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London Bloggers [Comic Blogs][Other Blogs] | 15 May 2001
[comics] Glasgow team brought in to revamp X-Men. Grant Morrison: ‘I’m going to be concentrating less on the supernatural powers and treating it as a bit more soap opera style, looking at what its like to be a mutant like the X-Men. We’re saying what their love life is like, what music they listen to, just looking at these characters a lot more than has been done in the past.’ [via Comic Geek]
[war] The Smoking Gun has a recently declassified report on Hitler’s leisure time and sexual activities… ‘Once Dr. Sedgwick asked him: “Why don’t you marry and fool your enemies?” Hitler answered: “Marriage is not for me and never will be. My only bride is my Motherland.” Then seemingly with no sequence of ideas he added: “There are two ways by which a man’s character may be judged, by the woman he marries, and then the way he dies.”‘ [via Clog]
[blogs] Weblog Universe Collapses…. ‘During final weeks of the weblog universe, Günther Gerhardt – head of TUM’s department of interactive sociology – noted a sharp increase in the number of self-referential remarks and intra-weblog links. As this almost incestuous introspection increased, so did the strain on the fragile Berners-Lee fields which held the weblog universe together. According to Gerhardt, “This tragic self-referentialism. Each time a weblog mentioned another, it was as though Woden’s crows Hugin and Munin were tearing away bits of my flesh! The horror! The humanity!”‘ [via Swish Cottage]
[politics] Amusing interview with Arthur Scargill in the Independent…. ‘Everything, with Arthur, has something to do with the class war. Even tea has something to do with the class war. “Do you know why they say you should put the milk in first?” he asks. No, I say. “Well, when tea was first imported it was very expensive so only the nobility could afford it, and they drank it from bone china. Now, if you pour boiling tea into bone china, it cracks it like crazy paving. But if you put milk in first, it doesn’t. So that’s why they did it and then, of course, the myth grew up that it’s the way you should do it.” Oh. “Although actually,” he continues, “it’s far better to put the tea in first because then you can see how much milk you want.” Truly, the ruling classes have a great deal to answer for.’
14 May 2001
[my inner turmoil?] The Observer profiles Anthony Clare… ‘As he says, men are viewed today much as women were 100 years ago – as fragile, naturally ill members of the species who are prone to early death, vulnerable to the vicissitudes of random violence and disease, and who are riddled with self-doubt. ‘Freud got it spectacularly wrong,’ Clare says. ‘Women don’t envy the penis. And unlike them, men still can’t discuss their sexuality and resolve the problem. Every man, including myself, is ashamed of the size of his penis.”
13 May 2001
[comics] Mile High Comics publishes a first look at Morrison and Quitely’s New X-Men… ‘But Ms. Nova …I’m only a Dentist’
[politics] Sid, soothsayer of the suburbs — election commentary from The Observer. ‘Meet the first star of election 2001. He is Sidney, a retired salesman from Borehamwood, and he bestrides the Telegraph ‘s new focus group of floating voters like a glum colossus. Every time William Hague comes on the television ‘my wife says he’s a little weasel – and she’s a lifelong Tory’. The only guy who told the truth was that grey Major fellow. ‘It didn’t get him anywhere.’ And as for the prophet himself, doomed to constant invigilating by research company Live Strategy Ltd, well ‘we’ve got a long month of all this. I’m not looking forward to it at all’. Sidney speaks for Britain – and Fleet Street.’
12 May 2001
[blogs] I’m somewhat ashamed to admit that I started this Metafilter thread on the death of Douglas Adams which quickly decended into inappropriate internet posting hell. ‘…lots of the people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches. Many were increasingly of the opinion that they’d all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans.’
[distractions] Comedy MP3… Craig David Vs Bagpuss. [via NTK]
[film] Chosen — Ang Lee produces a six minute on-line film promo. ‘The Driver meets a ship carrying an eight-year-old Tibetan boy at a dark, deserted New York shipyard. But he’s not the only one waiting. Ang Lee, director of the Oscar-winning Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and star Clive Owen create a thrilling, yet beautiful, tale filled with mystery.’
