Geek Syndicate Magazine - November 2012 by Geek Syndicate

REVIEWS: DOCTOR WHO

Talbot Talks Bête Noire

GRANDVILLE: BÊTE NOIRE

Destination Star Trek London Review & Pics

www.geeksyndicate.co.uk

VICTORIES

Thought Bubble 2012 Overview

SKYFALL

KATYA’S WORLD

The GS Autumn of Indie Special NOVEMBER 2012

GS Issue 004 - Credits

Headlines From The Nuge Room:

Cover Design:

Comicsy-The Small Press Marketplace

Antony McGarry-Thickitt Designer:

Antony McGarry-Thickitt Editors:

Barry Nugent & Antony McGarry-Thickitt Contribuors:

Antony McGarry-Thickitt Barry Nugent Christophe Montoya Dave Williams David Smith

New Adam Nevill Novels Starting 2014 ‘John Dies at the End’ Trailer Released Watch Air New Zealand’s Hobbit-inspired Safety Vid ‘An Unexpected Briefing’ Build Your Own Lightsaber in Time for Star Wars VII RED BAND trailer for Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters lands… Bryan Singer Confirmed to Direct ‘Xmen: Days of Future Past’ Rockstar officially confirms Grand Theft Auto V release date

Dean Simons

Disney Acquires Lucasfilm: New Star Wars Flick in 2015!

Dion Winton-Polak

First Official Poster for Wolverine

“Faintdreams”

Expendables 2 Writer for Masters Of the Universe Reboot!

Ian J Simpson

A Good Day To Die Hard – Official Trailer #2

Leo Johnson Luke Halsall Matt Farr Sara Westrop

First Images From NBC’s Hannibal London Super Comic Con Heats Up Golden Joystick Awards 2012 Winners

Geek Syndicate Comic:

Millennium Falcon Being Built. For Real.

Harold Jennett III

Buffyverse Sampler Coming in January from Dark Horse Merlin: The Game Launches into Open Beta Borderlands Legends for iOS Announced CBS’s Elementary Gets a Full Season Order Apple Unveils the iPad Mini & 4th Generation iPad 007 Legends – PS3 Gets 1st Dibs on Skyfall DLC

Typesetting:

GS Banner - Copperplate Bold Cover Text - Century Gothic Main Text - Nobile (Oben Font Licence)

The Iron Man 3 Trailer is HERE! Project Strikeback T-Shirt Coming Soon from Dark Bunny Tees Holy Lego Batcave, Batman!

Geek Syndicate

Contents Features

EDITORIAL ..................................................................................................................................................................................................... 4 BLUFFERS GUIDE TO GEEKDOM: Middle Earth ................................................................................................................................... 5 What is A Geek? By Hayden Cohen ......................................................................................................................................................... 8 The Joy of Who, By Hayden Cohen ........................................................................................................................................................... 9 GEEK CRIMINOLOGY: Gotham’s Dark Leviathan ................................................................................................................................. 9 DIGITAL PIRACY IN COMICS ..................................................................................................................................................................... 12 WHAT IS A GRAPHIC NOVEL? ................................................................................................................................................................. 20 HOW TO MAKE A JUSTICE LEAGUE MOVIE .......................................................................................................................................... 22

Reviews

GAMEBOOK REVIEW - Ian Livingstone’s Blood of the Zombies .................................................................................................... 27 TV REVIEW - Falling Skies Season 2, Episodes 04 - 10 .................................................................................................................... 29 BOOK REVIEW - Katya’s World ............................................................................................................................................................... 35 COMIC REVIEW - Guts Power #001-003 ............................................................................................................................................... 36 STAGE REVIEW - Age of the Geek ......................................................................................................................................................... 37 COMIC REVIEW - The Victories #001 ..................................................................................................................................................... 39 BOOK REVIEW - Tomorrow the Killing ................................................................................................................................................. 43 COMIC REVIEW - Serenity: Those Left Behind 2nd Ed. Hard Cover ............................................................................................... 47 EVENT REVIEW - Destination Star Trek London ................................................................................................................................ 53 TV REVIEW - Warehouse 13 Season 4, Episodes 01-02 ..................................................................................................................... 57 STAGE REVIEW - One Man Lord of the Rings ..................................................................................................................................... 60 COMIC REVIEW - Grandville: Bete Noire .............................................................................................................................................. 61 DAY OUT REVIEW - Warner Bros. Movie Park: Germany ................................................................................................................. 67 COMIC REVIEW - Star Wars Agent of the Empire: Iron Eclipse ..................................................................................................... 70 BOOK REVIEW - The House Of Rumour ................................................................................................................................................ 74 COMIC REVIEW - Darwin’s Diaries Vol. 2 .............................................................................................................................................. 76 FILM REVIEW - Skyfall ............................................................................................................................................................................. 81 TV REVIEW - Doctor Who Series 7, Episodes 01-05 .......................................................................................................................... 83

Interviews

INTERVIEW: Hayden Cohen ....................................................................................................................................................................... 7 INTERVIEW: Taylor Davis .......................................................................................................................................................................... 16 INTERVIEW: Bryan Talbot ........................................................................................................................................................................ 24 INTERVIEW - Daniel Polansky ................................................................................................................................................................ 44

The Geek Syndicate Autumn of Indie

THOUGHT BUBBLE 2012 - About Thought Bubble ............................................................................................................................. 91 THOUGHT BUBBLE 2012 - Events Listing (Saturday 17 Nov 2012) ................................................................................................. 92 THOUGHT BUBBLE 2012 - Events Listing (Sunday 18 Nov 2012) .................................................................................................... 93 THOUGHT BUBBLE 2012 - New Dock Hall Floor Plan ........................................................................................................................ 95 THOUGHT BUBBLE 2012 - Royal Armouries Hall Floor Plan ............................................................................................................ 97 INTERVIEW - Thought Bubble 2012 ....................................................................................................................................................... 99 FILM REVIEW - Some Guy Who Kills People ..................................................................................................................................... 102 INTERVIEW - Ryan Levin ........................................................................................................................................................................ 103 INTERVIEW - Abertoir Horror Festival, 2012 ..................................................................................................................................... 107 INTERVIEW: Cancertown 2 - Blasphemous Tumours Creative Team ............................................................................................. 111 COMIC REVIEW - Cancertown 2: Blasphemous Tumors ................................................................................................................... 116 COMIC REVIEW - Shepperton’s Waltz .................................................................................................................................................. 122 INTERVIEW - Anthony O’Neill, Artist On Nestor .............................................................................................................................. 125 WEB REVIEW - H+ The Digital Series Episodes 01 - 02 .................................................................................................................. 128 INTERVIEW - Creating Doctor Who: The Impossible Crossing ...................................................................................................... 130 COMIC REVIEW - Halcyon and Tenderfoot #002 .............................................................................................................................. 134 INTERVIEW - Jonbot Vs Martha’s Colin Bell ...................................................................................................................................... 135 GAME REVIEW: Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land (iOS) ................................................................................................................ 137 INTERVIEW - Look Straight Ahead Writer Elaine M. Will .............................................................................................................. 140 COMIC REVIEW - No More Heroes #003 ............................................................................................................................................. 142 INTERVIEW - 2011 SICBA Nominee, Iain Laurie ................................................................................................................................ 143 COMIC REVIEW - Hildefolk Books By Luke Pearson ...................................................................................................................... 145 INTERVIEW - Sugar Glider Creators, Daniel Clifford & Gary Bainbridge ................................................................................... 148

Elevator Pitches ELEVATOR ELEVATOR ELEVATOR ELEVATOR

PITCH PITCH PITCH PITCH

Reads ....................................................................................................................................................................... 152 Magic of Myths ..................................................................................................................................................... 154 Ryder ....................................................................................................................................................................... 159 Ladies and Gentlemen ........................................................................................................................................ 165

Geek Syndicate EDITORIAL

It has to be said that autumn is definitely my favourite season. Nothing beats a long cold walk on a sunny Sunday morning, then coming home and chilling out on the sofa with a cup of your favourite hot beverage and a stack of comics to read. In honour of these autumnal months I decided to launch The Autumn of Indie, a campaign that would look at was going on the thriving indie scene on the Geek Syndicate Website. Since this issue of the digital magazine is due out in Autumn, it seemed appropriate to carry this theme on. So, in a even more packed than usual issue, we have handed an entire section of the magazine over to celebrate the magnificent work of the independent creators, with interviews and reviews. There’s also a look at the current jewel in the independent crown - the Thought

Bubble Festival 2012. Of course that snarling beast that is the mainstream is not content to allow these independent upstarts to hog all the glory. We have the return of some of the biggest franchises of the gaming world. Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, Halo and Call of Duty will all be with us before the year is out. December sees the return of Middle Earth to the big screen. Bets are still on as to whether Peter Jackson’s choice to turn the beloved and compact Tolkien novel The Hobbit into a sprawling trilogy will work. However given how the last trilogy turned out there is every reason to hope that Jackson won’t destroy the goodwill with fans he earned with The Lord of the Rings.

Oh and speaking of trilogies there’s something about some small indipendent franchise called Lucasfilm getting picked by Disney and making some new films. Yeah I know what you’re think it’s not even worth mentioning right? I mean who cares about a galaxy that’s far far away anyway?

y arr

t n e ug

To view more from the independant comic (and other media) scene, check out the Autumn of Indie tag on the Geek Syndicate Website. Or click on the banner below to go straight there.

Geek Syndicate

BLUFFERS GUIDE TO GEEKDOM: Middle Earth Ever wondered what all those geeks in the corner were talking about? Sick of missing out of the sly references and obscure injokes? Never Fear! The Bluffers Guide is here to help!

plementary information in the Appendixes to The Lord of the Rings, plus The Silmarillion, a sort of Giant Appendix in book form, as well as volumes of notes published after his death by his estate. These detail whole cultures and places only tangentially linked to the books (and films) that Middle Earth is so famous for. Never mind the vast, vast history. I’m going to regret this, but how vast?

I see everyone is getting excited about these Lord of the Rings Sequels then. Prequels. They’re Prequels. Well, Prequel, really, just split into the three films for some reason. You sound skeptical. Well yes. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy is actually a sequel of sorts to The Hobbit, published in 1937. The Hobbit is pretty much a pure kids book; a breezy read at 300-odd pages and missing a lot of the heavy world-building and darker themes that characterises The Lord of the Rings. However, whilst The Hobbit became an almost instant kids’ classic, it’s the heavy world building and darker themes that make Middle Earth such an attraction. So should I interested in the stories? Or just the World? Both, probably. There is a valid question about whether Tolkien’s stories are simply a way of getting people around the vast mythology he created – there’s tonnes of sup-

Empire and the world was being thrust into war for the second time in 30 years. Ah, so it’s really about the Nazis! They get everywhere! Yes and No, probably. Middle Earth is deeply rooted in Northern European mythology and language, something Tolkien was a scholar and lecturer in. In many ways he’s tying together all these cultural strands along with his love of the artificial languages he created and then wrote poetry and stories in. He was also a veteran of the First World War, which probably coloured his perception of mechanisation and industry, which gets pretty short shrift in the books. One of the most common criticisms laid against the books is that they hark back to a romanticised English rural idea, and are politically reactionary in tone. Whoa, whoa, thats a bit heavy. Can’t we just talk about Hobbits?

Well, The Silmarillion starts with the creation of the world, and details a couple of cycles of civilisation, corruption and decay before we get to the end of the “Third Age” which is when The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings are set. Characters like Elrond, Gandalf, Sauron and so on are hang-overs from earlier conflicts in earlier ages and one of the big themes of the series is the end of that period of the world and the conflict over the shape of the new one. Bear in mind Tolkien was writing in the 1930s and 1940s, as the sun set on the British

Sure, what about them? Well, anything really - I saw the film and it was all pipe-weed and pies.

Geek Syndicate

Well mostly that’s true. Most of the races of Middle Earth are characterised with broad strokes that have become incredibly familiar in popular culture. So Elves are longlived, skinny and mystical; Dwarves are short, round Miners with fiery tempers and a love of axes; Orcs are brutish and evil; Men aren’t great at anything special but decent at most things. Hobbits by this standard are stealthy and quick witted. Because Bilbo is, basically.

omably evil and corrupting by it’s very nature. They may have become clichés but their endurance means that they’re powerful and popular ones. I don’t think Tolkien ever meant to be one of the definitive authors of the 20th century, but he undoubtedly is - there are not a lot of people who can claim to have single-handedly dominated what a genre has come to be about.

all characters die and Giant Spiders, Ogres and Goblins abound. The Hobbit is an adventure story, not a struggle for the Fate of the World. Peter Jackson and his team behind the new films are attempting to close this gap with a load of new material culled from Tolkien’s wider writings - and probably their own imaginations - which is a bit of a delicate balancing act.

So back to the films then...

Well I enjoyed the other films, so you’re saying at worst it’s “more of the same”?

Oh yes. Right. One of the big plot points of The Lord of the Rings is the One Ring itself, which is found under a mountain range by a hobbit named Bilbo, who wins it in a game of riddles. It turns him invisible. It’s also a huge and powerful elemental force of Evil Will, which doesn’t really come across in The Hobbit and as such, this is probably one of the things the films will have to work on the most. So no guys in Black Cloaks riding dragons then? You mean Nazgul riding “Fell Beasts of the Air”?

Yeah that does sound a little familiar. But Tolkien gets there first - or rather what he lifts and condenses he does so in a coherent way that was quite new. So the trumpets of Gondor, faded remnant of a once noble and shining Empire, echo across the Fantasy Genre alongside the Shadow of Mordor, unfath6

Nerd! Fine. But no, not those guys. There is a huge tonal difference between the earlier children’s work and the later epic and even many of the recurring characters and locations are described differently. It’s a less menacing world for

Pretty much yes. Cool. We wants it, preciousss.. Stop that. Shan’t! Nasty Hisssss....!

know-it-all!

Right. Like that is it? I’ll go get a coffee then...

Matt Farr

INTERVIEW: Hayden Cohen

Geek Syndicate

thrown in for good measure.

haydencohen

GS: How did you end up on stage singing and talking about being a geek?

GS: How do you think being a Geek today compares to being a geek say ten years ago?

HC: I sing. I talk. I’m a geek. Attempting to do something “normal” failed, so here we are.

HC: It has become a lot more socially acceptable. If you get too excited about the latest film or gadget, people may look at you strangely for a minute, but they seem to get over it and let you carry on. The jargon now has multiple tiers, most people don’t know what ASCII art is, but ask them to Sky+ a TV programme and they’ll know what you’re talking about.

GS: Where do the inspirations for your poetry come from? How long does is usually take you to put together a new poem?

Age of the Geeks is a one-man show performed by Hayden Cohen. The description from Hayden’s official site is thus: Dictators have fallen. Empires have been won and lost. Now Geeks rule the world. Combining spoken word, music and comedy, Hayden shows how the Geeks have inherited the earth. Staring longingly into the heart of all things Geeky, this is a show that will entertain you through our impending technological doom. This September, Geek Syndicate were at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival to see the show and subsequently interview the poet / songwriter. GS: For people how have never seen your stage show ‘Age of the Geek’ before how would you describe it? HC: Geek pride in performance poetry, music and comedy with the dark side of geekery

HC: It depends on the poem. Some come to me and I finish them in less than 5 minutes. Others, like my 10 minute epic Zark Muckerberg poem, have multiple redrafts with many hours spent until I’m happy. Even then, I still may need to redraft. GS: What do you think of the state of Geekdom today are we in good or bad shape? HC: Definitely good shape. Comic book movie franchises are through the roof and people care about their technology. However this means it’s harder to be a geek as you have to become increasingly geeky to call yourself a geek. It’s like being called a drunk when everyone around you has already had 15 pints. GS: Have you ever thought about doing a podcast of your Spoken Word, poetry and songs or maybe a book of poems? HC: Yes. I’ve already released my first book ‘Writings of a Young Fool’ and regularly post to youtube.com/haydencohen and soundcloud.com/

GS: So you’ve recently done the Edinburgh Fringe Festival...how was that for you? HC: The trite answer is to say fun yet hard work. In reality, every time a performer goes to the fringe they should enjoy it and feel somehow further along at the end than they did in the beginning. I exceeded all my expectations and had fun so I feel it went well. It’s all about having a paradim shift and taking from it the most you can. GS: During you show you talk a lot about the downsides of social media and a reliance on technology. Do you also see your show as something more than a fun time for the audience? HC: 100%. For me comedy has become boring. The jokes are tame and everything seems to cater to the lowest common denominator. I want to bring a bit of nuance. I am a geek through and through, but the advent of organisations 7

Geek Syndicate

such as Lulzsec and Wikileaks alongside Google & Microsoft show that geeks rarely agree. I wanted to get across a bit of that.

GS: Now your show is heavily slanted towards those with the ‘Geek’ gene what has the feedback been like from audience members who weren’t geek?

introduced some images (in the form of a powerpoint presentation) and some more straightforward comic elements which seem to help the less geeky members of the audience enjoy it just as much as the level 18 geeks. GS: What can we expect from you next?

HC: I designed the show to be for a geek audience. At the fringe it becomes very hard to get an audience. You either have to have a very accessible show and promote any and everywhere or something highly specialised. I felt that a show by a geek for geeks would be a good plan. Having said that, there were some people who didn’t get the show at all.

HC: Being a geek is only one part of my personality. My next show is called ‘Secrets of the Elders of Zion.’ It is about how I’m upset that I’ve never been asked to become an Elder of Zion so I start up the UK Branch myself. I play the role of 5 different rabbis, moses and there’s a song about Bible Codes. To be fair, it still sounds pretty geeky!

To help with some of the more geeky segments I have now

GS: Last question...and yes it’s a geek one...The Hobbit now has

three films...good idea or bad? HC: I’d like to say good. Having read the book, I’m not so sure there’s enough to create an engaging trilogy. Just because Tolkien used lots of words, that doesn’t mean they were all necessary. GS: Many thanks for your time mate Check out more of Hayden’s poems elsewhere in this issue. Hayden is currently performing Age of the Geek. At the time of publication, performces are: Manchester – Saturday 3rd November – Kings Arms, Salford – BOOK HERE Leeds – Saturday 17th November – Seven Arts – BOOK HERE

Barry Nugent

What is A Geek? By Hayden Cohen What is a Geek? Are we weak? I don’t think so. We’re humankind version 2.0. Where brain beats braun. Where manic obsession Is a character strength And brute force is trumped by reason. What is a Geek? Are we socially awkward? No! We’re liberated from the social conventions that the norms have to live to. We question and wonder the status quo And do our best to become superheros; Even though that may only mean donning a long brown robe And pretending we’re more athletic than reality would show. What is a Geek? Do we reach new technological feats Whilst sucking on the teat 8

Of inspiration? You bet we do. Or is that nerds? I’m not so sure any more. But hey, we’ll buy the tat That smarter people than us decide to impart. We’re interested in everything And how it works. We’ll win at a pub quiz And complete an academic doctorate. We’re highly focussed On our own obsessions And most of the time when we’re talking We can see the other person with their eyes forever rolling. What is a Geek? WHAT is a Geek? Is this question rhetorical? Yes it is. Is it? This is getting a bit too meta for me. Don’t you think?

Geek Syndicate

The Joy of Who, By Hayden Cohen “I love Dr Who” said Harry, 7 years old. “Which one?” replied John, Harry’s dad. Harry look puzzled. “Which Dr Who do you prefer?” said John again. “Well there’s only one.” Harry looked confused. It was moments like this that can shape both father and son. John had a choice: to let Harry be a child for a little bit longer or ruin his son’s fantasy for evermore. So he turned to Harry

and said “It’s all a lie. There isn’t ‘the doctor’ or his assistants. The Daleks, The Cybermen, The Ood. None of them are real. They’re actors playing a part. Each version of the doctor is a different actor.” Harry looked at his dad - “I know that. I don’t care. It’s just a bit of fun.” And with that John smiled and he felt free to enjoy Dr Who all over again.

GEEK CRIMINOLOGY: Gotham’s Dark Leviathan In this writer’s opinion, Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy has been everything and more that a Bat fan could wish for, but there is a depth to his stories that add so much extra intrigue. In the final film of the trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises, Nolan explores the themes of Thomas Hobbes’ book The Leviathan. Is Batman anything but the illegitimate force of good that stops the criminals in Gotham city or did the Gothamites elect Batman as their protector?

Thomas Hobbes argued that in order to have a full life, people needed a leviathan to get out of the state of nature. The state of nature is where every society begins. Everyone has complete freedom but it is unruly, harsh and everyone is out for themselves. There are no laws to protect the individual from harm and they make the most of what they can. Hobbes describes life in the state state of nature as: ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.’ In order to move forward the people choose a Leviathan who can lead them to greater things. In the Leviathan the people give up some of their liberties to accept the Leviathan as the leader of the state. From this position, the Leviathan can establish law and policy in order to make sure that people can have things such as property and if they are taken away from them unjustly, then punishments will be given. The theme of the leviathan goes through each one of Nolan’s films but is felt the most in The Dark Knight Rises. In Batman Begins we are shown that the police are corrupt and although the law is on their side

the people know that they have no real help from this police force. The city itself, Gotham, is portrayed as a city in which everyone is out for themselves. The only person any individual can rely on is themselves and the police are willing to betray the city’s civilians in order to help the mob bosses such as Flacone. This is clear in a scene in which Rachel Dawes is about to get mugged. The only person who is willing to step up against these people is Batman. By the end of the film, we feel that Batman and Gordon (as his sidekick) have started to make a difference: that order has begun to be restored to Gotham. Gordon himself makes the point that Batman is the reason that this change has occurred. The people of Gotham seemed to have taken Batman in as their Leviathan, their leader. This theory gains resonance in The Dark Knight when Harvey Dent, Bruce Wayne, Rachel Dawes and a Russian Ballet dancer are having dinner. Dent, Gotham’s District Attorney argues for the Batman and defends him in front of his dinner companions, stat9

Geek Syndicate

ing that the people of Gotham elected Batman to take his post when no-one else was willing to do so. This is similar to what would happen in Hobbes’ state of nature: the people would realise that things could be better if they gave some of their liberties to a protector and therefore enshrine power into that Leviathan. So Gotham accepts Batman. Under their laws he is illegitimate but their laws mean next to nothing to the rest of the people in Gotham. Therefore by no police officer making a stand against Batman he is shown to have been elected into this position. In fact he is more legitimate than the police for this reason.

Finally in The Dark Knight Rises we truly see the state of nature come to pass and Batman take his rightful place as the Leviathan of the state. Batman starts the film having retired in order to bring peace to Gotham. Yet Bane has other plans which force Batman out of retirement. Before long, Bane has crippled Batman and deported him out of Gotham.

With Batman gone, Gotham has no hope left. Bane has complete control where he instigates the creation of an anarchic world: everyone is out for themselves and is aware that they must do whatever they can in order to survive. Hobbes argued that when a 10

state lost its Leviathan, it would revert to the state of nature. In The Dark Knight Rises, when Batman is gone, Gotham falls into anarchy illustrating both that Batman is the Leviathan of Gotham and that without him, it falls into the state of nature.

system is no different to that what we have seen in our society. Whether or not Robin becomes Nightwing or a new Batman is irrelevant. What is important is that the people once more enshrine his powers and believe in him, making him the legitimate force.

When Batman returns at the end of the film, he manages to restore order and get Gotham back on its feet before his eventual ‘death’. All of these things are crucial to illustrate Hobbes’ theory that in order to have a state we must give power to a leviathan who will take us out of the state of nature. In The Dark Knight Rises, Batman does not just lift Gotham out of the darkness mentally but also physically. He beats Bane and destroys the bomb that was going to explode over Gotham.

Nolan’s Batman films illustrate how much Batman is needed for Gotham and that he is a legitimate force. Before Batman (and whenever it has not had Batman by its side), Gotham is portrayed to be in a state of nature. It is a short, nasty, brutish life without him and therefore the people of Gotham would rather give up some of the liberties they have in the state of nature in order to have a better life under Batman’s capitalism. Further as with elected officials and monarchs, Batman’s status as Leviathan will be passed down to his rightful heir, Robin, who is just as legitimate as Batman.

Further the actions of Gothamites after Batman’s ‘death’ illustrate his pull with the people even more. The Gotham people erect a statue of Batman to illustrate that he is the one true saviour of Gotham. He is the one that has pulled them back from anarchy and managed to stabilize their city in order for it to become a part of the twenty-first century once more. More telling however are the actions of Robin John Blake. Batman has left his mantle to him illustrating a form of government. Robin has been elected to be the rightful heir of the cowl and therefore takes the place of Batman as Gotham’s Leviathan. This is not much different to the way that a king would pass on his monarchy as Robin is Batman’s son that he never had. Therefore this

Luke Halsall References Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679). Of Man, Being the First Part of Leviathan. The Harvard Classics. 1909–14. Batman Begins (2005) Christopher Nolan

Dir.

The Dark Knight (2008) Dir. Christopher Nolan The Dark Knight Rises (2012) Dir. Christopher Nolan

Geek Syndicate

Geek Syndicate DIGITAL PIRACY IN COMICS

As a comic fan, I’ve often thought a lot about how print comics fare when the internet making digital comics and even digital piracy more prevalent. I’ve had quite a few conversations with friends and fellow comic readers about the subject. It was after one such conversation with my friend Michael that I wanted to know not just what I thought or what my group of friends thought about digital comics and digital piracy, but rather what the people who bring us the floppy pages of comic joy that we read every month thought about it, and how they felt it was helping or hurting them and their livelihoods. After a brainstorming session in which I attempted to boil down the digital controversy to just two questions, while leaving them open ended, I sent out a flurry of emails. For those creators that were kind enough to reply and answer the questions posed by this comic fan, I sent these questions: Digital comics are making a huge impact on the comic industry. How do you think they’re affecting print comics and the industry as a whole? Digital piracy is also a big topic in the comic community. What do you feel is the overall effect of piracy on comic sales, both digital and print? Do you feel like it wins over enough fans to make it possible to overlook, or is the effect totally negative? 12

The responses were varied and interesting. Below, I’ve broken down the responses by question as answered by each comic creator, and even one comic fan and friend. Let’s see what they had to say about the first question.

the adoption of digital comics and the global digital marketplace. For publishers, distributors and retailers it’s a tougher market that they need to get on top of in order to make the most of it.

”Digital comics are making a huge impact on the comic industry. How do you think they’re affecting print comics and the industry as a whole?”

Only positively. I’ve yet to see a shred of evidence that they’re taking away from print sales more than they’re simply bringing more revenue into the market. Print number continue to shrink for smaller publishers, but just looking at the digital royalty statements on one of my titles, IRREDEEMABLE, I can report massive growth over the past year. Massive.

Digital media is changing the landscape for every outlet: music, video and print, so comics are being swept into that maelstrom just like everything else. The intensity of that change is reflected in the fact that comics are a smaller industry, so even a small shift in sales due to digital adoption causes a lot more upheaval than would be required to unbalance a bigger industry.

Jim Zubkavich, writer of Skullkickers and Pathfinder

Mark Waid, writer of Kingdom Come, Irredeemable, Indestructible Hulk

The good side of it is access to a much larger audience and the chance for more people to get their work out to market thanks to fewer barriers to entry. The down side of it is that traditional distribution channels and sales outlets are struggling to find stable financial ground as things shift over. The market is ‘flattening’ with smaller titles generally selling better than before, but the top end titles doing a lot worse. More titles seem to be needed to keep the market moving forward rather than a fewer number of best sellers. It increases diversity in the industry’s offerings, which is great, but it’s also a lot harder to manage.

I think we’ve only just begun to see their true impact. At first there was a lot of talk about how digital sales would cannibalize print sales, but I think publishers and retailers are beginning to see that that’s not the case. Now, it’s a question of how to fully integrate digital with print sales and make the two elements support each other. I honestly think nothing bad can come of the digital/print relationship as long as everyone is open minded enough to be innovative and accept the future. Digital IS the future of comics, no doubt about it, but that doesn’t mean print and direct market retailers can’t survive. It’s just going to take some adjustment and proactive thinking on everyone’s part.

For individual creators and the reading audience, there are a lot of great opportunities created by

Joey Esposito, writer of Footprints, Pawn Shop, Comics Editor at IGN

Well, in CHEW’s case, digital comics aren’t really hurting print sales, though we have various readers that prefer to buy floppies digitally. In our case, the readers that buy digital eventually buy the trades/hardcovers anyway because they want the book on their shelves. So I don’t think the digital/print debate is an either/or scenario in a lot of cases, but just a means of keeping up with your favorite comics without the clutter of floppies. I can’t speak to how it works for the rest of the industry, but that’s how it is for us. We reap the benefits in either medium. Rob Guillory, artist of Chew 100% positively. On the Big Publisher end of the spectrum where Marvel & DC need their readers to commit to pretty large weekly purchases, digital comics make that more likely to happen because of the lesser financial burden on the readers. Except of course, when they charge full retail price, which is both unethical and a totally idiotic move in my opinion. If you can’t get new readers charging $4 for a print book, how can you even begin to think those potential new readers will be interested in a $4 digital comic? On the small press side of things it allows people to see your work that otherwise would never have made it into comic shops, or that Diamond would not even carry because of low sales -which is actually something that I do not have a problem with. Diamond is in the business of bulk distribution, not boutique book sales. So with digital comics, which cost a fraction to produce and can reach a wider audience, the little guys finally have a fighting chance. In our own experience digital comics have provided a cheap, and in some cases free, entry point for

Geek Syndicate

new Robo readers. Our TPB sales only really started to take off after we started making digital comics. iVerse and Comixology literally made Atomic Robo a success. We suddenly had a level of exposure that brick and mortar stores and our non-existent marketing budget could not come close to matching. And don’t get me wrong. Comic shops have been GREAT to Atomic Robo. But they reach a more limited audience. And we’re happy that the digital comics seem to get people into comic shops to buy our stuff, and see other books as well. It is supremely human to enjoy a tangible thing over a theoretical product -which is kind of what digital comics are. And if you pick something up digitally and really like it, chances are good that you will seek out a physical copy of it. That’s been my experience anyway. I see digital comics and physical TPBs as a mutually beneficial relationship. I’m not sure about the regular 22 page comics. They cost a lot and don’t offer the reader a whole lot for the cost. I won’t be surprised if digital comics eventually replace those. Scott Wegener, artist of Atomic Robo I’ve always preferred to read in the print format, and my guess would be that I always will. There’s no denying that digital publishing is here to stay, though. I think the biggest impact is probably on small press publishers and creators publishing their work on their own. Digital can be a good outlet for getting their work out there without the sometimes daunting overhead that comes with traditional print publishing. Robert Venditti, writer of

Surrogates, X-O Manowar

I have been resisting digital comics for a while now. I buy comics, I know they come with a digital copy, but have I ever removed that sticker? No. I understand the convenience factor... especially when I travel. Maybe because I do not yet own a “tablet” type device, I am still skeptical as to the comfort of reading a comic digitally... who knows. So, as you can see, from my point of view, they are not impacting MY small world of print comic collection. And that is what it is all about, COLLECTING. My computer collects a lot of things digitally, mostly for work: Emails, Files, Photos, Apps, etc. Not Comics. I like the experience of holding a set of stapled pages - and I am not the only one. Thank goodness, at least for now, I think the people who want to collect physical books and READ physical books are enough to keep the printing presses humming. I do fear that there will be a day that digital will overwhelm print, and that will be a sad, sad day, especially for retailers. Of course, unless there some model is developed where retailers can still have some claim in the process... maybe a kiosk? Something where you bring your device, scan through the titles and download? Who knows? All I know is that I LOVE my weekly (or more) trips to the Comic Store. It will be a shame if all that goes away because things become increasingly digital. As far as the industry - too much currently relies on print. Covers, Variants, Advertisements, etc. Where would the Variant market go if everything went digital? In fact, where would the collector’s market go? People want to collect. If everything is digital, there 13

Geek Syndicate

is nothing to collect. We are safe... for now! Charles Joy, comic reader, reviewer, and podcaster Now, on to the second question, this one concerning piracy: Digital piracy is also a big topic in the comic community. What do you feel is the overall effect of piracy on comic sales, both digital and print? Do you feel like it wins over enough fans to make it possible to overlook, or is the effect totally negative? Opening up your content to everyone for free is the ultimate sales pitch because there’s no barrier for people to try it out. A lot of webcomic creators have done just that – offering content for free and building an audience over time. The difference with rampant comic piracy is that it forces that model on publishers and creators against their will. All the content is free regardless of their wishes. It’s incredibly hard to measure the numbers in terms of sales being created by piracy. Every creator and every title has different circumstances. Free versions of my comics online have substantially increased my direct convention sales, but haven’t affected my regular in store sales positively or negatively much at all. That’s my situation, but it’s one I chose when I started serializing Skullkickers online because I could see that pirated versions of the issues were out there anyways. Piracy is changing people’s perception of content and what it’s worth. If you’re downloading pirated music, software, videos or books what you’re saying is that 14

these things don’t have any value until you choose to patronize them with a donation by buying the “real” thing. As a consumer that’s very empowering, but as a creator it’s quite scary. You have to look carefully at your production costs and final pricing to try and entice people to do the right thing. I don’t think illegal activity should ever be “overlooked”, even if there’s technically nothing I can do to stop it. I think the situation is different for each creator/publisher and, ideally, it would be up to them to decide what they want to do with their content. Some content is going to go over better with an online audience due to style, pacing and genre, so I don’t think it’s as simple as just saying “Yes, piracy is always a good thing” or “No, piracy always hurts sales”. Jim Zubkavich, writer of Skullkickers, Pathfinder On a personal level, I have nothing at all against it and have evidence that the overall net is positive, that the attention it brings to your work may--MAY--mean more short-term loss on individual monthly releases, but that’s more than made up for in outreach to potential fans and readers who would otherwise have no access to your work. I find it tiresome and self-defeating whenever I hear of a fellow pro declaring that it’s not rising prices, shrinking physical distribution, or bad material that’s driving his sales figures down, it’s those darn pirates! Sigh. But that’s on a personal level. On a professional level, I don’t think it matters one bit what you think about piracy, nothing’s going to make it go away, so my advice is to either make your own material available cheaply enough on the web so that it’s just

as easy to obtain from your site as it is to look for torrents--and/or to use filesharing to spread your work and make fans aware that if they want to support you and want more work from you, they should come to your website or to a store and spend money. Our entire economy is being redefined in ways that benefit content-creators and dun monolithic distributors of old, just ask Louis C.K. Use “piracy” as an outreach tool to find your audience and then create a relationship with them. Or, alternately, just stand on your front porch and wave your cane at the clouds, your call. Mark Waid, writer of Kingdom Come, Irredeemable, Indestructible Hulk Piracy is a terrible thing to do, no doubt about it. If you pirate comics, you’re a jerk. That being said, I’m not sure there’s any real conclusive evidence that piracy has affected sales. I know the industry is quick to blame piracy for declining sales, but it’s not the only thing to blame. At the same time, I don’t think there’s any evidence that the whole “I pirate comics and then buy the ones I like” train of thought leads to more sales. There’s no way to measure these things. But I do think, that even though we can’t stop piracy, there’s a way to at least try and turn it to our advantage. If you look at what Mark Waid’s doing for Thrillbent, I think that’s a great step forward at turning this negative into a positive. He’s releasing the torrents himself -- saying to pirates, “if you’re going to pirate my stuff, at least just use our own file” basically -- and including a link back to the Thrillbent site. I think we, as creators, can use torrents to our advantage in ways like this. Pretending we can stop piracy as a whole is silly, but, just like

retailers that need to adapt to the digital marketplace, we need to adapt to the idea that torrents will always exist and work on a way to turn it to our advantage the best we can, instead of using it as an easy target to blame. Joey Esposito, writer of Footprints, Pawn Shop, Comics Editor at IGN I’m kind of torn on the subject. On one hand, I’ve met a lot of fans that were first introduced to CHEW via illegal torrents, but then went on to buy the comic. So in that way, sure, it worked in our favor. On the other hand, I have friends whose creator-owned books have died because people didn’t buy it, BUT their illegal download counts are in the thousands. So really it boils down to: Should people pay for the experience of consuming media, the fruit of someone else’s hard work? My gut says “Yes”, but it’s a damn sticky topic. Rob Guillory, artist of Chew Digital piracy is a big topic in the comic community because it is an easy scapegoat that allows us to ignore the real problems with our industry. Primarily that the majority of what we produce is out of touch, misogynistic, and lacks broad appeal. Also, the mainstream comics community is no longer a community of readers, but a closed community of collectors. That’s a huge problem. I have never seen a single shred of documented evidence that correlated one pirated comic to one lost sale. I have had people come up to me at a convention and tell me that they’d pirated my work, and could they now please buy it from me. Atomic Robo shows up on fifty file-sharing sites every time an is-

Geek Syndicate

sues drops -sometimes before the issue drops, so you know at least a few comic shop and/or Diamond employees are pirating our work. I see this as nothing more than free advertising. Our fans have made it very clear that they love supporting what we make. And if piracy gets us a few more fans then that’s just great.

Just as piracy failed to topple the music and film industries - (in fact they made record profits while screaming and crying about the rise in online piracy) - I think it has a minimal effect on the comic book industry. At worst it’s a neutral factor, and at best it leads to a few more sales. I think that digital comics can go a long way towards curbing piracy as more and more people start seeing them as a viable format. But making them available is not enough. We also have to price them in a way that makes them appealing. Retail print price for a digital comic? Hell no, I’ll pirate the hell out of that. But a buck? Or two bucks? Okay, now you are in the realm of impulse purchases, and I will, (and have), buy a dozen digital comics at a go for those prices. And because digital comics do not require paper, ink, shipping, or storage, publishers can actually earn more money per book sold, even at these lower digital prices. Scott Wegener, artist of Atomic Robo Piracy is going to happen, regardless. Before comics were easily available for purchase online, people were still scanning and sharing. People love to get stuff for free. They don’t even see it as theft. That is the bad part. The either do not care or realize that by pirating something, they actually

do harm. Sure, the big name companies don’t feel the pain as much as the independents or self-publishers, but there is still a negative impact.

