Comics Daze

I got new comics the other day, so perhaps today is a good day to get into a proper comics daze. After Diamond’s collapse, it’s just hard to know what’s actually being published, so my comics buying has trickled off, but I think that perhaps I’ve now got it right at Goshenite, so I’ve been able to buy more stuff. I’m still not sure I’m hitting the correct PRH/Lunar dates, though…

And for music today: Albums from 1997 only. Just because.

Stephan Mathieu: Wurmloch Variationen

12:38: Butch: A Hate Comic by Peter Bagge (Fantagraphics)

Oh, so this continues straight off of the Hate series from the other year? Well, that’s cool. I wonder whether Bagge is going to settle into doing a series of sorta-yearly one-shots about the crew… that’d be fun.

In this issue, Butch is first adopted by some alt-right people who kinda screw him over, and then he lands a job after pretending to be trans. It’s a happy ending for Butch!

I wonder whether people on Bluesky are angry about it… no, doesn’t seem like it. I guess nobody’s read it.

Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliott: Supa Dupa Fly

12:56: Rio by Doug Wildey (IDW)

I’m not really a Duran Duran fan, but… oh, I did that joke already? Yeah, I read the Comico collection of Rio some weeks back, and I wanted to read the rest of these strips.

This is reproduced pretty dark? Was it this way originally? This is one of those books that’s halfway between those huge “artist editions” and a normal collection… which is… Well, I guess it’s cheaper than scanning and then restoring?

Anyway, the stories are solid. These are classic western stories — Rio is a drifter without much personality (beyond being a good guy), and he then encounters various famous personalities (Doc Holliday, Wyatt Earp, etc) and has some adventures. It’s not very original, but as these things go, it’s very entertaining. Wildey’s artwork is perfect for this sort of thing, and you can feel his love for this milieu.

But… this reproduction, man… I can’t imagine that this was how Wildey meant for it to look.

The book also includes an unfinished story — it’s fun looking at what stuff Wildey inked/coloured first and what he left for later, but…

Anyway, somebody should do a new collection of this material, but in a more restored, normal way, because these are very readable stories that deserve to be presented in a more readable format.

Stereolab: Dots and Loops

13:45: Hype #1

This book was included in a package of Comics International issues I received some weeks back. Either a mistake or somebody included it as a gift, I guess?

This was apparently published around 1990 by Miriad Comics, a shop in Croydon.

It’s pretty good! The artwork on all the pieces seem to have the same energy — they must have had some kind of scene going on in Croydon.

Most of the stories don’t really go anywhere, but it’s still a pretty neat book.

14:07: Š! #57 (Kuš)

I got this from here.

The theme this time around is Scandinavia, the Balkans and myths.

It’s fun.

And very pretty.

And interesting.

Yet another great issue, really.

14:27: Testament by J. Marshall Smith (Bulgilhan Press)

This starts off well — it’s a kinda traditional setup with colonists going to another planet, cared for by an android.

And the artwork’s nice — it’s quite Linnea Sterte.

But the story is just the most jejune thing about Christianity and god and stuff. Very disappointing.

14:51: All-Star Statics #2 by Jeffrey Lewis

Hey, did I read this before? It’s from 2023…

Yes, this seems very familiar, but I re-read it anyway. It’s still really good stuff — very lively take on autobio comics and stuff. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any new issues…

Various: Recovery

15:09: Naked by Éloïse Marseille (Pow Pow Press)

Well, OK… this art style just isn’t my thing — it’s very animation influenced and extremely tablet-ey.

I like the general feeling of the book — it’s all about sex — but the didacticism gets wearying after a while.

Heh he. Another book about The Horrors Of Herpes? Well, not quite, but it makes you wonder what kind of edumacational system they have over thar.

15:48: Rabbel 2 by Anna Fiske (No Comprendo Press)

This is really charming. Love the colours.

This is one of those rare comics for children that are actually meant for children to read.

But it’s amusing for adults, too.

16:17: Oddball #1 by Mike Bodziak (Seriously Disgusting Comics)

I guess this one came from Domino…

This is very strange…

… but I like the artwork.

Laub: Kopflastig

16:23: Prop Comic by Veronica Graham

At least that’s what I think this is called? It’s impressively big — it’s not tabloid size; it’s broadsheet size. That’s something you rarely see.

This is quite something… it’s kinda vague what it’s about, but it’s interesting.

I like it.

Kaia: Ladyman

16:38: Fun Time by Mike Dawson

I got this from here.

This is a collection of stuff previously published in various minis or on Insta and the like.

The er “desktop publishing aesthetic” doesn’t really appeal to me…

… but it’s amazing how well it works as a book. It doesn’t feel forced in any way, but still it hangs together in a digressive way. It’s an engrossing book, and funny, too. I very pleasant way to spend some time.

