Sometimes when you go to a convention, you have a list of celebrities in mind you want to meet and get stuff signed but sometimes, you end up talking to a celebrity that you never expected to interact with.
And that’s exactly what happened on 6th September 2025 out at the Eikon Centre. I had four Doctor Whos to meet, a companion, a Walking Dead actor , all signing comics and Highlander and Tarzan actor Christopher Lambert but he cancelled last minute.
Among the guests was Ricky Tomlinson.
I was always a huge fan of Brookside, a british soap opera that was cancelled by the powers that be to make way for cheaper reality shows. Brookside broke the mould with its storylines and acting e.g the first lesbian kiss and the body under the patio story. Ricky played Bobby Grant who was married to Sheila played by Sue Johnston. They went through the mill and quickly became fan favourites.
They would go on to star together in the comedy The Royle Family which again became a huge and much loved hit. They were pure magic.
He was there beside a replica set of the Royle family living room.
I was in my wheelchair that day due to an injury so was wheeling about, getting my bearings. Ricky was there in his Jim Royle shirt and waved at me as I passed. I immediately was transported back to Brookside Close. Later, I saw him on his own so went over ebcause I had to tell him how much I loved Brookside.
Well, what a gent.
There are no airs or graces with Ricky. He is so down to earth and open. He’s a gabbler and we chatted away about Brookside and how good it was. I knew they were filming a crossover with Hollyoaks and we spoke about that. He was excited at coming back and said the storylines were going to be amazing. We spoke about Liverpool celebrities which I can’t revral and Paul O’Grady. He adored Paul and said he was what you saw on screen. He talked about growing up in Liverpool and the old houses. So engrossed were we that we turned round and saw a huge queue had formed. Hastily, I got my photo with him. I love surprises like that when you meet someone that you can chat to as if you had always known them.
Ricky is 85 years of age and still as sharp as a pin. I will never forget that meeting as long as I live. It genuinely touched me and I was so glad I took the chance and went over to chat. As I write this Brookside is about to hit our screens again. Bobby and Sheila are back and it’s about time.
Hat’s off to you Ricky. You made a lot more fans that weekend in Lisburn than you realise. A pleasure.
The B movie monster era of the 1950s is a goldmine full of classic movies, many of which have been remade at a later date.
When we think of The Thing, we always go straight to John Carpenter’s classic version but this is, in fact, one of the most famous 1950s B movie remakes: The Thing from Another World, based on the book Who Goes There?
The premise sees a crashed UFO and its occupant found buried in ice in the Antartica. While the members of the base accidentally blow the ship up, they manage to bring the block of ice with the alien into the base. A storm breaks out making communication with the military bosses nearly impossible. It isn’t long before the creature gets up, alive and well, and the soldiers, scientists and sole reporter find themselves locked in a battle to save themselves and the planet.
Now, in the 50s, there was no gore so given how John Carpenter took the premise and explanded it into the cult classic has roots here. The military men, led by Kenneth Tobey as Captain Patrick Henry, were jovial in nature while the scientific team seem overzealous to the point of loss of commonsense where the alien is concerned. Howard Hawks was a highly respected director of that era and knew exactly what he wanted. James Arness was cast as the monster. It was humanoid but with strange looking head make-up (Arness would go on to become a very successful western actor). So the script had to convey any horror going on.
I remeber as a child watching black and white movies and being terrified. And that is a testament to writers, directors and all involed as with no concept of gore, you need langage or visual tricks to make the audience buy they’re facing a deadly alien. One of the jumpscares is the simple open a door and something scary is behind it. When you see that moment, you are not expecting the creature to be there and when it tries to slash out at Henry, you jump. It roars but doesn’t speak and you have an enemy that is immune to the cold because of its plant biology. But there within lies the answer to destroying it.
The alien here needs blood to survive. It visually reminded people of a Frankenstein’s monster type of beast compared to the mindblowing practical effects of the John Carpenter version. There are very few original movies that match their remake/sequel in quality but the Thing from Another World falls into this category. You have the same ‘base under seige’ mentality in both movies. It is a fight for survival with Earth being at stake.
