100 Things I'd Rather Do Than Watch the World Cup*

1. Read a book
2. Watch a film
3. Listen to some music
4. Cook dinner
5. Make sweet love [with me, baby, it's always sweet]
6. Sleep
7. Partake of one's daily ablutions
8. Sort out the loft
9. Sell stuff on eBay
10. The washing up
11. Hang around a playground while the kid rolls around in a sand pit
12. Hoover up sand from the carpets and furniture
13. Read the kid some stories
14. Encourage the use of so-called 'modelling clay' [in actual fact some kind of weaponized filth that recognizes no terrestrial detergent]
15. Quickly discourage the use of 'modelling clay'
16. Play one of the current favourite games: Dinosaur Emergency or Mountain Crashdown
17. Do a sabre-toothed tiger puzzle [strictly speaking they're cats, not tigers, but the consensus misnomer persists]
18. Wash the car [and maybe valet it, if I'm feeling particularly motivated]
19. Go to work [Jesus, man, we're only up to 19!]
20. Desperately scour the internet and the press [local and national] for another job
21. Look for a house
22. Go shopping
23. Sit on the beach and throw stones into the sea
24. Eat out
25. Go to a pub that doesn't have Sky Sports blaring out the door 24/7
26. Go clubbing
27. Have a post-night out kebab
28. Suffer an epic hangover
29. Go somewhere by train and/or replacement bus service
30. Stroke the cat
31. Expect a superspy
32. Do some gardening
33. Glug a nice Carménère
34. Smoke some fags [I don't smoke, but I still need to bump this up to 100 somehow]
35. Get in long-overdue touch with friends and family
36. Organize a party
37. Test-drive a Hummer
38. Purge my wardrobe Stalin-style
39. Start a scrapbook of entertainingly hyperbolic Daily Mail articles
40. Stream-of-consciousness doodling
41. Arts and crafts
42. Visit a zoo, a museum, or perhaps an ornamental garden
43. Indulge in unapologetic, character-assassinating gossip
44. Sew up holes in my clothes
45. Polish my boots
46. Make a fancy dress costume
47. Clear moss out of the gutters
48. Decorate a room
49. Rearrange the bookshelves in whichever whimsical order grabs me
50. Play reprehensible videogames
51. Lay down some MC Hammer dance moves
52. Make sure all the numbers in my mobile phone are written down somewhere
53. Surf the net
54. Social networking
55. Subscribe to some worthwhile podcasts
56. Try something new in Photoshop
57. Back up my grossly distended iTunes library
58. Defrag the laptop
59. Eat a whole packet of Haribo Tangfastics
60. Walk random streets
61. Indulge in some light iconoclasm
62. Make a rubber band ball
63. Watch a big analogue clock tick the precious seconds of my life away
64. Make a nice cup of tea
65. Hoover out the toolbox
66. Tag a bus shelter
67. Iron a shirt
68. Help an old lady across the road
69. Find the funniest name in the phone book and bombard them with hoax calls
70. Discuss religion or politics with someone whose views violently oppose my own
71. Make flat pack furniture
72. Defrost the fridge
73. Stalk a celebrity
74. Pop a load of bubble wrap
75. Create an army of killer robots and conquer the world AH HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAH!!
76. Grow a luxuriant moustache
77. Fancy pigeons
78. Get abducted by a UFO
79. Experiment with mind-bending hallucinogens
80. Ponder the nature of existence
81. Panic about the lack of real achievement in my life and the dwindling number of years in which to rectify that situation
82. Embark on a journalism course
83. Write a book
84. Make a film
85. Learn how to use the requisite software to be able to make bass-heavy but ultimately pedestrian dance music
86. Learn Japanese
87. Travel the world
88. Train for a triathlon
89. Do a skydive
90. Start horse riding
91. Learn ice sculpture
92. Swim with manta rays
93. Practise mixed-discipline martial arts
94. Buy a restaurant
95. Set myself up as a spiritual guru
96. Scandalize polite society
97. Kick a football around the park
98. Try to write an entertaining blog entry
99. Give up and write this blog entry
100. None of the above

* Especially if England are playing

League of X, where X =

Inspired by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's sublime fictional character mash-up The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen [the same could not be said of its big-screen Hollywood reinterpretation - but let's give the venerable Mr. Connery the benefit of the doubt, since he doubtless has bills to pay, the same as any of us mere mortals] -

Cut to -

Connery: Och aye the noo, I have indeed got billsh to pay, the shame ash any of you mere mortalsh.

