L.J. Scott: "Tomorrow's Past" was a Sci-Fi sounding way to say "Today", which is where this installment takes place, back in 1990 (though to be safe, I think I only ever referred to it as the 1990's). And this was the chance for me to use one of the ideas that had been rattling around my brain since I was 8 years old. Back in my home state of New Hampshire, there was a brief stretch of sidewalk in Concord were there was a 4' by 4' grid of 2" round green glass circles. These always intrigued me and I wondered what they were for. One trip to Concord, NH I saw them lit-up from below and it made me think of the transporter effect in Star Trek. When I came to Colorado in 1979, one of the first things to catch my attention was a similar stretch of this glass grid sidewalk right out in front of 'The Colorado Comic Book Company' and I fancifully concluded this must be were the transporter sends you!
So when the chance came to include current day Earth into our Doctor Who strip, I realized I finally had my chance to use this idea. The only problem was, I didn't know were there might be a similar grid in London to tie it all together. But as it turned out, a few months before this script was due, our Associate DWIS Newsletter Editor, Suzanne Palanuk was going on a trip to England with her family to visit more family and I asked her if she could do me a little favor and keep an eye out for one of those glass grids when she visited London. She did and we had the first reference photograph taken specifically for use in "Retirement?"
Page 1: I'm still very happy with the line "The trail of temporal disruption leads to this time." As I noted in the previous comments, this one line did a much better job at summing up what happened to the clapper of Big Ben then the several panels I had original planned for the end of installment 8.
If you can read the stenciling on the side of Brundo's rifle it says "Electro Crusher ]|[" with the style of the 3 the same used by Apple Computers to hint that Brundo needs a gun with the 'simplest user interface'.
Really, we shouldn't have made so much fun of Brundo as he does end up the hero of the piece... Oops! I probably shouldn't have given that away. (<-- studio robb, could you delete this line before posting my comments? Thanks!)
Page 2: We have another Start Trek reference as the Anti-Gravity grabs are from the Star Trek episode "The Changeling" and the actual address of that actual swath of sidewalk that Suzanne snapped for us. If you should visit London, take a look and see if it's still there for us, thanks!
Page 3: The
Once again, studio robb took my scenes of characters sitting around gabbing, and turned part of it into a flashback scene with Mel. Love it!
Page 4: The cameos on this page and the next aren't by chance. Tim Van Pelt of "The Colorado Comic Book Company" was the one who was willing to support the DWIS Newsletter with some ad revenue and featured it for sale in the Doctor Who sections of their downtown store and at their "Heroes & Dragons" location. He also drew up a series of brief comic strips for our later DWIS Newsletters as well.
Page 5: Tom Johnson, the DWIS Newsletters' desktop publishing guru, is somewhat shy of having his picture taken, so for him we have a cameo of his Jeep truck with his two dogs in back, Happy and Bullett. And yes, Bullett did have a habit pushing his head into your stomach as his way of saying 'Hi'!
studio robb: This story was an excuse for L. J. to
include our little home town of
I was curious as
to how "Doctor Who" would look like after having been on hiatus for 13 years,
so I checked out a trailer on the BBC’s homepage. I was totally impressed with
the way the special effects looked and then...there was a scene with a spaceship
that looked vaguely similar to Brundo’s crashing into
the Big Ben Bell tower! Yo! BBC! L. J. was first! MWAH-HA-HA-HA-HA!
...oh, and I was
*three* months late, this time... (><)
Page 1: The third season of the Seventh Doctor
(Season 26, the last season of "Doctor Who", for 13 years) had begun its run in
Page 3: For those unfamiliar with the *Sixth*
Doctor (as played by Colin Baker), Mel was a "paradox" companion, meaning the
way she joined The Doctor was a time paradox...The Sixth Doctor was on trial on
his home planet of Gallifrey, and The Sixth Doctor
needed a witness who could help clear his name, so The Doctor called one of his
companions, Mel as a witness --- from a *future* event.. Thanks to Mel’s
testimony (and other events), The Doctor was found innocent and, at the end of
the Trial, Mel left with The Doctor...in other words, Mel joined The Doctor at
the trial before the time she was to meet him...confusing, ain’t
it?
Mel
stuck around for the first couple of episodes of the Seventh Doctor’s tenure,
and then left when Ace joined the crew.
Having
said all that, there’s a paradox with this scene! In the series, The Doctor
never wore the chocolate brown jacket with Mel...wups. My bad.
As
for the Happy-Go-Lucky freighter pilot, you can’t see it because his name tag
is too small, but it reads, "B. Ver"...
Page 4: The
Ah...the
good old Colorado Comic Book Company, or "CoCoBoCo",
that was located in downtown
But
at the time of this story, CoCoBoCo was still alive
and well.
The
"Ninja Turtle" parody references truly dates this thing, don’t they?! (^.^)
Tim’s
dialogue was real. L. J. went to the store and asked him the exact questions
The Doctor asks, and Tim gave the responses you read here.
And
the No6 Rustic Hills bus really did go to Manitou Springs.
Page 5: Again, the Manitou Springs drawings
were taken from photos I had taken of the area.
The hiking Trail and Cog Railway up
L.
J. wanted to include her friend Tom Jackson in the story, as he was one of the
first people we knew to actually own a (primitive) scanner and was thus a help
to DWIS. But....Tom didn’t want to appear in the story, so L. J. put his truck
and dog in the story instead...
The
Summit House located on the top of
L.J. Scott: So I guess the change from the light jacket to the dark jacket firmly places this scavenger hunt between "Greatest Show In The Galaxy" and "Battlefield"...
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