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[Pull Shapes]

It's Pull Shapes, the first issue of Phonogram: The Singles Club.

Feel free to argue about number 3 (#2 is Kill Your Boyfriend) below.

Reasoned debate will be tolerated but not encouraged. I'd much rather see a load of angry assertions and sarcastic trashing of other people's opinions.

No serieses or single stories from an anthology please. It has to be a complete single issue, so you can pick the Mars issue of Watchmen but not the whole thing.

Undoubted hilghlight of this year's Glasgow Film Festival, is the chance to see the Ayatollah of Rock 'n' Rolla up on the big, big screen on the February 24th.

A few other decent looking things for the denizens of the genre ghetto. Jodorowksy's Dune, King of Kong and a doc about Cannon Films for starters.

I was rereading the latest Meg Dredd storyline the other night .There are a couple of panels in it (the view of the burial fields at dusk on the very first page and the vehicle driving up the trench to the city wall) which I could stare at for hours. As I slipped into a daze, it got me thinking that Henry Flint really deserves to be named amongst the greats. It's a crying shame that, simply because he wasn't working in 1982, he'll never get the wider acknowledgement I think he deserves.

Looking it up, I am a bit surprised that he hasn't done more Dredd. Maybe it's the impact of the stories he has drawn – Total War, big chunks of Day of Chaos – which has made him seem such a great fit. To be honest, there is no other artist on Tharg's speed dial who I'd rather see working on Dredd than Flint.

First and foremost, he draws a mean Dredd and he does it in exciting, interesting but still readable pages. Then what I find really great about his work is that, like all the best, his approach is always subtly changing. Something which is particularly clear with his colouring. If you were to look at something like the The Gingerbread Man with its full, lush colours and compare that with the deliberately washed out greens of Titan, then look at the way he's using more little blocks of colour to be mixed in the eye in Dead Zone. If you looked at all that, it would obviously be the work of the same guy but the evolution would be striking.

I suppose some could suggest that any modern Dredd artist is only building on or interpreting what has gone before and that you need to have created some of the elements yourself to be great. I would only have one word to say to that: SHAKARA!

After a slight pause, I'd probably add Zombo. Then I'd reflect that, despite how much the strip has changed and the way D'Israeli has made it his own, there is still a Flinty footprint in the seat of Low Life's pants. Which made a real treat to see him coming back to the story of Aimee Nixon in Titan.

Anyway, Henry Flint. Good lad.

That's right, we've listened to user feedback and worked tirelessly behind the scenes to bring a version of the world's favourite 2000AD database direct to your Android device. Now fully updated with all the latest exciting content from Tharg's Mighty Organ.

Click on the blue link for Barney


Feel free to add any corrections, queries or moans about the lack of recent TPB reprint credits here.

Am I allowed to talk about this yet?

[cover]

Not a wildly inventive cover pose, but the lighting from the doorway and the muzzle flash coupled with that unmistakeable Higgins/Hurst colouring really make it pop. Nice work.

Dredd continues his investigations and more strands develop. Is it only me who is a bit perturbed by Dredd's willingness to bend the law in pursuit of his aim here? Certainly he's never been shy about coming up with amusingly bastardish reasons to lock people up but this "I'll let you know when we find it" stuff and actively seeking help to get around the limitations of the law seems a bit off. I hope this is going somewhere.

The other intriguing new thread this week is the poisoning. We've already been handed the potential red herring of the disaffected chemist building a bomb in his apartment, but which well known Dredd villain with a taste for toxins should we be expecting an appearance from before the end of the year?

For a talky, mid-season type of Prog, almost everything else was off a very high standard. Plans foiled and made anew plus some interesting recap to put previous stories in a slightly different light made for a very good episode of Stickleback .

Ichabod Azrael really got me back onside this week by dropping the meta while retaining the weird. Extra points for some great horse dialogue. A change of pace also works wonders in Kingdom, the narrated quality of the text making more sense in this sort of scenario.

Sadly, Greysuit seems to have squandered what goodwill Mr YNWA guilted me into showing it with everything seemingly back to business as usual.

So, this annual parade of pricks dressed up as cunts (or vice versa) starts on Wednesday. As it happens, I'll be in town until Wednesday night (flying out of Stark Towers)

If there's any freebies or drinking: I'm in. If you need help: I can give you a number of a good guy.

So, I thought I might go to the capital of the world in a couple of weeks time and I thought a load of comics people would be the best ones to ask for advice.

Who's been? Who lives there? What's worth seeing, visiting or eating (paging Buttonman)?

Not terribly fussed about Statue of Liberty type tourist pish but will probably dedicate a day to that anyway. More interested in bars, venues, art happenings, interesting book or record shops and that sort of thing. Is there some sort of Warriors or John Carpenter tour I can go on? Quite fancy pitching up at Coney Island on the first El of the morning

Obviously, this place looks amazing.

Think I'll be there for a week or so. Probably hire a bike and cycle around as it always looks pretty flat. Might go to Detroit for a couple of days while I'm there just for a change of scene.

Big season of sci-fi from the BFI later this year. Some pretty amazing sounding stuff and a lot of things available streaming.

With a season of cycling films on at the moment I can see me losing a lot of time to this site.

Sorry to disappoint anyone looking for something to top the toast thread but I'm actually talking about World Cup football stickers.

I know, I know. Bloody football. We're not interested. Blah blah blah. Well, I'm not the biggest fan myself, but I an interested in art and collecting useless shit.

