Happy Birthday, 2000AD! From writer and fan Jeremy Briggs

Name: Jeremy Briggs

Website: Err… this one.

Currently working on:

Deputy editor on STRIP Magazine as well as writing factual articles on British comics for Spaceship Away magazine, Illustrators journal and Eagle Times fanzine, plus the Bear Alley and downthetubes blogs... and in my spare time I have a real job.

First memory of 2000AD?

My friend Colin showing me the biotronic stickers on his arm that came free with Prog 2. The local newsagents didn’t have any more copies of that issue but I got Prog 3 and never looked back for the next six years worth of thrill power. Then Warrior came along and I finally jumped ship (so blame Unca Dez).

Favourite Character or Story?

I have fond memories of Belardinelli’s amazing Biog art from the first Dan Dare strip (although having had the chance to re-read it recently, the story isn’t up to much); Judge Dredd of course (I remember much debate in school when he removed his own helmet in the antique car thieves episode and his face was “censored”); I still remember reading over and over again Comic Rock: Going Underground, the story that started the whole Nemesis The Warlock saga, with Kev O’Neill’s amazing artwork; and the "Airbase Hell" Future Shock in Prog 210 with terrific artwork by Ian Kennedy that inspired me to write my first article for Ian Wheeler and John Freeman way back in the days of Eagle Flies Again.


What do you like most about 2000AD?

The fact that I still get much the same excitement reading those early issues as I did some 35 years ago, yet the tales that came along after I had stopped reading the weekly, such as Halo Jones, Durham Red and Nikolai Dante, also keep me coming back for more of the reprint books.

What would you most like to see in 2000AD as it heads to its Forties?

Despite some attempts over the years I never did get back on the weekly bandwagon but I kept the candle burning with the Titan, Fleetway and Rebellion reprint books. So what would I still like to see reprinted? It’ll never happen but a reprint of all the 2000AD Dan Dare stories – Belardinelli’s Battle of Jupiter, Dave Gibbons’ Eagle shuttles and Ian Kennedy’s beautiful painted strip from the 1979 Dare annual.

Also, while on the subject of reprints, how come I can get colour Durham Red graphic novels by Peter Hogan and Mark Harrison in Flemish when I can’t get the same ones in English? C’mon Rebellion, get the finger out on that one.

If you worked on 2000AD, do you have an anecdote you'd like to share about your experience of Tharg and his minions?

I never had my name in a 2000AD credits box but my name is in the artwork of one of the more recent issues, put there by an art droid who is still on the run from Mek-Quake…

• This post is one in a series of tributes to 2000AD to mark its 35th birthday on 26th February 2012. More about 2000AD at www.2000adonline.com
2000AD © Rebellion