Question

I'm a fan of anthropromorphics (using animals in human form, ie Donald Duck, Bugs Bunny or the characters in Maus) for various reasons and have favoured using them in the past. I had a few vague ideas today for some possible stories and I'm not sure if to go the 'funny-animal' route or not. Think of it like this, would some of the more socially pointed Dr. Seuss stories (The Sneetches, Yertle the Turtle and the amazing Lorax) worked as well if Suess used humans? Is the Once-ler in Lorax had just been a guy who owned a factory and depleted a forest and poluted the enviroment would the story have seemed preachy and a little flat, or would it have given it more power and impact? Would we accept the humour? Does the use of animals in Maus shock us all over again or does it diminish the reality of the situation? Does the use of animal allow the creator to make barbed comments and observations palateable, or does it trivialise them?
Okay, that's a whole bunch of questions, but basically, what do you all think, animal or humans?

Other things

After rambling about this to Danny in a recent email I thought I'd muse about it here.
At the moment I feel like doing things, the recent comic is part of that, but it's not enough. What I'd like to do is get involved with some kind of arts group, not exactly sure what though. I'd like to do something with puppetry (not something I know much about but something I've wanted to know more about) or theatre or anything. But what I don't know is where I'd fine the time, would I make time if I got involved, find the distractions less distracting? Anyone out there know of any projects, preferably local to Lancaster?

My appreciation

I've been looking at a lot of different comic artists this week and think my focus is nicely narrowing down. One artist in particular is astonishing and as luck would hve it there's a collection of work by him out now. Gasoline Alley is fairly well know in America but not so much over here, Frank King created it in 1919 and within a year or so he hit upon the main idea that would fuel it until he died in 1969 when it was taken over by one of his assistants (a common practice and not one that I'm sure I like, even if the person who takes a strip over is great I'd rather see them do something original...anyway), that idea was real life. Walter was the adoptive parent of Skeezix (who turned up on his doorstep) and they just.... did stuff, and as time wore on they got older and older, aging as they would if they were real living people. I've not bought the recent collection (I will, but it's a £20 h/b and I'm broke at the moment) which features the daily strips, however I do have 2 issues of the Drawn and Quarterly anthology which reprint many of the breathtaking Sunday full page full colour strips. King used the Sunday format to have fun and Walter and Skeezix would walk through reality to fantasy and back again through some spellbinding artwork. King used a very simple open style (imagine Crockett Johnson and Herge funneled through a delictate hand) and filled those lines with georgous colours carefully selected to contrast and compliment. In one strip Walter explains to Skeezix that the forest isn't dead just sleeping, throughout the following panels Walter explains the change the months will bring to the forest and King illustrates it, time stands still for Walter and Skeezix as it moves on around them in a display of fiery autumnal colours to vibrant summer colours. Quite a few stories use dream logic to tell a silly but engaging yarn, but the most impressive thing King did was pre-empt the likes of Chris Ware. Ware designed the new collection of Gasoline Alley thereby repaying a debt as his artwork owes quite a bit to King but also because Ware has become (rightly) well known for his dazzling graphic skills a few of which were lifted from King. What King would do was to draw one large image, then lay the comic panel grid over the top and then draw the characters interacting from panel to panel around this one image. So, for instance, looking at a series of panels seperately we can see several characters playing around on the frame of a soon to be constructed house, but looking at the whole page we can see the full house frame. Like all King's work it's a lovely simple idea presented in a simple and unpretentious way. It's a technique, like the speeding up of the months, that Ware has used and built upon and he is not ashamed to aknowlegde his debt.
There's quite a few comic artists like King (Walt Kelly, Winsor MCay, George Herriman Otto Messmer, E.C. Segar etc) greatly hailed praised in their time and slowly forgotten (although some not as much as others) as comics fade, but thanks to publishers like Drawn and Quarterly releasing Gasoline Alley (under the name Walter and Skeezix for legal reasons) and Fantagraphics with Peanuts (ok, so not every great cartoonist is forgotten, but Schulz is surely some sort of exception!) in such handsome volumes perhaps those names will last a little longer.

extra apology

Sorry about the ropey scans. Heavily pixelated and a bit too small, my brushwork got a little lost - shame really, I'm quite proud of my ability with a brush.

Food's in the Oven

and it'll be ready soon, so I'd better hurry this up.
Went to Manchester today and had a little spending spree, I'm finally the proud owner of Q The Winged Serpent a fantastic film by the brilliant Larry Cohen, one of my favourite directors. Clever, witty and shlocky B movie brilliance.
I got the latest issue of Fluffy by Simone Lia which pleases me muchly, sweet silly and sad. The 2nd Scott Pilgrim is finally in my trembling hands, it's like James Kochalka does real life, manga and kick ass beat-em-ups with Joss Wheldon giving pointers.... or it's not, it's something else though.
Superfuckers! Yay Superfuckers! Or Superf*ckers if you prefer. A full colour kick ass James Kochalka comic, it's like Scott Pilgrim and a kick...uh, forget that. Superfuckers! Yay!!!!
After a brief break I'm now eating, it's tomato butternut squash and goats cheese, with some other stuff, you know, randomly chopping veg into a dish throwing in some balsamic vinger. Fortunately it works.

Apolgies, excuses and explinations

Sorry for the delay in posting my comic up, my PC and scanner sorely tried my patience.
Ok, I admit it, ther's a vital bit of information missing from the strip, namely the planet is meant to be covered in junk and rubbish. THe trouble is I decided I didn't want to clutter things by drawing loads of little bits of shmutz, if I ever do another version it'll have another colour (pale blue probably) and I'll draw all the crap in that colour. Anyway, I think it still works ok. FOr anyone who's interested in the big Planet of the Apes style revelation that's also now missing (but probably still obvious), the dead planet is... EARTH! Big surprise huh?
The extra strip isn't up because I needed someone to turn up today for reference and they didn't bother, or I was out when they did, be patient.
Hey, Katy you big fibber, I said pirate, eventually. Of course I remember you, vaguely, sorta, haven't you got fancy hair or something, you dig holes I think? That you?

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Comic strip?

A few days ago I made the bold statement that I would have a comic done by Sunday, it's now Monday so where is it? On the floor beside me as it happens. I'm half way through inking the last page, I'll scan it and post up later today, if I can remember how. I'm really pleased with how it's come out, the 'story' is the very definition of slight and it's also a little vague, but after worrying about it I decided the vague-ness didn't harm it that much, you can read into it whatever you want. Anyway, it's pointless talking about something you can't see, so sit tight and keep checking back if you want to see the finished piece.

Lewis Trondheim

Seeing as I was just waxing lyrical gibberish to Danny about this in an email it's about time I declared my love online.
Lewis Trondheimis a comics GOD! Through sheer force of will he has become a master of comics, starting out with very basic skills and quickly (thanks to the unbelievable volume of work) growing in ability through hard work and practice. Trondheim's artwork is clear, charming, well observed, quirky and self assured, his writing even more so, but even better than that all that his ideas are excellent. Unfortunately although he's very big in France (where he's from) far too little of his work has been translated into English. Fantagraphics released two McConey collections, The Hoodad and Harum Scarum, both hooked me immediately, lot's of beautifully observed witty dialogue and two very funny and smart stories. The Nimrod, Fantagraphics regular(ish) sized Trondheim b&w title presented a different side to Trondheim, in fact it presented several different sides showcasing amazing work from autobiographical to silent slapstick humour to experimental shorts. Despite great reviews the respect of excellent fellow creators and rabid fans like myself sales just didn't come and Fantagraphics commitment to Trondheim backfired as the expensive they went to in presenting his work in the manner it deserved meant they lost even more money. NBM gave Trondheim a go next and released two b&w US format titles. Oddballz (bad title!) had poorly designed covers and featured two stories per issues this meant breaking down the one off stories (think TinTin or Asterix) into 4 parts, none of which had particularly natural breaks. Dungeon was better, NBM concentrated on 1 story at a time meaning the original stories were only split in 2. Contents wise both comics were great, the translations were solid and although the new lettering used a slightly annoying 'quirky' font it worked quite well. Unfortunately NBM halted both titles promising Oddballz would return in a few months and then quietly forgetting about it. Luckily NBM haven't given up, Dungeon was released in very nice collected formats that are smaller (about the manga size) than the original albums and slightly small than the US format reprints but were back to full colour (far better than the grey scaling used in the comic versions) The new format works quite well and they plan to continue translations in this format with a new one due in a few months. Astronauts From the Future for Oddballz was also collected in this smaller full colour format, sadly none of the other Oddballz stories have been collected yet. This is a shame as although AFTF is brilliant I'm a big fan of the other stories which featured Trondheim'srabbit character McConey. I'm hoping that NBM or Fantagraphics will release Trondheim, Fantagraphics are still obviously fans considering how much space they've given over to him in the pages of TCJ, but in the meantime I'm thinking it might be an idea to learn french and just buy the original books, Trondheim's worth the effort.

I am my own ray of sunshine

Seasons 1 of Samurai Jack and Bruce Timm Superman finally turned up today, colour me happy! Samurai Jack is so amazingly designed, it's beautiful to look at. Also bought Silent Running today, horrifyingly Rebecca hasn't seen it so we're going to watch it tomorrow when I'm sure she'll be utterly charmed by yet another classic film from the 70's.
Had the pleasure of buying The Story of the Little Mole Who Knew it Was None of His Business for someone today - kid's should be bought this book at an impressionable age. The only thing better than buying a fantastic book for yourself is buy a fantastic book for someone else.
Looks like my first comic strip for ages (what feels like a year but is probably 9 months) is nearing completion and I'm glad to say it's like nothing I've done before (well, it is, it's like the stuff I doodle for myself), the artwork is very simple and all the better for it.... but you'll all have to wait a couple of days before you see it.
I'm a rather chirpy mood which is odd as after a pleasant morning of getting up and having it went down hill with a miserable morning in Preston (humid, raining, not a nice city and a cinema to far away for us to see League Of Gentlemen (I just hope it's still on in Manchester next week or my local cinema decides that seeing as they had posters up for it for the last 2 months that they might as well show it)) But we got back early had a splendid butternut squash bake with peanut crumble lunch at the Whale Tail, saw a great film and did some drawing. Happy days.

films

The foul taste Revenge of the Sith left in my mouth has been washed away by the refreshing taste of Batman Begins. Finally a comic adaptation that can stand next to Superman the Movie.

