PROPAGANDA Reviews: Crazy Hair - Neil Gaiman & Dave McKean

Crazy Hair

By Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean.

We love Gaiman and McKean’s picture books in our house; from the very earliest age my daughter Molly has been transfixed with the incredible tales of Dads getting swapped for a pair of goldfish and wolves living in the wall of houses. They’ve been bedtime stories since she was born, never getting tired, never getting old and they all sit on her shelf even now, regularly re-read, slightly battered and with the occasional tooth mark on the spine, but they’re loved, well loved.

And even though she’s reached the grand old age of 9, it was still an exciting day when Crazy Hair arrived, a beautiful hardback, slightly oversized thing with that chaotic, colourful and downright hairy cover. We settled down, we snuggled in, we read on and …… well, to be honest we felt a little let down on our first read.

Whether we’ve been spoilt by the warmth, quirkiness and invention of the first books or whether this just isn’t as good I wasn’t sure. But both of us felt it was lacking something, that spark of genius that ran through the others. It’s not that it isn’t good. It is. It’s not that it isn’t fun. Or funny. Or warm. Or quirky. Or inventive. Or playful. Or all manner of lovely things. Just that it’s not as much of all those things as the previous books have been. That’s the problem with setting the bar so high I suppose.

But then we read it again a few days later. And again, and again. And it grows on you. It really does. The rhythm, the comedy, the flights of fantasy become familiar and more and more fun as you re-read. It’s simpler than previous Gaiman books, and would make a perfect first book for children, as I’m certain now that it’s delightfully repetitive words will have any young child giggling and laughing along.

The tale of young Bonnie trying to tame her dad’s crazy hair has all the hallmark’s of Gaiman’s previous books. She sets about his hair and gets to know all of the weird and wonderful things he’s lost in there; explorers, tigers, bears, hot air balloons and ships are just the start of it. The idea’s simple and fun, the story just plays on the simple concept over and over which means its great to read aloud, putting on the voices and doing the rhymes, wondering just what new and bizarre thing will come out of dad’s hair next.

Dave McKean’s artwork, beautiful and inventive in previous books is utterly amazing here. He’s switched styles again, as he often does. This time it’s sumptuous colours and computer generated hair that looks so real you can almost feel it. In fact, there are a couple of close ups that almost make you uncomfortable. Each page is a visual delight as we get further and further into the crazy hair and meet all the weird things lurking inside. The detail’s amazing, the flights of fancy leap out from the page in an absolute visual explosion.

So this might not be our favourite Gaiman & McKean picture book, but I think that has more to do with the age that Molly is than a problem with the book. I actually envy you if you have a really young child. I can see them now, squirming and giggling and laughing with joy as you make the voices come alive, as each colourful new surprise appears. It’s a great first picture book and as an introduction to the rest it’s heartily recommend. It joins the rest of Neil Gaiman’s children’s library as books that you’ll want to read time and time again, never getting bored with them. And in time they’ll become the books your child will end up reading to their own children, there can be not higher praise than that.

(Neil Gaiman reads Crazy Hair at a convention in Israel, 2006)

The Neil Gaiman Children’s Library:
So far Neil’s made four picture books with Dave McKean: The Day I Swapped My Dad For Two Goldfish, The Wolves In The Walls, Mirrormask and Crazy Hair.
McKean also provides illustrations for two of his books of prose for children: Coraline and The Graveyard Book.
And most recently Gaiman’s prayer for daughters was released with art from Charles Vess: Blueberry Girl.

Neil Gaiman’s website & the Mouse Circus website for younger readers.
Dave McKean’s website.

Friends who just got their big break: ladies and gentlemen, it's Ben McCool.....

Once upon a time back in the days when I used to work at Nostalgia & Comics in Birmingham, I worked with one young Ben McCool; manic, effervescent, incredibly personable, an amazing drinker and a spectacular character who could instantly control a room with the sheer force of his personality. When Ben flows into anecdote mode, the room listens and then laughs so hard that it hurts. He'd long had dreams of turning his talent for entertaining storytelling to writing comics and eventually set about the slow and steady process of making it in the business.

Years passed and Ben eventually made the huge step of leaving to seek fame and fortune in the US. He's been very busy over there, making a name for himself as one of the nicest guys so many people will have met. And also one of the greatest drinkers they'll ever have supped with.

Well now Ben has his first major series scheduled. Couldn't happen to a nicer bloke.

Choker: by Ben McCool and Ben Templesmith.

6 issues from Image Comics starting early 2010.

There's a nice interview with both Bens at CBR here. From which this basic series description comes from Mr McCool:

In a nutshell, it's a hard boiled noir fable set on an unconventional backdrop: Johnny "Choker" Jackson, an ex-Shotgun City police detective who lives in his own rendition of hell. His case of Alien Hand Syndrome has manifested into the most psychotic entity on the planet, he's stuck working at a deadbeat detective agency, and he's engaged in a squalid and involuntary amour with an otherworldly creature that dwells beneath his bathtub. That, believe it or not, is just for starters.

But there's prospective light at the end of the tunnel: a high-profile con Johnny once put behind bars is at large, and not even the city's elite has been able to track the sleazebag down. The police department has offered Johnny a deal: put the rogue back in his below regulation-sized cell and he's got a job for life. However, it comes at a price, and it's one nobody will see coming. But if you want something, and want it real bad, what would you be willing to do to get it?

