I have, in my professional career, flubbed two projects (which I won’t mention the names of). Both projects were unpaid (IIRC) and done while doing my day job and paid comic work - also, I suspect, I may have been able to get them done, but the time became a factor (as did events in my real life).

As a protestant/catholic interbreed, I, of course, feel guilty and remorse about screwing up my own personal work ethic.

So, yesterday, I finished Imago, a strip by Leah Moore and John Reppion, which is about two years in the making (or, at least, a year in the ‘let’s do something together’ and another in ‘blimey, this is taking a long time to draw’). I’ll let you know when/where it’ll appear. It’s 12 pages, and looks nice.

Anyhue, after the first paragraph of self-flagellation, let’s hear it for my dogged determination to finish a strip, no matter what the odds. Now, onto the nice unpaid thing… (and the 86ers…)

Image by Sergio Recabarren via Flickr

I think I’m going to have to see this, as, right now, my initial reaction is so overwhelming that I’m not sure I can process it.

The first 40 minutes or so is the most mind blowing sci-fi film you’ll ever see, the film is beautiful to look at, Wall-E is just a perfectly sweet, charming character that reminds me a lot (and not just the physicallity) of Huey, Duey and Louie from Silent Running. In many ways, this is a kind of what if the silent running robots, instead of being alone on a eco ship were left alone on planet earth to tidy up. After 700 years Wall-E is still ticking along, scavaging spare parts from whereever he can find them. (And littered around the place are every other non-functioning wall-e that was also left but didn’t survive).

The love story of Wall-E and Eve is incredibly tender, well judged and, pretty much, perfect.

The only thing that slows it down at all are when the humans show up - and even then, I think that’s only because the you become so invested in Wall-E and Eve that the cartoony humans sort of pop you out of that reality that you’re swept up in. Having said that, at it’s worst it’s still a pretty decent Pixar film - on a par with the Incredibles.

When I saw the incredibles I thought - this is it, this is the animation made for me - superheroes, watchmen, fantastic four, it’s all in there. But I was wrong, Wall-E is the film that was made for me, from the goofy 70s style post-apocalyptic thing that I loved as a kid, to Hello dolly and that romantic ideal that those old musicals used to carry (I was a sucker for musicals as a kid) to a really sweet love story.

So, I suggest you go see it - the first half is really quiet astonishing and the second half never bobs below great. Also, the traditional animated credit roll is a really cool run through the recreation of civiliasation with robots with different eras in different art styles. It’s pretty cool.

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2. Do not ramble, though

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Review: Bonekickers 1×1 - The Medium is Not Enough TV blog

Look, here’s the thing, I have friends that say ‘X is rubbish because of Y’ and I listen and I think ‘But Y is EXACTLY what I would like about it’. And I’m usually right (well, right about me liking it). So, there’s a fairly accurate review of episode 1. Personally, I loved it. Episode two wasn’t quiet as bonkers (or maybe it was but I wasn’t just as startled by it).

Episode three looks like Indiana Jones by way of Michael Bay. 

And the most fun… the most fun, is writing a running commentary about it as I watch it, on twitter.

GAHHH!

Right, now that’s out of my system, here’s some updates…

You may recall, gentle reader, that we have just had a baby. As a run up to this, we had numerous problems (nothing life threatening, but lots of ‘you should rest’) this meant I had to take a little sabattical from drawing (well, I say ‘take’, frankly I could get nothing done). So, we’re out of that end of it and then… sickness. Sickness EVERYWHERE!

Just after baby was born and things started to settle a little we all got food poisoning (although the jury is still out on that - given we know a few people that came down with the same sort of illness, we’re not so sure). This lasted about a week (or two, actually…). So we slowly recovered from that, and just as things start to get to normal … another illness. This is fairly fluey, I suppose. Sinuses are involved (I don’t understand myself). Nath hasn’t really gotten over his previous ickiness and Annette has been (again) the worst hit, lobbing tablets into her like no-business. Me? I’ve had a couple of headaches (hey, for me a headache is a big deal - I NEVER get them, and when I do a nice lie down usually sorts it). Nath has had a bad fever a couple of nights (39c! - normally I’d have no idea what that means, but when you have kids all sorts of things change, like things you know, things you’re prepared to do and how much vomit you can catch in your hands before it gets all over the bed.) Baby (Thomas) has been ok, if a little bunged up.

Which means, of course, I’ve spent most of my time running around after Nathan as Annette has had to take to bed to rest.

I swear, it’s like somebody wants us to pay for having a second child. Enough already. We get the message. No MORE (chance’d be a fine thing…)

I’ve started using twitter more and more, still slightly hesitant about it, but, for the most part, if you want to know what I’m up to (as I’m up to it) you’ll find it here: www.twitter.com/pauljholden

Aside from that, I also hang around facebook and the 2000AD online website. 

The blog is looking more and more dusty and is just that little bit slower to use than the instantaneous hit you get from twitter and facebook. 

So, if you’re looking for me, that’s where you’ll find me.

So, Brum flights are now booked via the maze of options that is the bmi baby website, every turn adds a fiver to your cost, so you start at nothing and move upwards to the dizzy heights of £86 - all because you want to bring a bag on the plane.

Just gotta get the hotel book - sharing with Rob Williams again, that crazy welsh guy. He makes me feel like a right go-getter

On an altogether different note: I like getting comments on the website. Just so you know

Obviously, I’ve no time for writing/drawing/anything right now, but here’s a thought for a story (or at least the background for one).

Say, in the future the internet becomes just too dangerous to use - with AI based viruses constantly shifting and improving, it’s a real possibility that anything connected could, almost instantly, become a zombie - spewing more viruses out. So people don’t plug-in and computers stay disconnected. There is NO internet (or, in fact, networks).

What would the world look like without the internet? Where data can only be transmitted via USB device.

You know, if I were to be starting to look for a comic career right now, I’d probably be stupid to ignore The DFC and Classical Comics. Both seem to have solid, long term plans, too and be capabale of consuming large volumes of work. All my samples, though, have been geared towards 2000AD/sci-fi or Superheroics.

When it comes down to it, now isn’t a terrible time to be entering into comics again.