Showing posts with label Spotlights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Spotlights. Show all posts
Wednesday, 16 March 2016
Scribble Creatures Spotlight: Angel
It was Buffy the Vampire Slayer's 19th birthday the other day. To celebrate, our Spotlight series continues as we look at that show's often underappreciated spin-off...
Wednesday, 27 January 2016
Scribble Creatures Spotlight: Labyrinth
In memory of David Bowie, the Scribble Creatures Spotlight series returns to take a journey through the Labyrinth...
Friday, 27 February 2015
Scribble Creatures Spotlight: Lucifer Box
Kicking off last month with Return to Oz, a new regular feature on this blog will look at personal favourites - books, fictional characters, films ETC - which I think go unfortunately under-appreciated in the big wide world. This month, we turn to the exploits of a rather fiendish fellow...
Secret agents are going through something of a renaissance at the moment. On TV, there are shows like Marvel's Agent Carter and Toby Whithouse's The Game and the cinema is chock-a-block with retro, cool spies, such as those in Kingsman and The Man from UNCLE. Something tells me, however, that one retro secret agent you won't be seeing on screen any time soon is Mark Gatiss' debonair, if decadent, Lucifer Box.
Appearing in three novels by the Doctor Who and Sherlock writer, Lucifer Box is apparently a dandified artist - an early 20th century playboy who resides in No 9 Downing Street ('someone's got to live there'). In fact, Lucifer is the top agent of the Royal Academy, the front for Britain's Secret Service.
On the face of it, what with Gatiss being a big name on telly, Lucifer Box's stories seem perfect for an adaptation for a mainstream audience. However, his adventures are far wackier and more eccentric than the average spy thriller. And, even in 2015, possibly too risqué. Lucifer himself, as he carefully puts it, 'travels' on both 'the number 38 bus and the 19.' If you can imagine Captain Jack Harkness crossed with Oscar Wilde you have Lucifer in a nutshell.
Filled to the brim with wit and Gatiss' rich, descriptive writing style, the Box books are, as you would expect, something of a Bond pastiche but only to a certain degree. Unlike many perennial heroes, Lucifer Box ages, with each instalment moving the story forward several decades. The first sees a young Box in Edwardian times, the second a middle-aged Box in the 20s and the finale of the trilogy has Box, now an elder statesman, investigating one final case in the 50s. As such, Gatiss is allowed to unleash a tirade of pastiches, going from Edwardian garden party stories to the pulpy horrors of the 20s and 30s to the spy novels of John Le Carre and Ian Fleming. The books may be, as Gatiss puts it, 'bits of fluff' but that doesn't stop them from being an incredibly quotable, memorable and just genuinely enjoyable novel series.
So while Lucifer Box may deserve to rub shoulders (and probably more, knowing him) with the likes of James Bond and Sherlock Holmes in the Hall of Famous Heroes, I can't see it happening. Still, with a fine trilogy of novels out there as it is, perhaps it is better that way. After all, some Boxes are best left unopened.
The Books
The Vesuvius Club
Lucifer is sent to investigate the disappearance of a number of eminent scientists in Naples - just when he has started courting the lovely Bella Pok. However, aided by his new valet Charlie Jackpot, Lucifer realises he has bigger problems on his finely-manicured hands when he uncovers the sinister machinations of the Vesuvius Club. Can Lucifer use his artistic license to kill to save the planet from a calamity of volcanic proportions?
The Devil in Amber
Lucifer, now feeling his age, is sent to New York to observe the suspicious activities of fascist leader Olympus Mons - but is framed for murder in the process. As resilient as ever, Lucifer escapes to Norfolk where he uncovers a plot to rule the world more diabolical than any he has faced. Is it possible for Lucifer, saviour of the world, to beat Lucifer, prince of darkness?
