Forum:Validity: The Sleeze Brothers

Original post
This should be a fairly simple one. The Sleeze Brothers was a comic series published by Marvel Comics, featuring the Sleeze Brothers, who first appeared in Follow That TARDIS!, as well as various other elements from that step.

It was originally invalidated for "making no attempt to be set in the DWU". Now, I'm not sure how well this argument holds up today, because it also makes no attempt to not be set in the DWU. Our general policy nowadays is that if there is no evidence that it isn't intended to be set in the DWU, it's valid, and I think there's no real reason for these to be invalid.

(I will note that there are some minor fourth wall breaks, but I don't think that these are at all indicative of negative authorial intent.)

What do people think? Aquanafrahudy 📢  15:23, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Discussion
See Thread:210741 at User:SOTO/Forum Archive/Inclusion debates 1 and Thread:283828 at User:SOTO/Forum Archive/Inclusion debates 2.

I note that at the time Czech specifically affirms that the entirety of T:VS is being used to disqualify the work, rather than the text of the four rules. Since this is no longer the operating procedure of this wiki (/grumbles/), this itself might be sufficient. W/e. Just passing on the threads. Najawin ☎  16:07, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I think this whole thing is actually a case of "there's new evidence to be considered here that the old debate simply missed". A Sontaran appears at a party in the third story The Bugger, and a Dalek appears in a crowd of aliens in the sixth story, The Malteeze Egg!. (And Death's Head makes a cameo in Down in the Sewers, for what that's worth.) I'd say "repeatedly shows prominent DWU aliens in the background" is much stronger evidence of positive DWU intent than a negative "makes no attempt to not be set in the DWU". Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 18:31, 14 August 2023 (UTC)


 * I think it should be valid, at least from what I've heard elsewhere. Cookieboy 2005 ☎  11:14, 17 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Superhero donations.jpg, including the Sleeze Brothers, donate to Comic Relief. (COMIC: )]]Oh, and I think it's worth noting that we now have another source featuring the Sleeze Brothers, since that means that the valid sources for the characters are their first appearance and a Comic Relief extravaganza (not that this really changes anything, just thought I'd mention it). Cookieboy 2005 ☎  11:16, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
 * to me it feels like a classic Vienna (series)sittuation. With a standard a “universe of its own” being misinterpreted as an entirely different universe not a different story which is unlinked to Doctor who. It is one which despite being set in the same universe has nothing really to do with events beyond itself and the scope of its own narrative. Thus is believe in validity. Anastasia Cousins ☎  20:48, 26 August 2023 (UTC)


 * As far as I can throw it, for years we've officially allowed coverage of these stories. So since that was always the biggest hangup, we should cover the series as valid - the shared universe at play is quite obvious, to the extent that Follow That TARDIS! is obviously set in the same universe as these stories. OS25🤙☎️ 05:08, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

The evidence
I read the whole Sleeze Brothers series a while back (as in, before forums had returned) and was looking forward to a validity discussion. I just somehow never saw it already existed. So here are my thoughts. A lot of them.

To be honest, I don't think this is as incredibly straightforward as it may seem, but I still support validity. My main concern is also a possible misunderstanding/rumor that needs to be dispelled: despite debuting in Follow That TARDIS!, the characters and universe of Sleeze Brothers were not "spun off" from DWM. They were created by John Carnell and Andy Lanning beforehand, as opposed to as an inherently Doctor Who-related concept. This is detailed by editor Richard Starkings in this interview as well as this blog post. Due to an agreement Marvel UK needed two new series, so Starkings got Simon Furman to create a series for our mechanoid acquaintance Death's Head, which became Death's Head (1988) and Carnell and Lanning to create a series for their pre-existing idea of the Sleeze Brothers. In a very unique case, Carnell and Lanning actually own the rights to the series, which they still have. This led to an attempt to bring them back in 2008 in Image Comics's Elephantmen, an animated web series (trailer), and a website, all of which seem to have sadly fallen through. (That website's about page also corroborates the creation of the series, but does not mention DWM. There is a preview of Follow That TARDIS! there, though.)

So yeah, the thing is, Follow that TARDIS! was not the origin of a spin-off, but a crossover. However, what's notable to me is that it also served the purpose of previewing the series which was scheduled to release later that year, much as The Crossroads of Time did with Death's Head. The worldbuilding of the soon-to-come series is very much alluded to, such as sponds, "icehole", and President "Sinatra", who was renamed "Sinartra" in the actual series. I can't find explicit confirmation of this, but it very much seems a conscious decision that Follow That TARDIS! was the publication debut of the Sleeze Brothers by means of DWM. I also checked the behind-the-scenes interviews in the A Cold Day in Hell! graphic novel which reprinted it, (interviews reprinted and actually expanded here) and while it's sadly short, Carnell said the strip was meant to be a collaboration between various artists at Marvel UK ("a melting pot of talented nutcases"), and that while he expected disdain from hardcore DW fans for bringing back the Monk for this, "it seemed like a good laugh — the bungling Sleeze Brothers, getting caught up in an adventure and being none the wise about their effects on space time. I think we pulled it off okay." DWM 147's indicia also features a separate copyright for The Sleeze Brothers. As the web version says, a reader wrote in about the comic and the response was that they'd be getting their own series.