There's more preview images over at Templesmith's website and, once he sobers up from San Diego, I'm sure McCool's blog will be full of news about Choker as well.

Ben McCool. Not just a good friend, not just a genuinely nice guy, teller of great stories and hard-core drinking machine. I've always thought he had the potential to make some really excellent comics and Choker looks like being a fine start to a long, inglorious career.

PROPAGANDA Reviews: Harker 1 & 2

Harker issue 1 & 2

Plot, script, letters by Roger Gibson & plot, art, covers by Vince Danks.

Ariel Press

I love really good genre writing. There’s few feelings in the world better than settling down with a good noir thriller or watching a really great bit of big, stupid sci-fi. It’s a comforting, warm blanket of a feeling. And Harker’s got that feeling in spades.

This is one of those books that I knew I was going to enjoy within the first ten pages. It had that feel of a great genre work, grabbing you and taking you exactly where you wanted it to go. Every page had something on it that pressed the right buttons for the bit of my brain that goes silly over great genre stuff. A little bit Sherlock Holmes, a little bit X-Files, CSI, it’s all these and so much more. But most importantly it gave me that immediacy that is incredibly rare, that feeling within the first few pages that this was going to be something special, and by the end of issue 2, it still felt like that - a hugely entertaining comic.

(Harker and Critchley, just your average special investigating double act. Art by Vince danks from Harker issue 1. Published by Ariel Press.)

So here’s what’s going on in Harker:

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

Doesn’t that just sound great? Thankfully, Gibson and Danks more than do justice to that very enticing hookline. The genre trappings are all there. The police procedural investigation, the crime scene investigation, the autopsy, the legwork, the finding of the clues; it’s all there, exactly where it should be. Add to that the mysterious supernatural goings on to get one really great comic book series. But on top of a really lovely idea, really well executed the thing reads incredibly well; the dialogue’s cracking; quickfire buddy chat with Harker as the mysterious straight man to Critchley’s rapid fire, slightly unhinged funny man. It’s not standard comic book dialogue either, this is the sort of thing you’re more used to hearing on the latest critically acclaimed US import drama series. Very, very good, very real stuff.

(Harker and Critchley, sounding every bit like the top quality TV show they appear to have escaped from. From Harker issue 2, art by Vince Danks, published by Ariel Press.)

Vince Danks’ art always impressed with the previous comic of his; Sapphire, but his work here is a cut above that even. The super detailed work here is amazing. His figures just flow so naturally across the page and his backgrounds are truly wonderful to look at. The story appears to take place in a very tightly defined area of London and I get the impression from the art that I could almost use these panels to find my way around.

(Vince Danks’ frankly beautiful artwork that you can use as a map of the area it’s set in. Reminds me of Gerhard from Cerebus fame in the meticulous detailing of the backgrounds and the architecture. From Harker issue 2.)

Criminally Harker is one of the comics affected by the recent tightening of Diamond Comics minimum order requirements, meaning that only issue 1 made it into Previews, the Diamond Comics listings magazine. Potentially this can kill the book, as the creators now find themselves having to do the work of distribution themselves. It’s a sad reflection of the industry we’re in that something that’s so much fun, so well done, so well drawn and essentially everything good about genre comics can’t sell enough to get onto the distributor lists yet so much atrocious dross does make it in. So if you’re hunting for Harker on the shelves of your loval comic shop and it isn’t there, make sure you tell them about it and how they can stock it by simply getting in touch with Roger or Vince through the website.
Harker is available through the few enlightened shops that sell it and through the Ariel Press website. The website also has a special downloads section with a special issue 0 and preview of issue 1. Issue 1 & 2 are out now and issue 3 is imminent.

Make it a priority to get hold of these first two issues of what should become, if the world of comics were a little bit better and fairer than it is at the moment, a huge hit.

Marvelman's Back.........

Rich Johnston, over at the Bleeding Cool site has news from San Diego that Marvel has sorted out a deal with Emotiv, the company representing Mick Anglo's interests in the Marvelman character and will begin republication of Marvelman stories from the 1950s and 1960s.

No news yet over the more modern stories from Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Garry Leach, Alan Davis, Chuck Austen, Rick Veitch, John Totleben and Mark Buckingham yet, but I imagine it's all in hand.

According to Bleeding Cool:

"I understand it is Marvel’s intent to publish that as well, and they are currently trying to contact every party involved to come to an agreement over any outstanding issues."

(Marvelman from the 50s by Mick Anglo and Miracleman from the 80s by Alan Moore and Garry Leach.)

In comic circles this is rather huge news. Marvelman / Miracleman and the whole sorry saga around it's publication is one of those great if only tales......

And if this means nothing to you, here's a quick recap/refresher:

Marvelman was created by Mick Anglo in the 50s as a British version of Captain Marvel (Shazam). A decade of stories followed. (This is what Marvel currently have the rights to reprint).

