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Been watching I, CLADIUS over the last week after years of meaning to do so and...yeah, bit good innit?

One of the best t.v. shows ever.

I remember being allowed to stay up past my bedtime to watch this as it was 'educational' and being totally freaked out by a bloody-mouthed John Hurt

I binged it in the first week! What strikes me about Witcher is how dense it feels, in a good way. After the first few eps of s:1 I had to check the running time, as at the end of an hour, you felt you'd watched a two hour movie, whereas many series  (Walking Dead springs to mind) feel like it takes three episodes to cover half an hour of plot advancement.

Sad news. Nobody drew spaceships like Ian Kennedy

[Daredevil Yellow]

Daredevil Yellow

A rather poignant story of Daredevil's earliest days, told in one big flashback. How Matt lost his Dad, how he met Karen Page, how his friendship with Foggy Nelson suffered a crisis, the latter falling in love with Karen etc. Owl has a minor role, but manages to utter perhaps the cheesiest, stupid, yet amusingly cracking line I ever heard from a supervillain. Mosaically constructed plot overshadows coherence of the same, but I find the story quite easy to follow. And could be interesting read for newcomers.
I think it was decent for rain afternoon, but I cannot stomach Loeb's dry prose and less Sale's impressionist art.

I like this series - I thought there were only 3, but just learned that in addition to Hulk:Grey and SpiderMan:Blue ther's one I missed - Capt America:White

Oh yes, JJ Grandville was definitely his inspiration:

The genesis of Grandville was unusually dynamic. While researching Alice in Sunderland, Talbot explored the influence of 19th-century French caricaturist Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard on John Tenniel, who illustrated Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. Gérard signed his anthropomorphic satires "JJ Grandville". "It suddenly occurred to me that Grandville could actually be the nickname of Paris in an alternative reality where it is the biggest city in a world populated by animals," says Talbot. He sketched out a basic structure in 20 minutes. "Then I started typing and wrote the whole script in six days. It was like taking dictation, it was amazing. I could hear the characters talking, I knew what they were going to say."

from https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/29/sp-bryan-talbot-grandville-father-of-british-graphic-novel

And you should check them out, they're gorgeous books

I honestly have stopped caring about all these bloated franchises and extended-universe spin-offs. Star Wars did it for me, but I just can't muster any enthusiasm for new Matrix, Predator, Alien etc.

MAKE NEW STUFF!

And "picking out the crispy bacon"? - Philistine!

I hated WFH and have been back in the office since July 2020. It's starting to fill up a bit now, but I'd say we're never more than 25-30% full. Be interesting to see how they attempt to pull people back and what the reaction will be. We're having a "team day" this week when all of our team will be expected to come in just so we can have a physical catch-up after so long apart, but at the moment I'm the only in  team of 12 that works from the office.

[and something very, very special from Rebellion, something that I think fans of 1970s comics will be very happy about]

From the interview about Hawk the Slayer in Meg #440:

"Upcoming I've Got The Lion & The Eagle for Aftershock, which is a savage war story set in Burma during World War Two with art by PJ Holden, a second series of Jimmy's Bastards, another Punisher mini, more Russian Front war stories with Steve Epping - and something very, very special from Rebellion, something that I think fans of 1970s comics will be very happy about."

He's already done Dan Dare, and I imagine Pat Mills creations like Bill Savage are off the table, so I'm curious.

My money's on a gritty reboot of Dash Decent featuring a backstory in which an honest ex-soldier saves a young Dash from paedophile priests whilst taking violent revenge on his corrupt former commanding officers.

So, some guy called Patrick Collins edited Star Trek: The Motion Picture down to just over 20 minutes and scored it with Daft Punk's Tron: Legacy. If you have a spare 20 minutes, I would highly recommend Star Trek Legacy

Thanks I enjoyed that. I remember thinking at the time that there was about 20  minutes of story stretched into a  very well-padded (and quite dull) movie! The score works pretty well most of the time too.

Meat Loaf 

Friend of the forum and US Dredd-evangelist Douglas Wolk (KTT) has read every single Marvel comic and written a book about it. He talks about it in today's Guardian

That's just a tad under the $3.6m paid last year for a near mint copy of Spider-Man's first appearance, overtaking Superman's record.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/sep/10/spider-man-beats-superman-in-record-36m-comic-sale

[Troy]

Troy. The Iliad was the first 'proper' book I ever read and although this film necessarily pares it down and plays with the timeline it's still one of my go-to films when I can't be arsed looking for something new. Achilles is the role Brad Pitt was born to play and the rest of the cast do a pretty magnificent job as well. Love it.

It's called The Iliad because Ilium was another name for Troy, and the suffix ~ad means "the story of..", so the title actually translates as Troy Story


I'll get my coat

Progs are the least of it, bank cards, medical appointments, so many things have been stuffed up. It was done in anger after complaining to the Royal Mail and getting a generic "we're doing our best in difficult times" response. Was impressed that one of her staff got back to me same day with a case ref. saying they have asked RM to investigate problems in my area. Nothing else yet, but if they know the MP's sniffing about they may just put another postie on our route.