The Day of the Daleks!

I received a parcel today. It was as tall as my torso and cavernous enough that I'm fairly sure if I opened the bottom of it I could wear it as a cardboard breastplate. I haven't actually tried this, dear reader, but know that I'm tempted too. Really, really tempted too. 

I was expecting a delivery, and if it was what I suspected I'd actually been expecting this delivery for months. I felt the twinge of excitement as the post van rolled up outside, I was at the door before the postman had even knocked, but when I saw the box my spirits sank somewhat. This couldn't be it. It was far too big, unreasonably big. I had no idea what it could actually be otherwise, but I knew it couldn't be what I was so eagerly awaiting. Upon opening the top, my spirits rose once more as two figurines rested on yet another box inside. I removed the forms of Omega and a Cyberman from the top, encased in moulded plastic like Han Solo in carbonite, and pried the inner box from it's larger brother.

I almost sliced my finger open getting into it, but upon peeling back the cardboard flaps Angels began to sing and somewhere a tinny voice demanded extermination!

Inside, in more pieces than he should have been (but nothing a quick ring of super-glue couldn't fix) lay the Emperor Dalek. The single most ambitious figure I've ever seen Eaglemoss produce. For those who don't know, Eaglemoss are a publishing company that have been producing partwork magazines (fortnightly magazines that build up, issue by issue, into a larger whole) for longer than I can remember. I was rummaging in my wardrobe a few months back, and found a few issues of Spinechiller magazine, a collection of horror stories that came with pop up cardboard monsters, and was surprised to see their logo on the front. In recent years they've been involved with a number of licenses from popular fantasy and science fiction franchises including Harry Potter, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings and a number of comic book themed projects for DC and Marvel. Late last year they released their latest venture, The Doctor Who Figurine Collection and I love it.

Or at least, I've come to love it. My excitement for this collection has been a slow burning thing, that only really sparked off a few months ago. I've been with this collection since day one, and for years it's been something that I've dreamed the company would do, and yet as the figurines rolled in I was finding that I wasn't as excited as I thought I'd be. I'd take the figures out of the box, admire the craftsmanship, and flick through the magazine but I wasn't eagerly awaiting the arrival of each one like I had with the DC collection in the past. It wasn't until I began to look for previews of future figurines that a realisation struck me...



 All the Cybermen figurines we've seen are almost in the exact same pose. From Invasion, right through to Nightmare in Silver they have this determined, unstoppable, marching gait that wheedled it's way into my imagination and threw up vivid images of an entire shelf of Cybermen lurching forward, blank faced and gleaming silver, in an unstoppable march. It was a powerful image, and I realised that it was the first thought I'd had towards the logistics of displaying this collection.

Image from http://merchandise.thedoctorwhosite.co.uk/

While the DC Collection had been easy to organise by team and title association (all of Batman's villains go with Batman, all of the Green Lanterns go together, etc.) Doctor Who contains so many monsters and side characters that stand alone, that it had been harder for me to think of them in terms of groups. There's no rhythm or reason to putting a Silent, an Ice Warrior and a Silurian together. But there is a very sound, and somewhat unnerving, logic to an army of silver warriors striding off your shelf. Once I had this down, the ideas just kept coming.

The Time Lords? Grouped around the TARDIS! Easy!

And when I saw the scale of the Emperor Dalek I knew exactly where my Dalek display was headed too.

It was all falling wonderfully into place. A shelf of Cybermen, accompanied by an army of Daleks. That is no exaggeration, we're only fifteen issues in and as you can already see I have four recruits to my legion of pepper pot Nazis so far, with many more soon to come! With ideas for displays now buzzing in my brain, I eagerly awaited the delivery of each issue and excitedly tore through the magazines. I'd found what I loved about this collection, what was going to define it, and I was extremely happy. Although I can imagine that many of you out there are puzzled right now. Unable to understand how I can get so excited over little lumps of resin shaped into characters from one of my favourite TV shows. Well, the short answer is that it's a mostly solid product that comes with an informative magazine and I'm a massive fan. Fans are irrational and do strange things, it's why we draw their descriptor from the word fanatic. 

If you want the long answer, then I'm afraid we need to go a little more in-depth and step back in time! 

You see, I've dabbled in a couple of lines from Eaglemoss in my time. I have a couple of Hobbit figures here, a handful of Batmobiles there and even a shelf of Marvel figurines proudly on display. But my true love was the DC Figurine Collection. A series of lead figures based on the DC comics universe. If you pushed me to proclaim my allegiance to one of the big comics companies, I'd pick DC every time. You can roll out the old 'But Marvel's characters are more human and interesting than DC's!' argument all you like, and when it comes to the big draws you may well be right. But DC always had the best, obscure characters. The New Gods, the Doom Patrol, the Legion of Superheroes, Flash's Rogues, I love them all and the idea of having the entire DC Universe on my shelf, at an affordable price point? That was like a dream come true. 

The character you're seeing to your left right now is Ambush Bug. Ambush Bug is, for better or worse, my favourite superhero. He's fairly obscure, but I always believed he had enough of a cult following to gain a place in the collection. So I campaigned and I made impassioned pleas and I may, just may, have made a few sneaky (read: very overt) suggestions to then editor and now very good friend Sven Wilson to include him. Eventually it happened, and I can't help but take a measure of pride in the finished product. It's absurd, I know. I didn't sculpt him, I didn't paint him, but I did input a few design ideas and I think that if I hadn't been out there, shouting into the darkness, making the case for this cult hero, this figurine wouldn't exist today. 

And this is exactly what I loved about the DC Collection. It truly was a representation of the entire universe, in miniature, and the doors were wide open to anyone. No character too new, no character too obscure, the big guns would happily rub shoulders with the little guys in a way that no other collection of the same quality was managing. And as a fan who loved the lesser known characters as much as the characters everyone loves, this was important to me. It's why I was excited in the first place, and I truly believe that the DC Collection lived up to this ideal right up until it's all too premature end. An end I'm still in two minds about. On the on hand the new costume designs from the New 52 were making the collection an inconsistent hodge-podge, but on the other hand for the first time in the history of the collection both Wildstorm and Vertigo were wide open, and with most of the big guns down, the list of characters to choose from was more exciting than ever. 

