Wednesday 3 February 2016

Comic Review: Will Eisner's The Spirit #7- Butter your crumpets & put your feet up




Writer: Matt Wagner
Art: Dan Schkade
Colours: Brennan Wagner
Publisher: Dynamite Comics
Released: 20th January 2016


The Spirit #7 is very silly, and it’s not saying anything, or even trying to.

The Spirit himself is a daft, square jawed bloke in blue. He works for the ‘authorities,’ so it reinforces the idea that state authority is legitimate.

In other words, here’s another comic book character that anarchists will detest.

It’s set in a besuited gangster time with men wearing fedoras and where ‘criminal’ things are going on down the docks.

Matt Wagner won’t have done anything research for this one, as there’s nothing in here that would need any researching.

The fun to be had is with the silliness, and the art and the odd line of dialogue, or look from a character, that makes you smile.

It’s a child’s cartoon, and the art confirms that. It’s big, bright and colourful, and I enjoyed it.

The book offers readers a break from reality, in a land of silliness and cosy nostalgia for 1940’s noir Americana.

The Spirit #7 is as sharp as a butter knife. Read it with some toast, and a cup of coffee. Smile, enjoy, and then get back to reality.


Rating: 7/10 (Do you need a five-minute break from reality? Put your feet up, butter your crumpets and let the Spirit ease your troubled, exhausted, anxious, overburdened mind)


Monday 1 February 2016

Yes Instead of What?




By: Rorshach 1004
Date: 1st February 2016


Whenever I want to feel down, I can go down town, to the site of nothingness, literally nothing I can walk, and watch, and buy a coffee from a Polish girl. I think she was Polish, but she could have been Ukrainian, or anywhere in the EU really.

She said milk. I thought she said mirror. The bloke next to me translated, thanks for that mate. He’s used to it. I’m not. I couldn’t understand a word of what she said, and so I said ‘yes,’ instead of ‘what?’

Why bother to communicate when ‘yes’ will suffice?

Yes, I’ll have the milk.

Yes, I ordered the toastie.

Yes, I’ll pay my bill, my taxes, and my funereal rites.

But no, I will not wait in purgatory.

The big no, reserved for the self, the others always hearing yes, the no a surprise, keep it to yourself.

This blog is purgatory you know. Like town, it’s there, but what does it offer?

I have stayed away, and I feel good about that.

Return to nothingness is always painful.

A review of the latest 2000AD- Hero Pat Mills shouts, readers complain about ‘conspiracy’ stories their minds directly controlled by central government thought control Inc. 

The enslaved hate it when you talk about their chains. You will not go there. The man with a whip says it’s untrue, therefore it must be untrue. I have no chains. Why look for myself? I have far better things to do with my time.

Like?

Old Man Wolverine #1- Nothing to say, not going to try. Time travel genre, to change things before they get worse, revenge for future insults. Fantasy cult of personality, avoids the urgency of now.

Play here children. The house is on fire, but isn’t it so deliciously warm?

Why bother to play?

Childhood is over.

Endless rut of my own routine/perception wants me to stay, but I break away.

In purgatory’s circle you hear nothing, cept the sound of your own voice bouncing off the boomerang walls.

I used to live here, and stare at those walls.

Now I visit, and see where the dust grows.

Down town in the library, closed terminals, there’s a metaphor there.

Now nearer back home, the crumbling old Link Centre with new entrance system. Interior the same, access now modernised. Another metaphor? Something about modern change being on the surface level only? I suspect, actually, I know.

And I sit here complaining to purgatory thin Australian walls.

Hit this, back in my face, dull-hurts.

A joke played upon myself, for want of something to do.

It's okay.

Time slips away.

But I see the exit.

Oh look, a post in purgatory.

A stain on the wall.

Scratch and sniff?

I turn.

Leave.

Yes or What?

Ascending.