Clown and Out

I have something of a love/hate relationship with fan conventions. I love the idea of them, but the reality of a packed room of seaty, becostumed bodies, not being anble to hear myself think and the very definite commercial undertones sort of dampen the squib a little. As interested as I;ve been to see my idols in the flesh and even ask the odd question, something usually stops me before I getto the ticket office.

That said, it's been nice to catch up with friends at the events (Hi Paul! Hi Wade!), and that's my biggest takeaway.

Oh, the strip. Yes, this had a bumpy conception, was scripted in part YEARS ago, with the events of a McGann-featured Armageddon still fresh in my ganglions, and among the panels scrubbed from ths incarnation, a hefty use of the team behind the Psychic Circus. In preparation for revisiting the unfinished story I listened to the recent Big Finish story about their origins. And then I took them ot of the strip.

Last note: this will be the final Karkus strip for a while. I'm prepping the next season as I write this, so as the man once said, Stay Tuned...

And thanks for reading!

Karkaeology: Oh, Wouldn't It Be Rubbery!

'Oh, Wouldn't It Be Rubbery!' is the last printed Karkus story, but pointedly still set within his 'lifetime' (hence the editorial remark under the title.) Mr Erato is bigly in snark mode, so some personalities may be thinly-veiled parodies, and depending on your love for the new series and its creators, your mileage may vary. I may return to the world also, because I do rather like Inspector L'zard, and if there's one thing we can count on with modern Doctor Who, it's that it just can't keep its mucky fingers out of Victorian London.

So then, this is the second of two Karkus stories (and one of five? six? seven?) Eratoverse strips to appear in Reverse The Polarity!, a lovely and very welcoming bolthole for Erato after TSV adopted a less-frequent printing schedule, and sort of changed its focus. In its new home the Erato strip just seemed to fit better.

Housekeeping:

As this has an RTP link, it behoves me to mention that RTP's editor Alex and I are discussing putting a collection together of the printed Eratoverse stories. If this happens, there will be extra content - alternative takes, extended scripts, translations and thumbnails, plus behind the scenes stuff like this. 'Rubbery' itself has about a whole page taken out, for example - so if you like this sort of thing, I hope you'll like what's being discussed as well.

Here's One I Made Earlier

Karkaeology: The Karkus Eyes His Opposition

Where to begin with the strip formerly known as 'The Karkus Eyes His Opposition'? How to describe it?

Overenthusiastically juvenile? A hurriedly-rushed first draft? Both will do. I ended up putting a fair bit of effort into subtly reworking this story. Why?

I didn't like the original. It made some obvious jokes about the appearance of its monster (which was designed by a child!), and then turned it into the ending by piling on and piling on references that were barely innuendo. Eurgh. And it undersold the Karkus! I have no problem with our hero losing, or getting the wrong end of the stick, or just wandering off-script, BUT he has to be still in the script - and the original was really more Alpha Centauri reacting to things.

Also, it was done hurriedly. Not 'Sevillian Job' hurriedly, but just with a little less care, and probably with that damned Rotring pen again - so this revision above is an attempt to improve on the original. It's still not a great story, in my opinion, but it's better now.

Ooh, that was a bit of a downer way to close up, so I'll just add that the vicar in panel ten of Page Two ended up looking like my old Presbyterian church minister. If you're reading this, hello Brian! I hope you're well.

The Prosthetic Aesthetic

My first Karkus strip in this revival period, done probably November or December 2019, and already I can see the changes in style, the heavier lines and the busier word balloons. I think I'd change some things if I were doing this now, but I like my Bandrils, and why not have a Centauri baddie?

Karkaeology: The Sevillian Job

Another strip by the esteemable Mr David Ronayne. For a VERY brief time I considered providing some mangled 'foreign' translation of the script - but changed my mind very quickly. Just no need. 'The Sevillian Job; is, of course, a parody of that famous Michael Caine film, Educating Rita, with the Karkus here playing the part of Julie Walters.

This strip has been updated, too. Both 'Sevillian Job' and an upcoming story needed a wee tweak in the artwork department - for a while I persisted, but ultimately failed to gain any skill, with a Rotring fine point cartridge pen in the vain hope that it might make me something closer to a 'proper' cartoonist. We never hit it off, that pen and I, nor I and its replacement when it got clogged with pencil graphite. I switched back to cheaper fibre tip soon after, and it's with them that I've gussied up a photocopy of the original - completing outlines, rendering shadows and holding lines, and even filling in some details. Possibly some colour would help one or two bits, as well. Save that for the next edition, maybe?

Some background: the 'baddies' of this story are the Threshhold, a community of temporal machineers from the Eighth Doctor DWM 'Endgame' series by Scott Gray. They, pointedly, had Letratone faces - and I, pointedly, had no Letratone, so had to make do. In looking through the script for this story from Dave, I discovered that I'd omitted or dropped one of his suggested visual gags - that the marscapone (I'd never heard of marscapone then, or paella) had ingredients from Forester's (from Planet of Giants), which went some way to explaining the Threshhold agents' diminutive size. Imagine my total surprise when that idea reappeared in the recent Big Slug Fest! The Yeti - Toot - was another character dave and I occasionally discussed, as I recall. NOt sure what we had in mind for him, though.

Finally, the last panel is a rewrite, as the original was another small stepping stone that led to the last adventure for the Karkus (at the time.) It's not relevant anymore, so it's been given a revision, which also provided an opportunity for me to draw a better version of the lovely Shockeye.

Scone Girl

Karkaeology: Where Egos Dare

This was the first (and until now only) Karkus strip published online, so it had to be in colour!

The Karkus is green. The reaction to that was a thing. I've no idea what colour he is in the TV episodes - most renditions I've seen online treat him the same way - flesh tones, probably a naked torso. Are there colour photos of him anywhere? Paging Andrew Pixley! I don't know, but what I do know is the Karkus is described as green-skinned in Peter Ling's Target novelisation of The Mind Robber, and who am I to argue with the Karkus' dad?

I had plans to reuse the Great Intelligence for years, and in June 2009 this story presented itself, so that's about it. Colouring him was fun, but slow, and I've never been so attentive of closing outlines and mentally blocking out colours in an Erato strip - the originals, by the way, are still just line art with no blacks at all.

And if the Karkus being green doesn't work for you, then feel free to ignore!

One Vision

Despite ths being the (counts on fingers) fourth(?) Karkus strip done since this new run began, 'A Blow to the Monoids' feels like the start of something new. It has a pre-credits sequence! It plays with the rules of panels (and boy, was it a pain to block out!) It has a linear thingy and an economy (honestly, there's one character and about three panels of clunky dialogue removed), and it neither squanders nor overplays its returning villain. I sometimes forget this story, but I do like it.

Karkaeology: The Karkus Licks a Stamp

"Based on a true story", it says here - and it sort of was. The Space Policemen's collision with a revolving door, and the Karkus' misadventure with the same (plus bicycle) were witnessed in real life but played out by confused fans and ahotel entrance and overseen by the mentioned Jamas, Jon Preddle, Alistair Hughes and me at a SF convention in Wellington in - ooh, 2000 or so? You can't make 'em up, but you can adapt them.

Draw Me Like One Of Your French Girls

Another old script, probably from around 2008, again. This was the second story I embarked upon early in 2020 as a Karkus revisit. And to all my many many French friends of whom there are many? L'sorry!