25 May: Yoda

There are three reasons to present ten facts about Yoda today. Firstly, it’s the birthday of Frank Oz, the puppeteer who played him. Secondly, it’s the anniversary of the day Star Wars was first shown in 1977, and thirdly, the anniversary of the day The Return of the Jedi, opened in the US in 1983.

1. That said, Yoda wasn’t in the first Star Wars film, but made his first appearance in The Empire Strikes Back. Which was initially going to be his only appearance. George Lucas envisaged him training Luke and then vanishing back into obscurity on his swamp planet. However, in pre-production of Return of the Jedi a child psychologist advised that kids under 12 wouldn't accept the twist that Darth Vader is Luke’s father unless it was made a lot clearer. Yoda was the character chosen to confirm Luke’s parentage.

2. Yoda could have been very different from the little Green creature we’re all familiar with, based on some of Lucas’s early ideas. He could have ended up as a massively tall, bearded Blue creature called Buffy, wearing a silly hat. Or he could have been portrayed on screen by a Monkey in a Yoda mask.

3. Having been talked out of calling the character Buffy, Lucas suggested "Minch Yoda", but in the end decided he should have just the one name as that would add to the mystery. Yoda was chosen because it sounded Eastern and mystical. He may or may not have known that Yoda is Sanskrit for warrior. Another character in the Star Wars universe ended up with the name Minch.

4. Likewise, Lucas made the conscious decision not to reveal what species Yoda is or where he originally came from, and says that he doesn’t even know himself.

5. There are at least two other members of Yoda’s species that have appeared in the Star Wars Universe, though. There’s a female Yoda who sits on a Jedi council although she isn’t shown speaking. She has longer hair and is called Yaddle. Baby Yoda is not actually Yoda but another member of the same species whose real name is Grogu.

6. Actors who have voiced Yoda are Tom Kane, John Lithgow, Peter McConnell, Piotr Michael, Tony Pope, and of course, Frank Oz. Frank Oz wasn’t Lucas’s first choice to voice the character; perhaps, given that Oz was the voice of various Muppets including Miss Piggy, he feared Yoda might sound too much like a Muppet! He came around in the end, though, and even tried to get Oz nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. However, the Academy deemed that a puppeteer wasn’t an actor and therefore could not be nominated in that capacity.

7. Yoda’s speech pattern is more than an affectation to make him sound alien. Some researchers believe that all human languages evolved from such a pattern, and is commonly a stage in human children’s language development.

8. Yoda was born in 896 BBY (Before the Battle of Yavin) and died in 4 ABY (After the Battle of Yavin). That made him 900 years old when he died. He is is 66cm tall and weighs 17kg and was trained by Jedi Master N’Kata Del Gormo.

9. "Weird Al" Yankovic recorded a song about Yoda in 1980. Called simply Yoda, it was a parody of the song Lola by the Kinks.

10. In 2012, scientists discovered a new species of worm that lives one and a half miles under the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. This creature has large lips on either side of its head, which reminded the scientists of Yoda’s ears. So they named the creature Yoda purpurata.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

11 April: Smurfs

Born this day in 1935: Pierre Kartner, “Father Abraham”, Dutch singer and voice of the Smurfs. 10 facts about Smurfs.

1. The Smurfs were created in 1958 by a Belgian cartoonist called Pierre Culliford who used the pen name Peyo.

2. He came up with the original French name "schtroumpf" when he had a memory lapse at dinner one day and forgot the word for “Salt”. He happened to be dining with another cartoonist called André Franquin, and asked him to pass the schtroumpf. Franquin jokingly replied, "Here's the Schtroumpf—when you are done schtroumpfing, schtroumpf it back." They spent the rest of that weekend speaking that way, thus inventing the Smurf language.

3. Their first appearance was in a comic called Johan et Pirlouit (translated to English as Johan and Peewit) about a boy and his dwarf friend. On one of their adventures, they meet some Smurfs. The latter were so popular they got a comic strip of their own.

4. There are 105 Smurfs. They mostly look exactly the same: male, Blue skin, dressed in White trousers with holes for their tails, and white caps. They are small, described as being "three Apples high". That said, some of them can be distinguished by props relating to their names. For example, "Handy Smurf" wears overalls and sports a pencil above his ear. They are all said to be 100 years old, apart from Papa, Baby, Smurfette, Nanny and Grandpa.

