DFC Day - Friday? Saturday?

Oh well, late but still here. Yesterday (Friday) was DFC day at Bruton mansions where the red and yellow envelope drops through the door and I have to wait until Molly gets home and rips it open, then reads it before I get my hands on it.

Issue 35. No time to break the whole thing down. But another, as always, good issue.

Cover by Wilbur Dawburn, really playing with the logo. The DFC has let it's covers be altered more and more as it goes on, a plus point for them not being on the local newsagent's shelves with the children's comics I suppose. Wilbur's strip Bodkin and the Bear is a genuinely funny one and has very quickly become a favourite as the tale of our stupid Minstrel and his all too cunning Bear moves forward.

Okay, out of time, but the othe laugh out loud moment? Fish Head Steve with this great mock ad leading into the strip, brilliant:

The Stupid Ipod A-Z Idea - update

It's been a long time since I last mentioned anything about the Stupid Ipod A-Z idea. In fact it was in October and I'd gotten all the way to E. Well, amazingly, it's still going on. I'm currently mid way through S and having a bloody great time.

Along the way I've rediscovered a love of REM and had a particularly good time in P; Pixies, Polyphonic Spree, Propaganda. Around Christmas I hit L and downloaded a load of Leonard Cohen so Molly could hear what Hallelujah should really sound like. She preferred the Buckley version, but that was okay, as long as she didn't like the Xfactor abortion of a song.

Now we're onto the Shamen.
I know, I know.
Get the snickering out of the way now.



I heard Something About You, from their first album Drop on Peel or somewhere in 87, making me 16ish. Drop sounds nothing like anything they did subsequently; a mix of 60s psych pop and indie tunes from a 5 piece band. But what really made me sit up and start following them was Christopher Mayhew Says; industrial dance music with extensive samples of Christopher Mayhew on his LSD trip.

A quick trip into dance culture and sampling for In Gorbechev We Trust (1989). Will Sinnott (Will Sin) was on board and it became a bit of a two man operation for the best period of their work. Phorward (1989) got even more dance orientated and EnTact (1990) was where it all went a little more overground and mainstream. Still great, just really tapping into the dance culture at exactly the right time. Of course, it also saw the partial introduction of Mr C.



Disaster followed. Will Sin drowned in 91 just as ProGen was about to become a huge hit the second time round, MrC was all over everything and success just seemed to make it all just that little bit more bland. Boss Drum (1992) was okay at the time but It's almost unlistenable bar three or four tracks now. Ebeneezer Goode purely as stupid nostalgia, but Re-Evolution, the spoken word track from Terrence McKenna is still great. I had the best time watching them play Re-Evolution live at Glastonbury one year. I can't remember the year, in fact I can't remember much about the night apart from the great light and sound show. How much of that was on stage and how much in my own head - I have no idea.



I've not even heard anything after that. And I almost dread to do so. Maybe one day. But in their time, especially during the early years - they were great.

Jeff Smith at Toon Books

Toon Books, publishers of great early reader graphic novels has just announced details of a new book by Jeff Smith:



Out in September. Looking forward to reading it with Molly already.
(via Colleen)

PROPAGANDA Reviews: Rian Hughes - Yesterday's Tomorrows

Yesterday’s Tomorrows

by Rian Hughes

with Grant Morrison, Raymond Chandler, Tom DeHaven, John Freeman, Chris Reynolds.

Published by Knockabout/GOSH

Here’s a challenge for you; find me a more innovative and visually dynamic and impressive comic artist in Britain today than Rian Hughes. I know I couldn’t.

Of course, the big problem with Rian is that he’s just too good for comics. He’s so in demand as a graphic designer for the wider world that more often than not, you’ll see him described as Rian Hughes; graphic designer and illustrator. Which is why his actual comics have remained uncollected until this marvellous volume.

As a master designer he’s been responsible for some amazingly diverse projects. Odds are you’ve read at least something with Rian’s design work if you’ve been around comics for the last 20 years. Whether it’s his beautiful logos, his innovative lettering fonts or cover design work he’s certainly been around. But his work in recent years has been outside of comics. (And given the money in some of this work, for a lot less toil, we can hardly point a finger of blame now can we?) And amongst the work there are some very strange projects indeed:

(Invisibles #1, my favourite cover image ever, plus a logo - both by Hughes. Various typefaces and the Geri Halliwell children’s series. Connection - Rian Hughes’ gorgeous design and illustration work.)

Yesterday’s Tomorrows is the collection that we’ve been waiting for, featuring five complete Rian Hughes illustrated stories from ‘87 to ‘93, a period that was possibly Hughes’ most prolific in comics and certainly the last time he was actively involved in comics before the lure of the wider world stole him away from us. It ends with an exhaustive section of background and additional material from the time. This is an Artist’s book, celebrating the work of one of our best.

