Hammerstein the ABC Warrior

If you're looking for a hard-as-nails, humanoid war robot, with a grim visage and a keen sense of honour, then Hammerstein the ABC Warrior could be for you.

If you already know all about him, then, um, well, I think we should probably be friends. So, er, read on friend.

If you've never heard of him then fear not, I'm about to fill that war-robot-shaped hole in your life — mainly by showing some of the early comic strips, magazines and other media where Hammerstein first reared his metal head. Although, it's worth saying right now, it's not always the same metal head.

The robot is a creation of the legendary Pat Mills, the visionary behind 2000AD, and its original Tharg (2000AD speak for editor). Hammerstein's first ever appearance was as an army surplus robot for sale in the Ro-Busters strip, Day of the Robot in issue one of Starlord.

His first action sequence came just a few pages later in the same issue, in the North Sea Tunnel story.

Although Pat Mills credits Kevin O'Neill with co-creating Ro-Busters, Carlos Pino was the artist on the first stories

Pat Mills took Ro-Busters to 2000AD in 1978, when Starlord merged into it in Prog 86.

Art by Dave Gibbons (who later became the co-creator of Watchmen)

The ABC Warriors started in prog 119 of 2000AD, with a subhead stating it was a new Ro-Busters adventure. In this strip Hammerstein sported his older, more human-looking head.

Illustration by Kevin O'Neill, one of Pat Mills' long-term collaborators

Three episodes later and Hammerstein was off to recruit Mongrol to join his group.

Art by the much-loved Mick McMahon made the badass robot look more badass than ever

A three page prologue was published later which linked the ABC Warriors even more closely with Ro-Busters.

Kev O'Neill's signature style shines through

Hammerstein showed up in a third title when he and his robot warriors made a surprise appearance, set thousands of years after their previous adventures, in the strip Nemesis The Warlock. For a short while they were a regular fixture.

Art by the versatile Bryan Talbot (who also created, among other things, The Tale of One Bad Rat, a Beatrix Potter inspired story of abuse and homelessness, that couldn't be more removed from sci-fi war robots)

Nemesis eventually gave them a side mission and the warriors returned to their own strip in the story The Black Hole. Here we learnt that much of Hammerstein's head was actually a removable helmet, worn over the human-looking features.

And the world was introduced to the great Simon Bisley

Later in the mission we were shown more of Hammerstein's early days, including the Mark One and Mark Two war robots that predated his design. The sequence also tells how he felt his first emotion.

S.M.S. provided the intricate illustrations for this portion of the tale

The story continued directly into the first regular, full colour ABC Warriors strips Khronicles of Khaos and Hellbringer.

The art went from strength to strength when Kev Walker was brought on board

Not long after this Kev Walker and Chris Halls (who later changed his name to Chris Cunningham) designed a robot for inclusion in the Sylvester Stallone film Judge Dredd (more of that here). It looked suspiciously like Hammerstein, but was only ever referred to as an ABC War Robot. The ambiguity over the robot's identity was soon dispelled by 2000AD when Hammerstein entered his fourth different strip in the comic. He had a cameo in Judge Dredd, fighting judges in a flashback story that firmly established his presence in the film. The story is largely thought to have been ret-conned out of continuity now, which is a shame because the art alone deserves to live on for an ABC Warrior's lifespan.

Incredible art by Jason Brashill

Later on, in The Volgan War flashback story, told in ABC Warriors in 2000AD, we discovered that there were many other similar Hammerstein pattern robots, but that our Hammerstein was unique among his kind for being capable of independent thought. We also learnt that all Hammersteins were originally designed to have 4 arms.

Art by Clint Langley

The story of the early Hammerstein units was picked up in the 2000AD strip Savage, set in a contemporary Britain, occupied by hostile foreign forces. This story showed us Mark One war robots in the Hammerstein pattern. Presumably different models from the ones we had seen earlier in The Black Hole. Although not Hammerstein himself, they are still clearly Hammerstein units, so they're kind of like his granddad.

