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New Doctor Who spin-off, “CLASS”, announced for BBC Three

  • News
  • October 2, 2015

This scene will likely not happen in the new show.

Doctor Who is going back to school. BBC announced today a new spin-off for the popular series, aimed at young adults, and written by noted YA author Patrick Ness. Titled Class, the show will take place at Coal Hill School, historic location of the series, and feature the students facing threats from across space and time.

Set in contemporary London. Incredible dangers are breaking through the walls of time and space, and with darkness coming, London is unprotected. With all the action, heart and adrenalin of the best YA fiction (Buffy, Hunger Games), this is Coal Hill School and Doctor Who like you’ve never seen it before.

Steven Moffat, who will executive-produce the show, says: “No one has documented the dark and exhilarating world of the teenager like Patrick Ness, and now we’re bringing his brilliant storytelling into Doctor Who. This is growing up in modern Britain – but with monsters!”

coal-hill-school-650x364-300x168-5159029Coal Hill School was the site of the first Doctor Who adventure, An Unearthly Child – The Doctor’s granddaughter Susan was attending the school, and endlessly impressed and confused her teachers with both her knowledge and naivete.  Those teachers, Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright, blundered into the Doctor’s mysterious TARDIS and became his first companions on the show.  In the modern series, Clara Oswald is a teacher there, and the selfsame Ian Chesterton is now chairman of the school’s Governors.  We’ve already met several precocious students at the school who we can only hope and pray will make an appearance in the series, including future president of the Earth Courtney Woods (Kill the Moon), and little Maebh and fellow members of the school’s Gifted program (In the Forest of the Night).

We’ve seen a few spin-offs of the main Doctor Who series.  Elizabeth Sladen starred in the first, the one-shot pilot K-9 and Company, but it wasn’t till decades later that she got that series order, with The Sarah Jane Adventures.  Torchwood, aimed at an older audience, got its name from an anagram hastily contrived to hide the name of the actual show being filmed before the new series first aired, and went on to be a hit in its own right, both in the UK and the US.  For a brief period of time, Who-fen never had to wait for more than a handful of weeks before a Who-related series aired.

who_is_patrick_ness__meet_the_man_behind_the_new_doctor_who_spin_off_class-300x181-8747777Patrick Ness, described by John Green as ‘an insanely beautiful writer’, is author of nine books, including six bestselling and critically acclaimed YA novels. He has written the screenplay for his own novel, A Monster Calls, which has been filmed for release in 2016 and stars Liam Neeson, Sigourney Weaver and Felicity Jones.

The new series will film next year, to debut on BBC Three, the digital/online channel later in 2016.  No details have been revealed if the episodes will overlap with the next series of Doctor Who, or which, if any characters from the main show will appear.

Martha Thomases: A Family Affair

Sunday Comics

Getting old isn’t for quitters. I’m just back from Baltimore Comic-Con which is a lovely show in my time zone and I was chauffeured back and forth door to door by the lovely and talented Glenn Hauman and even in these non-stressful circumstances I’m exhausted.

Baltimore Comic-Con is, as I said, a lovely show. For one thing, it is almost entirely about comics. Yes, there are media stars signing autographs. There are dealers selling things that are not comic books (including some great jewelry that I wish I had a chance to eyeball more) but they are on the fringes.

Comics are the heart and soul of the show-floor. Comics are the heart and soul of the show.

Comics are among the few mass media to have a heart and soul. Because they can be produced on (relatively) small budgets compared to movies television and popular music and because the profit potential is (relatively) small they attract creators with more personal passion than greed. Yes, we can alcove up with our own list of exceptions but I’ll stand my my statement as a generality.

ComicMix shared a very large space with Insight Studios and The Sunday Comics. I’ve known Marc Hempel and Mark Wheatley of Insight for more than 25 years, longer than the Sunday Comics crew has been alive. I enjoyed standing around mouthing off to my old friends. I loved loved loved! watching the new kids show off their big beautiful paper comics to new readers.

