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Out Of Office
"So this is Christmas", observed Mr J Lennon once long ago, before asking "so what have you done then eh?"
It's a pertinent question, which this year I would answer by saying "quite a lot actually John, thanks for asking". My 2024 activity log includes more ACTUAL GIGS than I've done for several years, putting out my book about Doctor Doom, releasing a compilation album that turned out to be a lot more fun to listen to (for me anyway) than I'd expected, and of course the commencement of The Funny Comics Fan Club. There's also been a late surge in SONGWRITING, a talk about HATS, articles about The Beano, Dennis The Menace and Doctor Doom (in The Radio Times!!), and even MORE chapters, posters and conference presentations various. All that and a new social media network too!
Put together it looks like quite a lot of ACTION, which is surprising as I thought it'd been quite quiet this year. That may partly be because NEXT year is looking like it's going to be BUSY, with a bunch of gigs already booked, a SHOW about Doctor Doom very much in the planning stages, and that other SECRET PROJECT set to get underway very soon too. There'll also be a load more episodes of The Funny Comics Fan Club, maybe some more WRITING and hopefully some of those Exciting Surprises that tend to come along.
Crumbs, just writing all of this down is exhausting, so I think I'm going to put the Out of Office on and head towards the sofa for a few days. I'll be back in the new year, but in the meantime thanks VERY much one and all for listening to me DRONE on here throughout the calendar, and I hope you have a BLOODY GRATE Festive Season, wherever and however you're spending it! Merry Christmas everybody!
posted 24/12/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Funny Comics Festive Finale
Today we are unleashing the FESTIVE FINALE of The Funny Comics Fan Club into the world and it is - IF YOU WILL PARDON THE PUN - a bit of a "cracker".
(because it's Christmas, see, when you have Christmas crackers)
For those who are blissfully unaware, The Funny Comics Fan Club is a podcast where Mr John Dredge and I talk about British kids' comics, reading through a single issue of a specific comic in every issue and offering THORTS and also REMARKS. For the first nine issues we talked about old comics from our respective childhoods in days long ago, but for this SEASON FINALE* (*we're having an extra week gap over Christmas but will be back in January for more) we thought it might be fun to talk about a comic or comic-associated item that is out RIGHT NOW, and so we alighted on this year's Beano Annual. You can find out what we thought by listening to the BELOW (or by streaming it from wherever you get your podcasts):
One is of course LOATH to give spoilers, but I think it's fair to say that we LIKED it. Personally i liked it a LOT as I am a big fan of the modern Beano, which I think manages to be very much a) MODERN and also b) THE ACTUAL BEANO. DC Thomson do a GRATE job of creating a comic that is recognisably the one that most of us grew up with, but which has also kept up with the world as it is lived now (which The Beano that I read in the 1970s and 1980s usually completely failed to do). Also it is ACTUALLY FUNNY, which I NEVER remember The Beano being in my day, and that especially is something I salute it for!
That's not to say we liked EVERYTHING about it, and there was one strip in particular where John and I had a heated disagreement, but you'll have to listen to it yourself to find out which!
posted 23/12/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Song Flooding Continues Unabated
I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was undergoing a song flood, with a total of FOUR new songs having been written. At the time that seemed like a big deal but I can now report that it was as NOTHING compared to the DELUGE that has continued since then, leading to the New Songs Total now standing at a mighty TEN SONGS! And counting!
THREE of these (or 30% if you prefer) are Doctor Doom songs, which are being lined up for next year's Doctor Doom SHOW. It's not going to be an Actual Musical or anything, as that would be complicated in terms of a) writing b) performing c) COPYRIGHT LAW. The plan though is to follow The Rule Of When Songs Happen In Musicals i.e. do them at moments when the emotions are so strong that it's impossible NOT to burst into song. As anyone who's READ my Doctor Doom book will know, there are moments when the emotions are SO STRONG that it's almost too much delight to cope with, so hopefully this will make it easier for everyone!
The rest of the songs so far (70%, fact fans) are a bit of a mixture. The PROJECT which has excited me into doing all this writing was originally meant to be concentrating on some of my old songs, and specifically the more "grown-up" ones, and so I HAVE written several like that, but I've also ended up doing a few that are ROCK BANGERS that will probably go into the BANK OF BANGERS for future Validators releases. I'm also wondering whether it might be a good idea to record a solo version of AI Guy for release early next year so that it's out in the world BEFORE The Terminators come and get us!
It's all VERY exciting for me, as it's been a reminder of how much FUN it is writing songs, especially when you've got one NEARLY finished and then have to spend three days trying to work out the last knotty rhymes. It's then possibly even MORE brilliant when you get one finished and can then spend the next week or so SINGING it to yourself all the time and giggling at your own COLOSSAL GENIUS!
Perhaps the BEST bit of all this is that it's reminded me of WHERE song ideas come from. Several decades ago when I first started writing songs I seemed to have ideas ALL the time - not necessarily GOOD ideas, but ideas nonetheless, and I had notebooks FULL of THORTS for things to write about. In the past decade or so that dried up a bit, as a) my BRANE was full of things like PhDs and so forth but also because b) I had lost track of where those ideas come from. For LO! it turns out that The Rule Of When Songs Happen In Musicals ALSO applies to when songs happen in real life i.e. when the emotions are so strong that it's impossible NOT to ... er... get a guitar out and spend hours and hours trying to think of a rhyme for "perceptible". Or to put it another way, when a THORT occurs to me and starts rattling around my BRANE I would previously just go and TELL someone about it, either in-house, in-pub, in-work or on THE SOCIALS. Now, however, I have remembered that if you let the idea MARINATE in your MIND for a little while it can start to RHYME and grow CHORUSES and so on and become an ACTUAL SONG. That's how I always USED to write songs, and now after many years it is how I am writing them again, and it's all rather lovely.
So yes, the total of new songs currently stands at TEN, but I am hopeful that it will grow significantly higher over the next few weeks. Stand by for further updates!
posted 19/12/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Cambridgeshire And Kent In One Day
Flipping heck I had a REALLY busy day on Saturday. It began, as many Saturdays do, with a trip to Peterborough for the football. The talk before the game was all about how rubbish it was going to be and so, of course, it ended up being an explosion of SEVEN GOALS with Posh winning 4-3 after a great deal of running about, hoofing, indelicate passing and shouting. Pretty much THE USUAL for this season, in fact.
Normally that would have been enough for one day, but this time I was also booked to head down to deepest KENT to play a gig for the lovely chaps of Careful Now Promotions at The Oasthouse in Rainham. THUS once the football had finished I nipped back to the nearby Premier Inn Peterborough where I had STASHED my guitar (using an APP to book it, for I am dead modern like that), did my usual trip back to old London Town, and then hopped on a High Speed train down South. I had spent AGES planning the whole thing out to make sure I could get there at a reasonable time but in the end I got different trains for pretty much every leg of the trip, just getting whatever was available. To my surprise this all WORKED!
Once in Rainham Kent (it feels wrong just sating "Rainham" as there's ALSO a Rainham in Essex and everyone seems to say "Rainham Kent" like that's the full name) I made the 2 minute journey round to the Oasthouase and said hello, did a quick soundcheck, and then wandered back out to the chip shop which, last time I was there, did HUGE portions of chips. They did again!
Back at the venue I was VERY SENSIBLE, as is my WONT these days, and stuck to alcohol-free beer before going on, and watched the EXCELLENT Sassyhiya who were on first. One of the many things I liked about them were that they LOOKED and SOUNDED like a band i.e. always looking round at each other, INTERACTING, and clearly having a GRATE time of it. I thought they sounded a bit like PO! but that may be due to my somewhat limited mental library of bands who sound a bit like that, but either way they were GRATE.
