DwarfCast 162 – The Smegazine Rack – Issue #8 DwarfCasts Posted by Jonathan Capps on 14th May 2023, 14:20 Subscribe to DwarfCasts: RSS • iTunes “The fascist junta of the potato people” Back in the distant mists of time, when Ian first dreamt up the idea of getting Danny and I to read through all the Smegazines and record a podcast series about it, no doubt issues like this were front and centre of his mind. Historically significant pieces on ancient DJs? Check. Some hot Wraggy action? Check. Potatits? You bet ya. *gestures vaguely at insane original comic strips*? Uh-huh. Needless to say, this was a fun one. Grab your complementary copy of the mag here. DwarfCast 162 – The Smegazine Rack – Issue #8 (128MB) Next up will be our Re-Disc-overy of the Series 3 DVD sets, so I’d advise you start watching those extras in preparation now as it might genuinely be difficult to find a DVD player on which disc 2 will work… Show notes Danny’s brother on Bad Influence – he’s the one fist-pumping on the right of frame after the pool shot. Wiffle Lever To Full by Bob Fischer is the book in which Cappsy is carried off on the shoulders of his fellow Red Dwarf fans. The Angel Hotel in Northampton was somewhat bigger and grander than our initial research suggested. It burnt down in 2012 and is currently being redeveloped. Clip from Parallel 9 with Robert and Craig. A good blog about the making of Parallel 9. The Abso-smegging-lutely Unofficial Red Dwarf Cookbook. Ian looking discerningly at a bowl of gazpacho soup. Flap Jack’s comprehensive guide to the edits made in the Omnibus. G&TV: The Reconstructed Heart. Brian Harvey vs baked potatoes. G&T’s 2004 interview with Peter Tyler. Seb Patrick’s Beyond The Touchline podcast on Roy of the Rovers and other football comics.
I always loved the Androids strip! The joke is that it’s a parody of the complete over-the-top ridiculousness of soap opera plotlines and cliffhangers. A quick dash back to Future Echoes part 5, and those robots in Parrot’s Bar. The music as they leave is provided by an android with a keytar, as provided by ‘Jukebots’.
The previous issue felt like they’d arrived at a worthwhile publication now, so of course they immediately derail it by doubling down on the acquired-taste tangential strips, in weird contrast to the faithfully bland in-character features. – I enjoy the Mr Flibble strip. It’s in the spirit of Rimmer’s psychotic puppet show and fairy tale ravings in the episode, and we saw his sadistic depths in Terrorform and Demons & Angels. However much this was intended by the writers, or whether they just got a juvenile kick out of getting two pages of tits and carnage signed off, it’s best that it’s left unexplained. – I can’t say the same for Androids, which is basically like losing a page to adverts from now on. – This was the earliest issue I had, so I read the conclusion of Future Echoes in comic form before I saw the episode. I knew the story from the novel, and I’d seen other series 1 episodes, so understood that there was creative license in the locations and other visuals. – More Eldorado slagging from Sonic the Comic. – Cat calls Holly ‘head’ in Reflections of a Cat. This will continue to be one of those Smegazine idiosyncracies like ‘Mister David.’ – Did the survey respondents not appreciate Chris’ topless scene in Holoship, or was it cancelled out by Rimmer getting with someone who wasn’t them? – They did use Amigas for the on-set computers in Series V, most notably for the typing scene in Terrorform but also on the Holoship and other sets. – Interesting that they had to get permission from the rest of the cast for Chris to do their vocal likenesses in the audiobooks. Would that just be Craig, Danny, Robert and Norman, or does Chris do other specific impressions? – That screaming TV head in the Zero G feature stayed with me. Carl Flint’s art was always a bit unsettling. – Jim’ll Fix It used to show the letters from kids with their full addresses too.
