Your Quest is Over

In 1982, the first Fighting Fantasy book, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, was written, marking the birth of a series that would popularise the concept of adventure gamebooks in the UK. The book was co-authored by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone; this was accomplished by literally having Livingstone write the first half of the book and Jackson the second. After the two sides were bought together, Jackson noted that, quite by chance, there were 399 numbered sections in the book in total, and quickly added in an extra section to bring it up to a more aesthetically pleasing 400. This number immediately became the standard for all future books in the series, more or less, with the phrase "turn to 400" becoming synonymous with victory for readers.

Section 400 of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain has one more interesting thing about it.

The Warlock of Firetop Mountain is no more and you are now the owner of the Sorcerer's riches. At least a thousand Gold Pieces, jewellery, diamonds, rubies and pearls are in the chest. Hidden under these you find the Warlock's spell book and as you leaf through the pages, you realise that this tome is probably more valuable than all the treasure. Instructions are given for the control of all the secrets -- and the creatures -- of Firetop Mountain. With this book, unlimited power is yours and the safety of your return to the village is assured. Or, if you would prefer, you could remain as master of the domain of Firetop Mountain...

Vital Statistics

In the very first Fighting Fantasy book, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, if you reach the battle with the titular Warlock and choose to fight him at his strongest, then he has SKILL 11 STAMINA 18. However, there are multiple ways of approaching this final encounter, including one that significantly weakens him to SKILL 7 STAMINA 12, and one where you can even bypass fighting him entirely. The book was co-authored by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone, but Jackson was responsible for writing the last battle.

Ten years later, though, Livingstone was the sole author of the sequel, Return to Firetop Mountain...

...and he remembered to give the resurrected Warlock the same statistics as his strongest possible version from the original book. A nice touch I'd never noticed before now.

My Way or the Driveway

Which is the first episode of The Simpsons to use the short version of the opening sequence, the one which goes from the title in the clouds straight to the driveway?

If you watch the episodes in sequence on DVD, or on Disney+, or on any other format you may care to think of, or look at any online reference list, then that will say it was "Lisa's Substitute" from late in the second season, originally broadcast in the US on 25 April 1991.

That episode was certainly the first one that was always intended to feature that intro. It was not, however, the first time it had been seen by those watching the episodes when they first aired.

Home Video

I usually save pictures from gigs for other parts of the internet, but these photos of Lucy Dacus' acoustic set at the Trinity Centre (matinee show) last Sunday turned out quite nicely, it was a fun show that really cheered me up, and, hey, they break up all the posts on the minutiae of British comics.

Fool If You Think It's Over

This is the April Fool-themed Desperate Dan story which took up the cover and first two inside pages of issue #2837 of the Dandy, dated April 6th, 1996. There are two very strange things about it, and one thing which turned out to be less strange than I first thought.

First of all -- how did the scriptwriter apparently forget about the existence of the month of March? Is this a deliberate mistake tying in with the nature of the story? That is a question I can't definitively answer, but the second very strange thing is: what is Dennis the Menace doing in this story, why does he disappear right after the front cover, and why does he look decidedly out of place with the rest of the strip, as if he was drawn in later? Obviously, yes, the explanation is that it's also April Fool-related, but if we look at the cover story of issue #2803 of the Beano, dated April 6th, 1996, all becomes clear:

A Major Milestone in Ludicrously Niche's History

I discovered this evening that this blog is now cited on the Wikipedia page for adventure gamebooks, and I would like it on record that it wasn't even added by me

Like a Goddamn Vampire

Dracula Dobbs enjoyed a stint of just over four years in Buster, launching in May 1987 as part of a major revamp of the comic which retired several long-serving characters and introduced some new ones. It is notable as making a permanent change to its status quo at one point, and it is an alteration which really tickles me for some reason.

The setup of the strip seems pretty self-explanatory: every night at sundown, Dennis Dobbs turns into a vampire and roams the streets looking for not blood, but food (the term 'food vampire' was later created), usually from his local takeaways and street vendors. No explanation was ever given for this transformation beyond a mention in the first strip that he was 'born at midnight' (implying this has been happening since the day he was born, which if anything seems like an even more interesting idea for a comic strip); in that introductory instalment Dracula Dobbs is already an established terror of his neighbourhood. In the very first strip (which can be seen here) Dennis appears to be fully cognisant of his double life, and it's implied it doesn't happen every single night, but both of these were retconned pretty sharpish; by late '87, only Dennis' parents know his secret, and he transforms every night.

A question which I don't in any way have the answer to: is it possible the strip was originally conceived as a boy who turns into a werewolf, and got changed to a vampire without anything else about the setup being altered? People don't generally only turn into vampires at night, and there does seem to be some insinuation in the first strip that the change only happens at the full moon which might be a hangover from an earlier incarnation.

In any event, DD was drawn by Nigel Edwards; I like Edwards' work, but it seems to be particularly suited to the fantasy-horror setup of this story, and it's a shame he didn't get to do more strips on similar themes. As mentioned earlier, in the issue of Buster dated 22nd September 1990 the strip got a bit of continuity -- unusual in a British humour comic, but maybe not that unusual -- when something changed about the setup. Before reading on, see if you can guess what.

Timeframes III

Sometimes, when I find a pile of old comics in a charity shop, I like to go through them and pull out a few things of interest.

This particular pile of Dandys from the dawn of the 90s was a particularly lucky find, as they clear up a few mysteries from the previous times I did this.