Author: Phil Friel

Berlin, Book 1: City of Stones, by Jason Lutes

[B]erlin is written and drawn by the extremely talented comics creator Jason Lutes, who also previously brought us Jar of Fools. It is one of the true classics of modern comics, on a par with the \”greats\” of the medium, such as Art Spiegelman\’s Maus. \"Berlin:So far, there have been eighteen issues out of a projected twenty-four, and two trade paperback collections, taking us up to Issue 12, the half-way point of the story.

Berlin: City of Stones is the first of the two trade paperbacks, and collects the first six issues of the series. The level of attention to realistic detail in this story is remarkable. For history buffs (and the historical accuracy in this series is also spot on), Berlin is set in Germany during the final years of the Weimar Republic (end of the 1920s – start of the 1930s), as things start to go down the tubes, and the various factions (Jews, communists, nationalists, socialists, republicans, First World War veterans, and others) are battling it out in a vicious near-civil war to see who comes out as top dog in this cut-throat grab for power.

The narrative details the tragic inability of the German government and society in the chaotic inter-war period to adjust to and sustain their fragile fledgling democracy in the face of determined extremists. Starting in September 1928, the story follows the hopes and struggles of a small group of people, normal everyday folk of various ethnic groups, all trying to live their lives in a turbulent Germany, as the future becomes ever darker and grimmer against a background over which looms the ever-growing menace of Nazism.

Lutes always concentrates on the people first, the dreams, hopes, emotions and personal suffering of the average man and woman, the groups and individuals comprising the citizens of the city of Berlin, as their plight grows ever worse. The reader, aware of the dark chapter of history that is about to unfold, cannot help but feel sympathy for the various characters trapped in this ever-worsening situation, amidst all the conflicts, demonstrations, and the rapid, spiralling descent into lawlessness and chaos, as democracy is overthrown and ruthless dictatorship takes over.

I\’ve often heard many \”enlightened\” types criticize the German population, and their inability to see where things were heading. How could they ever let animals like the Nazis come to power and get away with the atrocities that they committed? Were they stupid? Did they not see how things would turn out? It\’s all too easy for anyone to look back from our cosy vantage point of eighty years after the events, and ask accusing questions like this. But we weren\’t there. We didn\’t live through those dark days. And everyone\’s a genius in hindsight, right?

Berlin: City of Stones is a remarkable piece of work, a perfect example of comics at their best, as both a work of art and \”literature\”. If you want to impress someone who is not a fan of comics (or is positively derogatory about them), you don\’t hand them Spider-Man, X-Men, Batman or Superman. These people will laugh in your face, as the guys and gals in tights are a particular focus of their ridicule. Instead, you give these people something like Maus or Berlin, or A Jew in Communist Prague, and watch the amazed expressions grow on their faces. This is serious stuff, the comics equivalent of real literature/art, the \”real deal\”.

What we don\’t have here is your typical, silly, mindless superhero crap published by Marvel or DC. If you don\’t like to tax your mind too much, and that kind of thing is your limit with comics, then Berlin is most likely not for you. This type of graphic storytelling is aimed at readers who prefer comics of a more realistic, intelligent, and serious nature, and who aren\’t fans of the more juvenile examples of the medium. People who like their reading material to be something a bit more substantial than endless moronic superhero punchfests.

And if you\’re like me, and read all kinds of comics, and like to read something different from mainstream superhero stuff every now and again, Berlin is a perfect change of tone. As a huge history fan, I can\’t recommend it highly enough. It\’s easily one of my favourite comic books, ever.

Classic British Telefantasy: My Top Ten Favourites (Part Two)

Here\’s the second part of my rambling list of favourite Classic British Telefantasy series:

At Number Four is Sapphire and Steel, one of the strangest telefantasy series ever. Short on budget, hence relatively scarce (but effective) special effects, but oozing with quality writing, and oppressive, frightening mood and terror, this was a truly classic sci-fantasy series, featuring two of the most charismatic and mysterious central characters in telefantasy history, Sapphire (played by Joanna Lumley) and Steel (played by David McCallum). The sheer mystery, the fact that nobody ever found out who or what the main characters really were, where they came from, or what the hell was actually happening most of the time, added greatly to the attraction of the show. The fact that Sapphire and Steel was rarely repeated on television also added to the effect, as all we had to go on for many years were our fading memories. Luckily the series has been made available in recent years, firstly on VHS video, and then on DVD. And even more fortunately, it definitely lives up to our fond memories of the show.

At Number Three, it\’s UFO, by far my favourite of the Gerry Anderson shows, not a stone\’s throw from the top of my list of favourite British telefantasy series. First airing in 1970, and set in the not so far off future of 1980, the gorgeous hardware, the aliens, sexy women (those gorgeous moonbase babes – Gay Ellis, oh my poor heart!), and interesting characters were a huge attraction for a young boy like me. From an adult perspective, that totally kitsch, retro futuristic feel (unintended at the time, of course), gives UFO an undeniable charm that allows the series to still hold up really well today. The complex alternate-universe 1980-that-never-was, combining a mix-mash of styles from 1970 and the imagined future \”1980\” (which actually feels more mid- or late-21st Century) give it a retro but also an undefinable \”sometime just a few years from now\” feel which makes the show work even in 2013, although its version of a 1980 \”future\” is actually thirty-three years in our past.

At Number Two, it\’s Quatermass. If there\’s any British telefantasy that might give Doctor Who a run for it\’s money, it has to be Quatermass. The original Quatermass serials were well before my time (I wasn\’t born until 1960, and those serials appeared in 1953, 1955 and 1958), although I really enjoyed the three film versions and the 1979 Quatermass serial featuring John Mills as the Professor. Reading a number of excellent Quatermass articles in various telefantasy fanzines during the 1980s really fired up my interest in the original 1950s serials. I was also fortunate, at some point during the early 1980s, to come upon three books containing the scripts/teleplays of all three original 1950s serials (complete with nice b&w photos). I was hooked on the original serials even more by that time, and, just to complete the circle, soon afterwards I also bought the novelization of the 1979 serial. I was now a hardcore fan of Quatermass in all its forms, both serials and films.

