The ZARJAZ SCI-FI SPECIAL 2024 is a massive 116 thrill-packed pages— that’s a staggering 18 brand-new stories featuring hordes of classic 2000AD characters!
And there’ll be more than a few surprises too!
A whole year in the making, this special relaunch issue will include a mixture of colour and B&W stories, and for the first time since 2002 it will be published in glorious large format!
ZARJAZ is a not-for-profit publication and our use of Rebellion characters means we cannot offer a KickStarter like other small-press comics. However, opening it up for pre-sale will enable us to finance publication with professional printers.
There will be a limited print-run of this special issue and this will be strictly based on pre-sales. Simply put, if we receive 10 pre-orders we’ll print 10 copies. If we receive 500, we’ll print 500. This means that you will only guarantee your copy through pre-order.
Your copy of ZARJAZ SCI-FI SPECIAL 2024 will be sent out towards the end of September. There will be regular updates here and on Facebook.
To order, click the appropriate link below and you will be taken to the secure payment page for your region:
So this was my first real life taste of the 13th Doctor’s era and I have to say I wasn’t disappointed.
Mandip Gill played companion Yaz for all of the Jodie Whittaker era eventually being kicked out when the Doctor was dying and about to regenerate. She ended up at a meeting of old companions including Ace, Tegan, Jo and Ian Chesterton to tell tales of their adventures with the Doctor. Kate Stewart was there too looking for staff so who knows where Yaz is now?
Mandip was very welcoming and had great eye contact while meeting fans. We spoke about her upcoming Big Finish stories, how she would have liked to see more scary episodes like Village of the Angels and working with Jodie. She also wanted to see Northern Ireland but wasn’t going to get the chance as both she and Jodie were only there for the day and due to fly out later that evening.
Mandip was just so engaging and fan friendly and truly happy to be here and meeting fans in a place she had never been to before. I couldn’t have wished for a better stop on my meeting Who actors and actually reinvigorated her era for me. As you can see there was no combo so had to buy a photo op which was the only downside as combos should be standard across the board. Igot her to sign one of my comics and left a happy man. Great person.
You’ll see a million tributes today both long and short. The Legend that was James Earl Hones has died. Despite his prolific career, he will forever be Darth Vader. He was an integral part of my life thanks to that character. He defined it. He made it. It is why I still collect Darth Vader merchandise to this day. I never met him but the minute I heard his voice I was that kid again in the cinema. I can’t write this without mentioning the fun he brought to The Big Bang Theory. I always will be that kid in the cinema when he appeared on screen. Thank you sir. Be one with the Force.
By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
Photos copyright Warner Bros
So you’re having a bad day.
Giant spider monsters from the ancient past are looking to take over everything. They have converted human slaves to fool us into agreeing to their cause. You run a space station where all sorts of races coexist in less than, shall we say, harmonious circumstances. Anbassadors with hair like a peacock are secretly in league with the shadowy spiders loto avenge old grudges while reptilian baddies are suddenly looking friendlier than ever but your lovelife is looking up with your half human half Minbari girlfriend. tensions are at an all time high as the Shadows return heralds the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy of a time of great darkness. Oh yeah and to cap it all, your wife comes back from th dead.
Some days you just need an aspirin.
In the epic babylon 5, Commander John Sheridan (played by Bruce Boxleitner) is at a crosroads. The Shadows, the sneaky arachnids that have woken from their ancient sleep and are now ready to take back the galaxy. They will dominate and enslve everyone and everything. Ambassador Londo (peter Jurasik) has made a deal with them but the biggest obstacle in their way is Babylon 5 and its fearless commander, John Sheridan. He and his trusted crew and allies have been thwarting the Shadows at every turn making the likes of Ambassador G’Kar a much needed ally where he was once an irritant and obstacle to peace.
At the end of season three the Shadows tried a new tactic to bring Sheridan over to their side. His beloved wife,Anna, had been lost presumed dead years previous on a mission. However it turns out that Anna and her expedition were taken by th Shadows and converted into pilots for their ships. Now, having discovered who Anna actually is they see the chance to turn the tables. Sheridan will agree whether he does it willingly or not. Anna comes to Babylon 5 claiming they have got it all wrong and in fact the Shadows are a force for good. Reluctantly Sheridan agrees to meet them on the Shadow world of Z’Ha’Dum.
