Wobo-Tale

Another strip to feature on Dredd Alert recently is Shok!, a Walter's Robo-Tale which doesn't feature Walter and could well be the only robo-tale he robo-tells, so it might seem odd to focus on it quite so much, but it's a belter so I have.

Don't take my word for it though, read it for yourself here.

I Met The Sheriff

I also met his deputy, but she prefers Under-Sheriff.

Following our involvement in the incident now known almost exclusively as 'the incident', Sarah and I were invited by the High Sheriff of Greater London to receive an award under section 28 of the Criminal Law Act 1826 for "great courage or...meritorious service leading to the apprehension and conviction of a criminal" at the Supreme Court, opposite the Houses of Parliament. Not a sentence I ever expected to write.

Here's an example of the architecture on offer to slightly bemused potential award recipients.

Here is Sarah receiving her award from David Jones, the High Sheriff:

I can't remember what I said, but how many chances do you get to make a High Sheriff and an Under Sheriff laugh?

Here we are with Judge Robbins who nominated us for the award. Apparently they call him The Hanging Judge, but he was very nice to us:

And listening intently to him during the post-ceremony wine and twiglets soiret:

A group shot of a High Sheriff surrounded by the two of us and our parents. He coped very well.

It was a very odd night.

"It Is A Very Pretty Painting"

This is the Fourth Doctor's description of the Mona Lisa in City Of Death. Below are another set of annotations for the Bad Teeth Doctor Who: Draw My Life video that I wrote.

The Fourth Doctor played by Tom Baker is depicted with colossal hair, teeth and scarf. His companion K-9, a Zygon from Terror Of The Zygons and a beautiful rendition of Soldeed from The Horns Of Nimon, played by Graham Crowden.

Twitter Twatter #5

Here are January's tweets:

Astonishingly The Times dubbed George Osborne their 2013 Briton Of The Year, here is Twitter's response. The other link above is the terrifying insight into an industry that is the Casting Call Woe tumblr.

"Laugh This Off, Twinkletoes!"

Another addition to Dredd Alert is Invasion!. The strip concerned an invasion of Britain by the Volgans in the then futuristic year of 1999 and the exploits of resistance fighter, lorry driver and East End geezer, Bill Savage, to get rid of them.

Invasion! is a heady mix of Volgan cruelty, impressive violence, situations that conveniently involve lorry driving and cockney turns of phrase like this:

It's obvious that the Volgans are the Russians by any other name, the 1977 predictions of what 1999 would be like are fascinating (the Channel Tunnel for one) and the ready availability of lorries. Invasion! is featured on Dredd Alert here.

"I Think You'll Find That The Right Is My Best Side"

So says the Third Doctor while posing for a mugshot in Invasion Of The Dinosaurs. Here's another group of annotations for the Bad Teeth Doctor Who: Draw My Life video that I wrote.

Jon Pertwee's Third Doctor is drawn alongside his car Bessie which may or may not be an Edwardian Roadster, a Giant Maggot from The Green Death and Alpha Centauri from The Curse Of Peladon and The Monster Of Peladon.

Here we see him wearing the Brigade-Leader's eyepatch from Inferno with a disembodied Master's Beard in the background.

Day Of The Robot

Another strip that Dredd Alert covered in my absence from this blog was Ro-Busters, the robotic international rescue organisation. Think Thunderbirds with robots and done on the cheap.

The core of the strip was the relationship between Ro-Jaws, a sanitation droid with a hatred of authority and Hammer-Stein, a war robot that respected it. Supporting characters included Mek-Quake, a hard of thinking demolition robot and their boss, the penny-pinching Howard Quartz whose body was 90% robotic, but the other 10% entitled him to be classed as human and view himself as superior to the robots around him.

Anyway, Dredd Alert does Ro-Busters here.

"I Like Drawing Pins"

This, from The Space Pirates, is the only Second Doctor quote I could find about drawing, sketching and/or art in general. I leave it to you to decide whether he likes drawing pins or he likes drawing pins. Here are the second batch of annotations for the Bad Teeth Doctor Who: Draw My Life video I wrote.

The Second Doctor played by Patrick Troughton is represented here not once, but twice. One frowning at you and the other running away down a corridor. He is joined by a Quark from The Dominators and a Yeti from The Abominable Snowmen and The Web Of Fear.

Twitter Twatter #4

Here's another smattering of twittering. This time from December 2013:

Towards the end of December I posted several links which I've included here. An article about a teenager who bought £600worth of shopping for 4p and donated the food to charity, a conversation regarding abominable rape anthem 'Blurred Lines', an article about the the cowardice of the Coalition government regarding food banks and although, I don't dislike Bradley Pitts, that's a quote from The League Of Gentlemen, it's difficult to like this ad campaign for 12 Years A Slave.

The Pinstripe Freak

As Judge Dredd went about his business he needed information and his best informant was Max Normal. Theirs was a surprising friendship.

Max was a rebel, but as Mega-City One is full of people dressed in bizarre fashions, Max rebels by wearing a pinstripe suit and a bowler hat. He speaks in a weird slang and hustles shuggy.

Max Normal got his own strip in 1980 which has now joined the rank of those covered by Dredd Alert.

"I Wonder If It's At All Possible That I Might See The Drawings, Hmm?"

So ask the First Doctor of Ixta in The Aztecs. I almost promised to provide some form of annotation for the Doctor Who: Draw My Life video I wrote for Bad Teeth. So, here is the first of those posts.

Bad Teeth's Draw My Lifes all begin with a collection of items careless knocked out of the way by an arm. An arm intent on drawing. In the case of The Doctor those representative items are a Fez, jelly babies, pocket watch, River Song's sonic screwdriver and a scarf.

The Doctor is a man of mystery. Sometimes he wears questions on his collar or on his pullover, which is odd and carries one in the handle of his umbrella, which is cool. This unidentified Doctor had one instead of a face.

The First Doctor, played by William Hartnell, is joined by a Dalek, a Voord from The Keys Of Marinus and a Caveman from the last three parts of the first ever story, which are better than they are given credit for.

Next: The Second Doctor