A few years later, I was absolutely elated to get my hands on the VHS video release of the third (and the best of the three) 1950s serial, Quatermass and the Pit, and finally got to see what all the hype was about. I\’d always loved the 1967 film version of Quatermass and the Pit, but the original serial absolutely blew my mind. It was way, way better than the film, and remains, to this day, my favourite ever single piece of British telefantasy. If the first two serials had been as good as the third (only two episodes of the first serial still exist), Quatermass might\’ve made it to the Number One spot in my list. I was doubly delighted, about ten years ago, to get my hands on the excellent three-DVD release of The Quatermass Collection, featuring the beautifully restored Quatermass and the Pit, the entire (unrestored) Quatermass II, and the two surviving episodes of the Quatermass Experiment. This remarkable DVD set is an absolute treasure, and any British telefantasy fan worth their reputation should have a copy of this in their collections.

And finally, at Number One, it\’s Doctor Who, just about my favourite telefantasy series of all time. I\’ve been watching Doctor Who since I was five or six years old, way back in the mid-1960s. I like the modern version of Doctor Who, but not as much as the classic 1963-1989 series. I love the classic 1960s Hartnell and Troughton b&w stories, but my favourite Doctor Who eras were the Jon Pertwee years and the first half of Tom Baker\’s run on the show. In my opinion, the Tom Baker/Philip Hinchcliffe years were, without a shadow of a doubt, the best ever in the show\’s history. This show had (and still has) so much history, continuity and detail. The Doctor(s) and the Tardis, travelling anywhere in time and space, Daleks, Cybermen, Ice Warriors, Sutekh the Destroyer, Omega, the Master, the list goes on and on and on, spanning the alphabet, from Autons to Zarbi, Doctor Who is immense. It was a huge part of my growing up process from early childhood right up into adulthood and to the present day (I\’m now 52), this is the British telefantasy series (indeed THE telefantasy series, British or not) that has had the biggest effect on my life.

And just outside the Top Ten, in no particular order:

The Avengers – I quite enjoyed the weekly exploits of John Steed and Emma Peel, and later Tara King (I was too young to remember the earlier stories with Cathy Gale). Emma and Tara were certainly extremely easy on the eyes, and those two ladies absolutely kicked ass each and every week. The series was extremely psychedelic (hey, it was the Sixties!) and was overly camp at times. I was never a fan of the camp thing (hated it, actually), a major reason why I didn\’t enjoy the show quite as much as other UK telefantasy shows. I also quite liked The New Avengers, although it only occasionally crossed into telefantasy from its primary action adventure format. But it was worth watching for Joanna Lumley, playing Purdey, another gorgeous yet kick-ass Avengers female.

The Champions – enjoyable super-spy hokum in which three super-powered agents save the world each and every week from mad scientists and other menaces. I quite enjoyed this, although, with the exception of a handful of episodes, there was very little real sci-fi in the series, other than the agents showing their weekly portion of super strength, super speed or telepathy. I mostly liked it for the great theme tune and the epitome of eye candy provided by the absolutely gorgeous Alexandra Bastedo (who played Sharon McCready), who was, as far as I\’m concerned, one of the most beautiful women ever in the history of telefantasy.

Thunderbirds – loved the hardware, but, unlike Captain Scarlet, most of the stories themselves were not sci-fi enough for my tastes, even at that early age. Also, and despite my liking for Captain Scarlet, I was never really a fan of those damned puppets. I hate those wooden actors! I always preferred the live-action Gerry Anderson series.

That\’s about it for the more famous British telefantasy series. At some point in the future, I\’ll be devoting one or more blog posts to other, more obscure British telefantasy, particularly series aimed at children. My own memories of most of these are very incomplete and vague, so I\’ve been buying a few of the more recommended classic children\’s sci-fi series on DVD from Amazon UK. So far, I\’ve got my hands on the entire original series of The Tomorrow People, Timeslip, Sky, Children of the Stones, The Owl Service, The Demon Headmaster and the 1980s version of Tom\’s Midnight Garden. I think I\’ll nab a few more series so I can post a reasonably comprehensive blog review.

Classic British Telefantasy: My Top Ten Favourites (Part One)

I love television sci-fi (also known as telefantasy). But as much as I like the US sci-fi television shows, I\’ve always been an even bigger fan of British telefantasy. So I\’ve compiled a list of my favourites, in this case sticking to the more famous classic series, avoiding the more obscure shows, as they\’ll be a subject of another article at a later date. I\’ve also made a point of staying away from more modern series, preferring to concentrate on series from the 1980s and earlier.

There are also a few other series that I haven\’t listed, as I never really watched them when they were on TV. Star Cops is a perfect example. I liked what little I did see of it (and it was VERY little), but I didn\’t see enough of it to make any kind of informed comments about the series as a whole. Maybe one of these days I\’ll get around to picking up Star Cops on DVD from Amazon UK, and rectify that situation.

I\’ve also deliberately avoided listing the classic children\’s telefantasy series, as those are a different category, and will also be the subject of a later article. Some of them, like The Tomorrow People and Timeslip, are quite well known, but most are pretty obscure these days, at least in comparison to Doctor Who, Blake\’s 7 and the other more famous telefantasy shows, and are remembered only by those people who saw and loved them back when they were kids. I have only vague memories of most of them from my own childhood (I was only nine years old when Timeslip aired back in 1970). The ones I do remember, or that I actually have on video/DVD, will be the subject of a later post in the Classic British Telefantasy series.

