Ghostbusters is a classic that enchants every generation and here in Ireland we are brimming with fans of the franchise. Over the last couple of years new clubs have formed which are showcased at conventions like Dublin Comic Con and Northern Ireland Comic Con. Ghostbusters Dublin and Ghostbusters Northern Ireland do events all over the country and all for charity. Both have expanded rapidly in the last while with the launch of their cadet programme. At their recent Northern Ireland Comic Con they showed their new containment chamber as well as their props. Below are their Facebook links so see more and maybe sign up the youngsters to become the next generation of those not afraid of ghosts.
I got to tick the 13th Doctor off my list when Jodie Whittaker appeared at Northern Ireland Comic Con along with her on screen companion, Yaz aka Mandip Gill. It was a bittersweet experience to be honest.
Jodie was positioned alongside the Tardis and was great. She was so genuine, excitable and happy to chat. She was honestly happy to visit Northern Ireland even though she would only be there for one day so sightseeing was out.
We chatted for several minutes. There was no sense of rushing people and she was a great celeb to meet. I got one of the comics signed. I’d met another Doctor!
But here’s the bitter part. There was no option for a combo for her or for Mandip. A combo is when you pay at the table for a selfie and an autograph. For example for Cooper Andrews who played Jerry in The Walking Dead charged £60 for a combo while Steven Ogg who played Simon in The Walking Dead was $50 at Dublin Comic Con. They’re commonplace and good for people who may not have the cash for a professional photo. By taking away a combo option, fans are then forced to go for the professional photo which is always dearer. A combo saves you money. To use Jodie as an example her autograph was advertised at £75 on social media but was £80 on the day. A professional phot was £80 bringing to a total of £160 for her. I understand she is the Doctor and as a lifetime fan of the show she had to be added to my collection. She is iconic in the sphere of being the Doctor and in the sphere of its history. I know a lot of people that refused to pay that.
So I was told that the next photo op was 17:10pm and tickets would be sold at 17:05. I waited and went to the table to pay fpr a photo and complete the day. However when i got there they were talking about refunds. I asked for a photo op but was told the photo shoot had been cancelled. According to the staff, they had just learned that Jodie had to leave early. I found that strange given they had booked her flights over so knew in advance what time she would have to leave to go home. Now it didn’t help that |Northern Ireland Comic Con took the photo ops off the site at least two days before Saturday the 7th taking the opportunity away from anyone to see if there were earlier slots. All I got were a couple of poor photos taken from a distance. See below.
So I never got my photo with Jodie leaving it as something to be done sometime in the future. She was great and entertained the crowds with the Doctor Who panel alongside Billie Piper and Mandip Gill. I’d love to meet her again but as long as the organisers don’t mess up again.
When my family and i went to the Walker Stalker conventions in the Excel Centre in London a few years ago, we walked past Cooper Andrews and saw him at his table as a double act for King Ezekiel, Khary Payton. Their relationship was integral to the show with the introduction of the Kingdom.
Jerry was the everyman of the show, getting married and having kids despite the zombie hordes. He was the Miles O’Brien of The Walking Dead and survived to the very end. So finally getting to meet and chat with him weas great.
i learned we both bad at maths and hate it. Cooper’s mum went to MIT so he didn’t inherit her gift for numbers. We discussed his favourite parts of the show with both of loving season one as fans and the character of Jerry. he fought them all and at the heart of it was to keep his King, friends and family safe.
And he did something different for each photo rather than the standard smile ones. He did the epic movie pose and creeping through dark corridors pose. He makes each fan feel welcome and speaks to them as people whom he is genuinely interested in learning about. Although Jerry was not in the comics, I was delighted to add him to the collection.
Let’s hope that this is not his last visit to Ireland.
The something is coming. It’s do or die time pose.
The be careful, there could be a zombie at any moment pose.
By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
I was recently made aware of just how many movies and television shows the younger generation have never heard of, never mind seen. So to that end, we look back at some characters you really need to see before you kick the bucket.
In another universe I wouldn’t have to be writing about Odyssey 5. It would have been on all our lips like Quantum Leap. My first view of it was on a late night slot on television and by the end of the hour and a half I was hooked. very few shows have caught my attention in the first episode like this for example X Files and The Walking Dead but Odyssey 5 was a trailblazer for other shows today. It had swearing, full frontal nudity all wrapped up in a sci fi coat.
The characters were flawed; three dimensional good and bad in all their glory. To get the show’s premise you should click on the video above which is the show’s intro and gives you everything you need to know. What is beautiful about odyssey 5 written and created by the late Manny Coto, was that it played with our expectations of time travel in the same way as it did the characters. They all know what is going to happen in their lives and the world so all they need to do is live it again and look for signs of the mystery of what caused the Earth to explode and stop it. However this is not the case as their very investigations begin to change the future within months. These themes were also explored in the series Travellers. The Odyssey was the name of the shuttle they were all on when the Earth died. The titular 5 refers to the occupants of the shuttle. Three of them are astronauts Chuck Taggart (Peter Weller), his son Neil (Christopher Gorham), scientist Kurt Mendel (Sebastian Roche), astronaut and senator’s daughter Angela (Tamara Craig Thomas) and reporter Sarah Forbes (Leslie Silva).
