Sam Slade

Sam Slade is a wisecracking private investigator in a grim future Earth who specializes in hunting down rogue or malfunctioning robots — earning him the title 'Robo-Hunter.' Introduced in 2000 AD, he operates in a world overrun by mechanical life, taking cases no ordinary detective would touch.

Few characters embody the grimy, sardonic spirit of British comics quite like Sam Slade, who burst onto the pages of 2000 AD back in 1978 — a Bronze Age creation from Martin Lock and Pierre Frisano that has somehow kept pace with the galaxy's greatest comic for nearly five decades. With 188 catalogued appearances and five collector-significant key issues to his name, Slade is no footnote; he's a fixture of that legendary IPC anthology, sharing its ink with titans like Joe Dredd, Johnny Alpha, and Rogue Trooper. There's something wonderfully tenacious about a character who debuted alongside the founding generation of 2000 AD and is still turning up in its pages well into the 2020s — a run stretching from 1978 to 2024 that speaks for itself. If you're exploring the rich, irreverent world of British comics, Sam Slade is exactly the kind of enduring, under-celebrated figure worth tracking down.