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Welcome indeed!

What we need is an official guide - a who's who if you will. I mean, who's the grumpy bloke in the helmet in the middle?

Yes very sad news about a fellow Staffordshire lad.

Gorgeous art from my favourite artist - brilliant!

A true artistic genius. Giger depicted the monstrous and the mysterious in ways that had never been seen before  or since.

A very impressive fan film and shot in only three days;

http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2014/05/akira-live-action-fan-trailer-shows-how-to-level-neo-tokyo/

Thanks for that Goaty I haven't heard about that interview before.

A truly great actor. I can remember as a kid watching a series of shorts he made for the beeb in the seventies promoting adult education. He put in fine performances in Pennies From Heaven, Mona Lisa and Twenty Four Seven. To witness an actor at his best watch the last scene in The Long Good Friday. Without a word, Hoskins expressed so many emotions; rage disbelief regret fear and hopelessness. A sad loss for drama and us all.

I loved it. As a fan of the Cohen brothers, I was relieved to find that they had continued the off-beat tempo and dark humour from the movie. Freeman plays the unassuming, beaten down Lester with ease. Thornton is wonderful. It would be all too easy to over-act in such a role but he gives a sublime performance; brooding and menacing but shot through with mischievous humour.

Classics.

It's a real shame that we've lost such a great author that was so closely linked to 2000ad.

Here's the guest list (which will invariably grow as we approach next weekend):

http://www.memorabilia.co.uk/birmingham/guests/mediaguests/

(Forgive me if the link doesn't work as posting on a kindle can be a pain in the arse!)

I haven't been to Memorabilia in years and I'm thinking of going next weekend. I've only ever been on the Sunday but there's always the feeling that a lot more goes on the Saturday than the Sunday. Is it worth changing days? The kids will be with us so entertainment/anti-boredom activities are an absolute must.

Fiends Of The Eastern Front springs to mind when considering strips that creeped me out as a kid. Ezquerra' s b&w artwork gave the story a gritty and yet haunting atmosphere.
Who could forget Death? The Superfiend is a figure of pure horror; gothic, macabre, part-spirit part-cadaver and all bastard.
I remember those Future Shocks that gnawed at the nerve like teeth on bone, 'Food' for instance. There were some  stories that were not blood and guts scary but still haunting all the same. I particularly recall 'The Symbiote' from the 1978 annual. It was a tale of loss, love and sorrow. The Ro-Busters story 'Bax The Burner' by Moore and Dillion had a similar effect on me.
(On the subject of horror and 2000ad, I can't help but mention the look of absolute fear on my parent's faces as they took a peek at the new comic their sons were raving about. From Whizzer and Chips to dinosaurs feasting on cowboys and polar bears chomping down on CIA agents in one fell swoop!)

Shirley Temple Black (what a wonderful name) was one of Hollywood's survivors. Yes her career crashed when her age became impossible to hide but she never really faded into obscurity and went into the only business more self-infatuated than Tinsel Town - politics.