Belated Bowie 'Bituary

Well if that's not a terrific way to start the new year, I don't know what is, bah... It's been a LONG time since the death of a musician has affected the world in such a way, so it only seems right that Mr. Jones be remembered in these quarters too - and with thanks going to Mr. Ben Baker for the suggestion, we return once more to Zig and Zag's Zogazine, from the second issue dated November 1994 (the scratch 'n' sniff issue) - this highly referential and gag-filled number from Kev Sutherland and John Moore...

Count the references!

For more Bowie-based comic-stuff, have a look at Mr. Baker's write-up on the whole Bowie/Viz connection here and here.

It cannot be left at 35!

Call it an emergency posting, or call it "doing a 2014 round-up like everyone else" - I just couldn't end the year with having thirty-five posts. It's my least-favourite number you see, so here you go...

Okay, bit of a mixed bag, this whole 2014 thing. Started out in the worst way possible, with the death of a friend only a couple of years older than me. Following that was a reduction in my working hours (and obviously, a reduction in the amount of money I get), a slight mental breakdown on what should have been a fun night out, my first ever panic attack (leaving work in an ambulance, something surely everyone does at least once in their lifetime), a bit of confidence-shattering from a certain quarter, and of course, the deaths of four of the most influential famous people that I've known of - a quadruple devastation of Harold Ramis, Rik Mayall, Sue Townsend and Jim Petrie. What a bugger.

Somewhere in the middle of the "good/bad" spectrum, I developed a love/knack for ten-pin bowling. Went plenty of times this year, and thought it'd be my "thing", but then all the enthusiasm for it was completely shattered by the rude staff at the local Megabowl, one day in October. Never mind.

On the other hand, as in, the "good" end of it all, there's been plenty. Two great weekends working for Replay Events, proper "family unit" stuff there. I'd drop anything and everything to work with them full time, but there we go. Had a fun week in that London as well, went to a wedding, saw a few bands (Space for the third time, the Australian Pink Floyd Show, Republica and Half Man Half Biscuit for the first time - all better than anything), had the strange realisation that some people actually like me, and made a good handful of new friends, whilst also keeping up with slightly older friends, using the power of the Internet. It's a small island, maybe we'll all get to meet up someday in 2015? That'd be fun. Not all at once, obviously, I'm aware that some of you don't exactly get along, but it could still be fun.

Erm, quick round-up of cultural artefacts enjoyed this year? The only albums I heard were by those bands I went to see, so we'll give "Album Of The Year" to Half Man Half Biscuit's Urge For Offal, with the runner-up prize going to Space for Attack of the Mutant 50 Ft Kebab. Three films were seen this year, and only one of them I'd happily watch again, so we'll give the prize to Guardians of the Galaxy. The prizes for "Best Book That You Can Buy In Waterstone's Or Similar" go to Where's Dennis? by Wilbur Dawbarn, and Comics Unmasked by Paul Gravett and John Harris Dunning, and the award for "Best Book That You Have To Order Specially From The Internet" goes to TATP: Talk About The Passion by Ben Baker et al. Mostly for the chapters on Viz and Earl Brutus. I enjoy comics too much to pick a favourite, and this year saw (possibly) the most "new" purchases on my behalf since... 2006? Favourites include Up Yours! by Lee Turnock, this year's output by Eyeball Comix, States of Mind by Nigel Maughan et al, and the endlessly interesting stuff put out by The Comix Company. All of this and more will be "looked at" properly in 2015, if all goes to plan.

At the end of it all, I'm still in more or less the same position as I was in at the start of it all, only I now share my flat with an overweight cat called Gus, so there's an improvement at least. Oh, and there's only a couple of hours left of this year - I'm staying in on my own for the tenth year running, it's more enjoyable this way, definitely. Still didn't get time to find an appropriate "thing to enjoy" to go with this post, so instead you can have the "new year themed" comic that was posted here at the START of the year. Again.

It's Zig & Zag's Zogmany Special, from 1995. Written and drawn (mostly) by Kev Sutherland (who's acquaintance was also made this year!):

(More by clicking and so on)

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:

Another "plug", why not?

Here's where I pretend I'm a "proper journalist" that gets things sent to him all the time for reviewing purposes, but the truth is just that a certain Mr. Adam Smith is an all-round nice person. Back when I first started "doing" things about the various Viz-like comics that've been and gone over the years, he sent me a near-complete run of Northern Lightz, for absolutely nothing. And this week, what's he send me? He sends me this:

It's one of those small-press things which are always interesting, if not always good. This one would've been "in the shops" now, except Mr. Smith got the cover the wrong way around before sending it to the printers, the silly bugger. So we'll call this the dodgy BETA-version, yes? Some stuff about Northern Lightz when I find the time, but for now a bit of plugging - my way of saying "Thanks" for the undeserved freebies.

And then later, when it gets dark, we go home.

I know I like to dream a lot

And think of other worlds that are not

I hate that I need air to breathe

I'd like to leave this body

And be free

Crikey, it's December!

I've been so caught up with the development of my "response" to the last ever issue of the Dandy (should be good when it's done) that there's now only fifteen days until "the big day" - and not a single festive-themed post here. So here's the first one, to be getting on with while I'm working on the Dandy thingy:

Under-played Xmas Songs That Should Be Played More Often

Such a massive thing as that day in December has obviously inspired countless classic songs over the years - and the radio stations love to play around twenty of them from around the last week of November up to the first week of January.

And yet, for every Fairytale of New York (officially the best of the lot), there's this cracker from Britain's best band, Half Man Half Biscuit - It's Clichéd To Be Cynical At Christmas:

Full of the warmth that only December-based nostalgia can bring, it's fairly criminal that this one ISN'T played sixty times a day. And it's not often you'll find Nigel Blackwell with as positive a view on things as he does here.

