linkmachinego.com

20 April 2010
[funny] Tucker’s Law … be warned: extreme swearing. NSFW. ‘…I’ve got that embroidered on a tea towel at home.’
21 April 2010
[comics] What are you, dense? Are you retarded or something? Who the hell do you think I am? I’M THE GODDAMN CATMAN!

Catman

[comics] Watching the Watchman – St Albans comics legend Dave Gibbons interviewed‘I bumped into a friend of mine called Mick McMahon, who lived in Colney Heath, at the station at St Albans and he had this artwork under his arm. It turned out to be the first Judge Dredd job, and he said it was this new comic being done at IPC called 2000AD…’
22 April 2010
[comics] The Unpublished Moore … a comprehensive list of the the Alan Moore’s whims, unfinished scripts and lost work … ‘Cerebus #301 Status: Unpublished. I believe a full script exists for this one (which involved Cerebus being summoned during a seance in the modern day), but it was intended to be a Moore/Bisette/Veitch project, and is unlikely to appear now due to ill-will among the creators.’
23 April 2010
[politics] Fuck Yeah Nick Clegg‘Haters Gonna Hate.’
24 April 2010
[comics] Chris Ware’s Rejected Fortune Cover‘He accepted the job because it would be like doing the 1929 issue of the magazine, and he filled the image with tons of satirical imagery, like the U.S. Treasuring being raided by Wall Street, China dumping money into the ocean, homes being flooded, homes being foreclosed, and CEOs dancing a jig while society devolves into chaos.’
25 April 2010
[funny] Gangsters Love Pooh … also Tigger, Piglet and Eeyore – epic background fail.
26 April 2010
[comics] Top Trending Twitter Topics of the Marvel Universe … #itsclobberintime #youwouldntlikemewhenimangry #accursedrichards
[movies] My Lifelong Pursuit of the Perfect Blade Runner Gun … one man’s obessional pursuit of a perfect replica of Rick Deckard’s gun … ‘In 2006, the screen-used original surfaced after 25 some-odd years and sold at auction last year for $256,000.’
27 April 2010
[politics] David Cameron’s Common People … (some NSFW language) …


28 April 2010
[tabloids] Page 3 Girls Fears Hung Parliament, Proportional Respresentation‘Becky is concerned by the prospect of electoral reform in a hung parliament.’
[life] On Black Elephants‘A “black elephant” […] is an event which is extremely likely and widely predicted by experts, but people attempt to pass it off as a black swan when it finally happens.’
29 April 2010
[internet] Getting depressed with this whole Social Media thing‘Where is the social technology, the social news, the social web? Instead we get networks flooded by marketers looking for ways to manipulate us all under the guise of having conversations. Instead we get flooded with follow and friend requests where 4 out of 5 are spammers or marketers. Instead we get a Web that is being treated like a business acquisition where we are nothing more than shares to be bought and sold.’
[funny] ClericPrecocious Parallel ParkerOh Hi, I came from Internet
30 April 2010
[comics] Dick Sprang’s ‘Secrets of the Batcave’ Art Is An Encyclopedia of Bat-History … an analysis of a wonderful Dick Sprang drawing of the Batcave.
3 May 2010
[tv] Performing Don Draper … On the conundrum that is Don Draper‘He cheats on his wife relentlessly, is a workaholic and an absentee father to his children, lies about who he is, abandons his former family (and, arguably, causes his brother to hang himself), is a borderline alcoholic, and is in general awfully prudish, judgmental, and bigoted for a sexually licentious fraud of a man. If this was your OKCupid profile, you would not be attracting Don’s caliber of women. (Or would you?) But we find ways to forgive or excuse him.’
4 May 2010
[politics] Voter Power‘In the UK, the only voters with any real power to choose the government are those who live in marginal constituencies. Less than 20% of constituencies can be considered marginal.The rest of us have little or no power to influence the outcome of the election. Find out the power of your vote in this election.’
5 May 2010
[dailyfail] Labour MP tells constituent: ‘Life can only get better – if you stop reading the Daily Mail’

I remember once I had a woman come in who was really on the edge of a breakdown. She was talking about civil war and chaos, immigrants coming up the lanes of Sunderland with knives between their teeth to murder her. She was really in a terrible state. “I just said to her ‘What paper do you read, love?’ and, of course, it was the Daily Mail. I just said ‘stop reading it and you’ll find life gets better.’ That’s the only advice I could offer.