So here, in reverse order, is the first half of my list of Top Ten Classic British Telefantasy series, spanning the period from the 1950s to the 1980s:

Firstly, at Number Ten, we have Survivors, the extremely grim Terry Nation post-apocalyptic series in which 95% of the human race has been wiped out by a plague, and a small group of survivors tries to piece together a semblance of normal life and re-establish civilization. Despite most of humanity being eradicated by a virus, thankfully there isn\’t a single bloody zombie in sight. Every viral apocalypse in telefantasy these days ends up with freakin\’ zombies taking over the world – I\’m totally sick and tired of the endless zombie crap pushed in our faces. The most dangerous enemies that our central characters faced in Survivors were themselves and other humans. With the structure of society gone, we saw the best, and worst of humanity in this dog-eat-dog world. I also really liked the modern version of Survivors. A very good remake indeed.

At Number Nine, it\’s Captain Scarlet, the direct predecessor to UFO, and the only Gerry Anderson puppet show that I ever really liked. Almost certainly this was because of the more overt sci-fi content of the series, compared to, say, Thunderbirds, which was more of a hi-tech thriller with a few sci-fi elements, gadgets and visuals thrown in. I was too young to have anything but the most vague memories of anything before Thunderbirds (although I reckon I\’d have enjoyed Fireball XL5, as it was a hardcore space opera series, my kinda thing). As a sidenote, I\’ll also add that I REALLY liked the more modern CGI incarnation of Captain Scarlet. I actually preferred it to the original, to be honest, with the exception of the dire theme music, which doesn\’t remotely compare to the gorgeous theme music in the original series. It\’s a great pity that Gerry Anderson is no longer with us, as CGI could\’ve been the way forward for future possible revamps of other Anderson series, such as UFO and Space: 1999 (2099, 2199?). We\’ll never have the chance to find out now.

At Number Eight, it\’s Red Dwarf, the funniest sci-fi comedy, ever. I know a few sci-fi fans would consider this opinion as sacrilege, but I always greatly preferred Red Dwarf to Hitchhiker\’s Guide to the Galaxy, which I usually found to be very… unfunny. HHG was a good satire on serious SF concepts, but I guess I\’ve just never been a fan of the Douglas Adams brand of humour. Give me the crazy shenanigans of Lister, Rimmer, Cat, Kryten and Holly any day. Red Dwarf \”sent up\” sci-fi themes in a much more grass-roots, funny way that appealed to me and all its legion of fans. Some of the daft situations that Lister and co. ended up in were both mind-bending and hilarious.

At Number Seven, we have Space: 1999. As with UFO (and most Gerry Anderson series), I absolutely loved the hardware and visuals, although, I couldn\’t always say the same about the acting and stories, which could be hit and miss, particularly in the \”revamped\” Season 2. But my biggest beef with the series was the science, or, rather, the lack of it. I know that realistic science in UFO and the earlier Anderson shows was also pretty much non-existent, but Space: 1999 really took the biscuit, even by Anderson\’s usual naff-science standards. And by the time Space: 1999 appeared on UK television, I was a bit older, in my mid-teens, at grammar school, and increasingly interested in and savvy about science. I was starkly aware of just how ridiculously stupid the science and many of the plots in Space: 1999 really were, and it bugged me quite a lot, despite my overall enjoyment of the show, which was visually gorgeous and trippy, in a post-2001: A Space Odyssey kinda way.

At Number Six on the list, aptly enough, it\’s good old Number Six himself, The Prisoner. This was a really weird series, very cerebral and complex, and half the time, I didn\’t know what the hell was going on, but it was definitely great fun. To be honest, I think that everyone involved with the series was smokin\’ weed or something, it was so trippy. All I know is that I enjoyed it a lot, and made a point of tuning in every week to watch the adventures of Number Six, and his attempts to escape from The Village. My favourite bits always involved Number Six getting chased all over the place by those big, white ball thingies making those weird roaring noises. I certainly got a rollicking great surprise in the final episode, when it was revealed that the elusive Number One was none other than Number Six himself.

At Number Five in my list of Top Ten Favourite Classic British Telefantasy Series, it\’s Blake\’s 7, an inverted, dark mirror image of Star Trek. The human Federation of this series rules much of the galaxy, but this is no enlightened civilization. This Federation is a monstrous, oppressive, totalitarian dictatorship of a kind that the likes of Hitler or Stalin could only have had wet dreams about. Opposed by Roj Blake, Kerr Avon and their motley band of honourable outlaws, the ruthless and evil Servalan gave us one of the smoothest, most glamorous and icy-cold female villains in all of telefantasy. Despite liking the entire four-season run of Blake\’s 7, I had a preference for the \”Liberator Years\” of the show, as I got really miffed when they destroyed the Liberator and replaced it with that crappy garbage scow, Scorpio. Imagine replacing one of the best ships in all telefantasy with that POS! This was a stupid and overt attempt to imitate the Millenium Falcon, with Star Wars being the then-current box office phenomenon. Star Wars was riding a huge wave of popularity in all forms of media, and everyone was tripping over each other trying to imitate it in some way or another. It\’s a pity that the producers of Blake\’s 7 decided to downgrade from the Liberator to the Scorpio in order to follow a damned media trend.

OK, that completes the first half of my Top Ten Classic British Telefantasy series. The second half is coming up in Part Two.

(To Be Continued)

Iain M. Banks (1954-2013)

I was really saddened to learn of the death of science fiction author Iain M. Banks on June 9th. It wasn\’t really a surprise, given that he\’d announced to the world two months before that he had terminal cancer. But most of us thought he\’d be with us for a few more months at least, and it was a bit of an unexpected shock that he had passed away so quickly so soon after making the announcement.