I went to the second Dimension Jump they showed series 1 on a telly rolled in like it was a science lesson at school so you are exactly right as that was also staged at Northampton with Jane attending to check if the second event was better! Lol
In an interesting (to me) parallel, teenage me would have probably agreed with the survey results, whereas contemporary me (36) is in agreement with the V ranking from the Coral Canvass. (Actually, I’d probably take Quarantine over Back to Reality, but it’s fairly interchangeable.) It’s hard to parse exactly what it is, but I think one of you touched on the probable explanation: Holoship’s lack of ‘spectacle’, and a plot that boils down to a love story, likely didn’t appeal to or engage my younger self as much on a broader level. Terrorform has been one of my lowest ranked bubble-episodes for some time. Again, it’s from possibly the best series (V or II for me), and there’s so many great scenes/lines/gags, so it’s not even remotely ‘bad’. But reduced to a vague overarching ‘feeling’, it seems a fraction below the rest of V. While I don’t have any issues with Demons & Angels, though I can admit it’s probably a bit goofy, these days I think Holoship is a slight cut above. And I cannot understand dislike of The Inquisitor!
I don’t really care about the romance or character growth aspects of Holoship, it’s just consistently funny and quotable. It’s the one with Binks, for god’s sake! If I was being picky, it does have the clumsy edits from being written stupidly long and the populated universe and Flanderisation issues (Lister is only capable of eating curry!) Thinking like an early 90s idiot, it was the only episode of that run that didn’t have a proper baddie and everyone’s lives in danger, which had become the norm, so maybe felt less ‘Red Dwarf.’ Coming first in the run should have made that less of an issue though.
Excellent, and not just because I personally got a shout out. – In the Future Echoes comic, they reference Lister being crew member 169, when surely this would have been the perfect opportunity to bring in the Justice retcon that there were actually 1,169 crew members. Oh well. – The Dimension Jump coverage is definitely the most fascinating feature in this issue. Rob and Doug at a convention together – what a prospect! These 1992 fans didn’t know how good they had it. It is kind of painful to read how much they were asked for more Holly and more on-Red Dwarf action though. It makes it seem like they made Series VI out of spite. In the context of Hattie being the earliest and most enthusiastic cast member at DJ, this is not helping with my bitterness over Holly being cut out of the show, and Norman always being given priority over Hattie whenever they make a return. – The Lister’s recipe and Zero G Football features had the same problem for me – the overall joke they were going for was decent, but the full detail didn’t really add much. I found myself skimming. – In terms of sports which deliberately don’t make sense, maybe Calvinball is the better point of comparison than Blernsball. – It’s a shame about that one panel in the Flibble strip, because otherwise the contrast between the innocence of the captions and the over the top violence and rudeness of the panels was pretty funny. It does make the “Uh oh” on the cover a bit of an understatement. – The Androids strips weren’t amazing (some decent robot puns aside), but I disagree that means Androids wasn’t worthy of any expansion. The way they used it in Geek Chase – which I understand was kind of building off of Smegazine stuff? – was great. – Not much to add regarding the Series V survey, other than that ranking Demons & Angels as the 3rd best episode of the series ought to be illegal. – I’m not a football fan and I’ve never read Roy of the Rovers, but Ace of the Rovers was still a pretty good read. The artwork was especially nice. Also, it wasn’t followed up on in the podcast, but this was where the now forbidden Kevin Keegan reference came in (although it didn’t actually mention the name). – I trust that it was all done in loving pastiche, but still, “Smegchester” and “The Smeg” seem pretty lazy. Bolt the word “Smeg” onto as much as you like, but in universe it just doesn’t sit right (even if it’s not actually the same universe). The TV show wouldn’t reveal that Lister grew up in Smegpool, Curryside and attended Gimboid Comprehensive. Or at least I hope it wouldn’t. – Kryten and Cat having doppelgangers in Ace of the Rovers was a bit weird. In Dimension Jump, Padre, Mellie and Tranter were played by Danny, Hattie and Bobby but they weren’t meant to literally be Cat, Holly and Kryten. Here, that is literally Cat in a football kit. – Robot referees with instant replay capability? RED DWARF PREDICTED VAR CONFIRMED.
