So what is wrong then? Diary of the potential elephant man day 2

So, as I said as an update to the post yesterday about the facial numbness thing, it was the doctors visit today
Doctor seems unconcerned. Although I suppose that's to be expected.
Anyway, who wants a doctor who takes one look at you, sticks that light in your ear and screams in shock, then shouts unclean at you until you leave?
So it's off for blood tests tomorrow and back for doctor again next week.

Am I worried?
Of course. This is me for fucks sake. I worry the same way other people breathe.
Just a cursory look at the symptoms on google revealed it could be many, many nasty things. My favourites: MS, stroke, Bell's Palsy, Cancer.
Louise's favourite: viral illness. not a serious one.
This probably tells you more about our personalities than weeks of therapy would.

That's possibly my least favourite thing about getting older.
realising that you're suddenly mortal, fragile and have a body that is going to succumb to various things over the next (insert estimated lifespan here) years.
Of course, connected to this realisation for me is the certainty in my hideously stupid, obsessional brain that I'm going to get something nasty and potentially fatal.
Prime contenders for this include all the hereditary (or potentially hereditary) stuff the family has exhibited so far.
This includes: Alzheimers, Heart disease, Lung cancer, dodgy thyroid, crippling Arthritis, Gout, crap circulation, terrible skin, deafness.

Update 31st Aug 00:05: After a phone call to mom it seems both she and my maternal grandfather had Bell's Palsy.
Bloody lovely.
Sometimes the family illness history is more like a game of disease bingo.

Oh, what's wrong with me now?

Oh this is bloody fun:

Sometime over the last few days I started to get some numbness in the side of my face.
By 1am last night, the numbness was extending up my left side to my eye.

You try typing in "facial numbness, left side" to google.
I'm fully expecting to wake up tomorrow and look like a bad John Merrick impression.
Bell's Palsy is looking possible. Oh joy.
And that's just the nice, treatable side of this, there's far more things it could be.
Sometimes typing in symptoms to Google is just asking for a bad nights sleep.

Of course, it could be just some dumb viral thing......
doctors tomorrow.

Amazing how you get to a certain age and suddenly everything suddenly seems to have changed. I'm very aware of my own mortality and have become terribly concious of every little troublesome thing my body decides to bring forth.
Horrible getting old.

Update 30/08/07
Just to make it clear - it is not Bell's Palsy. Well, not yet. That was just one of the myriad possibilities, but was the best one for making a joke out of, so it got chosen.
Doctor this morning just set up blood tests.
Results on Tuesday.

And how's this for a guilty pleasure? Betty Boo!

As much as I hate the idea of guilty pleasures, this seemed to fit the concept.....

Found in a charity shop in Thirsk today.
I loved Betty Boo in 1990 (17 bloody years ago? how can that be?). Still loving it now.

Have a feeling that one of the tracks on this is going to make it onto the RB 2007 Christmas cd.

What do you see? Comics Journal profiles Darwyn Cooke.....

Latest Comics Journal has an interview with Darwyn Cooke under a delightful Power Girl cover.

Dirk's original story
Steve's link & follow up;
including the link to Dave's LongBox where the phrase "magical cleavage window" originated.

BBC4 Comics Britannia Details

See, my daughter has a birthday and I'm beaten to the news by more people than I can list, but certainly Joe & Lew.

Anyway, the BBC4 website has details of the Comics Britannia series coming in September.
Horribly September suddenly isn't that far away. In fact, it's at the bloody weekend. Oh hell. Where did August go?

Molly's 8th Birthday again .......

My little girl turned 8 at the weekend.

It's quite shocking how quickly 8 years can pass by when you're too busy getting on with things. She's grown so very fast and done so much even in these few years, it's terrifying. Now I have to imagine what the next 8 years will be like.
Because in another 8 years I'll have lost her. Not, of course, in the literal sense. Didn't someone once say that you don't own your children, you just borrow their lives for a few years until they leave?
But that's what I'm faced with thinking about now; the prospect of Molly turning 16. The prospect of 17, 18, leaving home, growing up. All too terrible to contemplate properly.

For some reason, 8 seems like a bit of a milestone. Possibly because in this last year she's become a lot more self-reliant and independent, possibly just because it's the half way point to her becoming 16. But it's come crashing down on me; this sense of loss and grief about her. Stupid really, because I'll always be Daddy, no matter what. But I just feel she'll never really be the little girl who cooed and gurgled in my arms ever again.

Each time she passes some milestone or other I'm continually fearful of how much I'll miss the stage just gone. But every time it happens I hardly have chance to think of what has been lost, being far too busy with enjoying what she's become instead.
I can look back to recall her baby days. How she used to smile that windy smile, fighting sleep until nearly collapsing, her head thudding on my chest as she finally succumbed.
Or the toddler days when she loved being swung around, or carried aloft on Daddy's shoulders.
Or the early school days, being so proud of how she'd make friends and how much fun we all had when we met them.

Now we're into the days when Molly the baby, Molly the toddler, Molly the tweenie and Molly the infant is but a memory. It's now Molly the junior; a lovely, polite, independent, occasionally stroppy, moody and incredibly interesting little girl. When we meet her friends she's more interested in them than she is in us. No longer do we play together, instead it's up to her room and us left downstairs, wondering what to do with our newly discovered spare time.

But no matter how grown up she becomes, no matter how independent, how old she is, one thing is certain: She'll always be my best achievement and will always be my little girl.
Welcome to your 9th year Molly.

