Today is Ada Lovelace Day! Which makes it the perfect opportunity to re-share my recent blog for the Liverpool Girl Geeks about the incredible, unique woman herself. She was a fascinating subject to research!
Junji Ito, master of horror manga, has a clear whimsical side. It comes through in everything he does, no matter how horrific the subject matter – the hideous hopping of Jack’s corpse in Uzumaki is the epitome of the man’s ability to balance fear and hilarity. This particular talent of his is more evident than ever in his short manga story, Junji Ito’s Cat Diary.
An autobiographical account of his coming to terms with cat ownership, there’s something familiar in there for anyone familiar with cats – especially the reluctant cat owners, those poor souls who don’t understand the peculiar joys and heartaches of owning a cat until they’re forced into the situation.
When Junji moves in with his fiancée, he forgets that her cat Yon is coming with them. Affectionately known as the “cat with a cursed face”, Junji is certain that the cat’s influence will curse the house, and things get even worse when A-Ko decides to adopt another cat to keep Yon company. Suddenly Junji’s life is about cat-proofing the walls, hauling in cat toys and surrendering space to these new fluffy creatures.
But no matter how much you may resist, the cuteness of cats will get you.
As adamant as he is that he won’t allow the cats to change his life, he grows monstrous as he tries and fails to resist his temptation to virtually devour the cat whole. Much of his anxiety is based around Yon, while he becomes more easily attached to Muu, but – as any cat owner will understand – domestic life quickly becomes a battle of dominion over each of the cats.
Junji has a lot to learn about cat ownership. They won’t snuggle when you want them to; they won’t play unless you wave the toy the right way; and sometimes when you’re deliriously tired they will look like giant slugs or snakes (at least now they will – thanks Junji!)
But there are also the victories, and they’re all the more precious for being hard won. The first time Muu collapses purring in his arms – driving his fiancée crazy – he looks incredibly happy. Whenever a character gives into their insatiable lust for kitty snuggles their eyes become glazed with joy, and Junji himself experiences that magnetic need to make friends with all cats he meets.
Some of it is whimsical, some disturbing – mostly it consists of the everyday occurrences in the life of a cat owner, but showcased in that distinctive Junji Ito way.
It’s not very long, and available here – it gets my hearty recommendation if you are, at the very least, cat sympathetic.
Plus, photos of the starring kitties!
This is not an original idea whatsoever – I have seen it done at least in Doctor Who and Avatar, and I’m sure many more. It’s like a dream place for book lovers!
I was thinking about it one night while trying to sleep, and parts of it came to me so vividly that I had to get it written down. This is what I ended up with – I tried to have some fun with the language, so please let me know what you think! (not you, spambots)
Here is every book that’s ever been written – and every book that ever will be.
As long as there has been writing, there has been the Library. From the outside, you couldn’t hope to see it all: on the inside it folds and turns back upon itself, creasing with the endless peaks and valleys of origami to fit inside it humanity’s insatiable lust for stories.
Once, stories were just sounds and shapes – told around a fire by humans waiting for their prey, they lasted only as long as their listeners’ memories. Without form the stories drifted into nothingness, filling up the void in the human subconscious with whispered fragments of truth. When we learned to write, we gave the truth life.
In The Library there are Ancient tomes in languages now dead to the world, covered in dust, their real life counterparts already crumbled into nihility. It’s not real dust of course – nothing here is real, not in any strict sense – but the human mind has a way of seeing only what most makes sense. Some are etched on clay tablets; they contain the answers to mysteries still unsolved by human science.
Here, classics grace the shelf alongside novels that were never known. Would it be a comfort, I wonder, for these failed writers to know that while their work never lived, it will also never die? Probably not. Just as well this isn’t for them.
This wing of the Library is for diaries – for what is a diary if not the private novels we all make of our lives? Why else would humans spend so much time writing down their inner thoughts and feelings, if not for some sense of prosperity? Golden-edged manuscripts detailing the inner thoughts of Princes and Saints are not kept in special cabinets, but sit next to the Hello Kitty padlocked diaries of children. The Library doesn’t care which has more worth.
And what about the books that were never finished?
They’re beneath your feet. Look carefully, and you’ll see that everywhere you step is made of them. They push up like fish to feed. As you walk you hear the sound of crunching frost, and feel your feet sink in as in freshly laid snow. But your senses are only trying to make sense of what they can’t: you’re making tracks in a thousand half-planned stories. Fragments of poetry cling to the soles of your shoes, all those tales that never had the chance to be told still clinging on, begging to be relevant. They bridge the gaps between the Library’s expansive rooms.
If you lived a thousand lifetimes you couldn’t hope to read even a fraction of the works here.
I wrote a review of the Afro Supa Hero exhibit which is on in Liverpool right now – well really it’s part review, part exploration of the history of black heroes. Jon Daniels’ collection of African American superheroes was a real treat to see, and very illuminating – once I started digging into the complicated and often prejudiced past I realised I couldn’t stop.
So go and read my piece on the Liverpool Girl Geeks blog, and if you’re in Liverpool before the 18th December make sure to check out the Afro Supa Hero exhibit in the International Slavery Museum.
However…
I keep hearing that “people don’t like reading any more”, so if you’re one of those people (first, you might generally be in the wrong place) – here is the visual guide…
Presenting:
My good friend Cat, half of the power couple running my favourite craft website Cut Out + Keep, very kindly allowed me to edit an issue of their fantastic zine, Snippets.
I’ve written for Snippets a few times before – starting with my in-person interview with one of my favoyrite musicians, Amanda Palmer, back in 2009. I’ve done book reviews, email and face-to-face interviews, product reviews and opinion pieces, but being in charge of my very own issue was something else entirely!
I chose to base it on Fandom, as I love seeing the things that people get excited about. I wanted to write about the things I love, and the way their Fandoms shape them, and ended up with some fantastic articles about things I would never have looked into it.
I’ll post some of the articles that I wrote individually, especially the cover star interview which was with two amazing geek ladies, Amy Dallen and Nika Harper from Geek & Sundry, but for now you can check it out here:
Revenge.
That’s what keeps me going. hat gets me out of my shitty bunk each morning. The single, solitary thought that one day I’m gonna get my hands on those sons of bitches, and make them pay.
Grab a smoke. Take a pull and for a minute I can forget the hate and concentrate on the smoke, feeling it burn deep in my lungs like the wrath of god itself has crept inside me, made my heart its home. Draconian it spills from my nostrils, making me appear as the demon I really am.
Breathe in, fear.
Breathe out, fury.
Breathe in, guilt.
Breathe out, rage.
I feel like I could exhale smoke without even taking a drag.
I’ve spent years tracking those fuckers down, see. Years of waking up screaming, covered in sweat, seeing faces I love clear as the day they died only to have them fade before me. They looked different once – now all I can see is fucking sadness and betrayal, and it’s my fucking fault. I can’t even picture them smiling any more, and they had more joy in their lives than I ever had in mine. Not counting the joy they gave me, course.
I used to be a tea drinker. I used to greet strangers with a grin. Things change I guess – I sure haven’t seen any strangers I’ve felt like smiling at lately, and fuck knows the last time I had a cup of tea. Whisky and cigarettes are the currency of my body now – I put enough in, it works okay for a day or two.
When I get ’em, everything will be better. I’ll be able to say my goodbyes, maybe even stop seeing him every night. Those fucking eyes. Every good memory I have of him is torn away in that look, a look he never once gave me. Trust my fucking brain to ruin you, even for myself.
I’m gonna make ’em fucking pay, baby.
I’m gonna see you smile again.
Earlier this year I did a Javascript coding course with the fantastic Liverpool Girl Geeks, who are trying to close the gender divide on STEM subjects. Although I’ve never been any good at science or maths, working in internet marketing has been a real eye-opener as to the things I’m capable of if I try hard, and I never would have tried out Javascript without help.
