Lost - losing...

After a good run, Lost gets slightly average again. The Juliet episode didn't really tell us anything, and it was a bit like an 'it was all a dream' episode, as in everything was negated by the twist at the end (great twist though). And now that we know that there are indeed escape routes off the island, it kinda loses a bit of its tension.
The Desmond episode was okay, although I can't say he is my favourite character and as much as Charlie gets on my nerves, the sight of seeing him killed every five minutes still didn't make this episode good. And I'm also bored by the Desmond-rescue story and loathe Penny.
Still, with every episode, I egg the writers on to make it good, because this is a show that can work.
Saw the new Heroes too - it kinda dragged a bit I thought. Still cool though.

Going off Girls...

The Luna Bros' Girls series ended last week - and all I could think was 'thank god for that'.
This series started off sooo well, it was sooo gripping and innovative - and then it just got sooooo boring. Monotonous and slightly hard to follow which mundane character was which, and the whole thing wasn't helped by the murky brown colouring. I have no idea why I kept buying it. I think a valuable lesson may have been learned here - for god's sake, boys, just end your next series at issue 12.

Album in my hands

Well I have a certain new album in my hands... one I've been excited about... a good friend actually fedexed it to me lol (she sooo could have been arrested!). do i listen to it though or wait til Monday... I've listened to some of the tracks in some shape or form (the Marketing guys are making it unavoidable) but there are still 16 untouched tracks...
I'm not sure I agree with them putting the whole album on her Myspace page though. What happened to anticipation?!

Dear DC

Dear DC Comics,
Well done on your 52 series. It's a very good idea, but maybe you could have picked some more interesting main characters rather than those D-list dullards. Begone, boring Black Adam!
And next time, maybe make it clear whether you're supposed to read World War III or 52 first - like a little note in the front of the comic. It's not hard!

Tori Aloud

My colleague Ned thought this picture on my desktop was Girls Aloud. It's toriiiii!!!

2.5 cover

Hurrah - I have an artist for my O Men 2.5 cover - Mr Roger Mason. Yippeeeee! Hmm I'd put a link to his website on, but I can't find it... His stuff is great - he did a Miss Scarlet pin-up for the O Men Anthology (RIP). I'll put a link to his site on when I find it.

Tori

Just how am I supposed to 'abstain' from listening to the new Tori album when ALL the tracks are on her myspace page? How???

A nice day

What a cool day. Despite still being ill, my nice colleague Ned gave me a Scarlet Witch action figure (i've been after it for ages!!! he got it from ebay) and my other nice colleague Andrew gave me some cool new music. Hooray!!!

Meningitis

I have risen from my illness! What a horrible cold. Not the worst I’ve had, but feeling hot and wobbly all the time kind of hinders getting to work lol. Still, I’m back now – but still feeling fairly shit!

Strange Little Girl

I love Tori Amos to bits… but seeing her on ‘Loose Women’ on Thursday was… a bit of a shock. She had a shock red wig on, totally looking like a drag queen, and then she performed two new songs (which I’d never heard before) which seemed to address ‘the deaths of children’ (she should have done a ‘nicer’, more straight-forward song, like Almost Rosey seems to be). And I have no idea what the pensioner-audience must have made of all that, as well as discussing her rape during the show (great question there, Denise Welch – and how come you got more Geordie, Denise?).

Countdown

Only 7 days to go until the new Tori album!!! I tried not to listen to any of the tracks but I have heard 3 of them, plus 6 live versions, d’oh…

Ill

We got this email at work today. So if you don't ever hear from me again...

Dear Colleague,
It has been reported to HR that a colleague within the building has suffered from a mild strain of Meningitis. Although the risk of transference is low, should you suffer from any of the symptoms listed below you’re advised to seek medical attention. Upon seeking medical attention if Meningitis is confirmed please inform the HR department immediately.
(Symptoms follow)
Should you require any further information or have any questions please come and speak to the HR team.
Regards


It's a bit worrying getting emails like this - but we've still all been going round saying "i've got meningitiiis raaa'. All in the best possible taste of course.
(Oh and I've had a really bad sore throat for two days, but luckily it's not a symptom...)