She had a lovely birthday, friends and family were up from near and far. We awoke far too early and were dragged downstairs to witness the great present opening.
Although this year the presents were very thin on the ground.
Because this year she had a big present: After years and years of talking about it, she's finally got her DS.
In many ways this is a complete climb down on our part, seeing as we decided years ago to try to stop her becoming one of these children who seems to be surrounded by every possible technological revolution they can. These horrible children with a shocking pink dvd/tv combi always on the Disney channel in the corner, a computer to surf whatever they want and talk to lots of inappropriate chat buddies, a game console graveyard in the corner because stoopid parents buy whatever the latest hot console of the hour is and absolutely no books anywhere.

She certainly wasn't going to be the sort of child who spends every waking moment with their head embedded in their handheld console. You know the sort of child - they can be at the most spectacular event in the world and yet will spend more time watching some inane Japanese character on the screen than whatever the world can show them.

So we caved, and bought her one. It's not like it's a faddy present; she's been asking for one for many, many years now, ever since her friend Caleb got one. But as soon as we pointed out that Caleb saved up for his own and it means she'd not be able to spend her money on cuddley toys if she was saving up she seems to go off the idea.
But this year, whenever we enquired as to what she really, really wanted, the DS was top of the list. Every time we asked. Although, scarily, she also wants to put a Wiii on her Christmas List; after all, as she so considerately points out, if we buy her the DS for her birthday, it will be alright to ask for a Wiii for Christmas because we don't buy it, Father Christmas makes it. How the hell do you reply to that one?

And it's about bloody time too Daddy.

Of course, one unexpected benefit of getting the DS means we suddenly have a new punishment to threaten Molly with: the DS ban. Genius. Almost makes it worthwhile.

DC says no to new Gaiman Sandman series.expect sackings.

Lying in the Gutters reports on the ongoing idiocy that seems to be going on at DC Comics these days. See, that's always the fun stuff about comic companies. One minute on top of the pile, basking in the glory of your sales and critical acclaim, the next wondering how much longer this falling from grace shit is going to carry on.

Recently we had the problems of Scott Dunbier leaving Wildstorm following or possibly causing the inane justification of limiting Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Getlemen Balck Dossier to just the USA because of "copyright issues" (this being a book that in both previous volumes used many, many copyrighted and public domain figures - why exactly does DC think this is going to be different?)

Now comes the news that they've just cancelled a forthcoming Vertigo series of the Sandman, written by Neil Gaiman.

quotes from Rich Johnston & Lying in the Gutters:
I understand that, to celebrate Sandman's 20th Anniversary, Neil Gaiman was to write a "Sandman" mini-series. However, recently the project was pulled. When asked, Neil told me, "We couldn't come to an agreement that would allow me to do a new six issue Sandman story for DC, and many people at DC and my agent tried hard to make it happen. Pity." I understand that certain people at DC are quite upset - though not with Neil or his agent.

Because after all, who would really want to read that? It's not like this one book could potentially turn around Vertigo's (and possibly DCs) fortunes overnight), not like it would be a guaranteed banker for the bookstore market for ears to come. Idiots. Idiots. Idiots.

via Rich Johnston

8 years old. Oh, where has the time gone?

8 years ago yesterday, everything changed in our lives as a tiny, beautiful little girl arrived.

Yesterday Molly was 8. She's no longer tiny, but she is, and always will be, beautiful and is simply the most wonderful thing in our lives.
Happy Birthday darling.

PROPAGANDA review: Rom-Com-Comics

I love Romantic Comedies. The soppier the better. I love the elaborate set-ups, the predictable “true love never runs smooth” plots and the feeling of contentment and fun they elicit.

Yet, in comics, the Rom-Com is a tiny, tiny genre. Which is a terrible shame, because this little genre has produced some truly marvellous little books over the last couple of years. You can just imagine these in black and white with Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn burning up the screen. Or making Richard Curtis sit up and start planning his next Hugh Grant vehicle.

These are the sort of comics that should be as popular and successful as the latest Marian Keyes novel. But because it’s comics, these most wonderful, incredible books with phenomenal crossover appeal and the potential to be an incredible mainstream hit, are called independent and sits on the shelves, lost amongst all the “Mainstream” comics with men in tight spandex and their underwear over their trousers. What a ridiculous situation.

Three Days in Europe
By Antony Johnston and Mike Hawthorne

This is a tale of Jack and Jill; both successful young things; he’s an add exec with a passion for his record collection, she’s living her dream job at a modern art gallery promoting the art she’s always loved. They’ve been a couple for a while and they’re both feeling that some of the spark has gone out of the relationship.

So he decides to surprise her with a romantic trip to Paris on Valentine’s with a hot ticket to an exclusive gallery showing. It’s so much of a surprise to her that she’s already gone ahead and booked her own Valentine’s surprise trip to London to see his favourite band Q.E.D. with full V.I.P. tickets. Imagine the surprise over a romantic meal when they find out the dilemma, and even worse, both trips are starting straight away.

They bicker and fight all the way to the airport, each wanting the other to just take the damn gift. The bickering carries on to the airport check-in when they make the momentous decision not to give in. In a moment of utter stubbornness he suggests they each go on their ideal weekends; her to Paris and her art show, he to London for his band’s gig. But in one moment of utterly predictable comedy the tickets are swapped accidentally. Next thing they know she’s on her way to a rock and roll weekend and he’s off to a gallery show with Paris’ art set.