There is enough of a problem with legit purchase of digital comics “stealing” business from print comics and the ability for Local Comic Shops to stay afloat, addition of digital comic piracy just makes that whole mess worse - in essence, it has made it much easier to pirate - no one has to sit at a scanner all night turning pages, there is no fidelity loss, so much more volume can be cranked out. It is a shame really. I can sort of see the other side of the coin. Comics are expensive. Comic collecting and reading is an expensive habit... err... I mean hobby. That does not justify theft, and it never has. Now, there is the argument of, “I download comics (pirated), then I go buy them if I like them” - sure, I am sure for some percentage of the population that is true, but most people wouldn’t bother. It is just too easy to access the information any time... Do I have a print dictionary on my desk? No, I go to the internet, type in, “define: tchotchke”... it is way easier. Which brings up a point... has Google/Bing “stolen away” business from Webster? Yeah, sure it has. But that is different, I guess. Hmm. Sigh. Maybe I should go buy a dictionary. Charles Joy, comic reader, reviewer, podcaster So, there you have it. By no means an exhaustive survey, but enough to get a general feel for how the creators feel about digital comics and piracy, while keeping the “normal” 15

Geek Syndicate

fan in mind.

As you can see, those professionals that responded feel no ill will toward digital, that it’s only exposing their work to a larger audience and letting readers access it more easily. There are definite points made about how publishers and retailers need to better understand and utilize digital comics, but, for the present, digital comics aren’t doing much, if anything, to hurt prints comics, according to these professionals. As for piracy, it’s a bit mixed. Scott Wegener and Mark Waid both seem to fully embrace piracy, seeing that it helps more than it harms, and isn’t the scapegoat that the comics industry so often claims to be. Everyone else seems to see piracy as something that can’t be changed. It’s almost

a force of nature at this point. Try as they might, piracy will still happen, whether they like it or not. The morality of piracy isn’t so much to be considered as what Rob Guillory said: “Should people pay for the experience of consuming media, the fruit of someone else’s hard work?” The “normal” comic fan may not see quite eye-to-eye with the creators on the subjects, but I think Charles makes a good point about comics being more about collecting than reading, at this point, as so much of the industry is driven by collecting rather than just casual reading.

or two, but I’m also part of the group that sticks by the “if I like it, I buy it” code. The one thing that I’ve found piracy to be good for, if it’s good for anything, is introducing people to comics. Dropping twenty bucks on a trade is a lot less desirable to someone completely new to comics than tying up a few megabytes of space on their computer with some torrented issues. As my friend Michael often puts it when we discuss piracy and digital comics, “I never would’ve bought comics if I didn’t steal them first.”

Leo Johnson

As for me, I have to agree with the creators. Digital is great for comics. Piracy, while not necessarily nice, can’t really be hurting them. I have to admit that I’ve pirated a comic

INTERVIEW: Taylor Davis of the gaming year. As a big music and gaming fan, Geek Syndicate’s head-honcho caught up with Taylor about her music and inspirations.

American Violinist, Taylor Davis strikes me as a true musician. She wants to share happiness and joy through her music. Since starting a youtube channel, on which she performs music and medleys from various games, Taylor has performed at the E3 Expo - the pinacle 16

GS: You’ve said that you were inspired to take up the violin after being after being inspired by a young girl’s performance of Silent Night on the violin at a school assembly. What was it about that performance that made you decide to take up the violin? TD: I think the violin is one of those instruments that can really stir the emotions. The way she was playing the song just really connected with something inside of me when I heard it and it was one of those instinctual feelings that’s hard to describe. As soon as she

stopped playing I just felt like I really needed to get my hands on a violin! GS: Why did you decide to start covering pieces of music from the world of videos game and film? TD: It’s the music that has had the most emotional impact on my life. I am classically trained, and do still play classical music, but it doesn’t have the same impact on my emotions when I play it. For me, it’s a feeling of nostalgia because I’ve played so many of the games I cover, and watch the films I cover songs from. I am very into gaming; I’ve actually been playing video games longer than I’ve been playing the violin. I had been playing

this music by ear for years just for fun before I started posting to YouTube. I actually introduced my high school and college quartet members to Final Fantasy music and we would play some of it at weddings and other gigs, people had no idea it was from a video game but they loved it! GS: How do you pick what music you are going to cover? TD: Most of what I cover is from my personal favorite games or movies. I’ll also take requests and poll my audience for what they’d like to hear. I think it’s really important to listen to my audience because they’re the whole reason I’m able to do this! I don’t usually plan a lot in advance, usually when it’s time for me to make another video I’ll just think about what I’d really like to play that week and then go cover that. GS: Have you ever thought about trying to get professionally involved with scoring your own piece music for a new game, upcoming film or another medium? TD: I actually tried to get into that after graduating college and planned to move to LA to get into it, but something happened where I wasn’t able to go, and I was very disappointed. It was actually because of that though that I started my YouTube channel, so since then I have actually been pursuing a career as a violinist instead of a composer. I have my own original songs that I plan to release later this year, but it’s just my own work, not for a game or film. It’s certainly something that I would like to try at some point if I ever find

Geek Syndicate

I want to change careers, but for now I’m loving what I’m doing.

GS: In May you released you first album ‘Gaming Fantasy’ How long did it take you to put together the album? TD: I started in mid January and finished in May, so about 4 months. GS: How did you go about selected what pieces you wanted in the album? TD: They’re all personal favorites of mine, and it kind of reflects me as a gamer. I also wanted to make sure I included songs from older games as well as modern day games to make sure it had wider appeal. GS: You performed live at E3 what was that like for you and would you like to do more performances at other conventions? TD: It was an amazing experience. It was so great to meet Kyle Landry and Lara because I had been friends with them online, and we had made videos together before but had never met or played together in person. It was really neat getting together with those two because they’re phenomenal musicians and I don’t often have the chance to play with people like that in person. It was also a great place to connect with industry professionals and we met a lot of really nice people and made some good connections. It was also the first time for any of us to have fans come up to us in real life, expressing their enjoyment of our music and asking for autographs. That

part of it was very humbling. I would love to do more performances like that in the future. GS: You’re clearly a big gamer so what are you playing at the moment? What are a few of your all time fave games?

TD: Right now I play Skyrim on and off, and League of Legends is the main game I play because I’m able to play with my brother who lives in a different state. My all time favorites: Final Fantasy VII, IX and X. Chrono Trigger, Kingdom Hearts I and II and Halo. GS: What are a few of your favourite film and game soundtracks that you have not tackled yet? TD: Indiana Jones is my favourite theme, and I plan to do that at some point. Gamingwise I think I’ve already at least covered one song from my favorite games, but there are plenty more out there! GS: What would you say has been the one piece of music that as challenged you most to do? TD: The Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto GS: From a legal point of view have you ever had any problems from the composers or companies of the music you have covered? TD: No, I made sure I had that well figured out before I embarked on selling things. I pay copyright royalties for everything I sell. GS: You are also working on a CD of original material. How is that project coming along? TD: I have the violin parts for 17

Geek Syndicate

about six of the songs, but I don’t have any of the backtracks. I’ve been working on a Christmas CD lately since that is more time sensitive and I hope to have that finished by November 1st. I don’t know how long my original work will take me because so much of the song will depend on the backtrack, and that’s always what takes me the longest and I really want to make sure I do a great job with those.

GS: Is there anything else you are working on at the moment you want people to know about?

GS: Where can everyone pick up your album and listen to more of your work?

TD: The Christmas CD, it will be in a similar style as Gaming Fantasy since I made all the backtracks fully orchestrated. A lot of this CD features multiple violin part harmonies, which I have a lot of fun doing.

TD: My personal website, www.taylordavisviolin.com, has digital copies, as well as iTunes, Amazon, Google Play and Zune. For physical copies, the album is available through CD Baby.

Barry Nugent

Track List Skyrim Theme Brothers (Fullmetal Alchemist) Metal Gear Saga Dearly Beloved (Kingdom Hearts) Cid’s Theme (Final Fantasy VII) Time’s Scar (Chrono Cross) To Zanarkand (Final Fantasy X) Sadness and Sorrow (Naruto) Roses of May (Final Fantasy IX) Ezio’s Family (Assassin’s Creed 2) Frog’s Theme (Chrono Trigger) Zelda Medley Chrono Trigger Theme Hikari (Kingdom Hearts)

Geek Syndicate

Geek Syndicate WHAT IS A GRAPHIC NOVEL?

Graphic Novel is a somewhat overused term these days. By and large it is taken to mean any volume of collected sequential-art, bound together with a catchy title, whether it contains a single story, a complete serialised story, or just a chunk of standalone comic issues between its pages. These of course are very different things, written in different ways. You may think that this is semantic hair-splitting, but actually it’s far more interesting than that. The term “Graphic Novel” originated in the 1970s, but really came to prominence in the late eighties and early nineties, mostly as a way of differentiating what was perceived as “quality” comic-format stories from “mere” monthly stories about guys in capes. This is pretty ironic when you consider that Watchmen is often held up as the great example of the type, and was of course published monthly and featured guys in capes. But in era when collected volumes were comparatively rare, and costs of them comparatively high, it was the prestige projects that lived on in these volumes, usually complete stories, and many many more people will have read Watchman (or The Dark Knight Returns, or many others) as collected volumes than have even seen a single standalone issue. To an extent though, this is a red herring - the format existed well before the coining of the term as far back as the nineteen-twenties, but most 20

notably the “Picture Novel” It Rhymes With Lust published by St John Publications in nineteen-fifty. Mostly unheard of these days, even a quick scan over its wikipedia page makes it feel like something a long way ahead of its time, and whilst it sold well enough, subsequent stories from the same publisher fell flat. Meanwhile the format was florishing over in Europe, both with Herge’s Adventures of Tintin (first published 1929) and Goscinny and Uderzo’s “Asterix the Gaul (first published 1959) although neither gained a great deal of traction in the US market, despite some great English adaptation work. But it is the late nineteen-seventies when the term starts to appear properly, and the format of a longer, self contained work started to catch hold within the Comics Industry. Will Eisner used the term in A Contract with God and throughout the early 1980s Marvel in

particular published a line of “Graphic Novels”, all self-contained stories and featuring a wide range of creative talent and subject matter. About the same time, nonsuperhero artists also began producing long-form works and the format suddenly became more widely noticed. Art Speigelman’s Maus (1986) was a genuine breakout hit that has probably been read by more non-comics readers than regular comics readers, and that amongst others fuels a realisation in the literary mainstream that this whole words’n’pictures format is a vehicle for telling stories as legitimate as any other. Which is stating the bleeding obvious really, but that’s the literary mainstream for you. Having a serialised, yet contained story bound into a single volume suddenly meant a wider audience for prestige projects and a way into “proper” bookshops. Moving forward and the idea of the Graphic Novel is increasingly diluted on the bookshelves of Waterstones and Amazon. Alongside Palestine, Persepolis and the like are reprints of Crisis on Infinite Earth, The Walking Dead vol. 94, and so on - not to disparage the latter or place it beneath the former, but the idea of a graphic novel - a novel told in graphic form, is actually a rare thing to find, and writers working solely in that format are even rarer. Even a lot of self-contained stories originally published as individual issues are distinct from a true novel structure

that a piece conceived as a single work can have. Serialised fiction (comic or otherwise) has its own constraints, its own rhythm, a need to present a series of mini-stories amongst the big one. Go read Watchmen - seriously, there should a drinking game for every time an article on comics says that - and see how the story is cleanly segmented in each chapter so that each issue of its original run is thematically complete, yet contributing to the entire narrative arc and the growing longer plot pay-offs. Alice in Sunderland has a true novels’ rhythm, the longer, interlinking flows free from the constraints of short-form fiction and the need to reach breaks at regular intervals.

Geek Syndicate

TV shows playing better as box-sets when you don’t have to wait a week (or longer) between episodes that often only incrementally move the story forward; it changes the pace you consume the content and therefore your experience of it.

They also make excellent movie choices, at least as far as Hollywood is concerned. I think its to do with the length - just as short stories often adapt better than novels due to a shorter length meaning you tend to be adding, not taking away from the source material - graphic novels can be used as pre-made storyboards and it’s not hard to see that effect in something as strongly visual as say, 300. But even away from the blockbusters directors have picked up on graphic novels - David Cronenberg adapted John Wagner’s A History of Violence to great affect, and Sam Mendes turned Max Allan Collins’ The Road to Perdition into a moody piece starring Tom Hanks and Paul Newman. It isn’t just bigmoney multiplex fodder that turns to the format for inspiration. So, by way of conclusion, here are five suggestions for Graphic Novels worth reading, trying to avoid some of the more common examples.

You can see the problems these regular intervals can cause with storytelling when you look at the latter volumes of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, where they read immeasurably better as a combined, flowing volume than they did as original issues. It’s much like the phenomena of some

1. Green Manor The european tradition of graphic novels as somewhere between an american style “floppy” and a longer work continues, and Cinebook bring a large number of them to English translation. The range of style and stories is immense, but one common “gateway”

comic is Green Manor, a series of murderous tales centred around a victorian gentlemans club. 2. At the Mountains of Madness

Self Made Hero have made themselves a success (!) with a number of excellent adaptations of classic works. I N J Culbards adaptation of the H P Lovecraft novella is one of the real stand-outs of an all-round excellent range. 3. Palestine Journalist and Cartoonist Joe Sacco spent several months in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1991 and 1992, and on his return produced this book, which details its time there. It’s a subjective, personal vision into a very troubled part of the world, and compelling reading. 4. From Hell I couldn’t not include an Alan Moore work, and this is, I think, one of his most ambitous. With art by Eddie Campbell, From Hell is an incredibly detailed take on the “Jack on the Ripper” murders in 1888. Its a real “phone book” of a volume that takes in many aspects of the various theories on the murders, as well as placing them in their historical context. 5. Grandville I gushed somewhat about Bryan Talbot’s Alice In Sunderland in the last issue but his current output is a steampunk noir series about an anthropomorphic badger. It’s up-tempo, beautiful to look at and very unique.

Matt Farr 21

Geek Syndicate

HOW TO MAKE A JUSTICE LEAGUE MOVIE

The idea of a Justice League movie excites me. It really does. But I think that DC has to approach their “big team” superheroes to the big screen in a different way to Marvel’s approach with The Avengers. Although Hollywood has been happy to continually produce reboot after reboot and show us the origin of a character over and over again (cough Spider-Man cough) DC and Warner Bros need to be aware that the audience will get sick and tired of seeing the big name characters in the same stories. In this article, I present how I would approach a live action Justice League movie. First of all, we’ll use Darwin Cooke’s masterpiece The New Frontier as a template for the film’s plotting and which characters to include.

This is a brilliant book. Personally, I prefer it to Watchmen as an example of great comic story-telling and it does something very similar to Moore’s oft-lauded work. In a nutshell The New Frontier paints an origin story of the Justice League that is set in the late nineteenfifties. Cooke’s style and writing has proven that it can be adapted well to the screen as the story was amongst the first DC animated film. So why not also adapt it for the big screen? The beauty of this story is that Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman are all established characters before the story begins. It is explained that they came from the Golden Age and how they managed to survive through the ages. The thing that works so well with this is the fact that there is some realism in the story. Further I don’t think we need to see a Batman origin story after the (again, in my opinion) masterpiece that was Nolan’s trilogy and this would solve this problem. We see Batman in The New Frontier and we see him in action but his presence is more than just felt all the way through it. He is an important part of the story but he is not the crucial element. If Snyder’s Man of Steel is as good as it looks from the teaser trailer we will not need Superman’s origin either. We would have had possibly two awesome origins (Donner’s Superman and hopefully Man of Steel ) by then so again why add a third? In Cooke’s work, we get to see a side of Super-

man that I don’t think the audience has ever really seen on film before. Superman has become a part of the US government and is more a “yes-man” than the iconic hero we know him to be and become again.

I said that this film does not offer an origin for any of DC’s trinity of superheroes. Instead it offers one for the League itself, and more crucial, two of the main components of the League. So who does it offer origins for? I first thought of this idea when Green Lantern came out last year. With the knowledge that the film was a failure and it could face a reboot of its own, DC has potentially at least two different routes to take. They could just reboot Hal in his own film universe and make the second film more of an Incredible Hulk re-boot, where it is the start of something new but still in the same universe. Or they could start again with the Justice League film. The beauty of the second idea is that Hal Jordan is the main

character of The New Frontier and the lynchpin for the entire story. Further his origin is interesting and different to the one that we got in the film and what is usually seen in the DC universe. In The New Frontier, Hal is a pilot for the US air force and fights in Korea. This whole idea adds an extra layer to the character. Further by following this template, the audience gets the chance to connect to Hal Jordan. Hal only becomes Green Lantern near the end of the book and therefore we would really know the man behind the ring. The other main character that gets an origin from this book is The Martian Manhunter. Manhunter is another brilliant character who could be shown in a really interesting way on the big screen. His detective skills could add a whole new layer into Gotham and show the world that Batman can connect to the DC Universe very easily. There is a brilliant line in Cooke’s work that shows Batman’s paranoia, and his detective skills in one go. Batman is so desperate to protect the world that he must have weapons to fight off even his allies, shown through him discovering that Manhunter’s weakness is fire. He explains tha the carries kryptonite with him to keep Superman in check and that he only needs a match to do the same to Manhunter. This adds a very interesting layer to the League as a whole: most, if not all apart from Hal, fear Batman. It illustrates his power and most importantly for the Bat-fans, keeps The Dark Knight’s presence centre stage. Furthermore, DC’s

Geek Syndicate

main speed hero, The Flash, gets a decent amount of focus in the book, but as with the three main heroes, he doesn’t get an origin story. This could work to his favour. Just think of Hawkeye from The Avengers. Many people who didn’t know who he was could follow his story and also be intrigued by him. The same could happen to The Flash. Do we need his origin explained? Surely his name kind of does the work for us and even if it does not, surely all we need to know for this film is that he is a guy that can run really fast. We know we like The Flash and we want to see more, so this would lead onto the next set of films to explain his back story if necessary.

Most importantly is whether or not Justice League is part of a shared universe like The Avengers or not. I think this all relies on Man of Steel. Nolan’s Batman is clearly in its own universe. Green Lantern seemed to be a part of a possible shared universe but the film failed and therefore it will probably always just be the Emerald Gladiator that populates that version of the DC Universe. If Man of Steel gives the impression that Supes is the first of many then this could open up the potential for a Justice League movie. But I am not sure if this method works with DC characters. I think they are so iconic that they actually work better when they are in their own universe getting

the whole spotlight. Further, if Justice League were to be connected to the Henry Cavill depiction of Supes it is likely to ruin my final argument for The New Frontier: keep it in the nineteen-fifties.

Although you could easily modernize the story and make it all link to the world in the twenty-first century I honestly think that taking the X-Men First Class route would work much better for Justice League. First Class showed that this works and that people can relate just as much to characters that are set in the late fifties than they can with characters that are in the new millennium. Further if this version of the league is in its own little universe there would be no problem with setting it in the fifties. So this is what I would do if I had my hands on the Justice League. To me we have a written script with Cooke’s book and all that needs to be done is pick a director and a cast who are suitable to take on these iconic roles.

Luke Halsall

Geek Syndicate INTERVIEW: Bryan Talbot

world in an alternative reality populated by talking animals. That’s why it’s anthropomorphic and mainly set in France, though I set the stories in a later time period, the 1890s, La Belle Epoque. I’d been wanting to write a detective story for some while, so this seemed the perfect opportunity. GS: There are plans for 5 volumes, with Bete Noire having a more science fiction theme. What themes will future books focus on? Bryan Talbot’s first published work was in 1969 when his illustrations featured in Mallorn, the magazine of the British Society. Bryan’s comic work is prolific, but as well as producing serialized works (such as Luther Arkwright and work for DC Comics), in recent years, Bryan’s name has become almost synonymous with Graphic Novels. We managed to catch up with Bryan to discuss his work, particularly the ongoing “Grandville” Graphic Novel series. GS: I know you have already mentioned Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard as an influence but where did the idea for Grandville come from? BT: His work was the original inspiration for the book. Gérard produced many satirical anthropomorphic drawings in the early 19th century, under the nom de plume “JJ Grandville”. I’d had a book of his work for years but, shortly after finishing Alice, it suddenly occurred to me that “Grandville” could be a nickname for Paris, as the greatest city in the 24

BT: The next volume, Grandville Nöel, has a religious conspiracy/anti fascism theme, and the fifth centres around gang war. GS: There have been some great cameos from famous animals: Rupert the Bear and Tintin’s dog Snowy being highlights. Does Bete Noire see more of these crop up and how do you decide which to add in? BT: An older Paddington Bear can be seen in an early scene and the villain of the book is based on Toad from Wind in the Willows. Most of the cameos are actually of human comic characters, the “doughfaces” of the story, the underclass with no citizenship rights. In the first book is Beccasine, the first French comic character and arguably comic’s first ongoing female protagonist, and Spirou, another famous French character. Two more, Frank Margarin’s Lucien and André Franquin’s Gaston Le Gaffe, appear in Mon Amour. In Bête Noire, there’s quite a few, including Tiff and Tondu

and Blondin and Cirage (two old Begian comic double acts), Victorian UK comic character Ally Sloper, a woman who looks like an adult Little Lulu and a guy who could be Archie Andrews. How I chose them is purely by intuition, though having Snowy as an opium addict, his dreams being the Tintin adventures, seemed a natural. GS: In Grandville Mon Amour one of the really interesting dynamics is between Amour LeBroc and the prostitute Bille, mirroring each others histories while highlighting the tension and power struggle between France and Britain. Will we see these characters relationship develop in other books? BT: Absolutely. From Mon Amour onwards, Billie is an intrinsic part of the individual stories and the overall story arc. She seems to be quite popular. I’ve already seen a couple of fan art drawings of her. GS: Like Alice in Sunderland before them, the Grandville books are standalone pieces released in high-quality hardbacks. Was this the only format that you considered over, for example, episodic serialisation? And if so, what do you prefer about it? BT: Yes, it’s intentional. For a start,many readers who buy an original run don’t buy the collection. Mainly, though, it’s my way of trying to compete with the digital pirates, who are doing their best to destroy the comic industry. Free comics mean there’s no money to

pay artists to create new ones. I need to sell books to support myself while I produce them. A book like Grandville takes me over a year of full-time work just to illustrate. Like Alice, the Grandville books are nice artefacts in themselves, with debossed covers, endpapers and quality paper, nice things to own and hold. You can’t get that with digital comics. GS: Steampunk seems to be pretty fashionable at the moment but of course you¹ve been working around the imagery of it for a long time, and continued in the Grandville series. Does it have some special appeal for you? BT: To put it simply, it’s cool. While we live in an age where design and architecture tend to be plain and functional and everything¹s made out of plastic, to me, the gothic style is far more visually interesting and everyday products were aesthetically pleasing; things made to last from brass, leather and polished

Geek Syndicate

wood. Rather than the sloppy, ragged-assed fashions of today I can draw stylish, romantic costumes. I think this, combined with the element of science fiction, creates a fascinating world to inhabit for the duration of a story. Just think of it - steam trains were huge, incredibly loud iron dragons that breathed fire and gushed steam and smoke. Put them alongside a bland modern electric train. No contest.

GS: The released preview pages for Bete Noire have a marked “bond villain” vibe to them; and the previous two volumes have distinct tones that play across the volumes; is one of the attractions of writing a series like Grandville the freedom to move between pulp genres? BT: Exactly. I’ve joked before that the first book was a little like Sherlock Holmes directed by Quentin Tarantino and the second like Holmes directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Bête Noire is very definitely a partial pastiche of the Bond movies. I used to love them when I was

a teenager, but I’m not keen on them now. So I’m doing my own take. A steampunk Bond murder mystery staring a ferocious badger detective with the deductive powers of a Sherlock Holmes is far more interesting! Art is also a theme running through this book, with a a lengthy scene set in the Louvre at an exhibition opening.

GS: So far the world of Grandville has been very focused on Britain and France, but would you consider doing anything in the wider world? BT: Funny you should mention it. Grandville Nöel’s opening scene is in America, in a place called Yasgur’s farm in New Paris State! Find out more about Bryan Talbot and his work at his official website: http://www.bryan-talbot. com

Matt Farr Sara Westrop

Geek Syndicate

GAMEBOOK REVIEW - Ian Livingstone’s Blood of the Zombies genre. This book, authored by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone (two of the three founders of Games Workshop), flew off the shelves despite pessimistic sales predictions from the publishers.

Author: Ian Livingstone Publisher: Icon Book (Wizard Imprint)

The Blurb: Terrible things are happening in Goraya castle… Insane megalomaniac Gingrich Yurr is preparing to unleash an army of monstrous zombies upon the world. He must be stopped and his undead horde defeated. In this life-or-death adventure the decisions YOU make will decide the fate of the world. Can YOU survive or will YOU become a zombie too? A Fighting Fantasy gamebook in which YOU are the hero.

The Review: In August, 1982 a new kind of gamebook hit the bookshelves of the United Kingdom. While choose-your-path gamebooks had been round for a few years, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain introduced role-playing mechanics to the

Ten years later, and the series had spawned fifty titles and a number of “clone” series had been published as well. The original series came to an end with it’s fifty-ninth title but saw a new lease of life in 2002 when Icon Books published a number of adventures (including three new titles) under their Wizard imprint. Thirty years on, and a new offering has been published – but how does it stand up? The Fighting Fantasy series was my proper introduction to the Fantasy genre as Trial of Champions was recommended to me by my local librarian. To this day, I have a reasonable collection of the original range (I’m missing 13) and the series fills me with a nostalgic joy whenever I think about it. When I heard that Ian Livingstone would be writing an anniversary book, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. When I later learned that it would be a modern-day, Zombie book … my enthusiasm waned somewhat. The thing is, I’m not a big fan of the Zombie genre. On top of that, it seems to me that Zombies are so … 2009. The big phase of zombie love seems to be on the wane, so it almost felt as though the book would be out-dated before it was published. I bought the book a couple of weeks after it was published, spurred on

by nostalgia … and above all, faith in the author. So. Blood of the Zombies is a choose-your path adventure set in an eastern European Castle where a mad scientist is plotting to turn the entire world’s population into mindless zombies because… I did mention he’s mad, right? Into the scene, steps YOU. YOU are a student of mythology on a road trip. You get kidnapped. You start in the castle’s sublevels. You must escape, kill the zombies and stop the mad scientist dude from unleashing unholy hell on the world. What’s quite clever about this book – and it’s helped by the setting – is the simplicity of the rules. The core mechanics of the series of old are practically gone. Instead, a simple combat system exists using the sole remaining statistic: STAMINA. You determine your STAMINA at the beginning of the adventure by rolling dice. Incidentally, random dice are presented on each page to help those who don’t have a set to hand, or who haven’t downloaded one of thousands of dice app onto the phone of their choice. In combat, you choose a weapon which deals a certain amount of damage. Each damage point kills a zombie. Any Zombies who survive the encounter inflict 1 point of damage each to you. Rinse and repeat until either Zombies = 0 or your STAMINA = 0. What I found really weird about this is that every Zombie encounter felt much more epic than the one on one or few on one 27

Geek Syndicate

combats of old. You run into a bunch of twenty-odd zombies armed only with a pistol that can deal 3 – 8 points of damage and you know you’re in some trouble! The writing style is familiar to gamebook fans and Livingstone doesn’t let down. Enough detail and information is presented to make you aware of your surroundings while not taking an age to get through.

Aiding in this are the illustrations by Kevin Crossley which are littered throughout. These are in a more comic-book style to those I remember the fondest, however they do fit the setting and tone of the story quite well. Of particular note is an illustration of an encounter which was my favourite in the book and comes towards the end of the adventure. I will not spoil it other than to say TURN TO 158 when you get hold of the book. Take note though: Do not expect to be able to complete this book successfully on your first play through. Take notes and even draw a map. I played through twice on the day I received my copy. The first time I was ripped to shreds by my first MAJOR zombie encounter. The second time, I erm … didn’t roll dice. But thanks to Ian’s ingenuety, even that didn’t mean I was successfull thanks to a very neat twist after what should have been my beating of the adventure. And yes, I will be playing again, making notes and indeed drawing a map! My biggest bugbear is that I wish they had presented the cover more in the style of the 28

old books. Efforts in this direction have been made (the FF logo on the front cover, the green spine etc), but I’d have loved to have seen Ian Livingstone’s name on a prominant banner on the front cover. Does the format, and this book itself hold up in this modern day of video games and quick media? Personally, I think so. Reading is possibly not the prime choice amongst the young, but they do read, despite what certain elements of society will tell you. The book is easy to pick up, well written and encourages replay. The simplification of the rules (which I was taken aback by) works superbly and mean the minimum of number crunching for those in a hurry. Wizard (an imprint of Icon Books) re-published a number of the old adventures in the new millenium and also published a number of new titles to add to the range. My advice: Get hold of Blood of the Zombies. Play it. Give a copy to a nine year

old. Buy more Fighting Fantasy or other Adventure Gamebook series books. They are out there, even including a Doctor Who series. The format is excellent and will hopefully get youngsters (and oldsters for that matter) into two things. Reading. And Fantasy. And maybe even into more social forms of Roleplay. Here’s to another thirty years!

Antony McGarry-Thickitt Rating:

GGGGG Author Ian Livingstone was recently at Forbidden Planet for the launch of the book and Geek Syndicate was there. It was one the few times I saw the queue to get a signed book go halfway round the shop floor. Clearly the series still has a lot of fans. (Addendum by: Christophe Montoya)

Geek Syndicate

TV REVIEW - Falling Skies Season 2, Episodes 04 - 10 math is having on the surviving kids, and how they are reacting. It also lets Falling Skies explore that old post-apocalypse standby, Kids Doin’ It For Themselves.

Episode 4: Young Bloods

It’s probably getting close to repetitive how much I’m saying that this second season is an improvement on the themes and ideas of the first, but it does bear repeating. Nothing much has changed in many ways – the characters are still largely the same, the setup is largely the same, and what Falling Skies is trying to achieve – as a piece of drama - is pretty much the same. This episode returns to one of the shows core ideas, and one it’s explored before, but again, it just does it better. This week opens with the focus on Matt, the youngest of the Mason boys, being used as bait to lure Skitters into a sniper trap. The sequence ends with a blood-spattered Matt yelling “That was…Awesome!”, a funny moment made from a situation where kids are assets of war and are growing up terribly, terribly fast. Tom, of course, goes mad when he finds out. It sets up the episodes big idea very well; the effect the invasion and after-

So Hal and Ben are out on Patrol, giving each other meaningful character development time, when they run across an organised group of kids who, after a brief stand off, they offer support and supplies to. To the shows credit it never tries to make the “grown ups” remove the kids autonomy, or forcibly recruit them, the plan is to help them out, let them come if they want, and let them make their own destiny if they don’t. The emotional weight comes from the unexpected fact that one of the kids is Weaver’s missing, presumed Harnessed or dead, daughter. Weaver was one of the first seasons problem characters, used as someone to butt up against Tom, but this season the two of them function well as a unit, and both characters benefit from it. He’s still a spikey, ill-tempered figure but he’s presented as a good leader for the 2nd Mass if not someone you’d want to share a beer with. Already estranged from his family before the invasion, the reunion is poignant and bittersweet and really well played, showing that Falling Skies can stick to its “Mankind is Fundamentally Decent” mission statement without lurching into cloying or maudlin. The centerpiece of the episode however is a raid on a Skitter Harnessing factory, in which we actually get to see the Har-

nessing process. And boy did I wince through it. It’s a really well done piece of TV, not shying away from the horror of it, and once again reinforces the strange, almost parental view the Skitters seen to take of the Harnessed. Of course, the Good Guys storm in and mostly save the day, but it continues to open up questions over Ben’s status, and the overall motives of the invasion. So there you have it, another pretty strong episode as Falling Skies continues to cement itself as a regular, and lookedforward-to, part of my week. I still have some reservations – it could do with stronger female characters, for instance, and some of its more serialised plots will depend heavily on their pay-offs – but it no longer feels like a show badly under achieving it’s potential.

Episode 5: Love and Other Acts of Courage

I’ve been praising Falling Skies this season for being a much stronger, more tightly written show that above all else is moving with a sense of direction, both physically and in terms of its ongoing story. It has also managed to strike a reasonable balance between that ongoing story and coherent individually episodes. 29

Geek Syndicate

I have to be honest and say that it sagged on both fronts a bit this, slowing down to take a look around, introduce some new elements and do some character stuff, and whilst not a poor episode by any stretch, it was a bit of a reminder of the more rocky first season.

The episode starts strongly with Ben echoing the Skitter’s “dawn chorus” seemingly praising the rising son, a nice show-don’t-tell moment revealing how much he still struggles with whatever the remnants of his harness is doing to him. This quickly transitions into the camp being awoken by a distant gun battle; another nice tracking sequence as every gears up and goes to investigate, only to find the deserted battlefield and evidence of internal strife between the invaders. Yes folks, Falling Skies is doing the old “enemy civil war” plot. Turns out that Rick (the other post-harness survivor) is back, Ben is with him, and they’ve got the leader or spokesman or whatever of the Skitter Resistance holed up in basement. By and large the episode then falls back on “Tell-not-show”. The Skitter talking through Rick and Ben is a creepy and effective touch but the dialogue is too stodgy and I don’t buy Tom’s line about the Skitters not looking remorseful about killing – they’re aliens Tom, don’t judge their body language! It is a dense and information heavy exchange peppered with clumsy dialogue, interesting, sure, but inelegant. The episode counters this by putting Hal and his team in 30

peril, and letting him get closer to Maggie, another of the shows sadly peripheral supporting cast. I’d been assuming Hal and Maggie were together, because, well, it’s the end of the world, they’re clearly interested in each other and why the hell not?, but apparently they aren’t, so we get a bit of teen love and angst. Hal seems to thing smooth chatup moves revolve around tales of his previous conquests, which may explain why he’s still single. Anyway, it’s not bad but it is a little by the numbers, aside from a pretty tense sequence with them holed up in a car with patrolling mechs outside, the direction keeping the enemy out of sight to fuel the claustrophobia of the moment. And I have to give credit for the final conversation between Tom and Weaver about the status of Ben, which is underwritten and well acted and tense, before they spoil it by finishing by saying how much they like each other! So, a decent episode, one which keeps moving the story along, but not one of the best this season.

Episode 6: Homecoming

It’s a busy for the 2nd Mass. this week, with two main plotlines running, a bunch of returning characters, and a more leaping forward of the series arc plot. An improvement on last weeks slightly meandering story, it now feels like we are down in the guts of the series, and its good see its picked back up its sense of direction. And it all starts so well; a couple of weeks stationed in the Hospital have let everyone relax a little; Tom and Anne are getting some quality time together, there is light and clean beds, and its all a bit nice, for a post-alien-invasion world. There is a nice, underwritten scene where Tom and Anne discuss their former, lost, partners, and its good to see thatFalling Skies can write this sort of stuff without being clumsy or mawkish. But this temporary idyll isn’t going to last, and the first sign of trouble is Hal and Maggie’s discovery of a mass grave of dead, de-harnessed children, including the non-dead Karen, last seen as spokes-puppet of one of the alien overlords. I’m really not sure how we are supposed to take Karen’s return, because I never for a moment believed she wasn’t a plant. The characters are split down the middle, which is fine, but it just seemed so obvious, and the show didn’t act like it expected us to be surprised by the “reveal”, that I certainly hope that was never the intention. As it was, working on the assumption that I was supposed to think she was plant, watching her play Hal, Ben and Maggie was pretty entertaining, and I didn’t see all the twists – or her ultimate goal –

coming, which was nice. Also, it gave Maggie something to do what wasn’t “clunky teen romance with Hal”. In the episodes other big storyline, we get to see Tom play at being “Dr John Carter” again as it turns out Weavers bite from two episodes ago is infected with alien nastiness and is close to killing him. Another example of a bit more “long game” in this series, it plays out well, complete with House-esque crackpot medical science to save him. One thing I’ll say for this season of Falling Skies, it’s certainly putting its characters through the wringer! Both this plot line, and the delayed return of Pope, also serve to keep the more militant/paranoid characters out of the loop whilst Karen does her thing, so saves them looking like out-of-character idiots. So, we end with a bunch of revelations about the invaders movements, and leave the Hospital behind, and onwards to Charleston, with a ton of the enemy on the move close behind. Fun times ahead!

Episode 7: Molon Labe

I’ve heard the thought expressed that Falling Skies is a show that gets better as it gets darker. That maybe if it left some of that “humanity can be great” stuff behind and just get into the gritty nastiness,

Geek Syndicate

then so too would some of the shows wider problems be left behind. That said, we would probably end up with something looking a little bit like The Walking Dead with aliens instead of zombies, and that isn’t a show without issues either. This week, Falling Skies gets pretty dark, so we’ll see how that looks, shall we?

I ended last week looking forward to the 2nd Mass getting the hell out of the hospital and on the move again, but for once my expectations were confounded and we got a different sort of episode. Equally quickly dispatched was the ideas that Ben and Karen would spend a while running around the woods or that we’d see the Skitter rebels again. Instead Karen tries to hand Ben over to a “fish-head” boss caste alien, only for the pursuing 2nd Mass to storm in and rescue him, gaining an unexpected prisoner in the process. I like how Tom’s reaction to capturing him is pretty much one of shock, which perhaps mirrors how much the opening section of the episode throw me off-balance. So valuable asset in tow, the rest of the episode is the Hospital under siege, as the aliens are unwilling to use brute force to overcome the resistance fighters in case their boss gets caught in the crossfire and a pretty brutal siege it is too. Falling Skies has been pretty cavalier with the lives of its supporting cast this season and we lose another couple here – a minor character in one case but a more longstanding cast member in another. The nature of both is gut-wrenching; one a return

to the Body Horror that Falling Skies is justly proud of, the other a atmospherically shot heartbreaker served mostly by the reactions of the soldiers watching it. This show knows how to step it up when it needs to, re-enforced that the stakes were pretty high.

