Britain Worst

I woke up this morning worried about my country.

For those not aware, next week we vote on whether the United Kingdom should remain part of the European Union or if it should leave. As of this morning, polls suggested a victory for the leave campaign; that's what had me worried.

The campaign has been a shameful mess, with both sides wailing and gnashing and scaremongering, drowning out those who would try to present the facts. Underneath everything there seems to be a deep-seated distrust of foreigners, whether it's "unelected" European bureaucrats or waves of refugees migrants. It's ugly, and it hasn't shown the British people, media, or politicians in a good light.

Yesterday, there was a ridiculous display as a failed politician -- supporting the leave campaign -- and a grumpy old musician -- representing the remain camp -- had a little naval engagement on the Thames. It was absurd and embarrassing, and seemed the perfect encapsulation of what a shambles the whole referendum has become.

Meanwhile, there's some sort of sporting tournament happening in France, and the good old English fans are chanting about leaving the EU during the matches, and then are smashing up French towns afterwards. Oh, and they're abusing refugee children in the street. Great job, lads.

I'm not one for feeling national pride; in fact I'm a bit distrustful of and uncomfortable around it, and I don't really identify with any country. It's just some dirt you live on, after all. That said, yesterday I did feel national shame.

Then today some wazzock shot and stabbed MP Jo Cox while she was meeting her constituents, shouting "Britain First" as he did it. In the coming days we will discover if the murderer is in fact connected to the subliterate hate group of that name, or if it's just a depressing coincidence. Either way, a woman was killed by stupid, ugly nationalism today.

I woke up this morning worried about my country. I go to bed tonight disgusted by it.

The Fantastic Iron Man

From today's Torygraph:

The US Federal Appeals Court ruled yesterday that the heirs of comic book artist Jack Kirby had no rights to characters such as the Fantastic Four (pictured) and the Hulk and which are now owned by Marvel Entertainment, a Walt Disney subsidiary.

Well, you can forgive them for not knowing who Iron Man is, I suppose. He's quite an obscure character after all.

The Future Is Not So Much Dark, But Boring (Part 2)

Remember UFO: Enemy Unknown -- or X-COM if you're a Colonial -- that great strategy game that took the mechanics of the wonderful Laser Squad and bolted them on to a setting not altogether dissimilar to Gerry Anderson's UFO? It was quite popular.

Just like Syndicate it's coming back! Just like Syndicate it's coming back as a first-person shooter.

Sigh.

The Future Is Not So Much Dark, But Boring

I was, for just a moment, excited that there's a new Syndicate game on the way, as the original was one of my favourites back in the day. I had most fun running around the cities and using the Persuadertron to brainwash every living thing. So, yes, excited. Then I read the article and saw the screenshots and, oh look, it's another first-person shooter -- or Doom-clone as we called them in the old days -- and that's killed my interest stone dead. What's wrong with the video game industry these days? Why the chronic lack of imagination?

As It Should Be

Inadequate

People are literally fighting for their freedom on the streets of Egypt. People are being beaten and shot just for demanding the right to vote. And David Cameron comes out with:

These are despicable scenes that we’re seeing and they should not be repeated. They underline the need for political reform and, frankly, for that political reform to be accelerated and to happen quickly. We need to see a clear road map for that political reform so that people in Egypt can have confidence that their aspirations for a more democratic future with greater rights is met, and that change needs to start happening now and the violence needs to stop.

It's cowardly, non-committal garbage, utterly inadequate in the face of events. For better or worse — no prizes for guessing where I stand — you are the leader of this nation, Cameron. Start acting like one.

Where in the World?

The old laptop on which I'm typing this right now has seen better days. It should have been replaced a long time ago, but I was reluctant to splurge on a new machine, so I staved off the inevitable with some more memory. Then the hard drive failed, then the power supply began to fail, then the USB ports began to fail, and it became clear that the poor thing was heading for a complete system implosion.

So just after Chrimble, I decided to take the plunge and took advantage of the sales to buy a new laptop. Free delivery within three days, they promised, which was dead handy as I had the week between Chrimble and New Year off. Such are the --meagre-- joys of working in education. I paid my money, and got a confirmation email, so far so good.

