Jared Shurin's Blog, page 28

This Thursday... The Extinction Event!

Thursday evening we're having a welcome party forThe Extinction Event and a farewell to Jurassic London. Please join us and many of the book's contributors from 7 pm at the Yorkshire Grey (London, WC1X) to give the book/press the welcome/goodbye it deserves!

Facebook event, if you like toRSVPing.

There are very few copies ofThe Extinction Event unclaimed. It is very unlikely that there will be any left for sale on the night, so if you are interested in this special edition, 150-copy-only, nev...

From tiny acorns... the growth of Giant Days

Most media artifacts come to the public fully formed, the creative process long since edited away or consigned to the rubbish bin. With comic books that process has typically been more open to the public. For starters, when following a long-running series over a number of years, you can see how characters and concepts grow and change in time. If the series has the same creative team you may also see how an artists style or a writers craft develops as they gain experience.

As the comics marke...

Fiction: "Grave-Worms" by Molly Tanzer

The grey flannel suit might have looked masculine on the rack, or on another woman, but the close cut of the cloth, and the way the expensive fabric skimmed over the lines of her straight, slender figure was intensely, wholly feminine. If you saw her from behind, you might have thought she looked frail, or saint-like with her close-cropped hairbut when she turned, the determination that shone brightly from the grey eyes almost lost behind her long black lashes was anything but fragile.

Or inn...

Radio Drama: "The Monkey's Raincoat" (1982)

"The Monkey's Raincoat" first aired in 1982, onNightfall.

Thoughts Before Listening

So a while back, James Davis Nicoll shared a list of old radio shows, which included Nightfall, which is from the eighties and is also Canadian, so naturally very excite. I realized that I had actually heard a few eps of Nightfalla while back (and by a while back, I mean 8 or 9 years ago). I remember liking it a lot and I also remembered that back then, it was hard to find episodes of this show because downl...

2000AD: One Comic revisits... 2000AD Prog 376

Rerun!

Last March, Jon, Bex and Jared all read through an issue of 2000AD fromthe distant past (that's the 1980s!).

Worth it just to hear Jon and Bex try to explain wtf is happening to poor Jared.

Plus, the first appearance of Halo Jones!

2000AD: Why is Judge Dredd so damn good anyway?

As 2000 AD reaches its landmark 2,000th issue, it seems like an appropriate time to look back at the weekly anthologys greatest creation: Judge Joe Dredd.

First appearing in 1977 in the second prog of 2000 AD,created by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra, Dredd is a hard-line law enforcer in the dystopic future, dispensing justice in the enormous Mega-City One. The character has gone on to star in pretty much every subsequent issue of 2000 AD, spawned numerous spin-offs and two feature length f...

Weirdness Rodeo: Genre, Twitter, Pok��mon, Dogs

Sometimes you just want to see two dogs hanging out (Tumblr).

The Journal ofCultural Analytics is my new jam, combining two things I love, plus the wonderfully Quixotic concept of trying to quantify the abstract and squirmy. Ted Underwood's piece on "The Life Cycles of Genres" is everything good about cultural analytics. It tries to define the undefinable, goes for a wander, and sharessome fascinating insights along the way.

First, there's the difficulty in just defining what genremeans, as...

"Dorothy Parkour" by Rose Biggin

Smash through a window,
Break bones on a wall,
Railings can falter
A bridge, you might fall;

Lampposts teeter,
Pot holes, a speed bump,
Roofs are unstable;
You might as well jump.

---

Words by Rose Biggin

Art by Niki Sereno

Box Brown's Tetris: The Games People Play

Published by SelfMadeHero in October, Tetris: The Games People Play, is Box Brown's follow-up to hisbiography of wrestling and Hollywood legend, Andre the Giant. In his new graphic novel, Brown marries a philosophical view of humanitys relationship to games with the true story of the rise in popularity and subsequent legal wrangling of the '80s sensation Tetris. Although artistically snappy and warm, the creator only pulls off this marriage with debatable success. Regardless, the story of Tet...

Villain of the Month: Cersei Lannister

All right, lets get the ritual caveat out of the way: the Cersei Lannister were looking at today is the version from George R.R. Martins A Song of Ice and Fire, as opposed to HBOs Game of Thrones. Admittedly, this distinction gets a little messy now that the show has overtaken the books. Im going to shamelessly take advantage of that by using the show as a sort of bonus reel of material, but in cases where the two sources diverge, the books will always trump. Clear? Good. On with the fun.

And...