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London Bloggers [Comic Blogs][Other Blogs] | 27 June 2000
[comics] Great two part interview of Grant Morrison in Sequential Tart: [Part One] [Part Two] ‘It lets your head expand and it also throws you on your mettle. I always travel on my own and you find yourself in the middle of Bangkok and you think ‘what do I do?’ and that’s a great feeling to have – you solve it and you go about the world feeling fantastic because no-one knows who you are and no ones putting any personality on you – you can swam into any place and say ‘I’m James Bond!” (laughs)’ — GM on travel.
26 June 2000
[comics] The New York Times on the problems facing the comics industry. ‘Even the staunchest supporters of comic books say that the industry is facing problems in everything from production to distribution to marketing. There are no hard and fast figures for the industry. Publishers and distributors are secretive about sales. In fact, the only figure that insiders agree upon is the number of comic-book stores. Today, there are fewer than 4,000, down from more than 10,000 during the comic boom in the mid-90’s. “I think people like comics as much as ever, but now it’s very difficult to buy them,” said Stan Lee, creator of Spider-Man and an icon in the industry. “There used to be so many places to buy comic books; there used to be a corner store in every city.”‘
[comics] According to Ain’t it Cool News Frank Miller may be teaming up with Darren Aronofosky for the next Batman film. [via Ghost in the Machine]
[minogue] Minogue goes straight to Number 1…. demonstrates the power of PR, magazine covers and lucky, deformed, tiny ears!
[spam] Spamcop… for when your Inbox is full of weird porn sites, crap share deals and bad philosophy.
25 June 2000
[reading] Buy this comic: From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell. Here’s a review from Salon. ‘As ambitious and affecting as anything ever rendered in pictures and word balloons, “From Hell” combines an intricate mystery, insightful social criticism and unflinching brutality capable of unnerving the most desensitized pop audience. It’s publication as a book promises to give it a new lease on life. That’s what happened with Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer-Prize winning “Maus,” which was originally published in installments in the arty comic “Raw.” “From Hell” is the only graphic novel since “Maus” to rival its ambition and historical depth.’
[web] Danny O’Brien on time wasting and log watching. ‘I look at the parts of my logs that show users who stumble on my site while searching for pornography (it’s amazing what searching for “hot”, “water”, “Japanese” and a couple of other terms can point you towards); and I don’t have the ability to track down their e-mail addresses, but I do wonder whether they know they have a constant audience for their movements online.’
[midi] Today’s theme is Dueling Banjo’s [from Deliverance]
24 June 2000
[allergies] newsUnlimited on Nut Allergies — one in 200 children in Britain are allergic to nuts and the number is growing. Nobody knows why… ‘Even if he eats the most minuscule amount, even if he simply inhales the papery dust that puffs out of tens of thousands of packets of peanuts in pubs up and down the country every day, he may become dangerously ill. First, his lips swell like party balloons, then a rash of knobbly hives flush up over his body; his skin goes blotchy, then he might start wheezing and coughing. His tongue might start swelling, his tubes may become constricted – he may start to suffocate and his blood pressure might plummet. He may collapse, lose consciousness and die.’
[comics] Warren Ellis talks about the best comics you don’t read. ‘Harvey Pekar is as fucked a human as you’ll find, put bluntly. And he’s honest about it.’
23 June 2000
[comics] The Washington Post on Marvel’s new range of comics aimed at kids. ‘Ralph Mathieu first got hooked on the Flash when he was 13 and has read comics the 25 years since. Now the owner of Alternate Reality Comics in Las Vegas, he believes that no matter how good comics are, convincing large numbers of kids and teens is an uphill battle. “Sadly, the number of kids who’ll pick reading for entertainment over video games, renting movies, the countless channels television offers, or the Internet, is a very small fraction,” he says. “I also think that today, more then ever, kids and teens regard superhero comics as geeky.’
[link dump] Some tech links: MacOS X Weblog, and two applications I use everyday at work — vnc and Security Explorer.
22 June 2000
[film] Media Nugget of the Day covers Dogma. ‘It’s Mall Rats meets Life of Brian meets Up in Smoke, but it’s definitely not for devout Catholics or anyone who likes their humor measured, mature, or sanitized.’
[web] newsUnlimited reports on the-bullet.com’s recent problems. “What advice would they give to other dot.coms? Billam says: ‘The main thing is don’t expect too much from other people and expect everything to take twice as long as you planned. Keep a close eye on what everyone is doing, and if you do trustpeople to do things for you, make sure you have got goals, and assess their progress. Also don’t be afraid to question the experts.'”
[unabomber] Nice article on the Unabomber at Harvard — where he was psychologically tested (to destruction?). “When, soon after, Kaczynski began to worry about the possibility of mind control, he was not giving vent to paranoid delusions. In view of Murray’s experiment, he was not only rational but right. The university and the psychiatric establishment had been willing accomplices in an experiment that had treated human beings as guinea pigs, and had treated them brutally. Here is a powerful logical foundation for Kaczynski’s latterly expressed conviction that academics, in particular scientists, were thoroughly compromised servants of “the system”, employed in the development of techniques for the behavioral control of populations.”
