Home of the Anti-hero

FUTURE SHOCK! THE STORY OF 2000AD (2015)

Pat Mills' 'Flesh' strip typified 2000AD's vicious streak. Exploring similar man-dominating-nature themes to his 'Hook Jaw' in Action, cowboys from the future farm dinosaurs for their meat. Its "dinosaurs eating people" vein tapped into the comics' mantra of giving the readers what they wanted.

ALTHOUGH IPC began 2000AD in the slipstream of STAR WARS, the comic would be in a galaxy far, far away from George Lucas' straight-laced space adventure. Here was a publication that prided itself in the unruly Britain of the late seventies, with an anti-authoritarian swagger and violence to spare. It spawned a parade of legendary writers and artists (termed a "brotherhood" here by Dave Gibbons), and forged life-long friendships and eternal arguments. Directed by Paul Goodwin, this documentary charts the rise and near-fall of British comics' saviour, from its heady beginnings during the cultural clashes of the punk ethic and the silver jubilee, to surviving the 1990's with its attempted 'Lads Mag' rebranding and strips on a cyborg Tony Blair, then onto its lasting legacy of the "destroyed future."

With such a broad canvas to cover FUTURE SHOCK! can only hint at the horror stories behind the scenes, and for far more comprehensive coverage you should be directed to David Bishop's book Thrill-Power Overload: Thirty Years of 2000 AD. The quality of the "talking heads" differ wildly, and their effectiveness gets less interesting as the prog count flies by. Creator/first editor Pat Mills is in his element, providing numerous examples of what would later be termed a "Mills Bomb"; furthermore, Kevin O'Neill, John Wagner and Alan Grant are wonderfully wry, and Alan Moore is notable in his absence. At the other end of the spectrum Anthrax's Scott Ian tells us he once wrote a song about Judge Dredd, and Leah Moore just wants Daddy to finish Halo Jones for her.

Grant Morrison's Zenith debuted in 2000AD #535 (August 1987). This was a period of new stories and new talent for the comic, with Zenith being a spoilt Generation X'er who used his super powers not to fight evil but to promote a pop career.

When a documentary is so gushing in its own importance as this, it is far too easy to overreach. Apparently 2000AD has influenced virtually every science-fiction film since, from the obvious (ROBOCOP, HARDWARE, TIMECRIMES) to the tenuous-at best (BATMAN BEGINS, MAN OF STEEL). Alex Garland is the most thoughtful in this passage, making the point that the comic's influences on film is similar to the connection between Conrad's Heart of Darkness and APOCALYPSE NOW: the power of Coppola's Vietnam odyssey reaching out to a far greater audience. What is more measured is the publications link to the creation of DC's Vertigo imprint, the direct result of the much-discussed American headhunting of British graphic talent in the mid-80's.

But 2000AD did save the British comic book industry. Its subversive "gang of reprobates" washed its hands of the stagnant norm and carried on the mentality of the banned Action and fused its pages with black humour and sub textual weight (although Mills laments this forced "retreat" into science fiction). Away from its supposed cinematic wastelands, the comic's greatest lasting legacy indirectly links back to the culling of talent by DC; with its "Credit Cards," it was the first time a strip magazine acknowledged its creative talents. But by seeking this healthier working platform, artists and writers suddenly became brands in their own right, jumping ship to the US and creating an intellectual change that transformed the staid American market.

"Blood of My Ancestors!"

Doctor Who Weekly - Black Legacy (1980)

When Black Legacy appeared in June 1980, Alan Moore's story predated his 2000 A.D. debut by a month, representing his first published comics work - amateur or professional -  solely as a writer. To illustrate the tale's "legacy," Russell T. Davies name checks the Deathsmiths of Goth in a Time War piece published in the 2006 Doctor Who Annual.

