Batgirl Returns

A few people visited here lately to look at the pic I did for the Batgirl meme thingy back in January. So I thought I'd repost it as I'm not sure if the people who visit nowadays ever saw it. Apologies for the pixellation, neither me or the scanner are to blame this time around, when I coloured it on the shockingly basic art package I have it ended up all blocky and I don't have the original smooth scan on my hard drive anymore.

Drunken blogging, why?

Honestly, what made me think it was so important to tell people what I had on my ipod shuffle? No idea. And when I'm sober 'Working Class Hero' is good but embarrassingly 6th formy.
Now I think of it I reckon I might post a bit less drunk or sober, I'm stuggling for things to waffle about lately and deleting posts before I put them up. I'll just post art and stuff and reviews on t'other blog. With the odd ramble here and there just for good measure of course.

Danny's Doctor

As requested, by Danny by me, here's my go at The Second Doctor by the brilliant Pat Troughton. The cover design of the book (d'y' geddit?) he's reading is inspired/stolen (delete as applicable) by Ian Edginton and D'Israeli's fine comic adaptation of 'War of the Worlds' fact fans.

Save my brain

Okay, I feel like drawing stuff but I'm not sure what, so how about I get other people to do the thinking for me, pop something in the comments, keep it simple (please!) and keep it comics/monsters/films/cartoon characters/you get the idea, pin up stuff basically.
That's it really, I'll probably come up with something myself but any help assistance in not thinking for myself is greatly appreciated.

Another blog.

After the teaser of my last post, and a comment from Mr Bling on his blog, I unveil the new improved Jackanory
Now that I'm moving all my review type stuff to HappennyWorth I've decided Jackanory is where I'll put examples of what I'm writing. The first chapter of 'Simian Smith' is still there (it doesn't have the changes in it I made after fine suggestions from INJ, but that only counts for a few lines here and there) and I've also decided to post the first chapter of 'The Tale of The Turnip'. TTOTT is in fairly early stages at the moment with only four chapters written and this is very much in first draft stages, but for anyone who wants to read a warts an' all (ie spelling mistakes and grammatical gaffs and an' all) work in progress you might find it interesting. All comments are, as always, greatly appreciated.

You won't break me!

Bit of rough day today. Moving boxes went fine and my folks have been doing a spot of decorating for us, but work was an exercise in pain. I didn't realise practically every aspect of the place was under warranty, but it must be as they all seemed to expire today accompanied by many puffs of smoke. Computers crashing, tills jamming, orders going weird and staff sick, and that wasn't half of it.
To unwind I've posted more reviews on Happenny Worth and am just about to finish 'The Bullet Trick' by Louise Welsh, is it better than 'The Cutting Room'? Not sure, but frankly when your books are this good it doesn't matter.

Opinions, everybody's got 'em

After much faf I've revived my 'review' blog. It's called Happenny Worth and the links to the left. The first few reviews will be from my old review blog and Wazzock's Lantern but I'll be sneaking newer stuff in too. Reading it is not obligatory but if you want to agree/disagree please join in so I can tell you why I'M right and YOU'RE wrong!

We move house next week!

Picked up the keys yesterday after a lengthy but straightforward buying process. The sellers dawdled signing papers and agreeing times, we only found out we could get the keys on the 21st late on the 20th.
It'll be a rushed move but we're pretty handy at moving after wandering from house to house over the last 10 years.
A quick look around the place last night turned into a drama as the last people in (house sitter I think) decided to set the alarm and no one thought to tell us the code or how to use the thing. Half an hour of shrill ringing before we found someone who knew someone who knew the people who knew the code.
Once our ears stopped ringing and we were able to look past the left behind tat, dust, cobwebs and green stained sink with a beer can in it, it was nice to be looking at our first home.
It's not fancy but it's big enough to fit us all in, it's practically detached (the bedroom at the back is the only part of the place connected to next door) and is quite private, which is great for me as I like a house less like a castle and more like a cave away from civilization. For people on our measly wage we seem to have been really lucky.
And anyway, we've bought our first HOUSE!!! YAY!!!

Everyone's going zombie crazy

And so they should!



Check out Zombie Dollars for some seriously tasty flesh, uh, I mean artwork.

Superman Returns. Not really a review.

Oh gosh. Superman Returns, Brilliant. Ok, it's not quite as good as Superman The Movie, but it is utterly fantastic and oh so close.
Don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it yet so I'm not going to say much about it. There's some beautiful moments, as expected from Bryan Singer, some brilliantly tense moments and some jaw dropping moments. Brandon Routh really does honour Superman, Clark and Christopher Reeve, Spacey is a crueler but recognisable Lex with everyone else doing a bang up job in their roles (I did find myself wishing Kate Bosworth would channel Margot Kidder but that probably wouldn't quite work for the film so what the heck), Parker Posey and James Marsden bringing a lot to roles that could've gotten lost.
If it has one flaw it's that it works so hard to successfully achieve the balancing act of introducing Superman to a new audience and respectfully following the Donner film (and there are so many wonderful riffs on that film, minor and major)) that it's not quite able to cut free. Funnily enough Singer's excellent X-Men film had a similar flaw, so much work was spent setting it all up that it was the 2nd film that took all the glory. Which is why as much as I absolutely loved Superman Returns I think the next one (please be another!) will be phenomenal.

Grinning

Felt Olivia moving around for the first time! Couldn't tear myself away, Rebecca kicked me off after getting sick of my head on her belly.

Syd Barrett - RIP

Bye Syd.

First tour of duty

Back from Nottingham, and I have the bruises to prove it. Paintballing bruises, those buggers sting!
Paintballs was as embarressing and dumb as you'd expect with the coaches looking exactly like the kind of social misfits you'd imagine them to be. It was also a lot of fun. And I was pretty bad at it. Thankfully there was a few games which just involved shooting anyone and ignoring the fact you were getting shot at, which is how I ended up with the kind of bruises I used to get when I fenced (little circular welts with red and purple halos)
Managed to remain upright throughout the night (I'm not a big drinker), but had enough to temporarily convince me I could dance (I can't), and all in all had a jolly good weekend.

With his band of men

Going to Nottingham tomorrow evening for the first for the first time in a year. Should be fun, paintballing curry and drink (not all at once, that'd be messy) - if it sounds like a boys day out then that's because it's a friends stag do.
Didn't get much work done this week, it's just been too hot (we've not had the storms yet) for me and I haven't been able to concentrate, typical Brit. I've felt sweaty and grubby all week and I'm uncharitably wishing Autumn would get a move on.
By way of a diversion (always with the diversions!) I've decided to resurrect my book (except it won't just be books, more like anything I've read or seen) review blog and have been hunting down all my old reviews as well as catching up on the new ones. It's not really about reviewing, I just like having a record of what I've read and watched, it makes me evaluate them properly, something I don't do when I first take them in (I don't mind this, I enjoying taking stuff in without thinking to hard about it), and as I don't want to keep everything I buy anymore it makes it a little easier to let them go after I've spouted of about them.

Secrets and gripes

Annoyingly it's very difficult getting hold of DVDs in Lancaster, the local HMV is not geared towards marginal releases or backlist and the only other place is Musiczone which isn't bad and does have the odd interesting thing but still suffers from the same problem HMV has.
Renting's also a problem with only one place in town which is basically a vending machine that stocks pretty much only chart releases. Renting and buying here has the same big negative factor for me - I like to browse.
So I usually wait until we go to Manchester (I don't always buy online because I get a discount at HMV) but with no plans for traveling at the moment there's 3 DVDs I'm going to have to be patient (not one of my strengths) for, 'Eerie Indiana', 'Beasts' and 'Kingvig'. Fortunately I managed to get hold of 'Seance on a Wet Afternoon' and 'Dust Devil' which has finally been given a descent release (now if only the 2000ad 'inspired' 'Hardware' was reissued) so that's the next couple of evenings sorted!
'It's Superman!' is proving to be very enjoyable indeed, I'd love to listen to the interview Garen sent me the link for (cheers) but after an hour of downloading all my lame modem connection could give me was a minute and a half of a couple of comic fans talking about mylar bags and backing boards so I gave up.
Things will be going topsy turvy here soon as it looks like we've bought a house, signing papers on Monday so fingers x-ed that works out, and a couple of interesting possibilities have cropped up where I which I'm not going to jinx by saying anything more about, all I've got to do now is start getting my work published and world domination is merely a short step away! When that happens I'll be moving next to somewhere that has a big DVD shop.

Close encounters

Let me introduce our little girl Olivia.



It took me over half an hour to get over seeing this, and even then seeing the pictures again, seeing babies in the street or thinking about it made me fill up (no denying it, I am the biggest sap you'll ever meet, just ask anyone who saw 'Finding Nemo' with me), for the first 10 minutes I couldn't speak (a novelty Rebecca enjoyed)
What these pictures don't show is just how much she was moving around, clearly taking after me (I rarely sit still) which was just amazing. We also got a brilliant look at her little face which blew my find, the features were so clear, I could've stared at her for hours.

