Black Hearted Press: classic supernatural re-imagined and sociopathic Significant Others

A small confession

When, last month, I wrote thanking “John and David of Black Hearted Press for the small gesture of faith they showed in an unknown blogger” I was talking about the free review copies they’d given me of comics published by their Glasgow-based independent comics publisher, Black Hearted Press. There I was just sitting quietly in the Scotia when Jim Stewart- of The Astounding Ganjaman fame, pointed this guy in my direction, telling John (for John Farman it was) that I was someone he should talk to. The next thing I knew I had 3 free comics and an article to write. My introduction to David Braysher soon followed, and a fourth comic had been added to the pile of what was my first officially commissioned review.

Sisters, doing it for themselves #2: the comics, and more!

Great piss-up, but, well, y’know?

Cover art:
Gill Hatcher

So, the crew at Team Girl Comic managed to stage a launch event for their 5th issue which exceeded all expectations, their own above all. But you can’t judge a comics collective by its ability to organise a night out in the pub, especially here in Glasgow, where successive generations of teenagers have known that a simple bottle of Buckie is the secret to a good night on the bevvy. No, ultimately TGC must stand or fall by the quality of their comics. With 5 issues containing 94 strips and cartoons by 21 contributors across a total of 160 pages there’s more than enough of TGC available definitively to make that judgement.

Sisters, doing it for themselves #1: "Drink! Girls!"

“I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date”

Too much fun?
Nah, but phew!

Writing, several weeks ago, about the crazy busy time I’d been having, I mentioned another adventure in the Glasgow indie comics scene. It’s a measure of just how crazy busy I’ve been (and that’s both crazy busy and just a bit plain crazy too) that it’s taken me this long to get round to writing up an exciting event which took place way back on July 26th. It’s also a bit embarrassing, but I can live with that; I’ve already had to live down worse thanks to RD/KA! after all!

Style & attitude!

Once again demonstrating the way in which the tendrils of social networking are working their way into our lives (a demonstration which will later prove to be strangely apt…), today’s story started with yet another random item popping up in my newsfeed via a fB friend. This is already ubiquitous enough to have become almost boring- or would so become if the results haven’t so far proved so exciting. It’s certainly difficult, as a writer, to vary your hooks for stories when so many seem to be starting with the fB newsfeed! Anyway, the event in question was COMICS NIGHT! with Team Girl Comic, in Glasgow’s well known centre of alternative grassroots culture (and oldest pub), the Scotia Bar. Comics? Girls? Drink? I needed no second bidding.

My geeking summer #1: "Oop north"

Land of the White Rose

England, York, &
the White Rose

I mentioned last time that I was holidaying with family in York after a trip to Bradford. I’m back home now and reality has finally reasserted itself, so it’s back to the old bloggery. Where better then to begin than with a geek’s eye tour of my wee visit to the legendary county of Yorkshire (no prizes to readers who offer suggestions, constructive or otherwise!- NB, that’s no prizes, not ‘No Prizes’, OK?)?

Blast-off in Bradford

The geeks

The expanding Hive

The convention I attended in Bradford wasn’t a geek-con as such, but it was hoaching with geeks of all kinds. I’d been hoping to get some gaming in (I even took along a few cardgames for that very purpose) but the gaming area wasn’t very well organised, so that turned out to be a bogey. Still, I had fun handing out my card, which turned out to be a great way of smoking out the other games geeks (not that they needed much encouragement). Among the highlights of those encounters were:

Facebook strikes again, again #1: “kick ass!” meets KICK-ASS

Time for Plan B

“A wretched hive of
scum and villainy.”

Remember the Scottish Cartoonists’ Society from the time back in April 2010 when I met them at a Glasgow Comic Mart? I’ve been on the SCS fB group ever since and have been receiving regular invitations to their monthly nights out all that time. I finally went to one not long ago, but that’s another story. Sufficeth to say that it was great to meet up with faces old and new, and that I enjoyed a cracker of a night out.

Parnie Street: two games shops, two comics shops, and more.

A 'No-Prize' for
the wittiest caption.

