By Cat Eldridge: Jodi Houser’s Doctor Who: A Tale of Two Time Lords, Vol. 1: A Little Help From My Friends
This graphic novel from Titans Comics involves my two favorite Doctors from the modern era, the Tenth and Thirteen Doctors. Written by Jodi Houser who’s also written Faith for Valiant Comics, Max Ride: Ultimate Flight and Agent May for Marvel Comics, and Orphan Black for IDW, it’s splendidly illustrated by Roberta Ingranata, an Italian artist who’s mainly worked for a European comic publisher I’ve never heard of until now.
Note that Doctor Who: A Tale of Two Time Lords Vol. 1: A Little Help From My Friends is the beginning of a series and not a one-off, so we can expect more delightful tales involving these two Time Lords.
This story ties into the fan-favorite Tenth Doctor “Blink” episode which was written by former showrunner Steven Moffat. With her Companions (Yaz, Ryan and Graham), she battles the Weeping Angels – assisted by the Tenth Doctor! It’s set in the swinging Sixties London, which makes for a good background for a Whovian story.
Ok so how does it read as a Who story? Quite brilliantly, actually. Houser has a deft sense of the Doctors as characters so her script feels right, and Ingranata’s art, though not exactly representative of how I think they look, captures their feel well enough. Tennant’s easy to illustrate as is Whittaker and that helps here. The premise is that during ‘Blink’ the Tenth Doctor and his companion Martha were transported by the Weeping Angels back to 1969 where they will encounter the Thirteenth Doctor. And together they will battle another ancient enemy of the Time Lords.
I’m not going to give anything away but will note that if you like Doctor Who, I think you’ll like this story. Her Doctors are believable and the story is told very very well with the artwork good enough to carry her story excellently.
Following Titan Comics’ Time Lord Victorious mini-series, and after narrowly escaping the Weeping Angels in 1960s London, the Tenth and Thirteenth Doctor must team-up once again to save present-day Earth from being overrun by a race of aquatic villains.
Who else can they turn to for help but Rose Tyler, leader of the human resistance?
Written by Jody Houser, interior art by Roberta Ingranata, and an array of variant covers.
Issue #1 goes on sale November 18, just ahead of Doctor Who Comics Day – November 21.
Titan Comics will make the latest release from acclaimed creator Alejandro Jodorowsky (The Incal, Technopriests, Metabarons) available for the first time in English in April 2020.
The 18th century. In a monastery in the North of Spain hides the sacred temple of the Knights of Heliopolis: an assembly of immortal alchemists cut off from the world. As disciple Seventeen prepares to complete his training and integrate order, his master Fulcanelli reveals to the other knights the terrible secret of his origins – Seventeen is actually the hidden son of King Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette! Will the young heir claim the throne or remain in the shadows, faithful to the millennial precepts of Alchemy?
This Dumas’ classic tale The Man in the Iron Mask is brilliantly rewritten as a grand esoteric fable, with stunning artwork from Jérémy (Barracuda, La Complainte des Landes Perdus).
About the Creators:
Alejandro Jodorowsky is a French-Chilean film-maker, playwright, actor, author, musician and comics writer, best known for his controversial avant-garde films and as a notable comic writer with The Incal, created in conjunction with the late Moebius, often cited as the greatest comic ever written.
Jérémy, born in 1984, started alongside Philippe Delaby as a colorist at just 17 years old. While working on coloring projects, he took the time to produce a comic strip about pirates, Barracuda, written by Jean Dufaux. On the death of his master Philippe Delaby, Jérémy agreed to complete the 21 remaining plates from volume 4 of the second cycle of La Complainte des landes perdus.
Wika, a baroque steampunk fairy tale written by Thomas Day and with art by Olivier Ledriot, is coming from Titan Comics in March 2021.
After narrowly escaping an uprising that claims the lives of her parents, Wika, the last of a royal line of fairies, must evade the assassins on her trail long enough to discover the secret of her lineage. Uncover Thomas Day’s first comic book story – a dark tale of magic and mystery, with fairies, dwarves, goblins and elves, in a stunning epic fantasy world brought to life by the beautiful illustrations of Olivier Ledroit.
Thomas Day, born in Paris, is a French-language SF and fantasy writer. He has published fifteen novels since 2002. His novel Way of the Sword was adapted as a comic strip by French publisher Glénat (soon to be released in English by Titan Comics’ Statix Press line), and received the Julia Verlanger Prize in 2003.
Olivier Ledroit is a French comic book artist who studied for two years at the Duperré School of Applied Arts in Paris. He is best known for his work on The Black Moon Chronicles and In June 1997, he adapted the new Deadly Enemies by Philip K. Dick. He has teamed with comics auteur Pat Mills on two occasions: Sha and Requiem: Vampire Knights, for which he won the Favorite European Comics Eagle Award in 2007.
Several pages of Wika’s beautiful artwork follow the jump.
(1) NASFIC FAN FUND AUCTION. Michael J. Lowrey makes a last-minute appeal: We still need items for auction pretty desperately: books, fanzines, tuckerizations, fannish memorabilia, whatever, for the Virtual FanFund Auction at the virtual NASFIC on Facebook.” Post items there. The auction starts Friday. Lowrey says —
An auction item post should include the following:
Item Name Description Minimum Bid
Please note that if your Fan Fund Auction Donation requires shipping, you are expected to pay for that shipping as an additional donation. If you wish to restrict shipping to your home country, say so up front.
This is a Silent Fan Fund Auction, to be held on behalf of TAFF (the Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund, http://taff.org.uk/), GUFF (the Get Up-and-over Fan Fund, https://taff.org.uk/guff.html), DUFF (the Down Under Fan Fund, https://downunderfanfund.wordpress.com/), and LAFF (The Latin American Fan Fund). These funds serve to enable fans to travel to other countries and continents to attend their major conventions and meet the local fans, people they may know only from letter columns, email, or chatty websites. And to get it all done, the funds depend on contributions of fans like you… and, of course, benefit auctions.
