Panic Moon issue 1 (July 2010)

I'm intrigued by the current revival of Doctor Who fanzines. Why this is happening now and not five years ago when the series first returned to our screens is a bit of a mystery to me. Perhaps the new generation of Who fandom is only now discovering the medium in force. I thought perhaps paper-based fanzines were becoming a thing of the past, but it seems I was wrong.

After reading some favourable comments online, I ordered one of the new crop of fanzines, the UK-based Panic Moon, produced by Oliver Wake. I like the title which is both both cryptic and yet has currency for those in the know (An anagram of companion, it is the cover-name used for auditions for the role of Amy Pond).

Panic Moon is a small, conveniently pocket-sized A6 publication, and runs to 28 pages with a fairly small font size so that there is actually surprisingly a fair bit to read.

Most of the issue is filled with individual reviews of each of the Matt Smith stories. All too often fan critics seem to feel the need to accentuate the negative, so it is are refreshing to see that the reviews, from a number of different writers, are fairly balanced in their critiques. Interspersed with these reviews are short features on controversial topics including Amy Pond's character, the redesigned Daleks, and Chris Chibnall's writing.

Although almost all of the issue is taken up with coverage of the Matt Smith series, there is room at the end for commentary on a few other recent fanzines and the latest crop of Big Finish releases. The introduction explains that this emphasis on the new series is simply because it is topical and that the next issue will have "more old series stuff".

The artwork, all in black and white, is of a high standard and is used sparingly throughout the issue, nicely complementing the writing. The layout is pleasingly straightforward and unfussy.

I like this fanzine, and have no hesitation in recommending it.

Panic Moon is available to order worldwide, via payapal. Details can be found at:
http://panicmoonfanzine.angelfire.com/home/

Radio Live Interview

A bit of shameless self-promotion here.

Doctor Who will be a featured topic on Graeme Hill's Weekend Variety Wireless programme on Radio Live, this Sunday 30 May from 10.30 to 11am, and I'll be joining Graeme live in studio to talk about all things Doctor Who.

Graeme tells me he's a bit of a fan himself, so I'm looking forward to having a good chat about my favourite subject.

A short piece about the BBC Radiophonic Workshop will be featured, and we'll also be promoting the Greatest Doctor Who Weekend Of All Time marathon of new series episodes that is due to screen on New Zealand's UKTV channel a week later.

There will be a couple of competitions you can enter to win in conjunction with the Radio Live programme. The prizes are a Fourth Doctor and Davros statue from Weta, and a TARDIS cookie jar from Retrospace.

Radio Live broadcasts on various frequencies around the country, and can also be listened to online (see their website for details). I believe that Graeme Hill's show will be available to listen again from the afternoon of the following day.

Vying for the Vogels

TSV has just been announced as one of the nominees in the 'Best Fan Publication' category of the Sir Julius Vogel Awards, New Zealand's national SF awards. The full list of nominations for the Vogels can be viewed here. The winners will be announced at Au Contraire, the New Zealand National Science Fiction Convention for 2010, taking place in Wellington over 27-29 August.

This year TSV shares the category with Phoenixine, the fanzine of the Wellington Phoenix science fiction club, and a third publication called The Event.

Phoenixine has been the recipient of the award in the Best Fan Publication category (formerly called 'Best Fanzine') for most of the last decade. The exceptions were 2009 and 2007, when there was no award in this category due to insufficient nominations (TSV was not eligible in 2009 as no issues had been published in the previous calendar year). TSV has been nominated most years alongside Phoenixine, but has only won once - and that was by mistake.

A miscount of the votes resulted in TSV being announced as the winner at the awards ceremony at Icon in Wellington at Easter 2005. The issues nominated for that year's award were my final two as editor, TSV 69 and 70. The error only came to light when the voting papers were checked a couple of weeks after the event. The organisers apologised and made amends by issing a 'Joint Award' to both fanzines. I wasn't at the convention and only heard that TSV had 'won' when I received the apology from the awards organiser. The rather fetching engraved trophy statuette, manufactured by Weta Workshop, still sits on my bookshelf.

TSV is a fantastic-looking publication with a high calibre of material, thanks to the talent and effort of current editor Adam McGechan and the zine’s many contributors. This might count for something if the Vogels were decided by an impartial judging committee assessing the quality and merits of each nominated work.

The awards are instead voted for by attendees of the national science fiction convention and by members of SFFANZ (Science Fiction and Fantasy Association of New Zealand). TSV’s readership is barely represented in these spheres whereas many readers of Phoenixine are, I believe, SFFANZ members and/or frequent convention-goers. Naturally, they will vote for ‘their’ publication over any other nominee, whether out of loyalty or familiarity - or both.