On the plot front, we received more of an insight into the aliens plans; which are somewhat vague on some levels but at least give the impression they didn’t just invade because they were bored one Sunday afternoon. The habit of the aliens of speaking through Harnessed kids remains chilling, no matter how many times I see it. You often get the impression that the invaders are fairly light on resource, given how easily resistance can move around, and I’d like to know what the point of it all is. This week we get the implication that there is a deeper agenda, and I hope that’s the case. All in all, a pretty storming episode of Falling Skies, but one that maintains its fair content of hope, and humanity in face of the end of the world. Approaching the home stretch of the season, it seems that this balance can be reached, so I guess I retain my hope for the future too.

Episode 8: Death March

Geek Syndicate

Funny thing about expectations – sometimes they’re a good thing, because they put you in the right frame for a show, or because having them thwarted can be good and interesting. Other times they’re a bad thing, because you just end up disappointed. So when Falling Skies titled an episode “Death March” just after a dark and interesting episode the week before, my expectation was for more along the same vein; the same tightness, the same dark heart. But my expectations were doomed to be thwarted, and not in the good way.

The 2nd Mass are on the move again towards Charleston, and seem to have left the Skitters and Overlords and Mechs (oh my!) far behind. This week it’s a push on down the road and a bunch of introspection, presumably to get all the character stuff lined up for the final two episodes coming up. The problem is that the abrupt removal of last week’s escalated threat lowers the tension somewhat, and we’re back to characters sat in trucks talking about their feelings, which is never a strong suit of Falling Skies. In fairness, some of the introspective stuff is pretty decent. They pick up an accidentally de-harnessed girl showing signs of advanced physiological change, and there is some good stuff between her and Matt, and her “brother” coming to get her is another example of Falling Skies done well. In this case, you never clearly see the brother, just fleeting impressions of something that was once human, coupled with the girl’s hon32

est desire to go with him. It’s creepy and cool, but feels like something they should have done earlier in the series, not now when you want pace and drive towards the series end. The other storylines – more on Maggie and Hal, which is…. alright, I guess, and the emergence of Tector more into the foreground, aren’t bad by any stretch, but aren’t what I wanted to see after the upswing of recent episodes. The first reveal of Charleston is well handled, and Weaver’s (successful) attempt to revitalise them is well done, if a little over-familiar; the second reveal bodes well for an interesting run in. This is far from a poor episode of Falling Skies, but it is an episode that’s spinning its wheels when it should have been driving forward with more confidence.

Episode 9: The Price of Greatness

Not for the first time this season, Falling Skies returns to some of the ideas from its first season. This time it’s militarycivilian conflict, and an obsession with the American Revolutionary War. Also not for the first time this season, it does it in a more interesting, and generally better, way. The 2nd Mass has reached Charleston, and it’s warm, safe and welcoming. But as ever with safe

havens after the end of the world, can it be all it seems? It’s quickly apparent in this episode that conflict is going to arise between the incoming resistance fighters and the half-formed government in Charleston. It is to Falling Skies’ credit that it doesn’t try to simply recreate the usual way these stories go. That is to say, that secretly they’re mad, or under alien sway. It’s simply that Arthur Manchester (a guesting Terry O’Quinn) is intent on building his new order in the ruins of the old: a new Democracy, a New Form of Government, ready to emerge when the Invaders get bored with occupying the Earth and wander off again. He’s a Utopian, his comfort blanket wrapped around his head and desperate not to threaten the chance he sees to build something worthwhile from the rubble. As the missus pointed out, he is, in fact, the Artilleryman from The War of the Worlds. Of course he’s wrong to dismiss the intelligence brought to him about Skitter uprisings, de-harnessed kids and the like, but I found his point of view understandable and well put across. It is a pretty crazy story Tom and Weaver come up with, and compared to the clean uniforms and ordered air of Charleston they do look like a raggedy bunch of loonies. There is a missed story, I feel, of the 2nd Mass being unable to settle in the security, portraying them as disruptive and restless troublemakers – there is only a cursory nod in that direction. After wanting Falling Skies to keep its pace up over the last few weeks,

though, it is weird to find myself wanting it to slow down a bit. Instead, it cracks along with Pope being the eternal troublemaker once again. Combine his arrest and news of a Skitter Uprising, things escalate out of control to an ending that is an interesting setup for the finale, not least of which is a somewhat nuanced view the show seems to take to the imposition of Martial Law. It’s a situation presented as just flat-out messed up, with no obvious villain, and I think that is an interesting stance for the show to take, and also is in keeping with its more upbeat view of humanity. We’ll see how it plays out next week, for the season finale.

Episode 10: A More Perfect Union

Geek Syndicate

the Overlords and to be honest, it’s all a little rushed – stuff happens, decisions are made, but it’s all a little rushed, all a little out of nowhere and a lot of information is dumped that could have been spread out over the season.

Once all the running around is sorted out through, it’s left to a crack team of the 2nd Mass to get into the Overlords complex and blow it up. This bit is a lot better, as it all goes wrong, we get more of creepy, drank-the-kool-aid Karen, and a final fight that’s brutal and well executed. There is of course (another) echo of the theme of “last series, but done better” with the general plot line of “2nd Mass sneaks into alien base, blows it up” but messy plotting aside the ideas at work here are pretty decent, and the cast, as ever, are fun to watch.

show that is ever going to attract the sort of loyal fan base that many genre TV shows go. Should it get cancelled, I can’t see a Twitter outcry or a fan campaign being launched to save it. Not 5 years after its demise people still showing up in costume as the shows leads.

It’s never been a bad show, and this season its been a pretty good show in places, but as it wraps up its second season it’s hard to shake the feeling that this is as good, or as deep as its going to get, and that’s just sort of “okay”.

Matt Farr

Still not sure why they didn’t lift the minigun so prominently highlighted last week though.

Last week’s cliffhanger is dropped surprisingly quickly with a bit of debate about the ethics of military vs civilian authority in the fledgling new Republic, before the Skitter Rebels drop in with news of a “target of opportunity”. There’s a stand-off, then some more talking. Then the General wants to attack the Rebels and the 2nd Mass want to attack

The final act of the series then spends its time setting up the third series with a very Twin Peaks-ey moment for Hal and finally a big cliffhanger reveal of a new alien arrival. Not sure what to make of either development, but I’ve enjoyed this series over the last few weeks and I’ll certainly stick with the next one when it returns. Its become a show that is solidly fun but unexceptional, and knocked a lot of the rough corners off, but I think that it may well now be the show it’s always going to be. At the end of the day, I don’t see Falling Skies as the sort of 33

Geek Syndicate

BOOK REVIEW - Katya’s World

soon she will encounter pirates and war criminals, see death and tragedy at first hand, and realise that her world’s future lies on the narrowest of knife edges. For in the crushing depths lies a sleeping monster, an abomination of unknown origin, and when it wakes, it will seek out and kill every single person on the planet.

The Review:

Author: Jonathan L Howard Publisher: Angry Robot (Strange Chemistry Imprint)

The Blurb: The distant and unloved colony

world of Russalka has no land, only the raging sea. No clear skies, only the endless storm clouds. Beneath the waves, the people live in pressurised environments and take what they need from the boundless ocean. It is a hard life, but it is theirs and they fought a war against Earth to protect it. But wars leave wounds that never quite heal, and secrets that never quite lie silent. Katya Kuriakova doesn’t care much about ancient history like that, though. She is making her first submarine voyage as crew; the first nice, simple journey of what she expects to be a nice, simple career. There is nothing nice and simple about the deep black waters of Russalka, however;

There are some books for which you don’t need background information. Others don’t make sense without it. In Katya’s World by Jonathan L. Howard, the author articulately disseminates what the reader requires to enjoy the book in a few short pages, without which they would probably flounder. Geek Syndicate dives into the latest offering from Strange Chemistry, Angry Robot’s global imprint dedicated to the best in modern young adult science fiction, fantasy and everything in between. Mankind has reached for the stars and found other worlds. Many of those worlds will only marginally support humans, but the Earth’s environment has become so degraded, that most of these worlds offer more support than humanity’s home world does. So the stars are settled by mass immigration, colonies created from single ethnic groups, to prevent any possible future atrocities should anything go wrong and the minorities blamed for a disaster as had happened so many times in

mankind’s history. RIC-23 has the right atmosphere, gravity, and is rich in minerals. Unfortunately it is a water world, with not a square foot of land above sea level. A colony is formed of ethnic Russians, and the world named after a type of beautiful mysterious mermaid from Russian mythology, Russalka. The colonists settle, creating their homes in submarine mountains and ridges, carved with the high tech tools brought from Earth and in floating platforms on their new world’s the stormy seas. Then they eagerly wait for the next deliveries of technology, people and supplies… which do not arrive, or for word via Faster than Light communications, which remain silent from Earth, while scattered colonies remain in touch. So the Russalkins make the world their own, developing their own technologies and equipment, with the aim of eventually reaching for the stars, to other colonies in order to trade for those vital components that they cannot provide for themselves. In this process, the colonists divide into two groups: those who remain under the sea and those who live upon and maintain floating platforms that allow them to reach again for the stars. Those above become the Yagizban, living in their own enclaves and both groups followed their own agendas for several generations. It transpires that the Earth hasn’t forgotten them. Indeed, the powers that be there 35

Geek Syndicate

have decided to take control of their lost colonies. Earth ships landed on Russalka and their occupants were greeted with joy by the colonists. When the Terrans immediately demanded control of the government as well as the goods and services produced for shipment back to Earth, the natives revolted and battle commenced. After many battles, with their fledgling space navy lost, the Terrans disappeared without a trace and Earth was silent again. The Russalkins licked their wounds and try to put the war behind them.

Katya is a newly graduated navigator. She joins her Uncle in the family submarine, Pushkin’s Baby, making what should be routine deliveries to scattered underwater domes. The ship is commandeered to deliver a pirate prisoner to a high security facility by a green Federal Officer. During the trip, they learn the truth about the failed takeover of their world as well as where the invaders went and ties between the Yagizban and the invading Terrans, as a legacy from the war, threatens to destroy the Russalkins, Yagizban

and pirates alike. I enjoyed this book. It is a good read, is internally consistent, doesn’t break any laws of physics and was very hard to put down. I would recommend this book to any budding SciFi reader as well as to the hard core.

Christophe Montoya Rating

GGGGG

COMIC REVIEW - Guts Power #001-003 The Review: When you say the word “indie” these days, it often seems that the book, music etc is just an offbeat from someone who has not yet made it into the mainstream. Guts Power by Paul Jon Milne is exactly the opposite: it reverts back to what indie once was. The story follows a group of unemployed people who decide to bring forth a revolution. The opening sequence tells us that we are in the future, in 2003. I liked this immediately because it feels like an old B movie, where we assumed that by this time we would have jet packs and hover-boards. The art itself is reminiscent of Edinburgh-based Iain Laurie. The characters generally look twisted and demented, more monstrous or alien than anything we expect to see in the world we live in.

There are some nice touches to the design of the book. For example, when a scene ends, Milne writes in a caption box at the bottom of the page “end scene.” It is nice to see the breaking of the fourth wall. Another cool idea is where Milne mocks writers who use dialogue simply to tell the reader what is happening; he refers to this as an “info dump.” Further, the dialogue is strong and has a distinctive Scottish dialect to it. Though this is effective, it is also a poisoned chalice as it means that many people outside of Scotland will not be able to understand the book. Unfortunately, the story is by far the weakest part of the book. The story is a cynical view of the world and what has happened to it. It says nothing that we haven’t heard before, nor does it do it in a very original way. We hear the same complaints about the

benefit system that we have been hearing for a long time. We hear the same issues with finding a job and what life is like in modern Britain, etc. Guts Power is a mixed bag. The art is out there and different to what many people would expect if they have only read mainstream comics. It stands out as a true indie comic, a throwback from an older time. Even so, though it has some strengths, a good story is crucial. With it feeling typical and going nowhere different, Guts Power lacks direction. But ultimately, if you are interested in seeing what the indie scene used to be like, check this one out.

Luke Halsall Rating:

GGGGG

Geek Syndicate

STAGE REVIEW - Age of the Geek

deflecting imaginary blaster bolts and providing all his own sound effects to the experience. I was as bemused as several members of the audience although my bemusement soon turned to respect as the scene echoed my own dodgy attempts of honing my saber skills. After the madcap intro I was treated to an unashamed peek behind the curtain of geekdom.

Can self-confessed geek Hayden Cohen prove to us that we’re living in the age of the geek in fifty minutes? Read on to find out. I’m a bit of a newbie when it comes to watching any kind of live theatre so I’m really out at sea with the sights and sounds of the Edinburgh Fringe festival, which I’m currently attending for the first time. To break myself in gently to my all new adventures within the arts I thought I would start with something familiar. This led me to a small darkened hall, complete with compact audience, to await the arrival of Hayden Cohen and his one man stage show ‘Age of the Geek’. Despite seeing a couple of Hayden’s videos online I was not prepared for his triumphant leap through the curtains and onto the stage, brandishing a plastic lightsaber. Before the audience could work out what was going on Hayden began

Hayden weaves his geek tapestry using a mixture of comedy, spoken word and music. Now usually someone spontaneously breaking into song (unless it’s Buffy or Doctor Horrible) has me covering my ears but not so with Hayden’s. Not only could this geek carry a tune but his songs were funny and cleverly written with some great lyrics. My fave tune was the closing song which really summed up the joy of being a geek and almost felt like a geek nation anthem (which Hayden gives us a rendition of at the show’s opening). The comedy isn’t laugh out loud funny but if you know your geekdom there are some laugh out loud moments (Star Wars and Star Trek I’m looking at you). If you are a non geek then some of the jokes will go over your head but with Hayden’s likeable and warm persona it’s still an enjoyable hour spent in the company of a talented performer.

difficult sell to a non geek audience and I would love to see Hayden hit some of the UK comic and Sci-Fi conventions as I think he would do better there. After all any man who can do a Doctor Who solo on a Stylophone deserves to be heard. Age of the Geek is a witty and inventive look at the geek lifestyle with some great music, insightful comedy and poetry that is well worth checking out.

Barry Nugent Rating:

GGGGG (For Non Geeks)

GGGGG (For Geeks) Check out our interview with Hayden about the show and other concerns elsewhere in this issue.

Even though the show is billed as a comedy there were some spot on comments about the dark side of social media that will get you thinking. Overall I think the show is a 37

Geek Syndicate

COMIC REVIEW - The Victories #001

on violence and corruption only to be touched by a painful past through the psychic powers of Link. Will these memories cause him to break down or will he keep fighting?

Writer: Michael Avon Oeming Artist: Michael Avon Oeming Colourist: Nick Filardi Publisher: Dark Horse Comics

The Blurb: Not long from now, all that will stand between you and evil are the Victories—six heroes sworn to protect us from crime, corruption, and the dark. As one member cracks down on the violence, he discovers himself touched by a painful past through the psychic powers of Link. Will this trauma cause him to self-destruct or continue the fight?

The Review: From Michael Avon Oeming, co-creator of Powers, comes The Victories. Set in a world where the only thing standing between the regular citizens and crime is a super-team known as the Victories, the story concerns one member of the team who cracks down

This opening issue focuses mainly on a confrontation between a villain known as The Jackal and a hero known as Faustus. Jackal has killed a corrupt judge, making the victim’s wife watch as he performs the terrible act. Faustus arrives at the scene too late to stop the murder but in time to fight and defeat Jackal, ultimately making sure he lands in prison. Following the fight, there is an exchange between the two in which The Jackal attempts to sway Faustus to his side: a side that murders to instill fear in the corrupt, rather than protect the innocent with no casualties. After this happens, we see Faustus, without his mask, drinking and berating himself for failing at his duty to protect the citizens. In prison, The Jackal contemplates the true nature of Faustus, vowing to make sure that the “hero” stops lying about it to himself. I won’t lie, at first, I just assumed this would be a regular, run of the mill superhero story, but I was pleasantly surprised. Oeming writes a superhero story that has both wit and emotion. Whether it’s the somewhat bawdy reference to prison rape, the bad puns, or Faustus agonizing over the death of the judge, the story delivered dialogue and plot that went beyond your typical superhero fare. It showed genuinely good writing and a

decent exploration of the agony that a hero must face when he fails. The art complemented the story well, showing a coherence of sorts, which is to be expected since Oeming pulls double duty as the artist and writer. I think my favourite part of the art as a whole was how The Jackal was portrayed. In pretty much every panel in which he is featured, at least part of his body is in shadow, hidden, or obscured in some other way. I think it gives a certain mystery to the character, helping to make him a bit more villainous. Another touch which I enjoyed was how prominently The Jackal’s “Mother F***er” tattoo was displayed in certain panels. For me, this added even more flavour to the character. I love superhero stories that aren’t afraid to break out of the “all-ages” box. Done correctly, a more adult-oriented story can be wonderful. The Victories is showing early signs of being a wonderful story, if the wit and humour keeps up and the exploration of the characters continues. At five issues total, I know I’ll definitely stick around for the ride and see just what happens between The Jackal and Faustus. And to see if The Jackal has any more tattoos.

Leo Johnson Rating:

GGGGG 39

Geek Syndicate

BOOK REVIEW - Tomorrow the Killing The Review:

“Regret’s not enough – you have to pay for it.” If you read his fantasy noir The Straight Razor Cure you’ll have a good idea what to expect from Daniel Polansky’s follow-up: a hard-bitten hero; a dirty city, with dirtier secrets; the death of innocence and the blazing path of vengeance. What I didn’t expect was just how much Polansky would up his game. It’s a much stronger, more confident book, with a muscular plot and a tightly bound narrative. Author: Daniel Polansky Publisher: Hodder

The Blurb: Once he was a hero of the Great War, and then a member of the dreaded Black House. Now he is the criminal linchpin of Low Town. His name is Warden. He thought he had left the war behind him, but a summons from up above brings the past sharply, uncomfortably, back into focus. General Montgomery’s daughter is missing somewhere in Low Town, searching for clues about her brother’s murder. The General wants her found, before the stinking streets can lay claim to her, too. Dark, violent, and shot through with corruption, TOMORROW, THE KILLING is a fantastic successor to one of the most heralded fantasy debuts of recent times.

You haven’t read The Straight Razor Cure? It doesn’t matter. Like all the good pulp, these are stand alone adventures. Sure, you might have a shade more texture if you read them all in order, but Polansky does a cracking job of containing his stories. There’s none of these foreshadowings or cliffhanger endings that force you (cursing) straight back to the book shop. He does that with the quality of his writing. The past comes back to haunt The Warden once again as the great General Montgomery, now an old and broken man, contacts him to find his daughter and bring her home. Lost somewhere in the morass of Low Town – that wretched patch of filth the The Warden calls home – she is stirring up trouble in search of answers. The Warden may be a scumbag drug-dealer now, but he owes the General, and he may be the girl’s last chance to get out alive. What follows is a domino trail of destruction,

with deft homage to The Big Sleep and Last Man Standing. Once again Polansky makes use of flashbacks to this world’s Great War to inform The Warden’s character, flesh out his history and shed a little light on the present case. I really loved these sections in the first book – could happily read a whole story in that setting – so I was thrilled to be going back there in Tomorrow, The Killing. He puts real-time in pondering the meaning of war and what it does to people. We witness scenes of pride and shame, blood and endless sucking mud. Propaganda encourages folk look back on it with nostalgia in their world (and ours) and, although the truth is sickening, there’s just something about the hellish atmosphere and desperate camaraderie that makes for compelling reading. “We weren’t heroes, my friend… At best we were victims.” With complex themes of corruption, regret and restitution it was never going to be a breezy book but it has a surprisingly light touch. The chapters are punchy, the locations are varied and this time I was kept guessing right up until the end – the mark of a good mystery. It was really good to see more of the city and its underworld figures. Low Town is developing nicely as a living environ. I got a real sense of the web of politics and the balance of power shifting, without ever feeling like Basil Exposition was yammering in my ear. 43

Geek Syndicate

Pleasingly the darkness is balanced with a lot of dry humour and some genuinely laugh out loud moments. Much of it stems from The Warden himself: his cynical wit is (straight) razor-sharp and he has a great habit of using it to make his troubles worse. He’s a brilliant character – a sour, savage, sharp-minded sap, mired in darkness and disillusionment. He might not be a good man but he’s a survivor, an anti-hero you can get behind. He takes so many beatings, so many harsh hands of fate that you will him to win through. We seek redemption for him even if he feels beyond saving. “It’s a dangerous thing, pretense. A man ought to know who he is, even if he isn’t proud to be it.”

If I have one criticism of the book it’s that some of the characters get short shrift. Longrunning sidekicks Adolphus and Wren feel just as one-note as in the previous book. We see more of Adolphus as a soldier and a man, but we learn little new, whilst orphaned Wren has moved from taciturn child to taciturn teenager with nothing but strops to mark the difference. It’s a shame, as they both play an enormous part in what keeps The Warden connected to humanity. In many ways they (and Adolphus’ wife) are his family, but they pale in memory compared to newcomers Mazzie of the Stained Bone and Asidu The Damned. Anyway, quibbles… quibbles…

writing is disturbingly like the Warden’s “merchandise”. Take a good hard hit and you’ll see the whole world differently for a while. It may be ugly, but it’s dangerous and exciting too. Sure, you may feel a bit rough when you come back out of it but trust me, it won’t be long before you’re twitching for another hit.

Dion Winton-Polak Rating

GGGGG

It may be a hard, bleak and twisted noir but Polansky’s

INTERVIEW - Daniel Polansky a crackling read, and I’m pleased to say that his follow up, Tomorrow, The Killing is even better. Due to be published in October 2012, it returns us to the sordid environs of Low Town and the dubious company of Polansky’s weary protagonist, The Warden. GS: Daniel, welcome back to the Geek Syndicate. DP: Good to be back. Back in March 2012 we featured an interview with Daniel Polansky on the second episode of Geek To Geek. In it we discussed his debut novel, a noir fantasy called The Straight Razor Cure. It was

GS: For our readers who maybe haven’t yet picked up your books, what can they expect from your stories and the world you set them in? DP: The Low Town series details

the adventures (mis?) of the Warden, an ex-intelligence agent turned small-time criminal whose penchant for trouble and half-hearted attempts at morality continually threaten to doom him, the people he cares for, and the city he lives in. I like to think anyone reading it will find a fast- paced, darkly funny story with some parallels to our own world. GS: Your books seem to be pretty well self-contained, even though most of the characters have cropped up in both. What are the benefits for you in writing standalone pieces, how does it go down with your publisher and are there any down-sides? DP: Coming from a classic

noir background, it’s very important to me that each book wrap itself up, at least from a plot perspective. I find the tendency in modern fantasy to bloat every story into thousands of pages stretched over a half-dozen novels to be stupefying and exhausting—I think there’s really no excuse (at least in genre fiction) for not giving the reader a narrative payoff by the time they’ve turned to the last page. My publishers don’t seem to have a problem with it, at least none they’ve ever mentioned to me. GS: It hardly seems any time since we last spoke. You must write like a demon! What’s your work pattern and what do you do for fun? DP: My work pattern is bizarre to the point that I can’t really sum it up in a coherent way. It depends largely where I am within the process, i.e. brainstorming, drafting or revising, and also whether or not I’m traveling. I tend to have long fallow periods followed by spurts of extreme productivity. For fun I go to foreign countries and walk around aimlessly and stare at interesting things. Also, I listen to music, read compulsively, and play a mediocre game of chess. GS: Most writers are readers as well. What kind of books do you take on holiday with you to read? DP: I probably read more history than anything else, but I read a lot of everything else also, from crime to travelogues. If I’m going on a long holiday, I like to try and load

Geek Syndicate

up with books that I probably wouldn’t be able to make myself read if I was in a sedentary situation. Proust, Joyce, that kind of thing. I just flew into Lisbon yesterday and plan on spending the next couple of months trying to make my way to the Middle East--on my nook is Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, but also Paul Theroux’s The Great Railway Bazaar and a couple of Ross McDonald novels. Sidenote: I think all writers are readers, or at least all decent ones. :)

GS: Who are your biggest influences in the fantasy genre, and who in the crime genre? Do you have any other major influences that fall outside of those two categories? DP: My favorite fantasy writers aren’t necessarily people that I exactly try and write quite like, for whatever reason. I think Gene Wolfe is a genius, full stop. I think Borges is of course, Borges. I think Neil Gaiman is neither Gene Wolfe nor Borges but still pretty excellent. My crime influences are probably pretty obvious to anyone familiar with the genre—Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, those sort of guys. Tomorrow, The Killing was definitely influenced by a lot of the military history I’ve read over the years, in particular John Keegan (RIP). This list is going to stretch on indefinitely if I don’t stop it now, so I will. GS: In Tomorrow, The Killing, The Warden is told ‘The future isn’t set in stone,’ yet he continually

acts as though he has no choice. What are your feelings about Fate in both the Written and the Real world?

DP: Obviously, our life choices are narrowed by a slew of circumstances beyond our control—a slum child in New Dehli has a far more limited slate of possibilities than the son of a billionaire. Somewhat less dramatically, the culture and climate in which we live can narrow our legitimate range of choices to a tiny few. Of course, most people pretty much don’t look beyond what’s directly in front of them, and so their already limited suite gets strangled even further. I think that we’re often freer than we think we are, though it’s always easier to stick to the road than beat a path through the brambles. GS:Your major themes seem to be those of regret and responsibility - but never redemption. Do you believe it is possible, or is restitution the best any of us can hope to achieve? DP: Part of the fun of writing is that you get to commit to certain portions of your psyche, if that makes any sense. So when I’m narrating as the Warden I’m coming from that part of my mind which is most pessimistic, about the nature of man and the state of the world. There are other, more optimistic sections of my brain, I just don’t choose to highlight them in the book. The point being that I’m not really sure what I think on the subject. I definitely believe that the things that we do, good or evil, affect our character. So

Geek Syndicate

in that sense, redemption is impossible—sin eats into your soul. Even if you can make good with whomever you’ve hurt, you still can’t erase the wounds you’ve done yourself.

GS: The Noir genre is so intrinsically American that I cannot hear The Warden in any other accent. The fantasy genre, however, is largely seen as a European tradition - which we see reflected in the richer parts of your metropolis. Add to the mix a multitude of other racial analogues weaving their way through Low Town and we end up with a real cultural stew bubbling away. How does this multiculturalism inform your story-telling and does it present you with any difficulties? DP: One of the fun things about traveling, or even just living in a major urban environment, is you get a good look at the bizarre and fabulous diversity of the human species. And one of the fun things about writing fantasy is you get to chew up everything you see and then spit them back out in weird ways. The world is a big, strange, exotic, frightening place, and I certainly am trying to invoke some of that sentiment when I’m writing. GS: A strong element in the criminal underworld you portray is the drug trade. It seems to be treated pretty casually by everyone from the gutter to the mansions, and The Warden is thigh-deep in it. Do you see the normalisation of drugs in fiction as the mere acceptance of a social reality? What do you use it for in your stories? DP: One thing that I am trying to do with the Low Town series is to create a fantasy world which at the same time 46

seems very familiar, where the reader would be able to find clear parallels between our world and the secondary world I’ve created. Drugs and drug use essentially fuel most of modern crime, so their existence within the world of Low Town is something of a requirement.

GS: How has your life changed since you published The Straight Razor Cure? DP: Hmmmmmmm. HMMMMMMMM. That’s a tough question. How exactly does one mark the evolution of one’s character? Books read? Words written? Songs Listened to? Countries visited? Girls kissed? I like to think I’m a year wiser than I was last year, though I could probably find you a fair few people who would disagree with that, perhaps adamantly. My chess game is better, though still not that good. I know a lot more about afropop music than I did a year ago this time. My chopstick skills were always pretty fierce, but they’ve gotten better as well. I’m older, though still young enough that there isn’t too much sign of that on my body. I took up smoking again, that was pretty stupid-I imagine a scan of my lungs would show an unfortunate decline. GS: In our last interview you mentioned that you had a three-book deal. How is the last one coming along? DP: It comes, it comes. I sent it out to my editor maybe a

week back, so we’ll be moving into revisions pretty soon. GS:Once book three is out there, what next for Daniel Polansky? Do you have other worlds and other characters you would like to explore? Will we see more of Low Town from a different perspective, or will The Warden return for another kicking? DP: I’m pretty sure that book three will put a cap on the world of Low Town, for now at least. It’s an ugly place, you don’t want to stick around too long! I’ve got a lot of other ideas that I’m looking forward to giving fuller shrift to, though none at this point that are quite yet ready to discuss. GS: Thank you for your time. I look forward to reading the next book!

Dion Winton-Polak

Geek Syndicate

COMIC REVIEW - Serenity: Those Left Behind 2nd Ed. Hard Cover have in the ‘verse. Whedon believed he had a great story to tell, and though those good folks at Fox messed with the TV schedule and ended the run before all episodes were shown, they gave him another shot with the feature film, Serenity. Wonderful film.

Writers: Joss Whedon & Brett Matthews Artist: Will Conrad Colourist: Laura Martin Cover Artist: Adam Hughes Publisher: Dark Horse Comics

The Blurb: The ragtag crew of Serenity— mercenaries, fugitives, and one law-abiding prostitute pursue fast cash and a little peace along the fringes of space. On a scavenger mission that promises a big payoff, they realize too late that they are being played by an old enemy with a grudge.

The Review: Joss Whedon’s Firefly will, as all good geeks know, go down in the annals of Television history as one of the greatest shows that was cancelled before its time. As all good geeks also know, it featured the best rag-tag bunch of reprobates and misfits aiming to misbe-

Those Left Behind is set between the TV series and the film, and is the story of how Inara left Serenity and why Shepherd Book did. It features all the main crew and a few old favourites from the TV show. Whedon is joined by show writer Brett Matthews and the art is by Will Conrad, who has also drawn Buffy comics, as well as X-Men, Conan, New Avengers, Birds of Prey and many more. Our story begins, as many seem to, with crime going wrong: Mal, Jayne and Zoe in a face off and Wash needing to rescue them. Only this time, Book gets involved with the wrong-doing. Back on the ship, tension is rising over Inara’s scheduled departure and Mal’s insistence on avoiding the topic. Meanwhile, on Whitefall, the Hands of Blue are still on River’s trail. They come across an old adversary of the crew and surprisingly join forces. Back on Persephone, Badger recruits Mal for a job by dangling the war as temptation. Off they go to the wreckage of the space battle, in time to fall into the Hands’ trap. Without revealing the conclusion, some daring-do ensues and the set up for the film is revealed.

In a book designed for fans, Whedon and Matthews pull off a stunning tale, linking everything nicely between small and silver screens. All the best bits and fan favourites are touched upon or mentioned. Most of the characters have parts to play, with typical Whedonesque dialogue. Serenity plays her part too. There is typical antagonism between Zoe and Jayne and you can feel the strain between Mal and Inara. Only Simon’s role falls noticeably short, but this isn’t really his story. Instead, the writers show how Book loses his faith in his ability to function on the ship. The characters are all well drawn by Conrad, slightly off from how the actors all look, but that’s good. It gives the comic its own character. I like that. The ‘verse looks true to the screen versions and Serenity is, of course, beautiful. Kudos, also, then to Laura Martin for the colours, and some nice full-page character sketches from a variety of artists. In this, Dark Horse’s second edition, you’ll find some nice extras previously only available in the limited deluxe edition. These include Joss Whedon’s “A brief history of the universe, circa 2516,” concept art and costume designs. Those Left Behind is everything a fan would want from a Serenity comic book, although it might leave non-fans confused and even cold.

Ian J Simpson Rating:

GGGGG 47

Geek Syndicate

EVENT REVIEW - Destination Star Trek London the past few years.

The Review: “It’s been a long road, getting from there to here” are the words that open the Star Trek: Enterprise theme tune and in this case they seem most fitting as it truly has been a very long time since the last official Star Trek Convention. The last two I can remember are the Star Trek Nemesis event in Hyde Park but not really a convention as such and before that was Voyager The Return in Blackpool celebrating the end of the Voyager series of which I attend both. Although there have been a lot of conventions that have featured the cast and crew of the various Star Trek incarnations, Destination Star Trek London was the first official convention in the UK for a decade. The expectations for this event were set very high by the fans and also the event organisers as no one really knew if there was still a market for a Star Trek only convention. The venue wasn’t a hotel up north somewhere or near Heathrow as many seem to be but rather this one was located in London at the Excel Centre which has been home to lots of multimedia conventions or EXPO’s covering various genres over

The organisers needed to pull something truly amazing out of their bag of tricks and they succeeded by getting all five captains of the TV series in the UK for the first and possibly last time ever. This was a huge draw for Star Trek fans all over the UK and the rest of Europe. William Shatner, Patrick Stewart, Avery Brooks, Kate Mulgrew and Scott Bakula have appeared on stage a few times before but only in America. This was only the beginning of the guest list which contained cast and crew from all over Trek.

To give you an idea of the guest list attending over the three days were Walter Koening, Brent Spiner, JG Hertzler, Robert O’Reilly, Dominic Keating, Connor Trinner, Robin Curtis, Chase Masterson, Casey Biggs, Jeffery Combs, Marc Alimo, Denise Crosby, John De Lancie, David Warner, Rene Auberjonois, Nana Visitor, Ronald D Moore, Brannon Braga, Ira Steven Behr, Michael Dorn,

Andrew Robinson, Anthony Montgomery, Martha Hacket and more! With the above in mind, the venue used a varied option of prices ranging from £29 for just basic entry to the event, to over £2,000 for VIP tickets and a range in-between. The packages allowed a broad range of options that started with the entry and entry to free talks and then as the price goes up you could get autographs and photo shots with the stars. As with a lot of conventions there is always queuing and it seemed that the system was working well at DSTL as I did not hear many complaints from the attendees about the queues. The talks themselves were split into three areas, with the main stage reserved for the opening ceremony and the five captain’s talk and also the solo captains talks over the Saturday and Sunday. Then there was Stage B where the cast were giving talks in either solo acts or as groups from shows. The lastly there was Stage C which was for other topics including the costume parade, a make-up demonstration and a “creating the Enterprise” panel. The main stage was a paid ticket entry only and hosted by another famous Captain. Jack Harkness or rather, John Barrowman was on fine and cheeky form throughout, even making Scott Bakula sign his bum to make up for Scott never having been asked any strange request by fans! The rest of the talk was a dream 53

Geek Syndicate

come true for European Star Trek fans including me who was taking in the moment knowing that I will most likely never get this chance again. The individual talks were also very entertaining but in very different ways ranging from the deep and meaningful Brooks to the powerful and determined Mulgrew; then Bakula’s singing and Stewart being the true British gentleman. But of course the best (for me) was always going to be William Shatner and he did not disappoint even when he defended his favourite film Star Trek V which after his impassioned talk I will actually go back and watch. The other talks on Stage B were at times much more fun and more intimate but also there was a downside to this but more on that later. The talks were either what I would call major B talent like Walter Koening, Brent Spiner and John De Lancie, then we also we had group talks themed as the ladies of trek, the DS9 cast, Klingons, The Dominion and Enterprise. You can guess who was in what based on the attendee’s listed above. My favourite one of these had to have been the Enterprise gang of Dominic Keating, Connor Trinner and Anthony Montgomery who were truly mad and on fire and the whole au54

dience was in hysterics. These guys have a stage act that just seems to show true friendship. A close second was the Klingons represented by JG Hertzler and Robert O’Reilly, Micheal Dorn had his own solo talk. Hertzler and O’Reilly came along with their Bat’leth shaped guitars and seemed to enjoy behaving like Klingon and enjoying life to the max. The DS9 cast always seem to be more serious than any other cast from other shows. Maybe this is because their show was more serious. The Dominion was in force with Casey Biggs, Jeffery Combs and Marc Alimo who talked a lot about playing the bad guys and also Shakespeare. Stage C was aimed at the behind scenes of trek with talks from the Producers and crew. Every day the first session was to meet the team at SFX magazine with the audience asking questions about life as a journalist or how the internet has changed how they do their job. Other talks included meet the producers from all the shows of which my favourite were the talks with Ronald D Moore who always gives amazing insight into how it all started and the various challenges. Also on stage C were talks with the owner of the Star Trek Museum in Germany and a lesson on how to apply Klingon makeup. The last stage was the Stunt Stage which had some debates about the best of each of the various Trek shows and the evolution of the fan. These were medley entertaining and I wish they had more interaction and more attendance. The reason you had the

Stunt stage was because there was a paid Stunt show which I watched some of but unfortunately this was far from a Star Trek stunt show as it was really a group of young guys doing flips and parkour but wearing various coloured Star Trek tops. This just seemed wrong to me and I was expecting to see Klingon bat’leth training fights etc or how to take a fall from a Phaser blast. As every good convention goer knows one of other key parts of the con is what you can buy. At DSTL there were some good quality stalls which ranged from official merchandise to a £100 replica of the original series Phaser. As always Forbidden Planet were there with Star Trek themed items for purchase and from what I could see it was always rammed in the small area they were allocated. There was also a collectables stall that you could buy those hard to find items at a high price. Along with these types of stalls we also had The Official Star Trek Magazine and SFX both offering special rates for new subscribers. One stand that I loved was the Star Trek Official Starships Collection which launches in the new year. These miniatures of the various ships in Star Trek looked and felt lovely and I highly recommend you look out for them when they launch. Star Trek games have always been hit or miss and at DSTL we had both video and board games represented. The creators of Star Trek the Game were

on hand showcasing a 10 min presentation of the video game out next year. The game is set between the 2009 movie and Star Trek Into Darkness and judging by what I saw it is going to be awesome. There were two café bar areas in the hall one designed as the Federation zone that had a Borg and some cool set designs from TNG but the batter one by far was the Klingon Zone which was amazing and totally realistic. They were even selling Cornish pasties for some reason… On the Friday we were treated to the first ever Klingon wedding by a couple from Sweden who look very happy (or grumpy as Klingons are) as they cut into their Borg shaped wedding cake. You could also sit in a Klingon throne or hit the Klingon gong. One huge highlight was the bridge shoot. The German owner of the Star Trek museum had brought over his full size replica of the Original Series bridge and people had their pictures taken in the Captains chair or Chekov’s seat. This looked and felt amazing and everyone who saw this came out smiling. Another part of the collection was the actual Museum area which had props costumes and even a life size Phaser Cannon from Enterprise. This was all cool to see but far too small for people gettinto the mood however what we did see was interesting and gave you an great insight into how Star Trek was made.

