A Baffled Guardian Writer Discovers the Autobahn – and the Best German Roadtrip Songs

In the Guardian, I came across a piece entitled “‘A road trip like no other’: my epic drive on Kraftwerk’s Autobahn” by one Tim Jonze, associate editor of culture. It’s a long and rambling essay about Jonze travelling to Germany on the trail of the band Kraftwerk and their song “Autobahn”, which also includes driving on the Autobahn. If you want to listen to the Kraftwerk song, the three and a half minute single version (and the one you’ll hear on the radio) is here and the full twenty-three minute version is here, if you want to torture yourself or really like Kraftwerk (I don’t, but more about that later).

If you’re German and the Autobahn is not some kind of mythical experience for you, but just a way of getting from A to B, the whole piece is rather silly. Indeed, I normally don’t even use the word “Autobahn” in English (unless referring to a specific Autobahn), but prefer the more generic “highway” or “motorway”, because that’s what an Autobahn is, a multi-lane road optimised for long distance, higher speed traffic. Just because Germans were the first to come up with the concept – and as Tim Jonze correctly points out, the Autobahn network was planned during the Weimar Republic and not invented by Hitler, though the bulk of the early construction happened during the Third Reich – doesn’t mean it’s unique to us. Many countries have similar highway networks and indeed there are places where a German Autobahn seamlessly turns into the Dutch or Belgian or Austrian or Swiss or Danish or French or Polish equivalent.

Tim Jonze starts his essay by waxing lyrical about Kraftwerk and their importance as pioneers of electronic music. Now I don’t dispute that Kraftwerk were important pioneers of electronic music. That said, I never liked Kraftwerk. Part of it may be that I’m just a little too young to appreciate them – the “Autobahn” song came out when I was one and a half years old. And by the time I was old enough to actively appreciate music, synthesizers and electronic music were no longer as new and innovative as they had been in 1974. In fact, the time of my musical awakening were the 1980s, the heyday of synth pop. It’s a clear case of the pioneers being eclipsed by those who came along later and did the thing better.

However, as Tim Jonze finds out when he is wandering in the footsteps of Kraftwerk in Düsseldorf or at least tries and is frustrated by the lack of memorial plaques or historical markers or locals caring about the band, I’m not the only German person who doesn’t like Kraftwerk very much. Most Germans don’t. Kraftwerk is a very clear case of a German band that’s more popular outside Germany. Rammstein is another example and to a lesser degree the Scorpions.

A large part of the reason for this are the lyrics. Whenever I heard Kraftwerk songs on the radio growing and occasionally saw the band on TV growing up, I always thought, “That song is so stupid.” Because the monotonous lyrics of Kraftwerk songs do sound stupid, when you actually understand them. Now Kraftwerk obviously doesn’t have a monopoly on stupid lyrics sung in German – not in the country that gave birth to “Da Da Da” by Trio (which nine-year-old Cora thought was as stupid as any Kraftwerk song and which also became an unlikely worldwide hit). However, if you look at the Trio live performance on the popular music show Hitparade, you can see that they’re clearly taking the piss.

BTW, I just checked if Kraftwerk ever performed on Hitparade – the show only played German language songs, so they would have been qualified – and they did in 1978, singing “Wir sind the Roboter”. Bonus points for poor baffled host Dieter Thomas Heck trying to explain what a vocoder is. In retrospect, I feel sorry for Dieter Thomas Heck, who only wanted to present sappy German Schlager music – there’s a reason Hitparade only featured songs sung in German, namely to keep anything too modern and newfangled out – and found himself faced with increasingly strange music and performers.

Unlike Trio and many of the other weird bands and performers that baffled Dieter Thomas Heck on Hitparade, Kraftwerk didn’t seem to have the slightest sense of humour. Indeed, looking at the vintage photos of the band accompanying the Guardian article, my reaction was they look like “Spießer”, stuffy bourgeois arseholes (and Tim Jonze confirms that the founders were basically rich kids, because otherwise they couldn’t even have afforded the pricy synthesizers). And that’s probably why many Germans never liked them and preferred the anarchic punk and German New Wave bands. It’s telling that when Tim Jonze asks people in Düsseldorf about Kraftwerk, everybody instead mentions the local punk band “Die Toten Hosen”, whom I personally also vastly prefer to Kraftwerk. Check out “Hier kommt Alex”, which was inspired by A Clockwork Orange and almost seems like a counter-argument to Kraftwerk. Not to mention that in later years, Kraftwerk was more notable for lawsuits and legal disputes with former members and producers than for their music.

However, Tim Jonze doesn’t just traipse around Düsseldorf on the trail of Kraftwerk, he also wants to experience the Autobahn itself. Cue the deep sigh that a British or American or generally foreign tourist wanting to experience the Autobahn usually elicits among Germans. Because frankly, a lot of them are menaces who drive too fast without being used to it, in cars they’re not familiar with and on stretches of Autobahn or under conditions where driving extremely fast is not a great idea.

And indeed, Jonze’s first attempts to capture that Autobahn experience occur on various Autobahnen in the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region (his trip started in Düsseldorf after all), which will certainly give him an Autobahn experience, but not the one he craves. Because as I explain here and here, driving through the Ruhrgebiet and the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region is not very pleasant, because the area is extremely densely populated, so the Autobahnen are fairly narrow (and all named A-fortysomething), there are a lot of intersections and junctions, it’s very confusing and there’s often a lot of traffic. Indeed, Tim Jonze decided to start his Autobahn adventure on the A555, a regional highway link between Cologne and Bonn that’s a whopping twenty kilometres long, though it is the oldest Autobahn in Germany. opened in 1932 (not counting the AVUS in Berlin, which started out as a race course before being integrated into the Autobahn network). Not that you’d notice, because the original Autobahnen of the 1930s have been expanded, rebuilt and paved over so often by now that no trace of the originals remains.

And if you want to drive very fast, forget about it, because due to being so densely populated and so busy, almost all the Autobahnen in the entire Rhine-Ruhr metropoltitan region have a speed limit of 100 or 120 kilometers per hour, in some areas even less. Because as Tim Jonze quickly found out, even though there theoretically is no upper speed limit on the German Autobahnen, many of then actually do have a speed limit for reasons of safety, traffic, noise protection or road construction zones.

This is maybe as good a time as any to talk about speed limit or lack thereof which apparently is a large part of the myth surrounding German Autobahnen in the rest of the world and in parts of German society as well. The Green Party demands the introduction of a speed limit on German Autobahnen with nigh religious fervour – it’s as much a fetish for them as nuclear power is for the conservative CDU and immigration is for the far right AfD. Like most religious fetishes, it’s also silly and has little connection to reality.

For starters, large parts of German Autobahn network already have a speed limit. And even if there is no speed limit, this doesn’t necessarily mean that you can drive as fast as you want to, because there’s usually other traffic and also quite a lot of traffic jams. If there’s a truck in the right lane going 80 kilometers per hour, a car pulling a camping trailer in the middle lane going 100 kilometers per hour and a car in the left lane overtaking the car with the trailer at 130 kilometers per hour, guess what? You’re driving 130 kilometers per hour in the left lane, even if you want to go faster. And believe me, this happens a lot, especially if one truck overtakes another truck and a long line of cars piles up behind.

But even if the road or at least the left lane is clear and there’s no speed limit, most people actually don’t drive 180 or 200 kilometers per hour or more. For starters, going at such high speeds is expensive, because it consumes a lot of fuel. It’s also not very pleasant, especially if you’ve got a smaller or older car, and potentially dangerous. Personally, I usually drive between 120 and 130 kilometers per hour when there’s no speed limit. I may go up to 140 kilometers per hour occasionally while overtaking another vehicle. And yes, I have gone faster on occasion – usually when trying out a new car – but I find everything above 160 kilometers per hour actively unpleasant.

Most drivers are like me and rarely go faster than 120 to 130 kilometers per hour. Quite a few rarely go faster than 100 kilometers per hour. You do have chronic speeders who race down the left lane at 180 or 200 kilometers per hour or even more, flashing their headlights at any car that dares to get in their way. However, these people are a minority. Most of us also think they’re arseholes. Oh yes, and if you introduce a general speed limit, the very people who are the most likely to drive extremely fast are also the most likely to just plain ignore speed limits.

If you want to drive as fast as the car will go – because you’re trying out a new car or just want to know what it feels like – your best bet is picking a stretch of Autobahn that’s not very busy and rather boring. A27 eastbound after Bremer Kreuz or A28 westbound after Hasbruch service station work well, as does the stretch of A1 between Bremer Kreuz and Hamburg. Pick a quiet time – no rush hour and preferably a Sunday, when there are almost no trucks about. Six or seven AM on a Sunday morning in June, when the sun is already up, is perfect. In general, make sure the weather is good – no rain, frost or snow – and that it’s daylight. Wait until the road ahead is clear as far as you can see (and it should be a straight stretch of road, no bends or hills which impede the view), change onto the left lane and hit the accelerator. But get ready to decrease speed and or brake, if anything shows up on the horizon. Even you think it’s far off, trust me, at such a high speed it’s not.

This is also where the problem with foreigners driving on the Autobahn comes in. They’re often driving an unfamiliar car, they’re not used to high speeds and also don’t know where and when it’s reasonably safe to go fast. See Tim Jonze starting his Autobahn adventure in the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan area, where it’s definitely not safe to go fast (and not allowed either). At one point, Jonze also opens the driver’s side window, while going 150 kilometers per hour, which makes me wonder if he’s fucking crazy.

What’s even more hilarious is that while Kraftwerk were on the road a lot in the 1970s, travelling from gig to gig, usually on the Autobahn, often by night, their car was a Volkswagen Beetle. Tim Jonze has apparently never driven a Volkswagen Beetle, but I have, because my parents had one in the 1970s and early 1980s. So I know that they couldn’t go any faster than 130 kilometers per hour and the car started rattling like crazy at approx. 100 kilometers per hour. The Beetle‘s successor, a 1980 Volkswagen Jetta, which I continued to drive until 2008 (I wanted to keep it to hit the thirty year mark, when a car is considered a historical vehicle in Germany and gets a special licence plate, but unfortunately the Jetta fell apart two years before), capped out at 160 kilometers per hour and also started to rattle like mad at anything above 130 kilometers per hour.  So Kraftwerk were travelling at the relatively leisurely pace of approx. 100 kilometers per hour in a Volkswagen Beetle, when they wrote the “Autobahn” song.

Apparently, one of the Kraftwerk guys said in an interview that the “Autobahn” song was inspired by a roadtrip from Düsseldorf, where the band was based, to Hamburg, with the more industrial sounds early on in the 23-minute version supposed to evoke the hammering of the Ruhrgebiet (the “heartbeat of steel”, which Herbert Grönemeyer famously sang about in his ode to his hometown “Bochum” in 1984, imitated by a drumset in that song), while the gentler sounds of flutes and other acoustic instruments were supposed to evoke the rural Münsterland, all of which just made the “Autobahn” song a lot more interesting than it ever was before, though not interesting enough to subject myself to 23 minutes of Kraftwerk. Coincidentally, my favourite musical evocation of the hammering of steelworks is “Allentown” by Billy Joel from 1982, which is actually a song about the dying of the coal and steel industry in Pennsylvania and about the “heartbeat of steel” going silent forever. I’d never heard of Allentown, when I first heard that song, but I immediately knew what it was about, especially since the Ruhrgebiet was facing the same issues as the Pennsylvania rust belt in the early 1980s. Coincidentally, if you watch this footage of Billy Joel performing “Allentown” live in what was then still Leningrad during his groundbreaking tour of the Soviet Union, you can tell that the young people in the audience (try to spot the totally not obvious KGB agents in the audience) know what the song is about as well, even though they likely didn’t understand the lyrics and I don’t think they understood that what happened to Allentown and the Ruhrgebiet was coming for them, too.

Since he already is in the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region anyway, Tim Jonze decides to go in search of the Ruhrgebiet and its heartbeat of steel and has the same experience I had during my trip to Castrop-Rauxel. That Ruhrgebiet is gone and what’s left are museums and monuments. Tim Jonze actually mentions going to Castrop-Rauxel and visiting the Zollern Mine museum. The Zollern Mine museum is actually in Dortmund, not in Castrop-Rauxel, but then the cities do tend to bleed into each other in the Ruhrgebiet. It’s also close enough to Castrop-Rauxel that I may pay it a visit sometime, either when I’m in town for next year’s Toyplosion or just as a cool roadstrip destination.

Since the “Autobahn” song was inspired by a trip from Düsseldorf to Hamburg, Tim Jonze decides to drive that route for the true Autobahn experience, which is certainly a better choice than bopping around the Ruhrgebiet on a succession of A-fortysomethings, since there actually are stretches of Autobahn where you can go very fast, should you so wish. Coincidentally, Jonze’s route also pretty much parallels my trip to the Los Amigos convention in Neuss earlier this year. In fact, one of the dashcam videos that Jonze embedded in his article shows Neuss as a destination on a road sign.

Since I made the same trip (twice if you count my trip to Castrop-Rauxel) this year, I was of course interested in Tim Jonze’s description. He writes:

I pass green fields and red-brick farmhouses, remote churches and towering wind turbines. This is flute-solo country.

Actually, that’s the Münsterland or rather the stretch of the A1 between Kamener Kreuz (which Jonze totally fails to mention in spite of the distinctive ADAC monument of angels carrying a full-sise rescue helicopter) and Osnabrück and beyond. And yes, the description is pretty accurate, though it also matches much of the rural stretches of the Autobahn network in North Germany. Coincidentally, these are also the stretches where there’s no speed limit and it’s possible and reasonably safe to drive fast. At another point, he also mentions awe-inspiring valleys, which likely refers to several viaducts between Münster and the Ruhrgebiet, an area where you get mountains and where the A1 crosses various valleys. The most impressive one is probably at Hagen, where the A1 crosses the Ruhr valley and gives you a beautiful view of several mountains topped with ruined castles, monuments and observation towers.

Tim Jonze completely fails to mention the 33-kilometer monster construction zone between the exits Bramsche and Lohne/Dinklage, most likely because that very much not the Autobahn experience he’s seeking, though the frustration of endless construction zones that seem to take years to finish, only to start over from the beginning again, is very much an Autobahn experience, too. Coincidentally, he also fails to mention the nigh constant traffic jam before the Weser bridge in Bremen (which is in dire need of repairs, so one lane has been closed to traffic and the speed limit reduced to 80 kilometers per hour, which tends to cause traffic jams all the way back to junction Stuhr in the south and the intersection Bremer Kreuz and beyond in the North. It’s a constant source of frustration for those of us in Bremen and surroundings, especially since two other bridges across the river Weser are also currently closed for construction work in a case of seriously terrible timing.

But then, Tim Jonze probably did not experience that particular traffic jam, because he mentions that the sun started to set as he approached Bremen. He writes:

As it turns out, the sun is starting to set as I approach Bremen. Its reflection looks glorious in my wing mirrors, while ahead of me the leaves on the trees are bathed in a brilliant red light.

There’s a photo, too, which looks like it was taken somewhere around the exits Groß Ippener or Wildeshausen North, where the A1 runs through the woodlands and fields of the nature park Wildeshauser Geest. For me, this usually signals “I’m almost home” because my exit from the southbound direction is Delmenhorst-East a.k.a. Groß Mackenstedt, the next exit after Groß Ippener. Coincidentally, I never quite understood the reason why the exit Groß Ippener exists, because it literally spits you out into the middle of nowhere. The region around Wildeshausen has been inhabited since Neolithic times and the A1 roughly follows a road that’s thousands of years old. The massive Visbek Bride Neolithic tomb is so close to the A1 that you can hear the trucks and cars thundering by.

Tim Jonze then writes about letting the beat of Kraftwerk’s “Autobahn” (he must have the song on a loop, because he’s been driving three hours or more by now) carry him towards “the shimmering lights of Hamburg”. Of course, if he’s in Groß Ippener, Hamburg is still more than an hour away and the shimmering lights he sees are either the signs of Autohof Groß Mackenstedt or the giant illuminated IKEA and Kibeck (a German rug and carpet retailer) signs at the exit Brinkum or the lights of the industrial estate at the exit Bremen-Hemelingen.

There’s some dashcam footage of driving towards Hamburg after nightfalls embedded in the article, but it’s too brief to make out exactly where this is. It might be just before the Bremer Kreuz intersection or it might be near service station Grundbergsee (which Jonze would have no reason to mention, since he likely has no idea what happened there on the night of August 17, 1988 and why I still avoid that place like the plague) or even as far north as exits Rade (where my Dad and I once spent an hour stuck in a broken down car waiting for the repair service) or Hollenstedt.

That said, I’m pretty sure I know exactly what “the shimmering lights of Hamburg” refer to. It’s the sight that greets you when you emerge from the Elbtunnel (which is on Autobahn A7, not A1 and was not finished until 1975, a year after the Kraftwerk song came out) and suddenly there’s Hamburg stretched out in front of you and to the right there is a majestic span of the iconic Köhlbrand suspension bridge. It’s a view I’ve loved ever since I first saw it as a very young kid and the reason why I always pestered my Dad “Can we go through the Elbtunnel please?” It’s also a view that’s best enjoyed when you’re not behind the wheel and don’t have to deal with the dense traffic and permanently gridlocked Hamburg. Coincidentally, now I’m an adult I understand why my Dad hated driving through Hamburg so very much, to the point that he once paid for a more expensive plane ticket, so I could fly from Bremen rather than Hamburg.

So is Kraftwerk’s “Autobahn” the best song for a roadtrip on the Autobahn? No, and it’s not even close. Because Germany has generated a remarkable number of songs about driving and roadtrips. Specific Autobahnen, intersections, exits or sometimes Bundestraßen (two-lane highways) are often mentioned in the lyrics and the songs are about truckers, bikers, hitchhikers and drifters. In particular, there are a lot of trucker songs, because Germany is located smack in the middle of Europe, which means there are a lot of truckers. Some artists specialised in trucker songs such as Gunter Gabriel, here singing “Er fährt ‘nen 30 Tonner Diesel” (He drives a thirty ton diesel truck) from 1974, an ode to all the truckers whose home is the Autobahn, or the Hamburg band based country band Truck Stop who referred to driving, truckers and the Autobahn in many of their songs such as “Ich möcht’ so gern Dave Dudley hör’n” (I would love to listen to Dave Dudley) from 1978 about the pain of being on the road with only terrible music on the radio, or “Die Frau mit dem Gurt” (The woman with the seat belt) from 1977, which references a 1970s public safety post about an attractive naked woman wearing nothing but a seat belt (I couldn’t find the poster online, though I clearly remember seeing it) or “Der Trabi und der Truck” (The Trabi and the Truck) from 1990 about the German unification and roads and country becoming one (“Trabi” is short Trabant, the iconic East German car brand) or “Der Wilde, Wilde Westen” (The Wild Wild West) from 1980, which insists that the Wild West begins at Maschener Kreuz just before Hamburg, where the A1, A7 and A39 intersect. Maschener Kreuz is infamous for traffic jams, because this is where the two main north-south routes not just for Germany, but for all of Europe, intersect. It’s also where the band’s recording studio was located, “directly by the Autobahn” (it’s not specified which one). The studio closed in 2014 BTW.

