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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Oct 12, 2023 23:40:15 GMT
Good to hear from you, Lurkio. Of last years Halloween Commando's, the one I most enjoyed was Night of the Gorgons. Anything you'd care to share with us about the title you're "particularly excited about"? Good to be back. But I'm afraid there can be no cryptic tales out of school until the official announcement from the publishers.
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Oct 12, 2023 23:35:25 GMT
By an odd coincidence, this was posted on the fourth anniversary of the live recordings of an Up Pompeii production which I helped adapt for audio. Madeline Smith, who appeared in the Up Pompeii film, starred alongside a cast including Frazer Hines, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Camille Coduri, and Cleo Rocos, while David Benson played the lead role in the style of Frankie Howerd... well, I mean, who else? So, not only am I Lurkio, but I have written gags for Lurcio.
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Oct 12, 2023 12:25:58 GMT
The first batch of this year's Hallowe'en Commando issues has just gone on sale. Two reprints of classic spooky adventures and two new stories, one of them a sequel to last year's Gorgon story, the other a subterranean tale of terror. downthetubes.net/halloween-horror-ahead-in-latest-commando-comics/There will be four more Hallowe'en specials in a fortnight... including one I'm particularly excited about...
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Dec 6, 2022 19:18:26 GMT
It mentions a forthcoming book from Jon Dear about the Ghost Story for Christmas strand, which is immediately a must buy for me. One snippet from the book is that Jonathan Miller apparently made the masterful Whistle and I'll Come to You with a crew of six! Jon Dear's commentary for Miller's 'Whistle' on the new BFI 'Ghost Stories for Christmas' blu-ray set is marvellous. It's lively, full of detail, and an entertaining listen in itself, and the book promises to be a fascinating read. I look forward to hearing his commentary on 'A Warning to the Curious' when I get to it.
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Nov 12, 2022 16:49:47 GMT
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Nov 11, 2022 20:52:39 GMT
Graham Manley Dominic Teague & Graham Manley - Night of the Gorgons: Commando #5589 (29 Oct, 2022); "Pardon me for asking, Mr. Mandrapilias, but those glasses ..." "My eyes are unusually sensitive, sir. The image embossed on each lens is a gorgoneion, a protective emblem to ward off evil."Read two of the Commando's yesterday evening. The Ghosts recycles familiar plot of the Nazi's faking a malevolent haunting in the ruins of an old English chapel to discourage snoopers while they signal to German bombers. Good fun, though I much prefer Night of the Gorgons, not least because the supernatural menace is for real. Flight Lieutenant Pierce Sullivan and his men land on Sarpendon, an uncharted Aegean island, in search of a missing colleague. They soon find Oates' Spitfire sheltered in a hangar, but no sign of the pilot. Where can he have got to? The party press on through a forest strewn with life-size statues of men dressed in military uniforms, modern and ancient, until they arrive at a lone villa on a hill, home to Alex Mandrapilias, retired shipping magnate, his invalid wife, Melania, and .... one other. The couple, eyes concealed behind what appear to be His & Hers Halloween novelty goggles, feign delight at their arrival, but when Sullivan mentions that he's seen inside the hangar, the mask slips. Mandrapilias introduces his snake-haired sister-in-law .... Graham Manley Night of the Gorgons is Graham Manley's first Commando strip, though his E.C. Comics-inspired artwork did grace the cover of Amicus anthology-style issue 5585, Frightful Tales. amazon.co.uk/Commando-5585-Frightful-Colin-Maxwell-ebook/dp/B0BFW959R5 Graham's depiction of Alex Mandrapilias in Gorgons is based on a certain classic actor renowned for his - sometimes abominable - horror roles. This year's Beano & Dandy Gift Book - a collection of vintage strips with a theme of Things That Go Bump In The Night - features The Return of Baron Blood, a 12 page strip I wrote for Graham for the 1996 Dandy Annual starring a trio of other familiar horror film faces in a tale of crypts and castles... www.dcthomsonshop.co.uk/books/the-beano-dandy-gift-book
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Oct 29, 2022 13:09:28 GMT
I also like that set of Commando horror tales. I had no idea they strayed into horror on occasion. There have been occasional forays into horror, science fiction and fantasy over the years, and the horror element has become a more regular theme under the current team, who are happy to try more unusual storylines among the warfare. All 8 of October's regular Commando issues have a touch of horror, including the third instalment in the Commandos Vs Zombies series, and ancient superstitions come to life in Night of the Gorgons (featuring a character bearing more than a passing resemblance to Vincent Price)...