Is there anything wrong with this state of affairs? Perhaps not, though in my view ‘Best’ is a bit of a misnomer for the category. ‘Most Popular’ would be a more fitting epithet. Maybe Phoenixine is thoroughly deserving of being called ‘Best’. I don’t know as I’ve not had the opportunity to view an issue in recent years. Regardless, that is not the criteria by which the Vogels are currently determined. The awards are not about quality but popularity.

It is a pleasure to see TSV and Adam’s name as editor very deservingly included on this year’s ballot, but it is a pleasure tainted with the certainty that this is the highest accolade we can hope to achieve at the Vogels.

Ian Scoones RIP

I've just learned that Ian Scoones has died.

Ian was a visual effects designer who worked on many episodes of Doctor Who and the first series of Blake's 7 in the 1970s. He also worked on Thunderbirds, Hammer Horror movies and the Hammer House of Horror television series.

I found out about his death on Total Sci-Fi Online, and have since learned that he passed away from liver cancer on 20 January this year.

I first become aware of Ian when his name appeared on the end credits of Doctor Who. To see that someone who had the same surname as myself was working on my favourite television programme made a big impression on me in my pre-teen years. At the time I didn't know of anyone with the surname Scoones who wasn't part of my extended family.

Over the years I've sometimes been asked by Doctor Who fans if I'm somehow related to Ian. Now I do have an uncle who frequently crops up in BBC television credits, but that's underwater cameraman Peter Scoones, best known for his work on David Attenborough's nature documentaries. As far as I know Ian is not a relative - or is he...?

In the mid-1990s, I tried to find out if there was in fact a family connection. Ian Scoones offered for sale via mail order a series of art prints of his production paintings from Doctor Who. A representative of his wrote to TSV, the Doctor Who fanzine I edited, to see if we would advertise these for sale. I took the opportunity to write back, confessing that I was curious to find out if there might be a family connection.

Ian didn't reply directly, but his representative wrote on his behalf, saying that Ian had read my letter. The letter said that Ian didn't know the Scoones side of his family at all as his father had left his mother when he was very young. He did however very kindly send me a complimentary set of his art prints, which I've kept to this day.

In later years myself and my father both conducted a fair amount of research into the Scoones name and put together a fairly comprehensive family tree. Two people called Ian Scoones crop up in my research; one's my father's cousin, and the other's a professor at Sussex University with a prodigous collection of books and papers to his name. But I'm still none the wiser as to how and where the visual effects designer Ian Scoones fits into scheme of things.

Here's the interesting thing though. Judging by the various photos I've seen of Ian Scoones over the years, there was definitely a resemblance to members of my branch of the Scoones family. Could it be that we are in fact related? Was his absent father one of the Scooneses who appears in my family tree? It's a mystery that will probably never be solved.

Vworp Vworp!

I received my copy of Vworp Vworp! Volume One today.

This is a publication of particular interest to me as it focuses on the history of Doctor Who Magazine, with a particular emphasis on the comic strips. Naturally, some of Vworp Vworp!’s material will be referenced and footnoted in volume two of my book, The Comic Strip Companion.

Vworp Vworp! is currently - and very deservedly - receiving many positive comments online. The A4, perfect bound full colour glossy publication is produced to such a professional standard that it could easily pass for a DWM special issue. It. What is most remarkable is that it is a fanzine, produced not for profit but as a labour of love by editors Grant Kavanagh and Colin Brockhurst.

The content includes an impressive line-up of articles and interviews with such familiar (to long-time DWM readers) names as Dez Skinn, David Lloyd, Dave Gibbons, Pat Mills, David J Howe, Andrew Pixley, Jeremy Bentham, Scott Gray, Clayton Hickman, Ade Salmon, Alan Barnes, Martin Geraghty and more.

Even though the written material is impressive it is just about eclipsed by the visual feast of colour and imagery throughout. If this were a professional publication I would still think it superb. That this quality has been lavished on a non-profit fanzine is, quite frankly, simply astounding.

All this aside, I must declare my own vested interest. My name appears in the “with thanks to” list, but that’s my one and only appearance in the issue. It wasn't always going to be this way, and in fact my involvement in its gestation stretches back over one and a half years.

I first got involved in October 2008 when I discovered online that a one-day event was shortly due to take place dedicated specifically to Doctor Who comics. I greeted this news with mixed feelings of delight and dismay; delight because it was exactly the sort of thing I wanted to attend since I was (and indeed still am) involved in writing a book on this very subject; and dismay because it was due to take place in a pub in Manchester, on the far side of the world. Frustratingly, had this taken place a few scant months earlier when I was still in London, you couldn’t have kept me away.

