Kinski by Kinski (Fragrance review): Individuality in a bottle

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.

50-Word (Comic) review: Symmetry #1- Individualism versus Collectivism

Writer: Matt Hawkins
Artist: Raffaele Ienco
Publisher: Top Cow/Image Comics
Released: 9th December 2015


Liberal writer takes his PC ideology, creates a progressive future for us all. Writes a socialist paradise of clones, controlled by hive-mind AI, free of individualism, slaves to the greater good, a nightmare liberal utopia. Is ‘Symmetry’ detailing a progressive mind breaking free from its cultural Marxist programming? We’ll see.



Rating: 8/10

A very intriguing beginning with a lefty comic book writer (yes, I know, they are all lefties today) exploring issues of individualism versus collectivism. 

It would be unwise to get too excited at this early stage, but I get the sense that writer Matt Hawkins has an open mind (and that is a rare thing in the left today) and is genuinely concerned about a utopian future created by the progressive/collectivist/totalitarian left.  

He’s looking at this future and seeing a lack of creative individualism (and as a creative man himself, why wouldn’t he?) and realising that perhaps this hive mind borg collectivist ideology is not as great as he had previously thought it to be. 

That’s the funny thing about creative liberals. They are a lot more individualistic and ‘right-wing’ than they think that they are, it’s just that they do one thing (using their individuality to create something new) and promote the direct opposite (calling for ideological collectivisation). 

The contradiction that is at the heart of cultural Marxist programming will finally be the thing that defeats it. As the progressive writers begin to understand just what it is that they have been promoting, they will inevitably turn against the narrow dictates of politically correct, collectivist, virtue signalling ideology, and start to get back onto the freedom train of individualism, creativity and human freedom. 

There’s a guy called Trump who is breaking down a few walls at the moment. He’s controversial. He’s brave, and he’s very, very popular. There is a reason for his popularity, and it’s not because his followers are all evil, racist, sexist bigots. The reason for his popularity is that he is an INDIVIDUAL battling against the status quo political ideology of COLLECTIVISM. You might not like Trump, but that’s not the point. The point is that we need to get back to individualism, and to leave this era of politically correct collectivism behind us. It’s dangerous, and we need to get rid of it.

FRAGRANCE REVIEW: KINSKI BY ESCENTRIC MOLECULES- A SCENT FOR THE COMFORTABLY WEIRD

Released: 2011
House: Escentric Molecules
Fragrantica page: http://www.fragrantica.com/perfume/Kinski/Kinski-14192.html



Top Notes: Cannabis, Juniper, Castoreum, Black Currant
Heart Notes: Oceanic notes, Magnolia, Vetiver
Base notes: Animalic notes, Woody notes, Patchouli



I’m a little bit weird. Not because I want/try to be weird, and not because I have a particular chemical imbalance or psychological condition that affects my mental reasoning or social behaviour, because I don’t.

I am weird because I am noticeably different to the people that I grew up with. It’s as simple as that.

I have never felt any desire to join, and this not wanting to join has made me ‘weird’ from the very beginning, whether I realised it or not. I didn’t even have to do anything. Being weird is not about what you do, it’s about what you don’t do, and by doing nothing, I marked myself for life.

And now as a different version of the same person that I always was, and still outside, I’m into scents, and what scent encapsulates outsiderness, difference, separation, better than Kinski? It’s an anti-social scent, but not really, like myself, it’s rough, but really quite sweet. I sampled it in a department store, and was instantly repelled at the awkwardness of the scent.

This isn’t perfume, is it? I thought that perfume was supposed to be soft, charming, alluring, and romantic, not a harsh, dirty, earthy, sweaty, dry, animalic? I can’t wear this, can I? What would people say? And that’s the point. Here’s what they will say.

In my world, they will say nothing, because that is what they always say. So, I douse myself in Kinski, enjoy it, because I like it, I really do, and what people think, it doesn’t matter, because I do not matter to them, so why waste my time in concern for how they will react?

I wear Kinski for myself. I wear it because my individuality is not a circle and the scent helps me to connect with that awkward sense of alone for life individuality that I value more than anything else in the world. It’s little old me, in a bottle, awkward and alone, harsh, yet sweet, and happy to be alone, as looking around me, there’s nothing out there that’s really worth joining, or belonging to, is there?

