Yesterday on his Myspace blog, that master of musical mayhem and perennial prince of parodies “Weird Al” Yankovic announced that he’s releasing a brand new single next week on iTunes. The track, which will magically appear on your Internet on October 7th, will be (and I quote) “a parody of a song that very recently was (or perhaps still is) the number one song in the country.”

Of course Al is talking about the U.S., because that’s where he lives, but I looked into it and the crap burning up the music charts over here is pretty close to the crap burning up the music charts in the U.K. So, without any further adieu, I would like to try and predict exactly what Al’s latest wacky spoof song will be:

“I Kissed A Squirrel” – a goof on Kate Perry’s monster hit “I Kissed A Girl” in which Al recounts a strange but loving encounter in a nearby park.

“Shia LaBouf’s In Trouble” – The Yank takes on Rhianna’s “Disturbia” and changes all the lyrics to be about the Rear Window remake that starred everyone’s favorite hot little twerp.

“Miss Co-Dependent” – a delicious twist on “Miss Independent” by Ne-Yo. The title is self-explanatory.

“Viva La Vista” – Sticking it to Windows’ frustrating new operating system via that Coldplay tune “Viva La Vida.”

“All Winter Long” – Al riffs on Kid Rock’s “All Summer Long” by discussing a typical Eskimo lifestyle.

Of course, “Weird Al” is a creature of habit, and I am fully aware none of my guesses fall into any of the four major songwriting categories Al has consistently returned to during his lengthy, Hawaiian-shirted career: food, television, obesity, and Michael Jackson. So I would like to add a fifth general prediction that suggests Al’s new song will revolve around one of these tried and true topics.

If I’m right on any of this, I think it should be the first career highlight listed on the Wikipedia entry I know one of you will eventually create about me. Hell, I’m sure it will be a banner headline in my hometown’s newspaper – “LOCAL BOY PREDICTS ‘WEIRD AL’ PARODY!” It’ll be bigger than the headless cow that was born on Old Man Rumpf’s farm.

Stay tuned, DoG readers, and see if your pal JG2 can accurately see into the novelty music future.

Check out the Crawling Ear every Wednesday at Den Of Geek. The last Crawling Ear can be found here.

I was leafing through my birthday book, seeing if I had forgotten to send a card to anyone, when I came across the name of Richard Burton. Not that I was about to send him a cringing 'Sorry I forgot your Birthday' card but the day of his death is one of those I never forget. Like the day I learned that the war was over, Kennedy's assassination and the day I lost my cherry.

The first was while I was still hiding out in the Polish forest and a bunch of American Red Cross workers turned up and told us the eye-popping news. The second event occurred on my mother's birthday. The news spoiled the party we had laid on. And the day the cherry dropped off my ice cream and lost itself in the folds of my white dress, making a nasty mess, was the day I went to the White House to see my first husband receive a medal.

I heard that an old mate Euan Lloyd was about to make a film so I rang him and chatted him up. He knew why I had called and told me that he had a nice little cameo for me. I was a bit disappointed. I had hoped for a leading roll. He sensed my disappointment and eased it by telling me that the lead woman had to be an American actress to sell the film in the States. He then told me that Laurence Olivier, Richard Burton and Scott Glenn were the male leads and my part was a tasty East German terrorist posing as a hooker. Type casting! I rather fancied doing another film with Richard. I checked the money, accepted the job and read the script. It meant spending some time in Berlin but I guessed I could bear it for a couple of weeks.

First stop was Budapest in Hungary. Coming over in the plane I had read through my part again and came up with a really spectacular end to my death scene. In the script I was supposed to be hunted down by the Glenn Scott character and shot by Richard Burton. It would be much more dramatic if I were cornered in the courtyard of the houses where I was to get shot but whipped out a knife, which I had strapped to my thigh, and had a knife fight. When I arrived I eagerly told Euan about my idea. He wasn't at all happy. He said the script was the Bible and if I didn't like it I knew what I could do. Not very sporting I thought but he did have a lot on his mind.

I didn't have a lot to do and met a couple of American soldiers in the bar. During conversation I mentioned that I was interested in Grand Prix racing and they offered to show me the Hungaroring that had recently been constructed just outside Budapest.

Unfortunately, without the roar and excitement of the powerful race cars burning the track up at 200 miles an hour the circuit is just a strip of tarmac in a piece of very attractive countryside. The Yanks dropped me off at the hotel and I made sure that I had everything ready for the shoot the following day. Just as I was going to go down for dinner the telephone rang. It was one of my newfound friends. He asked me if I had heard the news. Richard Burton was dead? I was stunned. Evidently he had been having a booze-up with John Hurt and had fallen down dead in the kitchen. It all seemed so pointless.

But I had to eat so I went down to the restaurant. On the way I met the producer Euan Lloyd. When I commiserated with him about the death of his leading man he thought it was some sick joke. Suddenly I wondered if the joke was on me. I had been rather laying it on about the closeness between Richard and me and perhaps the call had been a bit of a leg-pull. I watched as Euan scampered off to find a telephone and wondered what I had done. But I was right. Richard was gone and there we were, all set up and nowhere to go. Euan called a little meeting and explained the position. We would shoot around the Burton role while he sorted out another leading man. That was a relief.

The scene I was shooting the next morning was the death scene. I had to run through the streets with Scott Glenn after me, run into a courtyard with no exit route, take out a pistol and blaze away at
Glenn before getting a shot in the chest. The firearms expert wired me up with a blood bag and I was left to await my call in the Winnebago. I guess I shouldn't have moved. Without warning there was a load bang and the front of my T-shirt erupted in a fountain of blood. I was terrified. In the enclosed space the sound was ear splitting. And I wasn't at all sure that the claret spread liberally all over the walls wasn't mine own. The armourer came running. I was afraid until he lifted up my shirt and assured me that the armoured padding he had fitted behind the blood cartridge had absorbed the detonation. I thought he was very complacent considering he had almost wrecked my prime assets. And my eardrums felt as if an over enthusiastic Gene Krupa had been at them. The show must go on so I was re-wired and went and shot the scene. What a trouper!

News came through the next day that Euan had managed to persuade Edward Fox to take over the Burton role. A good choice in many ways but the script had been written for Burton and there wasn't time to rework it. It was a burden Edward had to live with.

So we all moved off to Berlin for some of the street scenes with Laurence Olivier. As soon as I arrived I got a call from Charles Wheeler. He was in Germany doing a documentary for the BBC on Berlin and the Wall and wanted me to give him the flavour of working behind the Iron Curtain. I did it in front of the Wall and it wasn't very pleasant. It brought back all sorts of unhappy memories.

But there were compensations. Although I didn't have any scenes with him I did have dinner with Olivier. He was very old and frail by this time but very gallant. He even told me that he had seen me in Eagles and thought it was one of the most entertaining war films of all time. I said I thought his Henry V was the best war film ever and I think he agreed with me.

I'm afraid the substitution of Fox for Burton without rewriting the dialogue rather spoiled the film. Wild Geese had been fairly successful and those who saw it expected the sequel to be more of the same. Sadly it didn't come up to expectations. But I had a good time.

Read Ingrid's column every Tuesday at Den Of Geek. Last week's is here.

This week, it was formally announced that DC Comics’ “Minx” line – graphic novels (novellas?) aimed at teenage girls - would be coming to an end after roughly 18 months of existence.

Much has been said on the topic of what went wrong, from accusations that it made illogical assumptions made about the target audience to the inability for retailers to actually place and sell the books, but the fact is, Minx got one thing right – the way to get people – any people – into comics is, first and foremost, by telling great stories.

With that in mind, I’m not going to mark the passing of Minx by trying to explain where I thought the problems were - no matter what I say, the fact is that I’m simply not well-informed enough on the specifics of the market, marketing and financials to say what could’ve been done to make it last longer. Instead, I’m going to mark the passing of Minx by pointing out some of the best stories it told, and urge you all to give them a look while you still can.

The New York Four, by Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly.
New York Four is the story of a group of girls attending university in New York. Easily the critical darling of the Minx line, it shares much in tone with Wood and Kelly’s recent series Local in its portrayal of strained familial relationships and a strong juxtaposition of the “real” New York, right down to educational notes about the city from a resident’s point of view. While the story clearly has its target audience in mind, there’s something we can all take from its portrayal of friendships under assault by technology. In recent years, Wood has proven time and again that he can do “young adult” fiction that isn’t dumbed down, and as a result will appeal to adults far beyond its intended range. Kelly, meanwhile, comes into his own as an illustrator with his most detailed and emotive work yet. Despite the collapse of Minx, a second book is planned, and if all goes well, we may yet see the planned tetralogy completed.

Kimmie66, by Aaron Alexovitch
Arguably the most imaginative of the “first wave” of Minx titles, Alexovitch was the first creator to both write and draw a Minx book, and also the first not to confuse the target audience of the line as a mandate for the subject matter. Kimmie66 deals with the near-ish future, where technology hasn’t just eroded personal friendships (as in New York Four) but replaced them entirely. The titular Kimmie sends her close friend and the book’s heroine, Telly, a suicide note - but then later she starts showing up online, leading Telly to question whether she should track down the “real” Kimmie and see what the truth really is. It has a lot to say about the nature of identity and virtual friendships in the technological era – issues which are certainly pertinent to teenagers, but also to the rest of us.

Re-Gifters, by Mike Carey, Sonny Liew and Marc Hempel
While Carey is best known in the industry as the writer of Lucifer and X-Men – hardly usual Minx fare – he’s more than able to slip into a Minx-esque mindset to write Re-Gifters, a story about a young martial artist growing up in Los Angeles. Carey’s writing is brought to life by some nuanced artwork, and it’s Liew’s style that really raises the book to a special level. The story is another endlessly relatable one - down to earth but entertaining, unfamiliar without being fantastical – it stays interesting throughout. The trio of creators previously worked on “My Faith in Frankie,” but it’s this title which really pulls their talents together.

I’m not sure whether the books put out in the Minx line will stay in print or whether it’s nothing but sell-through left, but even if the line’s dead, there’s still more than enough time to check out these great stories before they disappear for good, and, if nothing else, comics readers owe it to the efforts of the creators and editors not to let this body of work become a footnote under “failed experiments” – everyone involved deserves better than that.

James writes Alternate Cover every Monday at Den Of Geek. His previous column can be found here.