5. There are three female Smurfs: Sassette Smurfling, Nanny Smurf and Smurfette, who was created by the villain Gargamel in order to create conflict and jealousy in the Smurf village. In the original comic, Smurfette left the Smurf village to restore peace, but in the American TV series, she stayed.

6. There’s an urban legend that the Smurfs represent the KKK because they wear pointed white caps, and their leader, Papa Smurf, wears a Red one. This isn’t true. The caps they wear are Phrygian or Liberty caps, which first appeared in Roman times and were worn by freed slaves.

7. They live in houses shaped like Mushrooms deep in the forest, which most outsiders cannot find unless they have a Smurf guide. In the original comics they eat sarsaparilla leaves, only in the TV show they also eat the berries ("smurfberries"). If they want to travel long distances, they ride on Storks.

8. The Smurf language basically consists of many words being replaced by the word “Smurf”. "To smurf" typically means "to make", "to be", "to like", or "to do". It can be incredibly confusing to non speakers. Peewit thinks he’s got a handle on it and explains that "I'm smurfing to the smurf" means "I'm going to the wood". A Smurf points out that what he actually said was "I'm warbling to the dawn", and he should have said "I'm smurfing to the smurf". Which is completely different. The word “smurf” can be added to other words, for example, "smurftastic".

9. Talking of languages, the Smurfs are known by many other names in other translations. “Smurf” is itself a translation of the original French word, “schtroumpf”. In Italy, they are Puffi; in Spanish Los Pitufos; and in Hebrew “Dardasim" which was an old word for slipper which is now so associated with Smurfs that the original use has been virtually lost.

10. The Smurf village featured in a UNICEF advertisement in which it was destroyed in a war. It was part of a fund-raising campaign by UNICEF's Belgian arm to raise money for the rehabilitation of former child soldiers in former Belgian colonies. With permission from Peyo’s family, the ad was shown after 9pm so as not to upset the usual target audience.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

20 March: Big Bird

20 March is the birthday of the Sesame Street character, Big Bird. Here are 10 facts about him:

1. He’s 8 feet 2 inches tall (249cm), is bright Yellow and lives in a nest behind 123 Sesame Street, next to Oscar the Grouch's trash can.

2. It’s up for debate what species of bird he is. His colour suggests that he’s a Canary, and he’s said himself that this is the case and that his scientific name is Bigus canarius. That said, he’s also described himself as a lark, and when asked if he was a Cassowary said that he was a golden condor. Others have suggested he might be an ibis, or a crane (or a unique species evolved from a crane). Oscar the Grouch calls him a Turkey but that is probably more of an insult than fact. Big Bird’s grandfather, however, is said to be an Emu.

3. While Big Bird may not be a turkey, his suit is made from turkey feathers which have been died yellow and glued on About 6,000 are in use at any given time.

4. The Big Bird suit weighs ten pounds, and his head alone weighs four pounds. Operating the suit is not for the faint hearted. The person inside gets very hot and can’t see where they are going, so they use a monitor strapped to the chest in order to navigate. The operator’s right arm is raised to operate the head, using the right hand to operate the mouth while the little finger operates the eyes.

5. Big Bird’s operator from 1969 to 2018 was Caroll Spinney. When he retired at the age of 84, the role went to his long time understudy Matt Vogel. Here is a classic case of nominative determination as Vogel is German for “bird”.

6. As for family, Big Bird was raised by his grandmother and an aunt called Nani Bird. He has a sister called Esmerelda, an Uncle Slim (a cowbird from Wyoming) and numerous cousins including Cousin Bubba from the North Pole, Floyd, a surfer bird from Los Angeles. He also has a Teddy bear called Radar.

7. Big Bird’s suit was designed by Jim Henson and built by Kermit Love. It was based on a seven foot tall dragon character than Henson designed for another project.

8. While Big Bird has been around for well over 50 years, he is portrayed as a perpetual six year old.

9. Big Bird can Roller skate, Ice skate, Dance, Swim, Sing, write poetry, draw, and ride a unicycle.

10. He almost went into space. In the 1980s when NASA was considering sending an ordinary citizen into space on the Space Shuttle, Carroll Spinney was invited to be that person, going into orbit in Big Bird persona. Spinney was hesitant at first, but eventually decided he was up for it, only to find that the Big Bird costume wouldn’t fit in the confined space. Which turned out to be a lucky escape, as the mission in question was the January 1986 Challenger one that exploded soon after launch, killing everyone on board. Schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe was ultimately chosen as the ordinary citizen instead.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

2 February: Commander Data

Born this date in 1949 was Brent Spiner, the actor best known as android Lieutenant Commander Data in Star Trek: the Next Generation. 10 things you might not know about his character.

