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24 September 2002
[comics] Grant Morrison updates his website. From Come Ride My Column: ‘How would you feel if a seemingly unlikely sex kitten like Brian Michael Bendis, say, or Alan Moore actually turned out out to be an utterly convincing and feminine seductress, able to “pass” as a refined and sophisticated lady? Let’s face it, careers could be hurt but this could be a very interesting and genuinely upsetting experiment. So I say once more. Let’s see some A-list comics pros got up as tarts! Fellow professionals, make your sexiest shots public – nothing seedy mind. Strictly glamour, lads, no hardcore.’
21 September 2002
[comics] The Philosophy of Art — interview with Eddie Campbell … ‘I love history. I’m very interested in the history of everything but when I hear terms like “Golden age”, I actually have a mechanism in my legs, called a “fuck-off mechanism”. It makes me automatically walk at great speed, and fuck off in the opposite direction when I hear those words. The comics business has its own peculiar imaginary history. Which is all right up to a point, but I prefer to see comics as part of a bigger history of art…’
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20 September 2002
[comics] Alan Moore interviewed by Gary Groth — More audio interviews from the Comics Journal … ‘Moore, fresh off of his success with Watchmen (and subsequent break with DC Comics), had just embarked upon an experiment in self-publishing with the Bill Sienkiewicz-drawn mini-series Big Numbers. In these excerpts, conducted by telephone, Moore discusses some of the other projects he had been working on (Miracleman, A Small Killing and The Lost Girls) before settling into an extended dialogue concerning From Hell…’ [via Bugpowder]
16 September 2002
[comics] More Comic Book Confidential from Mark Millar … ‘That mysterious barrier between reader and creator has finally broken down and I can now name at least a dozen of my friends (most of whom are married) who’re having some kind of relationship with at least one of their readers. I think it’s a combination of the easy-access everyone has to their creator of choice at the moment, but it’s also due in no small part to this big influx of good-looking chicks we see on the boards, at the signings and at the conventions. Unlike the Vulcan-dressed, beer-paunched Sci-Fi chick, I think the comic girl tends to have a deadly combination of looks, intelligence and encyclopedic knowledge of their favorite creator’s work. Like I said, around half the pros I know (and I know a lot of people) are currently besotted with someone half their age on the other side of the country at the moment. Where will it all end?’
2 September 2002
[books] The Other Mother — Philip Pullman reviews Neil Gaiman’s Coraline [ UK | US] … ‘When Coraline finds a door that opens into another flat strangely like her own, but subtly different (thus making the classic transition from here, where we live, to there, where the mysteries begin), we believe what we’re told. And when she discovers a sinister woman there, who looks a little like her mother but has eyes that are big black buttons, the matter-of-factness of the woman’s response when Coraline says “Who are you?” is both disarming and terrifying. “I’m your other mother,” she says. And so begins a struggle for Coraline’s soul.’ [via Robot Wisdom]
1 September 2002
[film] Along Came A Spider — article on the 12 Film Certificate and comic book movies … ‘For the beleaguered film censors, the problem with films based on comic books is –the comic books. Comics have always been controversial, with their mix of cartoon violence, vivid villains and perverse characters; always accused of glorifying the crime or drug use that their clean-cut superheroes exist to combat.’
31 August 2002
[comics] The Kill Your Boyfriend Random Quote Generator … ‘You know, I didn’t think I’d ever fall in love with anyone. Thank God our relationship’s never going to have to stand the test of time.’ [via planetbond]
29 August 2002
[comics] Die Puny Humans — Warren Ellis has a weblog … ‘die puny humans is my newsmine. I wanted a place to put my research that was accessible, searchable, and, crucially, not cluttering up my bloody computer. This is it. Means I can get to my stuff from anywhere with a web connection. Anything I find on my daily trawls around the web that interests me goes up here.’
