Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Prog 1 - Meet Tharg!

Tharg is the alien editor of 2000ad or rather, the smart-ass persona that the Editors hid behind when readers pointed out mistakes etc.

Pretty fun concept to have a 'fictional' character as Editor. Tharg wasn't the only one either...Starlord had...well...Starlord and Tornado had Big E or rather Dave Gibbons dressed up in a Superhero costume (I kid you not!)

Tharg even appeared in a good few strips in 2000ad written by various writers including Alan Moore. Tharg is so much part of 2000ad culture that to get rid of the 'Green Bonce' 2000ad would never be the same.

Tharg had his own language too. For example - Splundig Vur Thrigg! meant Farewell!
Here's the list of 'Editors' that have been 'Tharg' over the years -

Pat Mills (1977)
Kelvin Gosnell (1977–1978)
Steve MacManus (1978–1987)
Richard Burton (1987–1993)
Alan McKenzie (1993–1994)
John Tomlinson (1994–1996)
David Bishop (1996–2000)
Andy Diggle (2000–2002)
Matt Smith (2002–present)

You also got money for each letter printed in the comic...waaaay better than Stan Lees 'No-Prize'.

The best thing on this page though is the promise of a great new strip in issue two - Judge Dredd!!!

Next up - Prog 2!

1 comment:

Ian Hewitt said...

Did you ever get a letter published though? I did, in the same Prog as Craig Ferguson, Scotland (?) and an art piece by Danny Cannon of the Judge Dredd movie and CSI fame.