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You know what we don't see enough of? Science fiction Folk music.

More Imagined Village

The mighty Mory Kante

Well, my wife finally got her phone call from the NHS. She hasn't yet received a letter. She asked why she was on the list. The person on the other end didn't know. Kay noted our surgery didn't either. So the NHS removed her from the list without knowing anything about her medical history.

I am fucking furious. Said person noted that we should now get in touch with our GP, so he can comb through her records and request to be added back to said list. Surely, that should have been the bloody reverse of this? I am so sick of this county right now.

Apologies if I'm missing something - she was taken off the list because you raised problems with her being on the list in the first place? I'm not sure what you were trying to achieve there.

Rant away dude, it's what the thread's for!

phickil media

That one's impressive even by your standards CL!

Beautiful work - I loves me a good nerdgraph.

The thing that struck me most was the surprisingly low page count in the early glory days - so much thrillpower in so few pages.

It's interesting that whilst most forms of entertainment have become more compressed and speedy over recent decades (watching old Dr Who can seem painfully slow now), comics have gone the other way and become more bloated and extended. The British comic tradition, exemplified by Mills and Wagner in those early days, was a masterclass of compressed storytelling and delivering stories that could be enjoyed as standalone episodes without needing endless backstory; whilst nowadays (particularly in mainstream American comics) splash panels, extended page count and more indulgent (is that the right word?) storytelling, all fuelled by the trade market, mean that skill has been lost to some extent.

Isolation and the internet has led me to start listening to a favourite of my parents', Steeleye Span. The same factors have led me to discover that their song Black Jack Davey ( played on the record player ad nauseum in my childhood) is actually, give or take some Chinese whispers, the same song as The Waterboys' Raggle Taggle Gypsy-o.  Bob Dylan also has a version, and they all sound completely different.

Now I really want to know how the original folk version sounded.  Obviously I'd prefer to go to the pub, but...

There are many, many versions of this song, it's a folk standard, almost as ubiquitous as the soldier/sailor outside a girl''s window. This is the fantastic song Sick Old Man by The Imagined Village (a kind of folk supergroup, vocals on this one are by Eliza Carthy) - it imagines the story of what happened to the neglectful husband whose wife ran away with the gypsies, a tale of bitterness and self-pity with a nice topical reference to Yarl's Wood.

Can't recommend Imagined Village enough - they do a modern updating of Tam Lyn with Benjamin Zephaniah, Paul Weller sings John Barleycorn, and there's more folk royalty involved than you can shake a stick at.

Have you read the Dredd and Strontium dog crossovers?

No I saw the Strontium Dog one in one of the Thought Bubble Anthologies (I think it was) - I was there but for some reason that utterly escapes me now - I didn't pick up. Where was the Dredd one?

Also in the thought bubble anthology, the following year I think.

Just been back to drool over the photos - I love how the cover is worn at the bottom where generations of fingers have held and read it over the years - far better than any untouched pristine copy of anything.

I'll leave you with this reaction video, which is the best reaction to anything I have ever seen ever, and I am totally with her all of the way:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIe2TLPryJw

Nice reaction video

When I clicked, I was expecting this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=34&v=nfdsc4Q4R2k&feature=emb_title

I think there was a more recent thread, but I couldn't find it.

My copies of Mary Boys issues 1 & 2 arrived, and they are a lot of fun. The additional 'making of' booklet is interesting too, how he came out of some shitty times by going back to basics and learning new drawing techniques from scratch. The artwork is delightfully brutal (or do I mean brutally delightful?).

My only criticism is that over two issues, we only get scene-setting and background. I can see his passion for these characters as they gestated, but as a reader, I'm wondering where the story is. I hope we'll get to find out.

Have you read the Dredd and Strontium dog crossovers?

Do people even know what a phonebook is now? If it remains shorthand for 'fat book', then in the not too distant future it's origin may become a trivia question. I'm actually still in the phonebook - I remember when it was expected, and being ex-directory was somehow shady or weird.

As an aside the first time I heard that term in relation to a comic was the old Cerebus collections back in the day. Was the term used before those?

I only came across it on this forum or related podcasts, when people talked about the Dredd Casefiles or SD agency files as the "phonebook editions", as opposed to the slimmer single-story trades

Obamagate is nothing more than a PR intervention to deflect attention from the administration's catastrophic failures. Doubleplusbad.