Geek Syndicate

day I took part in a new World Record of the most people in one place wearing a costume from Star Trek. We gathered nearly 1,100 people in the main stage and proudly stood there for tem minutes to break the record. The costumes ranged from just a bought top to a brilliant Mugato and a six year old Orion girl. This really added to the atmosphere of the whole weekend and helped to make it the biggest ever Star Trek convention in the world.

Unlike most events at the Excel in London this time were treated to a party on both the Friday and the Saturday. Friday’s was a Klingon Ball serving Blood wine and Romulan Ale but Saturday’s was the one to be at. It was celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of The Next Generation and we were treated to some Jazz sung by Avery Brooks, then Chase Masterson sang a few songs and even Dominic Keating did some stand up comedy. While this was all going on you could also have a go on the bumper cars or the inflatable laser arena. This was a great added bonus to the convention and I only wish I could have stayed longer at both parties. So after telling what worked at

the convention what can they do to improve it for next time? well here are some thoughts

At the parties how about some large screens for people to watch stuff on, how about some more stands like ones with books and then maybe get the authors down as well. A screening room is a huge draw and a way for people to chill out and also maybe have some board games running and not just the 1 demo table next time. Put some more photo ops like the Borg statue maybe have some of the cardboard cut outs. How about a Klingon academy area and also have some screens outside the free talks so people who cannot get in can still see the talks. Overall though I thought this was a truly once in a life time event and the organisers did an amazing job and I really hope they carry on doing Star Trek conventions for many years to come if they start here they can only get better. Live long and prosper!

Christophe Montoya Rating:

GGGGG

As with all conventions, there was a lot of Cosplay where people dress up. On the Satur55

Geek Syndicate

TV REVIEW - Warehouse 13 Season 4, Episodes 01-02

Episode 1: A New Hope

The final episode of season 3 saw three out of the seven team members dead. The entire Warehouse 13 destroyed, the Bad Guy – Walter Sykes – successfully escaping, and did I mention that the Warehouse was utterly destroyed? The first episode of season 4 opens exactly where the season 3 finale finished. The remaining team members go on whirlwind globe spanning treasure-hunt, all on a tight deadline, in a desperate attempt to save the warehouse. Read on for the full review – and beware, there are spoilers! Remember how last season’s finale was so shockingly dark? Remember how the pace never let up even for second? Well episode one of the new season continues at that heart pumping pace. Warehouse 13 has never shied away from the darker implications of the show mythos.

Most of the thirty-two-odd artefacts which were ‘bagged and tagged’ from season 3 had remarkably nasty abilities. The dead agents B&B bedroom archive, is testament to the fact that warehouse agents are more likely to die in the line of duty than peacefully retire. Still, as a comedy / drama the season 3 ending to the show took a big dramatic bite out of its audience and dragged us all to a very dark place. The season finale saw Jinx dead leaving Claudia inconsolably angry, the Warehouse itself reduced to scattered embers, Mrs. Frederic a desiccated husk, and H.G. Wells burnt alive in a sacrificial yet Heroic gambit to save the lives of Arti, Pete and Myka. There was a tiny sliver of hope in Arti’s final words “not yet .., ” but I can’t be the only fan who thought ‘Well it was good while it lasted, but there ain’t no coming back from THAT’. I was convinced the writers had written themselves into a deep well, and that it would be almost impossible to claw their way out without fundamentally changing the show. The switch had been flipped from comedy to dramedy to downright tragedy. I guessed that some kind of ‘reset button’ artefact would have to be used in the opening of season 4, but the way the show managed to keep on ramping up the ‘wtf’ moments right until the very end was masterful. Before the end of episode one, Pete was dead, Claudia was

buried alive, Myka had been arrested, the entire world had descended into all out endof-days type chaos, and Arti felt he had no choice but to use an artefact to restore the warehouse – no matter what the personal cost to him. The globe-trotting, the fighting with a shadowy sect of Priests, Pete’s death, Claudia’s entombment, and finally Arti’s decision to make (what might be) the ultimate personnel sacrifice, all amounted to a superb head-rush of a season opener. The fact that it was Sykes rage and not the bomb that had to be diffused was a nice touch and a neat twist. Having H.G. Wells again under Regency care is also a nice touch and leaves the actress Jamie Murray with a nice way back into the show. I look forward to next week and am eager to see what the fallout from saving the Warehouse is going to be. Arti is (presumably) the only person alive who remembers the ‘undone’ twenty four hour period. How will that knowledge weigh on his mind? Hopefully now that time has been reversed we’ll see more of Brother Adrian (guest star Brent Spiner). After all the Brotherhood of the Black Diamond Priests dedicated their lives to protection of an artefact, so tracking down who stole it will probably be the organisations new focus. The hints that Claudia (or at least someone who looks like her) may be this season Big bad is intriguing.

Geek Syndicate

Artefacts:

U-Terbium Chamber, Pandora’s Box, (globe-spanning) Football, Barbosa’s watch, Ferdinand Magellan’s Astrolabe, Gandhi’s Dhoti, British House of Commons Masonry from the WWII Blitz Travelogue: Richerenches, France. Rapid City, South Dakota. St. Peter’s Tomb, Vatican City – Rome. Best Lines: Pete: “Now I know he’s lost it. He never watches television.” Arti: “The internet is a distant second to the Football.” Claudia: “This is nuts. Is it bigger than an baguette? Is it an antique corkscrew? Napoleon’s original pastry? I mean it could be anything!” Claudia: “They made us read the bible a lot in the psych hospital. I think it’s how they kept their funding.”

Episode 2: An Evil Within

Localised group hallucinations are causing people to commit spontaneous group murder in Philadelphia. Pete and Myka investigate, leaving Arti to track down an AWOL Claudia and dissuade her from her mission to use an artefact. 58

Claudia is determined to go against Arti’s specific warnings and use the Metronome artefact to resurrect a loved one. Arti’s secret starts to gnaw away at him, causing him to research what the consequences of his own use of an artefact might ultimately be. If I had to use just one word to sum up this episode, I would have to say that it is very… dense. So much happens, and so much of that has the potential to have such far-reaching consequences for all the characters that it’s difficult to take it all in. In episode one, Arti saved the Warehouse using an artefact that could reverse time. A side effect of using the artefact is that everyone’s memories are also reset for a specific timeframe. Memory reset doesn’t effect the artefact wielder, so only they remember what was done, how, and why. Now, an unspecified amount of time has passed and Claudia is AWOL. Arti is still having daydream premonitions of Claudia chasing, then stabbing him with an ornate dagger (which may or may not be an artefact.) Pete and Myka visit Philadelphia to investigate an artefact that is causing group hallucinations resulting in murder. Brother Adrian (from the Brotherhood of the Black Diamond Priests) visits Arti at the B&B. Brother Adrian knows about the Warehouse and needs Arti’s help in tracking down a powerful artefact that was somehow mysteriously stolen from the care of the Brotherhood. Despite years of necessary subterfuge archiv-

ing artefacts, Arti seems particularly useless at hiding his own ulterior motives. Brother Adrian is adamant that artefact the thief has to be found, and that the time reversal caused by the Astrolabe must be undone – regardless of the consequences. Brother Adrian informs Arti that whoever used the Astrolabe has created a unique and vast (yet annoyingly vague) evil which will haunt and eventually destroy them. The last recorded use of the Astrolabe happened during the French revolution of 1700, causing something now know as ‘The Reign of Terror.’ Meanwhile, driven by resourcefulness, grief and determination, Claudia has found the Regent H.Q. and breaks in to retrieve poor Steve’s corpse. With Regent Jane’s help (recurring guest star Kate Mulgrew), and despite Arti’s vocal disagreement, Claudia is granted permission to use the Metronome to reanimate Steve. We later find out that Regent Jane went against the wider Council to help Claudia, and the repercussions of that decision remain to be explored. In order to resurrect him, Claudia’s fate becomes tied to Steve in ways yet unknown. Even the Regents don’t know what the repercussions/costs of using the Metronome are. Last weeks episode was so heavy and tightly written that this week had a hard act to follow. Though not as fast and furious as the season opener, episode 2 manages to juggle being a good stand alone episode as well as progressing the shows longer arc plot-points.

This week’s artefact required heavy use of CGI, and TV budgets can often be let down by the need for extensive computer graphics. Fortunately, as a portrayal of group hallucinations the effects hold up pretty well. Because of its age and horrific surreal-ness, Lovecraft is not for everyone, and it’s refreshing to see a literature-based artefact that Myka is *not* an expert on. H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos is pervasive enough that even the vast majority of people haven’t read the original (or derivative) works, yet still know that Cthulhu=tentacles. Cephalopods are one of the few truly alien non-insect species on earth- all tentacles and bulgy eyes. Myka’s aversion to anything with tentacles feels like a plot driven quirk, but doesn’t seem too contrived. The ‘main’ storyline – Pete and Myka chasing an artefact – is unfortunately not as engaging as the ‘side’ plots involving Claudia and Arti. Artefacts being used as tools of revenge is a running theme in the world of Warehouse 13. In this instance, the artefact itself seems to have no immediate negative effect on the owner/user. This seems the exception to the rule that artefact use always has negative (and usually long-lasting) effect on those using it. So far, this episode has strong themes running through it relating to personal responsibility, personal sacrifice, and the repercussions of individual actions. Steve’s reaction to being reanimated by an artefact is understandable and the reckoning scene between Claudia and Steve is subtle, yet

Geek Syndicate

powerful. Whatever her intentions, Claudia seems to have doomed Steve to become a sort of living artefact. It’s interesting how both Claudia’s and the ‘artefact-of-the-week’ plot intersect. Both see the use of artefacts caused directly by the grief of losing a loved one.

ticking.

Brent Spiner – as recurring guest character Brother Adrian – will be a character worth paying close attention to. The audience, and Arti, know that the Brotherhood will stop at nothing to protect the Astrolabe artefact. If/when Brother Adrian detects that Arti is deceiving him, will the soft-spoken man of the cloth turn nasty? Would the Regents back up Arti’s use of an artefact in extreme circumstances?

Brother Adrian: “As I said I work with the Vatican. We know an awful lot of things about… An awful lot of things.”

All of the major cast have their moment to shine, but for me Arti takes the spotlight. Arti’s secret is weighing heavily on him and the character is slowly becoming a bundle of guilty ticks and half-finished mumblings. Now that Steve – the human lie detector – is back as part of the team, surely it’s only a matter of time before Arti’s secret comes out?

Travelogue: Philadelphia. Regent Châtelet (Regent H.Q.). Best Lines:

Claudia: “If you could use an artefact, to set something right – to undo a huge stupid tragedy wouldn’t you do it?” Claudia: “ Y’know a lot of people experience clinical death for a few minutes. [You were dead for ] … 4,320 [minutes].”

“Faintdreams”

It’s only episode two and this show already can’t be missed. Artefacts: A Silver Key belonging to H.P. Lovecraft: After touching it victims are seen by all others as giant hideous Cephalopod / Cthulhu-esque creatures. Johann Maelzel’s Metronome: Using a specific ritual allows this artefact to bring back to life a single deceased person. That person will stay alive as long at the metronome keeps 59

Geek Syndicate

STAGE REVIEW - One Man Lord of the Rings two minutes into the show and that voice was silenced forever. Ross once again proves just how accomplished a performer he is and how much in love with his chosen subject matter he is. With just a slight change in voice, stance or flick of the hair he is able to switch effortlessly between Gandalf , Frodo, Gollum, Legolas and many other characters we know and love in a heartbeat.

Charlie Ross’ One Man Lord of the Rings comes to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Remember when you were kid and you used to play act your way through a scene from Star Wars or Superman or Batman? If the answer is no then you should try it…great stress reliever. If, however, you are one of those who like me whose Parka would double as cape and cowl to reenact Batman’s latest adventure then this review is dedicated to you. I first saw Charlie Ross when he came to my town with his one man Star Wars stage show. It was a dazzling performance of the original trilogy that left me believing in the force as that was the only way Ross could have effectively pulled off such a fantastic performance in reducing those films to an hour. As I settled down to watch Ross’ attempt to tackle Frodo and co’s filmic quest to destroy the one ring a small Gollum – like voice whispered in my ear ’he can’t do it again my precious, he can’t’. About 60

Ross is like a whirling dervish on stage performing all the sound effects, musical cues and actions himself. It is impossible not to still be swept up in Gandalf confrontation with the Balrog, the battle at Helm’s Deep or the Ride of the Rohirrim. You almost forget it is one man up on stage at times. Rather than just doing a shot for shot performance of the films (with the occasional suggestion to read the Simarillion) Ross is able to inject a lot of humour into his performance but at no point do you

feel like he is disrespecting the source material. I especially loved the way he reminded the audience when it was time to change the DVD. Of all the characters in the show that Charlie performs his Gollum is a rendition that should have Andy Serkiss quaking in his boots although his Legolas and Denethor coming in a close second. I could go on and on about how much I enjoyed the show but the standing ovation that the humble Ross received at the end should speak volumes and yes I was one of those standing. One Man Lord of the Rings is a thrilling rendition of the middle earth saga told one man ,who may or may not be a wizard, that will delight and amaze fans of the films.

Barry Nugent Rating:

GGGGG

Geek Syndicate

COMIC REVIEW - Grandville: Bete Noire

Writer: Bryan Talbot Artist: Bryan Talbot Publisher: Jonathan Cape (UK) & Dark Horse Comics (USA)

The Blurb: At Toad Hall, lair of multibillionaire Baron Aristotle Krapaud, a cabal of industrialists and fat cats plot the violent overthrow of the French state by the intervention of horribly beweaponed automaton soldiers. Meanwhile, the brutal murder of a famous Parisian artist, mysteriously stabbed to death in his locked and guarded studio, is subject to the investigations of the tenacious Detective Inspector LeBrock of Scotland Yard, placing him and his faithful adjunct, Detective Sergeant Roderick Ratzi, in pursuit of the mysterious masked assassin stalking the cut-throat commercial world of the Grandville art scene. Bête Noire signals the welcome return to anthropomorphic steampunk detective fic-

tion of master storyteller and graphic novel pioneer Bryan Talbot with the third standalone volume of the Eisner and Hugo Award nominated Grandville series. As the body count mounts and events spiral exponentially out of control, aided by his brilliant deductive abilities and innate ferocity, LeBrock battles against outrageous odds in this funny, high octane thriller, an adventure shot through with both high art and comic book references, a glorious illegitimate offspring of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Ian Fleming - with animals!

The Review: There is something refreshingly different about Bryan Talbot’s “Grandville” series. For a starter, there is the format solid, hardcover volumes that radiate production quality and look great on your bookshelf, casually dominating whatever soft-cover series has the misfortune to be stacked next to it. Secondly the artwork, glorious full colour illustrations featuring a diverse cast of anthropomorphic animals in a steampunkesque world. And finally, the stories themselves, a mix of conspiracy-crimethriller and all-out action starring a tough-talking Badger Detective named LeBrock. Grandville: Bete Noire is the third in the series, and this time the story takes its inspiration from the Bond series, with a Master Villain, secret lairs, and a nefarious plan to take over, well, everything. Along the way it takes in Robots, Dough-

boy (humans, in this world a menial underclass) Rights, Art Theory and finds the time for more depth to be added to its recurring cast. It definitely builds on the earlier volumes but at the same time I don’t think you’d need to be familiar with them to understand the characters or their relationships. This time, Inspector LeBrock is headed back to Paris (the titular “Grandville”) at the request of an old friend to investigate a baffling “locked room” murder. Along with Roderick, his able assistant, he soon uncovers a wider conspiracy aimed at the heart of the French Government. I don’t want to say too much more, but the Bondinfluence is strong, though not too dominating and Billie, returning from Grandville: Mon Amour, makes for a great Bond Girl and proves more than capable of holding her own both physically and emotionally. It is no great revelation (it’s right at the start) that the villain of the piece is Toad of Toad Hall, a great choice and one that feels seamlessly “right”, not least because of the acknowledged similarity to the Baron Greenback from Dangermouse. His plan is grandiose and maybe a little silly, although a nice afterword gives some context to it, equating it to real-world events. As you’d expect from Talbots work there is a huge amount of background nods to other comics and movies too, and spotting them is definately a private joy that adds to the books. 61

Geek Syndicate

The art is fabulous - this is a book featuring talking animals, so each shot is hugely diverse, but it’s also played straight, without ever winking at the “camera”, so you’re never broken out of the reality of the world. As story switches from talking, to shooting and running and driving, the panel layout and framing changes up appropriately too to reflect the swings of pace. It must have taken forever to plot out,

no wonder these volumes are a couple of years apart. In the end, the Grandville series feels like little else out there at the moment, both in terms of its look and feel, and in terms of its confidence in being its own thing. Bete Noire is not only a great addition to the series, it also takes some time to setup plot lines for future volumes interspersed through the story, continuing

“through lines” across the run. I can’t wait for the next one already!

Matt Farr Rating:

GGGGG A Four Page Preview of Grandville: Bette Noire (courtesy of Dark Horse Comics) begins on the next page.

Geek Syndicate

DAY OUT REVIEW - Warner Bros. Movie Park: Germany

The Review: Statement of fact: most Brits don’t holiday in Germany. I know this from the strange looks I get on the first day of the school term, when I tell all the other parents that I took my family to Germany for the summer holidays. But, if like me you’re sick of the crazy queues & high costs at EuroDisney, Alton Towers (i.e. the usual tourist traps) etc, then read on… Movie Park is Warner Bros’ answer to Disney’s Paris resort: a huge theme park just on the outskirts of Dusseldorf. We’ve been going for a couple of years now, and if you asked my family to choose between Movie Park and EuroDisney, Warner Bros wins hands down.

The park is set up as typical mock street scenes or backdrops to movies, particularly of a US city bent. The organization is typically ‘Germanic’ (I’m allowed to say that because I’m in Germany every month!), and by that I mean everything works – perfectly. Even in the last two weeks of July / first two weeks of August (peak time German holidays) we never queued for more than half an hour for any ride or attraction. That said, if you go in the last two weeks of August, you quite literally have the whole park to yourself. In terms of language, apart from maybe a little Dutch (and we are very close to the Holland border here), English is very wide-spread: it never ceases to amaze me that in the most obscure village, locals will still converse with me in pretty much word-perfect English; in short, you can get around with no spoken German whatsoever.

Entrance to Movie Park is relatively cheap: a two-day park ticket costs around €49.50. Alternatively, there some are great deals with local hotels, whereby you can get a double room with substantial breakfast buffet & tickets for 2 days admission to the park, starting at around €65 per person – we recommend the Hotel Gladbeck van der Valk, which is only 10 km (15 mins drive) away. Oh, and even during the height of summer, flying to Dusseldorf is cheap – BA, Lufthansa and EasyJet all fly to Dusseldorf. EasyJet will do you return tickets for about £70 if you book a few months in advance.

Find out more at http://www. movieparkgermany.de/en/, More photos from the park follow!

Ronald Singh Rating:

GGGGG

So first of all, content. It’s a theme park, with a cinematic theme. There are plenty of rides for all ages, including some real “white-knucklers”. The park is also home to some great setpieces, including a two liveaction stunt shows and the new “Ice-Age 4D” cinema experience. On top of the fun and adventures, there is a museum with plenty of historical cinema heirlooms and props. The museum was where I had my treasured meeting with the Bat-Pod!). 67

Geek Syndicate

COMIC REVIEW - Star Wars Agent of the Empire: Iron Eclipse more than a little to On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and I’m perfectly okay with that. Normally when picking up a licensed comic there’s a great sense of trepidation as, let’s be honest, the shelves of your local comic shop are littered with big name books which are small on quality. In this instance any such worries are unfounded as Agent of the Empire is a quality combination of the Star Wars universe and the action spy genre made famous by Bond and Bourne.

Writer: John Ostrander Pencillers: Stéphane Roux & Stéphane Créty Inker: Julien Hugonnard-Bert Colourist: Wes Dzioba Publisher: Dark Horse Comics

The Blurb: Imperial power is at its height. With Palpatine on the throne and his chief enforcer, Darth Vader, leading fleets of Star Destroyers and legions of stormtroopers across the galaxy, the Empire is an unstoppable force for order and peace. But not every political problem requires military might; not every negotiation depends on a show of force. Sometimes all diplomacy needs to succeed is the right man, in the right place, with the willingness to get the job done. No matter what it takes. Collects Star Wars: Agent of the Empire— Iron Eclipse #1–#5.

The Review: This Star Wars spin-off owes 70

Set in the period between the Clone Wars and the original trilogy this story centres on an agent of Imperial Intelligence, Jahan Cross. In a very Bondian way we’re introduced to him as one case comes to a close and we have the requisite action scene before the trumpets blare and we get the credits. Such references to the Bond movies are littered throughout and whilst not as knowing as those in the Fables Cinderella books they’re fun nonetheless. There’s even a moment where Cross adjusts cufflinks that he’s not even wearing, if that’s not a tip of the hat to Bond I don’t know what is! This first mission leads Jahan into the Commercial Sector undercover as a diplomat, following both his instincts and evidence. I found this an interesting idea, one that I’ve not seen elsewhere in my reading of the Expanded Universe (EU). The Commercial Sector seems to be where the Commerce Guilds run to at the end of the Clone Wars and is not considered part of Imperial space. This provides a sense of danger as Cross has no-one to turn to, until he bumps into a familiar

duo. I don’t think the story actually needed to crossover with the canonical characters in the way it does. It doesn’t suffer for it, but it seems unnecessary, the premise and Cross are interesting enough for me. But I can appreciate that cameos by big names will drive sales by those sceptical of the EU. In Jahan Cross we have a character that has a moral centre, we’re shown the events that lead him to become a “believer” in the Empire, and although as fans we realise how wrong he is to blame the Jedi and revere the Emperor I could certainly understand his position. I hope this is explored in further volumes. However, like Bond before him, he’s not afraid of a little amorality when it helps him get the job done, this is possibly the most risqué EU story I’ve seen in a comic. Don’t get carried away though, it’s all strictly PG. He’s also not afraid of making tough choices, there’s a moment I particularly enjoyed where he makes a decision that you wouldn’t see in your typically sentimental Hollywood movie. The art is strong throughout, the change of penciller is wellhandled and not at all jarring. Thankfully they don’t give into the temptation to overly photoreference the cameos of known characters, managing to capture their essence without relying on stock images from the era.

David WIlliams Rating:

GGGGG

Geek Syndicate

BOOK REVIEW - The House Of Rumour is as uncertain as the future. Just where does truth end and illusion begin? THE HOUSE OF RUMOUR is a novel of soaring ambition, a mind-expanding journey through the ideas that have put man on the moon yet brought us to the brink of self-destruction. What will you believe?

The Review:

Author: Jake Arnott Publisher: Hodder (Sceptre Imprint)

The Blurb: Larry Zagorski spins wild tales of fantasy worlds for pulp magazines. But as the Second World War hangs in the balance, the lines between imagination and reality are starting to blur. In London, spymasters enlist occultists in the war of propaganda. In Southern California, a charismatic rocket scientist summons dark forces and an SF writer founds a new religion. In Munich, Nazis consult astrologists as they plot peace with the West and dominion over the East. And a conspiracy is born that will ripple through the decades to come. The truth, it seems, is stranger than anything Larry could invent. But when he looks back on the 20th century, the past 74

If Dirk Gently stopped mucking about with gods and aliens, he’d have a field day with this one. What connects Ian Fleming, Aleister Crowley, the Jonestown massacre, Rocket Science, Rudolph Hess, Ovid, the New Romantics, L Ron Hubbard and the Cuban revolution? Science Fictopm writer Larry Zagorski just might have the answer. He’s put together the pieces of this unique puzzle in his latest story which bears a startling resemblance to Jake Arnott’s mind-blower of a novel sitting by my side here. Despite having finished this book about a month ago, my brain is still fizzing, so you’ll have to pardon me if this review seems a bit off-kilter. Let’s get the cards on the table first. This isn’t my usual kind of read. It’s probably not yours either, but it’ll have you hooked pretty damned quick. It’s a borderland book, hovering between the genres and their readership. That can be dangerous for any writer, but Jake Arnott has already proven his value with a string of successes. His latest work has Science Fiction elements,

toying with iconic writers in one of the plot strands and a UFO cult in another. Present day references like ‘Multiversal Studios’ indicate that it could be set in a parallel universe (though in reality it’s probably just a rights issue.) There’s spy stuff, sadomasochism and poignant love. The historical research and “whatif” scenarios give it a secrethistory vibe, with drug culture and pseudo-magical elements adding to the appeal for readers who like to peek behind the curtains of accepted Truth. The style is Literary, but it has a wild ragged edge which thrills as it slashes through your expectations. The central mystery is why, in 1941, Rudolph Hess climbed into an aeroplane and flew himself to Scotland, only to be immediately captured and imprisoned. The House Of Rumour is a private name for the secret service - which may (or may not) have manipulated events to pull off this WWII coup - but it is also a metaphor for the book itself, which in many ways feels like a collection of whispered tales: full of import and vital meaning, yet half heard and easily confused. A host of characters orbit the mystery, either as participants, observers or victims. None are wholly reliable, but all come across vividly. They are flawed, credulous, manipulative and often tragic beings, but they share a verisimilitude which I found refreshing. The conceit is that Larry Zagorski has come into possession of a Spymaster’s per-

sonal memoir of the case and (blending this with research, autobiographical detail and imaginative leaps) he has pulled together a complete narrative of events to explain the mystery. The structure of Arnott’s novel is audacious, laid out in sections to mirror a tarot deck. Each ‘card’ adds to our interpretation of the story, shedding new light on what we already know via new character perspectives and the wider context as the secret history develops. Amusingly, Arnott has Zagorski structure one of his own novels in the same way and then gives it mixed reviews, describing the work alternately as ‘a metafictional masterpiece’ and ‘a confused and self-indulgent mess.’ I presume he’s alluding to his own hopes and fears for how The House Of Rumour will be received. Each ‘card’ has a different tone or format. Some are first person, others third. There are reports, memoirs, articles. One segment is the last thoughts of a man as he falls to his death. I realise this could all sound horribly convoluted, but it plays out beautifully. The voices of these people ring out true. The

Geek Syndicate

conviction with which Arnott plays this game firmly asserts his mastery of the craft. The story stretches from just before that fateful journey right up to the present day, flipping back and forth as the dealer places each of the cards in front of us. Naturally, as a man who tells lies for a living, Arnott has rigged the deck, but that feeds right back in to his key themes of perception and manipulation. You won’t find buckets of action, alien conspiracies or the like here, but nor is this drab navel-gazing or poncy intellectualisation. It’s a fun and fascinating read, full of historical and cultural detail. The spy stuff is suitably thrilling, using Ian Fleming to both mirror and counterpoint Casino Royale. Aleister Crowley is revealed in all his sordid and crumbling majesty, still sharp enough to play his part for king and country. Back and forth the cards are flipped and before you know it we’re sharing drinks with Hubbard and Heinlein, plucking fantasies from the air whilst a Cuban poet dreams of revolution and Larry Zagorski tries to get it together with Mary-Lou Gunderson.

Some elements flit past one another unaware whilst others slot together satisfyingly. In the end though, the ‘truth’ is as much down to your interpretation as that of the shadowy man holding the deck. Who knows, it might (just might) all be true. Pleasingly this is one of those books that makes you immediately want to go back to the beginning to re-read the opening chapters, connecting up the final dots with a smile. Do yourself a favour and track this one down. This isn’t a book, it’s a revelation. You don’t just casually pick it up, whizz through it and start looking for the next bit of fluff. It’s too wide for your mind. It’s a spider’s web and you’re just a fly. It’s a game, a mystery of history laid out in front of you, teasing you with half-truths and outrageous lies. Want to know more? Then open the door and step inside… The House Of Rumour.

Dion Winton-Polak Rating:

GGGGG

Geek Syndicate

COMIC REVIEW - Darwin’s Diaries Vol. 2 the attacks has been killed. I particularly liked the panels on pages 4 & 5 panning round and round the workers as they are chivvied to vote for a return to work under the stern eyes of the management. It’s a real snapshot of the political reality that sent Darwin to Yorkshire in the first volume. The drab faces show that the workers recognise their place in the world and their ultimate lack of power, but their disquiet seeps through. They can’t quite believe that it’s over… and they’re right not to.

The Review:

As Darwin awaits the results of the creature’s post-mortem a new attack raises panic in the populace. The hatred and distrust for the neo-druids flares back into life and tensions turn to violence with breathtaking speed. Just how many of these beasts are there? The forces of science and reason make efforts to restore peace and discover the causes behind the terror but things spin further out of control as the victims pile up. Darwin’s behaviour is similarly degenerating, as the noble man of principle finds solace in the bottom of a bottle and comfort against the wall with a back alley whore. There is a curse on the land and the blight spreads its fingers everywhere, it seems.

The opening few pages neatly remind us of the set up from Volume One of this series with a series of vignettes showing the local community, the suspicious looking druids and the railroad construction workers reacting to the news that the unknown animal behind

The crowd scenes are full of life and movement, the figure work is solid and the landscapes are truly wonderful. There are touches like the dust behind the carriage and the light streaming from an open doorway into a darkened street which are remarkably well evoked by the colourist,

Authors: Runberg and Ocaña Publisher: Cinebook

The Blurb: With the beast killed by the soldiers, the strike ends and things seem to return to normal. But there are still some unanswered questions and lingering tensions, especially towards the neo-druids who live in the forest. The death of a young girl triggers a wave of aggression and more deaths. Is anyone controlling the ancient evil in the forests? And why, exactly, is the principled, family-minded Charles Darwin drowning his nights in gin and loose women?

Tariq Ballaoui. His work truly raises the quality of the book, in my opinion. The problem for me remains the mismatch between Ocaña’s hard linework and the depth and subtlety of the colourist’s art. A style is a style, but I can’t help feeling that a lighter touch on the lines (particularly on the people) would have improved things immesurably. I was impressed by the creature’s attacks. The sheer horror of its speed and the devastation it wreaks is wonderfully rendered. The artist doesn’t attempt to give definition and pose here to the creature. It is simply too quick. All we see is the blur, the bloody results and the looks of shocked incomprehension on the victims faces. This is really effective horror. How can you fight something you can barely see? How can you protect yourself from something so savage and powerful? It is a real pity that when we do get reasonably good looks at the beast it looks so, well… silly. If you’re going to have a monster story involving the world’s most famous biologist you’d better have a creature that seems like it could have actually evolved, no matter how outlandish. The action scenes are well choreographed. The dust-up between the druids and the mob is effective at showing both the chaos of a bareknuckle fight and the blunt brutality. There are elements which don’t quite work. The horses, mid-gallop are renderend somewhat bizarrely, and some of the poses mid-fight are just odd. I know that a snapshot of any action

scene can throw up visual peculiarities, but this is a drawing - the artist can choose precisely what point of action to capture. Why go for one that looks so odd when a couple of seconds before or after the ‘snapshot’ would retain the sense of movement but also look less weird? I don’t know. Maybe I’ve been spoiled by having all these books thrown at me for reviewing. It’s like sending the caviar back because it was poorly stacked on the toast. In this volume considerably more time and effort is given over to developing the plot than the characters, and I found my interest waning because of it. It would be one thing if the plot elements started to become clearer but, for instance, the relationship of the druids to the mystery is no more expanded upon than the origins of the ‘clawed

Geek Syndicate

ones’ or the reason behind the attacks. A couple of theories are vaguely tossed about, but no answers solidify. Darwin is becoming less and less appealing as a protagonist; not so much a feisty investigator as a sullen and arrogant brute, throwing his weight around. Of course there are certain reasons behind this and the reveal at the end sheds a great deal of light on his recent behaviour. If anything though, more questions are raised. Either the characters need to be seriously developed in the next volume or more answers need to be given to the central mystery, otherwise I can see the readership tiring of this murky tale - a great shame after such a promising beginning.

I do have to wonder now whether my enthusiasm for Volume 1 was, at least in part, due to the novelty of foreign comics to me at the time. Be-

fore I started writing these reviews I just knew Tin-Tin and Asterix The Gaul. Whilst I hold Hergé, Goscinny and Uderzo dear to my childhood heart, neither title could compare with the thrill power of 2000AD, or the narrative might of Marvel and DC. Now, having seen much more of the scope and quality available through publishers like Cinebook I found myself less impressed by Darwin’s Diaries Vol. 2. I realise I’ve been a little harsh here. Over all it is a pretty good book, and it maintains both the artistic and narrative quality of volume 1. Unfortunately it just cannot compare to the likes of The Scorpion, XIII, Long John Silver and Largo Winch.

Dion Winton-Polak Rating:

G G G GG

Geek Syndicate

FILM REVIEW - Skyfall

Geek Syndicate

undervalued series entry) and carries on with the twentythird (official) Bond film but with a slight shift. This being the fiftieth anniversary of the film franchise Skyfall explores not just Bond’s character and history, but the Bond Series’ character and history.

Writer: Neal Purvis, Robert Wade & John Logan Director: Sam Mendes Starring: Daniel Craig, Helen McCrory & Ralph Fiennes

References to the past abound; from the obvious (the fan favourite Aston Martin gets a couple of gags sure to please), the slightly more obscure (the palm print gun was briefly and just as pointlessly utilized in License to Kill) and the perhaps unintended (a remote Scottish Lodge reminded me, at least, of the hunting lodge in the 1967 spoof Casino Royale).

The Blurb: Bond’s loyalty to M is tested as her past comes back to haunt her. As MI6 comes under attack, 007 must track down and destroy the threat, no matter how personal the cost.

The Review: For over forty years the 007 films were never really about Bond, occasionally a personal detail would emerge, License to Kill cannily tied its revenge plot into Bond’s distant (real time wise anyway) past but just as an unexamined parallel.

The film also plays out as if Craig has a lot more time under his belt than just the two adventures we have seen him on. It’s thoroughly preoccupied that Craig (and Judi Dench’s M) is past his prime in a way that, say, A View to a Kill never was even with Moore huffing his way up the Eiffel Tower.

With Daniel Craig and Casino Royale that all changed – there was a concerted effort to explore what makes Bond tick. This continued into Quantum of Solace (so much so that the bad guy’s plot is almost inconsequential in this highly

Beginning in Istanbul (and doing more with ten minutes there than Taken 2 does in it’s entire running time) it establishes a gruff Craig and an ‘anything to get the job done’ Dench at slight odds whilst delivering a clean (critics of

Quantum of Solace’s action sequences should be happy) fun, but not exactly pulse quickening, action aesthetic that carries throughout. One set piece, later in the film, is a work of art, a neon and shadow spectacle that delivers on the promise of having Roger Deakins as Director of Photography (expect to see his name in almost as many of the reviews as Director Sam Mendes). It is quite some time before Javier Bardem enters the film and he is perhaps the strangest Bond villain since Christopher Walken. It’s a showy often camp performance, but Bardem has a quiet intensity that never lets it become cartoonish. Perhaps as a response to the previous film, the script works hard to make Bardem tie into the characters of Skyfall and forward the plot, Indeed everything seems keyed in to playing the themes of the movie, from the lighting on up (it’s no coincidence that the film starts with Craig in darkness) through the dialogue. Craig continues his excellent turn as the world’s least secret agent and Judi Dench really has a chance to shine with a story that involves more than her just grimly giving orders.

Geek Syndicate

There is some slack. A little of the plotting is sloppy (it relies a touch too much on ‘magic computers’), a confrontation with a Komodo Dragon seems out of place and the ending works on a thematic level (very well) but lacks a bit of punch. It’s also fairly backwards looking, a musical sting accompa-

nying the Aston Martin seems a little like patting itself on the back instead of getting on with the job and slightly oddly the whole thing functions as a Bond Begins Again. Again. With things such as the return of Q (splendidly played by Ben Whishaw) and a slightly more quippy Bond it’s a moving of

the franchise into what many may think is it’s classic position.

David Smith Rating:

GGGGG

Geek Syndicate

TV REVIEW - Doctor Who Series 7, Episodes 01-05 without being spoiler-woilery.

