Deadline magazine
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- For other uses, see Deadline.
Deadline was a British magazine published between 1988 and 1995. Created by 2000 AD stalwarts Brett Ewins and Steve Dillon, it featured a mix of comic strips and written articles targeted at older readers. Although similar to the likes of Crisis, Revolver and Toxic! which emerged during the magazine's heyday, Deadline alone managed to sustain its impact beyond the first few issues and had a cultural influence beyond the comics world.
Its origins lie in two earlier publications: Strange Days and Atomtan. Strange Days was an anthology title created by Ewins, Brendan McCarthy and Peter Milligan that gave free vent to the more underground impulses of these unlikely children's artists. Atomtan was a fanzine distributed by the then unpublished Jamie Hewlett, Alan Martin and Philip Bond among other of their fellow students at Northbrook College of Higher Education. Neither title fared as well as they might have but they came together in the form of Deadline, a new title dedicated to giving new and undiscovered [talent the showcase it deserved.
Much of the its non-strip content centred on alternative and indie music. Coupled with the subversive nature of many of the comic strips, the magazine had a distinctive counterculture ethos and post-punk sensibility. It was most famous for being the original home of the popular strip Tank Girl, created by the young team of artist Jamie Hewlett and writer Alan Martin. Other notable strips included Wired World by Philip Bond, Planet Swerve by Glyn Dillon, Hugo Tate by Nick Abadzis, Timulo by D'Israeli, A-Men and Space Boss by Shaky Kane, and several early works by Al Columbia.
Owned and financed by Tom Astor (grandson of Nancy Astor) and latterly edited by Frank Wynne (a former editor of Crisis and subsequently translator of Michel Houellebecq), it published original material but later ran reprints of American alternative comics such as Love and Rockets and Evan Dorkin strips such as Milk and Cheese. It enjoyed the patronage of those who wouldn't normally purchase comics and the support of several key bands of the time, with Blur making regular appearances in the Tank Girl strips and covers including Ride, Curve, Carter USM and the Senseless Things. However, the commercial failure of the Tank Girl film project and the crossing over of the alternative scene into the mainstream (around the time of Britpop, a movement it had helped to champion) saw the magazine eventually fold at the end of 1995. The art of Jamie Hewlett lives on in the band Gorillaz.
Content from the magazine was reprinted in the US by Dark Horse Comics as Deadline USA.
[edit] Deadline Contributors
including Artists, Writers, Cover artists
Nick Abadzis
Rachael Ball
Roberto Corona
Darryl Cunningham
Glyn Dillon
Carl Flint
Julie Hollings
Nabiel Kanan
Dom Morris
William (CUD) Potter
Mat Wakeham