Exciting train news

Can I just say that my trains have been on time for almost a month now. That is incredible. They are never on time. (Until this month).

Life's a bitch when...

...you're completely stuck on your He Man PS2 game and there are no 'walk-through's for it on the interweb. :-(

Lost wow

Saw two more new Lost eps last night. Soooo surprisingly good! The Nikki and Paulo ep (14, I think) was a lot of fun and the ending really haunted me (when she opens her eyes) - I wanted things to turn out differently for those guys, they were interesting. And then a good, solid Kate episode.
The prob with most US drama today, is that they've written themselves into holes. Let's face it, shows like 24 and Lost and Prison Break are built on crazy premises and I often watch them thinking "okay, how're they gonna hold this episode together". Honestly, I'd enjoy Lost more if, at the back of my mind, I wasn't thinking "Ok, why didn't those two guys tell the rest of them what they saw last episode" or "why don't they now live in the abandoned Others' huts"? 24 and Prison Break are also confined by their own nature. Is it so hard to think up a show that isn't so constrained - like Buffy and X-Files used to be?

Apprentice UK 3

As many of my friends know, I am a huge reality TV junkie and The Apprentice is one of fave shows on at the moment. It's hilarious to think how you would survive if you were in that situation at work and you just stabbed your workmates in the back!
(Don't read on if you haven't seen last night's ep. Or if you don't care.)
I think the wrong person went last night - she was probably an easy target and the team leader should have gone (he doesn't want another Michelle now, does he).
Tre reminds me of Sayid, except I actually like Tre - he just needs to calm down a bit.
Big contendors for me are Paul and Natalie - they haven't done much yet, but there is just something about them.
The following people haven't got a hope in hell of winning and they should just go home now! These people have got no chance of winning: Ghazal, Tre, Kristina, Jadine, Sophie, Lohit.
Sir Alan's helpers crack me up, especially the bloke - his expressions! And I think Alan must surely need to try and stop himself from laughing most of the time...

The Anthology Issue

Well here are a few more details on O Men 2.5, the Anthology issue!
To make up for the O Men Anthology One-shot which died last year, Issue 2.5 will be a very special issue indeed. It will be the origin issue of one of the new characters (and believe me, it takes a whole issue to tell it) and parts of the issue will be illustrated by other members of the small press community (and some friends I've thrown in too!).
The line-up consists of:
Graham Pearce (Sgt Mike Battle, www.sgtmikebattle.co.uk)
Oli Smith (who created one of Comics International's #1 Comics of 2006 - www.idlechild.co.uk)
Grant Springford (Pest Control)
Gary Simpson (a horror and short story writer who has had his work published in 2000AD and who is one of my favourite people)
Sean Azzopardi (Eight Hour Shift, www.phatcatz.com)
Sina Shamsavari (http://www.boycrazyboy.com)
Kelvin Green (who has had a huge impact on The O Men and wrote and drew an Arachnid story for the dead Anthology - this should be on the website but I don't think it is for some reason)
Andrew James (I sit next to Andrew at work, www.dubious-tales.com)
All being well, the issue will be launched at Caption in August. All not being well, it'll be out at the Brum con in October.
I still need to get three of the scripts sorted so don't panic, guys!
I am very excited!!!

