[comics] The Great Swamp Monster Confluence of 1971 … A great look at how three fictional swamp monsters for comics were created around the same time and place in the 1970s. ‘A couple of other odd coincidences involving Len Wein have a bearing on our tale of swampy confluence. Since the age of 14, Len had been best friends with Gerry Conway, the Man-Thing’s first scripter. Not only that—the two young comic book writers were roommates during the few months in which both the first Man-Thing story and the first Swamp Thing story were written.’

[nihilism] Super Mario Nihilism … What if Werner Herzog designed Super Mario?

[xmas] ‘Which bit of the turkey is this supposed to be?!’ I ate 12 Christmas dinners in 12 days – here are the best and worst! … ‘Traipsing up another A-road, I feel like a prize turkey for failing to realise many of these chain pubs are attached to Premier Inns in the middle of nowhere. It occurs to me I could be hacked to death outside this Beefeater and not be found for weeks, which might be preferable to its Christmas dinner, which comes with cardboard yorkshire pud, boring boiled carrots, what look like Aunt Bessie frozen roasties and turkey roll seemingly processed by the ghost of Bernard Matthews. Score: 2/5’

[xmas] Christmas Links 2022 … Stuart over at Feeling Listless is collecting seasonal links as he did in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018,2019, 2020 and 2021. As always, he does a better job than I ever have! :)

[blogs] ooh.directory … A 2022 directory of blogs including a recently updated list. How retro. :)

[internet] The Founding Fathers – ARPANET Logical Map, March 1977 …

[herzog] The Infinite Conversation … An AI generated conversation between Werner Herzog and Slavoj Žižek. ‘I think I’m finished with him. He gives me a feeling of decadence. And I don’t want to work with decadence any more. I don’t want to be a decadent. Yes, I remember very well that we talked a lot. I think it was in January 1974, a Sunday.’

[politics] ‘Everyone calls to say how marvellous I am’ – Matt Hancock’s Pandemic Diaries, Digested … A digested read from John Grace. ‘Jonathan Van-Tam invites me to visit a hospital. Says it will improve morale in the NHS. On the nightshift I manage to save the lives of three patients. It is a very humbling moment for the doctors.’

[trump] Donald Trump’s War on Christmas … A look at an attempt Trump made to evict residents from one of his NYC properties in the 1980s. ‘In 1981, Trump bought the apartment building at 100 Central Park South. He then spent a decade trying to push rent-controlled residents out, so he could tear it down and build luxury condos. Part of this effort involved banning all Christmas decorations from the lobby. But tenants fought back…’

[comics] Christmas Eve Panic! … A surprise for Santa from Al Feldstein in 1953. Go read how Panic #1 got banned in Massachusetts.

[trump] Donald Trump 2024: His Final Presidential Campaign … Profiling Trump in 2024.

‘On his way to defeat and isolated by the pandemic, the president started to scare even those who had been willing for years to forgive anything.

“I think that really fucked up his head,” the first former White House official said. “He was already on that path, he was so desensitized and emboldened, and then during COVID, his interactions with real people were so cut off. During this tragic time where horrible things were happening, he wasn’t experiencing any of it. It was an ugly cocktail of the pandemic and race — after George Floyd — these things that activated his worst features. He lost touch with what was real, whatever limited ability he had before to connect was just gone.” He was more inclined to crack than others. “Here’s a person who is so untethered as it is, who largely escapes accountability, and there were always weird people around him, but the more the normal people disappeared, and all he’s surrounded by are the cuckoo birds,” the official trailed off. “His brain was vulnerable too because I think he was probably whatever his version of depressed is.”’

[nostalgia] ‘Who remembers proper binmen?’ The nostalgia memes that help explain Britain today … A look at nostalgia memes popular within UK social media. ‘Worzel Gummidge. Sweets by the ounce. Icicles hanging from the window frame (“Before central heating!”). Miss World (“All natural. Not a bit of botox in sight”). The power cuts of 1972-4 (“we coped, we were strong”). Scrubbing and polishing your front steps (“That’s when people had pride in where they lived”). Outdoor toilets. Cigarette machines. Flares. Playing in bombsites. Jumping in puddles. Roland Rat. There are no births, marriages or deaths here, no wars, no world-historic events, no great men and women of history. There is no post asking “who remembers the Cuban missile crisis?” or “who remembers the sinking of the Belgrano?” Those questions are too remote from ordinary life. Over here, we have abacuses and Listen With Mother to talk about. The banality is the point. This is a world where a picture of three butter knives can attract 1,300 comments of fond recollections and reflections.’

[comics] After nearly 30 years, there’s finally a new issue of Miracleman by Neil Gaiman … ‘I’m a recent convert to the church of Miracleman, and even I felt those decades of anticipation building up as I opened up the latest issue of the story. I’m excited to see what comes next, and how this 30-year-old story ends up picking up in medea res. The layers of meta-text in this continuing story make for an incredible retrospective on the entire history of the superhero genre.’