Geek Syndicate - Issue 9 March 2014 by Geek Syndicate

REVIEWS: EGOs #001

What affects cartoon survival? www.geeksyndicate.co.uk

BATES MOTEL

Steve Grant 2 Guns Interview

MAX: THE CURSE OF BROTHERHOOD

Robin Hood: Moving Target

RED RISING

Bigfootâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Comic Appearances March 2014

Geek Syndicate GS Issue 009 - Credits Cover Photograph: Doctor Macro Cover Design: Antony McGarry-Thickitt Designer: Antony McGarry-Thickitt

Welcome to the March issue of the Geek Syndicate Magazine!

Editors: Barry Nugent Antony McGarry-Thickitt Proof Reader: James Sims Contribuors: Antony McGarry-Thickitt Barry Nugent Casey Douglass Ian J. Simpson Jess Hawke Leo Johnson Matt Farr Phil Hobden Ronald “Silverfox” Singh

I think Robin Hood is a little like The Doctor in that everyone has “their Robin”. In my case, “my Robin” would be Errol Flynn. The classic scene in The Adventures of Robin Hood where Flynn walks into Nottingham castle with a deer perched on his shoulders was the moment I fell in love with the character. Read the results of our investigation into Robin’s history on page 13, it may surprise you. On page 5 Matt dons helm and shield to bluff his way through the misty realm of Massively Multiplayer Online Games with the Bluffers Guide. We also meet a digital ninja in the form of 2000AD’s PR CoOrdinator Michael Molcher on page 30.

21 we discuss some of the factors that influenced the cancellation of these great shows. Before things get too bleak let us remember that we are only in March and we still have a lot of good stuff to look forward to. On the horizon we have Captain America:Winter Soldier, Season four of Game of Thrones, TitanFall, Guardians of the Galaxy, Bristol Comic Expo, Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes, London Super Comic Con and a whole lot more. With so many things in the offering it’s a great time to be a geek and I would not have it any other way.

Over the past few years we have seen the rise and fall of some great cartoons. On page

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Typesetting: GS Banner - Copperplate Bold Cover Text - Century Gothic Main Text - Nobile (Open Font Licence)

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Geek Syndicate Contents Features PREVIOUSLY ON THE GEEK SYNDICATE NETWORK ........................................................................................................ 4 THE BLUFFER’S GUIDE TO ... Massively Multiplayer Online Games ........................................................................... 5 ROBIN HOOD: Moving Target ............................................................................................................................................. 13 DOCTOR WHO: The Trial Of A Show Runner ..................................................................................................................... 21 VIDEO GAMING RITUALS .................................................................................................................................................... 26 THE GEEK SYNDICATE ULTIMATE ARMOURY ................................................................................................................. 32 CRYPTIDS IN COMICS ... Bigfoot ........................................................................................................................................ 39 DOCTOR WHO’S BEST STORIES: Incarnations Three and Four ................................................................................... 46 THE LIFE AND DEATH OF CARTOON HEROES ................................................................................................................. 61

Interviews Steve Grant Talks 2 Guns ...................................................................................................................................................... 9 Digital Ninja: Michael Molcher ......................................................................................................................................... 30 Talking Cosplay With The Artful Dodger ......................................................................................................................... 43 Mayamada Serves Up Some Samurai .............................................................................................................................. 54

Reviews Max - The Curse Of Brotherhood ...................................................................................................................................... 66 EGOs #1 .................................................................................................................................................................................. 68 BATES MOTEL - Season One ............................................................................................................................................... 72 RED RISING by Pierce Brown ............................................................................................................................................ 74

Previews TOMB RAIDER #1 .................................................................................................................................................................... 77 The White Suits #1 ................................................................................................................................................................. 86 TERMINATOR: ENEMY OF MY ENEMY #1 ........................................................................................................................ 94 ELEVATOR PITCH - The Wyrm and the Well .................................................................................................................. 102 ELEVATOR PITCH - Genesis .............................................................................................................................................. 107

Geek Syndicate PREVIOUSLY ON THE GEEK SYNDICATE NETWORK ...

Previously on the Geek Syndicate Network ... Over on our flagship website, our podcasts have been pumping out some top quality content over the last few months. To whet your appetite, here’s the show notes and links to the latest episodes (at time of publication) of the various audio offerings we make available on a regular basis...

Children of the Atom (Episode 16) This episode we pick up where we left off last time with issue 23 (Aug 1966). The X-Men are being held hostage by Count Nefaria who plans to hold Washington to ransom with the aid of his not-so-trusty lieutenants. Meanwhile, Professor X is engrossed in a mysterious new project, what could it be?

Dissecting Worlds (Series 8, Episode 2: Small Gods) The Northern Twosome this month engage with Terry Pratchett’s mediation on faith and belief “Small Gods”.

Geek Syndicate (Episode 218) Welcome to Episode 218 of the Geek Syndicate podcast. Join Dave, Barry and special co host Stacey Whittle as they once more guide you through the murky underbelly of Geekdom. In The Week That Was, the threesome go television crazy!

Scrolls (World Fantasy Con Special) If you have an abiding love for Fantasy, SF and Horror, you could do far worse than get yourself to one of the book conventions that crop up around the country on a regular basis. In 2013 the World Fantasy Con returned to our fair shores after a long absence, bringing with it a raft of international authors, book launches, intimate Q&As, large-scale panels and literary awards. Folk from all areas of the publishing industry were brought together with fans to celebrate and promote the ongoing explosion of imaginative fiction into mainstream life.

The Next Level (Episode 60) Amaechi, Barry and Ant delve into the recent games news. Hear their thoughts on digital console game prices, Assassin’s Creed standalone DLC and Barry finally has Steam. As it’s the beginning (ish) of 2014, the guys look ahead at the forthcoming releases for the year and pick out their top titles. Finally, Amaechi reviews season two of The Walking Dead.

Geek Syndicate THE BLUFFER’S GUIDE TO ... Massively Multiplayer Online Games

THE BLUFFER’S GUIDE TO ...

Massively Multiplayer Online Games 5

Geek Syndicate 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! So, coming out tonight? I can’t. I’ve got a Raid. ...a what? A Raid. Me and a bunch of people I hardly know are going to team up online and kill a virtual monster in a computer game for a small chance of virtual loot. Was that the best way you could phrase that? ...Yes. Actually I don’t think there is a way to describe MMOGs without sounding a little weird. I think you’re going to have to try! OK. Well, MMOG stands for “Massively Multiplayer Online Game” and they’re a strange offshoot of regular online gaming. Mostly when you play online, in your Battlefields, and Call of Duties, and so on, you’re with a relatively small number of people on a server, but MMOGs are all about getting as many people in the same game world as possible. All shooting each other and trying to drive the same tank? Actually it’s pretty dominated by fantasy games. All stabbing each other and trying to ride the same horse? Thats more like it. To start with the most common type, you have the MMORPG, or Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. These are, in fact, older than the Internet. Dun-Dun-Deeerrrr!

Very funny. Some of the earliest multiplayer games were know as MUDS (Multi User Dungeons) and ran on local university networks and then over ARPANet, the modern internet’s precursor. They were purely textbased, usually programmed by an individual and featured basic gameplay: wander around dungeons killing monsters, levelling up and interacting with other players in the same world. They sound a long way from modern games, but laid down the foundation that the MMORPG genre has struggled to break free from. They’re not still text based though, surely? No, they’ve gotten a lot prettier, that’s for sure. MUDs gained graphical interfaces through the nineties as access to home PCs with internet connections spread. By the late nineties games like Ultima Online (1997) and Everquest (1999) were bona fide mainstream hits. Mechanistically they’re the same though kill mobs (wandering monsters) for loot and experience, so you can level up to kill harder mobs for more loot and experience. These games also introduced world monsters you had to team up with other people to kill, and smaller “Instanced” dungeons you could do with set teams. But the 1990s were a long time ago. It is. And it’s not changed since then? Well, yes and no. In 2004 World of Warcraft launched. Blizzard Entertainment are often accused of not being

great innovators, but what they did with WoW (as it’s known) was take all the disparate strands that games before them had been playing with and smooth them into one elegant whole. It wasn’t a flawless game - its server woes on launch would have disastrous consequences these days - but it was a huge leap in accessibility and polish. People that hadn’t the time or energy to get onboard the involved, long-grind games that came before it flocked to WoW. Even now, almost ten years after its release, the game has around seven million subscribers. Which sounds a hell of a lot, until you realise it’s about half the number that the game had at its peak. Good god. I’m lost for even a snide remark. I know, right? Thats a lot of virtual nerds. Ah you had one. Good. World of Warcraft’s legacy is a bit of a mixed one. Due to its massive and unprecedented success it set off a gold rush for MMORPGs, as it seemed every developer wanted a piece of the pie. But MMOs are lumbering, complex beasts and the head-start WoW head meant that newcomers weren’t competing against the game of 2004, but the game with a couple of expansions under its belt and a user base with years of investment in their character and an online social net-

Geek Syndicate work they don’t want to lose. Don’t forget the business model is subscription based, and who wants to pay two (or more) subscriptions? But it’s a good game? Sure, it was, and still is, an excellent one, although one that is now starting to enter a managed decline. It has left ruins in it’s wake - games that struggled to find market share or recoup their costs, even as they faithfully copied WoW’s gameplay. With Star Wars: The Old Republic, Bioware spent millions building a fully voiced game with cutting edge graphics, but the game play design is pretty much the same. If you’re bored of WoW, why would go somewhere else and play the same thing but with lightsabres? I totally would. Fair point. And a lot of people did, but not enough to meet the expectations the developers had. WoW’s success was converting non-MMOG players into WoW players and not, as it turns out, into general MMOG players. So there’s nothing else? Actually there is a lot else, because whilst World of Warcraft smothered the MMORPG genre, lot of other shoots sprang up around it, mainly by being far, far away from the business model. WoW’s greatest strength is that it is, at heart, a very safe game; it’s never managed to have a satisfactory PvP model.

PvP? “Player vs Player”. Where you fight other people rather than computer controlled mobs, known as PvE (Player vs Environment). But that sounds fun! Yes, it often is. But the “massively” in MMOG means lots of people sharing a world and not everyone wants to be at risk of another player coming and killing them. Most traditional (read: WoW-like) games separate PvE and PvP zones and are quite happy with that. But there are other ways of doing it. Which brings to EvE. What does that stand for? Um…”EvE”, I think. EvE is a starship simulator, where you fly around in a huge shared galaxy. The difference with EvE is, once you get out of the initial sectors, where there is a police force and law and order, pretty much anything goes. Anything? Pretty much. EvE is a fiercely capitalist universe dominated by giant player-owned corporations. CCP, the company that run the game, are very hands off with what most games would consider poor behaviour - you want to run a bank scam? You can. You want to betray your alliance to its enemies, allowing all its structures to fall to ruin? No problem. All this and more had, and will continue to, happen in the universe That sounds...awesome! It is. EvE can be daunting to newcomers, and you really need to be in a Corp and involved in all this to get the most out it. There is also a formal exchange rate between in-game

and real-world currency, which means when your ship gets exploded you can know just how much money you just lost. Ouch. There are also some attempts to make large-scale shooters viable, most notably with Sony Online Entertainment’s Planetside. The first game launched not long before WoW but featured massive - 200 players on each side - battles with tanks, planes, battle suits and the like in an unending war over its servers. It was pretty unique, and well regarded, but a buggy game-engine and a fairly disastrous expansion depleted its numbers quite quickly. Sorry, tanks, and planes and infantry? How is that balanced? Pretty well. Sure, out in the field the tanks may have been king but you fought over tight bases with narrow corridors and so you needed infantry to assault them. At its best Planetside was unlike any shooter you’re ever likely to play, but most people thought it was dead and buried until SOE brought out a follow up game, imaginatively called Planetside 2. More of the same? In many ways, it is. In crucial ways, it isn’t. For a start, PS2 jumped on the Free to Play (FtP) bandwagon. So the game doesn’t cost you anything to install and start playing. In fact, you can play indefinitely, for free. Whats the catch? Well you can always short-cut your way to new guns and armour by buying them with real life money. Which sounds terrible but it’s nothing you can’t earn through game-play, and in PS2’s case, at least it doesn’t break the game. FtP has been a big leap for the MMOG scene in the last few years and most games now either launch with, or have moved to, some variant of this model.

Geek Syndicate So the game is free, but you have to pay to be good at it? In some cases that’s the case but in others not so much. Some, like the Guild Wars series, you just pay for the game. After that, everything is free although you can buy additional boosts if you want. Others sell you zones one at a time, or unlock character classes. There are some great implementations of the model and some bad ones, but by and large it’s about figuring out how much your market is likely to want to pay for. And of course FtP really works by tapping into worst habits of its gamers.

to any actual gameplay. Then you layer in additional features like crafting, which need you to go out and collect raw materials, or collecting in-game pets, and so on. All these are about adding time to the game.

way to go before it’s in any real trouble. But looking forward a next gen MMOG is long overdue, something that allows player input more freely.

Why would you do those extra bits?

Sure, but perhaps a little less brutally cut-throat. Planetside 2 has promised player-built and owned bases, but has yet to make much progress on that. It’s stable mate Everquest Next, a descendant of one of the earliest mainstream MMORPGs, looks more interesting. It’s promising a reactive world, one that changes based on players actions.

Mainly because the game constantly rewards you with levels, abilities, items of equipment and so on. I mean, why do you play any game? For relaxation and a sense of achievement. MMOGs need to keep people playing to stay in business, its not like they sell you the game and walk away. They start a re-

Like EvE?

Oh, like a Dark side? Well that I need to hear about. OK, so you get the selling point of these games is the scale, right? Yup. Good. So let’s get into that. If you play a fairly linear story game like, for example Bioshock Infinite, you’ll spend maybe twelve to fifteen hours to complete it. A sprawling, single-player RPG like Fallout 3 or one of the Mass Effect series are a lot longer, but even so most players seem to complete them by about the thirty to forty hour mark. For a lot of MMORPGs, this won’t even get you to the maximum level the game offers, never mind manage all the other things you “need” to do. For some games it’s even worse, with Asian-based games like Lineage being notorious “grind fests” to move through the content. You can easily put in three hours a night to these games and still not move through the content with any great speed.

lationship with you. The problem with FtP is that, if badly implemented, it can be about making you pay for basic game play, like having mobs you need certain items to kill, or convenience items that become necessities.

That’s...staggering.

So, it’s all over for the MMOG?

Don’t forget that the business model for these games revolved around keeping you playing month after month for your subscription money. So just travelling around the world can take a lot of time before you get

Not by a long shot, although I think its nearly over for the traditional MMORPG. EvE certainly goes from strength to strength, and Guild Wars 2, which is mostly traditional, has done quite nicely and of course WoW has a long

...and some games start as one model and move to the other? Yes, although in many ways it’s been seen as a recognition of failure and an attempt to wind down a game whilst milking a dedicated fan base for all that they can.

How would that work? Good question. They’re talking about reactive events, so if a lot of bad guys are killed in an area they may just move somewhere less defended, or players could build towns that attract dynamic NPC immigration. At the moment they’re talking big and showing off some fun looking demos but how it reacts to real people is a different question entirely. Still, after a few years of stagnation the future is looking quite bright again. So this raid… Yes. Well there is this Dragon, you see….

Matt Farr

Geek Syndicate Steve Grant Talks 2 Guns

Steve Grant Talks 2 Guns

Geek Syndicate GS: While many of the characters you’ve worked on for the Big Two, like Punisher or The Avengers for example, have landed on the big screen, how does it feel to have one of your personal creations like 2 Guns be adapted into a movie?

Comic book movies are all the rage nowadays, but it’s become uncommon to see a non-superhero movie come from comics. 2 Guns from writer Steven Grant, artist Mat Santolouco, and publisher BOOM! Studios broke the mould and made a bit of money in the process. With the success of the movie and its release on BluRay and DVD, writer Steven Grant was kind enough to answer a few questions about the comic, how it came to be a movie, and how his expectations were met. GS: You’ve had a career in comics that’s spanned three decades and given you the chance to work with Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, Boom!, and more. What about comics has been so enjoyable that you’ve stuck with them for so long? SG: I do love the juxtaposition of art and text that you just don’t find anywhere else. It’s a medium that has always captivated me. But I have to say in my case it’s mainly been inertia. It’s a sad truth that once you get associated with one thing it’s just easier to keep plugging at that one thing, and unfortunately when you work in “the arts” – I use the term loosely – you have to keep an eye on where your money’s coming from. Comics have always been much nicer to me than I deserved, so they ended up being home. Plus while I have no problem writing prose I don’t especially enjoy it. Comics, despite their aggravations, are just more fun.