Especially if his granddad was not a very reliable person. The art by Patrick Goddard took Hammerstein back to black and white

He also appeared in Issue 2 of the short-lived Dice Man magazine. A gamebook style spin-off comic of 2000AD edited by Mills in the 80s.

And whatever happened to this short animation? It appears to be a promo for an ABC Warriors cartoon.

So, by my count Hammerstein has appeared in at least 3 different magazines, in 4 or 5 different strip titles, he's been in a major Hollywood movie (sort of), and nearly had his own cartoon.

And on top of all that there have been several commercial models made of him, including this one in a roughly 28mm scale and this larger one more suitable to 32mm, both by Wargames Foundry, and the no longer available PVC kit from Tsukuda Hobby, based on his movie appearance.

These days Hammerstein can still be seen in 2000AD, having recently returned in an all-new set of Ro-Busters stories.

As usual, if you've got anything to add, please do so in the comments below.

So what about these dark gods then? Some chaotic ramblings on a chaotic subject

The dark fantasy game, Warhammer (WFB*) shares its most notorious bad guys, the Chaos Powers, with its science fiction counterpart, Warhammer 40,000 (WH40K). These super-villains are the horrors at the very top of the evil-doers food chain**. They're an insanely powerful set of ethereal beings, seemingly hell-bent on death and destruction, or at least resolutely driven to royally screw things up.

At first glance there appear to be four of these dark gods, but it's not quite as simple as that. We'll come back to this in a moment.

From one game to the other, there are a few subtle differences in their back stories, but all the main characteristics are pretty much identical. The similarities are so overwhelmingly strong that the Chaos Gods' presence in both games could be the main reason for all the speculation on the relationship between the WFB realm and the WH40K universe (see here for a quick round-up and here for my thoughts on the subject).

Of course, all the speculation makes it hard to prove that they're the exact same horrible bad guys. It's hard to find definitive answers. Very little light has been shone into these darkest of dark corners.

However, over the years, Games Workshop have released a few key milestones.

One such key milestone happened in the late eighties and early nineties. Back in those swirling mists of time we were given Slaves to Darkness (1988) and The Lost and the Damned (1990), collectively known as the Realm of Chaos books.

I say 'given', but actually these were really expensive

These books fleshed out pre-existing Chaos lore and added much of the additional material we are familiar with today. They contained the first list of the four Chaos Gods: the two unpronounceable ones, Slaanesh and Tzeentch; the meat-eater that sounds like a vegetarian, Khorne; and the bringer of sick days, Nurgle.

In those weighty tomes this evil pantheon was described as the ‘four major Chaos Powers’. But that word major, really implies that there might be other, minor Chaos Gods out there. So who might these missing minor gods be?

From a theoretical perspective, seeing as minor and major are comparative terms, the minor gods only need to be a bit less powerful than the major ones. And simple lexicon would surely place them above Greater Daemons. Yet Greater Daemons are no push over. Warhammer 40,000 Wiki describes these monstrous Chaos lieutenants ‘as huge, terrifying creatures capable of slaying scores of warriors and destroying even main battle tanks. They have strange, sorcerous powers drawn from the psychic energy of the Warp and are virtually impervious to mortal weapons’.

That places our minor gods somewhere between extremely dangerous and unstoppably insane. Strange then that for such a deadly foe in Games Workshop lore we have been told almost nothing about them.

Almost nothing, but not quite. For anyone who remembers back to those darkly swirling mists of the 1980s there was once a fifth Chaos God. Whether it was a major power or a minor power was never explicitly stated, but it was certainly meant to be dangerous. If you were born in the 70s or before, and had an unhealthy interest in Citadel Miniatures, or you are just magnificently well-read, you may be familiar with Malal, the renegade God.

