In my teenage years, I had a big comic habit (graciously funded by my parents). It all started with the Silver Surfer double-issue where the Kree-Skrull war kicked off, on a holiday in Saffron Walden. I can’t remember the year it was, but it was before my reading speed kicked into the ludicrously high speed it is now, and those 60-odd pages of space battles and cosmic forces made me want to read more comics.

Fast-forward to today, where myself and Brian dragged ourselves to the Newcastle SciFi, Comic and Card Fair, run by these folks. And it kind of sucked, because there wasn’t any SciFi, just comics and cards. But it had cost a pound to get in, so I forced Brian to root around in the comic sections, and whilst he was suspiciously eyeing the covers of Witchbreed I was reminiscing about when comics used to be good.

Warren Ellis’s comics commentary column Come in Alone (also see here) laid it all out ten years ago, saying that the two party system of comics, which only produced comics that existing fans wanted to read, was a slow boat to suffocating the industry. Well, he was right, and all the interesting comics like the Silver Surfer have been culled. These days it’s all ‘dark’ heros such as Wolverine, Superman clones, and the odd offbeat black and white.

(Webcomics are where it’s at. Shhh! Don’t tell the capitalists.)

But coming across a stash of old Silver Surfer comics, I had to buy them. For starters, they were only 50p each! So I ended up buying a few comics from before the Kree-Skrull war, setting the scene on a galactic scale. We are introduced to a number of different races, such as the Celestials, a race of… really big people.

Above: He’s just standing there, and I can see right up his…

The green guys are Skrulls. I like the fact that the tubby green Marlon Brando feels he can’t stand the site of this monster anymore. Okay, I might have been thinking “monster what?”, but that’s a little crude. And how do you think talking to the enormous city-high man goes?

Oh-fecking-really, Kylor – a giant green bloke comes and stands over your city, and there’s nothing you can do? You’re lucky you don’t have a week of ‘special yellow rain’ forecast, especially after you tried to nuke him. And – point of order here – didn’t you just try and nuke him right over your own city? Kylor, you’re an asshole.

This is also a good time to point out the fantastic colour process used in late 1980′s comics. I’m not an expert, but you are seeing a really restricted palette put to a great use here, with overlaying tones of less than sympathetic colours really popping out. I actually get quite excited by this sort of print quality. Also notice that the paper is all yellowed with age; I could have auto-corrected that in with the scanning process, but I feel that it adds a little to the reading of the media.

After Kylor and his Conservative-style mismanagement of local politics, there is a few other plotlines that are in these issues of the Silver Surfer. The big one is the Surfer’s “friendship” with Mantis, a green lady who flies through space wearing an improbable suit. Why would she hang out with a shiney silver man in space, who constantly talks about his ex-boss all the time, and how his ex-boss exiled him to Earth?

Oh, she likes him.

I have to admit, on reading that frame I was thinking “my God, somebody even worse at dating than I am!” – after all, he’s got the hot green girl in the stripper outfit saying nice things to him, but he’s all “yeah, it’s been a long time, and I’ve only kissed that other girl three times…” He should probably be clear that he’s got a thing for Shalla Bal, but – hey – who knows how long it’s been for our Surfer? It could be a long time. He doesn’t have a crotch.

He’s so emo.

Surfer, she’s practically putting it on a plate for you there. Plus, catch that little Saigon reference? You might think she’s subtly trying to tell the Silver Emo that he’s got Prospects, but then she drops that next line quite casually. Well, she is dressed like a stripper, mind.

Later on in this issue, the Surfer’s courtin’ is interupted by this lunk-headed dick. His backstory is that he’s immortal because he’s the last one of his race (apparently, the universe preserves the last one of a sentient race in the world of Marvel), but he used a cheat code – he slaughtered the rest of his species.

Nice.

Rather than judge his actions, the Silver Surfer uses the mighty Cosmic Power imbued in him to remove the weapons lunk-head (I can’t find his name, and I can’t be bothered to look it up) had implanted in his body. So after five billion years of killing people, he didn’t ever take some time out and grab a hobby? It was just kill kill kill? Whatever.

This is still a Marvel comic, so after having a fight they declare the issue over and move onto issue 6. This starts with a great one-page drawing of space – termed a splash page in print terminology. Here:

The thing about these splash pages is that you tend to find them at the start of the comic book. I suspect this is both for dramatic input and for the fact that they would have time to draw this stuff at the start of the monthly schedule for the comic book. But forget all that – lasers! Pew pew pew! Burning things! Explosions! Wow!

Oddly enough, for an issue titled “War”, that’s not what the Surfer gets up to in this installment. But before we find our Space Emo sitting outside Boots with his Space Goth Girlfriend, there is a slight bit of backstory to get through:

In todays world of comics, the above would be a quick dash through the plug-ins section of Photoshop, but the illustrative team of Rogers and Rubenstein have really pulled out the stops with this splash page. There’s stippling and all sorts – man, that must have taken them ages! But it’s so cool I wouldn’t really mind if the last page was just a picture of some stick men saying “we’ll be back next week”.

I’m telling you, this is the sort of stuff you don’t find in today’s comics. The combination of old-school graft and limited printing techniques means that some real special knowledge went into this image. Appreciate it, because in our realm of pixel-perfect Blue-Ray DVDs, we often lose sight of how hard it is to craft something beautiful.