Speaking of heart and soul I kvelled like the Jewish mother I am watching Vivek Tiwary host the Harvey Awards. Vivek is relatively new to comics as a creator and he reminds me every time I see him of the simple joy I feel when I get a good story in a four-color cover.

This was only the second time I’ve attended the Harvey Awards presentation and I have to say sitting in that banquet room at the Hyatt I felt very much like I was attending a family celebration. It wasn’t a wedding or a bat mitzvah but it had that same combination of vague bitchiness but overwhelming love that (my) family celebrations have. Instead of DNA the comics business shares a love of graphic story-telling as well as a sense of ourselves of outsiders.

It’s a beautiful thing. Even if I didn’t get to see Dean Haspiel without his shirt on.

On a completely different note I enjoyed the first episode of The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. It wasn’t perfect and it wasn’t Jon Stewart whom I’ve adored since before he got that gig but I like the new host and I like that he has a different perspective than I do.

It’s fun to watch a show where the host appreciates indoor toilets.

Tweeks: Banned Books Week & More

We truly vlog this week as we catch everyone up on what we’ve been doing since we turned 13 (Birthday Week included Kaaboo and Mickey’s Halloween Party at Disneyland) before we talk about what we learned while being in charge of our local library’s Banned Books Week display.  Want to know why Winnie The Pooh was banned?  We’ll tell you that.

Dennis O’Neil: Respectability, Gotham Style

 

Baccarin

In my uncertain early middle years, I occasionally said that it was impossible to know the history of comics without knowing the history of Twentieth Century America. This might have been simply a comment or it might have been an attempt to lend comics some cachet of respectability.

If I meant it as a comment, ‘t’were better delivered while leaning against a mantelpiece, clad in tweeds, eyes gazing into an empty distance, and I don’t think I was encountering either tweeds or mantels in those days. Not too many empty distances, either.

If I meant it to give comics respectability, well,,. hell! Who said that they needed any frickin’ respectability? Okay, yes, some still believed comics to be pernicious and associating some respectability with comics might have had an effect on them, though I kind of doubt it. Do such righteous folk ever change their minds?

Now, abra change-of-subject cadabra.

Seen any popes lately? Pope Frances, who joins my tiny list of religious leaders whom I consider to be the real deal, has been all over the television these past few days. And I didn’t mind a bit. I didn’t watch a lot of the coverage, but it was refreshing to be buried in the papacy instead of Donald Trump.

The happiest day for me was Thursday, when Francis gave Congress some truth and in the process mentioned only two American Catholics: Thomas Merton and Dorothy Day, both of whom were profiled on cable news a couple of times later that night. Merton was a Trappist monk who wrote and traveled and urged a uniting of East and West spirituality. Oh, and he made trouble.

Dorothy? Well, you’re not gonna believe this, but…a few hours before Pope Francis addressed the politicians I was speaking to Dorothy’s godson, one of my oldest friends. He’d found some stuff she’d written that he thought I might want to know about, and he was right. A mild coincidence here, because I’d recently learned that Leslie Tompkins, a Batman comics character repurposed for television, was returning to the Gotham show, again portrayed by the truly lovely Morena Baccarin.

Leslie, as I may have mentioned in an earlier column, was inspired by Dorothy. I’ve got to careful not to say that Leslie was modeled on Dorothy because there are differences. But they’re kindred souls who both made choices that wouldn’t occur to most of us and improved the lot of their fellow humans. Sad that only one of them really ever existed.

So I will suggest, but not very loudly, that the aforementioned coincidence is a link between Pope Francis and comics. Would this convince comics nay-sayers that comics aren’t evil, this respectability-by-association? Doubtful.

Did I mention that Dorothy Day was a trouble maker? I don’t know about Leslie. She didn’t really make much trouble in the stories I wrote but she’s still around, in both comics and on the tube, and she has plenty of time to ruffle authoritarian feathers. I wish she would. Pope Francis might agree.

