Topics

Since I'm being off-topic (again) I thought I'd be OT on 4 things at once (plus its a reeeaaal slow Friday afternoon).

(a) Just got 'The Filth' #2 - only read 1st 5 pages so far but is really good - v. funny.
(b) Anyone actually seen 'Minority Report' yet ? I'm off 2 c it Sat night I think unless I hear its total jank.
(c) Anyone know when the new Star Trek series starts on C4 cos the teasers they keep showing are winding me up.
(d) Anyone else noticed Adele from Big Brother looks like the Predator ??

I'm a bit bemused by Alan Grant saying (in David Bishop's latest Megazine review of 2k's history) that the phrase 'Blakee Pentax' is meaningless.
It is shouted at Sam Slade after he knocks over a Japanese tourist and breaks his camera. Pentax is a make of camera.
The Japs are obviously shouting "[You] break camera" in a bad Jap accent (not pronouncing the R's).

Link: http://iteslj.org/Articles/McKenna-Stereotypes.html" target="_blank">Japanese sterotypes in comics

All this discussion re sci-fi/fantasy & er, magical realism novels got me thinking it might be cool to have a 2k book reading/discussion club type thing.
U know, when one of us is voted 'Oprah' for the day and proposes a new & different book to read for the next month, then we all comment on it after we've read it etc etc.

I mean it'd obviously never work mind.

As a companion piece to the SF debate, out of all the current Fantasy Novelists, who is writing the coolest, most cutting edge(?) stuff?

My vote is for a guy called George RR Martin and his 'Song Of Fire and Ice' series. Superbly written with a fiendishly complicated yet engrossing plot modelled to a large extent on the political machinations during the 'War Of The Roses'.
A really terrific read. Best thing since sliced bread tbh.

Some of you old coffin dodgers out there may like to know I've just updated the 'Battle' fansite with a few pages on 'Johnny Red'.

Includes some comments from Pat Mills btw.

Link: http://www.frothersunite.com/marbles/fanboy/battle.html" target="_blank">'Battle' fansite

How do you do this ? This has been puzzzling me for a while - I mean there's an 'optional image url' section - not sure what that means ?
U can't attach a pic as you would in an email presumably and I'm too thick to work out how its done I'm afraid..
any help gratefully appreciated !

Just to say I've been reading the first 2 issues of 'Lone Wolf 2010' (Dark Horse), a kinda futuristic cyberpunk re-working of the 'Lone Wolf and Cub' classic.
Anyway, despite my mis-givings I'm very much enjoying it - great art and a cool plot to go with it.
Act. w/be perfect for a reprint in the Meg.
Best new thing in ages (until LOXG 2 comes out next week or whenever).

Also picked up a 'risker' in the shape of a small press comic called 'Nether - The Age Of Maga' which looked interesting in the shop but as I look at it now may well have been a terrible mistake...

Just wondered if anyone knew the full list of Tharg's awards for readers and what they are for ?
Has anyone got the lot ??

nb my Icon no work ? :o(

I just rec'd this email from some guy at 'Memorobilia Magazine' re my 'Battle' fansite. He seems to want some general feedback on the subject of 'Battle', if anyone here wants to mail him with their views ??


I'm doing a piece on 1970s UK comics for "Memorabilia Magazine" and I
wondered if you'd be kind enough to answer a few questions? I plan to
include info on your web site in the article. Cheers. Feel free to post this
on your forum, responses should be e-mailed to johnfreeman@downthetubes.net

- In your opinion, what made Battle such a success?

- Why has it become so sought after recently? (I gather there's a lot of
demand for old issues)

- Do you think Battle would sell today?

- Which are your favourite strips (top 3) -- and why?

- What's the most you've paid for a copy of Battle

- which issue is the most sought after?

Thanks in advance for your help. I need responses by FRIDAY 28 JUNE.

John Freeman
Creative Consultant
Room 8, Church House, St. Mary's Gate
96 Church Street
Lancaster
LA1 1TD

I've seen some other 'message board' type thingies where a poster can choose pictures/images to go with their identities. You know, so the pic appears next to your name when you post. Given the creative types posting here it would be fun to see what alter-egos people came up with.

Er, wouldn't it ?

Just wondered what the general impression was of the GW comics here at 2k Central ?
I mean they use a lot of the same writers and artists as 2k - like Gordon Rennie, Dan Abnett and Kev Walker. OK I think they are probably aimed at a younger audience, but I've bought both 'Kal Jerico' GN's and really enjoyed them. Pat Mill's 'Redeemer' is classic hokum (a fantasy setting 'Marshal Law' - "Scourge and Purge!"). Seems to me they are unfairly ignored by the snootier elements of the comics fraternity - ok mebbe you need to know a bit about the background of the GW settings, but they are still cracking good reads some of 'em. They are not fairly throw away, but none the worse for that.
Despite PVS thinking they are crypto-fascist recruiting pamphlets ;o) , I'm not scared to say I like (some) of them...

