[comics] 10,000 Reasons Civilization is Doomed … ‘Reason 281: Frank Miller’

[comment] Charlie Brooker’s Columns on Comment is Free — On Dark Matter: ‘There are millions of people who essentially consist of dark matter; unknowable swaths of the population I have never encountered and will never understand. People who watch Emmerdale, for example. Emmerdale is Britain’s third most popular soap opera – second, actually, when EastEnders is having an off day. It attracts something in the region of 5 million viewers, which means approximately one in 12 Brits regularly tunes in. Yet I’ve never actually met anyone who watches it.’ [via linkbunnies.org]

[blog] Indexed — amusing graphs and diagrams which tap the same vein as Gapingvoid’s cartoons on the back of business cards …

[books] What I Have Read Since 1974 — a list of every book one man has read – from The Digging-est Dog to The Great Influenza.

[funny] MP3 of a Psychiatric Office Answering Machine … ‘If you are delusional, press 7 and your call will be transferred to the mother ship. If you are schizophrenic, listen carefully and a small voice will tell you which number to press. If you are a manic-depressive, it doesn’t matter which number you press because nobody will answer.’

[comics] The Origin of Wally Wood’s 22 Panels That Always Work — a blogger has bought the original copy of Wood’s 22 Panels and has found out it was put together by Larry Hama when he worked as an editor at Marvel … Hama: ‘I don’t believe that Woody put the examples together as a teaching aid for his assistants, but rather as a reminder to himself. He was always trying to kick himself to put less labor into the work! He had a framed motto on the wall, “Never draw anything you can copy, never copy anything you can trace, never trace anything you can cut out and paste up.” He hung the sheets with the panels on the wall of his studio…’

[ww2] Fighting Jack Churchill Survived a Wartime Odyssey Beyond Compare — More details on the wartime exploits of Captain Jack Churchill …

‘He became so good with the bow that he shot for Britain at the world championships in Oslo in 1939. By then, however, the long ugly shadows of war were stretching across Europe. As the German Army smashed into Poland, Churchill returned to the British Army and the Manchester Regiment, and was shipped off to France. “I was,” he said later, “back in my red coat; the country having got into a jam in my absence.”

One of his brother officers, an old friend, saw him about that time chugging across the Flanders plain on a small motorcycle, his bow tied to the frame, arrows sticking out of one of the panniers on the back, a German officer’s cap hanging on the headlight. “Ah!” said Churchill, spotting his friend, “Hullo Clark! Got anything to drink?” Once Churchill had dismounted, his friend noticed dried blood smeared across one ear and asked Churchill about the injury. German machine gun, said Churchill casually. His men had shouted at him to run but, he said, he was simply too tired.

In later years, Churchill served as an instructor at the land-air warfare school in Australia, where he became a passionate devotee of the surfboard. Back in England, he was the first man to ride the Severn River’s five-foot tidal bore and designed his own board.’

[redrum] Will’s Room — 71 Photos of Will Self’s Writing Room – if you look very closely you will see ‘Redrum’ repeatedly written on each Post-it in the photos.

[watch] Zefrank on the ten stages of the Illness Communication Exaggeration Curve.

[ba] Breaking News: BA Has Halted All Flights From The UK. [via linkbunnies.org]

[london] London Walks for your MP3 Player … ‘Forget about guide books and maps. Listen to my description as you walk through London.’ [via Londonist]

[comics] Diesel Sweeties: 128-Bit Encrypted Flirtation.

[blogs] True to Type — the Guardian reviews a number of Edinburgh Fringe shows which adapt blogs into theatre productions … ‘It’s [the] interactive aspect of blogging that needs to be addressed if theatrical adaptations are truly to take off. For now, it looks naive and fairly opportunistic in its approach. Yes, people are turning to the internet to make their confessions – but that doesn’t necessarily mean their words make riveting theatre. Blog-based theatre is a bit like flat-packed furniture: even once you’ve put it up, you still associate it with the box it arrived in.’

[music] Brian Jones vs. Indiana Jones … ‘Indiana Jones fought a scimitar with a whip. Brian Jones crushed butterfly on a wheel’

[tv] Jon Ronson is blogging at Amazon.com and the Guardian’s Comment is Free … ‘It is a Friday in December. I have now been dressed as Santa for five hours. The heating in our house in on full-blast. The costume was itchy when I put it on all those hours ago. Now I feel as if I am covered in ants. “I need to take the beard off,” I say. “No!” yells Joel, my four-year-old son. “I’m getting a rash,” I say. “Please stay with me, Santa,” says Joel.’