Geeky film fans: have cause to feel aggrieved. In the latest attempt to catalogue a definitive list of classic motion pictures, fantasy and sci-fi fare has been snubbed in favour of more straight-forward cinematic matter. The latest big list - this one from the British Film Institute and totalling at 75 movies - features too few films of the science fiction and outlandish other-world variety which is a disappointment both in the interests of ‘geek’ audiences and representative diversity.

To celebrate the organisation’s 75th birthday, 75 figures - both of the film industry and from outside it - were each asked to nominate a movie that they’d like to save for future generations (because presumably some visual media virus is going to break out and in a race against time only a special few will be granted the honour of being preserved for the post- apocalypse population). All things considered though, it’s a surprise though that from such a diverse survey group - made up of directors, actors, writers and politicians - the polled motion pictures are quite a conservative collection. Undoubtedly, there are many excellent films on the bill and a fair few of the expected usual suspects (though admittedly not The Usual Suspects) are all present and correct. But it’s the complete absence of cult classics of the ‘geek’ kind that really rankles as a point of contention.

In terms of recognisable sci-fi, only Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker make the list. Fantasy-wise, The Wizard of Oz is about as good as it gets and we have to make do with historical epics such as Spartacus as the nearest equivalent to sword-waving stuff not of this modern world. Horrifically, horror of any form has no place at all. Did none of the seventy five esteemed figures deem Star Wars as worthy of preservation - if not for the fact that it’s awesome then for the fact it’s probably the biggest cultural phenomenon of the 20th century? So none of The Lord of the Rings cycle rank as unforgettable, outstanding cinema experiences then? Was no one affected by any monster movies, supernatural stories, psychological thrillers or slasher flicks? Where are the films that send fanboys and fangirls into feverish excitement? You can bang on forever about brilliant films that have been sadly overlooked across all genres, but these film types in particular are especially under-represented.

Maybe it’s because they’re afraid that they won’t look like serious people and will instead come across as nerdy or unsophisticated, but the respondents of the survey generally stick within the realms of realism. I think it’s reasonable to guess that a great many have picked films that resonate within the minds of cineastes and have a reputation for high quality and academic, artistic significance instead of opting for any guilty pleasures or escapist favourites. People are judged on their taste, so it’s no surprise that when confronted by a respectable arts institute, our panel has panicked and perhaps followed their heads and not their hearts.

The clash of high culture and low culture undoubtedly exists in this debate. As the BFI 75 shortlist bristles imperiously with its lack of much-loved cult movies, there’s an overriding sense that such films with their anti-reality elements or just plain popular appeal don’t deserve to sit at the dinner table with the ‘adults’. Let us consider the actual, concept of this project: we’re selecting films that would be preserved for future generations to enjoy and savour. Do we really want to harrow our ancestors with Ken Loach’s Kes? Can’t we give them a bit of colour with a groundbreaking animated film instead of reflections of our mundane world that they’ve already learned about in history lessons?

Geek or more accessible, audience-friendly material needn’t be intellectually inferior either. As powerful and worthy as film student favourites like The Battle of Algiers may be, you don’t really enjoy it in the way you do The Matrix, Spirited Away or Night of the Living Dead. Those select few stand as a few ‘non-realistic’ movies that can be, and have been, analysed by academics and critics and that exercise the spectator’s grey matter as well as entertain them.

Apart from giving the globe another unnecessary poll that attempts and fails to decide on which films count as the crème de la crème, I’d argue that this endeavour merely serves to show off culturally elitist prejudices and illustrate that the experts don’t know how to enjoy themselves or wear their hearts on their sleeves. As a film buff and self-proclaimed movie geek, I feel affronted by this what seems to be closed-minded snobbery. No horror; no sci-fi; no fantasy; no Star Wars. For shame!

It occurred to me this week, while looking around at my expansive shelves of games, that my collection is broken into two distinct halves; there are the violent, fast-paced ones that usually consist of shooting things or driving dangerously, and then there are my cutesy platform games, which more often than not contain plenty of cartoon animals bouncing around pastel-coloured worlds collecting fruit. For every Crackdown or Gears of War, I've got a Marvel Land or a New Zealand Story - it's as though my collection has a case of bipolar disorder.

This week I also played the criminally underrated Flicky, a Megadrive platform game where tiny yellow chicks must be rescued from a gang of dastardly cats. It's absurdly simplistic (it wasn't even pushing Sega's 16-bit technology in much back in 1991), with tiny sprites and warbly music that sounds like an old Bontempi keyboard drowning in a bath, but I'm absolutely hooked; there's something about the simplicity of the gameplay that I've found strangely compulsive, despite its age.

As I guided my heroic blue bird around Flicky's platforms, throwing furniture at ginger felines, I began to wonder: what happened to cute, animal-based platform games? Without Nintendo or Rare flying the flag with their Mario and Banjo Kazooie franchises, they'd be all-but extinct. What happened to Taito, once famous for Bubble Bobble and Rainbow Islands, two of the best platform games ever?

It seems that Japan, a country once seemed to excel at creating zany adventures full of weird, big-eyed creatures, has simply stopped making them. We've had the genuine joy of the Katamari games of course, but they're the exception rather than the rule. This is a terrible shame, because while the Western industry still puts out pleasant enough fare such as Ratchet and Clank or Rayman, we just don't design them as well as the Japanese do - the unmatched quality of Super Mario Galaxy is proof of that.

Sadly, Japan seems to have turned their collective backs on the cutesy platform genre - in fact, much of their current output consists of samey RPGs as far as I can tell. Western games also appear to be going through a rather dour and austere phase in their own evolution, where characters with furrowed brows fight one another beneath stormy clouds.

I know blowing stuff up and shooting things is all the rage these days, but are games of a more whimsical nature really so outmoded? Is there anything wrong with playing a game where a small boy shatters rainbows over spiders and toy cars, or a game that pits a bow-and-arrow toting Kiwi against the might of a giant walrus? I'd say not - but the game buying public, it seems, doesn't agree.

Even the Xbox's ex-commandant, Peter Moore, seems to have it in for the genre - in a round-about way at least. Rare are one of my favourite software companies, responsible for the sugar-coated delights of Donkey Kong Country, Viva Pinata and the previously mentioned Banjo Kazooie series. In fact, they're so good at the 'cute' genre of games that Microsoft poached them from Nintendo. Anyway, Moore made this rather bitchy remark to the Guardian a few days ago:

"...we were trying all kinds of classic Rare stuff and unfortunately I think the industry had [passed] Rare by [...] their skillsets were from a different time and a different place and were not applicable in today's market.”

Is Peter Moore right? Are platform games featuring animals in trousers really so unfashionable? Are we doomed to a video game future of relentless digital wars, where bull-necked jocks grunt at each other from behind their machine guns?

Possibly, but I sincerely hope not - I'm hoping the forthcoming Banjo Kazooie 3: Nuts and Bolts will prove him wrong, and that Media Molecule's puzzle platformer Little Big Planet will encourage more developers to get out their pastel coloured pens and create some cute platform-type games of their own.

Ryan writes his gaming column every week at Den Of Geek. Last week's is here.

When I was a Vampire, I did it for the money. Which makes me a vampiric whore I guess. Which is mild compared to labels the blood sucking, corruption dealing reps of the Undead have been trading under for millennia.

It is hard to understand why the Vampire has such a hold on our imagination. By repute it is foul smelling, fester popping, halitosis sharing, un-fun loving, party pooping nerd with only the flimsiest, most tenuous grip on life - or if you prefer, Undeath. At least that is the bag of the classic Vampire. Lord George Byron's creation, Lord Ruthven, named by Dr. Polidori and filched from Lady Caroline Lamb, was more robust than Bram Stokers' Dracula. He could go out during the day and mix on equal terms with the raffish dilettantes and society hostesses. In comparison, although imbued with superhuman strength, Stoker's Dracula is a pushover. If he is kept from his coffin he is reduced to nothing more than a heap of dust and a gold ring. In the film version at least. If Dracula is tucked up in his shroud by first cock crow he is even more vulnerable. Anyone with a sharpened hickory stick can nail him through the heart and it is goodbye sucker. Some Vampire Dispatching Instructions also recommend slicing off the head, just to be certain.

Garlic has the same effect on Vampires as Kryptonite has on Superman. It jangles the synopses and renders the victim incapable of doing anything but wave his hands in front of his face and bare his unflossed teeth in an unbecoming snarl. The effect of Holy Water is to produce an acidic hissing, steam and much cavorting and if Dracula accidentally slides through the ice into running water he's a goner.

So what has made the Vampire one of the most popular forms of reading, writing and staking? And what hold does it have over all sorts of people, professional and amateur, who follow the exploits of the Transylvanian Master? I personally know three University professors who are sworn Vampire lovers. One of them, Professor Elizabeth Miller of the Memorial University of New Foundland in Canada, has even been honoured by the Romanians as 'Baroness of the House of Dracula.' Her most recent book, Stoker's Dracula Notes, published about a month ago by Parkstone Press, is a masterpiece. From Mexico University Professor Victoria Amador lectures all over the world on the subject and Dr. Bob Lima, Pennsylvania State University, is an authority on churches and has written several books dealing with the religious side of the Undead.

So just when and where did the Vampire, in all its variant forms, first see the light of the moon? Probably the blood sucking temptation has always been there, buried deep in the human psyche. Let's assume we are talking thousands of years ago. A group of hunters are cut off by the snow and are going nowhere. The group consists of body temperature, fast food packages of nourishment that can save the majority of them. I guess the runt of the pack would go first. Cutting up the reluctant fodder would take too long. Leeching onto various parts of the body and sucking is the only viable alternative. The frozen meat can be kept for later. It wouldn't be long before the act of exsanguination was enshrined on the cave wall and ritualised.

Of course this is not what being admitted into the cult of the Vampire is all about. For one thing the only member of that lost hunting group who has qualified, for the first condition of Vampirism, is the victim. He's dead! The word 'Undead' can easily be siphoned from the belief of the Pharaohs of Egypt and their mortal sidekicks - The Priests. The desert sands produced The Mummy - but it's just a starting place. The Pharaohs wanted to enter a Paradise exactly like the earthly one they were leaving - only better. They went into a huddle with the group with the greatest incentive to rubber stamp their divinity - the Priesthood. It was unanimously decided that embalming was the business. This way the body could survive the natural decay. The chattels, handmaidens and servants dispatched along with them would show, in the Undead Kingdom they were entering, that this was no common slouch coming up the broad white way but a fellow God on a State visit.

