Top Ten Breakdown Songs

Ten pop and rock stars stuck on the hard shoulder (or, like me, in a hedge) waiting for a tow truck. Let’s hope they all have Breakdown Cover.

10. Dale Watson - Flat Tire

If Johnny Cash had driven a truck, he might have sounded like Dale Watson.

9. Radiohead - Blow Out

Radiohead don't have a lot of luck on the road. First a blow out, then they crash their fast German car and only an airbag saves their life. They should stick to public transport.

8. The Handsome Family - Stalled

Brett Sparks stalls his pickup truck in the snow, far from town... then just sits there in the dark. As stories go, it's not a great one. There's no serial killer with a hook on his arm or anything. But it still sounds real good.

7. Tool - Lost Keys

Tool also appear to have lost the lyrics sheet.

6. Jesse Malin & Bruce Springsteen - Broken Radio

You probably wouldn't be too popular if you called up breakdown recovery with a problem like this... but if you ask me, the radio is possibly the most essential component of any automotive vehicle. Driving without due musical entertainment should be outlawed.

5. Paul Westerberg - Dirty Diesel

Dirty Diesel causes Paul Westerberg all manner of problems... particularly as his car takes unleaded. He's going to need a Replacement.

4. Adam & The Ants - Car Trouble

In which Adam Ant ends up having to push, push, push his light blue car all the way home. Serves him right for being a dandy highwayman.

3. Jackson Browne - Running On Empty

Jackson Browne runs out of gas, but not when it comes to songwriting.

2. Elbow - Puncture Repair

You could probably fix this one yourself with a just bit of Elbow grease, Guy.

1. Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Breakdown

There were enough songs with ‘breakdown’ in the title to fill a Top Ten all by themselves. Tom Petty's debut single was the best.

Gig Review: Frank Turner Live In Manchester

I only discovered Frank Turner last year but he's rapidly become one of my favourite artists. His songs are passionate, witty, outspoken and, at times, intensely personal. He mixes heartfelt rock 'n' roll with barnstorming folk like Bruce, Billy and Richard Thompson before him. He's the real deal.

I've been wanting to see Frank live for ages but the last time he played Manchester the tickets sold out immediately. It was obviously time for him to move up and play somewhere bigger... sadly this turned out to be my least favourite venue: the dreaded Apollo. It's a sign of how desperate I was to see this performer live that (still carless) I caught a bus, a train and then took a long walk through one of the dodgiest parts of Manchester... thankfully, Frank didn't let me down.

It was heartening to find myself alongside a great number of Frank-ophiles, many of whom proved all the more devoted with their word perfect singalongs to even the most obscure tracks from the Turner back pages. This is obviously an artist who touches and inspires a great many people and he's surely now on the verge of a tipping point from cult sensation to arena-filling rock star. I missed my chance to see him in the smaller venues but I'll certainly follow him to the larger ones... as long as he doesn't hurry back to the Apollo.

God, that place just goes out of its way to grab my goat. Saturday's annoyance was the heat - turned up so high I almost passed out (no exaggeration for effect). Completely unnecessary... unless it was all a scam to sell more beers. Insert your own Apollo / sun god / surface of the sun gag here; for me it's just one more reason to never set foot in the place again. Please, Frank, make it The Academy next time... or the MEN. Anywhere but the bloody Apollo!

Even More Sex & Violence

Many thanks to Andy Oliver over at Broken Frontier for helping promote my new comic, TOO MUCH SEX & VIOLENCE. I've never been interviewed before... it makes me feel like a proper writer - at last!

Read the Broken Frontier interview here.

Meanwhile, feedback and reviews on the first issue continue to pour in... here's another selection of opinions...

"If you are a fan of League of Gentlemen, then Too Much Sex & Violence is the comic for you. A gloriously depraved and quirky selection of vignettes all settled around the 'not so quiet' seaside town of Fathomsby. Rol Hirst writes and corrals the assorted artists together to make this one of the more interesting reads this year."

(Gary Erskine: artist, Hellblazer, The Filth, Dan Dare.)

"Reminds me of Gary Spencer Millidge's Strangehaven on a bad drug trip! If you like the dark humour of the League of Gentlemen then you'll like this comic!" (Selina Lock: writer/editor, The Girly Comic.)

