Feature Category: Article

For the last several months, I’ve been working on a book. It’s finished, and yet the chances are, even after devoting the better part of the last year to it, it will never be published and you’ll never be able to read it. That’s a huge shame, but possibly not for the reason you’re thinking.

The reason it’s such a shame is not because I’ve put in so much time and would be disappointed not to be rewarded for it, but because it’s An Important Book, one that I believe deserves and perhaps even needs to be published. One that ought to be read.

So, what is this book, you’re asking? It wasn’t an idea of my own, but once the project had been suggested to me, it was something I leaped at.

There’s this funny thing that goes on within Doctor Who fandom, you see, this weird level at which it’s acceptable for the fans to hate the thing of which they’re a fan. It’s not just Doctor Who, either, and that was the appeal of the project, the fact that it would be an opportunity to shed some light on a wider malaise, something that’s almost certainly a by-product of the internet age, but to do so using my favourite TV programme as the tool. The book would almost, in some respects, act as an exposé of a certain kind of activity, an activity that’s in some ways almost hidden in plain sight. We all do it (or it seems that way sometimes), we all take to the public forums, the social media, in order to blow off some steam. But what we fail to take into account when we do so, is how that steam might affect other people. I’ve known fans that have left certain forums because their enjoyment of the series was being seriously undermined by the things they were reading about it, the opinions that were being expressed. That’s quite damaging; not to Doctor Who itself, which is in perhaps its rudest health since the glory days of the 1970s, but to the way in which we, the people closest to it, understand and appreciate it.

I don’t have a problem with people expressing opinions, of course. But the way in which they do so and their lack of appreciation for the feelings of others (and occasionally this can also mean the people who work on the show, who are very often also fans and who might very well have a presence on the forums and social media outlets themselves) is something I find hard to reconcile.

So I was asked to keep a diary of fandom and the way it reacted to Doctor Who in the anniversary year, with the idea that it could subsequently be published and maybe, just maybe, enable one or two of the people who post their thoughts without really thinking about it first – and particularly those who do so under the anonymity that comes of using pseudonyms and fictitious avatars – to stop and consider what they’re doing before they press the enter key.

It’s important to point out at this juncture that the people whose quotes I assembled in the book aren’t the problem themselves, so much as they’re a symptom of the problem. They are, to all intents and purposes, the innocents, who are merely acting and behaving in a manner that has become the “norm” in the internet age. I’m quite certain that they have the courage of their convictions and would happily argue their points in the most reasonable manner if asked to do so – but the problem is, they aren’t being asked to do so. Maybe this book would’ve helped with that.

Hell, I wouldn’t even argue with the points they were making, if it wasn’t for the way in which they were making them, oftentimes.

Re: Does anyone not like Day of the Doctor?

“It was a bloody sight better than Time of the Doctor.“

Chico, Gallifrey Base, 10th February 2014

“I preferred Time of the Doctor as a story if I’m honest, but I also really enjoyed Day.

It’s not how I would have done it myself, but I think if I judged any Doctor Who story by those standards then I would be overly-critical of almost everything. I try to enjoy these things for what they are rather than what I wish they were.“

Not the Mind Probe, Gallifrey Base, 10th February 2014

There is a habit, you see, of confusing the subjective point of view with an objective overview. It is becoming increasingly common for fans to assume that because the programme doesn’t always reflect their own tastes, that is a fault on the show’s behalf rather than simply an example of the series doing something different. Doctor Who has always thrived on change, and there will always be bits we like less than others; this doesn’t mean those other bits are any less valid – or any less “good” – than those bits we like the most. These are personal preferences, rather than deficiencies in the current regime’s production.

I was listening to a podcast recently (no, I’m not going to name it), in which one of the guests expounded the theory that fandom will collectively emphasise the negative during any current incarnation of the series, and then – later on, once people have had the distance and the opportunity to reassess what it was that they once had such a problem with – those stories will be re-evaluated and the positives will become much clearer. It happened during Season 17, he said, and then again during the JNT years, with first Colin Baker’s tenure and then Sylvester McCoy’s. It had even happened with the recent Russell T Davies showrunnership, he added. And then, without a trace of irony, he stated quite emphatically that Steven Moffat’s Doctor Who would be an exception to the rule.

In other words, he was convinced of the “fact” that Steven Moffat’s vision of Doctor Who was objectively Bad as opposed to simply being something that he himself didn’t like. There are a surprising number of people who think the same way.

Re: New Doctor Who ‘more like classic series’.

So, by being “more like the classic series”, are they admitting that in terms of tone and direction, the last nine awful, messy years of their reimagining/spin-off-imposter have been just that, a reimagining! Or are they just saying series 8 is going to have the lead actor actually play the character of the Doctor properly, and have some well written stories without any “romance” “comedy” farce?

“I too will believe it when I see it.“

Glitz, The Hive, 5th February 2014

“They mean like Series 24 on a budget like the last 7 years then…“

Rob Filth, The Hive, 8th February 2014

It’s a truism that the loudest complaining comes from the smallest number of people, and that’s pretty much what I found when compiling the book. Throughout my research, it was just the same, small number of people making the most noise. Which is not to say that they might not necessarily have a point, but to compile several hundred pages of text comprised mostly of 10/10 reviews of the latest episodes saying little more than “I enjoyed that” wouldn’t have made for a very interesting read. It was the conversations that ensued that were the most fascinating. It’s surprising how few threads ever get started on internet forums to praise elements of the show; people only tend to start threads if they have something to moan about – and even when people do start threads in praise of something, it usually isn’t long before the ones who dislike what’s being praised start to dominate the conversation. There are only so many ways of saying you like something, but it seems that there’s an infinite variety of ways to pull apart something you don’t. And so Doctor Who forums, just I suspect like any other forums, are replete with threads started by people who have something they want to get off their chest.

The biggest problem with the book (which I shan’t name; let’s just call it “TFO” for now) is that it probably reads as a diatribe against all of Doctor Who fandom – and nothing could be furthest from the case.

For example, there are quite a large number of people I like and whose opinions I have the utmost respect for quoted within it (on both sides of “the fence”), and yet I have no doubt that were the book to see the light of day, almost everyone quoted would be characterised as just as “bad” as one another. In fact, there are huge tracts of the text that present interesting arguments well thought through and expressed in reasoned terms. A lot of the quotes chosen might well represent a point of view that I don’t agree with, but it wasn’t the job I set myself to agree with the arguments presented with. I saw it as my task to try and represent what Fandom en masse were talking about (and you only have to go search out the forums and their threads to see quite how many of these conversations are happening). But unfortunately, I strongly suspect that everybody I’ve quoted would be tarred by a single brush in the minds of many – if not most – readers.

“What’s the betting it doesn’t have a clip of Jenna Coleman having a shit on a khazi?“

The Walrus, Roobarb’s Forum, 17th February 2014

Further than that, a lot of the book is extremely funny – and usually not unintentionally so. Even in cases where the arguments being presented were to my mind spurious, they are very often presented in a deliberately humorous manner, and there’s every chance that because of what the arguments are, and because of the volume of debate, this might be misunderstood. It was never my intention to point the spotlight at people in order that they might be laughed at; rather, what I was attempting to show was that even intelligent, literate, witty people can get caught up in the flow of anonymous “banter” and sometimes go perhaps what some might consider too far in their online repartee (as the above example perhaps demonstrates). I happen to think that “TFO” is an extremely amusing read, and for all the right reasons; it has been written by people who know exactly how funny they want to be, and are intelligent enough to accomplish that. It’s a terrific read, in fact; engrossing, engaging, and entertaining.

But also extremely controversial and quite shocking on occasion, too. Perhaps the trouble is that it’s difficult to gauge which quotes have been included because I found them intelligent and well-argued and witty, and which were included for their sheer bloody-mindedness. I would like to say that it’s for the reader to judge, but in this age of online debate, no doubt how people think about the book prior to reading it would no doubt colour their response to it if they did.

There are also a number of sections which are purely funny because their authors were having a bit of fun, and given the weight of the text that is balanced towards “moaning”, it might not be apparent that the inclusions purely for wit would be easily recognisable as such.

And then there are conversations like this:

Re: Setting Up Characters and Then… Nothing

“How about The Dominators. They controlled 10 Galaxies!!!! Now admittedly after just watching DMP they did have some confusion when it comes to galaxies, universe, solar system etc… But still…. 10 freakin’ Galaxies and only one episode!?!?“

Pantsking, Gallifrey Base, 15th February 2014

“Only one STORY.

One EPISODE is part of a story (in this case, a sixth of the story).“

Bumbles, Gallifrey Base, 16th February 2014

“This again? Where I come from we call stories episodes. I’ve tried to call them “stories” just to appease all of the people that have a problem with it, but sometimes it just slips out.“

Pantsking, Gallifrey Base, 16th February 2014

This is only a short exchange, but highlights something else that might be considered one of the problems of the internet age, that the people posting can become so focussed on the tiniest and apparently most irrelevant parts of a conversation, and ill-will can be bred and magnified and very often soon find itself out of control – and all because one person doesn’t have the facility to self-edit or choose their specific words in the wisest way. When what we post isn’t moderated by an Editor (as it would be in a newspaper or magazine – and the moderators on internet forums only have a certain amount of influence when balancing the right of the individual to free speech against the need to keep tempers even on their forums), then it is entirely down to the individual to say what they mean clearly and without any room for misinterpretation. Let’s be honest, very few people have that capability and yet everyone can make themselves heard on an internet forum. Of course that’s going to be problematic; if anything, this book was going to be a plea to forum posters to try and make the moderators and administrators of these forums’ lives easier. I doubt the administrators or moderators would see it that way, though; no doubt the book would read as an attack on the forums themselves, and that was absolutely not the case and not the spirit in which it was compiled.

“I enjoy debate and I appreciate others’ points of view but I feel that your own and Ewan’s posts came across immediately as aggressive and personal. Some people on here have a passive aggressive way of posting “Some people must think this” appears a lot when directly referencing a post – not naming the person but aimed at them. Your posts dissected mine to a level that was not needed. A simple “I don’t agree because” would suffice.“

SID RAT, Roobarb’s Forum, 18th February 2014

A question raises its head when considering the people who are posting’s lack of a self-editing facility, though, and that is the question of the mental health of the people who are making the comments. This is a very tricky area to get into, and there’s little doubt that the evidence of many forums suggests a certain amount of obsessive-compulsive behaviour among their residents.

Mildly obsessive-compulsive behaviour is hardly unhealthy, though; we all indulge in it and so not only is it quite “normal”, it can also be positively beneficial. There are any number of areas in life, any number of occupations even, when behaving in a moderately obsessive-compulsive manner can be useful and even advantageous. The trouble is, this level of behaviour can appear magnified when expressed on an internet forum, and one potentially huge problem with the book is that it might take what could be considered extremely normal behaviour elsewhere in life, and misrepresent it to the point at which it appears unhealthy and even harmful. This was not the intention, certainly not to focus the thrust of the prose in such a way that this might be the case; nevertheless I must admit that to certain readers, “TFO” will no doubt look like it quite deliberately focuses on such behaviour to a point at which it is made to appear far unhealthier than it really is. This was absolutely not the case, and I was very careful in choosing which posters to quote by reading the rest of their output throughout the year, and focussing most frequently on those I was quite certain were quite capable of both constructing a reasoned argument if they were being asked to do so, and that were most likely to have the conviction of their argument if it was called into question. In other words, the book generally focuses on those who have the most conviction and who are the most capable of qualifying that conviction. The problem, if anything, is that people often aren’t called to qualify their convictions in a reasoned manner, and instead arguments break out that might involve heated debate rather than reasoned discussion.

