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London Bloggers [Comic Blogs][Other Blogs] | 20 July 2001
[politics] The judge’s every word dripped with loathing and contempt — Simon Hoggart on the Archer Verdict. ‘Then the sentence and a speech from the judge which surely smashed into him as hard as the prison term. It must have been like being hosed down with sewage. Every word dripped with loathing and contempt: “As serious an offence of perjury as I have experience of, and as serious as I have been able to find in the books”. The judge spoke of the way he had preyed upon the weak and vulnerable to concoct his alibis; the way he had hurried along the original libel trial in order to tell his lies and spin his fabrications. It was a short speech, but lethal. Mr Justice Potts was about to take away his liberty, but first he wanted to strip off what shreds were left of his reputation.’ [Related: Archer’s Greasy Pole]
[comics] Uncle Joe loved a good joke — Stalin’s Politburo liked to doodle cartoons during meetings… ‘. Uncle Joe himself may have been a mass murderer, tyrant and scheming paranoiac, but he had his jocular side as well, even if his sense of humour was typically brutal. As revealed by an extraordinary buff folder marked Top Secret, containing drawings by senior Bolsheviks, he appreciated a good political cartoon as much as the next man.’
19 July 2001
[politics] Hats off to Ken — The Guardian analyses Ken Clarke’s sense of fashion… ‘Yet it is precisely Clarke’s lack of fashionableness that may well prove to be his strength. Despite the horrified cry of Loaded’s Adrian Clarke – “Surely he should have an adviser to help him with these matters?” – this hat exemplifies the lack of spin in Clarke’s image. It is worn, pure and simply, to keep the rain off his head. ‘
[web] 20 Questions Ask Jeeves Can’t Answer. ‘Who’s your daddy?’
[movies] The trailer for Apocalypse Now Redux is up at the Apple Trailers Site. ‘Never get out of the boat. Absolutely goddamn right. Unless you were goin’ all the way. Kurtz got off the boat. He split from the whole fuckin’ program.’ [Related: Quotes, Apocalypse Now Tribute Site]
18 July 2001
[comics] Long, fascinating interview with Bill Sienkiewicz… ‘I wanted to paint Elektra: Assassin at all costs. I wanted to do it so badly, that the rate for the coloring was like $40 a page. They didn’t have a painted page rate at the time. So I was doing all that work for essentially nothing because I needed to do it, I wanted to do it. From working with Frank’s scripts to laughing my head off to being inspired and excited and knowing that whatever he was going to throw back at me was going to inspire me further. It really helped to make it about the work… because it all got turned back into the storyline. It was a very creative environment.’ [Related: Sienkiewicz’s Website]
[politics] Welcome to the House of Usher — Simon Hoggart on the Tory Leadership Contest. ‘We will come out of this stronger and more united than ever!” Mr Ancram said. Oh, give it a rest, I thought. Only a hour or so ago, Nick Soames bellowed “F*** off!” at Michael Fallon. One Tory wife accused her husband – voting the wrong way, she thought – of “going through a midlife crisis and plunging his party into total oblivion”. There’s enough bitterness, wormwood and gall in the Tories now to keep an illegal absinthe distiller going for decades. And they haven’t even had the final round.’
[stuff] Linkage:
17 July 2001
[politics / tv] Portillo knocked out of the Tory Leadership Contest / Helen and Paul nominated in BB2… What an afternoon…
[comics] Comic Genius — review in the Guardian of Preacher from Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon. ‘Preacher, while happily dipping into the ersatz mythological/ supernatural hinterland that forgivably pretentious comic artists have found so convenient – God, the devil, angels, the Grail, vampires, Illuminati-inspired conspiracy theories, and millennial tension – uses them as a means of meditation on more human and timeless themes: friendship, masculinity, honour, love. That Ennis’s feelings on this subject tend to be a tad cornball is fine, as he has taken such an extraordinary route to reach them. A tale in which someone actually gets to shoot at God is extraordinary, no?’ [via Bugpowder]
[tv] Jon Ronson’s web site has been vastly improved…. ‘One thing you quickly learn about [extremists] is that they really don’t like being called extremists. In fact they often tell me that we are the real extremists. They say that the western liberal cosmopolitan establishment is itself a fanatical, depraved belief system. I like it when they say this because it makes me feel as if I have a belief system.’