"Hail to Fathomsby!" (James Lindsay: writer, filmmaker, A Pessimist Darkly.)

"...superbly paced and dramatically rendered... you can never have to much of a good thing, and Too Much Sex & Violence is a very good thing." (Dan Powell: award-winning writer.:)

"...delectably macabre..." Andy Oliver: writer/editor, Broken Frontier.

"...beautifully overdone stuff." Al Ewing: writer, Travelling Man.

"There are some great lines in it too... It made me chuckle anyway." Michael Barnes aka El Blondino, artist.

And if you missed the first batch of reviews, click here.

If you've not yet got enough Sex & Violence in your life... get yourself a copy today.

Movie Review: Immortals

I do so hate it when someone whose opinion I value and respect gets to review a movie on their blog before I do. Especially if they like it and I think it sucks wet ass through a straw. Who am I to disagree with Steve? His opinion is, I'm sure you'll agree, far more worthy than mine. He has the wisdom of age behind him, for one thing. Look, if you think Immortals is your kind of movie, stop reading this review now and go read Steve's. But if you want to hear someone have a good old moan...

I think I may have a problem with director Tarsem Singh. I didn't notice his name in the credits, I hadn't read it in any reviews, yet I soon recognised his style from the last time I was forced to sit through one of his films: The Cell starring Jennifer Lopez and Vince Vaughan (from way back in 2000). Like that film, Immortals is visually stunning. Both will stick in my mind as being two of the most picturesque movies I've ever seen. Tarsem certainly puts the money up there on the screen and has a painter's eyes for detail. Every shot is like Michelangelo meets Salvador Dali. It's almost more than the human eye can contain. And this one was in 3D too... you know what a colossal waste of space I consider 3D to be, an affront to right-thinking cinema audience everywhere... and yet good old Tarsem made it work. The 3D actually looked good. No, screw that, the 3D took my breath away.

It's a shame then that, as with The Cell, all Tarsem's attention goes on the visuals. Certainly none of it goes on securing a decent script to work from. You can't blame the plot - that's as old as the hills, but the script... man, this script was bad. Can we say "style over substance"? Can we tattoo it on Tasem's forehead so he'll see it every morning when he washes his face? Can we talk about the actors now?

The star of the movie is Henry Cavill, about who I knew very little beforehand except that he's been cast as the new Superman. You know what? I can see that. He did a pretty good job of pitching his Theseus somewhere between the big blue boyscout and his speccy, stuttering alter ego. Doesn't mean I gave a monkeys what happened to him, or the impossibly beautiful Freida Pinto who plays his oracle. Beyond them, John Hurt plays John Hurt (his default position these days) and Mickey Rourke plays the old Avengers baddie Orka The Killer Whale. Seriously. Compare the photo above with the cover below and you'll see what I mean.

Beyond that, I have little else to add. Immortals gives lie to the old maxim that you can't polish a turd. It seems, after all, you can. You can paint it up to be the most spectacular, sparkly, devastatingly beautiful turds anyone has ever seen - in 3D too! At the end of the day though, it's still a bum radish.

On the other hand...

My Top Twenty Teacher Songs

One of the things I've been doing over at The Mixtape Lives On for the past few weeks is playing songs about teachers. In preparation for my new job, it seemed wise to find out what my favourite singers and songwriters thought about their teachers. Most of them concluded they were a bunch of lecherous pervs, bullying ghouls or sexually frustrated stalkers. Still, what do pop stars know about anything? They don't live in the real world...

Here's my full Top 20, click the links to listen to and read more about each song...


20. Paul Simon - The Teacher

19. The Talks - Teachers

18. Super Furry Animals - The Teacher

17. Leonard Cohen - The Teacher

16. Big Country - The Teacher

15. Pet Shop Boys - Hey, Headmaster!

14. Rufus Wainwright - The Art Teacher

13. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Teach Your Children Well

12. Van Halen - Hot For Teacher

11. Belle & Sebastian - Expectations

10. Pink Floyd - Another Brick In The Wall

9. Timbuk 3 - The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades

8. Morrissey - The Teachers Are Afraid Of The Pupils

7. Black Kids - I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You

6. The Police - Don't Stand So Close To Me

5. Madness - Baggy Trousers

4. The Trashcan Sinatras - To Sir, With Love

3. Pulp - PTA

2. The Smiths - The Headmaster Ritual

1. Black Box Recorder - The School Song



Discover a new song every day at The Mixtape Lives On...

