Wonder Woman: Dawn of Justice

I wanted to say a whole seperate thing about Dawn of Justice's Wonder Woman, because she's not in the title of the film, and really the only reason she isn't there is because it's been so long since she's been really clear in the public consciousness.

But when she turns up in the costume and her new theme booms through the cinema you're pretty certain that she needs her own film.

Outside of the comics she's mostly been an ensemble player since her TV series ended in 1979. Then for years it was Super Friends, then all those Justice Leagues that they've had, of which Super Friends is also one. There was the animated Wonder Woman, which despite being both critically and financially successful compared to other animated DC films is still fairly obscure.

But, I could go on about how much I really like all of the animated depictions of Wonder Woman until the cows come how, but I don't have cows anymore, and even when I did, they were steers. And they never really wandered far enough away that we really worried about whether or not they were home. But I could happily, because there's some pretty wild stuff in that rabbit hole.

Like so many other DC characters, Wonder Woman's public image sort of suffered at the hands of previous mainstream depictions. They weren't necessarily bad when it was that they were happening, except for Super Friends, which apart from that one half of every episode for that one season was more or less entirely terrible all of the time, but those other ones, they didn't age well.

Linda Carter was great, but the decades have flown by in their invisible jet, and she just sort of looks silly, but they all do. Less silly than Adam West, but probably about as silly as Christopher Reeves, except in Superman IV: The Quest for Peace where everybody looks incredibly silly.

I am way off mission here.

This new Wonder Woman is the Wonder Woman that I think she is meant to have been. They've gone back to the mythology. Imagine a more serious take on a cross between Highlander, Athena, James Bond, and Xena: Warrior Princess, which now that I'm saying it sounds really silly, but just try and imagine that, but with a really serious face.

That's what's happening. It's fucking weird if you think about it too hard. But that's who she's always been really. I mean tonally, no. No. DC are bad this, I've said so before, but this is good.

I've spoiled shit already. If you go back over what I've just said, I've spoiled stuff, but that isn't really important. What is important is that this new Wonder Woman is an Amazonian super spy, who's come to wreck shop.

That's her thing. It's one of her things. She has lots of things.

The lasso is there, and the braces, but she's also got a sword and shield, which makes sense as a great Amazonian warrior. The invisible jet is gone. I mean, I assume so. I didn't see it. That was terrible. I won't do that again.

Yes, I will.

Wonder Woman really drives home why as a DC Comics fan I really, really enjoyed Dawn of Justice. There are some weaknesses in the film as a film, but I don't rally care, because there were a lot of things in it that I really enjoyed, and of which I want more, and I want more of Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman, which I will get in 2017's Wonder Woman.

We all understand the rush that was put on this movie. We know that it was just going to be the sequel to the last one they made, but with the title fight spin, but they were adamant that they would get their Avengers out of the gate, and I feel like they forced themselves to cover a ton of ground that they perhaps didn't need to, but the Wonder Woman stuff is good. Excited for the future of the franchise good.

Excited that she might spend more time in the foreground of the popular consciousness.

Inclusionary Tactics

I tend to geek out in an obsessive and gleeful sort of way. I've been known to wriggle, squeal, and make databases when expressing my love for something. I'm like Sooty with SQL.

These are observable behaviours.

Beyond the non-verbal vocalisations, and data entry, is another equally observable behaviour. I like sharing the things that I love with the people I love, like, know, meet, and/or of which I am in the immediate vicinity. Some might say 'aggressively so', and indeed some have said that. To my face. It's real! Let me share my things that I love with you.

All I need is your face, and the things that are on it! Your face bits!

I play a game and I want my friends to also love this game (I suppose sometimes I need hands too for these activities). I watch a show and I want my friends to eat fish fingers and custard with me while watching the show. I watch a movie and I see it with as many people as are interested in going even if it means that I have to see Guardians of the Galaxy a cool fourteen times on the big screen.

So cool.

So very, very cool.

When I love a superhero/video game/comic/movie/book/show/album/musical/teddy bear/documentary and I can take something away from our time together that I find joyous or meaningful, I want to be able to 'psychologically motivate' my friends to participate in this thing so that they might also experience that joy or meaning. That seems like an important thing to me. It makes sense in my brain.

In my brain it is a really deep sort of love and affection. Remember this when you have things pressed against your face.

What doesn't make sense in my brain is the idea that anyone should be made to feel excluded by the things that joy me up in my face. And butt. That's where my wriggling starts. Right down in the butt.

Why wouldn't I want everyone to have equal opportunity to feel represented, empowered, and inspired by the mediums that mean so much to so many of us? That seems dumb.

I'm not saying everyone should like everything, because that's unwieldy. It's the kind of idea that breaks things. It's clumsy. I'm saying that everyone should have the opportunity to love everything.

There should be some variety of fair representation within a medium and genre and the services that deliver them to our face receptors. And, I suppose, hand receptors.

Call it a campaign of selfishness, and you can, but just because someone wants something that someone else doesn't think they should have, it doesn't mean that they shouldn't get it.

This is topic du jour, and I'm not contributing anything groundbreaking here. All and all, this is mundane in its passivity, but these are my words on the thing.

I think we should all have a Nightwing. He changed my life. I'm not even kidding. He did that! From his pages! Nightwing is the real hero in the entire Batman franchise. For me. The rest of them are tragic figures. It's bananas gothic up in Gotham.

And Barbara Gordon. She is also my hero. She's fucking awesome.

From the honest places of my self, it frightens me to think of the lives of others without the refuges and representation that I had just because of who I already was when I was born. I feel like it helped me.  I really do.

There should be enough variety so that we can all have a Nightwing (or Barbara Gordon), and we should all feel welcome there. We should all feel welcome in all the Leagues and Squads and teams and Tardises (Tardii? Tardims? Tarda?) and servers. All the servers!

Because I want you all there!

Yet Another Astro Boy

I grew up on Astro Boy, and my mum sort of grew up on Astro boy too. But different ones. This is because they keep making them. I've said before that they keep wheeling the little guy out to see how the new generation will take him every couple of decades or so, and that is an apt assessment of the way it's been handled.

Anyway. They made it again in 2003, and Astro Boy, in its third go round, is a well animated, science fiction, adventure cartoon. It's much of the same sort of thing as both the 1963 and 1980 cartoons. It's Astro Boy. Like, proper Astro Boy. Not like that 2009 3D, CGI movie that is not Astro Boy. It isn't. It feels wrong.

Have you seen it?

Don't.

That's mean. It tried to be Astro Boy, bless its little rocket socks. It put on the underpants and it went flying high in the sky, and all that jazz, but it just didn't really get there. To the Astro Boy place. It got to the sky. I mean, I think it did. Where does the sky start?

Anyway, the one that is is because it's got most of the old stuff from the first two series with some more focussed storytelling in the major story arcs, and a more deliberately dark tone.

I say that it's more deliberate, because both the preceding series are pretty dark. There was a lot of death, and Astro frequently came out the other side of an episode feeling like no one really won. But they were also more playful and optimistic than the new series. Call it seesawing. Call it tonal diversity. Either way, the new one is more consistent in what it wants to be (unless you watch it in Japanese, in which case it still is, only less so).