This is your chance to pick up any number of interesting things… art, books, fanzines, pulp magazines, t-shirts, things that somehow involve cats… the opportunity to be “Tuckerized” into a work of fiction… or other peculiar or “fannish” stuff.
Donations for the fan fund auction will be accepted via posts to this event, and we also accept monetary donations via paypal to [email protected]. If you would like the proceeds from your auction donation to go to a particular fan fund, indicate that in your post. The proceeds from donations without designations will be evenly split between the fan funds.
(2) SHIELDS UP. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] Chris Lindahl, in the Indiewire story “Embroiled In A Legal Battle, Nichelle Nichols’ Family Seeks GoFundMe Help For Star Trek Icon”, says that Nichols’s son, Kyle Johnson, is suing her manager, Gilbert Bell, saying that Bell is taking advantage of Nichols’s infirmity to abuse her fortune. Nichols was diagnosed with dementia in 2013 and had a stroke in 2015. The GoFundMe campaign which has raised $64,760 of its $100,000 goal is under “Shields Up Nichelle Nichols.”
Now allegedly suffering from dementia, Nichelle Nichols, 87, who played Uhura on the original “Star Trek” in the late 1960s, is embroiled in an ongoing legal battle involving her manager, Gilbert Bell. Alleging Bell took advantage of Nichols over the last decade, Nichols’ family has taken to GoFundMe to help raise money for the icon’s legal battle.
The most recent court action came earlier this month, when Kyle Johnson, Nichols’ son, filed a cross complaint against Bell. The complaint is in response to a 2019 lawsuit filed by Bell against Johnson, where Bell alleges that it is Johnson’s actions that are harming Nichols — while Bell has always had her best interests in mind.
Johnson has denied Bell’s allegations of wrongdoing against him. Bell has not yet responded in court to Johnson’s allegations. IndieWire has reached out to lawyers for Johnson, Bell, and a representative for Nichols….
…There’s also the contention that Science Fiction is a continuum, an on-going, centuries old dialogue of call and response, writers reacting to published works and offering up variations, counter-arguments, expansions in response. “We stand on the shoulders of giants” is an expression often used to acknowledge that without the work perfomed by previous generations of authors, editors, publishers, artists and fans, contemporary SF would not be where it is today.
That latter is often negatively receieved these days, and it shouldn’t be. Much is made about contemporary SF rejecting the all white heterosexual european male colonialist based SF of the 40s, 50s and 60s – but of course without the existence of such a body of work, there would be nothing to react to or reject. Call it a benign correction as the field expands to incorporate diverse voices or call it a war against patriarchy, in both estimations there is something that is being addressed and re-evaluated (if not pushed back against and excoriated).
Is there an SF Canon? Yes. But is it a moving scale? Is it inviolate? Is it mandatory?
No, no and no.
(4) CASTING THE CANON. And Doris V. Sutherland cannot resist trying to answer the question for another genre, “What is the Horror Canon?”
…Picture a bookshelf, completely empty and ready to have a tidy set of volumes lined up on it. Now imagine that someone has decided to fill it with the canonical works of horror literature. What would they start with? Frankenstein and Dracula would be obvious choices. These may well be followed with reasonably-sized collections of Poe and Lovecraft stories. Next, let’s add the complete ghost stories of M. R. James.
Now pause for thought. That’s five books – and already we’ve covered a pretty substantial chunk of the most influential horror fiction in the English language. Regardless of what else we put on the shelf – and it’s easy enough to think of further titles, from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde to The Exorcist – it’s hard to deny that those above five books will cover a pretty big percentage of whatever horror canon we end up with.
Now try to imagine a bookshelf with the science fiction canon. It’s a taller order: off the top of my head, we’d have at least four books if we wanted to represent Isaac Asimov alone (I, Robot and the Foundation trilogy). When we factor in Verne, Wells, Heinlein, Clarke, Bester, Ellison, Le Guin… well, let’s just say we’re going to end up with more than five books.
So, the horror canon is smaller than the science fiction canon – or, to phrase that differently, more tightly-focused. Thinking about it, this makes sense. Horror is a genre where less is more – look at how many classics of horror fiction are short stories rather than novels, for one. And when I look back at our hypothetical bookshelf of canonical horror, I have to wonder if those books might be better described not as a horror canon, but as a set of horror archetypes.
The dimwitted bigot brigade finally came across my piece about the Science Fiction canon from a couple of weeks ago and had a predictable spasm about it, asserting how it was evidence that (I’m paraphrasing from various sources, here) a) science fiction and fantasy was dying, b) traditional publishing (the sf/f parts of it anyway) is dying too, c) I’m responsible in some measure for a) and b), despite d) the fact that apparently I don’t actually sell and/or only sell through byzantine sleight of hand by the publishing industry for reasons and also e) I suck, f) which is why I don’t want people to read older works because then they would realize that, and while we’re at it g) modern sf/f is infested with terrible work from people who aren’t straight white dudes, h) which I, a straight white dude, am also somehow responsible for, and so in short, i) everything is my fault, and j) I am simultaneously a nobody and also history’s worst monster.
It’s a lot! I think it must be tiring to be a dimwitted bigot, thinking about me….
…Affleck reportedly got the script for The Flash at the end of last week and agreed to board the project.
“He’s a very substantial part of the emotional impact of the movie. The interaction and relationship between Barry and Affleck’s Wayne will bring an emotional level that we haven’t seen before,” Muschietti tells Vanity Fair who broke the news. “It’s Barry’s movie, it’s Barry’s story, but their characters are more related than we think. They both lost their mothers to murder, and that’s one of the emotional vessels of the movie. That’s where the Affleck Batman kicks in.”
Another reason feature mythology-wise why Affleck’s Batman is coming back to The Flash, and that’s that Miller’s Flash considers him to be the original Dark Knight, the guy he fought alongside in Justice League. Hence, per Muschietti, it was necessary to have Affleck’s Batman as a starting point: “He’s the baseline. He’s part of that unaltered state before we jump into Barry’s adventure…There’s a familiarity there,” he further tells Vanity Fair.
