Max Headroom and Blank Reg - The Original Cyberpunk

When I blogged about Hawk the Slayer I highlighted the always amazing William Morgan Sheppard and I just wanted to share my favourite role that he ever played:

Blank Reg

The owner and anchorman of the pirate TV Station "Big Time TV" Reg is an old punk.  He never gave up the punk DIY ethos and this has extended to everything he does.  His pirate radio station is run out of an old airstream caravan and it is not until he acquires a strange box and hooks it into his station that he hits on something big...  Max Headroom. 

What is a Blank

Reg is a Blank, someone who operates off the grid and outside the corporate identity system.  The off-grid unmentionable rebellious archetype is a popular trope featured in many sci-fi shows.  Reg plays the trope to a tee, doing things in his own maverick way despite the protestations of his long suffering wife Dominique who just wants to be able to pay the bills.  They make a classic odd couple like Stan & Hilda Ogden (Coronation Street) or George & Mildred.

Blank Reg and Dominique - Max Headroom

The Meteoric Rise of Max Headroom

Max Headroom (Matt Frewer)

Max Headroom is most famously remembered as the titular glitching digital host who popped up at the end of videos on MTV.  The character had a meteoric rise and at one point in the 80s you couldn't move without seeing Max advertising this that and the other.  He certainly tapped into the zeitgeist that was the nu wave of TV shows like MTV and Sunday morning experimental yoof programming like Network 7.

This was of course entirely the result of Matt Frewer's amazing acting chops and as Mr. Tyrell says "The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long" and Max burned ever so brightly.

He had two TV Shows (one in the UK and one in the US) and this UK made for TV movie.

Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future tells the story of 24 hour news reported Edison Carter (Matt Frewer) and how he stumbles upon the deadly Blip Verts.  These hyper condensed adverts are an extremely effective way to blast commercials into the brain with the unfortunate side effect that particularly sedantary viewers spontaneously combust.  

This scandalous discovery puts Carter directly in the spotlight of the evil Network 23 TV exec trying to sell the Blip Verts to unsuspecting companies.  The exec orders a hit on Carter and as a result of a motorcycle accident evading the comedy hitmen he is killed.  The teenage genius behind Blip Verts Bryce Lynch downloads Carters brain into a simulation in a box inadvertently creating Max Headroom.  

It's certainly a must watch if you are into Cyberpunk or Judge Dredd.  

Hawk the Slayer

I can't believe that I've been running this blog for 11 years and never written about Hawk the Slayer. 

Hawk the Slayer Poster by Les Edwards - Buy on eBay

 Released in 1980, this low budget sword and sorcery movie was written and directed by Terry Marcel and starred John Terry as the eponymous hero, Hawk, seeking revenge against his evil brother Voltan (Jack Palance).

Hawk is your classic do-gooder protecting the weak and the innocent.  We see him kill a couple of bandits who are torturing a witch and he saves the one handed warrior Ranulf (William Morgan Shepherd) from bandits who are using him as a target in their axe throwing game.  A grateful Ranulf tells Hawk that he has been looking for him for weeks.  He needs help defeat evil Voltan the Dark (really?) and to save the Abbess of the Convent of (Annette Crosbie, One foot in the Grave).  Hawk suggests that they recruit some old friends,  an unlikely bunch of adventurers in the shape of Gort the Giant (Carry On star Bernard Bresslaw) Crow the elf (Ray Charleson) and Baldin the Dwarf (Peter O'Farrell).

Hawk visits the witch who uses flash powder and two reflective hula hoops to transport him to the locations of each of his friends where they get their own little montage to show off some of their character and special skills.  Once together they relieve Sled the Hunchback and Slavemaster of the river Shale of his ill gotten coin to pay the Abesses ransom.  They then hole up in the convent and wait for Voltan to turn up.

Meanwhile Voltan's son Drogo decides he wants a bit of the limelight so on hearing that Hawk is at the convent he decides to barge in, take the gold and kill our hero.  Predictably he is hopelessly outmatched and suffers a mortal blow.  The merciful Hawk lets two of the survivors drag Drogo back to Voltan's camp and tells him he is waiting for him with the gold.  Voltan is grief stricken at the death of his son and kills the two survivors in rage.

Questions I Couldn't Help Asking (Plot Spoiler Alert)

1.  So if he hates his brother so much (he killed his father and his wife after all) where has Hawk been all this time.  We know he has been adventuring with his three compatriots, but they haven't been with him for some time as they tell us this when they are reunited.  Surely he can't have been on a long moody horseback ride all this time, there's only so many murky and bubbling fetid lakes you can ride past before you get bored.  Shouldn't he have been busy ridding the land of his evil brother and not letting him wreak havoc across the land leaving countless dead innocents in his wake?

2.  In my opinion the order of the flashbacks should have been reversed.  Voltan kills Hawk's father after he kills his bride as evidenced by him wearing the helmet covering his burned face.  Maybe that would have given him enough impetus to hunt him down straight away.  Unless he is a big fan of revenge being served cold (like Gazpatcho Soup).

3.  To be honest Voltan is a bit of a confusing villain.  One minute he is threatening to kill his own son the next he is blind with grief and kills the only two people who can tell him the size of Hawk's force.  I put this down to Jack Palance's overacting.  Not so much "pick up the gun" as "pick up the sword" and we all know how that turns out.

Why is Hawk so Great?

This is early sword and sorcery cinema.  It predates Conan the Barbarian and the plethora of wannabe's by about 2 years.  It is also the most faithful representation of a typical fantasy RPG plot.  A bunch of diverse heroes from different backgrounds, races and skills band together to fight off a great evil and protect the innocent and weak.