It's also slicker. That's probably its main selling point over the other two. It's a slick 50 episode action-adventure cartoon with prejudice, robots, and all that atomic age Pinocchio guff that we get out of bed for.

It's a good thing they did this. Plugging the little, robot guy back in and polishing him up every 20 years or so for another go round is going to be how we mark the generations in eras to come. He's good for us with all his butt machine guns and finger lasers.

Oh, B-T-dubs, did I mention that they're making a new one?

Yeah, that's what that whole Astro Boy Reboot thing was at the top of the post. Did you think that the thing I was just talking about was the reboot? No, that is not the case.

Anyhoo, apparently, someone didn't get the memo, and they're getting him out o' the drawer (P.S. punned the hell out of that) sooner than they meant to. I mean, he's not due for another 7 years, and they go and do this:

Now, there is a lot of implication that my little buddy, Astro, be living it up in some sort of digital environment, where he himself may be a a digital thing, or an avatar of the more modern vernacular.

And, I'm not saying I don't want this, because I do. I want all the Astro Boys. Except the one that I mentioned not wanting earlier. That, I don't want.

But, I guess I'm concerned at the direction they're taking, and I don't really understand yet if they're wheeling out a new Astro Boy or whether they're just wheeling out the brand for a thing that isn't really Astro Boy.

This may or may not be a thing that I want. I mean, perhaps they're trying to appeal to a modern audience with all them computers, and gigabytes, and the like, but robots are just around the corner. They're soon, but not yet.

Does their lack of immediacy make them unappealing to children? I mean robots were nowhere in sight when I was one of those, but they appealed the shit out of me.

Still do.

Regardless, it looks pretty, and I'll probably be watching it.

More AKIRA?

If you know what Akira is then you might be wondering 'more what?'

More of the already epic 2000+ page manga that was written and illustrated by one guy? No, his hands still haven't recovered since the mid-nineties.

Are they making a followup film that abridges the second half of the manga similar to what the first film did for the first half? No. That isn't happening either.

Am I talking about the live action version that has spent more time on production hiatus than than Duke Nukem Forever?

I am not.

What I am talking about is that at a recent comic festival in France, Katsuhiro Otomo (who is the dude that is the one that made it) said after being asked about the future of Akira that they were considering an anime television series.

Now the question was asked in French and then answered in Japanese, so there might be some translation issues all up and in this.

Also, worth noting that we didn't clarify who 'they' were. There was also no real discussion of who would be making it, how long it would run, how faithful or thorough it would be, or when it might happen, because the whole statement is just up there in that other paragraph.

But, look, hey! Let's get a little excited. Akira!

Akira is an interesting duck. The role it played in popularising anime in the western consciousness is unparalleled. If you speak English and you enjoy anime as anime, then this was the catalyst for the culture that exists today that lets that happen.

Anime was popular before Akira, but it was popular as children's television. Shows like the Astro Boys, Robotech, Starblazers, and so many others played a similar role in western culture before Akira as things like Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon did after it.

There were also anime films that were available and watched prior to Akira. That happened. I'm not saying that that isn't a thing. It is.

Also, when I say 'Western', I specially mean 'English Speaking' because I'm a small minded, anglocentric cultural invader. I've said so before. The French and Italians were onto all this sooner. Germans too maybe. Who knows? They probably know. Some of them.

But Akira, or really it should be AKIRA, for us in the English speaking world was our first real 'look at this shit they're making in Japan' moment. And we did. Look. It was incredible. I mean it still is incredible. If you watch it now, it's still visually stunning.

Even on VHS it was stunning. Sound, visuals, everything.

AKIRA still stands as an example of something that live action just couldn't do. I mean, it probably can now, but when you look at it, and the beauty of animation, would you want it too.

I don't. I just don't want that. It's so beautiful. Such an exquisite thing.

I only hope that this anime series that is under consideration is as beautiful. I mean, could it be? Could they just take the film as a base and make more of it?

Not really, because the film doesn't follow the plot. Some scenes are amalgams of ones from the manga. Some are brand new shortcuts to get the plot done in 2 hours.

You could take some of it, but more what I'm wondering is if the film will act as a template for the series in terms of the way it looks. That's what I want.

It should be what we all want.

A Quick Introduction to The Past Doctors

You know I love me some Doctor Who. You know that. Maybe you don't. Maybe you have no idea about me and my Doctor Who and how I get down when the TARDIS howls. I get giddy. Panda and I both get us some giddy. We've never grown out of it. It's not going to happen.

Other things that we're prone to are opinions. That is real. So, you know we have Doctor Who related opinions, and with the new season on it's way, I thought I might rifle through the DVDs and drop some of the aforementioned opinions on stories of Doctors past.

I'm going to roll this out in order, and everyone gets a turn. Also, there are some rules that guided the decisions, but I'm not going to tell you what they are. The general thing is that I wanted to just sort of give you all one fairly solid entry point for each Doctor.

William Hartnell in The Dalek Invasion of Earth

They're coming to invade a planet near you!

I don't know if you've heard of these Daleks. They're bad news. And we don't want them invading Earth. That's where we live. This is a bad scene. No one is keen for this kind of thing. Except the Daleks. They're all about it. They're all like, 'It's Invasi-on like Donkey Kong!' I'm going to level with you. I couldn't decide between this one, The Time Meddler, or The Keys of Marinus, until I thought of that Donkey Kong bit. I mean if you throw in The Romans, The Daleks, The Rescue, and the first episode of An Unearthly Child (which is the first episode of the whole thing) you've got the best ones. They are. Argh! I'm so torn. Damn it, he was good!

Patrick Troughton in The Tomb of the Cybermen

You will never look at Glad Wrap the same way!

I sometimes say to people that the Cybermen not only terrified me as a child, but that they're my favourite classic monster, which often elicits confusion. 'Why?', they ask as they wring their funny little hands. Why do so many people have funny little hands? To which I respond, 'Have you seen Tomb of the Cybermen'. It's basically Doctor Who flavoured classic mummy movie, straight up. Did I use that right? The Second Doctor joins an archeological expedition on a distant planet, and things get out of hand. Like, completely out of hand. Holes are dug. People die. Cybermen are involved. It's pretty much everything you want from a Cybermen story, and to this day it is my yardstick for measuring all those Cybermen stories that've followed.

John Pertwee in Carnival of Monsters

I love carnivals!

Not often cited as the best Pertwee serial, but I really like it. One might even say that I like it the most of his stories. And they would be right. It's plot is a very plotty sort of plot, and there are things happening, and you're watching the show, and if you're like me, you're enjoying it. It starts out as your fairly straight forward sort of 'this isn't where we meant to end up' story (which is a whole thing in Doctor Who), but then it very quickly turns into 'there is something not entirely right going on here' (also a thing), and then you're like 'I think something here is broken'. There are some elements that you'll just sort of take in your stride, because it's Doctor Who, but then there's the bit that is further, which is where this goes, and your stride will be interrupted as a result.

