THE PROMISED LAND

DAN ABNETT g RICHA RD E LS ON

 Dedications
Dan Abnett
For Mike Conroy

Richard Elson
For Richard Burton and Alan McKenzie.
Thanks for the break.
 THE PROMISED LAND
KINGDOM CREATED BY DA N A BNE TT & RICHA RD E LS ON
 THE PROMISED LAND
DAN ABNETT
Writer

RICHARD ELSON
Artist

Creative Director and CEO: Jason Kingsley

Chief Technical Officer: Chris Kingsley
2000 AD Editor in Chief: Matt Smith
Graphic Design: Simon Parr & Luke Preece
Marketing and PR: Keith Richardson
Repro Assistant: Kathryn Symes

Graphic Novels Editor: Jonathan Oliver

Designer: Simon Parr
Original Commissioning Editor: Matt Smith

Originally serialised in 2000 AD Progs 2007, 1518-1525, 2008, 1567-1576. Copyright © 2006, 2007 and 2008 Rebellion A/S. All rights reserved.
Kingdom and all related characters, their distinctive likenesses and related elements featured in this publication are trademarks of Rebellion.
The stories, characters and incidents featured in this publication are entirely fictional.

Published by Rebellion, Riverside House, Osney Mead, Oxford OX2 0ES, UK.
www.rebellion.co.uk

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

For information on other 2000 AD graphic novels, or if you have any comments on this book, please email books@2000ADonline.com

To find out more about 2000 AD, visit www.2000ADonline.com

 Introduction
Once in a while, to my immense gratification, an idea I really can’t honestly say. I was just delighted to see
just pops up. I would imagine (I can’t say for certain) it, and excited by it from the word go. To me (and I’m
that I’m typical of most freelance writers in that I spend really not the person who should be judging this, but,
a good deal of my time deliberately working up ideas and hey...) it had something of the feel – the simple, dynamic
crafting concepts. It’s an active process. You can’t expect feel – of the classic 2000 AD strips that had inspired
to have all the notions you’re going to need for a day’s work me to write in the first place. The concept and the main
just delivered to your head, ready for use, by some kind of character were robust and easy to grasp, the excuses
divine FedEx. You have to work for them. You have to go for action plentiful, the opportunity for catchphrases
looking for them. You have to dig them up and concoct numerous, and the whole endeavor wasn’t a million miles
them. You have to plan and invent. This is why freelance shy of satire. If not biting satire, then at least growling,
writing is classified as a ‘job’ rather than as ‘fun’. It’s not whining satire.
all velvet smoking jackets and flashbulbs, I can tell you.
Of course, even when so complete an idea turns up at
But every now and then, an idea may, as it were, come your house, it’s nothing without its realisation. Richard
looking for you. It arrives without warning or effort. It is Elson and I had worked together before, most notably on
delivered by some kind of divine FedEx. the Atavar series, a process we’d both enjoyed a great
deal. Kingdom took us to a new high. Rich’s contribution
This has happened to me, with any degree of in terms of both design and storytelling (not to mention,
significance, perhaps a half dozen times in the last you know, colour) was fabulous. I don’t believe he’s
twenty years. Hmmm... possibly less than that, even. produced better work, but I do believe that sentence
Anyway, Kingdom was one of those times. I have no idea should always appear with a ‘yet’ on the end.
what started the idea off. I have no memory of the spark.
All I can recall is that one minute I had nothing and By the time we got to book two, ‘The Promised Land’,
the next – pop! – there was Kingdom, bright-eyed and which is also anthologised in this volume, we had
bushy-tailed, and the stork was asking me to sign for it. become slightly more deliberate in our ideas. Our high
concept was ‘M. Night Shyamalan directs a simultaneous
As is always the case in such circumstances, there was remake of Witness and Them from the storyboards of
no sender’s address. Kingdom may have been born out of Frank Frazetta.
my ambitions to write a heroic fantasy story, full of blades
and beasts and bloody swathes and mighty thews. It may No, I’m kidding. I don’t know where book two came
have originated in my love of the post-event survival from either.
genre, especially the books of John Wyndham. It may have
stemmed from Bruce Chatwin’s book about the native
Australian story-telling tradition, The Songlines. Or 1950’s Dan Abnett
atomic monster movies. Or too much cheese at bedtime. Maidstone, September 2008.
 KINGDOM
Script: Dan Abnett
Art: Richard Elson
Letters: Ellie De Ville

Originally published in 2000 AD Progs 2007, 1518-1525

THE PROMISED LAND
Script: Dan Abnett
Art: Richard Elson
Letters: Simon Bowland

Originally published in 2000 AD Progs 2008, 1567-1576

COVER GALLERY & SKETCHES
2000 AD Prog 1570: Cover by Richard Elson
2000 AD Prog 1574: Cover by Richard Elson
Various pencils from Episode 1
The creative process: Episode 1 page 2, from rough layout to pencils, inks and colour
The creative process: Episode 1 page 3, from rough layout to pencils, inks and colour
 DAN ABNETT
Dan Abnett is the co-creator of 2000 AD series Atavar, Badlands, Sancho Panzer and Sinister Dexter. He has also written
Black Light, Downlode Tales, Durham Red, Flesh, Future Shocks, Judge Dredd, Pulp Sci-Fi, Roadkill, Rogue Trooper, The
VCs, Vector 13 and Venus Bluegenes, as well as The Scarlet Apocrypha and Wardog for the Megazine. A prolific creator,
Abnett has also written for Marvel, Dark Horse and DC Comics. He is the author of twenty novels for the Black Library,
including the bestselling Gaunt’s Ghosts series. His most recent work outside the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic is DC’s Legion
and Superman, and Wildstorm’s Mr Majestic. Dan Abnett was voted Best Writer Now at the 2003 National Comic Awards.

RICHARD ELSON
Richard Elson’s first 2000 AD work was on a Future Shock way back in 1988, and since then he has pencilled Judge Dredd,
Time Twisters, Terror Tales and Tyranny Rex, as well as the co-created strips Atavar, Roadkill, Shadows, The Scrap, A.H.A.B.,
Go-Machine and Kingdom.
TOUGHER THAN TOUGH!
Out into the wilderness they trek, led
by the Urgings from their Masters,
charged with keeping Them off of his
lawn. The pack, led by Gene the Hackman,
are strong, experienced soldiers – they don’t
know exactly what Them are, but they have
their orders, and Them are to be scrapped
at every opportunity. The Masters must be
obeyed. But the The Masters are not all they
appear to be and when Gene the Hackman’s
pack scatter he will come face to face with a
world shattering truth!

Written by best-selling author Dan Abnett

(Durham Red) with art by Richard Elson
(Judge Dredd) this action-packed tale of
earth’s far future is not to be missed!