Hulk belongs in the desert

Almost all the Marvel movies have some small moment that I can appreciate - a piece of action, some charming moment of acting, or even something approaching some kind of emotional resonance. And one of my favourites came from one of the earliest movies of the modern superhero age, when we first saw the Hulk bounding into the desert and beating the shit out of some tanks.

There was something wonderful at seeing the impossible physics of the jade giant bounding across vast distances - the speed, the surprising agility, not just the raw power you'd expect from the strongest creature on the planet. It's easy to buy into that unfeasibly large bounding across the desert, and you can believe that this unreal creature would be able to crush a full-sized tank.

It's interesting to note that this movie was released just as American troops are heading off to a desert on the far side of the world, and getting bogged down in battle against an enemy that has none of the technological advantages. But it's also a time when everyone has to Support The Troops, and it makes the point of seeing the battered and bruised tank crew stagger out of an impact that should have turned them into red paste coating the interior of their vehcile

But all that wider context doesn't detract from the fun of the thing. This movie was made when they bothered getting directors with actual visions, instead of just people who will serve corporate demands, and Ang Lee and his collaborators made a move that doesn't have that dull reality of later Marvels. 

It's biggest thrill is actually in the unreality of the thing, the relative crudeness of the CGI creation, the vibrant green, which was later dulled down and dirtied up for every subsequent cinematic Hulk, because dorks couldn't stop making Shrek jokes. 

There was a sadly bold focus on the use of split screen to capture the feel of a comic, but the setting brings the familiarity of the original four-colour adventures. For decades the Hulk was roaming around the desert, getting into the shit. 

He belongs in these wide, empty spaces, where he has the room to do a sonic boom clap, or hurl some artillery away over the horizon, and where the only people that could get hurt are the fools that try to pick a fight with the Incredible Hulk.

Raging at the silly shit

I took myself right out of anything to do with Doctor Who fandom a few years ago, and my enjoyment of the show increased, so I remain as convinced as ever that if the entertainment you consume makes you angry, than you're doing it wrong.

Some stuff is supposed to make you angry, to get you fired up about something in the real world that deserves your rage, but so many people seem to think this is the appropriate response to anything you disagree with, no matter how trivial the source material is.

I'm disappointed when my entertainments are disappointing, especially if they waste their potential, but these things are there to make you feel and think and groove, and they are not the most important thing in the world. They are definitely not worth getting angry about.

It just feels like we are all drowning in gross entitlement that so many people mistake for loyalty, that the viewer or reader is owed something by the creator, and that if they don't fulfill those expectations, than they deserve insults and scorn.

I still hated the last Star Wars as much as anybody, but that whole sequel saga is still getting some outraged reactions, and fucking hell, it's not the end of the world. Movies and comics I dearly love have soured, but so fucking what, they're only movies and comics? They're not real, they're no substitute for real love and human connection. 

I do have some hope that we're all just getting burned out by this kind of reaction, after two solid decades of social media foolishness, but it still keeps simmering away.

The world can be a shitty, shitty place sometimes and the past year has been particularly grim, especially when we feel unable to stop the world from burning down, and that's where my rage goes, not into who is being cast as the new James Bond.

All the money in the world can't buy a single gram of style

One of the striking things about the Succession TV show were the spaces these ultra-rich wankers all lived in. They looked like classy hotels, not a place where real people loved and were loved. They were just nothing, with any personal touches styled right out of the room, so they ended up having homes that spoke of their own vapidness.

And I have a weird belief that that the more valuable something is, the tackier it is. The one time we went to the Tower of London, and saw the fabled Crown Jewels, I just thought they were a bit tacky. Too ostentatious, trying too hard to be impressive, and steamrolling any sense of style this finely crafted jewelry could ever have.

Having the kind of money to spend on any kind of jewel, or living in the same places the Roys called home, are not anything I have to worry about. But it's also something I don't think I'll ever miss.

Hellboy and the inevitable end of all things

While there is a general consensus that the BPRD series by Mike Mignola and pals went on for too long, and never really recovered from the loss of Guy Davis' art, the slow apocalypse that truly breaks the world of men in this story is a hell of a ride.

And I remain a little haunted by the final issue of the series, as a metaphor for my own mortality, and the inescapable fate we all must face, sooner or later.

Mignola's art makes a welcome return in those final pages, delivering on the grim promise the entire series has been dealing with. The end that was always spoken of is finally there, and it really is Hellboy standing there with Hecate at the end of all things. The world is destroyed, and he takes his final steps into an iron coffin.

Every Hellboy story has been telling us this will happen, but after reading about the endlessly noble efforts to stave it off, it can't be avoided. And Hellboy has reached the final moments of his story along with the end of the world, and it haunts me because I know we all get there in the end, 

At some point we all face that same moment, despite our own efforts to delay it. We can fight the bug-eyed monsters coming up from the earth, but it will be overrun by dragons, before burning in a  cleansing flame. And one day, no matter how much we don't like to think about it, we will all face our own demise.

We will all be there.

Of course, there have been loads of Hellboy-related content ever since, with the adventures of Big Red as a young monster hunter, or Frankenstein going out into the truly post-apocalyptic world for his own adventures. But this is the inevitable end of all things.