Had I been able to go, I would most certainly have volunteered as a guest speaker to talk about my book. Instead I did the next best thing. Gareth Kavangh, the organiser, was preparing a Doctor Who comics-themed fanzine called Vworp Vworp! to launch it at the convention. I emailed Gareth and offered to write an article for his zine, and he gladly accepted. I also provided him with some research material for a panel he was running at the event. So, in lieu of being there and giving a talk, I wrote down what I would have said instead. My article discussed my particular interest in Doctor Who comic strips and my book. I knew a number of like-minded comic strip writers, artists and fans would be in attendance and it was an opportunity not to be missed to let them know who I was and what I was doing.

Good plan - in theory. Trouble was, the convention came and went. Gareth ran out of time to get his fanzine together so it wasn’t published in time for the event. These things happen. Not to worry, he was still determined to produce the publication, and still wanted to use my article. In February 2009, Vworp Vworp! writer Matt Badham interviewed me by email about my book. The plan was for this interview to appear alongside my article.

Months passed. Gareth was busy with his Masters degree and the zine understandably had to get placed on the back-burner. By July, Colin Brockhurst had joined Gareth on the project. At this time I pitched a second article idea for the zine, this time a look at how Scott Gray got himself established as a comic strip writer. I interviewed a number of usual suspects, including, crucially, the elusive Scott himself. Before I could deliver the piece I learned that there was no room left in the issue and that the piece was instead under consideration for a planned second volume.

By December I learned that my earlier article and accompanying interview about my book had also been dropped from the issue. This wasn’t too much of a disappointment; during my years as a fanzine editor I was frequently faced with the agonising decision to drop a piece from an issue. That never gets any easier, and I could certainly appreciate that my article and interview were no longer a good fit for the issue's repositioning as a celebration of all things DWM. Besides which, my book still wasn’t finished, let alone scheduled for publication, so it made sense to hold the article over to a later date when it would be more timely.

Still very much eager to help out, I offered Gareth and Colin my services as a proof-reader and fact-checker. This was accepted, and shortly before Christmas last year, I pored through eighty pages of PDFs looking for errors. I came up with a list of sixty corrections, most but not all of which made it into the issue (if you see a few typos on page 79, rest assured that I did point them out!)

Gareth very kindly has sent me a complimentary copy of the issue, which I received in the mail today. I cannot recommend this publication highly enough. Although I saw it all on my computer screen when I was proof-reading, I cannot help but marvel at the final, printed product. It is a thing of beauty; Gareth, Colin and their team of contributors deserve to be very proud indeed of what they have achieved.

Go to www.vworpvworp.co.uk to order, but be quick - they're selling fast!

My only hope is that at least something of mine gets published in volume two...

Confessions of a Subtitle Script Writer

I write for Doctor Who.

At least that's what many people seem to think when I attempt to explain exactly what I do.

In fact I write for the BBC Doctor Who DVDs. I write Production Information Text scripts. Production Information Text is a subtitle option on Doctor Who DVDs that appears whilst as a series of on-screen captions, providing a constant feed of factoids about each episode as you are watching.

These subtitles include such fascinating trivia as deleted scenes quoted from the scripts, details about when and where certain scenes were shot, potted histories of cast members' careers, observations of continuity errors, and discussions about the writer's influences, amongst other gems.

I delivered my first set of subtitle scripts in September 2008. This was for Planet of Fire, Peter Davison's penultimate adventure. I've been intending to write something about creating the subtitle scripts for this story, but I've been waiting patiently to do this until the DVD has been released. That way it will be relevant and it will also enable me to post screen-grabs to illustrate what I'm talking about. Planet of Fire was to have come out last month (as part of the Kamelion box set), but has been delayed until sometime around June.

I've just delivered a second set of subtitle scripts. I can't say yet which story this is for, as there has yet to be an official announcement. Such information is commercially sensitive. Numerous threads on Doctor Who message boards are filled with postings fervently speculating which story will be announced next. (As the number of stories yet to be released on DVD decreases, the chances of guessing the next title correctly correspondingly increases; it's expected that every old surviving Doctor Who story will be out on DVD by some time in 2013).

I was commissioned to write this to-be-announced story, along with another couple of 'TBA' stories, not long after delivering my first set of scripts. At the time, a delivery date had not been set (or at least not communicated).

When I wrote the subtitle scripts for Planet of Fire I set aside around six weeks during which I worked on no other projects so that I could apply myself to the task with minmal distractions. This time around (possibly unwisely in hindsight), I decided instead that I would tackle the project in small concentrated bursts. The scripts were not needed anytime soon, so I worked on them as and when I felt like it; the odd day or few hours here and there. This was a great way of taking short breaks from my other writing, which is a fairly long non-fiction book analysing comic strips, and quite a different disicipline from the subtitle scripts.