The Day My Car Tried To Kill Me (Part 2)

So (as reported in my previous post) my car is in a ditch / hedgerow at the side of the road and I'm required to crawl out of the passenger door to call for assistance. I phone the police first: they're not that interested as I haven't hurt anybody else or damaged any property beyond my own. Next I call the roadside recovery people. "Someone will be with you within the hour." So all I have to do now is wait. Wait, and thank / reassure the people who stop to ask after my well-being.

I'm heartened by the amount of people who do stop. "Are you all right, lad?" "Do you need to borrow a phone to call for help?" "What happened?" Their mix of concern and curiosity gives me hope for the human race. At first. There's an edgy moment when the farmer whose field I'm encroaching stops by to check on the well-being of his fence, but he seems satisfied I've not done more damage and thankfully doesn't begin demanding reparations.

Then, after a while, my inner Larry David starts to take hold. It's a sad fact that even good will gets annoying after a while. By the time the 10th person has pulled over to check me out and hear the story ("I don't know what happened - the steering just went"), I start making a conscious effort to look unapproachable. Blasé or uncommunicative or stern or scary... whatever will keep them driving so I don't have to answer any more questions. Where is that bloody tow truck? How the hell can people get on my nerves even when they're just being kind? OK: I'm shaken, I'm fed up, I'm seriously worried about how this accident will affect my finances... but that's still no reason to be so grumpy, is it?

"You all right, lad?"

"LEAVE ME ALONE!!!"

Sigh. I really must try to be a better person.

The Day My Car Tried To Kill Me (Part 1)

Driving to Barnsley yesterday morning to do my teacher training, my car decided it'd had enough of boring, conventional, "square" roads and would much rather drive off into the hedgerow. For reasons yet to be ascertained, taking a sharp bend on a narrow country lane the steering wheel refused to respond and rather than continuing in the direction I was supposed to be travelling, I ended up crossing the road and driving down into a ditch, at a 45 degree angle, stopped only by a thick, spiky hedge and a farmer's barb wire fence. It wasn't that I skidded taking the bend, I've done that on icy or wet roads before and what generally happens when you try to correct the skid is that the back end of the car spins round and you end up facing back in the opposite direction. But there was no skid here: the road conditions were good and my tyres had plenty of tread. What happened instead was that the steering simply ceased to work and the car carried on forwards rather than completing its turn.

Thankfully I wasn't going particularly fast so the brakes and the hedge were sufficient to stop me from rolling the car over onto its roof. I'm just glad there was nobody else on the road or that I wasn't travelling in a built up area or on a motorway. I can't help thinking I've had a lucky escape: for all that my car is scratched and crumpled and broken, this could have been a far worse accident.

However, this is the final straw. I've had enough of this car now. It's one problem after another. I can hardly afford another one, but I can't afford to keep paying to have it fixed either... and I don't trust it any more. When the trust is gone, the relationship is over. If I can't even rely on it to stay on the road, it's time to say goodbye. When your car starts trying to kill you, put it out of its misery before it has another go.

Apologies to the poor roadside recovery man who had to crawl through a spiky hedge to attach the tow rope to pull the bloody thing out of the hedgerow - his arms were lacerated. And to the farmer whose fence I damaged, who was decent enough to show more concern for my welfare than the state of his field. I promise you both: that bloody car will see justice.

I Quite Fancy Surviving A Zombie Apocalypse, Actually...

The Walking Dead is back on TV, though the latest season might be better called 'The Treading Water'. Still, it got me thinking about why I like post-apocalyptic fiction so much. And the truth is, no matter how grim they try and make it appear, I still quite fancy being a survivor of some kind of global catastrophe.

Now, obviously, it all depends on the kind of apocalypse. Nuclear Armageddon is out, because even if you did survive... chances are you'd be living on borrowed time while hideous cancers grew inside you like sea monkeys. Plus you'd constantly be worrying about drinking irradiated water or eating a mutated turnip. Or you might end up in The Road, the most depressing of all post-apocalyptic futures, fending off cannibals and wishing you were dead because everything is so relentlessly grey.

