Again with the new Jamie Hewlett stuff.

Something about these new Jamie Hewlett pieces leaking out via Alan Martin's Facebook account reminds me of those watercolour sketches Hugo Pratt used to do as preparatory work for the Corto strips.

Pat Mills will probably approve of this image.

I loved this image Dan McDaid recently ran over at his blog. Judge Dredd, the apotheosis of how the cynical Europeans view the USA, gets the drop on Captain America, the embodiment of how a pair of optimistic second generation immigrant Jewish kids viewed their homeland.

Oh and for grud's sake Tharg, get Dan to draw some Dredd for 2000AD, you massive green bell-end. How many more times do I have to ask?

Fighting the marginal propensity to consume.

Seen a lot of stuff I've considered buying these last couple of weeks, instead of clearing my credit card balance.

1. "Still Sane" by Incwel. Appeals to my inner iconoclast and some recessive, vestigial, hard-to-kill, Ulster protestantism. God save your mad parade!

2. Alfie Gallagher's Super Beatles. Oh yes. I've got a spot picked out for this 'un.

3. Batman baby-grow. Must brainwash my nephew into the ways of our people.

4. Uncle Ben Caldwell's new sketchbook is out soon. Tasty.

5. Joe Casey and Nathan Fox produced one of my favourite superhero comics of recent years, and so I'll probably release the moths from my wallet for this. RELEASE THE MOTHS!

6. I've never bought an Archie comic in my life, but cop a load of this cover by Fiona Staples. Rock and roll, stops the traffic.

Mo' new Hewl.

As a public service for those of you who (in all fairness, probably correctly) hate and fear Facebook, I thought I'd re-blog a couple of new pieces by Jamie Hewlett that Alan Martin has recently posted.

 Lubberly!

Thinking about Ditko.

Brendan McCarthy sent along a link to this Ditko blog the other morning, singling out this entry in an email with the subject heading "The Door To Eternity".

Woah. Which in turn got me thinking of this recent post at Edmund Bagwell's blog, where he kind-of mashes up DC fifth stringer Kid Eternity with Ditko's similarly named creation for Marvel.

And which Bag-E then followed up with a dashed decent go at Ditko's style with this Dr Strange.

Alright!

Rennie & Trevallion's ABSALOM: GHOSTS OF LONDON.

I love Gordon Rennie and Tiernen Trevallion's Absalom in 2000AD. It's a strip that does that Mignola thing, examining the hinterlands between folklore, history, and horror, but it does it resolutely from a British tradition. It also marries a classic disillusioned UK police procedural tone into this mix, making for a strip that hits all kinds of the right pop culture notes for me. It's like THE SWEENEY rewritten by Ramsey Campbell - Rennie even invokes Jack Regan by name within. Or maybe Ian Rankin having a punch-up with Dennis Wheatley round the back of John Constantine's gaff, if you can forgive me yet another terrible dissimile.

Anyway, now that it's about to be collected as an album, I'm recommending it thoroughly. Buy it, you'll thank me for it, it's the best thing published by Rebellion since CRADLEGRAVE. Here's the cover, and Tiernen successfully manages to condense the strip's entire milieu into one image - it's Scary Old London Town (Cobbles! Spellbooks! Demons!), but it's modern, too (Graffiti! Tesco's bag! Burberry coats! Adidas trackie!).

Pope riffs on Barbarella, Bond riffs on Giffen.

Here's a recurring theme of this blog I haven't revisited in a while - trawling Paul Pope and Phil Bond's Flickrs for new work.

Anyone reading my Twitter feed will have an idea of the calamities that have befallen my family lately - anyway, in reaction to this chain of events, I spent a few hours up in my parents' attic checking on the lifetime of accumulated pop culture errata, mainly to see what I could do without, to be honest. I've been re-reading old copies of DEADLINE and THB ever since. And I threw Keith Giffen and Robert Loren Fleming's HELL ON EARTH on the "to keep" pile. 

Coming soon: more Ebay auctions, I guess. Anyone want a first edition of Hunger Dogs?

Other music you might actively prefer. But VOTE KLAMS! anyway.

Came across these two tracks on various blogs over the last couple of weeks: Beck produced by Jack White, and the fairly unlikely combination of the affable Iggy Pop and the curmudgeonly Ginger Baker collaborating for a Black Keys tribute LP.





And remember - VOTE KLAMS!

Begging. And NEW KLAMS!

Hey folks. This blog has done many people many favours, frequent good turns, and shown the love over the years. Please balance the karmic wheel by clicking on this link and voting for The Klams. Okay, we know it's not our greatest work ever, but hey, there's cash involved, and we love cash. Cash would pay for a new bass amp and some diesel.  Tasty, tasty diesel.