Blog Archive: February 2024

Oadby Wan Kenobi
I mentioned in a blog last week that I was having a bit of an old THINK about what to do for the 200th edition of the newsletter. I said that I'd had an IDEA and since then I have been doing some WORK on it, reaching the point where I can reveal some DETAILS.

The current plan is to follow the procedure of previous anniversary newsletters and release a SUBSCRIBERS-ONLY compilation album, similar to what happened with Like A Braunstone Cowboy and Hibbett's Hoover. I've been doing a bit of digging around and have realised there actually IS about an album's worth of solo material lying around, comprising various SINGLES and compilation items PLUS some unreleased material from AGES ago, mostly recorded when I was attempting (and failing) to break into the world of Music For Adverts. Usually our compilations either have my NAME in them (e.g. Hibbett's Superstore) or are AMAZING Star Wars/Leicestershire puns (e.g. Forest Moon Of Enderby) and as my LAST output was called The Unearthly Beauty Of MJ Hibbett I thought it was best to go for the George Lucas/Daniel Lambert angle. THUS I can now proudly present to you the cover art for "Oadby Wan Kenobi":



It will amaze and astound you to discover that that cover was made by ME, all on my own, without a team of designers and photoshop engineers. INCREDIBLE BUT TRUE!

Also incredible is the fact that the name of a major character in a ginormous multi-movie franchise has a RUDE WORD right there in the middle of it. And one at the end, really - how on earth did G Lucas get away with it, and how on earth did I PERSONALLY manage not to make reference to it on the cover? IRON SELF-DISCIPLINE is the answer to the latter.

Anyway, I'm currently working through the tracks to pick the BEST ones and formulate some sort of tracklist order. Issue 199 of the newsletter will be out in a couple of weeks (NOT at the end of the month, for reasons discussed last time) and I estimate that the double century celebration will thus be out on the last working day of APRIL, giving everyone ample time to sign up for the newsletter if you haven't already. It is, I feel, going to be GRATE!

posted 28/2/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Back In B3ta
I got a lovely surprise on Friday afternoon when the venerable b3ta newsletter fell through my virtual letterbox. In amongst the usual MELANGE of jokes, remarks, links, games, and so forth was a mention of my book!

Have I mentioned that I've got a book out?

Anyway, this was DELIGHTFUL, not least because it continued my general theme of thinking about the release of THE BOOK in exactly the same way as an ALBUM. Letting people know about it through high-quality opinion-forming IMPACTFUL journals like b3ta is a key point of any promotional campaign, and even if it doesn't lead to anybody BUYING a copy it is GRATE that people at least know it EXISTS. I mean, it costs just shy of NINETY QUID so I am not expecting a queue to form outside Virtual Waterstones, but still, hopefully people who are interested will lobby their local LIBRARY (academic or otherwise) to buy a copy. As I understand it that's how Academic Publishing works, with DEALS later on and, if all goes well, an ALMOST REASONBLY PRICED soft cover further down the line.

There have, however, been SOME sales. Or possibly ONE. For LO! as mentioned in b3ta, I noticed the other day that it was recorded as having entered THE CHARTS! It was in at around number 9,123 in the Amazon Popular Culture Chart, which may not sound like much until you realise that this is THE TOP TEN (thousand)! WHOO!

It's all a bit daft, but I do remember how much FUN it was a few years ago when I self-published Storm House and it ROCKED back and forth through their Science Fiction charts. Back then the whole IDEA was to do freebies and special deals to try and push it up the charts as this meant it got favoured by THE ALGORITHM. THUS I had an EXCITING week or so watching it nudge up various specialist charts, and even get to the TOP a couple of times, but it is a slightly different prospect this time, for reasons discussed above. Still, it was FUN to see someone somewhere had bought an actual copy, and I'll be hitting refresh on an hourly basis waiting to see if and when it happens again!

posted 26/2/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Pip Blom
Last night I went to a GIG - an actual YOUNG PEOPLE were there TOO gig - to see Dutch Indie-types Pip Blom. It was GRATE!

The gig was happening at Heaven nightclub which is somewhere I have not been before. More to the point, it was also not LIKE somewhere I have been before, which felt WEIRD. Normally the gigs I go to happen in a) a Festival b) a massive arena like the O2 c) a former theatre like The Scala or d) the back of a stinky old pub. THIS one was happening in a SUPERCLUB situated underneath a MASSIVE railway arch which was very confusing because not only did I not know where would be best to STAND but also I did not know where the LOOS were. I have got used to knowing where the loos are and did not like the change!

