Prog 3 - Invasion Bonus!

Here's an added bonus! The page with all the info on the Free wallet with this Prog!

Prog 2 - Cover

The covers for the first few issues of 2000ad were not the stuff made of legend. Fairly average fair, to be honest.

This did improve as the year went on when the comic started to get it's footing. Another fun free gift this issue...biotronic stickers that you stuck on your arm! I wonder how many kids punched walls expecting their arms to go through and got busted knuckles instead.

It's a kind of tradition for the first two or three issues of a new comic to have free gifts. Nowadays it's fairly commonplace to have more free gifts in a kids comic than to have content! Funny how things flip.

Nothing memorable about this cover at all. As you can see Dan Dare is still the main attraction. Judge Dredd does have his first appearance in this issue but I don't think the 2000ad gang were confident enough in the strength of the strip yet to give Dredd the front cover. In fact, if I can remember, Dredd was a bit of developmental hell for Pat Mills.

Prog 1 - Cover

One of the major selling points for the launch of 2000ad was not only the free gift of the Space Spinner (Eagle did the same marketing ploy with it's relaunch in the 80's) but the return of Dan Dare.




I figure, the powers that be, decided to revamp Dan Dare for 2000ad to be a selling point for Dads to pick up the issue because they would have probably read Dan Dares adventures in Eagle when they were kids and wanted to share the same experience with their own children. But I bet they didn't expect this Dan Dare!



More on that later.



What I love about this cover is it's simple effective design, the 'coming straight at you' classic logo and the hyperbole text... 'Dinosaurs', 'Stop press: Great Britain Invaded', 'Hyper-Power' and of course the promise of a 'New' Dan Dare. What kid would not like all those things? Oh, and the neat little Kevin O'Neill drawn Tharg head!

On the inside we get a double page spread of what's coming next week. Notice that there's no Dredd in the ad even though he appeared in issue 2. There is an ad, however, in the back of the issue. I figure that they didn't have Dredd ready by then and they were still struggling with what to do with him. I love the nice curve and flow to this ad...there is a lot of information and in your face graphics. 2000ad really did pack a lot of punch...and of course the Free gift - stickers to make you look Bionic or 'Biotronic'.

Great Stuff!