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I’m surprised the original poster is British because I’d say that in Britain the overwhelming majority of the public does know who Davros is. I’m sure it’s different in the US but in the UK even people who’ve never watched an episode before recognise him. I grew up in the Wilderness Years and yet I knew who Davros was long before Doctor Who came back. Hell, my mum knows who Davros is and she’s never seen an episode in her life. The British public just knows this stuff by cultural osmosis. In terms of Doctor Who characters that everyone knows it goes: the Doctor, the Daleks, the Cybermen, the Master and Davros. There’s a reason RTD reintroduced them to the show in that order.

The Magician’s Apprentice continues to embarrass me because it entirely hinges on the audience remembering a character who hasn’t appeared (and I think was only mentioned once) in seven years. The viewers that matter, the ones who don’t make spreadsheets and post angry rants like this about episodes which aired three years ago, those viewers wouldn’t give a rats ass about who Davros was. To them he’s just this kid in a minefield the doctor for some reason had the willies about saving.

I love it when Doctor Who reintroduces things. But that’s not what this did. It just presented dusty Doctor Who lore as if it was important without justifying it.

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Support @philsandifer‘s Kickstarter.

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So this cat Moffat

Is really going hard on some PR spin/rebranding himself as Not-A-Misogynist at GallifreyOne.

One of the fans whose criticisms he “casually dismantled?” Was a girl who wasn’t the one who actually asked one of those questions and as she tried to reiterate that he kept talking over her.

He really did want to hire more female writers and directors!

“The Doctor’s a woman now! Get over it!” Like lol whiny men it’s time for girls now, amirite!

All I’m saying is it feels more like desperate image reparation than being genuine.

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Ivory Icon V Marvel of Millennium

So I’ve been meaning to get on Tumblr for a while, and the main reason I think I put it off was that I wanted a really solid first post. A statement of intent. Something deep, something on the problems in superhero comics, and where we need to go for a viable future.

So naturally, I figured I’d talk about why I think Tom Strong is better than Supreme.

Most of you probably don’t need the background, but for completion’s sake: Supreme is the 20+ issue Alan Moore run on Superman the world always wanted. Taking an existing 90s Superman pastiche by Rob Liefeld and sweeping everything that had already been established off the table on the first page of his first issue (a condition for taking on the character as he was, in Moore’s own words, “Not very good” – a request that didn’t disqualify him, because when Alan Moore wants to write your comic, you let him write the comic), it’s a tribute to all the weird fun that had been essentially discarded from the actual Superman books since John Byrne’s revamp in 1986. Rebuilding Supreme’s world from the ground up with Joe Bennett, Keith Giffen, Rich Veitch, and later Chris Sprouse, Moore filtered in a new origin, tone, and context for the character, along with analogues for Lois Lane, Lana Lang, Supergirl, Jimmy Olsen, Krypto, Perry White, Superboy, Batman and Robin, the Justice Society and Justice League, the Legion of Superheroes, Lex Luthor, Brainiac, Bizarro, Metallo, Mxyzptlk, the Fortress of Solitude, Kryptonite, and Kandor. It’s basically Alan Moore doing Silver Age Superman fanfiction, and just as you’d expect from that description, it’s an absolute blast.

Tom Strong’s a little more obscure, which is a shame, since it was clearly built as an evolution on the same formula Moore applied to Supreme. A sort of Doc Savage meets Tarzan born on the island paradise of Attabar Teru to a pair of scientists at the turn of the 20th century, Strong was reared in a gravity chamber to become a physical and mental superman, and raised by the island natives after his parents untimely death (he ends up bringing electricity to the island as an adult – while Moore clearly tries to dance around the ‘white savior’ problems of the 20s and 30s pulp stories he’s homaging, he doesn’t fully succeed). Journeying out into the world at large to fight crime with brains, brawn and an extended lifespan courtesy of Attabar Teru’s mysterious Goloka Root (he’s nearing his 100th birthday by the series’ opening without looking a day over 50), Tom ends up building a family with his wife Dhalua, including daughter Tesla, robot butler Pnuman, and talking gorilla Solomon. With Supreme collaborator Chris Sprouse handling the pencils (with additional artists like Dave Gibbons, Gary Frank, Kyle Baker and Jerry Ordway backing him up), it essentially ends up being Moore’s final word on superhero comics before giving up on the subgenre altogether, and it’s phenomenal.