Now, for the series itself. As I said, there is continuity with the worldbuilding in Follow That TARDIS!, though not any actual references to it (as far as I know). User:Scrooge MacDuck points out the existence of DWU aliens in the series, which is what I'd like to address. The setting of The Sleeze Brothers is the Big Apple, a futuristic version of New York City sometime in the late 21st century. It's full of goofy aliens, robots, and the like, kind of like Futurama but more in the style of MAD magazine. (Though, there is a significant amount of continued worldbuilding in the few appearances there are.) All three of the appearances Scrooge mentioned are in Wimmelbilder-like background scenes, kind of like Party Animals, but the context actually matters. In The Bugger, a Sontaran is seen at a diplomatic party being held by President Sinatra, where several alien species have gathered, and in The Malteeze Egg, the Dalek is seen in a gathering of "warlords of the galaxy", whom a religious group has gathered to convince them become peaceful. (On the next page, when this inevitably fails at the fault of the Sleeze Brothers, a different alien shouts "Exterminate exterminate!") And, though not inherently DWU himself, Death's Head, the "Freelance Peacekeeping Agent", is seen in line at a black market weapons shop in Down in the Sewer.

My point is, all of these appearances make contextual sense for these characters to appear in, rather than just random background cameos for the sake of it. However, at the same time I feel it is important to mention there are a few characters from other, unrelated series as well— from what I could find, E.T. (or a lookalike) is at the president's party, and what appear to be Spock and Bugs Bunny are in the scene with the Dalek, which is in fact described as an "Emergency relief Cast of Thousands supplied by Anthony Williams" on the credits page. Due to this, I worry of placing undue emphasis on what are really Easter eggs. Are they just visual gags, or nods to the connection with Doctor Who? Personally, I feel a bit of both. The appearance of Death's Head actually strengthens the idea for me that they were general nods to the shared Marvel UK fictional universe, which is very evident if you read the interviews and archived website's chronicles of how the series came to be. And like Carnell said, it's notable that Follow That TARDIS! bothered to bring back the character of the Monk, rather than just the Doctor.

So, the universe of the Sleeze Brothers ("the Big Apple") is definitely DWU-adjacent at the very least (and regardless of if it's an actual parallel universe, which it might be, but that was irrelevant at the time and I think is now too). The question in the original thread was "whether the authors of the comic series genuinely meant their work to take place in the DWU", and that there needed to be evidence in the positive, not just absence of a negative. Though not created for the DWU, the Sleeze Brothers, and more importantly their world, did intentionally debut in a solidly DWU story featuring both the Seventh Doctor and the Monk and featured DWU concepts later on, even if only as small nods. To me, I think that is evidence enough that there was intent of the Sleeze Brothers' world being in a shared universe with Doctor Who.

Finally, I'd like to address what is actually up for discussion here. Perhaps these shall forever remain red links, but perhaps not, so I shall link them. The Sleeze Brothers universe appears in:
 * Follow That TARDIS! (DWM 147, April 1989)
 * The 1989 miniseries, which probably ought to be given a separate page from the Sleeze Brothers series itself
 * Nice 'n' Sleezy (TSB 1, August 1989)
 * Reel to Real (TSB 2, September 1989)
 * The Bugger (TSB 3, October 1989)
 * Murder in Space (TSB 4, November 1989)
 * Down in the Sewer (TSB 5, December 1989)
 * The Malteeze Egg (TSB 6, January 1990)
 * The Sleeze Brothers File, a graphic novel collecting the strips of the above six issues (1990) in the guise of a case file
 * The Sleeze Brothers File, a transcript-style short story preceding contents of the comics
 * Some Like It Fresh, a 1991 one-shot issue
 * Saturday Night Special, published in Epic Comics Book Two of the anthology series Epic (1992)
 * The Sleeze Brothers: Private Investigators, published in issue 16 of Elephantmen (February 2009)

If you read this, thanks, and I'd like to hear your opinion. Chubby Potato ☎  01:12, 28 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Thank you very much for the detailed history! Note again that under current policy all those redlinks should be created, albeit as invalid.


 * I agree with much of your presentation of what you've found, and continue to support validity; but in point of fact I want to argue against the "not actually a spin-off" framing. I think Follow That TARDIS! is a textbook example of a backdoor pilot — a proof-of-concept/Episode 0 of a would-be-distinct series that's released as part of the parent series. In Doctor Who, we might be used to the "create Third Sontaran From Left as an incidental character in one serial, then give him his own Big Finish range thirty years down the line in a way the original writer couldn't possibly have foreseen" sort of spin-of, but in the wider entertainment industry, "the creators are itching to make this its own thing from the start, but give it its start as part of an established brand" is very much a normal, expected way for the origin of a "spin-off" of anything to play out. No one considers that the result is a "retroactive crossover" between the old and new series! That's not how the terminology works! A spin-off doesn't cease to be a spin-off just because we learn it was the writers' secret intention all along.


 * …Otherwise, Torchwood wouldn't count as a spin-off, is the thing, because RTD was already planning it in parallel to the Series 1 and Series 2 arcs, and he made Jack leave a certain way and put an earlier Torchwood into Series 2 as the baddie in order to set up the Torchwood series the way he wanted. That doesn't make Torchwood a non-covered series and Army of Ghosts a "crossover". I use the example provocatively, but quite seriously; Torchwood shares such Sleeze traits as a very distinct tone from Doctor Who and a general lack of reliance on continuity to the main series aside from occasional easily-ignored "nods". Give or take a Cyberbikini. --Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 09:56, 28 October 2023 (UTC)


 * I'm in full agreement with you, and that's actually part of what I was trying to say— I just perhaps worded it poorly with spin-off vs crossover. The idea I was trying to clarify as being false is that the Sleeze Brothers were created specifically for Follow That TARDIS!, and then got their own series. Having read the series it's evident this isn't the case, but when I had only read the DWM story and had no knowledge other than "they got their own series" I was under that impression. Chubby Potato ☎  10:55, 28 October 2023 (UTC)