With an icy tomb outside and alien threat in and out of the base, stakes are high. Not even the scientists can be fully trusted. Dr Carrington is more interested in the wisdom he will gain from the alien. All he’s interested in is the secrets he can learn from it and while his intentions are well intentioned, sort of, his execution leaves a lot to be desired. In the climax, he almost gets everyone killed by cutting off the power of their electrical trap before being attacked by the alien.
The most freaky scene in the movie is when they are figuring out what the alien is. They have seen it fight the huskies, smashing them to the ground like breadsticks. One dog tears its arm off and they are examining it. It seems to be a plant, a super carrot if you will. The carrot comparison is to make the audience less frightened by the fact it needs us to live. This automatically makes the audience think this alien is orange coloured. They further cement it in the minds of the audience by drawing to the fact that there are many plants on Earth that hunt mammals and very successfully. Imagine your pot plant growing a mouth and legs and coming after you. It’s not something you would think of as a possibility but upon watching the Thing, it becomes a reality you were never aware of, furthering making this movie a reality in people’s heads. The hand begins to move. It has gone from frozen to room tempersature, absorbing the dog blood it was covered in. So the script had to convey any horror going on.
It produces seeds which Carrington has planted and secretly fed blood too. When he reveals it to the scientists, he has a tray of human plants that feed on blood. As with the alien using human cells in John Carpenter’s to spread, seeds seem to be its way here. In none of the movies do we an answer about the alien’s origins but that only adds to the sudience making up their own images. Dr Carrington has been secretly feeding the samples blood which they are growing on.
These aliens are breathing, the young plants crying like newborns. The thirst of science overrules all including common sense given that one scientist reminds tham what one of these aliens can do, then imagine a thousand. The alien could be here to colonise the Earth which can only be done by killing anything with blood, starting with the base personnel. Henry burns Carrington’s experiments before they become a threat.
Those words made the audience conjure up their own nightmares. The alien looked like a man yet was able to take out, string up and drain two grown men of their blood. Henry compares it to a slaughterhouse. We only get a glimpse of something hairy fall out of a storage bin. It is what is left of one of the dogs, shrunken and drained.
But the true horror is off screen. Two huskies have been drained dry but the more horrifying part is the reveal of two scientists are found hanging upside dowm, also fed on their blood. It’s predator style 1950s but off screen. We have seen how that looked but for audiences in those days it would have been left to their imaginations. One of the doctors was there when they were attacked but fell, smashing his head. He tells them he felt an ice cold draught, Olsen and Arbuck screaming. When he awoke, they were hanging upside down with their throats cut. Add that to the state of the dog found in the storage bin, you get a horrible vision of a human after being drained. Hearing it from the mouth of one of the character makes it real because of their reaction. The audience is now invested in these characters so are there with them subconsciously.
It is established this alien has no nervous ystem, no heart, no nerve endings. It reproduces without sex or emotion which Carrington is envious of. Its arm was ripped off but it grew a new one very rapidly and we get to see a true demonstration of its strength when it smashes its way into a rec room. They set it on fire and it runs through a wall into the snow screaming. Its scream is inhuman further reminding the audience that this is an alien even though it’s an actor made up.
The build up to this was cleverly done. They can track the creature with a radiation counter. As they countdown, it means it is getting closer. Suddenly the lights go out. They are in darkness and the alien throws the door open, illuminated by the outside light, smothering it in shadow to make it scarier. They set it on fire with gasoline.
James Cameron would use a similar tracking trick in Aliens to even greater effect years later. Seeing the set in flames with this giant smashing through walls is still impressive when viewed and has been emulated in the Thing remake. It lashes out at them before jumping through a window into the snow. It is freezing them out, again showing it is an intelligent creature with a plan. It knows its enemy. Keeping the monster in shadow is a classic tool used to this day and, most notabley, by Ridley Scott in Alien. There is a Frankenstein’s monster element to the Thing as seen best in the final scenes where they are trying to lure it into their electrical trap so they can fry it. Frankenstein’s monster was already a familair figure of horro for the audience so that similarity would generate horror.
