Retro Active in SFX

For the past six months or so, SFX has been publishing some of my odd pieces of cult film and TV merchandise. When Darren the editor approached me to do something for SFX, I was a bit lost for words. I wasn't too sure I could come up with new stuff on a regular basis. Doing it for an irregularly updated blog on an ad-hoc basis is a different kettle of ball games to producing content to a regular deadline. I said 'yes' with much trepidation - only on condition that I do them in batches of three just to give me time to think about them in sets of three. And also to give SFX some in hand in case I have 'designer's block'. The first three were duly thought-up, constructed and sent off.

I kept a bit quiet about Andydrewz's publishing debut. The depressive in me is always cautious about nice things as they have a habit of slapping you in the face when you become complacent over them. 

Flash-forward and today is now and I've just dispatched a third set of three pieces for Retro Active (as SFX has called my er... column(?) ) They seem to be going down okay. At least, I've not had any bad notices passed back to me.

Here are the first two designs that made it into the magazine - The Fantastic Journey board game and a Tomorrow People jaunting belt.

The board game is a simple reworking of TV's The Fantastic Journey into the Denys Fisher/Parker Bros licenced board games of the 1970s. A few things to note: I included the flying saucer from 'The Invaders' on one of the action cards. The show used stock footage of it in one of the episodes to represent a time machine from the future. Although, the board is divided up into zones, it wasn't until I'd finished that I realised it resembled The Crystal Maze. I found that amusing.

The Tomorrow People jaunting belt is a bit more overtly absurd and more typical of the way I tend to put the jokes in the details. The merchandise should LOOK authentic... only until you take the time to read the text, however small. Hence the inclusion of a pen-knife and working junior taser. 

With thanks to Darren Scott at SFX Magazine.

SFX magazine is available from all good newsagents, comic shops and supermarkets. Or you can subscribe to it here.

Two Mandrel Annuals and a Giant Robot One...

I did a cover for a Mandrel annual some time ago. It was based on the 1979 Dalek annual but replacing the Daleks in the original artwork with Mandrels. When I retweeted it as a "Goodbye Twitter" tweet, I received a lot of positive comments about it including suggestions that I add it to the designs for journals that I have on RedBubble. (Here's the link)

I'll admit that the whole concept it amusing but I wasn't too happy with it as it used a lot of the artwork from the genuine cover. I'm never happy when I'm bastardising other artist's work - however old. Despite, I decided to follow the suggestions and add it to the RedBubble portfolio. 

Alas, I discovered that the original PS files for it had gone the way of several months worth of work when my PC died in late 2019. I should've left it at that but I decided to redo it anyway. I also did a version of the original annual's back cover too. Earlier RedBubble journal designs feature a textless version of the cover art on the back. In my silly head, I thought the extra effort would redeem my use of the original artwork on the cover. 

So taken with the design, I decided to do another couple of annual covers - another Mandrel one (based on the 1976 Dalek annual) and a K-1 - Giant Robot annual (based on the 1983 K-9 annual). Although copies of the original designs, these are original photo-montages and don't use any of the originals' artwork. I even did another back cover for the K-1 annual. 

K1 Annual 1983

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