17:37: Metadoggoz by Bérénice Motais de Marbonne (Drawn & Quarterly)

I like the general look of this book… punky 80s comics…

But I found it really hard to get into this book. The mixture of Fake Drama scenes (like above) with an apparently metaphysical plot is just pure Snoresville for me.

So despite some cool pages (see above), I ditched the book halfway through.

Fridge: Ceefax

17:50: The Shadower by Peter and Maria Hoey (Top Shelf)

Wow, that cover doesn’t look so much like a Chris Ware knockoff, but like a knockoff of a Chris Ware knockoff. Like somebody really into Ethan Persoff.

The storytelling style is pretty unusual for this day and age — it’s mostly driven by captions with the images not really adding all that much.

And the images look very much like clip art. They aren’t, but they have that feel, so the whole thing is kinda offputting.

Oh, and they’ve seen The Rehearsal, I guess?

I kept on reading, because despite it all, I was getting kinda into it. But then the plot (oops spoilers) turned out to be some trite thing about identity. I mean, you can do that well (say, Auster or Lynch), but it’s not really done well here.

But I guess… it’s OK?

It’s been reviewed widely:

The Hoeys are keener on exploring the idea of identity, and they use a spy thriller to do it. They’re certainly not the first to do it, but they do it in a tonally odd way, which helps the story quite a lot.

Which I guess means that IDW has a good publicity dept:

Spies, double agents and political activism makes for a potent brew and that’s excellently exploited in a memorable graphic novel.

Although they seem to have sent it off to some odd sites:

Top Shelf Productions voluntarily rated The Shadower as a book for Mature Readers. I think that’s a fair assessment, though there is little in the way of offensive content.

And some interviews, too:

But like all the Hoeys’ eerie, moving work, The Shadower on every page puts you in a state of unreal reverie that calls your conscience to wake up.

The Goodreads rating is 3.41, though, which is as low as it gets:

This is the first time I’ve ever read a graphic novel with a “show don’t tell” problem and I’m honestly a little unsure what to make of it. The story of The Shadower was interesting, definitely pretty unique overall, but 99% of it is written in summary of everything that’s happening on the page which leaves absolutely no room for the reader to interpret from dialogue or the literal artwork what’s happening in the story. Nope, we’re literally just told every single piece of what’s happening so much so that it basically makes all of the illustrations pointless.

18:34: The End

OK, I think I’ve read enough comics for today. Gotta run some errands.

My new career as a Lenovo laptop repair man

After being wonky for some weeks, my Control key finally popped off the other day. (Yes, I know, there’s a key marked “Ctrl” to the left of it, but I’ve remapped that to Fn, and this key (which is marked Fn) to Control.)

So I tried using the real Ctrl key as Control, but that just made my pinkie hurt, and then I remapped CapsLock to Control, but do you know how hard it is to unlearn, like, three decades where the Control key has been in the exactly same place? Literally beyond extremely.

And the thing is, I’ve already ordered a new laptop (the latest X1 model) when this happened, so sending this one out to be repaired just seems like such a waste of time. But ordering laptops from Lenovo is slow as usual, so the new laptop won’t arrive until May 9th!

WHAT TO DO

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 8th Gen Laptop How to Key Cap Repair

Well, there’s Youtube.

And… nothing seems to be actually broken?

Looks OK…

And the mechanism seems to be mechaning. (That’s a word.)

Perhaps I should clean a bit… I seem to be out of Air Duster, but I’ve got this lens cleaning brush…

All clean!

So I broke the key cap into constituent parts… I guess those white bits are called a “hinge”?

Plopped down…

Tap gently with a li’l screwdriver…

And… OK, it snaps back into place, but the “tabs” don’t seem to secure into the plastic very hard. So I guess that’s why it came loose in the first place — the plastic that the two bottom-most prongs fit into has gotten worn.

You can apparently buy replacements for these easily enough, but let’s see whether it still works…

And the cap itself snaps onto easy and nice.

And… It works! OK, it’s still a bit loose, but it works. Perhaps it’ll be fine until my new laptop arrives. *crosses fingers*

But it doesn’t pop off at least!

Ain’t life exciting.

Hm…

Oh, I just remembered that I have a replacement keyboard for a previous laptop generation lying around… perhaps I can just pop a cap here, and take the hinge?

Er… is that a different shape?

YES IT IS! Darnit, Lenovo, why must you continually innovate!

But… OK, I never use the Fn key. Perhaps I can just swap the hinges?

How To Fix Small Keyboard Key - Lenovo Thinkpad

Before popping a cap, I consulted The Wise Book of the Youtube again.

It’s easy!

It works! I now have a functioning, non-wonky Control key!