16 July 2001
[books] Stand up for literature — interview with Stewart Lee regarding his new novel The Perfect Fool…. ‘For the past three years Stewart Lee has lived in Stoke Newington, a fashionable north London suburb, in a maisonette furnished in studenty style and dominated by his huge record collection. “I’ve been buying vinyl since I was about 11 – I remember the first CD I bought was in about ’92. Writing the book has helped me realise that maybe there’s something else going on there, that it’s a sort of displacement activity. I think that being interested in things, for men, often is, and in the book the characters have to address that. So that will all be going now. Once the book’s out, I’ll be able to shed it – like skin off a lizard!”‘
[tv] Hi, I’m Big Brother — behind the scenes at the Big Brother 2 Studio… ‘On the wall are instructions on how to be Big Brother. “Always be calm, dispassionate and businesslike,” says one. “Don’t offer solutions,” reads another. “Don’t refer to things we’ve seen. Wait until they mention it.” A separate posting instructs them on how to react in the case of a threatened walk out: “1. Show understanding. 2. Dwell on the positive experiences. 3. Tell them they are strong. We think they can cope. 4. Suggest talking to the housemates.”‘
[comics] Marvel provide an interview with Grant Morrison on the New X-Men…. What we can expect from his time on X-Men: ‘High-impact comics: big drama, new threats, new ideas, engrossing soap opera, pain, fear, romance, and some startling new insights into mutant life and culture. Stories will last no more than three or four issues, and no subplot will be left hanging for more than a year. There will be no more narrative captions or interior thought monologues. Readers will have to work out characters and motivations by judging their actions, not by seeing into their heads. Basically, the book will be about the same people, but it will feel very different and show those people from angles we may not have seen often before.’ [via Plasticbag]
15 July 2001
[quote] ‘He was, in fact, characteristic of the best type of dominant male in the world at this time. He was fifty-five years old, tough, shrewd, unburdened by the complicated ethical ambiguities which puzzle intellectuals, and had long ago decided that the world was a mean son-of-a-bitch in which only the most cunning and ruthless can survive. He was also as kind as was possible for one holding that ultra-Darwinian philosophy; and he genuinely loved children and dogs, unless they were on the site of something that had to be bombed in the National Interest. He still retained some sense of humor, despite the burdens of his almost godly office, and, although he had been impotent with his wife for nearly ten years now, he generally achieved orgasm in the mouth of a skilled prostitute within 1.5 minutes. He took amphetamine pep pills to keep going on his grueling twenty-hour day, with the result that his vision of the world was somewhat skewed in a paranoid direction, and he took tranquilizers to keep from worrying too much, with the result that his detachment sometimes bordered on the schizophrenic; but most of the time his innate shrewdness gave him a fingernail grip on reality. In short, he was much like the rulers of Russia and China.’
14 July 2001
[comics] Popimage provides a look through comics to be released in Sept 2001… especially looking forward to Atlas by Dylan Horrocks and Campbell and Moore’s Snakes and Ladders… ‘Atlas is a long, sprawling saga of comics, cartography and magic, revisiting two landscapes introduced in Hicksville: the eponymous comics-obsessed town and the mysterious Cornucopia. Along the way, it will explore the nature of comics, the politics of the new millennium, the frailty of love and the secret to mapping the sky…’
[media] Neurosis in Print — Polly Toynbee wonders if the Daily Mail is a spent political force… ‘Why has the Mail lost its influence, despite its sales? Because its editor, Paul Dacre, imposes his own neurotic vision of society upon his paper. It is neither coherent nor consistent but a Toytown world of nice white folk inside gated communities, fearful of everything outside (especially the gypsies in the woods), pining for a golden era that never was. It is John Major’s fantasy world of spinsters bicycling to church, Tory squires downing warm beer in the saloon, plebs in the public bar, all deference and homogeneity, caste and class in their place. Above all the holy Oxo family is the Mail’s guiding star – pure, uncomplicated, eternal.’ [via Venusberg]
13 July 2001
[comics] Another first chapter… The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon. ‘In Sammy’s closet were stacked dozens of pads of coarse newsprint, filled with horses, Indians, football heroes, sentient apes, Fokkers, nymphs, moon rockets, buckaroos, Saracens, tropic jungles, grizzlies, studies of the folds in women’s clothing, the dents in men’s hats, the lights in human irises, clouds in the western sky. His grasp of perspective was tenuous, his knowledge of human anatomy dubious, his line often sketchy – but he was an enterprising thief. He clipped favorite pages and panels out of newspapers and comic books and pasted them into a fat notebook: a thousand different exemplary poses and styles. He had made extensive use of his bible of clippings in concocting a counterfeit Terry and the Pirates strip called South China Sea, drawn in faithful imitation of the great Caniff. He had knocked off Raymond in something he called Pimpernel of the Planets and Chester Gould in a lockjawed G-man strip called Knuckle Duster Doyle. He had tried swiping from Hogarth and Lee Falk, from George Herriman, Harold Gray, and Elzie Segar.’