11 May 2001
[politics] The Guardian profiles the Future Leader of the Tory Party… Anne Widdecombe. ‘…setbacks have not written off her hopes of winning the party leadership – and Miss Widdecombe may yet be the “second coming” of Thatcher – frustrating Michael Portillo’s hopes of taking the same job if William Hague fails to dismantle the Labour government’s majority at the next election. Her simple authoritarian appeal has a resonance among the grey-haired rank and file members who now dominate the shrunken Tory party and the increasingly rightwing and europhobic Tory MPs. Partly because of her operatic style, and partly because of her absolute commitment to hard-right views, she has risen in prominence and is arguably the only Tory frontbencher apart from Mr Hague and Mr Portillo most voters could name.’ [Related: Widdy Web]
[photo] Only one woman scared me, says Helmut Newton. ‘Newton, one of the most famous fashion and portrait photographers, was speaking on the eve of a retrospective at the Barbican, London, marking his 80th birthday. He said he finally captured Mrs Thatcher in Los Angeles, on her first lecture tour after leaving office. After waiting for her in a hotel, breaking out in a cold sweat, he thought to buy roses: “All I could get were some wilted, awful things for an awful lot of money.” They did nothing to melt the ice. “She did not like her portrait,” he said, of the life size image now in the National Portrait Gallery. “She said, ‘one looks so disagreeable when one is not smiling’. But she is not unfrightening – she’s quite scary.”‘ [via Phil]
10 May 2001
[film] Viewaskew have produced an on-line Teaser Trailer for Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back… (Not-So)Random Quote from Mallrats:‘You fuckers think just because a guy reads comics he can’t start some shit!?’ [Related: J+SBSB at Upcoming Movies]
[politics] Steve Bell kicks off the election with his first cartoon … ‘Please Sir – May I be excused? You’ve just bored my arse off!‘
[politics] Am I Electable or Not…. Who will lead us? Davros or Ann Widdecombe or Hunter S. Thompson?
[comics] According to Comic Geek Jeff Smith has replied to Dave Sim in Cerebus #266… ‘Dear Dave, First you come into my home and insult my wife and I, then you publish a delusional and fictitious account of the event. Now, seven years later, you want to square all accounts by climbing into a boxing ring? Get stuffed. Yours truly, Jeff Smith.’ [Related: Earlier Posting on LMG]
9 May 2001
[politics] Votémon — excellent children’s guide to the General Election from BBC Newsround. [via Interconnected]
[profile] Hey, look at me! Cool, or what? — The Independent profiles Nicky Haslam. ‘So far, so posh. But it would not be possible to listen to Nicky Haslam for very long without becoming aware that he is a most unusual sexagenarian. Here he is, for example, describing a recent social outing. “The other night I went to Catherine Guinness’s for drinks. I hadn’t been there for ages and ages, and I just didn’t know what to wear. All day I’d worn really, really filthy ripped Levi’s with oil all the way down them. The oil’s fake, you buy them like that. And I’d bought the new Converse sneakers that are pre-dirtied. I put on top of it a very chic pony-skin jacket that Jamiroquai had given me….’
8 May 2001
[tv] Big Brother goes digital. ‘The new series of Big Brother will run for up to 21 hours a day on digital network E4, Channel 4 has announced. Fans will be able to spy on the house on TV all day long, and many will be able to make their weekly eviction votes through their remote control.’
[distraction] Excellent on-line gameboy emulator with a number of games… just like the real thing.
7 May 2001
[comics] Pope Fiction. The Vatican approves a comic about Pope John II… Joe Quesada (Editor-In-Chief of Marvel Comics): ‘”Like Spider-Man, the Pope has incredible compassion for the human spirit,” he said. “It’s no secret that this pope has been in frail health for the last few years, yet much like Spider-Man, he perseveres through great adversity. It is the calling and trademark of the great hero!”‘
[politics] Long, interesting profile of Tony Blair’s last four years as Prime Minister….. ‘The more disappointing Blair is manifest when he is controlled by the side of his nature which is cramped by calculation and caution. A female member of the Cabinet privately refers to him as ‘Mr Crab’ for scuttling away from difficult decisions. As time has stripped off the rhetorical varnishing, the Government emerges through the hyperbole for what it is: incrementally reforming, social democrat, with some illiberally socially authoritarian edges, which broadly sums up Blair himself. A couple of months ago, he gave an under-reported and remarkably candid speech self-dissecting the Government. He conceded that the ‘first phase of New Labour was essentially one of reassurance’. The overwhelming driver has been to prove they are safe hands, fit to run the country, especially its economy. Allied to that has been the obsession with re-election, ‘the most important thing’, as he put it to me in the garden of Number 10 in the spring of 1997.’
