Messages

"Don't be daft. Everyone who saw this remembers it. And it's out on DVD now."

Ah ... when I mentioned it on another thread, I was met with a deafening silence, hence my comment.

I'm well-chuffed that it's out on DVD. I think that may well make my Christmas wish-list!


Cheers

Jim

"it's not a kids program."

No, you're right ... it's possibly the most breath-takingly awful bag of old shite that's been served up to the viewing public in many years.

Russel T deserves to be taken out behind the chemical sheds and shot for this. It's appalling on so many levels that it's actually embarassing. Torchwood is a joke that isn't even funny ...

Let the Rhesus Monkeys record this for posterity:

RTD ... you stand on the brink of ruining British SF. You are squandering one of the finest heritages of TV dramas, despoiling the memory of the original Dr Who, of fine SF dramas like Sapphire & Steel, like Day of the Triffids, like The Tripods, like Nightmare Man (although I seem to be the only person who remembers this) ...

Sorry, Russell, but you are -- without wishing to put too fine a point on it -- a cunt. You can't write your way out of a paper bag, and your attempts to justify Dr Who and/or Torchwood as quality TV drama are laughable. Fuck you.

Cheers!

Jim

"There you go, Jim. If I could be bothered to watch it again sober, I could write a whole book on this crap."

Why, thank you, Doctor Von Scott ... a fine dissection that saves me having to subject myself to this tosh to reach the same conclusion!

Your sacrifice will not go unnoticed.

Cheers!

Jim

"Another load of old wank."

Didn't even contemplate watching it this week. Somebody let me know if it suddenly gets good, otherwise ... meh.

Want to elaborate on the above, Herr Von Scott?

Cheers!

Jim

"Perhaps this is the target Torchwood audience - middle aged menopausal women..."

Well, the target audience certainly isn't me!

Watched about fifteen minutes of it last night, because the missus had put it on, after which she said: "Shall we find something else. This really isn't very good, is it?"

So we watched the BBC4 docco on SF instead and shook our heads sadly over the fact that the Beeb appears to think that Torchwood can hold its head up in the company of its predecessors.

Cheers!

Jim

"What on earth are the rest of you watching that's apparently the pinnacle of literary merit that makes Torchwood not stand up? Because I want to be watching THOSE shows."

I'm not asking for "the pinnacle of literary merit" from Torchwood.

I'm asking for consistent characterization, for writers who notice plot holes and fucking fix them rather than let them slide, or have them glibly dismissed in a line of dialogue.

I'm asking for some kind of justification of the 'adult' label, other than an entirely unnecessary use of the word 'fuck' in Episode One, and some equally unnecessary sex in Episode Two.

I'm asking for some concept of how to structure a story, some imagination in the direction.

Yes ... Torchwood could be worse. It could be shot on Super 8, the SFX could be done in stop-mo by the team that did Morph, Cannon and Ball could be recurring villains.

There are lots of ways Torchwood could be worse, but that still doesn't stop it from being fucking awful.

Cheers!

Jim

... And another episode concludes.

I didn't watch last week's because I was following my own advice, and I had something better to do. This week, I genuinely didn't have anything better to do, and the missus likes it.

What a pile of old fucking shite this is. Jesus! British SF has the pedigree of being some of the scariest stuff that has ever appeared on mainstream TV, and RTD's take on it is this hackneyed pile of owd crap?

No. Sorry. I had no exposure to RTD's work prior to Who ... I have no axe to grind on that score, but this is piss-poor, lazy, badly-writen, badly-directed, badly-acted (my God -- did gappy-toothed woman actually clap her hand to her forehead in this episode?), lowest-common-denominator shit of the first order.

I wanted an updated version of Quatermass, I wanted the pants-wetting fear of Saphire and Steel on that railway station, I wanted the horrific bad dreams I endured after Nightmare Man ...

But this ...?

Sorry, Russell, but you can fuck right off.

Bah!

Jim

"No. No it's not.
No. No it's not."

Well, apparently, yes, yes it is. Because RTD says so.

So. You're wrong. And clearly a homophobe and a science-fiction hater if you say different.

So that's you put in your place. Boyo. Look you. Yakkie-dah.

Leeks. Sheep. Coal miners. Charlotte Church.

And a whole load of other Welsh cliches.

Neil Kinnock.

Cheers!

Jim

"I mean who the hell would approach a scary monster in a corridor and laugh at him thinking it was a mask or on the other hand take the piss out of his deformity"

Well, actually, I was in the [sarcasm]lovely[/sarcasm] town of Derby the other day and encountered The Man With A Tumour For A Face ... and I did the terribly English thing of 'Taking No Notice and Keeping Walking' thing ...

