2000AD may be seven years ago, but it’s also thirty years old as the BBC looks back to the future:
Like so much of science fiction, the comic 2000AD, celebrating its 30th birthday, has to cope with its “predictions” coming to pass rather more quickly than expected.
The comic’s most famous character, the unblinking dispenser of justice, Judge Dredd, has become a byword for excessive authoritarian powers.
It’s the column and headline writers’ first port of call in this time of concern over both anti-social behaviour, and the powers used to combat it.
As Britain has toyed with the idea of giving police officers more and more authority, the papers have talked of “an army of Judge Dredds” and “Judge Dredd powers”.
It might only be on-the-spot fines for vandals and burglars being suggested now, but the newspapers seem to think it’s a slippery slope to Mega City One, the massive urban nightmare that provides the backdrop to Judge Dredd.
Slundigg Vur Whatever, earthlets.
February 27th, 2007 at 9:14 pm
Thank Tharg for 2000 AD, a breath a fresh air in the Western comics world. Wild, violent, uncouth, uncondescending, unrestrained, outlandish and irreverent! Interesting how so many of the best writers the Big Two have these days seemed to get their start there.