Rebellion Releases (2000AD) - 8 July 2020

Rebellion have a quiet week this week, with Wednesday seeing only the publication on the newsstands. Despite the slow down in the number of physical copies that are appearing over the next few months, there are titles still due in the shops to keep things interesting. We have the Tammy & Jinty Special at the end of July, a Battle Special and the third Misty & Scream Special in September.

Rebellion have also given a bit of an advance look at November's The John Steel Files, which contains two newly-coloured reprints of John Steel adventures. I've been pushing for this series to be reprinted for years -- it was one that I tried to champion fifteen years ago when Carlton were doing their reprints. Now we will have had two reprints in a year: the collection from Book Palace and now a collection from Rebellion. My cup runneth over!

I've seen some complaints about the need for colouring, but... well, I'm not sure where I stand on this. Normally I'd say that if Rebellion are selling this as some kind of Sixties chic ("Sharper than Bond, cooler than The Saint," according to their press release), then black & white is part of that chic. The artwork by Luis Bermejo lends itself to the kind of crime noir stories that John Steel featured in. That said, while I was first attracted to the stories by the artwork, it was the writing that really sold me on the series. It's the closest to Raymond Chandler's lyrical hard-boiled style that British comics ever came.

Here are some samples of the newly coloured versions -- colouring by 2000AD's Pippa Bowland. Purists look away now. Everyone else... read the examples below and I think you'll be persuaded that you need to buy this book!

2000AD Prog 2189

Cover: Neil Roberts

Judge Dredd: End of Days by Rob Williams (writer) Colin MacNeil (artist) Chris Blythe (colourist) Simon Bowland (letterer)
Full Tilt Boogie by Alex de Campi (writer) Eduardo Ocana (artist) Simon Bowland (letterer)
The Diaboliks: Profundo Rosso by Gordon Rennie (writer) Dom Reardon (artist) Jim Campbell (letterer)
The Order: Land of the Free by Kek-W (writer) John Burns (artist) Simon Bowland (letterer)
The Out by Dan Abnett (writer) Mark Harrison (artist) Annie Parkhouse (letterer)