The biggest problem with “TFO” from my own perspective is that it will inevitably look like an attack on the new series, or even on Doctor Who in general – and of course, nothing could be further from the truth. As a Doctor Who fan of several decades’ standing, and as someone who writes about it and already has two published books on the subject, the last thing I would want to be responsible for would be a book that throws the series itself up in a bad light. Of course, the fact that the contents focus so heavily on attacks on the programme might be read in two ways, firstly as a reaction against the amount of negativity. But conversely there would no doubt be certain quarters that regarded even the mere existence of such a volume as a comment on the series itself.

The fact that it’s a small press publishing company that ultimately wouldn’t be making a terribly great wave especially in the consciousness of the greater public at large wouldn’t affect the reaction against “TFO”, and that would perhaps be the greatest problem with publishing the book in the first place. Among the friends and “foes” whose quotes are contained within the volume, there are any number of posts quoted from people who make up the publishers authorship and its customer base. Personally, I didn’t see it as “fair” to ignore certain voices because they were people that I either knew or else knew had some involvement with the publisher either as writers or buyers. But of course, a small press publisher cannot afford to displease a finite and narrow foundation of writers and customers, and “TFO” might very well be seen as doing just that, even if that really isn’t the case. As I said above, it’s most certainly not the people whose posts are quoted that I see as the problem, rather it’s the culture of posting anonymously and without regard to who might be reading your words that is to blame (if such a word as “blame” is appropriate). Yet if the publisher were to be at the brunt of any backlash on account of the book, that would be not only incredibly undesirable but also extremely unfair – and not only would I not want to be responsible for that, I can also fully accept that from their point of view, publishing such a book – even one that they themselves were quite keen on initially – might be seen as far too big a risk. The intention of the book, the desire to highlight a problem that is far wider than Doctor Who fandom in general or the publisher’s readership specifically, would probably be forgotten as people’s concentration focussed on it as a potential attack on the forums in general and certain individuals in particular.

It’s a book whose intentions would no doubt be misread, and whose conclusions would no doubt be misrepresented. It would be far too big a risk for any small press publishing company to take. And for that reason, I am becoming resigned to the idea that a year’s worth of work and the possibility of making even a small amount of what I would consider positive change, might never see the light of day.

With four months or so having passed since the announcement last October of the recovery of The Enemy of the World and (most of) The Web of Fear, and with Easter on the horizon (with much speculation passing around fandom of another announcement coming then), it seems that the forums have of late been getting pretty close to meltdown. The waiting to see what – if anything – else has been recovered is sending people stir crazy, with Twitter accounts going berserk, new podcasts arriving on an almost weekly basis, and forum threads filling up faster than the low lying fields of Somerset. There are but two questions on people’s minds: what else has Phil Morris found, and when are we going to find out?

There’s a lot of anger among fans pondering those two questions, and a lot of bickering resulting from the conversations. It’s very hard for people to understand why Morris, or the BBC, aren’t just being completely open about what they’re finding and when they’re finding it – assuming that anything else has been found at all, that is. There is also an assumption that Marco Polo, the only completely missing story from the first two years of Doctor Who, ought to have been revealed alongside The Enemy of the World and The Web of Fear, and will therefore almost certainly be next. I can’t vouch for Marco Polo (although like certain other people I would assume it’s the best candidate for having been recovered), although I can offer some possible explanations for both the silence and the delay.

It’s nearly a decade now since Phil Morris first got in touch with the Missing Episodes forum with regards to going to look in person in Africa. Prior to Morris making contact, the hunt for missing black and white Doctor Who had been a relatively low-key ongoing affair, with very few episodes turning up in the last couple of decades, and The Tomb of the Cybermen being the last complete story discovered, way back in the early 1990s. Since then, prior to Project Africa, only four full episodes had been recovered, so the announcement last October of nine newly found episodes comprising the better part of two complete stories was a revelation, something that should have been the cause for unmitigated celebration among Doctor Who fans. That the celebrations have been anything but, and that Phil Morris’ reputation is in any way open to question, is a demonstration of how people’s frustration with Project Africa has been growing ever since talk about the mission went public in the middle of last year.

Project Africa was never intended as a “secret” mission (Paul Vanezis, a man who has been at the heart of the BBC’s missing episodes programme from more or less the beginning, has posted regular if uninformative updates about its progress on his Missing Episodes forum, and so its existence was hardly clandestine), although the actual work being undertaken was of necessity carried out covertly. When you’re attempting to retrieve relatively valuable materials from people who aren’t really supposed to be still in possession of them, the last thing you would want to do is give them cause to either hold them hostage against a fortune you can’t afford to pay, or else imagine that by being in possession of them they might be in trouble and destroy the evidence instead. After all these years, the irony of the latter event would be heartbreaking.

So Phil Morris began his search of Africa and its television archives, and during the initial stages of his hunt was short of success. This is why TIEA (Television International Enterprises Archives) came into being; Morris realised that if you’re asking people for something, they’re far more likely to respond if you can offer them something in return. And so he formed a company that could help television archives in poorer nations upgrade their obsolete materials to formats that would make those old programmes playable once again. Morris founded a facility in the North-West of England to deal with these materials, and would periodically convey entire shipments of old film cans back to his premises to be worked on, before repatriating the materials to their original archives once work was complete.

Of course, if there were any episodes of Doctor Who – or other British archive television – in these consignments, so much the better for us. Thanks to the work Morris had been doing prior to beginning the search, he had a knowledge of the countries and their people that no one else who had ever been interested in finding missing Doctor Who could have had. He became, in fact, Our Best Hope.

And he was successful. We know he was successful, because of the October announcement. Those nine episodes he handed over to the BBC last May 31st added up to more Doctor Who than had been recovered in total in the previous quarter of a century. If Phil Morris finds nothing else, then that is still a sterling achievement.

But of course it belies logic to assume that a search of Africa and even further afield, lasting something like half a decade or more, and comprising the most ubiquitous and exhaustive search for such things that has ever been undertaken, would result in a single find of nine missing episodes comprising, just by coincidence, almost complete versions of two of the most sought-after missing Doctor Who stories, the legendary Web of Fear and Patrick Troughton’s famous double role in The Enemy of the World. Two stories that also happened to be consecutive and that dovetail into one another rather nicely, with a cliffhanger between the tales.

There is presumably a reason for Phil to have adopted “Expect the unexpected!” as a catchphrase, because after twenty years of no significant finds – no other complete stories, that is – it wouldn’t come as a surprise to discover that Morris was sitting on a treasure trove of previously-lost TV episodes. Whether he is or not, we shall have to wait and see.

Why should we have to wait? Now that the first announcement has been made and the story is very much in the public domain, what good will secrecy achieve? In all probability, any need that there might have been for concealment – any likelihood of publicity causing danger in the ongoing search – must be over. The answer to that question is “probably”; it has been speculated and probably entirely accurately that Phil Morris didn’t want to disclose any of his finds until the search was complete – for reasons that we’ll come to shortly – and that the negotiations to see those two stories released in time for the fiftieth anniversary were difficult and protracted. It’s not entirely unlikely that Morris didn’t want those episodes released at that time at all, perhaps because he saw the attendant publicity as possibly being damaging to his ongoing efforts. We will probably never know, but one thing that has become clear is that even once the gaff was blown, even once the nine episodes were in the public domain, there wasn’t going to be any more transparency about the rest of the search and whatever else Phil Morris might have found. It has even been suggested that some of the people that Morris relied upon in the early days of Project Africa, Paul Vanezis among them and perhaps even Steve Roberts of the DVD Restoration Team, have subsequently to the October announcement now been left out in the cold as to any further developments. It might be that Morris has deliberately shut up shop in order to continue and conclude his search with as much privacy as he can now that the spotlight is upon him.

In fact, while he seems happy to talk about the work of TIEA and be seen in public, having appeared at the ExCeL convention in November and granted interviews to both Starburst and the Radio Times, he always draws a very firm line in the sand at the hint of questions delving into TIEA’s deeper secrets, and any thought of discovering from the man himself what else might be lurking in his archive is quickly dismissed.

There’s a very good reason not to want to release any more stories until the search is completed, and The Web of Fear is a brilliant example of why. After nearly five decades, any materials Morris finds are likely to be in a poor state of repair, and it makes sense both financially and logistically to wait until you have assembled all of your assets before starting work on restoring and releasing anything. In fact it’s just common sense. The alternative is that you spend time and money repairing and restoring fragile materials using difficult and time-consuming processes, only for the possibility to exist that you would have to do it all over again should a better copy turn up. Worse still, you might release a story on iTunes or DVD in an incomplete state, perhaps with its third episode missing and represented as a slide show, when at some later date you might have a complete version of that story that you could have released instead. Nobody knows whether Morris is now in possession of The Web of Fear Part Three or not, but if he is, undoubtedly there will be much moaning about the release of the DVD without it. If only we’d waited until the search was over – but then, the idea of The Web of Fear taking a public bow during the anniversary celebrations was, it would appear, too delicious to ignore.

It seems the wait might not be too much longer anyway – although it perhaps won’t be as soon as Easter as some are predicting, and of course we won’t know until the next announcement is made whether we’re going to find out the results of Morris’ search piecemeal or all in one go. But when I spoke to Morris in November, he gave the impression that although TIEA’s work goes on, the part of the project that dealt with searching for missing UK TV was winding down. Indeed, Morris was looking to explore a new avenue in the hunt, targeting private collectors who might have episodes among their personal collections, and who might not have come forward before for one of any number of reasons. Not least of which the idea that prior to Project Africa, the BBC were unwilling to pay for the return of their own material (I’ve heard it suggested that the station in Hong Kong where The Tomb of the Cybermen was discovered had to fork out to have it returned to the BBC themselves); there are certain rules within the BBC Charter that prevent this. Fortunately BBC Worldwide have a more modern approach, and as an almost independent organisation are allowed to spend money in order to speculate against a profit. The time might be ripe for collectors to give up their collections, as Morris’ search might have rendered them rather less than unique anyway – another good reason for Morris not to spill the beans on his findings, lest a collector somewhere should discover that his copy of a particular episode might be the last one in existence and make whole an otherwise incomplete story – and price the episode out of the BBC’s pocket as a result.

There are probably two more compelling and more prosaic reasons why neither the BBC nor Phil Morris have been willing thus far to establish what if any further discoveries have been made. On the one hand, the BBC as an organisation might very well not know. Fans have speculated that the deal between Morris and the BBC might very well involve Morris completing a certain amount of repair and restoration on the episodes before they’re handed over, and with Morris being a practical man, he’s not going to spend time and resources restoring episodes that might yet be superseded by superior copies. So the chances are, he doesn’t have anything ready to give the BBC just yet. And while it would be unusual for him not to have made individuals within the organisation aware of what they might eventually expect, as a body the BBC would not be in possession of any of those materials, and wouldn’t therefore be qualified to make statements promising things that they haven’t yet acquired.