1. Data is a self-aware, sapient, sentient and anatomically fully functional male android, the fifth of six known androids designed by Dr. Noonien Soong. Who built his androids to look like him, so he and Lore, Data’s older brother, could all be portrayed by Brent Spiner.

2. Androids may not age, but actors do, so it was written into Data’s back story that Soong created him to age at the same rate as a human.

3. He was the sole survivor on a planet called Omicron Theta after an attack from the Crystalline Entity, a creature which converts life forms to energy for sustenance. He was deactivated before the attack in the year 2336 and was discovered there by Starfleet in 2338, and re-activated. Data attended Starfleet Academy from 2341 to 2345, studying mechanics and exobiology. He served aboard the USS Trieste before being assigned to the Enterprise under Captain Jean-Luc Picard in 2364.

4. What is he made of? A fan website called Memory Alpha lists his components thus: “24.6 kilograms of tripolymer composites, 11.8 kilograms of molybdenum-cobalt alloys and 1.3 kilograms of bioplast sheeting.” His skull is made from cortenide and duranium. His ultimate storage capacity is eight hundred quadrillion bits (100 petabytes) and a total computational speed of sixty trillion operations per second. He is ambidextrous and could, if he wanted to, paint a picture with his left and right hand at the same time. In the show, however, he appears to favour his left hand, as Spiner is Left-handed. Data blinks at random, like a human, thanks to a Fourier series. His genitals are fully functional so he could perform as a sex robot, although he’s not programmed to enjoy the sex act as a human male would. He can fall 11.75 meters without damaging himself.

5. He doesn’t need to eat or sleep, although he sometimes does in order to appear more human. As he has no sense of taste, Data often wouldn’t bother eating. He can’t get drunk on alcohol, but components in his processing systems can be similarly disrupted by polywater. He doesn’t need to breathe, either. He could survive in space and underwater, as shown in one episode when he attempts to swim while out sailing on a lake with Geordi La Forge. His body was too dense for him to Swim – he sank to the bottom and had to walk along the bed of the lake to the shore. It took nearly two weeks to get the water out of Data's systems, but he survived the experience.

6. Data doesn’t remember much about his early life as his memories were wiped. In one episode, he meets his “mother” Juliana Tainer, and she fills him in on some of them, such as the fact that he didn’t like wearing clothes in the early days and would walk around naked since he wasn’t affected by heat or cold. The Soongs wrote him a ‘modesty subroutine’ to correct this behaviour after people in the colony complained.

7. Eric Menyuk, Mark Lindsay Chapman, Kevin Peter Hall, and Kelvin Han Yee were all considered for the role before Brent Spiner was cast. He used the character of Robby the Robot from the film Forbidden Planet as a role model while researching the role.

8. Data can be turned off. There is an on/off switch just below his right shoulder blade. Very few of his crewmates know this: Captain Picard, Dr. Beverly Crusher, and counselor Deanna Troi.

9. Data has a pet Cat called Spot. In Star Trek: Picard, his memories of Spot are the last ones that Data "surrenders" to Lore.

10. Spiner has said that his favourite scene as Data was the one where he played poker on the holodeck with a re-creation of Stephen Hawking, in which Hawking played himself.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

18 November: Calvin and Hobbes

On this date in 1985 Calvin and Hobbes, a comic strip by Bill Watterson, was first published. It ran until 31 December 1995. 10 things you might not know about Calvin and Hobbes.

1. Calvin is named after the 16th-century theologian John Calvin and Hobbes after 17th-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who held what Watterson describes as "a dim view of human nature”. Calvin’s nemesis Susie Derkins is named after a beagle who belonged to his in-laws, and Calvin’s teacher, Miss Wormwood, is named for the apprentice demon in CS Lewis' The Screwtape Letters.

