marketing and merchandising

ken68 · Post by **ken68** » Tue 16 Mar, 2010 21:37:36

hello all. hope everyone is hale, hearty and looking forward to the summer.

well after reading the devil is a gentleman i was fascinated with DWs attempts at self publicity and it seems a certian mr lucas (star wars, not pride and prejudice) was maybe not the first to start all the marketing and merchandising frenzies we are all now constantly bombarded with.
so is there something you would like to see in a DW theme or think would be good idea?
for instance i love chess, i am hopeless at it but i love it, what about a DW chess set. in fact there could be several. a DRO one! now which of us wouldn't want that? or a general "modern musketeers" set. a GS one, with GS, EVE, SK and SPGC as the main pieces on one side and grauber, sabine et al on the other.
and of course an RB set.
my other BIG passion is golf and considering that both of these past times are considered elitist as was DW, as far as i can recall, none of these are mentioned in any DW book.

anyway anyone else have ideas or hopes for when the revival does come

ken

Steve Whatley · Post by **Steve Whatley** » Wed 17 Mar, 2010 10:57:57

Hi Ken, trust all is well North of the border.

Funny you should raise this subject. A few years ago I came across a pack of playing cards for Peter Cheyney's Crime Club card game. (There's one up for grabs on e-bay at the moment, if you want to see what they look like.) They feature detectives and criminals from Cheyney's books. My first thought when I saw them was 'I bet DW wished he'd come up with the idea himself'.

My knowledge of the DW books was not broad enough to complete four 'suits' of characters from the Sallust, Brook, de Richleau and other books lumped together, but I'm sure it could be done with a little research. I think the Cheyney game had special rules, but if you had four suits of thirteen DW characters and numbered them like an ordinary pack, you could theoretically play any card game with them.

Alternatively, if you could create sets of four characters from each of thirteen DW books, you could play a version of 'Happy Families' (if that means anything to anyone) - 'Happy Dennis Wheatley Families' I suppose.

I also thought of making a set of cards from the DW book titles - more than enough for a full pack there.

I quite like themed chess sets when they are done well - I always stop to look at them if I see some in a shop window. The problem for me with creating a DW chess set is that I always feel the two bishops, knights and rooks should be identical pairs, which cuts down the number of characters, and also means you would have, say, two Simon Aaron bishops, which wouldn't seem right. And which characters would one use for the pawns? Maybe you've already worked all that out Ken?

Perhaps we should invite ideas for DW chess sets and playing cards, and see what we can come up with?

Thanks Ken - I think you've started a topic which could run for months.[font=Courier New] [/font]

Steve Whatley · Post by **Steve Whatley** » Wed 17 Mar, 2010 12:36:19

Further to my previous post, the card game referred to can also be seen on the Peter Cheyney website (along with some other very interesting crime-related card games and boardgames). The game also features non-Cheyney characters (eg Hercule Poirot); I remember now that was the reason I bought one - but alas, there are no DW characters featured![font=Courier New] [/font]

ken68 · Post by **ken68** » Wed 17 Mar, 2010 20:15:14

thanks steve. i know what you mean about the "doublers". bit of pest that cause i always thought the DRO would be the duke as queen (strange i know but i am sure you understand the concept) marie as king simon as the bishops( not sure why but simon just seemed more clerical?) richard as the knight in shinning armour and rex as the rook that is the rock. but it would look strange having two of each.
the pawns i imagine as max, rudd and i am ashamed to say it the name of RBs trusty old sea-dog companion escapes me.
of course the other issue is some of DWs characters are double sided. for instance Tanith. and i can't always see Sabine as a bady or talleyrand for that matter.
interesting on the cards never thought of that. not sure of happy famililies with morals of DWs characters it would certianly be fun.
ken

Steve Whatley · Post by **Steve Whatley** » Thu 18 Mar, 2010 01:18:46

Ken, I'm with you all the way on the chess characters. The bishop, knight and rook characters fit perfectly, and I can see the logic behind your queen and king, though I've never warmed to Marie Lou, possibly because DW over-emphasised her petiteness (is that a word?). So would there be eight Maxes for pawns in the de Richleau set?

I take it you've named the White set, so now how about the Black set? Probably more difficult, but possible with re-readings of several books.

