TV DINNERS

I've just been watching 2001 A Space Odyssey. There's so much to say about Kubrick's meisterwerk so I'll start with something quite banal, but something I love to see in films, food or more precisely, meals. I think that add an essential human quality.

There are a number of meals in 2001, ranging from Moon Base executive delicacies to Moon Bus space chicken sandwiches, but it is the plastic tray meals that I'm particularly fond of. These are eaten by the two astronauts of Discovery One, Dr's Bowman and Poole.

There is something totally futuristic about these compact white plastic trays filled with coloured pastes and part of a future I felt sure we'd be enjoying by now. I suppose plastics where part of the white hot technological revolution of the 1960's in a way we just don't view them now. Plastic household items were icons of the future back then and I remember my Mum proudly storing food in Tupperware pots in the fridge. Tupperware was synonymous with a brighter cleaner tomorrow and there were front room parties to celebrate its usefulness. Sadly I never got to go to one. You?

 

The closest I've got to Kubrick's beautiful white trays in my 52 years are a set of gorgeous orange camping trays stacked and strapped together and very similar to these on Etsy [mine are buried in the loft somewhere!]

In terms of food in space the nearest we all come to experience this nowadays is the in-flight meal provided by airlines. It's still a far cry from the processed symmetry of 2001's trays isn't it!

But without doubt my own odyssey into processed tray food was during the 1990's when I used to love what were called 'tv dinners'. Around since the 50's in America, they took off in the UK in the 60's with the advent of domestic refrigeration at the cutting edge, the ice box and the chest freezer. TV dinners came in handy Kubrickesque compartmental trays, either foil or plastic and often contained pastel-coloured veg, mash and meat in gravy. They came in their own cardboard packaging [ a great collecting  area I reckon!] and often kept me going after working late. My favourite were the chicken or turkey TV dinners. A sort of Apollo Sunday dinner. Mmmmm. Processed heaven and excellent training for space travel!

The modern 'ready meal' is the posh progeny of TV dinners and hold nothing of their futuristic charm. Or is this my nostalgic bias? Does anyone else like TV dinners?

GOING UP TOWN

Me and Missus Moonbase went up town today, something we haven't done for ages on a Saturday. And to think, it was absolutely essential, almost sacramental,  when we were all kids! We lived for Saturdays!

 

 

The Missus and me used the park and ride bus into Doncaster and headed for a favourite eatery, Cafe Med, in the busy market. Besides the great Mediterranean food I love the market stall opposite. Its choc-full of old plastic cake decorations, like footballers and ships. Alas, no golden astronauts but I did find two neat little spaceships for a pound.

 

 

The market's own vintage toy stall was its usual hive of activity but I didn't find anything to take my fancy this time despite a Joe 90 Dossier and shiny Aurora Star Trek painted model tempting me. The market's Video and DVD dealer is always a delight too, with rows and rows of vintage VHS like Ammytyville 2 and Halloween III Season the Witch. The price of £5 each was, however, too much for a man on a budget [sounds like a TV series that!]. No Thunderbirds or 2001 Space Odyssey VHS variants to add to my collection but amazingly I did walk away with six videos free gratis as the chap was throwing loads out to make space! They include Eighties gems House II and Nightmare on Elm Street IV. Result!

 

vhscoverjunkie

 

Doncaster's charity shops have often provided hidden treasure for us over the years but nothing for me today I'm afraid. There were some treats I would have snapped up 10 years ago in my toy fair days including a set of ten mint boxed National Costume Dolls of the world at £1.50 each.

 

 

We rounded off the trip with a visit to newsagents WHSmith. Here I drooled over the latest Eaglemoss Batmobile, which Scoop has been blogging about and the first Marvel Super Heroes Fact Files magazine in a brilliant card sleeve, which looks as big as a shop display! A real bargain at 99 pence, but I resisted as I can't see me getting the rest. Since I couldn't find Collectors Gazette I bought The Darkside, a magazine about monster movies, which as readers of the blog will know, I do rather like.

 

 

After that we caught the bus back to the park and ride. We may not be 12 anymore and singing all the time but all in all going up town was  lots of fun. Do you go up town readers?

TANKS A LOT: SPACE ATTACK UFO MISSILE TANKS

The world of PROJECT SWORD collecting, like any passion, has a core collection of the main items and  a murky outer rim of indirectly related stuff. The unlicensed UFO Missile Tank, pictured below, fits into this latter category as it's only link to Project SWORD is the use of recycled Moon Crawler artwork on the lower left corner of the box. It has more to do with UFO than SWORD but as its the only toy with the Moon Crawler box art it holds a special place in the SWORD canon [some Moon Crawler models exist but I am talking about toys]. For whatever reason this toy can still command high prices on auction sites.

So I was thrilled when reader Arto, up in Helsinki Base, spotted this red variant of the Missile Tank, on the Vectis auction site: the Space Attack Missile Mod..? The maker's name in yellow top centre appears to be FIM. Anyone got one of these tanks?

V

Saturn V Rollout

an e-doodle to alleviate my tedium

using Paint

Wotan - a Brush with Advertising

Back in 1977, I started art college on an Advertising Design course, as the only thing I seemed remotely good at (sic) was drawing. I had a great time finding all about Cow Gum, Letraset, Pantone and how surprisingly easy it was to cut yourself with a scalpel. Two blood spattered years later, I left college and after some time, found myself a job as an Illustrator doing health related cartoons for the local NHS.

Young, Gift-Wrapped and Black and White

 30 years later, redundancy looms shortly and a new career beckons, so at this pivotal point, I thought i'd look back at some of the work I churned out at college. Bear in mind, Star Wars had just come out and space toys were about to go nova...

