This book actually makes things noticeably easier by talking about the process of designing the movie’s worlds and, crucially, one man’s role within that. Syd Mead is one of the greatest designers in modern movie history, a man whose work has been featured in everything from Star Trek: The Motion Picture to Blade Runner and mecha design. Mead’s insight and style has been stamped all over both the fictional future and the actual present. His work is astonishing, and some of the book’s most interesting sections concern his recruitment onto Elysium. Blomkamp’s astonishment that he could now legitimately recruit one of his idols is very sweet and it’s a credit to Mead, now in his ’70s that he not only keeps up with the industry but knew and was impressed by Blomkamp’s work.

His work here, largely on the Stanford Torus-design of Elysium itself is amazing, filled with the clean lines and elegance he’s justifiably known for. There’s some interesting insights into the station’s internal design, too.

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The book really highlights the way the two worlds of the movie collide. Elysium is vast, squeaky clean, beautiful and just a little tacky (after all, just because you’re a billionaire who can afford to live off Earth that doesn’t mean you have taste). In contrast, Earth is a barren favela; a wasteland crammed full of people, tattoos, gang tags and repurposed decades-old cars and weapons. The class war element of the movie is encoded into it on a near cellular level and that’s there on every single page. The book walks you through the design of Max, the robots that run his world, his work place, his exo frame, the horrifying surgery he undergoes and the weapons and vehicles he uses to get to Elysium. Each is dirty, old, battered and the best possible option. If Elysium is heaven, then Earth is clearly hell.

Seeing the two design philosophies and locations collide in the movie is heady enough on the page. It’s like cyberpunk and Kubrickian futurism got blind drunk and did frantic, sweaty things to each other on the set of the latest Mad Max movie. If a tenth of the feverish energy involved in designing the movie is on screen, then we should be in for a very fun experience. As it stands, the book is a beautifully designed look at the fractious world behind the movie and how it was built. Blomkamp, Mead and the other designers have created the most beautiful ugly world I’ve seen in a long time. Hopefully the movie set there will be as much fun as the world clearly was to design.

Alasdair Stuart

The post BLOG Elysium: The Art Of The Film REVIEW appeared first on Game News.

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Remember that scene when they blew up the White House in Independence Day ? Remember seeing the Statue Of Liberty’s head roll down the street in Cloverfield? They were huge iconic moments. Moments that set up their respective film’s threats; events which set the stakes as high as possible. Sure we’d seen landmarks destroyed in sci-fi films before but these two incidents managed to make it look so real. And as the films progressed there was a sense of loss, a sense of scale.

Since then, the destruction of famous landmarks and cities from across the world has become more commonplace in sci-fi and disaster movies. We’ve seen New York and other American cities destroyed numerous times, Liberty has been knocked over time and time again, we’ve seen London, Paris and Rome suffer similar fates. And it’s all getting a bit boring. Sometimes it furthers the story as it should, but lately there seems to be so much destruction for destruction’s sake…

In films like 2012 or Knowing we expect destruction on a ridiculous scale. That sort of thing is written into the DNA of sci-fi disaster films. But for most sci-fi films I don’t think it’s a prerequisite. In recent years the third acts of some sci-fi films have been overflowing with scenes of mass destruction. Since CGI came along there seems to be no end to the amount of destroyed buildings and ruined cities smeared across our big screens. And not only are we treated to these orgies of destruction but sometimes they seem to be happening with less and less consequence for their film’s characters and even less viewer investment; they seem to be a means to an end and we become immune to it.

At least in 2012’s The Avengers they made an effort to get some pathos and consequence into the events during the battle of New York. Sure they had giant space worms levelling whole buildings but they did show the heroes trying to rescue some people, and there was a nod to trying to limit the damage. Except Hulk, he just smashed. And speaking of the Hulk, the death and destruction rained down in the character’s last solo outing is reduced to a “last time I was in New York I kind of broke… Harlem.” joke in the ensemble film. God knows how many dead, how many millions worth of damage and it’s a throw away joke line. Do they even want us to care about the stakes?

