Collector's Dream 4 - Thriller

So much for a weekly posting schedule. Ah well, quality not quantity is better apparently. Anyway this week I'm delving back into my comic book archives to pull out a series that was short-lived but burned very brightly and left a lasting image. A series that climbed to stratospheric heights immediately yet crashed and burned just as swiftly. It's time for a :

Thriller

Back in the early 1980s, DC comics  was experimenting with series sold only through the "direct market" (read my post on "Mars" for some of the history of this initiative). We had already seen things such as "Camelot 3000", "The Omega Men" and the Frank Miller series "Ronin". But in November of 1983 DC took a real risk and released issue one of "Thriller" - created and written by DC staffer Robert Loren Fleming (his first published comics work) with art by Trevor Von Eeden (hot off of Batman and Green Arow).

Roughly fifty years in the future, Satellite News cameraman Daniel Grove and his correspondent twin brother Ken investigate a hostage situation masterminded by the masked terrorist Scabbard (so named because he keeps a huge sword in a grotesque sheath stitched into the skin of his back). When they are caught, Dan is forced to record his own brothers beheading. Slipping into depression and blaming himself for Ken's death, Dan decides to end his own life by jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge....but is stopped when the image of a ghostly rainbow-haired woman appears in the sky above him. She is Angie Thriller. Able to see the future, she needs Daniel to become a member of her group of agents - the "Seven Seconds" - and save the world from unusual and unnatural menaces.

Directed to head for their headquarters in the 'Trinity Building', Dan encounters each of the other "Seven Seconds" -

Beaker Parish - a nine foot tall  life form created in a test tube who is also a priest with physic abilities.
Crackerjack - a young Honduran pickpocket.
Data - the son of the President of the USA, interfaced with with his computer system built into a limo which he can never leave.
Proxy - an actor who after suffering a disfiguring accident while freebasing drugs, created synthetic spray on skin for covert assignments.
Salvo - Angie Thriller's brother and a superhumanly expert marksman
White Satin - able to disrupt a persons physiological and mental state with just a touch.

- before meeting Angie's husband Edward Thriller. It turns out that he had been conducting genetic experiments and when it went wrong, became amalgamated with his wife, so that only one of them can manifest at a time - he in flesh and she in spirit. Despite losing her solid body, Angie gained the ability to become part of inanimate objects and see potential futures. She can also merge with her brother Tony (Salvo) due to their similar genetic structure - often appearing as in a face in his palm or helping him perform seemingly superhuman stunts.

(“Only flesh wounds! Only out-patients! I won’t kill a fly - so don’t ask me")

This was the pulp adventures of the Shadow or Doc Savage seen through the lens of science fiction and superheroes - without the day-glo colours or lurid costumes. But it was also a tale of family and loyalty and deep affection. The team had their own encounter with arch-villain Scabbard when he kidnapped the president -  allowing Dan some closure over his brother's death -  and then went on to meet what appeared to be multiple clones of Elvis.

Set outside DC continuity and with more sophisticated and mature storylines, it was an attempt at a series more akin to the Vertigo books that would come later than the colourful adventures of Superman and his pals. It was also way ahead of its time in both terms of storytelling and art.

The creators were trying to do something ambitious and innovative, and in the main they succeeded, creating a comic that could sit alongside the contemporary graphic storytelling of today. There were no easy answers, no spoon feeding of the plot. Significant events happened off panel or between issues. Readers had to figure things out for themselves or learn as the characters did. Von Eeden's art was a tour-de-force of unusual camera angles, twisting panel layouts, shifting perspectives and extreme close ups. This was mature storytelling before the "British Invasion" most famously embodied by the Alan Moore run on "Swamp Thing" or the arrival of "The Dark Knight Returns" and "Watchmen". It was chaotic and strange and cutting-edge and often very hard work. 1980s comics had never seen a series like Thriller and it's fair to say even if I didn't understand it all, I definitely loved it.

Sales were strong for those first couple of issues, but the problem was, Thriller's innovation and style was part of it's problem. Readers complained of being too confused. The creators passion for building something memorable on every page was perhaps stymied by their lack of experience. As writers elsewhere have noted, it became a paradox - at once both brilliant and exasperating. 

