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London Bloggers [Comic Blogs][Other Blogs] | 24 April 2001
[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.]
23 April 2001
[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.]
22 April 2001
[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]
21 April 2001
[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.’
20 April 2001
[books] Out of the Dark — The Guardian interviews James Ellroy. ‘Confusing the writer with his work is a dangerous game, of course, and Ellroy expresses surprise that he is often portrayed as a tough guy when, in truth, he had no stomach for serious crime or violence even as he lived a disordered and profligate life. “I was pathetic, physically weak, drug and booze debilitated, a buffoon, and scared of my own shadow. But you know what? My shadow was something to be scared of. I saw the enemy and it was me.” ‘ [Related: My Dark Places — probably my favourite book.]
19 April 2001
[music] Carly Simon gets asked this question a lot…. Who is You’re So Vain about? ‘It always strikes me as funny. That people would be THAT into what I was thinking about, that’s the greatest ego trip anybody could have….that they would be THAT interested in what you were thinking about when you wrote a song. And for that very reason, of course, I can never give it away.’ [Related: Lyrics to You’re So Vain]
[distractions] Internet Killed the Video Star. [via Yungee]
[comics] Matt Wagner has a new “official website”.
[tv] The Independent profiles Dom Joly… ‘he has decided to abandon his trademark giant mobile phone and hunker down to other projects that involve less public humiliation.”I don’t want to become the nation’s prankster,” he reflects. “Because they tend to be arses, really.” And also, maybe, because the prankster’s moment of hubris cannot be deferred indefinitely. “I had this terrible thought yesterday when I was taking my baby daughter for a walk in her stroller. I did a joke in the first series where a baby gets pulled into the air by a balloon. And I just thought, what if someone runs over the stroller in a car, and leers out the window and shouts ‘Aha! You don’t fool me!’ It would be dreadful. And I’d deserve it.”‘
18 April 2001
[confession time meme] Tom: ‘Come to think of it, teenage fetishes have a lot to answer for.’ Okay, time to be honest — for me it was…. urm… Carly Simon and Catwoman… and later I had ‘feelings’ for… Servalan from Blake Seven. But Carly was my first pointless crush of many… :)
[politics] Proof that the Tory Party is indeed The Dogs Bollocks… [thanks to Meg — blogging via proxy!]
[distractions] Another site I’ve been meaning to blog for ages — Notes & Queries. Important profound examples: What is the point of pubic hair? Why do Magpies collect shiny objects? How can I become a charismatic, likeable, well-connected and wealthy person with the least amount of effort? What is the most effective way to start an urban myth? [reminded by Tom]
[comics] After Tangent there can only be…. Dave Sim’s Guide To Getting Chicks! ‘I’ve found that, with a little practice, it’s easy to go without sex entirely. Now that you’ve tamed that female, let her go. She’s under the mental size limit. It’s catch and release at the ol’ Sim fishin’ hole. I’m perfectly happy doing my puzzle books and lots and lots of push-ups. In fact, I’ve found that by going celibate and not masturbating, the sexual urge is like a rash that goes away on its own. A dirty, sinful, bad rash. It’s ugly. I hate it! I scrub and scrub but the filth just won’t. come. OFF.’
17 April 2001
[blogs] Dan has some interesting comments on the Barbelith / UKBloggers cross-over — I’ve noticed a number of UKBloggers have joined the Underground and there are plenty of Barbelith bloggers… (if you’re reading this post late look at Dan’s blog for 15/4/01). ‘Still, as microcultures both are absolutely fascinating. I for one am looking forward to the increasingly inevitable joint meeting, given Tom’s deitic status within both and the increasing cross-pollination from one to the other.’