“Der letzte Cowboy” (The Last Cowboy) by Thommie Bayer from 1979 is another German country song or rather a parody of country songs about a drifter, the titular last cowboy, who hails from Gütersloh and pretends he’s living in a western, a Marlboro commercial or Easy Rider. It’s a great, both hilarious and melancholic and also great for singing along on a long drive. “Im Wagen vor mir fährt ein junges Mädchen” (There’s a young girl in the car ahead of me) by Henry Valentino and Uschi from 1977 is about a male driver who decides to follow a pretty girl in a small car (specified to be a “duck”, i.e. a Citroen 2CV) going slow on the right lane of the Autobahn. The scenario is creepy, but the song knows it and switches between Valentino as the male driver following the young woman and fantasizing about her and Uschi as the young woman who is understandably creeped out by some old dude following her and finally takes the wrong exit to get away and hide from the guy. The rhythm and the chorus match the leisurely pace of the young woman’s Citroen 2CV, which like the Volkswagen Beetle couldn’t go much faster than 100 kilometers per hour. Henry Valentino was 49, when he performed that song. He died earlier this year, aged 96.

“Eine Ladung Weihnachtsbäume” (A load of Christmas trees) by Tom Astor from 1986 is a holiday song that tackles the downside of the trucker life. It’s about a trucker who is told to ferry a load of Christmas trees to West Berlin just before Christmas (which in 1986 meant passing through East Germany and braving the border controls and lengthy lines twice) and then doesn’t make it back home in time to celebrate Christmas with his own family. There’s also the tear-jerky “Teddybär 1-4” by Jonny Hill from 1979 about a trucker who befriends a disabled and lonely kid via shortwave radio (six-year-old Cora loved that song) or the equally tear-jerky “FFB” (licence plate sign for the town of Fürstenfeldbruck in Bavaria) by the Spider Murphy Gang from 1989, which is about a guy who picks up a female hitchhiker on the A3 from Frankfurt on Main to Munich, whose dreams of life in the big city didn’t pan out and so she just wants to go home to Fürstenfeldbruck. But she never gets there, because going 180 kilometers per hour in the fog by night isn’t a great idea.

However, not all German roadtrip songs are about Autobahnen. Occasionally, you also get songs about Bundestraßen, two-lane highways, which are an alternative for long distance motorised traffic, if there is no Autobahn, if it’s closed due to a traffic jam or accident or simply if you don’t want to take it. Bundesstraße B96, which runs through the far east of Germany from Zittau on the Czech and Polish border to Sassnitz on the island of Rügen, may not be an Autobahn, just a two-lane Bundesstraße, but it has generated not one but two songs, “Straße nach Norden” (Street to the North) by Günther Gundermann from 1998 and “B96” by Silbermond from 2015. Both songs handle the decline of the East German industry after the unification, though in different ways. Gundermann, who was a former bulldozer driver and East German working class bard, explicitly sings about the death of the old industry, mass unemployment and newly built modern factories springing up like spaceships. Meanwhile, Silbermond singer Stefanie Kloß, born in 1984, sings about growing up post unification in the void left behind by the death of the old industry in a village on the B96 at what was then (and probably still is) the end of the world.

In 2005, Element of Crime (a German band in spite of the English name) created a musical monument to the Bundesstraße B75 with their song “Delmenhorst”. The song is about a man escaping an estranged love by moving to the town of Delmenhorst, where nothing reminds him of his lost love and no one cares if he’s cool or hip. It doesn’t mention the road directly, but it literally is about driving down the B75 from Bremen to Delmenhorst (where it ends and becomes Autobahn A28) and mentions landmarks along the way such as the river Ochtum, a creek behind Huchting which runs into the river Ochtum (the creek is named Vareler Bäke, but even many locals don’t know this) as well as the drinks mart/liquor store Getränke Hoffmann, which actually closed ages ago, but is still immortalised in the song. Element of Crime singer/songwriter Sven Regener hails from Bremen (Neue Vahr Süd, to be precise – used to live right around the corner from my cousin) and knew the road, though he moved to Berlin in the early 1980s (hence the reference to the long gone Getränke Hoffmann). The B75 is an elevated four lane road on the Bremen to Delmenhorst leg, but the speed limit is 60 kilometers per hour, going up to 80 kilometers per hour behind Huchting, because it runs through densely populated neighbourhoods, so the rhythm of the song matches the leisurely pace of driving along the B75, when the road is clear. It often isn’t, because it’s one of the main commuter routes into and out of Bremen, which is also probably why it’s called “the road of the damned” at one point in the song.

A lot of German roadtrip and Autobahn song are somewhat melancholic, but “Ich will Spaß” (I want to have fun) by Markus from 1982 is basically about the joy of driving very fast. And yes, it’s pretty much about the kind of arsehole who tries to harass other drivers off the left lane, but there’s simply so much joy in the song – something which a lot of German New Wave songs had, which is also why they felt so fresh and new, when they burst onto the scene in the early 1980s. Just look at those joyful kids hopping around the Hitparade stage. Also, I totally had the skirt and blouse combo that the female keyboarder wears. Many years ago, that song was on the mixtape I had in the tapedeck of my car radio (until radio and tape were stolen, when someone broke into my ancient Jetta, while it was parked underneath the B75 in Grolland). If that song chances to come on, while I’m in my car, believe I’m going to sing along very loud.

And since we’re on the subject of the German New Wave, that movement generated a remarkable number of science fictional songs and of remarkably rude songs, but it generated a few roadtrip songs, too. In addition to “Ich will Spaß”, there’s also “Irgendwie, Irgendwo, Irgendwann” (Somehow, Somewhere, Somewhen) by Nena (who was the girlfriend of “Ich will Spaß singer Markus at some point) from 1984, which not only perfectly captures the teenage desire to get away from their restrictive life and escape to someplace better, but also has the line “We’re driving on fiery wheels through the night into future”. Also check out that amazing video, which is full of SF imagery and features mummies, time travel, ninjas, Indiana Jones style archaeological adventures, Mad Max visuals, cars and Nena looking a lot like She-Ra’s frenemy turned lover Catra.

Kraftwerk are assured their place in musical history for their pioneering use of electronic music. But Germany has many bands and artists who are much better.

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Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre Halloween Special: “The Tomb of Sibor”

October is the spooky month, so just in time for Halloween I present to you a spooky Masters-of-the-Universe-Peace Theatre toy photo story. The name “Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre” was coined by Kevin Beckett at the now defunct Whetstone Discord server.

Horror elements have been part of Masters of the Universe from the very beginning on – after all, the main villain is a guy with a skull face. However, the horror elements were really dialled up to eleven with the introduction of the Evil Horde in 1985, since the original five Horde members were all clearly based on classic horror movie monsters. We have the Wolfman (Grizzlor), the bug-eyed monster (Mantenna), the Creature from the Black Lagoon (Leech), Frankenstein’s Monster (Modulok) and their leader Nosferatu (Hordak). If you include the female Horde members from Princess of Power, you’ve also got the Evil Witch (Shadow Weaver) and the Cat Woman from Cat People (Catra). The classic horror theme was also continued in the toy version of the Horde’s base, the Fright Zone, which looks like a vintage horror movie set, whereas the Filmation version of the Fright Zone is a Giger-esque industrial gothic monstrosity.

But though the original Horde line-up was an all-star team of classic horror movie monsters, there is one monster that’s missing, namely the mummy. However, the Evil Horde was initially going to include a mummy character, but he never made it beyond the concept art stage. It took until 2018 for the character to be released as an action figure, now named Wrap Trap. Wrap Trap was only produced in limited quantities and is fairly hard to find and pricey, but I got lucky and managed to purchase one for my collection.

So let’s accompany the Evil Horde, as they try to recruit their latest member in…

The Lost Tomb of Sibor

Etheria, the Crimson Waste:

Catra, Melog, Scorpia, Shadow Weaver and two Horde Wraiths explore the Crimson Waste.“Scorpia, Catra, you take the point. Wraiths, follow me.”

“Yes, Mistress.”

“Remember, girls, we are looking for the Lost Tomb of Sibor. Scorpia, since your people hail from the Crimson Waste, you have knowledge of this wasteland that the Horde lacks…”

“Yes, but…”

“So I get why you need Scorpia. But why am I here, Shadow Weaver?”

“Because you are Force Captain, Catra. And because Scorpia didn’t want to go without you.”

“I’ll get you for this, Scorpia.”

“So lead the way, Scorpia. You do know where the tomb is, don’t you?”

“Yes, but… I don’t think this is a good idea, Shadow Weaver. The Tomb of Sibor is an accursed place. My people shun it and never go there.”

“Silly barbaric superstition. The Tomb of Sibor contains something of great value to the Horde and I mean to retrieve it for Lord Hordak. And now go, Scorpia. Take us to the Tomb.”

“Yes, but it’s your funeral.”

“Is that a promise?”

“Hush, Catra, she’ll hear you.”

Scorpia, Catra, Melog, Shadow Weaver and two Horde Wraiths find the entrance to the tomb.

I don’t have any Egyptian looking trinkets in my collection, so this Olmec head my Dad brought back from Mexico years ago will have to do.

“Here we are.”

“The entrance to the Lost Tomb of Sibor. At last!”

“Are you really sure about this, Shadow Weaver? This place is shunned for a reason. The vile priest Sibor committed unspeakable acts, which is why he was sealed inside a tomb in the middle of the Crimson Waste, so he may never rise again.”

“Scorpia, I never took you for someone who believes in silly old fairy stories.”

Catra and Scorpia whisper together, while Shadow Weaver commands her Horde Wraiths.“So what’s the deal with this vile priest?”

“According to ancient legends, the vile priest Sibor was infatuated with Naka-Ra, the daughter of King Kartan, ruler of the Crimson Waste. But Naka-Ra rejected Sibor, because he was disfigured by dark magic…”

“Yeah, we know something about that, don’t we, Scorpia?”

“Driven mad by unrequited love, Sibor murdered Naka-Ra. So King Kartan sentenced him to be mummified alive and then magically sealed inside a tomb in Crimson Waste for all eternity.”

“An excellent summary, Scorpia. The Lost Tomb was sealed via a spell from the Netherworld Tablet. A tablet I have recently managed to acquire for my personal library…”

“With all due respect, Shadow Weaver, but Scorpia is right. This vile priest murdered his girlfriend and is clearly dangerous. So why exactly do we want to break into his tomb?”

“To resurrect him, of course, as a servant to the Horde.”

“You want to resurrect Sibor the Vile?!?”

“Sibor was a powerful sorcerer, a master of dark magic. His skills will be very useful to the Horde.”

“You have plenty of dark magic of your own, Shadow Weaver. And you have… what are those creepy floating guys anyway?”

“Those are my Wraiths, mages from Mystacor who were captured by the Horde and enslaved by the power of the Black Garnet to do my bidding.”

“So if you already have two enslaved sorcerers, Shadow Weaver, what do you need this accursed priest for?”

“Because, my dear Catra, he might have knowledge of ancient Etherian magic that is beyond even my skills. And besides, you can never have too many evil sorcerers.”

The Horde Wraiths prepare to open the tomb, while Shadow Weaver, Scorpia and Catra look on.“Wraiths, I command you cast the spell of opening.”

“Yes, Mistress.”

“I have a really bad feeling about this, Catra.”

“You and me both, Scorpia.”

The Horde Wraiths are casting a spell to open the tomb, while Shadow Weaver, Catra and Scorpia look on.“Aperta, Aperta, Aperta….”

Swoosh. Crackle. Groan.

“Is it just me or are Shadow Weaver’s Wraiths super-creepy?”

“It’s not just you, Scorpia. They are creepy. Shudder. Though on the plus side, if she has the Wraiths to boss around, maybe she’ll finally leave us alone.”

***

Later, inside the Lost Tomb of Sibor:

Shadow Weaver, Catra, Scorpia, Melog and the two Horde Wraiths find the mummified Sibor in his sarcophagus.

The sarcophagus of the vile priest Sibor is actually a bento box. The ornament on top of the sarcophagus is a stylized bronze angel I gave my Mom as a present once.

“Amazing. We are the first to lay eyes on the face of Sibor in a thousand years…”

“Personally, I’d have preferred if no one had laid eyes on his face for another thousand years.”

“Look, girls, how perfectly preserved his body is thanks to the embalming techniques of the ancients. Most fascinating.”

“I’d rather not look.”

The Horde Wraiths flank the sarcophagus to resurrect the mummy of Sibor, while Shadow Weaver, Catra and Scorpia look on.

The Netherworld Tablet Shadow Weaver is holding is a golden cufflink of my Dad’s engraved with Egyptian imagery. It’s the only pair of cufflinks of my Dad’s that I kept.

“Wraiths, perform the spell of resurrection as laid down in the Netherworld Tablet.”

“Yes, Mistress.”

The Wraith are generating magical sparkles, while Catra, Scorpia and Shadow Weaver look on.“Resurge, Resurge, Resurge”

Groan. Creak.

“Yes, it’s working.”

Sibor emerges from his sarcophagus, while Shadow Weaver, Catra, Scorpia and the Horde Wraiths look on.“I Am Alive. Sibor Lives Again.”

“Welcome back to the land of the living, Sibor. I am Shadow Weaver, second in command to Lord Hordak, Supreme Commander of the Mighty Horde Empire, and I have used the Netherworld Tablet to lift the curse that kept you imprisoned in this tomb…”

“Yeah right, Shadow Weaver lifted the curse. As if her creepy Wraiths didn’t do all the hard work.”

“Never forget that you owe your resurrection to the mercy of the Horde and that you must pledge fealty to Lord Hordak in order to remain alive….”

Sibor looks at Catra, much to the displeasure of Shadow Weaver.“My Lady!”

“Ahem, I am here and I am speaking to you as your mistress…”

“My Lady!”

“It’s looking at me. Why is it looking at me?”

Sibor shambles towards the horrified Catra, while Scorpia, Shadow Weaver and her Wraiths look on.“My Lady, You Live.”

“It’s shambling towards me. Scorpia, Shadow Weaver, help.”

Sibor bows to Catra, as Scorpia, Shadow Weaver and the Wraiths look on.“My Lady, my Love, my Naka-Ra! I, Sibor, High Priest of Horokoth, am your most humble servant…”

“Ahem…”

“I think he likes you, Catra. Snicker.”

“Fascinating. Most Fascinating. What an unexpected development!”

“Command and I shall obey, my Lady Naka-Ra.”

“You could start by taking a step back, bub. Cause you kind of reek. Also, have you never heard of personal space? Finally, my name is not Naka-Ra. I’m Catra.”

Sibor embraces a horrified Catra, as Scorpia, Shadow Weaver and the Wraiths look on.“But my Lady, do you no longer love me?”

“Eeuw!”

“All this time, in the lonely prison of my tomb, I have dreamed of you and only you, my Lady. I dreamed of holding you, of feeling your warm, soft skin, your genle curves under my hands. I dreamed of holding you again, of loving you again…”

“Eeuw! Scorpia, Shadow Weaver, anybody, Help!”

“Most fascinating indeed…”

Catra pushed Sibor away, while Shadow Weaver, Scorpia and the Wraiths look on.“Get off me, you creep! Or I swear I’ll grind you into mummy dust, so Shadow Weaver can use you for her magical concoctions.”

“But my Lady, my Naka-Ra, do you no longer love me?”

“Listen up and listen well: I don’t love you, I have never loved and I never will…”

“Yeah, dude, Catra only loves that despicable traitor Despara. Ask me how I know.”

“But my Lady…”

“Fuck, I don’t even know you. And for the last time, my name is not Naka-Ra.”

Catra and Scorpia take off, as Sibor shuffles after them and Shadow Weaver and her Wraiths look on.“Oh screw it, I’m outta here! Come on, Scorpia!”

“My Lady, wait!”

“Most fascinating indeed. Hmm…”

***

Later, in Hordak’s Throne Room in the Fright Zone:

Hordak is on his throne with Entrapta draped at his feet, while Imp looks on. Shadow Weaver arrives with Catra and Scorpia to present Sibor a.k.a. Wrap Trap to Hordak.

I don’t have a proper throne for Hordak unfortunately, since the 3D-printed Hordak thrones you can get on Etsy and eBay only work for the smaller Origins figures. But you get the idea.

“And one day, my Entrapta, I shall depose of my accursed brother and rule all of the cosmos and… – Who dares disturb us?”

“My sincerest apologies, Mighty Hordak, for interrupting your… ahem… personal consultation with Entrapta, but I assumed you would want to meet our newest recruit at once.”

“Never dare to assume anything about me, Shadow Weaver. Still, it seems your mission was a success.”

“A most resounding success, Mighty Hordak. We managed to locate the tomb and resurrect Sibor using the Netherworld Tablet.”

“Hi Catra, hi Scorpia! How was the Crimson Waste? Did you find any interesting First Ones tech?”

“Is he… twirling her hair?”

“I told you so, Catra. Hordak and Entrapta are totally sleeping together.”

“Don’t be silly, Scorpia! How would that even work? I mean, does he even have a… well, you know what?”

“You’ve got to ask Entrapta that, not me. Giggle.”

Sibor a.k.a. Wrap Trap stands before Hordak's throne, while Entrapta, Imp, Shadow Weaver, Catra and Scorpia look on.“Shadow Weaver, I would like to meet my newest recruit.”

“Of course, Lord Hordak. May I present to you Sibor, High Priest of Horokoth, wielder of most mighty magics.”

“Sibor, eh? Too complicated. I think I’ll just call you Wrap Trap. So will you loyally serve me and the All-powerful Horde Empire, Wrap Trap?”

“Bow, fool. Lord Hordak is your master now. You only live and walk on his sufferance.”

Wrap Trap bows to Hordak, while Shadow Weaver, Scorpia, Entrapta and Catra look on.“My Lord, I thank you for reuniting me with my beloved Naka-Ra…”

“He speaks. Fascinating.”

“He also reeks.”

“Shut up, Imp! So will you pledge your loyalty to me and of course to the All-mighty Horde Empire, Wrap Trap?”

“My Lord, I shall pledge my loyalty to anyone who reunites me with my beloved Naka-Ra.”

“Shadow Weaver, who is this Naka-Ra he keeps speaking of?”

“Well, Lord Hordak, it seems that Sibor – I mean, Wrap Trap – has mistaken Force Captain Catra for his long-dead lover Naka-Ra.”

“Has he now? That’s… unexpected. And quite amusing.”

“Awww, you’ve got a new friend, Catra, That’s so sweet.”

“Shut up, Entrapta.”

“Due to Wrap Trap’s affinity for and infatuation with Force Captain Catra, I recommend assigning him to Catra’s Force Squad, Lord Hordak.”

