This is a pretty cool idea, if I didn’t want to be cremated I’d request something similar.

Nice to see Batman comics getting a bit of coverage instead of just the films, and not a “Pow” or “Blam” in sight. The BBC reported the current story here in a sensible manner and then followed it up here, which for part of the day was both the most read and most e-mailed story on the BBC site. I’m also glad they treated the story, and medium, with respect (the spoiler warning amuses me too). If every time there is a new James Bond or Doctor Who it gets decent coverage then why shouldn’t comics? It really does seem that comics are slowly becoming a more respectable part of mainstream entertainment. Just a shame The Guardian had to ruin it with the “Holy *insert comment here* Batman” cliché. Their follow up article was a bit better, but why use images from the films for both articles? Use images from the comics and show non-readers how good comics can look! Of course, we all know that Bruce Wayne isn’t really dead. Not showing the body has been used in comics for years as a get out clause for bringing characters back from the dead. Mind you, Marvel have done well with Captain America, over 18 months and he’s still dead, and Jean Grey has gone 3 years without coming back, possibly a record .

Scary but edible!

Great little article about rising comic sales amongst kids here in the UK, my childhood wouldn’t have been the same without Transformers weekly and the Beano, so it’s great to see that the internet and computer games haven’t changed things as much as people like to harp about.

Michael Rosen, the Children’s Laureate, welcomed the rise of comics as “terrific”.

He said: “I don’t know how it is they came to be regarded as simple in this country. They are very complex.”

The main thing was that children enjoyed reading them as “an artform in themselves”, he said. If they graduated to books that was just an added bonus.

Rosen is a living legend, especially for that last line.

Awesome behind the scenes photography of the Iron Man film by Jeff Bridges himself.

Giant squid, this thing is amazing, around 7 metres I believe! Imagine what it’s dad looks like

Lastly today, better hide my copy of Lost Girls and my Sandman collections.

Some stuff that has amused me over the past week or two:

I want this office. Seriously. It’s the greatest single piece of real life architecture I have ever seen, I love it!

Doctor Who with no Tardis? Wouldn’t have been the same, but I love the idea of him having a secret mission to destroy the future. The Doctor is always at his best when he’s at his darkest.

50 Beautiful Examples of Tilt-Shift Photography. Amazing stuff. If you don’t know what Tilt-Shift is then have a look and it will all make sense.

50 Movie titles that got lost in translation. Sadly a lot appear to be fake, but amusing none-the-less.

Spider Money. I’d have let him off just for giving me such amusement!

Saturday 22nd November. Carcass played Leeds. I was there. I was very happy. I am still very happy. And I’ll die happy. If At The Gates tour next year then I’ll never need to ever go to a metal gig again in my life, woo!

In order: French edition of Civil War #1 scribbled on by Mark Millar. Sketch of a Ninja Turtle in a Judge Dredd costume by D’Israeli (Reason being that he has drawn both so thought it would be cool to ask him to mix the two) My “art desk” in my office, frames 1 and 3 from a triptych I’ve nearly finished called “Wolverine”, for obvious reasons. Once that’s hung on my wall the desk will be cleared for my first comic to be started, finally.

Today was the second Thought Bubble Festival in Leeds. Last year’s event was, to be honest, a little under-whelming, this years however was the total opposite and one of the best days out I’ve had all year. The hall was massive, the atmosphere was excellent, the events were varied and the talent was top-notch.

There were many artists doing free sketches, with long queues (my friend queued 2 hours to get an excellent Daredevil sketch from Alex Maleev, but it was well worth the wait and I’ve never seen I’m so chuffed). I managed to get a sketch from English artist D’Israeli who is probably best know (to me anyway) for his 2000AD work, but he also did a one off issue of Tales Of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which was one of my favourite issues. So, to be different, I asked for a sketch of a Ninja Turtle in a Judge Dredd outfit (which I’ll scan when I get a working scanner again!). It was a very relaxed atmosphere and was great to stand and watch him draw while chatting about comics and sharing amusing stories of past conventions, and even letting me in on the true story behind why Spider-Man was given a black costume in the 80’s, something I never knew.

After a bit of food and a quick look round the stalls it was time to queue up to meet the main person I wanted to meet, Mr Mark Millar. After about half an hour of queuing I managed to get my French edition of Civil War signed, just because I wanted something different signed to everyone else (and he seemed genuinely interested in seeing his work in a different language and format), had a quick chat and a photo. A bit of a fan boy moment for me but it really did make my day. I didn’t know what to expect but he’s a genuinely nice and funny guy, couldn’t ask for more.