Kinski is a scent for the comfortably weird, for those that happily refuse to assimilate within one of the little groups of stranger circles. You wear it because it allures you, to yourself. It makes you appreciate yourself.

The world grinds people up, taking them inside, and moulding them into the collective. It’s how the world works, it’s how humanity works, and it’s how we kill ourselves for the greater good of what will never exist. Outside, they walk, back and forth, to their circles of ruinous routine, but you don’t have to pick a side and join the wilfully blinded throng. Let them walk by. They are walking, but they are not going anywhere. Enjoy Kinski, luxuriate within the isolated sense of fiercely independent weirdness, it’s all you need, it’s all that anybody needs.


Longevity: 8/10
Sillage: 8/10
Overall rating: 10/10

'Obey' (A webcomic about the reality threatening cult of collectivism)

Under the collectivist model, truth and morality is defined by the consensus of the group, therefore objective (outside of the group) truth and morality do not exist. The individual that argues for moral truth is wrong, not because of the strengths (or weaknesses) of his argument, he is wrong because he is not part of the group, and therefore, does not exist. If you want to know more about collectivism, please watch this excellent video....

50-Word (Comic) Review: Dark Knight III- The Master Race- Book One: The New Batman book by Frank Miller- Don’t worry, it’s bloody awesome

Writer: Frank Miller & Brian Azzarello
Art: Andy Kubert & Klaus Janson
Publisher: DC Comics
Released: 25th November 2015


Female protagonists dominate the comic book industry. How to make them resonate? Portray dead masculinity in decaying west. Cops prey on citizens. Vigilantes are villains, not heroes. The enemy of western governments is not ISIS. The enemy is masculine individualism, and those that refuse to be collectivised. Frank gets it.



Rating: 10/10

A short review for a fantastic comic book. There will be no spoilers here. Read the book for yourself. I loved it.

Abyssal - The Cornucopian: The Awakened Force of the Sacred Masculine

Play track, and read.......

Do you hear that quiet discontented, maladjusted male voice stirring? At first in chaos, disorganised, so many nails, standing up, isolated, separated, disorganised, inefficient in solitude, then finally, together, rising above the parapet, in rage, unafraid any longer to sleep amongst the feminised, sedated hordes. We rumble our discontent, individualistically, believing our cry will never be heard, we cry anyway, a defiant roar of anger, a no, a refusal to join, to accept the collectivisation of acquiescence, until finally, a damn bursts, our individual voices merge as one, and a crescendo of violent rhythm crashes, like a wave against the anaesthetic hordes. The elite’s cry out in horror, it wasn’t supposed to be like this, the sheeple were to sleepwalk into tyranny, but no, the enemy, humanity, with the sacred masculine leading the charge, has risen, as one, as a NO, a defiant fist into the face of globalisation, of neoliberalism, of multiculturalism of cultural Marxism. The wall of tell lie vision iphone helplessness collapses under a tide of righteous male anger, a refusal to lie down and accept their plans for Armageddon, their dreams of chaos before their new world tyranny, the days before the end. Awakened in violent fury, the weakness of collectivised power collapses overnight against the barrage of western masculine holocaust aggression. The battle is short, and the dark suit wearing demons are banished to the pit where they belong. Man acts. God is the judge. A world reclaimed, the wall of obliterating masculine anger subsides, and calm returns, there will be no more sleeping, we wait in guard, tyranny will be kept in check, the sacred masculine watchmen of western civilisation sleep no more. We wait, in preparation, for tyranny to stir again. A single velvet glove, with iron fist, a smile for all, but warning to those that would collectivise the future. Humanity settles, the world prospers under free association, the non-aggression principal and golden rule being the moral law of the land. No more coercion, no more statism, no more uniforms, and no more leaders. The imperfect ape-like being, blessed with the divine gift of God consciousness, finally achieves its brave new world. It’s not the one the globalists had been ‘banking’ upon.




This piece was inspired by 'The Cornocopian' by Abyssal.

'The Cornocopian' is from the 10/10 album Antikatastaseis, by Abyssal, released on June 23rd 2015. BUY IT.

Abyssal bandcamp page: https://abyssal-home.bandcamp.com/

A definition of freedom: Negative reviews, a prison world, collectivism and the right of an individual to remain outside, alone, unhappy, but free.

Article by: Mark.A Pritchard (aka Rorshach1004/SwindonPoet)

Date: 29th October 2015



It can be tiring, frustrating, depressing and soul destroying when you read and review a book (or movie) that isn’t very good.

