Category: Events

Retro sci-fi and steampunk fans, rejoice! Weta, the company best known for creating the sets, costumes, armour, weapons, creatures, and miniatures in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, presents Dr. Grordbort’s Infallible Aether Oscillators & Other Marvelous Contraptions.

Dr. Grordbort’s Infallible Aether Oscillators is a line of 1:1 scale antique styled, sci-fi hand weapon props, conceived by Weta designer Greg Broadmore and meticulously built by master model maker David Tremont. With charming 1900s contraption styling and finish, the Rayguns evoke the nostalgia of a lost age of exploration and discovery, and possess an intentional sense of humour and fun in their design.

Six years ago, Greg started illustrating classic Rayguns, and after creating a series of nine full-size illustrations on canvas, he showed Weta Workshop’s Richard Taylor, who, in turn, asked for a painting of his own. Greg agreed and tentatively suggested launching a range based on these drawings. And the rest is history.

In 1996 three pieces were unveiled at Comic-Con San Diego — the Manmelter 3600ZX Sub-Atomic Disintegrator Pistol, F.M.O.M. Industries Wave Disrupter Gun and Goliathon 83 Infinity Beam Projector. In 2008, the Victorious Mongoose 1902a Concealable Ray Pistol was launched with two new pieces, the Death Ray Moon Hater and Lord Cockswain’s Unnatural Selector Blunderbuss, set to follow close on its heels. Also in 2008, Dr. Grordborts Contrapulatronic Dingus Directory — a hardback graphic novel designed, conceptualized and written by Greg Broadmore, was published by Dark Horse and Weta. The directory is a catalog of weird and wonderful contraptions that look as though they have been lifted from somewhere between the turn of the Century “Scientifiction” and early Pulp cover art.

“Dr. Grordbort’s Contrapulatronic Dingus Directory plays to all that Sci Fi imagery I love”, grins Broadmore. “It’s full of bizarre inventions and man-melting weaponry. The three Rayguns are featured alongside many others including Servile Automatons, War Wagons and even Mass-mo-trons. Almost all of them are capable of accidentally crippling the user or worse. That’s one of the things I loved about the classic Science Fiction machinery. They all looked like death traps. Just as likely to kill you as your enemy.”

The Rayguns have exploded onto the web, featured in collectors’ Christmas and birthday wish lists, and have been featured on International Directory BoingBoing.net and Gizmodo.com, who dubbed the Rayguns “your weapon of choice… a Raygun that’ll blast away giant monkeys… or evil wizard dudes”. WIRED Magazine recently featured a six page spread on the making of these weapons and New Zealand daily newspaper The Dominion Post dubbed the heaviest of the Rayguns, the Goliathon 83, “Weta’s Alien Buster”.

Creator Greg Broadmore, a self-confessed gun nerd, says the contraptions have been a long time coming in his mind. “I clearly and fondly remember watching the old black and white serials on Sunday afternoons as a little kid and the classic Sci Fi imagery has always stuck with me”, says Greg. “The swept shapes, spikes, fins and beautiful forms that are all jammed together with boiler plate and extraneous mechanical detail. That’s how I saw Flash Gordon, Tarzan, King Kong and others. But what I’ve [always been] fascinated by is the macho idiocy of the ‘hero’ in science fiction. The ‘heroic’ attitude of killing anything and everything in sight, especially if it’s jeopardizing the swooning heroine.”

The guns are limited edition pieces. There will be only 500 of each gun made worldwide, except for the Victorious Mongoose, of which there are only 400. All of these are handcrafted and made out of metal with some glass parts. Every Raygun comes with its own Moon-velvet lined pressed tin case, Certificate of Authenticity and an assortment of implements and crafting tools. Not only that, these bad boys will be a decent punch of metal — with each gun weighing in at over 7 pounds, these are no light investment.

“The original three Rayguns were previewed at Comic-Con San Diego 2006, and went on sale the following year at Comic-Con 2007, each limited to an edition size of 500. In under two years, 1000 of those original three high-end collectible Rayguns have sold, and a further three Rayguns have been released,” says Tim Launder, General Manager of Weta Limited. “We sold more than half of the Ray-Blunderbuss guns within the first month of release — including edition Number #1. Since Dr. Grordbort’s launched in 2006, we have had an overwhelming response to Greg Broadmore, the Rayguns, and to the world in general. This includes the Rayguns being voted #1 Best Toy in 2007 by Figures.com; Greg Broadmore being featured as ‘Tomorrow’s People’ on the cover of Idealog [September 2007] and a four-page spread in Wired — all about the Rayguns, Greg and Richard. We’ve even popped up on YouTube in an online ad in Australia.” The online viral campaign for the Rayguns has also been greatly successful, garnering several international awards:

• NZ Direct and Interactive Marketing Awards 2008: Winner (Gold)
• Caples Awards 2008, in New York: Winner (Gold)
• ECHO Award 2008: Winner (arguably the most coveted award in global direct marketing, the presentation takes place in Las Vegas on October 14, hosted by Jay Leno of The Tonight Show)
• Cannes Lions Advertising Festival 2008: Product Launches Finalist
• Cannes Lions Advertising Festival 2008: Direct Response TV Finalist

Doctor Grordbort’s Contrapulatronic Dingus Directory cleverly uses the style of old Victorian advertising leaflets to showcase the Dr. Grordbort’s line, all the while maintaining, with a wink and a nudge, that everything within the faux catalogue’s pages is real. The full-page artwork is printed on heavy cardstock, and each page is laden with information and humorous asides about the many types of rayguns and other improbable inventions attributed to Dr. Grordbort and his cohorts, including the rayguns that Weta has already released as props. The Destroxor Labs Pearce 75 Atom Ray Gun, with its glossy red accents and stabilising fin, is the classic image of a Buck Rogers-era weapon, and will hopefully will be next up on Weta’s production roster. The Contrapulatronic Dingus Directory also contains a page of testimonials from “customers” who have tried the catalogue’s products (and survived to tell the tale); a short comic portraying a typical day in the life of the stereotypicallly English, world famous naturalist, Lord Cockswain; and postcard art. It’s pulp fiction at its sly best.

Once you’ve perused the catalogue, you’ll naturally want to set out and explore. Every adventurer needs a pack while out in the field, though, so Weta has thoughtfully provided Dr. Grordbort’s Satchel. It’s the perfect bag to tote your copy of the Contrapulatronic Dingus Directory around in, and, until February 28, it comes pre-stuffed with a Wave Disruptor Gun keychain, Goliathon 83 Infinity Beam Projector pin, four postcards featuring Dr. Grordbort art, and a Dr. Grordbort’s Laboratories Schemes & Schematics notebook, each lined page stamped with the Dr. Grordbort logo. Even with all these bonuses, the bag is roomy enough to hold the rest of your steampunky supplies. For ladies, the canvas satchel also makes a creative alternative to a handbag. This is an accessory that will get noticed, and coveted, by fellow steampunk geeks.

Now that you’ve got your field guide and a kit, you need to invest in some self-protection. If you don’t have the pocket change to expend on a full-scale raygun, then the F.M.O.M. Industries Wave Disrupter Gun, Miniature Version, is the firearm for you. Released in a Limited Edition of 900, it’s an itty bitty clone of the standard Wave Disrupter Gun. As the package describes it, “You cradle in your limp mitts a marvel of modern miniaturisation; Dr. Grordbort’s F.M.O.M. Wave Disrupter Gun, impoverished in scale by one of his ingenious contraptions. Golly!” It may be small, but this raygun is crafted with every bit of the care put into its bigger sibling, down to the weathered aging. (It’s also more concealable at this size.) In another nice touch, the gun separates from the base it rests on, so you have a choice of displaying the raygun with or without its stand. The attention to details is simply tremendous, an example being the tiny, amusing notice on both the model’s base and box which reads:

Made on Venus*
*not actually

The sturdy cardboard case the mini Wave Disrupter Gun comes in is numbered to match the collector’s model it houses. Shaped like a book, it’s coated entirely with glossy paper and printed with sepia-toned art and photos of the enclosed figurine. The hinged lid fastens shut with a concealed magnet, so once the flocked tray and other padding materials are removed, the box makes an ideal storage place for Dr. Grordbort pins, keychains, and other small treasures.

Fans of Dr. Horrible‘s Evil League of Evil will thrill to the upcoming Goliathon 800 Moon Hater Death Ray, as nothing quite says “mad genius” like a lair equipped with an old-school weapon of mass destruction. Order one, and you’ll be the envy of all the other supervillians.

Once you’ve stocked up from Dr. Grordbort’s catalogue, head on over to the official website to leave a testimonial and assert your bragging rights in the forums. The site carries full descriptions of all the raygun collectibles currently on the market, an image archive, and web comics, as well as a bestiary that describes and illustrates the many alien creatures you’ll be chasing down with your new raygun. According to Weta, there’s much more in the works for Dr. Grordbort fans to look forward to, such as designer t-shirts, pins, key-rings, postcards, limited edition art prints, and, one would assume, brass goggles. New pieces will be launched every few months.

For product details and purchasing, please visit WetaNZ.com and Dr. Grordbort’s. Select items are available through the Dark Horse Comics website (search keyword: “weta”).

Doctor Grordbort’s Contrapulatronic Dingus Directory is distributed by Weta Publishing, in partnership with Dark Horse Comics.