The excitement I feel for the Doctor Who collection is entirely different, though. I think the reason I wasn't initially as involved in the collection was because I don't really have much investment in what characters come next. Even the most banal of characters or monsters usually have interesting designs. The Vashta Nerada spacesuit is on it's way soon, a monster that I never felt had all that much impact on the show and is really just the animated remains of an archaeologist controlled by dark bacteria. There's also the Siltheen, which I think are some of the worst alien concepts to crawl from the Russell T. Davies era but I'll be damned if they both don't look fantastic!

Image from http://merchandise.thedoctorwhosite.co.uk/

The only thing I'd love is for the editors to relax their iron focus on Time Lords and monsters and let the companions get some love too, but beyond that I probably wouldn't be able to give you a top ten list of characters I want for this collection like I could routinely rattle off for the DC line. No, the excitement lies in seeing the history of the show come to life on my shelf. When I went to the Doctor Who Exhibition in London, they had these marvellous displays that would depict Daleks, Sontarans, Ice Warriors and Cybermen through the ages. All standing side by side, showing a direct comparison through the, then, almost fifty years of the show. When I had my epiphany about the Cybermen, it brought into focus that I could have something very much like this in miniature on my shelf. A time line of the various designs throughout the show's history, and all I'd have to do to see it is tilt my head up from my desk. As a fan, it's a truly intoxicating idea. And no, I don't care if you judge me for it. 

Of course, it also helps that despite a few quality control and customer service fumbles, Eaglemoss collections are usually quality products. The magazine is a thing of beauty, that you can learn all sorts of interesting tid-bits from and I'm pretty sure the editors behind the collection have some form of insanity. Not only did they produce a glossy covered small book for the TARDIS magazine, but the model that needed a box big enough for me to wear to get to my door safely? Is the FREE GIFT FOR SUBSCRIBERS. I can't even imagine the logistics it took to make and deliver that thing to so many people, with minimal breakages, and the idea that they're giving it away for free is just beyond the pale. I remember the free subscriber gift for the DC Collection (a much more modest Batman statue) eventually came up for sale in limited numbers at Forbidden Planet. It's going to be interesting, then, to see what price they actually pin on this if something similar ever happens. 

Long may this kind of insanity,  and indeed the collection, continue though! For more information on the Who collection, check out their Facebook page. It's surprisingly useful for news, answering queries and just a little bit of Who related fun. Also be sure to check out Doctor Who Merchandise for news and information, as well as my old stomping ground the Superhero Figurine Forum for almost all things Eaglemoss. For my part though, I have a giant model to admire and magazines to read!

Old Friends and Familiar Places.

A good week ago, I was reading Monarch of the Glen, a short story by Neil Gaiman (yes, that man again!) in the back of his Fragile Things anthology. I often find Neil Gaiman's short stories to be very hit and miss, mainly because they tend to either be very experimental or go right over my head. But then some of them are wonderful, and strangely introspective of his life in a twisted mirror kind of way. I was extremely excited to read Monarch though, so it was not just any short story, it was a novella that tied into my most favourite of Gaiman's work, American Gods.

I was pondering if I should re-read American Gods first, immerse myself back into the world. Remind myself of the epic journey that Shadow takes through the realms of Gods and men. But I'd already read more books than I have in the past two years those last few weeks, and I felt that when I do get around to re-reading that novel, I want it to be unclouded by the haze of several other works. So I decided to just dive right in and hope that the years hadn't eroded all my knowledge of the world Gaiman had created and understanding of the characters. 

I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised. A few paragraphs in and it was like... The only way I can describe it is coming home. The narrative style was just as I remembered it, all the little quirks and ticks that made Shadow unique were instantly recognisable and I was right back into the great game of American Gods, looking at every character critically to decide if they were a God or if they were human. I wasn't just reading a story, I was enveloping myself in a world, wrapping it around me, and waving at the characters inside like they were old friends. As I read, the story of the book began to come back to me thick and fast, everything Shadow had been through to get to that point and when Mr. Wednesday made a surprise cameo? I was grinning from ear to ear. 

It was a surprise for me, but it was a pleasant one. 

You have to understand, I haven't read American Gods in years. I don't think I've read it since I was a teenager. By all rights it should be lost to me, a flickering flame in the back of my memory of something that I know I love but cannot properly define. But there was something about taking another step into this world, reading more adventures of a character I had come to love, that put me right back into that mindset and just brought it all back to me. And honestly, I think that is one of the many, incredible powers of fiction. Of these vast, and often underrated imaginative landscapes that we embroil ourselves in. 

When I thought about it further, I realised this was not as uncommon as I thought - It's just the gulf of time that made it remarkable. Every month we wait for a new issue of a comic book to land on the store shelves, ready to continue the brightly coloured (or black and grimy with the way modern comics are going!) adventures of our favourite characters, ever mindful of what went before. Every year we wait for a new series of our favourite TV shows, the characters as fresh as if they had never been away. When it comes to movies it can be years between each new adventure, and of course with so many hands involved there's a greater risk that we'll lose that special feeling thanks to a sub-par product, but when it all works out it's still wonderful. Then when getting onto books and games, the wait can be even longer. I remember willing Bioware to give the Mass Effect series as much time as they needed to make each game perfect, and I've become accustomed to waiting years for each new chapter of A Song of Ice and Fire but when they come? It's like I never left the Citadel or Westeros at all. 

I suppose one should never really underestimate the things you love, the things that you are invested in. You may think they're gone, but all it takes is one little push, and it'll be like they never went away. I wonder if I'll feel the same way with the upcoming American Gods TV show. But if not, I suppose Shadow is like so many of my old friends - Always at my fingertips, only instead of being a text message away, he's a mere page turn away.  