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The next big film on the way is Pacific Rim and that looks like it’ll make the destruction depicted in the films mentioned above pale into insignificance. But will we care?

I get that big summer blockbusters and events films sometimes need to be, well, big. And I love a gigantic battle as much as the next person. Honestly, I love big explodey fun. I just wonder where it’s heading? Would we not be better off with events that actually engage the audience? I’m not saying every film needs to end with only a small, personal one-on-one fight, even though we usually get that right after the mass destruction anyway. I just think that big isn’t necessarily always better. And if the stakes of destruction are getting higher and higher, then where will it end? Just how big can the battles get? And will we care? Are we even supposed to care anymore?

Steven Ellis

The post BLOG CGI Smash appeared first on Game News.

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Whilst we’re in Doctor Who limbo, waiting to find out who the next Doctor will be, how long the new season is, what John Hurt’s role is and the other members of the never ending Legion Of Questions, it’s easy to get bored. Admittedly things can’t get much worse than the “Paris Jackson is the new Doctor” story excreted last week, but they can get much more boring than they already are. Thankfully, the team at UsVsTh3m has put together an episode plot generator that, in six lines of Java, throws out some unnervingly plausible sounding episodes.

And it’s a wonderful time sink. Also, I’d like to personally throw my support behind the “David Bowie as the White Guardian” campaign now, following a particular great random plot it generated for me a few days ago.

Regardless of your thoughts on whether the Thin White Duke should be the Thin White Gallifreyan, it’s a fun toy and was how I found UsVsTh3m . There’s some great stuff on the site, much of it cheerfully sweary in an NSFW kind of way, and I talked to founder Martin Belam about it, and what their plans are.

Tell us a little about the site.

“ UsVsTh3m is our crack at being funny on the internet. Editorially it is lead by Rob Manuel, who founded B3ta , and the premise is that each day we make stuff we hope is funny; the rest of the internet makes some funny stuff; we publish both, and at tea-time send out an email announcing who has “won” that day according to our secret formula.”

What led to the decision to set it up?

“Trinity Mirror is funding it. It has a digital strategy that involves setting up some new sites and trying to reach new audiences, and it is also trying to be more experimental with its digital publishing. We had a workshop with a few people from the business and some of the editorial team, settled on the premise, and got it up and live within five weeks.”

You’ve got some wonderful geek humour up there, especially the magnificent Icefail. Is that something you’re deliberately skewing towards or is it naturally evolving?

“In the long term, we’d aim to have a more mainstream audience, but in the short-term it seems wise to play to our strengths, which is being a bit geeky and poking fun at the media. I think our style will naturally evolve: the day we launched to the public was the first time that some of the writing team had ever met each other, let alone worked together.”

The Doctor Who plot generator is a thing of awful beauty, and terrifyingly convincing. What’s your favorite episode it’s generated so far?

“Someone posted a picture on Twitter of what could have been a pretty convincing plot-line for the 50th special. It actually started life as an attempt to generate fake spoilers for November, but then we just started adding sillier and sillier ideas into it. I feel a bit mean having delivered a bit of a slap to the current state of the show like that: there’s a long tradition of fans giving the team running it a hard time because it doesn’t fit with some mythical idea of how Doctor Who ‘ought’ to be. I love the cameos generated by the JavaScript though: it is essentially a wish list of who I’d like to see next year – Tom Baker as the voice of a villain, or David Bowie.”

What’s next for the site?

“We’ve got enough money to run it for a couple of months as an experiment, and if it goes well I hope we’ll add more staff and start to publish more than 9-5, 5 days a week. We are also going to be running some comedy events alongside it, as a way of helping us come up with new content.”

• UsVsTh3m is off to a great start, hitting multiple different styles of comedy and subject matter with the same maniacal glee. Visit for the Doctor Who plot generator, stay for the jokes. It’s worth it.

The post BLOG Doctor Who In Six Lines Of Java appeared first on Game News.

I know I’ve moaned about the advertising juggernaut that accompanies the release of any blockbuster film before. I’ve lamented the passing of a more subtle style of advertising.

And today I realised that I miss the movie posters of my childhood.

