Memoires of a Vampire Duck

RIP Mark Hall

2011-11-18T21:53:00.003Z

First the former animation studio itself, now this; Mark Hall, who co-founded the British animation studio that brought Count Duckula [along with Dangermouse, Wind in the Willows among many] to our world, has passed away last night at the age of 74, after battling with short term illness. He along with Brian Cosgrove were one of the most prolific animation duos in the history of British animation, and even now as I hear that they have recently reformed as Cosgrove Hall Fitzpatrick, [so it seems] were still going strong.

As part of the Duckula fanbase, I won't forget how awesome Brian and Mark had made it, as well as how gracefully they crafted their other shows [especially Wind in the Willows, man], and I don't look forward to telling this to my mother since she has always said to me how much she enjoyed them all as well.

RIP Mark, say hi to Jack May [the late voice of Igor] for us.

New Duckula T-Shirts

2011-09-15T16:25:00.003+01:00

Oh dear lord I have been behind, only now I've found that Truffleshuffle are selling two new designs of Duckula t-shirts. Unfortunately the old ones are gone and I can only bet you'd only find them on eBay now provided you don't mind other people's germs (I kid!). I never got hold of the any of the old ones, not even at Christmas, so I sort of regret not buying them despite the hefty prices, but oh well.

Nobody is listening

2010-12-06T20:37:00.003Z

Hello again. Sad to say Duckula has had a fruitless year this year; no new merchandise since the knickers we showed last year [at least, not that we know of], no new DVDs or anything, and no sign of those movie rumours ever being true. Let's hope 2011 bears more tomatoes.

But the main thing I want to address, and this is probably the second time I've done, is that I DO NOT TOLERATE PEOPLE STEALING MY FANART! See my leniency is wearing thin. In the past month or so I've seen 5 bootleg items on eBay all using the same picture from the first ever post here, as well as about 4-5 people doing copies of it and claiming as their own, the oldest of such people being 31! Way to make a first impression you guys.

It's getting ridiculous. If people knew just how much this sort of thing actually puts me off drawing full stop, barring what I have to do at work, maybe they would think twice and just be original with the art. It just gets stale copying the same picture over and over, with each of them being less cop each time.

If you are directed to this blog via Google images, read this before you try to impress DeviantART with such plagiarism.

Recent additions to my collection

2010-04-26T20:16:00.004+01:00

I've been meaning to make another merchandise post for quite a while, though this time we'll be looking at some stuff that was around since back in the 80s.

First we have a bag I picked up back in February which I think must have been designed for kids to take to school, considering how quite small it is. I could probably only fit A5 sketchbooks in it, I tried bigger things before but thankfully I have other bags for when I'm travelling around Essex. It's still a cute bag though, and funny enough I ended up bidding on two because the seller on eBay had 3 brand new ones, one of which I got outbid on.

A couple of weeks ago I had my 23rd birthday, and I was really surprised to unwrap these beauties, all of which were given to me by my boyfriend!

The talking Duckula plushie! Even though he sounds like he has a sore throat, I've always wanted to see one of those for real.

When I first saw photos of this one years ago I thought it was... well. But only when I actually opened up to it I found something quite interesting about it - this is German! As far as I knew, some Duckula toys were made in Germany by Bullyland, which were also responsible for the little Disney figurines I always used to pick up from the Disney store back in the 90's, so it's good to know that they made plush dolls as well. This even has the Duckula logo on the back of his cape.

Finally we have one of the figurines from the Rainbow toys era [by the way, I recently found that this was a UK division of LJN toys, which I believe used to specialise in character toys, but also got picked on by the Nerd a lot, LOL], this one being the one with the clippy hands at the back. Always wanted one of these.

See ya later, I'm off on another hunt!

Thames TV promotional poster with Duckula

2010-03-16T20:08:00.002Z

I recently received an email from David Wakefield, who happens to have been a former employee at Thames TV back in the early 1990's, and was kind enough to offer me a photo of this rather interesting piece of media he managed to take out of a media industry magazine. It's a promotional article regarding some children's programmes that were screening or being developed at the time, while having some focus on Duckula as well. I've made sure the text here is still readable but here's the Duckula part anyways:

"He's green. He's a vegetarian vampire. And he's looked after by his nanny. A bizarre combination. Even for a duck. Yet Count Duckula is one of Thames Television's biggest stars and most appealing personalities. We don't accept that animated characters need be one-dimensional. Instead we've treated Duckula just like any other television character with a fully formed personality of his own. When the series was created, the Duckula writers gave each character his or her own personal biography, CV and personality analysis, complete with problems, phobias and foibles. Does all this sound like a lot of trouble to go to for a children's programme? It should do because at Thames we take making programmes for children as seriously as making programmes for adults."

Now that part about the characters having their own profiles like that has really intrigued me. Based on all my gatherings, I've been attempting to make my own biographies of the major characters but that sounds like something much better...

Thanks David for showing me this, not only is the Duckula picture on this beautiful, the writing around will be intriguing for a lot of us.

We now have a DeviantART group!

2009-12-15T18:35:00.003Z

Popular artsite DeviantART has recently launched a new feature simply known as Groups, and I've taken the opportunity to make a Count Duckula one myself.

CastleDuckula via DAGroups

There, members can suggest favourites as well as submitting their own Count Duckula artwork, either into both the group and their own gallery or as an exclusive to the group. We do have rules that you may want to check out first, just to be on the safe side.

We're still in early days, but check us out sometime!

A pair of Duckula...wait, WHAT?

2009-10-31T18:43:00.004Z

Yes. Women's briefs. These are real, and trademarked to Fremantle themselves.

My sister got me these as a present, and I was like, "omg best Halloween present ever". Earlier this month our very own Bobbin discovered them on Topshop's online site and you can view the thread on our forums here. Sad to say though, these are strictly for the summer as right now it's too bloody cold to go around in something like that!

But yes, these are available only from Topshop and sell for £4.00 [€6.00 in Ireland] but grab 'em quick, I don't know if they will last that long!

At last!

2009-09-29T17:33:00.002+01:00

After over a year and constant bugging to get the people at Virgin to get their arses in gear with my personal webspace, I'm happy to announce that Duckyboos can be updated once again! I will now make some tweaks before I can give you all a big, fat update within the rest of this week.

Weird bumper featuring the Clock Bats

2009-03-17T19:07:00.002Z

For some time, Count Duckula was airing on Boomerang in certain European countries. What I've just found here is what I think is a channel bumper [used to promote the cartoon I suppose] from Poland which, for some reason, features Dmitri and Sviatoslav, the two mechanical clock bats that popped out once in a while every other episode to share a dangerously cheesy joke between each other.

Going by "Bat Chat", it's awfully weird, especially with Dmitri having a higher voice. But what's even more bizarre is how they are actually "flying" through places around the world...

We're now on Twitter

2009-03-12T13:00:00.003Z

If even now you don't know what Twitter is, allow me to fill you in.

Twitter is a nifty little social website where you type in a little sentence or two on what's going on with yourself, and you can follow what others are up to as well. I've used the site personally for over a year and I realise now how much better it is to have this than it is to have a Myspace and a Facebook.

And today, I've opened a new Twitter to represent the Duckyboos project, and you're all invited to follow us there!

Building up a comics guide

2009-03-11T22:23:00.004Z

Hi everyone.

I figured that it's about time I started work on all the Duckula comics, and it's looking good so far. However, I have a request from those that have all of the Marvel comics in particular - can anyone here provide a full list of all of the story titles, and perhaps a brief summary of each one? I only have about three English issues, so I think I'm going to need help with this guide.

It would also be really cool if I could have some help compiling a guide on the stories in the other comics series as well, such as those in the Celebrity comics. I have nearly ten of these, and about 5 SOR comics at the moment. I feel that in the end, this would be as valuable as the episode guide I currently have.

Cheers!

Site update: I'm still getting the 550 permissions error. God what is wrong with Virgin/NTLworld?

Brand new Duckula T-shirts

2009-01-28T16:29:00.008Z

I'll have to thank my older sister for finding these, as she's a regular visitor of retro clothing site TruffleShuffle. Having faith, she has found three brand new Count Duckula T-shirts on there! Two ladies', ones men's, all in different sizes.. .and while a tad expensive I know, ain't these just so cool? Just look at that Nanny one, isn't it lovely?

Truffle Shuffle aren't like your average eBay bootlegger, they're a well reputed online clothing store that even the celebs favour. I don't know how long these will be available for though, because they're hot items at the moment.

Damn. I want one.

