Muskrat Ramblings
Paul Cornell’s Very Clever Doctor Who Apples to Apples Set
posted by John

In times like these, people start far too many articles with the phrase “In times like these.”

They also use “Am I right?” and “Who’s with me?” much too often. Especially on Twitter.

Am I right? Who’s with me?

But a nice thing I’ve grokked since joining Twitter is that it lets me meet far more clever, interesting people than I otherwise would, these days. (By which I mean “being a generally stay-at-home-midwestern-dadda/cartoonist, who-doesn’t-get-to-as-many-conventions-as-he-once-did, in-the-day.”)

(”In the day” is also used too often, if you ask me. As is “If you ask me.”)

One Very Clever person I’ve been privileged to meet on Twitter is Paul Cornell, writer, wit, raconteur and cricket lover. He’s written for Doctor Who, he’s written Batman, he’s written Captain Britain, and he’s cleverer than an entire pack of foxes at a Clever Convention. But you should know this already.

If that’s not enough for you, he’s also beloved of the CONvergence folks. Which is darned high praise.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, the fantastic Mr. Cornell dropped me a line, saying he was doing a set of Apples to Apples Doctor Who cards, and might I – as the illustrator behind Apples to Apples – sketch a little something for his blog when he posted it.

I was thrilled to be asked, and instead of a sketch, I did up the cartoon you see on the site today. I mean, who wouldn’t leap at the chance to draw Tom Baker, a Cyberman and a Dalek – a FREAKING DALEK!!! – playing a silly little card game, when offered the chance?

I note this to explain the apparent random nature of today’s cartoon. But also, it’s a chance for me to plug Paul’s rather brilliant Doctor Who Apples to Apples red apple card set.

You’ll have to print this up yourself, of course. And I’m not sure the inkjet blank Apples to Apples cards that Out of the Box once produced are still available in quantity, anywhere. But I’d love to hear from anyone who creates their own deck and gives it a go. Especially over this New Year’s Weekend.

You know: in times like these.

Who’s with me? Am I Right?

PAUL CORNELL’S RATHER BRILLIANT DOCTOR WHO APPLES TO APPLES SET
by Paul Cornell

Today’s blog is going to be a bit boggling for those who haven’t played Apples to Apples, a wonderful party card game that I was first introduced to at Convergence (the world’s best convention TM). Since the game’s now being sold in the mass market in the UK, and indeed, being pushed a bit in the Christmas rush, I feel rather more confident about presenting the basics for an absolutely non-official, no money to be made, Doctor Who version. Apples to Apples works by using two packs of cards, green cards, which have adjectives printed on them, and red cards, which show nouns or phrases. The game is about finding the green card which best describes a played red card, and that’s where the hilarity lies. Doing a Doctor Who version would be less hilarious, I feel, if the green cards were changed to be more Who-ish, with adjectives like ‘dimensionally transcendental’, so my version keeps the green cards as is, also reflecting DW’s mainstream nature. So a player will indeed have to decide if the Sensorites are ‘quaint’.

Thus, my 162 red cards, complete with their ‘flavour text’ descriptions (which don’t really describe the subject unless it’s very obscure), would be:

