Start here: BIGGEST is best...

2000AD bumper Xmas Progs, ranked.
(or... in search of the perfect Prog)

There’s clearly no such thing as the single perfect issue programme Prog of 2000AD. For any given fan it’ll likely be whatever your first Prog was, or perhaps more accurately the first Prog you read where you were like "I have to buy the next one to see what happens!!! Please Mum/Dad/Nan please!"

But here I am anyway, on the hunt for some sort of objectively defined Best. Prog. Ever!

This endeavour started life as a special request from one David Bishop. He suggested I assess those festive feasts of fun, the Annual 100 page bumper-size ChristmasProgs! When Tharg asks you to do something, you say "how high?". And in part, it’s because Prog 2000, the first of those bumper specials, claims on its own cover to be the biggest and best Prog ever. Mr Bishop, the originator and editor of that Prog, lays claim to the fact it remains the biggest and best! Is this true?

Given that it worked SO WELL on ‘Dredd Epics, ranked’, I’m re-using the rather un-artistic idea of assigning number scores for each Prog, so that I can add them all up and reveal some vaguely objective ranking.

I’ll be ranking based on:

- the cover
- the quality of each of the thrills inside
- the quality of the non-thrill pages (I do love the little surprises Tharg likes to lace through these specials),
- assessing if any one Prog manages the trick of featuring a mix of amazing all-new stories AND thrills designed to tickle the nostalgia circuits of long-term readers. A truly great Prog needs to do both, I think. Let’s face it, part of the fun of reading comics as an adult is trying to capture that hit of excitement first uncovered in the prime of youth, which means reading new adventures of old favourites, while also drinking in entirely new worlds/characters/images.
- Trickiest of all, I'm attempting to assess how much the overall Prog feels like a special treat, something you can savour in its own right? – perhaps because it features rare work from a much-loved creator, or because it functions as a 2000AD greatest hits package. Or, just maybe, because it has a simply fantastic selection of stories inside, that you want to read again and again.

 

This doesn't count! It's all reprint.
Cracking new cover by Mike McMahon, though.

This doesn't count either! It's also all reprint (although it's a seriously strong collection)
Even the cover - by Ron Smith - is a reprint.

Now, you could argue that these bumper Progs are a mere evolution of the old hardback Annuals, or the softback gatefold Yearbooks. You’d be wrong! Those were very much hangups from the old ways of British comics, in which relatives needed a sure-fire Christmas present to buy for gift-seeking children. Some of them were decent, but with one or two exceptions, every story in them was designed to be standalone and throwaway compared to the plot and cliffhanger-hungry weekly prog. (Ironic, given that the progs were literally printed on recycled paper and intended to be binned, whereas the hardback annuals were printed on high-quality paper designed to sit on a bedroom bookshelf for years). Also, almost all those Specials and Annuals included a big chunk of reprint, some of it not even from 2000AD, and, curiously, not often the best stories. (If you want to read nice things about British comics Annuals, head over to The Treasury of British Comics, where comics historian David McDonald puts them into proper context.)

Don't read this.
Despite the cover by Kevin O'Neill

 

Don't read this either. No one seems to know who wrote most of the stories inside
and it's possible none of them ever actually read 2000AD.
Cover art by non-2000AD artist Gerry Wood. It's nice enough.

 

DO read this. It's amazingly good! But it's only about Judge Dredd.
(Like the title says). Mega art by Brian Bolland

It’s generally agreed that the 2000AD-based Annuals/Yearbooks are trash*, but that the Year-end 100 pagers are awesomesauce. Not gonna disagree! And because these bumper Xmas Progs are specifically designed to be part of the ongoing grind of 2000AD, they just feel that bit more special, I think. Don’t you? Some contain epic finales; most showcase at least one all-new thrill that aimed to launch new and lasting characters – sometimes very successfully. But, to my mind, they DO have to retain a little of that old UK comics Annual magic, something you can enjoy turning to again and again for a comfort read, even though it’ll be full of cliffhanger endings. A hard task to accomplish.

Of course, there are some 2,300 or so other Progs that might argue their own case for being ‘the best ever’. I’m not going to re-read all of them and rank them (I’m really not), but I will consider some special cases after the ranking is done.

So, is Prog 2000 still the biggest and best? Let’s find out…

That's 2,200 pages of Thrill Power right there!
Art by (deep breath): Brian Bolland Henry Flint Kev Walker Greg Staples Duncan Fegredo
Mark Harrison Kev Walker Simon Davis Clint Langley Carlos Ezquerra Greg Staples Simon Fraser Greg Staples Edmund Bagwell Ben Willsher Greg Staples Ian Kennedy Cliff Robinson & Dylan Teague Staz Johnson John Higgins Alex Ronald Cliff Robinson & Dylan Teague

*The exceptions are the Judge Dredd Annuals from 1981 up to around 1986, but even those have their share of reprint and text-based filler. Some of the Winter Specials are quite good, too.