Messages

1

Off Topic / Re: This is the News!

« on: 01 August, 2022, 11:33:24 AM »

He’s also ruled out any cooperation with any other party after a GE.

I'm not, by any stretch of the imagination, a fan of Starmer, but I don't see what any Labour leader could say on this particular issue, given the ferocity with which the Tories and the right-wing media pushed on the "Vote-Whatever-Get-A-Labour-Government" and "Vote-Labour-Get-A-Whatever-Government" in the past, mainly to try and keep wavering Tories in line.

There's no way Labour would allow a minority Conservative government to form if the only way to stop it was some kind of arrangement with the LibDems and/or SNP, however loose or informal.

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Off Topic / Re: This is the News!

« on: 01 August, 2022, 07:56:19 AM »

I saw an interview with Mick Lynch where he was asked what Starmer's values were and he replied "to not say anything controversial".

Mick Lynch is great. Have you seen the one where he says he'd be prepared to consider trial by combat with Grant Shapps as a possible means to resolve the dispute…?

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Off Topic / Re: This is the News!

« on: 01 August, 2022, 07:13:20 AM »

I am surprised that Starmer is so weak as to back the Tories' stance of undermining the unions. I suppose he thinks that the only way to power is to become a New Tory. (Blair did it with New Labour - Starmer is trying to go even further.) For shame!

Yep. Keep in mind that in the leadership contest that got Corbyn elected, every other candidate was positioning themselves at least as right-wing as the Tories, with several of them promising to be harsher on curbing benefits and implementing austerity measures than the incumbent Conservative chancellor.

The Blairite wing were genuinely surprised when the membership responded with a comprehensive "fuck that" so they spent four years working tirelessly to prevent their own party's electoral success, simply to 'prove' that it was impossible to win from the left. Having finally disposed of Corbyn, it's back to business-as-usual circa 2015, aided by the current drive to get rid of anyone to the left of a Liberal Democrat.

(Party members are being purged for offences as terrible as retweeting something originally tweeted by a Green Party member, whilst party procedures are being deployed in highly suspicious ways to engineer the deselection of 'troublesome' left-wing MPs.)

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General / Re: Forthcoming Thrills - 2022

« on: 28 July, 2022, 11:40:13 PM »

It happened after publication -

Oh — thanks for that! So, I was sort of right, in as much as Big Dave wasn’t commissioned as a creator-owned series. (In much the same way BARNEY lists Hilary Robinson’s series as being creator-owned… they certainly weren’t commissioned on that basis, but Fleetway gave her the rights back to make a potential legal headache go away.)

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General / Re: Forthcoming Thrills - 2022

« on: 28 July, 2022, 07:47:41 PM »

Barney lists it a creator-owned. I don't know what that is based on, but if I recall correctly that site used to be official.

Could well be, then! TBH, I can't be arsed to try and find the Summer Offensive progs and see what the copyright blurb says…

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General / Re: Forthcoming Thrills - 2022

« on: 28 July, 2022, 07:39:14 PM »

I do think it's a shame that 2000AD seems to have gone backwards on the issue of creator ownership since the days when they published some creator-owned material like Button Man and Big Dave

Was Big Dave creator-owned? Morrison may have claimed it was using the same argument he was using for Zenith, but I don't think it was 'officially' a creator-owned strip.

(I suspect it hasn't been reprinted because it's not looked on very fondly by a big chunk of the potential audience and so any hypothetical rewards from doing it are likely to be small and not worth the possibility of a ruck with Morrison and/or Millar.)

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Prog / Re: Prog 2292 - United Front

« on: 27 July, 2022, 09:07:56 AM »

Well it is difficult to review prog when 3 out of 5 stories is literally wordless (speech bubbles has been shot to bits by Dredd). I believe this is a digital only problem it is on the App and the downloadable progs as well from the webstore.

Yep. Both the CBZ and PDF versions. Duly reported to the Powers That Be…

8

Off Topic / Re: This is the News!

