Writing - Learning to Read and Write. Again.

I've never been ashamed to admit that my grammar and punctuation could be better, but I'm not exactly proud of it either. For someone who has been accused of talking like a dictionary or an alien (once, in a pub, by a stranger), I'm pretty hopeless.

Part of it stems from a shoddy education, part of it from my inability to concentrate on anything I was ever taught and there's a generous portion of laziness thrown in to boot. I can't help but suspect my brain is wired differently to many people or at least badly fused in several important areas. I distinctly remember being off ill at junior school when everyone learned joined-up writing. When I came back it was like Invasion of the Bodysnatchers, they were all writing like pod-people.

Typos, grammar errors and punctuation problems in my 'grown-up' writing stems from some of the above and my strange typing style which seems to almost bypass my conscious thoughts and puts down words how they sound, rather than how they are spelt. I then make a poor proofreader as Ben Clark could attest to in our work on Solar Wind.

I cannot under any circumstances however, use dyslexia as an excuse. I know people who are dyslexic, and I know that my problems aren't their problems.

If you think it's currently pretty bad or not that bad at all, then believe me when I say that ten years ago it was dreadful. I had some help then from a friend which has put me in good stead and have made some progress on my own since. Writing comics which have short sentences, dialogue and an overuse of ellipses and hyphens has meant the semi-colon has become a thing of superstitious dread. An Eldritch Old One whose hideous sign makes my mind wobble with uncomprehending terror.

The only time I use it is to wink at people ;)

And even then I feel funny.

So, finally frustrated with it all, I've decided to make the effort. I'm reading 'Eats, Shoots and Leaves' by Lynne Truss (who would probably have a heart attack reading this blog) which is entertaining and mercifully brief. The title is based on a punctuation joke, and I was surprised to find it was the clean version. I shall also be attempting Kingsley Amis' 'The King's English' and Robert Graves' 'The Reader over your Shoulder' which have been gathering dust on my shelves for years (indeed, I'll have to check I haven't thrown them out in a previous fit of disgust). I only bought them because I thought that in liking their writing, I might not get too annoyed at what they had to say.

You may wonder what this has to do with you it's not your problem. Well, if you've been reading this blog, it IS your problem. Nobody likes to read anything chock full of mistakes and at the risk of attracting pedants everywhere, I'll be trying my best to avoid them.

Comics - Caution: Wet Paint

Ian Stacey, the artist who draws desperate galactic hero Dirk Despair for Omnivistascope and also worked on numerous Solar Wind strips has produced a collection of his newspaper strip work, with all proceeds going to the Big Issue Foundation. It's only £2 for the 56-page Wet Paint, it features some very funny strips and the subject matter is a widely eclectic mix. As it is both amusing and for a good cause it must presumably be highly fattening, there must be some draw back.

http://www.ianstacey.net/

Film - Mazes & Monsters

Tom Hanks' first starring film role and one of the first films to deal with the new and disturbing hobby 'role-playing' that emerged in the seventies before reaching out to widespread audiences in the eighties.

Dungeons and Dragons remains the archetypal role-playing game and D&D is shorthand for high spoddery across film, TV and popular culture. It aroused a good deal of suspicion amongst America's hysterical religious right, dealing as it did with the human imagination and a new mythology they couldn't control for their own ends. The resulting demonisation of the game (and it is important to remember that this is just a game), resulted in claims that by playing an imaginary character in a story who could cast spells, that you really were tapping into a diabolical power. This could cost you your immortal soul, and your life and the game was responsible for much Death & Deviancy. The comics strips of Jack Chick are probably the most blatant example of this and their warped views are in equal parts hilarious and a sad indictment on religious thought.

The book Mazes and Monsters was written by Rhona Jaffe in response to a widely reported, but inaccurate, account of the disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III in the steam tunnels of Michigan State University. The newspapers ran fanciful stories based on private investigator William Dear's theory that the student had become lost while playing a live action version of the tapletop game. The truth was that James had serious problems with depression and hadn't been playing D&D at MSU. Though when he as finally recovered by Dear would ask that the stories stand uncorrected, which Dear complied with until James' third and successful suicide attempt. Rhona wrote the book, a fictionalised account of someone going off the rails in response to D&D, allegedly in days, worried that someone else might beat her to the story.