A day later I got another email saying that I should expect delivery. I was a bit concerned, as I was told that they would specify the method of delivery in the email, but there was nothing of the sort. Three days passed and there was no delivery, and we were heading into the New Year weekend, so I sent an email to the company to ask if they could let me know what was going on. Update me they did, but more of that in a bit; all in all I had a sinking feeling that it was going to be delivered after I'd gone back to work, and so the endless dance of "Sorry You Were Out" cards would begin.

The night before my first day back I got an email -- from the delivery company -- to say that the computer would be shipped overnight, and they gave me a tracking number. Why they couldn't have shipped it overnight the day I bought it, I don't know. Sure enough, upon checking the tracking number the next morning I saw that it was on its way, and might even arrive before I left for work.

At the office, I checked the tracking site a number of times during the day, discovering that they had delivered the item just after lunch -- five hours after it set out from the depot -- but that there was no answer at my flat -- because I was at work, checking the tracking website -- so it had been returned to the depot. I then received a reply to my email from a few days before, saying that they'd delivered it but no one was home. Excellent customer service there.

I knew how this was going to go, so instead of attempting to rearrange delivery, I requested that it be held at the depot, and I would just go and get it myself. I'd be losing the free delivery, but the money spent getting to the depot would be a tenth of the amount saved by buying online, so it would still work out in my favour.

So this morning, I got up early with a plan to nip over to the depot, get the package, and get back in time for work. The first bit worked. I got to the depot -- which is further away from my flat than the place from which I bought the computer -- and discovered that the laptop wasn't there. Why not? Because it had been put on the van for redelivery.

"But hang on," said I, "I asked for it to be held here. Which is why I've come here on the train, and walked through the rain."

"Oh," says the depot person, "Well the van is still here, so I can go check for you."

"Yes. Please do that."

Indeed, the laptop was on the van, but because the van had "already been packed" they could not give it to me. Instead, they could deliver it to my house.

"Appearances to the contrary, I am not a man of leisure, and I have to go to work. Can you deliver it there?"

"Oh yes, we can deliver it there. In fact, we do a lot of deliveries to your workplace, and it just so happens that your package is on the van which goes there today."

"Well there's some luck!" I may have said, with sarcasm.

Back I go -- PAST THE PARKED VAN IN WHICH MY COMPUTER IS SITTING -- through the rain to the station, and then to work. At this point I discovered a hole in my shoe and the resulting wet sock. Back at the office, I kept an eye on the tracking website, fully expecting it to say that they had attempted to deliver the package to my home again, but in the late afternoon it indicated that the box had been delivered! Huzzah!

I nipped over to the caretaker's office and picked up my new computer at long last. I haven't booted it up yet, but I bet it's broken.

Elementary

From this week's Radio Times, on the BBC's new Sherlock Holmes series:

Some viewers will recoil from the very idea of BBC1 updating Conan Doyle's characters to modern London, with [...] a Dr Watson who fought in Afghanistan.

From Wikipedia, on Conan Doyle's Watson:

In the debut Holmes story A Study in Scarlet (published in 1888), Watson, as the narrator, tells us that he had received his medical degree from the University of London in 1878, and had subsequently gone for training as an Army surgeon. He then joined British forces in India, saw service in Afghanistan...

So, in fact, not an update at all. Sigh.

Mass Debate

This whole leaders' debate thing is silly.

First of all, it either shows or encourages a wilful ignorance of our electoral system. I can't be certain that the people who run ITV and Sky know how it works, but I'd have thought that the broadcaster with its own dedicated Parliament channel might be able to figure it out. A debate between the party leaders is all well and good, but the thing is, I'm not a constituent of Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, Witney, or Sheffield Hallam, so I'm not voting for any of these men, even if I wanted to. It's about policy, not personality; this isn't America.

(And what the heck is Sky doing showing one of these debates anyway, when they don't have nationwide coverage?)

The greater idiocy in all of this, perhaps, is the perpetuation of this nonsense about these debates being the first of their kind, as if there hasn't been at least one a week televised since at least 2000.

If the British people do not understand the electoral process, and it appears as if this is the case, then it's up to the public service broadcasters to educate them, not perpetuate the ignorance. Otherwise, this will be America.