I have to be honest, I've been a quiet and despondent Labour member for a number of years now.

I feel your pain.

Labour has a big problem with factionalism

Enlarged for truth: When I was a student, newly bathed in the white-hot fire of socialist enlightenment, many political discourses were conducted in the snug of the Ladywell Tavern in Dundee, a tiny space, smaller than my current bedroom. I recall one occasion that brought home the farce of it - a table of SWP and a table of Militant (about 8 people tops, knees almost touching, the room was packed that night) almost ready to come to blows over who was the biggest traitor to the cause. It was a sobering lesson, which I have subsequently seen played out over three decades.

You can't blame disillusioned believers for embracing Corbyn after seeing two "successful" leaders who'd made the trade off between principles and power and had betrayed so much of what labour supporters believed in. When Corbyn was a candidate (and subsequently leader), his opponents' only arguments seemed to be that of course he was right, but realistically we have to be more Tory to get into power, which is a futile argument that I'll always reject.

Oh man, that is so cool, I'm really jealous. Even though it's a serious wodge, it'll never go down in value if you take care of it, and may even become a valuable heirloom.

I too am an absolute fan of this book. My first experience was the 50s movie, which blew me away. I then realised we had the book in the house, a rare sci-fi gem amongst all the boring crap - it was a 1966 hardback ex-school library edition which I still have. It's worth nowt, I  doubt even a charity shop would take it, but I adore this battered old book, especially the single illustration at the front:



Jeff Wayne's version was the first LP I ever bought with my own money (I was spending Christmas money and also bought Pink Floyd's The Wall at the same time, which I sometimes cite as my first album, depending on the audience  ). That's a piece of music that still thrills me today. And I went to see the live version a few years ago. I even like that movie with Malcolm McDowell.

Congratulations on a great find.

[2260]

Just trudged through the first three trades of 2260 and alas its continues its downward turn. It has some great moments and its clear that Richard Starking is a great writer, the trouble is I get the sense he doesn't know quite what he's writing. By this I mean he set off this series with what looked like a pretty clear idea of what he was trying to do. Something to the side caught his eye so he followed that detour and then came back to the main story. But then he got distracted again and wondered off briefly... back on the main trail... distraction .... rince wash repeat. Now last time I said this made for a fine sense of epic storytelling. Now it gives me the sense he's lost the main thrust and doesn't know what he really wants to go anymore. Or is afraid to get there as he's no idea what's next.

Its never bad, even if I don't get on with the art by Axel Medellin at all - some fill in art by Shaky Kane is astonishignly good I should say - but its lost its sense of drive and direction. There's only so many times we can return to the same ideas. How many times has this series done the war is hell idea. The evil of the Elephantmen's origins etc etc. Its been done.

Such a shame as I've lost the will to continue and this could have been a quite superb say 50 part series (who knows the specific number) alas now I see it got to 80 odd at least and I've not the energy to continue to see if its finds itself again.

Should repeat its never bad, in fact its good comics, just seems to forget what it wants to be able.

Just looked back at my comment from (amazingly) six years ago, and I feel vindicated. I stopped buying them after the first four big phonebook* collections because it was expensive and meandering, and I felt like I was just being strung along with too many flashbacks, asides and many, many pages of sketches, covers and tribute art. It was a great concept and had some beautiful art, but as you said, besides the origin/war stuff, I don't think he ever knew where it should actually be going. Sounds like it continued in the same vein.


*Do people even know what a phonebook is now? If it remains shorthand for 'fat book', then in the not too distant future it's origin may become a trivia question. I'm actually still in the phonebook - I remember when it was expected, and being ex-directory was somehow shady or weird. There was a policeman on our street when I was a kid, and when my mum said he was ex-directory I thought murderers and terrorists must be after him

*Y'know... Wagner & Watson has a real ring to it. A private detective double-act from the mid sixties, who specialise in various arcane.... um... things.

Or maybe going with John Wagner self description as 'the one who looks like a bent copper, it would be the hilarious misadventures of a bent 70s cop and his dapper criminal chum whose trying to go straight while seeking to become a food critic.

The public would lap it up!

Played by Clive Russell and Wee Jimmy Krankie