X-men Apathy: Wolverine

Liam is cashing-up at the end of Free Comic Book Day, Kris walks in.

KRIS: Alright ladies how did we do in the end?

LIAM: It’s just me; Liz is getting changed in the back.

KRIS: I know, you are so very feminine that I counted you twice.

LIAM: Well as long as we’re clear.

KRIS: So how did things sell? Now, not in bullet-time.

LIAM: Pretty good actually, the event brought in a load of customers; we got rid of a lot of our kids stock and sales items as well as selling a few copies of our comic.

KRIS: So we got rid of all the giveaways?

LIAM: Apart from the ones I set aside for the local schools, and the pile of Owly’s I’m taking home to cover me in cuteness.

KRIS: I guess this free comic day stuff actually works.

LIAM: Much better than the “Free comic with every purchase” thing you did last year.

KRIS: I still say this year should have been “Free comic if you let me punch you”.

LIAM: We might not have sold as well.

KRIS: But I’d be less likely to hurt you.

LIAM: I guess my need to make money and eat outweighs my desire to take a diminishing amount of punishment from you. I’m a masochist that way.

KRIS: Well then it’s a good thing I’m a sadist.

LIZ: Please tell me you two aren’t talking about your plans for tonight.

LIAM: Had no trouble getting out of the costume?

LIZ: Not as much as I had getting into it. I still don’t see why I had to kinkify myself as Wonder Woman whilst you two dressed like that.

KRIS: We have to remain professional.

LIAM: And you brought in customers.

LIZ: So you used me as bait for middle-aged geek guy fantasies.

KRIS: No. For people who like to laugh at idiots in costumes.

LIZ: I love having friends.

LIAM: Exactly. Friends, amigos, amis, mellon.

KRIS: No Elvish!

LIAM: My point is we’re all friends; we’ve had a fun day so let’s go out and enjoy the rarity that is the nice weather.

LIZ: Can’t.

LIAM: Because you hate happiness.

LIZ: No.

KRIS: Because you hate Liam.

LIZ: No.

KRIS: Oh right. That’s my reason.

LIZ: Actually, I have a date.

LIAM: Really?

KRIS: With a human?

LIZ: No. With a ferocious tentacle beast with a known mental-impairment and drinking problems. Yet I’d rather spend time with him than you.

KRIS: Because you have bad taste.

LIAM: Well don’t let us spoil your plans.

KRIS: Hopefully best laid of mice and men.

LIZ: Don’t let that stop you guys from going out though.

LIAM: Alone?

KRIS: With him?

LIAM: What could we possibly do?

KRIS: Drinking? I tolerate you more drunk.

LIAM: That’s because you’re too busy picking fights with strangers. We could grab something to eat.

KRIS: I don’t like to hear other people digest. Hunting?

LIAM: Hunting what?

KRIS: The deadliest prey of them all!

LIZ: Isn’t there some Wolverine movie you could go see?

KRIS: Already?

LIAM: I guess I’d forgotten that was out.

KRIS: Would you want to go?

LIAM: I guess so. Hadn’t really thought about it. Didn’t think it would be something you want to see though.

KRIS: I’m ambivalent to it. I haven’t exactly spent time waiting for a new trailer to break the internet like the brain-diseased types who frequent our store; but then I don’t exactly want to shoot bile at it either.

LIAM: And you tend to hate everything; spraying your plasma-blood of rage out of your mouth like a Red Lantern.

KRIS: You know kid, people don’t fit into your little Lantern Corps boxes of emotions. We don’t have one sentiment that drives us. The world isn’t that black and white, it’s a whole spectrum of colours...wait.

LIAM: I’m sure you had a point. I’m just surprised you’d see anything with Gambit in it.

KRIS: Whilst I don’t understand how anyone can be drawn to a style-over-substance character from the 90’s; I’m not one of these people who detest the ragin’ Cajun purely because of his rabid fan girls. (Yes I hate myself for using that phrase) Of course if every other word is an annoying New Orleans colloquialism I’ll have to rip out the cinema’s sound system.

LIAM: Like when we saw the Hannah Montana movie.

KRIS: And I thought that’d be the kind of thing you’d be excited about. A film with Gambit, Deadpool, every X-person ever, a hobbit, A Black-eyed-pea and the smoke monster from Lost.