Fast forward to the early 80s when Dez Skinn is assembling Warrior magazine and, as I understand it, asks Alan Moore if he's interested in the character. New Marvelman is darker and one of the definitive "real-life superhero" type tales. Except it's never finished in Warrior. There's various fallings out and eventually Eclipse comics in the US reprints the series as Miracleman (Marvel Comics would not like a character called Marvelman) and continues it with all new material leading up the end of Moore's run with issue 16 (and one of the most incredible superhero fights you will ever see between Miracleman and Kid Miracleman). Neil Gaiman is asked by Moore to write the character and, with Mark Buckingham on art, produces another 8 issues. Which is where it finished, with Eclipse going bust.

But like all great comic stories there are so many rights and ownership issues on this one that we never thought we'd see it back in print. When Dez Skinn published it in Warrior the ownership was split between Skinn, Moore, Leach and Quality Communications (Warrior's publisher). When Leach left, Davis got a share as the new artist. When Moore passed the writing onto Gaiman, he also passed his share over and Gaiman split it with Buckingham, his artist.

Except it seems that the reality is that the rights have always really belonged to Mick Anglo after all. As reported in a recent interview with Alan Moore here on the FPI blog:

I mean, other than the fact that I was happy to do everything that I could to help Mick Anglo, who is the person who has always owned all of the rights to Marvelman, as far as I now understand it, that we never had the rights to do those stories, even though Mick really liked the stories that we did. We didn’t understand at the time that Mick Anglo was the sole owner of the rights. We were misled. So I’ve done everything that I can to clear all that up. I’ve said that, they talked about the possibility – what they want is money quickly, because Mick’s a very old man, he’s got a sick wife to look after, and they could use some dosh quite quickly.

Mick was the owner, and also, Len Miller never went bankrupt, and all of the things that we were told when we were doing Warrior turned out to have been fabrications, you know, unwitting fabrications, but fabrications none the less, and that goes for all of the American versions. Apparently Mick Anglo was abused, by the usual suspects in today’s rather venal comics industry, you know, right up to the Todd McFarlane part of the case. Neil Gaiman has been an absolute diamond throughout all this, and I’ve done me best, and the important thing is supporting Mick Anglo, really.

What this means for the future - who knows?

Do the modern creators; Moore, Leach, Davis, Gaiman et al have any ownership of the character? Maybe not.

Do they have ownership of the stories they wrote at the time? Maybe.

But I'm certain Marvel and it's lawyers are desperately trying to broker deals with all involved to get the reprints starting and get the story finished. According to Gaiman, he's got two more stories to finish with Miracleman/Marvelman (the end of the Silver Age story and the Dark Age). Alan Moore has a very prickly history with Marvel which may hamper proceedings, but he's also keen to point out that he's willing to support anything that helps out Mick Anglo. I imagine this one's going to run and run.

(Neil Gaiman's 90s Miracleman and the first artwork from Marvel's take on the character via a very quick off the mark poster coming in September by Joe Quesada.)

One things for certain though. I'm not parting with my collections of Marvelman/Miracleman until I have the deluxe hardcover reprint that Marvel will hopefully be planning in my hands. After that, feel free to make me an offer.

Bleeding Cool article here.
Marvel.com article and announcement here.
CBR article here and interview with Joe Quesada here.

Summer holiday week 1...

The summer holiday, if you happen to work in education, is a wonderful thing. A wonderful, wonderful thing. 6 weeks of holiday stretch out in front of you, waiting to be filled with adventures and excitement. In fact the only thing better than a 6 week holiday is the 7 week holiday we're currently on. I have no idea how we managed to get a 7 week holiday, but here it is.

Molly and I intend the make the best of it, plans have been planned, schemes schemed and ideas hatched. Molly wants to do everything she can this holiday. I want to do everything we can, but still have a little rest and not break the bank. Free things are very good. Free, exciting things even better.

So this week: Swimming, bike riding (the plan is at least 100 miles in the holidays as Molly gets better and more confident), market, shopping, Big Sheep Little Cow, cooking and end with chilling Friday. Whew. And that's just week 1!

Holiday Week 1....

Well, things have been rather sparse on the blog of late. Or rather, they haven't, but all that's been posted is various links to stuff I'm doing over on the FPI blog and old reviews from the FPI blog. This is simply because I've got lots and lots of reviews to get done this holiday and have decided to really go for it early rather than leaving it all to the very end.

Hence very little here at the moment,
but all is well, holiday going great. Nearly at the end of the first week. Only another 6 to go now. Bliss.

Holiday time - this relaxing is all well and good ..... but:

Spent the weekend relaxing. A relatively new experience for me. But there's only so much relaxing I can do. Especially when my reviews to do shelf looks like this:



And yes, to my shame it does include things like Tamara Drewe, Alice In Sunderland, American Flagg and more that I haven't gotten round to yet. 36 reviews to get done at the moment, with more review copies expected this week. This is not a complaint. I love getting all of these great books in the post. Just trying to give you an indication of what my holiday is going to consist of.

49 days of holiday left.
36 reviews.
That's possible. Right?

Update, more arrived: 48 days of holiday, 42 reviews. Help!.

Obsessional music time - the new Jay-Z track: DOA Death Of Autotune

Flicking through the music channels on the TV the other night I came across the new Jay-Z trak; DOA Death Of Autotune. And it's now almost permanently lodged in my brain. Just absolutely great music, infectious, interesting, a fusion of hip hop, rap and jazz.

