fictions

Remembrance Day Parade and freedoms.....

Molly paraded with the Guides this year on the annual Remembrance Day Parade. She even got to lay a cross on one of the war memorials in the town. As usual the afternoon is a proud, though solemn occasion with the parade made up of brownies, guides, beaver scouts, cubs, scouts, army cadets, air cadets and veterans. A lot of people turn out to follow the parade and it's good to see all of these people choosing to be here, choosing to remember.

Now Molly's older she's actually questioning the reasons for parading. Which is exactly what she should do. We had a chat the other night about the events and the importance of Remembrance. The simplest way I could say it was that all of these men gave up their lives so that future generations might not have to. My grandfather went to war. Thankfully he came back. But because of him, because of all those who didn't come back, there's a much greater chance that I'll never be forced to fight for my country. Wars should be about freedom, should be fought because there is no choice, should be fought because they are the final recourse and should, when all is done, lead to a better world, a freer world.

And then I start to see all of the news about football teams being coerced into embroidering poppys into their strips and the teams that refuse to submit to public pressure being lambasted in the press. Or rather, the teams that refuse to submit to the hectoring and bullying attitude of the Daily Mail. So perhaps it isn't a case of respecting or disrespecting the soldiers in this case?

I thought one of the things we celebrated on Remembrance Day was the fact our grandparents fought for, and often died for, the right to be free, the right to dissent, the right to think for ourselves.

Wearing the poppy as a choice is a wonderful thing. Wearing the poppy because it's forced upon us is a complete anathema to everything these men fought for. And no amount of baying mobs or stupid facebook groups is going to convince me otherwise.

The weeks reviews at the FPI blog:

This week over at the FPI blog......

Largo Winch Volume 2 - Takeover Bid by Van Hamme & Franq.
Harker: The Book Of Solomon by Gibson & Danks.
Drake's Comprehensive Compendium of Dragonology.
The Chimpanzee Complex Volume 1: Paradox by Richard Marazano & Jean-Michel Ponzio
Lady S: Here's To Suzie by Jean Van Hamme and Philippe Aymond

PROPAGANDA Reviews: I Like My Job

I Like My Job

by Sarah Herman

Jonathan Cape

Here’s a strange one. What exactly is it that marks some proposal out for publication at one of those “proper” book publishers and not others? I ask this not to cast aspersions on I Like My Job but just to try to illustrate some of the thoughts that passed through my head as I was reading it. Because essentially I Like My Job is a beautifully packaged work that reminds me very much of various bits of small press comics I’ve read over the past couple of years. Not in it’s plot, not necessarily in it’s art but in it’s tone, it’s subject and it’s style. I could probably name at least half a dozen small press comics that I think are more worthy of the treatment Jonathan Cape have given to Sarah Herman’s graphic novel, but that’s really not the point of the review, just an interesting aside. However, I can see the sort of path Jonathan Cape are following with this, as the style is very similar to Simone Lia’s lovely Fluffy graphic novel they published a couple of years ago (see the review here as part of my personal best of 2007 list).

I Like My Job is a collection of seven stories of office life, analysing the everyday boredom and monotony, the paranoia, the strange relationships, the complicated politics and the unexpected events of life in a situation many folks deal with on a day to day basis. Except I never have. My background is in comics retail and in education; two areas where the day to day grind of office life just had no impact at all. And I’ve often thought that that is the reason why I never found The Office that funny (well, that and a deep hatred of Ricky Gervais perhaps). And it may well be the reason I can’t really identify too much with the events in I Like My Job either. But if I can’t identify with the finer details of the Office life herein I can look at it on a relationship level, the interactions between workers, the inner thoughts of the central character and on this level it’s really pretty good.

(Drowning in a workload of post-it notes and the omnipresent know-it-all cat fairy. From I Like My Job by Sarah Herman.)

Artistically I Like My Job works remarkably well. The near stick figure visuals actually have a real warmth and emotion to them and Herman very cleverly and skillfully manages to get great expression and body language out of her simple forms – it’s all in the angle of a head, the tilt of a mouth, the raising of an eyebrow. It’s well done, but the sheer simplicity of the page does mean it’s a very quick read. Almost too quick.

Our narrator is coming to terms with the fact that she’s stuck in a big rut at work. She likes her job, but doesn’t love it, feels completely unfulfilled but also guilty that she’s been coasting for quite some time. It’s something we can all empathise with and Herman manages to just (but only just) steer herself the right side of annoyingly twee for the first few chapters. There’s a bit on the irritation that is the performance review, there’s a chapter on the joy of commanding a room for a presentation (and the guilt and self-loathing that comes from having to use Powerpoint to do it), there’s the look at the fallout from that email sent in anger and swiftly regretted. All nicely done, but just a little too light and cutesy for my liking. It’s gentle observational comedy and not much more.