6 May 2010
[funny] Always Remember: He’s just a rich boy from a rich family…

David Cameron - He's Just A Rich Boy...

[politics] My Moment Is Yours, Ed Balls … Michael Portillo on tonight’s potential “Balls Moment” … ‘My name is now synonymous with eating a bucketload of shit in public.’
7 May 2010
[apple] The Mozzarella Cheese Head of Steve Jobs … file this under things John Gruber will probably never blog … ‘Love mozzarella cheese? Love Steve Jobs? Then you’ll love this.’ [thanks Andy]
[politics] Steve Bell on the Results of the General Election‘Oh Shit!!!’
8 May 2010
[relax] Rainy Mood … a single-serving website that plays the relaxing ambient(ish) sounds of a rain storm.
10 May 2010
Apparently Facebook Considers Your Current IP Address To Be “Public Information” As Well … more privacy issues with Facebook …

See that header in your Facebook notification email that looks like this?

X-Facebook: from zuckmail ([NzYuMTY5LjIzLjU2])

That’s your friend’s IP address…

[funny] Supreme Court Upholds Freedom Of Speech In Obscenity-Filled Ruling‘In short, freedom of speech means the freedom of fucking speech, you ignorant cocksuckers.’
11 May 2010
[funny] Go Look: I’m Pretty Sure I Invented A Time Machine…
[politics] Adam Boulton loses his rag as Nick Clegg coos at Labour … Marina Hyde’s summary of yesterday events is well worth a read … ‘Loosely speaking, then – in fact, speaking with a looseness likely to be matched only by David Cameron’s bowel movements – that is where we are now. It should go without saying that in the time it takes to press the send key we shall be somewhere else entirely. Indeed, given that the cliche of the hour is that “we are in uncharted territory”, the cartographers should surely name these coordinates the Straits of WTF and be done with it.’
[politics] Have The Tories Formed A Government Yet?‘Just about’
12 May 2010
[life] We Stopped Checking For Monsters…

We Stopped Checking For Monsters...

13 May 2010
[comics] Christ, It Works for Everything‘It was recently theorized that all New Yorker cartoons could be captioned with “Christ, what an asshole” without compromising their comedic value. I discovered this is true of virtually all comics, old and new…’
[html] The Origins of the <Blink> Tag … the creation story behind the most annoying HTML tag … ‘I remember thinking that this would be a pretty harmless easter egg, that no one would really use it, but I was very wrong. When we released Netscape Navigator 1.0 we did not document the blink functionality in any way, and for a while all was quiet. Then somewhere, somehow the arcane knowledge of blinking leaked into the real world and suddenly everything was blinking. “Look here”, “buy this”, “check this out”, all blinking. Large advertisements blinking in all their glory. It was a lot like Las Vegas, except it was on my screen, with no way of turning it off.’
14 May 2010
[fun] Numbers Station Bingo … Have you been activated? Find out with bingo and Numbers Stations.
17 May 2010
[history] Scott and Scurvy … a long wonderfully written look at the history behind the treatment of scurvy and how the was cure was misunderstood and forgotten at the start of the 20th Century … ‘They had a theory of the disease that made sense, fit the evidence, but was utterly wrong.’
[politics] The Coalition Government Commemorative Tankard

The Coalition Government Commemorative Tankard

MIDDLE ENGLAND REJOICE!

