Trans-Atlantica - Off to see the Wizard.

Well my friends, we finally bid Colorado farewell as I'm working my way into my second night in Kansas. We spent the last few hours in Aurora packing up our things and saying goodbye to our freshly married friend there, never made it to that museum but hey, we're passing through on the way back so you never know (spoiler: we won't get there, but that's okay, friends are better than attractions any day).

We were soon ready to hit the road, and let me tell you, as somebody from a country that can probably be crossed from one end to the other in six hours on a good day? The six hour road trip to Kansas had sounded daunting. Especially as, without getting into details, America has kinda been kicking my arse all over the place these past couple of days. But I was surprised how fast it flew by.

Most of it was on one, long flat road with nothing but plains either side, and I'm not saying I was captivated, because I know how boring that sounds, but I've just never seen that much space before. Especially with all the strange farm machines, grain silos, aging billboards that look thirty years old and are probably advertising something that doesn't exist anymore. I mean, I had fantastic company as well which helped the hours tick by immensely but Kansas really does seem like a different country in a way Colorado didn't.

For one thing, I've actually saw a sight today! A real, legitimate place of interest that isn't a store! We stayed the first night with a friend's family and they were nice enough to take us over to Sedgwick County Zoo in Wichita, which was pretty fantastic. I always have mixed feelings on zoo's, and there are some animals it straight up depresses me to see caged (especially the way those animals are caged at most places) but I always think the conservation work outweighs any dismay in that regard. Plus they have monkeys, and who doesn't like monkeys?!

As I left the car I even uttered 'Oh my god! I finally get to do tourist stuff!!!', which does remind me I probably need to cut down on all the taking the Lord's name in vain, as I doubt it'd be appreciated here. At least, that is the impression I'm getting.In any case I'm gonna shut up again and let you see some animals!



And of course, no trip to the zoo would be compete without a gorilla judging your soul.



I was quite proud of some of the pictures I aquirred this trip, I'm not sure if the animals were in a better mood than usual (it was feeding time, so it's possible!), if my camera is better or if I just had more sense and wasn't trying to photograph everything so I got better results but all in all it was fun and I think I have enough fodder to make cows making stupid faces memes for a lifetime.

One thing that did amuse me is that they rather blatantly caged freedom though.



And another thing that was baffling was the very... Interesting signage and displays.



As you can see they were either really graphic or just really strange in a way I've never seen anywhere else. There was a part of the bear exhibit that had a whole area paved with names and we couldn't figure out if it was a dedication to people who donated or a list of people who had been mauled by bears in the state. Neither would really surprise me right now.

After that fun day out I've moved into my new base of operations, a Value Place hotel which honesty doesn't seem too bad. At least it has working Internet which is more than I can say for the last one. The one complaint I do have right off the bat is this though,



Blinds! Always with the blinds or the paper thin flimsy fabric curtains on this trip. What do they have against real curtains?! Expecially when neither keep the bright light of day out properly so you better want to wake up when the sun does otherwise you're screwed! Ah well, it's nice enough otherwise so I'm sure everything will work out! I'll see you guys next time! Not sure what we're up too out here

Trans-Atlantic - Alas, poor Colorado, we hardly knew ye.

As we reach the final day of our stay in Colorado and prepare for our road trip down to Kansas, the only thing I'm left wishing is that we'd seen more. It's been an experience, don't get me wrong, and I'll be sure to remember it for the insane weather and fantastic people I've met alone. But when I go somewhere I like to try and get a feel for what makes it special. I like to see tourist traps, I like to see areas of natural beauty (even if from afar), and I love museums and places of knowledge because sometimes how somewhere handles it's heritage and what it emphasises as important can say an awful lot.

With Colorado I can't help but feel I haven't really got that experience. A lot of our trip here seems to have been mainly roads and malls, with the highlight of the day before the wedding being the Bass Pro Store. A place that my friend describes as being like 'the inside made to look like the outside'. It's a taxidermists wet dream, basically an outdoor and camping store taken to such an excess that it's practically a tourist attraction. They even had an artifical waterfall which played host to fishing exhibitions.

