DwarfCast 174 – The Smegazine Rack – Issue #13

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• I had this one. There’s a nice sense of excitement with Series VI so imminent, even if it sounds like it’s going to be a shitshow.

  – I found ‘Space Monkeys’ slightly unsettling even at 13, I think for the combination of it being uncharacteristically gory both for Red Dwarf and for Nigel “Sonic the Comic” Kitching.

  – Odd how the writers can be good on the obscure recesses of canon while also thinking that Kryten calls Lister “Master David.”

  – Danny: “I can’t tell whether these things are trying to kill themselves…”

  

  Bit dark.

  – The Programme Guide features an alphabetical index covering every person, every place and every thing that has appeared in or had something to do with the series, but it’s totally cool and definitely not for nerds.

  – The funniest bit of the comic was imagining International Debris reading Liz’s letter.

  – I haven’t watched The 10%ers. Would Juanita in the novels or the first draft script have come first?

  – Is Doug biting a pen (as the caption says) or a pencil?

  – I only had the abridged audiobooks at the time, so didn’t know Polymorphs and other GELFs were associated with Garbage World and didn’t know what they were doing there. This made a lot more sense on re-read.

  – Extending the original Alien parody with Gigeresque suggestive design. If you thought you might be imagining it, some of the artist’s later contributions are less subtle.

  

• It feels like I have psychic powers sometimes, because I’ll randomly think “You know what I could really go for right now? A new DwarfCast.” and then BOOM, within 7 weeks one appears.

  (No but for real it’s been under a week multiple times.)

  Another solid issue with a 100% hit rate on the comics. It’s sad because it feels like the Smegazine only just really hit its stride, but now there are only 10 issues left. Gone too soon.

  – “It’s been confirmed that Hattie Hayridge will not be appearing in Red Dwarf VI. The decision was taken by Grant Naylor who are yet to reveal their reasons. Hattie is said to be disappointed with the decision.” – Yeah, no fucking shit. Honestly seeing this all play out in contemporary reporting is so frustrating. GNP should 100% have been on top of this and released a statement clarifying that Holly wasn’t going to appear in Series VI at all, thanking Hattie for her work etc. Allowing rumours of a recast to fester like this is so disrespectful, it’s a wonder Hattie appeared at so many Dimension Jumps, participated in the Series 2-V DVDs etc.

  – It is a little surprising that they’d spoil a major twist from Better Than Life The Novel with The Shadow Time (and continue their efforts to pretend that TV and novel continuity are the same). I guess they just assume that anyone reading the Smegazine is a big enough fan to have already read the books, but personally I didn’t read the novels until the late 2010s, so if I’d randomly decided to read the Smegazine first, I would have been disappointed to have that twist revealed out of context. Plus I think it would have still worked as a comic if they had just called it Garbage World. Although IIRC they already talked about the same plot point more casually in previous issues, so maybe there’s no sense shutting the stable door now.

  – “Just some of the American actors Robert never got to make a series with.” is a truly brutal caption. I would have added “And Jane Leeves.”

  – I’m upset that we live in a world where it’s no longer possible to get that baseball jacket.

  – The lack of quizzes and caption competitions is a shame. Bring back the fun page!

  – Perhaps I’ve lived a sheltered life, but I think this is the first time I’ve seen anyone interpret “Winnie” as a reference to Winston Churchill. I will be calling him “Winnie the Churchill” from now on though.

• Perhaps I’ve lived a sheltered life, but I think this is the first time I’ve seen anyone interpret “Winnie” as a reference to Winston Churchill.

  

• Great Dwarfcast again.
  I thought this was an interesting issue, quite uneven but the good outweighed the bad.
  The FAQs on the credits page basically seemed to be a “stop hassling us about this stuff” message, but fair enough if you’re getting lots of those queries I suppose.