And from there, as you can probably guess, farce ensues. But it’s a wonderful, brilliant, and funny as all hell farce. Before they know it he’s become part of a gang of art thieves and she’s on tour with Q.E.D. as the guitarist’s new girlfriend. Like all the best screwball comedies this one keeps putting the two stars through more and more bizarre situations until getting to a particularly clichéd, obvious and quite marvellous ending.

Antony Johnston’s writing here is the best he’s ever done; natural, intelligent, laced with equal parts comedy and cynicism. But it’s his timing and delivery that really turns this into a particularly precious little gem. It is simply the most complete and satisfying comic book I’ve read for a long time.

Of course, a great story like this needs a great artist capable of delivering the script. Mike Hawthorne absolutely excels, with a delightfully light and open style, all angular stylised chins and sweeping curves of hairstyles but never forgetting that a great story like this needs to be delivered to the page and made readable. He doesn’t try anything too extreme or difficult on the page, he does that most difficult of things; keeping the page simple and flowing. Quite lovely.

(panels from Three Days in Europe, art by Mike Hawthorne, published Oni Press)

And the other artists involved deserve mentions as well; J Bone’s covers and chapter breaks are delightful, but special mention has to go to Keith Wood, the book’s designer. It’s often overlooked, but some books look like crap on the shelves, and I could do a better job of making a collection with a stapler and the individual comics. But Three Days In Europe is packed with beautiful little design touches; the back cover, the repetition of the ticket motif, even the stylised lamppost illuminating the small print repeating from the inside cover. Everything in this book just works, and works absolutely perfectly.

Maria’s Wedding
Written by Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir, with art by Jose Garibaldi

“Few events exude as much joy, happiness and hope as a wedding” is how the blurb on the back cover begins; very few books I’ve read manage to convey that sense of joy, happiness and hope as Maria’s Wedding.

This book tells the tale of a large Italian-American family; the Pirellis. Their weddings are all about tradition and celebrating the family. But the last unconventional wedding; of Joseph Pirelli and his partner Matthew threw tradition out and drew battle-lines between two sides of the family. Like most family disputes the bad feelings have simmered away and it’s only now, at the wedding of Maria Pirelli that the tension is coming to the fore.

Whilst some members of the family are coming to enjoy the day, it seems that some members are coming merely to try to make the situation much worse. And in the middle of all this is Maria’s cousin Frankie, who has a habit of speaking out and merely making bad situations worse. The family are worried that Maria’s big day is going to go very wrong. But Frankie wants everything to go just right, both with the wedding and with Maria’s maid of Honour, who just happens to be Frankie’s childhood sweetheart.

(panels from Maria’s Wedding, art by Jose Garibaldi, published Oni Press)

If all this sounds far too soap opera, fear not. The writers take a potential saccharin sweet tale and make a piece of loveliness out of it. Every page has something that will make your day a little brighter, and the whole book is one of the most delightful, lovely things I’ve read in a long time.

And if you wonder how to tell all these people apart, Jose Garibaldi; the fine artist behind this tale, has given us a crib list at the front and gives each character a unique visual quirk. A small touch but it helps so very much. Maria’s Wedding is a sweet, easy to read romantic comedy, perhaps the world’s favourite genre. Yet it’s a precious rarity in comics. Cherish it for the joy it brings.

Shenanigans
by Ian Shaughnessy and Mike Holmes
Oni Press

This time it’s boy meets girl, falls in love, girl falls out of love with boy, boy dresses as another man to win her back. Very Shakespearean really; a good old fashioned romantic farce.

Holden and Casey have been going out now for long enough for Holden to get complacent and Casey to get sick of Holden. Her tutoring job keeps her very busy, mostly trying to keep her horny frat boy students’ attention somewhere above her chest. Holden, with all the emotional maturity of a love-struck teen, starts getting insanely jealous and hatches a plot so stupid, so inane and bound to fail that you wonder why Hollywood hasn’t made millions out of a story like it already.

Dressing up in a ridiculous disguise and putting on an Irish accent so thick you expect every sentence to end in ‘begorrah’, he poses as an Irish foreign student in need of tutoring and starts to take up more and more of Casey’s time - after all, if he’s with her in disguise she can’t be off romping with the frat boys

Inevitably, as Holden’s behaviour becomes more extreme and ridiculous, Casey ends the relationship and starts to fall for Holden’s Irish disguise, because when he’s in his disguise Holden actually manages to be a lot less of a dick than he normally is.

(panels from Shenanigans, art by Mike Hawthorne, published Oni Press)

From then, it’s not really a case of what happens next but when will all the inevitable plot points play out? Once you get past the thinnest of plots it’s a lovely little book. It’s got everything you’d expect, up to and including the inevitable scene where boy takes two dates out and has to keep changing clothes in the toilet. Shenanigans certainly does a Rom-Com-Comic by the numbers.

And Mike Holmes’ art suits the fun-ness of the writing, with a nice, simple, very open style with nary a background in sight to spoil the immediacy of our major characters. Another fun, feel good comic. Certainly makes a change from whatever dark, miserable, moody superhero is being brutally beaten, maimed or killed this week.

Re-Gifters

Written by Mike Carey, with art by Sonny Liew and Marc Hempel

This is very similar in style and tone to My Faith In Frankie; a truly delightful and sadly overlooked book produced by the same creative team. That book was a charming and fun romp with elements of fantasy in it, whereas Re-Gifters is unashamedly a Rom-Com.