Collection Confusion

I am unsure what to do about my O Men collections. For a while now, I've been thinking about doing nice big trade paperback books - they do seem affordable these days.
There are some pro's and cons. Cons are:
- I'd feel bad for the people that have shelled out for the 3-issue collections
- the cost (not only putting it together, but shipping it too).
- the time it's gonna take
- the sheer rubbishness of the first few issues - although, my theory has always been that Adrian Tomine started off worse, and he's happy to collect his early stuff (but would it put people off? There's always the possibility of 're-mastering' it all, but I doubt I would ever have time.)
Another option is PDFing the series, but I'm not a huge fan of that.
If I went with the Books option, I reckon it would cover 6 books in total. Issues 0-7, Issues 8-17, Issues 18-27, Issues 2.1-2.6, 2.7-2.12 and then volume 3. So some of them would be over 200 pages.
But at the moment, I really doubt I could afford it.
One of the reasons I got thinking about this was the upcoming Anthology issue - I feel like I should promote it more through Previews, since people are gonna put a lot of time and effort into it - and then I got to thinking that maybe Books might be a more viable option.
That's another thing - say I put 2.5 into previews, the anthology issue - what would I do if I got over 1000 orders??!! It takes me long enough to staple 100 issues lol (I print my own covers). But then again I guess if I went down that route, I'd have to use a proper printer on 2.5, who would do the cover too.
Oh sod it, I'll just have to win the lottery.

Byrne shocker

I'm not easily shocked...but I was reading a Next Men letters page last night...and I was really shocked by something John Byrne said. I can't actually bring myself to repeat it here, it's so bad. It's in the Issue 12 letter column... Wowsers... I mean, I can tell you, but it's really, really bad...

Not Lost it?

Wow, saw 3 new eps of Lost on Saturday. Er, it got good again. Really, really good. Stuff happened!!! Will it last...

Curse FP and Tomine!

No Classic Alpha in FP :-(
And no new issue of Optic Nerve :-( Come on, Adrian, you can do it!!! It's only been a year since the last issue!

BT

Remember all my Telewest woes? They have continued. Well actually, now it's BT. Back in March I made all the arrangements. I wanted BT installed in May, just after I lose my Telewest/Virgin Media phoneline, but I couldn't book an installation in March as their calendars don't go that far (d'oh). Well today I phoned to book the installation and they have NO RECORD of me on their system. So I had to do it all again. That's countless hours I've spent on HOLD and talking to STUPID people down the drain. Plus they are now saying that they have to install BT before I lose my VM phone line, so they need to install it in April. So I could have sorted all of this out before!!!! Aaaargh.

2.4 and 2.5

I was going to post this last week, but decided not to as if you look closely it contains a couple of spoilers from 2.3. This is the cover to O Men 2.4 - ta-daaaaa. It is highly unusual that I do a cover before the issue is finished, but this one evolved quite nicely. I’ve already done a spread for the issue too.
As for 2.5, I’ve written the story (it almost didn’t come together, but I now love the final version) and can now announce that it will feature the artistic talents of Graham Pearce, Oli Smith, Grant Springford, Gary Simpson, Sina Shamsavari, Sean Azzopardi, Kelvin Green and Andrew James (and me)! It’s gonna be a doozy. If any of you guys are reading this, I’ll be working on scripts to get to you just after Easter.
Plan is to get 2.4 out in June-ish, and 2.5 out at Caption (along with the first Volume Two collection - which will come free with the final issue of season one for anyone that wants it).
Will it all go to plan? I have absolutely no idea.

Host

Blimey, I saw an amazing movie last night on DVD - The Host. Japanese monster movie. Whatever you're doing, drop it and go see this movie now!!!

Sentinels

I discovered a superb little gem of a comic last week - the Sentinels by Drumfish Productions. I’d seen Book 4 in FP and it really struck a chord with me, but I didn’t buy it, considering I hadn’t read Books 1-3 and didn’t have the first clue what it was about. So luckily my very good friend Springy ordered it from the States for me for my b’day. I love it!!! Such a cool, random cast of characters, a nice engaging story - check it out at www.sentinelsonline.com. The creator was brought up on comics like classic Teen Titans, so no wonder it’s good.
It’s funny, because as soon as one of the characters, Harlette, appeared I thought ‘that’s Miss Scarlet!’ and it did kind of worry me that we’d basically written the same comic - but Sentinels is a little bit more superhero-y than O Men. I’m loving it, and I’ve ordered Books 2 and 3.