For something a bit more on the silly-joyful side of things, we'll go back to 1991. Remember those Milky Way adverts? Well those smiling Cadillacs had their own festive release as well - Home For Christmas Day:

This may've been the first "chart" tape we ever owned, and it must've been played about nine or ten times a day (but the tape still works!).

Finally, for when it's all over (sort of), think about that fat bearded man who spends all year preparing for one night of work (he really does!). On Boxing Day, it's all over, and we just leave him to it for another 52 weeks. The Murder City Devils wrote a tear-jerker of a ditty about that - 364 Days:

May these songs become a part of your annual rituals, if they aren't already!

Music for the 31st

The 31st is getting closer and closer (time tends to move in a regular forward motion, but it can certainly seem to adjust its speed when things of excitement or dread are on the way). For most people, it'll be just another day, or perhaps a birthday. For many other people, it'll be a time for a "party" or maybe just a bit of self-enjoyed spookiness (maybe watching a couple of eerie films or something).

Regardless of what the day will bring, it's always fun to have some themed music, right? The short-lived days of mass file-sharing on the Internet seem to be mostly over, but there's still SOME good stuff out there, and three of my favourites this year are from Wonderful Wonderblog.

First up is Elvira Presents Haunted Hits.

Loads of smashing stuff on this, from the obvious (Ray Parker Jr's Ghostbusters and Bobby Pickett's Monster Mash), to film and TV themes (The Addams Family and Attack of the Killer Tomatoes), to spooky kooky stuff from Screamin' Jay Hawkins, The Cramps and the Ran-Dells.

Go and get it!

Next we're turning up the novelty dial to "maximum fun" or whatever, depending on your tastes. It's the Old School Hip Hop Halloween Mix!

Featuring MC Hammer's Addams Groove, Run-D.M.C.'s Ghostbusters and that Fat Boys song about Freddy Krueger, it'll either have you grinning, cringing or doing those funny hand signs that people like to do when listening to rap music in an "ironic" sense. I'm of the grinning variety.

Fetch!

Last one from the Wonderblog now, and my favourite - Halloween Stomp. 

27 (or maybe 28?) big band jazzy floor-fillers from the likes of Nat King Cole, Glen Miller, Cab Calloway, Peggy Lee and the Casa Loma Orchestra, all with a running theme of shrieking. The complete life story of Mysterious Mose is included, and my personal favourite of the set is Rudy Valle & His Connecticut Yankees with the absolutely bonkers With Her Head Tucked Under Her Arm. Spooky sound effects and cuts from old cartoons are stuck between the tracks, but this adds to the fun rather than annoys.

Get it from the same place as the previous two.

Last of all, I've made my own one! Well, it was a couple of years ago when I made it, there wasn't time to do a "proper" one this year with a cover and everything (next year...), so... It's still good though. A fair few songs on it might not be considered Hallowe'en music in the traditional sense, but most of them are either spooky, silly, sinister or maybe even scary. There's a few "fashion bands" on there too, for those people who're into that sort of thing!

It's in two folders, each one of them will fit onto a single CD. People still use CD players, don't they? Get it from here and be sure to let me know what you "reckon" of it.

Here's the tracklisting, for those that are interested:

CD1

01-Danny Elfman - This Is Halloween

02-Gorillaz - Clint Eastwood

03-Pixies - Dead

04-Queens of the Stone Age - Hangin' Tree

05-The Electric Prunes - I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)

06-Jeffrey Lewis - If You Shoot the Head You Kill the Ghoul

07-Panther Burns - Auto Sapien

08-Deerhoof - Giga Dance

09-The Cramps - Human Fly

10-The Unicorns - Tuff Ghost

11-Joe McDermott - Boss Battle

12-John Carpenter - Halloween Theme

13-Bonnie Camplin - Get Me a Mirror

14-...And the Native Hipsters - There Goes Concorde Again

15-Fiction Friends - Jump Jump

16-Rasputina - A Skeleton Bang

17-Bobby "Boris" Pickett & The Crypt-Kickers - Monster Mash

18-The Tinklers - Mom Kooks Inside

19-Chad VanGaalen - Molten Light

20-Crass - Reality Asylum

21-BBC Radiophonic Workshop - Dr. Who

22-Vrillion - Crazy Clown Song

23-Only A Mother - Lullabye

24-The Sounds of American Doomsday Cults - Preamble: Great Divine Rector's Call

25-Foetus Inc. - See Dick Run

26-Billy West - Dialogue from "Stimpy's Fan Club"

CD2

01-Tom Waits - What's He Building?

02-Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan - The False Husband

03-Camille Saint-Saëns - Danse Macabre

04-Space Negros - Vigor the Ice Man

05-Man Man - Against the Peruvian Monster

06-Frank Zappa - Goblin Girl

07-The Bonzo Dog Band - Look Out, There's a Monster Coming

08-Liars - Flow My Tears the Spider Said

09-The Stinky Puffs - Monsters

10-Los Straitjackets - The Munsters Theme Song

11-Ed Ivory & Ken Page - Oogie Boogie's Song

12-Carole King - The Awful Truth

13-R. Crumb & His Cheap Suit Serenaders - Mysterious Mose

14-Peter Stampfel - Werewolf

15-Bauhaus - Kingdom's Coming

16-Dead Man's Bones - Dead Man's Bones

17-King Missile - The Commercial

18-Napoleon XIV - They're Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!

19-Hank von Schpa - Mama Do

20-Tony Jay - Hellfire

21-Modest Mussorgsky - Night on Bald Mountain