The SFX Weekly Spurious Awards #2
More random oddness from the Sci-Fi and fantasy week, including The Day Of The Gonads
ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERY OF THE WEEK
While doing a little bit of digging around the net in the name of research, SFX unearthed a classic Penguin book cover for The Day Of The Triffids from the ’60s that reinvented the walking plants as a bunch of hairy ’nads, crowned by something that would have got Freud very excited. Did the artist ask what the book was about and the commissioning editor told him, “Oh, just some sci-fi bollocks.”
BEST SUBSTITUTE TEACHER OF THE WEEK
Walter in Fringe, freaking out a bunch of elementary school kids: “When the Victoria, the last surviving ship, returned to its harbour of departure after the first circumnavigation of the earth, only 18 of the original 237 men were on board… They all died, young lady. Horrible and most likely painful death. You see, when you open new doors, there is a price to pay. Now imagine… tonight, you look under your bed, and, lo and behold, you find a monster! And you’re immediately eaten. Now, if you hadn’t looked for the monster, you wouldn’t have found it and you’d still be happy in your beds, instead of being slowly digested in the stomach sack of the creature. But, with any luck, your sister or your brothers might have heard your screams, and your endeavour will serve as a valuable lesson to them.”
NEATEST GRAVEDIGGING OF THE WEEK
And the award goes to Ben, from Lost, who, despite being equipped with only a piece of bamboo for a shovel, manages to dig a rectangular hole of awesome mathematical precision. Well, it is going to be his own grave, so you’d expect some pride in his work. Or maybe he’s just had a lot of practice?
JOKE THAT’S WEARING A LITTLE BIT THIN OF THE WEEK
The best things about Pride And Prejudice And Zombies were the title and the cover. The central gag – rewriting the Jane Austen classic with added undead – was a pretty cool idea, but seriously ran out of steam about halfway through the novel. That didn’t stop it becoming a massive bestseller, so now, of course, we get the sequel – Dawn Of The Dreadfuls – along with the promise of Android Karenina to come, and the sudden realisation that we’re going to have to review this sort of pish for years to come. Why can’t they just come up with a bunch of titles, commission the covers, then release them in a big art book format and leave it at that?
LEAST INTERESTING SFX.CO.UK NEWS STORY OF THE WEEK
This week’s winner for the least number of hits on the site goes to Smallville Duo To Adapt Existence 2.0, aka, Writers From A Show No-One Cares About Any More Adapt A Comic You’ve Never Heard Of…
MAN OF HIS WORD OF THE WEEK
A while back Supernatural’s Misha Collins announced on his Twitter that there was a screening in New York of a film he produced called Loot. He wasn’t going to be there, but he said if any fans wanted to go along, he’d reward them if they later provided proof that they’d attended. Apparently he’s a man of his word, as one of the women who attended the screening discovered this week when she received this letter, and some chocolate truffles made by the man himself. SFX loves the way he kicks off the letter, “Dear Sir or Madman”. We assume it’s not a typo…
MOST INAPPROPRIATELY DODGY IRISH CHARACTER OF THE WEEK
Okay it’s not the worse Irish accent we’ve heard in Sci-Fi in recent years – that prize has to go to the Irish dockers in the second season of Heroes, with Boreanaz’s attempts in Angel a close runner up – but gambling, roguish man-witch Patrick (because all Irish characters are called Patrick or Murphy) in the Supernatural episode “The Curious Case Of Dean Winchester” was unforgivably ropey, and in an episode that aired in the UK on St Patrick’s Day, as well.
