DECONSTRUCTED – A Science Fiction Comic

I mentioned a while back that I'm working on a comic script. Issues One and Two are written, and I'm writing an Issue Zero, just for fun.

I'm treating it like a writing exercise – a typical day in the life of. The comic revolves around the crew of the Evangeline, a salvage ship and occasional ore hauler in the Los Perdidos system. Life aboard spacecraft has fascinated me for a long time, from the Millennium Falcon, to the Nostromo, Battlestar Galactica and The Betty, in Alien Resurrection. Add in a splash of corporate espionage, a feisty heroine, unpredictable Artificial Intelligence and a pinch of Soviet nostalgia and you'll be well on the way to imagining what I'm cooking up.

If you'd like to find out more please visit our site. And feel free to let us know what you think. All feedback and ego stroking eagerly received.

Welcome to DECONSTRUCTED.

VAN HELSING BITES!

I can’t even tell you where I originally heard it, possibly whilst I was working at Waterstones Piccadilly (all too briefly) a few years ago. Anyway, this quote goes thus:

The definition of a classic is a book that everyone should read, but doesn’t want to.

And I am especially guilty of this. I’ve read To Kill A Mocking Bird, because it was on the curriculum at school. I’ve also read 1984, because frankly, with the amount of CCTV in London, you’d be mad not to. Aside from this I have read very little on the classics list. Not even that Tolkien geezer. I just about limped through the first book of Gormenghast.

And so I come to Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which is absolutely rocking. Not least of all because it breaks conventions of most books and the narrative is delivered by a series of letters, diary entries, telegrams and so on. It all ticks along nicely and despite the fact I can hear Keanu Reeves in my head when I read the Jonathan Harker bits, I am still loving it. I’m loving the Mina bits too, but let’s leave Winona out of this shall we?

Anyway, all is going well until bloody Van Helsing turns up, who, we learn, isn’t Anthony Hopkins at all, but some dude from Amsterdam. Van Helsing is the sort of Johnny foreigner that has devised his own grammatical rules and speech patterns for the English language. As such, he could give Yoda a run for his money. In fact Yoda becomes a leading light for all that is right about the English language when put up against Van Helsing.

It is what I call ‘the Tom Bombadil moment’. It’s the equivalent of having sharp nails dragged down a blackboard, of accidentally picturing Nick Griffin’s smiling face whilst engaged in coitus. It’s so painful you struggle to turn the pages, and so it goes with Van Helsing.

What I will say is that Ben Templesmith’s artwork reaches its usual high standards and IDW have turned out a great book. The hard cover is a nice touch and the weight is pleasing for such a gothic tome. Now if I could just get over my Van Helsing problem.

Hey dol! merry dol! ring a dong dillo! Ring a dong!

My Church

It won’t be ticket prices that drive me out of the cinema. You can spend anywhere from £6-12 on a cinema ticket in London, and the top end of this is excessive, especially considering how much some films make from DVD sales, but everything is expensive in London, it comes with the territory.

What will really drive me out of the cinema is how a lot of people assume the rules (the unspoken rules of common courtesy) don’t apply to them.

When I was kid (there, I said it), people would be quiet for the trailers – all you’d hear would be the rustling of confectionary wrappers and the occasional slurp of a soft drink. I’d been initiated into the Church of Cinema from a young age, my babysitter taking me to see such films as Tron, Superman, Superman II and III, Back to the Future, Labyrinth, Flight of the Navigator and probably more Police Academy films than is strictly good for a small boy.

But the universal rule was, you shut the f*ck up.

Not so now. Whilst in Odeon Covent Garden on a Wednesday night, I noticed the room had a level on noise akin to a pub. Let’s say a Weatherspoon’s pub for sake of argument, as they don’t have jukeboxes. The noise continued through the adverts, no harm there, but diminished only slightly for the trailers. There was of course the usual faffing and fussing with phones – because this is London, and everyone is so goddamn popular it makes your eyes bleed. Or they need to check Twitter for ten thousandth time that day.

So, film certificate screen pops up. Still talking.
First logo. Still talking.
‘This is a BBC pictures film’ talking diminishes.
Another logo. People are still talking.
Title sequence. People are still talking.

Finally, we get some quiet when the dialogue starts. But the five women in the row in front either comment on moments in the film, or made cooing noises when hapless would-be love interest makes a fool of himself.

Just as the film reaches the denouement, the women in front starts dicking around with her phone, shedding a distracting blue light over the top of her seat. If the keypad hadn’t been on silent I’d be writing this from prison, I swear.

