Let’s face it, the Child’s Play franchise owes a lot to the post-modern stylings of Scream and its copies – the rinse-and-repeat days of the lone doll stalking the same kid to transfer his soul seem like a distant memory…

It is, of course, a coincidence that ITV is screening a series about a medium called Alison just as BBC1 starts running its new American import, a series called ‘Medium’ about a medium called Alison…

Avast! Instant classic to port!

Unlike some other recent body count flicks, House of Wax on face value alone has three fundamentally terrifying things going for it: a ghost town, a psycho killer and – shudder – Paris Hilton.

It is a relief to announce that, yes, George A. Romero still has what it takes. ‘Land of the Dead’ is a worthy sequel to Romero’s three previous zombie movies,while being a great contemporary horror movie in its own right…

Once lauded as one of the greatest achievements of 1960s ‘Doctor Who’, ‘The Web Planet’ is now better known for being precisely the story Russell T Davies says he doesn’t want to do…

James Dean died in a fatal automobile accident fifty years ago this week.

This is the closest the recent run of comic book adaptations have got to transferring their visual style onto the big screen…

This issue wraps up Volume 1 of ‘Supreme Power’ J Michael Straczynski’s free reinterpretation of ‘Squadron Supreme’. It’s also the last issue of the book to come out under Marvel’s Max imprint before moving to the Marvel Knights line…

Last year, the first series of Jed Mercurio’s ‘Bodies’ ended in a way that seemed to make a follow-up impossible…

‘The Wintermen’ is an odd fit for Wildstorm – a thriller in the ‘Gorky Park’/'Archangel’ mould…

This is Gideon Defoe’s second little book about pirates, and is even funnier and more charming than its predecessor…

For some reason Channel 4 has decided that the optimum time to broadcast Matthew Collings’ authored documentaries about art is early on a Saturday evening…

‘Serenity’ is Joss Whedon’s long awaited first film. For all his script work on others, this is his feature directorial debut. And it shows…

Changes made in the jump from page to screen can sometimes make a major difference to the fundamental direction of the character, and this is the case in ‘Constantine’…

Altogether now: ‘T-E-E-N, T-I-T-A-N-S…’

I also considered calling this article ‘Don’t Fear the Repeater’, so consider yourselves lucky.

As ‘Extras’ comes to the end of its BBC2 run, Ricky Gervais looks like a smarter operator than ever…

ABC titles without Alan Moore have been problematic…

Eddie Robson was born in York in December 1978; this makes him the youngest of the Shiny Shelf founders and the others despise him for it. He was raised in both York and Buckinghamshire, attended the University of Sheffield, and completed an MA in Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths College, University of London, in [...]

With E4 now available on Freeview, it could do to be a little more than just a place to see the latest American shows marginally before they come on Channel 4…

Peter Milligan wrote both the best, most consistent ongoing series DC Vertigo ever produced and one of the twin pillars, with Morrison’s ‘New X-Men’, of the most remarkable aspect of the Marvel revival.

In a rare example of a high-profile series living up to its hype, ‘Lost’ made a triumphant showing in its debut week, boasting viewing figures of 6.1million…

Two shelf-bending, wallet breaking hardbacks for the discerning comics fan: ‘Invincible Ultimate Collection 1′ and ‘Top 10: The Forty-Niners’…

The Pulse #10, Spider-Man: House of M, and The Incredible Hulk #83-85.

If you missed Channel Four’s recent drama ‘Sugar Rush’, here’s a few reasons why it’s worth catching on DVD…

A recent story claiming that British films were doing very well, and partly attributed this to the success of the latest Harry Potter film. Would this be the same Harry Potter film made by the long-established Hollywood studio Warner Bros.?

100% spoiler free: this is the only thing newcomers should read about ‘Lost’ in advance of Wednesday’s Channel Four premiere…

The Fantastic Four was always something of a lesser property compared to Spider-Man and X-Men, and nowhere is this truer than in the Four’s first big screen outing…

Last week it was reported that Ofcom had fined Five (the channel, not the defunct boyband) for broadcasting an unnecessarily loud commercial break…

For Michael Chiklis’ violent cop, it’s always Clobberin’ Time…

Hard Times in the Big Easy…

Marvel has produced a couple of funny books that are actually funny.

By getting Frank Miller and Jim Lee together, the first book in DC’s new ‘All Star’ line certainly lives up to its name…

Having had a few months to get used to the idea, I don’t think that moving TOTP to Sunday evenings is all that bad an idea…

Frank Cho is known as a creator who draws sexy characters, such as the female leads in ‘Liberty Meadows’ and ‘Shanna’…

Chock full of great character moments, astounding production design and fantastic special effects ‘In A Mirror Darkly – Part II’ both ruthlessly parodies and sincerely reveres the series of which it is a part.

Aaaah, do you remember the bad old days of Joel Schumacher’s Batman movies? Somnambulistic actors, insultingly deabsed versions of beloved characters and only the sight of Alicia Silverstone in a grey pleated miniskirt to keep one awake?

It’s only logical that ‘Sith’ has the same strengths and weaknesses as its five stable mates. It’s the product of the same hands, working with the same tools, after all.

In today’s crowded media market, you have to get your ideas across quickly and clearly and there’s no better way of doing that than reworking an idea people know already…

I pity the fool who thought the 80s retro trend was over.

So far, when it comes to this year’s two big summer crossovers, at concept level Marvel’s ‘House of M’ is grabbing the Shelf’s attention more than DC’s ‘Interminable Crisis’…

Just as the BBC apparently feels a responsibility to take just about every retired British athlete of note to the Olympics, so Wimbledon coverage is now stuffed with all the former professionals they can get their hands on…

It’s impossible, in Britain, to have a debate about policing without someone invoking the spectral presence of George Dixon as the image of all that was right with policing in some dim and indistinct nostalgic past.

We live, as anyone with the slightest grasp on pop culture knows, in an era of Shatner renaissance.

It shouldn’t actually be surprising to see Russell T Davies confound expectation again with his finale to this season of ‘Doctor Who’…

It’s all been a bit of a triumph, hasn’t it?

I had mixed expectations of ‘A Very Long Engagement’ which in its concept comes across as the sort of foreign film that brings the mainstream press out in patronizing approval…

Haven’t you really missed the New Warriors? No, me neither…

Although Russell T Davies quite rightly has his mind focussed on the wider reception of this series, it’s hard to believe that he wasn’t chuckling with glee when he imagined the reaction of some fans to this episode…