Drained And Ashamed:: Some Ideas On What To Do After The Storm.

I wrote something similar to this a little while back about depression, I had resolved to not write anything more about my experience with mental illness symptoms, but I think I might have been copping out a bit, in retrospect. You see, Depression is easier to deal with for the outside world. Depression is full of positive images in the media. Attractive people looking mournful. It has a lot of people who speak out on it who are accepted as brave for publicly speaking out about it. That’s great. I’m seriously glad that the general public have a greater understanding of what depression is, and I hope we start getting beyond that frustrating ‘Well, why don’t you just snap out of it, then?’

Mania, on the other hand, is a different kettle of fish. It’s not so pleasant or docile.

I got a bit of grief when I wrote the Depression piece, suggesting I was attempting to suggest my experience was a universal description. Which was slightly annoying, but in my constant attempt in Life to try to be actually understood without somebody misreading a sentence, deciding I’m trying to say something offensive and then bang on regardless about how offended they are.

Thus far, at time of writing, 2 Days.

So, since I have more than enough shameful examples of Mania in my history, I will say from the off-set, this is only my life I’m talking about. I don’t have the audacity or arrogance to speak about anyone’s life experiences and make them public without their permission. Eve then, I’d be very wary about doing it even with their permission. I’ve been pretty ashamed of the way my mania has taken control of my life and am more than aware of the amount of burnt bridges and subtle shifts of people on my Facebook silently becoming ‘Add Friend’  Sometimes that happens because people hear a story without taking in both sides.

Just my thoughts.

So, Mania, then. (And I don’t know if this is quite the correct medical term, but I’ll use it for me and if I need to amend it as someone suggests that what I’m describing is closer to something different, I will.)  For me, a Manic Episode is essentially when I lose both perspective and control of myself. I get the taste of copper in my mouth, some veins in my head start to throb.and the …Other takes over, is the only way I can describe it. There’s a few minutes of stability and then literally nothing is sacred. I’ve kicked in bus stops, doors, snapped at strangers, done other things that I still have problems assuming I’m not damned for.

And then come down. It might be minutes. It might be hours. Usually it stops for falling asleep. That’s the nice way. The not so nice way is finding your foot covered in broken glass and you snap out of it. You look around at the damage you’ve caused. The best analogy for me  is always going to be Bruce Banner turning into The Hulk and back again. So, basically, I’m going to assume if you’re reading this and you’re saying in your head ‘But why? Why do you have to do these things? Surely you can control yourself and, you know, not essentially treat all the structures of your life as a series  of bowling pins to be knocked over>’ then, really, I have to just ignore you at this point. wait for your understanding to evolve. There really isn’t time to be wasted justifying an illness to the likes of you anymore. You are like someone shouting ‘Stop Coughing!’ to somebody with tuberculosis.

But, just to save any future questions aimed at myself: ‘I’m 35 years old. I’ve managed to piss away all the money I ever earned or was given to me, I’ve destroyed a great many friendships and currently live off the dole, living on my Mum’s sofa. All I really value in the world these days is time spent with the mates who have either A) Been good enough to stick with me, understanding that I do mean well underneath the bad days. or B) Haven’t seen me at my worst. As much as I’m grateful that I’ve divested myself of most of my desire for the commercial world’s trappings, do you honestly think this is what I would have chosen to do? That I would have chosen the guilt, the knowledge of being a burden on friends, the paranoia of knowing you’re being discussed? the realization that I’ve been quietly abandoned by people who’d told me they’d stuck by me no matter what? the unanswered texts and emails?  The decision to not get too close to anyone, not because you don’t like them, but because of the fear that they may see you essentially mentally shitting yourself in public? Does any of that sound like a life someone would choose to go through?’

Also, for those of you who are related or in a relationship to someone who’s affected by this kind of mood swing, I’m not going to lie to you. Yes, it’s going to be rough, and certainly my improvement can be described as glacial, really.Don’t expect easy ‘Go to Doctor’s, Doctor presses F5 Key and Loved One is magically better/’  Even if, by an almost Lottery-like chance, your G.P. prescribes the correct drug 1st time out to bat, that drug will still take time to begin taking effect. If you truly intend to be any kind of support system, you need  to have  realistic and informed notions of what to expect.

So, Manic Types. This is what I’ve learned. I hope it helps in someway. It assumes you’ve had at least one Manic and destructive episode in your life.

1) You are going to be totally burnt out.

So, it’s happened, you wake up, all the energy has gone from your body, maybe there’s sick in your hair, maybe your knuckles are gashed, maybe you were awakened in the 1st place by a barrage of texts from someone demanding to know why you dared to get off with their girlfriend last night, or there’s glass embedded in your foot. Plucking the sliver of glass suddenly triggers the memory of last night.You are now racked with incredible guilt, possibly suicidal amounts of self-hatred all lovingly wrapped up in a feeling of utter exhaustion. It is literally more work than you can deal with to adjust the pillows, let alone get up to make a cup of tea. So what do you do?
First Off,  Try to sleep.

I know this sounds incredibly selfish. There is a checklist of apologies and such that you’re going to have to deal with. But unless you need to get medical help, let someone know you’re actually alive or something equally important (Which does NOT include getting a series of justifications via email or text.), get some sleep. Everything else can wait.
Then you start saying you’re sorry. And mean it. Yes, you have an illness that literally takes you out of your right mind. This isn’t anybody else’s fault. Explain as much or as little as you like about your state your efforts to deal with it, but you have to apologise and mean it.  The thing to remember is that the apology won’t (Or shouldn’t.) be any less true whether it’s said at 9am or 2pm.

Inversely…

Mania is Not an excuse to be a cunt.
There is not a thing I wouldn’t sacrifice to be secure in the knowledge that I will never, ever have an episode again. Nothing. Everyday of my life is series of checklists. Have I eaten right? Have I made sure I’ve tried to keep in contact with people. Constant vigilance on how I’m speaking and making sure I’m aware enough of how what I say could be taken the wrong way. Having a miswired chemical in your brain or mislearned behavioural reactions is not free license to be rude or mean to people and pass it off as an episode if it isn’t real. That behaviour is an absolute slap in the face to people who are trying to live day-to-day with this. Some of us make it. Many don’t, and I’ve buried too many friends to tolerate ‘anyone taking the piss.

Keep away from Trigger People.

When I first started having episodes, I put it down to all kinds of reasons. Coffee, Alcohol, Sugar, Energy Drinks. I cut them all out. It’s not fun, especially giving up caffeine. Which tends to leave you with totally skull crushing migraines in the 1st few days of cold turkey. But I did it, anyway. Yay me! Lap Of Honour and everything. Gold Star. Didn’t help though.
I looked back on when I’d have Episodes when I had time on my own to think about it. And that made me realise that, for whatever buried reasons, how much I might wish otherwise, there are just some personality types that trigger me. It’s not their fault.  At all. I can’t make that point clear enough. I’ll probably never be able to say sorry enough to those people I hurt. But the fact is, that kind of personality is one I just have to stay away from for the rest of my life. Luckily, I can spot them pretty early on, and as I’m pretty reclusive nowadays it’s pretty easy to avoid them.
Some people are just who they are. If, however, you’re having to deal with someone who actually drives you crazy, you (Like I did) can meditate on it, you can go to a 12 Step group to rationalize the incident, why it’s your own fault for letting them get to you and laugh it all off. All good. Peace Of the Universe resides within you.

Then tomorrow, it all happens all over again. Grumpy McWanker does something else. And you do have to decide if that’s something you’re honestly ready to deal with, or maybe do something to just get away from them. Yes, you may have to move around a bit. I’m sorry. I didn’t say it was going to be easy. It might be the difference between staying alive or not, though.

(Speaking of exits,,,)
Some People Aren’t Going To Get It And Will Leave You.
Sorry.
This, trust me, isn’t fun. it’s not easy to deal with. It’ll break your heart. Losing someone close to me used to halfkill me for a month or two. Now, I take it as a good week if someone doesn’t bail on me. It’s never ‘I can’t deal with this anymore.’ It’s the quiet unfollows, the non replies to texts, the realisation that it’s been 6 months since you spoke to that person.
It probably is going to haopen, and I wish i could tell you there’s an easy way to deal with it. There isn’t, but the pain subsides and you move on.

I’m really, really sorry.

You Are Not Your Illness.

This si something I wish someone had said to me a long time ago. Maybe I wouldn’t have an inch long scar on my forehead from headbutting the shit out of a bus shelter window from the night I realised just how much my episodes and inability to deal with them had actually cost me. It isn’t fair that people recognise physical ailments and be entirely sympathetic to them, but won’t accept that mental illness is a real thing. I’ve been given no end of guilt trips (Usually after being burnt out after an episode, when I was too drained and ashamed to make a counter point.) and each time I wanted to say ‘That wasn’t me! That was the illness. I don’t want to have to have the illness, but i do. If i had Incontinence, you wouldn’t write me lectures explaining that i was a terrible person for shitting all over the place !’
There’s too much damn shame involved in this world, too much ostracization. And all you can do is try your best to not have an episode. I haven’t had one today. That might not sound much o you. To me, it’s a victory It’s not much to you, maybe. To me, it’s the world.

Finally….
Stop. Breathe.

I know. You’ve probably heard that a million times before. If you can, if you feel the rage coming over you, just do as much as you can do to be still, to relax and be in the situation you’re in. Most of my Episodes have been:

‘SOMETHINGI’M QUITEPISSEDOFFABOUTFROMLASTCENTURYISREPLAYINGINMYMINDBECAUSESOMETHINGNOWISREMINDINGMEOFIT!’