The Aies in the Airwaves.

I feel like I'm going to need to apologise for this post in advance. I was up until six am last night, and awoke around ten which means I'm living on four hours sleep here, so please, be kind. Why would I do this to myself, you may be asking? Or more importantly, why is this relevant to anything? Well, last night was the recording of the début episode of the third iteration of the Now Playing NOW podcast. For those curious, this is a movie and TV reviews podcast that is the baby of a good friend of mine, Theron Reynolds, who hosted it a number of years ago with his team of 'Silver Screen Specialists'. Three years down the line and he's back! Only now he has an all new, all different, all wonderful team of specialists behind him...

... And I happen to be one of them.

That's right folks, I've slipped from the written page into the airwaves of the internet, after Theron was kind enough to invite myself and a couple of our good friends from Seattle to join his show. I'm going to admit right now that when I signed up? I had no idea it was going to be a reboot of a former podcast, and I did have a number of doubts before going in. The main one, as always, rested with myself. This isn't my first podcast, but it is my first one that isn't just dicking about with friends. Naturally there's some dicking about with friends involved, it wouldn't be fun otherwise, but this is the kind of dicking about with friends that carried the extra pressure of making a quality product at the end of said dicking about. I wasn't sure I was cut out to be an entertaining personality on a podcast, and knowing that we were essentially slipping into somebody else's skin? That fans of the old show's format and hosts might not take to us nearly as well? They were things that played heavily on my mind in the weeks prior to the recording and it remains to be seen if those fears are going to be justified. Although I hope everyone will be kind enough to give us a chance!

We'd originally set up to record early on Sunday morning, at eight am my time. I had a rather restless night beforehand, full of very anxious dreams, only to find that due to technical issues it would be impossible to record that day. We agreed, later in the day, to move the recording to one o'clock on Tuesday morning. An unreasonable time for some, but I'm practically a professional insomniac so I knew I could handle it. More problems arose, and time crept on. One came and went, then half one, two, I was afraid that I was going to be forced to bail on them and we'd have to push it back again. Come three o'clock though, the stars finally aligned and the magic happened... And do you know what? I thought it was wonderful.

I'd been dead on my feet all day, barely staying awake, but when the podcast started and we sank our teeth into the discussion topics we'd selected? It was very easy to get swept up in the excitement of it all. Theron, Ashley and Travis were as animated and amusing as always, and I want to give a special shout out to the new guy of our little band of Podcasteers, Phil. The amount of work he did behind the scenes was both staggering and a little scary, and his technical expertise made the whole thing so much smoother than it would have been otherwise. Overall it was a very positive experience, and the hours sailed by (we were even over by a little, oops!). It was a joy to both take part in, and to listen in to the other hosts chat back and forth, sharing their views. I think we've got a really good team together here, with perhaps the niggling feeling of doubt that I'm the weakest link of the bunch - But that's just how I'm wired. I'll happily throw myself into something, I may even tell you that I think my contribution to it is good, but always, at the back of my mind... Here, why don't you judge for yourself. Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls, may I present to you the star of this blog post - Episode one of Now Playing NOW! Go ahead, listen, I'll wait.

Now Playing NOW! Episode 102 - Animated Kid Movies Adults Will Love

Enjoy? I hope so! If you'd like to keep abreast of the epic journey I'm sure this podcast is going to take, as well as be notified when later episodes go up, be sure to like our Facebook page over here. I'd also like to reiterate the shout out that I gave to Tony in the episode, as he's been a great inspiration for me in both starting and forging forward with this blog. It was also his post on An American Tail that led me to suggest we review it as part of the theme for the podcast. Be sure to check out his own take on the movie as well as his blog in general. He writes some interesting, introspective posts on life, London and Batman. Always Batman.

I also seem to recall that I might have claimed that the Pirate Tinkerbell movie was not only a movie that looked good, but also the only trailer I saw before LEGO that looked worthwhile. All I can say is that I'm a complete idiot who forgot that I'd seen the trailer for the second Muppet movie as well (it looks great, by the way! I'm hoping we can cover it on the show!) and that I was operating under severe sleep deprivation.  Or, perhaps, I just have some deep seated psychophysical issues that can only be resolved by watching fairy themed films for girls. It's an outside chance, but you never know...

 Naturally, I appreciate your feedback so be sure to let me know what you think! I also hope you'll tune in for future episodes, and follow me on this journey into a vast, unknown portion of the internet. At least, vast and unknown for me. Don't worry, though, there'll still be plenty of book impressions and nonsense going on over here, as always, too! And perhaps some exciting news beyond that, which Theron gave a little hint to in the podcast above. I don't want to say too much right now, as I'm not quite sure how everything is going to work yet, but the times they are definitely a changing, and I hope you'll still be along for the ride!

From Cover to Cover: The Shadow Over Innsmouth

Happy Valentines Day, and welcome to the début of a monthly segment here at the Compendium! Where I read books, suggested by you guys, then ramble all about them right here for your enjoyment. What better way to start, and indeed celebrate this day of grand gestures of love and emotion (or frantic card buying and flower picking, depending on your perspective), than a short story from 1936 about cosmic horror and fishmen!

(Picture taken from L. W. Currey, Inc.)

The Shadow Over Innsmouth is a short story by H.P. Lovecraft, twice rejected by his usual stalking ground Weird Tales Magazine (who today have a wonderful Facebook page that showcases a plethora of genre art and fiction from across the internet, which I heartily recommend checking out) and eventually published in book form in 1936. It features a nameless protagonist making a seemingly unassuming trek across New England to gather some notes for his family tree and generally doss about admiring the architecture. Along the way he is captivated by dark tales and unsettling rumours of a shadowy town called Innsmouth, and instead of avoiding it like the plague like a normal person would, he finds himself intrigued and takes the first bus there. What follows is a brush with cosmic forces of such unquestionable might and mind-bending horror that it throws his life, and indeed his very sanity, into the balance. 