The film was made by CBS for television and aired in 1982. It features a young Tom Hanks as Robbie Wheeling a bright young student who has had a troubled past. When we meet him, he is trying to put both his troubles and the role-playing game Mazes and Monsters (which it is hinted, played some part), behind him. At a party hosted by 'wacky' boy genius Jay-Jay he meets Kate, who is delighted he that he too has attained the giddy heights of 'Level-9' and persuades him to join their group. They aren't fanatics she warns, they just play twice a week.

There then follows a romance between Robbie and Kate, but Jay-Jay grows frustrated with the limitations of the game and decides to create a whole new level of gaming. And so, dressed as their characters, they head into the local caverns and new adventures. The experience however is so real that it prompts a relapse for Robbie and the real and fantasy worlds begin to collide.

I first saw the movie when I was 12 or 13, shown late-ish on TV. There were a few people I knew at school who played D&D and these fantasy games, but nobody from my village did and it all seemed very mysterious. The movie itself didn't have much effect on me, I remember quite enjoying it to the dismay of my game-playing biology teacher who took a real dislike to it for its negative view of gaming.

And the film has remained to many role-players another symptom of the anti role-playing lobby, but I think it's a lot less clear cut than being merely an anti role-playing diatribe. The game is portrayed well, with a maze-like map spread across the table, a Maze Master hiding behind a cardboard screen and players using some rather neat cardboard figures which they take a lot of trouble painting. It sells the idea well that a handful of people in a moodily lit room can share a genuinely exciting adventure, using only their imaginations, some paper and dice. They also are much more involved in their characters than most people in role-playing games I have played and I approve of that.

Robbie's problems stem as much from his past as they do the game, but it is undoubtedly Mazes and Monsters which sets his latest episode off. There is very much the idea in the film that though this may be a harmless pursuit for many, a sensitive or disturbed soul could get themselves in real trouble through playing these games.

I find the movie a charming snapshot of the early eighties and early role-playing, along with Flight of Dragons (which believe me, I'm going to get around to talking about sooner or later). It is also at times exciting, moving and very funny, though all the humour isn't intentional. Such as when Daniel, the towering blonde jock, complains his reputation means he cannot have a meaningful relationship with a kind caring woman and instead must indulge in endless recreational sex. It also has a very touching end sequence, perhaps necessary for a TV movie, but it ends a very enjoyable experience. I think role-players should approach the film with an open mind, and anyone who doesn't role-play that it is just a make believe scenario.

Mazes & Monsters is available on DVD quite cheaply from the USA. It's not a great print and there are no extras, but a rare treasure all the same.

SF Now - Recycling, Start at the Beginning, not the End.

It's always with a certain amount of wonder and disbelief whenever I hear that a new recycling or waste initiative has been launched. The people who consume the products are being asked to be responsible for sorting waste, pay for the cost of dealing with the waste and it's the consumers who are seen as the problem. International organisations harass governments, who send directives to councils, who then pass the buck to us.

But our consuming has been carefully encouraged and nurtured, we're only doing what we've been told to do. If we were to curb our consumption of goods, the world and its economies would quickly be in trouble. The real problem lies in production. If something can be made, it should be able to be unmade at the end of its life, with a similar regard to waste created in production and destruction.

It's a sobering thought to think that an awful lot of the things you've thrown away, still exist in some deep dark landfill pit, like guilt pushed to the back of your mind, you can probably feel it's uncomfortable presence at times. Food decomposes, but many other items last for a considerable time and without any external forces beyond some pressure and a little groundwater, aren't going to be going anywhere soon.

While it may seem exciting or informative to find junk from the last few thousand years, it's doubtful whether our ancestors who will have to deal with levels of 'archaeological finds' on an unprecedented scale will feel quite as enthusiastic. Perhaps these will end up being mined for the valuable plastics and metals they contain, perhaps they will come back to haunt us in unimaginable ways.

The truth is, human society is continuing to destroy the ecosystem we live in, and as we do our best to reduce complexity and diversity the more chance of a serious eco-crash happening. It won't destroy all life on the planet, but it will probably get rid of us. At the end, when we've had the clothes of our civilisation and society stripped away from us, when we're once more just naked animals, then we'll perhaps appreciate the power of the natural world once more. Just before it delivers the killing blow.

