Uncanny X-Men: Couldn't hardly do worse.

- Uncanny X-Men Annual #14

Pencils by Art Adams 

Inks by  Dan Green, Bob Wiacek, Al Milgrom, Art Thibert, Steve Mancuse 

Words by Chris Claremont

Colors by Brad Vancata 

Letters by Tom Orzechowski

There is only now

Live in the moment, they tell me. You can't do anything about the past or the future, but you can deal with the now.

I hear this, but it hits particularly hard when you have kids, and you try to hold onto these moments of pure fucking joy and happiness, and they all slip away so fast when you're dealing with their latest tantrum or injury or hurt feeling. And sometimes the worst thing is that you know you're not appreciating these times because you're trapped in the miniature of everyday life, and all the chores and tasks that need doing, even as they slip through your fingers like wet sand in the water.

I want to live in this eternal now, and maybe I do. I just really need to stop and smell the roses, and enjoy the sound of laughing children while it's everywhere.

I'm finally dancing to the old musicals

I was never a theatre kid, and never watched musicals when I was young. They didn't have lasers and robots and time travel, they just had loads of people singing songs. My sisters watched things like Grease a lot, but the first musical I ever fell in love with was the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Rocky Horror legit made me a better person, but was strictly one of a kind, and the musical genre was largely a mystery to me. And by the time I grew up into something resembling an adult, I was more interested in movies about gangsters and serial killers and shit like that.

And then, a few years ago, in a bid to widen my cinematic diet a little, I decided to check out some of the musicals that everybody agreed were the best of the best, and was delighted to find that everybody was right. Singing in the Rain really is very, very good.

I also, unfortunately, watched La La Land a few days after seeing Singing in the Rain, and the modern shoe shufflers do their best, but look like pale imitations compared to the eternal vigour of the old masters.

And now I love watching the old stuff with the kids, and find many of them have dated quite well - the unreality of people bursting into song is strangely eternal, and Donald O'Connor is literally still making 'em laugh, with his goofball antics.

I'm really not inspired to go out and see the Wicked movies or anything, it's just the old films I'm interested in. I feel like there's a strange kind of full stop with All That Jazz, and once you've got to that, what's left? Xanadu? 

I did try Xanadu because I have now become a bonafide Gene Kelly fan, and will watch any of his movies, because even if the plot is dull and predictable, the movies are always full of gorgeous, stylish  people doing remarkable things with their feet

Maybe when I get older I will get more into the modern musical, but will take the original West Side Story over Spielberg's overly slick remake, it's just got more snap, and more pizazz.

After all, we could all use a bit more pizzaz, and movies that were made nearly a century ago sill have that as they tapdance into my heart.

To keep Bond alive, you've got to learn to let go

There is something darkly hilarious about the conundrum that the new owners of the James Bond franchise are struggling with, where they don't know how to relaunch the movies after killing off Daniel Craig's Bond at the end of the last movie.

As if it bloody matters! As if it ever bloody mattered. The next guy can just roll in on his own charm, looking sexy as fuck, killing the bad guys, and literally nobody will care that he blew up at he end of the last film. 

It was a bad idea to kill him off in the first place - absolutely nobody wants to walk out of a Bond film feeling teary-eyed about his noble sacrifice, they want to walk out humming the Bond tune and talking about how neat it was when he shot that dickhead in the kneecaps and jumped off the tallest building in Thailand. 

But even though they had an extraordinarily long time to think about this - No Time To Die was in the can for ages before it appeared at the movies, which raised false hopes that they really had considered all this - the filmmakers still killed Bond off, and are now fretting about how to carry on. 

What it does remind me of is the way DC Comics can't let go of its history whenever it restarts its universe. It makes a big deal about the fresh start with every reboot, but can't concede that recent events in Superman or Green Lantern comics 'don't count' anymore, so they twist their existences into knots to make everything fit.

The post-Crisis DC universe was doomed because some things happened and some didn't, and nobody was sure what the fucking deal was with Hawkman anymore.

