David J. Howe's Blog, page 18

Review: Doctor Omega's Parallel Adventures: The Silent Planet

Doctor Omega is a strange beast indeed. We've all heard of Doctor Who of course, and probably most people know that it started in 1963, having been created by a committee at the BBC ...



But in 2003, American-based French writer and researcher Jean-Marc L'Officier, 'discovered' a French science fiction novel from 1906 by Arnould Galopin called Docteur Omega. A 1940s reprint of the French book contained illustrations which showed the eponymous Doctor as bearing great resemblance to William Hartnell's portrayal of Doctor Who, and so L'Officier decided to translate the French Docteur Omega to create a novel which contained a great many references and allusions to Doctor Who (I've not read it, but reportedly it includes sonic screwdriver, time travel and a grand daughter). Really playing up the possibility that the one could have inspired the other (it didn't, it's all just coincidence).





A very 'Hartnell' look for Doctor Omega ...

This Doctor Who-ised translation was published in 2003 (available here): http://www.blackcoatpress.com/fiction-doctor-omega.html) and given a very Target book-esque cover, and heavily promoted off the back of the imaginary Doctor Who connection.



The book was followed by a newly written sequel consisting of many short stories: Doctor Omega and the Shadowmen (Available here: http://www.blackcoatpress.com/fiction-doctor-omega-and-the-shadowmen.html)



The original novel was then translated again in 2013, without adding in all the gratuitous Doctor Who references, and this is available here: http://www.lulu.com/gb/en/shop/arnould-galopin/doctor-omega/paperback/product-21150648.html





The original novel

There's also an audio of this later translation, read by John Guilor. Copies are available here (at time of writing): https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Omega-Fantastic-Adventure-Mars/dp/B00M5AJBP8/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1484126882&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=doctor%20omega%20advernture%20mars



To confuse things further, John Guilor was hired by the BBC to impersonate William Hartnell's voice for 2013's 'The Day of the Doctor' Doctor Who story on television, but for the reading of the original novel, he chose not to do it in Hartnell-ese.  As he explained: 'I felt that he should only sound vaguely familiar and I also thought
that people would listen to how well I was impersonating Hartnell (or not) rather than the story - and the story's great!'



Now we come to 2016, and Doctor Omega gets another life in the 'Parallel Adventures'.  I'm not quite sure what they are meant to be parallel to ... maybe Doctor Who? Or maybe it's that the 'Tuner' (which I keep disconcertingly hearing as 'Tuna') that the Doctor travels in, moves across dimensions and space in a parallel fashion ...



The first CD, The Silent Planet (perhaps after C S Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet (1938)) has been written by John Peel, a prolific and successful writer and novelist, and he has based this very much on the original text by Galopin, so there are no blatant Doctor Who-isms on show. To completely befuddle everyone though, John Guilor is back narrating it, but this time he is performing Doctor Omega as though he were played by William Hartnell playing Doctor Who.



Thus we have a curious CD, which runs for a little over 21 minutes, which sounds like a Doctor Who missing adventure if the TARDIS was called a Tuner ... And it's not at all bad. The plot is slight, but then there's only 21 minutes to play with, and it has elements of War of the Worlds about it, as well as some gadgetry and other things pertinent to the contemporary writings of Wells and Verne and so on ...



The packaging is really nice. A gatefold card cover containing the CD and a little black and white mini-comic called Galapagos Planet by Steve Andrews. Indeed the CD is raising money to help save and preserve the Galapagos Tortoise population ...



So on the surface this has nothing whatsoever to do with actual Doctor Who, and yet can be listened to as a First Doctor adventure, or as something completely different ...



Copies of the new CD will be available in the UK from Who Dares Ltd at some point soon (http://www.who-dares.co.uk/)



Here's a trailer!

Review: Howling II: Your Sister Is A Werewolf (1985)

The
Howling (1981) is one of those seminal horror films. Something so unique
and so good that it’s hard to see how it could be bettered. Gary Brandner’s
superb novel about a colony of werewolves was translated brilliantly to the
screen by Joe Dante, and with make-up effects courtesy of Rob Bottin, the final
film is just sublime. With this effort, however, you distinctly get the feeling
that it was a different film entirely, and they just slapped the Howling moniker on it to cash in on the
original … but then you realise that Brandner has a co-credit on the
screenplay, and start to wonder what on earth happened!