But if we're going to survive as a society and a species, then we need to evolve in our thinking and lifestyles. Capitalism is going to have to pay a heavy cost for ecology, everything we make and use needs to be redesigned and we need to plan for the future, not merely ten years down the line, but hundreds, if not thousands of years. We may have to slow progress and learnt to live without the rapid advances we've seen across the 20th and 21st centuries so far.

Because technology, which is often seen as our potential saviour, won't be able to help alone. Digital creatures collecting grains of plastic on the beach may form part of an all encompassing techno-system that regulates our new world. But eventually we will create a world so complex we can no longer control it and we'll have to entrust it to something else. And in a techno-system, a resource draining and dependant creature like man would rapidly become the weakest link.

As the human race is not one society, but many competing societies, the chances of any meaningful co-operation is going to be slim. We're animals, so anything that gives us a competitive advantage over others is always going to remain a tempting option. However our strength has always been our ability to think and communicate ideas. And if we can change our perspective and start to think of ways to deal with our problems before we create them, instead of just putting spy-chips on wheely bins to tell us the bad news when it's too late, then perhaps we have a chance after all.

Comics - The Mayor of Mega-City One

The London Mayoral contest runs on, and on, with eccentric personalities Red Ken and Barmy Boris both vying for control of one of the biggest cities on early 21st century Earth.

Meanwhile a much more competent Mayor is currently presiding over 22nd Century Mega City One, in futuristic comic strip Judge Dredd, appearing weekly in 2000AD.

Charming, intelligent, and governing wisely a city that always teeters on the brink of madness and disaster. Mayor Ambrose is popular with the people and the judges, with ratings as high as perhaps any mayor save Dave, the orangutan a disillusioned Mega City voted into office some years back. And who knows what Mayor Grubb, a previous office holder could have achieved if a mutated fungus hadn't turned him into a living mushroom?

But there's a problem with Mayor Ambrose, he is in fact sychopathik (sic) dyslexic serial killer PJ Maybe, who first pitted his criminal brain against Judge Dredd when he was a mere child. Having convinced the world that PJ Maybe is dead, he now governs Mega City One's civil authority, and it's tempting to overlook his terrible crimes as he's doing such a marvellous job.

This is just one thread in John Wagner's multi-layered Judge Dredd storyline. While the strip arguably had its classic decade in the eighties satirising our present and (to the terror of us all) predicting our future all too accurately, it seems like the strip has reached a new high. In this comic strip, Judge Dredd is a complex figure, not the fascist bully he is sometimes protrayed as, but a man who believes first and foremost in justice. He also has his own doubts over the system he has become the figurehead for.

Other elements in the strip include terrorist organisation Total War, dedicated to destroying the Mega Cities of post apocalyptic Earth, the issue of Mutant rights and Dredd's own genetically warped Cursed Earth kin 'The Fargos', his niece Vienna (actually the daughter of his clone brother gone bad, Rico) and young Judge Beeney, daughter of political activist and pro-democratic voice, the martyred America.

It's exciting stuff, and far from Judge Dredd coming to a natural end with Origins, last years retelling of Dredd's history, John Wagner instead seems to have used it as the impetus to produce some of his best work with the character. This is exciting relevant stuff, all told with the usual seemingly effortless storytelling skill we've come to expect from the author of 'History of Violence' and 'Buttonman'.

You can catch up on some of these fantastic story lines through some of the reprinted graphic novels. Essential reading includes Origins, Brothers of the Blood, The Complete PJ Maybe and Total War. And of course the comic is available weekly at your local newsagents and now online (with some back issues) through clickwheel.com.

Games - Keeping up with the Joneses

I have just put the finishing touches to the final draft of 54 Jones - Keeping up with the Joneses, a new tile-based game I have created based upon the world of 54 Jones.

You play clones of 'The Jones' in the sewer trying to escape the onrushing 'shunk' and the first to get to high ground wins.

It's a game that just came to me one evening, I knocked up a version, it didn't work first time around (V1) but the second version (V2) worked a treat and it's gone down very well since. I've spent a bit of time revising it, and then a bit more time talking it back to what I started with as much as possible. This has resulted in Version 3.0!

