DFC day - issue 23, the Halloween issue.....

Molly and I spent a fair bit of today talking about the DFC, drawing characters from the DFC and then, as it popped through the letterbox at midday, reading the Halloween issue of the DFC.

And then it occurred to me that I really haven't talked about the DFC enough. Every single week for the last 23 weeks it's dropped onto the doormat and Molly and I have read it each week. Yet, there's barely a mention of it here at Fictions. Okay. Time to change all that then. Each week, Friday is DFC post day.

This week is special Halloween week. Cover and interior strip called Will Scoggin's Skull by the great John Welding, written by Ben Haggarty.

And lots more besides. As usual, Molly's favourites are the funny, cartoony ones: Vern & Lettuce (Sarah McIntyre), Crab Lane Crew (Jim Medway), Fish Head Steve (Jamie Smart), Sausage & Carrots (Simone Lia). But I'm enjoying the return of Mo-Bot High (Neil Cameron) and am loving the Mezolith strip (Ben Haggarty & incredible art by Adam Brockbank).

Go to the DFC site. Subscribe. Either for you or a child you know. Christmas is coming and a subscription makes a great present.

Happy Halloween

Lucky people in the USA can pick the Fantagraphics Halloween Peanuts special up from their local comic shop. That's the great thing about Peanuts and Charles Schulz: always a picture for every occasion!

DFC readers? Your help needed ......

I'm currently getting the DFC for Molly. (Okay, and for me. I admit it.) And we're both really enjoying it, although it's particularly interesting to compare exactly how we're enjoying it. Because, not surprisingly, the 9 year old girl and the 37 year old man enjoy a children's comic in markedly different ways.

However, I'd like to write more about it but was really wanting to hear more opinions on the matter. I'm particularly looking to talk to parents about how their children have read the DFC and what they like and dislike about it.

So if you've got anything to say, please add it in the comments or send it to me via Twitter or email. I'll look forward to hearing what you have to say.

October round up....

Back at the end of September I made this post and told myself to revisit it around now.

October's been a good enough month. Not that I've actually managed to do any of that relaxing stuff I was thinking about. But schoolwork has eased slightly, as I've gotten a fair bit of work done ahead of it needing to be done. Of course, this still means the three huge work things are still hanging over me and I really have to make some inroads into them this half term. Joy.

Reviewing's been slow this month. It hasn't helped that most of the last two weeks has seen me completely bogged down in a huge Grendel review / series overview. But it's done now. Of course, while I've been getting behind with this the reviews have been piling up. 25 to do now. And more meant to be arriving to review any time soon. But the good thing is that I'm still enjoying it. Not at 2am when i'm trying to find the words perhaps, but at 2:20am when I've finished it and read it over and am fairly satisfied that it's good. That I enjoy.

Blogging's been okay this month. Rather too comic orientated perhaps, bu tsome months it just works like that I guess.

Good month then. Next month, the return of relaxation? That would be something.

Vote Oliver East for Elbow .....

Oliver East (author of my favourite book of the year: Trains Are ... Mint), is up for another award. This time it's for his cover artwork to the Mercury Prize winning album from Elbow: The Seldom Seen Kid.

Nominations and voting form here.

Tattoo Me .....

I've just finished writing a review of Matt Wagner's great 80s comic series Grendel that will go up on the FPI site some time in the future. But I signed off by mentioning that I had a Grendel tattoo.

And it occured to me that I'd never talked about them here. And I've talked about most things here, so why the hell not my tattoos.

I have three on my outer left calf: A Grendel face, an Ankh and the V symbol from the comic V For Vendetta. I've had them since I was 20. I wanted tattoos for a while, but was careful to choose images that would be black only (thus not fading and changing to a green mush that all colour tattoos seem to over time), simple and iconic.

Obviously, all three are comic related. Grendel, Death/Sandman, V For Vendetta. Perhaps not my three all time favourite comic series, but they were chosen because they were highly effective, striking visual icons.

I still like them. I like the surprise on people's faces when they see them for the first time. I guess I just don't look like the sort of person who does tattoos. And I always enjoy watching them try to work out what they are.

I was planning on getting a series of 6 or 7 going all the way up my leg. One day I may still do that. The Invisibles blank badge was a possibility - just a black circle would do that. But another 2 or 3 iconic images have never really presented themselves.

But never say never.

Octobriana

Whilst reading through and subsequently reviewing Paul Gravett and Peter Stanbury’s excellent new book (and ideal stocking filler) The Leather Nun and other Incredibly Strange Comics I had a sudden blast of nostalgia. My memory, always a vague, nebulous thing, suddenly kicked in as I turned to the page on Octobriana.

I remember this I thought. And it came back to me. Sitting in my parent’s car on the way back from Dudley public library with my usual horde of books. I can only have been at most early teens but I had somehow picked up an Octobriana book. Having looked across the Internet I’m increasingly convinced it was this one: Octobriana and The Russian Underground by Petr Sadecky.

Now what the librarians were doing letting a young teen borrow this is beyond me. Essentially it’s along the same lines as our favourite clothes falling off heroine Jane but with more Communism and rescue of the Russian people. There’s plentiful flesh, but never, as far as I recall, in a particularly titillating manner. Octobriana is merely too busy freeing Russia to bother with a proper top for those nippy Russian winters.

Over the years I’ve had cause to remember Octobriana a couple of times, and was pleased to see her play a role in Bryan Talbot’s seminal Luther Arkwright series. I thought at the time it was nice to see Bryan involving a little known Russian heroine in his series, but had no idea of the story behind her.

(Cover to Bryan Talbot’s Luther Arkwright, the Dark Horse reprints featuring Octobriana on the cover)

Of course, after remembering about Octobriana I did a little digging and discovered the fascinating story of her creation. The reason Bryan and countless others have used Octobriana in their stories is because she’s believed to be one of the few modern heroes in the public domain.

The classic story goes that she was created in the 60s by a group of Russian artists who called themselves Progressive Political Pornography (PPP). They created her to be a spirit of the times, both battling for the motherland and, by virtue of her overt sexuality and heroic status, questioning the politics of the time, which the PPP believed had little to do with their true Communism. But this story has been refuted and is largely believed to be nothing more than an elaborate and romanticised hoax on the part of Sedecky. It seems Petr Sedecky created Octobriana as Amazona and hired a couple of Czech artists to illustrate her adventures. When Sedecky left for England in 1967 her took the work with him, copied it, stuck a Russian star on the heroine’s forehead and renamed his Amazona heroine to Octobriana. Armed with the pages, photos of his supposed PPP group and a great story, he turned up at a publisher and the rest is history.

(Telegraph magazine, unknown date. Cover and black and white detail.)

