Monday 19 November 2012

Please Reprint Me #1

I thought I'd write another Please Release Me post, but on a slightly different tack. I've been reading a lot of 2000 AD graphic novels recently and I've fallen in love with them all over again, but for books usually bearing the word Complete they have some frustrating omissions:

Harlem Heroes
A 1977 comic strip about a sport like a cross between American Football and boxing with jetpacks that ran for 27 weeks. It's endearing stuff and The Complete Harlem Heroes is excellent, but omits two stories from annuals, a Whatever Happened To? strip and a 3000 AD reboot. The strip was reintroduced to 2000 AD in 1990 and ran for another 49 parts, but has never been reprinted.


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Flesh
The brilliantly bizarre concept of cowboys versus dinosurs with time-travel is something to be celebrated in and of itself, but here's hoping that Flesh - The Dino Files is volume one of more and that Legend Of Shamana Book 1 & 2, Chronocide, Flesh 3000AD and Midnight Cowboys can be included as well.


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Walter The Wobot
Judge Dredd's robotic sidekick with a speech impediment got his own one page strip and the first nine appeared in Judge Dredd The Complete Case Files Volume 01, but the subsequent nine strips weren't included in any of the later volumes.


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Judge Dredd newspaper strips
2000 AD's favourite son took his brand of justice to both the Daily Star and Metro newspapers. The few I can find are great and a fascinating insight in writing the character and his world for a new audience. It would be great to have them available again.


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Judge Dredd
Following the 1995 Judge Dredd film DC comics launched their own comic strips to break him into another new audience, the American market. He managed an 18 issue run, alongside 13 issues of Legends Of The Law, 23 of Lawman Of The Future and then nothing. I don't know if they have ever been available in the UK at all, but I'd love to see them collected together.


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Tharg The Mighty
2000 AD's alien editor Tharg appeared in a number of strips, but two that really intrigue me are Tharg's Head Revisited and A Night 2 Remember. Both are celebratory strips, the former for reaching the comic's 500th Prog and the latter for its 25th Anniversary, both feature dozens of crossovers from other strips and both are so rare that I can't even find any images of them online. Astonishing when you consider that these are strips that combine ther likes of Invasion, Dan Dare, Rogue Trooper, A.B.C. Warriors, Big E In Action, Harlem Heroes, Metalzoic, Judge Dredd, Halo Jones, Robo-Hunter, Mean Machine, Satanus, Chopper, Venus Bluegenes, Nemesis The Warlock, Torquemada, Bonjo from Beyond the Stars, Dash Decent, Marshal Law, M.A.C.H.1, Finn, Storming Heaven, Nikolai Dante, Sinister Dexter, Judge Death, Tor Cyan, Walter The Wobot, Strontium Dog, Ace Trucking Co, Stix, Zenith, D.R. & Quinch, Mazeworld, Lenny Zero, Judge Anderson, Hewligan's Haircut, The Balls Brothers and The Spacegirls together. They might be wonderful, they might be dreadful. I've no idea, but I'd love to find out.

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What would you want to see reprinted?

1 comment:

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

You'd think in the digital age they'd be able to pull all of the elements together and not omit anything.