There is a real sense of dread and foreboding through this episode and watching it back, this season cliffhanger stands up there with Star Trek’s Best of Both Worlds. this is epic doing what a good cliffhanger should; leave you speechless and wondering how they are going to get out of that one. This it does in spades because very simply you never see it coming.
Sheridan and D’elenn have declared their love for each other and looking forward to their life together when Anna comes back in in a beautifully directed scene where she appears in shadow and D’elenn drops a snowglobe in shock. Sheridan leaves on his mission without telling her but records a video message for her. G’Kar is having feelings of deep foreboding and the Shadows surround Babylon 5.
On Z’Ha’dum, Sheridan meets a group of humans that argue for the cause of the Shadows hoping to bring him to their side. But Sheridan is prepared for them and the situation quickly deteriorates. Sheridan is forced to run and finds himself on a balcony high above the planet’s surface. Above him is a honeycombed dome. He activates the device on his wrist and his ship’s engines flare as nuclear bombs begin a countdown. It heads towards the planet.
Trapped Ann and a group of Shadow warriros approach. She is nothing like the wife he knew and is brimming with evil intent.
At the same time D’elenn plays the message her lover has left her. As we cut between a trapped Sheridan, the olunging ship and a devastated D’elenn, the tension is palpable. If ever there was a situation where the hero had no way out, it is this. Suddenly Sheridan hears a voice telling him to jump. He does so plunging to certain death. His White Star comes smashing through the dome and explodes as Anna screams. The world is destroyed in the nuclear blast. The Shadows flee from Babylon 5 but Security Chief Michael Garibaldi is taken too.
We leave the season stunned ust like the characters. How could Sheridan survive that fall? Did he do enough damage to the Shadows to stop them? We are left with a monlogue from G’Kar (Andreas Katsulas).
“it was the end of the Earth year 2260 and the war had paused suddenly and unexpectedly. All around us it was as if the universe was holding its breath, waiting. All of life can be broken down into moments of transition or moments of revalation. This had the feeling f both. G’Quan wrote there is a greater darkness than the one we fight; it is the darkness of the soul that has lost its way. The war we fight is not against powers and principalities; it is against chaos and despair greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope; the death of dreams against this peril we can never surrender. The future is all around us waiting in moments of transition to be born in moments of revealtion. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know that it is always born in pain.”
Everything is up in the air now and where it goes next we can only guess but when season four returned with the resolution, it took the character of Shridan in a new direction.
This for me is one of the best episodes of Babylon 5 in the run with a beautifully structured story that squeezes every ounce of excitement and tension out of the viewer. In reality the fate of Sheridan from a lethal situation is actually better than Picard’s assimilation by the Borg because you really don’t know how this one can be resolved. A brillaint cliffhanger and example of scifi televison done right.
By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
Ooyright
To commemorate the one year anniversary of the death of Julian Sands, we look back at the super spider fest, Arachnophobia.
In 1990 a movie was released that played upon peoples’ paralysing terror of spiders. Arachnophobia, a comedy horror, starred Jeff Daniels as Dr Ross Jennings and Julian Sands as Doctor James Atherton. It also starred Roseanne star John Goodman as the super serious exterminator, Delbert McClintock.
When creating a villain or monster, it’s always good to make them stick in people’s minds. When I designed the Mentara for the Time Warriors books, I always had it in my head to make them arachnids. The Mentara are tarantula like, the size of race horses with human like torsos. They scavenge battlefields through Earth’s history for bodies to feed their thirst for human flesh. However there is much more to them as they are hiding a huge secret. To find out what that is go to Amazon and buy the Time Warriors First Footsteps, Red Water book three, The Moon Once More and the Time Warriors The Belbridge Mystery. Being afraid of spiders is bad enough but imagine one that could run you down and scoop you up. Worse still, imagine it kicking in your front door and getting into your home. Did you know statistically a spider crawls over you when you sleep about 5-6 times a night?
