Pornokitsch

...I eventually got around to reviewing them. Briefly. And in no particular order.

I adore stealth games, and the Dishonored series is right at the top of my list. Aside from satisfying my need for sneaky stabs (or stabby sneaks, take your pick), both games are a treasure trove of background art. I often hear the setting described as steampunk, but that misses the mark. This, my friends, is straight-up whalepunk.

Staged in a magic-tinged analog of late-1800s London, Dishonored exists in a world of gilt and grime. Mechanical marvels clank past packs of plague rats. Street gangs clash with oppressive clergy. The excitement of scientific discovery shines alongside the shadow of grisly occultism. Everywhere you turn, there’s beautiful paintings, filthy beggars, brass gadgets, sticky-looking pubs, and tins of jellied eels. This is a place where everything is possible and nothing will ever be okay.

In Robert Calasso's The Art of the Publisher, the author distills to art of publishing to form - the "capacity to give form to a plurality of books as though they were the chapters of a single book".

This is a fascinating concept, particularly applicable in a world where branding is both understood as an art... and almost entirely ignored in the publishing industry. The most overt demonstration of form is, of course, the art and design of covers - and Calasso dedicates many thoughtful pages to the role of cover(s) across a publisher's list. 

Your turn! We've been nattering on about Funko Pop toys all week, but now we want to hear from you. Although there are approximately 80,000 Funko toys, they haven't made Pops for everything (yet). What Funko Pops would you love to see?

Here are few from us to get you started...

Jared: Every few weeks, the plasticine masterminds at Funko announce new and upcoming Pop! toys. And the news goes everywhere. Every possible outlet for every possible corner of fandom seems to cover this; breathlessly awaiting the news. I suppose our question today is: Why?

Why is a plastic Crow with zero points of articulation newsworthy? Why are we, known skeptics and h8ers, devoting a week to plastic toys? Or, to put it more broadly: why are Funko Pops a thing?

As a child, I was an avid collector of My Little Pony and Care Bears, despite the fact that my only regular source of income was the occasional envelope on birthdays and Christmas. Even then I couldn't just have one. I needed them all. It fell to my parents to bankroll this craze. I remember my father driving from one toy store to another to find the elusive Birthday Bear (a mustardy-coloured Care Bear with a cupcake on its chest). It was the only one I didn't have. If the Internet had been around we would have found one instantly, but my father’s dedication to the task was admirable. Father of the Decade, I say.

Advertising played a part.

Funkos are, by definition, impersonal. They’re the poster child of mass-produced fandom, different paint jobs slapped around the same standard-issue skeleton. So it strikes me as funny that I can’t find a way to write this post that isn’t personal. Bear with me, I promise it’ll come back around to lovable kitsch.

The UK has a fantastic small press scene. To celebrate the people behind the imprints, and help out the writers that are looking to them for publication, we've asked a number of editors to share what they're working on - and what they're looking for. This week our featured publisher is Arachne Press.

Could you tell us a bit about who you are and what you're doing?

Arachne Press was born out of frustration as a writer with my existing publisher, and an opportune redundancy, which meant the mortgage got paid off and possible poverty wasn’t going to mean homelessness, so I decided to take a risk and do what I had always wanted – yes, 1970’s careers advisor, I did it in spite of you – be a publisher.

It’s ended up being a much wider remit than that – I also run The Story Sessions an irregular live lit event in South London and an annual festival Solstice Shorts which mixes time-themed words and music, on the shortest day of the year on the Prime Meridian in Greenwich; I video as much of the live stuff as I can, and when we get funded, we have BSL interpreters as well to make our work as accessible as possible.

Thoughts Before Watching

I Eat Your Skin is not a radio drama, it’s a movie but it’s called ‘I Eat Your Skin’ so I feel this is an excellent reason to watch it. I have a very good feeling that this will contain racism, zombies, groovy music and other things which were popular in 1970 and are still popular today.  Very excited obvs.

The UK has a fantastic small press scene. To celebrate the people behind the imprints, and help out the writers that are looking to them for publication, we've asked a number of editors to share what they're working on - and what they're looking for. This week our featured publisher is Tickety Boo Press.

Could you tell us a bit about who you are and what you're doing?

Tickety Boo Press was started at the end of January, 2014 by Gary Compton, who remains our driving force and managing director. We're a small, independent publisher, and we publish Science Fiction (through our Space Dock imprint), Fantasy (through our Phantasia imprint), edgy, crazy, not-your-usual SpecFic thrillers (through our Critical Mass imprint), and Horror (through our Spectral Press imprint). We follow the traditional model of publishing, submissions, etc.