2000AD Prog 282: A stab in the dark “…and the Great Garpo shall die!”

This Belardinelli cover skips last prog's cliffhanger (where Ace is due to get barbecued) and trots on to the next threat against the space trucker's life. Future comic writer Warren Ellis makes a second appearance in Tharg's Nerve Centre, this time pouring on the praise for the Apocalypse War. Ace Trucking Co. The Kloistar Run …

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2000AD Prog 254: “It’s Lawmaster versus Rad-Sweeper, creep, and I don’t aim to lose!” PZZOOO!

Dredd attacks a tank while riding a bike on the cover - in a radiation suit. The Nerve Centre is give to earthlets (and earthlettes) who seem to have missed previous Nerve Centres as one complains about the absence of O'Neill on Nemesis (explained in a Thargnote previously), a question about whether females can read …

Starlord Annual 1981

Brian Bolland draws the cover for this annual, featuring Starlord revealing Ro-Jaws, the Gronk, Johnny Alpha, Hammerstein, Ardeni Lakam, Na-Rutha, James Blocker, Suzie Cho and two more figures from under his purple and gold cloak. Both Ardeni and the Gronk are doing the 'hands held up to the head denoting psychic powers being used' that …

2000AD and Starlord Prog 126: Savage was his name! Savage was his battle with the killer flood that engulfed Britain! EXCITING NEWS INSIDE!

This cover is fully painted and shows Savage and Bamber with a montage of scenes. For those experienced in reading children's comics from the 1970s and 1980s (can't speak for other decades) the most important part of the cover is the writing at the bottom. "Exciting news inside!" can mean only one thing in IPC-speak …

2000AD Sci-Fi Special 1979: Mek-Wars Pull-out colour poster that doesn’t pull its punches!

IPC may be pretending that the weekly 2000AD is actually 2000AD and Starlord, but the same cannot be said of the Sci-Fi Special, and so there is no 'and Starlord' above Brian Bolland's picture of Judge Dredd and the Ape Gang. There's a strip with a few promo pictures from within messing up the bottom …

Tornado No 9: He fought a lonely war with the white invaders who had plundered his people’s homeland… Warrior

A Warrior cover this week, albeit cluttered with frames from some of the other strips appearing. Uninspiring. The Big Editorial has a couple of letters saying how great Tornado is plus a request for readers to send in jokes to make Sam smile. Sam's the Lois Lane stand-in, if you'd forgotten. Blackhawk is now taking …

Prog 73: Harry Winthrop was a meek mild mannered man, until he tried on… The Suit. The power… the pain… the Suit!

This prog has a Kev O'Neill cover which is a bit too similar to the MACH Zero story in the Sci-Fi Special (so much so that the colour starscan in the special made me think it was a representation of this story until I turned the page and realised it was for the story in …

Prog 71: Are YOU Prepared for… Ant Wars!

A giant ant straddles the Earth on this Kev O'Neill cover, hopeless faces staring out of the cloud cover while a boy stands with a bloodied knife - it can only be Ant Wars! Eating ants is very much a theme of this opening chapter, and the name Anteater will stick (pretty sure the boy …

Prog 35: All Earthmen must die! Take no prisoners!

The cover shows three spaceships of an old-fashioned flying saucer design shooting at some floating space wreckage with said Earthman clutching on.  It doesn't grab me, and could have appeared on any sci-fi comic for about thirty years previously. Despite the mention of Aberdeen last prog, Bill is in Fort William - precisely the opposite …

2000AD Prog 19: Supercover 1 – A Robot’s Best Friend…

This prog sees a departure from the usual style of cover, as (I believe) Pat Mills wanted to get Brian Bolland on board, but the artist was still on contract to produce comics for Nigeria.  His way around this was to commission Bolland to produce some covers, and get a writer to put together a …