For most of my childhood, like many kids, I had posters on my bedroom walls. My three of favourite posters were the Star Wars “Circus” poster, a Raiders Of The Lost Ark poster and an ET The Extraterrestrial poster.

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The artist who drew the three posters will be very well known to readers of a certain age: if hot his name, that at the very least his art will be very familiar. He is Drew Struzan, and his work probably graced the childhood walls of a fair number of people reading this article. You may, like me, still have his art on your walls. You definitely have his work in your DVD or Blu-ray shelves.

Other fads came and went. Other posters came and went, but those three posters were always there on my bedroom wall and were always the first to go back up on the wall after the occasional redecorating my mum inflicted upon the room. These days I still have movie poster art by the same artist on my wall. But now they’re in a much artier, adult looking postcards-on-a-black-background format in my living room and they’re the ’97 Star Wars Special Edition movie posters and the three posters for the prequels.

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Drew – has there even been a more apt name? – Struzan has been responsible for the poster art of so many of the films from our childhood; he created iconic artwork for Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Blade Runner, Back To The Future, ET, The Goonies and many, many more. He became the go-to guy for Lucas, Spielberg and many other film makers. It was rare for an action/sci-fi film in the late ’70s and ’80s for poster art work not to be drawn by him.

Struzan started out doing album covers for the likes of The Beach Boys, Earth, Wind & Fire and even Black Sabbath back when LPs were still popular; he also dabbled in film posters but the work was mainly for B-movies. His breakthrough piece was the aforementioned Star Wars “Circus” poster for the 1978 re-release of the film. He’d only ended up working on it as a favour to another artist – Charles White – who wasn’t a fan of portraiture. That single poster began Struzan’s association with film posters in the public eye and the artist has been in demand ever since.

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Over the years Drew has painted images of some of the most famous film stars out there and his depictions of them are always fantastic; from Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher in Star Wars to right through to Daniel Radcliffe’s Harry Potter he manages to catch each actor perfectly.

After completing artwork for the advertising campaign for Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull ( blimey, was there room on the poster for artwork after a title like that? – ed ) Struzan announced his retirement in September of 2008, although he didn’t actually stop working; he just works less these days. He recently did a The Walking Dead teaser poster for AMC and he still does alternate artwork for many films.

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In 2010 Struzan was the subject of “Drew: The Man Behind The Poster”, a documentary about the man and his work, which featured interviews with filmmakers and actors including Harrison Ford, George Lucas, Michael J Fox, Frank Darabont, Guillermo del Toro and Steven Spielberg among others. There’s also a book celebrating the man’s work out there too. Whether you know the work of Drew Struzan or not; whether this is a trip down memory lane, a new discovery or an artist you want to find out more about, both are well worth a look if you get the chance. Alternatively you can take a look at his website here . You won’t regret it.

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I think in all honesty I’d swap most of the modern movie posters and countdown posters for one decent piece of art by Drew Struzan for each film released. Maybe it’s me, maybe it’s a desire to return to a more innocent childhood age, or maybe I just think less is more. In this age of Photoshopped movie posters and uninspiring promotional images a piece of film poster artwork by Struzan from 20 years ago can still take your breath away. The man is such a genius; he can take everything you need to know about a film and put it all in one single, beautiful, and elegant piece of art. I think Drew Struzan’s poster art represents a golden age in cinema, an age which I sorely miss.

So are you a fan of Struzan’s work? Do you have a favourite poster?

Steven Ellis

The post BLOG The Power Of A Poster appeared first on Game News.

My weekly fix of spaceships and war has gone the way of the dodo too; Star Wars: The Clones Wars left our screens just last month after five seasons and 108 episodes. The shows makers say there might be more, but in what format they haven’t said. I’m really going to miss that show.

