“Writing For 2000AD Is Just As Much Fun As I Thought It Would Be”: Alex de Campi On Rogue Trooper & The 2000AD Summer Special

Alex de Campi: I hope so. For me, the Summer Special is a great opportunity to do an out-of-continuity tale that might not find place in the Prog. I wanted to do classic Rogue, with his bio-chip buddies, on Nu-Earth. I wanted to do a war story, in the vein of the old Alan Moore or Gerry Finley-Day one-offs. And I got to do it — I mean, really, it’s a dream come true for me.

OM: This is a summer special in another way, too. It’s an all female creators issue. How did you both get involved?
AdeC: I’d written two arcs of Movieverse Dredd in the Megazine with Art Wyatt and was working on a one-off classic Dredd story for the Meg when Tharg told me this was happening. I’d always had a great relationship with 2000AD, dating from back in my London days when Andy Diggle was editor, but I’d never actually gotten around to pitching them. (My schedule is a trash fire. I’m really busy.) So it took Art basically cornering me, and then Tharg pushing a little, for me to truly get involved. And then, of course, I think to myself, “Wow, writing for 2000AD is just as much fun as I thought it would be, why didn’t I do this sooner?”

OM: And, what are your thoughts on such a venture? About time, or not soon enough? Or, something completely different?
AdeC: It’s neat.It’s a great way to jumpstart more female involvement in the book, and also stir the interest of new and/or lapsed female readers. Apparently, there was some crying on message boards about women being chosen “over” men, but, like, I’ve been writing comics professionally for 12 years.They didn’t just randomly tag people in the street. When there hasn’t been a woman writing a white male hero book at Marvel/DC for an extremely long time (the last one was probably Ann Nocenti or Louise Simonson), the fact that 2000AD was just like “Here’s Dredd, go for it” to me was stunning. Not, “Oh, we’ll start you on Andersen or Samantha Slade and you can maybe work your way up, and by maybe, we mean never.” There’s so much low-key sexism in US comics, editors who don’t think they’re sexist (or racist!) but only hire people who look like them… it’s a really huge thing for a female creator, even one with as much experience as me, to be given the same choices as the white boys.
OM: At then heart of it, what is the appeal of Rogue Trooper do you think? He still seems to be as popular today as he was so many years ago now.
AdeC: Look, I grew up reading Commando and Battle. I think there’s an endless appeal to war stories, and the more you read military history, the more ideas you have. They’re such a great stage for tales of heroism and sacrifice and friendship… and often they capture the absurdity of life really well. My particular Rogue story was inspired by some of the action in the Hurtgen Forest in WWII, plus the sheer insanity of some of the Michelin Plantation fighting in Vietnam.
OM: Finally, then, what other 2000AD character would you love to work on and what would it take be on such a story? 
AdeC: Ohhh….hmm. I mean, I got lucky, and got to write two of my favourite characters out of the gate. The bad part of my brain is whispering, “Do Sláine, do it”, but I’d really want any Sláine pitch to be in collaboration with an artist so we could work out an approach together. I liked Durham Red a lot, too, and the appeal of writing vampires in space is real.
2000AD Summer Special is out June 19th (UK) and July 11th, 2018 in the USofA from Rebellion.