Oh goody. Ill.

Last couple of days of holiday have been spent fighting against a particularly nasty bastard of a cold. Nose, sore throat, cough, sinus pain, aching body. And before you think it, I don't think we're looking at a swine flu outbreak yet.

But it does mean I was very grateful to see Molly off to swimming and then playing around at a friends today - meant I could just sit and do nothing except dose myself up with painkillers, cough medicine, liquids and olbas oil.

But it was horrible having to sit inside feeling crap on such a lovely day. And tomorrow it's back to school. With a cold. Great.

Reviewing and inferiority complexes...... I'll get to them after moaning about diets and dentists first

Currently sitting waiting for Louise and Molly to return with the half term treat of a chinese take away. This is the one treat I've allowed myself to have in the last week and something I know is going to be wonderful. It's a special treat because I've been on a health kick / diet over the last month.

Buying the bike has meant I can actually enjoy exercise. Because no matter how much I enjoy the scenery, walking without a purpose just seems slightly silly to me. Running was always better, but my left knee is completely shafted (snowboarding injury many years ago) so that's out. But riding the bike suddenly meant I could exercise and go places. A perfect solution. Add in the cutting out of crap food and my weight and worryingly middle aged spread type thing is going away little by little.

However, whilst sitting here waiting for Louise and Molly to get back I'm sitting here trying to write a review of a strange little graphic novel that contains nothing but artwork from a couple of artists referencing various Eastern European folk tales. And it's one of those things that just fills me with insecurities about what little I know. in an ideal world I'd know about these things, be able to trot of a series of theories about them all and feel really smug in my own knowledge on this and every other subject in the great big world. Sadly I'm not. But then again, how many of us really are?

This is the reason we all seem to hold such wonderful minds as Alan Moore and Stephen Fry in such high regard. It's the amazing way they just knnow so much stuff about so much that we find amazing.

But I really have to try to feel less insecure about it all and just get on and review the damn thing.

missing gigs again.....

That Petrol Emotion are touring again. And it's one of those tours where I'm going to find it so difficult to make it to any of them. Not good. Either too far away on a weekend or on a school night. Bother. And this is after missing out on the Kraftwerk gig in Manchester happening in July. (I could get tickets from ebay but I haven't got the 300 quid or so that they're going for.)

It's something I really miss about living in Birmingham, having gigs on the doorstep that I could walk to and walk home from. Now I have only the choice of York or Leeds, driving to gigs and sriving home. it's just not the same. last year I was really lucky to be able to get to see That Petrol Emotion in the summer holidays and Carter on a saturday, but it looks like this year I wont be so lucky. Damn.

PROPAGANDA @ the FPI blog: Thorgal

Latest review up at the FPI blog:

Thorgal - The Land Of Qa

.....for those of you reading this who do enjoy your swords with a little sorcery thrown in, I imagine you’ll be absolutely thrilled by each and everyone of these Thorgal volumes.

ER Finale

Spent a lovely evening tonight watching the ER documentary on More4 followed by the ER finale. A wonderful ending to a programme I used to religiously watch for about the first 6 seasons and then rather fell out of love with. I have made a deliberate effort to follow this final season though and it's been a really good one. The finale was special though, full of everything that made it so unmissable 15 years ago. And all of the little nostalgic touches, designed to bring little tears of recognition to the eye did just that for this soppy old git.

Look ma, tis me......

This is the great power of the Internet: I makes a twitter post to Oli Smith about the recent interview and made mention of him being "nice and controversial". To which he made twitter comment "'nice and controversial' now there's a good description of me... better than 'sketchy and self absorbed' at least ;)"

So I twitter back: "how about "able to take his criticism well"? Anyway, I think we're all looking forward to the responses to the interview."

Which leads us to this:



Oli Smith ladies and gentlemen - currently stressed out over final exams. He's not normally this violent. But I am now a famous cartoon character. So all is good. And Oli is still my favourite london based, comic convention organising comic person in all the world.

speeding along.....

Tuesday morning was spent on one of those speeding courses that Humberside police run. I got flashed by a speed camera a while back doing 59 in a 50. My own fault, I was rushing to get somewhere. So I've no complaints about it.

But the speed course was offered as an alternative to 3 points on the license. £75 for the course rather than a £60 fine and two and a half hours of my life spent in a small room. Not the most exciting time I've ever spent in a small room, but not too bad. Thankfully not too many of the people in attendance decided to open their mouths too much and we were all polite and attentive pupils. There was one bloke a few rows back who kept enquiring about the relevance and effectiveness of speed cameras. As soon as he started talking you could almost hear everyone in the room realise that he was adding an extra quarter of an hour onto the day. But thankfully, he shut up after a little while and we all sat there for the rest of the course being good pupils and taking our medicine well.

Interestingly I did find out some things during the day that I didn't know before going; namely that the speed limits I had in my head were wrong. Seems I've actually been going under the speed limit all this time; 60 for an A road on national speed limit and 70 for a dual carriageway on national speed limit. Possibly not the thing I should have taken from all this. But aside from going faster on A roads and dual carriageways, the £75 has done the trick and I find myself being a much nicer driver now. And sticking to 30 in a 30 zone really, really pisses everyone behind me off. It's worth it just to see their stressed out, annoyed faces in my rear view mirror.

PROPAGANDA @ the FPI blog: Warren Ellis' Ruins

Latest review is up at the FPI blog:

Ruins by Warren Ellis.

Sadly, it appears no-one at Marvel really paid that much attention to the sort of writing Warren Ellis tends to do. They marketed it with typical Marvel hyperbole, mixed with a super-serious, pretentious tone. And they missed the point completely: Ruins is a joke. It’s Warren essentially taking the piss out of the Marvel Universe. I imagine it’s the sort of idea that only comes either in the throes of a whisky session or the subsequent hangover.

