Deadline magazine
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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 the earlier publication: Strange Days. Strange Days was an anthology title created by Ewins, Brendan McCarthy and Peter Milligan.
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
Ola Belo
Glyn Dillon
Melon Girl
Tony Riot
Frankie Stein
Peter Webber