SG: Wonderful sums it up nicely. What’s most wonderful is while they changed the story around a little, everyone involved (but I have to give special mention to producer Adam Siegel, screenwriter Blake Masters and director Baltasar Kormákur) went out of their way to stay very close to my sensibilities on the project. When it’s your baby, and I wrote 2 Guns out of thin air when nobody wanted anything to do with it, you lose the level of detachment you feel with something someone else created that you worked on. I may have shown Marvel how to make The Punisher a saleable character instead of a third rate nutjob, but I really didn’t do anything that wasn’t already inherent in Gerry Conway’s original. I just sculpted it a little and lit the path. 2 Guns, I built with my own two hands. That someone liked it enough to turn out the movie they did, this isn’t a field especially fraught with sense of accomplishment, but I got a sense of accomplishment out of that. GS: 2 Guns, the comic, was first published in 2007. What was the process like that took the story from comic to movie over the course of six years?

SG: I’d written it several years before Boom! published it but nobody wanted anything to do with it. I was regularly told it was completely uncommercial, a recurrent theme in my career. Somewhere along the line I mentioned the story to Boom! founder Ross Richie – he remembers it, I don’t – and when he founded the company he asked if I’d ever done anything with it. I hadn’t, and he really wanted to publish it so I figured what the hell. Ross had spent the years since his employment at Malibu in Hollywood making a lot of connections, and he thought 2 Guns would make a great film, so for the next few years while I sat at home doing other things he hustled it like a mad dog all over town. Curiously, when it was serialized as a mini-series nobody wanted anything to do with it. Any other publisher probably would’ve stopped throwing good money after bad and dumped the thing at that point, but Ross collected it in trade and another curious thing happened. As soon as it was a book, everyone wanted it. It ended up in a bidding war. Universal came in with the best deal. I’m not sure where Marc Platt’s production company entered into it, but that became the main production company, working with Ross, and they brought in Blake Masters to write the screenplay. Universal loved the screenplay, it hit the annual list

Geek Syndicate of top unproduced screenplays in town, and that helped bring in Mark Wahlberg and David O. Russell, fresh off The Fighter. For whatever reason, Russell ultimately decided to do Silver Linings Playbook instead, but I guess Mark just really dug the project because he became absolutely tenacious with it. Everything’s about the package in Hollywood now, and nothing helps kick a film project along like having a renowned screenplay and a hot bankable star. I don’t want to slight anyone else, because an awful lot of people worked very hard to get the movie done and out, but if I were to have another child I’d probably name him after Mark. He did so much to keep the film alive, and there were a few dark days there as is pretty common with movies, he found financing when they needed more, he brought in Denzel Washington, he brought in Baltasar, he was just determined to be in 2 Guns. He’s a steamroller. Then suddenly it was premiere night.

GS: With the success of 2 Guns at the box office, even debuting at #1 on opening weekend, is there a chance of the sequel series 3 Guns also finding its way to the big screen? SG: I’d guess relatively good odds. You can never tell with Hollywood math, and that’s what it comes down to, but Mark has talked with both Ross and me about it, Baltasar has mentioned it in interviews. There’s

interest. People will be in a better position to assess the situation after I’m done with the comic. I have six pages to go. 2 Guns is out now on Blu-Ray and DVD and the original comic series can be purchased from BOOM! Studios.

Leo Johnson

It’s interesting to see Hollywood from that perspective. People are always asking why Hollywood doesn’t make better movies (I would say they did, but of course I would) but the real question is how any movies ever get made at all. It’s such a process, paved with pitfalls. GS: Great actors like Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg were attached to 2 Guns when it was adapted into a movie. How happy were you with the end result and how well it adapted the original comic? SG: When I finally saw the film, at the screening, all I could say on my way out was that I couldn’t think of a thing I’d change. I still can’t. Like I said, they changed the story a little but it kept my sensibilities completely intact. It has my fingerprints all over it. Even if I’d had nothing to do with it, it would’ve still been my favourite film of the year. It was almost exactly what I wanted it to be.

Geek Syndicate

Geek Syndicate ROBIN HOOD: Moving Target

ROBIN HOOD: Moving Target 13

Geek Syndicate I can’t imagine there are many people in the United Kingdom, America, Europe or beyond who have not heard of the Saxon bowman, Robin Hood. The legendary outlaw has been the subject of many adaptations in various media from comics through books to television and film. It seems that the twenty-first century in particular has seen a resurgence in the hero’s popularity. We’ve seen a popular BBC television series, a blockbuster movie starring Russell Crowe and numerous novel series all produced in the last ten years. It’s a story that everyone knows: In the twelfth century, King Richard was away from his throne and his villainous brother ruled Britain with a cruel disregard for the populous. Along with other villainous accomplices including the Dastardly Sheriff of Nottingham and Guy of Gisburne, Prince John raised taxes, razed villages and was generally a rotten sort. Against them stood Robin Hood – a man who had been unjustly outlawed and the gang of Merry Men he gathered around him. Robin and company robbed from the rich, gave to the poor and defended the locals of Nottinghamshire whilst managing to foil John’s plot and help Richard return to his throne! Hurray! Except that’s not the story at all. Not as originally presented. In this article, I will outline the evolution of the stories of Robin Hood over time. We’ll see how new elements (now taken for granted) were added over time to suit the needs of the populace or even simply those who were putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard to detail the rebel’s adventures. In an episode of the Dissecting Worlds podcast, I was a guest host in their rebels and revolutionaries series. It was during my research for and recording of that episode that the idea for this article was spawned. By no account is this a complete summary of every Robin Hood tale ever told, nor is it an examination of the legend in a historical context. Rather, it is intended to provide an overview of our Outlaw hero as he has been presented over the centuries.

BACK TO THE BEGINNING: BALLADS FOR THE COMMON FOLK “Robin Hood in Barnsdale stood.” A quote from 1429 reflects the Yorkshire location of many of the early ballads. In the earliest surviving ballads, Robin Hood is a Yeoman who has been outlawed for the crime of Venison. Or possibly for killing the forester who tried to arrest him for that crime. “Venison” as a crime was the unauthorized slaying of a deer in the kings forest. While generally jovial, our legendary hero was quick to boredom and quick to anger. Many ballads begin with Robin either bored or having an argument with Little John.

Robin is acquisitive. He robs those who can afford it to fill his own coffers. Often he will trick people. He will invite a passing knight or bishop (sometimes at sword point) to dine with him in one of his forest camps. Once the meal is over, he demands payment from his guest then sends them on their way. This, I feel, is a reflection of the intended audience of the ballad. Robin is a common man who has been wronged by the noble folk. He gets his own back on those who benefit from the common man’s toiling and through him, so too did the audience. This theme is also seen in a different aspect in a number of tales. Whenever Robin Hood accosts a traveler, he invariably ends up in combat with them. If they are a common tradesman, then Robin loses the fight, blows on his horn and is rescued by his outlaw band. Merriment ensues and the tradesman helps Robin later in the ballad. Should the waylaid person be a trained knight, man-at-arms or other such “noble” person, Robin will defeat them. Sometimes victory comes easily, sometimes after a long and hardfought battle.

Geek Syndicate There was also a moral lesson from the ballads of Robin Hood. Robin was a pious man who would never miss a mass. It’s this very character trait that gets him in trouble in the ballad Robin Hood and the Monk. Well, his devotion to the Christian god (or more specifically the Virgin Mary) and his refusal to take good advice. Robin is recognized in Nottingham by a monk he had previously robbed and captured. It is up to Little John and his fellows to deal with the monk and rescue the outlaw leader. Being a devout servant of Mary, the Robin of the ballads would never harm a woman, nor see harm done to one. He lives a seemingly chaste life as Maid Marian did not feature in any of the early ballads. Life in medieval Britain was cheap. This is reflected in the ballads where there is a high body count. Often, the violence in the tales is brutal. In Guy of Gisburne’s only appearance in the ballads (in the ballad named after him, Robin Hood and Guy of Gisburne), the bounty hunter has been hired by the Sheriff of Nottingham to hunt down the outlaw who is based in Barnesdale (South Yorkshire). Little John is captured and so Robin must elude his new foe and rescue his faithful lieutenant. When they meet, Guy and Robin engage in a long combat. Eventually, Guy is brutally butchered in by our hero. Robin beheads the corpse, places it on the point of a lance. With this brutal trophy and disguised in Guy’s trademark Horse Hide cloak, Robin tricks the Sheriff and frees John. This ballad sees the demise not only of Guy, but also of the Sherriff of Nottingham. Fleeing from the scene, the sheriff is struck down by a mighty arrow from Little John. His heart is split in two by the feathered shaft.

The above tale brings us to an interesting point. The Robin of the ballads is often based in Barnesdale forest which was located in South Yorkshire, somewhat north of Doncaster. Despite this, the chief villain of the ballads was indeed, the Sheriff of Nottingham. This was quite some travelling distance in the early middle ages! Other disparities come from the lack of characters that we now associate with the Outlaw band. Friar Tuck and Maid Marian made no appearance at this time. Neither King Richard nor Prince / King John are mentioned – indeed the only member of royalty to be mentioned was Edward, “our comely king.” While this was probably one of those “Insert Monarch Name Here” affairs, it is noteworthy that in addition to not “giving to the poor”, this Robin didn’t give two hoots about the monarch, uprisings or rebellions.

One of the most famous ballads is the Gest of Robin Hood. This is a particularly long affair – 1,824 lines in five “Fyttes”. The ballad details several of Robin’s adventures and is perhaps a compilation of three earlier ballads. In the Gest, Robin helps a poor knight pay his debt to a greedy bishop (from his own sizeable coffers – the hoarder). The central portion strongly resembles Robin Hood and the Monk as detailed above. Later in the ballad, Robin encounters the king of England. In the tale, Robin is being particularly petulant and refuses to eat until he has a guest. The merry men accost a group of monks and bring him to Robin. The monks plays Robin’s game, enjoying the feast and merriment that the outlaw puts on for his entertainment. As is the trend, Robin then demands payment for the entertainment from the lead monk. Enraged, Robin’s guest knocks him down with a mighty blow. At this point, Robin recognizes the knight as the King of England. The king forgives Robin and leads him to a life at court. Eventually Robin tires of this life and returns to the forest. There is more to the Gest. It details archery tournaments and Robin’s death. The key element to take away is that there is no indication as to which Monarch this is. Given that Robin is taken to a life at court, however it is unlikely that the Gest refers to King Richard given that monarch was mainly out of England at war and could not speak a word of English which is what our Yeoman Robin would have exclusively spoken.

Geek Syndicate

MOVING UP IN THE WORLD: PLAYS AND MAY GAMES

character in scenes of action. This was not the jolly round Friar that we know today.

From about the sixteenth century onwards, a number of significant changes occur to the legends of our bold outlaw. During this time, Robin Hood became a dominant part of the annual May Games. Robin Hood plays were a common part of the festivities. These plays would enact the stories of Robin Hood – though there is apparently debate as to whether the plays or ballads were earlier – and at the end, the players would collect donations which would go to the churches of the parish. It could be assumed that the church then used the money to help the poor of the county and hence the “robs from the rich to give to the poor” element of the legend is born!

In the 1475 play Robin Hood and the Friar, Tuck and Robin meet and a battle of wills ensues. This includes the familiar tale of Robin and Tuck trading insults and then crossing a river on each other’s backs. The two fight and in a break, Robin then blows his horn to summon his men. Tuck responds by blowing his horn and summoning his warhounds! The fight continues. Eventually, Robin asks Tuck to join his band by offering him gold and a “lady free”. Given that no other female outlaws were known and that the early Marian of the May Games was somewhat bawdier than the Lady we now know … many assume this to be Marian!

Maid Marian enters the legends as a love interest for Robin around this time. Although she seldom (if ever) appears in the ballads and seems almost to simply have been included for there to be a female. It is in Anthony Munday’s play (which we shall discuss shortly) that Marian really comes into her own. Interestingly, there is quite a long tradition of Marian being Robin’s equal as a fighter. In a tale from an 1888 collection of earlier stories, (Robin Hood and Maid Marian) Marian arms herself to find Robin who has gone missing. She encounters a disguised Robin and they fight in silence for more than an hour. Eventually, Robin speaks – his traditional “come join me!” plea and the truth is revealed to both.

Other tales from this time that had a major impact on the legend were Anthony Munday’s plays: The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntington and The Death of Robert Earl of Huntington. Munday wrote for perhaps a more refined, middle to upper class audience than the earlier ballads and plays were written for and as such he alters Robin’s origin. Gone is the Yeoman Hero. Robin (or Robert) is now a fictitious Earl in the time of king Richard I. It is at this point that our hero becomes more recognizable. Unjustly outlawed, Robin relocates to Sherwood. There he locks horns with the Sheriff of Nottingham and is ultimately restored to his lands by the returning monarch.

It is also around this time that Friar Tuck became an important lieutenant for Robin. There was an unnamed monk in Robin’s band previously but he appeared as a throwaway

From here on, Robin Hood becomes a defender of the Crown for Richard. His motivation is not only to protect the people who live in and around Sherwood but also to counter the vile plots of Prince John and his accomplices: The Sheriff of Nottingham and Sir Guy of Gisburne.

Geek Syndicate SWASHBUCKLING HERO: THE TWENTIETH CENTURY As the twentieth century began, cinema really began to take off. This marvelous new technology could take its audience away from the real world in ways that perhaps books and traditional plays did not. It was not long before Hollywood decided to present the tale of Robin Hood and out bold outlaw’s first silver-screen outing in 1922 saw Douglass Fairbanks as the swashbuckling hero of the tale. The film itself (a remastered version of which can be found on YouTube) is an extension of the noble outlaw of the sixteenth century.

To people of my generation, there is probably one definitive version of Robin Hood. Robin of Sherwood lasted three seasons in the early 1980s and has left a huge mark on the legend. During the course of filming the pilot episode, it was decided that the villainous Baron De Belleme’s henchman, the Saracen Nasir would survive and become a part of Robin’s gang.

Robin, the Earl of Huntigdon joins Richard on crusade. While away, Robin’s rival – Sir Guy of Gisburne goads Prince John into usurping the throne. Learning of this, the Earl seeks to leave the army but is branded a coward and deserter. Back in England, he leads the merry men against Sir Guy and Prince John under the pseudonym Robin Hood. A similar tale is told in the 1938 film The Adventures of Robin Hood, starring Errol Flynn. This time, it is Sir Robin of Loxley who adopts the mantle of outlaw hero; robbing from the rich, giving to the poor and ensuring that the ransom for the captured King Richard is gathered and paid rather than going to the coffers of the Usurper, Prince John and his henchman – Sir Guy of Gisburne. This is perhaps the most influential Robin Hood tale of the twentieth century, not least because of Flynn’s dazzling charisma and the glorious Technicolor presentation.

The character proved ever popular. Largely silent, wielding twin curved swords and generally looking dashing and cool. Such was the impact of Nasir, that most filmed versions of Robin Hood have since included a middle-eastern character. Indeed, the writers and producers of Prince of Thieves assumed the character had always existed and had to change the name of their version at the last minute for legal reasons. In that film, the character was called Azeem. The later series The New Adventures of Robin Hood, produced in New Zealand included a character named Kamal amongst the outlaws. This series was very much of the Xena Warrior Princess level of “historical” action show. Simple action-filled plots were the order of the day with little or no concept of character development or historical reality. In some ways, this farcical version is perhaps more true to the original Robin. The ballads of old didn’t attempt to be real, they were escapist fantasy for their audience.

These films began a trend of high adventure, black and white good versus evil presentations that really dominated the movie and television screens for the remainder of the century. They took the later tales of Robin Hood, combined the elements that would work on the Silver Screen and executed them brilliantly. For the film audience, Robin really needed to have a cause. A hero without a villain to fight is not nearly as interesting and so it makes sense that these adventure movies looked no further back than the tales from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries for inspiration.

Even the most recent BBC series from 2006 included a middle-eastern character. This time, Djaq was a girl well versed in the sciences and allowed the outlaw gang to more believably engage in A-Team style hyjinks as they helped the common folk and thwarted the Sheriff and Sir Guy of Gisburne’s plots. What I think is interesting is that this new character was introduced when issues of diversity became more pronounced. Television shows were predominantly male dominated and specifically white-male dominated. While the validity of such characters’ inclusion is debatable from a historical context, though there’s an argument that medieval Europe was more diverse than is often portrayed.