Then We Bought Some Chairs: A conversation with Oli Smith by Matthew Badham

Hi all, recently Matthew Badham, all round nice guy and comic writer, got in touch to ask if a few of us comic type blogs - the FPI blog, Down The Tubes, Bugpowder and here (I really only think of Fictions as a half comic blog, but what the heck) would be interested in cross posting a few interviews about various comic conventions and events. The idea being to give a platform for the organisers to promote their event and to trigger a little debate over the pros and (ahem) cons on a the comic-con scene in the UK right now. I said yes and here's the first one......



(The Oli Smith. Shy, retiring poster boy of the UK small press. Okay, maybe not that shy.)

Then We Bought Some Chairs: A conversation with Oli Smith

In the coming weeks and months, Down the Tubes, the Forbidden Planet International blog, Bugpowder and Fictions are going to be cross-posting Q&As with the organisers of various British comic conventions. Our aim is to give the conventions themselves some well-deserved publicity and also to, hopefully, spark a wider debate about what’s good and bad about the convention circuit in this country. (NB: Answers have been edited only in terms of spelling, punctuation and grammar, and not for style or content.) For this first instalment, we chatted to Oli Smith of London Underground Comics fame about their latest event, LUC 176.

Matthew Badham: Please tell us about a little about the history of your con and how it's evolved over the years.

Oli Smith: As I'm sure most readers of this article are aware, London Underground Comics (LUC) began life two years ago as a weekly market stall in Camden Lock manned by whichever people I could drag down from their ivory towers to help me stand around for eight hours on a Saturday.

Then we bought some chairs.

Then we sat around selling literally thousands of comics to the general public and realised we had been conned in the past by the small press scene and comics events organisers telling us that the only way to network or sell anything was to give them lots of money for events that didn't cater to our needs.

So we decided to do our own conventions, to see how we did without the 'networking opportunities' of 'real' cons.

Then we met Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons, Eddie Campbell and got Paul Gravett to dance to the Austin Powers theme tune whilst we helped organise an event at the ICA and were interviewed by Radio 4.

We also ran two events in the Market with 50 exhibitors each time, a footfall of a few hundred visitors and for the first time in their life, I think EVERY small presser could afford a round of drinks plus extra from the profits of the day, or at least had 50p spare.

Pretty sweet, I think.



MB: How is your con funded, by ticket sales, the exhibitors, a grant from the council, some other means or a combination of these?

OS: 176 is funded by GOSH! comics shop and exhibitors. It's amazing what you can get for free if you just ask. I don't think we've ever had to pay over a hundred pounds for a venue, and considering the locations and spaces we get, it's a great deal. For this special event we wanted to offer exhibitors more for their money than any other con, so we asked Gosh if they would donate some money so that we could buy every exhibitor their own canvas and provide some sort of materials to decorate them with. They were very generous.

Also, anybody who is an animator gets the opportunity to have their work shown on our massive wall screen for free. We've also managed to subsidise the booze and give out free teas and coffees.

Did I mention ambient DJ's throughout the day and live music in the evening?

As you can see, we make the exhibitor's £5 for a quarter table and £10 for a half go a long way.

MB: What are the overall aims of your con/event?

OS: God, I don't know. When I started LUC I was very idealistic, but late nights of balancing accounts and replying to a million emails and organising the bloody thing have drained the political spark.

So what I would like to achieve now from 176 is for everybody to have a brilliant day out, try some new things, sell lots of their work to new and interesting people and get to see their mates. And to try and do it in such a way that they go home with a bob or two to spare.


(The latest event from London Underground Comics: LUC 176. Coming soon.)

MB: Who is your con aimed at? What sort of punters do you hope to attract? Are you family-friendly?

176 is aimed at everyone, I want to see people who have never heard of comics drop by on the day and see what's going on. I want regular con goers to come and try something new. I want to present the small press as a stylish and professional thing to be part of, rather than rickety old vanity press in the corner. I know that's not to everyone's taste, but I don't mean change the way you make comics. I mean change the way you sell comics. Let’s make those tourists think they're talking to professional artists when they drop by. Let's show the diversity of what the underground scene can really be. It takes me mailing round everybody to find out that there are some fantastic musicians in the small press world, and some even better animators. How didn't I know that before?

And, yes, we ARE family friendly. Not only are we going to have a nice little reading area and outside tables for people to sit and read their purchases, but you've also got the animations and coffee to give people a reason to stay past a quick circuit of the room and to want to read their purchases at the event!

MB: How effective have you been in getting those kind of people to attend?

OS: Very. Next.

Well, up until now we've only had events in tourist hotspots. It's not hard to attract a crowd on a Saturday in Camden if you've got 50 people in an event. 176 is well known if you like art, but a little off the beaten track. Maybe I’ll send people out flyering round Chalk Farm tube. I still think we'll pack the place, to be honest.

MB: Can you give a projected (or actual) attendance figure for your event?

OS: Well, we sold all our table space in two weeks so that’s 45 exhibitors (we decided not to cram as many people in as possible, but to give the people that come a really nice experience and room to breathe). So, if they're sensible they'll invite all their friends and family. Then you've got the regular gallery attendees. We're the last event of a two month long series of arty things so there'll be people attracted by that, and then anyone who picked up one of Jake Harold's sexy fliers surely won't be able to resist.

MB: What lessons have you learned during your time running a con, in terms of marketing and advertising your event?

OS: Flier. Lots.

The youtube videos are a fun diversion, but they're there more to give a welcoming front to the people that are on the fence, to show we're friendly. But if a couple of people come because of them, then that's great.

What's nice are places like Forbidden Planet and Down the Tubes that are very good at picking up our announcements, which pretty much covers the comic circuit, and the Gosh! association should bring down some more London-based fans as well.