Then it was my turn to go on, and I did THIS:
Bad Back
AI Guy
The Peterborough All-Saints Wide Game Team (group B)
Clubbing In The Week
I'm Doing The Ironing
In The North Stand
Chips And Cheese, Pint Of Wine
20 Things To Do Before You're 30
It Only Works Because You're here
The Lesson Of The Smiths
As you can see I was VERY BRAVE and committed myself to doing a new song, AI Guy, which went down pretty well. I was not, however, sufficiently brave to debut a live version of Moshi Twistmas, as heard on the Joyzine Advent Calendar. I'd practiced it a few times, and had stuck the KEYWORDS to my guitar to remind me of the order, but I was a bit too NERVOUS to try it out. Maybe next year!
I think I might have slightly MISJUDGED the setlist too. Usually these days I find it's better to do the SLOWER songs and so did - including a somewhat slowed down version of The Peterborough All-Saints Wide Game Team (group B) - but this time I think more FAST ones might have been better. Still, it all seemed to go all right and I might even say that, once we'd all got past my terrible whistling solo during In The North Stand, it built up to a pretty good finish!
After that it was time for some ACTUAL BEER before settling back into watching Swansea Sound, who are not only an INDIEPOP SUPERGROUP but also a group who are... er... SUPER at indiepop (they can use that on posters if they like)! They sounded fantastically PUNCHY and POPPY and generally ACE, and it made me think once again what a difference today's modern PA systems make. Back in the dark days of the 1980s when this sort of music first emerged it was played through RUBBISH systems managed by generally unenthusiastic and/or inept soundmen, but nowadays we can hear what it was always SUPPOSED to sound like, which is GRATE!
I also really enjoyed some of the Advanced Stagecraft which went on, including getting the Careful Now chaps to REENACT the video for Marking It Down. Excellent work one and all!
Soon however it was time for me to dash off and get my train back to London, and then onto the Not Yet Officially The Night Tube version of the tube and home, seeing a) a Pearly King and Queen and b) the local Actual Fox on the way. I had a fab day but this final bit of the journey did remind me how I used to do gigs like this ALL THE TIME, sometimes 60-70 times a year, and I must admit that I was glad I don't do that anymore. I had had a lovely time, but I was flipping knackered by the end of it!
posted 15/12/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Moshi Twistmas
As you may or may not have noticed, to paraphrase N Holder, "It Is Christmas!" Or Advent at least, which means it's time for Christmas SONGS!
Regular pals will be EXTREMELY aware that there is a grand tradition of recording and releasing Christmas Songs around these parts, many of which were collected a few years ago on the album Christmas Selection Box. This contains 19 Christmas BANGERS (20 on the Bandcamp version!) recorded over the years as singles, requests, and very often for the Joyzine advent calendar.
Six years ago I thought that putting all the tracks onto an Actual Album (Actually Available on Spotify and similar streaming-type places) would mean my annual festive recordings would cease. However I have since been part of at least TWO more Christmas bangers - Christmas Time Is Here by John Dredge & The Plinths and Is It Too Soon For Christmas? by Jane and John - and now have ANOTHER, done under my own name, to unleash upon you.
For LO! I have recorded a version of Moshi Twistmas by the Moshi Monsters for this year's Joyzine Advent Calendar! This is a song that my late brother-in-law used to put on his MAMMOTH compilations of Christmas songs because it is AMAZING. It does not in any way NEED to be any good - they could have just stuck out a carol or something - but no, The Moshi Corporation seems to have thought "sod it, let's do a MASSIVE CHRISTMAS BANGER" and this is the result. I would like to apologise in advance for you getting it your head but I cannot because it is a WONDERFUL thing to have rattling round your brain. MERRY TWISTMAS everybody!.
posted 9/12/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Finishing Beginning Theory
For the past eight years or so - ever since I started doing my PhD (which I don't like to go on about) in fact - I have been struggling with Literary Theory. Every time I've been to a conference, or read a book, or talked to academical types it's been all Foucault this, Derrida that and structuralism the other, and I have not had a single clue what anyone was on about.
Well, I say not a SINGLE clue - I did do a bit of due diligence and looked some of the most often used words up, but even then I felt like I was missing the point. I distinctly remember, right at the start of it all, hearing people bang on about Michel Foucault all the time with regards to comics, and yet I could not for the life of me find anything he'd ever actually SAID about them. It was the same with Roland Barthes and all of them lot, while the only Philosopher I could find who ever DID say something about comics - Umberto Eco - wrote a paper RIDDLED with factual errors, in which he claimed for instance that the Marvel comics of the 1960s and 1970s (featuring that famous superhero "Devil", without the "Dare") were examples of the "oneiric climate" where all stories existed in a haze of present with little relation to any past or future. Er... don't think that's quite right Umberto!
Frustrated by my lack of understanding I signed up for a series of PHILOSOPHY SEMINARS at UAL. I thought this would sort me out but it was not great and I ended up not going to any after the first, very annoying, session. I then tried BOOKS, YouTube Videos, and all sorts of things like that but never ever got any closer to understanding what the heck was going on.
I was still moaning about this during the summer this year when I met esteemed colleague and pal Dr Martin Flanagan for a drink. He took this all very calmly and said "We usually recommend students get Beginning Theory" and later sent me details of the book he was on about - "Beginning Theory" by Professor Peter Barry.
COR! This was an EXCELLENT recommendation, for LO! it was EXACTLY what I was after. I started reading it around October and have spent the past couple of months up to my EARS in structuralism, post-structuralism, marxism, queer theory, feminism - THE LOT, basically. It's really really nicely written, with the tone of an ACE Professor explaining it all in a kindly way to a group of undergraduates who he will then take to the PUB once a term and get all the beers in for. In fact, it very much FELT like the dream ideal of what going to college should have been like, and indeed what I THORT it was going to be like when I set off for Leicester Polytechnic all those decades ago.
I had high hopes of LOFTY IDEAS and INTELLECTUAL VISTAS but it actually turned out to be like a not very good sixth form college, and reading this book now I see that that's pretty much what it was! I remember one day we had a lecture where the lecturer said "Oh, and you can also do Marxist critiques or feminist critiques" but didn't explain it properly, or follow it up, or do anything at all. I mean, I know it was Leicester Poly rather than BRIDESHEAD UNIVERSITY or whatever, but looking back now I do feel mildly AGGRIEVED that we were fobbed off with pretty much O Level English again. Think of what I could have WROUGHT if I'd known all this stuff thirty years earlier!
I was also slightly gobsmacked to read the chapter on Marxist Theory and realise that, GOR BLIMEY, that appears to be ME. I keep writing all this stuff about how Comics Studies being ashamed to talk about The Beano is due to class snobbery, or how the culture of production of art is key to understanding it (especially with regards to Marvel comics), but hadn't realised that this is a big chunk of Marxist Theory. All this time and I have been DENIED the Donkey Jacket and annoying little cap that should have been mine all along!
So, three cheers for Martin and Professor Barry, no cheers to the Combined Arts faculty at Leicester Poly as was, and full steam ahead for the literary revolution. Let's go COMRADES!
posted 3/12/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Hibbett's Three Laws Of Robotics
On Sunday I carried out the ancient ritual of going through my recently filled up IDEAS BOOK and checking to see if any of the idea contained within are GOOD and therefore worth carrying on to the NEXT one. It's always quite an interesting job, for me at least, as it means looking back on LOADS of THORTS what I had urgently scribbled down over the past couple of years, thinking they might be VITAL, but which now often make no sense at all. Sometimes this is because they were written in the middle of the night EITHER in the dark AND/OR when I'd not put my glasses on, but sometimes it's because they just don't make any sense!
