THIS is a science fiction shark - see the difference?

Ah, I see that the Space Channel is showing Jaws tonight, look at that!

Sigh...okay...I'm only going to say this once...

HEY!!!!   SPACE CHANNEL!!!  JAWS IS NOT A SCIENCE FICTION MOVIE!!  A MOVIE ABOUT A BIG SHARK THAT EATS PEOPLE IS NOT SCIENCE FICTION!!!! 
  
QUESTIONS?  

NO?  

GOOD!!  DON'T MAKE THIS MISTAKE AGAIN!!

- Sid

August 14th update:  goddamnit, it's even in their pre-movie lead-in!  Am I missing something here?  Does Captain Quint suggest that the shark is a mutant, or something?

Illustration by Canadian illustrator Jesse McGibs 


 

Insert clever title here.

There are times when this whole blog thing is more trouble than it's worth.

I was skimming through Michael Moorcock's Stormbringer, the last in his Elric of Melniboné series, looking for quotes for a posting on Chaos, when I noticed a line in the text saying that Elric's sorcerous ancestors had ruled his world for ten thousand years.

Really?  Ten thousand years?  And no one invented gunpowder, light bulbs or computers?  We went from bronze armour to the moon in a little under two thousand, what in the hell were these people doing for all that time?

Okay…well, Arthur C. Clarke said that any sufficiently advanced technology would be indistinguishable from magic - maybe there's some kind of flip side to that which would say that sufficiently advanced magic would…eliminate the need for technology? 

Well, there's probably a posting in there someplace, "Discuss!", as Mike Meyers would say.  But how do I illustrate it?  Ooo, I know, there was that Michael Golden drawing in one of the early Epic Illustrated issues*, the one showing the shaman and the cyber-soldier.  Let's see…Google...Epic Illustrated Golden - aha, issue 3.  Okay, Google, Epic Illustrated 3 .cbr…aha, there we are.

Download….download….

And open.  Hold on, where's the drawing?  In fact, where's the article with the drawing?  God damn it, there's about 20 pages missing from this scan!  Bloody people... Okay, Google…Epic Illustrated 3…new link...

Download...download…

And open.  Oh for heaven's sake, it's the same scan.

Google…Epic Illustrated 03…new link….

Download….download....

You're kidding - also missing 20 pages?  Okay, let's try some lateral thinking here.  Google....Michael Golden artwork…aha, Modern Masters Volume 12, Michael Golden.

Download…download…

Nope, not here.  Hmmm.  Okay, as far as I know I own the damn magazine, down to the storage room, let's find that box of Heavy Metal and Epic magazines....aha, there we go.

Shuffle....shuffle...oh look, an Isaac Asimov SF Adventure Magazine, I haven't read this in years, wasn't there a Brunner Man In Black story in here.  Ah, and the special H. P. Lovecraft issue of Heavy Metal, let's keep that out for some scanning, there were some good Cthulhu illustrations if memory serves. Gosh, is it worth my while to pull the issues of Heavy Metal with the serialized version of the Matt Howarth Changes story to do my own scans to replace the all-in-one edition that Tundra published, where he redrew all the frames that contained nudity?

Aha, here it is, in the OTHER box of Epic/Heavy Metal magazines!!!  

You know, now that I look at it, maybe not the ideal image...let's see, what else could I use...wait, wasn't I doing research for a posting on Chaos?

- Sid

*  Yes, I happened to bloody well remember that there was a particular black and white line drawing by Michael Golden in a fantasy magazine that I bought in 1980, do you have a problem with that?

"Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths"

Giggle giggle giggle....

As I've already mentioned, I'm off for a three week European vacation in August.  The middle part involving Italy and the Mediterranean cruise with Felix the Cat is all taken care of, reservations, tickets, bookings et al., and now I'm filling in the English and French parts before and after.

Finding things to do in London is hardly a problem, but I thought it might be interesting to break with my usual sightseeing lineup and do something different.  Initially, I had hoped to see Kevin Spacey's eponymous performance in Richard III for the innovative Bridge Project version of the play currently being done at the Old Vic, but apparently that's been sold out since day one.  Hmmm....what else, what else....

Regardless, last night I booked a London transit pass along with an attractions pass guaranteed to get me into 80 fascinating tourist spots, and then decided to take a break from vacation planning.

