Tharg's Future Shocks

Thbarg's Future Shocks is a long running series of one-off short stories which has run intermittently in the pages of 2000AD since 1977 (2000AD #25), the first ever story being written by Steve Moore. Typically, these stories are four or five page science fiction shorts, usually comedic or semi-comedic and with a twist ending, and they have over the years been an entry point into greater success in 2000AD's pages for a number of writers who have gone on to bigger and better things, including Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Peter Milligan and Alan Davis. Though the stories are usually unconnected, some have occasionally spawned sequels or even led to ongoing series' for popular characters, including D.R & Quinch and Abelard Snazz. The success of the Future Shocks series has inspired the creation in 2000AD's pages of numerous imitator series, including Ro-Jaws' Robo-Tales, Vector 13, Time Twisters, Tharg's Terror Tales (a horror themed series), Tales from the Black Museum (based in the world of Judge Dredd), Tales from Beyond Science (all drawn by Rian Hughes), Pulp Sci-Fi, Past Imperfect, Future Shorts (one page Future Shocks) and 3rillers (three part stories).

Tharg, of course, is 2000AD's alien editor, who occasionally acted as host to the early stories. The stories have been collected into a number of trade paperbacks.