And while I’m at it, I swapped the caps, too, so that my Control key now says “Ctrl”.

I even managed to put the spare keyboard back together again, even though it’s probably going to a landfill somewhere at some point.

I actually dud it! I feel so proud.

Wherein my phone calls a bunch of people dozens of times

I’ve got a Samsung Flip 5 phone, and the other day when flipping it open, it said BBZZZCHT quite loudly, and then the screen died. Well, that is, when I open it, I get the above.

So now what? Android is, like most Google products that aren’t ad related, a half-assed product. The sensible work flow when a customer has a new phone would be:

  • Put them next to each other, perhaps connecting via a USB-C cable if you want to be advanced.
  • Do some kind of auth, depending on how broken the old phone is. This can be on-device auth (with a fingerprint, for instance, which would have worked here), or off-device (via the Google account).

Google is not a sensible company, so you have to have a working phone when you get a new one — otherwise you’re in for a world of trouble, because extremely little of what’s on the phone is synced to the clown. You need a working phone, with a working screen, really: You need to transfer several QR codes, do some auth, and click on various things.

I’m sure nobody goes out to buy a new phone when the old phone is broken! That’s crazy talk!

Anyway, this means that I have to connect the old phone to an HDMI screen, and plug in a USB mouse.

So I have an USB->HDMI dongle (to the left), but that’s useless, because I need a USB mouse, too.

The white thing above seems perfect, but it’s made by Apple, so it only works on Apple devices.

The thing in the middle also seems perfect — but it’s a “complex” USB hub that (I discovered while tearing out my hair over the past few days; I’m now bald) doesn’t support “DP Alt Mode” (aka “screen mirroring”), which is the only thing my Flip 5 supports. Newer phones like Flip 7 support something called “DeX”, which is a thing developed so that you can connect your phone to a big HDMI screen and use it as a desktop. Useful, I’m sure.

But fourth time lucky: This Sandstrøm S3IN1CA26E hub does the trick. You never actually know before you test them. All these hubs have specs that say “supports 4K HDMI” and “requires a USB-C device that support video”, which is less than helpful.

So, that’s good, eh?

Why is the phone making those kind of strange noises?

Er… The screen is vibrating? Is the screen auto-generating touch events OH MY GOD I CAN HEAR VOICES NOW AAARGH SWITCH THE PHONE OFF SWITCH IT OOOOOFF *film snippet of me running toward the phone in slow motion*

It turns out that the phone self-touched itself into Google Meet, and then called up half a dozen people, some more than a dozen times? (Sorry Nelson! Sorry Geir! Sorry Bjørn! Sorry the other people who I don’t quite know who were because it’s just too much work to open Meet on the phone.)

People started worrying whether I’d been kidnapped and that I was desperately trying to work my phone blindly or something.

I discovered later that if I just half-open the lid, then no touch events are generated, and I can use the mouse to click around and do the required stuff to transfer the data from the old phone to the new.

Of course, Android suppresses the mouse pointer on the screen when doing things like entering the pass code, so you have to do that blindly. “One mm to the left… one mm up… *click* NOOO”

And after transferring everything, there is, of course, the normal two hour session of logging into all the apps. Apparently Google has saved the passwords for two thirds of the apps, but the “safe” and “important” ones requires more lengthy login sequences.

Of course it’s impossible to copy over app data from the old phone to the new! Totally impossible! Especially for a little mom’n’pop business like Google. Can’t afford to come up with some scheme or other.

(You’d think that the phone makers would rebel — having a friction-less way to upgrade your phone would presumably accelerate sales, but nope. I dread getting a new phone myself.)

Anyway, that was my last three days. Thanks, Google (and Samsung).

Send Me Your Magazines About Comics

After a bit of a break, I’ve been futzing around with kwakk.info (the comics research site) again. I’ve been trawling the various archives for more stuff to add, and I’ve also randomly happened upon various web sites that have collections of scanned magazines, like this great site that has all the issues of Comixscene/Mediascene (which was pretty significant historically — Jim Steranko was the editor, after all). And what about this site, which collects the first decade of the Marvel Bullpen Bulletins? And, of course, Ink Stains, which has a whole lot of early fanzines about comics. And… this one… this one and… I’ve already forgotten.

In addition to all of that, I’ve also been scanning magazines myself, and… tada!

12K issues indexed now! Almost a million pages of blathering about comics!

But… it seems like the pack rat scanning people are a dying breed — very few magazines and fanzines about comics have been added to the major archives (archive.org and libgen.li) over the past year. It seems like the major spurt of activity basically ended a decade ago, and it’s been tapering off lethargically ever since.

Which isn’t totally odd — the heyday of the magazines we’re talking about here were published between 1970 and (say) 2004. And I’m guessing fewer and fewer people have access to scanners, since there’s less and less being printed on paper, anyway.