18 May 2010
[fun] Worth A Look: Batman’s Forgotten His SafewordSpoiler AlertMarge Simpson is Europe in disguise
20 May 2010
[comics] The Facts In The Case Of Dr. Andrew Wakefield … a powerful and concise comic on the MMR Vaccine Controversy from Daryl Cunningham.
21 May 2010
[people] What Was Winston Churchill’s Tattoo? … Churchill Had A Tattoo? Who Knew??
[tv] Eye of the storm: Adam Curtis, the BBC’s in-house provocateur … long engrossing profile / interview of Adam Curtis

‘It can be hard to identify the cinematic progenitors of the Curtis aesthetic because his films sometimes seem like outward manifestations of the world wide web. His projects reorganise and remix previously existing material with new interviews and fieldwork into a new kind of narrative, one that seems analogous to a web browser with 20 tabs open at once. They debunk the utopian ideologies of earlier eras while offering grand, unifying narratives to make sense of our current hyperlinked universe, and succeed to the extent that viewers can keep several complicated arguments in their heads at once. After one emerges from the hypnotic sway of a Curtis film, it can take several days of reflection and research to assess the validity of his arguments.’

23 May 2010
[comics] Abstraction … totally not safe for work WTF weird manga – but worth a look.
24 May 2010
[people] The Reporter Who Time Forgot … Remembering Cornelius Ryan the author of The Longest Day and A Bridge To Far

He had sold, he believed, between 25 and 35 million copies of The Longest Day and 400,000 hardcover copies of The Last Battle in the United States alone. Yet each book had cost him some $150,000 to research. “I have no less than 7,000 books on every aspect of World War II. My files contain some 16,000 different interviews with Germans, British, French, etc,” he wrote. “Then there is the chronology of each battle, 5×7 cards, detailing each movement by hour for the particular work I’m engaged in. You may think this is all a kind of madness, an obsession. I suppose it is.”

25 May 2010
[funny] What have we today? … great collection of green ink letters written to newspapers in the early nineties … ‘My eight-year-old boy is a strange lad. He’s bothered about the planet and interested in butterflies and insects as well as other animals. He never watches football. Do you think he’s going to be gay? (Daily Star)’
26 May 2010
[press] News in Briefs … the wit and wisdom of Page 3 girls …

HOLLIE says there is no need to panic over the Chancellor’s spending cuts. She said: “£6.2billion sounds like a colossal figure. But if you imagine public spending as a giant pizza, we’re talking about barely a few anchovies. And I can’t stand the salty little beggars anyway.”