LIAM: Yeah that’s what I want, another X3. Adding that many guys over bloats the thing and you’re left with something empty or a character that no longer resembles the person you want to see on screen. I’m just not going to get my hopes up of seeing all my favourite characters from 40 years of publishing squeezed into 90 minutes. Apart from Cyclops, you can never have too much Cyclops.

KRIS: I’ll presume you meant the opposite of that last sentence.

LIAM: I can distance myself from the make believe world of comics to see that a character won’t be exactly the same in the altered make-believe world of film. It just leaves me with an empty feeling. They just end up as two-dimensional cannon-fodder who happen to share names with guys I read about.

KRIS: And I refuse to read the 506 Wolverine comics that Marvel publishes a month to give me fanboy berserker rage concerning the character.

LIAM: Plus you know the customers will keep asking us about it.

LIZ: And Hugh Jackman will be shirtless.

They both look at Liz

LIZ: I’m just waiting for someone to let me out of the store.

LIAM: So are we going then?

KRIS: What’s the worst that could happen?

AFTER THE SCREENING

LIAM: Well at least I’m not apathetic towards it anymore.

KRIS: I think I’m going to kill things now.

LIAM: That’s more than Wolverine did.

For Daffs---"Will modern technology save us from the zombie apocalypse or are we as dead as we were 500 years ago?”

When zombies were first created in Haiti in the 18^th century by black voodoo the inhabitants of the Island had little to no defence against the monsters apart from sharp objects and wooden sticks. Even by the time George A Romero brought the zombie to the big screen in the 60’s his victims only had slightly updated wooden sticks which fired out sharp objects. Yet even guns failed to protect them from their doom. But now we’ve entered the digital and touch-screen age we must finally be able to fight off the ever approaching zombie apocalypse. Right?

No, we won’t; you won’t even see your gruesome blood-curdling death coming because when the outbreak happens it won’t be too long before all communication goes down. Internet servers, television broadcasters, and phone networks will be dismantled leaving you in an informationless state of panic and primed to be picked off. Your widescreen TVs and PS3s won’t protect you from an unrelenting brain-hungry fiend. And whilst double glazing keeps out the cold and saves on your electricity bill it won’t keep out the zombies or save your life.

If we’re to survive anywhere it won’t be the modern, claustrophobic skyscrapers but in the old heavily fortified castles. However we’d probably be picked off as we trekked down to Windsor. The wreckage of cars toppled over by hungry zombies, or crashed by people losing control, consumed by their terror will litter the streets making escape even harder. Even if you somehow manage to flee the city you’ll be stuck on this incorrigible island of death; there will be no one to pilot our planes, helicopters or ships rendering them useless.

Instead you’ll not doubt be forced to fight for your survival, holding up in a pitiful shelter or trying to keep on the move and protect yourself. The best weapons at your disposal would be an old-fashioned lightweight semi-automatic and a machete; not the newer, more powerful weapons we create every day. They’re best used for killing each other, not zombies.

Whilst technology is one of our greatest friends and a true microcosm of our ever expanding intelligence it will be rendered useless. No matter how advanced we may think we are, we’re still susceptible to a zombie attack.

This just goes to show that the next time you’re out shopping you shouldn’t be looking around thinking “What will make me look cool?” but “What will keep me alive”.

Tonight

I'm sitting here typing this in the dark because my girlfriend has had to go to sleep whilst I remain in front of the computer. I don't even think I've had the chance to properly say goodnight to her because I'm a mixture of stressed, pissed off and busy at work.
I'm stuck here re-writing something which I would have preferred to re-write a few days ago. I'm cutting a few things, starting from scratch, moulding things together whilst starring at things which infuriate me.
I'm pissed off with lies, falsities and buzzwords but I'm afraid of the outcome of challenging them. This general feeling of malaise which has been forced into from many directions is making it harder to do said re-writing. I'm pretty happy with what I have now, but know there's some more changes I'd like to make.
Mainly though I just want to be through with all the shit. I know that with everything good and truly wonderful comes some bad stuff. And I still believe that right now the good is outweighing the bad. But I hate it when the bad, the evil pretends that it's good.

You never cared.
You'll never care.
Don't pretend to

So that was 2008

I'm typing this up roughly 5 days late now because I really haven't had much time to get this all done until now. And whilst I don't tend to blog any more due to the struggles the real world places before me I do like to when I get a chance. So following what I did at the end of 2007 here's a little summary of the past year.

