking the first time the company has purchased the rights to a creator-owned property. You can read the full press release below, then keep going for some more commentary:

2000 AD has acquired the rights to Scarlet Traces by Ian Edginton and Matt “D’Israeli” Brooker. The legendary British comics publisher has secured the global rights for the series, its sequel The Great Game, and its prequel – the pair’s adaptation of HG Wells’s The War of the Worlds – and will reprint them in new editions.
2000 AD is also delighted to announce that Edginton and D’Israeli will be working on new stories in the series, an inventive Steampunk sequel to Wells’ all-time classic by two of comics’ greatest talents.
Scarlet Traces took science fiction’s first great novel and merged it with a dose of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, John Wyndham and Nigel Kneale, D’Israeli’s awe-inspiring world-building with Edginton’s deft grasp of characterisation and trademark ‘pipe and slippers gothic’ style producing a comic that is at once tremendously thrilling and humbly grounded.
Originally published online before being serialised in 2002, it takes place ten years after the abortive Martian invasion of Earth and, thanks to reverse engineering the alien technology littering its countryside after the war, Britain now dominates the world economically and politically. However, women’s bodies – all drained of blood – are being washed up on the banks of the River Thames. Major Robert Autumn DSO emerges from comfortable retirement with his trusty manservant Colour Sergeant Arthur Currie to hunt down the culprits – but what they find will shake their world to its very core.
The Great Game was published by Dark Horse Comics in 2006 and is set 30 years later, when the increasingly autocratic British government has launched a counter-invasion of Mars. But aristocratic young photojournalist Charlotte Hemming discovers that the war is not going well for old Blighty…
Ian Edginton said: “’Is Scarlet Traces going to be reprinted?’ and ‘Is there going to be another series?’ are the two questions we’re always asked when we do signings and conventions. It pleases me no end to say that I can now give hearty ‘yes!’ to both. We’ve viewed a great many options over the years with regards reprints and new series and eventually, we both came to the same conclusion that the best place, the most natural fit, would be at Rebellion. We have created a substantial body of work for them and always been happy with the way we’ve been treated. I always envisioned that there would be more Scarlet Traces stories to tell and now we can begin in earnest.”
Matt Brooker said: “Scarlet Traces began its life in print at the Judge Dredd Megazine in 2002, so in many ways this feels like coming home. Ian and I have always had an excellent relationship with 2000 AD, who have backed us in doing some of our best work. It’s always tough to let your offspring go, but we trust Rebellion to do a great job both in publishing and promoting Scarlet Traces, and we’ve every confidence it will thrive in its new home.”
Ben Smith, Head of Book and Comics Publishing at Rebellion Publishing, said: “Ian Edginton and D’Israeli are two of the most significant creators to emerge in British comics over the last twenty years. Scarlet Traces was a standout series that we have long admired. When Ian and Matt were looking for a new home for the collected series I knew that Rebellion had an opportunity to not only produce a new edition that would do this material full justice, but that by bringing the series in-house to 2000 AD, we would be able to continue the saga and have the creators tell the full story they have always wanted to and see it run for years to come.”

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Exciting stuff, eh? Old stuff coming back into print and new stuff coming out as well? Zarjaz indeed!

Just to give you a bit of a visual chronology (and an excuse to show off some D’Israeli art), “Scarlet Traces” was originally put together as a webcomic, back in the days before those sort of things really existed as we think of them today. You can find out more about the publishing history here, but the short version is that the duo came up with the idea in 1992, finally had it published on the Cool Beans World website in 2000 for about five pages before they went belly-up, took until 2002 for it to resurface in the creator-owned slot of “Judge Dredd Megazine” volume 4 (#16-18). Of course, D’Israeli had to basically rework the entire story to make the landscape-formatted art fit into the portrait-format of the print “Megazine”.

In 2003, the material made its way over to the US in the form of a Dark Horse Comics hardcover:

That hardcover did well enough for the team to not only do their own adaptation of Wells’s novel, but also a sequel to their own tale, “Scarlet Traces: The Great Game” in 2006: