Just a quick note to wish everyone a Happy Christmas.
We’ll be travelling down to England tomorrow to visit family and friends and cook an enormous rack of beef at my sisters, eat and drink too much and get all excited about the Dr. Who Christmas special…that’s about as traditional as you can get without snow or Santa getting stuck in the chimney.
Something for you to look at while I’m away is the art work of James Jean which is all lovely and frightening at the same time, sort of 1950s children illustrations mixed with Manga and filtered through the mind of Clive Barker.
As a Yule tide gift I give you Christmas from AKQA.
Ho ho ho!
Monday, December 22, 2008
Trying to get through my ever expanding 'to read' pile.
‘In the Hand of Dante’ is complex and yet simple at the same time. Half of the book is written from the point of view of the author dealing with his own mortality, vanity and his criminal past as he becomes involved in a scam to steal the only copy of ‘The Divine Comedy’ by Dante and sell it to the highest bidder. Set in New York, Nick meets up with an old friend, the rather sinister and perverted Louie, a man with no remorse or pity, a man who lives by his own strict moral code.
At the same time the book charts the life of Dante as he puts together his masterwork, rallies against the gods, falls in love with the wrong woman and attempts to understand the meaning of life and how it all fits into his verse.
The book is absorbing, never easy and only annoying when Tosches slips into Latin but refuses to give a translation.
***
‘Global Frequency’ Volumes 1 and 2 are quick fire comics, the premise is a civilian run agency with 1001 operatives around the world all available on the global frequency run by the mysterious a Miranda Zero and kept in line by the human computer mind of Aleph. As always with Ellis it’s fast paced, but lacks content. Each episode in the volumes is one complete story with some much better than others. I’m surprised this hasn’t been turned into a TV show as the format and story board is already available.
***
‘The Originals’ is a take on the Mods and Rockers of the 1960s, their rivalry, their friendships, and their running battles. Gibbons sets the story in an alternative future but I don’t understand why. It’s so obviously of its time the science fiction element adds nothing. As it is the story is predictable and the presentation just a little flat to really have held my interest.
***
Will Eisner is the king of comics, having had a long and illustrious career starting back in the 1930’s, bringing us ‘The Spirit’ (about to be shown in the cinema) and then changing in the 1970s by bringing out thought provoking work which changed how comic books were viewed. ‘To the Heart of the Storm’ is one of those works. Beautifully told, it is a simple evocation of a world almost gone, a young man reflecting on his Jewish childhood in New York and the lead up to the Second World War. It’s charming, sophisticated, well written and illustrated, giving an insight into the poverty of the depression and the wanton racism that existed in the country from those immigrants who would have to return to the old country to take part in a vicious war.
***
Read the first two copies of Cages by Dave Mckean. This is a book I’ve wanted for a long time (Madame Vin if you’re reading this, please add it to my list). I saw a copy in New York once but didn’t buy as it was too bulky to get home (drat!). Now I’m having trouble finding a copy. It looks great and piqued my interest. I’m looking forward to reading the rest.
Plenty to read over Christmas so I’ll report back soon.
Read this week:
To the Heart of the Storm by Will Eisener
The Originals by Dave Gibbons
Global Frequency Volumes 1 and 2 by Warren Ellis and others
In the Hand of Dante by Nick Tosches
At the same time the book charts the life of Dante as he puts together his masterwork, rallies against the gods, falls in love with the wrong woman and attempts to understand the meaning of life and how it all fits into his verse.
The book is absorbing, never easy and only annoying when Tosches slips into Latin but refuses to give a translation.
***
‘Global Frequency’ Volumes 1 and 2 are quick fire comics, the premise is a civilian run agency with 1001 operatives around the world all available on the global frequency run by the mysterious a Miranda Zero and kept in line by the human computer mind of Aleph. As always with Ellis it’s fast paced, but lacks content. Each episode in the volumes is one complete story with some much better than others. I’m surprised this hasn’t been turned into a TV show as the format and story board is already available.
***
‘The Originals’ is a take on the Mods and Rockers of the 1960s, their rivalry, their friendships, and their running battles. Gibbons sets the story in an alternative future but I don’t understand why. It’s so obviously of its time the science fiction element adds nothing. As it is the story is predictable and the presentation just a little flat to really have held my interest.
***
Will Eisner is the king of comics, having had a long and illustrious career starting back in the 1930’s, bringing us ‘The Spirit’ (about to be shown in the cinema) and then changing in the 1970s by bringing out thought provoking work which changed how comic books were viewed. ‘To the Heart of the Storm’ is one of those works. Beautifully told, it is a simple evocation of a world almost gone, a young man reflecting on his Jewish childhood in New York and the lead up to the Second World War. It’s charming, sophisticated, well written and illustrated, giving an insight into the poverty of the depression and the wanton racism that existed in the country from those immigrants who would have to return to the old country to take part in a vicious war.
***
Read the first two copies of Cages by Dave Mckean. This is a book I’ve wanted for a long time (Madame Vin if you’re reading this, please add it to my list). I saw a copy in New York once but didn’t buy as it was too bulky to get home (drat!). Now I’m having trouble finding a copy. It looks great and piqued my interest. I’m looking forward to reading the rest.
Plenty to read over Christmas so I’ll report back soon.