People don’t want to hear ‘negative’ comments about something that they like, so what you are doing is spending your time writing reviews that will be ignored. People will see it as a ‘negative’ review, and will not bother to read the entire article, and they certainly won’t comment or leave you any feedback on it. However, if you go over the top with mad praise about something, you’ll get a big audience and receive plenty of positive feedback, some probably coming from the creator/writer himself.

Here’s the deal, as I see it. In 2015 we live in a world of media choices where people choose only to consume the media that conforms to their particular world-view. Liberal types read liberal media. Conservative types read conservative media, and ‘geek’ types read media that offers them a little cocoon of unreality where they can hide within a soft feminist, identity politics obsessed, cultural Marxist, neo-liberal world of get-along-gang unreality.

So when somebody like myself comes along and starts to slag off their beloved unreality texts, they do what you might expect them to do. They ignore my words, and stay within the confines of their familiar reservations, where they don’t have to think about anything that makes them feel uncomfortable with the comic book ‘geek’ culture programming products that they are consuming.

I’m not complaining about this situation, I just want to state on the record that I’m very much aware of what is going on. I expect to be ignored, and I also expect to have the occasional pat on the head when I go overboard and heap praise on something. That’s just how it works today in 2015 where the consumer self-censors his own thought processess.

You don’t need Internet police or censorship to stop 'difficult' people like myself. Comic book fans do the work of the censors for them. Anything outside of their neo-liberal, progressive, corporate/statist consensus world-view is disregarded as the ravings of a madman, as something coming from a crazy person who is taking the fun out of comics, taking things too seriously, or just somebody who has too much time on his hands. If that doesn’t work then they can always fall back on their beloved identity politics and call me racist, or sexist, either category will do. My opinionated words challenge the established comic book order, and so of course, they must be ignored.

What I want to do here is to offer up some words of encouragement for sidelined people, like myself, that might be reading this little article.

Keep on writing, keep on doing what you are doing. I don’t have to agree with a single word that you say, but we need disagreeable, individualistic people more than any other time right now.

We need the nutters, we need the moaners and complainers, and we need the wacky and the strange. We need the anti-social outsiders to mock and insult the socio-political norms of our times.

Humanity is sleepwalking into a world of soft state collectivism, and the people are happily imprisoning themselves within a cage of their own making.

In other words, and this is me talking about myself now: I know that I am outside, and I choose to remain here, outside. I can see the cages, the bars, and I can see the people happily existing within them. I see families building the prisons, and I see well-intentioned mothers and fathers encouraging their children to reinforce the gates and bars. The people look so happy living within their own self built prisons, and if that’s where they are happiest, then who am I to demand that they free themselves?

If they want to live in jail, then they are free to live in jail.

I myself though chose to stay here, alone, outside of the prison, and although it can be a bit depressing and soul-destroying at times, there’s nowhere that I’d rather be. To quote from ‘A Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley: ‘ All right then, said the savage defiantly, ‘I’m claiming the right to be unhappy.’ And this, my collectivist friends, is the very definition of being free.

50 Word Review- Civil War #5: A study in divide and conquer manipulation, individualism and collectivism

Writer: Charles Soule
Art: Leinil Francis Yu
Publisher: Marvel
Released: 14th October 2015


End of Civil War arc resonates with reality. Both sides manipulated into war. Narrative conclusion highlights real world male/female divide. Feminine/left gives up liberty for illusion of security. This is why governments target females, demonising men/family/tradition. Right/male choose individuality versus collectivism. Peter Parker chooses anarchy/morality/individualism, makes me smile, worthwhile arc.


Rating: 9/10


This arc was occasionally confusing, and a lot of things didn’t make sense to me, but the conclusion offers something that I can get my teeth into. Read it as you like, but what I see here is an admission that a lot of manipulation is going on in the real world, and that when the puppet masters are revealed, and destroyed, there will be a choice to make. That choice will be individualism versus collectivism. The totalitarian, feminine left, versus the individualistic, masculine right. This is not a gender war. It’s an ideological war. Comic book readers are predominantly male, and predominantly left wing and feminine in their world-views. They are statist/collectivists, liberals, progressives, and slaves to the state, the idea that you have to give up personal liberty in order to have personal freedom. It’s a contradiction, as the more liberty you give up, the less freedom you have. The mainstream political establishment is liberal/progressive today. Comic books are also mainstream liberal/progressive in their world-views, so it’s nice to see the other side in a comic book for a change. This Civil War arc by Charles Soule, gives fair airing to that other side, and for that reason alone it’s a very valuable and worthwhile comic book to read and to get in tpb as soon as it’s available.


