It’s cupcakes and meetings galore in SFX Towers this week. Featuring your first look at Comic Heroes issue 3!
Being a journalist isn’t all it’s cracked up to be sometimes. Anyone who’s done time on a local paper will be able to regale you with tales of irate pensioners and the time they had to wade through a field of viscous cow deposits, but for many there’s nothing worse than a mind-numbing meeting. Luckily in SFX Towers, to be precise one floor down in the luxurious, space-age boardroom (it has a vidscreen for conference calls and everything!), even the meetings are fun, as the team discovered last Friday – putting our noggins together for six hours to decide the future shape of SFX .
The details are top secret of course but you might be happy to know there were bagels involved. And flapjacks. And brownies as every page, paragraph and boxout to feature regularly in the magazine came in for some (constructive) criticism. It’s the first step in a larger process with some big changes to come, just don’t expect to see much before the new year. We even put the question to our humble friends on Facebook , who responded in their dozens. Though we can tell you now those asking for less Doctor Who coverage are on to a loser.
As if that wasn’t enough creative mass meetings for one week (hmm, weren’t we saying the same thing last time we spoke?) last night Dave G, Dave B, Nick, Russell and Jordan moseyed on down to the pub in order to generate feature ideas for the website. It was work, honest! We got lots of great ideas out of it. Although in the cold light of day, ideas like “Up the Artoo” don’t seem quite as sparkling...
On Tuesday the SFX office took delivery of the latest issue of Comic Heroes (on sale today!), but upon opening the boxes like little giddy kiddies at Christmas, we were taken aback by the ghastly undead monstrosity staring back at us. Fear not, SFX readers haven’t taken to sending in rotting corpses (yet), it was the fantastic Walking Dead cover art gracing the magazine’s sleeve this issue. And it’s not the only time this month team SFX will have to brace themselves for a face full of braaaains, because as regular readers of FROM THE SFX OFFICE know, SFX 201 also has an image of The Walking Dead on its cover – this one from the live-action TV show. Can you tell we’re a little excited about it? This also means that it's your last chance till Wednesday to grab a copy (or two) of our anniversary SFX issue 200, don't miss it!
Rich is in a euphoric state having finished his Joss Whedon special, start saving those pennies Whedonites. Now there’s just SFX 202 to think about. Meanwhile it's Ian's first day back in the office after a week's holiday in New York, so he's more than a little dazed and confused, and glancing wearily from a four-foot high mail pile to an inbox crammed with hundreds of unread emails. Favourite thing in the Big Apple? The Manhattan skyline, as seen at night from Governor's Island (on 9/11). But the Star Wars -themed Jesus dress-up fridge magnets he found in a bookstore in Williamsburg came a close second!
Jordan and Dave G were both left a little nonplussed by this week’s True Blood season three finale and have come to the conclusion that, fantastic as it is, the show can’t do season finale’s for toffee. Whatever that means. Jordan’s also in a state of denial this week, refusing to watch the last episode of the brilliant Arrested Development in the vein hope they’ll finally announce that movie. He’s also very excited that the HD Ico/Shadow Of The Colossus collection has finally been confirmed for release having missed the pair first time round on PS2.
Russell’s football team scraped a 3-2 victory on Monday and the next day he celebrated by finally binning the grotesque chewing gum alien he’d been “developing” for the past several weeks. The office breathed a sigh of relief. Russell’s also been watching tons of The Avengers series five for review and was amused to listen to the commentary on the episode “Epic”, featuring that ultimate luvvie Peter Wyngarde. “He keeps telling these x-rated luvvie anecdotes about people like Noel Coward and Lucille Ball and they keep having to bleep him out! It’s hysterical.”
Ade is wearing his Doctor Who Fez and bowtie today (no, not really folks) but just like Worzel Gummidge who used to swap heads, has his Timelord nut on. Oooooh, if you could only see what he can see!
In breaking news this week’s FROM THE OFFICE was rudely interrupted by a fire alarm in SFX towers. Luckily no-one perished as the flames licked the stairs on our descent. That or it was just a false alarm, we weren’t really playing attention, just narked our flow had been interrupted. As if being a journalist wasn’t hard enough.
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Random quote of the week: “I’d rather chop my knees off with an axe”
Whose tie? (last week’s answer: they were Jon’s spotless kicks!)