Crash, Smash, Destroy, etc
Try to Walk Away, and Breathe Slowly. If you can do that, just for that occasion, you win.
It’s not much, but it’s better than the alternative.
Talk to me, if you need someone to listen, no matter how irrational or angry you feel. I don’t really sleep anymore.

Breathe for a second.

Breathe

 

(Oh.

And to you two, who either couldn’t take it anymore or cut me out for whatever reason. I’ll probably never speak to you again. if you need me to be a demon, that’s fine. But i need to move on with my life now.)

 

Thanks For Reading.

Bamf! Indyness!

So, this is the Crash course Overview of Indie for you fine listeners, readers and otherwise general consumers of our Bamf!y product. Hello, everyone. Before we kick off, you might want to open a Comixology account, as I’m going to be recommending comics you may not have read. They are free. You are welcome to thank me with Groupies or issues of Harvey Kurtzman’s ‘Help’.

Let’s dispense with the misconception, 1st off, that ‘Indie’ is a genre or a style. People confused the liquid with the glass, so to speak,  with Indie. All ‘Indie’ means, in this context, is ‘Comic published by a company that isn’t Marvel or DC.’ It has nothing to do with the content, the mood or style, whether the comic is a black and white, self published affair about biscuits the creator has eaten, or a major licensed project with Hollywood Movie tie-in with multiple covers. Again, content does not denote distribution network. The latest issue of  G.I. Joe is more ‘indie’ than any Sandman collection.

People create Indie comics for various reasons. Maybe they want to have their work available so they can show various editors at Marvel their artwork in order to secure a job on Captain America. Others simply find the ‘Alleged’ culture of fear at The Big Two too much and want to create work more personal to themselves, without having to argue whether their material is appropriate for the publisher’s ethos and sensibilities. Maybe they just want to put out their work and like the challenge of doing the whole thing themselves. There are whole essays and websites dedicated to why people totally avoid putting their work through mainstream Comics channels. And there’s a lot of creators turning out work who’re more than sick of The Big Two.

So, obviously, the world and history of Independent Comics is vast and huge, and this is in no way meant to be an overview of the last 40 years of comics that have been published, more a series of recommendations of comics and magazines that lead me to the point where i could quite happily never read a DC comic again.

Fantagraphics

This is where I pretty much got started.
I wish i could remember when I got into The Comic Journal. Probably sometime in my early teens, and some of my favourite times would be taking a few cans of beer down to the park and soaking up all the rage of Gary Groth, the hilarious letters from Die-Hard Marvel Zombies, the ‘I Am Not Terry Beatty’s Girlfriend’ arguments.and the War on Marvel o get Kirby’s artwork back. Also, The Journal was a pretty good gateway into ‘Things you probably haven’t heard of.’ Fantagraphics started off as the name of the publishing company that put out The Journal, but then, brilliantly, they put their money where their mouth is by actually putting out the material that lived up to the high standards they demanded in their reviews. Los Bros Hernandez, Dan Clowes, Chris Ware, Drew Friedman and Peter Bagge all came to prominence via work produced for Fantagraphics. Nowadays, sadly, The Journal doesn’t have the attitude it did, and tends to be published every couple of years in giant hardbacks that cost £25 a pop, They are relentless about keeping classic work like Peanuts in print and you can pick up early issues here.And here’s a link to a sampler of my favourite of their publications

Love & Rockets

Essentially, if you want the real history of comics written by people who aren’t going to tell you that Secret Wars was seen as an instant classic back in 1986. Start reading those early Comics Journals.

Speaking of attitude…

Dave Sim.

Dave is one of the great pioneers of this business, he pretty much created the self publishing business model in Western comics as we understand it. His comics are deep, thoughtful, funny, and Cerebus is probably the 1st comic that attempted to create a full, serialised narrative. Also, if you’ve ever bought, sold, created or otherwise enjoyed anything resembling a Trade Paperback, you can pretty much thank Dave for that. He’s one of the great comics historians as well, as anyone who isn’t a total moron and tried reading Glamourpuss will testify.

Sadly, the comics community appears to have become hyper-sensitive in the early 21st Century, and since Dave’s points of view on women aren’t in sync with the majority, there are attempts to try and ostracize and retcon him from comics history every once in a while. Then everyone remembers that if the history of independent comics is built on Underground Comix, which is inherently about the notion of freedom of speech, not just ‘The concepts we want to hear and nothing else.’ and Dave just gets on with the work.

Oh, and if you have ANY aspirations of  working in comics, you need to read ‘The Cerebus Guide To Self Publishing’. NEED to. It’ll open your eyes, explain the dynamics of exactly how creating a comics page work, how to talk to distributors and how you’ll be talking to Diamond. It badly needs updating for the digital comics era, but beyond that, again. you NEED to read it. The 1st issue of High Society (The 2nd book in the Cerebus Saga, or ‘Where it got going, Really.’ can be read for free here.)

IDW:

Anyone who heard me go on about Transformers:All Hail Megatron on Bamf! recently may think I have a problem with IDW as a company. Actually, not at all. I think they’re genius. (Geni? Geniuses?) After the hilarious legal fall out of the Transformers license, IDW picked it up and started reprinting the early stuff, creating new work. Then they did the same thing with G.I Joe. And all of the nostalgia drones picked up their childhoods again but for $4 an issue

Having that built in-income (See Also: My Little Pony, and I’m willing to bet money that i will see IDW publish the Mighty Morphin’ power Rangers revival before I die.) IDW used that money to turn themselves intot he greatest publishers of COOL comics history currently going. A lot of stuff gets reprinted, but it’s literally only for historical value, accompanied by a dull Roy Thomas essay telling us how important it is we care about this comic from 1952 for whatever reason. then you read the actual thing, and you realise why the original Mr monster got cancelled in the 1st place. IDW finds the cool stuff that has been lost in history for whatever reason and brings it back to the shelves. the Rocketeer, Starstruck, Bloom County, Mars Attacks,Maze Agency, Terry And the Pirates are all back in print thanks to those guys. they also do a hell of a line of new material like Tank Girl, Wormwood Corpse, Popbot, 30 Days Of Night, Zombies vs Robots and Zombies Vs Robots vs Amazons and such

30 Days Of Night can be read here. For free. I’m nice like this.

Image

There is, apparently, a movie coming up written by one of the original Image Founders which covers the formation of Image, but as far as I can work out, Image was formed by various members talking to each other about how annoyed they were by their treatment by Marvel, went to Marvel Editor In Chief Tom Defalco and said they were leaving. Those founders then created Image, and caused a damn rollercoaster for the whole business in the mid 90′s. Late shipping comics, multiple spin-offs, pandering to the speculator crowd and all kinds of backstage chaos lead to comic shops closing down. Also Marvel put themselves into Chapter 11 Bankruptcy as a result of trying to compete with Image and DC ended up owning Diamond because of it, but that’s a story better covered by Marvel Comics: the Untold Story, which is the 2nd book on the ‘Books you should read before you ever draw one page of any comic ever.’ List.

Larry Marder came along and basically kicked them up the arse so they actually put out the comics they were soliciting rather than announcing a dozen spin-off books that would never be published for the ninth month in a row. Somewhere along the line, Image went from ‘Slick Team Books full of Ciphers beating each other up for no real reason. Bending over of Female Characters probably going to happen’ to being a smart, intelligent company that would take on all manner or interesting projects such as Kill City, The BulletProof Coffin, Infinite Vacation, Phonogram,  Common Grounds, Puffed, Liberty Meadows, Black Kiss,   and a little quirky book that you may have heard of called The Walking Dead.

As far as I’m aware, image offer the best deal in comics in that if they like your pitch, they’ll pay in advance for the printing of your title and advertise it, take back the printing costs and you keep EVERYTHING else. including the rights to the work, You don’t sign away character designs, the rights to printings in terrotites outside The U.S. and English language editions of your comic. You own everything and can take it anywhere you want, which is currently being put into practice with all of the Wildstorm characters now being part of the DC Universe and Angela (From Spawn.) about to become part of the Marvel Universe. Which probably wasn’t the point, but Walking Dead is still good.

Walking Dead 1 here. Here’s Sam & Twitch 1 and one of my favourite comics ever, Bulletproof Coffin 1

‘If anybody ever said to me “Hi, I’m an alternative cartoonist,” I’d laugh in their face. What the hell does that mean? “Hi, I’m an alternative rocker. I’m an alternative eater.” What the hell is that. You do comics. You just don’t do those kind of comics. Relax.’
Evan Dorkin, The Comics Journal 214, 1999.

My main problem with the Indie scene has always been the preciousness of the creators involved. Some creators have their feet on the ground and are aware that they are, essentially, entertainers. I thought I was alone in this until I started reading Milk +Cheese via greatly lamented UK comics magazine, Deadline back in the 90′s.  Milk + Cheese by Evan Dorkin  is a Dairy Product based assault on, well, everything, really. It’s also extremely funny, although probably not for the sensitive, Evan also worked on amazing anthology ‘Instant Piano’, wrote one of the greatest thing DC ever published in World’s Funnest, outdid all the autobio darlings with the astonishing Dork (Issue 9 have one of the most truly soul bearing stories I’ve ever read, although issue 6 is highly recommended or those of you who ever had to deal with ArtistE types.) and, of course, there’s the Eltingville Club
Or US, as I like to call it….

Speaking of using brand names to fund more esoteric projects….