(The art cards included with the limited edition Yesterday’s Tomorrows exclusive to FPI. And a perfect illustration of the four of the five stories in the book)

The stories are:

The Lighted Cities, written by Chris Reynolds of Mauretania Comics fame.

A short piece and the least visually impressive with a sense that it’s paying service to Reynold’s own art style of a heavier line and thick blacks. It doesn’t really suit Hughes’ artwork, it’s too small, too domestic, too enclosed a tale, something which Hughes reflects in his art.

(Visions in mustard - Rian Hughes art from The Lighted Cities, written by Chris Reynolds.)

The Science Service, written by John Freeman.

But where the Lighted Cities failed, The Science Service succeeds. Using just a single colour of delicate jade green, Hughes lets his thin, precise lines describe this retro-futuristic tale of a future of lost promise. It’s all about lost opportunities and failed dreams of a gleaming futuristic paradise. The world is crumbling and the nation is barely clinging on to past glories. The Science Service, once the pinnacle of all that was grand and great is reduced to bowing to the corporation running the new festival of Britain. But Henry Van Goyen, ex-service, now reduced to toy consultancy, has realised that all is not well and the corporation’s latest facial modification product, Imagon, is being rushed out without consequence to the dangers that caused him to abandon his research into it many years ago. Van Goyen’s quest to expose the truth, his melancholy longing for glorious times gone by where the future was bright and full of hope and his subsequent loss of this idealistic fantasy effectively mirrors that of Hughes’ next major work; Dare. Indeed, Hughes’ has said that Van Goyen is practically a prototype Dan Dare.

(Rian Hughes art from The Science Service, written by John Freeman)

Dare, written by Grant Morrison

Grant Morrison’s anti-Thatcherite bleak tale of a future gone wrong, potential wasted and hopes and dreams vanished is my favourite of the comics in Yesterday’s Tomorrows. I’m a sucker for Grant Morrison on form and with the combination of classic Morrison and Rian Hughes’ art make this the main attraction here.

(Art from Dare’s first home: Revolver Magazine #1. Older, walking with a cane perhaps, but still the gleaming poster boy of England’s dreams)

A lesser artist may felt the temptation to swamp Dare in darkness to reflect the cynicism and melancholy of a world gone wrong, but not Hughes. His Dare is a technicolour explosion to perfectly capture the sense of wonder that Dare evokes, that lost dream of a future in the stars. The colour is always there, even in the darker moments, where Hughes’ colours become subtle and muted but no less effective.

(Hughes’ colours throughout Dare are perfect, whether the bright sunshine colours of past hopes or the muted tones of this reflective scene.)

Dare is the zenith of Hughes’ retro-futurist look, it’s his most angular, cutting edge and intricately art-deco work. After this point, Hughes’ art rounded out slightly, becoming more fluid, more organic and possibly reflecting his work in the world of design and illustration. But with Dare, every page has some glorious, super sci-fi touch, whether it’s the razor shape lines of the architecture or something as simple as the art-deco designs of the household appliances. Big or small scale, nothing in Dare is overlooked by Hughes.

(Rian Hughes’ art perfection - a 50s future dream home and some of the best interior design of the retro-future)

But it’s definitely not the Dan Dare of old. This was Morrison completely deconstructing the character and using him as an iconic figure of a better past to contrast against the future of dreams destroyed and a people subjugated. This is a Colonel Dare retired and at odds with the government of the day, tired, disillusioned and seemingly powerless to effect change. It’s a true melancholic’s comic. Dare is brought back by the government of the day, whose Prime Minister is obviously intended to be Margaret Thatcher. He’s a washed out ex-hero perhaps, but Dan Dare the brand still says patriotism, individual strength and the dream of a glittering modernist future in a Britain of broken dreams, lies and corruption. His England paradise is a wrecked dream, controlled by agents on Earth and an old familiar enemy from afar. The end is as downbeat and final as you could get. Like I said, it’s not an England to be saved, more an England to be wiped clean, a blank page if you will.

Goldfish, written by Raymond Chandler and adapted by Tom DeHaven

Goldfish is an adaptation of a 1936 Phillip Marlowe short story which, thankfully, Tom De Haven produces a good adaptation, capturing the noir feel of all the best Chandler tales. At this point Hughes’ art has developed a looser line, but over this he’s using a very limited colour palette that makes every page a masterpiece of design. To convey the noir feel of the tale, Hughes uses blocks of colour to produce shadows. It’s visually breathtaking.

Really & Truly, written by Grant Morrison

Part of 2000ADs Summer Offensive in 1993 when the comic was handed over to Grant, Mark Millar and John Smith to do with as they pleased. In amongst some rather mediocre stories, Really & Truly stood out as a light, throwaway, silly and downright trippy thing, but visually it was as stunning as anything Rian put his hand to, with a looser, cartoony style and a heavier line geared to reflect the playfulness of the tale.

