Green Death Stamps...

No idea where this one came from. 

I actually own a semi-completed book of Green Shield stamps. It's somewhere in the flat - possibly in a file box somewhere in the attic along with the other tat I've collected over the years. (A WHSmith paper bag from the 70s, the receipt for the VHS of 'Revenge of the Cybermen', a 'Dalek Death Ray' wrapper and jar of Schwartz mixed herbs with a 'use by' date sometime in 1987.) 

Maybe I should've put the book in the knife drawer in the kitchen. That's where my mum kept ours back in the day... 

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And don't forget to get help. 

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.

Countdown for TVAction 2020

You'd never get a comic like Countdown or TVAction today - at least not with the same licenced comic strip content. Yes, TV's Dr Who was a children's/family programme but what about the other strips?  You can hardly say that Cannon, The Protectors and the often grim Hawaii-Five-0 were child friendly. That was the way things were back then. With so little targeted programming (at least compared to 21st century television) of a certain quality, the kids of yesteryear found their favourite programmes to be the adult fare offered to their parents. (The late Trevor Preston pointed this out in his 1969 pitch document for Ace of Wands.)

Flash forward to 2020... Children's television is now more targeted towards them with specific channels whilst family drama/adventure shows on the main channels are virtually non-existent (save for TV's Dr Who, of course!) In spite of this, let's have a look at modern schedules and see what choice TV shows would fit inside a Countdown or TVAction published today...

Elsewhere on this blog are some modernised versions of the comic which have given their pages over to the current TV scene. This is the link to them. 

Here are some additional variants based on the covers of the three Countdown and TVAction annuals published in the early seventies... along with an annual based around The Persuaders! they also released. (I really scraped the barrel coming up with a TV show that fitted into the design of that one!!!)

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Unofficial Official Health & Safety Posters For These Worrying Times...

I did a handful of warning posters during Lockdown. 

The germ of the idea came from some fiddling around in Photoshop over the Easter holiday. For some reason, I'd photoshopped a rabbit's head onto a Judoon soldier... just because I could. It looked quite disturbing and after getting off the phone to my therapist, I decided to put the now cursed image to good use as a warning poster. I hope it did its job. 

After I'd tweeted two further ones, Jamie Anderson asked me to do a Supermarionation-themed one. I did a Captain Scarlet one and, as with the series itself, it was a bit dark. A BIT DARK!  Most people found it amusing but one person didn't get the subtle humour behind it and felt it in poor taste. 

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Doctor Who Lockdown Cinema Posters - part two

Here's the rest of the retro cinema posters I did for the Doctor Who Lockdown tweet-a-longs. 

As before, most of them are based on actual posters. You're welcome to guess which films are the inspiration in each case. I tended to go with designs that fitted the episodes rather than the original films themselves. 

The Fires of Pompeii appeared on the back cover of issue 507 of the DWAS's Celestial Toyroom in an anglicised form. The original Italian version is here along with the textless art.

Click here for part one.

I also did a few random original series ones and I'll upload them as a separate post.

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