Reviews Torchwood #1 Comic Book Review

Tony gets his swagger on: 

Torchwood’s back in the hands of the Barrowman’s.

Torchwood was originally a great idea in the barking mad mind of a Welshman. As a Welshman with a barking mad mind, I appreciate that fully. But like any successful TV show, it stopped being the exclusive property of Russell T Davies very early on, and has found a host of other impressive minds to nestle in and grow. Chris Chibnall was one. The writers at Big Finish have added significantly to the world. But it’s also fair to say there wouldn’t be Torchwood without John Barrowman, anchoring the show as Captain Jack Harkness. Since Miracle Day, John and his sister Carol, have become two of the many keepers of the Torchwood flame, writing a Torchwood novel together (among their other literary collaborations), The Exodus Code, which took Jack and Gwen off on a whole new adventure, collecting a whole new bunch of Torchwooders (Torchwoodees? Ohhhh dear) along the way.

What The Exodus Code made perfectly clear to any doubters is that the Barrowmans can not only write, they can write Torchwood, and they can do it in ways that keep the heart of the original show beating, but free it up to find new strands to its destiny, fresh ideas and adventures in a wider universe.

Well, hellllo!

Torchwood in comic-book form was surely a no-brainer from the start – like Doctor Who in the 90s and early 2000s, Torchwood might have dropped off our screens, but it’s never dropped off our radars. It keeps bubbling away, emerging here and there in new forms – by no means in small part to the relentless (seriously, we think he’s probably plugged into the mains overnight) energy of John Barrowman himself, who, while going on to find new roles in which to immortalise that cheese-cutting jawline and that supernova twinkle, has always retained a sense of passion for Torchwood and for Captain Jack, as well as going out of his way to be good to the show’s fans. After all, you don’t write a novel unless you’re passionate about the subject, so getting The Exodus Code out there was a sign of his continuing commitment to the man in the really good coat, and his eager participation in the Big Finish Torchwood audios has also done a lot to keep Torchwood alive in our consciousness.

Titan Comics is riding high at the moment on a wave of Who – multi-Doctor stories, six separate strands of single-Doctor releases, and it’s also publishing the manga version of the showrunner’s other baby, Sherlock. So what could be more natural than Torchwood in comic-books? Apart from anything else, comic-books are a perfect audience-fit for Torchwood – perhaps perversely, they’re a little bit more grown-up, with a greater freedom for sex and violence, which is practically Torchwood’s signature remit: Who, but human and aimed at slightly more grown-ups. It’s a marriage made in storytelling heaven.

Getting the Barrowman’s on board to write the first Torchwood story in comic-books has a feeling of jigsaw-rightness, of coming home, and of exciting potential. But does it work?

Are you freaking nuts, of course it works!

The tone is perfect – it has some fast cutting, it has a good deal of Jack-swagger, it has Gwen and Rhys being authentically Gwen and Rhys, it even has an old frenemy dropping by to do what they do best (cause chaos and kill things), and it also has some Torchwood storytelling staples to make you go ‘Oooh’ and ‘Ahhh’ and do the job of any good writer – get its curiosity-hooks deep under your skin and yank you forward, wondering what the hell happens next, and ready to spend good money to find out.

So if you’re only familiar with TV Torchwood, you won’t be disappointed by this first issue; it has plenty of what you remember of the show: the Welsh, being as dry and down to earth and occasionally divvy as they are; Jack being saucy, and brave and handsome and making it look a whole lot better than your Jack Reacher’s or your Jason Bourne’s could ever dream of; a weird potentially alien MacGuffin, stolen from the safe place it’s been kept for x-number of years, meaning it’s now in disreputable hands; a disappearance from a Welsh beach; and Gwen and Rhys fabulously failing to get it on in a knackered old caravan when Jack comes calling. TV Torchwood fans – buy this thing, you’re gonna love it.

But make no mistake about it – this is post-Miracle Day Torchwood, and the Barrowman’s grab Torchwood fans by any damn thing that dangles loose in this issue to say ‘There’s this book we wrote. Go with it – Torchwood’s moved on from Miracle Day. Here are the new people you’ve missed.’ The Barrowman’s’ writing style allows for the cunning use of captions to bring the TV purists up to speed – there’s a ship which is more than a ship, there’s a crew which look traditionally Torchwood-hot and occasionally semi-naked, there’s an AI with attitude. As writers, they take no prisoners, because they can’t afford to – they have to please both audiences, the TV-only and those who’ve followed the extension of Torchwood through their novel. Do they pull it off? Oh hell yeah, this is the Barrowman’s for god’s sake, you knew they would when you walked in the door.