Two newbies

2008-11-27T21:39:00.004Z

Finally, two new additions to my little inanimate birdy family have arrived. Unfortunately they didn't come with the tags, as these were second hand, so I still cannot identify the manufacturers. However, both dolls seem to use about the same materials as the other small plush I bought the other month. In fact they are about the same size, I'm guessing that the old one is a prototype of a sort, because there are a load of improvements in the Duckula one below.

The Nanny one, as I said before, I never seen or owned before, but they done her arm the wrong way round, and that's something I can't fix this time. My one is a lot smaller than I thought she was going to be though, loads of sources say she's 13 inches...maybe I ought to measure them up when I can find my inches ruler.

Even though I have them now, and at a good price for the both of them too; I still need some big info about when they were made and who actually made them. If anyone's got these with the tags still there, please read them and then drop me a line with whatever info is on them. It's quite important.

Complete Collection comes out today

2008-10-27T16:27:00.003Z

Count Duckula: The Complete Collection is out today. ~~And apparently, there's an alternative cover using a screenshot from an early episode~~ [disregard that, it's the inside XD], which holds four limited edition art cards. Sounds really nice, but is it really worth swapping my series sets for this?

Drawn back to life

2008-10-21T12:50:00.002+01:00

Ever wished Duckula could be in a proper game?

Well with THQ's Drawn To Life, you can just about draw him in there. I stumbled across this game and the SpongeBob edition very recently, and it's basically a game that lets you create your own characters, weapons and the like, akin to Second Life. Of course, my current one here may need some work, but despite the limited drawing tools and colour selections, it was quite fun. And this certainly beats both Count Duckula and Count Duckula II on the old computer systems, which we all know are very ass.

And what's more, no blood or ketchup required!

A decision

2008-10-06T21:26:00.002+01:00

I'm still having serious trouble gaining full access to the FTP of the Duckyboos site. I've tried various ways of viewing the contents of the FTP, and adding and otherwise modifying the files, but I still had the same errors. This has gone too long enough, so we have no choice but to perhaps phone them, and really push it.

However, it hurts me to say, that once the server actually works for me again, I will have to shut down Duckyboos for a while. It was easy to use this at first, but now I think it's about time I broke free from NTLWorld/Virgin's webspace. We'll then have to find somewhere to host it, mostly likely at a [hopefully affordable] price, and then it'll be online again, hopefully without such problems. But then, we also have some financial problems as well [we being my family], in fact, from what I've overheard, my parents had to shut down their bank account. So we're quite fucked at that one.

The Guestbook, Forum and Gallery will still be online though, because they are hosted externally, but the main site will be dormant at that time. I'll be writing up new pages and sprucing up the existing ones as needed.

I'm really dissatisfied with NTL's webspace service as a whole. Never mind the fact that you only get 55MB space for a start, Virgin doesn't provide an online site builder which I pretty would much needed, but they only have that for BlueYonder customers, whereas Virgin customers have to settle with FTP, and we all know now how much they cocked that up. After all, it was originally a mirror for when the original Fateback host somehow started failing to be viewed in certain countries, not that is was any good anyway but still.

Be prepared.

Clumsy's TV Theme Medley

2008-09-15T19:16:00.002+01:00

Plugging an epic medley of over 40 kids' TV themes here, which includes a rather funky version of the Count Duckula ending theme.

Clumsy's TV Theme Medley

You can listen to the Duckula one by clicking on the Duckula drawing in the big picture, or you can download the entire thing if you're ever in the mood for some major nostalgia.

Another UK DVD release

2008-09-15T11:05:00.005+01:00

A small one that was released a month ago this time, and I'm pretty sure they're designing these for parents with kids under 10.

Count Duckula: The Vampire Strikes Back

By the looks of things, this 66-minute DVD probably has the Vampire Strikes Back as well as a few others around it, but the names of them are not listed anywhere. Is it me though, or are the covers getting really lame? The cover for the old VHS release looks better than this, and this one looks like one of those DVDs that come with collectable weekly magazines.

I'll have to track this down in the shops and pick up the episode titles at least.

Count Duckula: The Complete Collection

2008-09-09T19:26:00.004+01:00

Source: Play.com.

So while I looked at Play.com to see if there was any sign of Victor and Hugo coming to DVD yet, I came across this instead.

Count Duckula: The Complete Collection

This may not be like me but I'm actually disappointed to see this, mainly because I had already bought the series sets over the past 2 years, the latter two costing me nearly £20 a pop for the sake of getting them quickly. Availability is a major factor in my town and if only one place has it, you have to pay how much the ticket says. On top of that, the cover design is terrible! Even worse than the previous ones. How lower can they sink by making a shitty trace of the LOGO?

Now for the specs. It's going to be a 7 disc set that's most likely to be Region 2, will cost £34.99 at RRP, and will be out on the 13th October. Neither Play or Amazon say whether or not it'll have special features, and by the looks of things I don't think there will. We'll see.

I'm really not sure if I want to swap the DVDs I already have for this. The only true reason in favour is region compatibility - my first series set is the American one and I can only play it on my laptop or in the DVD player in my parents bedroom or downstairs. Can't play it on my PS2 or anywhere that has a small PAL telly. But it seems pointless really because I had already spent about £55 on my sets in total.

Happy 20th Anniversary, Count Duckula!

2008-09-06T11:51:00.003+01:00

Count Duckula celebrates his 20th anniversary today, making it 20 years since the first broadcast on CITV way back in 1988. Cor, time doesn't half go quick, I must have only been a one year old back then!

Unfortunately I still can't modify my own webspace, so a mirror will have to surface some time soon.

Some very bad news :(

2008-09-02T21:03:00.003+01:00

As I've already stated in the Duckyboos forums, I've experienced a serious problem updating the main site via FTP, due to an error that is most likely caused by the webspace itself. I can log into the account and see everything just fine, but when I try to upload any file to it, I receive an error saying "550: permission denied", meaning that somehow I don't have permission to do so. The same thing occured on my old computer, and I tried several other FTP programs as well as FireFTP which I use most, so it's most likely Virgin Media's doing, probably since I got this laptop.

Virgin's customer service is terrible. Some time ago we had to phone them to ask why our connection stopped working, and it took my poor mother 11 minutes to get through. I definitely won't try to contact this was, and emailing them is out of the question as well, so my only choice is to snail mail them once I get hold of the account number.

This really pissed me off last night, as I needed to make some updates mainly in celebration of the 20th anniversary Count Duckula's first broadcast.

Someday I'll break away from the iron chain that is NTLworld. :(

16-bit Duck

2008-08-13T22:58:00.003+01:00

Ever wondered what the Duckula theme tune would sound like if there was a video game based on the show for the Mega Drive/Genesis?

Now you can. X3

This was made for both fun, and to build up my skills in producing music with a number of applications that make it similar to that on the console, which I love dearly. If only there was a Count Duckula game for such, and the SNES, instead of the ghastly ones on the Commodores and the Speccies.

Movie rumours

2008-08-04T15:37:00.004+01:00

We all know full well that Wikipedia can be a pile of old shite when it comes to rumours about future things, but now there are rumours sprouting from there about Count Duckula becoming an animated feature film produced by Dreamworks, set to be released at least in the year 2009. A part of me wants to believe in it, but after the whole thing about the series being shown again on a kids' channel in the UK, another reckons it's completely false.

What if it were true... there would be so many possibilites.

The thought of Dreamworks making it quite bugs me. I honestly never found any of the Shrek movies as funny as claimed, though there are a number of other animated movies I've yet to see, the latest being Kung Fu Panda. One movie I did like by them was Chicken Run, which was co-produced with Aardman, who according to this rumour had been interested in co-producing this.

Then there is this problem. Several cartoon series had been made into poor films within the last few years, such as Garfield. I watched a small bit of the first one some time ago, and not only did Garfield look hideous, it also starred Jennifer Love Hewitt, who is one of many celebs that annoy me; and it tried too hard to be funny. Tee hee guinea pigs that talk like African-Americans, pull the other one.

Then you have Alvin and the Chipmunks, another example of how animated movies have sunk quite low these days. I saw the trailer on the net last year, and I don't think they were even trying to be funny there. Theodore practicing coprophagia - I know it's a natural thing some rodents do, especially rats, but did these writers honestly though it'd be funny to put that in a kids' movie? And don't get me started on Scooby-Doo, which was just fart jokes throughout.

Back to Duckula. If there really was going to be a theatrical movie based on the 80's cartoon series, I can predict fart jokes, overuse of pop culture, a range of sub par video games released a week before, and terrible songs sung by American pop stars for an OST. But most of all, I predict that it'd be in CGI.