“An excellent idea, Shadow Weaver. Wrap Trap, you are to report to Force Captain Catra at once.”

“I thank you Lord Hordak, for allowing me to serve under my beloved Naka-Ra once more.”

“I’m going to kill you for this, Shadow Weaver. One day I swear I’m going to kill you.”

***

Later, in the Crimson Waste:

Loo-Kee emerges from an illuminated fire bowl in the Tomb of Sibor.“Hi folks, it’s me, your friend Loo-Kee again. I hide everywhere, even in really scary places like a lost tomb in the Crimson Waste, to bring you the moral of today’s story, which is my sacred mission as appointed by the all-powerful Federal Communication Commission.”

Loo-Kee stands in the lost tomb to deliver his moral.“In today’s story, Wrap Trap is in love with Catra, but Catra is not in love with Wrap Trap. That’s okay, cause someone we fall in love with people who don’t feel the same. But Wrap Trap kept harassing Catra and tried to hug and kiss her, even though Catra didn’t want him to and said so, repeatedly. And that’s not okay. Cause consent is important, kids. Anyway, gotta go now, cause this tomb is really creepy and also dusty – hatchoo!”

***

Because Wrap Trap was never made as a figure in the vintage Masters of the Universe toyline, he never had a backstory either, so a new backstory for him was created for the Masters of the Universe Classics release, which basically took the plot of the movie The Mummy and transported it to Etheria. I mostly stuck to that backstory – with one exception. I made Catra rather than She-Ra the reincarnation of Wrap Trap’s lost love, because Catra dealing with a lovestruck mummy is a lot funnier. Plus, Catra looks a lot more like the reincarnation of a vaguely Egyptian princess than She-Ra.

In the Filmation She-Ra: Princess of Power series, Catra and Scorpia are rivals united only be their dislike for Adora. In the 2018 She-Ra and the Princesses of Power cartoon, they share a rather one-sided friendship, where Scorpia has a massive crush on Catra, while Catra is her usual prickly self and keeps pushing her away. Their relationship in this story is mostly based on the newer version.

Another thing I really liked about the 2018 She-Ra is the oddly endearing friendship/romance between Hordak and Entrapta, which I’ve decided to adopt for quite a few of my stories now. In fact, I tried to recreate the famous Esteban Maroto poster of Evil-Lyn draped at the feet of Skeletor’s throne (which like most of Maroto’s Masters of the Universe art was created for the German Masters of the Universe comics) with Hordak and Entrapta. I couldn’t quite get Entrapta in the right pose, but it still works, especially with Hordak twirling her hair.

The Horde Wraiths appeared in a handful of episodes of the 2002 He-Man and the Masters of the Universe cartoon as Hordak’s magic wielders and are basically stand-ins for Shadow Weaver as a way of getting around the She-Ra rights mess (legally, He-Man and She-Ra are considered separate properties, which is why it’s so difficult for She-Ra and her supporting cast both good and evil to appear in Masters of the Universe and vice versa). There was a Horde Wraith figure made in the Masters of the Classics toyline and I initially got one of them to complete the Evil Horde and then a second one, when I found one for a good price on eBay.  There actually are three Horde Wraiths featured in the 2002 cartoon, but it’s unlikely I’ll get a third one unless he’s really cheap.

According to the bio created for the Horde Wraith figure, they are mages enslaved by Hordak to do his bidding, because enslaving people is what the Horde does. According to the bio, they Wraiths are Gar mages, which is why their hands are blue. However, there are no Gar in Etheria, so I made them mages from Mystacor enslaved by Hordak and Shadow Weaver to serve as Shadow Weaver’s personal flunkies instead.

Because their appearances in the 2002 cartoon are very limited, the Horde Wraiths hardly ever speak, though they chant a few spells. I actually checked what the Wraiths were chanting before writing their dialogue, but they basically just chant “Despondos, Despondos, Despondos”, when they try to banish King Grayskull to the dark and evil dimension of Despondos (spoiler alert: The spell backfires and Hordak and the rest of the Evil Horde wind up in Despondos instead), which is basically the equivalent of chanting “Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Bielefeld” when trying to banish someone to Bielefeld (which some folks would say is a worse fate than being banished to Despondos). So just borrowing the Wraiths’ chants from the 2002 cartoon was out.

There actually is a con-lang named Kudu-Kesh that was created for Masters of the Universe Revelation/Revolution, but again using that con-lang for the Wraiths was out as well, because Kudu-Kesh is an Eternian language and the Horde are on Etheria, a completely different world. So in the end, I just went the time-honoured route and had the Wraiths chant in Latin instead. At least, it’s reasonably correct Latin – unlike the time when an Irish spell to summon a demon in an episode of Buffy the Vampire slayer turned out to be a news item about bus lanes in Dublin instead. Not that summoning busses isn’t a lot more useful than summoning demons in most real world situations.

That’s it for today, folks. I hope you enjoyed this Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre Halloween Special, because there will be more.

Disclaimer: I don’t own any of these characters, I just bought some toys, took photos of them and wrote little scenes to go with those photos. All characters are copyright and trademark their respective owners.

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Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre: “Puzzle Expanded”

It’s time for another Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre photo story. The name “Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre” was coined by Kevin Beckett at the now defunct Whetstone Discord server.

My Evil Horde recruitment ad continues to bear fruit, because I have now assembled almost all the Evil Horde members ever made in seven inch scale, though I’m still waiting for the Masterverse Deluxe Horde Troopers to be delivered. Once the Horde is complete, I will retake the epic Horde group shot.

One of the weirder members of what is a very weird group is Modulok, a sort of construction toy turned Horde scientist. I was recently able to acquire a Masters of the Universe Classics Modulok for a good price and promptly had some fun with him by having him join the Horde in the Masters-of-the-Univers-Piece Theatre toy photo story “Puzzle”, where resident Horde tech genius Entrapta tries to assemble Modulok’s body parts. Because that was Modulok’s deal. He had twenty-two body parts that could be assembled in different ways.

Modulok was clearly popular, because the following year Mattel introduced another build-your-own-monster character named Multi-Bot who functioned exactly like Modulok, only that he was a robot created by Modulok who was billed as the “Evil Robot of a Thousand Bodies”.

For even more fun, the Modulok and Multi-Bot pieces were interchangeable, allowing you to mix and match parts and also combine both Modulok and Multi-Bot into a creature called Megabeast. I didn’t build a Megabeast, but here is a video explaining how to build Megabeast with the original toys and here is a video explaining how to build Megabeast with the Classics figures. A Megabeast assembled only from Modulok parts also appeared in issue 2/86 of the German Masters of the Universe Magazine. Both the Classics and the original version require buying mutiple figures, so nope, not happening. Though Modulok has now been announced for Masters of the Universe Origins and I’ll probably buy an extra to make Megabeast, once Multi-Bot comes out.

I had a lot of fun playing around with Modulok and assembling him, so when I found a Classics Multi-Bot for a good price, I snapped him up as well. And of course, I decided to have some fun and have Modulok and Entrapta collaborate (reluctantly on Modulok’s part) to assemble him.

The Fright Zone, Modulok’s workshop:

The Masters of the Universe Classics Modulok poses with the dissassembled Multi-Bot“I can’t wait to show my latest invention to Hordak. Perhaps now that I am about to provide him with the ultimate weapon, he will finally recognise my genius. Maybe I will be appreciated at last. And maybe, Hordak will finally make me chief scientist of the Horde rather than… that silly pink and sparkly girl.”

Hordak, Imp and Entrapta arrive in Modulok's lab to see his latest invention.“Lord Hordak! And… Entrapta – sigh, why did he have to bring her? What is it about her, sigh?”

“Hey, don’t forget me!”

“And Imp, of course. That little annoying piece of…”

“Modulok, did you actually summon me for a reason or are you just going to stand around there muttering to yourself? Cause I still have a planet to conquer and a rebellion to crush, so don’t waste my time.”

“A… apologies, Lord Hordak. I… I summoned you, because I wanted to show you my latest invention. It’s the ultimate weapon that will help you to conquer Etheria and crush the rebellion. I call it…”

“Robot parts! Look, Hordak, robot parts!”

“Sigh…”

Modulok shows off the dissassembled Multi-Bot to Hordak, Entrapta and Imp.“Wow, there’s three sets of legs and two torsos and four arms and two heads and…”

“Don’t touch that! Don’t touch anything!”

“You were saying, Modulok?”

“Ahem, this is self-assembling war-bot 2312, also known as Multi-Bot, the Robot of a Thousand Bodies. He can assemble himself into any shape you please, a tank, an aircraft, a warrior, a battalion of warriors, making him the ultimate weapon…”

“That’s sooo cool.”

“…what is more, I can also add 2312’s components to my own body, turning myself into Mega-Beast, the ultimate warrior…”

“Wow, that’s even cooler.”

“That sounds very impressive, Modulok, but right now I’m seeing only a mess of body parts.”

“Because 2312 is still disassembled. But if you’ll allow me to demonstrate…”

“Can I help?”

“No, you’ll only break things.”

“As I said, Modulok, I have better things to do than wait for you to put your new robot together. So call me when he’s actually ready. And now assemble your robot. Entrapta will help.”

“But sir…”

“Entrapta will help, Modulok. And Imp will watch to make sure that you play nicely together. That’s my final word.”

“Sigh. What have I done to deserve this?”

Entrapta holds one of the Multi-Bot heads, while Modulok freaks out and Imp looks on.“Okay, so where do we start with putting him together?”

“We don’t start at all. I’ll start. And put that down!”

“That’s a great robot head. Love the bright orange colour.”

“I said, Put that down!”

“Careful, Modulok. Hordak said play nice with Entrapta. And Hordak gets very angry when people are mean to Entrapta. And trust me, you don’t want to see Hordak angry.”

“Shut up, you little flying pest! And you, put that down! You’ll only break it.”

“I promise, I’ll be very careful. And besides, I’m a scientist and you can’t do science without sometimes breaking things or blowing them up. I thought you knew that, cause you’re a scientist, too.”

“I never break things or blow anything up.”

“Oh yes, and what about that portal generator you promised you’d build for Hordak? You know, the one that blew up and knocked out a whole squadron of Troopers along with it.”

“Shut up, Imp! That was… an accident.”

Entrapta has put the two Multi-Bot heads on the legs and pelvis pieces, much to Modulok's frustration, while Imp looks on.“Look, I’ve made two robots.”

“You silly girl! Those are just heads with legs. They don’t have arms. How are they supposed to hold weapons?”

“Oh, I thought they could shoot laser beams out of their eyes. Cause that would be really cool.”

“Fix them, you stupid girl!”

Entrapta has added a second pair of legs as arms to one robot, much to Modulok's annoyance. Imp still looks on.“Not that way, you nitwit!”

“But you wanted arms.”

“Arms, not legs. Now he’s just got four legs and still no arms. Argh, I’ll just do it myself.”

Modulok fixes one half of Multi-Bot, while Entrapta and Imp look on.“There, that’s better. Much better. One robot warrior with two legs, two arms, one torso, one head and one very handsome face, if I may say so myself. I modelled it after Force Captain Keldor, you know?”

“Yeah right, you should know how many arms, legs and heads a person is supposed to have, Modulok. Also, your robot looks nothing like Keldor.”

“Shut up, Imp.”

Modulok and Entrapta admire one half of Multi-Bot.“Isn’t he impressive? Isn’t he handsome? Isn’t he menacing? Is he not going to strike fear into the hearts of those accursed rebels?”

“I don’t think you can be both handsome and menacing at the same time, but he is cool. I think we should call him ‘Dean’.”

“His name is serial number 2312.”

“But that’s boring.”

“It’s logical.”

“Talking of logical, what’s that nub on the front for.”

“That’s…. ahem… a connection piece.”

Entrapta assembles the other half of Multi-Bot, while Modulok is incensed that she gave him a tail.“Look, I’ve assembled the other one. With proper arms. I think I’ll call him Sam.”

“His name is serial number 2312.”

“But you already called Dean that.”

“This one is serial number 2312-2, the other one is serial number 2312-1.”

“But that’s boring. And confusing.”

“It’s logical and… Argh, what is that?”

“What’s what?”

“That thing on his butt?”

“Oh, that. I gave him a tail.”

“Robots have no tails, you stupid girl!”

“But they have ‘connection pieces’ on their pelvis…”

“Shut up, Imp.”

Modulok, Entrapta and Imp admire the two separate assembled Multi-Bot robots.“Success. Two robot warriors to fight for the glory of Lord Hordak.”

“Great job, Modulok! Sam and Dean look awesome all put assembled.”

“For the last time, their names are 2312-1 and 2312-2, not Sam and Dean.”

Entrapta finds a pair of spare Multi-Bot legs“Uhm, Modulok, I think we made a mistake. We have a pair of legs left over.”

“I never make mistakes. Two legs are so unstable and insufficient…”

“Oh, I understand. You want your robots to have more legs like you do.”

“More legs mean more stability, more connectability, more power. Because connectability is power…”

“Oh dear, he’s off on one of his rants again.”

“Shut up, Imp! True, 2312 may look like two robot warriors with a pair of extra legs, but they are so much more than the sum of their parts. Behold the true power of connection…”

Modulok has fully assembled Multi-Bot, while Entrapta and Imp looks on.“Behold Multi-Bot!”

“That’s super-cool. But… uhm… his heads look in different directions. How does he decide in what direction to walk?”

“Better question: How will he walk at all, considering he’s fused together at the butt?”

“Like a crab. Multi-Bot walks like a crab. Sideways. Arrrgh, why am I cursed with ignoramuses like you two questioning my genius?”

“What genius?”

“It’s okay, Modulok. Sometimes, we only notice flaws and imperfections, when we put our inventions together.”

“I have no imperfections. My inventions are perfect. Perfect!”

“That’s all right. Imperfections are beautiful.”

Modulok presents the assembled Multi-Bot to Hordak“Lord Hordak, may I present Multi-Bot, the ultimate warrior, the robot of a thousand bodies and a thousand configurations.”

“Hmm, interesting. Very interesting. But why do both heads look in different directions?”

“So he can see the enemy coming from both sides and fire in two directions at once.”

“Very interesting. But how does he walk, when his heads look in different directions?”

“Why do I always have to repeat myself? He walks sideways…”

“Like a crab.”

“Like a crab. That’s brilliant, my Entrapta.”

“Yes, it’s brilliant because it was my idea. Harumph.”

***

Later:

Modulok tinkers with and admired Multi-Bot“Ah, 2312, I wonder what Hordak sees in that Entrapta person. True, she is… not bad as an engineer, but she’s also so unserious and silly. What does she have that I don’t?”

“That is simple. Entrapta is female and Hordak wants to procreate with her.”

“Am I not the smartest and most devious scientist in the Horde? Why does Hordak not appreciate me? Now Captain Keldor, that was a man. Handsome, dashing and he actually listened to me and praised me once in a while. But of course, Hordak had to drive him away. Sigh. Well, at least I have you to talk to now, 2312. Cause that’s the true reason I built you, to have someone to talk to who appreciates my genius, when talking to my second head isn’t enough. You do appreciate my genius, don’t you, 2312?”

“Please do not call us 2312. Our names are Sam and Dean.”

“Aaarrrgh!”

***

Even later:

Hordak gets cozy with Entrapta, while Imp turns away.“My sweet Entrapta. I hope Modulok wasn’t too mean to you. I know his manners are abominable and trust me, he will be punished, if he insulted you. But he does have his uses.”

“That’s okay, Hordak. Modulok is just a little grumpy. And you used to be grumpy, too, before we were friends.”

“Oh my Entrapta, one day I hope we shall be more than friends. One day, I will overthrow my accursed brother and take the throne of the Horde Empire and then you, my Entrapta, you will be my queen.”

SMOOCH!

“Oh, I can’t watch when they do that. It’s just so weird, like watching your parents do… well, you know what. Time to scoot.”

***

Still later:

Loo-Kee appears from a vat in the Fright Zone“Hi, it’s me, Loo-Kee. I hide in places, even scary places like the Fright Zone. And then, when no one is looking, I come out to tell you the moral of the story you just witnessed. Cause you see, every story has to have a moral. That’s – like – a universal cosmic law, established by the all-powerful council of the Federal Communications Commission. Not that I’ve ever met them, but I guess they’re like the Trollan Council of Mages or the Cosmic Enforcer Corps, really powerful and a little scary.”

Loo-Kee comes out to deliver his moral, seemingly unaware of Imp.“Today’s story was about building robots. But it’s also a story about friends and about liking people. Hordak is really, really scary and terrible and an all-around awful person, but he also likes Entrapta and Entrapta likes him. Because even terrible people have friends. And Modulok is lonely, because he used to like Captain Keldor – who later became Skeletor and is really scary and terrible as well – but then Hordak drove Keldor away. And because Modulok is so lonely, he built himself a robot friend. But you can’t build yourself friends. Meanwhile, Modulok doesn’t realise that Entrapta wants to be his friend… – well, not like she’s Hordak’s friend, but you know what I mean.”

“You again! Alert, Troopers, we have a rebel spy in the Fright Zone. I repeat, there’s a rebel spy in the Fright Zone.”

Imp chases off Loo-Kee.“Oops, I’ve been discovered. Gotta go. But remember, everybody deserves friendship and love, even scary and terrible people like Hordak and Keldor and Modulok and…”

“Just wait till I’ll get you, rebel scum! Then Lord Hordak will send you to Beast Island or lock you up in his private zoo.”

“…and even a pest like Imp. Because love and friendship makes everybody a better person. Bye for now.”

***

I borrowed the relationship between Hordak and Entrapta from the 2018 She-Ra and the Princesses of Power cartoon, because I found it oddly endearing, both Hordak being besotted with Entrapta and Entrapta totally failing to be scared of Hordak. I have mixed feelings about the 2018 She-Ra and should probably articulate them in a separate post, but I love what they did with Entrapta’s character.

Modulok’s crush on Keldor was inspired by the Masters of the Universe Revolution prequel comic mini-series, where Modulok is Keldor’s science officer aboard the Horde Cruiser he commands, which is made even funnier by the fact that Modulok was conceived to be Mr. Spock, but evil, by J. Michael Straczynski, who created the character’s backstory, whereas Keldor is literally voiced by William Shatner, Captain Kirk himself.

Entrapta appears to be a secret Supernatural fan, while Modulok has apparently read Henry Kuttner (and yes, the Gallegher stories were solo Kuttner according to C.L. Moore, who should know).

Loo-Kee, meanwhile, does what he does best, namely deliver the moral of the story.

That’s it for today, folks. I hope you enjoyed this Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre Photo Story, because there will be more. I also have a Halloween Special planned, so stay tuned.

Disclaimer: I don’t own any of these characters, I just bought some toys, took photos of them and wrote little scenes to go with those photos. All characters are copyright and trademark their respective owners.

