Friday 6 December 2013

Putting the tinsel up.

Hmmm... Nineteen days to go, I got my first card today. Been selling trees to people for two weeks now, A Spaceman Came Travelling has been on the radio at least twice a day this week, and I feel like watching Scrooged. Suppose something "festive" should be done here?

Okay, the Christmas issue of Viz is out now. Everyone should go and buy it. We Blight Christmas will warm your heart like nothing else, and you get a free 2014 calendar. This is what you're looking for:


Well hey look, it's the return of Norbert Colon as well!

Here's something of a "Christmas Cracker" from December of 2002, and from the pages of the NME no less. Everyone goes through that "NME phase" at some point in their life - my phase, fortuitously, included this nice little two-pager by Viz man Alex Collier, written by NME staffer Mark Beaumont. It stars the Cooper Temple Clause, a band I'll still have time for today (this is them, in case you don't know them), and they're visiting various other musical folk dressed up as Father Christmas. If you weren't into the whole "new music" thing in 2002, it's doubtful that any of the jokes here will make any sense, but here you go anyway:



6 comments:

  1. Ah memories, I'll have this somewhere. "Kick Up The Fire..." still one of my very favourite albums. Saw them around this time and they were belting. Will never, ever get the appeal of Farmer and Healey's stuff though.

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    1. Nice album that - I'll always prefer the first one though. Think I saw them twice while they were around?

      As for Farmer and Healey - their stuff really is horrible and depressing, but I suppose its appeal lies in it being the "most easy to relate to" in this day and age. They had one strip in particular this year and as soon as I saw it, I knew someone EXACTLY LIKE the character they were portraying.

      Depressing, but in a fun way.

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    2. Count me alone in not liking a single thing Farmer and Healey have done.

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  2. Cool too see this.. and also kind of depressing to think the "New Rock Revolution" was first vaunted 11 BLOODY YEARS AGO! I read NME between August 1997 and April 2001, ie during the exact interregnum of shite between Britpops 1 and 2 so I missed this gem .

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    1. In the three or four years I read it, there must've been a dozen "revolutions" - got a bit tiring trying to keep up after a while, so I just went back to Ocean Colour Scene.

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  3. Happy Holidays from the "Crypt"....

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