*The image at the head of this review is the Lo-Karr, Bringer of Doom variant cover by John Cassaday.

Comic review: Godzilla in Hell #3- Godzilla the Anarchist

Writers: Ulises Farinas & Erick Frietas
Art: Buster Moody
Publisher: IDW
Released: 30th September 2015



For me, this ostensibly ‘daft’ series about Godzilla in the land of the big red guy has been the surprise hit of 2015.  I expected a laugh from it, but what I have got is an excellent platform for artists and writers to show off and really explore their own creative inspirations.

Every month there has been a different writer and artist. I’ve reviewed all three months, so if you want to know what happened in the previous two issues then check them out on my blog. I strongly advise that you do, as they really do have a lot of offer.

Last month the art and concept was the star, but this month it’s all about the concept. The art serves this month, taking a backseat to the power of the story, and what it is so concisely (and successfully) trying to say.

The narrative structure is simple. Godzilla has a fight on earth. He blows it up, goes to Heaven, has a fight in Heaven, goes to Hell, has a fight in Hell, wins, leaves, alone, independent, unconquerable, refusing to join, refusing to submit to anybody, even Heaven itself.

It could read as being a bit daft, but it really isn’t. What is happening here is a comic book analogy of the real world battle between individualism and collectivism.

Godzilla refuses to join, and it doesn’t matter to him one jot whether it’s Satan or God himself that is asking him. He refuses because he is an individual. He couldn’t care less about factions, or ideology. He fights for himself. He rejects leadership, rejects followers, rejects kingship, and fights not for dominance, but for the moral right to be left alone and to be separate from the eternally warring collective.

Godzilla is the ultimate realisation of an anarchist freedom fighter. He isn’t heading up a Marxist or even right leaning anarchist army and going to war for dominance. No, he’s doing what all real anarchists should be doing, he’s refusing to join the collective group think ideology of any political constitution, and going 100% libertarian anarchist, and fighting for his right to be left alone from any external collectivist, group-think control system.

When Godzilla wins a battle he turns his back, and leaves. He has won, but the spoils of war do not interest him. He rejects followers, territory, power and (most importantly) authoritarianism collectivism.

Godzilla won't be led, and he certainly won’t be a leader either. It’s that mindset that is really going to change the world, the mindset of the independent individual who will not join, will not submit and will not lead another cult of collectivist followers.

Go your own way, do your own thing, embrace the life of a truly free individual, fight your own battles, for yourself, reject the collectivism of any group-think ideology, force yourself to be free, force yourself to be like Godzilla.



Rating: 8/10 (For it’s strong moral message of individualism versus collectivism this one is a winner)

Social Justice (Video): A poem about individualism

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.

Marvel’s Civil War: The Death of the Superhero and Rise of Comic Book Collectivism

Article by: Mark.A Pritchard (aka Rorshach1004/SwindonPoet)
Date: 11th September 2015



‘The Iron has spent the last six years isolating us from the rest of the world. They have embargoed our trading partners. Threatened those who help us. Spread lies.’ (Captain America in Civil War #4-2015)

Do American (and western) comic book ‘geek’ readers see the irony in that statement?

The words come from the mouth of Captain America, the ultimate American comic book hero, and what he is describing (and decrying) is US foreign policy since the end of WW2. He is outlining a deliberate strategy of economic isolation/suffocation deliberately designed to achieve hegemony and domination over an entire planet. It is a policy that has led to the deaths of millions of innocent people who never had a chance, people who died because of the deliberate policies coming from western democracies.

The original Civil War, by Mark Millar.

That is the policy of the west. That is the policy of the ‘heroes.’

Will readers see the statement as a critique of what America actually is? Will they see the reality behind the statement, or will it just be another piece of comic book story-telling that is read, forgotten, and seen as play-time fun and games that has nothing whatsoever to do with the real world?

My guess, and it’s just a guess, is that readers will read it as part of the story in Civil War #4, and will leave it at that. Captain America has given a speech that could easily have come out of the mouth of Saddam Hussain, or Muammar Gaddafi, or Bashar al-Assad, or Vladimir Putin. It’s a speech that could have been given by any leader that has seen his country targeted for destruction by western ‘democratic’ neo-liberal corporate hegemony.