Tom Baker in City of Death

What happens when Douglas Adams sends The Fourth Doctor and The Second Romana to Paris?

That's correct! Douglas Bloody Adams! I'm not even kidding. He wrote two, and this is the better of the two, and the plot is the kind of thing that can only be told in Doctor Who. It's full to the brim of the timeiest of time-stuff. It's laden. It's all over the walls. It's funny. The villain is a Bond villain (it's Julian Glover), and the companion is Romana. She is my favourite. Hands down. I had a crush on her from the age of about five or six until infinite! I love this story so very, very much. Just watch it. If you've never delved far, or at all, into the original run of the show, this is something you absolutely must see.

Peter Davison in The Caves of Androzani

Not really a lot like Dune at all.

When I tell you that it's about the mining of drugs on a desert planet, you're going to say, 'like Dune', and I'm going to say, 'Not really'. You see, it's pretty different to that. There are more robots. A whole army of said robots in fact. Someone once told me at a party (these things always get said at parties) that it's an analogue for a real world historical event. I mean, damn, not the robots. Clearly. But, like the general premise, but this story isn't just historical analogues, robot armies, and drug wars. Not 'The War on Drugs' drug wars, but like a war over who can have the drugs. Well, control the drugs. Everyone wants to have the drugs. Children's television in the eighties. What can I say? Actually, the modern series has had drugs and addiction, so I guess just children's television in general. There are also gunrunners. People get executed. The Doctor milks a bat. It's a good story.

Colin Baker in Vengeance on Varos

Do you see where we're headed? Do you?

It's dark. One of the darkest ones. You might watch this, and honestly wonder how it got aired as part of the same show. It's all up in the 'This is where we're headed with the violence' brand of science fiction. It's an oddity. A lot of what was going on for the Sixth Doctor felt restrained. Not this. There were little restraints involved in this. Not little restraints, as in restraints that are small, but few restraints. It's mostly unrestrained. It's the sort of no holds barred Doctor Who the eighties were ready to make, and then everyone freaked out. Some part of that would be the people dying in acid, but not all of it. Some of it would be the other violence.

Sylvester McCoy in The Curse of Fenric - Director's Cut

With 12 extra minutes!

This was not my favourite Seventh Doctor story when I first watched them on TV, but the recut version on the DVD, and I'm assuming other formats, is a substantially better experience. The narative is clearer and there are more minutes. 12 of them. I think they also redid some of the special visual shenaniganery. It's just better. Not that the original TV version is bad, or not even not good, but it's behind things like Remembrance of the Daleks, which the recut version is not. Some people would probably say that it still is. I am not those people. I mean, it's all World War II spies, and vampires, and ancient enemies and the like. It's great, and you want the best version of that. You also want the best version of the Seventh Doctor, which is this. He's cleverer. In both versions. With or without the 12 extra minutes.

Paul McGann in Enemy Within

The best of the only one. It's the only one.

Back when I was all of 14ish, and after 7 whole years without new episodes of Doctor Who, they told us that there might be more, and that a pilot film had been made. It was this, and it was actually, and irritatingly, titled Doctor Who, but the fans decided otherwise, because, are you kidding? That's the show's name! The story itself is, well, it's not really good a tall, but it's either this or The Night of the Doctor, which is only a handful of minutes long, and you can't hold time. The Doctor maybe can, and Paul McGann is an incredible one of those. A time holder. Amazing, in fact. Unfortunately, all of his best stories are audio stories. If you're a commuter, I would highly recommend getting some of those on your iPod, or mp3 blaster.

Christopher Eccleston in The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances

A zombie child, an unwed teenage mother, and an intergalactic conman walk into a bar.

This was the story in the first season of the new run that made me realise that this show was not only exactly what the 21st century needed, but that it was set to be incredible. Drama, comedy, tragedy, and horror clown-car into two episodes in London during the Blitz. Then there's Captain Jack Harkness at his Captain Jackiest. Also creepy wartime hospitals, and invisible spaceships, and the threat of zombie armageddon. Fantastic!

David Tenant in The Girl in the Fireplace

Not, like, in the fire. It's not about immolation.

This was a hard one. David Tenant had an insane run as the Tenth Doctor, and his first two seasons in particular are heavy with great stories, but I chose The Girl in the Fireplace because it's wonderful, and it's funny, and it's creepy, and it's a little heartbreaking, and it's beautiful to look at, and it kind of does a great many of the things that Doctor Who does so well: Spaceships, history, mystery, monsters, and 'stuff because reasons and plot, so shut-up'. I mean, there is stuff in this. Stuff they don't bother to really explain, but it's good. There's also learning to do. There are real, actual, 'once upon a time, and I'm not making this up' people in this story, and the characters talk about their culture in a real way. I mean, boxes ticked, people. So many boxes, and it's fun. Did I mention the fun?

Matt Smith in The Doctor's Wife

Best kissing on the show ever! Ever! David Tenant gets schooled!

This was another one where there were contenders, but this is great. Really great! It's pretty tonally delicious. It's creepy, and it's funny, and, I mean, the dialogue is glorious. Actually glorious. I am more than a little bit in love with this episode, and we get to see Matt Smith Smithing all over the place. He Smiths it right up, and lead guest character is just this thing that I can't even explain. I can, but it would be ruinsome. Way better to not be ruined. You could have that. Go watch it! Do that! It's so much better than me talking about it.


Some of these guys definitely deserve more of my attention than just one episode. Not Paul McGann. That's all he has. I've covered him. The others though. They can have more.

I'll do that later.

Any disagreements?

Ash vs Evil Dead

Yeah!

I'm not even...

What do you say?

They're not making another Evil Dead, they're making a tv series, because that's what you do now.

I love The Evil Dead, and it's sequels, and the remake, and the comics. It's all good. That's where I'm coming from here. That's my starting point for this thing. Bias is going to happen.

Look, back in the early 80s the plethora of zombie movies that had hit the scene needed something like The Evil Dead, and the early 90s fo' defs needed Army of Darkness. This need was real.

Things were getting deep into some pretty circular self gratification, and we need a dumb-ass with a shotgun and a chainsaw.

The time has come once again.

The zombie apocalypse genre is like an overripe fruit. And within it is a new seed. We only need to wait for the wind which will make it fall. The wind called Ash vs Evil Dead!

Look, maybe it's not that. But, honestly, deep down, I don't even care. I'm going to watch so much of it, and the part of me that is beyond bored with The Walking Dead will be so happy.

I remember when Army of Darkness came out, and I was standing there staring at the cover on the new release wall in Civic Video thinking, 'That looks like Ash!' 

It was Ash!

And, I had to convince the guy behind the counter that I should be watching this movie in my house, and that he really did need to be stopping me from this. His victory was fleeting, because I got that shit saw, and I loved it! Chainsaws! Time travel! Stop motion skeletons! Some of the dumbest dialogue in the history of cinema!

It's all there.

All of it!

In hindsight, I would've been about 11 or 12ish, by which stage I'd seen the first two, R rated, films in the series. So, there's that.