Not all CGI films are as bad as traditional animation fans make them out to be, like Pixar's Cars. But with Duckula, I dread to think of what the model for him would look like - it'd be so detailed, with the indication of features, eye colour, fabrics of his clothes...I don't know, I'm so used to a 2D character with very limited detail, the thought of him being in 3D will scare me.

Now here's the one that would make my brain sizzle with anticipation - who would provide the voices? Would David Jason, Brian Truman and Jimmy Hibbert have the time, or would there be replacements? I know that there may well be some very talented voice actors that could imitate anything, but I would not like it if Duckula sounded more American than he did on the show despite his original actor being British. I know that the original show was a British, Spanish AND American co-production, but damn, this will be so American I'd crave some rain, tea and digestive biscuits in no time.

All of that said, I would go and see it.

But for the time being, we'll have to wait and see if this rumour is actually true.

More new plushes

2008-06-18T22:46:00.004+01:00

Source: Plush-Toy UK

I honestly don't know where these are coming from, but it seems that there is not only a new Count Duckula soft toy, but also a Nanny one! In fact this is the first time I've ever seen a Nanny toy. I wonder if an Igor or perhaps a Von Goosewing one will show up.

I've seen these pop up on eBay about a week ago, but I won't be able to get them just yet. I've asked the seller who's been putting them up there a question about what sort of company is producing and what year they were made in; no answer yet though. I guess the only way to find out is to buy them myself and look.

This is most exciting, new Duckula plushes for the new generation are being made at bloody long last! And these ones look a little decent this time!

New Duckula plushes?

2008-05-28T11:36:00.005+01:00

Look what I got in the mail today.

[Apologies for the crap photography, my camera's not as good now since my sister dropped it.]

I recently picked this up from a UK-only charity listing at eBay, and I can tell you now that I've never seen this plush ever. So I decided to get it, despite the fact that it has a tacky design once again [his cape was the wrong side up!]. In the photo it seemed quite a big one, but it's a lot smaller than I thought. In fact, it's about the size of a plush doll that is typically found in seaside crane machines, so I have a feeling that these are new products, and despite not having any labels on it, I think these are made by something along the lines of PMS, a company that distributes soft toys and the like to crane machines. It's definitely not fan-made, that's for sure.

This plush came from Shoeburyness, which is actually near where my older sister lives. Now and again we go out to Southend, and the last time I went there, some of the crane machines were filled with Dangermouse plushes. I'm sure that there's got to be more than one of the one I got today, so the next time I go to Southend I shall keep a lookout. My sister also booked a holiday to Great Yarmouth next month, so I'll ask her to lookout as well if they're not in Southend.

This has certainly given me hope for perhaps a new set of Duckula merchandise for 2008. In the past few years there have been new Dangermouse products to celebrate the likes of his 20th and 25th anniversaries, while Duckula has a 20th anniversary this year. It'd be totally unfair otherwise.

My bigger plush has a friend of his kind now. He's been surrounded by SpongeBob the whole time.

Let me make it clear...

2008-04-21T20:22:00.003+01:00

First off, apologies if this post offends anyone here, but I have to get this off my chest.

Just now, I found a piece of my Duckyboos website being used on a bootleg t-shirt for sale on eBay. eBay is full of people trying to make a quick buck from t-shirts using any old crap on Google, and when you are affected it becomes a very sticky situation.

Now, to anyone who is stupid enough to take any content from my website without permission, I want to make it clear - while I don't claim any copyright to the official images I've used for decoration on the site, just because it shows up on Google, it does NOT mean that you can take it and not let me know what you're going to do with it. Asking for my permission is a simple procedure which you can do so here, and depending on the use, most of the time I probably will give the thumbs up for you to use, because like the Count himself, I won't bite. That way you won't get an email asking to take whatever you took from my site off.

Equally, I don't like seeing my stuff on your Myspace pages or Youtube slideshows either, especially my fanart, so be warned if I have to PM you about it.

And for anyone who is even more stupid enough to try and sell any pictures you pinch from Google, DeviantART and the like, especially fanart you WILL be reported, because that shit is illegal to even try and sell. Website graphics aren't meant to be ironed on t-shirts, so they will end up looking like shit, and buyers, please don't buy them.

That should be it for now, but to the kinds of people I've mentioned, you are warned.

More screenshots

2008-03-31T21:41:00.004+01:00

I've decided to take screenshots from random episodes now, and after uploading some for four episodes the past two days, we now have more than 1,500 pictures in the whole Duckyboos gallery! And since I'm planning to concentrate with episode screenshots this week, and the possibility of scanning some comic stories, this number may well grow rapidly. I recently found a nice tool in Livejournal that lets you upload pictures to your Scrapbook straight from Windows Explorer [Windows XP], which is very useful if you're uploading loads of pictures at once.

I'm also working on the Series 3 section of the Episode guide, which will be online within this week, and I will tweak the other series pages just a little bit to suit the new changes.

Stay tuned, and goodnight out there, whatever you are~!

Return of the Downloads & more

2008-02-02T22:22:00.000Z

Hot damn, I can't believe it's been a full six months since our last update! Where does the time go? Anyway, I'm happy to announce that I have restored the Downloads section that I once cancelled. At the moment I have only made a wallpaper that I had made with one of my own fan-artworks available at the moment, but I'll be adding more, and I will enable the avatars and audio section shortly.

Also to add, from now on all news updates will be mirrored on the Blog in hopes for it to be a bit more interactive, ie. if you have something to say about an update, now you can!

Lastly, I have moved the guestbook to a new service called SmartGB, which is now located here. The old one had a very boring look and I was unable to reply to your wonderful feedback, but now I can. All is not lost though, for I have copied all of the old messages onto there, and I've responded to some of them, so check it out. ;)

Sid Quack

2008-01-10T14:36:00.000Z

"I'm a-workin' out here on Maggots Farm
I'm workin' out here on Maggots Farm
I wish that I had lots of dough
And a brand new suit of clothes
And the finest food that I could eat
And never have to eat Granny Reekie's soup
I'm a-livin' out here on Maggots Farm
Instead of a mansion on a hill
Oh Maggots Farm is makin' me ill!"

For once, I'd thought I'd have a crack at drawing one of Duckula's two doppelgängers, Sid Quack, from the series 2 episode "The Count and the Pauper." Man, if there could be a Wario in the Count Duckula universe, this guy would be that. Even if they did look exactly the same - I supposed that would be understandable because in real life, all male mallards look the same, what with either green heads and that, there's no way to tell them apart. Still, they could have done with different hairstyles.

Despite the episode being nothing more than a parody of the Prince and the Pauper, I thought it was a great one, because I think the songs the two ducks sing at various points just make it. Mr Jason did a great northern farmer accent for Sid too. What was also funny was that Nanny and Igor had doppelgängers too, really nasty ones on that.

I won't be posting much more Duckula fanart on my DeviantART, unless it's extremely epic and well done. Fanart of anything seems to either like sweets are to kids, or frowned upon by miserable bastards who get too upset that any fanart ends up on the front page there. I've also been in a slump these days, but things seem to be picking up again.

"I'm living out here on Maggots Farm
This country life has lost its charm
I want my castle on the hill
Maggots Farm is a-makin' me ill!
I miss old Nanny and old Igor
Stink and Reekie are becoming a bore
I want some decent food and some decent clothes
And not old Reekie's soup and bones
I'm workin' out here on Maggots Farm
I'm workin' out here on Maggots Farm
I'm workin' out here on Maggots Farm..."

This post is in memory of my little budgie, who died a few hours ago today.
RIP Percy, c.1995-2008.

Merry Quackmas

2007-12-21T22:33:00.000Z

Here's wishing you a merry ducky Quackmas!

I also have to inform, and regret that blog comments are now moderated, for personal reasons. This means that I'll be notified when you post a comment on an entry and I'll have to approve it if I think it's appropriate.

All the best for the holidays, and thank you for your kind feedback!

Some plans

2007-12-09T00:32:00.000Z

Just a quick post before I go to bed.

I've got plans in my mind for Duckyboos which involves moving the news and updates section from the main site into here not only to make it a pinch more active, but also to make the previous news posts more organised, and for future ones more easier to post. It'd save me having to knock one out of three posts, which I hand type into the index file, everytime I update, and from making new pages as the old news archive grows. Should I?

Season 2 release for Latin America

2007-10-08T22:37:00.000+01:00

Good news for Duckula fans in South America, the second season has appeared to have been released!

