2000AD - Kingmaker

They should have met in a period-appropriate house of one of their own where they could enjoy a potato-free meal before sleeping on the floor.

The call to adventure!

See, this guy gets it.

The art in this is not all that great but I enjoyed it as an off-color fantasy 'inversion' that still plays out like a pretty straight fantasy story.

Yeah, I'm not usually that big a fan of Leigh Gallagher's style, but I feel it works here. The colouring particularly helps, I think, particularly on the Sci-Fi elements.

A shrike is a small carnivorous bird which feeds by impaling its prey upon thorns to tear it apart and to use as a larder for later, as illustrated by this classic children's cartoon.
youtu.be/2pypyDDPmIQ?t=19s

It's Latin names derives from "Butcher", while it's commmon English one from it's shriek like call.

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What a good boss.

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And a tip of our hat to Justice Department. Nothing to see here, folks!

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I like Crixus.

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Welcome to Athel Loren, please enjoy your very brief stay.

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Yarrow is a fairly common flowering plant in the Northern Hemisphere. Its often cultivated as a companion plant, as it attracts repels pests while attracting predatory insects.

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Tycho was, like Ablard, part of the Not-the-Fellowship-of-the-Ring .

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>"I threaten the king!"
>But he's just talking to you!
>"Yeah, but I want to make sure he really listens!"
>"Sod this, Bigby's Noggin Tap to Chris.."
"YOU DICK! I JUST WANTED TO TALK!"

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Bump

PC #3 gets their first time to shine.

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youtu.be/Jv1ZN8c4_Gs?t=12s

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Really loving this

I'm glad to hear it! Unfortunately this story is (so far) the only one in this series, but I'm sure it will be back soon.

Then again, it only started less than a year ago.

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baby got back

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If the fourth PC is not!Sauron I'm going to laugh and laugh

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The magical shield Ablard is casting is based on an Iron Age design used mostly by the Celts, specifically the Battersea Shield.

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youtube.com/watch?v=JB7fjEtzrsk&list=PLKaONhBqg8PG4K_7apApPb8oCKq17J-Vn&index=62

mediafire.com/file/gxbxojd4yoivqcx/Kingmaker_01_-_Kingmaker_(2000AD_#2011-2022).cbr

And that's yer lot. So far anyway.

Awesome story, would love to play in this setting

Just so you know, I love and appreciate you shakiranon. I hope you have a wonderful holiday season.

Great comic, love the concept of advanced sci-fi conglomerates and fantasy worlds crossing over.

It's such a simple conceit too, it would be so easy to just port it to almost any fantasy setting. Not sure how the players would take if if you bolted it onto an existing game without telling them first though!

And the same to you, anonymous. Time and ISP permitting I'd like to do some more between now and then, but if not you take care of yourself.

Incidentally, searching "Shakira 2000AD" led to some interesting results.
forums.2000ad.com/index.php?topic=39089.0

I don't have time to do much more tonight, unfortunately, but speaking of Christmas - guesss what'ss coming back sssoon?

If you haven't read Fall of Deadworld yet, go do that.
mediafire.com/folder/1mdy9glj42lnw/Deadworld
Ready? Off we go.

Who here has read Judge Dredd: The Judge Child Quest?

Yep, that's who you think it is.

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>WELCOME HOME.

neat

I've been calling you shakiranon offhandedly for years, so that is quite special. The tutu and hearts are a nice touch.

However a week's wait for more deadworld feels like an eternity right now.

Yep, definitely can't do any more tonight. Bugger. Oh well.

mediafire.com/file/be38jttr1tg7dmj/The_Fall_of_Deadworld_02.5_-_Home_(F)_(2000AD_#2050).cbr

I also found The Red Seas, which connects up to the other Edginton-verse works Leviathan, Stickleback and Ampney Crucis. I'll be completely honest with you, I don't like it as much as the others. It's so much longer, the ensemble cast isn't as interesting as some of the side characters (a few of whom end up taking over the story) and the art doesn't really do anything for me. That said, there's stuff to enjoy there, particularly if you like piratical antics and the links to the other series are fun to spot if you're into that sort of thing. If it does float your boat (BOOM BOOM) there's several printed collections too.
mediafire.com/?2lxbi2pf1imsl

If possible I'll look to do some more fantasy stuff tomorrow to keep the theme going. Tales of Telguuth could be an interesting diversion, as its a series of very short fantasy one-shots set in an a very high fantasy world with few, if any, recurring characters.

It is, isn't it? Its not much of a surprise given that its only a few pages into it, but it was surprisingly hard not to ruin the impact in the op!

Look at thiss way, you're jusst killing time.

Wait so is 2000AD a single world like some kind of Marvel universe or is it just a publisher? Is this set on the same planet as Judge Dredd and Nikolai Whatever?

No to both. Authors can put in references to other authors' works or create shared universes of their own (as we've seen of Ian Edginton with Leviathan, Red Seas, Ampney Crucis and Stickleback), but 2000 AD is an anthology series at its core. The writers can just do whatever. The editors seem to focus more on quality control for the sake of quality thrills than on keeping a shared world consistent.

NO WAY

A new Fairfax?!?

That was pretty good user.

Bump

Yep, new Deadworld coming for Christmas and another in 2018. It'ss sssssuper!

It's like says, by and large each 2000AD is written to stand on its own. Rebellion (the video game company which is best known for the Sniper Elite series) owns and publishes 2000AD, the Judge Dredd Megazine and have some of the rights to older Brit-comics like Misty. They are generally pretty hands off owners, leaving it down to Tharg the Mighty embodied in the human editors. Technically they can push for some things, but mostly they leave it alone.

