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Question: Name a female comic character who possesses the following characteristics. 1) Uses guns all the time and 2) is cool and 3) is sassy

The following answers are not acceptable: Lara Croft or any Judge Dredd characters (don't ask).

I mean, it's not like this is another case of me drawing an image before realising who it's meant to be ... or anything like that.

That is all citizens

Hello.

My name is longmanshort. And I am an addict.

It started so innocently enough. There's this comic, y'see, and I really enjoyed reading it. At first, once a week was enough but then I started reading back issues, and specials, and the Megazine. I couldn't get enough of it, the thing just made me feel so special. The artwork, the stories, the sense of wonder.

But then I wanted more.

I started talking to other fans. I was so happy when I got broadband because I could register with the website and talk to the fellow fans that were so absent during my childhood. But I began spending all my time in the chatroom. It got so bad that we never talked about the damn comic, we just ... talked. These people became my friends and I love them but ....

I've just been bollocked by my boss for not doing any work. I can't help it. It's an addiction. I have to stop coming in here during the day, or I'll lose my job. And then there'll be no comics. No internet. No chatrooms.

So if you ever, EVER, see me in here during the hours of 8am to 5.30pm from Monday to Friday, please tell me to F*** OFF!! If I post anything during those hours, the only response must be F*** OFF LONGMANSHORT!!! If you do, I might just be saved.

Please help.

Thank you.

(PS. I'm being serious .......... for once)

Greetings fellow boarders and those who may have wandered in mistaking this to be a message board about comics...

In the months that I have been a regular contributer to the reasoned and intelligent debate on this board, I have come to know you all as my friends, nay, my family (i.e. those thrice removed cousins who have no claim on my stuff post mortem)

It has been a long time since I first bothered Wake with my incessant demands for an icon and then my constant c*ck-ups while trying to activate it. A lot has happened on the board since then. A war. A new relationship. A lot of hot air. During these long months I have come to know you. To enjoy your company. To - fearfully - trust you.

And I would like to tell you - my friends - that I have become bored of my icon! (waits for audience hubbub dies down) And I now, quiet please, I now wish to enlist your help in deciding which image shall replace it!

I would ask you all to post images you think would be suitable for me to use as my icon from this moment hench.

Nominations for this compeition will close at 00:01 on the morning of Monday, July 28, 2003. You then have exactly a week to vote for your favourites from a list chosen by the expert panel of judges (as opposed to judges of expert panels, which is part of the Justice Department fraud unit)

The winning icon will then be processed and used.

From those who voted for the winning icon, a champion will be randomly selected and awarded with a special prize.

I thank you for your time and let the games commence!

Longmanshort


PS Don't forget to post the images so I can use them!

PPS And remember - your vote counts!

Despite the fear of ridicule and for reasons that I shall keep to myself, this information makes me quite happy ...

Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3072021.stm" target="_blank">Who else is secretly happy now?

I mean ... it just is, isn't it!

Now, I know he's turned it down more times than I can remember, but if - as some have predicted - Hershey were to die at the end of The Chief Judge's Man, wouldn't it make sense that the judges would tell Dredd that he's the ONLY candidate?

It would give an interlude (similar to but better than his time on Luna One) to the usual stories of him shooting things. He tries to balance the demands as boss with his desire to be on the street. It could be a drive against corruption that seems to have plagued the Justice Dept of late. There's the frustration of bueurocracy (sp?) and the annoyance of state visits etc.

It needn't last long, but does it have legs?

Just a suggestions, wadda ya thunk?

Read the story below.

No one would have believed, in the first years of the 21sst century, that human affairs were being watched from the timeless worlds of space ...


(Okay, so it's just a dust storm. But the second I read this story the first thought that actually popped into my head was 'Oh god, they're launching'.

Now, where are those pills?)

Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3051548.stm" target="_blank">They're coming!!!!

"I know it's kinda fashionable to say Alan Moore's fantastic, but he is"

Can't remember which of us said that, but I'd like to thank them. Because you've opened up a whole new world to me.

