Posted in: Comics, Rebellion / 2000AD | Tagged: 2000ad, comicspro, lunar

2000AD Tells ComicsPRO About How They Brought Weekly Back To The USA

2000AD tells ComicsPRO about how they brought Weekly back to the USA... and about the Judge Dredd Crossover coming in 2026

Owen Johnson, Director of Sales at Rebellion Publishing, took to the stand at the ComicsPRO event this weekend to discuss the return of the British sci-fi weekly comic book 2000AD to North America, available through Lunar Distribution. And for the first time, weekly, because it is now partially printed in North America. And you can catch up with all manner of ComicsPRO 2026 annoucnements with this handy tag, as Owen Johnson spoke to the assembled crowd.

"We've been coming for about five years now, thanks to Marco reaching out to us originally. The most consistent roundtable feedback we've had from you has been about the consistency, reliability, and supply chain issues of our flagship 2000 AD comic. We call it the Prog."

"Here's a little bit of a brief history of our challenges with the Prog in the direct market. These were originally solicited through Diamond, orderable through Prog Packs that were monthly. After shipping from our UK printer, they were arriving in stores a couple of months after the UK on-sale date. They'd be polybagged, four issues a month, and they weren't browsable by your customers or by you, and we found that was a real barrier to entry and accessibility, as you know, people will pick up comics off the racks and check them out. They were offered at a below-standard discount, which made it difficult for you to invest in. With no permanent US warehousing, that meant a long wait for any re-orders. If things were out in the UK, that was another couple of months' wait. All of this kind of reached a head with the dissolution of Diamond US, which meant supply stopped entirely of 2000 AD in Q4. This is not the happy news I promised you. All of this affected accessibility and the growth that we really wanted."

"So how do you solve a problem like 2000 AD? We decided to get back to basics, look at our supply chain, treat the obstacle as the way, and take a giant leap of faith. I'm really, really thrilled to announce that, for the first time in our nearly 50-year history, we're going to be printing and releasing 2000 AD weekly in the United States."

Pause for audience applause…

"So how does it work? From May 2026,  it will be in US stores that order it, every week, with only a two-week gap between the UK and the US on-sale day. We're going to be printing and shipping in the US for the first time, offering supply that we can track. Each individual issue is going to be orderable. Individual issue orderable, printed on thicker paper for reading durability and browsing. No more polybags at all. We've raised the discount; it's going to be industry standard, so you get 32 pages for $7.99. We really love working with Lunar, and the relationship we've built with them has been great. They'll be warehousing, which means fast reorders. With some demand issues, we all have a chance to do US reprints as well. We're looking to basically remove obstacles to sales for you and hope to future-proof not just 2000 AD but Rebellion periodical articles in the US, and allow for new distribution partners. Pretty much every choice we've made has been about boosting availability and reaching more readers consistently."

"We understand that this is going to take some time to build the audience that we really want for this, but we are really patient. We've been publishing since 1977. We hope that you join us in this kind of leap of faith. It's not going to be for everybody, we understand that, but it's a really great time to come with 2000 AD. We're absolutely delighted that Vertigo is back! Obviously, the original creators of the OG Vertigo cut their teeth on 2000 AD back in the day, people like Grant Morrison, Garth Ennis, Alan Moore… Any manga fans you have in your store should know this is the UK's answer to Shonen Jump. It's weekly; there are five stories running in every Prog every single week. We promise new stories all the time. Oni's EC anthologies are absolutely gorgeous, and this is a good comp for that, and Heavy Metal's back on the stands as well. So we just want to give people one more reason to come back into your stores every single week."

"So how does it all kick off? The first four Progs are in the Lunar catalogue. [Read that here] FOC for that is going to be March 30th. Every single order that's placed bulletproofs our plans for the future. We're coming into this to hell or high water, but all the support you can give us just pushes us further toward making it a viable and more money in that US investment pot. Every single order basically makes a difference."

"Also, a reminder that Lunar also carries the monthly Judge Dredd Megazine—issue 492—which is in the same catalogue – isa big crossover event. We don't normally do crossovers, but the 2000 AD and the Megazine crossover for that month is just to really juice onboarding. Judge Dredd Megazine 500 is coming, and that's going to be really nuts. Prog 2500 is obviously in our future as well, so we'll be planning some big things for those anniversaries."

And then we learned about the Zenith Omnibus too…

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