When I DID find them the loos turned out to be Gender Neutral which meant there was a BIG QUEUE and once you got in there was a woman guiding you to the correct cubicle - it was like when you go to the self-service tills in the supermarket, except the doors did not have numbers on. If there had been a suggestion box I would have suggested it! Also odd was that there were fed-up looking men in high vis roaming around with MOPS the whole time we were there. They would occasionally mop a tiny bit of floor that nobody was standing on, and then move on, looking DOLEFUL. I have no idea what that was about, but they definitely LOOKED official.

Myself and Mr M Sutton arrived just in time to see the last few songs by the support band, who were Not That Good. It wasn't really their fault, I think they had just ascended to Support-Ness far too early, not least because each member was CLEARLY meant to move on very soon to be in entirely DIFFERENT bands. The bass player (who was ACE) should be in a 70s ROCK band, the guitarist should be in a Rolling Stones covers act (90s version) and the singer had clearly spent a lot of time listening to someone else's Libertines records. Personally I'd go and see the bass player's band, as he looked like he was having a LOT of fun!

After a very short intermission Pip Blom came on stage, BANG on time. Say what you like about these modern young people, but they sure do ABIDE FULLY by stagetimes, and I support them in this action! They started off with one of the songs from the new album which seem determined to Forge New Paths and Not Sound Like The Old Stuff, which is GRATE for them, but was a bit of a dissapoint for me when I bought the new album (AFTER booking these tickets!) as the stuff they are boldly striding away from is the stuff I really LIKE! However, after a few songs it all started to GEL and ROCK OUT (I blame the soundman for the early sound issues - I would have turned to STARE MEANINGFULLY at them, as is my wont, but again I had no idea where the BOOTH would be here) and they became FANTASTIC.

For some reason they reminded me of Teenage Fanclub, perhaps because they too have - SHALL WE SAY - a certain STYLE that makes it hard to tell songs apart to begin with, but then once your brain CLICKS into it they are suddenly playing a whole SLEW of BANGERS. I had been doing my pre-gig DUE DILIGENCE of listening to all three albums on rotation and this meant that once the aforesaid CLICK had CLUNKED I knew pretty much everything they played, and I do not mind admitting that this resulted in some frenetic GENTLE ROCKING FROM SIDE TO SIDE. The hysteria reached such high levels that Mr Sutton even bought a VINYL from the Merch stand, where we were served by PIP BLOM'S MUM. This was lovely, even if it did mean we had to persuade ourselves that, as the mother of the person on stage, she could not POSSIBLY be our age. Imagine!

It was, all in all, BLOODY GRATE, and I shall soon be diving back into the albums (especially the third one) for a reappraisal from "really good" to "really REALLY good". Also, I look forward to going to ANOTHER gig at some point inside a MASSIVE STONE ARCH. I shall know where the toilets are next time!

posted 22/2/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Delaying A Double Century
For many years this time of the month has been a time when I have consider matters newsletter-related. In my giddy heyday of ALL OUT ROCK ACTION, when I was doing 50+ gigs a year and flinging out albums and singles at all angles, this would be a process of EDITING, trying to ensure that the levels of CONCENTRATED THRILLPOWER were not too high for my gentle readership. In recent years this has changed to a consideration of whether there was ENOUGH new stuff to justify bothering people, as it feels a bit SPAMMY to send out an email every month which basically says "You know those gigs I told you about last time? They're still happening!"

However, in recent months there has been another, more NUMERICAL, consideration. For LO! if one was to look at the newsletter archive one would see that we are rapidly approaching the TWO HUNDREDTH EDITION! This, I think, is pretty darn impressive, and I would very much like to mark the occasion in some way. The trouble I have had is HOW.

For the one hundredth edition of the newsletter I UNLEASHED a whole ALBUM of cover versions which I had accrued over the years. Then for issue 150 I gave away an album of ODDS AND SODS that had similarly built up over time.

Since then, as stated, things have SLOWED somewhat. Yes, there have been ALBUMS and SINGLES here and there, but pretty much everything that's been RECORDED has been released, and I don't even have a SLEW of unrecorded songs to knuckle down too. I do have a couple of BOOKS that have been written and not released (yes, more than just the DOOM one!) but those are sort of waiting for other occassions, so I've not been entirely sure what to do. However, through the process of making this admission an idea HAS occurred to me which, if I can get it sorted out, should be a suitable mark of the double century. It is a Quite Good idea, but will need some DOING.

THUS I have formulated a cunning plan for MOVING FORWARD. Firstly, there will NOT be a newsletter at the end of February but there WILL be one in the middle of March so that I can share a VOUCHER that makes my Dr Doom book slightly less ludicrously expensive. That means that the 200th issue will in all likelihood be towards the end of APRIL, giving everyone who has not done so as yet PLENTY of time to subscribe in order to claim their GRATE Free Gift.