One thing I learned that night was that John McShane- the founder of the SCS, runs a comic shop in Glasgow that I didn’t even know existed, which goes by the name of Plan B Books. I had occasion to get in contact with John last week, by which time it turned out that I had actually visited Plan B Books at their new address in Parnie Street- Glasgow’s Geek Central (AKA. ‘Glasgow’s Left Bank’), a street just chock-full of shops catering to diverse geeky interests, chief among which are games and comics. All too brief, that visit was on the occasion of Bill and me taking a trip down to Static Games during his recent trip to Scotland. My main memory of perusing the shelves at Plan B that afternoon is that they are dominated by the sort of independent comics that you just won’t find in significant numbers in Forbidden Planet (not the Glasgow one at least). A place worthy of serious consideration for this comics geek then.

"Kick Ass!" 5th birthday blogparty#1. Prizes! Prizes! Prizes!

"Lights... Cameras... Action!"
Alighting on this page as you have dear reader, be welcome to the 5th anniversary of "Roll dice and kick ass!". Yes, it's been 5 years to the day since I launched myself into the geek blogosphere with a report on Interaction, the 63rd Worldcon. I took to blogging a hobbyist wanting to write. What I didn't bargain on were the technicalities of creating an illustrated webzine: hunting down links and references, image work, layout; all suprisingly labourious and time-consuming. Enough already with my blood, sweat, toil and tears. Feast your eyes, dear readers, on the booty below...

Matt Forbeck
Hot off the presses, Ghosts of Ascalon — "the first original Guild Wars novel" — is Matt's and Jeff Grubb's spin on the popular fantasy MMO Tyria. I am told that Guild Wars- soon to see its first reboot, disposes of that WoW-grind by the simple expedients of a level cap and rapid character progression; which reads to me like a recipie for playing more characters having more adventures which play out more quickly. That sounds thrilling and action packed. Expect no less from messieurs Forbeck and Grubb.

Prize #1
Signed author's copy courtesy of Matt.

-#!#-

A singular honour

A belated Easter surprise
The names Paul D. Selman and iL-Logic should already be known to site-visiting readers who have the habit of checking out the various lists of links in the sidebar here at RD/KA!. Paul is a freelance artist with whom I've become friendly after we hooked up online because the guys at EMOTIONALLY FOURTEEN are his buddies, and iL-Logic is a new webcomic written by Adam Di Stefano- who blogs at 52 Short Stories, and with art by Paul.

I've enjoyed following Paul's blog since we hooked up last year. His artwork is always interesting; sometimes hits me right between the eyes; and has lately forced me to rethink my longstanding and largely blind prejudice against abstract art, something which had sometimes made me feel uncomfortable because of the philistine company I would often find myself keeping. I also enjoy reading iL-Logic, checking it out regularly in a way I stopped doing some time ago with all my other favourite webcomics simply because I found myself too busy to keep up with them.

Glasgow Comic mart: fB strikes again

Another old haunt
It all started- as happens so often these days, with a 'friend of a friend' notification on fB, from which I learned that Glasgow Comic mart was to stage its next comic and toy fair in Glasgow University's Queen Margaret Union on Saturday April 3rd. Although I've never attended Glasgow University the QMU is another students' union of which I have fond memories, although I'll leave those for another time. I was vaguely aware of the Glasgow Comic mart from adverts for previous fairs in its old venue- Hillhead Library, yet- just like Conpulsion, the event had somehow always passed me by.

The best laid plans
So, brimful of 'get up and go' after my exciting weekend at Conpulsion and a hot night on the town the Friday before; equipped with a fistful of my instruments of BSA and with my trusty digicam; and with some ready cash in my pocket, I set off last Saturday to investigate. Entering the venue I was immediately struck by the bustle: the place was stowed out. The press of the crowd was such that you had to squeeze through gaps to make any headway into the hall and you became an obstacle to general progress when you stopped to peruse the stallholders' wares.

My initial plan had been to check out all the stalls to see what was available before making any purchases, but that survived less than a minute's contact with 'the enemy'. Slipping through the crowd I immediately saw bargains too irresistible to ignore- TPBs at £1 each. I snapped up those which had caught my eye:

• Sinister Dexter: Murder 101.
• Legend of the Hawkman, ##1-3.

And I was off!

Once more the culture vulture

Springtime for Glaswegians
If it's March in Glasgow it must be Aye Write!- Glasgow's Book Festival, now in its fifth year. Aye Write! had made little impression on me in previous years, despite my seeing the ads and the programmes in my local library each time. This was frustrating, so- determined to do better in 2010, I grabbed a programme as soon as I saw one and started looking for events. The first one which did more than just catch my eye was:

NEW SCOTTISH SCIENCE FICTION
The Early Days of a Better Future?