Malal was invented by a team lifted directly from 2000AD: John Wagner (co-creator of Judge Dredd), Alan Grant (Wagner's writing partner on Dredd for most of the eighties), the late, great Brett Ewins (who coincidentally lived around the corner from the first ever Games Workshop store near Ravenscourt Park in West London) and Jim McCarthy (Ewins' long-time art partner and brother to Brendan McCarthy of Mad Max Fury Road fame). Their dark god made his first appearance as a somewhat ambiguous antagonist in one of the earliest Games Workshop comic strips, The Quest of Kaleb Daark.

After the struggles that 2000AD creators had with IPC and the copyright to their characters, this all-star creative team was reluctant to give Games Workshop the intellectual property to Malal. So the comic was never completed and Games Workshop pretty much canned their planned expansion of Malal's presence in the game.

Any further references to him were in a new guise, that of Malice.

If you fancy some further reading there are a couple of more detailed posts about Malal, including mention of his second most infamous follower, Skrag the Slaughterer, the ogre renegade, over at Realm of Chaos 80s here and here. 

As far as I'm aware Malal only appeared in the WFB setting, but if the gods are indeed the same from WFB to WH40K then he could equally pop up in the 41st millennium at any point. Or the 31st for that matter. 

But not just Malal. If there are four major gods at the top, and countless numbers of greater daemons positioned on the third tier, then it follows that there would be a whole host of minor gods sitting in between them. Minor gods that are yet to be named, designed or explored. Minor gods that are fair game for anyone wanting to do their own thing. Minor gods that could well end up as the patron deities of your own collection of Chaos followers. 

I'll be picking up on this theme in a later post.

*Or Warhammer Age of Sigmar (AoS) if you prefer. But I'm old skool at heart, I referred to Snickers as Marathons for years. And besides, I'm not sure Slaanesh still exists in the reboot, so that would pretty much kill half this article. What's that you say? No bad thing?
**Or perhaps you think that title belongs to the Tyranids. Or maybe the C’tan. Or the Orks, or whatever the all-powerful army of the moment may happen to be. For the sake of this article let's just agree it’s the Chaos Powers. Or agree to disagree. Or you could write me a compelling argument in the comments section.

The Giant Robo Alphabot, part four

In my first post of 2016 it's time to atone for one of my final posts of 2015 - this one about trying to make Jar Jar Binks cool. The karma sprites need appeasing, so I'll try to do that by showing some Star Wars things that are genuinely cool. In fact the Star Wars things I want to show are, arguably, the genuinely coolest, most influential vehicles ever seen on screen. And while I'm showing cool robotic things from movies I figured this other entry, the versatile, murderous offspring of a beach ball and an iMac, from the film Oblivion, was an interesting counterpoint to the heavily mechanical transports of the Galactic Empire.

To see all the robot posters together on their Pinterest page look here, or if you'd rather just see all the relevant posts from this blog in one easy-to-find place then try a slice of this.

Now I have a machine gun. Ho, ho, ho.

Today we're going to start with a question. What do the above ten movies have in common?

If you want to study the picture and work it out for yourself, you ought to stop reading now.

Like, right now.

Because I'm about to give you the answer.

They are all set (or have key scenes set) during Christmas.

It's relevant, see? It's a time of year where we imagine settling down in front of a roaring fireplace with loved ones and family members to watch a tonne of films on television. But a lot of the films we end up watching are the ones being broadcast on the main TV channels - often characterised by schmaltzy, saccharine, storylines where Santa Claus is a real person and Jingle Bells plays loudly in New York department stores.

So if you're after something a little different, check out this list of movies for alternative Christmas viewing. In all of them we get to see Yuletide without the elves, without Santa Claus and without the mushiness. And in at least one of them Bruce Willis has a machine gun. Ho, ho, ho.

Ten Alternative Christmas Movies

Die Hard (1988)

This is an obvious one. It's action packed, funny, original and has Bruce Willis at his very best. A lot of people watch this film every single year. And they're unlikely to stop any time soon - because you know what they say about old habits.