Aargh, my eyes! I'd forgotten about Zardoz. Shame is about right, Seany boy, shame indeed.

Anyway, inspired by Moore and O'Neill's neat retooling of numerous literary creations, and very probably labouring under the misapprehension that the 'League of...' template could be applied to any area of creative fiction, I give you:

The League of Unpredictable Mentalists

The pitch: Silky-smooth London kingpin and ex-antiques dealer Horatio Lovejoy sends trusted lieutenant Don Logan out to recruit an eclectic selection of classic movie nutjobs in this breezy caper comedy!

Don Logan He's the lovable cockney scamp who just won't take no for an answer!

Tommy DeVito This shoe-shining Italian-American is the life and soul of any New York party!

Tony Montana Thinking of Havana yayo-fuelled mental breakdown? Just keep your hands off his sister - you don't want to meet Tony's 'little friend'!

Travis Bickle The idiosyncratic wheelman outlines his seasonal must-haves - what's hot: mohicans, exercise, firearms. What's not: pimps, hoodlums, scumbags. Travis, chill - that's just your reflection!

And last, but most assuredly not least, Franco Begbie, Glasgow's forthright firecracker philosopher. "Jesus, ah thoat ah wis fucken psychoatic before ah hooked up wi' this loat."

Yes, these adorable rascals prove the breezy spirit of Ealing is alive and well as they tackle that most reliable of crime plot devices - one final job - with hilarious consequences!

Not doing it for you? No problem, let's just reset Sheersy's patented League Randomizer and see what we get...

The League of Infuriating Animated Sidekicks

The pitch: A wave of suspicious heart attacks among US animation studio execs leads to a collective, industry-wide effort to right the wrongs of their terminally misguided predecessors and make a clean sweep of their more questionable marketing decisions.

Together for the first time - Orko! Scrappy Doo! The New Shmoo! Snarf! Uni! Godzooky!

7-Zark-7 tasks a hand-picked, hand-drawn team of plucky cartoon buffoons, whose existence would appear solely to provide comic relief to particularly moronic toddlers, with some unrealistically dangerous mission or other. Infiltrate Castle Grayskull, perhaps, or steal Tiamat's favourite...egg. Whatever.

OK kids, I've given you the League of Loons and the League of Toons entirely free of charge. Now why not give the Randomizer a spin and come up with a few ker-azy congregations of your own?

Disclaimer: Don't blame me - blame Alan Moore!

Sheersy's manifesto

Ding-dong

*pause*

Ding-dong knock knock knock

*long pause*

Ding-dong ding-dong knock knock knock knock knock knock knock knock ah, you are in. I thought I could see you moving about in there, ha ha! Milk no sugar, before you ask.

OK, well, hello, I’m Sheersy and I’m just canvassing the area to see whether you’ll be voting for me in the upcoming – and, let’s face it, highly anticipated – General Election. I’m running on a benevolent Stalinist agenda that prizes fear and confused obedience above all other qualities. That’s not to say that I’ll be an entirely cruel supreme master, er, democratically elected leader, but I’d urge you to concentrate less on the ‘benevolent’ and more on the ‘Stalinist’, if you know what’s good for you. It’s a long-held aim of mine to reimagine the carrot/stick equation and then eat my big orange bat afterwards to dispose of the evidence, that’s all I’m saying.

My most noteworthy policies - the four sturdy pillars of my leadership bid - are as follow:

Pimp all rides Britain’s roads are boring. Just go for a drive – or, hey, even a walk – and see how excited you get. Clue: not very. Silver car, silver car, silver car – oh look, a red car - silver car. Boring. “But it helps hide the dirt.” BOOOOORRIIIIIIINNNG. Now try this: chrome rims, hydraulics, Cherry Bomb exhaust, custom paint job, blown engine, sick sound system. Why you whip be rollin’ on they lame-ass biscuits, dog? Precisely.