21 June 2000
[minogue] The Editor of GQ on Kylie’s bottom. “Kylie, I think, has come out of this rather well, at least as well as GQ. People are talking about her again, stills from her raunchy new video are being used liberally in the tabloids, and Radio 1 have even A-listed her single. So in a way we have been responsible for helping resuscitate the diminutive antipodean’s career. Which is nice.” Three Words: TINY DEFORMED EARS!
[old games] I spent a lot of time playing these gentlemens computer games when I was younger: Jeff Minter and Matthew Smith. Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy were probably my favourite computer games as a child — they are now available for download in PC versions.
[violence] Jeremy Paxman on football violence in This is London. “Perhaps he is as blameless as many of those arrested have claimed. But what seems to have shocked the British authorities is that so many of those accused by the Belgians do not fit the stereotype. “Some of those who have been sent back,” the Home Secretary gulped in a radio interview, “are barristers and engineers.” The shock with which Mr Straw – himself a barrister, as, of course, is our Prime Minister – had received this intelligence was audible in his voice.”
20 June 2000
[male struggle!] newsUnlimited reports that a clenched fist is the new image of Old Spice. “Vegas has replaced it with a clenched fist as a mark of resistance against post-feminist man’s weakness for effete eau de Cologne and skin balm. “The fist is also a symbol of men’s struggle to be taken seriously by women,” he said. “I prefer to think of it not as a stopper but as five fingers of angst and frustrated male desire.”
[comics] The Guardian’s Steve Bell on the deaths in Dover. [Earlier BBC News Story]
[film] Deconstructing Harry — Film Threat on Harry Knowles of Ain’t It Cool News. “GRAFT. One tends to question Harry’s credibility due to the volume of gifts and gratuities he receives from both studios and filmmakers. Not only does he admit it, he begs for it! The only words in a story title that will turn me off faster than “Harry’s Adventure In…” would be “WAAAH! ME WANT PWESANTS!!!” Damn, son. Show some dignity.” [via Ghost in the Machine]
19 June 2000
[crime] newsUnlimited on Identity Theft. “You, meanwhile, know nothing of this until – several months later – debt collection agencies begin to harass you. Life becomes Kafkaesque. You inform the police – but they can’t see that you are the victim of any crime. The law holds you liable only for the first $50 on the phoney credit cards and nothing on the other bills. The cops can’t get involved with working out who is the real you. There are drug dealers and paedophiles out there. Take it to Mr Visa and Mr AT&T, they say.”
[weblogging] I Hate Music on Vindaloo by Fat Les. “I could use ‘Vindaloo’ as a springboard for any number of justified rants, but instead I’ll simply say this: FAT LES ARE A SMUG BUNCH OF MEDIA WHORES WHO SHOULD HAVE STAYED IN THE GROUCHO CLUB KISSING JONATHAN ROSS ON HIS HAIRY ARSE. And I’ll leave it at that.”
18 June 2000
[weblogs] Short Term Memory Loss — blogging from India. “Is this the first blog from the Himalayas? Vashisht is the name of this village, and it is all the superlatives you have ever heard about India. Particularly the smelly, dirty hippy ones. But also sun, sights and smells.”
[music] The Observer takes a look at Eminem. “‘Listening to him is like watching somebody lose their head on Jerry Springer,’ says Harry Allen, self-proclaimed hip-hop activist and one-time member of Public Enemy. In recent years, Allen has testified on behalf of artists such as 2 Live Crew and Tupac Shakur in front of Senate Hearings on rap music. ‘Yes, he is coarse and violent. But he’s also indicative of white American suburban teenagers.'”
[tv] newsUnlimited reports that the Germans are to to remake Fawlty Towers. ‘Basil: “So that’s two eggs mayonnaise, a prawn Goebbels, a Hermann Goering and four Colditz salads … no, wait a moment, I got a bit confused there, sorry … I got a bit confused because everyone keeps mentioning the war, so could you…” German: “Will you stop talking about the war!” Basil: “Me? You started it!” German: “We did not start it.” Basil: “Yes you did, you invaded Poland…”‘
17 June 2000
[uk/us] American Xenophobes’ Guide to the British Great Britain is a very old country with many treasures, such as the Millennium Dome and the Diana Museum and the Millennium Dome. Among its contributions to Western civilisation are Mrs Thatcher, mad cow disease and beer. [via Nutlog]
[books] Media Nugget of the Day covers Enders Game.
[film / comics] CHRISTOPHER “FUCKING” LEE!! I’m not that interested in Star Wars but that is a nice reference to one of my favourite comics strips so I’m compelled to link to it…
16 June 2000
[weblogging in the UK!] Daily Doozer has more details on the PCFormat article.
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