However, all the parties involved in the project are well aware that in order to have made this all worthwhile, then a return on the investment made by Morris and TIEA, and subsequently by the BBC, would be expected – and while they make for very nice headlines and pages and pages of forum posts, the missing episodes business isn’t quite as lucrative as some might imagine. I’ve seen speculation that the BBC and Phil Morris stand to make “millions” out of the discoveries, but the fact is that classic Doctor Who – especially black and white Doctor Who, regardless of whether it was missing until recently or not – doesn’t sell anything like as strongly as we might believe. In spite of the iTunes charts success (charts that are compiled several times a day rather than once a week, remember), it’s rather more likely that the October stories were downloaded by the thousands rather than the tens – and certainly not the hundreds – of thousands. Numbers like that are not going to make anyone a millionaire overnight, especially when actors’ residuals, writers’ royalties, the price of restoring the episodes and the cut that Apple takes are taken into account. Don’t get me wrong, the episodes do well enough to make them worth finding – of course they do – but they aren’t anything like as valuable as we as fans might like to think they are.

And the episodes aren’t going to sell well enough on word of mouth to recoup the costs of finding and restoring them. As fans, we might think of them as our “cultural heritage”, but frankly they make up only around a third of black and white Doctor Who (and significantly less of classic Doctor Who as a whole), and to the general public they’re of considerably less importance than they are to us. The same few hundred people filling up page after page of forum speculation – in some cases the same few dozen people – don’t comprise a market big enough to fund Project Africa and the releases of its results. The release of any recovered episodes is something that needs to be targeted further afield than fan-orientated forums and niche-specific news websites.

So publicity is a massive factor in making the hunt for these episodes worthwhile. While fans might be waiting for another out-of-the-blue midnight announcement, the BBC have already set a precedent for calling a press conference beforehand, embargoing the results of that meeting until the date changes to the one in which the newspapers will be carrying the news. And those involved will have signed non-disclosure agreements in the interim, meaning that people like Phil Morris (and yes, Paul Vanezis and Peter Crocker and the rest) wouldn’t be allowed to talk about what further discoveries have been  made, what subsequent episodes have been worked on and restored, until the embargo is lifted. Those expecting Morris to suddenly change the habit of the first five years of his project and start idly chatting about what stories he might have picked up, those expecting Peter Crocker to reveal that he’s working on Doctor Who in a random tweet, are going to be sorely disappointed.

The upshot is: we’ll find out what the results of the project are once the project is over, and the news won’t come as a surprise announcement when it comes.

And that is actually brilliant, a Really Good Thing. Because without the people who’ve been working on Project Africa doing it their way, without the secrecy and news embargoes and the NDAs, without the search being allowed to continue behind closed doors, and without Phil Morris, we wouldn’t be looking at the possibility of there being any further episode recoveries at all. Certainly not the enticing prospect of further complete stories – and if the rumours are to be believed, almost all of them.

Indeed, if Project Africa hadn’t been conducted in the way it has been, we’d still be looking at a total of 106 episodes still missing from the archives, and the only two discoveries in the last ten years would have been a single episode each of Galaxy Four and The Underwater Menace. We should be grateful to Paul Vanezis and Phil Morris (and Jon Preddle and Damian Shanahan – and many others who have been involved at various degrees, but who have yet to receive the recognition they deserve), rather than questioning their motives and complaining about their methods. Even the “little white lies” that one or two of them have been coerced into telling will prove to be massively insignificant once the project is over and all anyone can see are the recovered episodes themselves.

And we should also be grateful to Ian Levine, who in spite of his recent anxieties about the way Project Africa might have been going, is the man who stopped the destruction of the black and white episodes in the first place, and who in doing so saved any number from destruction and was instrumental in starting the search for those that might still be out there, way back when.

There are only heroes in this. All we need to do is sit back and let the professionals get on with their jobs, and the rewards will be ours. We know that those people know what they’re doing; we’ve seen the results for ourselves. We can be assured that they have our best interests at heart (they really do, you know) and we can be guaranteed that if anything else has been found, then we’ll get to see it in the fullness of time. All we need do is be patient. And let the magicians do their conjuring in the best way they know how.

Debuting in the US back in early 2013, the UK release of The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia is finally here. Starring Chad Michael Murray, Abigail Spencer, Katee Sackhoff and Emily Alyn Lind, the movie has a similar theme to 2009’s The Haunting in Connecticut but tells a completely unrelated story. Starburst got the chance to catch up with Murray to talk Ghosts of Georgia, horror movies and real-life spooky goings-on…

Starburst: What attracted you to The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia?

Chad Michael Murray: I just thought it was a great opportunity to play a southern security guard and play a father for the first time; I really embraced the opportunity to play a blue-collar worker. I really liked that.

For those who are only familiar with the first Haunting in Connecticut movie – this one isn’t directly tied to it – how would you describe the sequel?

Basically there were three documentaries; Haunting in Connecticut, Haunting in New York, Haunting in Georgia. They took Haunting in Connecticut and adapted it to a feature film, and the movie was incredibly successful – I think they made something like $100 million. Great film! Now all of the stories are aside from each other but all part of this series. The most popular of the three documentaries was A Haunting in Georgia, which is the film that we shot. They don’t link to each other; they’re just two tales of people who have had supernatural occurrences in their lives and documented it.

Most people would be familiar with you as a heartthrob, but in this you play a father. Emily Alyn Lind, who plays Heidi in this movie, was brilliant, and your character has an obvious strong bond with her character. How was she to work with?

Well I tell you something, they made it really easy on me. Little Emily was actually the first baby I’d ever held. Back when I was on One Tree Hill Season 1, Barbara Alyn Woods had a baby, and I remember I was sitting in a hair and makeup chair and it was the first time that I ever held a child – and it was little Emily. Her mother played Nathan’s step-mother in One Tree Hill, so, sure enough, there we are, 8 years later, and she’s this little, unbelievably talented actress and now she’s playing my daughter. It was one of those unbelievable opportunities in life where I just felt very at home because I already knew Emily; I’d seen her grow up, so it wasn’t too far-fetched to say go ahead… have a caring nature towards her.

How is it for you now transitioning from the heartthrob role to more mature roles?

Y’know, I think that’s what we work for. This last year I played everything from a racist redneck with a speech impediment to a homeless heroin addict, and I’ve finished the show Chosen, which is incredible. There’s some really meaty roles and the opportunity to just really let go, to really frighten yourself with the material. The hardest part is taking your work home with you, where you get home and you’re still kind of in that headspace. But I’m really, really enjoying branching out into a variety of things. It’s more fulfilling for me than just doing the everyday go to work, check-in and be the “heartthrob.” These are opportunities to really learn and work and really just put everything you have into it.

Honestly, we’ve never really seen that much One Tree Hill, so films like this put you out there for a whole new audience.

Yeah, I think that’s what it’s about. It’s about putting your stamp of approval on different types of stories. There’s stories and scripts that I read and I go “you know what, I could watch this.” That’s really what it’s about, and, for me, I just really like the opportunity to see what else there is; seeing what you’re capable of and testing yourself. I’m sure there’s going to be times when I fall down flat on my face, but there’s going to be other times where the work speaks for itself; it’s beautiful, it’s seamless because you connect so much with the character. It’s just a really fulfilling thing to have the opportunity to be diverse in choices.

You appeared in House of Wax back in 2005 and now in Ghosts of Georgia. Is the horror genre something you’d like to work in more in the future?

I figure it’s gotta start with the script. But if there’s something really, really rad with a great script with different sci-fi elements to it, a thriller element to it, I’d absolutely be… it’s funny, you guys should check out the show Chosen; it’d be right up your ally. It’s a really, really dark thriller with a lot of blood, a lot of action, a lot of fantastic things. Excuse my language when I say this, but it’s pretty fucked-up. It takes a lot out of you but at the same time… I tell you, when you watch it, it’s so much validation because the story and the script and the human elements that come all together. If they give you human elements and the more supernatural, horror genre… you’ve got a winner. You’ll dig it; it’s something that’s fun. It’s one hell of a joyride.

Sold! So with the horror genre, were you a fan of those types of films as a kid?

I was. I was a Halloween-obsessed fan. I love the first Michael Myers tale with Jamie Lee Curtis. It was beautiful. I remember there was a time in the 2000s when the Saw films came out. I would watch them all, see how they would piece together all of these stories that were going on at the same time. I thought that was inventive. I like that genre. Now, I do stay away from psychological horrors – they freak me out! I just can’t get my head around… the poltergeists, the exorcisms… I’ll leave them for someone else’s pleasure.

Well Poltergeist is essentially a Disney movie…

Absolutely! I can’t wait to put the kids down and let them watch it .

Aside from Chosen, what’s up next for you?

I have a premiere soon for a movie I did called Cavemen that is a rom-com with Camilla Belle, Skylar Astin and Kenny Wormald. That’ll be fun. Then I get Left Behind with Nic Cage, and that’ll be out mid-June is what I’m hearing. It’s been a busy year, man; it’s been fun! I’m waiting for word on this movie called Other People’s Children, where I play a homeless heroin addict. I lost 25 lbs for the role… still haven’t put that weight back on.

Ghosts of Georgia is a fairly freaky film. Yourself, have you had any particular real-life spooky incidents that you can recall?

Oh, man, yeah. I’ve had a few. I’m pretty much a rationalist, so I’m always trying to figure out “ok, why did that happen?” There’s gotta be a reason, right? This one time, I was in North Carolina, and I had a buddy staying with me. It was the middle of the night and I hear something above my bedroom, running around… it sounded like a kid running around, jumping up and down. So I went upstairs, thinking “ok, my buddy’s fucking with me.” But he’s in bed; he’s sleeping. I kinda froze and said, “Hey, I think someone’s in the house.” So we both got up, and there was no one in there. It was kind of a large house… and he said “what are you hearing?” And this was the one room in the house that was kinda freaky; it was always cold in that room, I never put furniture in, I never painted it. It was the one room that I just didn’t pay attention to. Anyway, we went back downstairs and he said “tell me what you heard?” And boom, we hear it again. So we run upstairs, we take the dog up there, we’re searching every closet, every cabin, everything in the entire house… and couldn’t find anything. We literally just tried to rationalise where this is coming from… could it be pipes, could it be air-conditioning… what the hell is it? We went back downstairs again and just stood there waiting… and all of a sudden we hear drawers opening and slamming from that room. He just looks at me, says “is that it?” I said “yeah.” We hear running around, jumping up and down, slamming down, then it stops for a second. What is that? Then we heard this ungodly moan… we had no idea where it came from. His skin, my buddy, who doesn’t believe at all in ghosts, period, his skin turned white and he said that I’d gotta move. He spent the night on the couch, downstairs. I just remember I called my buddy and asked if he knows anybody; what am I supposed to do? I’m pretty sure my house is haunted, who am I gonna call? He goes “Ghostbusters?” And that was it. Couldn’t figure it out. We actually had my buddy come over the next day to try to recreate the sound, and he did it! He recreated the sound by banging the drawers and jumping around upstairs. That was the sound but we never found out where it came from. It was bizarre, it was out of this world, and I didn’t know what to make of it. Up until that point in my life, I’d never experienced anything so I was, not a non-believer, but I just wasn’t thinking about it. That changed everything.