27 May 2010
[comics] Fuck Yeah Daniel Clowes! … a tumblr on the genius that is Dan Clowes

Panel from Ghost World

28 May 2010
[comics] Cartoonist Daniel Clowes celebrates Oakland with “Wilson” … an interview promoting his latest comic book‘Clowes, an illustrator for the “New Yorker,” is traditional in other ways, too. At a time when print is down and young cartoonists are turning to the Web, Clowes still draws everything by hand — “I’ll never type in a url to look at comics,” he says…’
[comics] Chris's Invincible Super-Blog on Batman and Superman: ‘Morrison’s Superman isn’t defined by his powers, he’s defined by his morality; the defining scene of All Star Superman isn’t Superman fighting Solaris or even Lex Luthor, it’s him stopping the girl from committing suicide. It’s that he cares. And in the same way, Morrison’s Batman is defined by one trait: He is, quite simply, the World’s Greatest Detective. No one, not even a god, can out-think him.’
[tech] Predicting the Present, First Five Years of Wired … interesting selection of quotes from the first five years of Wired …‘In a world where information plus technology equals power, those who control the editing rooms run the show.’ — Hugh Gallagher
29 May 2010
[comics] Favourite Tweets #1: Warren Ellis‘COME AND SIT IN AVANT-THARG’S SPACE LAP NOW, BOOB EARTHLETS’ (more…)
31 May 2010
[movies] Paul Verhoeven: ‘Robocop was a Jesus metaphor’‘The point of Robocop, of course, it is a Christ story. It is about a guy who gets crucified in the first 50 minutes, and then is resurrected in the next 50 minutes, and then is like the supercop of the world, but is also a Jesus figure as he walks over water at the end.’
1 June 2010
[comics] I have read the worst comic I have ever read … Brian Hibbs On Justice League: The Rise Of Arsenal #3‘Page 9: Since he can’t fuck, he decides to go beat up guys. “I need a release.” and “For me, they serve their purpose” he thinks, as he sticks knives in faceless people’s arms. Page 10: full-page splash of Roy standing over a bunch of unconscious guys. “Much better” says the caption as Roy makes an O-face.
3 June 2010
[comics] Everything You Always Wanted to Know About the Marvel Universe* (*But Were Afraid to Ask Stan Lee) … funny beginners guide to the world of Marvel comics … ‘Facts on Kingpin: Kingpin is a crook.’
[comics] Favourite Tweets #2: TimeLostBatmanI’M VERY UNCOMFORTABLE WITH THE FACT THAT YOU PUT PICTURES OF ME ON YOUR CHILDREN’S UNDERWEAR.’ (more…)
4 June 2010
[comics] Go Look: Jus’ Checkin’ by Luke Pearson

Jus' Checkin'

5 June 2010
[comics] The Periodic Table Of Super-Powers … a powerful new way of listing super-hero powers, abilities and origins … ‘With this table, you can easily represent your favorite super-heroes’ power-sets in simple, not-at-all-far-too-complex-to-be-useful formulas! For instance: Superman comes out as: OAFSISpVxVhSn.’
6 June 2010
[books] What books are in the “MeFi Canon”? … interesting post on what books are mentioned regularly on the Metafilter blogs … ‘Twilight gets mentioned a lot. I’ll see myself out.’
7 June 2010
[funny] A list of Great Wisdom: WAYS TO BE COOL‘Helmets’

Ways To Be Cool

8 June 2010
[tv] Big Brother changed my life, but the time is right for it to bow out … Anna Nolan On The End Of Big Brother … ‘As I was sitting on that couch 10 years ago, all cameras on Craig and me, waiting for the show’s presenter, Davina McCall, to call out the winner’s name, two thoughts went through my head. The first was: “I could kill for a pint of lager”; the second: “How do they choose the winner?” I had not seen how we came across, I didn’t know yet that the production of this massive show brought narratives, drama, love stories and war into what had seemed an uneventful 10 weeks. Big Brother had created personalities out of all of us, and we were the last to know.’
9 June 2010
[comics] “Because These Are The Things That Will Save You” – Psychiatric Tales … Richard Bruton reviews Darryl Cunningham’s Psychiatric Tales: ‘…where Psychiatric Tales excels, where it becomes so much more engaging and emotive is when Cunningham breaks away from his documentary style and uses his experiences to bring us closer to the people behind his tales. Then the tone changes and the dispassionate observer/reporter becomes a caring, emotional fellow sufferer. It’s this humanising of the subject – transforming these patients into real people that elevate the book into something truly special.’ [Elsewhere: Darryl Cunningham Investigates]
[funny] Amy Winehouse vs. Sid James‘Underweight, Beehived Hag – Uses Her Nails’
10 June 2010
[comics] Four Color Process … lovely on-going collection of abstract(ish) images from comics books …

The Human Torch

11 June 2010
[tv] Tasks people continue to do while being questioned by Law and Order detectives‘Dust a chandelier’
12 June 2010
[books] The 10 Most Harmful Novels for Aspiring Writers‘When I stopped plagiarizing Hemingway, I plagiarized Tolkien. It wasn’t the old master’s fault, and I got over it. But thousands of others created a literary Mordor: mass-market industrial fantasy, where the orcs, elves and dwarves march past like the North Korean army.’
14 June 2010
[nyc] Uncovering the Secrets Beneath the Surface of the New York Harbor … great article looking at some of the weird things lurking underwater in New York Harbor …

“In the East River, at about 16th Street, there’s one of those old dining-room tables, the kind with a Formica top and the grooved metal bands around the edge,” says Speregen. “It’s standing upright, totally free and clear. It makes me want to go down there with teacups and set it up.”