2020 has been a scary year. Like some dark fantasy or horror story. Or a dystopian tale about the end of the world.
Why not embrace that spirit? Show this year from hell that you can take whatever it dishes out, because you know what dark fantasies and horror stories are really like. And you’ve seen more ends of the world than 2020 could even dream of.
…Read about curses and ghosts, about Norse gods on the Canadian prairies and what happens after Ragnarök and the end of the world. Read how life on Earth may end if we don’t stop killing our planet. Read twenty-one tales of personal apocalypses (because someone’s world is always ending), and stories from a very special and very strange bookstore. Read about post-human biopunk and day-after-tomorrow climate change adventure. Read about the boy who is either a scrawny, bullied, neglected son of insane parents or the imprisoned leader of a death cult dedicated to the goddess of discord.
…For StoryBundle, you decide what price you want to pay. For $5 (or more, if you’re feeling generous), you’ll get the basic bundle of four books in any ebook format—WORLDWIDE.
Picking Up the Ghost by Tone Milazzo
Wasps at the Speed of Sound by Derryl Murphy
The Door to Lost Pages by Claude Lalumière
Tombstone Blues by Chadwick Ginther
If you pay at least the bonus price of just $15, you get all four of the regular books, plus SEVEN more books, for a total of eleven!
Chadwick Boseman and Seth MacFarlane are teaming up with Eisa Davis to develop a drama based on the Little Rock Nine’s efforts to end racial segregation at Central High School in 1957.
Deadline reported the three will work on developing the project, based on Carlotta Walls LaNier’s memoir A Mighty Long Way: My Journey to Justice at Little Rock Central High.
The series will look at the desegregation of the high school and how 14-year-old LaNier and eight other students became the first Black people to attend the all-white school.
In a landmark decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1954 that segregated schools were unconstitutional and called for the integration of all schools.
The nine students, along with Daisy Bates, became civil rights icons as they risked their lives to combat the racist school segregation policies in Arkansas.
(9) MEDIA ANNIVERSARY.
This week in 1950, Dimension X aired a story out of Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles in which a Martian named Eala dreams of a visitor from a planet, Earth, where they know life is impossible. This episode was unusual in that Bradbury hosted it instead of the usual Dimension X host. The story was later renamed “Ylla” which is considered the canonical title for this story but it was first published as “I’ll Not Ask for Wine” in Maclean’s, January 1, 1950. Listen here.
(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and John Hertz.]
Born August 20, 1883 — Austin Tappan Wright. Did you know that Islandia wasn’t published when he was alive? His widow edited his fifteen hundred page manuscript for publication, and following her own death in 1937 their daughter Sylvia further edited and cut the text yet more; the resulting novel, shorn of Wright’s appendices, was published in 1942, along with a pamphlet by Basil Davenport, An introduction to Islandia; its history, customs, laws, language, and geography, based on the original supplementary material. Is there a full, unedited version? (Died 1931.) (CE)
Born August 20, 1906 – Sheila Hawkins. Wrote and illustrated fifty children’s books in the United Kingdom and Australia, many with animals, many fantastic. Here is The Singing Chameleon. Here is Taliesin. Here is an interior for Long Ears. Here is Wish and the Magic Nut, which won Picture Book of the Year. Also landscapes and abstracts. (Died 1999) [JH]
Born August 20, 1909 — André Morell. Best remembered as Professor Bernard Quatermass in the Quatermass and the Pit series, and as Doctor Watson in the Hammer Film Productions version of The Hound of the Baskervilles which is quite excellent. It’s also worth noting that he played O’Brien in BBC’s 1954 Nineteen Eighty-Four, opposite Peter Cushing as Winston Smith. (Died 1978.) (CE)
Born August 20, 1915 – Arthur Porges. For us a hundred short stories, some under other names; half a dozen posthumous collections. Many more for others e.g. detective fiction. Translated into Croatian, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian, Serbian, Spanish. Here he is on the cover of the Sep 60 Fantastic (i.e. his story “The Shadowsmith”; cover artwork by John Duillo). This Website is about AP and his brother Irwin. (Died 2006) [JH]
Born August 20, 1942 – Joe Mayhew, F.N. One of our finest fanartists; two Hugos for that. Five short stories published, in Aberrations, Aboriginal, and Tomorrow; a score of reviews in Absolute Magnitude, more in the Washington Post. A hundred seventy drawings in Asimov’s, Flag, FOSFAX, The Frozen Frog, It Goes on the Shelf, Journey Planet, Mimosa, NY Rev. of SF, PLOKTA, Squiggeldy Hoy, Vojo de Vivo; various Worldcon and other con publications. Radio-style plays for Disclaves and Boskones. Fellow of NESFA (New England SF Ass’n; service award). Chaired the 1987 Disclave. Library of Congress Recommending Officer for SF. Fan Guest of Honor at Novacon II, Albacon 3; Ghost of Honor at Capclave 2001, Balticon 49. Here is his cover for the Nov 98 WSFA Journal (Washington, D.C., SF Ass’n). Here is an illustration from Mimosa 17. (Died 2000) [JH]
Born August 20, 1943 — Sylvester McCoy, 77. The Seventh Doctor and the last canon Doctor until the modern era of the official BBC Doctors when they revised canon. He also played Radagast in Peter Jackson’s Hobbit films, he’s The Old Man of Hoy in Sense8 and he voices Aezethril the Wizard in the “Endgame” episode of Thunderbirds Are Go. (CE)
Born August 20, 1951 — Greg Bear, 69. Blood Music which won both a Nebula Award for Best Novelette and a Hugo Award at L.A. Con II for Best Novelette is an amazing read. I’m also very fond of the Songs of Earth and Power duology, The Infinity Concerto and The Serpent Mage, and found his Queen of Angels a fascinating mystery. I confess that I’ve not read him over the past few decades. What’s he done as of late that I should consider reading? (CE)