2. Calvin’s parents are never named, because their only importance in terms of the strip was as Calvin’s parents. We do know, however, that Calvin’s dad is a patent attorney, which is the profession of Watterson’s own father. He’s an outdoorsy type who believes that camping and bike rides in extreme weather are “character building”. Calvin’s mother is a housewife who previously had a stressful job which she was happy to give up to be a full-time mother. Calvin’s father has a brother called Max, who is single and child free. Max looks like Calvin’s dad, except that he has a moustache and Calvin’s dad wears glasses. Watterson has both moustache and glasses and based the brothers on himself. He acknowledges Hobbes, saying he had “a killer’s eye”, which endears him to Calvin, who says it’s "hard to believe he's related to Dad." Max may well have appeared more often, but Watterson thought it would look odd if he never addressed his brother and sister in law by name.

3. Hobbes was based on Bill Watterson’s Cat, a tabby called Sprite. It’s never made entirely clear whether Hobbes is real or imaginary, although when there are adults in frame, he appears as a blank-faced cuddly toy. He is certainly real to Calvin. A strip in which Hobbes gets placed in a washing machine was excluded from a collection because it strongly suggested he was just a toy.

4. Susie Derkins is the only character to have both a first and last name. She plays lacrosse and enjoys playing “house” and holding tea parties for her toys. The pair seem to go out of their way to annoy each other. For example, Calvin founds a club for himself and Hobbes called 'G.R.O.S.S.' (Get Rid Of Slimy GirlS) especially to exclude her. That said, Watterson has hinted that they actually have crushes on each other.

5. There are two characters Calvin fears. These are Moe, the school bully who is based on "every jerk I've ever known" and the babysitter, Rosalyn, a high school senior and allegedly the only babysitter who puts up with Calvin. Calvin describes her as sadistic and/or insane.

6. Calvinball is a game Calvin invented after a negative experience of school sports. Calvinball is a game of wits, skill and creativity rather than athletic ability. The only consistent rules of the game are that Calvinball may never be played with the same rules twice and that players must wear masks.

7. Watterson came up with the idea while working in a job he hated and spent his spare time trying to come up with a cartoon for newspaper syndication. Most of his early ideas were rejected but United Feature Syndicate finally responded positively to one strip called The Doghouse, which included a character whose little brother had a stuffed Tiger.

8. Watterson was completely against any merchandising for his comic strip. Although his contract allowed the syndicate to licence the characters and do what they liked with them without Watterson’s consent, they never did because Watterson would simply threaten to quit. In 1992, he managed to get a contract which gave him complete control over licencing. After that, he refused to do interviews or attend award ceremonies. He also took the unprecedented move of taking two sabbaticals from producing the strip. On his return from the second, he announced he was quitting for good as he’d achieved everything he wanted to with Calvin and Hobbes and wanted to concentrate on other things.

9. Nevertheless there have been some adaptations, including a textbook for children called Teaching with Calvin and Hobbes, published in 1993. The strips in it are followed by lessons based on the story. In 2011 a comic strip appeared by cartoonists Dan and Tom Heyerman called Hobbes and Bacon, in which Calvin is shown as an adult. He has married Susie Derkins and they have a daughter who they have named after philosopher Francis Bacon. Calvin gives Hobbes to her.

10. The last ever strip showed Calvin and Hobbes sledding down a snowy hill after a fresh snowfall with Calvin exclaiming "Let's go exploring!"

Beta

(Combat Team Series #2)

Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?

Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.

Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream. 

Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.

Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.

Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.

Paperback

E book

6 September: Sonic The Hedgehog

Adventures Of Sonic The Hedgehog, TV Cartoon Adventure, made its debut on this date in 1993. 10 things you might not know about Sonic the Hedgehog.

1. He was created by the Japanese game designers Yuji Naka and Naoto Ohshima.

2. Sonic was created because Sega wanted a character which would be as popular as the Nintendo character Mario. Initial drafts of the proposed character made him a Rabbit who could pick things up and attack with his ears. However, this was rejected almost immediately because they wanted a fast paced game and a rabbit stopping to pick things up would slow it down too much. They started looking at animals that could roll and the final choice was between a Hedgehog and an armadillo. Even though Sega feared that Americans wouldn’t know what a hedgehog was, the hedgehog won.

3. Even once they’d decided on the species, there was still a way to go before Sonic as we know him emerged. He was originally named Mr Needlemouse and was the leader of a rock band. The rabbit was a member of the band along with a parakeet who is often mistaken for a Chicken, a Monkey and a Crocodile. Sonic was also a skilled break dancer and had a girlfriend, a human woman called Madonna.

