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London Bloggers [Comic Blogs][Other Blogs] | 7 December 2002
[music] Drunken, disorderly and now a Toothless Rock Star — profile of Liam Gallagher … ‘Since the group’s first public manoeuvres in 1993, Liam has made a habit of suddenly bailing out of his band’s commitments, picking sufficiently serious fights with his elder brother to threaten their always-rickety alliance, and managing to offend even the most untouchable invitees at awards ceremonies and fashion shows. Liam is, let us not forget, the man who marked Oasis’s 1996 receipt of Q magazine’s “Best Act In The World Today” trophy by threatening to smash up a Park Lane ballroom and flicking his cigarette ash on Mick Jagger’s head.’
6 December 2002
[web] Wikipedia — a free encylopedia using a WikiWiki. ‘…a collaborative project to produce a free and complete encyclopedia in every language. We started in January 2001 and are already working on 94470 articles in the English version, with more being added and improved all the time. Anyone, including you, can edit any article right now, without even having to log in.’
[web] Little House on the Info Prairie — Danny O’Brien blogs interviewing Brewster Kahle … ‘I keep hearing him say “we can make a different world, by building it”, which sounds clumsy copied from my notes, but in context, spoken by Brewster Kahle in an old wooden house with a bunch of commodity web servers in one corner, a whiteboard with plans to scan a million books on the wall to the left, and shelf with a freshly minted Alice in Wonderland…’
5 December 2002
[comics] Newsarama do a Look Back at Daredevil: Last Rites … D.G. Chichester on Daredevil and Kingpin: ‘Here was a relationship that had grown cold and old. The Kingpin kept messing with Daredevil, Daredevil kept storming into his office and essentially saying, “I’ve had it with you fat man! You get in the way of justice one more time… no, I mean it, really, this time I’m serious… okay, so you crossed the line again but you do it just once more” and… It made Daredevil look prissy and ineffectual, and also took a lot of the charge out of the Kingpin. There was no surprise in his next craftiness because you knew it was just going to keep going and going and…’
4 December 2002
[tv] Something I was wondering about today… Did Magnum, P.I. ever Jump the Shark?
‘This show never jumped because of these three words: JONATHAN QUAYLE HIGGINS!’
[comics] Interview with an Umpire — a massive interview with Grant Morrison on Barbelith …
‘I was aware that I was holding a continuum, that’s when I started to develop ideas of comics as magic, comics as sigils, because I got to page 22 then I turned back to page 8; I thought, “I’m in this story which I don’t understand, I’ve read this bit, I can go back to the point where the characters don’t know what’s about to happen to them and I can experience it out of sequence” and I saw that this comic was this entire little universe/ continuum in it’s own right and also the wider implications; that the DC Universe and the Marvel Universe were also continuums in their own way created by people when I was a kid or before I was born. Maintained by people, who like these Demonic Corporations, maintained and kept these characters which were sustained by people who would come in and look after them; people who would come in and look after Scott Summers – it was that notion of the universe in your hands and the possibilities in that.’ 3 December 2002
[distraction] Ralph Wiggum Soundboard … ”I saw Principle Skinner and Mrs. Krobapple in the closet making babies, and I saw one of the babies, and one of the babies looked at me!!!’ [via Lukelog]
[film] The space between us — interesting Solaris preview … ‘[Solaris] is based on the Stanislaw Lem novel, which was also filmed, in an entirely different manner, by the late Andrei Tarkovsky in 1972. Tarkovsky made his version, he said, in reaction to the “inhumanity” of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001. It was three hours long and rich in the rhetorical indulgences that Tarkovsky was wont to permit himself. Lem was not its most militant admirer. At 96 minutes, Steven Soderbergh’s version is so wilfully serene that you fear for the patience and sanity of George Clooney’s core demographic.’ [Related: Solaris Trailer and Official Site]
[xmas] ‘Tis the Season — a Christmas blog from Anna and Meg … ‘It’s pretty fucking difficult to do a google search on interesting facts on Christmas Trees without landing you on sites that smack you around the face with computer generated jingle bells. After five of these sites, psychosis develops. So it’s best not to bother with them at all.’ [Kinda Related: Secret Santa]
2 December 2002
[web] Way Back When — a interview with Brewster Kahle… the creator of the Wayback Machine [via blackbeltjones] …
‘The whole point of comprehensive library collections is that you can’t tell in advance what will be important. The Web is the people’s medium, it’s not elitist. Anyone can publish there, so you’ve got the good, the bad, the ugly, the profane. It’s just us, that’s the amazing thing. For instance, a lot of libraries are now used for genealogical work. What would you give for a video clip of your great-grandmother? I’d give a lot. I may not watch it very often, but I’d love some way of knowing who she was’
[comics] Seth and the City — profile of Seth … ‘He’s a self-acknowledged workaholic, often passing 12 hours a day hunkered over a drafting table in his small basement studio. But much of Seth’s time is spent creating editorial illustrations for major newspapers and magazines. The commercial work earns a decent paycheque, while Palooka-Ville is his personal obsession. He labours over every detail, hand-lettering every word and aiming to create “a perfect object.”‘ [via ¡Journalista!]