They Still Cancelled It, Though...

Marvel "proudly" congratulates the creative team of the cancelled Captain Britain and MI: 13, which has nothing to do with the comic receiving a Hugo Award nomination, despite Marvel's best attempts to kill it, no, not at all.

Still, the company is putting two issues of the title up for free online, at the above link, so that's something. Even if the Marvel digital comics interface is horrible and unworkable.

Irony?

The head of Ireland's Catholics has apologised for his role in mishandling the case of a serial child abuser.

A Catholic adoption society has won a High Court battle over laws forcing it to consider gay couples as parents.

Yeah, because they clearly are the right people to decide who can look after kids.

Ghost of Holidays Past

There's a film out soon, the trailer claiming that it is based on one of the greatest "holiday" stories of all time, "holiday" in this case, of course, being the American word for "we don't want to offend anyone by saying 'Christmas'". The film?

Robert Zemeckis' Uncanny Valley version A Christmas Carol.

(Tell Me Why) I Don't Like Wednesdays

Wednesday Comics then. It's a pretty clear attempt by DC Comics to reach out to a wider market by presenting their product in a more widely-recognisable format, that of the Sunday newspaper comics section. It's also the first weekly adventure anthology ever, if you believe DC's absurd hype. Certainly the first weekly adventure anthology released every Wednesday, anyway. Now, the accepted wisdom is that the US comics-buying public doesn't like anthology titles, but the accepted wisdom was also that the US comics-buying public didn't like weekly titles either, and yet DC have had some success over the past couple of years with stuff like 52 and Countdown (although those were tied into their annual big event stories, and were not standalone projects), so I can see why they're trying the anthology approach here. However, I can't see it working, not in the current format.

First off, despite the "normal" appearance, this is still being sold through Diamond's distribution monopoly, and, as far as I can tell, is only being sold through comic shops. As a result, the intended audience becomes a little murky. The format seems to be aimed at people who once read comics, but haven't in a while, or who don't read superhero comics, but do read the humour strips in the Sunday papers, but then, once again, it's only being sold through the specialist shops those people will never, ever, visit. All the new formats in the world will do no good if you're stuck with such an exclusive distribution method, and it may even be counter-productive to try anything new because the audience served by that method may by now be trained so that they don't want anything different.

Distribution is one thing, crucial to the success of the project, but the contents are just as important, and are just as bungled. The storytelling is abysmal, okay on its own grounds but completely wrong for a one-page-a-week format, with acres of wasted space, a distinct lack of actual things happening, and a disturbing tendency toward limp "cliffhangers". DC have assembled a group of writers and artists here who often excel in the usual twenty-two pages of a monthly US comic, but seem to have no idea whatsoever how to pace a single page of storytelling; they seem to be writing with an eye to a full story, but have neglected how the single page reads. A lot of these creators are really good, and should be able to figure out how to tell a one-page story, but none of them have managed it (although Paul Pope comes very close); Neil Gaiman and Dave Gibbons should have an idea, at least, from their experience in the UK weeklies, but even they stumble, as if they, like the audience, have been conditioned to not understand how single page storytelling works. There are about fourteen billion webcomic creators out there, all of whom could do a better job than this A-list collection of writers and artists has managed.

There's also the small matter of all the stories being bog-standard DC superhero tales. Now I know that superheroes are the bread and butter of the US industry, but again it makes me wonder who this is for; if you're picking this up because you like Calvin and Hobbes, and you just happened to walk down the wrong alley and stumbled upon a comic shop, this collection is not going to draw you in, unless the stories are sufficiently gripping, which, due to the unsatisfying storytelling is not the case. But then, of course, if DC dropped the "household name" characters and the famous creators, the existing superhero comics fans would ignore the title, and since it won't be selling to anyone else, those fans have to be placated. The whole thing is so incredibly pointless and inane.

All in all, Wednesday Comics strikes me as a bit of a folly. It does look very good, apart from the almost-offensively grotesque art in the Superman story, and there is something undeniably pleasing about the broadsheet newsprint format, but it all comes across as a bit of an art object, and because barely any of the stories inside work at all, I can't see any point in getting the second issue. I can understand and appreciate the idea behind the book, but it's been handled about as poorly as it possibly could.