Final lot of Simian Smith artwork.... for now

All done at last. Storywise I'm going to incorporate some suggestions from INJ (cheers for them!) which shouldn't take too long as it's only for the first chapter and doesn't effect any of the others.
I had planned to send a couple of copies of the manuscript off today but I wanted to do some examples of incorporating the artwork into the text and other stuff (I'll spill those beans in the post after this) took over the day.

Up up and Away!

If you read my geek splurge on Wazzock’s Lantern a while ago you’ll already know I’m a bit of a Superman fan, sort of. I love the 70’s movie (the sequel is great but as any fellow nerd will already know it’s sadly flawed - be interesting to see what the ‘directors cut’ atempt will look like), the Bruce Timm cartoon and the early Fleisher ones as well as some of the old comics and I’m incredibly excited at the prospect of the new movie. But Superman isn’t always handled that well, I’ve not read many Superman comics in the last ten years or so. He’s a great concept and a great character but time and over used has tarnished.
One of the sad things about loving books but working in a bookshop is that you rarely get suprised, advance proof, trade press, info passed down from head office etc means you’re forewarned about new releases. So imagine my surprise when I pick up a stack of books to shelve and see a beautiful Chris Ware cover adorning a copy of a book I’d never heard of, and it’s called ‘It’s Superman!’ Being a small shop we only had one copy come in so I quickly put it aside for myself and ordered a bunch more.
I wasn’t sure if I’d actually buy the book when I first saw it until I read the back and found out that the author (Tom De Haven, a writer I’m vaguely familiar with but have never actually read - a quick check on amazon is making me think I’ll be reading more) had done something I always wanted to see happen. No dumb updating of Superman, this is Superman in the time he made sense, ‘It’s Superman!’ starts in the 30’s, everything is right with the world!
And so here I am ‘reviewing’ a book I’ve yet to read. I’ve flicked throught and it looks interesting, De Haven’s reputation as being a bit of an arty post modernist but his obvious love of comics are solid signs and the fact the chapter three’s entitle ‘The Saucer-Man From Tinsletown’ all adds up to a fun read. There’s a couple books on my to read list first (see, I can rein in my enthusiasm), but as soon as I read it I’ll let you all know how it was.

Come out soon!

Take a look at the latest post on Bob Fingermans blog (link to the left) for some droolsom sketches from his upcomin book Recess Pieces. Fingerman's artwork is wonderful mix of clean elegance and disgusting detail. I honestly can't wait for Recess Pieces it's a killer idea for a cutesy/horror nut, zombies in a kid's school, cute little moppets hacking up zombiefied teachers in gruesome glorious detail, my schooldays should've been like that!

Brilliant artisit, new blog

the very wonderful Matt Broker, commonly know as D'israeli in the comic world, has a blog and there's a link to the left. D'israeli has drawn some great great comics over the years, starting out I believe in Deadline way back when I was more spotty than I am now, and I've loved every bit of artwork he's done. Scarlet Taces features some of his finest work and Leviathan is well worth checking out when Rebellion release the collected edition.
D'israeli combines everything I like about certain kinds of comic art, it's got a lovely clean line European feel but it also has the odd quirkyness of yer classic 2000ad artisit like Mike McMahon and Kevin O'Neill.
Look at his blog, marvel at his skill and go out and buy his books.

Another piccy

Here’s another Simian picture, the little shifty guy is Mr. Crankadder and the big fella is Augustus.

Glued to the telly at teatime

Where ever the Doctor Who team are right now I hope they’re taking a bow or having a drink because that was a hell (ouch!) of a good episode tonight.
In other fine works of art I listened to Vivian Stanshall’s genius ‘Sir Henry at Rowlinson End’, today, a fine example of British eccentricity. Here’s a quote, “A pale sun poked impudent marmalade fingers through the grizzled lattice glass and sent the shadows scurrying, like convent girls menaced like a tramp.” Maybe it’s best to imagine it spoken aloud in Stanshall’s fantastic voice so rich it was an early inspiration on Stephen Fry.
Off to bed now, won’t be sleeping though as I’ve got an advance copy of Meg Rosoff’s new book and her last one was brilliant.

Deep sigh update

Thanks to everyone who responded to my earlier post, on and offline (special thanks to Gopher for his thoughtful response)
Had a brief sort of unofficial chat with a counsellor friend and have a pretty good idea of where I need to go from here.
INJ (hope I get a freebie mug or t-shirt!) hit’s the nail on the head, a lot of this angstiness is work (not my day job) related. The other problem is the usual selfesteem issues, some of it to do with writing and drawing and some of it personal.
In about 4 months there’ll be new Harrison-Davies and I’m so looking forward to it but I think I’ve been putting myself under a bit of pressure to get things done before then instead of simply enjoying the process of doing them (ironically when I don’t question it not only is the work better and more fun but I do more, gah!) which has just worn me out.
Thankfully the sun has beaten all the worry out of me as it’s far too hot for anything other than sleeping and melting into a sunburnt puddle.

300

In the interests of some sort of balance (or just being flighty), here’s a less self pitying post. Well, can’t moan on my 300th post can I?!
I’m loving writing at the moment.
About six months ago a few of the different things I was doing were going nowhere (it’s a familiar tale) so I decided to do something else. Starting something new whenever you get stuck isn’t always a good move, I’ve far too many uncompleted projects lying around, but sometimes it’s just nice to work on stuff and not worry too much.
Anyway, I eventually ran out of steam on my side project and went back to finishing the other stuff. Last week I started thinking about that not forgotten just resting side project and a few days ago decided to have a look at it. It turns out it’s not bad and as I read through it I started extending bits, took bits out and added new bits. And I just realised how much fun it was, making things up, I can’t believe I keep forgetting that.
Real life and all it’s concerns is still looking behind my shoulder but I think it’s probably taking a sneaky peak at the computer screen now.

Deep melodramatic sigh

A slightly blue mood has descended on me over the last week, I’ve moped and stropped around, started reading several books, put them down, started others, gone to bed late slept in too much, tried to write, tried to draw, not been happy with the results, trawled the internet for forgotten friends and bitter enemies, updated my profile and have written over a dozen posts that I’ve not bothered posting.
Today Rebecca suggested that maybe I should ‘see someone’. Ugh. I get down sometimes but I’ve never considered myself depressed, and still don’t. Still Rebecca's concern/fed upness made me think. I don’t like this feeling, it’s self indulgent and dull, but worst of all I don’t like the idea of bringing down people around me.
There’s loads of interesting possibilities in my life, I’ve never quite understood why I’d rather regret not taking advantage of them instead of making the most of them.
Silly boy.

Bookshops

Tried to write something relatively lucid about the possibly going ahead buyout of Ottakar's, but I just can't. Well, I can't do it and be anything other than dull and rambling. Shame really as it has been a real pain at various times over the last few months or so, especially when ill informed people have actually taken me and other members of staff to task over it (particularly over Christmas)
I suppose all I really want to say is that I'd love to see more choice of places to shop (and that's not just for books), but I'd love for those places to afford to stay open. Sadly people shop for cheapness and bookshops, particularly but not exclusively independents, just can't compete with online retail and supermarkets.

Comic Con

Seeing as I’ve been too lazy/broke to go to any comic conventions for a while I’m pretty chuffed that there’s going to be one in Lancaster in October. Even better is that I’m involved in it - well, I like comics and live in Lancaster so I got invited to the first chat about it, other than that I’m not sure what my involvement will be. By a lucky quirk of fate the book I’m in should be out by then, so that could be handy.
Had the day off work today and thought I'd get some writing/drawing done, instead went into Town with Rebecca, drank coffee, ate cake, went to the park with a friend, lay on the grass, read, ate ice cream, went back to friends and ate pizza and played with their cat. A day wasted isn't always a wasted day.

Animal crackers

Readjusted the previous artwork post, the images should fit a little better and still be big enough to see properly.
The picture below introduces the villains of the piece. No more Simian artwork to scan now.



Danny asked earlier where I'm up to with Simian so here's the update. The new final draft is all complete, it's shorter and tighter than the previous one but other than that there's nothing new about it, I haven't added any scenes or characters or taken any out, this was pretty tricky in places but it's always rewarding, hopefully it now reads smoother and is better paced.
Artwise I want to do another spot illo (all the ones shown are from chapter 1 BTW, apart from Simian jumping from his office, that's the start of Chapter 2 but I really wanted to draw it!) and a mock up of the cover. Don't know if it'll seem presumptuous to do a cover, it's just meant to be enticing. At the moment I haven't got a clue what to do for the cover, so I might end up not bothering including it with the manuscript.
And that's it.

And now the fearing starts!!!!!!

YEEEESSSSSS! The finest show Channel Four buried (not including OZ) is finally getting released on DVD. All hail Garth Marenghi's Darkplace!

Been drawin'

Only going to do a couple more pictures to chuck in with my manuscript. Might actually get it done by the end of the week after all!
This fellow is Lionel Cetera, fish fan.



Simian Smith primate detective prepares to interrogate a banana.



Here's a reminder of an older pic for those who've forgotten, or not seen it before



and another



There's another bit of artwork I'll post tomorrow, right now I'm off to bed.