Then the Babylonians managed to edge the plot slightly in the direction of fully endorsed Vampireship by introducing the 'Ekimmu'. The After-life suddenly opened up to everybody - God and 'fellah' alike. Basically all you needed to do was drop down dead and have no well-intentioned friends to cover you with sand. After a suitable time passed the departed would leap up, re-embodied and ready for anything. Especially of a sexual nature. The bonus for being a member of the Ekimmu set was that you entered your new profession massively endowed.

If you are sceptical about this, next time you are sauntering through the temple at Karnak on the Nile, take time to visit the forbidden wall round the back of the temple. Life will never be the same again. It is said that the maidens subjected to the advances of the Ekimmu and his sacred weapon were at first terrorised and then overwhelmed by this mighty phallus.

And this is where the Vampire thing kicks in. Once the Ekimmu had had its wicked way with the girls he whipped out their entrails and gorged on their blood. I know it's not what you might call standard vampire procedure but more elements have been added to the lore. The wannabe Ekimmu has died, come back in an Undead form, penetrated its victim and drank the blood. Purist might say that the penetration and blood drinking are separate actions - but we're getting there.

Across on the far shore of the Mediterranean, at the centre of the world, the Greeks were not happy that the Egyptians-cum-Babylonians had come up with the ultimate god-headed Undead. They did have a vampire of sorts. A 'Vrykolalos'. A lycanthrope. A shape changer more closely associated with the Werewolf. Then one of the poets remembered the tale of Queen Lamiai of Lydia. Lamiai's children were eaten by the minor goddess, Hera. This sent Queen Lamiai on a crazed path of distraction. She roared around the Ancient world feasting on innocent men and children. She wasn't perfect for induction into the hall of vampires but Stavros the Priest was in no mood to be choosy. He called in a minor hack poet and copy editor and began spreading the news of their newly invested monster - The Lamiai.

Before long every little taverna and amphitheatre had its own domestic Lamiai. It was great to give the customers a thrill but soon the Lamiai's success became Pyrrhic. Customers didn't fancy meeting the monster on their way home so decided that staying home was the answer. The solution was found in a recommended course of action guaranteed to rid the infested place of any hyperactive Lamiai.

Initially the Lamiai, when apprehended, was spread out on the crossroads, chopped into quarters and a bit buried on each road. The Greeks weren't too keen on the heavy graft of hole digging and a later innovation was that the grisly quarters were burned on a bonfire and the ashes scattered on the wind.

The Greeks, now that they had added their two pennorth to the vampire folklore, were well satisfied. The case for the properly qualified Vampire was made. You had to be dead, reanimated to an Undead state, there must be penetration and blood must be sucked. Decapitation, crossroads and burning had been added to the litany and there has to be strong sexual connotations.

All the ingredients for a Hammer film when you think about it.

 
Read Ingrid's column every Tuesday at Den Of Geek. Last week's is here.

As a big fan of the Hitchiker’s Guide books, I was fairly upset at the idea of someone who isn’t Douglas Adams writing a new one - especially since there are a few other choices who I think would’ve been far more legitimate than the guy who wrote Artemis Fowl. One of those people would’ve been noted comic-writer and novelist, Neil Gaiman, who acted as both friend and biographer to Douglas Adams. Gaiman has responded directly to the idea of a new Guide book on his journal, stating:

Douglas asked me if I’d like to adapt Life, The Universe and Everything for radio I said no, and that was with Douglas alive and asking. (Dirk Maggs did it, and did an excellent job.) It seemed a thankless task.

Which clears up that idea. “Thankless” is right, though. We can’t know how Adams would’ve felt about having someone else write another Hitchiker’s book, though Gaiman goes immediately on to suggest that he wouldn’t like to see sequels to his own books by anyone else after he’s dead. Which made me glad that we were safe from someone else’s attempt at “Sandman 2” – and that thought made me pause for a moment.

In the medium of comics, it not unusual to see one character being tackled by hundreds of different writers of their lifespan. No-one gets too upset when their original creators stop telling the story and hand the reins over to someone else – it’s simply the natural order of a periodical medium.

The idea of character “ownership” (and I mean in the emotional sense, rather than the financial one) is a tricky one. In the case of Hitchiker’s Guide, the characters and world seem so personal to Adams that there don’t appear to be any stories worth telling with the characters unless Adams is involved. Sandman’s arc was fully conceived and executed by Gaiman, and again, it seems both unnecessary and undesirable to continue it without his involvement. Spider-Man, on the other hand, was launched by Lee and Ditko, but when they left, the stories continued and decades later, no-one seems especially outraged – it’s simply the Way Things Are.

Perhaps the main difference is that characters like Spider-Man and other “Work for Hire” properties don’t belong to the creator, but to the company. Thus anything authorised by them can technically be seen to be the work of the “official” author. It seems that Lee was content to have simply helped create Spider-Man – the stories then told with the character existed in an open-ended setting, allowing other writers to all give their own take. Lee’s Spider-Man stories weren’t, ultimately, quite so important as the character who starred in them.

In any case, the decision of whether something is “official” or not ultimately comes down to the fans. Should DC ever see fit to sequelise Sandman, they may be in their legal right to do so, but only the fans could make it a success.

The same, then, is true of the forthcoming Hitchiker’s book. If we want Adams’ legacy to be the characters of Arthur, Trillian and Ford, much like how Stan Lee’s legacy is Spider-Man, the Hulk and the X-Men, then we need to do nothing but buy the book when it comes out. However, if we want Adams’ legacy to be the stories he told, rather than the characters he created - much like Gaiman’s run on Sandman – then it’s down to those that might be expected to buy Colfer’s Hitchiker’s book to instead leave it on the shelf.

James writes Alternate Cover every Monday at Den Of Geek. His previous column can be found here.

As another grey, rainy British summer slips seamlessly into a grey, rainy British autumn, I start to think about game environments, and how developers now have the power to create believable new worlds.

Let's face it, games are a fantastic kind of escapism - particularly in dreary autumnal evenings - and the processing power of current gen consoles and PCs allows gamers to experience vibrant virtual spaces in more detail than ever. With this in mind, I tried to come up with a list of games with genuinely memorable, imaginative worlds, and came to the surprising conclusion that the vast majority of them lack this.

Of course, there are plenty of games that are still fantastic despite their environment's lack of personality; take Gears of War, for example. Now, before readers start leaving irate messages about how graphically stunning this game is, let me explain exactly what I mean. Yes, GoW's 'shattered beauty' is extremely well depicted - indeed, it's still one of the best looking games on the 360, even two years on - but it's not what I would describe as imaginative. As detailed and carefully wrought as the devastated buildings and burnt out cars are, it doesn't change the fact that for large portions of the game you're blasting a horde of grey, Rancor-like enemies among grey chunks of concrete with grey clouds rolling overhead. In fact, GoW only gets really colourful when you let rip with your lancer and spatter blood on the camera.

In no way is this a reflection on GoW's playability or its otherwise top-drawer quality (one of my favourite blasters of all time, in fact), but it does illustrate my point: as good as GoW is, is its setting as genuinely memorable as, say, Bioshock? I would argue that it isn't.

In many ways, Bioshock is inferior, in pure gameplay terms, to Gears of War. While it's a solid enough FPS, it's pretty simplistic underneath all the plasmids, 'moral' choices and gimmicky Pipemania subgames. Without its engaging story and unique setting, it's quite likely that Bioshock would have sunk without trace. It's the surreal world of Rapture, full of long shadows and flickering neon, that make the game so special.

Similarly, Fumito Ueda's Ico is a game that sticks firmly in the mind thanks to its tangible sense of place. I haven't played it in at least four years, but its spooky, de Chirico-inspired castle full of impossible architecture and lush green gardens is still as fresh in my memory as if I'd only played it yesterday. It would still have been an eminently playable game without its exquisitely wrought world, but I have a feeling that its cunning puzzles and princess protection would have been considerably less engaging.

Creating immersive worlds is clearly Ueda's forte since his follow-up to Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, had an equally impressive setting, with stunning vistas that seemed to stretch to infinity. Its eerily desolate world was so compelling, in fact, that it cunningly papered over the game's unavoidably repetitive nature and the stuttering frame rate as the poor old PS2 was stretched to its technical limit (one can only imagine how beautiful Colossus could have looked had it been created for the PS3 instead).

It's not necessarily true that a game world has to be vast in scale to be memorable though; Number None's Braid creates a uniquely atmospheric environment with relatively simple (but visually stunning nonetheless) 2D graphics.

The antithesis of Braid has to be Square Enix's Infinite Undiscovery, which I reviewed  earlier this week. The game features a sprawling map that wouldn't even fit on one DVD, and an expansive cast of characters to match. Unfortunately, a thirty-hour campaign and a huge map failed to create a particularly memorable setting - instead, Undiscovery felt like a cliched grab-bag of references to other RPGs without them gelling to form something new.

A truly memorable game world is difficult to define, and something of an 'x-factor'; it doesn't necessarily have to be original (all the games I've mentioned so far borrow elements from all kinds of popular culture, after all), and it doesn't have to be gigantic in scope or even technically stunning (see Braid).

Like a good novel, the best game worlds seem to take on a life of their own - it's as though they continue to exist even after you've turned off your console. Whether its the towering architecture of Ico, or the eerie desolation of S.T.A.L.K.E.R, certain games have an unforgettable setting that lingers in the mind long after the power's been turned off and the disk has been put back in its box.

Ryan writes his gaming column every week at Den Of Geek. Last week's is here.

Watched Bad Day At Blackrock on the box. Not the best medium for seeing a Cinemascope film unless you are rich enough to have a 50-inch TV. It is a powerful reminder of just how powerful the moving image became in the 1950s. It was the time when writers began to effect how we saw ourselves. The Americans with some squirming soul-searching, the British with a display of frugal and self-deprecating filmmaking and the rest of the world trying to make a mark in an industry that was already been sewn-up in the English language.

The films of the ‘fifties’ still have resonance today. Many of the subjects were anchored firmly in world moving events. A more cavalier look at what happened in the recent world war and what the outcome meant for the future. There was also a new wave of escapism with extravagant Hollywood Musicals and costly costume dramas filched from the Bible. Hollywood was having its own internecine war. The expensive Studio system of making films against the guerrilla tactics of the swift moving freedom of the Independents. A war that the Studios were bound to lose.