While the two most important magazines have been fully scanned (The Comics Journal and Amazing Heroes) (I did the latter myself), there’s many interesting magazines that haven’t received that attention — like Comics Interview. So perhaps there’ll never be a complete run of that magazine scanned, which is a shame, because there’s lots of interesting stuff in there — things that are useful when doing research.

Worst coverage of all is the most popular comics magazine of them all — The Comics Buyer’s Guide. Out of the 1699 issues published, only two hundred have been scanned. This is paradoxical in a way, but also natural: This was a (for most of its run) a newspaper sized magazine, so you need an A3 scanner to scan it. And very few people have those.

The other problem is, I think, the sheer ubiquitousness of the magazine: It was a weekly rag that people would look at and then throw away. That about two thirds of each issue was taken up with ads doesn’t help.

I guess Comics International had vaguely the same place in the UK comics ecology as CBG?

So while you can indeed find some delusional people trying to sell issues, these magazines are basically worthless, and while there are a couple people trying to sell lots of them for a dollar a piece or whatever, there just isn’t much going on.

I’ve got an A3 scanner. I’ve got a pedal. I can scan stuff. I’m out of stuff to scan. If you have any issues not listed on this web page, drop me an email at lars @ ingebrigtsen.no and tell me what you have, and I’ll send you my forwarding address (I’ve got one in the US and one in the UK). I’ll scan the issues, upload them to archive.org and then put them in the recycling.

What a deal! You help save the history of comics fandom, and you get er nothing in return! Except scans. After a while.

Of course it would be better if you scanned the magazines yourself… or if it already exists out there somewhere, drop me a note to tell me where to find it… But if you don’t have a scanner, send the zines to me.

(And some magazines/fanzines are, of course, valuable — don’t send any of those to me.)

The updated list of what magazines/issues that are on kwakk.info is here — I’m interested in basically all magazines/fanzines about comics, in any language. (And just to reiterate, because some people — I’m talking about magazines/fanzines that are about comics. Not comics magazines.)

But for now, my couch is scanner free! Freeeeee

Somebody on the Internet is wrong

I was listening to all of Barbara Morgenstern’s albums chronologically today (she’s fantastic), and as usual when Night-Time Falls started, I paid extra attention, because I just can’t believe those lyrics.

I mean, Morgenstern usually does a mix of earnestness and bizarre, almost psychedelic dead-pan humour in her lyrics — constant shifts between reality and fantasy — but this is just… even more so.

So once again I googled for what the lyrics actually are, in case I’m mishearing, and once again, nobody has transcribed them. So now I’m going to. You can listen to the song and read along:


Night-Time Falls

I was in a club
In Marseilles (?)
And I spent the night
With a promoter

He looked like me
‘K (?), but better
In the morning
My bad conscience raised
And I wanted to go back home
And be with you
There’s no lies between us

Night-time falls upon my brain
Makes up the secret of my days
Subconscious calls from an inner place
And reveals (?) my secret spaces

I decided
To escape from
The dilemma
I was trapped in

So I mixed an
Overdose drink
Gave it to you
You died
And everyone was full of grief
And my tears melted into relief

Night-time falls upon my brain
Makes up the secret of my days
Subconscious calls from an inner place
And reveals (?) my secret spaces

Mmmm

So — she sleeps with a guy, but feels it’s too embarassing to tell her partner about it. So she kills him, and is relieved. Happy ending!

But what did I find on the Internet? This article from 2012:

The lyrics don’t get much deeper than the song titles imply.

[…]

“Spring Time” is about spring time.

“Night-Time Falls” is about wanting to go home at night.

How… how is that even possible. Didn’t this complete moron even listen to the song before writing this reviews? I AM OUTRAGE

For an artist who released seven records I have to assume there’s someone out there who is going to buy this and perhaps more importantly, inadvertently encourage Barbara to make another one. I tried far too many times over repeated agonizing listens to find something to appreciate here and I have to say that with complete honesty there is only one positive thing I can write about this record. Like the song titles relative to their content, the title of the record is equally literal. You knew this was coming. By the time you reach the end of these 13 tracks… [Dramatic Pause] The silence is sweet, indeed.

Rating: 1

There’s opinions and there’s opinions, but then there’s this article. It seems to reach an entire new level of villainy and idiocy, don’t you think?

(Morgenstern’s subsequent album had German lyrics, presumably to avoid the ignominy of having to suffer reviews like this.)

But I’ve now done my duty and pointed out that somebody on the Internet was wrong. You’re welcome. And here’s some more songs by Barbara Morgenstern:

barbara morgenstern: we're all gonna fucking die
Barbara Morgenstern ‎- Come To Berlin (Telefon Tel Aviv Mix)