Bits and bobs

Oh, friends trade blows over Doctor Who shocker! Ok, I exaggerate but as Sam nearly never reads my blog I can do that and not get caught. The controversy is this, I reckon 'Life on Mars' is the equal of the new 'Doctor Who'. Sam is a massive Who fan and has trouble with this even though he rate LOM very highly. Anyone else go any thoughts?
Back when I first wnet online I signed up for all sorts of newletter stuff I never look at now, but an email from Universal caught my eye. The have a new site called BrilliantButCancelled, which is probably not much use to my nonbroadband connection. Not sure what I think about that. There's been far too many shows that've fitted that bill and it's brilliant that DVD popularity has allowed some of them a better chance (Firefly's been an obvious winner, but so has the excellent Wonderfalls (thanks for the heads up Danny)), but it's bittersweet to watch something that was never allowed to grow. Still, nice to be able to see this stuff.
Had hoped to have some Simian Smith artwork done to post but haven't managed it and as family are visiting to look at my wife's belly it'll probably be a couple of days before I do. Best hurry up though as I'm planning to send Simian off to some publishers in a week or so.

The rest of the cast

This is the mad scientist (I'm hoping that's obvious), I've scanned a little larger in scale to the monster, he comes up to the monster's ears. I also drew his hands pretty badly, ignore that.



Evil assistant, this fella's more a deviation from the classic Universal Frankenstein look, but I needed something more in keeping with my idea for the comic strip. Height wise he comes up to the bottom of the monster's moobs. The blank bit round the neck is due to my not being sure about whether to give him a regular collar or not. Actually I'm not sure about his costume full stop, that's why it took me a while to finish the drawing.



The artwork's brush on watercolour paper, a technique I really like but don't pull of very well myself. Craig Thompson, Andi Watson and Dean Haspiel really make it sing, but I labour the brush lines a little more which tends to loose the textural effect that's the whole point in the first place.
It'll probably be a while before I get round to doing the strips featuring these guys. I've got two scripts but would like to get a few more written before I start posting, consider this a teaser. I've also GOT to finish the Simian Smith artwork this week so I can send off the manuscript. I've part done two new illustrations and want to do a couple more and maybe a cover. Might take me two weeks come to think about it.
Too many things and too little time!

Behold, my creation!

A while back I mentioned I planned to do an ongoing series of one off comics. Well, this guy's one of the cast. There'll be two other people in it, if I told you one was a scientist and the other was his assistant would you be surprised? Thought not.
Anyway, I quite like this big guy.

A couple of months ago I mentioned that

Saturday, May 13, 2006

Not what it was meant to be

I had planned on posting some artwork, Danny recently reminded me about a children's book proposal I knocked up a couple of years ago (that long? Oh dear) and I decided to dig it out.
Thinking it's about time I started proving that I do occassionally write and draw I though I'd scan the dug out kid's book, sadly although I'm getting the hang of scanning b&w artwork my colour scanning sucks. Give me a couple of days and I'll sort it out.
In the meantime I figure I'll catch up on comic reviews. Unlike the book reviews these aren't in any order, mainly because I've read so many in the last few months (it's my last big spending spree before all the money gets spent on nappies and the like) and can't remember when I read them.
First up is a couple of books published by the always reliable Fantagraphic.




Mad Night by Richard Sala

Buried in archives of this blog lies my fevered musings on the greatness of Richard Sala. And great he is, if you like that sort of thing, and I do. He’s often compared to Edward Gorey and Charles Addams, but he mines his own version of macabre humour. The original title of ‘Mad Night’ (it was first serialised in Sala’s comic ‘Evil Eye') was ‘Reflections in a Glass Scorpion’, a title that screams the influence of Mario Bava. Intricately plotted slasher thrillers are the order of the day here. There’s secret identities, mysterious killers, gruesome deaths, a crazed disregard for logic and plenty of psuedo-psychology, but Sala makes it his own. His artwork for example, an obvious way to draw these kind of tales would be in an EC style, all lushly detailed all the better to appreciate the violence and sexiness, instead Sala works in a quirky, almost woodcut style, with all the dreamlike menace of german expressionism (‘Cabinet of Dr. Caligari’ clearly a major influence) Add a love for bizarre trashy crime and the Sala picture is almost complete.
Mad Night is vintage Sala, it all is, he’s sometimes criticised for doing the same thing over and over again, yet he believes this criticism misses the point, for him it’s an exploration, mining the same influences in a never ending quest to find his perfect story - as he points out, nobody complains that Hitchcock did the same thing.
What I like about Sala is that he takes all these influences and churns then up into something obviously very personal to him. A hard trick to pull off, harder still to make it look so easy.




Meow Baby by Jason

When a new book by Jason comes out I buy it straightaway, don’t care what it’s about or how much it costs, and I knew that’s how it’d be when I finished his first translated book, ‘Hey Wait’. Like Lewis Trondheim Jason uses a anthropromorpihc characters, but they have more in common than that, they both like to play with the formal elements of comic storytelling, they’re as adept with ‘silent’ comics as they are with ‘talking’ ones and they seem to move effortlessly from humour to pathos.
In ‘Meow Baby’ we get to see more of Jason’s funny side, it’s a collection of short pieces and ranges from belly laughs to wry smiles.
Jason and Trodheim share another trait, they’re prolific. Fantagraphics have released 7 books by him in the last couple of years, ‘Why Are You Doing this?’ and ‘Hey Wait’ are good places to start, but you can pick any of them up.

Back again

No posts for a week!? Pretty slack of me.
Actually I have written a few posts, I’ve just not put them up, most are comic reviews which I’ll put up soon. Other are typically whiny and self indulgent and I figure I should try and spread that kind of thing out so I don’t end up looking too... um, whiny and self indulgent.
The heatwave at the moment is very nice, shame my body doesn’t seem to like it, I tend to get headaches and rashes (such a sickly child) before I adapt to such non British weather. Think Rebecca would appreciate more if she could work un the energy to get out and about a bit. A couple of you kind folk have asked about Rebecca so I thought I’d update. She’s not too bad, except for lots of discomfort over the last couple of weeks. She pulled a muscle through retching (nice), as apparently it’s easier to pull muscles during pregnancy, and had to have a very boring couch and bed bound week off work. There was a brief respite from that and now she’s having some serious trapped wind discomfort, which is rubbish for Rebecca but quite pleasant for the baby - I can only assume it’s a boy if it’s finding such pleasure in bodily functions.
Oh yeah, I was 34 yesterday.

Once I get on that soapbox it's hard to get off

Just had some rubbish news confirmed. Red Route has closed. Some of you probably have no idea who they are, but they’ve been very handy for me, working in a bookshop and trying to get an interesting range of comics was made very easy due to their existance. Last week I tried to contact them a few times to try and order some stuff and got a ‘number does not exist’ type message which gave me cause for concern, looks like it was justified.
Trying to move into book shops is a risky undertaking for comic publishers and distributors (as Pete Pavement of the sadly missed Slab O Concrete will tell you) and it could be that this is what has been Red Route’s downfall. With only a couple of places for bookshops to get a decent range of comics from, it could be that Titan books are the only thing you’ll see in the graphic novel sections, nothing terrible with Titan but a section that only has Batman, Superman, film tie-ins and a few UK reprints is not going to attract that much interest.
As you might’ve picked up from the last post, I’m a bit worried about the lack of variety and quality when it comes to books, films, etc. Sadly (I speak from bitter experience here) it’s easy to blame the places that create and sell these things but the biggest problem is the people who buy them. As customers we get what we deserve, and if that’s a bookshop full of Dan Brown or a cinema full of repetitive Blockbusters then maybe it’s time we started actively supporting quality and dismissing dross.

......

Me three

Once more my public asks and I repsond. I promised Danny a look at the beard and Nimiwey needs proof that my hair’s longer, so here’s some photos. They’re in order of date, so the detectives amongst you will have guessed that I’m beardless now, nearly 3 months not shaving is a personal best I think.
With a bit of luck there’ll be a much more exciting picture up tomorrow.
Windswept at Winderemere



Old, grizzled and barely dry from the rain



Fresh faced and little smug looking for some reason

Crap creative

This is sort of like owning up to being male, or Northern or something equally obvious like that, but whatever; I’m a ‘crap creative’, don’t know if this label exists, but it has a suitably lame early ‘90’s feel to it so it must be genuine.
It’s been about 3 weeks since I got my complimentary (as in ‘you look nice’ not ‘here’s a mint with your bill’) rejection letter and in that time I’ve edited 600 words out of Simian Smith and I’m not even half way through the manuscript. The rough synopsis for ‘Green World’ has expanded by, oh, 50 words? A week ago I took on a short easy little script to draw and have done nothing but fiddle with the script. I’ve also been messing around with endless thumbnail layouts for a one page strip I came up with, the script isn’t finished, the characters aren’t properly designed, I’m not sure what the house that features in the 1st panel looks like, but I’m still drawing endless little boxes on scraps of paper as if it will get the work done.
So, I’m a crap creative - not with out talent but doomed to whittle away on project after project, sometimes finishing one, but most likely doing a small amount of messing about over far too long a period of time before giving up and trying something else. My ideal is the Philip Pullman route, it may be creative but it’s still a job sort of thing, and I do try and work even when my brain’s dry and chaffing the inside of my skull, but it usually amounts to work best forgotten in the cold unforgiving light of the next day (or week as is usually the case) Sadly the best I’ve been able to do is occasional bursts of work and count my blessings if I’m able to keep those bursts focussed on one project.
It’s a bit sobering thinking that I’m in my mid ‘30’s and have only completed a couple of things. I’m quite proud of them, but it’s a small part of what I’d like to do and an even smaller part could do if I could train myself to just sit down and get things done.
There it is though, that’s what I am, and the first step towards cure is to recognise there’s a problem. If anyone else wants to swap shoulder’s to weep on and stand up and be counted as a CC then please do so.... if you’ve got time that is, if there’s something on telly or you really need to get the washing up done and alphabetise your cds before you commit I totally understand.