What would happen if readers carefully analysed the statement made by Captain America, and looked at what has happened in the real world over the past few decades? How would they see the US as a force for good in the world? They would be forced to re-evaluate, and to re-consider what they personally are doing in the world, how they, through paying their taxes, and supporting the state, are complicit in what has happened, what is happening and what it going to happen next.

What is going to happen next is war, a big war waged against Iran and Russia, the last two holdouts against western imperialism. It will be called World War 3, and it will be the last war. The end result will be a nuclear holocaust, a tiny population of world-controllers, and a slave population of five hundred million people.

Comic book readers need to put down the comic books, look at recent world history, and decide whether or not they want to go along with the unfolding agenda. They do have a choice; they don’t have to go along with it. They have a voice, and they can use it, if they want to.

The new 'Civil War' by Charles Soule.

This is not silly conspiracy stuff, it’s recent world history, and it’s happening right now as I type these words. Writer Charles Soule puts his words of truth into the mouth of Captain America at the beginning of Civil War #4, but then the book unfolds in a convoluted, contradictory fashion that makes pretty much no sense whatsoever, thus diminishing the impact of the opening statement. However, the statement is made, and it cannot be unmade. It’s truth in a genre that sees very little truth at all, and now it’s up to us to decide whether or not we want to face that truth, or just go back to reading comic books as usual.

US superhero comic books don’t do heroes anymore. Tony Stark won the original Marvel Comics Civil war, and the superheroes became agents of the state. Captain America, the symbol of individualism, of freedom from state control (Yes, I know it’s ironic, but perhaps he’s just represented the old America?), surrendered, and was murdered. Mark Millar wrote that ending in 2007. It was the correct ending to write.

Contemporary comic book heroes are collectivists, controlled by the state, working for the state. The era of individualism died with the death of Captain America in the original Civil War. What has followed since has been painful to watch, with Marvel and DC comics celebrating collectivised, order following, ‘heroes’ and the death of individualism and true heroism. The independent, moral, liberty minded heroes have become unthinking soldiers. I'm sorry, but soldiers are not heroes, no matter what the propaganda coming out of the state tries to tell you. Soldiers follow orders. Right and wrong does not figure in their actions, morality does not figure in their actions, they do what they are told to do, no questions asked, see Bradley Manning for more details.

Marvel’s original Civil War story-arc and this new extension of the original story (by Charles Soule) reveals a brutal truth about the death of individualism in post 9/11 America. That truth might be clouded and hidden within a jumble of plot twists, super-powered personality issues and contradictions, but the truth is there, and is something that we all need to understand.

Art from Yu, on the new Civil War #4

As the US Empire continues to crumble and morph into a one-world government, at least we all know how it happened, and who was responsible. The coming New World Order was made possible by the economic strangulation of sovereign states, a siege policy that ends in war or capitulation. All countries that have refused to be dictated to by US led corporate, neo-liberal hegemony have been under economic siege for decades, and those still holding out are being targeted by western intelligence agencies, NGO’s, mercenaries and the western backed lunatic army known as the Islamic state.

The policy of total, global domination is at the centre of western, neo-liberal political consensus. When you vote, you vote for war. All parties belong to the cult of neo-liberalism; your only choice is between personalities, not policy differences. Corporate lebensraum has made the world what it is today. Do you like it?

I personally am not a fan.

So who is to blame? It’s not the politicians or the liars on the television. They are there because we allow them to be there. We built their houses. We bred children to be used as their slaves, and now our children have guns, and the guns are turned at us.

We are to blame.

We built neo-liberalism.

We built it, brick by brick, vote by vote, order followed, after order followed. We refused to look as we slaved away at its construction, but we built it. It is our fault. The world is the way it is today because we had free choice, and we decided to give away our freedoms to the illusion of authority, because men and women calling themselves ‘Government’ ordered, and we chose to obey them.

Iron Man, a symbol of collectivism over individualism.

We shout and scream at the individual pawns, yet we play their game, we vote, we get what we deserve, we are willing dupes, and we have allowed ourselves to be used, abused, divided and killed. The world could be a beautiful place of free choice, free association, individualism and self-determination, but we didn’t want that. Instead, we chose collectivism, and if we continue to be spectators in our own lives then what happens next will be exactly what we all deserve.

