The story of the greatest comic you probably never read

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Judge Dredd was created by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra, but the Spanish artist was working for a different comic and didn't actually come back to Dredd for many years. This work is by Mike McMahon, who drew much early Dredd.

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2000AD is the one of the most influential comics in the world, but if you grew up in America you've probably never heard of it. It's time to right that wrong, courtesy of a documentary called Future Shock! It's recently been released in the UK, but Amazon will ship you a region 2 copy—and it's well worth the three-week wait if you are a comic fan.

It tells 2000AD's back story from the comic's birth during the time of punk, through heights of popularity and lows of corporate neglect. Launched in 1977, the comic was meant to cash in on Star Wars' popularity and then die a little while later. Instead, it became a vehicle for Pat Mills and the team he assembled to warp young minds with subversive, often ultraviolent science fiction.

Future Shock! interviews almost all the important figures in 2000AD's history—minus Alan Moore as he's busy being a wizard in Nottingham—tracing its influence on wider popular culture. Comics—particularly superhero comics—are ascendent today due in large part to creatives who cut their teeth on 2000AD, and the documentary offers great insight into how so many of them ended up working for Marvel, DC, and other American imprints. Watching Mills is a particular joy—especially his paternal fury at the various mistreatments suffered by his colleagues and the comic.

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