Seeing as you asked.....

What were you doing 10 years ago?
Living with my folks after quitting a job many miles away and having nowhere else to go. It was a big mistake and led to a terrible year.

What were you doing 5 years ago?
Living in London on a street affectionately named ‘murder mile’, thinking maybe it was time to leave London, my AM was making a crap job a hateful one and we felt lonely far to much.

What were you doing 1 year ago?
Moving to Lancaster. Things were looking up, nice house, nice area and the job looked like it would be interesting, which it hadn’t been for a while. I was writing more often than not and it felt like a fresh start.

5 Snacks you enjoy.
Cheese
Chocolate
Peanut butter
Cake/biscuits
Houmus
You know, all the low fat stuff.

5 Songs (you think) you know by heart
‘Old Man’ - Neil Young
‘Our House’ - Madness
‘Light My Fire’ - The Doors
‘Lucy in the Sky’ - The Beatles
Picking Up After You’ - Tom Waits


5 Things you would do with a LOT of money
Stop worrying about not having enough money
Buy an old house with a lot of land in the country, preferably in the Lakes.
Open up some small book/comic/arty type shops.
Set up a grant system for people wanting to produce comics/books/art/music/etc
Light cigars with twenty pound notes and laugh at the poor..... well, no, not really, but I can’t think of anything else.

5 Things you would never wear
Flares
Baseball caps
Jumpers made of the itchy shit I was made to wear when I was little
Shell suits
T-shirts with football nonsense on them

5 Things you should never have worn
Bright orange slip on shoes
‘Blouson’ type jackets of the ‘80’s
Pastel colours
A Bon Jovi sleeveless t-shirt
Jeans that were mainly made up of stains and holes

5 Things you enjoy doing
Reading
Writing and drawing
Being with my wife
Lying in bed/lazing around
Being out walking/drink coffee/general mooching

5 Bad habits you have
Thinking
Wasting time
Not achieving all I’m capable of
Doing things I don’t care about and have no love for
Not being honest with myself - or at least not acting on it

5 people you would like to do this
Well, assuming I can’t pick the same people Reece did and I have to know them
Katy - who I can't find a link for so she's probably finally given up blogging
Liam
Paul
Garen
Phil

Let me just get this off my chest....

I’ve just recieved some very dodgy spam. No idea what it contains (although amidst the usual gobbledygook the word’porn’ appears), but what’s particularly grim about this is that it’s disguised as an unsent message. Is this spam or someone sending me a virus? Either way it makes my mad. I hate spam at the best of times but this kind of trojan horse thing is particularly vile.

Slightly less news worthy follow up

Thanks to everyone who passed on their congratulations (on and off the blog)
Bit difficult following up that last post, haven’t felt like moving it further down the screen to talk about the usual nonsense. But life goes on, so nonsense is back on the menu.
Met up with my sister and Phil yesterday, mooched around Manchester, I bought socks and comics, Rebecca bought some bigger clothes. There was food, coffee and cake and it was nice and relaxed, if a little brief due to train times. Can’t say Manchester does it for me, it’s a good city, but a good city is pretty meaningless to me as I just don’t think I’m into cities any more (Edinburgh and York are the only exceptions I can think of - in this country anyway) Huge crowds and way too many shops just get on my nerves after a while.
E4 music has the ‘Call Me’ video from Eric Pro? at the moment. I hate that video, utterly foul. On the other hand they had a song from Jack White’s new band (Racoonteers I think?)not so long ago and that was a cracking tune, I was impressed by some group called ‘Hot Chips’, sounded like Devo mixed with Daft Punk. I am so down with the kids.
Okay, the rain’s let up for a second so I’m off to get the food in.

Frightmare by Pete Walker

‘Making Mischief’ is the title of Pete walker’s biography and it’s aptly named. Walker’s supposedly best 3 films (I can’t say if they are or not having not seen all his films... yet) are all designed to create controversy, or as he put’s it ‘to rub people up the wrong way.’ Thankfully there’s a bit more to them than that. Walker’s films are bleak grubby cynical affairs with black humour and over the top concepts that brilliantly capture the 70’s, perfectly in keeping with the decade that spawned the excellent UK comic ‘Action’ (Pete Walker directing a film version of ‘Kids Rule Ok’ would be amazing. In fact he’d have been perfect for the previously mentioned ‘Psychomania’ come to think of it) and the once excellent ‘2000ad’.
So far my favourite Walker film is ‘Frightmare’ which funnily enough is the least controversy courting film of his loose trilogy and does seem to be the best (although ‘House of the Whipcord’ is a close second). Plotwise the film seems to try and play things a bit coy by not coming out and saying what it’s about, yet Walker’s exploitation pedigree and his obvious affection for liberal amounts of blood mean that the hints are less than subtle and nothing else about the film or the marketing implies that there’s meant to be some great reveal. Which is a roundabout way of saying I’m going to tell you what’s going on, so consider this a spoiler. ‘Frightmare’ is about a cannibal old lady. There, the cat’s out the bag.
When Walker first cast Sheila Keith he must have instantly realised he’d found his muse, either that or she was cheap/available/game for a laugh, either way both found the perfect match. In ‘Frightmare’ Keith adds something a little extra to her creepy old lady act (and a fine act it is too!), gusto. The literally lip smacking relish she displays when she goes in for the kill, especially the bit with the drill, is over the top genius that must make even Tom Baker turn an envious shade of green. It’s all the more effective when juxtaposed with her scenes as a slightly confused old lady.
There’s a bit more to the plot than that and it’s actually quite a good one involving teenage kicks far too loving husbands dopey psychiatrists and Peter ‘Manuel’ Sachs, but I’ve already given too much away. ‘Frightmare’ is available as part of an Anchor Bay boxset and it’s very nicely put together, 5 films, a fair amount of extras and available pretty cheap on amazon and no doubt elsewhere..... it’s also got ‘Die Marianne Die’ which has a title sequence that features Susan George wearing a very skimpy outfit and giving it some serious go go dancing.... just thought I’d mention it.

Biggest and best news on this blog EVER!

And now it can be told. My big secret project is a collaboration with my wife. Yes, Rebecca is pregnant. Cheesy grins have been the order of the day for the last few weeks. Expect regular updates.
It’s still early days really (the baby is due on November the 9th), but no morning sickness only occassional queesiness. The ‘hormones’ excuse has been used frequently though - although mainly by me everytime I want to annoy Bec.

hmmm

There’s am advert for IBM that uses a Kink’s song, during the making of this did anyone think to question the concept of having loads of different people all singing ‘I’m not like everybody else’? Idiots.

My nonexistent website

I found a sketchbook under a pile of comics, magazines and envelopes and found the rough layouts I did for my website. Somewhere I've got the finished artwork I did, but until I actually learn how to program you'll have to wait for those, in the meantime here's the scribbled versions

Less than seven degrees

How weird, I look at a friends blog, look at a blog link, look at another and then see the name of a blog I already check out, sadly they didn't know Kevin Bacon.

What's it all about

At the moment I’m thinking about a career change, maybe, sort of. It’s at least time I started expanding my options. Doing a night class in something (I’m thinking classroom assistant at the moment) seems like the best way to go. It’s a bit difficult because I’m not sure if I should change the job I’m already doing. You could say I’m a bit confused, I want some changes but I’m not sure how to make them happen or if it’s even possible.
Apologies for the vagueness, it’s just because I’m not sure what I’m thinking myself!

No more, honest

Last word on V For Vendetta by me now. Actualy it’s not mine and it’s not just for the V thing. Here’s a couple links for the man him self. Um, Alan Moore that is, not V.
1
2
On the Moore kick this is worth a look, Moore’s clearly a fan of The Bonzo’s. My copy came with an issue of Critters but the original record of this had a fantastic Kevin 0’Neill cover which is well worth searching for. Oh, yes, that is Moore singing.

Sorry

Had a rubbish weekend end (even though I was off!) which lead to some tedious blog posting as I obsessively trawled the net for pointless diverting nonsense (which does seem to be the reason it exists after all) Apologies for that, but it wasn’t my fault, it was my wife’s fault, she had a cold so we couldn’t really do anything.
Obviously I can’t promise that my post will stop being so tedious, but hopefully the tedious ones won’t quite be so frequent.