Luckily this wonderful organisation has also agreed to be host to my word stew, and this is the first piece I’ve written for their blog – hopefully many more will come!
2015 was a fantastic year for badass fictional women. Whether they were making their first appearances or wrapping up a long line of stories, they showed that the world’s attitudes to women have changed, and are still changing. We’re not in the clear yet, but having more women as well-rounded characters in fiction can only be progress.
The world balked when it found out that the real lead of the new Mad Max film was going to be…dun dun dun…a WOMAN.
“But it’s called Mad MAX!”, they whined. “It’s a film for men!” they protested. They asked Tom Hardy how he possibly managed to take the indignity of having less lines than a WOMAN – and thankfully he told them to go screw themselves.
But Fury Road was just as packed with cars, violence and masculinity as any of the others; arguably even more so. The film is one long chase scene and it’s dripping with even more post-apocalyptic scenery. The only difference is that instead of lumping Max with an ineffectual babe (looking at you, Jessie), he was matched with someone as strong and capable as himself.
While not addressed in the film, Furiosa is also a remarkable character from a disability standpoint – the fact that her bionic arm doesn’t have to be examined and explained, and that it doesn’t hinder her in any way, is an incredible shift from representations of disability we usually see in movies.
Fury Road wasn’t a chick flick. The presence of women – particularly Furiosa, who is a stone cold badass – didn’t make it less of an adventure. Max is a famously terse character, so the filmmakers can’t be accused of silencing his very important manly voice – but it’s Furiosa who saves the Five Wives, and is ultimately the hero.
Tiffany didn’t make her first appearance this year, but her last.
Released posthumously, Terry Pratchett’s final book The Shepherd’s Crown featured heavily one of the most enthralling young women on the Disc. From her first appearance in The Wee Free Men, aged just nine years old and already smarter and more capable than most of us, she’s grown into a strong proto-Witch.
Like all of the Witches, Tiffany has the gift of First Sight, the ability to see what truly is – a talent I think more of us wish we had, sometimes. She’s fierce and competent, taking down monsters with ease, even for a brother she doesn’t particularly care for.
She also has Second Thoughts, Third Thoughts and Fourth Thoughts, making her a relatable character to anyone who is naturally self-critical. She’s self-educated, incredibly loyal to her home and family, and makes fantastic cheese. What’s not to like?
Tina Fey’s spiritual follow-up to 30 Rock began early last year with season one of The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt – an unlikely female-lead story that ought to be too tragic to laugh at, but isn’t.
In a twist on the trope of a young woman coming to New York for her big break, Kimmy comes out of an underground bunker and, finding the fame too much to bear, moves to New York in an attempt to be lost again.
Kimmy’s a fantastic character because she’s strong – not in the way that Furiosa or Jessica Jones are strong, but strong because she can still find joy in a world that abandoned her for fifteen years, and now she’s returned, only wants her to be one thing.
Her character and background is far too complex to go into in just a few paragraphs, but we fell in love with Kimmy because she’s adorable, strong, funny, tragic, and beautiful in a way she doesn’t realise (if she did realise it, we probably wouldn’t like her so much). Her fascinating story could be a compelling drama, but with one of the funniest women around writing it, it’s fantastically, darkly entertaining.
For all those people out there who are sick of seeing female superheroes as nothing more than boobs-and-butts, this is the show you need to watch.
Quite possibly the first Marvel production to feature a woman as the main and titular character, Jessica Jones is like the darker side of Daredevil – and far more twisted than it could ever be.
The fact that the main character is a woman allows for discourse around some interesting subjects, such as rape and domestic abuse. We can see these through Jessica’s life experiences and from the people she gets to know, who are frequently women.
Don’t go thinking this is a full-on man-hating extravaganza though. David Tenant is masterful in his portrayal of the villain Kilgrave, and while the sound of his voice will give you shivers he’s actually revealed to be more complex than just evil, at one point almost pitiable.
Jessica’s sidekick is the incredible Luke Cage, and it was so refreshing to see a twist on the archetype of the male superhero with his arm candy – instead Luke was shown in the light of the Female Gaze, with his body taking on the role of sexual object, while still presenting a complex and interesting character.
Rather than trying to present Jessica Jones in the way that most Marvel productions show their women – scolding, sexual characters that disrupt the flow of humour – they went full DC, tying great depths of psychological intrigue with stunning fight scenes and well-rounded characters.
A minor cheat, as the first issue of Bitch Planet was released in December 2014, but here we go.
Bitch Planet as a comic was always going to draw in feminists. The premise presents the extremes of a misogynistic society, where the slightest transgression on the part of a woman – which could be being too fat, disagreeing with a man, not wanting to have sex, or wanting too much sex – warrants harsh punishment. They are sent away to an off-world prison, where they are allowed to be as vicious to each other as they like – after all, no one’s going to mourn one more disobedient woman.
There are a few great female characters in here, but a special shout-out has to go to Penny Rolle, one of the inmates. Not just a woman but a woman-of-colour, and of significant size, it’s obvious why she would be a target in this kind of society.
From having the wrong type of hair (an aesthetic offence), to fighting men when they insult her (assault) and being overweight (wanton obesity), she’s had a hard time since she was a little girl.
For those of us who know what it’s like not to be the ideal woman (okay, so that’s most of us) we can understand Penny’s anger at the world – like everything else in the comic, it’s just an exaggeration of the frustration we women often feel at the way we’re treated by men, and even by other women.
There’s something more that makes Penny stand out from all of the other inmates of Bitch Planet though: self-love, of the type we should all aspire to. She knows that she’s large, that her hair doesn’t behave, that she has a bit of an anger problem, but even in a world where she’s told repeatedly to be ashamed of herself, she isn’t.
In one issue, the men who run Bitch Planet put Penny in front of a mirror which is hooked up to her brain – it’s supposed to show what the woman feels her ideal form is, and of course it usually shows what that woman has been told is ideal by men. Penny though? She sees herself just as she is.
It’s hard enough in reality for us to be okay with who we are. In this fictional society where women are subject to constant scrutiny, and suffer from extreme consequences if they’re found lacking, it’s even more admirable.
It’s possible that we should all be a bit more like Penny Rolle.
Gone are the days when women were only background characters in comics, only eye-candy in action movies and helpless damsels to be saved. We’re entering an incredible new era where women don’t have to be defined by their gender but by the strength of their character – at least in fiction. We’re seeing more and more strong women in media, and hopefully that’s encouraging all of us to be strong too.
Whether you’re fucked up like Jessica, proud like Penny, lost like Kimmy or driven like Furiosa (see what I did there?) you’ve got a powerful figure to aspire to. Who is your inspiration?
Another writing prompt from Death To Stock Photo and like the other, is entirely fictional
My safe place was always in other peoples’ lives. Especially my sister.
Pretending to be her was my fall-back when I started feeling scared. She was prettier than me, smarter than me, thinner than me, but most people didn’t know that. When someone wanted to know who the fuck I was, I said Sarah.
Sarah was an interior decorator — that seemed cooler than the accountant that my sister actually was. She didn’t have a boyfriend, but she had many lovers from around the world. She lived a cosmopolitan life in London, critically examining the art in galleries and meeting interesting people.
It was easy to slip into her skin. It didn’t matter that I didn’t know who she’d talked to last week, or what exactly she did for a living, because Sarah didn’t need to explain herself to anyone. She was beyond questioning; don’t even bother.
When someone tried to confront me about something — “Hey, you’re that weird girl I went to school with!” — I’d say no, I’m Sarah. I have no idea who you’re talking about. Insist it enough, and no matter how sure they were, I could throw them off.
When being me gets too much I just become someone else. My safe place is anywhere but in my own head.
