Bubble-Packed and Paper-Backed
2004-01-28

Why isn't there more 2000 AD merchandise? Not counting the books reprinting the strips, there's been very little. Sure, lately we've had the new JD computer game and the Heroclix things, but there's scope for a lot more.

Now, when I was a mere sproutlet, before I graduated to reading "proper" books, I used to read movie and TV novelisations. My absolute favourites were James Blish's Star Trek books and the novelisations of Doctor Who episodes (though some of these were a bit scary and I had to read them from behind the sofa), but I can still remember books based on Land of the Giants, Planet of the Apes and The Six Million Dollar Man.

Then along came 2000 AD, which changed my reading habits forever. I no longer cared about Spirk and Kock, or any of the others. I desperately wanted a Judge Dredd action figure, but no such thing was available. I used to spend hours messing about with plasticine and tiny strips of plastic trying to change my Star Trek action figures into Dredd, with little success.

As Elton John once sang, "So the years went by and the rock grew lame in one leg and got a bit of a cough..."

Bits and pieces of 2000 AD merchandise trickled out: t-shirts, computer and board games, even a record. Then in the mid-nineties, a series of Judge Dredd novels was published by Virgin. Someone bought me one, and it wasn't great. I mean, it wasn't terrible, but it didn't feel like it was really about the Judge. It felt like the author had taken an unpublished work and quite crudely hammered some Dredd into it. I've since managed to collect all but one of the Virgin books, and they vary in quality from unreadable to quite good. Great covers, though...

Here's some of the odder items in my collection: two packets of JD "Milk Chocolate Sticks" (those of us over thirty will immediately understand... "Milk Chocolate Sticks: the new name for Sweet Cigarettes!"). A double-cassette release of the radio adaptation of "The Day the Law Died" (very entertaining except for Walter the Wobot's incredibly high-pitched voice; cwikey, but that wobot's one iwwitating little ranker). A bunch of those tiny Judge Dredd inaction figures from Mega Heroes (they're rubbish; I won't be bothering to fill the gaps in my collection).

I've also got the 2000 AD Space Quiz Book from 1980. The book features a not-bad colour front cover by Dave Gibbons, and "£2.50" in pencil on the top-right corner of the first page. Well, my copy does anyway, because I bought it second-hand a couple of years ago. The original price has been blacked out by an over-zealous bookstore employee, but - through the modern miracle known as "squinting very hard" - it appears that the book cost 60p.

It's very much aimed at kids ("Rearrange these letters to form the name of a planet: Mercuyr"). The TV section devotes a whole page each to Star Trek and Doctor Who. Aside from the title and the cover image, the connection with 2000 AD is minimal: a few "spot the difference" puzzles, a couple of "name this character" pics (Dredd, Sam Slade and Johnny and Wulf), and a couple of pages devoted to Dan Dare; one page for his Eagle days, the second for his 2000 AD incarnation. This is not a great book: On a scale of one to ten, I'd give it one, but that's only because the scale doesn't allow any lower numbers. That said, as a piece of rare 2000 AD memorabilia, I'd have to rate it at about eight or nine.

Sadly, there wasn't that much merchandise following the release of the JD movie; the most interesting items I've found are the stickers that came free with boxes of Sugar Puffs, a little kiddies' book called Hershey's Story (in which no-one actually gets killed) and a Judge Dredd flip-top lighter (I poo you not).

By far, my favourite pieces of 2000 AD merchandise are the Re:Action figures. They're more than just cool: they're very cool! They're extremely well-made and would make for a nice display on top of the monitor if only they didn't keep falling off (an interesting thing about the Dredd figure; everyone - without exception - tries to take his helmet off to see what he really looks like, as if somehow the model maker had been privy to that great secret and took the trouble of modelling the Judge's face).

I don't know how well the Re:Action figures sold, but I would have killed for the things when I was a kid. I strongly believe that there's a good market for more, especially some of the weirder 2000 AD characters; why not the Angel Gang (I'd be first in the queue to buy a Mean Machine figure), Judges from different countries, Rogue Trooper, Wulf, Jim DiGriz, Nikolai Dante, Zenith, Sam Slade... How about Dredd on his Lawmaster? And who wouldn't love to have good models of Trapper Hag, or The Mekon?

I mean, Todd McFarlane made an absolute fortune out of his Spawn action figures, and a lot of them were only loosely based on the comic's characters. Not-exactly-brilliant movie aside, McFarlane knows how to merchandise his creations; the figures are imaginative and detailed and for the most part look absolutely fantastic. Rebellion should licence McFarlane's toy company to produce 2000 AD figures: Imagine what he could do with the ABC Warriors and Nemesis!

Plus, here's a handy little tip for whoever does make the next batch of 2000 AD figures: you can save time by not bothering to design the backs of the figures, because most collectors never take them out of the box anyway.