Torchwood Magazine # 21

Torchwood Thursday brings you the twenty-first issue of Torchwood Magazine. Here's what I noticed:

* The cover blurb, "Win 16 inches of Jack!" Woof! (UPDATE: Apparently this refers to some sort of doll. BOO!)

* An interview with Gareth David-Lloyd (Ianto) about life after Torchwood. Reading between the lines, the sense I get is this: he's happy with the exposure and attention he got from the show, but he neither wants to or can make a living out of fan convention appearances. But despite having a new U.S. agent, he hasn't been able to land any substantive acting roles . . . I think this is the same thing Nicholas Brendon (Xander) faced after Buffy went off the air. Both played much-beloved characters, but outside of that fan community there's a lot of twenty-something actors out there vying for roles.

* "Postcards From the Rift", a short story by Guy Adams. This has to rank among my favorite Torchwood short stories yet. A teenage girl starts finding cryptic messages under a stone in her back yard, along with cash and instructions not to tell anyone. I won't give away any more of the plot here, but it's very well-written and has a great twist at the end.

* The first installment of "Shrouded", a comic strip written by Gareth David-Lloyd. No surprise, then, that Ianto is the main character, but it's honesty quite good. Set back when Ianto, Owen, and Tosh were still alive, the stories sees Ianto visited by Rhys--future Rhys! Future Rhys comes from a time period after Children of Earth and is very careful what he tells Ianto about what is going to happen, but he does tell him that there's a time-travelling assassin after him. And then we find out that Rhys is being helped by none other than Captain John, making his first appearance outside of the show. This strip is longer than most, but it deserves it, and is accompanied with (a rarity for the magazine) quite good artwork. I'm looking forward to the next part . . .

* "Reflections", a short story by Juliet McKenna. This one is Rhys-focussed, and I'm glad they're starting to feature some of the supporting characters from the show. There's an interesting adversary here, who has some sort of strange affiliation with mirrors, but otherwise the plot is pretty standard.