The mighty one: my life inside the nerve centre

1973, a twenty-year-old Steve MacManus joined Fleetway Publications in London as a sub-editor on one of the UK’s top adventure titles, Valiant. Within six years, he would rise to become editor of the company’s most celebrated weekly, 2000 AD, shepherding it through its ‘Golden Age’ as he commissioned numerous hit series such as The Ballad of Halo Jones, Sláine, Bad Company, Rogue Trooper, Nemesis the Warlock and more, ensuring its place as the most influential comic Britain has ever produced. For many he remains the definitive editor of the multi-award-winning SF anthology. Now, in this warm and witty memoir, MacManus lifts the lid on the fiercely creative environment that was British comics in the 1970s and ‘80s – from the hugely successful launch of Battle to the controversial censorship of Action, from the brief life of Starlord to the stellar rise of 2000 AD and Judge Dredd, he details the personalities at play and the corporate politics and deadline battles he and others engaged in on a daily basis.