Banks was a giant both in the science fiction genre, and, without the \”M\” in his name, in the literary mainstream field as well. Others have elaborated at length on his mainstream literary books such as The Wasp Factory, The Crow Road, The Bridge, Walking on Glass and Espedair Street. I\’m not particularly interested in those books, excellent as they undoubtedly are. I don\’t read literary mainstream fiction, nor, indeed, any other form of genre fiction except for SF. I\’m almost totally a reader of factual literature – history, science, computing, web design, autobiographies, linguistics, indeed almost anything factual. From the world of fiction, it\’s only SF that holds any attraction for me. The rest just bores me to tears.

So it\’s Banks\’s SF books, both Culture and non-Culture (Against a Dark Background, The Algebraist), that I\’m primarily interested in. Over the past couple of years, I\’ve picked up most of his Culture novels, and they all sit in my huge \”to read\” pile. Despite knowing quite a bit about Banks, the Culture and its background, I\’m in the extremely weird situation that I have actually not, as yet, gotten around to actually reading most of the Culture novels. With the exception of Player of Games and the State of the Art short story collection, I haven\’t read any of the other Iain M. Banks books yet. Some Banks fans might consider that to be an extremely enviable situation to be in, as I have all those great novels still ahead of me. With the announcement of Banks\’s passing, they certainly have all been moved right to the top of the pile of books that I want to read. If I enjoy Consider Phlebas, Use of Weapons, Excession, Inversions, Look to Windward, Matter, Surface Detail and The Hydrogen Sonata as much as I have Player of Games and State of the Art, I have some great reading ahead of me.

Banks is rightfully credited with being at the vanguard of a group of modern SF authors who have, since the 1980s, helped reintroduce a more traditional, optimistic brand of SF, which had, up until then, been pushed aside by the deluge of pessimistic dystopian and post-apocalyptic SF that had seemingly taken over the genre. They also played a fundamental role in reinventing and rehabilitating the humble space opera within the SF genre, after it had almost totally disappeared from serious SF literature for many years before.

The previous generation of \”New Wave\” SF writers had considered space opera to be, let\’s call a spade a spade, totally beneath them. They argued (perhaps justifiably) that space opera had become tired, cliched and unhip, and they even went as far as declaring the space opera to be \”dead\”, with the bloody knife in their own hands. They certainly did their damnedest to kill it off. Most of those SF authors had much loftier literary ambitions than their predecessors, and space opera, as the ultimate symbol (in their eyes) of the tired and childish \”Old SF\” was a particular target of their ire. It was unfashionable, unthinkable even, for these authors to even consider writing space opera. From their point of view, any author with aspirations of becoming a \”serious literary figure\”, writing space opera would be a kiss of death for their career. And the readers, particularly fans of space opera, had absolutely no say in the matter. Who gave a damn what they wanted?

But fortunately for all of us, those literary snobs were wrong, the readers and fans of space opera got what they wanted, and space opera has outlived most of the outdated, pretentious and almost unreadable \”New Wave\” SF writing, and still entertains new generations of SF fans to this day. Iain M. Banks and a few others were responsible for making it fashionable again, and they helped to usher in a new era of much more literate, intelligent and adult space opera, which has remained a huge favourite and a focus for a large number of SF readers, myself included.

Without Space Opera, its modern descendant New Space Opera, and some Hard SF, I would read virtually no modern SF at all, as there is very little else being written in the \”Speculative Fiction\” field these days to interest me or older readers like myself who prefer classic-style SF. I\’d be stuck with reading only my huge collection of classic pre-New Wave SF. For that alone, Mr. Banks, you have my deepest, heartfelt gratitude.

Iain M. Banks died tragically young (he was 59, only seven years older than I am, and I consider myself to still be a relatively young man), thus undoubtedly depriving us of many more fantastic books, both SF/Culture and literary mainstream. But the incredible body of work that he leaves behind already assures his immortality in both the SF and literary mainstream worlds. He also leaves behind a huge number of heartbroken, faithful fans, and his fantastic writing will certainly attract many, many more fans in the years to come.

And I know that I, for one, definitely have some great Iain M. Banks SF books to look forward to reading, most of them for the very first time.

Fanzines – Creative Genius at the Grass Roots (Part Four)

Okay, here\’s the fourth and final part of my ramblings on my memories of and experiences with fanzines. This one takes us right up to the present day and the most modern fanzines.

I\’ve already mentioned how I faded away from collecting fanzines in the late-1990s, and have only really rekindled the passion for zines again over the past five years or so. I\’ve seen some really big changes since I came back to collecting fanzines again. The number of print zines has obviously declined drastically over the years, at least since I last collected fanzines on a regular basis, back in the mid-1990s. Things are obviously very different nowadays compared to how they were \”back then\”, and many former zine editors and writers have either turned professional, or moved on to different creative activities, totally unrelated to fanzines.

At one point, particularly in the 2000-2005 period, I was beginning to think that the traditional paper Doctor Who fanzine had become an extinct species (which is the main reason I didn\’t get back into them again much sooner). But fortunately there are still a few traditional paper zines out there, if you look hard enough for them, and there seems to have been a minor resurgence in Doctor Who zines in recent years, most likely as a result of the popularity of the modern Doctor Who television series.

Of the modern DW \”paper\” zines, I\’ve managed to get together a nice little collection of a few of the best:

Richard Farrell produces the excellent Plaything of Sutekh, a new A5 kid on the block, which has two issues under its belt so far. This one certainly looks like it\’s going to be a front-runner among the new breed of Doctor Who zines. Richard also produces the equally excellent Andersonic, another high-quality A5 zine dedicated to the Gerry Anderson television shows, in particular the two live shows, UFO and Space: 1999. Both of Richard\’s zines are inspired by the classic Circus, which he was a great fan of (and a contributor to, if I recall correctly). This should give you an idea of how high the quality is of both these zines.

Oliver Wake produced seven issues of the excellent Panic Moon, a sexy little A6 Doctor Who zine, before calling it a day. Most of the issues are still available from him.