Then there's this:



And this:



At the end of the day, those movies that constitute the deadite fighting, time travelling, self-amputating, shit talking adventures of Ash Williams are not for everyone. Especially the first two. You might not be the kind of person who enjoys watching a total dumb-ass fumble his way to victory, but I am. I have loved this B-grade, semi-Lovecraftian nonsense for a long time. Especially Army of Darkness, which I loveth the mosteth.

Plainly speaking, it's quite fucking glorious!

Why I'm not reviewing Amazon's The Man in the High Castle pilot

Amazon has made the pilot episode for a mini-series based on Philip K. Dick's alternative history novel in which the axis powers won World War II, The Man in the High Castle, and some of you can go and watch it for free!

I love Pippy D. He isn't just the Dick du jour for me, but a staple Dick. There are times when he is probably relegated to a sort of background, cosmic Dick, but he's always there.

I love his work. I get deep into it in a weird way. There are lots of things I can say about it that would be generally considered to be pretty negative. Things that would prompt people to then say, 'What you've just said makes me not want to read this book you're brandishing at my face'.

What I can say with absolute assuredness is that Dick's whole psychological wavelength was his own. That, to me, is a truth. The dude thought up some shit that other people simply weren't thinking. Once thought up he would then pen that shit, and go about getting it published so that people could consume it, and eventually mine it for their own outputs.

When The Man in the High Castle came out, it was that sort of thing. The war was less than two decades won, and people were getting deep into the cold war that followed, and people weren't writing about alternate Earths on which the United States is occupied by Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, who are themselves now engaged in their own cold war.

It is essentially a 1960s, cold war drama/thriller set on an alternate Earth, and more so the people who live there. That is what it is. Well, honestly there is more to it than that. There are other elements. Things I won't go into here.

Right there, on that alone, it is sort of a winner. It's a thing that people want to watch. It sounds like the kind of thing that you would make into a TV series. I thought so when I read the book so much that I started adapting it before I even finished it.

Now, Amazon agreed with me, and got a lot further with their adaptation than I did, and it looks good.



The Man in the High Castle was the first (and arguably only) Philip K Dick novel to win a 'major' award. He won other awards for other books, but he got a Hugo for this thing.

It is subjectively one of his best books.

Less subjectively, it has been produced by Ridley Scott, who amongst his many achievements directed Blade Runner, which is the single best adaptation of a Philip K. Dick story. Fact.

It looks like everything that it should be, and people can watch it for free over on Amazon.

I can't watch it at all though. I'm Australian, and this activity is therefore verboten to me.

They have made a free pilot, off the back of which they presumably want to sell the rest of the series. They also presumably want to see what the market for such a series would be to markets outside their own so that they can try and convince those other markets to buy it in order to resell to the people that live there.

That makes sense to me. That sounds like a solid and open model.

'Do you want this thing we're thinking about making?', 'How many of you want this thing?', and 'Is it worth it for us to make this thing?' seem like really good questions to ask and on which to gather the sweet, tasty data.

That isn't what's happening. Everyone is essentially locked out until someone takes a punt on their region, which I kind of get (but still think is stupid), but I don't get locking out regions from the material you are using to see if people are interested in the product.

This is part of an unreasonably protracted slow death of an archaic model.

It would make a lot more sense if you could watch it on YouTube, seeing as it is, at this stage, essentially a promotional episode.



Dear Amazon,

Why are you making it so hard for us to like you?

Kind regards,

The Australian Market

One better than the one we're doing now!

From a strictly numerical point of view, next year will be one better than the one we're doing now.

I'm all about this!

By all traditionally observed units and measures I failed at 2014. I don't often go in for traditional though, unless it's something that I like, but even then I'm not exclusively traditional, it's just in amongst everything else in the grab-bag that I have grabbed.

So I'll take my +1 thanks folks.

I'm not unhappy with 2014. It saw the beginning of some projects that I hope to continue/finish, a couple of which are things you can (and may have already) see(n), I discovered that you can cook cookies in a wok, and Scott Bakula is once again the lead of a Donald P. Bellisario TV production (where he belongs).

Panda is the star of his own comic now. That's new for him. He's having a good time with it. We both are.

The people who've known Panda the longest have been aware that this was an idea back in the early days of our partnership. They've heard me talk about it to varying degrees over the last few years, and also probably heard the umming and ahhing that went along with the ebb and flow of my enthusiasm for the project.

The drawing, which was the original deterrent, has ended up being far easier than I imagined. I'm not totally terrible at it. Stuff looks like stuff, which is the goal. The writing jokes in a neat three panel format, on the other hand, is something that I need to work at.

It's still a weird process for me. It's different. They're not really one-liners. They're interactions that sometimes contain one-liners, but they need to have these breaks in them. There is a pacing thing on which my grasp needs to be mightier. I often say them out loud, and I've realised that that's not working. It's a different system of delivery. Something that I've never really thought about before.

I'm enjoying the whole process, so there's a good chance I'll keep making them.

There is this other thing over on another part of the internet that I am doing with my old friend, maverick_boxer. That is not his real name. Clearly. He has another name, but that is the one he is using for this thing that we're doing. This thing called Failure to Launch, and it's a specific kind of thing that is pretty different from what I do here. It's one of those let's play shows that all the tubers are doing these days.

If that's the sort of thing that interests you, take a gander. If listening to me talk a whole lot of nonsensical shit while my friend tries to explain how a computer game works sounds like your cup of tea, you should definitely take a gander.

I might try and find a way to tuck it away somewhere here on The Glue, so that you can stay informed. Sort of a cross promotional thing. For now though, it's over on the InterTubes.

I hope you're still reading to enjoy the flavoursome juices that United by Glue will be bringing you in the coming year. I look forward to smuggling these things deep into your brain for the purposes of mirth. 

Oh, I just thought of something. 

Porpoises of Mirth and a Happy New Year!

Strip Search Gives Us Sequential Art for Summer

I am going to preface this by saying that I am not really big into reality TV. Well, I love documentaries, and I sometimes watch the news, but that stuff that they make where people compete in a bunch of really artificial competitions and there is that 'gaming' process by which a competitor can be eliminated by conniving instead of through a lack of talent or skill. I don't like that. It's kind of nasty.

I also hate it when someone who is clearly very good at something and is still really young refers to the show as '[their] last chance'. I think that people should be eliminated immediately for that.

I am also going to preface this by saying that I have a really poor concept of the passage of time, and as a result am reliant on temporal landmarks and the general geography of life to remember when it was that I actually did something, or something was done unto me. This is hard when I do something on my own. That limits it, because the people involved are great indicators.

Actually, I can just go and look this one up. Gimme a sec.



I'm back.

So, it turns out it was mid last year.

'What was last year?', you might ask, which would be totally valid at this stage, because I have not at all been forthcoming with details yet. Strip Search (like in the title) would be the short answer to that question.

Now, before you get all like, 'What kind of reality TV are you watching? Is nudity the key component that is missing from The Block for you? Or perhaps it's the televised invasion of privacy and personal space that you enjoy', the show is not at all about the quest for bodily secreted contraband. It's not about that at all.