[books] Great Literature Retitled To Boost Website Traffic‘7 Awesome Ways Barnyard Animals Are Like Communism’
15 June 2010
[comics] Steve Ditko’s Superman … facinating pin-up of Superman done by Spider-man’s co-creator with hints towards his Objectivist comics.
[comics] Evan Dorkin Interview … funny video interview with the creator of Milk and Cheese‘It sold like a hot box of cancer…’
17 June 2010
[funny] I’m Comic Sans, Asshole … An imagined monologue with the world’s most disliked font … ‘I’m not just a font. I am a force of motherfucking nature and I will not rest until every uptight armchair typographer cock-hat like you is surrounded by my lovable, comic-book inspired, sans-serif badassery.’
[blogs] He pioneered upskirt shots. Can we pay a bigger tribute? … Marina Hyde on Perez Hilton‘Yet increasingly, that old mainstream media/blogger distinction seems outmoded. It’s surely time to bury the lie that super-bloggers such as Perez are in some way outsiders. He may care to style himself as a renegade – the John Rambo of gossip – but the fact is, Perez is now as insider as they come. All pseudo-dissidents go establishment in the end. Once-idealistic rock stars buy country piles and whinge about paying tax, the likes of Perez start taking the freebies and decline to call Paris Hilton out for homophobic remarks because she buys him off with access.’
18 June 2010
[useful] The British Isles … useful chart explaining what the United Kingdom, Great Britain and the British Isles actually are.
[comics] Variations of R. Crumb … a collection of self-portraits from R. Crumb … ‘Nobody understands… and of course… how could they??’
20 June 2010
[press] Go Look: Builders Thwarted By Fish Eating Spiders [via twitter]
21 June 2010
[kubrick] Scorsese on Kubrick … Martin Scorcese on Stanley Kubrick, Full Metal Jacket, Eyes Wide Shut and the Shining … ‘I also love the visions—the maze, the elevator, Nicholson bouncing a rubber ball across the vast expanses of the hotel lobby to kill time, the enormous golden ballroom, the red Formica bathroom in which Nicholson “meets” the butler. And, perhaps most frightening of all, the vision of an ordinary American family, beautifully acted, who’ve wandered into deep psychic waters.’
[fonts] In Defence of the Comic Sans Font‘You see it in the most inappropriate places. I once read a leaflet about irritable bowel syndrome that had been written in Comic Sans. Now that’s just wrong.’ (Holly Combs)
22 June 2010
[twitter] FEMINIST HULK (is on twitter) …

DEEPLY ENTRENCHED PATRIARCHAL IDEOLOGIES HARD TO SMASH. THAT WHY HULK ALWAYS STRETCH FIRST.Tue Jun 15 18:08:52 via web


[tech] Go Look: Andrew Orlowski’s Photo Diary of a visit to the Vintage Computing Fair at Bletchley Park.
[comics] The 18 Best Batman Panels Ever … a list of some great Batman moments from Chris Sims‘If there’s one thing I’ve learned from two and a half decades reading Batman comics, it’s that that dude straight up loves to punch people.’
23 June 2010
[comics] MEN KILLED BAMBI’S MOTHER!! … without a doubt the greatest Hulk panel ever …


