Wednesday 10 April 2013

1985: THE BEST OF 2000AD MONTHLY LAUNCH AD (IPC)

This is a house ad for the launch of THE BEST OF 2000AD MONTHLY, IPC's belated all-reprint spin-off.

It finally offered a cheap-and-cheerful alternative to Titan's expensive (albeit with better production standards) and hard-to-find (unless you were a regular Forbidden Planet visitor) albums.

This was an easy money cash generator for IPC because, of course, it didn't pay the creators anything extra for the reprinted material.

The publisher rolled-out a number of similar "Best Of" monthlies in an attempt to prop up falling revenues in the comics division as sales of the weeklies continued to decline.

Copies of THE BEST OF 2000AD still regularly turn up in dealer's back issue boxes and often seem to sell for around the 50p mark.  The line-up varies from issue-to-issue but most can be relied upon for a solid dose of thrill power and make an economical (and portable) alternative to the modern hefty trade paperback collections.

It eventually clocked-up 119 issues, running between October 1985 and August 1995.  The imminent arrival of the JUDGE DREDD movie (and the expected sales bonanza that never happened), and a diminishing supply of black & white art suitable for the format, led to the launch of a (short-lived) successor CLASSIC 2000AD.

14 September 1985

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