• P.E.A.R.
  Paper for Emerging Architectural Research: "P.E.A.R. aims to re-establish the fanzine as a primary medium for the dissemination of architectural ideas, musings, research and works." Reminder to self that I'm at the launchparty on June 15.
  (tags:architecture magazine reminder event )

Had an incredibly good day at the THRILLING WONDER STORIES symposium at the Architectural Association. You have no idea. Just a wonderful time. Thanks again to Geoff and Liam for bringing me in, and thanks to the audience for not walking out the minute I said "It’s time for a big sweaty Englishman to drone at you about history for half an hour." Also, for not throwing me out when I got to the bit about science fiction’s subversion of context and the horrifying potentials of sf porn.

Also thanks to the guys from ICON magazine for making the interview painless. Looking forward to seeing how that turns out: me yelling about archaeoacoustics and dead bodies in the walls, Francois Roche just being a freaky genius, and Geoff Manaugh trying to find a point of sanity in the middle.

Normal service probably won’t resume here until Monday, as I think my brain is just about tapped out.

(Photo by Jones The Engineer)

• How shutting down Craigslist’s “erotic services” section hurts prostitutes and cops. - By Melissa Gira Grant - Slate Magazine
  "The most significant difference between Craigslist and a brothel is that the former voluntarily opens its "black book" of clients to police. The records Craigslist maintains on its users played a critical role in apprehending the so-called Craigslist Killer." — Melissa Gira Grant
  (tags:crime sex journalism peopleiknow )

I’m on around 4.10 pm — making me the last speaker before the final big super-discussion between all the speakers etc.

When I first saw this, in the opening few seconds, I thought it was another comedy cut of an old Nic Cage film, like the funny edits of his WICKER MAN remake. And then I thought, no, I don’t recognise these bits from anywhere… and then I thought, no, this can’t possibly be a real film…

But it is.

Will this actually be the best cop film ever made?

Reserve judgement until the very end.

…no, obviously it’s not going to be the best anything. But I bet you I watch it anyway.

1. Empty Cinemas of Peshawar, 2. Bang Bang, 3. my favourite, 4. Illustration for Sandman Slim, 5. Hunter’s Bog, 6. Guatemala: Church of Hermano Pedro

Bleeding Cool.

A new website from Rich Johnston, who ran the insanely popular Lying In The Gutters column at CBR for years. He’d argue the toss up and down, but he’s still probably the only real comics journalist the internet has yet produced. He says over on Whitechapel today:

Yesterday was the last Lying In The Gutters. But a good gossipmonger never dies. He just goes from a weekly column to a daily blogsite.

Bleeding Cool will feature everything you love and hate about Lying In The Gutters, but every day, reacting to topical news and featuring a host of columns, features, interviews, reviews, previews and…. let’s go with familiar names. Expect real innovation.

It’s funded by Avatar Press, who have promised a hands-off editorial process, but whom I’ll give an Avatar Plug Of The Week to to keep them happy.

1 June 2009.

At which point, I may as well confess that I’ll be returning to writing weekly about comics and things at bleedingcool.com.

• Sleeping with the NME: how the British music press picked up a dose of the crap
  A fine and entirely deserved beating of the NME, last shitpile standing
  (tags:music journalism )
• King Mob’s Chris Gray RIP
  "[Christopher Gray] is probably best known for his brief membership of the Situationist International and being one of the key figures in the Notting Hill (west London) based King Mob. Chris was the editor and translator of the first English language anthology of French Situationist texts Leaving The 20th Century: The incomplete works of the Situationist International (1974), a book that over a long period was to have an enormous impact."
  (tags:obituary )

From Thursday, in better comics stores. In which things are discovered and people get gun-fucked by death rays:

I have read this. It is incredibly good. It’s a self-contained single issue, and is sort of Bri’s take on my CRECY book in terms of approach. You can even read some of it here at this link. It’s out in comics stores from Thursday. You should really buy a copy.

Comics creators: got a book on release this week? Go to Whitechapel and tell us about it.

(DON’T post it in comments here. Someone does, every week. And I delete it. Ha ha.)

Everyone else: also at that link, a list of what’s in comics stores from this Thursday.

Okay, so, I’m in London on Friday speaking at the AA as part of their symposium THRILLING WONDER STORIES, an all-day event around the theme of science fiction and cities. Co-organiser Geoff Manaugh has all the details at this link here. Notables: it’s free entry, and if you keep checking back at that link, Geoff will eventually update it with details of the planned live stream.

I don’t know what time I’m on.

It’s Wednesday, I’m backed up with work, and I still have no idea what I’m going to talk about because bloody editors won’t leave me alone.

Check out that line-up, though.

"Organic knuckledusters!"

(I love that Modblog now use the category tag of Totally getting snagged by Warren Ellis.)

