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[Serial Killer]

Serial Killer by two young reprobates called Pat Mills & Kevin O'Neill. 

Not a novel but it certainly reads like one so I don't hesitate to recommend The Hot Zone by Richard Preston.

I also finished "Serial Killer" tonight and would also recommend it. Blending thinly-disguised autobiography/memoir with a (hopefully) fictional murder mystery Pat & Kevin have produced a blackly comic history of British comics that will be all too familiar to those of us who remember the Seventies as an era where adult authority still held unquestioned sway over children's lives but where young rebels (like Mills & O'Neill) were intent on smuggling subversive ideas into children's comics. And by prefacing their novel with a contemporary  (2016) newspaper report, M & O'N are able to inject a post-Savile awareness into their narrative at specific moments. Mind you, the central 'Fourpenny One' joke was somewhat lost on me as it wasn't an expression I was previously familiar with.

I will say however that in tone "Serial Killer "did remind me (in a good way) of Mike Moorcock's mid-60s 'Nick Allard' novels, particularly "Printer's Devil" (reprinted as 'The Russian Intelligence' (1980)), which also owes something to Moorcock's time working for Fleetway, (though obviously at an earlier time than M & O'N) but plot-wise the two books are quite different; it was more a style thing that I recognised.

Anyway, "Serial Killer" was a good, fast read (probably took me less than twenty-four hours to read all told, in two substantial chunks) and I'll certainly be checking out/pre-ordering Book 2: "Goodnight, John-Boy" when it (hopefully) comes out.

Oliver emailed me last week to say they were sending out another TLA hardback to replace the first that never turned up; well, I'm pleased to report that the second copy arrived safely today, along with a second book plate (pre-stuck in the book) and a second signed art print; both unnumbered. So, all's well that ends well I guess but it was a bit of a palaver all in all really. Hopefully delivery of the One-Eyed Jack signed edition will be smoother.

When it comes to Dredd, it's either Carlos Ezquerra or Ron Smith. I struggle to put one ahead of the other because their styles are so different, but they're both definitive Dredd artists (as is Mike McMahon).

There was a time, at the time, that I didn't much like Ron Smith's Dredd; not because it wasn't great art (although I didn't really appreciate it as such at the time) but because at the time (mid-ish '80s?) it seemed like every week had a Ron Smith Dredd strip! In hindsight I realise now what a nonscrot I was being. I think it's true what they say though: when miracles become commonplace you stop seeing them as miracles and regard them as merely mundane, but they're still bloody miracles and Ron Smith's Dredds were bloody classics.

Honestly, don't mean to offend anyone, I just don't get it. I'm right now starring at two images on wiki images.  "Judge Dredd the complete CQ collection"  and Judge Dredd "the Brian Bolland complete collection". The difference is astounding. CQ's version of Dredd is basic to the core, where as the detail in BB's Dredd is noticeably different.

I'm kind of more offended that if you're going to abbreviate Carlos Ezquerra's name to two initials you (apparently) can't be bothered to get his second initial correct. You may not like Carlos' artwork - it's your opinion and you're entitled to be wrong - but at least do him the respect of getting his name (initials) right.

But that gripe aside, I think this depends on how you're defining 'basic'. Brian Bolland has a very 'realistic' style to his art; not photo-realistic necessarily but it's clean, precise and unarguably slick. Carlos's artwork is grittier, arguably messier, but it's no less detailed than Bolland's, just different. If you don't like it, fair dos but I can think of work by other artists that appeared in 2000AD which barely passed 'basic' levels of competence (I won't name names because it doesn't seem fair) so calling Carlos' art 'basic' is a pretty below-the-belt argument. 

I've followed Carlos' artwork for 40 years now and throughout those four decades I can't think of anything Carlos has produced that, by any dispassionate assessment, doesn't demonstrate exceptional levels of draughtsmanship and storytelling. Even his early experiments with digital/computer-coloured art showed an artist willing to master new tools to add to his repertoire rather than doing the same-old same-old forever (albeit doing it very well).

