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.