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London Bloggers [Comic Blogs][Other Blogs] | 1 July 2001
[books] I should take a look at the Digested Read’s in the Guardian more often… One For My Baby: ‘”I’m planning a surprise birthday party for your father,” said my mum. “Surprise, surprise,” she shouted as the lights went on. And there was dad with his trousers round his ankles while Lena, the au pair, bobbed in front of him. Funny. I thought it was me she fancied. “I really love Lena,” muttered my dad as I helped him move his stuff out of the house. How do you live with loss? ‘
Nigella Bites: ‘I know that many of you may not have time for the table-laden breakfast, but even the sluttiest person can whip up muffins for 12. Just make the nanny get up at 5.30am to whip up some lumpy batter, spoon it into paper cases and cook for 20 minutes. You can hop out of the bath a couple of hours later and devour them with lashings of buerre de Normandie. By the way, get that nice little barman I once met in Hong Kong to make you a few Bloody Marys to wash it all down.’
[distraction] Bod and Star Wars collide…. Here Comes Darth. [via Bugpowder]
30 June 2001
[life] A Lease On Life — the Guardian looks at human longevity… ‘In theory, evolution could have come up with a different design, a human who reached sexual maturity decades later, or who went on having children for longer. But then the sabre-tooth factor kicks in. In mankind’s hunter-gatherer days, the chances were that something would kill you before you reached your mid-30s. It might have been famine, or murder, or a predator, or a nasty bacterium. There would have been no evolutionary point in having a man or woman who was in their physical prime at 70, if they had only a million-to-one chance of surviving violence and illness for that long. We’re a bit like cars. Maybe you could design and build a car that would last 1,000 years. But why would you, if the cars cost a billion pounds each, and were 99% likely to be destroyed in an accident in half that time?’
[comics] Tom interviews Grant Morrison [Part One | Part Two]. Morrison on Animal Man: ‘The Animal Man project began as a four issue miniseries in what he describes with a laugh as the “Alan Moore style – lots of poetic captions and interesting scene transitions”, but it soon spiralled away from this concept. “Half-way through the first four issues I decided that I just couldn’t continue with it. They had asked me to do it as an ongoing series, but it just wasn’t the kind of thing that I wanted to do. Suddenly the idea of the ‘Coyote Gospel’ came to me and that basically set the template for everything that I’ve done since.”‘
29 June 2001
[cartoon] Steve Bell on David Trimble’s threatened resignation…
[comics] Popimage has 20 questions with Joe Quesada. Old Marvel vs. New Marvel: ‘…communications between the upper levels of the company and our talent was really disastrous. We also had some very poor hiring methods. For starters we kept hiring editors and assistant editors to write our top books while the competition was recruiting new talent that was really breaking ground. We had no recruitment techniques at all! When we did hire top talent we wouldn’t let them do what they wanted to do, we had a very heavy-handed editorial approach and would make sure that the books were more editorially driven than talent driven. I think that there was also the ego factor, you know “Eff you we’re Marvel and if you don’t like it go work for the smaller companies” and ultimately we were afraid of change. I can’t tell you the fear, concern and jealousy that was felt across Marvel when Marvel Knights was introduced into the system. I could feel it walking down the halls on a daily basis. That first year I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up as I walked by certain offices.’
28 June 2001
[politics] There’s only one person that knows me – and that’s me — long, intriguing, “fills-in-the-blanks” profile of Michael Portillo in the Telegraph… ‘…He still has his detractors. One of Hague’s team says: “William was being shot at from the inside on a daily basis. Michael often didn’t return emails or pick up the phone. He’s impossible to get close to, he’s such a big secret. He has a grandeur and aloofness that William lacks.” Another says: “It was like living with Princess Diana.”‘
[distractions] Another really addictive game… BLiX. ‘Is BLiX just a pixel in someone else’s game?’
[comics] I was a lot younger when I read this the first time… (WTF! 1990?!) Endless Summer by Philip Bond. ‘…a little sappy for you? never mind, there’ll be something much more moronic next week.’