REVIEW: “LEGO Dimensions” is Endless Fun, Some Assembly Required

lego_dimensions_ps4_box_cover1-300x217-7860546The Lego series of video games has been top-notch quality since its first installment, and has gone to strength to strength.  When the announcement came earlier in the year that they were throwing their small plastic hat into the “Toys to Life” ring, competing with games like Disney INfinity and [[[Skylanders]]], interest was high.  As reports came out as to which of their licenses would be available in the game, that interest sailed even higher. Confounding the old belief that “It can’t be that good”, [[[LEGO Dimensions]]] is a perfect mix of the Lego game franchise, that the company have been doing for years, with the interactivity and variety of the collectible figures and vehicles that the company have been doing for decades.

Of all the unique things the game brings to the table is the play pad itself.  Like Disney and Skylanders, figures are placed on the pad to bring them into the video game, but unlike the other games, its use doesn’t end there.  The pad is an interactive part of the gameplay – the figures can be moved from spot to spot on the pad to give the characters special powers, and on certain levels, to solve puzzles to move forward in the game.  The figures are themselves true Lego toys – minifigures for the playable characters, and their vehicles can be re-built in three unique forms, each with unique powers and abilities. Also, Lego promises that the game pad will never need upgrading, even as more gameplay and functionality is added to the game. So while the initial investment is the highest of the three big Toys to Life – its starter set is $100 – you won’t need to re-purchase it when “version 2.0” is released.

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Not only is Doctor Who in the game, ALL the Doctors are in the game, each with their own TARDIS interior.

The game is at its core another solid addition to the Lego series, following the standard process of keeping the best gameplay mechanics while adding new ones, all over a solid and hilarious storyline. This one features a new bad guy, Lord Vortech (voiced by, would you believe it, Gary Oldman) who is seeking the “Prime Elements”, with which he will, dare I say it, rule the world.  Or should say, the multiverse, as his plan is to merge all the various dimensions of reality.

Those dimensions are, of course, the various licenses Lego has collected over the years, and quite a few more.  Like The Lego Movie, the game is a mad mishmosh of worlds and characters – the main playable characters from the starter set are Batman, Gandalf from Lord of the Rings, and WildStyle from The Lego Movie. The main game brings you through all the worlds of the game, including The Simpsons, Doctor Who, Portal, and The Wizard of Oz, as well as Lego’s own franchises Legends of Chima, Ninjago, and the aforementioned film. Each level features the same staggering replay value of any Lego game – certain areas of the game are only available by using the skill of particular characters – the only difference being that while in the regular games, those characters are collected by playing through the game, here they are obtained by purchasing the character figures in either a fun pack, or a Level Pack, which also includes access to a completely separate game level than is included in the base game.  With only a couple exceptions, the various powers are available from characters in various franchises, giving the player great flexibility as to their purchases.

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Batman meets Bartman? Done!

The voice cast for the game is staggering, with many original actors returning to voice their plastic counterparts.  The cast of Doctor Who voice their characters, Christopher Lloyd is back as Doc Brown in the Back to the Future levels, and Chris Pratt plays two roles – Emmett from The Lego Movie and Owen Grady from Jurassic World. Dan Aykroyd and Ernie Hudson return for the Ghostbusters levels – veteran voice artist Frank Welker steps in for the role of Peter Venkman, as well as Fred Jones and Scooby Doo.

The writing is as spectacular as any Lego game. With tongue firmly in cheek, the characters quip their way through outlandish adventures and difficult (but not impossible) boss battles.  The gameplay will be immediately familiar to the veteran Legoist, and the new twists of the play pad keep you on your toes as you shift the characters about while you play.

There are releases planned for the game well into next year, including more characters for Doctor Who, and a whole world dedicate to Midway video games.  While they have made no official announcements, the developers hope to add new worlds into the game – the sheer number of licenses the company makes as Lego figures could provide new content for literally years. But just what’s out and coming soon makes this a game that will keep the game player busy, and the toy collector happy.

Michael Davis: New Rules For Comics

newrulessign-8864786I love comics.

