Brilliant find. I’m a sucker for Columbo. And robots.

(I should really find time to pull those Outpost #31 posts over here – far too busy to run one blog let alone two)

There’s some new info regarding SLINGERS up on the Sleepydog website. The thing to remember is that all this is pre-pilot. Details will change and all the material we’ve blogged so far should not be considered truly representative of what the final sizzle reel will look like. The sizzle will in turn inform what needs tweaking for the pilot. But all this stuff so far is purely promotional or rough cut quality. We’re taking a few risks putting so much material out so early, but I push for this kind of thing working on other people’s projects so it would be a tad hypocritical not to give it a go on my own show.

The title above for example is simply a placeholder at the end of the rough cut. That said, I like the feel of it already. I’m lucky to be surrounded by people who are used to knocking the ball the fuck out of the park on the first swing.

So for those that didn’t know and want a little more background:

Slingers is set in the year 2960 A.D., following mankind’s first interplanetary war. Humanity is now clustered into a finite, but still vast section of the universe known as Enclosed Space. Humanity won the war with an aggressive alien enemy, but at a cost. The way back to Earth is now cut off by an impassable barrier – a side effect of the blast that finally pushed the enemy back.

The show takes its name from a group of people thrown together on board an experimental spacecraft that is capable of Slinging itself to any point in space. In theory it’s the only craft capable of getting home. In reality the crew are using it to carry out a series of high tech heists and get even with those who are now exploiting their positions in the post war hierarchy.

Dominic ‘DM’ Monroe, a special ops war veteran becomes the de facto leader of this small team of thieves who rail against the decision by military command to just ‘stay where they are and make the best of it’. They’re determined to get home and if that means breaking a few rules and picking up a lot of enemies along the way then so be it.

A few more pics. The last for now. But I’ll probably have a little video at some point….

Steve Barron

Adrian Bower

Tom Mison

Haruka Abe

GUN (and Tom)

She will KICK YOUR ASS

Junior – MECH FIVE

Aside from the ones in this post I think this is almost all the Slingers pics that have surfaced so far. Just rounding ‘em up to be tidy before I dig through to find a few more…

Sean Pertwee and Dalip Tahil as Colonel Thomas Hall and The Mark

Margo Stilley as Jeannie

Adrian Bower as DM with director Steve Barron

First day of shooting

Jeannie ready to pilot the ship

GUN in the safe hands of Tom Mison as Frank

DM and Frank

Haruka Abe as Marti

And then there’s Jamillah/Jemimah:

There’s an old echoing conversation somewhere on my Gtalk account where I was dicing around another trip to the States. I like the road and I like the desert, car rallies helped fuel my addiction.

In that conversation with one Davey G Johnson, a devilish pact was formed. He was entering a competition to win a car and gas to run it around. I had a feeling he might win, he’s smart like that, creative.

I wanted to get to Texas to see the country and to see some friends. The fateful line is there on that archived conversation, “If I win the car, I’ll drive you to Texas.”

Though we have known each other for a number of years, we’ve never been in the same room. Funny though, we’ve both been in the same room at different times. Echoes and ghosts maybe. At the end of July we’ll be in a small room on four wheels.

Let’s see how that works out.

See how it’s working out here.

I faved this snap of my friend Laura the other day:

She looks so damn vibrant it hurts.

I’ve known Laura a while now and she keeps me on my toes. It’s hard to keep up with all the cool stuff she gets up to and right now she’s in Japan:

Do yourselves a favour and drop a fiver on Three… Two… One.

She’s out in Japan with The Young Punx. Last time she made a pre recorded appearance:

It’s worth tracking down Understand by Asian Kung Fu Generation to see just how cool that ‘cover’ is. I don’t normally pay heed to YouTube comments, but this one is on the money:

everything Laura Kidd touches turns to gold

Japan just had a blast. Guaranteed.

I love comic geeks. I got some email defending Batman. Hush now. He’s a big rodent and can look after himself. Besides… I kinda like the guy. Especially when you dig deep enough into his origin:

I’m working on Fantasy Island with George Hamilton and the corpse of Ricardo Montalbán, we pretty much just jetski a lot and spray ourselves orange. Most nights we drink Mai Tais and feast on corpses, but I still often find myself wondering ” how is the progress of Mike’s syphilis?”

Sleep tight, Johnny.

At the back end of 2003, Jess and I bought a couple of round the world plane tickets so we could hang out in real life with some of the weirdos we’d met on the Internet over the last couple of years. We spent three months travelling, 5 weeks Amtraking the US then Mexico, Australia and Japan. One hell of a trip. Along the way we crashed with people that we had only known as screen names. Some were from the message board of the now defunct zine Punk Planet. Back in the day we probably spent more time than was good for us on those boards.

Early 2004 and we’re in Perth. I’m not sure it was the highlight of the trip but its certainly the most memorable leg. We’re staying with Johnny Hicks and things are fucked up. There’s a lot of alcohol, a fair bit of blood (more if you include the aftermath of the murder we witnessed), one trip to the ER and what can only be described as a drunken wrestling match in which I had to pin Johnny to the floor lest he punch me out. Force of nature. The night before I’d put him in the recovery position after he had a seizure and split his head open (that wasn’t the ER trip by the way). We met his brother Jeremy (also in a band) and spent an evening watching horror films until it was time to grab a cab – Johnny then proceeded to tell the driver the story of how he lost his virginity in lieu of a tip.

That’s just scratching the surface.

Johnny was the most self destructive person I ever met. But I was still shocked to get the news today that he had died.

I’m writing this with two empty tumblers of Scotch and a shit load of bad punk music.

I got a couple of emails from Johnny at the beginning of the month. We hadn’t spoken for a while and by the end of the exchange he was signed up for Twitter. His last update reads:

Well I don’t think I could survive turning 39 every day. Owwwwwwwwww

Funny fucker.

That was July 14th. He had a massive epileptic fit on the morning of the 19th and was gone.

But in January 2004 we’re sitting by a lake for a lift that never came. We’re sat on a case of beer that’s getting smaller by the hour and talking shit. One of us is about to get attacked by a spider. Life is good.

His last email to me signs off with the line Be all you can be.

Johnny always wore his heart on his sleeve. There was a lot of bluster, but you didn’t have to get to know him very well to understand what a sweetheart he was. He didn’t make it easy to be his friend, but the experience was worth the occasional split lip and shouting session. He was my friend.

He had a lot. They’re raising drinks and calling him names over on his Facebook page right now and that’s where I found this:

You can’t get more punk rock than playing drums in a shop window being filmed on a security camera.

Most people won’t notice, but trust me… the world just got a little less interesting.

American comics circa 1979:

A generation using Robin as a role model. The horror.

2000AD the same year:

That’s how you grab a kid’s attention. I was seven years old when I started reading 2000AD.

And my favourite panels from The Judge Child Quest the following year:

The Joker was a fucking amateur.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I love living in the future.

The headline’s the thing, but feel free to burst your bubble with actual content here.