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Excellent write ups as ever Colin. Gunning for Hits is absolutely going on the reading list.

Left field question but is the 2006-7 limited series 52 making the list? Don't know why that ones been in my head lately, recall it getting a lot of buzz in the years following its conclusion and one I always meant to get around to reading.

Phantasms, holistic conspiracies and why the British gentrified-privatised infrastructure sucks.

TRUE DETECTIVES

Found the season 1 bluray going for crazy cheap in Fopp so decided to finally see what all the hubbub is about. You would have thought the promise of a southern gothic neo-noir engorged in the philosophical pessimism of one Thomas Ligotti (among our greatest living writers) would have placed this higher on my priority/urgency list, but I'm weary of prestige dramas offering much and delivering little. It has been known to happen, after all.

Suffice to say my concerns where not only dispelled, but ejected with prejudice onto the tarmac and promptly pulverised.
The show is, not to put too fine a point on it, I bit fuckin' good 'innit?

I really should read Johnny red at some point, everything about it sings as something I'd vibe with.

[The Zone of Interest]

The Zone of Interest (2023)

Glazar has this unusual capacity to produce works that sort of rapidly bloom inside you.
The banality of evil is such a well trodden ground that for the first 30 mins of The Zone of Interest I found myself wondering on more than a few occasions 'so we're just going to be doing this again, reaffirming that fascists are some of the most boring none entities to ever waste air?'. And for the majority of the film thats generally seemed to be the treatise, this IS a banal family-work drama that just so happens to be about some of the most evil creatures to ever blight this planet, set to the ever encroaching soundtrack of ceaseless human suffering, always heard yet forever unseen, divided by walls either literal, metaphysical or fixed by the constraints of the eye-lens.
And then that final sequence hits, and the whole thing is cast in a new, temporal light.
I wasn't sure if I liked The Zone of Interest, I'm also not really sure if it challenged me in one way or another, but its certainly made me feel something...I'll have to think on that and return to it someday.
Then I slept on it, and found myself incapable of thinking about it. There's a deeply raw, piercing effect at play here. Deeply effecting, potentially distressing.
A cold, black sun at the heart of a dead cosmos.

"No, I am Rogue Trooper!"

"Shut up Bagman!"

Reminds me of one of my favourite nonsense arguments used by flat earthers, who will pull a random image of the globe taken from satellite and turn up the resolution in photoshop.
Low and behold, there's artefacts all around the globe! What are they hiding?! Don't trust NASA globeheads!

It's .jpeg compression, you absolute rubes.

Tested negative two days on the trot, phew, must have had a weak strain on the virus.

What a relief.

[Rebel Moon]

Rebel Moon (2023)

Kind of baffled by the consensus on this one. It's absolute bollocks of the highest degree but it at least as something of an aligned vision and scope, weirdly reminiscent of similarly flawed sci-fi operatics of Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, hell theres some stuff in here visually and on a thematic level that actually kind of works and goes hard in doing so? Like there's a nugget of a gem in here.
IDK, it's guff most assuredly but did it deserve the lashing it got? An intriguing failure to me is of far more worth than a boring safe sell...I was going to put an Immortals joke here, I hope people appreciate how much restraint that required.

Got COVID.


Uuurrggghhh. I'm glad I'm vaccinated up because if this is what it feels like with a readied immune system I dread how insufferable it would have been without.
My dietary palette shall be of a liquid persuasion for the time being, I fear.

Wish you'd mentioned that before I got in a lift with you today!

I know that was my bad mate, I didn't even want to come into the office today but power was cut to the flat for maintenance and planning refused to grant me a sick day, word of a disciplinary.
Just another thing to hack me off today, I got complacent there and that was my mistake. :/

Had one of ose days on the beat where you just want to scream into the facef anyone that will listen.
One of those gruelling experiences where you tow the line in every respect but nonetheless still manage to apparently do everything wrong and nobody is happy with you.
Fuck 'em, I wasn't feeling particularly great in the first place but now I'm just straight up hacked off.

Duncan, I would accept a cameo as a Nort infantrymen getting his brains blown out as acceptable recumpense for the 2 hours I wasted watching WARCRAFT.

