Preview: Grab Your Towels — Time For The ‘2000 AD Sci-Fi (Summer) Special’ To Take You On A Trip

Time for the annual summer fun that is the 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special. Expect one-off tales with a decidedly holiday bent, albeit in a rather twisted fashion…

Yes, it’s summer time officially once we start getting the summer specials. I still remember fondly the thrill of summer holidays and searching the newsagents for any summer specials I could find. Even better when it was on actual holiday – something to read while you’re trapped inside the hotel/caravan thanks to the British weather.

But anyway, the 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special is a feature of the summer, with this year’s taking various characters off on their holidays, including Judge Dredd meeting vamps in a dingy little MC-1 seaside place, the boys from Strontium Dog mixing bounty hunting business with pleasure. Then there’s Cyd Finlea in The Out, having a little downtime before she heads (almost literally) into hell. There’s a Future Shock where Mr Death takes a holiday. And then, a decade since we last saw him, we have the return of Ampney Crucis having a little recuperative cruise.

Five strips, all connected (some in very, very tangential ways) to the holidays. I’ll warn you now, probably no surprise, that it’s The Out one-off that really shines in this one.

The 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special is out everywhere your great comics are sold on Wednesday 16th July.

Anyway, time for a preview…. leading off with the ending to The Out one-off, promising so much and delivering every bit of its promise…

 

JUDGE DREDD: CONSTAFERATU – BY AL EWING AND DAN CORNWELL, COLOURS BY PIPPA BOWLAND, LETTERS BY ANNIE PARKHOUSE

This one harks back to a Wagner/Grant/Ezquerra strip, ‘Costa Del Blood’, in the 1989 2000 AD Annual. That was an absolutely mad thing where Dracula (yes, really, THE Dracula) haunts the Costa Del Meg, 17 miles of neon garishness between Mega-City One and the Black Atlantic, a favourite vacation spot for those poorer cits in the Big Meg.

So now we get Al Ewing’s take on what happened to the Costa Del Meg in the intervening years.

First of all, the art by Dan Cornwell is, as you’d expect by now, something that’s oh so good. He’s such a great Dredd artist, the latest to join a select band of artists in the modern age that have really stamped their look on Dredd. Plus, if I’m not mistaken, Cornwell has modelled Costa Del Meg on our very own Yorkshire town dedicated to all things vampish, Whitby, all thanks to Bram Stoker and Dracula, and a place that, like the Coasta Del Meg, has made quite a shift into playing to the goths coming to visit.

As for the tale itself, it’s all about the way the Costa Del Meg has gone to seed in the years since its heyday. Now, it’s struggling to get by, desperately attracting just those few well-to-do Cits looking for some cheap thrills a ‘Slummer Holiday,’ playing into the Dracula connection. Problem is, there’s now what seems like a new vamp haunting the streets, and that’s where Dredd gets involved.

Seriously, this is just one that seemingly had everything going for it. The setup, covering the history of the downturn, the clinging to the vamp connection, all that’s just great. But once that’s done with, things just fizzle out a tad. It’s not like Ewing can’t do the ridiculous, or can’t do great comedy. He’s done it a fair few times in 2000 AD gone by after all. But here, it just doesn’t seem to connect quite right. Honestly, this could have been a glorious bit of ridiculousness with great gags all the way through. But it just doesn’t quite get there.

THE OUT: THE WAR OF ART – BY DAN ABNETT AND MARK HARRISON, LETTERS BY SIMON BOWLAND

Quite simply brilliant. Worth the cost of admission just for the 10 pages following Cyd and her downtime taking in an art gallery with a difference.

If you regularly follow my Weekly 2000 AD column, you’d know that Dan Abnett and Mark Harrison’s The Out isn’t just what I think is the best strip for many years in 2000 AD (and that’s amongst a really strong lineup of great strips over the last decade or so), but, I reckon, one of the all time great 2000 AD strips throughout the four decades plus of its existence. Yes, it’s that good.

So, it shouldn’t really come as a surprise when I say that this one-off is the absolute highlight of this Sci-Fi Special. A little bridging episode before we get Book 5 in 2026. (Hopefully, early 2026. It’s not fair to make us wait too long.)

However, if, for some implausible reason, you’re coming to the greatness of The Out fresh, here’s just a little background for you. It’s all about Cyd Finlea, a photojournalist from Earth who’s travelling the outer reaches of the universe. She’s experienced so much, all of it beautifully shown to us, in all its alien splendour, by Harrison’s art, busy as all hell but always managing to keep a perfect flow amongst the insane details he packs into his pages.

Right now, she’s on the cusp of what might be her greatest and most dangerous adventure yet. After discovering that her daughter Joey is in a place called ‘The Down,’ Cyd’s decided that she’s going to find it and rescue her. What’s ‘The Down?’ Well, here’s Cyd to tell you…

Yes, Book 5 of The Out will really be Cyd goes to hell. What’s not to love in that?

But, before that, we get this little stopover. Cyd’s companions on this huge adventure are her recently re-discovered pal Cheerio and her impossibly dimensioned sentient ‘Bag’.

Cheerio’s convinced Cyd that, whilst their ship gets fitted out for the journey through the dimensional membrane to Hell/The Down, and whilst they load months’ worth of supplies into ‘Bag’, they should take a little time for some downtime.

And the downtime is a trip to The Imperial Art Collection of the Slam Empire. Cyd’s had dealings with the Slam Warriors, an alien race looking rather like giant lions, before – she genuinely had them in the back of her cab once. It’s that sort of strip. Brilliant and weird in equal measure.