MB: Do you use emerging technologies to spread the word about your con? Do you have a website or blog, or use email mailing lists?

OS: I don't have a mailing list. It would be too long really and I'd have to keep updating the contacts and stuff. It's too fiddly. We have the London Underground Comics website and my website and my twitter and facebook groups and events so it's pretty easy to keep tabs on what's going on if you're linked to me in any way. Facebook and twitter are good because word of mouth can spread pretty quickly once they get informed that such and such a friend has joined the LUC group or whatever.

Then there's the youtube videos, which still seems to be an emerging technology in the comics world.

MB: What about print? Do you use print advertising, have a newsletter, anything like that?

OS: Haha, God, no. Who would in this climate? If you print it you lose money, and if you charge for it you don't get readers. No one wants to go out and get anything physical for news any more. Also, it'd be such a pain to distribute when I could just post it all on a website, and hit some randomers along the way.

MB: What's the mix in terms of exhibitors at your con? Do you even have exhibitors?

OS: Yes, we have exhibitors although in the future I want to maybe move away from the standard 'market' layout to events. But then I want to graffiti a building for a day as my next event. The mix is a hard balance to achieve; I love getting the newbies involved and they're very keen and up for anything. It's the best feeling in the world to know you're a few people's first ever convention. But then again I want all my old friends to come down and to have a catch up with them, so it's striking the balance of being fresh for the new punks and just the right hint of familiarity so you don't scare off the oldies. Like you, Matt.

MB: What are your thoughts on the small press comics scene in this country? How do you try and support it (do you try and support it)?

OS: I have a lot of thoughts on the UK small press scene, most of them revolving around, what's it for? I've had a few breaks recently in work and commissions, and none of them came from making a small press comic. I've not seen a career ladder that starts in small press and ends in professional work, I mean, it happens, but it could just as easily be a chat with the right person rather than a critically acclaimed masterpiece.

And if a career ladder isn’t your thing and you just want to share your ideas then that’s great and that's why I do it too. But is paying through the nose for a space at a con to sell comics to people you know really sharing your ideas or getting the word out? Or is it vanity press? Is it a club for people to sit around and feel famous because they're in a room with a very specific bunch of people who have all visited their site?

Convention organisers aren't helping break the vanity press mould and neither are the exhibitors who keep paying for these events. With LUC I took comics to anywhere BUT where comics fans are found: the Alphabet Bar art gallery off of Oxford Street; Camden Market; The Prince Charles cinema; the Bookart Bookshop; we've given talks at schools and libraries. If we are scouting out a venue and there might be someone there who has heard of LUC then we're not doing our jobs and we move somewhere else.

To me, art is about communicating ideas, and sharing those ideas with as many people as I can. It's not about making a new issue to sell to all your friends at a convention so that you can make slightly less of a loss at the end of the weekend. That's just mutual backslapping. And I love my fellow creators, I really do, but I don't want them and only them to read my work. Because to me that isn't small press.

MB: How much are the tickets for your event? How did you arrive at that price? Please tell us about any concessions.

OS: Tickets? You want me to charge money for people to come into a room and buy things? That's ridiculous. It's like WH Smith charging you to come in, even if you just want some gum. How do you get people who don’t know anything about comics to come in off the street with an entry fee?

At 176 there's reasons for everyday folk to stay and watch the animations or bands or abuse the coffee. Even if I had a panel of comics professionals, that wouldn't justify an entry fee for a family of four who don't know who any of those people are and only wanted to come in because their son saw Wolverine at the cinema.

MB: How much are exhibitor tables for your event (if you have any)? Again, how did you arrive at that figure?

OS: We work out what we want to do, how much it will cost and divide it by the number of people. If it's too much we cut back or find another venue. We never charge on the door, and we don't want to price anyone out of the market. It's small press, not private press. You shouldn't pay a member’s fee to take part.

Sadly that means I don’t make any money, but then I wouldn’t be best pleased to go to an event that charged me, lets say, £120 for a table. How many comics would I have to sell to break even on that? And how many more to cover my train fair, hotel bills and printing costs for this completely hypothetical event? A train to Birmingham is expensive.

MB: Do you run workshops/events/panels at your con? Please tell us about those and how they are organised.

OS: Every exhibitor gets a canvas. They draw/paint a picture on it during the day and we build a wall at the back of the room out of them as they are finished. Every event is accessible to all. The animation, the music, the comics should become this synergy-type entity. I don't want a convention, I want a festival.

MB: As you've been kind enough to answer these questions, please fell free to big your con up a bit. Tell us what you do well, what your event's main attractions are and why our readers should attend the next one.

OS: It's going to be a fantastic day filled with fantastic people. I've already gone into a lot of detail about what we offer above. I would like to say that if there are any more people out there who have animations they'd like to show or some music they might feel appropriate, please just send me an email (chocolatewednesdaycake@yahoo.com) and I'll try and fit you in somewhere.

See you soon!

Thanks to Matthew and Oli for doing that. Another one coming soon.
Links for your further reading:
Matthew Badham: blog.
Oli's website: theolismith.com
London Underground Comics: website, 176 event page.

PROPAGANDA @ FPI blog: The Picture Of Dorian Gray

Latest review on the FPI blog right now.

A great adaptation of Oscar Wilde's The Picture Of Dorian Gray by Ian Edginton & INJ Culbard.

Edginton’s adaptation of Wilde’s work succeeds in capturing every essential element of Wilde’s masterpiece and placing it square on the page for Culbard to illustrate.

Holiday fun, biking with the Brutons....

Today Molly and I went for our first proper bike ride together. She's on the big bike now and is so very proud of herself and she and I cycle our way around Pocklington on our new bikes. We didn't venture that far, just a mile or so there and back, but it was great being able to see the place you live from a different perspective.

I've walked most of it at some point or other in the two and a half years but having the freedom of being on a bike means you can go exploring that little bit more, something Molly and I are determined to do over the coming months.

