Announcements

A few things to remind you about...

There's a mart tomorrow at The Royal National. It should be a good one because it's one of those months when the dealers in rotting old English comics join forces with the purveyors of American tat to create SUPER-MART!

Yes indeedy chums, this means they open up the back room and fill it with disintegrating copies of 2000AD, The Crunch and Warlord.

Trust me, you don't want to miss this stink pit.

Info and directions HERE

Next weekend you need to cancel everything related to normal well adjusted adult life, because you have the opportunity to nerd it up all weekend. Saturday sees Eddie Campbell signing stuff at Gosh! (Details HERE) and a fantastic programme of events at The Comica festival (Details HERE). Sadly an old chum of mine has decided to have his stag do on the same day. Bah! I really, really want to go and see Bolland and Gibbons at Comica. Curses!

Never mind, I'll be back in comics action on Sunday the 8th. The morning sees the shutters open on the tomb of Fantastic Realm for one last time as they attempt to flog off everything which they haven't already shifted to the capital's comic dealing vultures...

I was in the shop yesterday helping clear things up a bit, and have already had my pick of goodies (Frontline Combat vol 1, vols 1-4 of 52, DC Goes Ape, couple of old X-Men and Alpha Flight issues) but I can confirm that there is still lots of stuff worth picking up, including heaps and heaps of recent American imports and a healthy amount of trades.

With your fire sale nerdsacks swaying heavily in the North London breeze, you can then hop the tube to Leicester Square and join me for a crack at Big Dave F's Nerdgasm quiz. Here's the MMA lovin' quiz master's press release...

Date:	Sunday, 08 November 2009
Time:	18:45 - 21:05
Location:	The Greenman & French Horn pub, St. Martins Lane WC2N

Every epic endeavour deserves a sequel… perhaps not as dark as The Empire Strikes Back or as shit as Robocop 2 but definitely a worthy second outing.
A second instalment that would satisfy even the Wrath of Khan, and stop a T-800 taking your clothes, your boots and your motorcycle.
An action packed, adrenaline filled adventure like Aliens was to Alien. Replace the Colonial Marines with YOU, turn your assault rifles into writing implements and quiz sheets, and replace the Alien Queen with ME…. And there you have it!
Big D’s Nerdgasm Quiz II (The Sequel) It puts the lotion in the basket baby!
Comics, Sci Fi, Horror, Cartoons, Computer games and a dollop of nostalgia…
Be there or be…. Oh damn! You already are.

I'll put out another reminder for this next week. Hope to see you there!

You have to read this

Alan Moore talks about Dodgem Logic

LOL!

Viz is 30 (nearly)

I keep hearing that Viz is 30, which confuses me slightly, as in the intro to my dog-eared copy of The Big Hard One, (which collects the first 12 issues), it says that issue 1 appeared in December 1979. Whatever, I suppose now is a good time to wish the esteemed organ a Happy Birthday.

I was a regular reader in the late 80s and early 90s, but like a lot of people haven't read an issue for years now. Perhaps I'll grab a copy this week to see if I'm missing anything.

Still love the early stuff. If you can get hold of The Big Hard One (fnnar, fnnar!) you should, it's brilliant and features My own favourite Viz strip of all time. It's only four panels, but I like it and always bring it up in pub chats about the comic. Here it is...

Still makes me chuckle so it does.

Scan from The Big Hard One, 1987. Originally published some time in 1979

An ancient free gift

I told you that massive stack of old 2000ADs I got given was in good nick, right?

I think I even mentioned that a lot of the progs still had their advertising inserts and free gifts in place.

Here's some proof of that...

Yup, that's a 27-year-old packet of Cola flavour Bubblicious sellotaped to the cover!

Suck it up fanboys!

It's as hard as a brick, but still smells of cola.

I am 100% nailed on to eat it at the end of some drunken night or other.

Return to Gosh!

No "welcome back" bunting, but a nice feeling to be strapping the nerd sack to my son's buggy and taking a quiet Monday afternoon stroll up west again. Picked up my comics from Gosh, had a quick squizz in Comicana and FP and then scampered home to read Chew #5 which brings the first arc of Layman and Guillory's cannibal-detective story to a close. Pleasing twist at the end which sets things up very nicely for the future. I reckon they'll be trading this one up soon - you should buy it! Also read the final part of Blackest Night Superman, which was absolute rubbish - not particularly enjoyable rubbish either, I'm afraid. Ach well.