Coming first in the run should have made that less of an issue though. That reminds me, my first experience of it was via the BBC VHS the late 90’s, where they diddled with the episode oder and put it last on a tape after BTR & D&A. That probably didn’t it do it any favours in my childish eyes.
Future Echoes Parrots bar in series 1! Somehow, Rimmer’s second hair change doesn’t work at all in this context. I’m kind of glad that’s over now. Looking forward to the eight issue version of Balance of Power starting next week. Dimension Jump ‘92 Well that sounds like an absolute fiasco. Doug acknowledging fans wanted more Red Dwarf and Holly while they were working on VI is pretty funny. “Most of the panels, quizzes and games were shit but it was still a good convention.” Great, thanks for that. Reflections of a Cat Oh. Cat calls Holly “babe”? Well, that was shit. Survey results I love the insightful criticisms of Holoship in here, like “Rob and Doug must have been drunk” as a great counter to the actual well thought out defences of the episode. Staggered people dislike it that much, anyway. Another ‘all men are straight’ suggestion, yay. Demons and Angels third best in series. What a weird survey. Gotta love the bloke who thought it was still called High and Low. Lister’s Cookery Page There’s a gag that didn’t need to take up a whole page. Androids Haha, ok. What a strange little strip. News Is this new? I don’t recall a news page before. I can’t help feeling this should have been a regular thing before now. It should be the first page of the magazine, really. Apparently Howarth and Lyons “write for the Smegazine”. Do they have smaller roles or are they trying not to just sound too self-promotey? I’m sure Royal Mail weren’t anywhere near as abysmal back then as they are today (our office seem to save up any parcels and just deliver them by van once a week, which is fun), but surely awarding prizes to the first five correct answers is a bit unfair. I mean I wouldn’t even bother writing in after the first couple of days of the magazine being on sale. The Amusing Misadventures of Mr Flibble The ‘amusing’ in the title made me laugh a lot. Hahah fucking hell what Peter Wragg interview Fucking hell, the BBC not being interested in making sci-fi and doing lots of quiz shows, there really is a depressing continuity right through to today, isn’t there? Gotta love and upside-down page. Nice interview from a brilliant guy, would have loved reading all that back before the DVDs and internet. Zero G Football Mildly amusing, goes in the Mornington Crescent direction as expected. Very difficult to believe this is actually the real sport in the Red Dwarf universe, however. Ace of the Rovers They’re going all out on the comic front this month, eh? This is the fourth strip! As someone with zero interest in football, it’s hard to stop my eyes glazing over here. Smegchester is unnecessary. Wait, is this a backdoor pilot for A Prince Among Men? I see Ace is drinking a pint of Old Smeg Bitter. I suppose your enjoyment of Ace of the Rovers depends on whether you find the word ‘smeg’ funny or not. Ace spots the beer’s original gravity is 1042°. Alcohol gravity is a weird system which is rarely displayed publicly outside of a few countries – Czech lager is usually described by it being a 10°, 12°, or 14°, for a light, standard or strong beer – and it also requires the final gravity to actually work out the ABV. But given that an average 5% pint is often around 1.05° SG or 12° Plato, a beer with an OG of 1042° is quite likely to be more than 100% ABV. In short, what the fuck is Ace drinking here? The last panel has a lovely joke. Otherwise I can’t say I got much from that at all. Androids Bloody hell it’s back. Cat Ok. Holly-grams Given that twonk is used as an insult, can something be a “loada twonk”? Someone talks rubbish and you say they’re talking a “loada dickhead” doesn’t work, does it? What a rubbish. Also, writing in to say that another person’s light hearted letter is factually inaccurate, Jesus. The response to the idiots asking for a signed photo in the most tedious way possible is pretty good. Particularly given the response to the next letter. All in all, I feel like that was a slight step back in quality after a general improvement in recent issues. Still, some nice stuff there. Now to see what you lot think.