Howling II seems to have a few subtitles. Your Sister is a Werewolf is the one on this Arrow release, but
IMDB favours Stirba – Werewolf Bitch
which is possibly more accurate. Whatever you call it, the film is a mess from
start to end. Nominally it’s following the story of Ben White (Reb Brown),
brother of Karen White from the first film. But the shots we see of Karen are a
different actress to Dee Wallace in the original, and even the clips we see of
Karen transforming in a TV studio look totally different and are not as good as
the original. Anyway, Ben is investigating his sister’s death, and in the melee
of ideas there’s more werewolves, a Queen Werewolf called Stirba (Sybil
Danning) who wolfs-up and spends much of her screen time in bed with two other
werewolves having wolfy sex, there’s black magic, forbidden books, all sorts of
lore about killing werewolves by stabbing them in the heart with silver (mixing
up vampire lore there too), there’s dungeons and orgies, and kidnappings, and
one of the worst performances of all time from Annie McEnroe as a reporter
called Jenny, who drifts through the film being weak and hopeless as all the
carnage erupts around her.






It’s hard to know where to start
pointing out the faults – the whole film is a fault! Lots of it seems jumbled
in together with midgets being possessed and having their eyes popped out, old
women transforming into Sybil Danning, and Danning strutting around wearing a
black leather and copper swimsuit, along with overlarge chaps and shoulder pads
… It’s a camp nightmare! Even the scene where she rips open her cloak to reveal
her breasts is reportedly repeated seventeen times during the closing credits!




And striding through all this,
there’s Christopher Lee! Wandering through the madness and looking as though he’s
wishing he’d taken another film – any other film – than this one.




Basically it’s about as bad and
as crazy and as inept as any low budget eighties horrors. There are films out
there far more worthy of your time and money.




ARROW FILMS: Release Date: 14th November 2016




SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS

 



Brand new digital transfer



High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentations



Original Mono Audio (uncompressed PCM on the Blu-ray)



Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing





Audio commentary with director Philippe Mora



Audio commentary with composer Steve Parsons and editor Charles Bornstein



"Man, Monkey, Wolf"! - an interview with Philippe Mora



Leading Man – an interview with actor Reb Brown



Queen Of The Werewolves – an interview with actress Sybil Danning



A Monkey Phase – interviews with special make-up effects artists Steve Johnson and Scott Wheeler



Behind-the-Scenes Footage



Alternate Opening and Alternate Ending



Still Gallery



Theatrical Trailer



Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Graham Humphreys



 







FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Michael Blyth

Review: The Initiation (1984)

Not one of the best or most
memorable of slasher films, The
Initiation comes over today as something of a pale imitation of the best of
the genre. It’s interesting that the same year it was released, Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street was also
released, and Craven’s film is superior in just about every way.




In The Initiation, Kelly (Daphne Zuniger) is plagued by bad dreams,
caused by some trauma she suffered as a child. Not to be put off, however, she
wants to become a member of her school’s sorority, and the initiation involves
breaking into her dad’s department store and stealing the clothes from the
security guard.




Of course things aren’t as simple
as that, and when you add in some escaped prisoners from a local sanatorium,
then the deaths start to add up. The main issue, from a plot perspective, is
that the killings are random. No-one who dies deserved to die – this is one of the common tropes in this genre of
film: usually if you are young, if you have sex, you die … but here there’s not
even that tenuous morality to save you. People are bumped off left and right
and the viewer is left to try and guess who the killer is …






Of course it’s a curveball at the
end which answers the question of why Kelly is having the nightmares … but
ultimately it’s not very satisfying.




ARROW VIDEO: Release Date: 7th November 2016



SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS


Brand new restoration from original film elements
High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation
Original Uncompressed Mono PCM audio
Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing


Brand new audio commentary by The Hysteria Continues
Brand new interview with actor Christopher Bradley
Brand new interview with actress Joy Jones
Original Theatrical Trailer
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Justin Osbourn








FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by critic James Oliver

Review: Vamp (1986)

Another eighties horror film, and
this time something which has something of a poor rep, but it’s hard to see
quite why. There’s a lot to like in Vamp.