4. In the games as we know them, Sonic’s love interest is a tomboyish Pink hedgehog called Amy Rose. At least, she believes she is his girlfriend and wants to marry him although Sonic isn’t really that interested. She’s not as strong or as fast as the other characters but follows them around nevertheless, trying to attract Sonic’s attention. She has a Hammer which she uses to defend herself.

5. Sonic’s best friend is Tails, a Fox cub with two tails. Tails is his nickname. His actual name is Miles Prower, a pun on “miles per hour.” He also has a friendly rival called Knuckles the Echidna, who is a red echidna.

6. His arch enemy is Doctor Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik, who is a mad scientist who tries to steal the Chaos Emeralds and take over the world. He is a bald man who wears Black, Red and Yellow clothes, has a large moustache and pince-nez Sunglasses.

7. Sonic is billed as “the world's fastest hedgehog” and was indeed the fastest video game character ever when the game was first released. His power to run at supersonic speed is down to the “power sneakers” that he wears, rather than a superpower. If he manages to collect all the Chaos Emeralds, he becomes even faster and gains the power of flight. His eyes then turn red and his body turns from blue to gold in this “super sonic” form. Sonic's catchphrase is “Gotta go fast!”

8. His main weakness is that he can’t swim. This is because Yuji Naka believed that real hedgehogs couldn’t swim. Sonic sinks like a stone if he lands in water. Except, that is, in the Sonic the Hedgehog Adventure Gamebooks, in which he does have the ability to swim.

9. The music in the game is provided by Japanese pop group Dreams Come True, formed as a trio in 1988. Their music can also be heard in Sleepless in Seattle and The Swan Princess.

10. There’s a hidden message in the game. Sega had banned post game credits, but Yuji Naka believed the names of the people who’d worked on the game should be displayed. So he did so, but in a sneaky way. At the beginning of the game, he included them all, but in black text on a black background and so invisible to anyone who didn’t have the cheat code.

Beta

(Combat Team Series #2)

Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?

Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.

Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream. 

Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.

Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.

Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.

Paperback

E book

9 August: Betty Boop

On this date in 1930 Betty Boop premièred in the cartoon Dizzy Dishes, the seventh instalment in Fleischer's Talkartoon series. 10 facts about her:

1. The first time Betty Boop appeared on screen she wasn’t a woman, but rather a character with the body of a woman and the head of a French poodle. She soon evolved into a fully human character, though, and her floppy poodle ears became hoop earrings.

2. She was designed by Grim Natwick at the request of studio owner Max Fleischer.

3. She could have been based on one of three different real life performers. Some say she was based on actress Clara Bow; others say she was based on a nightclub singer called Esther Jones, who was well known for performing the song I want to be loved by you, which includes the line Boop-oop-ba-doop, which became Betty’s catchphrase. However, Fleischer is said to have told his artists he wanted a caricature of a singer called Helen Kane. Kane presumably was known for I want to be loved by you, too, since she sued Fleischer over the use of the line.

4. Betty’s voice has been provided by numerous people over the years. The first person to lend her voice was Margie Hines. Others include Kate Wright, Bonnie Poe, Ann Rothschild, and perhaps the best known, Mae Questel, who was also the voice of Olive Oyl in Popeye. Today, Betty is voiced by Cindy Robinson.

5. Because Mae Questel and Max Fleischer were both Jewish, some fans looked for signs that Betty was Jewish, too. They cite the one appearance of Betty’s parents on screen when they are shown to be strict, European immigrants who get upset because she doesn’t like their traditional foods. However, the foods in question aren’t kosher foods and their accent is German. So there’s no real evidence to make Betty Jewish.

6. Most of her appearances were in black and white, with only one appearance in colour. This was in a cartoon called Poor Cinderella. Betty’s hair usually appeared to be black, but in this film she was a redhead.

7. Even her best known modern day appearance is in black and white. In fact, she’s the only character in Who Framed Roger Rabbit who is not in colour. She is shown as a waitress who says that work had been slow since cartoons were now in colour.

