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[comics] Interesting interview with Kevin Smith about comics mainly… ‘It’s so sad that there are people who feel that comics’ salvation lies in mainstream acceptance, because it implies that comics are a dying artform. They’re not. Comics don’t need to be saved. Comics aren’t going anywhere. There will always be a comic book field, despite all the nay-saying braying of a group of Chicken Little’s, who feel like they have their finger on the pulse of a medium that’s been around far longer than their two-bit opinions of it. What fans/critics/pundits need to understand is that comics are a rarefied medium, and that they’ll never be able to compete with movies and television (or video games; or the internet; or even mimes). Just accept that and be happy with the audience that IS out there, and do your best to keep them entertained. Cater to them relentlessly with hero books and non-hero books alike. Hell, there are enough fans of both! But don’t slap them in the face by telling them constantly that they’re not enough. Heavens, love the one you’re with, you know? Besides, what kind of insecure soul would crave mainstream acceptance anyway? Aside from Warren Ellis?’

[luck] The Unluckiest Couple in Britain… what happens when you lose a winning lottery ticket. ‘The Totts have been caught in the contradiction that makes the lottery function – the insistence that it’s all just a bit of fun, a moment’s relief from the daily grind, overlain with the unspoken riposte: yes, but it could change everything forever. It was the former thought that explained why they didn’t check their ticket that week in September – “after seven years, you just think well, I buy a ticket, but I’m never going to win a blooming thing” – but it was the latter that got them hoping.’

[comics] Frank Miller’s Harvey Awards Speech — excellent stuff on the Comics industry, Wizard Magazine and the Movie Industry. ‘One TV guy I met, full of hyperactive disdain, he sniped at me, “I don’t read comic books. I read scripts.” You’re lost pal. They don’t read comic books, they read Wizard Magazine! Or at least the publishers think they do. Either way the result is the same. For all the disgust you’ll hear about Wizard and its shoddy practices when you talk to publishers and marketing folks-and I have yet to hear a single good word from anybody about this thing that ought to come on a roll-for all of that, the publishers kow-tow. Even though this tree killer here regularly cheapens and poisons our field. Aesthetically and ethically, they grovel. Even though this monthly vulgarity [rips off front cover] reinforces all the prejudice people hold about comics [rips out pages] they cry to all the world that we’re as cheap and stupid and trashy as they think we are, we sponsor this assault. We pay for the goddamn privilege. But really, when will we finally get around to flushing this thing, this load of crap, once and for all [tosses torn magazine into a trash can onstage. Applause]’ [via Comic Geek]

[domains] UH! TEARS BABY — Tom’s reaction to losing the Freaky Trigger domain… ‘…this afternoon, freakytrigger.com’s new owner scented money and wrote to me – somebody had offered him $200 for the site and of course he wanted to see if I was interested first. After all, I had “previous involvement” with freakytrigger.com. I was, obviously, not interested: I wish this person joy in making cash out of the domain name because I certainly never did, but he’s not getting a penny from me.’

[distractions] I don’t want to turn LMG into That’s Life but here’s a really rude bus….* * The WPA has struck. You can tell can’t you? I’m even linking to “odd odes” by Cyril Fletcher….

[comics] A couple of Pages from Grant Morrison’s X-Men have appeared on the internet — Page #1, Page #2 — discussion about it is going on here. ‘Sunspot Activity. Manic Depressive mood swings; I feel like a Hindu Sex God, Jean.’ [via Plasticbag]

[profile] The Independent profiles Ken Livingstone after a year of being Mayor of London. ‘After Labour’s triumphant election in 1997, he predicted a recession and suggested that Gordon Brown should be sacked. When the recession did not arrive he claimed, with a mischievous smile, that this was because the Chancellor had adopted his policies. Mr Brown did not reciprocate with a smile. In the 1980s, Mr Livingstone similarly fought against Neil Kinnock’s policy reforms. At a meeting of Labour’s national executive in 1988, he is said to have declared with a hint of self-pity: “I won’t be silenced by the party machine.” Mr Kinnock responded by saying: “Silenced? You have been on every bloody media outlet for the last 24 hours.”‘

[more comics] Tim Bisley’s list of Top Ten Collected Comics… ‘Those are my fave reads of the moment. Whenever I get a coffee break from serving the great unwashed at Fantasy Bazaar, those are the books I take into the bog. However if I do not need the loo, I go into the storeroom and mutilate Jar Jar Binks dolls.’