How Rebellion came to own the galaxy's greatest comic is actually kind of funny. 2000AD was originally created for IPC Publications, a holding company which owned a substantial portion of the British printing industry by gobbling up almost all the other companies. Star Wars had just come out, Star Wars knockoffs were doing roaring trade, and one of the IPC subeditors wanted in on that. They tapped a freelance editor and writer named Pat Mills to quickly knock something together for them, he got another old hand named John Wagner involved, they throw it together. 2000AD was chosen as a name because (a) in 1975 it sounded impossibly futuristic and (b) everyone assumed the comic would run a few months at best, certainly not long enough to reach the ACTUAL year 2000 ho ho ho.

Surprising everyone, 2000AD turns out to be a huge success. IPC never cares for it, however. In 1987 it sold off the entire comics division, including 2000AD and its various spin-offs, to Robert Maxwell as Fleetway. Fleetway doesn't care much for it either, and as the 80s became the 90s sales declined. Some efforts are made to revive it - The Summer Offensive, movie synergy, the black-bagged SEX ISSUE, advertising in Lad's Mags like Loaded. These don't work particularly well. By the end of the 90s it looks like its curtains for Tharg.

Around this time the small Oxford developers Rebellion, founded by brothers Jason and Chris Kingsley in 1992, look to see if they can get the rights for a Strontium Dog game. They discover that Fleetway cares so little for 2000AD that they'd be willing to sell the entire comic - everything, every character, the reprints, the merchandise, the whole kit and kaboodle - for a song. The brothers are fans since childhood, so realising what's at stake they buy it all, being very careful to outwardly show that its no big deal, they'll take it off your hands if you want, we only want the one bit but fine.

Since then the fortunes of 2000AD have largely improved a whole lot. When they bought the comic they also inherited the all the old series, characters and universes. In part because of the horrendous mess of rights issues caused by IPC and Fleetway and in part because they're just still so profitable they're reluctant to part with the "classic" serials like Dredd, but they have begun experimenting with creator-owned stories by writers and artists: Edginton and Culbard's "Brass Sun". They also keep lots of the old back catalogue alive by doing a huge amounts of reprints, even for some of the old and obscure stuff.

This is obviously a very potted history that misses out a lot. If you want to know more, the documentary "Future Shock! The Story of 2000AD" is very watchable and has interviews with basically everyone alive who's ever been involved in the progs I believe you can find it in the usual places, but I'm not sure. Trailer is here though youtube.com/watch?v=Dzxf759riHU. If you prefer print, Thrill Power Overload covers a lot of the same ground and there are several memoirs by current and former staff out there.

Anyway, to bring it back to , no its not one universe but a whole lot of them. Though generally speaking there is no legal obligation to do so, a lot of the time the original writers and artists are allowed to keep ‘their’ babies or at least have major input into the direction of the serials going forward. Some writers, like Ian Edginton and Pat Mills, like to link everything they write together, but others don’t. Some attempts have been made to carry on stories without the original author's approval, with mixed success. Pat Mills has had full on shit-flinging, lifelong vendetta meltdowns because "his" characters have been used without his say so, even when the character in question is a mute dinosaur. Nobody's ever dared try to carry on the Ballad of Halo Jones and risk the wrath of the Magus of Northampton.

Broadly speaking, the major shared universes are

Judge Dredd: Judge Dredd, Psi Judge Anderson, The Low Life, The Simping Detective, Deadworld (probably), Insurrection, Lawless, Shimura/Hondo City Law, Helltrekkers, Armitage, Devlin Waugh, Brit-Cit Noir… basically, if it has some kind of Judge with big shoulderpads and it was in 2000AD or the Judge Dredd Megazine its part of the same continuity. Crosses over with a lot of the other serials for one-offs every so often. Strontium Dog more than most, but the universes of SD and Dredd are considered alternate futures/alternate pasts of each other more than anything.

Edginton-verse: Leviathan, Stickleback, The Red Seas, probably Stone Island

Pat Mills: Flesh, Slaine, Invasion!/Savage, Judge Dredd Stories written by Pat Mills, ABC Warriors, Nemesis the Warlock

Rogue Trooper: Rogue Trooper, Jaegir, the 86ers, Mercy Heights

Other than that they’re mostly all independent from each other apart from direct sequel and prequel series, like Absalom being a direct continuation of Cabalistics Inc.

Beneath strange stars and under unholy suns lies a world of awful horror and savage glory. These are the tales of that terrible place... the TALES OF TELGUUTH!

First some context.

Tales of Telguuth was the brainchild of Steve Moore, a writer who, while he never got the plaudits of his contemporaries Alan Moore, Pat Mills, John Wagner and the rest, was an intergral figure in the history of 2000AD. Steve Moore developed the first Future Shock, the short six-page sci-fi story with a twist, which not only remains a bedrock staple of the comic but also still serves as the apprenticeship for any writer or artist who wants to work for Tharg. Can you tell a story in six pages which takes an American one 32+ to do, and end it on a surprise? Peter Milligan, Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Grant Morrison and a host of others did.

Others serials followed the format of the Future Shock – Alan Moore’s Time Twisters, the paranormal urban legends of Vector 13, the Tales of the Black Museum, among others – but Tales of Telguuth holds a special place among them. Steve Moore wrote all of them, and, before his untimely death three years ago, was also writing them in prose form. In celebration of his life and his contribution, 2000AD put together a complete compilation of all his published Tales with new scans, which we'll be doing shortly.

As I can’t speak highly enough of the man, I’m going to hand over to a mad snake cultist wizard here.

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