The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

It’s a damp Thursday at the end of February, one half of the UK shivers in snow, the other half in dismal rain, but who cares when we can stay in by the fire and listen to the new-fangled wireless type talking entertainments of Alex Fitch. As ever for more information and links to podcasts of previous shows check the Panel Borders site:

Strip!: Necessary Monsters, tonight at 5pm on Resonance FM, podcast shortly afterwards on Panel Borders

Concluding webcomics month on the show, Alex Fitch catches up with artist Sean Azzopardi and writer Daniel Merlin Goodbrey as the first series of their epic webcomic Necessary Monsters comes to its conclusion after a total of 125 pages serialised over two years (a print edition is imminent). The series mixes a ‘black ops’ style spy thriller with the tropes of modern horror films and bizarre characters with ultra violence to maximum effect. Alex talks to Daniel and Sean about the progression of the strip, the various ways it’s been published and their collaborations with another webcomics creator – Douglas Noble – on a zombie western (The Rule of Death) and surrealistic thriller (Sightings of Wallace Sendek) respectively.

also:

Lucky Cat: The films of Park Chan-Wook, tonight at 7pm on Resonance FM

Today’s episode of Resonance FM’s Asian culture show is a Park Chan-Wook special to coincide with the UK DVD release of the Korean auteur’s vampire film Thirst. Zoë Baxter is joined in the studio by Mira Stout (author of bestselling novel “One Thousand Chestnut Trees”, playwright, and film critic) and Alex Fitch (broadcaster and assistant editor of Electric Sheep film magazine) to discuss Thirst and Chan-Wook’s oeuvre.
Korean tea and snacks will be sampled for the Dim Sum Lunchbox.

Recent podcasts:

Panel Borders: Little Terrors and (other) Psychiatric Tales

Continuing our month long look at webcomics, Alex Fitch talks to two writer / artists whose work started off telling fantastical tales, took a detour via stories set in Hell and its environs and are now doing work with a greater autobiographical element. Darryl Cunningham is the creator of the humourous superhero strip Super Sam and John by Night, whose sequel to that strip tells tales of the inferno a.k.a. The Streets of San Diablo and more recently to critical acclaim has started rendering experiences from his day job in Psychiatric Tales; Jon Scrivens is the creator of Little Terrors, a popular strip that tells the tale of a friendly zombie who is trying to connect with his old friends, who have also turned into a variety of monsters, in the wake of an outbreak of the living dead. and Jon is just about to start on a new strip, When’s Graham, which mixes collegiate humour with a touch of time travel…

Reality Check: Directing low budget Science-Fiction films (part 1 online at SciFi London now, part 2 due soon, both parts broadcast as hour long Clear Spot special on March 17th on Resonance FM)

In a panel discussion recorded live at last year’s London Sciene-Fiction and Fantastic Film Festival, Alex Fitch discusses the many aspects of creating engaging and convincing SF scenarios on film with a quartet of eminent low budget film directors – Marc Caro (Delicatessen, The City of Lost Children), Stuart Hazeldine )Exam), Cory McAbee (Stingray Sam), Gerald McMorrow (Franklyn) and Richard Jobson (A Woman in Winter). The panel was sponsored by The Directors Guild of Great Britain and Mr Caro’s translator was Virginie Selavy.