"MEN OF MYSTERY" Embassy Of The Fist - Part Four Post Two

The high kick from Sensei Cheng Fu was simply created by slightly rotating the angles of all the characters and then shrinking the much larger picture into a single panel. The composition actually took some time as I wanted to try and show that the British secret serviceman kicks one soldier into another, knocking them both cold.

 

As it turns out Captain Ji Song is rather easily overcome by a blow to the back of the head, but I was rapidly running out of panels to illustrate the third and final confrontation between Cheng Fu and Yamamoto. As a result the female Embassy assistant simply 'melts away', something I often do when I want all the attention to focus on something else. Doubtless she ran off looking to raise the alarm...

 

This is it, it's Yamamoto verses Sensei Cheng Fu in a battle to the death.!!

"MEN OF MYSTERY" Embassy Of The Fist - Part Four Post One

In many ways this final episode to "Embassy of the Fist" is a single-part story in its own right, and as such I spent the first few panels trying to set the scene. It introduces all the characters needed for the plot within the space of four panels, including a new threat to Sensei Cheng Fu, a formidable captain in the Chinese Army called Ji Song.

 

I usually find that by the time I have started composing an adventure's last chapter that I have little appetite to actually draw anything else for the story, and as a result scramble around for characters I've drawn previously. In many ways I'm in a real rush to conclude the proceedings in order to start sketching out my next tale. As a result the Chinese Ambassador's female servant is simply a reused drawing I created for an "Ermin Meonstoke" yarn from a few years ago, and Captain Ji Song is actually just another Chinese soldier but I've flecked his hair with grey and given him a moustache.

Surrounded by Chinese soldiers with a foe stood on guard around every corner, can Cheng Fu reach Yamamoto for their final confrontation..?

Mooretoons - "Doctor Who" - The Meddling Monk - Part Two

Drawn with a black ballpoint pen, “Doctor Who in Game-Ball” was a twelve-page ‘epic’ based upon the plot that the Meddling Monk had somehow managed to trap the TARDIS crew within a VIC-20 home computer. The renegade Timelord then forced them to play various computer games in the hope that they’d be killed. Clearly a storyline heavily inspired by the 1982 Walt Disney Productions science fiction film “Tron”.

 

However, although at the time I did own one of Commodore’s 5kb RAM machines, my parents had more recently replaced it with a Commodore 64, and as a result all of the games played during the tale are actually my favourite ones (of the time) for the more powerful computer. “Game-Ball” also came at a time when I had settled into a somewhat consistent and distinctive style of drawing, which although still somewhat different to my current artwork, clearly enabled me to produce my cartoon strips at a good rate.

 

The first two episodes of this magnum opus would be based upon the computer game “Crazy Kong 64” by “Interceptor Software”, a 1983 “Donkey Kong” clone which saw the First Doctor hurdling giant barrels, clambering up ladders, leaping over fireballs and defeating a giant ape with a large mallet. Once the game had been successfully beaten however the Meddling Monk immediately loaded a second title into the computer…

 

“Spy Hunter” by “US Gold”. To be honest I don’t recall actually being overly impressed by this computer game. However I was totally enamoured with the 1983 arcade machine by “Bally Midway” as it came with a sit-down cabinet, steering wheel and gear stick. Either way the next two parts to “Game-Ball” would depict the TARDIS crew driving in the fictitious G-6155 Interceptor, made famous by the arcade game, avoiding head-on collisions with oncoming suicidal cars, dodging machinegun fire and finally blowing up gun-toting helicopters in a go-fast boat.

 

The next video game, the 1985 “Rambo: First Blood Part II” by “Ocean Software”, was based upon the Sylvester Stallone film and was probably more famous for its excellent Martin Galway soundtrack then its actual gameplay. However it gave me ample opportunity to transform the First Doctor, via a bi-generation with the game’s main sprite(!?!), into a muscle-bound killing machine, complete with head bandana, massive portable machinegun and huge hunting knife. And in a serious departure from his televised counterpart, my Timelord merrily massacred his opponents with nuclear bullets and knife slashes to the torso.