26 August 2002
[comics] Why New Marvel Sucks Ass! — Mark Millar pretends to be a REAL Marvel Fan … ‘I’m here for a reason, gentle reader, and that reason is to explain why New Marvel sucks the penis of SATAN. Now I don’t write this as some middle-aged virgin typing in his mother’s basement. I am, in fact, currently intimate with a very beautiful, mature lady I met on the Earth: Final Conflict boards last year …’
23 August 2002
[comics] Chapel Hellion — profile of Get Your War On creator David Rees … ‘After Sept. 11, as the news became grimmer, readers may have noticed Rees’ officeworkers growing progressively more erratic. Allusions to alcohol and drug consumption peppered the strip, limning the depressed, ennui-drenched state of a “nation in crisis.” When one officeworker asks another how he’s “enduring his freedom,” his friend responds: “OK, I guess. I drink myself into a stupor every night. I can’t get out of bed because I’m afraid of what I’ll hear on the radio. My daughter is still wetting her bed. And I’m supposed to fly to Chicago for a meeting on Thursday.” “That’s what I like to hear!” responds his interlocutor, in a Prozac-induced haze.’ [via Robot Wisdom]
13 August 2002
[comics] This is Information — a page from Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie’s 911 Tribute comic-strip …  ‘This is what Entropy looks like. Not much Energy. Not much information. The Kinetic Energy bound up inside the structure is released with its collapse, a single Pulverising Burst. Complex information is reduced to dull simplicity. Rubble, for example contains little information it all looks the same. This could be London, New York, Baghdad, Belfast, or Kabul. Or Anywhere.’
12 August 2002
[comics] Comic-Book Confidential — Mark Millar dishes up loads of gossip about comics … Now I wonder who… ‘The freelancer who indulged in a little cyber-sex with a reader (the transcript of which is now doing the rounds in the female comics community).’ is?
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10 August 2002
[comics] Moore Morality — Dylan Horrocks on Alan Moore. ‘…he’d taken all his own grief and the lessons he’d learnt from it and had distilled them into this crazy little comic about superheroes and interdimensional travel. He’d given us a gift, carefully copied from the scars on his own heart. That’s what I mean when I say that what really makes Alan Moore’s work special is its morality. His work is pure and sincere. And utterly, deeply humane.’
9 August 2002
[comics] Censorship of The Authority — Panel by Panel analysis of censorship in the Wildstorm / DC Comic … ‘At left, a selection from the bottom panel of page 6 from The Authority #27 as it was printed. At right, the same area of page 6 as Arthur Adams originally drew it. Note the nipple in Adams’s original.’ [via Boing Boing]
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8 August 2002
[cartoon] Steve Bell on Saddam and Gaddaffi … ‘If you wanna get ahead get a hat like Tommy Cooper.’
6 August 2002
[comics] Punching Holes Through Time — absolutely fab Sequential Tart interview with Grant Morrison. It’s so good, I can’t decide on a quote so you’re getting three … At an important time in my life, between the ages of 12 and 19, I was practically autistic at home. I had a lot of fun at a boys school during the day but evenings were grim beyond Morrissey’s most rueful yodellings, spent huddled in our flat above the Finefare, drawing my own homemade comic books and writing fantasy novels with cock in hand (see Flex Mentallo #3 ).
I just re-read a bunch of Doom Patrols and they were fucking brilliant. I’m a little ashamed that I would never dare end the X-Men on a full-page cliffhanger featuring a floating pyramid and a Satanic Noel Coward lookalike with a periscope in his head shouting the words “REVERTH MY BUTTOCKTH SERGEANT MAJOR!”
[Crisis on Infinite Earths] made for a great maxi-series and possibly the best, most apocalyptic superhero crossover ever. Ten billion characters screaming as entire universes caught fire. George Perez was the John Martyn of comics and there was a sense of genuine threat and armageddon. It seemed like the most important event of all time (unless you’d been there for the death of Jean Grey, which fucked with me more, sleek and romantic and 21 by this time. I wept silent tears as Scott and Jean held hands and ran out to face certain death on the moon. Lying on a park bench beside Hyde Park in the sun at 8 a.m., I penned a tear-stained paean to mutantism. Me in Chelsea boots, drainpipe trousers, fluffy moptop, with The Winds of Chaos, my first novel in a folder in my attache case. “Dear Chris, I cried for Jean Grey …”
4 August 2002
[comics] State of the Art: Frank Miller — Jimmy Palmiotti interviews Frank Miller about Dark Knight 2 amongst other things … ‘JP: What about comics is driving you nuts right now?
