Earthside 8

Publisher: Fleetway Publications

Format: Anthology comic

First Issue: Earthside 8#1 (1992)

Last Issue: Earthside 8#1 (1992)

Annuals and Specials: None

Absorbed: None

Absorbed into: None

Strips: Alternity; The Burning Man; Canned Heat; Dinosty; Mr. Elephant Head; Tracer

Comments: In the early 1990s there was a growing feeling that the readership of 2000A.D. was becoming an older, more mature one, and that there might be a need for a new companion title aimed at the younger end of the teenage boys' market. Accordingly a pilot version of this proposed new title was produced in 1992. The conceit behind Earthside 8 is that the strips were stories presented by an extraterrestrial TV channel showing the readers real events from all over space and time. Sample issues were produced and given to test audiences of school children, but the feedback wasn't good so they were taken back and pulped - most of them, anyway, as a couple of issues survived to eventually make their way into the hands of collectors. Undeterred, the plans for the sister title were revamped, and a new test issue, Alternity, was published.

  Like 2000A.D.'s Tharg, Earthside 8 had fictional presenters, the instantly annoying E-Teen and the Programme Controller. The back of the issue also featured another character, the Navigator, who informed readers that he was going to be issuing clues for a competition each week. The Navigator survived the transition to Alternity, becoming that title's new presenter. 

  Interestingly, the Dave Gibbons cover shows two characters who are not in the Earthside 8 pilot issue. One is Billy Whisper, who turned up in Alternity's pilot issue, supporting the supposition that he was intended to show in Earthside 8 had it gone to more issues. Which begs the question, who is the green guy in the helmet to the left of the group? Presumably there was another strip being prepared for the title, one that ultimately never saw the light of day?


Alternity

Created by Mark Eyles, Alternity starred Scott Glenn, the wheelchair-bound son of scientist Professor Glenn, who had invented an experimental protein based biocomputer no bigger than a peanut. To test it, Professor Glenn then programmed the biocomputer with computer game to create a terrifying Gameworld. When burglars broke into the house seeking to steal his father's invention Scott swallowed it to keep it from the thieves, but the biocomputer merged with his nervous system, plunging Scot's body into a coma while his mind found itself trapped in Gameworld, forced to play games to survive.

   Titled Alternity when it appeared in Earthside 8, the strip was renamed Gameworld for the new pilot comic which had appropriated the Alternity name. A mixture of regular art and computer graphic art, it never got a wider reprint. Scott's digital form, never seen clearly in the single available episode of the story, appeared on the cover of Earthside 8


The Burning Man

Created by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra, The Burning Man was the story of assassin Johnny Goodnight who discovered he had been poisoned with a slow-acting alien toxin, Pyrocyllus, which would gradually make the inflicted feel like their internal organs were on fire before killing them. With no known cure, Goodnight decided to use whatever time he had remaining to him to hunt down and slay his own killer.

   After the first episode appeared in both Earthside 8 and Alternity, it finally saw wider publication in the 2000A.D. Yearbook 1994. However, no further installments ever followed.


Canned Heat

Created by John Wagner and Colin McNeill, Canned Heat told the tale of L.A. police officer Rocky Schwartenburger who had to have his entire body amputated after suffering horrifying injuries after his hoverpad was ambushed by a gang. Luckily for him the force had been developing a new robot law enforcement officer, and so they implanted Rocky's brain into it, creating Cybo-Cop.

   A very tongue-in-cheek parody of both Arnold Schwarzenegger action movies and, clearly, Robocop, Canned Heat appeared in both Earthside 8 and Alternity, and then saw wider publication in the 2000A.D. Winter Special 1993.


Dinosty

Created by Pat Mills and Clint Langley, Dinosty was a tale set in a world where sentient dinosaurs ruled the planet. Because the first five of ten episodes had already been drawn when plans for Earthside 8 were scrapped, it was the only series from the pilot comic that was brought over to 2000A.D. and completed.


Mr. Elephant Head

Created by Roger Langridge, Mr. Elephant Head featured the elephant-headed private investigator Ellery Head. The first installment confirmed that his partner, Karloff, had recently been shot while on a case, and saw the arrival of a new client, then dual-headed Gloria Twoscone, who wanted Ellery to locate her missing husband.

   Sadly this was his only outing, as Mr. Elephant Head wasn't included in the Alternity pilot comic, nor has it been reprinted anywhere afaik.


Tracer

Created by Dave Stone and Paul Peart, Tracer was the story of Eddie Cassavetes, a repo man willing to find and retrieve anything, from technology to people, in Tokyo in the corporate ruled future of 2045A.D.

Tracer was one of the strips that didn't make an appearance in Alternity's dummy issue, but the first episode did see print a year later in the 2000A.D. Winter Special 1993.


CLARIFICATIONS:
Earthside 8 should not be confused with:


First Posted: 11/11/2023
Last updated: 11/11/2023

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