Societal breakdown is a no-no too. Frankly, society's broken down enough for me as it is. Living in Mad Max world with marauding biker gangs raping and pillaging everything in sight would be too much like this summer's yoof riots. I parked in Manchester a couple of weekends ago and returned to find some mindless savage had snapped the windscreen wiper off my car for no reason at all. If the yobs ever do take over, I'm going to live on a mountain.

And you can forget your killer viruses too because even if I was immune, I'm such a hypochondriac I wouldn't be able to leave the house for fear of a wayward sneeze. I currently have a terrible case of Man Flu I'm certain I caught when I went to see Contagion. It was inevitable really.

The best kind of apocalypse would be one like in the movie Night Of The Comet where pretty much the entire human race just conveniently disappears (and there's no stinking corpses to clean up) and you could spend all your time dancing to Cyndi Lauper songs at the mall. But as the chances of that happening appear slim, I'll settle instead for a nice zombie apocalypse. As long as it's one where the zombies can only shuffle about slowly and are rubbish at running. Not the speed-freak 28 Days Later zombies. Those guys are no fun at all.

Top Ten Reasons I Wouldn't Mind Surviving A Zombie Apocalypse...

1. Even though society's fallen apart, there's still loads to eat. Zombies aren't interested in human food (only brains) so you'd never go hungry again. Well, until all the cans in the supermarket were past their sell-by dates. You'd have to start growing stuff then.

2. You get to shoot people you don't like (i.e. zombies) in the head.

3. Once you find yourself a nice generator you can sit back, watch some DVDs, play some computer games... read books to your heart's content. Just don't break your reading glasses like Burgess Meredith did in that famous Twilight Zone episode.

4. You get to shoot people in the head. Don't look at me like that, you know you want to.

5. You don't have to go to work any more.

6. You get to shoot your boss in the head. Because, let's face it, he or she is already part zombie. It's for their own good.

7. No more wasting your time on the internet. The internet has closed down. Maybe you can go out for a nice walk instead. You know, like we used to, before the 90s.

8. Did I mention shooting people in the head?

9. You can go wherever you want. Into all those behind-the-scenes parts of buildings you never see unless you work there. Or into other people's houses. Have a nice snoop about. Rummage to your heart's content. As long as you don't bump into any remaining zombie residents, you'll be fine. Go on, admit it, you fancy having a good nose.

10. Shooting. People. In. The. Head.

Now, give me one good reason we shouldn't have a zombie apocalypse tomorrow...?

Movie Review: We Need To Talk About Kevin

Ever since I heard of the plans to film Lionel Shriver's novel about the tumultuous relationship between a mother and her high school massacring son, I've been eager to see the movie. It's an excellent book and the combination of director Lynne Ramsay and actress Tilda Swinton seemed the ideal choice to deliver a unsensationalised, dramatically non-Hollywood conversion. The distributors didn't make it easy though. For such a high profile, well-reviewed adaptation of a bestselling, prize winning novel, the film's UK release has been shoddily handled. Most of the multiplexes dropped it after one week while even the arthouses seem reluctant to give it much time. Curious then that the showing I finally managed to attend on Sunday night at the Hebden Bridge Picture House was sold out. Audiences do apparently want to see this movie... but I guess it's just not glamorous, star-studded or CGI-encrusted enough to devote mainstream cinema space to. In decades gone by, this would have been a major release. Can we say dumbing down?

It's even more galling then that Ramsay's movie proved to be one of the best pieces of moviemaking I've seen in a long, long time. Perhaps not the most enjoyable and certainly not the easiest to watch, but as an example of cinematic storytelling: damned hard to beat. Shriver's novel is a long and detailed account of the relationship between Eva Khatchadourian and her troubled son Kevin, and this could so easily have been a wordy, staged adaptation. Instead, the screenplay by Ramsay and Rory Kinnear is a textbook example of how to show rather than tell, using the medium of film to its full extent and respecting the intelligence of the audience, allowing them to fill in the gaps. It's a haunting, nightmarish translation that eschews meaty exposition in favour of dramatic visuals, shocking symbolism, taut-yet-restrained performances, a smart soundtrack and some of the meanest stares ever committed to screen. Clint Eastwood would lose a staring contest against any of the three young actors playing Kevin, and the permanently fraught Swinton gives as good as she gets.