Comics lead the way in mass mediums, making mistakes that the rest of the entertainment industry only pick up decades later. But there should be no pride in coming first in this race, because it's still stupid as hell.

The Daniel Craig films have their faults, and doubled down on them through the years, but they were a specific era. So have the new guy come out and beat up people on a beach, wink into the camera, and then get on with things. It's how Bond rolls.

No wages, no fear

I do think less of them when I read interviews with terrific writers and film directors who admit they haven't seen one of the great movies, like The Outlaw Josey Wales or Dr Strangelove - but I really, really shouldn't, because I've never seen the Wages of Fear.

I always wanted to, I know it's a masterpiece of tension and I have seen things like the bridge scene a dozen times. So I have had an eye out for it for decades, but it was never on television - even the dedicated movie channels - and I never saw it at any of the dozens of video stores I frequented, and was never able to get to any screenings at cinemas or festivals.

The way the universe works, I'll probably end up seeing it next week, and that's okay, because there's plenty of other cinematic wonders I still need to get to. I haven't seen Sorcerer either. 

Completing a New Adventure at the big book sale

Even though I am struggling with the existential dilemma that I now own more books, magazines and comic books than I could ever hope to read before I get to the end of this mortal coil, I keep going to get more.

I've been obsessed with big charity book sales for a long time, but had no idea the local 24-hour sale was on until my pal Nik mentioned that he was off to it. I ended up going in the quiet time on a Saturday night, (although I felt a little put out that it was strictly a 24-hour sale, since there was a break in the early morning hours, there is a very particular vibe about book sales at one in the morning).

Anyway, I'm glad I went, for the bargains were tremendous during my brief browsing time -  a couple of hardback graphic novels about crime and Rasputin; some Love and Rockets chunkiness that I found in the kids section and really had to get out of there; an illustrated lesson on the story of the blues; a classic Monty Python book from back in the day that I once read when I was seven and it scared the shit out of me, so that'll be fun to get back to; some kind of Goodies boxset which I am also slightly dreading because I also haven't watched them since the early 80s; some books about war and NZ's drinking culture; and some Dr Who annuals - all for a couple of bucks each.

And then I went to another one on a Friday afternoon, and it was another excellent Nik-pick, because I stumbled across an unimaginably good score - a small box full of the Benny Summerfield Virgin New Adventures books for $25.

I completed a collection of the Doctor Who books in the series a few years back, and have had some books in the Benny series after they lost the Who franchise since I got them off the shelves in the mid 90s. But I've always been on the lookout since and if I was lucky I found a new one a year, and I still had more than a dozen to complete the set, until last Friday. 

I was all always looking because Professor Bernice Summerfield is legitimately one of the top five characters in all of Doctor Who, and while I lost track of her various adventures - I only know about her escapades with the Unbound Doctor from what I see in the reviews in DWM -  I have only read six or seven of these Virgin books (all by trusted authors), and want to see where Benny goes next, and now I can, because they were just giving them away at the Rotary Club Book Sale.

I'm currently reading all the Doctor Who New Adventures, one a month, and am just about up to Happy Endings, so the end was in sight. This means I'm going to have to spend another couple of years reading Benny's adventures every month, which doesn't sound so bad.

I literally have dreams about a nerd score like this, so it feels a bit unreal when you see a box of those familiar spines in the corner of the room containing the kids books. I thought I was dreaming when I saw them there, and I'm not entirely convinced I'm not still in that dream.

The Christchurch mission

When me and my mates all left school and started getting jobs and money, but hadn't yet moved out of home or really fallen into the full-time party mindset of high youth, we would spend our money on weekend shopping and movie trips to Christchurch, and we got it down to a fine art.

Christchurch was just up the road from where we grew up, and was the closest proper big city, with a population of about 300,000. More importantly, it was the closest place for decent comic shops, and record parlours, and book stores. It was the only chance to see a lot of movies that never made it to our neck of the woods, and for a couple of years, we were heading up SH1 at least once a month to go check them all out. 