Dark Horse is the indie publisher that could. For a long, long time.  Before Millarworld was turning every book it sneezed out into a movie, Dark Horse not only produced (and continues to) comic adaptions of Creature Of The Black Lagoon, Aliens, Star Wars, Buffy and countless others, they’ve also had a pretty good success rate in turning things they’ve published into Hollywood KerChing with properties such as Hellboy, The Mask, Sin City all making it to the Big Screen. On top of that, they’ve a pretty healthyManga reprint program, bringing Akira, Ghost In The Shell, Lone Wolf & Cub and more to a wider audience. They’ve also published some of my favourite comics such as The Goon, Nexus, Concrete, The Milkman Murders, Mr Monster and Resident Alien.

That’s probably more than enough to be getting started with, but I’ll be back soon with more on the likes of Oni,Tony Millionaire,  Elaine Lee, Shannon Wheeler, Roberta Gregory, Stephen Bissette, Colleen Doran, Avatar, Frank Cho and what Alan Moore did after he got really pissed off with DC*

*Before Spawn 8, I mean.

Safe European Homes (Hellblazer 300)

Hellblazer 300

by Peter Milligan, Giuseppe Camuncoli, Stefano Landini ; Vertigo

Nevs Coleman — 02-Mar-13

“You may dig on the Rolling Stones. But they didn’t come up with that style on their own.”

- Mos Def, “Rock n Roll”

It’s the night I’m going to read the final issue of Hellblazer. I’m wearing a long coat, going to an Irish Boozer and drinking Guinness with an ex-girlfriend. I throw another ex’s heart into the Thames. It seems like a good idea to stick on as many Pogues songs on the jukebox as possible whilst watching the locals get irate about the football and flicking through a magazine about the spirit of 1977.

Johnny Thunders is on the cover. I try to read the mag, but every feature is either another piece on one more “seminal live gig that you HAD to be there for” (just in time for said gig to be released on special blue vinyl). Or one more 60-year old bass player hyping up another comeback tour of that band who played a couple of gigs with Joe Strummer back in 1979, and hey, these kids today, what do they know about REAL PUNK, anyway?

A few weeks ago, I went to see one of that kind of band. Missing a few original members. Smug, paunchy, no bite left on the nostalgia trail, nothing to fight for but an attempt to rekindle past glories. The audience was a Saxondale day out. The band kept playing their hit single and guilt-tripping us into cheering for the song as “It’s what (insert dead lead singer’s name here) would have wanted.”

I left midway through, there was nothing to see here but dinosaurs that didn’t know they were dead. Is there anything less punk than cheap nostalgia and the sentimentality of looking for approval and recognition simply for being alive enough to drag yourselves up to the stage?

Which brings us to Hellblazer 300.

John’s dead, then. Probably. In such a way that he can be brought back, if need be. 300 is a reasonable wander through the loose ends of John’s friends and loves. Thankfully, this wasn’t the schmaltzfest I was expecting. (John lives, they outwit the Devils and retire somewhere nice.in the country. Awww.) Dreary speculator types can be sent to Hellblazer 298, where he actually died, and in a better world, this would lead to a comic featuring Epiphany (John’s wife, well, widow now). This isn’t a better world, and we’re getting a New 52-friendly title called Constantine. No idea what it’s going to be like, but all of NuJohn’s appearances not written by Pete Milligan have been … Dick Van Constantine, for my money.

You can probably tell from both my tone and brevity that I was unbothered by the end of Hellblazer. Certainly a lot less than I was expecting, given that Hellblazer was the comic that shaped my attitude when I was a kid and I’ve played “Mucus Membrane song” at a few secret gigs I’ve done. Also, Guinness. I probably would have drunk a lot less Guinness if I hadn’t wanted to be John so much.

It’s fair to say, I think, that the end of Hellblazer is essentially the end of the real Vertigo. The one that was a consolidation of the stranger ends of the DC Universe in part unified to stop people asking when Batman and Shade, The Changing Man were going to have a team-up. The attempt to suggest to people that mainstream comics could be interesting literature for adults given the correct marketing and trade dress. Vertigo, before it attempted to become a Neil Gaiman factory, gave us Kill Your Boyfriend, the Millar issues of Swamp Thing, Adventures Of The Rifle Brigade, Philip Bond’s Angel And The Ape, The Filth, Preacher andTransmetropolitan (sort of).

Which was fine and good. For the time. Now when I look at Vertigo, there’s nothing there that’s going to kick anybody’s frontal lobes open the way The Invisibles did. Just Fables (or “What if Sandman didn’t have that pesky ‘ending’ thing?” as I like to call it) and new ways to try to sell you the Sandman comics over and over. (This month: The Absolute Annotated Editions with Digital codes that allow you to download Stephen Fry reading the whole 75 issues to you. And a napkin personally snotted on by Neil Gaiman.)

“Good Times pass, But so do the Bad.’

But what’s more important to me than Hellblazer 300, is where I’m reading it.

I’m in an Irish pub on one side of the Thames. The pints are £3.40 a Guinness. Around me, there’s a jukebox with not too many lights, hardboard over the window where it’s been smashed in last week, a pool table, a fuck-off great telly playing Sky Sports. It’s pretty busy. There’s Irishmen here, Jamicans, Welsh, Pakistanis. They’re alright in there. after a few jokes about my reading comics down the pub, we play some pool, listen to a bit of Dexy’s, bit of Judge Dread. Nice and Smooth.

Later, wander over to the other side of the Bridge to meet some mates. Place is rammed with doughy, rosy-cheeked white people in tweed and corduroy looking generally pleased with themselves. Over the P.A, one of the bar staff’s iPads plays a soft, lilting voice of a man singing that his girlfriend doesn’t love him anymore.

The guitarist in my band is trying to get served. He looks Indian. It takes a while, although he’s been going there for years. Raj, who runs the off-license across the road, is trying to sell raffle tickets to benefit the local youth centre that the local kids don’t go to, so they laugh and mock him with that cod Welsh/Indian accent that comfortable white people have been doing since World War II. I have my usual wild eyes, unkempt hair, I treat shaving as an option and my Iggy Pop hoodie is held together with pins, so it takes me a while to get a drink as well.

There’s a scene that happens frequently in Hellblazer. It’s that moment where, just for now, The Big Bad is dealt with. Shattered and fragile, John, Chaz and (Girlfriend Of The Month) go to a pub in London and reflect that at least there’ll always be a boozer. They look wistfully, GOTM says something like “Are you going soft on us, John, you old rogue, yers?” Orangey hues, Cut to shot of outside of pub. Sun coming up. End. Be back next issue.

In my head, just around the corner from that pub, five bald, stout men dressed up for St George’s Day’s, pissed up and Paki-Bashing Ahmed. Shouting “GET OUT OF OUR FUCKING COUNTRY!” There’ll be a report on the telly. People will tut and tweet about the outrage. Two weeks later, a BBC presenter will be involved with the Jimmy Saville scandal, or somebody will find traces of Guinea Pig in a cheeseburger, and everyone will just forget about Ahmed. Not out of malice, just because that’s how we are.

Maybe we’ve had our time. Sid’s dead. Joe. Johnny. Malcolm.

Maybe it’s time for a new voice. One not made of grumpy middle-class white men bringing their attempts to pretend they’re 17 years old full of speed. Maybe the nice twee people with degrees have had their chance and made it clear they’re only interested in amusing each other.

I keep looking at my Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook feeds. At Newsarama, Bleeding Cool, Forbidden Planet International. All the usual channels and I see nice projects, and probably worth checking out, but maybe we’ve had the voice of comics for too long. Maybe we’ve absolutely drained the well of the disgruntled middle-class white man in London now. I keep looking at these pop up shops, exhibitions in Soho and fancy paper projects and wondering “Who is this stuff FOR, besides affluent clique scenesters?” If you’re a non-white kid or a woman outside of the scene who doesn’t like networking, then how do you get onto that ladder of exposure so that you can get paid to create comics?

Well, as I like to say, pointing out the problem is only half the equation. The other half is trying to create a solution. I don’t know much about what goes on outside the mainstream of comics, and I don’t think I’m alone in this, so here’s my idea:

I don’t have much in the way of exposure, just these articles and my weekly ranting over on BAMF!, but what I’d like to do is use that space is to promote people who are turning out new comics work who you don’t normally see getting a push. I’m not going to recommend stuff I think is rubbish, because if a joke is crap, it doesn’t matter if Chris Rock, Christina Aguliera, Chris Brown or Chris Martin tells it. I am willing to get together with a couple of mates who have their ears closer to the ground than me and discuss things, and if we like it, I’ll RT, push and generally do what it takes to get you noticed. Deal?

By the way, I’m perfectly willing to accept that someone is already doing this. In fact, I’m hoping they are, but given the glut of comics that I’m totally not seeing out there by anyone besides middle class white people, maybe as many of us trying to shake things up isn’t the worst thing in the world.

(If anyone’s really upset, just remember that John can’t be actually dead. He still has to be alive for what I consider the real ending of Hellblazer, which is Hellblazer: Bad Blood by Jamie Delano, Warren Pleece and Philip Bond.)

Anyone want to link me to their or people they think I’d been interested can contact me via my Facebook or Twitter.

Good Night, John.

Here’s to you, Mate. Time to move on.

(Nevs Coleman has too many Ex-Girlfriends and terrible sins in his past. Maybe we need better role models. Apologies to those expecting a straight review of Hellblazer 300. I thought this was more important. )

Uncanny, Awesome.

This stares back at Comics Retail Staff all day. I assume we’re being punished.

‘

Why do you read so much in continuity stuff?’

