My Town

I don't tend to do music posts. I'm not an erudite musichead like Rol; I discovered The Smiths twenty years after the fact, as a particularly embarrassing example. I tend to like stuff no one else does (but not Country, because even I'm not that out of touch), so I don't really feel like I have much to blog about music.

My mate Bob knows a fair bit though, and he's in a band and everything. They've just released a single, which you can buy on iTunes, Amazon, and Napster, apparently, although I had no idea Napster was still going. I quite like it (the song, not Napster), although I think there are better tracks on the upcoming album, and one stonking song that the Reverence haven't recorded for some unfathomable reason, perhaps so that they can release Japanese-exclusive bootleg live albums later on.

Anyway, you can see the video for the song at the band's website, and if you like the song, it's only seventy-nine of your English pence.

It's not Country.

I Pity the Fool

I think the thing which sinks it is Neeson's hair. If they'd cast someone with white hair, it would have been fine, but to dye his white just makes it look like a fan film. There's some suggestion here that it's a disguise, but still.

For some fun, let's see what kind of "A-Team" related puns we can come up with in the comments, before the film comes out, and all the presumably negative reviews are full of them.

Top Ten Comic Characters 2009 Edition

I'm not sure I've seen ten new films this year, I've barely read more than a couple of new books, and I don't know enough about music to write about it without embarrassing myself, so I'm just going to pinch an idea from Rol and just do my ten favourite comic characters. So, in no particular order (except alphabetical):

1. The Avengers: Immediately I cheat by chucking in a team. Oh well. I suspect that my first superhero comic was an Avengers title, as I've been hooked since I was a youngster. It's not even a particular lineup or era I like, but the team itself. Even though they live in a mansion and have a butler, there's something a bit more down to earth and approachable about the Avengers than their godlike DC counterparts (who don't have a butler, but look down on us all from their space station). Perhaps it's their open door policy, which allows Spider-Man villain the Sandman to fight alongside Captain America and Thor (I have a great idea for a Sandman Avengers story which will never see the light of day, alas). Or the fluctuating power levels, so you can have Thor and Iron Man in the team one month, then Firestar and Triathlon the other. One of my great regrets was dropping the title, after the franchise bloated, got mired in crossover hell, and came under the creative control of a writer who doesn't have the first idea on how to write the team.

2. Death's Head: It's difficult to explain the appeal of this character to anyone who didn't read Marvel UK's Transformers. I think it's because you've got a property which, like many of those cartoon/toy tie-ins of the 80's, split the characters into sharp delineations of good and evil. Then you've got this character coming in who cares not a jot for any of that, and just wants to get paid. Certainly this was unique in a kids' comic, and I can't think of many characters in "grown up" comics with a similar outlook. It helped that he was written well, with a humourous edge not often seen in the parent title, and he had a great character design. I was shocked and surprised to see him return recently, in the pages of S.W.O.R.D. of all places.

3. Doctor Doom: I like the theatrical chaos of the Joker, but for me, Doom is the greatest comic villain. Partly it's due to the great design (I once heard a rumour that the reason George Lucas gave Marvel the Star Wars comics rights was because they pointed out to him the visual similarities between Darth Vader and Doom), and it's partly to do with the pompous dialogue. The main thing I like about Doom is that he doesn't really see himself as a villain. He's a victim of circumstance, the most brilliant genius of his time, but the Accursed Richards always gets in the way. The best thing is that Doom may actually be right; Reed is no saint, and if their positions were reversed, things wouldn't be so different, I suspect.

4. Edward Hyde: As seen in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, this is the best version of the Hulk ever written.

5. Invincible: What if Superman's alter-ego was Peter Parker? That's essentially what we've got with this character. So we're not dealing with a hugely original concept, but it's all about the writing, which captures that clash of real life and superheroing which made the after-high-school-but-before-Clones era of Spider-Man so compelling.