Behind the scenes, tensions were building. By issue four, Fleming and Von Eeden were increasingly dissatisfied and stressed and there were changes in inker and editor. An unpleasant and some would say abusive incident at DC's offices left Von Eeden feeling infuriated and emotionally betrayed, but he soldiered on even though he was depressed and his enthusiasm was waning. The quality of his art was suffering too - with some strange artistic decisions, such as issues drawn at the same size as the printed comic book pages. Things were starting to fall apart. 

With issue seven, after apparent artistic differences between himself and others who worked on the book, Fleming wrapped up his storyline (fairly satisfactorily) and it was announced that he was gone. Just as he was getting started, he walked away. This comic that was so much a product of it's creators was summarily handed over to Bill DuBay (ex Warren publishing) - a writer who had no connection to the series or it's characters. Nowadays when the writer who had the original vision wants to leave, the book is often cancelled (just look at "Sandman"), but back in the '80s this was still very much work for hire and all the rights belonged to DC. 

Sadly with issue eight the quality took an nosedive. All the things that made the comic so interesting - the slow pace, the oblique storytelling, the unusual art - were pretty much absent. DuBay was seen by editor Alan Gold at the time as a steadier pair of hands who could bring the book back from the brink - he had made no secret of his dislike for Fleming's unique style. Everything that Fleming had done, DuBay seemed to do the opposite. His version of "Thriller" was going to be as different as possible from what had come before. Trevor Von Eeden hung on for this first transitional issue but his heart wasn't it it and all the flair and boldness that was evident in issue one was now wiped away with something far more traditional. Then he too was gone.

The comic limped on for a further four months with art by Alex Nino, but as with DuBay, although it was beautiful to look at, he wasn't really suited to the subject matter. Oh it wasn't out and out terrible and DuBay played with some interesting ideas, such as the then prevalent fear of worldwide nuclear destruction. But it wasn't the "Thriller" I had initially fallen in love with. 

In more recent years Alan Gold has admitted in interviews that at the time he just didn't "get" what Fleming and Von Eeden  were doing and how different and ground breaking it truly was. He wishes he had listened to them.  Bizarrely, he also revealed that a certain Alan Moore had volunteered to take over as writer but Gold turned him down! It makes one wonder what Moore would have done with the property. It certainly would have been excellent but it still wouldn't have been the vision of it's creators. 

Commercially "Thriller" was seen as a failure, with just a dozen poorly selling issues to its name. But artistically it's legacy is far greater. It is still fondly remembered by a host of today's creators and cited as an influence on them. Those early issues were undoubtedly way ahead of their time and a trailblazer for some of the creator-owned comics to come from the "big two" publishers. Sure we had the like's of Dave Sim's "Cerebus" and Matt Wagner's "Mage" and Baron and Rude's "Nexus" published at around the same time, but Marvel and DC were slow to realise the changing tide. If it had been released just ten years later during the height of Vertigo comics, I could be telling a very different story. and far more people would have heard of Angie Thriller and her Seven Seconds

"Thriller" is one of those series that I can't bear to part with. Every so often I will get those scant few issues out of the box and marvel at them. I'd love to see Fleming and Von Eeden mount a revival in today's more forgiving environment but sadly it's unlikely to happen. 

If you can, pick up the back issues and try it out for yourself. 

The Idiot's Lantern 2 - The Secret Life Of Machines

It's been a good few months since the first of these TV-related posts, so I thought it was high time I did another. I wasn't going to cover this next programme for a while (there are so many other choices) but thinking about it, it does fit in nicely with the first piece about "Connections". It's also a series which despite being over 25 years old should be required viewing for almost everyone, since we take so may things for granted nowadays and have almost no idea how they actually work. Sure there have been other shows since that try to show you where modern objects come from ("How It's Made" being a prime example) and the rise of the Interweb means that if you want to find something out it's just a few clicks away. But back in the late 80s / early 90s there was nothing quite like this quintessentially British show and it's eccentric presenters.

The Secret Life Of Machines

The series was the brainchild of Tim Hunkin. Hunkin is an engineering graduate from Cambridge who is also a prolific cartoonist, having been published from the early 1970s onwards. He had a regular strip in The Observer newspaper called "The Rudiments of Wisdom" for an incredible 14 years from 1973 to 1987. Each intricately drawn cartoon was a wealth of obscure advice, odd facts and weird and wonderful information, as well as crazy tricks and practical experiments. How does hypnosis work? What is chocolate made of? What do crocodiles eat for lunch? Think of a question, and Tim had probably provided the answer at some point.