Possible V For Vendetta spoilers

Because I like to think I can listen to others I decided to check wiki for a synopsis and whatnot about the V For Vendetta adaptation. I’m glad I did as it’s confirmed my desire to not watch the film. Plotwise it’s incredibly disappointing to see what’s been taken out - such as inspector Finch’s attempt to ‘become’ V, which means he doesn’t get to have the same finale with V. The manner in which Evey and V part company (does that mean no ‘Land of do as you please’?), how she spends her time away from V and more importantly the way in which she is originally captured - not to mention the changes to her introduction; all different, all worse. The subplot about the wife of one of V’s victims appears to have been left out, which provided a great deal of depth to the story as well as some incredibly powerful scenes. Finch’s younger partner is eather gone or his role is greatly reduced which means that the parallels with V and Evey’s initial meeting are lost at the end. And V’s speech when he captures the TV station is criminally gone! No doubt Americans wouldn’t have liked the religious content.
Making it explicit that V is the man in room 5 eliminates the possibility that V could be Valerie (at least thatValerie was left in, I can only hope it’s as emotionally draining as the original - do we still see V watching her films and his reaction I wonder) - also the notion that V is scarred by burns from his escape undermines the reasons for wearing a mask.
Reducing Fate’s role in the story means we don’t get the reveal of how V is so able to plan as well as he does, which means Susan/Suter doesn’t get to react to it which dramatically reduces his character - I’m guessing he doesn’t go through the same drastic but inevitable character change he did in the comic.
All plot changes are for the worse and are designed to ‘streamline’ but what’s intended as streamlining comes across as pat and weak, and the cutting out of characters and subplots leads to disjointed storytelling which comes across even in the synopsis - it’s also telling that the things considered unimportant enough to edit out are things that gave V For Vendetta emotional depth and texture.
It’s easy to complain and list all these changes but the big horrible change seems to be in the philosophy of the story, V is no longer such a proponent of anarchy (so I suppose the brilliant scene of V’s conversation with Lady Justice is gone) out to wreck the forces of fascism, he’s now a sort of liberal freedom fighter. Yeah, it keeps a lot of the themes but in typical Hollywood style reduces and simplifies them, which for me takes it even further away from what made the comic so special.
It’s also pretty sad that V For Vendetta looks just like any big film, the comic had such a unique look, couldn’t a bit more thought have been put into the visual stylings.
Maybe if I had never read the comic, maybe if I hadn’t read it at such an impressionable age, maybe if it hadn’t been so brilliant, maybe then I would’ve been able to enjoy the film, but that might have been all I’d done, enjoy it , and that’s the problem, the film of V will be forgotten by many, that seems to be the fate of many big films nowadays, but V the comic is one of the most memorable ever written.
One bizarre postscript that I’ve not seen much about is regarding the novelisation of the film. The V book is written by none other than Steve (no relation) Moore, long time friend of Alan Moore. Considering Alan Moore’s opinion of the V film this seems more than a little odd, is the book an attempt by a friend to readdress the damage the film has done, has Hollywood tried to get one Moore and settled for another, or worse are they unaware of the difference? Weird.

Here comes the fuzz

Interest level is probably not high, but it’s my blog so I’m telling you all my beard’s a bit shorter okay! Only a little bit though. All I trimmed was the neck and side bit’s, which are now about an inch long. This took will power as I’ve become pretty attached to my facial hair, but as the sides looked like way longer than the rest it was probably a wise move to make some concessions to taming it.
Next post will probably be about the length of my fingernails or bellybutton fluff or something.

Doing my homework

Looking at the websites of various publishers is a little deflating. Most publishers only look at manuscripts through agents or already published authors. I’ve been lucky to have a contact who can pass stuff direct to a publisher and I may be able to do it again but it’s probably best not to totally rely on that. My only attempt at interesting agents was a bit miserable. A few years ago I did a picture book proposal and phoned several agencies to see if they would look at it, most wouldn’t look at unestablished creators (there’s a pattern forming here!) and the few that did sent the work straight back saying they weren’t interested in taking on unpublished creators (a bit irritating considering I’d already contacted them to establish that they would look!) and one sent me a polite form letter rejecting the proposal with a little bit of supporting wording.
For someone with a shaky grip on confidence like myself it was a bit disheartening. Getting an agent is possible, as Garen can attest, but you need to have work as good as Garen’s!
Fortunately the encouraging letter from Orion is still working it’s magic on me so the plan is to tweak and improve Simian and work on other projects so I can follow up with proposals if I’m lucky enough to get a similar response to the one I got from Orion. It’s a nerve wracking but exciting time!

Not see V

My sister tells me the V For Vendetta film is very good. I’m still not going to see it though. The reviews, good and bad, don’t bode well, the changes to the story make me cringe, Alan Moore’s treatment is deplorable and V is one of the few comics that I genuinely care about because Alan Moore is more than just one of my favourite authors, because of how old I was when he started I feel that he’s helped shape me - if that sounds lame or melodramatic then you’re either not a writer or shouldn’t be!
So many bad films have been mad from good source material, but worse so many forgettable films have been made from good source material. That’s the thing though, ‘source material’, the film industry is a money making machine that sees anything as grist for the mill, remakes, adaptations, sequels and films that are supposed to be new but seem suspiciously like a film you saw last week but forgot about because it was, you know, okay an’ stuff and had thingy in.
Actually comics aren’t much cop either are they? DC and Marvel choking the shelves with as much product they couldn’t care less about as possible just so there isn’t any room for competition.
That’s is, I’m officially a miserable old duffer.

This is where all my money goes

Not long before publishers First Second start releasing their books and there's not one title on their list that I'm not getting. A lot of publishers have tried to tap into comics over the years but First Second looks like it could join Pantheon in being one of the few to release strong titles and carry on releasing them. Of course any line up that includes Lewis Trondheim, Joann Sfar, Eddie Campbell and Greg Cook was bound to get my cash, but the list is bigger than that with some names that may be new to me now but look like they could become good friends. The same publisher is part of another imprint that publishes children's books and there seems to be an overlap in style if the upcoming Adventures of Polo by Regis Faller's anything to go by... it's on my shopping list too.

Saga of Simian

My Simian Smith manuscript arrived in the post today, which is a sure sign that it was rejected, however it was a hell of a nice rejection. The reason given was the old chestnut of not being for them, but when it's accompanied with phrases such as ‘I enjoyed it very much.... fast and funny.... terrifically clever use of repition and catch-phrases that establishes the character well.’ I can take it on the chin.
The letter also contained a few pointers and an invite to talk a little if I would find that helpful.
All in all I’m very heartened by this, I was expecting a form rejection. I’ll tinker a bit with the manuscript and try and address some of the issues mentioned and then send it on somewhere else.

What Happen's Now by Jeremy Dyson

I’d been waiting for this for a while being a League Of Gentleman fan, but also because Dyson’s collection of short stories was fantastic. The pained expression I wore whilst reading it was not because it was bad, it was a sign of it's brilliance.
What Happens Now is the story of two sensitive emotionally unstable people and what happened to them to make them that way. Some books you can’t put down even when you know they’re going somewhere you don’t want to be, What Happens Now is one of those, it's painful reading, but so beautifully written that you have to keep going. Alistair Black is a fantastically realised character, nervous, shy with a imagination that opens him up to occassional brilliance but his naivety is a flaw that will have grave consequences for himself and Alice Zealand.
I can't recommend this book highly enough, every one should wear the frown I had to wear when reading it!

Brrrrrr

Heavy snow fall and blustery winds, it looks ace outside! I gotta go to work but I'll be treking through the snow wrapped up warm with snow sticking to my beard fulfilling my Grizzly Adams fantasy, well, without bears and such.

Utter utter genius.

I just caught the end of Star in Their Eyes Kids which means that if I die tomorrow I will die happy. A 7 year old kid dressed up as Noddy Holder at his peak, and I mean really dressed up, mutton chops and everything. I'm going to try and find a pic online.
Genius.

The Silent Executioner (a Fantomas story) by Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre

It's hard to explain this book, and I don't think it would make any difference anyway. Certainly the plot is the reason for a lot of the book's charm, and it has loads, but it's not because of what happens. I can't really tell you much about Fantomas either, at least no more than the back of the book would tell you. Fantomas is an arch villain and master of disguise, he likes money and enjoys setting elaborate traps the kill in fairly gruesome ways, but really I think he just enjoys spreading terror.. Uh, that's it for Fantomas, I mean he doesn't even appear in the book until at least half way, they really go to town with the whole disguise thing, we don't even get to know who he's pretending to be and it's not exactly obvious, well, it might be if it wasn't for the fact that it could 'obviously' be a few people. Apparently later in the series it's entirely possible that Juve, the smart, but not smart enough, police detective trying to bring him to justice, is Fantomas.
If you're getting the impression that the authors were just making it up as they went along you'd be amazed how right you are. To get the Fantomas stories out regular and often enough Allain and Souvestre worked out a basic plot and then went off and wrote a alternate chapters with very little contact. This is probably the reason for the strange dreamlike atmosphere that makes Fantomas so enjoyable not just to the general public loved the stories but to the surrealists of the time.
It's easy to see why the Fantomas series became such a cult hit, I loved it, I just couldn't honestly tell you why!

