Happy Birthday, 2000AD!

Today marks the 45th birthday of the Galaxy's Greatest Comic - a.k.a. the British sci-fi, fantasy and horror anthology title 2000AD. I have been collecting the comic since the early 1990s and have been a subscriber for many years. When times were tough I got rid of 100 or so comics from my collection and have always regretted having to do so.

There is so much to love about 2000AD, although I am not a fan of some perennially popular strips. My favourites include Judge Dredd (of course), Nikolai Dante, Brink, Brass Sun, Kingdom... and those are just the ones that come to me now off the top of my head.

My work has actually appeared within the pages of 2000AD, once, when my festive tale Miracle on 34th and Peltzer appeared in Prog 1961 back in 2015. In 2020 it was reprinted in Judge Fear's Big Day Out and Other Stories, along with the Judge Dredd stories I wrote for the Judge Dredd Megazine.

I am fortunate that over the years I have got to work with a number of 2000AD artists. Usually it means that have provided a cover painting or internal illustrations for one of my books - most recently Neil Googe, Chris Weston, Simon Fraser, and Tazio Bettin - but some have actually illustrated comic strips I have written, such as Steve Yeowell on The Tale of the Hound.

I attended the 40th anniversary celebrations in London back in 2017, but for some reason the Imposter Syndrome was strong that day and so I barely spoke to anyone, even though many of the creators are known to me personally.

But tonight I shall be raising a glass in Tharg's honour and wishing 2000AD a very Happy Birthday. Here's the next 45 years!