Of course, the story of the PPP led to the belief that Octobriana had been created with true Communist goals and she was a creation of the people, for the people. No-one owned Octobriana. And anyone could write and draw her as they wished. That this isn’t true hasn’t stopped her use far and wide. But like Bryan himself says in this interview, many writers and artists use her likeness unaware of the elaborate hoax Sedacky perpetrated.

A fascinating story for a fascinating character. Amazing what you can turn up in the children’s section at the library next to the Tintin and Asterix books isn’t it?

Further reading:
Octobriana and the Russian Underground, part 1, part 2, part 3 from Umelec magazine 2002.
Octobriana.org website.
Octobriana Online - website.
Octobriana - website.

The Oli Smith

Oli Smith has recently updated and relaunched his website - www.theolismith.com. For a young man who writes gentle, thoughtful comics (Hazy Thursday, Summer Ball)he certainly has a real knack of pushing himself forward.

He's also getting better and better at making his promo videos for the London Underground Comics group. The last one; promoting Comiket at Paul Gravett's Comica festival is excellent. And the upcoming movie Weekend Friends looks very good as well (Weekend Friends trailer). Multi-talented and young. Damn him.

Can Hercules withstand Namor's uppercut to the nads?

Well that's what I thought when I saw this cover:

I'm keeping this on file until Molly hits 13 - then I'm using it for reference....

Warren Ellis' daughter hits her teenage years. His present to her is on his blog now. A wince inducing, hilarious piece of writing. In just 4 short years when Molly hits her teens this is what I'm going to be aiming for:

My daughter is now 13. You can tell this by the way she presents herself for dinner at a restaurant wearing red and black striped fingerless gloves, a black puffball skirt and tights, a t-shirt that’s the dilute 2008 iteration of an idea Vivienne Westwood scrawled on the back of a fag packet in 1976, and a pair of boots that appear to have been fashioned from the hollowed-out legs of a particularly unfortunate black bear. Also, by the way I’ve gone from being called “daddy” to being called “shut up, Ellis.”

I’m loving every minute of it.

Also, due to some fluke in their protection, her school’s web connection can access this website. (Yeah. I know, right?) So, one day soon, Lili or her friends will find this post.

Lili, you are an annoying toad with a mutant power for belching loud enough to set off car alarms in the next street.

I love you, little angel.

Her life will be HELL when they find this…

See? Despite all the cynical, nasty facade, he's just a lovely daddy underneath.

Writing reviews; when critical reasoning becomes complete violent hatred. All-Star Batman & Robin reviewed

Okay, before we get into this one, a little detour about the critical process and my writing.

Writing critically about comics, (just like about writing about anything) is an art. It's an art I'm learning as I go and hopefully I'm getting better at it as I do more of it. I look at some stuff and wince, but occasionally there are the odd bits that I'm rather proud of. But, as with all things, there are many who do it so much better. (Jog springs to mind first - he writes so easily, so well, so lyrically that I find myself both impressed and depressed when I read his reviewing).

But every so often something comes along that just proves almost too much to review. This can be something so amazingly good that I actually feel incapable of writing words that properly describe exactly how good a book is or can go completely the other way and be something that fills me with utter distaste and revulsion to the point where it's difficult to rein in the venom and present a reasoned case.

Examples of the former include a lot of things on my bookcase including classics by; Mssrs Moore, Morrison, Gaiman et al; Bryan Talbot's Alice in Sunderland, Posy Simmonds' Tamara Drewe; Dave Sim's Cerebus and many, many more. There's a part of me that really wants to tell you how much I love them. But a larger part that just doesn't think my writing's up to the task. So they sit on the shelf daring me to write about them and I keep putting them off.

Examples of the latter include very little to be honest. I rarely hate something that I've read. And it's mostly because of the way I get books to review. I do it the old fashioned way and go into a comic shop and get them off the shelf. I Occasionally I get sent books by publishers, but most of the time it's my choice from the shelves. With limited money and limited time, I don't really want to read something I know I just wont like.

Two notable exceptions to this last point are Ultimates Volume 3 and The Sword. I hated both of these to a point where critical reason almost left me and I was writing on venom alone. It's not something I particularly like doing and have tried not to repeat (although they are spectacularly easy reviews to write in truth - the venom just pours out onto the page).

And now we have a third example to play with. All-Star Batman & Robin, The Boy Wonder by Frank Miller and Jim Lee. And this is the one time I've gone against my desire to only read things I want to read. This one I picked up purely to see if all the bad reviews it had been getting were worth it. Morbid curiosity led my hand, just to see if it really is as bad as they say.

I wrote the review a few times. The first was in the immediate aftermath of reading the book. It was a scathing assault of a review with barely a pause for breath at times. Then I put it away to come back to for a final draft and the process of adding images for the review. This is usually where I tweak and hone and cut and add little bits to make it better. But this time I found myself re-reading it and looking again at some of the things I'd gone over fairly quickly the first time. And I found myself getting angrier and angrier with the work. So I rewrote the whole thing into pretty much the form I've included below.

And then I started to wonder whether it should be published at all. (The review, not the book). Because I'd started to think that Miller's Batman belonged in the category of near un-reviewable works. Not because it's too difficult, just because it exists outside normal, rational, reasoned writing. Miller is writing it his way, propagating his views of his world onto the characters. And I really, really wouldn't like to live in Frank's world. I may be a depressive, obsesional type but at least I can see a little hope in this world. Not like Frank.

On talking to a friend about the book I think I'm in agreement with them when they say that:

I didn't like it either. But I'm not sure it is critiqueable - in the kind of way you might not want to try and shine light on De Sade or Kathy Acker or even Alan Moore. They all have a distinct worldview - De Sade - well, you know, Acker scabarous, rancid but literary Moore benign, magical, healing. You don't have to subscribe to their views to enjoy them - tho I can't see most women appreciating some of De Sade once the titillation wears off and the reality sets in, many folks who see the world optimistically enjoying Acker or those who live in the here and now truly getting Moore.

I don't think Miller is pastiching himself - he has a world view - it's pretty overt in everything he does - even 300. A dark world , horrid, without end, he despairs for us as humans - his heroes embrace the despair. Often the only redemption is in death or self sacrifice - Dark Knight, 300, Sin City, Elektra etc etc. I thought this was Dark Knight without a good editior - his cuffing around of Robin seemed like the next move down from his cuffing around of Superman. From national hero where can you go down - redeemed boy hero with echoes of the great demon paedophilia in the whole tone and execution. It is a mirror held up to us all - look and see if you recognise it. of course many do. I'd rather read the optimism of Adv of Supes any day. But horses for courses. I think in that worldview he has started to dispense with dialogue as we know it in current terms. He doesn't want sympathy for his bad writing - he wants to complete the temple of his Hobbesian vision of man. This book pretty much did it. As for the overt sexist stuff - well it's comics - they ARE overtly sexist for the most part - add it to the masterplan of creating something that reflects how beyond redemption we really are. Frank is reall waiting for the bomb to come and right the world and the lone survivor couple to repopulate the world (all very Earth Abides). He is an end of the worldest, a once great magician, now crafting his spells for evil over good (though he never really did a lot of good - maybe the Mazzuchelli Year One (my fave Frank comic or perhaps his DD run with the same artist).