Gremlins (1984)

Is this a monster flick? Kind of, but there's definitely more than one critter, and although not very big, they're mischievous, nasty, little buggers. Setting it in what appears to be a homebaked American village during the holiday season, worthy of a place in It's a Wonderful Life, just adds to the eventual chaos.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)

Great cast, acid sharp script, brilliant characters and a beautifully twisted plot. All of which is centred around a murder at Christmas. Extra fun if you're a Raymond Chandler fan.

Batman Returns (1992)

Back before Chris Nolan rewrote the way superhero movies worked, there were a couple of excellent Batman films made by Tim Burton. The second one was set in a snowy Gotham City, offering a little extra juxtaposition for the creepy bad guys.

The City of Lost Children (1995)
Okay, so although I promised you films that don't feature Santa Claus, he's in this. And not just one. There's a whole room full of them. But being such a darkly inventive science-fiction film you never come too close to any schmaltz.

12 Monkeys (1995)

Bruce Willis again. Does he have a machine gun? You'll have to watch it to find out. But director Terry Gilliam's twisted time-travel film keeps you as confused as the protagonist, slowly revealing the plot, until an ending where you realise all the threads have come together. Look out for the Christmas moments.

Prometheus (2012)

This prequel to the Alien movies is almost entirely set at Christmas. Did you know that? Props to Pete 'The Chef' Cook for pointing it out. Apparently there's a scene where a Christmas tree makes it abundantly clear. I have no recollection whatsoever, and it's not quite good enough for me to want to watch again right now. But the visuals are utterly fabulous so I'm sure I'll get round to it soon.

I Am Legend (2007)
When a virus causes mass panic on the streets of New York City at Christmas, the resultant, mutated inhabitants look less like the vampires of the original book and more like zombies. But it's the change to the ending that really infuriated the fans. That said, it's still a pretty decent movie. Certainly more so than the earlier Charlton Heston adaptation, The Omega Man. And who doesn't love Will Smith?

First Blood (1982)
The Rambo films were pretty silly. A bare chested Sly Stallone obliterating America's enemies with a rocket launcher and a heavy machine gun probably torn from a tank. All pretty silly except the first one, where he's forced to use his black ops survival skills against good ol' yankee cops. An exciting film dealing with PTSD, the dislocation of veterans returning to society, and what it's like to sew yourself back together after a vicious fall. Look out for the decor in the Sheriff's office. It's that which tells us the film takes place at Christmas.

L.A. Confidential (1997)

In one of the opening scenes Russell Crowe's brawny, hard-as-nails detective pulls the Christmas lights off a bad guy's roof. From then on the film takes you deeper and deeper into LA's criminal underworld of the 1950s. And with Guy Pearce's scrawny smarts we are shown a shift of ideologies between the old world and the new. Based on the book by James Elroy.

Jar Jar Abrams

Jar Jar Abrams is a name floating around the internet at the moment. It's what some people are saying they will call J.J. Abrams if his latest film, the much-anticipated seventh episode in the Star Wars saga, doesn't meet their high expectations. But I'm wondering if he could take that monicker and make it mean something else.

To date Jeffrey Jacob Abrams has had a pretty exciting career. From his earlier TV shows like Alias, Fringe and Lost, to Super 8 and his Star Trek reboot movies, his work has brought often niche sci-fi ideas into the mainstream. Ideas like parallel universes, time-hopping, Illuminati-style sects, occult corporate meddling, unexplained phenomena and alien visitations to name just a few.

Sure, there have been mistakes - the ending of Lost was something of a disappointment for me and most of the people I subsequently sought cathartic counselling from, and the second Star Trek film isn't loved by all - but generally he seems to be one of the world's most capable pairs of hands when it comes to putting exciting science fiction on screen. His two Star Trek films currently score 8 and 7.8 on IMDB.com, so I'm probably not the only person who thinks this.

