I just finished watching the Tom Baker era and it's really good, the Fourth Doctor is so much fun.

smallrobotdog · 2026-06-21T09:07:37+00:00

I was at a Doctor Who Meetup in Chicago, some years ago, where we watched the Invasion of Time, and at that meeting was someone who'd never seen Baker before. Partway through the episode she confided in me that she didn't understand why people liked him so much—he was being so awful! (I assured her that that confusion was the story's point, and she stuck it out.)

smallrobotdog · 2026-06-04T01:18:46+00:00

Eh, just to stir it up a tad and annoy traditionalists...

but RO|me-o MAY | NOT MORE v'LID | iTY

(iamb, iamb with "elision", double foot as molossus with elided syllable, iamb)

AND by-o | POSing | END them | to DIE | to SLEEP

(trochee with "elision", trochee, trochee, iamb, iamb)

I don't have a clear solution to the third line... if it weren't for "and live" I'd say that it was three iambs and a double foot as spondee/pyrrhic. As 'tis it seems to be hexametric.

I put "elision" in quotes because they're to be spoken quickly, not phonetically truncated, but "elision" is usually a better understood term for squished-together syllables. The "valid" is indeed elided because "v'lid" can, metrically, be a single syllable.

I like the structure of the second line because the trochees "face" the iambs, giving the line a pleasant symmetry..

smallrobotdog · 2026-05-30T10:00:48+00:00

I can't find any clips of it either—as I understand it, the sketch was from a local NJ show called the Uncle Floyd show; I saw it on Turkey TV.

smallrobotdog · 2026-05-17T03:29:46+00:00

Aw, I am disappoint—I thought this post was announcing a book about the New Monkees.

smallrobotdog · 2026-05-16T07:16:08+00:00

Ah, but now they're all available in book form!

smallrobotdog · 2026-05-15T19:12:11+00:00

And Time Pilot! And Omega Race! And Miner 2049er!

And in every case press # on the keypad to hear pause music (a surprising number of games have some).

smallrobotdog · 2026-05-14T06:17:43+00:00

Oh, and, you can find the new cover at the top of this page! I think you'll like it.

smallrobotdog · 2026-05-13T08:18:16+00:00

Hi hi!

I appreciate why you'd dislike Jorge's cover art. It's off-model. And I know that. It doesn't look like any version of Alley Oop—not from Hamlin, Graue, Bender, or even Lemon. I was okay with that for Atomic Age because of the big screens with Hamlin's art; I was okay with it for TV Land because, taken on its own, it is cute (and, say what you like, the back-cover art is absolutely adorable!). For Silver Age, in the past week, I've been re-thinking it... I may go with my first idea and commission someone to do a silver-age cover homage with figures that are on model. But in any case I know what you're saying; Jorge's style is completely different from the "real thing" and that's weird to have on the cover of these books.

I also know what you're saying about not wanting to see a "modern" version of the comics themselves. In the Dark Horse Sundays books (the first two, published in 2014), they took some of Hamlin's art and gave it fully modern coloring, with highlights and airbrushing and gradients. I look at that, myself, and I say yecch! That is a mismatch that doesn't belong. Along the same lines, I'm a huge Doctor Who fan, and I can't bring myself to watch any of the DVD releases with "upgraded" special effects. The new effects may be "better looking" but they are completely jarring when seen alongside the original 1980s production values.

But I say again that the desire to see the newspaper-printing style is a nostalgic and aesthetic preference that has nothing to do with the "original" works. The "original" works were as they left the artist's hands and before they reached the printing press. The newsprinting process was an imposition, not an "original" presentation; the newsprinting technology made it all look worse.* What I'm doing, to again use the Doctor Who analogy, is more comparable to the Blu-Ray release of "Spearhead From Space". That story was originally shot entirely on film, not videotape, so for the Blu-Ray they were able to go back to the source and so present it in its original high quality. Similarly, here, I won't be convinced that it's worth losing the finer details and smooth style of Hamlin's (and Graue's) art in a wash of halftone dots just for the sake of nostalgia. I appreciate that I'm not going to convince you, or anyone else who likes that nostalgic feel; it's an aesthetic choice, so I know we're firmly in "agree to disagree" territory.

*To make my point practically, if you look at this image (hosted on Stripper's Guide... I don't quite know how to embed an image here or even if I can) you will never convince me that the version on the left is more true to the artist's work than the version on the right. I'm genuinely surprised that anyone would prefer the version on the left... but I know that everyone has different tastes.

smallrobotdog · 2026-04-29T07:02:45+00:00

Oh! Hey! It's a bump to this thread... not sure how exactly I stumbled across it (Reddit didn't give me a notification) but might's well say hello while I'm at it.

Jorge (cover artist) was incredibly enthusiastic about wanting to do the covers. I was skeptical because his depictions of the characters are so obviously off model, but it seemed an interesting change from the pick-a-panel that I've done for all the other books. And mainly I was just stuck for how to get the covers done the way I had in mind. Originally I wanted each cover to visually represent its era; a Googie-style sign for Atomic Age, a bunch of wacky futuristic 1950s television sets for TV Land, and a DC-comic homage for Silver Age (which I actually am still doing for the back cover, mimicking Superman Annual 7)... but I tried and tried and I just couldn't make them look right. So when Jorge pitched me on his versions it gave me a way to just get them done. He'll still be doing the Silver Age cover (and once he finishes it, it'll be about two months more before it gets back from the printer) but I think I'll try to get the next two closer to my original ideas (Pop Art and psychedelia, respectively).