Surfer also finds it hard to recognise when something beautiful is infront of him. Seriously, he has got to be the worst date ever – “But I’m pledged to somebody else!” Thankfully, our girl Mantis is a little bit more forward. Plus, to be honest, I think Surfer might be her lift home – she’s got the power of plants or something, which isn’t that nifty in the infinite void of space.

So, after the romantic kiss, what next? Why, what else but SPACE NOOKIE!

So, one things puzzling me here: are they just going off for an extended hug in the asteroid belt, because the Surfer doesn’t have any bits. He does have a Cosmic Power (or possibly a Power Cosmic) which might come in useful here. But we don’t see that – this isn’t something from the pages of Heavy Metal. It’s straight to the afterglow for us readers.

I don’t quite understand what he’s saying that’s so romantic she wants to kiss him – “hey, if you weren’t around, I’d still be pining for that girl who only kissed me three times”. Hmm. Well, maybe she has a thing for surfers.

But wait, what’s that? Does that last panel depict the sound of a cosmic voice-mail being delivered?

Oooh, mean! Mantis, he’s going to leave you with some plants and then get back to his other honey. That’s low, and don’t be making all lovey-dovey eyes behind his back – it’s quite clear that the Surfer got his oats and then just pissed off. But, y’know, he’s just so darned noble about the whole thing. “Hey babe, I’ll call you after saving all of reality. Missing you already, ciao.”

I hope this brief breeze through some of the Surfer’s classic period in the 1980′s has been interesting for you. I don’t think this period is collected anywhere, but the good news is that these comics only cost me 50p each. You could totally clean up before all the other cool kids get in on this.

Disclaimer: It’s quite obvious that I’m not claiming ownership of any of the artwork or characters above, and that I’m using them for review purposes.

As promised, here is my review-cum-grizzle at Mashed08. This is prompted by the excellent Guardian piece here which you should go and read, as it’s not at all as self-interested as what I’m about to write.

Firstly, I don’t live in London. Perhaps the only reason I was interested in going to Mashed was the fact that I could get there for free, via one of the buses that they put on. However, the bus was an epic endurance ride that managed to brake myself, Brian and Alistair for the duration of the weekend, turning us into shallow stumbling wrecks.

The point of the weekend was to actually make something cool with technology, and while I was unable to do that I kind of see how it works. You see, most people who work with IT are phenomenally bright, and their salaried job only covers a small part of what they can do. Events like Mashed allow them to use their other skills to create fun things – which the BBC where hoping would be ‘fun things that have some relation to BBC products’.

There was talk that there should have been a lot more people at the event – at one point, I heard that 400 people hadn’t turned up. I don’t think this can be a fault of the event management team, as attending did involve sacrificing your weekend. Those that did turn up where fully laden with free gifts, up to and including the BBC beanbags that formed the bulk of the furniture at the event.

This makes a huge difference from art conferences that I’ve been to, where you might get a free coffee if you are lucky. Mashed not only had free coffee, but also free food all weekend, making it a world apart from any conference that I had attended before.

Perhaps that’s the rub for me; art is seen as such a peripheral activity that it receives no investment, and yet it is constantly surrounding us. There is obviously huge amounts of money in the combination of broadcasting and IT that Mashed represents, and yet it could be described as a much more selective interest.

(Brian’s short blog-post on Mashed can be seen here)

(Further update: Alistair’s post on Mashed can be seen here)

I’m in the studio, with Brian, most days now. Above, you can see a picture that reflects our usage of the studio.

(Yes, I mean Brian working hard and me goofing off

Being offically ‘old’ this year, it’s my ambition to ride the route know as the coast to coast before I become thirty. As part of that ambition, myself, Alan, and Brian did a training ride today along some of the excellent cyclepaths in the area. We were riding into the strong headwinds on the entire trip out, giving us an average speed of about 10mph, and at one point one of those old gnarly cyclists with legs like granite sped past us.

(I think we got pwned, but Brian says it’s something to look forward to – being old gnarly cyclists, that is, not being pwned)

On the way back we stopped off for a beer and burger combo at a Lloyds sports bar on Newcastle’s Quayside. Although it was only midday, already there was a hen party wearing masks at the bar. I felt a little self-conscious in my cycling gear, but mainly knackered.

It’s not going to be here for long, as I’ll be shifting it over to a special NewcastleGraft website in the next week, so don’t link here. Or expect future podcasts to turn up here, unless I become almost completely self-obsessed

NewcastleGraft Podcast 1 – Pseudo. Please download the file to your computer, rather than listen to it online.

Links:

• The Guardian’s coverage of the Arts Council report we talk about
• The Baltic’s website
• Topsy’s online project with Flickr
• Brian’s web-page (which probably doesn’t have any info about his show on Wednesday)
• The Globe’s webpage

But no more! I went down to recyke-yr-bike on Saturday and selected him a bike. It’s a shiny yellow bike, with front suspension, and the best gearset I’ve seen in ages. I always get jealous of people who have steel chainset’s because they look fantastic…

Mmmm, baby. Alan got me a fantastic christmas present (and card), so I changed his street tyres over to his new bike, which now looks scarily sexy. In fact, I’m pretty jealous of his bike, and considering using it for a few trips along the Tyne.

Of course, that’s all for next year. This Christmas, I’m taking a break from the glowbikes project that I’ve been working with Brian, and I’m not doing any more work until the 28th. The past few weeks have been continual soldering in order to make a large number of SpokePOV‘s, for display on New Years Eve. Until that point… I’m going to eat as much food as possible, open presents, and consume as much coffee as possible.