Adios Den

In a weird twist of strangeness, I got a package from Den this morning containing this tape. Den's moving to Oz (the country not the HBO prison), in fact he may have already gone.
We did beer a couple of weeks ago and The Impossibles was never mentioned. In our 18 year friendship The Impossibles was never mentioned.
And yet he saw fit to give this Uber-Obscure tape a home with me.
It's all very sub-conscious.
Good luck Den, old boy.

Scanner Art

Well, I am.

Yvonne Craig

Gratuitous picture of Batgirl.

Kenneth Bulmer

The sequel to Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea. Cover by Brian Lewis, who did some great stuff for Digit Books.

The Weight Of Responsibility

Was working Newsnight a few days ago and The Presenter came in and asked me for a pen (this happens alot - I shift more than my own body weight in pens every month as news presenters don't seem to own them).
I handed him the pen.
He said: 'When I was a correspondant I had a pen, a pad, a flak jacket. I often carried the camera tripod. Now I'm a presenter I just carry a fucking comb.'

Hassel & Kessler

Found these on holiday lurking in a box of cheap war books. I love the title Liquidate Paris - it kind of has a contemporary feel.

Bloody Hell

Jesus- that was one of the best Test Matches I've ever seen. Goodnight Australia.

KEANU

Saw Constantine the other night - thought it was pretty damn good. I never read Hellblazer, so I have no idea how it fared in comparison.
Keanu is great, and he smokes cigs really well.

Elizabeth Sladen

Apparently Sarah Jane Smith is going to be in an episode of the next series of Doctor Who.
Cool. I may watch.
She was the only assistant that wore cammo trousers as far as I remember.

Galactic Girl

One of Fiona Richmond's less pretentious earlier works.
The back says: 'In the Moscow Gremlin, archfiend Fatman and his sexy sidekick plot the brothelisation of the universe...'
Chapter 4 is called 'Macabre Knees'.

Yay!

I Am Legend

As referred to in Kidshirt's blog - the book that inspired the movie The Omega Man. A great book an' all.

Thought For The Day

Just think..if Mama Cass had given Karen Carpenter her chicken sandwich, they might both be alive today.

Barometer World

Shit..all that bad weather down in Devon and we still didn't go to Barometer World. As recommended by Michael Fish.
I sometimes wonder where all the time goes.

Fluid Man, Coil Man & Multi Man

Well, I'm back from a fortnight in Devon where it fucking rained an awful lot. Managed to eat at least one pasty a day plus a great deal of fudge, bacon, cream teas - you name it, we fucking ate it.
Picked up this superb The Impossibles annual along with 150-odd books (watch The List for up and coming sales).
Does anyone else remember The Impossibles? I was beginning to think I had made the whole fucking thing up. Even the guy who sold it to me doesn't remember them - and he was a big Hanna-Barbera fan. I do remember a ground breaking combo in the late '70s called The Fluid Men, but I think they split up due to chemical differences.
Once I dig through my stock I'll post some cool book covers by Moorcock, Hassel, Kessler, plus a rather groovy Fiona Richmond novel.

Big Wednesday

As I'm off to North Devon tomorrow for a couple of weeks, it seemed appropriate that I found this for 40p yesterday. My love for this film sums up my Hodadness.

Famous People I Met This Week

Well, having survived a week of 3.30AM starts on Breakfast with a slightly moody Ms Kaplinski I thought it only fair to share my tres interesting encounters with the rich & nearly famous.
Monday - Jenny Seagrove. Ok, not really famous, barely well-known. I think she might be in Judge John Deed. Wow.
Tuesday - June Brown. Aka Dot from Eastenders. Didn't smoke fags during the interview. Very nice.
Wednesday - Peter Yates. Fuckin ell. The man who directed Bullitt. Told me Robert Vaughn was a terrific actor and a really good bloke. That was good to hear. Also directed Danger Man. Deaf as a post but super-cool.
Thursday - Roger Taylor out of Queen. All that cash and he wears a black suit with white sneakers. Somebody should talk to him about that. Didn't want to talk about Bohemian Rhapsody - well neither does anybody else matey.
Friday - Des Lynam. There's nothing wrong with Des - all round good bloke type.
I now have to spend three days attempting to get my body clock back to some kind of normality. Hopefully this will involve Lager.