It was the freedom of the thing, we all had our driving licences and access to cars, and we had properly disposable income for the first time in our lives, before we had to worry about rent and bills. It only lasted a couple of years, because then there were all the booze and drugs in the world to sample, and general life expenses, but there was this brief window of complete and utter nerdom.  

We'd head off at 8am in the morning, because it was a two-hour drive, and then always parked in the same parking building in the same place, and its highest we called it point zenith, because that's the sort of thing you do when you grow up in a town where nothing is taller than two stories.

We'd always hit Comics Compulsion first and load up on Hellblazer and Love and Rockets comics, before heading to Echo Records on High Street for a tape to play in the car on the way home (this is where many of my movie soundtracks came from), then this little bookstore owned by this grumpy old dude named David, who had by far the best back issue selection in town and I could get a first printing Killing Joke for $20, and then Scorpio Books for something pretty.

I would spend hunderds of dollars on this crap every visit. I would come back with a back seat covered in John Byrne Alpha flight and Giffen/Demaatties Justce League comics, and I still own a lot of those comics - I still got the JLI, I got the Hellblazers and the L&R. I still got the Killing Joke. 

After that, we'd get some food, usually from a central city supermarket or just the KFC on the corner in the middle of town - even being let loose in supermarkets to buy anything we wanted was mind-blowing freedom - and would sit down for picnic on the Avon.

Afternoons would be a round of half a dozen second hand bookstores around town - there used to be so many, it would take hours, and you'd always miss a couple - and maybe a run along the beach out at New Brighton to get rid of the energy, 

Then hit the movies, or go to a show, and when the films were things like Reservoir Dogs or Once Were Warriors, you could catch one at the late screening, and would drive back at two in the morning, because you can do that when you're 18. The route between Temuka and Christchurch literally has about 20 bends in 200 kilometres, and is mostly a long, straight line. Sometimes on those long drives home, it would be hard to stay awake, and all you could do was wind down the windows, turn the music up loud and howl at the moon. Sometimes I think I'm still on that long drive at 3am on a Sunday morning, in the darkness near Rakaia, trapped on long straight roads with dark woods on either side.

We didn't have much to do in small town life, there were no bands coming through, and no big shows, but we had the Christchurch mission.

Needless to say, it's almost all gone. The devastating earthquakes that hit the city in 2011 destroyed so much, Comics Compulsion moved out of town before slowly fading away, almost every single one of the old bookstores had to move out of their grotty premises, and even David's Bookstore has shut up shop. There is no Echo, no KFC on the corner, and even the huge movie theatres crumbled into rubble.

It's becoming a new city, very slowly. The middle of town has filled with interesting architecture, some actually wonderful art installations, and almost no interesting little shops, and if it's the same stuff you can get at the mall, why bother? 

Scorpio Books is still there, I still go there to get something pretty. And the few remaining second hand shops have some excellent selections. But that's it in town. I'm not on that mission anymore.

2001 - A Space Odyssey: The last frontier of reality!

- 2001: A Space Odyssey #5 

Drawn and written by Jack Kirby

Inked and lettered by Mike Royer

Colored by Glynis Wein

Getting ready to get Pulped

Pulp were my Britpop of choice, and one of my last great bucket list bands - and they're coming to New Zealand early next year, so it only took a few seconds to buy tickets for that show. I'll just have to listen to this tiny desk version of This Is Hardcore to keep me going until then.

After a couple of years without going to a big gig, we're going to that and Garbage in the next few months - because we figure there will be eight or nine songs at Garbage that we forgot about but will instantly recognise, and because we are eternal children of the 90s.

Paying for the Peppers

One of my absolute favourite jokes in The Good Place - and there are a few good ones in there - is that one of the criteria for getting into paradise is that you haven't paid any money to listen to music by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. 

You could still enjoy it, but financially contributing to the group's success was a black mark against your soul. Which was very harsh to the Californian funk rockers - but also fair, and of course I would say that because that's one sin I've managed to avoid. 