2008 was pretty great, perhaps as great as I hoped it would be but in totally different ways. BoT never aired because I couldn't find a decent sound editor, but now I've since gone on to successfully get a week in a UCL theatre to put on one of my plays. I'm not doing the job I thought I might be, but I am in London, living independently and employed so things could be much worse. I graduated with a result I really expected but came so close to what I had hoped for it still slightly upsets me. And though I haven't blogged as much as I had expected to it is because I no longer spend so much time alone as it's taken up by a wonderful person. At this point last year I never would have expected to be living with Jackie but I'm definitely much happier now that I am.

Creatively the play has been the main focus of the year but I did write a few more episodes of BoT and even recorded a couple. I keep trying to go back to Stand-Up Comics and Highwaymen but get distracted. I actually started writing comics, but again got distracted as my artist has been held up. Towards the end of this year I've written a few articles for Pi Magazine which has been a great experience and I'm glad Fran lets me do it and gives good criticism and advice. And finally due to the play moving forward I feel ready to write the next instalment of that world.

I used my gift-subscription to Love Film this year over the Summer which has meant I've probably watched more movies this year than any other (and that's saying something). Let's see shall we:

• One Missed Call
• 27 dresses
• Cloverfield
• No Country for Old Men
• Juno
• Gone Baby Gone
• Persepolis
  
• There Will be Blood
• Jumper
• Sweeney Todd
• Be Kind Rewind
• Forgetting Sarah Marshall
• Iron Man
• Son of Rambow
• Speed Racer
• Indiana Jones
• The Orphanage
  
• Kung-Fu panda
• You Don't Mess with the Zohan
• The Incredible Hulk
• The Mist
• Wanted
• WALL-E
• Hancock
• Hellboy-2
• The Dark Knight
• Step Brothers
• Pineapple Express
• Tropic Thunder
• Burn After Reading
• High School Musical 3 (Yes I did)
• Changeling
• Zach and Miri make a Porno
• Quantum of Solace

Quite the handful of films, if I had to choose a quick in no order top 10 it'd be: The Dark Knight, Gone Baby Gone, No Country, WALL-E, Changeling, Juno, Son of Rambow, The Orphanage, Iron Man, and Persepolis. One Missed Call was just knocked off for worst film of the year by Jumper which is one of the worst films I've seen in my life. Speed Racer was not as bad as people said and it's a travesty that it's not even in the running for the best visual effects Oscar. Hellboy 2, The Mist and Tropic Thunder deserve very honourable mentions and 27 dresses has James Marsden singing so is totally worth a watch.

I've seen and listened to less Music than last year but found time to catch Jimmy Eat World and Joshua Radin (again). As I blogged before this Josh concert was much different to the 2007 one and both had different things going for them. And of course I devoted a large amount of time listening to Coldplay including seeing them at their BBC performance to launch the album.

It's been a weird year for comics. The last issue of Y: The Last Man came out prompting a very emotional response from me and my fellow Caballeros who found ourselves exiled from the old BKV forums. We've since found a new home for ourselves but it's not the same. 2008 also saw the end of Whedon's Astonishing X-men and Morrison's All-Star Superman which was easily the highlight of the year for me. I continued to buy all of Fraction's Marvel work and as I suggested at this point last year did catch up on Cassanova which blew my mind to pieces in a sick and twisted way which I enjoyed thoroughly. Whilst things like Cass, Phonogram and even captain Britain make me love comics I find myself becoming more disillusioned by the bad stuff. I can see a major dip in overall quality coming in the next couple of years, and whilst I really hope it doesn't happen I won't be surprised if it does.

This will probably be the last post for a while due to some hardcore rehearsing for the play, but if you feel like keeping up look for me on the greatest new arrival of my life in 2008---Twitter. It's micro blogging, it's informative and it's fun. And much more than any of that, horrible addictive

A Play is Play

Putting on a play is hard. You have to make sure the script works, successfully bid for theatre space, audition cast and rehearse. All fairly obvious things, but you never truly anticipate exactly how hard they’re going to be, especially if you’re trying to do all of this whilst holding down a full time job. But my co-producers and I have managed; my play The Quest for Beauty will be being performed in the first week of March (hopefully) though the road to it has been long and hard.

