DwarfCast 156 – The Smegazine Rack – Issue #6 DwarfCasts Posted by Jonathan Capps on 28th October 2022, 16:52 Subscribe to DwarfCasts: RSS • iTunes Hello hello and welcome back onto the rack. In a shock twist that even we didn’t expect, we’ve actually come good on our promise to start up our regular DwarfCasting routine again. This time Cappsy, Danny and Ian are going page by page through Issue 6 of the Smegazine, which gives them plenty of opportunity to be all smug and self regarding about those early 90s idiots and their casual ableism and homophobia. Hurrah! Grab your complementary copy of the mag here. DwarfCast 156 – The Smegazine Rack – Issue #6 (124MB) Well done to the winner of the last caption competition (you need to listen to find out who), but if you didn’t win then never fear as you all have another EXCITING OPPORTUNITY to win anew. This time, please transport yourself back into the brain of an idiot 1992 Red Dwarf fan and come up with your best caption for this beauty in the comments below, as well as the customary letters for our next recording… Join us next time for the beginning of a brand new series of DwarfCasts! Show notes One Froggy Evening. Twenty glorious years of us and the infamous Chicken (Mc)Nugget discussion. “It was like a Pepsi advert” If we had better knowledge of comics, we probably wouldn’t have had to Google this. We finally found a picture of this issue’s free badge. It was not as good as we imagined. Are you sure this isn’t a translation from the fucking Albanian?
(The badge is also really very small, if that picture of it on a white floor with no other reference points doesn’t get it across.)
Parodying previous, weird caption entries doesn’t really come across when those have been long forgotten, but I’ll stick with it. Caption entry: “Rimmer, you plonker!”
I was indeed “in character” as a 90s kid for my previous caption entry, well spotted. As for the current competition, I can’t possibly compete with Dollar Pound’s suggestion!
Thoughts about the issue before listening, then… What the bejeezus is that on the front? The Geep “The Red Dwarf”. I never, ever like it when the definite article is added. JOZXYQK II: Yizox I quite like Lister being excited about the escape pod and Rimmer being cynical, as if he’s learned his lesson from Waiting for God. That or it’s just character revision like his response to potential aliens in DNA. Suzie Patel feels a bit… awkward. “The pod three million years into deep space might contain a woman I used to date!” “Why’s that, sir?” “So I can make a joke about fancying a woman who smells like curry.” “That’s a bit crowbarred in, isn’t it sir? And do you think it’s wise to suggest that a woman with a traditionally Indian surname smells like curry?” “Shut up, Kryten. Next thing you’ll be telling me Chinese Whispers are racist.” Superscrabble. With a “dictionary chip”. How quaint. Ah, so the GEAP is a baby Polymorph, then. “Mr. David”. In what is clearly a IV/V-era strip. Christ, Starbug looks a right state. “I couldn’t deprive you of seeing me” is a good line. Nice concept, some good tension between the characters, but it has the same problem as a lot of fanfic (and Identity Within) in that it’s not actually very funny. The Art of Lying Nothing particularly new or interesting here apart from the five situational porkies, which are pretty easy targets for the most part. A lot of “remember this plot?” and “remember this gag?” otherwise Grant Naylor interview This is, what, a year before the split? Could be interesting. Rob’s already forgotten at what point Kryten became a regular. Good of them not to highlight this error by using it as one of the key quotes from the interview. I absolutely love the idea of Doug asking them how they’re doing and their response being “great, we can start the interview now”. “For some insane reason we chased this rabbit off the road.” What?? Rob’s sarcastic “what a great joke, hilarious” to the name of Hab really made me laugh. I love the suggestion that making “homosexual” jokes was fine, but taking the piss out of pregnant women was a proper no-no. If they still hadn’t written The Last Day by the time they cast Bobby, that would make so much sense as to why it’s the first episode where he really feels like proper Kryten. “It looked like he was a spastic.” Lovely. Ah, it’s the origin of