I still like a lot of their music when it comes on the radio, or is used in a movie or something. I've never seen them live or bought any of their albums, but I danced badly along to their version of Higher Ground with my teenage mates; and Under the Bridge will always be a banger, under any circumstances; and I have been unexpectedly moved by some of their lyrics - the 'more I like to let it go' part of that Hey Oh song has an idiotic simplicity that cuts through to the soul.

But I wouldn't call myself a fan -  the few times I sampled a full album, it was always a couple of killer tracks and a lot of aimless filler, and I was always more than happy to stick with the many, many tunes coming through a lot of different radios over the years.

My only hot take about the band is that while the focus is usually on that jumping rhythm section and Kiedis' vocals and frontman antics, the only worthwhile Chili Peppers is when John Frusciante is involved, and his light touch on the guitar strings carries a lot of heft.

If I'm going to hell, it'll be for other sins - pride and gluttony have always been issues - but I got plenty of other things to give my money to. I'll still sing along in the car on a road trip as much as anybody, but that's as far as I go.

Road rage!

I try to be chill about most things in my personal life. I still rage about the great injustices in the world, but do my very best to keep my cool in most of my daily dealings. But the only things that get me properly angry are computers that won't do what they are bloody well told, and bad drivers. 

I've never actually got into a face to face confrontation with another driver, but I'm frequently cursing out the window, and really have to watch my language when the kids are in the car.

There's just something about the breaking of the social contract that is really fucking irritating about terrible drivers. The only way any traffic system works is because we all agree to follow the rules, stick to the right side of the road, give way when we should, and generally be aware of your surroundings.

People who ignore these rules, who bring six lanes of traffic to a halt because actually they really need to go this way, are a metaphor for all the selfishness of modern life. If you can't give way to a bus pulling out, or slow down for every pedestrian crossing, what are you even doing out in society? Go live on an island or something and stop putting the rest of us at risk.

If you're driving 20 kays under the limit, or not moving out into a busy roundabout when the way is clear, there is a very good chance you are a blight on all modern society. Fortunately, most of us follow the rules, and the system rolls along, more or less, but that majority are all cursing the person who zooms ahead in the wrong lane and cuts in front of everybody. We all hate you. 

I don't care how big your sandwich is, if it's full of lettuce

My holy place is in the quiet before the movie starts, and it's currently being despoiled by a Subway ad that is playing before every fucking film I see.

I hardly eat Subway anyway, it's always the absolute last option (which it sometimes is), but there is an ad they play before every movie I go to which is a large subway sandwich and a big mac burger, and they're talking to each other about their relative sizes - even though the subway is only big because it's crammed with tasteless salad - and the ad goes on forever.

This might be the most first-world problem I've ever bitched about on this blog, but it's fucking with one of my true pleasure in life. It's just so crass and dumb and one big dick joke, and it sours me on Subway, and going to the movies, and life itself.

Paxton was the bomb

While watching Predator 2 for the first time in ages recently, one thing became absolutely clear - Bill Paxton was a golden god, and the world of acting is a poorer place without him. 

Paxton was so good in the 1980s, and made everything better. It didn't matter if he was in films by one of the greatest action movie directors ever, or low budget trash made by his pals, he was always magnificent, and always so magnetic. 

From the first time I saw him in Aliens, I thought he was the absolute greatest. He's a blowhard who loses his shit, but you still always like the guy, and you're sad when he goes out, but you're still glad he died a hero. It's the best possible fate for this wonderful turkey, and I quote the gospel of Hudson on a daily basis. 

In Near Dark he steals every scene he is in, even when surrounded by some truly terrific co-stars, and then he does it again in the second Predator film. He's a rare actor that can be funny with his arrogance, with that awesomely goofy grin. Because when it all gets stripped away, you can really see the fear in his eyes, and he feels like a real person. 

He did chill out a little as he got older, and never really captured that early charm again. His one big leading role in a blockbuster was in Twister where he was terribly restrained, and there was no sign of that cocky smile in Titanic (he is, of course, great in True Lies, with one of the great pissing yourself scenes in cinema history).