When I was drawing up my plans and tossing about ideas for this segment, I always knew this was the book I wanted to tackle first, that my choice was always going to be this. Only three authors really touched my life in any significant way during these last few years of very sparse reading. George R. R. Martin, Neil Gaiman and H. P. Lovecraft, and of the three of them? I think it was Lovecraft who most got under my skin. As a man, he was truly fascinating. Every time I take a tentative nose into his life, I come away learning something new and surprising about him. As a writer, though? Even through all the awkward turns of phrase, antiquated (even for his time!) writing technique and often nameless, faceless protagonists who you know are doomed by the end, that man's imagination and descriptive ability is so incredibly precise and far ranging that you can't help but be sucked into his works, and despair at the sheer insignificance of mankind. His fingerprint on genre fiction is greater than most realise. The tendrils of his influence creep out to more obvious places, such as the works of Stephen King, to the more prevalent but less obvious places such as Doctor Who. Over the past few years, these influences, in-jokes and references have been becoming more and more obvious across a variety of entertainment media and it's fantastic to finally see the Man from Providence get the recognition he deserves. Even if it does mostly take the shape of Cthulhu plushies. 

As enthralled as I was by his work, however, there were, and still are, shamefully large gaps in my mythos reading - And The Shadow Over Innsmouth always felt like the largest and most glaring. For reasons we'll get onto later, the Deep Ones? Always feel like they're kind of a big deal in Lovecraft's personal mythology of cosmic horror, and it's good to finally be well acquainted with their landmark story. After all this build up, though, how does it stack up? Well, let's find out!

The first thing that really grabbed me about Shadow is the fantastic opening hook. We get a fevered report of government raids and the bombing of a reef by the military from our protagonist, with the frantic insistence that even this drastic action? Will never be enough! For what? Why was it necessary in the first place? Why is this guy so bug-eyed terrified right now?! I suppose we'll have to read on and find out! Soon we're properly introduced to our protagonist, who... Well, let's play Lovecraft protagonist bingo, shall we? Painfully academic? Check! Only wrapped up in this whole sorry business due to some form of investigation into his family ties? Check! Frequently leaving common sense and caution at the door only to be led by the nose by rabid curiosity of the mere hint of something man was not supposed to know? Ladies and Gentleman, I'm calling Bingo! But whatever traits he might share with other, poor, doomed souls in Lovecraft's tales, he's still very identifiable and provides an excellent viewpoint into the madness that we're about to be embroiled in. 

One of the main strengths of the book, I feel, is it's writing style. In my experience there are two types of Lovecraft story, ones that are so full of awkward phrasing, bits of scientific jargon and clunky, impenetrable language that even though the core spark of imagination and intrigue may be there? It's like wading through treacle to get to a teaspoon of honey. Then there are the stories that instantly engage and require no work at all to read and enjoy. Shadow definitely falls into the later category. It's a surprisingly easy read, yet Lovecraft's passion for language still shines through very strongly. Through his narrative he paints a vivid picture of both the town and it's unusual inhabitants throughout, with the devil very much being in the details. Small things like the protagonist noting the lack of domesticated animals as he strolls through town the first time (picking up none of the usual animal noises one would expect, but pay no attention too), or that the bolt on his hotel room door has been freshly, and purposely, removed  help to build up the sense of unease and dark purpose, as well as helping to paint Innsmouth as a desolate, dilapidated town that  is so far past it's prime it would be charitable to call it a ruin. 

His scene setting is beautiful, yet at the same time he has the good sense to know when to hold back on the detail and let the imagination run wild. We know, as readers, what the Deep Ones are going to look like from the start. They are depicted on a tiara in a library the character visits at the beginning of the book, and ghoulish appearance of the town residents with their bulging eyes and stooped gait is enough to let you put it together in your mind. Yet, Lovecraft never puts it together for you until their eventual reveal - Which somehow still manages to pack a punch, even though flickering images of these beings have been haunting the text since the first chapter. There's also the foreboding Devil's Reef, which is a focal point of the story, but never given a full descriptor. We never travel there. We only see it, through the eyes of our protagonist, far off in the distance - Full of wonder and menace. The strange rituals and ceremonies performed there left only for us to guess at. 

The residents of Innsmouth themselves make an interesting foil, but can also make a troublesome one. I'm not even going to try to pretend the undercurrents of disapproval for interracial marriage don't exist. They do. Even if you knew nothing about Lovecraft's race prejudice, it's pretty clear from the text. The only reason that the Deep Ones got away with what they did for so long is that everyone in the neighbouring town just assumed they'd let some foreign strain run rampant in their bloodline, or all contracted some physical aliment that made them unsightly. As if the two are as bad as each other. Yet for Shadow I can forgive this, because the story touches upon so much else. It touches on physical and mental degradation, and how much of each you can suffer before you stop being human. It touches on small town paranoia and the fear of the other very effectively, one could easily draw parallels from Shadow Over Innsmouth to later works such as The Wickerman for example. Summer Isle may well be a classier place at first glance, but under the surface they share and awful lot in common with their fishy, New England counterparts. It's also a love story. 

No, really. It is. There have been sweeping, epic love songs written about it. Which I sadly can't embed, but I urge you to check out the song with accompanying motion comic here. And if you're still not convinced, we have the other side of the coin, the break-up song as well. 

Well, okay, I admit I may be stretching the definition here to justify this being a Valentine's Day special (which it is, ladies and gentlemen! Happy Valentines Day, have some fish men!) but if not romantic love, then family love is certainly part of the foundation of this tale.

Even the humans who had most contact with the horrors from below, Obed Marsh and the vaguely sinister tribe from a far off land that he learned these rituals from (because of course there's a band of mad foreigners at the heart of all this) seemed reluctant to get freaky with the fishes. All the specific unions between warm and cold blood are described as either forced, or at one point 'a trick' and the only possible desirable thing to come from it all is that your children will be immortal. No direct benefit to yourself, just the promise that your future family will live forever as a Deep Ones, with some time as a regular human thrown in beforehand. It's a curious incentive because while knowing your children and grandchildren will never die, you're also going to know that they'll spend most of their life as something you regard as disgusting. I can only imagine that the Deep Ones must have whispered tales of the coming of the Old Ones and the horror that would plunge the world into, and how this way... This way, you'd be keeping your family safe. In the long run, at least.