[moore] Not the World Cup Special 1982 … A rare Alan Moore comic on football from 1982.
24 June 2010
[tv] Tommy Westphall’s Mind: A Multiverse Explored … apparently a big chunk of American TV exists entirely in the head of a autistic child who appeared in the last episode of St. Elsewhere (including Law and Order: Special Victims Unit – weird kid!) … ‘Tommy’s mind is a tricky thing to decipher.’ [via Metafilter]
[tech] A History Of Media Technology Scares, From The Printing Press To Facebook‘These concerns stretch back to the birth of literacy itself. In parallel with modern concerns about children’s overuse of technology, Socrates famously warned against writing because it would “create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories.” He also advised that children can’t distinguish fantasy from reality, so parents should only allow them to hear wholesome allegories and not “improper” tales, lest their development go astray.’
25 June 2010
[weird] Building A Homemade Nuclear Reactor In NYC‘By day, Mark Suppes is a web developer for fashion giant Gucci. By night, he cycles to a New York warehouse and tinkers with his own nuclear fusion reactor.’
26 June 2010
[music] Go listen to The Beach Boys: A capella (just the vocals of various tracks) and recordings from a rehersal session in 1967.
28 June 2010
[comics] Dan Clowes new comic Wilson reviewed‘Bereaved and bereft, a middle-aged divorcee sits at the edge of a children’s playpark and indulges in regrets over the family he might have had. But within moments he interrupts his reverie to call out: “Hey! Can you get that brat to shut up for two fucking seconds!?” Welcome to the world of Wilson, self-declared “people person”, misanthrope, gasbag, egomaniac and dog lover. Daniel Clowes has created a monster, but a monster who refreshes our empathy for humans in all their unloveliness.’
[comics] Metafilter Discuss The Best Batman Comics … a mixed bag of fun links to various Batman panels and comics … ‘PLEASE! Can anyone find for me the Superfriends clip where Batman is guarding Fort Knox and he gets tricked into drinking drugged chicken soup by a mad scientist posing as a street vendor and Batman actually asks if the soup is fresh before buying it? Please? Anyone? I SWEAR I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP!’ [link]
29 June 2010
[tech] The Enemy Within … Interesting article by Mark Bowden on the history behind The Conficker Worm

“Take Windows,” he explained. “The understanding of Windows’ operating system, and how it worked in the kernel, needed that kind of a domain expert, and they had that kind of ability there. And we realized as a community that we were not dealing with something normal. We’re dealing with one of two things: either we’re dealing with incredibly sophisticated cyber criminals, or we’re dealing with a group that was funded by a nation-state. Because this wasn’t the kind of team that you could just assemble by getting your five buddies who play Xbox 360 and saying, ‘Let’s all work together and see what we can do.’”

[funny] George Osborne to put coma patients to work as draft excluders‘Look at all those coma patients, what sort of middle class family wouldn’t want such an eco-friendly draft excluder? It’s all natural and 100% biodegradable.’ [via Unreliably Witnessed]
30 June 2010
[comics] Homeopathy … another comic on health and science issues from Daryl Cunningham

