I think I may re-read The Sandwalk Adventures this weekend, in honour of Mr Darwin.

I just got a copy of 'Happy Birthday Darwin', produced by The Centre For Life which has a really good 'Brief Comic Life of Darwin' by Hunt Emerson. The whole thing is available to download as well. Which is nice.

I'm reading several things at the moment - including moshui's sublime Dragon In Chains. However, I'm going to write about reading The DFC.

This is a weekly children's comic that seems to be aiming itself in between The Beano and 2000AD, It's a 'typical' British comic in that it's weekly and an anthology format and, as such, the amount of enjoyment you get out of each issue depends on how much you like the stories. I started to get it for Max although I think that it may be a little old for him at the moment. He does enjoy some of the strips, but not others. He has had the most difficulty with some of the longer, continued adventure strips (such as 'John Blake'- written by Philip Pullman - and 'Spider Moon') and enjoys the very, short punchy strips (especially 'Sausage and Carrots' which he calls the joke cartoon. 'Monkey Nuts' - a comedy adventure strip, and 'Crab Lane Crew' - a story following the lives of a bunch of anthropomorphic kids and 'Good Dog, Bad Dog' - canine cops). I'm pretty much the other way around, although actually reading them one after the other, I am starting to see the attraction of Crab Lane Crew for it's very down to earth, every day problems and fun approach to storytelling.

Although it can be a bit of a grab bag, it does seem to work quite well, as far as I can see, in that it does seem to have something for everyone (well, every child) - the stories are an excellent mix of adventure and humour and characters that are a pleasingly eclectic mix of races and genders (much more so than your average super hero comic) and covers pretty much all genres.

I am really rather enjoying reading these. Max and I are a bit behind and need to catch up with them.

So, the current hassle between Fox and Warner Bros over the Watchmen movie? So easily sorted. Warner's can swap their rights to the Batman tv series for Fox's rights to Watchmen. Everyone makes money and all the fans (me included!) get to see both of these products.

Of course, it won't happen...

There's a school opening here in Newcastle called the Excelsior Academy.

'Nuff Said

Just because it's SO good!

EVERYTHING I REALLY NEEDED TO KNOW I LEARNED FROM "ASTERIX" COMICS (continued)
and
EVERYTHING I REALLY NEEDED TO KNOW I LEARNED FROM "ASTERIX" COMICS (volume three)

Enjoy!

I've just got my copy of the Absolute DC: The New Frontier book and it is a Thing of Beauty (I was trying to find a link which would show it off, but there's nothing there which shows anything but the wraparound cover. Which is, in and of itself, gorgeous, but does nothing to showcase how incredibly gorgeous it really is). I actually think, just flicking through it, that it's even nicer than any of the other Absolute editions I've got (and considering that includes editions of Watchmen and Sandman - the latter designed by Dave McKean - that's saying something.)And, even better is that, having bought it through Amazon.Com, I managed to get it for around £25 (it's $75 full price and I've seen it for £50 in comic shops) so I am extremely chuffed.

One that makes a lot of sense and has got me seriously thinking about my buying habits and a rebuttal.
( Massive comics geekery behind the cut. You have been warned... )

I've been thinking about the concept of rape and sexual objectification as entertainment tools recently. I read a lot of comics and, consequently I read a lot of comics blogs (if you look at my Friends list, you'll see what I mean). There have always been problems about the depiction of female characters (not to mention GLBT characters) in comics. Currently, it seems that the biggest furore is about the portrayal of Supergirl as a super-thin, hyper-sexualised teenage girl. There has also been a lot of controversy over the recent(ish) mini-series 'Identity Crisis' in which the maguffin for the series is that Sue Dibny, the wife of the Elongated Man, is raped and killed. I won't post any links about any of these things, but, if you want to follow up on it, then your best starting point is probably at When Fangirls Attack which also has an LJ syndication: fangirls_attack.

However, the reason I write all this, not just to point and say 'look, isn't this terrible' in a Daily Mail style, is because I have come to realise that it's not only comics that are doing this. There was a post on Making Light about rape in prisons and how it used as an offhand plot-point in CSI (which I never watch, so can't comment on). However, as bad, and possibly even worse is the BBC's latest reality type thing, The Verdict, in which a 'jury' of celebs (including Jeffrey Archer, for fucks sake! And Stan Collymore, a footballer who admitted to punching his girlfriend) decide on whether or not a (fictional) woman was actually raped. Now, once again, I haven't watched this because it just sounds utterly sick and completely vile. I mean, it's bad enough having a comic book character raped off screen but how much worse is this? I mean, when I first heard what it was (other than the hilariously pompous teaser trailers showing Jeffrey Archer being the voice of reason, which is a complete WTF moment in itself...) I thought that I must have misheard. But, apparently not. Quite frankly, this makes the whole Celebrity Big Brother thing seem like a storm in a teacup. I mean, whether or not Jade et al were being racist, it wasn't something that was set up by Channel Four. I really can't see the point of using a rape, other than it being the biggest and 'best' crime to go for. And that is a really sickening idea.

