2000 AD Preview: Folk-Horror Thistlebone Returns This Week

2000 AD is entering 2024 with the return of folk-horror series Thistlebone,and ComicBook.com has a look at the first chapter. Returning in this week's 2000 AD 2364, "Thistlebone" comes from writer T.C. Eglington and artist Simon Davis. 2000 AD describes the story as Midsommar meets The Wicker Man. Thistlebone originally ran in 2000 AD in 2019 and returned for it second book in 2021. It followed Avril Easton, the lone survivor of a cult, as she returned to the cult's home village, Harrowvale, to investigate alongside journalist Seema Chaudry. The Thistlebone legend lives on and is somehow connected to a decades-old horror movie. You can see preview pages from the first chapter of the new Thistlebone story below, along with Davis's cover of 2000 AD Prog 2364, hand-painted down to the 2000 AD logo. Here's the official synopsis for the new Thistlebone story, provided by 2000 AD:

"Britain, 2020. It's been over a year since journalist Seema Chaudry accompanied cult survivor Avril Easton back to the village of Harrowvale, where she suffered at the hands of THISTLEBONE worshippers, a crazed occult group that believed in an ancient woodland deity. One man in the village, Malcolm Kinniburgh, was keeping the Thistlebone legend alive — but it seems to be connected with an old '70s horror film..."

2000 AD in 2024

This week's issue of 2000 AD also includes the start of "A Better World," a new Judge Dredd story in which the Judges face defunding. "There's several plot threads interweaved in 'A Better World,'" co-writer Rob Williams told ComicBook.com. "There's the political drama of whether Maitland's experiment will work when it's rolled out over more City Sectors. There's certain Judges pushing back against it, so there's a schism in the Judges there. There's media mogul Robert Glenn who, in a Fox News/GB News style, sees an opportunity to weaponize this to promote his own business interests, consequences be damned. There's how the City and the Citizens respond to this potential new world. Could this bring democracy, finally? And then there's the action thread – Judge Dredd hunting down a mercenary called Major Domo who had previously been paid to assassinate Maitland. Dredd needs to be front and center and he very much is – it's a Judge Dredd story after all."

This week's 2000 AD also continues the final book of Cavan Scott and Luke Horsman's post-apocalyptic Enemy Earth series. "Jules' condition becomes central to this last chapter in the story as the link between humanity and Earth's mutated wildlife," Scott told ComicBook.com of the story. "Unlike the previous two books, this entire story takes place in one location rather than bouncing from place to place as our heroes reach the scientific base in India that was studying the mutations on the day the Earth went nuts!"

This week's prog also features the slightly satirical sword and sorcery saga of Dan Abnett and Rich Elson's Feral & Foe. Ahead of the series return, Abentt told ComicBook.com, "[T]he premise is 'what happens after the end of any epic fantasy novel?' In this bright new age where the forces of light triumphed, any remnant or survivor of the losing side – the monsters, the ogres, the undead and so on – are declared "Feral and Foe" and hunted down to extinction. The only way to survive this is to change sides, legally accept the 'special writ', and become 'Foetakers', which is to say poachers turned gamekeepers. "

Rounding out this week's 2000 AD is the next chapter of Peter Milligan and Rufus Dayglo's sic-fi saga The Devil's Railroad. 2000 AD Prog 2364 goes on sale on January 10th.