It's not on Spotify yet, but it's all over You Tube and even prompted this Guardian piece.

Louise is now heartily sick of it. And she's also sick of the vast amounts of Public Enemy, Beastie Boys, Afrika Bambaataa, Queen Latifah and countless other stuff I remember from a mis-spent youth. Yet again, god bless Spotify.

Mustard # 4 - funny comedy mag with added Alan Moore

Mustard # 4

Editor / Designer Alex Musson

Self Published.

I Came to this one rather late after reading about the big Alan Moore interview in this issue somewhere online. I’m even later reviewing it. So late in fact that by now it’s well into it’s recession driven hiatus. Which is rather a shame, because based on this issue, it’s actually a funny magazine about comedy.

Obviously the big draw for me is the Alan Moore interview. I’ve said before now that any interview with Moore is worth reading, no matter how many times he’s talking about the same sorts of things, there’s always something interesting in what he has too say. And so it is here. It’s a big interview; 15 pages of dense stuff, but very well designed dense stuff. Lots of information on each page but all laid out in a nice, visually appealling style. Like it says in the lead in… “And boy, can he talk”.

But once the Moore interview was read and digested I turned my attention to the rest of the magazine. And the actual comedy bits of it are very good indeed.

Think of it perhaps as a more grown up Viz mag. There’s spoof articles such as “Cruel Prank Targets Nation’s Arsewits: Thousands of young men across Britain have been fooled by a new lad’s mag that covertly featured interesting, informative and non-nudity related articles“. Then there’s single panel gag strips, spoof movie news, book reviews and much more.

It’s a real shame that Mustard #4 may well be the last one available for a while, but I’d still recommend heading off to your local Borders to see if they still have the issue. Or alternatively go to the Mustard website to pick up all 4 issues.

A funny magazine about comedy. Indeed it is.

Parents banned from sports day - an update

A while back I blogged about a case reported in the Telegraph about parents being banned from sports day on a security risk issue. I was so upset by this that I fired off an email to the organiser. Well, he wrote back.

I'm going to pick some of what he said in a very long email:

Dear Mr Bruton,

Thank you for your e-mail and consequently an opportunity to hopefully set the record straight. As is often the case, these stories are picked up and the facts twisted (or carefully ommitted) by the "journalists" (I believe this story was syndicated by a local media agency) until they have a stereotypical "political correctness/health and safety gone mad" article on which they can hang an inflammatory headline with which to reinforce the views of their general readership.

Firstly, it was not a school sports day as reported, but an organised athletics event involving 270 children from 20 different lower schools within my partnership. All the schools in the partnership organise and run their own sports day on their own site to which, as has always traditionally been the case, parents can attend to support their children.

This event was taking place on the Upper School site as that is where the athletics track is placed, the school is a closed and gated site for security reasons (all schools tend to be these days). As with all schools, site security is very important, and anybody coming into a school to visit normally needs to be signed in and accompanied. The athletics track shares changing and toilet facilities with the school, therefore if any spectators needed to use the toilet (and the event lasts for 2 and a half hours) then they would have to go into the school building to do so. Furthermore, there is insufficient parking to deal with large numbers of spectators wishing to attend - the school's main car park is full of staff and sixth former's cars all day. The school also sits within a housing estate and there is little parking available on the roads nearby.

The event was also taking place during the period when the Upper School pupils were taking important examinations. It would also be running over the host school's break time, which means we would also have hundreds of Upper pupils on the school fields for 20 minutes.

When organising the event, we had to consider all of the above information, and part of that process involves producing a risk assessment. In planning this event, I had 1 major concern: the potentially large number of parents or carers who might want to come and spectate. I had to consider the impact this would have firstly in terms of disruption to the host school and the education of its pupils, and secondly the potential risks to pupils from all schools from having large numbers of adults on the site. And yes, within a risk assessment you list all risks, which for this event includes the potential for harm to, or abduction of, a child from the site; we also include risks of theft, damage to property, accidents to children/adults from extra traffic when the buses are dropping schools off etc. etc.

Hopefully you can see that the key reason for not allowing parents to attend was logistical: the host school just is not set up to deal with large numbers of spectators, and the disruption would've been detrimental to the smooth running of the school and the education of its pupils

And I wrote back to him tonight about it. I can sympathise with him about it, but have to compare what they did with a recent event organised up here in Yorkshire that took place after school, the parents all came along, parked where they could and had a bloody great time. Children ran around everywhere, parents were all over the place and generally everything went smoothly. I can see his problem, I really can, and agree that the Telegraph just picked up on the one aspect of it.

On a more generalist note, the need for schools to be a secure site is one of those strange things - on the one hand I understand it, but on the other I don't necessarily believe it actually works.

It's like the argument over ID cards - the solution doesn't actually address the problem. I used to work in a particularly difficult secondary school in Birmingham. One of those schools that just survive by keeping the children in the classrooms, teaching is a bonus, that sort of thing. We regularly used to have intruders on site. The secure nature of the site made absolutely no difference whatsoever. What was required was exactly what was required 30 years ago - adults or children reporting the intruders and then adults (and often police) seeing them off the site. All the complex security measures at the front gate, all the signing in systems, all the fences didn't keep these intruders out. But it did make the whole place seem designed to confine the children. Not what we were after.

