Friday, 13 November 2009

Break

Off to brave the flood plains of South West England for a few days. I shall be taking the following reading material with me...

Drifting Classroom vol 6
Invincible: Happy Days vol 11
Jersey Gods 1-9
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman (a 35-year-old novel with no pictures for crying out loud)
Cities In Flight by James Blish (yet more ancient SF prose)
Essential Spider-Man Vol 1 (for my son who likes to leaf through the black and white pages while telling me stories of Spidey and Rhino's trips to Sainsbury's).

Back next week. Ta-ra!

Thursday, 12 November 2009

Covers

Evening all. Can't stop long, as I'm planning to read some comics before flopping out. Just a brief note on a couple of luvverly covers from today's haul...

This stunner from Mike Allred makes me sad about how far behind I've fallen on Jersey Gods. It's a beautiful hybrid of indie and silver age which captures the spirit of the book perfectly. I'm going to get back on track with this very soon.

EDIT: Just received an email from Jersey Gods artist, Dan McDaid. He read my previews yesterday and offered to send me all the issues of Jersey Gods for free! I told him that there was no need as I already have all the issues in a nice pile waiting to be read, but I am bowled over by his offer, and it makes me want to ensure that as many people as possible go out and read Jersey Gods. It's a brilliant book, Glen Brunswick's writing is amazing, the covers are always ace and not only is Dan McDaid an incredible artist, he's also clearly a top, top bloke! So, go on imaginary web chums, support nice, talented people: BUY JERSEY GODS!

Message ends. On to the next cover...

"Look at my huge motorcock!"

Block out the title and substitute Batman and Robin for a stricken Holly Johnson, cos this looks like a lost Frankie Goes To Hollywood album cover to me. Hints of Prince too. Whatever, it's a proper piece of pink magnificence on a par with this...

Can't wait to get stuck in.

Wednesday, 11 November 2009

Shopping List

Good morning. Today I will be taking my son to a toddlers drop-in where I will meet with other mothers and debate the inability of toddlers to share. Later, we two men will leave the women and return to our lair for lunch and Essential Spider-Man revision. Then we will rest in preparation for tomorrow when it will once again be time to lash the nerd sack to the buggy and hit the West End for some comics. Here's what I'll be stashing alongside the nappies and Sudocrem...

Action Comics #883
The tedious adventures of Nightprick and Flamecunt. Why am I buying this bilge?

Batman and Robin #6
Three cheers for Phillip Tan! Aye, you heard me right fanboy! I know it's quite the thing to wank off over Frank Quitely and then use the Tan issues to wipe yourself, but I haven't got my knickers in a twist about the artist change up on Batman and Robin because I happen to think Tan is doing an excellent job. Told.

Comic Book Comics #4
I can't believe this is out. It's so fucking good that I'll probably read it in the shop, on the bus and again when I get home. A genuinely fine piece of scholarship and a top comic too.

Drifting Classroom Vol 6
In volume 5 loads of kids caught the plague. Kids who didn't have the plague chased the sick kids around and stabbed them to death with sharp sticks. '70s manga is the b@mb!!1!

Gravel #15
Oh fuck, I'm about six issues behind on Warren Ellis' Hellblazer rip off now. I like it so I keep buying it. Mind you, I haven't been reading it, so it might've turned shit in the last few months. I reckon it's about 70/30 to still be good.

What kind of a fucking preview was that, eh? Tosser.

Green Lantern Corps #42
Zombie alien shenanigans. I'm the only person who isn't completely bored of this aren't I?

Irredeemable #8
Behind, behind. Can't remember what's happening, dum-de-dum-de-dum.
That issue where The Plutonian killed Singapore made me laugh, so I'm still getting it.

Jersey Gods #9
Bollocks, I'm six issues behind on this and it's fucking brilliant. What a wanker.

Phonogram #5
I've already mentioned that I'm too old for this comic. I'm also far too stupid to understand all of what's going on and don't know anything about any of the bands referenced throughout. To be honest it leaves me feeling a bit like an ageing father trying to tap his feet in time to his teenage child's favourite band. I like it though and fuck my old boots if it isn't pretty.

Rebels #10
Mental starfish from space vs conceited alien. The dog's bollocks. Can't believe I forgot about it when I was listing DC's good comics yesterday. Cunt.

Tuesday, 10 November 2009

Rambling stream of comics conciousness

Nothing much of any interest to say today -what's fucking new, right? Just a few bits and pieces that have been running around my head of late. Number one: Marvel's actually quite a bit better than DC at the moment isn't it? I mean I'm enjoying my Blackest Night and all, but if you look at Marvel they've got all the cool writers - Hickman, Aaron, Fraction, Remender, Brubaker, Millar, Ellis, van Lente, Abnett & Lanning, Cornell, Diggle. That's quite a list. I'm not saying that the writers at DC are shit, I mean they've got Johns, Morrison and Rucka, but the geezers at Marvel are hipper, funnier, edgier and dare I say it, younger (I think).

The whole Norman Osborn Dark Reign bollocks bores me, but you know...Old Man Logan, Ghost Rider, Cap, The Fan Four, Secret Warriors, Iron Man - those are all top quality comics. I'm not even reading Hercules, Daredevil, The Guardians of The Galaxy, Nova or The Punisher, but I hear they're all brilliant too. They can't fail to be when you look at the calibre of creators working on them. It really is an amazing line-up. In fact I'd say you could pick up just about any Marvel book at the mo and enjoy it - take Doctor Voodoo for flip's sake. Two issues in and it's fucking brilliant. Really. Remender writing a mental voodoo story with all sorts of A list baddies. Great art from some fellah whose name escapes me (sorry) and a lot of it is set in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans which in itself is a fantastic idea. Issue two has all these demons running about in the wrecked city killing the population. It's the perfect setting - Nightmare in New Orleans! Brilliant. Where else are the demons going to go but a disaster-hit city mired in despair and misery?

