Web Comics

With the Watchmen movie due out soon comics are getting a bit more mainstream press so now seems the time for webcomics to get a little more exposure. There are some great, creative, interesting works out there and I want to recommend a few.

• Questionable Content – My favourite web comic. The art is fantastic, reading through the archives makes you realise how much Jeph has grown as an artist. Characters you can care about and empathise with, plots that make sense and a good dosh a humour. Seriously recommended.
• Boy On A Stick And Slither – Daily one-shots about a snake (Slither) and a boy on a stick (er, the titular Boy On A Stick) plus God and Cracker. Lectures on morality, corporations and politics follow. Hilarious.
• Girls With Slingshots – Another slice of life comic. Similar in execution to Questionable Content but with a different feel. The artwork is slightly toned down, less emphasis on big punchlines.
• Sam And Fuzzy – It’s a comic about an indecisive man and his sociopathic bear-like friend, what’s not to like? Slow burning story arcs and great artwork.
• Nothing Nice To Say – Punk based comic, very funny and references lots of bands that I like. I’m probably the exact target audience of this comic. The only bad thing about this comic is that it doesn’t update often enough. Also, check out My Stupid Life which is also by Mitch. His blog is interesting too.

Check them out!

Review Of 2008

Happy New Year! Best wishes to you all.

Okay, a review of 2008 in lists. The most important one first:

Top Ten Albums Of 2008

1. Magnetic Fields – Distortion (Nonesuch). The sound of Stephin Merritt distorting every instrument and sound on the record and somehow producing the album of the year. An absolute masterpiece.
2. Former Cell Mates – Who’s Dead And What’s To Pay? (Household Name). Picking up where their last album ended this album is full of whisky, tales of regret and same good songwriting. They were fantastic live too.
3. Off With Their Heads – From The Bottom (No Idea). Raging, angry, heartfelt stuff from Ryan and the boys. I’d been waiting for this for quite a while; it didn’t disappoint. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there/From the bottom of my heart”.
4. Those Dancing Days – In Our Space Hero Suits (Wichita). A Swedish girl group with Hammond organ and Northern Soul drums? What could be better? This sounds like nothing else out this year – certainly a good thing. It takes a lot to make this cold heart of mine dance and this quartet managed it! Just a shame I never caught them live.
5. Tindersticks – The Hungry Saw (Beggars Banquet). Stuart A Staples might just have the best voice in music right now. This album is a kinda of lullaby songbook for adults. Beautiful and deep, one of the best bands in the UK – they certainly deserve more success than they receive.
6. Dillinger Four – CIVILWAR (Fat Wreck). This has been a long time coming. Four years since their last album, I feared there’d never be another D4 album. Luckily I was wrong. Great songs, great packaging, great song titles (Ode To The North American Snake Oil Distributor and parishiltonmetaphor being just two
7. Milloy – Creating Problems While Practising Solutions (Household Name/Boss Tuneage). With Leatherface on hiatus (not for long hopefully) Milloy are the premier raging/chiming/gruff/melodic hardcore band in the UK, and very good they are too.
8. American Music Club – The Golden Age (Cooking Vinyl). Is Mark Eitzel my generation’s Leonard Cohen? He covers similar ground but is a much more accurate observer of modern life. A continuation of the good work on Love Songs For Patriots.
9. Calexico – Carried To Dust (Quarterstick). A truly underrated band return with their best album since The Black Light. Less mariachi band more solid songwriting.
10. Virgins – Miscarriage (Kiss Of Death). From the remains of New Mexican Disaster Squad this is Sam’s new band. And it’s great. Very anthemic, very catchy and lyrically it takes no prisoners. Guitarmageddon sends shivers down my spine.

Other good albums out this year have included Jukebox by Cat Power, both rarities albums by Eels, Til The Wheels Fall Off by Hot Water Music, The Evangelist by Robert Forster, Bristle Ridge by Chuck Ragan and Austin Lucas, East/West by Bridge & Tunnel and Saturnalia by the Gutter Twins.

Top Three Singles Of 2008

1. Futureheads – Radio Heart (Nul). Snotty, driven, catchy. Fantastic. Can almost forgive them for being from Sunderland. Beginning Of The Twist was superb too.
2. REM – Supernatural Superserious (Warner). This could have been on Out Of Time, that’s reason enough.
3. The Hold Steady – Stay Positive (Vagrant). The best thing from the album of the same name. Majestic.

My movie of the year was Burn After Reading. I don’t watch many films so couldn’t really put together a list. JK Simmons must be the best actor in America at the moment. Rewatching Oz just drills that home – how on earth does he make Vern Schillinger seem almost likeable?

Top Six Books I’ve Read In 2008

1. Jonathan Lethem – Motherless Brooklyn. My first introduction to this fantastic author. The phrase “sinister mystery weed” made me laugh out loud on the plane to Reykjavik. Lionel Essrog is such a good character.
2. Douglas Coupland – The Gum Thief. More of the same from Coupland, a cast you care about, a dual-layered plot, a few neat twists and another book worth reading from one of my very favourite authors.
3. Patrick Neate – Where You’re At. A global account of hip-hop focusing mainly on race, society and belonging. Recommended even to people who don’t like hip-hop.
4. John Peel – The Olivetti Chronicles. John Peel had a really great easy-going writing style and this collection of his writings from various magazines proves this. He is still a huge miss.
5. Jennie Erdal – Ghosting. A literary account of a ghost writer but much better than that sounds. It’s on Amazon Marketplace for £0.01 – just buy it.
6. Ian Hamilton – In Search Of JD Salinger. After rereading the entire Salinger oeuvre this seemed a good book to read. It was. Hamilton casts a wry eye on the notoriously reclusive writer. It really made me want to read to unpublished Salinger work.

And that, my friends, was 2008.