January 2024 - Some Words to Start the Year Off

   So that was January 2024 then.  It began at a slow crawl and then seemed to break into a sprint towards the end.  I wasn't ready for it's passing, which is why you are reading this a week into February.

   Having invested a lot of time into it, I thought I might finally finish Iain Sinclair’s London Orbital in January but as it's 22 hours long on Audible and 450 plus pages as a hardback book. And as I’m flipping between the two formats to savour both the reading and the writing of it, I haven't especially put my foot down to race to the end. There are only a few chapters left now so that should happen quite effortlessly this month. At which point I'll drop a few words about it here because its a rather inspiring and brilliant piece of work.

   However, what I have completed this month is the following:

Atomic Habits by James Clear on audible

   This is a bit of a best seller from what I gather, and it is very interesting in breaking down the things we do and explaining why we get into bad habits and how we can turn those triggers into making good habits.  My big take away from this was that there is no point having a goal without having plotted out the path for how you are going to achieve it.  Seems sort of obvious but I write this at a time of year when healthier diets, get fit plans and stop smoking promises are crashing to the floor like plates at a Greek wedding.

The Chaos Protocols by Gordon White on audible

   I had a very mixed reaction to this because I have my own take on how Chaos magic works and as soon as I hit chapters that suggested the uttering of certain “magic” phrases to make the mojo work, my eyes rolled.  However, the author's assessment of the state of the modern world and how a Chaos magician might carve a place within it was perceptive and an interesting way to frame the game. On reflection, it's maybe one of the better Chaos Magic books I've read.

Doctor Who - Gaze of Medusa. Written by Gordon Rennie & Emma Beeby. With art by Brian Williamson & HI FI

   I picked this graphic novel up for a couple of quid in a sale and, for a collected 5 part comic mini-series, that seems a bargain.  Also, it’s a 4th Doctor story and some of us had our childhoods illuminated by that Doctor so we live in hope that an occasional bit of spin-off merch like this will reignite some of the same wonder.  And it did, to a degree.  The likenesses are good, you can hear Tom Baker speaking those lines and it's definitely the kind of story that would have been a credible choice in that particular era of the show.  Except the comic has a much more spectacular visual budget than the Beeb would have ever managed at the time and oddly that breaks the illusion for me.  I would love for someone to have a go at one of these but having acknowledged the limitations of the time within the visuals and scope of the story, just to see if they could produce something really authentic.

  

                   

Torchwood 26: The Green Life                         Torchwood 27: Sync

   Not escaping too far from the worlds of Doctor Who, and also presenting themselves to me via a half price sale, were these Torchwood CDs from Big Finnish.  These, like the Night of the Fendahl, that I listened to several times last year, are from a small thematically linked mini-series of “Torchwood Agents Vs Doctor Who Monsters”.  These two were entertaining fun for scratching an itch but I’m not sure that they where any where as moody and “adult” as the Fendahl story was. I've one more in the series to listen to and then I might have to have a think about what makes a really good Torchwood story as opposed to a bit of Doctor Who spin-off because there is clearly a fine line of distinction between the two things

   And then there is this lot, which have all been started or moved on a good few pages throughout January but as yet remain unfinished.

   And apart from a massive amount of podcasts on a variety of subjects, that was my diet of words for the first 1/12th of the year

   My plan for the rest of 2024 is to up my reading of actual books and to clear down the TBR pile that's bowing my shelves.  I also intend to read some of the weirder things that I’ve picked up or stumbled across over the years.  Those seemingly random finds and curiosities that have screamed: “Me Me Me!” but for reasons I’ve yet to investigate.

   And talking of reading odd things; I paused to flick through this old The Herbs annual on a recent trip into the attic and one of the illustrations triggered a very unexpected Proustian rush.   It was difficult at first to understand what that echo of emotion was but I took a few minutes to read the whole short story within and it turned out to be quite a revelation.  But that's a tale for another time.

Steve

Li’l Pops Saves Christmas by John W. Ashbrook (2023)

   Back from a few days hiding out in Cornwall, Li’l Pops Saves Christmas was a lovely way to squeeze the last bit of the festive cheer out of the holiday and inspire some actions for the New Year.

