I've just seen a Face: Retro Magazines & Film Posters

It's like the 1980s never ended! Here, for your delectation and delight, are a few covers from long-gone fashion / lifestyle magazine The Face. I never bought this mag back in the day, as I thought it was just a style Bible for pseudo-intellectuals. I mean, it was really, but these issues I picked up in a junk shop recently have some great articles and interviews, plus some *very* of-their-time photos, which are fun to see from a 21st century viewpoint. And isn't that Human League cover the most '80s photo ever?

An absolutely gorgeous pic of Siouxsie...

And another gorgeous pic, this time of the legendary Rankin' Roger ( RIP )

And, yes, another gorgeous ( in a mean 'n' moody kind of way ) pic of the Godlike genius that is Kevin Rowland.

Staying with an '80s theme ( and with some '70s and '00s thrown in for good measure ), here are some cool reimaginings of movie posters that we saw in an exhibition in Stroud a couple of months ago. Aren't they lovely?

 

40 Years of DWM!

Forty years ago this week saw the publication of the debut issue of Doctor Who Weekly, the first ongoing magazine devoted solely to everyone's favourite Time Lord. As the Fourth Doctor, the mighty Tom Baker, was fully embedded in the public's consciousness at this point, with Tom having played the character for five years, it was clearly an ideal time to launch this new magazine.
The 12-year old me was certainly very excited to read this "Fantastic First Issue"  -  I'd been a Doctor Who fan for 7 or 8 of those years and had just recently watched what would turn out to be my all-time fave Who story, the Paris-set beauty that was City Of Death. ( The current serial at the time was the overly-camp Creature From The Pit which was 2 or 3 episodes in at this point. )
Doctor Who Weekly combined two of my great passions, Doctor Who and comic strips, so I was as happy as a Dalek with a planet-full of pitiful humans to exterminate. And it was a Marvel comic too
( master-minded by comic book impresario Dez Skinn ) so that ticked another box for me. A Marvel comic with a secret ingredient... the cream of 2000 AD!

Yes, the lead comic strip in the first issue featured some absolutely stellar work by 2000 AD mainstays Pat Mills, John Wagner and Dave Gibbons, bringing us eager young fans the kind of budget-busting science fiction spectacle that the Beeb could only dream about. The issue was rounded out by some entry-level articles about the show and another couple of short comic strips. I was instantly hooked and became an avid follower of the magazine. After a year or so of publication its name was changed to Doctor Who Monthly as it began to be published ( you guessed it! ) once a month. Now known as Doctor Who Magazine ( or DWM for short ) it has managed an incredible run of 40 years of continuous publication. In an age when print media seems to be dying this is really impressive.
DWM has unsurprisingly had many ups and downs over the years but for the most part has been a wonderfully entertaining and informative mag, devoted to the Doctor and the various spin-offs from the show  -  from the New Adventures novels, to TV off-shoots like Torchwood, to the long-running Big Finish audio stories.

( The above issue has a special place in my cold, unfeeling heart as it contains the first fan letter I ever had published. I'll have to dig it out sometime and scan it for this 'ere blog. )

So, many congratulations to all the talented people who have kept DWM going for all these years, even through the "dark times" when the show was off the air. Happy times and places!

Season's Greetings!

Merry Christmas to all you lovely people out there in the Blogosphere! I hope you've all been good this year and that there's a sack-full of presents waiting for you. And, as a special gift from all the hard-working elves here at The Glass Walking-Stick, please enjoy these beautiful pieces of festive artwork by the great NC Wyeth...

I wear an eye patch now...

... eye patches are cool.

Well, they're certainly this season's hottest accessory in the Doctor Who universe.

This week's Radio Times features interviews with Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill, all talking about their unsung heroes of the show. There's also a lovely interview with Sadie Miller, daughter of another of Doctor Who's most beloved actors, the late, lamented Elisabeth Sladen.

Here's a scan of that interview:

The last quote is the one that got me:

"You just have to let grief roll, take its own time. Mum and I were so close and all my memories of her are happy ones. That gives me a lot of peace."

Today's show has been brought to you by.....

Wrong Doctor?

Karen Gillan and David Tennant at the Radio Times Covers Party 2011.

Something SFXy This Way Comes

I've had a small snippet of my Something Wicked This Way Comes review printed in this month's SFX magazine. You can read the full review ( written in a fake Bradbury-esque style ) here, as well as my reviews of Lucius Shepard's Life During Wartime and Roger Zelazny's Lord Of Light.

For anyone who's got this issue, be aware that only that one sentence is mine: the two paragraphs immediately below with the "cerebus660" credit were written by somebody else, who's probably feeling a bit pissed-off at the moment :-(

More Pure Pulp Goodness

Some more wonderful pulp covers from Famous Fantastic Mysteries and Fantastic Novels, two classic fantasy magazines from the '30s and '40s. Artwork by Virgil Finlay and Lawrence Sterne Stevens.

Mark Millar's CLiNT

What's in a name?

Mark Millar's new magazine has arrived, censor-baiting title and bullet-riddled cover leering out from the shelves in your local WH Smith. In his foreword, Millar describes his new venture as a "boy's comic", going on to tell his presumably acne-ridden readers that "Grandpa had the Eagle, Dad had 2000AD and now you've got CLiNT, you lucky people". Personally, I'd expect the mag's readership to slant more towards the average Forbidden Planet-frequenting 30-something, but Millar tells us that "kids have been crying out for a monthly like CLiNT", so I'll have to bow to his superior market research.