Grant Bull edited three issues of Blue Box, before moving onto bigger things. Blue Box is an unashamedly retro/cheapo A5 zine, deliberately produced in the old pre-computer DTP style, paying tribute to the classic cut \’n\’ paste photocopied Doctor Who zines of yesteryear.

Kenny Smith has just put out the 12th issue of The Finished Product, an excellent A5 zine dedicated to the niche market of Big Finish audio adventures of the Doctor and his companions.

Richard Bignall has produced three issues of the classy Nothing at the End of the Lane, a huge A4 prozine of incredible quality, dedicated to behind the scenes aspects of Doctor Who. Issue three is available directly from him, and an omnibus of the first two issues is available from Lulu.com.

Colin Brockhurst and Gareth Kavanagh have put out two issues of the simply amazing Vworp Vworp!, another high-quality and colorful A4 prozine which pays tribute to the classic official Doctor Who Monthly/Magazine of days gone by.

Most of the above still have a few back issues in stock. All fans of Doctor Who, or of fanzines, or of both, should do themselves a huge favour and try out some of these zines. They cover a wide range of types, from tiny A6, through traditional A5 (both retro cut \’n\’ paste and more slick DTP), to gorgeous, full-sized A4 glossy colour prozines. They also cover an enormous range of subject matter, but each and every one of them is stuffed to the gills with amazing Doctor Who (and in the case of Andersonic, Gerry Anderson) goodness.

They\’re unmissable gems, every single one of them, and there\’s absolutely nothing on the newsstands remotely as good, as enjoyable or as deserving of your meagre pennies. Support these zines, buy a copy of each, and encourage the editors to keep producing these wonderful slices of fannish goodness. I know one thing for sure – my life would be a lot poorer and less interesting without them.

There are also many other fanzines out there, both physical/paper and electronic, most of which I haven\’t gotten around to trying out yet (but I will). Go find them, and enjoy. Happy hunting!

Fanzines – Creative Genius at the Grass Roots (Part Three)

In my previous two posts, I\’ve talked about my general experiences with, and thoughts on, fanzines. Now I\’ll share a few more specific thoughts about the actual zines that I\’ve come across over the years.

The earliest zines that I collected date from the 1970s and early 1980s, and were mostly based around SF literature and comics. But these were sporadic, one-off zine purchases, and I didn\’t really become a hardcore zine collector until well into the 1980s. The pattern of zine purchases in that latter period was also different to what it had been before, in that most of the zines that I collected from the mid-80s onwards were deliberate, regular purchases of individual titles, in order to have a complete collection of each of my favourite zines. The pattern was also different in that the vast majority of these newer zines were based around my favourite sci-fi television series, rather than SF literature and comics.

My first regular fanzine (which I have every issue of, more than twenty of them) was published in the mid-80s, the excellent Flickers \’n\’ Frames, a reviewzine, which now has its direct descendant on the internet in the form of The Borderland website. Flickers \’n\’ Frames ran the gamut of pretty much everything, publishing reviews of sci-fi films, TV series, books, graphic novels, music, and the occasional piece of fiction. This one zine pretty much kick-started my current obsession with collecting zines, and I immediately moved on to collecting other fanzines, mostly based around telefantasy and SF.

My main fanzine collecting years coincided with what is known as the \”Golden Age\” of Doctor Who fanzines, circa 1985-1995. And so most of the zines in my collection are therefore based on Doctor Who, which just happens also to be my favourite ever TV sci-fi series. Although I\’ve got quite a few non-Doctor Who zines in my collection, such as the previously mentioned Flickers \’n\’ Frames, and a large number of other zines covering various cult television shows ranging from Star Trek, to Blake\’s 7 and the various Gerry Anderson TV shows, the bulk of my collection is made up of Doctor Who zines. That love of Doctor Who zines continues right up until the present day, and I still collect as many of the current batch of zines as I can.

The hoard of zines that I collected over the years covered many different themes and types, but most of them tended to fall into several different categories.

The first, and largest, category was the general review and article-based zines, which covered not only Doctor Who and other telefantasy series, but often other completely unrelated topics as well. They usually also included the occasional piece of fan fiction. These were mostly traditional A5 zines, and included (off the top of my head):

Circus (which also went A4 for several issues out of the eight-issue run).
Star-Begotten.
Soft Targets (A6).
625.
Brave New World.
Purple Haze.
Peladon.
Cygnus Alpha.
Auton.
Game of Rassilon.
Club Tropicana.
Burning the Ground.
the original Skaro.
Rumours.
Apocrypha.
Shockeye\’s Kitchen.
Timelines (the fanzine of the Grand Order of the Time Lords).
Frontios.
Cybermag.
Sonic Screwdriver.
Queen Bat/Space Rat.
Eye of Harmony.
Vipod Mor.
Drake\’s Drum (an A5 Star Trek zine).

and a few others that I can\’t recall right now. But occasionally the zines were A4 and glossy (or sometimes not), such as:

Celestial Toyroom (the news/reviewzine of the Doctor Who Appreciation Society).
Second Dimension.
Matrix.
Skaro.
Antoinine Killer.
Metamorph.
Metamorph II.
Shadowsphere.
Neutron Flow.
The Tomb.

and a few others that I can\’t remember off the top of my head.

The second category was fictionzines, mostly A5 but sometimes A4, zines composed almost totally of fan fiction based on Doctor Who, Star Trek or other telefantasy series. I\’ve always had a soft spot for good quality fan fiction, so I have a LOT of fictionzines in my collection, including:

A5:
Mandria.
Silver Carrier and many other one-off fictionzine \”novels\” by the excellent Seventh Door Fanzines.
Chronicle.
Cosmic Masque (the fictionzine of the Doctor Who Appreciation Society).
Inner Door.
The Key and The Key Presents.
the various Gallifreyan Presses publications.

