Happy 30th Birthday, Judge Dredd Megazine!

(Bear with me, folks... this one is going to ramble a bit. For a change.) Long before Judge Dredd The Megazine was launched in 1990, the words "Judge Dredd comic for older readers" were being whispered in the hallowed halls of comicdom. Although only around since 2000AD's second issue in 1977, Dredd had proved to …

Hatch, Match & Dispatch – September 2020

Welcome to the twelfth monthly Hatch, Match & Dispatch feature here on Rusty Staples! It's a hefty one this time, chums, and took me a rather long time to compile (I'd like to thank the decision-makers at WordPress for forcing me to use their new editor and thus making the process even longer). Standard disclaimer: …

Oddities: “Hero” Lawman Found Topless in Tabloid Mag!

One of my first glimpses of Sylvester Stallone in the role of Judge Dredd came from a copy of The National Enquirer, dated November 15, 1994. I've never been the sort of person who normally reads mags of that type -- I'm just not that interested in suspect "miracle cures" or the mundanities of the …

Support the Cartoon Museum, London

The excellent Cartoon Museum in London has a huge collection of rare and vintage comics and cartoons, and regularly features exhibitions on specific themes, artists or publications. Not counting visits to family members, for me it's the #1 reason I'm itching to go back to London. The museum moved to a new, larger premises last …

Tenuous Comics Link #20200719…

Those who know me well probably also know that alongside British comics another of my great passions is the German band Alphaville. I've loved them ever since I first heard their debut single "Big in Japan" back in 1984. Now, obviously, Rusty Staples is a comics blog, so what do Alphaville have to do with …

Pocket-Money Comics: The Complete Judge Dredd

As mentioned in this month's Hatch, Match & Dispatch feature, The Complete Judge Dredd title came to an end twenty-five years ago. Launched in February 1992, it boasted the clever tagline of "The Law in Order" and ran for forty-two monthly black-and-white issues, which isn't a bad old run for a comic that -- aside …

Star Wars Day!

For the past few years the fourth day of May has been pushed as "Star Wars Day" because "May the 4th" sounds like "May the Force" (this is something that young Rusty spotted back in 1978, but tragically failed to trademark), even though it means everyone is quietly ignoring the fact that none of the …

Rusty Staples: Year Two

Blimey, it hardly seems like a year since we last looked back at the first year of Rusty Staples, and yet it is. Year Two of Rusty's life started slowly, with only one post per month in April, May and June of 2019, and then nothing at all until October. This was thanks to work …

British Comics Top-10 Issue-Count Chart – 2020 edition!

2000AD -- the legendary British Science Fiction anthology comic -- has now reached issue 2176, which means that it's time for me to fulfil the Ancient Prophecy I made in the last version of the issue-count chart and provide an updated edition. (You'll possibly have spotted that I've stopped describing these things as Longevity Charts …

Dateline: 26 Feb 1977

If you're a fan of British comics it possibly hasn't escaped your notice that 2000AD was launched this week(ish) in the year 1977. Forty-three years ago, that was: some of the photons that left our sun on the day the comic was launched have potentially now travelled all the way to the binary star system …