It's one of the things I like about Mick McMahon and Simon Coleby; they're prepared to change their 'style' in order to up their game. I love Bolland's art - I bought 'Wonder Woman' for years solely because of his covers - but I don't think it's unfair to point out that his art hasn't really evolved since the '80s except maybe to become even slicker (although his 'Mr Mamoulian' strips did show a willingness to experiment) whereas Mick's current art is unrecognisable compared to his Carlos-inspired Dredd, his own 'classic' Dredd or even his 'Slaine' style (which was, frankly, an amazing step-up) and Coleby's current work on 'Jaegir' is worlds away from his '90s 'Rogue Trooper' stuff (and all the better for it imo).

Given all the great (and not so great) artists who have contributed to 2000AD over four decades the fact that Carlos is still working for Tharg on a regular basis is testament to his exceptional talents and accomplishments.

[just]

I gotta wonder what 30-40 titles you're reading to make this one a hard sell.

Bear in mind 'buying' isn't the same as 'reading' so discounting the comics I buy just for my daughter my current - or future - pull list at the moment looks something like...

2000AD, Megazine, Mega Collection, Batwoman, Cave Carson Has A Cybernetic Eye, Doom Patrol, Harley Quinn, Shade the Changing Girl, Black Magick, The Discipline, The Divided States of Hysteria, Loose Ends, Monstress, The Old Guard, Paper Girls, The Fix, The Wicked + The Divine, All-New Wolverine, Champions, Doctor Strange, Doctor Strange and the Sorcerers Supreme, Gamora, Gwenpool, Invincible Iron Man, Mighty Thor, Moon Knight, Ms. Marvel, Ultimates², Unstoppable Wasp, American Gods, Betty & Veronica, Britannia, Cerebus in Hell?, Cinema Purgatorio, Dead Inside, Mercury Heat, Predator vs Judge Dredd vs Aliens, Ragnarok, Red Sonja, Skybourne, World War Tank Girl and Vampirella.

Accepting that I don't have an unlimited budget to buy comics every month taking on a two year commitment on a largely unknown product (barring the calibre of the creative team - and the last Ellis title I bought into, Karnak, had an appalling schedule) is a big ask.

I saw the first three issues of 'The Wild Storm' in Forbidden Planet this morning after dropping into the Future Shock exhibition at The Cartoon Museum; on the plus side it's got Warren Ellis and Jon Davis-Hunt, on the negative side it looks like it's going to run for 24 issues? I didn't even pick them up to flick through and bought the new Batwoman Rebirth series by Bennett/Tyrion & Steve Epting instead (even though I dropped the New 52 Batwoman series after DC screwed JH Williams III over the planned wedding of Kate Kane/Maggie Sawyer storyline). I've got no investment in the original Authority/Stormwatch history so that's the hill something like 'The Wild Storm' has to climb when I'm already buying 30-40 titles a month.

Just wondering whether anyone else is still waiting for their hardback to be delivered or if it's just me?

Checked today at the delivery office (who are usually very reliable) and they confirmed that they're not holding any packages for me so I can only assume my book is lost in transit somewhere. 

Well, I feel a bit like the guy that can't say the letters T, F or S after receiving this email:

I am very sorry for the mistakes that have happened with your order of the special hardback edition of The Last American.  Due to human error these orders have been mishandled and I regret the confusion, disappointment and annoyance this will have caused. We have taken steps to ensure this does not happen again.

The bookplates and prints should not have been sent separately to the book and the bookplates should have been affixed inside the book in advance. We always over-produce the numbered bookplates so that if there are any damages we can replace a damaged copy. Unfortunately the spare bookplates were sent out instead of some of the numbered ones.

If you received either an unnumbered print or an unnumbered bookplate, please could you send me an email and we will correct the mistake. I am genuinely sorry the high standards we set ourselves have not been met.

In addition, to apologise for this error we will produce a new numbered print for The Last American and have it dispatched to you free of charge.

Please accept my apologies for the errors that have occurred for a book that we are otherwise very proud to have produced.

Sincerely, Oliver, 2000 AD Customer Support

You can't beat service like that.

Well, I got the exact same boilerplate response this morning as well so I'm less impressed as I don't know whether the fact I'm still waiting for my hardback to turn up has been noted or whether everyone who ordered the limited edition has been 'spammed' with this as damage control. I don't particularly care about getting a second numbered art print when I don't have the book I ordered. I can only hope that Royal Mail get around to delivering it to me 'some time' now Easter is out of the way. 