27 June 2001
[politics] Kenneth Clarke joins the battle for Tory Leader… Steve Bell’s view and Simon Hoggart’s… ‘Ken Clarke rolled up, literally. Everything about him is round. His face, his body, his belly, his eyes, even the movements described by his torso as he circles a room, are all spherical. If Lucian Freud had been there he’d have ripped Ken’s clothes off, shouting: “I want a crack at that!”‘
[comics] Interview with Alex Robinson — the artist / writer behind Box Office Poison… On having Will Eisner as a teacher at art school: ‘The sad part was that out of maybe 25 people in the class, only five or six paid attention to him. The rest of the students didn’t care who he was and were only interested in being the next Jim Lee or whoever. Some of the kids in the cartooning department had never even heard of Robert Crumb (it was before the movie, of course)!’
[BIG questions] Time wonders How The Universe Will End…‘…Adams predicts that all this dead matter will eventually collapse into black holes. By the time the universe is 1 trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion years old, the black holes themselves will disintegrate into stray particles, which will bind loosely to form individual “atoms” larger than the size of today’s universe. Eventually, even these will decay, leaving a featureless, infinitely large void. And that will be that?unless, of course, whatever inconceivable event that launched the original Big Bang should recur, and the ultimate free lunch is served once more.’ [via Ghost in the Machine]
26 June 2001
[comics] Long, interesting interview with Daniel Clowes from Indy Magazine… ‘Sometimes I think that since I’ve gotten all this minor exposure, I should really go on a crusade to get people to read comics. But I think once you do that, you’re dividing your energy, and you’re much better off doing the best comics you can do. That will ultimately help the cause of comics a lot more.’ [via Metafilter]
[books] LMG’s Summer Reading List… I’ve managed to ignore my vast collection of philosophy and come up with five books I’ve enjoyed reading and re-read all the time…
Next Week: Five (good?) books you can find in charity shops in London in 2001. 25 June 2001
[books] Jez comes up with a Summer Reading List… and Mat points out why the novel is dead. ‘…the novel has become little more than an exclusionary and divisive instrument of repression, falsely condemning the non-fiction reading classes to submit to the belief that they will never and can never achieve the same level of spiritual, emotional or intellectual understanding as those who feed their emptiness by feasting on the fabricated lives of non-existent characters.’
[tabloid] For Garry, England and St George — an interview with Garry Bushell… ‘Garry once met Frankie Howerd. “Because I was a lone voice saying let’s have Frankie on telly before he dies, he invited me to see him and then took me and the wife for a meal afterwards. It was like, wow, I can’t believe I’m sitting here with Frankie Howerd, but then… ” What? “… he started touching me up under the table!” I think this may have upset Garry a bit, which is a shame. They’d have made a super couple.’
[tv] The Second Noel — entertaining interview with Noel Edmonds…. ‘I sneeze a couple of times. “I don’t know that this carpet can absorb that amount of moisture,” Edmonds says in that famous squeaky voice. “Can you do me a passport photo?” he asks the photographer, who nods. “That was a joke,” Edmonds says, disappointed.’
24 June 2001
[comics] The Barbelith Underground discusses The Island Of Forgotton Comics… ‘And I do wish that John Byrne would tell the world what happened next to the Next Men, although I think I’m the only one who gives a damn.’
[books] Annoying, too clever by half summer reading lists… from Douglas Rushkoff and Zadie Smith. This made me think… what should the readers of LinkMachineGo be reading this summer? Let me know and I’ll post any suggestions and comments…
23 June 2001
[quote] ‘…Phosphor-dot swirls juxtapose; meanings coalesce from semiotic chaos before reverting to incoherence. Transient and elusive these must be grasped quickly: Computer animations imbue even breakfast cereals with an hallucinogenic futurity; Music channels process information-blips, avoiding linear presentation, implying limitless personal choice… These reference points established , an emergent worldview becomes gradually discernable amidst the media’s white noise. This jigsaw-fragment model of tomorrow aligns itself piece by piece, specific areas necessarily obscured by indeterminacy. However, broad assumptions regarding this postulated future may be drawn. We can imagine its ambience. We can hypothesize its psychology. In conjunction with massive forecasted technological acceleration approaching the millennium, this oblique and shifting cathode mosaic uncovers an era of new sensations and possibilities. An era of the conceivable made concrete… and of the casually miraculous.’