Black Butterfly
An elderly Lucifer finds himself on his final case when pillars of the establishment keep dying bizarre deaths. The mystery takes him from Soho to Istanbul to Jamaica and back into battle with an old enemy - and into the path of the deadly assassin, Kingdom Kum. Will Lucifer, now well past his prime, survive an embrace by the lethal wings of the Black Butterfly?
Secret agents are going through something of a renaissance at the moment. On TV, there are shows like Marvel's Agent Carter and Toby Whithouse's The Game and the cinema is chock-a-block with retro, cool spies, such as those in Kingsman and The Man from UNCLE. Something tells me, however, that one retro secret agent you won't be seeing on screen any time soon is Mark Gatiss' debonair, if decadent, Lucifer Box.
Appearing in three novels by the Doctor Who and Sherlock writer, Lucifer Box is apparently a dandified artist - an early 20th century playboy who resides in No 9 Downing Street ('someone's got to live there'). In fact, Lucifer is the top agent of the Royal Academy, the front for Britain's Secret Service.
On the face of it, what with Gatiss being a big name on telly, Lucifer Box's stories seem perfect for an adaptation for a mainstream audience. However, his adventures are far wackier and more eccentric than the average spy thriller. And, even in 2015, possibly too risqué. Lucifer himself, as he carefully puts it, 'travels' on both 'the number 38 bus and the 19.' If you can imagine Captain Jack Harkness crossed with Oscar Wilde you have Lucifer in a nutshell.
Filled to the brim with wit and Gatiss' rich, descriptive writing style, the Box books are, as you would expect, something of a Bond pastiche but only to a certain degree. Unlike many perennial heroes, Lucifer Box ages, with each instalment moving the story forward several decades. The first sees a young Box in Edwardian times, the second a middle-aged Box in the 20s and the finale of the trilogy has Box, now an elder statesman, investigating one final case in the 50s. As such, Gatiss is allowed to unleash a tirade of pastiches, going from Edwardian garden party stories to the pulpy horrors of the 20s and 30s to the spy novels of John Le Carre and Ian Fleming. The books may be, as Gatiss puts it, 'bits of fluff' but that doesn't stop them from being an incredibly quotable, memorable and just genuinely enjoyable novel series.
So while Lucifer Box may deserve to rub shoulders (and probably more, knowing him) with the likes of James Bond and Sherlock Holmes in the Hall of Famous Heroes, I can't see it happening. Still, with a fine trilogy of novels out there as it is, perhaps it is better that way. After all, some Boxes are best left unopened.
The Books
Lucifer is sent to investigate the disappearance of a number of eminent scientists in Naples - just when he has started courting the lovely Bella Pok. However, aided by his new valet Charlie Jackpot, Lucifer realises he has bigger problems on his finely-manicured hands when he uncovers the sinister machinations of the Vesuvius Club. Can Lucifer use his artistic license to kill to save the planet from a calamity of volcanic proportions?
The Devil in AmberLucifer, now feeling his age, is sent to New York to observe the suspicious activities of fascist leader Olympus Mons - but is framed for murder in the process. As resilient as ever, Lucifer escapes to Norfolk where he uncovers a plot to rule the world more diabolical than any he has faced. Is it possible for Lucifer, saviour of the world, to beat Lucifer, prince of darkness?
An elderly Lucifer finds himself on his final case when pillars of the establishment keep dying bizarre deaths. The mystery takes him from Soho to Istanbul to Jamaica and back into battle with an old enemy - and into the path of the deadly assassin, Kingdom Kum. Will Lucifer, now well past his prime, survive an embrace by the lethal wings of the Black Butterfly?
Friday, 23 January 2015
Scribble Creatures Spotlight: Return to Oz
It's the new year (well, it's January anyway) so there's no better time to start a new regular feature for this blog! From now on, once a month I will put a spotlight on something - be it book, film, television series, fictional character or otherwise - that goes under-appreciated in the big wide world but I think deserves your attention. This month, we kick off this new feature with a trip to a magical world. And you and you and you'll be there...
