Messages

[Lawless]

Colin,

if you are deciding between Lawless and Thought Bubble, it depends what you want. Are you looking for a broad comics experience or an intense 2000AD jamboree?

I know you have love for a wide range of comics so you will probably get to meet a broader range of people at TB.

If the Harrogate festival is like last year 2000ad will should have a decent sized presence and should bring along, let's say half a dozen droids. On top of that there will be another 50 or so creators from big publishers through independent, niche presses. However the whole weekend is held inside a very large warehouse-like hall so seems a little impersonal to me.

Lawless is in a very intimate space, moreover Su and the team hit the bullseye with creator : fan ratio. I think they are anticipating around 320 attendees this year...and hosting 35 creators.

The space at the DoubleTree (one fairly large room for droids, another slightly smaller one for traders, an 80ish person capacity conference room for talks, a middling space for the Dave Roach exhibition) is perfectly-sized. I went last year and never felt rushed, never felt like I was going to miss a signing or sketch opportunity, never looked at a queue and thought, why bother? In fact, the very opposite: I chatted to umpteen artists and writers and the longest I waited for anything was a 15 minute queue for a bespoke Henry Flint sketch.


If you want to save a bit of dough

Option One: get an early train on Saturday and aim to be there for 10:30 in time for the first talk, then stay only one night.


Option Two: The action wraps up by 3pm / 3:30pm on the Sunday so if you think you can get everything achieved in one day maybe get a day return and head back home on Saturday night.


My vote is Lawless, and yes, I am defo going.

[Fiends of the Eastern Front]

The original run of Fiends of the Eastern Front, which was otherwise tremendous, has a few of these very clunky Show AND Tell moments. This is one of the worst

[The Outfit]

The Outfit (2022)

A widowed tailor who prides himself on using traditional techniques, gets caught in the middle of an old school gang war. Over the course of the night he must make the Don's somewhat useless son look his best and hide multiple corpses as the bodycount increases.

Now, if you're thinking this sounds incredibly similar to dear old Jacob Sardini from The Taxidermist, you are not alone. Watching on Netflix, I had to pause to look and Google if the writers were a couple of Squaxx sailing just this side of a plagiarism lawsuit.

Overall pretty good and very atmospheric, almost channeling Rope in that every scene takes place within the three rooms of the tailor's studio.

[Kind Hearts and Coronets]

I managed not to hype it up too much for the youngling (11), who was despairing that we were going to see a black and white movie, but left declaring it was one of the best movies they'd ever seen.

That's fantastic, hopefully a gateway to other Ealings.

I had a similar experience a decade back introducing a neophyte to Kind Hearts and Coronets (rainy afternoon in my living room rather than a cinema screening; lucky you).

The first ten minutes were filled with teeth gnashing at the B&W, and the 'funny' accents. When the credits rolled: joyous declarations of love.

Great episode.

I've had the omnibus edition sitting unread on a shelf for about five years. Not sure why as I enjoyed the prequel, Point Blank.

This will finally get me reading.

[The High Window]

And any fav few out of the bunch?

The High Window is my fave Chandler, the prototype Marlowe taking a job then wising up to the fact the person paying him to investigate a crime is at least as dirty as the target.

Best movie adaptation is Murder My Sweet. Powell was excellent in most things he did, but was never better than this.

I've spent far too much time thinking about this and not coming up with any answers

Stop messing us about, Alex.

It's been over two years since your Epics Ranked blog posts. We are all suffering withdrawal. Can't you start another one featuring the best one-offs?

This is the best analysis I have read explaining why GoT tell off a cliff

Seasons 1-5 employed sociological storytelling then (coincidence that the source material dried up?) the writing became more psychological.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/observations/the-real-reason-fans-hate-the-last-season-of-game-of-thrones/

[Leaving Rowdy]

It Pays to be Mental' and 'Love Story' left indelible marks, and the most "recent" one-off to do so was 'Leaving Rowdy' from (oh sweet Jesus) 2002.

Leaving Rowdy and The End of the Affair (a fond farewell to Bella Bagley) were, incredibly, back to back episodes in progs 1280 and 1281. Both Excellent one offs

[For Your Pleasure]

Duran Sabbath Rionoid

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TL_G9xUn7Dc

That is righteous.

I seem to remember one of the Taylor brothers (Andy?) was something of a closet metal fan so sure he would appreciate.

By way of return and to keep the thread going I'll drop this in. Most of the Roxy fans I know think For Your Pleasure is the band's best offering, and Beauty Queen amongst the best tracks on that LP.

This just makes it even better:

[Thing From Another World]

I'm sure you have read Thing From Another World from Dark Horse. John Higgins art so tooth adjacent.

But have you ever read Things? a really intriguing take on the events of the film from The Thing's POV

https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/watts_01_10/

Very very good. to echo the otehr comments, I'd love to see this in print.

loved the idea of a 'Snowcone Run'. Touché.

[Escape from New York]

Another 2000AD connection: Adrienne Barbeau, Maggie in Escape from New York (and Carpenter regular) was the voice of Central in the 95 Judge Dredd film.

Thanks, that is just what i was looking for.

Case Files 40 bought.

Quick question about varying width of these case files. I've cherry picked a few paperback copies of these over the years and know the case files after 13 are way thinner, though I don't own any after the first 12.

I'm tempted to pick up CS 40 but want to know what the difference is.

Can someone with the entire run, or anyway, a lot of them, post a picture of the spines together?