Avast!

Well shiver me comics timbers, me hearties, it has been a hard week's sailing on the Quantum Pig's Revenge, also known as the Good Ship FPI, as me and me buckoes Crowbar and Paul (fellow F P Irates, if you see what I mean) labour away at the mainsail of comics and cult booty. Lots of new titles from big publishers to go on, catalogue titles to plan out and the third week celebrating UK talent for British Comics Month on the work blog. More British independent comics folk signed up and onto our site as well, which is terrific - probably not a huge-selling area compared to say marvel or DC titles, but is good to give them a chance on the site; besides I've been really surprised with the diverse nature of what is on offer from the self-publishing lot.

It varies from very roughly done to work which looks very professional, but they all offer something a bit different and as many of them offer webstrips of their work on their sites its well worth checking them out, especially as they are pretty low-cost so you can afford to take a chance - we're doing free postage on them to encourage readers (the Indy folks signed up so far all have their sites listed under British Small press in the FPI blog's links section). I think more folks would take a chance on the Indy titles if they were aware of them, so here's hoping it does raise their visibility. When I am a bit less broke I think I am going to have to have a look at some more of them myself.

As part of British Comics Month we've been running articles on that theme on the FPI blog each working day, which as you can imagine, is a pretty heavy load but also fun. So there is quite a bit of postings on there, from personal reminiscences of comics past from myself, top British SF author James Lovegrove, articles on creators (my chum Padraig did a good one on Alan Moore) and interviews, including an interview I did with Euan Kerr, head honcho of the Beano (how cool was that? Talking to the man who is on first name terms with Dennis the Menace and the Bash Street Kids!), an unusual ‘discussion’ with several of the British Indy comics folks and just this week a Q&A with Leah Moore and John Reppion about the brilliant Albion series (thanks guys!) - you can see more of what writers and artists say by checking the interviews category on the blog.

All of which has been tiring and frantic on top of the regular stuff, but enjoyable (plus it is good to be in a post where you can do different things and innovate); however we had a visual highlight of the week in the form of this fantastic ad we had for the FPI blog and podcast in the new issues of Comics International, drawn by one of the best cartoonists in the UK, Hunt Emerson. I’ve had this pic for a while and been dying to show it to you all, but obviously had to wait until it appeared in the journal first. How cool is that? I’ve always wanted to be a cartoon character and now I am one! Yo, ho, ho and a bottle of… er, well don’t care much for rum, think I’ll stick to the Bowmore single malt (even pirates have a palette you know). If you check the work blog you can see some of the rough drafts of the ad as well.

Jan's vid

Boing Boing posted a link to the man the Brothers Quay referred to as the Prague Alchemist of Film, Jan Svankmajer and some uploads of his Food series, which combines claymation and live action (as much of his work does, such as his feature films Faust or his amazing Alice in Wonderland). Svankmajer has long been one of my all-time favourite animator for his astonishing and often disturbing work.

Sleepy kitten

Between tsunamis and one bunch of nutters having a go at another bunch of nutters and managing only to kill civilians I thought instead of commenting I'd just post some nice pictures to remind us there are still good things around.




Window open so she can go out, now she'd rather curl up in her little window bench and enjoy a quiet nap. After playing for 20 minutes any cat needs a good lie-down on a hot day.




Love the way she covers her face with those dainty little paws - damned paparazzi, no more pictures! Or perhaps she is doing her "I vant to be alone, darlink" thing.





Meanwhile her equally sleepy cousins catch a nap, with Cassie using her sister Pandora as her personal pillow/teddy bear and snuggling into her.




Ohhhh, warm sunbeam to lie in, perfect... If only I remembered where my sunglasses were...


And now for something completely different...




Some space hopper fun at a recent BBQ - I didn't know you could now get adult-sized space hopper racing sets with three hoppers and even a whistle to start the race!



Short of deck chairs at your barbie? Use space hoppers! Oh, and nice legs :-)




Trust Mel's cousin Sharon to end up in a rude pose...




Ready, steady... And they're off! Forget the Cheltenam Gold Cup, the Garden Beer Bottle is a far more enjoyable race.




Badoing, badoing!!!! Does this make my bum look big?




"Girl, I want too bounce with you, all day and all of the night..."

Slow blood, slow day

Right after I got a reminder card to say I could come in to donate again in a couple of weeks I got a letter from the Blood Donor folks saying they were extremely short of my group and could I come in ASAP, which is pretty much what happened a few months back when I last went in. Nice to be popular for something, I suppose :-). Since the clinic is open late on Thursdays I thought I may as well drop in on the way home and donate a pint; imagine my surprise at finding it absolutely full of people. I don't think I've ever seen so many folks in at the same time to donate blood and obviously that is terrific. Although it did mean that I was there for ages because of the amount, then my blood kept coming out very slowly, setting off the alarms on the machine. After much fiddling with the damned big needle in my arm (ouch) to no avail the older nurse comes over, makes one adjustment and presto (no substitute for experience); guess it is like tapping a keg, got to do it just right to get it to flow. Thus endeth my good deed for the week. And despite how busy it was that night, I'd still encourage anyone who has been thinking about it to give it a try, they always need more donations (especially when the Transylvannian tourists come to town). Plus you always get a Tunnock's Teacake at the end of it :-).