Which really feeds into one of the more interesting, and easily overlooked, layers of Shadow, it's ruminations on faith. The first truly terrifying thing our protagonist sees, the one thing that goes beyond slightly unnerving or just plain odd and plunges him head first into outright horror, is a deformed priest shambling out of the church. This visage haunts him throughout the story, and it becomes very clear that not only has the Esoteric Order of Dagon moved in to take over the town, but they've claimed the old time faith (embodied by the two churches left standing in the town) as their own. Lovecraft is no fan of religion, and it's interesting to see his barbed, yet subtle, jabs at it take shape in the text. In Shadow's universe, faith only goes as far as the prosperity it brings you, and while immortality was the prize for mating with them, the Deep Ones would bring gold and fish in abundance just for the act of engaging in their strange rituals and feeding their hungers.

 As a Christian township, Innsmouth is on the road to a decay it will never recover from. The townsfolk are so desperate, that they will willingly abandon their faith on little more than Obed Marsh's promises of prosperity and wealth, and the town's parsons, ministers and other assorted keepers of the faith? The first to go. Of course, the Order of Dagon is also leading them on the road to damnation of a different kind, but as long as there are fish in their bellies and gold to sell onto Arkham and Ipswich, who cares? 

It's not all sunny in Innsmouth though (well, it's never sunny there, but just go with me a minute, guys!) as the book does have some problems. It comes very close to falling apart and running out of steam in chapter five, where our hero has uncovered the dark secret of the town and is involved in a mad chase across it to freedom. In what should have been one of the most exciting and nail biting sequences in the book, the writing unfortunately gets bogged down with a plethora of street and road names, each getting a name check as the main character passes through them, or simply plans too, or finds that he cannot. I admire Lovecraft's attention to detail, but at times this sequence feels far too much like trying to read a road atlas while already in transit. You see a lot of names, but you never really take them in. For me, it drained some of the drama and atmosphere the rest of the book had been working so hard to build.

While Lovecraft's descriptive abilities are in full force - Not everything hits the mark. This is a very minor nitpick, that I can't explain, and if it hadn't annoyed me so much I wouldn't be bringing it up, but if I had to read one more sentence describing the town as 'shadowy' I may well have gone out to find somebody to punch. Perhaps it was a little too on the nose for my liking, perhaps I felt that it was sometimes very awkwardly inserted into sentences. I'm not sure. All I can tell you is I was fed up of seeing it.

The story also feels as though some background in Lovecraft's mythos may be required to get the most out of it. I have to wonder, for example, if the full force of the brief mention of a Shoggoth could be appreciated by somebody who isn't already familiar with what a Shoggoth is, and why it's bad news. The book never really explains this, just that Zadok seems really scared of it, so you should be too! It's a minor thing, but it does limit the extent that Shadow can be enjoyed as a standalone. It could also be argued that Shadow is pretty much a grab bag of Lovecraftian tropes mashed together into one story. The way the narration is presented, especially in the beginning, is very reminiscent of At The Mountains of Madness. The eventual fate of our protagonist could be likened to other Lovecraft main characters, such as the unfortunate soul from The Rats in the Walls and we've already played Lovecraft protagonist bingo, so I don't need to bring that up again.

All of these faults or minor failings can be forgiven because Shadow is a great story, well executed. The narration pulls you in quicker than that of Mountains, and the ending, well the ending is a thing of perverse wonder. You're probably going to see it coming from a mile away, the hints to it are littered all through the text, but the lengths that it is taken? Truly chilling, and had me walking away from the book with a dull sense of unease in the back of my mind and a great big grin plastered across my face. Who can really ask for much more than that?

I was planning to talk about the popularity of the Deep Ones as a discussion point to this segment, as it's undeniable that they are one of the more recognisable aspects of Lovecraft's mythos - Perhaps ranking only behind Great Cthulhu and Arkham town themselves. There's a book series called Shadows Over Innsmouth which features a host of authors telling stories related to the town, including Neil Gaiman and another favourite of mine, Michael Marshall Smith. Innsmouth related expansions to both Arkham Horror and Call of Cthulhu, as well as a family of Deep Ones in Cthulhu Gloom. There's also been a very fun comic that was recently announced, pitting pulp hero The Shadow against the inhabitants of Innsmouth. Originally I was going to talk about how the Deep Ones, as portrayed in Shadow, tap into a universal fear of both the enemy within and the enemy so far beyond the realms of our imagination that we can barely comprehend. They're the monster under the bed, and that shifty looking neighbour we wouldn't let our kids near, all rolled into one and as such lend themselves to multiple purposes within both narrative fiction and gaming. Brian McNaughton also presented an interesting take in his short story The Doom That Came to Innsmouth where the residents of that ill-fated town were instead cast as a repressed minority that had been stripped of their religious rights, with heavy parallels to Japanese internment camps in WWII. Unfortunately this more sympathetic angle fell to pieces when the Deep Ones did as Deep Ones do and I walked away from that story quite disgusted by the main character in particular, but it proves that the Deep Ones can be as strong, if not stronger, as vampires or zombies as allegories for a variety of human conditions. If you were willing to twist them away a little from Lovecraft's original vision, of course.

But ultimately, I don't think I need to go into any of that. I can't help but feel that the truth behind the popularity of the Deep Ones lies in exactly what I've written above - The Shadow Over Innsmouth is an incredibly well written story that brings not only its hideous, otherworldly nasties to life, but also the town of Innsmouth itself. Innsmouth is a place that lives and breathes, it's a character onto itself and sometimes it feels like the protagonist is more fighting against it's tumbling steeples and darkened doorways than it's peculiar residents. Considering just how vivid the environments and characters are in this story, is it really any wonder that even seventy eight years down the line, modern authors and game writers would still want to draw influence and inspiration from it?

