The Thirteenth Floor

"The Thirteenth Floor" is a British science fiction strip character, appearing in titles published by IPC Magazines. The strip debuted in the weekly anthology Scream! on 24 March 1984, before continuing in Eagle until 28 February 1987. The stories were written by John Wagner and Alan Grant; art was provided by José Ortiz. Since 2016 the property has been owned by Rebellion Developments, who have revived the strip in several specials. The plot was set in a tower block called Maxwell Tower, controlled by an experimental sentient computer called Max located on the 13th floor of the flats. Max himself narrated the strip, and as befitting a computerised custodian of hundreds of people, was quite chatty and light-hearted. However, he was also portrayed as having a programming flaw; programmed to love and protect his tenants, he could remorselessly kill anyone who threatened or even just annoyed them. Creation Assigned to create Scream!, Barrie Tomlinson and Gil Page found themselves walking a tightrope over the horror level of the contents so they weren't in violation of the Children and Young Persons (Harmful Publications) Act 1955, or ended up generating negative press attention like that suffered by Action in 1976. Writers John Wagner and Alan Grant devised "The Thirteenth Floor" for the new title. At the time the pair contributed so many stories to IPC that managing editor John Sanders insisted they use pseudonyms for many of their scripts; as such on "The Thirteenth Floor" they were credited as 'Ian Holland'.