Seems pretty apposite that I was drivelling on about Holoship earlier, and that there was that laughably named person in the letters section, that I just noticed this on a shoebox not 3 feet away from me:
Given that Rob and Doug were 20-something jobbing writers in the 80s, I suspect they spent a few late nights watching early Channel 4’s coverage of American football as being the inspiration for the London Jets. interestingly enough, when the NFL set up an off-branch “World League” in 1991, one of the key components was having a British team, and since NFL clubs are named after cities and the team was based at Wembley Stadium, we ended up with the London Monarchs as a pseudo-national team. Although the Monarchs came along three years after the Jets first appeared on TV, I’ve always thought of them as being a sort-of “evidence” for why Lister would support them, assuming they were indeed his most local team. Incidentally, when interest in the Monarchs tailed off, the league introduced the Claymores as a manufactured rival for them, based in Edinburgh but actually having the prefix “Scottish”, to set up an annual derby fixture of, erm, London vs. Scotland. Which, as an Englishman who lives closer to Murrayfield than Wembley, might have made things a bit weird for me if I’d ever cared enough to actually give a shit. As far as a very minute bit of Red Dwarf trivia (maybe), the Monarchs had a player called William Perry, whose nickname was “Refrigerator” on account of how much food he had inside him at any given moment. He got inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame as a publicity stunt in 2006, on account of once appearing in a WrestleMania Battle Royal with the likes of Bret ‘Hitman’ Hart and Andre ‘Fezzik’ the Giant, just two months after winning the Superb Owl with the Chicago Bears in 1986. Why is this relevant? Well, the wrestling bit isn’t, but the Bears had a novelty hip hop single out (in the vein of one of those old FA Cup Final songs football teams used to record), called The Super Bowl Shuffle, which I’ve always presumed to be the inspiration for Lister’s “Touch-Up shuffle”. (The other most notable Monarchs were one of the blokes who does the NFL coverage on terrestrial TV nowadays but whose name I can’t pronounce, a guy who won the actual Super Bowl whose name I’ve never committed to memory, and Clive Allen. Yes, that Clive Allen, of QPR and Spurs fame. Also, Jeff Stelling got some of his earliest TV work covering their games.) As for the Monarchs? They got rebranded the England Monarchs in 1998 and played to apathetic crowds at Crystal Palace, Bristol City and Alexander Stadium in Birmingham before pulling an MK Dons-like “re-franchising” and becoming Berlin Thunder in 1999, joined a few years later in Germany by the Claymores as the Hamburg Sea Devils. Who did we think we were kidding, Mr. Hitler?
As for the magazine, it feels significantly more like, well, a magazine at this point than it previously did, where it came across as more like a fanzine that accidentally made it into the newsagents by two blokes who thought “We could write a magazine!” only to realise they didn’t have enough ideas or content. Speaking from my own experience of doing various writing/music/video projects over the years, even at Issue 8 I can imagine Howarth & Lyons looking back at a copy of Issue 1 they’ve left lying around in the office and thinking “Some of this is a bit shit in hindsight, we’d definitely do something better now”. Then again, we still got Reflections of a Cat, so possibly not. Is it possible the woman that Mr. Flibble… erm, romances, consents to it given that she says “Do come again”, and we just don’t see the bit between him threatening to blow her brains out and him blowing his load out? My guess is no, and she was just trying to not get murdered on top of everything else. Ace of the Rovers is a sensational bit of business, but it’s surprisingly long, especially if you don’t have any interest in Roy of the Rovers (or football in general). The Dimension Jump coverage was great, but I would have preferred another couple of pages on it and a bit more detail on the games and what was apparently so shit about them and the panels. But, you know, gotta get Reflections… in there. Hattie being so lovely just makes all the stuff with the pleas for more Holly (and more stories set on the ship) so much more brutal, given what was about to happen. It’s interesting what social media (or indeed, letters pages and magazine polls) can do for a person’s perception of a TV show. I caught the tail end of V, watched III and IV retrospectively, then excitedly watched VI go out, and never once did I not like any of it. Really, it was only when I eventually saw Waiting for God that I finally thought “Hmm… maybe that one isn’t as good as the others…”, but I imagine if Twitter had been around in the 90s, every series would have been greeted with dissenters loudly decrying every new series. Then again, without internet access in 1997, I independently came to the conclusion that VII was shit, so maybe it’s just when something changes just enough from what you initially loved that you decide you don’t like it any more? Or, perhaps it’s just that VII really was shit. Although the last time I watched VII, I finally found a Stockholm Syndrome level of nostalgia for it. Maybe there’s hope for Timewave after all…
Although the last time I watched VII, I finally found a Stockholm Syndrome level of nostalgia for it. Maybe there’s hope for Timewave after all…
I’m always surprised Demons and Angels gets rated so low in series 5, that’s always been one of my top 3 episodes. But then I always love when Dwarf goes a bit horror.