They also had a rather agressively friendly man on the tills who demanded to know what accent that was through a painted on smile. Welcome to America?

We also headed to Top That, which is like Subway only for pizza. An intriguing, if highly unhealthy idea that would have been fantastic had they cooked their dough a little more throughly. It was only really until the day of the wedding (which again, I'm not going to dwell on, but pro-tip, if you're getting married - Do turn your phone off before you get to the altar) that we really saw some beautiful landscapes abd countryside, so I'm going to shut up and share some with you!

So that's almost it for Colorado, we may do something on the way out, maybe even hit that museum that I mentioned last time, but until then, see you in Kansas!

Trans-Atlantica - Four Colour Warehouses and Snow Capped Mountains.

Hello, welcome and good morning to my first day proper of travelling the face of the United States! Well, I say my first day, but these posts are probably going to cover a few days at a time to stop it all becoming too unwieldy. That said I guess it depends how much happens on any given day and how reliable my Internet is.

Today was fairly laid back, by which I mean I missed most of it. I woke up after three hours sleep and felt pretty good! Until the afternoon when I glanced in the mirror and realised my eyes were more red than white, so sleep? Probably a good idea! What I can tell you though is that we went to a comic shop!



And when I say comic shop what I actually mean is comics warehouse.



Welcome to Mile High Comics! Some of you are probably aware of their website which is a great place to find back issues. I think I've shopped with them before, but the idea of them actually having an honest to god warehouse has never crosses my mind, let alone there being one you could visit. I always assumed it was a couple of guys running it out of their house, but I realise now that's kind of absurd. Either way, I can't think of a better way to start a trip than a giant room full of comics! It's just a shame I'm mainly a trade reader these days, and most of the trades they had were volume three or higher, without a volume one in sight. Combine that with the pricy action figures and other assorted trinkets and the place didn't quite set my world on fire. What it did do though, was remind me they add VAT on after purchase here, rather than including it in the marked price,which I'd somehow managed to forget. So you see, comics are educational too!

Oh, and you remember that snow I mentioned last blog? The flurry that came down like a storm of white wllhen I arrived and threatened to make snowmen of us all when we loaded the shopping into the car? Gone. Gone in a blaze of sunshine as sudden and blinding as the snow itself. Seriously, this state is weird and I almost dread what tomorrow will bring.

Turns out I needn't have worried though, next day was uneventful weather wise and fairly uneventful events wise. We had had a chilled out, relaxing day that I think we all needed and I'm only brining it up at all because I wrote that 'what will tomorrow bring?!' sentence yesterday and am far too lazy to change it.

Day three though? Insanity. We had a wedding rehearsal to attend, which I won't dwell on because it's the private business of friends, and guess what was back with avengance? The blizzard, that's what!

Even worse than before this time we had an hour long drive up to a mountain top and let me tell you, Colorado has not done much to adhere itself to me. The weather is as schizophrenic as it comes (and this is from somebody who hails from the UK, where talk of unpredictable weather may as well be currency) and the roads seem like a nightmare to navigate. What was a light drizzle of snow soon became a full on snowstorm. As we climbed up and up it became worse and worse, and while I credit all but two or three suicidal arseholes who almost gave us all a heart attack with their bullshit with being slow, steady and sensible going up - The sheer size of the road coupled with the lack of visibility still made it a very much a fist in mouth moment that left us all wishing we were situated closer to the church we were travelling too.

On the plus side one could argue it was good prep for the upcoming, never ending drive through the states that is to come and the snow covered mountain was gorgeous. With it's crisp white inclines and snow covered buffalo it's the first piece of truly natural beauty I've seen since arriving in Colorado. I couldn't get pictures because of the death road, but it did leave behind pretty views like this.