1 December 2002
[lmg] What LMG was linking to in December 2001 and December 2000.
30 November 2002
[film] Truly, a class act. Not a lot of people know that — profile of Michael Caine … ‘There’s a crack in the Caine façade, I think, and you see it in that very cool comic line he couldn’t deny himself. When someone remonstrated with him about having made Jaws: The Revenge, he answered, “I have never seen it, but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific.” Now, that is a knock-out line, and characteristic of Caine’s wit (more or less impromptu) at awards evenings. But it is very much the kind of thing that Alfie, or Harry Palmer (from the Ipcress films) or even Carter might have uttered: cynical, knowing, an outsider’s jab at the system, its hypocrisy and foolishness.’
28 November 2002
[film] Solaris, Rediscovered — backgrounder on Stanislaw Lem and Solaris … ‘…this is the source of Lem’s uneasy relationship with American science fiction, and of his inevitable misalliance with Hollywood. Lem’s stories are about humanity in general. Movies – at least popular ones – are about characters. Moreover, when confronted with a beautiful woman who may be a phantom, an alien, or some kind of machine, Hollywood is more or less required to put one question ahead of all others: Can you have sex with it? This is what Soderbergh refers to when he says the movie will be a cross between 2001 and Last Tango in Paris.’
27 November 2002
[comics] Geek Poet — yet another interview with Dan Clowes … ‘One person unimpressed with Clowes’s celebrity is Enid Coleslaw, the caustic, adorable 18-year-old heroine of Ghost World. In the book — published as a piecework between 1993 and 1997, then in one volume in 1998 — Enid attends a signing given by Clowes in her local comic-book store. She imagines a rugged, hard-bitten Bogart type, but Clowes — self-deprecating to a fault — depicts himself as a shabby, leering loser, sitting alone in a corner.”There was ‘nobody” there and he was like this old “perv’,” Enid tells her best friend Rebecca later. However, it’s worth noting that her name is an anagram of her creator’s. Indeed, Clowes has said that Enid and Rebecca represent two sides of his own nature.’ [via Egon]
26 November 2002
[distraction] Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire in Flash … [Related: The History Behind Billy Joel’s Song]
‘Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnny Ray, South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio, Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, Television, North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe, Rosenbergs, H Bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom, Brando, The King And I, and The Catcher In The Rye, Eisenhower, Vaccine, England’s got a new queen, Maciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye, Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev, Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc, Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, Dancron, Dien Bien Phu Falls, Rock Around the Clock, Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn’s got a winning team, Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland, Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Khrushchev, Princess Grace, Peyton Place, Trouble in the Suez, Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac, Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, Bridge On The River Kwai, Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball, Starkwether, Homicide, Children of Thalidomide, Buddy Holly, Ben Hur, Space Monkey, Mafia, Hula Hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go, U2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy, Chubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo, Hemingway, Eichman, Stranger in a Strange Land, Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion, Lawrence of Arabia, British Beatlemania, Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson, Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British Politician sex, J.F.K. blown away, Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again, Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock, Begin, Reagan, Palestine, Terror on the airline, Ayatollah’s in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan, Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, heavy metal, suicide, Foreign debts, homeless Vets, AIDS, Crack, Bernie Goetz, Hypodermics on the shores, China’s under martial law, Rock and Roller cola wars…’
[music] ‘We’ve had it large’ — New Order discuss their career and the new box-set they are bringing out for Christmas … ‘Sumner’s eyes light up. “What do you collect?” “Cars,” says Hooky. “Model cars.” Sumner arches an eyebrow. “Oh.” “Well, I like collecting,” continues Hooky, furiously scratching his stubble. “I collect everything.” “Then we’re different,” notes Sumner. “I like to get a skip and throw everything away. A clean slate, that’s what I like.” In the future, when looking to remake The Last of the Summer Wine, the BBC should consider New Order as ripping new cast members.’
25 November 2002
[comics] Recommended Graphic Novels for Public Libraries … ‘ I’m a librarian at the Greene County Public Library in Xenia, Ohio, and for the past few years I’ve been buying graphic novels (comic books, that is) for my library system. They’ve proven very popular at our libraries…’
[conspiracy] Conspiracy Weary — the problem with conspiracy theories … Neil Burger: ‘The Kennedy assassination is this unsolved, confounding mystery of American history. You delve into it because you can’t believe that this public event has so many unanswered questions. There isn’t any definitive, conclusive evidence on anything. You follow these trails of evidence. They are so tantalising, but you never have the answer. It’s enough to keep you looking for more. It’s enough to drive you insane.’ [Related: Interview with the Assasin Trailer and Official Site]
24 November 2002
[comics] Nowhere Girl — beautifully put-together online comic. ‘…too much information for you?’