Whatever was happening on screen, the political scene appeared at times to be even more dramatically exciting. Senator Joseph McCarthy grabbed international headlines as he pursued a hysterical witch-hunt against anyone he considered to be guilty of un-American thoughts and deeds. What was amazing was that, in the oft acclaimed ‘land of the free’, anyone who fell foul of the malevolent Senator from Wisconsin could be blacklisted and ruined for life on the most flimsy evidence. The turbulent times seemed to inspire Hollywood writers to produce some of the best scripts ever committed to the screen.

It was in the fifties that the movies went head to head with its greatest threat – television. Before then the Studios moguls had dismissed the threat as rubbish and buried their collective heads in the sand. At last they were waking up to the very real possibility that they were about to join the dinosaur. They thrashed about for a belated answer and, in 1952, came up with Cinerama. The trick here was to shoot the scene with three cameras simultaneously and then patch them side by side onto an enormous screen. You could hardly see the joins they claimed. The first was a sort of trailer for what was to come, This is Cinerama (1952). The best was How the West Was Won but this didn’t arrive until the beginning of the sixties. By this time Cinerama had been ambushed by all sorts of hustlers, PanaVision being one of the busiest.

Still looking for some way of ungluing the audience from the fetish of the small screen, 3D was brought out and dusted down. It had been used as a minor curiosity since demonstrated by William Friese-Greene as far back as 1890 but now it was back big-time. There were a lot of films made but the drag of having to wear the one fits all cardboard spectacles proved to be too much for the ordinary cinemagoer. There were some notable films along the way. Mainly in 1953 it seems. It was fun dodging the ping-pong ball and various other pieces of equipment looming out of the screen in The House of Wax. The third dimension heightened the sense of involvement in It came from Outer Space and you were fully involved in the close-up osculations of Kiss Me Kate.

Another thing the Indies could not match in that moment in time was the exotic foreign locations. It was no longer acceptable to shoot against a green back screen and add the decoration later. Now the audience, when prised off the sofa and denied the frequent ‘tea breaks’, wanted to see the real thing. If it was Rome they wanted to see the delectable Audrey Hepburn smooched against the authentic Three Coins In The Fountain. It had to be Hong Kong for the soaring cho rds of Love Is A Many Splendored Thing while William Holden and Jennifer Jones put together their own version of Madame Butterfly and only Japan would do for the Oscar winning emoting of Marlon Brando in Sayonara (sans the long goodbye) - in wide screen.

20th Century Fox was the first company to shoot a major feature film in Cinemascope. The wrap was called on How To Marry A Millionaire (1953), a full six months before The Robe (1953) was finished but lost out in the rush to be the first released onto the appreciative public. Soon CinemaScope was where it was all happening and the big production houses waded in with films like 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (1954), A Star Is Born (1954), Lady And The Tramp (1955) and even had a tilt at cartoons with Mr Magoo (1954). 

There were plenty of others shooting for the wide screen and for a while the cinema held its own against the 14 inch, black and white TVs. The New Medium also encourage the splendour of high-class musical production like An American In Paris and Singing In The Rain among others of equal quality. Fred Astaire, after announcing his retirement in 1946, couldn't resist the call of dancing feet and stuck on his top hat and white tie to return to the screen. The debate at the time was whether new boy, Gene Kelly was better than Astaire. The consensus of opinion was that Kelly was 'more muscular'.

It was also the time when the big female stars were lured into the cinema from the stage. In 1950 Bette Davis appeared in All About Eve. That knocked the cork out of the bottle and from then on, although the stage actors still talked down their involvement in the film industry, it was where the big money was and everyone wanted a piece. English-born Elizabeth Taylor, a child actress, went on to become the leading glamour star of the day. Now the accent was on looks rather than ability but to reach the top they needed both qualities. Ava Gardner, Rock Hudson, Grace Kelly, Stewart Granger, Audrey Hepburn, Clark Gable, Doris Day, et al became the icons of the day. Marlon Brando road onto the scene in leathers astride a snarling motorbike in The Wild Ones (1953) and James Dean emoted and grizzled his way onto the screen in Rebel Without A Cause. Marilyn Monroe showed with a breathless, skirt-swirling performance, what the New York underground was really for and Tony Curtis switched character from a nasty little jerk in The Sweet Smell Of Success in 1957 to the bravura performance in drag in Some Like It Hot (1959).

While the American cinema was rampaging around the world screens the British film industry was surviving on comedy and taut, well-written but under funded dramas.  Increasingly the Brits were looking to America for finance and from necessity came a number of highly rated successes.

For the American producers, working with British companies served two purposes. One, they were getting the authentic backgrounds demanded by the cinemagoers and secondly the Europeans worked cheap. Among some of the best co-productions from this time were the Bogart - Hepburn water-bound drama of The African Queen (1951) and Moulin Rouge with the irrepressible Zsa Zsa Gabor (1952).  The same year saw Alec Guinness having a mental breakdown on The Bridge On The River Kwai. Italy stood in for Greece on Helen of Troy (1956) and Spain was Russia for War And Peace.

It is axiomatic that great films need great Directors. And there was plenty of those around in the Fifties. John Houston left his Texan roots to take on more cosmopolitan subjects, The Asphalt Jungle (1950). The African Queen, Moulin Rouge, Moby Dick (1956).  David Lean did some of his best work in the fifties and early sixties. The Sound Barrier (1952) had Ralph Richardson and Nigel Patrick wrestling with the controls as they broke the sound barrier, turned to Hobson's Choice to give John Mills a chance to try a strange accent and finished the decade with The Bridge On The River Kwai. Tony Richardson's Look Back In Anger  (1958) was proclaimed as a revolution in filmmaking.  Carol Reed proved that comedy wasn't dead with Our Man in Havana (1959) and Orson Welles proved he had a Touch Of Evil in 1958. Robert Wise had a bash at Sci-Fi with The Day The Earth Stood Still in 1951 and switched to a gritty Desert Rats in '53. Willy Wilder was proving worth his Green Card with Sunset Boulevard, The Seven Year Itch and Some Like It Hot, while William Wyler countered with Roman Holiday (1953), Friendly Persuasion (1956) and the fantastic Ben Hur in 1959. The list of giant directors of the fifties goes on and on.  Most of them sailed on through the sixties and many of them were still film making in the seventies and eighties.

In Britain a little known film company in England made the first steps towards world renown. On the banks of the Thames, in a converted house, Terence Fisher made The Curse Of Frankenstein in 1957 and followed it with Dracula in '58 and made Hammer Films an international icon. By the end of the decade the panache was draining from the film industry and the dross of the ghastly sixties was beginning to take hold.

Read Ingrid's column every Tuesday at Den Of Geek. Last week's is here.

One of my first ever reviews for Den of Geek was of Alan Moore’s 2007 League of Extraordinary Gentlemen release, The Black Dossier. It’s a total and uncompromising masterpiece which undeniably deserved, much like its predecessors, a deluxe “Absolute” edition from publishers DC. After production delays meant that readers spent literally years waiting for the Black Dossier’s release, a further delay for the high-quality Absolute edition wasn’t unexpected, and patient fans were finally rewarded when the book shipped at the end of August 2008.

Or rather, they weren’t. As soon as people started receiving copies of the Absolute edition, it became clear things had gone terribly wrong.

It had long been known that the Absolute edition would not, as promised, feature an exclusive vinyl LP, which was mysteriously cancelled some months previously. People had scarcely managed to deal with this fact when the volume was finally published, and it became apparent that it wasn’t the only thing missing.

The previous two Absolute volumes of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen contained script books as part of the package. These scripts were as densely-packed as the comic itself, and massively illuminated the material. The Black Dossier could’ve benefited massively from one. It seems hard to believe that the lack of a script book was – if not covered up – never really brought to light.

And why, you might ask, would people assume the script book was included? Well, there’s the price – at a $99 RRP for 200 pages, this is the most expensive Absolute edition ever. Something hard to believe when you pick up the thin slip of a volume compared to its chunky predecessors.

As if all that weren’t insulting enough, there are also reports that the art hasn’t been properly re-shot for a higher size, that some pages are visibly just upscaled versions of the reduced art used to print the regular size edition, and that the colour printing has been botched leading to an slight, though still unwelcome magenta tint to the pages when compared with the standard edition.

The Absolute Black Dossier makes an utter mockery of the Absolute pedigree, and it’s hard to figure out what, exactly, DC were thinking when they cleared it for release. This is ostensibly their premium range of graphic novels, so shouldn’t customers expect more for their money than a larger-sized, slipcased version of the original that boasts printing of questionable clarity and a price tag that can make your eyes water? Of course it should. The real question is “How was this allowed to happen?” Allow me to espouse one popular theory.

The popular suggestion is that DC are rushing out this poor-quality release to essentially punish Alan Moore for taking his (creator-owned) League of Extraordinary Gentlemen property to Top Shelf for future publications. These claims have not been officially acknowledged, although it’s certain that low production values combined with Moore’s name power do mean that this Absolute version should turn a mega profit even compared to the first two volumes – and it’s not like DC have to worry about damaging the reputation of future League editions. Alternatively, some fans more loyal to DC are suggesting that Moore was the one denying the company use of any supplemental material, forcing them to make this release bare-bones. While it seems equally likely that either party would want to do no favours to the other, it’s the fans who get caught in the crossfire.

The only lesson that can be learnt from this whole debacle? If and when you buy the Black Dossier – don’t bother paying for the Absolute version. You’ll be the one who loses out.

James writes Alternate Cover every Monday at Den Of Geek. His previous column can be found here.

The problem with addiction is that giving up one vice very often leads to another. Smokers giving up cigarettes invariably end up hooked on chocolate or chewing gum, for example. My recent decision to give up caffeine means that I have to avoid all thought of coffee or cans of Diet Coke - and to take my mind off these things I've started playing video games with even more enthusiasm than usual.

Spending most of my spare time staring at a screen with a controller in my hand wouldn't be too much of a problem if I were a teenager living at home with my parents, but I'm not and I don't; I'm an adult with an eye-watering mortgage and sundry bills to pay. While I sit and blast away at wave upon wave of Halo 3 grunts, the back garden becomes increasingly overgrown, the taps continue to leak and the bedroom walls stand unpainted.

Every time I start thinking about re-upholstering those chairs sitting out in the utility room, the dark forces behind XBLA release something unmissable like Braid or Bionic Commando: Rearmed, and suddenly the household chores are just a memory and the walls crumble around me like the House of Usher.