  The News page continues to be endlessly interesting, particularly the contemporary updates on VI. It’s very surprising that an official publication is reporting stuff like the lack of scripts and the confusion about Hattie, but fair play to them for not just being a GNP mouthpiece.
  Androids committed the greatest sin possible this month by just being a bit boring. I don’t mind wacky and incoherent but this just wasn’t really any fun.
  I thought the Bobby interview was ok but a bit slight, although talk of the Mac sketch and their Ch4 show was intriguing (maybe a future candidate for G&TV?). Interesting to hear more about his US experiences too, although his book covered that pretty comprehensively I suppose. As for this feature being in two parts, I wonder if it’s to ensure that they hold back enough material to definitely feature at least one main cast member in each issue of the Smegazine?
  [One other thing that confused me about the interview was his reference to people hanging upside down. I don’t recall what that’s a reference to in Red Dwarf USA (or even UK for that matter), but then I noticed that the later Space Monkeys script opens with Lister and Cat hanging upside down – so I wonder if Bobby here.had somehow seen that strip ahead of publication and was referring to that? Maybe? Otherwise I can’t think what he’s talking about.]
  Holly-Grams is… well, I guess a legible typeface is some kind of improvement, and the US party sounded surprisingly elaborate. Also, as regards the mystery of the cannisters at the end of Better Than Life, we did indeed discuss that back in the Book Club days, here. 
  Space Monkeys was fine for what it was – good art but a very thin story. Although I’d argue that in Red Dwarf terms it’s definitely Gremlins 1 – for Gremlins 2 you need full-on meta fourth-wall-breaking (so BTE basically).
  The 10%ers set report/interview was incredibly awkward and tense, and definitely feels like it sheds light on the GN breakup era. Also, the talk about disliking star-driven sitcom vehicles made me laugh, foreshadowing as it did the shitness of A Prince Among Men years later.
  Incidentally, for those wanting to see the 10%ers Pilot (and first series), it was the subject of an old G&TV here.
  I thought the Graham Hutchings interview was genuinely fascinating, a real time capsule and snapshot of a moment in time, and a feature that made me think about an aspect of the show I’d never really considered before. I also loved the outtakes comment (insert “Gets Idea For Smeg-Ups” Rob Grant meme here.)
  The Agony Aunt Holly was total crap, although I love the idea of someone obsessing over it to discover the hidden message.
  As for the Polymorph profile feature, the photo really did make it look like a giant turd. Also, it’s vaguely amusing that the factfile would have become almost immediately out of date once Series VI came along, given that it was written back when there was only one Polymorph episode of Red Dwarf (not to mention only three Alien movies).
  I didn’t love The Shadow Time as much as you all did – I thought it was odd to suddenly have a strip set in the novel continuity (although arguably earlier stuff like the The End and Future Echoes adaptations were also closer to the novel versions than the TV show) and I just didn’t think it was that interesting or clever, although the art was decent again.
  The Hattie Stands Up feature was a really weird one for me. In theory it’s a good idea for an article, but it was so cackhandedly written and felt like such amateurish student-journalism-level stuff (including forgetting the full name of whoever Ray was, and seemingly missing the Rory Motion/Raw Emotion gag entirely) that it just made for a painful read. It’s also another example of the slightly juvenile and low-key sexist tone that infects a lot of the Howarth & Lyons stuff, with the focus on staring up Brenda’s skirt and the innuendo about “entertaining the members”. Although maybe they were just giddy after seeing the attractive black-and-white headshot of Hattie that was used for this feature, which she must have been happy with as she looks pretty amazing in it.
  And finally, the Jake Bullet strip… well, you know how I feel about that by now, it either needs more space per issue or needs to be much snappier and written to fit the pagecount.
  Talking of which, I agree that recaps and reminders would help with some of these ongoing strips. Admittedly, it had become a bit passe by this point to include this information within serialised comics themselves – Marvel Comics used to have a regular thing of recapping the hero’s status quo and powers through dialogue or thought bubbles in each issue (on the assumption that each issue might be a reader’s first) but it led to some very clunky writing where characters just info-dump details about themselves. But there’s no reason the Smegazine couldn’t have had short “story so far” summaries, separate to the strips – maybe on the title/credits page, which is how 2000AD handles it today.
  Finally, the discussion of plastic sleeves for comics and the Smegazine has reminded me that (format spoilers ahead) volume 2 of the Smegazine is in an odd, wider/squarer format that doesn’t fit regular A4 plastic sleeves/punch-pockets, even the slightly oversized ones. Does anyone have any tips on sleeves that fit them? Currently mine are loose together in a cardboard document folder, which isn’t as protective as I’d like. (Ian, if you have a physical Smegazine collection then maybe you have some tips.)

• This was the issue that lead to me getting the unabridged Audio book then.  Happy memories.

• The Junior Encyclopedia of Space aka The Letters Page Minus the Fucking Stupid Stuff – good idea, tbh

  News from the Dwarf – I’m assuming the rumour about a replacement Holly was nonsense to hide the real reason she’s not in VI, I mean there’s no way they would have actually been looking for one given that they wrote her out because they’d run out of material for the character, is there?
  Good to see that the ‘VI scripts were late’ reporting begins here.
  “It could mean building another model of the good ship Red Dwarf itself” lol
  Those baseball jackets come to around £125 and £190 with inflation, Jesus.
  The ‘Virgin Volume’ header being at the very bottom of a column isn’t very professional layout and typography, kids, sort it out.
  Spelled ‘Merry’ in Maid Marian wrong. Amateurs.

