2000 AD #330
Prog 330, cover-dated 20 August 1983, is a double-debut issue of unusual weight: it introduces both Sláine mac Roth — Pat Mills and Angela Kincaid's Celtic barbarian warrior, one of 2000 AD's most enduring headliners — and simultaneously closes Alan Moore's first ongoing serial for the anthology, Skizz, making this the only prog in the comic's history to launch a character of Sláine's longevity while also delivering a finale of comparable significance. Sláine brought something genuinely new to British comics: a fantasy hero rooted in authentic Celtic mythology and prehistoric Irish history rather than American sword-and-sorcery conventions, and its debut is also historically notable as the first 2000 AD strip co-created by a woman. The same issue represents a turning-point for Moore's career at the comic, as the conclusion of Skizz freed him to move on to D.R. and Quinch and The Ballad of Halo Jones, the strips that would cement his British reputation before his American breakthrough. For collectors and historians, Prog 330 is therefore a single weekly issue that opened one of the longest-running fantasy sagas in European comics while closing the first chapter of Moore's 2000 AD body of work.
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Sláine was conceived by Pat Mills as a deliberate counterpoint to American-dominated fantasy archetypes, drawing on his Irish heritage and dissatisfaction with heroes who felt culturally inauthentic to the Celtic world they were meant to inhabit; his then-wife Angela Kincaid provided the visual design and art for the debut, making it a genuinely collaborative family creation. Skizz, which concludes here, had itself begun as an editorial mandate: 2000 AD's staff instructed Moore to write a strip capitalising on the then-unreleased E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and by the time the series debuted in prog 308, the film had already become a worldwide phenomenon — Moore later joked the strip owed as much to social-realist dramatist Alan Bleasdale as to Spielberg. John Wagner and Alan Grant scripted the Judge Dredd instalment ('The Weather Man'), while Gerry Finley-Day's Rogue Trooper story 'Eye of the Traitor' was drawn by Cam Kennedy; both strips were mid-arc continuations rather than debut material.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First appearance of Sláine mac Roth and his dwarf companion Ukko, in the debut episode 'The Time Monster', written by Pat Mills and drawn by Angela Kincaid (then Angela Mills), published 20 August 1983.
- Sláine's debut is documented as the first 2000 AD strip co-created by a woman, with Angela Kincaid providing both character design and artwork for the opening instalment.
- Sláine was named after the first High King of Ireland, Sláine mac Dela, and his signature power — the 'warp spasm' — was drawn from genuine Ulster Cycle mythology, specifically the ríastrad of Cú Chulainn.
- Prog 330 is simultaneously the concluding chapter (Part 21) of Alan Moore and Jim Baikie's Skizz, Moore's first ongoing serial for 2000 AD, which ran from Prog 308 to 330 (1983).
- Skizz was created at editorial behest to capitalise on E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, but Moore grounded it in the working-class urban poverty of Thatcher-era Birmingham, with a teenage girl, Roxy O'Rourke, as the primary human protagonist — an unusual choice for 2000 AD at the time.
- The Judge Dredd story in this issue, 'The Weather Man' Part 2, was scripted by John Wagner and Alan Grant with art by Ron Smith, and has been reprinted in Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files Vol. 07 and multiple other collections.
- The Rogue Trooper strip, 'Eye of the Traitor' Part 4 (of 6), was written by Gerry Finley-Day and drawn by Cam Kennedy; the full arc has been reprinted in Rogue Trooper: Eye of the Traitor (Rebellion).
- The Robo-Hunter strip — 'The Slaying of Slade' Part 19, featuring Sam Slade — marked the final progs of that story arc, with the complete Robo-Hunter run from Progs 312–330 later collected in Robo-Hunter Volume Three (2000 AD: The Ultimate Collection #16).