My un-named source's words ring very true. And I just have to hold up my hands and say I can't write anything better on the subject. Not right now.

But I'm still proud of what I did write for a review of All-Star Batman & Robin, The Boy Wonder. And I'd be very interested to see what you think, either in the comments But it's not something I really want to put up where I usually put my reviews. So this one's just for me, just for Fictions. Here goes..........................................

All Star Batman & Robin: The Boy Wonder Volume 1

by Frank Miller and Jim Lee

You know what? Every word; every critical mauling; every review expressing amazement that this is the same Frank Miller who wrote Batman: Year One; They're all true.

This is incredibly, unbearably bad. It almost goes beyond being truly awful and verges on a ridiculous parody of a comic. In fact, I wouldn't be overly surprised if Frank actually came out in a few months time and owned up to it being a huge joke.

Except it's just not funny and, at times, veers into being plain downright disturbing.

It's overwritten, yet desperately light on plot, packed with really horrible dialogue, awful stereotypes and familiar characters deliberately written as hideous authority figures. Now maybe Miller's just writing it to fit in with his long-standing ideas on the Batman mythos. After all, you can really see the Batman here as a younger version of the sociopath in Dark Knight. The same manic drive, the same willingness to endanger himself and anyone who gets in his way, the same recklessness with children, the same disdain for other superheroes - it's all here, just like it was in Dark Knight Returns. But where Dark Knight Returns was inventive, original and actually had something to say, All-Star Batman & Robin is mere pastiche, taking all the excesses of Dark Knight Returns and going just too far with them into the realms of self-parody.

And of course, what review of All Star Batman & Robin would be complete without mention of the line that may well go down in history as the stupidest ever and has given rise to everyone's favourite catch-phrase:

("I'm the goddamn Batman". Stop you in your tracks awful dialogue and the systematic abuse of a 12 year old boy. Pretty much a summary of the experience of reading All-Star Batman & Robin.)

And the art? Jim Lee's doing his best Jim Lee here and, on purely aesthetic level, it's okay as long as you like Jim Lee's art. But I don't. It's just not really my cup of tea. He's always been able to lay a page out and does dynamic action very well. But what I couldn't get over, what I found utterly amazing was the sheer gratuitous nature of the whole thing. Now maybe it was Frank giving him layout instructions or maybe it was Jim Lee throwing these things in himself but something is horribly wrong here.

Just look at the first few pages. Page 1: Splash page. Dick Grayson flying through the air on trapeze. Page 2: more trapeze. page 3: Vicki Vale. Splash Page - gratuitous underwear shot. Page 4: more underwear, only in leering, creepy closeup:

(Vicki Vale. Or at least the bits of Vicki Vale that Jim and Frank think are most important.)

And so it goes throughout the book. No opportunity is missed to have a long, leering look at sex and violence in equal measure. Often together. Lee uses the panels like a camera, carefully going in for the nastiest shot possible, angling it just right to get the ass, crotch or cleavage shot just right.

And then, on top of the visual unease we have the underlying nastiness. That Miller writes Batman as borderline insane isn't a surprise. He's done it before. But what really sets the alarm bells ringing is the deliberate kidnap and subsequent verbal and physical abuse of Dick Grayson.

Miller goes to great lengths to point out repeatedly that Grayson is just 12, almost as if he's taking delight in what he's doing to him. It's disturbing. Every conversation between Batman and Dick Grayson has a violent, threatening undercurrent and then, as the story develops, this undercurrent manifests itself into endangerment and neglect (leaving the 12 year old who's just seen his parents killed in your bat-cave with nothing to eat but the rats) and finally explodes into physical violence as well. It's bubbling under all the way through but after confronting Green Lantern and goading him into a fight, Batman lets Robin have a go at the green boy-scout. After Robin ends up nearly killing Green Lantern with a vicious chop to the throat, Batman springs into action to pull the Boy-Wonder off. Of course, Batman needs to get Robin out of the way, so you can almost (almost) understand that he needs to throw him across the room into the wall. But does he really need to land a vicious punch while Robin's already down?

He does if he's Frank Miller's Goddamn Batman. Way to beat up on a 12 year old Frank.

You read it. And something inside just dies as you realise that Frank Miller just lost any semblance of being the writer you once thought was up there with Alan Moore.

There are so many things wrong with All Star Batman & Robin, The Boy Wonder that it's almost impossible to list them all.

It's vicious, nasty and just plain awful. I'm done with Frank Miller.

Richard Bruton

High School Musical 3

The other day we all toddled along to see High School Musical 3. Obviously this was very much a Molly trip, after all, she's been into it for many, many years. In fact, we were working out when we first became aware of it and we reckon that Molly was very much a trailblazer on the High School Musical front, having seen a couple of trailer videos on a saturday morning show.

After this Louise went into the local Disney store to ask about it and she got just blank looks. So we reckon Molly was completely into it before Disney UK got wind of it.

Anyway.... High School Musical 3. Obviously not intended fro Louise or myself, but we went along anyway, mostly to share in the excitement of our little girl, but also because we rather like the other films as well. Added to that, I listened to Mark Kermode's review of it the other day and he rather liked it as well. So I was rather up for it to be honest.

Titles rolled. First frames of the film did something that I honestly haven't ever heard before in a cinema. It was a long, lingering shot of Zac Efron as Troy Bolton, on a basketball court, layered in sweat. Full face on screen, extreme close up. I heard many, many gasps and sighs of pure lust from the teens and the grown ups behind me.

After that, it was a really terrible first half. Completely obvious, desperately looking for a story to tie together the songs (and failing). The actors all did a good job and the songs were okay, but not great.

And then it got spectacularly better. So much so that, by the end twenty minutes I felt like crying AND dancing along.

Molly, of course, thinks it was aazing and wonderful and the best of the trilogy. Indeed, she now thinks it's her favourite film of all-time. Louise and I agree that the first half (bar the first song) is terrrible and the worst of the three, but the ending is just wonderful. Of the stars, we can see Ashley Tisdale making a great career playing the sort of roles Jennifer Aniston used to do (like Aniston, Tisdale has a great sense of comic timing). And that Zac Efron may just be the next Brad Pitt if he chooses his movies well. Like Louise says; he's a very good looking boy indeed.....