The curriculum required us to prepare colour roughs and visuals for adverts for various items, such as fish & chips, milk, glue and a mock cover for the radio times. During the summer break of 1978, we were given a project to produce some work based on a chess piece or a door knocker. Unfortunately, my 19 year old head was not on the Earth at all but engrossed in a world of fantasy and science fiction!

I enjoyed painting with Gouache, a new type of flat colour paint that was a staple of designers at the time and as my experience grew, experimented with acrylic paint, for brighter colours. The influence of the Paper Tiger series of books showing the work of artists such as Chris Foss, Roger Dean and Rodney Matthews and the Terran Trade Authority series had a tremendous impact on me and I even went so far as to acquire and airbrush. This proved disastrous though as my impatience overtook my ability and I soon got fed up endlessly washing out the spray nozzle and masking off sections of the artwork with little bits of Frisk film. So I returned to my two staples, the brush and the wonderful Rotring Variant drafting pen, which could produce a marvellously 0.1 mm line in deepest black ink.

The tutors on the course were largely unimpressed by my sci-fi exploits though, as I had managed to sideline and marginalise most of each and every brief I was given!

DOOR KNOCKER

ROUGH VISUAL FOR PRITT GLUE

VISUAL FOR RADIO TIMES COVER

ROUGH FOR SELLOTAPE PRESS AD

MILK MARKETING IDEA

CHESS PIECE OBJECTIVE STUDY

CHESS PIECE OBJECTIVE 2

Flight of Fancy

Ive been looking into the designs of SWORD again recently, following up some leads on the extant origins of some of the craft. In the process, ive come across a 1963 shot of a Convair concept aircraft called the GETOL or Ground Effect Take Off and Landing. The craft would use ducted fans in the wings to generate a cushion of air beneath the body to effect a Harrier like take off and landing. But the shape of the model is very reminiscent of the WOMBAT from the Thunderbirds 'Duchess Assignment' episdode and the date would mean it was in general circulation at the right kind of period! What do you think ?

DUKWS EVERYWHERE

The Spanish company ALNI made some great military toy vehicles I've recently found out. Here's their cool DUKW. For some reason it reminds me of the Sanchis Midi Tanque space vehicle also from Spain pictured below. A space Duck! Must be all the rockets.

Here's the T in a Circle DUKW, which has the classic amphibious shape with a huge turnable canon at the rear.

The last DUKW in this post is one I picked up at a car boot sale last summer, if indeed it can be described as a DUKW. Again it has huge missiles. Does anyone else like DUKWS 

SOLO SWORD

I’ve been re-reading the Project SWORD strip in the short lived ‘Solo’ comic.  A  simple linear tale  having no connection with the deeper TV21 version. It started in issue 19 before being hastily wrapped up in text form in  issue 31.

I know we’ve talked about it on the blog from time to time but for those who haven’t read  it the story starts with Project SWORD phase one being initiated. This is a mission to launch an atomic Booster Rocket across the solar system with it’s detachable  deep space probe being piloted by a robot called Sibor.

An explosion in the Booster Rocket’s fuel pods means the probe is prematurely launched. Upon it’s return the probe is mysteriously crystallised.

 Sword astronaut Rapier who has programmed the robot enters the probe and loses consciousness.

 The probe explodes but Rapier and the robot, Sibor miraculously survive  having been bombarded with  ‘Ultra Zela Radiation’.

This has the effect of creating a mind link between the man and the machine. An intriguing idea and a convenient plot device.

With phase one complete, Project chief Sabre briefs  astronauts on phase two, a mission to Mars.

A Booster Rocket and a fleet of Nuclear Ferries begin a journey to the Red Planet.

On the way something in the Asteroid Belt begins to drag the ships off course. Rapier and Sibor launch the Booster Rocket’s probe to investigate.

Landing on the Asteroid  they discover an alien installation and are attacked by a  mechanical creature.

Malevolent aliens watching this from light years away, are using this installation as a forward base in preparation for invasion. Now it's discovered the aliens decide to  destroy it, however Rapier and Sibor manage to escape by the skin of their teeth and warn the fleet.

The fleet continue on to Mars unaware that another group of different aliens on Mars are also watching SWORD’s progress.

Now cautious of opposition, Rapier and Sibor land on the Martian surface and send out a Prospector on a reconnaissance mission.  Rapier soon follows in a Scramble Bug. The’ Martians‘,  who have had dealings with the alien invaders ,whom they refer to as ’Vargans, assume the SWORD ships are their enemies returning.  They attack Rapier  by sabotaging and blowing up the Prospector as his Scramble Bug approaches.

They set a trap by surrounding Rapier’s wrecked Scramble Bug with an invisible force screen. When a squadron of Task Force ships fly close to the wreckage they hit the screen and explode.

Meanwhile, Rapier and Sibor are captured by the ‘Martians’ who, in spite of the SWORD astronaut insisting they are wrong in thinking he is a Vargan , plan to destroy the rest of the SWORD fleet.

The Fleet are making their own plans, now aware of an alien presence. After testing the force screen and finding it’s gone, they prepare to land surface vehicles , search for Rapier and Sibor and do battle with the ‘ Martians’.

Then a twist in the tale. Vargan space craft swoop down in a surprise attack, firing on  the SWORD surface vehicles.

The ’ Martians’ realise Rapier had been telling the truth. Recognizing the Vargen ships they agree to join forces with SWORD, and the two new found allies eventually rid the solar system of the Vargans.