Geek Syndicate HISTORICAL VIEWPOINT: THE MODERN HOOD It’s a trend that has struck storytelling across the board that our heroes are a little darker and more grey than they were before. The world has become a more cynical place and the modern tales of Robin Hood also reflect this trend. While rarely coming across as an outright nasty piece of work (the exception being Toby Venables’ Knight of Shadows which I shall come back to), Robin is usually out for himself and quite brutal in his methods. He is often a godless man. Or at least he does not worship the Christian god. In many ways, this Robin is more akin to the early character from the ballads and so it shouldn’t seem so jarring when our hero dispatches foes without mercy, gathers money for himself and indeed, acts primarily for himself – if sometimes also for the people around him. Our heroic, swashbuckling hero of the sixteenth to twentieth century is so prevalent and iconic, that this “new” Robin can seem strange when first encountered. In the Dissecting Worlds podcast that I guested on, I made the point that Robin Hood is something of a template hero. He is malleable and can be (and has been) whatever a particular author needs him to be. This certainly seems to be the case with the recent versions. I’ve read several different adaptations or original stories and they are all unique. In Stephen Lawhead’s trilogy, the name “Robin Hood” is (cleverly) a bastardisation of the Welsh “Rhi Bran y Hud” (King Raven the Magical), a princeling in the Welsh Marches from just after the Norman conquest. When his lands are taken by the Normans, Bran takes to the woods, encounters a wise woman and raises a small army around him, including the Forester, Will and the Monk – Tuck. One of my favourite book series’ at the moment is Angus Donald’s “Outlaw” series. Set at the time of Richard I, these books follow Alan Dale and his life with Robert Odo (future Earl of Loxley) and as a knight in Richard’s Army through the Crusades and (in the most recent book at the time of writing) Richard’s campaigns in France to reclaim his lands from the French king, Phillip. These books are pseudo-historical in the vein of Bernard Cornwell’s excellent output.

This Robin is quick to anger and acquisitive. He would give his life for those in his “circle” of friends but has no regard at all for those outside it. He can be cruel. He is openly antichristian, refuting god and (more particularly) the church. Abaddon Books have published books featuring two very different incarnations of Robin. One is a trilogy set in a modern world – but one ravaged by a virus. This postapocalyptic version features an ex-policeman living in the woods. He grows to become the protector of the survivors of Nottinghamshire and is a very believable character. Given the situation anyway! Of more interest to this article is the recently published novel by Toby Venables. In A Knight in Shadows, roles are reversed. Guy of Gisburne is the noble protagonist and Robin is a villainous outlaw living off his own legend. Through flashbacks, it is revealed that both Robin and King Richard are far from their usual noble portrayals. Richard happily sends a knight who has questioned him to his death. Robin performs many a villainous deed. Contrarily, John is portrayed as a shrewd monarch making the best of a kingdom left in debt by his predecessor’s warmongering ways. It always surprises me how Richard I is lauded as a great monarch when he spent merely six months of his six year reign in the country, could not speak a word of English and taxed the country to the hilt so that he could wage war in Europe and beyond… These grittier, greyer versions of Robin with a slightly more accurate view of history are certainly indicative of modern story telling. Even Saturday morning adventure cartoons have moved more into this vein, touching on the darker realities than their 1980s counterparts managed. In these cases, the authors are painting more adult stories and so they paint a more believable hero for our reading or viewing pleasure.

Geek Syndicate THE FEMALE OUTLAW I’ve not yet touched on this, but there are a number of tales which feature a female protagonist as the true leader of the outlaw band. In the cases of Maid Marian and Her Merry Men (the excellent Tony Robinson scripted children’s series from the 1980s) and Robin McKinnley’s 1988 novel Outlaws of Sherwood put Marian to the forefront. In both of these re-tellings, Robin is far less than the legend that grows up around him.

In prose, Nancy Springer’s book: Rowan Hood: The outlaw girl of Sherwood also stars Robin’s daughter. This time, the heroine disguises herself as a boy and heads off into the forest to find her father. This is a more mystical, halffantasy story where Rowan’s mother was one of the faerie folk and has a different focus to many other Robin Hood inspired stories. While we’re talking about more mystical versions, the comic publisher Zenoscope have introduced the character Robyn Hood into their world of Grimm Fairy Tales. In this version, Robyn is a girl from modern day Earth who, after stealing the school bully’s car has one of her eyes removed in revenge. She enters the magical land of Myst and must become “who the people need her to be” to save them from the tyranny of Prince John. Is a female Robin (or at least character inspired by him) a good thing? Frankly, yes. While these tales may be even more historically dubious in some ways, the nature of Robin Hood as a do-er of good in a time of need is one that girls should be able to aspire to as well as boys. If this means Marian or Robin’s daughter steps up, then I’m all for it. I think it’s to the legend’s credit that these versions can exist without detracting from any other version. Outlaws of Sherwood is in my top five Robin Hood stories – bearing in mind there are many I haven’t read or seen this is still no mean feat.

Theresa Tomlinson’s Forestwife trilogy, by contrast has Marian as an equal to Robin rather than reducing his status to increase the woman’s. This Marian is competent and leads the women of the outlaw band. She is a skilled hunter, like the merry men but also an adept herbalist. Tomlinson sets the story back in Barnsdale in the Yorkshire that the author knows. Another take is that either the person of Robin is a female or Robin Hood’s daughter has taken on the mantle of the outlaw leader. One such version is the Disney film, Princess of Thieves starring Keira Knightley. In this version, Robin is away fighting in the crusades when King Richard is killed. Robin, trying to ensure that Richard’s illegitimate son is crowned rather than Prince John is captured by his old foe the sheriff and his daughter, Gwyn, must save the day.

Geek Syndicate A HOOD FOR ALL In this article, we’ve dipped into a number of versions of the Robin Hood story. We have seen how the intended audience and the general story-telling trends of the time have affected the legend. We have seen new characters enter into the legends and others have their roles expanded as the requirements of the time or the individual story changed. We’ve seen many changes without even touching on stories that take Robin out of the familiar setting of Medieval England (Robin and the Seven Hoods, Rocket Robin Hood, Robin Hood by CD Comics, the Arrowhead trilogy by Paul Kane et al). I think it is very indicative of the power of the Robin Hood legend that not only do so many different versions of the story exist but also that each can be accepted without the need to brush the others aside. Like many of you, I have my favourite version of Robin but I still enjoy new stories and new takes on the legend. Robin Hood is a template hero; the outlaw hero; the defender of the people. Except for when he (or indeed she) isn’t. The influence of the character can be seen all over: from the appearance of Peter Pan and Link from The Legend of Zelda through heroes such as Green Arrow and Katniss Everdeen to the ranger class of most fantasy roleplay games. These characters and the many incarnations of Robin we have touched on show that Robin Hood can truly be the hero that the people need at any given time.

Antony McGarry-Thickitt RECOMMENDED READING The following resources are recommended for anyone wanting to delve into some of the Robin Hood stories discussed in the article and beyond. Ballads and Prose • The Robin Hood Project at the University of Rochester, http://d.lib.rochester.edu/robin-hood (Link: Feb 2014). • Robin Hood Through the Ages, http://www.robinhood. ltd.uk/robinhood/charlotte_dahlgaard_report. html (Link: Feb 2014). • Bold Outlaw, http://www.boldoutlaw.com/ (Link: Feb 2014) • The Robin Hood Handbook, Mike Dixon Kennedy, Sutton Publishing 2006 • The Legend of Robin Hood, Richard Rutherford-Moore, Capall Bann Publishing 1998 • The Adventures of Robin Hood, Roger Lancelyn Green, Puffin Classics 1956 • The Outlaws of Sherwood, Robin McKinnley, Firebird

• • • •

1988 Outlaw, Angus Donald, Sphere 2009 Hood, Stephen R Lawhead, Atom 2006 Knight of Shadows, Toby Venables 2013 Robin Hood, Henry Gilbert, Wordsworth Classics 1994

Comics • Outlaw: The Legend of Robin Hood, Tony Lee (writer) & Sam Hart (artist), Walker 2009 • Frank Bellamy’s Robin Hood: The Complete Adventures, Frank Bellamy, Book Palace Books, 2008

RECOMMENDED VIEWING The following films and television series are my personal favourite renditions of the Robin Hood legend. Films • The Adventures of Robin Hood, Warner Bros (1938) • Robin and Marian, Columbia Pictures (1976) • Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Warner Bros. (1991) Television Series • The Adventures of Robin Hood (TV Series), Saphire Films (1953) • Robin of Sherwood, Goldcrest (1981) • Maid Marian and Her Merry Men, BBC (1989) • Robin Hood, BBC (2006)

Image © Rahoule Gouse, PBS Pressroom

DOCTOR WHO: The Trial Of A Show Runner

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DOCTOR WHO

The Trial of a Show Runner 21

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But what I find most interesting is when people state that Moffat’s ideas are new and have never been done before. In truth, they are anything but and yet interestingly as the season of Who that he borrows so much from is often panned. It lead to the sacking of the actor portraying the Doctor, a forced regeneration by the Beeb and the show hanging on for dear life like never before So how come just a couple of decades later the same template has made the show more popular than ever before and cracked the US? The season I am talking about is Season twenty-three of the original run. This season of four stories was linked by an over-arcing story known as the Trial of a Time Lord. This season was made after the show had already been placed on an eighteen month hiatus and the BBC were more ready than ever to permanently cancel it. As the show itself was effectively on trial in reality, it was decided that so would Colin Baker’s Doctor as he faced his people to look at the crimes he had committed. All sound familiar? You might not think so but read on to see how the bare bones template of this ill fated series has become the template for the modern series in particular those with Moffat at the head.

The Season Long Arc Trial was written differently to the seasons before it. Whether you like Colin Baker or not, the irony is that the production team was well ahead of the BBC. The season prior to Trial, the production team had altered the episode length to be forty-five minutes long instead of the twenty-fives it had been before. The Beeb did not like the new length, and the high-ups demanded it return to its traditional length when the show returned. It is interesting that when Russell T Davies brought the show back in 2005 he used the forty minute template. With this series they continued to be trend setters by creating a story that did not just last over the usual four to six episode length (as the precedent had been in the past) but to instead make a story that would all be interconnected together, with the viewer really needing to watch the entire season from beginning to end in order to get the ideas that were being portrayed. For Trial there was not a show

runner like there is today but a Producer and Script Editor. For scripting of Trial the responsibilities fell to Script Editor Eric Saward. Saward worked with the man who was possibly the best writer in Doctor Who history, Robert Holmes to plot the arc of the season, understanding what was going to happen and when. Holmes was charged with writing the initial serial and the final serial, whilst Saward would make sure that the rest of the writing team wrote their stories to fit where The Doctor had to be for Holmes’ final episodes, The Ultimate Foe. Sound familiar? It should do. In Modern Who Steven Moffat (and Russell T Davies before him) worked out the season long (if not longer with recent stories) arc, writing the first and final episodes. In between he madesure that the plot flowed the way it should.

The Doctor and His Love For Speeches Colin Baker’s Doctor did not get much air time. But one thing that his incarnation often seems to be remembered for is his iconic speech to the Time Lords in this story. A speech where he triumphantly holds his argument, believing that everything will work out. This trait is something that Matt Smith’s Doctor has used and run with. The Eleventh Doctor regularly made iconic speeches all the way through his seasons often arguing with the enemy before they were ready to attack him.

Image © BBC Worldwide

I find the amount of flak that Steven Moffat receives quite fascinating. I myself am not his biggest fan (I think that season six of Doctor Who is terrible). His writing has its problems that is true, many of which I would put down to the fact that he started his career writing sit-coms where the character will always reset back to who they were at the beginning of the episode whatever has happened during the course of that story. But it seems to be often forgotten that he has done a lot of good: the gas mask child, the girl in the fire place, the weeping angels, season five and what I will call “The Doctor trilogy” are all great stories.

Geek Syndicate If you don’t want to know what happens during the course of the Trial of a Time Lord, please look away now because this is a big spoiler. SPOILERS, SWEETIE! Through the trial The Doctor is facing off against The Valeyard (you might recognise that name) who is determined to bring The Doctor down and show the Time Lords that the renegade causes more harm than good in the universe. In the final few episodes, we discover that the Valeyard is so much more than simply the man putting The Doctor on trial but is actually a manifestation of all that is evil inside The Doctor, originating between “his twelfth and final” incarnation. If the prosecution were to succeed, then the Valeyard would receive all of the Doctor’s remaining lives for his own, potentially re-writing history. END OF SPOILERS

Since Moffat became show runner we have seen The Dream Lord. Just like the Valeyard, the Dream Lord was a manifestation of everything evil inside The Doctor. This one worked differently, however. He trapped people inside dreams. Yes there was a new idea added to it but the general premise is the same. A more obvious and more important parallel was the discovery of The War Doctor, played superbly in Day of the Doctor by John Hurt. Just like in Trial this reveal was left to the end of the season, providing us with a whole new way of looking at The Doctor. Let’s think back to before Day of the Doctor, before we knew who and when John Hurt’s Doctor was placed. That series finished with The Doctor admitting that there was no worse a secret than The War Doctor. He had committed the greatest evil we had ever known. As Moffat has continued to use this theme over his tenure it would not surprise me if we see the return of The Valeyard when Capaldi steps properly into the TARDIS.

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Another Doctor We Did Not Know About

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Yes Moffat’s beloved phrase that he has often been used in the show to explain away his plot holes and continuity (or lack there of). But the idea that The Doctor meets future companions and the like did not originate from him. Take Mel in Trial. The trial examines the Doctor’s influence by showing a story each from The Doctor’s past, present and future. In The Doctor’s future we meet Mel, The Doctor’s future companion. We never see an on screen meeting of The Doctor and Mel before she travels off with The Doctor at the end of the season. Unless we are to assume that he met her through the trial where he saw his future and then went travelling leading to the adventure they had just seen. If that isn’t timey wimey and indeed wibbly wobbly, then I don’t know what is! Moffat is obviously the king of this and likes to use this device more and more. The Twelfth Doctor appeared before the Eleventh regenerated and Clara appeared twice, having integral parts to play before she truly ‘debuted’.

... and They All Live Happily Ever After Something a lot of people I know (including myself) have a problem with Moffat’s Who is that no-one really dies. Yes they die - but they pop back up again five minutes later, devaluing the death and the meaning it had. Just look at Rory. You need a counter in the corner of your screen the amount of times he had apparently died. I think Who fans were spoilt as they had such a fantastically character led series with Russell T Davies where he seemed to (for the majority of the time) use the idea that when you die you are dead. To go from this to the polar opposite might have been jarring for some fans, but it is not a new element to Doctor Who. In Trial it is believed that Peri dies a horrific death, where her essence is taken over leaving nothing of her to be remembered. Yet in the final scenes of the final episode, The Doctor is told that Peri lived happily ever after.

Further, originally Holmes and Saward intended to have The Valeyard and The Doctor fighting, falling down a spiral of eternity, leaving the show in a state of flux. Holmes died before he could finish the script and producer John Nathan-Turner did not want his series, that was already facing the chop, to end in such an ambiguous way with the Beeb having the perfect ammo just to kill it believing The Doctor was dead anyway. This led to a hurried script change (by possibly the worst possible choice of writers) in which The Doctor survived and bested his future evil manifestation in no uncertain terms. So yes no-one dies in Moffat’s Who, the Time War that was The Doctor’s greatest fall from grace has been re written and The Ponds (where it would have made more sense to kill them) were stuck in a New York that for some reason The Doctor cannot visit by getting a boat from a different country. Yes it might be an annoying part of the show but it is not new and it is not all Moffat’s fault. Also in retrospect are all deaths the right answer?

Image © BBC Worldwide

Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey

As stated above Holmes wanted the series to end ambiguously. Yet this could have led the series to never come back and be the success it is today. At the end of the day, I see Doctor Who very much like comics: everything can be reversed and for that reason we should not let it annoy us and accept that this is just one man’s vision out of many, many different visions of the show. All in all Moffat’s Who continually pays homage to Trial of a Timelord, a series that was hated at the time, panned by the Beeb and ultimately lead to the show’s downfall. This similarity could possibly explain why so many have a problem with Moffat’s Who. But at the same time, Doctor Who is not just alive but thriving under this template.

Luke Halsall

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VIDEO GAMING RITUALS

Video Gaming Rituals 26

Image © Eidos, 2013

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Geek Syndicate There are many areas in life where preparation is key. I wouldn’t want a surgeon to operate on me if they only had a rough doodle on a napkin for reference. I also wouldn’t want my food created in an area that last saw a good scrub when TVs were still black and white. Yes, I hear you say, but those things are more important than a hobby! Very true, but the point is the same. If you haphazardly throw yourself into your gaming, are you really getting the most out of it? Taking a look at the habits of other gamers can sometimes give you valuable ideas that you can then use to increase your own gaming enjoyment. My first kind of gaming ritual was back in those halcyon days when games still came with printed manuals. You cracked open the box, fumbled the cartridge or floppy disks out, and were greeted with a nice little (or not so little) booklet falling onto your lap. I never played the game without first reading that manual from front to back. Sure, there was an element of delayed gratification involved, but thinking back to it now, I think the main drive behind it was the fear of short changing my enjoyment by rushing in. This may have been more of an issue with Amiga games than consoles like the SNES, as the Amiga did play host to some stonking strategy games. Going into that kind of game half-cocked would have resulted in my growing frustration and eventual loss of all interest in the game. This could still be the reason that I sometimes struggle with the modern equivalent; reading a wiki just doesn’t do the job for me. It might also explain why the expensive Collector’s Editions of modern games are so popular. It wasn’t long before a fellow Geek Syndicate team member voiced the same sentiment:

There are some gamers who enjoy reading any related books to a game before even setting foot in the game world. It also might work for games you tried once and failed to get into. Personally, I didn’t get far into Metro 2033 before I lost interest. I knew it was something I should be enjoying but I just wasn’t. A few years later I picked up the book on which the game was based. I read through it at a considerable speed and promptly repurchased the game and its new sequel. The second play through attempt was much more successful and enjoyable. I think that reading the book massively increased my investment in the game world and I definitely intend to use this technique in the future if a game is playing hard-ball with my motivation to play it.