James Arness was a big guy so is perfect for the Thing. Standing at six foot seven and a half inches tall, he went on to find global fame in the twenty year long running Western series, Gunsmoke. He is as synonymous with Matt Dillon as William Shatner is with Captain Kirk. But for me, he will always be the iconic monster from The Thing from Another World. Hawks brought to life a story of isolation and terror with tricks never before seen by audiences. And I like the fact there is no on screen gore. It makes it scarier just as the first Halloween had no blood in it for the kills. And if you think about it, the Carpenter reboot wasn’t a gore fest either; just scares and paranoia built on jump scares and practical effects never before seen by an audience. Hitchcock had the same gift for tension and scares because he used the tools around him to the utmost effect; the actors, the script, special effects department and lighting. The rest is pure imagination.
Out of the many shows I like, Torchwood is one of those where you would like to meet the entire cast. So far, I have met Gwen, Ianto and Rhys and on Saturday 18th Jaanuary 2024, I ticked another from my list and a very much anticipated one. Naoko Mori played tech wizard Tosh for two seasons before being killed off along with Owen in probably one of the best dramatic episodes of any show or in the history of the entire Whoniverse.
She had first appeared In Doctor Who episode, Aliens of London as a scientist investigating the spacepig crashlanding that took out Big Ben. She would tell us that it was just another acting job and that she was told had no connection to her character Tosh. But in fact, just as the Doctor and Rose meeting a maid in old Wales that was the double of Gwen Cooper, did the writers actually tie it all together. It would be revealed in her death scene that she was in fact covering for Owen who had a hangover that day.
Both my son and I are huge Torchwood fans and we were not disappointed. Naoko is by far one of the most interesting and talkative celebrities that I’ve ever met. To say that she left a lasting impression on me and especially my son, would be an understatement. She was so approachable and happily chatted away about the show and the impact their deaths had. Looking back we can see that the third season of Torchwood was the five part Children of Earth so was she killed off because the producers knew the show wasn’t coming back as full seasons? She didn’t know but was interested in the reaction to the shock value of her death on my son who did not know it was coming. While doing our photoshoots, she took a great interest in my son’s Japanese logoed jumper and she told him the meaning behind the tiger logo. They got on like a house on fire. Naoko Mori is just a pleasure to meet and engage with. She has a genuine interest in fans and as demonstrated with my son, takes the conversation and interest beyond her time on Torchwood.
It was a bloody cold Saturday morning on 18th January 2024 when I next met Sophie Aldred. Sophie played the 7th Doctor’s companion, Ace in the final days of the classic series. She has done many Big Finish audio plays and special appearances as Ace. She finally returned in Jodie Whittaker’s final story, The Power of the Doctor. This time however I had my son with me who, as a kid, loved the 7th Doctor era and now he was getting to meet Ace. He had already met Sylvester McCoy a few years ago as a kid and was totally starstruck but now as a 20 year old man, he had plenty to chat about with Sophie.
I first met her at a Nebula con in the Aldelphi Hotel in Liverpool for a ‘Curse of Fenric’ event and we have met several times over the years, including Belfast. The only photo I ever got with her was over a table so this was my chance to get a proper photo done.
Sophie was as nice as ever. She has a genuine interest in her fans and spent ages talking to my son about her era, especially Remembrance of the Daleks. He got a photo of her and Sylvester from that story signed. She told us it was one she had only recently discovered and got printed for conventions for signing. We talked about her return to the show for Power of the Doctor and if ever there was a great spin off just waiting to be done, it was her working alongside UNIT.
We talked about how generational Doctor Who was and just how strong the 7th Doctor stories were to the point we are still talking about them and buying the action figures, e.g the Emperor Davros was released before Christmas and I bought it because a) it’s a great figure and b) it evokes great memories of that story.
