No. 125 Hilary Robinson

First Prog: 590, although I think her story in the 1988 Sci-Fi Special technically saw print first

Latest Prog: 699

Total appearances: 73

Starring Hilary J Robinson as herself!
Art by Ron Smith

Creator credits:

Medivac 318

Zippy Couriers

Chronos Carnival

Character drama in Chronos Carnival
Art by Ron Smith

Other writing credits:

The Mean Team

Tales from the Doghouse

Various one-offs

Notable character creations:

Maeve the Many-Armed

Shauna McCullogh

Brute

Verity McKinnon

Maeve the Many-Armed must be read in an Oirish accent for the full effect.
Art by Simon Jacob

Notable characteristics:

Giving panel space over to banter, emotions and atmosphere. Revelling in pairs/groups of people who rub each other up the wrong way. Showing what happens in between the plot beats, as well as the plot beats themselves.

The McCullogh sisters get on like... sisters.
Art by Graham Higgins

Medivac 318 - a war story told through its quiet moments.
Art by Nigel Dobbyn

On Hilary:

After breaking in with the obligatory Future Shocks, Hilary Robinson found herself all over the Prog for two glorious years – before disappearing entirely, I gather in something of a very reasonable dispute (on her part) with the editorial team (less reasonable) about copyright and the propriety of giving one writer's story to another person to write.

Anyway, if you picked up a Prog in the 600s, odds were good it had at least one Robinson story in it*. Odds are also pretty high that the story was quite unlike anything else in the Prog at the time, while always fitting the remit of Science Fiction adventure comics.

Her Future Shocks tended to lean on the side of punchline-based comedy, although she often put in some surprisingly complex back-stories in the build-up.

This one's a purely visual gag, but Ron Smith sells it with aplomb, no?

Creepy crowds
Art by Massimo Belardinelli

The prolific and creative Robinson unleashed three all-new series onto 2000AD in pretty short order. First to see print was Zippy Couriers, which for me epitomises are certain branch of late 80s 2000AD. It's slice-of-life Sci-Fi, which I suppose had been done before with Halo Jones, but that was somehow more operatic; a more fitting comparison might be Hap Hazzard.

Honest banter, Zippy style.
Art by Graham Higgins

Zippy Couriers follows the fortunes of a futuristic courier service, frankly a topic more in tune with today's world of Amazon, Deliveroo and so on.** As you might imagine, much of the plot centres on the sorts of things being carried, and of course rival courier / legal shenanigans, not a million miles from Ace Trucking Co – except that it's all set very much on Earth, in the not-too-distant future, so it feels utterly different.

How to make a strip about inner-city couriers feel like 2000AD.
Art by Graham Higgins

And that's the key of it – the setting, the characters and of course Robinson trademark banter (complete with talking cat) – all add to the slice-of-life feel. Yes, it's Sci-Fi, but it's just about people being alive, and that, to me, is the sort of thing that was only just creeping into mainstream comics in the late 80s. Trendy, but accessible.

Late 80s 2000AD had it in for students, for some reason. I guess they were an even easier target
when they didn't have to pay tuition fees!
Art by Graham Higgins

Robinson was no stranger to pure 2000AD, though, as exemplified by her brace of Tales from the Doghouse, featuring one of the best Bounty-Hunter designs sadly not used since, Maeve the Many-Armed***. Her two tales focussed as much on her negotiating skills before and after a job than the actual bounty-collection, but that's not say they're light on action. They actually work pretty well by giving the character a chance to put herself front and centre.

Talking heads made fun
Art by Simon Jacob

Maeve continues not to take any shit.
Art by Simon Jacob

Sometimes carefully applied violence does solve problems
Art by Simon Jacob

Medivac 318 is something I've tried and failed to research on the ol' internet. Somewhere in the back of my mind, probably buried in the 2000AD Forums, I have an idea that Robinson came up with the wider world of Medivac before starting on 2000AD, and even wrote one or two short stories (possibly illustrated by series artist Nigel Dobbyn?) that were published who knows where. Maybe in some issues of Belfast-based zine Ximoc?

I say this because if ever there was a series that started in medias res, it's Medivac 318! The first series, as the name suggests, follows a medical evacuation team coming to the aid of a fallen soldier during some sort of intergalactic war. But we're given few details of that war, and of the worlds outside the central action.

The Jenarit are the kind of enemy who looks scary but then you find out humans may be even worse...
Art by Nigel Dobbyn

But then, in follow-up tale Arcturus, we meet a whole host of new characters, new planets, politics, terrorism, psychics and only background hints of both war and hospitals. It's some crazy world-building and like many a squaxx, I was gutted we never got to find out more.

