What If?

Harrison Ford, even after Star Wars, was not the first choice for Indiana Jones. Instead, Tom Selleck was picked, and you can see his screen test on the fourth DVD in the Indiana Jones boxed set. I mean the special features disc, not that pap Lucas and Spielberg attempted to foist upon us last year. Anyway, Selleck dropped out in order to appear in Magnum, P.I., Ford was Indy, and all was right in the world.

Except:




On a somewhat related note, an episode of Quantum Leap was planned in which Sam would leap into Magnum. That didn't happen either.

Up Above the Streets and Houses

I think I first encountered The Rainbow Orchid about ten years ago (!), at a time when I was exploring the British small press comics scene. I'm not sure how I first heard of the title, or what attracted me to it; although the T word was chucked about a lot back then, I don't think that did it, as I was always more of an Asterix fan. Anyway, what I discovered was a globe-trotting adventure story with a distinctive British feel (distinguished gentlemen discussing matters of import in wood-panelled rooms), but a fair bit of pulp excess (extravagantly mustachioed French stunt pilots and a clown or two) in there too. It's a bit Herge, a bit Wells, a bit Indiana Jones, even a bit Haggard (or maybe Kipling), and all good fun.

After a while, writer/artist Garen Ewing started publishing the title online, previewing pages from the story in the run up to a more high-profile release than had been done before. It wasn't a webcomic as such, but the growing audience treated it as one, and I believe it became quite popular; there's some wisdom in there about the best advertising being the act of giving your product away for nothing. Garen put out a limited edition hardback collection of The Story So far about a year ago (which the missus bought me as a birthday present), a self-published thing which was again intended to drum up interest in the oft-mentioned professional publication of The Rainbow Orchid, and now things have come full circle with the announcement that Egmont, former publishers of 2000AD and current custodians of, yes, Tintin, are to publish Garen's comic. It's been one of my favourite titles for a while, and soon I'll be able to see how the story ends!

It's also Garen's birthday today. Happy birthday Garen!

On a completely unrelated note, I've done some more art for Fight On!, this time for the fifth issue, and I also entered an art competition the magazine was running, although I didn't win anything besides an honourable mention; the winning entries were of stunning quality though, so I don't mind losing out to them. It still feels a bit odd to be one of the regular artists for a magazine about something of which I have so little experience (Dungeons & Dragons mostly), but it's been good fun, and it's also been useful to have an actual deadline to make sure I keep drawing. I've taken the opportunity to update my long-fallow website with some of my more recent art, as well as give the whole thing a bit of a tidy. There's still a lot of work to be done, the comics and writing sections in particular, but it's a start.

Bank Holiday Mecha-Day

Here in Blighty, our public monuments tend to be statues of dead white guys. In Japan, as always, things are different:

Not Paying Attention

So Terminator 2 has that Guns 'n' Roses soundtrack. It also has that scene in the shopping centre corridor, all slow-motion, where we finally discover which of the Terminators is the good one, as Arnie pulls a gun from a box of roses.

You've all probably known this since 1991, but I've seen that film a hundred times and never noticed it before.

Star Trek

The only thing I liked about Cloverfield was the credits music, so it was nice to hear it again. For two hours. Apparently, Trek is the future of Alias. He's not Shatner, but he'll do. Murdering a bunch of helpless men is not a heroic finale. It was much better than I thought it would be.

Everything is Wrong

Peter Bradshaw, film critic for The Guardian, who hates everything unless it's a European black and white four-hour epic about economics and sexuality, really likes the new Star Trek. I'm not sure what's going on.

Free Comic Book Day (Terms and Conditions Apply)

The idea is simple and largely self-explanatory. The publishers put out some free stuff, which the local comic shops distribute in their community, with the end goal that some of the punters who pick up those free books will come back later and buy stuff. Now, as with many aspects of this shrivelled medium, the big US publishers tend to try to ruin the whole noble endeavour by shovelling out some awful pap, somehow not realising that a crappy comic isn't going to bring anyone back for more, but in theory Free Comic Book Day is a good thing.

When I lived in Norwich, the excellent Abstract Sprocket comic shop put on a proper event for (I think the first) FCBD, hiring some space in the shiny new city library and inviting comics writers and artists to come in and chat with fans, do signings, and so on. Impressive stuff, but the important thing is that the Sprocketeers realised that for the event to be a success, it had to be visible; all the free comics in the world aren't going to do much if no one goes to comic shops in the first place. You have to get punters into your shop, or you have to go to them.

On a whim, I checked to see if there were any events going on in my neighbourhood, and the FCBD site showed that my local shop was taking part. I headed down to find that the street was blocked off for most of the day by the annual Brighton Festival Children's Parade, so I went and sat on the beach for a few hours. Returning later, I had a good look around the comic shop, and saw no signs indicating any FCBD events, so thinking that the website had been in error, I left. On my way out, I passed by the counter and just happened to catch a glance of the wall behind the shop assistant, on which were mounted a couple of shelves containing a handful of FCBD titles, a tiny bit of cardboard with "Free Comic Book Day" scrawled on it in black felt tip, and under that another bit of card with "Only Two Free Comics Per Customer" written in a jagged and unfriendly hand.

The timing of the parade was just bad luck, but the shop screwed everything else up. They didn't advertise the event at all, not even with a poster in the front window (although there was a poster advertising a Kevin O'Neill signing on the 17th), access to the free comics was restricted, so you couldn't get a look at them, and you had to buy something before they gave you a free comic, which is about as backwards as it can get, and not exactly friendly towards the allegedly all-important new readers.

What a waste.