LIKE most TV characters that find themselves on the printed page, the Cybermen enjoy poetic license. John Canning's surreal Patrick Troughton strips for TV Comic had DOCTOR WHO's second greatest foe use skis (Eskimo Joe, #903-906, 1969) and earlier they were even destroyed by flower scent (Flower Power, #832-836, 1967). Steve Moore introduced the philosophical Kroton in Throwback: The Soul of a Cyberman (Doctor Who Weekly #5-7, 1979), a man from Mondas who is sent to quell a human revolt, but wonders if an understanding of "abstract concepts of freedom and individuality" is the better path to take. Even Grant Morrison wrote a debatable account of Cyber origins in The World Shapers (Doctor Who Magazine #127-129, 1987). Using a muddled reference to the 1968 serial THE INVASION, Morrison explains that the rubbery inhabitants of "Planet 14" the Voord - seen in the 1964 THE KEYS OF MARINUS - have used an alien Worldshaper machine to evolve into Proto-Cybermen.

One of four back-up strip collaborations between writer Alan Moore and illustrator David Lloyd for Doctor Who Weekly, Black Legacy is introduced and tailed by the Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) as if recounting the story. Published in issues #35-38, Cyberleader Maxel leads a mission to Goth ("a haunted planet shunned by all"), the former home world of legendary armourers the Deathsmiths. In search of a weapon that wiped out an entire civilisation overnight, the cyborgs explore the war museum, but are watched by the Apocalypse Device, a synthetic creature carrying every conceivable disease and virus. Having annihilated his creators, the being destroys the Cybermen by telepathic nightmares and a lethal rust-like virus. Finally, Maxel confronts the Apocalypse Device who wants to use the Cyberleader's craft to escape the planet and destroy the galaxy; when Maxel auto-destructs the ship, the creature's dastardly plan is seemingly thwarted ... until a Sontaran vehicle lands. The last line – "It will not wait forever, that is the problem with ultimate weapons" – is almost certainly Moore's attempt at implicating the nuclear arms race.

Altered Vista's created a VCD version of the story in 2006, which was applauded by Moore. As the writer states on the Altered Vista website, "This is clearly a work that is born out of nothing save for a simple love of the material. It has not opted to change elements of the story, give it a less bleak ending or introduce a love interest and cute pet dog for the chief Cyberman protagonist. You have simply adapted the story as faithfully as you were able, without feeling the need to 'improve' it".

Taking a cue from Kroton, Black Legacy portrays the Cybermen as un-characteristically human in their thinking, speech and posture, and illustrates Moore learning his craft with little interest in the source material (the strangely declamatory Cybermen spout "blood of my ancestors!" twice). These strips acted as ideal learning curves for the Northampton magus, creating worlds in concise timeframes (usually a tale of two pages crossing four issues); consequently, as well as building the story, each two instalments had to work if read in isolation, but also recap and end on a cliff-hanger. The flaws of the strip, however, are not limited to aspects of Who lore. It’s actually a near re-run of Steve Moore’s The Final Quest from Doctor Who Weekly #8, where a Sontaran is tricked into self-destruction by exposure to a lethal plague. The Apocalypse Device broadcasting telepathic nightmares, paralysing enemies with fear, are two factors Cybermen ought to be immune to.

Moore followed Black Legacy with the Autons story Business as Usual, and three linked tales set in Gallifrey's distant past: Star Death, 4-D War and Black Sun Rising. While DOCTOR WHO had been on television for seventeen years, the history of the Time Lords had barely been touched on. With a relatively blank canvas, Moore created a space opera hung around a time paradox – the Time Lords are under attack from the Order of the Black Sun, a mysterious organisation from the future who are retaliating for some offence the Time Lords are yet to commit. The series hadn't explored the nuances of time travel since the 1972 DAY OF THE DALEKS, so it was refreshing to see an illustrative work play with similar nonlinear ideas. In conclusion, Moore’s strips for Doctor Who Weekly come to a sum of 28 pages over little more than a single year, and even though he was working to a restrictive brief and writing for a very young audience, the reader can already see a distinct progression from simple templates to the type of cosmic-bending work he would later make his own.