Today I'm going to be casting my shiny new American imports to one side and feasting on yellowing back issues of 2000AD instead. The plan is to read Apocalypse War, the classic Judge Dredd Cold War story from 1982. After posting that great Kevin O'Neill cover on Sunday, I spent a lot of time thinking about some of my other favourite 2000AD covers and remembered the impact that this had on me as a nipper...

Honestly chums, this is one that really sticks in my mind. I remember seeing it in the newsagents. That skull! Someone's about to nuke Mega-City One for cripe's sake! Little did I know at the time that this issue was the first part of a great fucking epic that, in my opinion anyway, rivals the Judge Child and Judge Cal in the pantheon of great Dredd stories. It's been a long time since I read it. Time to get the kettle on, crack the seals on a few of those acid leaking poly bags and soak up some proper thrill power!

Classic 2000AD

Here's a nice thing...

A Kevin O'Neill 2000AD cover. He didn't do much Judge Dredd as far as I can remember. I reckon this might be his only stab at The Dark Judges - any 2000AD nuts out there are welcome to correct me on that one if I'm wrong. Anyway, lovely piece of work dontcha think? Can't look at it without humming THIS though.

On the back of that prog there's a smashing Bryan Talbot Torquemada pin-up...

2000AD used to be wicked didn't it?

Scans from 2000AD prog 419, 25 May 1985.

As ever, you can click the pics to embiggen 'em!

Some junk I didn't buy

A stall in Greenwich Market...

The picture doesn't quite convey the ridiculous size of this game.

It's fucking HUGE!

I told the geezer behind the stall that I would have loved to have bought it, but that I didn't think I could get it by my other half without her ordering me to take it back from whence it came.

He told me that he thinks the game is cursed.

We left it at that.

Lovely box though.

Shopping List

So, owing to the death of Fantastic Realm, I'll be strapping on the old nerd sack and heading up west this week. Very light week for me, which is no bad thing as I'm waaaaaaaaaaay behind on my reading. Here's the list I'll be pinning to my shopping trolley...

Blackest Night Superman #3

I've really enjoyed this. Issue #2 ended on a hilariously awful note as Ma Kent emerged from a cornfield brandishing a torch and shouting "Let's Roll!" (or something equally as unlikely). I will read this and however appalling, I can guarantee you I'll lap it up.

Final Crisis Aftermath Dance #6

Oh fuck, this is silly. I've bought every single one of these Aftermath titles and have as yet read only a handful. Of course somewhere along the line I got locked into the cycle of having to get them because I'd already bought a few issues. Oh well, I expect I'll knock 'em off the stack one day.

From what I've read, Dance is a pretty cool comic, with Joe Casey taking Grant Morrison's revamped Forever People (The Super Young Team) and having a bit of a laugh about pop culture.

Supergirl #46

Behind, behind, behind. I do enjoy this Super saga crossover bilge when I get round to reading it, trouble is, I rarely do. I have some time next Monday and might use it to catch up, which will please my missus who thinks I'm going to be washing her kecks and doing the shopping.

Chew #5

You know the score. Top stuff.

Invincible Iron Man #19

Four or five issues behind. I've enjoyed it all though, so I keep picking it up. Like a cool combo of the Ellis Extremis story and the good bits from the film.

Garth Ennis Battlefields HC Vol 1

I probably won't buy it this week, but I will pick Battlefields up eventually. I'm one of the few people who can't be arsed with The Boys because I got bored of reading what a bunch of cunts Ennis thinks superheroes are after five issues. His war stuff, on the other hand, is usually top notch because he actually enjoys war comics. I've heard nothing but good things about this run and am keen to check it out.

The death of a comic shop

And so the shutters have come down on Fantastic Realm. It closed on Monday and, as far as I know, most of its stock has already been moved on to other dealers. Sad, but is anyone who shopped there over the past two years really surprised?

When I initially scoped out Fantastic Realm, I gave it a fairly positive review, but after becoming a customer it quickly became clear that the shop was beset with problems which made its survival highly unlikely.

First off was its location. Stuck behind a bus station in Finsbury Park, the place was never going to get much casual custom. Lack of footfall past the door meant that to have any hope of building a base it would have to garner a strong reputation among the capital's comic collectors. By offering a guaranteed 10% discount to all customers willing to commit to a standing order, it made a strong start. Sadly the discount is where the good news ended.