At one point today I even found myself making the altogether rash and stupid promise (just to myself) that I really have to look at cycling the five or so miles to work. Maybe one day.

Tomorrow it's back in the car for an early start and a trip to Hull for a not too pleasant meeting. More on that tomorrow later in the week.

Is It Funny? Should I Forward It? I wish some folks who email me would read this.....

(via Shoeboxblog & Pootling.)

Bike. I has a bike.

I've bought myself a bike. A rather nice looking Apollo mountain bike. No idea whether it's any good or not, because I know just slightly less about bikes than I do about D.I.Y. or space travel. But it looks good and rides well. And seeing as it's fairly new and cost £45 and seems to have all the essential things in the right place (2 wheels, frame, brakes, seat) I think it was a pretty good deal.

Molly and I went out on the bikes earlier as we dropped her down to her friend's house for an afternoon. Then I went off on a little round Pocklington tour. About 2 miles of country roads resulting in leg muscles that wouldn't stop twanging for a little while afterwards. But it was fantastic. Haven't been on a bike properly since I was mid teens and fell off one rather spectacularly, but riding around the country roads was just great. Can see myself really enjoying this new hobby rather a lot. If only so that I can keep up with Molly on her bike now.

Molly loves the bike thing....

After taking forever to get her onto a bike (see here), it now seems that we can't get her off one. Everywhere we go she insists upon taking the bike along and is getting to be quite the little speed demon on it. We knew that she'd love riding but even we weren't quite ready for how much.

Next week we may well take back the small bike we borrowed and try out the big bike that someone at school very kindly gave us ages ago. And here, partly as proof and partly through pride, is Molly.......







And later today, because I'm getting fed up with walking everywhere with her, I'm off to look at a second hand bike. The last time I seriously had a bike was over 20 years ago. I might be a little rusty.

Coraline movie ... and how much does it cost? Bloody hell.

Molly and I headed across to York to see Coraline in 3D. £15 for 1 adult and 1 child. Including the oh so fair extra for the 3D effects. Considering the film industry seems to consider 3D as the future of the movies I think they're rather shooting themselves in the foot, leg and groin here. Because 3D may be clever, it may be pretty but I've had enough of it now. Every film I've seen with 3D doesn't actually use the 3D as a film-making device, it's simply used as eye-candy. And I'm done with it. Stop charging me extra for it, stop shoe-horning it into films (pointing, throwing things etc etc just to get a 3D effect in.) Well, Coraline 3D certainly didn't need the 3D. It added nothing to the movie.

I was expecting something very lavish and true to the book, scary and strange. But for the first half of the film I was really disappointed, it was tedious to be honest, nothing seemed to work properly, the inspired visuals in my head as I read the book with Molly just weren't there. It did get better in the second half, with the scary stuff working pretty well - still not as scary as they should have been though. The one brilliant visual effect was the effective use of whiteout to denote the Other Mother's lack of interest in the world beyond the apartment - that was impressive.

But overall, a disappointing movie. Perhaps I was expecting too much. And I have a sneaking feeling that it might be one to grow on me, time will tell. But the book's still so much better than anything I saw on the screen today.

Half Term, no school work, bring on the reviews. And the gin.

Oh look, it's nearly 3am.
I'm struggling to stay focused. One bit of me wants to finish the review I started an hour back, one bit of me wants to desperately work out how to get to any of the new That Petrol Emotion gigs they've announced (completely wrong for me - a few weeks later and I'd be on holiday or a little better scheduling and I'd be able to make a local gig on a weekend) and a big bit of me wants to go to bed.
Yes, it's half term and it's late and the gin has flowed too plentifully. Tomorrow we have Coraline in 3D but tonight the night appears to be still young.
More gin I think and then finishing the review, which means tomorrow night shall be spent wondering what the bloody hell I really meant to say in the review. Yes, drunk reviewing - never a good idea in the light of the morning.

Warren Ellis will have you beaten up by security....

But read this and you'll see why:

I’m at the London MCM Expo tomorrow, in the Comics Village area from about 1pm. I’m aiming for noon, but, you know, I work late and get up late, so let’s assume I’ll shamble in around one.

I will sign stuff, but two warnings:

1) If you turn up with a cart full of everything I’ve done (and this has happened before) waiting to be signed, I will laugh at you and then have you beaten up by security. Seriously. At one show, a guy conscripted his brother to pull the other cart. Pick five things you like and I’ll be delighted to sign them. Bring a hundred things and I will not be pleased to see you.

2) I’ll sign five items, at a go, but I’ve managed to bugger up my left wrist through (I don’t know how) sleeping on it, so if you’re one of the people who likes to drop a stack of wrapped, bagged, sealed, taped books on my table and then expect me to do all the unwrapping and rewrapping… well, that’s not going to happen, and if you give me shit about it I’m going to tell you to fuck off to Tesco’s if all you really wanted at my table was someone to do your packing for you. And then I’ll have you beaten up by security.

And having been at a fair number of signings in my time, mostly from the side of being staff at them, the presumptions of the folks getting things signed is quite breathtaking at times - coming up to an artist or writer with a stack of 50 comics, planting them down and just standing there; no hello, no polite chat, just the expectation that the creative monkey behind the table should get a move on and sign the comics. Rude, rude, rude. It's not everyone of course, most comic fans are a delight. Just the occasional one or two that always seem to appear at signings.

On a related note I heard back from Rich at N&C last weekend that his mate Shaun had gone down to the recent Alan Moore/Kev O'Neill League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen signing at Gosh. The queues were round the block several times, yet Alan and Kev still managed to spend 10-15 minutes chatting with lots of people, no pressure to move on, no rush at all. Gentlemen both of them was the report I had back.