Death To Stock Photo are running a series of writing prompts at the moment. This one was “the windshield” and came with this picture. This is what my weird brain came up with.
10.
She was my second love, after scotch. When you’re alone so long you get used to it; eventually you forget what you’re supposed to be missing out on. You adapt. Learn to thrive. Learn to wear your lonliness like a scarf. Whisky helps.
9.
My first girlfriend Holly was a real bitch. I know how that sounds, but there wasn’t a single person who knew her that wouldn’t say the same. I don’t think I’d have stayed with her at all if she didn’t give such killer head. Must have been the constant complaining worked her face muscles, or something.
8.
The car was bought years back, and it was old then. Holly said it was a hunk of junk, and I coudn’t disagree; the blue paint had half peeled away to show rust, and it couldn’t start uphill, but I’d always wanted a VW. I called it Betty, after my mum. That wasn’t fair of me, really.
7.
Nina was different. It was her idea to hang all that crap off the rear view mirror. “I’m just putting a little jewellery on poor Betty,” she said. I didn’t tell her that my mother would never have worn beads. It didn’t matter.
I kept meaning to take them down but I guess I never did.
6.
I crashed my first car the day I passed my driving test. Chalk it up to youthful arrogance — I was still buzzing from the high of passing, the first test I’d ever felt confident going into. It wasn’t until later, when I’d picked up my shitty “new” car and called on my friends that things went wrong. I told the police that I hadn’t been drinking, which wasn’t strictly true. They told me we were lucky to be alive. The car was totalled.
5.
We were fighting, as usual, and drinking. Not the best combination when you’re manouvering a rickety hunk of junk like Betty. I was always drunk those days, and had learned how to act like I wasn’t. I could even say the alphabet backwards, just in case I had to. I was just drunk enough to feel in control, and just too drunk not to be.
4.
When I took my my driving test, I kept thinking back to what my best friend Dougie had told me in school; how a friend of a friend’s uncle had been in the passenger seat when the air bag deployed without warning and killed him. It wasn’t that I believed him, but I could always imagine that I was that friend of a friend’s relative: I could picture my mum telling people how I’d died in a freak accident, and how my death should serve as a warning.
The first time I crashed a car the airbag broke my nose, but saved my life.
3.
I just wanted her to shut the fuck up. I wanted Nina and her eccentricites, Holly and her mouth. I wanted to erase the last three years of my life. I don’t think I realised then how much I loved her. She let me need her, and I did; I don’t know if I can forgive her for that.
2.
The way I remember it, I heard the glass smashing before anything else. I don’t think I even saw her move but to an alcoholic, the sound of a bottle smashing will always command attention. My scotch had spilled out onto the road and lay there glittering.
Fuck, I thought. That’s forty quid down the drain.
1.
Nina once told me that she hated me. She took it back later, but it’s not the kind of thing you can just forget; as much as I tried I just couldn’t stop hearing it.
She’d gone through the windshield like paper, still holding onto my bottle. One of her shoes had gotten caught up in Betty’s beads.
She was my second love, after scotch.
Alright ladies and gentlemen.
This is going to be a tough one.
Look at that hair. Of course I liked Jack off Jill
There’s no point talking about how it felt to see Jack off Jill live without a little context, which is why I am hesitantly going to discuss my least favourite subject…me (at least in regards to this band).
I was eleven when Jack off Jill broke up, and I became a fan a year or two later. I never knew much about them, other than that I was madly in love with Jessicka and they were contemporaries of another act I adored as a teenager, Marilyn Manson. I can remember long car journeys with my family that were filled with listening to Clear Hearts, Grey Flowers over and over again on my CD Walkman.
To this angsty, goth teenager they were a soothing balm, as strange as that might sound if you know of them. So many of their songs expressed what I felt as a teenager; anger, despair, self-loathing, and while it might not sound healthy or useful to someone else, it was right for me. As I got older, the songs made progressively more sense to me, not less. Even when I went long periods of time without listening to them I could still sing (or shout) along, and the words still meant as much.
I don’t think there’s been a time in the last ten years when Jack off Jill haven’t been important to me. Three years ago on Valentine’s I made a video to My Cat with photos of my actual cat; Surgery became more literally relevant when I was nineteen and going under the knife; and the rest of Clear Hearts is the soundtrack to my teenage years.
So as you might imagine, I entirely freaked out when I found out that, fifteen years after their split, my beloved Jack off Jill were reuniting for a tour. There wasn’t a chance I could say no to this opportunity and I hurriedly snatched up tickets for the last night of the tour in Heaven, London.
To say I was excited would be an understatement. I mean, this was Jack off Jill, guys! Jessicka Addams nee Fodera, the personification of my teenage angst and long-time style inspiration, was going to be in the same room as me and a bunch of other screaming fans!
My route to Jack off Jill was through goth and metal music; while I was a big fan of riot grrrl it never occurred to me that Jack off Jill would fall into that category. So to experience this superb riot grrrl gig with all the attitude of goth and metal was perhaps the best surprise of the night.
It would be unfair of me to leave the support acts out of this, but I’ll be brief. The two piece American girl duo that started the night, The Regrettes, were awesomely punk and bratty – they did an incredible job of rocking really hard considering there was only two of them. The Ethical Debating Society kept the energy levels up with a post-riot grrrl rock-out, reminding me in attitude and style of another of my favourite bands in my teenage years, Help She Can’t Swim. Both of these acts did an incredible job of building the riot grrrl atmosphere, and it almost felt like a gig in the heyday of the movement – when girls were called to the front and uninhibited frontwomen dominated the stage. It was an incredible experience to be part of.
Gigs are hard to analyse, and hard to explain, as so much of it is caught up in the intangible nature of actually being there; bathing in the powerful glow of this strong, talented artist and feeling the ache in your neck from head-banging too hard. I was never going to be displeased with the setlist; the benefit of a band that has only released two and a half albums is that every song is golden, and we all screamed with joyous recognition to each one. Jessicka threw chocolate coins to the audience from her concealed granny pants, and had a bucket of “blood” ceremoniously poured over her during the encore. It was beautiful. She even made a passing reference to her contentious falling out with Marilyn Manson in the introduction to Author Unknown.
There was one particular aspect of that show, however, that really made me feel like I had to write about it. And that is, Jessicka’s real-time morbidity, which went beyond the humour of their shows and made everything more real.
There was a lot of talk about this being the band’s last show, for good – which isn’t entirely surprising, considering there was no promise of getting back together. Throughout the show, which was on her 40th birthday, Jessicka talked a lot about feeling as though she was in an older body. She told us her hair was thinning, and she was sick of it which lead to her hacking away chunks in front of us all. At one point she pulled a razor blade out and cut her forehead open, rubbing blood all over her face.
Twenty years ago, that wouldn’t have been unusual. Self-harming on stage was a fairly common occurrence for some goth bands in the nineties – think Till Lindemann making his head bleed with the blunt force of his microphone in Live Aus Berlin, or Marilyn Manson’s repeated on-stage cutting. But it’s virtually never seen these days, and while I obviously don’t condone self harming in any way, it made the show feel truly, viscerally goth, and was about as close to being taken back to a metal gig in the nineties as possible.
It wasn’t until after the show that I put it all together. They had to cut the tour short because she’s sick…her hair is thinning…her body feels old… What I had taken as a normal gothic preoccupation with death and a morbid sense of humour about mortality might have been more personal than I thought. Later snooping revealed that her illness is a result of a gastrointestinal bacteria causing her intestine to rupture, and that she’s been in recovery ever since her life-saving surgery in 2013. Hopefully with time she’ll be ready to embark on the mammoth journey that is touring the US.
