AKA 19 Feb
to 25 Feb
This week I:
1. Brought some comics on New Comic Book Day:
…and Goro #4 arrived:
I also read some comics:
The Black Monday Murders #8 – the first phase of this story concludes in this issue and the second starts
as Det. Dumas decides to go all in, too find out the truth and draw back the
curtain. As usual this issue is well written and illustrated, capturing the
feel of a David Fincher film on paper.
Mister Miracle #1 Director’s Cut – it’s always nice to see
how an issue is put together, to see the skeleton and there’s a nice (new)
prologue setting out Mister Miracle’s origin.
Accell #8 – the second arc concludes, and we know a little
bit more about Accell, his powers and the wider Accell world. Joe Casey is
written a great origin story that is perfectly complimented by Damion Scott’s
great art.
Wildstorm: Michael Cray #5 – Michael continues to
tackle bad guys in the new Wild Storm universe, but is he working for the
baddest guys???
Judge Dredd The Megazine #393 – a great issue as the Dark
Judges continue to extrude dread and menace in the second chapter of the Movie
Dredd story, as they make their presence felt. While the comic Dredd faces more
monkey business and Koburn faces the dangers of the Cursed Earth.
Multiple Warheads: Ghost Throne – the final chapter of
Multiple Warheads as our heroes/protagonist’s individual adventures merge and
met up and Brandon ends the story of Sexica, Nikoli and Blue Nura while leaving things open
for future stories.
It fees like Brandon has pulled out all the stops to make
this final issue look great, be full of puns and emotions and great art, the
‘What Was/Is’ pages are a great idea - you hold up the ‘What Is’ page to a
light source and you can see ‘What Was’ page coming through:
Sex Criminals #22 – Suzie and Jon continue to deal with
moving on from their break-up, although Jon is still tied up with getting
revenge on Kegelface and co. Sex Criminals continues to be one of the best
books being published, not just for the main story but for the letters page,
which provides a real feeling of community, help and support, dealing with all
kinds of sexual/relationship issues. When I get a new issue I’m never sure
which to read first.
Empowered and Sistah Spooky’s High School Hell #3 –
Empowered and Sistah Spooky continue to be besieged by the devilish school
bullies. Adam Warren, Carla Speed McNeil and Jenn Manley Lee are telling a fun
story, while also addressing bullying and how it can affect you in later life.
Nemesis The Warlock Volume One (which features Nemesis the
Warlock Books 1 - 3) 2000AD Partwork – rereading these stories it’s surprising
that the weirdness of the story and Kev O’Neill’s art hasn’t been dulled by
familiarity. You can feel and see the spark’s of creativity hitting the pages, the
page never feels cluttered, but you could spend hours just looking at the details
in the backgrounds. Book Two is illustrated in a more traditional style by Jesus
Redondo, but that suits the story of Book Two, which is mostly set away from
the Termight Empire, focusing more on the aliens fighting against the Empire.
2. Brought The Omen Trilogy and The Snowman:
And watched The Snowman (a nice Scando-thriller), Gambit (a
great sixties crime caper, almost feels like an early story of Charlie Croker,
from The Italian Job), State Of Play (a meaty thriller about press freedom,
politics and friendship), Cool Hand Luke (not as good as I thought it would be
from its reputation – all the prisoners seem pretty relaxed about prison life
and while everyone likes Luke, you don’t really see what he does to own that
respect (except for his friendship with Dragline), but it’s an okay watch),
Five Dolls For An Autumn Moon (a fun Italian murder mystery using the ‘And Then
There Were None’ theme of guests in a isolated location being murdered one by
one) and started to watch the first two seasons of Twin Peaks (more of which
later).
I also watched Mute and Bright on Netflix. Mute is not a bad
film, it takes a standard noir plot of a boyfriend looking for his girlfriend,
who has a past that has come back to haunt her. Mute looks good, sounds great,
and is well acted, but when it finished I don’t feel a need to watch it again.
Bright is ok, but the story is nothing special and it repeatedly hits you over
the head with how orcs equal black people and that it’s not nice to be racist.
It’s kinda like a PG version of Training Day crossed with a knock-off version
of Lord of the Rings.
3. Brought OOFT!’s ‘Intricacies Of Modern Life’ album,
Eagles ‘One Of Those Nights’ album and The Revenge ‘Intimate Connection’ album
and (finally) listened to the ‘From the Wattstax Festival and Film’ LP.
OOFT!’s ‘Intricacies Of Modern Life’ – arrived in the post and is a great album, that
starts out with the sound of a radio being tuned, with snatches of songs heard
(including Marvin Gaye’s ‘A Funky Space Reincarnation’) and then the album
starts proper and we’re on a journey covering hypnotic, driving, ambienty,
jacking, trancey and tribal house tracks and we finish on a droney, almost
Spaceman 3ish, but housey track, that brings us gently back down to earth. A
great album.
Eagles ‘One Of Those Nights’ – I only brought this album for
one track, 'Journey of the Sorcerer', which is the intro music for the BBC TV
version of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, as it’s not available by it self
online, you have to buy the whole album, which is cheaper in real life than it
is online. And the rest of the album doesn’t live up to 'Journey…', it’s mostly
middle of the road, dull adult orientated rock ‘n’ roll.
The Revenge ‘Intimate Connection’ – I brought this album partly
because I couldn’t remember if I already had it! I saw it in the shop and thought
‘Have I already got that?...I must have…maybe I got it digitally?...) and
decided to err on the side of caution and brought it. And even if I already had
it,, it was worth getting a second copy! It’s a great house album, ‘Answerman’
might be my favourite track, it’s a hypnotic/motorik, with a jacking beat and
sparkly bassline, that you could listen to on loop forever and you wouldn’t get
bored. ‘No Turning Back’ is a close second, it’s the orally equivalent of holding
your head up high, puffing your chest out and walking into the club, like you
own it, and turning heads. Another great album.
‘From the Wattstax Festival and Film’ – is a collection of
songs from the Wattstax festival, which was set up as a benefit concert for the
7th Watts Summer Festival, which was started after the Watts riots
to celebrate/mark the community of Watts (in California, USA). There are 57 songs/tracks
in this 3-cd boxset collection and they really capture a sense of hope, optimism
and resilience and cover soul, gospel, funk and everything in-between. It’s also
the album that has the speech from Jesse Jackson that is sampled in Primal
Scream’s ‘Come Together’ (the “music is music…together we’ve got power…”).
4. Brought Only Connect: TH FFCL QZ BK, the Only Connect official quiz book.
Only Connect is one of the best programmes on TV, even if I can’t get the
connections (which is most of the time) the show is worth watching for Victoria
Coren Mitchell jokes/asides and conversations with the contestants. As well as
providing lots of questions the book, via Victoria Coren Mitchell, provides
background to how see got involved with the show, about the show, how she
approaches presenting the show and other fun stuff. I’ve only read the first twenty
pages, but it’s a great read.
5. Listened to Sara Pascoe’s The Modern Monkey on Radio 4,
in which Sara looks at “our modern social world though theories of Evolutionary
Psychology and more. How does our monkey past influence our modern lives and
how come we can still get emotionally hijacked by our primitive emotions?” with
the first episode focusing on murder. The format of the show is half stand-up,
half presentation, with occasional asides form Sara giving background to a joke
or fact (kinda like a directories commentary) and is both funny and
educational.
6. Did the G2 crosswords:
7. Took some pictures on my morning walk:
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