New and notions

Wow, post 250, doesn’t time fly.
Just recieved Flight vol.2 through the post today and a quick scan through out tells me 2 things, it’s beautiful, and my comic ideas are on the right track.
There’ll probably be nothing to show for a while yet but my plan is pretty simple, I’m going to do more than one comic strip, I’ll be doing 2 with various possible one-offs. The reason for this improbably sounding workload is that I like to many different things and trying to squeeze all those things into one story is either too hard, impossible or morelikely it just makes for a not so good story.
So far my ideas about content are pretty vague but there are two vague things that’ll make up the more regular of the strips, both will be fairly silly, but one will be more on the macabre side of my likes and the other on the whimsical (I’m not adverse to letting one like mess with the other here either) I’ll keep y’all posted and will probably, finally, get round to setting up a website to put these strips on.
As well as the writing which I plan to get back to now there’s also a fairly big secret project in the works, I can’t say much about it at the moment, but as soon as I can I will.

Big grin

Got word back about my comic (it's called 'Bad Advice' BTW), it made it in time and the revisions seem to have passed, so it's well and truly done. That and other things make me think I might have never been happier than now.

Finished!..... again

It’s tempting fate considering last time, but I’ve finally finished my comic strip. All the revisions have been done and I’m happier with the end results. More time would’ve allowed me to try some alternatives to panels I felt were weak in concept but I’m much happier with execution of them.
It’s been an eye opener doing this. Way back nearly 10 years ago I did a small press comic, but after struggling for a couple of years I pretty much gave up, coming back only occasionally and leaving again. It was too hard, the end results were never satisfactory and truthfully I had some issues with ‘the scene’. Usually I think I made the right choice, now I’m not sure sure. All that I just said is true, but now I’m thinking that it was my attitude that was wrong. I wish I’d stuck with it, and although I won’t be able to go back and change things, I can do things differently from now on.

ZombieWorld Champion of the Worms by Mike Mignola & Pat McEown

So, zombies, I love ‘em, and the last couple of years proves I’m not alone, not even part of a small select audience, I’m actually part of a huge flesh eating hoard. Cool. The zombie craze hadn’t boomed when COTW came out but now it’s back to take advantage and I’m very happy it has, I never got round to replacing my original issues and I much prefer collections - especially when they have lovely sketchbook sections at the back. I don’t think ZombieWorld quite took off when it first came out, Mignola and McEown set up this environment with COTW for other creators to follow and play in. The trouble is it was a hard act to follow and more importantly the COTW felt like a personal vision, the others were just stories (interestingly Bob Fingerman who did the excellent ‘Beg The Question’ wrote a ZombieWorld story, it was really good but it just didn’t quite have the same spark as COTW. Fingerman’s just finishing his own zombie story, nothing to do with ZombieWorld, and it looks fantastic - ‘Recess Pieces’ (a pun Americans will get easier than most Brits I guess) has a space on my bookshelf all lined up ready).
Anyway, on with the review.
Lovecraftian monsters, mummies, zombies, museums, a solid quirky story and absolutely beautiful artwork. It’s the artwork that really sold me (although Mignola’s story is great, especially as it manages to be a little different to the usual zombie tale - don’t get me wrong, I like the usual zombie tale, but it’s nice to have a change), McEown’s previous work (on Grendel was great, but Zombie World was something else, Basil Wolverton meets Yves Chaland on a particularly strong Herge kick, just jaw droppingly beautiful stuff. Sadly McEown seemed to disappear from comics (into animation I belive) with only a few stories left behind (one of which was a serious inspiration for my own Simian Smith as it happens), I’m hoping his recent reappearence in Dark Horse’s Book of the Dead bodes means he wants to do more comics, I’ll be keeping an eye out.
COTW's demands you read it and it's pretty cheap (insert your own 'arm and a leg/zombie' gag here!) so you've got no reason not to give it a go. NOW!

Squash tomatoes in stew

My good lady wife is now a year older, the ripe old age of 32 in fact. Had a nice night out last night, lot’s of good food and a couple of drinks in a pub where a bunch of folk pulled out some banjo’s and stuff and started playing Irish songs - Lancaster’s that kind of place. Big cooked breakfast late in the morning. Lounging around and watching telly through the afternoon, and reality tomorrow. But not too much reality, cos I’ve still got one more day off. life is sweet.

I Drink Your Blood

Despite it’s lurid title ‘I Drink Your Blood’ is a surprisingly sensitive film chronicling the plight of a young boy stuck in dying town. Okay, that’s a lie, ‘IDYB’ is as lurid and as fun as it’s title suggests and any review of it is pointless as it’s the kind of film you’ll either love or don’t care about. I loved it. Great drive in fodder with a strong emphasis on gore. What is surprising about ‘IDYB’ is how cool the gore is, there’s some really choice moments which although not what you’d call convincing are effective.
Like ‘Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things’ ‘IDYB’ avoids the typical pitfall of this kind of film, ie dumb kids played by bad actors mill around doing nothing we care about until near the end when the director can finally spend the tiny budget on the effects. A bit of wit, something for the dumb kids to do and a lot of verve give ‘IDYB’ a solid pace, and they don’t wait until the end for cheap thrills either.
So, if you want a film with a plot that involves satanic hippies, LSD spiked old geezers, rabid dog infected meat pies and people running around attacking each other all to the strains of a very funky cheesy sound track I can give no higher recommendation than ‘IDYB’.

Back home

All change at the moment. Looks like I’ll be getting a new boss, and about time! It’s a pain going back to my old wage, but we shouldn’t feel the pinch from the drop in pay. New person should be starting soon which means someone new and better equipped (little things like training and experience, stuff I wasn’t given the chance to acquire) will be running the show and I won’t have to! Hurrah! The place where I work is bit on the odd side and it needs a bit more than me keeping things ticking over, I don’t mind working hard on it, but I don’t like bringing it home with me and carrying it around in my head. Now I don’t have to.
Got word back about my comic today too. It’s mixed news, but not bad. Basically the editor’s happy with the story and the story telling, but has a few issues with the degree of polish. It’s a fair cop, as I said on here already, I was a bit unhappy with some of it myself and it was all down to rushing it at the end. Fortunately I’ve been given a list of the bit’s that require some work (I agree with them all, which is interesting) and a little bit of extra time to fix them. There’s not that much time so it’s still going to be a bit of hard work getting it all done which is why I feel mixed about it. On the one hand it’s great to have the chance to sort stuff out I’m not happy with, but on the other I had hoped that it was all done with and I could get on with other stuff after a bit of a lazy week. But the end result’s the important thing, and I’d like to be as proud of it as possible.
Anyway, Windermere was lovely, I feel a hell of lot more relaxed already and I do feel ready to start some new stuff (I’ve got a zombie puppet I want to make) as well as getting back to some unfinished work. I’d also like to get involved in comics again. After doing this latest one I’ve decided that I’d like to do some more. The plan, such as it is, is to pretty much please myself. The comics I’ve done up to now have always been subservient to someone else, either to another writer or just to an imagined audience and I think that’s contributed to the final work not always being true to me. I think the closest I got was with my attempt to do Simian Smith as a comic, but it doesn’t tap into enough of my interests (not much opportunity for blood for a start!), and artwise it’s still not ‘personal’ enough.
Okay, better get some drawing done!

Psychomania

Getting their kicks the only way a group of bratty hell’s angels in early 70’s Britain know how, the biker gang ‘The Living Dead’ decide to kill themselves. But wait! According to the leader of ‘The Living Dead's’ mam ,who knows these things, if you truly believe that you will not really die then death will have no hold on you! Yes, ‘The Living Dead’ actually become.... the living dead! HAHAHAHA! Cue blackly humorous suicides and resurrection followed by more motorbike carnage.
‘Psychomania’ is ever so not quite as much fun as the plot suggests unfortunately. For some reason the director decides that camp is not the way to go and plays it a bit too straight, which is a shame because it’s undoubtedly a fun film very well done, just not quite the classic it deserves to be.
The devil worshipping mam is the biggest example of opportunity not played to the hilt. With a class act like Beryl Reid playing a character she could really get her teeth into the only thing a director needs to do is point the camera and ask her to go over the top. What we get instead is a good performance of a character that never really cuts loose despite being a rich devil worshipping druid/witch who uses her son to form a pact with said cloven hooved chap (for reasons unknown and pretty vaguely (but psychedelically of course) presented), she’s even a bit upset when her son uses his knowledge for evil for crying out loud!
Anyway, despite not running (riding?) with it’s fantastically daft idea (let’s face it Robert Fuest should’ve directed this, the man who gave us Doctor Phibes would’ve had a right old laugh with it.) ‘Psychomania’ is a great film with enough chuckles, thrills and British actors to go ‘oh it’s him, what’s his face, he was in thingy with that other bloke’ to merrily while away an hour and not quite a half.

Lakes

That's we're I'm heading. Me and Rebecca will be spending 2 nights in a B&B in Windermere. In fact we're off in about half an hour. YAY!
Finally got photobucket working too.