Just noticed this exchange of letters in (believe it or not) the 'London Review Of Books'. I know its totally OT but it made me chuckle...

Nicholas Lezard's point about the more contemporary resonances of Ast?rix, and Robert Livingston's remarks about Ranger (Letters, 7 March ), remind me of the cartoon strip Union Jack Jackson, which ran in the UK comic Battle (rival to the more famous Warlord) in the mid-1970s. Jackson was a British soldier in American uniform in the Pacific, a resourceful tea-drinking hero too busy killing Japs and too loved by the Yanks to be returned to his unit.
A North American version was published in the late 1970s in War! comic. There Jackson became a cowardly deserter sponging off the martial generosity of Uncle Sam, a man who betrayed his comrades and never paid his gambling debts. In the original his friendship with Dan O'Bannon, a black soldier, was a unique example of inter-racial mateyness in British war comics; in the American version, Jackson was a white supremacist who would have been more at home in SS uniform. Dan remained, almost to the end, dutifully long-suffering, shrugging off insults that shocked white GIs, yet regularly retrieving the incompetent Englishman from death or capture by the Japanese. It is easy to see this treatment as an extreme attempt to shift blame for the US treatment of black soldiers in the war; the final instalment, with Jackson garotted by O'Bannon on the shores of Iwo Jima, could be read as a back-dated paean to the more militant forms of Black Power. The comic, which ceased publication after three years, was written and illustrated by Luke Besant, a Qu?becois nationalist who lived nearly all his life in Chicago. His other experiments in Anglophobia included an extended pornographic cartoon of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation, an early (and banned) example of the graphic novel.
Yukio Ioki
Vancouver

Yukio Ioki is incorrect in placing the comic strip Union Jack Jackson in Battle (Letters, 21 March ). The story featured in Warlord. Indeed, the cover of the first issue of Warlord showed U.J.J. himself maniacally spraying hot lead at some unpictured assailants.

Ian Moore

I'm really enjoying Dave Bishops series on the history of 2000AD in the Meg.

I notice in the current issue he quotes Pat Mills as saying  that he used GF-D's "characters for 'Battle' and 'Action' as role models" for 2000.

So my question is, what strips did G-FD write for those comics ? They were never credited in the first few years issues....

Link: http://www.frothersunite.com/marbles/fanboy/battle.html" target="_blank">Battle Fan Site

Just got sent a pic from Shane Hoyle (Foundry Sculpter)of what I presume is a new Slaine miniature forthcoming from Foundry. Either that or its a conversion. I've put the pic up on a temporary webpage pdq - follow the link below.

Link: http://www.frothersunite.com/marbles/june02.html" target="_blank">Slaine The Horned God

Just wondered (becauce I'm incredibly bored) what the longest thread on the message board was and what was the subject ??

Was just thinking how much UK comics (Ok 2000 & the Black Library/GW stuff) are reliant on these 3 writers. I mean if Wagner, Rennie and Abnett were struck down by Thrill Sucker rays from the Planet Zog tommorow (always a danger) , who could fill their shoes (and voluminous page space) from the ranks of the up and coming ??

Just had this cracking idea (?) for Rebellion to make some more dosh.

If they were to reprint some of the best of the old 'Battle' & 'Action' strips every year in the old 'Bumper Annual' stylee, mebbe with a Bishop retrospective etc, they could sell them to the 30something audience that has probably forgotten all about 'em but loved 'em as a kid. That means proper marketing ie not selling 'em in the Comics shop ghetto but putting them in 'Gift Ideas' catalogues or say the 'Next' gift ideas range. Promote in say the more mature mens fashion and car mags etc. Reach the great majority who stopped reading comics at 13, but who ocassionally discuss them in pubs every now and again with their mates and who might love the nostalgia trip.

I tell you there's buckets of gold in this idea.

Link: http://www.frothersunite.com/marbles/fanboy/battle.html" target="_blank">Battle Fan Site

There's a brand new interview with Carlos Ezquerra here.

Link: http://www.frothersunite.com/marbles/fanboy/MajorEazy_ezquerra.html" target="_blank">Ezquerra Interview

Sorry to say, but this is well up there on my 'Worst Film Ever Made' list.
 
Excerable dialogue and the acting is truly dreadful. Plus the story is so lame I nearly died of boredom in the cinema.
 
Difficult to describe how bad it is, but if I say 'Phantom Menace' then it gives you a fair idea. It beats me why critics say this one is better than the last.
 
3/11.

Have to say I'm enjoying 13 more than even Dredd & Death at the mo', which is praise indeed. Great dialogue - nice bits of humour - and an intriguing plot - in the sense that I have no real idea where the story is going .
As long as a Frank Butcher look-alike doesn't turn up as the 'Master of Magnetism' anytime soon, this series is getting a big thumbs up from yours truly..