Presiding: Andrew J. Wilson of Writers' Bloc, Edinburgh

As if the due appearance of SF luminaries Ken MacLeod and Richard Morgan wasn't enough, this event was an instant choice for yours truly because the panel included Hal Duncan and Mike Cobley. Mike and Hal are old pals of mine from the Glasgow SF Writers' Circle, which featured in the first series of posts here @RD/KA!. It was this circle which drew me to Glasgow back in 1989, when I nourished active dreams of being an SF writer myself.

London days #2: The big city hits me

Confessions of a small town boy
I've often summed up Glasgow as "big enough to be cosmopolitan, but small enough so that you can encompass the city as an individual instead of getting lost in it, as in, eg. London." This long-held viewpoint took a knock after the last time I expressed it- to someone I met during my recent trip to Prague.


Back in Glasgow shortly thereafter I was listening to BBC Radio 4 in the kitchen, as I do. It'll've been Front Row I was listening to, because that's the mid-evening arts show that often accompanies my cooking. I was struck by one of those sudden realisations of something you've always known but never quite fully understood: in this case, that pretty much all of the arts and culture discussed in Front Row is London-based; and that certainly little or none of it hails from Glasgow.

Now where did that come from?

Irritating memory lapses having become for yours truly just the most obvious symptom of how faculties taken for granted in the fullness of youth are now withering under the impact of advancing years, it was a pleasant surprise last month to receive an unexpected package from Dalen, a Welsh publisher of "Celtic Graphic Novels… in English and in Welsh." Inside I found a copy of the shiny TPB Druids: The Ogham Sacrifice. Apparently I'd entered a competition on the site of my epals @EMOTIONALLY FOURTEEN; I'd won; and here was my prize. Sometimes what you forget does you good then!

Francophone finery
Druids: The Ogham Sacrifice
Writers: Jean-Luc Istin & Thierry Jigourel.
Artist: Jacques Lamontagne.
English adaptation: Lannig Treseizh.

The first thing I noticed about this TPB- after its Welsh origins and its striking cover, was that it was originally a French production. This intrigued me. Comics afficionadoes among my readers will no doubt already know that France is a country in which comics don't labour under the false impression that they're all kids' stuff, so that comics culture is mainstream in a way unfamiliar here in Britain.

Bargain-hunting strikes not once, but twice!

Girls grabs meWhen you find a TPB on the shelf with the striking and seductive cover seen left. When comics luminary Brian Michael Bendis blurbs it thus:

"The Luna Brothers are the future of comics and it's happening right now. This book is essential for your collection. My highest recommendation."

And when it's going for half price at the Borders 'Everything Must Go!' closing down sale, what's a man to do? Buy it, naturally enough.

And? In a phrase: I like it!

Ever since the glory days of the anglophone comics renaissance of the early/mid 80's, I've been interested in comics which bring the medium's quintessential narrative strengths to genres other than the costumed superhero. Stories of everyday life are ones which I've yet to see satisfyingly rendered in comic form in a way transcending prose, although that might just be because I've not looked hard enough. Art Spiegelman's Maus is a landmark example showing that comics can deal with the real world as opposed to the heroic world, even if its 'everyday' isn't quite the big lives of small things I had in mind.

Resistance is futile!

My last words after reporting a few weeks ago on the games of Ivanhoe I'd played with Badger and my neighbour Liam were, "He'll be back!" This prediction was proved correct when Liam joined Donald, Gav, Tony and myself for our recent Sunday session. Liam being new to that table first choice went to him, which left us playing Risk, a game Liam knows.

In my innocence I thought we'd get the game finished in 2-3 hours but we were still playing 4 hours later, when the game had to be put away unfinished so that we could eat in time to settle down for the latest Doctor Who special, The Waters of Mars. Still, the game was great fun and Liam is keen for more. I guess I'd call that a result.

Stuff and... nonsense?

He is The Law!
Passing through Borders bookshop the other day in search of a classic 20th century novel and that search proving futile, I made a beeline for the graphic novels there to surrender gleefully to the impulse I'd carried over from my last visit to those same shelves, picking up what I know will only be the first of many more: Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files 01 (59 progs' worth of strips in 320 pages for £13.99?-: a real bargain!).

Moments when a cultural encounter profoundly define a person are relatively few and far between I reckon and become rarer as the years go by, for simple reasons I would suggest:

• There is naturally some kind of limit to people's self-definition through cultural consumption; a limit determined both by the dynamics of human growth and maturation on the one hand, and by the available cultural wealth on the other.
• I would aver that there is too a limit to people's capacity for reinvention; a limit imposed ultimately by age.