Over on this side of the pond we said goodbye to both BBC 1’s Merlin (five series and 65 episodes) and BBC 3’s Being Human (also five series with 37 episodes in total) in recent months. Both those shows were already airing before we found out that they were ending which made the final episodes that little bit more precious. I’m really going to miss Being Human ; Merlin not so much, but there are plenty of you out there who will. ( Don’t forget that E4 has announced the fifth season of Misfits will be its last, also – ed. )

After reading this back I’m starting to wonder if Community ’s Abed wasn’t far wrong with his “Six season and a movie” line; just drop the movie and one of the seasons and that covers the shows I mention above. I also think I just found the title for this blog…

I know we lose TV shows all the time, for whatever reasons: finance or a lack of viewers; studios having a change of direction; sometimes creators wanting to move on. The five shows listed above can each cite one or more of those reasons. But its always sad to see them go. I realise that TV is business and that low ratings or rising costs can end a show and I accept that. I just don’t understand how better shows are leaving our screens and mediocre shows seem to go on and on. This isn’t a new thing, I’m sure we can all think of shows we loved which have been cancelled while other shows seemed to just go on and on for years and we never understood why.

Over the years I’m sure we’ve all had shows that we didn’t want to end; I know I have a long list of them. From Farscape to Angel , there’s plenty of shows which I think ended before their time. I’m sure anyone reading this can name at least one show which they’d love to see back on our screens. (Yes; the one that just popped into your head as you were reading.)

I hear a lot of people talking about Fringe or Being Human ; saying that at least they went out on a high before they got old and tired. Cancelled before they “jumped the shark” – or are we saying “nuked the fridge” these days? – is another thing I hear. And while I suppose I understand the sentiment, I have to disagree. The above shows I mentioned above were nowhere near their sell-by dates creatively. All five were providing gripping and exciting storylines right up to the end. Being Human has successfully replaced its entire original cast and was still firing with all guns which is quite a feat. The Clone Wars was consistently brilliant and showed no signs of fatigue or a drop in quality. If anything it was getting better.

I know that there are plenty of new shows on the telly. My Sky+ box is full of stuff. New shows like Revolution ; returning favourites like Game Of Thrones or Doctor Who ; there are shows which will be coming back for another season at some point like Falling Skies and Continuum; and there are a few new shows the horizon like Defiance to look forward too. But I have to say I’m just not as excited about any of these shows as I was about some of the ones we’ve lost. The shows I’m watching now just aren’t gripping me as much as the shows we’ve lost did. I’m just not overly passionate about any of them; I enjoy some of them sure, but none of them are my favourite hour of the week, none of them are “must-watch live” TV for me. I just wish I could make some the shows that I mentioned at the top of this blog come back. If I had to pick just one show to bring back it’d be Fringe ; I think I could stand to lose almost all the shows I’m currently watching in exchange for another full season of the adventures of Walter, Peter and Liv.

So, my question to you is which TV shows do you miss the most and if you could bring any show back from the dead which one would it be?

Steven Ellis

The post BLOG Five Seasons. No Movie appeared first on Game News.

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Jamie Smart is one of the best comic creators you may not have heard of. He’s best known for work like Corporate Skull , a cheerfully sweary web comic about an office drone who has his face accidentally taken off in a frankly surreal photocopier accident and as I write this is having real trouble accepting that he gets to fight both vampires and zombies now.

However, Jamie’s also been behind the splendid Space Raoul , countless pieces for The Dandy , Fishhead Steve , The Arena Of Awesome and Doctor Who: Monster Invasion . His work’s brilliant, energetic, fast, detailed and extremely funny, whether in kid-friendly or NSFW mode. Jamie has a new idea and it’s a doozy.

He’s going to help save kids’ comics. And you’re going to help him.

The plan behind Moose Kid Comics is simple. Kids’ comics in this country are brilliant and… overlooked. The Dandy folded its print edition recently after 75 years whilst the utterly brilliant The Phoenix is doing well but still needs far more attention than it gets.

Moose Kid Comics is based around original characters rather than licensed ones and that’s so rare that there’s not even any competition to speak of. Any new arrival is a chance to raise the entire genre a little and that’s what Jamie wants to do: create an entirely new zero issue filled with original characters that would show exactly how energetic and creative and vibrant kids’ comics are. This zero issue will be made available as a free download and will be shown to investors as a demonstration for how any print title would be. In addition, once it’s done, KickStarter campaigns will be planned out to help bring any print issues to the market. But for now, that’s very much in the future. Right now, here’s what you need to know:

• Jamie’s looking for artists to create original characters for a zero issue of a new kids’ comic

• All rights to your character will remain with you.