Like I said, you shouldn’t really be all that concerned with the writing when you go and buy Yesterday’s Tomorrows. That the five stories are all at least good is merely a bonus. It’s the artist that the book is all about. Hughes’ art is an amazing meld of European clear lines (Serge Clerc & Yves Chaland are particularly influential) and a harsh, stylised designers eye.But in Yesterday’s Tomorrows we get a chance to analyse a particular period in his artsitic develpment and see a progression from a strict, harsh angularity that reaches it’s peak in the pages of Dare to a more cartooning based rounded feel that he uses to this day. Of course, whatever style he does, I hope you’ve read enough and seen enough to realise that Hughes’ art, no matter what style he’s working in is that rarest of things in comics; original and unique. There’s no-one who does this as well as Hughes, and that we’ve seemingly lost him to the world of design is a true shame.

Just a quick look at Rian Hughes’ Device Fonts website should have you falling in love with his work. As I said at the start I genuinely believe there’s not a more innovative, visually dynamic and impressive comic artist in Britain today and I can honestly say that I’ve never seen a Rian Hughes piece that hasn’t been eye-catching and unique.

He truly is a classic of our times. And of Yesterday. And of Tomorrow.

(Just a couple of any number of Hughes’ illustration works available to look at on his website. I could have picked any of them and they’d be just as gorgeous)

After going out and buying Yesterday’s Tomorrows there are a few interviews & articles online you may wish to peruse:
The FPI blog published an exhaustive interview with Rian.
Newsarama interview about Yesterday’s Tomorrows.
Paul Gravett’s Yesterday’s Tomorrows article (actually the introduction to the book).
Typographica interview (design and fonts).
Rian Hughes Wikipedia entry.

Propaganda @ FPI blog - two reviews of Francesca Cassavetti

A revised post of Francesca's The Most Natural Thing In The World collection and a review of a couple of her great mini-comics.

The Most Natural Thing In The World
Mini Comics

"As I’ve come to expect from Cassavetti, all three are lovely, gentle, well observed pieces with her open and relaxed cartooning flowing from panel to panel."

PROPAGANDA Reviews: Global Frequency by Warren Ellis

Global Frequency

by Warren Ellis and many, many artists

There are 1001 people on the Global Frequency. Anyone you know might be with them. It’s the world’s little open secret. A fast response emergency team composed of anyone: mother, brother, friend, boss, policeman, spy, teacher, athlete, anyone at all. You’ll never know they’re part of it until the phone call comes with that unusual ring tone and they head out the door promising to explain later…

Global Frequency is the 20th Century’s clean up operation for all the rubbish that happened in the last millennium, all the secret projects, the cold war science and the insane power games.

Yes, this is the archetypal Warren Ellis comic series; fast cuts, fast paced, stacatto dialoguing, tech-happy. But it’s also one of the best TV series we’ll never see made (although reports are that it got as far as a pilot, but was never actually taken up. Shame). It’s a perfect episodic action thriller. Each issue is perfectly self contained: threat, call, response, result.

(”That weird cellphone” indeed. It rings, your life changes. Art by Steve Dillon from Global Frequency)

There’s an impressive array of artists on the books as well, including David Lloyd, Gary Leach, Steve Dillon, Glenn Fabry and Chris Spouse. So Global Frequency is equally as good on the eye as it is on the brain.

My favourite individual episode, The Run, features the art of the urban gymnast; “les parkeurs”, who can cross the snarled up morass of London quicker on foot than anything or anyone else. Over twenty two pages Warren Ellis manages to generate a tremendous sense of excitement that most writers couldn’t deliver over the course of an entire book. But of course, Ellis has given us 12 of these little thrillers, across these two books. Enjoy. You’re on the Global Frequency.

Learning Platforms and falling asleep in training sessions

I couldn't help it. We'd done a long morning in the ICT suite on the Learning Platform. Back from lunch at the local pub who do an excellent buffet spread for us on training days so we thought we'd have the lunch out for a change. And the ICT suite is boiling hot, yet some of the trainees are moaning it's cold and can we leave the air con off. I've got a throbbing headache and then my eyes start going.

I did the falling asleep in my seat thing for a few minutes until I decided I needed a break and went and looked in on the Year 1 class doing some word processing in another (cooler) room. That seemed to clear my head enough to get through the rest of the session.

The Learning Platform is still a huge thing hanging round my neck, but we're going to try and encourage (railroad) some of the teachers to take on responsibilities for certain sections. That makes it a little easier in the long term. but short term is still the complete set up of all the architecture. And by short term I mean all of summer term at least. Because I'm determined to get the new website absolutely sorted and finished by the end of March. Seems so far away but technically it's just 37 days away and I've got an awful lot to get done. But at least it's not something ridiculously laborious and longwinded (like the Learning Platform for example).