Still, even though I love snow as much as a small child praying to the winter godsfor a day off school, and had actively bemoaned the fact that we'd had none back home, I think I could've done without this. Especially when I know it'll all be melted sooner than I can enjoy it, the sun already beating down on the crisp white surface as I write this the morning after. It also didn't help that when we arrived at the church we were greeted by this,

Not a single soul was there and considering we were at the top of a freaking mountain it was reasonable to expect that nobody else would make it.

Thankfully they started to arrive in drips and drabs, and I got to experience my first wedding rehearsal. The idea of this is as alien as they come for me. Most weddings aren't intricate spider-webs of narrative calling for intense and emotional performances that touch the very depths of your soul. In fact, the majority of Christian weddings are pain-stakingly formulaic to the point where even if you'd never been to one, you could probably still do eighty five percent of the ceremony blind folded by what you've seen on television alone. I'm not exactly sold that we needed an hour to tell people where to stand and walk on the big day, but then as somebody who has nothing to do but turn up and park my arse in a seat on the right side of the hall, maybe that's lack of pressure talking.

Once that was over we faced what could have been a very long and dangerous drive home in the dark, but thankfully common sense prevailed and true to form by the time we got back off the mountain what had been landing thick and fast was for the most part slush. We ate at somewhere renown for it's delicious chicken and rampant homo-phobia, every meal coming with a thick layer of guilt despite being incredibly tasty by the standards of fast food and visited a Toys R Us that kinda let me down a little. There's a myth in Britain that everything in the States is dirt cheap to the point we should feel we're getting conned. When it comes to toys and games? That is absolute nonsense.Any saving is minimal at best and even the size and stock of the place let was a touch disappointing, it seemed about on par with it's trans-Atlantic counterparts as if it forgot it was situated in a land known for its excess. I can't be too hard on it though, as we did pick up a couple of great boardgames that finished off the night beautifully.

That's about it for now! Today the plan is to actually engage in some tourist stuff and head to a museum, find out if we actually make it or if laziness wins again next time!

Trans-Atlantica - Airports and Airplanes.

So, this morning was the morning! I was finally able to depart on my journey across the clouds! Into lands unknown and no doubt full of adventure! At least I hope so, otherwise this is going to be a very dull and short lived segment.

I know I touched on this last time, but I love flying. The act of sitting in a plane and hurtling through the sky is something I take a great amount of pleasure in, and the thrill of take-off is something that always leaves me giddy and lurching my neck towards the nearest window. If you want proof of a miracle, don't look to the ethereal - Look at the way mankind rebelled at the idea of being on the ground, padding along on their own two feet like the vast majority of mammals, and launched themselves into the sky, the sea and the very depths of space.

Flying also doesn't take all that long really. Oh, I know it can feel like.forever, but it's really not! My own flight took roughly eleven or twelve hours actual flight time to cover thousands of miles, so for me, it's not an unattractive way to travel at all.

That is, of course, until you factor in airports. Airports are, for the most part, a waste of everyone's time. The level of security is downright demoralizing and even if you accept that level of discomfort for the sake of national security, there's still the infuriating design and management choices that leave your gates a mile apart, with ten minutes to get there because they don't show where you need to be until then and a boarding system that makes getting on and off aircraft an absolute nightmare.

I've spent my entire day on airplanes and in airports. This should give you an idea of the tone of what's about to come.

I started it generally buzzed, if not terribly nervous. Well, truth be told I started it positively baffled because, well...

This is the knife I received with my bacon sandwich in Wetherspoons in Birmingham and I have no idea what it's for. It's not for spreading as that had already been taken care of and I don't see that diddy blade cutting a piece of paper let alone through bread and bacon, do what is it for?! And for that matter, what is it with Wetherspoons and book shelves these days?

But I digress, that was the first of the minor puzzlements that was to colour my day.

I left Birmingham for Amsterdam early in the the morning on KLM airlines, and I honestly don't think I have enough good things to say about KLM airlines. It's not so much that they're good, as it is that they're absurdly stereotypical. It's like the airline was run by a British sitcom's idea of the Dutch, and it made the experience of flying with then and being bombarded with their native language and highly accented English a pleasure. I'm not just being an ignorant little Englander here,making fun of Johnny Forgiener with his silly accent - They encourage it. Check out their plastic cups for goodness sake!