Earlier this year, Times writer Giles Whittel described video games as a 'colossal waste of time' and, rather bizarrely, likened them to 'heroin and teenage pregnancy.' A strange allusion to draw, but then this is a writer that gets away with slipping such lines as 'whither these lucky bourgeois paragons on such a blessed morn?' into his editorial.

So are video games a waste of time? Are they really on a par with drug abuse and other social ills? In video gaming's defence, you could say that the FPS genre improves hand/eye coordination, that puzzle games are good for the brain or that Command and Conquer is as big a tactical challenge as a game of chess, which are all true enough statements.

But the fact is, video games are a waste of time - in precisely the same way that watching sports, films, television or any other passive activity is. Even so, it's unclear why games are singled out for such vitriolic abuse - perhaps it's because they're a comparatively new medium that they're considered to be 'low culture' at best, or at worst akin to teenage pregnancy and Class A drugs.

When Rockstar put out games like Grand Theft Auto or Bully, both tabloid and broadsheet newspapers queue up to condemn them, and before we know it they've been blamed for knife crime, rising obesity levels and the credit crunch. Video games become the reason that people don't attend church anymore, why men don't tip their hats to passing ladies and children throw conkers at policemen. Video games are, in short, the downfall of modern culture.

So as I sit and guiltily blast my way through Bioshock's Rapture I think of all the highbrow, high-culture things I should be doing instead, like reading the works of Dostoyevsky, admiring cheeses or going to the opera.

I unleash another fiery salvo into a Big Daddy, and as I do so I think: if I wasted less time playing video games and spent more of it skiing in Val Thorens, I too could be a little more like Giles Whittel.

The thought makes me shudder ever so slightly, and I play on.

Ryan writes his gaming column every week at Den Of Geek. Last week's is here.

I never did a lot of television. When I was a gel it was considered not very nice. The prostitution of the arts! Critics used to talk like that. Theatre was still considered the grand media. It you could summon up a penetrating voice and some lovely sounding vowels you were onto a winner. There were a lot more theatres about then. Especially in England.

My first venture into theatre was in the early '60s, as a 'muckefuckmacher' in East Berlin for the Berliner Ensemble (it's less painful than it sounds). When I went to live in the States and flashed my CV around with the Ensemble prominently hilighted, it got attention. Well at least it got me a job in the Pasadena Playhouse. A thriving touring theatre when I arrived. Unfortunately I hit it at a bad time and I was forced to do a moonlit flit from my lodgings, still owed money by the company.

I sold my car at JFK Airport and winged my way, penniless, to Barajas Airport in Spain. I wasn't found standing in a queue for fish and chips, a la Christine Norden but I suppose it was the Spanish equivalent. I was emoting over the death of a toro in the bullring when a press snapper took my picture and it was seen by a Spanish producer and it kick-started my movie career.

My move into television began when I returned to Los Angeles three or four years later. American actors had caught onto the fact that TV wasn't that bad and a few hours work could buy you a sprossy new auto. I was lucky. I now had a few films behind me, Spanish it is true, but feature films nevertheless. I had a big mouth, an interesting accent and walked the walk. The big shows, like Ironside and Dundee and the Calhane were now considered OK as long as you didn't overdose. If you did it was assumed that the film producers would look the other way and spit on their toecap when they passed you in the corridor.

By the time I came to England TV had come out of the closet, although my agent still found it hard to articulate the word and would mutter 'box' if he had to tell me he had a job in the despised end of showbiz. But he did manage to line me up some pretty good shows for a while. Appearing in a drama automatically fed you into the 'Guest' category. One of which was New Faces.

New Faces was the successor of Hughie Green's Opportunity Knocks and was extremely successful. Hughie would ladle on the condescension and make weak jokes at the contestants' expense before letting them loose on the air. Winners were chosen by the TV audience, although there was a controversial 'ClapOmeter' which claimed to show the reaction of the people in the studio. It was a successful format but getting a bit dated. New Faces was the new face.

The regular panel consisted of Tony Hatch, a successful songwriter, providing the likes of Petula Clark with highly rated material. With him was record producer and talent spotter extraordinaire Mickie Most. Hatch and Most were considered the hard men of their day. Keeping the party clean was Derek Hobson. I was one of the Guest panellists. I'm not sure how many times. Six maybe?

I was lucky enough to be hooked up with comedian Arthur Askey. Arthur had a long and distinguished career going back to the 30s. When I met him he was getting on a bit and not in the best of health but he never let it show. He was always joking and delivering hilarious one-liners.

We were both staying in the same hotel next to the studios in Birmingham. One night in the restaurant I went to get some food at the carvery counter and was joined by Arthur. He couldn't miss the opportunity of putting on a show and did a stand-up comedy routine that must have lasted for a quarter of an hour - at my expense. There were other panellists but as much as I exploit the Lotus position I can't remember who they were. The show disappeared for a few years and when it returned it had the comedian Marti Caine helming it. The show produced a lot of the names that are top stars today. Besides the late Marti Caine, who went on to actually present the return of New Faces, there were Lenny Henry, Michael Barrymore, Victoria Woods, Les Dennis and many others.

The reason I bring this up is I watched the X Factor. For two reasons. One is that I have read a lot about it being a prime example of 'Cruelty TV" and two it is master minded by Simon Cowell. Cowell is responsible for bringing Il Divo together. I think they are wonderful. Nearly bankrupted myself going to see them at Excel but they were worth it. I thought it only fair to have a look at the man who took them on.

I do my best to avoid watching talent shows. They make me feel nervous. I hated The X Factor. I know that puts me in the minority but the whole thing is so ugly. Both Opportunity Knocks and New Faces exploited the ambitions of wannabe entertainers but at least, before they got before the public, the talentless ones had been weeded out and saved the humiliation of being allowed to perform before an audience. No such nicety on X Factor. Those auditioning are subjected to ridiculed and degraded by a bunch of oafs with no claim to highly honed performing talent. I know from long experience that show business is a ruthless profession. But for many people it provides inspiration. They may never meet the their targets but at least they fail honestly. Not to boost the egos of a group of hyenas urged on by the braying mob.

I don't think I will be watching the X Factor again. The same goes for that other exploitative, nasty show, Big Brother. But I'll keep the faith with Il Divo.

Read Ingrid's column every Tuesday at Den Of Geek. Last week's is here.

Part of the reason there’s been no column the last two weeks is because I’ve been moving house. Part of that process also means the inevitable moment where I have to make sure all of my comics are in boxes, and transport them. The ridiculously tiring nature of this boxing, stacking and hauling activity led me, as it always does, to the conclusion that I probably have more comics than I reasonably need. Which leads me to the dilemma every rabid comics reader will one day face, possibly many times over his or her lifetime. I have to decide which comics to get rid of.

It’s a difficult process, and the only way I can approach it is to additively evaluate my collection. Uncanny X-Men and X-Men stay. Those two series form the cornerstone of my comics-fandom, and they’re the only ones I’ve bought every month since I entered the hobby. That’s two long boxes worth of issues. Then there’s all my X-Men peripheral titles, which is another, even larger box. And there are the Hulk and Fantastic Four runs that still rank as some of my favourite issues of all time stay. We’re now getting towards six boxes deep and I haven’t even touched non-Marvel stuff, or graphic novels, or any of the other boxes I’ve filed according to some bizarre logic I invented solely to give myself a good reason to file Daredevil and Ms. Marvel comics alongside one another because they fit in a box neatly.

The thing is, I don’t often re-read these comics, but there’s nostalgia attached to each issue, and a genuine wish to keep these stories available to read again when the time comes. The amount of space they take up is an unfortunate side-effect. Which, naturally, leads me to mentally reopen that aging discussion point – just how important is the physical aspect of comics?

It took some getting used to, but these days I’m largely of the opinion that CDs are a rare luxury purchase rather than a weekly endeavour, and that’s because I can simply pay to download music tracks instead, safe in the knowledge I’m not damning myself to storing a plastic disc for, potentially, the rest of my life. Similarly, then, one has to question just how necessary the physical medium of a comic is, and whether I could bring myself to give it up  in exchange for the return of my floorspace.

Now, like many modern Internet-users, I’ve downloaded a comic or two in my time. I’ve read web-comics, and even a full graphic novel that was published on the web prior to being printed, and I’m fairly convinced that these days, technology is ready to take over from the printed page, in terms of aesthetics, if not necessarily economics.

Portability is an issue, but I’d expect that most readers, like me, only read comics in a small number of places anyway. Personally, I read them either at home or on public transport on my way home from buying them. If I could download the week’s new issues, they’d be accessible in every place I’d want to read them.

Unfortunately (for this column, as much as the industry) there’s no easy answer. The solution I can come up with for making monthlies work in a digital format is to devise a hybridised system, where comics publishers charge for each new issue to download, then release a collected TPB at the end, effectively digitising the hardcore direct market while catering to casual readers and collectors. TPBs, after all, take up less space than single issues and cost less. As I understand it, only reason comics rarely go straight to TPB is because, on a basic level, the production of the story is funded by the immediate profit from single-issue sales – without those, the story wouldn’t get finished enough to be collected as a TPB. It’s unlikely to happen, but it’s not a solution I’ve seen proposed before. Unfortunately, the people losing out here are the retailers, who in the event of any digitisation movement will quickly find themselves running out of single issues of comics to sell.

Still, even if I could get every new comic in the future through some kind of download service, I’m still left with a tonne of boxes full of comics. In the long term, the only way I can even consider getting rid of most of the comics I own is if back-issues start being released in a downloadable format that can then be archived locally (Marvel Digital Comics, for example, is close, but hampered by online-dependency.) In the short term? I guess I’ll have to find a bigger house…

James writes Alternate Cover every Monday at Den Of Geek. His previous, pre-house move column can be found here. 

I received an interesting email this week from US developer PopCap - the makers of the bestselling puzzler Bejeweled. In among the sales figures and company history I found some information about research into the psychological effects of their games. I found it so interesting that I asked permission to quote it here, which I will (a bit of it, at least):

'East Carolina University reveals the results of a 6-month randomized, controlled study that confirms positive health benefits of so-called “casual” video games. The study was conducted between October 2007 and April 2008 and included a total of 134 subjects. The family-friendly puzzle / word games used in the study - Bejeweled 2 , Peggle and Bookworm Adventures - are made by PopCap Games, whose customer surveys last year indicated similar casual gaming benefits.'