FM: “Crying Fireman” comics. Golly, we all got plenty emotional after 9/11, and a lot of us did some plenty emotional work. But at least we knew when to stop. Now Marvel seems to have turned it into a goddamn cottage industry. Ghoulish. Shameful. It reminds me of the old saw that every American tragedy winds up turning into a farce.’
3 August 2002
[comics] Global Frequency — web site for Warren Ellis’ new comic … ‘There are a thousand and one people on the Global Frequency. A worldwide independent defense intelligence organization with a thousand and one agents, all over the world. Anyone you know might be with them. It’s the world’s little open secret.’
31 July 2002
[comics] A couple of Hate Cover Wallpapers I’ve been working on … [thanks to Team DOLnet for the scanner and Photoshop tips]
30 July 2002
[comics] Notes on League of Extraordinary Gentlemen v2 #1 — annotations to Alan Moore’s latest comic … ‘Gulliver Jones is greeting John Carter. Carter, as mentioned, was created by Edgar Rice Burroughs and debuted in ?Under the Moons of Mars? in 1912. Carter was a Virginian (note his manner of speaking here) and a Civil War Veteran who was transported to Mars in 1866 through a zeta beam. (Well, okay, through astral projection.)’ [via Usenet]
27 July 2002
[comics] Long three-part Newsarama interview with Mark Millar #1, #2, #3 … ‘I know a lot of creators really hate the Internet because it’s an unedited forum where readers can tell you what they’re really thinking and share this view with hundreds of thousands of people. They’re also down on it because the ‘net provides spontaneous response and people say the kind of things they might reconsider if they were to put it all in a letter and mail it. However, I think the Internet has become the lifeblood of the industry and it’s at the absolute heart of the recovery we’re experiencing at the moment.’
26 July 2002
[comics] After the Snooter — preview of Eddie Campbell’s new autobiographical comic. Includes two sample chapters: Eternity and Running A Publishing House Out of the Front Room … ‘As well as examining his life as an artist in his forties, Campbell looks back on what his childhood self expected of him, and rejuvenates his social life by surrounding himself with a new gang of youthful reprobates. Ongoing collaborator Alan Moore offers an alternative role model, heading his own midlife crisis off at the pass by deciding to worship a sock puppet and dig a cave under his house.’ [via Bugpowder]
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25 July 2002
[comics] Millarworld — Official Mark Millar site lauches along with WEF-alike Forum … ‘As you might expect, the contents inside have something of a bias towards me, but I’m paying for this thing so I like to enjoy that little luxury.’ [via Barbelith]
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23 July 2002
[comics] Yahoo’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Movie preview page — ‘…I guess what we have to do is cross our fingers, hold our breaths, and hope that the film itself somehow captures some wink of the magic of Moore’s writing. Maybe. Can Stephen Norrington do it? His first film went direct-to-video, his third has yet to be picked up for distribution, which leaves us with Blade. Blade is a bloody, violent romp of a vampire movie, and while I did enjoy it for exactly what it was, I don’t get anything from it that yells to me “this guy would rock as the director of LoEG”.’ [via Cheesedip]
22 July 2002
![Hate #14 -- Buddy Bradley Shaving [click to buy at Amazon]](https://i0.wp.com/www.timemachinego.com/linkmachinego/images2/buddy.jpg?resize=162%2C260) [comment] For the Hell of It — Julie Burchill on the Daily Mail. The Mail compared to comics: ‘The secret with the Daily Mail, as with the Sun, is to read it not as a newspaper but as a comic in which someone has forgotten to do the drawings. But whereas the Sun would be Viz, the Daily Mail is a dark, nihilistic number, like Hate or Hell-Blazer.’ More: ‘What is the Daily Hell scared of? How long have you got? On one day last week, you could have chosen from the abortion pill, gay rights police, dogs, white people having black babies, taxes, single mothers, career women, exams, teachers, doctors, taxi drivers, unions, drugs, compensation, Big Brother, HRT, sugar, vitamin pills, foreign beer and girls who go on holiday to Greece and drink too much (though in Daily Hellville half a shandy is probably “too much” for a woman).’