[music] Michael Daddino blogs 24 hours of MTV … ‘R&B videos just delight in nice interiors, don’t they?’
22 June 2001
[books] Another interview with Tony Parsons… ‘His son’s generation are incredibly wary of marriage and commitment, he says. Which may be no bad thing, given men’s perennial obsession with starting afresh on a new romantic path. “But men can feel that, and also feel a need for family and stability. The problem is that you can’t have both.” It’s funny, I say, that for women “having it all” is about the realities of family and career, while for men it’s about two conflicting dreams. “Having it all for women is a balancing act. It’s difficult, but it’s not impossible. For men [having it all] is impossible.”‘
[web] NTK does Popbitch…. ‘And finally – from anonymity to immortality: word is it’s “extremely unlikey” that, after a successful stint in a B-list boy-band, both JAMES BULGER murderers plan to pursue careers as light entertainment presenters in children’s TV. “Friends Like These” might never be the same again’
[comics] First review I’ve seen of the Ghost World movie…. ‘Just out of high school, Enid has vague plans to move away from home and into a starter apartment with best bud Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson). Slightly jealous of her pretty blonde pal, our bespectacled post-Goth heroine keeps bailing on the search for a new pad, although she’s clearly sick of living with her meek dad (Bob Balaban, in another of his superbly modulated outings). Adding to the tension between the girls is their mutual ardor for Josh (Brad Renfro), a blandly handsome schoolmate without much evident interest in either of them. (This aspect of the situation, uncharacteristically for the movie, is rather more muted than it is in the comic.) Throwing things out of whack, and eventually into focus, is Enid’s chance encounter with Buscemi’s Seymour, a sad-sack record collector — an amalgam of Zwigoff himself and various Crumb brothers.’ [via Comic Geek]
21 June 2001
[blog different] Two-fisted blogging cock tales… Swish Cottage… ‘Yes, in laymen’s terms, I had broken my cock.’ Vs. Nick “Torsion of the Testicle” Jordan… ‘I woke in agony; it felt as though someone had kicked me very hard in the gonads. Perhaps I’d somehow managed to catch myself while I slept, I thought, so I waited for the pain to subside as it normally would. It didn’t. In fact, if anything, it grew worse. Now somewhat concerned, I examined myself, but could detect nothing obvious. My calls for assistance were heard by my mother who came into the room to ask what all the fuss was about. “My balls!” I cried.’ [Related: Meg responds earlier]
[comics] Nice quality trailer for Ghost World up at Apple’s Quicktime Movie Trailers site… [ …oh… and buy the comic book!! Trust me. You won’t regret it.]
[books] The Parsons Tale — Interesting interview with Tony Parsons…. ‘Parsons’s mother died of cancer in 1999. Ever prepared to harvest the details of his life in the name of art, he has fictionalised her death in One for My Baby. He also wrote a column about her in the Mirror the day after she died. The headline was: goodbye mum and thanks for teaching me the meaning of love.Does he think now that column was a little mawkish? ‘If I had written it today, it would have been different, but it had a great impact at the time. I got literally hundreds of letters. Selfishly, it made things easier for me: a writer makes sense of the world by writing about it. I don’t think it was mawkish and sentimental so much as hysterical with emotion. The iMac was covered in tears when I wrote it.”
20 June 2001
[WTF?] Did Emlyn Hughes call his kids Emlyn and Emma Lynn? ‘Are you able to confirm this and are there any other instances of footballing parents with the imagination of a brick?’
[comics] NeilGaiman.Com goes live as his new book American Gods is released. His blog has relocated [t]here as well….
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