That was a night I never thought I’d have. Not just because of who the band was and what they meant to me, but because I was – and still am – so blown away by the passion and intensity of the performance. Seeing an act like that in a venue so small was emotionally exhausting and utterly brilliant; exhilarating and deflating at the same time. Even weeks later I felt morbidity hanging over me like a shadow.
So thank you, Jack off Jill. You gave me an experience I hope I’ll always remember, and I don’t know if I’ll be the same again.
Only time will tell if that’s a good thing.
It’s hard to know where to start when you’re going to interiview Darryl McDaniels. I mean, it’s Darryl DMC McDaniels! The Devastating Mic Controller! One third of the first commercially successful hip-hop band in history. It doesn’t matter that I’m not personally a huge Run DMC; their music is so ingrained within popular culture that it’d be a struggle to find someone unable to name a single song they’re involved in.
The funny thing, though, is that he doesn’t act like he’s a big deal. Despite the stern manager Darryl was a consistently honest, eloquent, humorous human being, one you wouldn’t expect to be famous on such a level as he is. The key to which is, I think, the fact that he’s a comic book lover before a music lover, and in this world he still has some way to go.
He’s ambitious, to say the least. Thought Bubble was the debut for both DMC #2 and #1.5, created with the fantastic Tuta Lotay, but he dreams of the status of DMC comics decades from now, when he hopes their universe will be as well-known as Disney or Marvel. Although he could easily have worked with Marvel, he followed sound advice and went it alone instead, in order to maintain full control (and for the record, Marvel are huge supporters of his work).
It was Marvel comics that he loved as a kid. Unlike in the DC Universe with Gotham and Metropolis, the stories of Marvel were set in real places in New York; places the young Darryl couldn’t afford to see for himself. He spent his childhood drawing and writing, and excelled at English, although it was eventually Business Management that he studied at college, at the advice of his friend. “Listen to your friends’ advice,” he told me, “just don’t follow it.”
He thinks that teaching could have been his forte if he hadn’t had his rise to fame with Run DMC. That’s why the hero of DMC #1 is himself as a teacher – it’s a sort of alternate world where Darryl didn’t become a hip hop legend and instead became a junior high teacher (and night-time ADIDAS-class vigilante). Even within the graphic novel you can feel the respect he has for teachers, those rarely thanked everyday heroes of society.
The DMC comics are beautifully diverse, but as Darryl stressed it’s not for marketing reasons: he simply wants everybody to feel that they can relate to at least some aspect of a character. The diversity isn’t limited to skin colour either, and the hero of DMC #2 isn’t only Puerto Rican, but female and adopted. Her femininity is natural, and her fostering home environment is one of warmth and love – no tortured orphans in abusive homes here.
And because of Darryl’s life experiences he’s very keen to make the poor as important as the rich in his comics. One of the major things that he told me he wanted readers to take away from his comics is that no matter how bad your situation, or where you are in life, you are still important. Every life and every story is important, not just the wealthy and well-publicised ones.
He’s got a lot of ideas for the future of DMC comics. By the time his world has been built, the character DMC may be the least interesting of them! He dropped some hints that an aging superhero may be making an appearance, asking me what would happen to someone with super powers as they aged? Wouldn’t they still be comparatively stronger?
There have been talks about turning DMC into a film but Darryl wants to hold off for now. His reason? When it’s done, it has to be done BIG. Settling for anything less than a blockbuster would be a failure. For now, the comic needs to continue, preferably with the current mix of artists doing single issues each – the idea for which, by the way, being that if five people told the story of this event they would all tell it a little differently, which is wonderfully well thought-out.
And if he could have anyone illustrate an issue of DMC, he’s claimed it would be one of the artists on The Walking Dead because, in another great shocker, he’s a massive zombie nut! His prize possession, he told me, is an illustration of himself as a zombie.
So despite the interview not recording, I felt that I got a lot out of it – and I don’t just mean this awkward photo of us together. What was I supposed to do with my arms?!
Keep an eye out for DMC comics. If he can work some of the same magic with them as he did in DMC, we might well see his ambitions come true, and in twenty years we’ll be queuing up for the summer blockbuster release of DMC: The Movie.
The Wicked and the Divine is a graphic novel of a new, wonderful breed that is thankfully receiving its dues in the world of comics right now. These include Saga, Sex Criminals, Rat Queens and many more, but what they all have in common is this fantastic ability to get right to the heart of a very strange scenario, quickly. They all have a mythology of one form of another, a language through which the story is told, and for The Wicked and The Divine McKelvie and Gillen have picked a classic idea – rockstars as gods, or gods as rockstars – and made it completely their own.
For those who haven’t read any yet, the premise is a simple one. Every ninety years, twelve gods and goddesses, known as The Pantheon, are reincarnated in ordinary people. They become the idols of that time – it just so happens that this time around, pop and rock stars are the closest thing we have to gods among us.
When they perform it’s like a spiritual experience, complete with fans – worshippers – fainting in the crowd. But the price of being famous and being loved is that they have only two years to live. As you can imagine, this is quite difficult for the teenagers in question – especially the youngest, Minerva, who knows she’s going to die before she turns fourteen.
Every page is beautiful, and carefully thought out. The space is used artfully, with entire pages devoted to portraying blackest depths. Form and frame are shifted to create an effect that draws your eye across the page, making it impossible to put down, and the way it can illicit feelings, moods and experiences is truly masterful. One rave scene in the second trade paperback is particularly evocative; a calculated assembly of lights, colours, and variation in form that TV and film couldn’t even begin to emulate.
In the trade paperbacks The Faust Act and Fandemonium, chapters are interspersed with portrait images of the gods we meet. All of the characters are so carefully thought out that you can tell a huge amount about their personalities just by seeing these portraits, so exquisitely crafted by McKelvie. An important shout-out also goes to Matthew Wilson for the sumptuous colouring, and Clayton Cowles for the lettering which has all the inventiveness of The Sandman in its assigning of fonts to a character. In short, it looks incredible.
But it isn’t just a pretty face. The amount of effort that must have gone into creating the mythology and back story, the choices of Gods from various religions and the anachronistic nature of true belief in the twenty-first century all show how perfectly sculpted these books are. The telling of the story flows naturally in the voice of our seventeen year old protagonist, as she bears witness to the Recurrence and becomes haplessly involved in it.
In fact, all of the voices sound authentic, even coming as they do from such a diverse cast of characters, but especially from Laura. Gillen manages to capture the fiery defiance of a teenager, complete with the new and exciting stresses that have come with the social media age, without being at all patronising. Laura’s flawed, to the point where you want to grab her by the arms and shake her out of her misguided fantasies, but as an audience we can understand her desire to be as special as the Gods she admires.
I hesitate to say much because there is so much joy to be had from reading The Wicked and The Divine. The story takes such unexpected turns that by the time you’ve finished reading you realise you can’t go any longer without knowing what horrible, magical thing is going to happen next! So far the first two volumes have been released in Image’s wonderful little volumes, and while it’s killing me not to talk about the huge cliffhanger that the second left on, it’s well worth discovering for yourself.
So please do, then we can get excited about it together!
If you’ve read my review of The Lady, you’ll know that I’m a fan of the strange and disturbing work of Michael Patrick Rogers. Luckily for me – and anyone else who enjoys creepy point-and-click games with excellent artwork – his next project has just hit Indiegogo!
This time around, MPR has teamed up with David Szymanski of Fingerbones and comic book artist Stanislav Yakimov to create this simple yet challenging game which manages to feel like a comic book. Each level is introduced by some background information about the titular character The Grandfather, an old man sleeping alone while his cold, unloving wife ignores him in the adjoining bed. He’s an obviously sympathetic character – who of us hasn’t feared that we would end up like that, stuck in not just a loveless marriage but one without the slightest bit of compassion. In fact, one of my favourite songs is about that very idea.
