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The most successful attempt I made [1] involved nicotine gum and regular gum. Every time you want a fag, go for a stick of regular gum. If that doesn't do it, move up to the nicotine gum.

It's a real eye opener - you realize that about 90% of your daily fags are purely reflexive and are just the result of routine, rather than a result of you actually needing one.

For the record: it takes 72 hours for your body to overcome the physical dependency. Last time I stopped, the craving kicked in with one last apocalyptic fit pretty much on the dot of 72 hours.

However, in the short term, expect to put on some weight ... you will eat and drink more. Beer, especially. Try and stay off the booze for the first week, and the whole thing will be much easier.

Cheers!

Jim

[1} About six months. I started again more because I'm just a crap bastard, rather than any particular failing in the method I describe above!

"Even better for making me not bother."

Not even Shako vs Savage? Flesh vs Firekind? Ro-Busters vs Robohunter?

Best news I've heard all day. One less talented bastard to compete against.

Cheers!

Jim

"2. The two characters MUST be from strips whose titles start with the same letter"

Arf! Well, that brings a couple of ideas to mind already ...

Cheers!

Jim

"it could have gone anyway in the vote."

Absolutely. Like I said upthread, I could cheerfully have picked three completely different winners who would have been every bit as worthy.

Great compo, and I'm looking forward to the next one. Get off yer arse and pick a subject, LMS!

(Plus, I doubled my vote in this one ... I was going to thank my loyal fans, but I've learned a lesson from the Mighty John Byrne, so you can all fuck off instead. The original artwork from my entries will be on eBay - at £4000 a piece, I shouldn't have to work for the best part of a year.)

Cheers!

Jim

"it looks like I'm struggling for votes"

If it's any consolation, Simon, the only thing that kept you out of my three was the fact that you got my vote in the Dante compo.

It's a fantastic image, and I'm sure it's going to pick up a few votes before the voting closes.

Cheers!

Jim

Jeez. Officially: toughest compo to judge. EVAH!

As last time, snap decision to save wasting a whole morning umm-ing and ahh-ing:

3) LMS

2) Tulkas

1) 54Jones new Mean

As Emperor says, no point in doing hon menshes, since everyone deserves one, and I could have picked an entirely different set of winners who would have been equally worthy.

Many thanks to Logan for the kind words and the vote (again!) - your cheque's in the post.

Cheers!

Jim

"A rethink of how they're put together - rather than a dismissal of them altogether just because someone couldn't come up with a marketable alternative - was what was needed."

Well, they did have a go, when they changed the annuals into 'Yearbooks' and gave them soft covers.

No-one bought them, either ...

Cheers!

Jim

"Will we ever see 2000ad/ Judeg Dredd annuals again?"

The Christmas/New Year progs are the replacement for the annuals.

You might ask what the problem with the annuals (and subsequently, the 'yearbooks') was ...

I can do no better than cite the words of Andy Diggle: "No-one bought them."

Cheers!

Jim

"it remains one of DC's biggest sellers and one of the most successful graphic novels ever"

Moore did an interview not long after Watchmen and, with the candour and honesty that makes all his interviews so disarmingly charming, said something like:

"I kept getting these enormous royalty cheques [if memory serves, I'm sure he said something like £9,000 per issue] ...so I went out and bought a car an a computer and became part of the 20th century."

I'm fairly sure there's a cheque that still lands on his Northamptonshire doormat every few months that should go some way towards compensating him for not having the rights back.

Cheers!

Jim

++ENORMOUS SPOILER!++






++YOU WERE WARNED!++







:I agree that Veidt's plan is just as likely to have made mutually hostile superpowers more insular and suspicious as more cooperative and friendly."


Yes, but as I think I've mentioned on another thread ... the fact that Veidt's plan is nowhere near certain to succeed, and the final panel stands on the brink of undoing at the whim of mere chance, is central to what I think of as the point of Watchmen:

Can we only approve of Veidt's plan if it succeeds? Does the end justify the means, if the aim is both noble and successful?

Or is Rorschach's moral absolutism correct? "Never compromise, even in the face of the apocalypse" ...?

Cheers!

Jim

"its worth it, yeah?"

I nearly failed my A-levels thanks to Watchmen. On a monthly schedule, it should have finished in April ... but it slipped badly on the last three issues, with the final issue coming out smack in the middle of my exams.

I was making a special trip into town every third day to see if #12 was out yet.

If I'm honest, I think that Dark Knight has aged better, but Miller was concerned with the mythic aspects of superheros with DK, where Moore was interested in social ones. That will always make Watchmen a product of its time.

Doesn't mean Watchmen isn't worth reading, though. It's one of those things -- if you've not read it before, you'll sit there and your jaw will drop at all the post-Watchmen comics you've read that have stolen from it or imitated it, but never with the power of the original.

Cheers!

Jim

"It is not God that butchers the children, nor fate that feeds them to the dogs.

"It's us. Only us."[1]

Watchmen ... source of more quotable material than pretty much any comic book in the history of the medium.

"Do it? I'm not a Republic serial villian, Dan ... I did it twenty-five minutes ago."

Cheers!

Jim

[1] All from memory ... again: apologies for any errors, but I'm sure the sense is right!

[order is]

... Although, getting off the foodstuff topic ... my favourite mis-heard lyric is a toss-up between (not mine) 'Venus in Furs':

Tiny, tiny, tiny boots of leather ...

And the Merry Thoughts' rather splendid 'Pale Empress' (which is my mistake):

My odorous revenge ...

Followed shortly by me checking the CD inlay for the lyrics ... Ah! "My order is is revenge"

Yeah ... that makes quite a lot more sense.

Cheers!

Jim

"Popadom Preach."

Jalfrezi Little Thing Called Love. [1]

Cheers!

Jim

[1] Wasn't this a running gag on TFI Friday, or something?