Source: TruCinePortal.com

Apparently there will be 19 episodes on this DVD, but this source doesn't tell whether or not there is anything else on it like features and stuff. What I do find interesting though is that the picture of Duckula on this cover is derived from the cover of the 1991 Annual. It seems that whoever designed these seem to have done them better than whoever designed the UK DVD covers.

Count Duckula: The Complete Series 3

2007-09-06T23:14:00.000+01:00

Got hold of my copy yesterday. Same price, same store, you get the drill.

Again, there are no extras on this DVD, and the menu is exactly the same as those in the previous DVD set but coloured blue, but there's a twist - despite the name of the DVD, which is "the Complete Third series", the last seven episodes of the series, known widely as 'season 4', are included as well! So now the whole series is available on DVD in the UK, result!

Also for some weird reason, the inlay displays the episode "A Christmas Quacker" as episode 62 [the 4th from last one on the second disc]. So now we have a new mystery - is this the real episode order, or has either Fremantle, CITV or even the Internet got it mixed up? Who knows...

Either way, I enjoyed the episodes I haven't seen [I really liked it when the Crow Brothers were being upside-down 'mushrooms' in "The Show Must Go On", and I remember parts of "Prince Duckula" being used in an old advert for the cartoon they used to show on Nickelodeon back in 1995/1996.], and the fact that it's all there is all that really matters.

Australian DVD release

2007-08-30T15:37:00.000+01:00

I just discovered a new DVD release for Australia that is to be released on the 10th October 2007. Although the box contains 3 discs, only 18 episodes from the first season will appear on this release unfortunately, and the cover design isn't that great either. Still, good news for you Aussies that might have been unable to get hold of the first season from the US and UK.

Source.

Meanwhile in the UK, we're just days from our 3rd series set. I hope to get my copy cheaper this time, usually DVDs in ASDA are up to half the price of those sold in HMV and Virgin. The new choice would be whether to buy it before or during my holiday to Blackpool which will be on the 10th next month.

New screenshots added

2007-08-02T20:28:00.000+01:00

Screenshots from the episode "One Stormy Night" have been added to the Gallery. I've also created galleries for up to the 9th episode as I'm going through the first disc of my series 1 boxset, these have yet to be filled with screenshots which I will work on tonight and in the next few days.

Just so we know...

2007-07-30T22:18:00.001+01:00

We fellas in the UK are getting the third series of Count Duckula on DVD on September 3rd. No image yet [Play.com briefly used a photograph I took of the series 2 box from here!], but like the series 2 set, this will be a 2-disc DVD, but there doesn't seem to be any sign of special features... well, I don't know how they're going to divide this one up then if the third series only has 13 episodes...

A brand new update

2007-06-30T20:27:00.000+01:00

Since I've barely done anything major for the site in about a month as I'm still waiting for the third series to come to DVD, I've decided to give a couple of my DVDs a review each [nothing too long at the moment, but they're there], and to make those accessable I've opened up a new page with info on VHS, audio and DVD releases of the cartoon.

I've also added a new Duckula blog called Crazy About Count Duckula to the Links section, be sure to check it out ;)

Why I moved the fansite to NTLWorld

2007-05-23T23:04:00.000+01:00

Just a few secs ago, I moved the Duckyboos fansite to a new location which can be found here. It was initially a mirror of the original at Fateback.com I made soon after I discovered that I had some ad-free webspace on my own ISP, Virgin Media [formerly known as NTL]. It was only 55MB, 5MB less than the original host, but I decided to take it on anyway to see if it made the site work for someone who couldn't view the original.

Fateback was horrible - it disallowed the uploading of MP3 files or any files more than 200KB [which was why I decided to host related images onto my Livejournal account], and it had this ad at the top of each page that interfered with my CSS. Not even Firefox's Adblock could block it. So in the end, I created a redirection page and wiped everything else off, while keeping the new host open.

I feel really bad... like, I'm rushing things without telling anyone, and it comes to a point where I feel that I don't know what I'm doing, but I do. I dunno...the Duckyboos project is my pride and joy, but I just feel like a crappy admin.

One thing's for sure though, the fansite won't be coming back to Fateback at dawn, Transylvanian Standard Time.

Heads up, we're moving!

2007-05-23T20:26:00.000+01:00

Yep, just like the way Duckula transports his castle to another location by simply entering his coffin, Duckyboos has moved to a new piece of webspace. This is because I'm no longer satisfied with the old host, and that certain visitors were unable to view the original site. I've also updated the FAQ with a few new questions, and I've been adding some old unfinished artworks I've made within the past year to the gallery.

We greatly apologise for any inconveniences caused by the move.

Another empty space filled

2007-04-28T20:24:00.000+01:00

As the Duckyboos Blog celebrates its first birthday this week, another empty space is filled on the fansite - the products page. However I've yet to compile the pages within that! [groan], but I've complied a little guide about looking for and buying Count Duckula merchandise, like do's and don'ts and so forth.

I've also updated the About page slightly to suit current events about myself ^^;

The Duckyboos Blog's First Birthday

2007-04-27T13:52:00.000+01:00

It's been a year now since I opened up this blog and made its first post, which as a reminder can be found here. Within then we've had visitors from over 40 countries, and over 3,000 hits since I started counting in November. I want to thank everyone who's visited for their great support for this fan project, in which I hope to better for years to come!

Count Duckula: The Complete Series 2

2007-03-31T16:02:00.000+01:00

I bought my copy of said DVD today. It costed me £18 from HMV, which I wasn't too happy about paying, but I had no other choice since I currently can't order online without Paypal. It contains two discs that are compacted into one DVD case, as you'll see below.

This picture shows that the inside of the case lists all the episode titles, but unlike the first series boxset, it doesn't give a brief synopsis of each episode.

Heh, the first disk caught a reflection of my computer's desktop and my VHS collection.

Thankfully there aren't any horrificly drawn menu graphics within, but they're not too impressive to begin with apart from the moon effect. It plays the ending theme too, rather than the completely irrelevant cheesy music that was heard in the USA first season release. This also doesn't give each episode a synopsis, and they shouldn't really have a page that just says "Subtitles: On/Off".

Very unfortunately, there are NO special features on this DVD. It's a massive letdown, because they could have easily squeeze up to about half hours worth of things like interviews, especially when they managed to fit the last episode on the second disc.

However, I do think it's great that seven episodes that never seemed to have been released on an English VHS before are finally available - I love The Count and the Pauper so far. And most importantly we have all the episodes in there for us all to watch, no episodes missing or anything. I've also noticed that it is a Region 0 DVD, so anyone outside Region 2 countries might be able to get their copies after all!

It's finally here!

2007-03-26T00:08:00.000+01:00

The clock just turned midnight here, and Count Duckula: The Complete Second Series, is now officially available on DVD!

Where to buy

You can either buy the DVD online at the following websites:

And perhaps eBay stores. I'm gonna look into that tomorrow.

If you prefer to buy it in a store, it's likely to be found in all good DVD retailers, especially HMV and Virgin Megastores [although they're usually just an inch slower at stocking new releases than Internet stores]. The DVD will averagely price at £11.99 online, although it might be a few quid dearer if bought in a store, usually at about £15.99. Also take note that this is a Region 2 DVD, so please check if you can run such DVDs if you happen to live outside the UK and Ireland.

I want my copy now! *pout*

Just a small update today *

2007-03-05T20:23:00.000Z

Just to let everyone know, that I've finally got a new page up, that page being the Special Thanks & Credits page. Just something to show my gratitude to all of you guys who've shown their support for Duckyboos, all good sites have them.

My good buddy Kroc has also helped me fix some bugs that had mostly affected Internet Explorer 7 users, and clean away some scrap coding. It's all so mind-boggling for me, no wonder I made so many mistakes!

Remember Brits - 26th March

2007-02-21T12:41:00.000Z

[Image blantently nicked from Amazon]

Looks like Amazon and Play finally have an image of the cover for the next Duckula season DVD set. I'm so getting this when it comes out, since it'll make a nice early birthday present for myself [hitting the big two-oh in April].

It doesn't look like there'll be any special features [well, I hope there is] according to both these sites, since this is only a 2-disc pack. Shouldn't really matter though, at least it's the complete second series, which has quite a number of episodes I haven't seen yet.

Thanks to Shychick for this info!