[comics] Starman is wrapping up after seven years and eighty issues… Fandom has an interesting retrospective. ‘One of the best throughlines of the entire series that ties the past to the present, of course, was Jack?s relationship with his father, Ted Knight, the original Starman. The two began as near-opposites, but grew to like, respect, and finally love one another. It was, up until it?s end ? and even beyond, one of the most well-rounded father-son relationships in comics. Through Jack?s relationship with Ted, the elder Starman became a fully fleshed out character, rather than another suit from the ?40s. Ted had ambitions, flaws, dreams, and hopes. Resonating slightly throughout the Jack-Ted relationship was some of the relationship Robinson had with his mentor in comics, and original Starman editor, Archie Goodwin. Goodwin?s death in 1998 hit Robinson hard, and for a time, he was unsure if he would be able to finish what he had begun in Starman.’ [via GLITTERDAMMERUNG!]

[questions] The Independent’s You Ask The Questions… does Martin Amis. ‘Do you ever worry about turning into your father, Kingsley? This question cannot but sound sinisterly comic to me. If the Kingsley we are referring to is the Kingsley of his last years, then I could naturally do without the physical metamorphosis for at least the time being. Probably the suggestion is: am I worried about inheriting his political curve, worried about waking up one morning as the apoplectic reactionary he would sometimes (morosely but playfully) impersonate? No. Our political histories are antithetical. I have always been pallidly left-of-centre. In our more vituperative disagreements (about nuclear weapons, for example), I used to counter-attack by saying that he was the politically excitable being, not me (my father served as an active Communist for much of his twenties). In other ways, I wouldn’t mind turning into Kingsley. I would like to maintain such lifelong affections with all my children. And I wouldn’t mind writing a novel as good as The Old Devils, when I’m 64.’

[more blogs] It had to happen… after a year or so of me talking at my flatmate about blogs he has gone and bitten the bullet and done one himself… Wanderers Weblog. All I can say is: Thank God it’s not a personal one.

[blog] David is walking across London… and it’s being blogged LIVE here via “cyber-Boswell” Ian. ‘Hopefully he’s going to stop for a cup of coffee; this pace is killing me. (At this rate he’ll be at Heathrow by dusk!)’

[comics] Wonder Woman’s Powers — the Washington Post (WTF?) covers Phil Jiminez, Wonder Woman and her long dead creator William Moulton Marston. ‘When it comes to deconstructing Wonder Woman, how much of the day can anyone (should anyone) spend thinking only about her power cleavage, or being helpless in the cinch of her kinky golden lasso? Where else to begin? With a pencil. First, he sketches her face, then neck, bare shoulders. He then moves down to the double-W’s emblazoned across her thrust-out chest. For reference, Phil Jimenez keeps handy a three-ring binder of pages clipped from women’s lingerie catalogues and lady bodybuilder magazines. As the current illustrator and co-writer of DC Comics’ monthly Wonder Woman comic book, Jimenez comes to the task understanding, as a gay man, that his heroine is ultimately about so much more than her ta-tas.’ [via Haddock]

[fubar] I have been fascinated by Sam Sloan since I discovered his site…. How can you not respect a man who sued Richard Nixon? Or a man who is willing to ponder the big questions in his life — Am I the father of this child? ‘The sexual freedom movement of the late 1960s produced few children because women had been newly liberated by the pill, which had just become widely available. Because women were free from the possible consequences of child birth for the first time, wild and rampant sex orgies became fashionable. One product of these sex orgies is the woman here, who was born in 1969. She believes that I may be her father.’ [Related: Cranks Dot Net]