After school it was a quick dash across to Beverley for the Orthodontist. Molly will need braces at some point but today was just a preliminary thing where he looked at her mouth for 5 minutes and told us to come back in 18 months. Strange dentist though. The actual room had four dentist's chairs in it, all in a row with no partitions at all. We were the only people in there but I imagine when they have the place full it's even stranger. With the harsh lights and dental apparatus around it looked like some high tech spacelab of some sort. very strange.

Tomorrow it's back to normal at school and that's my week done. I've got Friday as a work from home day again - NHBC are coming round to look at the roof and agree with us that it's a shit job and the builder deserves shooting. Although I imagine the bloke wont quite phrase it that way...

Of Learning Platforms, Battlestars and Lost

Battling another cold (combination of the weather, working with lots of small germ carrying children and being absolutely worn out - sleep worse than ever recently. Tonight I may be in bed before 4am; a definite improvement) so blogging has been sporadic at best. Forgive me all of the reposting of reviews. They've rather build up in my "to be posted" pile. I may as well fire them all off in one go.

To add to the misery of another cold, today was another one of those Learning Platform Training Days. Except this one was, if anything, even worse than the rest; as it was just a recap for the teaching staff of various schools on the stuff I did a while back. The idea was that we'd host it and put in several staff over the two days. Unfortunately it seems every other training course in the world decided to clash with these days so we had one of our teachers for half a day today and two tomorrow. The day didn't start out well either as the trainer couldn't log into the RM site and for a few minutes of early morning panic we thought it was our network that had gone down. Luckily we found out it was a general east Riding thing - they'd upgraded their connection overnight and thins had rather messed up.

After that it was a day of mind crushing boredom. At one point this afternoon I was nearly asleep; head doing the lolling thing so much that I had to excuse myself and head off for fresh air.

And as is the way with these things, come the end of the day I actually found myself a lot more tired than if I'd actually been at work properly all day. So tonights been a rest night. No reviews, no blogging (until now), no website work for school. Instead it was Battlestar Galactica and the repeat of the double episode opener for the new season of Lost. Now, having not watched anything of Lost since season one and the occasional accidental viewing of a couple of season finales, I thought I might have trouble getting into it and was perfectly prepared to head for bed early. Except I found a You Tube summary of the last 4 seasons in 8 minutes that did the trick and I really rather enjoyed the two hours spent watching the new season.

The summary video is here. I may continue with the rest of the series. Maybe Tuesday will become my night off. There's a novel idea.

PROPAGANDA @ the FPI blog: Ninja Bunny (the return)

Ninja Bunny by Phil Spence

Review of the webcomic at the FPI blog.

"It’s still small, it’s still a thing of beauty, it’s still perfectly formed and it’s still a great little bit of fun. But if you take a trip over to Philip Spence’s Ninja Bunny website you’ll find it’s become something far more ornate, detailed and colourful entirely."

PROPAGANDA @ the FPI blog - Unmasked by Martin Simpson

Unmasked by Martin Simpson.

Review at the FPI blog.

"This mix of sculpture, photography, computers and art is very much what McKean was all about several years ago. But everyone has influences, and early work is where to show them off. What matters here, much more than his influences, is how very well Martin uses those influences to show off his own work."

PROPAGANDA Reviews: Phonogram - The Singles Club Issue 1

Dance till the stars come down from the rafters
Dance, Dance, Dance till you drop.
-W.H. Auden

Phonogram: The Singles Club #1

by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie

Image Comics

I loved the first series of Phonogram (see the review here) and thought Gillen and McKelvie’s black and white comic was a fantastic debut series. Quite amazingly good. But this second series confidently, effortlessly and quite breathtakingly blows away that first series with just this first issue.

All seven issues in the series are going to be self-contained tales that will all create a larger, more complex tale across the series, each issue featuring different characters yet taking place across one night in one particular club. If Gillen pulls that off after this absolute peach of a debut issue, we’re in for a fine treat because this first issue does something very special indeed. Every line of dialogue sparkles and shines, every action dazzles and the music wafts above it all, wave upon wave of it. The comic just dances. And we dance with it, invited to do so by the characters themselves.

(If she asked you to dance, you’d be up on the dancefloor before you knew what was going on, admit it. Penny B, phonomancer, dancer, about to get in trouble.)

But dancing in Phonogram isn’t something we watch, it’s something we’re being invited to experience. I’ve never read anything in comics that manages to thoroughly express that sheer joy of being young and beautiful as this comic does, nor anything that captures the ecstatic moment when the music becomes too much and you just can’t help but give yourself over to it and get up and dance. That’s something that should be nigh on impossible to put to words. But Gillen does it so very well.

So join Penny B and Laura Evans, two phonomancers (magicians who use music) on a night at the coolest nightclub in town. Penny B dances like an angel, and will make you feel like dancing as well, whether you want to or not. But the nightclub she’s in has just three rules: One; no boy singers: Two; you must dance: Three; no magic. She’s fine with the first two. But the last one’s going to get her into so much trouble tonight.

