Comics Bulletin review all the FCBD offerings, including 2000AD’s and they liked it:

The British sense of humor is the greatest sense of humor in the world, sod you America, and hurray for 2000AD. YEAH. I’m putting that out there. Feel offended, you guys. The offering this year comes in the form of a mini-magazine, compiling a few of the stronger characters from the past few years and getting top-notch writers like Al Ewing and Rob Williams to write them. Both writers create the standout stories from the issue, with Williams’ Ichabod Azrael western story a particular delight. There’s not only a devilish sense of humor through all these stories — which is compounded by the adverts, which are just as much fun in some cases — but a sense of meanness you just don’t get in American comics. The writers are free to do whatever cruel things they want to their characters, and create unfair landscapes for these genre-driven pieces to inherit. It’s a great advert for 2000AD as a whole, with a new intro from original Judge Dreddcreator John Wagner and interesting stories. Also there’s a black-and-white Alan Moore story at the back, if that’s the sort of thing you like. 

Comics Bulletin have reviewed the Hondo City Law graphic novel:

Take classic Japanese samurai epics like Lone Wolf and Cub, mix them into futuristic anime like Akira, then stuff the whole thing into Judge Dredd’s 2000 AD world of Mega Cities and Judges, and you have Hondo City Law.

Japan’s futuristic Hondo City – named for unfathomable reasons other than it “sounded Japanese” — was created by John Wagner in the Judge Dredd story “Our Man in Hondo” (included in this collection), along with the samurai-judge Inspector Totaro Sadu. Sadu and Hondo never appeared again until up-and-coming writer Robbie Morrison was offered the chance to write some stories for 2000 AD. Morrison resurrected one of his favorite stories from the past and created the story arc of rogue-judge Shimura and his protégé Judge Inspector Aiko Inaba.

As Judge Dredd was based on Clint Eastwood, Morrison based his Japanese Judge Shimura on acting legend Mifune Toshiro (Seven Samurai, Yojimbo), and gave him a villain in the form of the cyber-cult Deus X who believe it is man’s ultimate destiny to merge with machines. Shimura is a blend of old-fashioned and futuristic, carrying a hand-forged Wakizashi short sword and laser shuriken.

…

Morrison got everything spot-on with Hondo City Law. I lived in Japan for several years, have seen more than my fair share of Japanese action flicks, and I tend to be hyper-critical of Western writers imitating only the superficial aspects of Japan without the depth. Not here. Morrison’s stories were brilliant, and my only disappointment is that this is not Hondo City Law: Volume 1. I very much want more stories.

The art is equally impressive. There are four artists here, all of them different, all of them good. Colin MacNeil illustrates the original Hondo City story in fully-painted loveliness. Two of the stories, “Shimura” and “Babes with Big Bazookas”, have early Frank Quitely art that is just phenomenal. I found that I actually liked this Quitely art better than his current stuff which has become heavily stylized. Andy Clarke does “Executioner” and “Deus X”. This was the first time I had seen Clarke’s art, and I loved it. He has a realistic style similar to Travis Charest. The last story, “Hondo City Justice”, was drawn by Neil Googe and was my least favorite. He used a “manga style” that was fitting to the subject matter but was out of step with the style of the other Hondo City tales.

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Geoffrey D. Wessel has interviewed Al “Alien Brain” Ewing for Comics Bulletin, obviously the upswing in interest over the other side of the Pond is down to his taking over from Garth Ennis on Dynamite’s Jennifer Blood but the interview also goes into plenty of detail about his main body of work for Tharg:

Wessel: The third series of Zombo wrapped up not too long ago, with a 4th entitled “Planet Zombo” promised. How soon ‘til that drops, and what else do you have coming up in 2000 AD and/or the Judge Dredd Megazine?

Ewing: Well, I’m feeling the pressure of success now, in that Zombo 4 kind of has to be the best thing ever, and also I have other stuff pending for Tharg [2000 AD editor Matt Smith] in the meantime, like the second series of Damnation Station, which I’ve been working on forever, and The Zaucer of Zilk, which I’m doing with Brendan McCarthy. Both of these have been quite time-intensive for various reasons, but I think they’ll be worth the wait. And I’ve got a Dredd story or two coming up as well.

Wessel: Glad to hear about a second series of Damnation Station as I really liked that one, but what can you say about The Zaucer of Zilk?

Ewing: It’s like a wild combination of Time Bandits, Doctor Who, Mighty Boosh and The Wizard of Oz, with just a pinch of Entertaining Mister Sloane, and it’s got some incredible work by Brendan! I firmly believe it’s going to be the hit of next year. In fact, I seem to remember saying in an interview with someone else that it might bring some new and lapsed readers back into the fold all by itself, which isn’t something I’ve felt confident saying about something I’ve done before. (Although I understand some new readers out there are big fans of Zombo!)

Wessel: Zombo does definitely hit a certain zeitgeist right now.