I really can't say enough good things about my limited stay in Amsterdam airport either. I mean, it still looked like any other airport from the outside,

But all credit to the place, the gate for my connecting flight was right around the corner from the flight I had just walked off and they let you go there almost immediately. That being said though, the immigration officer there was surprisingly intense - Although that could be just the fact that his accent both intensified and softened everything he said, but he was still more laid back and to the point than his American conterparts... But then he is Dutch afterall, I suppose.

Overall, great little airport, and Amsterdam's schizophrenic gift shops containing traditional windmills and clogs and their widely renown soft drug and red light culture are worth nosing in alone, especially if you're after tasteful souvenirs for the entire family. Shame about the bizarrely conspicuous and somewhat tacky Irish theme pub though...

From there I moved onto the biggie, eight hours from Amsterdam to Miniapolis via Delta airlines. Delta aren't all that bad really, they actually give you free headphones instead of trying to charge you five dollars for them and as the flight was near empty there was plenty of room to move and laze about. Although, one question does arise...

I can't embed video on this device, but give this a click and then please, join me in asking, wtf is this bout of insanity that distracts you from the actual safety content Delta?! Seriously, with my first safety announcement mostly being in anotherlanguage and then that I'm pretty certain that the airlines were counting on me dying in the event of an accident.

On reflection, I think my rant above may be less about airports in general and more about American airports. I don't want to dwell on it, but as soon as we hit Minneaplois my mood tanked. I spoke last time about my fears of immigration and to be honest I did kind of breeze through it this time (apparently nobody thinks my month long stay is as bizarre as I do), but the wait to get there alone is soul destroying. It's the closest to seeing human beings herded like cattle that I've experienced and if there are things closer I never want to experience them. Of course, I also said that fresh horrors would await and I was sadly prophetic there too. As I was coming onto the final door, having cleared immigration, cleared customs, breezed my way through checks at two other airports in two other countries, one single old man behind the very last desk in front of the very last door to my very last flight decides that my passport doesn't look like me.

The phrases typical, sod's law and all others of their ilk don't even begin to cover it.

At one point I had four men pouring over my passport and several other forms of ID I'd desperatly thrown out at that point to show that, you know,people change appearance over time, and my heart was going so fast it was painful. I'm glad they let me in, because I think if they hadn't that would've dropped me there and then. I was feeling pangs from that for almost half an hour afterwards, and if there's only one black mark on this trip then that would be a bloody dark stain for sure.

The worst thing though, physical pain aside, was that I was apologising to them through. Oh, to be British...

Anyway, finally out of federal space and into the airport proper, I was in Minneaplois!

Wait, did it snow in Amsterdam?!

From there everything was... Well, I wouldn't say plain sailing. The flight to Denver was packed full of people, not a single seat free, and so getting on and off was a nightmare. The plane itself had also seen better days, with wobbly wings, flickering lights and a landing that was a bone shaking as they came all thrown into the mix. I'm also not sure if the tanoy was busted to pieces or the crew were completely incomprehensible, as my hopes for a clear safety announcement were dashed by everything they said over it not even sounding English.

The snow being sucked through the jet engines into a delicate white ribbon was pretty though.

Soon enough we reached Denver where I was planning to try and check out the.illuminati murals but to be honest, I was so done in by this point and baffled by the fact they have a train there, that I plain forgot. I did find this wonderful dragon though!

So! I'm somewhat agitated, very much exhausted, but I am here! And it's snowing! So if you don't mind, I'm going to go stare at the pretty white stuff we never see in my town anymore and hopefully return with something a little less rantastic next time. Until then!

Trans-Atlantica - AAA-MERR-EEEE-KAAA!

This time tomorrow, I will be in the sky. I can't tell you for sure where I'll be flying over, heck for all I know I'll be sat at an airport anxiously awaiting the chance to hop on another plane to get back into the sky, but I can tell you where I'm going - America!