If you've read the book, you'll know what to expect from the movie... but that won't stop you being devastated. If you haven't: prepare yourself for a genuinely shocking, provocative and challenging film that will remain with you long after the drive home. If you can find a cinema that's actually showing it in the first place...

Spandex Goes Crossover Crazy

The fifth issue of Martin Eden's excellent "gay superheroes" comic SPANDEX dropped on my doormat last week and it's yet another multicoloured masterpiece. This time, Martin set his sights on the dirge of MEGA-CROSSOVERS that are miring the comics industry, almost as bad as they were back in the late 90s. He sets his sights, he takes aim, and he blows those crappy crossovers to kingdom come. Suffering "event fatigue"? This is the comic for you.

But, as always, Spandex is much more than just a masterly spoof of current comic book trends with twinkly gay bits on top. There's also real depth of characterisation as we learn the secret origins of Spandex leader, Liberty. Great jokes, inventive character ideas, guest stars aplenty (including the return of The O Men - slightly different than we remember them, but longtime fans will be glad to learn Miss Scarlet is still one helluva pistol packing mama!), action, shock plot twists... if every MEGA-CROSSOVER was as much fun as this, the mainstream comics industry would be in a much healthier state.

Buy the latest SPANDEX and you'll also get a free mini-manga featuring Japanese superheroes The J-Team (I can't believe I only just spotted the pun in their name) plus a cool Spandex trading card. And anyone who thinks that tight pair of swimming trunks shown on the penultimate page of Too Much Sex & Violence #1 was TOO MUCH... wait till you see the final page of this comic. It ain't for your granny. (Unless your granny's into... no, let's not go there.)

Go here: Buy Spandex now. That's all.

Evil Advertising McMonsters Hollywoodise My Hometown

I realise that by embedding the above video into my blog, I could be seen to be promoting the company in question... but they're such a ubiquitous Big Evil Corporation that I doubt one extra blogpost will affect their fortunes and if you're daft enough to read this post and go out and buy one of their "cooked meat" in "bread" products as a result... well, more fool you.

Anyway, the new McDimbulbs advert was filmed in Huddersfield. I'm not sure I'd have recognised this had someone not pointed it out to me. If you haven't seen it on your telly-box (I had to youtube it), it involves a young man (they all look young to me these days) singing the old Lerner & Loewe classic 'On The Street Where You Live' while he walks through town to get his McBreakfast. Except this guy has the worst sense of direction - he is in serious need of a SatNav. He begins his journey just outside Big Evil Corporation II, Tesco (ours is The Tesco Time Forgot - the only thing that's changed since it opened in the 80s is the prices). Conveniently though, The TTF has been edited out of the opening shot; we wouldn't want to promote a competitor, would we, McLads?

Anyway, our hero then walks under the grim Northern viaducts, heading in the correct direction (his goal is now about 30 seconds away) before he turns and starts walking back where he just came from. Next he finds himself a few blocks downtown by the Adult Cinema (also conveniently airbrushed out of existence) before walking past a launderette... in Fartown*. Which is a five minute bus ride away. Suddenly, he's on Cross Church Street, and heading in the right direction once again. Someone's even conveniently built an Abbey Road style zebra crossing to help him find his way. I'm surprised they didn't paint arrows on the shop windows too. Once again, he almost reaches his destination... when he detours along a side street packed with market stalls (which must have been blown a couple of blocks north by the strong Pennine winds). He takes time to flirt with a random woman (she's humouring him; she's already seen him walk past three times that morning)... and finally, he's there! Just in time to sink his choppers into one of those infamous "cooked meat" in "bread" combos before the men in the white van arrive to speed him back to the happy place.

It's all filmed in glorious HD technicolour supervision so golden and sunshiny it makes my home town look like Narnia. Now don't get me wrong, Huddersfield is a very nice place (I won't hear a word said against it... unless it's by me). But these aren't the streets where I live. It's Hollywood Huddersfield. I'm surprised he doesn't bump into Tom Hanks on his journey. (Maybe Tom finally heard about my sniper rifle.) Like the majority of advertising, it's one big, fat lie after another. Still... it's better than another repeat of Last of the Summer Wine. Just.

Has Television, Cinema or Evil Advertising ever distorted your hometown beyond all recognition?