And Star Wars: The Force Awakens could be his best film so far. Certainly there are a lot of people out there hoping it will be. And probably no-one more so than J.J. himself. 

But he sets the bar high, so might it be enough for him to simply make another decent film? What if he wanted to try to improve upon the franchise? What if he wanted to try and fix the prequels? Short of re-releasing them as actually good films, perhaps a way of approaching this would be to take their worst elements and re-introduce them in the next set of films as new and improved versions. Take an awful thing from The Phantom Menace, update it, fix it and sell it back to the fanbase as something we can't live without.

Here's an idea I've been kicking around, that I'd like to share.

In The Empire Strikes Back, after we lost Obi-Wan in the original Star Wars film, the unfolding story needed a new wise man to act as mentor and help with the plot exposition. Into this role stepped Yoda, a several hundred year old oracle of all things Force related. Any issues that the audience needed to know, great, get Yoda to tell Luke. Need a little backstory? Get Yoda to tell Luke. Need to explain to the audience just how bad it will be if Luke lets his anger run free? Get Yoda to do it. Maybe even via a conversation with Obi-Wan's force-ghost.

Not only was Yoda funny and cute and cool and dangerous, but also absolutely necessary to the unfolding plot. 

Now suppose one of the new Star Wars films needs a character to perform a similar role. An older Luke Skywalker would be the obvious choice, but what if he's incapacitated or killed or he's become a Dark Lord of the Sith or he's simply busy elsewhere? The movie makers could invent a new character, someone who wasn't around during the other films, or they could bring in Lando or one of the other unused characters from the original three films. 

But what if J.J. Abrams was able to take something utterly reviled by audiences last time we saw it and turn it around? Something that would link the new Star Wars films not just to the original trilogy, but bring the prequel films back into the fold too. The hatred runs deep, so this next bit may just be too much to stomach, but you and I have got this far together, so I'll take the punt.

Yup, that's right: Jar Jar Binks.

Bear with me. The most annoying, pointless character from the prequels, in Abrams' expert hands could be the Yoda of the next set of films.

For a start he'd be roughly, what, 50 years older? That's a significant timeframe, granting licence for the character to be almost completely rewritten. How might age have mellowed him? He could have changed beyond all recognition, away from the awkward, ungainly character we all hated so much.

When Jar Jar first came lolloping onto the scene with the release of The Phantom Menace in 1999, there were complaints that his vocal style was reminiscent of ebonics and that his floppy ears resembled dreadlocks. This gave rise to the belief that he was based on Jamaican tropes and stereotypes. George Lucas denied this, but the accusations never went away. Therefore if we're looking for a lazy shortcut to describe his accent, Jamaica would be a good place to start. But for this reboot version it won't be the impossibly annoying "meesa sorry sir" accent from the prequels. We'll base his new, older voice, on the veteran rastas that sell reggae on vinyl in various markets dotted around London. The grizzled old guys doing this, who I've met, are the opposite of annoying. They're laid-back and world wise, yet serious and profound. Interesting and intriguing. In other words, quite cool. Could Jar Jar possibly become cool too?

Not what I'd expect to draw for an article about cool things in Star Wars

To still be alive he would need to have survived the entire span of Imperial rule across the galaxy. And with Darth Vader himself leading the hunt for old dissidents (see Star Wars: Purge) any survivors from the Republic days would probably have had to learn a few new survival skills.

Not only that but Jar Jar would have wisdom too. He was right there at nearly all the crucial events that led to the fall of the Old Republic and the rise of the Empire. Right there standing next to some of the most important characters from that time. Mistakes don't get much bigger than the fall of an order and you can learn an awful lot through failure. He was on first names terms with Obi-Wan Kenobi, Padmé Amidala, Bail Organa and even the Emperor, and his best friend grew up to become Darth Vader. I would say Jar Jar Binks could easily be well placed, perhaps even the best placed to take on the role of mentor for the next generation.