Downloads section cancelled *

2007-02-18T20:21:00.000Z

Right, I've had a good long think about this, and I decided to call off the Downloads section, because I don't think there's much point having it right now, what with the gallery and everything. I'm also NOT hosting full episodes for download, because not only is it illegal, but also a tiring job for someone to upload each file on a not-so brilliant broadband connection. Well, either way it's definitely going off for now, we'll see how things get on after I actually fill in the missing gaps. So instead, I've given this space to a "character bios" page.

I've also uploaded a load of screenshots from "No Sax Please, We're Egyptian" and "Vampire Vacation" to the gallery, along with creating the History page. Check 'em out!.

In Arctic Circles

2007-01-24T14:39:00.000Z

The things I do for cartoons eh?

So yeah, this morning we woke up to a rather fine blanket of snow, which is gone now. To savour the moment, and to take some time offline while my mother was away, I decided to take my camera and take a few shots in the park. Sadly though, by the time I really wanted to take a shot of a bit of snow that had absolutely no footprints, the camera battery went flat.

Hoping to pass time getting a little battery energy back, I decided to build a Snow Duckula. Using just my frozen hands and my front door key, I tried to make it look as much like Duckula as I could, until I realised that my camera wasn't going to start working again. So I had to take the snow model home.

Obviously I had to go inside for a little while to warm up, because I couldn't feel anything afterwards. I then went back outside to take photos of the model when I realised that I forgot to take my key! I could climb over the back gate, but it seemed way too dangerous, so my only choice was to grab some bricks and step on them to open the gate and get back inside through the back.

Then I went back out again to take the shot above, with my key in hand this time. It's probably melted by now...

If it snows again I'm gonna try and make another, more accurate looking model.

Forum!

2007-01-24T00:37:00.000Z

I've just launched a nice new forum on the Duckyboos fansite, so we call all come in and talk about our favourite vegetarian vampire duck! Make sure to read the rules before posting! I'll be working on little things like more Duckula-ish emoticons and other little icon thingies as soon as I get my commissions done and dusted.

Meet the new Guestbook! *

2007-01-11T21:34:00.000Z

OK, really sorry about the sudden shutdown of the old "guestbook". It was after I actually tested it and found that I couldn't delete comments [which is rather important to control abuse]. All is not lost though, for Duckyboos has a nice new one which can be found here. If there's still anything wrong with this or any other part of Duckyboos, please let me know.

Introducing the new gallery! *

2007-01-05T21:33:00.000Z

I bet it's the bit you've all be waiting for, he he... Via Livejournal I bring you the Duckyboos Gallery, already packed with more than 200 pictures! More will be on the way soon once I get round to scanning and screencapping...it's hard work you know ;) I just thought it'd be much easier to have used Livejournal that's all. Hope you enjoy everything the gallery has to offer!

I also digged up and added a very old fansite into the Links page, for those who want to see it.

Happy New Year! *

2007-01-01T21:32:00.000Z

Well, it's the year 2007 now, at least in the UK as I speak. The contact page and the FAQ is now up, so get cracking in with the feedback and the questions! Duckyboos would really like to hear from you!

Guestbook of a sort *

2006-12-27T21:30:00.000Z

Yep, thanks to the powers of Blogspot we now have some sort of a "guestbook". It might not seem like much but it's the best way I think for you to have your say on Duckyboos until I'm smart enough to build a proper guestbook. Whether you just want us to know what you think of the site or maybe a few suggestions, it's right there, but please read the rules carefully before posting.

I've also put the second season episode guide online [no pretty screenshots at the moment I'm afraid], and managed to fix a few bugs that were driving me insane! There's probably a few more that might drive me potty as I do more work.

A Christmas Quacker

2006-12-24T21:28:00.000Z

Count Duckula wishes you all a very merry Christmas!

And as a bonus, Duckyboos is now back online! There's still some things to fix and build as I've been working very hard, but I hope you all enjoy the new layout!

Internet Explorer users, please be aware that the shortened menuhead is a known issue that I might not be able to fix. If there's anything majorly wrong, please tell me!

No more Splash page *

2006-12-24T21:27:00.000Z

Been a while since I last updated the site, and yes, sorry for the shutdown. I decided to get rid of the splash page [aka Enter] because I felt that it was getting in the way of actually entering the site. I also got rid of the previous news for good because to me it sounded rather hyper and rushed...if you catch my drift! XD!

But man, have I been busy or what? I've been pimping up the likes of the header, the side menu and some pages, although most other pages are still under construction. Stay tuned is all I can say

We also wish with a Merry Christmas and a happy new year!

[UK] Season 2 is coming!

2006-12-16T19:51:00.000Z

It looks like us lucky Brits will see the second season of Count Duckula on DVD on the 19th February 2007, as it apparently says on UK-based shopping site Play.com. I believe this might be the doing of FremantleMedia, who already released the British version of the first season release back in July. Nothing like special features are announced at the moment, neither there is an image of the set. All I can do for the moment is just wait for things to develop, but my spirits are high this time because whatever Play places in its Coming Soon area is very likely to be coming soon.

I can't wait! :}

Update 29/DEC/2006: Uh oh...the release date's been pushed to the 26th March 2007 now. Cheeky little...

Sacre bleu!

2006-12-11T15:29:00.000Z

I found Count Duckula's theme in French! But all I can say is...very weird, especially the way the song is sung... Duckula's voice en frencais ain't too bad, but still.

There's also this video. Check out the alternative logos!

And also a VHS cover. I've love to see a full episode in French, since that and Spanish are the only languages I ever had the chance to learn back in school. It kind of chills me whenever I hear or read French that I could understand some of it!

Mexican/Spanish DVD Releases...?

2006-12-04T19:18:00.000Z

It's come to my attention that apparently the Count Duckula First Season is now available in Spanish!

I was looking around on eBay when I first of all found this in the Buy It Now section. I wasn't too sure if this one was official even though it says in the listing that they "don't sell bootlegs, copies or anything illegal". It looks like a nice cover though, much better than the British versions. I then looked for "conde patula dvd" in Google for a bigger version of that cover, and I ended up finding two links to what looks like the first season:

ZonaDVD and MixUp Music Store, which both seem to be Mexican, so the DVD is in Region 4.

Well I must say, these are REALLY nice renditions of that one picture of Duckula they use on every release. I don't speak much Spanish, but even if I did I still wouldn't be able to tell which one's a mock-up or which one's commercial. If anyone out there in South America has bought this DVD, I'd be VERY obliged if you guys can help me out.

What I can make out of this Spanish is that apparently the release has a photo gallery, 30 episodes [as opposed to the usual 26 on the American and British releases], tracks in both Spanish AND English, interactive menu, episode selection and a total of 600 minutes. But that doesn't make sense! If the English version is 675 minutes and has 26 episode, how can the Latin American one have 600 mins and 30 episodes?

I'll be really grateful if anyone who's bought the DVD can send me in some scans or something.

I hate being unsure of things like this...

"I'm more famous than all of you!"

2006-11-08T23:42:00.000Z

[Extremely sorry for the low quality here!]

On the 7th November, or this Tuesday evening, to be precise, there was a documentary on ITV Granada where they take a look at how Cosgrove Hall, those very people behind Count Duckula, came to be one of the most well known animation studios in the UK. However, ITV Granada is a regional version of ITV [one of our main channels here], and is only shown in the North-West of England.

Most thankfully though, I happened to have a friend who lives in Liverpool, and was able to capture the programme from ITV Grandada on his PC. I've only got the first part so far, as transfering the 230MB DivX file with MSN Messenger was a pain in the arse. But the wait was so worth it!

The first part of the documentary covered the earlier works of Cosgrove Hall, such as Chorlton and the Wheelies, Jamie and the Magic Torch, and Dangermouse. I expect Duckula will be featured in the second part which I should get from my friend tomorrow.

Update
Well, I got the second part of Cartoon Kings just now, and well, very good. This part does cover Duckula, but also the more recent of Cosgrove Hall's work. However, I don't think 30 minutes is enough for such a prolific animation studio. Maybe perhaps an hour would do nicely. But anyways, it was worth documenting, because ever since I read about in a Wikipedia article, I always wanted to hear David Jason do all the voices of Duckyboos and ol' DM!

Many thanks go out to Psyke for taking the time to record it for me.

Meanwhile, today I had a muck around with Fimo clay...

Heh, I suck.

Small edit: I just found out that Toonhound's linked to my blog! LOL!

How bloody confusing...

