40 Years of 2000AD: A Celebration
Ardhowen Theatre
Enniskillen Comic Fest
2000AD fans were treated to over three hours of witty and insightful recollections from some of the comic's key talents - Judge Dredd creators John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra, writers Alan Grant and Alan Hebden, artists Cam Kennedy and Glen Fabry and former editor Steve MacManus - at the Ardhowen theatre last night, as part of Enniskillen's annual Comic Fest.
The host gave the audience some idea of the context of the 1970s comics scene before taking the panel through the first ten years of the comic, stopping to discuss various landmark moments.
There were regular reminders of the groundbreaking nature of the comic. Wagner attributed the initial success of 2000AD to original editor Pat Mills's decision to lenthen the stories from the traditional three-pages to six pages with dyanmic splash pages. 'The stories had room to breathe, the art had room to breathe,' he said, before acknowledged the other advantage of this approach: the double story length also meant double the income for the creators, who were also credited for their work for the first time in a British comic.
Wagner was the most voluble of the wryly laconic panel and he and Ezquerra traded good natured jibes over the course of the evening while Grant and Kennedy elicited much laughter from the audience with their mocking accounts of meetings with American comics editors Denny O'Neil and Karen Berger. None of this would have surprised anyone accustomed to the gleefully transgressive attitude that has always permeated the comic.
There was some criticism of 2000AD's editorial staff to leaven the mix: Wagner is still excercised by Mark Miller's version of Robo-Hunter ('He treated my character with contempt') while Grant expressed his annoyance with recent changes to Judge Anderson. But overall, the event lived up to its billing as a celebration with the creators acknowledging the trailblazing glory of the galaxy's greatest comic.
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