Antony: “I’ll always fork out the extra money for the collectors edition if there is one. Or the retailer exclusive ... I think this partly hearkens back to the days when buying a game was an experience - especially RPGs. You’d buy a game and open it. There was a book to read. Sometimes two. A paper map or maybe even a cloth one. Possibly some other assorted items like a coin or cards... Lately, the only way to get the full experience of those old days is to get those expensive editions. Nostalgia. It’s not what it used to be.”

Now a few questions: How many games do you have on the go at once? Two? Five? More? Do you have a game for every mood and whim or do you stick to one game to the exclusion of all others? Talking to other members of the Geek Syndicate team, it became apparent that more than a few of us like to keep our active amount of games as low as possible, for reasons of concentration and immersion:

Geek Syndicate after a game play and refer to myself as Commander Shepard. Or Batman ... Heck, when playing through Mass Effect 2, I once woke up to my work alarm and thought the Normandy was under attack. I managed to stop short of yelling “MIRANDA, let’s get to the bridge!”. I don’t think my wife (then girlfriend) would have appreciated it. Her not being called Miranda ...” Dean: “When I start a new game I will play through the tutorial and then stop my session there. Not because I need to digest the information but because I find tutorials a massive chore, frequently lazily done and text heavy. After dealing with that info dump I need to switch my brain back on, which means I would switch the console off and do something else.”

Dean: “I tend to not start new games unless I have at least finished the main story or campaign of the one(s) I am currently playing. Even if it isn’t very good. It is why I am still playing Assassins Creed 4, Shin Megami Tensei and Professor Layton and the miracle mask after all these months. I’ve been on the last game since September and remember playing it the night before my grandfather’s funeral cos I couldn’t sleep.” Matt: “For computer gaming I tend to keep a hard split between single and multi-player games. I’ve got a friend I do a lot of co-op gaming with, and through all the games we’ve done together I’ve never played them single player. Always, purely, co-op, even when the gameplay modes are quite separate. I think it’s because I don’t trust my own attention span and want to get through the game in one play through rather than half-way through it twice.” Time can also be a factor in your enjoyment of a particular game. How long do you play in one session? Do you devour a game in one mammoth sitting? Or do you eek it out in small pieces, savouring every little micro-triumph or plot-arc in a more considered way? Do you play as and when you have a spare thirty minutes or do you wait until you have a large chunk of spare time to enjoy it? Does the depth of the game matter? Sorry to quick-fire lots of questions at you but they are all things worth considering: Antony : “I don’t like playing more than one “big” game at a time. When playing the latest Mass Effect or Dragon Age for example, or Far Cry 3 or Tomb Raider, I like to really get immersed in the character. I like to play in sessions of at least an hour, maybe two and not be distracted so I can feel the character and get much more immersed in the story telling. The number of times I come down stairs

Atmosphere and setting can also be just as important. Do you play in a cluttered room? Are there non-gamers around you interrupting all the time or noisy things playing in the background? How about considering the type of game and the time of day? It’s amazing how many people instinctively leave horror games to play once it is dark outside (or the daytime if they know it will freak them out). I also personally like to have a window open when roaming the wilds in Skyrim. It is a tiny thing to do but to see your character strolling along and have the smell of fresh air enter the room is just great. If you live in a city, you could switch Skyrim for Grand Theft Auto IV and enjoy a similar effect. Or how about some way of playing that simply relaxes you and boosts your gaming abilities? Dean: “When I was a kid I used to like playing RPGs on my GameBoy Advance in my grandmother’s rocking chair. That rocking chair helped me relax and boosted my imagination. I miss that rocking chair and plan to own one again sometime.” Vichus: “I’m a talk radiophile, and a podcast junkie, so I’m always listening to something while I’m playing. Early on in a game (if it is plot-focused) I will put my headset aside and get immersed in the game. I’ll also pause my audio for any cut-scenes. Also, if not doing something counts as ritual, I never eat while I’m playing. No “gamer fuel” or whatever for me!”

Geek Syndicate Dion: “When it comes to computer games the only repetitive behaviour I seem to exhibit is obsession and foul language. The air around me turns blue as I smack my head against the wall of a particularly challenging puzzle or a brutal action scene that I just can’t get past, time and again until I finally crack it. It got to the point where I had to stop playing during the day at weekends because my daughter was growing old enough to repeat words...” Other quirks or gaming rituals might have to be left unexplained; but maybe “because I can” is enough of a reason anyway:

Image © Bioware, 2012

Matt: “I always alternate the gender of my avatars, one male, then one female, whenever I get the choice. Don’t really know why but I always have.”

As you can see, there are so many aspects of gaming that sometimes go unheeded. Gaming isn’t a cheap hobby. With hundreds of items of DLC and other business models all nibbling away at your funds, I think it makes a lot of sense to look for anything simple and free that you can do to suck every last morsel of enjoyment from your hobby. Sometimes, all it takes is a bit of awareness about your current habits to see what works and what is holding you back. Writing this article led me to pick up on a few rituals that I didn’t even know I did. I can now decide if they are worth doing or not in a conscious way, rather than letting routine dictate. Whether you decide to wear a parrot on your shoulder when you play Assassins Creed: Black Flag or play Cooking Mama while you are at the kitchen table, I hope this article and the experiences of the gamers it features will all go some way to help you get more from your little silicon playmates.

Casey Douglass

Image © Bioware, 2012

Sometimes though, the actions you might take are more to preserve sanity and let off steam than to boost your gaming prowess:

Geek Syndicate Digital Ninja: Michael Molcher Digital Ninja: Michael Molcher

If you’re reading this magazine then it’s probably a good bet that you spend a lot of time looking at various websites to get the latest content on new films, television shows, books, games etc. Some of us even take a chance and enter a few competitions (probably without much luck) or download an infographic or two. While a lot of this content is put together by the bloggers themselves, there is an invisible group that works with the bloggers to provide content for stories, access to cast and crew for interviews, prizes for competitions and more. These shadowy digital Ninjas work on behalf of their clients who can range from film and television studios, publishing houses through to game companies and retailers shops. The types of marketing campaigns they run can be just as diverse as the clients they represent. Like their historical counterparts these digital Ninjas move through the Internet largely unseen. The work they do is carried out behind the scenes and out of the spotlight. Their weapons of choice are varied but usually come down to a smartphone or a computer and as much coffee as they can stomach. A lot of the content displayed on the Geek Syndicate website comes via these digital ninjas. Over the years I have become more interested in the inner workings of their shadowy work.

“...the integration of social media into everything we do will only accelerate and therefore the opportunities and the pitfalls - for the digital marketers will only increase” 30

At great personal risk I have managed to corner a one digital Ninja and return alive to reveal some of the secrets of these shadowy marketing puppet masters. Michael Molcher is the PR Co-Ordinator for 2000 AD and is also known as Michael-San.

Geek Syndicate

stop working and the projects come thick and fast. GS: What traits do you think are needed to work in digital marketing? MM: A sense of honesty and fun, and skin thicker than a hippo’s. GS: How did you end up working in digital marketing? MM: I was a local newspaper journalist for a number of years and then crossed into local government communications. During that time there was a major shift in the way marketing worked as the true impact of the internet began to dawn on everyone. Now working in any kind of PR, but especially publishing, cannot be done without jumping headlong into the digital sphere. GS: What was your most successful media campaign that you worked on to date and why do you think it was a success? MM: Far and away the most successful project was publicising ‘Closet’, a Judge Dredd story that ran in 2000 AD earlier this year (2013 - ed) and dealt with issues of homosexuality in Mega-City One. Thanks to some good placement, the story went global and was covered by The Times, The Guardian, The Independent, Sky News, The Huffington Post, The Sun and a whole host of web sites. It was very pleasing to see the cascade effect. The popularity of it comes down to there being an unexpected twist on a familiar character. It was, of course, a bluff but the media thrive on such contrasts.

GS: How influential is the blogging community in the way your structure your campaigns?

GS: What would your top do and don’t do be for prospective bloggers/press looking to develop a continued relationship with you?

MM: Vastly so – the dominance of print media, although not dead, is much reduced so now I spend almost all of my time dealing with bloggers and online journalists.

MM: Do: be polite. Don’t: spam me.

GS: How do you decide what sites to approach when sending out content?

MM: Each working day to be expanded to thirty-six hours and for me to grow extra pairs of arms and eyes.

MM: Some, particularly the comics sites, are obviously more interested in art reveals or creator interviews or news – a little bit of research goes a long way. GS: In your opinion what would you say is the most effective tool in your digital arsenal? MM: Social media. Hands down. It’s simply direct communication with customers.

GS: If there was one thing you could change about the way digital marketing is done what would it be?

GS: Where do you see digital marketing in five years time? MM: Hmmm, a difficult one. I should imagine the integration of social media into everything we do will only accelerate and therefore the opportunities – and the pitfalls – for digital marketers will only increase.

Barry Nugent

GS: What projects are you currently working on? MM: Almost too many to mention, across four separate comic and book imprints! We’re currently embarking on using NetGalley more effectively to reach out to reviewers. GS: What is the best and worst thing about working in your field? MM: All the cool stuff you get to see and the cool places you get to go. The flipside of that is that you never really

Geek Syndicate THE GEEK SYNDICATE ULTIMATE ARMOURY

GEEK SYNDICATE Ultimate Armoury 32

Geek Syndicate “Guns. Lots of guns!” Those were Neo’s immortal words in The Matrix. So for this issue of the GS magazine, I set myself the challenge of assembling what I thought was the best collection of handheld weapons featured in the genre – it wasn’t easy, as the list is extensive, and sometimes there was very little differentiation (a laser gun is a laser gun), but here it is – the Geek Syndicate Ultimate Armoury. I tried to feature close combat weapons too and stay away from anything that exists in the real world (so no Walther PPK. Sorry, Mr. Bond.). There’s no particular ranking here – I just tried to select the best in class; but if we missed out your favourite, just send me a note… don’t shoot the messenger!

The “Quite Simply The Weirdest One On The List” Award: The Bone & Gristle Gun – eXistenZ If we are handing out awards for the weirdest weapon, then James Woods’ fleshy pistol in Videodrome would still lose out to this funky little weapon that Jude Law constructs out of discarded Chinese food. Totally surreal in its assembly, and totally alien in appearance, yet it somehow managed to not look completely ridiculous. An honourable mention must go to the Proton Pack from Ghostbusters, as I just didn’t know where to put that either!

The “Outstanding Contribution to Rifling” Award: M41-A Pulse Rifle – Aliens The M41-A is quite simply one of the most influential handheld weapons invented for the screen. Nearly thirty years on this iconic rifle, with its digital bullet counter and under-the-barrel grenade launcher is still the ancestor of any weapon seen in futuristic firstperson shoot ‘em up videogames, or in real-life laser-tag games. The weapon itself was constructed by combining parts from a Thompson M1A1 machine gun, a SPAS 12 shotgun, and a Remington 870 shotgun and if you’ve seen the extended version of Aliens, the rifle gave us one of the most intimate scenes in the whole film. Hicks teaches Ripley how to use the M41-A, and we discover that their first names are Ellen and Dwayne. Honourable mentions must go to The Terminator’s phased plasma rifle (in the 40 watt range – “just what you see on the shelf, pal”) and Wikus van der Merwe’s Tesla rifle in District 9.

The “Looks Aren’t Everything” Award: The Noisy Cricket - Men in Black Looking like something that would come out of a Crackerjack box or high-end Christmas Cracker, the Noisy Cricket wouldn’t necessarily be your first choice of weapon. The mini-pistol looks like it would be more at home in a handbag than a macho action hero’s hand. Appearances can be deceptive though. Will Smith’s Agent J found out this fun sized weapon packs a serious punch… and an even worse recoil!

Geek Syndicate An honourable mention must go to the Liberator guns from Blake’s 7 – yes they did look like hair tongs, complete with curly cable, but they redefined the expression “Avon Calling” for a generation.

The “Most Significant Contribution to Sci-Fi Lore” Award: Phaser – Star Trek There’s an old joke that says Star Wars kicks Star Trek’s butt because “blasters don’t have stun settings” but the standard-issue firearm of the Star Trek franchise, in all its various incarnations epitomises the very spirit of the Federation. It could be used to stun or kill. Or as a blowtorch to cut through walls. Or as a handy heat source – just set a low intensity and warm a rock with it. “Set phasers to stun” became one of the Original Series’ most familiar catchphrases and while the phaser passed through numerous subtle iterations over the franchise’s various offerings, its distinctive silhouette remained the same.

The “Seriously, I Think We Could Make That Handgun” Award: The Auto-9 – RoboCop “Serve the public trust. Protect the innocent. Uphold the law. Carry this big-ass handgun!” The remake is imminently upon us, but if they don’t capture the innovation of the Auto-9 the way the original did, the film is lost. Capable of firing several rounds per second in three-round bursts, the Auto-9 certainly wiped the floor with anything else OmniConsumer Products equipped the Metro-City Police Dept. with. The handgun had a distinctive shape and unforgettable sound. It seemed to never need to be reloaded (presumably receiving new ammo while holstered) and had the best deploy ever. The cyborg Cop’s right leg opened up and extended the gun in a rack-like holster.

The “Coolest Alien Tech” Award: Plasma Cannon - Predator Okay, this one’s not strictly handheld but it is a personal sidearm, so I think it can be allowed. The Predator had plenty of cool tech: that telescopic spear, those over-the-forearm double-blades. But that shoulder-mounted plasma cannon could automatically lock on any target, emit a pulse of energy that easily burn through any target of metal, wood, or flesh. More advanced than the weapons on Earth or other (known) alien target, the plasma cannon could be adapted as a hand-held weapon, ready for quick work. Then again - there was that body mounted Gatling Gun that took deforestation to a whole new level…

Geek Syndicate The “If You Had To Choose Just One Energy Gun” Award: DL-44 Blaster - Star Wars From time immemorial, laser guns or blasters have been the mainstay of Sci-Fi. Whether it was Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, Logan’s Run or the cheesiest Roger Corman exploitation movie, there was such a weapon in the hand of all the main protagonists – space gun, ray-gun – whatever you choose to call it. If we had to pick one - and we must - it would have to the weapon of choice for our favourite Corellian pirate. The DL-44 was a powerful, highly modifiable and accurate blaster pistol. It packed a heavy punch compared to other pistols without losing accuracy, which made it a prime choice among many groups and individuals, ranging from smugglers and bounty hunters to the military and the Rebellion… it doesn’t have a stun setting - and Han fired it first!

The “What Else Does It Do?” Award: The Z-F1 - The Fifth Element Gary Oldman’s demonstration of the ZF 1 Pod Weapons System in the movie The Fifth Element was quite simply epic. The weapon, produced by Zorg Industries, was a hybrid of a smart assault rifle, mini-missile launcher, flamethrower (“my personal favourite”), net-launcher, dart gun, and liquid nitrogen sprayer. To cap it all, the weapon also had a self-destruct device built into it if it fell into the wrong hands!

The “Thing of Beauty” Award: Rick Deckard’s Gun - Blade Runner My brother (also a Rick) has a replica of this gun, which includes working LEDs on the side. It is an object of desire from a film noir that never seems to age. The weapon was constructed from an Austrian Steyr/Mannlicher bolt-action rifle with the stock and barrel removed. A pistol-grip was added for effect. Rick Deckard’s Blade Runner hand-gun is simply iconic.

The “One Of A Kind Bar None” Award: The Lightsabre Star Wars “This is the weapon of a Jedi Knight. Not as clumsy or random as a blaster; an elegant weapon for a more civilized age. For over a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic. Before the dark times... before the Empire.” Nothing like it had come before and in truth there has been nothing since. That distinctive sound can be heard as an app or message tone on a million mobile phones, and everyone remembers the first time they saw one switched on. Anyone who says that they’ve never held a broom handle in earnest and not imitated that sound is an abject liar! And to be clear before anyone writes in… it’s spelt lightsabre! 35

Geek Syndicate The “Japanese Way” Award: Samurai Sword - Blade When Blade came to town, he packed a veritable arsenal with him, including that double-bladed boomerang knife thing that he threw around the room (Krull’s Glaive deserves a mention here too, being more akin to the Smart-Disc in Predator 2 - a combination throwing star and boomerang). But what makes his Samurai sword just pip Connor MacLeod’s 2000 year old Samurai sword in Highlander, was the fail-safe in the handle. If you picked the sword up but didn’t deactivate the guard, the four spring-loaded blades in the handle would quite literally shred your hand.