Bold statement No. 1

By Sunday I will have done a short comic strip.

King Matt the First by Janusz Korczak

There'll be a new edition of this book out in August and I urge everyone who glances at this blog to buy it. Korczak wrote this book because he understood how important it was to listen to children, to be a child, to nurture children. His belief was such that in 1942 he died in a concentration camp after refusing to abandon the jewish orphanage he ran and that belief runs all the way through King Matt. At least I'm guessing it does, I've only read 40 pages. 40 pages and I'm hooked, but then the back cover hooked me - "....Matt who becomes a king when just a child and decides to reform his country according to his own priorities. Ignoring his grown up ministers, he builds the best zoo in the world, fights in battles, braves the jungle and crosses the desert, but perhaps most life altering of all is that the lonely boy king finds true friends." Now this is a great concept, it might sound a little dated (maybe in did back in 1923 when it was written), but in the right hands it has serious potential, Korczak taps into that potential beautifully with elegant insightful prose that captures the direct simple honesty that children are capable of.

Forgive this ramble as I make sense of myself

As I wrote yesterday my increasing lameness has been building into a bit of a backlash and I felt that today would mark a change. Part of my fed upness has been over how badly I sleep. I struggle to go to bed at night, always finding something to distract me, yet once I do get to sleep there's nothing more I want to do and it takes extreme effort to get me up (I set 2 alarms for an hour earlier than I need to get up (I then spend that hour hitting 'snooze' every five minutes) obsessively checking them at least half a dozen times before I sleep) What I want to do now is get up at a reasonable time every day and use the extra time productively. Today started well, I was off and Rebecca was starting her first day at work, I woke early so I could see her before she left, but an hour later I was in bed with a cup of coffee. No idea why I did this, if you lie in bed then you'll probably fall asleep and I'm at my most tired when I've just woken up, in other words it was a recipe for disaster and I knew it.
I've atempted to claw back the day and to some degree I've been successful, I've written 500 words on my latest story, done the washing up, I've started my excersizes in the middle of this post (you can probably hear the grunting if you listen carefully) so it's not too bad. But this is another dangerous pattern of mine, doing nothing for long stretches of time and then over compensating, it inevitably leads to me tiring out and stopping altogether. What I need is balance, I need to be able to use my time productively, and anyway sleeping is not always relaxing, relaxing should have an element of productivity to it, such as relaxing with a good book, or with the newspaper or having a relaxing stroll through a park, for me sleeping is as way of delaying something important or difficult, I do it when I'm down.
Okay, enough of this rambling, I'll do better tomorrow, promise.

Any plans yet?

Glad you asked. No, not really, nothing solid anyway. I do have a few vague notions forming for some comics, nothing major, just some humourous (maybe) little shorts. I like the idea of doing a bunch of short comics, about 12 pages of story, in a little square-ish photocopied format but with a fancy cover, slightly heavy paper with endpapers - I did a little experiment and it's easy, and cheap to do. What I'd do is just a page or so a week, put them online and then collect them. The format and manner of doing them owes a lot to Tom Hartand www.americanelf(or, closer to home, Danny) but it's style that owes a hell of a lot to Charles Schulz and as these are all favourite (inc. Danny!) then that's fine by me.
I hitting a wall of idleness that is just getting me down so the urge to break free and act is strong and near at hand. It's been a busy old time this last 2 months but now I feel ready to claw some of my own (or my ideal) life back, not least because Rebecca starts work tomorrow which means more money (so less pressure on me) and time to myself again (it's be unbelievably lovely to have evenings and whole days together but because it's unusual for us it's meant that it's been impossibly difficult for me to be selfish with my time, especially as Rebecca's been sitting around bored and it's because she sacrificed her job for mine)
Guess that's all the plans I'll need for now.

The future of blogging?

No not a new technological advancement, I'm talking about MY future, and not just blogging but the world wide web.
My thoughts are a little vague at the moment, but here goes. Recently I've been foolishly caught up arguing the toss about Revenge of the Sith, don't roll your eyeballs, I know it's a lame thing to do, that's part of the problem. You see I though Sith was terrible but other than that I just didn't care, it was just a film and that was that. But the forum, the only forum I'm part of because it grew up from out of a small press comic scene I was once part of, had someone posting about how amazing Sith was. Now it's a polite forum so I try an maintain a calm well balanced online persona, therefore my repsonse to these posts was to express my dislike of Sith and to say why. it really should have been an end to it except for one thing, I'm an idiot. How on earth can you rationally talk about how bad a Star Wars film is with a Star Wars fan! As the thread continued it became increasingly obvious that the fan was unhappy with my comments, me and my manner of expressing them. As for me I became frustrated at his ignoring my points his 'wacky persona'. All of this threatening at any time to tear through the thin veneer of 'polite debate'. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I don't know....
Then this morning I read a post on peteashton.com about petes response to a 'blogebrity' (it's a nightmarish concept given my dislike for celebs - more of that later) list that he's not on. Pete also mentions someones post on their blog about once being 'queen of blogging' until they backed away and became most forgotten. Bloggers becoming celebrities?! It's a horrible thought, but now I realise it's what most of us want, we want to be heard, we want people to understand us, agree with us, maybe we even want to provoke. Except, I don't think I do want that. I think no one needs a blog to be some one, I think idon't like being misinterpreted on forums as I express mild opinions about something pretty uninteresting, I don't think I want the pressure of trying to write posts that are interesting and usually failing. People having to back off from the harsh lights of blogebrity because the readers are getting weird, that seems wrong.
I don't know what I'm getting at, I still like the idea of blogging but I'm unsure where I fit into it and how I want to do it, but as I've posted maybe half a dozen times in the last couple of months and never linked my blog anywhere in an atempt to get a wider audience I wonder if I'm really going carry on.

Celebrity Love Island

Continuing my hate/more hate obsession with celebrities (or 'celeities' as Callum 'famous and useless dad' Best would atempt to spell it - the question is, is he as thick as fuck or is he trying to make us believe that celebrity is close to deity?) I feel I have to make the obvious comment regarding Celebrity Love Island - why not gather up a few more of these useless talentless individuals, put them on the island and just leave them there? Honestly, it's not that cruel, leave a few cameras here and there and they'll be happy, and at least you wouldn't have to leave much food on the island, they don't eat much these famous folk.

After a long (for me) period of blogging silence I break this almost holy stillness to write about.... Star Wars. Pathetic isn't it? To atempt to redeem myself first I'll mention that lancaster is still lovely, we went to Kendal (a mere 20 miles away) which even lovelier. Being an assistant manager is proving difficult and rewarding in equal measures, which seems to be a good balance - I prefer it to boredom, at least I do so far.
I recently read a very good book about illustrating children's books and am feeling inspired and realising that I really need and want to draw more - basically I find drawing hard simply because I don't do it enough.
Writing is in a weird place, I've finished the 3rd draft and need to do another one. A friend read it and offered me a lot of good criticism and advice which I'd be a fool to ignore. On the other hand I really don't want to go through another draft just now so I'm putting it aside for a few weeks whilst I work on other things.
......so Star Wars.
My main gripe would be the advertising saturation. Bill Watterson took his syndicate to court for the right to not have Calvin and Hobbes devalued by having their images stuck on t-shirts, mugs, badges and only old tat to score easy money. Lucas feels that sticking Star Wars images on anything from junk food to lottery cards won't devalue it. Actually his increasingly mediocre film making skills seems to have devalued his creations without the aid of low class tat tie-ins, I guess he can stick Joda's face on any old crap and it won't make a blind bit of difference. Actually, it has made a difference, it's made me tired, it's made me realise that Lucas really does lack a soul - even if I don't believe that Lucas started out making Star Wars for the toys and merchandise, I do believe that it's the only reason he's carried on making them, that and the fact that he's clearly creatively bankrupt.
Sadly I let myself down by buying a tie-in recently, a lego tie-in. In my defence it was the lego aspect that appealed, if that's any defence.
As for the new movie, I'll see it for the sense of closure and with the not so secret hope that it's good. Sadly one line from the New York review seems to sum up my attitude to the recent Star Wars films, "Break me a fucking give."

Irregular update

Things are still ticking over here in sunny/grey/damp Lancaster. Work's tough, but I'm hoping things'll pick up soon.
I'm about a quarter of the way through the 3rd (and final) draft of Simian Smith and I think its' shaping up quite nicely.
As well as Simian I've started on a story called Green and Pleasant Land, something I've had on the boil for a few years now (it used to go by Green World) and I think, in all modest, it's a really good idea. It's interesting comparing what I've done now (only 2000 words) with what I'd attempted before, the writing is much better, in the words of Rebecca it's more mature. But its' not just the prose, situations and charactisation seem much improved.
I'm utterly knackered with work and still trying to write, but I'm liking it, I feel like less of some useless slug person.

New Town New Us?