Bookplate and art print were delivered yesterday but still no sign of the hardback book itself. To rub salt in the wound no-one could be arsed to number the plate & print? Have fired off an email expressing my dissatisfaction with the service. (Sorry to come off as 'entitled' but this operation has been pretty shoddily handled imo and takes the shine off what has been a long-hoped for project.)

I had a dispatch email ten days ago to say my 'Last American HC' would be with me "shortly" but so far no sign of it. My 40th Anniversary 2nd printing prog arrived yesterday but was a little beat up which was disappointing (and unusual given the weekly prog normally arrives in good condition) so feeling a smidge peeved with the shop's delivery service at the moment. Still, what can you do about it. Not much, I guess.

Agh! Just seen this update. Fuck. 

^{(Surprised, to be honest, that a new printing would only run to "very limited quantities" but them's the breaks, I guess.)}

I'm pretty sure Edginton could find a way to link Helium to any one of his sagas and have it makes sense - the man does not lack for imagination and cleverness! -

Given that Edington appears to be pretty much basing his interconnected sagas on the Multiverse concept of Mike Moorcock - even down to pinching a couple of Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius titles for Ampney Crucis^[1] - he certainly doesn't lack for imagination or cleverness. 

^{[1] The English Assassin and The Entropy Tango.}

Don't give her a Japanese name then, if you're not going to cast someone that can pass as Japanese. The concept is the same.

At the risk of going into spoiler territory the Scarlett Johanssan character [spoiler]doesn't have a Japanese name in the film. She's 'Major Mira Killian'. Her brain ('ghost') was taken from a Japanese anti-augmentation radical called Motoko Kusanagi who was abducted by Hanka for use as test subject in their full-body prosthesis augmentation experiments.[/spoiler]

You may disagree with the decision to cast a non-Japanese actor in the role of 'Major' but the story the film wishes to tell  - and we can argue whether this is the same story as the manga the fiilm is based on was telling - wouldn't work as well if [spoiler]the contrast between who the character believes herself to be at the start of the film ('Major') and who she learns she was originally ('Motoko Kusangi')[/spoiler] wasn't so extreme.

Kusanagi isn't defined by her memories? So we can just delete, rewrite, selectively edit those and she remains the same character? Who she was, what she experienced in her life up to the point where she decides to DO anything has no bearing whatsoever? I'd argue the opposite, that it's our history that defines our future, or at least informs it in a way that is crucial to what we decide to do next.

Again spoilers: [spoiler]Kusangi's memories are altered so she believes she was a refugee (from an unspecified country) whose boat was sunk by terrorists who killed her parents and Hanka use these false memories to motivate 'Major' in her Section 9 work against cyber-terrorism. It's only when Dr Outlet gives Major the address where her real birth mother lives that Major learns the truth of who she was, and while she returns to her mother at the end of the film she also returns to working for Section 9 with the words "We cling to memories as if they define us, but they don't. What we do is what defines us.".[/spoiler]

In other words, if your memories are unreliable - and for most people memories are unreliable even without the assistance of sinister supra-national tech companies hacking their brains - then they seem a poor foundation to base your sense of self-identity on. It's a philosophical argument that's raged for millennia: Do our thoughts (memories) define us or our actions? If I say one thing but practice the opposite ('do as I say, not as I do') which would you say were my true beliefs?

[do]

I guess to summarize my POV about GitS, I'd say that what that story is really about, apart from the sf/cyberpunk tropes that drive the story, is about identity, about what it means to be human. What is it that separates a human being from just a collection of data, 1s and 0s residing on a hard drive somewhere in cyberspace?

The Scarlett Johanssan GitS is entirely about identity of course. Throughout the film she's wondering who she is, where she came from, what are her true memories, what are false memories that have been implanted by Hanka. Hanka sees Major as a weapon, Dr Ouelet sees Mira as a person, Kusanagi doesn't know what (or who) she is but as she pursues Kuse she learns her real history and at the end of the film embraces it (literally). The future presented in GitS is a multicultural, multi-racial, transhuman - even posthuman - society. To get hung up on the whole 'Major must look Japanese' argument is to arguably miss the point the film is trying to make. We are not defined by our memories (or our ethnicity); we are defined by what we do.