I feel it's only fair now.

Got COVID.


Uuurrggghhh. I'm glad I'm vaccinated up because if this is what it feels like with a readied immune system I dread how insufferable it would have been without.
My dietary palette shall be of a liquid persuasion for the time being, I fear.

[DOROHEDORO]

DOROHEDORO

Keywords: Surrealism, Comedy, Cooking, 'A Wizard Did It'

Creator: Q Hayashida

Publisher: Viz Media

No. of Issues: 23 Volumes
Date of Publication: 2000 - 2018
Last read: 2020



& BONUS (!)

DAI DARK

Keywords: Space Opera, Comedy, Absurdist, 'I Have no Balls, and I Must Scream'

Creator: Q Hayashida

Publisher: Seven Seas

No. of Issues: 7 Volumes (Ongoing)
Date of Publication: 2019 - Present
Last read: 2024



Aaahh, lets just get the remaining manga I wanted to talk about out of the way for the people who don't care about this sort of thing, next time I plan to cover something...a little closer to home.

We set our scene in the dismal realm of the 'Hole', a purgatorial underworld of a sorts that exists on the flipside of the world of Sorcerers. Living in squalid conditions, the humans of Hole are frequently beset by marauding hordes of talking sewer cockroaches and daily uprisings of the undead, if they're lucky, lest the organized crime syndicates ran  by the unscrupulous sorcerers' abduct them for the illicit organ black market. It's in reaction to these threats that local amnesiac, herpetologically challenged thug caiman and dumpling chef Nikaido begin a campaign of vigilante justice. This decision sends them down a harrowing path of drug running for a sorcerer overlord known only as "En", the cutthroat world of competitive meat pie baking, and spiralling into the pits of hell itself.

DOROHEDORO is very much the passion project of Hayashidas career, spanning the lions share of her ongoing tenure in the industry. Much like Araki previously, she clearly has a a deep affinity for the metaphysical playroom she has created and will revel in the opportunity to do whatever she wants with it. What I described above? Thats the introductory arc, to get into some of the delirious stuff of later arcs would be a spoiler and a disservice. Yet throughout all the craziness, and the bloodshed and vulgarity, it manages the seeming impossible in a world populated by characters that are truly larger than life, and wears its heart on its sleeve all throughout. There are moments of genuine humanity and love that have not left me since my first readthrough a few years back



The art progression in DOROHEDORO is a delight, never short of engrossing I can only describe Hayashidas evolution on an aesthetic and dynamic level as something akin to early Bisley in the stages of the story, before gestating into something wholly her own beast, at times frankly only being comparable to the wood cuttings of Dores Divine Comedy. At times dripping in a sort of grimy decadency, at others slick and visceral, always fluid and dynamic. One of those occasions where watching the growth of a singular creative voice is just as rewarding as the story being told itself.

Where to Find it: At the time of writing all 23 volumes have been translated and are in print from the usual suspects each at a reasonable price.

BONUS!

While I was at it, I thought i'd briefly plug Hayashida's follow-up, currently ongoing dark fantasy series DAI DARK. It is, similarly, wonderful. Following a rag-tag band of terrorists and misfits called 'The Four Little Shits' in a dog-eat-dog dystopic cosmos where the currency is weighed in the value of your own soul, boiled down into 'bones'. On the run, and constantly with their backs up against the wall, even near invulnerable demiurges can't catch a break to eat some spaghetti and meatballs under capitalism.
Very early days for this one, but I'm enjoying it very much! Check in in...erm, 2037 when it's wrapped up for my full thoughts!
Likewise can be found in all the usual places.



[All images Copyright of Q Hayashida.]

we do eat a fair amount of meat, but not out of choice.

Start eating other people. Think of it as an environmental move — you're removing all their future carbon emissions from climate change equation, whilst also reducing your own by avoiding farmed animals in your diet.

If you like the idea, I have a list of people you could start with...

'Issei Sagawa has entered the group chat'

I know 'Eat the Rich' has rather been co-opted ineffectual libertarianism but if we where to go back to the grass roots of the sentiment I'd be down...