It's about comics! Which is also implied by the title. The title was pretty thorough, but what it didn't say was that they are webcomics. It wasn't that specific.

I like webcomics. I have for a long time. This isn't a recent thing for me. I was introduced to PvP by finding it left open by another student in a computer lab back in high school. That was 16 years ago!

Strip Search is a webcomic reality show where the winner got to be a part of the Penny Arcade machine. They got them some money too, but being a part of the aforementioned machine is huge.

Maybe I need to explain Penny Arcade first. No, look, let me just say they are the wizards at this thing. By just about any metric you might want to use, they are the winners of the webcomic game. They are the dominant species. Apex predators. Without the predatory behaviour though. They kind of do the opposite when they made Strip Search. It's their show, and it can be found at their internet.

There is more to the show than the personal interest I have in the subject matter. It has greater appeal than that, and that greater appeal comes from the people involved. They're nice. There is some good natured griefing, but they're all really nice to each other. They're respectful, and they want to be friends. They play their game that they're playing, but instead of being like Monopoly, it's like like something else. Some other game. A game that doesn't fray and tear at the very fabric of society. A game that doesn't ware through the basic foundations of civility and decency.

Monopoly is poison.

Strip Search is the opposite of that, which makes it the opposite of a lot of other reality TV.

You know what it's like? It's like It's a Knockout. Do you remember that? The one that ran in the 80s? Everyone was so positive. They're just glad to be there. It's like that, but with drawing.

You can watch it. It's online. Still. Even though it's about 18 months old. Maybe it will be forever. Who knows? And, unlike shows like The Block in which viewers don't really get an opportunity to benefit from the product of the show, we all get to benefit. A lot of strips have come out of the show. Not just form the winner, but pretty much everyone on the show benefitted greatly from the exposure, which means more tasty comics for us.

I'm going to do a separate post on the strips resulting from, and related to the show, so look out for that in the lead up to Christmas.

Hayao Miyazaki Movie Season on SBS

I assume that most of the people who read my blog are aware of the incredible work of Hayao Miyazaki. I feel like this is a fairly safe assumption with me and my parents making up three of my total readership of four (yeah, I read my own blog).

I don't need to sell him to you. That time has passed. The guy is crazy internationally revered for his contributions to his medium, and popular culture as a whole. You don't need me to tell you that. Maybe you do. Maybe you aren't really aware of the defining influence that this guy has had not only on animation in his home country, AND the international relationship with that animated output of that country of his home, BUT ALSO mostly responsible for a very different sort of broad range appeal than you would find in, say, a Disney Pixar film.

Maybe you need me to tell you those things.

Maybe you also need to be told that starting tomorrow night (Saturday, 2014-12-06) SBS 2 are running a Hayao Miyazaki Family Movie Season.

My Neighbour Totoro	1988	Saturday, 2014-12-06, 5:55pm
Kiki's Delivery Service	1989	Saturday, 2014-12-13, 6pm
Spirited Away	2001	Saturday, 2014-12-20, 6pm
Howl's Moving Castle	2004	Saturday, 2014-12-27, 6pm
Ponyo	2008	Saturday, 2015-01-03, 6pm

It's a good selection of his films. I mean, they aren't necessarily the five films that I would choose if I was trying to force my love of his films onto my friends and family, but they've included films from the late eighties and the the entire naughties, which are the two periods in which his popularity went through it's greatest growth.

In case you didn't notice, they're on Saturday nights for the next 5 weeks.

I'm not sure if they're going to end up on catchup, so if you don't have access to them in any other form, it might be worth your time to tune in.

Gravity Falls

Gravity Falls is this show that's going around at the moment. It's the sort of show that is very definitely my cup of tea. 'Meine Straße', to quote a friend.

I'm not above watching children's television programming. I've never said or implied otherwise. Maybe I have. I don't know. I'm not though. I don't think anyone is. People say that they are, but they're dumb. It's a dumb thing to say.

Gravity Falls is not dumb. I like it. It's funny, and more than a little morally obtuse.

It's about these twins (Mabel and Dipper) who are spending the summer (which apparently lasts multiple seasons) with their great uncle (gruncle) who owns and operates a tourist trap in Gravity Falls, Oregon. He gets a mysterious journal. She gets a pig. Paranormal adventures ensure.

It's good stuff.

I could go on about how it feels more like a classic Nickelodeon cartoon than it does anything that I've ever seen from Disney, but that about sums up that point. No. Wait. I might anyway. There is something in the vein of Hey Arnold!, The Adventures of Pete & Pete, and at times Ren & Stimpy by way of The X-Files going on here.

The ongoing plot is kind of engaging with its conspiracies, bizarre villains, and frequently unexplained dialogue and plot points, but if you do keep watching it will probably be because the voice cast is incredible, the script is funny, and the characters are endearing. It's a funny show. It keeps you chuckling.

It's a mirth machine. Mostly on account of its good-spiritedness. It's good-spirited. Even when the characters are doing morally questionable things (which is pretty frequent) they've got such wonderful intentions.

Well, a lot of the time they do. There are times when they range from 'just misguided' through 'selfish' all the way up to 'pretty much entirely morally bankrupt'. Regardless you will find it easy to invest in their victories and misadventures on account of that endearing nature of the characters that I mentioned earlier. It's good fun.

Look, watch this short credits sequence, and you'll understand (on some level) what kind of thing you could be watching if you were watching Gravity Falls. On another level this is just a great clip, and the show is pretty diverse in its comedic approach.

Yep, she taped the pig to the goat, and then married them.

The Fridge-Women of the Land of Tomorrow

If you've not heard of Women in Refrigerators, you should probably femaliarise with it, and the concept in general.

Is it an important (pop-)cultural observation? Yes, I think it is.

The general gist of this thing is that women are often sabotaged out of the 'actual character' column into being plot points for members of the member-gender, with specific reference to page 15 (I think) of Green Lantern vol.3 #54.

The site and the term are fifteen years old at this stage (and the comic just turned twenty), but it isn't really an out of date concept. The general undermining of female protagonists is an ongoing trend in media.

Samus Aran, bad-arse cosmic-bounty-hunter of Metroid (and its related sequels), has found the time in recent games to run about in her space-underwear and go uncharacteristically wobbly-kneed due to the pressures of the dangers that surround her and the presence of boys who can talk her through it.

This is the very same character whose reputation is based on repeatedly striding (arguably under prepared) into space-pirate planets and dying worlds in order to get business done. There are few characters who are depicted as being as calm under pressure in literally world-shatteringly dangerous situations as Samus Aran.

This was a strange direction to be approved by Nintendo after the unparalleled Metroid Prime Trilogy.

I don't really know what to say about all of this.

It's a shame.

That's what I can say.

It's a shame that I find comparatively few examples where female characters are afforded the same level of story arc epicocity and complexity as is given over to male characters. Even if female characters are being better written these days, and given better stories than they were previously, how many female characters get an Emerald Twilight, Return of the Dark Knight, or a Death and Rebirth of Superman?