[blogger] The New Blogger — Google are prepping a new version of Blogger.com.

[ww2] Any Officer Who Goes Into Action Without His Sword is Improperly Dressed — a summary of the almost unbelievable wartime adventures of Captain Jack Churchill …

‘In 1940, some of the German commanders who were overseeing the push into France began to receive seemingly random reports of soldiers having been killed with broad-head arrows or hacked with a English Claymore. Effective enough weapons it would seem, but archaic even in that day and age. They likely could have guessed the bowman was an English soldier, but they couldn’t have appreciated these as the calling card of the rabid eccentric, Captain Jack Churchill.’

‘Commando training ended with an attack on Nord Fiord, Norway. While the two companies he commanded advanced on their target, Jack stood in the lead craft, and played on his pipes “The March of the Cameron Men”. His report at mission’s end was simply: “Maaloy battery and island captured. Casualties slight. Demolitions in progress. Churchill.”‘

‘In 1944 Jack’s luck and tenacity took a slip when he was ordered into an impossible situation. Most of his squad was killed, and Jack was taken captive. After being hauled to Berlin for questioning, he was sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where he was meant to stay until war’s end. He might have done so, but one night the power went out, and Jack was prepared: he had a rusty can and some onions. It was all that he needed. In the darkness he just walked away and made his escape.’

[comics] Keep On Truckin’ — from the Perry Bible Fellowship.

[comics] Criminal Preview — a few pages from the first issue of Criminal from Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips.

[comics] The New Adventures of Hitler — scans from Grant Morrison and Steve Yeowell’s controversial comic about Hitler visiting Liverpool in 1912 … ‘I was born to suffer. There is no end to it. I was born to suffer and I shall surely die here, on this miserable English toilet. I tell you, I have never known a greater enemy than my own rebellious bowels. Traitors! Treacherous bastards! They will be the death of me.’

[ukblogs] Greenslade — Roy Greenslade is keeping a nicely done blog about the British Press and Journalism.

[ukblogs] YouTube: Tom Reynolds, of Random Acts of Reality on ITV’s London News.

[comics] Judge Dredd: Origins — a flash trailer for a new Judge Dredd series by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra. [via Jez]

[weird] The Chosen Ones — Jon Ronson meets Indigo Children who apparently are “super-evolved, psychic beings” … ‘I’m curious to know more about the Indigo children – this apparently vast, underground movement. Although Indigos say they communicate telepathically, they also communicate via internet forums, such as Indigos Unplugged…’ [via As Above]

[ronson] Hello Jon Ronson. Yes, the bloggers are watching you… Just be thankful we are not the Secret Rulers of the World.


My advice to you is relax, and perhaps don’t ego-surf so dilligently. I only posted that link to the Chosen Ones two hours ago… Shouldn’t you be working?

[vids] How to Undress in Seven Seconds — this isn’t a lifehack I’d try at home … [via Sore Eyes]

[ukblogs] Jeffrey Archer’s Official Blog … ‘I read in another newspaper that I’m converting to Roman Catholicism. One phone call, and they would have discovered that it hadn’t even crossed my mind.’ [thanks Phil]

[xmas] Only 138 Shopping Days to Go — Harrods opened it’s Christmas Department yesterday… ‘Christmas World was packed, with an ominous background tinkle of shoppers edging past racks of glass baubles. The fairylights were eclipsed by the barrage of camera flashes as tourists immortalised themselves in T-shirts and shorts standing in a glade of £119 slimline artificial trees. “It’s so English,” a Chinese woman said fondly, admiring a £14.95 glass Eiffel Tower tree decoration – made in China.’ [more…]

[comics] 1963 Comics Ads — amusing spoof Comics Ads written by Alan Moore.

[comics] Thrill Power Overload — David Bishop an ex-editor of 2000AD is writing a history of the comic and blogging his progress … On Censorship: ‘Even the most innocuous phrases could cause problems. Both [Alan] Grant and [Steve] MacManus recall a sound effect in Robo-Hunter being censored. Barry Tomlinson had taken over from Bob Bartholomewews the managing editor responsible for passing each issue of 2000 AD as fit for publication. ‘The original speech balloon on Prog 278 had Kidd saying, “Do something, Slade! I’m gonna pop!”,’ MacManus recalls. ‘Tomlinson said you can’t have the word pop on the cover, it means fart.” [via Pete’s Linklog]