Sometimes I think I drive up my own ass and disappear
Rereading Time2: The Epiphany and Time2: The Satisfaction of Black Mariah, by Howard Chaykin. The third of the three was Howard Chaykin. It was. Because we like to arrange things in threes, because that’s our pattern, there’s long been a glaring gap in the history of comics. Everyone agrees on two sides of the triangle: … Continue reading
A work as grand and various as that
Reviewing Jerusalem by Alan Moore, published by Knockabout in the UK and Liveright in the US. Let’s divide things arbitrarily into threes. If Alan Moore’s career is considered in the usual periods of early Moore, mid-Moore and late Moore, we’re clearly into the last one. The first has a mountain of work but a trilogy … Continue reading
Nothing will ever be real again
Context: the below is an essay written for the gallery catalogue of abstract comics creator Gareth Hopkins’s exhibition The Intercorstal: After Smith in Bremen last year. It was intended for those attendees who had never heard of John Smith’s work. I’m presenting it here first because I’ve been meaning to for a while, and second because … Continue reading
Dave Sim thought aloud to himself
Rereading Glamourpuss by Dave Sim. The key question of Glamourpuss is answered twice within the series; once on the first page, once on the last. The first answer is a creative one. The second answer is a commercial one. Both are, within certain bounds, honest attempts to settle the question. But still, on every one … Continue reading
We’ll Be Coming Back
Calvin Harris, much as he doesn’t get any credit for it, took a huge risk with his career. His first album, all those quirky Casio toytunes tracks like Acceptable In The 80s and The Girls, was a big enough hit that people knew his name, but it was a novelty sound that probably should have … Continue reading
Finally, I have seen the day…
Rereading Grendel: God and the Devil by Matt Wagner, John K Snyder, Jay Geldhof and Bernie Mireault. Science fiction, the genre of new ideas, has a telling weakness for old ideas. It spans galaxies while locked in colonialism; invents new weapons to fight old Manichean wars. And it’s weakest of all for the aristocrat. The … Continue reading
Comics Unmasked at The British Library
I went to see the Comics Unmasked exhibition at the British Library last week. Along with my kin; a couple dozen bearded geeks ogling original pages from Watchmen and V For Vendetta, marvelling that the cult pamphlets of their disregarded past had become respectable history. I was surprised, perhaps foolishly, at how little original art … Continue reading
DJ
Of all the foulmouthed female rappers out there that I treasure, Amanda Blank is my favourite. That’s based, really, on a handful of songs – her remix of Britney’s career pinnacle Gimme More, a track on the NASA album, and Spank Rock’s songs Bump and Blow, which both made it onto one compilation because I … Continue reading
Fade
Britpop is 20 years old, and Kurt Cobain is 20 years dead, and I have specific memories about both those things. But I also, like every other middle-aged man being sold a media package that claims to be his youth, have objections. Britpop was far from everything. It was important – I still remember my … Continue reading
Thump boom clang click
Rereading Grendel: The Incubation Years by Matt Wagner, Hannibal King, Tim Sale and Joe Matt. The subtitle of Scott McCloud’s classic Understanding Comics, which you should read now if you haven’t read it already, was The Invisible Art. Referring to the medium of comics which, for all its popularity with TV and movie producers right … Continue reading
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Suggested For Mature Readers 