Born August 20, 1961 — Greg Egan, 59. Australian writer who exists though he does his damnedest to avoid a digital footprint. His excellent Permutation City won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award and “Oceanic” garnered a Best Novella Hugo at Ausiecon Three. I assume he wasn’t there given his stance against attending Worldcons? (CE)
Born August 20, 1961 – Jim Clemens, 59. Three dozen novels for us, half a dozen shorter stories, some with Rebecca Cantrell; action-adventure books under another name, some with Grant Blackwood; certified SCUBA (Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus) diver; Doctor of Veterinary Medicine under yet another name – if he wants to keep these careers separate, why shouldn’t we? Translated into Dutch, French, German, Italian. [JH]
Born August 20, 1962 — Sophie Aldred, 58. She’s Ace, the Seventh Doctor’s Companion. (By the way Doctor Who Magazine: Costume Design: Dressing the Doctor from William Hartnell to Jodie Whittaker is a brilliant read and has a nice look at her costuming.) She’s reprised the role in the Big Finish audio adventures. (CE)
Born August 20, 1969 – Christina Diaz Gonzalez, 51. Three novels for us, three others. Many awards for historical fiction The Red Umbrella (also in Spanish). Born in Florida to Cuban parents. Took a law degree, practiced law awhile. Lives in Miami with husband, sons, a dog that can open doors. [JH]
Born August 2, 1972 – Carolyn Cohagen, 48. Four novels. Conducts Girls With Pens, creative writing for girls 8-14. Earlier, a stand-up comic in New York, Chicago, London, Amsterdam; studied physical theater at École international de théâtre Jacques Lecoq, Paris. Ranks The Phantom Tollbooth about the same as Slaughterhouse-Five. [JH]
(12) HORRIBLE EXAMPLES. Earlier this month Titan Comics was handed a golden opportunity to publicize their collection of The Best of Hägar The Horrible by Dik Browne.
Joe Biden recently announced his choice of Kamala Harris as running mate, and in the official photograph by Adam Schultz also revealed that he keeps a framed cartoon strip on his desk – from Titan’s own Hägar the Horrible!
Bleeding Cool reported on the story, as well as quoting Biden saying that the strip had helped him through personal tragedies by reminding him “a lot of people are going through a lot worse than you’re going through, and the way they get through it is … they have people reach out, touch them, give them solace.”
This is the strip on Biden’s desk:
And here are some other examples Titan shared in its press kit, several with genre jokes.
(13) NINETEEN MINUTES OF FAME. At least, the nineteen-minute mark is where fame summons James Davis Nicoll in Isaac Arthur’s video The Fermi Paradox: Galactic Disasters. James notes, “He mispronounced my name but I am the Nicoll in Nicoll-Dyson Laser, which can reduce an Earth-sized world to vapour in a week at distances of up to a million light years.”
If anything, this video makes Cixin Liu’s Death’s End sound too cheerful.
(14) THE NAME OF MY LAST BAND. Just released on YouTube today — Live From the Space Stage: A HALYX Story is a full-length documentary.
For one glorious summer, an experimental, sci-fi band rocked Disneyland’s space stage. With a bass-playing Wookiee and an acrobatic frog, the band’s existence is nearly unbelievable, and the story behind its creation is just as incredible.
Possibly the most famous of all of the John Carter of Mars covers by Frazetta, the artist actually painted two versions in 1970, with the first being published as a Doubleday hardback dustjacket cover. Fearing that the original art would not be returned from the publisher, Frazetta immediately painted a version for himself – the stellar painting we’re offering – since he was so proud of the image. Frazetta personally related to Joe and Nadia Mannarino (see below), and presumably others, that he loved this second painting even more than the original (which he actually sold in the early 1970s). We’re showing the two paintings side-by-side online for review. Regardless of which version you prefer, both represent the quintessential heroic fantasy image, with the bold, strong hero, the voluptuous female at his legs, and surrounded by a dangerous alien environment.
…When Frankenstein first appeared in print in 1818, anonymously but with a preface by Percy Bysshe Shelley, plenty of readers assumed that the poet was its author. In Mary Shelley’s introduction to the 1831 edition, she wrote that people had asked her “how a young girl, came to think of, and to dilate upon, so very hideous an idea?” In keeping with the story’s eerie origins – the stormy nights and sunless summer days beside Lake Geneva – she put it down to a kind of visitation, the result of “imagination, unbidden, possessed”. Yet as the manuscript reveals, inky-fingered graft played a big role in allowing the doctor’s monster to evolve into the more tragic, nuanced creature that’s haunted our imaginations ever since. In fact, “creature”, Mary’s initial description, is later replaced by “being”, a being who becomes still more uncannily human thanks to other tweaks such as replacing the “fangs” that Victor imagines in his feverish delirium with “fingers” grasping at his neck.
Sadly, the refusal to believe that a woman barely out of girlhood could possibly have authored this transcendent Promethean fable has never quite gone away, and Percy’s notes on the manuscript have been used to bolster the theory that he at least co-authored Mary’s novel. While he’s certainly an astute line editor, the chief revelation here is domestic: the radical Romantic was a supportive, affectionate partner.
The idea of using a public bathroom with see-through walls may sound like the stuff of nightmares. But a famous Japanese architect is hoping to change that view, using vibrant colors and new technology to make restrooms in Tokyo parks more inviting.
“There are two things we worry about when entering a public restroom, especially those located at a park,” according to architect Shigeru Ban’s firm. “The first is cleanliness, and the second is whether anyone is inside.”
Transparent walls can address both of those worries, Ban says, by showing people what awaits them inside. After users enter the restroom and lock the door, the powder room’s walls turn a powdery pastel shade — and are no longer see-through.
“Using a new technology, we made the outer walls with glass that becomes opaque when the lock is closed, so that a person can check inside before entering,” the Nippon Foundation says.