21 July 2002
[wifi] Sunday Doonesbury — Garry Trudeau on wireless networking … ‘Man… Great Hotspot. Why would anyone pay for this stuff?’
18 July 2002
[comics] Manwithoutfear.com has some great interviews with the creators who have worked on Daredevil notably Bill Sienkiewicz, Ann Nocenti, D.G. Chichester, Scott McDaniel and Kevin Smith … Sienkiewicz on Frank Miller and Elektra: ‘It was like jazz. Frank and I riffed off each other. For example, the character of Garrett in Elektra: Assassin was supposed to be killed at the end of the second issue. When Frank saw what I came up with, he decided Garrett was too good visually to die just yet. Thing is, Frank’s writing really inspired me to play and to take chances, so if he felt he got anything decent from me, it was as a result of getting gold from him. Frank’s keen on letting creative collaborations breathe. That’s part of his brilliance.’
16 July 2002
[comics] Dr. Strange — interview with Grant Morrison. Morrison on The Filth: ‘Yeah, well, The Invisibles was filled with sexy, beautiful people, and The Filth is filled with ugly, hopeless people who can’t get sex and all the sex is bad sex. The fashions are ugly, and everything is wrong, but there is a kind of real heart to it, which The Invisibles doesn’t have. The Invisibles is more like Vogue, and I just wanted The Filth filled with flapping comb-overs and hopelessly degraded paunches. I think it’s funny, because it is basically about super spies–but the super spies are garbage men. Everything about it is kind of taking the worst aspects of existence and kind of turning it into super-computer-generated DVD glamour.’ [via Neilalien]
12 July 2002
[comics] Doran Talks Orbiter — Colleen Doran discusses her new graphic novel collaboration with Warren Ellis … ‘To me, being a cartoonist means world-building. We are creating a reality from nothing, and everything matters. People’s costumes matter, their body language matters. The sets matter a great deal – that creates the world, they create the reality for the reader, and it should be complete. I know a lot of artists don’t believe that – they like the art to be very, very simple, and leave the detail up to the mind of the reader, but what about leaving it in the mind of the writer and artist, and allow us to bring you into our world and let the reader visit what we’ve envisioned, a complete vision – something that is three dimensional and totally realized and will take you completely out of yourself.’ [Related: A Distant Soil Website]
10 July 2002
[comics] Everything I Need To Know I Learned From The X-Men — the wisdom of X-Fans … ‘When your Dad asks why you need to borrow money telling him its for comics is not a good idea. Not when you’re 24 years old.’
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5 July 2002
[comics] The storymaker behind Spider-Man — Tommorrow’s World interview with Stan Lee … [via Haddock]
1 July 2002
[comics] The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol. II — Mini preview site for Alan Moore and Kev O’Neill’s new comic … ‘The adventurous proceedings immediately follow the explosive events in Volume One. The year is 1898, and there are strange rumblings in the sky. Flashing lights are dancing across the horizon. The Martians are coming?and our Earth will never be quite the same. The legendary Allan Quatermain, the unflappable Mina Harker, the stoic Captain Nemo, the abominable Mr. Hyde, and the grotesque Griffin Hawley once again are needed by the Empire to overcome the direst of odds. Some will live, some will die?all will be remembered.’ [via Barbelith]
28 June 2002
[comics] Perfect Victim — Preview of Filth #2 … ‘This is a joke. This is a fucking joke. When do I wake up and smear my padded cell with my own feces?’ [via plasticbag.org]
27 June 2002
[comics] The Aquaman Parody — flash animation distraction … ‘I’m drowning in self-doubt… because all my friends are trout.’ [via The Ninth Panel]
21 June 2002
[comics] Spidey and the Curse of the Comic-Book Movie … a look at the what happened to Brandon Lee, Christopher Reeve and Richard Pryor after starring in Comic-Book movies … ‘The curse is also judged to have claimed Margot Kidder, the acclaimed actress who played Lois Lane in the film series of the late 70s and early 80s. In 1990 Kidder was injured in a car accident, suffered through two years of convalescence during which she was unable to work, and was finally declared bankrupt. Four years later she showed up “in a distressed state” in someone’s back garden, having cut off her own hair with a razor blade. She was placed in psychiatric care. Since then her recuperative career has encompassed such films as Shadow Zone: My Teacher Ate My Homework.’