[cyberpunk] The Guardian previews a new documentary about the life and work of William Gibson… ‘”He’ll talk until the cows come home about literature,” explains Neale. “But the stuff he hasn’t gone on the record about in the past, things like the loss of his parents, his dodging of the draft and taking drugs took a long time to get out of him. I had to go back and ask him those things several times. But drug culture was such a big part of his life. “He decided to go on the record in a way that he has very deliberately avoided for a long time. Bits and pieces of his story have come out in interviews over the years, but the full story hasn’t been told in its entirety. I suppose he has always been a bit of a recluse”.’

[comics] Grant Morrison updates his site… new column… New X-Men details… ‘The work should speak for itself I think but I hope people will enjoy the effort we?ve put into this posthuman soap romp. The series is very shiny and takes the X-Men to new places and to NEW extremes of body and mind. Brutal, fantastic and driven by cosmic angst…We?re emphasising some of the dormant hardcore elements of the Claremont/Byrne era and pumping them up to full volume. Ultra-violet light. Weird cruelty. Mental torture. Transformation. Alien empires. Stress. That kind of thing. I?ve tried to be very faithful to the ever-present darker undercurrents of my favourite X-Men era.’

[movies] Movie Mistakes…. Massive list of mistakes in Titanic include: ‘One of the misconceptions about the upper class and steerage passengers is that they were separated solely due to class reasons. First and I believe second class passengers had medical certificates that say they were free of disease, so they didn’t have to pass through any kind of port check when they landed. One way of guaranteeing this was to keep them totally separated. This was common practice on the ocean liners of the time. Jack’s being able to get into first class wasn’t just improbable it was potentially dangerous.’ [via Chris]

[dad] Becoming like your Father — every man’s worst nightmare? ‘…what men really fear is turning into someone they said they would never ever resemble. I might be a Guardian-reading Old Labour hack living in Highbury, but my dad is a Telegraph-reading former farmer who regards Ian Paisley as a moderating influence on the Northern Ireland peace process. Farmers have never been the most optimistic of people, and I have never been more grateful than now that I didn’t follow my father’s footsteps in that regard. Yet every so often, I come out with a sentiment that sounds just like my dad, such as advising Nicola not to put a window box on that ledge in case it falls on someone in the street and we are sued.’

[confession] Darren is wearing provocatively threadbare underwear. [via Brainsluice]

[profiles] Barry Norman: Films ain’t what they used to be — the Independent profiles the film critic… On why he’s retiring: ‘”It’s not as much fun as it used to be,” he says. “The film industry has changed, and I find it slightly depressing that almost all the big movies coming out of Hollywood next year are based on comic books. Even Ang Lee’s doing one. Also, the one person who’s always been low on the totem pole in the movie industry, the writer, is now lower than ever before.”‘

[blogs] The Coffee Grounds has a new version of the Updated UK Blogs page available. It takes the list of names to check from Gblogs whichs means you can watch pretty much every UK Blog as they update…

[music] Christopher Walken + Spike Jonze + Fatboy Slim = An Amazing Video… [link via Metafilter — but T mentioned this to me first.]

[tv] My Mobster Days Are Over — interview with James Gandolfini from The Sopranos. ‘Although the Soprano family is a fictional one, its doings are closely monitored by its non-fiction counterparts, who do not hesitate to pass their verdicts on the show and let the actors know if their behaviour does not ring true. “I talk to some gentlemen who have friends who are these poeple and most of them enjoy the show,” says Gandolfini. “They get a good laugh out of it, although once when I wore shorts in a barbecue scene it was relayed to me that it was not something these gentlemen would do, even at a barbecue.”‘

[nostalgia] 101 Things We Don’t Miss… ‘Pickled eggs. In Wales, where pickled eggs are still a foodstuff of choice, they buy them with a bag of prawn cocktail crisps, then they scrunch the egg up in the crisps and eat the offending egg with a carapace of crisp around it, for flavour. If that doesn’t say all there is to say about how noxious the things are, I can’t think what does.’ [Guilty Secret: I love pickled eggs… here’s a recipe.]