….asks a mate of mine. i won’t name names, but i will tell you his casket will probably made of Starman Ominbuses. We were talking about S, my love of it and frustration at his refusal to read it because ‘It’s all capes, and why do you need to bother reading it, anyway?’

Well, K Of The Dragon, 2 reasons:

1) When I were a lad, there weren’t so many comic shops in my immediate orbit. Whenever I got a chance to go to a proper Comic Shop, it was less a purchasing encounter and more a sacred pilgrimage to a Sanctom Sanctorum full of mad covers and exotic smells that I couldn’t spend enough time ingesting. Being a poor child, I couldn’t afford much. I’d have my small stack of whatever, and what I took away from both shops (Which will remain unnamed, but both are closed down and profoundly deserve to be so.) was sheer contempt . From the staff., mind.

Not just for the fact that I couldn’t afford very much, but that contempt that comes from elitism. The sort of snobbery that sneers at you because you don’t know that Stan Lee, Jae Lee, Jim Lee and Elaine Lee aren’t all related or that Spider-Man 1st appeared in Amazing Fantasy 15, not Amazing Spider-Man 1. ‘Yeah, Kid, come back when you know the difference between Monday Night Raw and art spigelman’s Raw, y’know?’ I thought, back then, that being behind the counter of a Comic Shop was probably the greatest job in the world (I’m not convinced it isn’t now.) and if, by chance or fate, I wouldn’t be a snob about it, and I’d always remember that the person coming up to my counter might be as intimidated by the shop as I was back then.

So, I decided I would learn stuff about comics. As much as I could. I worked out the divisions pretty early and decided they were all bollocks. Marvel vs DC, Mainstream vs ‘Indy’ Animated vs ‘Adult Version’ Single Issues vs Trades. All these silly reasons that an already niche audience would find to divide each other. And all that fake grumpiness? Why be that surly, bitter guy who basically wouldn’t do anything but grunt at you unless you knew about every cartoon strip Bill Watterson pitched to the syndicates before hitting success with Calvin & Hobbes?

Where, frankly, was the fun in that? I’d worked in pubs in Deepest South London where the Locals alternated between violence and incest where it was worth having a mean demeanour so you didn’t get glassed whilst doing a Double Shot Of Jameson’s for a punter. Why would you need that defence level in a comic shop?

So, I wanted to be the fun, knowledgable one who reads everything from A-1 through Avengers (New, Secret, Dark, Unleaded, etc) all the way to XXXenophile and back again. If you came in while I was working, the idea was that you could talk comfortably about anything from Metabarons to Mighty Mouse without some looming prick turning their noise up at you. After all, it’s not like any side could claim to be absolutely right about ‘Bestestness!’ Marvel published stormingly great things like Elektra:Assassin, The Kirby/Lee FF’s, Old Man Logan, Strange Tales and Howard The Duck by Steve Gerber. They also have published Secret Defenders, Force Works, Marville, The Clone Saga and Howard The Duck Magazine (Decidedly NOT by Steve Gerber.)

Less a comic. More a way of life.

There are not sides. Merely publishing houses, whatever Stan Lee wanted you to think. If you want to try to tell me that Optic Nerve has an ounce of the compassion, humanity, understanding or tragedy that Before Watchmen:Minutemen by Darwyn Cooke does just because it’s a black & white distributed by a small publisher, I’ll argue all day that you’re wrong. Equally, I also know that all my opinions are just that. If I ever got to the point where I’m writing my magnum opus behind the counter and I become indignant that someone has dared to ask me, an artiste of my caliber about….a Marvel comic. Then it’s time I went home. And learned that I am a vending machine with a pulse, not a ‘Superstar Retailer’ or whatever egomaniacal phrase is doing the rounds at the moment.

Considering how many of my customers are now my friends in real life, I don’t think I’ve done too badly at that one.

That’s the 1st reason. Here’s the Second.

I Love Comixology Love it, love it. Mainly because it solves so many of the problems I had with the business. Worrying whether the shop you were going to would sneer at you because you had the temerity to want the new issue of Cavewoman rather than the latest Dan Clowes HC about how crap humanity can be. Or if the person doing the ordering only looked at Previews long enough to order in enough copies of Transformers so they could get their variants and accidentally forget to order all of Fantagraphics’s output for the month. Maybe failed to recognise that your customer base might be interested in that obscure British comic character called ‘Dan Dare’ and get in enough copies to last more than ten minutes on New Comics Day. Suddenly you’re having to pay a comic that only came out last week. Oh, and should you be lucky to actually find your comics, you still have to store them. Every week, that pile of paper becomes more and more boxes and shelves filling up your house…

Think about the future, Eckhart…

And Comixology solves every single one of those problems. No more worrying about any of the above. Pop open your laptop and buy all your comics in one fell swoop, for cover price. Variant covers chucked in at no extra cost.  Don’t even have to queue up or spend any money on travel fare. Comixology is going to be to Comic Shops what Winamp/Napster/Spotify was to the Music Industry. So, we can get into a huff about it, fold our arms and wonder why nobody wants to pay £10 for the Superior Spider-Man variants on the wall.*

(N.B. You can argue that sales figures are up compared to the last few years. And then I’ll ask you to show me those figures in comparison to the mid 1980′s, the last period where actual comics were a major part of the culture. Not movie adaptions, video games, action figures or some such, but actual comics. Show me your orders for Dark Knight Returns 1 compared to any five comics from any publisher you’ve ordered from in the last year and tell me that sales are really up again.)

Or, we can say ‘Well, what can we do that IndyPlanet.Com or Comixology can’t?’

Which is why I read everything. Because what you can’t get from a website is informed conversation, a bit of mickey taking. Some recommendations. (I’ve got it down to simply saying ‘HAWKEYE! BUY HAWKEYE! BUY HAWKEYE! HAWKEYE!, which works surprisingly well.) Essentially a decent human interaction with a bit more friendliness to it than ‘That. Will. Be. £11:65.’

Are you buying this yet? BUY THIS!

So, yeah, that’s why I read In continiuty stuff. Including ‘Gasp and Egad!’ things I don’t particularly like.

Under which you can file ‘The last Ten years of Avengers comics’. Not that I was a particular fan of the title pre Avengers Disassembled, but it was overshadowed massively by the Ultimates and hadn’t become the centre of the Marvel Universe yet. I don’t want to slag things off anymore, having been inspired by reading by Caitlin Moran’s Moranthology over Christmas. (The column about reviewing Ned;s Atomic Dustbin, if you’re curious. You should read it anyway, Because Reasons.) so I;ll just say that I thought the main problem with Bendis’s Avengers was that all of the lead characters sounded too similar.

It was essentially like reading him talking to himself whilst taking forever to wrap up storylines. Also by the time his run ended, all of the big changes and deaths (The decimation of the Mutant Population, Norman Osborn being a major power player, the deaths of Captain America, Hawkeye, The Wasp, Evil Wanda The Registration Act, etc) of the period have been retracted. So basically, all that’s happened in the last ten years of Avengers comics is I learned that no event has any long-term effect

(Which, inversely, is why I really like the first few issues of All New X-Men. Those characters are so well-defined that they escape Bendis’s imposing voice, and as there’s only one book at the moment, plot points have to be wrapped up in that title rather than bleeding over into another related title. It remains to be seen if that’ll continue when Uncanny starts, though.)

Bringing us via the scenic route, finally, to Uncanny Avengers 1-3 by Rick Remender & John Cassady….

1st off, LOOK AT THOSE COVERS! Except for the slightly dull 1st one (although the Neal Adams one is a bit Boom!), The Red Skull looks ….evil. Giant, geometric globs of malevolence screaming out from the shelves in a burst of Steranko Vision. Except for that horrible Marvel NOW! red band, these are the most garish, lurid nightmare inducing slabs of dark intent that Marvel have put out for ages

The art from John Cassady is as sublime as it always is, and Marvel have done well to get this many issues out of him. Some people complain that slower artiists shouldn’t be given books of this magnitude unless they can do them on a regular basis. I think the idea of kicking off with someone like Cassady really helps this book in terms of gravitas and FOOM factor. Any rotating art team that features the much underrated Daniel Acuna is doing alright, frankly. If anyone’s been quietly knocking out work of a high standard anf being the general genius pinch hitter for Marvel over the last few years, it’s Acuna. In a better world, he’ll be rewarded for his work with a book that gets the same promotion and high quality writing teams that both Daredevil & Hawkeye benefitted from. Personally, I’d like to see him and Dan Slott do a She-Hulk book, but that’s just me.

Possibly with covers by Frank Cho. No real reason.

So, Uncanny Avengers, then. Well written, beautiful looking, absolutly mental bizarre story from cover to cover/ No need to read any other Marvel comic to understand what’s happening. The best thing by miles to come out of the whole Avengers Disassembled to Avengers/X-Men waste and time of money and only matched by Hawkeye as potential Best New Marvel Comic of 2012.

*JUST because this comes up every time I mention digital comics in any conversation, I’m aware that there is a percentage of people who have almost a fetish like love of comics in their physical form (Heck, I know someone who can tell you what year a comic was published by smelling it. Not a typo.) I think we’re going to have to understand that this is going to be a generational thing.  There’s nothing wrong with it, but in the same way people aren’t going to the Record shop on a Monday for their new music anymore, I think while the same day digital and physical comic releases are happening, the clock is ticking on the new comic day…

Hellblazer: Safe European Homes.