Those, like myself, who took advantage of the discounts on offer quickly found that their pull list often had items missing. Sometimes the wrong books were put aside. On occasion no books were put aside at all. A simple excel spreadsheet detailing the want lists of standing order customers would have gone some way to sorting this problem out, but no spreadsheet in the world can make up for the fact that, more often than not, the shop flat out failed to get books in on time!

Anyone who knows the habits of hardcore comic collectors knows that they like to get their books on new comic day. In this country that means Thursday. Yet to save money, a large percentage of the books on Fantastic Realm's order sheet were delivered by Diamond USA rather than the UK arm of the distributors. I presume that this has something to do with the fact that Fantastic Realm UK was a small part of a larger American company who were getting big discounts on large orders from the States. Whatever, the important thing to know here is that taking books from the US meant that many of them were not arriving until the Friday or, in the case of trades, until the following Monday when the shop wasn't open anyway! This is just not acceptable for a shop competing with a number of well established retailers who can and do offer their customers books on the day of their release.

Another major issue for the shop was its emphasis on variant covers. This suicidal obsession with over ordering heaps of non-returnable issues to get hold of a few 1 in 100 covers to knock out on ebay, might have recouped a few bucks online, but it left the shop in Finsbury Park with thousands of comics which it had absolutely no hope of selling.

To compound the situation, the manager often complained that he was taking delivery of many more issues of specific titles than he had in fact ordered. Why was this happening? The US arm of the business blamed Diamond, but was it really a fault at Diamond's end, or was someone in the US tinkering with the UK order so that they could snag a few precious variants for themselves? I'm not accusing them outright, but I think it's a fair question to ask. At its heart, Fantastic Realm is a mail order company that does the bulk of its business on ebay. Check out their ebay store and you will immediately be bombarded with a huge number of expensive CGC variants. You don't get hold of those variants without ordering LOTS of the regular covers, and you don't strike it lucky with 9.9 and 9.8s at CGC without submitting a fair few issues for grading. Seems an odd coincidence to me that the UK store was being lumbered with hundreds of extra comics every week while at the same time rare high grade variants of those same issues were popping up on the American led ebay site.

Yet even if the UK store wasn't being used as a dumping ground for unwanted comics, the fact that its staff were expected to do much of the ebay work while also running a bricks and mortar shop did not help matters. Firstly there weren't enough staff to do both, and secondly the back room of the shop was piled high with longboxes of unwanted and unsellable comics, making it impossible to do the backroom stuff in the backroom! As a result, the back issue bins in the middle of the shop floor were used as a table for packing and sorting online orders, meaning that customers could not access those back issues.

A shortage of staff also meant that the shop was closed two days a week - another ridiculous situation. Did the owners really think they could make a success of a shop with irregular opening hours, inaccessible back issues and an inability to get comics in on new comic day? I have to think that in reality they didn't honestly care that much, which is an odd way to run a business, but there you go.

From a personal point of view, I'm sad to see the shop go. I'd secured a 20% discount - which makes a big difference when you buy as much as I do, and, after some initial difficulties, had established a fairly decent rapport with the manager who often picked up missing items from my order from other comic shops. On the other hand, it will be something of a relief to return to the West End where the shops are run like proper businesses and I know that I can pick up the comics I want on the day they come out.

Back to the magic triangle I go!

Big Dave F's Nerdgasm Quiz

To London's magical West End for Big Dave F's Nerdgasm quiz at The Green Man & French Horn. An event which, as the name suggests, the great man has designed specifically with nerds in mind...

And so, starting with number one, (numerically speaking), began a night of multimedia mayhem. A ton of questions on SF, comics, horror flicks and Kung Fu. All dressed up with sound effects, musical interludes, picture rounds and a heap of banter.

The evening drew a nice crowd of people - Star Wars nuts, gender-bending horror fans and Batman-loving beardies. All had a grand time. Foolishly I chose to turn down Dave's request to join one of the teams, preferring to go solo. This meant I finished second from last - just ahead of a team who thought they were turning up for a normal quiz night. No matter, I got all the comics questions right which felt like some sort of victory. Besides, winning wasn't important, I turned up to marvel at Big Dave's showmanship, and I wasn't disappointed.

Yes my friends, this is a quiz with bells on. A night of music hall style fun, as loud and hilarious as Big Dave himself. It only had four rounds, but Dave put so much into the quiz that it took three hours to complete - it's testament to his skills as an entertainer that the time whizzed by in a blur of robot noises and arse-kicking movie soundtracks. It was worth the trip just to see the confused faces of a bunch of French tourists who were forced to eat their pub grub to the deafening strains of the Robocop theme...

Magic stuff!

