From Bollywood to Michael Sheen: Saki (H. H. Munro) adaptations on the YouTube

He's not been mentioned here for a little while, but longtime readers of this blog will know of the enthusiasm round these parts for the work of H. H. Munro, better known by his pen name Saki, who wrote brilliantly comic short stories where genteel society collided with often chaotic, sometimes even supernatural elements.

That admiring forewords to collections of his work have been written by everyone from A.A. Milne and Noel Coward to Will Self and The League of Gentlemen's Jeremy Dyson is proof enough of his influence on a wide selection of British writers since his untimely death on a WW1 battlefield in 1916.

He's not exactly a household name though, due in part perhaps to his stories never having made a successful jump to the great populariser of the 20th century, television. (Would P.G. Wodehouse still be quite as popular today without the efforts of Fry and Laurie? Discuss.)

That's not to say Saki has never been adapted for the screen though, far from it. Below is quick romp through some YouTube links which will prove of great interest to Saki Fanciers.

First up is a programme which has only recently (February 2015) been posted online, and what a treat it is. In 1962, Granada broadcast an 8-part series called Saki: The Improper Stories of H. H. Munro. I knew of this production's existence, but had long given up hope of seeing any of it. It's a no-frills, studio-based affair, which would have been performed pretty much as live (if not *actually* live), but with cast members including the great Richard Vernon and Fenella Fielding at the top of their game, it's a pleasure to watch.

Fast-forwarding several decades and spinning to the other side of the Earth, here are two Indian adaptations of the same short story, 'Dusk'. Perhaps there was an 'Adapt Dusk' competition, or it was set as homework at film school or something...

Here's another pair of takes on a story, this time 'The Interlopers', one of Saki's bleakest tales. The second is somewhat more polished than the first...

... and for good measure, here's a puppet version...

'The Open Window' is deservedly one of Saki's best-known and most anthologised tales, so to finish off, two versions of it: the first is a 1980s version from Alfred Hitchcock Presents, the second a quite wonderful short film adaptation (retitled 'The Open Doors') from 2004, starring a pitch-perfect Michael Sheen. (Has Sheen ever not been pitch perfect in anything?) If you only watch one link on this post, watch this one. It's brilliant.

An Original Jamie Hewlett Sketch Of Tank Girl, And A Bit Of UK Comics History...

In 1988, a bunch of UK comics creators, financed by money from the Astor family, launched Deadline onto an unsuspecting world. Best remembered these days as the birthplace of Tank Girl, it mixed comics with interviews and features in a way that many have tried to imitate (Titan's Clint being a recent example) but few have equalled. Deadline lasted until 1995, by which time, as the magazine's Wikipedia entry points out:

"the crossing over of the alternative scene into the mainstream (around the time of Britpop, a movement it had helped to champion) saw the magazine eventually fold at the end of 1995."

And yes, the utter failure of the Tank Girl movie didn't help, either.

Back in 1988 though, the creative crew did several signings to promote the first issue, which presumably is where this copy was adorned with the various signatures and sketches on its back cover. The boot was printed, everything else was added...

Nothing less than an original Tank Girl sketch by Jamie Hewlett. Considering a page of TG art recently sold on eBay for over a grand, this has to add somewhat to the mag's original £1.50 price tag...

A characteristic sketch from Steve Dillon, who always seems to work pints of the good stuff into comics he draws (see Hellblazer and Preacher for ample proof).

A 'logo' and sketch presumably by Nick Abadzis, whose excellent Hugo Tate strip featured in the first issue.

Signatures of the late, lamented Brett Ewins, and Michael Bonner.

The first bit looks like it could be 'Julie', which would make it Julie Hollings, writer/artist of the strip Beryl the Bitch. Not sure what the second bit is.

No doubts here though. 

This one has stumped everyone I've asked, including some leading lights of the UK comics industry. Peter Milligan, possibly?

Unlike the magazine above, the following isn't for sale from the Little Shop (sadly!): this thread on singletrackworld.com features another product of a signing session from the time, a jacket belonging to one 'CountZero', which ain't ever going to see the inside of a Dry Cleaners...

An Art Deco Thing of Beauty From 1929

A gallery of wonderful art deco images from an 86 year old periodical this week.

Copies of Advertising Display Magazine are rare as hen's teeth these days, it appears. The generic title doesn't help when googling, but I can find no copies whatsoever for sale online, and only a couple of hits even confirming the title's existence (the cover of a later issue on pinterest here and another copy held in the collection of a design museum here).

The copy which has arrived in the Little Shop is from May 1929. It's a trade publication, essentially advertising ways to advertise. There are articles on shop displays, some examples of printing processes, and even some paper samples bound in at the back. The visuals are mouthwatering, if you like a bit of 1920s style. Here's a selection of pages, including a photo of some Austrian caricature statuettes of film stars, including Chaplin, Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton, which I imagine would go for very serious money if any ever surfaced today... Mind you, as a piece of deco design and advertising history, the magazine itself is far from worthless! (Yes, I'm open to offers...)