PROPAGANDA @ The FPI blog: Viking # 1

Latest review over at the FPI blog:

Viking #1

"It’s wonderfully no-concept simple stuff. No high art here, no deeper meaning and pretty much summed up by that striking cover"

Grey days at school..... and protest marches in Pocklington

Well, this final week of school before the half term has been a bit of a downer and no mistake. Starts off with me in a prime funk after a weekend away. Then I just run into a wall of work as soon as I'm back. Every day this week has seen me start with the very best of intentions and then get bogged down with jobs that can't be finished, work that is so horribly bitty and unending.

To top it all off, it seems that everyone at school is under a horrible grey cloud at the moment. All is not well it seems.

Finally, tonight I came in and pretty much collapsed into the chair. Absolute exhaustion had got me. So it was possibly the worst time for dear old dad to ring up and ask me if I'd forgotten the planned protest march heading off in half an hour from then. I wasn't in the mood for this. Did he not realise all I wanted to do was sink into an exhausted slumber?

The idea of protest marches in Pocklington is rather new. Being a rather sleepy little town in the shadow of the Yorkshire wolds we're not usually required to arrange angry mobs to go rampaging around the streets of the town chanting slogans. But there's a growing frustration in the town regarding East Riding Council's decision to bring in car parking charges to the town. It came to light a few months agao and since then opposition has been building. Liek I said, we're a rathe rquiet town, not really benefitting from the tourism of the nearby coast or the attractions of York, Beverley and Bridlington. But ERYC have got it into their heads that they should really have one homogenous charging policy for their car parks. On the face of it, it does make sense. But get deeper into it and the disparity between us and other, larger towns means that to charge for parking in the town would more than likely seriously harm the future prosperity of Pocklington.

But ERYC seem committed to bringing them in. Which is why about 200 people marched from the town centre to the rugby club where the council were holding a consultation event.

I'd honestly decided not to go. But I did have to go to the post office and on the way back found myself having to walk alongside the growing crowd of people waiting for the off. Guilt got the better of me and Molly and I found ourselves joining the crowd on our first ever family protest march. Strange times.

PROPAGANDA @ FPI blog: Bob Fingerman's From The Ashes

Latest review up at the FPI blog right now:

The first issue of Bob Fingerman's new end of the world tale:
From The Ashes issue 1.

End of the world tales are hardly new, but a fictional autobiographical end of the world memoir is at least different. Fingerman and his wife Michelle wake up one morning, miraculously alive amidst the rubble of a devastated New York. They’re happy to be alive, he’s happy that he’s finally rid of his temperamental computer and his wife’s permanantly switched on, always distracting Blackberry.

Sherlock Holmes - Guy Ritchie style?

Thanks to Philip Spence for this - the first trailer for the new Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes (imdb has trailer). It's a strange one - I'm bouncing between incredulity and interest. Has that strange Plunkett & Maclaine feel to it - a film that just shouldn't work, is wrong in so many ways, but turns out to be pretty enjoyable fun. I get the same feeling off this one.

And that loud, whirring noise you might be able to hear in the background; that would be Sir ACG spinning loudly in his grave.

Oh what a place my head is at....

For some reason, tonight I spent most of the night writing and copy editing reviews whilst listening to Amanda Palmer and choking on tears.

No, I have no idea why. My world is a strange place sometimes.

Just be thankful I deleted the last 500 or so words I wrote trying to express that in less mysterious tone.

PROPAGANDA @ the FPI blog: taking an Adventure In Cartooning

Latest review at the FPI blog:

Adventures In Cartooning

with extra special input from Molly.

PROPAGANDA @ the FPI blog: Phonogram Singles Club issue 2

New review at the FPI blog:

Phonogram - The Singles Club issue 2

Glorious, music as comics. Best of the year? It's high up in the running right now.

What Richard did this Weekend

Being the mildly anti-social, typically only child sort that I am, I took myself away for me weekend. Friday I travelled down to Birmingham and met up with friends at Nostalgia & Comics for comics and drinkys. A lovely night was had by all, and a bad head in the morning wass had by me.

Saturday I took my miserable, anti-social self off to Dudley. It's something in my personality that never goes away. No matter how much i enjoy the company of friends, no matter how much I love being me and having family and Molly around, there are still times where I can just take myself away from it all and be completely alone for a day or so and just have me time. Selfish perhaps, but tolerated in the household. Anyway, Molly and Louise had plans for a good meal out on Friday and a trip to the cinema to see hannah Montana on Saturday as part of their great girly weekend.

Whilst they were busy watching Miley Cyrus putting a blonde wig on and off and on again I heaed to Himley Hall and Gardens for a couple of hours, sat myself down in the coffee shop and wrote and wrote and wrote. Himley Hall is one of those places etched into my childhood psyche and it was so lovely to spend hours wandering round:


















After that it rained. And rained. And rained some more. But I didn't care. The hotel bar was quiet so it was gin and writing and reading till the early hours. Sunday I made my way slowly back through more and more rain. Biblical style sheets of rain at times. But home now. Exhausted, in need of a break to recover from my break. But glad of the me time.

PROPAGANDA Reviews: The Rule Of Death

The Rule Of Death # 1-4

Words by Daniel Merlin Goodbrey, Pictures by Douglas Noble, online colours by Daniel Merlin Goodbrey.

Self published.

Originally published online in colour at Serializer.net, The Rule Of Death is an extremely quirky black and white comic indeed. If you want the quick summary, it’s essentially Western Zombie Tales of a man who just decides he’s not going to stay dead.

But it’s much better, much cleverer than that simple summary. Starting with the very first pages, with Pete getting up from his coffin with the words: “No. I’m sorry. I’ve given it some thought. I don’t want to die.” I just knew this was going to be an enjoyable read. And so it proved. Goodbrey’s story, following Pete’s reintroduction to a town that just doesn’t really want to acknowledge the dead man walking amongst them, is perfectly paced and has a sharpness of dialogue that makes it a hugely entertaining read.

