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8 April 2009
[quote] ‘Everybody Lives By Selling Something.’Robert Louis Stevenson
[comics] Kyle Baker’s Batman at the Diner‘So, really, what’s with the costume?’
7 April 2009
[quotes] 10 Best Geeky Last Words … H. G. Wells: ‘Go away. I’m all right.’
6 April 2009
[comics] All The Joy I See Through These Architect’s Eyes … comic artist D’Israeli looks at Mega-City One through the art of various artists who have visualised it over the years … On Carlos Ezquerra: ‘Though his Judge Dredd pilot strip was never published, the last page (a full-page view across the city) was used as a back-cover of Prog 3. I remember seeing this aged about eleven and it absolutely blew my mind. The sense of scale, the strangeness of the designs, the feeling of the future as a gritty, exotic place formed by unguessable processes, all of this generated an excitement I’ve rarely felt from comics or any other medium. Along with Italian Massimo Bellardinelli, Ezquerra dragged 2000AD away from the comfortable visual tropes of the 1950’s and, importantly, gave it a signature visual style that distinguished it from the blocky, industrial designs of the recently-released Star Wars. That one page set a visual and imaginative standard for later creators to aspire to; ironically, as a leftover page from a rejected strip, it may be the most important piece of work Ezquerra ever did, and in its influence it may make him one of the most important artists in British comics in the last 30 years.’
4 April 2009
[history] The Torture Colony … the disturbing story of how the the Pinochet Regime outsourced some of it’s murder and torture to a cult of religious Germans living in Chile … ‘…Colonia Dignidad was founded on fear, and it is fear that still binds it together. Investigations by Amnesty International and the governments of Chile, Germany, and France, as well as the testimony of former colonos who, over the years, managed to escape the colony, have revealed evidence of terrible crimes: child molestation, forced labor, weapons trafficking, money laundering, kidnapping, torture, and murder. Orchestrated by Paul Schaefer and his inner circle of trusted lieutenants, much of the abuse was initially directed inward as a means of conditioning the colonos to obey Schaefer’s commands. Later, after General Augusto Pinochet’s military junta seized power in Chile, the violence spilled onto the national stage…’ [thanks Phil]
3 April 2009
[comics] Bear Alley … a fantastic comics blog covering all aspects of old and new British comics from Steve Holland … On The Perishers: ‘I was particularly taken with the “eyeballs-in-the-sky” sequence which was reprinted that year. The original strips dated from 1979 and, for those who never followed the story, each summer the Perishers-Wellington, Masie, Marlon and Baby Grumpling-would visit the beach at St. Moribund’s. Boot, Wellington’s huge, hairy, hungry dog, would visit a rock pool each year to the amazement of the crabs inhabiting the pool; it has become a religious experience for many of the crabs whilst other crabs, more dedicated to science, try to debunk the God-like status of the eyeballs-in-the-sky…’
2 April 2009
[thisisgood] What the Hell is Grant Morrison Smoking? … from Bob Mitchell in the 21st Century‘I got six chambers of semi-jacketed realism aimed right at your Sea of Tranquilility. Drop the rock.’
1 April 2009
[lists] The 10 Biggest Intellectual Fights Of All Time … On Galileo vs. The Church: ‘…in 1632 he published Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems and quickly found himself summoned to appear before the Inquisition on charges of heresy. Galileo was forced to recant his support for the Copernican model and spent the rest of his life under house arrest, though with rather lenient travel and visitation allowances. His works were finally dropped from the Index of prohibited books in 1835. In 1992 Pope John Paul II expressed regret for how the “Galileo Affair” was handled, officially conceding on the part of the church that the earth is not stationary and that the planets orbit the sun.’
31 March 2009
[comics] Rejected Rorschach Blots … from Kyle Baker. [thanks Tam]
[comics] Dave McKean is on Twitter‘@stephenfry Surpised you are enjoying Watchmen, so many wonderful comics published since then without silly costumes. Hope you will try…’ [link]
29 March 2009
[comics] Five Kinds Of Serial Comic Books I Prefer To Buy Right Now Over New Ones … another interesting comics list from Tom Spurgeon … On Kirby Comics from the 70’s: ‘…it’s like reading comics brought home by a father who is taking sales trips to an alternate dimension full of crazy people.’
27 March 2009
[comics] Pádraig Ó Méalóid (aka Livejournal’s Glycon) reveals the story behind Big Numbers #3 making it’s way to the internet‘Anyway, the story I heard was that Al Columbia completed this issue, had it sent off for lettering and then went a little crazy and refused to release the art for publication … In any event, this art did exist long enough for it to be photocopied.’
[comics] Eddie Campbell on Big Numbers: ‘Another thing I remembered, and I don’t think I ever mentioned it to Alan, but I always felt a certain resentment that Billy the Sink got Big Numbers and blew it while i was stuck drawing Jack the bloody Ripper for ten years (I once described it as a penny dreadful that costs thirty five bucks). I stand by my opinion that Big Numbers was the superior idea and would have been Alan’s masterpiece.’
26 March 2009
[comics] Big Numbers #3 … the complete issue of Alan Moore and Bill Sienkiewicz’s unpublished Big Numbers #3 has been posted to Flickr …

