I can recall exactly where I was 40 years ago when I didn’t buy the first issue — or ‘prog’ —of 2000 AD. The just-launched sci-fi comic, featuring ‘space-age dinosaurs’, ‘the new Dan Dare’ and a ‘FREE SPACE SPINNER’, i.e. a mini frisbee, looked quite exciting and, at 8p, good value for pocket money; but, as a regular nine-year old consumer of Whizzer and Chips etc., I stuck with my usual comedy fare and opted for a copy of Buster instead. It was a decision I soon came to regret (eh readers?)
I can also recall exactly where I was when I bought the most recent issue of 2000 AD — in Gosh! Comics in Soho a fortnight ago. Times may have changed but the future has not. ‘BORAG THUNGG, EARTHLETS!’ writes the magazine’s editor at the front of prog 2018, as he has done every week for the past 40 years, ‘Call me The Mighty Tharg, your genial green guide to the zarjaz Thrill-plosion that is 2000 AD!’
Like the Mail’s Paul Dacre, Tharg the Mighty is rarely seen in public but has steered his publication through changing, challenging times while displaying an unerring instinct for giving his readers exactly what they want.
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