You can download the game for free, by visiting the games section on the site for more details or the boardgamegeek entry.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/35157

Comics - Time Out for Mam Tor

From Mam Tor Publishing, the independent publisher behind the Event Horizon Anthology, comes Four Feet From a Rat, a 16 page full-colour comic under the Mother Comics imprint.

And it's free. Well, free with the 19th March London edition of Time Out, and apparently an ongoing project. With art by a bundle of talents such as Liam Sharp, Kev Crossley, Dave Kendall and Chris Weston. The writing is by Mother.

Now that all sounds very clever, but however good your art is, you need a story in a comic, without that, you just have some pretty pictures. And to have an anonymous writer, it seems to say that the writing is very much a secondary concern, which I feel is a big mistake. This was something that permeated through Event Horizon, it too was an art lead comic. Amazing though it was, when you put it down it felt like you'd just had a very strange dream, but you couldn't entirely remember what it was about... it's the story that makes you buy that second issue.

Those concerns aside, onto the four short stories in this issue.

The Crane Gods is a three page future shock style story and provides the striking cover image of a storm wracked spaceship flying over the mostly submerged 'gherkin' building in London. I like this a lot, it looks at the history of our world from an alien perspective, something which is always interesting and it has a neat little ending too.

Routemaster is a late night tale of what happens on our buses when the passengers have all gone. It has some warm ruddy artwork, a full measure of strangeness and again the classic horror twist ending works.

Don Pigeone could be funnier (David Goodman's Chav sparrows for example), and The Little Guy is just a basic premise which threatens much but delivers little. Again, it's hard to fault the art.

However you have to hand it to Mam Tor, what a terrific achievement to get something like this into the hands of so many people. I hope it's a real success. If they could get some serials running through it, then they'd have a primed audience for the graphic novel collection.

I have a copy of the first installment to give away (sans Time Out) to the first person to send me an e-mail with their address. Update: This has gone to Dave Evans, the first person to ask for it!

http://www.mamtor.com/

Lifestyle - Spicy Beef Tea

I didn't really like drinking Bovril till I put a dash of Encona Hot Pepper Sauce into it. Now I'm an addict. It works for me! What can I say, it was a last minute post...

Games - Gameworlds vs. Imagination

It's easy to get nostalgic about simpler times in gaming or any other sub-culture, to see the first faltering steps with a misty eyed glow. In truth there is always going to be something more exciting about something new, than the appreciation that comes with something old that's merely been given a bit of a polish.

But I think there are several serious problems in gaming, by which I mean board, war and roleplaying games. Possibly one of the more damaging ones is the game worlds themselves. In the early days, and in some games still, you had rules on different types of weapons, bestiaries of creatures, some world background and some scenario hooks. The games came with almost everything you required, minus a little bit of imagination.

One of my first introductions to gaming was during a school lunch hour, someone got four or five figures out, put them on the table, told us who we were and what we were doing and then we played out the scenario. That's quite liberating, for it was the element of imagination that was so important, you were free to invent your own creatures, worlds, heroes to populate them with. You could take a bit from that movie, or a little from this game and make something of your own from the mix.

Since the eighties there have been many games that came with whole worlds attached, worlds that you could go to and never come back from. TSR had several D&D worlds, Games Workshop had its fantasy and science fiction Warhammer worlds and White Wolf had its World of Darkness. And since then countless games have launched with their own unique worlds, all trying to funnel you into a trademarked property they can sell you, a piece of turf at a time. Most collapse back into themselves as failed ventures, but some do thrive to become cash cows.

In these games, the world is already fully created, though there may be some small fuzzy spots you can call your own. The types of characters you create are already formed in off the peg packages, often labelled archetypes. You are part of a bigger world, which has already been charted and you can never really shape it and you're following the path of thousands of loyal consumers before you. You learn about these worlds not through playing or adventuring, but through emptying your wallet.

The best roleplaying games I've played have had almost all of their rules and game worlds summed up in one rulebook. Any other supplements have been occasionally useful or entertaining, but not essential. Ideally you should be able to pick any game up, play it and then leave the world behind for another game. But it's rather easy these days to find yourself simply playing another game of a different type, set in the same background. It seems like an unhealthy way to play, and a slightly insidious trap for the unwary.