20 June 2002
[comics] Fake Memo about Superman’s Vision … old article from McSweeney’s … ‘Superman #102: Superman manages to resolve what would appear to be an intractable set of simultaneous crises (including a Doomsday machine, Lois Lane being held hostage, and a Kryptonite hailstorm), by using what are referred to as his “Defeating-His-Enemies Vision” and his “Hail-Reversing Vision.” This sort of thing is quite unsatisfying for the discerning reader, and, to put it bluntly, can only be attributed to laziness at the story-construction level.’
19 June 2002
[comics] Inventing Comics — Dylan Horrocks on Scott Mcloud’s Understanding Comics …  ‘The problem with comics isn’t that they are crude, poorly drawn, semiliterate, cheap, and disposable kiddie fare (although most of them are). The real problem is that people think that’s all they are.’
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18 June 2002
[comics] Challenging comics writer Grant Morrison true to form in ‘The Filth’ — brief backgrounder on Morrison and The Filth. ‘…he says, at heart, he is not some wildly perverse writer who happened to fall into the comics field. Despite what you read from him, he says he cannot be identified through his writing. “I’m really a man who likes to be alone and quiet,” he says.’
13 June 2002
[film] A couple of interviews with Willem Dafoe … Webbed feat … On his Green Goblin Action Figures: ‘Yeah. How about that? Now that I’ve made this movie, there’s a little bit of a, “What have I done?” thing. I’ve never made movies that kids could see, and now I’m ruing the day some little kid in the grocery store freaks out, “Mommy, it’s the Green Goblin!”‘Dafoe’s Role as Green Goblin Isn’t the Stretch It Might Seem … On Comics: ‘”Growing up, I was aware of the Marvel superheroes, but I wasn’t much of comic-book reader,” concedes Dafoe. . “It wasn’t as if I was against reading them, it’s just that I wasn’t doing it. My introduction to comic books was through Zap Comix and Zippy the Pinhead. Those are the images I’d see when I visited my older brothers and sisters at the University of Wisconsin.”‘
12 June 2002
[comics] Grant Morrison.com updates — New Column, new Digital Ink… Scripts for the aborted Invisibles TV Series … Episode 1: Malcolm’s in the Invisibles classroom, combing his hair in front of a mirror. With only a few little changes, he’s turned his 70s teacher look into Jason King. Shirt open, he picks up a groovy 70s jacket. Checks out the window where a beautiful blonde in a sports car waves up to him. The full Invisibles team is assembled here but they’re little more than vague presences in the scene. Ragged Robin is laying out tarot cards. Tarot trump 20 – the Aeon, which represents the Crowned and Conquering Child of the coming Aeon of Aquarius/Horus. Malcolm slings his jacket on.
MALCOLM : The ball’s in your court now, young man.
KING MOB : These things happen.
He picks up his gun.
KING MOB : When I was a kid, I always wanted to grow up and find myself living in a 60s spy series.
Pause. He smiles a dangerous smile.
KING MOB : Funny how things work out, isn’t it ?
Close shot of magazine slamming into the handle of King Mob’s automatic.
Tarot card close up as it snaps down on the table – Trump 16 – The Tower.
10 June 2002
[comics] Spiderman Bursts out of the Page — profile of Peter Parker, the Amazing Spiderman … ‘Realising the tremendous value tied up in old Marvel titles should have been easy. But the company managed to botch the job, selling the Spider-Man film rights to three different parties. Even now, argues Win Wiacek, the company is taking little advantage of the Spider-Man film hype to promote its comic books. Selling Spidey figures made in the Far East is more profitable in the short term. For Spider-Man, a successful future is more likely to be scripted in Hollywood than New York.’