And whilst I remember, all of this feeds into the views of the wider world that all adults are dangerous to children.

There's an implication in the world today that all adults, particularly all men who even show any interest in children are a threat to those children's safety.

And that's offensive to me as a man, as a father and as a member of staff in a primary school.

A related article I came across on this:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/reclaiming-childhood/200907/the-stranger-danger-panic-is-creating-hostile-adult-world

Summer Holiday 2009. Day 1 / Day 2. Relax.

In a surprise move, I've been neglecting the blog for the last few days or so.

Last week it was all about being utterly, absolutely exhausted and desperately trying to get a few things finished at night before the end of the school term and desperately trying to finish up a couple of halfway written reviews that were causing me grief. But the last couple of days I've actually done very little online at all, checked a couple emails, surfed a little. Most of the last couple of days has been spent relaxing, reading and generally enjoying the start of the holidays.

And what holidays they are. ecause of the way it's worked out this year we've actually got a complete 7 weeks off. I've never known this before. 6 weeks is long but this is amazing. With the extra weekend at the end of the holidays that makes for a stunning 5 days. 51!

So I figure a few days off isn't going to hurt too much.

Want want want want want want want want - Planetary 27.

It's getting closer. Letters are done. Cover is done. Maybe a release this year after all?

Planetary is, for those of you unfortunate enough to have never read it, possibly my favourite of Warren Ellis' books and very high in my all time list. A glorious premise - archaeologists of the bizarre, the weird, the strange. Superheroes with a very Ellis twist and inspired art by John Cassaday.

A publishing schedule has been erratic to say the least, but issue 27 is the last issue. A tieing up of threads, a resolution to the previous issues ending. And it will be glorious.

Parents banned from Sports Day?

Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear.
This is the sort of thing that makes me worry about a generation of over-protected, molly-coddled, intensely paranoid children that we seem to be bringing up.

Parents banned from sports day over paedophile fears.

(Yes, I know it's the Telegraph. But there are enough direct quotes in there from those concerned to make it seem genuine.)

It was one of those sports days where several primary schools travelled to a central secondary school to compete. Molly recently did something very similar at her district sports day. Loads of parents came along, kids running all over the place, no problems, no abductions, no stalking paedophile's that we noticed. But we live in Yorkshire, where things are a little more civilised and sensible than Bedfordshire.

Because in Bedfordshire, the East Beds School Sports Partnership Athletics Day took place without parents. Because the organisers decided, in their infinite wisdom, that all grown ups are potential paedophiles or child abductors. Guilty until proven innocent indeed. Far be it for common sense to get in the way of this terrible fear mongering attitude.

Paul Blunt, development manager at the East Beds School Sports Partnership, said the "ultimate fear" was that a child could be abducted.

"If we let parents into the school they would have been free to roam the grounds. All unsupervised adults must be kept away from children.

"An unsavoury character could have come in and we just can't put the children in the event or the students at the host school at risk like that. The ultimate fear is that a child is hurt or abuducted, and we must take all measures possible to prevent that."

"None of the children taking part attend the host school so it would've been really hard to police. We did a risk assessment and concluded that we couldn't guarantee the children's safety."

Just how many children have been abducted from School Sports Days anyway? It's the ongoing problem of ridiculously paranoid parents and authorities attempting to completely remove any risk whatsoever from their child's lives. Any sane and sensible soul will tell you that life is a risk. Attempt to take all risk away and you take so much of what makes it so wonderful.

There's an update to this post here.

Last week of term update

Final week of term: Day One.
Busy? Oh yes. I'm having to get everything done in addition to getting all the usual stuff I have to do - pupils in the ict suite, teaching, responding to all the daft stuff that goes wrong with the computers (or rather, all the daft things that staff manage to do to the computers). But despite this I'm just about on course to actually finish on time. I could, of course, actually get some things done in the holidays but I really want those 7 weeks off to be completely school free weeks.

So onwards. Four days to go. My only problem now is that I find myself absolutely wiped out. I'm coming home, crashing and only recovering enough to do either a bit of schoolwork or a bit of blogging. Reviews are almost out of the question - brain just not functioning enough for that. Maybe in a couple of days. Maybe next week. I'll just get this week out the way first.

You know it's the final week of term when .....

I looked at Twitter at school and the direct message from Remember the Milk (my lovely substitute for memory) told me I had 76 things to do today. 5 of those were not to do with school.

This should give you some idea of the workload at the end of term. It hasn't helped that I spent most of the day proof reading and to be honest rewriting someone's reports to make them readable by humans rather than teachers.

4 days left. Lots to do. And then I get news today that there's a new SIMs update to do tomorrow as well. The last two SIMs updates managed to break SIMs completely. This should be fun.