Bring back dinosaurs The worldwide annual budget for space exploration is an estimated 35 thousand million pounds. Yikes, that’s some serious money. We should be sending out sleek, hyperdrive-powered starliners like spores from some overactive puffball by now, right? Uh, no. In fact, we’ve only just about been to the moon a grand total of six times in the last 50-odd years. If this were a private company, the shareholders would be asking searching and pertinent questions like “Where’s my jetpack?” This simply isn’t paying the sci-fi dividends we were promised. Enough is enough, it’s time to knock this space bunk on the head and try a different tack. Let’s plough that sweet mountain of cash into questionable, carte blanche genetic projects run by disavowed and quite possibly unhinged scientists on remote tropical islands and see what they come up with.

Give our athletes some ‘pep’ Our fine sportsmen and women have a really tough time navigating the labyrinthine drug laws enforced by such bodies as the planned National Anti-Doping Agency, at the same time as trying to get some kind of product licensing deal [AKA genuine income] off the ground. Aah, poor them. In addition to that, as a group they’re not generally known for their incisive, high-brow appraisal of any given situation. “Coach said those special vitamins would be good for me, but now the unfriendly men want to stick me full of pins and make me wee in a cup.” They’re more like livestock, really. Now watch the over-toned idiots run round and round a track: yawnarama. Let’s scrap all this anti-doping nonsense, pump them full of all sorts of experimental concoctions and watch the fireworks. Eat my dust, Bannister, you four-minute-mile loser! Think of the military applications. It’s win-win, smiles all round.

Ban golf Take that Pringle-sweater-having, tasselled-shoe-wearing, self-important, new money waste of everybody’s time and effort underground and maybe, just maybe, like the London Orbital warehouse raves of the early ‘90s, it might become vaguely interesting. But I doubt it.

It’s a revolutionary approach, I grant you, but hope you’ll see sense and opt for my policies over those of the other [what I like to call ‘lesser’] candidates. Remember: vote Sheersy!

Thanks for the tea - I’ll see myself out.

BBC 6 Music

An email to the BBC Trust - srconsultation@bbc.co.uk - regarding the proposal in the BBC Strategy Review March 2010 that 6 Music should be axed in 2011:


Dear Sir/Madam,

I feel compelled to write to you regarding the frankly devastating news that the BBC is considering closing their digital radio station 6 Music.

When the BBC launched the station in 2002, I'm sure I wasn't alone in thinking it was too good to be true. There I was dutifully paying my licence fee for the odd Attenborough series and, well, not much else, to be quite honest. News? Channel 4. Quality drama? HBO. Comedy? Behave - Two Pints is an absolute travesty, beloved only of unapologetic knuckleheads.

Then along comes a more eclectic, less chart-oriented XFM with no adverts and bingo bango, the BBC's finally putting out something that genuinely appeals to me. Not only sporadically, either, but pretty much all day long. 6 Music has continually attracted talented, erudite and witty broadcasters, including respected, cutting-edge comedians and musicians, to front their shows. The line-up of presenters past and present [with, granted, the notable exception of George Lamb] reads like some kind of wish fulfilment fantasy, and Adam and Joe's Saturday show is honest-to-God gold dust.

The question the BBC should be asking itself is whether it can afford to cut 700,000 fanatical 6 Music listeners loose in order to save 10 times that fathead Moyles's pie allowance, which fantastic sum seems inversely commensurate with the recipient's lack of talent. It's not going to be a case of "Oh well, it was good while it lasted - now let's see what else the BBC's got to offer," because the goodwill of 6 Music's audience will have been squandered and they'll seek similar content elsewhere. The Director-General's Strategy Review would seem to suggest that 6 Music's fan base would naturally gravitate - or else could be gently shepherded - towards Radios 1 and 2, but Radio 1's daytime output is far too moronic for the 6 Music listenership, and Radio 2 seems geared [with apologies to my parents] towards middle-aged nostalgia addicts. Music is one of those things that people are illogically passionate about, and to assume that we'll make do with a vague approximation of our preferences just won't cut it in this digital age of unprecedented choice.