Episode 1: Asylum of the Daleks

The Blurb Kidnapped by his oldest foe, the Doctor is forced on an impossible mission – to a place even the Daleks are too terrified to enter. The Review After a longer than usual wait, the good Doctor returned to our screens on the first of September 2012 to an encounter with his old, old foes: The Daleks. I’ve been a bit critical of Dalek tales since the series’ return, while I liked their 2005 look, I felt that other than in Dalek, we didn’t get a “proper” Dalek story. Does Moffat’s opener break this chain for me? Read on to find out! The iPlayer summaries are getting shorter and shorter and I’m sure next week’s will just be the episode’s title! So here’s a bit more plot to go on,

Following the events of Pond Life (the final episode of which leads directly into the Ponds’ story for this episode and so is worth watching), the Doctor is mysteriously summoned to the Dalek homeworld by a distress call aimed directly at him. Events lead him, Rory and Amy (because records indicate the Doctor requires Companions) to a planet housing the Daleks that are too insane even for the Daleks. The ones the “Dalek Prime Minister” can’t control which include some Classic Series Daleks. Basically, the Daleks are worried because a ship crashed into the planet – and if something can get through their force-shield then something can also get out. And no one wants a planet’s worth of insane Daleks wandering about, now do they! Our intrepid heroes are equipped with bracelets to protect them from the nano-bots that fill the air of the planet and then shot through the impenetrable force-field in order to complete their mission for the Dalek race. Along the way, the TARDIS team converse with a survivor of the crash who has been trapped on the planet for a year. This survivor has managed to hack the Dalek systems and keep them at bay. No mean feat. Especially as she’s done so much more. Practically shutting the whole facility down. It’s good to see a proper Dalek fleet, though the new hierarchy (Prime Minister and Parliament? Surely the Dalek Prime

or Dalek Supreme would head the Dalek Council in the absence of the Emperor?) seems a little off-kilter, the hordes of regular (Bronze) Dalek Drones interspersed with Series Five’s Progenitors was well-realised. The idea of having the bigger Daleks as the ruling elite rings true with me. Though quite why the Red Drones are required in the Elite is quite beyond me! I liked seeing Robo-men again, though the addition of actual Dalek instruments coming out of them struck me as a Russell T Davies-ism. For shame, Moffat. A simple blue glowing third-eye would be sufficient. surely? Once the adventure proper begins inside the Asylum, a particularly creepy vibe permeates the episode. It’s great to see some Classic Series Daleks in the background (Particularly the Special Weapon Dalek!) though I would have liked them to feature more amongst the active inmates of the Asylum. Instead, whenever an individual or crowd of Daleks is seen to move, it’s always new series ones. So much for “every Dalek ever” being in there misleading preview talks! This is especially true of one scene towards the end where logically mainly Classic Daleks would reside. Once again, it’s Rory who becomes seperated from the others and he seems somewhat out of his depth here, which seems a bit of a backward step for his character. I’m getting wrapped up in fanboy, so will move away as rapidly as I can. The cast this week 83

Geek Syndicate

is the smaller, regular cast, a couple of extras and the horde that is Nicholas Briggs. Despite not meeting until near the episode’s climax, the interaction between hacker-survivor and our Time Lord is witty enough and there’s a truly heart-rending Pond moment. It’ll be a shame when Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill are no longer with the series.

Moffat’s cleverness comes through with some great ideas that are excellently realised. The Daleks’ main defence on the planet is brilliant, if not devious and twisted! A planet full of insane Daleks? Magnificent! His trademark witty dialogue also shines through with not only the main crew but also the extras. (“Do you remember who you were before?” “Yes. I’ve read my file”). And finally, we get a potential reason for why the Daleks haven’t just killed the Doctor already. Oh. And the final twisty-wisty reveal? I’m not going to say any more. But it’s a good-un. With reaching consequences for later in the series, no doubt. The writer even manages to help the Doctor’s new “Low profile” scheme out some more this episode. Great stuff. What this episode is NOT is a jumping on point. Anyone coming on board now will lose out from having not seen the last two years of the programme. One thing I do miss about Doctor Who is the standalone nature that each story used to have. Having said that, most TV shows these days have ongoing plots that need to be followed, so perhaps this is par for the course. 84

So despite a few fan-boy niggles this was a great start to the series. Not as awesome as The Eleventh Hour, perhaps but certainly no New Earth!

Episode 2: Dinosaurs on a Spaceship

The Blurb The Time Lord is asked to stop an unmanned spaceship hurtling toward Earth, so he assembles a crack team of helpers – an Egyptian queen, a big-game hunter and the Ponds, plus one. But once on board, they are amazed to find the ancient vessel is carrying live cargo in the shape of dinosaurs. How did the prehistoric creatures get there? The Review Week two of five of this first part of the 2012 / 2013 Doctor Who series is upon us. Last week’s trail showed us what to expect: A spaceship, Queen Nefertiti and Dinosaurs. I’ll be honest up-front. The title for this one and the trail left me a little cold and with low-expectations as I was not a fan of Chibnall’s previous two-parter (The Hungry Earth and Cold Blood). Though 42 was one of the better Series three stories. Was I right to be so down on this before it even started?

As ever, I’ll try not to go into too much detail about the plot and keep this as spoiler-free as I can. To begin with, we see the Doctor at the end of a Pond-free adventure in Ancient Egypt. I like these teasers into “between the episodes” adventures that Moffat seems so fond of, if only because it helps the Who-Nerd in me to slot other media in! At the end of this adventure, an eager (in more ways than one) Queen Nefertiti forces her way onto the TARDIS as the Time Lord is summoned via Psychic Paper to another crisis. A rather large space-craft appears to be on a collision course with Earth and the Indian Space Authority are going to shoot it down unless it can be diverted within a certain time-scale. Intrigued by readings from the ship, The Doctor decides to gather a “gang” to investigate and divert the vessel. Naturally he wants the Ponds with him, along with Nefertiti, he also stops by 1902 to pick up Big Game Hunter Riddell. The ship holds more than just the titular Dinosaurs, however and two robots and a shadowy figure present some menace to our heroic pack. With the gang assembled, pretty much all the cast is here and on the whole it’s strong. Rupert Graves (Riddell), Riann Steel (Nefertiti) and Mark Williams (Brian Williams) all plow through the script with the necessary pace without overly succumbing to the caricatures that the roles they are in most definitely are. Along the way, two more comedians (David Mitchell and Robert Webb) and the suitably villainous Solomon (David Brad-

ley) round out the cast. Except for one small recording-based cameo. I think the presence of three “name” comedians was possibly too much (though to be fair, Mitchell and Webb aren’t creditted in the listings magazines) especially as two of them embody one of my pet hates: Comedy Robot Henchmen. Nothing needs Comedy Robot Henchmen. Ever. For shame, team, for shame. Then again, as with the Battle Droids in Clone Wars, I’m sure they appeal to the younger (and some would argue target) audience. As mentioned, every character in this story seems a caricature – even The Doctor seems overly “Matt Smith Doctorish” this week. The CRH are overtly CRH. Riddell is your typical guntoting chauvinistic nineteenth century hunter and Solomon is an a-moral profitteer. But somehow, the episode doesn’t suffer from this excessive caricaturing as much as it should. The adventure is a yarn, and there are some genuinely funny moments in amongst the forced CRH and “friendly triceratops” based gags. Plot-wise, I really liked how Chibnall has made the Earthborn Dinosaurs on a Spaceship seem perfectly plausible (within the context of the Whoniverse, obviously). Infact it was this, and the way this revelation is made that really raised the episode for me. I was then subjected to what I can only decide as a Davies-ian level of happy-coincidence allowing the adventure to be resolved. This would not have been so bad if the conecit had come up earlier in the episode in a “if you’re going to shoot someone with a

Geek Syndicate

gun in act three, show the gun in act one” sort of way that I hear Terrence Dicks quoting in interviews. But it wasn’t. As to the episode’s post-adventure resolve, I’m really not sure that our Egyptian queen would really be happy being dropped off in the company she was in. Nowhere during the episode was any connection made between the characters involved. Overall, Dinosaurs on a Spaceship was a fun adventure-yarn filled with caricatures that seemed to fit somehow. Not a great episode by any means, but certainly in amongst those episodes that can definitely be re-watched without a heavy sigh of: “Oh. It’s this one.”

Episode 3: A Town Called Mercy

The Blurb The time-travelling companions arrive in a Wild West town where the residents are being terrorised by a cyborg killing machine. The relentless gunslinger will stop at nothing until it has terminated the remaining name on its hit list - and unfortunately for the Time Lord, it turns out to be targeting an alien doctor.

The Review

Doctor Who. Western. Makes perfect sense. And yet, the concept has only been used on-screen once before, in the nineteen-sixties oft-lamented The Gunfighters. With the closer production links that the show has with the US, it was perhaps inevitable that the crew moseyed on over to Spain to film A Town Called Mercy. The time-travelling companions arrive in a Wild West town where the residents are being terrorised by a cyborg killing machine. The relentless gunslinger will stop at nothing until it has terminated the remaining name on its hit list – and unfortunately for the Time Lord, it turns out to be targeting an alien doctor. The script was penned by Being Human creator and formerWho scribe, Toby Whithouse. Will the episode leave you begging for “mercy” in a good or a bad way? Find out after the wee break, partners…. Following a voice-over narration by an unknown American, we’re thrown straight into the action, as an alien craft is shot down over the desert and it’s occupant terminated by a large being with a lasercannon for an arm, and a very western hat. “Am I the last one?” the victim asks. “There’s one more. The Doctor” … Cue titles. The TARDIS crew find themselves (unintentionally) at the gates of the small, secluded desert town of Mercy. I really liked this unintentional landing. It harkens back to an earlier age, when the Time Lord had little to no control over his adventures. A time when he 85

Geek Syndicate

was like the white-hatted hero, sauntering into town and saving the day before moving on again. Which brings us back to Mercy. There are several Western tropes in this story, yet the story doesn’t feel overly clichéd. Indeed, there’s another link back to old-school Who, as this is very reminiscent of the “secluded base” story particularly prevalent from 19661969. Another plus for me! The residents of Mercy are given enough life without seeming to be pure caricatures. Ben Bowder, in particular, as the town’s Marshall Isaac provides a winning and truly heroic-performance. Isaac is down-to-earth, won’t allow even strangers to be sacrificed and is clearly a thinking-man. On being given particularly bad news about one of his protectorate, the first words out of his mouth are “Why? Why would you do that?” and not in an accusatory manner – but genuinely enquiring.

It seems to me that the Doctor’s regular companions were somewhat sidelined this week and I think this is in part due to Toby Whithouse wanting to give the characters of Mercy (and the Doctor’s temporary companion, Susan) a chance to breathe and grow. Of course, the Gunslinger isn’t after OUR Doctor (he’s been keeping a low profile, remember?) and Adrian Scarborough fulfills his role sublimely. I don’t want to go too much into it, but the switches in character are perfectly executed by both actor and writer. Toby Whithouse also laces his script with some magnificent dialogue and one-line 86

witicisms. The script is clever, funny in parts and moving. The funny happens almost exclusively in the first half and rightly so. I’m deliberately not providing a blow-by-blow account of the plot as I think this is the story’s ultimate good point. Rather than being a straight out action adventure, with the Doctor (almost literally) playing the A-Team, Whithouse has presented a superb morality tale. I’m sure there are moments in this episode that some will rebel at. Probably vocally. But even on first viewing, I (remember I’ve been a fan of this series in its many forms for probably twentynine of my thirty-three years) wasn’t. Yes, moments were … uncomfortable. But deliberately so and we’re reminded why the Doctor should not spend a great deal of time alone, a-la The Waters of Mars. We’re also given insight into the Doctor’s guilt and, rather tellingly, sense of inadequacy. Hell, why shouldn’t he doubt himself and act out of anger sometimes? Be prepared to witness the most angryhunched slouch walk you will ever see. Rage radiates off Smith even in the distant shot as he marches to the edge of town. I’ve not mentioned the score in previous reviews. I’ll be honest, I’ve found the music to be overpowering in Who over the last few years. Too loud and (particularly in the last couple of episodes) very repetitive. A Town Called Mercy however changes this. Gold provides a suitably Western score which really does enhance the mood. Top marks from me!

I’m not sure if it’s just because the episode followed Dinosaurs On A Spaceship, but A Town Called Mercy really shines for me. I say this as someone who hasn’t seen many actual Westerns, so maybe I’ve missed some obvious tropes or parallels. But I think it’s the morality of the piece that really prompted me to give this story the rating I have. Definitely the high-point of the series so far.

Episode 4: The Power of Three

The Blurb The Doctor and the Ponds puzzle an unlikely invasion of Earth, as millions of sinister black cubes arrive overnight, almost like presents falling from the sky. But what are they, what’s inside them and most importantly, who sent them? With the international community at a loss, it’s left to the Doctor to unearth who is behind the mystery The Review As we approach what I’m going to call the mid-series break (I refuse to treat this block as a separate series, so there!), we’re presented with a look at Pond life when the Time Lord is not around. Sort of, anyway. Chris Chibnall’s latest episode is a modern-day (slightly future?) Earth and sees the Doc-

tor trying to fit into his companions’ regular lives while he tries to figure out the purpose of billions of strange black cubes that have appeared all over the planet. I think this episode is meant to be a look at “Doctor Life” from the perspective of a pair of co-travellers who may well be wanting to just settle down. Before the titles roll, the Ponds determine they are approaching the point where they must choose between normal life and Doctor life. In this regard, I feel the episode fails. That’s not to say its bad, necessarily, just that in my opinion it missed it’s point. The episode runs very much like a standard adventure – it just so happens that it takes place over the course of a year. That said, there is one very nice scene where Brian (making a return after his Dinosaurs appearance) has noticed that Amy and Rory have been off adventuring during the course of one night. The interaction between Brian and the Doctor is nicely played and makes Brian’s final lines in the episode seem quite considered. On the whole, it’s the wanting to be more than it is that lets this episode down. There’s one sequence in particular that I found grating. The most unlikely hour ever. And it’s made watchable merely by Matt Smith’s delivery of the line “I can’t do it”. Considering this episode is meant to be the one where the Doctor spends time in the Ponds’ normal life, he spends a lot of time (admittedly off-screen) travelling. Both with and without the humans. There’s a great contrast between the ever-moving

Geek Syndicate

Time Lord and the careful, considered Brian Williams which does come across though.

From the above, you may think that I thought this a really bad episode. But (as with Dinosaurs on a Spaceship), I’m going to step away from my adult, fan self and put myself figuratively in the mind of a younger viewer. On this level, without repeated viewing, I think these elements work. Unfortunately, Who of late has grown into being a more mature show that treats its younger audience with a respect that means it doesn’t talk down to them or expect them to accept superficial story-telling. I’m afraid I found the majority of this episode to fall into this category. On top of this, there are a couple of unnecessary TV-celebrity cameos. It’s a shame, because like Dinosaurs, there’s a lot of potential here and there ARE some lovely moments and lines of dialogue. The general concept of the invasion is interesting and on the whole is handled well. It’s a shame that it’s so secondary to the script. The cast are all on top-form, and though I thought UNIT were wasted, it’s always good to see them. What I made of the new head of the organisation? I’m still not sure. I think this was a necessary episode (particularly with the Ponds’ departure imminent), but one that could have been handled better. Despite what may have come over in the paragraphs above, I think this is a perfectly entertaining episode. One thing I do keep coming back to though. When the Doctor dropped Amy and

Rory off at their new house last season? That’s when they should have left. Their story was done. They’d travelled and had decided the time had come to stop. The occasional visit back would have been great. But that’s just me.

Episode 5: The Angels Take Manhattan

The Blurb New York’s statues come to life, and with Rory in grave danger, the Doctor and Amy face a race against time to locate him. Luckily, an old friend has come up with a novel way to guide them. The Review After five short weeks, we’re finally here in New York for the last pre-Christmas episode of this series. Steven Moffat is back on writing duties for his first episode since Asylum of the Daleks. As regular readers will be aware, I’m normally a fan of the show-runner’s episodes, but does this one end the run on an emotional high or low? Does the story conclude what it should in a satisfactory manner? The pre-titles tease this week sees us following a Private Detective in nineteen-thirties New York. Asked to investigate a specific address by a rich art-collector who is con87

Geek Syndicate

vinced that statues move. As he arrives, the angels are revealled to the viewer and our poor detective gets a shock when he encounters one of the building’s human occupants. Chased by Angels, he makes it to the roof, where he encounters the mother of all angels.

The action for the Doctor and company kicks off in present day New York, where the group are taking a break in Central Park. Being a tale involving the Angels, River Song and being written by Mr. Moffat, The Angels Take New York uses Time as a plot device quite integrally. Unlike some of last year’s stories, however, I thought the usage was simple and clear for the audience. It’s not long before the Time Lord makes it to nineteen-thirty-eight and the main action. There is a great deal of foreshadowing going on throughout the episode and I think it’s a testament to the Writer and Director both that the episode is tight enough to nicely fill one episode without feeling rushed in any way. I think the temptation would normally

be to have a two-parter here, which would have worked well, but the audience should in no way feel short-changed. The cast, director and writer are all on top form and there are moments of genuine tension, even if a lot of the “horror” element of the Angels seems to have been lost. Indeed, the most disappointing element of the episode are the scenes of the Angels moving. Somehow, the speed and danger of their instantaneous motion from Blink in particular seems to have been lost, and a scene where Rory is being menaced in a cellar was somewhat lacking as a result. I did like the Angels’ plan though. It makes sense given the internal logic too. A morbid, twisted plan. But sensible. Personally I thought the Liberty-Angel was irrelevant and a little nonsensical too. Other than to provide a pretitle shock, the giant angel appeared only once more and in a role in which a horde of regular angels could easily have filled. On top of that, I’m sure there can’t be many moments

when absolutely no-one in New York is glancing at the statue, even out of the corner of their eyes. Also … aren’t the Angels meant to be stone? not Bronze? Of course the real heart of this episode revolves around the departure of two of the series’ regulars and though I sort of rolled my eyes at Rivers’ presence in the trail last week … I was wrong to do so. Her presence was entirely relevant and Alex Kingston, as always was a joy to watch. While I personally feel that the Ponds should have left last year when The Doctor gave them their house (with cameos!), this was definitely an exit to remember. I only remember actually shedding tears while watching the goggle-box once before, but this episode saw a few saltytraitors emerge from my eyes. In summary, this was a great episode and offered a conclusion to the Pond Saga that should leave even the hardest person with a lump in their throat at the least.

Antony McGarry-Thickitt

Geek Syndicate

THOUGHT BUBBLE 2012 - About Thought Bubble

ble will take place in November 2012 at locations around Yorkshire, with a centre-piece two day convention at Saviles and Royal Armouries Halls – Leeds’ largest conference venues. In darkest November, 2008, Geek Syndicate founders and editors-in-chief, Barry Nugent and David Monteith ventured on an epic journey. With barely the clothes on their back, they travelled to the unknown hinterlands of “up North” in a Volvo saloon with fellow two Syndicate members, Amy and Antony.

running, the festival’s comic convention takes place over two days, with a party planned for the Saturday night. What can readers expect from the convention? The following is an introduction to the event by the organisers themselves (indeed, the words are taken from the Thought Bubble website).

The purpose of this quest? to explore the Leeds Docks area and specifically to attend that year’s Thought Bubble Festival. The convention was then in it’s second year and the comic convention portion of the Festival lasted only a day, with one of the best after party’s of any UK comic convention.

The Thought Bubble Festival is the UK’s largest event of its kind – an annual celebration of sequential art in all its forms, including everything from comics to animation, and beyond. We run a programme of friendly, welcoming events each year, designed to be as accessible to the general public as possible.

Since that first year, Geek Syndicate has had a presence at the festival every year, a presence that this writer in particular looks forward to as it also means the now traditional “pre-Thought Bubble” gathering on the Friday evening. This year, for the second year

Now in its 6th year, the festival has been extended over seven days with a jam-packed programme of events at a variety of venues across the city. Our aim is to cater to both long-time comic book fans and those who have never picked up a graphic novel before! The sixth Thought Bub-

2012’s festival will include free art and writing based workshops for young people and adults, talks and masterclasses lead by industry professionals, and a programme of sequential art related film screenings. Our special two day convention includes an incredible line up of leading artists and writers, and over 300 tables showcasing the best sequential art has to offer. The weekend will also feature portfolio viewings and competitions, as well as a huge cosplay parade. This promises to be one of the best events of its kind in the UK, so come along and join in the fun! The following pages provide an overview of the convention - panel listings, floor-plans for the two convention halls and the exhibitors that visitors may find useful. Following this information, we present an interview with the festival organisers.

Antony McGarry-Thickitt (Quoted text taken from TB website.)

Geek Syndicate

THOUGHT BUBBLE 2012 - Events Listing (Saturday 17 Nov 2012)

2000 AD VS BEST JOINED UP

New Dock Hall Foyer, from 10am – 5pm, free, all ages Continuing their creative endeavours, Best Joined Up are collaborating with 2000 AD this year to make live art at the Thought Bubble Convention. The artistic team will be working together to produce a huge 9-panel comic installation in the foyer of New Dock Hall, Leeds. Come along and watch as the panels are created live, & then brought together to form a giant comic page installation!

COMIC BOOK HEROES COMPETITION / WORKSHOPS / 10AM – 5PM

Daniel Clifford’s table, Royal Armouries Hall, from 10am – 5pm, free for under 12s, but an accompanying ticket-holding adult must be present, all ages Join the Art Heroes at their table throughout the Thought Bubble weekend to create your own comic book hero & enter a competition to win brilliant comic book goodies & have your character featured on the Art Heroes website! This event is part of our Space Robot line-up, partly funded by a generous grant from Leeds Inspired.

DR GEOF’S TRAVELLING TEA MUSEUM / EXHIBITIONS / 10AM – 5PM

Centre of Royal Armouries Hall, from 10am – 5pm, free for under 12s, but an accompanying ticket-holding adult must be present, all ages Doctor Geof’s Travelling Tea Museum is a fake museum principally to do with tea. More accurately, the museum is a display of fictional artefacts & erroneous replicas relating to the exploits of a completely-made-up tea-based military organisation. Admittance free. Strictly No Tea Duelling. This event is part of our Space Robot line-up, partly funded by a generous grant from Leeds Inspired.

HEXJIBBER COLOURING-IN ART / EXHIBITIONS / 10AM – 5PM

Hexjibber Table, Royal Armouries Hall, from 10am – 5pm, free for under-12s, but an accompanying ticket-holding adult must be present, all ages Andy “Hexjibber” Sykes is back with giant colouring & quirky activities for all ages! Includes giant-sized activities taken straight from the pages of ‘The Hexjibber Colouring & Activity Book’ & the new ‘Hexjibber Anti-Revision Book’. Free drop-in activity all day Sat & Sun in Royal Armouries Hall! This event is part of our Space Robot line-up, partly funded by a generous grant from Leeds Inspired.

SELFMADEHERO DROP-IN PORTFOLIO CRITIQUE / PORTFOLIO REVIEWS / 10AM – 5PM

SelfMadeHero Table, New Dock Hall, free for under-12s, but an accompanying ticket-holding adult must be present, all ages SelfMadeHero are the UK’s best up & coming publishing house whose graphic novels have received praise from the likes of The Guardian & The Independent. Their editors & a select crop of creators will be on hand throughout this year’s Thought Bubble convention to give advice on portfolios, scout for new talent & hear your pitches!

MARVEL PORTFOLIO CRITIQUES WITH EDITOR STEVE WACKER* / PORTFOLIO REVIEWS / 11AM – 5PM

Alea Downstairs Area, from 11am – 5pm, appointments must be made in advance, free but a convention pass must be purchased, 18+ This year we are pleased to announce that once again Marvel Comics will be holding a talent search at Thought Bubble! Because of time constraints, the format for reviews will be as follows: your portfolio must be emailed in advance, then, if your portfolio is selected, you’ll be called back for a full review by senior Marvel editor Stephen Wacker.

IMAGE COMICS PORTFOLIO REVIEWS WITH ERIC STEPHENSON* / PORTFOLIO REVIEWS / 2PM – 5PM

Alea Downstairs Area, from 2pm – 5pm, appointments must be made in advance, free but a convention pass must be purchased, 18+ This year we are delighted to announce that Image Comics will be holding portfolio reviews at Thought Bubble! Because of time constraints, the format for reviews will be as follows: your portfolio must be emailed in advance, if your portfolio is selected, you’ll be called back for a full review by Publisher of Image Comics Eric Stephenson.

TITAN COMICS PORTFOLIO REVIEWS WITH STEVE WHITE / PORTFOLIO REVIEWS / 2PM – 3.30PM

Alea Downstairs Area, from 2pm – 3.30pm, free but a convention pass must be purchased, 18+ Looking for an insight into how you can develop your artwork? Hoping for some useful critiques on your style? Well, Titan Comics is pleased to announce a portfolio review at Thought Bubble, hosted by Senior editor, Steve White. Please form an orderly queue!

Geek Syndicate

THOUGHT BUBBLE 2012 - Events Listing (Sunday 18 Nov 2012) DR SIMPO’S EXQUISITE CORPSE / WORKSHOPS / 10AM – 4PM

Dr Simpo’s table, Royal Armouries Hall, from 10am – 4pm, free for under 12s, but an accompanying ticket-holding adult must be present, all ages Come along with 3 or more friends & create a character for all to see. However, you won’t be able to see the previous body part as you draw your own section…either a head, a body or the legs! Join Dr Simpo & get stuck in & win a free prize for taking part! This event is part of our Space Robot line-up, partly funded by a generous grant from Leeds Inspired.

JUDGE MINTY / SCREENINGS / 10.20AM – 10.50AM

Alea Cinema Room, 10.20am – 10.50am, free entry with Sunday/Weekend convention pass, 18+ entry only, photo ID may be required Judge William Minty has spent his entire adult life policing the violent streets of Mega-City One – & now he’s slowing down. When a lapse of judgement almost ends his life, he knows that it’s time to quit. He can choose to teach in the Academy, or he can leave the city & walk alone out into the anarchy of the Cursed Earth, taking law to the lawless.

Judge Minty is a NOT FOR PROFIT fan film, shown with the kind permission of 2000 AD and Rebellion  Judge Dredd® is a registered trademark, © Rebellion A/S®, All rights reserved. Judge Dredd is the Creation of John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra.

NORTHERN SEQUENTIAL ARTS COMPETITION PRIZE-GIVING CEREMONY / LIVE EVENTS / 10.20AM – 10.50AM

Bury Theatre, Royal Armouries, 10.20am – 10.50am, free entry with Sunday/Weekend convention pass, all ages, but please note: Thought Bubble does not control panel content This year saw the third NSAC take place as part of Thought Bubble 2012 in association with Travelling Man Comic Shops. Entry was open to creators from the UK, who were asked to produce a single page A3 story told in six panels or more. We’ll be announcing the winners live on stage – they’ll get to see their work published in 2013’s Thought Bubble Anthology!

WOMEN IN COMICS / PANELS / 11AM – 11.50AM

Bury Theatre, Royal Armouries, 11am – 11.50am, free entry with Sunday/Weekend convention pass, all ages, but please note: Thought Bubble does not control panel content Alison Bechdel, Kate Beaton, Simone Lia, Hannah Berry, Fiona Stephenson – Thought Bubble’s annual panel talk on the increasing presence of female writers & artists in comics. This promises to be an engaging discussion on the female perspective in comics & how they’re helping shape the contemporary story-telling process. Hosted by Dr Mel Gibson.

ACES WEEKLY ROUNTABLE / PANELS / 11.10AM – 12PM

Alea Cinema Room, 11:10am – 12pm, free entry with Sunday/Weekend convention pass, 18+ entry only, photo ID may be required, please note: Thought Bubble does not control panel content A talk on Aces Weekly – the exclusively digital comic art magazine for computer & tablet, featuring top talents in sequential art from around the globe & published by David Lloyd – the man who brought you V For Vendetta. How it happened & why – why it is that in so many ways it is better for it to be on screen than in print, despite making no essential uses in storytelling of technical trickery. Aces Weekly gives creators a direct connection with their readers, avoids the limitations of retail & distribution that have restricted the reach of many great comics stories published in print & gives creators freedom to tell almost any story they want to tell, with complete ownership guaranteed & an equal share of all income generated. Come & hear more!

2000 AD PORTFOLIO REVIEW JUDGING SESSION / LIVE EVENTS / 12PM – 12.50PM

Bury Theatre, Royal Armouries, 12pm – 12.50pm, free entry with Sunday/Weekend convention pass, all ages, but please note: Thought Bubble does not control panel content. Many have tried to make it into the hallowed pages of the Galaxy’s Greatest comic, most have failed. But the winner of this year’s 2000 AD portfolio challenge will be joining the likes of Dave Gibbons, Jock, Mick McMahon, Brian Bolland & Mark Buckingham! This year we have the ultimate prize – the winner of the portfolio session will get the chance to illustrate a Future Shock in 2000 AD! Join the ranks of the biggest names in British comic books by getting a paid strip from Tharg the Mighty! Come along & see which of the portfolio review entries wins this amazing prize!

UNSEEN SHADOWS: YEAR ONE / PANELS / 12.10PM – 1PM Alea Cinema Room, 12.10pm – 1pm, free entry with Sunday/Weekend convention pass, 18+ entry only, photo ID may be required, please note: Thought Bubble does not control panel content The first year in an evolutionary experiment in co-creation & collaborative character development. In 2011 the first comic anthology Tales of the Fallen, featuring characters from the bestselling novel “Fallen Heroes” was released at Thought Bubble & now the Unseen Shadows team are back. The multiple creative teams involved in the Unseen Shadows project talk about creation & contribution in a shared universe of prose, audio & comics. There will also be a look forward to the future of the project. This is the story of how the Unseen Shadows took on a life of their own.

Geek Syndicate

SKETCHING SPOTLIGHT / LIVE EVENTS / 1PM – 3PM

Bury Theatre, Royal Armouries, 1pm – 3pm, free entry with Sunday/Weekend convention pass, all ages, but please note: Thought Bubble does not control panel content Becky Cloonan, Pia Guerra, David Petersen, Scott C, Andy Belanger, Fiona Staples – come along to our sketching spotlight to see some of the finest artists currently working in the industry drawing live on stage & taking you through their creative process. All sketches produced will be auctioned off for charity. Hosted by Peter Doherty.

STORY CUBES: CREATIVE STORY-TELLING WITH SIMPSONS COMICS WRITER IAN BOOTHBY / WORKSHOPS / 1PM – 2.30PM New Dock Hall Foyer, 1pm – 2.30pm, free, families & young people Join Simpsons writer Ian Boothby for this special Story Cubes session. Story Cubes are dice which contain images instead of numbers. They are thrown at random & the images are used as the basis for new fun stories. Ian will be using these as a starting point for participants to create crazy stories with some of their favourite TV characters. This event is part of our Space Robot line-up, partly funded by a generous grant from Leeds Inspired.

CLOCKWORK WATCH / LIVE EVENTS / 1.20PM – 2PM

Alea Cinema Room, 1.10pm – 2pm, free entry with Sunday/Weekend convention pass, 18+ entry only, photo ID may be required, please note: Thought Bubble does not control panel content Join creators Yomi Ayeni, Jennie Gyllblad & Corey Brotherson as they take you into the incredible Steampunk world of Clockwork Watch – how they took the story worldwide on just a small budget, what it was like to host two live events, how its audience co-created the mythology, what it means to bring a transmedia perspective to the independent comic book industry & more. Clockwork Watch isn’t just a story being told by its creators – you’re a big part of this revolutionary experience. Find out why at this panel & how you can join in on the fun.

VS COMICS LAUNCH / LIVE EVENTS / 2.10PM – 3PM

Alea Cinema Room, 2.10pm – 3pm, free entry with Sunday/Weekend convention pass, 18+ entry only, photo ID may be required, please note: Thought Bubble does not control panel content James Moran & Mike Garley introduce their new monthly, creator-owned, all-genre initiative VS comics! They’ll be previewing some of the stories, along with contributors Ned Hartley, Patrick Walsh, Martin Simmonds, Nich Angell, & Adam Christopher. The panel also features previews from stories by other VS creators, Q&As & details on how new & established creators can join the VS team, for us to feed off like sexy vampires*. *Caution: Panel may** include sexy vampires! ** But probably won’t.

COSPLAY MASQUERADE / LIVE EVENTS / 3PM – 5.30PM

Bury Theatre, Royal Armouries, 3pm – 5.30pm, free entry with Sunday/Weekend convention pass, all ages, but please note: Thought Bubble does not control panel content Thought Bubble’s massive cosplay event is back! Whether you’re in costume or not come along & experience a cavalcade of crazy characters as we decide who’s best dressed enough to impress our judges! Prizes will be awarded to 1st, 2nd and 3rd place, along with a judges’ choice award. Costumes must be hand-made, or altered by at least 50% to have a chance of winning the competition, but all cosplayers are welcome to attend the masquerade. Registration is from 12pm – 2pm at the Cosplay table in New Dock Hall foyer.

FROM STANDS TO SCREEN – COMICS IN FILM / PANELS / 3.10 – 4PM

Alea Cinema Room, 3.10pm – 4pm, free entry with Sunday/Weekend convention pass, 18+ entry only, photo ID may be required, please note: Thought Bubble does not control panel content Robin Furth, Jock, Nick Spencer, Phil Noto – A panel talk on the transition of comics to the big & small screen with the creators who have worked on transferring stories from paper to celluloid. An engaging discussion on the ongoing evolution of the on-screen revolution & an inside scoop on this year’s hot comics film properties. Hosted by John Mosby.

DANDY: THE RISE & FALL OF A NATIONAL INSTITUTION / LIVE EVENTS / 4.10PM – 5PM

Alea Cinema Room, 4.10pm – 5pm, free entry with Sunday/Weekend convention pass, 18+ entry only, photo ID may be required, please note: Thought Bubble does not control panel content As you may well know the longest running weekly comic book in the whole of the world is coming to a rather abrupt end in the year of its 75th Birthday, so why not come & celebrate such beloved characters as Desperate Dan, Baby Face Finlayson, Jonah & in later years Beryl the Peril, Hyde & Shriek, Cuddles & Dimples and of course Bananaman. Learn about their creators, their stalwart artists & writers & much, much more…with your enigmatic host Doctor Simpo.

Geek Syndicate

THOUGHT BUBBLE 2012 - New Dock Hall Floor Plan

Geek Syndicate

THOUGHT BUBBLE 2012 - Royal Armouries Hall Floor Plan

Geek Syndicate

INTERVIEW - Thought Bubble 2012

What is Thought Bubble? Here’s some information from the festival’s web site:

at Saviles and Royal Armouries Halls – Leeds’ largest conference venues.

The Thought Bubble Festival is the UK’s largest event of its kind – an annual celebration of sequential art in all its forms, including everything from superhero comics to independent and small-press artists and writers.

The guys and girls at Geek Syndicate have been huge fans of the show over the past few years, and 2012’s festival is shaping up nicely. We caught up with the organisers to get a heads up of the event.

Thought Bubble formed in 2007 as a non-profit-making organisation dedicated to promoting comics, graphic novels, and animation as an important national and international cultural art-form. Now in its 6th year, the festival has been extended over seven days with a jam-packed programme of events at a variety of venues across the city. Our aim is to cater to both longtime comic book fans and those who have never picked up a graphic novel before! The sixth Thought Bubble will take place from the 11th – 18th November 2012 at venues around Leeds and Bradford, with a centre-piece two day convention on 17th – 18th November

GS: Since its inception Thought Bubble seems to have grown leaps and bounds. What do you think is the secret to the show’s continued success? TB: Oh, man, that’s a tough opener! I don’t really know, myself and Lisa Wood (Thought Bubble’s founder and director) have this conversation every so often, usually after each year’s festival, trying to pin down what we did right (and wrong), but I reckon if we think about it too hard we’ll scare whatever it is away! Actually, having said that, I know what the main ingredient is to our success, and it’s definitely not a secret, and that’s our army of amazing

volunteers. We couldn’t put the festival on without all their hard work, and if you come to any of 2012’s Thought Bubble events over the festival week (11th - 18th November), then you’ll see first-hand just how awesome they are! GS: What changes, if any have you made to the way you’ve put the show together this year? TB: Mostly, it’s just getting on top of things early! We knew the guests that we wanted to bring over for the show, and the events that we wanted to focus on and develop, so we tried as much as possible to get all that information locked in as soon as possible. It just makes everything a bit less stressful in the late build-up having all that stuff finalised, meaning we can focus on the logistics, and troubleshooting, and basically making everything as streamlined for everyone attending as possible. Having said that, we’ve expanded the programme, and we’re putting on our biggest Thought Bubble ever, so having 99

Geek Syndicate

more time to organise everything mostly just means making more time to organise all the new extra stuff! The full programme is up online now to view at http://thoughtbubblefestival.com/full-programme/ so you can see just how much comicky goodness we’re bringing to Leeds!

GS: Could you tell us more about the up coming anthology that will be on sale at the event? TB: Sure! This is our second Thought Bubble anthology, following on from last year’s really well received inaugural issue, and we’ve pulled out all the stops, showcasing some amazing comics talent, and all in a good cause. We’ve worked closely with Image Comics, who’ll be publishing the anthology on 7th November, in order to build on last year’s success, and this year’s anthology is even bigger and better! The anthology has a pretty amazing line-up of creators contributing to it, to all of whom we’re eternally grateful for their time and efforts, and the stand-alone stories they’ve created are just amazing. The anthology contains new and original works by past and present and future Thought Bubble guests, as well as the winning entries of 2011’s Northern Sequential Art Competition, and, having seen the proof copies, is really well served by the over-sized ‘Wednesday Comics’ format we chose for it. One of our team, the amazing Martha, created a trailer for the anthology, which you can see at http://thoughtbubblefestival.com/anthology100

2012-issue-2/ and, as you say, the anthology will be on-sale at this year’s Thought Bubble convention (17th and 18th November), and will be available in comic shops world-wide from 7th November. We’re really proud of how it turned out, and all profits will be donated to the Barnardo’s Charity, a cause which is very important to us here at the festival, so we hope people will like what we’ve created, and pick up a copy when it comes out! GS: Thought Bubble has a really different feel to it in comparison to other cons. You get that festival vibe. What made you think of going with a festival instead of a typical con? TB: Thanks! We’ve tried hard to build Thought Bubble to have that festival feeling to it, so it’s really heartening that that comes across! I think it was a natural progression really: Lisa founded Thought Bubble in 2007 and it was a one-day event that took place in the Town Hall basement, with about 300 people in attendance, then it moved to the Clarence Dock halls, became a weekend event, took over more venues, and incorporated more and more events, until we’re here in 2012 with an 8-day, multi-venue, multi-city festival, which thousands of people attend. Which is really cool, but kind of scary to think about for too long, otherwise the magic’ll disappear. This year we’re putting on two exhibitions, screening a whole bunch of films with Leeds International Film Festival, running various competitions, giving away loads of free com-

ics, bringing free workshops to schools around Yorkshire, putting on more live events than ever, and throwing our biggest convention yet! Mostly, we’ve never overthought where Thought Bubble should go, it’s a pretty organic evolutionary process, so, as long as the demand remains there, and we keep getting the wonderful crowds of enthusiastic comic fans making it all so much fun, we’ll keep putting on bigger and better events! GS: To many indie creators, Thought Bubble is the event of the year. How does it feel to have created something that means so much to so many people? TB: Ah! Thank you again we’re really pleased people view it in that light, it makes it all so worthwhile! Personally, I really enjoy that end-of-term vibe that Thought Bubble has to it; for a lot of people we’re the last show of the year, and everyone gives it their all, and it makes the atmosphere electric, which I think is why we work so hard to reflect that we want everyone to have the best time possible at Thought Bubble, so that they’ll be energised to get out of the postfestive season winter doldrums and make more comics! Everyone involved in Thought Bubble’s organisation really does love comics, so we’re just pleased to be able to give something back to the medium that’s already given us so much. GS: As our Autumn of Indie feature shows the UK indie scene seems to be prospering at the moment with some amazing talent.