No, I never thought of Talleyrand as a villain - the opposite in fact. I think DW portrayed him as someone who genuinely cared about the fate of France and the French people, and the greater European picture. But having said that, I suppose he must have 'bent with the prevailing winds' in order to have lasted so long. We went to his chateau a few years ago - very interesting, but didn't see his ghost wandering about.

Just had a thought on the cards. If you had a witchcraft set, you could call it Happy Familiars! (Sorry)

Now, come on the rest of you! What about your chess sets and playing cards??????

[font=Courier New] [/font]

Alan · Post by **Alan** » Thu 18 Mar, 2010 09:22:07

Ken68, the reason golf is not mentioned in any DW book is that DW hated sport - even in "The Time Has Come" he mentions that when he told bedtime stories to his boarding school companions, none of them were sports stories. In fact I'm flat out recalling ANY sporting reference in a DW work, unless of course one regards spying as "the great game"...

Now these playing cards, chess sets, etc, what an interesting concept. What might also work (hold your breath here) is a DW *computer game* - yes, I'm serious. It would be something like "Myst" or "Call of Cthulhu" in that the player would need to track down various clues and contacts (avoiding random obstacles of course) to save Fleur from Mocata or Erica from Grauber's clutches!

As for the chess sets, I have a lot of trouble with the gender-neutral concept. I know the "Queen" in chess isn't really a female, but I can't help feeling it's an insult to the Duke to name a female monarch after him. What about setting the concept firmly in WW2, and having Churchill and Hitler as the Kings, Brittania and Grauber as the queens (sorry for politically incorrect joke there), and using a mixture of Nazi party stalwarts and DW villains (Mocata, Dr Saturday etc) for the black pieces? As for Simon, I see him as a knight (the most flexible of the pieces on a chess board), paired maybe with Sallust, The Duke and Rex as Bishops and Richard and Marie-Lou as Rooks (to prevent any intra-marital jealousy). Pawns would be Waffen SS soldiers and Grenadier Guards or something similar.

I can't wait to see someone design this for real!

Steve Whatley · Post by **Steve Whatley** » Thu 18 Mar, 2010 12:45:54

Alan, I think you're right about DW hating sport - didn't he say as much in one of his memoirs?

I have in my collection a receipt for DW's annual subscription to a tennis club (which hopefully will find its way into Charles's virtual Museum at some stage), but on discussing this after the recent talk at Treadwell's, Phil Baker, Charles and I agreed that DW probably joined only in order to meet young ladies!

I think you've improved upon the chess sets, though I wouldn't have Grauber as a Queen. The Germans could have Germania, which is their version of Britannia - there's an impressive statue somewhere along the Rhine (can't remember if she wears a spiked helmet!). Grauber could perhaps be 'paired' with Kazdim, the Eunuch of Stamboul, who would probably be similar in size and shape.

I don't think the Duke and Rex should be pieces of equal value - I liked Ken's version better.

But Sallust and de Richleau characters could definitely be combined into one WWII chess set with historical characters intermingled - I like that idea.

There are existing Napoleonic chess sets, so it would need little adjustment to incorporate a few Roger Brook characters to make a DW-flavoured set.

Keep the ideas coming everybody.[font=Courier New] [/font]

ken68 · Post by **ken68** » Thu 18 Mar, 2010 18:51:48

yes a little line of maxs for the duke or what about the outriders from his carriage with the hessian boots and cossack hats.
not keen on the real life people idea i am afraid.
must admit talleyrand is my favorite of all the real life characters and he makes the RB series for me in a lot of ways.
as for the sport angle if you think about it there isn't any lulls in any DW book for such triviallities.

ken

Alan · Post by **Alan** » Fri 19 Mar, 2010 13:31:31

as for the sport angle if you think about it there isn't any lulls in any DW book for such triviallities.

ken[/quote]

Oh come on - plenty of lulls. What about all the gargantuan feasts that the musketeers have (with the Duke whipping up the batter for the pancakes, no less) and the "mild games of vingt-et-une", eh? Or Gregory and Sir Pellinore shoveling away the foie gras sarnies? Or all the philosophical discussions about why Communism is really Satanism in disguise? And RB telling Napoleon how many chest hairs he has (I swear this *is* in the canon!! Look it up if you don't believe me) - Or the intriguing scene when Rex eavesdrops on Richard and Marie-Lou's private life in "Golden Spaniard" (though this is an important part of the plot development, so maybe it doesn't count), or Gregory Sallust designing a house for himself in "Come Into My Parlour" - DW's characters spend a LOT of time doing things that aren't strictly relevant to the plot, in fact it is almost a trademark of his style that he deliberately slows down the action so we can all take a breather and start to wonder what will happen next. But what DW's characters WON'T do is to play or watch sport, for reasons that we all seem to agree on.