52

Hard to believe 52 is almost coming to an end. I can’t say I thought it was that good, but I liked the idea. I was quite jealous of my friend Gary who said it was his little Friday night treat. It’s nice to have a Friday night treat (Gary, they’re doing another year of weeklies, don’t worry!).
It makes me think what Marvel would do with a weekly. Which D-list characters they’d choose to star in it. Would be interesting, but they’d probably just go with Wolverine...

Spendaholic 2

Well it looks like FP will be earning more money off me this week with Alpha Flight classic, Showcase Legion of Superheroes, a new Optic Nerve (c’mon Adrian, does it really take this long??), and plenty more. Hmm.
Incidentally, I wish Marvel weren’t so cagey with their releases. I’d love for either an Essential Alpha Flight or an Alpha Omnibus - like the big X-Men one they did a while back, which included all the letters pages etc. Now that would be awesome.

Two cool comics

Two cool comics out at the moment that probably aren’t selling. Hawkgirl and Birds of Prey. As with most DC titles, I don’t really understand what the hell is going on, but they’re great reads with lovely art. And Birds of Prey has a female artist who is amazing – it’s been ages since there’s been an amazing female artist!

Eagle Shmeagle

I didn’t get nominated for an Eagle Award. Ah well, maybe next year. Thanks to everyone who voted!

Pulse

I love Japanese horror movies - well, sort of. They kind of need to come up with some new classics now. I love the obvious ones, such as Audition, The Grudge and The Ring (see the villains in O Men 2.1), but I do have a soft spot for Pulse (or ‘Kairo’). I don’t know why this is, because it isn’t by any means a perfect film. It’s kind of a lacklustre end-of-the-world movie, where you don’t really see the end of the world.
I first saw it one morning on a weekend away in sunny Brighton, and I remember it being a bit too long and slow. But I’ve been drawn to it time and again, and in fact I’ve just finished watching it again today. It’s funny with these Japanese films - sometimes it’s hard to follow who’s who and what the hell is actually going on - so it’s nice to be able to watch Kairo and look at the more subtle connections. So not the perfect film, but there’s just something about it...
In the meantime, I finally got round to watching the American Pulse remake. I’ve heard nothing but terrible things about it, and when I saw Wes Craven’s name attached, I did worry that he’d turned it into some stupid teen shocker. I didn’t actually think it was that bad. As stylish as I wanted it to be. It just suffers, like the original, from a sort of lacklustre-ness.
But hey, that plane crash is a doozy in both movies.

Tori Ban!

This just in - Tori's new single, Big Wheel, is being banned by US radio stations for containing the line "I am a MILF". Ooops. What a load of rubbish! It's a cool line!

Movies

Well I had my week off last week, and I did want it to be a movie week, but it didn’t quite work out like that. Here is some of the stuff I watched.
Mysterious Skin - erk, quite shocking. But interesting.
Little Miss Sunshine - this grated on me a bit. Too many people trying to work out Their Issues.
Shaun of the Dead - I actually didn’t like this the first time I saw it. I think it was because we sat too close to the screen, and all that Spaced-style quirky zoomy cameras got on my wick. Much preferred it on the small screen, although I think killing his mom was a weird choice - a really morbid moment.
300 - I saw this on my birthday - I wanted to see it at the IMAX but it was booked out for private hire (the swines!). It was a good movie, although I had a contact lens-induced headache and thought it was going to drag on (it actually didn’t). I'm amazed that the big black guy - Xerxes - is played by that new white useless character on Lost, Rodrigo Shitto or something.
The Departed - I don’t think I’d have followed this at all if I hadn’t seen the original. It’s cool. A lot of people get shot in the head. Mark Wahlberg looks silly and Martin Sheen is too old for his role.
(Miserable git, aren’t I?)
And finally they are putting some good stuff out at the movies: Sunshine, Grindhouse, Hills Have Eyes 2 (er...), Spidey... Cool!

Girl Power

Oh come on, seriously! Look at the cover to JLA 10. Jesus.