RetrosPexive: Krang About the House.

 Another redo - again, to make Krang a more consistent character visually, but other than Pex's bandolier being the wrong way around in the original, I was pretty happy with the layout, and only changed two panels. I'm still quite happy with the layout and the visual storytelling - and it seemed to do the trick. If memory serves I think Paul Cornell said nice things about this one in the TSV letters page.

This story wraps up the first volume of Pex stories. Pex and Krang will return in 2021.  

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from Eratoland!

RetrosPexive: Pex's Wet Weekend

 

Right. So this is where the Pex strip kicks in and becomes a double act, setting up what TSV editor Paul Scoones would call 'the odd couple', and basing itself on an old fan rumour (did it make it into DWM, by chance?) that Paradise Towers would be based around the idea of Cybermen in the basement of the Towers. Did Gareth Roberts half-inch that idea for Closing Time? I don't care - I mean, I don't know, but it was appealing enough to me in 1999 to turn into a story and so here we are. Eagle-eyed readers familiar with the original TSV version may notice that this is a redo - Krang's look was really inconsistent in the early strips, and thee are a couple of panels in the old version where his character is a bit 'off' in his posture, so the strip got redrawn, the deadline shifted, and here we are (it's New Year's Eve as I write this folks - never believe the date stamp)

Pipe Down!

 Pex sinks to a new low.

Oof. This was a delay I hadn't anticipated or planned for. Christmas is busy enough - that's all it is. And with better planning all the days between the last Pex story and the 25th of the month would have been mapped out as Pex stories, leading from his recovery post-Body of Morbius, including this story, and then the next two stories, onward to the Pex Christmas special of old. Ah, yes - the dreaded Erato Christmas Special!

 

Let's talk about X(mas)

 Eh, no, let's be brief. There are six 'traditional' Erato stories set at Christmas, plus now two Eratoland 'Christmas With a Dalek' specials (and another one on the way) I don't think any of these arrived on time, so you can forget entertaining any different this year!

However, a lifeline was served in the next three Pex stories, when in revising the story set for the 25th of this month, I discovered - just in the final panel, a tree and a Christmas send-off. Weird. I don't remember putting that in at all. But in it stays, and as I'll need a good run up to the next series of stories, it'll serve as the final Pex story for 2020. After that comes the Christmas special (but after Christmas, of course) and then, somewhere into 2021, Eratoland will return with a new run of stories. Whose stories will they be? I dunno!   

Corners of the Eratoverse: The Great Brain Robbery

The third and (to date) the most recent Eratoverse comic strip one-shot that appeared in Reverse the Polarity fanzine not featuring an Eratoland regular. This is it, folks! It also makes Gareth 'The Romance of Crime' Roberts the only fan author to have two Erato characters named after him, fact fans...

Corners of the Eratoverse: Spliff and Nutmeg's Short Trips

Another in our limited (hopefully) series of artist-caused cutaways. BBC Books' Short Trips DW short story collections were popular back in the pre-revival days, s it seemed fitting that if anyone were to take one, it'd be these guys.

Reference to a throwaway line from Con Air noted, and the Dalek feast anecdote comes from Paul Magrs' The Scarlet Empress. I made up the bit about the fruitcake, though.

Corners of the Eratoverse: Ergon - the Antimatterest Bird in the Universe

 

Hey, remember those old issues of Doctor Who Weekly when there wasn't a new comic strip that week and the editor had to pull of the old trick of scrambling around madly to fill the gap while the artist got his shizz together? Those were the days! 

Ergon was a one-off, a good-natured parody of Graham Muir's Birdy, the Fattest Bird in the Universe spin-off of his TARDIS Tales strip, and it, like Birdy, was done for RTP - the other Doctor Who fanzine in NZ at the time.

I had ideas for a follow-up spining around in my head for years, and may get around to doing it one day. For now, it's one of a small collection of one-offs of the Eratoverse characters, some of whom we'll be seeing over the next few days as I sort out my schedule!