Read this week:
To the Heart of the Storm by Will Eisener
The Originals by Dave Gibbons
Global Frequency Volumes 1 and 2 by Warren Ellis and others
In the Hand of Dante by Nick Tosches
Sunday, December 07, 2008
What was Spring Heeled Jack?
A foggy winter’s night, vapour hisses as it alights on the gas lamp. A carriage drawn by two shabby looking horses skitters on the cobbles making you jump. They trundle away into the darkness, their driver swearing in a coarse tongue.
You turn down a side street, your fine leather boots with their metal heels clicking as you lift your skirt slightly to avoid the muddy puddle at the side walks edge.
It is cold tonight and you want to get home, back to the fire that should have been lit in the parlour, back in time for buttered cakes…when laughter, far off and faint, makes you stop. It’s a cackle, sinister in its pitch, outlandish and cruel. You notice that you are now alone, not a good night for a single lady to be out, not a good night at all. You hurry onwards, picking up the pace when you hear the laughter again, louder this time, closer.
You look up convinced it’s coming from the old church spire, high up amongst the eaves, hidden against the dark stone. You think you see movement, one of the gargoyles turns to look at you…surely not, that’s not possible?
You put your head down and begin to run, but the laughter is loud now, a shriek of ridicule and it’s above and behind you. You drop your purse, fearful of the monster that is about to attack, its baying laughter filling your senses.
You don’t want to, but you turn anyway as the creature lands close. Its legs are bent, it’s clawed hands outstretched as if ready to embrace you, but it is its face that you fear the most. Rolling eyes of boiling red fire whilst from its mouth emanates blue gasses that swirl and eddy in the breeze. It’s a daemon, a monster from hell and it’s come for you.
You slip to the floor as the nightmare bounds forward, laughing, always laughing with evil intent. A seizure takes you and as you drift into a dead faint, above the hellish cackle you can now hear the peel of a policeman’s whistle…
You turn down a side street, your fine leather boots with their metal heels clicking as you lift your skirt slightly to avoid the muddy puddle at the side walks edge.
It is cold tonight and you want to get home, back to the fire that should have been lit in the parlour, back in time for buttered cakes…when laughter, far off and faint, makes you stop. It’s a cackle, sinister in its pitch, outlandish and cruel. You notice that you are now alone, not a good night for a single lady to be out, not a good night at all. You hurry onwards, picking up the pace when you hear the laughter again, louder this time, closer.
You look up convinced it’s coming from the old church spire, high up amongst the eaves, hidden against the dark stone. You think you see movement, one of the gargoyles turns to look at you…surely not, that’s not possible?
You put your head down and begin to run, but the laughter is loud now, a shriek of ridicule and it’s above and behind you. You drop your purse, fearful of the monster that is about to attack, its baying laughter filling your senses.
You don’t want to, but you turn anyway as the creature lands close. Its legs are bent, it’s clawed hands outstretched as if ready to embrace you, but it is its face that you fear the most. Rolling eyes of boiling red fire whilst from its mouth emanates blue gasses that swirl and eddy in the breeze. It’s a daemon, a monster from hell and it’s come for you.
You slip to the floor as the nightmare bounds forward, laughing, always laughing with evil intent. A seizure takes you and as you drift into a dead faint, above the hellish cackle you can now hear the peel of a policeman’s whistle…
And so it would have been if you had been a woman in the late 1830’s in London and you had met the creature known as Spring Heeled Jack. A monster that was seen in several parts of the city, described as both a vicious bear like creature or else a man in an elaborate costume.
Between 1837 and 1870 the name of Spring Heeled Jack crops up again and again, attacking women or else seen leaping across roof tops escaping the people below giving chase. Some of the eye witness accounts match, giving him metal claws and talons, glowing eyes, spitting blue fire from his mouth, wearing a helmet of some description and the ability to leap high in the air allowing him to escape. In all the attacks he never inflicted bodily harm nor did any of his victims die – so what was he?
Most of the attacks can perhaps be put down to hoax allegations, people jumping on the band wagon and helping to fuel the penny dreadful’s that loved nothing better than ‘something scary in Shorditch’ type headlines. Others however describe Jack in detail.
Polly Adams, a pub worker and the middle class Lucy Scales gave vivid accounts of what happened to them, and coming as they did from different parts of London society the idea that they were working together is unlikely. Another intriguing fact is that in 1838 a public session was opened by the then Lord Mayor of London to consider the anonymous complaint about a group of rich young men who…
“…have laid a wager with a mischievous and foolhardy companion, that he durst not take upon himself the task of visiting many of the villages near London in three different disguises — a ghost, a bear, and a devil; and moreover, that he will not enter a gentleman's gardens for the purpose of alarming the inmates of the house…”
This was reported in The Times on the 9th January. Could the two be related? One conslusion about Jack is that he was Henry de La Poer Beresford, 3rd Marquess of Waterford, a rich trickster known as ‘The Mad Marquis’. However, Henry has an alibi for both the above cases. Other theories have Jack as a daemon, a monster or else a space alien!
The stories of Spring Heeled Jack never died down and stories about his appearance have grown with time, appearing all over the UK and right up until 1986 in South Herodforshire.
So what is he? Devil, trickster, monster or my favourite – a Batman prototype?
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