There were prizes for everybody who entered. Good prizes too. Here are the winners with their box set of Futurama and can of Slurm!

And here's an attractive tattooed lady and her man-friend proudly displaying their Reanimator DVD while asking each other why a fat bloke with a camera phone is taking pictures of them.

Last place finishers were awarded a lavishly decorated vodka bottle. Here Dave explains to their team captain that there will be no current affairs round tonight...

"What do you mean you've never heard of Boba Fett?"

I was awarded The Visual Dictionary of Attack of The Clones, a stunningly bad guide to a terrible film wrapped in a plastic bag advertising bodybuilding food supplements. Awesome booby prize, cheers Dave!

Others left with prizes including Batman figures, badges and a plastic severed ear - "The idea is to come back and keep winning them until you've got enough for a necklace" Dave told the bemused recipient. HAHA!

I'm told by Dave that he plans to hold round two in a month or so. I'll keep you posted and have it in mind to organise an officially sanctioned LLC outing to the event. It really is a top night out.

Gossip!

By way of a follow up to THIS, comes this...

Genius from OK magazine.

With thanks to Mr Wheatley

An Announcement

My good friend Big Dave F writes to let me know that, starting this Sunday, he'll be donning his hypnodisc hat and kicking off a happening new pub quiz. He's keen to get the word out, so for anyone who might be interested, here's his press release...

This is it!
A quiz for anyone who grew up in the 70s & 80s. Remembers the highs the lows, the adverts and the TV themes.
A quiz for anyone who loved Sci Fi and enjoyed late night Horror Films on BBC2.
A quiz for anyone who ever opened a comic book and marveled at spandex, played a computer game until 5 in the morning, rode a Grifter (or knew someone who did), cheered when Hulk Hogan slammed Andre the Giant, and thought the way Robocop walked was cool.
If you watched Knightmare, played D&D, were ridiculed for playing with action figures until you were 19, and fondly remember Floella Benjamin, then this is the quiz for you!

Date:	Sunday, 18 October 2009
Time:	18:35 - 21:35
Location:	Greenman & French Horn, St. Martins Lane, London WC2N

Two more

Tense times at LLC Mansions as we prepare for an afternoon of cold turkey on the nappy front. Yes, imaginary web chums, when the boy wakes up from his nap I will be depriving him of his nappy and putting him into a pair of robot themed pants. Magic shit and piss filled moments will no doubt ensue, wish me luck.

Enough toilet training, what of comics? Well, I managed to read a whole trade yesterday! I Kill Giants, by Joe Kelly and Ken Niimura. For those who don't know, it's the story of a precocious 12-year-old girl who says she kills giants. Obviously this gets her into all sorts of scrapes with other kids who think she's a weirdo. Whether she's telling the truth or not is for you to find out. All you need to know is that she has some other problems going on in her life, which make things difficult for her.

This thing has been buried under a mountain of critical praise, so I was pretty keen to get cracking on it. I think I would've liked it a lot more had I not gone into it thinking it was going to be the most wonderful book of all time. Like Asterios Polyp, I'd heard such glowing reports about it that I ended up being slightly underwhelmed. It is worth reading, but it also feels a bit worthy. I dunno.

Kelly does an excellent job of putting the thought processes of kids on the page, that's for sure. The fact that the main character, Barbara, is a lot brighter than her peers but still very obviously a child is handled really well. All the other kids are very believable too.

The art is clearly manga-influenced. It has a rougher, scratchier edge than manga proper, but the influence is there all the same. Occasionally it's difficult to tell what's going on, particularly in the fight scenes which are pretty chaotic, but perhaps this is a deliberate thing. The characters look great though.

So, as a whole, worth a look. Perhaps it's the cynical old bastard in me, but some of the more obviously emotional stuff in the book left me feeling a bit like I was watching a made for TV tearjerker. Like I said though, I'm a heartless cad, so don't listen to me.

On the single issue front, only book I've read this week is the first installment of Rick Remender's Doctor Voodoo. Decent enough start, some interesting art from Jefte Paolo. Has a bit of the Eric Canete about him, draws an old, saggy, worn out looking Doctor Strange which I thought was a novel approach to the character.

The story is actually quite heavy, not the tongue-in-cheek hi jinks I was expecting at all. I'll probably pick up the second issue. Oh and it's one of these $3.99 books which is designed to appeal to us old men. How do I know? Because it's got back matter, that's how. Yup, I think this age of comics will eventually be remembered as the back matter age, an era where comic companies loaded up their books with historical notes and critical essays to satisfy a rapidly aging audience of amateur comic historians.