22 November 2002
[food] Not So Big, Mac — a look at the problems McDonalds are currently facing. ‘…the all-American fast-food chain, the symbol of US-driven trade liberalisation and peace through commerce is, in certain key ways, a bizarrely un-American phenomenon. In a culture that champions entrepreneurialism, the corporation is now a vast, unwieldy bureaucracy; in a culture that thrives on innovation, it has been selling the fast-food treat of the American working-classes of the Eisenhower era for decades since Eisenhower. And in an economy where unlimited choice – or at least the appearance of choice – is the main selling point of every food store, deli or coffee shop, McDonald’s has, from the beginning, adhered to the alternative philosophy of You’ll Eat What You’re Given.’
21 November 2002
[comics] Worth a Thousand Words — Salon on Dan Clowes and Adrian Tomine … On Twentieth Century Eightball: ‘The best are easily as testily thoughtful and revealing as Clowes’ works of fiction. And if they aren’t concerned with creating sustained narrative story lines, taken together they do tell us a lot about character — though the character revealed most is Daniel Clowes (represented either as himself or via a “transparent stand-in” in roughly half of the pieces). In contrast to his graphic novels, these strips resemble a Clowes manifesto, or perhaps the notes scrawled by his psychoanalyst. (Said analyst would probably have much to say about “The Happy Fisherman,” about a guy who walks around with a frozen fish stuck to his dick, “Ink Studs,” in which a penis serves as a paintbrush, and “Needledick, the Bug Fucker,” which is exactly what it sounds like.)’ [via Boing Boing]
20 November 2002
[universe] God Is the Machine — Kevin Kelly wonders if the Universe is a computer … ‘If the universe is a computer, where is it running? Fredkin says that all this work happens on the “Other.” The Other, he says, could be another universe, another dimension, another something. It’s just not in this universe, and so he doesn’t care too much about it. In other words, he punts. David Deutsch has a different theory. “The universality of computation is the most profound thing in the universe,” he says. Since computation is absolutely independent of the “hardware” it runs on, studying it can tell us nothing about the nature or existence of that platform. Deutsch concludes it does not exist: “The universe is not a program running somewhere else. It is a universal computer, and there is nothing outside of it.”‘ [via Haddock]
19 November 2002
[comics] Searching For The Invisible Man — Ninth Art discuss Grant Morrison … [via ¡Journalista!]
‘WHEELER: I think the difference between someone like Morrison and Moore is that at 7:30 on a Friday night, Moore is probably out covering himself with goose fat and chanting to the moon, whereas Morrison is probably watching Top Of The Pops.
[distraction] Buffy Cult Trumps — Buffy Top Trumps from BBC Cult … ‘Ever wanted to find out what would happen if Buffy fought Giles? Or wondered if Xander or Oz is the cutest? Now you can find out with our fun card game. Pit yourself against the computer, and find out if you know your Buffy well enough to win.’ [via Bullets]
18 November 2002
[xmas] Secret Santa is Back … ‘The idea of Secret Santa is very simple – you pull a name out of a hat and buy that person a present. Your name is in the hat as well, so someone buys you a present too! Everyone gets a present! Everyone’s happy!’
17 November 2002
[books] Swaggering genius — more Sunday reading… a profile of Dave Eggers … ‘His attitude towards publicity is certainly contradictory; having written a candid memoir about his family and friends, he then retreated into Salinger-like reclusiveness and reportedly dismissed his US agent, bizarrely accusing her of wanting to make money out of his family’s story. Others have pointed out that although Simon and Schuster paid $100,000 for the manuscript of AHWOSG, he later accepted a $1.4 million advance for US paperback rights, and that in spite of early news stories (which Eggers later denied) claiming he had refused to sell the film rights because he felt a cinema version would surrender the book’s integrity, the rights were nevertheless sold to New Line for a weighty $2m.’
[murder] The Face of Human Evil — a summing up after the death of Myra Hindley …
‘The Catholic religion teaches us that redemption is possible, that even the greatest sinner – even someone who has tortured and killed children for the obscene pleasure of it – can be washed clean of their guilt. Evil is a noun, something like dirt inside you. But for most of us, evil is more like a verb: something you do, not something you are. This is the more modern and more terrifying view of our moral universe – because, instead of regarding Hindley as simply monstrous or aberrant, ‘possessed’, as it were, by evil, we have to start seeing her as not so very different from all of us, just someone who made different choices. She is not alien, but human. This is what humans can do, if they take the hellish road and step by step go down it.’ 16 November 2002
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