What's in the box? A simple but elegant mystery...
Art by Nigel Dobbyn

Impressively, the two series that ran couldn't be more different. The first is a fairly tense thriller, with heaps of banter between lead Medivac-er Verity MacKinnon, her pilot and patient(s), under the threat of attack from insectoid aliens.

Writing short, snappy, TV style banter for comics is really hard, you've got so little space for text!
Robinson doesn't get enough credit for this skill.
Art by Nigel Dobbyn

See, Frank Miller, inner monologue captions don't have to be pretentious noiresque nonsense.
Art by Nigel Dobbyn

 It's pretty great (if hampered by a large break in its original publication, and so far no reprint collection). It also seeds a handful of other key players, chiefly the psychic Jay. Arcturus is more of a political/soap-opera-ish sprawl, and, if I'm honest, promised more action than it delivered in most episodes.

It's not gonna end well...
Art by Nigel Dobbyn

That said, I can remember reading this in weekly installments, and it's an unusual example of a strip that worked better in that format than it did on a re-read. The soap-y fun of seeing characters moon over each other and hoping they will get to meet / reconcile / solve the mystery / escape the conflict (there's a lot of plot here!) works best in a 'wait until next week!' vibe.

Frankly the whole thing would've worked better if there had only been more of it, another chance to visit those characters, or at least to revisit the leads from the previous series a little more than we got.

Proving her versatility again, Robinson unleashed an existential urban horror story, Survivor, derived from the poisoned chalice that was the Mean Team. I'm super curious to know if she pitched the story or Tharg just offered it to her as a test. Anyhow, she gamely picks up from Alan Hebden's uber-nihilistic finale to Book 2 by latching onto Henry Moon, everyone's favourite psychic nice guy trapped in the body of a panther.

Moon embraces his new body in style.
Art by Ron Smith

He first-person narrates his way through a tale of identity, revenge, and embracing your inner panther. Ron Smith was a weird fit but delivers on the violence and evil scientists. One can imagine if this had been illustrated by one of the trendier artists of the day – Simon Harrison, perhaps, or painted-style Will Simpson – this could've been much better received. I mean, it's still pretentious in many ways, but which adult thrills weren't in 1989?

Henry Moon is a strong contender for 2000AD's most angsty hero.
Art by Ron Smith

It's dark stuff, this internal narration through death and rebirth.
Art by Ron Smith

What wasn't a story for grown-ups, and did suit artist Ron Smith, was Chronos Carnival. A story of a haunted Carnival, and the time-based adventures as had by its two owners and the alien/dragon they befriend. It's the right story in the wrong comic, no doubt much more remembered for being terribly right-on by having one of the leads be wheelchair-bound, and perhaps also suffering for all three leads being a little too nice by 2000AD standards. Having two leads in a futuristic-looking strip called simply 'Jenny' and 'Neil' probably didn't help much, even if they did add a dragon to the mix.

It's just such a friendly image, not typical 2000AD. They're both smiling, not snarling!
Art by Ron Smith

Sure, they argue with each other but there's never any doubt that their hearts are in the right place and that they'll do the right thing. In some ways a refreshing change to the likes of Dredd, Alpha, Nemesis and Slaine – but on the other hand, often dull.

And also not enough to make up for the background fun of seeing idiot carnival-goers suffering all sorts of carnage from the story in the background. It's not fashionable of me to say it, but I bet someone like Si Spurrier could have a ton of fun reviving this strip and amping up the violence and misanthropy. Or, y'know, Robinson herself could do it!

You just know these simps are gonna get proper dead by the end of the episode...
Art by Ron Smith

As it is, that second Chronos Carnival was it for Robinson. I think there was a third story written, and indeed a third series of Medivac 318 that may even have been part-drawn, but it wasn't to be. Several Thargs and indeed changes of ownership later, 2000AD has rebuilt its bridges with Robinson, so who knows if we may yet get to re-encounter some of these tales, or better yet, find out what new stories she's ready to tell...

More on Hilary Robinson:

There's a short bio, including an extract from Thrill-Power Overload on Fandom

And a longer bio with post-2000AD work mentioned on Women in Comics

What she's been up to lately can be explored a little on Down The Tubes

As you'd expect from the name, Verity tells it like it is.
Art by Nigel Dobbyn

Personal favourites:

Zippy Couriers

Tales from the Doghouse: Maeve the Many-Armed

Medivac 318

Mean Team: Survivor

*Prog 622 has no fewer than THREE Hilary Robinson strips in it!

**But it'd be tough to do a strip about a futuristic courier without drawing immediate comparisons to Neil Stephenson's influential novel Snow Crash, starring the hilariously-monikered Hiro Protagonist, ultimate skateboarding pizza delivery guy.

***No offence to Sting Ray, Robinson's other mutant bounty hunter.