Waffle

Via Boing Boing, Bug Dreams has some very good artistic photography of insects. Photographer Rick Lieder makes those bugs look like heroic, rugged individualists.

The BBC have clearly taken my advice: They've lined up a panel of children to test the new Doctor Who episodes for the fear quota. Their ages range neatly from 4 to 12, pretty close to what I suggested. No word on whether the kids have a sofa to hide behind.

This "Adam" is clearly a kindred spirit:

(Auntie Beeb): What do you like most about Doctor Who?

Adam: I like the way the Doctor has to hit the TARDIS with a hammer. And it was funny how the MP kept saying her name.

And from the second installment of "The Fear Forecast", for the latest episode:

(18) Adam writes down the UNIT password - that will obviously come in handy at some stage.

The BBC uses Fear Factor Ratings going from 1 to 5.

(Via Jeroen)

It seems to be final: David Tennant is to be the tenth Doctor. I can't remember having seen him perform, but he's got a good enough face for it. It's weird discussing the successor while enjoying new episodes still, of the current Doctor. And I am enjoying it. As for the number of people behind the couch count Reinder suggested, I would guess at least 2, with a third ready to dive behind it. The special effects where quite decent, the aliens a bit too funny and not scary enough maybe. But that's nitpicking. Scariest part of the episode by far: the chance that that, er, Ricky-bloke might join Rose and the Doctor. That got me on the edge of my seat, and I'm sure the neighbours are wondering where that "Noooooooo!" came from.
On the preview of the next episode: I'm sure every Dr.Who fan can't wait to see the Daleks return, even if it be just a cameo as a museum piece (which I fear it will be).
Wondering about past Doctors and villains? Here's a silly game to help you remember, or stir your curiousity.

... bit of political commentary in the 5th episode of Doctor Who! The aliens who had infiltrated into the highest levels of government used that phrase and others based on the Blair governmnent's claim that mean ole Saddam could kill us all in 45 minutes. And when the Tardis-jockey asked if the public would fall for it, Rose, of all people, nineteen-year-old Rose answered that "they did last time".

There were some weak bits in the second half of this two-part storyline, though. The Doctor's various escapes from immediate destruction relied a bit too heavily on his enemies' willingness to listen to him talk and on them being slow and a bit thick. The Slitheen weren't thick, despite their baby faces in their undisguised form and the farting and stomach noises when they wore their human disguises.

Oh yes, the farting. I've read some criticism of the series "stooping to fart jokes". Bunkum and balderdash, I say. There were no fart jokes; the presence of farting does not imply humorous intent. Only an eight-year-old would assume that connection. Of course, plenty of eight-year-olds watch the show. The Slitheens fart because of the way their disguises affect their internal chemistry, and the internal chemistry played a legitimate role in the plot when Rose's mother Jackie and Rose's boyfiend, er, Ricky finally managed to kill one of them with a household substance. In, I might add, a satisfyingly revolting way.

But really. Comedy in the series comes from the interaction of the most important characters, and especially from the brilliant Christopher Eccleston who has a manic grin for every occasion.

After the early sequences where it wobbled a bit because of the dependence on idiocy on the part of the enemy, the plot chugged along nicely. Once the Doc, his old-in-cynicism companion and the hapless Member of Parliament they'd picked up were safely locked up in the Cabinet Room, things became pretty exciting indeed. There was some thoroughly unrealistic stuff about the Doctor guiding, er, Ricky into the MOD's missile control systems (there was even a slick red button in the MOD interface that the guy could press to launch a missile), and some more unrealistic stuff about the UN making the most important decision in its history within 24 hours, but those things just have to be assumed if you don't want an episode to last all day and be taken up with computer arcana.

In all, decent. And there was even a hint at the end that the writers were aware that there should really be consequences to all this alien stuff happening in London but had come up with an excuse for why there wouldn't. That's really more than I'd expect from a TV series although it would be nice if some day someone wrote a story where those things did have consequences.

Next week: Daleks. I won't see it when it's broadcast because I'll be on my way to Tilburg for Clickburg, but I'm sure someone will be kind enough to tape it for me.

Now, I think Jeroen had a pithy comment to make about the episode.

Today is 24-Hour Comic Day. Needless to say, I'm not taking part although I'm one of the people who could really benefit from it. Here are some artists who are taking part (co-bloggers, feel free to insert other links you find, but only to the actual 24-hour comics, after they've started showing content)

Margreet de Heer has started early, using Tokyo time.
Flo has content up now.
Poepoe has a directory where the comics should go. At least it's some sort of permalink.
That's more than I can say for Tommy A. Apparently the comic now on his front page is part of his 24-hour comic, but how I should be able to tell is beyond me.
David de Rooij now has stuff online.
Albo Helm's effort has also started.
Stephan Brusche yadda yadda yadda.
Kirk is posting his updates in his forum.

Update: The day is now over, and I'm mighty impressed with the quality of the work from some of the Dutch cartoonists above. Especially Flo and Jean-Marc, although both of them went a bit wobbly towards the end.
Meanwhile, in the rest of the world, Ghastly has done something, er, ghastly.
Faith Erin Hicks has a wordless thing that provides the missing link between Hole Boy and Pin Drop. It's also very well-drawn from beginning to end.