That's not say that a visit to these worlds is an entirely negative thing, but they say that travel broadens the mind. So perhaps you should think about occasionally creating your own worlds, they don't have to be in the same all consuming depth as commercial ones. Come up with some basic principles, and play with them, create and add to them as you go along. You aren't tied to restrictive systems, games are there to play and have fun as you learn.

Do as thou wilt.

Strip - Ohmigawd Man 6

SF - Sir Arthur C. Clarke (16 December 1917 - 19 March 2008)

Science Fiction legend Arthur C. Clarke has departed Earth in the last shuttle. One of the most well known British Science Fiction writers, he was renowned for his scientifically plausible science fiction and predictions.

After working on radar during the war, he joined the British Interplanetary Society where he befriended astronomer Sir Patrick Moore. Charles Chilton, the writer behind 50's SF serial Journey into Space was also a member of this society, which was dedicated to promoting space travel and exploration. It was while with the BIS he circulated a paper on the potential use of Satellites for communication and was rewarded with the recognition of a geostationary orbit being known as a 'Clarke' orbit.

His introduction to science fiction came from pulp American SF magazines and he had a love of astronomy as a child. His early work was published in fanzines during the war years, but his first professional work was published after the war, beginning with short stories and and a failed attempt to win a BBC short story competition with 'Sentinel'. It was during the 50's, 60's and 70's that he published the majority of his well known novels. But it would be a film that grew from the rejected Sentinel that would bring him a new level of fame and recognition.

2001: A Space Odyssey was the tale of how mankind is upgraded by a mysterious alien artifact. Directed by Stanley Kubrick, the film is a milestone in science fiction cinema, beautifully shot, enigmatic (or frustratingly vague depending on your viewpoint) and showing a more believable view of mankind's first steps into space, it gained something most SF movies lack, respectability. Clarke's latter half of his career would be dominated by unnecessary sequels to 2001 and 'co-written' novels that traded on the Clarke name. Though the short stories that inspired the film (including Sentinel) retain their power and he leaves a more than respectable legacy of classic SF novels.

For myself, much as I enjoyed reading his novels when I was growing up, I'll remember him for 2001: A Space Odyssey which represents a disproportionately large anomaly on the psycho-magnetic map of our culture. But perhaps most as the genteel and intelligent host of Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World, which showed our own world to be as exciting and mysterious as the most distant and alien of worlds.

Games - Looking for Sniper! or Bug-Hunter!

In my research on Rebelstar for OVS4, I've been trying to do some digging on the Sniper! game that Julian Gollop quotes as being an influence. I'm currently trying to get a cheap copy of Sniper! and Bug-Hunter, both produced by TSR in the mid-late eighties. The game first game out in 1973 by SPI and was a turn-based combat game. I'm looking for the later revised TSR version (though would be very keen to see an early SPI one) and even though Bug-Hunter was post-Rebelstar, I'm interested in it mainly because of it's Science Fiction setting.

If anyone could help, I'd be very grateful. I'm also looking for a game called Snapshot by GDW.

OVS - The New Omnivistashop is Open for Business...

I have started a CafePress shop to create and sell OVS merchandise through, something I've been meaning to do for a while.

So far all that is up is a Dirk Despair T-Shirt and a Lubatek Mug, but it's a start. There's not a lot of profit on these things, but I've added a little to split between myself and the artist. We're unlikely to get rich, so don't buy just to support us, only if it's something you really want. It's great to be able to produce something professional looking and if there's anything you want, be sure to let me know and I'll see what I can do.

http://www.cafepress.com/omnivistascope

OVS - OMNI-VISTA-SCOPE... Worst-Name-Ever?

I do agonise over these things you know.

Back when OmniVistaScope (OVS) didn't have a name, when I had no idea what it was going to be, what format it would have, or even what stories would get off the development board to go towards this new comic I had planned... Back then, it seemed all but impossible that we'd make it to a third issue, and yet, here we are with OVS4 on the heat blistered horizon.