The First Doctor: Not a mountain goat, and he prefers walking to any day.
The Second Doctor: Oh my word!
The Third Doctor: A cosmic yo yo.
The Fourth Doctor: What?! Ah!
The Fifth Doctor: Interesting!
The Six Doctor: Repeat three times, loudly.
The Seventh Doctor: Burnt toast and bus stations.
The Eighth Doctor: Half human on his mother’s side.
The Ninth Doctor: Coming to get you!
The Tenth Doctor: He likes a little shop.
The Eleventh Doctor: Geronimo!
The Master: That jackanapes.
Davros: Made the Daleks in his own image.
The Daleks: Exterminate! Do not deviate!
Skaro: From the Lake of Mutations to the Petrified Jungle, the Dalek home planet.
The Kaleds: Kind of fated to become the Dalek race.
The Cybermen: You will be like us.
Mondas: Cyberman home, Earth’s twin, with it’s own Isle of Wight.
The Tardis: With a swimming pool, a boot cupboard and a typewriter control surface.
The Tardis food machine: You can get goo that tastes like bacon and eggs.
The Key to Time: A crystal that can stop everything so the universe can be fixed.
K-9: The shooty dog thing.
Playing Doctor Who in the playground: Who were you?
The Fourth Doctor’s Scarf: Made by a witty little knitter.
The Song of the Ood: Ood mood music, made psychically.
The Blinovitch Limitation Effect: You can’t mess with your own history (except when you can).
Luke Smith: He’s not a real boy. But he is Sarah Jane’s son.
Captain Jack Harkness: Does time travel the long way round.
Torchwood: Have never bothered with a pension plan.
The Slitheen: Always just a zipper away from revealing themselves.
The Sontarans: Sontar-ha!
UNIT: United… Something… Intelligence Taskforce.
Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart: Enjoy saying his full name.
River Song: The Doctor’s wife… oh, isn’t she?
Rory Williams: No longer a Roman, or made of plastic.
Rose Tyler: Bad wolves like chips.
Martha Jones: A proper doctor.
Mr. Smith: Sarah Jane’s computer partner.
Gallifrey: Seems to produce its share of renegades.
Christmas Special: A BBC institution.
The Archimandrite’s Hat: From ‘Androids of Tara’, extraordinary millinery.
The Scarecrows: There’s got to be a word for that lolloping they do.
Amy Pond: Come along, Pond!
The Sensorites: The Ood must hate it that their neighbours are psychic.
Spoilers: It sounds better coming from River Song.
My First Episode: You’re old enough to have seen ‘An Unearthly Child’, right?
My Sonic Screwdriver: Could it be a bit more sonic?
My Favourite Companion: Who would you take on adventures?
My Favourite Story: Or the one you’ll admit to.
My Doctor Who Fantasy: Could be a what, could be a who.
My Squee Moment: When you screamed at the screen in delight.
My Fan Fiction Experience: Do we want to hear about your Adric fic?
My Opinions on Dalek Design: No, go on, tell us.
My Doctor Who Impersonations: Your Mum says they’re very good.
My Merchandise Collection: Do you have a special shelf?
My Convention Experience: What, really, in the elevator?
My Cosplay Moment: As Captain Jack, in the library, with the lead piping.
My Green Cathedral: I could play all day in it.
Bessie: The Third Doctor’s car. I’m betting ‘yellow’ isn’t in the pack.
Allons-y: Redirects to ‘Tenth Doctor’ on Wikipedia.
Donna Noble: Watch it, spaceman!
Executive Producer: One day it’ll be you.
Question Mark Umbrella: The Seventh Doctor never seemed to need it for rain.
The Rod of Rassilon: Controls great power on Gallifrey.
Doctor Who Annuals: Used to be the only book about the show.
Terry Nation: He created the Daleks, and Blake’s 7.
Silurians: The Earth’s theirs, we’re just squatters.
The Peking Homunculus: Otherwise known as Mr. Sin in ‘Talons of Weng Chiang’.
The Pandorica: A trap for a Time Lord.
The Meddling Monk: Didn’t seem bothered about the laws of time.
Adric: He had a badge for mathematical excellence.
The Zygons: Enjoyed life in Loch Ness, organised local charity functions.
The Ogri: Every stone circle is probably them.
The Zarbi: An actor inside every ant.
Venom Grubs: The grubs don’t work, as The Verve nearly said.
Jelly Babies: Would you care for one?
UNIT Dating: Well, we don’t know what they got up to, do we?
Running Down Corridors: About a whole episode’s worth in the old days.
The Last Great Time War: They’d know it’s the last one.
The End of the World: The episode or the concept.
Jago and Litefoot: The impressario and the doctor from ‘Talons of Weng Chiang’.
Being Exterminated: You can get a cream for that now.
Sonic Lipstick: Careful with the settings.
Multi-Doctor Stories: So there are five of me now!
Regeneration: When two becomes three.
Venusian Aikido: hai!
Quarries: Sometimes not standing in for alien planets.
The Fall of Troy: Is there a Doctor in the horse?
Time Paradoxes: I hope I never have to write another one.
Quarks: They had strangeness and charm.
The Weeping Angels: Don’t look away from this card.
Alternate Universes: Where there are always dirigibles, for some reason.
Vincent Van Gogh: Go on, describe his troubles with a funny noun.
Kroll: Kroll! Kroll! Kroll!
Harry Sullivan: Only qualified to work on sailors.
Movellans: Like the seventies never ended.
Reversing the polarity of the neutron flow: Can solve anything.
The Miniscope: The galactic zoo from ‘Carnival of Monsters’.
Getting Knocked Unconscious: Tom Baker does it three times an episode.
The Fast Return Switch: Written in biro on the Tardis console.
The Destruction of Atlantis: You choose which version.
Target Novelisations: Often by Terrance Dicks.
Kissing the Doctor: Yuck, soppy stuff!
Screaming: Something companions used to do.
Waistcoats: Most Doctors favour them.
Spraining Your Ankle: Only happened three times in the whole series.
Slash Fiction: We’ve all written some adult fiction involving series characters.
Chameleon Circuit: He could fix it if he wanted to.
A Junkyard in Trotter’s Lane: Where we first met the Doctor.
The Cloister Bell: Goes boom when there’s doom.
Event One: The start of the universe.
The Panopticon: Named after a prison.
The Next Doctor: Carried a real screwdriver.
The Ark: At least they preserved a small elephant.
The BBC Radiophonic Workshop: Where bleeps come from.
The Spacetime Vortex: Seen in the title sequence.
Omega: Born Gallifrey, Died Amsterdam.
Frock Coats: The Doctor tends to favour them.
Hypnotism: The Doctor’s skills in this vary wildly.
Autons: Plastic but fun.
Traken: Where Nyssa comes from.
Russell T. Davies: The man who brought back Doctor Who.
Steven Moffat: Current Executive Producer.
Rani: At least three characters called that.
The Eruption of Vesuvius: You have to save somebody.
Bigger on the Inside than the Outside: To put it simply.
Queen Elizabeth: We think we’ve worked out what happened.
The Doctor’s Dancing: He could have danced all night.
Madame De Pompadour: The girl in the fireplace.
Ianto Jones: Made the coffee.
Retcon: The drug that… erm…
Question Marks: On the Doctor’s clothes, sometimes.
Wearing a Fez: He does that now.
Giant Maggots: They’re on the slag heap. I think they’re breeding.
E Space: Not like our own universe. Cheaper.
The Mara: Not just a big snake prop.
The Mona Lisa: Or possibly in the plural.
Pete Tyler: Always crashing in the same car.
Cat Nuns: Armed and fabulous.
Hello Sweetie: Should be on a t-shirt.
Sally Sparrow: The angels have the phone box.
Being Ginger: The Doctor would like to be.
The Vashta Nerada: Stay away from the shadows.
Sarah Jane Smith: The defender of Earth.
Gold: What Cybermen are afraid of. Well, one of the many things.
Talking Straight to Camera: Tom and Matt both do it.
‘Doctor in Distress’: A charity record to save Doctor Who.
The Great Fire of London: The Doctor’s responsible for almost everything.
Janis Thorns: What Leela uses to kill things.
Bad Wolf Bay: Looms large in Rose’s legend.
Mickey Smith: Not just a tin dog.
Wilfred Mott: Was in the Paras, you know.
The Adipose: Made of fat, like so many good things.
The Shadow Proclamation: Were the law in the universe.
The Judoon: Fo Mo Po Ro Sho!
The Matrix: Not that one, where Time Lords go when they die.
DVD Easter Eggs: Just click all over the menu.
The Family of Blood: Not unjustly dealt with at all.
The Not We: How the Kinda tribe describe outsiders.
Paris: ‘City of Death’ as we call it, to the French tourist board’s chagrin.
Pure Historicals: Stories with no monsters.
The Yeti: The ones with the spheres in their chests.