Darryl Cunningham On Homeopathy

[moore] The Infinite Monkey Cage Podcast … a BBC science podcast with Alan Moore, Jonathan Ross, Brian Cox, Robin Ince and Brian Greene discussing science fiction (available till next Monday).
1 July 2010
[kubrick] Go Look: BeaucoupKevin just very much likes this photo of Stanley Kubrick at work. [Previously: Wonderful Pic Of Stanley Kubrick on set of 2001]
2 July 2010
[comics] The Dark Knight Operates‘You don’t understand, boy. This isn’t an operating table…’
[comics] Go Look: Philip Bond’s Wonder Woman Costume Redesign.
3 July 2010
[funny] Communists Now Least Threatening Group In U.S.‘The Red Menace has been surpassed by militia groups, religious extremists, ecoterrorists, cybercriminals, Hollywood producers, and angry drivers.’
4 July 2010
[funny] Hi, I’m Troy McClure. You may remember me from… ‘Preacher with a Shovel’
5 July 2010
[science] The Undead Henrietta Lacks And Her Immortal Dynasty … Adam Curtis has posted his BBC documentary on the story of Henrietta Lacks on to his blog‘Henrietta Lacks’ cells are immortal.’
[funny] Go Look: Jason Donervan [from Cleanskies’ Photostream]
6 July 2010
[comics] Marvel Editors…you are the droppings of the creative world … the text of a letter that Vinnie Colletta wrote to Marvel’s editorial staff after editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter was fired in 1987 … ‘Displaying more class and poise in defeat than all of you did in victory… Jesus had one Judas… Jim had many, those that speared him and worse, those that watched…’
[movies] The 100 Greatest Movie Insults of All Time … be warned: extreme swearing. NSFW … ‘Fuck you, fuckball!’
7 July 2010
[movies] A Religion for Toys … a movie review that describes the theology behind Toy Story 3 … ‘In the theology of Toy Story, Andy is God and Woody is his prophet. He is more Moses than Jesus. For one thing, he is orthodox. In the theology of toys, the ideal is to be owned and to be played with. Of these two, it is more important to be owned, and to be owned by one God only. Andy’s room is heaven…’
8 July 2010
[comics] 10 Things You Need To Know Before You Read ‘Shadowland’ … Chris Sims tells you everything you need to know about Marvel’s newest cross-over … ‘Daredevil’s been having a pretty rough time since about 1981.’
[blogs] The Evolving Blogosphere: An Empire Gives Way … The Economist on the decline of blogging …‘Blogs are a confection of several things that do not necessarily have to go together: easy-to-use publishing tools, reverse-chronological ordering, a breezy writing style and the ability to comment. But for maintaining an online journal or sharing links and photos with friends, services such as Facebook and Twitter (which broadcasts short messages) are quicker and simpler.’
9 July 2010
[comics] Crackpots In Computer Security … an example of the nutty emails sent to the Microsoft security team …‘HE CAN INTRUDE AT WILL. HE COULD BE VERY DANGEROUS. LAST FRIDAY YOUR DEPT HAS GPS SEARCHING, BUT THE HACKER CUT US OFF. THEN TRASHED 4 OF MY PCS.’
[funny] Ünited Stätes Toughens Image With Umlauts‘In a move designed to make the United States seem more “bad-assed and scary in a quasi-heavy-metal manner,” Congress officially changed the nation’s name to the Ünited Stätes of Ämerica Monday.’
10 July 2010
[funny] Columbo Box Set‘I bring pornographic pictures… and the opinions of angry children!’
11 July 2010
[comics] Vinnie Colletta’s Exit ‘Conversation’ … a fascinating (and raw) interview with Vinnie Colletta apparently days after Jim Shooter was fired from Marvel in 1987. ‘…and I read the beeper and it said, “I’ve been fired”. Jesus Christ! He usually calls me on the beeper because he gets me anywhere I am. He calls me on the beeper and says, “I’ve been fired,” I nearly had a heart attack and I called him straight back. The only thing I can do to stand by him is give him sound advice because sometimes when you’re in the middle you don’t see the truth, you know?’
12 July 2010
[comics] J. Jonah Jameson is on Twitter

THE ONLY POSSIBLE “UP SIDE” TO THIS MISERABLE HEAT AND HUMIDITY IS THAT SOMEWHERE IN THIS TOWN, SPIDER-MAN IS DRENCHED IN HIS PERVERT SUIT.Mon Jun 28 16:05:08 via web


[comics] Go Look: Chester Brown’s Movie Poster For Year Of The Canivore … also: here’s the movie trailer on YouTube to provide some background on the movie … (more…)
13 July 2010
[moore] Hipster Priest … yet another great interview with Alan Moore

In the past I’ve tried to say, ‘Look, we are all crappy superheroes,’ because personal computers and mobile phone devices are things that only Bat Man and Mr Fantastic would have owned back in the sixties. We’ve all got this immense power and we’re still sat at home watching pornography and buying scratch cards. We’re rubbish, even though we are as gods.

