Sci-Fi Bulletin: Exploring the Universes of SF, Fantasy, Horror and Spy-fi!

Hot on the heels of its 2000th issue (or Prog) the ‘Galaxy’s greatest comic’ has a ruby anniversary bash in the capital, bringing along 100 of its creators to entertain 1,000 keen ‘Earthlets’.

For those of us of a certain age, Tharg the Mighty’s Quaxxannian vernacular of ‘Borag Thungg’ and ‘Zarjaz’ are firmly entrenched as keywords in our childhood vocabulary. Translating as ‘Welcome’ and ‘Fantastic’, communication via these alien words was just one of the ways that we felt part of an exclusive club which excluded grown ups and brought us weekly thrills like Judge Dredd and Nemesis the Warlock. The fact that the magazine is still being published 40 years later shows how willing and able the publication is to adapt to its times, and the gathering at London’s Novotel West London on 11 February 2017 promised to be a party on a galactic scale.

Boasting the appearance of creators like Pat Mills, John Wagner, Carlos Esquerra, Mick McMahon, Dave Gibbons and Alan Grant, this clearly was going to be sold out before the day, with many readers latterly regretting they hadn’t grabbed a ticket for 40 of our Earth pounds while they could.

A convention of a legacy brand quite rightly had an old school feel to it – main auditorium talks, dealers, artists, editors, letterers, colourists and writers signing. It’s a trusted formula, so why try to fix it? As expected, the early birds had arrived at dawn to ensure an early place in the queue to commission Dave (Watchmen) Gibbons or Carlos (Judge Dredd) Ezquerra for a sketch. Other diversions included a photo booth, screen props from the Karl Urban Dredd movie, live drawing demos from top artists and the chance to watch the Strontium Dog fan film Search/Destroy or documentary Future Shock among kindred middle-aged men.

Of course, it wasn’t just middle-aged, paunchy, balding men roving the halls, but it certainly felt that way. In one of his talks, 2000AD creator Pat Mills confessed that a lot of the attendees were of a certain type and that it was an ongoing struggle to keep injecting new blood into the readership of a legacy magazine. He also bemoaned the fact that 2000AD wasn’t as big as Games Workshop and that girls’ magazine Misty had the potential to be bigger than 2000AD.

From an organisational perspective everything seemed to be running to schedule and while there was the unavoidable fact that you couldn’t see everything and everyone in the available time, a little pre-planning would ensure you walked away with your favoured autographs, sketches and merch.

Unfortunately, there’s always a contingent who feel it’s fine to drop a stack of around 30 comics in front of a writer/artist and expect them to sign them all, and maybe some enforcement (not necessarily by Judges) or a polite reminder either by stewards or in the convention packs might have been a good idea.

But for every queue blocker there was also a new friend to chat to, sharing memories of those halcyon summers in the late 70s when we covered ourselves in MACH-1 stickers. One chap even asked John Wagner to sign the prog where he’d had a letter published and been awarded the princely prize of a £2 postal order.

The only ‘old school’ creators notable by their absence were Brian Bolland and Kevin O’Neill (who was in town the previous night co-signing with Mills) but instead of focusing on the absentees, just look at who did turn up.

Verdict: A scrotnig party all round – let’s hope the weekly progs are still happening in 2027 to justify a 50 celebration. By which time we’ll be greyer, balder, paunchier… 9/10

Nick Joy