Beyond the Lamppost: Narnia re-explored
By Strange Mark Studios (SMS)

Strange Mark Studios (once known as Buffy.fan Inc.) have been building a reputation for producing action figures from somewhat obscure American television shows. So now for something completely different! Based on the classic books, the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S Lewis, Strange Mark Studios bring us ‘Beyond the Lamppost’, a new interpretation of the classic world.

“ For our first batch,” Strange Mark tells us, “we wanted to include characters from across the series, both human and animal.” So who should we be looking out for? Hitting toy stores over the next few months will be a wide variety of reinterpreted Narnian favourites, starting with Ed and Lucy. When redesigning the children, a modern approach was taken, moving away from the war-time setting of the original books.

Representatives told us, “ we tried to give Edmund a bit of a dark edge…and we decided to shorten his name as well.” Ed, comes spattered with mud, and blood, and comes with a blood-stained sword and a variety of other accessories.

“ With Lucy,” we were told, “we tried to go for a far more innocent feel. Although we made the children a little older than originally intended, we wanted Lucy to retain something child-like about her, and I hope we succeeded.” Lucy, the first of the children to enter Narnia comes equipped with her gifts given to her by Father Christmas. The older children, Peter and Susan will also be included in the initial line-up, but sculpts have yet to be finalised.

Along with these four, SMS will also be bringing us Aslan himself.

As well as the four original children, other characters from “our world” will be included. The man who started it all with his magic rings, Diggory’s Uncle Andrew from The Magician’s Nephew will be one of the second wave of figures to be hitting shelves. His accessories will include a selection of magic rings and guinea pigs apparently!

From The Silver Chair, Strange Mark’s personal favourite tale, comes Jill Pole, accompanied by Glimfeather the owl. Jill will be able to ride upon Glimfeather’s back, or interact alone with the other figures.

But no, it’s not only people from England making it into the toy line, there’s plenty of Narnian’s as well! To begin with we’ve got King Caspian. SMS felt it was important to include Caspian in the initial assortment as his reign spanned several books, and he was a key figure in the history of Narnia.

In the months following Caspian’s release, we will be treated to some of his loyal subjects as well. Trumpkin the dwarf, who served as Regent in Caspian’s absence will be recreated in action-figure form, along with the courageous warrior Reepicheep the mouse!

Look out for a chase version of Reepicheep with only a stump for a tale. Both will be heavily armed with a variety of weapons.

To oppose all these noble warriors, Strange Mark Studios will also be giving us a selection of the less-pleasant inhabitants of Narnia! The first of these, who will be released in the initial wave with the four children is the evil White Witch. “We wanted to do something a little bit different with the White Witch,” says Strange Mark, “in the end we went for an armoured look, and we tried to keep her sexy and seductive at the same time.” The self-styled Queen of Narnia will be accompanied by a wolf and a variety of other accessories.

Somebody else wanting to rule Narnia, the seductive serpent-woman, the Queen of Underland, will be released to coincide with Jill and Glimfeather. SMS took a similar approach with both these female villains, trying making them appear both beautiful and deadly.

And finally, someone else for your Narnian warriors to fight, a good old generic Calorman warrior will be released at some point, probably at the same time as Trumpkin and Reepicheep.

Strange Mark Studios assure us that they are far from finished with Narnia. “There are still loads of characters left to recreate, and we look forward to trying!” This new series of action figures will be released to generate interest in time for the big screen adaption of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe next summer. “Our designs are not connected to the movies,” we were informed, “but who knows. If the movies are successful maybe we will be able to release some figures based on the big screen interpretations of the characters.” There’s a chance Strange Mark Studios will not be making it to the next Con, but they assure us they will be back!