(From the online coloured version of Rule Of Death. Pete decides that today just isn’t a good day to die.)

Once Pete realises what’s happened to him, he takes it upon himself to seek out certain townsfolk from before his passing. He’s after his old job from Murphy, the saloon keeper, but that doesn’t work out on account of a dead guy not being the hottest draw at the local saloon. Likewise, his meeting with the Doctor and the Priest don’t go well. But then Murphy has an idea. What could be better in the wild, wild west than a man who doesn’t die when shot? Murphy’s a smart one and knows an opportunity when he sees one. Or maybe he’s just drunk. Murphy’s drunk a lot.

Murphy and Pete hit the road, going from town to town as Slow Draw Pete McGraw, the slowest gunslinger in the old west. Not the best, just the slowest. But speed doesn’t matter that much when you have all the time in the world to get that shot off.

(Slow Draw Pete McGraw. Slow and a bad shot. It’s a good job he’s already dead really. From Rule Of Death.)

Of course, not all is well and a man refusing death may have to answer to a higher power at some point, a higher power that seems to be following the group, riding a stagecoach and promising that “Death comes to us all, Pete Colby. Death comes to us all. It comes for you. And all the lives you touch.”

For a book with a man refusing death Goodbrey is never short of a comedy one liner or two. And it’s this refusal to let neither the macabre events or the ridiculousness of the situation get out of hand that sees Rule Of Death rise above what could have been a rather silly or a rather doom laden zombie tale and turn into something far, far better and wonderfully original.

To be honest, after starting them in comic form and then continuing online I have to say I prefer Noble’s art in black and white to the coloured version online. Which is not to say there’s anything wrong with the colouring done by Goodbrey, it’s just my own preference. Maybe the black and white just carries the dark theme of the book a little better, maybe it’s just me preferring the printed page to the online one. But I think that Noble’s black and white art just looks so very good on Rule Of Death that colouring it rather flattens it out and loses some of the brooding intensity of the work.

(Compare and contrast time. First the online colour version of Rule Of Death at the start of the review, then the black and white version above. I think Noble’s art looks better in black and white.)

Both writer and artist have websites: Goodbrey: e-merl, Noble: Strip For Me.

The comic is serialised in colour at Serializer.net. But like I said, I preferred the stark black and white of Noble’s art in comic form rather than the coloured online version. Get in touch with either Noble or Goodbrey for copies. But whichever you choose, it’s a great comic.

Mustard Mag - make your own Alan Moore

Must remember to pick this when I get chance; Mustard magazine's a comedy mag, far too classy looking to be called a fanzine, but from the website I get the impression it's a real labour of love - and at £2 an issue, a very cheap labour of love.

Issue 4 has an Alan Moore interview - 15 pages of the great man. And as a very bizarre extra, the website has these very daft print and make Alan Moore dolls:

New Mazzuccheli graphic novel.... want, want, want.

There’s a nice career retrospective of the great David Mazzuccheli over at Master Post Live Journal. Mazzuccheli is that classic example of an artist who will suddenly break out and blossom. Sienkienvicz and Lapham are two others off the top of my head.

The evidence? How about this series of images?

(Master Of Kung Fu 1983)

(Batman Year One 1986)

(art from the amazing Rubber Blanket series 1991-1993, “The Big Man” from Rubber Blanket 3 - 1993)

The leap from average superhero comic artist to supremely good comic artist was amazing. But the subsequent leap to his work on Rubber Blanket was really something else. Which brings me to the point of the piece - it’s been far too long since we heard of anything by Mazzuccheli. But it seems that Pantheon in the US are releasing his new graphic novel Asterios Polyp in July (Pantheon’s page) that’s described as:

Meet Asterios Polyp: middle-aged, architect and teacher, aesthete and womanizer, whose life is upended when his New York City apartment goes up in flames. He leaves the city and relocates to a small town in the American heartland. But what is this “escape” really about?

I’d managed to completely miss this - but what a pleasant surprise.

PROPAGANDA Reviews: Strip For me by Douglas Noble

Strip For Me

by Douglas Noble

Self Published.

Douglas Noble’s been making his Strip For Me comics for a long time. Although maintaining an ongoing number scheme, the tales within each of the four issues I read (18, 23, 25 and 26 - coincidentally three of the lottery numbers I so vainly play each week) are self contained pieces, vastly different in style and story.

In just these four examples I’ve seen, Noble shows that he’s more than happy experimenting with both story and art. The one consistency throughout the comics is Noble’s artistic style where his work has very little mid range, very little gray, just stark black and vivid whites across the page. All of the midtones are in his writing; literate, thoughtful writing that often leaves you thinking about exactly what you just read and what it may mean.
Of the four I thought two were absolutely great and two not so good. Getting the two I didn’t enjoy so much out of the way first:

Strip For Me 26; Cocksmen of the Western World is a story that I just didn’t really get into; good enough, but just not that engaging. Artistically it’s some of his strongest work though, with his stark black and white artwork really working hard to tell his story and doing it very well. But the story, of the life and loves of a cock fighting man, just didn’t do it for me. Interesting enough concept, just lacking that certain something to make it really good.

Strip For Me 18 didn’t really work for me either, with neither art or story up to the task of conveying the sense of emotion and feeling he was after. The art, consisting of tiny 16 panel grids with the story in between each line was too small, too indistinct and too removed from the story to engage with properly. Likewise the story was a little too meandering, too un-involving to really enjoy. It doesn’t help that each page is constructed with words in between each line of four panels in his sixteen panel grid. I found myself either skipping the art to read the words or concentrating too much on the art, trying to follow what was going on, to actually pay much attention to the story.

