2000AD No 2 with free stickers, sold for £2000 at Excalibur.
Not only that, it did not feature the character who has become synonymous with the sci-fi comic: Judge Dredd.
Dredd actually made his first appearance in the second prog (issue), a copy of which came up for auction at Excalibur (27% buyer’s premium inc VAT) 24 years after the year 2000.
2000AD No 2 with free stickers, sold for £2000 at Excalibur. It featured Judge Dredd’s debut.
It hammered down at an appropriate £2000, no estimate given, on April 6. No 2 is rated as the key issue rather than No 1 because of Dredd, the lawman created by writer John Wagner and artist Carlos Ezquerra, although he was drawn in this debut by Mike McMahon.
The IPC comic ‘in orbit every Saturday’ cost 8p in ‘Earth money’ and the cover dated March 5, 1977, features ‘the new Dan Dare’ and ‘the THING from the HELL PLANET’.
Adding to the auction value, though, was the free gift also mentioned: full-colour stickers giving the reader the ability to be a bio-tronic man (presumably any female readers did not feel the need to be bio-tronic). All those stickers were present here.
The cover had no mention of Dredd but it was the lawman who was to endure in 2000AD and not the revamped version of Dan Dare.
