The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log » General

Tour the Griffith with Leonard Nimoy

Joe — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:01:25 +0000

If you’ve got several grand to spare the world-famous Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles is auctioning a guided tour of the iconic facility (seen in many films and shows) – the tour guide for the occasion being none other than Leonard Nimoy. Now that would be quite brilliant. Bidding is already in excess of $5, 000 and the closing date is December 2nd (via BoingBoing).

(self portrait of and by Leonard Nimoy; I had no idea Leonard was a gifted photographer until I saw this via One Digital Life’s blog. More of Leonard’s photography here; warning, contains nudity. pic (c) Leonard Nimoy)

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New Who

Joe — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 20:32:53 +0000

Okay, how buzzed are we all from Doctor Who: the Waters of Mars? And the way they’ve worked in the knowledge that the Doctor know his time is ending into his decisions and actions (and my feeling was they also inferred the lack of a close companion has also cost him part of that human anchor that hold him to a certain code)? For North American readers who are looking on enviously Mike Lynch notes that BBC America has been running ads promising a trilogy of Doctor Who specials in December, so it looks like you won’t be too far behind the UK. And now I’m seriously champing at the bit for the final two-parter episode with the return of the Master and how Tennant’s incarnation meets his end. And Bernard Cribbins too! So what did we think of the Waters of Mars then, folks?

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Its comics events a go-go this weekend at FPI

Joe — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:41:43 +0000

Its a great weekend of comics events coming up at FPI – kicking off on Friday 13th we’ve got the comics legend Gilbert Shelton at our Nostalgia & Comics store in sunny Birmingham from 4 to 5.30pm to celebrate the publication of the Fat Freddy’s Cat Omnibus; a rare chance to meet a serious comics icon. Let your Freak (brother) Flag fly!

On Saturday 14th its the turn of FP Dublin to put on the comics ritz with two gigs, starting with the Irish comics collective the Eclectic Micks – Stephen Mooney (Angel; After The Fall), Will Sliney (Farscape), Stephen Thompson (Die Hard; Year One) Bob Byrne (Mr. Amperduke), Declan Shalvey (28 Days Later) and Nick Roche (Transformers) should all be present from 3 to 5pm to talk to fans and sign copies as they enjoy the Irish launch of their new Sketchbook.

Then on Sunday 15th Dublin FP plays host to Karl Kerschl (Superman, Teen Titans), Cameron Stewart (Seaguy, Catwoman, Batman & Robin) and Ramón Pérez (Star Wars: the Clone Wars, Butternut Squash, JSA), who will be in the store from 3 to 5pm as part of their TX Euro-tour (which also sees them go on afterwards to Comica, Orbital and Thought Bubble; see Karl’s blog for full details here).

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Alan Moore – the opera?

Joe — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:52:55 +0000

BBC Radio music news just mentioned that a certain Mister Alan Moore was collaborating with Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett on their next opera, following the Gorillaz boys’ successful Monkey: Journey to the West opera. I thought I had mis-heard, but on the BBC’s Newsbeat site there it is: “We’re planning for me to do the libretto on their next opera project,” Alan told Mustard Magazine, also adding that Hewlett and Albarn would also be involved in his new Dodgem Logic mag. I wonder if it it will be in any way related to the operatic elements of the new League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Century?You can still enjoy Pádraig’s massive interview with Alan on the blog: part one here, part two and part three.

(musical murder as MacHeath sings in the first part of LOEG: Century by those well known purveyors of shilling shockers and penny dreadfuls, Messrs Moore and O’Neill, published Knockabout/Top Shelf)

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Doctor Who – the Waters of Mars

Joe — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:03:13 +0000

Ohhh, soon, soon!!!

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Chimpanzee Complex – Big, Wonderful, Epic Sci-Fi.

Richard — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:15:40 +0000

The Chimpanzee Complex – Volume 1: Paradox

Written by Richard Marazano, art by Jean-Michel Ponzio

Cinebook

I love big , epic Sci-Fi. Always have. And there just isn’t enough of it in comics to keep me satisfied. Every so often something comes along though that gets it absolutely right, does everything big Sci-Fi is meant to do – all the wonder, all the majesty of space, all the complex technical stuff, all the unanswered questions. And that’s exactly what The Chimpanzee Complex does. It’s Big, epic Sci-Fi done absolutely right.

It’s 2035. Space exploration has become increasingly sidelined as the years have passed and a planned Mars exploration has been effectively mothballed. No-one cares, the money’s just not there and the astronauts on the Mars program have to cope with having their years of training and their dreams put on hold. But then a space module falls into the Indian Ocean, an all too familiar space module, with all too familiar crew-members. Which triggers a huge panic on the part of the authorities, because if these crew members are who they claim to be, then who was it who……

And that’s where I’m going to have to leave that particular thread. Because that’s the first big reveal, the key that everything else hangs off in this first part of the trilogy and the trigger for everything that follows.

(The first mystery of The Chimpanzee Complex (and there are many more) – just who are these two, ever so familiar astronauts. And what on earth are they doing in 2035? Art by Jean-Michel Ponzio, from The Chimpanzee Complex Volume 1: Paradox, published by Cinebook.)