[the joy of stats] Why I Will Never Have A Girlfriend. ‘…. I, for one, refuse to spend my life brooding over my lack of luck with women. While I’ll be the first to admit that my chances of ever entering into a meaningful relationship with someone special are practically non-existent, I staunchly refuse to admit that it has anything to do with some inherent problem with me. Instead, I am convinced that the situation can be readily explained in purely scientific terms, using nothing more than demographics and some elementary statistical calculus.’
6 May 2001
[comics] Interesting interview with Alex Robinson the artist/writer behind Box Office Poison. ‘Box Office Poison is about the pros and cons of loyalty vs betrayal. There are two main stories: one deals with Sherman Davies, a bookstore clerk who wants to be a writer. The other is about Sherman’s friend, Ed, a cartoonist. They each get involved in a relationship–Sherman with a girl, Ed with his boss, an old cartoonist–that puts their loyalty to the test. Sherman’s girlfriend, Dorothy, is kind of crazy, while Ed’s boss, Irving Flavor, is cranky. Flavor created a superhero back in 1941 that made millions for his publisher, but he never saw a dime. Ed decides to help him remedy this. Plus, there’s cursing and nudity! That’s the one line way I’ve been describing the book: It’s like “Archie” but with cursing and nudity.’ [Related: Buy Box Office Poison at Amazon]
[crime] He’s been getting away with it all his life Ronnie Biggs — A Sunday Times Profile. ‘How did a small-time crook come to occupy such a prominent place in the criminal iconography? Partly it is because many people saw the robbery as a bit of a “caper”. Although Jack Mills, the train driver who was hit over the head with an iron bar, never fully recovered from his injuries and died of leukaemia seven years later, the heist was amateurish by today’s standards. No guns were carried, for example. Then there was the classic battle of wits between Biggs and Superintendent Jack Slipper of Scotland Yard, in which Slipper, now 77 but suffering from cancer, always failed at the last minute to get his man.’ [Related: Ronnie Biggs Official Site]
[comics] Ask Dave Sim: Relationship Expert ‘Mr. Sim, I find women to be completely illogical and beguiling, yet I also find myself irrationally attracted to them. Is this a problem, and is there a solution? William Spock, Vulcan ND’ [via John at Linkworthy]
5 May 2001
[century] 1974 – Nixon Resigns … ‘If Mr Nixon had been at his best last night, then he was at his worst this morning. Sometimes one wished that his agonized wife would take this wretched slobbering, spluttering man away by the arm and propel him into some windowless vehicle for transport to obscurity. But Pat Nixon, with Julie and Tricia and their grey-faced husbands beside them, allowed the man to proceed. It would have been worse, perhaps, if they had tried to stop him. “I remember my old man. They would have called him a common man… he was a street car motorman at first… my mother” – at this point he sobbed violently, his tears somehow eluding the gravitational pull and remaining shining in his eyes – “a saint. She will have no books written about her.”‘
[comics] Suck looks looks at why so many cartoonists are cranks (after Dave Sim’s Tangent). ‘Now, it’s not important whether you agree or disagree with Sim, just so you marvel at the sheer depth of his obsession. Jack Chick cuts the Pope more slack than Sim does women. Some might say it’s not women, but Feminist ideology — but what’s that got to do with Sim leaving his dick alone? And it could be said that this is taking things out of context, but since the only context here is Sim, not the window dressing that there’s a real issue here, what difference does it make? Like Chick, Sim wants his word out. The inside back cover of Cerebus 265 makes “Tangents” a public domain property, one you should feel to distribute, as long as you do it in its entirety, unedited. Like any cartoonist crank, Sim wants it all his way’ [Related: Discussion on Plastic about the Suck Article]
[nwo] Conspirators — Jon Ronson on Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing. ‘April 19 is holy day for anti-government activists and conspiracy theorists. On April 19, 1993, Federal agents ended the siege at Waco. David Koresh’s Branch Davidian church went up in flames. On April 19, 1775, 400 British government troops attempted to disarm the citizens of Lexington, Massachusetts. A hundred colonists shot back, the first shots of the American Revolution, the “shots heard around the world”. (When I visit American militias and patriots and neo-Nazis, they often ask me what I, a Brit, thinks of the Lexington uprising. I explain that I’m not au fait with the ins and outs. They are scandalised that our syllabus doesn’t teach this pivotal moment in British history.)’
4 May 2001
[distractions] You are… The Surrealist Link. ‘You are the most gutless cassock. Goodbye!’
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