After that was the Millar Hour panel, where Mark Millar spoke for an hour about his experience in the comic (And now film) industry and took questions from the floor. It was a great hour full of laughs (I love animals but the thought of him punching a fox in the face to rescue his daughters pet rabbits had me in stitches!). He even dropped a few bits of exclusive news on us which was cool, and chatted about his upcoming work as well as movies.

It was also cool to see so many small press creators there along with all the big names, selling their own self published work which they have all worked hard on.

I realised something: I’ve been fucking lazy. For years my dream has been to draw comics for a living, and for the last few years I’ve been planning a few small titles of my own and have hardly done anything, I even started this blog simply to keep a journal of my work, which has yet to start.

However, it wasn’t any of today’s events that made me realise this, it was yesterday when my mum e-mailed me and said “Have you ever done any more drawings lately to send to Marvel? You should.”

I love comics. No, I FUCKING LOVE COMICS. What am I doing wasting my life working on computers all day? I read comics, I read about comics. I love them, I love the culture, I love the history, everything. I should be fucking drawing them!!!

So while todays event has been inspiring, especially when you realise that super-stars like Mark Millar are just “normal blokes”, it’s my mum who has inadvertantly given me the kick up the arse I truly need. And it’s hit me hard.

Once upon a time, what seems many years ago now, the internet wasn’t available in peoples homes. The online world was made up of bulletin boards and if you were lucky you could access one of these from your school library computer and you could talk to some other kids in a far off school in a far off country.

Back in those days I saw an advert in a magazine. I can’t remember the magazine, all I know was it was in a pile with many other magazines in our school art block. Our project at the time was to take images from the magazines, carefully wet them and then “print” them onto a blank sheet of paper and make new images. I opened this magazine and there before me was an image I just new was right for me. It was advertising a new Video (For those too young to remember, VHS is what came before DVD ). I tore out the image, carefully wet it and transferred the image onto my piece of paper. I then carefully left the image to dry and kept it.

What was this image advertising? Some porn snook into a Sunday paper magazine? A horror film I could get my friend’s older brother to rent for us? The latest collection of Transformers episodes?

Nope, it was for a film called Akira.

This was my first exposure to the phenomenon that is known as anime, or at least I thought it was. The image of Kaneda superimposed over a city with the words “2019. NEO-Tokyo is about to EXPLODE” dragged me in and wouldn’t let go. It was nothing like the cartoons I was used to seeing. I had to see this film. The company advertising the video was “Manga Entertainment”. Manga, hmm, that was a word I’d heard whispered around the school corridors. Then I noticed something, the rating on the film was a “15″. I’d never seen a cartoon that was rated a 15 before. How could a cartoon possibly be only suitable for over 15s? I was around 12 at the time and already some of my friends had decided they had outgrown cartoons, what kind of cartoon could a 15 year old possibly want to watch?

Around the same time a bunch of new computer magazines had popped up, reviewing games for the SNES and Sega Megadrive. On day, one of these magazines had a feature on some Japanese animated films and this was when my friends and I discovered the word “anime”. From that point on we scoured every games magazine we could and would buy any that had even the smallest article on anime.

Then one day, not long after, a friend came into school and said “You have to come to my house at dinner time, I have something you need to see!”. That weekend he had been shopping with his mum and found a brand new video called Project A-Ko, rated a 15 he’d had to get his mum to buy it for him. We rushed to his house as soon as the dinner bell rang and he put the video in, this was it, I was ready for my anime virginity to be taken, and what a wild ride it was! More exciting than the film itself though was the advert at the start for a whole host of other Japanese cartoons, each more action packed and violent than the last.

The door was now wide open for us, not only were we scouring magazines this stuff was now in our local video shops. Only a few titles, but it was enough to keep us going for a while. But then the itch came. Films we’d see advertised in imported American computer games magazines, films not available to us that we desperately wanted to see. Then we found out a lot of these films were actually based on comics. Or rather based on “manga”. So when the school holidays came it was time to get on the bus or train to the nearest city with a comic shop (Nu Earth in York) and scour the shelves for English translations imported from America.

Here we found Akira, a film we had still yet to see, reprinted in English in high quality collections. Project A-Ko comics. Something called The Guyver. And many other comics of which we had seen the anime versions advertised. One comic that caught my friends eye was one called Ninja High School. This one was different though. It LOOKED Japanese in style but was actually one of (if not THE) first American comics done in a manga style.