THE HAUNTING IN CONNECTICUT 2: GHOSTS OF GEORGIA is released on DVD and Blu-ray March 3rd.

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One of the 2014 films generating some hype and buzz among fans is THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2, which will be hitting the cinema in April in the UK. Like its predecessor, the film was directed by Marc Webb and will star Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone as Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy, respectively, alongside prominent newcomers to the franchise Jamie Foxx, Dane DeHaan, and Paul Giamatti.

As we touched on in a previous post on the future of the Gwen Stacy character, THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 is primed to take the franchise to new heights. It seems we’re in for, at the very least, four more Spider-Man films. But given the considerable popularity of the web-slinger even beyond film, we’re also curious about another aspect of the franchise: will gaming developers be adapting the fresh film material into more Spider-Man games?

The short answer is yes. There is already a 2014 game announced for the next-gen consoles. But looking past this year, do Spider-Man gaming fans have even more excitement to look forward to in the coming years? Let’s hope so.

Looking back to the rebirth of the Spider-Man comics in popular film with 2002’s Sam Raimi-directed SPIDER-MAN, the character and comic book themes have been some of the most successful in video game adaptations. There have been a number of excellent games released in the past decade on everything from Nintendo and Xbox consoles to online casino sites. To recap, here are some of our favourite Spider-Man themed games from the past decade or so:

Ultimate Spider-Man (2005)

This game is a popular favourite that was released for Gamecube, PS2, and Xbox, along with some handheld consoles. The game was popular largely because it was artistically designed to imitate a comic book style, rather than simply touched up with the most capable graphics of the time. Mark Bagley was the man behind the beloved artistic approach.

Spider-Man: Web Of Shadows (2008)

Noted by the website Comic Book Movie as the best Spider-Man game of all time, “Web Of Shadows” was released in 2008 for Wii, PS3, and Xbox 360, and is considered one of the most complete Spidey games to date. The game allows players to choose between good and evil paths for Spider-Man (in a red and black suit, respectively), and incorporates other Marvel characters along the way.

Spider-Man Jackpot (2014)

For those who are less interested in console games, this casino jackpot is actually a blast. The Spider-Man jackpot is featured at the Betfair Casino, and it puts an intriguing twist on a basic gambling jackpot by employing a Spider-Man vs. Green Goblin theme. At the end of the day it’s less of a pure “video game” and more of a casino experience. But again, for those looking for Spider-Man games in unique forums, it’s a great deal of fun.

The Amazing Spider-Man

Developed by Activision and released as an accompanying game to the 2012 film, this game is the perfect selection for those who are excited for the film coming this summer. Essentially, the storyline players engage in while playing this game is designed to follow THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN and precede THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2, so who knows? Perhaps it even offers some glimpses of what we’ll see in the next film! Reviews were generally positive, and while it’s not the boldest or most complex game, it’s a blast to play, and a direct prequel to the upcoming next-gen game.

These are only a few selections out of many more Spider-Man games that have come out over the years, particularly since the 2002 film helped to launch the Marvel revival in film. And there’s hope among fans that The Amazing Spider-Man 2 will be the best game yet! But with what sounds like several new films headed our way, it looks as if even the distant future is bright for Spider-Man gaming fans.

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 is released globally on 2nd May, although us lucky UK folks get the film on 18th April. Excelsior!

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With the Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg-starring 2 Guns now available on DVD and Blu-ray, Starburst got the chance to spend the best part of an hour talking to comic book royalty, Steve Grant. Grant is the man responsible for the original comic book 2 Guns series, not to mention having worked with some of the all-time great comic book characters like Spider-Man, Hulk and The Punisher, as well as creating several successful characters and stories of his own.

Starburst: When you first wrote 2 Guns, did you ever envisage it working as a movie?

Steve Grant: I kind of tend to view the stories as stories, so I was writing for comics obviously, but I don’t specifically try and write comics as comics. It’s not like someone’s wanting you to write for some specific comic. When I’m writing for myself, I try to just write good stories.

With the movie adaptation of 2 Guns, how hands on were you? Did you assist with the screenplay at all?

No, not really. I got asked questions once in a while. It really doesn’t work that way, and I’m kinda glad that it didn’t. I got paid just fine without having to do much for it. And I also kind of hate writing the same story twice. Basically, everything I had to say about the story was in the story. If they didn’t get it from what I wrote, they probably did it wrong. So I wasn’t really that concerned about it. Also, Ross Richie, who is a good friend of mine, was in there constantly. He was one of the executive producers, so he was there looking over things. He was looking out for my interests, and I pretty much trusted him to look out for my interests.

In terms of the story, what was the inspiration behind that?

It was just something, for some reason… I was researching undercover cops. It just kind of occurred to me that these guys could all be… you could have an entire gang of undercover cops that don’t know the other guys are undercover cops. Secrecy is your greatest friend when you’re undercover; you don’t go round telling people you’re undercover. The CIA will not call the FBI to tell them that they have someone undercover. Maybe they should do, but they don’t. It’s very dangerous work, and it just struck me as a certain situation… I actually started out with a whole gang that were undercover, but that was completely unworkable. We needed to tone it down to just two guys, and that became more workable. It just stuck with me as something that I’d always wanted to write. I couldn’t sell it anywhere, so I finally just wrote it for myself.

As for the movie, are you happy with that?

Yeah, it’s great. I love the movie. Obviously there’s a lot of it that is different to the book, which is fine. I had a background in film – I was a film major – and studied film a lot. If it weren’t for the hassle of working in film, I’d probably be working in film. I’m familiar with… I think it would be a bad idea to take any comic and just do a cookie-cutter version, a copy of it for film. That’s something that a lot of people who read comics don’t really get. It’s two different mediums and there’s a lot of different considerations. If you can take advantage of the things that you can do in a movie, there’s no reason not to. In terms of the major plot points and the spirit of the book, they got that filmed perfectly. It’s completely my sensibilities on the screen. They managed to capture things really well. It was my favourite film of the year, and I’m pretty sure it would’ve been whether I had anything to do with it or not. When I was watching the film, I was just spotting my fingerprints all over it. So I have no problem with the film whatsoever – it’s great!

Whenever you adapt something for a new medium, there is always likely to be changes. Were you disappointed that certain things didn’t make it to the big screen?

I think they have everything in it that I’d want to see out of the story. They didn’t miss any major points… they added some nice stuff. Early on in the film, there’s a bit more background to the characters that I really liked. I think they cut that down really well; they didn’t go overboard on it. A lot of things that I did in the story were consciously done in the knowledge that they weren’t things that you were supposed to do. Like I left out backstories for the characters. You really didn’t need to know what they ate for breakfast when they were 12. A lot of stories really go hard on that, but I wanted to focus on the story that was going on… and I think that they caught that very well. They didn’t load it down with lots of character backstory or motivation, anything like that.

It’s a very fast-paced, sleek, smooth adaptation, massively helped by the chemistry between Mark Wahlberg and Denzel Washington.

That was great! That was stuff I never could’ve pulled off in the comic books. That’s entirely based on personality. That’s the huge difference between comics and movies. There was an interview with Bill Kane that he did years and years ago, where he said that if you see a fight scene on film, there’s a certain veracity to it simply by the fact that you have two guys punching each other. Whether it’s good or bad, there’s a certain reality to it that you don’t get when you have lines on paper moving towards each other. The thing is, you simply can’t capture a personality just in words. Even with the pictures, there are limitations. So you take that, you translate it to screen and you get a whole different dimension to things. That was the thing that really made the film. I’d love to say my story was responsible for what made that film, but what really made it was the interaction between those two guys.

To move away from 2 Guns, you’ve worked for the likes of DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, and IDW. What style do you prefer?

I mean they all have their plusses and their minuses. Working for BOOM! is kind of the best of both worlds. Working for Marvel and DC, you get a lot of attention and you have to start working within their framework. I always get asked whether there are any Marvel and DC characters that I never got to write but that I’d like to write. I’m always like, “No, I want to write my stuff.” You can’t do that at Marvel and DC. For little companies, a lot of them try to behave like Marvel and DC, which kind of makes it pointless for you to do anything for them. The only virtue of working for small companies is that you’re doing things that you want to do, which hopefully is your own stuff. I think a lot of people should start to do their own thing, but it’s a hard thing to do. Most publishers are very resistant to that. But any way you do it is a good way to do it. It’s like people asking how do you write a comic strip. It doesn’t matter how you write it, it’s what it looks like at the end. Any way that you can do it is a good way. There’s no good or bad way to do it. The results are the only thing that matters, really. I’m in a situation where they’re basically paying me to create whenever I want, so that works out nicely. I’m not sure how many people could get that opportunity in comics. But I got it, and I’m taking advantage of it.

One of your most famous works was your mid-’80s work with The Punisher. Was working with that character something that you wanted to do?

Oh yeah. Actually, the first time I was ever at Marvel… I’d gone to a convention in 1976, sleeping on the couch, travelling very light, sleeping on the couch of a guy that was working in production for Marvel… and he insisted that I should pitch stories to Marvel. I hadn’t really thought about doing that, but I took a day and worked on a typewriter. One of them was the Punisher story, which was done 10 years later. I’d been pitching it for 10 years but they weren’t remotely interested in it. The only reason that they got interested in it was that Mike Zeck came aboard, and he was hot coming off the Secret Wars. So yeah, that was something that I had always wanted to do, as it was an angle that… First of all, that was a character that they weren’t interested in. I wanted to create an angle and make a name for myself.

What was your initial plan of attack with The Punisher, and what did you hope to achieve with that character?

Well first of all, he wasn’t a superhero. I liked the idea that… he’s a very curious character. He is shallow when he wants to be; he’s not a very deep character. But I liked the idea of doing it. I viewed him, and still view him, as being emotionally dead. That’s the problem everyone has always had. When you write a character, you’re supposed to examine their inner life. Well Punisher has no inner life. This is a character who functionally has no inner life. He has no emotional depth because he has no emotions. It’s like he’s burned out. So that was something that attracted me. I was more interested in crime fiction, he was a crime character, and he was just a good vehicle to say things that I was interested in saying that were more difficult to say in any superhero comics. The story that I wrote for Spider-Man in the ’90s… they wanted a Punisher/Spider-Man team-up. I said they could be in the same story but I’m not going to have them team up. There’s a point where The Punisher has momentarily trapped Spider-Man in a closed-up police van in an old police station, and Spider-Man’s on the other side, imprisoned in a cell. They have the one discussion that they have in the entire story, and Spider-Man is going through his usual ‘thou shalt not kill’ riff, and The Punisher just looks at him and says, “Well that’s good if you can bend steal in your hands, but what do the rest of us do?” And that was always what appealed to me about The Punisher. This is a guy that’s out there just trying to get the job done. And he’s very working class – I always viewed him as working class. Clinically, he’s a psychopath; he has no emotion. People think psychopaths are screaming lunatics, but that’s a psychotic not a psychopath. But he has no emotional connection. So that fascinated me. We had a character that I could write as a clinical psychopath.

With the likes of the Hulk, Spider-Man, the Avengers, these characters with these huge histories, how was that, as a writer, to contend with?