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Comic Review: Masters of the Universe Revolution Prequel #4 by Ted Biaselli, Rob David, Tim Sheridan and Daniel HDR

I know I’m a bit late with this, because I got sidetracked by the Toyplosion posts. But this post completes my issue by issue review of the Masters of the Universe Revolution prequel comic mini-series written by Ted Biaselli, Rob David and Tim Sheridan with art by Daniel HDR and Keith Champagne with a look at the fourth and final issue. Go here for my takes on issue 1, issue 2 and issue 3.

But before we get to the main event, I also was at the Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow blog of the 2025 Worldcon in Seattle again, this time talking about one of the most entertaining and offbeat science fiction novels of the early 1960s, The High Crusade by Poul Anderson.

Warning: Spoilers behind the cut! Continue reading

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Into the Heart of the Ruhrgebiet: Cora’s Adventures at the 2024 Toyplosion in Castrop-Rauxel, Part 3: The Trip Home with Bonus Mineshaft Elevator Tower

Last Sunday, I attended the 2024 Toyplosion vintage toy con in Castrop-Rauxel. For the roadtrip to get there and some views of the city, see part 1 and for the con itself as well as my haul, see part 2.

By the time, I made it back to my car and had all my purchases safely stored in the trunk, it was maybe a quarter to four. The con was set to close at four PM, so I’d made the most of this adventure and I had a glorious haul to show for it.

However, before embarking on the long trip home, I made one more stop in Castrop-Rauxel. For during my quest to find an ATM, I had spotted a mineshaft elevator tower in the distance. And because mineshaft elevator towers are the iconic sight of the Ruhrgebiet, I of course wanted to visit it.

Mine Erin:

Since there is no more coal mining in the Ruhrgebiet – the last coal mine closed down in 2018 – there of course was no active mine attached to the elevator. Instead, the mineshaft elevator stood in the middle of a roundabout in an office park, looking a little forlorn.

Mine Erin mineshaft elevator tower

In the middle of a roundabout in an office park rises a reminder of the Ruhrgebiet’s industrial past.

I parked the car and walked around the mineshaft elevator tower, startling a few dog walkers. Mine shaft elevator towers usually have a big sign with the name of the mine and this one was no different. And the sign on top of the tower said “Erin”.

Mineshaft Elevator Tower Mine Erin in Castrop-Rauxel

The mineshaft elevator tower viewed from the side. Note the name “Erin” on top of the tower.

Mineshaft elevator tower Erin

A better look at the “Erin” sign on top of the mineshaft elevator tower.

Now it’s quite common for German coalmines to have names. However, German coalmines are have names like Germania or Teutonia or Concordia or St. Bonifacius or Zollverein or Monopol or Heinrich Robert or Count Friedrich or Queen Elisabeth or Victoria Auguste or Sophia Jacoba or Ottilia or – if the mine was in former East Germany – Karl Liebknecht or Ernst Thälmann. Erin, however, sounds much more like an Irish maiden than a coalmine in the Ruhrgebiet.

Turns out that there is a reason for this, for the coalmine Erin was established in 1867 by William Thomas Mulvany, an Irish geologist and entrepreneur who came to the Ruhrgebiet in the 1850s in search of business opportunities that were difficult for a Catholic Irishman to access in Ireland under British rule. He wound up founding and operating several mines in the Ruhrgebiet and gave them all names relating to Ireland such as Hibernia, Shamrock and of course Erin. One of the companies he founded survived as Hibernia AG until 1970, when it was gobbled up by chemical corporation  VEBA, now the e.on corporation. Here’s a nice profile of Mulvany from the Irish Times. I certainly did not expect Irish entrepreneurs founding coalmines in the Ruhrgebiet, which goes to show that history is a lot more complex than simple stereotypes. Though it’s also telling that as someone who’s not from the Ruhrgebiet, I know the names of the German coal and steel of the 19th century, but not Mulvany’s name. Though the city of Castrop-Rauxel named the office park around the mineshaft elevator tower after Mulvany.

William Thomas Mulvany only ran the Erin for ten years until 1877, when he went bankrupt. The mine was sold off and continued to operate under new management until the great mine dying of the 1980s. Mine Erin closed for good in 1983. Here is what it looked like the year it closed.

But even though the mines are gone, the mineshaft elevator towers – and sometimes the entire plant – remain as landmarks and reminders of the Ruhrgebiet’s industrial past. Indeed, if you’re into industrial history and architecture, the Ruhrgebiet is the place to visit.

Mineshaft elevator tower Erin

The Erin mineshaft elevator tower seen from the rear.

Elevator wheel of the Erin mineshaft elevator

Elevator wheel of the Erin mineshaft elevator.

This particular mineshaft elevator tower was built in 1953 and was the final elevator tower built at the Erin mine before its closure. In addition to the office park, much of the former premises of the Erin mine have been turned into a park. Indeed, another thing about the Ruhrgebiet which doesn’t match the stereotypes is that the Ruhrgebiet is green. Yes, the region is very densely populated, but there are also a lot of nature preserves and parks, many of them literally built on top of former coalmines, belying those (mostly American) pro-nuclear-power trolls who always scream how dangerous and toxic coal is. I got into an argument with one of those pro-nuclear-power trolls maybe a week before my Ruhrgebit excursion and he screamed at me that coal is so toxic that nothing grows there. Of course, it’s possible that coal in the US really is more toxic than coal from the Ruhrgebiet, but I still told him, “Dude, there are literally parks growing on top of former mines in the Ruhrgebiet.”

There actually is another surviving mineshaft elevator tower of the Erin mine, which dates from 1929. I did not get see this one in person, because it’s on the other side of Castrop-Rauxel, though I’ll definitely visit the next time I’m in the area, perhaps for Toyplosion 2025. Or maybe I’ll just do a day trip to the Ruhrgebiet to visit historical mineshaft elevator towers and industrial sites.

The fact that the two surviving mineshaft elevator towers of the Erin mine are on opposite sides of town also means that the Erin mine once stretched under the entire city and the ground is riddled with mine tunnels, though many of them were likely filled in for stability. It’s not just Castrop-Rauxel either – the entire Ruhrgebiet is riddled with former mine tunnels, which actually is a great premise for a horror story about things living down there in the dark, surviving and even thriving after the humans have gone.

Bakery Geiping

After my excursion to the Erin mineshaft elevator tower, I finally embarked on the trip home. However, it had been a long day and I had barely driven back onto the Autobahn that it occurred to me that I’d really like a cup of coffee and a piece of cake to fortify myself for the trip ahead. There was coffee available at the con, but the other attendants said it was bad and expensive, so I didn’t get any coffee there, but planned to stop somewhere on the way home.

There was only one problem. Cafés and bakeries in Germany usually close at five or six PM and it was almost half past four PM by now. Which meant that if I wanted a cup of coffee and a piece of cake, I needed to find a bakery café now or I would be stuck with the underwhelming service stations and Autohöfe along the highway.

So I left the Autobahn at the next exit, which happened to be called Dortmund-Lanstrop, and checked Google Maps for the nearest open bakery. Turned out that even thought the exit was called Dortmund-Lanstrop, the city of Dortmund was actually quite a way off, which is a common issue with German highway exits. Instead, the nearest town was called Lünen. And yes, they used to have a coalmine and still have a mineshaft elevator tower and a really interesting one, too, though I didn’t visit it, because I didn’t know it existed. Honestly, I want to do an industrial history day trip to the Ruhrgebiet now.

But I was in Lünen for coffee rather than sightseeing and so I found Bakery Geiping, a bakery chain established in 1924, which has branches all over the Münsterland and northern Ruhrgebiet. The Lünen branch was located next to an Aldi store in a residential neighbourhood. I was lucky, because it was half past four and they were due to close at five PM. Since it was half an hour before closing time, the bakery no longer had any cake left, so I just had a coffee. Then, fortified and alert, I returned to the Autobahn.

Service Station Tecklenburger Land:

Even though it was Sunday, the Autobahn was a lot busier now than it had been that morning with returning holidaymakers and daytrippers as well as weekend commuters  heading back to their workplaces. There was also a fair number of trucks, for even though the Sunday truck ban on German roads lasts until ten PM, there are exceptions for trucks transporting perishable or otherwise urgent goods. And so all the trucks that supply supermarkets and gorcery stores with fresh produce were on the road again by this point.

About an hour later, while I was driving through the Münsterland and the northern edge of the Teutoburg Forest, I found myself getting tired again, so it was time for another pit stop. Dad rarely made coffee pit stops during roadtrips, at least not when I was a kid. Though as he grew older, we’d sometimes stop for an ice cream. However, I have decided for myself that if I need a pause while on the road, I will stop for a coffee, because it keeps me alert and makes me a safer driver. Besides, I’m not beholden to anybody but myself and can stop whenever and wherever I feel like it.

However, by now, all the bakery cafés were be closed, so my only option was a service station or Autohof. So I pulled into Service Station Tecklenburger Land and had another coffee as well as a giant chocolate chip cookie from the service station coffee shop.

While I was sipping my coffee and enjoying a panoramic view of the parking lot and Autobahn A1, I chanced to witness an altercation between the lady behind the counter and a bearded male customer. The service station was largely deserted, so once the male customer sat down, I used the pretext of taking my mug and plate back to the coffee counter rather than using the tray return to ask the lady behind the counter if everything was okay or if she needed help. She thanked me and said she was fine. Unruly customers are sadly part of her job.

Rastplatz Langwege-East:

After this pit stop, I was off again, headed for the 33 kilometer monster construction zone between exits Bramsche and Lohne-Dinklage. They’re widening the A1 from four to six lanes there, closing the sole gap between Hamburg and Osnabrück, where the extremely busy A1 is only four lanes instead of six. In theory, this is a very good thing. In practice, it’s a terrible hassle, especially since the construction zone is so long. Not sure why they have to do it in one go rather than splitting it up into shorter segments.

In the morning, I had passed the monster construction zone without issues or delays, because there was little traffic. Now in the early evening, there was a lot more traffic. There also was a traffic jam, because a van had broken down on the road, narrowing the already narrow highway even further. I felt sorry for the people in the van – they looked like a band or something – because they were stuck in an extremely dangerous area with nowhere else to go.

Once I finally made it through the monster traffic jam, I realised something alarming. I was getting tired again and I mean really tired. And I still had twelve kilometers or so of construction zone ahead of me. I needed a break – now – but what to do? Usually, I would have stopped at service station Dammer Berge with its striking bridge restaurant, but I’d passed that some kilometres ago.  I’d also passed exit Holdorf where there was an Autohof with a McDonalds and a Kentucky Fried Chicken. And the next exit Lohne/Dinklage, which also has an Autohof (and actually a decent restaurant that’s not a fast food chain) was still a way ahead.

So I did what my Dad always did in such situations, when he was on a long drive and found himself getting dangerously tired. I pulled into the next parking and rest area, which happened to be called Langwege-East (Langwege-West is on the other side of the A1).

Parking and rest areas are the most common and also most basic stopping points along German Autobahnen. There are parking spaces for trucks and cars, there are a few picnic tables and nowadays, there’s usually a public toilet of highly questionable cleanliness. In short, you only stop here, if you have no other choice.

So I parked my car, locked the doors, reclined the driver’s seat, set the alarm on my phone for fifteen minutes, closed my eyes and dozed for a bit, which is what Dad always did in such situations. Yes, my Dad practiced power napping well before it was a thing.

Once I opened my eyes again, I ate some of the chocolate I’d taken along as provisions. While I was munching the chocolate, I chanced to witness a bunch of young men pouring out of the back of a van to peruse the toilet at the rest area. Of course, they might have been workers on route to a job or a band on the way home from a gig, but personally I suspect they were undocumented immigrants.

Germany is currently having a moral panic about illegal immigrants who stab people and rape women. Like all moral panics, it’s silly and completely overblown, but instead of ignoring that crap and waiting for the panic to die down, our sorry excuse for a government felt the need to do something to reassure the population or at least the xenophobes among them and decided to reintroduce border controls at all German borders, blatantly violating the Schengen agreement. The border controls were set to go into effect the following day, so it would make sense for people smugglers to simply transport their human cargo on the weekend before. Not that those border controls will truly deter any undocumented immigrants or the people who make money smuggling them, because Germany has a lot of borders and a lot of border crossings and not nearly enough personnel to control all of them. All this border control initiative will achieve is annoy truckers and people who commute across the border to work, shop or go to school.

Somewhat refreshed, I set off again and drove through the last twelve kilometers or so of the monster construction zone. Should I still feel tired, I would exit the A1 at Lohne/Dinklage and have a coffee and maybe dinner at the Autohof there, which actually has a pretty good restaurant and not just fast food chains. Alternatively, I could also stop at the Autohöfe at the exits Vechta and Cloppenburg (neither of which is even remotely near the cities they’re named after) or service station Wildeshausen.

However, my power nap at Rastplatz Langewege-East and the chocolate had done their job. I wasn’t tired anymore and since it was getting dark, I decided not to stop for dinner, but head straight home.

That is, I did stop once more at a gas station approx. six kilometers from home to refuel my car, because my tank was somewhat depleted and diesel was cheap. I was home at around eight PM, where I unpacked my haul, had a cup of instant noodles for dinner and went to bed, because I was very tired.

All in all, I really enjoyed my trip to Toyplosion and will definitely go again next year. In general, I find that I enjoy the occasional road trips I’ve been going on this year and that I also enjoy exploring cities and places where I’ve never been, so expect more road trip reports in the future.

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Into the Heart of the Ruhrgebiet: Cora’s Adventures at the 2024 Toyplosion in Castrop-Rauxel, Part 2: The Con

Last Sunday, I attended the 2024 Toyplosion vintage toy con in Castrop-Rauxel. For the roadtrip to get there and some views of the city, see part 1 and for the trip home and some more views of the city, see part 3.

But first of all, I’ve got another link to share, because I’m also contributing to the Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow Blog of the 2025 Worldcon in Seattle, Washington now. This time, I talk about Cele Goldsmith Lalli, the young female editor who turned around the fortunes of Amazing and Fantastic between 1958 and 1965.

ETA: It’s just been announced that the next Toyplosion will take place in Castrop-Rauxel on August 23, 2025, i.e. the weekend after the Seattle Worldcon, which isn’t exactly ideal for me. But then I’m probably the only potential attendant with this particular issue.

Queues and Classic Cars:

But back to the subject at hand: The Toyplosion con was held in the Europahalle, a multi-purpose events center of the type found in most bigger German cities. The Europahalle is part of an ensemble of 1970s Brutalist buildings, which also includes the North Rhine Westfalia State Theatre, the townhall of Castrop-Rauxel (relocated here from the old townhall in the city center in the 1970s because of reasons) and a museum imaginatively called Forum Castrop-Rauxel. The entire Europaplatz complex was designed by architects Arne Jacobsen and Otto Weitling and completed in 1975. It’s certainly one of the more interesting Brutalist buildings and also a listed landmark.

Castrop-Rauxel townhall

Castrop-Rauxel’s Brutalist townhall, designed by Arne Jacobsen and Otto Weitling and completed in 1975.

I parked my car and headed for the con and was immediately greeted by a long line of people waiting to get in. And even though I had pre-purchased my ticket, I still had to wait. Luckily, the line moved pretty fast.

Europaplatz in Castrop-Rauxel with the line of people waiting to get into Toysplosion

A look down Europaplatz in Castrop-Rauxel with the line of people waiting to get into Toyplosion

Europahalle Castrip-Rauxel

The queue has almost reached the entrance to Europahalle.

While we were waiting in line, there also were a couple of things to see outside the con proper, namely a replica of K.I.T.T., the talking car from the original 1980s Knight Rider (which was a huge hit in Germany), complete with Cylon style moving light bar. K.I.T.T. also played snippets of dialogue from the show as well as pop songs by David Hasselhoff. K.I.T.T.‘s German voice BTW was veteran actor Gottfried Kramer, who also voiced Mer-Man in the German Masters of the Universe audio plays. David Hasselhoff was dubbed by Andreas von der Meden, who voiced Trap-Jaw in the German Masters of the Universe audio dramas and was also the German voice of Kermit the Frog. Yes, really.

KITT on display at Toysplosion in Castrop-Rauxel

K.I.T.T. has been parked outside Europahalle and is impatiently waiting for Michael Knight to return. Apparently, Michael Knight and K.I.T.T. have also moved to Coesfeld, based on K.I.T.T.’s license plate.

Also on display was a DeLorean, though this one hadn’t been altered to look exactly like the one from Back to the Future. But since DeLoreans were never sold in Germany, most people here associate them only with the movie. In fact, I had no idea that DeLorean was a real car brand until years later – I assumed it was some kind of custom prop for the film with a fictional brandname.

DeLorean on display at Toysplosion in Castrop-Rauxel

Marty McFly and Doc Brown have traveled into the distant future of 2024 to visit Toyplosion and get sticker shock at the prices commanded by toys they could have bought at any store back in 1985.

DeLorean on display at Toysplosion

Front view of the DeLorean parked outside Europahalle. Unlike K.I.T.T., the DeLorean does not have an official licence plate.

Displaying two iconic film/TV cars of the 1980s outside Toyplosion makes sense, because the vast majority of attendants were the grown-up children of the 1980s and 1990s who would have grown up with Back to the Future and Knight Rider. Though the two cars also delighted actual children such as the approximately nine and seven-year-old kids of the guy who was in line behind me.

This is as good a time as any to talk about the demographics of the Toyplosion attendants. The gender distribution was about sixty percent male to forty percent female, which matches Mattel‘s research from the 1980s that forty percent of Masters of the Universe toys were sold to girls. I suspect the percentages were similar for Star Wars, Transformers, G.I. Joe, etc…  In short, none of the big 1980s franchises were ever only for men, the women were always there from the start. One thing that made me happy is that there were also a lot of kids. And yes, the kids accompanied their collector parents, but they were also clearly excited about a giant hall full of toys. So yes, kids these days still enjoy physical toys, if they are exposed to them.

Apart from the kids, the attendants ranged from their mid thirties to mid fifties, which again matches the products on offer, which mostly dated from the 1970s to 1990s with a few post-2000 brands like the Lord of the Rings movie figures or the Mythic and Cosmic Legions figures (which appeal to the same demographic) thrown in. There were cosplayers, too, including a whole troop of Ghostbusters. Apparently, they belonged to a fan club.

Both vendors and attendants were from all over Germany plus neighbouring countries. There was a significant number of Dutch people as both vendors and attendants, but then the Dutch border isn’t that far from the Ruhrgebiet. I also saw at least one Belgian vendor, but then the Flanders isn’t that far from the Ruhrgebiet either. There also was at least one British vendor.

What I saw at Toyplosion… and some reminiscences of toys past:

Once I’d made it to the entrance, had my ticket scanned and was given an armband, I found myself on a gallery, overlooking a large hall full of tables and stalls loaded with vintage toys. The Europahalle was apparently originally intended as a sports venue, though it mostly hosts concerts and fairs these days, and the gallery would have been where spectators were seated.