I've always been fond of the Oz books. If memory serves, I believe they were the first of the classic children's fairy tale fantasies - the Chronicles of Narnia, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan - that I read. Equally, everyone's favourite 1939's The Wizard of Oz was watched over and over again. But my favourite story set in the marvellous land of Oz was definitely Wizard's often misunderstood younger sibling, Return to Oz. While its predecessor is forever lauded, Return is often consigned to 'Weirdest Movie Sequel' Lists. Weird it may be but, rather than being a failing, that is really one of its charms.
Six months after her first journey to Oz (but actually made 46 years after Wizard), Dorothy has been having trouble sleeping so she is taken to Dr Worley's asylum to be cured by electrotherapy. But a storm one night saves her from the horrible place and puts her back in Oz which once again desperately needs Dorothy's help...
For starters, Return makes a cleverer move than most film sequels by actively aiming for something new. Unlike the passable Oz: The Great and Powerful, Return to Oz does not just leech off the original, instead translating elements of the classic film to suit its own purpose. One of the most striking ways in which it does this - at least for a child - is by literally bulldozing through the unhampered gaiety and joy of Wizard's Oz. The shining Emerald City is reduced to ruins and all your favourite characters - the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion - have been petrified into stone. From the off, the film makes sure we know we are in a different kind of Oz.
Possibly the film's most famous attribute is its scares, with many claiming it to be too scary for children. Personally, I wouldn't agree with that as I think its scares are one of the great delights of watching this as a child as well as underlying an important message. There is something sinister at every turn in this film - Nurse Wilson and the screams in the asylum, Princess Mombi's severed heads and, of course, the cackling, creaking Wheelers - yet like all the best fairy tales, this is offset by the knowledge that it will get better. Through the course of the story, Dorothy bands together with some new allies (who could be boring analogues of her more famous friends - Tik Tok = Tin Man, Pumpkinhead = Scarecrow - but they have enough of their own personality to set them apart) and is sure that she will be able to restore everything to the way it should be.
The reason Return to Oz is, I think, unfairly compared to Wizard is because people expect it to be full of songs and cheer. Instead it is a completely different beast, an alternate take on the same ideas. A wonderful, dreamlike film, it emphasises the questionable nature of Oz as a real place or a hallucination by the use of its surrealistic, offbeat stylings. The Wizard of Oz may be a delightful daydream but this is the scary yet meaningful nightmare that never leaves you.
More Like This:
Tin Man
Return to Oz is by far from the only subversion of the popular Oz image. A few years ago there was this SyFy mini-series remixing of the Wizard of Oz story which employed more overtly fantasy genre elements. Starring Zooey Deschanel, it saw Kansas girl DG sent by a storm to the other world of The Outer Zone to stop the evil witch-queen Askedelia. It's a strange idea, to take one of the very first fantasy novels and redo it with modern fantasy clichés but if you can accept the premise it is a likeable runaround with comic relief coming from Alan Cumming's Glitch, a man missing part of his brain (you don't have to go see the Wizard to have the brains to guess who he's based off).
Alice in Wonderland (2010)
It would be easy to assume that Return to Oz was inspired by Tim Burton's own gothic fairy tale films, if it wasn't for the fact it came out before he was around. While many of his works have a similar tone to Return, the closest film to it in his oeuvre would be Alice, another creepier retelling-cum-sequel to a classic children's fantasy story. It is certainly inferior to Return but it is far from as bad as the critics say, featuring a likeably spirited Alice in Mia Wasikowska and, as ever from Burton, an eye-catching visual style.
Coraline
It really wouldn't surprise me if Neil Gaiman was a fan of Return to Oz, as his work and the film share a similar 'scairy tale' tone. The crossover between the two is no more evident than in Gaiman's Coraline. Both feature capable young girls thrust into a nightmarish other land containing twisted versions of people they know in the real world. The finale of Coraline always reminds me of the climax of Return in that they both feature the villain letting the girl play a game to find an object which will save her loved ones.