6. Nextwave:. Another cheat, but it's Christmas, so tough. This team's title got cancelled because no one was buying it, since apparently most comics fans lack both a sense of humour, and the understanding that Lee and Kirby did stuff like this all the time, and if it's good enough for them, it's damned well good enough for modern Marvel. You've got an ex-Avenger with an superiority complex, an ultra-violent English monster hunter, a drunken Machine Man, a jailbait X-Man and a superhero with a name so profane Captain America beat him up because of it. All of them are on the run after stealing what is essentially a TARDIS from a suicidal Nick Fury. Great stuff, crushed by the disapproval of abhuman cretins who couldn't deal with it being in the same "continuity" as a multi-part crossover about Iron Man and Captain America punching each other. Idiots.

7. Rocket Raccoon: The star of a bizarre minor Marvel miniseries of the early 1980's, a strange blend of horror and Saturday morning cartoon loosely based on a Beatles song and drawn by a pre-Hellboy Mike Mignola. I normally don't have much time for the anthropomorphic animal thing (I can't get into Usagi Yojimbo, for example, even though I know it's good), but there's something compelling about a 50's Buck Rogers style space hero with rocket boots and ray guns who just happens to be a raccoon. He's recently returned as a member of the Guardians of the Galaxy, and I'm dreading his demise in some inane cosmic crossover.

8. Scott Pilgrim: He's a brilliant hand-to-hand fighter, and the ladies love him, but he's also a bit of a loser, living in a bedsit with only borrowed possessions, and he seems to have an odd kind of social autism where he fails to comprehend basic concepts. So another example of the Peter Parker archetype then. It would have been so easy to make Scott unfailingly cool and brilliant, and I love that he's just a bit rubbish sometimes.

9. Spider-Man: I don't have quite the attachment Rol does to Spidey, but it's close. I grew up reading his adventures, mainly from Marvel UK reprints, and Marvel got it dead right with this character. The balance of real-life and superheroics is spot on, and Spidey actually grew up and developed in a way superhero characters rarely do, which makes it all the more annoying that Marvel scuppered all that and turned the clock back for no reason at all. I still love Spidey, but Marvel make it so bloody hard.

10. Thor: I love the one-upmanship of the concept, of topping DC's strongest man alive by wheeling out a god. I like the silly Olde English dialogue, that he's a hero who can pull off a beard, and that he gets drunk at the end of a successful adventure purely for fun and celebration, and not because of socially relevant storytelling. He also works really well as an Avenger (see above), in particular during the Kurt Busiek era, when the writer would save Thor for the big climax, invariably giving him the hero shot. All this is set against the grand backdrop of Norse myth, complete with doom-laden prophecy and familial back-stabbing.

10a. Beta Ray Bill: As 10, but a yellow alien horse.

Banjoes Not Included

Yee, and indeed, haw.

Ghost of Holidays Past

There's a film out soon, the trailer claiming that it is based on one of the greatest "holiday" stories of all time, "holiday" in this case, of course, being the American word for "we don't want to offend anyone by saying 'Christmas'". The film?

Robert Zemeckis' Uncanny Valley version A Christmas Carol.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

State of Play

Two months? Two ruddy months? Egad.

Part of that is down to August and September being the busiest time of the year when one happens to work in the enrolment department of a college; early mornings, manic days and late nights all combine to make me pretty much useless by the end of the day. That's all done with now, so I can start to think about having some kind of non-work-related existence.

Also in that time, I've managed to do a handful of bits of art for Fight On! magazine, and a couple of images for some Brazilian project I don't really understand. I also drew something for Rol, but it was rubbish, so I'm starting that again. I also updated my website a bit, but I really need to (a) tidy up the comics section, and (2) do some more comics to put in it.

Somewhere in there, I turned thirty. Which horrifies me a bit, because I've done nothing useful with that time.

The Price of Heroism

Draw the World Together is an organisation which, among other things, brings comics artists together to raise money for underprivileged children around the world. They've got a print up on Ebay right now, of some characters from Heroes, signed by the actors, and also by the artist, Mike Collins. It's well worth a look!

More Mario!