Attack the Block

Action (1976)
DREDD (2012)

Carl Urban as Judge Dredd. A fusion of Dirty Harry and Desperate Dan, the super fascist was named the seventh greatest comic book character by Empire in 2011, beaten only by Superman, Batman, John Constantine, Wolverine, Spider-Man and The Sandman.

THE British comics scene of the mid to late seventies mirrored the changing social and political environment. Publications such as Warlord had started a more grittier trend away from the Beano/Dandy norm, and within the rise of radical trade unionism and an increasing punk ethic, the antihero became a leading light. This shift was typified by Action comic: 'Hellman of Hammer Force', the story of a German Panzer major, and the JAWS cash-in 'Hook Jaw', established a pattern for unconventional or unsympathetic characters, while 'Look Out for Lefty' was a football strip which openly depicted hooliganism on the terraces. Within weeks of the first issue the media had picked up on the title's violent content, with The Sun dubbing Action "the seven penny nightmare." Following its withdrawal Action's co-founder Pat Mills unleashed the science-fiction themed 2000AD in 1977, essentially Action in space. Early strips were particularly honed to the forerunner's expertise, with 'Flesh' a bloodthirsty time-travel story involving dinosaurs, and 'Shako' essentially 'Hook Jaw' with a polar bear.

Futuristic law enforcer Judge Dredd first appeared in the second "prog" of 2000AD. Britain's best-known strip character of the past thirty-five years was in fact created by Canadian-born writer John Wagner and Spanish artist Carlos Ezquerra; Dredd is the most notorious of a group of super cops, religiously disgusted yet righteously determined to fight crime in the post-apocalyptic milieu that is Mega-City One. An encapsulation of Eastern American cities with a population of four-hundred million crammed into Dickensian tower blocks, this megalopolis houses The Hall of Justice (at once judge, jury and executioners). Straddling an armour-plated patrol bike, living by his stock phrase "I am the Law," and always donning his visored-helmet, Dredd fights more and more outlandish adversaries within the Mega-City One walls and in the wastelands beyond, affectionately labelled The Cursed Earth. His most grotesque foe - Judge Death - is a skeletal inter-dimensional tyrant who considers life itself a crime.

The cover that got Action banned. An unfortunate colouring decision - making a police helmet the same shade as a fallen member of the public - was the final straw.

The Judge Dredd strip was originally informed by the cinematic landscape of the 1970s - vigilantes, out-of-control cops, dystopian futures - and Wagner even suggested to Ezquerra that he used David Carradine's character from DEATH RACE 200 for his main visualisation of Dredd. This British/South African co-production - directed by Pete Travis and written by Alex Garland - at last brings a faithful version of the character to the screen, following Sylvester Stallone's version of 1995. With DREDD, it is refreshing to see a comic book movie that strikes at the core of an iconic character without overt allegory, bloated posturing or need of an origin story. Here its just another day at the office as Dredd (Karl Urban), partnered by psychic rookie Anderson (Olivia Thirlby), investigate a triple homicide at the 200-storey Peach Trees block. The Judges discover that a criminal gang - led by Ma-Ma (Lena Headey) - have taken over the building and are using it as a base to market the designer Slo-Mo drug.

Either viewed in 3D or 2D, DREDD is a robust, action-based entertainment given a distinctive visual motif with its slow-motion sequences: everything from bath water to blood spray are given a hallucinogenic twist, with Slo-Mo a much-needed excursion to slow chaos down around the user and the viewer. There is never any great hope in Garland's fantasy screenplays - 28 DAYS LATER... saw most of Britain wiped out by the infected, and SUNSHINE revolves around a suicide mission to the stars - but here the writer manages to evoke a tangible futurism: the inward-looking sets are impressive, and offset only by fleeting exterior CGI of Johannesburg. Consequently it is a rounded illustration of the comic strip world, and in a pretty thankless role, Urban's square jaw is fine. It is, however, Thirlby that excels in such a daunting baptism of fire.