Spinning out of his cartoon series, Hunkin came up with the idea of a television version where he  could really get to grips with a variety of everyday machines, pull them apart and explain what made them tick. If James Burke's "Connections" traced the historical connectedness of scientific and technological discoveries, this series would revell in the sheer fun of explaining how things worked.

Tim's co-presenter was special effects guru Rex Garrod, who would later go on to create the radio controlled car that starred in the childrens TV series "Brum", and build several entrants for the early series of technological fight show "Robot Wars" (a series which has just been announced as coming back in 2016).

After touting the idea round a number of broadcasters, it was finally snapped up by Channel 4 and the first episode was broadcast on 15th November 1988. In each packed half-hour episode the pair would record the show from Tim's garden shed and using obsolete technology, giant working models, animation and (sometimes dangerous) experiments, explain the innovations behind the inner workings of the household gadgets we use everyday and that have come to define modern life.

(Rex on the left, Tim on the right)

It was a real labour of love for Tim and Rex, with none of the glossy sheen and slick editing of modern science shows. The topics covered were wide ranging and frequently went off at odd tangents to look at related technologies, with the pair attempting to create their own home-made versions of the device - sometimes with mixed results. If an experiment went wrong (and they often did), they showed it. At the end of many shows they built a giant sculpture / version of the machine under discussion (such as a huge mound of television screens , which they then set fire to).

Across three series and eighteen episodes the presenters looked at a wide array of everyday objects from vacuum cleaners, washing machines and televisions, to the internal combustion engine and the radio to the photocopier and the fax machine. The mixture of homemade Heath Robinson-esque creations, self deprecating humour and sheer infectious charm of the duo made these shows some of the best educational television - and possibly the best television full stop - of the late 80s / early 90s.

Of course a few of the items covered are now obsolete. It's particularly interesting to to see how far we have come with office equipment like word processors and photo copiers in the last 20+ years for example. I remember the days when graphical user interfaces and things like Windows were the stuff of science fairs. We didn't get our first office PC until 1986 and even then it was only a DOS-based green screen system with very little memory.

When I first discovered the show, I fell completely in love with it - but one episode in particular resonated hugely and even when I had recorded over my copies of everything else, this one remained in my collection for many years. It was of course the story of the machine that has made the most impact in my life -  "The Secret Life of the Video Recorder". My favourite part was, when discussing the importance of audio tape which led to the invention of video tape, Tim and Rex showed how they could create their own audio recording out of nothing more than sticky tape and powdered rust. I was astonished at what they had accomplished and how good the quality was.We could all be inventors!

Even now, more than twenty years later there is still an interest in the show, as it is so fondly remembered by so many people. Usually with this kind of niche programme, copies only exist in individuals private off-air collections and VHS or DVD copies would command premium prices on eBay. But Tim Hunkin is a real visionary and encourages people to share everything across the internet. After all, he did this in the first place for the love of science, not for financial gain. Thanks to p2p sharing and some excellent websites by Tim and others, there are are a number of places which have archived lots of information about the show, it's background and the episodes themselves - far more than I could describe in one small blog post. Plus the series is available in it's entirety on YouTube. It's also why I can happily embed my favourite episode right here:

If you want to see more (and I really, really encourage you to do so - it's fascinating stuff) then here are the links you need:

Your first port of call should of course be Tim Hunkin's own website, which has tons of stuff about his work, the machines he has built (and where you can find them) - plus the TV series itself. Tim also has dedicated sites for his "Rudiments of Wisdom" strips and his "Experiments" book. The latter is a lot of fun for kids and adults alike.

The "Secret Life of Machines" website gives even more information plus a list of places you can stream or download the series from, although it hasn't been updated in a while so a few of the links are dead now.

By far the best place I've found for viewing all 18  episodes is www.secretlifeofmachines.net

If you have not seen any of these shows then do have a look for them. You'll be so glad you did.