  Androids – got a headache already, no thanks.

  Robert Llewellyn – Pretty impressed at a two part interview. Although calling him a comparative newcomer, despite having been in more than half of the show by this point, feels a little unfair.
  The phrase “sort of psychologist/pillock type character” is lovely.
  Robert’s off to America to sell a sitcom he’s written. God, it’s slightly depressing to see how many projects everyone had lined up and how few of them took off.
  The phrase “just some of the American actors Robert never got to make a series with” is amusingly bitchy.

  Holly-grams – Not as many wannabe comedians as normal, which is always a blessing. Liz’s tirade of utter crap balances that out, though.

  Space Monkeys – “Pink. Plump. Moist.” Dear me.
  Why is Rimmer actually drawn like Captain A.J. Rimmer, Space Adventurer here?
  The panel of Cat eating the live space monkey is genuinely… horrible.
  Space monkeys on the train going “woo woo!” Finally, a comic strip that is firmly aimed at my level of humour. I’m enjoying this a lot.
  Well, the plot was nearly non-existent, but it made me laugh, so that’s something.

  The 10%ers – Mildly interesting, I like that they’re covering it, but I think it really helps if you like the show, and of the four or five episodes I got through, I found the 10%ers a surprisingly accurate description for how much of the show I enjoyed. A handful of superb, Dwarf-quality gags, and a lot of middling piffle.

  Heard Any Good Books Lately? – Someone should send Chris the quote about him being an artificial man and a woman, he’ll love that. The wanker.

  “Be here for next month for the return of Duane Dibbley, Mr Flibble and Ace Rimmer…”
  

  Graham Hutchings – Oh, top marks for interviewing someone far less obvious that just rolling back round through all the cast again.
  Absolutely not intended that way, but “at the end of the day, the secret with comedy is the tightened you do at the editing,” does make it look like he’s saying he’s the most important person in the entire show, which raised a smile.
  Really interesting stuff there, enjoyed that a lot more than some of the other interviews actually, learned a lot about the editing process. Shows what can be achieved if you take the mag a little more seriously than just churning out some half-arsed, in-character whimsy…

  Agony Aunt Holly – … oh.
  “Paracites”. Nice one.
  The Sqirlk letter is abysmal, but ‘Holi’ made me laugh for some reason.
  Why is Holly going bleep? Holly doesn’t go bleep.
  Oh well, I’m sure somebody enjoyed these kinds of articles.

  The Shadow Time – ominous name.
  A deep dive into BTL lore, ok this is interesting immediately.
  I wonder if that one glimpse of the polymorph looking like an orange cock and balls was intentional.
  Well, that was fun. Enjoyably bonkers imagery, a nice peek at an interesting era of the Dwarf universe.

  Hattie – can I just mention how bloody glorious Hattie looks in that portrait?

  Jake Bullet – Oh, God.
  “Hit-U-Like was state owned – like most thriving companies.” What a world that must be.
  Great, there’s more of this next time.

  Love that pic of Cat on the back.

  On the whole… I almost enjoyed that issue. Felt like more effort went into that than normal, good work everyone, keep it up, you might make an issue where I don’t have an “oh, God,” moment at all at this rate.

• The funniest bit of the comic was imagining International Debris reading Liz’s letter.

  Oh dear, am I that obvious?

• Hattie – can I just mention how bloody glorious Hattie looks in that portrait?

  Glad I’m not alone here, she looks stunning in it.

• Finally, the discussion of plastic sleeves for comics and the Smegazine has reminded me that (format spoilers ahead) volume 2 of the Smegazine is in an odd, wider/squarer format that doesn’t fit regular A4 plastic sleeves/punch-pockets, even the slightly oversized ones. Does anyone have any tips on sleeves that fit them? Currently mine are loose together in a cardboard document folder, which isn’t as protective as I’d like. (Ian, if you have a physical Smegazine collection then maybe you have some tips.)

  I’ve got them all in one of these, which does the job if you’re not intending on moving them very often.

• Ah thanks, I have a few of those but was wondering about individual sleeves. I’ll have to see if I can find something that fits.

• Portishead used to record drums, press them to vinyl and then throw the records around, stand on them etc. then sample from them so they sound like they’ve been sampled from old records.

