Once Upon a Geek

“The year is 1987 and NASA launches the last of America’s deep space probes. In a freak mishap Ranger 3 and its pilot Captain William ‘Buck’ Rogers are blown out of their trajectory into an orbit which freezes his life support systems and returns Buck Rogers to Earth 500 years later.”

Check out this sweet book my wife found last week in a library overstock sale! It’s a Buck Rogers pop-up book from 1980. Its 28 years old, looks brand new, and has sixteen pages of pop-up action. I took a few pictures to share, so here you go!

Also, I’ve included the Buck Rogers theme song for your listening enjoyment. I love this theme! If you can’t play it, right click here to download it.

You gotta love some Erin Gray action!

I recently read the trade paperback of Sean Wang’s “Runners”. Wow, this was a great sci-fi comic! The story chronicles the misadventures of reluctant smuggler Roka Nostaco and his ragtag alien crew as they struggle to complete hazardous runs through outlaw space and against all odds. I agree completely with James Mishler’s review from Comic Buyer’s Guide, “This is what Star Wars comic books should be like: fresh stories, living characters, non-stop banter, action and adventure.”

I stumbled across “Runners” in a recent Diamond Previews issue. Previews featured an ad for the trade paperback along with a recommendation. The art looked great, so I gave it a shot. This was one gamble that paid off. The illustrations in this book are top-notch! Sean Wang got his big break years ago drawing some of the Tick comic books. Obviously that training paid off here. Wang really has a grasp of body language and expressions. He’s also bursting with creativity. In regard to alien design, it seemed that Wang’s pencil was channeling George Lucas’ creative energy (on one of George’s good days). On top of that, he has a good grasp of pacing, panel design, background detail, and incredibly clean lines. After I read each issue in the trade paperback, I would flip back just to look over the art and make sure I didn’t miss any brilliant details.

In addition to great art, it’s a solid space romp about smugglers doing their best to complete a job. The main characters run into roadblocks along the way that make for an interesting story. The banter is great; each character has a distinct personality; and you really get caught up in the cinematographic feeling of each action scene.

This first trade paperback is called, “Runners: Bad Goods” and is available from Sean Wang’s website, or your local comic book shop can probably order it for you. The next mini-series still awaiting publication is called, “Runners: The Big Snow Job“. It’s scheduled to be published by Archaia Studios Press, but they’ve suffered some delays recently. If you want to see some preview pages of the fantastic artwork, there are several on Sean Wang’s website.

I can’t recommend this series enough. Give it a try! If you don’t want to commit the money, contact me. Maybe I’ll loan you my copy!

The following includes SPOILERS for the Doctor Who season 4 episode 11, “Turn Left”.

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Doctor Who Magazine (DWM) is an awesome monthly publication.  If you are a who fan, it’s definitely worth buying this magazine.  Issue #397 hit the stands after the airing of “Turn Left”, but before the airing of “The Stolen Earth”.  So this issue hit at the moment of ultimate hype for season 4.  We only got it here in the states last week.  The team at DWM gets lots of insider information on the show and they planned this issue to capitalize on the hype.

The issue came polybagged, with a vintage Doctor Who book free.  This was one of the Target novelisations of the old series.  I happened to get “Galaxy Four” in my polybag.  Pretty cool.

The amazing thing was what you saw after you removed the polybag.  Remember the end of “Turn Left”?  Donna tells the Doctor what Rose said in the parallel universe, “Bad Wolf”.  The Doctor runs outside and every sign has changed into the words “Bad Wolf”, even the TARDIS exterior.  Well check out these images below. 

The first image is the magazine cover still in its polybag; pretty standard magazine promo copy.  The second image is the magazine cover after you remove the polybag.  Notice the care to keep the same fonts and everything.  Awesome!

A few weeks back I wrote a blog post on a book I was reading, ”Indiana Jones and the Seven Veils”.  It was an older book that was published back in 1991, but I read it to tide me over until I got around to seeing “Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull”.  Well, I finished this book and enjoyed it (definitely more traditional Indiana Jones than the new movie).  This adventure took place between the “Young Indiana Jones Chronicles” TV series and “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, and definitely captured the spirit of Indy.  I would recommend it to anyone who liked ”Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom”.  It felt more in-tune with that film than the others.  As I mentioned before, it covered all the good bits of Indiana Jones like lost ruins, booby traps, things going wrong for Indy, a beautiful girl, and almost losing his hat.  The only negative comment I have is that the story ended somewhat abruptly, however, I understand why they had to do that.  You’d have to read the story to understand what I mean. 