No landline connected in our new place so I'm being all la-de-da and typing this in an internet cafe. We probably wpn't be connected for about a month which is a bit of a pain, although maybe a bit of enforced limitations on my online use isn't a bad idea.
Lancaster is lovely and everything we hoped for. The new job is a bit weird, partly because of the change in my job and partly because the change in branch, both things will take some getting used to and I hope I'm up to it. Found out on my first day that the manager had a 2 week holiday booked, which starts, oh... tomorrow. Bit of a shock really, I think a lot of my training is going to be done by me and that's not a bad idea.
Rebecca is still job hunting (have I mentioned how much I love, respect and appreciate her for the sacrifice she made in quitting her job to come here?), but it's very early days yet and she's applied for 1 job, going to apply for another and has joined a carework agency.
We spent a fantastic afternoon in the local park (10 minute walk from our very nice house - which unfortunately is a little too close to a trainline..... on the other hand there were ducks wandering past our front window yesterday so I'll take the rough with the smooth, it's a lovely house after all) which is beautiful, not only does it have a deer sanctuary like our last park, but it has a butterfly house and a bird watching section. It's also massive and resembles a wood more than a golf course/flower garden, we reckon we'll be making very regular trips to it.
As we walked we talked about stuff and I think we have a plan. Rebecca is going to look into becoming a teacher, we can afford for her to do the PGCE course now that I have a bit more cash and she could combine her present skills with teaching and going into teaching kids with special needs - more money, more hands on work with individuals and just as, if not more, rewarding, sounds like a plan.
Oh, and the second episode of Doctor Who was amazing and the next looks like it could be even better, life is good!

Doctor Who

There's probably thousands of opinions floating around the net on the new Doctor Who, adding to them seems pointless, so let me just say that I loved it. Proper British scifi and a worthy successor to the original, Kneale, The Avengers, Triffids, etc.
A friend of mine (hi Sam) was so impressed he decided to wake us up with a drunken call at 1:30am to share his joy at it's quality.... and I was polite and friendly! Not because that's the kind of guy I am, but because of our shared geek joy.

We're leaving home, bye bye

Felt the need to delete my previous post, I doubt anyone saw it so it's no big deal but drunken I love you all and goodbyes just have no place on here, sorry.
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Booked a removal firm yesterday, shopped around and ended up going with a place that wasn't actually the cheapest but was still the best choice. One of the big pains for us when we move (especially to another city) is that we can't drive and have to travel with the removal men. The idignity. I feel like a kid asking to sit up front.
So other than finishing the packing (a fair bit done already but we'll finishing up on Sunday) we're done. The removal men will round on Tuesday, about 9:30, they reckon they can get us to Lancaster at about 2-ish. And I start work the next day.
It's a weird feeling, moving. We've done it a fair bit and it gets no better. Some moves go easier than others, but that's like talking about the least painful broken limb you've had. At the moment I'm feeling incredibly disconnected and adrift.
My fingers are tightly crossed (and yet my typing isn't suffering) that the house we move into (and I'll feel sure that's going to happen when I've got the keys in my hand and using them to open the front door) is going to work out and we can stay in there until we move into the place we eventually buy, which I'd like to be sooner rather than later.
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This weird disconnected feeling, don't like it and rather not think about it. Got to think about all the positive possiblities, pay off debts, save up, do well at the job and progress in the only thing I've ever had resembling a career, write more, draw more, develop myself, create more opportunities, have proper holidays, not look like a loser and just do more. All this hinges on me doing well at work and my wife getting a job. No point in acting like I can't do the job, that won't get me anywhere and my wife's chances of getting a job in her field are pretty decent due to her abilities and experience. So fuck it, a move taken for the best reasons and with our eyes wide open... wish us luck?

"Imagine there's no possessions"

There's no two ways about about it, moving is a pain, it also usually gets me thinking about all the stuff Rebecca and I own.
A peculiar quirk of mine (that I reckon a lot of people share) is that I empathise with certain inanimate objects. It sounds weird, and a bit stupid, but we've just left our old couch out in our garden to be picked up by the council and most likely chucked in a skip and the thought of this faithful item that provided the best service it could being heartlessly cast aside makes me feel guilty. Generally I try and recycle and there is a charity shop nearby that takes old furniture but we're running out of time so we couldn't use them - also we had hoped we could pass it onto a friend in need, but it didn't work out. See how I try and rationalise my guilt?
What I'm thinking is that this quirk of mine, is actually an emotional reaction to a genuine issue; The strange way we find it difficult to give up unnecessary possessions (books, comics, DVDs, victorian dolls, cabbage patch kids, etc), items we don't need and probably no longer enhance our lives (the point where it's no longer about the individual items and about the 'collection' itself) but we happily get rid of important items (cookers, washing machines furniture, etc) in favour of nicer shinier ones. Important items become replaceable and less important items are like an extension of ourselves and therefore much more difficult to give up. Strange priorities.

Is it even worth gettingso bothered about this?

Adverts, horrible things aren’t they? Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate a well done interesting looking ad, but they count for very little of the advertising out there and it doesn’t matter, basically ads are inducements to buy things you don’t really need and didn’t even want. I don’t want things I don’t want, the world’s full of pointless junk as it is without greedy companies and individuals producing more and then spending vast amounts of money in the hope of making vaster amount of money.
The reason ads have raised my ire this time (this is what an honest PHD blog looks like BTW, moaning about stuff that probably doesn’t matter. Oh well, I do like stuff too, I’ll talk about that some time, promise) is because of Pot Noodle. Now when Pot Noodle recently relaunched themselves as ‘the slag of snacks’ I thought that was quite clever, crude but clever. They were telling us what we already knew and it was funny enough an idea and recognisable to us that it was possible to appreciate a pot noodle for what it is, a foul indulgence best avoided but occassionally enjoyed. But the jokes gone too far now with the new ‘pot noodle horn’ ads. Crude, purile, over the top, lame, pointless and worst of all for something like this, shit and not funny. This kind of one note inuendo is cropping up more and more in the highly sexualised and glamourised media industry which seems intent on not just damaging our intelect but desensitising sex to the point where we could have a world of eunuchs - perhaps this is part of greater plan to slow down population growth? If so then maybe I don’t mind.

"What some people will do"

A friend tells me that he likes that I held back from swearing on this blog, in respect to him I've toned down this post because he made a good point, however I think the odd expletive is justified here, read on fellow bored blogger.
Once again I feel the need to talk about a site and not link to it. In fact I’m not even going to bother naming it. Denying it of the patronage of the few people who actually look at my blog is petty and a pretty poor act of defiance but as the site I want to write about is run by a scumbag of the highest order I don’t really want to give the guy even the smallest amount of publicity.
So what ‘s site about? I stumbled upon it earlier today after seeing it linked on a blog I occasionally visit. It goes like this; there’s a guy who’s set up a site which displays a domestic rabbit he found, instead of finding the owner he decided to love and care for it up until a set date when he will have it killed and eat it unless he receives $50,000.
Let that sink in a second.....
He’s already received about $18,000 and a fair amount of hate mail. Has the money come from sensitive, gullible, and yeah, maybe even stupid, folk desperate to not see a bunny die? I suppose so. But it seems that a lot of people think this guys like rilley funny dude. He’s sooo clever, it’s genius, do you see what he’s doing? Preying on stupid people by using a bunny to extort money from them, ha, they’re probably meat eaters dude! Wankers. Apparently this isn’t the first time someone’s done this, it’s just the first time someone's done it with any degree of professionalism.
I don’t want to run through why I find this morally repugnant, I’d honestly like to believe that it doesn’t need explaining any further than profiting of the death of a living creature in any way is just fucking wrong. What bothers me is that the site that this idiot bought his domain name and uses to host from is happy to do so. They claim that as there’s nothing illegal (and this does seem to be the case) they don’t want to take away the wankers freedom of speech, they don’t want to censor him because they’re just one big happy corporation of freedom loving upstanding noncensoring wankers. If idiot who uses their service was spreading racist propaganda they would take it down they say, but he isn’t, so they won’t. Anyway, argues one of the owners of the band hosting thing site, the guys not serious, he won’t kill the rabbit, he won’t get any money from his merchandise (that’s right, you can buy merchandise, it all goes to help save the rabbit), why would he eat his cash cow, or rather, rabbit? He wouldn’t do it no matter how much money he got, so don’t don’t worry about it you humourless fools. And this is the argument that really bugs me. There’s no way of knowing this guy is just fooling us but if we say he is then we aren’t guilty of helping him, our hands are clean, phew! Of course it’s expecting a bit much to believe that a company will have some basic human fucking decency, would put morals before money especially when it wouldn’t create the same kind of dangerous publicity supporting a racist site would generate. The hosting site is losing the odd customer but it’s gaining some for it’s oh so healthy non-censoring stance. No one is questioning the fact that they take this stance, as do the idiots who think the guys so terribly funny, simply to removing themselves from any complicity with a man willing to kill a pet for money.
To every smug Nathan Barley type idiot that believes this is some seriously funny shit that messes with people’s head I hope that you die as soon as possible. To the arsehole who set up the site I want you to die a little slower, I’m only sorry that if you ever saw this site you’d actually like that you got this reaction.