• There’s no pay. Right now.

Jamie describes the sort of material he’s looking for as “the wild hysteria of Ren And Stimpy , mashed with the brilliantly charming Adventure Time .” So, if your work feels like it fits that category, all you need to do is email your website to moosekidcomics@gmail.com or check out www.moosekidcomics.com to see the plan in full detail.

Regardless, if you’re a comic creator and you work in this field, or think you can, give it a shot. Who knows, the next iconic kids’ comic character could be patiently waiting for the door in your head to open even now…

Alasdair Stuart

The post BLOG How You Can Help Save Kids Comics appeared first on Game News.

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I can see spaceships on the horizon. It might take a while but I live in the hope that they’re coming…

With the demise of Fringe the only sci-fi show we really have left is the time travel based show Continuum . There’s Defiance, the new show coming from Sci-Fi, sorry SyFy, later this year and there should be another season for Falling Skies , but really we’re pretty bereft of stuff that doesn’t have swords or fangs in. And spaceship-based TV shows are, at the moment, pretty none existent.

Gone are the days of Star Trek and Stargate taking us to far off planets every week. There’s no sign of far off planets or alien encounters at all on our TVs at the moment. Where are all the spaceships? I’ve lamented their passing many a time. Now we’re shown darker, fantastical, hidden versions of our world today or we’re taken off into lands of fantasy. On the supernatural front it’s all vampires and zombies.

This month’s SFX is being touted as the “Fantasy Issue”, the focus being on the slew of fantasy movies due out this year. The latest SFX also has a pretty big feature on Game Of Thrones . You can look at TV at the moment and see most of the big genre shows are fantasy or supernatural fare, with the odd superhero show thrown in. Grimm, Lost Girl and Once Upon A Time come to mind or True Blood and The Walking Dead . Not that I’m against fantasy or supernatural type shows – some of them are really good – but I would swap one of them for some weekly shiny space battle action. There are often rumours of a remake of this spaceships show or that spaceship show, but little usually comes of it. And I want spaceships dammit!

Cinema has a broader selection, but is still lacking in great outer space action… Superhero adaptations are all the rage at the moment, and these films tend to have their feel planted firmly between sci-fi and fantasy generally, but are thin on the spaceship front. There’s a high number of fantasy and fairy tale adaptations too; just check out this month’s SFX . With the exception of the Star Trek reboot there’s very little in the way of proper space-based sci-fi. Sure we have a steady drip-drip of post apocalyptic or alien invasion sci-fi movies; there’s the odd spaceship seen here and there (usually hanging over a city) but even they seem to be variations on a very similar theme.

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Anyone who’s read my blogs will know I miss the spaceships and just recently I’ve starting to wonder – or maybe hope – that Disney’s plans for Star Wars will lead to a resurgence of space-based drama on our TVs. It happened in the late ‘70s. Sci-fi in general has a lot to thank Star Wars for; the landscape of our little genre would look a lot different without it, but loads and loads of spaceships is what I’m really grateful for. After 1977, everybody wanted a Star Wars in their stable and the film led to TV shows like Buck Rogers and Battlestar Galactica . Star Wars also led to a resurgence of Star Trek ; changing the course of a possible reboot TV series and leading to the 1979 motion picture, and the rest of the film series. Which in turn eventually led to the franchise jumping back to our TV screens in 1987. That Star Trek resurgence is one which has pretty much lasted until now.

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With Disney announcing plans for another Star Wars trilogy and two stand alone films over the next decade I’m starting to wonder – hope – if people, and TV execs, will fall in love with space and spaceships again.

There is one flaw in my hopes; the prequels didn’t really lead to any increase in spaceship TV shows. Unless you count the Battlestar Galactica remake and maybe Farscape . But still. I can keep my fingers cross and maybe, just maybe, I’ll see spaceships soaring across my TV screen again soon.