Forgetting the fact that the play was written over two years ago at the request of Big Kris and then left untouched until last may the past few months of successfully setting up the production have been just as nerve wracking. We did indeed bid successfully but were told we have to share a week with another original play. This play however is from the Drama Society (because god-forbid they would have less than eight plays on in ten weeks) and so compromising has been hard. We’ve tried to be easy going and make sure that sharing a week goes smoothly but the other group have made that a little difficult; for some reason they were unprepared to start 30 minutes early so that we didn’t finish too late, as people wouldn’t realise they would start 30 minutes early (but of course would all be aware of us starting one hour and thirty minutes late). It’s strenuous and tedious, but we put our foot down and came to what we considered a fair deal only for it to annoy the whole of the drama society meaning they refused to advertise our auditions. As a result over 8 hours of auditions we only just got enough people to cast our play and there were moments where it looked like we wouldn’t have a male lead. But in the end we had a full cast and even had to tell a couple of people “sorry but you just didn’t fit”.

So we go into our first read-through with the knowledge that all 13 cast members can attend, however the day before two of our male actors drop out (and we have no male replacements) including the male lead. One of them citing the script as a problem, which of course depresses me as it’s my script, it’s my baby and I never thought there was anything too horrendous about it. The read-through went well though, I proved I deserve to be in the cast and everyone who was there seemed to have fun. It’ll be a bitch to cast new people but we have to keep moving. It’s been a tough journey so far and I doubt it’s about to get any easier. Soon enough we’re going to have to deal with rehearsals and learning lines, which as I previously alluded to could be rather stressful for me as I will be having to work full time and trying to fit all this around it. And it doesn’t make things any easier when the new boss starting is apparently a real bitch who’s bringing in an entire posse of new people to come and sort us out, kinda makes me worried about my job security and sanity really. But it’s my passion, it’s my love and I will push forward and we will put on a great show.

We’re going places, and those places are far off and wonderful.

Oh yeah, and I’m doing fine, new job is good, been there a few weeks and it’s all gone rather quickly. Living with Jackie is still enjoyable, living with Fran, Rob and Mel has also been a blast. I’ve still had time to see a bunch of friends and to get a little bit of writing done. It’s definitely not a lot of writing (my main creative thrust is producing the play) but I’ve written for every issue of Pi, and my mind is ablaze with good ideas. And there are still good comics in the world, which reminds me why life is worth living.

The Quest for Beauty

Performed at the Garage Theatre on March 5th, 6th and 7th

I have you now!

I’m sorry, and I mean that ever so sincerely. I am very sorry I haven’t blogged as much. And this isn’t coming from that deep rooted part of my brain which expects everyone in the Universe to love and read this blog- because I certainly more than anyone else believes that no one reads the blog. But a couple of people have pestered and pushed me to return to blogging, to start writing again; and they have done this both online and in person (you know who you are). The main reason for the huge delay was because I never used to be home from work until around 8pm and then after eating and speaking to Jackie I wouldn’t feel like blogging or I’d feel selfish for completely ignoring Jackie. Plus as I say when work takes up so much of my time I often don’t know what to say without sounding like I’m moaning even more so than usual. Then came my graduation when old friends and allies who I never thought would care about my blog (read: ramblings and pointless...points) told me that I should be writing more. And I came out of it thinking that I should blog, and I was just about to when our internet was cut off. And believe me nothing prevents one from blogging like a lack to the internet and thus the hosting site for my words. It’s like I was about to get up to a podium and give a rousing entertaining speech when suddenly my podium was smashed to pieces by a wrecking ball. It was like I was about to stand up and inspire you all like only Barack Obama could and then I was chained up with my mouth taped and hands tied behind my back (with a blindfold on so that I couldn’t communicate through blinking).

When I first realised I was cut off from the net I reacted as expected---with screaming and violence, followed by shaking and loneliness and eventually a horrifying acceptance like someone realising they’re about to become a victim of their vampire overlords. Because someone forgot to pay the last internet bill I was cut off from my main means of communication at a very important time and I was very annoyed. However I have since come to realise that being cut off was a good, if not great thing. Because nothing makes you want something more than when you can’t have it. For the first time in a long while I wasn’t blogging, not because I couldn’t be bothered, but because I couldn’t. And since that point I have realised how much I want to blog some things and it has eaten away at me. So here is me catching up, not to make people happy, not just for a brief update, but because I really need to.