It’s ostensibly the tale of a
couple of young men about town, Keith (Chris Makepeace) and AJ (Robert Rusler)
who, in order to pass a College initiation ceremony, have to procure a stripper
… so they head for the most jumping joint in town after procuring a ride from
Duncan (Gedde Watanabe), a rich, but lonely, loser. They end up at the place
where Queen Katrina (Grace Jones) performs, except that she’s a vampire queen
and just about all the other performers at the club are also vampires. All
except, strangely, for Amaretto (Dedee Pfeiffer), a familiar young girl who, it
turns out, once kissed Keith. AJ is killed by Katrina and becomes a vampire
himself, and Keith and Amaretto have to escape from the vampires, corrupt
police and a psycho-albino vampire … Duncan is also vampirised, and it all
comes to a head as they flee through the sewers and stumble across the
vampire’s lair …






The film is great fun, and in
common with gems such as Fright Night
(1985) and Return of the Living Dead
(1985), it doesn’t take itself too seriously. There’s some smashing make-up
effects, Grace Jones is as weird and kooky as you would expect her to be – one
distinctly gets the impression that for her stage routine, they just pointed
the camera and let her get on with it – and Dedee Pfeiffer is cute and perky
and ‘girl next door’ as anyone from Night
of the Comet (1984) or pretty much any other eighties horror flick. There
are also elements which seem to have been borrowed by From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) … and lots more besides.






It’s a film to enjoy with a few
beers, and to snuggle up with the girlfriend (or boyfriend) … as such were
these films designed to be.



SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS


High Definition digital transfer
Original mono audio
Subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
One of those Nights: The Making of Vamp - a brand new documentary featuring interviews with director Richard Wenk, stars Robert Rusler, Dedee Pfeiffer, Gedde Watanabe
Behind-the-scenes rehearsals
Blooper Reel
Image gallery
Dracula Bites the Big Apple (1979) – Richard Wenk’s celebrated short film
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by the Twins of Evil




First pressing only: Booklet featuring new writing on the film by critic Cullen Gallagher

Review: The Guyver (1991)

The Guyver is a film which somehow passed me by! It's also quite hard to categorise, being a sort of superhero movie, where the hero is as mutated and twisted as the bad guys ... oh, and they all look like monsters ...



Based on original Manga and Anime, the film has an immediate feel-good credential as the amazing FX artist Screaming Mad George is involved as both FX and co-director ... and it's a good call as the film relies on various mind-blowing transformations and monsters for its impact.



The idea is simple: as an opening sequence of text tells us: there are alien monsters among us, who can disguise themselves as humans ... and the only thing that can defeat them is a human using a transformation device called a Guyver. So enter Sean (Jack Armstrong), who stumbles upon the Guyver device after it is smuggled out of the Chronos Corporation HQ. It changes him into this amazing super weapon ... and from that point it's fights and chases and action as the alien monsters all want to get their hands on it!





To be honest, it's pretty much exactly the same as watching Power Rangers only slightly more for adults. The monsters all look like creations from that show, or perhaps early Lost in Space and have the same habit of throwing dialogue and quips in all the time as they fight. It's certainly not to be taken seriously!



When Mark Hamill (yes, him off of Star Wars) turns up and ends up being transformed into some giant beetle thing, you know it's not going to end well!  And the final battles against a giant monster (which is what the CEO of Chronos turns into) is likewise great fun.





And that really sums up the film ... it is great fun! Linnea Quigley (off of Return of the Living Dead) appears as a 'scream queen' when one of the monsters invades a film set on which she is working, and Michael Berryman (off of The Hills Have Eyes) plays Lisker, the lead monster creature ... Even Jeffrey Combs (off of Reanimator) makes an appearance as 'Dr East', playing off his popular role as Dr West in the Lovecraft films ...



There are fights galore, transformations aplenty, gloopy monsters in vats, enough bodily fluid to keep David Cronenberg happy for months, and a crazy plot which just about holds everything together. It's a great film in its own way, and a good way to spend an evening with friends and beer ...



ARROW FILMS: Release Date: 19th December 2016




SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS

    



Brand new digital transfer of the Director’s Cut



High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentations



Original uncompressed audio



Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing



Brand new interview with producer Brian Yuzna



Trailer



Image Gallery



Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Nick Percival



 



FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Fully-illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film

Review: Slugs (1988)

Slugs
is a gloriously rubbish slice of eighties hokum. If you like your horror films
silly and illogical with lots of blood and gore, then this is for you!
Nominally based on the novel of the same name by Shaun Hutson, the film
actually seems to have nothing in common with it except the title … oh, and the
slugs of course.