Well, I mean, you have things that you have to keep in mind but you don’t have to refer to them. I mean, you shouldn’t contradict them. I tend to find continuity… it’s easy enough to work with, in general. The problem is, for most of the characters, it’s been so twisted and mutilated and blown out of proportion and internally contradicted, etc, etc. So at a certain point, you just have to kind of ignore them. The best way to approach it is to ignore anything that you didn’t want to deal with, but then you have an entire fanbase who lives for that stuff. There’s a certain point… once you’ve contradicted a character enough, you simply have to ignore the contradictions. You have characters that have their own books, then the books get cancelled, then they become secondary characters where people are coming up with any stories where God knows what can happen to them. Then they revive… characters come back… and you start with a whole new continuity. It’s too bad that when they do things like the New 52 they don’t just start completely from scratch. I know why they don’t, because their fanbase doesn’t want them to. But they keep creating these opportunities for themselves but never take it. I like to refer to it as the New-ish 52. You have the fanbase that are like, “You mean that all of those old Batman stories never took place?” Well they never really took place in the first place.

On the flip side, how is it to see somebody take a character you’ve worked on and change things that you’ve done?

If you’re talking Marvel or DC, it’s not my character. It’s their character, and they can do whatever they want. I don’t read other people’s Punisher stories. That’s not to say that I think they’re particularly bad, more there’s no reason for me to bother. I’m not passing judgement on the stories; I’m just not interested. This used to drive me nuts, when you’d get guys who create work-for-hire books for Marvel or DC and then they leave and someone else takes over, but then they do interviews saying look what they’ve done to my character. It was never your character! Once you sign that paper… it’s okay to feel close to it while you’re writing it, but once you sign that piece of paper to say that the company owns the character… it’s not your character! You have no right to complain about what anybody does to it. With the books that I’m doing, I wrote a book called Whistler for a while… I had a clause in there saying nobody else can write this book. At first they were very grumpy about the clause. Eventually we negotiated a deal where the character can be used elsewhere but not for more than 5 panels, which is completely unworkable for them, or they can use her in other books but I have to be given first refusal on writing it. It was in my contract that nobody else could ever write that character or that she could guest star in any other books. I wanted a specific world for her, not crossing over… it just wouldn’t work.

With characters and stories like Whistler, Edge, and Enemy, do you find more enjoyment working with your own creations?

There are things that I’m perfectly willing to create and turn over to other people, but there’s other things that no one else is… no one else is ever going to write a 2 Guns-based story. I’m simply not going to allow it. If anything would have ever happened with Edge and it expanded… there’s limits as to how much I would want to be involved in it. I had a very specific story that I wanted to tell. Once that story was done, it’s like what’s the point? Like I say, I tend to think in terms of stories rather than a world. Whether it’s specifically for comics or not… because I tend to think visually anyway, so it’s not like I really have to worry too much about what medium it will go into. Besides, these days it can go into any medium. If you can make a Hulk movie, you can make anything. I mean, they were biting off more than they could chew, but that doesn’t…

It’s a hard one to juggle with The Hulk…

The problem is, the Hulk is just a boring character. This is what made me laugh with The Avengers, that everyone saw it and thought they’d figured out how to do the Hulk. Yeah, the way to do the Hulk is to have him as a character among a group of other characters. Don’t make him a solo character. You give him a situation he can interact with well, and you’ve got a good character. That doesn’t necessarily mean that he can hold up solo movies.

With The Avengers, he has limited screen time and short bursts.

And also in his own movies, he’s a tragic figure. In The Avengers, he’s comedy relief. I mean, he works for comedy. It’s not like slapstick comedy and he’s not the butt of the joke, but he’s a comic character throughout the whole Avengers… which is the way to play him.

Currently we’re working on a RoboCop issue of the magazine for the New Year. You were involved with adapting Frank Miller’s RoboCop 2 script to a comic book. How hard was that?

Well it wasn’t very hard. They gave me all the room I wanted. Bill Christiansen at Avatar said, “You know Frank, right?” I said, “I know Frank, yeah.” “Do you wanna adapt his screenplay?” I said, “Well…” Actually I’d already adapted RoboCop 3 for Dark Horse. Adapting films for comics is a pain in the ass, as they never give you any room. To get the essence of the film across, you generally need a lot more room then they’re willing to give you. Film has a lot more action and dialogue than comics. Comics are very short, and films aren’t. You can just, y’know, have as much as you want visually… so you’ve got the scope in films that you don’t have in comics. I mean physical space. And you take a, well it’s like a… if I can use an example, I’ve also done wrestling comics. Everyone wants wrestling. When they discuss it, they want wrestling. To actually have wrestling in comics, without the movement you lose it completely. Do you know what a Frankensteiner is?

As a bit of a wrestling geek, I do indeed…

A Frankensteiner… you take a guy, you grab a guy by the arm, you throw him into the ropes, his back collides with the ropes, the ropes bounce him back to you. In the meantime, you do a handstand with your back towards him… catch him around the neck with your legs in a scissor grip… then do a forward split, bringing him over you, so that by the time it’s done you’re sitting on his chest and he’s got his back flat on the ground. This takes about 1 ½ seconds on television. The first time I ever saw a Frankensteiner, I was, like, “Holy shit! What was that?!” You see it and it’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever saw, and it’s happened so quickly and looks so effective that you just think, “Holy crap! What was that?!” You do it on television, it takes 1 ½ seconds. You do it on a comics page, it takes about 2 ½ pages.

We didn’t realise you were actually involved in any of the wrestling comics. Did they happen to be the World Championship Wrestling comics of the early ’90s?

No, this was the Stone Cold Steve Austin and Mankind and Chyna and The Rock… Chaos! Comics. I purposely didn’t do wrestling in those, and I was surprised that I was doing them. I’d actually been… over the years I’d had several discussions about doing wrestling comics. Everyone thinks superheroes are colourful characters, wrestlers are colourful characters – this could be like superheroes! No, not really. I always use the Frankensteiner example, that you can’t do… but then they always go, “Yeah, I see what you mean, but there’s gotta be some way to do it.” And they keep trying it with me. There’s a new WWE comic out that Mick Foley’s involved with…

Are they trying to get you on board with that then?

No, no, no. I just discussed it with Mick Foley for a couple of minutes in Chicago.

From what we understand, you’ve been working on a 2 Guns sequel…

Yeah, I’m actually just finishing up the last part of it… the big final fight scene.

Can you reveal anything of what we might get to see?

It’s a little more complicated. They haven’t seen each other since the event of 2 Guns. They’ve both kind of been ‘on the lamb.’ Keeping their heads down. They’re both, without knowing it, they’re both itching to get back in the game. They’ve been out of action since that night, and they both end up on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington on opposite sides of international gun-running. Without realising that they’ve been… this situation is being manipulated, to some extent, by a third undercover cop who knows the both of them have criminal pasts but doesn’t know they’re undercover cops. The difference between 2 Guns and 3 Guns, for Bobby and Marcus, is that in 2 Guns neither of them knew the other one was an undercover cop. In 3 Guns, both of them know that neither of them can be an undercover cop at this point, so the level of trust is even lower. They both seem to be involved in criminal activities, but they both suspect the other one is going native because they can’t be working as an undercover cop. It gets… hilarity ensues. In a perfect world, there will be two more series.

When will 3 Guns be brought to a close?

Actually, it’s coming out already. I think issue 5’s coming out next month in the States. There’s only six issues, and I’m just finishing up the sixth issue.

And then what’s next on your slate?

Well I’m doing a similarly-themed, but not similar, book for BOOM! called Deceivers, which actually takes place in Europe involving Americans who have gone there to recreate themselves. There’s a line in the book that it’s funny how Europeans came to America to recreate themselves but now Americans have to go to Europe to recreate themselves. It involves a guy who is a frontman for a mysterious billionaire. It’s kind of a throwback, in some ways, to old British TV shows, like The Avengers and The Professionals… where you have guys, the characters were more footloose and lighter. It’s my way of trying to do a light-hearted hero. It’s a dark story… it’s a darker story, but it’s a lighter hero. I don’t want to write tormented characters all the time. It’s one guy who is a frontman for a billionaire, who inter-mingles with European society and basically lives off the back of… he goes to parties, travels on private planes… basically lives for nothing by being a popular guy… and it’s all a con. He’s not a con-man, but then there’s another guy who is a con-man and they end up becoming involved in… So, anyway, it’s called Deceivers and it’s my fun comic; it’s my idea of a light-hearted comic. I think that’s coming out in January.

To wrap things up, with the stuff you’ve done – the stuff with Whistler, The Punisher, 2 Guns – what was your favourite work?

You’re kind of asking a dad to choose between his kids. My favourite, I think, will always be Badlands. It’s a crime story set in 1963 involving the man who really shot John Kennedy. But when I say favourite, other things are incrementally lower… there’s a book that BOOM! created called Damned. It’s a very straightforward crime story that I did with Mike Zeck in the late ’90s, and it was extremely simple and it doesn’t really have a twist. The hook is simply a guy gets out of prison and goes to fulfil a promise that he made to a cellmate… and then finds himself in a world of trouble because of it. It’s a very straightforward pulp story. I really liked that. 2 Guns, of course. Badlands would have to be the favourite but the other ones are only incrementally behind. There’s things that I like and that I dislike about anything that I’ve done. I think if I had to pull one thing off the shelf and shove it in front of someone, it’d be Badlands.

2 GUNS is available now on DVD and Blu-ray, and be sure to keep an eye out for Grant’s sequel series, 3 GUNS.

In 1983’s The King of Comedy, Martin Scorsese contemplated celebrity in America, the pursuit of fame and the adulation of media personalities. In the modern age, the adulation of celebrity is intertwined with “Reality television.” Pre- and post- The King of Comedy, the sci-fi, fantasy and horror genres have featured reality television, and the concept of violent games in a series of films that began in the realm of dystopian sci-fi, and eventually merged with the horror genre; before the first instalment of The Hunger Games brought us full circle.

The television and cinema screen have become the new arena or Coliseum for modern society’s blood sports. No crowd better exemplifies this than the vocal FrightFesters, who gather each year to explore “The dark heart of cinema”, laughing and applauding a multitude of acts of violence committed by villains and heroes alike.

The discussion of reality TV and games of violence inevitably are a reflection of the dark heart of our own society. Meanwhile, Rollerball’s Jonathan E, Death Race 2000’s Frankenstein and Machine Gun Joe, The Running Man’s Ben Richards, and the combatants of the Battle Royale, Series 7: The Contenders and those of the 74th Hunger Games are our modern gladiators.

So without further ado, “Let the Games Begin!”

From Rollerball to the Hunger Games

Rollerball and Death Race 2000, both released in 1975, and The Running Man, released over a decade later in 1986, are films set in a future dystopian America. Whilst Death Race 2000’s future is now in our rear view mirror, The Running Man’s 2017 setting and Rollerball’s 2018 are just a year apart; less than four years into our future. These depictions of a future America, from Rollerball’s corporate global control, to The Running Man’s totalitarian police state, offer a cynical view of how society will evolve, in which the games of Rollerball, the Transcontinental Road Race, and The Running Man Game Show are used to placate the population through violent entertainment.

