#that solving the case will undoubtedly be good for his career. there's also a subtle hint of comic business; in their first meeting

[mariocki]

Patrick Troughton lays down the law as Italian police Inspector Guido Gambetti in The Saint: Interlude in Venice (5.2, ITC, 1966)

[2000adonline]

40 Years of Thrillpower: Mavericks

The Astonishing Mind of Alan Moore - Various Artists

Attention aspiring writers, any budding script droids, or comic creators of any description, if you study Alan Moore’s earliest 2000AD short stories they are perfectly penned pearly parables!

A lot can be learned from these one, two, three or more page short stories, just the right length, plenty of humour and usually with an unexpected twist or moral lesson.

Whilst at the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic™, the Moore droid sharpened the tools of his trade, writing dozens of short stories: Future Shocks, Robo-Tales and Time Twisters, before venturing into some of the comic’s best-loved series: DR & Quinch, Skizz and, of course, The Ballad of Halo Jones - the story of an ordinary girl, with extraordinary dreams - undoubtedly some of his best work, as vital and resonant now as it was when it was written, over 30 years ago.

So, whether you’re already a fan, a frustrated script droid, or just a lover of tall tales, this is the introduction to one of the finest fiction writers of his generation - and he honed his career under the guidance of The Mighty Tharg at 2000AD - where else?!

A restless, creative and prolific young droid busies himself at his desk, under the watchful gaze of the omnipotent, Tharg the Mighty! Art by Robin Smith.

An early example of the Moore droid’s mastery of the short story, The Return of the Two-Storey Brain, has an unforgettable lead character, in this case so popular that Abelard Snazz, or the 'double-decker dome' aka the ‘two-storey brain’, etc, would return for further far-fetched fabulous fails! Mike White (a).

Chronocops, with partner-in-sublime (sorry!), the legendary, Dave Gibbons, is another short story, a ‘Time Twister’, aptly, that is so simply constructed, it has been ripped off in popular culture a million times since. However, thanks to superior draughtsmanship, and gags aplenty, this is perhaps the sweetest sci-fi short of all time - a lesson in the art of the twist-in-the-tale!

Everybody’s favourite extra-terrestrial teenage delinquents, the irrepressible DR & Quinch. Starting out, unsurprisingly, as a hugely enjoyable one-off short story, a Time Twister: DR & Quinch Have Fun On Earth (Prog 317, 21Mar’83)Our anarchic heroes plan a galaxy-wide jaunt seemingly just to cause some mayhem and drokk with the backward minds of some backwater stomm-hole known as Earth. But the diabolic duo stop off throughout different eras in Earth’s distant, and more recent past, leaving their mark on this temporal journey in subtle (and not-so subtle!) ways. In fact it’s all just a..(well, visit unofficial 2000AD database, Barney, and read the whole sociopathic short story above for yourself online, for free!). Fortunately, this terrific Time Twister spawned a whole series for the terrible twosome, bringing the best out of co-creative art droid, the awesome Alan Davis (Harry Twenty on the High Rock, Captain Britain).

ABC Warriors: Red Planet Blues (2000AD Annual 1985, 1Aug’85). Although by no means a regular scribe on the Mek-nificent 7 (to be fair, as far as I know, the only other script droid other than creator Pat Mills to ever have written an ABC Warriors’ story). A soulful, introspective Hammerstein reminisces on his time on Mars with the heroic war droids - “seven robots sent to tame a planet” - lovingly scripted, with beautiful artwork from the late, great Steve Dillon & the usual perfect palette from the colouring box of John Higgins (Watchmen). Having said that, the Moore droid did pen a few short stories from ‘Ol’ Red Eye’s’ mouthy sewer droid pal, loveable scamp & former Ro-Buster, Ro-Jaws.

Skizz (Progs 308-30, 19Mar-20Aug’83) an hilarious homage to Spielberg’s E.T. (The Extra-Terrestrial), with a brilliant bit of early ‘80s blackly comic television drama, Boys From The Blackstuff thrown into the mix. A plucky working class teenage girl, Roxy, from Birmingham finds kangaroo-like alien interpreter, Zhcchz of the Tau-Ceti Imperium hiding in the garden shed. With help from loveable layabout, Loz and psychotic mental patient with-a-heart, Cornelius. The frightened, gentle creature, although highly intelligent finds himself on a noisy, polluted planet, that due to Roxy’s Midlands accent, he believes is called Burmy-gam (nice touch, for anyone familiar with a ‘Brummie’ accent) and left alone in Roxy’s family home, whilst her parents are on holiday. With Roxy at school, Skizz tries to understand Earth’s culture, and the easiest way to absorb that, is to watch TV. The mild-mannered alien whose species are largely pacifistic, is horrified by the sheer brutality and atrocities that he sees daily on the news. But, also what humans constitute as entertainment - boxing, wrestling and other contact sports, combatant or not, are complete anathema to Skizz’s race. To make matter’s worse his alien metabolism is also causing a problem, every foodstuff she tries to feed him causes a violent reaction, making him vomit. In the end Roxy discovers that baby food is a winner, and at least he won’t starve to death. Knowing that Skizz’s craft has been discovered, Roxy, with help from loveable layabout, Loz and psychotic mental patient with-a-heart, Cornelius, realise they must get the creature back to his home world, before government agencies seize him, eager to get the creature in a laboratory and see what makes him tick. Their biggest obstacle is a South African, apartheid-era scientist, van Owen, an obsessed alien-hunter, who had found Skizz’s crashed spacecraft and knows he’s in the area. Can this teenage girl, and her ragtag bunch of misfits, really hope to win against overwhelming forces, who want a living extraterrestrial to ‘study’, and will stop at nothing to get their way? A great little story, with relatable characters, that is funny, tragic and exciting in equal measures - light years ahead of Spielberg’s movie, of which it is a blatant pastiche. This wouldn’t be the last time Moore would use aliens or a plucky teenage heroine in the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic...

The Ballad of Halo Jones [Books 1-3]. (Progs 376-85, 7Jul-29Sep’84), (Progs 405-15, 16Feb-27Apr’85) & (Progs 451-66, 4Jan-19Apr’86)  When Halo Jones grows bored with her life in The Hoop — a futuristic place,  of where jobs are scarce and excitement is non-existent — she sets out to see the galaxy  orbiting the former island of Manhattan, any way she can. But can she survive the highs and lows that lie in her path, including an extended period of shipboard servitude and a tour of duty in a terrifying war that defies the physics of space and time? This triumphant tour-de-force is the most critically acclaimed of the Moore droid’s contribution to the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic, with good reason. The only disappointing aspect of this remarkable work of fiction, sequential strip art, or not, is that it was meant initially to run to 5, 6, 7 volumes,,following an idealistic, headstrong teenager through her life, ending with a worlds-weary elderly woman,looking back on her eventful history (according to his script droid daughter, Leah Moore, that is). Either way, although unfinished it really is a super story of an optimistic innocent, taught the realistics of leaving home, and what life is really all about. In a way, though the final book leaves you wondering what happened to our heroine, we all remember her motto: “Where did she go? OUT. “What did she see?” EVERYTHING!  Ultimately, though Halo Jones is a survivor, and that’s something we can all relate to... Beautifully drawn by another top creative collaborator, Ian Gibson.