(Meet Penny B. Epic covered in sparklers and win-flakes indeed. From Phonogram: Singles Club issue 1. Published Image Comics.)

The story is more than matched by Jamie McKelvie’s art. He was impressive enough in the first series, improved no end in his own series Suburban Glamour (review here) and now eclipses everything he’s done before with absolutely beautiful artwork in Phonogram The Singles Club.

In an attempt to win over those of us who wait for the collection, The Singles Club also boasts plentiful annotations and backup strips / B-Sides written by Gillen and featuring a variety of artists, starting off with Laurenn McCubbin and our old friend Marc Ellerby:

(Marc Ellerby’s art from Kieron Gillen’s story as one of the two B-sides in the first issue of Phonogram; Singles Club.)

Phonogram The Singles Club is one of the best single issue comics I’ve read in a long while. Issue 1 is already set for a second printing, but once that’s gone, then you’ll have missed out on something very special indeed; a comic that not only wants you to dance, but leads you onto the dancefloor and starts playing just the right tunes to make it impossible not to.

As is usual in these things, all concerned are online:

Phonogram blog (with sample pages and more on future contributors to the B-sides, Gillen’s blog, McKelvie’s blog, Marc Ellerby, Laurenn McCubbin.

Rumour Killing - Captain Britian not cancelled

At the end of the week rumours started circulating that Captain Britain & MI-13 has been cancelled. Now I read and reviewed issue 1 of this comic and really enjoyed it, and I'm one of those waiting for the first collection to carry on reading.

The good news is that those rumours were just rumours;

Captain Britain & MI-13 is not cancelled, and according to the piece on Newsarama, Marvel assures everyone that it's a healthy book. Which is nice to hear.

However, Mark over on his great blog; The Sword Is Drawn puts forward a very good argument as to why we should all be heading to our local comic shops or even online to pick up the latest issue (Issue 10) which is due in stores on the 12th of February in the UK. And if you want a really good reason to pick up that issue:

(Yep, Doctor Doom and Dracula. On the moon, with a lunar lander. In Captain Britain. Intriguing enough to go out and buy the comic?)

The recent Panini collection of issues 1-4 of the comic has pretty much sold out and Panini are going back to press for a 2nd printing. Definite proof of how many of us are out there waiting for the trade. And I imagine when the Marvel edition comes out in mid February, that should do good business as well. That should be proof, if proof were needed at Marvel that this is a great comic with a large following and deserves to be around for a long, long time.

Darryl Cunningham's Super-Sam - The End

After 70 episodes, Darryl Cunningham's web-strip Super-Sam and John-Of-The-Night has just concluded over at the FPI blog. What started out as a fun, lighthearted gag strip gradually turned into something far better, and in the end, far darker. Over the weeks we've seen the entire plot develop and expand into places even Darryl didn't think it would.

What is immediately obvious at the FPI site where all 70 strips are thumbnailed, is the incredible strides in his art and especially his colouring that Darryl managed. From general brightness and wacky/generic cartooning on the very first strip:



To a gradual development of a limited colour palette well used in these examples from the middle of the strip where the artistic style of the characters and the strip has developed and transformed into something far more interesting and expressive:





And then at the very end, where he manages to conclude the strip in such an unexpected way and with a final muted tone:



I'll be looking forward to whatever Darryl decides to do next. In the meantime, make sure you check out his Mye-book Uncle Bob Adventures and his blog for all the latest news.



The entire 70 page run can be seen here: Super-Sam. Well worth a visit.

Schools adopting new (old) technology badly:

Molly's school has recently begun using text messaging to keep parents in touch with breaking news and the like. This works exceptionally well, although the school has placed great emphasis on parents having to keep the school up to date with mobile contact numbers.

However, they do seem rather blind to the inherent problems of the system and seem to rely on it a little too much regardless of any problems.

For example, given that I work in a local village school in the middle of a signal dead zone, and the only place I can get even a weak signal in school is by walking out of the front gates and 20 yards up the road, maybe it's not the best idea to text me twice during the day to tell me that Molly's football practice after school is cancelled. I did get the message, at 4:20, on my way to the car as I left school to pick her up. Luckily, Molly's teacher stays late and didn't mind having her in the classroom helping out.

But it does point out the obvious problems of using new technologies in schools. There has to be a mixture of new and old to ensure blanket coverage. Otherwise the new tech just counts as a fail.

Richard (over) analyses the comics industry?

Over at the FPI blog I have a looooooong piece about the comics industry and what I think about the recent changes that Diamond comic distributors have brought in regarding their minimum order threshold. If you're a comics person it's important and may well change the comics industry in a pretty big way. If you're not a comic person its 2000ish words of gibberish.

