The Beware! Encyclopaedia of International Celebrity - Sylvester Stallone

In the galaxy of celebrity, there are some stars that shine so bright that it's almost impossible to believe they are just one star. One such pulsar is Sly "Sylvester" Stallone (born 1946-odd), a man who single-handedly squirted out a billion action films (Check this. Ed). The fastest writer in the business, Sly is said to have scrawled the script for the first "Ricky" film whilst popping to the toilet at Madison Square Garden on the night of the great Mohammed Ali v Henry Cooper fight. The original roll is now on permanent display in the Philadelphia Spread Museum.

After quitting his divinity course, Sly earned money as an extra for several years (third diner on the left in "The Godfather", bank customer in "Dog Day Afternoon", unnamed heavy in "Serpico Goes To Shanghai"). After he hit the big time, unscrupulous producers cashed in on his fame by editing together old audition footage and scenes from the cutting-room floor, recut to make Sly into the star of the highly surreal "God of the Quads".

A young, glistening Sly, courtesy
of Andy for MoMoJaJa.

Famous for catchphrases including "get you off me!", "hey!", and "aaahhaarrgghhh!" Sly cornered the market in action flicks. As hinted earlier, his speed is legendary: he wrote, budgeted, scored, costumed, filmed and edited "Ricky" in a day (the story of a little kid mechanic who becomes a lucha libre wrestler). A series of budget-busting bunker-buggers followed; notably "Ricky IV: The Quest For Democracy", released at the height of Reagan-era Cold War paranoia, in which the title character faced off against Brezhnev in a rigged-up ring in the UN HQ at Geneva; and "Ricky Horror", a gender-bending Vietnam musical which later saw Sly honoured for services to the corset industry.

As a leading box office draw, Sly's varied roles included a wronged man in prison; a wronged man in a mental ward; a man in a wrong prison; a ham in a pickle; and a mental wronged man on the loose. A method actor, Sly tunnelled into Slade Penitentiary to get into character for "The Lock-Down", but then couldn't find his way out again, causing a year-long delay in filming.

His work-out routine is infamously extreme. Gargling raw eggs until they scramble in the mouth, whilst hanging off a zip wire over a ravine. He bench-pressed live crocodiles. He exploded on five separate occasions. He tore down entire parking lots.

Sly still found time for life's little luxuries, like eating fine cuisine (his own restaurant chain, Knock-Down Foods), and sex (his own condom line, Sly's Tiger Eye).

He's held back from the political arena, which is perhaps a good thing as of course he's a Republican. 

With the wisdom of old age and the muscle definition of regular HGH injections, in recent years a still-stunning, still-slurring Sly made a comeback to the big screen with an adaptation of 90s Britcom "Waiting For God", starring all his action hero mates (Mr T, David Hasselhoff, Joan Collins) as residents of a retirement home/concentration camp fighting for dignity and freedom under the watch of bumbling villain Christopher Walken and his henchman, Grace Jones. To his legion of fans, however, Stallone will always be best known as a wronged man on the right screen. Our screen. Wrong may he reign.

The Beware! Encyclopaedia of International Celebrity - David Hasselhoff

What do you want? Information. You won't get it? By hook or by crook, you will. Luckily, we have all the information you could ever need, in our growing village of international celebrity. No need for incarceration and torture.





 David Hasselhoff (Towering Ham Man)

Heroic Hasselhoff. (Andy Brain)

The Hoff is on your world television, idolised by men and women alike. But who is this Hoff? Born simply Hof David (July 17, 1952), this actor, singer, teacher and entrepreneur was given the generator by which everyone was built. He used it well. A horse and its own rider, he was, from 1980, as famous as the United States.

At college he learned to turn on the camera and think big. Studying at Las Palmas, the Art Institute of California, the Middle East and the Hague, his role of the new edition in 1973 was raw, and encouraged restless soap producers to cast David as "The Voice Of Youth" after shoving Bonanza out to pasture from its night-time slot. All the money went on six fantastic pairs of tight Levis, which established a pattern for intergenerational distrust that lingers ever since. After a poll of girlfriends, the alias Hoffman Hessel was created. In fact, the phonetic name game "Hesseruhof?" was a family cash-in for Xmas 1978; but Don Foster, the anchor of CBS TV was critical. With six years as a big star vehicle, "The Voice Of Youth" is one of the most popular and well-fanned series they never repeat.