The Fire Clown

As the trend for posting Moorcock covers spirals out of control...here's one I got in the US which I haven't even read yet.

The Masters Of The Pit

A Moorcock classic with a Jim Steranko cover..I pissed my pants when I found this.
On the subject of classic science fiction..went to see War Of The Worlds the other day. It's OK, very true to the book, yet strangely missing something. I don't know what, exactly. It goes for a fairly subtle line in alien invasion, which is fine - the book sets the invasion kind of in the background - but there's no real feeling that The World is involved. You kind of need a bit more 'Army getting twatted' early on - there's no great feeling of destruction being wantonly reaped on the Earth.
Got home and watched The Night Of The Big Heat with Lee & Cushing - now that's a science fiction classic.

Frankie

So what's happened to S Club 8 then?
I didn't notice them on the Live 8 bill. Though I guess nobody would want them too near Pete Townsend.

Wimbledon 2005

As this site is slowly sinking into having a distinct soft-porn feel, instead of going on about the tennis I thought I'd just show how good Boris Vallejo is at drawing asses.
Dazzler (below). Rogue (above).

Boris Vallejo

Tim Henman

I was going to do this whole thing tonight about how Tim Henman's a really good fucking tennis player and that everybody should just leave him be and that he's done more for tennis in this country than everybody else put together and that he's gotten to the second week of Wimbledon for ten fucking years straight and no fucker else has done that....
Then I found this pic from Daredevil #83 and, to be honest, thought it was best to post this instead.

The Chips Are Down And Gone

I have an incredibly intense hangover this morning - I also got fucked in the ass at Texas Hold 'Em last night & lost £10. This pic by Adam Hughes seems to be making me feel better.

Simon MacCorkindale

All weekend Bravo was showing Manimal. Fucking genius.

The Real World

Intensely hungover as I am..I thought now might be a good time to answer the Big Questions passed to me by Kek-W, even though I've built it up too much making it all an inevitable disappointment.

Q 01 - If you could have one super-power, what would it be & why?
(Assume you get baseline superhero enhancements like moderately increased strength,
endurance & agility.)

Well, with me it always comes back to Invisibility. It's all you need. I mean, the novelty of flying's gonna wear off pretty quickly. And what else is there? Flaming On? Running really fast? Turning into metal? They're all going to wear a bit thin after a couple of days. I mean Blackbolt - that's a pretty crap power - what are you going to do with that?
But invisibility, that's gonna keep me occupied for ages. I could nick stuff, kill Rob Brown.
I'd have to insist on being able to make other things invisible too though, I'm not going round naked.
I used to have a super-power when I was younger - the ability to make doors open the wrong way. Funnily enough it only worked when I was on LSD.

Q 02 - Which, if any, 'existing' superhero(es) do you fancy & why?

Oh, God, I could go on and on and I probably will. I had a BIG thing for Jean Grey / Marvel Girl / Phoenix - but - she's dead (again), so I guess she doesn't 'exist'.
So I'll have to go for The Invisible Girl (yes, Girl) when she got hijacked by The Hate Monger (Marvel's best Nazi) and he turned her into Malice (FF 280 -281). Even though she was drawn by the sexless John Byrne my cock was sore for a month after that came out.
The Wasp, The White Queen (she can turn into diamond now - when did that happen?), Madame Hydra and Ant Man are all close runners up in this category. I never fancied any DC characters..I don't know what that says about me.

Q 03 - Which, if any, superhero(es) do you hate?

Nova - How crap was Nova? What did he do? What were his powers?
I also always really detested Superman (all those powers crammed into one guy and he was still really dull). And I always thought The Sub-Mariner was a bit of a prick.

Q 04 - What would your superhero name be? (No prefab porn-name formulas here, you have to make up the name you'd be proud to mask under.)