Ewing: People definitely like it a lot! Or they do once they read it. I was watching a lot of people look it over at the NYCC, and occasionally, you’d get “Oh, Zombies…” comments [from] people tired of the whole phenomenon. Which is fine, as I’m tired of it too! But it looks like the larger culture still has plenty of time for zombies, given the new Walking Dead TV show and so on. Maybe it’s that, more often than not, zombies provide a framework for other, more human stories, or maybe we’re just living under the shadow of the collapse and the zombie narrative is a way to inoculate ourselves against that fear.

More.

RT @ComicsBulletin: Dredd superfan @zackdavisson says @2000ad’s Judge Dredd Megazine Prog #317 “kicks ass, that’s all there is to it” http://cbll.it/dredd317

From the review:

The Judge Dredd Megazine kicks ass. That is all there is to it. For 63 pages you get top-notch talent doing amazing post-apocalyptic sci-fi goodness, along with in-depth articles and interviews ranging from upcoming genre flicks to “Dr. Who in comics” to pretty much anything cool that needs to be written about. And even though I dig the long-running 2000 AD, it is a lot easier to get into Judge Dredd Megazine as a new reader. There is at least one self-contained story every issue, and there is a good balance between the longer-running serials and the shorter ones so you don’t feel so much like you are jumping into the middle chapters of five different books. I wish there were more comic magazines like this.

You know you want it. 

A review of Tharg’s Terror Tales Presents… at Comics Bulletin:

Tharg’s Terror Tales is essentially British publisher 2000 AD’s version of the classic anthology horror comics like Creepy and Eerie. 2000 AD is best known for post-apocalyptic comics like Judge Dredd and Strontium Dog. Because of that, and because of the quasi-si-fisscene on the cover, I was expecting some sort of futuristic comedy horror set in roughly the same universe. I was wrong.

The eponymous Tharg the Mighty is only the alien horror host, and the stories inside are pure weird fiction joy. There is a little tongue-in-cheekiness, but that is all in the true-to-style asides by the horror host. The comic is split into two stories; Necronauts and A Love Like Blood, and a few bonus backup stories.

Necronauts teams up Houdini, Doyle, Lovecraft, and Fort. While that seems like pure genre fan fiction, Houdini actually did personally know both Doyle and Lovecraft. Only the Charles Fort connection is tenuous. And instead of some hokey team-up, writer Gordon Rennie plays it straight and fits the encounter into their real lives to make it plausible. Houdini stays too long in one of his escapes and bridges the gap to the world of death, where he finds something horrible. Doyle, in one of his séances, learns of the threat to Houdini, and together they gather Fort and Lovecraft to do battle with the monsters. Houdini plans to go again into the void, and Lovecraft will serve as his guide through the Dreaming realms he knows so well.

The story is just insanely cool. As a fan of Doyle and Lovecraft and a former subscriber to Fortean Times, this story was just a treat.

A Love Like Blood is such a clichéd story I didn’t think anyone could write it again and keep me interested. But John Smith managed to spin the Romeo and Juliet as Vampire/Werewolf loves trope with enough new twists that I was fascinated. The young couple on the run was my favorite park of the story, as hatred of their love was enough to unite the thousand-year feud between the vampire and werewolf clans. I have to say the ending was a bit weak, but otherwise this was a real solid yarn.

As a bonus, there are a few short stories at the end that are riffs on old ’50s cautionary tales like Reefer Madness, or the terrors of the hippie and metal sub-cultures. But now the reefer madness causes cannibalism, and Woodstock is loud enough to wake the dead — literally. These stories ranged from a few pages to a few panels, but all of them were clever and good for a laugh.

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The Comics Bulletin guys give big love to the reprints of Nikolai Dante:

My current enjoyment of Nikolai Dante reprints:

Comics Bulletin reviews Judge Death: The Life and Death of…:

In my younger, dumber days, I just assumed that Judge Dredd was some British variation on the EXTREME characters that I’d just yawned through during the ’90s. I mean, the movie came out around the same time as the Spawn adaptation, so who could blame me*? That was, until a friend explained to me that Judge Dredd had existed since the late ’70s, and was actually the U.K.’s Batman in terms of cultural significance.

*everyone

Admittedly, I’m still not as familiar with Judge Dredd as I’d like to be, and as such The Life and Death Of… ended up being the second Dredd comic I’ve ever read, the first being a collection of the Judgment Day crossover. That said, just reading this collection of Judge Death-centric stories by original Dredd creator John Wagner, it’s clear that, like Batman, you can use Dredd and the world of Mega City One to tell a vast variety of stories — straight sci-fi, action, police procedural, (dark) comedy and even horror.

The Life and Death Of… is comprised of two feature stories (and a handful of one-off shorts) cherry picked from both 2000 AD and Judge Dredd Megazine over the span of 20 years, all revolving around Judge Death, the leader of the Dark Judges, supernatural beings from another dimension where being alive is illegal. Which should hint at the more horror-based nature of the stories within.