What are your thoughts on the current UK scene? TB: Oh, man, there is SO much good stuff out there at the moment, it’s crazy! Tables for our convention sold out in record time this year, and lots of those were to first-time exhibitors, so the new talent emerging at the moment is great to see, and the comics being produced by established creators shows that everyone’s just going from strength-tostrength. One recent thing in particular that was cool to see, was Warwick Johnson Cadwell being named as the new artist on Tank Girl, which I think is a great idea, and can’t wait to see what that produces. We’re really pleased to be hosting the first ever awards ceremony for the British Comic Awards at this year’s convention, and I think the shortlists for the nominations show just how much talent there is in these fair isles at the moment. A great time to be a fan of great comics, no matter what genre or style! GS: This year will see the first British Comic Awards where did the idea come from? What has the feedback been like so far on it? TB: The British Comic Awards are all down to the hard work

Geek Syndicate

of Adam Cadwell! I remember sitting down and talking to him about the awards back in May 2011, and it grew from there really. Myself and Lisa are members of the awards committee, and it’s been a lot of fun working with the other committee members trying to figure out how to do it right, and come up with an award that reflects and rewards the great creators who will be winning them.

The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, which is great! I was a bit nervous putting forward my nominations for the shortlists, because they were all really hard choices, and I know how subjective picking favourite comics is, so I think all the committee members did an amazing job of assessing the comics based purely on how good they are as works of illustrated storytelling. Personally, I think the list of titles and creators is a really strong one, and reflects perfectly how diverse the creative outpouring of British creators is at the moment, and I’m really looking forward to seeing who the judges choose as the winners. I’m not looking forward to having to pick my nominations for the 2013 shortlists though, as I think it’s going to get harder and harder

each year.

GS: Your After Party shows have become legendary. Will we see Kieron Gillen manning the decks once more? TB: Ha! Legendary? I like that! We’re glad that everyone seems to enjoy them as much as we do; we work hard, and we play hard here at Thought Bubble. We’re finalising the details for this year’s party, as we like to put as much thought into it as the rest of the festival, and we’ll be announcing a new, bigger, venue for it soon! It’s written in Thought Bubble lore that if we ever have an after party at which Kieron doesn’t man the ones and twos, then civilisation will crumble. Actually, what it really says is “please switch off lights when leaving the office”, but it’s open to interpretation. GS: What can we expect from Thought Bubble in the future? TB: Bigger, better, faster, stronger! Maybe with a touchscreen UI. You can get live updates of all our shenanigans from our twtter feed: @ ThoughtBubbleUK

Luke Halsall

101

Geek Syndicate

FILM REVIEW - Some Guy Who Kills People And he’s met an attractive girl, which is nice. She even seems to like him! Better yet, his estranged daughter has turned up unexpectedly, and she thinks he’s the bee’s knees. He just needs to hold it together and everything will be fine. Could be great, in fact. Now, if only the Sherriff would stop coming round with these confusing questions…

The Review:

Writer: Ryan A Levin Director: Jack Perez Starring: Kevin Corrigan, Barry Bostwick and Karen Black

The Blurb: “You don’t just cut off a man’s head, unless you’re one angry fella!” Ken is just some guy. A loser, really. He’s in his thirties, lives with his mum and works a dead-end job at an ice-cream parlour. He’s had… problems and had to go away for a little while, but he’s all better now. The doctors said so. He can even cope with wearing The Most Humiliating Ice-cream Costume In The World (TM) on a daily basis. Sure, he could probably do without the bullies that have hounded him since childhood, but nobody’s life is perfect. Things are looking up actually because, one by one, those bullies are being horribly murdered. Huh.

102

In case you haven’t twigged by now, this is a comedy: sharp, dark and bloody. It does for slasher films what Gremlins and An American Werewolf In London did for monster flicks. It’s also a film with real heart; full of frustrated emotion and genuine warmth. It’s original, independent and comfortably quirky. Remarkably, they manage to nail the emotional beats, the terror and the hilarity without it ever feeling like an awkward shift in tone. Kevin Corrigan (Goodfellas, Superbad, The Departed) is simply outstanding in his portrayal of Ken. He’s downbeat and passive in posture, yet held (just) in check behind his eyes is a bubbling cauldron of love, pain and fear. It is a character crying out to be understood and he wins our hearts immediately. The relationship he has with his mother (played with caustic glee by legendary Karen Black) is wonderful. He burns with cynicism and shame, whilst she is full of sarcastic digs, bitter smiles and

repressed grief. They feel like real and broken people, but salvation comes to them both with the arrival of Amy. Ariel Gade (Dark Water) does a terrific job as Amy, Ken’s lovable and chatty daughter. The way they interact forms the emotional centre to the piece and she is wonderful in the part. She plays it vulnerable and sweet with a nice line of precocious humour and a dazzling smile. Rounding off the cast are Lucy Davis (The Office, UK), who is completely charming as Stephanie, Ken’s tentative love interest; and Leo Fitzpatrick (The Wire, Sons of Anarchy), as Ken’s best friend, Irv. Finally, there’s Barry Bostwick (Rocky Horror, Spin City), who is starting to become something of a cult figure in his older years. He’s an absolute scream as the small town Sherriff, a persistent galoot with just enough brains to be dangerous. He effortlessly steals every scene he’s in and makes a great pairing with Karen Black. I’d kill to get a film commentary starring the two of them in character! The film does such a great job of surprising the audience, that I can’t really say much more. I want you lot to be able to enjoy it as I did, carried along by the fantastic script and phenomenal cast. Theme-wise, I guess it’s the bottling up of emotions that form the core of the movie. The fear of (and desire for) making a connection between people features heavily

in the make-up of all the main characters. The story is really how they navigate their way to accepting themselves and forming those bonds - and what can happen if you get it wrong. (Hint – Blood, lots of Blood.)

Geek Syndicate

Dion Winton-Polak Rating:

GGGGG

INTERVIEW - Ryan Levin As you can tell from the preceding review, Geek Syndicate has good things to say about the film Some Guy Who Kills People. We had the chance to interview the film’s writer / producer. Here’s what was said. GS: At the Geek Syndicate we’re great advocates of independent projects, whether they be films, games, comics or what have you. How do you balance independent creativity with the need to find an audience and a means of distribution? RL: Some Guy Who Kills People was the first feature that I’ve made, and I’m not living off that film. I currently make a living writing for television, (but) as time’s gone on my interests have shifted towards features. The only downside about television is that it cuts into a huge chunk of your time as far as working on the projects that you’re really passionate about. I would love to be able to write a script and sell it for a couple of hundred thousand dollars to a studio. At the same time, there’s a ninety-nine percent chance that I will not have a single piece of creative control or creative input once I’ve sold that script. At the end of the day I’ve got the credit and financially that’s great, and

I’ve got my foot in the studio door. Most independent filmmakers would say yes, yes I would love to do that, but at the same time that’s going to afford me the chance to work on a project that I’m much more passionate about and much more connected to. I (could) go out and make in just the same way as I made Some Guy Who Kills People and take it to the festivals and enjoy that whole experience. GS: You brought John Landis on as Executive Producer. For those readers not familiar with behind the scenes roles, what did his job entail and what did he bring to the party? RL: He’d read the script and was very interested in sitting down and talking. About one percent of the conversation was actually about the film, but a lot of it is like, can we... get along? So anyway, by the end of the day he had called and said “I wanna direct the film” and from there we worked a handful of times on the script. He gave me great notes that helped strengthen it. T here was a company that had already read the script and really liked it, but without any attachment wasn’t gonna give us any money - but once we got Landis they basically said

“Okay, we’ll finance this film.” Literally the day they said that was the same day that this other project, that long preceded us on (John Landis’) radar – called Burke And Hare – finally got the green light. He’s an extremely kind man and was very apologetic, but he said “I have to back out and go and do this film.” So, I said to him, “We’re gonna have to go out and raise the money for this film starting from scratch. May I say you’re Executive Producer?” because he did have an input and we did work together on it. I was thinking like, down the line when it comes to selling it, showing it or getting it into festivals having his name on there will really help in some way, shape or form. He said “You can’t do that now, because I don’t want my name attached to the film unless I see the film and like it,” which was totally fair, and I said fine. I raised the money myself, so we shot the film. We sent him a rough cut to get his thoughts, and he called and left one of the nicest voicemail messages I’ve ever gotten about the film. He was saying “I can’t believe that on the budget you had, that you made this film... Your cast is amazing, the director is great, you got every penny’s 103

Geek Syndicate

worth of your tiny budget up there on the screen.” And then he sent me all of his editing notes. By the time we actually got his editing notes we had probably made most of those changes, but they were great notes and very helpful, and from that point he said “ok, yes, I will take the Executive Producer title.” I think it’s a legitimate title because he (had been) on board as the director, he did help with the script, he did help with the editing and he’s been someone that I was able to go to throughout the process and get advice and help from. GS: Horror and comedy is a blend that can work fantastically well, but it can also fall badly on its face. What for you is the secret of making that blend work?

RL: To me it’s all in the rewriting. Sometimes I would go too far, you know. The type of comedy or whatever, juxtaposed with the horror made it feel too erratic and (would) bump people. The tone of the film felt unsure of itself, so it was a matter of saying, you know, pull back in these places or better connect the comedy to the horror. There’s a lot of jokes that I thought were fucking great that I had to get rid of because tonally it would have taken you back, either because it wasn’t true to the character or it was too silly. There are moments of broad comedy in the film, but for the most part the comedy is dialogue driven or character driven. GS: I have to congratulate you guys on some phenomenal casting. Kevin Corrigan and Ariel 104

Gade really centre the emotions of the piece, and Barry Bostwick and Karen Black are just pantwettingly funny every single time they’re on screen. How much did you have to rely on the actors for emotional nuance and physical improvisation? RL: It’s a cast full of extremely experienced, extremely talented actors and actresses. They’re not A-List celebrities but they’re just great actors. When you’re dealing with a film that’s got a limited budget and has to move, move, move to shoot it in 16 days, that‘s a huge load off: you don’t have to worry about doing 14 takes of a scene trying to get the actor to be ‘real,’ or to connect to their scene partner. That was so crucial in getting this film done in the time it was done, with the budget that we had. That comes from experience and skill. You get what you want, or you change what you want because the actor is giving you something that you never thought of, that is so much better than whatever you had in your mind. There’s a huge benefit to actors like this, which is their ability to offer their own interpretation of a line, or a scene. If it’s better than what, in this case, myself and Jack had in mind, then that’s what we would go with. It’s very, very simple to speak with someone like Kevin, or Barry or Karen, who worked on so many different kinds of projects with so many different directors that they can take those little notes and make those adjustments, and do it very quickly. When Jack and I were talking

about who to cast I was thinking “Who are some great actors that fit this role (Ken) as written, that could knock it out of the park; that we could actually get. Part of it was like, who’s never been the lead in a film, but should be?” And it didn’t take long. It was like – Kevin Corrigan! I knew that the relationship (between Ken and Amy) was the backbone of the film. Without that, we’re fucked. I had no concerns about Kevin as an actor. My two biggest concerns were a: finding an actress of that age who could pull it off and then b: will (she have) the chemistry with Kevin? Once production started I don’t know what the fuck happened. It was like, she was good... and then she just flipped a switch and it’s go time. She just elevated to this other level. From her very first scene I thought “This girl has got her shit together!” GS: Until he becomes better known for this film your Director, Jack Perez, will probably be best known over here for the pulptastic Megashark Vs Giant Octopus. How did your production company come to select him for SGWKP, and what did Jack most bring to the movie? RL: We started meeting directors. I didn’t know jack at all. I had never seen a single film of his and I’d never even heard of Megashark Vs Giant Octopus. (Megashark) isn’t who Jack Perez is as a director. He got the script like two days before the meeting. He’d already gone through the script and selected little areas. He’d made notes in the margins, just vis-

ually about different ideas and possibilities. He’d drawn little storyboards for different moments, different ways to shoot it. Whether that was the way it was going to get done didn’t matter, it showed his passion for it. Ultimately it came down to (the fact that) in discussions with him I realised that he and I shared a nearly identical vision for the film. What the tone of the film is, the way it would look, the way the comedy and horror should be played and how those two should work together, how the Kevin and Ariel relationship was the backbone to the film. Aside from the fact that I just liked him as a person and felt very comfortable with him and (felt) like this was somebody I could work with, this shared vision, over the course of the interview, became very, very clear. He explained the whole Megashark thing to me and he was like, you know, (it was) “a paycheque job. It’s not what I wanted to do, I didn’t have any say in the final cut, that’s not who I am as a director.” I watched his demo reel, and

Geek Syndicate

then I watched his independent films (and) he’d made this kind of campy over-the-top movie for MTV called Monster Island, (which showed) a whole different side. He was clearly a very skilled director, he knew the craft of directing, and on top of that was very easy to speak with about script choices and stuff. I can say in hindsight it’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

GS: Some Guy Who Kills People is a hard film to describe. It’s a slasher film, but it’s a comedy. It’s a love story, but it’s about loneliness. It’s full of tenderness and raw emotion, but it’s also drenched in blood. Now I know that pretty much anyone who watches this film is going to love it – but in today’s market, how much of a problem is its – lets call it its Multiple Personality – when it comes to getting people to watch it in the first place? RL: I knew selling it was going to be tough, because it doesn’t fit into a very well defined category that gave buyers a warm and cosy feeling. It’s not a slasher film they can market as blood, guts and tits (or anything like that.) My sales agent loved the film enough to

take it on and do all the work behind selling it but in discussion with them they were like, it’s a tough sell, you know? Literally, one place loved it and came back the next day and said “I showed it to the Marketing Department and they have no idea how to market it, so we have to pass.” I understand that. Even at Anchor Bay, once they bought it they said “one of the biggest obstacles we have to overcome is how to market it.” The only place it’s getting a theatrical release as of now is the UK. It comes out October 5th in theatres and then October 8th it’ll be available on dvd/blu-ray and all the other stuff. It’s the new distribution plan. It’ll either go for four days in the theatre or if it manages to build some word of mouth they could expand it. The awareness is building, and certainly a successful run in the UK will help.

GS: It’s been an absolutely pleasure talking to you Ryan, thank you very much for your time.

Dion Winton-Polak

105

Geek Syndicate

106

Geek Syndicate

INTERVIEW - Abertoir Horror Festival, 2012 to pause long enough to give it a go?

As part of our Abertoir season, I’ve managed to snag a quick interview with Festival Director Gareth Bailey and Assistant Director, Nia Edwards-Behi. Here we’ll discover some of what it takes to set up a film festival, the highs and lows of the past six years, and some of what we have to look forward to in 2012. GS: Thank you both for joining us here. Welcome to the Geek Syndicate. GB: Thank you Dion! It’s a real pleasure to be able to talk about the festival with you (my brain isn’t geared up to talk about anything else at the moment!) NEB: Thanks a ton for letting us chat, Dion! GS: A lot of people will see the word ‘Horror’ and just say “That’s not for me.” They don’t see the vast spectrum of tastes that it can cover. How do you get them

GB: There’s always a lot of baggage that comes with a “horror festival.” I see it occasionally referred to as “Abertoir Film Festival” which is fine by me, but perhaps indicative of people’s feelings about it as a genre. Horror is such a wide encompassing word as you say, and while so many classic tales of horror are embraced by everyone (Frankenstein being a good example) there’s still a stigma attached that people have trouble seeing past. One excuse (which hurt us greatly) was that we weren’t allowed a certain film because the distributor wanted “a more upmarket audience.” It’s attitudes like that which we sometimes come up against and shows a level of ignorance that is sadly all too common. We aim to show people the depth and importance of the genre, and as such manage to get talks, panel discussions, articles, theatre performances of classic literary tales and even silent film with live accompaniment. Horror is one of the most interesting (and much more academically studied) genres; it’s not just about chasing people around in the woods. We’re quite selective as a result of this (maybe too selective) but we manage to put on a schedule which appeals to all kinds of tastes in the hope that the average person might find something interesting along with the fans.

NEB: I think the variety of events we stage each year helps to draw people who might be a little nervous about the genre. I think particularly with our theatre and music shows, people who attend them individually might take pause and think, ‘hang on, this is showing as part of a horror festival?’ Film-wise, I think that we’re careful to screen classics, as well as new films. It’s important, and as Gaz says, we’re quite selective about those new films. That’s not to say we wouldn’t show a film that wasn’t wholly original or inventive, but it would have to be a damn fine film of people running around the woods for us to select it! GS: You began the festival originally to coincide with (Wicker Man director) Robin Hardy’s publicity visit to the Aberystwyth Arts Centre. Did you have any previous experience in events organisation or did you learn on the fly? Looking back now, did you have a clear idea as to what you were getting yourself into? GB: Well, it was never intended to be as big as it is now, and I certainly had no previous experience in running a film festival. It’s something that’s very much grown as a result of listening to the fans, but I’ve never lost sight of why it was originally set up: as an answer to the lack of genre film festivals in Wales. I never imagined that seven years later it would have grown into a six-day international festival, and the calibre of guests (Herschell Gordon Lewis, Victoria Price, Lloyd Kaufman, 107

Geek Syndicate

Doug Bradley, etc) that have made their way to Aber as a result is quite amazing. I’m still a fan boy, and I think that what most people experience from the festival is a welcoming, friendly event put on, not for commercial gain, but just for the sense of having a great time.

NEB: My Abertoir journey started purely as an attendee! The first couple of years I came as a punter and absolutely loved it. The fact that I got to know Gaz just by attending the festival (okay, and frequenting the cinema the rest of the year too), emphasises Abertoir’s greatest strength, which is that sense of Welcome. I’m really proud to have been able to come on board and help organise the festival as it’s gone from strength to strength, but likewise I have very little ‘events’ experience. I guess with some things, pure fan enthusiasm lets you hit the ground running! GS: This is your seventh year running the Abertoir Horror Festival, so I suppose you’re both old hands at it now. When does the planning begin? Take us through the basic steps of pulling something like this together. How do you get the right mixture of movies and events? GB / NEB: The planning begins as soon as possible, usually we start thinking about things in March/April (although I’ve already planned a few events for next year!) The basic steps are to get the dates sorted first of all, then start scouting for films. Once submissions open we have films coming in from all over the world (we’ve had 108

films sent from as far away as Bahrain, Australia, the Philippines etc.) and of course we keep an eye on the festival circuit to see which films are the hot titles, currently being talked about. We’re determined to bring the best of the current crop to Wales, and we usually succeed quite well in getting some high-profile films! We love the classics, and they’re usually the ones we get sorted first. As a result, our poster usually features all the older films in our line-up, which is important to us as we don’t distinguish the importance of new films over the classics. As you say, getting the right mixture of events and films is achieved by looking at the programme as a set menu. We plan it with the audience in mind: they’re following our schedule from the first day to the last day and we try to make it as varied as possible during the time so that nothing gets repetitive. GS: What were the biggest hurdles you have had to leap, and what have been your greatest disappointments? GB: One of the biggest hurdles is also what makes us so special: our location! We love being on the west coast of Wales in Aberystwyth. While most other festivals are in big cities with big populations, our location makes Abertoir much more unique. It also helps us get guests (as they’ve usually never been to Wales!) While it helps in making the atmosphere even more friendly, it’s

also our biggest hurdle. So many people come to Abertoir from all over the UK and we’re fully aware that if we uprooted our entire program and set it in a major city, we’d get even more people (and more funding!) However, it’s obviously working as we welcome familiar faces back every year from all over the place (we even have a regular who takes a flight from Guernsey every year!). Disappointments always occur. One of the biggest was the sad death of Ingrid Pitt, who was scheduled to be our guest a few years back, but we always get over certain hurdles one way or the other. NEB: I completely agree that our location is a big issue, but at the same time it’s also the whole point of the festival. As much as it’s difficult to get to Aberystwyth from… well, anywhere, it’s also difficult to travel from Aber to other places. To me, it’s really important that we offer some of the best horror films around to an audience that might otherwise not be able to make the long trip to a more central location. For me the disappointments are often just down to timing – so there’ll be certain films or certain guests who we can’t get at the festival because they’re committed elsewhere, or the film’s not quite ready, or the film’s on DVD just before us… As Gaz says though, we always get by any disappointments like that. GS: This year will be my third visit. Each time I’ve been impressed by the fun-loving atmosphere and just how inclusive it all feels.

What is the heart of the Abertoir festival? What drives you to put in so much hard work? GB: Thanks! Yes, it’s all done out of passion for the genre, and for the fans who come and spend their time with us. We’ve never forgotten we exist to put on an event for folk that’s affordable and fun, and the fact that we’re still here seven years later is a testimony to that. Obviously we have to thank The Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Aberystwyth University and the Film Agency for Wales for giving us the venue and support to continue as we are doing, but just to hear that people take time off work to come and attend means quite a lot to us. At the end of the day, we’re just a bunch of horror fans putting on an event for other horror fans and looking forward to having a good time…..

Geek Syndicate

biggest audience reaction, and what have you personally been the happiest to see up on your big screen? GB: Every year there’s always one or two films that have a special meaning to us. Either it’s something we’ve discovered ourselves that no-one else has spotted, or it’s a film that we love so much we just want to share it with you. It’s the new titles that are the biggest ones to secure and we frequently have problems trying to get them. In fact they’re usually the reason we don’t announce our schedule too early as we hang on as long as possible!

NEB: We’re so lucky that so many organisations and individuals put their trust in us to put on a festival the way we do, and we’re forever grateful for that trust. Likewise, it’s so humbling that people keep coming back, from near and some quite far, and happily buy a ticket before they even know what we’ve programmed. Ultimately, I just want to spend a week with friends watching horror films, so my drive very much comes from wanting to make sure that the films on offer are the best and most interesting.

This year, one of the things I’m particularly looking forward to is introducing Danger 5 (a hilarious Australian TV series) to audiences at Abertoir. It’s something I discovered purely by accident, showed it to Nia (who laughed as much as I did) and then sought permission to share it with our friends (aka audience) at Abertoir. There are always personal touches to the festival that reflect our own personalities and loves; my love for Vincent Price movies for example, culminated in his daughter being our guest last year – which gained us a huge amount of publicity around Wales (not many people knew Vincent’s wife Mary was Welsh!) Welcoming her to the stage will always remain one of the fondest memories of Abertoir!

GS: For the last six years, Abertoir has showcased a huge number of major releases, indie films and cinematic classics. What were the most difficult films to secure, which events have garnered the

NEB: Gaz is always the one who manages to secure the really difficult big titles, because he’s so experienced at doing so as a cinema manager anyway! I think my proudest mo-

ment was being able to screen Dead Hooker in a Trunk in 2010. I’d been the first person to screen the film previously in the year, so it was really satisfying to be able to screen it for a bigger and more anticipatory audience, as the film had garnered such attention in the mean time! One of my favourite audience reactions actually comes from when I just attended the festival. The screening of Pascal Laugier’s Martyrs ranks as my favourite cinema experience, because when the credits rolled there was just such stunned silence in the cinema. It was truly eerie knowing that this room full of hardened horror fans were so stunned by a film (myself very much included!).

GS: Along with the features you also host a short-film competition, with winners going forward to participate in the prestigious Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival. Is your competition open to absolutely anybody? Where can people find your submission guidelines? Have any of your entrants gone on to greater success? GB: A few years ago we made a successful bid to join the European Fantastic Film Festivals Federation which means that we get to award the Melies D’Or award for best European Short Film. While this restricts entrants to short European films, nonetheless we have our own Abertoir award for best overall film (a nice handmade ceramic statue) which means that anyone can enter from any country. While submissions are open, there is a highly visible link on our main webpage and thanks to our colleague 109

Geek Syndicate

Rhys, who’s far cleverer than I am, it can all be done online now. We’ve had a number of feature films that have been picked up by film distributors after being shown here, but by far the biggest success story would be Marc Price, whose film Colin picked up a sales agent from our screening and then went on to be a big sensation in low-budget filmmaking. Even Martin Scorsese apparently watched it in a hotel room…we can’t help but to smile at the thought that we’ve had a tiny, tiny impact on Martin Scorsese’s life… NEB: I think the short film competition is one of the most exciting aspects of the festival because you get to see nascent talent starting out on what might become a long and illustrious film career! A short film can be incredibly powerful, and sometimes it’s a short film that can end up a favourite of the festival over all for me! It’s also satisfying to see the range of places our short films come from, some having relatively high budgets, others no budgets, as well as the different sort of filmmakers and backgrounds that we get to see.

GS: Abertoir is not just a film festival. Amongst other events, we’ve seen theatrical performances, art installations, debates and live music. What does this crossmedia programming give you as organisers and how do your audience respond to it? GB: It’s all about variety, and links back to our determination to show people there’s a lot more to horror than they think. It’s not all about blood 110

and gore; horror exists as an art form in so many ways and, by including it all in the price of a pass, we open people up to experience things that perhaps they may not have gone to otherwise. NEB: I think people appreciate a break from watching a screen, too… GS: Folks generally think it’s all about fear, but you always host light-hearted events too – like the mystery grindhouse, the pub quiz and the fancy dress party. For the uninitiated reader, tell us what part laughter has to play in a horror festival? GB: It’s all about having a good time! I think we’d all go a bit nuts (or bored) if we sat through six days of seeing people ripped apart by chainsaws, so we try our best to make the whole event work as a big communal experience. People laughing and having a good time is a way of making the best of having an audience, and sharing these fun moments with the same people over the course of the six days is important to get that sense of community that you mentioned earlier. Plus, what’s the point of going through the stress of putting together the festival if we can’t enjoy ourselves! NEB: Laughter is so important to a horror festival, in my opinion. In one way, it’s the welcome break from the horror itself – I think it’s easy to assume that horror fans want bleakness and gore all the time, but that’s not true. The mystery grindhouse screening is a wonderful way to cel-

ebrate the fact that much of our beloved genre is just a bit crap, and the pub quiz is likewise a celebration of the fact that we’re all a bunch of nerds who just really love what we love. I think also humour, much like horror itself, is a really powerful way of telling a story. I think that’s why so often some of our most popular films combine elements of comedy with horror – and it’s a very difficult task to make that combination work. GS: So, Abertoir 2012 is just around the corner, running from the 6-11th November. Tickets are still available. To help convince our readers to grab that credit card and pick up the phone, tell us about the films, guests and events that you are most excited about this year. GB: Well, among our guests this year, lovers of Italian horror can look forward to Catriona MacColl (star of the Fulci classics) who’s going to be making her way to Aberystwyth for screenings of two of her films on the big screen (The House by the Cemetery and The Beyond). Our opening film, The Shining, is particularly special as it’s the extended USA version which has never been released in the UK before 2012 (and also a film we’ve been dying to show for years!) But basically, if you’ve been reading about the new and exciting horror films, the chances are high that we’ll be showing you what you want. If you’re a fan of the classics, there’re some real gems for you (such as Vincent Price in the brand new digital 3D restoration of The Mad Magician) and if you want to share a beer with some of the talent behind the

movies, then you’re all invited! At £58 for six days, you can’t really go wrong: it’s a fabulous line-up, a lovely, friendly place and most importantly, there’s a very special beer on offer that will be revealed all too soon… NEB: I think one of the nicest things someone’s said to me about the festival is that the great films we show are really just a bonus to the great time that’s always had by our attendees. So, before even thinking on favourite events

Geek Syndicate

and films, the atmosphere is reason enough for some to come along! Personally, I’m really looking to welcoming Catriona to the festival, and to seeing The House By The Cemetery on the big screen. I’m looking forward to seeing how the new films we’ve selected go down with the audience, and I’m especially excited to be screening a film directed by a certain set of twins… More than anything, though? I’m looking forward to welcoming back our regulars, and hopefully getting to know a whole new bunch of future regulars to the festival.

GS: Thank you very much for your time. I hope we can grab another interview after the event to discuss how it all went. In the mean time, I wish the very best of luck to you both. I’m really looking forward to it.

For more details about Abertoir go to http://www.Abertoir.co.uk/. Up to the minute news can be followed @AbertoirFest on Twitter.

Dion Winton-Polak

INTERVIEW: Cancertown 2 - Blasphemous Tumours Creative Team team to find out more about their process and upcoming work. Writing Cancertown – Cy Dethan: GS: Your writing has come across with great strength and individuality from the get-go with Insomnia Press. Was that the start of your writing career, or are there earlier Cy Dethan stories for us to uncover elsewhere? Have you ever had pure prose pieces published?

Cancertown 2: Blasphemous Tumours is the sequel to 2009’s runaway hit published by Markosia. This second delve into the depths of Cancertown will be launched at this year’s Thought Bubble convention in Leeds. Before publication, The Syndicate caught up with the creative

CD: Cancertown was my first creator-owned book, and it came about at around the same time as my run on Markosia’s Starship Troopers ongoing series. However, for about two years prior to that, Nic and I had been creating an unrelated monthly Starship Troopers strip called Extinction Protocol for Mongoose Publishing’s tabletop gaming magazine, Signs & Portents Wargamer. As a first professional comics gig, you really couldn’t ask for a

better platform than a major SF property in a magazine that averaged 60,000 downloads per month. Nic and I learned a hell of a lot on that strip and it ended up opening doors for me in ways I could never have predicted. As for prose, you’d be hard pressed to find any obvious trace of me out in the world – at least in terms of fiction. GS: Reading comics is often seen as a form of escapism, but your stories tend to deal with brutal truths - such as mortality or inescapable sins. What is the attraction of this kind of tale for you as a writer, and what do you think your readership gets out of it? CD: I guess you’ve just got to write the stories you have in you. For me, there has to be a core intensity to a story for it to interest me. That doesn’t need to entail physical violence, although that can be an extraordinarily efficient plotting tool, but there do need to 111

Geek Syndicate

be some internal and external tensions. I like stories that test the stress points in their characters.

GS: Your dialogue is very naturalistic in pattern, dialect and diction. I get the impression that you listen to people very carefully. How important for you is the voice of your characters when building your stories, and in what ways do you use them to add depth? CD: I do think it’s critical to get your characters talking in a way that tells you something about them. The best scripting, for me, is the stuff that sounds least scripted. There’s always a temptation to load your favourite characters up with clever lines that require someone else to set them up, but it makes for a painful reading experience when it becomes too apparent what you’re doing. So yeah, I guess I listen for people with interesting speech patterns and try to make sure that my characters are doing more in their dialogue than just shouting the plot at each other. GS: Vince Morley is a fantastic character as both protector and scourge of Cancertown. Looking at him - a rumpled hero, fearless of heart and mordant of wit - he has more than a touch of Noir about him (a vibe shared by Slaughterman’s Creed, though to a lesser degree.) Are you a particular fan of the dime-store pulps? Generally speaking, what do you most enjoy reading and watching? CD: Oh, absolutely. I’m a huge Walter Gibson fan (both as a magician and a writer), so the pulp classics are sort of in my blood. I also grew up on William Gibson’s early cyberpunk 112

work and films like Blade Runner, all of which expanded the horizons of traditional pulp characters and storylines into new territories. This was really why I jumped straight in when Barry Nugent asked me to work on his Unseen Shadows projects. The pulp vibe is so strong in Barry’s work, but the world he’s created is open to endless exploration. GS: Whilst they are not classically ‘horror’ your stories do tend towards the darker side. Why do you think that is? What scares you most, and how do you face those fears? CD: It’s not so much the darkness that fascinates me as the people who find a way to live in it, if that makes any sense. I tend to enjoy writing about people who have something fundamentally broken in the way they relate to others or the world around them. Morley, for example, is a man with a severe empathy deficit. That part of him has essentially atrophied to make way for something else, and it leaves him with this constant suspicion that the whole “human experience” is a joke that everyone gets except him. Characters like Sidney or Seth Rigal (from Slaughterman’s Creed and White Knuckle, respectively) would instantly be cast as monsters if the worlds they live in could support more conventional heroes. Whatever horror there is in my stories probably stems largely from that. What scares me? The thought of never getting my terrible revenge on a world that has wronged me...

GS: Without giving away any spoilers, there is a sense of closure at the end of Cancertown 2 (though room is left for further development.) Do you have plans to take us back there one day, or have you said all you wanted to in that world? Even if you have finished with it, would you consider allowing other creators to play in your world? CD: That’s tough to answer definitively. For the moment, I’m content to believe that Cancertown is pretty much done with me. I’d always rather go with two hopefully tight, intense volumes than end up with something bloated or stretched too thin. Visualising the Story – Graeme Howard, Peter Mason and Nic Wilkinson GS: How did you find yourselves in Cancertown - were you sucked in or did you seek it out? GH: I was approached by Markosia publisher Harry Markos after sending some samples a week or so previously. I remember because I was about to get on a bus back home from Woolwich town centre. PM: I was sucked in by accident and luck and never left since... I met Cy and Nic at a comic book signing - and it wasn’t even his book! I just bumped into him and showed him my art, he and Nic liked it and that was that really. NW: I was there the day it first shook itself to life, born of a storm and intense neurological pain. There was no way of escaping it.

GS: Between the script and the finished product there is obviously an element of interpretation. How does the partnership between the writer and the rest of you work? To what degree do the artist, colourist and letterer shape the story? Can you each give me an example of where you have added layers to the book that were not overtly in the script? GH: From my point of view, Cy’s scripts are great to draw from. They have just enough detail, but not so much that it’s overwhelming. Also, he is very hands-off from an artistic point of view, pretty much giving me free reign, which was so refreshing. I can’t think of any point during the production of this book when Cy wanted something re-drawing, except a few continuity issues (bloody hand). PM: Well, as the colourist I tried to include the passage of time to make it really feel like Morley is running out of time - such as the day and night cycle and Morley looking worse and worse every with each issue and each time he is out of Cancertown. So that’s my contribution of adding layers, if you will. NW: A letterer doesn’t really add to the story in an overt sense. It’s more a question of amplifying what is there and needs to brought up the surface, what needs to emphasize the action, or to reinforce the visuals, or where what we “hear” what needs to stand in contrast to what we see and through that controlling flow, rhythm and timing.

Geek Syndicate

As the final stage in the process, the letterer will work really hard to make everything “gel”. Bad lettering can ruin the reading experience of a comic with otherwise great art and story. What we letterers do is unseen, but extremely risky. We are like the Black Ops unit of the creative team!

GS: There is quite a difference between Cancertown 1 and 2 in the visual style and the colour palette. How do you stamp your identity onto a project without making it something entirely different? To put it another way, how important is it for a comic artist to bring their own vision to an ongoing project when they step on board, and how do you balance that against the reader’s desire for cohesiveness? GH: After reading through the script, I realised that the barriers between the real world and Cancertown were collapsing for Vince. I loved that, in the first book, Stephen Downey had separated the worlds in Cancertown by using different media. For this book, however, I wanted it to be more visceral - for the two worlds to be represented in a more similar way to show the collapse of Morley’s worlds. At the same time, though, it was important that I attempt to keep the feel of the first book. Whether I managed this or not I don’t know... but I certainly tried. PM: I have a bit of an OCD on this sort of thing, but I think sometimes it’s good for an idea to move on from the original to up the game, and I think the art and colours we have in the book shows that. I mean, in the world of Cancer-

town, time has moved on six months. There are going to a few changes and I think that helps to sell them.

GS: Lettering is usually an invisible art, only standing out when things go wrong, yet it is absolutely integral to the individuality and style of the Cancertown books. Just how does the placement of text, the size and the style of writing affect the way the reader perceives both story and character? Where does lettering fit in to the process in terms of putting together the comic, and what happens when the practicalities are at odds with the script? NW: Lettering is the art that makes the audible visible and present in time and space! I spend a lot of timing thinking about what various sounds, voices and noises look and feel like so that a reader can translate something static they experience with their eyes into something that moves in time that they experience with their ears! What you are doing is trying to give indications, hints and support through an intuitive visual grammar that readers can “see through” to the content. For example “KRAAKKK”, even in a font like this, is very different to “crack”. There is a lot of consideration of how time is passing in the script in lettering. It’s equally about “how”, “where” and “when” something is said in the panel, as well as “what”. Where the lettering sits in relation to other dialogue, action and layout conveys much of “what is said” beyond the actual words a character speaks. A shift of emphasis (making a 113

Geek Syndicate

word bold), a decision to keep two sentences in one balloon or split them apart, a change in font or size or balloon shape, where you position the sound in relation to the character all these things work to amplify the effect of the dialogue, the art and the interactions of characters with the story and each other.