So we had our photoshoots and again had the opportunity to chat. It was a day of bucket list moments because my son and I got what we wanted and more because Sophie took the time to chat and more so listen to us. Meeting celebrities can be hit or miss but Sophie Aldred is a total hit.
Any writer will tell you that the germ of an idea often turns into something completely different. Also, that you may have a germ of an idea but it may take a while to put it into a coherent story. This was the case with When Angels Burn.
It was going to be called Curse of Lake Damon. It was something my son had an idea about as a child. Damon means demon in German. He envisioned a dark lake with creatures made of mist rising from the surface. This sayed with me for a few years before I began to put it all together.
As a Time Warriors story, it would go either the supernatural way or the sci fi way. I then got an idea of a young woman in a rowing boat at night who suddenly dissolves when a strange whispering reaches a crescendo. So I had a whispering lake, ghosts in the woods and there wa no other way round it, there was something alien at the bottom of the lake. I had two other ideas; a young mute boy screaming out in the night and a Persian kid sitting on a frozen vista before a floating fire. A figure approaches him and hands him what looks like a Doubloon and tells him “When Angels Burn.”
I needed a way in different from the usual stumbling into or being dragged into a story. This time I used Rachel’s fake memories given to her by the Ganti when they made her human as a doorway. What if Rachel had memories of this boy and the whispering lake? But she only had fragments so that was the central mystery.
So many images and ideas but how to put them all together? Little did I know that it would become a story about loss and grief for both bumans and Xerebans.
it wasn’t until I saw the image of the alien, the Galantufeen, my most exotic named alien to date and then it all fell into place.
Writing a series like the Time Warriors, you begin to develop your own universe and mythos. So the chance to bring Xereba back into the story was impossible to resist. It was also a chance to reaffirm the Time Warriors as a team and expand on them all as characters. I liked the Vienna backdrop as you want to see the world.
But I fear I have said too much. If you want to see how it all comes together check out The Time Warriors When Angels Burn & Other Stories now on sale on Amazon in both paperback and kindle.
Just as Tegan complained when she returned in the 13th Doctor final story, Power of the Doctor, that it had been nearly four decades since she had last heard from the Doctor, so it was for me when I met up with Janet Fielding in Lisburn for a comic con on 6th September 2025.
In my case, it had been an Ace situation, nearly three decades for me. We had last met at Panopticon in the Imperial College London back in the 80s. She was doing a panel with her Doctor, Peter Davison and fellow companion, Sarah Sutton who played Nyssa.
I asked a simple question, what was your favourite cliffhanger? For some reason, that pissed them off. Janet summoned me on stage where she threatened to throw a jug of water over me. I never understood why and that put me right off this tardis crew as the most unpleasant I had met.
I have never met Sarah Sutton again but I did meet Peter davison a few times. But all I had of Tegan was a black and white 10 x 8 of Janet which I bought on the day for three quid back then.
This time I wanted a photo with her and got a Doctor Who comic book signed.
It’s one of my favourite signatures to be honest. Janet was absolutely lovely. She didn’t want to drench me this time. We chatted about her return to the show and keeping it secret. Her time on the show and her era. We also talked about her time representing other actors and how the Dublin scene has decliend a bit. We had a great time chatting and I was so caught up, I forgot to get my photo so had to go back and tick that off the bucket list.
The fifth Doctor era is a favourite of mine and I am glad that I got her once again but also the fifth Doctor that day too.
Who doesn’t love Q from Star Trek? And who doesn’t love the stylish, eloquent John De Lancie?
I first met John many moons ago in Dublin at a small convention. He was open, affable, delightful and a genuine gentleman. As I said elsewhere, fans got very lucky at Dublin Comic Con Summer Edition 2025. I had lost my autograph of John so had to go to get one again.
John once wrote a Star Trek The Next Generation comic for DC comics called The Gift. The cover remains to this day, stunning as you can see below.
