Panic in the Year Zero!

Unseen Photos from the 2000 AD 15th Anniversary Party

Dancing Towards The Apocalypse!

For 31 years I’ve had some photographs filed away in one of my negative binders that I never got around to printing, so I got quite a surprise when I scanned them last week. I discovered a pretty good visual record of the fashion show that we put on for 2000 AD’s 15th birthday celebration at the Camden Palace, on the 27th February 1992.

If my memory serves me well, it was Alan McKenzie who organized the venue for the event. Camden Palace was just over the road from where the 2000 AD command module was located at the time, and I remember him going back and forth for meetings with the proprietor of the place. Alan also organized the DJ’s for the night. Mark Moore of S’Express fame, Crusher of Kerangg magazine, Chris Coco, and 2000 AD’s own Roxilla.

2000 AD’s PR Guru, Igor Goldkind was to organize a stage show featuring Judge Dredd, and my Hapkido instructor and friend of Tharg, Philip Hartstein was to organize a fashion show like no other, featuring students from the London College of Fashion. This was brilliantly choreographed by Lisa Carson with an insanely short lead time, modeling fashions from a very cool lineup of designers, including Michiko Koshino, Pam Hogg, Red or Dead, John Richmond Destroy, Slim Barrett, Libidex, and the aptly named 3000 CC collection by Hilde Marstrander. Makeup was also by the students of the LCF. The soundtrack to the show featured original music by 23 Skidoo and William Orbit’s Bass-O-Matic, plus Prince and Boy George’s Jesus Loves You. The night was a great success, and Camden Palace enjoyed hosting the event so much that they asked if we wanted to make it a regular thing.

The designers at Libidex created this outfit based on Brian Bolland’s designs for the Brit-Cit Babes, featured in January 1992’s #16 issue of the Judge Dredd Megazine (right). Below left is my back page ad for the celebration itself. I think this ran on the back of 2000 AD for a couple of weeks.

Here’s another ad that I designed and illustrated (ugh! terrible letter spacing on the right). This was a piss-take of the Norman Rockwell ads that always seemed to be on the backs of the American comics I collected during my teens. The copy was written by Alan McKenzie, aka Mac-2.

Above: When the typesetting arrived by courier, and the tracking was all over the place (above right), there wasn’t generally time to get it reset. Below: The source material!

Enter Hilde Marstrander’s 3000 CC collection…

For us, the highlight of the fashion show was the 3000 CC collection by Norwegian designer, Hilde Marstrander, who we later commissioned to design alternative Psi-Division uniforms for one of the 2000 AD specials. Hilde later became fashion editor of Elle magazine and is now enjoying success as a contemporary artist.

From Hilde’s scrapbook: Her Chopper motorcycle, and her VIP pass for the celebration.

After the party we were given a VHS video of the fashion show, but nobody has any recollection of who actually shot it. If you’re out there and reading this, please give me a shout!

Jewelry designs by Slim Barrett.

The actor, Roger Weightman played Judge Dredd for the stage show as well as most of the 2000 AD publicity appearances, and a very good Joe Dredd he was too. I took this shot of him, but I didn’t get any of the stage show itself. Another thing that I wish I’d taken photos of was the laser show featuring some of the 2000 AD character icons that I’d designed, but… I’m not going to beat myself up about it, at least I have a record of what you see here.

2000 AD and Judge Dredd © 2023 Rebellion. 3000 CC collection © 2023 Hilde Marstrander

All photos © 2023 Steve Cook