(*I should point out to non-locals, this is pronounced "Far-town". Just as the nearby Penistone is pronounced "Penn-is-ton". Sorry.)

Book Review: The Lost Lions by Edward Gorey

Edward Gorey was an American writer / artist who published a number of bizarre, surreal and yet deeply affecting illustrated story books in the latter half of the 20th Century. Many of these have been out of print from a number of years, but new life has been breathed into them by independent publisher Pomegranate.

The Lost Lions (or, Having Opened The Wrong Envelope) tells the story of Hamish, a handsome young man who one day opens the wrong envelope and ends up in the movie business. Suddenly wealthy, he begins to raise lions. But fate has other plans for him...

If you were just to read the text, Hamish's story could take you little more than a minute to get through. Gorey's writing is sparse, a single sentence a page, yet there's much more to his stories than words. The gorgeous pen and ink illustrations that accomplish each sentence contain more depth and emotion than many full-length novels and Gorey draws the cutest lions you ever did see. The ending is enigmatic and thought-provoking and it's the kind of book you'll want to take your time over, savouring every wonderful crosshatched line.

Find out more about Edward Gorey and his newly republished books at the Pomegranate website.

Farewell, Smallville

And so I say goodbye to a TV show I've been watching for one whole quarter of my life... though I really don't know why. Unlike the final episodes of Cheers, NYPD Blue and The X-Files which left me in buckets of tears at the loss of an old friend, the overriding sensation at the departure of Smallville was a huge sigh of relief. I can't tell you why I've stuck with this show as long as I have, particularly as what little prime it had was past about five seasons ago. You might think it's because I'm a comics nerd, but I haven't read the DC Universe in years and I've always found Superman the least interesting superhero anywhere. Far too powerful, far too pious, far too meh.

It certainly wasn't the writing that kept me watching either. With a few brilliant exceptions (mostly in the earlier seasons, mostly revolving around the long departed Lex Luthor) pedestrian plotting and preachy, clichéd scripting have been the name of the game for far too long. They could have made it much more interesting had they injected a little edge and - dare I say it - humour, but I guess they didn't think the target audience had much of a funnybone. Not that I'm entirely sure who the target audience was. Smallville began as a teen show but (like the cast) those original viewers would now be in their mid-20s... which I guess goes some way to explain how it evolved into a superhero Gossip Girl.

Strangely enough, I think it might actually be the cast who kept me. Although the show's best actor (Michael Rosenbaum, our AWOL Lex) departed three seasons ago (although he was dragged back kicking and screaming for the preposterous and nonsensical finale) and the show's best character (Allison Mack's divine Chloe Sullivan) has been woefully wasted in recent years... at least they had the good sense to jettison the horrible, ghastly, Queen of Whinge that was Kristin Kreuk (Lana Lang). Late replacements Justin Hartley (Green Arrow, a gormless Bruce Wayne substitute) and Cassidy Freeman (the ludicrously monickered Lu-'Tess'-a Luthor) breathed faint gasps of life into the show's sagging lungs while the final season wisely resurrected the better actors from the longterm supporting cast: Lionel Luthor (a demented John Glover) and Jonathan Kent (Bo Duke).

Most of all though, the two people who kept me watching longer than I ever stuck with Teri Hatcher and Dean Cain... were Lois and Clark. Erica Durance gave Margot Kidder a run for her money as the funniest, spunkiest, karate kicking-est Lois Lane ever... although I never saw Margot Kidder jump out of a cake wearing a bunny girl outfit*. And while Christopher Reeve (who had a recurring cameo on the show before his tragic death in 2004) will always be the one and only screen Superman for me, Tom Welling might well be my Clark Kent. Considering how much mawkish, pretentious, sentimental twaddle he was forced to spew week in and week out, it's a wonder I'm not up in a book depository loading a shotgun right now... and yet, incredibly, Welling pulled it off. He convinced me he was a nice guy. Which you might think is a basic necessity for playing Superman... but you'd be amazed how difficult it can be. I don't suffer me no fools, gladly or otherwise. Plus, the scenes with the ghost of his late father in the final season contained genuine emotion. I was filling up despite myself.