Kurt Mendel is an arrogant, self centred, opinionated, woman mad, hard drinking asshole who spends his life pissing people off. But when you are a Nobel Peace prize winner, genius and respected all through the scientific world, you can behave badly or at least that’s Kurt’s excuse.
The first thing Kurt thinks is when he is sent back with the others to the past is that he has the opportunity to make a fortune. He is an opportunist with a quick tongue and sarcastic manner. To this end he picks out a girl singer that is going to be a huge deal and tries to promote her to stardom before it actually happened in the original timeline. However her gangster friends discover Kurt can predict the winners of sports events. They threaten him, forcing him to make them money. However the original winning scores suddenly start to change. Kurt is shocked but it is the first indication that the Odyssey crew’s presence can change the history they knew.
Kurt will have sex with anyone and loves a good time but as we progress through the series it is revealed he behaves this way because he is still in love with Angela, his fellow time traveller and astronaut. In the episode The Choices We Made, Kurt and Angela get to experience the future they could have had including having a child together. It is easy to see Kurt still cares a lot for Angela and wishes they had stayed together. His wild lifestyle just masks his pain as inwardly he is hurting.
In Time Out of Mind, the crew begin to lose their memories of their mission and revert to the selves they were in the original timeline. It’s almost like a Invasion of the Body Snatchers as Kurt finds himself alone until he too loses his memory. But being the survivor he is, Kurt finds a way round it by leaving his former self a video message explaining everything. he is able then to restore them all.
But the one thing Kurt falls victim to is his own sense of curiosity. He secretly grows a synthetic in order to study it. But it escapes and injures a teenager putting him in a coma. Wracked with guilt Kurt pretends to be one of his teachers from school and forms a friendship with his mother. Having gotten a second chance at life, Kurt is starting to see things with different eyes. He has found a compassion for people and things he either never or rarely displayed in the original timeline. His need to maintain his reputation as a Nobel winning genius has cost another person dearly which ripples out to his loved ones.
He develops a system that can detect synthetics through which he discovers are more abundant in the population than he first thought. Whatever this is, it has been going on for a while and he ls obligated to stop it using every ounce of his talents to do so. Maybe there is a part of him that wants to stop the Sentients and synthetics to add to his public profile with the hero label attached. But it is the comatose teenager that brings him back to his senses. He realises that this is so much more than an ego trip for him. As he sees more and more victims of the synthetics and Sentients, he sees families being ripped apart, something that he secretly wants and will do anything to protect.
When a living prison consumes convicted criminals, it is a sign that these things do not discriminate in order to achieve their goals. Kurt decides that he too must take that stance even if that means he takes risks like growing a synthetic. He even finds himself forming good friendships with the other Odyssey 5 members especially Chuck (Peter Weller). They initially have a love hate relationship which quickly becomes solid. They even develop nicknames for each other, Chucky and Kurttrude. His craziest team up is with Harry Mudd, a geeky synthetic with a great lust for life and Star Trek. He wants to experience everything life as a human has to offer so he and Kurt have a foursome which backfires on Kurt as Harry has the most enormous penis that ladies want. It is one of the few times Kurt feels inadequate in the most hilarious way.
In Dark at the End of the Tunnel, a town is awaiting God. It is a Sentient scheme yet strangely when the Sentient appears and speaks, it has Kurt’s voice. If the show had continued, I’m sure this would have been a plot development.
But as the final episode rolled, things were bleak for Kurt. Angela is kidnapped, a new alien is revealed and the police think Kurt murdered her. When we last see him, he is in handcuffs and unable to tell them the truth. It is frustrating as the writing was superb. Odyssey 5 was much more than a run of the mill sci fi show and Kurt Mendel will forever be a cut above your average hero. A huge loss but Roche would go on to Supernatural, the Vampre Diaries and the Originals for example but every time I see him I can see the brilliant, irrepressible Kurt. By being sent back in time, Kurt became a better man than he was originally, eyes wide open to the bigger picture and the good in the world and himself that had to be saved from destruction.
Saturday 24th August 2024 saw the start of Dublin Comic Con’s summer edition and arriving for one day only was Ray Winstone. This would be his second convention appearance ever. I wasn’t sure what to expect from him but all the interviews I had ever seen with him he was pleasant and very much a talker.
I had first become aware of Ray when he starred in Robin Of Sherwood way back as Will Scarlet alongside firstly Michael Praed and then Jason Connery. There were a few people in front of me so I had time to observe how he was with them.
Guests can be hit and miss. Some can be rude and abrupt making you want to tell them to shove their autograph up their arse, one in particular that weekend but others are an absolute joy and those few minutes you get to talk to them last a lifetime.