If I you're looking for a quick and easy way into Lovecraft's writing, then... Honestly I'd recommend The Cats of Ulthar instead. It's written in the same easy, engaging style as Shadow is, but is much shorter and has less obvious mythos related strings attached. Plus you'll be able to go forth onto the internet and create Ulthar cats as opposed to lolcats in the future!

(Image taken from A Dark and Stormy Night)

You could do far worse than this for a first foray into Lovecraft though, and if you've already delved into that world and haven't read this story, I'd urge you to go for it. You can even find it, in full, lurking in the darkest corners of the internet right over here. So you've really got no excuse at all now, have you?

 With everything I've said in mind, I'm going to award The Shadow Over Innsmouth four monkeys in a hat out of five. 

(As an aside, if anybody with actual artistic talent would like to draw me a monkey in a hat to use for this section, I would be eternally grateful.)

Next month I'll be digging into my suggestions for the first time and pulling out The Ocean at the End of the Lane from the pile. If you wish to suggest books for me to read for future editions of this segment, please feel free to pop the title somewhere in either the blog comments or anywhere else I can see it. You can find further details for suggestions here, although going forward I think I'm going to drop the discussion point from the criteria. Having tackled this one, the books themselves should be more than enough! 

Blog Monkey Read Comic.

If there's one thing I love, it's stories that have an element of Frankenstein's Monster about them. Things that rip, and tear, and rend their way through history, classic literature, decades of comic book continuity and then sew the pieces back together into a new whole. I wouldn't say they're my favourite stories, but I love them none the less. Part of this appeal is the 'Where's Wally?' level of fun to be had. Or Waldo, for our Trans-Atlantic friends. One of my proudest moments, when I was still becoming confident enough to tackle more complex, dare I say, 'adult' books was figuring out who Anubis and Thoth were before their true identities were revealed in American Gods and I don't think I've really outgrown the wonder of sifting through works like that, like Fables and like League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and either identifying who the various characters are supposed to represent, and if I don't know (as I didn't know Anansi at the time) finding out. Even when you know the general pool that the writer is drafting from, it can still take you by surprise. Afterall, one minute Allan Quatermain and Mina Murray are making love against a tree, the next...

... Is that... Is that Rupert the Bear, Alan Moore?!

I think this is part of the reason I'm as enthralled with superhero comics as I am. This whole notion of taking otherwise disparate characters that may only be linked by the tenuous bond of happening to be published in the same format and genre as the others is the cornerstone of the superhero team up book. Not to mention with most of the big names having seventy years of history, and even smaller tier characters usually having at least a decade or three behind them, one writers interpretation of a character in 1983 could be galaxies away from another in 1960, or even 2014. Stitching together the sordid history of Hawkman, as Geoff Johns attempted in Justice Society, was as much an act of pushing several different characters into one mould as any issue of Justice League or Avengers. I dread to think what would happen if one were to try and blend all of the various identities of the Question from Ditko up into one continuity and one, blank, unstaring face and we've already seen the maddeningly brilliant, and often just plain maddening, results of Grant Morrison trying to make every single moment of Bat-Continuity work in one incredibly disjointed line.

It's an amazing strength, and an incredible weakness really. It allows for even the most minor character to be reinvented anew, for the grand tapestry of continuity to be wound, unwound and rewound again as any writer or editor or artist sees fit, displaying a whole new, exciting work for the audience to behold. Of course, on the downside there are always those who much prefer how the tapestry used to be, thank you very much! And even if one can forgive this, and roll with the punches, after so many alterations and re-airings even the most resilient tapestry starts to become frayed and faded. I'm put in the mind of something Paul Cornell once said regarding Doctor Who, that sometimes it does a franchise good to lay fallow, and the relevance that statement holds to many a big title out there, but that's perhaps a discussion for another day.

Image taken from aintitcool.com

Failing all of the above, though, there's always just the ultimate expression of Where's Wally/Waldo? in comic media, the big battle scene/charge forward/team meeting where even if your most beloved character is only known by two people in the entire world, if one of those people is the writer of what you're reading? Chances are you'll find him! JLA/Avengers was practically pornography for this kind of thing, involving characters from across both of the big two in costumes from more eras than you can shake a stick at, and I have to admit... I loved it.

So given my now much ruminated on love of this kind of story, when I saw the Kickstarter page for Code Monkey Save World, I was in.

Code Monkey Save World, for those who don't know, is a comic book project by writer Greg Pak and musician Jonathan Coulton to transform Coulton's musical work into a story of fumbling heroism, inept villainy and unrequited love. You can read more about the project here. For those of you who have no idea who Jonathan Coulton is, well, this may ring a bell...

But he's oh so much more than just that one, albeit rather brilliant, song. Jonathan Coulton is a bard for the new age, a man who in days of yore would be telling grand tales of adventure and love and humdrum office work and the material worth of extremely fancy pants around roaring camp fires. And they'd also be rather amusing to boot! His songs are all quirky little stories in and of themselves, telling self-contained tales of colourful characters that will bloom to life in your imagination and, at the very least, put a smile on your face. The idea of these songs being brought to life in comic book form is alluring enough as it is, and Greg Pak, the writer behind the fantastically excellent Incredible Hercules series, is certainly the man to do it.

So, as the popular internet meme often cries, I shut up and I gave them my money.

Fast forward to a few months later, and a non-de-script brown envelope arrived at my door earlier today. Inside, I found the following:

I'd been reading Smoke and Mirrors all afternoon, and it seemed like the perfect antidote to the string of rather unsettling short stories that come after The Goldfish Pool. A literary palette cleanser, if you will. I was fairly excited, I'd only read the first issue on it's own, resolving to experience the rest of the story in one sitting. I'm glad I did, really, it read a whole lot more fluidly than my experience with reading the first issue alone.

