Kris 'Drivaaar' Carter

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

Gaaawjus!

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

I’m not on Facebook – can someone mirror these pics for me please?

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

I’ve been trying to get a reprint collection of the Smegazine strips off the ground for years with no luck. Through my Transformers and Doctor Who work, I’d managed to get a few contacts rolling at IDW Publishing on the US, and BBC Books (as it was back in the day) and Titan Publishing. I’d pitched up various idea for straight reprints, and reprints with new material in the back, and other variations starting back in 2010. There was always the consensus of “This is a nice idea – there’s no audience to justify the effort”. Very frustrating. 

It’s also a rights nightmare. I’d first approached Rebellion. Fleetway Editions originally published the mag, and they were bought out by Egmont and eventually the bulk of their back catalogue ended up at Rebellion. But after talks with their rights department, they don’t have the Smegazine, and don’t know who does.

Egmont originally bought out Fleetway before carving up the back catalogue, and they don’t know anything about it either, which is a) frustrating again, and b) insane. Theres just no paper trail readily available.

When Rob and Doug had divided up the rights for RD, Rob could do comics, and I had a few meetings with him about it, but it seems even GNP don’t actually know what the dealio is. Rob was also very keen on making new comics, and not reprinting the old anyway, but my arguement was let’s use the old to help springboard the new. Anyways…

I assume the original editor Mike Butcher miiiight have an idea, but who knows. The original art files are likely gone/unobtainable/mostly destroyed/in private hands. So any collection would have to be high res scans of the published materials done with some care and attention…. Which also takes time and money. And which this half arsed effort is obviously NOT doing.

It’s something I’d LOVE to do, and edit the collection, but it’s just…. Ugh. Super bloody unlikely.

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

Also, 16 year old you has almost identical handwriting to me.

I also thought that! 90s schooling, maybe?

I  mean, why not!

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

I Lovett, Kris.
★★★★★+

Four and a half chainsaws?

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

Right, I’ve gone through my own brain, and dredged up a folder of tat from the attic, and shat this out. Enjoy my reminisces from three entire decades ago! Spoilers – I was sixteen, and a dickhead.

https://kriscarter.co.uk/2026/05/04/canned-laughter/

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

In that case I wonder why it has no laugh track. 

I wondered the same thing! Really odd.

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

It’s amazing to get such a detailed answer to something I figured was lost in the mists of time, thanks.

I’ll have to try and write up something about it – I took notes at the time in my scrapbook, hahah, I still have the ticket somewhere!

what on Earth must have the next lot thought going from Tikka to Duct Soup?!

I was curious about that too! I did wonder why we got the episodes in the order we did. The opening titles were reused from series VI, pretty sure there were no end credits, just music. There was no CGI Starbug, but the model shots we saw were on the series VII dvd extras. Ouroboros had no tunnel effects, it was just on bluescreen. I think the only CGI was the Rimmer planet. We saw the full length Rimmer Munchkin song, with mostly completed effects. All the material from Ouroboros Extended was in there too. Ed, Doug, Chloe, Danny and Robert introduced each episode I seem to recall (I’m a bit fuzzy on that). There were no breaks, they just played them all back to back with slight pauses in between to set up the recordings and double check if they needed to re-record any laughs (which I feel like they did for part of Blue, but I might be misremembering that, like they literally just did a quick pick up by reshowing a bit at the close of the session).

What was the reaction to Rimmer leaving and then only making cameo appearances in the next two eps? Did it seem like it was expected by most people?

Everyone knew going in that Chris was leaving. We knew he was going to be in four shows, and that was it. But we all expected him to be in four shows fully, so seeing him leave in the second and then flashbacks after that was a genuine surprise to most of us at the time. But I remember the response from the crowd afterwards was very positive overall – there was a high that after a three year draught we were getting new Dwarf, so everyone was absolutely buzzing. 

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

Also, was anyone here at the series 7 audience viewings? I don’t think I’ve ever read anything about those sessions.

Yup, I went to the first session at Teddington Studios, which showed mostly finished cuts of Stoke Me A Clipper, Ouroboros, and Blue.

Stoke’s teaser was shown as is. First reaction to Ace was more subdued because we were all expecting to see the first episode and the resolution to the cliffhanger, not jump straight to episode 2… So when the ep started proper and we’d adjusted a bit, that’s why Ace gets more response second time around in the ep.

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

I think the last time America did anything with trains we were crashing them into each other in the 30s as spectator events that killed many onlookers.

Hah, this reminds me of a piece I wrote of one of these very events, but from the late 1800s. A different time!

https://kriscarter.co.uk/2017/11/12/crush/

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

My bank statements are always handwritten, it’s cos I’ve SO much money I get personalised correspondence from the bank. 

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

The animated series was being developed, but only to get to a pitching state, but it was just that, it never got as far as an actual series development.  No commission anywhere or anything like that. I’ve a feeling that that Owain guy in the Facebook post knows the same person that I know who’s company was working with Rob on the pitch (I’m not sure how much I can say tho, and I don’t want to cause any probs). I never saw any actual animation, just character model designs and sketches.

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

You were an unexpected item in the Baggins area.

Reader, I chortled 

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

What famous people have *you* annoyed?

