Remember, remember.
Was looking for this graphic all night. Found it at the Forbidden Planet blog.Labels: alanmoore, comics, guyfawkes
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:: Tuesday, October 20, 2009 ::
Waltzer the Softy
I love the internet. I love blogs, forums, tweets and even regular old websites. But there is still something magical about the written word printed on paper and lovingly bound for your delight. The smell of fresh ink on paper, can't see me sniffing a kindle somehow.
So great news that the Greatest Living Englishman Alan Moore is bringing out a new magazine in November. Dodgem Logic sounds from his description to be somewhere between Leo Baxendale era Beano and Oz. Which sounds great to me.
In a terrific interview on the mighty Mustard website Alan opines: "We want to provide something that is going to illuminate the rather dismal times that we are currently going through – and which I tend to suspect will be getting a lot worse – as well as giving people some practical information. Whether that’s under the rubric of our recipe pages, DIY clothing pages, articles on squatting or the more political articles. To keep people informed in a way the conventional media doesn’t do anymore."
I really cannot wait to read Dodgem Logic and it sounds exactly what Alan should be doing.
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:: Tuesday, December 30, 2008 ::
Doomski
A Russian former diplomat and academic is causing some anxiety in the US with his prediction that the republic will fall apart in 2010 (no nothing to do with the Scottish independence referendum.) The Wall Street Journal report that Igor Panarin's predictions are beginning to be taken seriously by Russian state media.
"California will form the nucleus of what he calls "The Californian Republic," and will be part of China or under Chinese influence. Texas will be the heart of "The Texas Republic," a cluster of states that will go to Mexico or fall under Mexican influence. Washington, D.C., and New York will be part of an "Atlantic America" that may join the European Union. Canada will grab a group of Northern states Prof. Panarin calls "The Central North American Republic." Hawaii, he suggests, will be a protectorate of Japan or China, and Alaska will be subsumed into Russia.
"It would be reasonable for Russia to lay claim to Alaska; it was part of the Russian Empire for a long time." A framed satellite image of the Bering Strait that separates Alaska from Russia like a thread hangs from his office wall. "It's not there for no reason," he says with a sly grin."
Personally it sounds like the basis of a great novel or possibly HBO mini-series although Sarah Palin might not like to watch it.
It is also not unlike the plot to Brian Wood's terrific DMZ.Labels: brianwood, comics, dmz, omgtheendoftheworld
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:: Sunday, August 19, 2007 ::
Pulped
Ian Rankin, Denise Mina, Alan Grant
Edinburgh Book Festival. Friday 17th August 2007.
‘Graphic Novels, literature or pulp fiction.
Both Denise Mina and Ian Rankin are of course well known and highly successful novelists writing in the crime genre. Recently both have been tempted to take on a writing gig with DC Comics’ Vertigo imprint. Mina has already had a 13 issue run on ‘John Constantine – Hellblazer’ and Rankin is to start writing the title. Both also have creator owned projects due to come out. Ian Rankin is certainly not scared to stray into unfamiliar cultural areas, his comics project comes after a recent stab at writing lyrics in the Ballad of the Book project. Veteran comics writer and editor Alan Grant who has written for everything from the Courier to 2000 AD joined them for this book panel. He was writer on Batman when it was selling a million copies an issue although it was his tales of writing the horoscopes for the Courier that probably took the audience prize for best anecdote. Grant is from Midlothian, making it an all-Scottish panel.
In contrast to Grant’s forty years in the business, Ian Rankin’s experience in comics amounts to a recent appearance in Oor Wullie. Although he has been a life-long reader and managed to slip a reference to Watchmen into early stories. He admitted that writing comics is a different discipline. Crime fiction is taken relatively seriously in the UK at least, but comics are not. There is nothing in Britain yet to approach France’s Angouleme festival or the massive sales of the Japanese market.
So why are comic publishers looking to writers like Rankin and Mina? Alan Grant reckoned it was down to plummeting sales in the comics market. He referenced the boom of the early 90’s when sales were in the millions. That boom was unsustainable, being based on speculation that would never pay off.
Among the differences noted between comics and novel-writing were the way writers were treated in the comics world. Comics publishers keep the copyright on all their writers creations, something unheard of in the world of the novel and Alan Grant had a few tales of his attempts to challenge this through the NUJ.
So, literature or pulp fiction? Well, both. Dickens was a pulp writer after all.Labels: comics, edinburghfestival
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