   John is a friend from many years back when he lived and worked locally.  He moved back “up North!” but we still communicate through the magic of social media, and the conversations still feel very much like the continuation of the ones we started all those decades earlier, which is special I think.

   Anyway, John writes and publishes a Christmas story most years and sends them out like other folk might drop you a greetings card.  And that’s a bit special as well.

two from previous years

   This year’s is the adventures of Li’l Pops on his Allotment that Time Forgot as he saves Christmas from the crows, with an assortment of animal helpers.  It’s an amusingly quirky but traditional tale, done entirely for fun and the satisfaction of doing it, I imagine.

   I’m not sure if the A5 format makes it technically a zine but they live on my zine shelf and I find them every bit as inspirational as all the other small publishers out there, that are just doing their own thing and getting their words in front of folk in a very tangible kind of way.

   So, a very heartfelt and public thank you for these festive tales John, they have become a bit of a tradition in their own right, and I really should reciprocate, although I don’t think I have it in me to write something that’s as nice.  I would aim for funny, bounce of cynical and most probably end up in the kind of dark place that makes me laugh and others raise their eyebrows questioningly.  Which doesn’t mean I won’t give it a go! It’s not like I haven’t got a year’s lead time.

Pep Talks for Writers by Grant Faulkner. Read by Greg Tremblay. (2017)

    Pep Talks for Writers is my last completed Audible for 2023

   This motivational book for writers was free on Audible to members and I’m always up for a bit of free advice when its offered.  It’s presented in 52 short chapters, with none of them longer than 10 minutes and most coming in at around 5.  It’s very clearly written and read and is very much designed for dipping in and out of.  And what I really liked about it was that the advice is simply offered and not dictated. Try the things it suggests or don’t.  It fully acknowledges that there is no one single way to write successfully and that each person must find their own methods.  I don’t think there is anything particularly groundbreaking in here but its good to hear some of these ideas voiced out loud and to ponder them over the washing up or while engaging in other daily tasks.  I suspect a lot of the advice would compliment most creative endeavours and so it’s an encouraging support system for the arty types.  As such I can see me dipping back into this from time to time to refresh my motivation or to try out a different creative tactic.

Hell Train by Christopher Fowler (2012)

   Hell Train is one of my last completed reads of 2023

   Imagine a Hammer Horror film that never existed and that’s what this story is.  I’m not being exceptionally perceptive here, that is the basic conceit of Fowler’s novel, where we are first introduced to Shane Castle, the jobbing script writer who is given a few days to come up with a workable treatment for the ailing studio.  Most of the rest of the book is that story, presented to us as prose, or the novelisation of the would-be film, as it were but we do revisit Castle’s higher reality intermittently and in order to give the novel something like a denouement of sorts.

   It’s entertaining enough for the most part, but it ultimately suffers from being too successful at what it sets out to emulate.  The novelty of the idea wears off after a while and you are then left with all the failings of a late in the season Hammer horror film. That is; a series of predictable set pieces, played out in a predictable manner. It probably outstays its welcome by a scene or five and makes absolutely no effort to add anything unexpected or unusual into the mix.  So actually, the book is quite a skillful interpretation of that movie genre, faults and all.

   For me this was a chance-buy for a quid from a charity shop the week before Christmas and there is something very right about a horror story at this time of year so I’m happy to have read it but its not a keeper by any means.

   In truth I’m not that big a fan of the Hammer horror films anymore.  The blood n boobs, was a bit of a rights of passage on late night TV in my formative years but they no longer retain a cosy nostalgic allure for me as they do for some.

   If someone wants to do another Quatermass story or even a sequel to Moon Zero Two then I would be down with that but I’m guessing that is never going to happen. In the meantime, I’ll find a suitable recipient for Hell Train because the right person is going to love it.

