‘Charley’s War’ By Joe Colquhoun: The Greatest War Story Ever Gets An Apex Edition

The latest 2000 AD Apex Edition will be Charley’s War, considered by so many to be the greatest comic war tales there’s ever been.

With art by Joe Colquhoun and written by Pat Mills, Charley’s War is a genuine masterpiece of comics, and now it’s getting the 2000 AD Apex Edition treatment.

That means expertly restored art from Colquhoun, presented in a huge format, the art at its original size of 19×14 inches – all the better to show just how incredible the art was for this greatest of war strips.

This 144-page hardback Apex Edition will present a curated selection of the pages of Charley’s War, capturing all of Colquhoun’s incredibly detailed artwork, capturing all the tragedy of war, all the death and destruction, all the unflinchingly honest portrayal of war. This Apex Edition, hopefully the first of several, collects pages from the first few years of Charley’s War, with as many complete episodes as possible, all the better for readers to experience the artistic brilliance at play on every single page.

Charley’s War was undoubtedly a masterpiece of British comics, presenting the horrors of WWI in a way not seen before in British comics, where the norm was to tell tales of jingoistic heroism. When it was first published in Battle Picture Weekly in 1979, it broke the mold, giving a chillingly honest and real portrayal of life on the Western Front. It’s rightly considered one of the greatest of British comic serials.

Mills’s writing was fresh and new, powerful, harrowing, intensely political, and Colquhoun’s deeply affecting artwork pulled no punches as we followed young Charley Bourne, enlisting at the tender age of 16, having lied about his age to serve King and Country.  Meticulously researched by Mills and Colquhoun, Charley’s War tells a brutal yet brilliant tale of young men thrown into this ‘War to End All Wars,’ who soon found themselves the cannon fodder pawns of those in power.

Colquhoun’s art is meticulously detailed, impeccably researched, bringing a level of shocking detail to war comics that just had never been seen before.

The Charley’s War by Joe Colquhoun Apex Edition is due for release on 29th April 2026, with the 144-page first volume coming in a standard harback and limited slipcase edition. The standard edition will be available through comic shops, with both standard and slipcase editions available from the 2000 AD Treasury of British Comics webshops.

As with all previous Apex Editions, the Charley’s War by Joe Colquhoun Apex Edition is the closest thing to actually holding the original pages in your hands. It will join Apex Editions by the likes of Brian Bolland, Kevin O’Neill, Mick McMahon, Arthur Ranson, Carlos Ezquerra as essential, yet bookcase-destroying editions of the finest artists in British comics history.