The Weekly 2000AD: Prog 2101 – More Tales From The Short House For Dredd!

For over four decades, UK readers have thrilled to the goings-on in 2000AD, with a spectacular range of stories, delivering some of the best in sci-fi you’ll find anywhere in the world. And, with the brilliance of strips such as The Grey Area, Brass Sun, Survival Geeks, Jaegir, Brink, and so much more, the last few years have proven that 2000AD has never been better.
Prog 2101 sees the comic moving on from last issue’s jumping on point, with the five new strips inside all moving on to part 2. And, with a spectacular new Dredd strip from Rob Williams and Henry Flint, something that looks like it will have profound and long-lasting effects on the world of Dredd, it’s never a better time to jump on board. Additionally, you’ll find the spectacularly low-key sci-fi of Brink, vampiric horrors in the frozen East of 1812 in Fiends of the Eastern Front, the Blade Runner-esque action of Skip Tracer, and the horrors of a far-flung Earth in Kingdom. Five strips, a perfect showcase of the breadth and range of 2000AD, still the Galaxy’s Greatest comic.
UK and digital readers can pick up Prog 2101 on 3rd October. North American readers will be able to pick it up as part of the 2000AD monthly pack, bundling four Progs together and available sometime in the next couple of months, but please, do yourself a favour, ask for it at your local comic shop.
Cover – John Higgins. Oh, you have to love a good pun. Even better, when it’s something looking that good from John Higgins.

JUDGE DREDD: THE SMALL HOUSE – PART 2 – Rob Williams, Henry Flint, colors Chris Blythe, letters Annie Parkhouse.
Over the past couple of years, since the events of Trifecta and Titan, Dredd and a small team of colleagues have been tracking covert operatives, under deep cover, and working without any oversight. Deliberately keeping the investigation from CHief-Judge Hershey, it’s pushing Dredd to the limits of the law, a place, a role, he’s just not comfortable with. And behind it all, the mysterious Judge Smiley, the watcher in the walls, the Judge pulling the strings, unknown to all, with an agenda all his own.
It blew in like a hurricane last Prog, with Dredd coordinating the magnificent Dirty Frank who’s infiltrating Sino-Cit, tracking down the stealth Judge assassins who’ve been striking across the globe, political strikes, for an as yet unknown reason. Meanwhile, Dredd sits down for a nice cup of tea with Judge Smiley. Well, Smiley sits and has the tea, Dredd stands, doesn’t take tea, and scowls… a lot. Listening to Smiley talk, you can feel Dredd’s tension, feel the anger rising, Henry Flint’s Dredd just a perfect image.
The Small House is simply masterful Dredd. Where it’s going, especially after the end of this episode, I have no idea. But, damn, I’m along for the ride.


BRINK – HIGH SOCIETY – PART 2 – Dan Abnett, INJ Culbard, letters Simon Bowland.
Bridgit Kurtis, investigator with the Habitat Security Division, undercover on Yuliya Hab, searching for links to the secret cults repsonsible for the sect crimes threatening to overtake society.
As Bridge works her was into Yuliya, posing as one of the maids, things are moving slowly, just as we’ve come to expect, as I’ve come to love, from Brink. There’s nothing here but background, both story and art, with Culbard’s art looking beautiful here, detailing the big spaces of corporate living and the cramped, small spaces of below stairs. Yes, nothing happens, but that’s the thing with Brink, it’s a magnificent slow build to enjoy.

FIENDS OF THE EASTERN FRONT: 1812 – PART 2 – Ian Edginton, Dave Taylor, letters Annie Parkhouse.
Fiends of the Eastern front was a classic 2000AD tale, with just a few episodes in the 80s from creators Gerry Finley-Day and Carlos Ezquerra and a follow up in 2006 from David Bishop and Colin MacNeil. The fiends in question were a group of vampires, led by Hauptmann Constanta, fighting in WWII, first for the Russians, then for the Germans.
Now Edginton and Taylor take us back in time, to another Eastern Front, another desperately cold time, where Napoleon’s push to the East proved just as disastrous as Hitlers would more than a century later. It’s 1812, and Constanta is back, but he’s already been found out.
There’s a beautiful look to Taylor’s art, so different to that we saw on his last Dredd. Different, yet still gorgeous. And the moments in the snowy darkness… simply perfect. Another excellent strip in a Prog full of them.

SKIP TRACER: LEGION – PART 2 – James Peaty, Colin MacNeil, colors Dylan Teague, letters Ellie De Ville.
The Skip Tracer is Nathan Blake; bounty hunter, people finder, who’s found himself deep in the Cube, a huge city in space, home to the undesirables.
Last Prog we discovered that Blake had a brother. This episode we find out just what’s happened to him, a serving Colonel in the army Blake left behind. And now the army needs Blake back, to save his brother, to uncover the truth. I imagine it’s going to get messy very soon.

KINGDOM: ALPHA AND OMEGA – PART 2 – Dan Abnett, Richard Elson, colors Abigail Bulmer, letters Ellie De Ville.
A future Earth, mankind all but destroyed, over-run by Them, an insect race, deadly, merciless. The last protectors of humanity are the gene-engineered dog-soldiers. Gene the Hackman is one of the best, and now, with fellow dog-soldier Pause and human Leezee Sower, he’s back on Earth after escaping the orbital station of the Masters.
Except Earth has new creatures, mutants, riding hard, with Them as their steeds, a new evolution, or something more? Gene will find out, but first, he has to fight his way out again. Like Skip Tracer, Kingdom is old-school 2000AD, hard sci-fi, action-packed, fast and furious. But, as we expect, there’s a good old tale to tell behind the action as well.