Ricky Heffernan - oh, sorry, that's my porn name. Well, if I was a villain (and I probably would be) I'd be called Smack Girl. But as it's a Hero thing I'd be The Rabbit. Or possibly The Invisible Rabbit.

Q 05 - For extra credit: Is there an existing superhero with whom you identify / whom you would like to be?

Again with the villain thing - I always wanted to be The Absorbing Man (For God's sake - don't touch glass and don't let anyone throw you in the fucking water).
Close runners up would be Iceman and The Atom - but all said and done I think The Batman always did it for me. I don't know if it's the simplicity of him, or the darkness, but I've always been into him. And he's a fucking multi millionaire and that's gonna help.

Q 06 - Pass this onto three people.

Ok - Niowulf, cause he's got a superhero car. JC, because he needs to get blogging, and back to Kek-W, because, let's face it, his fucking kid did it all for him.

Neal Adams

Ouch

Yesterday I inadvertently caused a Pavement Cyclist to crash horribly into a lamppost.
She cried out in pain as she tried to avoid me by going between said lamppost and a parked car and misjudged the whole maneuver.
I can't claim any responsibility for this event but it was incredibly satisfying.

Boing

As I'm far too knackered to do Kek W's suggested superhero questionaire today due to my string of early mornings in World Service, consider this post a trailer for the up and coming event.
Abbey Chase - aka Danger Girl.
Cool, a trailer.

A Right Royal Fucking

Much as I detest Bob Geldof and his endless, self-righteous preaching, I have to laugh at his bum-fucking tactics with Ebay.
Curious yesterday , after Ebay announced it was chickening out + banning sale of Live 8 tickets, I had a look. Every single pair on sale had been bid up to Ten Million Pounds.
Fantastic. I would actually pay to see some of those seller's faces when they get their final value fees.
I'm especially happy because I did indeed text for tickets (and failed) with the sole intention of flogging them on Ebay. I was going to redeem myself by buying one of those white 'Make Poverty History' wristbands that are manufactured in Asian sweatshops.
As a kind of breaking news footnote: Apparently Pink Floyd have changed their name to Pink Utter, Utter Shit for the concert.

Oh Shit

I see Wacko got away with it.
What a revolting development.

The Crucial Four

Found at the bottom of my filing cabinet..one of The great fanzines..put together by The Crucial Four...Dupe C Average, The Anonymous Spectre, Gothic Raymond and Ben Trendy..all of whom died horribly in The Congo late '88.
Features a review of The Pompeii Stiffs, one of Bridgwater's great undiscovered bands.

Burroughs

One of E R Burroughs westerns - he did a few - with a Boris Vallejo cover to boot.

Hogan

WW1 Aces Vs Giant Bats..with a Jim Steranko cover.
What more could you possibly ask for?

Steele

T

You know when you're at work - and someone comes and asks you if you want a cup of tea - but instead of just asking you they make the letter 'T' with their hands?
Isn't that just the fucking most annoying thing ever?

G.I., You Die!

Went to The Book Palace Pulp Fair today (www.bookpalace.com ) and found this gem. Ah, Digit books were ace.
Managed to blow £50 - mostly on stock - but got some rather cool books which I'll post over the next few days.

Gone And Forgotten

A post inspired by Psychbloke - I reckon that the performances in Sapphire & Steel were so stilted and dull that Ewan McGregor would have fitted right in.

Not Near Mint

Went to see Revenge Of The Sith this morning, and, as is my tradition, bought small film-related toy afterwards...then I TOOK IT OUT OF THE PACKAGING.

Dead Nympho

Well, here's a title I wish I'd thought of. Found in Brighton a couple of days ago.
It says on the back: 'Cover posed by professional models'. I'm sure we're all better off for that information.

A cool poster for a cool film. I almost bought it on Ebay, then thought better of it & just lifted the image instead.

My little contribution to VE Day.

Silver Sable

Now, I'm sure I had some reason for posting this...er..no, it's gone.