I can't help but feel, too, that this is a disappointing, token gesture of appeasement on the part of the BBC to the well-documented pressure the Tories have recently been placing on the corporation. Government agencies and publicly-funded bodies are tripping over themselves to second-guess the uptight fun-haters everyone seems to think will be in government in but a few short months. It would appear naïve in the extreme, however, for anyone to believe that the proposed cuts will sate those who already have the scent of blood in their nostrils, and that this wouldn't in fact herald the start of an almighty feeding frenzy, to be accompanied by increasingly self-confident cries for further scapegoats.

The BBC offers a broad and unique selection of programmes, the like of which simply isn't on offer amongst its commercial competitors. Streamlining those diverse - and by their very nature often niche - services can surely only result in a general lack of distinction from all the other bland, lowest-common-denominator fare on the market.

Yours faithfully,

Happy Gin Face


P.S. Charlie Brooker for Director-General! Whoop whoop!

Über alles

Just back from a short break in Germany.

I was staying with an old schoolfriend who's been working for the MOD since leaving university and is currently on secondment to NATO at the JHQ Rheindalen military base. He assures me he is but a lowly data analyst, but he's signed the Official Secrets Act and I honestly couldn't begin to guess what he actually does on a day-to-day basis. There's every possibility that he's involved in deniable ops, so just to be on the safe side I'll identify him only as Mr. L [I was going to advertise his PS3 username, but that's probably still enough for him to be contacted through PlayStation Network and "persuaded" by whoever the other side is these days. Blimey, you never can tell in this game, can you?].

JHQ Rheindalen is a truly bizarre place - a vast, town-sized network of semi-detached properties that physically resembles an eerily underpopulated Chatsworth Estate from Shameless and is uniformly rendered in that green-tinged light grey so beloved of Cold War decorators. Featuring such incongruous street names as Queens Avenue and Cumberland Drive, it's a surreally skewed slice of British life planted slap bang in the middle of Europe, with its own shopping arcade, supermarkets and cinema: The Truman Show with added squaddies. Apparently the local town on pay day is a mass brawl waiting to happen, with hordes of both local and military police on patrol just waiting for it to kick off.

Outside the regimented Petri dish of existence on base, German life is noticeably cleaner, more efficient and more polite than its English equivalent. Mr. L's theory is that you're more likely to respect other people when you respect yourself, which, if true, would be a compound rule that draws impetus from all facets of cultural identity. For instance: in marked contrast to our once-competitive industries, German manufacturing is still a force to be reckoned with - a fact that can readily be deduced at the airport drop-off rank, where a steady stream of VWs, Audis, BMWs and Mercedes makes up a conspicuously high percentage of the road-going traffic. German people evidently buy German brands over and above anything else on the market, in the relative certainty that the product has been sourced, forged and marketed domestically. Our home-grown brands, meanwhile, have been brazenly flogged off for a transitory profit. Still, at least we won World War II, eh? And the World Cup in '66. In your face, Germany!

Another point of interest - not unrelated to the above observation - is the fact that Germany's Autobahn features numerous entirely unrestricted stretches: the road sign to the left heralds a section of road where there is literally no speed limit. In a country where every other car is a high-end Merc or Beamer, this means that the general pace on the roads is in an altogether different league. As a perhaps unsurprising consequence of this, German drivers are incredibly aware and will quickly pull over if a more capable vehicle signals its intention to overtake [usually by roaring up behind you and then sitting on your arse until you get out of the way]. Mr. L is a confirmed speed freak and once took the opportunity to fly as a passenger in a BAe Hawk T1(A) - of Red Arrows fame - the unprecedented G-Force of which caused him to yack his NAAFI lasagne up all over the inside of the cockpit. Needless to say, the hands-off approach of the German road system rather appeals to his get-there-quick sensibilities. "We're doing twice the UK speed limit," he said to me at one point, as distant objects in front of his 5l supercharged V8 Jag - I think they might have been other cars - became close objects in improbably short order. I could just about acknowledge this with a strained "Nng," and was about to add that I was sure it was 70mph for a reason, when he decided that we might need to up the ante slightly. Not much, just another 20 miles an hour or so. My facial expression contracted into an entirely involuntary rictus and, had I been able to tear my terrified gaze from the road for long enough, I'm pretty sure I could have located the individual sweat glands in the palms of my hands simply by tracing the gushing rivulets of adrenaline-rich perspiration to their roots.