(Oh that dreaded Powerpoint presentation. And that know-it-all cat fairy again. From I Like My Job by Sarah Herman.)

But after that cutesy first third of the book it all starts to get a little darker and considerably better. From this point we get stories dealing with the suicide of a co-worker, a chapter on leaving-do fatigue in a company that’s churning workers too fast and has no idea why and finally, best of the lot, the last 90 pages careers into that desperately unhappy place that is the promotion we just didn’t want and a growing feeling that we’re in way over our heads. Herman does a particularly good job in the final two chapters of the unwanted promotion and eventual resignation and the deeply uncomfortable feelings and crippling terror of feeling we’re in way over our heads and it’s only a matter of time before everyone else realises we’re just as awful and rubbish at the job as we’ve known we are all along.

(Promoted beyond our comfort zone, terrified of being found out. And that cat-fairy again. From I Like My Job by Sarah Herman.)

And looking over those last two paragraphs in my description of the book I can see that I’ve perfectly summarised the good and the bad of the book. First paragraph, not involved – talking about the too twee and cute first half using “the protagonist” and talking in very general terms. But with the second paragraph and the descent into far darker and more interesting places and suddenly I’m using “we” and “we’re” all over the place. That’s my total involvement. Far more enjoyable in the darkness than the cuteness. If only the whole thing could have been the same. Then I’d have really liked it.

Sarah Herman’s website, extract from I Like My Job at the Guardian website.

PROPAGANDA Reviews: Orbital Volume 1.

Orbital Volume 1: Scars

Written by Sylvain Runberg, Art by Serge Pelle

Cinebook

It’s the 23rd Century and humankind has finally been admitted to an 8000 year old intergalactic multi-species alliance and even then only grudgingly – we’re somewhere between annoying simpleton cousin and nasty virus in their eyes. Of course, this is mostly our own fault, since one of our first acts upon getting hold of interplanetary craft a while ago was to slaughter, almost to extinction, the pacifist Sandjarr people once we’d realised their planet could be mined for good, old fashioned cash.

Part of this grudging acceptance of humankind is the graduation of the first ever human to join the Interworld Diplomatic Office (IDO); essential the universe’s peace-keeping force. The human in question is Caleb Swany. His partner in the IDO is another first for the alliance; Mezoke Izzua of the Sandjarr. It’s a controversial and important pairing designed to foster harmony between the two races but there’s many in the IDO who would dearly love to see it fail.

(Interworld Diplomatic Office graduation ceremony; does this human take this Sandjarr to be thy law enforcement representative? etc etc.)

Graduation over, Caleb and Mezoke are dispatched for their first mission; to keep war from breaking out between another one of those bloody troublesome human colonies and the indigenous Javlod race. The IDO wants the humans out, safely dispatched to alternative planets but the humans aren’t budging. So the alliance wanders in, destined to fail from the outset, since both humans and Javlod seem to have deeper motivations for their actions.

Orbital is very much classic European sci-fi comics. Huge ideas, huge artwork, that sort of thing. And as with a lot of huge sci-fi it lends itself rather well to lazy comparisons to sci-fi movies. Unfortunately this one has rather too much Star Wars Episode 1 for comfort, with too much emphasis on the set-up that essentially takes most of the book. There’s even one point when our pair of intergalactic ambassadors are venturing across the world they’ve come to in the hopes of negotiating a peace that I suddenly realised I’d seen it all before in the Phantom Menace when Obi Wan McGregor and Qui Gon Neeson wander through shot all diplomatic for about 10 seconds before they find the need to pull lightsabers and start decapitating stuff:

(When everyone’s pulling out guns, it’s safe to say your diplomatic mission may be failing somewhat. From Orbital 1: Scars.)

But the main problem I have with Orbital is that it really doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be. After 41 pages of slow burn sci-fi political thriller that I was actually rather enjoying it all goes a little bit Aliens on us with the sudden appearance of some particularly nasty big pests called Stilvulls.

It’s a strange switch to pull and it doesn’t really work. Not least because we have just 5 pages to get used to the Stilvull threat before the book just stops dead. Volume 1 of Orbital is a mere 46 pages long and just as the interesting diplomatic introductory sections are over and done with and we’re about to have the loud, dramatic sci-fi battle it’s all over; to be continued in the concluding second book. Very frustrating. Sci-Fi interruptus is never nice.

