This was an attempt by comics innovator Pat Mills to fuse 2000AD's bankable roster of characters with the burgeoning worlds of Fighting Fantasy/ Choose Your Own Adventure and Role Playing Games.
Creatively the concept worked (although it must have been a brain strainer to plot and plan everything) but some odd decisions hampered its chances of success. The cover price, compared with that of a normal weekly, was whopping and it bought you heavy paper stock and more pages but still didn't drag IPC into the age of colour interiors.
Newsagents also seemed unsure ahst to do with these periodically published specials. It was a bit pricy for a comic which meant some didn't rack it in its natural home next to the weekly. Some placed it next to WARLOCK and the games/ hobbies mags... but Tharg's loyal and lapsed readers may not have thought to adjust their eye line to a different part of the display.
And this cover is stunning... but doesn't do much to attract the Tharg followers. Maybe that was the idea. Maybe IPC figured the extensive advertising in the weeklies (which I've posted before) would ensure buy-in from that crowd and the more ambiguous design was intended to capture the attention of older would-be readers. Even so, I think Judge Dress or Slaine might have drummed up a bit more interest.
I don't ever remember seeing this in the shops although I did get WARLOCK. Nice to see it get a mention here. There was also another gaming mag called PROTEUS.
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