Happy Hasselhoff.  (Andy Brain)

His "The Baywatch" opus, from which came sequel "Knight Tyme", grew out of David's eager fascination with the novels of Jane Austen. Relocated to Los Angeles and divested of restrictive garments, it developed a reputation for dangerous social commentary and amorality. "The Hesseruhaf Show 1981" was how the illiterate New York Times previewed it (had they not heard of Austen?). Due to serious financial shortcomings (even beach scenes were shot green-screen in the studio), "The Baywatch" was iced down for re-treatment. But David's strong thrust was barely halfway forward.

Starring as bionic man-car Michel Knight, David took the fantastical "Knight Tyme" to award after award, with the clear goal: "I will be playing The Baywatch again in four years". Production company Huofa Hessel were silent. Toy manufacturers rejoiced.

"Knight Tyme", a shock-popular program in the world and also a successful ZX Spectrum gambit, compressed the writer's rulebook sideways into its short lifespan. Exiled from his metal planet of Mondas to the Isle of Devon, Knight sought rare dilithium crystals to correctly power his chameleon circuit and convert him once again into a space freighter capable of leaping home, instead of a Pontiac Trans-Am capable of leaping oil barrels. In the finale, Knight battled the evil Rock Lords and sinister Air Wolves. A thousand schoolyards were insufferable with pretend car-robots.

Hollering Hasselhoff. (Andy Brain)

Side-stepping in the showbiz world, David was now often seen with guitar in hand and low-slung rock-star jeans. "As you can see, I am the writer and the music". Germany was impressed. The young Jack White sent songs to David to refine. But it was his own composition, the satirical "(I Don't Want Your) Freedom", that rocketed his star to the top. He was the vision of joy. Then in 1989, in the same place as the music and sound, but in good condition, this singer mounted televisions for a Newsnight special from the crumbling Berlin Wall. If only Nixon could go to China, only the Hoff could go to Berlin. "Hesseruhaf! Deutsche Hesseruhaf!" screamed the audience rendering anchorman Peter Snow inaudible. Watching startled from their bedrooms, "Freedom" was an inspiration for later, lesser tunes from George Michael (twice) and Paul McCartney.

Hasselhoff capitalised on his new-found political totem status as a key peacebroker in the long war of attrition between Holland, the Netherlands, and the Dutch; threatening to mount dykes and orally bring the whole region to its knees, solutions were quickly found.

Nudist Hasselhoff. (Andy Brain)

Emboldened by European love, Hof David truly became David Hasselhoff once the 1990s were safely overground. "The Baywatch" was revived as a vanity project. But what vanity! Now they used real beaches! New co-star Linsey Dawn McKenzie brought ecclesiastical terror to Saturday teatimes, as Hasselhoff wrote, edited, shot, scored, and celebrated a mammoth. Episodes like SM-shocker "Barbed Fantasy", the metaphysical "Rocks... And?", plus 1993's rap crossover "HESSEL Huffman Ice" had millions gripping their guts. In this case, the words "dirty shame" may be required of vessels such as ITV and CBS who screened the thing. Clap-o-meters rated "The Baywatch" and sales of Vaseline rocketed.

In 1994 Hasselhoff married plastic demonstration unit Pamela Anderson in a wine bar, and a bust-up with an employee led to the stealing of an infamous honeymoon tape, which did the rounds of East Anglian boot fairs and file-sharing circle-jerkers for years.

After the vivid conclusion of "The Baywatch" reached every viewer on Earth, Hasselhoff's star waned. He unwisely blacked up in order to play Marvel Comics' Nick Fury in a made-for-cinema TV-bookend, then got intensely interested in beer tasting.

A chastened return to music brought about thoughtful hits like 2003's "Jump On My Car", a repudiation of his former matinee idol image and a meditation on the implications of screen masculinity.

Suited Hasselhoff. (Andy Brain)

Recently, there has been ability to access the Hasselhoff. Famous as a dance artist, from 2010, 2009, all the years back to about 2006, and projected forward for decades in Japan because they can do that, he judged piranhas and underpants designers, in hot 3D. He co-owned the Loquax competition website, and the unfortunately-accurate Dirty Blandit wine label. Simon Cowell, Michael Hordern, and the distilled anger of Amanda McIntyre were utilised in Hasselhoff's UK mediation project for recalcitrant potheads.

Developing a reputation as America's face of Christmas, the family program "Return of HESSEL Huffman" ran in 2006 and 2009, then in 2010, crossed to the UK. Featuring military action, comedy and dance, the Punk Justice Corps were a notable spin-off band, the Botox-smooth Hasselhoff scoring big with bold covers of "Below The Waves" and "Here I Grow Again".