So if J.J. Abrams wants to show us more movie magic, why not adopt the insulting monicker in the title of this post and turn it into something positive.

We interrupt this programme

Sci-fi and fantasy are taking a bit of a break this week. A bit of a break, but not a whole one. Because I've gone on holiday somewhere gorgeous, and snuck a few sci-fi books and comics into my luggage.

And one of those books really stands out. Within just a few pages it already looked like a contender for my shortlist of favourite science fiction and fantasy literature. It's Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.

It's a dystopian real-world adventure centred on a fantasy quest across a riddle-laden future internet. Does that make sense?

Dystopia in utopia

It mixes cyberpunk elements with existing sci-fi universes and a nostalgic trip through the early days of gaming. It's like Neuromancer and Snow Crash meet Dungeons & Dragons and early 16K home computers in a desperate hunt to discover the ultimate Easter Egg.

Don't worry if you still don't follow me, I'll put my shortlist of favourite sci-fi and fantasy books together in a future post, and try to offer a more comprehensible summary of each. In the meantime, if you think you might be interested then I'd strongly recommend reading Ready Player One - especially if you remember Adventure on the Atari 2600 games console or Pac-Man in the arcades. 

Anyway I can't sit here typing all day, I've got some serious lying by the pool to do.

Normal service will resume shortly.

An interview with Craig Randall, founder of Bitzbox

Hi Craig. You run the website Bitzbox, a supplier of individual plastic parts from Games Workshop kits. What gave you the idea to start up this site?
I was only 19 when I first started Bitzbox and didn’t have much experience behind me apart from working as a self employed web developer for a while. Ironically at this time I wasn’t really into the hobby. My friends stopped playing when we went to college and I still had loads of spare bits lying around from over the years of collecting so I thought I would use my web development skills to create a website to sell them on. At the time there was no one in the UK selling bits online and only Battlewagon Bits in North America.

Forge World's Roboute Guilliman, from Craig's personal collection

I notice you already have parts from the new plastic Horus Heresy game, Betrayal at Calth, up on your site. More and more product is moving into the plastics area. What effects does this have on your business?
The amount of plastic kits has increased so much since I first started and that has been fantastic from a business point of view. There are downsides of course, such as trying to keep so many different products in stock and finding space for them all. I have pretty much stopped selling any large monsters, vehicles and flyers due to lack of space and they are also not very profitable. Smaller kits are much easier to store and I have plenty of room for many more releases.

Do you run Bitzbox alone, or are there others who help?
The business is owned and run by myself mostly. When the company was first started it was a partnership between myself and my best friend who I also ran a web development business with. After about 3-4 years he left to do his own thing, but we are still great friends. I have a volunteer who does a few hours each week. My girlfriend works at a school so she doesn’t work during school holidays and usually ends up giving me a hand with work. My social media is mainly handled by my friend Wayne who also films battle reports for our YouTube channel. Running Bitzbox is my 9-5 job so with the amount of orders and stock that requires cutting off sprues each week I just about manage to fit all the required tasks in but as we continue to grow I will certainly be looking into hiring more helpers.

Another model from Craig's personal collection

Got any tips you’d like to share?
In regards to modelling and painting almost everything I’ve learned recently has just been from blogs and YouTube tutorials. It’s amazing how much we can learn online these days. I don’t consider myself an amazing painter but I like to think my quality is just above tabletop standard. When it comes to running a business you just have to have patience. I wasn’t taking any money from Bitzbox for the first 2-3 years and was lucky to be in a position that I didn’t need to rely on it’s income. It usually takes a while to really get up and running but there’s so many great online communities in this hobby that it’s not too difficult to start getting your name out there. Also when you work for yourself I think it’s best to get into a routine so you don’t start getting lazy or end up putting things off.