I'm tired of falling back on Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Willow, who is the most interesting, hardworking, brave, intelligent character on that show (and would be on many others), and has the most interesting story arcs and trials to overcome.

And, while she is 'saved' by Xander in season six (after her own Woman in a Refrigerator moment), it is through The Power of Friendship and not through promises of marriage and babies like the end of The Fifth Element.

There are just a ton of questions I want answered.

Why do fantastic games with female protagonists like The Longest Journey and Syberia dwell in obscurity?

Why can't Princess Peach rescue herself from Bowser's Castle? I think it's called escaping. Where is that game?

Why isn't there a fantasy-kingdom-management game starring Princess Peach? She can't spend all her time getting captured and rescued?

Why don't they remake The Guardian Legend? Arguably, one of the most incredibly well designed games ever made, with or without a female protagonist.

While I'm glad that Scarlet Witch is being added to the roster in The Avengers: Age of Ultron, why don't She-Hulk, Mockingbird, any of the Spider-Women, Moondragon, Crystal, Firebird, Firestar, Echo, Wasp, Captain Marvel, Hellcat, Tigra, Madame Masque, the Kate Bishop Hawkeye, Terminatrix, or any of the other female Avengers get a look in?

Why isn't there a She-Hulk TV series that is a cross between a superhero show and a courtroom procedural show? Did I mention that She-Hulk is both a superhero and a highly skilled lawyer who frequently represents superheroes in court? Imagine looking at the superhero phenomenon from a legal perspective. Where is that show? I would absolutely watch that show.

Where is the Barbara Gordon film trilogy? From Batgirl to Oracle and the Birds of Prey. Protege to team leader in three films. A character who finally escapes the obsessive, unhealthy, and violent world of both her real father and symbolically adoptive father by being paralysed from the waist down, only to decide that they're both doing it wrong.

Where is the Hawkwoman film franchise that looks at the complex history of her origins as a militaristic police officer on her fascist home-world of Thanagar, to a superhero in exile on an unfamiliar Earth? What happens when both sides call her traitor after war breaks out between the two worlds she has called home?

Why don't they promote Katma Tui, Arisia Rrab, Boodikka, or any of the other female members of the Green Lantern Corps to the title lead of at least one of the five ongoing Green Lantern comics?

Why isn't there a cinematic sequel to Willow (the film, not the character) that focusses on the adventures of Elora Danan?

Why can't they revive Magnum, P.I. with Thomas Magnum's daughter, Lily Catherine Hue (who would be in her early thirties), as the eponymous star of the new show?

Why isn't Shadowcat (Kitty Pryde) the focal character of the X-Men film franchise instead of continually being sidelined so that other characters can play her roles in stories?

Why is Cutthroat Island the last pirate movie with a female lead that I can name? Female pirates were a thing. A real thing. An awesome real thing.

Why is DC Comics' Harlequin treated as a sex object instead of as a cautionary tale about successful women (she was a criminal psychiatrist at the top of her field) who become trapped in abusive relationships?

Holding up the infrequent example is not parity, but nor do numbers create equality. 

Willow

Let's talk about Willow, because it's shazzawesome.

I'm not saying that it's better than those Middle Earth movies, but it's my goto movie when I want me some fantasy. That and Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula's movie, which is also sweet, and also has a creepy dog in it.

While we're on the topic, have you ever watched How I Met Your Mother and hoped that when Ted's talking to his kids in the future he'll just start outlining the plot of Bram Stoker's Dracula? Every episode!

For me it's like the 'cat people' thing. You know how during the whole lead up to meeting someone who has been described as a cat person you're hoping that this time it's going to be a ThunderCats scenario, and then every time you're secretly (and sometimes not so secretly) disappointed.

It's like that.

If you're a cat person and I've come across as a little down when I meet you, it's because I promised myself a ThunderCat, and that is not what you are.

You're a cat enthusiast.

It's not that I don't like people who are into cats.

It's not that at all, but when you're expecting a chocolate milkshake made by Scott Bakula and it turns out that it's just brown, opaque water from the kitchen tap in that apartment I lived in in Enmore, you're going to be a little down.

If you're not down at first, you definitely will be once that water takes your immune system to the boundary for six.

Even when people describe themselves as a 'cat person' to my face (where I keep my eyes with which I can plainly see that they are not a 'cat person' by any reasonable definition), on the inside I'm all like, 'You're not really though, are you?', and once on a first date it was way less on the inside than it probably should've been.

The takeaway from that story is that if you tell someone that you would've preferred to be on a date with any of the age appropriate ThunderCats (of which only one is a woman), there isn't going to be a second date.

There also isn't going to be a whole lot more of that first date.

Anyway.

I don't know if you've seen Willow, but, as mentioned previously, it's shazzawesome. It's got hobbits, and wise wizards, and stop motion animation, and Val Kilmer playing himself. I mean, I've never met the guy, but this is how I imagine he is in his day to day life.

You should get into it.

They should make sequels.

Come on, Disney!

Timey-time, time, time

It is coming up on that time of year again.

Doctor Who time!

Which is, this time, also a new Doctor time.

Timey-time, time, time.

Time.

The time will actually be in late August. Kind of just after the 23rd.

I think.

I don't rightly know, to be honest. I haven't checked. It'll go out on the 23rd in the UK, and then everyone else gets it after, which is fair. He's their toy.

I like a new Doctor, which isn't to say that I didn't like the old ones, but I've seen enough now to know that this is the reason I like the show. I like that it is always different, but in a way it is always kind of the same too.

I tend to favour the incumbent. That appears to be the general rule for me. They will be my favourite until they are gone. It's part of the adventure.

This has meant that in my life time I have adored some of the much less popular Doctors, but I am okay with that.

But, that's what it's all about. It's all about change. The show endures because of it. Not just the cast, but 'everything changes': the tone; the genre; the style. It is a show about change. That's what's going on.

And, here we are again; time for more change.

I'm excited, and I like that there will be a carry on companion. They're always fun. Not always. That isn't true. When the Fourth passed to the Fifth he bequeathed a small legion of teens, which didn't go so well.

Their were too many, and they all had to be doing things, and each episode was only 25mins, and there were more than a few times that you thought, 'it might be nice if a couple of them would just stay on the TARDIS and have tea for just one story', but it never happened.

As a result of all of this they killed Adric, the maths kid. The Doctor actually made one of the other companions kill him in the TARDIS to conserve oxygen when it was shrinking. It used to be a pretty dark show. Actually, only some of that is true. Adric died. That is the true bit.

He died, and he took the dinosaurs with him.

It's odd, though, because the First Doctor had just as many pets, but didn't have the same pacing issues with his stories. They tended to operate in pairs and groups more I suppose.

Anyway, I've heard things about the new season that I don't really feel the need to talk about, but it all sounds exciting.

Here are the teaser trailers that were built to betease you into committing subconsciously to some sort of viewing arrangement.

King of the Impossible

As I sit here drinking my pink milk drink thing and watching Flash Gordon, I'm thinking to myself that I would get a kick out of being a space hero. Actually I am thinking a few things, and I am also writing this blog post, so there are more things going on than I had originally stated.