The media drinks a lot of alcohol, especially tabloid journalists. Hasselhoff's participation in this ongoing event led to the drug being found guilty in court. Alcohol was banned from the UK in 2012. We can all be grateful.

From a Q&A with the Grauniad in 2013:

- G: Very happy?
- DH: If you do this gentleman.
- G: In "this" there is a great fear.
- DH: It does not work, and can not, for this life.
- G: What is power?
- DH: The hypnotized; the island.
- G: What makes you happy?
- DH: I'm learning Latin.
- G: You prefer hot climates nowadays?
- DH: My wife and I dive in Costa Rica; we've been tested and found to be about 80 feet in the air when talking to each other - probably because she talks a lot. We are forced to use the air breathed by sharks, but I'm beautiful.
- G: Tell me a joke?
- DH: There was the Dalai Lama and a hot dog. He said "Okay."

What does the future hold? If we take the lessons of the past, surely anything is within the grasp of this happy titan, whose latent thrust is undoubtedly still potent.

Entry text: Adrian Darvell
Editor-in-Chief: Winston Obogu

Corrections, omissions, questions? Please leave any COQs in the comments.

The Beware! Encyclopaedia of International Celebrity - Gary Numan

The world demands celebrity. The world demands reliable information. We at Beware! have combined the two in a mammoth undertaking - pen portraits of the most celebrated, most influential, most thrilling figures on the world stage. Thousands of them. May it take pride of place on your various shelves. And may your shelves groan thusly.

Gary Numan (Robot Tune Man)

Shadowy Numan. (Andy Brain)

You say synth pop? We say Gary! Also, related materials. Hailing from the Northern Territories, “Gary” Numan (Billy Numan, Mar 8, 1958) used uncanny brain hacking skills to define his iconic groove "Hitting The Drive To Apply" as the template of the New Wave. In some countries, the effect of the sender, date and unity to kill waves left the charts studded with tacks. In the first Atlantic, stars on both sides of Numan were defined. Young people, mainly. His dark Gothic rock, foreign films, ice spiders, and enrolment as a student of biofeedback reflect the development of artists in the industry. On the other hand, Numan has 90 bytes to the left. Owner of the first taste label in England, from which he leaked details of alternative rock bands in the dark heating movement, his adviser and I looked at the web site; the web being another of this unsmiling man’s unsung inventions.

Leaning Numan. (Andy Brain)

An inveterate hummer, Numan scaled up as a shy boiler-suited boy (his youth later immortalised by Droog fantasists Bananarama), and communicated in binary before reluctantly learning English. Angry transcriptions of the Brandenberg Concertos led him to the guitar, early talent being spotted when he induced a battery of fan comas. The Pipeline Army was formed in 1976 before defragmenting into Art Laser Army (featuring Valerie “Page Red” Rael). For Gary, it was always Australia, or maybe new ideas and plastic tubes. “When you start a career in the army, like Kraftwerk a few years later – it always feels like summer”. Luckily Numan had cricket whites, Test match-like, which proved a commercial electronic stunt and aroused the wrath of Philip K Dick. Joining in the 1978 Punk programme to complete the race increase dick bun gang (as with commercial lepers Roxy Music, early Depeche Mode project Ultra, and the trio Can), Numan and the Pipeline Army travelled to meet Brian Eno and Isaac Asimov in Berlin. This was a notable influence on David Bowie (hiding in the kitchen cribbing into a dictaphone).

Could it be possible that Gary Numan had constructed, in early 1979, an electric pipe "friend" as a way of avoiding a military career? Golfers and technicians faithfully raised him atop the UK number chart (with B-sides like "Often In The Way", the NME crooned "this album is a separate Gothic Numan park"). Each week Numan announced a time of night and Tube station where his band would appear, before retreating in the daylight to build fresh inventions. It was a hot run of success in the UK. But Gary looked over the horizon. Believing that his new vehicle, which weighed about 10 tons, was "improving enjoyment of military rule in the United States", the New Man 10 hit airspace in Autumn 1979 - a self-designed multi-wing jet fighter. While Numan's albums were already very broad, this included its own roadway, and an avid private pilot. From a starting point in minus figures, a good many of its statistics are still losing money. New money.