1. Doctor Jesus (Guatemala), 2. From the underbelly of the dark wet world, 3. souvenirs for that special someone, 4. The bastard child of industry, 5. The Great Wall in the rain, 6. Henry in Heaven

Just barely starting the week at my internet hovel:

* Post-London MCM Comics Expo Thing - portmortem of this past weekend’s event.

* REMAKE/REMODEL: The Gadget Man - this week’s art challenge. A terrific piece already in from Annie Wu, among others…

* The Self Portrait Imagethread (May09) - the male nudity had to be stopped before we started to feel the clammy horror of one of the participants draping his testicles on our foreheads. Sorry, Suraya.

* Comics Shipping This Week (28may09) — the list, with a few indications from me as to what’s worth looking for.

It’s Tuesday. You’re all back at work. And you want something to read, don’t you? DON’T YOU? Course you bloody do.

I read a chunk of Jake Harold’s JUSTINE TYME at MCM in print form, but it’s all on the web too:

One day you’re with your friends at school, going about your normal life, then the next you wake up in a strange forest being chased by dinosaurs. Oh, and you have a robot arm for some reason. Isn’t that the lifestyle of every 15 year old girl? No? Justine didn‘t think so either…

Jon Scrivens’ LITTLE TERRORS is an oddly, blackly funny horror-action epic:

Fitsworth, England. A small commuter town just outside London, not exactly the first place you think of when you hear of epic battles again hordes of undead corpses, Trolls, zombie bears and evil monks…

Both highly entertaining ways to waste your employers’ time and money today. You’re welcome.

• The “I Can Read Movies” Series - a set on Flickr
  "a graphic designer who, for fun, designed vintage looking bookcovers for recent movies, as though it were cover art for a movie tie-in book… "
  (tags:design )

Crossposted from Bad Signal:

bad signal
ME

So the MCM Expo signing in Comics Village there ran a total of two and a half hours or so. I started before 1pm — after a comically nightmarish journey from Southend that involved a 40-quid cab ride in order to get there at all — and finished up a hair before 4pm, with a break in the middle because I hadn’t yet had time to eat that day.

Was NOT expecting that many people. Not far off the sort of crowd I draw in the States, in fact.

I note that already there’s one guy complaining on his blog that I was hardly there at all and all I did was, you know, sign people’s comics. But I was only going to be there for an afternoon, and I had no idea there’d already be a line camped out for me. Didn’t want people to have to wait any longer than was necessary.

Two FREAKANGELS KKs, and one FREAKANGELS Miki, complete with lab coat, showed up. No Spider Jerusalems, for the first time in years. I guess the old fuckhead’s finally retired.

Nice vibe to the place. Reminded strongly of the early UKCAC shows. Will write more on this later in the week.

Organised brilliantly by Emma Vieceli and Anna Petterson.

And, christ, I got to see Gary Erskine, Al Davison and Liam Sharp for the first time in fucking years, which was delightful. Met a load of the new minicomics/webcomics guys, like Jon Scrivens and Jake Harold (and yes many others but I’m not sitting here all day typing).

Also Jamie McKelvie was there. You can’t have everything, after all.

– W

I can’t get there, as I’m off to Dundee that day, but the indiecomics event LUC 176 should be on the calendar for anyone in reach of London. Obviously, many of you should go along just to pelt the ubiquitous Gillen & McFamous McKelvie with stale food (which they will later pick up and eat anyway), but likely lads such as Ellerby, Scrivens and Harold are also on hand.  And they’d probably not say no to a bit of stale food either.

Okay, recap:

I’m at the London MCM Expo tomorrow, in the Comics Village area from about 1pm. I’m aiming for noon, but, you know, I work late and get up late, so let’s assume I’ll shamble in around one.

I will sign stuff, but two warnings:

1) If you turn up with a cart full of everything I’ve done (and this has happened before) waiting to be signed, I will laugh at you and then have you beaten up by security. Seriously. At one show, a guy conscripted his brother to pull the other cart. Pick five things you like and I’ll be delighted to sign them. Bring a hundred things and I will not be pleased to see you.

2) I’ll sign five items, at a go, but I’ve managed to bugger up my left wrist through (I don’t know how) sleeping on it, so if you’re one of the people who likes to drop a stack of wrapped, bagged, sealed, taped books on my table and then expect me to do all the unwrapping and rewrapping… well, that’s not going to happen, and if you give me shit about it I’m going to tell you to fuck off to Tesco’s if all you really wanted at my table was someone to do your packing for you. And then I’ll have you beaten up by security.

I am mostly just there to chat to people, have Swedish girls bring me whisky, and to fashion a new bionic arm for Emma Vieceli out of whatever’s laying around. And to throw shit at Gillen and Ellerby. [EDITED TO ADD: Gillen isn’t there on the Sat, apparently. Will have to throw stuff at Gary Erskine instead. And someone asked: I imagine I’ll be gone by 5.]