I've always been fond of the Oz books. If memory serves, I believe they were the first of the classic children's fairy tale fantasies - the Chronicles of Narnia, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan - that I read. Equally, everyone's favourite 1939's The Wizard of Oz was watched over and over again. But my favourite story set in the marvellous land of Oz was definitely Wizard's often misunderstood younger sibling, Return to Oz. While its predecessor is forever lauded, Return is often consigned to 'Weirdest Movie Sequel' Lists. Weird it may be but, rather than being a failing, that is really one of its charms.
Six months after her first journey to Oz (but actually made 46 years after Wizard), Dorothy has been having trouble sleeping so she is taken to Dr Worley's asylum to be cured by electrotherapy. But a storm one night saves her from the horrible place and puts her back in Oz which once again desperately needs Dorothy's help...
For starters, Return makes a cleverer move than most film sequels by actively aiming for something new. Unlike the passable Oz: The Great and Powerful, Return to Oz does not just leech off the original, instead translating elements of the classic film to suit its own purpose. One of the most striking ways in which it does this - at least for a child - is by literally bulldozing through the unhampered gaiety and joy of Wizard's Oz. The shining Emerald City is reduced to ruins and all your favourite characters - the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion - have been petrified into stone. From the off, the film makes sure we know we are in a different kind of Oz.
Possibly the film's most famous attribute is its scares, with many claiming it to be too scary for children. Personally, I wouldn't agree with that as I think its scares are one of the great delights of watching this as a child as well as underlying an important message. There is something sinister at every turn in this film - Nurse Wilson and the screams in the asylum, Princess Mombi's severed heads and, of course, the cackling, creaking Wheelers - yet like all the best fairy tales, this is offset by the knowledge that it will get better. Through the course of the story, Dorothy bands together with some new allies (who could be boring analogues of her more famous friends - Tik Tok = Tin Man, Pumpkinhead = Scarecrow - but they have enough of their own personality to set them apart) and is sure that she will be able to restore everything to the way it should be.
The reason Return to Oz is, I think, unfairly compared to Wizard is because people expect it to be full of songs and cheer. Instead it is a completely different beast, an alternate take on the same ideas. A wonderful, dreamlike film, it emphasises the questionable nature of Oz as a real place or a hallucination by the use of its surrealistic, offbeat stylings. The Wizard of Oz may be a delightful daydream but this is the scary yet meaningful nightmare that never leaves you.
More Like This:
Tin ManReturn to Oz is by far from the only subversion of the popular Oz image. A few years ago there was this SyFy mini-series remixing of the Wizard of Oz story which employed more overtly fantasy genre elements. Starring Zooey Deschanel, it saw Kansas girl DG sent by a storm to the other world of The Outer Zone to stop the evil witch-queen Askedelia. It's a strange idea, to take one of the very first fantasy novels and redo it with modern fantasy clichés but if you can accept the premise it is a likeable runaround with comic relief coming from Alan Cumming's Glitch, a man missing part of his brain (you don't have to go see the Wizard to have the brains to guess who he's based off).
Alice in Wonderland (2010)It would be easy to assume that Return to Oz was inspired by Tim Burton's own gothic fairy tale films, if it wasn't for the fact it came out before he was around. While many of his works have a similar tone to Return, the closest film to it in his oeuvre would be Alice, another creepier retelling-cum-sequel to a classic children's fantasy story. It is certainly inferior to Return but it is far from as bad as the critics say, featuring a likeably spirited Alice in Mia Wasikowska and, as ever from Burton, an eye-catching visual style.
CoralineIt really wouldn't surprise me if Neil Gaiman was a fan of Return to Oz, as his work and the film share a similar 'scairy tale' tone. The crossover between the two is no more evident than in Gaiman's Coraline. Both feature capable young girls thrust into a nightmarish other land containing twisted versions of people they know in the real world. The finale of Coraline always reminds me of the climax of Return in that they both feature the villain letting the girl play a game to find an object which will save her loved ones.
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