These scenes of his life are shown in a wonderful comic book style that will feel instantly recognisable for any regular reader of comics. But even for those who aren’t fans of the style, the simplicity of the panels and the fact that there are no speech bubbles takes away what many find hardest about reading comics; taking in the words at the same time as the images. Instead a voice-over provides us with his sad story.
Much of the imagery is to do with death and rebirth, often at the same time. This serves to give the character of the grandfather this curiously childlike demeanour, reacting to his wife’s rejection in the way a child might when pushed from their parents’ room after a nightmare. Just because he’s old doesn’t mean he knows any more than we do, especially about dealing with the unpleasantness of life.
The music seems to be a huge part of the story, just as it was in The Lady. The ambient yet sometimes discordant noises are built up by the player throughout the game, giving each game its own individual soundtrack. I imagine mine sounded like the panicked clicking of my mouse over and over.
Although I’ve only played the demo so far, it seems quite similar in game play to The Lady – albeit easier (again, so far). As is usual for MPR, he makes no effort to explain how to play the game or what your objective is, and it can be bewildering trying to work it out (and often results in the mashing of keys and buttons). You’re simply dumped into an unknown room, tasked with progressing…but how? That’s up to you to find out.
It’s always hard to tell how indicative a demo will be of the final piece, and there are certainly one or two technical issues to sort out. But if the artwork, the pacing, the playing and the music stay pretty much the same, I think we’ll be on to a winner with The Grandfather. If you’d like to donate toward the making of the game please head to this location.
As a Rammstein fan – even more than that, a Till Lindemann fan – I had a lot of expectations for his side project, Lindemann. While I don’t particularly know his co-conspirator in music, one Mr Peter Tägtgren of PAIN and Hypocrisy fame, he is quite clearly an incredibly talented industrial and death metal musician, and it’s hard to imagine a better pairing really.
Warning: This review would probably be considered NSFW (depending on your W), so for a less personal and totally (maybe) objective version, head over to Soundsphere Magazine
This isn’t an album for those who are easily offended, squeamish, or particularly prudish. If song titles including “Golden Shower”, “Fat” and “Ladyboy” put you off, you probably shouldn’t listen to it. Many fans of Rammstein have never bothered to look up their lyrics, but those who have know that this kind of theme isn’t new for Till – it’s just easier to ignore when it’s in German. God knows I’m glad my parents couldn’t understand it.
Skills in Pills is the perfect starting track with its dance-inducing synths (seriously, it’s impossible not to dance to this song). According to an interview with Till, the title is a reference to his days back in East Germany when alcohol was illegal and to get high they had to mix together different prescription drugs. You needed “skills” to be able to do this though, as if you got it wrong you’d end up with some pretty serious damage. Actually, that explains a lot.
In tone, the song is pure industrial but with elements of the pop-synth side of the genre. It’s got its catchy synths, its heavy breakdown and Till’s heartbreakingly beautiful voice belting out with such passion – it works really, really well.
Ladyboy for example is, lyrically, almost the same as Zwitter, although about another person. For those who aren’t familiar, “Zwitter” means “hermaphrodite”, and the song is about how happy he feels to be both genders. Similarly in Ladyboy he sings about a passionate love for his ladyboy, in what is actually a really beautiful way – combined with the fury of not being able to express his love when he growls out “Why should I laugh when I can’t have fun with my Ladyboy?” This was the first song the duo wrote, and came from the German-speaking Till trying to explain his feelings about the subject to the Swedish/American Tägtgren – English was the only language they both knew, however little.
I’m not trying to say that Lindemann are going to win any LGBTQ awards or anything, but this theme of open-minded acceptance is prevalent on this album. “Fat”, which could have been an insulting song, is actually a roaring dancing industrial number about a man’s passion for heavily overweight women. It’s grotesque, and goes against the messages we are always taught about what is beautiful, but it’s actually lovely. When Till shouts “fat!” it’s with passion, not disgust. Complimenting these lyrics with tense violin music, church organs and heavy industrial beats gives you a real headbanger of a song, with a fantastic anthemic element. I expect it would be a real treat to see this played live.
Before you go ahead thinking that Till Lindemann is some kind of fetishistic sex pest, remember kids – songs don’t always have to be autobiographical! Till himself has noted in an interview that he enjoys getting inside the minds of others, finding what they want and hate – although to be fair, he also said that he wouldn’t object to an overweight woman approaching him (knowing that makes me feel a lot better about my chances if I should ever meet him).
Ladyboy has the same kind of classic industrial breakdown that appears later in the form of Praise Abort, the album’s single. Praise Abort is a clear leading single – it’s industrial-metal enough that it could be one of Rammstein’s stranger songs (think Pussy or Amerika) but also has an excellent tongue-in-cheek electronic element.
Songs like Fish On, Cowboy and Golden Shower are just insanely fun. The first begins with a strong electronic dance vibe and is a ridiculous and slightly gross kind of a song – the lyrics are pure Till, while the tune is clearly a result of Tägtgren’s experience with electronic industrial. The crude sexual imagery is hilarious, and the ethereal female singing adds a wonderful juxtaposition to it all. Cowboy was one of the first leaked songs of the album and it’s obviously going to be a hit as it’s just such good fun to dance to!
The lyrics are based on that childhood dream to be a cowboy – with perhaps a little cynicism for America for good measure – and the failure of not living up to that dream. It’s funny, sexual, and once you know the lyrics it’s surprisingly hard not to sing along; another song that would go down very well at a live show! Also, there’s a banjo interlude.
In the middle of the album it falls back to that real Rammstein feeling – slow, headbanging industrial with Till’s terribly creepy voice. In terms of tone, Children of the Sun and Home Sweet Home are almost pure Neue Deutsche Härte, a very specific genre of music which covers bands such as Megaherz, Oomph!, Emigrate, Eisbrecher and – of course – Rammstein. It’s usually used to describe a heartfelt industrial-metal sound and on these songs in particular it’s a much more pronounced sound.
These songs are also gentle reminders that Till Lindemann is a poet at heart, and Home Sweet Home is especially emotive, reminding me of the Rammstein song Nebel which always had a profound effect on me. Like Nebel, it’s the kind of song that makes you feel nostalgic and homesick, with just a touch of hope or, at least, a glimmer of happiness in the memory, and it’s almost certainly appreciated best with your eyes shut. Home Sweet Home could easily be a Rammstein song, although I don’t mean to diminish Tägtgren’s influence and incredible production skills.
Golden Shower particularly shows off Tägtgren’s style, starting slowly and dramatically before suddenly launching into some fairly serious metal – it especially feels like his death metal influences are coming through here. The lyrics to the song are disgusting – I won’t go into details as I’m sure you can guess – but if it were in German instead of English, the singing would probably sound something like Du Riechst So Gut. He also makes prolific use of the c-word, which is bound to put off a few people because trust me, you’ll be shouting it along with him after a listen or towo. The music veers between heavy metal and electronica with that driving industrial drumbeat backing it all up.
Yukon harkens back to that Neue Deutsche Härte style but with an 80s goth-pop synth that turns the catchy tune into something reminiscent of Gary Numan or Depeche Mode. Yukon is the name of a major river running through British Columbia, Yukon and Alaska that was the site of a mass prospector migration – hence “I want your gold but you want my life.” It was the last great gold rush, and of the 100,000 stampeders only around 30 – 40,000 made it, while the others died or gave up and turned back. It seems to be really about the unstoppable power of river, although he certainly ascribes the river female attributes.
Fun fact: while most people accept that the source of the Yukon is the Llewellyn Glacier in British Columbia, others believe it to come from Lake Lindeman. Coincidence? I think so!