The Magus by John Fowles (1972)

Big Listen 2023 

The Magus

Written John Fowles. Read by Nicholas Boulton

Published - 1965 (revised1977) Audible – 2012

Audible / digital download

   Let’s start with a slight confession. I don’t like large books. That is to say; I don’t like books with large page counts. Anything much past 200 pages is going to stretch my patience and good will.  This is probably because I read quite slowly, although quite thoroughly, and unless it’s got a high ideas to page ratio then its going to get put down about two weeks in.  I will always promise to pick it back up again soon but there are books that are now almost 10 years pending!  This has become more pronounced the older I get and seems to be centred around fiction rather than biographies or factual books.  That means there are a lot of novels that I’ve always wanted to read but their size dictates that I will almost certainly never get round to them.

   Now The Magus has been on my TBR list since the early 1990s, when I started working in my first bookstore and was exposed to the entire top selling fiction back catalogue. I think I was first drawn to this one by its enigmatic title, an arcane word for a magician. Not in a Paul Daniels kind of way but rather more like John Constantine in the Hellblazer comics.  It also came very recommend to me by a colleague, whose tastes and appreciation of authors like J G Ballard and Ian McEwan matched my own.  But nothing happened back then because it’s a brick of a book. And with a back cover blurb that only teased the general direction of the plot, rather than offering a clear indication of the story, it just kept getting passed over.

   And then I got audible. And it popped up again, free to members at the time and its 656 pages seemed somehow less intimidating when presented as a 27 hours listen.  Yes that’s still a lot of time but daily chores melt away with a good book in your ears and there’s a never-ending supply of that.  So, I finally gave it a go and I’m very glad I did. The Magus may not only be one of the finest written books I’ve ever encountered but it may also be the most beautifully narrated as well.  I’m actually grateful that my own dithering has meant that this is how I first encountered the story.

   So, what is it about then? Ok, the back of a fag-packet plot is this. Nicholas Urfe, a young and arrogant misanthrope, reluctantly takes a teaching job on a small Greek Island in order to escape England and himself.  While there, he becomes entwined in the psychological gameplay of Maurice Conchise, a wealthy recluse and enigmatic trickster figure.  A chess game of discovery begins, and the stakes get progressively higher as the truth becomes more obscure. Beyond those mechanics, it’s really about relationships and identity, truth and belief but nothing is dictated only ever left for the reader to pick up on… or not.  There are some folks that will tell you it’s boring, nothing happens and the ending in inconclusive. I’m very much of the opinion that its sublime and encapsulates life. It’s also just a little bit meta, which I’m always drawn to.  Its powerful stuff on the page but in the ear it becomes something much more magical.

   At which point I better now call out the narrator; Nicholas Boulton, because his is a contribution way beyond simply reading the words.  His voice is authentically that of Nicholas.  He makes him real and so makes the experience of listening feel like an actual conversation between the fiction and the reader

   And here’s my justification for that statement.  I started listening to The Magus in England and then took it on holiday to Menorca to finish it off. I thought the complementary climate would add to that of the story’s and bring a little something extra to the experience.  But after only a couple of days I had to stop and read something else as it actually became all too heady a brew.  That first-person narrative, written so eloquently by Fowles and embodied so perfectly by Boulton, placed the thoughts and motives of Nicholas Urfe directly in with my own. And so sitting in the immersive heat with the dry air, the smells and noises of the island all around me, the walls of reality began to feel just a little too porous. The anger, confusion and general emotional state of the character began to mix with my own.  I’ve been emotionally engaged by books before but this felt like a possession.

   I finished it in the airport and on the flight home, surrounded by plastic, air-conditioned cool air and hundreds of other people.  I still felt like I lived the end but at least the experience was only one way.

Steve.

The Filth (2002)

The Filth #1 to #13

Grant Morrison, Chris Weston, Gary Erskine.

