Thrill-Power Countdown #23: Judge Dredd Annual 1990

There are only a few less Judge Dredd annuals than 2000ad got, but they are generally of a higher quality, probably because of that tighter focus. This is still the weakest of them, even with a bitching John Higgins cover (more on Higgins later), but the thrill-power is starting to kick in.

There is some terrific art at this stage of the comic - Arthur Ranson never looked better than on the sharp white paper of these hardbacks, and if anybody needed Jamie Hewlett's portrayal of Max Normal (I certainly did), that's here in a Pete Milligan text piece.

There are some fairly forgettable stories with art by Jeff Anderson and Mark Farmer. Farmer is more well known for his inking, and while he is also strong and slick penciller, he is wasted on a slight story with a very clumsy ending ("These guys are actually alive after plummeting from a great height!").

Some of the nicest art is in the reprints - Ian Gibson's daily strip full story about a mad vigilante is cramped but super efficient, and there is a reproduction of the fine three-part A Question Of Judgement stories from Ron Smith, the first to really dig into the idea that Dredd can have doubts, and the first appearance of his tight boots solution. 

That particular reprint does lose points in this annual for being printed out of order, which feels like Tharg isn't paying that much attention anymore. And the Dredd annual might be a nice package, but  doesn't feel like a big deal as it once was, just as the Judge Dredd Megazine is about to come along to give the thrill seeker far more the Dredd than they'll ever need.

Thrill-Power Countdown #24: 2000ad Annual 1981

The weekly prog in late 1980 is really starting to take off into the stratosphere - Dredd and Strontium Dog are well established, almost perfectly formed, and Nemesis The Warlock and Rogue Trooper are not far away. But the annuals are still struggling to keep up.

Beneath the 1981 annual's Dave Gibbons cover - with a rare Gibbons Johnny Alpha - there is some of that edge to it. The Ro-Busters story starts with a cute kid falling into a chasm caused by an earthquake (this is the sort of thing I thought would be a real concern in my life, thanks largely to 2000ad), and the Dredd story by Brett Ewins (apparently the first ever full-colour Dredd strip) has a fantastic 'EAT JUDGE BOOT, LAWBREAKER!' panel.

It also has one of the always fascinating behind the scenes features that shows how the comic is created, through the way a page of Bolland Dredd was scripted, drawn and lettered, which always a good value for those who like to see how the sausage was made. And there is a Tharg-related story that isn't totally repellant.

But there is still too much Phantom Patrol and Guinea Pig, as well as another tedious reprint in something called Smokeman, which I re-read 10 minutes ago and have already forgotten everything about it. And the paper stock is still cheap and nasty, which never does the art any favours. 

The 2000ad annual is definitely reaching the stars, but it's not quite there yet.

Thrill-Power Countdown #25: 2000ad Annual 1991

It's the era of the credit card logo, and the highs of the 80s annuals have worn off.  And the last hardback annual of the 20th century, before the move to the dreaded yearbooks, goes out on a weak note, when it really needs a power chord. 

At least the reprint material is now deep into the good stuff, with some high-quality Cam Kennedy Rogue Trooper, (Kennedy's aliens also come with real weight). The new stories also feature work by some of the most underrated artists of the period, like Paul Marshall and Kev Hopgood. 

But they don't have access to most of the great 2000ad artists anymore - Belardinelli puts in a welcome appearance, even if it is wasted on the terribly average Moon Runners - and there is the slightest hint of flop-sweat around the whole book, trying so hard to recapture the glories of just a few years ago. 

There's an interesting Strontium Dog story with Johnny Alpha at the end of the world that desperately need some Ezquerra magic - artist Keith Page is certainly talented, but the wrong choice for this story. At least there is a fun Tyranny Rex text story by Smith/Fegredo - when the comic is trying so hard to be cool, some can still do it effortlessly.

Thrill-Power countdown #26: 2000ad Annual 1980

An improvement on the previous year, but 2000ad still hasn't found its groove yet, and the reprints continue to drag things down - there's still far more Phantom Patrol and Guinea Pig than anyone really needs. 

Some of the text pieces get a bit too excited about jet planes and submarines, but there is also a historically interesting piece on this new fangled video recorder technology that multiple companies are trying to put into peoples' homes.  

The biggest disappointment is that there isn't any of the great 2000ad artists involved - Bolland makes his first appearance in an annual, but it's one panel ripped from a strip in the weekly prog, used to illustrate a mediocre text story. The art in story after story is by artists nobody ever hears of again, and filled with their amateur traits of clumsy staging and abnormally large heads.

There are still too may weird little one-offs, and they are still not brave enough to call them Future Shocks. Ro-Busters and Judge Dredd are getting closer to their final form, but Dredd still has a long way to go. If he's not musing on wearing a tropical version of his uniform the next time he's in Mega-Miami, he's letting Walter the Wobot get away with an egregious and extremely illegal betrayal.

The weekly progs in the very late 70s were already singing a song of pure thrill-power, but the annual presentation remained lackluster.

