The Strangest Northerns: Shako

“Shako” was a sixteen part series in Fleetway’s 2000 A. D. weekly comic, best known for publishing the original Judge Dredd. Not the usual place to look for a Northern story. (The 1976 film Grizzly may have been part of the inspiration, since it is a film about a bear that goes around killing people.) “Shako”, like “Judge Dredd”, was one of the earliest comics appearing in July 9, 1977 (Issue #20) to October 22, 1977 (Issue #35). The comic was written by Pat Mills & John Wagner. Artwork alternated between Ramon Sola and Juan Arancio. By Issue #28, the artist was Lopez-Vera. All three Spanish artists had a similar style and the variation is slight.

The story of “Shako” (which means Killer in Eskimo) tells how the American C. I. A. loses a canister in Alaska when a plane crashes. The container is filled with a secret weapon, some kind of nerve agent. Unfortunately for the Yanks, especially Jake K. “Foul Mouth” Falmuth, the canister is eaten by Shako, the giant polar bear. The two pilots are devoured in graphic detail. The rescuers who go to the plane also get eaten.

Working for Falmuth is half-Eskimo ecologist, Buck Dollar. He and Falmuth hunt the bear. As it eats its way through half of Alaska (at least two deaths for every four-five page episode), Buck tries to capture the bear with trank darts. Falmuth will lose an arm when the bear drags him out of a cabin, and later his life. The bear will befriend an Eskimo boy, Unk Sumak, who hides him in the book cupboard at the school. You can guess what happens to the teacher, Miss Fuster!

The tale grins on through kill after kill, hunters out for the five hundred dollar bounty, until Buck Dollar finishes off the bear. The big finale in Issue #35 has Buck kill the bear with a bazooka, while dying in the attempt. The last panel declares Shako died well. We were cheering for the bear the whole time.

Now if you are looking for some kind of deep significance in this series I think you will be disappointed. Reading it week-to-week the slaughter may not have been too overwhelming. The whole point was to see people get eaten by a bear. Reading them all in a row, as I did, the rending and clawing gets a little tiresome. That being said, “Shako” is typical of the earliest 2000 A. D. comics. It was brash, politically incorrect with a strange anti-American feel and never lagged for excitement. The target audience became very clear to me when Steve MacDonald (played by Simon Gregson) on Coronation Street fondly recalled reading 2000 A. D. while eating a choc-icy as a boy. Like the Pulps of old, these comics were meant for young, middle class readers who wanted action, not class.

As for Northern elements, there were some that didn’t involve killing people. We got to see Shako hunt seals and fight wolves. Mills and Wagner portray a modern Alaska, with the native people living in houses and going to school. Most American comics usually show the Inuit living a traditional existence that no longer exists. The comic was collected by rebellion in 2012.

Shako came back in 2020 for a spot in Judge Dredd.