Publisher – DC Vertigo

    A short while ago I was sorting through a pile of pages I found lodged between bookshelves.  It was a mix of promo posters, some of my own doodles, various torn out interviews and features from film magazines and a couple of adverts for upcoming comics. That is comics that were upcoming some twenty years ago!  One of them was for Grant Morrison and Chris Weston’s The Filth, which was “arriving instore in June 2002.”  The central image of two dolphins cresting the water with a sci-fi sea-base behind them had blown me away back then and still does now.  What makes it so stunning, apart from the sheer quality of the artwork, is that the dolphins are augmented with small metal arms and are wearing gasmasks and air tanks. Their skin looks corrupted and is possibly infected from the surgically attached appendages and they are also branded with the same corporate logo on their dorsal fins.  And then you notice that the sea is full of bottles and metal, old tyres, and rubbish. The waters are truly polluted and the sea-base… the sea-base you realise looks a lot like a Tiffanny lamp, glowing with warm coloured lights and very much at odds with its surroundings. As a single image to sell a 13-part comic book series, it was and remains still, a stunningly potent hit. Within a few minutes of looking at it again, I was online reading about deluxe editions of the collected series and an about-book which promised to venture deep into the workings of the series.  The latter was ordered instantly, but the former was passed over due to cost and the fact that I still have all 13 issues safely up in the attic.

   A couple of days later and I had retrieved the comics from the “Grant Morrison box” (it’s a thing), plus a little something else that caught my eye.  I started rereading them while I waited for “Curing the Postmodern Blues: Reading Grant Morrison and Chris Weston’s The Filth in the 21^st Century” to arrive.  It was time to see if it all still stood up.

   But first; a tangential detour via Marvel Knights Double Shot #2.

   As the name might suggest this a Marvel comic containing two short strips based on characters from the slightly edgier and darker side of the MCU.  In fact, its “VIOLENT CONTENT” is announced on the cover as a warning, or more likely as a lure, although I think they were flattering themselves.

  The issue contains a Ted McKeever Man-Thing story and a Nick Fury tale spun by Grant Morrison.  I would have bought it for all of those reasons, although if memory serves, I don’t think I particular enjoyed it at the time.  Regardless of that, I kept it and had filed it away with the rest of Morrison’s comics.  Which is why I saw it when I was retrieving The Filth comics and pulled it out the box as well.  And here is the reason why; What I know now, but didn’t know back then, is that The Filth was originally a story idea for a Nick Fury strip, but it grew into something bigger and far stranger and so they decided to keep it and develop it as a creator owned project instead.  And not knowing that fact in 2002, the significance that the Marvel Knights Double Shot #2 came out just a month prior to the premier issue of The Filth, suggested to me that I might now find significant parallels between the two, in their intent if not their execution.

   Nick’s World begins with a flat tyre on a rainy day and with Fury being reminded by the female agent with him that he has already confessed that he always gets diarrhoea forty minutes after eating Carbonara… and that that was thirty-eight minutes ago. The clock is ticking, and the peril is scatological. OK, this is not your usual Nick Fury Agent of SHIELD shenanigans.

   What then follows is the revelation that an enemy agent is being trained to impersonate Fury and the quality of that impersonation is being put to the test inside a computer simulations.  The chief scientist in charge of this experiment is uncompromising and yet the enemy agent is not achieving any of the desired results. Nanotech removes the Agents eye and two telepathic three-eyed, dome headed aliens are on hand to assist with the fitting of the new eyepatch.  But then this isn’t quite the truth either because this is a Grant Morrison story so there are further layers of reality at play than just that.  It transpires the enemy agent is already in the hands of SHIELD, who are revealed beneath the rubber masked disguises of the two aliens and the chief scientist, who was in fact the real Nick Fury all the time. There is brutality and farce, heroics and ridicule.  And at its conclusion, the half blind, broken enemy agent is kicked out into a litter strewn alleyway in his underwear like just another bit of rubbish.  The laboratory is dismantled revealing itself to be nothing more than theatrical flats and Fury walks off to get on with his next mission, just as super-agent cool as you like. The coda comes in the form a comment made by a SHIELD agent, looking out of the panel and perhaps directly at the reader, who casually states; “Hey! Its Nick’s world… we just die in it!”

   Even with what I remember from my last reading of The Filth several years ago, I can already tell my hunch has paid off.  And what’s more, I can now actually appreciate this story for what it is; the first rough draft of The Filth.

The Filth #01

   As someone who read Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles the first time around, monthly and in its 3 volumes over a protracted period, I was changed by it and in ways I won’t go into here. Suffice to say, and however good and mind blowing it was going to be, The Filth was never going to be that good.  Which on reflection was unfair because it wasn’t intended to elicit the same response.  Epiphanies are not double-decker buses; they don’t turn up in twos.  In fact, it’s been said that The Filth was the antidote to The Invisibles. That might also be why I kept it at arm’s length; because I didn’t actually want to be cured, not even now.