Ray Winston is one such guest.
He was attentive, talkative and patient with everyone. We talked about Robin of Sherwood, Eastenders, his movies, Indiana Jones and introduced my son to him who was his volunteer for the day. I forgot about Black Widow until after I walked away. I can tell you that he enjoyed Dublin Comic Con be cause he got to talk with people and had a ball. What I should have done was bring one of my Indiana Jones comics with him on the cover but the signed Indy photo did the job.
If I ever have a dinner party where I can pick my guests, Ray is first on the list. Awesome treat and an awesome guy who actually cares about the people he meets.
Saturday 24th August 2024 was truly a bucket list day for me.
The minute I heard Michael ironside was coming to Dublin Comic Con Summer 2024 edition I had to be crutches or not.
Ever since V where he played the antihero and Donovan’s pain in the ass ally, Ham Tyler, I became an instant fan. I watched everything he was in as he turned up in show after show and movie after movie. Watchers, Total Recall, Starship Troopers and more are on my list. He was joining his fellow cast from Starship Troopers for a reunion for all the fans that turned up to Dublin. And there he was. Older, bearded but e very inch the cheeky chappie who signed for hours. He took time to speak to everyone about his career.
Michael was always the cast member I wanted to meet most of all and here it was finally happening. I brought the first issue of the V comic for him to sign and had always wanted to ask him two questions.
He appeared as the grotesque Overlord in Space Hunter Adventures In The Forbidden Zone. He was an unique villain who was sealed within a sort of machinery with claw arms and had a thing for nubile virgins. it looked uncomfortable and he said it took hours to get in and out of it. One day he met the director who didn’t recognise him until he did the voice.
I always wondered why he had such a low key exit from V the weekly series and he told me the bosses wanted rid of him. This was insane given like Trek, Ham is one of the key multicast components to the success of the show.
We had a great chat and got what I wanted. My son was a volunteer for the con and was assigned to Michael on Sunday and they had a great time together.
Michael ironside is the best. I came away so happy I had finally met Ham Tyler. He wants to come back again so the guys at Dublin Comic Con please make it happen.
By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
Photos copyright Universal Pictures
I was recently made aware of just how many movies and television shows the younger generation have never heard of, never mind seen. So to that end, we look back at some characters you really need to see before you kick the bucket.
Horace Pinker is absolutely insane and there’s no two ways about it. In 1989 the world was introduced to Pinker in the horror comedy and totally over the top movie; Shocker.
Known as the Family Killer due to his penchant for murdering entire families, Pinker is totally devoid of compassion or a soul. He is driven to constantly kill. No man, woman or child is safe from him as he continues his murder spree. He drags his left leg due to an injury.
Jonathan Parker, foster son of the cop in charge of the hunt for Pinker, sees his family being slaughtered by Pinker in his dreams. Jonathan has a link to Pinker that he only understands when the callous Pinker tells him that he is his father at his execution. The reason he limps is because Jonathan shot him in the knee while Pinker was pummeling his mother. Rescued, the kid was fostered and raised by police officer Parker and his wife.
That is why Jonathan can follow him in his dreams. They are linked which allows Pinker to be captured. On the day of his execution, he is practicing a black magic ceremony. He is run through with electrical bolts from an entity in the television which then explodes. Thanks to his dark magic, Pinker can now jump bodies and travel through electrical sockets giving him easy access to peoples’ homes. Escape is easier now and literally no one is safe.
It is conceivable Pinker is a cannibal as he bites off the lower lip of a prison guard and the fingers off another. Pinker’s execution goes wrong as he suffers severe burns to his scalp but his husk is found then bursts into flame. When he jumps bodies Pinker still has to drag his left leg but his less than charming personality gives him away. A digital version of Pinker now exists. Pinker and Jonathan battle across a television landscape in a last ditch attempt to stop Pinker but it is all a distraction to allow Jonathan’s friends to cause a blackout. Using a remote control to control Pinker’s movements, Jonathan barely escapes before the power fails and traps the madman in a television set.
We all know Mitch Pileggi as the cool, calm Skinner from The X-Files and Steven Caldwell from Stargate Atlantis. Horace is OTT and played with such relish that he steals every scene Pileggi is in. It remains unclear if Pinker is locked away forever in TV land or wiped when Jonathan switches the television off with the remote. But given his background with dark magic, be careful the next time you turn on the television Just hope you’re watching Skinner in an episode of The X-Files.
You finally get your copy of the Time Warriors book and intend to kill time between galaxies engrossed in it. Of course Klingons attack and you fund yourself in turbulence.
Who knew you could enjoy reading a Time Warriors book while being gummed up and waiting for an alien embryo to burst from your chest? You can’t have a convention without having Aliens about the place. DCC Summer 2024 had a great interactive Alien set to delight fans. Another testament to the effort and imagination the lads and ladies pur in to deliver something to remember. Enjoy.
The Time Warriors and Beyond 