panels from Big Numbers 3

25 March 2009
[twitter] Salam Pax is on Twitter‘and to add irony while I sit here listening to bombs going off left’n’right.. Iraqi tv is showing a report about how security is better.’ [link]
[comics] The 20 Best Movies Adapted from Comic Books … interesting list to ponder … ‘American Splendor (2003. USA) Welcome to the esoteric life and times of Harvey Pekar, a cranky file clerk from Cleveland whose cult-fave self-published comix used to get pimped back in the day on the David Letterman show. Paul Giamati does a fantastic job of portraying Pekar, and even more eerie is how dead-on some of the supporting cast are at channelling Robert Crumb and Tobey Radloff. Pretty much a perfect movie about one of the most important autobiographical comics to ever come out of the underground.’
24 March 2009
[twitter] A list of things that will get you removed from my Twitter list‘Saying good morning, hello, good night to your followers. This is not your personal radio show. This is not an AOL chatroom from 1995. We’ll know when you’ve woken up, because you’ll start twittering. We’ll know when you’ve gone up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire because you’ll have gone quiet, or possibly will have indicated something circumstantially relevant before you went (e.g. “Bugger this, there’s nothing on television: I’m going to bed”).’
23 March 2009
[comics] Hollywood super-hairo: the comic book genius who won’t make a penny from £65m Watchmen … Alan Moore as viewed through the lens of really poor tabloid journalism … ‘The movie adaptation of his comic book Watchmen has raked in more than £65million since its release this month. But writer Alan Moore will not receive a penny – although it looks as if he could do with a pound or two for a trip to the barber. The eccentric writer lives in a modest terrace house in Northampton and remains a recluse amid the hype surrounding the Hollywood blockbuster.’
[comics] The Electrick Hoax Revisited… Brendan McCarthy revisits some of his earliest work and his first collaboration with Peter Milligan …

mccarthy-electric-hoax

22 March 2009
[comics] Advice Rorschach Says… ‘American Love – Like Coke In Green Glass Bottles… They Don’t Make It Anymore.’ [more…]
20 March 2009
[comics] Grant Morrison Talks Brainy Comics, Sexy Apocalypse

‘We know we’ve fucked up the atmosphere and doomed the lovely polar bears and we can’t even summon up the energy to feel guilty anymore. Let the pedophiles have the kids. There’s nowhere left to turn and no one left to blame except, paradoxically, those slightly medieval guys without the industrial base. What’s left to believe in? The only truly moral, truly goodhearted man left is a made-up comic book character! The only secular role models for a progressive, responsible, scientific-rational Enlightenment culture are … Kal-El of Krypton, aka Superman and his multicolored descendants!

So we chose not to deconstruct the superhero but to take him at face value, as a fiction that was trying to tell us something wonderful about ourselves. Somewhere, in our darkest night, we made up the story of a man who will never let us down and that seemed worth investigating.’

19 March 2009
[comics] Just Imagine… Social Media’s Watchmen … a twitter from Ozymandias via BeaucoupKevin.
18 March 2009
[watchmen] Charlie Brooker On Watchmen: ‘Fun as a massive great spectacle, but it surely can’t make any sense whatsoever to anyone who hasn’t read the comic; it was a bit like watching an impressive animated version of a collection of snatched memories of what the comic was like, if you see what I mean.’
17 March 2009
[weird] Computer programmer from Finland has lost finger replaced with USB drive‘Using a traditional prosthetic finger Jerry has been able embed a ‘USB key’ – like the ones used in traditional flash drives – giving him the world’s only two gigabyte finger. The finger is not permanently attached to his hand meaning it can be removed when plugged into a computer.’
[comics] Quotes on Comics … Bill Clinton: ‘When I was 13, I made a very foolish short-term business investment: I set up a comic book stand and sold two trunks full of comic books. Made more money than I had ever had in my life. But if I had saved those trunks, they’d be worth $100,000 today.’
16 March 2009
15 March 2009
[books] Review of The Black Swan … from Dan Hill‘Those of us who have struggled through nearly 20 years of hearing that the market was the best way to run everything – from schools and hospitals to childcare, housing, energy generation and transport infrastructure – have this recent ‘performance’ of the financial system itself as an additional indication that, well, it patently isn’t that simple. It’ll take some time for those purveyors of that mindless rhetoric to take on board that ever freer markets are not the only solution – much of this book would quickly help with that understanding, even if it is written from the perspective of someone who lives in, and loves at some level, those markets.’
14 March 2009
[life] Why Systems Fail and Problems Sprout Anew‘Stated as succinctly as possible: the fundamental problem does not lie in any particular system but rather in systems as such. Salvation, if it is attainable at all, even partially, is to be sought in a deeper understanding of the ways of systems, not simply in a criticism of the errors of a particular system.’ [via Robot Wisdom]
[comics] Man dressed as the Joker from Batman films shot dead by police‘The dead man, who was said to be obsessed with the character, was wearing full costume and makeup when he was challenged by officers in a national park in Virginia, according to legal documents.’ [via Warren Ellis]