I have been lettering Cy for such a long time now, that it is very rare for me to find that the practicalities of what he wants to express are not possible. Sometimes, as part of the collaborative process of comics making, you might be struck with a different idea of how to visually express something in the script once you see the possibilities afforded by the art on the page. At that point I will then discuss any ideas with Cy and might show some ideas in a couple of different ways to illustrate how they could work and decide together what works best. I have also been extremely lucky in working with Graeme and Pete because both artists are extremely sensitive to the spacing, shape, movement and timing. GS: In a medium that can often feel like it’s cloning clones of characters and creatures, you guys have pulled together something that feels vibrant and fresh. Stephen Downey’s monster designs were truly inspired, and you have added to the ranks of ‘Players’ with the likes of Headrush, Papercut and Nemesister. What part of the creative process gets you most excited? What are you most proud of in Cancertown 2 and what would yourevisit, expand 114

or change if you could? PM: I wanted to keep the colours close to the original designs in the previous book, but what I also wanted to do is add a little something of a personal touch to the eyes, such as Morley has like yellow-orange eyes and the others having either purple or a weird green shade. Normal coloured eyes are boring. We see those every day, so that’s my personal touch. Something I would have wanted to change if I could is make Morley’s shirt black. I don’t know why, but towards the end I wanted a different coloured shirt, but that me. Haha! Working in Comics GS: It could be considered that ‘small press’ equates to low production values; a lesser cousin to the financial giants of DC and Marvel. How do you challenge these preconceptions in readers? Is there a class system in comics, or is good work recognised by everyone in the industry? CD: To be honest, I’m not certain those distinctions really serve a useful purpose any more. Certainly, you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference these days between a high-end graphic novel and a small press book just from their physical production values. There’s an old rule among magicians that you never busk in the foyer of another performer’s gig. I think the main responsibility of those us working in independent comics right now is to prove that what we’re doing is more than clumsy mimicry.

GH: I think good work should be recognised by the whole industry. Whether it is or not is another matter. PM: I am a little new to the industry to make a comment on this, really. I don’t think there’s a class system. I don’t think the more money you throw at a project, the better the book will be. I think, if you care enough for the book and give it your all, that’s what is important, really. NW: I think “the industry” is really a meaningless term now. Comics are part of publishing, which, although vast in its own right in terms of content, form and media, is in itself only a part of art or entertainment. When there are so many kinds of publishers putting out “material containing sequential art” of one form or another, in so many genres and for so many purposes, the idea of a “mainstream” that consists of one particular format, from one particular culture, sold to one particular audience starts to fall apart. You don’t have to look very far outside of the comic shop door to find the audience for, and response to, comics in the wider world is much more varied. Just take a look at the new British Comics Awards for some amazing examples of different kinds of work. GS: What do you personally get from working on small scale, creator-owned books as opposed to big-money, highly recognisable franchises? Would you be attracted to the proposition if the Big Two came knocking, or are you living the dream already?

CD: It’d be a difficult decision for me to give up the freedom of creator-owned stories, and I don’t for one second believe that (as I once heard a fairly well established writer declare) anyone who doesn’t want to graduate to Big Two work-for-hire should get out of comics. If I were ever to try my hand at mainstream superheroics, I’d have to believe I had something worthwhile to say in that field. Until I can definitely say that, it’s not something I’m going to expend a lot of energy on. GH: I do this as my full-time job and wouldn’t do anything else. Of course, I’d love to draw for the Big Two... they pay money, don’t they? Basically, what could be better than getting paid for doing something that you love? PM: I’m working on comics and I am happy with that, haha. Erm... if the Big Two came knocking then I guess my face will hurt from smiling for months. NW: I like working closely with a team which I think letterers get more chances to do in creator-owned material, whoever publishes it. GS: What can you tell us about your current projects? CD: Okay, let’s see. I’ve got two more books currently in production at Markosia: a paranormal espionage thriller called Phantom Lung & the Garden of Dead Liars (with Simon Wyatt and Yel Zamor on art) and The Case Files of Harlan Falk (with Scott James and Alex Johns), which exists somewhere in the no-man’s-land

Geek Syndicate

between Columbo and Scooby Doo. I’m also about half-way through the scripts for Blood Cries Out, a stand-alone Unseen Shadows graphic novel for Barry Nugent, starring his much loved faith-based bullet delivery platform, the Reverend. There are several more things in the pipeline, but those are the only ones I can definitely talk about yet. GH: Not much at the moment, I’m afraid. PM: Errrr... I can’t say much about what I am working on professionally - but as for personal projects, I am working on a little visual novel called A Dreams Story. NW: Those things that Cy said, I’m doing them, too. GS: What would be your dream project, and who would you love to work with on it? CD: See, that’s the great thing about indie work. If you have a dream project, you can just write it. If circumstances conspire well enough, you can find people to help make it into a story and others to turn it into a book. My dream project is always the story I’m writing now.

sweet shop when someone says that to me. Erm, I think I would love to work on a Marvel book (X-force - wink wink), or some amazing creator-owned stuff I haven’t thought up or worked with yet. There are a few people I wanna work with. I just need to work up the courage and talk to them – haha!

GS: How can people best contact you, and where can they find your work online? CD: Here’s my contact stuff: Web: www.cydethan.com Blog: www.raggedman. com Twitter: @CyDethan Facebook: www.facebook. com/cy.dethan GH: People can look at my stuff here: http://graemehoward. blogspot.co.uk/ PM: You can find me, and links to more of my artwork, on my tumblr/visu-blog thing at: http://unicomics.tumblr. com/

Dion Winton-Polak

That said, if we’re wishlisting people to work with, I might start the bidding at Ben Templesmith. GH: I’ve always loved a bit of the Batman. So, I guess doing some of that would be nice. I think I might do a good Batman. PM: I feel like I walk into a 115

Geek Syndicate

COMIC REVIEW - Cancertown 2: Blasphemous Tumors The Review: Back in 2009, writer Cy Dethan wrote the breath-takingly original Cancertown. He’s continued to forge his own path ever since, with gems like The Indifference Engine and Slaughterman’s Creed. Last year he managed to wring both our hearts and our necks with the emotional tale that was White Knuckle and it became clear that a new master has arrived on the comic-writing scene.

Writer: Cy Dethan Artist: Graham Howard Colourist: Peter Mason Letterer: Nic Wilkinson Publisher: Markosia

The Blurb: Vince Morley is a dangerously sick man. Within the monstrous alternate world of Cancertown, a creature of horrific violence and limitless rage has burst from the nightmare landscape. The foundations are shaking and the old powers are falling. In response, the deadliest of Cancertown’s inhabitants seeks Morley out to claim a favor that could cost him more than just his life.

I’ve marveled at each of these works, but Cancertown is the only one that cried out for a sequel. I loved the noirish tone, the wild imagination, the bat-shit crazy monsters and the sheer bad-assery of Vince Morley – a man who doesn’t give a damn about the horrors he’s facing, because he thinks he’s dying anyway. I found it pretty confusing the first time round but then I was reading single issues on a tiny screen over a number of weeks. Collected in trade format, it flows a lot smoother, the artwork is more appreciable and it ties up beautifully by the end. Although the central plot was wrapped up in a satisfying conclusion it always felt to me like there was more to be explored in this twisted world. Thankfully, Cy felt the same way, so let’s take a look now at Cancertown 2: Blasphemous Tumours. The story is an absolute cracker with an ending that had me applauding. The trouble is I can’t discuss it without major spoilers. Puts me in a bit of a tough position. Look, do you

116

have any idea how rare it is to find a comic that is genuinely gripping? Oh, we all have plenty of characters and story arcs that we love but to find a comic that keeps you on your toes throughout; that shocks or scares or delights you on every damned page; that keeps your mind whizzing right up to the very end? Hell, that’s something to treasure! All I can tell you is this: something new has come to Cancertown. It’s big, it’s powerful and it’ll rip the world apart until it finds what it’s looking for. The Players hate Morley, but he may well be all that stands between them and annihilation. Each chapter has a great cliffhanger and the peril just keeps escalating. The walls between the worlds are getting thinner, and time is running out rapidly. Destiny awaits, but how will Morley face it? (Not got a clue what I’m talking about? Go and read the first volume, you numpty. Better yet, skip to the link at the bottom and order the double pack. Bargain price. Seriously. Right… Onwards!) The first thing that jumps out is the shift in style between books. I found it slightly jarring at first, having re-read An Inconvenient Tooth in preparation. Let me explain why. The first book was revelatory in creature design and hugely impactful in its layouts. It had a sensibility familiar to readers of Clive Barker: more darkly fantastic than raw horror. Graeme Howard shakes things up a bit in Blasphemous Tumours, but once you get your head around it you’ll

see how well it works. Where Stephen Downey’s imagery was cleanly drawn and beautifully rendered, his successor gives us something supremely demented; a messed up nightmare of torment and jagged edges. What Howard loses in detail, though, he makes up for with sheer atmosphere. His ‘camera’ angles are inventive and his horror is visceral. (Monsters aside, even Morley looks like a mess, but then again he probably should after what he’s been through.) Never a classic hero, Morley retains a core of decency and makes for a very engaging anti-hero. Visually we see this most clearly in a pencilonly flashback, where he first meets the homeless girl he has come to know as ‘Bugfuck.’ The shapes are more rounded, the linework gentler and the features more sympathetic. It’s a comforting scene in a comforting style, and it is here that Howard’s artistic choices become apparent, through contrast. Back in volume one, Morley was all about self-control. Whilst normal life collapsed around him he was practically OCD when it came to Cancertown: always watching himself; stopping the chaos from claiming him and those around him. Now though, he’s stopped medicating. He’s losing that part of himself that wants to live in the ‘real’ world, and the farther Morley spins out of control the wilder the art-style becomes. Even the layouts have become more fragmented and crazed, doubling up on the nightmarish quality. We begin to experience the world in just the way that Morley does, and it blew

Geek Syndicate

my frickin’ mind.

Driving this home is the combined efforts of the colourist (newcomer, Peter Mason) and the letterer (returning wonder, Nic Wilkinson.) Mason uses an intense, warm palette that lends an Oz-like richness to Cancertown when slapped up against the cold urban sprawl that Morley calls home. Somehow it feels more real, more attractive, more addictive a location to be in. The vividness and the way the colours are just out of whack, lends the piece an almost sick urgency. Throw in the mind-quakes, where image and the written word are shaken so much as to be nearly unreadable and you have a true vision of a world falling apart. The size, thickness and fonts of text are used effectively throughout to depict the emotions and personality of the characters, though none so strikingly as The Players. Each of these god-like beings have a dedicated font which somehow manages to translate into a specific vocal style in the mind of the reader – thanks to the unique design work. I have never seen the art of the letterer used as intelligently before; adding so much to the overall piece without becoming intrusive or gimmicky. So what have we got overall? Cancertown is not a nice place, I’ll grant you that. In fact, it’s a bloody nightmare – darker than night-soil and twice as nasty – but at the same time I find it utterly fascinating. It’s a grotesque creation where everything seems to be alive. We get the sense that a dream logic holds the place together,

yet the individual rules escape us. Like any structure of the mind we are simply convinced of its reality. The creators have a story to tell and they don’t back away from it for a second. The horror is brutal and there is some pretty disturbing imagery along the way. The villain ‘Head Rush’ seriously ramps up the menace. The speed, the ferocity and the magnitude of his attacks are shocking. The fullpage spread of him charging straight towards you is quite frankly terrifying! At the same time, Dethan and co construct meaningful and layered relationships between the human characters, painting them in shades of sorrow. It’s a strong team dynamic and they make great use of the comic medium, adding depth to their narrative in ways that simply could not be achieved in any other art-form. I doff my hat to them all. Highly recommended. You can pop on over to Cy’s blog for more information about this (and the other books mentioned), read a free preview of Cancertown 2: Blasphemous Tumours and grab yourself a fantastic pre-order deal.

Dion Winton-Polak Rating:

GGGGG

117

Geek Syndicate

118

Geek Syndicate

119

Geek Syndicate

120

Geek Syndicate

121

Geek Syndicate

COMIC REVIEW - Sheppertonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Waltz The Review: Sheppertonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Waltz follows the story of a drunk man, Angus Shepperton, who lives in a typical Western town. He is the last man around and something strange is going on something that only he seems to be able to survive. Think John Constantine in a Western environment.

Writer: Patrick Killik Pencils & Inks: Marc Laming Colourist: Heather Breckel Publisher: Oort Cloud Comics

The Blurb: Forced to carve out a hardscrabble existence on an unforgiving colony planet, the citizens of Hillsborough Township have awakened something sinister in the mines outside of townâ&#x20AC;Ś creatures. Their only hope lies with Angus Shepperton, town drunk and no-good husband. Shepperton embarks on a quest to save the souls of the townsfolk that never passed up a chance to kick him when he was down. The problem is, his best chance for redemption depends on his ability to indulge in his greatest weakness.

In the first couple of pages, the dialogue and the art couple together to help build the world that we are about to inhabit. Particular praise must go to the dialogue: after only a couple of lines, we immediately start to understand what kind of story we are reading. The story moves at a nice pace, flipping back and forth through time to add tension. We are shown flashbacks: just as you think the flashback will evolve more, we are thrown back into the present. This clever technique makes you want to keep reading to find out what happened in the past and how the characters managed to get into the position they are in now. It is impressive that this frantic need to page turn happens so early on in a book that I had no emotional connection to at the beginning. Further, when the story really gets going, the urge to find out what is going to happen gets bigger and bigger until you are on the edge of your seat, waiting to find out whether Angus will achieve his goals or not. The twists and turns keep on coming, leaving the reader shocked and excited to

122

see what happens next. The first big reveal will leave you dumbfounded, as you will not see it coming at all. This lures the reader into thinking there could be nothing else to shock us with. Yet the creative team deliver another surprise right at the end of the book. This twist was more expected, but because there was such a big reveal earlier on, the reader is made to think that this is not going to happen. This is true storytelling at its best, and all credit must go to the creative team for perfectly building the tension and leaving the reader never knowing what was going to happen next. The art is stunning, with some lovely colours to add depth. The darker textures and the oranges used really make you feel like you are looking at dusk in a cowboy town. The panel structures generally work very well. However there is one flaw in the book. At one moment the panel structure is exactly the same to how it was on the previous page. Further the images on both of these pages are very similar too. It would have been nice to see the creative team try something slightly different with the page structure and images here because it feels slightly repetitive. But apart from this one issue, it works well. One issue is that the drunk cowboy theme is hardly different. However, the way the creators do it adds intrigue to the typical story that we have read so many times. Yet, it would have been nicer for them to have found a different vice for

Angus to fall into, rather than the typical alcohol-dependent lone hero.

Geek Syndicate

Sheppertonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Waltz is a highly entertaining Western thriller. It looks stunning and the dialogue flows well, creating a story that is gripping with many shocks, twists and turns that the reader will never see coming.

Luke Halsall Rating:

GGGGG

123

Geek Syndicate

124

Geek Syndicate

INTERVIEW - Anthony O’Neill, Artist On Nestor to unleash a monster that he thought he had sealed away centuries ago, revealing himself as a vampire. The first issue was illustrated masterfully by the great Paul MC Callan and the second part was done by myself. GS: I especially like the way you have used subtle reds to blend with the black and white. How do you plan out a page?

O’Neill is a very talented up and coming artist from Ireland who is working on the critically acclaimed title Nestor. GS: Hi Anthony your work on Nestor looks fantastic. Can you tell us more about the book? AO’N: Hi Luke thank you very much for having me, I’m extremely honored to be here, “NESTOR” is the new four star (as rated by SFX Comic-Heroes magazine) two part comic book written by Abandonedcomics; Mike Lynch and Martin Greene. The story is set in the fair city of Dublin and revolves around the main character “Nestor”, who does his best to blend in with normal every day society. Nestor watches old movies, works in a grocery store and enjoys hanging out with his friend in his local bar. Then one night this all changes when the woman he loves is murdered in their home by a gang of Villainous Thugs. Nestor seeks revenge and is forced

AO’N: Its interesting you should ask that, in the beginning Martin, Mike and myself sat down and spoke about what way we were going to tackle the story, it was my first time ever being involved in the comic book publishing world, and i was a little shy at first to add my two cents (now the lads can’t shut me up) Martin and Mike both noticed this and took me under their wings, straight away they got me involved in the collaborative aspects of the piece and made me feel so welcome. After I became more comfortable I slowly but surely came out of my shell, and one of the first things I suggested was that; if we were doing a “vampire” comic book that we “have” to allow for the stark vivid reds of the blood to shine through against a contrasted gray scale palette, I felt that this would give us a distinct style that would hit the reader like a brick when they opened it up. Mike and Martin were graciously behind this concept one hundred percent from the very beginning and gave me all the freedom I needed to bring it to light, but in the end due to budgeting we had to settle on the interior

of the book being only gray scale, this meant that i had to now go back and edit the entire piece so that the “stark reds” were now also gray but just contrasted enough so that the reader could easily see the difference between that of the character and backdrop grays as well as the grays of the newly colored blood. In the end I spent so much time editing, that the total gray scale look actually came out looking even better than the original concept. I’ve always felt that this was a perfect example of how as an artist you can plan down to the finest detail, but you will always meet a speed bump along the way and its really learning to deal with those speed bumps rather than panicking that is more important in the long run. GS: What first inspired you to draw comics? AO’N: I have been drawing for as long as I can remember, my mother used to say I was born with a pencil in my hand, but unfortunately I was never really trained. When I was a kid I grew up loving Saturday morning cartoons, Spider-Man, Hulk, The X-Men, Marvel was my haven, and I spent years copying those characters straight from my television, don’t get me wrong I loved Bruce Timm’s Batman and things like He-Man and the Masters of the Universe as well as Thundercats, Skeleton Warriors and Bravestarr the list goes on and on, but it wasn’t until my uncle Paul came to me at the age of about seven or eight and 125

Geek Syndicate

explained to me about how these Marvel characters that I adored so much from their respective TV shows, were actually recreations of something even bigger, that my sense’s truly flared.

My uncle gave me a book, it was a Marvel annual with tons of the original number ones in it. Since that day, thanks to “Stan The Man”, “Jack Kirby” “Joe Smon” and of course my uncle Paul (to whom I owe so much) I feel as though I haven’t been able to close my eyes, I wanted everything, every single book I could find, and I wanted to draw it all. GS: Which creators do you aspire to be like? AO’N: I hate to say influence because the word “influence” gives the impression that I’m trying to imitate the masters that I love so much (and I could never do that) for me the most important thing visually has always been to achieve comprehension while still creating a unique visual style that is dynamic and instantly recognisable, but in saying that there is a lot to said about learning from the greats. For lack of a better word, my “influences” change all the time, but one name that stays constant with me is “Bryan Hitch”. The man is unparalleled. I could sit here for days and tell you all my reasons why (don’t worry I wont) instead I’ll leave you with a short list of who I’m loving right now:

126

• • • • •

Bryan Hitch Lee Bermejo Adi Granov Simon Bianchi Steve McNiven

GS: What type of storytelling do you like? AO’N: This is an excellent question, right now in comics, movies and all kinds of visual media there is a strange trend happening story wise, a lot of people seem to want “realistic” style storytelling. I think we can all say that this fad is almost completely credible to Christopher Nolan, I can totally understand this way of thinking and the appeal of realism, it works so well with movies primarily, but I have to say when it comes to comic books I think its really a horse of a different color. Firstly the most important thing to me is “charater” you gotta create characters that catch you (obviously) but I think Marvel really set the mould when they made there most important aspect the way in which their characters are relate-able to their readers, I want my story’s to be epic, grand, large scale, and over the top but always keeping in mind that it must relate to the character, as far as genera goes that’s just the icing on the cake. So as far as realism goes I feel that in comic books if we as readers and creators become too hocked on this fad that it could hinder the creativity and the overall possibility of maximum enjoyment, let me summarise by asking you a question; while watching

Christopher Nolan’s TDKR how many of you wanted to see something a little more reminiscent of the classic comic book bat cave rather than a computer on top of a large steel box? and while watching the Avengers how many of you looked up at that huge flying giant worm/snake/Leviathan and said oh my god that’s so amazing? Now in the movies Christopher Nolan’s Batman works flawlessly but my worry is how comic books are now imitating the popular aspects of movies which doesn’t work out so well in the book, we all know the comparisons just look at “The New 52”, so in answer to your question the type of storytelling I like is one that does not censor or hinder itself by focusing on reality but tries to break through that barrier, making it more intense, more fantastic but does it all with relate-able characters and a feeling of believability rather than realism. The great Edgar Allan Poe once said: “Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term Art, I should call it ‘the reproduction of what the Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul.’ The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in Nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of ‘Artist.” wise words. GS: How did you get involved in Nestor? AO’N: As I’ve mentioned before; “Nestor” was my first real published piece, but I had been drawing my whole life. I was doing a course, and whenever I wasn’t working on my course stuff (and even sometimes while I was) I would be

Geek Syndicate

sketching either in a sketch book or on a page or board, a member of the class luckily noticed this, and told me that they had two friends who were putting together a comic book but needed an artist to come on board for illustration if I was interested. So after a bit of a push from my faithful girlfriend to go for it, I jumped at the chance of this was once in a lifetime dream come true, I met with Mike and Martin and they were completely awesome, our mind sets were perfectly contrasted and yet so much alike, we instantly hit it off, and after they seen allot of my stuff we dived straight in.

ing to be amazingly diverse and grippingly appealing to anyone who grew up loving Ridley Scott. Second is something that I cooked up myself and Mike Lynch was fantastic enough to back me up on it with an excellent script, its mainly a promotional type piece but its also still sequential, I have high hopes for this but because of its small size and the unique nature of this story I have to play it pretty close to the chest so unfortunately again I can’t say too much other than keep your ear to the ground and your eyes fixed on abandoned-comics website www.abandonedcomics.com.

GS: How does the creative process work?

GS: To any aspiring creator out there, what would you say is the best piece of advice?

AO’N: Martin Greene was the spearhead of the story, he concepted the plot and the characters, then Mike Lynch ad’s his amazing writing and dialog skills to Martin’s intense concept, after that the lads gave me a copy of the entire script including part one and two, Mike and Martin asked me to draw the initial character and creature designs and then simultaneously Paul McCallan and my self both worked on each of our respective parts of the story illustrations GS: What is next for you? AO’N: Right now I am working on two separate pieces, one is the second part of a story that was again done by the amazing Abandoned brothers Mike Lynch and Martin Greene called “Salvage” which is going to be absolutely insane, I can’t tell you guys anymore about it other than it is go-

AO’N: This is always a hard thing to find isn’t it? Usefully practical advice that doesn’t end up sounding like a self help mental motto, my advice for any of you budding talented artists out there would be know every aspect of your art, don’t just focus on form, perspective or foreshortening all of those things are give ins, and we already know to put the required time and effort into those areas. I think there is a lot to said for the attention that is also required from things like printing, page size translations, color formats such as cmyk and rgb, promotional ideas all these things are aspects that we as artists must know about in order to keep up with this growing industry and let me tell you the talent out there just keeps getting better and

better and as much as people may tell you otherwise; this IS a competitive art, so always focus on the emotional sweep and tone of your story, keep in mind the message you are trying to convey and while there is so much I could say about technique and drawing skill, please for your own good take some time to study the mechanics of production, because in the long run you’ll save yourself so much time and effort.

GS: Where you would like to be in 10 years time? AO’N: I’ve never really been one to try look too far ahead, I try to focus on the here and now and at the moment I am having one hell of a time with Abandoned-comics, I would like to remain with this immensely fantastic team and do my part to help the world see how amazing they are for as long as they will have me, at the same time ever since I was a child I have wanted to work in the mainstream and obviously I would love this to be my nine to five so that every ounce of my time can be spent doing it, so Where do I see myself in 10 years time? Who knows but where would I like to be in 10 years time? Doing exactly what I’m doing now. You can check out Nestor on their website, and follow Anthony on his blog or Twitter.

Luke Halsall

127

Geek Syndicate

WEB REVIEW - H+ The Digital Series Episodes 01 - 02 H+ is sci fi at its best. It is very close to the real world making it a haunting vision for what we could become. After only two episodes with less than twenty minutes shown it is amazing how hooked you will feel.

The Blurb: The Digital Series takes viewers on a journey into a apocalyptic future where technology has begun to spiral out of control…. a future where 33% of the world’s population has retired its cell phones and laptops in favor of a stunning new device

The Review: Bryan Singer is one of the best directors around and with H+ he brings a truly unique concept: a new TV show in 5 minute bursts shown through YouTube. The story’s premise is that humanity has let technology into our lives even more than at present by having computer chips placed into their brains allowing individuals to have the abilities of an iPhone for everything. Yet something has happened, something is wrong with the software. Somehow a virus has managed to break into the code and is infecting everyone. What will happen? H+ is a scary, haunting thought because it is something that we could so easily allow a company like Facebook or Apple to accomplish. The show is a mesh of Brooker’s Black Mirror and a Doctor Who episode (The Long Game) where we allowed technology to affect 128

our minds. H+ cleverly draws you into the concept quickly and manages to make you feel aware of what this world is like in a matter of minutes through the use of news reels. It is refreshing to see a production not wasting anytime, trimming the fat down to present only the necessary essentials. With media in general being obsessed with the slow burn it is nice to see something that throws you straight in without someone having to utter the phrase “It is ok, it gets good you just have to stick with it.” Singer clearly wants you hooked from the get go and he has done that.

Episode one has an eerie feel to it. You know that something just is not right and when the crescendo hits it is all the sweeter. Again credit should go to the creative team here as they only have a matter of minutes to build that feeling of tense worry but they manage to do it and make it look effortless. The second episode continues to hook the audience and has drawn me back for more when the third episode arrives.

Check out H+ at http://www. hplusdigitalseries.com/

Luke Halsall Rating:

GGGGG

Geek Syndicate

129

Geek Syndicate

INTERVIEW - Creating Doctor Who: The Impossible Crossing it wants to, and though this doesn’t always come across in Russel T Davies’s first series I could certainly see the potential behind it.

Doctor Who: The Impossible Crossing is a five issue (unofficial, non-profit) fan made Doctor Who Comic. Written by Alexander Beedie and illustrated by Sara Dunkerton. Geek Syndicate interviewed the creative minds behind the up coming mini-series to find out more about this project. GS: Alex! Sara! Hi! How are you both? Your Doctor Who story, The Impossible Crossing looks amazing. The first six pages were incredible. So how did you both get into Doctor Who? AB: I started watching with the shows revival in 2005. It was fun, if a little childish, but the character of the Doctor was instantly engaging. I had obviously heard about the show but never seen it, having been born in ’86 when the original show was coming to its end. Doctor Who has a remarkable premise to it, that allows it to become anything 130

SD: I got into Doctor Who in a very similar way to Alex really, though I arrived late to the party and joined the new series at the fantastic two parter; Empty Child and The Doctor Dances! As soon as I saw that haunting image of the gasmask bonded with the child’s face I was hooked! Here was a show that could be both entertaining with the charm and wit of Christopher Eccleston’s Doctor, and downright terrifying at the same time! I’d also heard of the show before from my Mum, who has a mortal fear of the Daleks born from evenings watching John Pertwee’s Doctor as a child with her Grandfather. Though I had never seen any of the classic series myself the intrigue was there. GS: And what about comics? AB: Unlike the Doctor, comics have always been there for me. I would read the Beano as a kid and eventually got into Batman thanks to the films and the animated series, picking up any issue I could find at my local store that had an interesting cover. I would often be dismayed that these issues were some odd part of an arc and I would never be able to find the other parts to the complete the story, but somehow I managed to collect every issue of the Knightfall arc and loved it.

SD: Weirdly I got into reading comics quite late, but I had been drawing them throughout my childhood, creating my own characters and telling their stories through little comic strips. Of course I’d always been intrigued by Marvel and DC titles, I’d browse and admire the artwork, but without much knowledge in story and history I never found a jumping in point. So I started reading Manga as I could easily find the first volume and collect from there. It wasn’t actually until I met Alex and he pointed me in the direction of Batman: Hush that I found my footing in DC mythology with Marvel, Dark Horse, Vertigo, and others soon to follow. GS: What first inspired you to create comics? AB: I wanted to write for a visual medium like film or TV. Comics allow the chance to tell a visual story on your own terms, without budgetary constraints or having the pressure to cater to every demographic. SD: I love stories and I love drawing! As I mentioned before I’d draw short strips with my own characters, though not knowing in the slightest about how comics were actually made, I’d usually get impatient with writing and leap straight in with drawing. I think it was obvious then that I was not to be a writer! But I’m really interested by the visual narrative and enjoy sequential drawing, be it comics or animation!

GS: You have chosen the eighth Doctor and the tenth. Why was this? AB: There is a very simple reason that will become clear around issue four… SD: … And I can’t wait to draw it! GS: Was it difficult to both get the eighth doctor’s voice and to draw his different mannerisms after all we only got one movie where we learnt he loved new shoes and not much else? AB: That was part of the fun behind writing for the Eighth Doctor. Not the shoes – though they have their moment as well – but the challenge of creating a voice for him. The TV movie is, at best, questionable, but I found McGann instantly engaging and began thinking about what he could be, rather than what he was there. Everyone has their Doctor, the one they think about when they think of the role, and Eight became my Doctor, because there was essentially a blank slate for him and he could become anything I wanted.

Geek Syndicate

SD: For my part, drawing the Eighth Doctor was a bit of a challenge! I must have printscreened every expression from the Movie to use as reference, gathered as many Google images I could find and photographed every detail of the Eighth Doctor’s costume at the Doctor Who Exhibition! I’ve used likenesses of actors for characters in previous comics but this is different, the Eighth Doctor needs to look like Paul McGann. This is also the longest comic I’ve illustrated to date (the others being only around six pages) so I had to not only make the Doctor look like McGann, but carry that likeness through twenty-two pages (and that’s only the first issue!) I think I got the hang of him in the end though!

it began to feel like an episode was playing out in my mind, where there was constraint to limit the lines so they could fit in a panel!

AB: It was important to me that the characters resemble the actors, as I feel many modern Doctor Who comics fall apart over the art not capturing the unique touches that the actors bring the characters. I am very happy with the likeness of the Eighth Doctor Sara got.

GS: The Titanic is a key part of the story. What kind of research did you both have to do?

GS: Reading the first six pages I thought it was amazing how you had managed to grasp the tenth doctor’s mannerisms in both speech and look. Was this a difficult process or something that flowed quite easily? AB: Script wise, it was incredibly easy, since the Tenth Doctor was very expressive and built on catchphrases. I actually found it very easy writing for both Ten and Eight because I could really hear the actors’ voices say the lines, to the point where I would sometimes write too much because

SD: Oddly enough David Tennant’s likeness comes easier to me than Paul McGann’s, so grasping the Tenth Doctor’s look and mannerisms was slightly less challenging. I think it must be as Alex says; Ten has his trademark expressions that once captured characterize him perfectly, though I still gathered as much reference as I could find (which, lets be honest, wasn’t a chore!). However I found a certain formula for Ten that meant if you can get his hair, sideburns and the shape of his face right, everything else just falls into place!

AB: We both had to immerse ourselves in the ship completely. I’ve always been intrigued by Titanic’s story, ever since seeing the Cameron film in 1997, and when I first planned Impossible Crossing I enjoyed studying the books, the survivor’s accounts, and the other films made. Despite our story being heavily fictitious, I wanted to keep Titanic’s story as real as possible and there are characters that appear that were real people, and dialogue spoken that is reported to have really been said. I found the blueprints to the ship online and poured over them, working out which route the Doctor might take to get here, or where he would land the TARDIS, or which decks belonged to which class 131

Geek Syndicate

etc. Liberties were obviously taken in a few scenes but for the most part I tried to keep the geography of the ship as true as possible, because otherwise there would be little point in making the story about Titanic.

SD: God, I have watched Cameron’s film SO many times now for screenshots I could probably recite it! For me it was gathering as much accurate visual reference as possible! Titanic has to be the most iconic ship out there, and I just knew that if she didn’t look and feel like the ‘Ship of Dreams’ our story wouldn’t strike the chord we were going for. Alex started gathering all manner of books on the Titanic and very helpfully bookmarked specific photos or pages that related to scenes he had written, that coupled with my own research, 3D digital models and an air-fix model that Alex did just for fun, I was able to capture Titanic accurately from every angle! She really is quite a pleasure to draw. GS: Have you followed the Doctor Who comics and if so what was your favourite era? AB: I hadn’t read many before starting work on Impossible Crossing. I was initially unsure about turning it into a comic because, to me, it’s a medium that has never leant itself very well to Doctor Who. A lot of the stories – by Doctor Who Magazine or IDW or whoever – feel very rushed to me, and are never quite as grounded as the show was. It’s easy when writing a comic to make things bigger, more extravagant, because they’re not limited to a budget, but it’s bigger for the 132

sake of bigger and not done in the best interest of the story. Impossible Crossing is intentionally slower and smaller, more in fitting with the classic show rather than the new, and if it were an episode the budget would lie in recreating Titanic, not extravagant monsters.

stories rather than plot driven. The idea for Impossible Crossing stemmed from wanting to use the Eighth Doctor, which is why I wanted the Doctor himself in the logo. It’s a character specific logo for a character specific story. SD: I have to agree with Alex, the stories I enjoy reading the most are the ones with engaging and interesting characters. That also goes for the ones I like drawing the most too! I spend a lot of time before drawing a comic designing the characters; it’s one of the parts of the creative process on any project that I enjoy the most! GS: Can you tell us a little bit more about the creative process?

SD: I’ve only read a few Doctor Who comics, majority of them being the Panini collections of the classic Doctor Who Monthly strips. I guess if I had to pick an era it would be that of the Fifth Doctor. Peter Davison is my Doctor and in The Tides of Time collection, Dave Gibbon’s art is just the icing on the cake! GS: What type of storytelling do you like? AB: It depends on the writer, but I prefer character driven

SD: While the script is being written I gather as much reference as I can for locations, characters, vehicles, EVERYTHING! You need to have a thorough grounding in the things that you’re to draw, even if they’re fictional and totally fantastical. They won’t look real unless you’ve researched and you feel comfortable drawing them. This goes for every project I work on! Once I’ve got my reference I design the characters and anything else that the story requires before thumbnailing pages; and then penciling, inking and lettering. I add colour last and exclusively through Photoshop, using textures and custom brushes to create a traditional aesthetic. AB: I constantly think about character, so before I start writing anything I have to know what the characters will ultimately go through. It’s

hard not to simply kill a character off in order to garner a reaction from the reader, which sadly, I have done numerous times. It’s a hard habit to break! GS: Sara you have worked on many other comics and Alex you have a really interesting blog up and running. Can you tell us some more about your past projects and experiences? SD: ‘Promises’ the short story I illustrated for Bayou Arcana: Songs of Loss and Redemption was my break into the UK Small Press scene; I met so many other creators and learnt so much about the process that fuelled my excitement and enthusiasm for making comics. With the announcement of my involvement in Bayou Arcana and glimpses of work on my blog, other opportunities started appearing. I was commissioned to provide a short comic for the RPG Dark Harvest: Legacy of Frankenstein, and numerous illustrations and logos for them since.I also volunteered to illustrate ‘Red Riding Hood’ in Into the Woods: A Fairytale Anthology, and the short story ‘Moving Day’ in Sugar Glider Stories 2. Currently I’ve three comic projects on the go, one being Impossible Crossing of course, the other two I can’t talk about yet!

Geek Syndicate

come a-calling they’re ready and waiting…

GS: Is the Impossible Crossing the first of many Doctor Who stories and if so which doctors would you like to use? AB: Impossible Crossing is the only one story I’ve ever had a real idea for, but I promised Sara that I would write a short story for her Doctor… SD: Yes, you need to write me something with crickety cricket stuff and decorative vegetables please! GS: To any aspiring creator out there, what would you say is the best piece of advice? Where you would like to be in 10 years time? SD: Be seen. Keep busy. Keep going!! This is true for writer and artist alike. I’ve only been at this professionally for around 2 years now but in that time I have found my blog an invaluable tool in getting my work out there and seen. There are so many free social networking platforms these days that it’s so easy to pick one, or all of them, and get noticed! Connect and collaborate with people, don’t isolate your-

self. Get involved in anthologies, they’re a great start up to meet like-minded people and showcase your work! Always be creating something, whether it’s a commission or a personal project. Practice your craft and then share it! If you put in long hours of hard work that dedication will show and people will pick you up on it! This is a tough gig to get into; I myself have only scraped the very surface! I’m still working a part-time job to pay the bills and freelancing on the side. I would hope that in 10 years time I’ll be able to make a living solely from my illustration! It may be hard, stressful and at times scary, but once you have a completed book in your hands (or uploaded online) it’s so, so very satisfying! So keep going!! AB: Sara summed it up there, really. As for where I am in ten years time, I would hope to have at least one book on the shelves To find out more about The Impossible Crossing check out the first six pages on issuu, You can also check out Alex’s blog and Sara’s blog as well.

Luke Halsall

AB: My blog is a means to get my opinion on the latest film and TV out there, and vent if I’m frustrated! There are links on there to a couple of stories I wrote about Batman (and the rest of the Bat-family), which are more for me than anything else. They’re not brilliant but they helped me refine my writing skills, and if DC ever 133

Geek Syndicate

COMIC REVIEW - Halcyon and Tenderfoot #002 ference in mood from issue 1 to 2. In issue 1, everything is happy. We have bright colours and smiles all around. By the time we get to issue 2, there is a feeling of darkness engulfing the entire cover. It is a beautiful change that foreshadows what we are about to read. The cover art is one of the best covers I have seen on the indie circuit this year. Full of emotion and passion, it really shows what a good cover can do.