Having only really ever read 2000AD, I was relatively unaware of The Bearded One (or TBO from now on). Even living in the same area as him for years, his reputation - somehow - didn't filter down to me. But enough people mentioned him here to make me want to check out the back catelogue.

And what I found left me stunned.

I've just finished reading V for Vendetta after having read Watchmen in a single day and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume 1 in a couple og hours. This undisputed "classics" are widely held to be the best the medium has to offer. But why? I really can't get enough of this stuff, yet what is it about his writing style that makes TBO's work so readable? Rather than just saying 'aye, he's great', what elements of this outstanding works are the things that keep us hooked? Ignoring the intentionally ironic title of this thread,


Though I warn you if you've not read any Alan Moore stuff - here be spoilers!

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I suppose the moment that really hit me was during V for Vendetta, just after V killed the bishop.  As I read the scene, V's use of music to cover most of the conversion just seemed natural - something you might read in any crime novel and forget.
But it was the panel where the detective realises the music is Beethoven's Ninth, which begins with 'da da da dom' - the morse code for the letter V.
Just that simple moment hit me like an express train. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Surely TBO had a time machine and had planted this, just waiting for the right moment to unleash it! But no (maybe), he's probably just been typing away and two bits of random information had gelled in his mind. And voila! I think that must be why I have enjoyed this graphic novels so much - you can feel the craftsmanship that's gone into every single panel.

And that's what I feel makes TBO's work so entrancing. Every. Single. Detail. Seems to click into place with this amazing ease. It's like a tide of history sweeping you along, bringing you through the story effortlessly. Like a rollar coaster ride that you're enjoying so much you don't realise the passage of time until it's stopped and you just want  to go again.

It's the same with LoEG. The way he plucks fictional characters from their natural environments - even taking those which could NEVER have met - and slots them together as if them being together were the natural order of things. I can think of no other writer in my exprience that could pull that off.

And the ideas imbedded in this stories are fascinating in themselves, but which are subliminal until he reveals them in an interview - the use of frame sizes in Watchmen and the lack of thought bubbles or captions in V for Vendetta. Although you don't immediately notice them, you can sense that something is different.

Anyway, I've rambled on for far too long. But I'd be interested to know what other people think about Moore's work.

No-one can dispute that he's good. But what EXACTLY is it that you like about his stuff? Is there a panel where - like me - you feel the last fifty pages click into place and make very clear (and often quite chilling) sense?

cheers

Longman

Inter'essing article from Auntie about the recent glut of Marvel movies that have made it big.

With good Marvel movies it's like buses, you wait ages for one and then they all turn up at once. Could the same be done for DC though? Are we going to see decent versions of The Flash, a version of Wonder Woman with J-Lo or Buffy in the lead?

And where's the Fantastic Four movie gone? I know they mothballed that completed one because it was so bad, but are they planning on making a new one after the success of X-Men?

(And, despite the condemnation, i still enjoyed Daredevil!)

Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/film/3004396.stm" target="_blank">Marvel movies? Excelsior!

Rather than drag the price rise thread COMPLETELY off topic, I thought we could start again here. The other reason is that we can watch Frazer not being able to help himself and joining in ;o)

So. We begin again with ...

Who said "Spoon!!"?

While everyone's in the mood for a little memory digging, does anyone know how I could contact the artist Tim Perkins?

His connection with 2k comes down to a Future Shock he did ages ago in about the 700s. He also used to colour a lot of John Ridgeway's artwork.

I knew him as a kid and used to sit and watch him at his studio in Blackburn work from time to time. It was seeing him work that made me want to be a comic book artist and, now that I've stopped drawing 'Superguy' comicbooks and started taking it all a bit more seriously, I'd like to get back in contact to say ... well ... thanks!

He was apparently down on the guest list for Bristol (or it could have been someone else with the same name!) but even KevF didn't know where he was.

Last whereabouts? Blackburn in around 1996.