"Eat my Paralysing Pistol, you Treen c**t! I'm the Goddamn Pilot of The Future"

The title comes from Chris Weston's post where he speculates on just what Frank Miller's Dan Dare might just be like, following recent reports that, after finishing off the Spirit, Frank may be turning his butchers hands to "a classic sci-fi hero".

And remember, Chris did this:



But luckily for us Dan Dare fans, Frank looks like he's set to ruin everyone's memory of another classic Sci-fi hero: Buck Rogers.

Paul Pope's Battling Boy - looking great

Over at his Pulp Hope blog Paul Pope is talking a little about his new Battling Boy book that he's working on:

In Batman Year 100, I had room for a couple of long fight sequences, but I felt cramped even with 200 pages. This fight scene from BATTLING BOY alone is about 50 pages. It's liberating to have no page restrictions. I wish Kirby could've had 50 pages for one fight scene, imagine what he would've done.

A 50 page Pope fight scene. Now that will be something to see.

The Atheist / Agnostic Bus

The Atheist Bus? I'm with Neil Gaiman on this one - "There's probably no God" says Agnostic to me rather than Atheist. But a fine piece of advertising nonetheless

No I do not want to restart my computer. Ooops, too late.

No, I do not want to restart my bloody computer now. Why do you keep asking me?

Windows XP is okay. I like it. I'm used to it.
But what I really, really, really hate is the stupid, nagging, condascending approach taken by Microsoft to updates.
Why, for example is there no option to just turn off the nag screen?
Why, for another example is the default delay between nag screens just 5 minutes?
Why, oh bloody why, is the nag screen allowed to just close the computer down on it's own?
Like it just bloody did. Bastard.

Yes, I'm on holiday.
No, I'm not in a good mood.
Why do you ask?

Bunny Suicides banned. Stupidity is so funny sometimes.....

Andy Riley's Book Of Bunny Suicides is a funny book, worthy of a good half hour of chuckles and able to raise a smile whenever I run across it. But there's never been a time, no matter how down I may get when I look at a page and suddenly start thinking it's a good idea to try one of the methods out.

But someone in America thought her son may be tempted. After all, it seems that this one book is responsible for every suicide in China. Sometimes the world is just one big global mess of stupid isn't it?

(Via Neil Gaiman's Journal)

Hideously huge work project # 3: Becta ICT Mark

And here's the final one.
The Becta ICT Mark.
On the face of it a really good idea. The school gets to show off how good it's ICT provision is.

But looking into it the other week myself and the ICT co-ord realised just how much bloody work is involved.

Like all of these things it's really just an excuse in paper pushing leading to a nice award we can put on the letterheads.
Evidence after evidence after evidence. We had a rough tot up when we looked at the website.
We reckon 96 separate pieces of written evidence are needed.

Surely that's just a little over-zealous?

So that makes three very large projects to fit into my working week. And of course, since my main role, the bit I love, is looking after children and get them doing great ICT, I have a grand total of 10 hours free to get all of the techy stuff done. And like all techy things there's the extras, the problems, the faults and the bitty stuff to fit into that. So maybe 5 hours all in of time to do these three huge things?

Looks like they may take a while doesn't it?

Hideously huge work project # 2: Website & Blog

Now this isn't that bad in terms of it's actually going to be bloody useful.
The problem is that we've got an old, crappy website.
And we've also got a nice shiny easy to use website.

But what I haven't got is any time at all to get stuff from one to the other.
Nor have I any time to make the new website look great.

Because I don't care how good it looks, how easy it's meant to be, you just know that it takes ages to get used to anything new like this. A whole new infrastructure and command system to get my head round.

Not something that can be done between lessons in the odd five minutes really. Plus while I'm not getting time to do the new website we're still actively using the old website and I'm needing to update that one.
Not enough time. Never enough time.....

Hideously huge work project # 1: Learning Platform

Last week we had a training day about the Learning Platform we're getting as part of the governement initiative to have an online presence for all children. Basically it's an education intranet. Each school gets their own learning platform and I get to sort ours out.

It shall be hell.

We were at a meeting a while back when one of the primary heads who's become a bit of a Learning Platform poster boy was quizzed on it. He and his deputy have been working on it pretty much 50% of their week for a year.

They've got the staff onto it. And the governors. They're hoping to get the children on later in year 2. And the parents? Year 3 they think.

3 years to get an ICT project off the ground?
3 years in ICT is a lifetime.
Bloody ridiculous.
And I get to be the fool trying to do it at our school.
Can you feel the enthusiasm?

Computers - devil's work. Hard disk temperatures and print queues. That was my day.

At school today we had the saga of the printer that didn't exist. Or at least that's what I began to think. We've got a command line on each computer that tells it where to print. Only print servers actually have a physical printer attached. Except this one bloody machine kept reporting a duplicate printer. And no matter what I did it just would not delete. It didn't exist, couldn't exist and had been like this for a few weeks. I'd meant to sort it last week, but although it huffed a bit and was a tad slow, it did print what it was meant to - so it went to the end of a bloody long queue.

Today it stopped printing completely. It would print a test page no matter what happened. Even when it technically had no printer attached, out came the page.

So I tried everything. Admin deletion, safe mode deletion, safe mode networking deletion, looking through registry entries. It took ages and nothing worked. Then I unplugged it from the network and rebooted. Printer is still there and so are three Microsoft Word 2007 print jobs from a week ago. Delete those and the bloody printer finally deletes itself. Obviously the teacher had either logged on wrongly when the network was down and the print server down or there had been one of those stupid accidents that computers like to have just to screw me around every so often.

That was three hours of my day. When I finished I felt like either celebrating or throwing the computer out the window. In the end I decided against both and had a coffee. But thinking back I've decided to blame Microsoft as it was a Word 2007 print job that caused it. Seems fair to me.

The other problem of the day comes from this post at the weekend. After the upbeat tone at the end, things went from bad to worse with my computer and it's hard disk temperature.

To recap, I read a post in Ask Jack and started worring about my 4 year plus computer and the hard disk. Downloaded a couple of temperature monitoring programs and immediately started worring when they told me the thing was critically hot. Three programs reported high, one reported all well. Same yesterday as I was frantically backing up and resigning myself to a new computer soon.

But after a google around and testing on the machines at work, it seems there'sa problem with Samsung HDDs reporting temp eratures wrongly on some programs, especially the ones I used. So after all the worry it was but a false alarm. Two programs report all is well 98% healthy, 32C after an hour and a half working on it tonight and all seems well. I'm increasingly convinced I'll end up with a new computer within a year, but maybe this one has a little bit left in it yet.

How tired? bed before midnight tired.