Stupidity beats inability

Yes, too stubborn to admit defeat I have finished my comic strip. 20 pages of finished artwork (and hand lettering) in a horribly short space of time and it should just creep in on the deadline. typically I'm more proud of just doing it rather than of the actual work, but for once I do think the whole thing hangs together remarkably well. There's a few duff panels but there's a definite improvement on the last lot of comics I did.
So that's the comics done and a new manager at work in a few weeks. YESSS!
2006 can now start properly for me, not bad considering it's already nearly 2 months old. Still, I did manage to complete a 20 page comic strip, once upon a time it would take me about 6 months to manage that and the quality would've been variable to say the least.

oh woe

Sometimes it’s a real pain not having a clue about technology. Am I doing something wrong or do I have rubbish equipment? No idea, but scanning artwork is proving to be more painful and laborious than actually creating it - which for me is saying something.
I’ve got a feeling if I just had photoshop I’d find things much more straightforward than using the basic art package that came with my mac in the first place.
What’s particularly irritating about all this is that it means I’ll have less time to get the artwork finished. If I was just burning it to a disc I could still be messing on with it all the way until the early hours of Monday morning, as it is it’ll either be a little late (depending on the post) or I have to finish it on Friday night so I can photocopy it on Saturday (nowhere will be open on Sunday)
Bugger.
I had planned to show some finished artwork here, but photobucket doesn't seem to want me to, maybe later.

New Recruits by Various

An anthology of work by new talent published by Dark Horse, could this be a replacement for DHP? Hope so.
Andrew Krahnke’s ‘Zombiekiller’ disappointed slightly, barely starting before it ends with a ‘to be continued’. Where? Dunno. It’s all set up with no pay off, to the extent that we don’t get any zombies let alone someone killing them! Either more pages were needed here or a self contained story. Krahnke draws well but more was needed here.
‘The Pied Piper’ by Nick Plumber and Adam Adamowicz didn’t do much for me. I didn’t get why what happened happened to the main character. The art style is nice, all pencil sketchy, a technique that gives the story a gritty squalid look suiting the content.
‘Discrete Despair’ by RHS is an odd fit. It’s nice to have range in an anthology, but this looks like the print run got mixed up with Kithcen Sink/Fantagraphic’s Blab. That said I did like it, and the artwork was very appealing, particularly the colouring.
‘The Mighty Skullboy Army’ by Jacob Chabot was one of my favourite pieces in the book. Sweet with a hard edge. I liked this a lot - especially the robot.
The last two strips are by INJ Culbard. ‘Way of All Flesh’ is a zombie story, which makes me happy, especially as zombies actually appear, but it’s the way it’s told I really liked. Culbard has a lovely clean art style no doubt informed by his animation day job. The storytelling’s clear and straightforward and maybe I’m imagining it but Tor makes a guest appearance, which is a nice touch.
I’m inferring from the intro that there’s more of Culbard’s ‘Wild Talents’, I hope so as it deserves a comic of it’s own, it’d fit in perfectly with DH series like ‘The Goon’ and ‘Hellboy’, not to mention one offs like ‘Amazing Screw-on Head’ and ‘Scarlet Traces’. Murder mystery in Victorian London, and a few more surprises. Excellent.
And that’s volume 1. Despite my complaints it’s well worth buying, all the people featured clearly have talent and anthologies, by their very nature, aren’t going to please everyone all the time, but that’s part of the fun, it’s a chance to sample different things.

God Told Me To by Larry Cohen

If I was a proper reviewer and had been making notes as I watched ‘God Told Me To’ the only intelligible words I’d have scribbled would be ‘wow!’ and ‘huh?’ over and over again like some Jack Torrance outtake.
Larry Cohen’s most recent success has been his script for ‘Phone Booth’ for Joel Schumaker (he’s also the man who gave us the calssic TV show ‘The Invaders’) but I much prefer his low budget films particularly when he’s writing, directing and producing them. He plays with genre very well and can usually be relied upon to come up with something weird and wonderful, and ‘God Told Me To’ from 1976 surely comes under the category ‘weird and wonderful’.
Random everyday folk suddenly go on killing sprees, giving the same reason, ‘God told me to’. The detective investigating one of the cases not only finds that these various cases are connected but that the killers are actually telling the truth. A mind boggling mix of horror, thriller and scifi with religion and genre ambiguity as it’s key themes I’m not kidding when I say I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it - although aspects of the plot seem to crop up in the ‘X-Files’.
‘God Told Me To’ is shot with lots of handheld camera work around New York making it look as fresh as anything you might see in modern US cop shows. Another plus in terms of feeling fresh and realistic (important in a film with such an outlandish plot) is Cohen’s love of old character actors, he clearly loves unique expressive faces and they repay him with memorable performances.
The DVD is available on Region 2 but it’s through Vipco and although I appreciate some of the titles they’ve released their presentations are not so good so I decided to get the Blue Underground produced Region 1 copy. The picture and sound are excellent and there’s a great commentary with some funny behind the scenes stories (as he was about to shoot a scene requiring a rifle with a telescopic lense Cohen found out that nobody had got hold of one and didn’t want to upset him by telling him. Seeing as the scene was being shot next to a New York apartment block Cohen simply asked if anyone had such a rifle.... sure enough someone did) and a easter egg of Cohen being interviewed at a festival.
I can’t recommend ‘God Told Me To’ enough, it’s fun, silly, strange, disturbing, smart and pretty cheap to buy online.

Casting wide my critical eye

Still not updated Jackanory but I have but have reviewed the works of art 'Psychomania' and 'I Drink Your Blood' on wazzocks lantern recently.

Inky finger

Funny old time at the moment. On one hand I’m up to my eyeballs in work, but on the other hand it’ll all be over soon.
Sitting on the floor doing my drawing (yeah I have a table, I even have a drawing board, but I still do most of my work sat on the floor like a little kid) I’m feeling much the same as I often do at this stage, the deadline is closing, I’m regretting leaving it so late (I have an excuse this time though), cursing my ineptitude and feeling elated at what I can actually do when I’m forced to get cracking.
In the real world my fulltime job will be changing, and not a moment too soon. Bizarrely I do have an interview to take over the role I’ve temporarily been doing for the last few months. It’s bizarre to apply for a job you’re already doing, but more so when you don’t really want and you’re not really wanted for it either.
The best thing about this interview and comic deadline is that it’s all over on the same day (ish) and it’s the day my holiday starts. Bit annoying to spend the first day of my holiday in an interview, but it works out pretty well, not only do things come to a close just at the start leaving me the rest of the week to chew cud, but the interview’s in Blackpool so me and Rebecca will be eating ice cream/candy floss/chips and mixing it all up on a few rides. Kiss me quick hats will be optional.

wa’choo bin waitin’ fo’

Well, long time promised but here’s a peek preview (yes, that third one is of the coffee shop I wasn’t allowed to take any pictures in - in the original photo I used for ref. the woman who stopped my fun was giving me some seriously evil eye) of a couple of pages of my manga comic strip for those who’re interested. It’s all fairly light and basic as I usually add more ‘weight’ to the stuff when I ink, but this is pretty much what the end result will look like. Afraid my scan/imageposting skills aren't up to much which is why they don't look so neat on the blog, but it's getting on and I'll fix it later.... maybe.
I’m about two thirds through the pencils and I’ve got about 2 weeks tops to finish it all up, very tight deadline indeed! Still, I ink very fast and can probably do all 20 pages in about 5 days, but that only leaves 8 or 9 to finish the pencils which is where I’m at my slowest/weakest.
Anyway, all be over soon, then a bit later work pressures should get lifted from my shoulders and dumped onto someone elses, then I can practice my banjo, write, read, watch cheesy horror DVDs and generally muck about a bit. Yes!

Hatchet for a Honeymoon by Mario Bava

After reading and hearing about mario Bava I finally got round to watching one of his films. The main impetus for watching was an interest in the ‘Gaillo’ genre (I quite like the old ‘Pulps’ and Gaillo (pronounced with a hard ‘g’) is the Italian equivalent; it’s even named for similar reasons, i.e. the look of the books - gaillo means yellow and this was the colour scheme of the books, yellow covers with suitably lurid illustrations) and Richard Sala is a big fan. Well, there’s only so long you can read about something before you finally dive in.
‘Hatchet For The Honeymoon’ is as stylishly and inventively shot as I’d been led to believe a Bava film could be. Interesting angles, carefully shot compositions and neat little tricks abound (lot’s of people’s faces only seen in reflections, particularly in the main character’s cleaver, was a nice touch), Bava’s grounding as a cinematographer is apparent and appreciated.
The plot is suitably bizarre and darkly humorous, the boss of a bridal fashion company murders brides to be in their gowns because each time he does a repressed memory of who killed his mother becomes clearer. The boss is creepily played by Stephen Forsyth (“My name is John Harrington, I’m thirty years old. I am a paranoiac... The fact is I am completely mad.”) a strikingly handsome man with rather cold and slightly feminine features making him an excellent casting choice even if his acting slips in a couple of scenes .
A brief subplot about his own wife haunting him turns up in the middle of the film, is dealt with, forgotten about and then resurrected near the end. I found it to be interesting but unnecessary her final scene could have been kept in without the previous scenes, and might have been a little more effective in fact. Other than that it’s a solid and very interesting film, possibly not Bava’s best but it’s got me wanting to watch more of his films.
Special mention goes to the soundtrack which had a nice ‘groovy nightclub’ track as well as some great discordant clanging moments.
The DVD is an Anchor Bay package and as such has more than just ‘Biography’ and ‘Trailer’ as special features. The documentary ‘Mario Bava: Maestro of the Macabre’ was a nice introduction to the director whose influence was on a lot more the just Dario Argento (a film expert pojnts out the some of Friday the 13th looks like it was shot on the same set as a Bava film such is the degree it take’s ‘homage’). Contributions from Kim Newman are always welcome and I was glad of the chance to finally see some scenes from ‘Planet of the Vampires’ after usually hearing it in connection to alien.