Aside

‘You may dig on the Rolling Stones. But they didn’t come up with that style on their own.’ Mos Def. ‘Rock n Roll’

It’s the night I’m going to read the final issue of Hellblazer. I’m wearing a long coat, going to an Irish Boozer and drinking Guinness with an ex Girlfriend. I throw another ex’s heart into The Thames. It seems like a good idea to stick on as many Pogues songs on the jukebox as possible whilst watching the locals get irate about the football and flicking through a magazine about the spirit of 1977.

Johnny Thunders is on the cover . I try to read the mag, but every feature is either another piece on one more ‘seminal live gig that you HAD to be there for, (Just in time for said gig to be released on special blue vinyl.) Or one more 60 year old bass player hyping up another comeback tour of that band who played a couple of gigs with Joe Strummer back in 1979, and hey, these kids today, what do they know about REAL PUNK, anyway?

A few weeks ago, I went to see one of that kind of band. Missing a few original members. Smug, paunchy, no bite left on the nostalgia trail, nothing to fight for but an attempt to rekindle past glories. The audience was a Saxondale day out. The band kept playing their hit single and guilt-tripping us into cheering for the song as ‘It’s what (insert dead lead singer’s name here) would have wanted.

I left midway through, there was nothing to see here but dinosaurs that didn’t know they were dead. Is there anything less punk than cheap nostalgia and the sentimentality of looking for approval and recognition simply for being alive enough to drag yourselves up to the stage?

Which brings us to Hellblazer 300.

John’s dead, then. Probably. In such a way that he can be brought back, if need be. 300 is a reasonable wander through the loose ends of John’s friends and loves. Thankfully, this wasn’t the schmaltzfest I was expecting. (John lives, they outwit the Devils and retire somewhere nice.in the country. Awww.) Dreary speculator types can be sent to Hellblazer 298, where he actually died and in a better world, this would lead to a comic featuring Epiphany (John’s wife, well, widow now.) This isn’t a better world, and we’re getting a New 52 friendly title called ‘Constantine’. No idea what’s going to be like, but all of NuJohn’s appearances not written by Pete Milligan have been …Dick Van Constantine, for my money.

You can probably tell from both my tone and brevity that I was unbothered by the end of Hellblazer. Certainly a lot less than I was expecting, given that Hellblazer was the comic that shaped my attitude when I was a kid and I’ve played ‘Mucus Membrane song’ at a few secret gigs I’ve done. also, Guiness. I probably would have drunk a lot less Guinness if I hadn’t wanted to be John so much.

It’s fair to say, I think, that the end of Hellblazer is essentially the end of the real Vertigo. The one that was a consolidation of the stranger ends of the DC Universe in part unified to stop people asking when Batman and Shade, The Changing Man.The attempt to suggest to people that mainstream comics could be interesting literature for adults given the correct marketing and trade dress. Vertigo, before it attempted to become a Neil Gaiman factory, gave us Kill Your Boyfriend, The Millar issues of Swamp Thing, Adventures Of The Rifle Brigade, Philip Bond’s Angel And The Ape, The Filth, Preacher and Transmetroplitan (sort of.)

Which was fine and good. For the time. Now when I look at Vertigo, there’s nothing there that’s going to kick anybody’s frontal lobes open the way The Invisibles did. Just Fables (Or: “What if Sandman didn’t have that pesky ‘ending’ thing.” as I like to call it.) and new ways to try to sell you The Sandman comics over and over. (This month: The Absolute Annotated Editions with Digital codes that allow you to download Stephen Fry reading the whole 75 issues to you. And a napkin personally snotted on by Neil Gaiman.)

‘Good Times pass, But so do the Bad.’

But what’s more important to me than Hellblazer 300, is where I’m reading it.

I’m in an Irish pub on one side of the Thames. The pints are £3:40 a Guinness. Around me, there’s a jukebox not too many lights. hardboard over the window where it’s been smashed in last week, a pool table, a fuck-off great telly playing Sky Sports. It’s pretty busy. There’s Irishmen here, Jamicans, Welsh, Pakistanis. They’re alright in there. after a few jokes about my reading comics down the pub, we play some pool, listen to a bit of Dexy’s, bit of Judge Dread. Nice And Smooth.

Later, wander over to the other side of the Bridge to meet some mates. Place is rammed with doughy, rosy cheeked white people in tweed and cordrouy looking generally pleased with themselves. Over the P.A, one of the bar staff’s Ipads plays a soft, lilting voice of a man singing that his girlfriend doesn’t love him anymore.

The guitarist in my band is trying to get served. He looks Indian. It takes a while, although he’s been going there for years. Raj, who runs the off-license across the road, is trying to sell raffle tickets to benefit the local youth centre that the local’s kids don’t go to, so they laugh and mock him with that cod Welsh/Indian accent that comfortable White people have been doing since World War 2. I have my usual wild eyes, unkempt hair, I treat shaving as an option and my Iggy Pop hoodie is held together with pins, so it takes me a while to get a drink as well.

There’s a scene that happens frequently in Hellblazer. It’s that moment where, just for now, The Big Bad is dealt with. Shattered and fragile John, Chaz and (Girlfriend Of The Month) go to a pub in London and reflect that at least there’ll always be a boozer. They look wistfully, GOTM says something like ‘Are you going soft on us, John, you old rogue, yers?’ Orangey hues, Cut to shot of outside of pub. Sun coming up. End. Be back next issue.

In my head, just around the corner from that pub, Five bald, stout men dressed up for St George’s Day’s around pissed up and Paki-Bashing Ahmed. Shouting: ‘GET OUT OF OUR FUCKING COUNTRY!’ There’ll be a report on the telly. People will tut and tweet about the outrage. 2 weeks later, a BBC presenter will be involved with the Jimmy Saville scandal, or somebody will find traces of Guinea Pig in a cheeseburger, and everyone will just forget about Ahmed. Not out of malice, just because that’s how we are.

Maybe we’ve had our time. Sid’s dead. Joe. Johnny. Malcom.
Maybe it’s time for a new voice. One not made of grumpy middle class white men bringing their attempts to pretend they’re 17 years old full of speed. Maybe the nice twee people with degrees have had their chance and made it clear they’re only interested in amusing each other.

I keep looking at my Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook feeds. At Newsarama, Bleeding Cool, Forbidden Planet International. All the usual channels and I see nice projects, and probably worth checking out, but maybe we’ve had the voice of comics for too long. Maybe we’ve absolutely drained the well of the disgruntled middle-class white man in London now. I keep looking at these pop up shops, exhibitions in Soho and fancy paper projects and wondering ‘Who is this stuff FOR, besides affluent clique scenesters?’  If you’re a non-white kid or a woman outside of the scene who doesn’t like networking, then how do you get onto that ladder of exposure so that you can get paid to create comics?

Well, as I like to say, pointing out the problem is only half the equation. The other half is trying to create a solution. I don’t know much about what goes on outside the mainstream of comics, and I don’t think I’m alone in this, so here’s my idea:

I don’t have much in the way of exposure, just this column and my weekly ranting over on BAMF!, but what I’d like to do is use that space is to promote people who are turning out new comics work who you don’t normally see getting a push. I’m not going to recommend stuff I think is rubbish, because if a joke is crap, it doesn’t matter if Chris Rock, Christina Aguliera, Chris Brown or Chris Martin tells it. I am willing to get together with a couple of mates who have their ears closer to the ground than me and discuss things, and if we like it, I’ll RT, push and generally do what it takes to get you noticed. Deal?

By the way, I’m perfectly willing to accept that someone is already doing this. In fact, I’m hoping they are, but given the glut of comics that I’m totally not seeing out there by anyone besides middle class white people, maybe as many of us trying to shake things up isn’t the worst thing in the world.

(If anyone’s really upset, just remember that John can’t be actually dead. He still has to be alive for what I consider the real ending of Hellblazer, which is HellBlazer: Bad Blood by Jamie Delano, Warren Pleece and Philip Bond.)

Anyone want to link me to their or people they think I’d been interested can contact me via my Facebook or Twitter.

Good Night, John.

Here’s to you, Mate. Time to move on.

(Nevs Coleman has too many  Ex-Girlfriends and terrible sins in his past. Maybe we need better role models.Apologies to those expecting a straight review of Hellblazer 300. I thought this was more important. )

 

No Flies In This Superior

As Steven Wacker would have it, I’m one of ‘Them.’

I’ve been a Spidey fan since I can remember. through every event in my life, every week I was there to pick up my Spidey Fix. I endured Mark Bagley taking over Amazing Spidey. Spider-Hulk, the death of Harry Osborn I lived through the Clone Saga. Aunt May The Dead Actress, The 30th Anniversary. The return of Norman Osborn,  Spider-Man:Chapter One The reboot, by the time we’d got to JMS taking over Amazing Spidey, I’d given up hope on ever reading a Spidey comic that had the magic of those early Hobgoblin/Black Cat issues that i fell in love with all those years ago.

‘WINDOWS ARE FOR MARYS!’

With no hyperbole, JMS’s run TOTALLY rocked my world, aside from having top end John Romita JR art, it did something that no other Spidey writer had tried previously. It RESOLVED things. What would happen if Aunt May actually found out that Pete was Spider-Man? Turns out she’d be alright with it. How would Pete finally resolve his father figure issues that had been started with Richard Parker having to leave him as a child and then his shocking loss of Uncle Ben? He’d hook up with Tony Stark, who’d also encourage him to use his scientific acumen. Why was Spidey cursed to spend his life as a maligned loner? Turns out he didn’t. He could just join The Avengers, get a decent income, somewhere to live and a salary. Which would also solve the ‘Oh No, what if one of my enemies tries to get to me via Mary Jane?’ Well, she’s living with The Avengers. So probably ‘Not much.’