So farewell, Tom and Erica, Allison and Justin, John, Michael and Cassidy, Terence (Stamp!), Annette and Bo Duke. I still don't know why I watched your show as long as I did, but I reckon it must be down to you guys. I hope you all find gainful employment in the future and that your writers have been sent off to read Robert McKee and rue the day they ever set fingers to typewriter. Farewell, Smallville. That's 217 hours of my life (minus fast-forwarded commercial breaks) I'm not getting back...





*Plus, Michael Ironside played her dad. Extra points for that, obviously. Though points are deducted for Teri Hatcher as the late Mrs. Lane.

Too Much Sex & Violence... It's A Hit!

Welcome to the northern seaside town of Fathomsby; home to retired super-heroes, monster DJs, mutant prostitutes, pier-owning gangsters, disgruntled policemen and a woman who knows exactly what you're thinking about, whenever you're thinking about...S-E-X.

The reviews are in and the first issue of my new comic, TOO MUCH SEX & VIOLENCE, is a hit! Not an unqualified hit, but I expected a few rough waters because of the comic's ever-changing roster of artists, its at-times dubious subject matter, and the fact that first issues (story set-ups) are a notoriously difficult sell. Still, I think enough people are intrigued by #1 to come back for #2... and that's where we really blow the doors off.

Here's some of the comments I've had so far...

"This may be a freakshow, but it’s a freakshow you can’t take your eyes off... one of those first issues of a series that you finish and immediately want to reread, just to make sure you got everything." (Richard Bruton: writer, Forbidden Planet International.)

"A most enjoyable read... reminded me of Worthing, nicely weird and gripping."

(Glyn Dillon: artist, Deadline; Shade, The Changing Man)

"I quickly forgot I was reading a comic. I was simply reading something well written and expertly put together - there's a lot of talent contained within these 28 pages."

(Martin Pond: writer, Dark Steps)

"...a really engaging and unusual first issue..." (Nicolas Papaconstantinou: writer, Monkey On My Back)

"...extreme shocking for shocks sake is not the purpose of this book but there is at least one eyeball shooting out of its socket to keep it interesting." (Lee Sargent: artist, Quit Your Day Job)

TOO MUCH SEX & VIOLENCE #1 is available to buy for just £2.50 (printed) or £0.99 (pdf download) from this place here. Go buy it now. Or tell your friends to. Then write about it all over the interweb. Go on, I insist.

Comic Review: It's A Man's Life In The Ice Cream Business

Ah, the good old days of photocopied, folded and stapled small press comics... I remember them with enormous fondness. One man keeping the tradition alive is Rob Jackson, whose latest title (the rather long one above, henceforth abbreviated as '...Ice Cream...') proved a wonderful surprise as I tucked into it the other night. I had no idea selling ice cream could be so interesting.

Rob's autobiographical comic tells how he, his brother and his dad set up their own business selling homemade ice cream at local farmers' markets, fayres and fêtes. The ups and downs of running your own ice cream business proved fascinating to me - from the sunny days where everything sells out in an hour to the windy days when your tent keeps blowing away to the markets where local competition means you don't sell a thing. There's intrigue as Rob and family attempt to diversify into cheese and black peas, there's drama as Rob eats leftover cheese on toast for a week rather than let it go to waste and there's recipes aplenty - including some of their more interesting flavours such as Sweet Potato & Pecan, the curiously unpopular Beer Ice Cream and the ever-popular Whinberry (I think they call 'em bilberries in my neck of the woods).

There's a genuine charm to Rob's storytelling - you really feel for him and his family on the tough days and you cheer when they sell out. Rob's art is also deceptively simple. At first glance it seems childlike and unrefined, and yet the more you look at it the more you realise Rob has all the art and storytelling basics sorted (composition, perspective etc.) and the style is complementing the story rather than holding it back. I can't help but feel that more polished artwork would take away some of the warmth from Rob's comics. I can't imagine them drawn any other way.

'...Ice Cream...' is available to buy from Rob's website shop for the eminently reasonable price of just £1.50. Like delicious ice cream on a hot summer's day, I can't recommend it enough.

Movie Review: Contagion

For years, I didn't like Gwyneth Paltrow very much. I found her whiny. 'Whiny, whiny, whiny boots of leather', I used to sing whenever she whined her way onto my cinema screen. Followed by a chorus of '6ix' by the Lemonheads, based on her unfortunate fate in the movie Se7en, notable for its refrain, "Here comes Gwyneth's head in a box". I was thrown out of many a Gwyneth Paltrow film for doing this, but it was worth it.