They’re both justifiably considered some of the best superhero comics of all time, and both are huge personal favorites. That I say Tom Strong is better is in no way a put-down; Supreme was one the first comics I ever read, and along with one of Moore’s other Superman stories, The Jungle Line, was a huge formative influence on my taste in superheroes. But I think in the end Strong comes out ahead, and while I could argue that it’s because of the more consistently gorgeous artwork, or that since it’s a few years later Moore had refined his craft a bit further, it really comes down to something far more fundamental.

Supreme is the best celebration of superhero comics’ past that I’ve ever read. But while Tom Strong’s roots reach even further into history, it’s also one of the best basic models I’ve ever seen for how to take superhero comics into the future.

Keep reading

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series 8 more like series Gr8 Fashion am i right

(that’s 33 outfits, fyi)

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Steven Moffat’s dismissive attitude toward women somehow seems to help his career.

this article is so so important please read it

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Sad but entirely understandable. I feel like I need to leave the internet alone for a little while.

Turning off asks and fallowing this blog for a while in favor of living a larger share of my psychic life in the various rabbit holes of my research. Eruditorum Press autoposts will continue.

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That's a Twelth Doctor story by Robbie Morrison: http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/The_Swords_of_Kali_(comic_story)

I think you were originally referring to the Eleventh Doctor strip by Al Ewing and Rob Williams (which is indeed very good, as is the continuation with Si Spurrier).

Are there any Doctor Who comics you know of that are worth reading?

I’ve never loved comics as a medium for Doctor Who, personally. But the DWM 8th Doctor strips and the Ewing/Morrison 11th Doctor comic are both quite good. 

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Thank you. That was one of the ones I'd missed. I'll give it a listen.

I imagine you've already listened to the Alan Moore Someone Who Isn't Me interview, but just in case you haven't you really should. It's a. Alan Moore and b. Alan Moore talking about magic, AI, the Turing Test and the singularity. Anyway, in the absence of being able to ask Moore directly, I wondered if you can recommend any particularly good books about John Dee?

I’ve not actually - podcast listening is a super mess for me right now because my phone’s headphone jack is fucked, so I can’t even put them on for walks, so though I knew this was a thing I’d not gotten to it yet. Will definitely have to find the time for it now.And alas no - I’ve not read much on Dee.

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Did you ever put up the answers to that trivia quiz?

Oh, no, I didn’t. Here goes.

1. What classic series director had the largest span between his first and last episodes directed at just under sixteen years?

“Classic series” was meant to exclude Graeme Harper, whose gap spanned into the modern series. At sixteen years, it’s Christopher Barry, who debuted on The Daleks and exited on Creature From the Pit. Quite the improvement.

2. What are the only two Doctor Who stories to give both writing and directing credits to women?

Many people got Enlightenment. Mark of the Rani was harder.

3. What were the first two stories to be aired in a different order than they were produced?

The Sea Devils and The Curse of Peladon

4. In terms of minutes of television, and counting official spin-offs, what companion had the longest tenure? (For simplicity’s sake, just count the run-times of all episodes they appeared in.)

She needs the spin-offs to claim the crown, but Sarah Jane Smith rules supreme. 

5. Who wrote the second most number of Target novelizations?

Ian Marter

6. What was the first title to appear on screen with the format “The X of Y”?

The phrasing matters here, as it makes it “The Cave of Skulls.” 

7. Who are the other two writers who belong on the following list: Norman Ashby, Guy Leopold, and Stephen Harris?

All three are pseudonyms - the other two pseudonyms used were Robin Bland and David Agnew. Paula Moore is a real person who Eric Saward continues to insist actually did contribute to Attack of the Cybermen, and so is not accepted.