Check the travel advisories I left for you.

I am told that you can "alight at Canning Town to transfer to regular and direct shuttle bus services to the main west entrance of ExCeL. This journey will take approximately 4-5 minutes. Buses will depart from bays B and D of Canning Town bus station. This direct shuttle service will operate to and from ExCeL between 0700-1900."

This week’s Remake/Remodel thread at Whitechapel was chugging along happily, trying to make sense out of a tiny description of an obscure 1940s character:

Sharon Kane is the sworn enemy of all criminals. Her specially designed bracelets eject spider webbing. Her boyfriend is a detective named Mike O’Bell.

And then Ryan Kelly, Pia Guerra and Paul Sizer came in overnight and just owned pretty much everybody.

Ryan Kelly is the illustrator of LOCAL, a teacher, and currently illustrating a NORTHLANDERS sequence:

Pia Guerra is the illustrator of Y THE LAST MAN:

Paul Sizer is the creator of the graphic novel BPM.

A random selection from the music that’s been living on my laptop this week.

1. "need we say more", 2. Surveillance in Manchester, 3. Turinese band sticker, 4. Mobile CCTV, 5. Coalescing cross-sections through the possibility jellyfish, 6. BB102

…keep an eye on this site. Planned London public transport engineering work for the weekend. If you’re still unsure of what route to take, try the TFL Journey Planner.

I’m there Saturday afternoon only, from around noon (which probably means 1pm), in the Comics Village area of the Expo.

• MI6 urged Churchill to nuke Berlin - Telegraph
  "It was even suggested that Churchill would raise the idea of using the bomb, which had been in development in the United States since 1942, with Franklin Roosevelt, the American president."
  (tags:war spy )

New Scientist has the details:

I love the energy of Ash’s SURVIVE!! serial.

ODYSSEUS THE REBEL, by old friend Steven Grant and Scott Bieser, is working its way from web serialisation to print publication this autumn.

YON KUMA, by Josh Hechinger and Jorge Munoz, is, in Jorge’s own words "about a kid who wrestles bears." BEARS!

I’m reading Simon Reynolds’ TOTALLY WIRED at the moment, a compendium of the interviews he conducted for the highly recommended RIP IT UP AND START AGAIN, a history of post-punk. (At the same time as I’m re-reading Paul Morley’s WORDS AND MUSIC and picking through zttaat.com.) And this morning I read the interview with Green Gartside aka Scritti Politti — who seems to have mellowed significantly, and provides a warm and fascinating memoir of the times — and realise I haven’t listened to "Asylums In Jerusalem" in ages. I still have it on vinyl downstairs somewhere.

I remember that, at the time, it seemed a deeply peculiar thing. Didn’t sound a bit like earlier Scritti Politti. Didn’t sound a bit like the New Pop, to my limited ears, although it bore clear signs of having come from the same places. I’ve always loved this song the best of all Green’s work, much as I admire the perfect pop of his most commercially successful phase. This is the sweetest thing: a song about crazy people.

1. The Civilian Industrial Complex, 2. Sand, wind, cloud, 3. What do you see? Yahoo vandalising Greenwich!, 4. Can I Get a Bot Bot?, 5. obey the law, 6. Chains

So there’s this series coming out in the last half of 2009 called SUPERGOD:

And it’s one of the odder things I’ve written, I think. Someone made the mistake of asking me for another superhero-mode comic, and I suspect maybe since I returned to that subgenre something important in my brain developed moss on it or something. Here’s a piece of my notes on the book, for a sequence in issue #2:

China began designing their own superhuman soon after, but didn’t have the tech for Megareactor Buddha’s Spine until 1990. Nominally, PRC is atheist, but the old religions never went away, and a surprising number of Chinese state scientists still think in terms of qi. The superhuman Maitreya was a subject enveloped by scanning tunnelling microscopes wired into his visual cortex, forced to meditate upon his own atomic structure until he could perceive the quantum foam of every particle of his being birthing and annihilating under the uncertainty principle. His emergence into superhumanity was heralded by the impossible light of zero point energy accessed from the spaces between virtual particles. The Chinese filled a warehouse with political prisoners and told Maitreya to kill them, to demonstrate his power over spacetime and matter. He instead fashioned them into a vast musical instrument of entrancingly beautiful tone. Then configured all the assembled soldiers and scientists into a self-supporting worm-like structure and fired them into space with/through the musical instrument, where they journeyed as a biological probe of brains linked in parallel that reported information about the solar system back to Maitreya via quantum entanglement until the structure, starting to break up, was identified as comet Shoemaker-Levy and eventually smacked into the surface of Jupiter.