The unalloyed fear was all worthwhile, however, as I'd traded five years of my life in for a delightful trip to the Mosel Valley, where much of Germany's white wine and Sekt is produced. This is an aesthetically aggreeable region typified by chalet-style architecture, impossibly steep vineyards and at least one imposing hilltop castle, the Reichsurg Cochem, whose gothic spires dominate this picture postcard panorama. We followed this with dinner in the revolving restaurant at the top of Düsseldorf's Fernsehturm and - just to bring me crashing figuratively as well as literally back to Earth - a tour of some of cheesiest late bars I've ever experienced.

Yes, the UK's industrial machine may be in tatters, but at least we've got the clubbing scene sussed. In your face, Germany! Feel the burn!

Dave's new reading list

A friend of mine - let's call him 'Dave' - recently [well, not that recently, but I've done it now so shut up] asked me for some comic and graphic novel recommendations. I've skipped the obvious ones - V For Vendetta, Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns - because if you haven't read them, then frankly you haven't done your homework and you should be thoroughly ashamed.

You'll notice that several writers crop up regularly throughout my list. They are 2000AD alumni Alan Moore, Bryan Talbot, Grant Morrison, Warren Ellis and Mark Millar. I routinely buy multiple copies of anything illustrated by Frank Quitely, because the man is a demiurge of sequential art.

I've split my recommendations into handy sub-sections: Spandex, Steam, Horror and We3 [curse you, pesky genre-straddling Grant Morrison!]. That way, if you're so not about the capes right now, you can just skip on to the next section. If none of these sub-headings appeals, then you're probably reading the wrong blog.

Dave: this supersedes any and all previous reading lists. If you are in the middle of a book, stop reading it IMMEDIATELY and pick up of one of the following:

SPANDEX

Miracleman [w: Alan Moore a: various] Written for UK's Warrior magazine around the same time as V For Vendetta, this is British legend Alan Moore's final word on real-world superheroics, with the titular hero testing the limits of his powers and responsibilities aided and/or hindered by a colourful supporting cast of allies and enemies. Worth reading if only to experience the third volume - Olympus - which is beautifully illustrated by John Totleben and charts Miracleman's systematic construction of the ideal human society. It also features one of the most horrific superhuman battles in comics history, with London destroyed and millions dead. Miracleman has been subject to protracted legal wrangling over character ownership since the mid-'80s, making the now out-of-print collections largely unobtainable.

The Killing Joke [w: Alan Moore a: Brian Bolland] The Joker escapes from Arkham Asylum and goes after Batman's closest allies in this seminal tale. The compact story is by Alan Moore, who develops the character of the Caped Crusader's pallid, grinning nemesis more credibly in fifty pages than any number of writers had done over the preceding fifty years. The slick, precise linework constitutes rare interior illustration by superstar cover artist Brian Bolland, who was among the many talented 2000AD creators to be harvested by big American firms in the early- to mid-'80s. The Killing Joke was recently recoloured and retouched by Bolland for a 20th anniversary hardback.

Zenith [w: Grant Morrison a: Steve Yeowell] Morrison is one of the biggest writers in the business - in some respects Alan Moore's natural heir, albeit with his own distinct line in psychedelic metafiction. Before he started mucking the hero genre about in earnest, he wrote this straightforward but superior hero series for 2000AD: Zenith is a spoilt, egotistical pop star, the son of two now-missing '60s heroes, who gets dragged against his will into a plot involving Nazi superhumans and evil extradimensional entities. The third volume features cameos from pretty much every British superhero since the '50s [see the International Catalogue of Superheroes' handy Zenith Phase Three Scorecard for further information]. Now out of print and quite tricky to get hold of, due to Morrison having instigated a legal wrangle over creative rights.