8. Who are the only two people to have both written and directed episodes of Doctor Who?  (Error in this one - there were three, though only two who were credited. I’ll take any two.)

Barry Letts never got an on-screen writing credit, but wrote The Daemons as Guy Leopold and did uncredited work on The Time Monster, The Green Death, and Planet of the Spiders. Peter Grimwade and (the one nobody got) Terence Dudley are the only two to do so credited.

9. What is the only letter never to appear in a production code?

O rarely appears; I never appears.

10. How many stories have no existing episodes?

Only Phil Morris knows for sure, but the consensus is that Marco Polo, Mission to the Unknown, The Myth Makers, The Massacre, The Savages, The Smugglers, Power of the Daleks, The Highlanders, The Macra Terror, and Fury From the Deep are all entirely lost, a total of ten.

11. If you win, who should I credit the victory to?

Either Thom Hutchinson or Paul McElvaney from Monaghan, Ireland, were acceptable answers, as each got a stunning 9/10.

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This 'meet the producers' video gives you a pretty good idea of the state of their relationship: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1Nk7nUKgluo

resting-meme-face said: Who was his co-exec on s7? Source?

Caro Skinner. Who quit, apparently after a public blow-out fight between them at some event or another. Although frankly, having been at the official convention they did in Cardiff in 2012 and seen them on a panel together, their relationship seemed frosty from day one.

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There’s a moment in Hell Bent I deeply regret cutting. The Doctor reveals that he’s reassigned the High Council to the sewers, and Ohila remarks that only an aristocrat regards honest work as punishment. That’s the Doctor all over: he knows that the aristocracy must be deposed, but even in bringing it about he reveals that he will always be one of them. If he’s any kind of role model, it’s because he tries to be good, not because he already is. You certainly don’t have to be a white male to play all that - though you can see why it’s a decent fit.

Steven Moffat’s far more interesting quote about diversity in the most recent DWM (via philsandifer)

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Thompson has had his own 6-part series on ITV called Jericho (I haven't seen it, the reviews and ratings were middling and it's not coming back for a second series). But I suppose the simple explanation - whether real or just an excuse - is: 'he was busy'.

Thoughts on the fact that it looks like Moffat's writing the middle episode of S4 of Sherlock, with Gatiss getting the opener and them sharing the finale.

Bit sad Talalay’s being wasted on the Gatiss episode, but it seems as good as any other order. 

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Paul McGuigan did 2 episodes in both series 1 and 2, so I'm hoping Talalay gets a similar deal.

Thoughts on the fact that it looks like Moffat's writing the middle episode of S4 of Sherlock, with Gatiss getting the opener and them sharing the finale.

Bit sad Talalay’s being wasted on the Gatiss episode, but it seems as good as any other order. 

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I can't wait to read this. Although reading between the lines of your previous answer I feel I can guess...

Also, for what it’s worth, I know Moore’s preferences on Davies vs. Moffat.

(Can’t tell you what they are, alas, but they come up in an interview he did with the Vworp Vworp fanzine I got a pre-print of.)

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Name your favorite ‘Doctor Who’ episode.  If it is from the modern era of the show, chances are it was written by Steven Moffat.  Speaking to Radio Times, Peter Capaldi highlighted some of the reasons why:

“I think he’ll be remembered as probably one of its greatest writers because he has such an imaginative take on it, which is also popular, and emotional.

“He’s able to create stories that are both deeply emotional and very dramatic and exciting. And he loves monsters!“ Capaldi continued.

“That’s a tricky combination, which I think he pulls off brilliantly.”

Moffat’s last series in charge of Doctor Who will begin Christmas Day, 2016

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I still want to see that Susan story you outlined elsewhere.

If the Hartnell era was public domain, which one of its characters/monsters would you use in a fanfilm, one that you could make into a Marxist narrative if so desired?

A soap opera set on Vortis.