We've been playing a lot of Mario Kart Wii of late at Brainsplurge Towers; we've had it about a year now, and it's still great fun. In fact, it's pretty much the only video game Meg actively enjoys playing, and she rattled through a bunch of the time trials the other night, unlocking stuff I couldn't even get near in all the time we've had it. I'm astounded at how much play this thing has still got in it, but it could still have a lot more. I've been playing a bit of Guitar Hero World Tour on and off, and it got me thinking about downloadable content. Such content is pretty common on computers and other consoles, but it's still a bit rare on the Wii, although GHWT does its best to mimic the service available on the "grown up" consoles, with most of the same songs available for download.

It occurs to me that, with at least five games' worth of tracks in the franchise history, Nintendo could quite easily offer Mario Kart circuits for download. The Wii edition already has a number of older tracks, so we know they can be updated. It seems like an obvious move to me, and something which would extend the life of the game even further. I doubt anything of this sort would happen, and it's not like Nintendo executives are reading my ramblings, but I had to get this frustration off my chest, and that's what blogs are for after all.

If you ever do want a race, our Wii Code is 7714 7295 2393 7107, and our Mario Kart Wii friend code is 3093 9646 0225.

The Adventures of Julius Chancer: The Rainbow Orchid Volume One

(This review was written for Comics Bulletin's Wednesday graphic novel reviews, but due to the editor being away, they haven't been uploaded this week, and since the book was released this week, I've chosen to gazump my bosses just for once. The review will still be posted at Comics Bulletin, probably next week.) Writer/artist: Garen Ewing Publisher: Egmont Books Ltd ISBN-10: 140524853X When I was young, I thought Tintin was British. I had no idea that there was such a thing as translated comics back then, and Captain Haddock, Thomson and Thompson all seem very British indeed, so it did come as something of a surprise to eventually discover the series' true origins. The Rainbow Orchid, despite the very continental ligne claire (literally, "clear line") style, is most definitely British; in fact it is produced about twenty miles up the road from where I am writing this review. This is the third and most high-profile release of the book thus far; after a self-published black and white run which apparently goes for shedloads on eBay, there was a limited edition hardback, and now this remastered and retouched version from, appropriately enough, Tintin's UK publishers. It is certainly a handsome volume, and there's just something very right in having the story in this familiar format. The story starts with a gentlemen's wager, which swiftly escalates into a madcap race towards the Hindu Kush, and the possibly mythical flower of the title. It is a good solid adventure story in the vein of the pulp periodicals and the (good) Indiana Jones films, ramping up from a somewhat sedate beginning to an exciting and literally uplifting cliffhanger ending. I do not claim to be an expert on European comics, but even so I can detect a significant difference between The Rainbow Orchid and its more obvious inspirations; the average Tintin or Asterix story is over and done in sixty-four pages, but the pace here is a little more relaxed, and it is quite easy to imagine two or three further volumes of this. Even at such a pace, there is a lot going on, with a large cast, some of whom are not fully introduced at this stage, a number of mysteries and subplots, a wordy script, and an average of about twelve panels per oversized page. With all this content, it is perhaps all the more surprising that the book does not grind to a cluttered and stodgy halt, and it is to writer/artist Garen Ewing's credit that it does not. Of particular note is the art, which shies away from the dynamic post-Kirby style common in English-language adventure comics; there are few fancy angles and no idiosyncratic panel layouts (although Ewing does show off occasionally with the odd establishing shot here and there), and a superficial critic might even call it "flat", but it's more that there is (to get all Scott McCloudy for a moment) a different visual language being used. I am always astounded by how well the ligne claire style can work, especially in terms of conveying depth and distance, as there is usually little or no difference in line thickness, shading is largely ignored, and yet everything remains, well, clear. It is a difficult technique to master, and I suspect that Ewing would say that he has not, but to my relatively uneducated eyes, he is certainly very close. It is fair to say that part of the joy of The Rainbow Orchid, for me, is that it has a massive nostalgic pull, taking me right back to the days when the only comics I could get from the library were these colourful cartoony things from artists with unusual Gallic names. Yet a greater part of my enjoyment of the book, enough to get me to buy it a third time, is that it's just very well put together, an exercise in a type of storytelling which we do not see too often in English nowadays, and a cracking adventure yarn populated by compelling characters. The obvious comparisons will continue to be made, but this is a great comic on its own, very significant, merits.