2000 For 2000

Today is a pretty big day...

It's the 2000th issue of 2000 AD.

Two thousand. Think about that. You add the runs of Action And Detective, and you're still shy of 2000. That's a lot!!

[Yes, yes, I know some of you will say "it's not the same" or "it doesn't count" because 2000 AD is weekly. I'm not sure why that matters--2000 consecutive issues is 2000 consecutive issues, to heck with the frequency.

And let's not forget that Action was a weekly comic for the better part of a year, pretty much doing the same thing that 2000 AD has always done, as an anthology series with rotating features. So if you feel that being weekly somehow makes #2000 for 2000 AD less legitimate or noteworthy than Action's upcoming #1000, well, than you damned well better subtract 30-some from Action's numbering and celebrate a lot later if you want to be consistent. Plus the fact that Action is twice monthly these days. Plus the fact that Action rebooted and did a second volume for 5 years before returning to its original numbering, so you can hardly claim with a straight face that they had 1000 consecutive issues. I'm just sayin.']

Anyhoo, I can't claim that I have the deepest knowledge of 2000 AD's history, although I am a current (digital) subscriber, and have a probably-not-entirely-legal digital collection of a lot of their past issues (shhh, don't tell Dredd). And I'm sure not going to claim that I love everything that has appeared in it's pages--some stuff seems to be too British to translate well, and some long-running features are pretty continuity-dense for a newbie to penetrate easily. Then again, that may be a feature, not a defect.

Thrill-master Tharg has a pretty good explanation why that is part of 2000 AD's success:

2000 AD creates entire worlds, entire fictional universes, dishing them out in 5-6 page bursts every week for 40 years.

And if you think about the sheer number of creators whom we revere today that cut their baby teeth working for 2000 AD, well, we American comic book fans owe 2000 AD on heck of a debt of gratitude.

So all hail 2000 AD!! 2000 progs down, many thousand more to go!!