The Book Tower 6 - Winterhill Series 4 - The Rise of the Fall by Iain Martin

When you are four books in to a continuing series, it could be easy to get into a familiar pattern and rest on your laurels with more of the same. So how do you keep things fresh? If you are Iain Martin, you do it by completely shaking up your status quo and pulling out the proverbial rug from underneath the feet of both your lead character and your readers...

A quick recap for those who can't remember my review of book three - "Bad Company" - back in September 2015. Oh and a spoiler warning for the next few sentences. When we last left the adventures of the enigmatic but resourceful Professor Rebecca Winterhill, we were faced with three separate 'cliff-hangers'. Maddy Taliferos has for some reason attempted to pull of the diamond theft of the century, been caught in the act and now awaits to hear if she will spend ten years in the notorious Bloodgate prison. Tareku has been revealed as an imposter sent to spy on Winterhill and keep her alive for an unknown master (although the reader knows it's the Tick-Tock Man). After the ensuing fight he was left drifting in the vacuum of space. As for Rebecca herself - she's lost the time/space machine called the Slider and is set for destinations unknown with the help of her friend The General.

What's quite clear from the start of book four is that we are not going to get a swift reset back to the familiar settings of the previous volumes - in fact the opening scene makes you wonder if you are in the right book series at all. The Slider is still missing and Winterhill is no closer to finding it, even with the loan of a sleek ship from The General and a purchase of a powerful AI wrapped in the skin of an orange that has constant - and vocal -  lustful thoughts about her naked body.

Let's take a look at each of the episodes in turn:

The first story "The Song of the Shriek" reunites Rebecca with an old government friend and an even older enemy. There is a distinct 'Alien" vibe as they creep around the innards of an apparently abandoned artefact drifting in space, just waiting for something horrible and dead and rotting to leap out of the dark. If the Arachana are Winterhill's Daleks, then The Shriek are definitely her Cybermen, with one scene echoing the appearance of the silver monsters in "Tomb of the Cybermen" (although some of you might also be reminded of "Genesis of the Daleks" at another point in the story.).

What's also enjoyable is that with each new appearance of his two key monsters, Iain is drip feeding a little more about their origins and motivations. This time we find out that The Shriek may be much more that just grisly animated cadavers and that the reason for their attacks could be of humanity's own making - we poked them first. I'm sincerely hoping that at some point in future novels we get to visit the home world of The Shriek, as there is a lot more to explore with these creatures. I also appreciated the commentary on needless bureaucracy - the whole universe may be at risk but it still needs to trickle up via line managers. The more the future changes, the more it stays the same.

"The (Second) Clock of the Long Now" is described by Iain on his website as a good old-fashioned heist story - and he's not wrong. It has more twists and double-crosses than "Ocean's Eleven", so I can't reveal much without spoiling the surprises. It also has no Winterhill in it for long stretches, instead focussing on the exploits of slightly ineffectual criminal Jonni Blaid and his lovely but deadly wife Savannah. It's almost a "what if" story, where my favourite literary master criminal, 'Slippery' Jim Di Griz, the Stainless Steel Rat, is instead a hen-pecked bounty hunter completely in thrall to his domineering spouse. You do feel sorry for the little guy as he fumbles his way through the story, narrowly avoiding his own demise.

Talking of master criminals, it's great to see an extended cameo from the deliciously urbane Maxymylyan DeVere - I can't be the only one who wants to read about the Infinity Spoon caper. I'm not sure I'd want to visit Elphick's World though, when it's only positive traits seem to be that it's a good place to take a dump and has genuine ham-fisted bun vendor's.

The most amazing thing about this story (and this is totally down to my own ignorance) is that the "Clock of the Long Now" is a real thing.  I just thought Iain had come up with a really cool SF idea. I'd heard of the concept of "Deep Time" and the building of incredibly accurate atomic clocks, but this project to build a mechanical clock that will last 10,000 years had passed me by.

There are apparently four prototype clocks in existence - three smaller ones in the Science Museum in London and the Long Now centre in San Francisco and a full scale clock in Texas - funded (as Iain says in his novel) by Jeff Bozos, founder of Amazon. Producer and  ambient music innovator Brian Eno was the one who came up with the name. Fantastic stuff!