The naming of the comic would undoubtedly be one of the most important decisions I would make, and I wanted it to work as a name for the comic and be something that meant something, to me at least. It was to be a science fiction comic, bordering on slightly harder SF than say 2000AD, yet more action and adventure than a lot of literary SF and less soft porn than Heavy Metal (sorry).

In the end the concept I came up with for the comic, which wouldn't have a fictional editor like some comics, was that of a machine. An entertainment machine that is scattered throughout the galaxy (and indeed beyond) that countless unknowable beings watch, while at the same time, the machine watches them. An anonymous, faceless, company would broadcast its signal across time, space and strange dimensions.

But this machine needed a name.

It was a machine, a viewing device and it would not be limited in what it could see. Words sprang to mind... Vista - A view, especially through a narrow opening, or avenue.... and Scope - Your range of vision, or informally, a viewing device.

VistaScope sounded good, so I looked into the name and found it had been used before not just as the brand name of numerous widescreen cinema formats, but curiously enough, also the device you can see below, made by the Advance Vistascope company. These devices would let you see several stereogram scenes in sequence. These would come on interchangeable sets of cards, and it occurred to me that if you had scenes which told a story, then in effect what you would have was a mechanical comic. And so, in a slightly spooky fashion I had found my comic, but to express its newly found omnipresent status, it became Omnivistascope.

I still agonise over whether it is a good name for a comic. I like it, but it doesn't burn itself into your brain immediately and people have mistakenly called it all sorts of things in the past.

I often call it OVS for short, and its okay if you do too.

OVS - Libraries and my Comics...

I work in various libraries of course, none of which stock any of my comics, but I do understand that libraries like to keep copies of books printed, the book collecting spods.

The only one that I've dealt with direct is the National Library of Scotland, once because they were looking for a copy of a Doomlord reprint, and more recently because they showed interest in Solar Wind. I still have to get back to them (just sorting something out chaps), but they seem to be very good at communication and even offer to pay for things.

On the other hand, the form from the Agent for Legal Deposit Libraries in London is as welcome on my doorstep as a tax demand. Demanding 5 copies of my comic for various institutions with their dreary form and no offer of compensation.

The Cambridge and Oxford libraries should go on and get on with some real work instead of bothering me because they want the status of having all this crap in their basement. Birmingham University, the redbrick I went to certainly doesn't care, they just want to know how much I'm earning so they can sell me a credit card.

The National Libraries of Wales and Scotland I can understand, though I'm not sure we have anyone Scottish in (I'm told Omnivistascope's positive discrimination policy may come into force with OVS5). Trinity College in Ireland is completely beyond me, that's a completely different country. Perhaps it's because Michael Carroll designed the logo. Yes, I'll blame him.

The British Library, based in England of course, doesn't seem too bothered. There is a legal obligation to supply a copy of every printed work to various institutions in the UK. Someone getting in touch with the British library recently found out that under the Legal deposit law of the UK the Library should receive two copies of all publication published in the UK. Who knows why, perhaps its for posterity, perhaps its just in case the government wants to know what you're up to?

If they are kept for the rare moment when someone wants to read the comic while I'm alive, then they should help to keep me in sugar free Red Bull and Caramacs (as one has become accustomed to) and buy one. And if they are being kept for posterity, why should I care if someone wants to read my stuff after I'm dead? Sod 'em. If it's being kept on the off chance it can be used against me by MI5 or the Crown Prosecution Service, then that's not very tempting either.

These libraries would have to build a new wing if they took all of the small press publications produced in the UK in comics alone. Perhaps they'll send uniformed officers to comic conventions to seize these comics that have print runs in double figures. I feel a Space Lord story coming on...

But on the whole I don't bother till the letters come in. Then I moan about it and send one in.

http://www.bl.uk/aboutus/stratpolprog/legaldep/index.html#cat

Games - The Last Days of Destiny

Howdy stranger...

You can download a free copy of my Wild West card game, via the games section of the site. The game itself is just over ten years old in all of its various incarnations, but the current one is pretty playable :)

It's a cinematic western game, so all of the fun things that you see in the movies are in there. I hope to be preparing a version for sale, later in the summer once OVS4 is done and dusted. But if you have any games suggestions in the meantime, I'm all ears.