Whilst comparisons were drawn to Battle Royale in the build up to the theatrical release of The Hunger Games, it’s also worth comparing to Rollerball and Death Race 2000. It’s set in the future – the exact year unconfirmed – and follows Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss Everdeen and her fellow participants as they’re coerced into competing, just like Schwarzenegger’s Running Man.

Despite this coercion, The Hunger Games’ closest connection is with Norman Jewison’s Rollerball, and whilst comparing The Hunger Games and Battle Royale may be pertinent in regards to the format of the games, and the victimisation of the youth, the larger than life characters of Jonathan E and Katniss Everdeen, both of whom were never intended to defiantly rise above the game and assert the value of the individual, have similar story arcs.

Despite the fact that this early group of films looked to the future, this trend was halted at the beginning of the new millennium when Battle Royale (2000) and Series 7: The Contenders (2001) chose to retain focus on the present day. Battle Royale would, however, create an alternative timeline to lead into its present day, whilst Series 7: The Contenders used the ascending form of reality TV to offer an exaggerated view of contemporary society, both the media and the audience alike as producers and consumers.

In the same vein as Series 7: The Contenders, there were another set of films interested in exploring the reality TV aesthetic. In 2002’s Halloween: Resurrection, Michael Myers found himself the star of a reality show, in which six young horror protagonists agree to spend the night in the old Myers house to uncover the real Michael Myers.

Despite the Rollerball remake in 2002 and the Battle Royale sequel in 2003, from 2002 through 2008, cinema’s takes on reality TV shifted from sci-fi and fantasy to horror, more specifically the ‘Slasher’ sub-genre, through Halloween: Resurrection, My Little Eye, Cruel World and Killer Movie. The aesthetic of these films, in hindsight, could be viewed as offshoots of both the found footage subgenre, and point of view horror. British horror My Little Eye (2002) remains the one point of view horror, and whilst British thriller Exam (2009) featured a manipulative game-like structure which Mark Kermode dubbed “The Apprentice goes to hell”, the premise being “one room, one job, eight candidates and eighty minutes on the clock”, it would not be until 2012 that The Hunger Games would bring the concept of reality TV in sci-fi, fantasy and horror full circle. At this point it would return it from its spiralling descent into horror to the realms of fantasy and sci-fi, which had begun a decade earlier with the resurrection of the man in a William Shatner mask, walking to the beat of his own drum, or rather to one of horror cinema’s most chilling movie themes.

A Reflection of a Dark Heart

Born out of the image and sound of Rollerball was the confrontation of the individual versus the collective. Jonathan E stands as a figurehead of the individual in the wake of his defiance, echoed by the repeated sound of his name being chanted, and the sound of Dmitri Shostakovich’s fifth and eighth symphonies on the film’s soundtrack.

Rollerball opens on the build-up to Houston versus Madrid, the adulation of the fans mixed with the ominous men in suits that, along with the use of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, infuses the opening with a sense of unease. The masterstroke, however, is perhaps the aforementioned incorporation of Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich.

In 1936, I.M. Rezin, the director of The Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra, under pressure from Communist Party officials, persuaded Shostakovich to cancel the premiere of his fourth symphony. The struggles of Jonathan E, under pressure to retire from the Energy Corporation, in light of Shostakovich’s own struggles under a totalitarian regime, defines his music as an appropriate sound to characterise Jonathan E’s cinematic journey of defiance. Shostakovich himself worked in the shadow of fear for the majority of his life, yet somehow he miraculously preserved his artistic identity and integrity to become one of the twentieth century’s great composers, and he would proclaim this in his tenth symphony. It is a journey of defiance that he shares with what for most of us would be considered an unlikely character, a star of the fictional sport Rollerball, played in a dystopian world to undermine aspirations of the individual to transcend their standing.

Throughout Rollerball, Death Race 2000, The Running Man, Battle Royale and Series 7: The Contenders, the forces of control, the corporations, the totalitarian police state, or government, are agents of oppression. Within these narratives, there is a distrust and demonisation of authority. Whilst Kinji Fukasaku, director of Battle Royale, cites his experiences of being forced to work alongside his classmates in a World War Two munitions factory as the reason for his interest in directing the film, the near past is perhaps just as pertinent as the distant past.

The fear of children by the alternative government in an alternative present could be viewed as a reflection of the Chinese policy of one child per couple, and therein the control of government in determining the fates of the population, and the depriving of citizens of their free choice or will. Battle Royale could equally be viewed as a darker reflection on the solution of overpopulation, and from this point one is quickly led to consider the xenophobia of “the other” that has marred our civilisation’s history. Further still, it could be perceived as a contemplation of the conflict between generations, and a pro-active reversal of the natural order, in which the older generations ensure that they subvert their replacement by the next generation through the Battle Royale tournament.

Similarly to these aforementioned links to as far back as the Second World War, The Hunger Games could be viewed as a reflection of the treaty of Versailles that followed World War One, and the harsh punishment dealt to Germany is perhaps mirrored in the harsh treatment of the surrounding nations of the Capitol. Whilst in our reality Versailles led to the events of the Second World War, a resurrection and change through one individual, Collins’ story looks to the future with greater optimism through her heroine Katniss Everdeen. Or maybe it is that Collins has unlocked the key and alongside The Hunger Games, Rollerball, The Running Man, Death Race 2000 are re-imaginings of the Greek myth of Theseus, and through the hardships confronted by the hero or heroine, change is either instigated or the potential for change is present.

The films which sit outside of the reality TV horror cycle prove to offer greater discourse. Meanwhile the reality-horror films, through a failing to create a suspenseful atmosphere, function as pedestrian ‘Slashers’ that exploit an alternative aesthetic, or as in Killer Movie incorporate documentary filmmaking into the narrative. Like the sports in the dystopian sci-fi, the reality genre becomes a stage for the “slice and dice” antics, an underwhelming exploitation of reality TV in horror.

In his review of Series 7: The Contenders, Roger Ebert observed, “It’s not the idea that people will kill each other for entertainment that makes Series 7 jolting. What the movie correctly perceives is that somewhere along the line we’ve lost all sense of shame in our society.”

One cannot help but consider how on some level Ebert’s observation ties into some of the films discussed, and how the lack of shame in violence and death motivated by either greed, corrupt self-preservation, or moral apathy provides them, regardless of their entertainment value, with a certain edge.

THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE is in cinemas from November 21st.

By now any self-respecting Doctor Who fan will have watched The Night of the Doctor several times and be well aware that Paul McGann is now the longest serving Doctor having played the Eighth Doctor in both 1996 and 2013 across a period of 17 years. Amidst all the excitement of seeing the Eighth Doctor’s return there is one line that may need explaining; just before he takes the regeneration potion he gives a list of names – but who are they?

We present the Starburst guide to the Eighth Doctor’s Five Companions…

Background

After his abortive foray into television the Eighth Doctor was kept alive, so to speak, in a series of books. In these books he had various companions including Samantha Jones, Fitz Kreiner, Compassion and others. There were also comic strips that gave us many more including Izzy and other books such as those featuring Bernice Summerfield who met several versions of the Doctor. Plenty of choice but also a challenge getting agreement with multiple parties to use their creations.

Instead Steven Moffat chose to work in five characters created by Big Finish who had kept the Eighth Doctor very much to the fore in several dozen CD releases over more than the past decade. In one simple sentence we had Charley, C’rizz, Lucie, Tamsin and Molly and the Big Finish officially became canon.

Who, then, are these companions?

Charley Pollard

Charley Pollard was created fresh by Big Finish to introduce the Eighth Doctor to their audience. Appearing in a story entitled Storm Warning she is an Edwardian Adventuress voiced by India Fisher (Masterchef voiceover). Charley first meets the Doctor on the airship R101 and has a vast number of adventures on board the TARDIS before leaving in the story The Girl Who Never Was. Being Doctor Who she then had several adventures with the Sixth Doctor and is due to return in her own spin-off series.

C’rizz

C’rizz (pronounced KEH-riz) was played by Conrad Westmaas and first appeared in the story Creed of the Kromon and died in the story Absolution. He was from a race of reptilian humanoids with chameleon like powers called the Eutermesans. His death leads directly to Charley leaving the Eighth Doctor.

C’rizz met the Doctor and Charley in the parallel universe they became trapped in after the fortieth anniversary Big Finish story Zagreus and returned with them to our universe travelling with them for a time.

Lucie Miller

Feisty Lucie Miller from Blackpool was played by Sheridan Smith (Mrs Biggs, Jonathan Creek , Legally Blonde on stage and much else).

Lucie was created to accompany the Eighth Doctor in a series of plays known as the Eighth Doctor Adventures most of which also aired on Radio 7 (Radio 4 Extra as was). She first appeared in the two part story Blood of the Daleks and last appeared in the story To The Death.

Sheridan was very popular with Big Finish fans and her arc with the Eighth Doctor is one of the most powerful productions Big Finish has ever done (in this writer’s opinion at least).

Tamsin Drew

After the story Death in Blackpool Lucie Miller left the TARDIS and her place was taken by Tamsin Drew played by Nicky Wardley (Catherine Tate Show). Tamsin only travelled with the Eighth Doctor for a few adventures before leaving in the story The Resurrection of Mars.

Molly O’Sullivan

The most recent Big Finish companion for the Eighth Doctor is Molly O’Sullivan played by Ruth Bradley (Primeval, Titanic 2012 TV series alongside Jenna Coleman). Molly first appeared in the 2012 boxset DarkEyes and is due to re-appear in 2014 in Dark Eyes 2. Beyond that we don’t know. Yet!

Doctor Who fans are spoilt for choice: there are so many special products being produced in 2013 it can be difficult to know which ones are most worth collecting. Even the list of approved products is long – DVDs, books, electronic short stories and much else. We’ve even had stamps! Amongst all of this are a set of audio adventures produced by Big Finish working with AudioGO in the series known as the Destiny of the Doctor. This is a set of releases, one for each Doctor, starting in January and ending in November (no Twelfth Doctor!). Each story features one actor playing a companion and also a short section where the Eleventh Doctor interferes in his own past. The releases are available to download at the start of each month and a collection of all 11 (with extras) will be available from November as well.

Behind the Scenes

How, though, did the series come about? What made it interesting to write and to create? Starburst Magazine spoke with several of those involved. First was Michael Stevens from AudioGO:

“We were considering ways to celebrate the 50th Anniversary, and hit upon the idea of one story per Doctor per month, with 11 Doctors fitting neatly between January and November. Around the same time, Big Finish and AudioGO were thinking about collaborating, and suddenly this seemed like the best vehicle to collaborate on.

“Once AudioGO commissioned Big Finish to deliver the series, they in turn engaged John Ainsworth to manage the project and produce the 11 titles. John and I have liaised throughout the process. Previously we’d worked together on our standard Eleventh Doctor Audio Original titles, and so we very much followed the same working pattern. Between us we worked out the linking theme of the series, and then John identified writers who could deliver the stories. We discussed the main casting together, but John managed the secondary reader cast himself – and did so brilliantly.”

Starburst spoke next to John Ainsworth who confirmed that it was, indeed, a matter of collaboration, though some aspects proved harder than others:

“The series was quite unformed at the stage that I was first involved. I discussed a lot with both Nicholas Briggs at Big Finish and Michael Stevens at AudioGO. Out of these discussions I pitched both the linking theme and the title which were adopted. Coming up with the linking theme was quite tricky because we wanted something that was pleasing but that didn’t become too dominant and would allow each story to be enjoyed and understood on its own – including the final story. I think we achieved a good balance in the end.