So it was a COMPLETE fluke that I found a link to the following on TDW Geek: *

Yes, the Doctor Who Experience, currently in London and now booking until September 4th, conveniently located within about a minute's walk from the Olympia Underground station.

The Doctor Who Experience invites you to step through a crack in time allowing you to join the Doctor on a journey through time and space, encountering some of the best-loved and scariest monsters from the hit international television series. Special scenes filmed with Matt Smith as the Doctor combine with amazing special effects and the chance to enter a recreation of the modern TARDIS.

The exhibition element of the Doctor Who Experience charts the success of the TV show from the first series in 1963 to the most recent episodes starring Matt Smith and Karen Gillan. Displays in the exhibition include items never seen before including original costumes, the Tom Baker TARDIS police box and two authentic TARDIS sets from the eras of David Tennant and Peter Davison. You will also be able to get up close and personal with iconic sets from recent series, including the Pandorica Box and Chair and confront numerous monsters including several generations of the Daleks and Cybermen as well as Silurians, an Ice Warrior and a Zygon.

Giggle giggle giggle...

Okay, fine, it's not bloody Shakespeare, but I have to admit that I may quite possibly end up having more fun at the Doctor Who Experience when I make my way there on August 23rd.  Hmmm....I hope I can get someone to take my picture beside a Dalek...

- Sid
 

P.S. And then I got ALL excited when I realized that HMV London sells Doctor Who DVD collections for a quarter of the price they charge at HMV Vancouver!  Yep, got all excited for about half an hour, then I thought, "No, wait, wrong bloody DVD Region."  Sigh...

*  Yes, I'm a regular visitor to The Daily What: Geek - "Games, Gadgets, Comics, Science and Sci-Fi".  Should this really be a surprise to anyone?

Mort.

Is it possible for someone like me - or like you - to arrange for themselves the death that they want?

Terry Pratchett, Choosing to Die

British fantasy author Terry Pratchett wants to die.

Actually, as Mr. Pratchett often has his characters say, that sentence is wrong in every particular (except the part about being a British fantasy author) but it's quite a useful lie.  Under normal circumstances, Terry Pratchett would have no more desire to die than anyone else, but unfortunately his circumstances are no longer exactly what one might call "normal".

As I've already discussed in a couple of previous posts, the 62-year old Pratchett was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease three years ago, a particularly unpleasant fate for a man so noted for his wit and creativity.  Since then, Pratchett has begun a slow process of deterioration. He has lost the ability to type, but has continued to write and is just finishing the first draft of his next Discworld book, albeit by dictating the content to his assistant.  However, he is aware that this is just the beginning:

I know that the time will come when words will fail me. When I can no longer write my books, I'm not sure that I will want to go on living.

This is not hyperbole.  Pratchett has begun to look into the options for assisted suicide, and has recorded his research in a one-hour documentary entitled Choosing to Die.

I found the documentary a little disturbing. Pratchett focuses on a Swiss organization called Dignitas, that will, for a fee, help someone die, and meets with two people who have chosen to use their service - Peter Smedley, a 71 year old man with motor neuron disease, and Andrew Colgan, a 42 year old man with multiple sclerosis who had already attempted suicide (obviously without succeeding).

The documentary actually follows Peter Smedley through the entire process - yes, the viewer has a front-row seat to his death, as he first swallows a stomach-settler to ensure that the poison will stay down, followed by the poison itself and then a somewhat macabre chocolate treat. (It is Switzerland, after all.) There's a brief horrible moment when he begins to choke and requests water which he is not given, followed by a ghastly rattling noise as his lungs begin to stop working.

Eventually he passes from unconsciousness into death, all under the camera's watchful eye.

And that's where I took a bit of exception to the documentary approach.  Dignitas takes every precaution to ensure that their clients are in full possession of their faculties and completely aware of what they are doing, and there is no pressure applied to follow through on the process.  Peter Smedley is a model of composure and grace throughout, but I have to think that having a camera crew in the room might well stop someone from changing their mind at the last minute - personally, I'd prefer the option of deciding that a few more months of life still had some attraction for me without a zoom lens nearby to record my change of heart.

The documentary ends on a quiet note, with Pratchett looking back to the snow that fell after Peter Smedley's suicide, and pondering his own ending:

I would like to die out in the sunshine...I suppose that sometimes the sun shines in Switzerland.

