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Messages - JohnW

#1
Off Topic / Re: Boys Adventure comic blog
19 March, 2024, 10:01:58 AM
Fair play to Richard for posting these. I wouldn't pay any heed to Commando otherwise, but now I've picked up a couple on Kindle.
It's hardly an ideal format – I have to read them on the Kindle app downloaded onto my PC – but on the plus side I am able to read a sample before purchase and determine if the interior art is up to scratch.
Back when I was a reader of Battle I would turn up my nose at the old-fashioned style of Commando, but the older, less cynical me sees more to like in the straightforward morality and somewhat simplistic narratives (which are pretty much always redemption arcs of one kind or another).
A fella can have enough hard-edged grim'n'grit in his comics.
#2
Off Topic / Re: Top o' the morning
18 March, 2024, 03:34:54 PM
Last night I was kept awake by passing merry-makers giving a full-throated rendition of Spandau Ballet's 'Gold' – not something I'd have recognised as a traditional Irish song. They didn't know all the words, but they made up for it by singing what they did know very loud, over and over again, as they laboured up the hill past my house.
This is why nationalism is a bad thing.
#3
Canon Alberic's Scrapbook was the one that scared the willies out me when I was a kid. I think I even used to avoid the shelf where the book was kept. I had to read it several times over the years just to dull its impact.
The thing was, at a young age I sometimes hardly knew what I was reading, and that wasn't just down to the Latin bits. James did oblique horror. Explanations were few and sparse. But that meant that my imagination was free to fill in the gaps with all manner of awfulness.
#4
Off Topic / Re: Threadjacking!
15 March, 2024, 12:37:19 PM


THE FOUR DARK RAMONES
... because sometimes a man has too much time on his hands.
#5
Books & Comics / Re: Whats everyone reading?
14 March, 2024, 01:30:37 PM


Will Eisner, Life, In Pictures
I blow hot and cold when it comes to Eisner, and I only bought this one because it was there in the bookshop and because I was being self-indulgent. I have to say, though, that I'm glad I shelled out for this. It's another satisfyingly large hardback collection, matching the two I already have, and it collects The Dreamer, The Heart Of The Storm, and The Name Of The Game.
The first story recounts the birth of the comics business in 1930s New York and Eisner's part therein. The second one (which I haven't finished yet, but am finding most engaging) is straight biography/autobiography, telling the tales of his parents' struggles on arriving from their respective Old Countries and young Will's upbringing in the '20s.
As always, I find the dialogue a little hackneyed and heavy-handed, but it keeps the story moving right along. The art is what you come for though. You don't need me to tell you that Will Eisner could tell good stories with pictures.
Also, if it's ethnic stereotypes you want, then look no further. His neighbourhoods are populated by swarthy Italians, bestial Irish, and the most Semitic Jews you ever saw – all emoting and gesticulating like nobody's business in the service of the narrative.

I think you have to be in the mood for Eisner, but right now it seems that I am.
As I say, I've not even finished this, but I've already hauled the Contract With God and New York collections down from the shelf for a reread.
#6
Books & Comics / Re: Whats everyone reading?
14 March, 2024, 09:34:38 AM
Raymond Chandler.
I was surprised to discover that he'd only ever written six novels. I was astonished to find that I own them all.
Murder mysteries and detective stories were never my thing. I get too easily lost, and besides, I don't rarely care whodunnit.
But you don't read Chandler for that. You read for the tone and the style, which you recognise straight way even if you've never read him before.
I ploughed through these in short order, immersed in the sun-kissed seediness and tainted wealth of mid-century Los Angeles. Very little had impressed itself on my memory since the first time I'd read them. The stories are easy to get into but it's hard to distinguish one from the other afterwards.
I took a break a third of the way into The Little Sister. A few days later I picked it up again and found myself asking, 'Who's she? What's that all about? Remind me what's going on here.'
And then, 'Hang on – haven't I read this before?'
#7
Quote from: Barrington Boots on 07 March, 2024, 09:26:48 AMThose who are better versed, whats the 'peak' point for Asterix? As a kid I found the series less fun around the time of Asterix in Belgium, possibly because I didn't get a lot of the jokes.