Well, continuing on with what I did yesterday - although re-reading it, I'm going to have to do some serious rewriting of the opening, but it can wait - I can see a story starting to slowly force its way out of the mire, like a delicate flower in the middle of a swamp. I've got a few ideas about where to go, although no idea about the end yet.

Apropos of absolutely nothing, I watched Priscilla, Queen of the Desert again last night. It's a wonderful film. Utterly silly, although with some vety serious points about homophobia. And all three of the actors made excellent girlies. And, all three of them are in some of my other favourite films - Terrance 'Kneel Before Zod!' Stamp in Superman 1 and 2, Hugo Weaving in The Matrix (I still really like the first one. As far as I'm concerned the sequels never happened.) and Lord of the Rings (and V for Vendetta, although that is less favourite. Not bad, but certainly on a different level to the other films mentioned here) and Guy Pearce (In Priscilla pretty much straight from playing a pretty boy in Neighbours going to playing a pretty boy of an entirely different sort) in LA Confidential. A wonderful film with fabulous outfits. Although none I would actually want to wear, you understand. And some gorgeous imagery - Guy Pearce's character sitting on a giant stilletto shoe on top of the bus, in a sparkly silver outfit, huge sheets of silver material fluttering out behind him while he lipsyncs to opera. Utterly ridiculous and yet utterly fantastic!

And, by the way, if anyone has any interest in comics, you should do yourself a favour and check out this week's Marvel Adventures:The Avengers (#9). It's hilarious. It hs the Avengers getting captured and transformed into MODOKs (here changed to MODOC - the C for Conquest rather than the K for Killing, 'cos, y'know, it's for kids...) - giant headed, psychotic, psychic versions of themselves who travel around in floating chairs. And then they go and fight Rommbu. It's very, very, very silly. And I liked it lots.

Go to see the trailer for eddie_campbell's new graphic novel "The Black Diamond Detective Agency. It's so good that Voice-Over Guy is guaranteed years of work to come now that all the comic book companies are getting in on doing trailers.

Having said that, I am so looking forward to this. But then, I look forward to anything Mr Campbell does.

Read this. It's the account of a woman who used to work in comics and her life and how incredibly screwed up it became. It is fascinating, sickening and upsetting.

Well, it was a pretty good weekend.
( What I did on my Summer Holidays. Well, this weekend, anyway )
We went to see V for Vendetta on Sunday evening. I enjoyed it a lot.
( Spoilers! )
And, thanks to shewhomust I have discovered Digger by ursulav. It's rather wonderful - kind of a cross between Cerebus and Bone, but not really anything like either one of them. And the art work is gorgeous - wood cut/lino print type stuff. Buy the print version, to ensure that volume 2 comes out so I can read that as well.

And that is almost undoubtedly the most used phrase for talking about this subject...

I've just watched the Global Frequency pilot episode. I've had on the computer for a few weeks now but only just managed to get around to watching it. And it's really rather good. Especially for a pilot episode which are usually pretty poor (the first episode of Buffy is far from the best one, although it shows lots of potential. And so does this.)

I really donh't understand why something that shows the possibilities that this does gets ignored whilst other far less deserving shows (ahem-Andromeda-ahem) make it. Maybe because this is actually fairly intelligent and thoughtful. Whereas Andromeda... isn't.

GF isn't the best show in the world, the two main characters (not including Miranda Zero and Aleph who seem to have been 'ported over from the comic fairly successfully) are standard character-stypes - the gorgeous geek girl and the wisecracking ex-cop-on-the-edge. But, they did seem to do something with them that looked as if they were going to expand on these clichés fairly quickly.

Most new shows I can watch for about 10 or 15 minutes before turning off in boredom and disgust at the shite that has been broadcast. This one, I watched in a small window on my computer screen and didn't take my eyes off it once. This, I think says something. Here's hoping that the swelling fanbase for it can get the Powers That Be to change their minds about it. Not that I'm holding my breath.

