Wednesday, June 26, 2013
35 Years of Judge Dredd (video)
A fine precis of Dredd's history and importance although I have to disagree with Brian Bolland's statement that there hadn't been any science fiction in comics for 20 years. 2000AD's immediate predecessor, Action, had 'Spinball', which is a straightforward SF yarn about a futuristic sport. My own comic of choice had 'The Steel Claw' (an invisible man), 'Kelly's Eye' (invincible time-traveller), 'Mytek the Mighty' (giant robot ape), 'Kid Pharaoh' (an Egyptian pharaoh awakened in the modern world), 'Adam Eterno' (a castaway in time), 'Sergeant Strong' (a victim of cosmic rays) and 'Star Trek' (based on the TV show), amongst others. Champion was launched as a science fiction comic in 1966—as I pointed out in the introduction to the Hurricane & Champion index.
Thanks for the 2000AD link - very interesting. Most of the writers & artists featured I'd never seen such as Bolland so nice to put a face to the name.
ReplyDeleteI also fondly remember Valiant - apart from Kid Pharaoh I recall all the oter characters - also the Wild Brothers, Jason Stark & Legge's Eleven I think were Valiant as well as the 5 page opening tale which was Captain Hurricane & his batman Maggot Malone.
To link the two references, some years ago there was an absolutely dreadful (pardon the unintentioned pun) 2000AD Special featuring characters from Valiant. It was an embarrassment - a total zonker! I recall Mytek the Mighty was incomprehensible - not good for a story! I believe there was a 6 part anthology called Albion a few years later which was a far more sympathetic selection of Valiant characters including The Spider but set after they had retired. Another was Robot Archie.