[drink] The Ultimate Hangover Cure… ‘3 Nurofen 1 vitamin C tablet 1 Alka Seltzer 1 can Coca-Cola (not diet) 1 greasy breakfast from office canteen. The next day trying to recover from the effect of some stealthy margaritas, I tried it and it worked a treat; the vitamin C made me feel healthy, the Alka Seltzer with all the buzzing and fizzing perked me up; the breakfast – important to remember the baked beans – filled me up and the Coke… well. I’ve never really known what Coke does but it always feels good the day after the night before. The cardinal rule of hangover cures is that they all include a can of Coke. That is my basic recommendation. But for something with a bit of kick and a more rapid result, the Adam Edwards Hangover Cure is the Exocet missile of remedies; tried, tested, recommended.’

[news] The Observer profiles Timothy McVeigh’s last days… ‘It has always puzzled investigators why McVeigh would leave such a trail behind him, including using his own name at a motel the night before the blast and using the same card when ordering the fertiliser and fuel. “I have never caught Tim out on a lie,” insists Michel. “Strange as that may sound, he is very proud of what he has done. Talking of it, he has the enthusiasm of a high-school kid describing a science project he has just completed.” Michel quotes McVeigh as telling him: “Because the truth is, I blew up the Murrah building and isn’t it kind of scary that one man could reap this kind of hell?”‘

[comics] Warren Ellis is interviewed by Fandom about the comic book industry and some new books he’s working on… ‘Patrick Stewart. Patrick bloody Stewart. Not really interested in comics, doesn`t know much about them other than the usual. Someone at his production company says take these, these two things you might be interested in. Now you can`t pry FROM HELL out of his hand and he`s written the introduction to the next TRANSMET trade paperback. Three years ago there wasn`t a comic in his house. He`s the audience we`re not reaching – an intelligent person who just wants to read something that makes his nerve endings crackle.’ [Related: Warren Ellis Website, Ordering Comics Site]

[comics] Custody Battle — Interesting article on Joe Simon and his legal fight to take back Captain America from Marvel Comics (who have claimed ownership since 1940). ‘Back in his day, Simon and his colleagues, writers and artists plying their trade in smoky office buildings, knew their audience: 12-year-old boys. They knew what they wanted: good guys in tights beating up the bad guys, who most often looked a lot like a guy named Adolf. But now, Simon says from his one-room apartment in Manhattan, “comic books are for, I dunno, the masturbation generation.” His laugh sounds like a train in the distance; his is a deep, New York voice that suggests a much younger man of sharp mind and sound body. “They all look alike–little boys with big guns and little girls with big boobs,” he says, and it’s hard to tell if he’s amused or disgusted.’ [via ComicGeek]

[books] The Secret Diary of a Provincial Man — Adrian Mole continues in the Guardian every Saturday… ‘Pamela came round with an egg-decorating kit. William’s eggs were a riot of primary colours; Glenn’s depicted Jesus on the cross. He wrote a bubble out of Jesus’s mouth, “Father, why hast thou forsaken me?”, which disturbed Pamela: “For God’s sake, Glenn lighten up. It’s Easter!” Later, while William played with the packing of his Barbie egg and Glenn watched The Greatest Story Ever Told, she led me to my room and gave an erotic Easter egg, the centre of which contained a pair of edible knickers. She was keen for me to break it open and retrieve them. I was less keen: a glance at the ingredients told me they were choc-a-bloc with obscure chemicals and multisyllable flavourings.’

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