Sector 13, new 2000AD fanzine launches

By John Freeman on May 4, 2017

This Saturday Sector House 13 – The Pit Crew, a Belfast based 2000AD fan group will be debuting their fanzine, Sector 13 at the Enniskillen Comics Festival.

The 24 page A4 zine, which will be on sale for £3 , features a unique photo-story starring the Pit Crew cosplayers in a tale of Mega-City One’s toughest Sector and two strips from Belfast writer W D McQuaid.

The zine includes a prose poem by author Andy Luke and posters from John Farrelly and Richard Harrison.

Celebrating in their usual Wednesday night haunt of the Parlour Bar in Belfast, Laurence McKenna and Peter Duncan say they have already begun to make plans for a second issue.

“We learnt a lot from this process” they said. “ We made a lot of mistakes and learnt how to get past them. We’re very proud of this issue but we want to be bigger and better next time. We want to involve as many members of our group as possible”.

The Pit Crew meet in the Parlour Bar, Belfast on the last Friday of every month. The gatherings are announced on their Facebook Page and all are welcome.

• For more details of the group, or to get involved in future issues, writers, artists and graphic designers should contact the Sector 13 team on Sector13@boxofrainmag.co.uk

• To join the group comics fans should simply come along to the Parlour Bar and introduce themselves, or join the Facebook group and enjoy the craic!

Scroll on for the first issue’s editorial welcome…

BORAG THUNGG, EARTHLETS

Fitztharg here, editor of Sector 13, the Galaxy’s newest publication. Maybe you know my cousin, Tharg, he has his own comic, 2000AD it’s called. Must be historical fiction. His title may sell more, and he may have better, less beat-up art and script droids to generate thrill-power, but in Belfast I get to drink better Guinness.
Sector 13 is named for the toughest posting a Judge can get in Mega-City One. It’s the home of Dredd, the wildest perps and the most vicious, out-of-control Block Wars . It’s also the name a bunch of 2000AD fans from Belfast choose for their group.

2000AD means a lot to these guys. For those living in Belfast in the eighties and nineties stories of armed, armoured cops and wars fought between blocks of flats for reasons nobody could quite fathom seemed written especially for them. The pages of the “Galaxy’s Greatest Comic” offered escape. Escape to far-off worlds and to wild adventures, but it offered something more.
In the stories of Mega-City One these Belfast fans could see an exaggerated, outrageous version of their own city. No matter their political opinions, 2000AD helped to demonstrate the futility and foolishness of violence as a solution to the divisions in their city.
The legacy of those stories is the Sector 13 group. A diverse group in every way. There are droids of all descriptions, all classes, all creeds. There are Cosplayers, always digging into the dressing-up box, long-time fans of the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic, lapsed readers and even one or two who still supply thrill-power to my cousin Tharg on a regular basis.
A few of the beat-up and worn-down droids got together one evening, while oiling gears and replacing dud batteries, they invited me to come all the way from Quaxxann to help them put together their very own Thrill-Power generator.
And this is it, the premiere Prog of Sector 13. Produced especially for the Enniskillen Comics Festival and to celebrate 40 years of the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic. My droids expended ever last drop of thrill power and it’ll take some time for them to re-charge. But when they do watch out, for Sector 13 will be back!

Fitztharg

John Freeman

The founder of downthetubes, which he established in 1998. John works as a comics and magazine editor, writer, and on promotional work for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He is currently editor of Star Trek Explorer, published by Titan – his third tour of duty on the title originally titled Star Trek Magazine.

Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine, Babylon 5 Magazine, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics. He has also edited several comic collections, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”.

He’s the writer of “Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies” for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs” with Dave Hailwood.