Now I’m reading another older book (1993), Doctor Who The New Adventures “Deceit” by Peter Darvill-Evans.  These original novels by Virgin publishing started shortly after the first Doctor Who TV series was cancelled.  These books tackled stories too broad and deep for the small screen, and took Doctor Who into previously unexplored realms of time and space.  They explored much more mature themes and really helped push the storytelling for Doctor Who forward.  The stories were very enjoyable, featured plots that would run across multiple novels, and really kept the Doctor Who torch burning during the lean years (between the end of the first TV series and the 1996 TV movies).  I’d be willing to say that the current TV series would not have been so successful without these novels.  In fact, several of the authors for the new TV series wrote New Adventures novels first, such as: Russell T Davies, Paul Cornell, Mark Gatiss, Gareth Roberts, and Steven Moffat (he wrote a short story).  Also worth noting, the season three two-parter, “Human Nature” and “Family of Blood” was an adaptation of the New Adventures novel “Human Nature” by Paul Cornell. 

The New Adventures novels followed the adventures of the Sylvester McCoy Doctor, along with Ace, and several new companions.  The most popular of these newly-created companions is Professor Bernice Summerfield.  She totally kicks ass and eventually got her own line of books and audio dramas.  The reason I chose to read “Deceit” (book 13 out of the 61 books published) was because Abslom Daak has an appearance in this one.  I’m about 100 pages in and the book is very enjoyable.  I had forgotten that the New Adventures books take a while to get used to.  They say most books are written at a 6th grade level.  I would say these books are written at a slightly higher level, which requires some additional focus from the reader.  One of the interesting things about the New Adventures novels is that the Doctor typically doesn’t show up for the first 50 pages.  It can be a bit frustrating at first, but it gives the novelist some time to really develop the supporting characters.

After “Deceit”, I’ll be reading Star Wars Legacy of the Force “Fury” by Aaron Allston. “Legacy of the Force” has been a surprisingly good run of Star Wars novels.  “Fury” is the seventh book in a nine book cycle.  I’ll have to write a post about this series sooner or later.  I’m loving it!

After that, I’ll probably read ”Indiana Jones and the Genesis Deluge” by Rob Macgregor.  I’ve purchased the book and read the first few pages.  Even though I was only a few pages in, I found it really compelling.  I can’t wait to get around to this one.

There you go… my summer reading list. 

To anyone with a sense of humor, I highly recommend the comic ”Maintenance“.  This comic revolves around Doug & Manny, two janitors for the world’s biggest and best evil science think tank.  Some of their misadventures include dealing with toxic spills, getting drunk with a talking manshark, accidentally time-traveling back to the Stone Age, and being shrunk so they can deal with evil micro-organisms that have taken control of the company toilets.  They even have to deal with typical inter-office crap like department meetings and speeches from the boss on morale.

The comic is witty and drawn excellently.  Oni Press publishes the book and you can read a 32 page preview for free online at their site.  There are two trades already in publication, and the third trade is due out within the next couple weeks.

It’s definitely worth your time. C’mon, you know you need a laugh.

A recent episode of Doctor Who entitled “Midnight” struck me as very reminiscent of an old Twilight Zone episode named “The Shelter“.  Both stories took place in a very confined place with a small cast in a dire situation.  As emotions ran high, the concept of human decency came into question.  I love high-energy, high-stress stories like these that tackle the human condition.

In “The Shelter”, a group of neighborhood friends argue over the right to be in a bomb shelter (truthfully the right to survive) as they believe nuclear missiles are soaring their way.   The family with the bomb shelter is locked inside while the other neighbors demand to be let in.  Arguments ensue and emotions become extraordinarily tense.  In desperation to survive, these neighbors are willing to sacrifice the feelings of others, the right to private property, friendship itself, and ultimately they submit to violence.  As the neighbors smash through the bomb shelter door, the air raid is called off as a false alarm.  Thus the former friends are forced to live with what they said, their actions, and somehow return to their normal lives.