I’ve already mentioned Praise Abort, but it deserves its own little section. There’s a very good reason why this was the lead single of the album – it’s probably the best song on the album, especially at first listen. If you couldn’t tell from the song title, it’s not going to be for everyone, and apparently the band have a crew of lawyers on hand just waiting for someone to kick off about it. Also, like Golden Shower, you will find yourself gleefully shouting “p-p-p-praise abort!” when Till does, so watch for that in public.
It’s a great mix of music though – pop-industrial synths interspersed with heavy chugging industrial guitars and a weirdly groovy tone running underneath every hate-filled word that spills from Till’s mouth. Later on in the breakdown we get a haunting female backing track to compliment Till’s gravel-like growling. Again, this song isn’t about him, and his two children are okay with it! The video is also something pretty special – pregnant ballerinas and Till doing the moonwalk are just two especially good bits.
That’s My Heart is the final song on the album, and one I wasn’t sure whether to discuss. It’s certainly one I needed to listen to a few times to really “get it” – it might not be the same for everyone but I’ve always needed more time to appreciate the slower, more sincere Rammstein songs and this is no different.
Basically, Till Lindemann can do virtually anything and make it beautiful, and it seems like he’s met a musical match in Peter Tägtgren. It may not be Rammstein (who are incidentally starting to work on another album this year – hooray!) but it’s not meant to be. It’s a thoroughly interesting experiment that came about as a result of two incredibly strange men wanting to make bizarre music together, and it’s a freaking masterpiece.
Fingers crossed for a second album!
So, this is going to be difficult. I don’t like talking about myself, especially in any kind of public way, but I felt that my lengthy absence from writing warranted some form of explanation – even if just to myself. The truth is that I’ve been having a slight crisis of confidence when it comes to putting my work out there. It’s not even about the quality, but more the insignificance of it all.
Now that my work is mostly writing and promoting blogs, it’s hard to ignore the fact that my voice is one of so many, very few of whom are really contributing anything. How could I possibly provide any kind of new insight or angle when thousands of other people are discussing the same thing? What is my USP? What can I offer anyone who reads this website that has any value, or makes any impression? I’m increasingly unsure of the answer to these questions.
But it isn’t just laziness and self-doubt. I’ve been having problems for some time now with my hands and arms; it’s been difficult to talk about, in part because of my distaste of writing about myself but also because it’s difficult to discuss something without a name. For some time I was misdiagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome, a common affliction in writers and computer workers. It seemed likely given the growing pain in my left wrist and fingers, but when the steroid injection failed to work and the pain spread to my other hand, carpal tunnel became much less likely.
After months of hospital visits where physiotherapists well-meaningly manipulated my back to see if anything happened – it didn’t – I was given sleeping splints, working splints, elbow splints and hand paddles, and nothing seemed to be working. Now, nearly a year after the symptoms first began I still don’t know what’s wrong with me and am currently waiting on a consultant’s appointment to have nerve conductive tests.
The point of all of this is that between working a (nearly) full time job at a computer for eight and a half hours a day, I tend to come home with aching from my fingers up to my elbow or even shoulder, which doesn’t make me feel particularly inclined to do more writing.
I don’t want to make any kind of promises about getting writing done on time – it’s worked amazingly for my friend Charlie and his Terror Tuesday blog, who’s done an incredible job of getting an article out every week for over a year now. I just don’t feel that, given how unpredictable the pain in my arms can be, that I can commit to anything other than my job. Which I love, by the way.
I’m going to try though. Not writing a comic review since last October is pretty shameful, and at some point I have grand plans to redo the website but that will probably require an intensive weekend of work. I want to keep writing for myself because as much as I enjoy it, I can’t only be my job. I need something that’s just mine.
Works I’ve written for other websites and zines are still waiting to go out, so there will eventually be some form of update from them, and I’m always looking for some exciting new work to do (hint hint). Until then, I’m going to do what I can, and try not to lose something I love doing – writing meaningless reviews for a handful of readers, expecting nothing but an outlet for my thoughts. To that handful, thank you for making this a worthwhile endeavour.
Post script: Hehe this is my 69th post. I am mature.
I reviewed The Lady earlier this year for a publication it was rejected from. Luckily, one of the creators of the game was pleased by it and posted it on his site, MPR Art, where he has updates on all the interesting things he’s working on.
In celebration of the game’s much-overdue release on Steam this January 29th, I have chosen to share the piece with all of you! And whether you play this particular game or not, please support indie game developers.
I am lost. I don’t know which way to go, nor can I be sure where I came from. I feel like no matter how hard I try to progress, I’m holding myself back – I am my own worst enemy. I am The Lady.
The Lady is an emotionally provocative yet wordless journey into the mind of a person suffering from depression. The game plays as a simple 2D side-scroller, taking inspiration from classic video games, including their incredibly steep learning curves. The Lady isn’t impossible, but it takes a lot to stick with a game when there is no indication whatsoever what you need to do to progress. What helps in one level can kill you in another; you’re constantly adapting your methods, only occasionally repeating simple motions in order to get by.
Unlike the text-based game Depression Quest, The Lady doesn’t spell anything out for you. It doesn’t aim to tell you how she feels, but instead show you and make you feel it too. The frustration of the brutally difficult learning curve combined with no ability to save or go back – you mess up three times, you start from square one – is of course a throwback to the time before games had manuals or memory to save, but it also brings up a lot of the feelings of depression in the player. After a while, you begin to feel like this whole thing is futile, and when the helplessness builds you want nothing more than to click the “Fuck it, I can’t go on like this..” option.
Depression Quest is probably one of the most famous of games to deal with depression in a realistic, everyday way. The static of the background makes you feel the numbness that often accompanies depression, and the writing is slow and paced – anything too energetic wouldn’t work. It elegantly presents the idea that certain choices aren’t yours to make, such as “just getting over it” – these are crossed out to show that this is an impossible decision for someone with serious depression to just make. As the player, you make decisions about whether to ask for help or take antidepressants, and as such it is probably an invaluable game for anyone trying to understand depression, either their own or others’.
The Lady, on the other hand, throws you in the deep end without context or a safety net. There’s absolutely no understanding, no helping hand, no closure. The world is just a terrifying place and you don’t know why. In terms of artwork, it has the same feel as body horror movies, and the Lady herself is a monstrous exaggeration of an emaciated, scarred rag doll with no arms. She drags herself around, either blind to the world or with huge bloodshot eyes bulging in horror at what she sees – which, nine times out of ten, is herself.
In The Lady, you don’t fight against an external figure other than yourself. To get anywhere you have to smash projections of your own self in various forms, before they come to you; it’s a great way to show an all-encompassing self-hatred, and the negative spiral depression leads to wherein you’re depressed because you’re depressed. It also reinforced for me the idea that when you have depression, you can be your own worst enemy.
I’m armless, useless, impotent. Moving is like wading through molasses. I can’t scream for help, and I don’t think anyone could save me anyway. I know this is something I need to do myself, but I just don’t know how. I don’t know how much more of this I can take.
Like Alice going down the rabbit hole, you can’t be sure what is real in this game and what is not. Seemingly endless mazes can keep you occupied for hours if you don’t know where to leave. Sometimes, seemingly without reason, you’re plunged into near-darkness and have to grope your way through broken glass and your own fears to get anywhere. But I understand The Lady, I found myself thinking. If things had gone differently, this could have been me.
Short puzzle-based games have been shown to improve the player’s mood, reduce their anxiety and promote relaxation; this is why casual games like Angry Birds and Bejewelled are so successful. The Lady does the exact opposite by withdrawing any kind of reward, cheats or easy progress from the player, but instead forces then to use an important part of any serious gamer’s arsenal – reappraisal. This skill helps with problem solving, acceptance and willingness to change tact entirely, and this ability to re-assess is both useful in everyday scenarios and in dealing with symptoms of depression.