Ignition City - at bloody last

Of course, I may be wrong but it's Warren Ellis and it looks like it's going to be one of his good ones. The art's by the guy who did Aetheric Mechanics with Warren recently: Gianluca Pagliarani. He was lovely on that and this is looking even better.

What I did on my work from home day..

Friday's should be a half day for me. that's what I'm meant to work, but when I started the job I got into the habit of staying on and getting extra stuff done instead of leaving. Eventually I decided that I really needed to take the afternoon and have been trying very hard to make the very best of Fridays now. A regular Friday now consists of settling down with coffee, lunch, Radio 5 and a bit of reading or writing before picking Molly up from school. A lovely relaxing end to the week.

But this week I had to drop the car in to be looked at - apparently a grinding noise on the brakes is not a good thing. Nothing wrong that a clean and check couldn't solve though. This meant that there was no way I'd be able to get into school without having to work late. So a work from home day was arranged.

I've decided I like them. Drop Molly off, drop car off, back home for coffee, do a morning's work on the website and then a little reading and writing whilst waiting for the roofer. With our leaky roof still being leaky we've finally managed to get the NHBC around next week to look at what needs doing. I figured it might be a good idea to get a second opinion in advance. And the nice roofer came in and told me that it's just a bloody bad job and he's seen this sort of thing before. But the better news is that it can be fixed, all I have to do is get the NHBC to agree with what the nice roofer man said.

After that it was an afternoon of writing. First up, a quick comment or two on the current situation with Diamond Comic Distributors putting up their minimum order purchase threshold (essentially if Diamond don't think your comic will make the minimum they wont carry it). That quick comment took most of the afternoon and the results can be seen here on the FPI blog.

But despite not getting done half what I wanted to do, despite still having to be working a bit late in the night again it's still a great thing this working from home lark.

Noel's HQ - saving Britain, one patronising skit at a time.

I had the great misfortune of watching Noel's HQ tonight. Where dear old Noel decides he's going to save Britain, one patronising skit at a time.

The most annoying thing about this was the segment on Empire Direct. A couple of pensioners were on with a sob story about a fridge and cooker that they'd carefully saved £10 a week for over 18 months. They then went out and paid cash for them. Empire Direct promptly go bust and the administrators are called in. Noel & Keith Chegwin wade in and try to chase the items up, eventually buying the old dears a new fridge and cooker. The old dears had to go without a holiday last year so they could get the white goods.

Poor things. Seemed a little ridiculous really. Old couple who are out a fridge and a cooker and might have to go without another holiday to save up for them again or the poor bastards who were working for Empire Direct who can't make the mortgage this month. Who really needs our sympathy now?

After that he presents a youngster who saved his mom and friend from a burning car with free tickets to We Will Rock You. Surely that's more of a punishment for a music lover?

The highlight of Molly's week: Buddying

She received the call last week, the thing she had been waiting for for so long.

Molly was going to be a Buddy. Once a week she'll be going from the year 5 & 6 playground to the little ones playground and by virtue of wearing a bright orange sash she becomes a magnet for tiny little people, who want her to play, help, peel oranges and see her as some sort of fun climbing frame. Basically it's a playground assistant in miniature form.

So she goes to bed Wednesday night and it's the last thing she talks about, so full of happiness. Next morning, it's pouring with rain and there's no chance she's going to be outside today. Her face was a picture of complete misery, barely holding back the tears. But the fates must have been smiling on her (well, who can blame them really?) and by break the sun had been out a little but not enough to make a big difference. It looks like the buddy session will be off, until the Teaching Assistant from the class comes in with the great news that their playground is dry and they need Molly to come round.

One of those moments that I really would have loved to have seen her face. It was still ecstatic hours later as she told me all about it. She's already started talking about what games she's going to play with them next week and it wouldn't surprise me to find her playing buddys with all of her cudddly toys tomorrow.

It's DFC Friday .... DFC Issue 34

Friday came and went I'm afraid in a bit of a blur, so DFC Friday becomes DFC Saturday.

But the The DFC issue 34 is out with Jason Cobley and Andrew Wildman's Frontier gracing the cover. Inside they're being menaced by a devious gang of werewolves in Weird Wild West. Getting better as it goes this one is, although it does suffer slightly from John Blake syndrome with each episode being not quite long enough to get enough story in. I'm beginning to think this may be down to the artist; Andrew Wildman likes big panels, which means we only get 21 panels across 4 pages. It looks nice, but maybe smaller panels to get more story in would serve it better?



New this issue is the slightly strange Wilbur Dawbarn's Bodkin and the Bear, a 2 page "funny one" that had Molly and I smiling when the inept medieval minstrel gets captured by the bear. It's only strange because the art looks different from the usual funny strip style. It's more rough and angular, but funny is funny, so it's passed the Molly test which is good enough for me.