You see, Code Monkey Save World is not really the kind of book that demands a keen eye in case you miss a small, hidden away reference or a character you think is an extra is in fact a wink to another song. There are some nice touches, and great detailing in the background. I love, for example, that the SCM company name is featured prominently in the first few pages - Giving those in the know a clue of what's to come, without being entirely too obvious. But for the most part, it focuses it's efforts on bringing to life a few characters and scenarios from a handful of songs with a laser keenness, rather than becoming a menagerie of tit-bits and nudge-nudge-wink-wink references from across Coulton's discography.

Instead it exemplifies the other reason why I love these kinds of stories, the way they allow writers to take existing ideas and characters that were presented in one way and then expose them to whole new elements not possible in their original incarnation. It would be like throwing Sherlock Holmes into Hogwarts, or Darth Vader into King Arthur's court. You may not get anything particularly good from it, you may even be completely dismissive of it in principle, but if it existed and was put into the right pair of creative hands, well, you'd want a peek, wouldn't you? I know I would.

The one thing I think Pak has done extremely well in this project, is to take just the right elements from just the right songs so that all the stories are allowed to interweave and entwine together to make something wholly unique, but still feeling very true to the original voice of the music. This isn't just spot the song reference, it's taking the stories from Jonathan Coulton's songs and carefully stitching them together into something else. To the point where I can happily listen to The Future Soon and imagine, very clearly, that the poor, hapless, lovesick soul in that song, is one and the same person as the maniacal super villain from Skullcrusher Mountain. And to be honest, I think that's a much greater achievement, that must have taken a hell of a lot of careful planning and work connecting the various dots, than a cursory read of the comic would imply.

Couple this with some good, but not perfect, characterisation, an upbeat tone of sly humour throughout and some very clean, very beautiful art from Takeshi Miyazawa and for me, at least, this is something I'm very proud to have had a hand in making happen. I notice the spine of the book has a little '1' on it, and if this creative team intends to do more in future? I'll definitely be game at throwing them some more money, and look forward to seeing what other songs they want to not only bring to life, but breathe a whole new life of their own, into next.

Final verdict? It most definitely puts the rock in the house!

The Cold Black OCP

This week, I believe, sees the release of Robocop, the future of the future of law enforcement! A remake of the 1987 classic satire about corporate greed, corrupt law enforcement and the struggle of mankind to balance it's humanity against the tidal wave of technological development. An absolute world away from our current, cyber-prep utopia where big business is all hugs and puppies, the police are infallible demi-gods who are never on the take and there are absolutely, positively no concerns, worries, qualms or even minor niggles about the rapid rise of technological development. So naturally, with all the themes of the movie as out of date as they are, and all the wry criticisms aimed at problems that just aren't a problem in this modern world; and! Come to think of it, did we really need all that blood and violence?! Oh no, of course not, we don't need all that grotesque body horror leaving our viewers questioning if our main character is more corporate machine than man, nor do we need all that excessive brutality to further blur the lines between the corporations and the criminal gangs until it all blurs into one. No, quite right, absolutely no place or relevance in that these days - So of course, it was only natural that this remake needed to happen. Nobody could possibly enjoy the old film on it's own merits now, right?

... Right?!

Okay, I don't think my internal sarcasm metre can take much more of this without blowing several major gaskets, and bursting into a rather ominous blue-green flame, so I'm going to draw a line under that right now. The truth is, Robocop isn't just one of the greatest sci-fi films ever made, it's also one of my favourite films full stop.Possibly the favourite. I adore the hyper violence, I adore the cyberpunk trappings, I adore the snappy dialogue and one liners, I adore the characters and I adore the barbed wire satire that still stings today even through it's big shoulder padded, floppy haired eighties trappings. Given this fact, the Robocop remake would seem like perfect blog fodder for me - But there's two problems.

The first is that I just have no interest in seeing it. Not even from the standpoint of morbid curiosity. It doesn't, in truth, even look particularly bad. In fact, I almost wish it did, because what it does look is something even worse - It looks boring. The only person who looks like they're having any fun in their role from the trailers is Michael Keaton, and considering he was almost the only thing worth watching in The Other Guys I don't really see that as much to shout about. The world looks like one of charcoal concrete, shimmering skyscrapers and gunmetal grey (see, for reference, almost every other modern science fiction movie) and Robocop himself looks like he has more in common with Master Chief than Judge Dredd in cyborg form.

The second? You don't need me to tell you why Robocop is great. You all know why Robocop is great, each and every one of you, even if you don't agree with those things and only know them as why other people think the film is great. If I like Robocop the remake or not, anything I write on it is going to be overshadowed by those things. I did consider writing something on Robocop 2 which I consider the best thing Frank Miller has ever produced, and a worthy successor to the original and other people see as barely a baby step up from the horror that is Robocop 3. But to be honest with you, the Robocop remake hasn't really got under my skin yet. The advertising blitz for it either hasn't arrive in full force, or just plain isn't coming, and I'm half expecting it to whimper in the spotlight and limp off with it's tail between it's legs like the Total Recall remake did. Even if it doesn't, well as I alluded to above, Robocop 3 has already happened, so it's not like it can be the worst thing to ever happen to the franchise.

So let's grab the metaphorical wheel of this blog and turn it right around to an adaptation of a previous work that I actually think matters!

Let's talk about Coraline.

Coraline is a 2002 children's novel by Neil Gaiman. It's also a 2009 stop-motion animated film by Henry Selick. Both are about a young girl who finds another world on the other side of a door, both are brilliant in their own way and both have been consumed by me very recently. I've had intentions to read Coraline for a very long time, and have owned the movie for almost a year now and never watched it. I always wanted to read the novel first, but never got my hands on the novel, so never got around to watching the movie and I think you can see how this cycle went. Well, I picked up the novel just before Christmas, and just this week have finally broken the cycle.