Don’t play this game expecting closure or even a sense of relief at the end. The whole thing was created as an artistic exercise when artist and video game designer Michael Patrick Rogers developed anxiety and depression, and did as so many of us do – lost interest in everything he’d enjoyed. By creating an artistic journey through the haunted house ride that is a panic attack, he hoped to express the feelings of intense fear, helplessness and anxiety that are impossible to describe to anyone who hasn’t had one.
The Lady could be considered more of an interactive art piece with a jaw-grinding soundtrack than a traditional puzzle and reward computer game. But like any challenging game, it forces you to think in creatively – despite the oppressive atmosphere – and come out the other side against all odds.
It’s the end of November and, once again, Thought Bubble was a roaring success. Perhaps no bigger than last year, it had some noticeable differences in organisation that went down both positively and negatively, depending on who you’d talk to.
The most obvious change was the introduction of the marquee in the centre of the convention space. Immediately, you’d think that this had increased the size of the convention, although comparatively it was probably about the same size as last year’s extra room. The advantages, however, were that a marquee is a lot easier to keep warm than the hollow bare-brick wall. Also using the central space for the major signings (people you knew would be busy, like Scott Snyder and Jock) meant that the New Dock Hall wasn’t completely full of seemingly endless queues. The downside to that was having to queue outside, in November. Still, you can’t have it all.
Fortunately the weather held and we barely saw a drizzle of rain – I expect there was great thanks from the cosplay crowd, of whom there were an incredible amount this year. I’m not sure how but it seems that every year I think I must have seen all of the costumes, until I see the post-con pictures and wonder how I could possibly have missed the adorable child in the jumpsuit with a Portal gun.
Post-Con Swag
Other than that, it seemed like business as usual at the convention, which was great. There seemed to be a few things that fell through – the Diversity in Comics panel wasn’t racially diverse, for instance, but more on that later – although nothing ground to a halt. When you’ve been to Thought Bubble a few times you begin to see the patterns of exhibitors – you always know Dr Geoff is going to be there, and the Romantically Apocalyptic crew.
As a socially awkward person, I don’t always revel in being brought into conversations at exhibitor stalls, but I did have a few wonderful chats this year with independent artists. While not independent, my favourite talk was probably with David Hine, whom I queued for patiently to have Storm Dogs signed last year, but whose desk was virtually empty this year. We had a fantastic discussion about his book The Man Who Laughs, the origins of the Joker and the private life of Victor Hugo. These are some of my most treasured moments of Thought Bubble, when I can geek out on something that excites me with someone who’s managed to make something awesome.
The talks seemed hugely popular this year – several that I tried to attend in the Bury Theatre had snaked back to the door and then doubled in length again, and the line for the Gotham talk had been hopelessly long, which was a shame. The ones I did attend were pretty great though; the first of which was one of my favourites, The Best Thing I’ve Read All Year, which was alternatively dubbed “The White Bearded Man Panel” thanks to a few guests falling through. At least they were aware of it!
This is the best place to get recommendations, and I walked away with a whole bunch. Huge thanks go to Tom from Gosh Comics for recommending the Comic Book Slumber Party table, and specifically the Fairytales for Bad Bitches anthology which was read on the Saturday night and gratefully enjoyed. Supreme Blue Rose was another big push, and of course The Wicked and The Divine, which just won the British Comic Awards prestigious Best Comic award.
Other potential highlights – which have either been positioned on my radar or gone onto my Christmas list – included The Salt Lakes by Matt Taylor, a translation of three Japanese history comics for which I can’t remember the name, Beautiful Darkness, a new Stray Bullets, The Wrenchies and the upcoming Ody-C, z gender-swapped sci-fi version of the Odyssey which I cannot wait to get my grubby mitts on. I’m going to be poor for quite some time.
It was a good laugh of a talk though, and the suggestions were great. I was particularly pleased that riot grrrl comics were being actively promoted! The riot grrrl anthology is now sat on my bookshelf, screaming to be read. In time, my beauty!
For the second year of Diversity in Comics, there maybe could have been a bit more diversity – both from last year as well as in general. Howard Hardiman was in attendance again, the self-professed “gay cripple” who penned the excellent The Lengths which I snatched up last year after hearing him talk. I also noticed for the first time this year that he has a fantastic puzzle piece tattoo all over his lower arm – love it. He also showed a segment from one of his new books about a sleepy badger, where the titular badger comes across a black, disabled lesbian, which was a fantastic nod.
Unfortunately the panel was overwhelmingly white this year, largely because Barry Nugent hadn’t been able to come. He was fantastic at the talk last year but I couldn’t help thinking, with the increased amount of non-white exhibitors I’m beginning to see in the halls, they might have been able to get someone else. Donya Todd was charming though, and from my South-West neck of the woods, so I was pleased to find that I had already picked up her work in the riot grrrl anthology.
There were some great recommendations, including a seventies feminist publication called Spare Rib, and great women in comics like Suzy Varty, Trina Robbins and Eileen Crumb. We also discussed the problems when it comes to complaining about events like Thought Bubble and making them more accessible – I’d be curious to see if there are many negative reactions and how they are dealt with.
The Self Made Hero British graphic novelists talk was another great one, with the master of Cthulionic adaptations INJ Culbard joined by the creators of Ricky Rouse Has A Gun, which is another on my ever-growing Christmas list. I had already bought a series of grotesque cyberpunk postcards from John Aggs who describes Ricky Rouse as a “dumb book”, so was quite excited to see them talk about this piece that had been making waves for some time.
Finally, the only other panel I was able to make it to was the Journalism in Comics talk. The biggest topic of conversation was that of criticism, which was very interesting – we heard from Douglas Wolk, who prides himself on critical journalism, and Zainab who, like me, would rather be positive. Like her, I also shy away from giving negative reviews, being too aware that the subject could be reading it, although for someone in Douglas’s position this isn’t a luxury he can afford. I suppose it’s also about where you feel your responsibility lies – with the consumer, or with the creator of the work.
Again, the panel might have been a little better chosen. With only four panelists (including the moderator) it seemed out of place for one of them to barely do any comics journalism. Unfortunately music journalism doesn’t really translate as easily, and her comments – while insightful – felt out of context.
All in all, Thought Bubble still reigns supreme in the comic book festival circuit, especially as more and more conventions are going toward more mainstream media forms. Yes, Jason Momoa is very attractive, but comic book icon he is not – give me Tim Sale any day!
Finally, my weekend was made by meeting one of my personal heroes, Danielle Corsetto, and having her doodle in the copies of Adventure Time that I reviewed here and here.
So thank you once again Thought Bubble for the laughs, the inspiration, and the severely depleted bank account funds. I’m looking forward to next year already!
I’ve had a real urge to do some creative writing recently, but I’m terrible at coming up with original ideas, so this is just a little experiment in writing very short pieces of mostly descriptive fiction.
If you have an idea for a story you want brought to life and think this is alright, email me at jenny.mugridge@gmail.com with your idea.
~~~
His hands trembling, he raised his pen – that very fountain pen he had so desperately coveted from his mother’s desk, but that now filled him with regret and longing – and dipped it into the inkwell, taking care to remove any excess ink from the nib. He wouldn’t want to get this wrong; he only had one chance. The pen tip descended onto the page and he stroked it across as evenly as he could, controlling his tremor through a sheer force of will which had always failed him in past attempts. The ink sank into the paper and the words that had consumed his thoughts for so long finally became real, became tangible.
A slow smile began to take shape on this face that had expressed only pain and guilt for so long – it was a foreign experience to him, and oddly fitting. She had always said he had a lovely smile.
Content with his work he meticulously placed the pen’s cap back on, listening for the click to prove that this was the end of the matter; no more words would come from here, not any time soon anyway. He sealed shut the inkwell, closed the leather bureau – you know you’re not allowed in my study, you knew what would happen – and left, feeling immediately more like himself.