It’s not just about the balance of expectations for audiences, though. This is Torchwood, we expect innovation, and no, of course they don’t disappoint on that score either – there’s a creepy-as-all-get-out idea right on Page 1, resonating with Series 9 Who on some levels, added to the abduction, the MacGuffin theft and the general Captain Jack brooding that gives the issue its balance between action and zap-pow mayhem and a mood of Something Big A-Coming. The Exodus Code crew bring their own innovations with them, meaning this is a Torchwood with different abilities to the TV version, an expanded sense of scope – without ever feeling remotely invincible (however ironic that may be, given the leading man’s signature move of coming back from the dead).

What’s perhaps more questionable than the Barrowman’s storytelling skills going in is the artistic tone. Torchwood was a show positively dripping in tone from the very beginning, which makes it actually perverse that the tone also changed from episode to episode, from series to series, as dynamics and personnel shifted. That means getting the artistic tone right is crucial – get it wrong and it won’t feel authentically Torchwood, it’ll feel like something that sounds like Torchwood, but doesn’t deliver.

The tone adopted here by Antonio Fuso and Pasquale Qualano on artistic duties is one that stops short of photorealism, but, for instance, never slights the actors who stamped their personalities so forcible on the characters we know and love. Eve Myles has a very distinctive face, frequently used to great effect on the show to invest it with heart and its funny bone, and Fuso and Qualano do her good service here, as indeed they do to Captain Cheekbones – again, get those wrong and Torchwood in comic-book form collapses. Fuso and Qualano knock them out of the park.

The style also brings with it the freshness and inventive flair of The Exodus Code though, bringing a ‘best of both worlds’ feel to this debut issue, a sense helped along by some light-handed colourwork from Marco Lusko, which can deliver the dankness and slither-up-the-spine creepiness of the initial sequence, but make the Welsh seaside look positively idyllic as – jusssst occasionally – it can be, and give the interior of the Torchwood ship a combination of functionality and frolic.

So ultimately, what are we saying?

Well again, you knew this coming in, but we’re saying grab your army greatcoat and swagger to your comic-book supplier of choice. Give them a white-toothed grin, smooch their face off, and lay down your coinage for issue #1 of the Torchwood comic-book. The Barrowman’s take their Torchwood just seriously enough, while lacing it with its TV-traditional tongue in cheek humour, and the artists and colourists that have been assigned to bring Torchwood back in the visual medium know enough of their stuff to let you relax in their hands. If you ever had any interest in the show at all, you’re gonna be jussssst fine with the Barrowman crew.

It’s the 21^st century, and Torchwood is ready for your comic-book collection. 

News TORCHWOOD IS DEAD according to BBC

It’s not the best news to wake up to first thing in the morning, but in an article by Ryan Ingram for About Spinoff Online, it’s exactly what was said by the man we know as Captain Jack Harkness, John Barrowman, when asked about the show’s return by fans at the San Diego Comic Con recently.

http://spinoff.comicbookresources.com/2014/07/30/sdcc-john-barrowman-cuts-loose-in-his-anything-goes-panel/

“I was gutted,” Barrowman continued, “because I know there’s a huge audience out there for it. But it’s not my call. But having said that, it’s all up to you guys in a way.”

Fans were obviously gutted as are we.  But are we going to give up on a show that has brought us such talent as John Barrowman, Gareth David-Lloyd, Kai Owen, Eve Myles, Naoko Mori, Burn Gorman and Indira Varma? 

We can still write to the BBC with letters and emails and tell them we need this show back.  We’ve already signed a growing petition with #SAVETORCHWOOD campaign but it needs more signatures and more support behind it.

Doctor Who had a hiatus of many years before it returned and then it came back and blew us away with the fantastic sets and the characters, and the return of the Doctor and his TARDIS. 

Torchwood HAS to come back, we just have to have faith. 

It saddens me that slowly we’re losing the shows that we love and not because the cast aren’t interested, but in the fact that it’s all down to the television company.  Something has to change.

#SAVETORCHWOOD #BRINGBACKTORCHWOOD #KEEPTHEFLAMEALIVE

Beyond the Hub Hollow Earth: The Trilogy Review inc., The Book of Beasts (MILD SPOILERS)

IMAGINATION CAN BE A DANGEROUS THING

The first Hollow Earth story began in earnest with Brother Renard, a tired old monk who lived in the monastery on Era Mina, who after concentrating on a griffin he’d painted onto parchment, let his quill fall from his hands as he fell asleep.  Using this opportune moment, the griffin made a bolt for freedom but as his wing caught the monk’s finger, the old monk awoke and slammed his fist onto the tail of the mythical creature he had conjured up, preventing it from leaving the paper.  Retrieving his quill he forced the griffin to hold the letter G and remain on the page.  This was our first insight into ‘The Book of Beasts’.  It was also our first insight into the young apprentice monk Solon, who would be our guide in the Middle Ages.