A4:
Inferno Fiction.
Fan Aid – The Storytellers.
Wondrous Stories.
Black Pyramid.
Universal Dreamer.
Vortex.
Trenchcoat (US Letter).
Myth Makers (US Letter).

and, again, quite a few others that I can\’t recall right now. Again, mostly Doctor Who zines.

The third category was the larger A4, glossy (and often more colourful) semiprozines such as:

The Frame, which contained an enormous amount of photographs and background information on Doctor Who.
DWB, which started off as a semi-prozine dedicated to Doctor Who, but then morphed into Dreamwatch Bulletin and finally the professional newsstand magazine Dreamwatch, which covered telefantasy and sci-fi cinema of all shades.
Century 21 (based, obviously, around Gerry Anderson shows).
Portal 31 (a tribute to the classic TV21 comic).

There are quite a few other zines that I haven\’t mentioned, as this is all from memory, but this is a good sub-section of them, all falling into the three categories which cover most of the zines in my collection.

To Be Continued…

Fanzines – Creative Genius at the Grass Roots (Part Two)

I remember my older Doctor Who, Star Trek and other general SF and telefantasy fanzines from the pre-computer DTP era, and the difference between those old zines and the modern variety is startling. The contents of those old zines were amazing, but the production values were, understandably, universally low, dodgy typewritten and photocopied efforts, the text and pictures so faint that they could often be barely made out.

The computer/DTP revolution of the late-1980\’s and early-1990\’s gave rise to a modern generation of zines where even the bog standard A5 and A4 variety are far more professional and classy looking than the older zines. I know that many older fans wallow in nostalgia and bemoan the demise of the old cut \’n\’ paste photocopied zines, but I myself (despite usually being one of the nostalgic mob) much prefer the more modern DTP-produced zines. In fact, I would love to see some of those classic old pre-DTP zines reissued in modern DTP format (not just scans, totally DTPed), even if only as PDFs.

But fanzines, the printed, paper variety, have always been expensive and bothersome to produce. The computer/DTP revolution of the last twenty or so years may have resulted in a quantum leap in production quality for even the humble A5 fanzine, and given all zine editors the ability to produce zines of at least semi-professional standard. But the one weak link in the production chain still remains, largely unchanged since the bad old days of the 80s – the cost of printing.

Printing has always been a major source of grief and expense for zine publishers. Most printers deal in print runs of thousands or tens of thousands, and the more copies printed, the cheaper the cost of each individual copy. But fanzine editors deal with tiny print runs, maybe two or three hundred zines at most. This makes printing individual zines extremely expensive, relatively speaking. And once this is done, the zine editor also has to deal with the trouble and expense of mailing out a couple of hundred fanzines. A guy (or girl) has to be pretty dedicated to do this on a regular basis.

Since the second half of the 1990s, the explosive growth and widespread accessibility of the internet has given the vast majority of former and new zine creators a much easier and cheaper option. Many of these creative types have given up on printed zines (sadly, but understandably) and turned instead to producing online fanzines. Websites and blogs are now, for most editors and readers, the online equivalent of classic fanzines. They are certainly a lot easier and cheaper to produce, cutting out altogether the problematic and expensive final stages of dealing with print shops and postal distribution.

Except for the most dedicated tradzine publishers, most zine editors no longer go to the expense and trouble of doing it the old way, printing and posting out a small (but relatively expensive) print run of a couple of hundred zines. Why bother, when making the zine an online edition instead is much easier, has a potential audience of thousands, rather than hundreds, and costs virtually nothing to produce (financially), except for the time and effort?

Some other editors have taken a \”half-way\” approach. Rather than translating the fanzine to a full website or blog format, they produce their zines as PDFzines, which are then made downloadable from their websites. PDF is a print format, used almost universally by the modern printing industry in the publication of magazines and books. An electronic PDF zine is the exact equivalent of the printed zine, except on a computer screen. Actually it often looks better, since you have the full-color, highest quality version of the zine. Most zine editors simply cannot afford to have their zines printed out in colour, on high-quality, glossy stock, and instead resort to black & white (even if the on-screen version of the zine is in colour), and cheaper paper.

For some people, zines in high-resolution PDF format are extremely useful if they actually want to print out the fanzine themselves, on a colour inkjet printer, and on nice, high-quality, glossy paper. Some of us more obsessive collectors even like to collect entire runs of their electronic/PDFzines. Maybe not quite as nice as a collection of paper zines, but a bit more coherent and less disjointed than a bunch of webpages. 🙂

To Be Continued…

Fanzines – Creative Genius at the Grass Roots (Part One)

[I]\’ve always loved fanzines. I have, for some reason, an extremely strong affinity with fanzines and small press in general, a powerful connection that I\’ve never felt even with the best \”pro\” mags. It\’s almost a religious thing with me. I get a bigger kick out of reading a tatty old A5 black & white fanzine, produced on an ancient dot matrix printer, than I do from 99.9% of professional publications, which are supposed to be \”superior\” in every way, both visually and production-wise, and in the quality of writers and articles. So why do fanzines fascinate me so much?

Probably the main reason that I love fanzines is that, unlike the glossy, expensive newsstand mags, ANY one of us can produce a fanzine, if we put our minds to it. All you need is a computer and a cheap DTP program (or the old way, with a typewriter, scissors, glue and a photocopier). We can all get in on the act, if we\’re determined enough. If you\’ve got even a modicum of talent, and also the dedication needed to sacrifice the huge amount of time and effort required, virtually anybody can cobble together a fanzine.

But don\’t forget the financial outlay on print fanzines (online zines are a lot less expensive to produce) and thick skins needed to protect you against the barrage of criticism that you\’ll inevitably get from many quarters, should you publish anything controversial. Fanzine readers are extremely passionate about their little obsessions, and can be very critical and outspoken on matters that get their gander up. The flip side of that coin is that they can also be fanatical supporters of their favourite zines.