I was a comic guest at a con in Wrexham that had a huge chunk of The Hobbit cast in attendance. Thoroughly drunk in the wee hours, my friend Dan and I just went and sat with them uninvited in the bar, trying to get in on the big film industry convos, and they all got up and dispersed pretty much immediately.

Sorry Hobbits.

Sobbits.

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

Yeah, Recent Comments are the comments on front/main page items, and Recent Forum Posts is specific to the forums.  Always good to have a gander at both.

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

So good!

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

Cheers peeps!

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

I made this… (checks watch)… about 17 years ago. Fucking hell.

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

I would be failing in my duty to well, me, if I didn’t re-link my old shite: https://kriscarter.co.uk/2016/10/07/red-dwarf-the-movie-that-wasnt/

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

I mean, watch Red Dwarf VIII by all means, but to paraphrase Rimmer, if you’re going to watch garbage, expect pain. Plus watching it allows you to indulge wholeheartedly in Red Dwarf VIII hate threads, it’s oddly soothing.

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

I can’t believe you said you hated our memes, Brett

They’re Good Memes Brent

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

But what would a resurrected “What would a rerecorded Series 1 look like?” thread look like?

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

Kris, I recently rediscovered one of your Better Than Life comics from 2000, in which you used “I. Symes” as the issuing officer listed on Rimmer’s security pass. Happy quarter of a century of knowing each other!

Eeeeeey! Also, fuuuuuuuck where’d that time go?!

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

#RedDwarf #Smegle 11/02/2025 

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

Having just rewatched Backwards, I can confirm that it’s still brilliant. 

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

Remember when you could go from laying on the floor to standing with almost no effort? I think if I tried that now the G-force would kill me.

Also long gone are the days when I could move from a position to any other position, silently.

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

I’m sure it’s been mentioned before, can anyone explain the Welsh Fish & Chip shop gag?

Growing up in the South Wales valleys, there was a chippie near me that closed for lunch, so this gag landed pretty well for me.

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

Excellent stuff!

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

I’ve not seen the third season of Final Space yet, but the first two were fantastic bits of comedy sci-fi, and I thoroughly recommend them!

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

… aaaand changing either the ‘Series’ or ‘Section’ drop-down in the episode guide or clicking “Search” 404s you too, and it doesn’t even give you a usable URL query out of it. On top of reappearing the cookies thing for every new page within the episode guide section.

Maybe this is the reason there isn’t a news post about the site being back, and the Red Dwarf social medias haven’t mentioned it. I’m actually starting to doubt they even did it intentionally.

The Complete Guide stuff is still all there, but the URL’s are all borked. So for example, if you’re on the series 1 section, the link used to be:

https://reddwarf.co.uk/series/1/index.cfm

But now, the dropdown is knackered, so you’ll need to manually type the section you want to get to, so for Cast and Crew, Series 1, you need to type:

https://reddwarf.co.uk/series/1/cast-and-crew/

You can hover over the Previous/Next pages links at the bottom of each section to work out what you’ll need to type. 

It’s not perfect…

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

Just imagine if Chris would be allowed to update TOS. That’d be… something.

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

You realize you can turn off the time over, right?

… Huh.

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

No, I had it sussed right from the beginning!

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

Huh… That is weird. I’ll keep an eye on that next time

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

Yeah, precisely – I take too long on those, end up running out of time on the boss. It would help if I played the game more often than once every few months though.

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

I’m still fucking salty that I can’t complete Titanic Bollock zone.

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

Bloody hell, Babylon 5 gets satisfying in the middle. Especially catching up with the long-teased future echoes and being gifted a whole load more. If you’ve got your story all plotted out, what better way to show off than jumping all over the coherent timeline? I can’t remember shouting at the screen so much since Heaven Sent in 2015.

This is what I remember standing out when I first watched it year ago. No other TV series before or since scratched that same itch of presenting this coherent longform story, it really is incredible at times.

War Without End was an absolute fucking belter.

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

I nominate this thread for Cinzano Bianco.

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

I wanted a menu item that wasn’t offered once, in a Welsh fish and chip shop.

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

Sarah Alexander as Julie Andrews, right?

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

Oh god, it kills me.

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

I’m going to bet it’s all about the cashola.

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

You’ve prompted me to do the same. There’s loads of clever, creative designs on there based on original artwork, but then there’s the reams of stuff where people have just nicked proper photos or logos without doing anything to them. That’s the kind of blatant unthinking copyright infringement that would ultimately ruin it for everyone else if the IP owners got wind of it.

Also, I spotted someone selling stickers of a meme that Kris Carter of this parish made. Daisy Bryar is a fucking thief. https://www.redbubble.com/i/sticker/Red-Dwarf-Cat-Meme-by-DaisyBryar/46162499.EJUG5

Haha, fucking hell… I do admire G&T’s “@Drivaaar made this” crusade on Twitter anytime someone posts that image saying “hahah who made this?”. Thanks peeps!

My brother got a me a Red Dwarf JMC logo hoodie that’s super comfy, but the logo proudly states “Jupiter Mining Company”, which makes my eye twitch.

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

Worst of 3 – 5?

Years ago I’d have said Meltdown, but no – it’s great. I ‘get’ it now. So I think the eps that fall flattest for me would be Demons & Angels, DNA and Camille. But they still tower over VIII.

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