Comic review: Klaus #2- The Road to Freedom

Writer: Grant Morrison
Art: Dan Mora
Publisher: Boom! Studios
Released: 16th December 2015



‘So. We have a malcontent in our midst. Someone who refuses to play by the rules of civilisation.’


Evil hides beneath the veneer of collective goodness, taking from you, to give to him, as he deserves it more than you, we are more than you, and we have soldiers, swords/guns, and what are you going to do about it, little man?

It’s socialism. The theft of what you own, of what you have worked for, given to the spawn of the state, an ungrateful spoilt kid.

It’s evil here, real world evil in a beautifully drawn tale about Santa with muscles.

Happy Christmas to a world enthralled with unreality, dictators ain’t the problem mate, it’s collectivism, and you, the collectivised spoilt masses are at the centre of the matrix web of social control.

The world is a hall of smashed mirrors. Grant Morrison takes a shard, and shines it in your eyes. Understand the violent coercion of mirror shattering state apparatus. Here it is, for all to see. Can you see it?

Life should be a road not made. Create one, for yourself. The road well worn is a Disney movie, old, tired, regurgitated emptiness, the road is strewn with weeds, and it leads to nowhere.

Open up a new path to possibility where nostalgia withers, and everyday is a new day, with a new you, creation drunk, exploring your incandescent eternity of endless possibility and ever-expanding consciousness emancipation.

When Morrison gets it right he is an excellent road builder. In Klaus #2 he is building a very fine road indeed, and I'm more than happy to take a Yule time trip down his merry road to freedom.

Rating: 9/10

Klaus #2 is a lovely Christmas tale, it has jokes, but there’s depth here as well. This is more than the usual surface cleverness, nostalgia and social justice that you will find in an average Marvel comic book, or the new Disney Star Wars movie. 

There is real joy here, real creativity, and an acknowledgement that socialism boiled down is the state using collectivised guilt to justify the theft of resources from it’s tax netted population. 

Klaus is a book about individualism, and in this collectivised western world of shared weakness, shared inanity, and shared guilt, what better Christmas gift could any anarchist individualist ask for? 




A special Christmas message to everybody at Boom!Studios

Happy Christmas Boom!Studios. Happy Christmas Grant Morrison. Happy Christmas Dan Mora. Thanks for this fantastic comic book that is all about the Christmas spirit, not of collectivism, but of kind-hearted, individualistic volunteerism away from the violence and coercion that is old time monarchy/dictatorship and its modern day equivalent of neoliberal collectivised socialism. I'm loving the message here, and it's very much appreciated. Have a great Christmas, and I'll see you all in 2016.

Dreams of a Life (2011)- Movie Review in Prose: Who were the presents for?

Directed by: Carol Morley
Written by: Carol Morley
Starring:         Zawe Ashton
Distributor:     Dogwoof Pictures
Released:       16th December 2011 (UK)
Length:           95 minutes
Language: English
Box office: £187,513


'Dreams of a Life is a 2011 drama-documentary film, released by Dogwoof Pictures, directed by Carol Morley and starring Zawe Ashton.'

'It tells the story of Joyce Carol Vincent, whose body was found in January 2006 decomposing in her bedsit in Wood Green, North London, after she apparently died unnoticed in December 2003, surrounded by unopened Christmas presents with her TV still switched on.'

'The film interviews various friends, acquaintances and former partners to try to tell the story of Joyce, who is played in reconstructions by Ashton.' (Info from Wikipedia)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreams_of_a_Life


REVIEW:

A sad tale, looking for reasons behind the lonely death of a pretty girl, it was three years before anybody noticed, and I watch, judging everybody, forgetting about the editing decisions, the manipulation that is documentary, the lady never attached, the jobs, relationships, began, but never progressing.

I can relate.

She died alone, surrounded by Christmas presents: Who were the presents for? Her family, perhaps? Four sisters, and her father, do not appear in the documentary. Just work-friends that laugh at her being a cleaning lady before she died, poverty stripping her dignity, they are middle-class, and laugh at the image of her scrubbing floors, ha ha, work ‘mates’ do not care, a truth, it disturbs.

Two boyfriends interviewed. One with career/status rejected her. Other boyfriend is the ordinary man, not exciting, she rejected him, he still cries, the first boyfriend doesn't particular care, he's moved on and his life is fine.

Her isolation part choice, part failure.

Documentary pushes the idea of bad boyfriend abuse, it doesn’t stick, fails to convince. This is about personal choices, and a failure to connect, to plan for the future.

I do not see a victim here, just great sadness, a sadness at the heart of the towns, cities, routines and business that makes up our lives. Nothing extraordinary, it's the mundanity of life where real horror exists. A wave, a smile, fading into head down, scurry, a life off the rails, falling apart, sitting on a park bench, a face so pretty, now forgotten.

Documentary ends with a sad zoom of her face in the crowd, at a Nelson Mandella speech, it works well as an explosive documentary technique, she appears disinterested, apathetic, unmoved. An interesting lady, not into race politics or hero-worship. I probably would have liked her, but the lingering memory of the piece, a question remains: Who were the presents for?


Rating: 7/10 (The lack of input from surviving family members makes it all a bit speculative and contrived, but 'Dreams of a Life' is emotionally engaging, and worth watching as a social commentary piece about urban isolation and a failure to connect)

Walk Away: To reclaim ownership of yourself

By: Mark.A Pritchard (aka SwindonPoet/Rorshach1004)
Date: 15th September 2015



I understand the feeling, the need intensifying, to leave it all alone.