I feel oddly defensive about the weird little strips like Androids, Mr Flibble and other stuff that’s to come even though I did not like them at all at the time. I think it’s one of those things where I appreciate the creativity of the idea rather than the actual thing itself.
I feel oddly defensive about the weird little strips like Androids, Mr Flibble and other stuff that’s to come even though I did not like them at all at the time. I think it’s one of those things where I appreciate the creativity of the idea rather than the actual thing itself. Trying something different is to be applauded, certainly, even if the end result isn’t to everyone’s tastes.
Catching up on this thread as it took me a few days to get through this mammoth Dwarfcast. Great stuff as ever. More Eldorado slagging Eldorado was very much in the shit chair at the time. Even at launch it was being slagged off and labelled a flop. It was pretty rubbish to be fair – I remember at my school the hot rumour was that it was a porno that they’d cut the sex scenes out of, which gives you a sense of the standard of writing and acting. In the Future Echoes comic, they reference Lister being crew member 169, when surely this would have been the perfect opportunity to bring in the Justice retcon that there were actually 1,169 crew members. Oh well. Although way back in issue #1 we were told… What this means is that shockingly, Smegazine #8 is the first and only recorded instance of Red Dwarf contradicting its own established continuity. (Sarcasm mode cancel. Although it is kind of funny to see Smegazine continuity revert back from 1,169 to 169 when the show did the opposite.)
Anyway, on to the rest of it. After the kind words in the Dwarfcast about the comments on the comics side of things, I thought I’d better make sure I come up with something worthwhile this time around too. The first thing to say is that I really like the increasing diversity of comics content in the Smegazine as it goes on. UK comics have traditionally done anthologies pretty well, and the ones that succeed and have a long life (like 2000AD) tend to be able to offer a wide range of art styles and story types within each issue. So it’s nice to see similar variety here. The Future Echoes strip is a decent finale, and the few changes compared to the TV show (like using Parrots bar) work nicely. I also really like the thought that has gone into structuring certain pages – the countdown to Lister’s death in the Drive Room works brilliantly, with loads of claustrophobic tight narrow close-up panels and a gradually growing intensity (and font size) of the HMMMMM, before at the last moment Lister loses composure and he (and the HMMMMM fx) break the panel borders. And then you get two nice expansive wide panels at the end as he realises he’s ok (again breaking the panel borders) and then Cat flies in for the final gag. There aren’t that many Smegazine pages where I’ve genuinely thought that I’d like to own the original art, but this is one of them. Really nicely done. In terms of complaints, there’s one tiny change to one line in Future Echoes that kind of ruins a gag, for me – Lister talking about wanting to have “loads of practice in things that you’ve got to do to get a family” isn’t as funny as “practice in THE things that you’ve got to do to get a family,” as the latter makes it pretty clear where his mind is at, but the former is more generic and vague. Still, it’s a very minor nit to pick. The bigger casualty of the format is definitely Rimmer’s haircut change, which is slightly baffling when it’s been divorced from the setup several chapters ago. On the 2000AD ads, Tharg was mentioned. Tharg is the longstanding fictional alien editor of 2000AD who acts as the mouthpiece for whoever is the real editor of the publication at the time (currently Matt Smith – no, not that one). It’s basically the same concept used for Megadroid on Sonic The Comic, if you remember that (and given the other Sonic/comics threads on here, there’s a strong possibility that you do). Tharg shows up on editorial and letters pages and sometimes in story pages too, and looks like this: As an extension of the Tharg concept, all the writers and artists