I think we have a plan!

posted 20/2/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Reading Actual Books
This week I have been reading an ACTUAL REAL BOOK. Actually, I've been reading TWO - I’m Sorry You Feel that Way by Rebecca Wait and Good Pop, Bad Pop by Jarvis Cocker. SPOILERS: they were both good.

It's unusual for me to have ACTUAL BOOKS on the go because I have very much gone over to the way of The Kindle. This is partly because I live in a very small flat, and so Actual Real Books soon PILE UP and would have to be escorted en masse to the charity shop several times a year, but also because I really really like having a whole BUNCH of books to choose from. For example, on Tuesday night I was going to Peterborough for an abortive attempt to watch FOOTBALL - the massive rainfall that took place at lunchtime was "unexpected" and apparently continued to be for the rest of the afternoon. SOME* (*me) would say that it was pretty bloody EXPECTED and so was the dismal state of the pitch BUT I DIGRESS. Beforehand I was worried that I only had my REAL BOOK with me for the journey, and so would have nothing else to read if I finished it en route. With the Kindle I would have had a whole LIBRARY of books to choose from, but with only an Actual Book I would be stuck. As it happened I DIDN'T finish it, and also spent most of the journey home FUMING over having spent nearly a hundred quid to basically go to the pub, but STILL, the point is I normally wouldn't buy physical copies of books but did here, for REASONS.

I got a physical copy of "I'm Sorry You Feel That Way" in case the person who had read reviews and suggested it to me wanted to read it too. These reviews had said it was "HILARIOUS!" and "The Funniest Book I Have Read All Year" but I must say it really really wasn't. This reaction may partly have been because I'd just re-re-re-re-re-read Molesworth, which IS very funny still, but mostly it was because the story was tragic and moving and gut-wrenching and not very funny at all. I did really enjoy it, and the much-mentioned-in-reviews Joke About Peterborough WAS a really good one, but by the end I was thinking "why on earth did they choose to promote it like this?" As I say, it was dead good, but not at all what was promised.

And then I bought the physical copy of "Good Pop, Bad Pop" because it had loads of pictures in it, and The Kindle is REALLY BAD at coping with books with pictures. I'm really glad I made that decision as the Actual Book is GORGEOUS, beautifully designed, with the imagery perfectly integrated with the text as PART of it rather than an added extra. The text also was GORGEOUS and really nicely written. I guess you would EXPECT that of Jarvis Cocker, who has a beautiful way with words in his songs, but previous experience reading Books Written By Britpop Lead Singers had warned me that they don't always work as well in PROSE as in SINGING. This was very much not the case here, as the whole thing was beautifully and ENGAGINGLY written from start to finish.

More than that though, the story that he was telling was ACHINGLY familiar to me, and probably to Anybody Else Who Has Ever Been In A Band. For LO! despite calling itself an "inventory" and having a CONCEIT of being about items he finds in the attic, it is really a MEMOIR of his life and especially BAND life, and it is EXCELLENTLY done. All the way through I kept thinking "HA! I remember doing that" with things like playing his first concert in SCHOOL, or being absolutely terrified going out FLYPOSTING, or one day suddenly realising you didn't have to write jokey songs or boring songs but could actually write about REAL STUFF, or having different pubs for different sorts of bands, or... well, LOADS of it really.

Also really lovely is the fact that there is SO MUCH of that stuff because Pulp took SO LONG to go from Local Band Playing Local Pubs to Massive Band On Telly. It all finishes WAY before they got famous, so I'm hoping that the (surely inevitable) second volume will go into ENORMOUS detail about How Bands Actually Work and the general Hanging Around-NESS of it all. Having said that, I don't really mind what he writes about - it was so BEAUTIFULLY WROTE that I could happily read whatever he fancies typing! MORE PLEASE!

posted 19/2/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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A Walk In The Park
On Tuesday I went for my regular (almost) daily stroll in my local park. I don't like to go on about it, and in fact very rarely mention it, but my local park is THE OLYMPICAL PARK which is also where I live, which is totally brilliant and amazing but, as I say, I do not like to harp on excessively.

One of the many GRATE things about it is that it basically as a FREE COMIC SHOP in it, or at least it does for me. As a member of staff at University of the Arts London I have access to the various college libraries, including the one at London College of Fashion, which opened up in its new building in the Olympical Park last year. That means that I go past it every time I have a walk (and can indeed see the glowing "UAL" sign from our flat), and after a while I realised that meant I could ORDER books from the library system online from ANY college and then a day or so later pick them up on my stroll. It is frankly SUPER and has recently led to me getting a bunch of The Greatest Graphic Novels EVER (according to various lists) what I haven't read and having a look.

