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The Sidekick Advent Calendar: Day 10


Did you know that Doomdark the Witchking doesn’t actually appear in the 1985 game Doomdark’s Revenge? He leaves the hard work to his sorceress daughter. So where is he, and what is he up to?

Kate Potts has the answer in today’s addition to the Play-Poem Archive, and you might not like it. The Germans have Krampus the Christmas devil, and we, it seems, have Doomdark.

The Sidekick Advent Calendar: Day 7

Christmas is a time for following stars, and on the Sidekick Play-Poem Archive today, we’re following Simon Barraclough out into the reaches of space, with an excerpt from science-poetry collaboratorio, Laboratorio.

Meanwhile, over in my commentary, I wax on about the loneliness of the vast great yonder, with bonus Kubrick.

Blast off!


The Sidekick Advent Calendar: Day 6

A slight change of pace for Day 6, as we interview artist Lois Cordelia about her work on the Birdbook series and her stunning live demos.



Here’s a taster!

Kirsten: Who are your major artistic influences?

Lois: My major artistic influence has been children’s illustrator Jan Pienkowski (born 1936, in Warsaw), in whose West London studio I have worked part-time as an artist’s assistant since the days of my GCSE art reference project (1999). Jan is best known for his Meg and Mog series, and for his pioneering pop-up books, including Haunted House, but he has also created many volumes of silhouette illustrations with a strong fairy-tale emphasis. His intricate silhouettes were originally hand-drawn, until I began cutting them out for him, based on his drawings, using a scalpel.

The most valuable thing I have absorbed from working so closely with Jan all these years is not the knowledge of art techniques, but rather his eccentric, sometimes completely ‘crazy’ approach towards art, and more generally towards life.

Most refreshing of all is his attitude towards so-called ‘mistakes’: Jan does not believe in mistakes. When something has just gone horribly ‘wrong’, he exclaims: “Wait! Maybe it’s better like that!”

You can read the rest of the interview here on Lois’s site.