(The Stilvulls attack the human colony, acting like Ridley Scott’s Aliens and looking remarkably like the squidy things from the Matrix. From Orbital 1: Scars.)

However, all of these criticisms can’t take away the fact that Orbital is actually rather an entertaining Sci-Fi thriller with a lot of good stuff on it’s pages. The initial terrorist attack witnessed by Caleb is a brilliantly paced slow build action sequence, the subsequent scene setting to establish the current political status quo in the alliance, the nicely worked visuals of the mission backstory as the IDO travels to the planet are amongst many really well done sequences and set-pieces. But it’s a book that can’t quite decide what it wants to be, as evidenced by the sudden, dramatic change of emphasis right at the end of volume one and I really don’t understand why Cinebook have decided to release Orbital as two seperate thin volumes. They’re very good at putting a couple of European albums together to make one thicker book and I think they should have done it here. Because 46 pages just isn’t enough to get much more than a frustrating sense of near enjoyment from Orbital. I’ll probably be back for volume 2 at some point but I feel it would have been so much more satisfying to have the whole thing here in one volume.

PROPAGANDA Reviews: Harker Volume 1

Harker Volume 1: The Book Of Solomon

Plot, story, script – Roger Gibson. Plot, art – Vincent Danks

Ariel Press.

Anyone reading the blog over the past 9 months or so will have surely picked up on my great love of Harker. I’ve championed it since issue 1 and every month have delivered positive review after positive review. So with this first collection I’m hardly likely to have completely changed my mind now am I?

Quite simply – no, of course not. Harker’s a fantastic tale, featuring a great set of characters, mixing all of the best elements of classic genre crime fiction and borrowing extensively from so many classic TV series to create something immediately recognisable and immensely enjoyable. Lots of police procedural stuff, the legwork, the investigations, the hunting down of the clues, the gathering of suspects and so much more. It’s all here in Harker.

So here’s what’s going on in Harker, The Book Of Solomon:

“A horribly mutilated body has been discovered on the steps of st George’s Church in london, just around the corner from the British Museum. Detective Chief Inspector Harker, and his assistant Detective Sergeant Critchley, experts in multiple homicides, are on the case. The body is unidentified and appears to be the result of a horrific ritual killing. Harker is skeptical, but book fibres found underneath the victim’s fingernails have led our detectives on the search for an Occult book: The Key Of Solomon“.

Add to this the delightful dialogue, with Harker and Critchley playing off each other as a perfect comedy double act – Harker as the mysterious world-weary straight man to Critchley’s rapid fire, slightly unhinged funny man. The dialogue and characters certainly aren’t real; no-one really speaks like that all of the time. But Harker isn’t about real characters, just perfectly realised idealised versions of characters we’d possibly like to be. The antecedents are everywhere; Holmes & Watson, Regan & Carter, toss in a bit of Life On Mars’ Gene Hunt for Harker perhaps and you have a little idea of what makes Harker so much fun.

(“Er… Guv?” Still cracks me up. Harker’s about to walk into a little Satanist bat-cave. There’s more art in the review here, but if I were you, I’d just buy the book.)

And in all this praise of Harker’s story and characterisation, it would be remiss of me not to mention Vince Danks’ art that simply and effectively adds so much to the book with simple lines, intricate figure work that seamlessly choreographs the comic as his figures flow naturally across the page against backgrounds that are worthy of Gerhard’s finest work on Cerebus.

(Part of the centre-piece of the first volume, Harker and Critchley sit in a pub and Harker tells Critchley how to do this police lark properly; no Satanist nonsense, no pissing about with occult books, just good, old-fashioned police work. And a perfect panel to show off Vince Danks’ stunning artwork on the series.)

Like some bloke says on the back of the book: Harker’s a great detective thriller with intriguing story, wonderful art, cracking dialogue and moments of laugh out loud comedy … an absolute triumph of a comic. This first book really does have everything you could ever want in great genre writing. I’ve recommended it since the start. I’m certainly not stopping now.

and 20 years of Wallace & Gromit.....

Another anniversary, this time everyone's favourite claymation man and his dog. Nick Park's wonderful creations, Wallace and Gromit are 20 years old this week. Just like Sesame Street they got their own Google Doodle, just as they should....

Happy birthday lads, here's to many more.

40 Years Of Sesame Street

40 years of Sesame Street - and multiple Google doodles for one of the most wonderful shows in the world. When she was much younger we spent many wonderful hours with Molly absolutely engrossed with Elmo. Every morning before going to nursery she had to see Elmo's World. And the laughter and giggles she came out with set us both up wonderfully for the day.