So what do you think? Do you want spaceships back on our screens? Which space based show would you have back on our screens? Are there spaceships on our televisual horizon or will we continue to be treated to epic fantasy, supernatural shenanigans and arc heavy serious shows doomed to last only one season? Do you think Star Wars stands a chance of changing the TV show landscape once again?

Help me “Disney Star Wars ” franchise. You’re my only hope…

Steven Ellis

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The post BLOG Spaceships On The Horizon appeared first on Game News.

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So, buried in a Variety article about the shifting power of various Warner Bros execs is this little gem:

“Stakes are high for Man Of Steel . Other than Nolan’s Batpics, Warners has not been able to effectively exploit the DC library. Its 2011 Green Lantern underperformed, and a Justice League film wouldn’t likely be in theatres before 2015, as Warner’s top brass have indicated that they are awaiting the results of Man Of Steel – which opens June 14 – before moving further ahead.”

Superficially, this looks like exactly the sort of havering and indecision that’s blighted DC’s movie projects for years now. I’m not even talking about the old, “The last two Batman movies and Catwoman were rubbish” chestnut but rather the never-ending stream of vapourware DC has announced over the last few years: Flash movies being linked to both Ryan Reynolds and Bradley Cooper; Supermax, a supervillain prison movie that would have opened up a Green Arrow series; the cancelled Joss Whedon-scripted Wonder Woman movie (you know that has to sting these days); and, most recently, the George Miller-directed Justice League movie that had got to costume fittings for the cast before the plug was pulled.

DC is the Could-Have-Been King, buried beneath failed projects, while Marvel has multiple, successful, inter-related franchises. Of course, DC does have the Nolan Batman movies, Green Lantern and Man Of Steel to point to, but even those have got caught up in the endless second guessing. Green Lantern took a critical and commercial drubbing, and there have been countless contradictory rumours about whether both that and the Nolan Batman movies are going to be incorporated into the larger movie universe or stand alone. They’ve not even been able to give a definitive or coherent answer about whether Henry Cavil’s Superman will be in Justice League , when (if) it finally happens. So, when you look at all that, it’s easy to view this latest piece of news as yet another disappointment. Marvel has a massively successful franchise made out of successful franchises. DC is watching Chris Nolan’s limousine drive off, trying not to cry…

Or is it?

There’s another way of looking at it. What if Man Of Steel is being used as the cornerstone for all future movies? Just like Marvel introduced concepts and ideas in the original Iron Man that would run through to Marvel Phase 2 and the imminent SHIELD TV show, what if Man Of Steel introduces the basis of a shared DC movie universe?

Think about it – you could build an entire raft of other characters’ movies from their reactions to that fight, and to Superman’s appearance, What if the events in Metropolis make the Amazons of Themyscira realise that they need to send an ambassador to the world of men? What if some of the citizens of Metropolis are helped by an unusually stern police detective called John Jones? Or saved by something impossibly fast, a red and yellow blur of heroism that’s gone in a flash? What if, as has been rumoured, the last thing we see in Man Of Steel is the Nolan movies Batman, watching him from a distance? Why not go the whole hog and have the events in Metropolis be mentioned in Arrow , setting up an appearance for that character? It’s a massively successful show and it’d be nice to see DC reward that for once.

Of course it’s all guess work, but, right now, I’m choosing to assume the best rather than the worst. DC has some magnificent characters in its roster and I’d love to see DC get the Avengers -treatment. Plus, whilst it’s a lot to put on the shoulders of one movie, and one character, I’m confident. After all, if Superman can’t pull DC’s movies out of the doldrums? Who can?

Alasdair Stuart

The post BLOG Man Of Steel Must Show Its Mettle appeared first on Game News.

Adam Roberts is one of the most consistently inventive voices working in modern science fiction. His work ranges from playful parodies released under a pseudonym to books that take the basic principles of science fiction and do something genuinely surprising with them.