That's right, I'm off to the wedding of a good friend and no doubt getting into all kinds of trouble inbetween. Typically I'm heading over there right as a second Cold War is brewing, but I figure if the bombs look set to drop while I'm over there at least I'll be in a much, much more spread out target that isn't likely to be turned to radioactive glass in one hit? Of course, it'll be a much more prominent target that's likely to get hit first... Hm, just can't win it seems!

Thanks to this development, the blog will be taking a slightly different turn this month. From Cover to Cover will be returning as planned (and is, in fact, already written out and ready to go!) but for the most part we're re-purposing as a travel blog, reporting anything interesting that's happened to me while on my travels and perhaps a few more run of the mill posts if I feel particularly inspired by anything. This will probably be the last post I'm writing on an actual, honest to God keyboard for awhile - With the rest going to be tapped out on a tablet, so please, forgive me if things are rougher than usual this month.

This has been a long time coming and I can't believe it's here. That's the thing when you make big plans, you spend so long preparing for them that when they come they still manage to take you by surprise, because you've sculpted them into something bigger than they are and it doesn't feel like they can fit into an actual, real event any more. But this one is a-comin', and to be frank, I'm a bag of nerves.

I shouldn't be really, I'm going to be staying with some wonderful people, and attending some wonderful events - I can tell you off the top of my head that as well as the wedding, we will be doing a version of our fledgling podcast Now Playing Now over there and towards the end of my trip I'll be going to Emerald City Comic Con. If you want a taste of the kind of thing you might be able to expect over the coming month, here's some pretty pictures I took in Arizona from 2012.

And of course, the obligatory cactus shaped like a penis. 

Still, this is going to be the longest time I've been away from home, visiting a number of different states across the country, and even though I'm sure everything is in order - I can't suppress that dread, irrational feeling of something being forgotten. But greater than that, I can't help but wonder if this is all a good idea to begin with. That the whole endeavour is much too much, and I won't be able to cope.

Then of course, there's the getting there. Now I'm not one of these people who hate flying - I love flying. I think it's one of humanities greatest accomplishments and something we take very much  for granted. True the actual experience is akin to being on a train that wobbles more than it should, but the act of propelling ourselves into the sky by pure science and engineering alone? That's impressive, and almost makes up for our many other failings as a species. My problem is not with flying, it's with airports. The change over flights, the constant walking, the feeling that you haven't actually managed to get anywhere because almost every airport, no matter the city, is too near identical to make out where you are. I'm catching a connecting flight in Amsterdam, never having set foot in that part of Europe before, but the best I can hope for is a view of it from the sky and then a never ending view of parking lots and runways and the usual trappings of the international stopping station inside.

There's also the various checks and searches, which I don't mind for the most part. Everyone likes to give the TSA a hard time, but they were incredibly nice and understanding the last time I flew over. Yes the searches can be absurd, but at least the people were nice about it. My main problem last time was immigration. For some reason the man behind the counter took an instant dislike to me, and I had to justify every single part of my visit to him in minute detail with him trying to trip me up at every turn. With this venture being longer and altogether more eclectic, I can't help but wonder if they're even going to let me in - Even though they really have no rational grounds to stop me. Everything is wonderful and above board, all my papers are in order, and I definitely have passage booked home. Yet still the irrational fear that they will prove to be a barrier in my way remains. I'm sure, in reality, I'll breeze through the part I'm dreading most and there'll be some fresh hell in a process that I had no issue with last time, but we'll see! Fingers crossed there'll be no issues at all. Fingers very much crossed!

These are the worries that plague me, these and a dozen more, and if I'm perfectly honest the words 'I don't want to go!' have crossed my mind like it's a Tumblr blog subscribed to nothing but gifs of David Tennant's face. They're in my mind right now, in fact, but I thought the same about Ireland. And I had an absolute blast. So I'm sure, once my feet hit the ground on the other side, and I see some friendly faces, all will be well. But you can see how all that works out tomorrow!

I'll see you all the other side of the pond! Gud Blass AAA-MURIKA!

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.