Thanks

Tomorrow, my other half will be spending what I'm sure will be a blissful hour on the masseuse's table tomorrow.

I, on the other hand, have no intention of wasting that same amount of time sat in a bloody internet cafe waiting for her to finish.

I get paid on Monday, so it's spending time and I got me eye on our or two purchases of the comic kind!

I know about the comic shop in the Corn Exchange and, to be honest, I wouldn't set foot in Forbidden Planet again if you paid me. But I remember persons on here remarking that there's another comic shop in the fair city of my birth, yet I have managed to lose every single reference to it.

I would be greatly obliged if people could point me in the right direction.

Thank you.

LMS

So, I'm in France. It's the middle of the night, I'm in my tent and I'm just drifting off to sleep when all of a sudden I hear a loud POP and my airbed deflates, leaving me to sleep on a bloody hard floor.

Walking around rather bleering eyed through the local e.leclerc (their equivilent of Tesco's) searching for a replacement bed, I stumble into the book section (how annoying is that for a book fetishist like myself - books everywhere and I CAN'T BLOODY READ THEM!).

Suddenly, I turn a corner to find a whole section of graphic novels. A. Whole. Section. Not just two or three shelves but AS MUCH space as they had given over to the whole of the fictional novel section. And it wasn't just hard-backed Asterix books either! They were carefully laid out so one corner had Asterix and kids stuff, through the slightly more adult series and all the way to the hardcore stuff at the end. EVERYTHING was there, from sci-fi epics to ones that even if I could speak French I'm sure still wouldn't make sense . From Manga to surrealist to photo-realistic. It was like being in paradise.

So my question is: why am I not confronted with a similar spectacle when I walk into a British book shop, never mind a British supermarket?!

Read your history books and comics were originally appreciated by adults and kids alike. There was Ali Sloper (not spelt that way tho) and all the characatures and adventure serials and newspaper funnies. All of them loved by young and old. They were widely read and respected. But now, when you mention you read comic books you're either branded as some no-social-life geek fan boy (fair enough) or people reitterate the line that comics are for kids.

Such a statement is blatantly untrue, as the range and depth of the display in France demonstrates. There were more 'adult' orientated books than those aimed at children, so they must sell quite a few!

There are, obviously, adults who do read comic books in this country. Most of us are an example of that. But it carries a certain social stigma and remains a 'fringe' activity that certainly doesn't warrant a large GN section in most book shops, never mind a supermarket (the recent push by some branches of Boarders and Waterstones excepted). Here, comics are viewed as pulp or are childish and bereft of literary value (the number of people I know who were banned from reading comics because they 'cause' illiteracy is astounding. I just refer to Alan Moore in Zarjaz 3, when he says the CIA found the BEST medium for getting information across to people and getting them to remember it is via comic books) But in France, it is a genre all to itself that rivals novels or magazines.

There are exceptions to every rule. Dark Knight Returns/Watchmen/Blair 1 etc are all examples of where the outside world has sat up and taken notice of the power of comic books.

So. At which point did British comic books stop being for adults as well as kids? (boarders don't qualify as adults, because we're all young at heart!) And how, if at all, do we regain that wider appreciation of good art and good story-telling that we all know and love?

I would be interested to hear people's thoughts.

LMS

A few dozen cars. A very long track. 24 hours. Yes it's time for the Le Mans 24 Hour Race!!!

We catch the ferry at 7am on Thursday morning after a two hour train journey followed by a five hour car marathon. And that's just to get out of
England!

Very much looking forward to this year's race. Not so much about the cars, more about sitting in the sun, drinking beer and going to nice restaurants in the middle of forests for four hour lunches.

I shall be cheering on the MG team as per usual. You can't miss me, I usually end up hanging around the strip show in the fairground - like most of the British contingent it seems.

Anyone else gonna be there or will I be this board's sole representative at the greatest motor race in the world?

Thought: I would like to have a nice website.

Problem 1: I have no money.