Last post

Oops, don't drink and blog folks!
Just to clarify, the people alluded to in the post aren't the problem, it's my inability to do things properly that's the problem, knowing the people involved just makes it harder. I get frustrated at not being able to do things as well as I know they should be and then get in a strop about it.

Doing a bad job

Since I moved to Lancaster, and possibly well before that, I've done one thing, I've tried to do the best for people. It's a waste of fucking time. It's not appreciated, it doesn't help and it doesn't make anything better. I can't wait until I don't have to fill the gap whilst waiting for a real manager.

The Prestige by Christopher Priest

It took me way too long to read this book, and that’s a shame, because it’s an excellent read, obvious and misleading, creepy and odd, all quite appropriate considering it’s about magicians. It’s fun reading a book the lovingly presents an attractive rug, invites you to step onto it and then yanks it away from you... and then shows you another pretty rug.
Christopher 'Momento' Nolan is directing the film adaptation and I've got high hopes for it.
One word of warning, if you check the Wiki link careful if you look at their info on the book, it gives away all the plot and it really would spoil it.

The New Policeman by Kate Thompson

This book took me no time to read. It may 400 pages but each chapter is only 2-5 pages and there’s a gap of a couple of pages between chapters (there’s chapter headings that have sheet music accompanying them), but it’s not the length that had me finishing this book sharpish, I just didn’t want to put it down.
The only other book I’ve read by Thompson was the first part of her Switchers trilogy which was pretty good but a little old fashioned, oddly her latest book is about fairy folk in Ireland yet seems a lot less old fashioned.
Thankfully even though the subject matter is about a young lad stumbling into the land of the fairies (he’s trying to find where all the time goes and his hoping to get some more) it’s written in quite a straighforward manner. There’s a few mysteries to be solved on the way but not everything is resolved, this seems less to keep it open for a sequel and more because life doesn’t always work that way.
The New Policman is a fun, fresh read that put a nice big smile on my face.

The Tooth Fairy

This is a book I remember coming out in hardback and flicking through a few times before putting it back on the shelf. There was something about it that fascinated me and yet almost as soon as I picked it up I was putting it back as if slightly repulsed. My best guess is it was because of what I'll call Gaimanitis. Something about it made me think of Neil Gaiman, and I’m very very undecided about Gaiman’s work - at the very least I lean towards thinking it might be a load of pretentious nancy wank, but then sometimes I think I quite like it.
After finally reading a different Graham Joyce book altogether (‘TWOC’, if you don’t know what that means you’re either an honest law abiding citizen, or you’ve never had your car nicked) and enjoying it, I decided I’d read ‘Tooth Fairy’. It’s supposed to be about a boy who is regularly visited by a, surprise, tooth fairy, but rather than being a lovely little pixy of this fairy is foul and sinister, well, sometimes. I say supposed to be about, because it’s really a book about growing up and Joyce wisely uses the fairy sparingly, instead treating us to the growing pains of a group of 3 boys and the various people who play a part in their lives. Joyce evokes a lovely bittersweet childhood nostalgia with ease and I wonder how much is autobiographical.
‘Tooth Fairy’ is a very easy read due to familiarity (I doubt I’m the only one who cringes with recognition at some of the boys antics) but still has nice challenging prose which only occasionally gets a bit to fancy for it’s own good. The Gaiman comparison wasn’t far off it seems, but I got a lot more out of Joyce and next time I look at one of his books I’ll know to just buy it.

Time on my hands

It’s about time I expanded the links bit of my blog. So eyes left and check out some of the stuff I’ve been checking out lately.
Monsterama would be an excellent site anyway, but the fact that Jay Stephen’s is the brains behind it makes it even better. Jay did some great comics in the 90’s but seems to havev moved into animation more and more. I remember picking up ‘Space Ape No. 8’ by Jay years ago in a comic shop in Leeds and being bowled over, the work I’d seen by him before (‘Atomic City Tales’) was good, but Space Ape was the bees knees. Think I gave my copy of the comic to Danny when I got the collection, ‘Land of Nod’ that Dark Horse put out. Anyway, go click and check out the cool monster masks, haunted memories and other top links.
Dean Haspiel is another cartoonist who’s gone from strength to strength. Top Shelf put out a collection of his ‘Billy Dogma’ stories a few years ago which is how I discovered him. I’ve not checked out ‘The Quitter’ by Dean and indie legend Harvey ‘American Splendor’ Pekar, but that’s only because it’s a pricey hardback from DC who’re just trying to screw more cash out of the readers, I’ll sit tight fot the paper back like the tightwad I am.
My mate Liam’s blog disappeared a while back, but he’s giving it another go now, or at least he was, it’s gone a bit quiet again, hopefully just temporarily though.
That’ll do for now, more to come though.

Corporate spying

About a month ago I tried to take some pictures in a Starbucks as reference for my short comic strip (the main character works in a coffee shop) and was told to stop. Today I asked at the Cafe Nero in town if it was possible to take a couple of pictures of someone making coffee and got a very flat ‘no’. I know none of this is personal and I’m also aware from my own job that chains frown heavily (until their eye brows and eyes disappear in a wrinkle of disdain) on people taking pictures of the premises, but it still feels like a slap in the face. The Cafe Nero one was particularly annoying as I’d just bought drinks for my wife and I and was politely asking permission, a friendly no and an explination would’ve been nice.
Actually what probably annoys me most is that I had hoped I projected an aura of ‘affable decent guy’ which is apparently not the case.

Spending spree

A chance comment in an email from Danny has led me back down the dark path of boxset buying, or it will anyway, I've got them all lined up ready. 'Wonderfalls' is a show I'd heard about but when Danny recommended it I thought I'd properly check it out, it looks fantastic and the R1 boxset's already been paid for. Amazon being amazon though there was a whole bunch of over stuff to look at. So now I want 'Joan of Arcadia', 'Dead Like Me', 'Veronica Mars' (maybe) and I also find out 'American Gothic's' got a R2 March release date (think Danny mentioned this a while ago over on Wazzock) as well as a show I caught ages ago called 'Profit', which I remember very little about other than it had a corporate setting, was very creepy and had Adrian (Near Dark) Pasdar in it (interesting how many of these shows were cancelled in the face of great reviews, Arrested Development and Firefly are obviously just the latest in a long line of support lacking). Let's not forget the regular boxset buying I have to indulge in and that all adds to a lot of money and very little life. I'm blaming Danny for all of it!

A quiet moment

As I dug the key out my pocket in front of the house strange sounds echoed round the court yard. Overhead the sky was the first overcast one in days, instead of the black/purple of previous evenings with bright white holes of light there was a thick blanket of grey cloud rippling across the evening sky. Then a flock of geese flew over head. Nothing moved, nothing interrupted the honking geese and I watched them until they were gone. Then the world started turning again and I got my key and open the door.
What is it about geese that make me want to cry?

Blog commenting on blog

As Reese and Nimwey pointed out, some of the type on my blog was pretty small, so the layout's back to it's default setting, now you can look at links and the archives (what was Paul thinking way back in May 2004?)
Looking at my blogger sign on page I see that my Jackanory blog hasn't been updated in about 2 weeks. Yikes! That must mean I haven't read a book in about 2 weeks! Not long after setting up Jackanory I decided that I'd write something about every book I read figuring it'd be quite nice to look back a the end of they year at it all. Now I'm thinking it might be interesting seeing all the gaps between 'reviews' and wondering why my reading slowed down.

Making lemonade

How's this for a bright idea? I get loads of spam, I'm just not computer literate to know how to block it and I've had the same email account for over 5 years. Spam is annoying, it's intrusive, it's dodgy and there's never anything you actually want. But I've found a use for it. When I write one of the big problems I have is character's names, I really struggle to come up with decent ones. So I'll stop bothering and just use the names of the 'people' who spam me. There's some incredibly inventive names, I got an email from Prospero Purdam today, how cool is that? There's a story I started last year that calls for silly arcane, gutteral sounding names, there wasn't a Prospero in it, but it is now.

Making lemonade

How's this for a bright idea? I get loads of spam, I'm just not computer literate to know how to block it and I've had the same email account for over 5 years. Spam is annoying, it's intrusive, it's dodgy and there's never anything you actually want. But I've found a use for it. When I write one of the big problems I have is character's names, I really struggle to come up with decent ones. So I'll stop bothering and just use the names of the 'people' who spam me. There's some incredibly inventive names, I got an email from Prospero Purdam today, how cool is that? There's a story I started last year that calls for silly arcane, gutteral sounding names, there wasn't a Prospero in it, but it is now.