[distractions] Enjoy… Micro Jet Racers [via Dutchbint] and a cover of Voodoo Ray by a Brass Band on filepile.org [thanks to Oh!SkyLab, original Voodoo Ray].
[tv] Louis Theroux and Ann Widdecombe…. TV doesn’t get any better than that! ‘Ms Widdecombe later said it was what she called the “perfectly sensible” interview Theroux conducted with Paul Daniels that persuaded her to take part. “He has a slightly zany approach but I can cope with that,” she said.’
12 July 2001
[tech] Cap’n Crunch’s Homepage… includes the infamous article from Esquire on phone phreaking…. ‘I ask him who this Captain Crunch person is.”Oh. The Captain. He’s probably the most legendary phone phreak. He calls himself Captain Crunch after the notorious Cap’n Crunch 2600 whistle.” (Several years ago, Gilbertson explains, the makers of Cap’n Crunch breakfast cereal offered a toy-whistle prize in every box as a treat for the Cap’n Crunch set. Somehow a phone phreak discovered that the toy whistle just happened to produce a perfect 2600-cycle tone. When the man who calls himself Captain Crunch was transferred overseas to England with his Air Force unit, he would receive scores of calls from his friends and “mute” them — make them free of charge to them — by blowing his Cap’n Crunch whistle into his end.)’ [thanks Phil]
[celebrity] Fame is the Spur — Gyles Brandreth looks back on his obsession with celebrity…. ‘I have been following the trial of Barry George, the simple-minded fantasist and loner found guilty last week of murdering Jill Dando, and I noticed that every one of the star names with whom George was apparently obsessed – Freddie Mercury, Gary Glitter, Jill Dando, Anthea Turner, Diana, Princess of Wales – also features in the roll-call of those that, now and again, I like to boast of having met.’
[stuff] Linkage:
11 July 2001
[politics] Think Tory, Think Iain — Matthew Parris on your typical Tory and what it means for the current leadership battle… ‘Take Margaret Thatcher herself. [ … ] Far from being extreme or right wing in her origins, she was a progressive woman of the 1950s — one who actually went to university. She voted for the decriminalisation of homosexuality, a radical idea in the 1960s. She married a divorcé. She went out to work while her children were still young. Her equivalent in the Tory party today would be quite prepared to contemplate relaxing the law on cannabis, and most younger Conservatives are.’ [Related: electportillo.com, voteids.com]
[politics] Tension mounts, the votes are in and, er … everyone’s a winner — Simon Hoggart on the Tory Leadership election process. ‘The press amused themselves by insulting passing Tories. Someone offered Peter Lilley a spliff. “Only on Sundays,” he said. Nicholas Soames insulted us. “Why isn’t that man wearing a tie?” he demanded of a hack. “I have it in my pocket,” the fellow quavered. “Well, PUT IT ON!”. Ann Widdecombe rolled towards us. “Ancram!” she shouted at the massed questors for truth. “Ancram, Ancram, Ancram!” As she left the room, she barked: “Still Ancram!”‘
[wtf?!] Evil Edna’s Top Ten Heart-Warming Moments “3. An atheist sees God in a burning bush. Dragging him to safety, the atheist is given the greatest gift of all…. faith.”