There was  a good middle aged period, where the arrogance was stripped away and there was more fear in those eyes, but he was still a charming motherfucker, you could believe he could handle multiple wives in that Big Love thing. 

It's an outright tragedy that we will never get to se him in the old man roles he was destined for, but the light and enthusiasm and soul he always bought to all of his roles will shine forever.

More comics, more story

It's been my medium of choice since I was a little kid. I love movies, and music can make me feel some extremely unique emotions, and a monumental amount of my life has been spent watching the daftest fucking TV shows. But I'm always, always about the comics.

I got hooked on them at a young age, and never fell out of love with this unique combination of words and pictures. I've bought, sold and traded tens of thousands of individual comics over those years, and despite some lacklustre attempts to dampen down the addiction, I still get a charge out of walking into the local comic shop every week, to see what new beauty they have.

And there has been a lot of beauty. I've been constantly exposed to incredible art in all those decades, pencils and inks and paints that are achingly gorgeous, extremely stylized and downright exciting. I never get tired of finding a great new artist whose work doesn't look like anybody else, and I deeply appreciate those who have built on the work of earlier generations to create something that still looks fresh and new.

The relative cheapness of the format has also kept me going - while there is significantly less bang for your buck in individual issues of many mainstream comics these days, there are things like some modern trade paperback programmes that give you a ridiculous amount of comic goodness for a cheap price.

But I honestly think the main thing that has kept me in comics is the sheer amount of story I get from the medium, and the bewilderingly different kinds of tales I have been exposed to. 

Mainstream comics are obviously stuck with some very particular genres taking up all the attention, but in terms of the sheer number of stories, I've read far more in comics than in novels or anything else. Not just superhero angst, but historical fiction, stylish biographies and innumerable slice of life stories. I read all sorts of things in the comics format - non-fiction data dumps, mindless slugfests and poetic musings about life, the universe and everything. 

And with the images doing so much of the heavy lifting, the format is so easy to get through, and you can get through a tonne of material very quickly - I can read through half a dozen trade paperbacks paperbacks collecting the latest X-Men stories in a lazy afternoon, and while I might be skimming some of the inevitably verbose text, I will still be taking the story on board. It might take me a couple of weeks to get through a chunky prose novel, but I could do any graphic novel in a day. I did all of Jeff Smith's Bone one Christmas afternoon.

So in the end, I've read far more stories in comics than I have in any other medium. If I am truly devoted to experiencing as many stories - as many points of view - as I can in my life, it would be remiss of me to avoid comics. They're just words and pictures, and you can do anything with words and pictures. You can get through it quickly, and you can read about everything in the world.

Doctor Who - The Iron Legion: They're coming!

Doctor Who - The Iron Legion 

Art and lettering by Dave Gibbons 

Story by Pat Mills and John Wagner

DeviantArt has rotted away

For many years, I've enjoyed ducking into the DeviantArt website for a look around now and then. There was always some freaky shit going on there, as people let their artistic freak fly, and I saw some genuinely beautiful artwork, and a lot of desperate attempts to create a personal vision.

But the last few times I've been there, it's just full of horrible, soulless AI-generated art, with dead-eyed versions of Harry Potter characters and vast amounts of pastel anime nightmares. I don't know if the people who used to put their blood, sweat and tears into their artwork are still there, but they've been swamped in an ocean of sludge, and I don't think I'll be checking in on that website anymore.

Nothing to say about most films

After a slow start to the year, I've just cracked the 200 mark in the number of films I've watched in 2025, and while my cinematic diet is more like a huge buffet, I really have nothing to say about the vast majority of them.

Some are obviously less noteworthy than others. I went through a regrettable stage of watching a lot of Adam Sandler movies recently, because I just wanted to watch something brainless and fun, and that's pretty much what I got. (Although I do think there is genuine chemistry between Sandler and Jennifer Aniston when they team up, it would be ridiculous to deny that.)

But there are just so many films that I have nothing to say about, or that I need to think about over a long period of time before I have something to say that isn't the usual hivemind cliches. I've watched dozens of straight-to-streaming action films that all kinda blur into each other, and I do like watching the big companies burn insane amounts of money on films that look like 1980s TV. But so does everyone else.