THUS I popped in to return UAL's copy of Blankets by Craig Thompson (REVIEW: Quite Good, goes on a bit) and found that all was in TUMULT and EXCITEMENT as things were being set up for the 2024 Postgraduate show. Hoardings were being erected, signs were being affixed, models were being directed to audition studies, and all was nerves and expectation.

As I wandered through all this I looked round a corner and saw three or four people standing in a doorway all wearing their outfits for the show. WALLOP. I was suddenly hit by one of them there PROUSTIAN RUSHES as I got a massive blast of remembering being at SCHOOL doing the dress rehearsals for various PLAYS and CONCERTS. I've not thought of it for decades, but all at once I was back there on that exciting afternoon when, if you were in THE PLAY, you didn't have to go to lessons and instead could lurk around the assembly hall getting costumes put on ready to try out in the final rehearsal. I could SMELL the DUST and CLEANING FLUID of the school hall, and my stomach went all a-flutter with the NERVES and SPECIALNESS of it all. I hope those KIDZ getting ready for the Postgraduate Show were getting to feel something similar, it was/is AMAZING.

After that I headed off towards the shops, and walked past one of those Boston Dynamics DOGS. One of THESE:



Goodness only knows what it was doing lurking around near the edge of Westfields - there were some blokes operating it and some schoolchildren gathering around to pat it, but that was about it - but there it was within 20 feet of a Pret A Manger. I've seen it loads of times on telly and have been vaguely spooked out by the Stop Motion way it walks around, but now here it was in real life looking... well, sort of normal really. I guess this is how SCIENCE FICTION blends into normal life - three or four years ago I was constantly AMAZED to find myself doing Teams call that felt like a SUPERVILLAIN CONFERENCE, but now they are just part of daily work. I guess ROBOT DOGS will soon go the same way but for now, with my shopping list in my pocket, it felt like something from THE FUTURE.

Nothing else happened on the rest of my walk. That was more than enough!

posted 14/2/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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My Fantastic Four Movie Hot Take
Yesterday the cast was (FINALLY) revealed for the Fantastic Four movie, along with an exciting IMAGE from Marvel Studios which gave us EITHER a very vague idea of what it would be like OR an excuse to SPECULATE WILDLY. I am about to delve into very much THE LATTER, but before I do I would like to point out to THE WORLD'S MEDIA that I am very much one of the most qualified people in THE WORLD to talk about this sort of thing for LO! I am literally A Doctor Of Doctor Doom (who all right they haven't officially cast yet, but still) and am thus ready to speak my wise words to the world. Barry Norman! Michael Parkinson! CALL ME!

Anyway, for those who don't know yet, the main cast have been revealed as him from The Last Of Us (Mr Fantastic), her (not her, HER) from The Crown (Invisible Woman), him from the last series of Stranger Things (Human Torch) and him from That Chef Show I Haven't Watched (The Thing). In other words it is very much the cream de la cream of your streaming shows, and I for one am all up for that. Tey may not look exactly how I persoanally visualise the FF (I visualise them as the John Byrne version) but from what I've seen I am pretty sure that they can all do THE FUNNY STUFF which is such a vital part of their stories. I also like the way that the original reports go on about them all having won or nearly won Oscars!

My favourite thing - well, all right, my SECOND favourite thing - is the setting, as it's clearly meant to be in the sixties. This makes HUGE sense for numerous reasons, not least because those original Stan and Jack stories that are some of the BEST ones are FROM the sixties, and I have a feeling they wouldn't make quite as much sense if someone tried to update them for Modern Times. We've already HAD several attempts to do that, notably with the boring early issues of Ultimate Fantastic Four and then in the NOT AS BAD AS EVERYONE SAYS Josh Trank film which was, as the name suggests, not as bad as everyone says, but then also not really a Fantastic Four film at all.

Also it's not going to be an ORIGIN story, which is a blessed relief as we've now had that THREE times, with the Sony film with Captain America as Human Torch that is ALL RIGHT and the Roger Corman movie which very much IS as bad as everyone says making up the numbers. Some origin stories are Quite Good (Spider-man's especially) but most are DULL, with the GOOD STUFF usually coming much later on in superhero runs - the aforesaid Stan and Jack run doesn't really get going for a few years, but when it does IT REALLY DOES, so hopefully that's what the movie will aim for. ALSO if it IS set in the sixties that means it doesn't have to worry about fitting in around all the OTHER movies - my personal DREAM THEORY is that it all takes place in another universe, and then they meet everyone else in SECRET WARS when their world has an incursion with the main MCU. This would of course involve Doctor Doom, in which case everything is WONDERFUL.