In present day we are introduced to the main characters of the story, Matt and Emily Calder (Em for short) who are 12 year old twins with one thing in common, well two. One, they’re twins, with the ability to communicate through telepathy when they don’t wish others to hear them, and secondly, they’re Animares with the ability of entering any painting by conjuring up an image on any surface and using it to their advantage.  Pretty much in the way every child wishes they could do to get themselves out of trouble!!!

Matt is six minutes older than his sister Emily, and regularly reminds her of that.  He’s an impatient young man and doesn’t like to be ‘kept in the dark’ and he gets bored very quickly.  Emily is quieter than her brother; she communicates easier through telepathy, and is emotionally weaker at the start.  She’s bothered by night terrors and one in particular has her scared out of her wits.  Something is following her and has been since London.

They live with their Mum Sandie, a young 30 something, single parent, who is an artist but also works as an artist restorer for national and international galleries all over the world. Sandie was born and bred in Scotland and typical of her Celtic heritage has thick curly fair hair and is incredibly freckly.  Despite this description of her character I could only see Joely Richardson in my head. 

Sandie had been married to Malcolm Calder, and had bore him two children which didn’t go down too well with the Council of Guardians, who knew that children born from an Animare and a Guardian were Hybrids and extremely dangerous.  Although some believed with careful nurturing they could be controlled, others believed that binding was the only option.  However, it was against the rules to bind children.

During a ten minute break at the National Gallery while their Mum Sandie was busy with ‘work’, Matt and Em began to draw themselves into the painting of the Bathers of Asnières, until glancing up at the sky that didn’t exist, Em and Matt found themselves sopping wet on the floor of the Gallery.  It was to be the start of an adventure that would see the children and their Mum fleeing London to the safe haven of the Scottish Isle of Auchinmurn.  The Abbey that had begun its life as a fortress before becoming home for a community of monks in the early Middle Ages and a modern place of learning in the 21^st century that was also home for the Calder family.

Sandie is reunited with her father in law Mason Renard Calder and the friends she has known since university Simon Butler and Mara Lin.  Simon Butler is a 30 something ex footballer with a dodgy knee; he has a deaf son called Zach who has lived at the Abbey since he was a mere toddler. Simon lives and works at the Abbey, is extremely good with computers and in my head, the only person I saw wearing shorts in this role was John Barrowman.

Mason Renard Calder the twin’s grandfather is an old but powerful man, who has links with the island and the monastery of Era Mina.  He seems practically untouchable by the Council and he is fiercely protective of his family and of the island.  So much so that with help from his daughter in law, he bound his only son Malcolm into a painting and stored it in the vaults at the Abbey for safe keeping.  The only person I pictured in this role was Billy Connolly and this image lasted throughout the entire trilogy.

Mara Lin reminded Em Calder of a Native American princess with her dark black hair and her wide hazel eyes.  An artist in residence at the Abbey, Mara was a very mysterious young woman who once loved Malcolm Calder, she was extremely jealous of Sandie Calder and it was difficult at times to gauge her allegiance.  I could see a mixture of Thandie Newton and Tuppence Middleton for this character image.

Although Malcolm Calder only appears in memories and flashbacks, in this novel, the only person I could see as this character in my head was Sean Harris. 

Taking care of the Abbey and the people who lived there is Jeannie the housekeeper.  Jeannie has a strong connection with the Scottish isle of Auchinmurn and indeed the Isle of Era Mina.  In my mind I pictured her as a cross between a slim Peggy Mount and Pat Coombs in nature and temperament, clad in the garb of the 1950’s housekeeper.  I couldn’t help but love Jeannie and I feel I’ve always known her, right through my own childhood.

I couldn’t picture characters for the children or for Zach but I could imagine their emotions quite easily.

There was intrigue and danger afoot in the first novel.  Members of the reformed Hollow Earth Society who wanted to ‘retrieve the monsters, control them and unleash them on the world’, were planning on using the twins to free Malcolm Calder from the painting where he was bound and locate the entrance to Hollow Earth.  Thankfully their plans were thwarted due to the appearance of the white peryton, conjured by an old monk from the Middle Ages, but at what cost to the old man’s health, and at what cost to the island of Era Mina and the world of Animare’s was yet to unfold.  And worse still, Sandie Calder was missing...