Basil Brush’s Top Twenty-six Ways to Die ’16. Clive Barker’s favourite, having snakes made from a lunatic’s shit animated by an evil magician and invading your every orifice. Let’s hear it for Clive Barker, eh? 17. That magic flesh eating bacteria (nature beats Clive Barker).’ [via Seethru]
[comics] Great interview with Eddie Campbell mainly about the From Hell movie at Ain’t it Cool News… ‘Alan said that, “We all know that serial murderers are not like this. They’re horrible nasty little men with bad hair-cuts!” So with Gull, we’ve created this colossal figure of evil. I hope we haven’t made him attractive. I actually have much admiration for the original Dr. Gull, who was the man who wrote the paper and gave the name to anorexia nervosa. And his name still pops up if you’re reading on thyroid conditions. He wrote the original medical papers on one or two subjects that are still very relevant today.’
10 July 2001
[distractions] Sounds, wallpaper and other digital stuff from the BB2 household…. Amma Farting / Liz Burping. [Just Announced: Josh and Helen up for Eviction]
[politics] Another long, interesting political profile of Michael Portillo. ‘Moving the political battle on to cultural grounds exposes another division among Conservatives, between authoritarians and liberals. The people who encouraged John Major to go “back to basics” and William Hague to portray Conservatives as “the party of the family” are genuinely shocked that Portillo can suggest it is an area where neither the party nor the state has a role. “None of my colleagues understand the real game,” he complained to friends recently. Intellectual, arrogant, a man who holidays in Bayreuth for the Wagner and Morocco for the ruins, a man viewed with suspicion by most of his political colleagues, his only hold on the party is their desperation to win.’ [Related: Official Portillo Site]
[distractions] Rejected Movie Posters… Kramer vs. Kramer, Autumn in New York, Willy Wonka. [via Comic Geek]
[comics] Girls And Comics – Oil And Water — a for real Comic Book Guy?! ‘I am a keen observer of human behavior and the attitude of a girl in a comic shop is like that of a Vulcan amongst Ferengi. They think they are so much better than comics. Those girls don’t think I’m watching them from my stool behind the counter as I bag and board comics. But I am. I see them in their little belly-shirts acting like they are so above comics. The reality is that girls lack the imagination of boys and cannot comprehend the bold archetypes portrayed in our (boys?) sequential art-form.’ [via Comic Geek]
9 July 2001
[books] Stranger than fiction — interview from the Telegraph with Chuck Palahniuk. ‘”In the US we really don’t have a rite of passage from adolescence into adulthood,” he says, “except through acquiring accoutrements – your home, your car, your washer-dryer. That’s how you become an adult in America. There’s a quote in the book: ‘I’ve seen the strongest, smartest generation in all of human history, and they’re working in the service industry.’ And I just felt enormously disappointed in myself and most of my peers; despite all of the things we’d been raised with – good nutrition, good health, the best education – what had our lives amounted to? Pumping gas? Filing? Watching a computer screen? All of humanity has come to this point, and this is the best we can do with it? I just felt this enormous frustration around that.”‘
[politics] ThatcherWeb — Thatcher fan site. Check out the messianic Flash intro… ‘Let me give you my vision: A man’s right to work as he will, to spend what he earns, to own property, to have the state as servant and not as master – these are the British inheritance. They are the essence of a free economy… and on that freedom all our other freedoms depend.’ [via Haddock]
[books] The Face by Garry Bushell — a Digested Read… ‘Witless, plotless gangster pulp-fiction that manages to insult almost everyone, especially the readers.’
8 July 2001
[celebrity] Boomtown’s tycoon — profile of Bob Geldof…. ‘Geldof likes to say of his various ventures — be they pop music, television production, internet travel or his latest media and events company — that they arose only out of his anger at the inadequacy of what was on offer to him as a consumer. “I start things because what I see is crap and it makes me angry,” he once said, with his usual memorable turn of phrase. “I started the Rats because all the records I heard were crap. I did Live Aid because what was happening was crap. I started Planet 24 (which produced Channel 4’s money-spinning Big Breakfast tabloid television programme) because everything on TV was crap. And I’m starting the internet company because I am angry at all the crap on the Net”.’