PROPAGANDA Reviews - Phonogram The Singles Club Issue 2

Phonogram - The Singles Club - issue 2 (of 7)

by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie

b-sides artwork by Emma Vieceli and Daniel Heard

So, when last we spoke about Phonogram, back in the review of the first issue, I decided that it was practically the perfect distillation of the magical act of listening to just the right piece of music. The magic in the real world is an emotional thing, catching something inside your mind and changing the way you think, the way you feel and the way you behave. But the magic in Phonogram is a genuine, real magic, transforming people’s lives in remarkable ways. I said back in the review of issue 1 of The Singles Club that:

“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.“

And I’m delighted to say that issue 2 proves it beyond any doubt. Whereas last issue was all about the magic of music and dance, this issue we’re onto the thorny subject of “curse songs”, a phrase Gillen coins in this issue, but it’s so powerfully descriptive of the ability of a song to attach itself to one particular moment forever that you’ll be using this phrase from this point onwards. Curse songs are those songs that, as soon as you hear them, no matter what they are, will explode inside your heart and mind and leave you in pieces. maybe it’s a song you heard when the love of your life walked out of your life years ago, maybe it’s something on the radio when you realised that the most important person in your life was never going to be around again. It doesn’t matter what the song is, it could be anything; just as likely to be something tragically uncool from a teenage disco (personally - T’Pau, China In Your Hand) as something classic and fitting (again, for me - This Mortal Coil, You And Your Sister from their great album Blood). The important thing isn’t what the song is, it’s what it does to you. Every time I hear either of those songs they have the potential to leave me drained, depressed and weeping. They are curse songs.

Kieren Gillen understands exactly what power music has and has used it throughout these issues to create a comic of such intensely personal impact that the actual literal story almost doesn’t matter. It’s not about any one event taking place in the comic, it’s about the magical intensity of the moment caused by the curse song. This issue we have the tale of Marc and spend most of this issue inside his head after one particular curse song sends him spiralling into a hallucination of a particularly painful night with an ex. Whether the curse song is having this effect just through the power of music or because the ex was a phonomancer and placed a curse on him is never really revealed - and that’s all part of the greatness of Phonogram - the story is as open or as literal as you want it to be, and maybe that’s the point. Great writing, like great music can accommodate whatever meaning you want to ascribe to it.

(Still thinking about her? Oh yes. And here’s an entire comic to prove it…)

Like Gillen explained in issue 1, he’s attempting to create a mythology in Phonogram, a world of moments, all taking place inside a club on one night, all from a different character’s perspective. And so far he’s making it work so well that you begin to believe he’s going to pull off the promise he made of creating a comic of single moments that builds up to create a single, multifaceted story. Two issues in and this may already be the comic of the year.

(And there’s the actual moment that Marc hears his curse song and is sent into an issue long memory of lost love. Beautiful art from McKelvie.)

And McKelvie’s artwork, just like I said last time, is spectacular. Simple, expressive, flowing and capturing all of the emotional intensity of Marc’s memories. There’s a lovely effect McKelvie uses in the flashback/memory/hallucination sequence that you can see in the last panel above where he changes his colour palette subtlety and completely changes the tone of his storytelling. Simple technique, beautifully done.

(And here’s the cause of all of Marc’s troubles, the reason for his curse song. Art by McKelvie.)

But it’s not just McKelvie here. The Phonogram comic also has a series of B-Sides in each issue that aren’t going to be collected with the main story; a sweetener to try and get you to buy these single issues and a very worthwhile sweetener at that. This issue the B-Sides feature Emma Vieceli and Daniel Heard illustrating stories, both mini bits of greatness, by Gillen. Wuthering Heights by Vieceli with a “romantic, feminine line” that Gillen talks about needing for this illustration of Kate Bush’s song is almost wordless, but says so much, so well in just 4 issues, expertly detailing a moment, an emotion, the invocation of a mood through music.

(Emma Vieceli’s art for “Wuthering Heights” from Phonogram issue 2.)

And the other B-Side; The Singer is a 2 pager on Diamanda Galas. If you’ve never heard of her - go to You Tube right now to see what she’s like. But suffice it to say that, in just two pages, Gillen and his artist, Daniel Heard, nail it perfectly.

(Diamanda Galas, in a perfect visualisation from Daniel Heard in one of the B-Sides in Phonogram issue 2.)

Phonogram 2 issue 2 should be available at all good comic shops. If it’s not on the shelves demand to know why not. New issues are available for pre-order at the FPI comic store here. The collection of Phonogram Volume 1 is available here.

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, Emma Vieceli’s blog, Daniel Heard’s blog.

I had a horrible nightmare, I dreamed that Marvel brought back those hideous foil covers.....

......... Oh God help us, it's not a dream. In a week where DC released the first issue of the huge Wednesday Comics; something different and rather exciting, Marvel are bringing back something that became the byword for over-hyped, over-priced non-event comics.

The Foil cover is back.

The press release:

"Marvel is pleased to unveil the special variant covers to ULTIMATE COMICS SPIDER-MAN #1, ULTIMATE COMICS AVENGERS #1 and ULTIMATE COMICS ARMOR WARS #1 utilizing the brand-new Foilogram cover treatment! Part foil, part hologram, these reflective covers will jump at you from shelves!

This is Marvel doing the nineties right," explained David Gabriel, Marvel Comics Senior Vice President of Sales & Circulation. "We're taking two of the most popular cover treatments of all time-foil and holograms-to create an all new kind of cover, as a ‘thank-you' to fans who've been demanding this kind of variant! Retailers and fans don't need to worry. We're only doing this on a limited basis. You won't see one on MS MARVEL #46 or LOCKJAW AND THE PET AVENGERS #4. We're using them to mark very special occasions...such as the launch of Ultimate Comics line."