In fact, I thought things were going to turn ugly a few months ago when I was trying watch Inglorious Basterds. Not only did I manage to have quite a difference of opinion about cinema etiquette, but also found myself being the dealt the race card, which was more shocking than someone taking offence for being told TO BE QUIET IN A CINEMA.

In the end the moron moved seats.

And kept talking.

It won’t be ticket prices that drive me out of the cinema, it will be the audiences.

My Talented Friends Part 2

As if the sheer awesomeness of getting a birthday card from SL Gallant wasn't enough, my colleague, and collaborator Andrew James knocked up this little (ahem) picture for me. And before you say, 'But Rogue Trooper doesn't have a soul patch', bear in mind it's my likeness.

Heh. Told you it was awesome.

I also received Batman: Arkham Asylum for Xbox 360, and IDW's Bram Stoker's Dracula, with illustrations from Ben Templesmith. Huzzah!

My Talented Friends Part 1

Yesterday I had the privilege of getting this very cool, specially drawn card, courtesy of my team at work. It was drawn by none other than S L Gallant, who is currently drawing G.I. Joe for IDW.

Thanks team Titan and thank you Mr. Gallant.

Interwoven Lives

We are connected. We follow each other on Twitter, are ‘friends’ on Facebook, have avatars and Gamertags or Xbox Live and long lists of telephones numbers in our mobile phones that we can’t remember and will rarely use.

Yes, it seems that I’m in one of my ‘digital nihilism’ phases, where membership to various online platforms, and the crafting and maintaining of online personas bores the living shit out of me.

This particular ennui is born is no small part, to a particularly odd piece of virtual etiquette I’ve noticed of Facebook. The ‘de-friending farce’. Or rather the lack of it.

I find people on my friend list who have no intention of ever seeing me again, and yet are too polite, or too nosy to take me off their friends list. Faces stare back from the screen that I once laughed, lounged, conversed and confided in, and yet I find myself relegated to meeting for a quick pint if they happen to be in the neighbourhood, if at all. I’ve often remarked that Facebook is a misnomer, it is ‘Acquaintance Book’ at best, and could easily stand to be re-branded as ‘Web Page Of People I Have Known’.

One particularly gruesome aspect of Facebook is the public break up, where you receive a series of status updates that feature entirely too much, far too personal, information about the expiration of someone’s relationship. What ever happened to ‘stiff upper lip’? What happened to having a cup of tea with one confidant? Why do people broadcast their own misfortune?

We have been sucked in by the myths supported by reality television:
People want to know all about us.
That the minutiae of life is interesting.
That we will someday be rock stars. Or famous. *

They don’t.
It is not.
It is highly unlikely.

Next week less angry, existential, virtual angst and more geek stuff. Hopefully.

*Because ‘Being Famous’ is a job description these days, just ask any class of 14 year-olds what they want to be. I dare you.

9 – Film Review

9
Dir. Shane Acker
Running time: 79 minutes.

A tiny robot servitor must uncover the mystery of his own creation and the destruction of the world when he awakes in his master’s lab.

9 bears a 12A rating and is undeniably dark, but with that lightness of touch we have come to expect from Tim Burton. However, this isn’t his show, but rather that of Shane Acker, who worked on The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King in the effects department.

9 has a wonderful World War II-meets-steampunk feel to it, a sort of retro futurism that is reminiscent of Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow. The deserted streets of the apocalypse feel vast and cavernous to our tiny protagonist and there is great beauty in all this desolation. The constructs themselves, tiny sackmen, are utterly charming, all with their own personalities and defects. They carry the film easily, aided by some impressive vocal talent.

Much of the story telling is much like a straight up Disney piece. There is the anti authoritarian stance, bravery and sacrifice and elaborate set pieces featuring large and frightening predators. And that’s where the film really shines – the enemies of our noble sackmen are utterly horrifying. Robotic skeletal cats, fan-driven, scissor beaked crows and worse besides threaten 9 and his new friends. There is also the strong theme of taking responsibility for ones actions, and who better than to voice such noble duty than hobbit numero uno, Elijah Wood?

The film itself looks fantastic, and the art direction never takes you outside of the story in the way that some of Burton’s works do. The pace and tone are consistent throughout and although the running time is a little on the short side, this is a well-rounded film, well written and well executed.

A dark film with a bright heart, startling ideas, and wonderful animation. Part mystery, part action-adventure – perfect for those kids (and adults) who crave something different.

8 / 10