7 June 2002
[comics] Grant Morrison’s Filthy Mind [ Part 1] [ Part 2] [ Part 3] … A Newsarama Interview. ‘The Filth is ostensibly very different from something like The Invisibles – there’s no drugs, magic, pop culture references or tantric sex in this book, at least not so you would know. The Filth is immense, however, and builds to some rather disturbing conclusions about who we are and what we’re for. In some key ways, fans will recognize this book as something of a photo-negative of The Invisibles. The Filth is determinedly uncool, unfashionable and anti-stylish as a reaction to a lot of the more superficial glamour aspects of The Invisibles. The Filth is all ugly people and broken things, but shot in the most incredible colors and light.’
6 June 2002
[comics] Crack!Comicks — a new site from Grant Morrison … About The Filth: ‘It’s bigger, wilder, uglier and more heart-rending than the best summer blockbuster movie and if, like me, you love the awful smells of failure, shame, male pattern baldness and seedy compromise, then you’re sure to revel in the squirming twists and turns of this exotic international spy-fi thriller, where games of identity, madness and planetary hygiene combine with perverted sex, kitchen sink realism and ultra-technology to blind the mind’s eye and infect the soul forever. Sights to scupper the sanity! Philosophies to burst the frontal lobes! People with combovers having sex!’ [Related: Filth Trailer from DC]
5 June 2002
[comics] Gibbons Puts Two Hats On — Dave Gibbons is doing a new Graphic Novel for Vertigo called “The Originals”. The preview art looks incredible …  Gibbons: ‘If I was going to spend a year or more on a single project, it was going to have to be something I had a real emotional investment in, something that related to the real world I’ve lived in. Not a science fiction story, although The Originals is not set in mundane reality. Not a tedious real-life autobiography or a thinly disguised philosophical treatise, but a piece that communicated aspects of life that had been overpoweringly important to me when I was growing up.’ [via Barbelith]
4 June 2002
[comics] An interview with Neil Gaiman [ Page 1] [ Page 2] [ Page 3] … On Sandman: ‘The point about Sandman is it’s the single largest body of work I’ve done. It was about 10 years of actual work. I started working on it in ’87, and finished it in ’96. That was a solid nine years, for eight of which it was coming out in the public, but for one of which was just me. Sandman’s 2,000 pages long. It was 4,000 pages of script. It was done over nine years and it came out every month. It’s still 10 volumes long. […] The only reason I survived Sandman, frankly, is that it was coming out every month.’ [via Sore Eyes]
3 June 2002
[comics] Couple of articles about Comic Movies in the wake of the Spider-Man Film … Angst in his Pants ‘As Ang Lee begins making his film of The Incredible Hulk, the hero of which is a personification of tormented male hostility, it seems inconceivable that twenty-first-century audiences would ever take to their hearts the kind of hero who soared through the clouds in Superman The Movie (1978). That picture looks now like a snapshot of innocent times every bit as nostalgic and obsolete as the images of gay abandon in the 1980 Village People musical Can’t Stop the Music. A Superman with that side parting, blemish-free morality and crisply chivalrous manner would be laughed off the screen today.’How Superheroes took over the Cinema … ‘Last September changed the world. Even the escapist world of the comic book. Spider-Man the movie is replete with heartstopping scenes in which the superhero saves New Yorkers tumbling from burning or bombed skyscrapers, attacked by the flying Green Goblin, a one-man technologically enhanced al-Qaida. Haunting my pleasure in Raimi’s screen fantasies is the question: “Where was Spider-Man when New York really needed him? Why didn’t he, or some other superhero, intercept those madmen – or at least rescue their victims?”‘ [thanks Kabir]
2 June 2002
[comics] Preview of Grant Morrrison and Chris Weston’s “The Filth” — Looks Good … ‘”She-Male Nurse”. Best for Wank, Eh? Best of Both Worlds, Some Men Say.’ [via I Love Everything]
31 May 2002
[omg!] Spiderman Body Painting [Warning: Link Contains Gratuitous Pictures of Blue Penis.] … Painted Naked Man As Spiderman. WHY? DEAR GOD, WHY?! [via FilePile]
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