[comics] Interesting interview with Kyle Baker at Silver Bullet Comics… ‘Television is designed for one thing: To sell advertising time. Television by necessity celebrates and incubates materialism. The goal of a television writer is to put an audience in a frame of mind favorable to buying the advertiser’s product. As writers, we are clearly instructed to avoid writing anything which may offend anyone. Phrases or situations that may seem tame or realistic to us are routinely cut from scripts because conservatives in the Midwest may be disturbed, and therefore may not buy detergent from the sponsor.’ [via Pete@Bugpowder]
16 April 2001
[tank man] The Unknown Rebel — Time profiles China’s Tank Man… ‘Almost nobody knew his name. Nobody outside his immediate neighborhood had read his words or heard him speak. Nobody knows what happened to him even one hour after his moment in the world’s living rooms. But the man who stood before a column of tanks near Tiananmen Square–June 5, 1989–may have impressed his image on the global memory more vividly, more intimately than even Sun Yat-sen did. Almost certainly he was seen in his moment of self-transcendence by more people than ever laid eyes on Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein and James Joyce combined.’
[blogs] Two unrelated links: Trellix and Blogger do a deal …. not.so.soft is thinking.
15 April 2001
[comics] McCloud Cuckoo-Land — Gary Groth looks at Scott McCloud’s Reinventing Comics. ‘What is most deficient about the 113-page section devoted to comics and the Internet is the level of critical intelligence on display, which is embarrassingly superficial: McCloud embraces all Internet and digital technology without reservation. The bibliography doesn’t allow for any books remotely questioning of the new world order. Every book about computers or the Internet (and there aren’t many, at that) is basically by a well-known cheerleader for the industry; no dissidents are allowed in the McCloudian world view. In McCloud’s jolly and affirmative presentation, the Internet is an instrument of comics’ (not to say the world’s) salvation and skeptics are dismissed as “cynics,” to whom McCloud may as well hang a “Do Not Enter” sign on the cover of the book.’
[nasty profiles] One of the pleasures of reading newspapers is seeing bitter journalists take pot-shots at celebrities in the form of a so-called profile …. here is one of Heather Mills from the Sunday Times. On Paul McCartney: ‘Even before the two were itemised, she was confiding in the tabloids about her new friend. In a neat reversal of Mrs Merton’s famous question to Debbie McGee (“So what attracted you to millionaire Paul Daniels?”), Mills declared: “Paul is such a caring, thoughtful and compassionate man. I suppose that must be the reason he was drawn to me”.’ [Related Links: About Heather Mills]
14 April 2001
[tv] Slightly revealing profile of Chris Evans… ‘Not all women were impressed by the Evans persona. The commentator Emma Forrest wrote in The Independent: “He is, when you come down to it, a classic insecure ugly man, which is why so much of his air time is taken up telling us which models and which blonde assistants he has shagged. The worst segments on TFI are ‘Ugly Bloke’ and ‘Fat Lookalikes’. That he feels he is in enough of a position of power to sit behind his desk, looking how he does, and get ‘ugly’ people to humiliate themselves in front of millions, is astounding.”‘
13 April 2001
[comics] Great gallery of literary figures from various comic artists. Some favourites… H.P. Lovecraft by Chris Bachalo, Terry Southern by Bob Fingerman, Yossarian by Keith Giffen, and Stephen King by Ken Meyer Jr.
12 April 2001
[wtf?] Only on the Internet… ‘I’m not a Nazi’ Swastika Gallery. ‘The Swastikas in this gallery are related to Buddhists, ancient Greeks, Native Americans, Boy Scouts, street gangs, Nazis, homosexuals, and more… what a great variety of people to invite to a party! So why include Nazi Swastikas? As insane and dangerous as the Nazis were, you gotta admit they looked cool! They lost the war, but they won the fashion show. What other army’s officers wore full length black leather trench coats, high black boots and riding crops?’ [via Hate Male]
[comics] Dave Sim’s final word on gender issues…. Tangent. Discussion about Sim and Tangent is going on here. ‘I think he’s out of his mind, but it’s kind of fascinating. I think Dave should ditch the aardvark and do Chick-style comics, like the Crusaders. He could draw himself and Gerhard as agents for the top-secret Government team, T.A.N.G.E.N.T, trying to cripple the feminist/homosexualist axis before it takes control of society, by rallying all the Men in the world who want to defend their right to smack the ol’ lady around a little if she stops bringing those beers every 15 minutes during the NASCAR marathon. Ger could be depicted as a black “street-dude”, lending cred at Dave’s side and helping him sacrifice all the homos, dog-fuckers, and ugly virgins that come their way. And all this before breakfast!’ — Eric Reynolds on Sim.
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