On a train. Can't even do body text on this poxy phone. Anyway, updates will resume when friends stop geting married and relations stop dying

Artist needed

Friend of LLC, Den Patrick has written a comic and he needs someone to draw it.

Anyone out there fancy it? Check out his project and get in touch with him HERE

Cod and strips

To The Green Lanes Fish Bar for chips and a chat about manga with the comics-loving husband and wife team who do the frying. You know that these folks are into their manga and anime, because the walls of their chippie are covered in framed pics of manga characters. They also do a neat little sideline in toys and statues, lining up Japanese action figures for sale alongside the onion vinegar and ketchup. It's a strange combination. I wonder if they ever sell any of the toys.

The fellah is the real comics nut in this relationship. He tells me that he has been collecting since 1969 and fondly recounts the days when he used to go down to Forbidden Planet in Denmark Street for his fix of American comics. His interest in superheroes has waned since then, but he's still crazy for the manga, especially the Chinese stuff that he used to pick up in Hong Kong as a lad. I brag about the piles of comic-related tat that clog up my house, and his missus rolls her eyes as he tells me of his huge collection. He recommends something called Storm Riders to me, his favourite series, it's been going since the '60s apparently.

I confess that I don't know much about manga but recommend Uzumaki and The Drifting Classroom to him. He hasn't heard of either, and to be honest I doubt whether they'll be his cup of tea, but you never know. He has read 20th Century Boys and tells me that the film adaptation is also worth checking out.

I'm tempted to buy one of his robot man-toys, but I don't. I must resist the lure of man-toys. I pay for my chips - very nice they are too - and say goodbye.

Here are some exciting pics of the manga chippie...

Next nerd quiz/Link from Mr W/Tea and Hanks

Just been sipping some tea from a pot, eating a jam scone and reading "You Shall Die By Your Own Evil Creation" the second volume of the collected comics of Fletcher Hanks. What a top time! I fucking love comics (and tea).

The Hanks book is brill. Perfect accompaniment to a nice drop of Assam, and a fitting follow-up to yesterday's recommendation: Prison Pit. Hanks produced some crazy strips of course, and they are beautifully reproduced here, but the book is also worth buying for a nice intro from Paul Karasik which contains some very early Hanks art and a brief history of his life and death. A brutal alcoholic who kicked his four-year-old down the stairs before deserting his family completely, Hanks packed in comics in the early 40s, disappearing from the public eye and dying in 1976 as a drunk down-and-out on a park bench.

So, a thoroughly disagreeable chap who wasted his life and talent. Not quite the fairy-tale it could be, but he did leave a legacy of some very strange and angry comics AND it should be noted not only did he draw them, he wrote, lettered and coloured them too. Top stuff.

On to other matters: Dave F has fixed a date for the next Nerd Quiz - Sunday December 6th from 6.45pm at The Greenman & French Horn pub, St Martins Lane, London's magical West End. I'll big it up again nearer the time, but just thought I'd mention it nice and early now.

A nice link from Mr Wheatley to a blog about an upcoming Judge Dredd fan film. Looks fairly decent.

That is all.

LLC Recommends: Prison Pit Book One

Prison Pit by Johnny Ryan begins with a huge phallic drill descending from space to fuck a barren planet in the arse, and ends with a prosthetic alien slug arm sucking off the main character as he lies slumped in the desert. In between these two magical moments there's a fight with a jizz monster and an attack from a villain who shoots a scythe made out of hardened alien Nazi pus from his nipple. Knowing all this should be enough to convince you that this is a book which belongs on your bookshelf. In case you need to know more though, here's a brief outline of the plot...

Some MMA wrestler type guy is about to be dropped down the shaft of a huge cock drill for some crime or other (probably) which he may or may not have committed. In an attempt to escape he takes one of his guards hostage, but it turns out that the other guard hates his colleague anyway and he shoves both men down the rabbit hole!

Prisoner and guard tumble down and down, fighting all the way until they eventually find themselves in The Prison Pit, a barren dimension filled with cactuses, bleak crags and cock-shaped bones. The asshole in the sky closes and there they stay. After an extremely bloody scrap our hero eventually kills, pisses on and eats the guard and chops off his razor-clad arm to use as a weapon.

After this he stumbles on a strange slug-like creature which is slurping up the manky juice of a cactus-like tree. Repulsed by this sight, hero kills the slug and is immediately confronted by a trio of baddies led by a devil-skulled Nazi wrestler with a gigantic mace instead of a hand. Nazi informs him that the creature he's just squashed is in fact a Slorge, a beast which digests the slime of the Blugg tree and shits out fecid, a drug which (and I quote) "makes you feel like you're the #1 most fucking awesome maniac!"

Anyway, it turns out the dead Slorge belonged to the Nazi devil skull wrestler and his cohorts. He orders our hero to find him a new Slorge, but hero declines. A mad fight with Nazi's sidekicks ensues. Hero appears to have won but is eventually beaten when he has his arm chopped off with a pus scythe. Nazi tells him he won't get it back until he brings a replacement Slorge back from the wastelands of the Prison Pit.

Hero sets off to find a Slorge, and does just that. Unfortunately this Slorge belongs to a multi-eyed naked twerp who wanks off until he is surrounded by a cum monster type construct which hero has to fight. The monster gets the better of him drowning him in jizz.

Lying dead in the desert, our hero is resurrected when the Slorge attaches itself to the stump where hero's arm used to be! Fecid surging through his system, hero rises from the dirt to kill and eat Jizzman. Now bonded physically (and it would seem telepathically) with the Slorge, hero feeds his new arm with juice from the Blugg tree and is then given a blowjob by the slug arm. Book One ends!

I don't have much more to say really. It's as good as it sounds - like something written and drawn by a disturbed 13-year-old on crystal meth. Every bit as hard and tasteless as Ryan's previous outings in Angry Youth Comix, yet fundamentally very different. This is first and foremost an action comic and fans of action will love it. I thought it was brilliant and hilarious, but clearly, it is also very, very offensive. I like offensive, you may not. Either way this is a comic that has to be seen to be believed and deserves your attention.

Briefly

Hey-ho imaginary web chums! Been doing tons of reading and not much 'putering. There's also lots of family stuff going on so, you know, writing streams of unimportant bilge about men in leotards has had to take a back seat for a few days.

Real life eh? Wank isn't it?

Hopefully I'll get a bit of time to write some stuff tomorrow. In the meantime here's a picture of Conan saying bollocks...

Magic!

Scan from Conan The Cimmerian #16 (November 2009)

Break

Off to brave the flood plains of South West England for a few days. I shall be taking the following reading material with me...

Drifting Classroom vol 6

Invincible: Happy Days vol 11

Jersey Gods 1-9

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman (a 35-year-old novel with no pictures for crying out loud)

Cities In Flight by James Blish (yet more ancient SF prose)

Essential Spider-Man Vol 1 (for my son who likes to leaf through the black and white pages while telling me stories of Spidey and Rhino's trips to Sainsbury's).

Back next week. Ta-ra!