7 July 2001
[celebrity] Stars in their Eyes [Part One | Part Two] — Jon Ronson looks at what happened to the original Big Brother contestants one year on… ‘Andy and I entered the offices of Courier Systems. “This is wicked,” said Andy. “I’ve always wanted to be a cycle courier.” “When can you start?” said Paul, the manager. “Tomorrow,” said Andy. “Bright and early.” Paul laughed. He said he’d seen people like Andy before. They come in full of excitement and fanciful ideals about the life of the cycle courier, but reality hits them on the first day and they quit within a week. “Well, that’s not me,” said Andy. “I promise you that.” “Will I see you at Sada’s book launch party?” I asked. “No,” he said. “I’m not going.” “Why not?” I asked. “It would be deceitful,” he said. “I fucking hate Sada.” Andy’s career as a cycle courier lasted for three days. “God it was hard,” he told me at Sada’s book launch party. “And the money was shit.”‘
[quote] ‘In London, where Southampton Row passes Russell Square, across from the British Museum in Bloomsbury, Leo Szilard waited irritably one gray Depression morning for the stoplight to change. A trace of rain had fallen during the night; Tuesday, September 12, 1933, dawned cool, humid and dull. Drizzling rain would begin in early afternoon. When Szilard told the story later he never mentioned his destination that morning. He may have had none; he often walked to think. In any case another destination intervened. The stoplight changed to green. Szilard stepped off the curb. As he crossed the street time cracked open before him and he saw a way to the future, death into the world and all our woe, the shape of things to come.’
6 July 2001
[books] Summer Reading Recommendations from…. Seething Hatred, Steps and Wherever You Are. Vaughan: ‘Therefore, that whole reading list may have been a pointless exercise, and a complete waste of time. Bloody hell, isn’t personal web publishing marvellous?’
[stuff] More Random Linkage:
5 July 2001
[tv] Big Mac — why am I linking to interviews with John McCririck?! ‘McCririck says he would be lost without the Booby [his wife]. He can’t drive so she ferries him to race meetings. Nor can he cook, mend a fuse, or do anything else practical, so she has to attend to the business of living. He does a review of the papers on Channel 4’s Morning Line at 9am each Saturday, and you can guess who is down at King’s Cross station at midnight buying the papers. They have no children; or perhaps they have one extremely large child.’
[quote] ‘You come back to the hotel after a gig. You’re knackered. The sex is there on a plate. It doesn’t really appeal to me. I need to feel engaged and stimulated. I need to feel intimacy. To me there’s nothing sexier than having someone knowing you, speaking to you, understanding you, and still wanting to fuck you.’ — Luke Goss.
[science] The Prophet of Reason — The Independent profiles Richard Dawkins…. ‘What about, “why are humans so credulous?” I ask. So happy to pay through the nose for an aura massage or crystal healing. Mustn’t gullibility have an evolutionary explanation too? “I would put it back to childhood and say that there’s a Darwinian survival value in children believing what their elders tell them, because the world is too dangerous a place and it takes too long to learn what you need to learn to survive,” Dawkins replies. “You’ve got to have a rule of thumb that’s built into the nervous system that says ‘Believe what you’re told’. And once you’ve got a rule of thumb like that, it’s like having a computer, which is vulnerable to viruses.’
4 July 2001
[movies] The Guardian interviews Timothy Spall… ‘Timothy Spall’s 20-year study of the British soul began with a small role in the 1979 youth culture classic Quadrophenia. “I was the fat projectionist,” he remembers. “A whole generation of actors were in that film: Phil Daniels, Ray Winstone, Phil Davis. All being these sharp mods or cool rockers, and I was the fat projectionist.”‘ [Related: Spall at IMDB]
[stuff] Random Linkage:
[comics] Brief preview of Grant Morrison’s New X-Men 2001 Annual….
3 July 2001
[celebrity] Ginger Snaps — interesting analysis into why Chris Evans left Virgin Radio last week… ‘”The real story with Chris is his friends,” one of his former friends explained. “I think he has a fairly serious personality disorder which begins with him thinking, ‘I am a funny, charismatic bloke, and I want to surround myself with my court’. He’s always done this, ever since he was a teenager. Like every bully, he’s always got a circle of acolytes, a little clique. He bullies people so that he can show off in front of that clique. That’s how he’s sustained himself. But then what happens is always the same. He has fallen out with everybody, even the people who have stuck with him through the worst kind of excesses.”‘ [Related: Sunday Times Profile, Net Notes on Evans]
[tv] Adam and Joe’s list of very Bad Things. ‘3. Making toast or tea in the ad break only to find, as the show starts again, you hadn’t plugged in the toaster/kettle.’