We open with a couple on a rowing
boat, and there’s a disturbance in the water. The chap fishing has one foot
dangling overboard, and the girl is about to take her top off … you know what’s
going to happen! Somehow the slugs grab the chap’s foot and drag him under
where there’s an explosion of blood! Then we’re in America where slugs have
gone carnivorous and are attacking people – speeded up! A man in a greenhouse
puts on a glove into which a slug has gone, and then screams and cannot get the
glove off! Mighty strong these things. The solution: to thrash around screaming
before grabbing an axe and cutting his own hand off! Then another woman
prepares dinner, not noticing the large black slug in her lettuce as she chops
it up. It’s then eaten with neither of the diners noticing the slug – or
tasting it … Then the man collapses in a restaurant later on and his face
explodes as slug larvae burst out of him! It’s all crazy daft stuff, with the
police not noticing the slugs or their trails, and these creatures popping up
all over the place and eating people!






It all ends in the sewers as Our
Heroes don yellow outfits and descend to try and find the source. What’s
interesting is that an earlier scene suggested there were giant slugs but we
never see any sign of them … But the solution seems to be to spray them with a
mixture of lithium and arsenic which a local school science master has in
industrial quantities! Madness. Of course all the sewers explode, as do several
houses for no reason … but a slug survives …






It’s a crazy mad bad film, but
it’s actually well made, and for the most part well acted (there’s a couple of
phone-them-in performances). The Arrow disk contains some nice extras including
an interview with the effects guy and some photos of the impressible model
shots that were undertaken. Even the supremely silly shot of a slug rearing up
and biting someone’s finger was fascinating – done with enlarged models: a
giant slug and a giant finger! Although silly, it does work well!



If you’ve a passion for the best of the worst of
eighties horror, then this is certainly one to add to your shopping list!



ARROW FILMS: Release Date: 26th September 2016






SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS







Brand new restoration from original film elements



High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation



Original Uncompressed PCM Stereo audio



Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing



Audio commentary with Slugs author Shaun Hutson



Audio commentary by writer and filmmaker Chris Alexander



Here’s Slugs In Your Eye – an interview with actor Emilio Linder



They Slime, They Ooze, They Kill: The Effects of Slugs – an interview with special effects artist Carlo De Marchis



Invasion USA – an interview with art director Gonzalo Gonzalo



The Lyons Den – an interview and locations tour with production manager Larry Ann Evans



1988 Goya Awards promo reel



Original Theatrical Trailer



Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Wes Benscoter


Fully-illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing by writer Michael Gingold

The DOCTOR WHO Merchandise Museum

I've loved Doctor Who and its associated merchandise for many, many years. In the 80s my dream was to get a guide published to all the amazing things which had been released ... that failed, and so in the 90s I did it myself along with a brilliant pal and designer called Arnold T Blumberg ... And for as long as I can remember I've loved displaying my collection, in my bedroom, or in the spare room, and latterly in the 'collection room' at home!  But as the collection grew and grew I needed more and more space ...



So two years ago, we moved house, mainly to try and acheive the space we needed, and now own a lovely home, and also a business unit in which I can finally host the Doctor Who collection ... so that it's all available to see and appreciate, and we can also allow others to come and see it too and not have people stomping through our house to do so!



But there's an issue ... as explained in more detail in the fundraiser, in part because of a heart attack I suffered in 2016, we don't now have the money to complete the works, and so are running a fundraiser to try and get this, to make this museum a reality!!







There are some smashing perks for those who donate, and more perks are due to come online soon ... So please have a look and see what we're trying to do :)





Standing in the Unit with all the boxed up merchandise waiting
for the Unit works to be completed.

Any and all help is appreciated ... so please share the fundraiser, tell your friends, try and get word out to as many people as you can ... It's all really appreciated.



The fundraiser page is here:



https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/th...



And there's some lovely pieces about it all here:



http://www.markwho42.net/2016/11/06/l...



http://www.doctorwhonews.net/2016/11/...



http://thedoctorwhocompanion.com/2016...



http://www.starburstmagazine.com/tv-n...



https://scifibulletin.com/2016/11/02/...



http://merchandise.thedoctorwhosite.c...



http://news.drwho-online.co.uk/Help-F...

Review: The Andrew Skilleter Target Art Calendar 2017

Ah that Target Doctor Who art ... so evocative, and so impressionable on young minds!  Those of a certain age will also remember Who Dares, a publishing company set up by artist Andrew Skilleter to sell and promote his own Doctor Who artwork ... It sort of died away some years ago, but now it's back! And their first release is a 2017 Calendar, featuring 12 of Andrew Skilleter's Target paintings.



