Second City Blues is a comic strip by Kek-W and Warren Pleece. It is set in the year 2278 AD in 'Second City, Eurostate Six' (a conurbation that includes the area formerly known as Birmingham) and concerns a group of people playing the fictional sport of slamboarding, where the ball is a sentient alien life-form. The first episode appeared in 2000 AD prog 2005 (published December 2004), and the story continued in progs 1420 to 1431. Pictured is cover art by Jason Brashill.
Second City Blues took all the 'futuristic sports comic' clichés and did something fresh and enjoyable with them. It featured sympathetic, believable characters in a well-rounded universe. Also, the title was a nice nod to an old 2000 AD strip called Bad City Blue.
The team[]
- Danny is a Centaurean, which means that he is descended from genetically modified humans, has the head of a horse and can see people's bio-electric auras. He fancies Shaila but hasn't told her yet.
- Shaila Kapoor's father runs a second-hand-goods shop. Shaila still lives with her parents and siblings, but she dreams of escaping to a better life through slamboarding.
- Donna Powys works for a voluntary euthanasia centre called Sleepy Hollow. She and Shaila have a somewhat spiky friendship.
- Shakespeare is unemployed and looking for a job, but keeps getting rejected because his IQ is too high.
- Brian 'Minger' MacCready is the son of a gangster. His dad wants him to inherit the family business, but Minger has other plans.
- Vince Sergeant, the coach, is as hard as nails and uses an anti-grav personal mobility device (you can't call it a wheelchair if it has no wheels).
The majority of the story was reprinted in Second City Blues Vol 1, given away free with the Judge Dredd Megazine #372. The concluding two chapters were reprinted in Killer Vol 1 1, given away with the following issue.