Problem 2: I have little, if any, experience of html or web design (other than staring at the damn things all day when I should be working)

Can anyone recommend a free website host that's easy to use and good for big images? I want somewhere to put my artwork but don't want any fancy graphics or owt like that. I'm currently with Batcave.net but not only are they crap to use but they are also difficult to load. For those of you unlucky enouf to look at The Upsetting World of Longmanshort, you'll know what i mean.

Also, I've always been told to use Dreamweaver for designing. Good idea or bed idea?

Thank you for your help

A distressed Longmanshort

It seems that no matter what you do, some people just don't get it...

Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/film/2944402.stm" target="_blank">Why, God? Why?!

This surely ranks alongside the 'Man Bites Dog' article that appeared in the Gruniad some time ago...

Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/lancashire/2939394.stm" target="_blank">Well, he was like a bull in a ...

Wow, I had an absolutely BRILLIANT time last weekend!! Made all the better by meeting up with people from here who pointed me in the right directions and stopped me from missing everything.

It was great to finally meet everyone. Thanks to Nat, Paul (GREAT issue of Solar Wind) Gary, Art, Pete, Wils, Wake, Andy, Jamie and any other boarders that I met and have forgotten about for making me feel very welcome.

I never knew these things could be so much fun!!!!! I managed to spend all my money but did, in return, get an unpublished page of Chris Weston art from Judge Dredd: Legend of the Law (which apparently got cancelled, even tho the art is brilliant!) and three pages of Anthony Williams stuff (who I've always been a big fan of) plus more fanzines than I have time to read (notable mentions include Solar Wind, Zarjaz (for the top Alan Moore interview) and Bulldog Adventure Magazine)

Immeasurable thanks also go to Frazer (truly lovely bloke, his Charles Fort sketch is on my wall as I type!), the besuited D'israeli (who not only impressed me by doing a Scarlet Traces sketch and being so happy with that that he took a pic of it for his site but also complimented my girlfriend on her jeans), Chris Weston (again, what a nice guy!. Chatted to him for a while and must have thanked him for Killing Time about a dozen times! (even if I did miss out on the full-colour Winwood page for just ?20!)), Henry Flint (who was in a rush but still did me a VCs sketch), Dom Reardon, Pete Docherty, Bryan Talbot, Kev Hopwood, Jimmy O'Ready and Simon Fraser.

Thanks for everyone who voted for my delivery of Mr Tips' story at Pitchfest and I hope I didn't seem as nervous as I really was! (thought I nearly laughed out loud when Matt Smith just started staring at the floor. My god, I've never seen a man look so bored in my life!)

Thank you to all the people who said nice things about my artwork (even Pete Docherty, who didn't really like any of it) Especial thanks to the people at comuppance comics, who still gave me their time despite having just seen the portfolio of an incredibly talented artists (I really know how to pick my moments!)

But the best moment was when I was queuing for a Dom Reardon sketch and Jamie called me over. He said 'I'll wait till two o'clock and clear this lot out, then you can do some sketches and signings if you like'. Upon seeing my expression he realised I wasn't who he thought I was. Apparently, 15 minutes earlier he'd not recognised Dean Ormston and was questioning his judgement. (I should have just said yes, put my beany hat on and pretened to be Frazer)

And that's about it. Am still buzzing and don't know how I'll be able to concentrate at work tomorrow. Top one Kev, don't know how you're going to better it next year but I'm sure you will!

Hope to see everyone at Dreddcon!

A message from Longmanshort Esq.

Wanted

Issues 30 to 32 of The Best of 2000AD Monthly. Good rates and postage paid. No timewasters please.

And

A small boy

Must be proficient at crawling up chimneys. Broom and shoes not provided.

Hi

Someone recently showed me a link to a fonts website that had lots of cool comic book fonts (well duh!) but I've gone and lost the link and the guy I do this strip for really needs the font because I didn't have time to do the speech balloons because my boss is watching me like a hawk!!!!

Whoever is was, please come to my rescue and, if you attend Bristol this weekend, I will shower you with pints (not literally)

I thank you.