As previously mentioned I graduated. I went from being a graduand to graduate in a matter of seconds and it was...okay, I guess. I got the day off work so that I could attend and so that I could have lunch with my family before hand, and I think the break in the stress of work was my favourite moment of the day. Really the day as a whole whilst wonderful because I got to celebrate a huge achievement with very good friends and family, it was a day filled with the stress of banking and paying bills, and having to rush my family dinner because some people were running late (the food was still good, we just ate instead of conversing). Then I ran to print something out that I didn’t need in the first place and after the ceremony the free food and drink we were looking forward to was not very nice, overly pretentious versions of cocktail snacks and my brother didn’t get the cake he wanted—instead he got given a mini ice-cream cone which wasn’t ice cream but actual cream. I never really had high hopes for the ceremony, it was as expected a lot of people clapping after someone read out a name. But thankfully there weren’t too many overly long speeches and it didn’t drag on too much. What I did find oddly astounding was the amount UCL likes to promote its alumni website/ organisation. As though they’re really expecting some of us to become great powerful people who they will have easy access to because we signed up for their alumni thing. The weirdest moment was when they showed us a video advert for the damn thing. It included music from Coldplay (because you know they went to UCL) followed by recent graduates saying why they liked UCL, including a rather pretentious “actress” talking about how she liked UCL because no one was pretentious. Then came a montage of famous UCL graduates including the usual suspects---Gandhi, Alexander Graham Bell, Ricky Gervais, Coldplay (they went to UCL don’t you know) and...Chris Nolan! Chris Nolan! They actually included Chris Nolan on their list of famous alumni. They never include Chris Nolan, because apparently he was never cool enough for their famous Coldplay list. That’s how you know The Dark Knight was massive and popular, it doesn’t matter that it’s the second most successful movie ever in the US gaining both critical and commercial acclaim but it’s good enough for UCL to actually take notice of its director and want to say “hey, he’s good because of us...and our alumni website”. The night wasn’t bad though, I got to see many people I hadn’t seen for a long time, people I missed and who were largely responsible for shaping the past three years of my life and helping me through tough times. And I got to take fun pictures with them throwing our crazy caps in the air.

It came at a nice time as well, I’m just settling in at work. All the craziness of big wholesale orders is over and I can do my work at a decent pace without a huge albatross above my head. Plus they have been kind enough to change my hours so that I finish earlier and will be able to see my friends and SFFS members once Uni starts in a week or so. And until Saturday I will have internet once again because I am currently living with Jackie’s family before we move into our new house. I’m really looking forward to the new house, because Jackie and I will have I giant room and I’m also living with some really cool people. There will be much Wii playing with Rob, Play making with Francisco and “other-things-ing” with Mel and Florence and hopefully Rock-Banding as a whole house. We may need to get internet sorted out, but at least we’ll all be together and it will be fresher’s week and the weekend of Jackie’s Birthday.

We are both really looking forward to the move, but considering the house is two streets away from where we were living over Summer it would have been nice if we could have moved straight from one place to the other---honestly a matter of five days and it would have been the easiest move of all time rather than a big hassle. It was especially infuriating as everyone in the Summer house had moved out early so we presumed it would be the same for the house we are moving to. Alas, we have to wait until the weekend, but at least Jackie’s parents are kind enough to house me---plus it’s really nice here, everyone is friendly and I get fed well :D And as anyone who reads this knows I love to be fed well.

We celebrated our last weekend in the house alone together by...staying out of the house for the whole day. I’ve only just thought about that one, it is weird isn’t it? We went into comics shops (but not orbital---a shame for reasons to be explained later) ate at a Chinese buffet for over two hours, and then we wandered down to PC world to play on Rock Band for free. On the way to PC world Jackie and I saw the remains of the recent Anonymous Protest of scientology which upset me that we hadn’t walked down Tottenham Court Road earlier to see the start of the protest. Then seeing all the people in their V masks jogged my memory—Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie had been signing at Orbital comics. I was a little upset to miss this, but I have seen Moore before and I’d rather enjoy the day with Jackie instead of queuing with a bunch of crazy comics people. More than anything though I just found it wonderful that a few feet away from Alan Moore people were taking cheap mass produced masks based on his anarchist character to protest an annoying cult. Moore may never watch or like the movie version of V for Vendetta but it has meant that the character is popular and that the mask is readily available for a mass protest. I do think it would bring a smile to his face.

That’s all for now because I’ve stolen Jackie’s laptop for far too long and we have TV to catch up on (Robot Chicken, and Fringe---if it ever downloads)

Only the purple flame of the dying phoenix will burn this P.S. Section:

Apparently the UCL alumni website can put me into contact with alumni in my chosen profession so that I can seek advice and wisdom from them. If I go onto it and claim I want to be a musician will they give me Chris Martin’s phone number?