Anyway, the look and feel that one can GLEAM from that image and logo is my second favourite thing about it, while my MOST favourite thing is the simple fact that it includes THIS character:



It's H.E.R.B.I.E.!! Or as those of us who prefer not to spend our whole life typing in full stops know him, HERBIE! This is the FF's robot servant who WINDS UP The Thing no end - a GRATE example of this can be seen in Marvel Fanfare 15 as discussed AT LENGTH on my Doctor Doom blog - and almost invariably turns EVIL. He was originally thought up to replace the Human Torch in the (absolutely terrible) New Fantastic Four cartoon series, but then wended his way into the actual comic and has been around in various versions since. He would fit in perfectly with the sixties VIBE (despite not appearing until the seventies) and would join the exulted ranks of characters like The Guardians Of The Galaxy or The Eternals or Werewolf By Night who you would never in a million years have expected to show up in an actual movie but then DO.

Suffice to say then that I am QUITE EXCITED about the possibilities of this film being ACTUALLY GOOD. All we need now is for them to properly cast someone as Doctor Doom. If we're going to go for someone in one of the big streaming shows (that I have 75% watched) then surely the answer is obvious - it's got to be him from Welcome To Wrexham (not him, obviously, the otheer one) hasn't it? Or if not Rodney From Only Fools And Horses From Frasier! You heard it here first, True Believers!

posted 14/2/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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A Day At The Seaside
On Thursday myself and The Crest Of My Waves headed SOUTH to distant Brighton, there to play a gig for Mr J Walsh, longtime all-round good guy and promoter of the This Machine Kills Wasps evening. We met with Mr S Hewitt upon arrival, and then after some readying we variously arrived at The Quadrant pub, home to The Folklore Rooms where the gig was set to happen.

As soon as I walked into the gig room I was ASTONISHED to find it was UTTERLY RAMMED with people. James had told me that tickets had SOLD OUT but I assumed that meant about 20 people (it may surprise the casual reader to know that SOLD OUT gigs are not something I am hugely familiar with) not the SEVERAL THOUSAND what had crammed into this tiddly upstairs room. It was so full that all night long the body heat of everybody kept setting off the fire alarm!

The idea of the night is that there is COMEDY in the first half and MUSIC in the second which, as James's new and exciting catchphrase put it, means "a jarring shift in tone". I must confess that, as I watched the first half, I was rather worried about how I would get on as people WHOOPED and CHEERED with laughter - I mean, I do sometimes get a LARF but nothing like that, so what was I to do? It brought back memories of playing mixed bills many moons ago at the Edinburgh Fringe and my position as Not A Comedy Act But Not Dour Either leading to CONFUSION and Perplexed Faces in the audience.

However, it all worked really well because a) the other acts in the second half (including James's new band The High Churches being ANNOYINGLY GOOD for a first performance) did all the hard work getting people round and b) it turns out that a big chunk of the audience were from The Brighton Folk Choir who were quite happy to switch from one to the other and, INDEED, join in if they could.

Thus it was a rather more RELAXED version of me who went on and done THIS:

Fire Drill

I Did A Gig In New York

Chips And Cheese, Pint Of Wine

Billy Jones Is Dead

It Only Works Because You're here

20 Things To Do Before You're 30

Boom Shake The Room

I'd already been planning to give Fire Drill its DEBUT in the Live Arena, but as you can imagine I was VERY excited to have it available to me due to the BODY HEAT-induced fire alarms that kept going off. It was also nice to get I Did A Gig In New York out of the cupboard after a little while, and it was ALSO also nice just to do a gig again at all. I LIKED it. A LOT!

After I'd finished, the evening concluded rather spectacularly with the singing of a Cornish Sailing Song - the reason I know that half the audience was from the folk choir is because they all JOINED IN and it sounded MIGHTY and WONDERFUL!

After that I had a chat with The Prudens who I had not see for nigh on two decades. It was GRATE to see them, and especially GRATE to be able to go "Oh yes, all my gigs for the past twenty years have definitely been this busy." The evening fully ended with a bunch of us - including International Rock Star (retired) Mr Chris T-T - having a good old YACK and a few beers. It was ACE!

The next day myself and The Chips With My Mushy Peas and I had a delightful SEASIDE day. We went down to the seafront and had a good old walk back and forth in gorgeous sunshine and then, on the advice of the aforesaid Mr T-T, popped into No Catch for some Vegan Fish And Chips. It was very nice, although WEIRDLY I then spent the rest of the day paranoid that I had somehow eaten FISHBONES. My conscious BRANE kept saying "No, Vegan Pretend Cod does not have bones in it" but an ANCIENT MEMORY from when we used to have fish and chips as kids had been awoken, so I guess that shows how much they'd got the taste right!