Many games companies are based in Nottingham. Are you in that neck of the woods? Does your location confer any benefits or leave you at any disadvantage?
Bitzbox is based in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk so we’re a good few hours away from Nottingham. The wargaming scene around here is quite large though and I’ve met loads of wargamers through the local game stores. It’s certainly a benefit having so many local wargamers as many of them have been customers at one time or another.

Do you go to conventions?
I have never been to any conventions. I’ve had plenty of invites to set up stalls but I don’t think it’s that feasible for my type of business. If I do go to one in the future it will just be as a regular Joe.

Craig's Harlequin Wraithknight

How did you first get into the miniature war-gaming hobby?
I first got into the hobby when I was about 10. One of my friends from school was into 40K and he got me into it. He had Orks, Dark Eldar and Tyranids and we used to play games with his miniatures to begin with. I remember my dad getting me the Warhammer 5th edition box set (with Lizardmen and Bretonnians) for Christmas and then for my birthday a couple of months later he bought me my first 40K models, the 7 man metal Chaos Space Marine squad and 5 Chaos Terminators. I then got other models such as Khorne Berzerkers, Kharn and Abaddon for that army. My cousin also got into the hobby at the time and had a really nice Dark Eldar army. Over the next few years several of my friends would get into the hobby and we had loads of games of 3rd edition 40K in my garage.

Do you still pursue gaming and modelling as a hobby today?
Absolutely. I love the painting and converting aspect of the hobby. I do try to game when I can too. I have several 40K armies. My largest is my Chaos Space Marines and Chaos Daemons. I also have Space Marines, Orks, Tyranids and Eldar. And I play a little bit of Malifaux and am now getting into the Horus Heresy stuff too.

Imperial Knight Warden from Craig's collection

It sounds like you're more into 40K than Warhammer Fantasy Battle. What other sci-fi and fantasy inspires you?
Weirdly I love fantasy universes more than sci-fi on the whole but in regards to wargaming about 95% of it is 40K. I never really got into Warhammer Fantasy much but have started playing Age of Sigmar. I’ve always been a huge fan of J.R.R. Tolkien and love The Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies. I’m also a big fan of Game of Thrones. I do love sci-fi too. I love Aliens and the original Star Wars trilogy plus many others. Both genres are great but I think I prefer to see a good sword fight. Star Wars is great at offering that in a sci-fi setting which is why I love the films so much. I don’t play video games as much as I used to when I was younger. I tend to lean towards games like the Final Fantasy series, Skyrim, GTA V and Fallout 4 these days. I like games I can sink hours into.

A video game inspired Ork Meganob?

Interesting point about Star Wars being a fantasy film in a science fiction setting. Which scene from the Star Wars series would you say is your favourite or most memorable?
For me the moment that stands out the most in the Star Wars saga is at the end of Return of The Jedi when Vader kills Emperor Palpatine. Vader was a great villain throughout the whole trilogy but during that scene we start to see a side of him that shows remorse and although "he’s more machine now than man" and he’s fallen to the dark side, in the end it’s his human emotions that win. Even with his helmet on you can sense the pain Vader feels from seeing Luke on the verge of death from the hands of Palpatine.

Just a few days now until the release of the next instalment. The excitement is mounting. But talking of the future, what would you say it holds for you? What plans do you have?
My house came with a large extension that was unfinshed that I always planned to use for the business. This is now being worked on and I hope to have the renovations done by the new year. This will see me being able to increase storage space for Bitzbox as well as be a really cool gaming area (hopefully). I want to eventually hire some helpers so we can stock loads more and quicker too. Our YouTube channel has really grown over the last year also and we’re going to be working even harder to bring more bat reps and other videos over the next few months as we really enjoy making them. Next September will also mark 10 years of Bitzbox so something very special will be happening then I’m sure.

Craig, thank you for taking time out to speak to me, much appreciated. Craig's site, Bitzbox, can be found here.