“I think the two-hander idea came from the Big Finish side of the co-production. It had worked well with the Companion Chronicles and they were keen to use it on Destiny of the Doctor. I think this was a given when the project was handed to me to produce.”

Writers and Cast

With the basic concept of 11 titles in place the next challenge was to finalise the writers and the casting. Both AudioGo and Big Finish have access to a range of talent so how hard was it to come down to a list of authors? Having picked the authors, how were they assigned? John Ainsworth continues the story and also discusses how the actors were selected:

“Nicholas Briggs and I got together and compiled a list of authors that we wanted to involve. Some of them we identified as good fits with particular Doctors and eras, others we were happy to have for any of the Doctors, and in some instances were able to give them the choice – although scheduling and availability did play a part in this, particularly for the earlier titles with more pressing deadlines.

“For the actors, the intention was always to approach actors who had played companions. It was a deliberate decision not to ask any of the living Doctor actors as I felt that would give an inconsistent feel to the series. Of course, it was always going to be a possibility that we wouldn’t be able to secure an actor who had played a companion in a particular era. For this reason, I made the decision that the stories would be written in the third person rather than first (as the Companion Chronicles are). This meant that we weren’t tied to telling the story from the point of view of a specific companion.”

We were also interested in how the whole process appeared from the point of view of the various writers. We spoke to Darren Jones who wrote the October release Death’s Deal (reviewed in Starburst #394). Darren let us know how it was for him:

“I’d written a couple of Eleventh Doctor audiobooks for AudioGo, working with John Ainsworth. Actually I was waiting for the second one, Sleepers in the Dust, to get final approval, and I was thinking of contacting John to see if he’d like me to pitch any further stories. But then he suddenly contacted me, briefly explained the concept of the Destiny of the Doctor series, and asked if I would like to have a go at writing the Tenth Doctor story. I was thrilled and very happy to say yes! It was a no-brainer. So I went away to work up a few ideas and everybody at AudioGo and Big Finish pointed to Death’s Deal as the one to take forward.”

With the story coming together, how important was it for Darren to get Catherine Tate back as Donna? He explains:

“I was so pleased that we managed to get Catherine Tate to come back and be Donna again. She was the companion I really wanted to write for. I started writing for AudioGo just before Matt Smith was announced as the Eleventh Doctor, so I missed out on an opportunity to write for David’s Doctor. Although, at the time nobody know what the new Doctor or Amy Pond were going to be like, and I was initially briefed to write my outline in the style of the Tenth Doctor and Donna. I never thought I would get the chance to write those characters for real a few years later. That pairing can be both intensely dramatic and hilariously comic – I loved being able to move between the two.”

Linking the Stories

As was mentioned above, every story had a short link in which the Eleventh Doctor dipped in to tweak the plot. It fell to Matt Fitton, the writer of the final story The Time Machine to pull all these threads together. Darren Jones explained how the process worked from his point of view:

“It was always part of the brief that the first ten stories would each have the Eleventh Doctor sending a message to his previous selves. At first, the thought was that these could be quite random in nature and not have much bearing on the plot, but that changed. They become more integral and important to the individual stories, which made everything stronger. The nature of the message was up to me. I think Matt was given all the outlines at an early stage so that he could start pulling all the individual elements together for the final story. I kept in touch if and when story elements changed. He has the toughest task of all of us!”

We asked Matt Fitton how the process came together from his point of view:

“As anyone who’s heard any of the stories so far will know, each one is a perfect encapsulation of its era, but with one common thread running through them all – a little message from the Eleventh Doctor, like a to-do list with cosmic consequences. In The Time Machine we find out what it’s all about… My brief was to provide a satisfying conclusion to the whole arc, yet also make it a story which works on its own terms – as all the others do. I hope that in doing so I’ve also tapped into what makes the Eleventh Doctor’s own era tick.

So we find the Doctor in Oxford, on 23 November 2013, looking for an impossible time machine, and trying to stop an even more impossible invasion. As the Creevix arrive, the Doctor will face his destiny.”

New Territory for Big Finish

The final three stories marked the first time Big Finish had created an audio for any doctor more recent than the Eighth. For fans this marks a turning point but is this the opinion of those involved in the creation of the series? For Jonathan Ainsworth there was no distinction:

“My approach to each story and each Doctor was exactly the same. The aim was to produce a story that felt appropriate for each era.”

Matt Fitton echoed this sentiment:

“I think each story is trying to encapsulate and evoke its own particular era – and in my mind there’s no such thing as Classic Who, it’s all the same thing, but there are different styles according to Doctors and producers.”

The Future

In the near future things are looking uncertain with the news (reported on the Starburst Magazine website) that AudioGO has suspended its business operations while it seeks new investment. While this is clearly not a good thing, especially for those whose jobs are at risk, from the point of view of the Destiny of the Doctor it does allow us to ask the question: what next?

Before the news of AudioGO’s problems broke we asked Michael Stevens what he thought of the series as a whole and its future. These were his thoughts at the time:

“I’m delighted with the way they have turned out, and think John and Big Finish have done a terrific job. It has been fascinating to follow each stage of the process, and with each script and each recording new layers have been added to the story. I was very keen that each story should stand on its own two feet, for the benefit of anyone just ‘dipping in’, and that’s exactly what they do. In addition, the performances, production and sound design on each one are first class.

“Sales have been very good across the range, but have picked up momentum as the series has unfolded. I think some people were initially keen to see what an AudioGO/Big Finish collaboration would be like, and many then stayed for the ride, to find out how each Doctor’s era has been treated. Other people have been curious about the appearance of later Doctors such as the Ninth, whose audio outings have been thin on the ground. Whereas with our Classic Novels range we find that CDs still outstrip downloads, with Destiny both channels have been healthy.”

As to future projects such as a Ninth Doctor series in its own right he had this to say:

“It’s something we are giving a lot of thought to. We recognise that there’s interest there, and I hope that, one way or another, we’ll be able to serve it. Stay tuned!”

One way or another staying tuned is exactly what we will do and fingers crossed the AudioGO situation resolves itself sooner than later.

All Hallows Read is a recently invented Winter tradition, which invites people to give away a spooky book to someone they think would get a kick out of it. Invented by novelist (and creator of all sorts of scary stories) Neil Gaiman, the genius of this idea is that almost everyone likes a book as a gift; it can be for anyone and it doesn’t have to be a new book. (It should be noted that All Hallows Read is not intended to replace sweets as a gift for Trick or Treaters; you can try it if you like, but you may end up with your home covered in toilet paper.)

If you’re stuck for ideas for some books to give away this Halloween, we’ve provided a top ten of some of our favourites. We’ve mixed it up a bit, but there’s definitely something here for everyone.

1)  The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman – Originally conceived as a version of The Jungle Book, but with ghosts, this child friendly tale of murder and the supernatural does not mess about. Dark, funny and sweet, if there’s a ten-year old in your life who likes the spookier sort of things, then they will devour this.

2)  Blackbirds by Chuck Wendig – Filled to the brim with foul language, gruesome death and an awful lot of peril, this one is not for children. Blackbirds follows the adventures of Miriam Black, a young lady cursed with the power to see what fate has in store for anyone she touches; specifically, she knows how people will die. Wackiness, adventure and mayhem ensues when she tries to break the rules. It’s both cinematic and American in feel, and recommended for those who like their horror gorey.

3)  IT by Stephen King – Stephen King’s classic tale of childhood fear and the horrors that prey on them is probably responsible for more than one case of Coulrophobia; the fear of clowns. Like all of King’s text, it’s not a small book and it is a pretty epic, time-spanning tale. However, it will stay with you, and is well worth a solid winter read.

4)  I am Legend by Richard Matheson –  It would hardly be a list of spooky books without a vampire story, and this is one of the best. Robert Neville is the sole survival of an apocalypse which has resulted in world filled with vampires. Forget the movie of the same name (or even the Charlton Heston movie Omega Man) and pick up the real deal instead, it’s well worth your time.

5)  The 13th Horseman by Barry Hutchinson – Hutchinson’s anarchic Afterworlds series kicks off with this extremely silly tale of a young boy accidentally picking up the role of Death, and finding himself leading the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Aimed firmly at kids who are about to become teenagers, it’s filled with very silly and extremely puerile humour, with just enough spookiness to make it qualify for this list.

6)  Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman – Staying on the topic of the end of the world, Good Omens asks the very simple question; what if the Anti-Christ was born and raised in a sleepy English village? The result mixes Pratchett’s classic wit with Gaiman’s dream-like darkness to create something that is both hilarious and poignant. Though thoroughly British, the authors have filled the book with plenty of footnotes for those who are not fortunate enough to come from the UK.

7)  The Books of Blood by Clive Barker – Before Barker started producing exceptionally long and overly elaborate novels, he poured a lot of his terrifying vision of the world into sort stories. They never fail to be disturbing, and are filled with twisted minds and bodies all the way through. If you know someone who likes tales of giants made of human bodies and people melted into suitcases, then The Books of Blood are a great All Hallow’s Read gift.

8)  Department 19 by Will Hill – The Department 19 series of books is aimed firmly at teenagers and young adults, and the adventures of schoolboy turned monster hunter Jamie Carpenter are action packed fun. Older readers will recognise many of the tropes and ideas here, but that’s the point; Hill packs as much supernatural into his pages as possible, introducing the younger reader to the world of horror in an explosive and action packed way.

9) Blood and Feathers by Lou Morgan – If supernatural action tales are your thing, Lou Morgan’s tale of angels walking the Earth might be worth your time. Starting out with a pit to hell opening up in a sleepy town and getting more scary from that point on, there’s a lot to love here, especially if you like TV shows such as Supernatural.

10)  The Walking Dead – Robert Kirkman. This award-winning and best selling comic book series is essentially a complex post apocalyptic soap opera. This is the comic that inspired the TV series, and the two deviate from each other in some fairly significant ways. Though you shouldn’t try and read the entire 20 volume series in one sitting though, you’ll never sleep again.

More information on All Hallow’s Read can be found here.

30th October sees the release in the UK of Thor: The Dark World, the latest tent pole release in Marvel Studios’ roll-out of big budget action movies based on their legendary superhero characters. The film receives its official UK premiere tonight but on the 20th representatives of the world’s media descended upon the Dorchester Hotel in London’s swanky Mayfair for the Thor sequel’s international Press launch. In attendance: Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Tom Hiddleston (Loki), Natalie Portman (Jane Foster), Christopher Eccleston (Malekith), Kat Dennings (Darcy Lewis), Alan Taylor (director), Kevin Feige (Producer, Marvel). Also in attendance: Starburst. Here’s what happened after the tea, sandwiches and cake had been consumed, the Press hounds had ceased their relentless baying and ‘the talent’ had settled into their comfy chairs on stage…

On whether one of the film’s themes – trust – is reflected in the developing relationship between the cast, especially Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston?

Chris Hemsworth: There’s certainly a shorthand we’ve developed now that this is the third film we’ve shot together. We pick up where we left off and we’ve developed a great friendship along the way. We were lucky from the beginning in that we had a chemistry and the same kind of enthusiasm and I guess the relationship I look forward to really delving into every time – and especially in The Dark World –  is being able to ask the questions that Thor and Loki really haven’t had the focus to do yet and this film gave us that opportunity.