(Apples to Apples is (T) and (C) the Mattel corporation)

Muskrat out,

In case today’s strip seems a bit random, check out DORK TIDINGS, in which I blog a bit about the apparent random nature of today’s cartoon, and how rather brilliant Paul Cornell is.

During December, 2010, Dork Tower is switching to a Tuesday-Thursday updates, due to the holidays, and that I’ve an extremely cute two-year old daughter WHO MUST BE TAUGHT THE VALUE OF “A CHRISTMAS STORY.”

We’ll be returning to Monday-Wednesday-Friday updates in the first week in January, 2011.

Hope the New Year is grand for EVERYBODY

During December, 2010, Dork Tower is switching to a Tuesday-Thursday updates, due to the holidays, and that I’ve an extremely cute two-year old daughter WHO MUST BE TAUGHT THE VALUE OF “A MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL.”

We shall be returning to Monday-Wednesday-Friday updates in the first week in January, 2011.

We apologize for the cartoonist trying to get a life.

During December, 2010, Dork Tower is switching to a Tuesday-Thursday updates, due to the holidays, and that I’ve an extremely cute two-year old daughter WHO MUST BE TAUGHT THE VALUE OF “A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS.”

We shall be returning to Monday-Wednesday-Friday updates in the first week in January, 2011.

We apologize for the cartoonist trying to get a life.

The next three weeks, Dork Tower is switching to a Tuesday-Thursday updates, due to the holidays, and that I’ve an extremely cute two-year old daughter WHO MUST BE TAUGHT THE VALUE OF “A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS.”

We shall be returning to Monday-Wednesday-Friday updates in the first week in January.

We apologize for the cartoonist trying to get a life.

Muskrat Ramblings
Igor needs our help!
posted by John

I hope that those times when I really ask for your help are few and far between.