The “Sounds Deadly” Award: Weirding Module – Dune In the original Dune books, the “weirding way” is an higher plain, almost religious, form of martial arts. For the big-screen version, David Lynch replaced the “weirding way” with Weirding Modules, which convert certain sounds into powerful blasts of sonic energy. Eventually, Paul learns to kill without the module at all but it was a great piece of kit. Honourable mentions for other sonic weapons include the Tom Cruise’s Sonic Shotgun in Minority Report.

The “Swiss Army Knife” Award: The Sonic Screwdriver – Doctor Who Is it a weapon? Of course it is! The intergalactic Leatherman MultiTool didn’t just repair or sabotage stuff – it could do harm as well. And if you don’t think any of The Doctor’s dozen or so revisions could do you any harm, then let’s see how you fair against The Master’s Laser version … An honourable mention must go to Varian’s crystalline ‘tuning fork’ device named the Sonic Energizer as seen in The Fantastic Journey.

The “Silent, But Deadly” Award: Auto-Feed Crossbow – Hawk the Slayer Ah yes, the totally improbable Auto-Feed Crossbow – quieter than a pistol with a silencer and lacking the lengthy reload time of standard crossbow. Hawk The Slayer was actually awful – a Sword and Sorcery saga released a couple years before similar tales like Krull (incidentally both films. starred Carry On stalwart Bernard Bresslaw as a giant!). In truth, there are real-life pump-action and electric auto-fed crossbows, but back in the early eighties, this was the stuff of legends!

Geek Syndicate The “Bond, James Bond” Award: Scaramanga’s Golden Gun Bond had a gazillion hand-held weapons and gadgets, including the nerve-impulse activated wrist pistol (with armour-piercing darts), but in this instance, we’re going to limit the choice to guns. So which was the best? No, not the Walther PPK – way too ordinary. The title actually goes to one of his enemies: Scaramanga, The Man With The Golden Gun. Scaramanga’s gun fired golden dumdum bullets (banned by the Geneva Convention, they flatten upon impact to maximise the size of the entry wound), but it was the weapon’s assembly that clinched it: a cigarette lighter provided the firing mechanism, a cigarette case created the butt, a pen made the barrel, and a cufflink was added to make the trigger – his bullets were hidden in his belt buckle, but the one scene the buckle featured in was cut. Each item was plated in 24-carat gold, giving the gun its name. In real-life the assembly was built for the film by Colibri, and a work of art it was too. You can still pick a replica up on eBay occasionally for about £700. An honourable mention must go to both the breakdown rifle Bond in From Russia With Love, and the shark-pellet gun in Live and Let Die.

The “Seriously, I Think We Could Make That Rifle” Award: Batman’s EMP Gun – The Dark Knight Rises After a seven year absence (in film years) The Batman returned on the Bat-Pod with an EMP gun that took out the lights, engine control and pretty much anything that ran on electricity in a vehicle. So it was interesting to read late last year that a new gadget built by German company, Diehl Defence, looking much like a portable Electro-Magnetic Pulse gun, could disable a vehicles electronic circuitry rendering it useless in battlefield or pursuit conditions. It was tested on the battlefields of Afghanistan, and now police departments and militaries around the world are queuing up to test the technology. In the words of Diehl themselves, “The new HPEM (High-Power-Electro-Magnetics) technology protects convoys against improvised explosive devices (IEDs), can stop getaway vehicles and prevent unauthorized access to limited access areas.” Watch this space...

The “Best Law Enforcement” Award: The LawGiver – Judge Dredd Stallone’s Judge Dredd film is rightly lambasted for any number of reasons, but the one feature the film nailed was the Judges’ trademark handgun – the LawGiver. The weapon was suitably showcased in the film’s opening Block Wars sequence – Dredd demonstrated the voice-control to change the type of round the gun fired: incendiary, armour piercing, and the dual fire “Double Whammy”… we even got a display of the palm recognition unit which electrified anyone (except the owner) who tried to fire it. The ultimate hand-gun! An honourable mention must also go to The Grammaton Gun from Equilibrium, which comes with its own mystical kata training!

Geek Syndicate The “Best Good Old Fashioned Steel” Award: The Kurgan’s Sword – Highlander Swords, sabres, claymores – there’s a variety of swords that feature in genre films, with very little that separates them, and whilst I’ve already given a mention to Blade’s Samurai for pure gadget power, the Kurgan’s sword must get a mention. Yes, it weighed a tonne and you needed to be a man-giant to wield it, but it separated into two parts for easy carriage and had two extra dagger blades that flicked out of the hilt. “Hello Pretty”!

Ron “SilverFox” Singh

CRYPTIDS IN COMICS ... Bigfoot

Image © IDW Publishing, 2005

Geek Syndicate

Cryptids in Comics 39

Geek Syndicate A cryptid is a creature or plant that’s existence has been suggested, but not proven by evidence or recognized by scientific consensus. Few cryptids are as famous as Bigfoot. Bigfoot, the large ape-man of urban legend, has existed in some form or another in stories that go back centuries. Stories were told of “wildmen” amongst the Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest for generations, but the name “Bigfoot” was first used in the 1950s to describe the mysterious ape-man. With the naming of Bigfoot came Bigfoot Hunters, hoaxes, tabloid stories and the propulsion of Bigfoot from a mere character of folklore to a cultural icon that has endured more than fifty years in the spotlight. And with Bigfoot’s status of icon, he’s popped up in a number of different works in various media including more than one comic. Several of which were in the last decade.

Footprints and Proof In both the 215 Ink comic Footprints (2011) from Joey Esposito and Jonathan Moore and the Image comic Proof (2007) from Alex Grecian and Riley Rossmo, Bigfoot is a detective. In Footprints, he’s more at home in an old noir film as he looks to solve the mystery behind his brother Yeti’s strange murder. In Footprints, Bigfoot and the other cryptids willingly revealed themselves to the human race, hoping to integrate into the larger world. As the most human of the group, Bigfoot grows distant from the other cryptids in time but is never fully accepted by the humans either. He walks a fine line between humanity and something … different.

In Proof on the other hand, Bigfoot goes by the name John Prufrock. He’s a young sasquatch found during the Lewis and Clark Expedition that was raised by Thomas Jefferson. Prufrock

now helps the US Government capture and save other cryptids while also helping to solve cryptid related crimes.

In both books Bigfoot is shown as extremely human. He speaks eloquently and thoughtfully about his place in the world. While both stories feature a Bigfoot somewhat integrated into human society, in Proof he is searching for other sasquatches, constantly hoping that he’s not the last of his kind. Since his job often requires him to find and detain other cryptids, he’s never quite welcome amongst his own species. At the same time, despite roughly two centuries of taking part in human society, most humans still react to Prufrock with a mixture of fear and curiosity. It’s only those closest to him that see him as more than a “wildman” and even then he’s not entirely comfortable in human company. Again, even though he wears a tailored suit, it’s sometimes plain to see that Prufrock doesn’t feel completely comfortable going through life as a “human”.

Strange Nation In Strange Nation (2013) from Paul Allor and Juan Romera, Bigfoot is not a single entity but rather a whole race of primate creatures. Though many are animalistic, some are not. The most prominent of the Bigfoot race in the first few issues of the series is Merc. Merc is is allied with the series’ villainous corporation. Like the protagonists of Footprints and Proof, Merc experiences alienation and distrust from humanity and only finds true friendship with another character who is both less and more than human. Unlike many of the other portrayals of Bigfoot, Merc is not a straight hero. Instead, it appears that he is aligned with the villains of the story. At least for now.

Geek Syndicate The Abominable Charles Christopher Bigfoot has found a home in the realm of web comics as well. In Karl Kerschl’s The Abominable Charles Christopher (2007), Charles is a young sasquatch who must save the forest and its animal inhabitants from a great evil. Save for one masked human, all the other characters are animals - quite talkative animals at that. Charles, on the other hand, is always silent and straddles the line between animal and man, which is exactly why he is the only one who can save the forest. This is the only portrayal we’ve looked at in which the Bigfoot isn’t vocal and human, save for an abundance of hair. Charles Christopher doesn’t speak and honestly, isn’t the brightest. But even as he’s more like an animal than most of the other portrayals, he still comes off as highly human simply because of how child-like he is, even sucking on a pacifier in the first few pages. Bigfoot has been a part of pop culture for over half a century, and his role in comics has really boomed in

the last decade. The prolific rise of social media and the internet and news’ fascination with odd and hilarious news stories, like the Bigfoot hoaxes involving Tom Biscardi in 2005 and 2008, has put Bigfoot and the often ridiculous ways people attempt to prove his existence, in people’s mind once again. People are fascinated by the strange and weird, and even more so by something that many see as so close to being discovered, despite decades of no real evidence. It could be that some of these Bigfoot stories were born of this media attention, prompting the writers to delve into tales that examine the mysterious cryptid and what living on the peripheral of society might be like. The stories explore the role that an undiscovered, human-like primate would play in the world, straddling the line of man and beast. It seems like writers are able to use the character and archetype to explore humanity and what exactly it means from the perspective of something that will never be human while also exploring a sense of belonging through the eyes of a character that never truly feels he belongs. It’s interesting to see various writers lend a voice to a creature that humans have told stories of for hundreds of years, further continuing the tradition and expanding even further upon the mythos that already surrounds Bigfoot. Bigfoot doesn’t really “belong” anywhere in these stories and that resonates with so many readers as they constantly struggle to find their place in the world and make sense of it all.

Leo Johnson

Geek Syndicate

Talking Cosplay With The Artful Dodger

Image ÂŠ Supanova con, 2013

Geek Syndicate

Talking Cosplay With

The Artful Dodger 43

Geek Syndicate

GS: Your Steampunk Ariel costume has been catching people’s eyes recently- it’s a great idea! Can you tell us about the path from concept to costume? AD: Thank you so much! I’ve had a huge obsession with mermaids since I was a little girl. I think it was the most feminine thing I was into, seeing as I usually ran around climbing trees and pretending I lived in Middle-Earth. I used to watch the Little Mermaid religiously when I was younger and I also read a lot of classic authors such as Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, which is why when I saw Hungry Designs’ Ariel concept about a year ago I wanted to bring it to life so badly. I already owned a pair of Black Milk mermaid leggings, which were absolutely perfect for the costume. I cut and styled the wig myself which took a million years, I don’t think I realised how unrealistic Disney hair is! I dyed and modified an old blouse for that Victorian feel and made Ursula’s voice charm out of polymer clay. I had been following Nerfenstein Blaster Mods & Props for some time and she does incredible guns, so I commissioned her to make my trident. It’s a beautiful piece of work, and hopefully I can design props as good as hers one day. I also made a pair of bracers, a holster and modified some goggles. I’ve only been cosplaying for a couple of years so I had minimal skills in costuming at that point, although not for lack of trying! GS: So you’ve only been cosplaying for a couple of years? How did you get into it?

AD: I got into cosplay back in 2010 when I saw Scott Pilgrim Vs the World and loved every minute of it. It was just so awkward, that sort of humor cracks me up. Anyway, Ramona Flowers captured my attention throughout the movie with her mysterious aura, and when she brought out the giant mallet out of the subspace bag for the Roxie fight scene I just thought, “I MUST DO THIS.” I got my hands on the graphic novels and finished them in about a week. Then a friend told me there was a local convention that was coming up where cosplay was a big thing, and I’d always wanted to see what the community was like. So I cobbled together a few bits and pieces for a Ramona cosplay and I tentatively went to the Brisbane Supanova Pop Culture Exo. It was a giant sprawl of guys who were having loud debates about Magic: The Gathering, girls freaking

out because Tom Felton just signed their books and cosplay everywhere I looked. It was incredible. I’ve never felt so at home. Everyone was friendly and shared your fandom, there was no judgement or sneering that I was a weirdo. Since then, I’ve thrown myself into the cosplaying world and I don’t intend to stop anytime soon! GS: For you, what’s the best part of cosplay? AD: A few people have mentioned since that goggles and the blunderbuss I used for Ariel would be pointless underwater, but when I look at the artwork, I don’t think she was underwater. It looks to me like Ariel got bored of her princess lifestyle, stole her dad’s trident and Ursula’s charm, and went to wreak havoc on land. That’s just my interpretation, and that’s what cosplay is about

Image © The Artful Dodger

Meet The Artful Dodger. She is a cosplay whiz from Brisbane and heads turned at last year’s Supernova Expo Brisbane) when she sported this amazing Steampunk Ariel outfit. Recently, Geek Syndicatecaught up with The Artful Dodger to hear about that amazing costume and to find out more about her previous costumes and what cosplay means to her. Enjoy!

Geek Syndicate anyway. It’s just another form of art.

but I really admire him.

where to start?

For me, cosplay is actually magical. Fantasy is my first love, and when I cosplay I feel like I AM that person from another time or universe. I generally tend to pick characters with whom I have an affinity, usually women with weapons or nunchuck skills! The ‘damsel in distress’ type of female characters that can’t look after themselves irritate me.

GS: Are there any other costumes in the pipeline that we can look forward to?

AD: If you want to get into cosplay, but you’ve been worried that it won’t be good enough, or you can’t make everything yourself, just remember that cosplay is simply personifying your love for the character, and if you can’t make a corset or armour, or whatever else is holding you back from doing it, it’s not a big deal! Anyone who tells you differently is raining on your parade. Sometimes you simply don’t possess the skills necessary, and that’s totally okay. Buy what you have to, make whatever you can, and just have fun! :)

AD: Picking my favourite character ever is, of course, like picking my favourite child, but I think I’d have to go with Jack Bauer from 24. He got betrayed and disowned by almost everyone he ever loved and cared about, his unit turned their backs on him when he needed them most, and yet he still fought for his country with literally everything he had. It’s not really a nerdy show per say,

GS: Have you any advice for people who want to cosplay, but don’t really know

We’ll definitely be keeping a look out for those new costumes! To keep up with The Artful Dodger, “like” her on Facebook, where you can see all her previous costumes as well.

Jess Hawke

Image © The Artful Dodger

GS: Who’s your favourite character ever?

AD: At the moment I’m working on 4 costumes at once! I lose interest in things quickly so I tend to flit between different projects so I don’t get bored - which is pretty cool because I generally finish them all at once. It’s very satisfying. Keep your eye out for Selene from the Underworld series, Tauriel from The Hobbit, Chloe Frazer from the Uncharted games and X-23 from X-Men. I started X-23 a couple of days ago when I came across her in the comics. Her backstory is HECTIC, if you haven’t read the X-23 comics do yourself a favor and get your hands on them. She’s basically a female Wolverine with foot claws!

Geek Syndicate

BEST STORIES: Incarnations

Three and Four

Geek Syndicate NOTE: Unless stated otherwise, all images in this article are © BBC Worldwide In the third of their Doctor Who articles, Luke and Antony present their choices of the best television stories from two more Doctors. Taking us through the seventies and into the very early eighties, here are their picks from the Third and Fourth Doctors…

THE THIRD DOCTOR (JON PERTWEE 1970-1975) LUKE’S CHOICE: DOCTOR WHO ...

It was a big ask from the creative team: we had a new Doctor with a new cast; a Doctor Who no longer had access to his TARDIS. One who was now Earth bound, and for the first time, broadcast in colour. It was quite a different show and yet the crew somehow pulled it off. Not only did this seventh series of Doctor Who work, it is possibly one of the best that the show has ever had. Each story was either an alien invasion story or a mad scientist story, yet the ingenuity of the creative team meant that none of the stories felt repetitive. The crowning jewel of the series was Doctor Who and the Silurians (the only televised story with “Doctor Who” in the title). Written by Malcolm Hulke (one of my favourite Doctor Who writers), there was a more adult vibe than ever before. Hulke’s scripts are often filled with shades of grey, asking questions of morality with the Doctor being the moral compass that we all wished we could live up to. In modern terms I think the best way to describe the way that he wrote the Doctor was the way Nolan’s Batman was presented. This Doctor is incorruptible and not afraid to do what is right even if it is the unpopular course. We really see in Hulke’s scripts that he is an alien and not human. Nowhere is this more the case than in this story. The Doctor picks the right side even though it is not human.

Synopsis (from Tardis.wikia.com): At Wenley Moor nuclear research facility, they’re experiencing technical difficulties. The source is something old, the former rulers of the Earth, and they have awoken. As I think I made clear last issue, I am not a fan of the Third Doctor. I feel that his personality does not fit with my vision of who the Doctor is. At the same time, his five year run had some cracking stories. His first season is exceptional and I would argue one of the best in the series as a whole. I would advise anyone to watch some of these stories. While the central character does not feel like the Doctor to me, there is some damn fine science fiction going on in this first year.

Geek Syndicate The Doctor and his new companion (Cambridge educated scientist Liz Shaw) are contacted by UNIT, the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce to which the Doctor had allied himself, to see what is happening in a mining network. When the Doctor ventures into the mines, he discovers that there is more to the Earth than meets the eye. Before the humans became the dominant species there were The Silurians. After millennia in hibernation, the old masters of the planet want to reclaim the surface. The story features groups of humans and Silurians who are willing to co-exist and factions of both species that do not. The Doctor finds himself caught between the two races, struggling to discover a compromise – will he succeed?