The MAD crystal ball!

Rescued a copy of The MAD Artists Special #9 from a junk shop in Finsbury Park t'other day. 10p well spent! No date on the cover, but I'm putting it somewhere around the early 1980s. Lots of nice stuff inside. Here are a couple of interesting Al Jaffe strips lifted from a section titled, Some Idiot-Proof Products To Come...

All good Luddite stuff. Bang on description of Facebook Scrabble! Although, not all of us cheat you know? Ahem.

As for the magic typewriter...Automatic margin settings and spacings? Memory tapes which correct grammar, spelling and phrasing? It'll never happen.

Couple of reviews and stuff, innit!

Right-ho, let's give this a go shall we? Did some more ebay bidding yesterday and picked up The Age of The Sentry trade from the same geezer who flogged me the Ghost Rider and Patsy Walker books. Big Yay for the cheap comics. YAY!

Finished the Ghost Rider trade already and am now moving on to volume three of the Jason Aaron run. What can I say? This is good comics, people! Aaron's got this grindhouse vibe going on. Plenty of good dirty horror, healthy dollops of surreal Americana, some classic old villains, nun-chuck wielding nuns, machine-gun toting nurses and a whole new origin for the Ghost Rider which makes perfect, and frankly awe-inspiring, sense. It's Mondo Marvel with a capital M!

Artist Tan Huat does a nice job with the visuals. Everyone looks like they're possessed by snarling demon cats, all long faces and sharp scowls. It's a unique style that owes something to caricature, and reminds me slightly of some of those old MAD artists. As with any Ghost Rider story, one of the drawbacks is that there's only so many ways you can draw a flaming skull, but that's hardly Huat's fault. Next volume features Tony Moore art and I think I'll probably polish it off tonight.

Elsewhere, been trying to keep my eyes open during the current incarnation of Marvel Zombies. Don't ask me why I'm still buying this twaddle, the latest incarnation, Marvel Zombies Return, is utter toilet. Even the Van Lente issues are lame. Avoid it chums!

On the non-comics front, I'm very happy to see that Mr Wheatley's film Down Terrace followed up its triumphal premiere at Fantastic Fest with an award for best British film at London's Raindance Festival. I was lucky enough to see the film at Raindance and can confirm that it deserves all the accolades it's been receiving. Certainly the best/only take on middle class gangsters I've ever seen. It's a genre defying crime flick which features a strong cast, great soundtrack and is, I can safely say, unlike anything else out there. Funny, dark, claustrophobic, low-budget excellence. Here's hoping that all the awards lead to some sort of wider release.

Bargains

eBay is still working. Two brand spanking new Marvel trades for 99p each (+ P&P). They arrived and are in mint condition. This pleases me...

The fellah that sold them to me also has cheap coffee. Get it while it's hot!

Asking for trouble

You know, I'm really enjoying Blackest Night Titans. It's complete and utter hog swill, but like all The Blackest Night stuff so far, it scratches an itch for me. Thing is, a lot of people hate it, and I reckon the folks in editorial are just asking for trouble with the big reveal at the end of issue #2...

Yeah, yeah more dead super-people. Yawnzzzzzz. That's not the problem though. It's this that will have the haters rolling in the aisles...

Really? Is that possible?

I have no time!

Honestly, I don't. Full time fatherhood eats your life. I've read one comic this week. One. That's it. Read Mr Tickle a lot though. I've come to the conclusion that he's a cunt. Fucks the whole of Tickle Town up, so he does. Tickles the teacher until he's incapable of teaching. Tickles the greengrocer so hard that he falls into his produce, thereby ruining it. Tickles the traffic cop until the entire road system is one huge snarling traffic jam. Tickles the train station guard, wreaking havoc on the timetable in the process. Fucks up the post by tickling the postman until all his letters fall in a puddle. And what's his comeuppance for all this misery? Nothing. Fuck all. In fact, at the end of the book, he even threatens to creep into YOUR kid's bedroom and tickle them. What a nonce.

String the kiddie fiddling weirdo up by his long orange arms, that's what I say!

Lollies!

A couple of old ice lolly ads for you...

An interesting attempt at a C3P0 and sandman hybrid which ends up looking like a bloke in a gimp mask. These lollies were later rebranded as Zooms. I believe you can still get them. They were my lolly of choice as a nipper. Yum!

Who doesn't enjoy sucking on a Warlord?

