Mark Millar, former author of The Authority, current writer of The Ultimates, and Ultimate X-Men, has officially launched his new site today. He's included a forum area which, with luck, will take over where the soon-to-be-dead Warren Ellis Forum is leaving off as an intelligent place to discuss comics (and a whole lot more) on the web.
He's also having launch parties this evening all over the world, which is a very nice idea if you're a person with a sufficiently high profile to get the people out for them....
The Mirror continues to solidify its new (or renewed) position as a radical, campaigning tabloid - today's headline; "No Ethics Please, We're British" fronts a story about Prime Minister Blair's studied moral position on arms sales: "If we didn't sell them, someone else would." As noted in the story - that's the same defence traditionally used by slave traders and drug dealers.
I don't think we should immediately dismantle an entire industry - I'm pragmatic enough to know that the world is a dangerous place, and until it isn't, reasonable defence is prudent. But when we can present no better case for the sale of our products, knowing the uses to which they will be put, than this, we certainly have no room to be lecturing anyone else in the world from any supposed posiition of moral superiority.
The Disasters Emergency Committee, a coalition of 13 of Britain's aid agencies, launched a major appeal yesterday to raise forty million pounds, to try and avert what they describe as a 'humanitarian catastrophe' in southern Africa. The situation in the region has received some coverage, but nowhere near enough. An ongoing chain of events, from drought to flood to political unrest to the devastating impact of AIDS has created a situation that even the ordinarily inert Tony Blair has felt compelled to address.
More information on the situation and the campaign, including details of how to make a donation, should you choose to do so, are at the Disasters Emergency Committee site.
So the whole Big Brother 2002 extravaganza ends tomorrow, and I just thought I'd take a moment to mention that despite having been gripped throughout, this last week I've felt no interest in the events of the house at all. Having felt that I'd missed something if I couldn't see the 10pm highlights each evening, this week I've been "Oh, is that on?" I suspect it's down to the fact that we're beyond nominations now, and no element of the interplay inside the house can now have an influence on what happens outside - I doubt that anyone's changing their mind on their winning vote during this last week.
But I'll be watching tomorrow to see the final act unfold, and I'll no doubt be gutted if Jade or Alex win.
I caught up with an old friend this evening - I haven't seen Sue for about five years, despite the fact that we work (and I mean this quite literally) about 300 metres apart. We only had a couple of drinks, but we're planning on meeting in a couple of weeks time, hopefully with her other half Michael, for a proper catch-up. I've known her since the end of 1985, which is actually a pretty long time ago, now I come to think of it.
If you're particularly keen-eyed, you may have noticed a new link over on the left - I've decided to start trying to take more photos of things that catch my eye in an everyday way - I know myself well enough to know that I'll never manage to keep it up daily, which is why it's definitely not 'Photo of the day'. I'll put the date of each new one I post, so keep an eye on it. I hope you like.
Since I came in, I've watched an episode of The West Wing from Season 1 - Take This Sabbath Day is a meditation on capital punishment, and this is the first time I've seen it. I know I've made rave references to TWW before, but even within the context of the series as a whole, this one is something special. The point is made during the programme that 71% of Americans support the death penalty, but a better dramatic exploration of the themes, and of why state-sanctioned killing is wrong, would be hard to find. "Society has a right to protect itself, but it doesn't have a right to be vengeful."
The usual existential uncertainty of tube travel (Will you get where you think you're going? Will it take four, five, or six times longer than the schedule says it should? Will you still remember why you were going there when you arrive?) was exacerbated on my commute this morning by a new strain: Will the doors close properly at this station? Will they close at the next? Will the station staff get sick of banging the doors to get them to close? Will the train get taken out of service here, or at the next station? How many times will they unload all the passengers after telling them the train is being taken off then reload them 'to go at least as far as the next station'?
I got off two stops before my destination in the end and walked, which (apart from the joys of inhaling London traffic fumes for 30 minutes), I'm sure did me a great deal of good....
I've been out this evening with Lara, and introduced her to the joys of tapas - honestly, I do eat other kinds of food, it's just that there's this really great tapas place really close to the office.... We had a great catch-up though, and the good news is that her new US visa has come through, faster and way more hassle-free than she was at all expecting.
Couple of links for your edification:
This one's been linked from a few places, but is worth circulating further:
"Still, the only thing that realy freaks me out is the semen. Well, OK, the lubricant freaks me out too, but I'm pretty sure that's because of the implied presence of semen." True stories from behind the porn rental counter.
And a prime case of someone washing their dirty laundry well and truly in public.
The comic fan thing - part two.
(Part one is here.)
I've been remembering a few other classic series, no longer with us: Zot and Open Season I've mentioned here before, but in the back of an old Mage I was leafing through, I found an ad for The Fish Police - yes, it's *exactly* what it sounds like. I'd forgotten all about it.
