Review

I recently read a couple of Hellblazer trades by Andy Diggle, Joyride and The Laughing Magician. I really enjoyed both of them very much, I think the Diggle man is rather awesome and shall have to root out more of his stuff as haven't yet read a duff thing. Published by Vertigo (so not really suitable for the podcast!)

Anyhoo, The Laughing Magician (art by Leonardo Manco and Danijel Zezelj) focuses on a Mage of war who is growing stronger by devouring other magicians and therefore stealing their powers. His goal is to find and consume The Laughing Magician and targets Constantine believing him to be this incredibly powerful and age old Mage. Is Constantine The Laughing Magician though?

This is a very violent and graphic story and pretty gory too. John is such an anti hero and is sometimes incredibly unlikeable but I think this makes him more rounded as a character, ultimately you root for him even when he is being self involved dick, and Diggle has a great handle on the character.

The art is gorgeous from both artists, and the odd Glenn Fabry cover does no harm either. I sometimes dislike it when the artist changes part way through a story, but I didn't find it too jarring here, maybe because the first issue with Zezelj on art is set partly in another version on London so when the art changes it is almost in keeping with a return to London proper.

Overall this is a great, action packed read and the set up for the next volume is cleverly done and I would highly reccommend you get your sweaty mitts on any of Diggles run, I know I shall be!

More Guesting

I am a guest on The Eclectic Podcast this week which is full on warfare over which movie should be declared The Best Comic Book Movie of All Time! If you listened to my Racks ep you may already know my answer to this question! :-) It is a bit of a monster - at nearly 2 hours but it was tons of fun and the guys were very funny and very lovely as well as being scarily knowledgable!

http://www.geekplanetonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=616:the-eclectic-podcast-1x09&catid=81:the-eclectic-podcast&Itemid=14




Stace
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Comic Racks

My Guest appearance on the fabulous Comic Racks podcast is up

http://www.thecomicforums.com/forum2//index.php?showtopic=158907

Iz was fabulous and it was a really fun experience.

Small Press For Brum?

http://downthetubescomics.blogspot.com/2009/08/nostalgia-and-comics-opens-doors-to.html


Good news for the luvverly Lee!

The Geek Syndicate meet Jonathan Ross!

In the spirit of Aliens v Predator, Godzilla v King Kong and Abbot & Costello meet Frankenstein the Geek Syndicate boys have scooped an interview with comics geek and King Of Chat himself.

Do the clicky thing right here, right now: http://geeksyndicate.wordpress.com/2009/08/20/geek-syndicate-meets-jonathan-ross/


During the interview Jonathan tells the lads where his love for all things geek ,especially comics, started. He also reveals why he would never own a comics shop again.

Jonathan explains why is unable to attend comic conventions as much as he would like.

There’s some talk about the adaptation of Mark Millar’s comic Kick Ass that Jonathan’s wife, Jane, is working on as well his view on comic to film adaptations.

Jonathan has his feet firmly placed in the Marvel comics camp. He explains why and shares some of his favourite creations. He also tells a very interesting story about his encounter with Steve Dikto.

The guys discuss with Jonathan why he decided to write his own comic and gives us a few details on the project.

Episode 6 is up!

Clicky here, you: http://geeksyndicate.wordpress.com/2009/08/20/small-press-big-mouth-episode-6/

This time around we chat about the comics of Matthew Craig, Love and Rockets, Princess at Midnight, Nightbus, The Rainbow Orchid and Stace enthuses about the fabulosity of Britten and Brulightly.
We have some sound control issues this ep, sorry about that, think I have that sorted now for next time! The usual just over half an hour of chat brought to you in Geordibrumophonics TM!

La Racks

I just finished recording my guest host appearance on [url=http://comicracks.libsyn.com/]Comic Racks[/url] I feel bad for Iz doing the editing because I kept forgetting I wasn't just chatting to her. So erm professional podcaster still some distance away for me. Iz however is the Shiz - fact.

