[LMG]LMG RSS Feed 
[Search][Projects]A Moment Of MooreMe and Belle de Jour TimeMachineGo Evening Standard Headline Pictures [UK Bloggers]
London Bloggers [Comic Blogs][Other Blogs] | 1 March 2002
[comics] I invented Judge Dredd — BBC News interview with John Wagner … ‘This was back in the days of Dirty Harry, and with [Margaret] Thatcher on the rise there was a right-wing current in British politics which helped inspire Judge Dredd. He seemed to capture the mood of the age – he was a hero and a villain. That villainous aspect to Dredd’s character – and the Draconian laws of Mega-City One [the post-apocalyptic metropolis Dredd polices] – really caught the readers’ imagination. Occasionally we’d get letters from children who seemed to be agreeing with his hard-right stance, so we made the strip more political to bring out the fact that we didn’t agree with Dredd.’ [via Coffee Grounds]
[books] More, Now, Again by Elizabeth Wurtzel — the condensed version … ‘It’s December 1997 and I’m checking in to Silver Hill Clinic. There’s this guy there, Hank, who is fairly ugly but is the only one who’s remotely as clever as me. This is perfect as no way can we ever become lovers. Hank and I become lovers.’
[war] Nixon talked of nuclear bomb for Vietnam … [via Metafilter]
‘Kissinger laid out a variety of options for stepping up the war effort, such as attacking power plants and docks, in an April 25, 1972, conversation in the Executive Office Building.
[tv] Evan Dorkin Exposes Geek Chic for Cartoon Network — Dorkin talks about Welcome to Eltingville … ‘”Because of Dorkin’s antipathy towards the “Eltingville” quartet, he plans to retire the group from comics. “I always knew ‘Eltingville’ was something I was going to stop doing,” he says. “I hate these characters, to a small degree. I find them maddening to work on. I’m drawing these horrific, ugly characters acting in a really nasty way.”
28 February 2002
[comics] Get Your Wurtzel On — reworking of Get Your War On … ‘…when you get naked on your own book cover and yet nobody gives a shit, the world must seem pretty cold!’ [via RACM]
[war] Bin Laden’s private life revealed amid rubble … ‘Osama bin Laden’s underpants were hanging up to dry in the bathroom of his house outside Jalalabad. They were striped grey and black cotton boxers, with a label reading Angelo Petrico, a size XXL large for such a lean-looking man.’ [via Blogadoon]
[comics] Suck has been dead for a while now but before it shutdown it published some illustrated articles from the cartoonist Peter Bagge …
‘”Just think!” I thought to myself, “I get to cover The Democratic Convention for Suck.com!” Yeah, me and about 50 million other journalists, but it still felt like a big deal to me at the time the prospect first came up. Plus there was a lot of buzz over the possibility of PROTESTERS getting out of hand like they did in Seattle during the WTO meetings. We’re talking RIOTS, folks! BIG ones!!! Who’d want to miss out on THAT action? Er, from a nice, SAFE DISTANCE, that is.’ 27 February 2002
[blogs] Metafilter: A Methodology — an examination of what is wrong with Metafilter … ‘This brings us to Matt Haughey, the owner and proprietor of Metafilter. Mr. Haughey is frequently overlooked for his efforts at hosting the site, maintaining Metafilter order and overseeing the day-to-day operations of Metafilter. Dwindle has presented new evidence that Mr. Haughey may face mortal danger in light of the high stress levels of trying to judiciously govern a community with so many disparate users. As we shall see in the ensuing statistics, Mr. Haughey’s efforts are not only overlooked, but they may lead to his untimely death, which, aside from depressing the living hell out of Dwindle and myself, would also lead to the death of Metafilter.’ [via Metatalk]
[comics] Some important comic-related research — Two Playboy Playmates that Chester Brown mentions in his autobiographical comic The Playboy [Links below not safe for work] …
‘So — What are you feeling? Disgust with yourself for having bought such a publication. The typical self loathing you always feel after masturbating. Annoyance that you didn’t check out the skin colour of the playmate before buying the magazine. That last one leading to more feelings of self loathing — this is the first time in your life that you’ve had to face the fact that at some level you’re a racist. If only you’d never bought the damn thing, eh?’ — Chester Brown. 26 February 2002
[cartoon] Steve Bell on Stephen Byers and the Spin Row … ‘Fuck, Minister.’
[news] Still hungry after all these Years — profile of Watergate journalist Bob Woodward … ‘The movie of Woodward and Bernstein’s book — in which they are portrayed by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman — reveals their efforts to reveal that the break-in, and a range of other nefarious incidents, was ordered by Nixon. What it does not make clear is that from the very beginning — when they discovered on the first day that the five burglars kitted out with Playtex rubber gloves were former employees of the CIA — the pair had stumbled unknowingly on to an obviously massive story.’