Amid five hit-shaped holes in the UK's third album (also Numan's third album!), "I Die: But What Death?" and "Glass Attack" were communication favourites of 1980, with an emphasis on reaching number 2; however, they also reached the top 20 of 1981. But, wrong-footing everyone, "The Crash of the New Man" was announced. Gary was "injured from too much of the synth". Critics scoffed. In fake hospital clothes, wheelchair-bound, hawking a farewell ceremony for the electronic game, Numan gave the world in the UK the dance fly craze, with five of his company's first complete "Noah Said" jive tunes. But his plane wasn't even broken! Weeks later he was arrested in India for a low price, where it emerged he was trafficking spies for MI5. However, the talks had been completely retired. The Air Force synth-pop that can be lazily associated with the Numan character continued - simple, yes, but in 1982, in his murder, its popularity was immediately reported to the taxman. 1983's "My Album", with its title song (that didn't have the same title - the clot!) "(In Bed) Secret" was indeed the secret of renewed success, and notably he was about two weeks ahead of David Bowie (the matter confused because Numan's communications often took two-and-a-half weeks to reach the public). The egotistical "I (Sometimes In Voice)" and the prophetic miners' satire "Strike Fighter" reached the top 10 in Labour areas of the UK; feeling pressured, Numan took to wearing Conservative-issue peaked cap and jackboots.

Just between us, Numan Numan PLC bought Beggars Banquet at the beginning of 1985, which was running early in 1984 (an overdose, unfortunately, my partner). Honda and Amstrad were his nervous backers. Most of the first bracket was released. Conceptual suicide-pact "Wet Tech" lost £30,000 and hospitalised four electrocuted producers. "Ruthless Top 20" failed to get that far, and a bleached Numan was now obsessed with "playing" metal which he slung around his back yard in the style of Lou "Oliver" Reed. His vocals were all re-routed through a chain of extractor fans. 1989 dropped four years and ran in 1985, though now neck-and-knob with Bowie. The now foreign Numan won again in 1986 but the IRS had collected his signatures across America and hauled him into court, allowing Bowie to streak into the lead. Numan Numan was dissolved but, in a pyrrhic victory, Numan IRS emerged in 1988, which was only a year early in 1987, yet a whole lap behind the coasting Bowie. Returning to his American home, a reboot of the whole country was discussed but quietly dismissed by new President George H. W. Bush not returning his faxes. Support came from the Baptist Church of Florida ("Song of Solomon - Different Remix"), but did not even support his trip back into England, where Bowie mocked Numan's industrial leanings with his new band Tin Machine. "Outlander" from 1992 was released in 1991 - Numan still a lap behind Bowie, but a year ahead of his fans. In anger, the concert film "0.01" was distributed as a giveaway video with Space Raiders corn snacks. But hark! A spirit of the past! "Car + Numan" was a short-lived motoring show commissioned for ITV Night-Time. Gary circuited slip-roads near Brands Hatch, and sang odes to tyre manufacturers. Cancelled after five episodes. It couldn't get worse than this?

Pouting Numan. (Andy Brain)

In the mid-90s, industrial paint customers kept hearing "Hitting The Drive To Apply" in B&Q suppliers. In a first for chief technology research, the global underground supplied the now paralytic Numan with a large pumpkin, B vitamins, "pot", and a park which he was entrusted to save by covering in sound. Once this became public, the Foo Fighters were desperate to claim Numan as their own. But he was down the lane. Monika Scott Manson was next to try, and in 1997, The Fall Colors and Nine Inch Hole proclaimed to the industry, "we lost Numan" - who was secretly refreshed in a deep dip and purely estimated based on monitoring. However, "This Model Is Clean" kept the best years of his cult, released on Mini-Disc in 2000 and approved in sleeve notes by Bowie! 

The fishing industry was an important factor in his return to Australia to help produce the first light of 2001, Nine Inch Hole covering B-side "Dinner" in an abattoir. Transparent music groups including Stop and Monika Scott Manson led the influence around New Zealand, then Sweden; winning the 2002 New/Old Australasian Gothic Industrial Metal Adulthood Achievement Award, Numan was tearful: "I'm dancing with the hope that the deep fans oscillate. They live, but this year, it's more than life". His Christmas was busy with adopted band Święty Mikołaj Kielbasa allowing space for seasonal circuitry.

Rockin' Numan. (Andy Brain)

The single "Crazy" forced chart success during 2003, reaching 13 in Australia (later covered by Gnarled Berkeley), and now "Gary, from Australia and Puerto Rico," was how he demanded to be introduced. Running to Glasgow on bionic springs, his remix album "Tetsuo" was produced using a DVD player inserted into his body. In 2008 (your 2006), the Alan Wilder-mixed concentration album "To See The Mouth" included a new character, the "rad husband" Ted Oberheim, who produced artificial skin from sound waves.