The results appeared to show that PopCap's games reduced levels of psychological tension, anger, depression, fatigue and confusion from anywhere between 40 and 400 per cent, while raising vigor by 210 per cent. According to the report, somebody called doctor Russoniello had this to say about the results:

'If these games can reduce depression this significantly among a population of people who are not diagnosed with depression, the potential for positively affecting the mental state of someone who is in fact depressed is very significant.'

In a form of entertainment usually associated with negative press about violence and antisocial behaviour, it's highly unusual to read a piece of research that tells of gaming's positive effects. If the study's to be believed, playing Bejeweled for an hour could be better for stress and depression than taking Prozac.

So given that PopCap's games are good for us, I began thinking about all the games that might just be the opposite, the ones that could conceivably give you a heart attack rather than prevent one.

Take a game like Army Moves from the mid-eighties. Back then, Spanish developer Dynamic gained a fearsome reputation for creating the hardest games you could find on 8-bit computers, and Army Moves was no exception. You were bombarded with terror from the moment play commenced; you had to guide your jeep over a bridge riddled with holes which had to be jumped while avoiding the enemy trucks hurtling in from the right and the helicopters raining down showers of death from above. Army Moves contained the kind of stultifying difficulty that makes grown men weep, and even the best players would see the bizarre game over screen with horrible regularity ('The mission has failed. You have lost your effectives,' it read, rather ominously).

Later, Capcom released Ghouls and Ghosts , another game that could play havoc with your blood pressure. The arcade original was hard enough with its randomly spawning undead and sadistically spaced-out check points, but the Super Nintendo version was even worse - thanks to its piffling little processor, the gameplay would slow down unexpectedly whenever more than a handful of sprites appeared on the screen, which made it yet more difficult to avoid those pesky zombies. My blood boils just thinking about it.

Any first-person shooter that requires the player to make precise jumps over tiny platforms is also likely to create serious bouts of depression. If you can remember the original Turok on the Nintendo 64, you'll know exactly what I mean - the word 'frustrating' doesn't even begin to describe it.

Most recently, Ninja Gaiden II 's eye-watering difficulty level (and rather jittery camera) has been giving me considerable psychological trauma, particularly when I come up against an area boss that can take away about three-quarters of my energy bar with one swipe of his talons/tail/golf club.

So if all the frustrating games are the ones that could conceivably give us heart attacks, what can we do about it? The good news is, I think I've come up with the perfect solution: for every hour you play something as frustrating and difficult as Ninja Gaiden II , switch off and play Bejeweled for a few minutes. Even if it doesn't actually calm you down, at least you'll get really good at matching different coloured jewels...

Ryan writes his gaming column every week at Den Of Geek. Last week's is here.

The Crawling Ear: An Epic Poem Recounting My (Non)Adventures With The Ramones

By James Greene, Jr.

Sit back, my child, and prepare your ears
for the most ridiculous poem you’ve heard in years
this story’s not about UFO activity
it is not even about the film House Party 3
this story’s not about E.T. phoning home
it really concerns that punk band the Ramones
and the adventures I had with various members
well, actually, just one – let’s see if I remember…

In the late nineties, long after the Tudors
Marky formed a new band he called the Intruders
I saw them at Warped Tour nineteen ninety-eight
the experience, my friends, was unusually great
for bass player Johnny was throwing shirts to the crowd
I caught one and screamed, “God damn!” quite loud
I unraveled my prize and couldn’t stop staring
I had captured the shirt the bass player had been wearing!

He accidentally tossed it, his grief was enormous
so I returned it at the next Intruders performance
I was asked to play drums while Mark sang “Sedated”
unfortunately I sucked and was quickly berated
by Marky himself, who later smiled and laughed
I gave him my bank statement, which he kindly autographed
The third time I saw them, I tell you no lies
Mark bought me a meal of cheeseburger and fries

Hanging with Mark was enough fun to repeat
it almost made up for this crushing defeat
in high school I only got one suspension
and I was once invited to a sci-fi convention
my friend Greg said, “C’mon, it’ll be cool as hell!”
I said, “Nay, I have a shift at Ye Olde Taco Bell.”
the very next day, my mind was totally blown
when Greg mentioned he stood behind Johnny Ramone!

In line at the con for nearly half an hour
when I heard this my smile turned to a glower
I kicked myself thoroughly for missing this chance
to stand near my hero, his hands, and his pants
but wait – per Ramones tales, I have but one more
one that truly irritates me to my rotten core
I believe it took place on a cold Winter’s day
and revolves around the bass player known as C.J.
One morning I found just outside my door
a package from an address I knew not before
I opened it up and found un Los Gusanso CD
with a letter from C.J. made out to me
“I saw your website, James, of record reviews
I wish that you’d review this one now, too!”
I was quite pleased and bragged to a chum,
“I wonder what else from a Ramone may come?”

The truth came out when this pal sighed into the phone
this package had come not from any damn Ramone!
Mutual friends were playing a prank
my Ramones crank these guys were trying to yank
I should have known better of this devious caper
The note was in crayon on a torn piece of paper
I hunted down these devious, evil lads
and I kicked them both squarely, right in their gnads

So ends my tales of Ramones-related glory
I wish I had more ridiculous stories
about Dee Dee and Richie and Tommy and Clem
and Sticky and Curly and Frankie and Ken
and Bumpus and Ghoulie and Paulie and Steve
and Radar and Chunky and Christopher Reeve
oh those Ramones, they were such wild guys
at least one of them bought me a burger and fries.

Check out the Crawling Ear every Wednesday at Den Of Geek. The last Crawling Ear can be found here. 

I was sitting in the doctor’s waiting room leafing through a magazine. An article with the intriguing title of The Murdering Class attracted my attention. It seemed appropriate that it should be about doctors. A few years ago I wrote a trilogy of books about assorted gruesome subjects. A fourth, about 'deadly doctors', was abandoned when I left the publisher. The article reminded me of one of the most gruesome twosomes I had researched. I think the doctor theme has come back to haunt me...

A few years ago a couple of doctors in Sweden turned themselves into latterday hybrids of Messrs Hyde and Jekyll with Jack the Ripper overtones;  Dr. Teet Haerm and Dr. Lars Thomas were pathologists working for the police. They both had exemplary records and were looked on as pillars of the community. Haerm was a charming, outgoing type. Good with children and happy to pitch in and help in anything that was going on. Thomas was younger and unsure of himself. He was attracted to the bonhomie and confidence of Haerm and was a willing accomplice. 

When the body of a 30 year old prostitute, Catarina da Costa, was found wrapped in a plastic sheet and stuffed under a sports pavilion, pathologist Haerm was called in. The body had been dissected and the bits and pieces neatly tied in a bundle. The body parts were taken to the mortuary.  After a brief examination of the dismembered body Dr. Haerm opined that it was the work of a butcher. For a week the police hassled every butcher and hunter in the district but drew a blank. Then another body was found. Another prostitute. Haerm confirmed that in his opinion the same person who had cut up Da Costa had done the deed, but now he said that in his opinion a surgeon had perpetrated the dissection. He realised that if he continued to maintain that the murderer was a butcher and the body was examined by another doctor the fact that the body had been carved up by a skilled surgeon would be discovered.  Just to show how open and above board he was, he called in his colleague, Lars Thomas, for a second opinion. 

This was the sort of headline the newspapers loved and soon the Surgical Serial Killer was blasted across the front pages. The working girls on the streets of the red light district hardly needed any warning that they were in danger. They were resentful rather than grateful for the extra interest the police were taking in civilization’s oldest profession. With the reluctant help of the girls the police began to get a profile of the man they were looking for. In spite of all their efforts the police were no nearer making an arrest than when the first body was discovered. More dismembered bodies began to turn up. Haerm was enjoying himself. He had no illusions about breathing life into the decimated stiffs but it was more interesting than doing jigsaw puzzles.

Haerm, in spite of his disturbingly gruesome hobby, was an intelligent man. He knew that each time he picked up an unwilling playmate he was running the gauntlet of the increased police patrols and the bright eyes of the sisterhood from which he purloined his victims. But that was part of the game - the thrill! Thomas, although firmly under the spell of Haerm, was obviously a weak link. Haerm confided in Thomas that he, Haerm, was in fact a High Priest of an international sect of Druids dedicated to cleansing the world of sin...

By now the two medical ghouls had developed a well-oiled modus operandi: Haerm would patrol the streets until he found a lone working girl. He would tell her about the party he was throwing at his house and promise her a fistful of kronor if she would come and entertain his friends. As soon as she entered the house Haerm and Thomas would overpower the woman, strangle her and then strip the body.  With the body still warm they would take turns in having intercourse with it and then play-act sex games. When the blood congealed they would take the body out to the garage and dismember it. Haerm would then select a part of the body and take it into the house and cook and eat it. This he explained to the credulous Thomas, was all part of the Druid ritual to assimilate the soul of the depraved and cleanse it. 

The police were clueless. Haerm worked assiduously building up a profile of the man who fit the bill of the predatory serial killer. Then the police got a break. One of the girls remembered part of the number plate on a car that she had seen circulating in the area on occasions when one or other of the prostitutes was killed. The police ran a check and one of the cars belonged to their very own Dr. Teet Haerm. He told them a plausible story about wanting to get a feel of the area in which the girls worked to help him with his profiling. Haerm and the detectives had a good laugh about the situation and Haerm went home.

After he left, the detectives stopped smiling and ran more checks on him. Nothing was out of the ordinary. Well maybe his wife committing suicide was a little unusual.  Haerm realised that now suspicion had fallen on him, however fleetingly, he had to clean up his act. The very fact that his name had turned up on the police blotter meant that he was suspended from the pathology department for the time being. He cooperated when the detectives came and made a routine check of his house. They found a photograph of his dead wife with a rope around her neck. He claimed a colleague had sent it to him and he had forgotten about it. As soon as the police left he called Thomas. Haerm and Thomas went to work scouring the garage and house of any clues that might be picked up by a forensic team. 

After so many months without a breakthrough the police were near to shelving the investigation. Then three bodies turned up in rapid succession. Bodies that Haerm and Thomas had confidently expected to be hidden forever. The victims bore all the hallmarks of the serial killer they were hunting.  Unfortunately the bodies offered up no more clues and the search for the killer was put on the back burner. The breakthrough, when it came, was from a totally unexpected source.