For example, Yellow Blue Tibia is the story of a Russian alien invasion, devised during the Cold War, and what happens when it starts to actually take place, while upcoming novel Twenty Trillion Leagues Under The Sea is a sequel to 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea set in 1955. The French navy build a replica of the Nautilus from Nemo’s blueprints and launch it in complete secrecy. However, when an accident sends it plummeting towards the seabed, the crew frantically try to make repairs. Until they realise that somehow the pressure is equalising… Twenty Trillion Leagues Under The Sea is scheduled for release later in the year, and Adam Robots – an anthology of the short stories he wrote as part of a challenge to produce a tale set in every sub-genre and premise science fiction has made famous – is out now. Adam’s having a very good year, especially as he’s about to be the subject of his first academic conference.

New Genre Army: An International Conference On The Writing Of Adam Roberts will take place on Friday the 5 April in Lincoln. Keynote Speakers include Prof Farah Mendlesohn from Anglia Ruskin University and Dr Andrew M Butler from Canterbury Christ Church. Conference organisers Christos Callow Jr and Dr Caroline Edwards, both from the University of Lincoln, have arranged sponsorship by both the University and Glyphi: Arts and Humanities Publisher as part of the Glyphi Contemporary Writers series.

However, this isn’t just a conference for academics. The aim is to bring fans, scholars, writers and critics together for the first time, to discuss the literature and ideas that Adam works with in his novels. This, ladies and gentlemen, is a chance to geek out about Adam’s work in new company, as well as a chance to get a different perspective on one of your favourite authors. The call for papers is also open to anyone, not just academics, so if you’re interested, get in contact at the details below and they’ll let you know how to submit.

Alasdair Stuart

• Contact the conference on: newgenrearmy@gmail.com
• Details of how to submit an abstract: http://www.h-net.org/announce/show.cgi?ID=198687

The post BLOG Adam Roberts Conference appeared first on Game News.

Written by Dave West
Art by Andy Bloor
£3.00 ( The Wolfmen ) • £3.95 ( Fall Of The Wolfmen )

Jack Grey is a criminal on the up, a man completely at home with violence and wanting nothing more than to make a name for himself. The Wolfmen is a legendary London gang whose brutality is matched only by its professionalism. The Wolfmen want Jack, and Jack wants in, but glory always comes at a price, even in the underworld…

Dave West’s story is as lean and focussed as its lead character. Broken into two acts, one in each book, it pointedly steps behind the façade of the gangland hard man to show Jack for what he is; someone too shallow to realise how shallow they are, a man so devoted to making a “name” for himself that everything else has fallen away.

Jack’s a weapon, or rather has convinced himself he’s one, and it’s only once he’s met the Wolfmen that he realises just how wrong he is. As the first volume continues we see Jack join the Wolfmen, work a job with them and discover the truth, as well as what it will cost him. It’s a brutally simple gangland story and its made all the more effective by Andy Bloor’s astounding, black and white artwork. Characters seem chiselled from the world around them, each one tight and focussed and prepared for violence whilst the constant play of shadow and white light makes for striking, nourish visuals.

This is particularly true of the second book, Fall Of The Wolfmen , where Jack finds himself aided by the Ghosts, a rival gang. Despite being described as wearing white suits, the Ghosts are barely brighter than the Wolfmen, shards of night with pistols instead of teeth that are just as ruthless and, in the end, just as doomed. There’s always another predator, always someone younger and faster and crueller wanting your spot and as book two closes, it becomes clear that Jack may not be as done with the business as he’s previously thought.

The second book also does a good job of fleshing out Jen, Jack’s embittered girlfriend and Detective Knight, a solid, methodical police offer assigned to Jack’s case. Knight is a great addition; a crumpled Colombo-esque figure who provides the closest thing the books gets to a hero. Like everyone else he’s very much a pulp archetype, good cop in a bad city, but that’s a strength in a book where the hero is a murderous criminal with distinctly lycanthrophic tendencies.

Wolfmen and its sequel are polished, nasty, fun pieces of horror noir . There’s a complete story here but the door is also left open for more and volume three would certainly be welcome. After all, down these mean streets a lonely wolf man must walk and all that…

Alasdair Stuart

• The Wolfmen and Fall Of The Wolfmen have entered the digital age and are now available on the iPad through the Lush Comics app.

The post BLOG The Wolfmen & Fall Of The Wolfmen appeared first on Game News.