Category: News

The countdown to the Doctor Who Christmas special has begun. As has become traditional, the BBC has produced a special Doctor Who short to air during the annual Children in Need appeal. A prequel to the upcoming Christmas special, the short will feature the first footage of current Doctor Matt Smith and his new companion, played by Jenna-Louise Coleman, in the same room.

Jenna-Louise appeared in the first episode of the season, Asylum of the Daleks, in a surprise appearance as the mysterious and tragic Oswin Oswald.  Fannish speculation has run rampant ever since as to any connection between Ms. Oswald and the Doctor’s new companion, about whom little is know save her rumored name, Clara.

Founded by British radio and chat show icon Terry Wogan, Children in Need helps disadvantaged children in Great Britain in many ways. Doctor Who and the charity have had a long history. The 30th anniversary adventure <a href=”

target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>Dimensions in Time was broadcast during the telethon back in 1993. In the modern era of the series, <a href=”

target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>David Tennant’s first scene as the Doctor was shown during the event, previous to his first episode, the first of the new Christmas specials.  <a href=”

target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>Time Crash, the crossover between Tennant and Peter Davison ran two years later.

Like most charities, this annual event is its biggest fundraising opportunity. If every American Doctor Who fan who watches this prequel donates as little as a pound on the appeal’s website, it’d add a staggering amount to the total, and the work the cause can do.

Zone 4 – Episode #191: Disney’s Conquest & The ’90s Are Back is live. Listen here.

The crew (including some names known to All Pulp readers) is joined by Frank Raynor as they cover several headlines of the week, including Disney’s interest in buying Hasbro, and the insane amount of variant covers JLA #1 gets.

We give more hype about the upcoming 200th episode of Zone 4, including new prizes offered for the Bingo game, and one or two guests to drop by. Plus, we announce the first keyword for our New Listener Drive!

We also talk about a few films, Kickstarter, and all this through a bunch of technical difficulties!

Of course, more Facebook shout-outs, plugs and more as we count down to 200! And if all that isn’t enough, we also made a really cool announcement about a new joint-venture of sorts involving Zone 4!

Listen now at www.zone4podcast.com/?p=977

To take a term from the show’s own lexicon, Randy Cunningham, Ninth Grade Ninja is the straight-up cheese.

That’s a compliment.

The latest animated series from Disney XD, part of a new edgy very non-Disney stack of shows that includes [[[Phineas and Ferb]]] and [[[Gravity Falls]]] (about which I should rightly wax rhapsodic another time) Randy Cunningham is a freshman at Norrisville High School, a school and a town who have been protected by a mysterious ninja for eight hundred years. What is not known by the populace is that The Ninja is a high school student; a new Ninja is selected from the freshman class, and they serve until they graduate, when a new frosh is chosen.  And this time around, young Randy Cunningham is chosen. In his bedroom, a mysterious box appears, containing the Ninja’s mask and the tome of secrets, the Ninjanomicon. It’s now his job to protect the town and school from villains like Hannibal Mc Fist, underappreciated evil genius Willem Viceroy III, and the Big Bad of the series, The Sorcerer, voiced by the can-do-no-wrong Tim Curry. (OK, we’ll ignore <a href=”

target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>The Worst Witch – he was but a lad at the time.)

At its core it’s a buddy comedy – Randy and his friend Howard Wienerman fight  the hordes of chaos, while still trying to become popular and get to class on time. Howard is the archetypal “Fat Friend”, seen most recently in the form of Nick Frost when paired with Simon Pegg. Ninjas are deadly and silent So Hot Right Now, and the show does a good job of balancing the classic semi-mystical powers of the shadow warrior with the modern take of a teenager in the suit.  The Ninjanomicon is quite reminiscent of The Phantom’s archives – the book is covered with notes in the margins from past ninjas as advice and explanation to the new guy.

The character designs seem very similar to the people from [[[Invader Zim]]], and with good reason – Bleeding Cool reported that Zim-creator (and conspirator) Jhonen Vasquez did character designs for the show.  He’s been sharing much of his work on his Tumblr page.

Lots of story to be explored, too, mostly about the history of the suit.  Will we meet any past wearers of the suit?  Have any ninjas not made it through all four years?  The show’s only a couple of episodes in, so there’s lots of time to explore all that. Till then, sit back and enjoy a solid adventure series with a lot of laughs.

On his Facebook page, New Pulp Author Mark Ellis posted the cover and a tease about his upcoming project.

From Mark Ellis:

In…a world…(I always wanted to write that)

In a world almost identical to this one, all the characters from Victorian and early 20th century literature existed…there was Nemo, Sherlock Holmes, Moriarty, and even the War of The Worlds.

Some of the descendants of these famous–and in many instances, infamous–people carry on the work of their distinguished (and not so much) ancestors.

Two of these descendants are Professor Edward George Challenger and Major Loveday Brooke, operatives of the Diogenes Club, a freelance adjunct of MI6.

In ISLANDS OF DR. MOREAU, they face the terrifying threat of Sirocco Moreau, who has harnessed the secrets of selective mutation to give dominion of the Earth to the Akhakhu, neogods modeled after the ancient Egyptian pantheon of deities–with her as the immortal queen.

This is the first (hopefully) in an action-adventure series featuring the grandson of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Professor George Edward Challenger…it’s a blend of Doc Savage and James Bond, with a pinch of Torchwood and a sprinkling of The Avengers and The Man From UNCLE.

I’m having a lot of fun working in this universe, so by following Rex Stout’s dictum, everybody should have a lot of fun reading it.

I’ll have more details about the release date soon.

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And we’ll share that here on All Pulp when it becomes available.