Birmingham Comic Show Signings: Dave Gibbons.

hurm...

It's kinda weird but I haven't been to many comic conventions, so I haven't experienced the sketch book phenomena where fans go from comic artist to comic artist and get them to draw sketches, (eeeh couldya do me a Wonder Woman with big jugs, that sort of thing) some have themes like a certain character, or all the 2000ad guys. Being decent sorts comic artists usually enthusiastically comply to a sometimes industrial style conveyor belt churning out of artist gems where people in other industries would tell the fanboy to go feck themselves.

For me at the Birmingham International Comics Show, the main thing I wanted was to have my almost falling apart and much loved copy of Watchmen (1987 US edition) signed by Dave Gibbons. He was extremely nice and chatted to fans while I was waiting in the queque about the progress of the movie, saying he had drawn three extra pages (alternate ending maybe?) to be used as storyboards and that Zach Snyder is using the original artwork as storyboards more or less which is heartening news. Anyway he signed my copy and did a Rorscharch sketch so I was a happy geek. I also brought some of the great 1993 mini series inked by him and written by Alan Moore, still criminally not collected in a trade paperback. 1963 was a great spoof of early Marvel with some great spoof ads.

Pot to kettle department....

Ah the old saying: "People in Shit Robin Williams Film Making Houses shouldn't throw stones...at Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino and Robert de Niro."

"You know, even in those days after The Godfather, I didn't feel that those actors were ready to say, 'Let's do something else really ambitious."

This from the man who bestowed, Captain EO (1986) , Jack (1996) and (parts of) Supernova (2000) onto a poor undeserving world....

is this some sort of bizarre suicide bid?

Give it up for Glycon.

Glycon

Good interview with Alan Moore by Susanna Clarke in the Telegraph today here. Mostly on Lost Girls but bits and pieces on Watchmen and V For Vendetta. 

Ending with some wry observations on:

LIFE 'It's a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography, if you're lucky.'

HOLLYWOOD FILMS 'If I write a crappy comic book, it doesn't cost the budget of an emergent Third World nation.'

LOVE 'I'd recommend to anybody working on their relationship that they should try embarking on a 16-year elaborate pornography [project] together. I think they'll find it works wonders.'

Fist of Fun and This Morning with Richard Not Judy

Full series up from Google video on Stewart Lee's great site. There's also a lovely interview of Lee by Johnny Vegas. 

The 6.55 to Lowestoft

It's hardly the 8.15 to Manchester, but two days a week (Thursdays and Fridays) I find myself on the 6.55 to Lowestoft to teach 'contextual studies' at an art college. See above that's exactly how I look too after about 2 hours sleep and a 40 minute walk to the train station to catch said train and look forward to a 30 minute walk to the college to teach for 6 hours. While beginning I had a strange thought, well I've finally got to art college, but not in a way I ever envisoned. Before media studies I had an interview with both the art colelges in Belfast and Dublin. Being an obsessive comic geek back then (quelle surprise) my portfolio was a collection of demented madness so I understand why I wasn't excepted. Artefacts from this leather bound beast included much John Hinkleton inspirsed sci-fi perversity, a screen print series based on the Spider-Man 2099 logo, a reimagining of the creature from Split Second (1992) and I dunno some still lives thrown in there in a vague attempt to convince them I wasn't a comics and sci-fi obsessed lunatic. Ironically one interviewer in Belfast had a Roy Lichtenstein print tie while poking in disdain through my 2000ad-inspired doodles.

It's a lot of work but fun and is inspiring me to do more drawings. In the mean time, looking forward to going to the International Comic Show on Saturday/Sunday 13-14th October and can't wait for the dweebfest, meeting up with the notorious b-boy and Declan Shalvey

Oh, and I'm doing stand up again on October 22, site here, and report of my last go here. Last time I didn't anyone I was doing it, this time I have told a load of people, making it similarly nerve-wrecking to the first time. It's all new stuff and I'm having a good laugh writing down my various rants for public consumption rather than letting them festering as normal. My friends normally have to hear them anyway so it'll probably be best for all of them to get the vile business all over in one go. Have been being inspired by Stewart Lee good bits here on the Incredible Hulk, Joe Pasquale and Princess Diana and an ET or was it an Alf. Oh and he interviewed Alan Moore and Ted Chippington.

RANDY TARTT

a little decication to all the art students out there...

Sparks -

La Jetee (1962)

"He was prepared to face a mad scientist, a Dr. Frankenstein, instead of whom he met a reasonable man who told him, in a relaxed manner, that the human race was doomed"...

Primer (2004) by Shane Carruth , amazing sci-fi for $7,000 that's probably less than a spidey suit

once for old time's sake.

The final push urgghaaahh

For those of you not on facebook and thus luckily spared the intense banal-o-drama of my life in visual detail,  here are the sights that have been accompanying me on the final writing up, where miniscule confidence meets sheer terror and sleep deprivation on a grand scale. So no blogging for a month or so. If your get bored, why not have a chat with my friends here, although these days all I'm saying to them is "I knew I shouldn'ta left yous in charge!!"

After all this, hoping to get Here, not everyone's idea of a weekend break but would be nice to be a pure comic geek again. 