In amongst the deranged scrawls there were a few good ideas, like some ideas for songs, a few GAGS I'd forgotten about for the Doctor Doom Show, and a LOT of plans and schemes for a massive science fiction opus about a SPACE TREE that I should really get around to writing up properly one day. There was also something called "Hibbett's Three Laws Of Robotics" which I quite liked but have no real use for... except of course to delight you with today, dear reader. Here they are!
Hibbett's Three Laws Of Robotics
- It's not going to look or act like a robot on the telly.
- If it does then it's not actually going to be intelligent.
- If it is then DO NOT SWITCH IT ON.
Clearly these were written after watching a LOT of TV shows where people who have never seen a science fiction film or read a book of any kind talk confidently and entirely wrongly about Artificiial Intelligence. I hope these rules will be useful to future generations - especially the third one!
posted 1/12/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Top Secret Secret Revealed
Yesterday I finished off a Christmas Song what I have been recording for the Joyzine Advent Calendar, and while doing the "mini-interview" bit I mentioned that there's a "top secret project" that I'm planning to do in 2025.
As I pressed "send" I MUSED on the fact that I seem to be FOREVER mentioning "top secret projects", usually on this here blog, and loads of them never actually happen. I was looking at some ANCIENT blog posts the other day for ANOTHER thing I'm thinking about - which is to retweet (or reSKEET I guess) some blogs on the 20th Anniversary of their publication - and they're FULL of me saying "Ooh there's a secret thing I can't tell you about" and in most cases I have NO idea what I'm on about. For instance, this one is probably one of the songs that ended up on Christmas Selection Box but I have NO idea which one. Also, why was I saying "I can't tell you about this" when I could have just not mentioned it at all. And why, more to the point, am I still doing it now?
So, with that in mind I thought I'd reveal one of the SECRET things that I have been alluding to for years in blogs, newsletters and pub conversations - DINOSAUR PLANET: THE NOVEL.
Our story begins seven years ago, in the distant era known as 2017, when I self-released a book called "Storm House". I had a lovely time, as it turned out that the process was very similar to self-releasing a record but you got to swank about saying "Oh yes my novel" which was LOTS of fun. Around this time I ALSO sent a copy of it to various LITERARY AGENTS, and one such got in touch very keen to REP it i.e. try and sell it to Actual Book Publishers.
This was all very exciting and led to about A MILLION re-writes so that it ended up being VERY different (and much better) than my original version, but then we had an Actual Year of trying to get somebody to buy it without much - or indeed ANY - success. It was all a bit disappointing, as LOADS of work had gone into it and I'd even written up outlines for a whole SERIES of books to follow!
Undeterred - all right, maybe a bit deterred but still - I decided to have a go at something else and thought "Hang on, Dinosaur Planet was a really good idea, why don't I write THAT as a kids' book?" This led to AT LEAST a year of writing, re-writing, re-re-writing and so on through I think SEVENTEEN drafts (and multiple Minor Revisions) pinging between me and My Agent until it was SUPER SHINY and wonderful. The main plot of the album and the live show remained but there were a whole BUNCH of brand new characters and BIG changes to most of the original cast to make it more like a children's novel. Again, all of these changes made the whole thing a LOT better, and now it's weird to think that some of my FAVOURITE bits (e.g. the new extended PC Darren ARC) weren't in the original.
That then went out to publishers and... nothing much happened. A couple of publishers said they liked it, but not really enough to BUY it, and after three waves of submissions it all came to a gradual halt. I think this time it was even MORE disappointing, as the book was DEAD GOOD and I had high hopes of going around the country promoting it in SONG.
I'd like to think that at least PART of the reason we couldn't get anyone to buy it was because I am Insufficiently Famous - whenever I go and look at the Children's Books section in the book shop it always CRAMMED with books "written" by famous people, and there don't seem to be ANY written by, say, someone who had a viral hit song about twenty years ago. It all reminded me of THIS rather excellent gag from the also excellent 2025 Beano Annual (which we'll be talking about in a future episode of The Funny Comics Fan Club):
I mean, OBVIOUSLY it might also be because publishers just didn't LIKE it, but I prefer this version!
I still have VAGUE hopes that it might get UNLEASHED upon the world one day. Next year I'm going to try and do a lot more STAND-UP and PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT about Doctor Doom and I know that there are some Public Intellectuals who have become sufficiently Public to be asked to write THEIR own children's books. If that happens I will be able to say "Here you go, already written one!" I've also got a PITCH out for a non-fiction book about Doctor Doom's daftest stories which isn't exactly setting the publishing world on FIRE at the moment, but hopefully will get a bit more interest when the Robert Downey Jr on-set images start coming out!
In the meantime "Dinosaur Planet: THE NOVEL" must remain in the vaults, but if anyone happens to bump into a Publishing Executive with an interest in space dinosaurs, giant robots, or the destruction of Peterborough, do send them my way!
posted 28/11/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Doom Ahoy!
This morning I received a message from Google Search Console to let me know that the Number One Search Term to this site has changed! EXCITING, right? I assume that the old top term was something like "International Rock Star" or "Unconventionally Handsome" or similar, but can you hazard a guess as to what the NEW top term is?
No, it's not "That Hey Hey 16K Guy" or "Mispelt Doctor From Off The Simpsons" (though I'm sure those are definitely in the top 7), it was in fact "DR DOOM"! HA! This fills me with DELIGHT as it has been an ongoing PROJECT of mine to make flipping well sure that MY name is associated with that of Doctor Doom as much as possible, so that when Robert Downey Jr starts appearing as him in FILMS it will be ME who the international media corporations call up to say WISE THINGS about it all, preferably at Glamorous Movie Premieres.
THUS I am doing my best to get onto podcasts or to WRITE things about him, and in that vein I have been toiling away for a while on doing a Doctor Doom LIVE show in which I will explain how he works, based on the RESEARCH in MY BOOK. Until recently I've seen this as a sort of Stand-up Comedy Affair, with me talking HUMOROUSLY (and simultaneously INCISIVELY) about it in front of some SLIDES, but since the sudden rush of SONGS that I mentioned a little while ago I have come to the SHUDDERING REALISTION that I should include some MUSIC in there too.
This may seem an entirely OBVIOUS idea, mostly because it IS entirely obvious. Whenever I've mentioned the fact that I'm planning to do a DOOM SHOW almost everyone has ASSUMED that it would be a MUSICAL of some sort, which I have stubbornly resisted, not least because I would be crushed beneath a deluge of LAWYERS if I tried to do something like that. However, once I had FINALLY written a song about Doctor Doom - explaining who he is in comparison to Batman - I realised that actually it would really WORK if I applied Musical Theatre SCIENCE i.e. in musical theatre the SONGS are meant to appear when the emotions get so strong that the characters can't do anything BUT sing.
So, using that methodology, I could use SONGS in my explanations when it all gets TOO EXCITING to do anything else. oR to put it another way, if I write SONGS which encapsulate the most important BITS then I can use those as TENTPOLES for the show as a whole, writing it as movements beteween the key points. That sounds like a good idea to me!
The CLINCHER for my thinking though came from a PROBLEM: if I'm doing a presentation with slides, how do I keep those slides working when I'm playing guitar and singing at the same time? As you may know, it usually takes TWO hands to operate a guitar, which is 100% of my total hand capacity, so I'd be unable to operate a MAGIC SLIDE CLICKER at the same time. "Hang on though," I thought, "What if there was a GUITAR PEDAL for slides? Surely, here in the futuristic space year 2024, such a thing exists?"