Hoping for change will not change a thing, action is what is needed.

Real life heroes are individuals, people who do things not for ideology, reward or status, but because it’s the right thing to do. Change comes from action, from doing something, not hoping for somebody else to do it for you. Government kills all ideals of action and individualism and replaces it with the all-encompassing collective merged prison identity of the state.

We are living during a time of neo-liberal, cross-party consensus tyranny. We can change it, if we want to, but here’s my opinion on the matter. I think that some people would rather read comic books and go along with it, and some people would rather join it, than fight it.

A lot of people have become lazy, immoral, complacent, greedy and selfish. A lot of people are scared, or apathetic, or perhaps they are just confused? Learnt helplessness is a powerful weapon of the neoliberal corporate elites, and it’s pumped out 24/7 from their mainstream media indoctrination centres masquerading as ‘news.’  The message is to comply and that all resistance to neo-liberalism is futile. You are small, you cannot do anything, stand-down, comply, do what you are told.

Complicity, fear, apathy and confusion together with learnt helplessness imprison the programmed, collectivised masses and the end result is millions of people complying with their own enslavement and serving the system that imprisons them all.

Choose Cap, choose individualism over collectivism.

Individualism has become a bad word. It is being discouraged, because it is the individual that will destroy the collectivised state. We need to stand up, as individuals, not as a group. We need to re-learn how to say NO, and to do things for ourselves. That’s what I think. That’s what I think about the world today.

Comic books reflect reality, and the reality is that we have become collectivised slaves to state authority. Tony won, collectivism won. Cap lost, individualism lost. The world we live in today, the western world, the comic book world, it’s a defeated world. But is it over? Oh no, not yet.

I’m a scrappy bloke, and I’m up for a comeback fight. Cap died, but death is temporary in comic books, and here’s a truth, it’s temporary in the real world as well.

We die, sure, but the soul cannot die. The soul is immortal. The body dies, but we return, the fight does not end, it goes on, we live, learn, balls things up, but it’s never over.

Neo-liberal collectivist ideology might be in the ascendant right now, but that doesn’t mean that you have to go along with it.  I’m up for a fight. I’m up for saying no, and I’m ready to kick neo-liberal collectivist slave ideology in the balls. I’m not a superhero, but I’m not a slave either. I’m an individual, and individualism is the silver bullet that will kill the murderous ideology of neo-liberal state collectivism.

My blog is small, and it might only be read by a handful of people, but that won’t stop me from saying what needs to be said, and from talking about what is happening in the world today. Comic books reflect cultural consensus, but cultural consensus changes. We are living during a time of rising state collectivism, a time of war, lies and propaganda, but it doesn’t always have to be like that.  We can turn things around, but the only way that we are going to get out of our self-dug pit of collectivism is to realise that we are standing in a hole in the first place.

Extreme Metal- VIDEO REVIEW- Aphotic, by Jupiterian: Will You Follow the Dark ...

Extreme Metal- REVIEW- Aphotic, by Jupiterian: Will You Follow the Dark Collective?

Genre: Doom/Black/Death/Heavy Metal

Released: 14th August 2015

Label: Caligari Records

Listen here:
https://caligarirecords.bandcamp.com/album/aphotic

Purchase here:
http://caligarirecords.storenvy.com/collections/277955-all-products/products/14066142-jupiterian-aphotic-cal-037



Aphotic is a call to join the Dark Collective where five songs of dense, sludgy, snarling, guttural, melodic, slow, terrible beauty lead you through a life spent lost in sweet, honey dripped poison.

Opening track ‘Permanent Grey’ introduces the Phantom Piper, the Happy Ghost of the Dark Collective. He takes your hand and welcomes you into the land of swamp thick dust and dreams where absinthe slick, hypnotic, seductive groves of sweet, sweet poison deliciously choke the air.

It’s dense here, very dense, the fog is almost impregnable, but the poison is so honey sweet, and it leads you through the darkness, seducing you into an awakened slumber. It feels safe here, so warm, so carefree, and you allow yourself to follow, to follow, to follow, and to be lost within the dream. You are entranced now, and the Piper no longer has to take you by the hand. You want to follow, you need to follow, and he leads you laughing, dancing, and skipping merrily into the Dark Collective.