God help me I love the comics industry even more. My reason for this foolishness? The comics industry is full of really wonderful, wonderful (YEP TWICE) people. On the flipside, if you’ve met me you’re aware more than a few assholes stalk the floor at Comic Con.

I know it’s hard to believe but there are people in the industry who think I’m an asshole. I’m not the kind of person to label others because they label me. I’m above all that high school crap. I refuse to create falsehoods in response to falsehoods created about me. I deal in facts, people, and it’s a fact the people who think I’m an asshole fall into one of three categories: (more…)

REVIEW: Twice Upon a Time

p7189_p_v7_aa-3297837People of a certain age (i.e. “Old”) will remember when in the early days of HBO, a weird ,wild animated film called Twice Upon a Time made the rounds.  Many paid it heed because it was executive produced by George Lucas, currently in the process of imprinting our childhoods with a new mythology.  But except for a laserdisc and VHS release, the film rather fell off the table, save for dedicated maniacs who remembered it fondly.

Warner Archives, print-on-demand masters of unearthing lost bits of cinema and making them available to the masses, have achieved the impossible and presented the world with a brand new release of the film, unearthing both audio tracks, and getting many of the animators together for a commentary track, including Henry Selick, who has gone on to great things like Neil Gaiman’s Coraline and Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas, and in that order.

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Botch (Marshall Efron) presents a perfectly reasonable plan; Mum entreats his cohorts this is not the case

The film tells the tale of two magical lands; Frivoli and The Murkworks, who create the happy dreams and horrid nightmares, respectively, for The Rushers of Din, a land that looks suspiciously like San Francisco.  The head of The Murkworks, Synonymess Botch (voiced by former Sunday School teacher Marshall Efron) hatches a plan to plunge Din into eternal nightmares, and cons our heroes Ralph the All-Purpose Animal (Lorenzo Music) and his cohort Mum (who…remains so) into stealing the main spring from The Cosmic Clock, which will freeze time and allow Botch to set his plan into motion.  They attempt to undo their blunder with the help of their (and everyone’s) Fairy Godmother (Judith Kahan Kampmann) and Rod Rescueman (James Cranna) a superhero in training.

The animation style of the film is a unique delight, a process called Lumage, that uses colored paper and fabric cutouts to create the characters, a process that inspired the creators of South Park decades later.  Animator John Korty used the process for a number of shorts for Sesame Street, most notably “The Adventures of Thelma Thumb” (starring Kahan and Cranna), which amazingly is not available on the web anywhere or I’d have linked to it just there.

0001The tale of the two audio tracks is somewhat of a confusing tale.  There’s a more raunchy version of the dialogue that features a number of curse words – it’s been long assumed that was the original version of the film, but that’s not the case.  As Korty explains in the commentary, they were contractually obligated to deliver a family-friendly film, and so they did.  But when sneak previews proved unsuccessful, Korty’s producer Bill Couturié (Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt) took it on himself to re-record many of the lines with more salty language, to attempt to make the film more accessible to an older audience.  It had the opposite reaction – the film’s limited release resulted in numerous walkouts and demands for refunds, and the wide release was cancelled.  The second version is the one that was (accidentally, it’s believed) to HBO, and when it was replaced with the “clean” version for later showings and the video release, the belief arose that the film had been censored – indeed, it had been returned to its original form. Interestingly, even Warner Archives mixes this up – They describe the dirty version as the “Director’s Original Version”, when in fact it’s the PG version that was Korty wanted and delivered.

The print is in widescreen for the first time on video, and bright and pristine, the sound (both versions) is clear and clean.  The songs by Bruce Hornsby and Maureen McDonald are pleasant, and don’t litter the cinematic landscape like so many kids’ movies. It’s truly a forgotten classic, one that deserves a new generation of eyes on it.