on 2000AD are referred to as “droids” too, suggesting that they’re basically robot slaves forced to work for the nasty alien overlord Tharg for little in return. Which is kind of funny until you factor in the real-life battles over creators rights, work for hire contracts and even struggles to get named credits in comics. Ah well. They still keep up the Tharg concept to this day, I’m reading 2000AD at the moment and he’s still there. On the “Free Budgies” ad, I don’t know of any significance to that, other than it’s a joke mishearing about the free badges being advertised. But given how many other UK comics used to be sold on the strength of weird free gifts (eg. all the shit that got sellotaped to the front of the Beano), maybe it’s just a slightly absurd joke about that too. Androids! I quite like this so I’m not sure why it got such a bad reception. For me it’s more reminiscent of the kind of silly nonsense short strips you’d get in Viz or 2000AD, but I do understand that if you weren’t watching Neighbours in the early ’90s then a lot of the gags and references probably don’t land. Although even without that there are some fun puns and jokes that are pretty universal. Also, Kev Sutherland is (in addition to being a great artist and writer who even mentions Red Dwarf at the top of his bio – https://www.kevfcomicartist.com/ ) a top bloke who does “Comic Art Masterclass” sessions in schools around the country. My kids’ primary school classes both did these masterclasses in recent years and had great fun doing it – Kev gets a lot out of the kids regardless of artistic ability and they always have a fun day. So if you have kids in school who haven’t had him come in yet, you should suggest the school gets in touch. On to Mr Flibble. Ah, this is so late-80s/early-90s it hurts. I know the Dwarfcast mentions 2000AD, and it is a bit like that (around this time 2000AD certainly wasn’t averse to a bit of dodgy laddish content of its own), but for me the influence that most springs to mind is Tank Girl, which was a similarly wacky combination of violence, weaponry, interspecies “romance” and angular art (courtesy of Jamie Hewlett, who went on to co-create Gorillaz, among other things). (Those Pfeiffer references get everywhere.) Maybe I’m wrong in terms of direct influence, but Tank Girl was massive in comics in the late 80s and very early 90s, and the anarchic tone of this strip feels very reminiscent of that. In the Flibble story itself, I also think that the page-turn between the last panel of the first page (with the gunpoint highjacking) and the first panel of the next page (with the… legs out the car window) offers just enough of a gap that you could imagine that certain getting-to-know-you events have transpired over the course of the journey, to make it a little less dodgy than it first seems. Maybe. On to Ace Of The Rovers, on which I agree with Seb completely – I think it’s absolutely tremendous, mainly as it’s such an accurate pastiche of the original in the way that it’s presented. But also because I think it’s an inspired idea to adapt the Ace Rimmer concept by having him Dimension Jump sideways into other comics or comic genres, expanding the idea in a way that’s unique to this medium and allows for loads of variation. I could see Ace adventures working well in superhero comics, Beano style comics, Viz type comics, 2000AD – there are loads of possibilities and I’m almost tempted to make some myself. It’ll be interesting to see how far down this road they go in future Smegazine issues. And finally, on the Holly-Grams letters pages and the reader addresses – it’s always been fairly commonplace in comics to print full addresses, partly because pre-internet there weren’t as many ways for fans of certain niche interests to get in touch with other fans around the country (or world), so it allowed people to drop other like-minded folk a line directly. Certainly in US comics I think it’s how a lot of fanzines and small conventions first got started, with people making contact by post and working together that way. It does seem a bit odd in today’s climate though, given how much potential damage you expose yourself to by giving away that kind of detail.