Writer: Daniel Clifford Artist: Lee Robinson Additional Art: Nadine Ashworth Publisher: Art Heroes

The Review: After the shocking events of issue 1, Tenderfoot is reeling. He is dealing with guilt, believing that he is to blame, as well as the fact that he has lost someone very dear to him. He decides that enough is enough and to hang up his tights. But how long will it be until he is running again? Launched last week at the Carlisle Mega Con, Daniel Clifford and Lee Robinson left us with an unbelievable twist at the end of issue 1 that was bound to bring people back for more. They will not be disappointed. The tagline for issue 1 was that this book was not another crime fighting duo, and they are living up to their promise. You can see that there has been much thought put into the covers, with the stark dif134

The artwork by Lee Robinson is stunning and suits this book to a tee. Something I have always liked about Clifford’s work is that it is written at a level that should appeal to everyone. There is so much to take from this issue and the art really does pop, jumping out of the page. A stand out page has to be the priest recalling his experiences with the super team. Every time I look at Robinson’s work I think he gets better and better, getting more used to the comic medium and happier to take risks that are paying off. A testament to Clifford as a writer, this issue really shows off his ability, again illustrating that this book is more than just the typical crime fighting duo. There is little action in terms of fisticuffs in Halcyon and Tenderfoot 2 but I can’t say that there is no action. The storyline will grip you as you watch Tenderfoot mourn and see how his fallen comrade has affected the rest of the universe they inhabit. A really nice touch is that a lot of the support cast that appear in this issue were created at Clifford and Robin-

son’s workshops by their child fans for their child fans. We do see some physical action, but again it is not what you would come to expect if you saw the words “superhero comic.” Clifford and Robinson took another gamble (taking an issue to develop their characters and focus on them rather than fights) and it really paid off. I feel more connected to Tenderfoot than I did at the end of issue 1 and feel his emotional heart ache. Some would have shied away from not having much physical action in an issue 2, but this is coming from one half of the team that decided that they would be able to create an entire universe, flesh it out, and succeed with Sugar Glider. The final page is not as dramatic in a typical sense as issue 1 was, but in an emotional sense it is just as strong. This issue really helps you develop a bond with Tenderfoot, and there is a real fist in the air with triumph as we see the final panel. There are some moments that I did not feel that the dialogue worked, but for every time this occurred, Clifford made up for it with some great emotion shown from Tenderfoot. Overall, the Art Heroes team are excelling. They keep taking risks and breaking down the boundaries that surround the rest of the comic scene. This is a must read book that has heart and soul.

Luke Halsall Rating:

GGGGG

Geek Syndicate

INTERVIEW - Jonbot Vs Martha’s Colin Bell

The webcomic Jonbot Vs. Martha follows the adventures of Jonbot and Martha. Jon and Martha were getting a divorce, but he had a heart attack and snuffed it. Then a friendly, slightly mad scientist built a robot and stuck Jon’s brain in and hey presto we have JONBOT! He still wants a divorce though…which actually seems like a blessing because he’s kind of a dick. Will he learn to grow and accept responsibility now he’s a robot? Probably not. Oh and they have an adorable daughter Sarah. Artist Neil Slorance is a Scottish Illustrator with “a passion for all things robotic and dinosaur based.” He currently lives in Glasgow with his tortoise Herman. Neil’s blog can be found here. His Neil Armstrong tribute strip made me sniffle. Writer Colin Bell also works for Newsarama and Comic Booked as well as his own awesome blog It’s Bloggerin Time! He says His favourite foodstuffs are “Chicken Chargrills and condensed milk. Not together though, that would be rank.” Colin agreed to answer some questions for us on the webcomic.

GS: So who came up with Jonbot vs Martha? Was it always going to be a webcomic? CB: If memory serves I think we had the idea of the two of us simply doing a webcomic before we had the actual idea that became JVsM. Once I’d nagged Neil into joining me, I had a good look over all his stuff (online here!) to try and see what he’d be happiest drawing, and the two recurring themes in a lot of his work were robots, and this incredible ability to wring real poignancy out of simple, everyday things. We’re talking real emotional heft wrapped up in the cutest bundle you ever did see. With that in mind, I pitched him the basics of the strip (robot and woman getting a divorce) in a bid to try and EXPLOIT THESE STRENGTHS TO THE EXTREME. So, in that sense we both came up with the idea in that his work and abilities informed it from the outset! GS: You have your own theme tune! How did that happen? CB:We have two! One’s a folky jaunt by Glasgow troubadour Shambles Miller, and the other is by electro-lothario Zuko Fontiane and it sounds like it’s been ripped straight from the

title sequence of an 80s Saturday morning cartoon. We acquired them the only way we know how – outright begging. Our second ever strip (and the first JVsM I ever wrote) is our Title Sequence, complete with lyrics that sum up the plot of the strip. When that was published we put a call out with it for musicians to put those lyrics to music, and thankfully Shambles and Zuko were kind enough to answer. I must stress that open invitation is still open should anyone else want to take a stab. WE LOVE THEME TUNES. GS: Do you have any plans to produce a book of Jonbot vs Martha strips? CB: Overall I think what we’d like to do is to wait until the strip reaches its conclusion and then just put out a nice big Complete Jonbot Vs Martha deal with commentary (by which I mean apologies), and additional material and the like. That said, when we were nominated for four Scottish Indie Comic Book Alliance awards this year (Best Comic, Writer, Artist and Cover, humblebrag) we put together a wee collection of all the eligible strips into a booklet that voters could read. 135

Geek Syndicate

And then when we lost all four of those awards we were left with quite a backlog to shift, so if anyone wants to buy a copy of something you can read online for free, form an orderly queue here. I am the worst salesman ever.

GS: What are some of your favourite webcomics? CB: For me, Kreepy Kat and The Loneliest Astronauts were both massive influences on the earlier JVsM stuff, in terms of their (respectively) nihilistic and adversarial natures. Both are finished now though, sadly. So currently I’d have to point people to Bucko, Hark A Va-

136

grant, Detective Space Cat, Craig Collins and Iain Laurie’s Roachwell, Joe List’s Freak Leap, Dinosaur Comics, Sin Titulo and Sparkshooter, all off the top of my head. I’m particularly digging my pal Garry Mclaughlin’s Suddenly Something Really Interesting, which is an inspiringly frank personal exploration. It’s also testament to both the sheer emotive capacity of comics, and the brilliant DIY ethos that webcomics present – Garry just picked up a pen one day a few weeks ago and off he went, and now he’s building this incredible community who discuss his strips with each passing instalment.

GS: Will we see any more guest artists on Jonbot vs Martha? CB: As a matter of fact we will, there’ll be guest creative teams! For the month of September Neil and I are taking a well-earned break to focus on some other projects and handing the reins over to a plethora of our comic-creator chums from around the globe for a series of guest strips. There’s going to be “what-if” style strips, explorations of our characters both metaphysical and physical, all sorts. It’s going to be tip-top fun. You can check out the first ever Jonbot vs Martha strip here

Sara Westop

Geek Syndicate

GAME REVIEW: Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land (iOS) you’ll be pleased to know that Bristol-based indipendant game developer, Red Wasp Design, has brought a meaty strategy game to the table in the form of ‘Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land’.

The Blurb: ‘Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land’ is a turn-based strategy/role-playing video game based on the award winning Call of Cthulhu RPG. The game is set in the midst of World War One and pits a team of investigators and soldiers against an ancient evil, one older than humanity itself, who is using the carnage of the great war to build an undead army deep beneath the battlefields of Europe.

The Review: The games market on Apple’s App Store appears to be booming. With more and more titles flooding the format, big and small developers alike are trying to claim a piece of the gold rush that massively successful games like Angry Birds, Cut the Rope and Plants vs Zombies have achieved on touchscreen gaming platform that comprises the iPhone, iPod Touch and the iPad family. The only problem with the current state of affairs is the number of puzzle games and blatant copies of established franchises that flood this promising market, a market that is helping to bring gaming into the mainstream. If one clone too many has left a sour taste in your mouth then

Based on the plethora of horror tales that the king of pulp horror H.P. Lovecraft is revered for, The Wasted Land is set in the midst of the First World War where a small team of plucky scientists and macho soldiers seek to get to the bottom of the sinister goings on of a mysterious German cult. Like the pulp literary genre it is based on, the game isn’t especially deep in plot – but it is rather fun, with a variety of cockney geezers and academic types waffling on about nonsense to amuse you to the accompaniment of eerie music that give levels macabre atmosphere. There are many elements of The Wasted Land that make it stand out from similar strategy games. I’ve already mentioned the entertaining pulp horror setup and quirky characters. One nice touch in particular is the low rate of accuracy in early stages of the game, prior to the obligatory power ups and stat management that takes place between levels. In real life weapons are seldom 100% accurate and it is interesting to have to plan your strategy to compensate for this. Weapons that can be obtained in the game range from melee equipment for close range attacks to pistols, rifles, shotguns and heavy machine guns. Later in the game you also get to use black mag-

ic. Playing around and finding weapons that suit your own play style is good fun and at least makes starting the game over a great opportunity for experimentation. The game was tested on both the iPad and the iPhone but clearly The Wasted Land is geared for the bigger screen as dialogue and narration text is too small to be decipherable on the iPhone/iPod Touch. Movement and other necessary gameplay elements are noticeably harder and somewhat more frustrating when the game is being played on a less expansive display.

The biggest flaw in the game is the control scheme and the lack of sufficient explanation to get your head around them. A bland and not altogether helpful tutorial does not make things easier, however for those that are incredibly persistent (and have a lot of patience to sink a few hours into the early stages) then the game becomes truly rewarding. The controls are also let down by the surprisingly fairweather state of accuracy in movement. Often the map would need to be reoriented to get your character to a place that was otherwise obscured by another character, a building, or a hole – or the game just outright refuses to let you 137

Geek Syndicate

reach despite nothing else in the way.

Another element that lets the game down is the map screen. The game would have benefitted with a smaller magnification of the map on which the strategy battles take place to be able to see nearby enemies and plan your next move. The need to continuously scroll around for you to take advantage of ranged attacks is tedious and also a strain on the eyes. This reviewer had to stop a couple times on the more expansive maps due to the sudden onset of dizziness. Nevertheless, once you’ve got the somewhat confusing-atfirst controls down, you will be addicted and will keep playing for as long as the main campaign will last.

138

The lack of an opportunity to plan for the map ahead can be frustrating. This can perhaps be explained away as being necessary to the plot of venturing into the unknown however it does remain make levels aggravating after a simple mistake like forgetting to top up your med packs or make sure everyone has gas masks bites you in the behind. The fact you can’t quit a level and return to the directory, even when frequently losing, to manage your inventory and buy necessary items like gas masks is incredibly annoying and this reviewer chose at one point to restart the game from scratch to make up for this capability error. Overall this is a very promising strategy game. With fun char-

acters and challenging levels, the game has a lot to like. It’s nice to see established intellectual properties like those of Mr. Lovecraft’s get a good treatment, and for an indie developer like Red Wasp Design to have the stones to take a chance in putting a strategy game on the App Store. This game is not without its considerable flaws, but if the developer can learn from experience and bring these improvements to later strategy games, then we could be in for a truly quality game in the not too distant future.

Dean Simons Rating:

GGGGG

Geek Syndicate

139

Geek Syndicate

INTERVIEW - Look Straight Ahead Writer Elaine M. Will GS: Was Look Straight Ahead always going to be a web comic? EW: I hadn’t planned it to be, but that’s the easiest way for me to get my work out there. I generally have always made artistic choices that work better in print, but it’s impossible to have your work seen by anyone if it’s not online.

Look Straight Ahead is a powerful web comic with an important message. The comic is written and drawn by the immensely talented Elaine M. Will. The comic focuses on main character Jeremy’s struggle with depression and his deterioration leading to a total mental breakdown. It’s a powerful and extremely well done comic with strong and at times frightening visuals, which give it a really visceral and jarred feel. There’s a contrast between ‘real life’ and the scenes where Jeremy’s conscious mind starts to turn against him. This is a must read. It covers a difficult subject matter with tact and an unapologetic focus on what living with a mental illness is really like. Elaine kindly answered some questions on the comic and why it’s focused on such an important issue, which needs more attention.

140

The other reason I put it on the web is so that I can force myself to stick to a schedule. In the past I’ve started a lot of comics that I’ve never finished and I thought this one was of particular importance, so I wanted to make sure I saw it through to the end. GS: It looks at some very important issues regarding Depression and mental health. Why are these issues important to you? EW: I was a “weird” kid, so I was always bullied a lot in school, and that had a fairly negative effect on my mental health from about age 12 onwards. Throughout my life I’ve had many friends that have dealt with the same issues, but the whole topic is still seen as very shameful, something that you’re not supposed to talk about or ever mention in public. I’ve never understood why this is, given the sheer amount of people who suffer with depression. I do realize it’s difficult for someone who doesn’t suffer with it to understand what it’s really like, so here’s hoping my work helps to educate a few people!

GS: Music plays a big influence on Jeremy, even physically transporting him to other worlds. Does it influence your work? EW: Absolutely, I’ve always tried to illustrate songs visually – in fact, a couple of years back I had some pieces in a series of exhibitions called “Paintwork,” which was artwork inspired by The Fall. Around the same time I drew a bunch of covers for “The Pseud Mag,” a Fall fanzine! I always need to have music playing when I draw. Usually something electronic, as instrumentals are less distracting and driving rhythm helps me work. I’ve always thought there was a profound connection between music and the visual arts, one that more artists need to explore. Back in the heyday of Muchmusic (the Canadian MTV) I enjoyed seeing a music video take full advantage of its medium to tell a story, to combine music and images in really interesting ways. It never happened very often – maybe only 1 in 40 videos was like that, and the rest were just concert footage of a band playing in a warehouse somewhere – but I was always impressed when it did. Comes from my love of comics, I suppose – and their ability to combine words and pictures in interesting ways! GS: What made you want to write about this story from a male perspective?

EW: Mostly as a way of distancing myself from the subject matter. While the story is largely based on my own experiences, if I told it exactly the way it had happened it would have taken much longer and probably wouldn’t have been as interesting. I would have had to communicate a lot of information through flashbacks and it probably would have ended up reading more like a memoir, and that just wasn’t the kind of story I wanted to tell. The other more embarrassing reason is that (at least when I started drawing the story) I’m just not all that good at drawing women! Rest assured, my next book will be about a woman. GS: There’s a real sense of frustration at the way Jeremy’s illness is handled. Do you think there are still barriers with regards to treatment and diagnosis for mental illness? EW: Oh, yes. That goes back to what I said earlier about how it’s just never discussed, it’s not a thing people ever want to talk about. This causes a lot of people to never even seek treatment, thinking “I can handle this on my own” – because a lot of times that’s the idea others put into their heads. “Snap out of it!” and so on. And if you can’t “snap out of it” on your own, that means you’re weak. It’s very frustrating. But also as I said earlier, it’s difficult for people to understand what it’s really like, so I have to try to see it from that perspective.

Geek Syndicate

I’ve always had fairly positive experiences with treatment but I do get the feeling that a lot of doctors won’t take you seriously or prescribe medication unless you out-and-out admit that you’re suicidal. So that’s kind of frustrating as well. I’ve heard (I think this may have been in Psychiatric Tales, actually) that there’s also a stigma associated with psychiatric nurses, and how they’re not considered “real” nurses. And sometimes psychiatrists aren’t considered “real” doctors.

On the other hand, if I’d written a story about someone having a breakdown in the 1950s or earlier it would have been a VERY different story. In those days they basically locked you up and threw away the key. Did you ever see that documentary “Mental” on BBC4 a couple of years back, about the defunct High Royds hospital in West Yorkshire? Horrifying stuff. They’d actually beat the patients and things like that.

oping a “style!” I never worried about that. A style develops naturally. Your drawings don’t have to look like your favourite artists, they should just look like YOURS! And, over time, they will. GS: What other projects are you working on at the moment?

EW: I’m drawing a more conventional web comic called On The Bus, which appears in a local free newspaper every Friday. It’s basically about these little monster characters saying and witnessing awkward things. It’s just goofy and silly and I’m having a lot of fun doing it – a nice break from serious drama! Besides that, I’m also tentatively working on something wildly experimental involving classic video games – don’t want to give away more than that, other than it’ll be quite different from the usual video game comic.

Sara Westrop

So yes, we still have a long way to go. But we’ve definitely come a long way as well. GS: How would you describe your artistic style? EW: Not sure! I’m obviously influenced by independent comics but I take a lot of cues from the mainstream stuff as well. So it’s somewhere in the middle of that. I’ve never really gotten hung up on “style” to be honest, and I think a lot of artists get stuck because they get so concerned with devel-

141

Geek Syndicate

COMIC REVIEW - No More Heroes #003 the masked psychotic Jack Slaughter.

The Review: If you’re anything like me, a week or so ago you had no idea who Gordon Mclean was or what the comic No More Heroes was about. If you’re anything like me, change that aspect very quickly. I promise you that you won’t regret it.

Writer: Gordon McLean Artist: Caio Oliveira Colourist: Staz Leonov Letterer: Kel Nuttal Publisher: No More Heores Site

The Blurb: Sid Millar has accidentally killed the world’s greatest hero. Now he needs to find out why. When a drunken Sid Millar receives an anonymous text message asking “Should I kill myself?” his equally inebriated friends goad him into replying: “Yes”. The next day the world is shocked to discover the superhero Dark Justice has committed suicide. A guilt-ridden Sid is press ganged by Black Fury (Dark Justice’s sidekick) into uncovering the truth behind the death. He’s forced to go ever deeper into the super-criminal underworld on a collision course with the last person to see Dark Justice alive: 142

A hero dies and his sidekick seeks revenge against those who killed him. Seems like pretty typical fare, right? Well, what if the hero killed himself? What if the reason he killed himself was a “yes” reply from a random number? What if it seems his nemesis may somehow be involved despite it all? With No More Heroes we’re left to answer these questions. The hero Dark Justice is found dead. Suicide seems to be the cause. The night before, a phone is his possession sent out a message with the simple question, “Should I kill myself?” to a random number, that of a drunken twenty-something. Seeing this as nothing more than a joke, he replies “yes”. The thing is, the phone that sent the message to Sid was registered to Dark Justice’s nemesis Jack Slaughter. Not willing to admit that Dark Justice would take his own life, his sidekick, Black Fury, seeks out Sid, Jack Slaughter, and answers. Issue 3 starts with exploding elephants and continues with Sid and Black Fury getting closer and closer to Jack Slaughter. Sid and the B-list villain Pieces seek to pay off Pieces’ debt to Jack Slaughter

by robbing the “Super Bank”, and Black Fury has no choice but to help, hoping a successful robbery will lead them closer to Jack Slaughter. Sid gets his meeting with Jack and Black Fury takes him down. Jack Slaughter is unmasked and we’re left hanging, knowing only the disbelief on the part of Black Fury and Sid. I read the three issues of No More Heroes all in one sitting and was left just absolutely wanting the resolution as soon as I finished issue three. As a whole, Gordon Mclean does a wonderful job with the storytelling and scripting. Any and all flashbacks, such as the one that occurs here in issue three only add to the story and don’t confuse or muddle anything. The dialogue may honestly be my favorite part of it all. It just seems to flow like real conversation. This may not seem like much of an achievement when you just say it like that, but far too many comics have dialogue that seems forced or dialogue that you can tell was only said that way because it sounded “cool”. Mclean makes his characters seem genuine and makes them talk genuinely. You get such a good sense of who each character really is through their dialogue and actions, which is a great thing. Ciao Oliveira does great things with the art. The art style fits the tone of the story very well, and his characters are very expressive, making sure you know exactly how the characters feel just by looking at their face. The body language is also spot on. Art is obviously supposed to convey the

imagery of the comic, but the attention to the details is what makes Oliveira’s art shine. Facial expressions are one of my big things in comics, and I was not disappointed here. Overall, this was great. A great third issue to a series that I’m ashamed I’d never heard of before. I will be eagerly await-

Geek Syndicate

ing the fourth and final installment. No More Heroes won a Scottish Independent Comic Book award, and they definitely deserved it. I’m on board. I want to know what happened to Dark Justice. I want to know who Jack Slaughter is. The suspense is killing me and I hate waiting for the next issue. This is exactly how a good

comic should be. If you don’t believe me, just head on over to the site and check out the free preview. It’s sure to catch your interest.

Leo Johnson Rating:

GGGGG

INTERVIEW - 2011 SICBA Nominee, Iain Laurie GS: What first inspired you to create comics? IL: I’ve always made them since I was wee. I loved them so much I just wanted to feel like I was involved. The problem was I’ve always struggled with traditional comic art. Its really difficult for me. Then I saw stuff by people like Charles Burns and Dan Clowes and realised there was another way of doing it.

Iain Laurie. Laurie is a writer/ artist whose work on Roachwell lead him to a SICBA (Scottish Independent Comic Book Awards) nomination last year. GS: Hi Iain your comic collection Horror Mountain is astounding with some ingenious plots and some quality artwork, where do your ideas come from? IL: Thanks Luke. I’m not sure to be honest. They just come to me. I blame it on my mind being warped at a young age by David Lynch ,Reeves and Mortimer, The Avengers,Dennis Potter and Marvel and DC comics. I think that all went in the pot and its given me a bit of a twisted way of seeing things.

GS: What type of storytelling do you like? IL: Really depends. If its done well, then every type of storytelling is valid valid. Its like films..21 Grams or Tree Of Life are just as valid as Avengers Assemble. In comics I like Chris Ware or Grant Morrison as much as Brian Michael Bendis or Scott Snyder. All different, but all great. GS: Your work with Roachwell was brilliant. Can you tell us more about the creative process? IL: I can. It’s all Craig Collins! I’m just an art monkey on that, just serving Craig’s vision and trying not to intrude or overwhelm his scripts. Any success or blame is all his fault

GS: I particularly like your work on all The Dead Superheroes. Will we see more of this in the future? IL: I’d love too. It’s my favourite thing I’ve done as it turned out exactly as I wanted it. Then other stuff got in the way and I couldn’t finish it. But one day hopefully. There’s loads and loads of stuff I wanted to do with that and I just scratched the surface. GS: How about you doing more superheroes? IL: Id really like too if it’s the right fit, as I’m a massive superhero nerd. In terms of my style maybe DR STRANGE or something cosmic-y. BATMAN too, obviously but that’s the Holy Grail. GS: Your style is twisted, demented, unique and innovative. You are truly one of a kind. Can you tell us how you usually come up with your page structure? IL: The idea usually dictates that. The kind of stuff I do, like it or hate it, its pretty uniquely ‘me’. So when I get an idea I have a sort of built in way of editing it as I go and dumping stuff that doesn’t work. Its almost like being in a trance sometimes but when its right 143

Geek Syndicate

it feels right. I honestly have looked at stuff I’ve done an hour later and thought ‘Where did that come from??”.

GS: What kind of projects do you have lined up for the future? IL: Right now I’m still doing MOTHWICKE with Fraser Campbell, whose probably my longest standing collaborator. That’s an easy no-brainer thing so I don’t really look at it as a ‘project’ as such because its so effortless. I’ve got a few things upcoming in 2013-a new project with Craig which is a very ambitious thing we’re doing. A lot of work and a real experiment. Its hard to describe and I think I’ll leave that to Craig when he’s ready. I’ve also got a thing I’m planning to do with Fraser which is maybe something we were born to do a bit. Its like nothing we’ve ever done before. I don’t want to say anymore but If we can pull this together it would be unbelievably cool. On top of that I have a top secret thing with John Lees we’re working on and If I say anymore Gordon Robertson will be at my door singing Morrisey songs and wielding a hammer. As well as that a few bits and bobs. Ive written a script for Garry McLaughlin and I’m genuinely excited to see what Garry does with that. GS: To any aspiring creator out there, what would you say is the best piece of advice?

144

IL: Well it depends. If you’re a mainstream comics guy then I don’t have much advice. But if you want to do weirder, more personal stuff then my advice would be worry more about the ideas than the quality of the art. If the ideas are strong and interesting then you could draw stick figures for all it matters.

working with me as a writer then get in touch. While drawing is back-breaking, writing is a real pleasure. So I’ll say in 10 years time I hope to still be doing something creative.

GS: Where you would like to be in ten years time?

If you want to see what Horror Mountain is about click here

IL: I don’t really have any ambitions, other than just do stuff for the enjoyment of it. I’d love to write more. If there’s any artists who fancy

If you want to check out some of Mr Laurie’s work, check out Roachwell, Mothwicke and All The Dead Superheroes.

Also you can follow him on Twitter

Luke Halsall

Geek Syndicate

COMIC REVIEW - Hildefolk Books By Luke Pearson

Writer / Artist: Luke Pearson Publisher: Nobrow Press

The Review: There’s an outcry at the moment for more kid-friendly comics, as the big two don’t seem to want to cater to a new younger audience. But beneath the alpha studio dominance, there are plenty of comics that cater to kiddies and still appeal to us big kids – and one of those is Luke Pearson’s beautifully drawn Hilda books. I can’t help but gush over Hilda; she’s just one of my most favourite characters. Hilda is a little girl who lives in the middle of nowhere in the lush Scandinavian countryside with her mother surrounded by mountains, fields, lakes and lots of fluffy things. She’s bright, in-

quisitive and so enthusiastic, with blue hair and skinny legs making her an instantly recognisable character. The Hilda books have an eclectic mix of creatures including the Wood Man (guess what he’s made of) who likes to lie down in front of their fire because he’s ‘Too aware of his own house to be comfortable’ and Hilda’s friend Twig, a gorgeous Deerfox who is glued to her side throughout both books. Then there are elves, trolls and giants – plus my favourite: THE WOFFS! These are fluffy flying balls of cute with big eyes and tails. I want my own…or for someone to make me one (it is nearly Christmas *hint*).

The first mini comic, Hildafolk, was published by Nobrow back in 2010 as part of an initiative called 17×23, designed to get creators published in small more economical formats and encouraging them to develop new ideas and create new books. This was followed by Hilda and the Midnight Giant, a full length hardback comic in 2011, and going forward it looks like there will be a third book too. Both Hilda books have an incredibly whimsical and magical feel to them. The rustic setting means the backgrounds are just so rich, even in the tiny panels, with the first book a wash of muted greens, browns and blues which gives it a really retro 70s feel. The second 145

Geek Syndicate

book has a similar colour hue but brighter and with a bit more depth, especially in the night-time scenes.

Luke Pearson’s artistic style in these books makes me think of Tove Jansson’s artwork (the creator of the Moomins), as they share lots of similarities in terms of the rural settings and character design. Charac-

ters are made up of exaggerated features and both artists have a love for mythical creatures and folklore – polishing the overall fantastical atmosphere in Hilda’s world.

ple – making great bedtime stories. For us adults? Well, you get to enjoy a gorgeous book full of rich scenery and characters that’ll make your heart melt.

The books are full of humour and are an absolute delight to read. If you have kiddies, they’ll love the settings and all the diverse creatures and peo-

Sara Westrop Rating:

GGGGG (Both Books)

146

Geek Syndicate

147

Geek Syndicate

INTERVIEW - Sugar Glider Creators, Daniel Clifford & Gary Bainbridge be rather handy in the superhero world, gliding, climbing, vicious fighting style etc. so at a Paper Jam Comic Collective meeting in Newcastle one evening, I started drawing a superhero character with goggles, claw-like gloves, a gliding cape and a black and white costume.

After chatting to Daniel Clifford on his own, we are now going to talk to him and Gary Bainbridge. Together they have created Sugar Glider, the critically acclaimed superhero comic book set in Newcastle. GS: Hi, Daniel and Gary. Sugar Glider has been a huge critical success. Where did the idea come from? GB: Hi Luke, my wife has something of an animals obsession, and went through an exotic animals phase. In doing so, we came across these little furry marsupials with huge eyes, claws, really poor social skills and the ability to glide through the air. After watching a load of Youtube videos explaining why buying a Sugar Glider would be a terrible idea, we shied away from it in the end. But visually, they’re very striking and they have your range of skills that would

148

I’d just finished working with Daniel on our first collaboration for a PJCC book. He talks about it here and I talk about it here. He came over and looked at the sketch and persuaded me to take this character further. So we spent a little while expanding on the character of Susie Sullivan, aka Sugar Glider and the world in which she lives. DC: Gary drew a fantastic sketch of a female superhero and I leapt at the idea. I was putting together an anthology of all-ages adventure stories at the time so I asked Gary to submit a strip about this character. I helped him develop the general concept of the story and became really excited by it. Seeing an opportunity to finally make a full-length comic book, I asked Gary if he’d collaborate with me on a short series. We both went away and developed the characters and stories for a year before releasing the first issue. GS: I really liked the idea that you created an entire universe with Sugar Glider Stories. Can you tell us what it was like to step out of the writing and artist chairs for some of the stories and step into the editing world?

DC: I love creating structures for other people to work in. I’ve always been involved in coordinating art projects – from a film group to youth work and then in comics. So it wasn’t a big deal for me. And my love of huge franchise superheroes means that I have a bit of a belief that having other creators write and draw your characters legitimizes them. It’s a daft idea, but it’s the one I’ve grown up with. At the same time, every strip in Sugar Glider Stories issue 1 was written by us. In issue 2, even the strips that were written by others were based on ideas and character profiles that we provided. I set out who the character was and where we needed them to get to, but the guest creator added their own personality and came up with stories that I never could have – and that’s what the project was all about. GB: The Sugar Glider Stories was the single solution to two problems. The first was that we had inadvertently created a boatload of characters with backstories and relationships and personalities, and no space to show them off. The second being that we wanted to fill the gap between releases of the main title, to keep the SG name fresh in people’s minds. I think SGS are not without their faults, maybe they came out too soon, maybe they were too much work , maybe they didn’t have enough of Susie and Sugar Glider in them. For me, they were a great oppor-

tunity to work with artists who I’d admired for years. I can’t begin to describe how strange and humbling it is to see other people draw your characters, especially when you’ve been a fan of theirs for so long. Similarly, we were in a position where we could provide a platform for other writers and artists to get something published and to expand their portfolios. In that respect, I enjoyed stepping out of the artist chair and watching all this amazing work come flooding in. I particularly had a lot of fun swapping places with Daniel and writing a strip he would draw in SGS1. GS: I bet many of the doubters told you that you could not build a universe like you have for an indie book. What would you say to them now and aspiring creators wanting to do something similar? GB: Well, haters gonna hate. I think the main reason for the world building was that we wanted to plan the whole three issues of the main title before we started, and we felt it needed a fairly deep backdrop that could come to the fore later in the series. I think Daniel and I are coming to the realisation that huge universes and longer form stories are probably the recipe for madness in the self publishing world. If any aspiring creators are out there, I’d start by asking if your comic needs a large universe. It takes a lot of time and has the potential to take the focus away from your main thread. This may be what you want, and that’s cool, but

Geek Syndicate

if you’re making a universe for the sake of it, I’d be asking where the story is. Secondly, self publishing is a tough gig, so it’s always best to have projects that are manageable. I mean that in terms of the logistics, not in terms of ideas. And of coursed, there are other ways to create a truly rich and interesting world without a huge roster of characters.

DC: I’d say, “I wish I had listened to you.” To some extent, I think we succeeded and I know a lot of readers have enjoyed that side of the Sugar Glider universe, but I think that Richard Bruton’s review for the FPI blog was pretty much on the money – it dilutes the Susie Sullivan story. If I had put the effort it took to create that universe into the main Susie story, the main storyline would have been a lot better. Having said that, everything from the issues of Sugar Glider Stories will be paying off in issue 3 of Sugar Glider. GS: Will we see any of more development in the Sugar Glider Stories characters? GB: That would be telling. After SGS 2, we decided not to do any more, but there are a lot of characters there, so who knows? DC: I’d like to see Gary do a Tiernan comic, and I’d be interested in doing some Vigilance stories – but, really, that probably won’t happen. We’ve got a new idea which is closer to the stories Gary likes and more likely to reach a wider audience – so we’ll be working on that at some point rather than anything to do with Sugar Glider.

GS: Is there a possibility for a Sugar Glider issue 4? Or will it all come to an end with Sugar Glider issue 3? We’d always planned to do three issues. GB: Sugar Glider 3 is the last one we’re planning on doing. We’ve talked about the possible ways of returning to the Gliderverse, but we’ll see. If publishers and people and of course, the two of us, want more, then it’s a distinct possibility. DC: No. There might be a Sugar Glider one-off or webcomic or something, but there won’t be an issue 4. We’ve said from the very beginning that this was a trilogy, and we’ve already added two anthologies to that. GS: When can we expect to see Sugar Glider issue 3? DC: I’m hoping this year, but only GB knows for sure. GB: I’m currently working on Sugar Glider 3 I’m about a quarter of the way through inking it. I have no idea when it will be ready. Place your bets now. If you want to check out Sugar Glider go to the website where it is being serialized

Luke Halsall

149

Geek Syndicate

150

Geek Syndicate

151

Geek Syndicate ELEVATOR PITCHES

What’s an Elevator Pitch? Imagine you have a comic that you’ve put a lot of work, life and soul into. You love it.You know others would to. You get into an elevator, maybe in a hotel at a convention. At the same time, in walks a wellknown editor. The doors close and you are alone. This is your chance - but you only have a short time to get your work noticed ... That’s the concept of Elevator Pitches. Provide us with a single sentence summarising your comic and another explaining why we should pick it up. Follow this up with a five page preview and the pitch is done - let the work sell itself. If you would like to submit a comic for this section, email: thegeeks@geeksyndicate.co.uk.

Reads Writer: Various Artist: Various Publisher: Avery Hill Publishing Ltd. Buy It From: Orbital Comics, Worlds Apart, OK Comics, Travelling Man, Nostalgia & Comics, Forbidden Planet or Avery Hill’s Web Site.

What is Reads? “A comics anthology that celebrates long-form narrative storytelling. The main strips are: Hilary Harper, an investigator of magical happenings (basically James Bond played by John Pertwee). Metroland, a time-travelling whodunit with added rock ’n’ roll. Bad Times Ahead, a mystery, inside an enigma, inside the mind of a very strange man. Added to that, we have the stunning comics of Tim Bird as he muses on London and life, ghost stories from M J Wallace and additional contributions from new and old kids on the UK comic scene block such as Paul Rainey, Luke Halsall and Clare Stewart. AND if that wasn’t enough we’re just starting to include articles on the technical aspects of comics production, UK Small Press landmarks and the history of comics!!! Basically, it’s brilliant.”

Why should we pick this up? “Because we’re around for the long-stretch. Reads will become a mainstay of the UK comics scene and a go to for intriguing reads and great new talent. You can say you were there at the beginning.” 152

Geek Syndicate

153

Geek Syndicate Magic of Myths Writer: Corey Brotherson Artist: Sergio Calvet Publisher: Doodle Doodle Buy It From: Nostalgia and Comics (Birmingham), Gosh Comics (London) or magicofmyths.wordpress.com What is Magic of Myths? “Imagine the epic swords and sorcery of Clash of the Titans, bleeding against the sharp witticisms and tone of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, sprinkled with a dash of Alice in Wonderland… Magic of Myths is a massive fantasy adventure which sees a damaged young woman called Eve transported to a strange (but familiar) world of myth, magic and monsters. She’s been chosen for a mysterious, great task, and she’s about to find out exactly what that task is. Needless to say, it’s going to change her life forever. And not in a good way…” Why should we pick this up? “Magic of Myths: 2013 preview is the perfect jumping-on point to the story – it features a sample of the forthcoming season two graphic novel; a silent, self contained short story; guest artwork and a huge preview of forthcoming Magic of Myths novella, Devil’s Trade. We’re also offering the chance for you to win full copies of season two and Devil’s Trade, via pre-orders and site sign-ups. And if you want to grab Magic of Myths: season one, that’s available at a discounted rate for a limited time, too. Here’s what the press have said about season one: GeekPlanet Online: A fun, enjoyable book that will leave you wanting more. Chud.com: …for every trope we meet, Brotherson finds a way to skewer our expectations, or place a different twist on the expected… [and] Sergio Calvert’s cartoony work is a complete delight.”

154

Geek Syndicate

155

Geek Syndicate

156

Geek Syndicate

157

Geek Syndicate

158

Geek Syndicate

Ryder Writer: Ryan Tandy Artist: Dave Powell Publisher: Everlong Comics Buy It From: Comic Guru, Fish Comics or via www.facebook.com/everlongcomics What is Ryder? “So it turns out your parents lied to you. There are things that live in the darkness, preying on the innocent unlucky enough to cross their path. Some of them are human, but others are most definitely not. Lucky for you, we’ve got people to keep the darkness in check.’ A paranormal detective story set in modern day London, Ryder follows PODA agents John Ryder and Grace Wells as they keep the population safe from horrors they don’t even know exist. ” Why should we pick this up? “With influences such as Hellboy and The Boys, Ryder #1 is a gritty introductions to a world of demons, monsters and men that will leave you counting down the days until the next issue.”

159

Geek Syndicate

160

Geek Syndicate

161

Geek Syndicate

162

Geek Syndicate

163

Geek Syndicate

164

Geek Syndicate

Ladies and Gentlemen Writer: Richard Worth Artist: Jordan Collver Publisher: The Water Closet Press Buy It From: Travelling Man, OK Comics, Excelsior or at www.waterclosetpress. blogspot.com What is Ladies and Gentlemen? “Ladies and Gentlemen is comic packed with adventure, mystery, romance, moustaches and monocles. It follows the adventure of The Gentry, a team of Victorian crime fighters. It’s a love letter to Silver Age comics, magicians and myths.” Why should we pick this up? “This is the first ongoing project from the Eagle Award Nominated Team (New Visionaries category) and has repeatedly sold out in shops. But don’t take our word for it here is what the internet had to say. toooldforcomics.blogspot.com: The artwork is excellent, and artist Jordan Collver captures the feel of a dirty, grubby, Victorian London perfectly…. at no point in this book did my interest wane, I read it twice before I put it down. Brokenfrontier.com – …is both distinctive and well defined in visual identity and style.” “…enough intriguing questions in terms of both plot and characterisation to leave its audience eager to discover more about its world.”

165

Geek Syndicate

166

Geek Syndicate

167

Geek Syndicate

168

Geek Syndicate

169

See you next Issue!