It was a rather wonderful CODA to an actually really lovely trip. Gigs are GRATE!

posted 12/2/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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The Book Is Here!
Yesterday morning there was the sound of tinkling academic sleigh-bells, the gentle rush of scholarly snow on the breeze, and a general feeling of faculty festivity in the air, for LO! Santa Academic Books was on his way!

There was also then a knock on the door, because Santa Academic Books had delegated this particular stop-off to one of the elves who work at the Royal Mail. I didn't mind this subsitution as either way it meant that a box full of BOOKS had arrived. MY books!

Normally by "MY" books I mean books what I have bought, but here it means books what I have WRITTEN, as it was a delivery of my COMP copies of Data and Doctor Doom: An Empirical Approach To Transmedia Characters, which I am fairly certain I may have briefly mentioned recently. As AUTHOR I get six "complimentary" copies (they all said they liked my haircut HO HO) and this was they.

The journey to get to this point has been LONG and, towards the end, slightly FRAUGHT with issues of PROOFING so I was a little trepidatious about getting and actual book out to look at, but when I did I was AWED by its IMMENSE BEAUTY. If you don't believe me here is a picture to prove it:



It is even MORE GORGEOUS inside. It did take me a little while to build up the courage to open one for the above-mentioned reasons of FEAR after all the proofing problems, but once I did COR I was amazed how lovely it looks. I was especially surprised by how COLOURFUL it is - I don't know why, as it was me that chose the pictures and made the MANY MANY GRAPHS, but still I was delighted by how LUXURIOUS it looked. I'm still not brave enough to actually READ it mind you, not least because I have done that about 17,000 times over the past few years.

It is entirely wonderful to have it though, even without reading it, as it marks not only the climax of about six years of WORK researching and writing it but also an ENTIRE LIFETIME of wanting to have my own book published. And now I DO! I mean, yes, I did release my NOVEL Storm House a few years (and thanks again to everyone who bought it!), but I did that all myself. This one has been through GATEKEEPERS and PEER REVIEWERS and is (theoretically anyway) available in SHOPS!

It is thus a very happy Hibbett who sits and GAZES upon this wondrous object, which is finally actually a REAL THING. I suppose at some point I've got to go out and try to persuade people, or more realistically University libraries, to buy it, but for now I think I'm going to just sit and LOOK at it for a bit longer. It is GRATE!

posted 12/2/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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It's Release Day! Week!
Ring the bells, sound the horns, and unleash the killer robots, for LO! it is a time of GRATE celebration because my much-mentioned BOOK, Data and Doctor Doom: An Empirical Approach To Transmedia Characters is finally, properly, in real life and actually, PUBLISHED!

It was officially published a few days ago, in fact, and I got official notification of this from the publishers on Tuesday. That in itself was a bit of a relief as the day before I'd replied to an email asking me for my bank details so that they could PAY me, and a small part of me wondered if it could have been some incredibly niche SCAM, with crimelords targetting unwitting Academic Authors. So far this has not been proven to be the case, but I am on my guard.

Apart from that worry I have been in a slight DAZE about the whole thing, as it doesn't quite seem realy. I guess this will change when I eventually get an actual proper physical COPY of it, but for now I have the above weblink and a PDF, which is very nice but not hugely dissimilar to various versions I've had for the past few months.

In many respects it is thus HUGELY SIMILAR to an old-fashioned ALBUM Release Day, as that is also the culmination of months - YEARS - of effort, including the same sort of struggles with gatekeeprs and especially production companies, only to end with the vague feeling that Something Has Happened. It's also similar to Album Release Day because I've been sending out a SLEW of emails to tell people about it, to which LOVELY replies have been accrued. That bit's been very nice!

On top of that there's also an air of WAITING. When an album or similar comes out there's hopefully a gradual trickle of people playing it on the radio and people buying it online, followed (if the ROCK ADMIN has been carried out properly) by some GIGS. For the BOOK it is kind of the same, with the online book launch next month (register now!) but not so much SALE$ as a) that part is nothing to do with me and b) it's likely to be only libraries actually BUYING it at the moment, and it will take WEEKS if not longer for them to start doing it. Any REVIEWS will also take AGES, as people will need to sit and READ it!

I'm trying to continue this comparison further by trying to get some PUBLICITY going, with facebook posts and trying to get some COVERAGE, and if there's anybody out there reading this who EITHER would like to talk to me about it on their podcast/website/network television spectacular OR knows a contact in same who MIGHT, then do please let me know. It's taken me about seven years to get to this point, and I'd like to have a good old go at getting people to actually READ it now it's finished!

posted 7/2/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Watching old Doctors Who
This week I have somehow found myself watching some OLD Doctors Who. I am not sure how it happened.