…

The best thing about The Life and Death of… is how accessible it is. I have about as much familiarity with Dredd (judge, jury and executioner in the futuristic Mega City One) as a regular person might have with Batman (Bruce Wayne, deals with childhood trauma by punching ludicrously themed bad guys in Gotham City). This being a handful of (serialized) stories from a long-running series, reading it had me facing the dreaded concept known as continuity, but it still ends up being a perfectly understandable comic book. “Young Death,” for example, comes in the aftermath of a major crossover, but I didn’t feel like I needed to read that crossover to understand what was going on in the book I chose to read.

It may as well have told me that the Joker poisoned half of Gotham and I’d get the idea, which is an example American comic books should be following. Tell the story and use continuity to enrich the story — don’t make it a prerequisite to reading the story. The Life and Death of… even has a dossier-style page that gives a quick rundown of who Judge Death is, what his aims and abilities are and even his first appearance. Superhero comics take note!

All it takes is one good, accessible comic book to convert a person into a fan of a certain character. I know a few people who got into Batman through “Hush,” and I can point to The Life and Death of… as my point of entry into the world of Judge Dredd. Good thing there’s a lot of it to get through.

Tharg’s chief minion speaks to Comics Bulletin and sets him straight right away about a foolish misconception:

In 1977, betting on the popularity of science fiction movies and television, 2000 AD was born. The magazines or ‘progs’ are a weekly affair, containing multiple stories running in episodic form.

Since the beginning, 2000 AD has gleefully introduced us to worlds containing mutant bounty hunters, robot hunting mercenaries, secret agent cyborgs, time and dimension travelling anti-heroes and of course, Judge Dredd. The stories, thought-provoking and irreverent at the same time, continue to set the standard for science fiction comic books.

There seems to be no end to the amazing talent the magazine draws and develops. Alan Grant, Mark Millar, Garth Ennis, Simon Bisley, Dave Gibbons, Dan Abnett, Neil Gaiman, Brian Bolland, Kevin O’Neill, these are just some of the past and present contributors to 2000 AD. The full list contains many of the most influential artists, writer, colorists of the last three decades.

This weekend I had the pleasure of interviewing Matt Smith, Editor of 2000 AD and representative of Tharg the Mighty, about the history of the magazine, and coming to America.

Dave Powell: You’ve been Tharg the Mighty for a few years now. What is your greatest responsibility as the apparent spearhead of an alien invasion of Earth?

Matt Smith: Well, those of us who work for the Mighty One are only his human representatives on Earth. We are merely his minions. As such, my chief responsibility is not to screw up all the good work that has been done by my predecessors over the past 34 years. So many great writers, artists, letterers, colorists and editors have worked on such exceptional stories you want to uphold the grand tradition that has been set. 2000 AD is one of the most influential comics that the UK has ever produced, and you have a duty to maintain its integrity and the quality of the material published within its pages.

Powell: What creator do you feel has defined 2000 AD most?

Smith: Impossible to choose just one — Pat Mills and John Wagner were there right at the very start, and they have that sense of irreverence and black humour that’s integral to 2000 AD running through them. But Alan Grant has also proved an important contributor as well as artists such as Brian Bolland, Mick McMahon, Kevin O’Neill and Carlos Ezquerra. All are uniquely British (or European) creators that contributed to make 2000 AD what it is.


Powell: What is the future? Are there any new projects you’re excited about?

Smith: The future is always exciting — this is the Comic of Tomorrow, after all! We’ve just started a new line-up with Prog 1740, featuring the likes of Savage, Zombo and Sinister Dexter. A major new Dredd arc begins in “Day of Chaos” in Prog 1743 (out 29 July). Prog 1750 (out 7 September) will feature new series of Indigo Prime, Low Life and Ampney Crucis Investigates. Later in the year, we’ll see the return of Nikolai Dante and Strontium Dog as well as new strips such as Grey Area by Dan Abnett and Karl Richardson.

Sounds very promising.

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Comics Bulletin have reviews of a number of FCBD offerings and first on the list is 2000 AD which they give a mark of 4 out of 5:

Equally split between new stories about old characters and introductions to new(er) 2000 AD creations, the FCBD release is a pretty handy entry point for fans who haven’t grown up on the mag. John Wagner’s Judge Dredd story “S.A.M.” in particular encapsulates the appeal of Dredd without drowning new readers in his convoluted mythology and intimidating back pages. Val Semeiks and Cliff Robinson’s comedic art and the bright coloring by Chris Blythe help pull Dredd into the 21st century in a way that doesn’t sacrifice any of the character’s fierceness.

Dan Abnett and Richard Elson’s Kingdom story will likely also appeal to unfamiliar readers who know Abnett mainly for his work on Marvel’s cosmic characters, concerning as it does warriors perpetually fighting space bugs. The biggest surprise, though, may come from the Shakara entry, which features truly bold art from Henry Flint and a neatly bleak capsule story that could be the best representation in the release of what 2000 AD is really all about. Namely, creative violence and Dark Star-influenced sci-fi.

As a small taste of a huge bibliography, it’s decidedly appetizing.