At their best, fanzines contain the type of raw, undiluted genius that you\’d rarely find in commercial magazines. Fanzine editors and writers don\’t have to abide by the same kind of rules as the pro publications, as they aren\’t constrained by having to please a certain audience or market. The authors can write pretty much whatever they like. Fanzines can publish virtually ANYTHING, including stuff that you\’d never see in mainstream mags. They can be rude and irreverent, as they don\’t have to worry about offending publishers or readers. They can publish wacky, off-beat material, gems that pro magazines would never touch with a long pole. And they also contain the real, personal thoughts and opinions of the editors and contributors, who would be a lot more restrained if submitting an article to a \”pro\” magazine.

There are fanzines covering almost every conceivable topic. There are zines devoted to telefantasy, cult television and sci-fi cinema, Science Fiction in books, comics, music, sport, history, poetry, zines for amateur dramatic societies, club news and activities, indeed pretty much ANY subject you care to mention, or even a mix of many of the above. My favourites have always been the fanzines based on my favourite sci-fi television series, SF literature, and music. Doctor Who fanzines make up a considerable proportion of my large fanzine collection, and are probably my favourites of them all. Some of these are truly amazing publications.

Commercial publications are created by a nebulous elite, away \”up there\” in their ivory towers, far removed from we mere mortals. Fanzines are created by \”one of us\” (in most cases more than one) down here on Planet Earth, your average (although talented) \”Joe Bloggs\”, who wants to let his frustrated \”inner writer\” or editor out into the world at large. Any of us can potentially make a zine, focused on ANY subject, or we can at the very least contribute to a zine created by someone else. Very few of us would ever have any chance of being published in a pro magazine. As far as I\’m concerned, this is one of the most exciting and attractive things about fanzines. It\’s self-publishing BY the fans, FOR the fans.

I\’d be the first to concede that the visual quality and production values in pro magazines are usually superior (after all, they DO have a much larger budget), although some of the higher-end fanzine and semi-prozine publications are just as slick as their pro counterparts. With a few notable exceptions, the classic fanzines of yesteryear were usually cheap \’n\’ cheerful A5 \”cut \’n\’ paste\” publications, mass-produced on photocopiers. But once computers, DTP software and fancy inkjet and laser printers became cheaper and more accessible for Joe Public (from about the late-1980s onwards), even low-end fanzine production took a quantum leap forwards in quality.

Compare the average A5 or A4 home-produced fanzine from the 1970s or early-to-mid 1980s with one produced today. At least in the area of production quality and visuals, there\’s no comparison, with the exception of the occasional modern fanzine produced the old-fashioned way, to intentionally give it that retro feel, most often as a tribute to the classic zines. The one thing all the best fanzines over the years have had in common is in the single most important area, that of the content, which has remained consistently excellent.

I\’d argue strongly with any assertion that pro magazines attract higher quality articles, writers and artwork. Some of the best articles I\’ve ever read came out of fanzines, and some of the art I\’ve seen in them over the years has also been top class, definitely pro quality. Many of the top \”fan\” writers are at least as good as their pro competitors, in some cases better. Being a long-time fan of a certain television show often means that they have a much more in-depth knowledge about their chosen subject than a pro writer, who has no personal interest in the topic in question, but has merely researched it for the purpose of writing an article. The quality of zines can admittedly vary drastically, from dire to sublime, but I\’ve read fiction and articles in fanzines that beat seven shades of crap out of ANYTHING I\’ve ever read in \”pro\” mags.

The people producing fanzines do it \”for the sheer love of it\”, not for money. There\’s precious little of that available in publishing fanzines, as the vast majority of them barely recoup their costs at the best of times. And this \”doing it for the sheer love of it\” really shines through in the writing. I\’ve read so many articles in pro magazines that were competent enough but obviously done just \”by the numbers\”, to earn a pay-packet. In comparison, a good fanzine article is a breath of fresh air, a jolt of high-octane enthusiasm and fanboy expertise, done simply for the sheer, obsessive love of the subject.

This goes much of the way towards explaining why I\’d read articles in fanzines that are based on topics which wouldn\’t interest me in the least if they were to appear in a commercial publication. Completely different sets of expectations and values for small press vs commercial press, I know. But both play by different rules, and are judged accordingly (at least by me).

Many of the \”greats\” of the past, as well as the current generation of pro writers and artists in SF and comics, started out originally in fanzines. There they honed their skills and gained experience, until their talents were eventually recognized and they were able to move on and work on pro publications. Unfortunately many others, just as talented, never make it into the pro field, and continue working for fanzines until they either give up altogether or just fade away, and return to having a Real Life, working, paying the bills and raising kids. But their legacy and talent lives on in the existing small print runs of the zines they\’ve worked on over the years.

Fanzines, by their non-commercial nature and miniscule print runs are as rare as hen\’s teeth, especially once they go out of print. They can be almost impossible to find. I know, because I\’ve been looking for certain classic zines for years now without ever having any success. It\’s just a matter of sheer luck if these zines turn up on Ebay. Many have disappeared into the mists of time, forgotten by all except for the tiny audience who had the pleasure of reading them. That, in my opinion, is a tragic loss. These gems are in dire need of rediscovery and preservation, which is why I\’m a rabid supporter of any initiative to preserve small press publications of all kinds.

To Be Continued…

A Couple of Classic Alternate History Stories

[I]\’ve recently come upon an unusual (but nice) little paperback anthology of alternate history stories, OTHER EARTHS edited by Nick Gevers and Jay Lake. I\’ll talk more about that one at a later date.