Tonight I do something I rarely do. In fact, so far this year I don't think I have actually got into bed before midnight. But I've just set a couple of things for the blog to pop up over the next few days and then I'm turning off the computer and going to bed. It's 11:35 Monday night as I write this. I'd like to think this is some major turning point in my ongoing battle with sleep (or lack thereof) but I think this is just a minor skirmish won in a war where I'm playing the British with the Zulu hordes advancing.

The last few days have been exhausting. Today at school was just as exhausting and tonight, back at mom and dads again to fix TV, sort more stuff out and just say hi was utterly exhausting. I fell asleep on the sofa when we got back in from mom and dads. Woke up half an hour later and was utterly convinced it was Tuesday morning. Brain just not working properly anymore.

Luckily, I have half term coming up. But seeing as I've got 20 plus things to finish before half term and today I accomplished absolutely none of them I think I'm doing schoolwork that week. It just never ends.

Night night.

Weekend - moving house but not ours

Spent all weekend moving mom and dad into their new house. Am now completely exhausted. To the point where doing anything that involves thought, especially creative, reasoned thought is nigh impossible.

A rather trying experience really. It started early on Friday. The removal van arrives at their old house in Dudley at 8am and they start the packing and loading. Working solidly the removal men are all done and on the road at midday.

We told mom and dad they had to be ready to be on the road as the removal van left. But in the end, it was 2:30pm before they set off. At 3pm the removal van turns up outside our house, having been given instructions to do this by dad if they weren't in Pocklington in time. Mom & Dad eventually show up at 6, long after we'd told the removal men to park up and turn up for unloading in the morning. In the end it wasn't so bad, as the Pocklington house they were buying was owned by an old couple as well, who were just as bad at organising themselves as mom and dad are. So at 4pm and then 5pm we got worried phone calls from the lady asking for more time to move out. At this point Louise and I realised that we'd suddenly become the move organisers.

Resigned to this wonderful new role, we got up nice and early Saturday morning and headed down to the house. Which is where we've spent the last couple of days. Exhausted, aching and mentally and physically wiped out - perfect for a Monday morning at work.

The good news is that all of the hard work seems to have paid off and mom and dad are settled in and mostly unpacked. Louise and I have worked our arses off to get them to this state. Kichen, Lounge, Dining Room, Bedrooms - all done. All that's left is dad's study and the garage. But there's still work to be done in between the paid schoolwork, the writing, the blog, the reviewing, the catching up with schoolwork etc etc.

Computer health - a little information can be a good and a bad thing....

Happened to read a post on the Guardian site's Ask Jack column about older computers where he said it's worth checking the hard disk health. Now, shameful though it may be, I hadn't thought of doing this before now with my 4 year plus pc.

So I downloaded a couple of hard disk checkers (HDD Health and HD Tune) to see what they say. HDD Health immediately starts pop up after pop up telling me that the HDD temp is up to 65C. This is not good.

One shut down and restart after 10 minutes and it's back down to 41C, where it's been for the last hour. HD Tune says the same. Both of them say that the health of the HDD is good, apart from this initial temp problem.

On the plus side I now have a check on it and am reassured. On the minus side, I'm now paranoid beyond reason that it's all likely to explode if I do anything HDD intensive on it. So of course, I'm spending a lot of time watching the little temp icon on the taskbar now. It may be because I moved the pc around to try and cut down on the noise problem I was getting with my buzzy ears. I'd turned it round and backed it into the unit by the side of the desk. This probably meant that there just wasn't enough air going through the machine. So I guess I'll just have to put up with it out in the open. Turn the music up and cope.

I'm just off to do a couple of backups though - just to be sure!

Things Molly wants for Christmas but Santa will probably not be able to deliver .....

Number 1: The Roby Doll:



"Roby my little brother doll. Hold him, hug him, he is adorable. He will be your best friend. Soft body, moulded face and realistic hair. Comes dressed in his own outfit and shoes. You can also dress him with real clothes. For ages 3 years and over. Height 65cm."

Oh lord. This is just creepy. I'm thinking Child's Play every time I look at it.
Not a chance of that on Dec 25th. Sorry Molly.

All the stress, none of the fun. Someone else's house move:

My parents are moving house this weekend to come up to Pocklington.

So we get all the stress of the moving house process and yet none of the reward. Lovely.
So this weekend will be a little light here on the blog. I plan on being too tired to function properly and I imagine my back will be singing by the end of it as well.

And I still can't drink on these tablets. Bah.

Wanted - Graphic Novels for a small bookshop to try....

The local bookshop where I live; Simply Books of Pocklington, is a wonderful place. Tiny, cosy and an wonderfully inviting bookshop run by locals who care not only about the books but also about the town. (Just look at these great pictures from the Harry Potter book launch to see what I mean).

They've decided to move into slightly bigger premises from the incredibly tiny shop they have at the moment. And I happened to email the owner and congratulate her on her move and suggested that she might want to think about stocking some graphic novels.

She's very keen, but has no idea what to order to try it out. I've got ideas, of course, and will be talking to her about them. But I thought it would be interesting and fun to see what everyone else thought about it. What would you stock in a small bookshop to accurately reflect the medium? To start you off, I think a small adult selection of maybe 10 titles and a slightly larger children's selection would be good.

Over to you.... comments or email.....

Buzzzzzzzz buzzzzzzzz buzzzzzzzzz buzzzzzzzzzz buzzzzzzzz. That's the inside of my head that is.

Having a really crappy week. At the risk of repeating myself and being frankly boring my back is really playing up, I'm on painkillers and anti-inflams and they're not really working. Or maybe they are and I just haven't noticed. Maybe this is the new normal? Maybe this is what I should be used to now?

On top of that I seem to have a headache most of the time at night. Most likely this is down to a chronic lack of sleep.

But the computer is buzzing at me. Annoyingly, low whiny, buzzy noises. And I can't work out whether it's the computer or my ears. Louise says it's about as loud as it used to be so I guess it's my ears getting worse then.

Which is more bad news then. Tinitus getting worse. Fan-fucking-tastic. Noise and more noise. Low level buzzy noises, ambient noise. Tinitus. buzzy, buzzy, buzzy. All the time. Especially late at night. Which is when I write most stuff. Arse.

And I can't drink on these painkillers for my back.
And when I wake up in a few hours I have the prospect of 6 hours of Learning Platform Vision Day. That will be fun.

37 years later, I finally leave Dudley.....

What with the business on the reviewing front and the recent Birmingham Comics Show I've had very little time to write about some of the momentous things going on with the Brutons.

Not Brutons of Pocklington, but Brutons of Dudley.

My Mom & Dad have finally decided to take the plunge and have sold up the family home to head our way to live here in Pocklington. After many years of moving further and further away from them, it seems they've decided to follow us and now I find myself faced with the prospect of living closer to them in Pocklington than at any time since I was actually living with them as a boy.