After all this time and effort we still hadn’t managed to see the one film that first started this obsession, Akira. No shops near us seemed to ever stock it, the local video shop never had it to rent. The Daily Mail had run a campaign to try and ban it, claiming it would corrupt children, obviously not being able to comprehend that there was a whole world of animation oversees that wasn’t aimed at children. I doubt this campaign had anything to do with the lack of Akira in or local shops though.

Then one day on a shopping trip to Scarborough with my mum I stumbled upon a brand new magazine in a newsagents: Manga Mania. This thick black and white magazine had news, reviews, interviews, articles, but best of all it reprinted Akira, amongst other manga.

Advertised in Manga Mania was a video called The Guyver, which I remembered seeing the comic of in Nu Earth. The plan with this video was different to anything we’d ever seen before though. Each episode, 12 in all, would be released separately once a month for a year, like a monthly video comic. A further shopping trip to Scarborough, and a Woolworths shop attendant who didn’t ask for ID, later and I was the proud owner of the first episode of The Guyver. And I was hooked.

A few months later Manga Mania announced the news that BBC2 would be showing Akira, along with a documentary on anime by Jonathan Ross. This was it, the day we had waited for since that art class. Christmas and New Year came and went and the BBC started advertising their showing of Akira. The video recorder was set and the next day I finally got to see what seemed to be the Holy Grail of anime. And it was worth the wait. (It was also great to find out that Ross was “one of us”, a bit of a geek. Later on in life I found out he’s actually a huge comic book collector and even once ran a comic shop of his own).

Through Manga Mania we discovered that we’d already been exposed to various forms of anime over the years, often in European co-productions like Dogtanian, Belle & Sebastian plus Pole Position, Ulysses 31, G-Force, Jayce And The Wheeled Warriors and the greatest of all: Mysterious Cities Of Gold.

We’d even managed to see a film called Laputa Castle In The Sky, which is famous now for being an early film of Hayao Miyazaki, but at the time we had no idea of the concept of anime.

It was exciting to slowly uncover new manga and anime, to track down shows and comics we’d seen in imported magazines which in turn we had to track down in the first place. It was exciting to save up pocket money and get on the bus or train and see what new amazing stories we could find on the shelves of York’s comic stores. Friends would find out about something and share it with each other in the playground. We’d swap comics and videos. We’d spend our dinner times in the school library drawing our own comics in a manga style.

I very much doubt that same excitement exists now, with the instant gratification given to us by the internet. There is no waiting for information on something, you just go online, search for it and there it is, everything you need to know. In many ways I miss those simpler times. Of course, growing up takes a lot of that to begin with, but for the most part I can still get excited about new things, it’s just the learning about them part that is over too quickly after a few taps on a keyboard into Google.

All these years later and I still haven’t seen a lot of the films I used to search for when I was at school, mainly because it turns out a lot of them were crap. It took a long time before a good wide range of decent anime was released to us here in the west. Back in those school days it was mainly just the shocking violent stuff that was seen as being different to our western eyes. Thankfully these days there is a great range of translated anime and manga and it’s made a huge impact on the western market.

The internet may have taken away most of the excitement, but the great thing about it is that it allows people to discover more things they wouldn’t have, and easily. It also allows us to buy things more easily (I’m currently reading Volume 3 of Akira, I managed to buy all 6 volumes off eBay for less than half the price that it would have cost me from a shop).

Kids’ road to discovering manga and anime is a lot easier now, there is a massive amount of product ready and waiting for them before they even have to search for anything. I wonder if, had the internet been around like it is when I was younger, would this “new craze” have fascinated me so much? In the end I guess it would, as I’m now living in a world of instant internet gratification and yet I still love discovering new manga and anime.

This is a great idea, shame they couldn’t get an actual artist to deliver it. Call me cynical but I find myself thinking she did it more to bring herself back into the spotlight than anything else.

Another great idea, this time by someone with some actual talent and who does something interesting, and certainly more accessible to the average person. Can’t applaud this enough.

Appropriately following up my post yesterday. I actually find it really freaky that they posthumously baptise ANYONE, never mind just those from the holocaust. I’m pretty sure the idea is to be baptised before death and thus enabling you to enter heaven, if you believe in that sort of thing (and even if you don’t it seems the Mormons will sort that for you). Scary. (Via Brian Wood on Twitter)

One more reason Obama was best candidate for President of the USA: He collects Spider-Man comics. One of us, one of us!

