Messages

[real]

I love a comedy song in a comic. One of the best laughs I ever had was when I had to ask my Dad to tell me how some of the tunes in the National Song Week episodes of Robohunter went, and we spent about half an hour cracking up at Wagner and Grant's wit, invention and slightly iffy scansion.

I like the idea of reworking the trope of the accountant as the real hero who nails Capone though, and last week's frame of Maitland with her Widowmaker was surely a MC1 re-tooling of The Untouchables's metaphorical presentation of the IRS ledger clerk as a pump-wielding doorkicker.

On the other hand, the one-parter that's only setting up a longer future story is one of my least favourite Dredd story types, and using that device shows a misunderstanding of what makes the six page story format work. See Garth Ennis's slight and allusive Enter: Jonni Kiss.

Hopefully the foreshadowed events of Debris can provide the transformative post-Chaos Day Trümmerliteratur (or maybe Kahlschlagliteratur) that everyone seems desperate to read, and not just more (entertaining) rubble. Smart man, with all those Weimar Republic cues, that Al Ewing.

[SLAPSHOT!]

Is Justice's new video more Mean Arena or Harlem Heroes, or Megacity One's version of the Superbowl? And did they sell 2000ad in France?

SLAPSHOT!

I've been on holiday, but had to take work with me. BUT... I've managed to find the time to draw some stupid one page comic strips, you can read 'em at my blog: http://www.pauljholden.com/blog

I clicked on this thread- one hand already lubed- anticipating camera phone photos of an art stud's white bits. Like your holiday work, but- given recent revelations- I wouldn't expect to see many references to G4S at the Olympics.

I'd have gone with "HOT CHIP!" myself.

Bloody hell, reading through those links, that really is a mess. The obvious question to ask is which type of fraud (calculated disenfranchisment versus ineligible voters) distorts democracy the most - my guess is it isn't the participitaion of ineligible residents/non-citizens, who after all do live and work and have a stake in the direction of the country.  Surely reform of the registration system itself would be the first step, then an enforcement of ID.

I'm always disappointed I don't leave the polling station with my thumb dyed purple. When Afghanistan's giving you lessons in civics and organisation, you've got to take a look at yourself.

Can someone fill me in on this voter ID issue that's upsetting the Democrats so much over the pond? They're against it and I'm a bit confused as I thought having ID would help prevent the fraud issues they are constantly harping on about at every single election.

Republican state governors want to make sure anyone who votes is both eligible to do so and is actually a U.S. citizen in order to do so, Democrats rely on voter fraud to win elections - JFK's theft of the 1960 election, the dubious Washington state gubernatorial result in 2004, and Al Franken's highly-suspect Senate win in 2008 being the best examples - and thus don't want ANY voter ID laws whatsoever, using the most inflammatory racially-tinged rhetoric to try and paint the GOP as racists to ethnic minorities, whose votes Obama simply has to get in order to win in November... the fact that just about every western developed country in the world (except the U.S.) has voter ID laws seems to have escaped them!

Democrats steal elections? (cough) Bush/Cheney 2000 [cough)

Justin Bieber as Maniac 5

Chris Moyles is leaving the Radio One breakfast show.

[The Playlist]

• The Playlist: http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/comic-con-12-review-dredd-judge-dredd-karl-urban-olivia-thirlby-pete-travis-lena-headey-2000ad-20120712

I've no idea whether the film contains any of the subtext the reviewer bemoans the lack of, but the fact he describes the film as being "liberal but judicious" in its use of violence suggests he might not have the smarts to spot a subtext anyway.

[kyle]

http://henryflint.wordpress.com/

Cheers, kyle. I often find myself wondering whether the line art on coloured pages would stand up against that of 2000ad's black and white era, and those pages answer that question definitively. Flint did a great job on Day of Chaos.

"Mr Garland, I wanted to ask why you felt the need to change the costume..."

I think one of the areas where Dredd falls down is the villains. It seems very hard to create a recurring villain for him simply because he is so badass that he messes them up on the first encounter.

Dredd's a pretty good villain.

[remark about Ecstacy at a show in Miami]

Remember Madonna got in trouble for making some remark about Ecstacy at a show in Miami? She blamed it on Cedric Gervais's record, Molly (apparently what Yanks call eccies). This is it, and it isn't particularly subtle:

EEZERGOOD, HE'SEBENEEZERGOOD

[and]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXjECK3xVQQ&feature=player_embedded

Not sure what the subliminal messages contained in that clip were, but I no longer care about the vehicles and I want to buy Jaffa cakes.

[all]

Has anyone played a role in a film series for so long? Bruce Willis is getting there with Die Hard..

Ignoring the four-movies-or-less lightweights like Harrison Ford...

• Clint Eastwood was Dirty Harry for 17 years (*cough* Judge Dredd *cough* Karl Urban's voice in Dredd) in 5 movies, although they got gradually worse.
• Charles Bronson did Death Wish for 20 years and 5 movies.
• Bruce Willis did John McClane for 25 years in 5 movies (fifth due 2013).
• Stallone did 6 Rocky movies in 30 years.
• But, technically speaking, I believe that Desmond Llewellyn holds the record at 17 Bond films spanning 36 years.

Sticking with features, rather than shorts, Rasil Bathbone and Nigel Bruce did fourteen Holmes films in seven years. I can understand the argument that Dredd's episodic adventures and lack of character development make him suited to a series of sequels, but it should be noted that all the series listed above demonstrate the law of diminishing returns.

There's something about the nature of mainstream film making that means features tend toward three part story telling structures- within individual films, and across trilogies. I think HBO TV shows have demonstrated how their format and production values allow different kinds of stories to be told and quality to be maintained across many instalments and several years.

[brilliantly]

"Whereabouts of the bikes are unknown, although one machine is known to have been destroyed"

Wasn't it Carlos's original design that got trashed by the '95 film? The idea that Stallone's moped might once have been the most expensive bike build in film history is surely proof that there's no direct correlation between bigger budgets and better results.

R.E the feature on the new bike: I don't think that rotten picture's the problem. The bike undoubtedly looks about a hundred times better in the trailer, but the difference is largely a result of the the bike's impressive turn of speed. The new film's bike works brilliantly on film and in motion, but the basic design's no more aesthetically pleasing than what's shown in that horrible first sneak picture.

I'd say the biggest problem with that on set snap is the silly posture of the stunt rider, but that doesn't seem to be a problem in the clips from the trailer.