The build-up of suspense in this story is brilliant. Classic Who might not have had the budget that New Who does, but I believe that often the writers and directors had more tricks under their sleeves, building more horror than the new show has ever been able to do: it hides what it can’t do and builds on what it can. For the first few episodes, we really get a sense of rising dread about the menace that is coming. The audience does not see a Silurian clearly until the third episode of the story. We get the feeling that they are coming and that they are something to fear. The story presents the effect that the Silurians have had on the people that have come into contact with them. The audience has heard them hiss as well as see the odd reptilian hand here and there. Nothing more. Like The Daleks, this really builds suspense and horror by allowing the viewer to fill the gaps with their own imaginings.

At the end of the story’s first episode, the casual viewer familiar with Doctor Who would assume that the Silurians are the same as any other monster that has featured in Doctor Who at the time: they are the villains of the piece. The humans are the innocent and the heroic Doctor will save them from the menace. By the end of episode two, the seeds of doubt begin to be sewn into the audience’s minds, with the Doctor stating that he is unsure whether the Silurian’s are really a menace. As the serial continues, we discover that on both Silurian and human side, there

are shades of black as well as shades of white and Hulke’s oh so favourite shade of grey. The story questions race, immigration – moral questions that science fiction at its best can do without repercussion. The story is so strong that when the monsters returned in the re-launched series in Chris Chibnall’s lacklustre two part story (The Hungry Earth and Cold Blood), it is every bit the homage to Hulke’s classic. Pertwee still comes across as the incredibly pompous and arrogant Doctor in this story, yet the surrounding story is so strong that the viewer does not notice as much. This is Pertwee’s Doctor at his best with one of the best Doctor Who writers there was.

Geek Syndicate ANTONY’S CHOICE:

Synopsis (from Tardis.wikia.com): The Doctor is called in by UNIT to investigate when scientists go missing from a top security institute. He follows the kidnappings back in time to the Middle Ages, unaware investigative journalist Sarah Jane Smith has stowed away on the TARDIS. As events unfold, the Doctor discovers a sinister alien intent on altering the future of mankind. I’m more forgiving of this third incarnation of the Time Lord than Luke. While I find him to be much more arrogant than others, a certain paternal quality comes through between the Doctor and his companion which has never really been recaptured. This is particularly true of the relationship between the Time Lord and his second companion, Jo Grant who had left to marry an eco-warrior cum scientist in the previous story in a throat-lump-forming final scene. Throw at this paternal Doctor a companion who is feisty, intelligent and certain of herself and an interesting new dynamic begins to form.

shows the new character at her best. She’s a journalist: and from her introduction she shows an intelligence and inquisitiveness that will set her in good stead throughout the adventure and beyond.

The story is framed in the present but is essentially a historical of the variety introduced with The Time Meddler. Indeed, the story opens with a small, spherical space craft crashing to earth. A short, humanoid figure emerges and plants a flag: claiming the planet for the Sontaran empire. This is the first appearance of the Sontarans, in this case, Linx. The plot revolves around the interloper kidnapping scientists from “present day” Earth in order to help him repair his ship. UNIT are brought in to investigate the disappearances and Sarah... well, she smells a story. One of the interesting elements of this story is that actually, Sarah is very wary of the Doctor for a good portion of the adventure. She doesn’t trust him at all, stows away on the TARDIS to find out what he’s up to and then becomes convinced that the Doctor is the villain and that he’s working with Irongron, a local bandit chief to usurp control of Wessex castle from its rightful incumbent. Of course, it’s that Sontaran who’s up to mischief – providing Irongron with flintlock rifles and even a robotic warrior to bolster his forces.

The companion in question will be familiar to readers who are familiar only with Doctor Who since it re-started in 2005. Sarah-Jane Smith. Sarah was born on the crest of a feminist wave – perhaps an immediate reaction against previous “Who girls” whose job was simply to look pretty and ask “What is it Doctor?” at the appropriate moment. Sarah-Jane went on to become one of the most fondly remembered companions and is usually associated with the Fourth Doctor, but she had a whole year travelling with Doctor number three. To be honest, I think this story

Geek Syndicate There are several reasons why this story stands out amongst the Third Doctor adventures for me. Firstly is that Sarah is a different kind of companion and one that works. Poor Liz Shaw, a Cambridge educated scientist, didn’t really work as she spoke to the Doctor as an equal. There was no-one to ask for layman’s clarifications. With Sarah, we have a character who is trained and intelligent enough to ask the pertinent questions. Also, the initial mistrust is interesting, even if it does play out a bit quickly. I have an interest in Medieval history, so it’s always a joy to see such settings in my favourite television show. Add to this a guest archer in the form of future Boba Fett and Robin of Sherwood’s Edward of Wickham (Jeremy Bulloch) and I’m even further in. Robert Holmes cleverly writes the alien of this story. The Sontaran seems both at home and incongruous in this period. His body armour is like a sleek, futuristic version of medieval armour. He’s militaristic – reflecting the society of the time. Best of all though – when the Sontaran removes his dome-shaped helmet, his head is the same shape! It’s also great that far from horrified by the sight of Linx, Irongron simply categorises him as a troll.

I also like how this is a small-scale story on the whole. Linx is not out to conquer the world (not in the first instance anyway). He’s trying to get back to his battle group and continue fighting his war. Indeed, the Doctor even offers to help the Sontaran, so long as he frees the captured scientists. Of course, by this point, Linx has branded the Time Lord from Gallifrey (this is the first time that the home planet of the Time Lords was named) as his enemy and refuses. This, of course, means that he will meet a sorry end! The story is action packed, witty and filled with excellent characters. For me it shows how a historical adventure can work without the seeming requirement for the entire world to be in jeopardy. I miss these smaller adventures and really hope to see their return someday.

Geek Syndicate THE FOURTH DOCTOR (Tom Baker 1975-1981)

LUKE’S CHOICE:

When I saw Genesis for the first time, I was just taken aback by the spectacle of the story. The opening shot of the desolate Skaro as a battle rages on is one that has always stuck with me. Often it is a bad decision to explain a character’s origin. It takes away their mystery, their awe. This story manages to create an origin of the Daleks that in no way detracts from them. Terry Nation (one of the all time best Doctor Who scribes, in my opinion) produces not just an exceptional story but one that adds to their awe and mystery. The Doctor is brought to Skaro by The Time Lords in order to change the development of the Daleks, to make them less of a threat than they were meant to be or even prevent their creation altogether. The Doctor, with the help of Sarah Jane and Harry, venture into a bunker controlled by the Kaleds. The Kaleds are one of two races on Skaro, along with the Thals with who they are at war. In the bunker, The Doctor and his companions encounter Davros. Davros is the chief scientist of the Kaled race. He is the man who creates the Daleks. The main thrust of the story revolves around a simple philosophical debate: does The Doctor have the right to commit genocide?

Synopsis (from Tardis.wikia.com): Intercepted while travelling betweenEarth and the Ark, the Fourth Doctor and his companions are transported to the planet Skaro, thousands of years in the past, on a mission for the Time Lords — to prevent the creation of the Daleks. Do I have the right? Simply touch one wire against the other, and it’s it? The Daleks cease to exist? Hundreds of millions of people, thousands of generations, can live without fear, in peace, and never even know the word “Dalek”?

- The Doctor, Genesis of the Daleks

This may be the most iconic quote from all of Doctor Who. It seems to have resonated across the years and was almost be echoed by John Hurt’s incarnation “The War Doctor” in the fiftieth anniversary story, The Day of the Doctor. Genesis of the Daleks is a true classic. I remember watching it for the first time. It was the second ever story of Doctor Who I watched. I grew up in the wilderness years (which is what we fans call the period in which there was no new Doctor Who on television) where the only Doctor Who I had seen was the television movie starring Paul McGann.

Tom Baker is at his best here. This story was part of the actor’s first year in the role but by this point, he has firmly established his characterisation of the Time Lord. His eccentric, mad, moral Doctor has some excellent dialogue with megalomaniac Dalek creator Davros. Their battle of words is not only well scripted but performed marvellously by the verbal opponents.

Geek Syndicate Michael Wisher played Davros and he does a fantastic job, producing a realistic ironic villain. Watching these two verbally joust is a joy to be seen, illustrating from very early on in his Doctor Who career how The Doctor was Tom Baker. Further, the sprawling wastelands of Skaro add atmosphere to this incredible script and for once the quarry location really does seem like a desolate alien landscape. The gloomy remains of each side’s base really make the viewer feel like they are watching people who have been through a war like no other.

In my own document about the Daleks, I reason that without this event, the Daleks would never have become a space faring race. Before meeting the Doctor, neither the Kaleds nor the Thals were aware of life on other planets so there’s no reason why the Daleks would have either! For more of my Dalek related thoughts, check out WedgeDoc’s Dalek Guide, available on this page.

- Antony

ANTONY’S CHOICE:

Terry Nation was a man who had lived through World War Two and the Daleks were an analogy of the Nazi menace. This is apparent in this story more than any other. From the Matt black, SS like uniforms of the Kaled race to the particularly menacing Nyder’s quasi German accent. As Davros’ right hand man, Nyder epitomises Goring, Goebbels and in particular Himmler as he happily watches as they cause terror, destruction and inhuman cruelty to not only their enemies, but also their own people.

Synopsis (from Tardis.wikia.com): The Fourth Doctor and Leela land in the cargo hopper of a sandminer, whose crew are being murdered one by one.

This story added many elements to the Doctor Who mythology. The creation of Davros as a voice for the metal despots led every Dalek story in the classic series after including the character in some form or another. It can also be argued quite successfully that this act by the Time Lords is where the Time War began. This story is a classic. If you only ever watch one serial from classic Doctor Who this would be one of my choices. It is not just Tom Baker’s best outing it is one of the best serials in the entire fifty years of Doctor Who.

I get the feeling that many readers who are fans of the classic series will be thinking “you’ve made a typo … that’s the wrong ‘of death’ you have there. Sure, Robots is great but City is surely superior in every way!”. I’d go so far as to accept their points, but this is my choice and so Robots it is. Robots of Death comes from the “Hinchcliffe era” of the series. Philip Hinchcliffe was an excellent producer and together with Script Editor Robert Holmes (as Luke has pointed out perhaps the finest Who writer ever) he was responsible for commissioning some of the finest stories ever produced at a time when Tom Baker was at his best. Many of these stories were of a more horror tone than those that had come before and the series was perhaps the darkest it had been up to that point, but it was a darkness that suited - especially with Tom Baker in the lead

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role. Baker switched perfectly from high humour to simmering anger. While appearing the fool, any villain crossing him (especially during these years) did so at their peril. Robots of Death is many things, but if you boil it right down to its core elements, it’s a futuristic murder mystery. To summarise it as such is perhaps a disservice, as Chris Boucher brings together several elements into a fantastic story of intrigue. There’s murder mystery, Asimov’s laws of robotics, espionage and even a sideways glance at classbased society. All this comes together in a brilliantly coherent manner. The story is set aboard a Sandminer on an unnamed planet. The mobile mining platform is crewed by nine humans and a veritable army of robots. The robots are divided into three classes: Dums which are mute work drones of the most basic order, Vocs who perform roles which interact with the human crew more and a single Super Voc co-ordinator robot. The three classes of robot are identifiable by their colouration and identifier pre-fix (D, V or SV) and the differences between them is important to the plot’s development. While Robots is a great story, there is one stand out scene for me. It comes very early on in the first episode and features the Doctor and his new companion Leela. Introduced in the previous story (also written by Boucher and one of my contenders for this spot), Leela is an intelligent savage from a society that has devolved back to almost stone age values. The scene in question starts with the girl concentrating on making a yo-yo go up and down. She is convinced this action is vital to the TARDIS’ operation and Louise Jameson performs this simple dedication superbly. Immediately after, the Time Lord explains to Leela how the TARDIS is bigger inside than out, using two boxes. The outcome of the explanation? An exasperated “that’s silly!” from the warrior woman! I’ve always been a fan of Leela as a companion and since I started reading Doctor Who novelisations when I was six or seven, it’s not because she generally wandered around in a leather vest / skirt combo. The character is one of those slightly different companions that we don’t tend to get these days. She’s intelligent and physically strong but also has an innocence about her that comes from her more primitive home world. Her intelligence and willingness to learn means that she’s never overwhelmed by the sights

and sounds that greet her during the adventures. There’s also a great teacher / pupil relationship between The Doctor and Leela with not even a hint that theirs is a relationship other than platonic. Robots of Death also stands out because of its design. The whole production has an art-deco vibe about it. This lends a feeling of decadent opulence to the society, particularly whencombined withtheproduction’spredominantlygoldhued colour pallet. The robots, with their sculpted faces are quite disturbing. Particularly when they go rogue and their eyes glow a vibrant red. Even though the robots’ torsos are clearly quilted fabric of some kind, the opulence of the design means that it is feasible that the robots harsh / constructed frames are swathed in material to soften their overall appearance. It also means that a robot or two could be people in disguise … I don’t want to say much more about the story as it really is worth watching for the mystery element. Suffice it to

say, this is one of the very best acted, directed, written and designed Doctor Who stories from this or any other era of the show.

Next Issue: Incarnations Five and Six Don’t forget to check out the previous two issues of Geek Syndicate Magazine for more of Luke and Antony’s Doctor Who debate. Next time, the pair will be choosing a top story from the Fifth and Sixth Doctors.

Luke Halsall Antony McGarry-Thickitt 53

Geek Syndicate Mayamada Serves Up Some Samurai

Mayamada Serves Up Some Samurai Chef

Geek Syndicate initial characters. We’ve watched a lot of the Food Network and thought to parody the cooking show theme with a super strict show host...who says TV is a bad influence huh? GS: You are giving away a 16 page comic free why did you decide to do this as opposed to charging for the prologue?

GS: So give us your pitch...just what the hell is Samurai Chef? SC: Samurai Chef is a cooking show where the Chef judges contestants dishes by attacking them with his sword! However, the contestants eventually adapt to the harsh judging measures and the battle quickly escalates. All the mayamada characters are from shows in our fantasy television network world and Samurai Chef is just the first of the shows we’re working on. GS: Who would you say Samurai Chef is aimed at? SC: It’s an action comedy mix with large amounts of food based violence...so I’d say it’s aimed at people open to new ideas :-)

haven’t seen before. GS: So you started out with just selling T-shirts...was the comic always something you wanted to do? SC: We started out doing t-shirt but the comics was always part of the plan. We are creating a really cool brand world and bringing it to people in different ways whether it’s with tshirts, comics or events.

SC: Since we released Samurai Chef Volume 1 people have become very interested in the character. So we thought it would be good to create something to reward fans of the Samurai Chef and explain his backstory at the same time. But we also wanted to create something to give new fans an idea of the character and brand without necessarily having to buy something right away. GS: You ran a successful funding campaign via Indiegogo why do you think Samurai Chef hit its target when so many projects don’t make it?

One of our long terms goals is actually to animate our characters and shows, but overall we want to create a lifestyle brand that inspires creativity and imagination.

SC: The honest answer is we learned from failure! We actually tried and failed with an earlier Kickstarter project before launching the successful Indiegogo campaign.

GS: Martial arts meets a reality TV cooking show is one strange mix where did the idea come from?

The original Kickstarter was a little too ambitious and didn’t end the way we wanted, but we took the lessons from it and immediately launched the Samurai Chef Indiegogo project.

SC: It came from a brainstorming session when we were working on our

GS: The style of Samurai Chef is very anime oriented. Why did you choose anime as the style for this comic? SC: That style runs through the whole brand, not just the comic. We grew up watching a lot of cartoons in general and loved anime in particular. Anime has a very distinct look and feel and we wanted to use it to create something different from the typical mainstream, something people

Geek Syndicate SC: Our main marketing strategy has been to attend conventions like London Anime Con, MCM Expo and Hyper Japan. We have also hosted our own events such as a series of anime screenings and a massively successful Frozen Yogurt Party last year that work well for building a community around the brand. This year we want to reach Because we had learned from the earlier experience we were much better prepared for success the next time around. GS: Given that Samurai Chef is set on a fictional TV channel have you ever thought about pitching the comic as an actual TV show to somewhere like Cartoon Network? SC: We have but haven’t make a move to do it yet. For now we want to focus on developing all our other characters as well as the Samurai Chef so we have many books for people to enjoy. We’ve got a lot of stories to tell and once they’re out we’ll think about knocking on Cartoon Network’s door :-) GS: You have a great website, promotions as well as clothing ranger and even oystercard wallets on sale besides the comic titles. Do you have a marketing strategy in place and if so how how helpful has it been for you?

even more people in the anime world as well as people who haven’t heard of anime in the fashion world too. So we’ll be putting more focus on new marketing projects including artist collaborations and partnering with major events over the year. GS: With a clear anime influence in everything you do what Anime could you recommend to an Anime newbie? SC: For someone new I would say check out anime films. They require less time commitment than a series and put the best of the anime artwork and storytelling style into an approachable package. We’ve held anime screening events before and have show Summer Wars and Steamboy which are both fantastic films. In fact, most releases from Studio Ghibli would be a great option to get started. GS: What’s next for Samurai Chef and Mayamada?

