On this day, 19 March 1983: 2000AD (prog 309) — GREAT NEWS FOR ALL READERS!

Mar 19

Mar 19 On this day, 19 March 1983: 2000AD (prog 309)

On This Day, 2000AD

On this day, 19 March 1983 … Prog 308 of 2000AD marked the debut of the mighty Alan Moore’s first serial-length story for the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic – the saga of Interpreter Zhcchz of the Tau-Ceti Imperium, more Brummily known as Skizz! Like so much that Moore wrote for 2000AD – see D.R. and Quinch and The Ballad of Halo Jones – Skizz! is a beautifully-written side-step out of the conventional format for the comic, ostensibly a sci-fi adventure, but just as much a kitchen sink tale as the shipwrecked Tau-Cetian, stranded on Earth like E.T., befriends Roxy, a disenfranchised Birmingham teen, who seeks to protect him from a Thatcher-bred state alien-hunter. The strip would not have seemed out of place in Jinty or Tammy (I mean more for the narrative form than the fact that the lead human is a teenage girl), and it’s fitting that the lovely artwork comes from Jim Baikie, who already had a strong body of work in Jinty.

This prog is extra-special in that it boasts a second Alan Moore strip – the one-off Tharg’s Time Twister ‘The Reversible Man’, a Benjamin Button-esque story drawn by Mike White. Carlos Ezquerra is at his peak on Judge Dredd in ‘The Prankster’, and we’re also blessed with Massimo Belardinelli artwork in the first part of Invasion of the Thrill-snatchers and Cam Kennedy on Rogue Trooper duty. Zarjaz work all round!

Finally, is that the Lew Stringer, comics legend, among the winners in the competitions results panel?