{"id":29691,"date":"2024-04-22T08:00:55","date_gmt":"2024-04-22T08:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=29691"},"modified":"2024-04-19T18:07:05","modified_gmt":"2024-04-19T18:07:05","slug":"dr-watchstop-adventures-in-time-and-space-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2024\/04\/22\/dr-watchstop-adventures-in-time-and-space-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr. Watchstop: Adventures in Time and Space"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nBy Ken Macklin<\/strong> with Raymond E. Feist<\/strong>, Toren Smith<\/strong>, Lela Dowling<\/strong>, LX Ltd & various (Eclipse Books)
\nISBN: 978-0-91303-585-6 (album PB)<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a new time-travelling doctor about to debut. It\u2019s not this one\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

Before becoming a successful games artist for LucasArts graphic adventure games (I don\u2019t actually grok push-button fun but I gather that Maniac Mansion<\/strong>, Loom<\/strong>, the second and third Monkey Island<\/strong> confoundations and the character Bubsy the bobcat<\/em> number among his digital hits), Ken Macklin started as an underground\/small press creator who delighted in cleverly whimsical and witty funny animal strips during the late 1970s in indie publications like Quack! <\/strong>He also made wonderful trading cards and box cover art. You may still have some in your person-cave\u2026<\/p>\n

Married to equally talented anthropomorphic raconteur Lela Dowling, he assisted and contributed to her marvellously manic Weasel Patrol<\/strong> tales, which were published in the lost and long-lamented sci-fi anthology Fusion<\/strong> whilst producing his own diabolically wonderful one-shot space opera romp Contractors<\/strong> and the stimulating vignettes from lost history gathered here. As well as a talented designer and illustrator Macklin is a gifted painter and slyly devious writer. In 1982 he began selling brief, luxurious mini-epics starring an astonishingly brilliant but outrageous innocent multi-discipline savant named Dr. Watchstop<\/strong> to Epic Illustrated<\/strong> and Fusion<\/strong>: high quality graphic fantasy magazines aimed at older readers. In an era where science fiction was synonymous with and indistinguishable from cops and cowboys with honking great space-blasters, Watchstop\u2019s antics were contemplative, sillily slapstick, wickedly ironic: eyes wide-open wonderments that only saw the ridiculous side of technology and the future cosmos\u2026<\/p>\n

Still available if you look really hard, this album-proportioned compilation gathers all those marvellously intellectual, winningly funny spoofs and japes, opening in glorious painted colour with \u2018Dr. Watchstop Faces the Future\u2019 <\/em>(Epic<\/strong> #10 February 1982), possibly the last word in time paradox tales. It\u2019s followed by amoebic dalliance \u2018One Cell at a Time\u2019<\/em> before demonstrating the downside of ancient alien artifacts in \u2018Time Bomb\u2019<\/em> (Epic<\/strong> #14 and #17 respectively). If possible, Macklin\u2019s art is even better as monochrome tone-washes, as perfectly illustrated in the EVA Suit-wettingly hilarious \u2018Unique Specimen\u2019 <\/em>(Fusion<\/strong> #1, January 1987), life-through-a-lens fable \u2018Modern Culture\u2019<\/em> (Fusion<\/strong> #3) and natural history segments \u2018Right Stuff\u2019 <\/em>(Fusion<\/strong> #7) and \u2018Bugs\u2019<\/em> (Fusion<\/strong> #5). \u2018Relic\u2019<\/em> (Fusion<\/strong> #2) is pure Future Shock whilst full-colour \u2018The Single Electron Proof\u2019<\/em> from Epic<\/strong> #21 (September 1983, and with the timely assistance of Toren Smith) will stretch the higher mathematics prodigies amongst us with a little metaphysical tomfoolery\u2026<\/p>\n

Epic<\/strong> #29 provided a first home for \u2018In Search of Ancient Myths\u2019<\/em>, as #33 did for both \u2018Reaching Out\u2019<\/em> and \u2018Beating the Heat\u2019<\/em>, whilst the last colour cosmic conundrum \u2018Wasting Time\u2019<\/em> launched in #34. The remainder of this must-have, can\u2019t-get collection features more black & white antics from Fusion<\/strong>, beginning with the vaudevillian \u2018Gone Fishing\u2019<\/em> (#4), prior to moving adroitly into \u2018Xlerg\u2019s Fossil Emporium\u2019<\/em> (#8) and anarchically culminating in a riotous Weasel Patrol collaboration enigmatically entitled \u2018The Weasels Fill In\u2019<\/em> from Fusion<\/strong> #9 (May 1988)\u2026<\/p>\n

Sheer artistic ability and incisive comedy for smart people is never going to be out of style and this stellar compilation will be a constant joy for any fan smart enough to unearth it as long as some bright better-evolved spark publishes it\u2026
\n\u00a9 1989 Ken Macklin, and where appropriate Raymond E. Feist, Toren Smith, Lela Dowling and LX Ltd. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ken Macklin with Raymond E. Feist, Toren Smith, Lela Dowling, LX Ltd & various (Eclipse Books) ISBN: 978-0-91303-585-6 (album PB) There\u2019s a new time-travelling doctor about to debut. It\u2019s not this one\u2026 Before becoming a successful games artist for LucasArts graphic adventure games (I don\u2019t actually grok push-button fun but I gather that Maniac … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Dr. Watchstop: Adventures in Time and Space”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[113,125,107],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comedy","category-humour","category-science-fiction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-7IT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29691"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29695,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29691\/revisions\/29695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}