‘Daylight’ shows the dawn, the light of truth. You wake, startled by the Sun, your eyes squint, but the poison honey, it’s still there, and you turn from the aggressive solar blast of the day, and back to the sweet coo of the Piper. You walk onwards, following, the trance still compels, and the journey continues.

Onto ‘Proclamation’ where the energy of the Sun is dampened, the fog descends, and the march onwards continues. Light struggles to emerge now. Energy is sapped, heads are low, and it’s turning funereal.

The Piper no longer laughs, no longer plays, no longer skips, his flute is a weapon now, he waves his followers on, threateningly, you’ve gone too far, and to stop would be to be lost in the dark, vulnerable to what hides in the fog. You follow not because of the sweetness in the air, but because fear compels, because you no longer have a choice. The time for seduction has passed. The bride is in chains now, and all that is left is the onwards, inevitable march of time.

The eternal child that is within begins to cry. Why is the Piper not smiling anymore? He used to dance, he used to play, he used to sing, but now all he does is point, and order, and scowl. You are scared. The Dark Collective no longer sings in sweet, hypnotic joy. They look at the ground. Together, individualism has been defeated. Low guttural sounds of terror, self- pity, surrender and despair has become their discordant song now. They sing it alone, walking side by side, but strangers all.

The Piper looks your way, reads your mind, and he smiles. You see his teeth now, and they are black stumps, worms crawl through the decay, sweetness has rotten away what once was pure, sweetness has destroyed the purity that came from God. The light of the Sun was there, offered, but rejected. Replaced by sweetness, you devil, the self-inflicted rot of prosperity, of a dulled, idle decadent complacency, sweet hypnotic rot, you will kill us all.

‘Aphotic’ is the end of life, the end of all hope. It’s a grinding halt, a STOP sign. You stare at the nothingness, the damp soil, lines and lines of defeated lost souls. You see shovels, and the Piper barks his last words. They are orders, and you must obey. Hands grasp handles, digging, digging, and digging. The air still fogged, sweetened not with honey, but with sod, the mud of the ground, from dust we became, from dust we shall return, wetted with damp soil, eaten by worms, we prepare our future, entranced by sweetness, defeated by prosperity, we dig our own eternities.

‘Drag Me to My Grave’ is the final plea, not for mercy, but for the end, for the nothingness that is to come. A life spent following the Piper, from the seduction of our senses, chasing the sweetness, joining the Dark Collective. We have allowed ourselves to be marched to the Graveyard, to the mud, to the shovel. Why do we chose to be lost in the fog, to follow the sweet, poison embrace of the Dark Collective, to lose ourselves, to stumble into fear, into routine, and so quickly into decay? We dig our own graves, and hypnotically, silently, jump into forever.



Rating: 10/10 (The sweet, terrifying choices that we make, the choices that lead to eternity)

Comic review: Conan the Avenger #10- Sit-up, stand-up, don’t be a slave

Writer: Fred Van Lente
Artist: Brian Ching
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Released: 28th January 2015


Writer Fred Van Lente gives us some good old fashioned manly action in this month’s Conan the Avenger, and it continues to have everything that you could ask for in a Conan story.

Issue #10 features a pretty girl on the back of Conan’s horse, Conan himself having a far from friendly cuddle with a giant reptile, and a devious wizard doing what devious wizard’s do.

It features superb panel construction from artist Brian Ching, who builds up the narrative tension before giving the reader superb full page panels of artwork when the action or narrative development peaks in terms of excitement/peril for our brave hero.

Two panels stand-out, but I won’t spoil them. Get the book for yourself and I guarantee that you’ll have just as much fun with them as I did.

The book is a lot of fun, but it’s not perfect. It has a weak ending, and some of the dialogue is a bit too cute, a bit too self-aware and a bit too annoying in a way that you’ll find in a lot of mainstream comic books today.

You know how it goes? Everything is a joke, and the exchanges read more like a writer trying to be clever rather than two believable people having a genuine conversation. Some people like that, but it gets on my nerves. Lets get away from Kevin Smith and Quentin Tarrantino and move on to more realistic dialogue. I like realism, not cleverness.

Apart from that point on the ‘too cool for school’ nature of some of the dialogue I have no hesitation in recommending this exciting, well drawn, expertly constructed slice of good old fashioned swords and scorcery, damsel in distress, lizards and wizards action.