Beaver Boys

shrimp and white wine

Some late night Saturday Spike Jones madness...just beacause

Spike Jones, fucking genius, his tracks can still stop a party in its tracks like Peaches, in the 'what the fuck is this' genre, always end up listening to him late at night.
P.S. he's the reason the other guy has a Z.

Quick believe in evoultion or else you'll shrink into nothingness!

From: Genesis 6 Giants

"Where did these giants come from and what was their connection with ordinary humans? Just who were they? What happened to these extraordinary creatures? Is it possible they could ever return? The last question I will answer right now - YES, they most definitely could return! And they have something much worse in mind for mankind."

One of the joys of facebook, yeah like no one has been mentioning it recently, is a group set up by my old employers of New York's premium abstract mine where us outsourced Irish writers were kinda like Victorian waifs and chimney sweeps sent up a big chimney papered with things like Ebony, Christianity Today and Model Railroader. I shouldn't knock Model Railroader too much becuase if the above diagram is anything to go by we'll be driving around in them in a couple of years, and using Star Wars figures as statues.

 

I love this pic, so by this  'logic'(sorry to misuse the word) God's like 200 foot tall and we will eventually get so 'modern' we'll keep shrinking until we evolve into nothingness like The Incredible Shrinking Man 

Abstract mine boss 'R' says it comes from this site * and adds: "You can read all about it here, if you have the time and leave your brain at the door. note: some of the text on the pages is very small, presumably because it is intended to be read by the more evolved among us, to whom it appears to be an enormous headline-sized font." 

More fun here: 

Obviously the people who lived contemporary with dinosaurs were intelligent, and the footprints indicate that they were quite human, as the large toe on primates is located close to the heel to facilitate clinging to branches.

So you all have a nice weekend, don't shrink and watch out for giants they may return to eat your giblets. 

*Apart from the overall bonkers quotient of the site, I love they way its opening sound bite is from The Wizard of OZ! not know for it's fundamentalist Christian fanbase. 

Frank Black on Vinyl Justice

your Frank Black Friday fun, classic clip from Adam and Joe's Vinyl Justice

Tales of the Gold Monkey - Opening Credits

i mean who lets a one-eyed dog fly a plane, it was acceptable in the 80s....

Tales of the Gold Monkey Balls....

Comics writer and blogger par excellance, David Campbell, of Dave's Long Box Fame has come up with a painstakingly 'scientific' way to discern which U.S. hour long adventure show were good and which ones were, let's be honest, pure balls, with his  

Nostalgiametrics: Science of Today for Yesterday's Crap

For me growing up, Tales of the Gold Monkey  (fan site here) was kinda like the Popeye movie (which I saw in a cinema in Bundoran), although I was sure I saw it at some stage the fact that no one seemed to remember it and the lack of any mentions in books or TV documentaries, had me unsure, did I dream it? Was it the produce of a demented brain pan like that famous Bangles versus Fuzzbox postapocalyptic wrestling show: "The Adventures of Tulula Fuzzbang in the Forbidden Dimension". I remember seeing only the first few minutes of Tales of the Gold Monkey that happened to start just before I god dragged off to mass at some novena or other, never got to watch it, yeah thanks God, another fuckup from you. 

Comics Britannia press/blog roundup, the Internet could explode....

Update: Jonathon Ross on Steve Ditko in The Guardian 

• The Times Top Twenty Superhero Movies
• Bryan Talbot's history of British Comics in the Guardian, scans at Fictions  originally from Lying in the Gutter
• Kim Newman on Comics Britannia
• Charlie Brooker on Comics Britannia
• Lew Stringer blog review
• Andrew Billen on Comic Britannia, the Times. 
  
• Down the Tubes British Comics Ning Network

also, The Times, "Sci-fi films are as dead as Westerns, says Ridley Scott"

and the new Iron Man Trailer. 

'There, all done' 

see what happens when 'google' yourself late at night....

You find out that you're not a hip comic academageek after all but a busted donkey with badly damaged ears...adopt me before it's too late from here.

Horray for BBC4! TV Documentary on Comics that doesn't suck shock!

Finally got round to seeing the Armando Iannucci-narrated BBC4 documentary "The Fun Factory" as part of their Comic Britainica strand.

Although there were a few niggling cliches of documentaries on comics, flippant title credits, e.g. Paul Gravett, referred to as a "Comics Brainaic", it was a genuine joy to find out more about artists like Ken Reid. Along with Leo Baxendale, he did provide a strange almost unsettling edge to occasionally twee British comics which I caught the tail-end of while growing up with "Sweeney Toddler" and "Calamity James". I suppose the U.S. precedent to a lot these artists' styles was Basil Wolverton, but they all share a seething madness breaking through the weekly grind of sometimes generic repeated storylines. There was a continuity between the crazier Baxendale strips and Oink and Viz. It was also interesting the way stuff like Baxendale's Thrpp! could fit effortlessly in with the anthology boom of more adult title in the early 1990s, Jimmny's personal peak of obsessive comic collecting where a cold sweat would ensue if McCawley's newsagent in Cootehill hadn't kept my reserved copies of 2000ad and Overkill.

Extensive coverage at the Forbidden Planet Blog here.

Next Up is Jonathan Ross in search of Steve Ditko.