All right, I am pretty sure I DO know and, as ever, it is largely down to Mr RT Davies, who UNLEASHED the whole lot of it on the iPlayer a while ago and then LURED in those of us with weak resolve by also adding EDITED versions. This was a dirty rotten trick because it turns out that cutting out about 60% of old Doctors Who makes it a LOT easier to watch here in Modern Tymes. Some OAFS might say that there is some old Doctors Who that would benefit from cutting about 100% but I DISCARD them.

INDEED to my surprise I Quite Enjoyed some of them - Patrick Troughton, it turns out, is dead good - so was already WEAKENED to the prospect of watching more. However, it was only when a Work Colleague revealed that he had been watching some of the Peter Davison era that I thought "Why not give it a go eh?"

Now, I must admit that this was not my first DELVE into the archive. Several years ago I watched a great big WODGE of Sylvester McCoy on the archaic DVD format - this was almost entirely because I had been given Mr Andrew Cartmel as my MENTOR on my MA course and, in preparation for meeting him, I thought it would be good to GEN UP. As it turns out he did NOT spend an awful lot of time mentioning aspects of his MASTERPLAN nor casually name-dropping cast members (although he did a tiny bit and it was AMAZING), preferring instead to be an all-round TOP MENTOR and also to give me GRATE ideas, also GRADES (HOORAH for him!). However, watching the McCoy era on DVD did make me realise how BRILLIANT it was ... so long as you squinted a bit.

What I mean by "squinting" is that you have to narrow your MENTAL EYES a bit and try and see the show as it was MEANT to turn out, not how it DID. If you concentrate you can see that the script writers (and aforementioned script editor) had some AMAZING ideas, and that (most of) the actors and (most of) the designers were trying REALLY REALLY HARD to make something good. Unfortunately they were THWARTED by a budget of 2p per episode, the insistence of the BBC to light everything as if it was GOING FOR GOLD, and the need to FILM it at the same SPEED as Going For Gold, so it looks somewhat ROPEY throughout.

With this all behind me I came to the iPlayer one evening and thought "Oh go on, let's have a look" and after some WANDERING through the aforesaid Archive I fell upon Season 15 i.e. one of the GOOD ONES with Tom Baker in. I have very very vague memories of The Tom Baker era, and indeed one of my earliest memories is of Jon Pertwee turning INTO him in That One With The Spiders, and I'd recently thoroughly enjoyed re-reading the comic strip version of The Star Beast, but I'd never been drawn to re-watch any of his stories.

Actually, I had re-watched ONE story, and that was "The City Of Death" after a GIG in Middlesbrough many years ago. I was staying at the house of Mr Bob Fischer that evening and when I asked him what was a GOOD old Doctor Who he chose to extract that one from his LIBRARY. I must report, dear friends, that drink had been taken and I was not prepared for quite how INCREDIBLY SLOW the whole thing was. When The Doctor says "Hey Romana, let's go to the other gallery on the other side of Paris" I was expecting them to CUT to the other gallery, and not to have to watch them WALK THE WHOLE FLIPPING WAY across town. It took AGES!

It was with all of this in mind that I settled myself down to have a go at watching "Horror At Fang Rock", starring T Baker as The Doctor and L Jameson as Leela and CRUMBS it actually was PRETTY GOOD. I mean, yes, the main baddy was a WET BRUSSEL SPROUT but otherwise it was quite tense and interesting and also GOOD FUN. SOme of the acting was a bit rum, but COR Tom Baker is bloody brilliant in it (even though I did keep expecting him to say "RAY BLOODY PURCHASE") and having only a very very hazy idea of the story meant that it was full of surprises.

BUOYED UP by this I then decided to watch the next one which was "The Invisible Enemy". Some of the acting in this was even rummer and the special effects even rummer still, but it remained good fun and also VERY VERY SILLY INDEED. When the Doctor BIGENERATED at Christmas many Grumpy Old Doctor Who Fans were heard to complain that this was somehow "silly" and "didn't make sense" and "not like proper Doctor Who." In "The Invisible Enemy" there is an episode where The Doctor gets infected with an alien bacteria so they make a temporary CLONE of him and Leela (which takes about 20 seconds and not only has their memories BUT ALSO CLONES OF THEIR CLOTHES). The Cloned Doctor pops out to get a gizmo from the Tardis that then SHRINKS THEM TO MICROSCOPIC SIZE. They then get INJECTED INTO HIS OWN HEAD where they are chased through his ACTUAL BRANE by Mr Ronson from Grange Hill, including a bit where they stop and watched The Doctor's DREAMS of DORIC COLUMNS. At the end of all THAT the clones get destroyed (leaving behind a knife and a bit of curly hair) and the alien bacteria gets extracted and DE-REDUCED so it is THE SIZE OF A LARGE CHILD and looks like A SPACE PRAWN which is then WHEELED around and put in a booth with some EGGS or SOMETHING to "BREED" and then The Doctor blows it up and steals a DOG.