Goscinny died while Uderzo was halfway through drawing Asterix in Belgium.
Legend has it that the second panel shown here marks the moment. The rain wasn't in the script. Uderzo added it as tribute to his collaborator.

Getting back to where we started, the 'playing fields of Eton'* joke would have sailed right over my head in days gone by.

Anyway, the golden age was anything before this, with a concentration of excellence in the late '60s and early '70s.
For easy reference, the whole series is available on Internet Archive but I'd recommend the omnibus paperback editions. Lovely reproduction at a very reasonable price.

*And thinking about it now, I suddenly get the whole joke. (Wellington is supposed have said that the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton. Waterloo is in Belgium. Ta-daa!)
#8
Quote from: Colin YNWA on 05 March, 2024, 09:43:47 AMHave you read Plastic Man and how does it standup compared to Baker's other work?
Sticking my oar in if I may, I'd have to say that Plastic Man is my least favourite of Baker's stuff (although – as usual now – faced with the persuasive enthusiasm of your review, I might have to give it another go).
For my money, The Cowboy Wally Show is the business, with King David and You Are Here following close behind.
The impact of Cowboy Wally might be diminished if you notice the uncanny similarities with Krusty the Clown, but Baker was in there before Groening.
Have a butcher's, Colin, and tell us what you think.
#9
Been rereading a lot of Asterix for the first time in too long.

"You have nothing to lose but your chains!": the words of a German who happened to write a rather famous book called Capital.

I suppose there's no end of Asterix jokes that went over my head. It only took me forty-three years to get that one. 
#10
Off Topic / Re: It's a bit warm/ wet/ cold outside
19 February, 2024, 10:23:26 AM
I'm at 52° north in the middle of February and there's a cloud of little flies hovering lazily outside my window.
This does not fill me with the joys of spring.
#11
Books & Comics / Re: Whats everyone reading?
26 January, 2024, 10:12:14 AM
Barrington Boots gets my vote for Forum's Sexiest Boarder – this year and every year.
You rock, Barry.
#12
Off Topic / Re: This is the News!
19 January, 2024, 05:50:20 PM
Ah, Funt – don't ever change!
#13
Why, IndigoPrime! Your cynicism quite dismays me!

#14
Off Topic / Re: This is the News!
19 January, 2024, 02:10:03 PM
Quote from: JayzusB.Christ on 19 January, 2024, 10:27:03 AMIt doesn't get the Catholic church off the hook, of course.
The Church has never been more than a reflection of society. The Church never had any more power than we were prepared to give it. When we decided to stay in bed late on Sundays and do some shopping afterwards, there was damn all that the Church could do about it.
The danger of blaming all the evils and failings on the Church is that it absolves all the gobshites who were happy to let the religious institutions deal with their embarrassments for them.
The Church is a spent force, but the gobshites are still in power.

I shed my faith ages ago, but oddly enough I have no problem with the Church. It never did me any actual harm, and deep down I feel that it's better to have religion organised by a centuries-old relict of the Roman imperial administration than to leave it in the hands of evangelical yahoos who claim to know the will of God.

...Mind you, I might think differently if the Inquisition came knocking on my door.
('It was him! The one from Kells with the blasphemous username! He was the one denying the Trinity and reading Pat Mills stories! Not me!')
#15
Look at this. This is Mega-City jurisprudence evolving almost before our eyes.


Judge Dredd Annual 1986


Prog 1387

In 2107 'walking kinda funny' does not yet constitute a crime. By 2019 'walking funny' earns a minor conviction.

Imagine the arguments being presented to the Council of Five during, say, the Volt administration concerning the precise legal definitions separating 'funny' from 'kinda funny'.