His smile faded. He had left his confession and now there was nothing left to do; he found himself feeling both liberated and suffocated by the knowledge that it was over. Too late to back out now. He was already a dead man.
Bryan Lee O’Malley’s first collection of graphic novels, the Scott Pilgrim series, took off to incredible heights of success, especially when you consider that they are manga sized and black and white, two features which are only now becoming more popular in the West. Scott Pilgrim became a cult hit because of its combination relatable, heavily flawed characters with video game inspired settings which made every geek reading squeal with pleasure. In his new book Seconds, O’Malley once again presents the reader with relatable characters, albeit this time they are in a fantasy/fairy tale setting.
The story focuses on Katie, a 29 year old chef for whom things are going…okay. It can’t be said that she’s having a hard life – she’s a well-appreciated cook at Seconds, opening a new restaurant all of her own, and she has a little work fling to keep her going in the bedroom department. But there are things she wishes she could change – she could have her long-term boyfriend back instead of losing him to her own secrecy, and the refurbishment of her new restaurant’s building could certainly be going smoother. It’s an entirely understandable state of being.
One night, she wakes in her bedroom above Seconds and sees a ghostly woman with red eyes hunched on her chest of drawers. The cryptic, squirrely girl scratches at her drawers and disappears, but when she checks the drawer later, nothing is in there, not even socks. But later on, while hooking up with her protégé in the larder, an accident causes the quiet new girl Hazel to be burned horribly along her arms. Wracked with guilt and having to sever her relationship with her boy toy, she falls asleep lonely and wakes up to the small blonde girl once again scratching at her drawers. This time when she looks, she finds a small notebook, a red mushroom and a card with printed instructions:
She hurriedly scribbles that she shouldn’t have been with Andrew when Hazel was hurt, consumes the mushroom and goes to sleep.
Armed with foreknowledge, she is able to not just prevent the accident from happening but also endears herself to Hazel by showing she knows that Hazel exists, when otherwise she was universally disliked and ignored for being too attractive and tall. The two of them form a fast bond when Katie discovers that Hazel has been drawing pictures of the ghostly woman from her room, and learns what a “house spirit” is. Hazel’s role as Katie’s guide to the folk tales of house spirits is charming and cute, perhaps because Hazel is an immediately sympathetic character, much more so than the protagonist Katie.
In the grand tradition of fairy tales, Katie is granted this brief power and then takes advantage of the situation. If she could change that event, what else could she change? As most people would agree, once you start righting wrongs it can be difficult to know where to stop, and the noble spirit in which she wrote her first mistake soon gives way to self-indulgent wishes, allowing her to erase hangovers and petty arguments at will. And, like all good fairy tales (in my opinion, of course) it delves easily into horror.
As well as being a morality tale which shows the importance of being careful what you wish for, and the need to consider how your actions affect others, it also has sci-fi elements of alternative timelines. These are represented in the form of a many-branched tree, each with separate twinkling lights in every fork, throughout which reality moves depending on which direction Katie pushes it. As most people find in alternative timelines, even the things that were awful and heartbreaking – in fact, especially those things – are what make us who we are, and by erasing the mistake entirely you could find yourself in an even worse place. Besides, if you change something that defined you, are you the same person? It tows the line beautifully between science fiction and philosophy.
The way O’Malley shows the course of Katie’s life spinning out of control is surreal and disconcerting – what happens when you’ve changed your life so many times is that is begins to unravel around you. Humans aren’t meant to have this power for exactly the reason that abusing it can cause catastrophic consequences, and what’s more the mistakes are where we learn about life.
Bryan Lee O’Malley doesn’t do pin-ups or bizarre artistic effects in his work, but what he is excellent at is portraying real people with real issues and faults. Katie’s self-absorbed, impetuous and sometimes kind of mean, but I get her. Combine this with his excellent sense of humour – Katie’s arguments with the narration which may or may not be in her head – and some well-timed Scott Pilgrim references, and you’ve got a story that’s compelling, thoughtful, sweet, sad and funny all at the same time. As an added bonus, the hardcover book is absolutely beautiful and every page is dripping with the most vibrant of colours and star-scapes.
You can also read the post on the Travelling Man blog if you want a change of scenery!
As part of 2014’s issue of Neutral Magazine, I was lucky enough to visit the 20th Viva Spanish and Latin American Film Festival in Manchester! I watched two films and reviewed one; the hilarious buddy comedy Mar Del Plata. Relive my experience here or over at the Neutral 2014 website.
This Argentine off-beat movie, written and directed by Ionathan Klajman and co-directed by Sebastian Dietsch in their debut, is a wonderful example of the universality of friendship.
Everything about this film felt so familiar, from the buddy road trip storyline to the failing relationships and yearning for a simpler time in childhood.
The story begins when Joaquin is given a free weekend trip to Mar Del Plata by his antiquated father, and invites his childhood friend David for whom the journey couldn’t come at a better time; his wife has gone to stay with her mother after what she felt was neglect, and he’s unsure whether he still loves her. Joaquin is going through a similar slump as his wife left him only two months previously, and he begins to dwell on his failed relationships.
As a twist of fate, another holiday is being taken at the same time by Elena, Joaquin’s first real girlfriend who broke his heart, together with her husband of two years who also happens to be a highly successful writer. Joaquin and Elena find each other on the dank-looking beach and old feelings resurface, especially when David occupies her husband Vega with the threat of exposing him as a fraud.
Mar Del Plata has all the right ingredients to go into an off-beat dark comedy indie, something in the vein of Little Miss Sunshine or Juno. The film constantly plays with the fourth wall, switching from non-diegetic to diegetic music in amusing ways while Joaquin speaks directly to us. When he talks about his childhood, and his first ever fight with David, we’re shown the story in 8mm footage; in a brief journey through his ancestry, he flicks through images on a ViewMaster. This isn’t just a technique to evoke nostalgia though, as these media forms fit seamlessly with Joaquin’s personality – his apartment, littered with dead plants, is indicative of his man-child state, especially now that he’s single. So much is told about the characters through tiny acts, especially when David relives his childhood by releasing chickens in an act of rebellion, and perhaps hope for freedom.
The beach itself feels like something you would find in England – it’s dank and grey and the water looks unpleasantly cold. It’s obviously an off-season trip as there are very few extras on the beach, and they sit placidly so as not to distract from the action in front of them. All of the realism in this film is brought into harsh focus, down to the creaking of David’s crummy car, the white Styrofoam body board and the tacky plastic, stripped doorway of the hideous diner they come across. What makes this film feel even more familiar is the constant mention of football; one of Joaquin’s biggest victories in life was scoring a Chilean goal as a child, and David seems to measure years in World Cups. Culturally, it felt more familiar than an American film.
No one is a hero in this film, and no one is a villain – sure, Elena’s husband is obviously a bit of a scumbag, but she isn’t exactly a saint either. That’s one of the triumphs of the film, that it shows human flaws in such a brutally honest way but also ensures that we’re encouraged to think about the other side of the story. It’s a given for most of the film that David has acted neglectfully toward his wife, until he points out that there were reasons why he seemed unsympathetic at the time. Joaquin acts quite cruelly to Elena, despite the fact that she broke his heart in the first place; seeing her only aggravates the wounds of his recent separation, and she cruelly leaves her husband by telling him it’s all his fault.
Mar Del Plata doesn’t point any fingers; it treats morality with ambiguity, so we aren’t left feeling judgemental toward any of the characters. These are just normal guys, who as children felt that they could have amounted to anything if they just tried enough, and have been struggling ever since to come to turns with the harsh realities of adult life.
In comparison to the Chilean film Le Passion De Michaelango which Daria has reviewed, it felt like a universal story, one not bound to ethnicity or location – it felt humble, sad, and warm, like the memory of a childhood sweetheart.