A school teacher reported that she suspected that one of her pupils was a victim of abuse.  When questioned the girl said that the abuser was her father, the eminent Dr. Lars Thomas. Thomas at first denied any misconduct.  Questioned further, he broke down and confessed to abusing his daughter - and more. Much more! Once he began he couldn’t stop. Before long he was pouring out the story of his evangelic mission with his friend, the 'high priest' Teet Haerm. Haerm was charged with the murders of eight women: Annica Mors, Catarina da Costa, Kristine Cravache, Lena Grans, Cate Falk, Lena Manson, Lola Svenson, Tazuga Toyanaga and his wife Ann Catrine.

A further body, that of Lena Boyers, was never recovered, but her disappearance was attributed to the work of Haerm. Haerm pleaded insanity but the jury wasn’t impressed and he was sentenced in 1988 to life in prison. The weak link in Haerm’s crusade to make the world a better place, Lars Thomas, was found guilty of the rape and murder of Catarina da Costa and being an accessory after the fact in the other cases. He was also charged with an incestuous act with his daughter. The life sentence handed down to him was the same as that of his partner in crime.

Until the case of Harold Shipman came up, doctors Haerm and Thomas held the dubious honour of being the most active medical serial killers in modern times. “Miss Pitt” sounded like a date with destiny when the doctor called me into his surgery.

Read Ingrid's column every Tuesday at Den Of Geek. Last week's is here.

The air is thick with smoke as I charge through the undergrowth, the chatter of gunfire loud in my ears. Adrenaline surges through me, and my gun feels heavy in my hands. I know the enemy are mere yards behind, and my eyes search frantically for a hiding place. There, mere paces in front of me, stands the reassuringly thick bough of a tree. With a final burst of energy I make for its safety, and as I do so I hear the hollow thump as a smoke grenade goes off to my left. I press on, the tree mere inches away now, close enough to touch...

Too late, I realise my refuge is already occupied. An enemy soldier leaps from its cover, firing three deadly shots into my chest. Stricken, my legs give way beneath me.

Who'd have thought that paintballing in Leeds could be so stressful?

For reasons best known to those with Psychology degrees, we as a society appear to have a collective fascination with war - whether it's paintball, table-top wargames or a first-person shooter, our appetite for them seems endless. Perhaps it's a form of morbid curiosity - a desire to experience something that we'll never go through for real. We can get a little taste of battle without the risk to life and limb that real soldiering involves.

Gearbox Software's forthcoming installment in their successful FPS franchise, Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway promises to be the most realistic portrayal of WWII yet seen, with convincing AI, destructible scenery and hand grenades that tear bodies apart in a shower of gore and viscera.

It's debatable whether we really need yet another WWII FPS, but perhaps the more pertinent question is, should we really be making them? Is it right to create a form of entertainment from one of the most bloody and cruel moments of the last century? As games continue on their path to photorealism, is it right that they should depict the savagery of war with such uncompromising verisimilitude?

Whatever your viewpoint is (even I'm not sure where I stand on the subject, and I normally have an opinion on just about everything), it's an interesting question nonetheless. The developers of such titles as Medal of Honor, Call of Duty and Company of Heroes often claim to create their games for the most noble of intentions, some saying that they can act as a sort of interactive history lesson.

UK developers Ghostlight, for example, are currently working on their own historical battle-based FPS, To End All Wars - this time set among the muddy carnage of WWI. Their senior producer Alasdair Evans had this to say to games™ magazine back in May this year:

'We don't feel that it's a disservice to the memory of the 10 million lives lost to recreate the First World War as a game. If anything we're glad to be keeping the message alive.'

As noble as the developers' intentions may be, do people really play a war-based FPS to 'honour the dead'? I suspect that most gamers play Call of Duty because they enjoy shooting enemies and blowing things up. Of course, there's little a developer can do about the way their product is perceived - the same can be said for the rest of the entertainment industry too. Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan aimed (quite successfully) to depict the full horror and tragedy of the Normandy landings, yet I overheard some people coming out of a screening I attended saying they found the sequence quite funny.

But maybe the increasing realism seen in the war-based FPS genre is a sign of video games' growing maturity; after all, the best WWII simulation we could muster sixteen years ago was the cartoonish Wolfenstein 3D. Perhaps games have now reached the point where they can evoke the same emotional response as an anti-war film such as The Deer Hunter or a novel like Catch 22, meaning that the FPS has moved beyond the traditional video game realm of pure entertainment and into a different arena entirely, where they're played to shock, horrify and educate.

Have we really reached that stage yet? I'm not sure - maybe I'll play the latest Brothers in Arms when it's finally released, and feel some of the terror and sorrow that those soldiers surely felt some sixty years ago. Or maybe I'll just play it like any other FPS, mindlessly slaughtering one faceless Nazi after another without a moment's thought.

I'll freely admit that I'm about as battle-hardened as a pile of towels, and I'll even concede that I found my brief tour of duty with a paintball gun to be absolutely terrifying. As tense as, say, Call of Duty often is, it's nowhere near as bad as being hunted through some Yorkshire copse by a bunch of louts with paint pistols. Real war - with proper bullets made of lead - must be terrifying beyond reason. Games may be becoming more realistic, but they've got a long, long way to go yet.

Ryan writes his gaming column every week at Den Of Geek. Last week's is here.

I think I might have mentioned before that I am a fool to myself when it comes to Boot Sales. Don't know what it is about them but delving around in the detritus of other peoples lives gives me a kick. I still regret goodies I passed over years ago and warm at the thought of the bargains I have snaffled from under the noses of competing bargain hunters. But I have now found another outlet for my avaricious nature.

Robin, an old friend from Essex, rang me and told me he was heading Richmond-way and would be dropping in. The last time I saw him he was displaying his incredibly life-like miniature, fully mobile model of a tank at a Military Fair in the Steam Museum in Chiswick. Naturally I thought I was in for a rundown on the improvements he had made and where he was exhibiting. I wasn't ready for the sort of mechanical broom he struggled in with. He soon put me right. It was a metal detector and he was the holder of a special licence to detect metal on the banks and environs of the Thames. As I live next to the Thames he naturally expected me to be madly interested. His special project at the moment was secret. But he was willing to impart the general details to me.

The basis for successful metal detection is research. Research has netted him a iron belt buckle from the 17th century which made him £160 and had only taken him six weeks to find. Other objects of desire were a 16th century groat, a wealth of George V and Vl coins and a number of Victorian pennies. He has also found a highly decorative ring which is being evaluated by the Chelmsford Museum but which he is sure is from Good Queen Bess's golden era. He  found it near Tilbury and is expecting great things of it. Maybe even the Queen herself might have shed it when she was waving her arms about doing her 'Stomach' speech. After filling me in on the background he came over all secretive. We huddled closer.

Robin has found that in bygone days there was a secret entrance to Kew Gardens from the River. For 'bygone' read 1840, the year in which Kew Gardens was first opened up to the public. 'Secret' means that the gate has become overgrown and people passing are unaware of the profound piece of history they are missing. This was the secret that was going to contribute to the detector beeping and us digging up the treasure lost over the one and a half centuries of Kew Gardens' existence. I noticed the 'us'. Evidently he thought I would be up for it. I thought about it and decided to take up the offer. He cautioned me against wearing anything I wouldn't be happy rolling in the mud with and suggested wellies. I didn't comment.

Looking a bit like Scott and Co. heading South we trudged westward along the river bank until we reached the spot marked with the traditional 'X' on Robin's map of the Thames. I could see what Robin meant when he said the gate between the towpath and the park was secret. Even when he pointed it out to me it wasn't easily definable. I think the embankment has probably been extended at this point. Extended and Tarmaced over. I hoped this might present a bit of a problem. Robin didn't think so. He painted images of visitors leaping of the boats and coins and valuables flying all over the place. I didn't argue. I began to think that I should have remembered that I had some spaghetti to plait and was unavailable for the treasure hunt.

Robin threw a 10p piece in the grass, switched on the metal detector and nonchalantly waved it about as if he didn't know exactly where the coin had fallen. When he got a beep he picked up the 10p and held it up triumphantly. I was ready to call it a cop out. Robin pushed into the bushes and prodded around with the detector. Almost instantly he got a beep. I wondered what metallic object he had salted there without my noticing. I handed him the trowel and he cautiously dug in the mud at the bottom of the shallow ditch and came up with a coin. Suddenly I was interested.

I cleaned it up while Robin threw himself back in the bushes. The coin was a George V sixpence. The beeper went again. Bit of a disappointment. A piece of rusty barbed wire. I told Robin about the sixpence and he claimed it was solid silver and worth a bob or two. That sounded better. Perhaps we would strike lucky.  As the heap of bits of wire and beer can widgets mounted, my interest waned.

Then there was an extra long beep. I passed Robin the trowel and he dug away in the roots of the hedge. Not easy. Brambles have massive roots and lots of whippy thorned branches to defend them. After a lot of swearing and repeated hacking he came up with a heavily corroded piece of metal. I took it down to the river, the tide was out, and washed it off. It looked like a lion rampant - as I think they are called. He had also found a number of nails in the same hole and reckoned it was probably a part of the decoration from a boat and had been knocked off on the small jetty which used to be there.

By the time we gathered together our bits and pieces and trudged back to my place, the treasure extended to another George V sixpence, three pennies of various vintage, a chain from a necklace, sans pendant, which we hope might be silver, half a pickaxe head, a clay pipe which just happened to be under yet more barbed wire and a wealth of obviously Victorian beer can tags which we decided to leave. Not a haul that Long John Silver salivating but enough to give me an idea.

About ten years ago I was contributing programme ideas to John King, the boss of BBC's Pebble Mill in Birmingham. My husband had told me a story from his boyhood which seemed to have possibilities. He lived in the West Country, close to the coast. Nearby was a holiday camp used mainly by prancing naturists pre-war but which now stood empty. Overnight the camp became full of American GIs. Before long the GIs were well ensconced in the tiny village.

After three years of war time austerity the appearance of the Yanks was little short of a miracle. They distributed their wealth freely and everyone, especially the kids and the younger women, were very grateful. As suddenly as it started, it ended. Tonio was in the habit of going to the camp and scrounging what he could. When he arrived at the gate he was told that it was sealed off. No one could enter. He hung around the gate, unable to believe that his source of luxuries had been cut off.