Brat Pack [w/a: Rick Veitch] A long-time collaborator of Alan Moore's, Veitch had previously taken over writing Swamp Thing when Moore left the title. His growing disillusionment with the aggressive commercial aspects of the business fuelled a series of satirical takes on costumed heroics, of which this is the first. Brat Pack explores the dubious notion of kid sidekicks, following four raw recruits through their brutal inductions by variously irresponsible and psychopathic 'heroes'. Ugly and nasty, yes, but it's a beautifully crafted labour of simmering resentment, packed with great character design and succinctly iconic imagery.

Flex Mentallo [w: Grant Morrison a: Frank Quitely] Morrison's first collaboration with the sublime Frank Quitely is a perfectly-formed piece of glossy metafiction. Each issue channels the four distinct eras of US comics [Golden Age, Silver Age, Dark Age and Modern Age], all framed within a surreal missing superpersons detective story. Never collected, due to legal wrangling over Mentallo's Charles Atlas-like physical appearance and, more specifically, secret origin [which actually appeared in Doom Patrol #42, fact fans!], although I had my individual issues hardback bound by dpbanks.com. That's right, now you're envious.

The Authority [w: Warren Ellis/Mark Millar a: Bryan Hitch/Frank Quitely/various] This eponymous superteam are answerable to no-one - the heaviest hitters in the Wildstorm Universe, they live aboard a sentient interdimensional spaceship the size of a city and don't hesitate to come down on their enemies like a ton of wet shit. Warren Ellis's incarnation of the team took on supervillains and scaled-up space-borne threats, but for my money Mark Millar's take was their finest hour - a collection of flawed beings with god-like powers, revelling in their celebrity status, indulging in Caligulan parties and setting corrupt terrestrial governments straight with loads of stick and not much carrot.


Well, quite.

If you like this brand of OTT, so-called "real world" superheroics, you'll lap up Cla$$war, The Ultimates, Wanted, Kick-Ass, Black Summer, No Hero, Supergod, Nemesis, et cetera, ad nauseam.

Planetary [w: Warren Ellis a: John Cassaday] I've already written at some length about this title, but in summary this is the cerebral counterpart to the audacious hyperbole of The Authority. A trio of idiosyncratic superhumans heads up the enigmatic and phenomenally wealthy Planetary organization, dedicated to unearthing otherworldly secrets that are all but lost to posterity. Ellis's script ties a host of pop culture references - Godzilla, '50s B-movies, Hong Kong ghosts - into a single continuum, while John Cassaday's character and environment design brings to the proceedings a disquietingly unique aesthetic.

STEAM

From Hell [w: Alan Moore a: Eddie Campbell] This dense speculative history of the Jack the Ripper murders is the size of a phone directory and commensurately ambitious in scope. Campbell's scratchy monochrome inks perfectly suit the gaslit squalor of late 19th-century London, while Moore insinuates his story into more well-documented, historically accurate events, most obviously the five grisly murders perpetrated by the Ripper; his sizeable cast of characters similarly interacts with period figures such as Queen Victoria and Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen [w: Alan Moore a: Kevin O'Neill] The neat central premise concerns Victorian oddities from various literary works being recruited for outlandish black bag work by the British government. Moore's scripts tie a dizzying host of fictional works together [in later instalments, for example, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is an early prototype of Knight Rider's KITT], while pretty much every tiny background detail in Kevin O'Neill's illustration alludes to a period character or concept. American writer Jess Nevins has made extensive annotations to accompany each volume, with definitive explanations of even the most obscure reference.

The Adventures of Luther Arkwright [w/a: Bryan Talbot] This dense steampunk saga has foppish Royalists using souped-up First World War technology to engage fascistic Roundheads across a host of parallel Earths. With a tip of the hat to Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius, Talbot fleshes out his labyrinthine plot with richly detailed black-and-white illustration and extended, bloody action sequences, painstakingly rendered in Peckinpah-esque bullet-time. The full-colour sequel, Heart of Empire, is also worth picking up.