Well, maybe not. If Marvel had done it, it would likely have been even worse.

(Had this review been published at Comics Bulletin, I would have given it two bullets out of five. That's mainly for the good art throughout, and the Paul Pope story.)

Free Comic Book Day (Terms and Conditions Apply)

The idea is simple and largely self-explanatory. The publishers put out some free stuff, which the local comic shops distribute in their community, with the end goal that some of the punters who pick up those free books will come back later and buy stuff. Now, as with many aspects of this shrivelled medium, the big US publishers tend to try to ruin the whole noble endeavour by shovelling out some awful pap, somehow not realising that a crappy comic isn't going to bring anyone back for more, but in theory Free Comic Book Day is a good thing.

When I lived in Norwich, the excellent Abstract Sprocket comic shop put on a proper event for (I think the first) FCBD, hiring some space in the shiny new city library and inviting comics writers and artists to come in and chat with fans, do signings, and so on. Impressive stuff, but the important thing is that the Sprocketeers realised that for the event to be a success, it had to be visible; all the free comics in the world aren't going to do much if no one goes to comic shops in the first place. You have to get punters into your shop, or you have to go to them.

On a whim, I checked to see if there were any events going on in my neighbourhood, and the FCBD site showed that my local shop was taking part. I headed down to find that the street was blocked off for most of the day by the annual Brighton Festival Children's Parade, so I went and sat on the beach for a few hours. Returning later, I had a good look around the comic shop, and saw no signs indicating any FCBD events, so thinking that the website had been in error, I left. On my way out, I passed by the counter and just happened to catch a glance of the wall behind the shop assistant, on which were mounted a couple of shelves containing a handful of FCBD titles, a tiny bit of cardboard with "Free Comic Book Day" scrawled on it in black felt tip, and under that another bit of card with "Only Two Free Comics Per Customer" written in a jagged and unfriendly hand.

The timing of the parade was just bad luck, but the shop screwed everything else up. They didn't advertise the event at all, not even with a poster in the front window (although there was a poster advertising a Kevin O'Neill signing on the 17th), access to the free comics was restricted, so you couldn't get a look at them, and you had to buy something before they gave you a free comic, which is about as backwards as it can get, and not exactly friendly towards the allegedly all-important new readers.

What a waste.

T'sk

Planet of the Apes

The Spanish government awards human rights to apes, while the US Supreme Court makes a ruling that suggests that they deserve said rights more than we do.

Meanwhile in Brighton, Starbucks defend the illegal opening of a coffee shop by claiming that it is not a coffee shop at all.

Let Down

So why is it that iTunes can't find album artwork for OK Computer? Seeing as it tends to jockey for top position with Revolver in pretty much every Top 100 album rundown ever published, it's hardly an obscure release.

Then again, I haven't checked to see whether it's heard of Revolver...

Huh?

Did the brief, fatherly relationship between Tony Stark and Peter Parker still happen post-"One More Day"?
Brevoort: "Yes."
Does Tony Stark know who Peter Parker is?
Brevoort: "No."

So Stark doesn't remember why he invited Peter Parker to live with him or why they formed a father/son relationship?

And presumably he doesn't remember why he designed a suit of spider-armour for Peter, since as far as he knows, there's no connection between Spider-Man and Peter Parker?

Not a messy retcon at all then...

Intelligent News

On the ITN television news this afternoon:

"Perhaps your power is out, or maybe a tree has fallen and caused damage near you. We want to hear your storm stories, so email the newsroom with your stories and pictures."

Er...

Chronic Lack of Perspective Within US Government Shocker!

US Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, talking about the men they're charging over the September 11th attacks:

[There will be] full due-process and defence lawyers and all of the fundamental rights that would bring to justice those were responsible for one of the worst war-crimes in world history.

(emphasis mine)

Never mind that it's not a bloody war crime at all since no one was actually at war at the time, Hiroshima, Dresden, the Trail of Tears and the Holocaust all just pale in comparison, don't they?

Cretin.

By all means bring these men to justice, but try to do it through something other than sheer rampant idiocy.