[comics] suck.com talks about ‘the long fruitful death’ of comics…. ‘Why comic books? And why now? Fifty years since their brief flirtation with becoming a widely-read mass medium, seven years into a sales decline that changed comics’ status from a profitable but secondary magazine market to an absolutely marginal feeder industry for television and film, what is so seductive about the comic book that it continues to intrigue so many serious-minded adults and aesthetes?’ [via Barbelith Underground]

[comics] Warren Ellis releases PR for his latest comic:. ‘MINISTRY OF SPACE is an English science-fictional idyll: a fantasia on the notion of a British space programme that outraced the rest of the world, as found in such as Dan Dare. Now that Britannia rules the waves of space, a utopian green-field England plies ships to the Moon, to Venus, to Victoria Station in low Earth orbit. This is the Ministry that sent a colonisation flotilla to Mars in 1963. The Ministry that destroyed a city and ran an exploration program unseen in human history. A Golden Age – and what it cost.’

[crime] The Jigsaw Man — Interesting profile of the man who inspired Robbie Coltrane’s Cracker… ‘The hearing will concentrate on the role of Britton in the investigation into the killing of Rachel Nickell on Wimbledon Common in London. One allegation is that he offered support and advice to the police not backed by accepted scientific practice as they prepared a “honeytrap” for the prime suspect; he is also accused of having exaggerated claims about the effectiveness of his methods.’

[politics] Why I am Eating all the Pies by Chancellor Gordon Brown, MP. ‘I have eaten all the pies. Or rather, I have eaten as many pies as one man can safely eat. The other pies I am saving for later on, in my freezer. To the uneducated man, this may seem greedy. But I can assure you it is not. It is, in fact, essential to the well-being of Britain that I eat as many pies as possible.’ [via Interconnected]

[think really different] The LC Cube ‘Apple’s new G4 Cube inspired me to produce a similar machine, and this is the result – the LC Cube. It even has a vertically mounted floppy drive which spits out disks in the same toaster-like fashion as the G4 Cube. The LC Cube is built around an LC II logic board I salvaged from the rubbish heap of a Mac wrecker. It sports a 16MHz ‘030 CPU and has been maxed out to 10MB of RAM. The front panel has an illuminated electric oven-style On/Off switch and a hard disk activity LED’ [via the Master of Old School Apples]

[hst] Hunter S. Thompson on the US Elections… ‘There are rumors in Washington that Gore’s most trusted advisors have sealed him off so completely that he still firmly believes he Won. … Which is True, on some scorecards, but so what? Those cards don’t count. … George W. Bush is our President now, and you better start getting used to it. He didn’t actually steal the White House from Al Gore, he just brutally wrestled it away from him in the darkness of one swampy Florida night. He got mugged, and the local Cops don’t give a damn.’

[tv] Cheap night out? Book tickets for a TV show. Includes Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and The Richard Blackwood Show.

[morrison] Magic for Mutants — Grant Morrison’s column on his new website is well worth checking out… ‘Corporate entities are worth studying. They and other ghosts like them rule our world. So…figure out why the Coca-Cola spirit is stronger than the Doctor Pepper spirit (what great complex of ideas, longings and deficiencies has the Coke logo succeeded in condensing into two words, two colours, taking Orwell?s 1984 concept of Newspeak to its logical conclusion?) Watch their habits, track their movements over time, monitor their repeated behaviours and watch how they react to change and novelty. Learn how to imitate them, steal their successful strategies and use them as your own. Create your own brand, your own logo and see how quickly you can make it spread. Build your own god and set it loose.’

[plagiarism] Comparison of Glenn Brown’s The Loves of Shepherds 2000 and Tony Robert’s book cover Double Star.

[books] Books Unlimited has the first chapter of Naomi Klein’s No Logo available… ‘And so the wave of mergers in the corporate world over the last few years is a deceptive phenomenon: it only looks as if the giants, by joining forces, are getting bigger and bigger. The true key to understanding these shifts is to realize that in several crucial ways – not their profits, of course – these merged companies are actually shrinking. Their apparent bigness is simply the most effective route toward their real goal: divestment of the world of things.’

[savile?] Bella wonders if it’s Savile or Saville… and so do I. The answer from Google: “Jimmy Savile” – 390 Vs. “Jimmy Saville” – 1180.

[celebs] A list of the Top 50 Celebrities of the 20th Century. Unsurprisingly Keith Chegwin is number one… ‘Hyperactive television presenter, whose finest moment was undoubtedly “Cheggers Plays Pop”, the seminal 1980s quiz show aimed at children. Cheggers would question several obnoxious kids, who were split into teams – a typical question would be “Which member of Spandau Ballet hibernates during the winter?” to which the correct answer is, of course, vocalist Tony Handley.’

[weblogs] Tom starts his redesign of Barbelith… ‘Over the next couple of weeks, you can expect several weblog-style columns provided by regular contributors to the Barbelith Underground concentrating on interfering in things that don’t concern us, spouting ludicrous ideas that no one believes in and working for the transformation of the world into a place where there is passion, magic, energy and change.’