Of course, I'm being rather flippant. It's going to be both wonderful and difficult having them up here with us. But at least one member of the family has seen absolutely nothing but upside so far:
"Daddy; does this mean that they'll be getting a dog?" is Molly's verdict on the whole thing. Of course, more than anyone, she's tremendously excited about it all and can't wait for them to move up. And we've warned her to not pester the oldies about getting a dog. But even I think it sounds like a bloody good idea. Active for them, pet ownership without needing one of us to be home for Molly.

As for me, I spent a weekend down in Dudley at the end of September when I had to pick up Mom's car for her and drive it back to Pocklington. And during the weekend I realised that this may well be my last contact with Dudley after 37 years.

I was born and brought up in Dudley, left to go to University in Birmingham and came back for a couple of years to live in squalor after ditching my PhD. So I lived in and around Dudley for many years. Yet because the majority of my friends were Birmingham based I ended up seeing Dudley as merely somewhere that Mom & Dad lived.

So it was rather a bizarre experience wandering around Dudley that weekend reliving all of the old places I knew as a child and a teen. I was out around the town at night and even managed to take a nostalgic trip on the 126 to Birmingham and back. And then the ultimate, end to a night..... wander down the hill from the bus stop and grab a pizza from Parrs. It's the epitome of crappy takeaway pizza places and somewhere we used to head after visits to JBs when I was a teen. Of course, this time I wasn't completely drunk whilst enjoying the pizza.

So goodbye Dudley. You were a wonderful, magical place for a while. The Zoo, JBs, The Dudley School, and many, many other things that meant so much then and are now consigned to memory.

And in case, you're wondering; I completely forgot to take pictures. Moron.

Can't wait for November - Richard's stupid i-pod A-Z idea heads onto E

And that means EMF.
Oh so childish, oh so immature. Oh so bloody wonderful.
Unbelievable on the ipod, ear-splitting volume, wife and child screaming at me to turn it down and stop singing at the top of my voice.
And in November I shall be in Birmingham at the Carter gig where they're the support act. Will be enormous fun, full of just as many smiling middle-aged men as the recent That Petrol Emotion gig.

2011: The new Doctor Who? Paterson Joseph?

This is Paterson Joseph, the new Doctor Who in 2011. That's the story according to Rich Johnston anyway. Over on the latest Lying on the Gutters Rich has this to say:

My last couple of Doctor Who leaks were fairly solid — Neil Gaiman to write 2010 “Doctor Who” and Tom Baker returning to the series proper in an unnamed role. Both have been bubbling under ever since. The next one is not so tied down. It’s still rather up in the air. But it’s quite a possibility.

The sixth series of “Doctor Who” (2011) will star Paterson Joseph as The Doctor.

Previously playing Roderick in the “Doctor Who” episodes “Bad Wolf”/”Parting Of Ways,” Joseph is known for fine upstanding and terribly-well-spoken-dontcha-know roles as Johnson in “Peep Show,” the Marquis De Carabas in “Neverwhere,” Space Marshall Clarke in “Hyperdrive,” Lyndon in “Green Wing”……and more importantly Benjamin in “Jekyll.” Written and produced by upcoming “Doctor” Who showrunner, Steven Moffat.

If true, it’s a great call on Moffat’s part. A damn fine call. Paterson has a very British Authority approach to many of his characters, comparable with Jon Pertwee. It’s not a traditional choice, but then neither was Christopher Eccleston. And, like I say, it’s bloody brilliant.

Right or wrong? Time will tell. But good fun to play the game anyway.

Alan Moore at New Con 2008

Pádraig Ó Méalóid has been posting on his blog about a little trip he took over the weekend to New-Con 2008.

First indication that something was up was this blog post:

We're running out the door in a few minutes to go to the airport to fly to Birmingham, and thence to Northampton, where we'll be attending NewCon 4 for the weekend. Before that, though, we're to have dinner this evening with Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie, who we get to introduce to Paul Cornell and his wife Caroline, who will also be joining us.

Do you see what he did there, just sneaking that bit of gossip in halfway through? Just off to Northampton for some dinner with the Moores and the Cornells. Nothing exciting at all then.

Although he has done us proud with the photography. Possibly the strangest Alan Moore photo you will see for a long time:

And a brilliant one, courtesy Gary Lloyd of Gary, Alan and Iain Banks:

And finally; Alan & Paul Cornell, who documents the meeting on his blog:

All photos from Pádraig Ó Méalóid and his Flickr page.

Lazy Sunday and planning art for school; Pollock, Mondrian good. Rangoli bad.

Got up late, rolled out of bed, crawled around the floor for a few minutes until my back decided to play along.

Things are still pretty bad with the back, although the painkillers do help. Overall I think it's improving but it's doing so very. Very slowly. Hopefully a week at work where I'm careful again will see it sorted. But I think another trip to the doctor may be called for. The one on Friday just didn't give me the answers I was after. What I'd really like is the doc to send me along to physio again and see if there's anything else they can do. Unlikely perhaps but I shall try.

Eventually, after the back started working again, I got up, headed downstairs and joined family for a chiling day. After the past few weeks of non stop activity it was good to actually have some down time. And for one reason and another the next few weeks in October are going to be very, very, very busy as well with packed weekends. More on that later.

Now feeling chilled enough to contemplate a little bit of computery work. Blogging, Reviewing and then creating resources for Year 2 ICT unit that we're starting after half term. It's a very good one this time, much fun for the kids and for me. The unit's called Creating Pictures. So my plan was to spend 7 weeks working to the plan we came up with last year. One week of introductory stuff, two weeks of making Jackson Pollock artwork, two weeks making Mondrian artwork, two weeks of making Christmas stuff on the computer. A great plan, perfectly timed for the half term. The kids love beiung able to use the paint programs and actually making things they can compare to the work of famous artists.

I even found this fantastic flash website that helps you create your own Jackson Pollock. Very simple, lots of fun:



Except that's not the way it's going to happen. Because the student teacher has had an idea. This is rarely a good idea and invariably means a lot more work for me. She wants to compress Pollock and Mondrian into a lesson each (doubtful) and spend two weeks getting the children to make Rangoli patterns. This is purely because she's decided to be clever and get all cross-curricular on me. This covers ICT, art, geography and D&T and she gets to tick lots of boxes.

At the time I explained that to do it properly the way she wanted it (pupils have Rangoli templates that they can then use fill on the computers to colour in) would take more expertise than our 6 year olds have. But she's determined. I had a good go at making it work but it just isn't possible to do with a 6 year old in two half hour sessions. So I have stopped and will give her the great news tomorrow.