Getting back to the chess sets, I admit my idea was a strictly off-the-cuff throw out, and I bow to the opinions of people with much better taste than myself (don't thank me, believe me it's faint praise!) - I really like the idea of the Eunuch of Stamboul as Grauber's oppo. Must reread that book sometime.

And slipping into off-topicism here, I just have to say a word in favour of the internet. If you had been able to speak to me when I was 14 and an absolute DW obsessive, and someone had told me that one day I'd be discussing the design of a Dennis Wheatley chess set with people all over the world, I really would have wondered what they'd been smoking! Even then I rarely met another fan, yet DW was a best-selling author. Now he's a minority taste, yet interesting and knowledgable discussion is only a mouse-click away. The 21st century isn't ALL bad

Alan · Post by **Alan** » Fri 19 Mar, 2010 13:34:00

'scuse me replying to my own post but I've just thought of an exception to the "no sport" rule. Channock Van Ryn is a renowned yacht racer, as the first three books in the De Richleau series reveal.

Steve Whatley · Post by **Steve Whatley** » Fri 19 Mar, 2010 15:43:06

Well remembered Alan.

And wasn't somebody water-ski-ing (admittedly not competitively) at the beginning of 'They Found Atlantis'?

And weren't Grauber and the Eunuch both 'so surprisingly light on their feet' for such big men that they were probably squash racquets champions or something?[font=Courier New] [/font]

ken68 · Post by **ken68** » Sun 21 Mar, 2010 20:02:17

hmm not sure that they can be called lulls. most of them are just an excuse for DW to do his part political broadcast or do his famous "info dump".
so true about the wonders of the internet.

Charles · Post by **Charles** » Sun 21 Mar, 2010 22:05:42

Alan, you've certainly struck a chord here with your off-topic (or actually perhaps incredibly on-topic) remark.

What would I have thought age 14 (... 24 ... 34 ... ) if someone had told me I'd be spending so much time on DW some four decades later ...

I don't know whether I'd have been impressed or horrified ...

Perhaps it's just as well I'll never know !

Anyone else feel the same ?

As for the wonders of the internet, of course I'm sold, although it has also been a wonderful method of self impoverishment with all those DW items out there to be collected / found

Back on-topic (ish) Phil Baker once joked to me that when Chorion got going, we'd be getting plastic models of the Duke dropping out of our cornflake packets into our cereal bowls. Does anyone know - do they still make such things, or is that just a youthful memory ?

If Chorion or their sub licencees go for chess sets or playing cards, I guess I'll be collecting them as well ... and I'm already eagerly looking forward to the full 'line-up' ...

Best as always ...

Alan · Post by **Alan** » Mon 22 Mar, 2010 05:58:02

[quote="Charles"]

Back on-topic (ish) Phil Baker once joked to me that when Chorion got going, we'd be getting plastic models of the Duke dropping out of our cornflake packets into our cereal bowls. Does anyone know - do they still make such things, or is that just a youthful memory ?

I think the modern equivalent is the promotional tie-ins with popular movies, etc, given away by junk-food chains. Now isn't this food (no pun intended) for thought? Imagine McFatties doing a tie-in with the remake of "The Devil Rides Out" - The Rex meal, with a hamburger, double fries and a plastic Van Ryn all your own. Or the Mocata pack, with a box of chokkies (remember Damien liked his sweets) and a fugureine guaranteed not to cast a shadow, or the Fleur Eaton special, for the little ones, guaranteed to make you pronounce "blood" as "blug"... each meal comes in a black box with a pentacle drawn on the front, and the fries are sprinkled with genuine asfoedita grass (really coloured salt)...

Oh shut up, Alan, DO shut up!!!!!

Charles · Post by **Charles** » Thu 25 Mar, 2010 23:18:19

I guess now you're really testing the keenness of our collecting instincts...

And the sad thing is yes, I'd probably have to go and buy them !

I love the idea of a figurine guaranteed not to cast a shadow .... if you could work out how to make it, it would earn you a fortune ...

Don't shut up !!!