Tom Hiddleston: It’s absolutely true. From the beginning, with Kenneth Branagh’s Thor through to Joss Whedon’s Avengers and now into Alan’s Dark World it has been an amazing adventure for both of us – the two characters define each other and need each other. All acting is about what happens in the space between people and the more you trust each other the deeper you can go. When I’m on set with Chris whatever he serves I’ll return, he’ll tap it back and that’s the joy for me.

On whether the sibling rivalry between Thor and Loki is shared by Chris’s own relationship with his acting brothers Liam and Luke…

CH:  Neither of them have attempted to take over the Universe just yet – but I think I’d have the same reaction if they did! We’re competitive as siblings usually in terms of everything from sport – backyard cricket, football, surfing – to who’s controlling the remote control; but not so much within this industry. Certainly all three of us understand the frailty and inconsistency of the work and we help each other with auditions and whatever scripts we’re working on and we’re not in direct competition anyway. It’s more of a team effort than anything else. In one of the scenes on the spaceship exiting Asgard, Tom and I were pretty insistent that it had to feel like when I was in the back seat with my two siblings and we couldn’t get 100 metres before the three of us would be “get off, don’t touch me” and that certainly played into that scene. With a lot of the stuff you understand what it’s like to have that love/hate thing but really you’d do anything for them but at the same time the simplest things can annoy you. I certainly try to draw from whatever experiences I’ve been through and can empathise with frustration towards one’s sibling. 

TH: I have two sisters so it’s slightly different. I suppose the thing about siblings is they know you better than anyone and there’s that thing of always being bound together by your histories; there’s something very honest about the interaction, you get that Thor is able to demand from Loki that he plays his hand. Loki is someone who is constantly in control, he’ll never show you how he really feels and the only person he gets close to is Thor and that’s very true of sibling relationships.

 

On the attraction in coming back and recreating the characters…

Natalie Portman: It was exciting to get to come back and work with everyone and meet people who were joining this time. Also because Jane gets to go to Asgard in this movie; I was lucky to work more with Tom and do scenes with Rene and Anthony too who were amazing and who I’d got to admire from afar. And I got to continue the fun rapport with Kat and Stellan (Skarsgard) and Chris and there was definitely a lot of laughing – maybe too much laughing on set!

CH: It was brilliant to have Natalie there to break up some of the Godly testosterone between Thor and Loki!

TH: I loved working with Natalie. In the first film Loki’s aware of Jane Foster’s presence and refers to it but it was such fun to see what happens when the two share the same space. Violence mainly!

On the differences between working in Britain and Hollywood…

CH: The interesting thing about Hollywood is that I don’t think a lot of stuff gets shot there any more although obviously once upon a time it did. But it’s now predominantly sets and studios. What’s nice here is that there are incredible studios but also brilliant locations to take advantage of and a lot of the aesthetic this film has is because not only do we see Asgard we also get to see London. I love shooting here. 

NP: It’s hard to compare because we don’t really shoot in Hollywood at all. I love working here though and I’m envious of British actors and crew because American and Australian actors end up like gypsies, moving from city to city and you can really have such a fulfilling, rich, wonderful career moving between theatre, TV and film all in London and it’s pretty cool to get to live and work in the same place.

Kevin Feige: There’s a very good tax incentive which lures us to the UK, I’m not going to pretend that’s not the case! But what keeps us coming back are the amazing crews; we’re starting our fourth film next year at Shepperton and it’s been an amazing experience so far.

On audiences loving Loki more than Thor…

CH: Woah!!! I don’t know if it was ever the plan to have Loki in this many films but purely to do with everything that Tom brought to the table in the first one and how incredible he was and the mixture of strength, villainy, mischief and vulnerability which is such an access point, you can immediately empathise with this misunderstood guy which is why he kept being brought into every film. I don’t know if that was the original plan but my hat goes off to Tom because he’s done such an incredible job in every film and hopefully we’ll keep sneaking him in more everywhere.

TH: I love you, man! I think Loki is defined by Thor, he’s defined in opposition to him, they’re yin and yang, the sun and the moon. The whole point of them is they’re in opposition and the polarity of Loki is such an amazing surprise I never expected it in my wildest dreams. It’s a fascinating prospect because he’s a mixture of playfulness and charm and mischief – he’s the God of mischief so there’s always a playfulness to him – but he’s a broken character, grief-stricken, bitter, jealous and angry, lonely, proud. He’s a cocktail of all his psychological damage and his playfulness and as an actor it’s a really interesting part to play.

On the film’s humour…

Alan Taylor: I’m so grateful that audiences are responding to the humour of the film when they see it the first time. When I came into it I thought my first task was to darken the world and deepen it and dirty it up a bit. But then as the process developed we thought ‘well, if we’re going to darken it and deepen it and possibly kill off some characters that we love then we’d better make sure that it balances on the other side’ because the key to the Marvel Universe and the Marvel language – Avengers came out when we were planning it and Iron Man 3 as we were finishing it – is that you’re screwed if you don’t also keep it funny and light on its feet at the same time. So it’s called The Dark World and there are some dark currents in it but the humour was critical and I really can’t say enough great things about Stellan; he was the first thing we shot, we started with him running around Stonehenge wearing a thong! 

Chris Hemsworth on developing as an actor…

CH: Every film I look back at and go ‘now I get it’ and then I start the next one and think ‘I don’t have a clue what I’m doing!’ It’s nice to be able to approach a character again and now for the third time and in a different way with a different director and have a whole new bag of ideas and influences and ways to approach it. I think I’ve grown up as a person – as you do in time, strangely enough – but so does Thor and that echoes into it work and it was great to have a more mature Thor who was less petulant and arrogant as he was at times in the first movie.  But that transition of him understanding the dark side of the Throne and that responsibility and the sacrifice was fun to play with.

On the process of editing and cutting the film…

AT: There are so many obligations with these films; they have to be dark, emotionally-engaging, funny, they have to earn their entertainment value and part of that process is condensing, tightening, and making it roll on as quickly as it can so naturally some things fall out which you wish didn’t fall out including some things dear to my heart which I loved. Chris Eccleston and I were talking about some things which we really savoured but which had to fall away – and I’d be really grateful if some of those appear on the DVD or Blu-ray at some point! There was a rumour going round on the Internet at one point about the running time but there was never a running time issue, it was just an question of how can we make it better, funnier, more effective, how can it land harder.

On humour countering the steadily increasing scope and scale of the Marvel Universe and how the actors keep their performances ‘grounded’…

KF: Humour is definitely the key. We’ve got spaceships and other planets in this movie and we have found that humour is an amazing way to get the audience to just embrace and accept all these worlds and all that craziness and all those costumes and it’s worked well for us going right back to the first Iron Man film.

Christopher Eccleston: It’s interesting talking about the humour in the film because I saw it last week and I was really surprised at the amount of humour because I’m such a miserable bastard! I was completely excluded from any of the joy! My character was completely grounded in vengeance, he was like a maniac for revenge, the idea was  to suggest that the dark elves were as ancient a race as the Asgardians and they had a history and a culture but most of all they had a grudge which they had slept on for millions of years. My job was to bring the threat and the menace and the jeopardy so we grounded it in bitterness. My make-up call was about 3 o’clock, I was in the chair at 4am and I hit the set at 10am so I was a not a happy elf!

NP: I think the fact that the characters are going through things we can all relate to – I’m the women who the guy doesn’t call back, there’s a long distance thing going on, she meets his parents – they’re all things most women can relate to. I’m the mortal amongst the Gods and villains so I guess that’s naturally more grounded. But all of the issues they had us dealing with were human, like the rivalry between the brothers which I feel is so relatable as humans.

CH: I remember (Anthony) Hopkins said something to me the first day on the set on the first Thor. We walked on in our outfits and he had the eyepatch on and sets were huge and he looked at me and said “No acting requried here!” and I’ve always remembered that because I think ‘yeah, don’t compete with it, keep it simple because it already sells a lot of the work for you.’

TH: I suppose the thing I always think that’s grounding about these films for me is the family relationships. We travel through Space and Time, we’re dealing with Gods and monsters and the heart of the film, from my perspective, is the family – the father, two sons/brothers, a mother and the fractious intimate interaction they have.

Kat Dennings: I think maybe (my character) Darcy is the most grounded person in the story. She’s kind of spacey in her brain even though she’s not in space! I think her love for Jane and my love for Nat are an easy way for me to stay grounded through the whole thing and I get to see the outside of all the craziness and comment on it.

On Marvel Studios‘ movie/TV strategy…

KF: We’re a very tight knit group at the Studios and all the movies are very co-ordinated. We have announced our films to the end of 2015 but are planning as far out as 2017 and some time next year we’ll announce what those films are for 2016 and into 2017. The TV division is up and running now with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. as their first series; I know they’d love to bring more to the TV screen, I’m not exactly sure what or when that will be and in terms of S.H.I.E.L.D. they sort of cue off what’s happening in the movies and occasionally they check in with us and say ‘would it be okay if we play with this little aspect?’ so it’s all quite co-ordinated. But again it’s such a small group it doesn’t feel like an overwhelming task but it’s a heck of a lot of fun!

On the ‘point’ of the Malekith storyline amidst all the human/Immortal drama…

CE: What is the point of my storyline? That’s what I said to my agent! The point of my storyline… is for me to get paid! No, the point is, and I’m repeating myself slightly, is vengeance. Malekith is a maniac for vengeance. There were some scenes which, for understandable reasons didn’t make the final cut, which explain some of the back-story between me, my ancestors and Borr who is Odin’s father, where the dark elves way before the Big Bang, were humiliated in defeat and ground into the dirt by Odin and Malekith has slept on that and so the theme from that is vengeance. As somebody once said ‘let he who seeks vengeance be careful to dig two graves’ because it’s a pointless exercise. My job was to bring a dark element, the dark world; the dark elves are seeking to turn the light into darkness. It’s that simple and that classic.

KF: And we needed that in a movie where we wanted to play our villain from the Avengers movie in a more ambiguous way and in order to do that we needed somebody who could drive the entire storyline and give Thor a reason to have something to fight against.

On whether Loki is really evil… or just jealous…

TH: It’s a question I’ve asked myself three times now! I think every villain is a hero in his own mind and people make choices and they always justify those choices no matter how misguided their motivation and it’s been a great privilege  and thrill for me to play this character across three films because he didn’t start out that way.  The storyline afforded to me in the very first film, this idea of a young prince who was brought up believing in his right to a throne and his Asgardian in heritance, was a lie – he was adopted and left to die on a frozen rock; that’s what breaks his heart and all his villainy and bad guy credentials come from something deeply vulnerable. That’s a gift because it means across Thor, Avengers and Dark World, that I can play a dynamic with Chris and with Anthony Hopkins (Odin) and Rene Russo (Frigga) which is ‘to what extent is he redeemable? Can he be pulled back towards the light’ and it’s a very fun fault line to dance on.

CH: What Tom said! That’s exactly it, well done. How do you know so much?

THOR: THE DARK WORLD opens in UK cinemas on October 30th in the US on November 8th and internationally throughout November.

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