The things I am thinking alongside the aforementioned thing are(in no particular order that I care to explain): Queen is awesome; 'they' shouldn't be allowed to call it 'strawberry' when it is very clearly just 'pink' flavoured; I can never get my powdered milk to water ratios right; I should really see if there is any more of that new Flash Gordon comic; I'm sitting on something uncomfortable; and I've forgotten what my point was.

I've often wished I was a space hero, because space is cool. This isn't my 'inner child' either. Space is awesome. Adults can like space too. How do you think they choose the astronauts? I've expressed a general affection for space heroes and space hero related things. It can be generally considered that I'm into that sort of thing.

Some years are better than others in the space hero scene. We are in the process of getting a new Flash Gordon comic this year. I've only read the first episode (issue), but I'm going to keep reading it. Not the first issue, but the others that come out. I don't know if there are currently more than one. I've only seen the one, and it is pretty Flash-Gordony.

I watched that Space Dandy thing that I talked about earlier. I watched it all the way until the end of where they are up to, and I was well aware of the completionist's compulsion burning aware within me. I can pretty much guarantee that it is not everyone's cup of tea. The main characters' obsessions with 'chicks' and 'boobies' definitely wears pretty thin before the end of the first episode. I know it's meant to be an indictment of 'that sort of stuff', but it gets boring. There is this trend now to just say that something is an indictment of a thing and let that be the end of it, but I feel like there must be some greater obligation than that. Visually it is pretty stunning, and I found some of the stories strangely engaging, but the the other stuff pretty much ruins it.

I've been slacking off in the blogosphere lately. I've had other things that needed doing. 'Grownup stuff' mainly. I've written parts of a few things, but I have to finish some other things off before I get back to The Glue in a more comprehensive manner. It's not really a time management thing, which you can tell because I am watching Flash Gordon.

For the time being I will leave you with this:

Saturday Morning Transmissions from Mercury

As a child I obsessed over space, and as an extension I also obsessed over Captain Future and Space Pirate Captain Harlock. I would play the theme songs fast forwarding between them, riding the buzz to get to the next only to rewind and start the process over again. And over again. And over again. I revelled in the imagery they conjured, and the repetition reinforced it. As I grew older and my affinity for technology grew beyond the battery I inflicted upon that VHS with the VCR remote, I would blast those songs down colour coded wires to recording cassettes to take them wherever I needed them. And for the longest time I was never without them.

I've spoken recently of my continuing affection for Captains both Harlock and Future, and the theme songs that embedded them within my psyche. I've also spoken recently of their creator, Mark Mercury, whose work I am still listening to. Especially when I am riding trains for the day.

Why am laying this all on you on a Saturday morning (which is, by the way, when this is getting posted)? Well, I made contact with Mercury. That's right NASA! I beat you to it! It turns out Mercury has e-mail, so I didn't even need a rocket of any kind. My one-up on space programs aside, Mark Mercury was super amenable to my asking him lots questions about the work he has done, has been doing, and is doing. Amenable to the point of actually answering them, which is the level of amenability for which I was hoping.


A ton of your work, including your involvement with the planetariums and your album releases, is about space and science. Is this some that you've always had an interest in?

Ever since I was a kid I have been interested in space. I would love gazing at the stars, reading space-based science fiction, and taking trips to the planetarium. My interest in science developed later in life, and it's not as strong as my interest in space.

Has it always had an impact on your music, or did that come later?

The real impact on my music began in 1988, when I began creating scores for planetarium shows. Prior to that, I occasionally had ideas for self-originated musical works that were inspired by space, but I never realised them.

Are you a fan of science fiction? Can you tell me about some of the science fiction that inspired you, or really piqued your interest?

Yes, I am a fan, but I must admit I have read so little compared to what I would like to read. The most inspiring and deeply satisfying science fiction for me comes from the written word, because reading best simulates my imagination and emotions. Novels and short stories by classic authors such as Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, and Isaac Asimov made an early and lasting impression upon me. Science fiction about space, space travel and future civilisations is my favourite. What's most inspirational and interesting to me is the human role in future settings: the problems, challenges, and experiences that future humans face, how they affect humans physically and psychologically, and how the humans handle them. I do also enjoy audio and film productions of science fiction, but I don't get the same level of inspiration from them, probably because by their very nature they leave less to the imagination than the written word. Some of my favourite films are 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner, Alien, and The Terminator.

Can you talk a little bit about the aspects of space that fascinate you most?

Space, with its beauty, wonder, and mystery, is a never-ending source of inspiration for me. When I look out at the stars, the immense expanses of space and time make me feel as big as and as eternal as the universe. They open my heart and stimulate my imagination. I am moved to dream about the distant past and future. I am moved to create music.

The awesome and desolate aspects of space also fascinate me. I find vistas of barren, frigid, inhospitable planets and moons depicted by space artists to be quite inspirational.

Science has made much of this possible for me. Learning what astronomy has discovered about stars and galaxies makes for a much richer experience.

My composing tools come from science: synthesizers, computer software, and recording technology. I find the sounds of electronic music, with their futuristic quality, to be perfect from communicating my impressions of space. Those sounds, coupled with traditional orchestral timbres and accessed via digital audio files, make up my tonal palette.

Science fiction, too, has spurred my imagination and creativity. The writers of science put into words many of the same feelings and dreams that I put into music. They tell inspirational tales of the human element in a space of the future.

I live in Australia, and don't think that I've ever had the pleasure of hearing any of your planetarium work in its intended setting. Are there any planetariums in Australia that use your work? How did you become involved in working with the planetariums?

The shows in planetariums change often, so I don't think there are any shows of mine currently playing.

I got involved with planetariums in a roundabout way. In the mid-80s I took up painting as a side activity, and I soon found myself creating paintings with a space theme. Shortly thereafter I happened to stumble upon an art gallery exhibiting space art by various artists from the group called the IAAA (International Association of Astronomical Artists). The artworks were beautiful and inspiring. I felt like I had just discovered a band of kindred souls. I joined the group and quickly discovered that many of the artists worked at planetariums, creating the art for public shows. I asked one artist about doing music for those shows, sent in my demo tape to the show producer, and was soon composing the music for my first show, "Flying Blue Marble", at what is now called the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center.

My first experience with your music was through Captain Future and Space Pirate Captain Harlock on VHS, and unfortunately there isn't a lot of information available on the extent of your work on these projects. Can you talk a bit about this work?

My writing and producing partner at the time Hal Winn, and I were hired by an American animation company to compose and produce the music. For each show, we created a main title theme and a library of music that could be used for putting together a soundtrack for all episodes. I think the shows were originally done for the Japanese market. We did new music that would be used for the American and other markets. Hal Winn first wrote the lyrics for the main titles, then I followed with the music. In those days we used live musicians to record the basic tracks. Later I overdubbed the synthesizer parts. (Nowadays I rarely use live musicians.) Together we composed the background cues, and, using our library of cues, we picked which music was to be used for each episode. We hired Rick Sanford, lead singer at the time of the rock band Legs Diamond, to sing "Take to the Sky" (the Captain Harlock theme) and Nick Uhrig to sing the Captain Future theme.