2006-10-13T22:12:00.000+01:00

Just a few days ago I was in sky high spirits, because I was looking around in Wikipedia and found this on the Count Duckula article:

Airing History [United Kingdom]:

ITV1
The Children's Channel
Nickelodeon
Sky One
Boomerang [TBA]

That shot me up so high I couldn't sleep that night. The cartoon was last seen on UK TV on Sky One in 1996, so to me it was a miracle. I didn't like Boomerang for the sole fact that they dedicated an entire six weeks of summer to Scooby Doo cartoons, which I really can't stand, but I started to like the channel when they started showing another classic, The Raccoons recently.

However, today I got really mixed up. Count Duckula seemed to have disappeared from a list of cartoons that were supposed to be airing soon on Boomerang UK, and it had me really pissed off, because later on I found that the cartoon is definately on air in Central and Eastern Europe. I also found a copy of the cartoon introduction which had been recorded in the Netherlands, with Dutch subtitles and the Boomerang logo, as you can see below.

What's more, I've been looking up the schedules for all the areas they have this channel, and I found that in the east and central European versions of the channel there's going to be a Duckula marathon on the 29th October. This schedule is in ENGLISH for crying out loud!

I wasn't too sure anyway, so the other day I sent Turner Media an email making an inquiry about the cartoon being aired. No word yet, sadly. Perhaps I should write to Ofcom? After all, if they could do so much for that one person who complained about smoking in Tom & Jerry cartoons, they could change something for one Count Duckula fan?

However, all I can do is keep on hoping, rather than venting my spleen over Scooby Doo. Boomerang pops their cartoons in very, VERY randomly, as do most of our other channels here. Until then, I'll carry on searching for VHS of beyond-season-one episodes, or downloads of episodes I haven't got.

Duckyboos is here!

2006-09-04T21:07:00.000+01:00

7/SEP/2006: Really sorry guys, but I had to take most of the pages down...there's this damn table bug that I can't seem to fix and it's doing my head in!

I'll let you know when it's up and running again.

----
I'm very happy to announce that my Count Duckula fansite, which shares the name of this blog, is online!

http://duckyboos.fateback.com

There's not a lot going on here, but it'll build up in time. Many, many thanks to Kroc for helping me out!

Count Duckula in Other Languages

2006-09-03T11:30:00.000+01:00

Thought I'd like to make a post about what Duckula sounds like in other languages.

In Spanish [Conde Patula]

We also have an episode in Spanish too.

Over at Duckula Online you can download the theme in German [Graf Duckula]

There was also an Italian theme on Youtube which was totally different. I would share this, but it sadly got flagged months ago. In Italy he is known as 'Conte Dacula'

Do you have an opening theme in a language other than those shown here? If so, I'd love to hear from you!

New DVD Releases

2006-07-23T09:41:00.000+01:00

Just to let everyone know that in the past month, the world has seen not one, but two new Count Duckula releases on DVD.

In Germany there is now a seven disc box set with 52 episodes [However, contrary to what it says on the box, it's actually not complete, as it's missing the last 13 episodes], which must be excellent news for German fans! However there are no special features from what I've gathered, and the picture quality doesn't seem to be as good as the US release...

And in the United Kindgom, the first season has been released over here at last. From what I've seen it has the same special features as the US release, and has a totally different cover art, which I personally find better than the US one. I saw them being on sale in Virgin Megastores the other day at the price of £15.99, which is much worth it. I wonder what the menu graphics will look like in this version - as I said in a much earlier post, those in the US version were terrible.

I Should Be So Ducky!

2006-06-22T19:00:00.000+01:00

Oh lordy! I don't know where to begin!

This morning I received a package. One that I'd been expecting since last weekend. It was full of Count Duckula books, comics and a few other things. It was all there - the books that I'd been meaning to bid for on eBay! I just couldn't contain myself the moment I opened up the box. I ended up running up and down the stairs shouting out my joy, discarding the newspaper and making sure my dog didn't do anything to it.

Here's a list of what was in that box.

Seven 'Bastei' comics
This is the German version of the Duckula comics, containing various stories from all three - Marvel, Celebrity and SOR Fleetway - English comics. I personally speak very little German as I never studied it at school, but I do know how all the letters are pronounced, as well as a few words I learnt in my own time. Perhaps I could learn a bit more German though these comics, since I have a couple of the stories in English as well!

The first seven - at least - issues used covers from the Marvel comics , and from then on, those from the Celebrity comics were used. The Marvel comic stories were all crammed into the first four issues at least. I only had the first Marvel comic, so I'm not sure which story appeared in which, as these German comics were in different issue numbers - 3, 4, 7, 10, 12, 14 and 16.

The stories that were extracted from the Marvels have better colours in them - none of the messy screentones - but it's still not very good colouring, sometimes it can be pale while certain objects like Igor's jacket are printed indark colours. I like how the issues are in A4 this time, as opposed to the smaller size of the American versions. I supposed it gave the colourist more room to colour.

After the Marvel stories were republished into the Basteis, the stories from the British comics were used. Thankfully these were left as is, no bad recolouring and such. However, if there's anything in the entirety of this comic series that isn't so aethetically pleasing, it's the lettering. It's been typed with a non-comic like font, and I personally think that it somewhat spoils the feel of it being a comic. But then, at least it has been translated for German and German-speaking readers.

Below are some samples.

One Marvel comic
Issue seven I believe. Unlike some of the other issues, this one contains a full story of Dangermouse, which was just as well inked, but it kind of freaks me out, as does the Duckula story there. In this, it shows Duckula topless and with...manboobs... and Igor without his trousers on...well, that's just a personal thing... It's still an OK story but it's just the way it was drawn that's all.

Seven birthday cards
These I've never seen before, possible due to me being a baby at the time these were probably out. I'm not sure who made these, but the logo looks like a W-shaped crown with a star on top. Three of them are embossed have a peel-off badge which is probably used to stick on shirts, while the other four just have artwork on.

1990 Annual
Much like the 1991 annual I talked about a while back, this annual was published by World, with the same artist working on the lovely illustrations and comics.

1989 Annual
This one is very different to the World published annuals, for one, it was published by Marvel comics! But not to worry, it's not at all like the American publications, is has the same share of comic strips and prose format stories, it's just with different artists [some from the Celebrity comics].

4 Celebrity comics
As I may have said, I personally like these ones better than the other two versions. The issues I have here are 8, 10, 15 and 26. One of them - Issue 26 - has kiddie fanart in...bless!

SOR Comic
Now this one just baffles me. It says Issue 6 on this, but it was published in 1990, while the Fleetway issue I had was Issue 2 and published in 1992. It has the same artists within as well. Sadly this one has only two Duckula stories, for there's also a totally unrelated story in [I hate it when you buy a comic and there's a story inside that has nothing to do with the charaters the whole issue is about]. But then I read the smallprint inside and it said 'London Editions Magazines, an Egmont company', so I guess it's still related to Fleetway. I'm still not sure what SOR stands for.

Count Duckula Storybooks
Published by Carnival, these are basically novelised versions of a number of Duckula scripts, with screenshots from the cartoon. There is a big one with four stories, and I have here three small ones.

Count Duckula Novels
Also published by Carnival, but these are apparently brand new stories. These aren't illustrated within, apart from the Joke Book, but I suppose they serve as good things to read. The stories are as follows

Joke Book
Duckula and the Haunted House
Duckula on Treasure Island
Duckula's Holiday Camp Adventure
Duckula and the Ghost Train Mystery

Waddingtons Card game
I'm not sure what this exactly is, but I'm guessing that it's a bit like Snap. These are quite big cards, and the characters appear more than once.

German colouring book
This seems to be published by something called 'Xenos'. Some of the ink in the lineart has faded over time, but it's still drawn pretty good. It seems kind of different compared to most colouring books I've scribbled in in the past - it's like a mix of a story [based on the episodes] and random shots...maybe it's just me...

Two smaller Marvel Books
By the kind of Marvel that published the 1989 annual, these contain a mix of prose and comic strips in a way that there's a strip on one page, and when you turn it over, it's prose, then a strip etc. It has some nice artwork in it, but there aren't no true names mentioned, just 'Primary Design'. The two titles are 'Duckula on Broadway' and 'Duckula in Trouble'.

Mug
A black mug with Duckula on and text saying 'Drinkyboos for Duckyboos!'. I actually quite like how this one looks, despite the colours being behind a black background.

And here it is [sorry about the mess]!

Many, MANY thanks go out to Jano, the webmaster of www.duckula.de for his generousity. I never felt this happy in long time! Now for the figurines and plushes...

Comics and Annuals

2006-06-06T18:49:00.000+01:00

I strongly apologise for the size of the images in the following post [when you click on them that is], I had to make sure that the scans were readable.