First 'new' post

Seeing as I'm bored I've been 'surfing the net' (an odd phrase, physically active people (who say 'dude') surf, people spending hours online don't strike me as particularly physical) and I ended up on salon (I want to start using links in these posts again but I won't this time, my spite will become clear) which is supposed to be a smart online magazine, I've seen it around but never really looked at it. The article I spotted today seemed pretty interesting (celebrity blogs, why do they do it, why are so many embarrassing (I'm not aware of this phenomenon but the opportunity to laugh at celebs seemed like fun)) so I decided to give it a look. What I discover is that Salon sucks. Two paragraphs or so into the article I find out I need to be a member to read it all (okay, maybe I should've known that already, but frankly it bugs me that online mags or anything online (well, apart from pornsites I suppose) won't let the casual browser have a look at something, I thought the web was supposed to break down those walls?) Fine, I think, I'll get a membership, I can have it ad free but I have to pay or I can get it free but I have to endure ads. Personally I hate being coerced into buying crap I don't want with unimaginative ads but on the other hand I don't feel like paying to read one stupid article, so I click the free with ads button and have to wade through pages of ads for one fucking film! a crappy looking piece of shit with Queen Latifa as a hairdresser and Andie MacDowell as a talentless actress who does stupid makeup ads, oh sorry, that's the real world. I gave up. One ad would have been enough, maybe I'd even put up with two or three if they'd at least been for different things, but a bunch of ads for one thing is just taking the piss, that fuck it wasn't for a film I might've actually been interested in, it could've put me off.

hmmmm

I'm getting bored with my blog. Not blogging, just this blog. I started another one about a month ago (popfun.blogspot.com), it's meanspirited little thing and I'm already a bit bored of it to be honest - although it's probably better than my proper blog! The problem is that I'm a fairly restained blogger (far more than I am in real life), even my rant against the fur wearing talentless arse known as J-lo was restrained. I rarely mention work related mishaps not just because I don't want to lose my job but because I don't want to upset anyone who might happen to google their way here. I've had some interesting (well, maybe not interesting, but I've wanted to talk about them) experiences in the world of small press comics but I've kept them to myself incase I get caught criticising soomeone. I could hide behind a fake name and sling mud to my hearts content but that strikes me as a particularly shitty thing to do. I think it might be time to pick a new template (wish I could design one myself) and revamp the blog to reflect the really me. All that'll probably change is that I use more swearwords, I've not got that much of an interesting life!

Bang

Apparently Nottinghams Chief Constable is asking for help in investigating gun crime. I also read that in America some guy has killed 7 people in a church before killing himself and a 2 year old boy is fighting for his life after his 4 year old brother took his mother's gun out of her handbag and shot him in the head after they had an argument.
I can't help but be a little simplistic here, but it would make me feel a lot better if every single gun was destroyed and no more were made.

Blue Peter Rocks

Due to my wife's Ewan Macgregor obsession I happen to be watching Blue Peter. I have two observations to make. 1 is that David Beckham seems to be covered in make-up, has had his eyebrows plucked and possibly has more botox than blood in his body. 2 is that being a Blue Presenter is the best job in the world, they get to do all sorts of cool things, Caron Keating wing walking, that ginger bloke with the funny glasses hanging onto a windmills sails, etc.

Madness

Oh dear. I've just seen an advert for a very lame looking TV Quick kind of magazine. I honestly can't remember what this rubbish looking rag is called, probably because I was too busy cringing in pain due to the fact that the advert used 'Our House' by Madness as a backing track and Suggs seems to have provided new vocals where he sings the name of the magazine instead of the words 'Our House'.
I'm used to hearing songs I like used to sell stuff I don't care about, but the artist actually lending a hand in the butchering of the song is a new one on me.
'Our House' is a song I've loved since I was a kid. Cheers Suggs, it'll never sound the same again, hope you were paid well.

update

Rebecca and I went to Lancaster on tuesday and stopped over night. Thankfully my brief view of the place was pretty much on the money, in other words Rebecca loved it and so did I.
We may have found a place to live, it's renting so the we've got to put up with the usual wait and see process, there's also a few other issues. Hopefully it'll work out as we liked the place.
It looks like Rebecca will be ok with agency work, although annoyingly she missed out on a regular job. Anyway, workwise it's looking like she'll be fine which is important to me. Rebecca's giving up things to go to Lancaster, her position as an assistant manager being the main one so I'd like thingsd to be as smooth and sucessful as possible.
Very strange to be moving again, there's a lot of worry and frustration but I find myself hoping. I hope this will work out, I hope the new job goes well and I fit in, I hope that Rebecca gets a good job, I hope she looks into new things, I hope we can afford to buy a house, I hope to get out more and be active, I hope I write and draw more and get published. I hope we're happy.
That's the great thing about moving. Despite all the turmoil there's a lot of possiblities and opportunities.

Meaning?

Looking up as I neared home yesterday on my way from work I saw a goose flying away from the park. Snow was falling and the honks from the goose grew louder and then slowly more distant. I can't seem to get those honks from my head.

Ramblin'

Just read on a website that Hunter S Thompson has killed himself. Not sure what to say about that, but it deserves a mention.
In a grand display of cheap decedance I'm lying in bed typing this, as I look out of the window the slight whisps of snow have gathered a pace. I find snow to be incredibly calming.
Further to my post about the job interview I bring you all the latest update. I got the job. This is obviously a very good thing indeed but I'm honour bound to mention two things. Firstly my prediction was way off, I didn't think I'd got the job (although I did think the interview went well, if that makes sense) Secondly, I'm really scared. It's another move, my wife needs to sort a new job out and I'm making a big leap.
My in-laws visited over the weekend, which is always interesting. Our's is a difficult relationship but Ican't help but be impressed by the changes they're both making. My own parents have found a niche and settled into it and although I'm very happy (and maybe jealous) about that there is a sense that they're just ticking off days now. They drive around and see things but they don't appear to be expanding themselves or their horizons whereas my in-laws lead a fairly fulfilling life but still want a bit more. Interestingly I'd say it was my dad who was the most work driven, certainly I don't recall him anything other than goal orientated, now he's achieved his goal (work hard until you don't have to) there's not much else. Don't get me wrong, my mam and dad aren't just sitting around watching telly waiting to die, they just don't seem to be doing anything particularly stimulating. On the other hand I could be totally wrong, I don't see them all the time.
Looks like the snow has stopped.

Trying hard not to swear

I atempted to post last night, but managed to lose it before it was finished. As it happens I think that's for the best as I'd chosen to drop my no swearing (on my blog) rule and I think that would've been a mistake. Also I saw the news today (oh boy) and something on it tied into what i was going to say yesterday.
The lost post was inspired by seeing the cover of a newspaper when I went to the local shop, J-Lo wearing fur. It saddens and sickens me that people still carry on indulging this disgusting fashion. I just can't understand such cruel unbelievable self indulgent and insensitive behaviour. It never fails to shock and anger me when I see an idiot wearing fur, even when it's talentless idiot like J-Lo grinning with her scary celebrity 'smile' (you know the kind, the inhuman looking ones that showcase surgery instead of sincerity) and proving that as well as talent she lacks sensitivity and humanity.
The other thing I needed to bring up was inspired by seeing Otis Ferry (Bryan's boy) on the news whining about the impending fox hunting ban. He'll carry on his hunting even when it's illegal. Feeling far too strongly about this to sum up all I can do is that he does illegally fox hunt, is caught, arrested, put into prison and his fellow inmates find a usuful occupation for a young man with a purdy face.

late breaking news

Seeing as I can't sleep I might as well post up about my big day (see previous post) The interview itself went kind of okay, there was no getting away from my lack of knowledge in certain areas, gaps that are mainly a direct result of my atempting that evolutionary jump. On the other hand the things that I do know I think came across and were pretty key issues. No way of knowing how it went really and I have my suspicions but frankly I don't want to jinx myself by spilling my guts online! When I find out exactly how it went I'll spill the beans then.
But even though the interview was interesting and helpful it was still a big sucking chest wound of a day. Not because I couldn't spend valentine with rebecca (we did have the end of the evening together at least), but because of the appalling rail service. I'll be sending a strongly worded complaint tomorrow. All I had to do was get two trains, there really should be no reason why I would end up being over two and a half hours late for my interview. That's right, two and a half hours! Not the best way to make a good impression (although the manager was very understanding) and it certainly didn't put me in a good frame of mind for a very important interview.
I really can't be bothered to go into the full details of the painful train journey (it's taking all my energy to stick to my rule of not swearing on my blog), hopefully the one and a half hours speaks loudly enough.
There was at least one pleasant moment on the journey though. About ten minutes from Nottingham, it was dark, I was tired and drifting without actually needing sleep and I got that special night-time travelling feeling. Outside the train window it wasn't possible to make out the shape of the buildings but their windows warmly lit by the lights inside drifted past me offering glimses of domestic comfort that I would normally never notice being too distracted by the ugliness of the exteriors, the litter and the grubbiness.
And as the burning sensation fills my eyes and threatens to seep through to my brain I really should turn the computer off.
Good night everyone. Goodnight.

Gulp!

Big day tomorrow, I've got an interview for a new job as an assistant manager in another shop. Kinda scary, not the interview (well, it's no more scary than interviews are generally) just all the possibilities it throws up. Although I am sort of worried about the interview, I am making a bit of an evolutionary jump to assistant manager which throws up the possibility of me making a complete arse of myself in the interview..... but, then, that's a possibility in any interview.

navel gazing as a spectator sport

The sun is slowly setting (actually it's so overcast that for all I know the sun could be shrinking or fade away) signaling that it's over halfway through the day and I've done nothing. Not that i'm complaining, it's been a pleasant nothing and I've got a few things to do later.
I've been feeling a little disconnected for a while now, I'd love to know what's causing it. My guess is that it's just the slide into middle aged ennui. I'm applying for a new job and whether I get it or not it's opening up a whole can of worms and as much as I love to examine every little aspect of my life (think yourselves lucky I don't post all that crap on my blog) I'm not particularly comfortable with this can.
Walking in the park with Rebecca is fast becoming my favourite, if infrequent, past time. It was pretty quiet today which made it feel like the park ours. Magpies ducks and geese were out in force and someone had a dog that looked a lot like a wolf. Rebecca told me about her own concerns regarding her job the possiblity of moving and if she knew what she was doing with herself, which just shows how wrapped up I get in myself that I'd failed to notice that she was having the same problems I was. We shared a danish pastry at the coffee shop and I read a kid's book called Vote For Larry which is pretty good and reminded me that disconnection, disatisfaction and ennui is something everyone suffers from and it doesn't incapacitate some like it does Rebecca and I. It's funny how when you feel a certain way life seems to throw things at you that reinforce that feeling. Hopefully we'll both be able to either combat these feelings or channel them into something positive, frankly I'm sick of focusing on the negative about myself and my life.