Thrill-Power Countdown #27: 2000ad Annual 1979

All of the 2000ad annuals have some kind of thrill-power, and there are still some sparks of it in the second big book that 2000ad produced back in the late 1970s. There is some very early Brett Ewins/Brendan McCarthy comics, which look sharp and modern, even if they still have the unavoidable clumsiness of youth. And there is a typically shiny and sharp cover from the truly mighty Kevin O'Neill.

But much of the comic material in this annual is dire, with artists who are clearly not ready for prime time on established strips like Dan Dare, MACH 1, Harlem Heroes and Invasion - the indispensable Barney database doesn't even know who did much of the art for this annual, and the stories are just as forgettable. The successful formula that 2000ad will lock into in the early 80s isn't quite there yet, and the annual is full of short stories that they can't even bother calling a Future Shock.

There is also a load of reprint material, and because company policy was to not reprint anything too recent, it's all from the pre-2000ad days and dull, like they escaped a 1966 Lion annual. The Phantom Patrol is a lot of empty sound and fury that goes on forever, although The Guinea Pig is almost charming with some bonkers ideas (why not float all the way to the moon in a space suit?) And some Dr Sin is always welcome. 

But it's easily the poorest of all the annuals. Maybe some kids in the dying days of the late 70s got their thrills out of this thick collection, but the future could only get better from here.

Another Thrill-Power Countdown: Ranking all the 2000ad and Judge Dredd annuals

The Tearoom of Despair is all about staying on top of modern comic book trends, so of course I'm going to spend the next few weeks writing about 2000ad and Judge Dredd annuals from the 1980s.

The old British hardback annuals are my platonic ideal of the perfect comic, a done-in-one package loaded with great art and stories, in the chunkiest and most durable of formats. They are also full of reprints and filler material, and the best of them are notable for being edited by somebody who deeply cares about giving the kids the best bang for their buck.

The 2000ad annuals do vary wildly in quality, and while there are obvious golden periods like the 1980s, some are most definitely more strotnig than others.

So every day for the next month, I will be ranking all of these annuals against each other, all judged by my own inscrutable standards (spoiler - it's all about the art).  Just the 2000ad and Judge Dredd annuals, no Star Lord annual and definitely none of the yearbooks, because they are a whole other level of dire comic.

Sometimes this is easy, the very best and the very worst are blindingly obvious (and the most disappointing are mostly the earliest or latest of the annuals). But there are also four or five years of Dredd annuals that are total Ezquerra lovefests and while this is obviously fantastic, it's really drokking hard to rate one over the other.

But that's what subjective lists are all about. And if all the best things in life can be rated, so can 2000ad annuals. 

Jonah Hex: So long, bounty hunter!

- Jonah Hex #73 

Art by the mighty José Luis García-López 

Written by Michael Fleisher 

Letters by Ben Oda 

Colors by Bob LeRose

Too much pizza!

It is my experience that most people strongly overestimate how many slices of basic pizza that they can eat. I've had people swear to my face that they could get five whole pizzas down their gob, and I absolutely call shenanigans on this.

Because when I was young and living with uni students who saw any money they spent on food as money they were not spending on booze - and so were often ravenously hungry - we would go to Pizza Hut, which at that time had an all-you-can-eat buffet. And some of the hungriest people I've ever met in my entire life could not get above 30 slices. My own record was a paltry 23, which isn't even three pizza.

So when I hear any claims of being able to deal with the 40 slices that would come with five pizzas, I feel I can easily dismiss these boasts. People always think they can eat more pizza than they really can. It's a scientific fact.

Music critics have it hardest

In the every decreasing world of entertainment reviews, I still think the poor folk who try to review new music have it the hardest.

You can watch a movie or a TV show, read a book or comic or novel, and if you have to write words about it, you can probably do it with one viewing or reading. Do it for a short while, and you will probably have the angle for your review already settled by the time the credits roll.

(I tried movie reviewing for a couple of years when I first became a journo in the mid 00s, and gave it up because it really wasn't much fun as I thought it would be, and it was ruining my experiences of watching a movie for fun. I found some of those old reviews on our dying PC the other day and they were slightly interesting - I had the knowledge to write with confidence, but was so fucking pretentious).

But it's a different tune for the music reviewers. Never mind the fact that there is so much of it - dozens of albums are released around the world every week, and it is literally impossible to keep up with all the new music that gets up loaded to something like Youtube every single day.

But it also takes so long to figure out if you like a song. I have to listen to something a dozen times before I can come to a decision about it. To see if it has hooked me, has something properly unforgettable to it. Sometimes it takes that long to discover how annoying something is.

Sometimes a song can hit you out of the blue on an instant listen. But that is truly rare. It is only with real immersion into the song that you can find the heart of it.

And musical tastes change over the years, I am far more forgiving of pop music nonsense than I was when I was a teenage metaller, or slightly older raver. So much of the stuff I loved as a young perosn now sounds hopelessly adolescent, and I've always got an ear out for something new.

The only music I write about here is the stuff I have been listening to for years and years, and have some very definite - if occasionally fluid - opinions about it. But to write about everything that is coming in the deluge of the new, that's a real talent.