"There Is Nothing You Could Ever Say To Me Now That I Could Ever Believe" not only wins the prize for longest title in the series so far, but also for completely wrong-footing me. I thought going in that it would be a final conversation between Maddy and her turncoat lover Tareku (of course I assumed he would survive that cliff-hanger) - an emotional character piece that revealed just much the youngest daughter of Old Man Talifero had been affected by things.

While the story does give us another welcome visit to the Taliferos clan, it certainly didn't go in the direction I expected. It's the wedding of the year and the culmination of a lot of the family's simmering plotlines. It feels like a Talifero series finale in it's own right in some ways. In fact, I think Iain had memories of a September 2003 episode of the UK's most famous London based soap opera in his mind when a certain character turns up:

"He had thinning brown hair and eyes that shone with anger, power and controlled ferocity. The skin beneath them was loose, puffy, beginning to sag. He wore a crisp black leather jacket over a grey shirt and dark trousers. 'Hello Princess' he said."

Who does that sound like to you?

"Echelon Red and the River in Space" is the next episode. Despite sounding like a late 90s Marvel superhero (all glowing eyes, spiked shoulder pads and pockets everywhere) it's actually concerned with what appears to be the opening salvo from a secret alien terrorist organisation. It's a new strand to the ongoing saga and much like the very best TV series, Iain seems to be opening different and interesting doors even as he closes off old ones.  Of course the story also features hideous slug creatures, a couple of new alien species and the inevitable meeting of the two current men in Winterhill's life - which doesn't go well. Oh, and a river. In Space.

By the way, "ECHELON" is allegedly a code name for a multi-country global surveillance system for the interception of private and commercial communications. Scary stuff.

As much as the action propels the story forward, it's the dialogue which really sparkles here. There's a playful sarkiness between the three main human characters that I really liked. and as always there are a few Doctor Who quotes thrown in for good measure, including ones from the 10th anniversary story and the first episode of the 2005 revival. If I have any criticism, it's that the way to defeat the bad guy is telegraphed a little to obviously which means there was no real sense of surprise when it is used. Finally, I have to ask - exactly what colour is electric fudge?...

In "The Last of The First" it's a welcome return for Winterhill's nemesis, the machiavellian Qalqavekkian and this time he really is utterly nuts. Leaving her two male companions to continue their bickering (that missing Empress plot line is going to come to the fore sometime soon isn't it Iain?) Rebecca makes a deal with another kind of devil in her continuing hunt for the Slider craft. Structurally this story really feels like it's the big epic scale season finale. There are new vista's, multiple locations, sudden twists and giant versions of returning monsters. Long-hinted-at backstory is finally revealed and there are losses on all sides. I can't but help continue the Doctor Who analogies and if Qalqavekkian  is the Master, then The First are the Timelords - and we all know what happened when *they* came back.

It's also the longest (and best) story in the book, helped perhaps by the fact that it's broken into numbered parts. I could really imagine a rising crescendo of music and the screen fading to black at the end of each one with a "to be continued next week" flashing up on the screen. Events build towards an exciting climax from which there is no coming back. Things really have changed forever - and I for one am glad to see it, as it can only mean very interesting times are ahead for our heroine.

But there is still one more story to go. It's called "Ngeretha" (which is a Kikuyu word) and I'm going to tell you... absolutely nothing about it - apart from the fact that it's told mostly from a first-person perspective and that it sees Winterhill in a very strange situation and completely out of her depth. I may have figured out what the word means but I've only hesitant guesses as to why. There *are* ties to the other major themes of this fourth series but not in the way you might think. It's a bold experiment and it all ends with... No. I'm not going to say. This story is best experienced completely cold. I've no idea where things will go from here.

In conclusion, it's another rousing set of adventures for our favourite amnesiac. I think Iain has really progressed as a writer with this latest volume, but to be honest I feel that the longer stories work better than the shorter ones. I was just getting into the episode about The Shriek for example, when it stopped. P.T. Barnum may have said, "Always leave them wanting more" and I wanted more, goddammit ! I actually think that Iain should break out of the "episode" format and go for it and write a full length novel next time. There is every indication here that it would be a extremely successful. Let's hope it's not too long before we find out.

Iain Martin is on Twitter @theIainMartin and the Winterhill series website is here. Iain's fantastic podcast (now with added Tudor Beamage) , Five Minute Fiction is here.