The first thing you should notice with Re-Gifters is the cover. A beautiful piece of design; simple and stylish and an example of how a good comic cover should be. Once inside the delights of the cover give way to the delights of both art and story. Liew and Hempel are perfect artists to convey the sense of fun, playfulness and high spirits in this story of school age romance. Just as they did in My Faith In Frankie, their loose, relaxed stylings merely add to the sense of light-heartedness and simple joy to be found in the book.

The main character, Jen Dik Seong, or “Dixie” as she’s known to her friends is Korean-American, living with her lovely family in the ragged edge of LA’s Koreatown. Her only real outlet is the ancient Korean martial art of Hapkido, and she’s about to compete in the National Championships. But since this is a traditional Rom-Com you’ll not be surprised when I tell you that things don’t go smoothly for little Dixie.

She’s fallen for fellow Hapkido competitor and surf-boy Adam, but he’s only interested in one of her classmates. The crush throws Dixie off her game and nearly manages to mess up not just her family’s trust in her but nearly alienates her best friend as well. Dixie blows all her Hapkido entry money on a stupid, ridiculously expensive and sadly unappreciated gift for Adam’s birthday. But the gift is re-gifted and re-gifted again, until finally, ever so predictably, it reappears in Dixie’s life at just the right moment from a very unexpected source.

(page from Re-Gifters by Mike Carey, art by Sonny Liew and Marc Hempel, published DC)

Like I say, the plot of Re-Gifters is certainly predictable. But within the context of the story that’s not a terrible thing. This is a lovely romantic comedy, and as such, it almost has to be predictable. That doesn’t however stop it being incredibly readable, very warm and light hearted and just plain fun.

Just sometimes, it’s nothing to do with how intricately written something is, or how deep and meaningful it is. Sometimes, the most important thing is the feeling that reading a book gives you. Sometimes it’s all about the stupid, soppy grin that spreads over your face as the final page finishes and you’ve just read something gloriously, unapologetically sentimental and romantic. Which was exactly what happened at the end of Re-Gifters: huge soppy grin from ear to ear.

And that’s a great place to leave this little look at my new favourite genre in comics - the “Rom-Com-Comic”. Why don’t you try one today? After all, we could all use a little more soppy grinning.

PROPAGANDA reviews: Leviathan - Ian Edginton & D'Israeli

Leviathan

Written by Ian Edginton, Art by D’Israeli

After reading, and thoroughly enjoying Scarlet Traces, I was really, really looking forward to Edginton and D’Israeli’s more recent book: Leviathan. The concept of it, encapsulated in these couple of lines from the blurb, is just spectacularly good:

“In 1928 the largest cruise liner the world has ever seen is launched. With a crew and passenger compliment totalling nearly 30,000 people the Leviathan is bound for New York. However, it never reaches the Big Apple and simply … disappears!”

And although it’s a really good book, it’s just not as good as it should have been with such a winning concept. And the simple reason it fails is because the damn thing is just too short. It needed to be at least twice the length it is to really work; to revel in the idea of a ship that is a mile long and half a mile wide. The scale of the ship is immense; the scale of the story about the ship should be equally impressive.

(panel from Leviathan clearly showing the vast scale of the vessel; art by D’Israeli, published Rebellion)

I’d like to think it was limitations put upon the writer and artist by the publisher that made this such a truncated story and, in a perfect world we’d be looking forward to a director’s cut of the work coming out soon, but sadly, Leviathan will only ever be the book in front of me now, half the book it should have been.

The presentation itself is particularly well done, it looks and feels like proper Bande Dessinée, hardback, oversized and with an exquisite cover promises mystery and diabolical goings-on at sea. Disraeli’s art makes great use of the larger page size, perfectly realising the epic sense of scale and grandeur that a ship of such scale conveys, yet also perfectly capturing the sense of desperation and seediness found deeper down inside the ship.

Leviathan starts with a great few pages detailing the mammoth scale of the project to build such an incredible vessel; sixty million pounds, constructed in sections, twenty eight thousand passengers and crew, parks, ballrooms, cinemas and even a zoo are onboard. And D’Israeli gives us a double page spread that instantly manages to turn these facts and figures into reality for us with a tremendous visual of the huge ship. But instead of taking it slowly from here, giving us a detailed look at the ship and the society onboard, the story instantly shifts to the murder mystery that will speed the book along to its conclusion.

(interior page from Leviathan with D’Israeli showing the seedy shanty town of the world below decks for the Steerage passengers; the chap accosting our hero in the lower right panel is a nod to the classic TV serial Boys From the Blackstuff)

Leviathan went missing in 1928. It is now two decades later and the ship still sails on, through a sky with no sun or stars. No-one knows where they are but many of the passengers fear they are in limbo or Hell. And the ship carries on, never ending, with no hope of reaching port.

On board, life is as you may expect from a 1920s British ocean liner. First, Second and Steerage passengers adhere strictly to the traditional divides of social class of the time. Whilst first class has spent twenty years behaving as gentlemen and ladies whilst slowly eating their way through the exotic menu provided by their onboard zoo, Steerage has become a lawless desperate place, a wild west below decks kept there by the stewards above decks.

But this uneasy status quo suddenly changes when gruesome murders begin happening in first class. The ruling executive of the ship, including it’s owner, Sir William Ashbless have tried to ignore the problem, but it becomes obvious it’s not going away as more and more bodies are found, mutilated, missing whole strips of flesh. Detective Sergeant Lament of Scotland Yard is brought in by the executive to solve the case; Lament is in his late fifties, obviously a career cop and he soon sets out his position to the executive:

“If I may speak bluntly, ruling body or no, I doubt you have even the slightest concept of the kind of world that exists beneath your feet. The pit fights, the brothels, illegal stills and narcotics manufacture…. any and all vices that provide a distraction from our unnatural plight occurs within these metal walls.”

