Messages

[1984.]

1984.

I didn't like Rosie Dawson's take on Ahsoka - there, I've said it - but statistically speaking, I have to enjoy some of this.  I mean, that's just maths.

[1984]

The later cover is perfectly fine, but it has to be 1984 for its willful degeneracy.

PREPARE for Leave voters to blame it all on Remainers! Oh hang on, they're doing that already, sorry.

To be fair, we lost the referendum not once but twice, had the government in deadlock so they couldn't actually do anything and pissed that away, and then we rehabilitated Tony Blair for some reason.  All Remainers had to do was not call every Leaver a thick racist for four years straight or get bogged down in entirely-manufactured wedge issues, and we fucked it.  We fucked it good.

Hey, remember that time in India when a quarter of a billion people went on strike to protest working conditions under a far right pro-capitalist government in the largest industrial action in the history of the world?  And which statistically worked out as one in thirty humans on the planet Earth being on strike?  No?  Well I'll just assume you were very busy and missed the wall-to-wall coverage.

Issues 1-3 are numbered, and the 100th issue is trumpeted on the front cover, but Eagle only really had cover numbering between issues 127 and 338.  They were dropped for a merger with MASK and never reinstated, while the big anniversary issues like 400 and 500 weren't even acknowledged.  Most comics encyclopedia sites list the non-numbered issues with what would have been their issue number, as do most online sellers.

I thought the appearance of the ghosts harmed the second story, but I understand that purveyors of a visual medium like comics maybe figure the money shot is all that matters, and not the spooky atmosphere that the story had managed to build up until that point, which I considered to be very evocative of OG Misty.

I'll call you in 7 days and tell you.

The Ringu references are noted elsewhere, but the "images slowly approaching the observer" thing was what I referred to, as the exact same gimmick turned up in an online comic short many years ago.  The writer says he nicked it from an MR James story, so I guess I unconsciously called that one.

Saw a talk about history of Jodrell Bank at Blue Dot festival last year - apparently radio astronomy was sneered at by 'proper' astronomers, while the military/engineering types thought using the tech to look at distant galaxies was frivolous, and Lovell just couldn't get the funding. Then the Russians launched Sputnik and he casually mentioned to a govt minister "oh yes we'd be able to track that. Or anything else someone puts in orbit" ... wallets opened and Jodrell Bank was built.

Professor Simon Holland seems to know his science onions pretty good, but his more detailed explanation for the Arecibo Observatory's primary cold war-era function* sounds like bampottery of the first order.  Of course, given what we know about the daft shit that the superpowers were bankrolling back then, this doesn't actually mean he's wrong.

* TLDR version: an attempt to create a radioactive belt above the Earth, on the offchance it disrupted vehicle and/or missile traffic.

I liked the New Eagle Dan Dare up to a point (as a kid, I remember the Flesh Eaters storyline really put the shits up me), but by the time he teams up with not-Vampirella and goes slug-hunting on the planet of the werewolves, it turns to absolute poo.
John Gilliat's mix of 1980s glam and 1950s tech and interior design was a blast, though.  I have no idea who the retro-futurist 1950s Dan Dare reboot that came in 1989 was aimed at, but despite some great Keith Watson, John Ridgeway and David Pugh art, it just wasn't very good, and seemed an ill fit alongside more cynical fare like Doomlord, Toys Of Doom, Rat Trap - a comic strip whose purpose was to insult every last Eagle reader by name - and Computer Warrior - a strip which by then was about the main character condemning Eagle readers to Hell.

When you consider the anti-establishment sensibilities that run through much British comic writing since the 60's / 70's, the old Glorious Empire and Patriotic Officer are tropes that cannot really be handled sympathetically.

We regularly see a hero made of Judge Dredd, a character described as an outright fascist by at least one of the current stable of writers.  The inability to reimagine Dare is more a failure of the imagination than something within the concept itself that makes him impossible to relate to or perpetually out of step with contemporary politics.  At its core, the strip is a period piece and there should be no problems with making new stories in the same way there aren't insurmountable problems in making stories about someone like Hornblower or Perseus.

[The Arecibo Observatory]

Star of Contact and Goldeneye, The Arecibo Observatory has collapsed and effectively been destroyed, scuppering any lingering hopes that it might have escaped being decommissioned.
I saw some vid from a boffin who thought it had to be shut down anyway, as it wasn't actually that great for stargazing and seemed to have been designed more to monitor activity in Earth's atmosphere - and before anyone goes thinking "for aliens!", the scuttlebutt was that it was simply better-suited to tracking ICBMs (which over time have became less of a security concern) and the observatory stuff was more of a side-hustle.  If nothing else, it's nice that it leaves behind this conspiracy theory so we can continue to speculate.  And sure the billionaires own space now anyway.
Footage of the collapse.

I felt the last special suffered from pilot episode syndrome and a lack of focus, so I was happy to see these were both properly self-contained efforts and all the cribs I recognised from other things were at least in service to the main plot/theme.  This was probably the first special that actually managed the balancing act of being for middle-aged men, but also suitable for younger readers to be exposed to, with none of the occasional excesses that prevented similar consistency of tone and intent in the other specials.
I've already seen griping about the art on the longer story and UGh whatevs.  Just pretend it's Mick McMahon reinventing himself again and pretend you like it.*
The shorter strip is a neat update on The Night Gallery's The Cemetery by way of MR James so you can't say they aren't making an effort, but I'm pretty sure there's a more obvious influence that I can't put my finger on atm.  The main strip tries to do The Shining in a boarding school and doesn't try to hide it, so fair play.


* /absconds to fanboy-proof shelter

Twitter thread covering the investigation into the Democrats' voter fraud.  I know this will be hard for some people to accept, but it's important to know the truth.

The picture in Solo was so dark, could anyone really say that was him?

NO BACKSIES.

I will still bet good monay that some people will insist his copping it doesn't count because it happened in a cartoon.

[Rok of the Reds]

Rok of the Reds, which is very good.
The Barney Rubble reference in particular had me giggling at least a full chapter after I'd read it, but I do wonder what normals enticed in by the thought of a footy graphic novel might make of the very comics-y storytelling techniques like thought bubbles or the stadium banter between fans.  Cornwall is great, especially for a rookie find, and the footy sequences are actually well-realised compared to how I normally see the sport depicted, with none of the static or 'stock image'-looking panels that typify footy comics even nowadays.
Wagner and Grant can do this stuff in their sleep, or at the very least, they can do it while half-bladdered like they did between 1982 and 1988 when they called it Doomlord.  There's no point listing the comparisons between this and that, as this is more obviously arch and knowing about its ludicrous premise - which I'd argue owes a great deal more to Doomlord's fellow New Eagle stablemate, Star Rider - and for good measure it throws in some broad humor and drama to keep the pacing and tone agreeable.
It feels like the lads were angling to develop something that simultaneously channeled theirs and UK comics' glory days of the late 1970s and mid-80s, and which could be developed as a potential live-action enterprise.  It's a shame it doesn't seem to have paid off for them, as sports comics seem like a genre that - while not something I'm terribly interested in - might be waiting for its time in the sun when newer audiences brought in by the MCU tire of comics telling the same few superhero stories again and again.
This was a very good comic and I enjoyed it.