As Nails

Now, I quite liked Ang Lee's Hulk; the ending was nonsensical, but the rest was pretty solid, and those who thought Eric Bana's performance was too restrained were missing the point. So I wasn't expecting much of the sort-of-sequel, particularly after lukewarm reviews from pretty much everywhere, only to enjoy it even more. It's not as clever as Lee's version, but I think the key thing is that it's not trying to be; the film takes the simple premise of a big green bloke smashing stuff and does it as well as possible. Not fussy, not special, just rock solid. It would have been nice to have seen the Hulk get stronger and larger during the big final fight, and I would have preferred him to do the big jumps from the cartoon and comics rather than the tiny little Spideyesque hops we got, but those are my only complaints. Not bad at all.

I was dead pleased this week to discover The Girly Comic Book v1 on my doormat. I contributed to the first issue of this anthology, ooh, about seven years ago now, and I never expected that contribution to appear again, so I was incredibly proud when editor Selina Lock got in contact to let me know that the story I drew back then would make it into the collected edition. I've had my name on the outside of a hardback comic collection before, but this is the first time my work's been included inside one. If only it were better work! But as Meg points out, whenever I'm not pleased with my current output, I can look back to see how much I've improved.

All of which is not exactly selling it, but The Girly Comic Book v1 really is a neat little collection full of great little comic stories, and it's quite eclectic too. The foreword from Mike Carey compares it to the generally excellent Flight, and I don't think he's far off. You can buy a copy for a very reasonable £15 at the Factor Fiction website.