The group is behind the Tokyo Toilet project, enlisting world-famous architects to create toilets “like you’ve never seen.”
A ninja museum has been raided in Japan, with thieves making off with more than a million yen (£7,100).
The Iga-ryu Ninja Museum in central Japan is dedicated to the history of the famous Iga clan of ninja.
Police were called after an alarm was set off at 01:30 local time on Monday (16:30 GMT on Sunday), the museum said on Thursday.
Officers found the office door had been forced with what is thought to be a crowbar and the 150kg safe was missing.
(19) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Someone with time on their hands turns 2001 into 2020.
2020: an isolation odyssey is a reenactment of the iconic finale of 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968). Restaged in the context of home quarantine, the journey through time adapts to the mundane dramas of self-isolation–poking fun at the navel-gazing saga of life alone and indoors.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, N., Martin Morse Wooster, John Hertz, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, JJ, Andrew Porter, Michael J. Walsh, Linda Deneroff, Chip Hitchcock, Paul DiFilippo, John A Arkansawyer, and Michael Toman for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Simon Bisson.]
Sherlock: A Scandal In Belgravia Part One goes on sale September 15. Sherlock meets his match in Irene Adler and has to recover compromising photographs of the royal family. This is Titan Comics’ ongoing manga adaption of the BBC’s seminal Sherlock series with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman.
Fresh from confronting Moriarty in the end of The Great Game, Sherlock Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch) and John Watson (Martin Freeman) are called to save the royal family from blackmail at the hands of Irene Adler (Lara Pulver), a dominatrix known as “The Woman”. Adler pulls Sherlock into a complex web of mysteries involving the CIA and the MOD, with secrets that could threaten to threaten international security and topple the monarchy.
Co-created by Mark Gatiss, an English actor, comedian, screenwriter and novelist. His work includes writing for and acting in the TV series Doctor Who, Sherlock, The League of Gentlemen and Taboo.
Written by Steven Moffat, the Scottish television writer and producer well-known for his work on Doctor Who and Sherlock, who has won BAFTA and Emmy awards.
Manga artist Jay continues to capture both the look and spirit of the original with his amazing, expressive panels, and we present it in the original back-to-front manga format.
Following the jump are some art panels from the issue. The last three pages Titan Comics has shared exclusively with File 770 readers.
Titan Comics is releasing Doctor Who: Time Lord Victorious #1 on September 2, written by Jody Houser, with art by Robert Ingranata.
A thrilling new adventure for the Tenth Doctor (as played by fan-favorite David Tennant) that sees the shocking return of his deadliest enemies: the Daleks! But things aren’t what they seem – time is all wrong, and something is coming that terrifies even the Daleks… The first of two oversized issues kicking off the BBC’s highly anticipated multi-platform Doctor Who epic, Time Lord Victorious!
The variant cover art and page samples from the issue – the reason for this post! – follow the jump.
Shades Of Magic: The Steel Prince – The Rebel Army – the epic finale of The Steel Prince graphic novel trilogy by New York Times bestselling author V.E. Schwab is on sale today from Titan Comics.
In the months following his defeat and unmasking by Prince Maxim Maresh at the climax of the Night of Knives Tournament, Rowan, its architect and Antari magician, has forcefully taken command of a ragtag pirate fleet known as the Rebel Army.
Through a campaign of pillaging and conscription of Arnes’ coastal towns, Rowan has grown the Rebel Army into a force powerful enough to usurp a prince and destroy an empire.
Now, all that stands between the fall of the House of Maresh and the sacking of Red London is Maxim and his garrison, unless the young headstrong prince can win the hearts and minds of the inhabitants of Verose and convince them to join him in one final stand against the most powerful magician he has ever faced.
Titan Comics will be involved in BBC Studios multi-platform Doctor Who story Time Lord Victorious, launching two over-sized comic issues which will debut on September 2, 2020.
Time Lord Victorious is BBC Studios’ brand new multi-platform Doctor Who story told across audio, novels, comics, vinyl, digital, immersive theatre, escape rooms, and games.
Available to pre-order now, Doctor Who: Time Lord Victorious #1 is a comic adventure in which the Tenth Doctor faces the return of his most iconic enemy, the Daleks.
When the Doctor faces his ancient foes once again, it soon becomes clear that things aren’t what they seem – time is all wrong and something is coming that terrifies even the Daleks.
Jake Devine, Editor, Titan’s Doctor Who Comics, says: “Titan’s comic story is quite unique, as it features the Tenth Doctor as seen in the recent Thirteenth Doctor comic series, so he’s not reached his so-called victory over time yet. But what has been fun to explore is the Doctor getting a glimpse of what’s to come and foreshadowing his own dark turn.”
Time Lord Victorious #1 is written by Eisner-nominated Jody Houser (Stranger Things, Star Wars,Spider-Man) with art by Roberta Ingranata (Witchblade).
The comic debuts with five covers for fans to collect: an official Time Lord Victorious iconic by artist Lee Binding; art covers by Andie Tong (TEKKEN), Priscilla Petraites (Rat Queens), a Dalek metallic ink version by Hendry Prasetya (Green Lantern) and a Dalek blue line sketch cover.
Cover by Andy Tong
Cover by Hendry Prasetya
Time Lord Victorious #1 ($5.99) is now available to pre-order globally from July’s Diamond Previews catalogue, ForbiddenPlanet.com and on digital device via Comixology.
The adventure will tell a new and untold story, set within the Dark Times at the start of the universe, when even the Eternals were young. Following several Doctors across space and time as they defend their home planet from a terrible race, this is a story like no other.
Further information about Time Lord Victorious can be found on DoctorWho.TV.
(1) LETTING THE GENE OUT OF THE BOTTLE. One of the field’s most esteemed writers delivers Whatever’s recurring feature today: “The Big Idea: Nancy Kress”.