But having said all that, the remaining two comics prove that Noble’s work is well worth persevering with. His writing in these two pieces is rich and literate, conveying his stories really well.

Strip For Me 23: Empty Canvas, is a slow burning, intriguing tale of artistic obsession and a model’s determination to discover what makes him tick. But there are allusions to more, a mystery regarding exactly why the model has sought out the artist, living high over the city in a Dracula-esque castle. Deliberately open ended and mysterious and little more than a series of discussions of art and life between artist and model, it’s engrossing. Artistically it’s the best of the four as well, with Noble giving his art a little more room to breathe than some of the earlier comics and showing off how good his simple lines can look.

Strip For Me 25: A Man Of Certain Talents is the most satisfying of the four, yet is also a complete mystery, both in subject and content. Unknown man takes mission from another unknown man; “Do a good turn in Hamburg, unlock a factory door, speak to a child”. Hardly the stuff of classic spy movies. But Noble manages to create such a sense of intrigue and claustrophobic tension in his pages that it certainly feels like the strangest James Bond story you’ll ever read. It’s a fascinating story, hugely enjoyable, although you may not actually ever realise why you’re enjoying it so much. It’s also where Noble’s art really shines through. His stark imagery working with the uncertain, indistinct story he’s telling. It just all works.

(Two sequences from A Man Of Certain Talents, Strip For Me 25, by Douglas Noble)

But there’s far more to Douglas Noble’s work than just his published comics. There’s an absolute Aladdin’s cave of webcomics available through his website. What is most impressive perhaps is the sheer range of what he’s capable of.

I mentioned Robotnik a few weeks ago and to be honest the only thing that is wrong with this brilliant little comedy is that there’s only 52 episodes of them. More please.

(Douglas Noble’s Robotnik. 52 episodes available from his website.)

And in complete contrast to the extremely funny Robotnik, you should have a look at The Silent Choir, all 100 episodes of it. Described by Noble as:

The Silent Choir was directly inspired by a photograph. I wondered, on seeing it, what had happened to all of these happy, smiling faces. Where had their lives taken them? Was there something that kept them together or pushed them apart? The title suggested itself, and the title drove the rest of the story. As for the one hundred individual stories that make up and connect to form the story, well, who knows where they came from?

And by heavens it’s impressive. Coming to it at this stage, with no idea of the published order of the strips I have no idea if I’m reading it the way Noble intends. Although I think my not knowing what order it comes in is exactly Noble’s intention. Early episodes, later episodes all blur into one depending on how you approach the tale. Take it alphabetically, follow the links embedded in each page, there’s no set way to read it, but when you sit down and work at it a little it’s a really great bit of comics. Each character’s bio page gives you a little more of the story as it delves into their lives. And each of the pages ends the same way; for some reason they have not sung for eight years. Intriguing? Go and read it. It’s worth your time.

And finally, there’s Complex, his latest webcomic. At the time of writing this, there are just 4 episodes up of what looks like being an end of the world type of thing. But Noble’s already done enough to make me interested to know what’s happening so it’s joined my short list of webcomics to follow.

(From Complex, Douglas Noble’s latest webcomic, currently serialised on his website.)

His work is interesting, different from a lot of the current crop of self published comics, more thoughtful, more serious, more literary than some, less concerned with telling a very nice and safe, linear story, which may or may not be to your taste. Sure, they fail at times, but in trying to reach the heights he’s obviously aiming for, falling short is no terrible thing. Definitely one to keep an eye on.

And if you’re after more once you’ve devoured Douglas Noble’s Strip For Me website there’s always a very good interview with Noble conducted by Sean Azzopardi at his Phatcomics website (home of another must read webcomic - Necessary Monsters, which I reviewed a while back).

PROPAGANDA @ FPI blog - Neil Gaiman's Man Of Tommorrow Part 2

Latest review up on the FPI blog:

Batman: Whatever Happened to The Man Of Tomorrow Part 2
by Neil Gaiman & Andy Kubert

The key to to the whole thing, the very idea Gaiman hangs two issues of story off is uttered by the mysterious woman:
“You don’t get heaven or hell. Do you know the only reward you get for being Batman? You get to be Batman”

Mark Thomas weighs in on the MP expenses thing....

Over on the Guardian website, Mark Thomas has decided to weigh in on the MPs expenses thing in typically Mark Thomas style:

It is unfair, unjust and profoundly undemocratic. Which is why lawyers acting on my behalf have served legal papers on Speaker Martin this morning. As the chair for the House of Commons Commission, he should take urgent steps to commence a review of the department's actions in dealing with MPs' applications for expenses. These should include an independent audit of expenses and the forced repayment of wrongly claimed expenses; and in cases of fraudulent claims, the police should be called in. Speaker Martin has 14 days to respond. If he does not, I will instigate a judicial review of Speaker Martin's decision, on the legal grounds that public law should be consistent. MPs should not be allowed to be above the law and what is good enough for us is good enough for them.

This might be interesting.

Training Course hell.....

Today's training course was a refresher course on Learning Platform administration. When the email came through a couple of months ago this seemed like a good idea. After all, wasn't the initial plan for the summer term at work to spend the first half term doing email changeover and school blogging and the second half term to actually start the work on the Learning Platform? So a refresher on the LP admin would be a good thing. That was the theory anyway.

Of course, in practice I found myself drowning in work stuff, with the plan to not do much (if any) work stuff at home working well but putting me behind in what needed doing. So a day out re-learning stuff on the Learning Platform suddenly seemed a complete waste, especially when I knew the training day rule applied - anything learned on training days that isn't immediately applied is almost instantly forgotten and will need to be re-learned when actually tackling the problem. So, with permission from the boss I decided to just go for the morning and duck out at lunch to get back and do the more important stuff.