[comics] The Determination to Be an Artist … R. Fiore Sums Up Harvey Pekar … ‘He struggled with indifference until indifference began to give way, as if to say, okay, I’ll pay attention to you if you’ll just leave me alone. By the end they were making movies about him. In the end his integrity became so manifest that his comic became a badge of prestige to publishers seeking credibility.’
14 July 2010
[comics] Harvey Pekar’s testament to life — with no apologies … Dean Haspiel on Harvey Pekar … ‘Yes, Harvey Pekar was a certified curmudgeon who became a cultural icon, but he was a true-blue mensch, too.’
[comics] Gary Groth interviews Harvey Pekar in 1993‘It’s a real uphill struggle, and it may go on for a really long time. I don’t know. I’ve been at this for 20 years now, and it’s certainly enriched my life, from a personal standpoint. It’s made it far more interesting and enjoyable, so I have no regrets. But I certainly would like to see comics in general be taken more seriously, because it would benefit me, you know?’
[comics] Bob Wachsman – Tummler … Alan Moore draws a one-page story for a Harvey Pekar comic.
15 July 2010
Effectively manage your Facebook privacy settings with three simple lists … if you’ve got OCD and time to spare this is probably an effective how-to on dealing with friends, work colleagues, family and acquaintances on Facebook.
[comics] Go Look: He Will Find You – He’s Batman!
16 July 2010
[crime] The Untold Story of the World’s Biggest Diamond Heist … great true crime story from Wired … ‘Next, the King of Keys played out a hunch. In Notarbartolo’s videos, the guard usually visited a utility room just before opening the vault. When the thieves searched the room, they found a major security lapse: The original vault key was hanging inside. The King of Keys grabbed the original. There was no point in letting the safe manufacturers know that their precious key could be copied, and the police still don’t know that a duplicate was made.’
18 July 2010
[comics] An interview with Harvey Pekar from 1984 conducted by Gary Groth [Part One | Part Two] … ‘Some comic book fans don’t know what to make of American Splendor. They think a normal comic book should be about superbeings who can fly, that a comic dealing with everyday people doing everyday things is weird. Ordinary is weird to them. Wow, that’s really ironic.’
19 July 2010
[weird] Go Look: No Big Deal – Just Dodging Traffic
[news] The News … Charlie Brooker on the news coverage about Raoul Moat‘The hunt for Raoul Moat got the news so flustered, it shrieked its reports at a pitch several hundred octaves above satire. Beneath a photograph of Britain’s Most Wanted Man as an infant, The Sun ran the caption “Cute baby … but two-month-old Moat clenches his fists”. On the front page, his estranged mother apparently wished him dead.’
20 July 2010
[comics] When It Comes To Comics, You Just Can’t Beat A Drunken, Violent Aardvark … Sam Leith on comics … ‘The genre end of comics has actually diversified a lot: from hardboiled noir in Sin City or 100 Bullets, to punk psychedelia in The Invisibles, to jaunty post-apocalyptic soap opera in Preacher. It’s at the literary end of comics you sense a narrowing of the range, the main strand being a sort of studied Pekarian drabness. You could call it mundane realism. Direct or oblique autobiography is the mode, neurosis and alienation the dominant tone. Their archetypal hero is a morose and ill-socialised writer or collector of comics, often subject to sexual humiliation, sometimes sharing a name with the author. These are frequently comics, in one way or another, about comics.’
[headlines] Meanwhile, in Durham: Police Hunt Norman Wisdom Lookalike.
[comics] The Moon Hoax … a great comic strip from Darryl Cunningham debunking some of the moon landing conspiracy theories

Panels from The Moon Hoax By Darryl Cunningham

21 July 2010
[comics] The Unwanted … a new comic from Joe Sacco on African migrants in Malta.