Goin' south

Visited London this weekend and had a good time. London is not my favourite place but I do have several very lovely friends and it was nice to see them.
I managed to meet up with a lost friend which was interesting. When we left London I tried to contact this friend who managed to never be in and never call back. I was a bit confused but not terribly hurt as it was one of those easy going but not firm friendships, sad when they end but not surprising, without proximity they simple fade. On Saturday I went into the shop where my old friend works and 3 years later he was still there and little had changed. We chatted, it was easy, friendly and felt a little like traveling back in time.
That was the weekend, time to think about friends.
When we got back home the bungalow was cold and we'd left a light on. Sometimes stepping back into your home can be cosy and welcoming, sometimes they look cold and lonely. Our bungalow is nice but it's that makes it a home.

drifting through monday

It was my day off today (I have every Monday off) and I decided that as Rebecca was heading off to work at 1pm I'd leave at the same time and go into the City centre. There was no reason to do this I just felt like getting out. I spent a voucher I'd been sent for Christmas and bought the American Slendor DVD which I'd been promising myself for a while (and after watching, and enjoying, Sideways last night it seemed about time to carry through on my promise) A quick trip to a comic shop and I bought By the Numbers, a French graphic novel translated by DC. I don't know much about it other than it's set during 1948 and is illustrated by Stanislas. As Stanislas is the artist responsible for a rather wonderful comic biography of Herge I'm not fussed what it's about, it's look lovely so I'm prepared to take a gamble on the story.
There's something pleasant, even if it's a bit lame in a Gen X/Friends sort of way about sitting in a coffee shop reading a book, so that's what I did. The book was The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place by E. L. Konisburg who wrote on of my favourite childrens' books, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. So far the book is very lovely indeed and for some strange reason is reminding me of Tales From The City. My attention was occassionally distracted from the book by the couple opposite me who were holding a conversation only really interesting to themselves but who happily broke off several times during it to answer their mobile phones. having only recently bought a mobile phone I'm still amazed at the (lack of) manners attached to the damn things. There was no pause in answerign the phones, one simply stopped talking to the other and answered the phone, no apologies, no recriminations.
On the way back home I passed a woman on a bicycle with her young son on the back, he had his head tilted as far back as it would go and was grining as the wind ruffled his blonde moppet hair. I had to smile.

Perfect Weekend

It seems like it's been months since my wife and I had a couple of days off to ourselves, but then it probably has been months. Sometimes out two rotas just don't fit neatly together and we end up maybe having a day off together once every couple of weeks. Those odd days off for the last few months have been used up for mundane jobs such as food shopping or being spent on a train to see family for a couple of hours before getting back on train then going back to work. But not so for the weekend just gone. Two days off together with no errands and no visiting.
On Saturday we had a nice lie in, slobbed around for a while reading watching the tv and drinking coffee before heading into town for a look round the shops and then going to see Million Dollar Baby (which was excellent) stopping briefly inbetween to eat cookies and drink more coffee. After the film we had a quick drink and then went to a nice veggie restuarant called Squeek, a place where we are always promising ourselves we'll go to more often but still only manage it about twice a year. Instead of getting a bus or taxi home we walked back, it took nearly an hour and was pretty cold but after such a nice day spent doing nothing more than enjoying each others company neither of us wanted to cut it short with a quick trip home.
Sunday was quiet, mostly we sat on the couch doing nothing much, but we did go out for a walk in the park. it was cold but the sky was clear and it just seemed a perfect opportunity to wrap up and go walking. The pond in the park was packed with ducks geese and swans, people were walking their dogs, kid's had kites and we sat in the cafe and shared a twix and had a hot chocolate.
It's likely that when I go to work tomorrow someone will ask if I did much over the weekend, I'll probably say nothing much and it'll be true, but it's been the nicest nothing I've done for a long time.

Update! Wuxtry! Read allaboutit!

It's been a while since I've updated on Simain Smith, now is as good a time as any. Just incase you recently stumbled onto this site (the previous post about my fears for the Hellblazer adaptation seems to prove that it's possible - although I'm beginning to suspect that I just got a comment from someone trawling the net looking for people who don't like Keanu reeves and putting them in their place) Simian Smith is the main character in a book I've been writing aimed at kids around about the 8 years old mark. It's been a rough ride for me and I've learned a lot, but the main thing that I've learned is that I've got a lot to learn. Since I decided that writing might be something I'd like to do I've managed to spend time with other people who'd like to be published. At times it's been inspiring but mainly depressing as they've all been very good and I've just sort of hung around looking up at them with wet puppy dog eyes basking in their glow. Oddly it's only since I was cut off from these people (although happily still in touch with them) that I actually wrote an amount worth a damn. Gone are the ideas for a book never started or never finished to be replaced by Simian Smith Primate Detective. If there's a lesson to be learned from this experience it's to just do it and stop waiting for others to provide the vital spark.
So anyway, a couple of weeks before Christmas I finished the 1st draft. As I said it was a struggle and the sense of pride I got from having completed the book was huge, far bigger than I'd anticipated, so much so that I couldn't wait to get started on the 2nd draft. Real life and common sense slowed me down a little, but as I write this I'm approaching the end of the 2nd draft, it should be finished by the end of the week. One more draft and then it's finished. I intend to do some artwork to go with the book which I'm looking forward to doing, but I'm already wondering what to do next. I've got a few unfinished projects that I'd like to do and after the buzz I got from finishing Simian that first time round I'd really like to do right by them and finish them all up.
Reading through Simian as I've been redoing it I'm not sure what to make of it all, I'm sure it's the same for writers everywhere, but I imagine no one's as unsure as the writer who's hardly written anything. It's not how I imagined it to be but that's as much to do with my original ideas being fairly vague as it is to do with my writing ability. I find myself thinking the next story will be better but instead of making me think the present one isn't worth bothering with it's making me feel that the present one's been invaluable.
And that's where I'm up to, Simian's flawed and imperfect but I'm happy positive and proud, can't say fairer than that.

Late top 10 entries

Okay, this has turned out to be a bit of an albatross. Obviously there's been loads of great things about 2004 but not all of them worth posting. It's not helped by me bunching a load of my favourites together in the first couple of entries, what was I thinking? Danny chose a couple I'd have done and there's no point in repeating them, especially as Danny did a fine job in saying what I would have liked to say if I had the ability to. So, here's the last lot with very little explination cos I just want done with it now.
Number 4 Finishing the first draft od Simian Smith. It was a great feeling, so good I'm not sure I care what becomes of it. Next time I'm struggling with something I'll remember the feeling completion provides and soldier on.
Number 3 Holiday in Amsterdam. Me, my wife, 4 days of being together with no interuptions in a lovely city. Perfect.
Number 2 Green Wing. After the unbelievably brilliant Garth Marenghi's Dark Place the equally brilliant Green Wing took over, everything about this show worked, even though at first I had my doubts. Mark Heap is a comedy god and the only thing wrong with the whole thing was that Channel 4 are getting behind one and not the other. Stop messing around 4 get Dark place out on DVD!
Number 1 Living in our bungalow. Ok, it's not 'ours' we rent it. After putting up with crap houses with neighbours who think we want to hear everything they can hear it's been heaven to come home to peace and quiet. It's not a perfect place, but it doesn't have the paper thin walls that typify the average Nottingham house that has the gall not to be a 10 bedroom giant.

.....and that's it, phew!

hard to sum up

Hopefully you'll understand and apreciate that this post might be a bit difficult and awkward. A bookseller at Waterstones was recently sacked because of his blog. If you're based in the Uk then you've probably heard about it. I work at a bookshop and I have a blog. As far as I'm aware I've never mentioned the name of the shop I work for but I can't imagine it's too hard to figure it out if you wanted to. I have on occassion wrote about crap days at work. The bookseller was sacked because he wrote about crap days at work. I've never read the blog in question and am only going from what I've seen in the Guardian (which also contains samples from the blog) but it does seem that the guy never actually slandered Waterstones, made libelous comments or revealed any practices sales figures or anything of a confidential nature. What he was was critical about the people and things that made his day crappy, occassionally resorting to namecalling. I sound like I'm defending the guy, but one of the reasons I don't mention my employer by name is because it's a whole can of worms I really don't want to risk opening. Being able to speak your mind is important, it's a fundamental right really, but the... let's call it 'freedom of speech' seems to me to require a degree of personal responsibility. Also Waterstones has a freedom to respond.
What I'm saying is that for me there's a grey area of is the guy in the right or in the wrong. There's also my own personal grey area of having a blog and working in a bookshop and not always being happy at work.
What isn't a grey area is the degree of response. Sacking with out warning for something that doesn't seem to be cut and dried seems dodgy to say the least. It's harsh and it opens it's own can of worms. I don't think this is over.