None of us know when that last moment will come, or even if we will face it with fear, or dignity, or something unexpected. Hellboy just gets on with it, and it's something we all have to do as well.

Falling into rock albums again

This might be the lamest thing that a thoroughly basic middle-aged wanker like me could ever say, but it's still true - I think listening to rock albums is awesome.

I feel quite strongly about this awfully controversial opinion at the moment, because I have recently got back into the entire idea of listening to a whole album, to the exclusion of everything else. Lying down on the sofa, putting on some headphones, cutting out the world, and just luxuriating in the music.

I work nights and have some free time during the day while the kids are at school, and I can usually carve out 45 minutes in a day to do nothing else but listen to some Pink Floyd. It is enormously relaxing to do so, and just wipes everything away. I never fall asleep, so it's not an actual nap. Just a lie down.

Everybody everywhere is very stressed at the moment, for unique and justifiable reasons, so immersing in an album is one way to deal with it - and it's one that works for me. 

I sit in the sunshine with my eyes closed, and see patterns as the music plays, strange thoughts coalescing into something almost tangible. Not actual hallucinations, just the brain seeing patterns that aren't there and making some sense of them.

My music listening has been largely run by playlists for a while now, so it actually feels refreshing when you give in to one artist's vision. I try to vary the types of music I listen to in this state, but have been unable to avoid falling into prog rock. I have visited the Court of the Crimson King, and I have really into the Pink Floyd.

The Floyd will always be my first favourite band, the first group where I would listen to their albums on headphones. Sometime in 1988, when I'm just starting to really get into music, I've got some Pink Floyd on the stereo on a regular basis, and spend hours hooked up to the system, oblivious to all the usual teenage angst.

Four decades later, and it's just as relaxing to listen to the same tunes all over again. Possibly more so, with all the stress of actual adult life to deal with and shut out. Get your kicks where you can, kids. even if you have to resort to prog rock.

The War of the Worlds: Is there anyone out there?!

- The War of the Worlds

Art by D'Israeli 

Story by H G Wells 

Adapted by Ian Edginton

We covet what we see every day

Hannibal Lecter was always a good laugh in the hands of Sir Tony Hopkins. He really only tries to kill the rudest of people, and who can really blame him for that? 

But there is something properly horrific about the way they figure out a crucial fact about Buffalo Bill - that we covet what we see every day - that has always stuck in my mind as something deeply uneasy, because the real terror isn't Hannibal the Cannibal coming to bite your face off, it's the people you see every day that you really have to worry about.

Four big thoughts about the chunky cassette tapes on the new release shelf

Four thoughts that quickly went through my thick head when I saw the above display at a local store:

1) Oh cool, cassette tapes must be making a comeback. That's nice. Tapes were the way I first heard the music I really loved.

2) They're having a laugh asking forty bucks for Mariah Carey's Christmas album. I'm sure I could get you a copy for 50c down the dump shop, it sold like gangbusters for decades and millions of those tapes are still out there in the world.  

3) Putting the new Phoebe Bridgers album out on tape is probably a great idea, but giving it a flimsy cardboard cover defeats much of the point that these things are an object, a chunky slice of possibly unearned nostalgia, and the extremely resilient plastic covers that the tapes went in is a big part of it. It's bad enough that the new CDs I still buy to listen to in the car come in flimsy carboard covers that quickly rip apart, instead of the sleek plastic of the originals, but if you want people to pay forty bucks for some kind of cultural artifact, you have got to give them some heft.

4) I don't need new tapes, I still got ones that I bought in the 80s, man. 

How to be absolutely rubbish at self promotion

I was recently reading a short book about David Lynch and, as always, I came away with a sneaky admiration and blatant jealousy towards his dedication to the Artist Life, although I do feel sympathy for the loved ones he ignored in that never-ending pursuit. 

I don't have anywhere near that kind of dedication, but do still feel that need to create something from nothing, like almost everybody else in this world. I'm not particularly talented at drawing pictures or carving sculptures, and lack the collaborative skills to create something bigger like a movie.

But I do like putting words in a particular order to make fleeting thoughts permanent, which is how I've managed to keep this blog going for almost two decades, and I do like writing stories. 

I enjoy the problem solving of a larger narrative, putting it all together in a way that makes sense, playing around with grammar and plot convention to try and scrape out something new to say. I adore having finished a short novel, and completing it to my satisfaction.

What I really hate is the idea of trying to sell it, or even having to advertise in any way whatsoever.

I never do any kind of promotion for this blog, and have multiple novels that I've completed and lost all interest in actually doing something about it afterwards. The idea of having a larger social media presence to put the word out there about something I've created, of having to go out into the world and selling it, just repels me.

There's definitely some cowardice in there. If I never show anything to anybody, nobody can tell me it is terrible - or worse, boring - and I stay in my safe little bubble. But for me, the work really is the thing. I care too much about the journey to ever give a damn about the destination.

It's one of the things I always liked about Banksy, and while he has a talent for acerbic wit and some pretty stenciling, his greatest accomplishment is his anonymity. People try to out him every few years and I never pay any attention, because it's all about the art, and nothing about the human behind it.

That's my excuse for that cowardice, and how once I have finished something, I can just move on to the next thing, and don't look back.