SC: On the comics side we are getting ready to produce the second and concluding volume Samurai Chef. The first book ends on a cliffhanger so we’re returning to finish the story. It’ll feature new and more interesting characters along with improved story progression. We’ll be doing either a Kickstarter or Indiegogo so people can be involved in the making of it. Outside of that we’re working on some new products for the summer and an upcoming competition that we’ll be starting in spring so keep an eye on our website for that!

Barry Nugent

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THE LIFE AND DEATH OF CARTOON HEROES

Image © Cartoon Network, 2013

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The

Life and Death

Of Cartoon Heroes 61

Geek Syndicate “And suddenly we had families and girls watching, and girls really became a big part of our audience, in sort of like they picked up that Harry Potter type of serialized way, which is what The Batman and [indistinct]’s really gonna kill. But, the Cartoon Network was saying, ‘F***, no, we want the boys’ action…” - Paul Dini on the cancellation of his show “Tower Prep” In a late 2013 interview on Kevin Smith’s podcast, writer Paul Dini dropped the quote that heads up this article when talking about the cancellation of Tower Prep, his live action show for Cartoon Network. What makes this interesting and why the interview was so well covered, was that it opened a view into the world of kids television. A world which is covered with animated adap-tations of big-named superheroes, yet these shows seem to come and go with little warning.

Green-lit in the wake of the hugely successful (and itself heavily merchandised) Batman movie, Batman: TAS was a cut above any other Saturday morning cartoon both in terms of its storytell-ing and its moody, red-light visuals. It may have been a kids cartoon, but it brought a depth of characterisation that you really didn’t see before. Being Batman - rather than, for example, a Robot Car that talked, or a Cat-riding Muscle Man - it was a show that an older audience wasn’t going to be embarrassed about watching. It set off a run of series in what became known as the “DC Animated Universe” that only came to an end with Justice League Unlimited in 2006, a staggering legacy.

Image © Cartoon Network, 2013

Cartoon Network especially seems to have problems with its’ DC properties: Young Justice was well regarded but struggled to survive, Green Lantern only got the one season before being un-ceremoniously dropped, and the new Batman series, Beware the Batman, got dropped after only eleven episodes were aired. Dini’s interview implies what a lot of people have long sus-pected; these shows are purely adverts. If they don’t shift toys to boys, they’re history.

Let’s start with a bit of background, shall we? I’m old enough to remember the kids cartoons of the 1980s, which were closely aligned to the stuff I could go and buy in the local toy shops. He-Man, GI Joe, Transformers and the like were animations of pretty basic quality in the main and outbursts of quality always seemed to be more luck than judgment. Children aren’t the most discerning of viewers - I know, I used to be one - and being able to act out the cartoon adven-tures with the action figures is a neat bit of synergy that license holders and manufacturers must have loved. This changed in 1992, with the launch of Batman: The Animated Series.

More importantly, the show brought a more serialised approach to its competitors. The X-Men cartoon ran from 1992 to 1997 and adapted many of the comic book series’ more famous story-lines, including The Dark Phoenix Saga and the coming-toa-movie-screen-near-you Days of Fu-ture Past. Stablemate series Spider-Man did much the same, even doing a version of the Secret Wars arc. It’s all a lot of effort to go to if your core audience sits in the

younger age range and reflects an older audience that has a bit more money to spend - and is therefore more valuable to the advertisers these networks need. Furthermore, in the early days of these networks, you took your viewers where you could. It’s hard to think of this kind of serialisation being successful today for a number of reasons. For a start, even a cursory glimpse at the schedule of say, Cartoon Network or Disney XD will reveal shows on pretty hard rotation. Different episodes of the show will be broadcast during the course of the day. It makes it hard to tell a cohesive story if your audience watches out of order, which means that contained episodes are the order of the day with the exception of “specials” that be cut together. And then we come to the “toys for boys” theory, which is where we came in.

This is how it goes; the network doesn’t make its money from the advertisers, or the cable fees, because in this splintered, time shifted and multi-platform world no-one really does and there’s not cash in DVD sales like there is for “grown up” television. So you make your money from merchandise, especially the cheap-to-make, high margin stuff like action figures. Who buys ac-tion figures? Boys do. Therefore, aim at

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So that’s Cartoon Network, from the DC/Warner stable. But what are Disney/Marvel up to, after seemingly being behind the curve in the 1990s? Well they’ve got different concerns. I think it’s fair to say that their old Avengers series, Earths Mightiest Heroes, was one for the fans, being dense with characters and storylines torn from the comics. But much like we’ve seen elsewhere, that’s gone to be replaced with the more rotation friendly Avengers Assemble, with a cast largely built from characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s also set in the same cartoon universe as Ultimate Spiderman, and (weirdly) Hulk and the Agents of SMASH, creating a programming block that feels built for the sort of audience who will be watching Disney XD much of the time anyway. Image © Cartoon Network, 2005

Actually this makes cold commercial sense and fits the patterns of some recent shows. Young Justice seemed to attract a diverse, old audience and that’s no good. Green Lantern hardly made toys fly off the shelves, despite some of the characters being clearly designed for it. It also explains the dearth of female characters in a lot of these shows - the “Pink Ranger” syn-drome - because the network really doesn’t care about making characters that the girls would be interested in. Exhibit A for all of this is pre-teen marketing juggernaut, Ben 10.

teresting is that the show started to age with its audience. Later seasons had Ben as a teenager. The show also introduced some semblance of recognisable continuity, arc plots, and generally looked like a show appealing to an older audience. It also upgraded its sole female character from the first series to someone more Ben’s equal. The latest version, Ben 10: Omniverse, undid those changes. Whilst technically following on, Omniverse self-consciously chases the younger mar-ket, with tons of new aliens and gadgets to go buy in the shops. It’s also a noticeably weaker and less interesting show to older eyes.

For those of you not aware of Ben 10, the setup is simple - Ben Tennyson (who is aged 10) finds an alien wrist watch that attaches itself to him. It has the power to transform him for a short period of time into one of ten aliens with unique powers, with which he gets to fight crime etc. It’s been on a fair while now and has gone through several reboots, but has also sold a truck-load of toys based around the menagerie of aliens and monsters the show throws up. In fairness to Ben 10’s creators and show runners, there has always been a knowing affection for superhero tropes in the show’s setup and it’s solidly entertaining. But what is in-

To add to the “for boys” vibe all three shows only feature one female team member each, and whilst they don’t feel as action figure friendly, they are supported by the Disney Stores and all that other branded merchandise (lunchboxes, duvets etc). A quick cruise around the other channels reveals

much the same - Transformers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and more all build around the merchandising opportunities as a core concept and producing quality by acci-dent, if at all. This all sounds very cynical and depressing, but its’ far from the whole story. “Conventional TV wisdom has it that girls will watch shows about boys, but boys won’t watch shows about girls. During test screenings, though, boys said they didn’t care that Korra was a girl. They just said she was awesome.” — Bryan Konietzko By the arguments above, The Legend of Korra is an act of madness by Nickelodeon. It’s not a big name toy brand. It’s heavily serialised. The show is pitched solidly at the teen demographic and above. It’s got very little merchandising potential (though I would totally buy a “Pabu” plushie). Worst of all, its lead character is a girl, and its cast is pretty evenly mixed. What the heck is going on? Well for a start, ratings and awards do matter to networks, and there is a cachet to getting quality programmes on the air. Korra is a follow up to the very successful and wellreceived Avatar: The Last Airbender. For all it takes a very different story path it still brings many of that show’s strengths, not least the quality writing and beautiful animation. It’s second series aver-aged 2.9 million viewers in the US, which, to give it some perspective, is more than critical darling Breaking Bad achieved

the pre-teen, action figure buying market because that’s where the “downstream revenue” is.

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The same is true of The Clone Wars. Whilst I bet it shifted a lot of toys because, well, Star Wars - it was also a show that made a major effort to address the gender imbalance in the movies by making it as much Ahsoka’s story as Anakin or Obi-Wan’s. Interestingly, you don’t see a lot of Ahsoka toys, but she does show up on a lot of the other merchandise, which means that whilst she doesn’t shift much stuff in the “blue” isles it doesn’t mean she doesn’t have a follow-ing out there that spends money of her. Clone Wars didn’t have to try and go to some of the interesting places that it did, an update of best forgotten 1980s show Droids would probably have shifted as many play sets, but the degree of love and expense and care that the show took was clearly felt to be worthwhile. So much so, that with the Disney buyout of Lucasfilm killing the show off, many of the production team have been moved straight over to keep doing the same thing on Star Wars: Rebels.

To prove the lie that it’s boys that buy merchandise, there is crossover Geek Breakout hit, Adventure Time. For a show starring a teenage boy and his magical, talking Dog, this is as far from a machined, demographically targeted piece of television as you can get. Strange, dream-like and often completely off-kilter, Adventure Time manages to be the sort of thing kids love whilst having enough depth in its subtext to draw adults in as well. It’s also crazy about reward-ing a fandom, with a rolling series of hints, backstories and wider mythology to keep people hooked. On top of this, there is a lot of Adventure Time merchandise aimed at those with more than just pocket money to spend. So is there a conclusion here? Well probably not - it feels evident that commercial, retail fac-tors influence how these shows are made, but it’s not as simple as the more cynical line you often see touted as to why someone’s favourite show has just been cancelled. Young Justice was every bit as diverse and interesting as Legend of Korra but that couldn’t save it even with a fan base behind it, and maybe spending power was indeed a factor. On the other hand I’ve yet to find anyone who likes the Transformers series but it keeps on trucking, presumably because

those Optimus Prime figures keep on truckin’ off the shelves. At the same time, quality finds a way - most of the people that work on these shows want to make the best show that they can. Networks are as hungry for content as ever. It’s always worth having an Adventure Time, or a Korra out there, bringing people to the network where some will stay and watch the adverts or other shows. It’s noticeable that many of the more interesting shows are away from established brands though, which may say more about how those brands are now micromanaged. And given a choice, an audience can vote with its feet, as it always has, so watch the shows you love, and maybe, just maybe, they’ll keep being made.

Matt Farr

up until it’s final batch of episodes. Korra is a hit in the traditional sense and does so at least in part by defying the urge to target and milk a tight demographic.

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Geek Syndicate VIDEO GAME REVIEW

max

- the curse of brotherhood Brotherhood is a sequel / remake of sorts to the 2009 game Max: The Magic Marker which was released on systems with touch screen interfaces or gesture driven control systems. Both games feature the eponymous child as their protagonist and feature the “Magic Marker” gimmick. The idea is that Max uses the marker to create objects in the world that will help him progress. In the case of Brotherhood, the marker has the ability to grow platforms out of the ground, branches, vines to swing on, water spouts to speed through and fireballs to … well, ignite things.

Publisher: Press Play Platform:

Xbox One, Xbox 360

Available: Available in the XBOX Game Store for either platform

When Max wishes for his annoying little brother, Felix, to be whisked away by unknown evil forces, he gets more than he bargained for. Armed only with a marker and a hope of undoing what he has just done, he sets out on a perilous journey across deserts, eerie lantern-lit bogs, ancient temples and lush green forests to get his younger sibling back. Along the way Max gains the powers to manipulate his environment and overcome seemingly impossible obstacles. It’s been a long time since I’ve really got my teeth stuck into a platform game. It’s been even longer since I’ve played a side-scrolling platform game. I thought my days of running, leaping, swinging my way from left to right along a level were well behind me. If Max: The Curse of Brotherhood by Danish developers Press Play is indicative of the genre, then I think I’ll be dipping into them more often.

The marker can also be used to combine these objects. Vines can connect to pillars or branches in order to create rope bridges or longer swings. Fireballs can ignite branches, which can then be used to create more fireballs and so on. As Max learns each new technique with the marker, these combinations and the various ways in which the drawn items can be used are explained. As long as you don’t forget the previous lessons, you’ll get through the game. I can see how this gimmick would work perfectly on a touch screen, or even with a wiimote and frankly, I thought the xbox controller would prove detrimental to the idea. Fortunately, this is not the case and in

most cases, there’s plenty of time to activate the marker and draw what you need. Occasionally it will take a few goes if you’re being rushed by charging enemies but I didn’t find any real issue here. The rest of the controls work equally as well if not better. As with the platformers of old, there are few buttons needed. In Brotherhood, you need only movement, a jump button, a button for interacting… and the button to activate the marker system. It may seem an odd thing to say, but these controls are nicely responsive. During my play through, I could never once blame the controls for my dying – it was always down to me being an idiot. Running and jumping at the same time in games can sometimes be an issue but that’s not the case here. The game is beautiful on the XBOX ONE. When I first fired it up, I had to quickly browse the internet as I thought it must be based on a Dreamworks movie given the quality of the character models and the animation. It isn’t by the way. This level of detail and high standard remains constant throughout. The models used in the cut-scenes are exactly the same as those in game. It’s a small thing, but I do sometimes find the difference in quality between cut-scenes and

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game play to be enough to jar me out of the moment. The humour in the premise and the story itself also works well and wouldn’t be out of place in an animated feature. There’s one or two scenes in the game that are genuinely jaw-dropping. The first is near the beginning of the game. Max has been platforming his way along a cliffside. At the end of the section, he approaches a stretch of desert. The game’s camera zooms seamlessly out to give a much wider perspective. At this point, Max is a tiny blip on the screen as he runs along (still controlled by the player) to an oasis. My biggest gripe with the game is that moments like this weren’t repeated nearly enough. The game is challenging, but not

prohibitively so. Max has no health or limited number of lives. Anything he encounters that wounds him will kill him. This could be a long drop, a monster, lava, electricity from the (really annoying) Lantern Bugs or one of a number of other dangers. If you should get the boy killed, you re-start at the last checkpoint. What’s nice is that the game creates a checkpoint at the beginning of every puzzle or area. Because of this, there’s no real sense of frustration at having to repeat several puzzles to get back to the point that keeps killing you. That said, there were a couple of moments in the game that had me stumped for a while. By far the most frustrating was the final encounter but I eventually got the hang of it.

Overall, I would say that Max: The Curse of Brotherhood is well worth a download. It’s not very expensive in the XBOX Game Store (£11.99) and will give, I think, between eight and twelve hours of game play. More if you’re an achievement hunter. It’s fun, looks beautiful and the controls work nicely. Whether you’re a fan of platform games or have been away from the genre for a while, I’d recommend giving it a blast.

Antony McGarry-Thickitt Rating

GGGGG

Geek Syndicate COMIC REVIEW

EGOs #1

Writer: Stuart Moore Artist: Gus Storms Publisher: Image Comics

A twisted far-future epic! An aging hero risks everything to rebuild his former team – but to do so, he must cross a line with his wife that can’t be uncrossed. “With EGOs, Stuart Moore’s thoughtful writing style really comes into its own. Very highly recommended.” -GARTH ENNIS (Preacher, Fury MAX)

“EGOs sets up house at the junction of superhero stories and big-ideas sci-fi — then trashes the junction and builds its own huge, insane theme park.” -MIKE CAREY (Lucifer, The Unwritten)

There is a lot of potential in EGOs, the new Image comic book from Stuart Moore and Gus Storms. After all, we’ve read a lot of far future science fiction comics and we’ve read a lot of superhero comics. What there’s not a whole lot of, however, is far future superhero comics. Not like this one.

EGOs is the acronym of the Earth Galactic Operatives. We’re introduced to them via Viggo, the Planetarian, who is sitting on a dead world. He is attempting to work out why it’s dead, just by looking at it: that is his power. Then, Masse turns up. Masse is a floating red blob. Jelly-like, with the possibility of a humanoid shape inside. We’re told the events that followed happened many years ago. We’re looking at a planet orbiting a naked singularity. We’re looking at the big bad; Repliqa. We’re looking at the original EGOs: seven superheroes who protected the galaxy. It turns out that the leader, Deuce, is telling a large arena audience about what happened next. Then the announcement: an all-new, young EGOs team is being assembled. The heroes are back! But not is all as it seems. Not with Deuce and his relationship with his wife. Not with the story he’s been telling. Not with the faces we’re seeing. While all this is going on, the narration becomes more pointed and more interesting. The narrator is introduced as a dysfunctional individual with an important secret. So, there is lots going on. Lots of plot and world-building within the first issue of a comic. Stuart Moore is experienced in telling other superhero stories (JLA, X-Men Origins, SpiderMan and Deadpool amongst others). I wonder if EGOs is his passion? He is familiar with the standard tropes of the super-team and he bends them expertly to his will. Nothing and noone is as they seem, even though they tend to have the standard comic book names. No guessing what Repliqa planned to use to conquer the universe. So we have The Fear, Opener, Spectrica and others. The trick Moore pulls with the identity of Deuce and the team is genius. I didn’t see that coming at all. There are surface similarities to other left-field superhero teams but this twist is something fresh and new. Moore is clearly enjoying creating this universe and these characters, and the enthusiasm shines through.