“Conservatively I’d estimate there’s at least four murders a week onboard….”

Lament then works simply and methodically, quickly peeling back layers of intrigue and mystery until he finds himself in the engine room and the secret that lies not only behind the Leviathan’s creation, but is also the reason for it’s twenty years of travelling these hellish waters.

And whilst the book’s ending is good, it’s certainly not as good as it should have been. I wanted this book to be so much more than it is, in every sense. I wanted to revel in the grandeur of this ship as big as a city, I wanted to be taken through some of the more bizarre areas of the ship, be told a few tales of it’s past and finally, when the murder mystery kicked in, I would have preferred it to be a deliciously slow boil mystery, taking Lament all across this hellish ship.

What there is in Leviathan is wonderful, a great concept, stylishly and intelligently realised. But there’s just not enough of it and I finished this great book feeling terribly unsatisfied. A real shame. It should have been fantastic.

Originally posted for PROPAGANDA at the FPI weblog here.

Molly's Birthday - busy, busy, busy....

Molly's birthday on saturday.
No doubt we'll be seeing the annual "oh my word, hasn't she grown, I can't believe it's been x years since she was a tiny baby" post at some point, but right now I can't pause for breath.

We're so busy trying to organise stuff. Cakes to make, food to get, presents to wrap etc etc.

And of course, when I most need a good night off and time to sort it out, I end up spending 4 hours sorting a barrage of shit on the computer out. Can't be arsed to even talk about it. Look at the time - very tired.

Bed.
Posts over the weekend will be sparse to say the least.
Busy, busy, busy, zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Borrowing the camera again!

Sometimes I don't know what ticks me off more; the fact that she's obviously been borrowing the camera again without asking, or that her photos are so much better than mine.

The toys are currently all playing schools again. They're doing literacy. I'm sure I'll find out why the head boy and head girl were having their photos taken tomorrow.

Bryan Talbot - The Naked Artist

Bryan Talbot is interviewed over at Silver Bullet Comics about his latest kiss and tell book; The Naked Artst.

Casanova review in GQ

"What if James Bond dug the Wu Tang Clan"

Great GQ article about Casanova / interview with Matt Fraction.

The Armstrong Siddeley "Royal Albert" Vibro-Beamer...

Someone has decided to fashion themselves a beautifully presented replica of the classic Luther Arkwright sidearm as originally imagined by Bryan Talbot..

Two thoughts:
Isn't it lovely.
Where do people find the time?

(via Warren Ellis)

Hey Oscar Wilde! It's Clobberin' Time

Via Dirk at Journalista comes this website devoted to:
"various artists interpreting their favourite literary figure/author/character"

You've got to love the internet. How else would I have just lost 30 minutes looking through stuff like this?

Illo: Hunter S Thompson by Ben Templesmith.

Tragic Life Stories.Dave bloody Pelzer has a lot to answer for.....

WH Smith has a new system of labelling it seems. I was in the branch in Beverley the other day, turned a corner and stopped in my tracks, wondering whether some stupid prank was being played on me.

But sadly, it was not.
There, in front of my eyes was a new section, right next to the Biographies: Tragic Life Stories.

(Update to answer Pete and clarify - yes, a complete, in your face section. As legitimate as Biography, Travel, Science Fiction or Crime.)

Oh bloody hell. This refers to the hideous examples of autobiography and biography where every poor unfortunate thing to have been abused, tormented or taken advantage of is encouraged to pour their hearts out onto the page. I take nothing away from these poor souls, but the sheer proliferation of these books seems somehow to increase their degradation, to pour new suffering onto them by appearing to enter them into a competition where the winner is the one whose suffering titillates and enthralls you the most. (that's enthralls YOU, not me.)

It all started with a few books, each more shocking than the last, each portraying some poor soul's suffering as entertainment. Of course, most obvious of these was Dave Pelzer, a man whose suffering has been sufficient to sustain a whole series of novels, detailing his life through his suffering. Worse yet, he seems to be inspiring his other relatives to write their own stories as well.

And then of course we have the literary agents, never slow to spot and milk a trend. It's thanks to them that these books reproduced like bacteria on a petri dish. Where once there was only a few, complete with required white cover and tales of woe, suddenly there are enough to necessitate their own section of a bookstore.

Although, it's not just the agents who are to blame. Nor the writers. No, the ones who are really guilty in all of this are you.
You, who actually picks up a book like this and reads it.
You, who is never content with the one book of human suffering.
It's your fault that the bookstore now has a section specifically devoted to Tragic life Stories.
You should all be ashamed of yourselves.
But not too ashamed. If you start letting the shame get to you, you may find the agents knocking on your door and you may join the ranks of tragic life stories yourselves.

I'm off to get a drink. There's a bad taste in my mouth.

Update (22/08/07): Following Steve's comment that he'd already blogged this at the start of August about WHS, I realised that I'd written this post about Waterstones, when obviously it's WHSmiths. I have now changed it to read WHSmith. As I say in the comments - I am a moron. More drink please.

New look?