Having devoured and thoroughly enjoyed the book, I was greatly looking forward to the film. I'm a big fan of stop-motion animation, and a huge fan of Henry Selick's big claim to fame, The Nightmare Before Christmas. Let me be clear, before I say anything else, Coraline the movie is beautiful. It's beautifully made, beautifully put together and the art style and slightly jerky, inhuman movements suit the tone and style of the book very well. There are also some very well thought out camera angles, coming up from under desks and between bushes to give you the idea that you're not only the audience, but a silent, stalking, ethereal watcher peering into Coraline's personal life. It sends a chill down your spine from the very first scene, and leaves you with a creeping sense of unease right through the first half of the movie. If this was a silent movie, I'd wish everyone a jolly well done and say it was a shame they didn't have any words in it - After all, did they see the book? That has nothing but words in it, and it's rather wonderful!

The problem, which hindered my enjoyment of the film more than I'd have liked, was the characters. I didn't really find an awful lot to like in the interpretation of Coraline herself and her family that the film presented to us. Coraline herself was loud, obnoxious and bordering on bratty and her parents were on the border of just being plain neglectful. This wouldn't be too much of a problem, there's an element of the brat in the book Coraline too afterall (her refusal to eat anything her dad eats, because it looks disgusting for example) and we all know full well that children can be this way, as can their parents. But the problem is I've seen all this before. It's one of the standard, fall-back parent/children relations. I'm going to be sarcastic and dismissive to you until you pay attention to me, well I'm going to ignore you because my job is more important than you'll ever be, GOD!  You're the worst parents ever! I'm going to my room! *slam* It gets to the point where you completely understand why the parents can't stand the child, and the child can't stand the parent, and why the snake will continue to eat it's own tail but I'm bored of it. Especially when I've seen the same story, given a better treatment in this regards.

In the book, none of the characters are really expecting anything too unreasonable. It's obvious that they all love each other in a way that the film family is never shown too, the story that Coraline tells the cat about her dad being one of the most moving in the entire book. It's just everyone has their priorities in a different order. Coraline wants to explore and keep occupied and for people to get her name right and pay a touch more attention to her, but appreciates at least that her parents are trying. Their efforts just don't always live up to her expectations. Her parents also are aware they have a responsibility to look after her, but at the same time they have their own busy lives to juggle and sometimes those two needs just don't sync up. Coraline knows, for example, that her not being able to go outside isn't just her parents being unreasonable mudaphobes and keeping her inside is actually for her own well being. Just like her father only gives her the list of windows, doors, blue things, etc. to count because he knows his daughter is going crazy being couped up inside, and tries to help her as best he can in the current circumstances. It certainly never struck me as an 'I'm so freaking busy I have no time for you right now please go away so I can finish my work, please, please, pleeeeeeassseee!!!!' ploy like it did in the movie.

I suppose my point is, the family in the book felt like real people who, by and large, wanted the same thing - But not at the same time. And those things they did clash on (such as cooking, clothes shopping, etc.) really stood out. The family in the movie just seem cobbled together from screenwriter tropes of headstrong, snarky young girl and strung out, out of touch workaholic family.

Where the film does shine, however, is in recreating the more grandiose spectacles of the book, and creating a few more of it's own. The theatre belonging to the Other World Spink and Forcible was an absolute wonder to behold, and I think the Mouse Circus ranks alongside the Pink Elephants in Dumbo as an utterly bewilderingly beautiful sequence that I'll be hard pressed to forget. The problem tends to be that the art style lends itself so well to the weird and wonderful, that the real world seems barely grounded in reality itself. Spink, Forcible and the Old Man in the book are hugely eccentric, but they're the kind of eccentric I can believe. In the movie, they do and say things that seem more in line with the Other World and it blurs the line between the two, making the real world seem like an unnerving, dull grey, slightly off key place and the Other World seem like a circus parody of the entire thing. Compared to the description of Coraline's Other Father, or the fate of Other Spink and Other Forible in the book, what we're presented with seems tame. Especially when taken in conjunction with Chris Riddell's haunting visuals.

Taken from Illiustrationcupboard

Neil Gaiman's world is one of scrapped bloody knees, gouged faces, rats that bleed blood and not sand and altogether feels more dangerous and imperative. It feeds the imagination like a good book is supposed too, but a movie, especially a children's movie, doesn't have that liberty. In an already visual format, something has to give, and I think despite that, the film did a good enough job. While the final encounters with the other inhabitants of that world may not have lived up to expectations, the final encounter with the Other Mother? That was all the best parts of the movie rolled into one. The chilly atmosphere of the first half returned in full force, the sense of danger went right up to eleven and the whole thing was a visual feast as Coraline raced to escape her inevitable doom. It is also incredibly unfair to pit the visuals in the movie to the slow, bubbling recesses of my imagination that the author managed to stoke - I've been in my head. Spent my entire life there, in fact. I'm very well aware of which one is going to win.

The one thing I can't really forgive the film for, though, is the ending. I'm going to try not to spoil it, but I will say that at the end of the book, Coraline survives through her own wits and ingenuity. In the film, however, she's saved. It's kind of a running theme, when I think about it. Things she was clever enough to work out on her own, she was hinted towards or out right told about in the film. I don't really mind that so much, as I suppose with the lack of an internal monologue you could put it down to letting the audience know what's going on as much as Coraline herself, but the tweak to the ending kind of did leave a slightly sour note in my mouth - Mainly because it solidified this Coraline as one who doesn't really stack up to the one in the book. But I think I've been down this road before on this very blog with a Miss Mina Murray, so I'll just stop now and say I thought it was a bit of a disappointment. But not movie breaking. In fact, all is almost forgiven simply on the basis of Keith David as the cat being an utterly delightful casting choice that always made me grin like, well, the Cheshire Cat whenever he opened his mouth. I don't want to say it was the best thing about the movie... I'l just be over here, secretly thinking it.

All comparisons and analysis aside, Coraline is a fantastic children's book, that was transformed into an interesting, although very different children's movie which is perfectly good on it's own merits. Check 'em both out, read the book to your children if you have any - They'll thank you for it, one day. And if they don't, they're probably ungrateful bastards who probably has more in common with film Coraline anyway.