Film - You're a big building, but you're out of shape!

Okay, as promised here is the house from Get Carter, all dilapidated and up for sale, the 'under offer' sign has either been taken down, or just blew down in recent winds.

Sunday before last I chatted to a woman who used to play in the garden when she was a little girl and she said it was a beautiful building and garden, and it was very sad to see it in this state.

Hopefully someone will save it, and kids will once more play in its garden, rather than going there to drink cans of lager.

Anyway, here it is now, and back in the day.

Competition - Charley's War Competition Closed

Well, one brave volunteer has been picked to go on a top secret mission into no-man's land... what's that? A competition eh? Well, it's a rum business if you ask me. Harrumph.

Thank you to everyone who entered, even if you didn't win, you can have (subject to what's in the annual bunker) a classic British annual as a runner up prize. I have Battle, Action, 2000AD, Victor, Warlord and more besides. So let me know your preference.

But the winner of Charley's War book one drawn from the hat is...

OVS - The Omnivistascope Village Fete

It's become an annual tradition at OVS HQ, to sell off some of my dragon's horde of treasure, old boardgames, roleplaying games, figures and comics to pay for the year's printing bill. OVS4 will cost a little bit more than previous years so I need all the help I can get this time around.

Between now and May I'll be looking through my cupboards for stuff that has to go. Anything I haven't looked at or used since my last clear out has cause to worry. First up is my Space Crusade gubbins (this week and next week), and I have some old comics and the like to go up soon as well. I may have some difficult choice to make depending on how much money I make.

Keep an eye on my auctions over the next couple of months, or help me directly by buying Omnivistascope issues 1-3 from the shop :)

http://search.ebay.co.uk/_W0QQsassZpaulvonscott

Games - I Wanna be a Rebelstar Raider!

Spectrum 48K classic Rebelstar by Julian Gollop is without a doubt my favourite computer game of all time. I've recently been poking around at its predecessor, Rebelstar Raiders (don't get the two confused!) as part of my research for the article I'm putting together on Rebelstar for OVS4.

It has many of the features of Rebelstar in more primitive forms, but the background is something of a treat, for anyone who wants a blast of SF nostalgia. It's a shame Julian didn't produce board, roleplaying and wargames for a living instead of computer games, our loss, not his I expect!

I own a copy of Rebelstar Raiders, one of my all time greatest car boot fair finds, but I haven't played it much as I don't have a spectrum and I've never had a working emulation copy till now. Well, that's changed as I've found one on this site, simply follow the link and search for Rebelstar in the Games Category along the top bar, once on the Rebelstar page, click on the picture to get a download of the game and manual.

Anyone who wants to play a game via e-mail should get in touch, it's a tad frustrating and not quite the game Rebelstar is, but an interesting slice of history all the same.

http://www.goodolddays.net

Comics - Crikey! The Great British Comics Magazine

Now on its third issue and going bi-monthly from March (that's now folks), Crikey! is a magazine devoted to the British comics industry, the comics they produced, the people who worked in it and the readers themselves.

The latest issue chats with Dez Skinn about House of Horror, takes a look at Fireball XL5, Smashing Times, space comics and Adam Eterno. The magazine is very nicely put together and plastered with pages and panels from seemingly endless comics. It crosses all genres of comic, whether boys, girls, humour or adventure. For some it may stray too far into nostalgia and reminiscence over hard fact, trivia and info, but it remains an entertaining read nonetheless.

The price is £3.99 per issue, and you can subscribe for a cheaper price per issue. It's Diamond distributed, so your local comic shop should be able to get it for you.

I now feel that fans of old comics are being catered for, it's fantastic that so many people really appreciate their comic heritage, all we need now are new comics for new readers. Otherwise the future of nostalgia itself may be in doubt...

http://www.crikeyuk.co.uk/

Strip - The Omigawd Man 5

Games - Gary Gygax has left this plane

The Great Gamemaster, Ernest Gary Gygax, the Godfather of roleplaying who co-created Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) with Dave Arneson has died today at the age of 69.

Still the most well known of Roleplaying Games, D&D was succeeded by hundreds of games with different styles and settings from superheroes to the terrifying creations of H.P.Lovecraft. A whole new hobby was born and it became hugely popular in the late 70's and early 80's. It also became synonymous with high geekery, however unlike computer games, you actually need to know other people in the real world to play them.

