RIP Gerry Anderson

Gerry Anderson died today and that's a right shame.  I haven't given the man or his work much thought in years, I think I might have watched a few episodes of the CGI Captain Scarlet a few years back but that's about it. However my Twitter feed's been full of tributes to the man and as I've watched the opening credits to some of his shows and thought about the likes of Stingray, Thunderbirds and even Space Precinct I've started to realise just how into Superanimation I was as a kid.  I had the toy's and the comics, my mum made me a Virgil Tracey dressing up outfit and I once had a Thunderbird 2 birthday cake.  I didn't just build the Blue Peter Tracey Island, I built it twice.  Thinking about it now I realise that Gerry Anderson's work was probably the first thing I properly geeked out over as a kid, setting me on the path to become the endearingly pathetic man child I am today.  

I've posted some videos of the opening credits of his various shows and I think they pretty perfectly sum up the appeal of his work.  Everything Anderson created was bold and exciting and unique.  His work featured big Sci-Fi ideas in bold, optimistic pop art colours.  He created worlds with square jawed heroes, evil villains and amazing machines, vast industrial installations built to launch rockets or hide underground from the Aquaphibians.  I loved how methodically these creations were filmed, so many shows would skip over the launch of a spaceship or have the crew embark a vehicle between scenes, Thunderbirds and Stingray and everything else revelled in the Heath Robinson, domino track like qualities of their creations and as a child I couldn't think of anything more exciting, Britain would probably have a lot fewer engineers without Anderson's work.

Gerry Anderson created some incredibly loved, utterly unique television, distilling the 60's adventure into something timeless, probably his greatest achievement was creating puppets that weren't utterly terrifying,  he'll be missed.

Derailed

Hello all, apologies for the unexpected hiatus, this was caused by having an excessive amount of things to do and people to see for the past few weeks.  I know you've all missed out on my poorly punctuated onanistic ramblings but you should be pleased to hear that I'm in the process of alienating all of my friends and family so I should have a lot more time to sit alone and write.  

Whilst I was out and about not writing I had one of the weirdest train journeys of my life.  It was a Friday night and I was travelling to see my girlfriend on the 17:15 train from Leeds.  The train was as packed as a cattle truck and I found myself crammed into the luggage compartment behind the driver's cabin with about a dozen other commuters.  About fifteen minutes into the journey the train pulled to a halt, I assumed we were just pulling into a station but when I looked out of the window all I could see was a lonely patch of woodland that surrounded the train tracks on all sides.  Then the cabin door opened and the driver emerged.  He looked sheepish and confused as he said "I'm very sorry but I think we're lost."  

Until then I didn't think trains could get lost, I assumed they just followed the rails.  Now I think about it I realise one of the junctions on the tracks must have been set wrong or maybe there was something the matter with "the points" but on that evening, as I watched a confused train drivers climb onto the tracks and glance around frantically, trying to work out where he'd driven to all I could think was "Oh great, we've been whisked away to the world of the bloody faeries."  I had visions of my girlfriend waiting at the plat form for hours before asking a passer by (probably Rod Sterling or Vincent Price) when the 17:15 from Leeds arrived only to be told "there's no 17:15 from Leeds my dear, not since that crash where everyone died 10 years ago tonight!" Fortunately I don't live in a predictable urban legend so rather than never being seen again I just had to put up with a ten minute delay, but I quite like the idea of a phantom train that leaves it's passengers stranded somewhere unnatural, I might write something inspired by that journey one day if I can think of an approach that isn't a massive cliché.

The novel currently stands at 35,488 words or 47.3% of my target, although I'm a lot further than half way through the plot as I'm currently ripping what's left of my hair out trying to structure the ending.  My original plan was to have a complete draft done by mid April, but I'm probably going to have to move that goal post.  Now my plan is to finish the skeleton of the story (probably about 45,000-50,000 words) by the 19th of April and flesh this out into a full, functioning first draft by the end of May.  I'm really excited by what I'm writing at the moment as the book's various plots and sub plots are pulling together and shit's blowing up all over the place.  Come back next week to see if I hit 40,000 words.

Novel Update 05/03/2012

Greetings puny mortals.  I've suffered from a minor bit of writer's block this week; nothing major, but annoying none the less. Man Writer' Block perhaps.  I spent most of the first half of the week trying to get into a scene which is going to be fairly pivotal to the last third of the book and repeatedly changed my mind over how to approach it.  I eventually cracked it on Saturday night after a few pints of inspiration, it's not perfect and definitely needs a good proof reading/rewriting but it's there for now and I've found the subsequent scenes a lot easier to write.  Whilst failing at novel writing I managed to come up with a few pieces for the blog about creator owned comics and the gender politics of Earth's Mightiest Bums.  I also passed my driving theory test, take that crippling sense of inadequacy!