At parties in my city—environmentally conscious, crunchy-granola, high-tech and socially activist Seattle—it is easy to start a flaming argument. Just walk up to a group, tilt your head, and say inquiringly, “What do you think of GMOs?” Then stand back to avoid being scorched.
Genetically modified organisms have passionate denouncers and equally passionate supporters. This is especially true for GMO crops, since the genemod bacteria and animals are usually hidden away in labs, ranches, or manufacturing facilities. But there is GMO food right out front on your table, plated in front of your kids. Everybody has an opinion.
Including me.
But I didn’t want my new novella from Tachyon, Sea Change, to be a polemic for one side of the controversy. I wanted to explore in a balanced way both sides of the myriad questions involved….
(2) HARRY POTTER READINGS. This edition is really cool.
— Harry Potter and the Cursed Child NYC (@CursedChildNYC) May 21, 2020
(3) KEEPING AN EAR ON YOU. Mara Hvistendahl’s article “How a Chinese AI Giant Made Chatting—and Surveillance—Easy” in the June WIRED reports that iFlytek does a really good job of translation — and also allows Chinese authorities to track users by the sound of their voices.
When I mentioned iFlytek’s work to a friend in Shanghai, she said it reminded her of the story ‘City of Silence’ by the Chinese science fiction writer Ma Boyong. The story is set in a future society where speech is tightly controlled. The people are clever at adapting to each new limit, turning to homonyms and slang to circumvent censors, and in time the authorities realize that the only way to truly control speech is to publish a List of Healthy Words, forbid all terms not on the list, and monitor voice as well as text. Anytime the protagonist leaves the house, he has to wear a device called the Listener, which issues a warning when he strays from the list of approved words. The realm of sanctioned speech dwindles day by day.
Eventually the protagonist discovers the existence of a secret Talking Club, where in an apartment encircled by lead curtains, members say whatever they want, have sex, and study 1984, Feeling alive again, he realizes that he has been suppressing ‘a strong yearning to talk.’ This brief encounter with hope is squelched when the authorities develop radar dishes that can intercept signals through lead curtains. By the end of the story, there are no healthy words left, and the hero walks the city mutely, alone with his thoughts. ‘Luckily, it was not yet possible to shield the mind with technology.’ Ma writes.
This week marks the 40th anniversary of Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back.
Considered by most to be the blockbuster franchise’s finest moment, the second Star Wars film stunned audiences around the world with a killer twist and the ultimate downbeat ending.
…Frank Oz, the original puppeteer and voice behind Yoda, also created several Muppet characters along with Jim Henson. You don’t think of Oz’s Miss Piggy as a puppet, you think of her as a pig. And, it’s the same with Yoda and Baby Yoda: We think of them as whatever it is they are supposed to be, not as a kooky fake thing.
But, it turns out, that creating that illusion requires a very specific philosophy. And in a new interview celebrating the 40th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back, George Lucas touched on one fascinating connection between the original Yoda in 1980 and Baby Yoda on The Mandalorian.
Over on the official Star Wars website, George Lucas is talking about The Empire Strikes Back. For diehards, there’s not necessarily a ton of new information in this interview, after all, people have been meticulously documenting the making of Star Wars movies since Star Wars began. But, in talking about the director or The Empire Strikes Back —Irvin Kershner — one detail about how Yoda was shot on set will raise your eyebrow if you’ve been following all the behind-the-scenes action on The Mandalorian.
“Kershner treated Yoda like an actor on set, sometimes talking to the prop instead of addressing Oz down below.”
This is significant because nearly 40 years later, the exact same thing happened on the set of The Mandalorian. In the behind-the-scenes documentary series Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian, director Deborah Chow confirmed what was cropping up in several reports already; cinematic legend Werner Herzog spoke directly to Baby Yoda puppet on the set, and, like Kershner did on Empire, treated the puppet exactly like an actor….
…It turns out that even castaway kids will flout convention, as this Guardian article reveals. With no regard for the feelings of authority figures, six Tongan boys spent over a year marooned on a deserted island without even one brutal murder. Instead they cooperated and survived; they even cared for one of the boys who broke his leg….
The fan asked Rowling to explain “the truth about this ‘birthplace’ of Harry Potter.”
Rowling, who is known to drop various bombshells and unknown tidbits about the franchise on Twitter, explained that the real “pen to paper” birth of Harry Potter himself, happened in her flat.
“If you define the birthplace of Harry Potter as the moment when I had the initial idea, then it was a Manchester-London train,” Rowling tweeted.
“But I’m perennially amused by the idea that Hogwarts was directly inspired by beautiful places I saw or visited, because it’s so far from the truth.”
For instance, I never visited this bookshop in Oporto. Never even knew of its existence! It’s beautiful and I wish I *had* visited it, but it has nothing to do with Hogwarts! pic.twitter.com/f83rxBeeyY
(10) CHECK YOUR SHELVES. “Harry Potter first edition found in skip sells for £33,000”. No, J.K. Rowling’s revelation above is not the reason that book got chucked. It happened a long time ago. And hey, the librarian was just doing their job when they dumped that worn-out volume!
A hardback first edition Harry Potter book which was found in a skip has sold for £33,000 at auction.
The rare copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was discovered by a teacher 12 years ago along with two paperback first editions.
The anonymous seller found the books outside a school while tidying its library before an Ofsted inspection.
After the paperbacks went for £3,400 and £3,000, the seller said: “To say I’m pleased is an understatement.”
They were sold during an online auction at Bishton Hall in Staffordshire earlier.
Only 500 hardback first editions of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone were printed in 1997, most of which were sent to schools and libraries.
Romance Writers of America is attempting to turn the page on a damaging racism row, abolishing its top literary prizes and replacing them with awards in a new format it hopes will show “happily ever afters are for everyone” and not just white protagonists.
The association of more than 9,000 romance writers is developing proposals to encourage more diverse winners, including training for its judges, an award for unpublished authors and processes to ensure books are judged by people familiar with each subgenre.