New look for the blog.
Nothing major, just stripped it down a little (I hear that it's very web 2.0 to be doing stripped down).
Any problems? Comments?
Cheers

Happy Birthday Louise

Louise's birthday this weekend just gone.
Happy Birthday darling (not that she reads this - but just in case.)
Much excitement from Molly; she does love a celebration, no matter whose it is. We got everything ready the night before and then she sneaked downstairs early to set out all of Louise's cards and lay her presents out before bouncing back upstairs to loudly wake us both up.

The photos and the painting were, of course, the favourites.

As is quite right.

Just in case you ever wanted to - you can cook your laptop at 300 degrees for 5 minutes...

It ends up looking like the picture, but amazingly, it still works.
Lucky White Girl indeed

(via)

Alan Moore scans daily

Ever so wonderful scans of an Alan Moore tribute page by Neil Gaiman & Mark Buckingham.

From the Extraordinary Works of Alan Moore by TwoMorrows Publishing

Laura Howellor how to get from a post on the Beano to Gilbert & Sullivan in nearly 2 hours.

A perfect example of how blogging posts can take on a life of their own:

A little while ago, I put up a post picking up a Kaiser Chiefs / Little Plum page by Hunt Emerson from Steve Flanagan. This was followed by a comment from Joe reminding me about an FPI post about Hunt & The Beano. So I put up a quick update to the first post from me.

But both guilt and curiosity had been piqued by then. After that cue lots of linking around the Internet to discover the work of the fabulously talented Laura Howell; the writer and inker of Hunt's Ratz strip in the Beano, but primarily a very accomplished cartoonist in her own right.

So far I've wasted a good hour and a bit just having loads of fun meandering around her site.
The obvious highlight has to be The Bizarre Adventures of Gilbert & Sullivan (2002-2003). It seems Laura has been doing this for years (strips collected here) before deciding to reformat a single A4 strip into 6 pages, making it a genuine manga strip and entering it for the International Manga & Anime Festival 2006.
Of course, knowing a great Victorian Manga Comedy when they saw it the judges awarded her 1st prize in the print cartoon comic category straight away. Hurrah.

Above: Page 1 of the Bizarre Adventures of Gilbert & Sullivan strip that won the IMAF 2005 award. Story & Art by Laura Howell

Another fantastically funny strip is Hell on Toast, which Laura describes as:
"A project I seem to have been working on forever, with many different incarnations. The core of it is a story about a boy with sixth sense, Satan's offspring and a bunch of demons. It's not nearly as serious as it sounds."
Sadly there's only a taste of what looks like a very, very funny strip on her website. It would be really nice to be able to see some more.

Above: "If you’re going to mess with eldritch forces, it helps to have a working knowledge of geometry." Hell on Toast illustration. Text and art by Laura Howell.

So off you all go, have a look yourselves. And don't forget to say hi and stop by the shop as well.

Dear NRA - are you sure this is what you mean?

The Second Amendment:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

A recent BBC news story:
A man in Florida surprised police by handing in a surface-to-air missile launcher during a gun amnesty in the city of Orlando.
Under the no-questions-asked scheme, "Kicks for Guns", anyone who surrendered a firearm would receive trainers or $50 (£25).
The Orlando Sentinel newspaper said the man exchanged the rocket launcher for designer footwear for his daughter.

Is it just me or is this possibly not what the writer's of the constitution had in mind? God bless America

Two You Tube videos in a week ... bloody broadband

Before I had broadband, back in those glorious days of dial up internet I used to really get pissed off with you lot putting huge great slabs of embedded You-Tube videos into your weblogs.

Now I have broadband, I've put two up in a week: Jonathan Ross & Marcus Brigstocke.
I'm sorry.
No more.

At least until I find something else really, really good.
So that's Monday then.

Religion by Marcus Brigstocke

Have a feeling that Jez put this up already, but I've just had a quick search and can't find it on there. Stupid me if I'm wrong.

Update - stupid me indeed. Twas Pete.

This one definitely makes the Fictions 2007 Christmas CD.

Benefits of Broadband part 1 (probably of 1): Radio 4

For years and years I've always said I should listen to more Radio 4. I know I should listen to Radio 4 more, I always mean to, but it's no good trying to listen to it at work; too many distractions to concentrate. And then I often find that the night schedule is, to be frank, often a touch crap.

But now I have broadband.
Now I can use the wonderful listen again function.

Today I caught the latest edition of Chain Reaction with Mark Thomas interviewing Alexi Sayle.
Then two episodes of the Now Show
Later Charm Offensive
So much radio, so little time ........

Hunt Emerson on the Beano - yes, it does seem so wrong.but strangely right as well....

Steve Flanagan posted this one first:

That's Hunt Emerson doing Little Plum in the latest Beano Max (Sept 2007) meeting the Kaiser Chiefs.
Like he says - strange to see Hunt in the Beano. Especially after years of seeing things like Citymouth or Firkin. But also very good.

Hunt links here, here, here

Update: Hunt Emerson on the FPI blog here.
Laura Howell, Hunt's inker/writer on his Ratz strip in the Beano has a lovely website here.

Having children means knowing that whatever present you get pales into insignificance ......

Every year, I try to find Louise, my dear wife, something lovely and nice for her birthday. But no matter what I get, no matter how original, innovative, interesting or wanted it is, it will never beat the thing that Molly gives to her. (Of course, I'm not alone here, the stuff Molly gets me for my birthday is automatically the best thing as well.)

Originally, when Molly was younger it was enough to put a couple of scratches of paint onto a piece of paper, or make a handprint, or get her to write a few words.

Above: Perfect example of the blobs of paint on paper, collage a few photos and get molly to write a few words approach (dec 2002).