Friends, I am happy to report that IT TOTALLY DOES! On seeing this my BRANE immediately filled with GRATE IDEAS for how I could muck around with it and do LIVE VIDEOS and so on, and that was pretty much it. I have now written a grand total of TWO (2) songs, but I'm hoping to get a few more done before Christmas, and then in the new year I'll start looking out for places to go and DO the show, maybe in the spring. I will of course keep you INFORMED of this as I go along, but I am quite excited about it - MORE GADGETS for me!!
posted 26/11/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Godot Returns
Yesterday I had the afternoon off in order to go to THE THEATRE, as I am dead sophisticated like that.
The play I was going to see was Waiting For Godot at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, and I was going to see it with my old pal Mr C Lawson, who was down in London especially for the occassion. The LAST time me and Chris went to see a play was ALSO Waiting For Godot, that time starring Captain Picard and GANDALF, and that had been BLOODY GRATE, so we had high hopes for this iteration.
When we got to the theatre we both said "Hang on, is this the same place where we saw it LAST time?" but it was only when we got to the BAR that we realised it TOTALLY WAS. This led to much discussion of coming to see this play EVERY 10-15 years or so in the same place, which to be honest would be fine by me.
It ALSO led to further comparisons with the Professor X/Magneto version, which I am afraid to say were not favourable for the current production, for LO! it was... sort of all right? As Chris said, it often felt like they were Saying The Words without hugely investing in what they actually MEANT. In places it was like one of those SHAKESPEARE productions where they've gone "This olde worlde speak doesn't make any sense, so let's say it loudly while making some extra noises and, if at all possible, miming something for LARFS". Also, they didn't seem to have decided whether it was meant to be PROFOUNDLY BLEAK or FUNNY or something else, so although there WERE laughs they were always slightly NERVOUS ones, as if the audience weren't sure whether they should or not.
The STAGING was dead good, I thought, as it looked like a PAINTING that had fallen slightly out of its FRAME, but there were some other aspects of The Production that seemed a bit daft. For instance, usually Vladmir and Estragon wear bowler hats but here they had WOOLLY hats on, which is FINE and looked good but then it meant that The Hat-Swapping Routine in the second half didn't work AT ALL. Also, Ben Whishaw's costume involved jogging pants, which is FINE similarly but then meant he had to MIME doing his flies up, which happens several times and made it feel a bit SCHOOL PLAY-ish.
There was quite a lot of that sort of thing, but then not really DIGGING the production did allow the ACTUAL PLAY to shine through A LOT. I have seen Waiting For Godot LOADS of times and INDEED have even DIRECTED it 300,000,000 years ago when I was a student (featuring Chris as Pozzo, in fact!) and so it was LOVELY to hear all the LINES and remember the different BITS as they happened. It really is BLOODY BRILLIANT, and it struck me that it would be AMAZING to do a version where you got Morecambe & Wise impersonators to do it AS Morecambe & Wise (Eric as Estragon, Ernie as Vladmir OBVS). I'm thinking about that again now and it is AMAZING!
It would have been nice if it had been BETTER but it was still FINE and we had a lovely time DISCUSSING it after, and also drinking BEER in various venues and also PIZZA - which, it turns out, is pretty much exactly what we did last time! Hopefully in another 10-15 years we can go back and see the Fassbender/McAvoy or Jackman/Reynolds versions!
posted 21/11/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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The Songs Are Flooding In
In yesterday's blog I mentioned that in Cambourne I had performed a BRAND NEW SONG what I had written, but that is not the ONLY new one on the go at the moment.
For LO! over the past few weeks I have written no less than FOUR new songs, with a couple of other ideas bubbling under also. This is more than I've written in the past few YEARS put together and has come about, as usual, because I'm supposed to be doing something else.
What happened was that I got talking to a PAL a little while ago and we agreed to have a go at doing a COLLABORATION. I won't go into any great detail about it here as we have still to hammer out the details, but the general GIST was to do some of my old songs together but in a different FORMAT to what I'd done them in before. I thus went home and thought "Right, the important thing to do now is to try out some of those old songs and see which ones might be suitable" and instead of that started writing a new song instead. Obviously.
That has since CONTINUED and I must say I am really really enjoying it. As regular listeners may have noticed, my lyrics have got quite DENSE over recent decades, largely because I LOVE trying to cram as many internal rhymes as I can into every single line. This takes a bit of EFFORT (and also means I need to stick to alcohol-free beer before a gig so as not to mess everything up!) but does feel GRATE when I'm doing it. It's also GRATE fun having a little BATCH of songs to ROCK through when I fancy a bit of SINGING, and that in itself is a lovely reminder of how much fun it is just to sit around with a guitar and BELLOW.
The HUGE advantage of coming back to this after so long in abeyance is that I have all sorts of THORTS lying around for songs. I usually like to PERCOLATE an idea in my BRANE for several years before turning it into a song - this may APPEAR to the uninitiated that I am sitting in pubs saying the same thing over and over again but NO, it is songwrting - so now have quite a few SEEDS to nurture into either ROCK EPICS or - to my great surprise after years of refusing to do so - songs about DOCTOR DOOM. Yes!
The only thing I'm lacking at the moment is GIGS. It was brilliant being able to try out a new song last week (and very helpful to THE PROCESS too, as it highlighted the fact that it wasn't really clear what I was on about!) but I've not go many opportunities lined up to do more of that sort of thing. Maybe I will have to get my CONTACTS BOOK out of storage too!
posted 15/11/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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A Whole Lot Of Hats
Last week I spent a DELIGHTFUL couple of days at the Figshare & Symplectic EMEA User Conference 2024.
To clarify, before we go any further, I'm not being sarcastic or anything here - I really did have a lovely time, spending two days with excellent colleagues talking about the two systems what I manage at work. HANG ON - no, I mean I AM being sarcastic, because obviously I am too cool and rock and roll to think it's really interesting to talk about the implications of the lack of REF guidelines for the future of academic impact data collection. THAT WOULD BE KRAZY.
Yes yes all right that was me and it was GRATE. As I have mentioned before, I am in the strange (for me) situation of really enjoying my job these days, and it turns out that that makes conferences a whole lot more fun to go to, especially when you're with WORK PALS who are similarly interested. The only downside of it all was that I was forced - FORCED, I tell you - to do a presentation about one of our projects. As regular readers will be aware I HATE showing off, as you can see for yourself in the video below:
The talk was about how we transferred an archive of The Piaggi Collection (a lot of HATS) from an old system and set up on Figshare. We did this earlier on in the year and, as you will see from the talk, there was a specific point in the data migration where I thought "OOH blimey, this will be AMAZING for a presentation" and took LOTS of screenshots. I won't spoil WHAT happened as it is a dead good bit in the presentation, and is worth seeing for yourself, honest! It's also worth having a look at The Piaggi Collection site itself as you can zip around looking at all sorts of aspects of the HATS for yourself. I have never been a hat fan before I must admit (having a GIGANTIC HEAD I have never really got on with them) but I must admit this experience has converted me. Maybe I don't need 800 of them though!
posted 14/11/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Back To 2017
It's been a WEIRDLY EMOTIONAL morning for me today, all to do with the long prophesied MASS EXODUS from Twitter finally actually (probably) happening.
I mean, I know poeople have been leaving there for a while now, but it seems like this week a decision been made by Nice People Everywhere to go over to BLUESKY en masse. As far as I can see this has been caused by D Trump offering E Musk a place in his government as an Efficiency Tsar, and I must say I can very much see the reasoning. After all, if you have millions fewer uses of your system you need a lot fewer STAFF, which I'm pretty sure is SUPER EFFICIENT all round. If all goes to plan next year I expect him to change the name of the country to The UXA and sort out immigration immediately by having a third of the population up sticks and move to Canada immediately.