It's squarely aimed at an adult audience.  There's no cute puppets here, only marsh goblins and mis-shapen men.  One of my favourite characters is Sped the Hunchback played by Decland Mullholland who Star Wars fans will instantly recognise as the guy who played Jabba the Hut before they decided to replace him with a giant slug.

Declan Mullholland discusses motivation with Han Solo

The characterisation of Crow the Elf as a smaller than human figure is bang on point for early D&D which distinguished itself from Tolkien's lofty elves.

The interplay between Gort and Baldin is fantastic.  We often see Dwarves as these stoic sturdy types who are not the sharpest tools in the box, but Baldin is a rogue and his weapon of choice a whip.  He is as quick with it as he is with his whit.  The two have an antagonistic relationship but are true friends until the end.

The film poster was painted by the legend that is Les Edwards and is one of those instant classics which would look good on any fantasy fan's wall.  This one included

Cast Highlights

• Roy Kinnear turns in a classic performance as the frightened innkeeper.
  
  
• Warren Clarke does a fantastic turn as a bandit.  He would later go on to bring Det. Supt. Andy Dalziel to life.
  
  
• Declan Mulholland gets a credited role as Sped the Hunchback.  His performance as Jabba the Hut wouldn't be seen for years until the cut scenes from Star Wars were included in the Special Editions.
  
  
• Maurice Colbourne plays one of the axemen.  He would later get his big break playing Tom Howard the title character in the south coast shipyard TV soap opera Howard's Way.
  
  
• Annette Crosbie as the Abess.  A national treasure who would later go on to play Margaret the long sufferring wife of Victor Meldrew.
   
• William Morgan Shepherd - Character actor who played many 90s scifi and unforgettably was Blank Reg the punk pirate TV station host from the short lived but awesom Max Headroom.
  

Reaper Bones #25 - Ghostly Summons

Those translucent Reaper Bones minis seem like a great idea, particularly when you can integrate LED technology as I did with my Flaming Sphere and Fire Elemental.

In reality many of them have very spindly lower portions which makes uplighting them particularly difficult.

It is however a great opportunity to try airbrushing gradients and to play with a 20 year old bottle of Citadel Blue Ink Shade.  You be the judge of whether I managed to pull it off or not.

Ghostly Summons - Julie Guthrie (SKU: 77095)

To be brutaly honest I interpreted this mini to be some sort of water elemental spell and nothing supernatural of ghostly at all.  This explains why I painted it blue (Facepalm).

Ghostly Summons - SKU 77095

Cthulhu Ate My Minis! - Rescuing A Vintage Curse of the Mummy's Tomb

My Games Workshop Bookcase Boardgame collection has a couple of survivors who are hanging on for grim death.

Box Art

One such game is Curse of the Mummys Tomb which has long since lost its metal minis and I need to replace these.  Being a tightwad I'm not going to spring for a mint copy or the £35 for a full set of 5 minis.

To the scanner dear boy...

I have the character cards which have fantastic Gary Chalk illustrations of the four protagonists which can easily be turned into papercraft miniatures.  I wrote a papercraft minis how how to many moons ago and this sort of boardgame first aid is trivial if you have a scanner and printer.   

This also gives me the opportunity to print out the additional characters from the expansion "In Search of Eternity" which featured in issue 102 of White Dwarf. 

 According to the Lost Minis Wiki all 8 character minis were repurposed from the Gothic Horror range and the Mummy from the Night Horrors.  In fact this is probably what happened to my minis... Cthulhu ate them.

Scan, GIMP, Inkscape, Print, Play

Replacement Character Minis

I scanned in all the player cards and in GIMP cut out each of the character images.  I increased the white point using adjust levels  to make them pop before saving them into individual files.

Moving to Inkscape I created a basic standee template 1 inch wide x 1.5 inches tall with a half round base.  Each character was then pasted in and flipped copy pasted in.  Remember to put these head to head otherwise your standees will be upside down.

Export them out as a PDF and print them out.  I only have a cheap inket and even cheaper paper so mine came out a bit blurry.  These were then stuck to cereal box card with PVA glue and once dried cut out.  There's a significant difference in thickness of cereal box cardboard.  Name brand varieties tend to be quite thick which can be a disadvantage if you are using plastic stands.

The player cards for the expansion were also printed out and backed onto cereal box card along with some missing value 1 Tanna Leaf counters.

Another Game Saved from the Scrapheap 

As can be seen from the photo the quality of the minis is very dependent on your printer and paper.

Replacement paper minis for base game and expansion

 

However, for me this is perfectly acceptable for the time being as I am desperate to play a solo game during COVID lockdown 3.0. 

Curse of the Mummy's Tomb: rescued and ready to be played

Gaslands: A Question of Scale

 I recently joined the Gaslands facebook group and a user posed the interesting question of what scale models can you use when building your post apocalypse road warrior gang?

The simple answer is quite a few.  Pictured below are a selection of miniatures from my own collection.

1:72 - Airfix kits are an obvious go to for those military inspired builds especially the tanks and helicopters of Rutherford and Mishkin 

Gaslands Scale Comparison

1:64 - Hotwheels and Matchbox are nominally 1:64th scale but there's a lot of leg room and models tend to besized to fit in a blister pack rather than be true scale.

20mm - A popular modern wargaming scale designed to fit in with 1:72 plastic kits.  This seems to be the scale that most 3rd Party companies like Stan Johansen Miniatures have adopted

15mm - Popular with Sci-Fi wargamers but cheap as chips and there are lots of manufacturers out there.