Random Happenstance

There's probably half a dozen easier ways to read this issue: you could get the digital version direct from 2000 AD, or try to find the collection Tales of Nu Earth. If you're in England or thereabouts, maybe you could find the original prog from 1983, 2000 AD #317. IDW recently reprinted several issues, but I'm not sure they got this far. I went with the older American reprint, Fleetway/Quality's 1987 Rogue Trooper #9. All of which feature script by Gerry Finley-Day, and Brett Ewins art for "Fort Neuro," Cam Kennedy on "Bio-Wire!"

"Bio-Wire!" is a five-page short, involving a creeping, living barbed wire; but the bulk of this issue is Rogue's adventures in "Fort Neuro." Under protracted siege by the enemy Norts, the Souther forces entrenched in Fortress Neuropa have started to lose it: the first batch Rogue meets have gone all faux-French, for starters, naming their section "the Napoleonic Complex." With the help of a messenger droid, "Robspierre," Rogue makes his way to the next division, the Lim-ees, who aren't doing much better.

I'm positive most of the other versions are clearer, on better paper, with brighter colors--when available! But I have more than a soft-spot for the low-fi Fleetway-Quality reprints: they were my introduction to Judge Dredd and the rest of 2000 AD's stable of characters. Plus, when you can find them, they're generally cheaper than dirt...and I'll be keeping an eye out, over this weekend! I'm out for three days, we'll see if anything turns up.