Yet in recent years, particularly following her standout performances in Iron Man and Country Strong, I've grown a grudging appreciation of Gwyneth's talents. Thank god then for Steven Soderberg, here in the nick of time to confirm what a skanky, disease ridden strumpet Chris Martin's missus really is. If you don't like Gwyneth, that's one damn good reason to watch Contagion right there. Nasty things do happen to her.

Nasty things happening to famous, pretty people is basically what Contagion is all about. But while I could happily sit through Gwyneth foaming at the mouth, I had less time for the unfortunate fates of Kate Winslet and Marion Cotillard. The women do most of the suffering in Soderberg's H1N1 disaster movie while the blokes do most of the whining. Matt Damon's most upset about losing his wife and child to the virus, though the worst his own symptoms get are a fat face and a bad mullet. Meanwhile, Lawrence Fishburne thinks he's still in CSI and Jude Law plays cinema's most hateful nerd, giving a bad name to bloggers everywhere. When Elliot Gould tells him "blogging's not journalism - it's just graffiti with punctuation", I almost considered hanging up my keyboard. Thank god then for Jennifer Ehle, not just the film's one true hero but also it's only brief moment of sex appeal. Even when the world's going to hell in a hand basket, it's good to know our top scientists still wear hold-up stockings.

I didn't enjoy Contagion as much as the critics. It was a competent, plausible, at times unnerving thriller that followed exactly the path you'd expect with few surprises. If you've seen Outbreak, you know exactly what's coming. That the human race is almost doomed by a pig, a bat and Gwyneth Paltrow was curiously satisfying to the misanthrope in me... but my hypochondriac side hated watching it in a packed cinema with people coughing and spluttering all around. I'd suggest watching it from inside a Jacko-style isolation tent... or the comfort of your own home. Don't talk to anyone. Don't touch anyone. Especially Gwyneth.

Book Review - Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith

So here we go with yet another handsome, photogenic, gifted young author whose debut novel has become a worldwide sensation, voted one of the 100 best thrillers of all time. Yes, I hate Tom Rob Smith... but it's impossible to hate Child 44. It's just too damned good.

Earlier this year I reviewed Sam Eastland's pre-WWII Soviet Union thriller, The Red Coffin, and confessed to my ignorance of Russian history. At the same time, I found the USSR made a fascinating setting for a thriller, a place where a climate of fear and paranoia exists even before any crime is committed and where every detective takes risks no westerner would ever face.

Set slightly later, in the early days of the Cold War, Child 44 tells the story of MGB State Security Office Leo Demidov, a man whose training tells him to make his heart cruel...

"Cruelty was enshrined in their working code. Cruelty was a virtue. Cruelty was necessary. Aspire to cruelty! Cruelty held the keys that would unlock the gates to the perfect State."

Leo believes in the work he does, believes the traitors and spies he hunts deserve everything they get for threatening the Communist way of life. Although not a heartless man, he has no choice but to accept that torture, exile, even execution is an everyday part of his job... though he is starting to wonder. His doubts grow when he finds himself on the trail of a serial killer whose long list of murders is being denied by his superiors. If Leo is to catch this killer, he must risk everything - his life, his wife, his parents, his freedom - but dark secrets from his own past compel him, and the murderer is the last person he would ever expect.

Thoroughly researched, Tom Rob Smith's novel creates a terrifying scenario of Cold War paranoia, poverty and brutality. There are times when the misery and hardship reach almost Dickensian extremes, such as the opening scene in which two starving children chase a scrawny cat, the first meat they've seen in months. Or Leo's first experience of a State orphanage...

"...the entire floor was covered with children all sitting cross-legged, pressed up against each other and trying to eat. Every child clutched a wooden bowl filled with what appeared to be a watery cabbage soup. However, it seemed only the eldest children had spoons. The rest either sat waiting for a spoon or drank straight from the bowl. Once a child had finished, they licked the spoon from top to bottom before passing it onto the next child."

...yet such descriptions only succeed in cranking up the tension and trepidation, making the pages turn even faster. I'm pleased to see a second novel featuring Leo Demidov is already in the shops and I'm looking forward to returning to his world. It's a cool place to visit from the comfort and safety of your armchair... but I'd bloody hate to live there.