May 22, 1981 — Outland premiered. It was written and directed by Peter Hyams with production by Richard A. Roth and Stanley O’Toole. It starred Sean Connery, Peter Boyle, James B. Sikking, Kika Markham and Frances Sternhagen. According to the studio, it literally broken even at the Box Office. Critics in general liked it (“High Noon in Outer Space”) but audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes are meh on it giving a soft 54% rating.
May 22, 2012 — Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls premiered. The fourth film in the franchise, it directed by Steven Spielberg and was released nineteen years after the last film. Produced by Frank Marshall from a screenplay by David Koepp off of the story by George Lucas and Jeff Nathanson. And starring Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett, Karen Allen, Ray Winstone, John Hurt, Jim Broadbent and Shia LaBeouf. Despite the myth around it in the net that it was a critical failure, critics overwhelmingly loved it. And the audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes give it a 60% rating.
(13) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and John Hertz.]
Born May 22, 1813 – Richard Wagner. His fantasies The Flying Dutchman (“fly” in the sense we still have in “flee”), Tannhäuser, The Ring of the Niebelung (four-opera series), Parsifal, are masterworks of music and theater. Complicated life and opinions less admirable. (Died 1883) [JH]
Born May 22, 1859 – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Famous for Sherlock Holmes, in SF he wrote five novels, sixty shorter stories, translated into Croatian, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish. In fact his surname from birth records to his knighting was only Doyle. (Died 1930) [JH]
Born May 22, 1907 – Hergé. He is best remembered for creating The Adventures of Tintin which are considered one of the most popular European comics of the 19th and 20th centuries. He is much less remembered for Quick & Flupke, a short-lived series between the Wars, and The Adventures of Jo, Zette and Jocko which lasted well into the Fifties. (Died 1983.) (CE)
Born May 22, 1914 – Sun Ra. In the avant-garde of jazz he played keyboards and sang, led a variously-composed band under names more or less like “The Solar Arkestra”, still performing; recorded dozens of singles and a hundred full-length albums with titles like We Travel the Spaceways, Space Is the Place, Strange Celestial Road. Said he was taken to Saturn in a vision, changing his life and art. (Died 1993) [JH]
Born May 22, 1922 – Bob Leman. Fanzine, The Vinegar Worm; two pieces in The Best of Fandom 1958. Fourteen short stories in F&SF, one more in collection Feensters in the Lake, translated into French, German, Italian, Portuguese. With Gerald Bishop, “Venture Science Fiction Magazine” , a Checklist of the First American Series and the First British Series. (Died 2006) [JH]
Born May 22, 1930 – Robert Byrne. Editor of Western Construction. Amateur magician, member of Int’l Brotherhood of Magicians. Billiards and pool teacher and commenter; Byrne’s Standard Book of Pool & Billiards sold 500,000 copies; columnist for Billiards Digest; seven instructional videos; Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame. Eight anthologies of funny things people have said. Three novels in our field, five others. (Died 2016) [JH]
Born May 22, 1938 — Richard Benjamin, 82. He’s here because he was Adam Quark on the all too short-lived Quark series. He also was Joseph Lightman in Witches’ Brew which was based off Fritz Leiber’s Conjure Wife novel (winner of the 1944 Retro-Hugo Award at Dublin 2019) though that’s not credited in the film. And he was in Westworld as Peter Martin. Finally, he did a stint on the Ray Bradbury Theatre as Mr. Howard in “Let’s Play Poison” episode. (CE)
Born May 22, 1943 – Arlene Phillips. Dancer, choreographer including the film Annie and the Royal Shakespeare production of A Clockwork Orange, judge for Strictly Come Dancing and the U.K. version of So You Think You Can Dance? Ten credited film appearances. For us, six Alana, Dancing Star children’s books. [JH]
Born May 22, 1956 — Natasha Shneider. Her entire acting career consisted of but two roles, only one of interest to us, that of the Soviet cosmonaut Irina Yakunina in 2010: Odyssey Two. Her other genre contribution was she wrote and performed “Who’s in Control” for Catwoman. Cancer would take her at far too early an age. (Died 2008.) (CE)
Born May 22, 1968 — Karen Lord, 52. A Barbadian writer whose first novel, Redemption in Indigo, won the Carl Brandon Parallax Award and Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature for its inventive use of Senegalese folklore. I’d also recommend her The Best of All Possible Worlds novel as it’s as well done as her earlier novel but different and fascinating in its own right.
Born May 22, 1978 – Tansy Rayner Roberts. Ph.D. in Classics from U. Tasmania. Hugo as Best Fan Writer 2013, Ditmar as Best Fan Writer 2015; nine more Ditmars, three of them Athelings (for SF criticism). George Turner prize for Splashdance Silver. WSFA (Washington, D.C., SF Ass’n) Small Press Award for “The Patrician”. A dozen novels, three dozen shorter stories. Served a term as a Director of SFWA (no one made SFWA into Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America and Australia; directors were no longer region-specific). Crime fiction as Livia Day. [JH]
Born May 22, 1979 — Maggie Q, 41. She portrayed Tori Wu in the film adaptation of Veronica Roth’s novel Divergent, a role she reprised in its sequels, Insurgent and Allegiant. She played a female agent in a comedic version of the Jackie Chan fronted Around the World in 80 Days. And she’s in the recent remake of Fantasy Island that critics hated but was a box office success. On a brighter note, she voices Wonder Woman on the Young Justice series.
He laughed *very* hard and replied "He has his uses" and smiled in a way that indicated I wasn't getting more of an answer than that so I changed the subject. I told my dad about it later and he was a perfect mix of horrified and proud.
— Liza (With a Zed) Fletcher McCall (@alllukesfault) May 22, 2020
(16) HUMANITY IS NO LONGER ON TOP. Titan Comics has revealed the Horizon Zero Dawn issue #1 covers. The series, based on the award-winning game by Guerrilla, brings back characters Aloy and Talanah in a new story set after the events of the game. The series launches August 5, 2020.
