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Thursday 16 February 2012

Happy Birthday, 2000AD! From artist and fan Paul O'Connell

Name: Paul O'Connell

Blog or web site: 

www.soundofdrowning.com

Currently working on:


Artwork for Future of the Left and stories for The Sound of Drowning Issue 15.

First memory of 2000AD?

I read 2000AD every week from the very first issue when I was seven up until I was about 18. I very clearly remember running around my grandad's driveway when I was seven covered with the cyborg stickers that were given away with the second issue. (I remember the first issue came with a free plastic 'space spinner' frisbee type toy).

Favourite Character or Story?

From the early years I particularly remember liking Flesh and The Visible Man. Later on I liked Nemesis, Future Shocks and Judge Dredd (though more than Dredd himself it was the world of Mega City 1, it's stories and the recurring characters like Walter, Otto Sump et al).

I also liked early Alan Moore stories like Halo Jones and Skizz. But it was all good!

What do you like most about the 2000AD?

There's nothing else like it. It's influenced and fulled the imaginations of generations of readers.

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

I'm not it's readership any more so I don't feel like it's my place to say.

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

I had a picture I drew published in the reader art section. It was a loaf of bread with a judges badge on it - 'Judge Bread'. It was pretty rubbish. I'd sent in a bunch of silly things like that just to try and get them to print one. Someone else had sent in a picture of Strontium Dog, which they also published.

I had just got my first job after leaving school as an apprentice in a graphic art studio. I showed my boss the copy of the comic with my drawing in it.

Unimpressed, he handed it back to me and said: "That's you is it? Maybe we should have employed the person who drew the dog picture".

• 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

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