And it's not just the brainless action and the dopey comedies, there are legitimately great films that I have nothing to say about. I really liked the Brutalist, but it's for all the same reasons everybody else liked about it, and I genuinely loved I Saw The TV Glow, and was extremely impressed by some of the things it was saying, but nobody really needs this cis white guy's deep takes on those things.

Which is fine! Some things don't need to be endlessly examined and just be what they are, and sometimes it's just nice to keep something to yourself, to wrap it up in your own heart and not share it with anybody.

I'm well into the second decade on this blog, so I'm probably the last person to listen to when it comes to oversharing and talking about the same things that everybody else is talking about. And while it's been a daily effort at the Tearoom for some time, I don't think I'll ever have to say anything about Hubie Halloween to fill the space.

Superman doesn't turn back time

The first Christopher Reeve Superman was the first movie I ever remember seeing in a cinema, and a lot of it has still stood the test of time - Reeves has oceans of charm, and the special effects that send him soaring into the sky still look pretty good.

Some of it hasn't aged that well - there is a particularly 70s corniness it can't shake - but I have never bought the idea that it's ruined by the bit where Lois dies, and Superman turns the earth backwards by flying really fast, and turns back time.

Linear time doesn't work like that, say smartarses. That breaks almost everything we know about the laws of physics, they say.

But I never interpreted it that way - that he's turning the Earth around. Since the day I saw it, I didn't think he's turning back time and reversing anything. It's all from his perspective, and he's travelling back in time but going so fast he breaks the time barrier and going back to save his loved one.

This is something that is totally possible according to the sacred time travel texts of Back to the Future and Star Trek, and it was something Superman did a lot in the silver age - travelling to the 31st century every month to hang with the Legion of Super-Heroes.

It feels extremely silly to be so defensive about a movie that is almost 50 years old now, but I still see people complaining about how the gravitational forces of turning the planet around would be astronomical, and they probably would be. 

But we're seeing those rocks fly up the clifftop because that's what Superman sees, not because time is actually turning backwards, and that's been a part of Superman lore forever.

But the part in the second movie where he pulls off the emblem on his uniform and it turns into a giant piece of indestructible cellophane? That really is just dumb. 

I always like more fact than fiction in my music stories

I'm am always a complete sucker for any documentary feature about a musical band, especially if I know very little about them. You can't keep me away from long docos on Devo or the Sleaford Mods, and why not? At the very least, I will undoubtedly have more of an informed opinion of their work after seeing behind the curtain like that.

On the other hand, my absolutely least favourite genre of movie is the biopic of a music star, boiling all the complexity of a music career into the usual highs and lows - keen young thing finds fame, gets really fucking high, and then usually gets over it. I'll take the fact over fiction any day of the week.

My current podcasts of choice

Some of my favourite regular podcasts faded away a couple of years ago, and I've been in an auditing phase ever since, trying out a lot of new regular ones. And I'm rarely going past that first taste, because I get put off by baying laughter, stupid accents and other unimportant bullshit (like being unable to download an episode onto my hard drive, because my podcast habits don't extend to streaming, I like to save the audio and have it available anytime).

But I still need something to listen to when I'm cleaning up the house (often in six minute chunks) or when I go on long walks, so I keep trying, and have found some new faves. A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs by the splendid Andrew Hickey remains my top pick - recent episodes have been getting into Led Zeppelin and Creedence Clearwater Revival, and the series remains intellectually informative and emotionally moving. I've even signed up to the Patreon for the bonus episodes, and have almost caught up on them, even as the supposed 10-minutes bonuses get longer and longer (this is very much not a complaint).

Hickey's podcast is the peak of informative shows, filling my brain with loads of interesting facts. I also went through all the Cocaine and Rhinestones episodes for all the stories behind country music, and for movies, the best podcast for straight up trivia is What Went Wrong. Most movie podcasts are much more about how interesting the host is, but this one has Lizzie Bassett and Chris Winterbauer bringing a tonne of facts to each episode, while still placing events in their proper context, and calling out injustice when they see it.