IMAGINATION HOLDS THE KEY

The Second Novel: Bone Quill delved deeper into the Middle Ages than the previous novel and told us a lot more about the 15 year old apprentice monk, Solon, and his life in the monastery on the Isle of Era Mina.  It also told us more about the Book of Beasts that the old monk was working upon, his life’s work, and involved Solon to go on many quests for him and especially for other monks, desperate for the boy to be away in order for them to locate something precious. 

A travel through history books can seem boring to most, but the author kept the reader steady without heavily bogging them down with facts and detail of the setting, clothing and condition of the lands and the dwellings.  In the second novel, the twins were in search of their mum, and the truth about their Dad.  And Matt was determined to find them both.

It’s difficult not to give too much away regarding this novel but the upshot of the story is very much based in the Middle Ages, with the children searching for their Mum, Solon discovering the twins, a Viking invasion on the Isle of Era Mina, Solon discovering a fiery young Norse girl, by the name of Carik, a Guardian with the skill of archery and the good sense to appear dead when being hunted by the bog monster living in Solon’s cave, and Matt finding the painting holding his Dad and releasing him, into the Middle Ages in a bid to find his Mum and sister, unaware that his Dad was exactly where he needed to be.

Unbinding his Dad, Matt had caused a dangerous rift in time, (where have we heard that before?), and his Dad is not how he imagined him to be, but given he was bound into a painting for 10 years, was likely to take its toll, but the man was not forgiving in his quest for the Bone Quill and the location of the Book of Beasts. 

The deeper into the story we go, the darker the hooded figure becomes, and it’s a race for the twins and their mother to get back to modern times before the hell hounds track them down.

It falls to a familiar house keeper to travel to the Middle Ages and use all of her powers to stop the secrets of the Isle escaping into the present day world.  But can she do it in time to save the family that she loves?

“BE CAREFUL WHEN YOU FIGHT THE MONSTERS LEST YOU BECOME ONE.” Friedrich Nietzsche

The third and final instalment of the Hollow Earth novels ‘The Book of Beasts’ saw us on the craggy hillside of Era Mina in 1848, and if you’ve been following the story so far, you’ll know that this is the year that Duncan Fox founds The Hollow Earth Society. 

As with the last two novels we have an introduction and catch-up of the story so far, which allows us to go forward without having to pull out the previous book and familiarise ourselves with the characters.

I have to admit I’d forgotten about Carik in the Bone Quill due to the extent of the adventure and so much happening within the pages. In this third instalment I saw a face for Carik, although the actual face of Solon is based on a monk from a long ago drama of whose name evades me, but doesn’t look too dissimilar to a younger version of Pete Postlethwaite. I saw Carik as Persephone Swales-Dawson. 

The Book of Beasts began at a steady pace and never dipped once, although I admit to a little confusion about Carik but that was my fault, I’d plum forgotten she existed.

The protection of the Book of Beasts rests solely upon Solon’s shoulders.  Still in the Middle Ages, which I imagined to be dark and depressing as I never saw daylight as I read it, whereas the passages involving present day was always bathed in sunlight. Strange.

The battle to protect the book and the secrets of the Isle involve a lot of people, and most you’ve already read about in the previous two books, short of a few Avada Kedavra’s and flashes of wands, and darting about on broomsticks, The Hollow Earth trilogy is as action packed as the final onslaught at Hogwarts, with everything happening and mystical beasts, and lots of conjuring.

Yet it was a delightful journey, delightful and ever so scary in places, and painful to read given the punishment certain characters were enduring.  It was full of history from the Middle Ages and all the questions you had in the previous two books will be answered in the final, and I had a lot of questions!!!

Having watched enough scary monster films in my time, it wasn’t too difficult to imagine what the dark figure looked like beneath the hooded cloak.  It wasn’t too difficult either to imagine the creatures it conjured up stalking across the beach.  There were a lot of other kinds of conjuring that occurred that to tell you would only spoil it, but if you were ever in trouble and you needed to escape you’d really wish you had the gift of an Animare to achieve it.

When John and Carole E Barrowman thought up this story I wonder if they ever imagined how popular the stories would become and just how many adults would read their books given that they’re for children!!!

They’ve been a pleasure to read, and the best thing about these books are that, just like the Famous Five, and Harry Potter novels, knowing that you’re aware of the ending, you’ll never grow tired of re-reading them. 

Thank you John and Carole, now please if JK Rowling can write more Harry Potter, I’m sure you can conjure up another Matt and Em story, involving Jeannie, and The Abbey family! (cue the all too familiar theme tune and clicks fingers).

5/5

http://www.hollow-earth.co.uk/hollow-earth-characters/

Hollow Earth ISBN 978-1-907151-64-4

Bone Quill ISBN 978-1-78055-031-2

The Book of Beasts ISBN 9781781856352

Available online and in all good book shops