Scarlet Traces [w: Ian Edginton a: D'Israeli] A steampunk sequel to H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds, originally serialized as a webcomic. Gentleman adventurer and war hero Major Robert Autumn investigates the brutal murders and disappearances of young women against the backdrop of a Victorian England awash with acquired Martian technology. The same creative team have since adapted Wells' original in the same style, and there's a sequel, The Great Game [so, confusingly, this is the middle episode of a trilogy].

Grandville [w/a: Bryan Talbot] In part an homage to the anthropomorphic illustration of French caricaturist Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard, who worked under the pseudonym J.J. Grandville, this is also inspired - according to Talbot - by Conan Doyle, Rupert Bear and Quentin Tarantino. Detective Inspector LeBrock, a rough-and-ready Scotland Yard badger, embarks on a period romp with lashings of old-fashioned fisticuffs. This oversized hardback is one of the most attractive editions ever to have graced my bookshelves.

HORROR

Swamp Thing [w: Alan Moore a: various] DC's third-rate '70s muck monster was reinvented by Alan Moore as a sentient plant-god in this cerebral horror series. Shortly after Moore took the reins, this was the first mainstream US title to completely discard its stamp of approval from the Comics Code Authority - a censorship organization formed in the wake of the creative witch-hunts of the '50s - clearing the way for more considered, adult content aimed at a mature and literate readership. Moore's Swamp Thing is also notable for having introduced roguish magician John Constantine - who's actually a foul-mouthed, blond scouser, not some raven-haired LA woodentop who gives up smoking at the first whiff of sulphur. Keanu Reeves, I'm looking at you.

Uzumaki [w/a: Junji Ito] There's no shortage of top-notch scares in manga and this is one of the creepiest Eastern offerings on the market. Ito's three collections detail the insidious takeover of a small lakeside town by malevolent spiral patterns, beginning on a small-scale with individual obsession and insanity but quickly assuming apocalyptic proportions, with gangs of physically twisted lunatics on the prowl and rampant typhoons decimating everything in their path. Heavily influenced by the cosmic horror of H.P. Lovecraft, the overriding atmosphere throughout Uzumaki is one of impossible, alien infection, against which the few remaining sane protagonists are ultimately powerless.

The Walking Dead [w: Robert Kirkman a: Charlie Adlard] Kirkman is on record as saying that he won't be wrapping up his zombie apocalypse opus any time soon, which is great news for fevered deadheads like me. If you've ever wondered what happens after the credits of a zombie movie have rolled, here's your definitive answer. It's an HBO-style, character-driven series that understands the fundamentals of the zombie horror: by all means barricade the windows against the flesh-eating dead, but keep an even closer eye on your fellow survivors. Don't get too attached to any of the characters, either - Kirkman likes nothing better than to continually wrong-foot his readers in the most unexpected ways possible. I've lost count of the number of times I've cursed his sick name while reading this. Also benefits from the solid, gritty black-and-white artwork of Charlie Adlard, one of the new school of 2000AD Brits currently making a Stateside name for themselves.

Girls [w/a: The Luna Brothers] Rather like Stephen King's latest doorstop, The Lunas' high-concept horror has an impenetrable dome suddenly enclosing an all-American town, with increasingly disturbing consequences. Unlike Stephen King's latest breeze block, this particular town is subsequently overrun by attractive naked women. Aggressive towards women and irresistible to men, these blank-minded clones quickly replicate themselves after intercourse [by laying eggs] in order to serve something rather disturbing that has crash-landed out in one of the cornfields... Tensions soon run high inside the dome as realization dawns and the struggle for survival cranks up several notches. Quite harsh. The same creative team are currently halfway through The Sword, an immensely entertaining action fantasy that's also well worth a look.