the sauna electrocution story! Series III is “glossy”, apparently. The grainiest, murkiest looking series. Rob: Kochanski wasn’t in it much because she hasn’t got a character.Doug: [Gets idea for VII] A book publishing guy called Tim Binding?! “Yes, I’m sure and hopefully one day – and I expect it will be sooner rather than later – we’ll go back and make a film from the novels, providing someone is stupid enough to come up with the money.” I’ll just leave that sitting there. Doug pre-empting Chris wanting to leave, there. Comedy Twilight Zone, Me Me Me Me Me, The 10%ers, maybe the split wasn’t helped by them taking on so many bloody projects at once. Oh, that’s ended then. Holly-grams James “smeg head” Higson, Radcliffe, seems to think your enjoyment of Red Dwarf depends on whether you find the word “smeg” funny or not. Sarah getting very defensive about the (fair) criticism of the worse parts of the Smegazine there. Oh, and another. Christ. Simon “Simon” Scott. What a wit. More than a whiff of Colin Hunt about him. Can’t read the response to the last letter, but I’m assuming Toby Visram has yet to encounter the concept of adoptive parents. The Name Game How often does Holly call Rimmer ‘Arn’ in the show? I know it’s in Polymorph, but it seems to have been adopted as house style here. Glad some of the over-explaining of gags is seeping in here, with “cry ‘ten'”. They clearly couldn’t think up ways of making Cat bring Lister and Rimmer’s names round to himself. Ah good, a rimming gag. Episode Guide Is what it is. Future Echoes Ok, that first page is the longest section of ‘new’ material in one of these adaptations so far. I do really like the onboard train idea, shame we only see it in VIII. And a sex toy shop. Red Dwarf passing a space bog roll there. The Rimmer future echo in the III-V science room feels really wrong. Bloody hell, how many issues is this story going to go on for?! Caption Competition 2 results. Great. The winner is easily the worst of all the printed ones. I wonder what the crossover between Red Dwarf fans and athletics cards collectors was. Probably lower than the crossover with fantasy novels on the back cover?
One Froggy Evening was one of my favourite cartoons as a kid. Haven’t thought about it in years. I’ve been meaning to get that Looney Tunes DVD boxset, this has reminded me that I really need to get around to that. Thanks for the shout out, I’m only here for the Dwarfcast mentions anyway.
The Grant Naylor interview is definitely the meatiest thing so far for fans, but it’s more about looking back than ahead, even giving the sense that the show may be closer to the end than the beginning. The magazine side of things relies on Red Dwarf being an ongoing production, but right from the contents page they’re making “jokes” about running out material and already being desperate for series VI. On the fiction side, the in-character prose and interviews really need to make way for a third comic strip. However weak or worthless, I at least bother reading those. “The Red Dwarf”. I never, ever like it when the definite article is added. I enjoy Rimmer’s BTL butler saying it in whichever audiobook. A book publishing guy called Tim Binding?! It’s called nominative determinism, like Ace Rimmer brown-tonguing his way up the ranks.
It doesn’t actually say they’d been drink-driving though, does it? They’d been in the pub to chat over what they’d done, and for some insane reason, on the way back they chased a rabbit off a road with no street lights, in the pitch black. Doesn’t mention either one of them drinking alcohol, or being pissed while driving back.
Ahhh memories of trying to pause the Fist of Fun events diary. Also finally getting to read those cast and crew profiles on the Making of Hitchhiker’s Guide video when it was included as a DVD extra. Happy days. > Join us next time for the beginning of a brand new series of DwarfCasts! Ooh, exciting. Does that mean no more Dwarf-adjacent commentaries? I’ve enjoyed them but either way it’s just nice to be getting DwarfCasts on the regular again.
Ooh, exciting. Does that mean no more Dwarf-adjacent commentaries? I’ve enjoyed them but either way it’s just nice to be getting DwarfCasts on the regular again. I think we’ll still do those, but we’re adding a third type of ‘cast into the mix so we can just whichever one we fancy.