[comics] Eddie Campbell has published the first chapter of From Hell online. ‘Now, meself, I come from a working family. We vote Tory, always have done. The working class don’t WANT a revolution Mr. Lees: they just want more money.’ [via Lukelog]

[mobiles] Great article about how awful mobile phones are… ‘What is it about these things that makes us so obedient, and so oblivious to that which lies outside them – such as actual people? I once asked a man who was bellowing into a cell phone in the coffee shop in San Francisco why he was talking so loudly. A bad connection, he said. It had not crossed his mind that anything else mattered at that moment. Like computers and television, cell phones pull people into their own psychological polar field, and the pull is strong.’ [via Guardian Weblog]

[comics] Warren Ellis writes about his adventures at Garth Ennis’ Stag Weekend… ‘As indicated by other people in previous editions of this column: comics are a first love affair, the one that sinks its teeth into you and won’t let go, because of its freedoms and its glories. The sex is great, but everything else is shit. And I’m reminded of a quote from Neil Gaiman: “I stopped doing comics because I wanted it to continue being fun, I wanted to continue to love and care for comics, and I wanted to leave while I was still in love.”‘

[weblogs] Metafilter blogs the satellite image of Selhurst Park… and someone points out that the image of the football field is probably Jakob Nielsen… ‘But does Jesus support Crystal Palace or Wimbledon?’ — Holgate.

[king] Guardian Unlimited profiles Jonathan King. From the Guardian: ‘King classes veteran TV presenter Jimmy Savile [sic] as one of his closest friends – they have known each other for 25 years. Savile [sic] once said of him: “He’s a sabra. A sabra is an Israeli fruit that’s prickly on the outside and all soft and lovely inside. That’s Jonathan King.”‘ [“Savile” should be spelled “Saville”. Interesting spelling mistake from the Guardian.]

[comics] Amazon.co.uk picks their ten best comics… It’s no surprise that Watchmen is Number 1: ‘Imagine a future where Nixon is still President, America won the Vietnam War, and the nuclear clock stands at five minutes to midnight.’

[movies] Apple have got a quicktime trailer for Requiem for a Dream up…

[picture] Satellite image of Selhurst Park football ground reveals image of Christ!

[the great unknown] Deathbed book a first for China: ‘In this passage, Mr Lu recalls an idyllic trip with friends 20 years ago to the lower Yangtze valley, a peaceful swath of countryside at the time, where heavy rain kept them stuck for several days. A local girl looked after them, listening quietly as they talked about poetry and the world and drank local wine with dried beancurd. Mr Lu was captivated by her innocence and purity, but was too shy to go any further. Now he muses on what might have happened if he had stayed and married her. “What would I be now? Maybe a teacher in the town’s primary school?” He wonders too whether he would have contracted the cancer. “Is life like a chess competition, where with one wrong move we change the result completely?”‘

[history?] UK Blogs discuss the ten year aniversary of Thatcher’s resignation… NotSoSoft, Blue Ruin and Wherever You Are. ‘I was really too young to have experienced exactly what the Thatcher years were like for myself, though, so to me she seems like some mythical beast. With her teeth drawn, I hope.’ — Blue Ruin. [Some other links: yet another great Steve Bell cartoon on Thatcher and Blair — The End of the Affair, and a once famous Thatcher impressionist — Steve Nallon’s website.]

[history] Guardian Unlimited interviews Lady Mosley wife Oswald Mosley, the leader of British Fascists during World War II. ‘On October 6 1936 Diana and Mosley were secretly married in Joseph Goebbels’s drawing room. Hitler came to the wedding and gave her a photograph of himself in an eagle-topped silver frame. I asked her where it is now. “I put it in a parcel in a bank when the war began because I thought it might hurt people’s feelings.’

[picture] God’s eye view — my house (as seen from space). [via Glamvan]

[stories] Interesting list — the top 100 Works of journalism in the US over the last 100 years.

[thatch] Guardian Unlimited asks: Where were you when Thatcher resigned? Ken Loach: ‘I was in a car going back to a flat we’ve got in Chiswick. I remember it must have been how people felt at the end of the war – street parties and people singing songs to a piano in the street. I knew the malign influence would carry on, but there was a wonderful feeling of caps in the air.’ [Tedious Autobio: Where was I? 1990. I was… twenty, living in Portsmouth, and a student. It was about 9.30ish in the morning and I was having a long relaxing shower. One of my flatmates banged on the shower door and shouted: “Hey Dazza! Thatcher’s resigned!” I started to shuffle a happy dance (it was a small shower) and sing Morning Has Broken at the top of my voice.]

[sooty sex] The Nutlog provides a link to another of the staples of my childhood being defiled: The Karma-Sooty. Sooty does… Bestiality! Tantric! Bagism?! 69!

[quote] ‘Zola called it documentation, and his documenting expeditions to the slums, the coal mines, the races, the folies, department stores, wholesale food markets, newspaper offices, barnyards, railroad yards, and engine decks, notebook and pen in hand, became legendary. At this weak, pale, tabescent moment in the history of American literature we need a battalion, a brigade of Zolas to head out into this wild, bizarre, unpredictable, Hog-stomping Baroque country of ours and reclaim it as literary property.’ — Tom Wolfe, “Stalking the Billion-Footed Beast,” November 1989, Harper’s.

[comics] Media Nugget of the Day covers Watchmen. ‘In this bleak vision of America, the influence of costumed crime-fighters has kept Nixon in office, whipped Vietnam into shape easily, and brought the world to the brink of Armageddon. Writer Alan Moore began this novel as a reworking of the Charlton Comics heroes of his childhood, transformed it into an operatic dark-comedy of super-hero archetypes, and ended up with a chilling commentary on cold-war America.’ [Related Links: Alan Moore Fan Site]