So, in the local comic chop, I came across this this pretty smart alternative World Cup sticker collection. Instead of dreary pictures of preening, overpaid poltroons each team is drawn by a different artist in some very varied styles.

From Thomas Schilcher's Ivory Coast sketches:


via Michael Allocca's stained glass Spain which reminds me of that great Low Life cover:


to Rudolfo Bispo's terrifying vision of the Portugal team being sent to Titan:


all the way out to the duality of Timea Olah's Algeria. I'm sure there were bits of Fetish that looked like this:


So, there you have it. The comic shop is one of a number of places which have regular swap meets for collectors and I saw people of all ages happily rifling through their doublers last Saturday. There was original art for sale and everything.

More info on the whole project here: http://www.tschuttiheft.li/

Hi Rich.

Was trying to think of a Mega City One court case which would fit the bill, but at least Judge Dre was residing in the case of NWA vs The Police Department.

Feel free to share your typographical favourites.

Alright? Mildly piqued at not yet being able to grab this week's Prog from Clickwheel I started casting around for something to do.

So, post a question. The more obscure the better. First person to get the correct answer asks the next one.

I'll start.

- What appeared in Prog 1139 that has never been seen before or since?

Like it says. I saw this spinner rack outside a comic shop in the middle of Europe, thousands of miles away from Pat Mills!

Richmond
Wakefield
House of Usher

I hear The Cosh is lovely this time of year.

So, I'm sitting in one of Basel's more progressive, lefty hostelries (punk bands in the basement every Thursday) and one of the boys working here is the spit of our very own Dog Deever. I was pretty confused until he started speaking perfect English!

Is there anybody out there who wants to read The Boys but hasn't gotten round to it? Somebody who prefers the thrill of flicking through individual issues to boring old trades or iPod garbage? Well this is your lucky day!

I have all 90 issues (that's 72 of the main series and the three six issue mini-series) sitting in a box looking for a new home. They could be yours for just, oh I don't know, let's say £90. That probably seems absurdly expensive but it's only a quid each (one-third of what I paid for them) and still a good bit cheaper than buying the trades. Make me an offer.

I realise that cheese is going to be hard to beat here but let's see how imaginative we can be.

We can all agree that toast with lashings of thick, creamy butter is delicious. For a delicious breakfast, little is needed beyond the addition of an egg or two. Poached, boiled (with the egg chopped up on the toast rather than soldiers) or scrambled are all excellent choices. In fact, I reckon I would be perfectly happy to eat something egg based at every meal for a week without getting bored. I digress.

Let's get a little more esoteric. The other day I'd had a large, late lunch so was only in the mood for a light kitchen supper. Searching the cupboards for inspiration I came across the perfect solution. Not something  I have often but it always hits the spot. Two slices of white bread toasted and buttered. A splash of lemon, salt and pepper to taste.

Crack open the tin of crabmeat, apply liberally to the toast and season as required. Delicious.

So, what could be better than that? Sardines also good, but not the winner.

For the record, I think jams, marmalades and similar sweet spreads should be reserved for children and the senile. Essentially, if you're in possession of a set of adult teeth you should have a more discerning palate.

[A Personal Statement from Iain Banks]

From Iain's website.

A Personal Statement from Iain Banks

April 3rd, 2013 in From the Author

"I am officially Very Poorly.

After a couple of surgical procedures, I am gradually recovering from jaundice caused by a blocked bile duct, but that - it turns out - is the least of my problems.

I first thought something might be wrong when I developed a sore back in late January, but put this down to the fact I'd started writing at the beginning of the month and so was crouched over a keyboard all day. When it hadn't gone away by mid-February, I went to my GP, who spotted that I had jaundice. Blood tests, an ultrasound scan and then a CT scan revealed the full extent of the grisly truth by the start of March.

I have cancer. It started in my gall bladder, has infected both lobes of my liver and probably also my pancreas and some lymph nodes, plus one tumour is massed around a group of major blood vessels in the same volume, effectively ruling out any chance of surgery to remove the tumours either in the short or long term.

The bottom line, now, I'm afraid, is that as a late stage gall bladder cancer patient, I'm expected to live for 'several months' and it's extremely unlikely I'll live beyond a year. So it looks like my latest novel, The Quarry, will be my last.

As a result, I've withdrawn from all planned public engagements and I've asked my partner Adele if she will do me the honour of becoming my widow (sorry - but we find ghoulish humour helps). By the time this goes out we'll be married and on a short honeymoon. We intend to spend however much quality time I have left seeing friends and relations and visiting places that have meant a lot to us. Meanwhile my heroic publishers are doing all they can to bring the publication date of my new novel forward by as much as four months, to give me a better chance of being around when it hits the shelves.

There is a possibility that it might be worth undergoing a course of chemotherapy to extend the amount of time available. However that is still something we're balancing the pros and cons of, and anyway it is out of the question until my jaundice has further and significantly, reduced.
Lastly, I'd like to add that from my GP onwards, the professionalism of the medics involved - and the speed with which the resources of the NHS in Scotland have been deployed - has been exemplary, and the standard of care deeply impressive. We're all just sorry the outcome hasn't been more cheerful.

A website is being set up where friends, family and fans can leave messages for me and check on my progress. It should be up and running during this week and a link to it will be here on my official website as soon as it's ready."

Iain Banks