8. She wears strapless short-skirted dresses and on her left thigh a fancy garter. She was probably the first animated female character to be portrayed as sexy. Many of her plot lines involved her fending off unwanted male attention. Hence she was probably the first cartoon character to be censored. The Production Code introduced in 1934 meant Betty had to be tamed, which didn’t go down so well with audiences. Her popularity declined and her series was cancelled.

9. Like many real life celebrities today, Betty had a signature lipstick in partnership with MAC Cosmetics. So, incidentally, did Cinderella and Barbie. Betty’s Lipstick was described as “a universal shade that complimented warm and cool skin tones."

10. In March 2009, a UK newspaper voted Betty Boop the second sexiest cartoon character of all time, with Jessica Rabbit in first place and the Cadbury's Caramel Bunny in third.

Beta

(Combat Team Series #2)

Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?

Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.

Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream. 

Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.

Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.

Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.

Paperback

E book

22 June: Captain America

On this date in 1943 (according to the 2016 TV show Dates in Movie & TV History with Brandon Hardesty) Super Soldier Serum is injected into Steve Rogers, turning him into Captain America. 10 things you might not know about Captain America.

1. Steve Rogers was born on July 4, 1918, in Brooklyn, New York. He was orphaned at the age of 18 when his mother died of TB, his father having been killed during the first world war, so presumably Steve never knew him at all. Steve was only 5-foot-4-inch (1.63 m) tall, weighed only 90 pounds (41 kg) and had a number of medical conditions including asthma, scoliosis, heart arrhythmia, partial deafness, stomach ulcers, and pernicious anaemia. He studied fine art and illustration, and his day job was writing and drawing comic books. Living the fantasy of any number of comic book artists and writers, perhaps, to be turned into a real life superhero!

2. When the second world war broke out, Steve tried to enlist, and needless to say was turned down because of his small physique and medical issues. In 1942 he tried again, and this time, he came to the attention of Dr. Abraham Erskine, who is working on a super soldier experiment with U.S. Army Colonel Chester Phillips, and British MI6 agent Peggy Carter. Even when he learned that Nazi officer Johann Schmidt, head of the science division called Hydra, underwent an imperfect version of the procedure and suffered permanent side-effects, Rogers agreed to be injected with the serum and doused with vita-rays. After the treatment, he is over 6 feet tall and pretty buff. In the film, Chris Evans is shrunk by digital technology for the scenes before he’s injected.

3. Chris Evans was the first choice to play Captain America. In fact, the movie makers were so keen to have him that he didn’t even have to audition before being offered the role, which, incidentally, he turned down three times. This wasn’t because he didn’t like the role, but rather because he was concerned about the effect the fame it would bring would have on his private life, and the potential long term commitment. Robert Downey Jr. eventually convinced him to take the part. Had RDJ failed, Ryan Phillippe, Channing Tatum, Chace Crawford, John Krasinski and Sebastian Stan were potentially in the running. The latter was was chosen to play Bucky Barnes.

4. Captain America was first created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, fighting in World War II, before being frozen and waking up in the modern day. This meant the Cap was the first superhero to exist in the Marvel timeline, although he wasn’t the first to be created. The first comic book story penned by the great Stan Lee was a Captain America story, when Lee was 19 years old. It was called Traitor’s Revenge, and appeared in Captain America Comics #3.

5. In the comics, Captain America’s shield is made from Vibranium (which absorbs vibrations) and Adamantium (making it indestructible). In the films, however, they couldn’t include adamantium because that was what Wolverine’s skeleton is made from and the makers of The X-Men films owned the rights to the fictional metal. So in the Marvel films, Captain America’s shield is pure vibranium. Black Panther’s suit, the Vision, Sam Wilson's Captain America suit and the Winter Soldier's cybernetic arm are all made from the same stuff, which came from a meteorite which fell to Earth and is regarded as the strongest metal in the world, stronger than steel and a third of the weight.

6. Having been injected with experimental serum once, it’s not difficult to imagine that he might be up for it again. In a comic book tale called Queen of the Werewolves, he gets injected with a serum that turns him into a werewolf (temporarily, one assumes) and in this state, wins a fight with Wolverine in one of his berserker rages.

7. Captain America can wield Thor's Hammer. When Thor is separated from his hammer, Captain America’s pure heart and his reason for wanting to wield the hammer (to defeat the bad guys and get the hammer back to its rightful owner) mean he is able to lift it and use it.