« on: 26 July, 2022, 03:09:09 PM »

It was. Even if nobody else finds it funny, it amuses me no end that they have the same name.

Apologies again, then!

9

Off Topic / Re: This is the News!

« on: 26 July, 2022, 02:46:42 PM »

Jones is an absolutely terrible presenter in an absolute dog turd of a show. But doubtless the BBC will keep paying her far too much for THE ONE SHOW for this to matter.

Apologies if the above was intended humorously, but (for clarity) I suspect JBC was referring to this Alex Jones.

10

Film & TV / Re: Current TV Boxset Addiction

« on: 25 July, 2022, 11:03:38 PM »

Currently working our way through Slow Horses on AppleTV+. It's pretty great, TBH. Fantastic cast, particularly Gary Oldman's spectacularly sleazy Jackson Lamb, but the performances are all good and it seems unfair to start picking actors out. (OK, maybe Kirsten Scott Thomas' icy deputy head of MI5…)

There's a nasty, twisty plot that stays just the right side of cynically believable, whilst the whole thing is stylishly shot, but resolutely unglamorous.

The basic conceit (focussing on MI5's worst of the worst, a collection of fuck-ups shuffled off to the dilapidated environs of Slough House, a few miles across London from the shiny HQ of MI5) makes a pleasing change from the usual slick, competent types that populate these kinds of thrillers… and you quickly realise that even the smug bastards of MI5 proper are really only there because they're better at covering their arses than the losers.

Oh, and an original theme tune performed by Mick Jagger, no less.

We haven't finished this series yet, but I believe a second is in the works, which I'll be very happy to watch.

11

Off Topic / Re: Inflation and US comics

« on: 25 July, 2022, 04:06:28 PM »

Sorry Jim, I worded that badly but that was exactly the point I was angling for.

Right. Understood!

*the trajectory of sterling against the dollar has been fairly consistent for the best part of 20 odd years.  In fact you'd have to go back to 1985 to find a time when sterling was doing as badly as right now.

It dipped under $1.19 a couple of days back, and it's only been lower twice in the last fifty years — briefly in 2020 and, as you say, for about a week in 1985.

As someone who gets maybe two-thirds of their income in USD, this is actually fantastic news (the difference between $1.48 and $1.19 is effectively a 24% pay rise)… except that it's not, because of the reasons for it. I'd happily have lived with a $1.40+ exchange rate, and not left the EU. :-(

12

Off Topic / Re: Inflation and US comics

« on: 25 July, 2022, 02:24:40 PM »

The 7.5% increase is towards the upper end of inflation at this moment in time but with the dollar doing as badly as it is right now it could be worse.

I'm afraid you've got that the wrong way round with the dollar — the sterling has been steadily sliding since 2016 and is currently schlepping around the $1.20 mark, which makes imports from the US more expensive. A $3.99 book at an exchange rate of, say, $1.48* would have worked out at £2.70. At the current $1.20 rate, the same book comes in at £3.32.


*Which is what it was the day before the EU referendum. Why, yes, I have picked that date completely at random. ;-)

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Announcements / Re: The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire limited hardcover announced

« on: 24 July, 2022, 11:05:43 AM »

There are massive paper shortages at the moment. That alone is having a big knock-on effect in publishing. (Not that I have any info about this particular book, but I’m seeing it elsewhere, even with giants like Marvel.)

Yeah… it's wreaking absolute havoc with scheduling for just about all the publishers I'm working for right now, with books getting pushed back, or rushed up the schedule, in response to the printers having an available slot on the press and the paper stock to actually print the damn job on.

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Announcements / Re: Alan A Grant RIP

« on: 23 July, 2022, 08:13:40 PM »

Standing ovation for Alan Grant at SDCC today.

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Other Reviews / Re: 2022 Sci-Fi Special

« on: 23 July, 2022, 08:07:23 PM »

I bet that he's relieved that nobody recalls Blackadder Deathwatch in the Meg.

I certainly didn’t! Until now. Thanks for that…