Toysplosion 2024: Look from the gallery

A view from the gallery across the floor of Toyplosion. Note the stage at the back, flanked by two life-size replicas of Flying Fists He-Man and Terror Claws Skeletor. This was where you could purchase the show exclusives and also where rare items were auctioned off.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get a good photo of the life-size Flying Fists He-Man and Terror Claws Skeletor figures, because the stage area was always busy, whenever I walked past, but here’s a great photo on Instagram.

Look from the gallery across Toysplosion 2024

Another look from the gallery across the floor of Toyplosion. Note the Masters of the Universe statues by (I think) Iron Studios in the front.

View from the gallery across the floor of Toysplosion

Another view from the gallery across the floor of Toyplosion. Note the mint-in-box Cabbaga Patch Kids on the left and the G.I. Joe and StarCom vehicles in the center.

Look from the gallery acress the floor of Toysplosion

Another view from the gallery across the floor of Toyplosion. In front, you can see people queueing up for con exclusives. In the back, you can see the stall of Welt der Meister Magazin, a German Masters of the Universe fanzine.

For more impressions of the 2024 Toyplosion, there are a lot – and I mean a whole lot – of videos on YouTube, so here’s a selection by ToyTenner, Meine Masters Mancave, Ed’s Retro Geek Out, bumo TV (part 2), Lau Skypainter, Retro Stardust, Goreminister, Die Trödelmama, Grooty’s Sloppy Lab, Floversum, Sammelzimmer, Lutastic, Star Wars Sammler, Loco’s Welt Gaming, VTS Experience, SpaceFiguren who also have an interview with Axel Gimenez, Pogobär 1985, Runder Tisch Marxloh e.V. (a charity from Duisburg to which some of the proceeds from the tombola and auction were donated), Marlons Flimmerkess, We Are Ghostbusters Germany, Der Bürgermeister, Master Ölli & PokingJoe78, #Piratenbox (part 2 and part 3),  Comics Cult Cinema, Bardobrick, Der Film Angler, Foot Soldier, It Waits TV, Bodylove666, Martin Carter Production, Spielzeug-Jäger, Häuptling Bunte Murmel (part 2 and part 3), Mint in Mind, The Collectors Bay.

There also are a lot of haul videos: #Piratenbox, Retro Krempel, bumo TV, Comic Toy Hunter, VTS Experience, Der Sitti, Stanleys Filmzimmer, Kennt Ihr noch… (part 2), Retro Rauner, Vater und Sohn im Sammlerrausch, It Waits TV, MotU Chris, Tales from the Fright Zone, He-Fan’s Vlog.

There were tables all around the gallery, so I first went around the gallery before descending onto the main floor. After maybe two tables I was alo so enthralled by all the toys on offer that I completely forgot to take photos. So the only photo I have of the actual toys on offer is this one of My Little Pony figures of all things.

My Little Pony figures on display at Toysplosion

Vintage My Little Pony figures on display at Toyplosion.

The same stall also had several vintage Strawberry Shortcake dolls as well as other girl-aimed toylines of the 1980s on display. I chatted a bit with the owner and reminisced about how my Grandma bought me the entire first wave of Strawberry Shortcake dolls in January 1982, when my parents were on a cruise (my Dad had co-designed the ship, so it was work for him and he apparently spent most of his time running around and fixing problems, while my Mom was terribly seasick) and I was sent to stay with my grandparents. Grandma took me shopping in the city center and after spending an inordinate amount of time trying on clothes, she took me to what was then the best toyshop in town, where they had just gotten Strawberry Shortcake dolls in stock. And because I couldn’t decide in which one I wanted, Grandma – bless her – bought me the entire first wave. I don’t even want to think about how much that would have cost her – US toys were expensive in the 1980s because of the high exchange rate. What makes this even more remarkable is that my Aunt and to a lesser degree my Mom always referred to Grandma as “stingy” (she was their stepmother – my biological grandmother died young and I never met her), yet my supposedly “stingy” Grandma spent what must have been a lot of money just to buy me Strawberry Shortcake dolls. Grandma had actually worked as a dollmaker for a while in the difficult years after WWII, so she had an affinity for toys and always got me nice ones. Grandma and Grandpa even gave me handmade doll beds – Grandpa, who was a carpenter by trade, built them and Grandma sewed the pillows and blankets. I’m not sure if I ever told Grandma how much those Strawberry Shortcake dolls meant to me (she died in 1996 and has dementia for the last five years or so), though I suspect the fact that I promptly turned her kitchen floor into Strawberry Land and appropriated Grandpa’s footstool as a house for the dolls told them how much I loved their gift. I still have the dolls BTW – packed away in a box – and they still smell.

In general, a stroll across the floor of Toyplosion was a trip down memory lane. All the toys you remember from your childhood were there, including some brands so obscure that you occasionally wondered whether you dreamt that one time you spotted that toy in a store while on holiday or whether it was real. The big names dominated, of course. There were a lot of Star Wars toys, anything from vintage Kenner figures via the over-muscled Power of the Force figures from the 1990s to modern Hasbro Vintage Collection and Black Series figures. I even spotted a couple of brand-new Acolyte figures. There also were enough Boba Fetts to repopulate Mandalore, from the vintage mail-away figure to modern versions.

Masters of the Universe was not far behind and again you could find every iteration of the brand from vintage figures and vehicles, both loose and on card, via New Adventures (and I saw a lot of those figures, more than I recall ever seeing back when theys were in stores), 200X (which I only saw in stores once or twice), Classics, Super 7‘s Neo Vintage and Reaction lines (and again I saw a lot more of those than I ever saw in one place before) to the current Origins, Masterverse and CGI lines.

I also spotted several vintage Castle Grayskulls and Snake Mountains and even an almost complete vintage Eternia, which is a rare sight indeed, because only very few Eternias were made back in the day. I also saw two or three new Eternias in box. No vintage Fright Zone, no Slime Pit nor any Crystal Castle or Crystal Falls, all of which would have been tempting. Regarding vintage vehicles, I saw a Bashasaurus, a Spydor, several Jet Sleds, a set of Stilt Stalkers as well as Stridor and Nightstalker.

He-Man’s twin sister She-Ra was also well represented with offerings ranging from somewhat bedraggled looking loose vintage figures (vintage Princess of Power figures tend to look more bedraggled than vintage He-Man figures, because the hair tends to get tangled and the fabric clothes tend to get lost or damaged quite easily) to mint-on-card figures. The star was a mint vintage gift set including She-Ra, Sweet Bee and Perfuma, which looked utterly perfect as if someone had popped into a time machine (well, the DeLorean was parked outside) and travelled back to 1985 and bought it at a shop. I also saw not one but two mint-in-box Clawdeens, the bright pink lion that’s Catra’s pet/ride. I firmly resisted asking for a price (and since they were mint-in-box, they would have been very expensive anyway), because a) I’m not an in-box collector and b) Clawdeen won’t fit in scale with my Masterverse Catra and there is no Origins Catra. Though a loose Clawdeen would have been very tempting.

She-Ra 1980s rival (though both lines were in development around the same time, so it was something in the air rather than one copying the other) Golden Girl and the Guardians of the Gemstones also had a remarkably strong presence at Toyplosion, especially for a line that’s somewhat obscure these days. There were plenty of dolls and fashions still in box. I even spotted Shadow, the horse of the villainous Dragon Queen, complete with chariot, though it wasn’t in great condition, otherwise I probably would have caved in and bought it.

It’s interesting that by the mid 1980s, girls suddenly got a lot more exciting options than just Barbie and similar fashion dolls like Sindy and Petra, traditional baby/child type dolls and pastel-coloured cartoon characters, which had dominated girl-aimed toylines before. But then in 1985, you suddenly got not one but two toylines of awesome female warrior princesses, Golden Girl and She-Ra, as well as the amazing rockstar adventures of Jem and the Holograms and their rival The Misfits (whose songs are better). It’s as if someone suddenly realised that girls wanted more than just play house and dress-up. Of course, girls had been playing with Star Wars and Masters of the Universe and G.I. Joe all along. And even if you had only traditional dolls and plush toys, you could still use them to play Star Wars or have them go on an adventure to fight pirates (ask me how I know), because imagination and improvisation are limitless. You could also make barbarian warrior princess or jungle queen outfits for Barbie – again ask me how I know. But in 1985, it was as if someone flipped a switch and we suddenly got all of these awesome adventure toylines aimed at girls. Even Barbie suddenly became a rockstar to counter Jem as well as an astronaut in the world’s most glamourous spacesuit. And then, barely two years later, all of these awesome adventure toylines just vanished and we were stuck with just Barbie once again, who also stopped being an astronaut or rockstar and got back to being mainly a fashion model. Traditional feminity restored.

Regarding Golden Girl and the Guardians of the Gemstones, it’s fascinating how many people, mainly but not exclusively women, remember playing with these dolls and loving them back in the day. The quality wasn’t always the greatest – the gorgeous Golden Girl castle playset is notoriously brittle – but my childhood Vultura doll is in better condition than my childhood She-Ra dolls and I was always a careful kid. Apparently, Golden Girl was more popular in Europe than in the US, but the question is still why this toyline faded so quickly and lasted only a year, even though lots people remember enjoying it. The usual explanation is that it didn’t have a cartoon or other tie-in media, but then here in Europe we never got the cartoons and the toys at the same time. Instead, by the time the cartoons showed up, the toys were long gone from the shelves. In fact, when the US sitcom Golden Girls came to German TV, I was super-excited, because I naturally expected it to be a tie-in show to the Golden Girl toyline and was then very confused to get some boring stuff about old women in Florida that surely no one would want to watch. And yes, I know I’m probably unfair towards the Golden Girls sitcom, but I never forgave it for not being what I hoped it would be.

In fact, if there was one 1980s toyline I could resurrect, it would be Golden Girl and the Guardians of the Gemstones, because there was so much potential there. In fact, I would love to see a Masters of the Universe Classics or Masterverse style revival of Golden Girl or even what Mattel did with the far more obscure Sun-Man line in Origins, but that’s unlikely to happen, because Golden Girl was produced by Galoob, who were bought up by Hasbro, since Hasbro gobbled up other toy companies like there was no tomorrow. So Hasbro has the rights now, but they don’t do anything with most of the properties they have. See Jem, M.A.S.K. or any of the other umpteen properties they gained via gobbling up other companies. Apparently, someone is producing updated Strawberry Shortcake (which Hasbro gained via gobbling up Kenner) dolls again and just a few days ago, it was announced that Hasbro has licenced M.A.S.K., Jem and a few others to a company called The Loyal Subjects. But could we maybe get new Golden Girl and the Guardians of the Gemstones action figures (not rooted hair please, since it always gets messy and the rubber bands eventually degrade, even in box), cause that would be awesome.

In general, it was as if something changed in the late 1980s, when all the awesome cartoons and toylines we’d had only a few years before just abruptly vanished and were replaced by “edgy” anthropomorphic animal stuff like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Biker Mice From Mars or Samurai Pizza Cats or Street Sharks that just never really did it for me. Of course, the fact that I was aging out of target demographic and that my Dad stopped working in Rotterdam (and as an adult I understand why he stopped working there, but as a teen it felt like a massive betrayal, like suddenly being cast out of the promised land back into gray, leaden, claustrophobic Germany), cutting me off from exposure to new cartoons via Sky Channel on cable TV, didn’t help either, but it still felt like an extremely abrupt shift.

Talking of the late 1980s trend for hip anthropomorphic animals, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were well represented at Toyplosion and I also spotted some Biker Mice From Mars (if Dad were still around, I would have gotten him one as a gift) and Street Shark figures. And of course, there were plenty of Transformers as well as G.I. Joe toys, though G.I. Joe was never as popular in Europe as in the US, probably because the tagline “A Real American Hero” clearly told all European and all non-American kids in general that there was no room for them in these stories except as villains (and it’s probably telling that the three vintage G.I. Joe figures I own are all villains).

Bravestar was also pretty well represented. I never cared for the cartoon and the toyline back in the day, because while I loved science fiction, I really disliked westerns and the combination of both was an instant nope. I guess I should revisit the cartoon sometime, especially since I’d softened towards the space western subgenre by the time Galaxy Rangers and Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs came around.  I also saw a whole stall with M.A.S.K. vehicles and figures as well as a scattering at other stalls and had to firmly remind myself that even though I used to like the cartoon a lot back in the day, I don’t collect M.A.S.K.. I found some Thundercats figures, both vintage – including a vintage Thundertank – as well as the new ones by Super 7 and even some gorgeous vintage Silverhawks. There were also a lot of wrestling action figures. That’s not something I was ever into – I occasionally watched wrestling on TV, but never felt the need to have toys of the protagonists – but wrestling figures are perennially popular.

You could find ToyBiz Marvel figures and Hasbro Marvel Legends, though not quite as many as you’d expect, but then Marvel figures have never been all that easy to find in Germany. Smyths Toys Germany doesn’t even have Marvel Legends as a category, just Spider-Man or Avengers. And most of what they have are those weird large low articulation figures. I saw some of the 1990s Batman figures, which were basically Batman in any colour of the rainbow with the occasional other character thrown in. I also spotted a couple of Gargoyles figures from the 1990s, several of which I still have at home. There were quite a few of the McFarlane collectible figures of the 1990s – Spawn and the like, but also their Beatles Yellow Submarine line, where I recall asking a comic book shop owner back in the day, if anybody actually bought those.

There were vintage Lego and Playmobil sets and figures on offer, including some 1970s Lego castle and knight sets, but again fewer then you’d think, considering how huge Lego and Playmobil are in Europe. But then it seems as if Lego and Playmobil appeal to different demographics. When I was a kid, Lego and Playmobil were educational quality toys for good kids, whereas Masters of the Universe, Transformers, Star Wars, G.I. Joe, etc… were “evil American plastic trash”. Never mind that Lego and Playmobil were also made from plastic. I actually like(d) Playmobil and have a fair amount, though I never cared for Lego, no matter how many times well-meaning relatives tried to give it to me. But to me they still have this good German kid vibe and I wasn’t a good German kid.

You could find Barbies, Cabbage Patch Kids, My Little Ponies, Rainbow Brite, Strawberry Shortcake and other toylines originally aimed at girls and you also found plenty of men as well as women selling and buying them, but they were underrepresented. I also didn’t see a lot of regular dolls, plushies and accessories. No Zapf, no Käthe Kruse, no Steiff. Again, those appeal to different demographics. No model trains either and very few model cars, though one stall offered vintage plastic soldiers and collectible plastic figures that used to be included with packages of margarine.

And of course there were Funko Pops, because there always are. The popularity of these things still baffles me, because most people claim they don’t like them, yet someone is clearly buying these things or there wouldn’t be so many of them.

Then there were the weird and wonderful toylines whose existence you’d either completely forgotten about or you though no one except you remembered such as the 1980s He-Man knock-off line Galaxy Warriors or the Starcom space toyline. There was a stall which had a lot of Filmation Ghostbusters action figures. The Filmation Ghostbusters, not to be confused with the Real Ghostbusters, were one of these obscure cartoons of the 1980s that is largely forgotten today. It was the result of a copyright loophole – Filmation actually had the right to the name “Ghostbusters” and Columbia not only had to pay them a licensing fee for the 1984 movie, but Filmation also launched its own Ghostbusters cartoon, which came out a bit before The Real Ghostbusters. I liked both shows and wish they could have crossed over, but it always annoyed me that the Filmation Ghostbusters cartoon are largely forgotten today. But the Filmation Ghostbusters had two female regulars – time-traveller Futura and reporter Jessica – whereas The Real Ghostbusters only had Janine. The Filmation Ghostbusters also had a gorilla as a regular member and their main antagonist was called Prime Evil. In short, the show was really cool and it’s a pity that it is forever overshadowed by The Real Ghostbusters. And I had to stop myself from buying the three main characters Jake, Eddie and Tracy (that’s the gorilla). If they’d had Futura and Jessica, I don’t think I could have reissted. As for the toys, I only ever saw the Filmation Ghostbusters action figures once, while on holiday in Italy.

This is a very common experience for German toy collectors BTW. We all have a story about that utterly awesome toy that we only saw once in a weird department store or messy toy store somewhere in Italy, while on holiday. And of course we never bought it because our parents did not consider toy shops a suitable place to spend your holidays. Quite often, that amazing toy that got away is the clearest memory you have from that holiday, eclipsing beaches and museums and cathedrals and ice cream and pizza. And it’s almost always Italy, because for some reason, Italy always got all the awesome toys no other place got. I think the US toy industry used Italy as a dumping ground for unwanted products, but we wanted them, too. Even today, Italy still has an awesome selection of toys BTW. I found some great deals for Masters of the Universe figures on eBay Italy.

The oldest toys I saw on display were Major Matt Mason astronaut action figures from the mid 1960s, a toyline I knew existed, but have never actually before. Apparently, there was a revival planned in the 2010s, but it never happened, probably because the good Major’s adventures are a little too tame for the post-Star Wars era.

I saw nothing pre-1960s. There were no antique china or celluloid dolls, vintage toy trains, tin soldiers or other standbys of antique shops and fairs. No modern collectible dolls, i.e. Käthe Kruse or Madame Alexander (though those were never sold in Germany) or the sort of thing offered by companies like Franklin Mint, either beyond some collectors Barbies. But then, the market for these things pretty much dried up, as the people who collected them gradually died off. I guess the people who collected china and celluloid dolls (whose popularity always baffled me, because they were ugly and hyper-flammable) and vintage trains and the like were the people who remembered playing with such toys or craving them as kids. And yes, china dolls stem from the early 20th century, but they were still around as hand-me-downs well into the 1940s and 1950s. My Mom remembers being given a vintage china doll she named Toni sometime in the late 1940s. Sadly, Toni did not survive. Meanwhile, Madame Alexander dolls or Käthe Kruse dolls or other dolls aimed at adult collectors that sold for high prices in the 1980s and 1990s mainly appealed to the people who either had such dolls as kids or wanted them and now had the money to purchase an updated edition (though I liked the Madame Alexander dolls a lot as a teen, because they were gorgeous and very different from anything available in Germany). In short, they were basically the Masters of the Universe Classics and Origins for the WWII and baby boomer generation, because toy collecting is driven by nostalgia. And yes, Madame Alexander and Käthe Kruse are still around and still produce dolls and Madame Alexander even has a line of explicitly kid-aimed dolls, but they’re no longer what they were. And I guess no one in the 1980s would ever have expected that a mint-in-box She-Ra gift set that maybe cost fifteen dollars at retail would sell for a hundred times that forty years on, while a Madame Alexander doll that cost seventy to eighty dollar at the time would be sold be sold on eBay for twenty-five or thirty dollars.