Well, it was Thursday yesterday. And as everyone who is anyone knows, Thursday means New Comics Day!

For the last year or so, since I moved back up to Newcastle from London, I've been continuing to get my comics from Gosh Comics, which was my Local Comic Shop down there (okay, local is a relative term here. Maybe calling it the shop I frequented is a better method of talking about it...). However, since being up here, I've been nipping in to Travelling Man every so often. It's a nice shop, with the possible exception of playing loud, bad music which seems somewhat designed to put people off. But I can handle that, mostly.

Last week, Candy and I discovered that the wedding and a long weekend down in London had rather depleted our funds - we are both doing temp jobs at the moment, so any time that Candy and I take off means we don't get paid. This eld to me looking seriously at changing my way of getting my comics. Gosh charges £4.50 postage per package. I figured that even if I got rid of that expense I'd be going some way to saving way (I got two deliveries a month, so that is getting up to around £100 a year just for that!) However, looking into it more, I discovered that I could be saving 20 or 30p on each comic I buy as well. So that really clinched the deal.

So, last weekend I cancelled my standing order with Gosh - not without some regret because they are a good shop and a nice bunch of people. I was expecting to keep getting stuff I ordered with them until the beginning of August, but they are are, as I mentioned, nice people and so cancelled it all then and there.

This long ramble leads me to my point. Yesterday was my first proper 'New Comics Day' in over a year! I got to a comic shop and buy the latest stuff of the shelves without having to wait for it to be sent to me. It was always one of the things that I enjoyed about buying comics (that and the whole reading them part as well, of course) and I'd missed it. Pity there wasn't a lot for me to get this week.

'm not going to go into what I actually bought, because that's kid of dull and even more geeky than the rest of what I've written here. And I haven't read them all yet, so it'd just be a list of titles.

I've been lurking on LJ for quite some time now, mainly to read other people's journals and to make it easire to post comments. And to have that nice picture of wherever it is in Samarkand as my avatar (thanks for that, Jean!).

I've also got a proper blog thingy on my website, although it is updated less often than the Bayeux tapestry. Which is probably a bizarre comparison to make, but hey, I don't care. And let's face it, when was the last time the Bayeux Tapestry was updated? Quite a while ago, I'd wager.

Anyway, at the moment I'm doing some really dull temp work. The work itself is dull and there isn't actually enough to keep me occupied for very long. So, I've spent the last few days looking for interesting things to keep me occupied. And this, as it usually does, leads me to look for comic book type things. Normally, I lurk around on Millarworld but that's been getting really dull recently. So, I've been looking for yer actual webcomics. And I managed to find some nice transgender themed ones (that being another interest). So, I've read 'em now and I thought I'd put some links up so other people can look at them, if they're interested. I mean, I don't know who will see this - I know that at least one person has me as a friend here and they seemed to have been be-friended by quite a few other people, so maybe they'll see it and it'll spread far and wide. Or perhaps not. I dunno. Don't really care either. This is mainly just to give me something to do...

Anyway, the first one I read is called Venus Envy. It's a cute strip about the life and loves of a transsexual girl in school.

Actually, come to think of it, that seems to be the format for most of the strips I've been reading over the last few days.

The next one is Closetspace which is harder to describe. It's about a TS who moves out of his house when he is discovered by his parents and then moves in with a woman, as a woman. Secrets and soap opera abound but it's enjoyable stuff.

Then, the last of the good ones I looked at (there were others but I wasn't that impressed so I didn;t get very far with them) is Lean On Me which is the TV/TS in school. It's not exactly realistic but it's fun and has some very cute girly outfits on the girls and the boys.

One thing about all of the strips I looked at is that they were done in a very manga style of art. Which is not my favourite thing. I much prefer the American Superhero look (although saying that there is only one style of American - by which I mean those artists who are published in comics from Marvel, DC et al, no matter where they come from - is as silly as saying there is only one style of manga art) to the manga look, and I even prefer Western cartooning (such as in PvP or Bone to Manga cartooning. However, saying all that, it didn't detract from the stories for me. Although it'd be nice to find a good Western-style strip that actually dealt with transvestism and crossdressing. (Not asking for much am I?) I have thought about trying it myself but, when you consider that I have difficulty in drawing a straight line with a ruler and I'm meant to be trying to write a novel that has had about 1000 words added to it in the last two years, I guess I have to admit to myself that it's really not going to happen.

Anyway, that was the first entry. There's a good chance it'll be the last one as well. We'll see how I go.