   Which is not to say I didn’t think it was a brilliant, clever, and sexy comic book at the time it came out. In fact, I wished The Invisibles had had such a creative and consistent artist as Chris Weston through its entire run.  We might not have had to magic-wank over sigils to get the sales figures back up!

   But back to The Filth’s first issue.

   For my sins, I was the manager of a branch of Forbidden Planet back then and on the day we unpacked that issue, every member of staff read it on their lunch break. And everyone was blown away.  There’s a lot going on it those 22 pages and it’s all so very, very seedy and also so very, very gorgeous as the everyday reality is peeled away to reveal “the truth” of a reality policed by The Filth.  And that’s without labouring the erotic shock moment where the Greg Feely para-persona is “extracted” (I’m avoiding using the word milked!) from out of Agent Slade’s body by the deeply sexy female Filth agent; Spector, wearing nothing more than a confident comb-over!

   Having only that first issue it was all a bit confusing but with the hindsight of having now read all of it several times, and knowing the bigger picture, it feels like the perfect set up for what was to come.  Even the comb-over is justified once you know the relationship between the two agents.

   And either side of all that first issue setup, are a handful of pages that introduce us to the villain of the piece, one Sparticus Hughes. At this point he appears pretty arch but as his stories develop we’ll discover he’s just a little bit further down the road of understanding than Agent Slade is. The difference between them is how they respond to the truth.

The Filth #02 to #13

   Exactly how big do I want to make this post? I couldn’t explain it all to you in a dozen more paragraphs.  I couldn’t guarantee that we would all take the same meanings away from it at the end either.  For that matter, I suspect I have entertained a variety of conflicting conclusions upon each reading.  What I do know is that its words and pictures in perfect synchronicity. It’s as fresh and original and relevant now as it was on first release. And, that in its own strange blood, spunk, spit and skid-stained way, The Filth is sort of optimistic.

   If I haven’t sold it to you yet, then here’s a few visual teasers.

Steve

Comic Book Babylon by Tim Pilcher. (2019)

Comic Book Babylon

Written and read by Tim Pilcher

Audible - 2019 

Audible / digital download

  There have been other books, plays, comics and audios since I last posted here but for a variety of reasons we'll get round to those later.  One of them may even be the best reading of the best book I've ever listened to but I haven't found the right words to describe that one yet so those thoughts will have to continue fermenting.

   Another thing worth mentioning is that I am currently in the middle of a reread of Grant Morrison's The Filth comic series and so when this book was recommended to me on the weekend, it felt like another little signpost back onto the synchronicity highway.  There have been far too many random nudges in recent weeks that have turned me back to look at the late 90s early 00s and all of the many crazy, counter cultural ideas I was absorbing through books, TV, film and comics back then.  I've learned to just go with it when that nudging happens and see where it leads me.

   Vertigo comics was the mature adult imprint of DC comics that became home to Sandman and SwampThing, Hellblazer, Preacher and the Invisibles, to name some of the most popular series.  There were dozens of other lesser known but none the less important titles. And in its heyday it was an absolute guarantee of mature writing, cutting edge ideas and of great story telling.  They were also comics with almost zero superheroes in them or at least superheros that didn't follow the punchy solution to every problem.

   Comic Book Babylon is a small expose of the shenanigans in and around the Vertigo London offices in the mid 90's.  Of the drugs, drink, parties and blowing the company expense accounts.  Its also an interesting glimpse into the exploding comic scene back then and a poke behind the curtain of how the magic was made.  Maybe they don't make the best stories in their telling but there must have been plenty of proper quality work going on between the trips to the pub.

   I actually really liked this book and if anything I would love to know more about Vertigo as a whole, not for the excesses of its staff and contributers, but to get a better sense of what an outpouring of creativity it must have been.  There's an excellent documentary about 2000AD called: Future Shock! The Story of 2000AD.  I would love something similar about Vertigo even if that meant the London office might only get presented as a drunken footnote.

Steve