Molly Jackson: Autograph Dilemmas

autographs-6983742It’s the fall con season! I love this time of year. It seems like there is a con every weekend and I can finally wear hoodies again. I really love wearing my hoodie while hanging with people on con lines. This past weekend was Baltimore Comic-Con, where I was sadly not hoodie in attendance but check out Emily Whitten’s recap! Over the weekend at BCC, what seemingly started as a small conversation eventually grew into a larger one on the Internet: Should comic creators be charging for their autographs?

It is a tricky conversation. A lot of people, including fans and creators, have very strong opinions on the matter. Many creators and fans think that charging is asking too much of fans, while others remark that charging for autographs is wildly done by many celebrities and no one complains.

The big argument seems to be that the creator already got paid when the book was bought and asking for autographs is too much. However, unless the book was bought at the show, the creator still needs to pay for a table and for attendance.

The other issue in all of this is the monetary gain for fans. Autographs add value to the book for the owners. Some creators only charge if they are signing for a CGC graded book; others charge for a large stack. In either case, the books signed might be resold for a higher price.

If I want their signature, it will cost me in some way. Every time I run for a signing ticket or sit in a line for multiple hours, it is costing me something. Time or money; I prioritize what it is worth to me. The same goes for the creator. They do not have to spend their time at a table in a smelly, loud, poorly ventilated, non-temperature-controlled convention hall. They determined why it was important for them to miss out on other things to pay for a table to be there.

Creators and fans have a symbiotic relationship. Creators give fans entertainment and fans give creators support. Yes, there is a monetary aspect. Fans buy product from creators. In fact, this is something I strive to do. If there is a book I want and I know I’ll see the writer or artist at a con, I do wait to buy the book. It seems like the right thing to do, plus I get the added bonus of telling someone how much I appreciate their work.

In the end, I guess I’m taking the non-committal way out from this conversation. Each creator should do what works best for them. As a fan, I will find a way to make it work for me. I am curious on everyone’s take though; what side of the fence are you on?

Mike Gold: Re-Union

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You probably read Emily’s column yesterday. It was all about the Baltimore Comic-Con. You’ll probably read Martha’s column Friday. It is all about the Baltimore Comic-Con. And, damn, I wouldn’t be surprised if John’s Sunday column is all about the Baltimore Comic-Con as well. This is because ComicMix invaded the place.

Emily, Martha, John and I were joined by fellow ComicMixers Glenn Hauman, Ed Catto, Bob Ingersoll, Robert Greenberger and Evelyn Kriete, all in a combined effort to make Adriane Nash feel bad that she missed a big one. I believe Nelson Muntz said it best: Ha-ha!

But I’m not here today to talk about the Baltimore Comic-Con. I’m here to talk about something that happened at the Baltimore Comic-Con. Something that Hilarie Staton captured in the photograph that (hopefully) appears above. Something that Baltimore Comic-Con’s official photog, Bruce Guthrie, also captured but, since he took so many photos last weekend even Carl Barks couldn’t come up with the right-sounding number, I don’t have them as of deadline-time. Bruce is quite the artistic guy and I look forward to seeing his… well, his pictures of me and my buddies.

Let’s identify the folks in Hilarie’s picture, from left to right, physically but not politically.

Marc Hempel, Mark Wheatley, Mike Grell, some pudgy asshole, Joe Staton, John Ostrander, and Timothy Truman.

Yep, that’s a reunion. The First Comics class of 1984, sans Howard Chaykin, Lenin del Sol, Hilary Barta, and Rick Obadiah. Rick had a pretty good excuse for missing the party.

It was about 34 years ago when Rick Obadiah and I were, literally, lying on the floor of an office in the mighty Video Action Magazine complex with our sketches and notes, detailing what was soon to become First Comics. The act of creation takes on many forms and an enormous amount of time, and Rick and I further developed the company through a wonderful series of elaborate restaurant meals that would provoke a vegetarian to a massive seizure. I know that it worked – actually, I’ve finally accepted that it worked – because dozens and dozens of people still stop me at comics conventions such as the Baltimore Comic-Con to tell me how much they enjoyed our work.

Yes, and more than a handful of fans whose introductory sentences started with “I discovered my dad’s comic book stash and…” Sigh.

