Alan Grant, John Wagner and Massimo Belardinelli & Ian Gibson - Ace Trucking Co. Vol.1

Born out of the 70s and 80s-mired misapprehension that CB radio talk was the vernacular of the future (let’s blame Burt Reynolds for that), this weekly 2000AD serial nevertheless became one of the British comic’s best for a while. That’s partly down to the ever-amusing writing partnership of Scotland’s Grant and Wagner, and the Italian illustrator Massimo Belardinelli, who passed away last year.

As simple-minded, pointy-headed space trucker Ace Garp and his crew spend a list of scrapes involving petty crimes, jail, hijacking, Mush Rushes (an intergalactic Cannonball Run), being mistaken for deities and more at each others’ throats, an array of Belardinelli’s pleasingly preposterous aliens stalk the sculpted backgrounds. Younger readers, in particular, will find such painstaking world-building a real treat, although adults and nostalgics should also raise a laugh at the unrelenting levels of farce on display.

Ace Trucking Co. Vol.1 is published by Rebellion