So there was no doubt that the tale of an Venezuelan spider mating with an indigenous American born spider to create deadly venomous offspring will freak people out. We know spiders can get into our homes, silent and determinedly. We find them everywhere and often the first reaction is to kill them or wash them down a sink. Did you know that only for spiders the human race would be consumed by insects in no time? They say a spider spun a web across a cave entrance to save Jesus from Roman soldiers and that a spider in your home is a good thing because it means your home is free from damp. Let’s not forget the money spiders that cross your palm with silver.
I went out to photograph some webs one day and found ten different species of spiders in my back garden including one with a web full of babies. Going about your daily life, you would never know they were there. One was sitting in its web and when I put the macro lens near it it rose up in defiance of this strange object invading its space. It let me know to back off and that this tiny little creature was a lot smarter than I thought. This is the sort of behaviour that Arachnophobia plays on brilliantly.
When photographer Jerry Manley is bitten by a previously unknown aggressive form of spider in a Venezuelan expedition led by Doctor James Atherton (Julian Sands), the spider survives by literally sucking his body dry of all fluids inside the coffin as he is returned home causing the coroner to observe his body looked like a vampire had been at it. The spider escapes into the wild and mates, fathering little mutants that invade the town and start killing the inhabitants. This coincides with the arrival of Doctor Ross Jennings who is due to take over the country practice but just happens to be deathly afraid of spiders. So his timing kinda sucks.
When the country doctor that Ross was due to take over from decides he doesn’t want to retire after all, Ross is left in the wilderness. But when people he has treated start dying he gains the name ‘Doctor Death’. When the old doctor is bitten and dies, it becomes Ross’ worst nightmare as a new type of spider is violating his home. He calls in Doctor Atherton, who upon hearing the town’s name, realises that Jerry Manley’s coffin held more than his body.
Little does Ross know that his home is the epicentre of the spider’s web and that his cellar holds more than his wine collection. The movie shows just how easily spiders can invade our homes and how close of a proximity they really have. One victim reaches to turn off a lamp when the spider drops onto her hand from inside the shade. A football player dies when a spider secrets itself in his helmet and the old country doctor is bitten when he puts his slippers on.
Now I recall years ago putting my foot in my slipper and feeling something scurry against my toes. I tipped the shoe out and a large black spider scuttled away. Even when writing this, I can still feel it moving against my foot. Spiders don’t bother me but I once lived with my aunt and uncle and my cousin had a tarantula in a glass case. He had a brick on top and I wondered why.
I soon found out as I could hear the spider trying to push the lid off its cage but the brick held it in place. Now while I do not fear spiders, the thought of a tarantula somewhere in a dark room with me is unsettling to say the least. So I can only imagine how audiences reacted when the Jennings house is invaded en-masse by the spiders in the final battle. Jennings barn is dead centre as Atherton is attacked and webbed ready for consumption by the new mutant spiders. Luckily like wasps, they die after biting someone. Jennings finds the local coroner and his wife dead on the sofa as a spider crawls out of his mouth where they were eating popcorn while watching their favourite show. Spiders in your food is bad enough without putting one in your mouth where its bite drops you on the spot. Anyone with a genuine severe fear will never watch this movie and for good reason.
Ross falls through his floor into his cellar where his paralysing fear of a spider crawling up his infant body in his crib comes back to haunt him as he faces the same scenario. This time the spider is intelligent and intent on keeping its new domain intact. After centuries of isolation in the Venezuelan jungles, the spider wants this place as its new kingdom. When it rears up at Ross, I can see the spider in the web that did the same to me. Its silent crawling determination makes the arachnid a formidable foe but Ross manages to kill it. He decides in the end to move back to the city. It is the fact this thing made its home and base in the home of a human without their knowledge. The massive webs Ross’ wife photographed were simply thought to be ordinary spider due to the remoteness of the house.
With Delbert the exterminator, we get a comedic side to the infestation. Delbert is played by John Goodman and brings some light-hearted relief to the proceedings. Delbert struts about like a cross between the Terminator, Ghostbuster and the Gunslinger from WestWorld. The defiance of these new spiders is seen when one resists his fluid spray and fights against it proving these are no ordinary spiders.
Overall, Arachnophobia is a rewatchable classic where in the end the lesson is, people would rather face an earthquake than a spider. Awesome stuff.
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.
The Time Warriors and Beyond 