Well, as you’d expect, the Imperial Art Collection isn’t your usual sort of art gallery. Cue alien incursion, and the Slamboys making an appearance…

Any more than that and I’ll ruin the payoff. But trust me, just like every other episode of The Out, Abnett and Harrison spin a yarn here that’s just sheer perfection.

One simple little 10-pager, but perfect in absolutely every way. Roll on 2026 and Book 5. It’s going to be, as always, the best thing in 2000 AD that year.

FUTURE SHOCKS: G.A.R.I. – BY ANDI EWINGTON AND NICK DYER, LETTERS BY JIM CAMPBELL

Well, it wouldn’t be a Special without a Future Shock now, would it? And Ewington and Dyer give us a fine little Future Shock, with a distinct ‘Death Takes a Holiday’ vibe.

In fact, that’s exactly what’s happening here. Death decides, at the encouragement of his once-human apprentice, Cooper, to have a little break. After all, it’s only going to be a few days. What could possibly go wrong?

Cue Cooper taking advantage of things, and putting into place his plan for streamlining the whole death experience, thanks to his nefarious invention, G.A.R.I…

Well, as you’d expect, it doesn’t quite go the way Cooper thought it would.

A neat little Future Shock, funny and, in its own little way, quite melancholic and thoughtful.

AMPNEY CRUCIS: EVIL UNDER THE SUN – BY IAN EDGINTON AND D’ISRAELI, LETTERS BY ANNIE PARKHOUSE

Now, my whole experience with Ampney Crucis came right at the end of the tale that Ian Edginton wanted to tell. I really got into 2000 AD back in 2012, after many years before that of dipping in and out, and Ampney Crucis finished its run in, I think, 2013. So, I really didn’t have any chance to get into it.

To give you an idea of what it’s all about, now that Edginton, with frequent collaborator D’Israeli, makes a return to the strip after a decade plus of nothing, here’s the 2000 AD bumf about it…

‘England, 1928. Lord Ampney Crucis was a dashing, smart and charming young man, tipped to rise to the top of high society. But then the Great War happened, and a close encounter with an otherworldly entity in no man’s land drove Crucis temporarily insane. Upon recovery, he discovered that he had the ability to sense the presence of entities that exist beyond our reality. Now Ampney, aided by his loyal butler Eddie Cromwell, investigates the rum goings-on that have begun to plague our green and pleasant land…’

There you go. That was then. Now, it’s back to 1921 and Ampney is in Cairo, being questioned by a certain Detective Valentine Bey about the goings on onboard a cruise ship that headed along the Nile.

One thing Edginton has done, over the course of a fair few creations in 2000 AD, is establish an Edginton-verse of sorts. The events and characters in his creations, including The Red Seas, Stickleback, Leviathan, and Ampney Crucis, all take place in one shared universe, some in parallel universes.

Well, I’m immediately intrigued by this Ampney Crucis from the very first page, because of course, the name Detective Valentine Bey rang familiar. Yes, there just happens to be a Detective Sergeant Bey in Edginton and D’Israeli’s Scarlet Traces: Empire of Blood series currently running in 2000 AD. Coincidence? No, I don’t think so either.

Anyway, what we get here is a curious tale of possibly Ampney’s first glimpse of those otherworldly entities that featured in his adventures. It’s packed with possibly familiar faces, intriguingly left to our imaginations, all leading to poor Ampney in the buff, tied to a ritual table and awaiting the return of some elder Gods.

Well, I could say that, without the benefit of reading all the past Ampney Crucis tales, there’s an element of what the hell’s going on here. Or, I could say that reading this has made me want to go back and investigate all those past tales. Not to mention a hope that Edginton has perhaps more Ampney to come.

And finally, a mention for D’Israeli’s artwork. He’s been doing incredible things for so long. It doesn’t matter whether it’s his work in 2000 AD on Edginton’s Stickleback, Scarlet Traces, Leviathan, or Helium, his excellent series Lowlife, all about those Wally Squad Judges with Rob Williams, or the occasional, and much underrated, turns further afield – I’m remembering the magnificent run he had on Mister X back in the day, Deadline’s Timulo, Kingdom of the Wicked (again with Edginton), a couple of fabulous Grendel episodes, amongst plenty more, D’Israeli’s art is always a feast for the eyes.

He continually shifts what he does and how he does it. And this Ampney Crucis episode is a perfect illustration of that. This is all quite beautiful, his digital work giving the impression of both pastels and watercolours. It’s an artistic triumph that you really need to see.

STRONTIUM DOG: THE HOLLIDAY JOB – BY KARL STOCK AND JAKE LYNCH, COLOURS BY JIM BOSWELL, LETTERS BY ROB STEEN

And finally, a tale of Johnny Alpha, Wulf Sternhammer, Middenface McNulty, and their timid pal, The Gronk, taking a busman’s holiday on Holliday-7, a holiday planet beyond compare. They’re here for a job, planning on collecting the bounty on The Bloody Tourist, a serial killer of some renown. But it seems that only Johnny can keep his eye on the prize.

Wulf’s catching some rays, Middenface is off to the casino, leaving Johnny to do the dirty work of tracking down their target…

It’s just the sort of fun Stront tale that’s worthy of Wagner and Grant, a procedural with a difference, leaning heavily into the silliness of the situation. Plenty of action, plenty of laughs along the way as each takes in the sights of planet Holliday. Nicely done. indeed. Stock’s slowly but surely making a quiet name for himself as a very safe pair of hands amongst his various 2000 AD strips. And of course, it’s a joy to see the angular and interesting stylings of Jake Lynch on this one. Better known, of course, for his Dredd work, here he’s obviously having loads of fun with some classic characters, and making it all look very good indeed.