As he was about to leave a truck came through the gate. It was driven by a Sergeant called Doss who had been a particular friend. The truck stopped and Doss asked Tonio if he wanted a lift. As they drove off he realised that they were leading a convoy of half a dozen trucks. They drove along the road for a couple of miles and then went off the road and ploughed through the bracken and heather for a couple of hundred yards.

Tonio was amazed at what he saw. Heaps of rubbish from the camp was being thrown into a small quarry by a gang of GIs. Books, comics, furniture, cooking equipment and the contents of thousands of parcels from America. Doss told him that they were moving out and they had been told they could only take military equipment with them. When the lorries had all been emptied and the quarry back-filled the level came nearly to the top. I passed on what I had heard to John King and he liked the idea of going back to the scene and excavating it. With the amount of gear that had been buried the outer layers would have been ruined but hopefully would have formed a cocoon for what was lower down.

We fixed a date to go to the location with a couple of BBC Researchers. Just to make sure everything went according to plan Tonio and I went down a couple of days earlier. By the time the people from the BBC arrived we had scoured the moors unsuccessfully. Another days' searching was just as unsuccessful and the project was abandoned.

That was then. Now I had the solution. Metal detectors! Why hadn't I thought of it before? John King, sadly, is long gone but I have managed to speak to someone who sounds reasonably interested. Well, interested enough to say that if I can pinpoint the quarry where the treasure is buried they might be interested. Hope springs eternal.

Read Ingrid's column every Tuesday at Den Of Geek. Last week's is here.

It’s now been over a decade since Toy Story burst onto our screens, breaking a fair few moulds along the way and inspiring a fresh splurge of computer animation. And it’s great that it was Pixar that made the crucial breakthrough, given that every single one of its projects – even the weakest – at least has a good script sitting at the heart of it. 

That said, the jump to computer animation has allowed many other companies who have tried and failed in the past to break into the market. 20th Century Fox notoriously blew a lot of money making the underrated Titan AE, closing down its animation studio shortly thereafter. But off the back of Ice Age, its first major venture into computer animation, it’s been full steam ahead. The third Ice Age film arrives next year, and Horton Hears A Who has also proven to be one of this year’s most popular family films. Jaffa Cakes all round at Fox Animation, then.

Yet as time has gone on, the film-going audience has become more and more savvy to computer animation, and whereas five years ago any such film was all-but-guaranteed to be a sizeable hit, the likes of The Ant Bully, The Wild, Open Season and – tragically – Monster House have proven that the box office can’t be taken for granted.

There’s no doubt a fair amount of post mortem work being done over the corpse of the Wachowski Brothers’ Speed Racer movie that, in theory, should have been a huge summer hit. One of the pieces I read, in Variety, put part of the failure down to something called ‘pixel fatigue’. That is that the audience is fed up with bright colours, and unrealistic visuals, and wants something a bit more down to earth. Granted, the same piece isolates a series of possible alternative conclusions for the film’s demise, and the likelihood is that it’s a combination of many factors that cost Speed Racer – and Warner Bros – a fair amount of loot. But is there anything to this pixel fatigure theory?

Certainly the novelty of computer animation has long since worn off, pretty much in line with the quality of the films that have been pouring out of the studios. DreamWorks make some of the better computer animated films, but even it realises that a well-marketed, three-star movie is about all you need to clean up at the box office (see: Madagascar, the Shrek movies, Kung Fu Panda and such like). Is it any wonder that it’s started work on a third Madagascar film even before the second one’s been released, and that Shreks 4 and 5 are also in gestation on its hard drives?

Ironically, it’s animation-masters Disney who has struggled to adapt the most to the new order, allowing many of its rivals to break onto Uncle Walt’s home territory as it struggled to play catch up. Thus, the likes of Chicken Little and Meet The Robinsons sit in the shadow of the likes of The Lion King’s box office. Fifteen years ago, it would have been unthinkable that Fox’s animation division would be so soundly beating Disney’s, but the tables have been thoroughly turned in that time, and the release schedules are now awash with computer graphics as a result. 

Yet it’s not just the big screen where the problem lies. Computer animation, as it has become more popular, has become cheaper. And, crucially, it’s become cheaper than hand-drawn animation too. Once everyone realised that they didn’t need to match Pixar’s standards to bring in healthy profits, the floodgates opened, and now you can’t turn on a kids TV channel within being greeted by an avalanche of mutant computer animated characters. What’s more, the animation isn’t that bad, it just lacks the care and attention a bigger budget and a bit more time would offer.

So it’s interesting now that Disney is experimenting with bringing back hand drawn animation, with its first such flick since Home On The Range (remember that? Thought not) currently in production. And you wonder if, all of a sudden, hand drawn work will become a novelty. Certainly, witnessing the opening segment of Enchanted was like a refreshing blast from the past, and that it’s venturing back into this area at least gives it a differential from the likes of Fox, DreamWorks, Warner Bros, Nickelodeon, and anyone with a half-decent Apple Mac. 

Yet novelty only gets you so far, and the days when you could pump out bilge such as Shark Tale and watch the cash roll on are thankfully behind us. Of course, Disney has been through lean spells before, when the early 80s saw Basil The Great Mouse Detective and The Fox and the Hound struggling to recapture past glories (although the former is still a hoot). Yet it did learn from its mistakes, and got back to basics with a run that started with The Little Mermaid, and was still bringing the crowds nearly a decade later with Tarzan.

For the truth is obvious, yet tends to be forgotten as studios and producers follow the next gold rush in a bid to bag some swag for themselves. Good stories and good scripts tend to make good films. They don’t, granted, always guarantee hits (and I can’t help thinking about Iron Giant and the aforementioned Monster House when I say that), but it sure does improve your chances.

Taking Pixar as an example, it’s a company that’s given itself a distinction not just by the sky high production qualities it clearly insists on, but because the story remains the king. Whatever your take on Wall-E, there’s a boldness at the heart of it that the likes of Shrek long since consigned to a land far, far away. And it also gives a Pixar film a strong chance of success. While the firm won’t maintain its record of 100% hits forever, you would calculate that you’d never see something as cynical as Shrek The Third bring pumped out of its computers.

Speed Racer, meanwhile, failed simply because people didn’t want to see it. Sure, it was badly marketed, and sure, it may find a new audience on DVD and high definition, but the cold, hard fact remains that nobody wanted to stump up to watch it, when Iron Man was playing next door. It certainly wasn’t pixel fatigue, not if the $200m US grosses of both Kung Fu Panda and Wall-E are anything to go by. 

That said, what’s clear is that computer animation is so commonplace that studios and producers will have to work harder to lure us to check out their work, rather than relying on some characters planted on billboards. But then maybe that’s just how it should be. Audiences that are taken for granted have a horrible habit of not turning up when they’re supposed to, and it’s simply not enough to throw some fancy graphics at a screen and expect us all to buy a ticket.

That’s not pixel fatigue, though. That’s just common sense.

This is just the fifth column that Den Of Geek publishes every week,so please stop saying 'good moaning' to us. Though that may apply...

Enchanted Blu-ray Disc review
Interview: Angus MacLane of Pixar
The DreamWorks animated movie ready reckoner
The Pixar ready reckoner
Celebrating Pixar's Brad Bird
The forgotten Pixar movie: A Bug's Life

Some people may argue that 2008 will be remembered as the year of the big sequels. Sure, Grand Theft Auto IV and Metal Gear Solid 4 may have hogged the headlines, but 2008, in my opinion, will be year of the downloadable game. Already we've had the superlative Audiosurf, Lost Winds (possibly the only game that's made any proper use of the Wiimote), Multiwinia, Bionic Commando: Rearmed and the sublime Braid.

Modern games have, in some cases, become bloated, over-long and over-reaching. It's all too common for titles to spend years in production, only to emerge as yet another multi-million dollar disappointment - just look at Too Human, a game ten (count 'em) years in the making, that after months of steadily rising excitement and speculation finally emerged into the daylight with some decidedly lukewarm reviews to greet it.

The flipside, of course, is the latest Grand Theft Auto - with a budget of an estimated $100million, it was the video gaming equivalent of a summer blockbuster, and its pre-release hype was matched by rave reviews from all quarters, many boldly dubbing it 'the game of the year.'

GTA IV was a fantastic game - not quite worthy of the rather hysterical 100% reviews it often received, but a remarkable achievement nonetheless. It's interesting to compare it to XBLA's Braid, the product of two people (programmer Jonathan Blow and artist David Hellman) and a budget of just $180,000 - a minisule amount of money when you consider that, according to IDC Videogame analyst Billy Pidgeon, current generation games can cost anywhere between $10 million and $40 million to make.

If you haven't played it, Braid is, at first glance, just another old-school platform game, and initially feels quaintly reminiscent of the Monty Mole series of flick-screen 8-bit classics. Then, as you delve a little deeper, you discover its 'time control' mechanic that soon becomes an integral part of solving the increasingly intricate puzzles on each level. We may have already seen a similar contrivance in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, and even this year's excellent Race Driver: GRID, but believe me, nowhere else has the ability to manipulate the course of events been used to better - or more original - effect. Despite its meagre budget, Braid even has beauty as well as brains - it looks and sounds absolutely gorgeous, with lush, leafy visuals and a soaring string-based score.

Braid may not have the sprawling, hyper-real city of Rockstar's effort, but it does have one thing that many big budget games lack - personality. Thanks to its miniscule production crew, Braid feels like an intimate, lovingly crafted game, a game that speaks directly to its audience in a way that I thought I'd never see in a commercial game again.

And it isn't just me that likes it - Braid has received the kind of reviews that poor old Free Radical could only dream of, even after spending two years and god knows how much on the stunningly mediocre Haze.

Braid is proof that games don't have to be vast in scope to be innovative and captivating - as stunning as Rockstar's effort is, GTA IV doesn't pack the same emotional punch as Jason Blow's hand painted levels and singularly touching storyline.

Thanks to the new possibilities that digital download services like XBLA open up for small production teams, games are no longer required by law to be sprawling affairs with a thousand-strong production crew, any more than all movies have to be three-hour James Cameron style epics.

Don't misunderstand me - 'big' games are great too, and we need big games with mega budgets to show us just how awe-inspiring and epic games can be, and how far the boundaries of technology can be pushed - just as skyscrapers or cathedrals do.

Sometimes though, the opposite can be just as enthralling - small things, beautifully crafted and full of intricate detail. In this respect, Braid is 2008's Fabergé egg.

Ryan writes his gaming column every week at Den Of Geek. Last week's is here.