I got EMOTIOANL about it this particular morning because of STARTER PACKS. These are basically lists of people with Specific Interests that you can use to find accounts to follow, and the first one I saw was for BEATLES people, forwarded to me by International Rock Star Pete Green. I was very merrily following those when I noticed that my notifications had gone NUTS. "60+ Notificatuions?" I thought. "Surely that can't be right?"
Mr R Manuel had set up a B3ta Starter Pack what had my name on it, and suddenly a whole HEAP of familiar names were popping up. I went through and did a whole load of Folows Backs of people I knew, and then all of a sudden my entire feed was EXACTLY LIKE OLD TWITTER! Nice people! Saying amusing things! Without adverts or Nazis!
I had a quick look over on twitter to make sure I wasn't IMAGING the huge gulf of difference, and saw that "Bluesky" was trending. However, when I looked at what people were SAYING it was mostly snide remarks by people (often with blue ticks) claiming that they'd been for a look but Bluesky was "just like twitter in 2017" AS IF THAT WAS A BAD THING!! Twitter in 2017 is pretty much exactly what I wanted, and now it appears to be BACK! Just not on twitter!
Other dreary people were OPINING that all the nice people leaving twitter was a Bad Thing as it meant that we couldn't ENGAGE with each other. Personally speaking I never really WANTED to engage with arseholes and Nazis, and I certainly didn't want them FOISTED on me repeatedly along with weird adverts for AI Products, so that is entirely fine with me!
Anyway, all of this is mostly to say a) HOORAY for something GOOD happening on the interweb and b) if you want to find me over there I'm on https://bsky.app/profile/mjhibbett.bsky.social. Do come and say hello!
(PS and if anyone can set up a Starter Pack featuring People Who Used Go To Indietracks Who I Haven't Seen For Ages, that would be much appreciated!)
posted 13/11/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Return To Cambourne
On Friday evening myself and The Flatness Of My Fen headed off to CAMBOURNE once again to play at an evening of Retro Gaming and SONG alongside the very excellent The British IBM.
When I played the same gig last year we had an horrendous time trying to get from Cambridge to Cambourne beforehand, so this time the aforementioned Stops On My Route suggested that we go via St Neots and get a taxi from THERE instead, which worked out MUCH better, enabling us to get to our hotel with LOADS of time.
It did not, however, stop me from getting LOST on the very short journey to The Hub where it was all taking place, although this did mean that I had the opportunity to see AN ACTUAL ROBOT! Cambourne has a PILOT SCHEME whereby you can get your shopping delivered by AN ACTUAL ROBOT, which people there seem to think is now entirely unremarkable but which I was AMAZED by. Dear Tech Bros: more of THIS sort of thing please, and less six-fingered art theft!
I got to the venue to find things in full swing, with BAR up and running and Aidy British IBM very excited to present me with a SURPRISE - bottles of HEY HEY 16K beer! This was FANTASTIC and, I can confirm, DELICIOUS!
There was chat and good times and then, just after 8pm, The British IBM went on and were FAB. They were a DUO this time but it still sounded ACE, helped along by a LOVELY amp which Aidy gave us a full purchase history for. It also helped that the songs were GRATE!
After that we had a short break and then I went on and done THIS:
The Peterborough All-Saints Wide Game Team (group B)
The Perfect Love Song
I'll Fetch Me Book
It's Hard To Be Hopeful
Cheer Up Love
I'm Doing The Ironing
Clubbing In The Week
20 Things To Do Before You're 30
Bad Back
It Only Works Because You're here
Hey Hey 16K
Looking at that list now it does seem like a slightly odd set - I was aware that it would be a very similar audience to last time so wanted to ensure they were hearing different songs, and that included a WHOLE NEW SONG what I'd written in the preceding fortnight. I made a few mistakes but it seemed to go OK, although I think I'm going to do a REJIG and swap the first and second verses around.
I also made a slight error at the end by saying that I was finishing with Hey Hey 16K rather than saving it for an encore - what I MEANT was that I was being dead classy and could do something ELSE for an encore, but everybody seemed to take it as me saying that was IT! Foolish Hibbett!
Afterwards there was much chat, some MERCH selling, and then further chat back at the hotel bar. It was a LOVELY evening, followed by a lovely next day when we had a bit of a wander around and saw MORE robots. I'm not sure if doing the same gig two years in a row at roughly the same time makes it an ANNUAL EVENT, but I do rather hope so!
posted 12/11/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Topper and Sparky
Like some kind of remorseless juggernaut OF FUN, another episode of The Funny Comics Fan Club has rolled around, and is available wherever you like to find your podcasts (spotify, Apple etc), on our own website or indeed right HERE:
This time we're talking about The Topper and Sparky, which is one BIG comic with a smaller one included in the middle. It was, as ever, a DELIGHT to chat with Mr John Dredge about it, and this time we got ourselves unnecessarily worked up about all sorts of things, not least the appallingness of Mickey The Monkey. Ooh, we were furious!
If you want to read along with us you can find pretty much all of the strips that we talk about on our socials - that's Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Bluesky - and if you enjoy it we'd be very grateful indeed if you could share it with other people, whether that's by modern TECHNICAL means or just by mentioning to somebody. We're having a LOVELY time banging on about these old comics, and we rather hope that other people might get something out of it too!
posted 11/11/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Talking About TV Comic
The latest episode of The Funny Comics Fan Club has just gone onto the interwebs, and I think this is my favourite one so far. I wouldn't necessarily expect that to be the case, as it's about a copy of TV Comic from 1970, so it contains a bunch of strips that I'm almost entirely unfamiliar with, but it turned out to be a CRACKING 49 minutes and 51 seconds of me and John nattering on about a wide variety of topics, some of which were actually to do with the comic we were reading, but many not. You can hear it for yourself HERE:
I keep meaning to say that, as hinted at above, although it is based AROUND a particular comic, it isn't an entirely dry assessment OF that particular comic. Also, although we do OF COURSE offer intellectual insight into the history of British comics and various theories about them, it is not ENTIRELY DRY and may feature items of interest to people who are not British and/or not hugely invested in the world of comics. This episode in particular features quite a lot of TITTING ABOUT that is not directly relevant to either of the above, especially late on in the episode when we get to the adventures of Popeye and the nature of hoedowns.
As you will be able to tell if you have a listen, John and I rather enjoyed ourselves recording this one, and I hope that others might get some pleasure from it too. We're both keen to get the word out about it to more people if we can, so if you, dear reader, are able to MENTION it somewhere that would be highly appreciated. As they say in the world of professional-type podcasts, please do like and subscribe!
posted 28/10/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Lonely Tourist and Mr Spoons
Last night we gathered once more at The King And Queen for a rather spectacular evening of Totally Acoustic, with guest artistes Lonely Tourist and Mr Spoons. It all went very well indeed!
I knew it was going to be good when BOTH of the guests arrived early and were DELIGHTFUL, but then things got rapidly better and better as a multitude of Unexpected Pals appeared, not least Mr G Urquhart, who had travelled down from Glasgow FOR THE EVENING just to be there! Amazingly he wasn't the ONLY person to have come from Scotland for the gig either, as a couple of other people told me they'd done the same. We also got visits from Mr P Clarke, Mr C T-T and the legendary Mr P Buckley-Hill, as well as some International Rock Stars, various pals and regulars, and first-time attendees. All of which meant that, by the time we kicked, off pretty much every seat in the room was full. This made me very happy!