Gimme Moore

Unearthing (2010)

Alan Moore has long maintained that art and magic are one and the same, and since the mid 1990s his works have included complex occult and baroque yearnings. Moore has said of Steve Moore (no relation) that "It was his model I was following when I became a comics writer, and it was his model I was following when I decided to get into magic, so in many ways, he is singularly responsible for having ruined my life."

WRITTEN and narrated by Alan Moore, Unearthing is an audiobiographical tale of longtime friend and mentor, Steve Moore, an influential figure in the emerging British comics scene of the 1970s. Despite Steve guiding his more illustrious namesake through the joys of comic book scriptwriting, he has been consumed by the Northampton Magus' ever-increasing shadow. Yet Steve Moore has had a fascinating rise to obscuredom: he was a co-editor of the Fortean Times in its days as The News, and latterly was responsible for that magazine's more academic sister publication Fortean Studies (as well as acting as FT's indexer). He was also a key instigator of SF fandom in this country before writing for 2000 A.D., Warrior and Marvel UK, which included co-creating the sublime anti-hero 'Abslom Daak, Dalek Killer' for Doctor Who Weekly. Transforming an interest in Chinese mysticism that led to a fellowship of the Royal Asiatic Society, Steve Moore has also enjoyed many - shall we say - metaphysical adventures.

Layered by musicians Crook and Flail and assorted members of Faith No More, Mogwai and Godflesh, this hypnotic two hour reading - originally an essay from the Iain Sinclair-edited anthology London: City of Disappearances - is crammed with phantasmagorical diversions. The most arresting is when Steve summons an incarnation of Selene, the Greek Moon Goddess, for Alan to witness ("...he asks if I'm ready to begin and like a twat I say yes.") Steve has been secretly living with this entity as his invisible companion for some time, and after suitable chanting the Moore's see her, straddling Steve's lap. "I suppose technically, we were both hallucinating," Alan told The Guardian's Steve Rose, "but the fact that we were both seeing the same hallucination behaving in the same way makes it perhaps a different category of hallucination. This is not making any outrageous claims. We may be deluded but we are honest."

Selene by Mitch Jenkins, which illustrates a portion of Unearthing's box set. The Greek Goddess of the Full Moon, Selene is the daughter of Hyperion and Theia, and one of the deities of light during the dynasty of the Titans. By Zeus, she is the mother of Pandia and Ersa; by Endymion, she is the mother of fifty daughters, who represent the fifty lunar months that elapse between each Olympiad.

As Mark Pilkington states in Fortean Times #272 (March 2011), "this is not Steve Moore the rock opera," but rather in Alan's words "...after all those years of working within the comics industry and quietly going mad, this is what erupts." Packaged in a box set of sumptuous 1970s-tinged photography by Mitch Jenkins from Lex Records, Unearthing oscillates between Steve's story and the history of his lifelong home of Shooter's Hill ("where Kent begins and London... disappears.") Millions of years ago, a chalk fault on the north side of the hill collapsed, and formed the Thames Valley; without which there would be no river Thames and no London. Alan Moore has always been keen to link people and landscapes because, he argues, we all need a sense of mythology. Having a bedrock of story gives our lives coherency; the most important factors about any place or person is that they feel worthy and that they have been. 

The work also acts as a document of an almost life-long friendship. Alan praises Steve's progressive mindset - as well as telling of unrequited and lost love - with his flowing drone, describing his subject with delightful detail ("fine wrinkles spreading from the corners of his eyes, curved up around the brow, curved down around the cheekbones, face like a magnetic field.") When the reader is engaged with any text, they are creating a rhythm in their minds, something Alan Moore has always tried to achieve in his comic books and magic. When Unearthing was performed live in railway tunnels beneath Waterloo Station, you can understand the writer describing this catacombic event as "coming home," literally, the sound of the underground as he journeys toward the "final panel."