Before I paid too much attention to its creator, the artwork and style of the future reminded me of Image Comics’ debris, drawn by Riley Rossmo – art that I loved. I knew this wasn’t by Rossmo, but I knew nothing about Gus Storms, who drew and coloured this comic book. The art is rough, deliberately so. Not quite granular but scratchy and busy. Large panels and colour themed pages dominate. There is a lot of detail – which is very effective in the identity reveal. There is also vagueness. Contrasts. It is a style, like that of Rossmo, which is very effective for Image’s sci-fi canon. While the good guys all look fairly generic, the bad guys – Masse in particular – are highly imaginative. It might not work for those expecting heroes to look like the top guns from Marvel and DC, but within context, I think it couldn’t be better. As usual with Image, there are a couple of bonus pages at the end of the book, including an interview with both creators and sketches of early character designs. There have been a lot of reinventions of the superhero in the last few years, both rebooting existing ones and newly created heroes. The EGOs team are among very few that might make you sit up and take notice. Without too much boring exposition, the reader is thrown in and then quickly familiar with this new universe. Moore and Storms have created an immediately interesting comic book with potentially intriguing characters in what I hope will continue to be an interesting and original story.

Rating

Ian J. Simpson

G G G GG

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Geek Syndicate DVD REVIEW

BATES MOTEL - Season One

Creator: Anthony Cipriano Starring: Vera Farmiga, Freddie Highmore and Max Thieriot

A modern re-imagining and prequel to the movie Psycho (1960). This story begins with the earlier years of a teenage Norman Bates and his mother Norma who live in an old house overlooking the adjoining motel which they are renovating. The house and hotel both come with secrets of their own as does the new town which the Bates’ now call home. Who would have thought it? A television show based on a stone-coldnailed-on-five-star classic “untouchable” movie turns out not only to not be terrible but to be rather good. Bates Motel is a “contemporary prequel” to the 1960 Alfred Hitchcock movie, Psycho and tells the story of the life of Norman Bates and his mother Norma prior to the events portrayed in the classic movie. Picking up after the death of Norma’s husband (Norman’s biological father), when she purchases a motel located in a coastal Oregon town so she and Norman can start a new life. And yes… the house does look just a little bit familiar.

Series creator and Lost writer Carlton Cuse set his stall out early with this one, citing Twin Peaks as having been more than a passing inspiration for Bates Motel. “We pretty much ripped off Twin Peaks... If you wanted to get that confession, the answer is yes. I loved that show.” Cuse said at an early press junket for the first season: “They only did thirty episodes. Kerry [Ehrin] and I thought we’d do the seventy that are missing!” The role of the seventeen year old Norman Bates falls to Freddie Highmore (Finding Neverland, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) and he acquits himself well. Charming and likeable for the most part, Highmore still manages to tinge every moment with a sense of the darkness that lies behind those eyes. But it’s fair to say that Vera Farmiga steals the show. Mrs Bates as presented here is every bit the decimated mother. She is a mother who will go to any lengths to look after the love of her life - the precious Norman. In a year of great

female roles in television shows, this performance is up there with the best. The contemporary setting works for the story, if you can forgive the obvious time line issues with the original movies. To be fair it would be restrictive to set this back in the thirties or forties and this more contemporary world works well. I imagine it will probably only bother those film students and movie fuddy-duddies that have had Psycho on repeat viewing since the sixties. The update of the setting allows for social, economic and sexual politics that just didn’t exist when the film was made. This in turn allows much wider story opportunities for the series. So what about the episodes? The first six episodes set up some nice ideas and move at a breakneck pace. Then episode seven hits the reset button and almost starts again. It’s an odd move for a show in its freshman year but its refocusing allows a strong end to the season and the last few episodes are amongst the strongest. It also allows for the story of Norman and Norma to find its footing again and develop a longer view. It’s almost like, initially, the show’s creators weren’t sure the series would get past

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G G G GG Episode Listing: 1. “First You Dream, Then You Die” 2. “Nice Town You Picked, Norma...” 3. “What’s Wrong with Norman” 4. “Trust Me” 5. “Ocean View” 6. “The Truth” 7. “The Man in Number 9” 8. “A Boy and His Dog” 9. “Underwater” the first ten episodes so set it up to be wrapped up nicely within a single year. To be fair they had good cause. This show should never have worked. But as the show developed, so did the audience and with that development, the show runners realised that they could slow down, reset and prepare to be around for a while yet. The show isn’t perfect. It’s true that the series is at i’s best when it focuses on the Bates family, rather than its frequent veering off into Twin Peaks style events and characters. That’s not to say that this doesn’t work, because it does. But the story of the boy and the mother who loves him just that little bit too much is far stronger and more compelling than ideas from a television show from a quarter of a century ago. Also it can be a bit soapy and when the story isn’t on the Bates family relationships, it feels very familiar. But these are small points in what is overall a very good first year.

strong characters and confidant show running. Only time will tell if this story has legs to run past another season but for now Bates Motel is a pleasant surprise, and one that deserves your time.

10. “Midnight”

Fact fans: A&E’s “Bates Motel” is not the first attempt at making a television show based in the universe of Psycho. That honour fell to a 1987 pilot starring Bud Cort, Lori Petty, and Jason Bateman that failed to be picked up by a network and wound up airing as a TV movie on NBC.

Phil Hobden

So the ultimate question: Is Bates Motel worth your time? In a word, yes. Alongside the similar Movie-to-TV show, Hannibal, this was one of the surprises of the 2013 television schedule. Charming and chilling in equal measure (much like Norman I guess) this is a show that, despite all the predictions of doom and gloom, broke through with great performances,

Geek Syndicate BOOK REVIEW

RED RISING by Pierce Brown But Darrow and his kind have been betrayed. Soon he discovers that humanity already reached the surface generations ago. Vast cities and sprawling parks spread across the planet. Darrow and Reds like him are nothing more than slaves to a decadent ruling class. Inspired by a longing for justice, and driven by the memory of lost love, Darrow joins a resistance group in order to infiltrate the ruling class and destroy society from within. He will stop at nothing to bring down his enemies . . . even if it means he has to become one of them to do so.

Author: Pierce Brown Publisher: Random House

“I live for the dream that my children will be born free,” she says. “That they will be what they like. That they will own the land their father gave them.” “I live for you,” I say sadly. Eo kisses my cheek. “Then you must live for more.” Darrow is a miner and a Red, a member of the lowest caste in the colorcoded society of the future. Like his fellow Reds, he digs all day, believing that he and his people are making the surface of the planet livable for future generations. Darrow has never seen the sky. Yet he spends his life willingly, knowing that his blood and sweat will one day result in a better future for his children.

There was a survey a few years back that business leaders are four times more likely to be psychopaths than the general population. Generally speaking, people in charge get to positions of power by having a callous streak, which gets rewarded, and by disregarding others’ feelings. Are these people born or are they made? What of dystopic science fiction? Surely if psychopaths continue to rise to the top in society, a dystopia shall surely be inevitable? The rich and powerful will only become richer and more powerful. What of the under classes in today’s society. What will become of them? I wonder if these thoughts were bubbling away at Pierce Brown before he formulated the plot for Red Rising. Set on Mars quite some time in the future, we meet Darrow, who is a Helldiver in deep caves below the surface of the red planet. He believes he is working to get Mars ready for when the people of Earth come to colonise it. He’s been mining helium-3, as have his ancestors, for a few hundred years, in preparation for terraforming. His community are poor and only have contact with the outside world with a holoCan, the future of TV.

When you open the book, there is a map, similar to ones you might find in Sword and Sorcery fantasy novels. As the story progressed, I was a tad confused as to what it related to. This was sub-surface Mars, not a hidden corner of Middle Earth. Instead of elves and wizards, we learn about Darrow, his life and his relationships in the opening chapters. He is young (sixteen), but married to Eo, who tries to teach him about slavery. Then tragedy strikes. We learn a bit about the type of person Darrow is. We learn more about the type of society that has developed. Then we learn that everything has been an illusion, a lie. Darrow is taken out of his environment and discovers the truths about Mars and the solar system. He also becomes a tool, a weapon, which some would use to infiltrate and overthrow the masters. You see, Darrow is a Red, who it turns out are not just the workers and the miners, but the bottom of the rung. And there are many other classes – the Pinks who pleasure, the scientist Yellows, the Blue navigators and the Golds who lead. There are Silvers and Coppers and Obsidians and more – all a bit Brave New World. Now Darrow must become a Gold, because that is the only way revolution can happen and the only way his people can rise. Reds against Golds, socialists against the rich.

Geek Syndicate section, before back onto the genuinely interesting and exciting climatic third.

Darrow is changed to fit in with the Golds, passes some tests and then taken to the Institute, which is where the map comes in. He is built by those who would seek to overthrow their masters. Now he has to forge allegiances, battle enemies, discover truths and win. Nothing else matters other than the win. When reading Red Rising I felt almost like I was reading different books. The first third was proper dystopic science fiction. We see the struggles of the under classes against the psychopathic leaders. We see warnings about the path we currently tread. Darrow is taken from his familiar environment and told some hard truths about his place in society. I really enjoyed finding out about how humanity had moved into the solar system.

The third section returns more to science fiction. We’re still in the Institute, but the duplicities are revealed, which while not obvious, are expected. Clearly a society this fragile, built upon a House of Cards, has many weak points and many lies. Darrow starts to rise. The question is, of course, all about Darrow. Is he the person he was in the mines? He’s been the victim of tragedy, driven by injustice, constructed by rebels, forged by battle. He learns, adjusts, fails, rises, falls and rises again. Is he a psychopath? Surely he must be in order to lead? Was it already within him? After all, he started out as a thrill-seeking Helldriver!

In the middle third, it felt like a standard historical fantasy. The Golds based their society on ancient Greece. So I guess this is a deliberate diversion. It does, for a while, feel like the science fiction has gone. It is a struggle for survival. Battling the elements, hunger and the wolves. A quest for fire. Allies become enemies. Tactics work and then fail. Houses rise and fall. Death. And the violence! There is no shirking of that by Brown. He loves a whipping, or a dismemberment or a swordfight.

Brown’s book is as frustrating as it is enjoyable. I understand that Darrow and the other characters had to be put through their ordeals, trials, failures and more during the battles in the Institute, but I found the middle third less interesting. The other comment is that while this section was full of these trials, you knew Darrow would get through them, as the book was announced as the first of a trilogy. He faced no real peril. Indeed, during the phase when he is transformed from a Red to a Gold, it seemed very easy. He sailed through school with only a minor glitch. I would have liked more of a struggle in the first section – as the miner beats privileged and educated Golds – and a quicker, less violent middle

All that said, Brown has created an interesting, if not overly original science fiction world, with some great, complex, protagonists. Brown’s female characters are equal to the males, which is good to see in science fiction, too. He writes very well with an interesting voice, and when Darrow expresses his pain – especially when referring to Eo – you do go with it. I think that’s why this is such a good book. You believe the emotion and you believe the oppression and you believe the rage and violence in equal measure, and that shows the quality of the writing. Red Rising tells us about the rich getting the richer and the slavery of the under classes which affect our lives today. But it is also a book about family and also has a touch of romance. It is a book about the violence of adolescence, gangs and friendships. It is book not only about tough choices, but occasionally about wrong choices. Although we have yet to see how Darrow’s final choice pans out. It is a flawed but highly enjoyable read.

Ian J Simpson Rating

GGGGG

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Geek Syndicate COMIC PREVIEW

TOMB RAIDER #1

Synopsis: Superstar writer Gail Simone picks up Lara Croft’s story where the smash hit Tomb Raider game left off—in a new ongoing comics series! Following the game acclaimed for its bold and sophisticated new vision, this series launches Lara Croft on the formative adventures that will change her life forever! The official continuation of Lara Croft’s story! Release (UK): Out Now Writers: Gail Simone Art: Nicolás Daniel Selma Colourist: Michael Atiyeh

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Geek Syndicate Geek Syndicate On Tomb Raider #1

“Gail Simone is one of my favourite comic writers and someone who knows how to handle strong characters (whether male or female) while allowing them to be vulnerable. Dark Horse have produced some of the best game or movie tie-in comics ever (Star Wars, Dragon Age, Serenity et al). Bring all three of these together with some awesome art by Nicolás Daniel Selma and colours by Michael Atiyeh and you have the potential for the best adventure comic on the market. Dark Horse sent us a preview of the first issue to share with you, and it looks awesome!” Antony McGarry-Thickitt

Geek Syndicate COMIC PREVIEW

The White Suits #1

Synopsis: Mysterious killers dressed in white, they savaged the Cold War Russian underworldâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;then disappeared. Now they have resurfaced in New York, leaving a trail of dead mobsters. In this bloody wake, an amnesiac and an FBI agent search for the answer to a single question: Who are the White Suits? Release (UK): Out Now Writer: Frank J Barbiere Art: Toby Cypress

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On White Suits #1

“Frank Barbiere is able to take one simple question: “Who are the White Suits?” and quickly build an interesting and deep mythos around it. I don’t know who the White Suits are yet, but I know I’ll be around to find out. Toby Cypress’ art is quite stylized and fits the noir feel of the comic perfectly. ” Leo Johnson

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Geek Syndicate COMIC PREVIEW

TERMINATOR: ENEMY OF MY ENEMY #1

Synopsis: In 1984, Kyle Reese protected Sarah Connor from a cybrg that would stop at nothing to terminate her. In 1985, Skynet targets a scientist whose discoveries threaten its future, but this time there is no resistance fighter sent back to face it! With only enemies around her, what chance does Elise Fong stand against the perfect killing machine? Release (UK): 19 February 2014 Writer: Dan Jolley Art: Jamal Igle

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On Terminator: Enemy of my Enemy#1

“Nice art, with plenty of kinetic action, pacy script and solid dialogue that helps define the characters. Not sure how much legs the franchise has in terms of original stories though. Terminator suffers from the same malaise as Planet of the apes. Once you’ve seen the future the only interest is seeing how in unfolded. Would I read more if it were in front of me? Yeah. Would I go looking for it in the shops or library? Probably not.” Dion Winton-Polak

“I like the art-style and action, it flowed very nicely and was an easy read. I think I’m fatigued on the concept of “terminators in disguise” though. I do enjoy the Terminator concept but I find the surprise of the fleshy victims when they see the glinting metal through a wound to be a bit yawn worthy now. I think I have just seen it too often.” Casey Douglass

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Geek Syndicate ELEVATOR PITCHES What’s an Elevator Pitch? Imagine you have a production 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 well-known 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 production and another explaining why we should pick it up. Follow this up with a preview and the pitch is done - let the work sell itself. If you would like to submit a production for this section, email: thegeeks@geeksyndicate.co.uk.

The Wyrm and the Well Writer: Steve Sims Artist: Steve Sims Buy It From: UKONDSPLAY or via email at Stevesimsillustration@hotmail.com

What is The Wyrm and the Well? “The Wyrm and the Well” is the moody and mysterious tale of a young boy, who whilst fishing late one night pulls more than his supper from the dark still waters of the local lake. Not wishing to eat his strange catch the boy discards it into a near by well, and thinking the creature dealt with, makes his way home to his bed. However as the seasons pass and time continues to change all that falls within its grasp, the boy comes to learn that his actions have much bigger consequences than he first thought.”

Why should we pick this up? “From Steve Sims (creator of “Kaiju: Fire and Grimstone” and Illustrator of the “Beast Quest” series) comes a story inspired by the chronicles and folk tales of old. Fans of ancient yarns and fire side stories of man vs monster will surely get a kick out of this atmospheric and action packed tale.”

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Geek Syndicate Genesis Writer: Nathan Edmondson Artist: Alison Sampson Publisher: Image Comics Buy It From: a comic shop near you, you can pre-order Genesis with Diamond code: FEB140504 (pre-ordering is recommended), or get it digitally from the Image Comics Store. There is likely to be an exclusive, variant cover available: watch this space.

What is Genesis? NE: A one-shot that’s spills off the pages and pushes past the binding with a story as big as the idea of creation itself. AS: A multi-layered story of creation, and a comic full of places and spaces to explore

Why should we pick this up? NE: This is a rad ride like no other; art that carries you like you’re surfing a wave and a mind-bending story horrific and fantastic in equal parts. It’s a lot of bang for your buck and it’s not something you can just read once. You’ll want to pore over this. AS: What he said. This is what some other people said: “a fantastic one-shot that you must add to your pull-list.”

- Alpha Comics, Calgary

“Loved the art, loved the concept. Also, huge props to Jason Wordie on this stunning colors and some brave choices in same. I’m ready to order as many as I can!” - Escape Pod Comics, New York “I have beheld GENESIS and it is beautiful! .. it’s a one-shot, so don’t wait for a collection! Interior art is to die for.” - Page Forty-Five, Nottingham “ Blown away by (AS’s) layouts and artwork...” - Acme Comics, Orlando, Fl

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