Withnail auf Deutsch! Wir wollen sie hier und wir wollen sie jetzt!

Britische Kunst.A clip from the German version of the film. Wir wollen sie hier und wir wollen sie jetzt.

Posted by Ian DB on Thursday, March 26, 2015

You Gotta Be F***ing Kidding... A Thing From Another World Gallery

One of the select items currently on offer from Withnail Books via eBay is a vintage paperback of The Thing From Another World. It's actually the UK first edition, published by Cherry Tree Books (under their short lived Fantasy Books imprint), with great cover art by Terry Maloney. It's the only copy I can find currently for sale anywhere online. Here it is:

Campbell's novella was originally published in the August 1938 issue of Astounding Science-Fiction under the title Who Goes There?, but by 1952, when this edition reportedly appeared (there's no date inside), the story had become the basis of the Howard Hawks movie, hence the re-titling. The excellent Bear Alley blog has the details of the Fantasy Books line here.

UPDATE: The Withnail Books copy has now SOLD.

The story didn't make the cover of Astounding back in 1938, but was given pride of place when Shasta published a collection of Campbell's stories in 1948, with a truly bonkers dust jacket design by Hannes Bok.

Be prepared to pay comfortably into three figures for a copy of the Shasta edition which still has its wrapper, even more comfortably if it's one of the 200-odd (out of the 3,000 print run) which was signed by Campbell.

There's a later Shasta printing – post-movie – with a different design.

Nice, but the Bok definitely wins. To round off, here's a choice selection of The Thing things, from other early editions through to the essential John Carpenter movie (with its US one sheet painted by Drew Struzan in the course of one night, so tight was his deadline) and beyond...

(Those last three are Mondo prints by Tyler Stout, Randy Ortiz and Jock respectively. No, you can't get them any more – like all Mondo prints, they sold out in seconds – and no, you can't afford to buy them on the secondary market, even if you can find one for sale...)

A LLAP Cover Gallery, And The Best Leonard Nimoy Interview You'll Ever See

As a youth, long before I had ever heard the term 'cosplay', I once haphazardly sewed strips of gold material around the cuffs and and onto the chest of my best blue polo neck sweater, because I thought it would make me look more like Mr Spock. (It didn't.)

The very fact that I wanted to be like Spock, rather than Kirk, is thanks to Gene Roddenberry for envisaging a character that geeks could aspire to be, but even more thanks to Leonard Nimoy for embodying that character, and making him by far the coolest person on the bridge of the USS Enterprise.

Nimoy's recent death wasn't a surprise to fans who had been following his health problems for several years, but the shock and sense of loss at his passing was nevertheless remarkable, and a testament to the impact he made both as an iconic character, and from all accounts, as a thoroughly nice bloke.

My favourite story to sum up the man came from Quint over at Ain't It Cool News:

I do want to leave off sharing an anecdote that I'm not sure even Mr. Nimoy was aware of. I was told a story once about the early days of the Star Trek reboot. Before they solidified the script Abrams and team knew that they needed a bridge from the last series to this one. They toyed with Spock, they toyed with Kirk and they even toyed with both together.

Remember for a long time Nimoy wanted to seperate himself from the character, so they decided they'd approach them both and see who showed interest and make their decision on which way to go from there. They went to Shatner first and told him the story and how they were thinking about doing it. His reaction was that he'd come back, but only if it was Kirk without Spock.

Then they went to Nimoy, told him the story and how Spock would fit in if he agreed. He loved it and said he would do it. He only had one question: "Do you think you could find a place in it for my friend Bill?"

I never met Nimoy or saw him at a convention (though I did book him as guest onto The Big Breakfast once), but I can't imagine that there was ever a better career overview interview with him than the hugely extensive one conducted a few years ago by the Television Academy Foundation. Put it this way, you're over an hour in before he even starts talking about Star Trek.

You can see it HERE and I can't recommend it highly enough. There's a real treasure trove of similar interviews with TV actors and producers on this site, including ones with pretty much all the rest of the surviving Star Trek cast.

One little factoid Nimoy reveals which I'd never heard before: when NBC launched the series back in 1966, the marketing department feared that Spock's 'Satanic' look would put off stations in the Bible Belt, so promotional material airbrushed photos of Nimoy to straighten out his eyebrows and take the points off his ears...

Marketing people, eh? I'm with Bill Hicks.

Spock almost instantly became Star Trek's poster boy (much to the chagrin of one William Shatner, who thought he was the star) and since then Nimoy's face has appeared on the cover of hundreds if not thousands of publications. Here's a few which caught my eye googling around, including covers for various editions (and a nice fan-designed variant) of Nimoy's two volumes of autobiography, the confusingly titled I Am Not Spock and I Am Spock...