Strangely enough (well, maybe not so much for me), finding this anthology started me on a major alternate history trip, sending me off on an expedition to dig out of the vaults some of the best examples of classic AH in my admittedly large collection of SF books. I\’ve just finished re-reading two of my favourite classic alternate histories, and these two stories are a perfect example of just how good AH can be.

The first is the magnificent novelette, He Walked Around the Horses, written by one of my favourite-ever SF authors, H. Beam Piper. The story was first published in the April 1948 edition of ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION, but I first read it back in 1982-1983, in the anthology THE GOLDEN AGE OF SCIENCE FICTION, edited by Kingsley Amis, which is also where I\’ve just finished re-reading it. It is set during the Napoleonic War, when a British ambassador to her European allies takes a step sideways into an alternate reality where Napoleon never made it big, there is no war, and the political and military alliances in Europe are quite different from those in \”our\” world. This world\’s alternate version of the protagonist leads a different life altogether, and, understandably, the authorities in this alternate reality consider \”our\” protagonist to be some crazy guy, so he\’s locked up.

The second story is the excellent novella The Summer Isles, written by one of the best SF authors in the UK, Iain R. MacLeod. I first read this little gem back in the October/November 1998 edition of ASIMOV\’S SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE, and I\’ve just re-read it in MacLeod\’s excellent short story collection, BREATHMOSS AND OTHER EXHALATIONS (2004). This is a sensitive tale of a forbidden homosexual relationship, set against a background of fear, paranoia and deadly political skullduggery. It takes place in an alternate 1930s Britain, in a reality in which the Allies lost in World War I, and the Germans were obviously victorious. In this reality, it is, ironically, Britain which has become the repressed fascist dictatorship, and not Germany.

Both stories are exquisitely written, and examples of the best of the genre. They\’re the sort of story you can show to even mainstream literary snobs without fear of them ridiculing you, and they are also the type of story that the pretentious \”mainstream literary wannabies\” within SF itself can\’t even begin to criticize. I don\’t believe in any of the elitist bullshit that these people hold to – a good story is a good story, irrespective of genre. And keep in mind that SF isn\’t merely a \”genre\”, it\’s a \”state of mind\”, a meta-genre, encompassing many other sub-genres. Alternate histories represent one of the many \”respectable\” faces of SF, a sub-genre with (in the vast majority of cases) no spaceships, laser guns or BEMs, just mankind and the \”human condition\”, and a lot of history, mixed with a big dollop of \”What If?\” that really gets the speculation flowing. And one of the main fundamental pillars of SF has always been \”What If?\”

In my \”mundane\”/non-SF persona, I\’m an historian. I\’ve always been fascinated by history, its mechanics, and its possibilities, its futures. And I\’ve also always loved SF. So mixing the two in the shape of alternate histories was always going to be a winner in my book. The two stories above are among my favourites, but there are so many other great alternate histories out there that I can\’t even begin to list them all. Go track them down, take your pick of a few of the recommended ones, and read some of the best stories that SF has to offer.

Channel 4 Cancels Time Team

[I]n last week\’s edition of Radio Times (March 23rd-29th), I was extremely saddened to read that Channel 4 has scrapped their excellent and popular archaeology series, Time Team, which has graced UK television screens for the past twenty years.

As a big fan of archaeology and history, this news has come as a huge disappointment to me. Time Team is one of my favourite programmes on UK television, and over the years has helped to popularize and animate archaeology and history for the general viewing public. It is both educational AND entertaining, something which is greatly lacking in most television scheduling these days. So to find out that Time Team is being dumped by Channel 4, frankly, sucks Big Time.

Some people would say that twenty years is a good run, but the show is always fresh and entertaining, and getting better, year by year. So why cancel it and replace it with yet another piece of mindless crap that we don\’t need? Yet another bloody programme about cooking (isn\’t obesity rampant enough already?), buying houses, auctioning, or whatever other cheap, boring fad that the TV channels are obsessed with riding into the ground? As soon as one of these programmes achieves a certain level of success, multiple clones inevitably sprout up all over the place, like weeds. There\’s already far too much of this rubbish on TV. We don\’t need any more.

I\’m one of those viewers who prefers to watch programming that\’s a bit more educational and informative, dealing with subjects such as science, history, and current affairs, rather than the endless parade of mindless, vacuous reality TV, soaps and sitcoms that the television channels constantly force down our throats. But hey, I\’m all for a bit of variety, and I\’m well aware that a large section of the population actually LIKES reality TV, soaps and sitcoms (God help us all). I can\’t stand this kind of thing myself, but I am more than willing to compromise, just as long as there\’s also something on TV occasionally for me.

Television channels should cater for everybody, minority tastes as well as more mainstream, popular viewing. But the sad fact is, in recent years they have done so less and less. There is little left on commercial television for the more discerning viewer, and we have so much cheap, unimaginative, unintelligent copy-cat programming infesting our television screens that I\’m often driven to despair, trying to find something that\’s actually worth watching. We may have a lot more television channels these days, but they are full of complete rubbish and endless repeats. The quality of television viewing has definitely declined over the years, and we can ill afford to lose a great series like Time Team.

Just by coincidence, my late Thursday night viewing this week included a 20 Years of Time Team special on Channel 4. Apparently this, according to the Radio Times, is the VERY LAST programme in the series, so I\’m absolutely gutted. I\’m sure that Time Team repeats will abound in future, but we really need new programmes in this excellent series. If tired, boring soaps like Eastenders, Emmerdale and Coronation Street can rattle on endlessly for decade after decade, why can\’t something as interesting as Time Team? The series deserves at least another twenty years, if you ask me.

Next time I partake of the demon drink, I\’ll raise a glass to Tony, Phil, Mike, Carenza and the rest of the Time Team crew, and pray that this isn\’t the last we\’ll see of this talented bunch and their herculean efforts to make archaeology fun and accessible to the man and woman in the street. RIP Time Team, but I hope it\’s not for long.