I don’t know what’s more amazing with this story, the fact they want to sue Nolan or the fact the place actually exists.

Polar Bear Vs Dogs – But it has a happy ending!

Current addiction: Unretrofied by Dillinger Escape Plan. Even those who aren’t a fan of their more spazzy, technical, heavier stuff won’t be able to resist the chorus on this one. (Closely followed by Black Bubblegum from their more recent album, they really are at their best when they go melodic).

Well, after the depressing content of my previous post I feel I need to cheer myself up with a bit of fun:

Fuck Yeah Sharks – Via Warren Ellis.

Real Life “My Name Is Earl”.

Simon Pegg gives a convincing argument for slow zombies.

Charlie Brooker gives a convincing argument for fast zombies (The URL itself is amusing enough).

I’m of the Romero school of thought when it comes to zombies, they are scarier when they are slow moving, lumbering creatures that on their own are no good but en-masse are terryfying. However, I love Brooker’s idea of them starting off fast and getting slower as they decay more. (And props to Brooker for making Dead Set in the first place, one of the bets things I’ve seen on TV in years and a pleasent surprise).

“Genius” and “nutter” are two words often used to describe Cerebus creator Dave Sim. Most “geniuses” throughout history have had a touch of eccentricity about them which is often viewed as “being a bit mad”, and these days it’s no different.

Sim created Cerebus in the 70’s as a tongue-in-cheek parody of the adventure comics of the day, mainly Marvel’s Conan The Barbarian. Rather than try to do work for hire for one of the many comic companies around, Sim decided to self-publish his work, which was almost unheard of at the time outside of the underground “comix” movement. A lot of comics were published with the intention of running as long as sales would last and with a view to becoming pop-culture icons and thus merchandise goldmines. Sim, however, decided that his comic would last exactly 300 issues and chronicle the life of Cerebus, an anthropomorphic Aardvark living n a world of sword and sorcery. 300 issues, one a month, created, written, drawn and produced by one man is a lot of work and nothing to be sniffed at (down the road he hired background artist Gerhard who would draw all the background’s around Sim’s characters). Early on the comic morphed from the fantasy spoof comic it started as and became something much deeper, with Cerebus turning into the voice of Dave Sim himself, be it about politics, religion, relationships or pretty much anything else int he word around us. By the time Cerebus died in #300 his voice was a bitter one.

Along the way Sim gathered a lot of fans but also ended up making a lot of enemies. At some point a lot of views purported as anti-feminist made their way into Cerebus, which angered a lot of fans, yet Sim still denies being a misogynist. This, along with some non-conventional religious views have branded Sim a “nutter” with a loose grip on reality by some people.

Personal views aside, it cannot be denied that the man is a great writer and artist. My experience of Cerebus is limited to a few comics, the above is knowledge I have gained from reading about the man over years mainly because I was fascinated by him rather than his work. One day, however, I do plan to read the full run of Cerebus and see what the real fuss was about.

When it was announced that Sim was releasing a comic about the Holocaust, called Judenhass, a lot of chatter started online with people on message boards imagining a book of questionable politics that would further embarrass Sim in the public eye. Glowing praise from, amongst others, Neil Gaiman helped cement people’s views that people might have jumped to the wrong conclusions.

Intrigued by the man and also this piece of work, I decided to pick up a copy when it came out (Along with Glamourpuss #1 which I may end up writing about if I ever pick up the other issues). Many months later I finally decided to read it this weekend.

Wow.

I read it in around 20-25 minutes, it’s a thicker than usual comic and I spent a lot of time just studying the images, especially one of the entrance to Auschwitz with remarkable detail. Sim’s “photo-realistic” style in this book is achieved by tracing photographs, transferring the image to thicker art board and then referring to the actual photograph to then draw in all the details. The bulk of the comic is simply images of prisoners in the concentration camps with boxes of text overlaid, containing quotes from around the world and from throughout history that refer to Jews. After that 20 minutes or so the book stayed with me all day.

The title of the book, Judenhass, is German and literally translated it means “Jew Hate”. Sim felt this title helped capture something that he was trying to portray with the book, in his own words:

I decided some time ago that the term anti-Semitism (a ‘coined’ term of late nineteenth century origin) is completely inadequate to the abhorrent cultural phenomenon which it attempts to describe. For one thing, Arabs are Semites as well and the prejudice as it is generally understood certainly doesn’t apply equally to Arabs and Jews.

