Zombies? British Comics have been there, done that back in 1979...

Prompted by the hit US TV show, there's plenty of interest in The Walking Dead, drawn by Britain's very own Charlie Adlard and published by Image Comics. Indeed, it seems comic fans just can't get enough zombies at the moment, with IDW preparing Infestation, a crossover zombie saga launching next year that will even run in some of their licensed titles such as Star Trek and GI Joe.

What may surprize downthetubes is the fact that the usually straight-laced DC Thomson published a zombie-inspired tale here in the UK, way back in 1979.

Plague 2000 featured in The Crunch from Issue 14 - cover dated 21st April 1979 - until Issue 29, cover dated 4th August 1979.

Set in the year 2000, the story reveals mankind has been decimated by a terrible death plague. Many of those not killed by the plague have become something far worse - 'The Crazies', zombified humans determined to kill.

Captain Brett Cantrell is assigned to lead an expedition across a devastated United States to New York to find an antidote for the plague, facing the worst of The Crazies along the way.

While stopping short of calling them zombies, there's no doubt in my mind that this story must have been inspired by films such as George A. Romero's The Crazies and, more likely, Dawn of the Dead, released in 1978. Dawn of the Dead would have been a film readers of The Crunch would have been well aware of, even if they had never seen it. (Back then, there would have been no other way to see such a film except at the cinema, and it wasn't always easy to sneek into a showing if you looked under age).

The storyline might also have borrowed from Roger Zelazny's SF novel Damnation Alley (which also influenced the original Judge Dredd Cursed Earth saga), which is a much better book than its dire film adaptation might suggest.

Like many British comics of the time, The Crunch drew its inspiration from popular film and TV. Editors would work on the principle that while most of their readers could not actually see more 'adult' films like Jaws (in the case of Action) or Dawn of the Dead legally, they would be aware of it and its storyline.

Plague 2000 features on the cover of Issue 21 and 23. The Crunch itself - which features some stories that are quite hard hitting and gruesome at times, which might seem at odds with DC Thomson's normally 'wholesome' image' - ran for 54 issues before amalgamating with the Hotspur in February 1980.

Such was the impact of Plague 2000, it's haunted one Crunch reader since childhood, prompting him to try and find out more about the strip on the downthtubes forum. "The artwork kept me buying," Colin Noble recalls.

IDW's upcoming zombie epic, Infestation, also has a British element. Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning will pen Infestation #1, launching in January 2011. This initial 32-page story begins in IDW's own Zombies vs Robots universe, where something goes terribly wrong and ultimately infests  the worlds of Transformers, Star Trek, G.I. Joe and Ghostbusters with zombies and infected robots.

From there, the story spins ferociously into each of the four properties throughout February and March, and culminates in April's bombastic finale, Infestation #2.

In February, Transformers Infestation #1-2 and Star Trek: Infestation #1-2 will ship bi-weekly. The Transformers title will also be penned by Abnett and Lanning, with fan-favourite Nick Roche handling the art. Star Trek  will be written by mainstay authors Scott and David Tipton and illustrated by Casey Maloney.

• Discuss Plague 2000 and The Crunch on the downthtubes forum 

• More about Infestation here: www.idwpublishing.com/news/article/1415

Sleeze Brothers Return!

The Sleeze Brothers are back! Those anarchic, lunatic and downright shady PIs, the creation of John Carnell and Andy Lanning back in the 1980s, are being given a brush up (and probably, a good spanking) just in time for their 20th anniversary.

The return of the Sleeze Brothers is the work Comicraft's publishing arm, Active Images, which recently remastered David Hine's Strange Embrace for Image Comics and is currently digitally remastering The Sleeze Brothers on the occasion of the book's 20th anniversary.

The Sleeze Brothers, published by Marvel UK in the late 1980's under Archie Goodwin's Epic imprint, was the first (and, sadly, the last) creator owned monthly comic book published by Marvel's British operation. (Some strips published in the title Strip were creator-owned, but despite the best efforts of Dan Abnett while editor at the publisher, planned monthly books featuring them were never realized in favour of projects such as The Knights of Pendragon).

Created by John Carnell and Andy Lanning before, during and after their successful work on the weekly UK comic The Real Ghostbusters for latterday Marvel UK editor (and present day Elephantmen creator, Richard Starkings). "The Sleeze Brothers dared to be funny and a little off the wall in an industry dominated by straight ahead action adventure titles," says Richard today.

Who are the Sleeze Brothers? Well, imagine the bastard offspring of the Blues Brothers and Blade Runner and you're probably halfway there. El Ape and Deadbeat Sleeze have been described as the "wisecracking, dirtiest P.I.s in the Big Apple". They certainly aren't the quickest thinkers in the world, nor the most moral, but they stumbled their way through seven adventures with help from their digitally operated secretary/receptionist, Doris.

Despite building quite a cult following in a pre-Internet age, Marvel UK shelved the series after the sixth issue and -- but for a one shot and short story, Some Like It Fresh, published by Marvel US's Epic imprint and an appearance in a Doctor Who strip -- The Sleeze Brothers seemed destined to be fondly remembered but largely forgotten until the rights reverted to Carnell and Lanning in the late 1990's.

Under the auspices of John Carnell and Andy Banks' Foof Productons, a series of short web cartoons are currently in development (the first directed and scripted by John) and so John and Richard decided the time was right to re-present, and re-master, the original series.

Digitally remastering involves Comicraft's Secret Weapon, John JG Roshell, deleting the lettering from the scans of the original artwork and performing a little digital art restoration so that Ace Colourist, Gregory Wright, can colour the complete art before Richard Starkings adds the digital lettering. (There have been some problems with doing this, as Richard himself relates on the Elephantmen blog...)

The Sleeze Brothers debut in an eight-page prologue in Elephanthmen #16 published by Image Comics this February and feature on a 'flip' cover of the issue (above).

In addition to the Sleeze Brothers animations, John, whose credits also include a graphic novel adaptation of Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy and has for the past few years working on film scripts, has revealed Foof Productions also plan to launch another animated series, Animentals, for mobile phones. He's also working on a children's trilogy, The Dingbats, the story of a bunch of dysfunctional homeless bats fighting to save their village sanctuary from ruthless developers.

It's great news that the Brothers are on their way back. While the humour might be offbeat and not to everyone's taste, the characters still has a fan following to this day, and there was such a buzz about this project in the Marvel UK offices when the book was first launched and both John and Andy were -- and still are -- some of the most enthusiastic advocates of comics I can think of.

Those of you who head to your comic shops in February and can't find this new incarnation might need to look out instead for this stunning "A side" cover to Elephantmen #16, surely a reason to buy the comic for that alone...

Sleeze Brothers Check List
(1989-91, Epic/Marvel Comics)

• Issue 1: Nice And Sleezy
• Issue 2: Reel To Real
• Issue 3: The Big Leap
• Issue 4: Murder In Space
• Issue 5: Down In The Sewer
• Issue 6: The Maltese Egg
• The Sleeze Brothers: Some Like It Fresh - one off issue for Epic
• The Sleeze Brothers: Saturday Night Special - short story published in Dave Elliot's A1 anthology for Epic.
• The Sleeze Brothers also appeared in Follow That Tardis a strip published in Doctor Who Magazine #147 in April 1989
• The original six-issue series was also collected by Marvel UK in 1990 as The Sleeze Brothers Case Files.
• An early version of The Sleeze Brothers animated show is on YouTube