Conan the Avenger #10 is an enjoyable book, there’s no Police state worshipping about it, and Conan himself is an archetype, a hero who still resonates strongly today. In these collectivised, authority
worshipping times Conan reminds us that we have to be responsible for ourselves, and if we rely on authority to protect us we’ll end up living in a prison of our own design.

Don’t sit down, don’t watch, and don’t give away your power to those who would control you. If you want something, then do it for yourself. Be like Conan. Sit-up, stand-up, and don’t be a slave.


Rating: 8/10

Comic review: Conan the Avenger #8- Individualism versus corporate collectivism

Writer: Fred Van Lente
Artist: Brian Ching
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Released: 26th November 2014


I always go back to my old Conan comics, reading them again and again to remind myself that comics can be good, if done properly. I need the reassurance every now and then, especially after reading bloody awful, intelligence insulting mainstream comic books that obsess over race, sexuality and gender politics, whilst deliberately ignoring the important issues of our times.

Break down their centres of control

You know what I’m talking about here, right? I’m talking about corporate/banking criminality, endless wars against media generated villains, a lack of political representation for the 99% of ordinary people, unthinking statism and the worship of order following abusers in positions of lawless state authority. These are the pressing concerns of today, not skin colour, race, religion or sexuality. These are the issues that comic books should be addressing. They are not doing so, and you don’t have to be a genius to understand why.

A good Conan comic is about individuality, and standing up for yourself whilst sticking to a strict set of moral codes, punishing the corrupt and being kind to the weak. Conan is not a government agent; he’s not an uniformed enforcer, he’s not an order follower, he’s not a good corporate slave. He would be completely out of place in the Marvel comic book universe of 2014 where order following state slaves are portrayed as heroes and true individual, independent masculine heroes no longer exist. It’s not a ‘conspiracy,’ it’s a corporate thing.

Marvel/Disney is a corporation that relies on consumer slave culture, and so it pumps out consumer slave heroes. It’s only natural for them to do so. They can turn Captain America black, or turn Thor into a woman because that is perfectly allowable within a corporate culture that sees humans not as individuals, but as passive consumers. How do you double your consumers? You get women to buy your crap as well as the men. Marvel doesn’t turn Thor into a woman because it cares about women’s rights. They turn Thor into a woman because they care about female consumers. It’s not about morality. It’s about business. What Marvel cannot do is push stories where the hero is an individual; a man who works outside of the collectivised, government sponsored Avenger/Corporate status quo. Pushing individualism is bad business for a corporation that relies on herd mentality consumer repeaters.

Conan the Avenger #8 is a good old fashioned Conan tale. It’s lacking an element of magic and sorcery at the moment, but it has political intrigue, a gorgeous slave girl for our hero to rescue and a despicable villain who is suppressing the people through threats of violence. It’s what all villains do. Threatening people with order following goons and bureaucrats is at the heart of what government is all about. It’s what your government is doing to you and your family right now. It’s what all governments do, and that’s why we need to get rid of them, all of them.

Conan ends up as King Conan at the end of his life, so he’s not perfect. But he’s always a sad King, a reluctant King who doesn’t really enjoy the position that he has attained. He’s not the power tripping type. He’s melancholic, a bit confused, and a bit in need of a book about anarchy if you ask me, because that’s what all of his adventures are about. They are about fighting against control systems, against kings, governments, wizards and every other kind of scumbag who has set himself up in a big White House on the hill. That’s why I like him, and that’s why he’s my comic book hero.

This particular Conan book is very well drawn, it has some gruesome battle scenes, it has a good villain and it closes on a cliff-hanger where Conan is staring down a wall of archers. Oh no, he looks in trouble this time. How is he going to get out of this one? I like that in my comics. Give me a cliff-hanger, give me a reason to look forward to the next issue, don’t rush things and have some fun with it all.

So far Conan the Avenger is a pretty decent Conan book. Conan is young, he’s not that talkative, he’s taking things in, learning and strategizing as the adventure progresses. It’s good stuff, far better than the cops and government agent crap you get from DC and Marvel. If like myself you get fed up with corporate Police state propaganda then you’ll get a kick out of it. Conan is still Conan in Dark Horse comics. They haven’t turned him into a girl. Not yet anyway.  He’s still fighting against control systems, and he’s still the main man, the number one hero in the comic book world of 2014, just as he was in the 70’s and 80’s and 90’s and 2000’s. All hail King Conan, the melancholic, anarchist hero who doesn’t want to be a King.

Rating: 8/10