Nothing dates quite like the future. 2000 AD is a weekly science fiction comic that was first published in Britain in 1977. So, of course, it’s good fun to look back at a few old issues to see what has come to pass.

What, in short, did the comic get right?

Well there are no utopian futures in AD 2000. People live in mega-cities and there is an absence of work. Cameras are everywhere. So a bit like Britain in 2010 really. There is also cloning and genetic engineering.

One of the key characters in the comic was (is) Judge Dredd, an almost faceless lawman that is empowered as both judge and jury. Another character was Torquemada, a dictator with the slogan “be pure, be vigilant, behave.” The future of policing? Let’s hope not. One thing that the comic didn’t see coming was the demise of comics themselves. It seems that the market is in decline, knocked off the shelf by PSPs, Facebook and MySpace.