A compilation of material mostly originally published in This Way Up when it was a print fanzine from 2002 with a handful of articles from the early days of this blog.
Available to buy in paperback or Kindle ebook from Amazon
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Tomorrow Is Now
The Best of This Way Up 2002 -2014
Articles,
features and episode guides from the archives of the acclaimed fanzine/ blog
This Way Up are collected together in a unique volume.
Classic children’s TV: The Ghosts of Motley Hall, Watch with Mother, The
Feathered Serpent, Sky, Tom Grattan’s War, Richard Carpenter, Children’s and
post Watch with Mother serials
TV: Strange, Firefly, Nigel Kneale, Second Coming, Phillip Saville, The Comic Strip Presents, Lives & Loves of a She Devil, Adverts, Invasion Earth, Out of this World, Virtual Murder
Films: Alien, Handmade Films, Jaws,
Duck Soup
Theatre: War Horse, The Pillowman,
RUR
Miscellany: Pluto, La Machine, The
end of record shops and much more
Written by Tim Worthington, Sean
Alexander, OJ Wake, David Rolinson,
Matt Salusbury, John Connors
Intro from book:
In 2002
websites, forums and blogs were increasing exponentially as online became the
central place for fan activities. An odd time then, you’d think, to be starting
an old fashioned paper fanzine but that is what happened. The first issue of
This Way Up appeared early that year. It was free in an attempt to compete with
the Internet which of course ultimately you can’t but it gave the zine a head
start and it has thrived. I’m proud that the paper issues contained some of the
best fan writing of the period as well as shining a light on TV series that did
not receive the same attention as others.
Though officially
the editor I always felt that TWU worked best on spontaneity such as when I
bought the Ghosts of Motley Hall dvd
and couldn’t believe how brilliant it was. The planned 2 page feature thus
became a lavish episode guide and expanded into virtually a whole Richard
Carpenter themed issue. I can’t claim the credit for many of the subjects or
ideas that appeared in its pages over the years as I was able to draw on a
number of talented writers. We diversified a lot from just tv and film but the
common thread was always enthusiasm for the subject which marks out the best
fan writing.
Eventually TWU developed a better look to match the writing thanks to first
Oliver Wake and later Richard Farrell. We even eventually succumbed to the lure
of the digital world, evolving initially into a downloadable PDF before finally
becoming a blog. Yet I hope that the same fanzine spirit remains whatever the
format and whatever the design.
There are plenty of good things which had to be omitted if this book was to
avoid becoming unfeasibly enormous. However I hope we have captured the
vitality of the fanzine world within these pages. You may notice a lack
of Doctor Who material considering a
large part of the zine was devoted to the series; this is because I’m planning
a separate book devoted entirely to the show which is currently being grown in
my laboratory.
With a few exceptions most of the
material in this book is long since out of print and too detailed to work
online. Putting this book together is an attempt to preserve these articles for
the future in respect to their writers and also to give new fans a chance to
read them afresh as well as create a permanent record of the paper
issues. If someone from the future finds it: “Hello out there. Are there
flying cars yet? “
John Connors 2014
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