Hideously long and not part of the top 10

There's another 'film of the comic' coming out soon, this one is called Constantine and like many films based on a comic it looks pretty poor. Snotty write ups in film magazines talk about 'geeks' getting their knickers in a twist over the damage being done to 'their' comics and laugh at the silliness of it all. Seeing as the film industry seems intent on sucking dry it's back catalogue with pointless remakes and sequels and stripping classic (and not so classic) books of all their meat and flavour I can't help but wonder if some of these magazine writers should just shut up. Granted there's a certain breed of comic reader who wants to complain about every little alteration of 'their' comic and within and without the comic reading community there's no end of people ready and willing to criticise a film before they've actually seen it (ouch, that comment's hitting a little too close to home!) but what's really galling about some of the changes foisted on many adaptations (particularly, but not exclusively, on comic adaptations) is how arbitatry the changes are and how little they improve upon the originals, lets face they usually turn out to be pretty poor. Having finally seen the Lemony Snicket film I have to say that I was pretty underwhelmed, oh everyone did a great job in (mostly) sticking to the spirit of the books (which is something to be grateful for) but the damage to to the stories themselves was quite severe, packing 3 of the books into one short film and then zipping through the story lines at breakneck speed seemed to strip the books of some of their strengths, detail, incident, characterisation. Not to mention the fact that the voiceover suggested that black macabre humour was not the intention of the books but rather a morose sadness with a slightly uplifting hopefulness clumsily tacked on the end.
Constantine, as the adaptation of 'Hellblazer' is to be called seems to have fallen into the trap of messing too much with what made the originals so good. Gone is the grimy UK setting, gone is the insouciant brit who looks a bit like Sting circa '81, all spiky blonde hair and arrogance. What we now have is Keanu Reeves in New York. I'm not anti-Keanu, he's not a great actor by any stretch of the imagination, but he does well in fun films that require someone to look convincing whilst spouting gibberish against a greenscreen. The real problem with having Keanu is that it pretty much broadcasts the fact that we’re going to have a film that will feature empty gibberish for dialogue and a load of special effects, the iconic look of John Constantine is gone and so will his character, and that was what made Hellblazer worth adapting in the first place.....
Ah, except that's not really true is it. Obviously I'm talking about Hellblazer of about 15 years ago. Back in the mid-80's Alan Moore (who I may have mentioned before) revitalised Swamp Thing into a very fine comic indeed and during his run co-created with Steve Bissette and John Totleben the character John Constantine. As he describes himself early on Constantine is 'a nasty piece of work guv, just ask anyone', and what he did was shake Swamp Thing up as much as Moore did. But Moore never really used him that much, oh he's pretty integral to the plot of the stories he does appear in and the changes he forces the Swamp Thing through are pretty important, but he doesn't actually turn up in many of the comics that and when he does it's not really about him. I love Swamp Thing and I love Constantine in them but where he really comes into play is when DC gave him his one title and asked Jamie Delano to write it. And for about 40 issues that's we he did, and they were (and are, I'm rereading them now) brilliant. Delano is not actually a great writer, his output has been inconsistent but when he gets it right he's well worth following, with Hellblazer he got it right. Delano gave Constantine a past, he portrayed him as been the cocky arrogant upstart that Moore introduced but he added and extra layer of guilt and self doubt to the mix that really made the character shine. Delano's plots of demon yuppies bartering for souls, gaybashing football hooligans sent of to do the devils work, child murders on working class council estates killing through their tedious lives, men who work so hard to create a epic version of themselves they become fiction, dead policemen coming coming back to life as vicious dogs, and so much more were the perfect mix of black humour, weird arcana and honest social commentary of a very real Britain. With artwork by John Ridgway that was rough, detailed, down to earth and realistic the stories were given the best showcase (an excellent artist will do more than just sum up the scripts in pictures, he’ll add to and improve the story with his art, that’s what happened here) and when he left early on he was replaced with other creators who had something to live up to and worked very hard doing just that. Once Delano left the comic floundered, Garth Ennis, who went on to become very popular, crafted some fun but forgettable and less than average tales, Paul Jenkins tried hard but didn’t always manage to pulled it off, Warren Ellis came up with some shallow stories that revelled in nastiness and so it went moving further and further away from the original. Now Constantine seems no older than he did over 15 years ago and just gives mean and meaningful stares, says a few vague enigmatic things and calls people 'mate', 'cos he's streetwise and cool instead of actually have a ‘character’. Some of the stories are fun and entertaining but that’s about it, which is why I rarely dip into them nowadays. Maybe it’s a comic past it’s sell by date, maybe it made more sense back then, maybe everything that was worth saying with it’s been said. Maybe a film staring Keanu Reeves is all it desrves now. I’d still like something more though.

A long delayed entry for number 5

... and it's Oz, probably the finest TV show ever made, certainly the best drama. It make's it into the best of 2004 mainly because I bought it on R1 DVD in Febuary. Oh Channel 4 sneaked it onto TV a couple of weeks ago, but that doesn't count. After recieving excellent reviews, and pretty decent rating IIRC, Channal 4 in it's ultimate wisdom started showing later series at later times and didn't even bother advertising that the 2nd series was even coming on. This terrible treatment denegerated to the point the series 5 was shown at 3 in the morning in December and Channel 4 even forgot to advertise that 3 episodes were running back to back to back, so viewers who set their VCR's for 2 episodes (like us) actually missed a middle episode of the series. After looking at the TV guide Rebecca and I realised that an episode was missing but could find no sign of it on Teletext. On Channel 4's forum they apparently offer a very half hearted apology. Still, instead of attacking Channel 4 for appalling scheduling, failing to promote a great show and squeezing an entire series into a week at some Godforsaken time of the morning, I shall tell you a little about the show. Oz is short for Oswald Maximum Penitentiary and follows the day to day lives of the inmates. This is not a worthy show, this is a hard hitting, blackly funny, shockingly violent unflinching soap opera of a ride. Any show that features one of the characters getting head from another guy and then breaking the neck when he comes is worth a look as far as I'm concerned. But it's not all naked men, rape, grisly death and violence, Oz is so compelling because it never lets you forget that these men are not very nice (everyone is OZ is guilty, even the one's who really don't deserve to be there) and yet still makes you care for them. You may hate a character but when he meets his end (and there's a seriously high mortality rate in OZ) it'll be so horrible that you'll wonder if he really deserved what he got. One of the other great things about OZ is that it changes, and that's why it reminds me of a soap. Most dramas feature characters that slowly develop with occassional serious changes if something drastic happens to them. In Oz, by it's very nature, people go through radical changes because something drastic is happening to them every 5 minutes. So like a soap characters can go through some absurd changes but because it makes sense in OZ you get all the fun of seeing a character go through all sorts of amazing changes without it seeming inconsistant or effecting the logic of the story. Oz is finished now after winning lots of awards and viewres in America, shame Channel 4 were too gutless to give it the respect it deserved over here in the UK.

Number 6, where it's important to note that these are in no particular order

Rebecca, my wife. Is that too corny, too schmaltzy, too, dare I say it, obvious? If so I don't care, I can't do a top 10 of things that have meant something to me this last year and not include Rebecca. She's my wife and I love her.
Alan Moore gets a larger post than she does though;)
But then some things shouldn't need that much explaining should they.

At number 7, Alan Moore

If I was doing this chart for 2003, 2002 or all the way back to 1981 then it's likely that somewhere in there would be the name Alan Moore. Let me explain.
Back in the early 80's if you read comics, and a lot of kid's still did, you couldn't avoid the name Alan Moore, he was everywhere. Not like some money crazed hack, but more like a creative dam that had burst. Alan Moore forced his way into the comic industry by bombarding publishers with scripts, some of the first published ones were in 2000ad as 'Future Shocks' (little twist in the tale type stories that ran from 2 pages to 5 pages) He also got work in a new comic starting up called Warrior creating the legends (in the comic world at least) V For Vendetta and Marvelman (Later changed to Miracleman when playground bully Marvel decided to throw it's weight around) Also around that time Moore was working for MarvelUK (oh the irony) doing text stories about a character named Nightraven, reviews and comic strips including the revamped Captain Britain.
Along with V For Vendetta, it was the future shocks that I particularly liked, I still reread them now and they still impress. They show the kind of mind Moore possesses, they're funny, scary, strange, clever and never dull. Later 2000ad replaced Future Shocks with Time Twisters, same format but this time the stories had to be about.... time, of course. Again Alan Moore wrote amazing stories some of which still amaze me today 20 years later (Reversible Man where we follow the life of a man who has just died of a stroke is a work of genius, there's also the story of a man's failed atempt to build a time machine so he can relive happier times that still manages to choke me up) As all this was going on Moore created 2 more titles that I can never forget. Swamp Thing was his first time producing an ongoing comic for the American market, he took a title that was dead in the water and with in a year turned it into the most talked about comic of it's time. Swampthing is where he showed a bigger audience his talent and displayed his remarkable ability for reinventing comic characters. But as much as I love Swamp Thing it was his other title that left it's mark on me, Halo Jones appeared in 2000ad in '84 and blew me away. Sometimes it's hard to know why some effects you so much, it's the same with Halo Jones. The story of a very average girl set in the future we follow her from unemployement to work as a waitress on a space ship to burnt out alcoholic to soldier to freedom. It's an amazing journey and yet I don't know why that first instalment (Halo as an unemployed kid) effected me so much, perhaps it's because it was so terribly human, who knows.
Alan Moore went on to write Watchmen which shook the comic industry to an incredible degree (not all positively), later he wrote From Hell which staggered everyone again (if you've only seen the film you have no idea what From Hell is) and a few years ago he created a line of comics called ABC featuring the excellent League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (which may be forever sullied in the minds of many thanks to the dreadful film) Like David Bowie he's never stood still, every new work is a surprise and like Bowie he's sometimes made the odd mistake and not always been appreciated, taken for granted. We seem to value artists who do the same thing over and over again and then complain when they become dull. But it's not every creator who's willing to take a chance, to risk their success by doing something different, Moore (like Bowie) needs to take that chance, over and over again.
Now Alan Moore is quiting comics, but not really. He'll do what he wants when he feels like it from now on. No doubt he'll do more performance art, a novel, practice magik (he does that too) and maybe if we're lucky he'll do the odd comic.
This rambling trip down memory lane is to illustrate how long I've felt that Moore has been by my side. The thing about comics back then and children's books is that they give the creators the opportunity to influence the minds of the readers to a far greater degree than the creators of adult literature. For better or worst Alan Moore has directly shaped who I am today. He arrived when I needed him and he's never been far away, I've read everything that he's put out and he's rarely let me down. I have to show my thanks somehow don't I? Putting him in my top 10 is the least I can do.

And at number 8

My lovely new iBook. After having a big clunky looking old PC for ages I finally took the plunge and got into debt for a a much more compact and better grown up toy. However I won't turn this into a Mac advert, I just happen to like it and it's proved very handy indeed. Hurrah for my laptop.