8. Marvel planned to kill Captain America off in the 1960s in a storyline in which he grew tired of being a hero and even teams up with Dr. Doom. The world then turns against him and he gets killed. Clearly, they shelved that story. Instead, they went with him being frozen and waking up in the present day. In the film Captain America: The Winter Soldier, he has a written list of things to check out in modern times. This list differs depending on which country the film is being shown in. The US list includes includes I Love Lucy, Steve Jobs, and disco, in France it includes the 1998 World Cup, The Fifth Element, and Daft Punk, and in the UK The Beatles, 1966 world cup final, Sean Connery, and Nirvana the band. When Captain America is missing and presumed dead, other heroes take on the role. These include Bucky Barnes and Sam Wilson (formerly The Falcon).

9. He wasn’t a founding member of The Avengers. Iron Man, Ant-Man, Thor, Hulk and The Wasp were the original line up. Captain America came along later and became the leader and voice of reason.

10. There have been times when Captain America has lost faith in the American government. In the 1970s, in the wake of the Watergate scandal, a similar scenario happened in the Marvel Universe, and Captain America temporarily took on a new costume and a new name: The Nomad. In the late 90's he lost faith again and was simply known as the Captain for a time. I wonder what name he will go under in 2025 as I can’t imagine that anyone worthy of wielding Thor’s hammer would support the big orange baby and his minions!

Beta

(Combat Team Series #2)

Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?

Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.

Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream. 

Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.

Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.

Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.

Paperback

E book

6 April: Samwise Gamgee

The equivalent of this date in Shire reckoning is said to be the birthday of the character Samwise Gamgee in Lord of the Rings. 10 facts about Sam:

1. Tolkien got his name from a brand of surgical dressing: Gamgee Tissue, which was invented by one Dr. Joseph Gamgee, and gamgee was a colloquial word for cotton wool in Birmingham when Tolkien was growing up. It’s no coincidence, either, that Sam’s wife Rosie’s maiden name was Cotton.

2. Tolkien considered Sam to be the real hero of Lord of the Rings.

3. Sam was Frodo’s employee rather than his friend. At the beginning of the story, Sam is Frodo’s gardener and is only included in the quest because he was working near a window and overheard a private conversation. The relationship between the two is based on that of a "batman" - a soldier who acted as a personal servant to an officer. Sam does most of the cooking and carrying during the quest, and always calls Frodo “Mr Frodo”. For his part, Frodo never suggests to Sam that he drops the “Mr”. In his letters, Tolkien says that he considers many of the “batmen” he met during his military service to be much better men than he was himself.

4. Sam is one of only three characters who is able to give up the ring by choice, the others being Bilbo, who gives it to Frodo when he leaves for Rivendell, and Tom Bombadil, the only character in the books who knows of the Ring's existence but isn't affected by it. It has been suggested that these were more “simple” characters and this was the reason the ring didn’t have such a hold over them.

5. Sam’s father is Hamfast Gamgee, who is mentioned rather more in the books than in the films. In the films, he only briefly appears as a cameo in the Green Dragon scene, played by Norman Forsey.

6. After Sam returns to the Shire, changes his name to Gardener and marries Rosie, he has 13 children (only two of which are shown in the film). They were: Elanor, Frodo, Rose, Merry, Pippin, Goldilocks, Hamfast, Daisy, Primrose, Bilbo, Ruby, Robin, and Tolman.

7. He also served as mayor of the Shire for seven consecutive terms, living in Bag End, which Frodo gave to him on his departure. Sam also completed the narrative about the journey after Frodo left.

8. The Jungian analyst Pia Skogemann views Sam as standing for feeling, one of the four cognitive functions, with the other Hobbits in the Fellowship embodying the other three: Frodo thinking, Pippin intuition, and Merry sensation.

9. It has also been suggested that there’s some Christian symbolism here, too. Sam, who carries Frodo up to Mount Doom, parallels Simon of Cyrene, who helps Jesus by carrying his cross to Golgotha.

10. Tolkien once received a letter from a real life Sam Gamgee, who had heard that there was a character with the same name in his book, although he’d not actually read it. Tolkien sent the real Sam signed copies of all three volumes. He would later write: "For some time I lived in fear of receiving a letter signed 'S. Gollum'. That would have been more difficult to deal with."

Beta

(Combat Team Series #2)

Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?

Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.

Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream. 

Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.

Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.

Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.

Paperback

E book