Three weeks ago I received a wake-up call in the form of an email out of the blue from my editor, asking how I was going with the scripts. He explained they were significantly over-deadline. There was a bit of leeway for late delivery, but they were needed as soon as practicable.

Although I had done most of the groundwork and had compiled a set of rough notes, I had yet to actually start writing the scripts. I may not have known what the deadline was until it had passed, but nor had I asked about it in the intervening months. At this point I went into a state of mild panic.

I can at times be a terrible procrastinator which is a trait I've discovered I have in common with many freelance writers. An overdue deadline is however a powerful motivation tool. I made a concerted and sustained effort to sit down at the computer and force myself to just keep going, hour after hour, day after day. I devoted just about every spare hour I could to working on these scripts. Even when I wasn't writing, I was constantly thinking either about what still needed to be done, or how to compose the next section I needed to write.

I finished and sent the completed set of scripts yesterday evening - three weeks after learning that the deadline had passed. I felt an immense weight shifting from my shoulders after I wrote the last line on the final script.

I'll blog about the specifics of this set of scripts as and when the story is released on DVD, but I've written about this experience here and now, whilst it is still fresh in my mind, as a reminder to myself not to let myself let a writing project sit on the back-burner by for so long again.

BBC Radio 4 Interview

I am interviewed in The Lost Episodes, a new BBC Radio 4 documentary first broadcast 26 December 2009 in the Archive on 4 series.

I was approached by BBC researcher Mark Harrison to take part in this production on 9 October this year. Mark described the documentary to me as 'a one-hour piece covering the wiping of some of the early episodes of the series and the subsequent hunt and restoration projects that bring these stories back to life.'

Mark invited me to be interviewed about my involvement in finding the last known surviving copy of The Lion, episode 1 of the 1965 William Hartnell Doctor Who story The Crusade. On my recommendation Mark also invited Neil Lambess to take part in the interview. As Neil and I found the episode together it is only right that he should be involved in telling the story.

Neil and I were interviewed together in a studio at Radio New Zealand in central Auckland early on the morning of Tuesday 17 November. This was a live link-up with the documentary's presenter and producer Shaun Ley, who was in the UK.

In a previous blog entry I discussed being interviewed for Stripped for Action for the Doctor Who DVDs and how I found this a somewhat nerve-wracking experience. By contrast the radio interview was a lot more enjoyable. Listening back to my comments I think it is plainly evident that I am far more at ease on audio than I am on video. In the radio studio I only had to focus on what I was saying and didn't need to think about where my eyeline was or whether my hands were waving about. It also helped that I wasn't the sole focus of the interview, so if I faltered or got anything wrong, Neil was right there to jump in and take up the story, and I supported him likewise.

At the time of writing, the documentary can be heard online via the Listen Again audio stream on the BBC Radio 4 website (though this will probably only be available for the next week).

I found it was fascinating and thoroughly engaging. The focus on audio restoration in the first half of the programme ideally suits the radio medium.

The story of the discovery of The Lion is featured towards the end, beginning around 47 minutes into the hour-long programme (that said, I recommend listening to the entire documentary).

The Lost Episodes is currently attracting some criticism in Doctor Who discussion forums. The central complaint is that it omits other individuals involved in the discovery and return of missing episodes. I have some sympathy with this view but I can also see the programme makers have chosen to focus on an individual episode find rather than covering the circumstances and people involved in each separate discovery. The Lion was selected, it seems, because it is of particular interest. As Shaun Ley says in the documentary, it is "perhaps the most remarkable rescue story in the Doctor Who Archive".

The documentary does however unfortunately misrepresent one aspect of The Lion's recovery.

In the documentary, Sue Malden says that the BBC asked Bruce Grenville if it could have a copy of his film print after an auction house had enquired about selling the print, and that Bruce then agreed to the BBC's request to loan the film. Shaun Ley's narration then states that it was after these "issues had been ironed out" that I went to collect the film.

These comments I think give the false impression that Sue Malden negotiated the return of the film with Bruce Grenville and that I was then despatched to collect it. In fact I sought and gained Bruce's permission to borrow the film to send back to the BBC some time before the auction house or Sue Malden got involved. By the time this issue arose the film print was already held, on loan, by the BBC.

This minor niggle aside, I'm delighted to have had the opportunity to take part in this documentary, which coincidentally was broadcast just days before the eleventh anniversary of the day that Neil and I made that historic discovery of a long lost episode of our favourite telesion programme.