Tharg's Future Shocks is a long-running series of short strips appearing in the British weekly comics 2000 AD since 1977. The name originates from the fictional editor of 2000 AD and the book titled Future Shock, written by Alvin Toffler, published in 1970.
Publishing history
The series began in issue 25 of
2000 AD titled "Tharg's Future Shocks" in a single
short story written by Steve Moore, who also created the format. This established the pattern of the series which would be two- or three-page short stories, which were normally self-contained.
These stories would be a testing ground for new artists and writers and creators resulting in the stories having a very mixed level of quality.
Spin-offs
Some characters proved popular enough to either appear in their own stories, or have multiple appearances in
Future Shocks, such as Alec Trench, Bradley, D.R. and Quinch and
Abelard Snazz.
Similar series
2000 AD also begat several other
science fiction and
Horror fiction short stories under several different titles, including
Time Twisters. Examples of the others include:
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Bob Byrne Twisted Tales
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Future Shorts, single page Future Shocks
[ 2000AD Online – thrill zone]
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Past Imperfect
[ 2000AD Online – thrill zone]
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Pulp Sci-Fi
[ 2000AD Online – thrill zone]
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Ro-Jaws Robo Tales, stories presented by Ro-Jaws
[ 2000AD Online – thrill zone]
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Tales from Beyond Science, a short run series all drawn by Rian Hughes
[ 2000AD Online – thrill zone]
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Tales from the Black Museum, an equivalent set in Mega-City One
[ 2000AD Online – thrill zone]
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Tales of Telguuth, a series of fantasy tales set on a distant planet, written by Steve Moore
[ 2000AD Online – thrill zone]
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Tharg's Terror Tales, covering horror, that still occasionally appears
[ 2000AD Online – thrill zone]
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Time Twisters, single episode stories, with a focus on time travel and subsequent paradoxes
[ 2000AD Online – thrill zone]
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Vector 13 although wrapped in its own story stretching beyond the series, it still featured one off stories largely focused on anomalous or paranormal phenomena
[ 2000AD Online]
Collected editions
The stories have been collected into a number of trade paperbacks:
Two collections of Alan Moore's Future Shocks ( Alan Moore's Shocking Futures) and Time Twisters ( Alan Moore's Twisted Times) stories were released by Titan Books in 1986:
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Alan Moore's Shocking Futures (1986), Titan Books; reprints a selection of Future Shocks short strips originally published in 2000 AD between 1981 and 1983, with various artists.
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Alan Moore's Twisted Times (1987), Titan Books; reprints almost all of Moore's Abelard Snazz strips, and a further selection of Time Twisters short strips originally published in 2000 AD between 1980 and 1983, with various artists.
The contents of those two volumes have been collected together into a single volume, along with additional material from Moore:
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The Complete Future Shocks (tpb, Rebellion Developments, 2006 )
Despite the title, this is not a complete collection of all
Future Shock stories from the comic, only the Alan Moore stories in the 1986 and 1987 books described above.
All the Future Shocks written by Peter Milligan, John Smith, and Neil Gaiman and around half of Grant Morrison's were collected in:
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The Best of Tharg's Future Shocks (160 pages, November 2008, )
A series of paperbacks collecting all Future Shocks is being published by Rebellion:
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The Complete Future Shocks Volume 1 (320 pages, July 2018, ) covers 1977–1981
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The Complete Future Shocks Volume 2 (272 pages, August 2019, ) covers 1981–1982
External links