Sim’s own interest in creating a book that helps delve into the Holocaust, and what actually lead to it, comes from the fact that most of his heroes, the “founding fathers” of modern comics, are all Jewish or of Jewish descent. Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Will Eisner, Bob Kane, amongst others, all being Jewish.

The basic facts we were given about the Holocaust during history lessons at school was that far various reasons Hitler had the Jews rounded up in ghetto’s and eventually moved to concentration camps where they were systematically exterminated. Judenhass takes us back before that, juxtaposing the images of concentration camp prisoners with quotes from Henry Ford, Martin Luther, Voltaire, Mark Twain plus numerous sayings, proverbs and teachings from throughout history, alongside politicians from many countries worldwide, going right up until the second world war, all condemning “the Jew” as being a problem.

After reading it I actually felt a bit shocked as to just how much “Jew hatred” had been fostered in the world prior to the atrocities of the second world war. Knowing this it seems almost inevitable that something like this would happen. It’s not often I will read or watch something that will then weigh heavy on my mind for the rest of the day, but this certainly did.

The conclusion of Sim’s research is, in simple terms, Hitler only did what many people had talked about and wished to happen for hundreds of years previously. People that are seen as respected artists, authors and politicians. Hitler himself even claims to have been inspired by the writings of Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company. It’s almost as if history has forgiven everyone in the past for their views and laid the whole thing on Hitler. This is in no way to say that Hitler should take less blame, only that others should be mentioned as being an influence upon his actions. And how come Stalin gets off so lightly for his crimes?

This brings up the age old argument of separating the artist from the art. Is it ok to enjoy the works of Twain and Voltaire knowing they held less than complimentary views for an entire race of people?

Ironically this also brings up the question of if it’s ok to enjoy (if that’ the correct word) this book itself knowing some of the less than complimentary views Sim has expressed himself about certain parts of society.

I think, ultimately, with a book like this one has to ignore any other views the creator may or may not have, because this book simply presents facts backed up by in-depth research and presents it in a way that is both easy to read yet hard to digest. I genuinely think that every school should use this book as a way to start teaching about the Holocaust in history lessons.

I can imagine one day someone doing a biographical comic of Sim himself and finding many contradictory points of view. I hope they do cos I can’t wait to read it!

Where oh where can I get me one of these V “Hope” images? (Via Warren Ellis)

Speaking of V, yesterday being November the 5th meant it was Bonfire Night here in the UK, where we celebrate the death of failed “terrorist” Guy Fawkes (born here in York). How different things would have been if he’d have succeeded. To celebrate this fine occasion I did what all good British people do (or should) and watched V For Vendetta. I love Watchmen, but of the two I always preferred V, maybe because it’s all a bit closer to home and slightly more realistic. On first viewing the film in the cinema I enjoyed it despite the many changes. I purchased the DVD and still enjoyed it, but for some reason yesterday, on the day the film revolves around, I found the film to be lacking. Hugo Weaving pulls off a brilliant job, especially for an actor who’s face we never see. Stephen Rea, as Inspector Finch, also pulls off a great performance as one of the most realistic characters in the film. Most of the other actors do a reasonable job but tend to over-act a tad, spoiling parts of the film a little, But worst of all is Natalie Portman, whom I always thought was a bit weak in this film but never realised just how much until last night. Her terrible English accent is laughable and she puts all the nuances of the script in the wrong place. If they didn’t want to hire an English actress for the job then they should have let her speak in her normal accent which would have made the script seem less forced at least.

Oh, and Stephen Fry certainly doesn’t get enough screen time.

And speaking of Mr Fry, my new addiction to Twitter is party blame don him and his constant, yet great, updates on there.

And lastly, this past week or so has seen Lewis Hamilton win the Forumla One Grand Prix championshiop and seen Barack Obama become President Of The United States Of America, could we soon be seeing the first black Doctor Who? My hopes are on Sean Pertwee cos I think the guy is great, but Paterson Joseph would be a great choice as well. (Though part of me wants to see a combination of the following actors in the Tardis: Eddie Izzard, Bill Bailey, Stephen Fry and Jason Statham. One episode with Statham and the universe would have no more bad guys to worry about).

America has voted, and out of the only 2 that ever had a chance they chose the right one. Thankfully.

A large portion of non-whites and younger voters took to the booths for the first time, which no doubt made a difference in the result. But more importantly, how would the people that truly mean something to us have voted given the chance?

MTV finds out.