It might be cynical of me, but I remember foil and hologram covers as nothing but a terrible, crass marketing ploy that got worse and worse as the 90s wore on. They may be promising it's only for very special occasions. But that's what they said last time. So in the end we got them for very special occasions like these:

However, I do notice that the rebooted Ultimates line does feature Ultimate Comics Avengers by Mark Millar (strangely enough, after writing possibly the worst Avengers comic ever Marvel haven't invited Jeph Loeb back), Ultimate Spider-Man by Brian Michael Bendis and Ultimate Armour Wars by Warren Ellis. Impressive line up. Shame about the covers.

Torchwood: Children Of Earth

Bloody hell, that was really good, old fashioned British Sci-Fi at it's best wasn't it?

We had Molly's school summer fair tonight and Louise was out with friends for a drink afterwards so it was just Molly and myself to watch the final episode. Having previously blogged about how it didn't think it was really worth putting out after the watershed I have to admit that this episode was the one that really meant it was too adult for Molly. She was in floods of tears halfway through with the abduction of the children and I had to try to reassure her that it was just a story and that I'd never, ever let that happen to her. Sufficiently calmed down we watched the last 20 minutes and she was weeping again as she realised that Jack's grandson had to be sacrificed. No explaination would suffice. A reasssuring hug for the last ten minutes had to do.

Truly great stuff. Old fashioned Brit Sci-Fi - chillingly low key stuff. But does this really mean the end for Torchwood? I really hope not. Especially if they can do it this well. License fee justified yet again.

Eddie Campbell interview at the FPI blog

That very talented Mr Eddie Campbell has been talking to Pádraig Ó Méalóid at the FPI blog. As interesting and readable as you may expect.

Torchwood: Children Of Earth. We're all impressed

Yes, all of us are impressed with Torchwood Chldren Of Earth. All three of us. We decided to take the risk and let Molly stay up late and watch it, hoping that it wouldn't be too extreme or rude and trusting that Molly could refrain from repeating any swear words in front of her teacher the next day.

So far so good. Although I am right in thinking that if they did drop some of the swearing, maybe didn't have the graphic corpse scene and possibly not the full frontal arse shot of Captain Jack, this could have easily gone out earlier - just like the first series there's no real need for the supposedly adult content.

And don't tell me it's because of the sexual nature either. Far worse on bloody Eastenders. Dad was a little concerned when he realised (bless him). So we pointed out that Molly knew quite a few GLBT folks. Indeed, her first wedding was the lovely Tara and Krystal's wedding. And Molly handles stuff like this just fine - "as long as they're happy" is what we usually get round to on any argument like this.

But that aside, isn't the whole thing rather bloody good? All three of us are really enjoying it. And unlike previous Torchwood series they've not gone with a bloody stupid monster this time - less is definitely more. With two episodes to go there's always time to mess it up I suppose, but so far, so good. The concept - big threat, big secret, put Torchwood against the government - is such a cliche but it does work surprisingly well. None of the sometimes overbearing nature of either Jack or Gwen have come out here and there's just enough shock and chills to keep us all watching. Very good indeed.

Too cool for school........ hopefully

Last night I spent far too long playing around with a music presentation for a lesson today. The idea was to get the children thinking about instruments and sounds and what exactly makes something musical.

Last year I got the electronic keyboard out and showed them that it can replicate traditional instruments. This year I decided to do the same thing but use existing pieces of music, going from simple, single instruments all the way through to full electronic pieces, both old and new to try and emphasise how music has developed alongside computers. But I didn't have any time to sort out thhe individual tracks, download them, edit them etc etc. God bless Spotify. Had everything arranged, playlist organised and ready to go. Even bought a day pass to guarantee no annoying adverts.

They certainly seemed to enjoy it. They got loud enough at times to disturb the classes around them - just like I'd hoped it would.

And yes, there was Kraftwerk involved. What did you expect? Musical education after all.

Head Girl!!!!

She got it!

After finally putting herself forward (the story behind that is here) we went off to prize day today with fingers crossed for Molly to get the Head Girlship of her school.
And she did.
Not only that but she got the Netball prize as well. Both were complete surprises to everyone, as the results weren't known to the children beforehand. The head girl award was even voted on by the whole of Years 3-6 in what is meant to be a totally democratic vote. Or possibly as democratic as voting by children in a school ever gets I suppose.

Her reign as Head Girl begins in September. She gets a badge and everything. Very proud. Louise had tears in her eyes as Molly's name was announced. I just had one of those moments where I suddenly realised that in just one short year we'll be back at prize day for the last time and I'll be wondering where my little girl has gone and when she became the grown up young person off to secondary school far too quickly. This huge wave of sadness washed over me as I tried to imagine what it would be like at Bruton mansions with an older Molly. Then I got even more upset as I realised that eventually older Molly turns into left home Molly. Too horrible to think about for too long.

But we're such very, very proud parents right now. And being proud and responsible parents we let her stay up way past her bedtime and watch Torchwood. Then we spent 10 minutes trying to convince her to use her new powers and responsibilities to organise a flashmob in the playground tomorrow; all the children stand still and start chanting "we are coming.... we are coming". Being fr more sensible than us, Molly said that was stupid and she wasn't going to do it. Smart child.