Set on a far future Earth, where nature has reclaimed the planet but massive, animal-like machines now rule the land, Horizon Zero Dawn follows the story of Aloy, an extraordinary young woman whose quest to solve the riddle of her mysterious origins takes her deep into the ruins of the ancient past.
Titan’s new comic book series – co-created by Anne Toole, one of the writers of Horizon Zero Dawn, with artwork by fan-favorite artist Ann Maulina – takes place after the events of the game as Talanah, a strong and determined hunter, struggles to find purpose after her trusted friend Aloy disappears. When a mysterious threat emerges in the wilds, she sets out to hunt and to defeat it, only to learn that a whole new breed of killer machines stalk the land!
4. How about a book you’ve changed your mind about – either positively or negatively? How about a book that changed my mind? I’ve never been big on nineteenth century lit—there were books I liked here and there but so often they were just…dull. There, I said it. But I read Dickens’ Hard Times a couple years ago and it was such fun—witty and tongue-in-cheek, with obvious but not moralistic commentary on ethical issues—and found families and the circus! I’m finding that some of the lesser-known, non “canon” lit, and especially short fiction, from that period ticks more of my boxes than I realized.
Aidan: Silent protagonists come under a lot of heat, but they’ve never really bothered me in older games. As the level of fidelity and detail grow, however, they make less and less sense, and it feels particularly odd in Dragon Quest XI. With so much voice acting in the game, every time the protagonist (who I’ll call Eleven) responds by awkwardly staring into space or making a weird little gasp feels uncanny. The characters all behave as though he’s this magnetic hero type, but so much of that is personality and charisma—and Eleven has none of that.
I recently replayed Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete (and a bit of Grandia before that) and one of the things that really stood out to me in those games was the personalities of the protagonists really shining through. By emphasizing their personalities, they felt like much more engage and proactive heroes, compared to, say, Crono from Chrono Trigger or Eleven from Dragon Quest XI. Those silent types require others to push the story forward and they act as sort of a… defining element for the protagonist’s actions and motivations. It’s almost like they’re the splash of paint revealing the invisible protagonist.
Biologist and associate professor Ana Sofia Reboleira of the National Natural History Museum said in a press release that she was simply browsing Twitter when she came across a photo, shared by her US colleague Derek Hennen of Virginia Tech, of a North American millipede.
Nothing unusual there. But then she looked closer….
Check out this wild plot synopsis, billed as “Midnight Run in a Bram Stoker world“:
“Dinklage will play Van Helsing, last in a long line of vampire hunters. He develops an uneasy partnership with a Vampire (Momoa) who has taken a vow never to kill again. Together they run a scam from town to town, where Van Helsing pretends to vanquish the Vampire for money. But when a massive bounty is put on the Vampire’s head, everything in this dangerous world full of monsters and magic is now after them.”
British businessman Sir Richard Branson is looking to this weekend to debut one of his new space systems.
Virgin Orbit, based in California, will put satellites above the Earth, using a rocket that’s launched from under the wing of a jumbo jet.
The maiden mission, to be conducted out over the Pacific Ocean, could take place as early as Saturday.
Assuming this demonstration is successful, Virgin Orbit hopes to move swiftly into commercial operations.
It already has a rocket built at its Long Beach factory for a second mission.
British businessman Sir Richard Branson is looking to this weekend to debut one of his new space systems.
(22) COPYCATS. There’s no telling what’s likely to come over the transom these days –
This is definitely a new record for us. Three cases of plagiarism in slush this morning. Normally, one in a month is a lot. One of the three was a fairly recent Hugo Award finalist by an author I've worked with. Another was a slightly revised section of a Harry Potter book.
In 2006, while hiking around the Root Glacier in Alaska to set up scientific instruments, researcher Tim Bartholomaus encountered something completely unexpected.
“What the heck is this!” Bartholomaus recalls thinking. He’s a glaciologist at the University of Idaho.
Scattered across the glacier were balls of moss. “They’re not attached to anything and they’re just resting there on ice,” he says. “They’re bright green in a world of white.
Intrigued, he and two colleagues set out to study these strange pillow-like moss balls. In the journal Polar Biology, they report that the balls can persist for years and move around in a coordinated, herd-like fashion that the researchers can not yet explain.
“The whole colony of moss balls, this whole grouping, moves at about the same speeds and in the same directions,” Bartholomaus says. “Those speeds and directions can change over the course of weeks.”
In the 1950s, an Icelandic researcher described them in the Journal of Glaciology, noting that “rolling stones can gather moss.” He called them “jökla-mýs” or “glacier mice.”
This new work adds to a very small body of research on these fuzz balls, even though glaciologists have long known about them and tend to be fond of them.
Who’d have thought a sci-fi-horror found footage film released in the year 2012 could possibly be a critical failure? Believe it or not, that’s exactly what Area 407 turned out to be.
Arguably the most obscure movie on this list, the fact that barely anybody saw this one is likely no accident. The film was reportedly shot without a script, being entirely ad-libbed by its actors during the movie’s suspiciously lean five-day shoot. Whether or not this was down to sheer laziness or a failed attempt to recapture the magic of classic found footage movie The Blair Witch Project is up for debate – but the movie is terrible, regardless.
Researchers in Australia claim they have recorded the fastest ever internet data speed.
A team from Monash, Swinburne and RMIT universities logged a data speed of 44.2 terabits per second (Tbps).
At that speed, users could download more than 1,000 high-definition movies in less than a second.
According to Ofcom, the average UK broadband speed currently is around 64 megabits per second (Mbps) – a fraction of that recorded in the recent study.
(28) VIDEO OF THE DAY. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] “Fire (Pozar)” on YouTube is a weird film written, animated, and directed by David Lynch in 2015. (I can’t describe it–it’s just weird!)
[Thanks to Chip Hitchcock, Cat Eldridge, John Hertz, Mike Kennedy, Martin Morse Wooster, Andrew Porter, JJ, Michael Toman, Contrarius, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]
