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IMO, Cats Eye was a disaster. It was never intended to be an anthology feature, and the final result reflects this. That the two tales chosen to accompany the Drew Barrymore episode were in themselves fairly slight didn't help. Again, having King on writing duties seems to have harmed the project more than it helped - for someone with such insight into storytelling, it's amazing how blind he can be when it comes to adapting his own work for the big- or small-screen.

Art - Ghost of Mars tested me to the limit (the fake Pam Grier head nearly blew my shlock-control circuits) but I survived ;-)

Thanks for the reply PVS - I'll keep an eye out for Christine in the local video stores. Maximum Overdrive is kind of fun, but it's not a patch on the short story that it grew out of, "Trucks".

I'd love to see an anthology movie of King's short stories - done carefully, paying attention to keeping some kind of thematic link and with Bill Goldman doing the adaptations, it could be quite fun. Better that than trying to stretch two-dozen page stories into 2-hour movies.

Haven't seen Christine yet - what's it like, PVS?

I did enjoy the novel, even though it is - IMO - one of King's poorest, suffering especially from his tendency to overwrite.

Is the movie worth tracking down? Bear in mind, I'm a John Carpenter & Stephen King fan who watched both Maximum Overdrive & Ghost of Mars - I have a high tolerance for shlock ;-)

"From previous threads, Jeepers Creepers 2 and Freddy Vs. Jason,it seems that horror films are not liked so well on the message board..."

I think that would probably be more accurate if you said that "bad horror films are not liked so well..." ;-)

Anyway, my personal top ten (this week):

1. Night of the Living Dead
2. Frankenstein (Universal)
3. Nosferatu
4. Suspiria
5. Texas Chainsaw Massacre
6. Halloween
7. Ringu
8. The Mummy (Universal)
9. The Birds
10. Return of the Living Dead

"But then I guess Fox has just as powerful lawyers so it's not necessarily advisable."

Heh - maybe not. Ask Al Franken ;-)

"It might be more fun to nominate Pat Mills, though.... :)"

Heh - you can just imagine the conversation with the Queen:

"Now, Mr Mills - about Dinosty..." :-)

Good on yer Dudley. Does this mean we've got one more thing to blame on Burt? ;-)

I'm going to take a note of the missing issues & check through my collection to see if I've got any dupes I could donate. Anyone else fancy doing the same?

Theft seems unlikely - can you imagine trying to sneak 450 progs out under your coat? ;-)

A couple of possibilities:

They do have them, but the online catalogue is incomplete, due to error or omission;

Temporary funding/storage problems meant that they were unable to keep copies during this period;

Stock destruction or damage;

The librarian in charge of acquisitions hated Friday... ;-)

If you're really interested, why not contact the staff and ask - maybe they'd be interested in having their collection completed.

I'm still hoping to get time free to visit the collection at some point in the next year or so - and to see the rest of the British Library.

Rowrr...

"Alys - fetch my bed-warmer..."http://www.legbourne.fsworld.co.uk/kateomara009.jpg">

Some good & not-so-good stuff on tonight for horror fans:

The Fly (Cronenberg) - C4 - 11.40pm
The Horror of Frankenstein - BBC2 - 1.10am
The Plague of the Zombies - C4 - 2.30am

The movies only barely overlap each other, so you should be able to catch all three. "The Fly" is a "body-horror" classic, and one of the best of Cronenberg's more "mainstream" films; "The Horror of Frankenstein" is one of the weakest films Hammer turned out, but it's got a slight charm (and Darth Vader as The Monster :-)); "Plague of the Zombies" is a far stronger offering, and a favourite from my teens. Beautiful cinematography, great setting, and a thoroughly engaging story.

Not a bad night, and it's followed tomorrow by the magnificent "Once Upon A Time In The West" at 10pm on BBC2, and "The Guns Of Navarone" at 4.10pm on C4.

Any other good films on (terrestrial) TV this week?

Well, I suppose Hayley Cropper *could* pass as a werewolf - but who would be the dashing vampire princeling? Steve MacDonald? Les Battersby?

Heh - I remember seeing a news piece on Underworld and thinking, "Fuck - I didn't know John Smith had started doing film scripts." :-)

Heh :-)

Tell you what, draw a big red line from the top-left to the bottom-right of your monitor - that should do... ;-)

I'm trying to get a handle on the current lineup of comics generally available in newsagents compared to what was available, and some idea of sales figures now as compared to sales figures in the past (sorry if that sounds vague

At the moment, I've got the following as regular *current* publications:

Weekly:

2000AD
Weekly sales - under 25,000

The Beano
The Dandy
Combined weekly sales - 190,000

Striker
Weekly sales - are the figures in yet?

Bi-monthly:

Commando Picture Library
Bi-monthly sales - unknown

Monthly:

2000AD Megazine/JD Megazine (which *is* the official name anyway?)
Monthly sales - under 15,000

The Dandy Library
The Beano Library
Monthly sales - unknown

Astounding Spider-Man
Essential X-Men
Wolverine and Gambit
Avengers United
Spectacular Spider-Man Adventures
Monthly sales - unknown

Are there any other titles regularly available in newsagents? Can anyone add/correct my figures?

I'm trying to build up a "snapshot" of the current market and see how it stacks up against snapshots of the comics market in the 90s, 80s and 70s (and, if anyone's got any info, on previous decades).

I'm particularly interested in the 50s and 60s, which seem to have been a boom period for some titles (The Dandy and Beano were selling around *2,000,000* each every week, and The Eagle was peaking at about 750,000 during the 1960s)

Well, that would be a *fantastic* way of attracting new creators and luring old creators back:

Hey - see what we've done to one of the most respected figures in the industry? We've shat on his express request regarding one of his classic characters - who knows, maybe we'll do the same to *you*...

I can understand the frustration that AM's refusal to return to Halo/DR & Quinch/2000AD engenders, but I don't think that resurrecting the kind of disrespect to creators that used to be so widespread (and still is, in some circles) in the comics industry is the way to go.