The current word count is 30,048 of 75,000 or 40.1% as I mentioned in the last novel update I've left quite a few gaps so I'm starting to see the end of the plot so I'm quite excited to be approaching the climax.  Come back next Monday to see if I hit 35,000.

Creator Owned Day

Apparently March the 1st is creator owned day.  If I'd have known about this earlier I might (or might not, no promises) have done something to mark the occasion, as it is I'm just going to give you a short list of my favourite creator owned comics (in no particular order) and pimp my own creation.

My Favourite Creator Owned Comics

Hellboy/BPRD (plus assorted spin-offs) By Mike Mignola and friends (Notably John Arcudi, Guy Davis and Duncan Fegredo)

Mike Mignola and co. have created an enthralling tale of giant monsters, what it means to be human and the end of the world.  

Chew by John Layman and Rob Guillory

A weird, offbeat mystery comic about a man who gains the memories of anything he eats and the crazy world he lives in.  Like Lost but with gross out humour and killer chickens.

Sweet Tooth by Jeff Lemire

The beautifully drawn story of a deer boy and a former hockey player in a post appocylptic future.

Phonogram by Kieron Gillen and Jaime McKelvie

Music is Magic, this comic captures the excitement of being young and going clubbing like no other comic.  Perfectly crafted and filled with references I don't understand.

The Umbrella Academy by  Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá

Gerard Way stops messing arround with his band and works on a proper job, telling the story of a dysfunctional family of superheroes.  

(NB I left of Preacher because I wasn't sure if it's owned by the creators or DC/Vertigo and a brief google was inconclusive, if it is creator owned, it definitely belongs in the top five)

And here's some shameless self promotion, the first appearance of my character Daniel Hawksworth, a character who you should all be seeing a bit more of in coming months.  Enjoy what's left of creator owned day.  

Avengers' Bums Assemble!

A little while back Marvel Studios released a poster for the upcoming Avengers movie.

It was a fairly typical piece of Superhero artwork that unfortunately suffers from a fairly typical problem with  superhero art; the so called "Broken Back" pose, a stance where a female character is posed so the reader can perve over both her boobs and her arse at the same time.  This pose is far too common in comics (especially on covers) and can make reading comics on the train pretty embarrassing.  Avenger's director Joss Whedon has a long history of creating strong, well rounded female characters, and it seemed a shame that a project he was so heavily involved in would resort to such lowest common denominator marketing.

Today, Marvel Studios announced a new title for the film here in the UK, Avengers Assemble (presumably to avoid confusion with the 60's spy show) and debuted a new poster.

It's still a fairly standard superhero pin up, but this time Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow looks absolutely bad-ass and it's two of the male characters flashing their chests/bums.  Admittedly it's not proper broke back art, Iron Man's face covers up most of the Hulk's arse, but it's a faltering step closer to equal opportunity lechery, and isn't that what everyone wants?

Skin Diseases & Novel Update 27/02/2012

Hello again, how is everyone?...  That's nice, glad to hear you're all doing well. I've spent most of this weekend worrying that I'd caught impetigo from my three year old nephew.  I wasn't really concerned about the disease itself, as according to nhs.uk impetigo is rarely a serious condition and my skin's already pretty much a write off.  I was worried that I'd pass it on to my girlfriend, mostly because I'm a selfless, heroic gentleman but also because I was afraid that it would be really awkward.  I'd not heard of impetigo before this weekend but my  dad described it as "basically herpes for kids"  and I've been terrified of having to tell the missus "I've not been fooling around with anyone, I caught this pestilence I've given you from my nephew."  Which is pretty much the worst excuse I could have come up with and would almost certainly have got me in to even more bother.  Fortunately both myself and Mrs myself seem to have dodged the plague and the nephew's looking better.

I've been able to do a fair bit of writing since the last update and I've managed to reach 27,709 words, or 37% of the novel.  Having said that, I'm a lot further than 37% into the plot and there are lots of gaps that I'm going to have to go back and fill in/or paper over, so it's probably more accurate to say I've half written the first 75% of the book.  I'm going to update on a Monday night from now on, so I'll be able to spend all of Sunday night actually writing the book and not end up having a late night writing the accompanying blog post.  Next week's target is 32,000, comeback on Monday to see if I reach it.

Novel Update 16/02/2012

Well this week's been a bit of a write off.  The word count's currently at 21,662, a fair way short of my 25,000 word target, so 29% of the total target's been written.  I know you all expected more from some idiot dicking about with words on the internet, I'm sorry I let you down.  I'm away this weekend so it doesn't look like I'll be able to write many more (although I'm travelling by train so I might be able to get a few thousand done).  However the weekend after that is the one before pay day so I'll be too poor for adventures and should be able to get some cheap, cheap writing done.  The current plan is 27,500 by Sunday 26th February, which should put me back on track for my self imposed first draft deadline of mid-April, come back then to see how much I've done.