Meanwhile, nothing much seems to be happening with DC's books. I'm soldiering on with the whole New Krypton saga, but it really isn't much good at the moment and it's costing a lot to keep up to speed with the stodgy story. Blackest Night? It's good, but I reckon it must be a turn off to a lot of people who aren't heavily invested in the DCU. Flash Rebirth has been terrible thus far and seems to have disappeared completely. Wednesday Comics was good. Batman and Robin is brilliant. Nothing else is really getting me excited, although I am enjoying The Mighty which is set outside the DCU.

Anyway, I'm once again trying to force myself to drop some titles and it's the DC stuff which is looking most likely for the chop at the mo. Meanwhile I'm having to force myself not to pick up all the Marvel books.

**********************************************************************************

Grabbed a copy of 2000AD the week before last. Been enjoying the old stuff so much, I thought it was time for one of my yearly attempts to get into the current incarnation of the comic. Nyeer. It was OK.The Dredd story was enjoyable enough, but the rest left me a bit cold. There's this one story about a war between Heaven and Hell where a naked woman strolls about being asked to give blowjobs to demons. I'm reading it and thinking, fuck's sake, you couldn't give this to a kid to read. Which is a shame really, because the beauty of classic 2000AD as far as I'm concerned is the way that it offered up subversive, independent thinking in the guise of adventure stories for kids. Yes there was violence, but it was over the top, slapstick stuff. There wasn't any bad language or sex and you could happily bung it on the bottom shelf at the newsagents. I know that the market for the thing is 30+ men now, but for me it's lost what made it great. Anarchic comics for 11-year-olds, that's what I want, even if there isn't any demand.

Monday, 9 November 2009

Pictures of tourists who accidentally stumbled into Dave's quiz

Stroppy Canadian biddies asking Dave to turn down the theme tune to Lost In Space...

Shut it Zelda!

Later: Confused Spanish tourists are ordered to hold up a sheet of Doctor Who monsters...

before doing a runner...
We got a team together (Thanks Mr Wheatley, Gareth and the cuntishly funny Duncan) sadly we finished last. Oh well, at least I knew that the full name of Mr Sin is in fact Mr Sin AKA The Peking Homunculus. This makes me better than you.

I hope there will be a quiz next month, (c'mon Dave, you know you want to), I'll keep you posted.

Sunday, 8 November 2009

Racism in football

I've got mountains of new American comics to read, so what am I doing? Kicking back with some bad British comics from the 1970s of course! What else are Sunday afternoons for, eh?

My comic of choice today is The 1976 Smash Annual, which is pretty grim, even by late '70s standards. It's littered with racist nastiness, nowhere more so than in a football story called The World-Wide Wanderers, one of those text pieces that filled the pages of British hardback annuals back in the day.

The World-Wide Wanderers is a tale about the greatest football team the world has ever seen, a crack unit who also happen to be a a bunch of racial stereotypes.

Oh dear.

Anyway, so good at the beautiful game have The World-Wide Wanderers become, that their own fans have grown bored of watching them routinely annihilate the opposition. Faced with falling crowds, millionaire owner Harry Kraft, turns to computer Whizz, Aristotle Smith who feeds a copy of the rules of Association Football and a bunch of info about the Wanderers players into a super computer that comes up with a new exciting way of playing football based wholly on racial stereotypes...

HUZZAH!

Thus in the Wanderers next match against the (I kid you not) European All-Stars they set out to bamboozle their white opponents with a uniquely offensive brand of football...

Fats walks the ball into the net. The All-Stars complain. Unfortunately for them, the referee is from Tibet and waves their complaints away with the following explanation...

Ah yes, no gentlemen in Tibet, just a bunch of skull-kicking nutcases. The fellah who wrote this should be working for the Chinese government. But I digress, on with the game, and time to shine the spotlight on Moto, Wanderers' Japanese star...

Two-nil. Yay for the unstoppable foreign footie machine! Roared on by their demented crowd they swing into racial overdrive...


Two penalties follow, the first dispatched, kung-fu style, the second...

Half-time and the score is 6-0. Second-half starts with Bulgy the Turk cutting a square of turf out with his dagger, plonking the ball on it, waddling up the field and placing it carefully in the All-Stars goal...

And so it goes on, we get goal number eight when Fijan keeper, Sharky sneaks up the field and scares the All-Star keeper off with "a ferocious cannibal yell" before hiding under his cap, taking a backpass from the All-Star keeper whipping off his cap to reveal his "grinning black face" and backheeling into the net.

Number nine arrives courtesy of Bandy the Indian. Intoning a sacred Hindu incantation, he whips out a piece of rope from under his shirt, throws it in the air, where it magically stiffens allowing him to Climb above the All-Stars defence and head Chang the Afghan's cross into the net.

The game moves into the last minute, and it's time for Wanderers captain and only white player (obv) Carruthers, to put the icing on the racist cake. Surrounded by his racial inferiors he runs unchallenged, monocle string flapping in the breeze, to plant number ten in the old onion bag...

Stitch that. A thorough hiding for the European All-Stars. What a rip-roaring yarn. Who the fuck came up with that one eh?

Scans from Smash Annual, 1976. Writer and artist uncredited.

Friday, 6 November 2009

Final Reminder

Busy, busy, busy. Just enough time to throw one last reminder into the ether - SUNDAY IS DAVE F's NERDGASM QUIZ!

It kicks off nice and early - 6.45pm
Venue - The Green Man and French Horn
You've been told!
At all day Stag Do tomorrow, so no posting from me.

RSS Reader