RetrosPexive: Radio Rezzie

 

In virtually re-mounting the Pex strips for this blog, I've tweaked a few things here and there. Artwork is the most common revisitation, but sometimes script, and also sometimes chronology. Radio Rezzie, by Jamas Enright, had its position in the story sequence messed with twice: initially Jamas scripted it without Pex's future chum/foil in it. As that was unfolding after the script was written, it was an easy matter of shifting some panels around and putting in one without dialogue to show that character reaction to - but not being involved in - the action. Shift forward twenty-one years (ouch!), and that character has been removed, because Radio Rezzie is now set before he and Pex meet. I had no panel which had been replaced to introduce that guy, so I drew a new one. And this one sort of has some dialogue in it (sorry Jamas) - but it does introduce the baddie a little more leisurely, I think. And otherwise it's a reaction shot and doesn't mess with the plot.

Incidentally, even in its first iteration I did a revised panel, on page two (panel eight) to help the story along a bit better. I'd reproduce that, but the original sequence and panel (if there was one?0 are now lost to the ages. Maybe there wasn't one, and I just shuffled things around a bit. I only remember this because it was the first time I did that with a strip. Certainly wasn't the last.

Oh, and Haggerty is apparently inspired by a Tim Brooke Taylor character? Rest in Peace, sir.

 Radio Rezzie, everyone!

Weed All About It!

Would you believe this strip started with the title? Oh, you would? Okay then.

 

RetrosPexive: Think Fast, Father Pex!

 Think Fast, Father Pex is the first stand-alone Pex strip, besides the introductory Diary of a Superhero, and came courtesy of my partner in crime, David Ronayne. It's a parody, of course, riffing not only on one of the hit comedies of the time - the classic Father Ted, but also Harry Enfield, with its little old ladies (imagine them voiced by Enfield and Kathy Burke - please!) And that's it, really!

Pex's character was still percolating at the time the next original story (Pex's Wet Weekend) probably set the hero in place, with no other pop-culture references inbetween. Not the case here, though. Sit tight!

Funderstruck

 

How To Get A Business in Heads

 

Phew! Normality returns from here, probably.

Chicken Dance

 

Started this one nearly a year ago - it's something of a contemporary of The Karkus strip 'Allez!
Les Automatons', I think. 

Guess Who's Coming For Dinner?

 

This one wrote itself very quickly, and gave me a few opportunities: a recurring (sort of) Rezzie character, a callback to Paradise Towers (a late addition!), a fun villain, and another spin on the Giant Chicken Body of Morbius. How could I resist? 

Karkaeology: The Brain of Mavis

The end is where it all starts, of course.
 

Joint Custardy

 

In order to get to the Karkus and Pex being more closely acquainted, I needed to write in a few more stories - and one-pagers are ideal for that. A bit of character, a few gags, a recycled panel or two (row two for those of you playing at home) and some world-building. Done.

Candemonium!

 

How did the Karkus and Pex become old friends by the time of The Brain of Mavis? They saw some stuff, man.

The Gravity of the Situation

What? Oh, come on! The Pex strip has a long and ignoble history of riffing on/ripping off known images. As we'll all see!

RetrosPexive: Diary of a Superhero

 

Let's talk about Pex.

I'm not quite certain I remember when Pex entered the Eratoverse. Sure, it's in the Karkus story The Brain of Mavis, as part of a story set in Paradise Towers - but this one-pager (my first!) accompanied the strip possibly because I thought Pex (who gets limited time in Mavis, it being a Karkus story) needed more fleshing out. Or maybe I had some more ideas in the tank. I'm not sure whether at this stage I intended to introduce a second Erato comic strip to my usual run of TSV submissions... but it probably wouldn't have been long after this that it happened. Pex would get his own ongoing story, with a somewhat unlikely hero in an unusual setting with a few chums to share the scrapes with.

And here we are! Or will be. 

Soon...