Nine

What's the deal with quirky? I dunno, I just like it. 'I 'Heart' Huckabees' is the latest, not the greatest, but still pretty good. 'The Royal Tenenbaums' is the greatest and in good company with 'American Splendour', 'Lost in Translation' and 'Arrested Development'. That's the films (and a tv show), but there's also been some great quirky comics, anything by James Kochalka and Tom Hart and Scott Pilgrim by Brian O'Malley. So, really, what is it about quirky? What I like is something which feels personal and unique, I like something that has sense of humour but isn't just about the laughs. All these quirky stories have great characters that seem real and interesting and not just constructs to further a plot. The plots seem to be there to entertain and push the creator instead of 'making a point'. Interestingly all the examples I've come up with are American (except Scott Pilgrim, Brian O'Malley's Canadian I believe) but I think of quirky as a very British state thanks to classics like Winnie the Pooh and Monty Python, 'Little Britain', 'League of Gentlemen' and 'Black Books' are more modern examples. These all just tickle me in a way 'straight' comedy or drama doesn't always manage. Some of these things have been called 'wilfully quirky', as if that's somehow wrong, should we criticise horror movies for being wilfully scary? Of course not, quirky seems to rub some people up the wrong way, but that's okay, it just means there's a test to find out if someone's got no sense of humour or not.
Next in the top ten..... dunno but you'll all be the first to know.

Number Ten

The outright plagarism continues, sorry Danny. In at number ten is ZOMBIES. What a great time for the zombie. 28 Days Later set the ball rolling in fine style, it owed much to Wyndham (not a bad thing as far as I'm concerned), had a great raw energy to it and like Near Dark was a nice little reinvention. Apart from a few niggles Shaun of the Dead rocked, the Dawn of the Dead remake was excellent (nowhere near as good as the original, but a smart stripped down horror film) and The Walking Dead comics are a wonderful Romero-esque take on zombies.
Some people moaned about fast zombies, but I say when hell is full all sorts of zombies will walk the earth, embrace them all. Anyway, the zombies in Return of the Living Dead had a few moves and it's brilliant.
Next time for number nine, why I like quirky.

Beating myself up for the end of the year

The beginning of a new year is fast approaching and it's time for me to start looking back over this one. There's no need for me to look back over this blog to see what I did or didn't do, I just have to look around me.
A few things were begun but very few of them amounted to anything. The sketch book has laid untouched for a couple of months, the idea of painting didn't get any further than two barely started picture, drawing in general was a wash out. As far as 2004 goes art wise I can't look back on it with pride.
I had hoped to have my own website up and running but after laying it out on paper I got distracted by other things and it ended up being forgotten.
One of my interests of the past six or seven years has been keeping fit and this year saw me at my worst. The main reason for this was a torn muscle which it seems will be a constant source of irritation and occassional pain for a long time. But a fair chunk of the blame rests on my ever weakening shoulders. I'm not in terrible shape at the moment but I've flucuated quite a bit during 04, putting on and losing weight every couple of months. One problem was that once I stopped exercising I stopped eating carefully, when I give up I like to give up all the way.
Saving money has not gone well, some things needed to be bought, a lot of the stuff I could have done without.
Being fairly untidy and scruffy I had hoped I could smarten up a little, only now and again it seems.
Talking too much is a bit of vice too, once I start I can ramble on for ages without ever coming close to saying anything worthwhile. It's not just quantity it's quality, what I lack in one I overcompensate with the other. That's not improved.
That was the bad, but what about the good. Well, there was some.
Good was that even though I got more out of shape I had the sense to keep it under control.
Drawing may not have gone well but I completed my outside responsibilities even when it wasn't in my best interests. I also did manage to keep a sketchbook for a while, something which I've never really done before and not only did I enjoy it but I thought I did some good work.
For all the unfinished and never started projects I did manage to complete the one big one, Simian Smith the first draft, got done and I'm already working my way through the second draft. This one was a real struggle but in doing it I learned a lot.
Balancing it all up I don't think I did great this year, there's more in the minus column than the plus, but the plus column does have one big tick whereas the minuses are mainly small crosses. A lot of my resolutions will be repeats of last years but that was the same as the year before and the one before that, that may sound bad, like I've failed every year, but the truth is that each year has seen me improve a little and in some cases a lot and you can't say fairer than that.

FINISHED!

At just short of 16,000 words the first draft of Simian Smith is complete.
There were times I thought I'd never get to this point and no I'm here I can't tell you how chuffed I am. Whether it ends up being published or not I don't care, I'm happy.

more opinions

I haven't check but I'm guessing there's a lot of folk in computer land who've been having their say about The Incredibles, well I want my say too. It's brilliant. Beautifully designed with more than a nod to 50's and early 60's design. The superheroing aspect is surprisingly, and smartly, kept to a minimum, oh there's fighting and big outrageous peril and flying and so on, but a lot of the action reminded me of spy movies, the kind that have big sets, the early Bond and Flint, even the music seemed to reflect that. CGI is my least favourite animation and I'd like to see less CGI in films in general but the better CG films seem to emulate claymation instead of desperately trying to look 'real' (Polar Express being the latest example of this pointless endeavour), a move that seems to work very well. It's not how it's animated that makes a film great though, it's the script (in animation the scripts have to be in place to a much greater degree than in live action so it's rock solid by the time 'camera's roll' - the lack of respect Hollywood seems to afford the scriptwriter is unbelievable) and it's here that The Incredibles really shines. Pixar create films of wit, inteligence and the creators clearly love what they do. I get the impression that that the people in Pixar are a bunch of smart geeks who can't believe their good luck in getting to do exactly what they want. More me it was the little details that elevate The Incredibles but I won't tell you what they are, go see for yourself.
Sadly the whole thing was nearly spoilt by the trailer for The Magic Roundabout movie. The inclusion of Robbie Williams was enough to break my heart but it looks awful, the makers clearly want to poke my childhood with sharp sticks and permanently tarnish the memory of the original. Shame on them.
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My own work has beening coming on very well, the first draft of Simian Smith is almost finished, in fact it's only a couple of thousand words away. With the end so close my big concerns have finally come to the fore. I'm pretty much happy with the story, it needs work but it's all in place and I like it, but the truth is it's going to be a hard sell, a very hard sell. Pick up a kid's book and there's more than a fair chance that it'll have a kid in it, there might only be one child character in it, but s/he'll be there. The only exception occurring in books where the cast are all animals. There isn't a single kid in my story. As well as it being an obvious homage/pastiche/rip off of old hard boiled crime books it's got a talking ape with no reason given to why he can talk or how he came to exist, he's also the character the reader's got to identify with and he's not a kid. I'm not sure a prospective agent or publisher will get past the synopsis. But I wrote this for me and I honestly believe that kids will like it so what the hell, here's hoping I can change the industry! Failing that I could always try and write some thing about a child magician, wizardor witch, you can't have to many kid's fantasy books.

My pen shines bright as I write my shite

There's a competition to submit a short story that I'm thinking about entering. Obviously the story would be the one I'm working on at the moment as it's my latest one and pressumably when it's all finished up it'll be my best because of it's newness. I've not entered a writing competition before but for reason's not worth going into I've decided this one might be worth a go. Perfect Christmas Present still needs a loot of work but the submition deadline isn't until mid January so it's not a problem. As I'm on a bit of a roll with Simian Smith at the moment (you heard right, the ape is back) it's slowed Pefect Present down but I still think the 1st draft will be done by this week. So as well as putting a story online for criticism I'll actually be send it 'out there', two very good reasons to work hard polishing it up in the 2nd or even 3rd draft.
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Christmas at work is beginning to tire me out even more and the job hunting has stalled slightly simply because it's not the best time of year to leave an old job and start a new one.
Rebecca is once again entertaining thoughts of buying a house and has even seen a couple of fairly nice looking ones in our price range, but she's failed to take into consideration my lack of desire to stay where in Nottingham. So out thoughts go back to trying to move ASAP. Anyone who knows us or has been faithfully reading this blog (a number some where in the thousands I would imagine) will know that we have to stay for two years because of my wife's course and job. To move sooner we'll have to pay off the course fees ourselves, it'll mean we can leave a year early but it might cost a bit. Confusion and no easy answers reign again.

Just beautiful

Outside it's snowing, big white flakes of snow are floating past my lounge window illuminated by the streetlamp. Snow is lying on the grass in the garden and on the trees and bushes and the rooftops. It's cold and beautiful, I love it.

An oh so special treat!

Seeing as the original point of this blog was to be about my atempts at writing and drawing and as I teased with the news that Simian was briefly posted here I thought I'd post a short story I'm working on.
Reader beware! This is not only unfinished it is also a first draft so don't judge it too harshly just yet, rather read it and wait until the next update. Hopefully it'll prove interesting seeing how a story changes from first to second draft, you never know, what seems duff now might prove to be slightly better later.