On to the other non-comics content: the Dimension Jump report is great and exactly the kind of thing that makes this Smegazine (re)read such a fun exercise. Doug carefully noting all the criticism about people wanting more Holly and more stuff on the ship is hilarious, given that presumably he already knows at this point that they’re about to do the complete opposite. Never give fans what they say they want. Also, those 90s prices are insane. Reflections of a Cat is pretty mediocre, but contains precisely one good idea, in the form of Cat getting Kryten to build him a clothes-making machine. I’m going to headcanon this as being where all Cat’s outfits come from (as I never got the sense that Cat society technology was quite evolved or sophisticated enough to make some of his outfits). The reader survey results are kind of funny given how perceptions of these episodes have shifted over the years. But then I think The Inquisitor is the second best episode in Series V, so what do I know. Also, that rare promo pick of Kryten and the black box is great and immediately jumped out to me as something new and interesting when I saw it. Lister’s cookery page is a fun idea, and it’s nice that it’s a real recipe, but it’s still a bit nothingy. News From The Dwarf is a great idea – nothing overly fancy but it doesn’t need to be, and in this era it would have been an absolute goldmine for new updates. The Peter Wragg interview is great too – I love the behind-the-scenes photos, and again a lot of this information would have been brand new at the time so even more exciting. The Zero-G football stuff I thought was a bit weak. The way it’s been presented in the TV show has always suggested to me that it’s a fairly straightforward sci-fi take on American football, just with ceiling surfaces available as well as floors (references to the “touch-up shuffle” etc.) so making it this big wacky convoluted absurd game doesn’t feel like the right fit to me. Maybe a bit more H2G2. And finally, that picture of the Mutton Vindaloo Beast on the back cover is genuinely disgusting (the intestines were the first aspect to leap out at me too). And no, I had never realised until now that it was a lamb skull either. I feel stupid.
Ah, good work checking back on the ‘The End’ adaptation for that 1,169 reference. Makes it even worse to mess it up at this point.
>It’s basically the same concept used for Megadroid on Sonic The Comic Megadroid referred to the comic staff as the humes-who-think-they’re-in-charge, presumably continuing the reference for more cultured kids than me. I never read 2000 AD properly (like how I never tried gamebooks back then that didn’t have Sonic or Knightmare branding), but check out collections occasionally. Especially enjoy Al Ewing’s stuff.
Megadroid referred to the comic staff as the humes-who-think-they’re-in-charge Of course! I’d never put that connection together until now. I don’t read 2000AD religiously but there’s some good stuff in there at the moment so I’m picking it up for now, The Out is great and Garth Ennis on Rogue Trooper has been decent so far.
I do quite like the British “anthology” format of the Smegazine, 2000AD, Sonic The Comic etc. It’s such a more condensed version of storytelling than you find elsewhere that it forces writers to get a lot better very quickly and, as a product, it adds variety.
It’s such a more condensed version of storytelling than you find elsewhere that it forces writers to get a lot better very quickly Yes – Alan Moore always talks about the benefits of starting off on short stories and anthologies to really hone his craft. I think it forces you to cut the flab and tell your story as clearly and efficiently as possible.
Dear Smegazine, I think Rimmer is a RIGHT SMEGHEAD and a BIG FAT GIMBOID too!!!!!!! Cat is so cool. Who else thinks they just should shut Rimmer’s hologram off because he’s SUCH A LOSER?!?!?!?!?!?!??! Maybe they could replace him with Rameses Niblick III Kerplunk Kerplunk Whoops Where’s My Thribble he sounds like he’d be a right laugh!!!! Who’s up for a curry and some lager?!??! Smeghead McGee ps does anyone want any toast?????!
Dear Smegazine, I’m only 10 and my parents who are complete SMEG BRAINS don’t let me stay up to watch Red Dwarf, but luckily Thursdays are their night out now and I’m home alone so I can watch what I smegging well like! – Simon Fisher, 18 Repton Drive, Adlington, Chorley, Lancashire, PR7 4EJ
The “only running in-house ads” thing has sort of come around again. American comics are generally locked in to the 32-page format, but nobody wants to spend money on print advertising in such a niche market, and it’s cost-prohibitive for publishers to pay for more actual story content. So there’s just tons of house ads now.