The BBC has a special 5 minutes with some of the cast: "In a special edition, Matthew Stadlen travels to Sesame Street to spend Five Minutes with Cookie Monster, Elmo, Big Bird, Grover and Oscar the Grouch". It's great fun to watch the amateur struggle and fail with the professionals, they absolutely wipe the floor with him. Five minutes of funny stuff - Elmo's Wasabi line and Big Bird:
"Can you fly?" "I can if I can get an airline ticket"

To watch the BBC video - click here.

Amanda Palmer's open letter to Robert Smith

Since hearing Girl Anachronism on some late night MTV2 show about a year ago I became a fan of The Dresden Dolls and subsequently Amanda Palmer. And since my discovery of Amanda's blog, I'm increasingly convinced that she's a wonderfully original voice in modern music.

Latest case in pint: This brilliant and impassioned open letter to Robert Smith. Palmer's a big fan, and suffered from just the same loss of faith with the Cure I did a few years ago. We're both pretty much back in the fold now. But reading her words brought it all back to me; the manic adoration, the hunt for information in that pre-Internet time, the T-shirts, the obsessive copying of the logo and applying the writing to every schoolbook, the posters, and the music - more than anything else - the music that filled my life.

And Amanda gets it - you can tell:

On seeing them for the first time, Disintegration tour:

When that music crashed into place (and what a perfect choice, that one, a perfect set opener, and perfect album opener….and god, just a perfect song: the huge major-chord crash of joyfully celebration with lyrics as dark-light, lush and vast and deep and bittersweet as love itself), when that first giant synthesizer belted it’s long, jagged and beautiful wave forms into my ears and meshed with the smash of cymbals and dazzling of lights….in that moment, my heart exploded. I now knew something I didn’t know before. I’ve never forgotten that moment.

Or this, a conversation at a gig;

“WHAT ALBUM IS THIS SONG FROM?” I shouted. “THIS IS FROM 4:13 DREAM” he shouted back. “IS THAT ABOUT TO COME OUT?” I shout-asked. “NO,” he shouted “IT CAME OUT, LIKE, SIX MONTHS AGO.”

And it was then that I realized, without a doubt. It hit me and it hurt.
I abandoned you. I was a Bad Fan.
Along with so much of the other music I listened to, I wandered out of the Church of Fandom in my early twenties and by the time I was in my mid-twenties The Dresden Dolls were in full touring mode. I was spending most of my waking life on the phone or on the computer, trying to make sense of this weird fucking life that I’d so wanted and I was so grateful to have - but at the same time, it destroyed something I cherished, which was the ability to hang out and absorb music, to live IN it.
I wasn’t a fan anymore. I couldn’t be. I was too busy working.

And that's something I share with her. Losing my way, forgetting that The Cure wasn't a band that stopped a few years ago. The new album still doesn't work for me. But I said that about Wild Mood Swings, said it about Bloodflowers, said it about 2004's "The Cure". But one by one, they've found their way into my heart and my head.

"The Cure" finally worked for me just a few weeks ago when I found myself in just the right mood for it, and the lyrics percolated through my head and I was singing through the emotional tears, convinced with all certainty that Robert Smith was writing about my life, knew what I was thinking and was singing to me, about me - just like he always had.

It was a wonderful, emotional and shattering moment and proof that I shouldn't have let myself forget, should have trusted, should have kept the faith. But I didn't. I was wrong. I know that now. But I won't let it happen again and neither will Amanda.

And if you aren't doing so already, go and read Amanda's blog, start with the Robert Smith letter and then look at this and this and just keep going...... And then go off and get yourself copies of Who Killed Amanda Palmer. You'll love it.

Reasoned, intelligent research - only if it supports what they want to hear.....

Wow, twice in one week - this government just can't do anything right. When big business tells them to do something and a lot of smart, informed ask some very pertinant questions - this wonderful government seems to ignore them - or worse......

1. Mandelson's Three Strikes rule of digital copyright infringement
File this under things you never thought they'd do - but then again this Labour government have made a habit of doing things I never thought they'd do.
There are so many reasons why it's a stupid, short-sighted idea. And thankfully Cory Doctorow does a great job of summarising the whole thing over at the Times Online from October 30th. From which:

"It is not the job of government to guarantee that the business model enabled by last year’s technology will go on for ever. If it were, we would have outlawed radio to save vaudeville"

2. Government drug advisor David Nutt sacked
He puts forward the well researched idea that perhaps, just perhaps, we should look at how dangerous drugs are rather than how much they bring in in taxation. Well, he doesn't quite say that, but that's the gist of the thing. More details in the Guardian piece.