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Oct 29, 2022 11:45:23 GMT
I'm happy to say that Spellbound has risen from the grave in time for Hallowe'en, materialising as a digital collection featuring selected comic strips, features and a cover gallery from the original '70s comic, book-ended by two new comic strips. I'm proud to have been involved, having written a brief history of Spellbound to introduce the collection and collaborated with artist Lauren Knight on the first of the new stories - the first tale from Damian Darke's library of strange stories in decades. It's one of several archive digital collections released via Kindle and comiXology by the Heritage Comics team at D.C. Thomson, the first of which feature material from Commando - including a collection of horror-themed stories - and Warlord. More from the archives to follow. More info on the new releases here: downthetubes.net/dc-thomson-launches-digital-commando-spellbound-and-warlord-heritage-comics/
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Sept 16, 2022 15:42:11 GMT
The Blackpool Witches is one that's always stuck in my memory from this very entertaining collection of tales.
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Sept 13, 2022 18:26:51 GMT
Thanks for pointing us towards this Daniel! I'm intrigued, especially by the "Black Goddess" episode--1970 Welsh folk horror! Another forthcoming release, Come back, Lucy, sounds as if it would have suited those lads who were doing that Scarred for Life project about Seventies kids TV with horror and fantasy themes. I guess they have probably moved on to the 1990s now having previously moved onto the Eighties. The 'Black Goddess' episode has me intrigued, too. 'Come Back Lucy' is great. I'm delighted to see it getting a full release, after the first episode appeared in one of Network's terrific 'Look-Back' compilations. There's still a second volume dedicated to the 80s on its way from 'Scarred for Life', and I believe that's it, as the creators were already grown up in the 90s so the horrors of that era don't fall into the 'childhood trauma' category of those of the 70s and 80s.
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Sept 13, 2022 15:03:24 GMT
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Jul 5, 2022 17:54:41 GMT
Thanks for that. Much better.
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Jul 5, 2022 14:02:54 GMT
There's an interesting article in today's Telegraph (not normally a paper I read) by Matthew Sweet about a 1980s 'Doctor Who' screenplay Milton Subotsky had been touting about as a belated sequel to his two 60s Dalek films... but which actually originated as an adaptation of GNS's book... www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/0/outlandish-doctor-who-story-never/
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Jun 22, 2022 16:17:18 GMT
I would like to know how they produced this. Did Bissette wrote the plots for the movies and gave them to the writers, or did he write his parts after the novellas were in? (This would make Golden's story even more impressive.) This all is remarkable seamless. The novellas were written first, each of the authors originating their own plots. Bissette then wrote the connecting narrative. There's a great group interview with the authors that's worth reading when you've finished the book here.
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Apr 17, 2022 19:16:13 GMT
I was at school while Starsky & Hutch was on TV here in the UK. It was very popular among my classmates, though I can't say that I was a big fan. I don't recall the vampire episode, but do remember Sam McCloud meeting Dracula in one of those TV movies that ITV would screen in the 70s, others being Columbo, MacMillan and Wife, Banacek etc. I think John Carradine played Dracula, but as it has been well over 40 years since I saw it, I can't recall much at all about the plot. Yes, John Carradine played Dracula in the McCloud episode - rather, he played an old time film star, Loren Belasco, famous for playing the Count, with footage of the younger Carradine from 'House of Dracula' and 'House of Frankenstein' shown on a TV set to illustrate Belasco's film career.
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