We kicked off with a rendition of the theme tune as usual, and then I did THIS:
Bad Back
I'm Doing The Ironing
It Only Works Because You're here
That all seemed to go all right - I had a lovely time anyway - and then it was Mr Spoons' turn. As he said, he was a bit nervous as it was his first time doing a gig of mostly his own material, but it went GRATE. I particularly liked the genius idea of kicking off with a song ABOUT the fact that he was playing a ukelele, and explaining to the audience that it was all going to be FINE. It was dead good, and I confidently predict it will not be the LAST time he rocks out in such a fashion.
We then had a break for MAXI-CHAT and then Lonely Tourist came on for a STUNNING set. I must admit that I was quite surprised to see him kick off with what I consider to be two MASSIVE bangers that I'd've expected to come at the END, but then he kept on in pretty much the same way in a set of just GORGEOUS songs full of emotion and humour and... well, it was very good indeed, and the inter-song CHAT was brilliant too. It was the first time I'd seen him play live, after listening to and loving his records for a few years, and I'm going to make a proper effort to get out and see him again as soon as is sensible, he was GRATE!
When that was all done there was the usual AMPLE time for chat, and discussions ranged widely and included some rather exciting POSSIBLE PLANS for future stuff. I also got talking to a couple of chaps who'd not been before, one of whom said "Did you write that song... what's it called?" and I thought "AHA! Obviously he is thinking of Hey Hey 16K" but NO! To my GRATE delight he meant Agile, which pleased me IMMENSELY. Apparently it is being POSTED in work chats, which was basically what it was written for. HOORAY!
This was a high point in an evening what was FULL of them - it really could not have gone much better, and I'm very much planning to do another one soon. Well, soon-ISH anyway!
posted 25/10/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Dark Star and Hush
This week I have been consuming TWO (2) alleged classics of their respective genres - the film Dark Star from 1974 and Batman: Hush from 2002. I had Differing Opinions of them!
I read "Hush" mostly because it's just come out as one of DC's Compact Editions i.e. a nice thick SLAB of comics in a slightly smaller than normal format at a MUCH cheaper than usual price. It's basically NINE QUID for a trade paperback of twelve comics that would usually cost three or four times that much, putting it very much in the ACTUAL AFFORDABLE category that comics used to be in. I've read a couple of stories in this format and it is WONDERFUL to be able to cacth up with the so-called "classics" of superhero comics in this way, especially for someone like me who has HEARD about stuff like this for years and never got around to reading it.
It's been a SURPRISING number of years for me with "Hush", as I thought it came out ten years ago at MOST but is actually TWICE that far ago in the past, which led to me being a bit confused when it talked about Tim Drake as Robin rather than Damian Wayne. Apart from that, and Batman having PANTS on throughout, it felt pretty similar to how most Batman comics are in my opinion i.e. not very good. I didn't understand what is/was supposed to be so good about it AT ALL - it's basically lots of STERN PEOPLE standing around looking a) STERN and b) INDISTINGUISHABLE from each other. It's drawn by Jim Lee who I've always thought of as one of the GOOD artists from that school of 90s art where all men are eight foot tall and made of MUSCLES, all women have impossibly large bums and boobs, tiny waists, and a spine that can twist through about 300 degrees, and EVERYTHING has ten million lines over the top of it. This makes it really difficult to tell who is meant to be who, as everyone looks IDENTICAL, especially when they're standing around STERNLY at social events where tight fitting tuxedos or very very short dresses. It also seems to rely on the reader knowing who all Batman's baddies are and what their powers are - which I sort of do - as well as caring one way other the other which, by the end of it, I didn't!
After that I put the telly on and saw that "Dark Star" was being recommended to me by Amazon Prime's Algorithm. This used to be a thing of magic and wonder, way back at the start of the century when we were unused to such things, but these days it feels like a forgetful elderly relative who has looked in your shopping bag, seen the things you have just bought, and is insistent that you should buy them all again. Nonetheless, I had vague and happy memories of watching the first half of "Dark Star" one Friday or Saturday night in the late 70s when I guess it will have been on BBC2 and we were allowed to stay up. There was a beachball monster and a LOT of beards, was my main memory of it.
I gave it a go and I am happy to report that my memory was accurate - there was a beachball monster and an awful lot of BEARDS - but also that it was a LOT more fun than I remember. I vaguelly recall it being all right, but a bit confusing to my young BRANE, as I'd been expecting it to be more like STAR WARS and less like Some Hippies Having Workplace Issues. Watching it again now I was AMAZED that it had been made fifty flipping years ago, as it felt very FRESH and MODERN, especially with the way all of the characters kept having hissy fits at each other and loping around the universe like they didn't know what they were up to. It was also wonderfully SHORT - 83 minutes, which is about how long I think ALL films should be. It was, in fact DEAD GOOD and, unlike "Hush", I would recommend it to anyone with easy access.
Next time I expect to be reviewing a GEORGE FORMBY movie and probably ALLY SLOPER!
posted 24/10/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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From Sheffield To Alaska
Yesterday was PRS STATEMENT DAY, that most wonderful time of the year that is SO wonderful it can happen twice in the same year. Or, for a lot of us, none times in the same year.
For LO! it is the day when The Performing Rights Society send you money (loosely) (sometimes very loosely) based on the amount of airplay you have had, whether that be from radio shows, telly, jukeboxes, gym workout sessions, or a variety of other ways to hear music publicly that seem a bit made up but almost definitely probably aren't. You have to get over a certain threshold of CA$H to GET a statement, but when you cross that line you get a full list of ALL the plays that PRS has collected money from.
This is almost always a DELIGHT because you often find all sorts of places that your music's been played that you had no idea about - for instance, I once discovered that we'd had national radio play in SPAIN because of a PRS statement. THIS time I around I was utterly AMAZED to find that almost the entire payment - and the reason we had got over the Getting A Statement Threshold at all - was because ALASKAN AIRLINES had been playing Thank Goodness For Christmas on their aeroplanes!
Alaskan Airlines do make a big deal about Christmas, so I ASSUMED they put us on some sort of Festive Playlist for the season, and I am thus DELIGHTED to imagine rugged Alaskan types zooming through the air with US ringing in their ears! HOORAH!
I was also very pleased INDEED to see that BBC Radio Sheffield appear to STILL be using Good Cooking as the theme for the cooking section on their breakfast show, going by the number of times PRS say they've played it anyway. I must say I find this all rather WONDERFUL. When one releases a song into the wild, as like what I have done so many times, you have no idea AT ALL who is going to listen to it or where they're going to play it - or indeed IF anyone's going to - so it's fantastic to discover these strange uses that they have been put to. I must say I fully support it, and if any OTHER airlines or local radio shows want to follow suit I would have no problem with that whatsoever!
posted 16/10/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Live From Nottingham
I had the afternoon off work on Friday to enable ease of travel to distant Nottingham, where I was due to play an actual GIG!
It's been a good old while since I've travelled solo for a gig, so I had done my usual careful planning. I used to stay in an IBIS in Nottingham City Centre but after some Premier Inn googling I found what appeared to be my old place trannsformed into another franchise. "Oh lovely", I thought, "all the advantages of that location, with the extra delight of Premier Inn luxury. BOOKED". It was only when I was heading up there that I realised that the original Ibis was VERY MUCH still in existence, and that I'd booked myself into a Premier Inn that LOOKED similar but was about half and hour's walk away. Luckily as an INTERNATIONAL ROCK STAR I am extremely forgiving of myself as ALSO TOUR MANAGER and so undaunted I took the first of MANY tram trips from the station to my hotel and all was well.