Years ago ( Warning! History lesson approaching! ) you knew where you were with ( British ) boys' magazines..... or comics as we weren't afraid to call them. They had names like Lion or Thunder back in the 60's, or like Battle or Warlord in the 70's. These were tough, proud titles that gave some indication of the contents inside: action-packed adventures of soldiers, cops, cowboys and spies - macho, shallow and often jingoistic. But fun, obviously.

And now we get CLiNT, which is a whole new ball-game. Or is it? The title is a sniggering, adolescent joke. You can imagine the advertising meetings: "Ha ha ha if you cover up the bottom of the title ha ha ha on the shelf ha ha ha it almost looks like ha ha ha "see-you-enn-tee" ha ha ha!!" Oh, my aching sides! Of course, this stems from the old days of comics printed on cheap paper when the letters "l" and "i" would run into each other to give whole new meanings to the words "flicker" and, indeed, "Clint". No superhero could be called Clint for that very reason..... er, except for Hawkeye, but it kinda suited him.

The actual contents of the mag are..... strange, really. It's almost schizophrenic in its approach somehow. There's an article on an actor who dubs Tom Cruise's voice for Chinese movies; an interview with Jimmy ( not Alan, thank God! ) Carr; the Manson family killings are dredged up yet again in a tasteful ( sorry, I meant tasteless ) little article; some "glamour" shots of the likes of Mylene Klass and Holly Willoughby, contrasting with a strange Nuts / Zoo / FHM parody called "Deeply Moral Babes: Overdressed Porn For The Religious Right." And assorted "humour" filler. That's the "magazine" side -

But then you get the comics:

The main selling-point for the mag is Kick-Ass 2, Millar's and John Romita Jr.'s sequel to the wildly successful comic and movie. I have to admit that I've never properly read Kick Ass ( only leafed through it in Waterstone's ) or seen the film, so I'm probably not the best person to judge this strip. The first instalment is only 8 pages long and features some strong, expressive artwork, a reasonable amount of violence, some serious swearing and an off-colour joke about Rihanna. Pretty much what I'd expected.

Millar and artist Steve McNiven bring us ( a reprint of ) Nemesis, the story of a Batman-like supervillain waging war on Washington's police. More ultraviolence, more swearing, and widescreen, dynamic artwork. I actually enjoyed it more than I thought I would - I know, I know, it's called "damning with faint praise".

Ignoring the insubstantial violence/swearing/graphic sex-fest strip by cover star, the beaver-bearded and unfeasibly popular Frankie Boyle, we come to the best comic strip in the mag, Turf by Jonathan Ross and Tommy Lee. A dense and unfashionably wordy tale of vampires and aliens in Prohibition-era New York, Turf demonstrates that Ross has ( unsurprisingly ) soaked up enough pop culture over the years to come up with a new twist on the gangster story. The richness and detail of the strip's world makes a change from the usual "decompressed" story-telling so prevalent today, and Lee's artwork effortlessly captures the atmosphere of smoky jazz clubs, seedy motels, Italian barber shops, the whole mobster milieu.

So, am I going to seek out that cheeky title again next month? Probably. I'm still not sure about that "boys' comic" tag: the sex, violence and bad language remind me more of Heavy Metal or ( gulp! ) Warren's 1984, and I certainly wouldn't want my 10-year-old reading it. I definitely think the magazine has an identity problem, but it's early days yet. As for its future, all I can say is:

"Okay, you CLiNTs, let's see what you can do!"

Soundtrack: My Generation ( album ) by The Who.

Bringing SFXy back

As the next issue of The World's Number One Sci-Fi Magazine is out soon, I thought I'd better mention my mini-review in the last issue. It was the turn of Roger Zelazny's 1967 novel, Lord Of Light, to er, shine in the SFX Book Club.

Lord Of Light is a suitably psychedelic novel of a colony world where the crew of an Earth starship have used technology to become virtually superhuman, and cast themselves in the roles of Hindu gods. The main character Sam ( aka Siddhartha, Mahasamatman, Binder Of Demons ) is a classic trickster/troublemaker who tries to bring about the fall of the gods, but is executed for his crimes. Luckily, reincarnation is always an option when you're a Hindu god.....

It's quite a confusing book, with an awkward framing device: most of the story is told in flashback, so when you return to the "present" it's hard to remember where it all started. I suppose this is all to do with the cyclical nature of karma, but it is a bit of a headache.

But that's my only quibble ( love that word! ) with a book that is dazzling, witty, sensual and glitteringly complex - a real tour-de-force by a sadly-missed author at the height of his powers. Zelazny overwhelms the reader with the plots and counter-plots of his godlike characters and the sheer detail of his world, with its prayer-machines, technological Heaven, phantom jungle-cats, Demons, martyrs and warriors. What I'm saying is: check it out; it's good karma.

( I won't go into the crazy-but-supposedly-true story of the Lord Of Light theme park, Jack Kirby and a CIA plot..... but you can read about it here and make your own minds up. )

Pure Pulp

Artwork by: T. Anderson,

Margaret Brundage,

Virgil Finlay,

Frank R. Paul,

and Howard V. Brown.

cerebus660 is SFXy

I must say it felt pretty good ( if not actually SFXy ) to wander into my local WH Smith at the weekend and find a ( tiny ) cerebus660 byline in the latest issue of The World's Number One Sci-Fi Magazine. This was a capsule review I posted on the SFX website about Lucius Shephard's Life During Wartime - previously mentioned here. Page follows, needing maximum clickage for bigness.....

The problem is that cyber-me thinks "Great! The cerebus660 brand name is expanding into new territories. The world will soon be mine! Hahahahahaha etc."

However, real-world-me thinks: "Bugger! Should have put me real name on it!"