A few pages into the book and I was hooked. I was loving everything about it and found myself really engrossed in the book. I didn’t know the identity of the mysterious visitors and was reading voraciously to get to the reveal. Which is why I don’t plan on spoiling it for you by revealing the identity of those two astronauts, even though it’s a fairly open secret. If you want to know, have a look round the Internet. But if you trust me, if you go into this one just expecting a great bit of epic Sci-Fi and knowing that there’s something important from the past coming through to the present of 2035, you’ll get so much more out of this.

Our central character here is Helen Freeman, who should have been the first woman to set foot on Mars. But she’s a victim of the cut-backs and has had to come to terms with the fact that her very reason for living all these years, the culmination of her training and the distillation of her dreams may just have vanished. But the mysterious spacecraft and it’s equally mysterious astronauts throws her a lifeline; suddenly there’s a need to go back into space, a mission to the Moon and on to Mars to find out the secrets that both may hold. But to do so she’ll have to make the most difficult choice; her dreams or her child, who’s already used to a life of disappointment and a mother who puts her job above her daughter.

The “chimpanzee complex” of the title describes the term used by NASA to document the experiences of chimps used as test pilots in early space flight. Smart enough to understand they have no control over their circumstances, they became increasingly unstable, aggresive and essentially “blow a fuse”. Whether this chimanzee complex refers to the two rescued astronauts or will go on to describe Helen’s situation – manouvered as she is by events beyond her control to be taken further and further from her daughter, we just don’t know.

The difficulty of Helen’s choice, and the hopelessness of the situation she suddenly finds herself in is very well handled here, but it’s still merely a very well done sub-plot. The meat of Chimpanzee Complex is all in the big Sci-Fi. And that’s done so very well. The mystery of the astronauts at the start is just the beginning of a series of big secrets and stunning mysteries that will no doubt develop as we get further into the book. Again, I’m not giving any of them away – I want you to share this book, to come to it without much prior knowledge and to enjoy it every bit as much as I did.

Little touches matter in Sci-Fi and with this taking place in the very near future of 2035 it was pleasing to see that the tech of the day was just right – nothing too outlandish, all the principals done right, helicopters still instead of hover planes, Spacesuits, Orbiting Spacecraft and Shuttles just one generation of development from now. Nicely done.

(A mother takes off, a daughter is left behind. And then we get the beauty and grandeur of space and the wonder of spaceflight. Art by Jean-Michel Ponzio, from The Chimpanzee Complex Volume 1: Paradox, published by Cinebook.)

The art is lovely, very photo-realistic, Arthur Ransom style stuff (artist of Judge Anderson, Button Man etc and not, as Google keeps trying to tell me, the man who wrote Swallows and Amazons). [EDIT - 08/11 - Thanks to Dave Shelton in the comments I realise that it should be Arthur Ranson. I am an idiot.] But it’s not quite perfect and suffers from the occasional really bad panel where the poses are just too static or even completely wrong. It doesn’t happen too often, but when it does it’s a real shame as it does the one thing art in a complex fantasy like this should never do – drag the reader out of the fantasy to concentrate on why the art looks so bad. But such lapses are thankfully few and far between, Ponzio’s art really serves the story well, with the photo-real style working very well in this near future Sci-Fi setting.

The one real issue with the Chimpanzee Complex is the length. Each of the original French volumes was a mere 56 pages each. But it’s just not long enough. This is a trilogy that demands collection in one omnibus volume. Then it would be perfect. Because reading just 56 pages has made me desperate to find out what happens next. And I really don’t want to wait. More please. And soon.

Richard Bruton.

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Dean Haspiel reading from the Activate Primer

Joe — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:10:12 +0000

Enjoy some video of the recent Activate Primer event at the Book Court with Dean Haspiel reading live (along with Joan Reilly and George O’Connor) from Billy Dogma with comics art being projected behind him (via Dean’s FaceBook):

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And you thought you had a great comic / cosplay costume?

Richard — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:01:05 +0000

Halloween costumes, Cosplay costumes – sometimes they’re good, sometimes not so good. But this Roy Lichtenstein job takes it to a whole new level:

According to a comment on the Charmed blog the make-up artist doing this fantastic job is Jennifer Corona (Via Buzzfeed).

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Happy Birthday Asterix

Richard — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 23:31:38 +0000

Asterix, that staple of wonderful childhood memories for most of us turned 50 today. Happy Birthday old man. To celebrate the occasion Google gave him and Obelix their own “google doodle”for the day.

The Guardian has a rather nice article on the subject.

(Via Wim)

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Last call for the British International Comics Show – that’s BICS to you and me…

Richard — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 16:00:38 +0000

This weekend sees a host of comic types descend on Thinktank at Millenium Point in Birmingham for the British International Comics Show. In fact the whole thing is actually starting in a couple of hours time with the launch party. But the actual comic stuff starts bright and early on Saturday 3rd October (well, early for all those freelancing comic types anyway) and carries on all the way through to Sunday 4th. Fun will be had, comics will be consumed.

There’s a long list of who will be attending over at the BICS site and a full schedule for the events happening over the weekend. Advance ticket sales have finished but there are tickets still available on the door. See you there.

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