Today - a quick run through of triumph and misery....

What a horrible / brilliant / horrible day it has been..... Dropped Molly off at school; she's really nervous / excited about the prize day this afternoon where she's got to do a trumpet performance and is up for the position of Head Girl.

Then along to my school. Generally an indication of how utterly crap or good my day is going to be is a combination of how far I get past reception before someone says "Richard.... such and such is looking for you" and how many frantic pleas for help are on the whiteboard in the ICT suite. Today we had both. Network trouble. Which first looked simpler to solve, then I realised it was happening across most, but not all of the school.

Devastated, I phoned Louise to tell her I wouldn't be making prize day. The first such thing I've missed since I missed Molly's first sports day ages ago in Birmingham. Pledged then that I wouldn't do it again. Utterly sickened that I might miss her getting head girl.

If you have a look through various posts about my job, you should be able to get the idea that I'm pretty damn good at what I do, generally making ICT easier for pupils and staff and essentially making our kids digitally literate. But one thing I do fall down on is the hard techy network knowledge. What I do know is okay, but I don't know enough.

However, when I investigated the server cupboard and one bank of switches is flashing on and off like it's having it's own 4th July fireworks celebration, even I can figure out that this is not good.
Take cables out. No change.
Swap cables round. No change.
Turn it off. All switch lights go out.
Turn it back on. 4th Of July all over again.
Being not completely stupid I realise this is more than I can deal with. And I'm probably going to need a new switch thingy. Very handy ICT techy folks we used before are close by on a job and actually pop in within the hour - do everything I did and a bit more and eventually disconnect the switch box and can't get it to power on again. Swapping all the leads over to the other, smaller switch box solves the problems and off they go pledging to bring new switch box tomorrow or Wednesday.

This is great news; a hardware problem that's not my fault and network downtime that I couldn't do anything about.
Took until half 11 to get this sorted and organise the remaining switch box so that admin, myself and the ict suite have connections working.
Then a manic rush to get loads of Year 6 stuff printed and lots of reports reprinted. Seems a lot of staff didnt take my advice about proofreading the work to heart. Oh well. It may be a surprise next year when we limit their printing each term - some of them will run out after a couple of weeks.

It's quarter past one and I'm meant to be at the prize giving by half one. Manic rush to make sure everyone knows I've done everything I can until we get the new hardware and then out the door. Race to prize day (within the speed limit of course. No more speeding fines for me) and settle down in the chair just as the head comes on for her introductory speech.

The very act of finally stopping means the hideously bad headache finally takes hold and I sit for the next two hours with my head throbbing painfully.

And yes - Molly did get the Head Girl award - see here. What a wonderful girl we have!

Monitor again.....

Have decided that not only do I not like the widescreen monitor but that it was responsible for giving me a blinding headache last night. Too wide an image for the peripheral vision and far, far too bright. Have reverted to full screen 4:3 aspect and knocked the brightness and contrast down to about 10% and it's much better. Of course, I've now got two bloody great black bars either side of the screen, but I'll just have to get used to that.

I'm really not that good with change in any form am I?

Monitors - such a simple thing - such a nightmare

I went out and bought a new monitor today. Nice 20" widescreen one. Except I really didn't want a widescreen and now I'm sat here thinking I've made a mistake. It's too strange right now. Maybe by the end of the weekend I'll be used to it. But right now it just seems wrong.

So I decided to have a play with the settings, went into windows update and updated the drivers.

Who would have thought that updating the graphic card drivers would have completely fucked up the entire LAN settings and my internet connection. Much gnashing of teeth, pulling of hair and general stressing. Eventually managed to get the settings back to how they were.

I think I'll be leaving well enough alone now.

Sports Day - competitive and fun....

This week was Molly's Sports Day. Thankfully her school still has a (very) competitive but still loads of fun Sports Day. I pity those poor souls whose children have those horrible non-competitive things. Takes all the fun out of it.

Molly had a great time, lots of fun and came 2nd, 2nd and 4th in the sack race, obstacle race and running respectively. And her team not only won the relay but managed to win the Sports Cup as well. A big event and the children even got to do a lap of honour.









And then to cap it all - the parents races. Not every school does this for fear of being sued by a moron who twists their ankle or something similar. But not only did ours do one - I actually took myself to the start line much to Molly's great pride. I haven't run for years properly; my ankle and right knee can't really cope with it. But 100m later I came a stunning:



Got a sticker and everything. The winner was the football coach. Which may be seen as cheating until you realise that the football coach is at least 50. But I was very pleased with the 3rd. And Molly was ecstatic. A lovely way to make my lovely girl proud of me.

sticky sticky sticky. pop. that was the monitor blowing up then....

Blogging here has been a little sporadic of late. More on that later maybe. But for now...

Oooh, what about the weather? Hot? Bloody hell. At least at work I get to go in and switch the air con to full in the ICT suite. It's when I come home that the sticky misery starts. And then tonight I sat down at the computer and switched it on to hear a loud pop coming from the monitor power supply. That's probably not good thinks I. As it was I've managed to jiggle cables sufficiently that it's working again and not sparking. But I think a new monitor is called for. Just when I thought I'd actually be able to save a penny or two this month. Arse.