Now, back to reviewing stuff...

I love my chair .......

Well, after having the last one for over 10 years I finally went out today and got myself a new chair for the office. After having sat on the last one for so long, until it's giving me no support and the pad under my backside is little more than a board with a thin layer of cotton over it.

Getting the new chair is just part of a number of changes I'm trying to make happen to try and do something positive about my back. After all, if I just took what the doctor said as gospel, I'd be just moaning about this troublesome back and chomping down more and more painkillers.

So tonight I sit it a chair that feels like it is gently caressing my buttocks whilst giving me a back massage at the same time. In fact it may be slightly counterproductive to writing as I'm currently just sitting and rocking gently back and forth in the chair rather than typing stuff.

I love my chair and it loves me back......

Old, Old, Old, Old, Old. Knackered, Knackered, Knackered, Knackered.

My back hurts.

In fact my back has hurt for ages. I do what I can to make it better and some days it's okay. But last week it went again. I was doing all the usual stuff, all the exercises, sitting rifht at the computer, using the back rest, getting up regularly, all of the things the physiotherapist told me to do when I went there about a year ago. But nothing seemed to make it better. After being in some agony over the weekend at the comic show I phoned the doctor and made an appointment.

You know there's no point visiting the doctor about the problem when he listens carefully to your moaning and then asks you what else you think we can do. So essentially I just got a lecture about back pain, some notes and some stronger painkiillers.

I wandered home feeling utterly crap, very old and rather worn out. This weekend I shall be resting. Don't expect much on the blog.

Leeds Light Night 2008 - Tonight at OK Comics....

Leeds Light Night 2008 is an evening event where the nocturnal city comes alive with art, performance and other mad stuff, giving locals and visitors a glimpse at city that may usually be hidden in darkness. This year's Light Night is tonight: Friday 10th October.

OK Comics in Leeds is celebrating the night with comics from Tom Plaskitt & Lizz Lunney (who does some great stuff - I've got a pile of her mini-comics here waiting to be reviewed) and a live art event by Andy Sykes and will be open until 10.30pm.

(Thanks to Marc Ellerby for the heads up)

Birmingham International Comic Show 2008 report

The third Birmingham Comic Show took place last weekend and I headed down to Birmingham to play along with all the other comic fans. Of course, with Molly's Holy Communion on Sunday I had to be back in pocklington for 9am Sunday morning but this wasn't going to spoil my fun.

The weekend started in the best way possible: early. I'd arranged with the head to slope off early and was in the car ready to go at 1. Made it down the beautifully quiet motorways with no holdups or trouble and got into fair Birmingham by half 3. Very good going. Check in to the hotel and feel the wave of weekend exhaustion hit me. Shower and change. Wake self up with copious water and prescription drugs for back. Head into Birmingham.

It's either me zoned out of my mind of painkillers for the back or Birmingham was even bigger and louder than last time. The provincial lifestyle I live is really bringing it home to me just how big this big city is. Lovely to visit and experience, but certainly not somewhere I really want to live anymore.

Launch Party - Friday.



Obviously - as can be expected from these things, there were an awful lot of very drunk comic people at the launch party. Above is a picture of me with my collection of drunks: L to R: Mike, Surfer Dave, Dave Hopkins (everyone's favourite Dave, manager of Nostalgia & Comics) and me. We had a large Nostalgia & Comics contingent there, and spent a large part of the night chatting to various people and then an even larger part of the night wondering who all the young people around us were. It seems that while we've been getting older, comic folk have been getting younger and younger.

Dave's wife Debbie took the photo - a rarity in that it's a photo of me that I actually quite like.

The bands were all good, although sadly we got there too late to see Hunt Emerson this year. In the end us old folks left the younger Nostalgia & Comics workers to it and sloped off to home / hotels early (well - 2am). On the way to the hotel I took my life in my hands and partook of pizza from some very dodgy place on the Queensway. It was lovely, but a huge gamble that could have seen me spending all weekend in casualty.

Saturday: Birmingham International Comics Show 2008 Day One.

Amazingly, I wasn't ill on Saturday. Neither the drink or the pizza had that much effect and I actually made it down to breakfast before heading off around Birmingham, popping into Nostalgia & Comics on the way to the show.

The show was, yet again, at Millenium Point / Thinktank. It's a very imposing building housing Birmingham's Science museum (pictures from last year) and it's a really good venue for the Comic Show. Or at least it is once you can navigate the escalators / stairs / lifts to the third floor. Thinktank has an interesting idea for escalators - they seem to run them both ways. If it's going down all you need to do is wait 5 minutes and suddenly it's changed and becomes an up escalator. Or that's what it seemed to be doing. Unless the gin from the night before was having a delayed affect?

Once inside theComic Show it was straight to work. By which I mean getting round as many people as possible to say hello, introduce myself and generally have a good time. This year, as well as all the usual stuff I had another mission - get as many sketches as possible from the attending artists to start filling the sketch pad that Molly had made me get. I made a throw-away comment a while ago explaining how artists at these things would do sketches for you and Molly decided that she definitely wanted some. By midday, after just half an hour there I'd already had a couple of texts from her asking how many I'd got.

The show was bigger and better this year. The organisers had learnt from the overcrowding of 2007 and instead of cramming everyone into the main hall, they'd split the show into two rooms and moved the talks and presentations into the lecture theatre downstairs. I'd like to be able to tell you how nice the theatre was, but I had no time to get to any panels. I'll just have to take peoples word for it. (Leah Moore has pics and a good write up of the facilities).

It was lovely getting round to seeing so many people who I'd been in touch with over the past year but never met. And just as nice catching up with comic folks I already knew. So hello to all of you - Andi Watson, Paul Grist, Ian Edginton, Matt Brooker, Jas Wilson, Matthew Craig, Oliver Lambden, Laurence Powell, David Baillie, Andy Luke, Sean Azzopardi, Dan Lester, Jenika Ioffreda, Laura Howell, Phil Spence, Joel Meadows, Gary Northfield, Lew Stringer, Mark Farmer, Marc ellerby ( & his girlfriend Anna - who I'm sure was getting fed up of everyone saying how they knew who she was thanks to Marcs comics), Jamie McKelvie.

Thanks especially to those of you who I managed to get sketches from. You'll all be pleased to know that Molly loves them all; Molly's Birmingham Sketches.

And many apologies to those of you who I've either forgotten to mention or plain just didn't get around to saying hello to. Sometimes I saw you and meant to come over when something else cropped up, sometimes I made a mental note to come back when the crowd had died down around your stall, sometimes I just missed you and occasionaly I just needed to go outside and stop doing the small talk thing for a few minutes. I'm not the best at it, I don't enjoy it and, even at this advancing age there are times when my natural shyness and anti-social nature gets the better of me.