It is utterly utterly UTTERLY ridiculous but also FUN. I've now started on "The Image Of Fendahl" where clearly the director said to everyone "Do the stupidest accent you can think of, so long as nobody else is doing anything like it" but a couple said "We are 1970s accents and can only do Drunk Couple At A Golf Club Accent, can we stick with that?" and he reluctantly agreed. MY WORD but you hear that a lot in these old shows - I remember watching "The Children Of The Stone" and EVERYBODY talked in the same hateful BUMPTIOUS manner, as if they were about to give the award for Most Improved Putting and had decided to make a few off the cuff remarks first. It's GHASTLY!

However, despite all of that, old Doctors Who are extremely MOREISH. Each episode is only about 23 minutes long and about 10% of that is the titles and the last 60 seconds of the previous episode, so they do not take long. I fear I may be in this for the long haul, and it is a very long, and VERY SILLY, haul indeed!

posted 6/2/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Echo and Gen V
I have been watching TWO (2) superhero TV shows of late, which have in some ways EXEMPLIFIED the different approaches such shows tend to take.

The first of these is "Echo", which to my surprise I really liked. It is one of those "Gritty" and "Realistic" shows, which is a way of saying "Really Quite Violent" without actually doing so. I always find it DERANGED when programmes like this are called "realistic" because they are utterly and entirely NOT. I am very happy to say I have NEVER been in a situation involving gunfire, NINJAS, high-powered kicks to the face or leaping/being thrown off tall buildings, whereas the kind of daft decisions, humorous confusion and awkward interactions you see in supposedly UNREALISTIC shows like "She-Hulk" is pretty much my ACTUAL LIFE.

I did watch "Jessica Jones" and the first couple of episodes of "Daredevil", for instance, but in the rest of the Netflix Marvel shows passed me by completely, with the general rule being that if I want to spend time with something dour and humourless I can go and read HR policies. THUS it was, as I say, a surprise to find myself really quite enjoying "Echo". Maybe it was the fact that it started with a mighty big chunk of MYSTIC WOO (technical term) that made me think it wasn't ALL going to be people frowning and hitting each other, but once it got going it was Quite Good. I was also RELIEVED to see that they'd actively involved the Choctaw Nation in it, rather than MAKING STUFF UP, and so perhaps that made me relax into it more than I otherwise would. Superhero Comics have a VERY DODGY INDEED history of making non-Christian religions part of origin stories, so knowing this one was at least grounded in the people themselves made me less trepidatious to see it on-screen.

The only problem remaining was that it was still a show where Very Unpleasant People do Very Unpleasant Things to each other. I usually get turned off these because the shows in question always try to make you sympathise with and applaud characters doing horrible things to innocent bystanders, so here it was ALSO good that the solution to the whole series would not have been out of place in SQUIRREL GIRL i.e. some actual healing, without saying "No no, it was fine that you beat up and murdered all of those people, because you did it all for your own child."

These issues and FEELINGS are pretty much the OPPOSITE of what I've got out of "Gen V" which, for them who don't know, is a spin-off from "The Boys", the FAMOUSLY violent and messy comic series in which pretty much EVERYONE is a complete arsehole who goes around doing horrible things to EVERYBODY. This big difference here, I think, is that it is all done for LARFS and THE SATIRE. "Gen V" is not quite like that as the main characters are Actually All Right, which feels a bit WEIRD sometimes as the world they exist in is STILL "The Boys" with VERY VERY VERY graphic scenes and MAD uses of super-powers for intensely gory scenes, but once you get used to it it's quite NOVEL to actually care about how they get on, and it makes the EXPLOSIONS OF GORE more unexpected.

It also remains ACTUALLY FUNNY, which is weird for a show where everyone seems to spend half their time covered in other people's blood. It is in fact a very 2000AD way of doing this sort of thing, which I guess isn't surprising because the original writer Garth Ennis did lots of his early work there, but it's still nice to see that it has made it across into another media intact and THEN into a spin-off too.

Maybe the biggest TAKEAWAY from all of this is that there ARE two such different superhero series a) on at the same time b) being GOOD, especially in what must be at LEAST the tenth year of every Media Twit Everywhere telling us that "Superhero Fatigue" has set in and nobody wants to watch them anymore. This is ALWAYS said because the aforementioned Media Twits think we should be watching either Boring Documentaries, Dreary Dramas About Posh People OR Yet Another Gangster Film, but it's still good to know that good, honest, plucky artisans like (checks notes) Disney and Amazon are still carrying on with the genre. More power to them I say, and also another series of both please!

posted 1/2/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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