I shall link when the thing goes up. In the mean time a new ep of Small Press Big Mouth shall be out on either Wednesday or Thursday. I'm sure Lee will put a link up as I am away now for a few days.

In the meantime Be Pure! Be Vigilant! Behave!

love Stace
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New SFX Blog

I have a new blog up on the SFX Magazine website. My odd meadering rant was due to reading this column on the Bleeding Cool site: http://www.bleedingcool.com/category/a-very-modern-muse/ where the writer spent so long telling us it's ok to have tits and like comics she failed to mention any of the comics that she is reading/cares about/is looking forward to/influences her or in fact anything at all to do with comics! Hum

Blah blah blah

We recorded episode 6 last night and we managed to get through it without too many hitches. The Gorgeous Stace is now editing like a maniac while i'm sitting here with me feet up waiting for the chippy to open. Mmmmmm saturdays....

I've got a wee pile of new graphic novels here that I'm either about to read or partway through including Wet Moon v1, Invincible v10, The Astounding Wolf-Man v2, The Boys v3 and The league Of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century: 1910 some or none I'll be covering in the 'cast at some point but those I don't I'll blog about on here.

I'm currently terribly excited about the imminent release of The Walking Dead v10, DMZ v7 and The Sword v3. The Sword I talked about in the previous 'cast but Walking Dead and DMZ are two of my three favouritest series in the world right now - the third being Jonah Hex - which I may sneak in a review on on here when The Gorgeous One ain't looking cos its published by DC.

Talking of Walking Dead, very excited to hear a cable TV series adaptation is in development from Frank Darabont (The Green Mile, The Shawshank Redemption, The Mist). Sounds very very promising to me as I'm a big fan of that guy's work.

NEWS!

http://travellingman.wordpress.com/2009/08/11/we-love-comics-con-sat-5th-sept-travelling-man-leeds-big-names-to-attend/

Thanks to Mark Peyton over on the SFX forum for the heads up, attending this one day We Love Comics day is:

Adi Granov
Andy Diggle
Liam Sharp
Frazer Irving
Peter Docherty

I hope this "travelling con" is coming to Newcastle oh yest I do

Review!

Not really suitable for the 'cast but last week I read Kingdom the first trade by Dan Abnett and Richard Elson published by Rebellion.

This is a story about Gene The Hackman a genetically engineered dog/man . Led by his "urgings" he and his pack are charged with keeping Them off his lawn. After losing his pack Gene finds one of his mysterious "masters" and finds out some information about his purpose. He begins a quest into the world over the Land Bridge to find proof that The Them are capable of much more then even they thought.

This post apocalyptic story manages to be thought provoking, action packed with much scrapping and very funny in places. I think Abnett may be king of the Pun and the art by Richard Elson is flipping glorious. It is extrememly stylistic, with the dogmen having their own version of language and traditions to follow, but that really adds to the atmosphere and the strangeness of the story.

I read this as I know there is a new story beginning soon in 2000AD weekly prog and now I am ridiculously excited about it.

Big number two

Being a gentlemen I naturally let the lady come first so here's my first blog entry.

ummmmmmm...

Oh. Episode 5 went online last thursday and we talk about MoonFreight3, The Dark, The Sword, Fat Chunk:Zombies, Post Nuke and Fools Errand.

...and Stace calls me a male chicken.

As always its hosted by the generous people at www.geeksyndicate.co.uk so check it out as well as the other fabulous podcasts there its all good stuff.

First Post

After a little discussion me and the Luvverly Lee decided to start a blog for extra reviews and recommendations, for links and webcomics, for conventions reports, for news and probably to take the piss out of each other with reckless abandon, probably with many remarks about how the other one talks funny (Lee talks geet funny like ya nah!). We hope to keep it going for at least a fortnight afore we get bored and wander off to laugh at some Free Huggers!