  A good chrome tape can have very little hiss, especially played on a good deck. Not realistic for an audiobook, though, although it probably has more dynamic range than the FM broadcast of the “rich tones of radio four”. 

• Another mostly good issue. Shadow Time is easily the best strip but they’re all decent apart from Androids. I still really like Jake Bullet.

  I suppose it’s possible Rob and Doug had the idea for the frozen planet that turns out to be Earth before they wrote the novels, and Marooned was originally just part of that. Ed’s told the story about being presented with the idea of Lister riding a giant flying cockroach, I think on the Six of the Best CD and again on the lockdown commentaries, so they must have wanted to do a version of Garbage World in the show at some point.

  Sea-monkeys were a proper fad at my school. There was loads of that kind of crap in the nineties though. Who wouldn’t love a Red Dwarf one of these?

  
  

  Just how bad was the Grant Naylor situation at this point? Rob’s clearly about to burn Doug’s ear with that cigarette.

  I’m not convinced the Polymorph’s big monster form isn’t meant to be a kind of default state. We don’t only see it when it’s scaring Lister, but also when it’s draining Kryten’s guilt and Rimmer’s trying to shoo it away, and again just before the heat-seekers get it at the end. It uses that form to evoke Lister’s fear because it’s a big scary monster, so why bother turning into something else? And when Lister says it’s his worst fear I think he just means it’s the most frightening thing he’s ever come face to face with, not that it’s from his nightmares or anything like that.

• My cultural reference for sea monkeys was a Rugrats episode I had on video where they nobly return the pointless specks to the ocean.

  Featuring the ship’s rail network is another novel reference. The books and Back to Reality were clearly huge inspirations to the comic writers.

• Those baseball jackets come to around £125 and £190 with inflation, Jesus.

  I always love seeing the progression of pricing in the home video market, from my 90’s childhood.

  £10.99 for a video with just 3 episodes on it. I remember when videos were this kind of price.

  I can’t remember what I paid for the Series I DVD on original release just 10 years later, but Google suggests it was also £10.99.  And that includes all 6 episodes, plus an absolute raft of extras that the range became known for.

  Perhaps a fairer comparison would be Just the Shows I-VIII, which apparently retailed at £40 originally (less than half that now in most places).

  That’s 8 series/52 episodes of Dwarf, for the same money in 1992 you could’ve owned Series I and half of another series.

  Not trying to make any kind of point here, I just like thinking about it.

• Have you ever seen the prices for buying individual episodes of a series on YouTube, insane stuff

• I can’t remember what I paid for the Series I DVD on original release just 10 years later, but Google suggests it was also £10.99.

  Series I-VI at least were £19.99 RRP, I think, or £17.99 from Play.com. It seemed very good value to me, as just a couple of years earlier you’d see things like two-episode Star Trek videos for £12.99 / £13.99, depending on the shop. I mostly collected those second-hand, but for Christmas ’99 I splurged all my Nan money plus pocket money to get the ten-part Deep Space Nine finale across 5 x £12.99 VHS tapes and felt very indulgent.

• I remember seeing X Files episodes on VHS and wanting them, and then realising I’d want to buy them all, but a) I had no idea where to get them all, and b) I had no idea how many there were, other than ‘more than I can afford’.

• the ten-part Deep Space Nine finale across 5 x £12.99 VHS tapes

  kino of the highest order

• I remember seeing X Files episodes on VHS and wanting them, and then realising I’d want to buy them all, but a) I had no idea where to get them all, and b) I had no idea how many there were, other than ‘more than I can afford’.

  There were attractive season boxsets, but I had to settle for the mythology omnibus releases that showed up at Cash Converters regularly, rewatching them out of sequence so they made even less sense.

• My wife collects VHS tapes from thrift stores, but I tell her not to bother with TV ones, as they just take up too much space.

  For something like Doctor Who, DVD was arguably not compact enough even.

• Would video boxsets in the Red Dwarf universe just be side by side triangles extending out towards Toblerone proportions, or would they be displayed in a trapezoid/parallelogram structure? Would shelves be tilted to display the spines more clearly?

•  Series I-VI at least were £19.99 RRP, I think, or £17.99 from Play.com. It seemed very good value to me 

  Definitely, for what we got it’s an absolute steal.

• My wife collects VHS tapes from thrift stores, but I tell her not to bother with TV ones, as they just take up too much space.

  For something like Doctor Who, DVD was arguably not compact enough even.

