Episode 165: Chatting with Doc Wyatt about Alien Bones and Super Dinosaur

Episode 165: Chatting with Doc Wyatt about Alien Bones and Super Dinosaur

We were lucky enough to connect with Television and Film Producer Doc Wyatt a couple of weeks ago to discuss a couple of his newly released projects. While Doc's producing credits include films like Napoleon Dynamite, our discussion focused entirely on his work in comic books and animation. 

His most recent comic book Alien Bones is an adventure tale in the emerging "Dim Dark" genre. Tomorrow's post will include a review of the book as well as role playing game stats for some of the characters, which should give a suggestion of what I thought of the book. HINT: I liked it and so did my daughters.

Doc's a busy content creator, who's work includes a wide variety of animated series. If you like super heroes and/or Star Wars, it's likely that Doc and his writing partner Kevin Burke have worked on your favorite show. He's currently working on a number of series, but Episode 165 highlights his work on the recent Super Dinosaur series, which is an adaptation of a comic book by Robert Kirkman of The Walking Dead fame. Super Dinosaur is a mash up of Science Fiction, Super Hero, and Hollow Earth tropes that is currently airing on Amazon Prime.

I don't want to reveal too much of the interview here, but here are a couple of things we touch on during the interview. 

The Dim Dark genre and books like the new Warhammer Adventures series. Let's just say that if you like Alien Bones, you'll like Warhammer Adventures and vice versa.

The Spelljammer setting for the Dungeons & Dragons role playing game, a setting of wild fantasy adventures in outer space.

Season 20 of Doctor Who featuring Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor, and the Enlightenment storyline in particular.

The classic Vincent Price horror film Witchfinder General and the comic book of the same name by Doc Wyatt.

The short lived Jeph Hephner series Agent X that ran on TNT in the early 2010s.

The amazingly entertaining Disney Junior series Octonauts that my family loved so much I had to order toys from England as Christmas presents.

The old show Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, which is the live action adult equivalent of Octonauts, cool ships and all.

The Marvel comic book Death's Head featuring a character originally published by Marvel's British Comic book division in the 1980s.

 

It's a great conversation and we'd love for you to listen.

Daleks Battle Cybermen in Doctor Who: Exterminate Miniatures Game Starter Set

In 2015, Warlord Games announced that they had acquired a license to produce games and game related material for the Doctor Who television show. Warlord Games is one of the premiere miniature gaming companies in the market today with a catalog that features some of the best games on the market including: Bolt Action!, Beyond the Gates of Antares, Konflict '47, and a long list of rules sets for various historical and fictional settings.

Warlord Games was founded in 2007 when company founders, John Stallard and Paul Sawyer who had experience working for Games Workshop, decided to create a new miniatures company that offered high quality plastic miniatures for overlooked genres. Their first product was a set of 28mm plastic Roman Legionnaires, which was successful enough for the company to continue and grow. And grow they have. In the decade since their founding, Warlord Games has expanded into creating rules for almost every historical era and two fictional settings. They produce high quality rules and high quality miniatures for gaming and have a focus on creating affordable games.  This focus has inspired them to create a line of print and play paper wargames as well as their miniatures games.

Doctor Who: Exterminate is Warlord Games first major game license release, though Warlord Games will be releasing products for 2000AD properties in the near future. The Doctor Who: Exterminate starter set retails for £35.00 and includes two factions (Daleks and Cybermen) as well as rules for using the Doctor and Companions in play. Miniatures sets for the 10th and 12th Doctor, as well as a number of other factions, can be purchased separately. It should be noted that the rules needed to play the Doctor or alternate factions are included in the base boxed set and only the miniatures need to be purchased separately.

I'm looking forward to seeing how this game plays, but I doubt that it will be displacing 7TV as my "go to" game for 60s, 70s, and 80s BBC/ITV science fiction and espionage game play. That's the great thing about products like this though, you buy them for the parts you want (either miniatures or rules) and use other systems for the parts you don't. 

It's a nice looking set, and I'll likely be pre-ordering it when it comes available in the US store or I decide I'm willing to pay exorbitant international shipping.

Reverb Gamers 10 - Doctor Who?

Have you ever played a character originally from a book/TV/movie? How did the character change from the original as you played? If not, who would you most like to play? (Courtesy of Atlas Games. Visit us at www.atlas-games.com)

The most recent time that I played a character originally from a book/TV/movie was at last year's Dead of Winter Invitational(it's a local horror RPG gaming convention in the Bay Area put on by the Terror Rabbit). I was asked to play The Doctor. Who? Oh you know...

It was the morning game at the very beginning of the convention. Everyone but one other person was already around the table waiting. I took the empty seat closest to the door and waiting for me there was a fez(fez's are cool. I wear a fez now), a sonic screwdriver(a replica prop of the 11th Doctor's "magic wand"), and a picture of Matt Smith. So I sat don't and thought "Geronimo."(see I'm already getting into character). The GM felt it was important for his story that The Doctor be played by one of the players. We had the options of all the canon characters from Season 6 Doctor Who including (Spoilers!). No one had seen a lot of the show except for me, I was the person at the table with the most Whovian cred.

I think the major difference for me playing the doctor is that I had absolutely no idea what was going on in the story and was essentially winging it by making stuff up and trying to sound like I did(okay, it wasn't different at all). It was a lot of fun. We were playing the cubicle 7 role playing game which means that the Doctor is capable of anything and everything put has no plot points and really has to rely on the Companion players to move the story along, even when it means watching other players fail rolls that the Doctor could easily make. It is a strange balance that replicates the TV show well I feel. It is a little unusual for an RPG though, for one player to have all the skill power(I guess it's akin to high level 3.5 D&D in that way but in this case the skilled character isn't driving the story at the expense of other players).