MUSEUM PIECES

Looking at some of the old pictures I have of readers' collections from the last 5 years it strikes me that between us we'd have the best space toy Museum on the globe!

If you actually ran a toy Museum what would you display? How would you keep it interesting?

JAPANESE STARLOG

This is a Japanese edition of a Starlog magazine from 1979. It's a softback cover and is full of articles  ranging from Star Trek , Battlestar Galactica  and Godzilla to features on a Hobbit cartoon and the artwork of Shusei Nagaoka who painted the memorable E.L.O. album space station covers.

I've had it since the early eighties and what attracted me was an article on Gerry Anderson's TV series which the magazine titles ITC.

Like most Japanese magazines and guidebooks it's packed with photos, which is handy as my talent for reading Japanese is a lot less than total!

What with the internet and such like most of the photos are fairly commonplace thesedays, however, at the time of me getting it some of the photos were quite new to me

Anyway, I thought you all might like to see it - there's even a fold out poster!

Just Cruisin'

The very latest in personal space travel, the 'real' Spacex Pleasure Cruiser, brought to vivid life at the Kevin Davies shipyards! A real pleasure to see!

STARBLAZER

A few of my old Starblazer small format comic digests.

Although, I didn’t collect them religiously, if I came across one (or two as they always seem to come in pairs) I would invariably pick it up.

Doing a little research on them it appears there were 281 issues, starting in April 1979 and ending in January 1991.

It began with one issue per month, changing at issue four to two a month.

The publication did suffer from poor distribution, coupled with a downturn in the popularity of science fiction and in comics generally.

I must admit if they were still being published and I could still pick them up at the local supermarket I probably still would. They were cheap little bits of comic book entertainment, with proper traditional line artwork and  a nice little throw away sci-fi story to boot.  

RESCUE 6 COMIC

 

 

With the flurry of black and white Rescue Craft pictures appearing on the blog I couldn't resist having a go at a comic page!

 

 

I've introduced a picture each from the film Marooned and The Six Million Dollar Man comic Issue 1 to add extra spice!

ROLYKIN DALEKS

Watching Woodsy's little movie put me in mind of some old friends - Daleks.  In particular Marx Rolykin Daleks.

While my interest in Doctor Who cooled pretty quickly after the great Tom Baker departed I still had an affection for those sons of Skaro.

Nostalgic sixties Dalekmania plays a large part in my enjoyment, with those two garish Amicus  Dalek movies being top of the list.

I believe the inch high Rolykin Daleks  were possibly the first toy daleks to be released with over a million being sold by the end of 1965. 

Costing the princely sum of one shilling way back when, these little beauties had that lovely inaccurate design which was prevalent in  books and comics at the time.

Available in silver, red and  black, with the latter rumoured to be the rarest.

WOTAN AND WOODSY ON THE RADIO 8PM UK TIME IN 5 MINUTES!

Last month we had Scoop talking to Ed the Iceman across the Pond. Just another quick reminder that tonight Wotan and Woodsy will be chatting. It takes place over on Celtica Radio in 5 minutes just before Bill Everatt's superb Underground Edition music and chat show.

For Project SWORD, SpaceX, Zero X, sparklers and everything in between, tune in now to Celtica Radio!

JANSEN'S NIGHTMARE: NEW ZERO X HOME MOVIE

 

 

OK Moonbasers, here's my third home movie, Jansen's Nightmare. You may recall that Bill Jansen is the Supreme Commander of Project S.W.O.R.D. I've used artistic licence and placed him in the Zero X along with pilot Paul Travers.

 

 

 

Nightmare is different to my previous two shorts. There's more dialogue - with Mr. Bill Bulloch making a guest appearance! At 8 minutes in length, its longer too. I also shot it entirely indoors in the attic.  Losing the natural scenery and lighting of my garden posed a real challenge, how to create a film 'set'. I used an old moonscape I made a few years back for a modelling project and a long cardboard box to simulate a runway. Not sure if it all worked.

 

 

 

To give it an aged feel I used the Moviemaker 'old film' filter. This may have been too much as, once uploaded to You Tube, the film quality isn't that great and the opening titles seem blurred.

 

 

Ah well, you live and learn. I won't be giving up my day job anytime soon! Hope you enjoy the film!

 

 

PS. You can hear Bill and me discussing the film and more fun S.W.O.R.D stuff at 8pm tonight UK time on Radio Celtica during this month's SWORDcast. Tune in!