Also this issue: Super Animal Adventure Squad by James Turner; Dave Shelton's Good Dog, Bad Dog; Simone Lia's ever funny Sausage and Carrots and more Lazarus Lemming. Sarah McIntyre's Vern & Lettuce is still the high point for Molly though and this week we get to see an Underground ghost station and meet Vern's ghostly Grandad leading Vern to utter the great lines: "Am I also doomed to spend an eternity chasing dead moles?"

As before, the two strips Molly doesn't read are the two highlights. Ben Haggarty and Adam Brockbank's Mezolith just looks gorgeous and reads as though Haggarty was in the room reading it to you. And then there's Mirabilis. This time round we get to see a devious old wizard's escape from Bethlehem Hospital for the Insane, our hero gets filled in on what's going on a little more; seems the green comet's trail across the sky happens every thousand years or so and always brings with it miraculous events. Camelot, the Arabian Nights, Hercules, Odysseus and the Mahabarata. What it has in store this time we shall wait impatiently for.

More next week. Maybe even on the Friday this time.

Tom Spurgeon on Essential Avengers Volume 2

And it is oh so good. Spurgeon's Comics Reporter is a must visit comic site. Excerpt from the review of Essential Avengers Volume 2:

The crying androids can wait. At this point it's still all about copious ass-beatings and ladies straight from the set of Mad Men proclaiming the handsome awesomeness of Hercules. Mostly, it's the violence. Don Heck and especially John Buscema drew all of their male superheroes as thick-shouldered brutes, the kind of people you could imagine punching out livestock, drinking things out of barrels, cuffing one another to the floor of the kitchen in order to grab the last pop tart. In fact, my childhood comprehension of the title was of a bunch of large, angry men sitting around a house waiting for a call to go thump something.

PROPAGANDA @ FPI blog: The Wolfmen

Latest review at the FPI blog:

The Wolfmen by Dave West and Andy Bloor

"But of course, given the title and the blurbs and the whole tone of the book, you knew exactly what was coming from the very first time you saw the gang, if not before."

PROPAGANDA @ the FPI blog: Alison Bechdel's Essential Dykes To Watch Out For

A biiig review up on the FPI blog:

Alison Bechdel's Essential Dykes To Watch Out For.


"it may well be the perfect soap opera comic. And I say that as a fine compliment in a medium where genuinely dramatic, genuinely funny and genuinely real characters and stories are hard to find, yet Alison Bechdel’s Dykes To Watch Out For is overwhelmed with them."

Morph in mourning

No idea where this comes from (I got it from Jamie McKelvie's Twitter) but it pretty much says everything I thought when I got the news of Tony Hart's death.

PROPAGANDA @ the FPI blog: Walking Wounded

Latest review up on the FPI blog:

Massacre For Boys presents Walking Wounded #1&2.

"Time for a little old fashioned boys own adventure here. It’s nothing cerebral, nothing challenging. It’s a comic equivalent of a good war movie. Think of the fun of Where Eagles Dare or Guns Of Naverone and you’ve got the tone of Walking Wounded just right. Fun, fast entertaining but not too strenuous a read."

Absolute Promethea coming October 2009. When do we get an Absolute Invisibles?

Over on his blog, JH Williams reveals what we’d all been suspecting: there shall be an Absolute Promethea from DC Wildstorm in October 2009, as confirmed tonight by the DC solicits that have just been released.

(Image from front cover of the Absolute Promethea slipcase, art by JH Williams III from his Flickr stream.)

Like I said, it comes as no surprise that we’re going to be getting the Absolute treatment for Promethea. Indeed, looking at the recent year end figures across various blogs, the Absolute volumes and similar very expensive single items are the thing that make DC’s dollar share top the charts even when they’re way behind Marvel in terms of market share. So that’s V For Vendetta and Promethea at least this year, with the Absolute Death being prepared. I’d be expecting (absolutely) everything high profile that DC has done over the last few decades to be getting the absolute treatment over the coming years, after all, it’s a very nice little earner.

Of course, what this really means is that over the next years we'll see DC release evrything and anything they can possibly get away with. When they get down to Absolute Invasion the sound you will hear is the bottom of the barrel being thoroughly scraped out.

And I guarantee you this: even when they get to the very bottom of that barrel they'll have managed to complete forget about the bloody Invisibles.

Hope in today's world?

Bloody hell, who'd have thought it? The Internet will probably roll over and die at some point today with the weight of the entire 8 million people in Washington DC uploading the back of someone's head and a flash of car or the sleeve of a sharp suit to You Tube.

But it's an infectious thing this feeling of hope and change isn't it? Although whenever I start really thinking this could be something special I just have to reach back into the memory and start playing the first few bars of "Things Can Only Get Better" to bring me back down to earth. Please, please, please let Obama be better than Blair, please let him live up to this hype and hope.

That would be nice.

Monday 19th - Blue Monday.....

See, if I'd have been aware of this I'd have had the song on a continuous loop at school. Oh well.