Lovely stuff! And not a bad issue of the Smegazine too. Because such a high percentage of the magazine was either comics (both of which were pretty good I thought) or interview, this was very much them playing to their strengths. – In ‘The GEAP’, both Kryten on the second page and Lister in the last panel look like they were traced from production photographs. Which is fine, but it does tend to be better when the pencilling is wholly original. – Seems slightly unusual that Lister already knows what a GEAP is. When GELFs come around in the TV show, the implication is usually that they were created after Lister and Rimmer’s time. – The interview asides leaning into the idea of Grant and Naylor as a gestalt entity feels a bit awkward given their eventual split, but I guess this is still at least a couple of years away from that happening. – They say “Dave Hollin” in the interview, rather than “Dave Hollins”. I sure hope somebody got fired for that blunder. – “It seemed vaguely funny in a homosexual kind of way” – how did 1992 Rob Grant get access to the pull quotes for my autobiography? – The letter writer in Holly-grams saying “if you think Holly’s Fun Page/Amazing Facts is crap, why even read it? Why don’t you just buy The Observer instead?” was in many ways ahead of their time. “It’s not meant to be high art, jeez” and “you shouldn’t bother engaging with something if you have anything other than praise for it” are like stock defences for any kind of criticism directed at a mainstream TV series or film in online discourse nowadays. Although, at least the modern proponents of this reasoning tend to target things that are broadly entertaining, like superhero movies. Not crap magazine filler content. – Speaking of crap magazine filler content… The Name Game. It’s far from the worst of these kind of features so far, but it did average out to boring for me. – Not only does the Series V Episode Guide get an iconic Quarantine quote wrong, it doesn’t get the Terrorform quote right either. They missed out the “with extra olives”. – Yet another caption competition where most of the runners up were better than the winner in my opinion. If the picture is of Lister and Kryten with Talkie, making the caption all about them being violent towards Talkie or not wanting him to talk about toast is fine, but it’s kind of route 1. That’s for the 1992 contest, obviously. The winner of G&T’s 2022 re-run of the competition is well deserving, of course. ;-) – Speaking of caption competitions, my entry for competition 3: “What do you mean we’re “too old” for happy meals?! That’s discrimination, and a flagrant violation of our human rights. I’m not leaving until I have my Baby Kermit On a Skateboard.”
Fell asleep last night, finished this tonight. Totally forgot I even did a caption competition entry. Caption: Unseen episode ‘Return to Parallel Universe’ was scrapped at the costume stage.
One Froggy Evening was one of my favourite cartoons as a kid. Haven’t thought about it in years. I’ve been meaning to get that Looney Tunes DVD boxset, this has reminded me that I really need to get around to that. Thanks for the shout out, I’m only here for the Dwarfcast mentions anyway. That cartoon showed a younger me that they weren’t just slapstick and hilarious exaggerated violence. The box set is stupidly cheap now for the whole 6 sets and I cannot recommend it enough!
Thoughts about the issue before listening, then… A couple of things (which I will feel embarrassed/validated about if they are brought up in the ‘cast): I’ve always heard this line as “I’m doing what you said do”. Is this my mistake, or the comic’s? Or a deliberate revision on their part…? Also from the comic, surely Lister shouldn’t be able to pick up the future echo photo of him with the babies? It’s an echo, which was reinforced a few lines earlier when the Toaster chastises Rimmer for asking if the future echoes can see them.
I’ve always heard this line as “I’m doing what you said do”. Is this my mistake, or the comic’s? Or a deliberate revision on their part…? Funnily enough, we don’t cover this… Also from the comic, surely Lister shouldn’t be able to pick up the future echo photo of him with the babies? It’s an echo, which was reinforced a few lines earlier when the Toaster chastises Rimmer for asking if the future echoes can see them. …However, we do cover this.
However, we do cover this. I’ll be listening shortly. Can’t wait to hear your dissection of this important matter.
I’ve always heard this line as “I’m doing what you said do”. Is this my mistake, or the comic’s? Or a deliberate revision on their part…? Deliberate on their part, I reckon. I think “I’m doing what you said do” probably looks too much like a spelling mistake (‘said to’) in print.
