Messages

All progs, Megs, specials, annuals, all crisises, revolvers, tornados, starlords, screams, annuals, all dc Dredds, eagle Dredds, IDW titles, half of Battles, half of the 'new' Eagles, plus thousands of US titles including complete Swamp Thing to date, all bagged (most boarded) and boxed in the corner of our bedroom. I too sit on the sofa eyeing the ceiling in that corner nervously.

SBT

Mine was waiting for me upon my return from work. It looks FANTASTIC, and many thanks to David and all involved. Sod beer, we all owe him our firstborns. If he didn't have so many already!

And doubly thanks David for "the other thing"- it has been very gratefully received and appreciated by the intended audience.

House of Daemon and The Fifth Horseman next, then? Next week too soon?

SBT

Because three good things happened today- my long-ago-ordered comics arrived from Disposable Heroes, (but not the Underbelly reprint, has that come out yet?), I found both Storming Heaven collection and the nightmare on elm st 3 DVD in a charity shop for four pounds and one pound respectively, and I finally came to a major decision about my future that I had been putting off. Just need to tell those involved now. :/

SBT

PlayStation Store- £3.49 download rental.

SBT

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Original-Slaine-artwork-from-2000AD-/181336055171?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item2a38789d83

Five hours to go.

SBT

We are watching Gravity tonight, but it'll have to go some to beat ER. The final payoff had me grinning from ear to ear. Exceptional film, and one I heartily recommended.

SBT

No, it doesn't appear. Maybe in the next one.

SBT

In no particular order:

EUROPA REPORT (2013)

Found-footage sci-fi about the first manned mission to Jupiter's moon, Europa, and their search for life. I love this whole film-making genre, and this made a lovely change from the endless haunted houses/ asylums/ ruins premises that I've seen of late. Very reminiscent of 'Space Odyssey: Voyage To The Planets', the BBC "real science" drama of a decade or so ago (which is incidentally one of my favourite things ever), it has a likeable cast (including someone who I'm told was in 'The girl with the dragon tattoo'), fabulous visuals and a compelling story. I'd been waiting to see this for a good six months, and it did not disappoint. My worry was that it would end up being too "real sciency" and copping out of anything wonderful once they actually got to Europa. I needn't have been concerned. Loved it unreservedly.

WHITE BUFFALO (1977)

I remembered this from childhood, and that it scared the crap out of me. An old friend of this forum mentioned it on Facebook a couple of weeks ago, and I had to track down a copy. Very glad I did. Charles Bronson plays Wild Bill Hickok, returned to the Old West after a sojourn abroad as a showman, plagued by nightmares in which a monstrous white buffalo rampages. He knows his destiny is to meet the beast, and either kill it or die. Will Sampson (Taylor, the Indian, in Poltergeist 2) is Crazy Horse, set on revenge after the white buffalo kills his daughter. Both hunt the creature, coming together, despite their mutual distrust and hatred.
On the surface a Dino De Laurentiis quick-buck Jaws-alike, and one of a trio of such creature features he knocked out at the time, White Buffalo is an underrated gem. Deeply weird, full of dialogue and sequences that throw you off, it's unlike any other western I've ever seen. Strangely adult in tone, and full of seventies attitudes that disarm the modern viewer, it's an absolute treat.

Dog Soldiers
A treat for the kids, as they were begging for a good werewolf movie. Both responded to it, wowing at the wolves, laughing at the funny bits and going "yuck!" a lot. Youngest especially loved it.

Jeepers Creepers 2
Also a "family movie night" treat, after they'd loved the first one, which is apparently "the scariest film ever made". They didn't think this was as good as the original, but was still "brilliant". Both desperately now want a third. As do I, to tell the truth.

SBT

House of Daemon, Survivor, anything by Ortiz in fact! Also, Scream! needs plundering some more. Tales from the Grave? The Dracula File?

SBT

Savage book one, please. Stat! I dont want to pay a hundred notes on eBay!

SBT

Taking advantage of a slow afternoon at work, I've just read through the entirety of Alan Hebden and Lalia's 'Holocaust', which ran in the second half of Starlord's life, and which I remember skipping at the time due to the presence of stereotypical "ufos" and a lack of mutant bountyhunters, robots and monsters, etc.

I'd been meaning to give this a go for a number of years, and thought I may as well read it before maryanddavid produces a lavish, coffeetable edition that I then have to buy to satisfy my damned compulsion.

So, um, yes, was it worth the wait? Well, yes, in a way. The fairly standard (pre-X-files, pre-independence day remember) plot involves a hard bitten private eye, Carl Hunter, who used to work for the cia, investigating a man's disappearance out in the desert near one of them pesky secret American bases. Ufos appear, followed by aliens who are crippling earth's food production in an attempt to take over. Helicopters, the president, tractor beams, disintegration rays, a friendly alien telepath and a late plot twist all follow, with some predictability, and it all wraps up suspiciously quickly in time for Starlord's merger into 2000AD.

Carl Hunter is an odd one. He punches out cops before he has an inkling of any conspiracy, threatens them with their guns, nicks their squad car... And then immediately checks into a hotel using his own name. If it hadn't all been aliens, what did he think would happen next? Also he mentions early on that he's half native American, but this has absolutely no impact on the story, and informs neither his actions nor the plot. And I was hoping for some exciting redskin hunting action.

Amusingly, my phone had that as "exciting redskin twerking action", which sounds like huge fun and I want some right now.

Other plot elements fall out of sight too, including the poor woman with the missing husband who started Hunter on his adventure. Were this a John Carpenter film, she'd have tagged along and fallen into bed with him once her hubby's corpse had been discovered. And as I say, it all wraps up too quickly in Siberia, with a silly ending involving comedy rats.

The tone is uneven throughout- it should have been a paranoid thriller, of the kind that later would become so popular o tv, but in 1978 could only be alluded to through the motifs of 'close encounters'- but instead it reads like a bog standard action story that every so often tries to be funny, but isn't.

The art, by Lalia, is solid but uninspiring. And part nine looks to me drawn by someone else entirely, but I've no idea who. On the whole, not a wasted hour and an interesting curiosity. But it seriously needed a second pass on the script, and perhaps an Ortiz on art, who may have given it that askew- aesthetic it so desperately cries out for, but which it fails to capture.

SBT

Wife away in Finland, and boys at a mate's overnight tomorrow, so had plans of a big evening out with booze and stuff. However, I am now working 2-9, so that's put paid to that. Oh well, think of the money, think of the money.

SBT

Yes, all wishes to you and yours Vzzbux- dreadful and trying in equal measure. Best to all.

SBT

Mine is not only ordered, but I am now pacing up and down waiting for it to arrive! House of Daemon next please sir!

SBT

After months of not reading anything at all, no books, no comics, no cereal packets, no nothing, in the last couple of weeks I've
caught up with over a year's worth of the prog and the meg, the last four months of walking dead and superior spidey, swamp thing and long john silver volume four.

I'm sitting here at work with kingdom vols one and two to read this afternoon and have a hot date with a a comfy sofa and Arthur c Clarke when I get home tonight. Thank fuck for anti-depressants!

SBT