Of course, Blue Monday is about as good/bad/indifferent as any other Mon/Tues/Wednes/Thurs/Fri/Sat/Sun day really. At least I go t a half day today. Granted the other half was spent at home doing more work and for longer than if I'd have actually been in work. Ho hum.

Bed now. Blue Tuesday awaits.

Oh, I could do this all the time... the joy of the half day.

We had the gasman coming round yesterday afternoon to check the heating system (amazingly, given the trouble with the roof, there's nothing wrong with the central heating) so it was home for lunch and a pleasant afternoon adding stuff to the school website. An afternoon of genuinely working from home rather than the usual where I work from home in the evenings and weekends. It gets better as well: since I have a car check up this friday and the NHBC are coming round next friday I'm having to take both of those mornings as work at home mornings as well.

And I'm absolutely sold on it. It's very, very easy to get loads of things done, completely free from distractions. The only downside of it of course is that working from home means I don't actually get to do anything with the children. However, today was a relatively clear afternoon after 2 sessions with the children trying to explain robot directions and having an impromptu maths lesson on angles and then a session on information, searching an online encyclopaedia and finding out fun stuff about animal. The favourite of the class? A tie between the Owl being able to turn it's head almost 360 degrees and the Gecko being able to jettison it's tail and grow another one.

So I think some sort of arrangement where all the stuff involving kids is in the morning and then all the tech stuff is done in the afternoon and I get to do those at home if it's possible to. I think that's a great idea. Wonder if the head will go for it?

PROPAGANDA Reviews: Hellblazer 250

John Constantine: Hellblazer - issue # 250

by Dave Gibbons & Sean Phillips, Jamie Delano & David Lloyd, Brian Azzerello & Rafael Grampa, Peter Milligan & Eddie Campbell, China Mieville & Giuseppe Camuncoli. Cover by Lee Bermejo.

DC Comics / Vertigo.

Incredibly, with this 250th issue, Hellblazer has been going for nearly 21 years. Quite an achievement for a character that was never anything more than a mysterious Scouse wide-boy magus, popping up here and there to pester the Swamp Thing in Alan Moore’s magnificent run on the title. John Constantine was never intended to be a main character, so it’s all the more incredible that we find ourselves here so many years later.

I’ve followed the title off and on since that very first issue and still have to say that there’s nothing better than the first 80 or so issues with first Jamie Delano and then Garth Ennis on writing duties and pretty much defining everything about the character for any writer to come. You really can do no better than picking up the first collections from both writer (Delano’s Original Sins and Ennis’ Dangerous Habits) as a perfect Hellblazer taster.

(From Christmas Cards, by Jamie Delano and David Lloyd.)

As for the anniversary comic in question, there are three outstanding tales and two okay stories in this double sized issue. All sitting underneath that absolutely perfect cover by Lee Berjemo. Not a bad hit rate for this sort of thing really and purely down to my preference for the Constantine I remember most fondly; the watcher, the thinker, the devious, cunning plotter. I found myself most at home with the Constantine of Jamie Delano & David Lloyd’s Christmas Cards story and Peter Milligan & Eddie Campbell’s The Curse Of Christmas. The stories in both are sedate, subtle things, with some cracking art as you may expect from messrs Lloyd and Campbell along the way. In both of these festive tales Constantine is merely the observer or follower of the mystery, taking very little active part until that crucial final act where his presence is often enough to tip those magical scales.

The other tales have him rather more directly involved and it just didn’t read as well for me. There’s even an attempt in the Dave Gibbons opener to rebrand Constantine as some sort of magical Jason Bourne type. I don’t think the Hellblazer I remember would be up to jumping ten feet down, through the roof of a boat and without breaking stride, carrying on his relentless pursuit of a murderous baby snatcher.

One special mention though: although I thought that Brian Azzarello’s “All I Goat For Christmas” tale of Constantine lifting the curse of the Chicago Cubs was a cracking story, told in rhyme and involving Constantine painting one particular Chicago bar and it’s drinkers a very blood red. The art by Grampa is the real star of the tale though, reminiscent of Paul Pope in parts and a timely reminder that I should really get around to picking up his Mesmo Delivery from Adhouse Books.

(From “All I Goat For Christmas”, story Azzerello, art Grampa)

But like i say, it’s all personal taste here. Like any anniversary issue that does the anthology thing, some tales are going to be better than others. But in some ways it doesn’t matter. The Hellblazer template is so fixed by this point that there’s very little can be done to alter it. Not that this is a problem. After nearly 21 years telling a John Constantine tale is a little like a Sherlock Holmes tale, there are certain things that are rather essential.

And the future is looking good for Hellblazer; Peter Milligan takes over as writer next issue, Jamie Delano & Jock are celebrating the 21 anniversary year with the original graphic novel Pandemonium and Ian Rankin is producing a graphic novel later in the year as well.

Not bad for the bit part Sting lookalike taking the piss out of the Swamp Thing really, is it?