I had the pleasure of interviewing Dan, who just lives round the corner, to celebrate his first full issue of art for DC – in what rapidly becomes a meander through our muddy Vertigo teen roots and the purpling against-nature dynamics of the DC universe, who is also apparently “your mum”; by happenstance I am lazy and easily frustrated enough to have not edited it properly till today, and I think it makes for a fine accompaniment to an issue out this week that resonates the Way DP motif of finding yourself in fiction and pop culture.

Both covers are good right, but Dan’s features the most badass sword since Frazetta.

CLICK HERE TO JOIN DAN PATROL!

I wrote most of this a month ago, but have spent most of the rest of the month extremely ill, and never got round to finishing it and posting. Whoops. All the Easter stuff in here seemed a lot more topical at Actual Easter rather than May 1. Oh well. The next one of these will be published in a week, to get us back on to schedule with them…

And so we get to the point in the crossover where the exciting new characters are introduced for the first time.

Sorry for the slight delay on getting this post out — we’ve been busy on here with the MINDLESS DECADE, and I was also busy getting my most recent book out while coping with chronic illness flare-ups.

Anyway… Crisis on Infinite Earths issue three.

How to do anti-nazi magic

February 15th, 2018

The following steps may be taken whenever the taint of the fascist insect is felt. But to do it like they did it in the day, stake out thirty minutes beginning 11.30 on a Sunday morning.

Step 1.
A quiet room, not too bright. Clean the room with incense first if you like. Sit or recline, feet and hands together, facing London. If you’re in London, face Greenwich.

Step 2.
Clasp in your hands a piece of paper with your campaign objective written or symbolised upon it. Use this statement as your default until you receive further instructions:

Cosmic Law’s victory over unbalanced force is inevitable.
Though obliged to struggle, there is no need for fear.

Step 3.
Using psychic intuition – or common sense – imagine a visual picture that sums up the objective for you. Slow your thoughts and breathing, and listen to the image’s vibrations. Do this for no more than one minute.

Step 4.
In your mind, dedicate your self to the goodness of the supreme being, whoever yours may be. The goodness you will call through is for all, according to Cosmic Law.

Step 5.
Become a facet of the mind of our human species. Its life is your life, and yours to determine:

  • Invoke the name of your god
  • Open your being to the Masters of Wisdom

Step 6.
Refocus on the campaign objectives. You will begin to feel the presence of the Inner Circle, whose influence will shape the remaining imagery of your meditation. Let go to them. Continue in their company and record what you see.

Step 7.
Close down:

  • Imagine a pair of blackout curtains drawn across the scene
  • Stand and stamp your foot on the ground.
  • Say aloud ‘IT IS FINISHED’
  • Return to normal consciousness in good time for lunch.

Further campaign objectives and visual talismans will be issued in due course.

 

The above strategy was developed by the mystic Dion Fortune at the outbreak of World War Two to counter and defeat the psycho-spiritual components of the threat from the Nazi Reich. As an act of directed mass-psychism it stands as one of the most effective and critical workings on record.

Further instructions on how to save the planet below.

The Crisis Project: Issue 2

February 3rd, 2018

The most interesting thing we learn in issue two of Crisis on Infinite Earths is that the scope of the story is much wider than we might have originally supposed.

Transrealities

September 19th, 2017

About fifteen years ago, I had the idea to write a comic script about a shapeshifting superhero, and in particular to have that superhero be trans. Perhaps they could be one gender in their secret identity, and another as their superhero identity?

Thankfully, a trans friend quickly persuaded me that this would be a really, really, really bad idea and that I should instead not do that, and do literally anything else instead, because I am a cis man, and I’d have ended up writing the most grossly offensive thing possible, in the name of “dealing with the issues” and performative allyship.

However, I’ve been very surprised that in the intervening years, especially with gender being an increasingly controversial topic, no-one in the superhero comics world has decided to do exactly that, or something very like it. It’s all too easy to imagine the angry twitterstorms as some cis man called Mark or Nick attacks all the “trolls” who “abuse” him by asking him “why are you doing this bad thing?”

Thankfully, we now have the first serious attempt to present a trans superhero, and rather than being that kind of hateful pseudo-wokeness, it’s actually rather good.

First, an apology that this post is so much later than the first six. Sadly, I had an arthritis flare-up that made it painful for me to type more than a sentence or two at a time, and which also made me too fatigued to even think for more than a week. The perils of chronic illness.

Still, my hands are working – more or less – now, so let’s have a look at the most-loved story (or to hear many people talk, the only loved story) of season twenty-two.

Welcome back to Diane.

Tonight Rosie, Adam and Bob discuss part 9  of Mark Frost and David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: The Return.

The Major, scattered by the time winds, reaches out from his billy pilgrimage. The Agent, lost in mind, shows wisdom in muscle. A younger brother is lost in the woods and getting older, and hungry. His body may not be his any more.

As you’ll know by now, the conversation around our dinner table is always lively.

Theme from Diane is by our pal Mass Roman of Strangers from Birth.

Throughout Twin Peaks: The Return, new episodes of Diane will appear on Libsyn 24 hours after UK broadcast.

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the Doctor dying on TV, on TV

This is a difficult one to write about, in two different ways.