Perhaps rarer still even in our increasingly rich and diverse culture are those moments when you can get in right at the very beginning of something that proves to be a genuine phenomenon.

New Timeframes?

Sunday gaming was cancelled a couple of weeks ago due to an impromptu daytrip to Dundee, my old home town. The visit was occasioned by my discovery, from his twitterfeed, that Warren Ellis was due to appear as a headline speaker in Timeframes, the comics programme of the Literary Dundee festival (as fB friends and tweetfellows might remember). Warren Ellis' Wildstorm superhero series The Authority was instrumental in reviving my interest in contemporary comics after a layoff during the 90's, and I set off thereafter on the familiar completist's quest: to get my hands on as much of his work as possible.

Alan Grant's name in the programme was just the icing on the cake. Grant wrote many of the seminal comic stories of my youth, Judge Dredd being the best known. On top of that, I'd bumped into Alan Grant once in a comics store in the old Dens Road Market in Dundee back in the early 90's. He proved to be genial, interesting and generous.

The journey to Dundee was uneventful, although finding the venue for the event wasn't quite so straightforward. I grew up in Dundee as I said, and my dad was a university lecturer, so the area in which the event's venue was located was quite familiar; or, at least, it used to be. As I doubled back in search of what, inevitably enough, turned out to be the first likely looking building I'd seen, I was amazed at how much the area had changed in the past decade: new buildings were everywhere; none of which had anything in particular to recommend them.

I arrived late. At this remove from the event it is impossible for me to give more than capsule impressions of the talks I sat through.

The throng of fans descends upon the stars!

The programme
The first programme item I attended - under the 'British Science Fiction Comics' heading - was Bill McLoughlin and Keith Robson's talk about DC Thomson's Starblazer, a comic of which I was only vaguely aware during its 1980's heyday, and which I never read. The pair weren't the best speakers but their subject was interesting and they came to life when, their individual contributions done, they began to bat the topic back and forth. An interesting snippet was how many of the writers and artists who went on to enjoy fame on both sides of the Atlantic in the 80's and 90's began their careers on Starblazer. There was an open hint of resentment on the part of McLoughlin and Robson at how little this has been acknowledged.

There followed Peter Hughes Jachimiak's lecture:

' Days of Future Passed' [sic]: 1970s Britain, Economic Downturn and Utopian Futures in Children's Science Fiction Comics.

The academic styling of this title was matched by the tone and poor delivery of the speaker. It was a real shame that Jachimiak apparently can't tell the difference between being scholarly and being academic because his subject was fascinating, and one that I hold close to my own heart (cf. eg. 'A Parcel of Rogues' - tangential I'll admit, but germane I'll avow). All I can here add is that Jachimiak at least succeeded in awakening in me an interest in the literature of comics' studies.

Jachimiak's lecture left me with no appetite for another taste of comics being drained dry of their abiding thrills by the inappropriate register of the academic text. This was a bit of a shame really, because the subsequent item sounded promising:

David Bishop, 'Time Twisted': A look at Alan Moore's treatment of time frames in 2000AD.

In any event, I don't know how Bishop's session went, because I spent it in a nearby pub.

Alan Grant signs my Batman/Judge Dredd: Vendetta in Gotham graphic novel

Keynote #1: Alan Grant
I returned in time to hang around awaiting the first keynote presentation of the day, by Alan Grant. Billed as 'My Adventures in Comics', Grant began by announcing that the intellectual standard of the preceding lectures had led him to rethink. And so we were treated to a cogent and highly stimulating cri de coeur appealing for story, a case made by the grandfather of 4 young children (11 years and under) who also just happens to be equipped with the insights of a lifetime's writing in comics and multimedia.

It is obviously impossible to give more than the briefest of hints of the themes of Grant's half hour talk, especially at a week and a half's remove. The best I can hope to do is to pick out a few of his key themes:

• Grant's central bete noire was the role of corporate marketing and branding in reducing stories to bland, conflict-free narratives where they're not removed altogether (ie. in puzzle/activity books).
• Thus we find that young readers aren't being exposed to essential features of the role of story in character building; that is to say, narratives dramatising:

1. Morality.
2. Hope.
3. Rebellion, and the irresistable lure of the ever-necessary challenge to authority.

• The consequence of all this Grant argued is that we are seeing a young generation grow up who lack the frames of reference that'd enable them to avoid being swept along with what Grant called the 'Platonic stories' of the powers that be; eg. the drive to war in Iraq in 2003, to note just one example cited by Grant.