I have a deep affection for both Captain Future and Space Pirate Captain Harlock, and they both had a huge impact on my life. Your theme songs are astounding. There is a distinct flavour to each of them that really matches their respective personality and style, even down to the perspective of the lyrics (first person for Captain Harlock and third person for Captain Future). At the same time they both really embody the spirit of that era of science fiction, capturing the morality, wonder, and grandeur of the post-moon landing/pre-cyberpunk era. Can you tell me anything about the approach taken in the writing of these theme songs in particular.

Thanks, I appreciate your comments. I remember working in the studio on these shows and wondering what would happen with the music. Would it just be background music and soon forgotten, or would it mean anything to anyone? So I'm glad to hear that you like the themes.

A lot of the credit goes to Hal Winn, who wrote the lyrics for those themes. As an experienced lyricist, he was very good at capturing the essence of a show in a creative lyric. I don't know how he approached the writing of the themes, but his lyrics inspired me to write the music. My intention in composing was (a) to make the rhythm tracks have some relevance to the styles of the day and (b) to create a feeling of adventure and space with the other instrumental parts and vocals that were overdubbed. While creating the music I constantly kept in mind and drew inspiration from the concepts of the shows, the various characters of the shows, and the space environment.

Your theme songs really capture the spirit of their shows. When writing theme songs, how much of the show would you watch throughout the writing process?

Enough to get a good feeling for what the show was about and how it was different from other shows....usually one complete episode plus sections of other episodes.

Would you ever listen to a show's original music when working with cartoons that were being dubbed?

If it was available, I'd listen to make sure I didn't inadvertently compose something that sounded like it. I would also notice which emotions were highlighted by the original music and compare them to my own reactions to the shows, as a test to see if I might be missing something important. Often the original music wasn't available for listening.

Are there theme songs of which you are particularly proud?

"Bad Baby"
"The Snow Queen"
"Ketchup Vampires"

All were animated shows, but without a space theme.

How difficult is it to balance your own artistic ideas with the directions given to you by producers and directors when working with studios or collaborators? Is there anything that you find that makes this process easier?

That's a great question. The ideal situation is that (a) I have been hired for a project because the director (or producer or choreographer) already likes my work and creativity and knows what to expect from me, (b) the director is willing to let me follow my heart and instinct and see what I come up with, (c) I find the project worthwhile, or high quality, and capable of inspiring me to create, and (d) I am in sync with the director's vision for the project. In that situation, it is not difficult to balance my artistic ideas with direction. Other things help too, such as when the director is confident about his (or her) vision and ability to make decisions, and when the director has a good understanding of what's involved with the composer's job.

Some media allow for more artistic freedom than others. For example, I will have more latitude working on a ballet than on a film.

How does your writing process change from when you are writing for yourself to writing for other people or projects?

Sometimes I think of creative work as simply a series of decisions...thousands of decisions one right after the other. What do I want to compose? What will be my tonal palette? What should the mood of this piece be? Should I use this note or that note? Should I set the filter on this patch to 83 or 85? Is this note too loud? Is this the best I can do?

When writing for myself, my creativity has no limits. Having that freedom is exciting and satisfying, and I can explore to my heart's content. However, I can't allow myself too much freedom. If there are continually no self-imposed limits, I run the risk of wandering all over the place creatively, which means I haven't yet made enough decisions.

When writing for other people or projects, the focus of my composing is predefined by the needs of the project, so on the one hand it means less work for me because a lot of the decisions have already been made, but on the other hand it means there are limits that I can in no way violate, so there is a sense of constraint. If there is enough room for me to be creative and to maintain my artistic integrity, the constraint is not excessive.

Are there any future projects that you can tell us about, or that you are really looking forward to?

I'm finishing up a short piece that features the erhu (Chinese violin), recorded live in the studio, set against a musical backdrop of electronic/spacy sounds. It's an experiment I wanted to try--combining the beautiful, traditional erhu with electronic music.

I will also compose more pieces for ballet and/or modern dance and have them realised by dance companies. I have several pieces in development now. One thing I would really like to do is find a choreographer who wants to collaborate on creating a ballet or modern dance piece using a space theme and setting.

Also, I plan on composing the music for a permanent, large-scale installation with an electronics/technology theme in collaboration with a visual artist (whom I have yet to find). The artwork (a sculpture or 3D work of some kind) would express the electronic aspect of technology in a highly aesthetic way. The music would be atmospheric and would will a large space, such as the lobby of a large building.

There is a really distinct progression in your available work, which gives the impression that you like to explore your own and style and approach. Are you working on any more album releases? If so, how do you think it will vary from your previous projects?

Yes, I am very motivated to explore my own style and approach. I am so glad to have electronic music to work with because it allows for so many new possibilities in sound. I am also lucky to be living in the digital age when recording technology provides so much creative flexibility.

When I have enough new, completed works that complement each other well as part of a collection, I will release another album. In any case, they will all be available singly for download on the 'net. One possibility is to release an album consisting only of my works for dance. Many of my past projects focussed on space. What I'm doing currently has elements of space, but the focus is more general. Nevertheless, how much I may roma about the universe of music, I always periodically return to a focus on space because it does resonate deeply with me.

You've written a book about playing jazz, and I believe there is also a YouTube video on clusters, and I was wondering if you get the chance to play jazz live very often, or whether it is something you do more for yourself?

Years ago I found that playing jazz regularly interfered with my composing. Daily improvising seemed to use up my creative energy for composing, and if I concentrated on composing continually my improvising suffered. So, I had to make a choice, and because I am fundamentally a compose and not a jazz musician, I chose composing. I still like to sit down and improvise at the piano now and then, not restricting myself to jazz, but playing whatever ideas come to me at the moment.

I wrote "How to Get More Ideas while Improvising Jazz" because I felt that I had something of value to offer to intermediate jazz musicians, something to help them access their creativity and express it through improvising.

Have you ever thought about recording and releasing a jazz piano album?

No, for the reasons given above.

I hope your other projects are going well. Can you say what they are?

I was recording an additional music track for a film titled A Man Called God. Some of my music is already in the film and the trailers. Then I was doing some audio work on the narration track for the same film.



This whole experience has been pretty exciting for me. I mean, I found out that Mark Mercury likes Blade Runner, uses Oxford commas, and contributed so much more music to the shows that I love than the themes. Have you seen these shows? You should if you haven't. The music is amazing.

I should organise a viewing of my VHS. Everyone can come and take part, you know, if you're interested. Look probably not 'everyone', but everyone who is interested. Hopefully. I can do this multiple times. Ask my mum. I'll back-to-back it as many times as necessary. She knows. She has seen it. Then I will keep going while the rest of you sleep. Anyway, it's awesome.

I would like to say thank you again to Mark Mercury, whose Art of Space and Music from Cycles of Spheres both live on my iPod these days, and whose earlier work had a massive impact on my childhood.