Over the past few months, I've been a regular searcher for Count Duckula items on eBay, meaning that I've always been looking him up to see if there's any nice items on there for auction. Some things I could get straight away by the click of the 'buy it now' link, while others I had to fight for. The first piece of merchandise I believe to have bought on eBay was my favourite bendy doll, which costed me a shocking £14.50 all simply because of other bidders. The same happened to the most recent Duckula merchendise I bought - a comic - which I had to pay £8.00 for the same cause as the doll.

And this is what this post is about. Count Duckula comics and annuals.

So far from my eBay hunting, I've discovered three kinds of Duckula comics, not counting the kind known as 'Look In', which was apparently an 80's magazine featuring pop stars of that era. The first is the Marvel Comics, which were made in America and was published every two months. Of this kind, I only have the first issue.

My only problem with the Marvel comics is that inside the colours are very badly applied, most possible because they apparently used coloured screentones. I'm guessing that to make the colour green Duckula's feathers for example, a 'light blue' - which is basically blue dots, is applied over solid yellow. Now, I've never applied screentones ever as of now, but this could have seriously done with some work, especially on smaller areas which looked like they were coloured the wrong coloured. There are also a number of annoying adverts inbetween stories that advertise cereals and other comics...maybe that's just me. Other than that, I think the comic is fine...well, this issue. I've heard that some of the other comics contain dreadful art, but that I'll have to find out myself. The stories are quite fine as it happens, much like in the cartoon.

Here is a sample of a story page.

The next comic type is one I call 'Fleetway' - which is apparently the same publishers who made the UK Sonic the Hedgehog comics known as 'Sonic the Comic', which I was a fan of back in those days. Unlike the Marvel comics, this one has five stories altogether as opposed to the only two in Marvel, as well as some inbetween puzzles and how-to-draws, and that it is published every 'quarter' - three months. It is also much better printed, and has some lovely traditionally made art. I have so far what appears to be the second issue which dates back to 1992. Thankfully I was the only bidder for this one, so this was easy to get.

The comic art differs from one artist to another. I could be wrong, but the art in the first story of this issue reminds me a lot of the art of Nigel Kitching, an artist for Sonic the Comic. But I'm not sure because for this one there are no credits or signatures. The rest of the art in the issue I'm not familiar with, but as a fan of traditional art, I do like that of an artist known as J.J, who made the art of the how-to-draws and puzzles, and 'Mike Kazibrid', who made the art of the second story. Here are two scans of different stories below.

Lastly, there is this comic that arrived to me on the 3rd June, the one I paid £8.00 for. This kind is known as 'Celebrity', and was published weekly from the 12th July 1989. My copy has a bit of cellotape from where a free gift was attached, in this case a Duckula branded chew bar, which is advertised at the back of the issue.

It has quickly become my favourite kind so far, much due to the fact that some of the artwork inside combines the work of Alan Case, who illustrates the entire 1991 annual that I'll be showing in a minute, and the colouring of John Burns, a name I definately recognise from Sonic the Comic. It is also lettered by Ellita Fell, who also letters these Sonic comics. I personally love these artist's works, so that's a treat for my eyes. There are only two stories that are in comic format, while the rest of this issue contains a cut-out, a puzzle, a letters page, an advertisement for Duckula toys and a story that is printed in prose format. The art in that story isn't as nice as the comic story, but it's OK I guess, I've seen much worse comic art in my time. Sampled below is:

So that's it with the comics, now for the 1991 annual. It is published by a company called 'World', which is related to Egmont, a name I associate with Fleetway. Like the Fleetway comic featured here, this was also easy for me to get, though I do believe that someone else bidded. So far this is the only annual of about three that I have, but I am aiming to get the other two someday.

Like I may have said, this is fully illustrated by Alan Case, who made some lovely traditional art in this. There are lots of stories in this, four of them being in comic format while another four are printed in illustrated prose, along with puzzles and 'make and dos' in between. The prose stories are rather simple to read, but I'm guessing that's just where it's been targeted at children [my copy used to belong to a girl who was 12 years old at the time]. Of these, I quite like the first story, which is about sleepwalking, while of the comics, I like the third one, which is about the Castle being a part of a fairground. And yes, I have two samples from this as well.

I'm afraid that's all I have to show from my personal collection, but I hope for it to build up as I find them from eBay or perhaps second hand sales if I'm very lucky.

Any contributions [scans] from my fellow Duckula fans would be very much welcome!

May the 4th be with you!

2006-05-04T22:13:00.000+01:00

I've been waiting to make a title based on the quote from 'The Vampire Strikes Back'.

Now, this here is the post with all the best Count Duckula links. This is ~~because Blogspot wouldn't let me have more than eight links in the sidebar~~. I know what it is now, I'm not aligning my HTML properly! All this Blogger code is rather mind boggling if you as me!

Fansites

Duckula Online - A big fansite containing scans, photos and a lot of information...only that it's in German. Contains interviews with the German voice actors, info about what channels the German versions are on, and of a lot of merchandise!
Cosgrove Hall Ate My Brain - Although this site is about Cosgrove Hall's productions altogether, this site has some great info about Count Duckula, in fact, some that I never knew before I first checked it out. If you look around outside this part of the site, you'll find concept art and even pictures from a Cosgrove Hall exhibition!
Graf Duckula - Also in German, not as big as Duckula online, but has a few small scans that are not present there. It also has a 'shop' which apparently sells a few episodes from the German version on VHS.
Castle Duckula - This site is under construction and has been for a while. Nice layout though, and there is an accompaining Livejournal to go along.
Count Duckula DeviantART club - A 'club' that was set up by a fellow Duckula fan on the artists' community site DeviantART. Contains two fanarts and a fan fiction at the moment, needs more members.
Sailor Comet's Sound Vault - Contains a number of WAV sound files, mostly quotes and themes.
Livejournal community - This I made myself [I'm Robocoddess], will need more frequent posting and members!
Duckula's Corner - Moved to a new host. Still underconstruction but getting better ;)
14/JUN/2007: Crazy About Count Duckula - Another blog that has apparently just started out. This one makes use of the new Videoroll thing Blogspot put on.

Information sites

Toonhound - If you want the best info on British animation, then look no further than Toonhound! May be a bit simple, but still good info...
Duckula DVD - Some info on the first season DVD, as well as downloadable wallpapers and a Flash game!
IMDB - Contains some info on the voices, episodes and has user opinions.
Wikipedia - Wikipedia article.
Jedi's Paradise [unavailable to me right now] - General information, but with a checklist to see how many episodes you have.
Episode Guide - exactly what it says on the tin.
Duckula on KIKA.de - Once again this is in German, but has a nice episode guide with nice screenshots, and contains a short video from 'Vampire Vacation' in German [damn it's rather freaky]. KIKA seems to be a German childrens' channel.

Company sites

Cosgrove Hall Films - The site itself is under construction apart from news and links, but the Count Duckula page is still accessable if you click here.
Capital Entertainment - The ones who released the first season on DVD

Buying

Amazon [USA] - Sells the First Season DVD
Amazon [UK] - Sells the Vampire Vacation release as well as [though limited] a number of VHSs and books.
eBay - A WIDE variety of stuff - mostly second hand, but be careful!

More links will be available as soon as I find, or am shown them.

"You were tremendous, Tremendous!"

2006-05-01T13:01:00.000+01:00

Also thanks to Shychick for letting me know about this.

"Ok, good news... I hope, unless they decide to cancel it for whatever reason in the near future. I got word from Scott of Capital Entertainment- that last guy I emailed, who was more specific in his reply to my inqury. I got an email from him tonight- short and sweet, but still very encouraging:

"I've gotten word from First Look Studios, who now owns Capital
Entertainment, that they still plan on putting out the remaining seasons
of Count Duckula on DVD."

Scott Mayle
Online Coordinator
Capital Entertainment Enterprises
[link]
smayle@capitalent.com
480-633-6862

So, for now it looks like they are still planning on releasing the rest of the series after all. Let's still keep our fingers crossed, just in case, because I have learned not to have *too* much faith in people over the years."

You know what I say to that? TREMENDOUS! I'll be keeping my fingers crosses as well, because I just have this great faith that the other seasons will be on DVD, over time.

No more DVDs?

2006-04-28T14:31:00.000+01:00

A friend of mine from DA named Shychick allowed me to post some big news into my blog, so here it is.