So this time when we met, I had an original copy and handed it to him to be signed. He cheekily asked should he write all over Patrick Stewart’s head so I said yeah.
John has that cheeky chappie grin that cemented him in Star Trek fans heart from the minute he appeared on screen. While we are both older, he still has it as you can see from the photo above.
He can hold an audience as his panel showed and just as it was years ago, he still can hold the fans in the palm of his hand. He is interested in fans and their lives, asking a friend of mine what hi did as a profession. When he said that he was a podiatrist, they had a discussion about private and public health care. We had a chat about diabetes and how insidious it is.
Meeting him tied in with his surprise appearance on Star Trek Strange New Worlds as the father of Trelane. While it may have broken continuity, a bit, it was a delight to at least, hear him on Trek once again.
He just has to smile at you once with that mischievous twinkle in the eye and you know Q is alive and well. A true gentleman.
The Mistress of the Dark herself is coming to Dublin! We’re thrilled to announce Cassandra Peterson, the iconic Elvira, as a guest at Dublin Comic Con – Summer Edition this August! Best known as the legendary horror host Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, Cassandra Peterson has become a true pop-culture icon across film, television, comics, and beyond.
This is an extremely rare convention appearance. Cassandra has not appeared at a European convention since 2017, and even before then, her appearances were few and far between. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for fans to meet the Queen of Halloween right here in Dublin.
We’re not big fans of corn fields between Children of the Corn, Signs and every other horror movie set in a field with plants higher than your head so we go visit Clown in a Cornfield to see can we beat that fear. Clowns? In a cornfield? A huge twist that will send you running. Stephen Carey and Owen Quinn check out if clowns will ever get a good rap.
Virtually every sci-fi show has done a body swap episode.
With the Time Warriors, I try to make every story as original as possible without falling into old tropes. And if you do a story which has been done so many times before, then how could I make it different?
So for To Meet In Dreams, I wanted something different than an alien device or teleport accident. I couldn’t really see the benefit or story if any of the Time Warriors switched bodies with each other.
I was familair with the concept of astral travelling so thought that maybe that would be a good device with which to make the body swap happen. It was always going to Jacke who was having a hard time after her split with Stephen at the climax of the Wolves of Chernobyl & Other Stories. But why would someone be swapping bodies?
I look around at the world where kids literally live in their phones and are losing the art of handwriting and painting and drawing with the advent of AI. One area we avoid is the future where Varran is afraid to go for fear of finding out something that could affect the present day. So I decided that we should see a possible future leading to the immortal line,
“Open your mouth and I’ll rip your balls off!”
That should really be a T-shirt.
But I still needed a new slant on body swap. It’s very easy to shoehorn characters into stories like a certain ethnicity or disabled etc but for this one, it was an ideal opportunity to have a little person as the bad guy who isn’t really a bad guy at all. It allowed me to explore the fact he gets to experience the world as a normal person while Jacke learns how hard it is to be disabled, even in the future.
Professor Eric Talman is a genius in his era, married with a husband, but he is desperate to bring back the art of handwriting and painting which has virtually all died out. And he has pinpointed the era where it all went wrong and he wants to change that. What do you do when you discover you have swapped bodies with a time traveller whose binman is desperate for a date.
It was time for Jacke to get over Stephen and the introduction of Deano the Muay Thai binman feels right for Jacke and the series as a whole.
But unable to reverse Talman’s body swap, will Jacke be trapped in a little person’s body in the future with no help from Tyran’s descendants? What will this mean for Talman’s husband, Mervin? What does it mean for their marriage?
To Meet In Dreams is a chance to revisit an old very used scenario through new eyes. It is also a chance to break the no visits to the future rule and expand the Time Warriors mythos. In dark times, life has a way of pushing you in the direction you need as Jacke discovers.
Find out in When Angels Burn & Other Stories now available in paperback and kindle on Amazon.
The Time Warriors and Beyond 