Mary Jane’s Flatmates. Yesterday.

With the resolution of all these questions that had been run into the ground, it looked for a bit, like we could start heading into uncharted terrority for the ol Webhead. New pastures, a chance to see what he could do without the anchors of played out themes dragging him down for the umpeeenth time. When he unmasked during ‘Civil War’, I thought ‘Actually, this could be interesting.’

Well, it was. not for the reasons I was expecting.
Much has been written about the events of One More Day, so i won’t rehash them here. Suffice to say, that was the event where I didn’t think i understood who Pete really was anymore. Moreover, it struck me that Marvel editorial were quite happy to sacrifice years of characterization in order to deal with their problems with Pete’s marriage. Problems that not many other people seemed to have. Somehow, Peter making deals with Mephisto was acceptable because the stigma of Pete being a divorcee was too much to bear. Within a few issues, we were back to 1970′s era storytelling. harry’s back, Aunt May can never know Blah, blah, blah. i could have dealt with that, were it not for the editorial snark that bled through every issue.

At that point, about 2 or 3 issues into Brand New Day, I stopped dead. I had piles of issues of ‘My Pete’ I could read. I wasn’t sure who BND Spidey was meant to be selling too, because i saw lots of people cancel their standing orders for Spidey once they realised that this wasn’t a short-term thing. That Marvel had really just damaged the brand of Peter Parker forever to handle the ego of Joe Quesada (Who alleged rewrote the final JMS issue of Amazing Spider-Man to fit in with his agenda.) and perceived problems with a superhero having a marriage. As though being happy in aspect of his life made him any less of a self sacrificing hero. Nope.

And then I just stopped paying attention. Like most of the other characters I’d grown up with, Spider-Man just became one more symptom of professional fan fiction gone too far.There was no reason to believe that anything that happened in Amazing Spidey wouldn’t just be reversed depending on the moods and neurosis of the editor in charge at the time. Norman Osborn could have turned out to have been a Skrull. J. Jonah Jameson could have become the new Green Goblin, Aunt May could have become the herald of Galactus (again.)

Me and Spidey. Done.

Then, somewhere along the line, I get the impression that marvel realised that they might have gone too far, instead of a rotating team, they hired one of the biggest fans of Spidey working in comics to take over the book. one Mr Dan Slott. Who made me rethink my ‘No more Spidey’ stance. I’d enjoyed both his run on She-Hulk and his Batman mini immensely. Also, he’d be bringing back Phil Urich, the nephew of Ben who’d been The Green Goblin for 10 minutes in the 90s. A series I probably enjoyed more than anyone else. I didn’t feel compelled to buy the book, but I was willing to read it, taking the idea that it was Pete from Earth 2 or something like that.It was a pretty enjoyable series of Spidey stories. And somewhere along the line, things started getting interesting. Specifically with Madame Web.

Madame Web has always been one of those annoying vague characters like The Phantom Stranger or Uatu who shows up once in a while to say ‘Ooh, things are going to get bad.’ but without saying what it would be. I had the impression their appearances were get out clauses for writers who couldn’t organically create suspense. the literary equivalent of those covers that promise ‘THIS ISSUE! SOMEBODY DIES!’ because there wasn’t enough faith in the storytelling ability to sell the book on it;s own merits without guiding casual readers into thinking that this particular issue would be worth buying multiple copies .

‘My forecast says….Sadfaces. Many, many sadfaces. :(‘

So, Madame Web would show up during a story say ‘Pete, things are going to get bad.’ and my natural reaction would be ‘Well, D’OH!’

But it KEPT happening. With increasing frequency. Having gone back and read all of Slott’s run with the knowledge of what happens in Amazing Spidey 700, Dan was pretty much telling us via Madame Web ‘PETE’S GONNA DIE!’
So, when Dan started announcing on twitter that Amazing Spidey 698 was going to be a big deal, I brushed it off. How many times had we had THAT chestnut thrown at us? Yeah, yeah, it’s gonna be a big deal, nothing will be the same again, like the Death of Johnny Storm, Thor, Nick Fury, Bucky Barnes, Janet Van Dyne, Captain America. the ‘No Remorse’ Tony Stark.Whatever. Fire up the Life Model Decoys, Their spirits being sent to the past, being shrunk into The Microverse, Deleting the bit of their brain that told them that cloning Thor was a good idea. Yadda yadda

‘Dead, Black Or Hasslehoff?’ Tonight On Fox.

I got revved up for the adventures of Pete. I totally dug all the way out rumours involving Norman Osborn, Miguel O Hara, Ben Reilly and everything else. So, now rereading Amazing Spidey 698 through to Superior Spidey 1 and Avenging Spidey 16 without the desperate ‘OMIGOD, WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN HERE?’ panic behind it. (I have to say, iIread Amazing 700 a few days before Xmas and it totally floored me when i realised, finally, that Peter wasn’t going to win, and furthermore, this was the 1st time I rooted for him to win the day since hoping against everything I’d been told that Peter would find a way to save Aunt May from the gunshot wound that WOULDN’T involve Mephisto.)

And having reignited that link between Pete & me that had been dormant for years, through bitter cynicism and savvy knowledge of marketing tricks, Slott got me. As I realised, flipping through 700 that actually, Spidey was going to lose. But, this is the key thing, in those issues, Dan rather masterfully deals with all of the perceived problems with Spidey in one fell swoop.

One) Pete was a guy who had had some kind of marriage like relationship with Mary Jane. Neither One More Day or One Moment In Time solved that comics were published that stated that to be true.

Two) Aunt May was still about. I think THAT panel in 699 was Dan’s way of making sure we could never look at her in the same light again. I don’t know who’s going to pull the short straw when they finally have to bring Pete back (In a four issue, deluxe mini-series with LOTS of recaps.) but at SOME point, there’s going to be the awkward Otto/David face-off.

David:‘So, uh, did you wait until you tied the knot before….?’
Otto:’Octavius does not discuss such matters, Impudent Peasant!‘
Pete:‘PLEASE STOP TALKING ABOUT THIS!’

Three) Pete was the guy who sold out his Love for Mary Jane. No way around that. No mentioning that Spidey had done deals with Venom previously, etc, could undo that. The ‘brand’ of Pete is forever tainted by that. As much as Marvel want to pretend that it seemed like a good idea, they’re obviously aware that it was as unpopular a move as The Clone Saga. (More so,in fact, as at least The Clone Saga could be resolved by saying ‘Actually, Ben was a Clone the whole time.’ There isn’t a way of saying ‘Ben Reilly made the deal with Mephisto.’ without directly contradicting interviews done with Joe Quesada, Steven Wacker and Axel Alsono at the time.)

Except, Otto doesn’t really win and Pete doesn’t really lose in Amazing Spidey 700. Pete both honours (Finally!) the memory and teachings of his Uncle Ben by passing them onto Otto, who equally DOES die in Amazing Spidey 700. Or at least Doctor Octopus does. I think this issue is the final redemption of Peter Parker.

Four) There are so many Pete-Spidey comics that every interaction he can possibly go through with nearly the entire Marvel universe is played out a billion times over. What ELSE is Pete going to say to Tony, to Norman, to Logan, to Reed, to Jonah, to Miles that hasn’t been said previously? How many times has he lost his Spidey-sense, got a new costume? Guilt-tripped about something he should have done and then realised that’s not what Uncle Ben taught him? Lifted up a Very Heavy Thing in tribute to Amazing Spidey 38?

Five) Equally, Good LORD, are Spidey’s villains played out? Yes, yes they are. Techno gadgets, Legacy versions (She’s the niece of the original’s brother. FROM THE FUTURE!), an all new attitude? Resurrected BUT NOW WITH CLAWS! Is anyone in Pete’s immediate social circle NOT linked with a super- villian now? Jonah? Nope Harry? Please. Flash? Nuh-uh. Betty? THREE TIMES OVER, at LEAST. May? Er..er…Let’s not think about that.

And now, finally, after several attempts over the last twenty years, Marvel finally have a revitalized, interesting Spidey. Free from the chains of 50 years of stale relationships and formulaic exchanges. ‘Spock’ is an interesting angle on something that opens up a realm of possibilities in well done comics. I don’t THINK I’ve seen the Antagonist as Lead done quite so well, and the genuine emotion that people expressed online as a result of all this makes me think that Marvel have finally achieved what they’ve been trying to do since The Clone Saga. Superior Spidey is what The Clone Saga should have been.

For those of you into their superhero comics being intriguing, fun, well done and brilliantly, UNPREDICTABLE. (Miguel O’Hara, Guys? REALLY you thought Miguel O’Hara.), then you are happily directed towards Amazing Spidey 700 & Superior Spidey 1 . Don’t worry, Pete’ll be back more than soon enough, by the look of things

Oh, and one last thing.

It’s funny again. Yep. Funny Spidey comics.

Welcome back to the future. We’ve been living in the past too long.

Conformity is a sucker’s paradise.

Your changes have been saved.

…So, anyway.

Having being something close to catatonic this week, my friend Johan suggested I do some automatic writing.

i have.  This is the result:

Boredom so much boredom Consumer Slave for no good reason but nothing better to do. So many books so many tapes so much STUFF but none of them quiet the noise. asked to simply live with it and here are some more pills but they won’t help.

