Review by Frank Plowright

From the earliest days 2000AD has run short stories between their continued strips, usually tryouts for potential new creators. As this is a selection from 1993 to 2019, the focus is on creators who went on to greater success, with writers Al Ewing, Mark Millar and Alec Worley each represented three times. Yet, to defy all categorisation the opening strip is by obscure writer Alan Hale and illustrated by veteran artist Eric Bradbury. 2000AD usually focuses on SF, but as the title suggests, the emphasis here is more spine-tingling, and there’s less compulsion for a twist ending.

Producing a complete story in six pages tasks the writer more than the artist, yet it’s the immediacy of the art selling the story, and there’s considerable talent on display from Bradbury’s old school polish to the exemplary precision of Tom Foster. The sample art contrasts Shaky Kane nailing a mad Millar story ‘The Uncanny Dr Doctor’, and Dom Reardon’s shadowy artistry on a plot for which Gary Simpson should have forwarded his payment to Stephen King. The better writers have different approaches. For Millar it’s all about extrapolating the idea, whereas Ewing seduces with the words. Si Spurrier combines both methods in ‘Snacks of Doom’, about drunks visiting the kebab van, hinging on a groan-inducing joke, and Chris Weston proves he’s not just a great artist with ‘Counts as One Choice’. Others rely, perhaps a bit too often, on the shock of the gruesome. It’s John Smith who extrapolates that best, including personality and wit, and ‘Blackspot’  is stylishly drawn by Edmund Bagwell.

Toward the end Laura Bailey and David Hitchcock are the only creative combination with two contributions and they also provide the only sequel here. Hitchcock’s grey toned art services two bonkers, yet viscerally disturbing stories exploiting horror standbys the creepy ventriloquist puppet and the cult.

The early work by notable creators isn’t going to be reprinted anywhere else, so that’s the selling point, and while this doesn’t satisfy throughout, it has many fine moments, one of which is the magnificent Henry Flint art on the final inclusion ‘The Last of the Hellphibians’.