Anyway, picking up where I left off, the beginning of the 90s was not exactly a hotbed of creativity in the US industry as far as subject matter was concerned, though a new generation of exceptional artists were making their names known: Todd Macfarlane, Jim Lee, Chris Bachalo came out of nowhere, and various others who had been developing their craft via back-ups and one-shots started coming to prominence too. A number of these artists broke away from Marvel to create Image Studios around 1992/3, and the saga of their output and the politics that came along with them would be (and has been) worthy of a far more-extensive exploration than I can get into here.
From a fan's point of view though, the big event of the early 90s was the glaring exception to the 'not much creativity in subject matter was concerned' standard, and that was DC's new Vertigo imprint. I'd seen DC rediscover its horror roots (literally, in the case of certain characters taken off the shelf, dusted down and given a decesnt showing after decades of disuse) via titles like Swamp Thing and its spinoff Hellblazer, and a series of other titles were added that formed a thematic family a long time before anyone thought to make it official with the Vertigo title; Books Of Magic, Black Orchid, and of course, The Sandman. Vertigo, at that point in time, was *the* place where new and different things happened. I've been looking back at the 'This month from Vertigo' page in some of their early output, and I'm amazed by the number and variety of their stuff. The only one that's still there today is Hellblazer, but along the way, they've had some massive successes, and have remained one of the most experimental imprints around. Vertigo titles I'm reading today include Hunter: The Age of Magic, Codename: Knockout, Fables, The Filth, and the simply magnificent Lucifer.
I had to make a break from comics for a while in the mid 90s. I spent five years freelancing, and simply couldn't afford the expense. On top of which the lack of creativity that was going into the characters I felt the most loyalty to (always Marvel, hardly any DC) actually made me stop caring. As it happens, while I was away, things started to pick up.
Various new imprints were started at various publishers, and creativity started poking its head above the parapet even in the world of the superhero. Stormwatch and The Authority rewrote most of the rules, and suddenly, creativity in concept became important again - a series like Planetary assumes a literate readership, aware of a range of literary genres and conventions, as well as one willing to see 'post-humans' in roles other than the traditional superhero and supervillain. Only a few years earlier, it wouldn't have even got off the drawing board.
I always kept a bit of an eye on what was going on, and eventually came back to the fold - tentatively at first, but finding myself progressively drawn back into a rather different landscape than the one I left. Marvel, though still stuck in a cycle of superhero publishing that they seem unwilling to break, is at least generating content and concepts at a level of creativity I haven't seen from them in a long time, possibly ever. DC's superhero range is generally as inward-looking and caught up in cross-title continuity as ever, but through Vertigo, Wildstorm and Cliffhanger they're putting out quality material, and several of the other major publishers are trying new things. I find myself picking up at least one new title a month - and letting others go, for balance, thanks goodness - and some I don't stay with for long, but it's interesting, that after all these years, there's still enough potentially interesting material being created that I can find something new to try, and find myself enjoying it, so frequently.
In the interests of exploring some new territory, I followed the Blogging Brits webring link from burnt toast, and wandered on for a few stops on the ring, only to be struck by the undeniable realisation that I wasn't even remotely interested in 90% of what I was reading.
This isn't a judgement on the abilities of those who occupy those positions in the ring, so much as an illustration of what I've always considered to be a flaw in webrings of the blogging variety. The basic concept of webrings I think is relatively sound - If I read a Buffy site that I like, or a comics one, or a cat-owners one (is there a cat-owners webring????), then it's at least safe to assume that I'll be pre-disposed to be interested in the content of another. When I get there I might not like the specific execution, which is okay, because look! Here's a link to another, but at least there was a chance I'd stop.
(I should also own up to the fact that I actually never follow webring links even on topics I'm interested in, except in exercises like this, or to find out what kind of sites constitute a ring.)
Blogging webrings seem to me to miss that fundamental point of common interest. There's no reason at all why anyone but me should find the particular mix of stuff that I put on here of interest to them based solely on factors such as my location, or gender, or anything else but the content itself. That's why I'll follow links provided by people who I like reading to people they like reading, and why I'm fairly sure that people following such links here do so assuming that I come 'pre-judged for some element of interest'. It's the same with the London Bloggers Tube Map - I think it's interesting to see the spread of people blogging, but I'm not going to assume that someone else blogging near my tube station is automatically going to post things I'll be interested in (note to self: check if there even is anyone else blogging near my tube station).
Am I wrong here? Being too narrow, maybe? I am, as in all a few things, open to persuasion.
PS - Bloody Hell! I just went to see if there is, indeed, a cat owners webring, and it turns out there are HUNDREDS of the things.
PPS - Nope - I'm still the only blogger in my 'hood.
How often does a mere website get to report an actual *miracle*? I'd guess almost never, but I'm happy to report the nearest thing to one in my world - The Twilight World Of The Insomniac, that is:
Last night, I was asleep before midnight, and I didn't wake up *at all*, until almost 8am - this is something approaching a record like none I've known. Even when I'm not stuck in full-on insomnia, I *never* sleep straight through. This is a totally alien experience for me.