Calendars are strange beasts. For them to work, you really have to try and increase the production values. Unless of course you're deliberately going for a cheap and cheerful version. For years now we have had annual offerings from Danilo, which have been the same basic shape calendar that they do for all manner of properties, and the imagery hasn't been that inspiring, so it's a pleasure to see that this new offering from Who Dares is all printed on a lovely heavy paper stock. It's nominally A3 sized, though is in actuality slightly larger, and is spiral bound on the top. Each sheet is printed on just one side (with a calendar bound in this way, you could halve the number of pages and print on both sides of the paper with no loss of quality) and so you have 15 sheets (cover, back cover and 12 internal pages) bound together.





The art is all taken from Skilleter's Target covers, and it's a nice selection of some of the best examples of the work that he did for the range. We have 'Warriors of the Deep', 'The Invasion', 'The Twin Dilemma' unused version, 'The Mind of Evil', 'Frontios', 'Nightmare of Eden', 'The Gunfighters', 'The Two Doctors', 'Logopolis', 'The Daemons', 'An Unearthly Child', ' and The Abominable Snowmen'.  The print quality is good, and the paintings are shown to their best effect.



The back of the calendar has a set of capsule notes from the artist on each piece, which is nice to see.



Overall this is a heavyweight piece of merchandise, and a step up in quality from what we have been used to in Calendars over recent years. Of course this means it is more expensive at £19.99, that and the fact that it's not been produced in mass market quantities ...



If you're looking for some Doctor Who nostalgia for your wall in 2017, then this calendar is a good bet.

Review: DOCTOR WHO: THE WHONIVERSE

This is quite a tricky book to review if I'm being honest. As a lifelong Doctor Who fan and collector I sometimes feel that there is an expectation to like and enjoy everything ... but real life isn't like that, and as the years and products pass, so sometimes things come out which really aren't as good as perhaps they should be ... and as more and more is produced, one starts to hear the sound of the bottom of a barrel being scraped.



With Doctor Who books, they fall these days into all manner of categories. The programme makers and the merchandisers/publishers have a dicotomy ... they want to sell books to young kids - say the 5 to 10 age group, but the show isn't really aimed at that age group and so sometimes features material which is 'grown up' to say the least. It's the same phenomenon which gave us 'Freddie Krueger Knife Gloves' for under 10s to wear at Halloween, when the film was an 18 certificate, and the celebrated 'Freddie' was a child murderer ... hardly someone to be marketed to kids!  Same with Jason/Friday the Thirteenth Hockey Masks. But it's all about the money ...



In the BBC's ongoing quest to squeeze as much money as they can out of the franchise, we have seen the literary offerings increasingly dumbed down, with original fiction being written by the same handful of people over and over again (new voices would bring variety), books for children, colouring books ... there's even a doodle book and a dot to dot book ... but to be fair these are current versions of the sort of thing that was being done in the sixties and seventies.



If you're looking for factual books, then there are the occasional gems. Titles like Marcus Hearn's Doctor Who: The Vault and Stephen Nicholas and Mike Tucker's Doctor Who: Impossible Worlds spring to mind and stand out as great examples. Other so called 'Guides' are just lists of monsters or planets or people, copiously illustrated with the same old publicity photographs of everything ... nothing particularly new or groundbreaking and fundamentally picture books.  Nothing which really goes into the background to the series and presents new information or imagery ... Titles like Russell T Davies' A Writer's Tale are few and far between these days when secrecy as to how Doctor Who is made and developed borders on the paranoid. Thank goodness for Andrew Pixley who alone seems to be given access to document and archive the behind the scenes details for Doctor Who Magazine. Maybe Steven Moffat will be able to pen his own version, laying myths to rest and allowing others to understand the roller-coaster that Doctor Who can be to make.





Which brings us to Doctor Who: The Whoniverse. For a start, it doesn't help that it has the same title as an unofficial book published in 2015 by Lance Parkin. That was another list-based book covering all the various planets seen in the show. By contrast, what George Mann and Justin Richards' tome does is simply to take a timeline through all the worlds of Doctor Who and write it up like a history of the universe. There are a few titles which have already documented all this: Lance Parkin's A History (Mad Norwegian, 2014) is one; and Jon Preddle's Timelink (Telos, 2011) is another, so the bulk of the work had already been done. To be fair, the written content is good and accurate, but it's dry and humourless and recounts Doctor Who stories that we know, using words and terms and phrases and dialogue from the show that we know ... it's all so familiar.



