To be honest, this comic was never going to win any awards. The lead strip, a 15-page story featuring the X-Men facing off against their mortal enemy, Magneto, and his army of henchmen, is a bit of a mess. Arnold Drake's script features a lot of "down with the kids", late-1960s groovy dialogue, which is often painfully over the top, but also has much heavy lifting to do as Steranko's story-telling powers seem to have deserted him, frequently leaving the dialogue and captions to fill in the blanks. This is the continuation of the previous issue's introduction of Lorna Dane's alter-ego, Polaris, who starred on the iconic cover of issue no. 50 but gets lost in the mix this time. There's a lot of mutant-on-mutant action ( spicy! ) and a minimum of coherence. Steranko's artwork itself has its moments ( he draws a foxy Marvel Girl! ) but the scratchy inking by John Tartaglione lessens its impact.
Sunday 18 February 2024
Steranko Sunday: X-Men 51
To be honest, this comic was never going to win any awards. The lead strip, a 15-page story featuring the X-Men facing off against their mortal enemy, Magneto, and his army of henchmen, is a bit of a mess. Arnold Drake's script features a lot of "down with the kids", late-1960s groovy dialogue, which is often painfully over the top, but also has much heavy lifting to do as Steranko's story-telling powers seem to have deserted him, frequently leaving the dialogue and captions to fill in the blanks. This is the continuation of the previous issue's introduction of Lorna Dane's alter-ego, Polaris, who starred on the iconic cover of issue no. 50 but gets lost in the mix this time. There's a lot of mutant-on-mutant action ( spicy! ) and a minimum of coherence. Steranko's artwork itself has its moments ( he draws a foxy Marvel Girl! ) but the scratchy inking by John Tartaglione lessens its impact.
Thursday 8 February 2024
Christopher Priest
His novels were disturbing, chilly views into unreliable realities: always technically brilliant, always thought-provoking. Priest made his name as a science fiction author with such novels as Fugue For A Darkening Island and Inverted World, but his fiction quickly moved on to become uncategorisable, nearer to the "mainstream" ( whatever that is ) but, paradoxically, further away from standard literary fiction with its seemingly-endless supply of navel-gazing. Priest's characters always seemed trapped in hostile landscapes, puzzles and mental mazes, always searching for meaning which proved to be slippery and contradictory.
Chris’s physical presence may have left us, but as readers we are lucky: a writer’s soul is immortal, instantly present and accessible through the stories, essays, criticism and novels they have left for us to find. As I said to Chris many times these past weeks and months, in this most important and essential of ways, he will always be with us. The work goes on.
Friday 26 January 2024
First gig of 2024: Dub Catalyst in Bristol
It was a fantastic gig to start the year and we're hoping to see the band again as soon as we can. In fact, only tonight the first bands were announced for this year's Wychwood Festival ( where we had such a great weekend last year ) and Dub Catalyst will be playing at that cool event in the Summer. Get your tickets now!
Tuesday 9 January 2024
Things I didn't blog about in 2023: Awesome Artwork
It's apparently a new year, so of course that means I'll start posting all the stuff I was too lazy or disorganised to post in the last year. I'll start with ( as the blog title implies ) some amazingly awesome artwork. First of all, here's a Pulp-inspired piece by the hugely-talented Mark Reynolds, whose work can be found at Stuff By Mark. He produces some cracking Pop art, drawing on influences from old movie posters and classic songs. And, unlike, many chancers who basically steal "vintage" artwork and reproduce it as their own, Mark is an imaginative, accomplished artist with a keen eye and a dry wit. After the phenomenal Pulp gig in Manchester last Summer, it was a no-brainer for me to buy this limited-edition print and give it to Sarah for her birthday. She loves the song Common People ( and Pulp songs in general ) so she was more than happy with this representation of what is possibly Jarvis Cocker's greatest line. I don't own the artwork below ( unfortunately ) but it's another of Mark's pieces, a cheeky interpretation of Pulp's Disco 2000 as an Archie comic. Isn't it great?
Monday 1 January 2024
Saturday 30 December 2023
The Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Specials
Wild Blue Yonder
After doing a splashy "Earth in danger" story, the second Special flipped to science fiction weirdness. Trapped on a giant spaceship at the very edge of the universe, Donna and the Doctor found themselves alone, without the Tardis, and up against a uniquely terrifying enemy. More or less a two-hander, this episode gave the stars a chance to bounce off each other and act their socks off, as the characters faced distorted versions of themselves. A cool concept, some very unsettling tea-time body horror, and plenty of chewy dialogue for Tennant & Tate to get their teeth into. "My arms are too long!"