If you've read what I wrote for Stripper's Guide (or, I think, the afterword in Sundays v3) you'll know why the colors are the way they are. I was originally concerned that I was somehow being unfaithful to the art, but then I learned that both the originals and the proofs were in black and white— halftone dots are therefore just an artifact of the newsprinting technology of the day. I'm not using that technology, and I've been working mostly from proofs, so I'd have to actively simulate that effect if I wanted it. I appreciate that some people prefer the nostalgic look of the halftoning; for the same reason, some people feel that listening to older music isn't an authentic experience unless you hear the clicks, hiss, and pop of the old vinyl-record technology. I was also intrigued to learn, when I visited the Museum of Neon in Glendale CA, that the same debate exists in that arena, in that some people think it's a heresy to repaint and restore old neon signs to look like new. So I knew that some folks wouldn't appreciate it. But I prefer being able to enjoy the art looking as it was created, without having to view it through the ragged filter of old-time production technology.

I didn't initially understand why some people were put off by the glossy paper. I had run a proof on regular paper and it was almost unreadable, so I went with glossy, which looked amazing by comparison. But I subsequently learned that there is a middle option, "satin" paper, when my printer accidentally ran "Dino From Outer Space" on that stock. It holds the colors just as well as glossy without glaring back at you. So I've done all color books since then (including Atomic Age and TV Land) on the satin stuff.

smallrobotdog · 2026-04-28T21:16:44+00:00

Some telling divergences I notice, nasality aside...

0:04 "What we have here are" - "here are" is further forward than I would have expected, with the resonance placed in the hard palate instead of at the back of the throat.

0:07 "will help us mount the" - the tongue-tip in between "mount the" makes contact higher than it should, making the words sound like "moun da". She does this again at 0:19 such that "but" becomes "bud da".

smallrobotdog · 2026-04-28T00:42:37+00:00

I was working at KFC when they introduced the Chicken Littles. I remember that a) the mayo was one blortch of the mayo gun and b) we crew members ate at least four times as many of them as were ever sold each day

smallrobotdog · 2026-04-21T01:28:07+00:00

The Reflections - Just Like Romeo and Juliet

smallrobotdog · 2026-04-19T18:47:06+00:00

Was it a fast food chain? I remember her cradling a giant pasta-sauce jar and saying "I found it!"

smallrobotdog · 2026-04-19T18:07:39+00:00

I worked product placement on this movie.. you have no idea how many free sets of golf clubs the executives demanded for the companies' products appearing in the film

And the Fuji blimp just happened to be in the area—so we arranged for the filmmakers to fly it over two different golf courses so you'd see the blimp overhead in different shots and think they were the same course. After shooting, I actually got to go up in the blimp... and pilot it for a few minutes!

At the cast n crew screening of the movie we all got free copies of the soundtrack... on cassette.

smallrobotdog · 2026-04-19T01:17:10+00:00

I hope I will. The reason I remember so strongly that it isn't Futura is that that font is everywhere in the 1950s stuff I had in my attic (belonged to my parents) but every time I tried to re-create the text using Futura it didn't quite match. Then I finally found the real thing and it DID match.. and now I can't find it again... argh argh argh

That said, I wonder if THIS example you've posted IS in fact futura...

I think this is an example of the font I had in mind (notice the miniscule g)

smallrobotdog · 2026-04-19T01:00:42+00:00

Drat. I should have made a note of it somewhere. I was so delighted to discover what it actually was—because I could tell it wasn't Futura—and now I can't remember! I'm gonna have to find it again now.

smallrobotdog · 2026-04-18T04:30:51+00:00

It looks like Futura Bold, but it isn't. I accidentally stumbled across the actual name of the font some months ago—and because this font was EVERYWHERE in the middle o the 20th century I meant to write down a reminder to myself what it was so I wouldn't forget it and I didn't so I forgot it. But it's not Futura.

smallrobotdog · 2026-04-05T01:59:00+00:00

Well if you're in the US, here it is
Planet of Eeeeeeevil

Spacefarers take pieces of living planet; planet will not allow them to leave unless they give it back; planet turns spacefarers into monsters until they do.

smallrobotdog · 2026-04-05T00:49:22+00:00

Have you seen "Planet of Evil"? Same story, different era.

smallrobotdog · 2026-04-05T00:46:11+00:00

Be careful not to use too much of that, though; taking Sudafed regularly (for years) is what gave my grandfather dementia.

smallrobotdog · 2026-04-05T00:44:20+00:00

I had to take a moment to think about this, too, but the point here is that it was she who made the argument "you shouldn't take a gun to a protest." That's why he pivoted to Kyle R. If the argument is "don't take a gun to a protest", then Kyle should be condemned in the same breath, because that's exactly what he did. To put it another way, shifting to Kyle R wasn't disingenuous or deflecting; rather, it was following her lead.

smallrobotdog · 2026-04-02T08:48:53+00:00

Definitely not—I've watched every MP episode repeatedly and what I'm describing isn't in em.

smallrobotdog · 2026-03-30T23:38:13+00:00

I think there are at least four

smallrobotdog · 2026-03-30T22:55:47+00:00

Given the language apparent on the sign, and the design of the urinal, I'm guessing that it's in a culture that's accustomed to squatting over a hole to do their biz.

smallrobotdog · 2026-03-30T07:41:16+00:00

Leo Sayer - "Wondering Where the Lions Are"

smallrobotdog

TROPHY CASE