 Episode Seven of “Game-Ball” would provide a brief respite to the continuous stream of video games as the VIC-20 broke down and the Meddling Monk desperately tried to repair the home computer before the TARDIS crew escaped its internal workings back to the time machine. Needless to say at the conclusion of the page, and with the big blue box in sight, the Doctor, Steven Taylor and Katarina are once again caught by a multi-coloured loading screen and transported inside the game “Breakout”.

 

This single page episode was actually based upon my love of the 1987 arcade conversion “Arkanoid” by “Imagine Software”; a video game developed by “Taito” which was a considerable improvement upon the original Seventies “Breakout” by “Atari”. However I felt that the name “Arkanoid” wasn’t as well-known as that of “Breakout” thus drew the Meddling Monk holding a copy of a cassette with the older game’s title emblazoned upon it. In many ways the episode was actually quite similar to those involving “Crazy Kong 64” as the eleven panels portrayed the Doctor, Katarina and Steven dodging giant balls and leaping in between the gaps in brick blocks.

 

The final computer game to feature in this adventure was actually the first Commodore 64 programme I bought, alongside “Football Manager” by “Addictive Games”, and that was the licensed film tie-in “Ghostbusters” by “Activision”. This is one of my favourite games of all time, and even these days I will occasionally have a game using an emulator programme. As one can imagine not only did this plot twist enable me to sketch out the TARDIS crew in grey overalls with proton packs, but got me drawing some spooky spectres and a haunted house. As a nod to some of the first voice sound effects within a home computer game, I even had Doctor and his companions name themselves the “Geek Buckors”, as that is how the computer game sounded when it's sound chip tried to verbalise “Ghostbusters”.

 

The conclusion to “Game-Ball” is utterly bizarre and features two pages of complete nonsense. No computer game is actually featured or mentioned, though I get the distinct impressive I was trying to convey the impression that the TARDIS crew had become immersed within an adventure game of some kind. I also believe I was tiring of the story and wanted to finish it quite quickly. Certainly that is the only explanation I have as to why the First Doctor would suddenly find himself submerged in elephant droppings on the planet Nope and be able to simply saunter, covered in mastodon dung, over to the TARDIS. Deciding that they didn’t want to wait for Katarina, the Timelord and Steven depart determined to track down the person responsible for their plight.

"MEN OF MYSTERY" Embassy Of The Fist - Part Three Post Three

One of the ways in which I always describe my cartoon stories is that they are really narratives with some drawings simply squeezed in between the dialogue to help show the reader what's supposedly taking place. These final four panels of "Embassy of the Fist" Part Three encapsulate this philosophy entirely. The plot isn't progressed at all by the artwork, it's advanced solely by what the character's are saying.

 

There's also an awful lot of ellipses spread across the various speech balloons. Ideally each balloon would encapsulate a finished sentence but as I wanted to include such a large amount of dialogue I'd have needed one or two more panels to include all of the British secret serviceman's explanation as to what was going on. I think four panels with nothing but talking taking place is pretty static, let alone half a dozen or more, hence the ellipses.

 

Will Sensei Cheng Fu risk the China-Britain business council talks and dare to set foot on sovereign Chinese soil, simply to have his revenge on Yamamoto...?

"MEN OF MYSTERY" Embassy Of The Fist - Part Three Post Two

I’m not too sure the bullet streaking effects work that well with the second of these panels, as they look a little too thick to be a single projectile. I’m also not sure it comes across that Cheng Fu is too dazed to chase after Yamamoto, and probably could do with having the ‘swirling stars’ effect, which plays about his head, lasting for just one more frame. Indeed a wider shot illustrating the increasing distance between the two combatants would probably have proved more effective as well. However hindsight is a wonderful thing.

 

Yamamoto has escaped again as the British Intelligence Service arrive to ‘corral’ American enthusiasm. But will Cheng Fu be permitted to confront the Chinese martial artists for a third and final time..?  