But in the end, at six o'clock, when it came time to leave, I'd had a great day. I thought the whole thing was a great success and I'm really hoping that the organisers will be announcing Birmingham International Comic Show 2009 very soon.

Of course, after that the only thing left to do was hit the bar. Except I couldn't because I had to get back to pocklington Saturday night so I could be around on Sunday for Molly's Holy Communion. Bah. No alcohol for me.

In the end I met up with Dave and Cat from Nostalgia and we went for drinks. First the Wellington, then off to the Diamond sponsored event at Malmaison. More out of curiosity than anything else. We didn't know what to expect, were bloody tired and not really in the right mood for a schmooze. Luckily, no-one else was either and the event was a bit of a washout. Tired and aching in the back, sad to say goodnight to Dave and Cat but glad to be going as well. Of course, on the way out we realised that seemingly everyone in comics had been in Malmaison's bar all along. Oh well. Another time.

I eventually made it home for 2:30am. The motorway driving policy of stopping whenever the driver damn well feels like it was observed all the way. Crawled into bed around 3am.

A great weekend. Next year I'll be there for the whole thing. Thanks especially to Shane, Andy & James for organising Birmingham International Comics Show 2008. See you all at 2009 BICS.

There's a report on the show, along with lots and lots of links to relevant blog posts on the FPI Blog - BICS 2008.

Molly's sketches from the Birmingham Comics Show 2008: Derek The Sheep by Gary Northfield

A great Derek The Sheep by Gary Northfield. Looking forward to getting his book to read and review with Molly.

Molly's sketches from the Birmingham Comics Show 2008: Hondle by Matthew Craig

Part of Molly's collection of comic sketches. This one of Hondle by Matthew Craig at the Birmingham International Comics Show 2008. Molly has now decided that when she finally convinces my Mom & Dad to buy a dog just so she can look after it, she will get them to call it Hondle.

Molly's sketches from the Birmingham Comics Show 2008: Ninja Bunny by Phil Spence

Ninja Bunny by Phil Spence.

Molly's sketches from the Birmingham Comics Show 2008: Sneaky the Elephant by Laura Howell

A quick one done by Laura towards the end of the day at the DFC stand.

Molly's sketches from the Birmingham Comics Show: Glister by Andi Watson

The really lovely thing about this as how nice Andi was about just everything, remembering all about us and the move to Pocklington from last year. We had a nice chat about all things to do with respective daughters and the trouble to do with schools. Then we got onto Andi's work and how pleased he was with the forthcoming plans for Glister.

And the sketch is just lovely of course.

Molly's sketches from the Birmingham Comics Show 2008: Marc Ellerby

Nice to finally meet Marc Ellerby and girlfriend Anna - who was obviously just about getting used to so many of us coming up to the booth and knowing who she was through Marc's comics.

Marc wondered what exactly he was meant to draw when I asked him for something child friendly for Molly. Eventually he did this great piece but Anna wondered what was so child friendly about a monster menacing someone. Not to worry - Molly loved it, thought it was great, very funny.

Molly's sketches from the Birmingham Comics Show 2008: Oliver Lambden

From Oliver Lambden of Modern Monstrosity and Tales From The Flat fame.

Molly's sketches from the Birmingham Comics Show 2008: Micia by Jenika Ioffreda

A lovely Micia from Jenika's Vampire Free Style.

Molly's sketches from Birmingham Comic Show 2008:

Paul Grist's Mister Flopsie Whopsie from the pages of Kane. Good news from Paul - he had pages of new Kane with him as proof that there will be more!

Molly's sketches from the Birmingham Comics Show 2008: Dennis The Menace by D'Israeli

Matt Brooker / D'Israeli. A lovely man, more than willing to sketch and talk for as long as it takes. But I really thought I'd stumped him over this one. Molly had mentioned a Dennis The Menace before and I figured it would be a pretty easy one. Matt stared long and hard at the page and then set to it. After finishing it, he added the note.

But Molly would like to assure Mr D'Israeli and Mr Brooker that all is well and she thinks his Dennis and Gnasher are "very cool".

Molly's sketches from the Birmingham International Comic Art Show 2008

One thing that I did do this time at the comic art show, that I haven't done at a comic event since I was a teenager, was to take a sketch pad along with me. I'd made a throwaway comment a while ago to Molly about some of the artists who might be there and she was suddenly desperate to have sketches from them

Many, many thanks to all the artists who helped make Molly very happy when I showed them to her on Sunday evening. She absolutely loves them all. Even D'Israelis - because she doesn't think it's as bad as he did!

The whole lot can be seen here: Molly's Comic Sketches.

The only problem is that she's hooked now.
Top on her list is a Vern & Lettuce by Sarah Macintyre. Maybe Bristol next year.

Frank Miller on crappy movies. Pot. Kettle. Kettle. Pot.

Rich Johnston found this one, but it had to be spread around:

Frank Miller's anti-Wizard keynote speech at the Harveys a few years ago?

"You’ll make some pretty good money, but that creation that you took all that time writing and drawing will be remembered for all time as one really crappo movie."

The interesting thing is that it seems like at least 10% of the first weekend's gross from the Spirit movie will be comic fans goinng along just to see exactly how bad it is. I know that will be my reason for going.

Weekend Event part 2: Molly's First Holy Communion

A long time ago, I booked up to head off to the Birmingham Comics Show for both days and looking forward to a great weekend of catching up with old friends and making new ones whilst surrounding myself in comics.

Then the priest went and changed the date for Molly's first Holy Communion.
See here for details on my thoughts on this. I shant bore you with them here.

Basically, for Louise, it's very important. For me it's essentially meaningless and a waste of time but a nice excuse to see Molly doing something nice. For Molly it's just a day out in a pretty dress with friends and family and a party thrown in. Okay, perhaps that's a little harsh. Molly does believe in God and wants to do the Communion thing. But like I've said before she may believe in God, but she believes in Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy as well. By the time she's 12 I expect all three to be exposed for the nice stories that they are. Of course, I'll actually miss the other two.

But today was all about Molly feeling special. Which is why I was sat last night in a Diamond retailers drinks event (more on which later in the week) having an orange juice and working out how long it was going to take me to get home and how many stops i'd need to just stay awake. In the end it took 3 hours. I got home around 2am.

Oh joy. Up at 9am. Tired, tired, tired, tired. Shower. Tired still. Get dressed. Still tired.
You get the idea.

Visitors start arriving at 10 and we head off to the church for 11. As cynical and nasty as I am about the whole Catholic Church thing, it was a wonderful day. Molly wore a beautiful dress, behaved wonderfully and basically made us so very happy.

Even the sun shone all day for her. But then again, when she's around it always does, whatever the weather.