To illustrate the book, rather than use any actual imagery from the show itself, they have called on the talents of some of the artists who have worked on the conceptual side of the programme, as highlighted in the previously mentioned Impossible Worlds.  I said in my review of that book that I would have loved to have seen elements in the show based on the art of Alex Fort, and here it is ... the artists have created planetscapes and paintings of monsters and spaceships ... all in a conceptual style.  What is a shame - and I say this without knowing - is that many of the paintings look 'soft' as though they have been enlarged from smaller originals. Perhaps the painting style is 'soft' in the first place, but it's a little like peering through a vaseline-covered lens (That's a Web Planet reference kids) at the images. In addition, it's amusing to see Daleks with four, three and even two rows of 'balls' on their skirts ... all depending on how the painting has been rendered and how small the images of the creatures are.



The art is, mostly, superb, and this is a nice showcase for it ... but here's the rub. The book has a competant, if fusty, text, nice illustrations ... so why does it fail? Basically because it has no point. It's a £35 hardback, large format and beautifully bound and printed with a padded cover and gold foiling, not to mention faux foxxing on the pages ... a lot of hard work has gone into what is effectively a large picturebook, containing text which says nothing new, and images which aren't actually from the show and which are blurry and misty. I can see kids being given this for Christmas, and then it lying forgotten after a few moments flicking through. There's nothing new here.



If it had been a new art book along the lines of Impossible Worlds, showing a 'what could have been' side of Doctor Who  which to be honest is pretty much what the imagery is, then it might have worked ... But then it needed a greater diversity of art and ideas, concepts drawn to different conclusions, elements given full reign rather than being what a seventies BBC Budget dictated. This indeed was the idea behind a series of artwork images that I developed for my fanzine The Frame back in the 90s, and we got some incredible images from a variety of very talented artists.



There are no new ideas you see, just ways of spinning what has already been done into something new, different and hopefully worthwhile. Maybe they thought that's what this book would be - something worthwhile ... but sadly as a complete package it fails, but through no fault of anyone working on it. I stress, it's up to the same high standard as all the Doctor Who books in terms of design and printing and presentation. I think it's the basic concept which is flawed. Which is such a shame given that the BBC and Ebury have a self-imposed limit on the number of books they will do each year. With one of the scarce 'slots' taken by this, what didn't we see instead?



DOCTOR WHO: THE WHONIVERSE

Published by BBC BOOKS on 27 October 2016

Hardback - £35.00

Review: Warlord Games' Doctor Who Miniatures

I've always had a soft spot for little metal miniatures. Ever since Fine Art Castings first started rolling them off their production line (in truth a casting machine in their garage!) in 1984, there have probably been more little metal figures of Doctor Who characters produced than most other items of merchandise (excluding, probably, trading cards if you count the cards individually!)



Now Warlord Games has picked up the license, and their initial release are two boxes, each containing five little figures.  Each box costs £19.99 which makes them £4 each, which is about the same price as other 40mm figures these days, so overall not too bad a price.



The figures tie into something called 'Into The Time Vortex: The Miniatures Game' but I have no idea what this is, and there's no clues on the boxes of figures ...





So ... we have one box which is 'Tenth Doctor and Companions' - this contains, as you might expect, the tenth Doctor, plus Rose, Martha, Donna, and Wilf (a surprising addition to be honest ... but then who else might they have chosen? Maybe Sarah Jane Smith?)



The figures are 40mm so quite small, and come unpainted. Each also has a little plastic stand which you have to glue yourself to the base of each figure.  It's a nice set!



The second box contains 'Twelfth Doctor and Companions' and here we have Doctor 12 of course, and also Clara, Vastra, Jenny and Strax. Again, a good selection.



If you like the little miniatures, then these are a good addition to the collection. The packaging is a card box containing a plastic inner containing 6 little 'trays' and in each is a figure, and in the sixth are the bases. There's also a card wrap around the plastic inner with character details and so on printed on it.



I'm looking forward to seeing what the actual game is too ...I'm guessing some sort of 'Dungeons and Dragons' type scenario, or it could be a 'Monopoly'-type board game ... we shall see!







The Warlord Figures are available direct from the manufacturers: https://store.warlordgames.com/collec...