In “Midnight”, a group of tourists trapped on a tour bus argue what to do when an unexplainable presence possesses one of their own.  The danger they face by being trapped is very real (immediate death by solar exposure if they open the door to the broken-down tour bus).  The question becomes: what do they do with their fellow tourist who is now possessed by the very creature that trapped them.  At least two people have already died, and the tourists believe they may be next.  As in “The Shelter”, the instinct to survive drives everyone to terrible choices.  While panic ensues, emotions boil over and the tourists decide to murder their fellow tourist who has become possessed.  Part of the drama in this scene comes from the fact that the tourists are about to kill the wrong person.  In the end, the tour hostess sacrifices herself to destroy the possessing entity.  Since its science fiction, the high tension level is blamed on the alien presence. However, the emotional impact of the story works just as well without the sci-fi excuse.  Again, the band of characters are forced to live with what they said, their actions, and somehow return to their normal lives.

Really great claustrophobic and frantic storytelling in both.  I’ve always believed that science fiction is at its best when it uses outlandish settings in contrast with very real, down-to-earth dramatic situations.  Check out both stories, definitely worth your time.

Here is another installment of KID WHO! This time we decided to watch the classic episode, “The Curse of Peladon“.

“Kid Who” features reviews of Doctor Who episodes from the perspective of a child. These short audio interviews are between myself and my eight-year old step-son.

You can play the audio file right here on the Once Upon a Geek site with the handy-dandy player below!  Running time 1 minute and 36 seconds.

If  you’re unable to play the file above, please download it here.

The name “B-Wing” has always bothered me.  I believe I can safely say that some of you are thinking, “hell ya, that’s always bugged the crap out of me too!”  While another percentage of you are thinking, “what the frig is a B-Wing, and why do I care?”

The B-Wing is a spaceship from the movie “Star Wars: Return of the Jedi” (don’t you dare refer to it as “Episode 6″ around me).  However, unlike all the other letter-named ships in the series (i.e. X-Wing, Y-Wing, and A-Wing), the ship design doesn’t resemble the letter of the alphabet. 

Here are some images to demonstrate my point.  First row (l-to-r): X-Wing and Y-Wing.  Second row (l-to-r): A-Wing and B-Wing.

Clearly the B-Wing name doesn’t match its body design.  It doesn’t look anything like a “B”!  In fact, the B-Wing sure looks a lot like the lower case letter “t”.  You’d think it would be called the “T-Wing”.  I suspect someone at ILM had their radio up too loud listening to “Maneater” by Daryl Hall and John Oates.  Because of the noise, they simply misheard “bee” in place of ”tee” and it stuck.  Once Kenner started making the toys, they realized they couldn’t go back and change it to “T-Wing” (especially after the whole 4-LOM/Zuckuss debacle from “Empire Strikes Back”).

Now before you go believing that crap about “B-Wing” being named for the Nebulon-B frigate, you gotta realize that’s a “expanded universe” retcon.  So I don’t believe for a second that was the plan back in 1983. 

I blame Hall & Oates. 

What a great Father’s Day I had!  My wife made chocolate chip muffins for breakfast, I spent the morning playing with the kids, then we all swam in pool for the first time this season, next I got to eat Sonny’s barbeque for lunch, and finally we went to the comic book shop!  What a fun stress-free day!

In addition to some nice typical Father’s Day items, I gotta mention the geek-related swag I received.  I got a cool Marvel t-shirt from Target that I’ve been eyeing lately (see picture to right).  Then I also received two plates that my kids drew for me! You can see the plate on the left was done by two-year old daughter.  She’s currently in her Impressionist period.  Don’t worry, we’re watching her closely to ensure she doesn’t cut off her ear and give it to anyone.  The plate on the right was done by my eight year old step-son.  You can see he’s done a Doctor Who themed plate for me.  This may just be my favorite piece of Doctor Who related merchandise now!  You can clearly make out the 10th Doctor, Martha Jones, K-9, and the remains of a recently-destroyed Dalek!  He got all the colors right, and even drew in the Sonic Screwdriver.  I’m so proud of my budding little geek!

In regard to the shirt, I love the 1960’s/1970’s era Marvel apparel.  The fake fading makes them look even cooler! However, I gotta ask you (my geek buddies) to help me identify one of the faces on my new shirt.  I recognize everyone except this guy.  Who the funk is he?  He’s not Reed Richards and he’s not Nick Fury.  I’m clueless.  A little help here?

I thought a poll might be fun today!  So… who is your favorite actor to play “The Doctor” on Doctor Who?  I’m excluding David Tennant and Tom Baker from the poll because they always top the list of favorites.  This way, I thought you might have to work a littler harder to choose.

Please use the poll in the right-hand sidebar to vote.  If you are reading this blog on LiveJournal, please visit my main site to vote.

I’ve even added an option for people, like Serv, who would rather see Doctor Who die a slow and horrible death.