There was a lot more to the talk than this, naturally enough, but that's the gist of the key themes. I have to say I didn't agree completely with all of Grant's points; but he was never less than interesting. I'd really like to hear more of what he has to say on this subject.

Warren Ellis with my copy of Planetary, Vol. 1: All Over the World and Other Stories

Keynote #2: Warren Ellis
Warren Ellis' style stood in sharp contrast to Alan Grant's, beginning as a rat-a-tat-tat of aperçus and anecdotes drawn from what is obviously a wealth of material, and woven together with biting wit into a whole which became increasingly greater than the sum of its parts as the talk gathered momentum. The naturally meandering style of the born raconteur meant that there was less of a definite theme to grab hold of in Ellis' talk than there had been in Grant's. So I really can't comment all that much on what Ellis said, other than to note that it was never dull, often provocative, and well worth the price of entry. I'd be keen to hear him talk again.

Elsewhere
No comics event featuring star writers and artists would be complete without signings, which duly took place. I also made an effort to talk to other people there. I particularly enjoyed meeting some young GW fans, with whom I shared a pleasant chat about all things Warhammer- 40K especially, naturally enough.

Who's watching who? The official photographer and I share a wee jape

Final thoughts
Timeframes was the 2nd comics programme to feature at Literary Dundee. My caveats notwithstanding I enjoyed a stimulating day out; my complaint wasn't so much the scholarly approach to understanding the place of comics in culture as it was the overly academic way in which this scholarship was put across. In any event, I was pleased to be in such an intellectually challenging environment, and hope to be able to return next year. A palpable hit then, I guess. ;)

Promises, promises!

The perfect Space Marine army?

Facebook-friends and twitter-fellows will already know about the Liquid Gloat prompted by yesterday's geek grab:

"the 'old' one (and better than ever too!)."

No-prizes (with apologies to Stan 'the man' Lee and the old Marvel Bullpen) to readers who thought... 40K?

Yes I'm hankering after more than just some roleplaying, so yesterday I hit town; there to visit my local GW; where I availed myself of the filthy lucre and finally grabbed myself a copy of the new(ish) 5th edition Codex: Space Marines. I've only skimmed the book so far but I can report that, alongside the astonishing and ever-growing range of plastic Space Marine kits, this codex - fat as an old 2nd edition volume, means that there truly never has been a better time to be a Space Marine fan (and at GW's prices, it's just as well, don't you think?).

A parcel of rogues...

Rogue Trooper
Donald, Gav, Tony and I made 4 for boardgames on Sunday. Casting around for the main event as you do I spied, tucked away almost out of reach on a high shelf, my as yet unplayed second hand copy of GW's Rogue Trooper boardgame from 1987.

I confess I was never a big fan of the Rogue Trooper story, which made its debut in the galaxy's greatest comic - 2000 AD, in 1981. To paraphrase a friend at the time, there are only so many ways to ring the changes with "Eat chemcloud Norter scum!" The story was very popular though, so it was hardly surprising that a Rogue Trooper game was added to the series of licenced 2000 AD products which came out of the young design studio's halycon days.

The Dark Knight... returns?

So, I did go and see this again as I'd said I would. I enjoyed it about as much the second time around as I did the first. That's pretty good going really. I mean seriously: 1983's The Return of the Jedi is the last time I can remember enjoying a movie more than once on its original release. My tone therefore, however restrained, just really cannot be a matter of damning by faint praise.



I agree with Andy about the "non-comic-bookiness of it." It'd been precisely the focus on street-level crimefighting that I'd thought had made Batman Begins the successful film that it was. I can hardly complain about the same aspect of Pt. 2 of the revival of the franchise. And of course The Dark Knight is not as such a movie adaption of The Dark Knight Returns, although I'd argue there's more of the comic in the movie than Andy asserts.

Again, that's the point for me really.

The comic is a masterpiece transcending the limitations of its genre (the presence of Superman is essential to that by the way), casting its shadow to this very day over a truly iconic postmodern character. The movie is just a superior Hollywood blockbuster. Of course, the movie's huge audience suggests that many might disagree with me.