Just go away and deal with it this is who you we don’t know how to make it better try being grateful Oh good guilt along with self hatred and loathing. Thanks. Brain flares up and I fear nothing and again I can feel I’ve said something that’s crossed the line but fuck it, everyone goes anyway. Matter of time, later I will cool down and more regret and sincere apology. Bad programming so keep away before people see that the codes are badly inputted and all attempts to reboot have failed.

One more fool says something, and it’s building and building and you just want to say ‘Stop, you’re just talking and building up a concept, but it isn’t real, it’s just some stuff in your head, and I’m so sick of arguing against your preconceptions rather than reality and there’s so much good advice that just doesn’t understand, says if you just do this and this and this there won’t be a problem except that’s not really how it works and i’m tired of your ‘do’. I understand’do’, in my peaks there is NOTHING I can’t do, It is the abscence of the ability to do that is the problem. ‘If you just drive to the shop, you can carry the shopping in the acr’ ‘But my car is gone’ ‘Yes, but if you drive to the shop…’ ‘But i have no car’ ‘You’re just being negative, DRIVE TO THE SHOP. :)’ ‘I. HAVE. NO. CAR.’ ‘Then there’s nothing I can do.’ ‘I KNOW!

‘you’re just not trying,’ the black swamp of quagmire i kick and bite and rend through just to get myself out of bed as my body more and more refuses to pay attention to my commands. Can feel the turnaround time from concept to joke getting longer and longer, like a bad lag. Only way to function is to remembr those who pissed me off and it fuels me yo get up at least but then slog about. Eventually they gave me different drugs but those were sedatives. Strong, strong ones. If i am in a waking coma i can’t confront…the Authority.

Authoirty can’t be trusted not to screw up. The Machine cares about it’s own perpuity ad all assets will be stripped and worn down to feed it. House ALWAYS wins. It won’t be changed from the inside, your notions are flesh, the machine is metal and pulps love and compassion and turns those closest to it into more ,machines that bark it’s principles. ‘Don’t be stupid, feed the machine, slavery to the machine is it’s own reward. Join us and you will not be alone, we are all drinking in the plantation now. Shut up, here are bread, breasts and circuses.’ Your fake family will sell you everything from nappys to tombstones and you will be comforted by their cathode smile.’ They don’t care about you. You will never buy their affection or approval.

BUT DON’T WORRY. Quick, look, go to the message boards and wear your Man U scarf as you flame the Arsenal fan. Call Of Duty vs Battlefield, Punk vs Cena, Protestants vs Catholics, Women vs Men. It is ALWAYS the other tribe’s fault and if only they saw things differently. Like you do. You know everything. hashtag lol. hashtag stupid hashtag i know everything hashtag why haven’t you evolved yet.

Another source of relief. Everything and eventually everyone is a source of relief and distraction until they aren’t anymore, trade in, replace,m ignore, hide, move away. Working for the weekend: you can feel and in the blink of an eye it’s all over and back in the cage of the desires of the machine trying toWorking for the weekend quick,  Short term long distance as i fear my temper or rsather the rejection and shame it brings on until the only option is an absolute rejection of diginity and ego, piss on the social acceptable norms and the notions of what is expected as man, a son, an uncle, a hetero, a nephew, a white and all those of other things, those concepts were imposed. And no longer my problem. Expect what you like. And get comfy as you do so.

Each generation’s unthinkable concept is the next’s rock n roll and the following’s acceptable retro. Everything of joy and splendor becomes another pile of inert molecules once the flame of the NEW burns out. Cheap thrills to glamour your mind soon more baggage to hold you down.  OH HAIL YEAH, bow down and worship to the content providers, they of the highest most holy who are the all of our mind, PRAISE be to those deign to come down from their ivory trailers to distract us from the black abyss that we don’t run screaming from the abyss that has no problem staring back til you reach for the next boxset or go mad and never come back.

And those distractions become an exercise in refinement, the study of the thing, a dissection, a performance, see my layouts, Ric Fair flops to his face.The glamour of the spell is broken, REMEMBER THE PERFORMER! Each subsequent generation of creation is another dilution til nothing PRIMAL is left, only a collection of studies in troupes and kinks, I am drawing eyes like this because I studied the guy who was successful ten years ago. I scissor-kick because Beck did. I am nothing but a combination of ‘influences’. Eclectic means you rip-off Lenny Bruce instead of Bruce Forysth.   Intellect and Ego pour from every panel, every note, every line, And we mean it, man. Do we? Mean what? Iggy might be perfection. The apex of the ideal.

Waiting, waiting for the time when everything can be dealt with without a thousand bees buzzing outside the fifty layers of cement and blankets in the way, waiting for the shoutout that never comes, The noise stops and finally serenity and confidence, all the brain scraping is a million miles away and cant relate to the idea of the noise at all. It comes in bursts, via a Robert Williams painting, a Russ Meyer trailer, a Mark Twain book, a Gif of Christina Hendricks , a Stones song, ‘Dead Flowers’ ripples at the back of the skull, dropping light and fire through the cortex. If junk does this then I know full well why Gram Parsons is dead, the tingle up the arms, the serenity, everything is okay and you can ease the pain of those you run into by the light of yourself, it’s all so easy, always been so easy, why couldn’t you see it before, all you want to do is share it with the world til the fear spiders crawl across the brain this to shall pass, and you smile in your head and say’Sure, Jim, but that’ll be then but this is now’ but it’s coming and the glow you felt is fading and all the things you thought transcended are back, but nastier as the skewed grey empty and wanting faces realise your light has burnt out and now you’re just another bum, another exile on shaking street.

Stones dont work no more so fuck Mick Jagger anyways and all that special is used up, and anyway it’s back to the real with it’s Michael McIntyres and Adeles. Now you hate these things because they’re just tourists, they’re not spreading the sonic love but stripping the chords to make their egos and pockets bigger and as you see what everyone seems to really like, you know just why Miles Davies played with his back to the crowd so I’m back to bed except to shit * smoke and i can go f days without a cig and i’ll wait through stomach pains til my mind and body finally align and deign to let me get up again because diginity is nothing but people wondering what the Joneses’ll say about them behind their back. and Captain Beefheart lived in the desert

The Grass is greener is the greatest lie that mankind ever inflicted upon itself because some bastard worked out that man is a donkey that needs a carrot or he won’t lift a finger, so sure, there’s a Heaven or you can get enlightment with the next workshop or people will like you when you’re ten pounds lighter or can benchpress more or bleach your tooth or just buy this thing, this thing’ll def make you happier. Oh, it didn’t? Ah, well bills to be paid, maybe it’s that next thing, or this? You better get into SOMETHING because we told you that you’re could be a star when you were a kid but now the curtain is pulled back and we realise that means nothing anymore and everyone is levelled by Twitter Hey Lady Gaga Fuck You, because I can, just one more hand at a keypad now nothing special at all, we broke the fourth wall and the show will never be the same again.

Anyway, crashland from your daydream of backstage and just one more tour and could you be thinner and your ex is selling old stories about sex nothing is private anymore but dont bitch bitch because you knew the score and you can huff and puff better you can’t break the machine so try and stay clean or you’ll disappear, another tumblr heartbreak, your legacy will be mawkish mispelled facebook groups and soft focus pictures with a halo, so good for that.

So hey boxsets and Mad Men no not Madman that’s a comic, stupid. You HAVEN’T seen Game Of Thrones? Lol where have you been, 3am with youtube hunting down episodes and reading comments and ‘One does not simply take it up the bum Rofl’ says LOST$LIFE (5 likes, 47 dislikes)  and tjhere are wars everywhere, everywhere are wars and misery’s the river of the world, only safety in status quo because it’s all tribes, brother, and we all die for the Pepsi Challenge.

Trapped in a bed he never made.

I don’t even know if I should be writing about this, but I don’t know what else to do.
In the last couple of years, I’ve felt my mind start to shut down, I feel like I;m becoming trapped in my own body, as though I cannot get the brain to actually trigger off the things I need to do to go through this life. I spend a lot of time on the sofa struggling to actually get up. 

It takes half an hour to go from ‘Make a cup of tea; to actually fulfilling the action. I have no idea why this is happening, but I feel like I am simply fading away from the world, like something in my head is trying to detach from everything and everyone, I answer the phone and emails less and less, I can’t get it together to sort out my finances, or go to the doctor and sort out my meds. I haven’t played a gig in months, I barely speak to anyone. Every aspect of my life is failing apart through unintended neglect.

I feel like I am stuck in my own skull, and I wish it were just a case of get up and do it’, but that’s obviously not the answer, because I’ve been trying that for a while. Does anybody know if this is some kind of shock based trauma, or something I just have to wait out or what needs to happen, because at my current rate, I;m going to end up starving through inability to both deal with the council or actually get something to eat?

Something needs to change.

Thoughts on Christmas

Look, I think this.

I think i remember you when you were heartbroken, when you openly wept in front of everyone because it all had become too much to worry about dignity anymore. And I remember holding you and telling you it was okay. And now something has shifted. You’ve found someone, or you’ve upgraded your social postion, or whatever, and you aren’t obliged to hang out with those of us left behind by whatever anymore, and that’s fine.

Except not everyone gets what you got. You got the fairytale ending, and woo for you/ Me? i’m still here. And what I’m tired of is a society that judges people on what they provide. Be it entertainment or money or suchlike. I’m trying to be here for the people who made the mistakes. because Lord knows I’ve made enough.

And maybe, rather than seeing people for what value they can provide, we can accept them for what they are, not what we want them to be. Maybe there are a whole bunch of rules that make up social norms that some of us aren’t clever enough to understand and so we get left behind while others get through on the power to schmozz. Or have made the mistake of liking this rather than that.