About twenty minutes later I was out again and on the tram going in the other direction, back towards JT Soar where the gig was due to happen. WEIRDLY I had never been there before, despite the fact that it is also home to Snug Recording Co, which has been our studio home for MANY years, just not since they moved from Derby. Actually, I think we were MEANT to do a gig there the weekend before Covid, and we ended up all just coming to Nottingham anyway for FUN.
I found the venue OK but when I got there there didn't seem to be anyone around. After a short time Mr T McClure arrived and then, a short while after that, Mr R Newman arrived for a) HUGS b) soundcheck. Tom was doing a guest spot on WHISTLING and INEVITABLY the soundcheck for that took about 17 times as long as the rest of it, but by golly it was worth it. As I pointed out at the time, whistling is very much like playing TAMBOURINE - you'd never think it was possible for someone to be actively GOOD at it, but you know it when you hear it.
With that all done we strolled round the corner to Mocky D's, a vegan BURGER place with a fantastically excellent name. It is housed in an INDUSTRIAL ESTATE where there is also a BREWERY, and I was surprised to find that Tom was not familiar with this sort of thing as a concept. Round my way every second building is a brewery on an industrial estate selling vegan food! The place had been suggested by Mr N Page who had come with Mr T Pattison, who both arrived shortly after for a DELIGHTFUL early evening of grub and beer and intellectual discussion. Tim suggested that this was the first time he had EVER paid to see me play - monetarily anyway, I am pretty sure our long association has come with PSYCHOLOGICAL costs!
I picked up some BEERS from the fridge - JT Soars is a BYOB establishment - and we headed back to the venue, which was filling up with people. This doesn't take much as it is TINY, but the people it DID fill up with were uniformly DELIGHTFUL, and as well as Vlads and The Family Machine, who arrived not long after us, there were TONNES of lovely people who I had not seen for AGES. Hugs abounded, and then it was time for me to go on and do THIS:
Bad Back
It's Hard To Be Hopeful
I'm Doing The Ironing
Fire Drill
Chips And Cheese, Pint Of Wine
In The North Stand
Cheer Up Love
It Only Works Because You're here
The Lesson Of The Smiths
It went well, I think! Loads of people made two (2) very specific comments. Firstly, they said "Ooh, I haven't heard some of those songs before", which I guess is true - I didn't INTEND it to be mostly new or new-ish songs, but I guess it was! Secondly, and much more forecefully, everyone said "COR! That whistling was BRILLIANT!" which is probably because it WAS. We should do more songs with Tom whistling in them!
After me it was the turn of the night's main attraction, WHITE TOWN. My booking for this gig had come about as a sort of old-fashioned GIG SWAP after Jyoti and Frankie came down and played at Totally Acoustic, but this evening was very much ELECTRICAL. Jyoti has basically reunited the original White Town band, including Mr G Thatcher on AXE, and also roped in Frankie for additional GTR and especially TRUMPET. It all sounded GRATE, not least because the SOUND was being so excellently manned, and as at Totally Acoustic the songs that were somehow NOT globe-straddling hits sounded brilliant alongside the one that WAS. That one, however, sounded FANTASTIC in the full-band arrangement, as Frankie's MAGICAL LIPS tooted their way through.
Afterwards we wafted around saying thank yous and goodbyes to friends old and new before me, Tom, Mr V Vorton and various other pals went round the corner to The King Billy pub. This had been recommended to us by Mr A Hale who, alas, was not able to attend, but I was very grateful for the suggestion as it was LOVELY, like a pub from the OLDEN DAYS of the 1990s!
All that remained was to have a pint and then wander off into the night and onto another tram. It was a pretty BRILLIANT evening - gigs, it turns out, are GRATE!
posted 15/10/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Can You Beat John Dredge (9)?
Today we unleash the FIFTH episode of The Funny Comics Fan Club, which this time is all about an issue of KRAZY COMIC. You can listen to our THORTS on it HERE:
(SUMMARY: we really really liked it!)
Along with the usual mix of INSIGHT and HIJINX this episode also features an idea I have borrowed from the This Are Johnny Domino podcast - an ENGAGEMENT OPPORTUNITY! As you will hear in the above, the issue we looked at this time featured a winning competition entry from a young John Dredge (9) of Penn. This is the very SAME John Dredge with whom I do the show, and you can hear all about the spoils of his victory within. The competition itself was called "Get Out Of This" and involved the comic showing a first panel with a problem, and readers being invited to send in their solutions. So, the first panel was THIS:
Readers then had to suggest a way out of it, and John sent in this solution:
We may all have our thoughts on the effectiveness of this solution, but it still raises the question of whether any of US could do any better? We therefore decided to throw this out into the universe as a CHALLENGE to our listeners to see if they could come up with their own answers, putting it out on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Bluesky to see what people can come up with. If you'd like to take part please do so on the SOCIALS of your choice, and otherwise please enjoy this latest episode which is PACKED with GRATE stories!
posted 14/10/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Going To The Comic Mart
On Sunday I headed into old London town to attend my first ever COMICS MART. I have read about such affairs from afar for most of my life, not least in the FANZINES I used to buy as a teenager, where they seemed like super glamorous affairs where heroes such as Alan Moore etc wafted around buying drinks for other legends and revealing top secret secrets of future storylines. I longed to be there!
In the intervening decades, however, I was aware that things had changed somewhat. The sort of thing I dreamt of is now called a Comic Convention (although they tend not to have a huge amount to do with comics and are more about MOVIES), whereas the actual COMICS MART had stuck to the business of LONG BOXES (i.e. cardboard boxes full of comics) to be flicked through and bargains to be sought. Still, it was quite exciting to be actually GOING to one, and I arrived with a pocket full of CASH hoping to come away with a big pile of British comics ready for future episodes of The Funny Comics Fan Club.
Friends, it did not quite work out like that. The signs were good when I entered the MASSIVE hall where the mart was being held, as I saw before me table after table PACKED with long boxes FULL of comics. However, as I made my way around the room I realised that they were pretty much ALL American comics. Now, obviously, I was expecting this to be mostly the case, but I wasn't prepared for the almost complete lack of British comics. Even 2000AD was in short supply, but British humour comics of the 60s to 80s were almost entirely absent - in the end I found THREE stalls that had ANY British comics, and most of those were either Whizzer & Chips (which we've done), The Beezer (which I've already got) and, for some reason, Hotspur. My GOODNESS but there were a lot of issues of Hotspur!
After some diligent flicking through boxes, many of which were hidden UNDERNEATH the stalls, I eventually came away with 8 different comics, which did not feel like quite the HAUL I had hoped for. I also attempted to publicise the podcast a bit with some FLYERS what I had made, but that didn't go terribly well either. I did FOIST them on a few stall holders I spoke to, and though most were friendly some of them gave the distinct impression that they DISDAINED the very IDEA of a podcast and would be placing the flyer in recycling as soon as they could find an appropriate receptacle.
There was a weird sort of ATMOSPHERE overall that was a bit like that, like everyone was very much ON THEIR GUARD and I must say I came away feeling a bit UNNERVED by the whole experience. I wasn't expecting it to be glorious festival of glamour that I had read about in the back pages of Fantasy Advertiser, but I was surprised to find how DEFENSIVE everyone seemed to be. I can sort of understand it - traditionally comics readers have been outsiders and thus the target of BULLIES, and so perhaps one builds up those sort of defenses as one goes along - but I was surprised how pervasive it felt in what you would hope was a SAFE SPACE.