To smile, though nobody looks, cares.

To turn from the noise, from the jump on sentences, repeating themselves for infinitely.

Recycled ideologies, personality types, life stories, falling for the same old tricks, again and again.

Our age, our time, our ruination, humans devolving, and now, it’s time to walk away from the crowd.

Degenerated mass, circus animals, performing tricks, to amuse each other, not caring about their own enslavement.

They love it.

They really do.

Exchange whip, fight for ownership of coercion.

Sales talk, just talk, they love a good con man, woman now.

The only option for the awake is to walk, away from their cage love, circus love, love of the lie.

To leave the car in rush-hour traffic, throw the iphone away, embrace the quiet solitary life, away from the dull noise collective.

Broken routine, reclamation, noise fading, mind silence, quietude expansion, a chosen walk, away.

The Comfortable Cage of Sweet Routine: A Day Interrupted in Swindon Town Centre

Poem by: Mark.A Pritchard (aka Rorshach1004/Swindon Poet)
Date: 3rd September 2015


Sweet routine, you comfortable little cage, on tracks I roll, going where I always go, but suddenly, leaves, a red stop sign, the comic book shop has a little notice on it’s closed door.

‘Gone for an emergency, back before 12:30pm at the latest.’

So I’m waiting in a coffee shop, not the vulgar ‘Friends’ type, the old fashioned type, the type where you sit at a little wobbly table, brush the sugar away, and watch for wasps.

I sit eating a brown bread cheese and onion toasty, with coffee.

The coffee is black, and much nicer than I thought that it would be. It shocks me into wakefulness, banishing the routine, the dream, this is reality now, and I’m forced to stop, stare and think about it.

The shoppers fly past, ignoring me, as they ignore each other, this is society, no communication, just little tracks of routine still running.

I watch the routines fly by as my own tracks are delayed, thinking back to mornings five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, thirty years ago.

I have changed, but am still the same, sitting alone as I always did, not because of any reason, it's just the way that things are, and I do not question it now.

I finish up my coffee and there is a little smiley face at the bottom of my cup. He’s smiling at me, wishing me a pleasant day. I smile back, is this communication?

I sit up, the Polish waiters talk amongst themselves, and it’s almost 1pm. The comic book shop should be open by now.

I walk for two minutes, it’s open, the stop sign turns to green, and I’m back to my old routine again.




The beautiful image at the top of this poem is ‘Alone In the Crowd,’ by US artist David Derr. You can find his work here: 
http://fineartamerica.com/featured/alone-in-the-crowd-david-derr.html

Swindon Town- The iGeneration- Passing me by

I live in a nice little English town.

Swindon town.

There’s a football team here.

And a magic roundabout.

The former consists of those that want to be somewhere else.

Swindon shops, always busy.

The later is a traffic jam in the middle of the town centre.

The people here, in Swindon town, live in little houses, and in their cars, and at work, or school.

Occasionally they walk, or cycle.

Plugged in to ithings.

Listening to something else.

Going somewhere else.

I watch as they pass me by.

They’re so busy.

On their way to work.

Or school.

Or shopping.

Or whatever it is that they do.

Because I don’t really know what they do.

I can guess.

But they don’t talk to me.

They just pass me by.

Off they go.

The magic roundabout, always busy.

Whoosh.

Whoosh.

Zoom.

Zoom.

They're so busy.

With so little time.

I live in a nice little English town.

Swindon town.

I’ve lived here for over thirty years now.

There are people here.

Nice people.

I think.

I don’t really know them.

And they don’t really know me.

Are we happy?

I don’t know.

We don’t speak.

Of triumphant isolation- A short story

Original story by: Mark .A. Pritchard
Composed and published: 26th February 2015


He sits upon the floor, a cushion, a blanket, fidgets around trying to make himself comfortable whilst the candle flickers, casting a shadow of interest upon his dull, now magical bedroom wall.

There is no plan, there never is a plan, for plans go wrong, and what’s the point in planning something that will only go wrong?

A book, a pad, writing down the important sentences that he quotes over and over again in his head.

‘You don’t like me, but I don’t like you either.’ 

Yes, that was a good one. She really managed to say something there.

Caught the essence, like a wasp in a jam jar.

Library just a hop, scrape and crawl down the road, past the shop, past the pub, past the old theatre.

Row after row of Heaven in dust.

It could be Hell.

Though the taste is of purgatory’s never ending circle.

Feminism, Marxism, Post-modernism.

Read, repeat, pass.

Read, repeat, pass.

Pat on the head for jumping through hoops.

The lonely, creaky old books hover over regimented lanes of blank faced students, headphones on, ignoring those around them, talking to a bucktoothed girl in Luxembourg, or however that old Smith’s song lyric went.

Typing, how do you do that frowny face again?

Back to the shadows that flicker.

Now that quiet, incessant rumble of traffic, crack, a snowball through the window, plops softly on the bed, rock laden, heavy to break, to cause damage as they run away laughing into the night.

Colder now, traffic louder, candle almost out, dawn breaking, business outside, sleep overcoming.

He waits for office hours, calls for repair, hangs up, settles down, book read, candle out, don’t forget a library visit at teatime, a book, a book, a book.



The snowy library picture used at the head of this poem/story/thing can be found here: http://moonlightrose44.deviantart.com/art/Winter-Library-193895942


*Quote is from a Jean Rhys book. Which one? I forget.