2 July 2001
[WTF?] Deeply weird… sexual situation involving chains and a Volkswagon…. ‘Case studies include “The Love Bug,” the weird tale of an airline pilot who sought gratification by running around in the nude while chained to the back of a Volkswagen rigged to drive in slow circles. Called to the scene when a fisherman stumbled upon the grisly tableau, stunned policemen found the pilot’s naked body smashed against the car’s left rear fender. Cops theorized the victim had been trying to turn off the ignition when the chain began wrapping around the axle, crushing him to death.’ [via Venusberg]
[books] Five books I’ve bought in charity shops recently…
Next Week: Another book list I haven’t though of yet…. although I’m planning on doing a list of the worst books I’ve ever read at some point… Shaun Hutson novels will feature strongly. 1 July 2001
[books] I should take a look at the Digested Read’s in the Guardian more often… One For My Baby: ‘”I’m planning a surprise birthday party for your father,” said my mum. “Surprise, surprise,” she shouted as the lights went on. And there was dad with his trousers round his ankles while Lena, the au pair, bobbed in front of him. Funny. I thought it was me she fancied. “I really love Lena,” muttered my dad as I helped him move his stuff out of the house. How do you live with loss? ‘
Nigella Bites: ‘I know that many of you may not have time for the table-laden breakfast, but even the sluttiest person can whip up muffins for 12. Just make the nanny get up at 5.30am to whip up some lumpy batter, spoon it into paper cases and cook for 20 minutes. You can hop out of the bath a couple of hours later and devour them with lashings of buerre de Normandie. By the way, get that nice little barman I once met in Hong Kong to make you a few Bloody Marys to wash it all down.’
[distraction] Bod and Star Wars collide…. Here Comes Darth. [via Bugpowder]
30 June 2001
[life] A Lease On Life — the Guardian looks at human longevity… ‘In theory, evolution could have come up with a different design, a human who reached sexual maturity decades later, or who went on having children for longer. But then the sabre-tooth factor kicks in. In mankind’s hunter-gatherer days, the chances were that something would kill you before you reached your mid-30s. It might have been famine, or murder, or a predator, or a nasty bacterium. There would have been no evolutionary point in having a man or woman who was in their physical prime at 70, if they had only a million-to-one chance of surviving violence and illness for that long. We’re a bit like cars. Maybe you could design and build a car that would last 1,000 years. But why would you, if the cars cost a billion pounds each, and were 99% likely to be destroyed in an accident in half that time?’
[comics] Tom interviews Grant Morrison [Part One | Part Two]. Morrison on Animal Man: ‘The Animal Man project began as a four issue miniseries in what he describes with a laugh as the “Alan Moore style – lots of poetic captions and interesting scene transitions”, but it soon spiralled away from this concept. “Half-way through the first four issues I decided that I just couldn’t continue with it. They had asked me to do it as an ongoing series, but it just wasn’t the kind of thing that I wanted to do. Suddenly the idea of the ‘Coyote Gospel’ came to me and that basically set the template for everything that I’ve done since.”‘
29 June 2001
[cartoon] Steve Bell on David Trimble’s threatened resignation…
[comics] Popimage has 20 questions with Joe Quesada. Old Marvel vs. New Marvel: ‘…communications between the upper levels of the company and our talent was really disastrous. We also had some very poor hiring methods. For starters we kept hiring editors and assistant editors to write our top books while the competition was recruiting new talent that was really breaking ground. We had no recruitment techniques at all! When we did hire top talent we wouldn’t let them do what they wanted to do, we had a very heavy-handed editorial approach and would make sure that the books were more editorially driven than talent driven. I think that there was also the ego factor, you know “Eff you we’re Marvel and if you don’t like it go work for the smaller companies” and ultimately we were afraid of change. I can’t tell you the fear, concern and jealousy that was felt across Marvel when Marvel Knights was introduced into the system. I could feel it walking down the halls on a daily basis. That first year I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up as I walked by certain offices.’
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