But as the years go by it gets more and more complicated, as Molly wants to do more and more stuff for Birthdays, Christmas and Mothers & Fathers Day herself. And sucker that I am, I seem to see it as some sort of creative challenge to come up with ideas for us to do for Louise.

Because I'm really not that creative artistically. And I really regret it. I would love to be able to fdraw, paint, sculpt or anything really. And I have the ideas in my head, just no way of getting them out using these crap, unartsitic hands of mine.

Take last Mother's Day. Molly had a scrapbooking kit given to her by an Aunt when we moved up here. But she's sadly never really done that much with it. So I thought we'd use it to make a nice collage. It took forever to do. Chaos everywhere.
Lesson #1: If it involves your child and lots of small fiddly bits it will take a long, long time and the clean up will be epic.

Above: Mother's Day 2006 Molly and Daddy exercising their creative muscles.

Or last Christmas when I decided that we'd done all the usual ideas of painted mugs, pictures and all the rest. I then had the bright idea of making a special book for mummy. Oh, god, what a nightmare that was. It seemed such a great idea - buy a blank book, get Molly to fill it with stuff. It was like pulling teeth.
Lesson #2; Never, ever try to get her to do presents she hasn't already shown great enthusiasm for.
Lesson #3; Always make sure it's easy to do over a short period of time.

So this year, I had another bright idea for Louise's birthday. This time I thought I'd almost bypass Molly altogether, although we did talk about what "we" were going to do for mummy's birthday.

The plan was originally to use Flickr's Warholizer to produce a couple of lovely framed photos for Louise. I got a couple of the better ones printed and framed:

Molly gets Warholized August 2007

But then I was in the Works yesterday and they do really ridiculously cheap canvasses and acrylic paints, and, despite never having used acrylics before and not having the slightest bit of artistic talent, I thought Molly and I could give it a go.

Today we decamped to Molly's room, banned Louise from coming in and set about making our own Warhol-esque reproduction of the photos. Molly has a little more talent than I do, but in truth, she's unlikely to be an artist when she grows up. So this was the result:

Molly & Daddy do their own little Warhol.

I'm particularly impressed how we managed to get all four images to be subtly different even though we were aiming for identical.
But all in all, we were justifiably pretty chuffed with ourselves on just finishing it.

Now, all I have to do is not let Louise see this for a couple of days until her birthday.
So no telling that you all saw it here first!

Alan Who ??

Evidence of ignorance, if it were needed ...... alan who?

On today's Weakest Link :

"The author of the graphic novels Watchmen and V For Vendetta is Alan who?"
"Ginsberg"

Toronto Comics Arts Festival - worth it just for the cover alone....

via Blog at Newsarama
Isn't that just the loveliest con cover you've ever seen?
Art by Darwyn Cooke

Jonathan Ross loves to masturbate ......

Footage of Jonathan Ross and a very embarrassed Neil Gaiman at the Eisner Awards 2007

(via The Beat)

Simpsons Movie

Molly and I went to see the Simpsons Movie the other day at Pocklington Arts Centre.
And although it did really feel like a very long episode, there was enough in there to keep me interested for the two hours. And even quite a bit of stuff that had me guffawing to myself.
(None of which I can remember right now though - curse my failing memory).

It's Birthday season at Bruton mansions .......Or what I spent £200 on today.....

Louise's birthday this weekend, Molly's next weekend. Louise wants her's to remain anonymous but Molly wants you all to know she's going to be 8.

Previous years we've called in babysitters or dropped Molly round at a friends for the day and taken ourselves off to Toys R Us or gone round Birmingham and got Molly's presents. However, this year, with the still developing that support network and the chaos of the decorator, it was just me waving goodbye to the family and heading off into York on my lonesome.
Usually most of the purchases would have been done already online, but we'd just left it a little too close. I don't mind ordering something for me and having it turn up late, but Molly's birthday presents really need to arrive before Molly's birthday. A small but fairly important consideration.

£200 plus later and i'm home bearing gifts.
We did go for the Nintendo DS in the end. And two games: Nintendogs and the latest Super Mario Bros. But it took a while to find a good package that would give me that.
The problem with stores like Game, Game Station etc is that they obviously get certain titles deep discounted by the suppliers which is why they 're able to do cheap packages.
Unfortunately I don't think Molly would be too impressed with the latest Transformers game.
In the end it was Virgin who did a package with something we actually wanted.

But we're all sorted now. Skint, but sorted.
It shall all be worth it when she nearly passes out from hyperventilating with excitement in a week's time.

Five pound notes from a cash machine.

Today in York I got 4 of these out of the cash machine:

I thought they'd stopped putting them in cash machines. For a moment, standing there in front of a queue I was quite flummoxed and had to check they'd given me the right amount.
Strange how you don't really notice something has practically dissapeard from your life till it comes back.

We have been decorated....

Decorator finished today.
He's back next week to do the outside of the house, which isn't anything like the huge job this last week and a bit has been. All it's going to involve is opening the windows for him and then bogging off for the day.

Anyway, Lounge is now the same colour as the bedrooms;
Kitchen is a very acid mint green. Louise is currently trying to get used to it. It may take a while before this colour feels right.

Libretto update ...... usb no, sd cards yes.....

I haven't really blogged much about the Libretto since this post bemoaning the problems I had with it. Everything worked out for the best in the end.