I also hope that, for the most part, when I ask for a Tweet to be RT’ed, or an online poll to be shamelessly manipulated, you grin, and go to it with the good humor intended.

This is different.

I need your help. Specifically, I need your help, helping my friend Scott.

In case you don’t know, my friend Scott Olman is the inspiration for Dork Tower’s Igor. In a sense, he IS Dork Tower. Had I never know Scott, there’s a good chance Dork Tower would be enormously different from what it is today. Scott’s – and by extension, Igor’s – love of life, and ability to laugh in the face of hard times, has been an inspiration both to my work and (more importantly) to me.

Scott is a cancer survivor, and has had struggles with health issues over the last decade. A few years ago, he almost lost his leg. For a while, he was driving to Milwaukee almost on a daily basis for treatments that – though painful and costly – eventually saved his leg.

Fortunately, Scott and his wife, Dawn, have health insurance. But here’s the catch – with a 20% deductible, they still ended up having to pay more than $50,000 for the treatments. And that wiped out all of their savings. And then some.

Now, there’s been a relapse, and Scott has to return to Milwaukee, for continued treatments. As a result of this, Scott and Dawn’s financial situation has turned from on-the-edge to fully, terrifyingly over the precipice.

Now, apart from new medical expenses, they also face the very real threat of eviction, with back-rent owed.

It’s not as if they’re not trying: Dawn holds down a couple of jobs, and Scott’s been job-hunting every day, though he’s had no luck for a while. This is not a great time to job-hunt, anyway. So he’s sold the majority of his gaming collection (along with many other things) just to help make ends meet.

Here’s a small part of what I’d like to do to help.

I don’t sell the covers of anything I’ve ever created – not a comic book, not a collection, not a game. I just don’t. There’s not one out there. They’re special, to me. But to help Scott with his medical expenses – hell, to help Scott and Dawn with their back-rent, and, you know, NOT GET EVICTED, I’m selling one of my personal favorite pieces: the original artwork for Munchkin Zombies.

Click on the image or here for a larger version. This is a BIG piece – 14″ x 17″, pen and ink on bristol board, and it’s REALLY nice.

The high bidder for the artwork will ALSO get a special Munchkin rule that ties into the Igor Fund, written JUST FOR THEM, by Munchkin creator Steve Jackson himself.

BUT THAT’S NOT ALL! I’ll also draw the special rule card up, on a blabk Munchkin card, and that will be included in the package. You’ll be able to play it in ANY game of Munchkin, to the extreme jealous of your co-Munchkins.

All proceeds from this auction will go directly to Scott and Dawn. I realize the $2,000 “buy-out” amount may be a bit of wishful thinking, but who knows? I *may* have a multi-millionaire follower in the Army of Dorkness, and if so, well, hey, maybe they’d like to act like a multi-millionaire RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE!

But $2,000 is the goal to shoot for, between everything. “Everything?” you ask? Well, I’ve also encouraged Scott to set up a donation page on his blog. Asking strangers for money is never easy – at least not for people like Scott and Dawn, who want to work for their money. But this is important, and this is necessary.

I know that times are tough all around, and that many people across the country are going through stuff that’s as bad as Scott now is. But Scott IS Igor, and without Igor, I dread to think what my career would have ended up as. Scott’s not just my inspiration, he’s also my friend. I want to help my friend out.

So please, if you’ve ever had a moment where Igor’s made you smile, bid on the Munchkin Zombies cover. If that’s out of your range, consider dropping something – anything – Scott and Dawn’s way. It doesn’t have to be a lot. But the Army of Dorkness is sizable, warm-hearted, and every little bit – even just a couple of bucks – helps.

You can bid on the Munchkin Zombies cover art HERE.

You can make donations directly to Dawn and Scott HERE. There’s a button in the upper-right corner of Scott’s blog, to contribute to the Dawn and Scott Help Fund!

I realize the economic times we’re in. Please don’t worry if you can’t afford to help out right now. But if you can, well…I’d deeply appreciate it.

And who knows? If we can reach our goal of $2,000, I’ll come up with something special, for everyone who helped out…

Just remember: YOU could be the ONLY person in the world to own a Munchkin cover – AND you’d be helping out Dork Tower’s Igor – ermmmm…I mean, “my friend Scott” – at the same time!

Muskrat out,

The next three weeks, Dork Tower is switching to a Tuesday-Thursday updates, due to the holidays, and that I’ve an extremely cute two-year old daughter WHO MUST BE TAUGHT THE VALUE OF “A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS.”

We shall be returning to Monday-Wednesday-Friday updates in the first week in January.

We apologize for the cartoonist trying to get a life.