WE3

We3 [w: Grant Morrison a: Frank Quitely] Gets its own section because I don't really know what it is: near-future dystopian satire, experimental animal rights manifesto or post-Matrix sci-fi action adventure? Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely's mini-series is a mere pamphlet compared to some of the dense tomes featured above, but it's a killer example of the medium's potential. The simple plot revolves around three domestic animals - dog, cat and rabbit - who escape, along with their state-of-the-art cybernetic warsuits, from a top secret military program and attempt to make their way back home. Even Morrison's pet-centric emotional manipulation takes a back seat to Quitely's jaw-dropping, time-sliced action sequences and insane levels of razor sharp detail.


Absolutely essential reading for anyone, much less comic fans.

Right, that's your lot - now get your sorry arse off to Amazon.

HoooOOOOO!!!

Anyone who's talked to me for even the briefest of moments over the last six months will probably have had their ear bent into a variety of unnatural shapes about the masked mashup master that is Jaguar Skills.

His 10-minute mini-mixes have been airing simultaneously on Radio 1 and 1Xtra at around 8pm every Saturday for the last few years and they display a rare sense of self-deprecating humour. Jag takes the classic elements of mashup [or bastard pop - generally the a cappella vocal from one song laid over the backing track of another] and combines them with a truly impatient progression from one track to the next - you never get more than about 30 seconds of a particular tune. This already frenetic mix is suffused with a veritable motorway pile-up of spoken and musical samples [witness Jamie Oliver's running commentary on the now legendary - in my car, at least - Jag's Drum and Bass Kitchen: "It's just/it's just/it's just...egg"], sly asides from his cheesy American 'voiceover guy' ["Welcome to Loser City - population: you"] and Jag's battle cry ["Jaguar Skills - HoooOOOOO!!!" - a nod to over-muscled mid-'80s cartoon ThunderCats], peppering his expert blend of musical styles with a continuous stream of throwaway gags and sound effects.

Much like Altern-8, Gorillaz and Deadmau5, Jag has sidestepped the default anonymity that accompanies the ostensibly aural artist [particularly the DJ] by establishing a strong visual brand, an instantly recognizable and appealing cartoon persona - the self-styled "funkiest ninja in the universe!" - that accompanies each of his minimixes and also features on promo posters, t-shirts and associated merchandise. To lend further weight to this fictional entity, when appearing in person he remains mute and always wears a full-head ninja mask, of which he appears to own a selection.

This faux-serious identity protection is all part of the pantomime, too, since a none-too-strenuous game of Connect the [Online] Dots will reveal to anyone who's genuinely interested that Jag is actually one Matthew Carter, AKA Mat Ckillz. In his previous existence, he edited hip hop fanzine The Downlow out of his parents' garage while attending art college, before working as a PR agent for Profile Records, which had artists such as Afrika Bambaataa and Run DMC on their books at the time. He followed this with a four-year stint as hip hop editor for Blues and Soul Magazine and subsequently founded the more low-fi hip hop 'zine The Fatboss, during which tenure he was filmed as harrassed, deadline-phobic editor 'Mat C' for late '90s BBC fly-on-the-wall docudrama Paddington Green. The Fatboss folded shortly after that series finished and he's spent the intervening decade reinventing himself as a much sought-after party DJ. Having seen him live [once, at Hastings' somewhat shady Crypt club], I can attest to the unmitigated success of this logical career progression - he is, without doubt, the most impressive live DJ I've ever seen, his all-encompassing set generating a genuinely infectious sense of fun and abandon.

Jag Skills has a comprehensive online presence that includes an official site, a blog [including download links to his most recent mixes], MySpace [which shows upcoming gig listings], Twitter and Facebook. There are also some nice remixes available for streaming on Soundcloud - check out his particularly frantic D'n'B treatment of Josh Wink's Higher State of Consciousness. Mat Ckillz is also credited as an additional voice on the Rise FM radio station from PSP/PS2 game Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories [it's just gone on my shopping list], and apparently there's an upcoming album - Potential Super Violence - in the works at the moment [likewise].

If anyone knows any Brighton club promoters, please don't hesitate to put them in touch with Jag's management - I honestly can't wait to catch him live again.