In the end I realised that the thing was too old to buy a usb cardbus PC card for it - the Libretto doesn't support Cardbus.
But it does support PC Card adaptors for SD cards.
This means that I've now been using it very successfully for a while as a mini laptop. It's absolutely perfect for carrying round and writing wherever I am at the time. It also carries quite a bit of retro chic. Lots of people have come up and asked what the hell it is.

And what it is is lovely!

And now they're threatening fines over the slogans we wear......

From the BBC:

A man spotted on CCTV wearing a T-shirt bearing an "offensive" slogan has been warned he risks an £80 fine if he is caught again. The slogan on the garment read: "Don't piss me off! I am running out of places to hide the bodies".

Of course, the irony is that, on the basis of that photo, the slogan doesn't read as a joke, it looks like a career choice statement.

BBC Comics season

The Beeb are going to be having a Comics Britannia series as part of their bigger Comics season that already features Jonathan Ross' documentary on Steve Ditko.

There's already been talk of people like Baxendale, Moore and Gibbons being interviewed.
That's my license fee justified for another year then.
(Via Joe)

Peanuts Manga - No really, it sort of works....

link 1, link 2 (via Boing Boing)

Nintendo DS - Your help required......

HELP!!!!!

We're going to get Molly a DS for her birthday.
But what games to get for an 8 year old girl. Not too girly, not too violent either.

We're definitely getting her a Nintendogs game - that's sorted.
But we were going to get the latest Harry potter, until I read the reviews on Amazon where it says it's not great.
Then we thought we'd get her the Star Wars Lego II. But again, Amazon reviews point out that it's got horrible glitches running all the way through it.

So, loyal and trusted readers, any ideas?

Molly is now a young falconer.Better than owning a pony.

Before sorting out the lounge for the decorator tomorrow, we spent the morning at Allerthorpe Lakeland Park at the Falconry Centre.
They run a Young Falconer's Club every Sunday morning. Molly had a lovely time, learning all about the birds and making new friends as she does so. In the weeks to come she'll be getting more and more hands on with the birds and it even extends as far as preparing their food, which involves gutting chicks for the birds, not something she's exactly keen on, probably not helped by me telling her it's no different from her eating sausages. At this rate we'll have a vegetarian child in a few years time, something Louise is absolutely dreading.

Of course, this means that at some point she's going to start banging on about wanting to buy a bird of prey. And whilst this may be a better and cheaper option than buying a pony, it's still not going to happen.

While Molly was off Falconing, Louise and I spent two hours having Coffee at the Lakeside cafe, watching the birds and the watersports in the glorious morning air.
Or rather, Louise sat reading and I spent half an hour downing coffee to wake up - 9:30!
On a Sunday. Not good.

Decorating Day something or other ..... I'm losing all track of time.

Hey presto, just a day after blogging about being so tired of decorating, we're at it again.
Today we had to prepare the Lounge for the assault tomorrow. You never realise how much crap you have hanging around until it's time to move all of it into the garage. It's all done now though, Molly's moaning about the lack of TV already and it hasn't even been packed away yet.

I've taken pictures and labelled the cables just so I put the sky and the dvd and video back properly.
generally, which is pretty useful given the nature of the job as an Another example of the dichotomy of my technological existence. Although I'm very techyICT Technician, I have an insane technophobia where it comes to my own technology. For example; I will cheerfully take apart and mess with other people's computers and experiment to my heart's content. But I'm very, very careful with anything I do with my own computer.

So the Sky cabling is just confusing as all hell to me. And I just know that if I were to just pull all the cables out and then put them all back in when we're finished with the painting there's no hope that the system would work.

One important decision we're facing on re-assembling the TV/Sky setup is whether to reconnect the video or not. The last time we used the video was over 3 months ago, and before that neither of us can remember. it's just that we don't really watch enough TV to warrant videoing anything. We either watch it at the time or wait until the oh so inevitable repeat.
So the video just sits there being all useless and taking up space. And you all know by now how I hate wasted space.

Ellis to do Ultimate Hulk/Iron Man

Comic book resources has news that Warren Ellis has signed up to do an Ultimate Hulk/Iron Man crossover.
What with spending every hour (so it seems) either in the pub or online how does he find the time?

Hitch & Millar to do monthly FF bookYes. Monthly. Yes, it is That Bryan Hitch.

Over at Newsarama there's an interview about the new FF title from Hitch & Millar.
That's the FF proper, not the Ultimate FF.
But it's Bryan Hitch. On a monthly? I know he talks about being able to do it in the interview but......

Decorating Day 5 .. it continues.....

It would be nice to be able to say that the lack of blooging these past couple of nights has been due to some modicum of social life, but alas no. It's all been about the decorating.

Thursday & Friday were all about moving rooms around so the decorator could get into them.
The good news is that the upstairs is done now, the bedroom and spare bedroom are the same colour as the office. The Bathroom is a lovely shade of blue:


Molly's room took 7 coats of paint in the end, but is now finished. We put all her stuff back and then spent all of Thursday night reorganising her room. The end result is fantastic. And as you can see, most of her toys came out to see as well.


Monday is time to start on the Lounge and Kitchen, which means Sunday will be spent moving the books, graphic novels, dvds and furniture into the garage for the night. Thrilling.

Henry Rollins: America is Under Attack.

Henry Rollins has not only a website, but a tv show on IFC in the states.
Articulate, intelligent, never afraid to speak his mind and looking like every inch the hardcore punk godfather he is, dear Henry has long been a favourite for his own very funny and warm brand of spoken word stand up. But I'd missed this.

Great place to start: America is Under Attack. (via Jez)