It's interesting that his work in the late nineties tried to acknowledge that roleplaying games had become too complicated (especially D&D) for new people to get involved with roleplaying and tried to design games with simpler rules. Which to my mind showed he was still way ahead of many people.

Despite ill health in recent years he was still involved in gaming.

I kneel before the woodland shrine and raise my +2 sword to the heavens in tribute.

Competition - Charley's War (2 June 1916 - 1 August 1916)

Charley's War is the greatest story to come from British War comics, following an idealistic young Charley Bourne as he becomes embroiled in The Great War. Written by Pat Mills using meticulous research and drawn by Joe Colquhoun, who captured the black humour of the trenches as well as the horrors. This classic story is available from Titan Books, who have released the first four volumes to date, once a year.

Here at Omnivistascope we have one copy to give away of the first volume in the series, all you need to do to win it is tell us in which comic did Charley's War first appear? Was it...

A. Battle
B. Victor
C. Warlord

Answers by e-mail (see Contact in the Arcana section). Everyone is eligible to enter, except myself! From past experience, your odds are good...

COMPETITION NOW CLOSED

TV - Torchwood, what were they thinking?

As I keep using Torchwood to measure other shows against, I thought I'd run through the show as briefly as I can. Torchwood is Doctor Who's spin adult spin off show. The name perhaps implies some greater mystery, but really it's just an anagram of Doctor Who.

The central premise is that a rift in space time/hellmouth* has opened up in Cardiff, and things are spewing forth. This may seem like a big deal to some, but the best way to deal with it is to have five people, lurking in a warehouse, ready for the call. And though Torchwood is more secret than MI5, they ride around like extras from the Matrix in their 4x4 with its blue neon piping and Torchwood stencilled on its side.

It wastes the charismatic John Barrowman by turning his character into a haunted Angel* figure leading a gang of people who have escaped from a metrosexual soap opera, including a date rapist with alien rohypnol. In fact, with the HQ, the aliens they deal with and the way the show is written, its a bit obvious the show is trying to be a British Angel*. Into this stolen nonsense concept, some good writers have tried to write good stories, but the show lets them down. If you want to see the worst sub-Garth Marenghi tosh Torchwood has to offer, then watch Cyberwoman.

It has been commissioned (so far) for two series of 13 episodes. That's a lot of money and effort to spend, which could (in theory) have gone instead on something original, a genuinely grown up genre show. While as far as I know, the well received Being Human is unlikely to go beyond a pilot. After one episode of that, not only can I remember the characters names, but I cared what happened to them. But that's not how it works, and ultimately I can't help but think that Torchwood's real purpose is empire building.

It was a show that was mercilessly plugged throughout series 2 of Doctor Who, which kids can't watch (in theory) due to the graphic sex, violence and horror. All things discerning adults could enjoy, if they weren't done in such a teenage fashion. Whoever thought we needed an adult Doctor Who, was clearly very short-sighted. It has blurred the line further by releasing edited episodes earlier in the schedule. Any parents not paying attention, may not appreciate watching it on DVD with their kids. If Primeval is in RTD's words 'hideously white' then Torchwood is 'inappropriately hanging round playgrounds'.

But I'm not starting a petition here, one day Torchwood will be gone and better shows will erase its memory. Lots of talented people are working on the show, it's just the wrong show.

Doctor Who with shagging, what were they thinking?


*Joss Whedon scripted show, concept or writing style. I'm not his biggest fan, but the guy does what he does very well, and so as we have seen, has his imitators.

OVS - Omnivistascope Mode IV - Update

Just to say that Omnivistascope is gearing up in March for work on OVS4 the fourth installment of our SF spectacular.

We have a rough cover worked up, and an issue full of strips lined up. Stories with art by Bryan Coyle and Chris Geary are already awaiting transmission and there's much more yet to come. As always, we strive to make each one better than the last and this is undoubtedly going to be the best issue to date.

Full line up yet to be confirmed, but the comic is due in time for the Bristol Comic Expo. Be sure to keep an eye out for trailers of upcoming strips.