The Big Questions

So, I've taken Kek-w 's challenge to answer 7 very tough bookworm questions, and here I go:

1/ You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451 - which book do you want to be? (Which I take to mean 'what book would I burn)

Well, I would agree completely with burning anything by Ben Elton. In fact just burning him might be simpler. But if there's one book I would burn and piss on the ashes, it's Hi Fidelity by Nick Hornby (I would also burn The Long Firm by Jake Arnott - but I wouldn't piss on the ashes).
Someone lent me Hi Fidelity years ago (they meant well - I hold no grudge) - saying something like 'it's just the sort of thing you'd like'. Well, it's not. It's a weak, asexual ego wank. Everybody's got a good heart, everything turns out nice. It's utter, utter shit.

2/ Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

Oh, yes. Ooooh, yes.
Much like Kek, most of my early wanking years involved Jean Grey (Yes - she died and never came back), and I was also very partial to The Wasp, The Invisible Girl and Lady Sif.
I was also very into Stefanie Powers as The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. - And more recently Stacy Sheridan in T J Hooker.
But in books - well, I have to go for Fah Lo Suee - Fu Manchu's daughter, she's so fucking evil she upsets Fu Manchu himself. That's hard.
She's closely followed by Jean Morris, mostly referred to as 'The Girl With Hair The Colour Of Steel' in Doc Savage #7 - The Monsters.
I could go on and on, but I won't.
This has reminded me - I must dig out my Silver Sable comics...

3/ What was the last book you bought?

Well, two books turned up in the post today (Godbless Ebay).
The War Of The Cybernauts by Alex Raymond - and The Avenger #29 - The Nightwitch Devil by Kenneth Robeson. The latter having an uber-cool George Gross cover.

4/ What is the last Book You Read?

The Sword Of The Dawn by Michael Moorcock - The Third Volume In The History Of The Runestaff. Superb.

5/ What are you currently reading?

Generation Kill by Evan Wright.
As donated by JC last week - I've only just started it, but it's the true story of First Recon in Iraq, where they earned the nickname 'First Suicide Battalion'. Nice.

6/ Five books you would take to a desert island?
On another day four of these would probably be different, but I would have to have Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy.
It's just the most relentless, violent novel I've ever read.
It follows a posse of deranged cowboys as they hunt the Apache and Comanche for bounty down in Mexico. It's really fucking harsh. It's also one of the most beautifully written books I've ever come across.

The Kraken Wakes - John Wyndham.
Although, as in most of his stuff, the characters are a bit wet and featureless, the darkness of this book lifts it way above its contemporaries. You never see the aliens, you never know anything about them other than their desire to eat mankind.

The High Window - Raymond Chandler. In my opinion the best of the Marlowe books. Tremendous dialogue and probably the least convoluted of his plots. Me and Chandler go back a long way.

Dispatches - Michael Herr. I know, very obvious, but very stunning.

City Of The Beast - Michael Moorcock. Mostly this is here because it was the first book I read that hadn't been imposed on me at school. I readit in one go and it absolutely blew my mind, and I still love Moorcock now. Most of his stuff hasn't dated at all.

Stephen Hunter's The Day Before Midnight and Skull-Face by Robert E Howard almost made it.

7/ Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 People) and why?
I nominate JC, Niowulf and Lacivious Polyphony - why not?

And finally... I've added an extra question, because covers are ace.
8/ My Favourite Cover..James Bama, a genius if ever there was one.

As a vote for the Lib Dems will let The Conservatives in the Back Passage, and anyway they're a bunch of nancy boys, I'm voting for Thor.

Seems a great shame that the last surviving Dalek turned out to be a complete ponse.
And The Doctor certainly didn't need a big rocket launcher when he could have just annoyed it to death.

More Moorcock

As promised the US copy of Moorcock's The Jewel In The Skull. I'm pretty sure the cover artist is Gary Morrow, who did about a hundred Perry Rhodan covers for US publishers Ace.
I read this the other day and had forgotton how fucking excellent it is. I then read The Mad God's Amulet and now I'm reading The Sword Of The Dawn. I need to find a copy of The Runestaff by the end of the week.
I just love all the animal orders of The Dark Empire - as a kid I wanted to be in the Order Of The Mantis, cause they was the hardest. Truthfully I might've scraped in to The Order Of The Rabbit.