Though there weren’t just vintage toys on offer, but also toy-adjacent things. I saw some cool custom Masters of the Universe figures by German customisers Poking Joe and Master Oelli, including characters from the German audio dramas that Mattel will probably never make such as Goras, He-Man’s annoying cousin (and yes, the play specifies that he’s He-Man’s cousin, not Adam’s cousin) or the gnome Ofta or an Anti-Eternia Teela (be careful with that one, cause she’s a cannibal in the Masters of the Multiverse comic mini-series). They had also customised a Castle Grayskull into Castle Hellskull, the alternate universe version of the famous that originated in the famous Anti-Eternia audio play and has now become an established part of the lore.

Retrofabrik, who reprinted the 1980s German Masters of the Universe comics in beautiful hardcover editions and also produced new Masters of the Universe audio dramas, were present. I already have all the comics, but I purchased the first two new audio dramas on CD. In general, if you’re into vintage audio dramas on cassette tape (which were huge, when I was a kid in the 1980s), there were plenty on offer at Toyplosion. Not just Masters of the Universe, but also The Three Investigators (a series so popular that the now adult voice actors still do live tours), Knight Rider (starring the voice actors who dubbed the TV show) and all sorts of other stuff. In fact, audio dramas were so ubiquitous during my childhood that it never occurred to me that they were a very specifically (West) German phenomenon that didn’t exist elsewhere. Whenever I see those vintage audio cassettes nowadays, I always wonder if they still work (because of rights issues, few of them have been reissued), provided you still have a functioning tape deck somewhere, or if the people who collect them just display them. One of the exclusive products you could buy at Toyplosion was a reproduction of a vintage store display for audio cassettes, so it may well be the latter.

Also present were Welt der Meister Magazin, a German Masters of the Universe fanzine. Well, actually they’re at least a semipro, since it’s a pretty glossy and professional looking production, though the classification doesn’t really matter, since I doubt they’ll get a Hugo nomination anytime soon. They have been around for about ten years now and have interviewed pretty much everybody who ever worked on Masters of the Universe and is still alive and willing to be interviewed. They also published a guide to the audio plays, a special edition about the 1987 movie, a guide to the advertising magazines with their beautiful toy photography and they’re gearing up to publish an encyclopedia. Welt der Meister Magazine is one of those fan projects I always think I should support, especially since I’m pretty sure that there’s information in these issues that you can’t find elsewhere, but I’m never sure where to start.

A real highlight was getting to meet artist Simon Eckert, who does a lot of packaging artwork for the Masterverse line. Check out his amazing art on Instagram and Art Station. Simon was selling prints of his artwork as well as a Masters of the Universe cardgame he designed. His stall wasn’t busy, so I stopped to buys two prints (of the King Keldor and Sorceress Teela box art, since he didn’t yet have a print of the amazing Snake Sorceress Teela art) and told him how much I enjoyed his artwork. We started chatting and geeked out about spotting amazing toys on holiday in Italy, Masters of the Universe and She-Ra (Simon’s partner is a huge She-Ra fan) and Golden Girl, since Simon has also done some amazing Golden Girl fan art.  He’s also done some amazing Princess of Power and Masters of the Universe fan art. He’s also the one who designed Castle Hellskull, since the Castle first appeared in an audio drama and there was no illustration. Simon is eligible for the Best Pro Artist Hugo BTW, hint hint.

My Toyplosion Haul… and Fun With Action Figures, Part 1:

But now I’ve told you about all the awesome things I saw at Toyplosion, you’re surely wondering what I got. So here’s a photo of my haul. Apologies for the busy background, but I had to take the photo on the floor to get everything in shot.

Toyplosion haul.

Toyplosion haul: Clockwise from top left: Masters of the Universe Classics Snake Men Soldiers, Peek-a-Blue, Double Trouble, Castle Grayskullman, Saurod, Masters of the Universe 200X Mer-Man, Two-Bad, Prince Adam, Keldor, Beast-Man, Retrofabrik audio dramas, tie-in audio drama for the CGI show (free promo) and in the middle Sorceress Teela and King Keldor prints by Simon Eckert.

I also picked up the Toyplosion exclusive Masters of the Universe Origins Flying Fists He-Man and Terror Claws Skeletor two-pack with gorgeous artwork for a friend. Here’s a quick picture I took on the dining room table after I got home. Sadly you can’t see the packaging all that well, because of the reflections from the dining room lights. Toy Habits has a better photo.

Toyplosion exclusive Flying Fists He-Man and Terror Claws Skeletor two-pack.

The Toyplosion exclusive Flying Fists He-Man and Terror Claws Skeletor Two-Pack.

The Toyplosion exclusive Slime Pit mug was unfortunately sold out or I would have picked one up, since I really like the design. Apparently, you could also get limited edition versions vehicles and weapons based on early concept art, but I didn’t see these at all, though I definitely walked past the stall where they were offered, so I guess they were sold out.

I found a stall selling loose but complete Masters of the Universe Classics figures for good prices and walked away with three of them. The first is Castle Grayskullman, a character who was created by fan and filmmaker Daniel Benedict (see and interview with him here) for the 30th Anniversary of Masters of the Universe for a “Create a Character” contest. He’s billed as the living embodiment of Castle Grayskull and can be summoned forth by a spell, when the Castle and Eternia are in dire need of help. The recent Masterverse anthology comic mini-series by Tim Seeley and various artists offered another spin on this character and gave a universe where Prince Adam transforms not into He-Man, but into Castle Grayskullman. In that form, he’s extremely powerful, but the transformation also consumes part of his soul. But whatever his story, he looks great and I’m sure I’ll have a lot of fun with this guy.

Masters of the Universe Classics Castle Grayskullman

Masters of the Universe Classics Castle Grayskullman

Castle Grayskullman in front of Castle Grayskull

Castle Grayskullman in his natural habitat.

My second loose Classics figure purchase was Double Trouble (though the Classics version was called “Double Mischief” for trademark reasons). Double Trouble was a character in the vintage Princess of Power toyline. Billed as a “glamourous double agent”, she was basically the Man-e-Faces of Princess of Power line, because her face could be turned under the helmet to reveal a good and an evil face, whereby the evil face just had arched eyebrows and heavier eye make-up, which was omitted from the Classics figure. Double Trouble never appeared in the 1980s She-Ra cartoon, though the 2018 She-Ra and the Princesses of Power cartoon did something really interesting with the character, turning them into a gender-fluid shapeshifter who played all sides. Double Trouble is one of the characters where I really prefer the 2018 redesign, but it’s unlikely that version – or indeed any other version of Double Trouble – will ever be made and now I at least have her for my Great Rebellion shelf.

Masters of the Universe Classics Double Trouble

Double Trouble shows her good face and looks very much like a flower fairy from a vintage children’s book.

Masters of the Universe Classics Double Trouble evil face

Double Trouble shows her villainous side. There really isn’t much difference in the faces – the vintage version at least had heavy eye make-up – though the reversible crossbow is cool.

And since we’re on the subject of the Masters of the Universe Classics versions of Princess of Power characters, I also found an in box Peekablue figure for a good price, which means that I have almost the entire Great Rebellion in 7-inch scale now. Unfortunately, Peekablue was very underused in both the original She-Ra cartoon and the 2018 series, though she’s always been one of the most beautiful Princess of Power figures and also has really interesting powers, since the eyes on her peacock feathers allow her to see things happening far away, making her the perfect spy. Honestly, it’s a pity that no media ever did anything interesting with her.Masters of the Universe Classics PeekablueThe third loose Masters of the Universe Classics figure I got was Saurod, who was a character created for the 1987 live action Masters of the Universe movie. Played by Pons Marr, he was one of Skeletor’s Evil Warriors in the movie, though he was killed off by Skeletor half-way through the movie after the Evil Warriors failed to capture He-Man and the Cosmic Key. Saurod also was one of only three characters from the 1987 movie who actually got toys in the vintage line along with Blade and Gwildor. I always liked Saurod, because his design looks amazing and he makes a great addition to my movie figures.

Masters of the Universe Masterverse Movie Evil-Lyn and Skeletor and Classics Saurod

Saurod poses with the Masterverse Movie Evil-Lyn and Skeletor. The “Great Eye” is portrayed by a chromium plated circular with some drink cups that my Dad got as a present from a business partner years ago.

I also had some fun, creating my own take on some scenes from the movie:

In the throne room of Castle Grayskull, now occupied by Skeletor:

Masters of the Universe Masterverse Movie Evil-Lyn and Skeletor and Classics Saurod.

Saurod reports to Skeletor and Evil-Lyn

“Have no fear, Lord Skeletor. Now we have pinpointed the location of the fugitives, we shall soon recapture He-Man and the Cosmic Key. I have selected your finest mercenaries for the task, Saurod and… – Saurod, where are the others?”

“Ahem, Beast-Man is still brushing his fur and his teeth, Blade is polishing his swords and Karg is styling his hair. They’ll be here in a micron, I promise. Please, don’t kill me, my Lord.”

“Sigh. Incompetents, I’m surrounded by imbeciles and incompetents.”

***

Later:

Movie He-Man and Gwildor arrive to fight Movie Skeletor, Evil-Lyn and Saurod

Four movie figures with bonus Masterverse Revolution Gwildor.

Dum-dum-dum-dammm!

“Surrender, evil one, for I have returned to liberate the Sorceress, Castle Grayskull and all of Eternia from your reign of terror.”

“He-Man! For how long have I waited for this. All those years of battle and strife. But tonight, it finally ends. So let this be our final battle…”

“Sigh. Here we go again.”

Movie He-Man and Skeletor fight, while Gwildor looks on and Evil-Lyn and Saurod make their getaway.

CLASH! CLANG!

“Tell me, He-Man, tell me about the loneliness of Good. Is it like the loneliness of Evil…”

“You talk too much, Skeletor.”

“Come on, Saurod. Time to go.”

“But what about Lord Skeletor, Mistress?”

“Sigh, Saurod, if you’re planning on surviving this gig, you should know that once Skeletor starts going on about the loneliness of good and evil and ‘Let this be our final battle’, it’s time to get the hell out of here, because he’s about to get his arse kicked be He-Man… again. And now let’s go.”

***

Even later, on the lava fields outside Snake Mountain:

The Masters of the Universe Classics Saurod meets Snake Face, Kobra Khan and Snake Man-at-Arms

Saurod meets Snake Face, Kobra Khan with his pet companion Pixel and Snake Man-at-Arms. The lava fields outside Snake Mountain are portrayed by my dining room table.

“Hi, guys! Can I join your gang?”

“No.”

“But what about reptile solidarity and all that jazz?”

“Get lossst, Sssaurod. Run back to Sssskeletor. You’re not a real Sssnake Man.”

“Oh really, Khan. I may not be a real Snake Man, but neither are you. You’re just a descendant and oh yes, I remember that you used to work for Skeletor, before you double-crossed him…”

“I ssserve only Hissss, true King of Eternia.”

“And what about Duncan there? Not only is he a transformed human, but he also used to be a Heroic Warrior and general of the Eternian Forces. So why can he join and I can’t?”

“Becausssse he’sss ussseful and can build weaponsss and vehiclessss for the glory of Hisss. You’re just dead weight and even Sssskeletor doesn’t want you.”

***

And while we’re on the subject of the Snake People, since Masterverse doesn’t seem to be interested in making them (probably because Origins has made a lot of Snake People, including ones that were never made before), I’ve been gradually buying up the Classics versions of these characters. You can see Kobra Khan, Snake Face and Man-at-Arms transformed into a Snake Man (which happened in an episode of the 2002 cartoon) above. I also have their leader King Hiss.

At Toyplosion, I spotted the Masters of the Universe Classics Snake Men Two-Pack, an army builder pack with two generic Snake Soldiers for King Hiss’s army. This two-pack is normally quite pricy and the price at Toyplosion was really good. There was only one problem. The vendor couldn’t accept cards and while I had stocked up on cash prior to heading to Toyplosion, I didn’t have enough cash left for the two-pack, which meant finding an ATM. The vendor offered to hold the pack, until I got pack, so I headed back into downtown Castrop-Rauxel to find an ATM.

The Quest for an ATM:

In Germany, you can’t just withdraw money at any old ATM – at least not without paying a fee. You need an ATM from your bank or one that’s part of the same bank network. So I checked Google whether my bank had a branch in Castrop-Rauxel. Alas, they didn’t – my bank closed several branches for cost reason in the past few years. Also note that it was Sunday, so shops – you can withdraw cash at several grocery and drugstore chains free of charge – were closed.

Next, I checked whether there was a Shell gas station anywhere in the area, because I can also withdraw money at Shell gas stations (which I do quite a lot, because the nearest Shell station is closer than the nearest bank branch). Now there were Shell stations in the Castrop-Rauxel, but they were on the edge of town – in a city I don’t know at all. Plus, I couldn’t be certain if the Shell stations were open on Sundays, since not all of them are.

The third option is finding a branch of the Postbank, another bank in the same ATM network. Since Postbank is tied to the German post office, they usually have more branches than some other banks, though post offices are also shutting down in favour of post stations inside grocery stores and other shops. However, Castrop-Rauxel is big enough to still have a central post office with a Postbank branch, so that’s where I went to get more cash. And since I was in the city center already, I also had lunch at a nice Italian restaurant. On the way back to my car, I also met a nice lady and her dog and had a chat with her.

While heading for the Postbank, the Ruhrgebiet of my mind also intersected with the real thing, when I spotted a mineshaft elevator tower – probably the iconic sight of the Ruhrgebiet – somewhere in the distance. I was determined to take a closer look at the tower, but first I wanted to get back to the con and pick up my Snake Men two-pack. So here they are:

Masters of the Universe Classics Snake Men two-pack.

Masters of the Universe Origins also did a multi-pack of generic snake warriors (which I don’t own, because it’s expensive and IMO not really worth the money), but those were three rather dull kit-bashed repaints plus the Origins Snake Armour He-Man most of us already had in slightly different colours. This set, meanwhile, is a lot cooler and the two Snake Warrior actually look like distinct characters rather than just repaints.

My Toyplosion Haul… and More Fun With Action Figures, Part 2:

By now, it was about 3 PM and the con was gradually starting to wind down. However, my haul wasn’t complete yet, because when I wandered the floor one more time, I passed a stall that had intrigued me earlier that day, because it had a lot of figures from the so-called 200X toyline, i.e. the Masters of the Universe toyline that tied in with the 2002 cartoon.

I like the 2002 cartoon and many of the character redesigns. The cartoon also had a massive influence on Masters of the Universe lore and several now widely accepted parts of the lore – Adam looks significantly different from He-Man, Skeletor is Keldor, Trap-Jaw is Kronis, the origins of Two-Bad and Stinkor, Anwat Gar, King Grayskull, Fisto is Duncan’s brother, much of the Snake Men storyline – have their origins here. But both cartoon and toyline underperformed and Mattel tends to treat the 200X era as something of a red-headed stepchild and doesn’t really delve into all the interesting redesigns from that era.

I remember seeing some of the 200X figures in a store back in the day and thought, “Cool, they’re making He-Man toys again.” But I never bought any of the figures, neither then nor later. However, when I saw a bunch of 200X figures on offer at Toyplosion, I thought, “These don’t really fit in with any of the other lines, but they actually look really cool.” So I bought two figures, Keldor and Prince Adam. They were both loose and not complete – Keldor has his iconic dual sword and acid vial, but is missing an interchangeable head, while Adam has his Power Sword, but is apparently missing a mace (And why on Eternia does Adam have a mace anyway? What does he need a mace for, when he has the Power Sword?)  – but in good condition. And since I like both the characters and their 200X look, which also influenced later incarnations (Keldor had never been shown at all pre-2002, just mentioned, and the 200X cartoon was the first time Adam looked like the teenager he was supposed to be), I bought them. This was before my excursion to find an ATM BTW.

And now, on my final round across the con floor, I passed that stall again and found myself digging through a bargain bin of loose 200X figures and went home with Mer-Man, Beast-Man and Two-Bad. They’re missing their weapons and Beast-Man’s action figure doesn’t work anymore, but they were cheap and look good. Honestly, the skulpting and detail on the 200X figures is amazing, considering they were not collector figures, but regular toys sold at retail. The vendor also had both the 200X Battle Cat and Panthor in that bin and in retrospect I wish that I would have bought them, because the price was unbeatable, considering what these normally go for. So I guess I collect 200X figures as well now.

Since I had the 200X figures, I also had some fun with them. And yes, I know that Adam never meets Keldor in the cartoon, though there is a scene where Adam faces down Skeletor and his Evil Warriors outside Castle Grayskull all alone. And yes, Skeletor really cannot remember the name of his own nephew in the cartoon. So just consider this an alternate universe:

Outside the jawbridge of Castle Grayskull:

Masters of the Universe 200X Two-Bad, Beast-Man, Mer-Man, Keldor and Prince Adam

This Mer-Man is a repaint known as hung-over Mer-Man because of his blood-shot eyes. I also didn’t realise until know that the two halves of Two-Bad are reversed. Tuvar, the guy on the left, is normally blue, since he’s a Gar, and Baddrah, the guy on the right with the scales, is purple. No idea if this is a factory mistake or a weird variant. Adam’s pants are also very tight, which probably leads to embarassing situations for the poor kid.

“Stop, Uncle! If you want to get into Castle Grayskull, you’ll have to go through me first.”

“Oh, it’s that oh so fierce warrior Prince Alan…”

“My name is Adam. Why can never remember that?”

“So you think you’re going to stop me? You and what army?”

“The Masters will be here… ahem… any minute now.”

“Your Masters are currently guests in my dungeon. Including your sweetheart Teela.”

“She’s not my… And let her go or I swear I will…”

“You will do nothing. And now be a good boy and get out of our way.”

Adam fights Keldor, while Two-Bad, Beast-Man and Mer-Man look on.“No, Uncle Keldor. I don’t want to fight you, but I will, if I must.”

“Oh, so that sword isn’t just decoration. You actually know what to do with it. Not that you have any chance against me at all. Or did my brother never tell you that I used to be the best swordsman in Eternos.”

SWISH! CLASH! CLANG!

“Go, boss! Show the little bitty prince who’s the master here.”

“Crap. Uncle Keldor really is as good as everybody says. I can’t keep this up much longer. At least not as Adam.”

Adam runs away to find He-Man, while Keldor, Mer-Man, Beast-Man and Two-Bad look after him.“Sorry, Uncle Keldor, but I got to run and find He-Man.”

“Yes, nephew, run. Run like the coward you are.”

“Coward, coward, coward…”

“Don’t just chant, idiots! Go after him!”

“But… uhm… why, boss?”

“Because he’s a valuable hostage, you blistering boobs. Randor will do anything to get his golden boy back. And now get him!”

***

I’ll have to end here, because I don’t have a 200X He-Man, though I suspect one will eventually find his way in my collection.

And that’s it for today. Since this post is already very long, I’ll cover the trip home and my excursion to see a mineshaft elevator tower in part 3.