Death, or more accurately the the anthropomorphic personification of the end of life, is one of the more popular and frequently utilized characters in Pratchett's Discworld books. Death is portrayed as a stern but sympathetic figure, who does not actually end life but who comes to collect the spirit of the departed, and whose calm demeanor is often a relief to the recently departed.  Perhaps this is expressive of Terry Pratchett's philosophy regarding his own death, self-managed or not.

- Sid

Keeping up with the Joneses.

And you, you little shit head... you're staying here.

Ellen Ripley, Aliens

I recently received a somewhat enigmatic text message from someone that I used to work with, suggesting that we should get together for a beer but also requesting that I should call them first to discuss something.  I have to admit that my first thought was Amway™ or some other similar pyramid scheme, but nonetheless I tried to keep an open mind as I dialed their number.

As it turned out, the party in question was planning to spend quite a bit of time travelling around Europe, and was looking for a home for their cat.  There were already a couple of people in line, but since my last cat lasted about 25 years, I seem to have a bit of a reputation as a reliable cat owner.

Sadly, I'm not quite ready to find a replacement for the incomparable Nigel, and since there were other people who were willing and able to step up to the plate in my stead, I didn't feel guilty about turning down the opportunity.

But, full points - if you want to entice a science fiction fan into taking care of a cat, name the cat after the best known feline action character of the last 25 years:  that's right, the cat was named Jones, in honour of the ship's cat on the ill-fated Nostromo in Alien.

However, as is so often the case with roles involving very small children and animals, Jones was actually played by four identical cats.  Yes, if you're a cat, you find three other cats that look the same and split things up so you actually only have to work 25% of the time.

- Sid

Canada Day is here again, and what better topic for today's patriotic posting than Captain Canuck, Canada's favourite (if not only) superhero.

The first homegrown Canadian entries into the superhero market were Johnny Canuck and Nelvana of the Northern Lights, who made their debut in World War II during an American ban on comic exports.  Johnny was an adventure hero/pilot along the lines of the American Blackhawk Squadron comics, and, like Wonder Woman, Nelvana found her origins in the world of mythology, although in her case, in Inuit legends rather than Greek. (Just for the record, Nelvana's 1940 debut beat Wonder Woman to the punch by a full year.)

Following the demise of Johnny Canuck and Nelvana after the war, there was a long gap in the Canadian comics market*, a gap which lasted until 1975 when 24 year old artist/author Richard Comely released Issue One of Captain Canuck under the banner of Comely Comics.

Set 18 years in the future, when Canada has become one of the major world powers, Captain Canuck's story is really that of Canadian International Security Organization agent Tom Evans.  While on a camping trip with the Boy Scout troop that he leads, Evans is the victim of alien abduction.  When he and his Scouts return to civilization, Evans discovers that:

Suddenly I was twice as strong! I could lift twice as much and move twice as fast as I could before! It wasn’t long before the heads of C.I.S.O. were also aware of my new power and they had a plan on how to capitalize on it.

C.I.S.O. directors and specialists created a costume and a code name. They wanted to create an image – a symbol of C.I.S.O. authority and power – a show piece for Canada!

To be honest, the early issues of Captain Canuck suffer from average art and mediocre storytelling, but over time the Captain began to develop his own unique style and attracted a solid (if almost exclusively Canadian) fan base.  Sadly, financial issues led to an early demise for Captain Canuck, although over the years there have been two other incarnations of the Captain, along with various special editions, mini-series, collections and so on.

In spite of this relatively unsuccessful career, Captain Canuck seems to hold a special place in the Canadian mythos.  He continues to receive media attention, he appeared on a stamp in 1995, and the National Archives now have ownership of some of the original Captain Canuck artwork.

And I guess I'm part of that ongoing interest, although I come by it honestly - I bought three or four issues of Captain Canuck back in the 70s. In fact, I sent Mr. Comely a fan letter when I was about 17, and to my youthful astonishment I received a hand-written response within a week.  To my intense regret, I cannot for the life of me lay hands on that letter, although I've looked in all the logical places.  In my defense, I have done eight or nine relocations since then, and things do get lost over time, but let's be optimistic, maybe in the next box of miscellaneous memorabilia that I open...

Happy Canada Day, everyone!

- Sid

* Strictly speaking, not a completely empty gap, there were one or two one-off parody comics published, but Captain Canuck is arguably the first fully-fledged attempt to create a Canadian comic book hero after World War II.