The above-pictured people were responsible for Mars, Jon Sable Freelance, Starslayer, E-Man, and GrimJack. Our work either remains in print in trade paperback form or, as in the case with Starslayer, about to be so memorialized.

That’s really cool and sort of life-affirming.

I am not alone in saying that the Baltimore show is my favorite, and that it is my favorite because it’s by and for comic book fans. There aren’t many faded teevee stars there eking out a living; it’s all four-color, all the time. A celebration of what makes comics and comics fandom great. It’s also the home of the Harvey Awards – John and I were presenters this year – and as Martha will tell you Friday, the Harveys is all about family.

The combined age of all those guys up above is about 400 years old. Please note: all of us are still working, and still turning out great stuff. In many cases, better stuff. And signing all those comic books (sometimes in front of a CGC witness!) and chatting with you-all remains completely… what’s the word you kids say?… oh, yeah. Awesome.

For that, I thank you.

Box Office Democracy: Hotel Transylvania 2

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Hotel Transylvania 2 is so much better than Pixels and it’s hard to figure out exactly why. The material isn’t substantially better, it still feels like the scripts are written by an elementary school joke book come to life— although maybe for Hotel Transylvania the living book has to turn in a couple more drafts. The animated medium might open up for a few more ambitious sight gags but it isn’t like Pixels was stingy with the effects shots. Perhaps it’s that with live actors you can see how little effort they’re putting in and how much they’d rather be doing something else, and an animated character looks more engaged even if none of the voice acting is particularly ambitious. It could just be that an engaged Genndy Tartakovsky is far and away better than a Chris Columbus just out for a paycheck. Something makes this movie sparkle while Sandler’s other latter day efforts are tarnished husks.

While almost certainly not intentional, Sandler and Robert Smigel have written an oddly poignant film about Jewish assimilation in the United States. Adam Sandler’s Dracula has always sounded a little more like an old Jewish man than a Romanian count and for this installment they’ve cast Mel Brooks, who’s been the prototypical old Jewish man for almost 50 years, as his father Vlad, but his daughter, Mavis, is played by Selena Gomez who is doing no stereotypical Jewish inflection on her voice at all. Dracula and Vlad are concerned that by marrying a human and having a potentially human baby that their family is losing the connection with their monstrous roots in much the same way the last few generations of American Jews have seen their community disperse out in to the larger gentile world. This is compounded by the rest of the monsters who live in and around the hotel have also largely given up on their traditional monster ways learning to get along with humans as the world now demands. The end hits a little hollow on this front as Dracula never has to come to a firm opinion on the modern or the traditional as the movie invents a synthesis for him but it’s better than I was expecting to be quite honest. Again, I’m quite sure almost none of this subtext is intentional and that this is really just supposed to be a couple degrees of separation from rehashing The Jazz Singer but it’s interesting to think about especially when you consider the script comes from two people who have made careers out of occupying different Jewish staple characters to various degrees.

Otherwise, this is a slightly above average comedy. I laughed often enough, and because it’s an Adam Sandler movie some of those jokes might have been a little easy or a little corny but this is a nitpick from a comedy snob and should not really hold anyone back. I enjoy Tartakovsky’s work immensely and he’s made a visually arresting movie yet again and some of the best bits in the film are sight gags that I choose to believe are mostly his work. Blobby is one of the funniest characters in the film and has no lines just a steady stream of good physical humor.

This is a movie for young kids and, honestly, I probably aged out of the Adam Sandler demographic 15 years ago, but unlike some of his other efforts the Hotel Transylvania movies feel like they’re willing to try and keep me engaged. The showing I went to was crowded with young kids who seemed to be enjoying themselves immensely, laughing at all the right moments and quietly paying attention most of the rest of the time. I had a good time too, I was laughing and while perhaps I spent a little too much time figuring out if there was a deeper message about 20th century immigrant communities but this has all of the positive qualities of the best kids movies I’ve reviewed, a solid sequel, and maybe even the basis of a successful franchise.

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