An awesome lolly crossover this one. King Kong wants those luvverly lollies, but the army say NO! and blow him to fuck with a barrage of starshells!

I want to live in a universe where lollies have to be transported in army convoys to protect them from lolly lovin' apes.

Scans from 2000AD Prog 73, July 15th, 1978.

As ever, you can click 'em to ramp up the nostalgia.

Off the stack

Oi, Oi! How goes it? I've knocked a few issues off the old stack and felt like blathering on a tad, so let's have at it!

Firstly, I just reread Fantastic Four #571, the second installment of Hickman and Eaglesham's run on the title. I've now gone through this one three times. Why? Because it's flipping ace is why! Pretty much my idea of a perfect Marvel comic really. It hooks you right from the off with a fresh spin on the obligatory Galactus appearance, which sees Hickman resist the obvious device of using Galactus as the big reveal villain at the end of the book, and instead gets him out of the way at the START of the issue. It's a great moment rendered beautifully in a splendidiferous Eaglesham spread of all the alternate reality Reeds fighting Galactus and a whole squadron of Siver Surfers. Sort of the comics equivalent of the preludes in James Bond films and a typical piece of Hickman thinking.

The rest of the issue is also top drawer as Hickman reels off a series of big concepts all drawn very nicely by Mr Eaglesham, who seems to be channeling the bastard lovechild of Jack Kirby and Chris Sprouse. Even with a squadron of Silver Surfers, an army of lobotomised Dooms, a terraformed planet and some intergalactic DIY, Hickman still finds time for the obligatory Fan 4 family moment, a flashback to Reed's childhood and another genuinely exciting cliffhanger. All this while developing the characters of a bunch of alternate Reeds. I'm still not sure how he manages to cram all that into 22 pages without everything becoming a confused mess, but he does. Top stuff, a PROPER comic which has gone straight to the top of my list of superhero faves.

Giant-Size Old Man Logan was a satisfying enough end to a very good Mark Millar story. I have issues with the $4.99 price point, largely because the extra pages were padded out with uninteresting concept art and a gallery of covers, but the story itself was a fittingly over the top gorefest. The big moments were all entirely predictable, but they still made me chuckle. McNiven does another fine job with the art and there's an ending which leaves things open for a possible sequel - not that we really need one.

Blackest Night Superman #2 Oh now, this was just terrible, but I found myself enjoying it anyway. Basically, Psycho Pirate (of Crisis fame) comes back as a zombie and starts using his funky emotional manipulation powers to mess with the population of Smallville - making teenagers get off with old ladies, that sort of thing. Meanwhile Superman and Superboy duke it out with Zombie Superman while Supergirl has a ruck with her old man on New Krypton. There's an absolutely laughable bit at the end of the book where Ma Kent goes all pissed off action hero, brandishing a torch in a corn field and shouting at zombie Earth 2 Lois Lane that "It's On!" It's a WTF? moment that actually made me laugh out loud. The rubbernecker in me is looking forward to reading the car crash that will come as an old lady fights her zombie daughter-in-law in the next issue. Yay comics!

How do we get kids interested in comics?

By giving them one to read!

My boy enjoying his funnybook.

War!

Snapped this on the Piccadilly Line last night. There was a full on battle going down over that armrest. The man in the suit kept turning to glare at the young man who refused to meet his eye. Neither would give up the arm, and the war only ended when the young man got off. ACE!

I ain't got nuffink!

Oh dear, this isn't going well. I mean the stay-at-home dad thing is fine, but it doesn't leave much time for the important stuff like posting blog-based bilge about comics.

To be fair, the missus is away this week, so there literally is no respite, (I'm writing this during a toddler nap), but even when she returns, I think the windows for blogging are going to be increasingly few and far between. Bah! Curse you real life!

Anyway, no shopping list again, as I haven't even had the chance to check on what comes out this week. I'll have a look later and try to pick some comics up on Tuesday. Not that there's much point. My read pile has now reached Everest-like proportions, and I fear that I may never catch up. Obviously this won't impact on my single issue habit, I'll just continue to put each week's comics in big piles until their accumulated weight causes the floor to collapse.

So there you have it. I've failed to find a spare moment to read any comics since Wednesday, I have a backlog of podcasts as long as Mr Tickle's arms, and absolutely no idea of what's going on in the big wide world of comics news. As a result, I have nothing of any interest to offer you. Yay!

Here, have a gander at this vaguely suggestive panel from Fan 4 #571...

fnnar, fnfuckingar.