I interpreted Rob’s “homosexual way” comment slightly differently and I don’t see it as him acknowledging that they were being homophobic. I took it to mean that they thought that there were some vague comedic possibilities from Rimmer and Lister acting like a gay couple and, to be fair, he was right. After all, several episodes of Frasier are focused on two straight characters acting like a gay couple and that’s one of the greatest sitcoms ever made. The Dad script excerpt on The Bodysnatcher Collection doesn’t contain anything homophobic, and I think you can see hints of how that dynamic between Rimmer and Lister could have worked.
We’re going to be recording the next Smegazine Rack on Sunday, so do get your letters in now if you like.
The art style of the cover (see this page’s banner) is the sort of thing you’d see randomly adorning the waltzer at a travelling funfair.
The Grant Naylor interview is definitely the meatiest thing so far for fans, but it’s more about looking back than ahead, even giving the sense that the show may be closer to the end than the beginning. Whereas with the benefit of hindsight, we can now see that it was actually just closer to The End than The Beginning. …I’ll show myself out.
Caption competition: “Danny and Chris respond negatively to a late script suggestion which the writers described as ‘vaguely funny in a homosexual kind of way'”
Great Dwarfcast for what might be my favourite Smegazine issue so far. I liked the Geap story a lot and the Future Echoes adaptation was fairly decent. Plus the Rob and Doug interview was great and is the kind of thing I would have lapped up as a kid. A few random observations: I’ve had some contact with Vincent Danks in the past, around the time he was working on the comic Harker with Roger Gibson. His style has always been fairly photo-referenced (even for original properties) but this is the first time I’ve seen it in colour, which makes it pop in a different way to how it looks in black and white. The colour choices here are… vivid. (Harker is lots of fun by the way, and worth a read – a modern take on a classic British detective and sidekick formula, with a few twists.) As for Will Eisner, he’s commonly thought of as the godfather of the modern “graphic novel” and a comics legend in general. The Spirit is his most famous character so it’s probably just a broad reference for comics fans. (Whatever you do though, don’t watch the Spirit movie as it’s awful.) Regarding the comments about the odd placement of certain sections, like the letters page and next-month preview: having worked in print magazine publishing in the past, I think some of this may have to do with the slightly boring practicalities of old-fashioned magazine printing, namely needing to group certain sets of pages together if they require different printing effects/techniques. Without going into too much detail, if you have different printing techniques on different pages in the same issue (eg some b/w and some colour), then because of the way a magazine is printed and then folded to construct the final product, the sets of pages are grouped in patterns that flow out from the centre spread in a mirrored layout, in batches of four pages at a time. Long story short, using more high-quality printing techniques for the art in the comics sections (compared to the more text-oriented pages) could have an effect on layout decisions and seems to have led them to group the comics at the front and back ends of this latest issue, meaning the other stuff has to float about in the middle.
Caption Competition: During filming, Chris Barrie appears unimpressed as Danny John-Jules complains for the seventh time that day that Low Cat’s fake teeth are very uncomfortable and humiliating to wear.
Great pod, boys. Just found this lovely half-page ad for Smegazine #6 no less in Sega Power #48. I remembered it from back in the day and set about trying to find it.
That’s an ad for Volume 2, Issue 6, so keep hold of it for another 14 months. Aha! You’re right, of course.
The Smegazine were offering spoilers for Nanarchy in October 1992?! Yeah, I found that intriguing! They nailed the “stole,” though I suppose we’d all been thinking along those lines since Psirens.
“Smeg-Merchant” Tremendous, I know. Meanwhile, I guess the ‘ews’ joke is a variation on the ‘ible’ joke from Stasis Leak.
The Smegazine were offering spoilers for Nanarchy in October 1992?! Yeah, I found that intriguing! They nailed the “stole,” though I suppose we’d all been thinking along those lines since Psirens. Stated as stolen from the start.
Stated as stolen from the start. …in Psirens. I thought that was what Spare Head One was referring to.
…in Psirens. I thought that was what Spare Head One was referring to. I assumed “we’d all been thinking along those lines” meant it was a general fan theory rather than something that was definitively stated on screen from the moment we know they’ve lost the ship.