Maybe we’re here trying to get by while you forget us and get to shine.
Maybe we’re sick of your attempt to contact us being regarded as a favor fom the special people
Maybe there’s a reason you’re not good enough to hang with us.

Some of us take friends more seriously than ambition or desire.

My name is Nevs. I’ll talk straight with you. If you want to be my friend. Great. If not, don;t waste my time. You’re not doing me any favours

When you go out for Xmas Eve tomorrow, try looking at the person on their own. That’s the point.

Some Thoughts On Depression.

Sometimes you have to be told the same thing over and over again until you finally get it.

So, it’s Christmas time again. Tinsel, rain, cold, a new Call Of Duty. For some of us, an excuse to drink muld wine, eat mince pies, see people we’ve not seen for a while.

For others, and maybe a lot more than we’d like to think, long dark nights, poverty, loneliness, heat bills that can’t be paid, constant refreshing of Facebook or Twitter Interactions pages to see if anyone has been in contact. Noticing the amount of people whose profile have shifted from ‘Friend’ to ‘Add Friend.’ on the quiet. Frankly, it’s going to get really nasty for the next few months. I’ve already seen people switch from ‘Flakey’ to ‘More Than Wobbly’

In short, we are approaching the time of S.A.D. I don’t really know what to tell you beyond the fact that I’ve been fighting crippling depression for most of my life. I’ve tried to outrun it via comics, games, drugs, women, work and it’s smashed and destroyed all of those things, one way or another. I’ve watched as my switching between high energy life of party and low to the point of not being able to actually speak, let alone get out of bed or do the things I’m meant to be getting on with. I’ve perplexed people who don’t understand how I can talk a million miles a minute and come up with fifteen ways of solving a problem one day, and be barely able to speak the next. The truth is, i don’t really get it myself.

However, I’ve picked up a few tricks along the way, so if anyone is out there reading this, I’m here to pass on what little wisdom I have to offer on getting through what can be a terrible time of year.

1) Don’t make your happiness reliant on external circumstances:

I know this is easier said than done, but the amount of  time I’ve spent on a low because this didn’t happen, or that person did one thing rather than another has only taught me one thing: The chances are, what other people do is probably nothing to do with you. I’ve had a metric fuckton of grief from people who had expected me to do stuff without A) Telling me what they wanted or B) Explaining that my ‘refusal’ to comply with the wishes in their head would lead to sulking, passive-aggressive tweeting and such.

Essentially, that person might call you, that book might be in stock, your favourite act might win X-Factor, The Catholic Church might start ex-communicating child molesting priests. the public might start taking an interest in your work. Sadly, they also (and Sod’s Law being what it is, More likely)  might not.  If your peace of mind is in any way based on variables, you’re kind of doomed. Personally, I recommend The Sedona Method. It’s a long, hard road, but really worth it.

2) AVOID THE DEPRESSING STUFF!

I realise that attempting to partake of most mainstream entertainment what the low is on won’t help anything, and Lord knows, I’ve tried switching on the telly in the vain hope of finding something that doesn’t make me feel totally alienated and insulted at the same time. With that in mind, it’s incredibly tempting to lean towards Dorothy Parker, or The Smiths or somesuch. It makes sense. Prozac Nation, Invisible Monsters or Psychocandy are going to make more sense than anything you’re going to find on PrimeTime TV, I imagine. In my experience, though, as much as you may relate to Radiohead’s work, it’s probably going to make you worse.

Honestly, as much as I love ‘Black Coffee Blues’ by Henry Rollins, I can’t read it anymore (and I reread books a lot.)  because it ends up confirming everything I distrust about people. If I wasn’t full onto in The Grey before reading the book, I totally am afterwards. Same effect from Wurtzel, Palahunik, Burroughs, The Jesus & Mary Chain, Joy Division etc, upon etc. I’m not suggesting you go on a cultural diet of Barney The Dinosaur and Taylor Swift, but if you feel the blues kicking in, remember how long it takes to shift in the 1st place and try to avoid content that will encourage it. I highly recommend things and people like Richard Pryor, The Muppets, Fishbone, Mystery Science Theatre 3000, Roger Alan Wade, Bad Brains and such. They’ll either get you laughing or get you riled up enough that you can chase off the depression for a bit. Sad as it sounds, all you’re going to get is a reprieve.

He’s on your side.

3) Don’t bother explaining to people who don’t understand.

This is a truncated version of a conversation I’ve been having for about 20 years now:

‘Hey, Nevs, you okay.’

‘Ah, just the Blues, Man. Just The Blues.

‘WHAT? But you have X, Y, Z. And don’t forget your health.’

Right,. Thanks for the words of understanding…’

Nihilistic as this sounds, one of the things you learn quite quickly is that all the sparkle of those things you’ have’ will lose their shine once The Grey kicks in (And I don’t really believe in ‘having’ anything anyway. There are things and people who are in your proximity for a limited period of time, and that’s it. Might be a long time. Might not, but still, limited.) The suggestion is that one ought to be really grateful that all of these things are in your life and that you should just buck up your ideas and stop moping around, By Golly.

Yeah. It doesn’t really work like that.

2 Things:

A) Nobody in their right mind WANTS to be depressed. I’d go as far as to say every single major screw-up in my life could be attrbiuted to doing something to try to outrun my own depression.  Every drug, every maxed credit card, every debt, every drunken night throwing up in a back street in Soho or any other strange place in the world, every cigarette, every month literally spent playing Halo or GTA, every incident of sex with someone I shouldn’t have slept with was trying to get away from The Black Dog. Eventually, that Dog bites and chews through your best efforts, it’s still shitting into your mind and all you’re left with is a trail of destruction, broken friendships, debt collectors and no end of burnt bridges. I would take breaking my arm over knowing that the chances are that I’m going to be battling depression for the rest of my life. Know why? Because an arm, or a leg or something breaks, and then it heals, and that’s it.

Depression goes away. For a bit. Then it comes back. Sometimes only for a while, Sometimes for literally years. It is shit. All happiness is tempered with the knowledge that the state is entirely temporary and at some point,. What you probably don’t need is some righteous, uninformed …person guilting you about people in Ethiopia because that’s not going to help. Why? Because…

B) Depression is an illness.

Depression is an illness.

Depression is an illness.

Depression is an illness.

Illness, Depression a is.

Depression, Illness a is.

Is illness, A Depression.

A is Illness, Depression.

So, the next time your mate is looking a bit down and you’re going to try the ‘Tough Love’ thing with them, please ask yourself if you would say any of the following:

‘Bronchitis? But you have such wonderful friends. How could you have Bronchitis?’

‘Why are you lying there with your Flu? You have a job most people would kill for!’

‘Measles? Measles? But your girlfriend LOVES you!’

‘Do you see how totally irrelevant an illness is to your external circumstances? Does the average cough say ‘Oh, THAT guy? No, no, he works in films. His picture is on billboards. Women love him. There’s no reason why he should have a cough. We’ll skip him.’ Generally, no, Illness tends not to discriminate depending on the advantages that you might see the sufferer benefitting from. Listen, people, if you are on the receiving end of one of these lectures, you’re not obliged to justify it anymore than you are any illness .(‘Well, the mucus builds up in my nose, and then I end up sneezing and honking a lot. I’m sorry! I didn’t know only certain people were allowed to get colds!’) Try and find someone who does. In case of all else, try The Samaritans, who are here.

There are things that help with depression. Yes, they’re the usual things, eating right, getting out into the fresh air, seeing people. However, the ability to do those things is really dependent on how depressed you are. Sometimes it really is as much as you can do to put on your trousers and walk down the road to get some fags. The idea of spending time in anyone’s company is like having chisels driven into your brain while being wrapped in duvets covered in piss and barbed wire. This isn’t personal. None of it is personal. Again, nobody in their right mind wants to be depressed, and as mind-numbingly incredible as it may sound, they’re not being depressed to upset you.

It shifts when it shifts. That’s all there is to it.

( And if you’re someone who has thrown their hands in the air and abandoned someone with Depression as if you’re the one hard done by, then you’ve made the world a little bit worse, and contributed to the cycle of ‘Depression will create Repulsion.’ and fed the taboo of people not seeking help as they feel ashamed of talking about a perfectly legitimate problem. So Good Work, There. Fuckhead.)

4) Get Some Help! ASAP!

Go to your G.P. Try and plan something fun to do after the visit as there isn’t any instant answer coming. Most Anti-Depressants don’t work instantly, so don’t go in expecting your Doctor to press the F5 key and your depression to be lifted once your chat is over. Don’t be scared if they suggest you take time off from work, as Depression is, as we covered, seen as a legitimate illness and you should not be fired for it. ANY employer who attempts to dismiss you for it is opening themselves up for a pretty much open-and-shut lawsuit. (The only reason I didn’t sue my employers from a while back is that i didn’t want my ex-colleagues to lose their jobs. Well. Some of them) In the worse case scenario, you can claim money from the DLA., which comes to roughly £200 spending money a fortnight. Frankly, the fight for that will piss you off enough to not be depressed for a bit.

Also, having weeded out the people who don’t know what they’re on about, you’ll be left with people who ought to be willing to talk to you. there are also a great number of resources available on the internet to help. (Not Solve. Help. There is no one worse than offers a solution that doesn’t exist…)

Beyond that, as with everything else in this life, you’re sadly on your own. I keep going by regularly listening to Eckhart Tolie. Today, I’m in the good place. Tomorrow, it could be your turn. I hope you are.

Keep Breathing.