You'd think that what with the recent ending of a major storyline, the workload resulting from my preparations for Clickburg, (both on my own behalf and that of the Comics Museum in Groningen who want an update to the exhibit), my illness, energy spent planning for the future and the bottom falling out of my motivation to update on time rigorously right now, I'd be happy to let both Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan and Courtly Manners slide for a week or two. But you'd be wrong. Seeing a hundred new readers a day come in via Fokke & Sukke has made me itch to put something new on the site regularly, even if it's just a little filler. Just so that they know that it isn't dead or dying, that it is in fact supposed to update regularly (and will, again, after Clickburg).
So I've decided to do a little improvised ROCR-derived comic in pencils. Freed from the restrictions of ink, quality paper, canon and high expectations, I'll try to keep drawing times to about an hour a page, and just make it up as I go along for a week or so. The first one's already done, and it looks like it's gonna be fun. See you on Monday with new comics!

PS. They won't actually be sketchy. Tightly penciled is a better term. Except they're not actually - oh, just read them starting Monday, OK?

Interesting tidbit from Deep Purple singer Ian Gillan's latest open letter to his fans:

Fact: Deep Purple sold around 150,000 tickets in the UK alone, at the beginning and end of the 'Bananas' tour that covered about 38 countries in 18 months and played to millions around the world. EMI, in the UK, pressed - and sold easily - 18,000 copies. They refused point blank to produce any more.

I couldn't in all fairness even paraphrase the reasons they gave to our management and - even more insultingly - to our friends in Cologne, because those reasons are beyond my comprehension. But I do wonder if they have ever had to explain this sort of thing to the shareholders, who might be baffled at the decision to pass, on - at a conservative guess - the potential of half a million pounds worth of gross sales in one territory, and that from a band that has generated in excess of one billion pounds of income from the public into the coffers of the industry as a whole over the last thirty five years (not that we've seen much of it you understand).

One other thing - I think most of us on the creative side were appalled at the rejection by our industry of the Internet potential when it emerged quite a few years ago. That's what happens when you fire your bright people and rely upon your suits. Had IT been embraced instead of being seen as a threat then... ah, what then?

[snip]

Enough, we move on. DP is no longer with EMI and - if the silly grin on Bruce Payne's face is anything to go by - the future looks very bright indeed, in the category - new record company; but that's for him to announce. (BP is our beloved manager).

(Bold emphasis in the original, italics mine)
As long as record companies continue to hurt their artists through incompetence and obstructionism, and steal whatever proceeds are made in spite of their incompetence and obstructionism, their arguments against file sharing and other forms of unauthorised use will ring hollow.(Note:as a copyright owner, I don't want them to ring hollow. On the merits, the record companies have a point although it's not a sure-fire one).
EMI UK, in their infinite wisdom, killed off a perfectly commercial album. Were the decision makers the same who starved Under Wraps and Ian Anderson's 1983 solo album Walk Into Light of promotion? They might well have been - EMI bought the record company these albums were released on in the early 1990s.

If you look at the way many older recording artists handle their releases, you'll find that many of them do the same thing specifically to insure themselves against record company stupidity. They will only sign short-term contracts, reserve the right to put out fans-only live records themselves and increase their output through the fans-only channels dramatically after leaving major labels. And they will rescue their songwriting catalogue from their old labels by putting out live CDs and DVDs featuring their core material, at the risk of appearing to trade on their old glories (an accusation that can safely be leveled at Jethro Tull these days, but not at, e.g. Richard Thompson who is always working on many new projects but still took out time to record an acoustic record of his best-known material).
Deep Purple do all these things; let's hope they figure out a way to make the Internet work for them as well. For all the good that EMI have done, the band might as well have released Bananas under a Creative Commons license and given it away for free to promote their concerts.

On the radio a few minutes ago, cartoonist Jean-Marc van Tol and journalist/Clickie juror Jeroen Mirck, discussing webcomics in general and Clickburg in particular on Radio 1's Radio online. The interview was a fairly standard introduction to webcomics for a general audience, but one thing was notable: when the money question was asked, Jeroen Mirck told the R.K. Milholland story as if it were morphed into the Carson Fire story. There's an irony there, for someone.

Update: Clickburg has the interview on mp3. It's in Dutch, by the way.

...I'm going to make some long-delayed changes to the Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan website, harmonising it with my other site. I may break things in the process, but better to do that now, while the site isn't updating anyway, than when it's active and getting lots of visitors.
Update: While I was doing the work, I was getting lots of visitors anyway. Welcome, those of you coming in from Fokke & Sukke. Sorry about the mess earlier today, although to be honest it's always a bit messy wherever I spend a lot of time.
Most of the work is now done. That's no guarantee that there aren't some things badly broken. I still haven't decided what to do about the Openadnetwork ads in the archives. I think it's time for them to go, but they do serve as placeholders for paying ads at a later stage.

The Jethro Tull remaster program has now hit the 1980s! The latest batch consists of 1982's The Broadsword and the Beast, 1984's Under Wraps and 1987's Crest of a Knave.

In the new notes, Ian Anderson says this about Under Wraps:

To most Tull fans, the idea of us sounding like a cross between The Police and Thomas Dolby was a little bit of a stretch in credibity. The fact was, we did it rather well.

Damn right they did. Of course, Tull fans bought it but hated it, and the people who would have been interested in the music on offer didn't buy it because it was a Jethro Tull album. Anderson was also embroiled with the record company, Chrysalis, at the time, so promotion left a lot to be desired (more on that in a separate post). But the album was really rather good, as a piece of 1980s electro-rock. The songs, dealing lyrically with human relationships as seen through the prism of spy story concepts*) have a dark, mysterious feel to them which is well-complemented by the cool, clinical sounds of the synthesizers and the uncharacteristically cerebral, fusion-esque guitar work by Martin Barre. Anderson did some innovative work with the drum machines as well, freeing the playing from the limitations of a human drummer with only two arms, two feet and limited ability to separate the movements of his limbs. And the tunes are memorable. One to try out if you like the music of the 1980s, even if Tull's other music leaves you cold.

(more...)