On Saturday Mel and I piled into Gordon's car along with Bruce and his happily wagging tale, headed out over a sparkling Forth, across the bridge and into a very sunny Fife (as you can see from the pic, it looks like half of Edinburgh was heading over for the day as well). Mel's brother Alan had a loan of a big caravan for the weekend and since we were heading over into Fife to make the most of an incredibly hot summer day and to let Bruce run about daft on a beach we thought we may as well go visit him. We knew he was staying near one of the small towns near the sea so we thought we'd take the coast road, which is a lot slower but we knew it would go pretty close to his site and besides it's just a lovely route, especially on such a bright, summer day.



Up and along the coast of Fife, through Burnt Island and keep going, following that coastal road which goes up large hills with drops on one side and fabulous views of the sea sparkling away below and then down again into valleys, sea still on one side, just beyond soft, golden-sandy beaches, on the landward side fields rich with summer crops, hay gathered and stacked. After meeting Alan we headed down into nearby Lower Largo, past the 'birthplace' of Robinson Crusoe and a good walk on the beach, some splashing around and, of course, ice creams (hey hot summer day on the beach and no ice creams just wouldn't be right, would it now?). In the pub carpark we spotted an utterly gorgeous Harley; immaculate, its chrome shining like mirrors in the sunlight. Harleys may be very slow and handle terribly compared to European and Japanese bikes, but by god they look fantastic and they sound like real motorbikes.



The big caravan had a large open deck on the front, raised up to take in the view, so we we parked our butts out there, right under a big, 'ole tree with a view across the fields and trees right out to the sea. Sun slanting through the leaves, cool jazz playing on the radio, sea breeze cooling us; the long grass in the fallow field swaying gently, birds darting in and out of the trees. And us just sitting back, sipping a cold one and utterly relaxing. A long outdoor meal and more to drink with that view there; hours slip past as we chat and drink and chill. Ten o'clock comes and goes and it is still light here; the shadows had grown until they stretched the length of the field in front of us - at this time of year the Scottish twilight lasts for hours. The sky had been a pure arc of light blue, now the sunset added bands and splashes of colour, reds, pinks, oranges, like an Impressionist painting while the cooler air of evening and the last of the sun created gossamer mists out across the sea, while the water went from a sparkling blue to a copper mirror. Utterly beautiful and just what we all needed after a long, hard week.



By the time we headed home to Edinburgh the sky was mostly a dark blue but still with the light blue glow in the northern sky which never gets dark. Back across the Forth, looking over to the nearby Rail Bridge, a masterpiece of Victorian engineering, standing floodlit across the estuary like an iron sea monster; the river was so millpond-calm it made an almost perfect dark mirror, reflecting the bridge and the lights of nearby Queensferry (and the pub where our young hero is taken in Kidnapped) on the black surface. I'm suddenly distracted from my view by a cold, wet nose next to my ear as Bruce wakes up and needs some attention, big doggy head resting on my shoulder. Beach, ice cream, dining al fresco, booze, gorgeous views, good chums and a big friendly mutt, what a perfect day. Why don't we have more days like that?

Super radio

I'm going to be on BBC Scotland's Radio Cafe programme, some time between 1 and 2pm (same programme I did the V for Vendetta piece for back in the spring, should be archived for a few days) to talk about Superman Returns. I caught the press screening last weekend (why did we have to wait ten days longer than the US???) and absolutely loved it. That John Williams theme from the Chris Reeve's era movies (surely one of the most recognisable pieces of film music, up there with the Star Wars and Godfather themes) came up, the 70s style titles and I was just in fanboy heaven - this was a film that pleased the ten year old me who remember those older films and pleased the grown up me now, something Lucas so badly failed to do with the newer Star Wars movies.

And the good thing is that you don't have to be a fanboy - this a big budget, summer blockbuster with spectacular effects (as it should with that budget) but it also has a great emotional core and you don't need to know about the older films and comics to get it all. I will be going back to see it again. I've posted a short review over on the FPI blog the other day.

Paul's mobile blog

My mate and colleague Paul has just started his own blog, but being a fancy tech-geek is doing a mobile blog from his cell phone. Ohhh, get him! Paul is also one of the hard-rocking dudes from the Jet City Rednecks, who I've mentioned on here several times. As well as their main site JCR now have a MySpace site where you can check out their rock music and also got featured on Channel 4's site recently (nice!).

Another one from Jeff

Jeff has posted another video (he's getting more and more excited about the forthcoming Shriek movie, as indeed am I). This one is by way of a learning experiment as Jeff explains, rather like a book on tape with illustrations, taken from the City of Saints and Madmen collection, which regulars here will remember me extolling last year (think on a book somewhere between Jorge Luis Borges and Mervyn Peak, absolutely brilliant, sometimes disturbing and often funny).