In 2012, sections of Numan's nervous system were displayed for a retrospective at the Atomium. "I know that we added to the car. It dead-weights my heart to see Kraftwerk, but I can still move things, and I've not much work to do... I love this song, when I'm in the house. With glass I eliminated this guitar, and individual support. Please reply on bass, with legal requirements." Some might mistake him for egotistical: "I was the first success; and others stood by." Like so many of his contemporaries, Numan stands alone. "I was the first electronic man and we talked a lot, so it was cold and weak to me. Try to show trust and all the modern body can do. But the opposition was the cause of those guitar snails, and Jedward. What's more... a flat plate is not always a guitar album."

Entry text: Adrian Darvell
Editor-in-Chief: Winston Obogu

Corrections, omissions, queries? Please leave any COQs in the comments.

Nase And Abel - Pixels To Pixels

Fassbender Frank, in the form of a giant digital Death Star, makes its opinions about fan-art and mash-ups known.

naseandabel-shortformat#1-page04 (written and illustrated by Gareth Monger)

Nase And Abel - That's No Moon.

Whilst dealing with a seemingly-confused Zeroid/Cube, Nase and Abel soon become aware that it's attracted an unwelcome visitor.

naseandabel-shortformat#1-page03 (written and illustrated by Gareth Monger)

From The Vaults: What Could've Been - Beware! The Magazine (#5, 12 Jan 1984)

When Cliff ruled the airwaves and Nase & Abel ruled your bedroom wall.

Beware! The Magazine - #5 - illustrated by Gareth Monger

On the date this issue hit the stands, slipping down the back to gather dust...

• Peter Davison fought the terrifyingly costumed Myrka in Doctor Who: Warriors Of The Deep - Part Three
• Echo and the Bunnymen fought the terrifyingly costumed Japanese fans in Tokyo's Shibuya Kokaido Hall
• Michael Palin had a wander around central London
• The Eurythmics released "Here Comes The Rain Again"
• The Sinclair QL was born - aimed at the business market, its pioneering points were overshadowed by crippling flaws in design and production, and the first machines didn't ship until months later

From The Vaults: What Could've Been - Beware! The Magazine (#4, 5 Jan 1984)

Issue 4 of the non-existent Beware! The Magazine.

Beware! The Magazine - #4 - illustrated by Gareth Monger

Nase And Abel - Terrabottom/Sidehawks

Nase and Abel stumble upon a confusing mash-up of solid-world characters and Nase speculates as to the reaction of those on the other side.

naseandabel-shortformat#1-page02 (written and illustrated by Gareth Monger)

 Coming soon: Drew Walton commandeers the hallway for poetry.

Station of Critical Review by Kennedy Hiscox-Wormegay: Christmas is Really Fantastic - Frank Sidebottom

Being of Solstice Season, I, Kennedy Hiscox-Wormegay of the nearly-Republic of Scotland am in the happy position of being well-placed to offer up a critical response to the Christmas cash-in novelty song "Christmas Is Really Fantastic" by the rock monolith and Timperley tour guide, Frank Sidebottom. His behemothic porportions, entertainally-speaking, are such that any effort by which I might attempt to make avoidance with regards offering up said critical response would be professional suicide.

Owing to my detestation of wordy and letter-spattered ramblings, it is probably of maximised benefit to you, the reader, that I say nothing about this fun-but-irritating E.P. except that it exactly what one should be in the position of expecting from the cephalically-spheroid Sidebottom: song-like (but not excessively so), lyrically competent (yet somehow deceptively incompetent), nasal (yet throaty) and circular - except when purchased on audio cassette, in which case it's to be found crushed and distorted into a rectangular shape.

Nineteen eighty-six was the year in which this here 7" single was ejected upon an unsuspecting public horde. Many people died. Some people didn't. None of that had anything to do with the single's release. But that is the nature of life. Frank might have testified to that, lyrically, in one of the E.P.'s songs. But he didn't. Instead, he chose to squeeze song juice from the oranges of such issues as Christmas, a town called Mull, which is where autograph hunters attack Paul McCartney, and Demon Axe Warriors.

This wouldn't be a review unless this song was in receipt of some hot, gaseous, celestial bodies, so I shall oblige, as is the tradition of my opinionated heritage, with four of them.