My general antipathy towards Hollywood blockbusters aside, I have to remind readers that reading the original The Dark Knight Returns on its first release stands out as one of my peak comic-reading experiences. Y'know, one of those personal landmarks the memory of which is cherished and brought out for a polish every now and again. What chance did the movie have against that? Let's be honest: none at all really.

It's like the Lord of the Rings movies which, by adding to an already rich trove of delights, delivered the best they could've done for me. I mean to say: by the time I watched Jackson's The Fellowship of the Ring, I'd had the bedtime stories and the calendar; read the books, the geek encyclopedias and the atlas; listened to the Radio 4 adaption; and played with the miniatures, the boardgame and the rpg. Oh, and I'd seen Bakshi's film, naturally enough, which I left out of the preceding list because it broke my heart, being the only bit of my sub-Tolkien Middle Earth experience that was actually shite.

So...? Well, ICv2 reported ticket sales of the order of $B1, or 100 million tickets at a mean $10/ticket. (I'm assuming that the price and multiple-purchase variations mutually cancel.) 100 million?! Holy moley Batman!

I'm going to have to come back to this. ;)

The Dark Knight: not so much superheroics as crimefighting with added latex

Andy asked me to expand on my comments about The Dark Knight, so here's what I'd written up when I decided I was going to see the movie a 2nd time before rounding off my review.

I'm a big fan of Frank Miller's original 1986 masterpiece Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, the comic that recast the iconograhpic caped crusader for the harsher times which became the comics Iron Age. Back then, Miller was a major new artist at the height of his powers being given opportunities to push the boundaries of mainstream US comics just that little bit further. The Dark Knight Returns is the finest product of this period, and is surely the work for which Miller will be most remembered. It is certainly one of the most gripping comics I've ever read, a truly memorable experience unique to serial publishing which goes beyond the simple reading to the obsessive return to existing issues as the anticipation of each next one becomes ever more unbearable.

Against this original 3-month geekgasm The Dark Knight- part 2 of just another movie franchise- could only ever've been an also-ran. Unfortunately The Dark Knight is equally an also-ran as a Batman movie- Batman Begins already gave us Miller's quintessential modern Batman; as a true comicbook movie- that honour still belongs to Spiderman; and even as silverscreen '4-colour' adventures thematically embracing the darker sides of heroism, by Doctor Who, naturally enough.

Those were heavy odds against the movie last night, odds which could only've been bucked by a truly brilliant story, the Batman done as The Wire meets Doctor Who without all the cosmic stuff, say. In the event, 2 key edits in the adaption- leaving out Superman and not killing the Joker- rendered everything else academic by stripping Miller's original story of the genre-transcending features which make it an exemplar of the first rank of all that was great in anglophone comics of the early/mid-80's. 'Genre-transcendence' is simply that quality, shown by great genre writers such as Block, Chandler, or le Carré, to turn the cliches of genre hackwork into something enduringly illuminating, a feature I believe Miller's The Dark Knight Returns enjoys in spades.

I'd suggest it is those 2 missing elements which gut Miller's original story by turning it into cops and robbers instead of superheros. More on this later I'm sure. ;)

The Dark Knight entertains but underwhelms...

Feeling a bit better today. Sleep and self-care indicators have evened out a bit. Some weak late summer sunshine is no doubt helping, but a trip to the cinema with Donald last night was most important. We went to see The Dark Knight, the undoubted box-office-busting smash-hit of this year's summer blockbuster season. As far as I know, the geeks loved it and the 'mainstream' critics were more mixed. I can't be 100% sure because I'm no more interested in reviews of the pale gruel of Hollywood action franchises than I'd be in culinary appreciations of McDonalds' burgers- my expectations of both are similarly low, and they rarely surprise me.

Readers'll've guessed by now that The Dark Knight didn't blow me away as it has so many others. I tried the obvious doublethink, that I'm feeling bitter and twisted because I'm depressed, but that didn't work. I know from experience that really good stuff, stuff like Doctor Who or The Wire, this can always work its magic on me. It's just that, well, The Dark Knight wasn't magic. It was alright really, even if not worth the hype for this cinema-goer. Readers who know me might realise that this is more than just damning by faint praise. Far from the more familiar resentment at Hollywood's time-wasting vapidity I actually enjoyed myself, even if I was ultimately underwhelmed.

No one should be surprised by that I guess. But going back again next week anyway? I'm a bit taken aback, but that's what setting out to blog this movie did to me! More on this another time I suspect. ;)