And I was glad to get out. The content was just ridiculously basic, all stuff I knew anyway and none of the difficult stuff was dealt with. To make matters worse we found ourself trapped in a room with that annoying teacher stereotype - the far too loud, know-it-all type who spent 10 minutes talking about what they'd done in their school with the learning platform so far during the usual round of "let's introduce ourselves to the room" rubbish. And how, pray tell, had she managed to do so much with the learning platform - simple - she just did it all at home. No life. No life. No life. I had to leave at lunch just to avoid saying something very unprofessional to her.

But it's no help to me. I've spent the first three months of the year working far too many hours getting the school website done with lots and lots of hours working on it at home. But at least with that I knew there was an end in sight. It had to be done by the end of March. With the learning platform the end is at least 3 years away, if it ever really ends. There's no way I can commit to it in the way I did the website and I've decided it's something I'm only going to work on at school. So I'm going to be pushed to find 10 hours a week to work on it. Not enough. But it will have to be enough.

Diamanda Galas - thank you Kieron Gillen

I read and loved the latest issue of Phonogram the other night. For those of you that don't know, Phonogram is a wonderfully good comic by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie that is simply the best evocation of the magical ability of music I've ever read.



The first volume was good (review), but the first issue of the second volume absolutely blew that out of the water (review). The second issue goes one better. Unless the rest of the year proves to be the greatest year in comics so far in my life, Phonogram Volume 2 should find itself as one of the comics of the year.

Anyway, one of the things that Phonogram has done is led me to discover the work of Diamanda Galas. The trigger came from a simple 2 page back up story in Phonogram Volume 2, issue 2. Diamanda Galas sits at the pianoand sings. Gillen and Heard present that moment thus:



And from that image I knew I wanted to hear what they were communicating. I'm two albums in and I just know it's goin gto be annoying the other residents of Bruton mansions all week. Her voice is just amazing, her range incredible and what she does with both is mesmerising.



Diamanda Galas: official, wiki.

Monday, gin, reviews, school work. Maybe just gin and reviews then

Here's a good plan, Monday night, sat here writing reviews, thinking I should do some schoolwork for the new email system, realising that the strange buzzing is my ears and the wooziness is down to the gin intake. So maybe no more school work.

But I think a littl more reviewing is in order. Sometimes the old trick of reviewing slightly drunk works brilliantly, sometimes it's just gibberish to be deleted as soon as a sober eye gets chance to look it over...... here goes....

The Kindle thing....

Scott McCloud weighed in recently with his thoughts on the supposed print killer of Amazon's Kindle. There's an article on it over on the FPI blog.

Basically Scott's argument goes:

“Cinema is wider than it is tall. TV is wider than it is tall. Theater is wider than it is tall. Laptop and desktop monitors are wider than they are tall. In fact, with the advent of widescreen TVs, there’s little difference in the shapes. They’re all around 3×5 or 4×5 range. Wider than tall. All of them.
And print? Well, print is taller than it is wide right? The printed page is the exception to the rule, isn’t it?
Wrong. The default shape of print is not taller than wide. It’s wider than tall just like all the rest, because the default shape of print is two pages side-by-side. And the reason is the same reason as the shape of TV and cinema and theater and surfing and all the rest: because we have two eyes next to each other, not one on top of the other.

I don’t even have a Kindle yet, so this isn’t meant as a specific critique of the device. And I’m sure its engineers had solid practical reasons to design the device the way they did. You can even turn it sideways when needed. It just reminded me when I went to Amazon this morning and saw images of the latest, how design principles in the wild can always be adjusted on the fly, but as soon as they’re embedded in hardware, they tend to stick around. For decades in some cases.

So if I could humbly suggest a new cardinal rule of designing anything meant to be read (including webcomics): Step #1, look in a mirror.”

But I think he's wrong. Print is most definitely, at least for me, a portrait medium. In fact, his final comment of "look in a mirror" doesn't even work because most mirrors tend to be portrait as well - or at least a lot of the ones I look in.

Print is portrait to me. Every time I open a book, comic or magazine I may initially view it as a 2 page spread, but when I'm reading both eyes are focused on just one page - portrait.

But it's worth reading Scott's views and worth even more to think about it yourself. Will electronic readers eventually supplant print? I think they will - but only up to a point. I read a lot more articles online and onscreen now - simply because they're there. And I can certainly see something like the Kindle (or whatever Apple inevitably comes out with) becoming the way newspapers and magazine articles are read in the future. They're temporary, transitory things - read once and then dispose of.

But books and comics are different. Sort of. I can't ever see electronic readers replacing the actual physical pleasure of reading long form works such as books and graphic novels. They're just to fixed in the psyche as a form. The often used analogy with music or film doesn't wash - these media have been switching formats regularly since the first methods of recording sound or moving images. But the printed page, bound between covers has been such a fixed point in civilisation that I really can't see a sudden shift to a slab of electronic screen. Sure, there might be uses - the holiday book bag replaced by a lightweight reader perhaps. But near complete replacement the way that mp3s and similar are replacing records, tapes and cds - can't see it.

However, comics are a different matter. I've been a champion of the comic form since I first read one. And I've long been a champion of the collection, the graphic novel as the perfect form for the medium. I see comics as mere previews to something bigger. They, at least to me, are throw away, temporary things, just like newspapers. If I'm interested in a comic I'll read an online preview or buy the first issue. If it's worth it, I'll wait for the collection. So I can see an electronic reader, if it reproduces the look of the comic page well enough, replacing that aspect of my comic reading.

How about you?

PROPAGANDA @ the FPI blog: Two From Tomine

Over on the FPI blog right now, two of Adrian Tomine's books:

Summer Blonde and Sleepwalk.

"..both books have moments of heart-stopping truth, where it’s impossible to deny the sheer power of the stories he’s capable of telling, as somewhere in these pages, you’ll recognise a situation, something you’ve done or something that’s been done to you. That’s something special."