…dogs have a greater eco-footprint than gas-guzzling SUVs.

See? SEE?

I think we can all agree that I should have been given The South Bank Show after Melvyn Bragg retired from it. If nothing else, it is way past time that the serious arts media gave coverage to those elements of the Japanese film industry that produce such inventive, beautifully designed and thematically muscular works as The Octopus Invades the Vagina, The Fish That Has is Crunched And The Wound is Received [sic] and The Eel and Loach to Attack in Lasciviousness are Insane [sic].

You don’t really want to search those terms from work. Which is why one requires the piercing artistic gaze of a South Bank Show to discover and present such items for the engaged viewer’s consideration. Frankly, I’m the only real choice to replace Bragg when he retires…

So it’s been confirmed that the wonderful Helen Mirren — a good old Southend girl, don’t you know — has joined the cast of the film adaptation of me’n'Cully’s graphic novel RED. So the top of the cast is now Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman and Helen Mirren. Which is a little surreal. They’ve also set a release date, which I think is 2 November 2010. So we’re a year away from seeing it. Shooting starts in January, in Toronto and New Orleans, I believe.

And BLACK SUMMER is now in development, with Ryne Pearson writing the adaptation. He wrote the recent KNOWING, which I haven’t seen, but which I know made its money back. Pearson’s a novelist by trade, according to the internet. Also, according to the internet, a man of devout religious conviction. Just as well SUMMER doesn’t contain any of my usual atheist ravings. And no, I have no idea if the death of an American President will be retained in the script. It’s theirs to play with, no. I imagine I’ll be talking to them in the near future.

And next week I’m on the phone with Legendary to get GRAVEL moving.

PLANETARY Volume 4 now has a subtitle: SPACETIME ARCHAEOLOGY. I understand that ABSOLUTE PLANETARY Vol 2 is also being prepared right now.

(I should actually write a new work FAQ. There’s one on Whitechapel that hasn’t been updated in a month or so. So I’ll add here: FELL moves along slowly, DESOLATION JONES remains on hold for various reasons, NEWUNIVERSAL will get finished up next year once Steve and I are past ARMOR WARS, I have no idea what the state of the CASTLEVANIA animated property is, and, in general, assume that a prolific career of many projects contains several that have just run into trouble or stalled out because, guess what, shit happens. And no, I never got my dead computer back. That’s a tale in itself, which includes the guy who was trying to repair it dying on an operating table.)

Buy my book please?

Back to something like normal broadcasting today. But first, something to eat, and then to the pub.

(Image: Agent Redhead, photography by Beth Anderson)

SHIVERING SANDS is 176 pages long, and costs USD $15.54. Go to http://www.electrophonic.net and click on the book title to be taken to the order page. Or, hell, just click right through to the Lulu page. You’ll also find a book preview there, a dozen pages or so.

All books are sold through and mailed by Lulu. We touch nothing. This is the most useful thing about POD houses like Lulu: they handle everything once we upload the book file. So any questions about shipping will have to be handled through the Lulu FAQs. We can tell you that Ariana, in California, got her proof copy within five working days. We’re printing with an international standard size that means your copy will be printed as physically close to you as possible, rather than everything being shipped from the States.

Ariana — who designs much of my Avatar Press work, like AETHERIC MECHANICS — has outdone herself on the book. It’s beautiful. Even though making a collection like this beautiful is like being presented with a young and very well dressed mental patient.

Brief notes: no plans yet for a digital edition: no, it won’t be in bookstores: no, I can’t sell or send you a signed copy: I have no copies of the book, they’re all sold through Lulu: we don’t set shipping prices: no intent to sell it through Amazon. There. Thanks for your attention.

Blogging, reblogging and twittering is encouraged, if not openly begged for.

I am being played off tonight by NEU! and the phenomenal "Fur Immer." Been dragging out, dusting off and re-playing all my Krautrock since watching a pretty good documentary on those days by the BBC. I shouldn’t call it Krautrock, mind you, they didn’t like that term…

G’night.

And you can stream it here.

Fused together, they make a sound that approaches, particularly in the later tracks, a sort of Berserker Mushroom Viking Meditation. It flows like river water on the verge of freezing, under a sky that is very slowly exploding, and your heart is hammering but the drone of the world is still and all-emcompassing.

Should probably have been a Night Music entry.

* The Starry Wisdom Of Warren 3nov09 - my daily notes on what I’m up to, and what (or if) I’m thinking about.

* REMAKE/REMODEL: Kardak The Mystic - this week’s challenge for artists, all are welcome to play

* The Self-Portrait Imagethread (Nov 2009)

* Netlabels - a rolling list of the ones we like. If you’re running a netlabel, feel free to stop in.

* Comics Shipping This Week (Nov 4) - the list

* NaNoWriMo 2009 - a support thread for the people participating this year.

And SHIVERING SANDS goes live tomorrow.

(Also, I want to post more music, which will probably make most of you go “oh god no.”)

More in a bit. My fingers are freezing up out here.

Grouper - Hold the Way from Weston Currie on Vimeo.

Through this website and this Cafe Press store, we’re going to release one t-shirt a week. It’ll go live on Monday… and it’ll die Sunday night — midnight UK time, more often than not. Each one lives for a week, and then it’s replaced by the next week’s shirt. Until I either run out of dumb ideas or Ariana’s brain explodes.

So, every Monday, I’ll post the new shirt here, and you can peer at it more at http://www.cafepress.com/electrophonic.

Anyway. I present to you T-Shirt Of The Week #002: HUMAN BACON:

We also offer a couple of perennial items. Mostly because I wanted one of these for myself:

(And also a MAN COOK MEAT WITH FIRE "splatter-shield", because Ariana’s crazy)

Thank you for your kind attention.

THE CLOCK IS TICKING.

Newly minted banner Vigilante Entertainment is launching operations by developing Warren Ellis’ comicbook series "Black Summer" with Ryne Pearson ("Knowing") tapped to adapt.

"Summer," published by Avatar Press in 2007, centers on superhero team the Seven Guns, a group of scientist-adventurers who modified their own bodies for street-fighting in order to take back their West Coast city from a corrupt police force, criminal local government and rapacious private security forces.

BLACK SUMMER remains available as a single graphic novel collection from better comics stores and, of course, Amazon.

1. Hween2, 2. Trick or Treat 1, 3. Halloween 2009, 4. Dr Who, 5. Happy Halloween, 6. Happy Halloween!

It’s just gone to a third printing, so all your decent bookstores and your Amazons will have it. I think that, in the US, Barnes & Noble are doing a special promotion with it for another week.

(photo by Cait Kittredge)