"MEN OF MYSTERY" Embassy Of The Fist - Part Three Post One

Having built up to this rematch between Yamamoto and Cheng Fu in the previous episode I wanted to show that the British martial artist, no longer swayed by the anger he felt at the deaths of some of his fellow secret servicemen, was every bit as skilled as the Chinese mercenary. However within the confines of my style I found it rather difficult to show his evasion of Yamamoto’s strikes without resorting to a simple ‘Duck’ sound effect.

 

Now that it was clear Kam Lo was not the target of the International termination warrant, I felt the Chinese criminal gang leader was an unnecessary distraction to the battle between Kung Fu fighters, so simply had him killed off by the American black ops team. I thought this worked quite well as a twist to the story, and added to the sense of frustration and desperation the American’s were feeling having seen their own operatives killed by Yamamoto.

 

As Sensei Cheng Fu and Yamamoto trade strikes and kicks, their battle becomes increasingly deadly as they become the target of a .300 Winchester magnum bolt-action rifle...

Mooretoons - "Doctor Who" - The Meddling Monk - Part One

I’m rather confused as to where my inspiration to use ‘The Meddling Monk’ in my “Doctor Who” cartoon strips came from. It could have been some chance glimpse of a short clip from the British science fiction television series, but I doubt it. For although the character of the Monk, superbly portrayed by actor Peter Butterworth, appeared in two stories during William Hartnell’s tenure as the (First) Doctor, neither would have made it to VHS Video at the time I first started drawing my interpretation of the villainous Timelord. Indeed it wasn’t until 1992, some six-seven years after Mooretoons were born, that the surviving episodes of “The Dalek Masterplan” were released on PAL video as part of the “Daleks: The Early Years”, and the 1965 story “The Time Meddler” was not available on tape for a further eight years until June 2000.

As a result I’m far more inclined to believe that I took such a deep interest in the character from his 1983 appearance in "Doctor Who Monthly", when the Monk teamed up with the Ice Warriors against the Fifth Doctor. Whatever the reason, my Monk was a decidedly different creature from that of proper Doctor Who lore, for although he still retained some of the quirky humour Peter Butterworth invested into the television character, my Meddling Monk most assuredly wanted the Doctor dead.

Initially appearing towards the end of my first run of comic adventures in “The Fall of the Daleks”, the Meddling Monk was a skulking manipulative villain, who watched from the shadows as the TARDIS crew inadvertently stumbled upon (yet) another Dalek city on the planet Skaro. I clearly wanted the Monk to stand out from my usual drawing style, and as I wanted him to be simple to sketch (as I needed to draw him a lot) I went with a monk’s robe complete with blacked out hood and penetrating eyes. In many ways not dissimilar to the appearance of Jawas from the “Star Wars” motion pictures. Indeed with hindsight I distinctly recall previously drawing the adventures of a Jawa Bounty Hunter named Volcano as a child, so it could be George Lucas’ influence over the look of my Meddling Monk could have been stronger than I initially thought. Suffice to say the evil cloaked figure fails miserably to cause the Doctor’s death in “The Fall of the Daleks” and instead is blasted himself blasted to death by the Masters of Skaro.

It was quite a considerable time later, well within my third phase of drawing Mooretoons, that I finally brought the Meddling Monk back and in doing so I set the ground work for a series of stories that would take me the best part of two - three years to draw. “Id?” was a single page, eleven panel teaser story, designed to lay the foundation for a much longer twelve-page adventure I planned to draw a short while later.

Sketched in (trendy) red ink with yellow pencil panelling, the tale simply established that the Monk had survived being shot by the Daleks, and had remained on the planet Skaro building a Commodore VIC-20 home computer. Somehow this 8-bit machine was capable of sending a mind-beam into the TARDIS and momentarily disorientate the Doctor..?

Having briefly appeared at the conclusion of the following story “Stronties Rage”, a re-imagining of a 1986 “Strontium Dog” serial from the British science fiction comic “2000 AD”, The Meddling Monk would feature throughout “Game-Ball”; the longest “Doctor Who” adventure I ever wrote and drew…