Permalink Reply by Mark Sullivan (Vertiginous Mod) on December 5, 2014 at 12:24am
Remember it! I'm watching an episode right now (via Netflix, but I bought some of the seasons on DVD before that).
Figserello said:
And Dr Who's Inferno storyline, I believe. And Sliders was basically a whole TV series based on the idea, if anyone remembers that.
It's one of the more watchable Pertwee era seven-parters.
Permalink Reply by Luke Blanchard on December 6, 2014 at 7:40am
John Wyndham wrote a parallel world short story called "Random Quest" that was adapted for Out of the Unknown in 1969; but the episode is lost. A movie version called Quest for Love appeared in 1971.
Early parallel worlds prose stories include The Blind Spot (1921) by Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint, and Men Like Gods (1923) by H.G. Wells. There may be earlier ones. Murray Leinster's story "Sidewise in Time" (1934) involves a series of alternative timelines; it's reportedly the first story to depict a timeline in which the Confederacy won the Civil War. Sam Merwin, Jr.'s The House of Many Worlds (1951) involves an organisation that sends agents to other timelines to influence the course of events. The 1983 Ace edition (which also included the sequel, Three Faces of Time) had a cover by Frank Brunner.
Permalink Reply by The Baron on December 6, 2014 at 10:33am
Next up is Universal Monsters Cavalcade of Horror, which contains comics adaptations of four Universal horror films - The Mummy, by Dan Jolley and Tony Harris, Frankenstein, by Den Beauvais, Dracula, by Dan Vado and Jonathan D. Smith, and Creature from the Black Lagoon, by Steve Moncuse, Art Adams and Terry Austin. They're all reasonably good adaptations, though I think I like Creature the best, mostly because of the Adams/Austin art.
Ebenezer Scrooge is shown a possible future if he doesn't change his ways in 1843.
Permalink Reply by The Baron on December 6, 2014 at 5:01pm
Next was Star Wars: Jabba the Hutt - The Art of the Deal, by Jim Woodring, Art Wetherell and Monty Sheldon, in which we follow Jabba's misadventures as he deals with various low-lifes who are almost as evil as he is. This is mildly amusing. There's no suspense in it. of course, since we know what his ultimate fate is, but it is amusing seeing how he gets out of things. The art is OK, if not spectacular.
Read Psi Judge Anderson - The Psychic Crime Files, by Alan Grant, with art by Carlos Ezquerra, Trevor Hairsine, Boo Cook, Patrick Goddard and Hector Ezquerra. This is not so much a "graphic novel", as a collection of stories that first appeared in 2000 AD and Judge Dredd Magazine. As such, it's enjoyable - I've always preferred Anderson to Dredd as a character. The art varies a bit in quality, but is generally pretty good. My favorites were "The House of Vyle", which had a Lovecraftian feel to it, and two stories of Anderson as a trainee, "Cadet Anderson: Big Girls Don't Cry" and "Cadet Anderson: Teenage Kyx".
Next I read Godzilla, by Kazuhisa Iwata, adapted by Randy Stradley and Mike Richardson. This is a manga adaptation of the film Godzilla (1984). As such, it's a fairly faithful rendering of the story. The art is OK, although Iwata does have a tendency to give his characters bulging foreheads.
Permalink Reply by Travis Herrick (Modular Mod) on December 7, 2014 at 6:54pm
Did Jim Woodring do any of the art here, Baron? If he did that would be interesting. Heck he is a surprise choice for me to be a writer. He is a good one, IMO, just not someone who I would peg to write a Star Wars series. Kudos to Dark Horse for giving him a series.
Travis Herrick (Modular Mod) said:
Woodring is only credited as the writer on the book. It's not your typical Star Wars book. There's no mention of the Force, or of the Rebellion, and the only familiar faces are Jabba and Bib Fortuna.
Permalink Reply by The Baron on December 10, 2014 at 8:31am
Next up was Batman: Two-Face Strikes Twice! This was a two volume story. Each volume was a flip-over comic containing part of two related stories - one done in a "Golden Age" style, the other done in a painted, "modern" style. Each book had two covers, and the "Golden Age" covers were done by Golden Age Bat-artist Dick Sprang. Both stories were written by Mike W. Barr. The "Golden Age" story was drawn by Joe Staton, and the "modern" one by Daerick Gross.
This was an amusing gimmick. The stories themselves were OK.
Read Mr. Majestic, by Joe Casey, Brian Holguin, Alan Moore, Ed McGuinness, Carlos D'Anda, Jason Martin, Richard Friend, Mark Irwin, Howard Shum and Trevor Scott. This is a collection of stories featuring a Superman pastiche, who has various cosmic adventures whilst defending the Earth, all against the backdrop of late 20th Century history. The Moore story is particularly interesting, featuring Majestic gathered with a few other survivors at the end of time. Good, weird stuff.
Permalink Reply by The Baron on December 13, 2014 at 6:32pm
Re-read Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. You may not have heard of this - it's an obscure 80's book that doesn't seem to be much-remembered today. I'm pretty sure I've read some other stuff by Moore at some point. Gibbons I mostly remember from the Doctor Who comics he used to draw. (Speaking of my favorite show, there's a character called "Capaldi" in this! Funny coincidence!) The book features pastiches of several old Charlton characters, in a sort of alternate history story that examines what it might be like if costumed heroes existed in the real world. Oddly, the writer comes to the conclusion that it super-heroes were real, comic books would all be about pirates! I remember when it first came out, there was even talk of making it into a movie. ((Don't know if anything ever came of that.) I recall somebody (in Wizard or some such place) suggesting that Robert Englund would of been good to play the character "Rorschach"! Freddy Krueger as Rorschach - that would be pretty funny!
Worth a look if you can find it somewhere - no idea if it's still in print.