The Perfect Christmas Present
by
Paul Harrison-Davies

With nowhere else to go and very little to do Raymond Gaines circumstances allowed him ample opportunity to think. Naturally enough Gaines thoughts turned towards his son. The irony was neither appreciated by Gaines nor was it noticed, the truth was that up until recently he had never really thought about his son; if he had perhaps he would not be in his current predicament.
Thoughts of his son led Gaines back to the previous week, to the start of his story.
It was Christmas Eve and Raymond Gaines was cursing loudly in the safety of his car at a young woman trying to vacate her parking space. Slowly slowly the woman tried to manoeuvre her car out of the tight space. It never occurred to Gaines that it was the close proximity of his car to the woman’s car that was makings things so difficult, just as it never occurred to him to move. Impatient and demanding to a fault Gaines saw no reason to move car back out of the way thereby, in his mind, relinquishing his claim on the vacant spot to be.
Scowling in reply to the young woman’s apologetic and embarrassed smile as she finally escaped from her parking prison Gaines pressed firmly down on the accelerator and his car lurched forward into the parking place with an angry growl from the engine and an angry scream from the car bumper.
Taking no responsibility for damaging his own car Gaines stormed away from the car park regretting that he had not had time to get the registration number of the young woman who made him bash his car bumper.
Last minute shoppers filled the city centre to a surprising degree and Gaines marvelled that people could leave their Christmas shopping so late. Of course Gaines himself was doing his own last minute shopping and had no call to criticise the shopping habits of anyone else. Raymond Gaines was the head of a successful business, a business that he had taken over from his father when it was left to him. This was not the case of a spoilt child inheriting an easy ride, this was the case of a spoilt child inheriting a small dying business. Hard work, and an ability to crush anyone in his path with the ease of the truly amoral had seen the business grow into a big business and had seen not grow as a person at all. Normally a member of staff, an elderly woman who had been in his employ as a personal assistant for more years than Gaines could remember, would buy presents for Gaines’ wife, mother or son, unfortunately he had fired the member of staff in question two weeks previous and had neglected to check that the Christmas shopping had been done. Earlier on Christmas Eve Gaines had realised that he had no presents to give his family.
Buying present for his wife and mother was relatively easy, Gaines simply went into the first clothes shop he saw and bought several items of their most expensive clothes guessing the sizes (being careful to err on the small size imagining that if the clothes did not fit then at least it was a flattering mistake) He had no idea if they were good choices but felt sure that if they were not then his wife or Mother would simply exchange the clothes feeling flattered by the size and happy about the price.
Looking at his watch Gaines began to feel frustration, time was short and his son’s present would have to be a little more thoughtful than the purchases he had made for his wife and mother. Gaines had no idea what kind of gift he should get his son because he knew very little about about nine year old boys in general and his son in particular. That the chosen gift had to be the right gift was of great importance, and it was here that Gaines was stabbed with a slight pang of regret at his hasty firing of the old woman. With a mental shrug the pang regret was cast aside, the woman was far to old and her recent bout of ill health made it necessary to get rid of her, simple nostalgia was no reason to keep the failing assistant in his employ and if the fabrication of missing reports and files had to used to allow him to legally fire her then he felt no guilt in fabricating them. No guilt at all. But the problem was that the woman, who clearly had no son of her own, had paid particular attention to the presents bought for Gaines' young boy. Every Christmas and every birthday the boy unwrapped a present that gave great joy and delight, at the time it had been greatly appreciated by Gaines as the boy was normally sullen and uncommunicative, although this behaviour was only in evidence to his father, everyone else found the boy to be bright attentive and just a little melancholy, as benefits one who is in need of fatherly support but who receives nothing but cold disinterest. Gaines’ son hung on to the hope that his father did indeed love him as evidenced by the gifts he sometimes received, for the gifts were not just expensive they were thoughtful and interesting. That these gifts seemed to undo the damage, however briefly, that Gaines was thoughtlessly causing was apparent even to Gaines himself.
Shoppers did there best to walk past Gaines as he stood in the middle of the pavement waiting for inspiration, inevitably the would bump into him and he would curse loudly at them. Some apologised, most ignored the man and a select few surprised themselves by not hitting him, something about Gaines high handed arrogant manner seemed to cause even the most aggressive man to shrink back. raymond Gaines had long been a master of intimidation.
Time was running out so Gaines fell back upon one of his usual techniques, the exploitation of others. A brisk walk further up the street and over a zebra crossing led him into one of the city’s shopping centres. Grey and ugly with scant regard for aesthetic pleasure the centre looked like any other. Inside the shopping centre was a large department store it was here that Gaines hoped to find some sort of acceptable gift for his son.
Moving swiftly through the several floors of clothing, kitchen utensils and appliances, televisions, stereos, garden furniture and equipment, household furniture and ornaments,stationary, jewellery and perfumes Gaines finally found an area given over to children’s toys.
Alarmingly short of customers Gaines knew time was short and the store would soon be closing, he needed to find a shop assistant someone who he could transfer the responsibility of choosing his son’s present onto. Seeing the red polo shirted uniform of the store assistant Gaines made haste.
“You there,” bellowed Gaines unnecessarily, “I need assistance.”
The short hunched figure turned round revealing himself to be a man well past middle age with a full head of hair which had grown thin and wispy so that in it’s length it floated in the slightest breeze undulating as if it was some strange exotic underwater plant swaying with the ebb and flow of the sea. Beneath the almost hypnotic hair shone a pair of eyes that held Gaines with a piercing clarity that they gave him the impression that he was being appraised in such a complete and total manner that he felt a dread wave of nausea and a weakening of the knees. Shaking off the alien and invasive feeling Gaines once again attempted to gain the upper hand.
“I am short of time and must have a suitable gift for my son.”
“Of course Sir,” replied the elderly assistant, “and what can you tell me of your son?”
It was an simple question, and given the circumstances more than appropriate, it was also spoken with polite courtesy yet it seemed to Gaines that the man was mocking him, it seemed that implicit with every carefully chosen word the man was slapping Gaines whom he saw as so much dirt to be scraped from his shoe.
‘I.... He is, is a normal average young boy of nine.”
Once again the frank stare of the old man seemed to appraising Gaines’ words and once again it seem that as the man spoke he was judging Gaines and that once again that judgement was damning.
“An average normal boy?”

......and there we take our leave of this 'macabre' tale, if you want to find out how it ends keep dropping by.

Blink and you missed it

If you happened to be looking at my blog last night or ealy this morning you would have been able to see the first draft of the unfinished Simian Smith story. My Ibook is proving a bit difficult in terms of setting up a new email account and reacieving emails so as I can get online with it I posted up my story online and then copied it onto the Mac. Not exactly the most secure way of doing things but it was quick easy and I doubt anyopne was looking anyway.
Blogging's becoming a bit tiresome as I struggle to do other things as well as struggle to have an interesting life or at least an interesting take on life. I still like the idea of blogging and will continue to do it but the entries will be more, like the title suggests, infrequent and random.

Retail therapy

Bought an IBook today with new printer and I'm quite chuffed. Not really being able to afford it takes the shine off things but what the hell.

A couple of things

Over the past couple of days I've seen some truly interesting TV which is quite a novelty as rarely watch it.
The first was a documentary on John Peel. Many people felt he was a one off, he had a deep love of music that allowed him to listen to a broad range of music and appreciate it on it's own merits and to not be swayed by popular opinion. They talked about his honesty, his lack of ego and good mannered desire to not let people, whether they were listeners or musicians, down. And they talked again about how he was a one off. I'm not so sure. Certainly I have a lot of respect for John Peel, the way he behaved and what he did, but one off? It just didn't seem right somehow, and then it struck me, in the industry John Peel worked he probably was a one off. In the short time I've been alive I have met some pretty horrible people as well as those who were sometimes nice sometimes not so nice, I've also met some honest genuine people with firm ideals that they've stood by. In rightly mourning the passing of John Peel it seems the entertainment industry has admitted that it's heavily populated by the kind of people I wouldn't want to know.
Tonight on TV I saw Men Who Stare at Goats, a documentary by Jon Ronson who also did Them, both available as books. It seems that members of the US military believe that man can walk through walls, kill with a look and control the minds of other men. Like Louis Theroux (where are you Louis?) Ronson lets the subject talk and rarely undermines them, the theory presumably being to either get them to open up and talk more honestly rather than making them close up in the face of skepticism, it also gives them enough rope to hang themselves. Seeing as I have a slight interest in things unusual but no great belief in them I am reasonably open minded to the oddness that the people on documentary came out with. In the end what was so bizarre was that these strange ideas were coming from the minds of men who are seen to be incredibly rational by the general public. Because of the military mindset it seemed that these people, once they had accepted the possibility of supernatural powers, were intent on pursuing it with an astonishing lack of skepticism and sanity. I think I'll have to buy the book.
Not all was enjoyable in the land of popular entertainment. Last night my wife and I saw Bad Santa, and though I can recommend the film (hard viewing in places and rather upsetting, the inspired choice of director turned what could have been a schmaltzy corny 'gross out comedy' into a dark and surprisingly human bitter comedy) I was appalled by the trailer for 'taxi' due to it's reliance on stick thin women in very little clothing doing their best to look like low class prostitutes. It's not just women, men in the entertainment industry don't need much convincing to get undressed or to appeal to the more base aspects of the audience and frankly it's not only dull but it's not even arousing, let's face it there's nothing genuine about the cynical displays of flesh adorning the average 'lads' mag, music video or film. It's pathetic and I hate it.

Well done America

The world's a scarier depressing place today, thanks.

back from my travels

After a nice little holiday in Amsterdam I'm back again. Amsterdam was lovely and even if you are hopelessly square like I am there's still plenty to see that doesn't involve sex and drugs. The hotel we stayed had internet access but I only went online once to delete the dozens of spam emails I knew were waiting for me and to quickly see what Danny and Paul, my blogging buddies, were up to. Apart from that I kept away as I spend too much time online anyway and I just didn't feel like blogging.
As well as no blogging there's been no writing and no drawing, and no guilt about it either. It was nice to not bother doing any of the usual things I do, that's what holidays are about aren't they?
All good things come to an end though and it's been a fairly long break and I'd be lying if I said I didn't think about writing and drawing all the time I wasn't doing it.
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Christmas is coming and already I feel the tightening around my chest that comes with the thought, 'What presents shall I buy?' The question 'What do you want?' also brings about the same stressful grip. I really do like Christmas, it's dulled slightly by decorations being put up too early, shops forcing it down my throat since September, and so on. I don't believe it's a time when mankind puts aside it's differences and joins hands for one great big sing song either. But I do like being outside at night and feeling the crisp almost electric charge in the air that makes my skin tingle and reminds me how I felt when I was a little kid and knew utterly that Christmas was a magical time, the best time.