 

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Into the Heart of the Ruhrgebiet: Cora’s Adventures at the 2024 Toyplosion in Castrop-Rauxel, Part 1: The Trip Out and City Views

I had a big translation job to finish (unfortunately, I do have to earn a living), so I still haven’t gotten around to writing up my adventures at the 2024 Worldcon in Glasgow, Scotland, and the 2024 Eurocon in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

Though I have been active elsewhere and so you can listen to Brian Collins, David Agranoff and me discuss the 1943 science fiction story “Mimsy Were the Borogoves” by Lewis Padgett a.k.a. Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore at the Postcards from the Dying World podcast. I was also at Galactic Journey again, talking about Bran Mak Morn by Robert E. Howard and Jirel of Joiry by C.L. Moore as well as a wide-reaching criminal law reform in West Germany in 1969, which decriminalised gay relationships between consenting adult men. With bonus 1969 campaign posters.

However, the 2024 con season isn’t over yet and so I was on the road again this Sunday, headed for Toyplosion, a vintage toy convention in the town of Castrop-Rauxel in the Ruhrgebiet. This was only the second ever Toyplosion. I was considering attending the first one last year, but my Dad was already in hospital at the time, so I didn’t go.

After my epic roadtrip to the Los Amigos Masters of the Universe convention in Neuss in May and the equally epic roadtrip to Eurocon in Rotterdam last month, I wasn’t overly worried about whether I could make the trip all alone, because I knew I could. Besides, the trip to Castrop-Rauxel is shorter than the one to Neuss, let alone Rotterdam.

The 2024 Toyplosion was a two day convention. I initially wanted to go on Saturday, but the pre-sale tickets were already sold out, so I decided to go on Sunday instead. This turned out to be a good decision, because there was less traffic on Sundays than on Saturdays, at least on the trip outwards.

The Trip Out

Using the trip to the Los Amigos convention in Neuss as a model, I got up at half past five AM on Sunday morning and set out at approx. a quarter past six. Unlike the trip to Neuss, it was still dark outside when I left. The sun currently rises at seven AM and sets at half past seven PM.

I headed to Groß Mackenstedt and drove onto highway A1. Because of the early hour and because trucks are not allowed to drive on German roads on Sundays – with exceptions for perishable cargo and other emergencies, there was very little traffic, as little as I’ve ever seen on the normally extremely busy A1. And so I made good time, as I drove through misty fields. I passed Wildeshausen and even the 33 kilometers monster construction zone between the exits Lohne Dinklage (yes, the town is named like the actor, though no one knows, if there’s any connection) and Bramsche was less torturous than usual, because there was so little traffic.

This time around, I bypassed service station Dammer Berge, because I’ve seen the bridge restaurant now and I wasn’t in the mood for soapy coffee and gloopy cake. Instead, I planned to head to one of the many Autohöfe (basically truck stops just off the highway, whereas service stations are directly on the highway) along the A1 for coffee and breakfast. Because they’re not directly on the highway, Autohöfe are generally cheaper and the food quality is better as well.

Once I’d driven past Osnabrück and crossed the Teutoburg Forest into the Münsterland, I started looking for Autohöfe. Alas, the next two I passed, Ladbergen and Hamm-Bockum, only had Burger King and McDonald’s on offer and I was in the mood for neither. In fact, I hate it that German highway service stations and truck stops are increasingly dominated by fast food chains like McDonald’s, Burger King, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Nordsee rather the more individual greasy spoons of yore.

Turn Right at Kamener Kreuz

By now it was around eight o’clock and the road signs announced that the Kamener Kreuz, a cloverleaf junction that is one of the oldest and busiest in Germany, was right ahead. The Kamener Kreuz also marks the beginning of the Ruhrgebiet. Okay, in theory Hamm is the northernmost city of the Ruhrgebiet, but Hamm is just a highway exit and not nearly as iconic as the Kamener Kreuz.

So I’d made it to the northern edge of the Ruhrgebiet in a little under two hours, i.e. in record time. However, the con didn’t open until ten AM, which meant I had plenty of time for a leisurely breakfast,. During my trip back from the Los Amigos con in Neuss, I’d stopped for coffee and cake at a really nice bakery café in the shopping park directly at the Kamener Kreuz, so I decided to have breakfast there. There was only one problem. The shopping park and the bakery were behind the junction. And unlike the previous trip, I had to change onto highway A2 at Kamener Kreuz. I literally had to “turn right at the Kamener Kreuz”, which immediately caused the song “Polonäse Blankenese” to get stuck in my head.

“Polonäse Blankenese” is a novelty song by one Gottlieb Wendehals (literally Gottlieb Turncoat, in truth German jazz musician Werner Böhm, who deserves so much better than to be remembered for a stupid novelty song), which came out in 1981 and was a massive hit, that was played at parties for decades to come. In Germany, a polonaise is a kind of party dance similar to a conga line, where people march around the dancefloor in a long line. And whenever a polonaise starts at a German party, chances are the song that’s playing will be “Polonäse Blankenese”, so everybody knows that bloody song and the lyrics. You can see a video of a live performance of the song on the German TV show Hitparade here – complete with conga line.

The lyrics describe a gigantic conga line stretching all the way from the Blankenese neighbourhood in Hamburg to Wuppertal in the Ruhrgebiet and include the line “Turn right at the Kamener Kreuz” as well as an infamous line about one Erwin sexually harassing a woman called Heidi by groping her from behind. But until today, it never really occurred to me that the conga line basically follows highway A1 – though they would have to start on highway A7, because the A1 does not pass Blankenese. The directions are also wrong, because Wuppertal is behind the Kamener Kreuz, so turning right at the Kamener Kreuz won’t actually take you to Wuppertal.

But since I wasn’t going to Wuppertal, I did turn right at the Kamener Kreuz and passed very close by the striking ADAC monument, which is dedicated to the German road rescue service ADAC, but looks as if six angels are about to sacrifice a captured rescue helicopter to a volcano god. It’s a very weird monument and I would love to take a photo of it, but I still haven’t figured out how to actually get close enough to the monument to take a picture or if that’s even possible.

The reason the Kamener Kreuz is so famously busy is because this is the intersection between highway A1, one of the main North South routes for all the Europe (the other is highway A7, which intersects with highway A2 in Hannover) and highway A2, which is one of the main East West routes for all of Europe. Highway A2 goes from Oberhausen in the Ruhrgebiet to Berlin. But while I’m quite familiar with the Hannover to Magdeburg leg, because we always took it, when visiting from Great-Aunt Metel in East Germany, I’m not very familiar with the Oberhausen-Hannover leg at all, because there is no reason for me to take it – if I want to go to Hannover, I take highway A27.

On the A2, I passed by Dortmund and then I had to change again onto highway A45. I was still on the lookout for a place to have breakfast. However, after Dortmund the next exit was junction Castrop-Rauxel, which meant that I had arrived, though I had to change onto yet another highway (A42) for the last few kilometers. By now it was half past eight, one and a half hours before the con was due to open. Turns out that the trip I has expected to take between two and a half and three hours only took a little more than two.

The Ruhrgebiet of My Mind

Because I had one and a half hour to kill until the con, I decided to follow my original plan and have breakfast. There was only one problem. I was in a city I didn’t know, though I was pretty sure there would be a bakery to be found somewhere in Castrop-Rauxel. So I drove past the convention center (the address for which I’d set my GPS) and followed road signs saying “city center” and “old town”, all the while wondering whether Castrop-Rauxel even had a such a thing as a historic town center, because I knew nothing about the city.

Turns that the Castrop part of Castrop-Rauxel has been inhabited since Roman times and served a supply/rest spot and storage depot during the time of Charlesmagne, which is also where it got its name. However, for most of its existence Castrop was just a village. It has only been a city since 1926, when it was combined with the neighbouring village of Rauxel. And yes, I had to look all that up.

For I have to admit that even though I’ve known about the Ruhrgebiet since childhood, I actually know very little about the individual cities that make up the Ruhrgebiet. When I was a kid, the Ruhrgebiet was a place we drove through on our way to somewhere else, never one where we stopped. So in my mind, the Ruhrgebiet is a massive blob of cities bleeding into each other, inhabited by good-hearted and two-fisted working class people, a mess of coal mines and steelworks and highways that are all called A-fortysomething for maximum confusion.

This Ruhrgebiet of my mind is a combination of media images and things learned in school, because some idiot thought it was very important for fourth graders to learn all about coal-mining in Germany, even if said fourth graders didn’t even live in a mining area and the mines were dying at the time anyway. My image of the Ruhrgebiet comes from news footage of striking miners protesting mine closures in the early 1980s, whom I resented because the impending loss of their jobs got so much more media attention than the North German shipyards that were dying at the same time (though the great mine dying actually started much earlier in the late 1950s). It comes from the Schimanski Tatort crime dramas of the 1980s, where a working class cop with Polish roots (implied to be queer in the early episodes, though they had to change that) fought criminals amidst the dying coal mines and steelworks. Many of the Schimanski Tatort episodes may be watched here BTW, in beautifully restored HD, so the grimy Ruhrgebiet looks as sharp as never before. Also check out Schimanski’s first episode, “Duisburg Ruhrort”, because it’s fucking brilliant and manages to tell you everything you need to know about Horst Schimanski in three minutes with barely any words.

The Ruhrgebiet of my mind obviously bears only little resemblance to the real thing, especially since the coal mines, which are the thing I and everybody else most associate with the Ruhrgebiet, are all gone now. The last one closed in 2018. The steelworks and chemical industry still exist, though much diminished. As for Horst Schimanski, Götz George, the actor who played him, died in 2016, and Eberhard Feik who played his partner Tanner, died much too young in 1994. The Ruhrgebiet of my mind, if it ever existed, is gone. And I was about to explore the real thing.

BTW, one of the campaign flyers for the 1969 West German general election that I dug up for my latest Galactic Journey article features Johanna Lammers, miner’s wife from Castrop-Rauxel who praises social-democratic secretary of the economy Karl Schiller for saving thousands of mining job. Johanna and her husband had another fourteen years until the last coal mine in Castrop-Rauxel would close in 1983. But more about that later.

Breakfast in Castrop-Rauxel

I found a place to park my car and ventured into the city center of Castrop-Rauxel or what passes for it. Though I first stumbled upon the Jewish cemetery of Castrop-Rauxel, established in 1743 and in use until 1939. The cemetery is a historical monument now, though the gates are kept locked to keep anti-semitic vandals out and you have to go to the townhall to get the key.

Entrance to the Jewish cemetery in Castrop-Rauxel

The entrance to the Jewish cemetery in Castrop-Rauxel.

Jewish cemetery in Castrop-Rauxel

A look through the gates of the Jewish cemetery of Castrop-Rauxel. Many of the headstones were destroyed by the Nazis, though 56 remain.

Right next to the Jewish cemetery, I also came upon this delightful piece of public art called the “Taubenvatta” (Pigeon Daddy), which celebrates the popularity of keeping and racing homing pigeons in the Ruhrgebiet. Indeed, homing pigeons used to be called “the race horses of the working class” in the Ruhrgebiet. Though the association of pigeon racing with working class culture isn’t just a thing in Germany, but in the UK as well. If you’ve seen the 1984 nuclear war drama Threads, the character of Jimmy, a young working class man, keeps homing pigeons and his little brother Michael is graphically incinerated by a nuclear bomb while huddling in the cote with the pigeons. Yes, it’s that kind of movie.

Taubenvatta (pigeon daddy" statue in Castrop-Rauxel

The “Taubenvatta” (pigeon daddy) statue in Castrop-Rauxel was erected in 1986 to commemorate the popularity of pigeon racing among the working class people of the Ruhrgebiet.

As I ventured further into the city center, I had to stop at a pedestrian crossing where the pedestrian traffic light symbol was not the regular stick figure, but a little miner with a lantern. Apparently, this is a thing in the Ruhrgebiet. Coal mining may be dead, but the miners are still around, immortalised as “Ampelmännchen”. In many ways, this is very illustrative of how the Ruhrgebiet has turned its industrial history into a tourist attraction.

Miner Ampelmännchen

A little miner with helmet and lantern serves as an “Ampelmännchen” in Castrop-Rauxel.

Pink art noveau building in Castrop-Rauxel

Barbie’s Art Noveau dreamhouse, Castrop-Rauxel edition.

The city center of Castrop-Rauxel isn’t anything to write home about. The Ruhrgebiet was heavily bombed in WWII due to its status as an industrial powerhouse, so you basically have a pedestrian zone with lots of drab postwar buildings. Since it was Sunday, the shops were closed anyway and most of them were the same chains you’ll find in any city center or mall anywhere in Germany anyway. And of course there was the obligatory husk of a former Karstadt department store (or maybe it was a Kaufhof/Horten or Hertie, though the architecture suggests Karstadt) occupied by some smaller stores that in no way fill the giant building.  Personally, I think the death of the department store is one of the great tragedies of our age, but then the department stores are to blame for their own demise, because they removed all the stuff that provided a reason to go there, the toy departments, household good departments, stationery departments, fabric and craft departments, media and music departments, and basically became giant fashion stores offering overpiced clothing that you could easily get elsewhere.  A lot of the surviving so-called department stores wouldn’t even qualify as department stores anymore by my personal definition, since they only have clothing and maybe shoes.

One thing that struck me as odd was that I saw several closed food stalls in the city center. Now food stalls aren’t that uncommon in pedestrian zones, but there were a lot of them and they offered not just classic standbys like currywurst and roast chicken, but typical fairground food like cotton candy and candied almonds. I later learned that Castrop-Rauxel’s annual autun fair actually took place that very same weekend. But since I was so early in the morning, it of course wasn’t open yet. Here is a video from last year’s fair.

St. Lambertus church in Castrop-Rauxel

The Catholic St. Lambertus Church in Castrop-Rauxel. There has been a church on this spot since the times of Charlesmagne, but when the city crew in the 19th century, the medieval church was expanded and partially demolished for this one, which dates from 1889.

I also found a bakery and it turned out to be a branch of Bakery Grobe, a Dortmund based chain with branches all over the Ruhrgebiet. During my trip to Neuss, I’d stopped at another branch of the same chain, so I knew they were good. I settled down and ordered a coffee and something called a Dortmund market omelette, which turned out to be a cheese and tomato omelette. It tasted very good, but then I really like omelette, though I’m not good at making it myself.

Dortmund market omelette

Dortmund market omelette, courtesy of Bakery Grobe in Castrop-Rauxel.

Once I’d finished breakfast, it was half past nine. So I strolled back to my car and headed to the con, which will be covered in part 2. For the trip back home and more views of the Ruhrgebiet, see part 3.

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The Guardian is Clueless about Masters of the Universe

Supposedly, we’re getting a Masters of the Universe live action movie in 2026. Of course, a Masters of the Universe live action movie has been in development hell for almost twenty years at this point with production companies, directors and scripts – many of them sounding absolutely terrible – coming and going like a revolving door.

So most Masters of the Universe fans have fairly low expectations of a live action movie ever happening at all. One of the regulars of the German Masters of the Universe podcast Das He-Manische Quartett is infamous for his repeated statement “Der Film kommt nie” (The movie will never come).  Other fans have taken a wait and see attitude and basically say, “Well, I’ll believe it when I’m sitting in the theatre.” Expectations of the movie being actually good are also rather muted. After all, we’ve already been there in 1987 and while that movie has gained cult status by now, it wasn’t very well liked back in the day, because it took way too many liberties with the source material.

However, the proposed Masters of the Universe live action movie is currently in production again and we’re getting a steady trickle of casting news. Nicholas Galitzine, best known for Red, White and Royal Blue, is supposed to play Prince Adam/He-Man, Camila Mendes, best known for Riverdale, has been cast as Teela and just this week, Alison Brie, whom I mainly associate with her role as Trudy, Pete’s long-suffering and annoying wife in Mad Men, was announced as Evil-Lyn. So far, so fine, but I’ll still believe it when I see it.

That said, the casting of Alison Brie has attracted more mainstream attraction than the casting of Galitzine and Mendes, probably because Brie is better known. And so Ben Child, who has a weekly geek media column in The Guardian, penned a spectacularly clueless article about the proposed live action Masters of the Universe movie.

Even the headline is terrible: “Can Travis Knight’s He-Man movie do for boys what Greta Gerwig’s Barbie did for girls?”

Yes, we all know how fiercely gendered the toy industry is, but must we really perpetuate those shitty stereotypes, especially when we know they’re wrong? Because in the 1980s, Mattel found to their own surprise that forty percent of all Masters of the Universe toys were sold to girls, which is what prompted the introduction of She-Ra. The 1980s Filmation cartoon was eagerly watched by both boys and girls and though Masters of the Universe fandom skews male, there are a lot of female fans, me among them. This isn’t surprising either, because Masters of the Universe has always featured plenty of impressive female characters such as Teela, Evil-Lyn, the Sorceress, Queen Marlena and of course, She-Ra and her entire supporting cast. Finally, there is a remarkable number of male Barbie collectors as well.

Ben Child attempts to establish his fan credentials by pointing out that he used to watch the Filmation cartoon (though the article is illustrated with a promo images for the 2002 cartoon) and even owned a one-armed Man-at-Arms figure as a kid. However, he can’t resist pointing out how silly the cartoon was and it’s pretty obvious that he hasn’t rewatched the show since the 1980s and doesn’t seem to be familiar with later takes on the property from New Adventures via the 2002 cartoon and the 2018 She-Ra and the Princesses of Power to the recent CGI Netflix show and Masters of Universe Revelation/Revolution at all.

Instead, Ben Child’s image of Masters of the Universe seems to be coloured mainly by memes and jokes such as the whole “Prince Adam singing ‘What’s Going On?’ by the Four Non-Blondes” meme (and honestly, what is it with that video? The combination of early 1990s indie music and Masters of the Universe never made any sense).

Ben Child also insists on comparing Masters of the Universe to Barbie, because both are based on toylines, even though Barbie and Masters of the Universe are completely different types of toys. Barbie’s big selling point is that she can be whatever you want her to be and doesn’t really have a defined story beyond some vague basics. Masters of the Universe, on the other hand, comes with a defined story, characters and worldbuilding (even if there are several conflicting continuities). He-Man is not the male answer to Barbie, that would be Mattel’s Big Jim line from the 1970s, which indirectly influenced Masters of the Universe because several toys and accessories (Battle Cat, Panthor, Zoar, Screech, Webstor’s grapling hook and Beast-Man’s whip) were repurposed from the Big Jim line to save costs.

As a result, making a Barbie movie posed very different challenges then making a He-Man movie. Because Barbie doesn’t have a defined story, so the Greta Gerwig had to come up with one and decided to send Barbie into the real world. The result was a lot better than it had any right to be. He-Man, however, has a defined story and most people who go to see a He-Man movie will want to see a version of that story. Part of the reason why the 1987 movie failed was that instead of giving the audience what they wanted to see, namely a live action version of the Filmation cartoon set on Eternia (which to be fair would have been extremely expensive to produce in 1987), the movie instead sent He-Man, Skeletor and their respective friends and associates to Earth and inserted them into a 1980s teen drama. I actually enjoy the 1987 movie now (and I should probably write a detailed review for this blog), but back in the day this film wasn’t what anybody wanted to see.