  Remember in the early days of DVDs, where the packaging was often way bulkier than in needed to be? I imagine it was to do with wanting to make you feel you were still getting something substantial for your money when we were all used to the size and shape of VHS. But there’s things like the original UK boxset of New Who Series 1 being a gargantuan cuboid TARDIS, which took up more shelf space than the following three or four boxsets combined. I remember getting the first two series of Auf Wiedersehen Pet, both of which came in their own toolbox styled cardboard box. Inside was just four separate jewel cases containing one disc each. They were later repackaged with four discs in one jewel case (double on each side), which was much more sensible but less satisfying to hold.

• much more sensible but less satisfying to hold.

  

  Sorry

• It’s like the current Who BluRay Collections – I started with the limited editions, which are gorgeous items, but to be honest, if I’d known they’d be doing standard editions (which they initially denied they would do), I’d have just waited for those, as having the whole of Who in about as much shelf space as the ’60s era took up in DVDs is a very attractive prospect.

• After ‘Sonic The Comic’ ended, there was a ‘fanzine’ version of it made by readers that continued online. Do we have enough talented people on G&T to do a one-off Smegazine revival? I’d be up for drawing a comic.

• I’d give it a bloody good go.

• Great idea, Podey! My mind’s exploding with ridiculous and wilfully obscure premises.

• I’ll make a thread on the forum so we can establish interest.

• My mind’s exploding with ridiculous and wilfully obscure premises.

  Hi @Warbodog. Are you the person who suggested making a trade paperback compilation of the Smegazine comics? Is that happening? My ears pricked up when I heard that on the podcast.

• I splurged all my Nan money

  Just highlighting this for everyone’s enjoyment.

• a trade paperback compilation of the Smegazine comics

  Since the target, hardcore audience for that publication is us, who seem to be largely ambivalent about the strips at best, I don’t think there’d be much point in even trying to get that off the ground. You could just create a digital version from existing page scan image files like I did, or print and bind them or something.

  I prefer the Smegazine how it is, as a really weird time capsule.

  

• 

• 

• 

• It might be a while before you can incorporate this fascinating fact into the relevant Dwarfcast, but I noticed whilst researching something today that the publication of the final issue of the Smegazine coincides with Fleetway beginning to seriously reduce the budget of Buster — the last weekly humour comic they were still publishing following the closure of Whizzer and Chips in 1990 — with the result that it started featuring more and more reprints of old strips. (Buster kept going until the end of 1999, but by around 1996-97 it was almost entirely recycled material, with only a single artist still employed — the artist was also responsible for compiling the letters page but that might have predated the budget cut — and producing no more than a page or two of new content per issue.)

• the publication of the final issue of the Smegazine coincides with Fleetway beginning to seriously reduce the budget of Buster

  You made me realise I’ve been slacking in obsessively cross-referencing Smegazine releases against Sonic the Comic, but luckily that won’t launch until around the same time as Smegazine Vol. 2, slightly interestingly (assuming the STC cover dates refer to the last day of sale at the end of the fortnight, as I remember being the case as a kid; the Smegazine release dates are handily given in the ‘Next Month in the Smeg’ sections).

  Spoilers:

  Focusing on Nigel Kitching’s contributions to both, he didn’t write for STC until issue 4 (just after notably concluding a Red Dwarf multi-parter in Smegazine 2.3), then he keeps a balance between the two, sometimes cutting down on one while pulling double Sonic or double Smeg. There’s a period where he wasn’t writing Sonic for a few weeks and only doing Decap Attack that magically lines up with his next Red Dwarf comic two-parter and possibly ongoing Dibbley stuff.

  After the Smegazine finishes and he finds himself back in a reality where he’s not paid to write and draw Red Dwarf fanfic any more, he sets about trying to make STC more worth reading and amusing to write with stronger characterisation, recurring original characters (like the Marxio Brothers and the Sky Pirates) and longer arcs (starting with the Sonic CD adaptation). Smeg’s loss was Sonic’s gain.

• starting with the Sonic CD adaptation

  The five-parter that introduces Metal Sonic/Metallix was the best that STC ever got. That reused page that crops up in two different chapters from two different perspectives is genius (and even manages to reference Kryten’s conversation with his time-travelling self in The Inquisitor).

• I only had sporadic issues at that point, and little familiarity with Sonic CD outside of an advert and screenshots, so I was most hyped for the long Sonic 3 & Knuckles adaptation (most of #33–53) that fit in most of the levels and even some of the bosses and stuff. That was really gratifying in an era when most tie-in crap would just placate you with their own generic scenarios.

  Even Ladybird’s shameless ‘Where’s Sonic?’ rip-offs used the actual zones and badniks, which was nice.

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