"Bad news. I noticed that nobody had replied to that topic on Capital Entertainment for awhile- I think the last post was sometime in March, or something. Now, I've been fucked over with so-called upcoming DVD releases before: a box-set of Sonic-SatAM was supposed to have been released by DiC a few years back, but SEGA basically canceled that altogether (LONG and extremely complex story story; refer to FUS for more details if you are interested) and Kenneth Branagh's "Hamlet" keeps getting postponed and put on hiatus by Warner Brothers, so the actual release date for that is still up in the air (thank God I own the VHS, though!). Anyway, I wanted to be absolutely sure of what was going on with the rest of the Count Duckula series, because I'm tired of getting my hopes up for my most beloved shows and movies to come to DVD, and then getting my hopes dashed; I'm sick of feeling deceived and lied to by these companies. I emailed the guy who originally began that topic concerning the rest of the CD series- Spacekicker, he was called, who was apparently a staff member at Capital Entertainment- and asked him if there was still plans to release the rest of the series. And he simply replied (I still have the message in my inbox, so I'll copy and paste it here):

"I'm not sure. I left the company awhile ago. I don' t believe there are any plans to release the rest of the seasons."

This made no sense to me whatsoever. I mean, he was the one who made that topic in the first place, asking us for ideas on what we would like to see for special features. Now, all of a sudden, he's saying there are no plans to release the rest of the series after all, and with NO explanation at that (ok, maybe he did leave the company, so he wouldn't know what's going on with that anymore, but then what made him say that he doesn't think there are any plans if he's so clueless? If he knows or even suspects that much, then why wouldn't he know whatever reason mught be behind it? I mean, I hate it when people just ASSUME shit, and that's what it sounded like he was doing. Either knows, or he doesn't know; I'm sure he must've found out sometime before he left. I guess what I'm saying is, basically, what exactly does he base that statement on? You know what I mean?)

So, I emailed another CE employee who had actually posted in that topic, named Scot, who is apparently an Online Coordinator and an Admin, who had said in that topic, "Great ideas, guys; the developers will see all of them, you can bet on that!" Or something among those lines. Anyway, I told him the situation, expressed my confusion and frustration in a polite, but firm way, told him how deceived and in the dark I felt, and posed my original query about the so-called upcoming seasons of the show, asking him if he knew anything about it and said I'd be grateful for any details he could share. Again, I will c/p his exact words:

"I honestly don't know. At the time the intentions were to of course
continue coming out with the seasons, but there is something you have
to understand. It's not just that Spacekicker no longer works for the
company, but 90% of those who did no longer do as well. We were bought out and merged into First Look Media. So it was a pretty big change. I will however find out as much as I can about the fate of Count Duckula and let you know as soon as I do."

Well, he's not really sure either, but at least he was far more specific, unlike that other guy. So, I guess it's up in the air as of now, so all we can do is hope. I just hope the guy will actually get back to me, like he said he was going to. At this point, we don't know if it's been canceled altogether, simply postponed for the time being, or plain forgotten about. So, keep your fingers crossed, guys. I'll keep you posted."

I certainly hope so too. For one, there have been episodes that were never released even on VHS [about seven of them], let alone on DVD. Seriously, if people were to just make EVERYTHING available on DVD, regardless of rights and shit, then companies would stop whining about people 'stealing their shows' through downloading. Simple as.

It greatly sucks that Capital changed like this all so suddenly. It was like when Disney bought out DiC and refuse to release Sonic SatAM on DVD, thus resulting in many bootlegs and illegal shit.

As for Count Duckula, the only way in which I can back up my personal hopes for more releases is this piece of news from Duckula Online:

"The international version will be online within the next weeks. I'm currently scanning and photographing Duckula items as bonus material for the upcoming DVD season sets produced by Capital Entertainment."

Mind you, this dated back to October. All we can do is just wait. Who knows, there could be some big 20-year celebration in 2008!

The Complete First Season

2006-04-26T22:04:00.000+01:00

No fangirly blog would be complete without a mention to one of the big moves made for a classic 80's cartoon - the 2005 release of Count Duckula: The Complete First Season on DVD in the United States. It was released by Capital Entertainment, a company which I haven't heard of before, on the 4th October 2005, and contains the first 26 episodes of the show, which make up the first season. There are also a few special features to go along. This will be available in the United Kingdom - where I'm from - in July.

But I don't have to wait for that.

In March this year I bought a copy of the USA version from an eBay shop. It costed me nearly £15, including postage and packaging, and only took twelve days to come all the way from the US to my doorstep. This was really good considering the distance, as the user sent me an email after I paid saying that the shipping would take as much as 3 weeks!

When it came, I was lovestruck. What made this even better was that it worked well on the DVD player in my parents' bedroom, where I like to retreat if my sister's on MSN. It didn't work well on my PS2, but that didn't really matter because I had my PC's DVD player as well. So there was in this room, eagarly waiting to watch the DVD.

Now, this is the ONLY problem with this box set. I was presented with DREADFUL menu graphics - graphics that are so badly drawn that they look like a child's gone and drawn them. This comes along with some VERY cheesy music that isn't at all related to the show, which is merged with voice clips from the episodes. Well, I certainly hope that the next season DVD [yes, there WILL be one] will have better menu art. The ones for the subtitle menus and the episode menus are worse...making the Legend of Zelda CD-i FMVs look like the Lion King!

That aside, it's a very good DVD. It's a good value for money - £12 [what I paid] for 26 episodes, whereas the existing Prism Leisure release of only six episodes over here costs £5.99 at most! It also comes with subtitles, which is a good thing as I can now spell some of the additional characters' names, like Hezekiah for example, and just make out what they say sometimes. It's also good because I'm partially deaf...

After all, it's the episodes we all want really, but we do like a few special features. Alas, these range from somewhat mediocre to quite good. There's...

An interview with Brian Cosgrove
Interview with Jon Doyle, background artist of some episodes
'How to draw Duckula', where an artist called Mike Whaite draws Duckula step by step.
Photo Gallery - basically some cels, paint guides and other pieces of artwork related to the cartoon.
'Restoring Duckula' - this is what they call a split screen test comparing the difference between the original footage and the restored version. It doesn't really show much difference when seen on a TV, but you can judge for yourselves below.

The features aren't too bad I suppose, but I hope they do better for the next DVD set. The interview with John Doyle however is interesting, saying that he gets his inspiration from the Disney film 101 Dalmations. This pretty much explains the beautiful style of some of the backgrounds. In Brian Cosgrove's interview, he explains how the concept came about since Dangermouse to point out one of the answers. The How to draw was interesting as well, as it starts with the shapes I use [after following other drawing guides of course] in the blueline and then pencil. And I thought it was a lovely drawing...

If you Count Duckula fans haven't got this DVD set yet, I suggest that you do so whenever you can. Those who live outside the USA, be aware that you'll need to have a DVD player or computer that can play Region 1 DVDs. This shouldn't be a problem for the UK in July, I'm pretty sure £20 wouldn't do much harm for 26 episodes. Despite the bad menu graphics et all, it's much worth it.

Really can't wait for the next sets.

Transylvanian Roxy Here I Come!

2006-04-26T12:46:00.000+01:00

Castle Duckula, home for many centuries to a dreadful dynasty of vicious vampire ducks. The counts of...

DUCKULA!

On 6th September 1988, I was a one-year-old, unaware of a new cartoon that was aired on CITV. That show was none other than Count Duckula, one of the better productions of the British studio Cosgrove Hall, most famous for the earlier work Dangermouse. Count Duckula was once a villain in that cartoon who appeared in only 4 episodes. He looked and sounded MUCH more different back then, and he had a lisp. But despite being a villain, he wanted to be a star...

And that's where it all begins.

I first became a fan of the show in 1995. It was at a time when the house just about had cable, and I was glued to Nickelodean all the time. I'd throw tantrums if I missed certain shows, Duckula being one of them. But when Nickelodean became the fagboys that they are today and took the show off...

How could I have forgotten him since the show was on Sky One?

Well, I didn't after all. I found a site called TV Ark, which has a vast amount of video clips from all sorts of British television. One of which was the introduction to Count Duckula. I kept watching it over and over, until came a point that I became totally obsessed. In kind of obsessed in which I just couldn't get it out of my head. I wanted to watch more episodes...

Over a period of time I downloaded a 12GB torrent containing more than 50 episodes. Some were great, others failed in life, and I managed to find the ones I did watch in 1995. Some were well animated yet the story was bad, while others were poorly animated yet they were really funny. Nonetheless, it was a great cartoon.

And this is what this blog is about. Praise for this little guy and his show. I'll be writing articles in the future, reviewing certain things, and just sharing the experience!