[books] Snort Story — interview with Elizabeth Wurtzel … ‘Wurtzel was in New York on 11 September, and her apartment is close enough to the World Trade Centre that her windows blew in. But she remained in bed until the second plane hit – in spite of the frantic ringing of the phone – and to this day seems oddly calm about the whole experience. She told a Canadian journalist: “My main thought was: what a pain in the ass. I felt everyone was overreacting. People were going on about it. That part really annoyed me.” When I asked her how she felt about the attack, she said: “Hmm, I’m trying to remember. I was numb for quite a while. I was preoccupied with trying to get my cat out of my apartment. I treated it like a natural disaster not Armageddon.”‘
25 February 2002
[comics] Professor X And Marvel Boy — gossip about Grant Morrison ghost writing Authority #28 for Mark Millar … ‘recently things have not gone too well for the “we’re not a couple” couple. They haven’t spoken for almost a year now and there seems to be a rift based around Grant Morrison ghost writing the original script for Authority #28 as a favour when Mark Millar was being treated for suspected cancer early last summer. ‘ [via Neilalien]
22 February 2002
[comics] Get Your Voltr On … ‘What the fuck is Voltron talking about? Is this some religious thing? Am I fucking being baptized by Voltron?’ [via Lukelog]
[books] Book-a-Minute Classics — ultra-condensed novels … Gravity’s Rainbow: ‘A screaming thing comes across the sky. It’s a V-2 rocket carrying twelve thousand pounds of symbolism, and it’s coming down on your poor, deluded, postmodern head.’ [via I Love Everything]
21 February 2002
[blogs] Linkpimp — lots of headlines and links … ‘Meta to the bone, big daddy’
[blogs] Steven den Beste on blogging and Amway … ‘It occurred to me today that web logging is a form of multi-level marketing, for some people. The currency is hits, the organizational structure is linking. The structure is a cross-branched tree; with people getting a percentage of the traffic of sites which link to them. The object of the game is to get other people to make permanent links to you. The more important the site which does this, the more valuable the link and the higher you rise in the pyramid. When your site begins to get a lot of traffic, you in turn can bestow largesse on those below you with transient or permanent links, and by so doing begin to build your own downline when they link back to you. The grand prize is to get “A-listers” to link to you; then you get a percentage of the huge traffic their sites get.’
[blogs] Weblogs as community — book extract from Derek Powazek’s Design for Community book … ‘I don’t believe that there is one cohesive weblog community. Instead, there are many communities, groups, cliques, and clubs in the weblog space. Any weblog with comments can quickly turn into a community of one, attracting a small group of people who are interested enough to follow along and participate. And if each of those readers then starts a weblog of their own, with comments that the others take part in, you wind up with a giant, interconnected, ever-evolving community. Or, better, a hazy cloud of overlapping communities, each with its own feel, and sharing a few members.’ [via Evhead]
20 February 2002
[comics] The Unh! Project … ‘A collection of guttural moans from comics’ [via RACM]
[books] Philip Pullman Q&A On Guardian Unlimited … On how booksellers should recommend his books to children: ‘I’d say: “You are forbidden to read these books. They’re too old for you, and they’re full of things you shouldn’t experience yet, like sex and violence and dangerous ideas about religion. I’m putting them up here, on this shelf, and I’m going out for an hour or so. You’re not to touch them.” ‘
19 February 2002
[comics] Do Not Underestimate the Power of the Dark Side — Sequential Tart interview with Gary Groth … ‘I’m a romantic and a cynic and, in fact, I don’t think you can be one without being the other: a romantic because you want the world to change for the better and a cynic because you know it won’t.’ [Related: The Comic Journal Website]
[buffy] Oh, you slay me — interview with Anthony Head … ‘There are few things cooler than having Rupert Giles from Buffy the Vampire Slayer as your dad.’
18 February 2002
[web] So much content, so little time … seanbaby.com:
[comics] Charles Shultz Speaks! — MP3 downloads of an interview between Gary Groth and the creator of Peanuts … ‘Schulz discusses, among other things, the relationship between gag cartooning and strip cartooning, the blurring of fantasy and reality in Peanuts, Al Capp, Umberto Eco, and how Schulz brought existential despair to the funny pages of the 1950s.’ [via Bugpowder]
17 February 2002
[books] More, Now, Again — book extract. This time Elizabeth Wurtzel is on Ritalin… ‘Dr Singer suggests that I try cutting the pills in half with a sharp knife. So I get out a steak knife and cut a Ritalin pill in half. This is harder to do than I might have guessed, and it just splits into little pieces, crumbles like a biscuit, with powdery flakes all over the place. Eureka! Why had I not thought of this sooner? I swallow a couple of the chunks with water like I normally would, and the rest I chop up into even finer bits. I press on them with the knife and break them down until they’re a white powder. I snort up the Ritalin. It scratches and burns my nostrils a little bit, but it’s not too bad. And then I feel a tiny rush in my brain.’
16 February 2002
[film] Look, Dad, Top of the World — William Leith interviews Kevin Spacey … ‘I can’t help looking closely at Spacey’s eyes, and his mouth, and his hands, just as I have not failed to notice the camp touches he often gives his characters – the fluttering eyelashes, the snootily tilted head, the catty remarks delivered out of the side of the mouth. Spacey’s characters, mostly highly intelligent weirdos and losers, all come from left field, and he renders these people, these creeps and oddities, with more sensitivity and feeling than any actor I can think of. Could anybody else raise a glimmer of sympathy after cutting off Gwyneth Paltrow’s head and putting it in a box?’
15 February 2002
[wtf?!] I Was In Love With A Nutcase — What it’s like going out with a girl with multiple personalities … ‘Having four other personalities living in the body of your girlfriend was definitely an odd experience.’ [via JerryKindall.com]
[music] Looking for a new England — interview with Billy Bragg … ‘…you say Orwell came up with a list of things he thought were English. What would your list be? “Well, it’s dictated by my cultural background. So Bobby Moore winning the World Cup. It doesn’t mean the same to everyone, I’m aware of that. Chalk horses made in the Bronze Age; Marmite. It’s personal. Englishness is like a mantelpiece that you put things on. We all have that mantelpiece, it’s what you put on that mantelpiece in your soul.”‘
|