Ben Child acknowledges the existence of the 1987 movie, but he’s clearly not a fan. Instead, he calls the movie “fiercely po-faced and clunky” and finds it unbelievable that Frank Langella, who’s generally considered to be the best thing about the film and who is on record that Skeletor is one of his favourite roles in his stellar career, would debase himself to appear in such a film. Honestly, has Ben Child had any contact with Masters of the Universe since the 1980s at all?

The main problem with the article is that Ben Child seems unable to view Masters of the Universe as anything other than a joke. He writes:

Yet, it’s also possible to imagine how, in the right hands, Masters of the Universe might be ripe for forward-thinking, culturally adept satire. If Barbie is the stereotypical archetype of a woman, as seen by young girls who haven’t realised that they are viewing the entire world through a male-curated prism, surely He-Man is her XY chromosomed equivalent. Are preteen boys preternaturally designed to imagine it’s impossible to be a hero unless you are willing to destroy your health through extreme steroid use, or is the world they have grown up in telling them this?

I’m sorry, but a forward-thinking, culturally adept satire is not at all what I or any other Masters of the Universe fan wants to see. What fans want to see is a movie that takes the premise and characters of Masters of the Universe seriously. And in fact, we already have a stellar example of a serious and more adult take on Masters of the Universe, which still embraces the beautiful weirdness and absurdity of the 1980s original, in Masters of the Universe Revelation/Revolution (whose producers Rob David and Ted Biaselli asked showrunner Kevin Smith to take the material seriously and treat it like Shakespeare), while the Netflix CGI show offers an updated take on the premise for today’s kids and the 2018 She-Ra and the Princesses of Power did the same for He-Man’s twin sister. And no, this doesn’t mean that there isn’t room for humor. Masters of the Universe Revelation/Revolution, the CGI show and the 2018 She-Ra all have plenty of humor and jokes and Kevin Smith even snuck a fisting joke into Revelation, but they still take their premise and characters seriously. Mere minutes after Fisto makes a fisting joke, he gets brutally killed and has his soul snuffed out be Skeletor and you’ll probably cry, even if you weren’t a huge fan of the character as a kid. Also note that the Barbie movie for its satirical moments does take Barbie and Ken seriously and treats them as characters rather than stereotypes.

What is more, Ben Child is completely wrong when he views He-Man as a stereotype of toxic masculinity, because that’s not at all what he is. Because Masters of the Universe has always subverted gender stereotypes. And so we see Adam engaging in female-coded activities like baking or cooking or reading or bottle-feeding Baby Cringer, while Teela not only has the male-coded job of Captain of the Royal Guard and Prince Adam’s bodyguard, but is also stronger, more athletic and a better fighter than Adam in his untransformed form. Masters of the Universe has shown us men crying, when this was still a culture taboo. It gave us a woman chosing her career as Sorceress of Grayskull over motherhood, it gave us a nuturing single Dad who somehow managed to juggle parenthood and a demanding career and it gave us a female NASA astronaut turned alien queen well before Sally Ride. There’s even a whole episode with the message “men and women are equal and better together”. Finally, He-Man’s muscles don’t derive from steroids, but from the Power of Grayskull.

But it gets worse. Child writes:

Why does the wimpy Adam of Eternia have to transform into the impossibly hunky and muscley He-Man before he can actually get anything done? Perhaps Adam and Cringer (the pathetic alter ego of space tiger Battle Cat) can emerge as the true heroes of Masters of the Universe, gaining the keys to the cosmos via a balanced view of gender politics and deep understanding of the nuances of feminine strength and leadership, rather than just smashing Skeletor’s skull with a sword.

Again, every single word of this is wrong. There are many examples of Adam and Cringer being heroic and brave without turning into He-Man and Battle Cat, from the Filmation cartoon onwards all the way to Revelation/Revolution, which makes it very clear that Adam is the heart of the story. Adam is also smart and resourceful, both as himself and his alter-ago. He-Man isn’t a mindless brute, except for the roughly fifteen minutes when he becomes Savage He-Man in Revelation and beats the ever-loving crap out out Skeletor, a scene which is so remarkable for how uncharacteristic that behaviour is. As for the “deep nuances of feminine strength and leadership”, have you met Teela? Or the Sorceress or Queen Marlena or Lyn or Andra?

Honestly, if you think that He-Man is just about smashing Skeletor’s skull with a sword, something he never does anywhere in the history of Masters of the Universe, though Savage He-Man whacks Skeletor with a battle axe at one point, you really need to rewatch the Filmation cartoon (try “The Problem with Power”) or the 2002 cartoon or just watch Masters of the Universe Revelation/Revolution.

I’m not the only Masters of the Universe fan to take issue with Ben Child’s very simplicistic take on He-Man. Here is a Twitter thread by Dad-at-Arms, which counters Ben Child’s claims with multiple examples of Adam being heroic and Teela being amazing.

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Some Comments on the 2024 Dragon Award Winners

The winners of the 2024 Dragons Awards were announced today at Dragon Con in Atlanta, Georgia. The full list of winners may be found here.

I’ve been following the Dragon Awards since their inception in 2016, so I guess  I’m committed/cursed to cover the Dragon Awards at this point. Though I skipped covering the nominations this year, because I was on route to Worldcon in Glasgow when Dragon Con announced them and my travel laptop is so slow that posting to the blog while travelling wasn’t really possible. Plus, I have a backlog of things I need to cover and am also busy with translation work and other stuff, so I never got around to covering the Dragon Award finalists this year.

So I’ll just refer you to Camestros Felapton’s coverage of the 2024 Dragon Award finalists as well as of a minor scandal which erupted when one of the finalists in the Best Illustrative Category was disqualified for having used generative AI to design the cover, even though the Dragon Awards did not specify that AI covers were not eligible. Plus, it seems other covers on the ballot used AI as well, but were not as honest about it as the disqualified finalist. Much as I dislike generative AI, stating your policy on AI and disqualifying finalists after the fact is not a good look, though on par for the shambolic nature of the Dragons.

Anyway, since I don’t have a lot of time to deal with this stuff right now, let’s delve right into the categories:

Best Science Fiction Novel

The 2024 Dragon Award for Best Science Fiction Novel goes to Starter Villain by John Scalzi. Now a lot of people seem to view Starter Villain as a lesser Scalzi, but it was a Hugo finalist this year and its Dragon win isn’t a huge surprise, since John Scalzi is very popular and the Dragons are a popular vote award. Besides, John Scalzi winning a Dragon Award will also royally annoy those far right writers and fans who decided to position the Dragons as an alternative to the Hugos, where the real nutty nuggets could win.

The rest of the ballot mostly doesn’t look very surprising either. The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera was also a Hugo finalist this year and System Collapse by Martha Wells would have made the ballot, if Wells hadn’t declined the nomination. The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport by Samit Basu and These Burning Stars by Bethany Jacobs were both novels which got a lot of positive buzz. I’m not familiar with Beyond the Ranges by John Ringo and James Aidee, but John Ringo and his co-authors have been popular with Dragon Award voters, particularly in the now defunct military science fiction category. The only surprise finalist in this category is Theft of Fire by Devon Eriksen, a self-published science fiction novel by an author who seems to be more notable for weird conspiracy theories about how feminism is to blame for the US obesity epidemic than for his writing. Still, we’ve seen self-published authors with enthusiastic fans make the Dragon ballot before.

Best Fantasy Novel

The winner of the 2024 Dragon Award for Best Fantasy Novel is Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros. This isn’t a surprise at all, because Rebecca Yarros is a hugely popular breakout romantasy author and her novels Fourth Wing and Iron Flame are Twilight/Da Vinci Code/Fifty Shades of Gray level mega-bestsellers. In fact, I’m surprised that Rebecca Yarros didn’t even make the longlist for the Astounding Award let alone the ballot this year, unless she wasn’t eligible. Because like her work or not – and I have to admit that I haven’t read it – she’s huge.

The rest of the ballot also doesn’t hold any surprises. He Who Drowned the World by Shelley Parker-Chan also made the Hugo longlist this year, plus Shelley Parker-Chan won the Astounding Award in 2022. House of Open Wounds by Adrian Tchaikovsky and The Water Outlaws by S.L. Huang got a lot of positive buzz and My Brother’s Keeper is a new novel by Tim Powers, who is always worth checking out. Rounding out the ballot, there is Three Kinds of Lucky by Kim Harrison, who is a hugely popular urban fantasy author who came up during the massive urban fantasy boom of the early 2000s.

Best Young Adult / Middle Grade Novel

The 2023 Dragon Award for Best Young Adult and Middle Grade Novel goes to Midnight at the Houdini by Delilah S. Dawson. Again, this isn’t a hugely surprising win, because Delilak S. Dawson is a very popular and this is probably the best known finalist in this category.

I’m not the target audience for YA and middle grade books and I have to admit that the only other author in this category I’ve ever heard of is Shami Stovall, a self-published/small press author who was a finalist in the same category last year.

Best Alternate History Novel

The winner of the 2024 Dragon Award for Best Alternate History Novel is All the Dead Shall Weep by Charlaine Harris. Once again, this isn’t a surprising winner at all, since Charlaine Harris is hugely popular as the author of the Southern Vampire Chronicles series that the True Blood TV series was based upon. There was a time during the heyday of that TV series that Charlaine Harris has ten books on the New York Times bestseller list at the same time. Even if the SFF community never really acknowledged Charlaine Harris, probably because she started out as a mystery writer, in the wider world she’s as well known as George R.R. Martin.

The rest of the ballot isn’t overly surprising either. Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford was a mainstream hit and just won the Sidewise Award. Meanwhile, Harry Turtledove and the late Eric Flint (plus co-authors) are probably the best known authors of alternate history in recent times and Tom Kratman is a Baen author with a big fanbase. The only book I wasn’t familiar with is Devil’s Battle by Taylor Anderson, though apparently the series hit the New York Times besteller list, so it’s clearly popular. In fact, the most surprising thing about the alternate history category of the Dragons may be why it still exists, when all the other smaller subgenre categories like post-apocalyptic fiction, military SFF or media tie-in have long been eliminated.

Best Horror Novel

The 2024 Dragon Award for Best Horror Novel goes to Black River Orchard by Chuck Wendig. Once more, this win isn’t even remotely surprising, because Chuck Wendig is a very popular horror author. Plus, his Dragon win will also infuriate the usual suspects who hate him, because he dared to put gay characters into a Star Wars novel.

The Reformatory by Tananarive Due got a lot of acclaim and also won this year’s Stoker Award. The Dead Take the A Train by Richard Kadrey and Cassandra Khaw got a lot of positive attention and F. Paul Wilson is a very popular author with a big following. The remaining two finalists in this category were a bit surprising, at least to me. The Hollow Dead by Darcy Coates appears a paranormal cozy mystery rather than a horror novel, but since there is no category for paranormal mysteries, this category was probably the best fit. Dead Storm Rising by Shane Gries, finally, would have felt more at home in the defunct military SFF or post-apocalyptic fiction categories, but since those no longer exist, it ended up in the horror category. However, considering that the first ever Dragon Award winner for  Best Horror Novel was a religiously tinged space opera rather than an actual horror novel, this isn’t too shocking.

Best Illustrative Book Cover

The winner of the 2024 Dragon Award for Best Illustrative Cover is Kelly Chong’s cover for Of Jade and Dragons by Amber Chen. This is a beautiful cover and a highly worthy winner.

Best Comic Book/Graphic Novel

The 2024 Dragon Award for Best Comic Book or Graphic Novel goes to Monstress by Marjorie Liu, Sana Takeda. This isn’t a huge surprise, since Monstress is also a multiple Hugo winner in this category and has some of the most beautiful artwork in comics right now.

A look at the rest of the ballot shows that this category is very DC heavy with Batman, Nightwing, Canary and Wonder Woman all nominated, while X-Men Forever holds up the Marvel flag.  It’s also notable that this is the first time in three years that the winner in this category was not a Dune graphic novel.

Best Science Fiction or Fantasy TV Series

The winner of the 2024 Dragon Award for Best Science Fiction or Fantasy TV Series is Fallout. This is another unsurprising winner, because Fallout was very popular and also a lot of fun.

The rest of the ballot is basically a rundown of popular SFF TV series that aired during the eligibility period. We have 3 Body Problem, Ahsoka, Loki, Good Omens, House of the Dragon, Star Trek: Strange New World and For All Mankind. The only finalist in this category that’s remotely surprising is Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, a kaiju series. And even that one got a lot of buzz and besides, you can never go wrong with kaiju.

Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Movie

The 2024 Dragon Award for Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Movie goes to Dune, Part 2. I guess you can’t have a Dragon Award ballot without Dune somewhere and I vastly prefer the movie to the tie-in graphic novels. I also fully expect to see Dune, Part 2 on the Hugo ballot next year, if not winning.

The rest of the ballot consists of Barbie, Godzilla Minus One (which could win an Oscar, but can’t manage to win any of the genre awards) and Furiosa, none of which are very surprising finalist. The two finalists which do surprise me a little are Wonka and The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, because no one seemed to like either film very much and both are prequels to stories that didn’t need a prequel.

Best Digital Game

The winner of the 2024 Dragon Award for Best Digital Game is Baldur’s Gate 3, which also won the Hugo Award in this category. No surprise there, it’s so popular that even I have heard of it.

Best Tabletop Game

The 2023 Dragon Award for Best Tabletop Game goes to D&D The Deck of Many Things. This is another unsurprising winner, because it is D&D, which is hugely popular and the thousand pound gorilla of SFF tabletop games.

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All in all, after nine years the Dragon Awards do exactly what they were intended to do, namely award broadly popular SFF works with big fanbases. We still see some of the more offbeat finalists that characterised the early years of the award on occasion, but they no longer win. Camestros Felapton pointed out that Dragon Award ballot was quite Baen heavy this year (no surprise, since Baen traditionally has a big presence at Dragon Con), though it’s notable that no Baen title won.

So in short, the Dragons have became exactly the sort popular vote/popular winners award that the puppy-adjacent organisers envisioned back in 2016. However, I suspect they wouldn’t be too happy with the winners, which are heavy on the girl cooties (Rebecca Yarros, Charlaine Harris, Delilah S. Dawson) and on male authors the puppies dislike (John Scalzi, Chuck Wendig).

Finally – and this is an unintentional, if not unexpected result – the Dragons have also become the award for urban fantasy and romantasy series that sell like the proverbial hotcakes, even though the SFF community and other genre awards like to pretend these books don’t exist. And personally, this makes me happy, because I have always been irked by how the Hugos and Nebulas tend to ignore urban fantasy and romantasy, even though I have zero interest in Iron Flame.

ETA: Camestros Felapton briefly weighs in on the 2024 Dragon Award winners and also shares some stats regarding the gender breakdown of the winners. He also notes that all winners in the Best Science Fiction Novel category so far have been men and that Timothy Zahn is the author with the highest number of Dragon Award wins, followed by David Weber and T. Kingfisher.

At Women Write About Comics, Doris V. Sutherland shares a write-up of the 2024 Dragon Award winners as well as a summary of the uproar regarding the disqualification of Cedar Sanderson’s cover for the anthology The Goblin Market

At Whatever, John Scalzi briefly shares his joy at winning the Dragon Award for Best Science Fiction Novel for Starter Villain. This is already his second Dragon Award win BTW, following his win in 2020 in the same category for The Last Emperox.

ETA 2: Responses from the puppy sphere and SFF’s far right in general to the 2024 Dragon Awards have been fairly muted, but those I found are not happy.

On Twitter, Jon Del Arroz declares that the Dragon Awards are just as rigged as the Hugos and that the Sad Puppies accomplished nothing. The first part of that statement is the usual nonsense, the second part is an example of rare insight.

A Substack newsletter called Fandom Pulse has a longer article, also apparently written by Del Arroz, lamenting what he views as the decline of the Dragon Awards due to John Scalzi and Chuck Wendig winning, which he blames on Tor Books, even though only one of the winners, Starter Villain by John Scalzi, was actually published by Tor. The remaining fiction winners were published by Del Rey, Saga Press, Entangled Publishing and Delacorte Press. The article also focusses solely on the wins for John Scalzi and Chuck Wendig as well as Monstress in the comic category, all of whom are described as Hugo favourites, even though Chuck Wendig was only ever a finalist for what was then the Campbell Award (now the Astounding Award, which is famously not a Hugo) in 2013, where he lost to Mur Lafferty. There is no mention of the wins for Rebecca Yarros, Charlaine Harris and Delilah S. Dawson at all, probably because they don’t fit the point the author is trying to make.

Last but not least, two other awards also announced their winners at Dragon Con. The winner of the 2024 Eugie Foster Memorial Award for Short Fiction is “The Sound of Children Screaming” by Rachael K. Jones, which was also a Hugo finalist this year.

Meanwhile, the winner of the 2024 Mike Resnick Memorial Award for the best unpublished science fiction short story by a new author is “When I was Your Age” by Sam Brown.

 

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Cora Goes to Erasmuscon, the 2024 Eurocon in Rotterdam

Erasmuscon banner

After the con is before the con. In this case, two days before the con, because only one and a half days after I returned from the 2024 Worldcon in Glasgow, I’m off again to the 2024 Eurocon in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. This means that you’ll have to wait a bit longer for my Worldcon report and Hugo commentary (and Dragon Award commentary), because I barely had time to do laundry and unpack and repack my suitcase today.

Two cons in two different countries on two consecutive weekends is not great timing and normally, I would have skipped one of them. However, I absolutely wanted to go to Erasmuscon, because it’s in Rotterdam, where my Dad worked from 1983 to 1990 and where I spent some very happy times indeed. What is more, I actually saw the location of the con, the Beurs World Trade Center, being built from my Dad’s kitchen window, though I’ve never been inside. So of course I had to go.

I’ll also be on the following panels:

Panel Female creators, how far have we come?

Time: Sunday, August 18, 2024, 11:30
Location: Mees

Description: Once upon a time, our female authors hid their identity with a male or unisex pen name so they were treated equally as men. Works created by women were taken less seriously. Finding an audience was harder for women than for men. Has this changed? Or do we still need to put these statements in the present tense? Come listen to the women who have been creating books, art, and movies for at least ten years. What has changed during their careers? Have they bridged the gap with their male colleagues and left the bias behind them, or is there still work to do?

Moderator: Kim ten Tusscher
Panelists: Bo Balder, Kathryn Sullivan, Cora Buhlert

Panel DIY: the ins and outs of self publishing

Time: Sunday, Sunday, August 18, 2024, 16:00
Location: Penn

Description: How to get your work published? This modern day and age give you many options. This panel will discuss the self-publishing option, including authors who found non-conventional ways to get their work published and to fans. They will discuss the paths they took and welcome questions from the audience.

Moderator: Cora Buhlert
Panelists: Jasper Polane, Sophia Drenth, Joost Uitdehaag

So if you’re at Erasmuscon, say hello to me.

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