There was a tantalizing, small, tightly cropped snippet of this image as a house ad in last week's 2000AD, but here is the cover to Prog 1830 in all its insane glory. Available May 1, it's a very retro effort by Elephantmen artist Boo Cook starring the cast of his new three-part miniseries "Gunheadz." Tharg's regular spokeshuman Michael Molcher explains:

"It’s deliberately evoking the tone of 1970s comics such as Battle and it also uses the first 2000 AD logo from 1977. Our lead designer Pye Parr has given it a real ‘70s newsprint look – even with a newsagent’s mark in the top right hand corner – and it’s the first time we’ve used the original logo since it was retired back in 1979!

TC Eglinton and Boo Cook’s ‘Gunheadz’ will be appearing in Prog 1830-1832."

2000AD's original trade dress was retired after issue 118 in June 1979, to be precise. This is a fun little experiment in harmless nostalgia for old geezers like me who've been in it for the long run, with such daft original features as the listing of the anthology's price on other planets in galactic groats ("Not for sale on Kepler 22b!"). The anarchist in me, however, is curious to see just how much confusion it causes amongst the staff of the U.K.'s newsagents. ("235p in Earth Money? You whaaaat?")