Cheers!

Jim

That was fucking awful.

So, RTD watches Buffy and Angel and wonders why no-one is doing something like that on British TV ... and then he comes up with this pile of old shite?

The Beeb have clearly spent at least some money on it ... did no-one think to do some basic quality control on the scripts?

Complete balls.

Bah!

Jim

"Good interview ... but why only the obliquest allusions to Lazarus Churchyard?"

Oh ... I forgot to say: I asked the Honourable Mr Brooker about this via his blog, and got responses from both Diz and Mr Badham. Apparently, Matt held forth at such length that the dictaphone tapes were exhausted before the subject came up, and his words on the subject of Laz were not recorded for posterity!

Cheers

Jim

"I think the Megazine is becoming a real rival tio the weekly now."

It is pretty good at the moment. Fiends started out really quite dull, but it's picked up (and benefitted from better lettering!) and I'm rather enjoying it at the moment.

The small press strip is a bit hit and miss, as is Black Museum - when those two are readable (as they are this issue), then the only fly in the proverbial is Black Siddha.

I know BS has its fans, but I can't read it. I tried, I really tried, for the first couple of episodes, but it seems to make no sense to me.

I just keep thinking: "Oh, God ... hasn't this ended yet?"

Cheers

Jim

"Bit weird, especially as they included a pic from it at the end."

Plus, I must say, for all Matt's growth and experimentation as an artist, for all the Big Love I have for his more recent stuff, I always liked his inks best when they were spiky.

Cheers!

Jim

"D'issy interview? Oooooh."

Good interview ... but why only the obliquest allusions to Lazarus Churchyard? Have I missed something? Does Mr Brooker not like to talk about it?

I only ask because it does seem to be a rather glaring omission (and, of course, because I fucking love Lazarus Churchyard) ...

Cheers!

Jim

So ... the art compos on this board have kind of got me thinking, espcecially compared to a vaguely similar competition running on the dreaded John Byrne Forum (see link below - board members were invited to submit two pages of strip that would lead up to a splash page already drawn by the 'Big Man' himself as a commission).

What struck me about the offerings on the JBF was not (particularly) how piss-poor they were, but rather how much every single one of them seemed to be determined to mimic Generic Comic Artist #24 (which, I think, is Ron Frenz).

Now, you might want to try and suggest something about the nature of the contributors to the JBF from this, but try to keep this in mind: no matter how loathesome you might find Byrne's persona (online or otherwise), we are talking about the loyal followers of one of the most significant comic artists, certainly of the 1980s.

Although you could certainly argue that Byrne's finished work is somewhat bland, I would take issue with anyone who tried to suggest that he is:

a) not a consummate draughtsmen (there are some three-point cityscape perspectives in his Fantastic Four work that would put an architect to shame)

   and

b) not an excellent storyteller.

So, whilst you might argue that the contributors to the JBF are not a representative cross-section of US fandom in general, it is interesting that there is not one single submission to the thread below that shows the slightest understanding of art outside the US superhero genre.

I'm curious about this. It's not like readers of US mainstream comics are not exposed to wider influences -- let's ignore the the splendid contributions of UK artists like McKean, Fegredo, D'Israeli, et al. That still leaves people like Sienkiewicz, McKeever, Muth, Mignola, Pratt, Dringenberg, Giffen and Badger. There are artists feeding into the mainstream (albeit some of those certainly on the periphery) who demonstrate knowledge of art outside the parochial field of superhero comics.

But ... sometimes I walk into Forbidden Planet, or some other shop, and I pull ten US titles off the shelves for no particular reason -- no regard for who's publishing them. Occasionally, I might be influenced by something I've heard about a title from an online discussion, but mostly it's because I like the sound of the title, or the cover is nice.

And, in 99% of them, the art is a substandard imitiation of Kubert, or Liefield, or McFarlane, or Lee (and in at least two of those examples, I wouldn't hold the original up as a shining example of good illustration). In probably about 75% of them, I can't actually make it through to the end of the issue because the art is so poor.

Which -- to me -- begs the question: what's wrong with these people, and what's wrong with the editors? How can you decide that you want to make a living from drawing, and not learn to draw? And who the fuck gives you work on that basis?

If you want an obect illustration of what's wrong with American comics, that's it. And a neat demonstration of why we should be thankful for the seemingly much wider range of styles that our beloved 2000AD will accept and nurture.

Thoughts?

Cheers!

Jim

Link: http://byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=14550&PN=1&TPN=1" target="_blank">I know what I like ... and this isn't it!