However, despite all that I did manage to ACCRUE a mighty HAUL of comics, and hopefully managed to spread the word around, so it was all good in the end, and The FCFC is powered up well into next year!
posted 7/10/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Comics | Histories
Last week there was a knock at the door, and that knock was knocked by The Postie with a special package for me what had come all the way from Germany, containing THIS:
As you can hopefully see from the above, this is a book called Comics | Histories (I'm not sure what the "|" is for) what has been published by Rombach, edited by Jessica Bauwens-Sugimoto, Felix Giesa and Christina Meyer, and I received a copy because my chapter Periodizing 'The Marvel Age' Using the Production of Culture Approach is very much in it!
I am EXTREMELY pleased that this book is out as my chapter is the FINAL SLICE of my PhD to be published, and it is quite a BIG slice. As fellow Comics Aficionados will be aware, American superhero comics have traditionally been divided into AGES. The Golden Age starts with Action Comics #1 in 1938 - the debut of Superman - and is when most of the really big DC superheroes were first invented. The Silver Age starts in 1956 with the introduction of the new Flash in Showcase #4, and saw revised versions of most of those heroes plus, in 1962, the debut of The Fantastic Four. PEASY!
After that, however, it all gets a bit confusing, with The Bronze Age starting somewhere in the early 1970s, sort of, and then... um... well, nobody seems to agree WHAT happens after that. It's all very inexact and unsatisfying, especially when you're trying to do an empirical analysis of a corpus of comics BASED on ages, so I decided to SORT IT OUT by developing a DIFFERENT classification, based on empirical methods rather than just "this is when a comic I like came out".
The POINT of this, for my PhD, was that it gave me a way to select a CORPUS of comics, cartoons, radio shows etc featuring Doctor Doom that all appeared during this period, which I called "The Marvel Age". However, when I was putting together the BOOK Data and Doctor Doom, describing how all this worked was starting to DERAIL everything else, so I decided to EXCISE the full explanation and put it somewhere ELSE, and THIS is the place where I put it.
I am therefore REALLY EXCITED that it is now OUT in the world because, as stated above, it was a HUGE part of the PhD that didn't really get into the book, and I think that ACTUALLY DEFINING what "The Marvel Age" MEANS (rather than just SAYING it, as everybody seems to) could be Quite Useful for The Comics Studies Community.
I am EVEN MORE EXCITED to realise that you can actually READ my chapter for FREE by accessing it on the Nomos e-library! Do go and have a look if you can, it is NOT TOO LONG and does explain quite a LOT about how all this works!
posted 4/10/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Influencer Level Unlocked
I am happy to report that myself and Mr John Dredge have this week reached a whole new level with our podcast The Funny Comics Fan Club, for LO! we are now INFLUENCERS!
Yes, you read that correctly - me and John are now being approached by organisations (well, AN organisation) desperate (I assume) for us to promote their wares for them. The TYPE of organisation is, of course, one involved in FASHION WEAR which will be of no surprise to anyone who has ever seen either or both of us casually draping ourselves in the latest must-have "togs", but I must say it was quite a nice surprise to us.
What happened was that we got an email from Apparel of Laughs asking if we'd like a couple of free t-shirts in exchange for a mention on the show. They have the actual official licence from Rebellion to make t-shirts featuring the old IPC kids' titles and, as you can see on their website, they have done a LOVELY job with titles like Buster, Oink, Tammy, Misty and so on. We of course said "YES PLEASE" and the shirts arrived yesterday afternoon, just before I was heading off to meet John to record a new episode. This, of course, led to a FASHION SHOOT, and I am very happy to share some of the ensuing shots BELOW:
As I'm sure you will agree, we are NATURALS at this and so, in order to help boost the economy and raise national morale, we are prepared to entertain further offers for either ENDORSEMENTS or MODELLING.
We also recorded an ADVERT for a future episode of the show. As regular listeners will be aware we usually include one in each show based on an actual advert in one of the comics we've looked at, so it felt a bit weird to do it FOR REAL. I've not started editing this episode yet, but I might have to include a bit where we tell people that this really IS an advert for something they can buy, rather than an offer for 6,000 Stamps Of All Nations that you could have sent a postal order off for about forty years ago.
That's all to come in a few weeks, but for now please gaze in wonder at our mighty selves above, and thanks very much INDEED to Apparel of Laughs for the t-shirts, they really are very nice indeed!
posted 3/10/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Triple Threat
On Wednesday evening I headed off to distant WEST LONDON to go to the THEATRE. West London is a flipping WEIRD place as it is full of super-posh people who are ODD. As soon as I got into the lift at Gloucester Road tube I felt out of place, as everyone else seemed to be wearing KNITTED CLOTHES with haircuts from the mid-1980s and more BROACHES than I've seen for several decades. Truly, THE WEALTHY are not like the rest of us!
I was heading for Drayton Arms Theatre to see a play called Triple Threat, written by Mr Andrew Cartmel. A certain subset of people will be thinking "Hang on, not THAT Andrew Cartmel?" to which an entire corpus of me replies "Yes, THAT Andrew Cartmel" i.e. former script editor of Doctor Who back in the Sylvestor McCoy era and current author of the Vinyl Detective series of novels. Andrew was my MENTOR back when I did my MA in Screenwriting at City University, and was both EXCELLENT in his advice and GENEROUS in his marking, so it was lovely to hear from him a week or so ago when he spotted my face in The Radio Times. "Is that you?" he asked, and it WAS!
I bumped into Andrew almost as soon as I got into the PUB bit of The Drayton Arms and we had a delightful chat before it was SHOWTIME. I must admit I was a little trepidatious before going upstairs to see the play, as I always AM when going to see a normal play without even any songs in it, but there was no need as it was BLOODY GRATE. It was actually GRATE three times in a row, as it was THREE short plays in a row, with the same three actors in each. The acting was VERY GOOD INDEED and the writing was BRILLO - I especially enjoyed the middle play, "The Magical Money Tree", which got into some really in-depth arguments about whether money exists or not while still being DEAD FUNNY. The dialogue was especially ace here, it was very very snappy INDEED enabling the actors to bounce off each other, keeping all the THORTS rolling along while still being fun to watch. As I say, it was ACE!
There was a break in between the second and third plays, when a rather wonderful PUB MIRACLE occurred. Being a theatre pub they had prepared for the interval by having only two members of staff on the bar and having both of them working on fulfilling food orders rather than serving customers - for some reason almost ALL theatres and theatre-like places seem to do this sort of thing, as if having a massive queue at the bar is somehow a measure of Artistic Integrity. We all waited about 10 minutes for ANYBODY to get served, and then there was a gradual shuffling about as we watched the now ONE member of bar staff keep having to go and check things with colleagues.
ANYWAY when it was finally my turn to order I realised that I'd possibly got in front of the person next to me. I didn't want to risk the sole member of barstaff wandering off again, so I just offered to buy the other person's drink FOR them. She wasn't sure, but while we discussed it a bloke behind us said "Could you get two pints for me too please?" It seemed like the right thing to do, so I ended up getting a round for all of us but, just I was about to NOBLEY pay for the lot, the chap behind me said "Don't worry, I'll get these. I can put them on the work credit card!"
It was all rather wonderful, like THE UNIVERSE had leant in and said "LO! You shall be repaid for your patience and - for once - not getting all arsey about the situation." I shall have to remember this in future!
In fact, the whole EVENING was rather wonderful, and I hopefully made these feelings clear to The Author as I left. The play, or rather PLAYS, is/are on for two weeks all together, until Saturday 12 October in fact, and I would WHOLEHEARTEDLY recommend buying a ticket or even TICKETS if you are around that area. I cannot guarantee that you too will end up being rewarded with FREE BOOZE, but I CAN guarantee a FAB evening out!
posted 3/10/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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