The only other movie podcast that I never miss an episode of is the sublime hot takes of Lexg, and I only really listen to the Movies that Made Me, Brett Goldstein's Films to Be Buried With, or the Team Deakins depending on what guest they are getting in. That's usually the case when it comes to podcasts focused on interviews - although I will listen to any of Adam Buxton's interviews, especially when I have no knowledge of the person he's talking to, because his ramblechats are always fun - but even  interview with comic creators, like SKTCHD  and Dollar Bin Bandits, depend on the guest. (I will always go for any show that interviews Evan Dorkin and Grant Morrison.)

I also like podcasts about Grendel and 2000ad, and very occasionally I get sucked in by the sheer enthusiasm of Rob Liefeld (and his incredible gossip about the highs of 90s comics). I also enjoy in-depth podcasts about history, but my two faves - Fall of Civilization and Hardcore History are about a year between episodes at this stage.

And that's all I'm really listning to at the moment, although that is enough to get me through the dishes. Some podcasts have faded away, some entire websites have shut down - I went back to listen to a Comic Books Are Burning In Hell episode, only to discover the entire Factual Opinion site has disappeared - and while there is no shortage of interesting people rambling about interesting shit, I'm always looking for more. 

The lost shops of Temuka

The last time I was in my old home town of Temuka, the local shoe shop on the main street was closing down. I've never given a damn about shoe stores - some of the most boring times of my life have been spent in them - but I was still sad to see it go, because now I don't think there is a single shop on that main street that is still what it was, back when I lived there as a teenager.

The death of the main street is everywhere in western civilisation - the suburban malls dragged away the customers from the city and town centres, and now the convenience of online shopping has further destroyed the small independent shop.

Temuka is a town of just 3000-4000 people, but the main street used to have loads of good stores, and they're all gone now. Some of them have been totally demolished, most have been repurposed into something else, and a sad amount are just sitting empty, but what is left bears little resemblance to the town I used to live in.

The hardest loss was obviously when Bairds Bookshop closed down, because that was my primary source for comic books for years, during my prime 2000ad and X-Men periods. But even Temuka Stationery, where I got things like the first issue of the Infinity Gauntlet or the adaption of House II: The Second Story, faded away a while ago.

So there's no bookshops, and I also still only see echoes of all the places I used to get my movies from. There is Sullivan and Spillanes, an appliance store where I used to rent video tapes, not because they had a great selection, but because they gave us 50 free hires when we bought our VCR machine from there. Later it was a primary source of the blank cassette tapes I filled with Pink Floyd and Beatles albums. Even later, I went for a job interview there, but I'm still convinced I didn't get the job because a teacher who was friends with the boss was convinced I should go to university. I showed him but not going to university and working in a fat factory so I could afford to buy essential comics like Eclipso: The Darkness Within. I showed him.

That store was full of old crappy furniture for more than a decade after the appliance trade moved out of town, but has now stood empty for ages. Next door, the place I haunted because I couldn't stop looking at the cover of the Dawn of the Dead tape they had (and also did the best hot chips in town), is now a vape store.

There's the shop where I bought Jan Strnad and Gil Kane's Sword of the Atom, and was later a video store where I hired out dozens of films around the turn of the century. It's a real estate office now. Across the road, the first dedicated record and video store in town - and the last, to be honest - has been a pet store for decades now, but I still remember long hours reading the back of vinyl albums to understand lyrics, or going through the horror movie selection on endless Friday nights until we decided to hire out Zombie Flesh Eaters. That place hasn't existed in a long time, but I still remember what it smelled like.

Even great bakeries are now second hand stores, and the old library where I got my first James Bond and Tolkein books from passed into private hands long ago. They're all gone now. Even the shoe shops.

It is certainly something to be expected as you get older, and I can't be the only person who goes back home and sees the ghosts of the past. I'm just not sure so many people see as many echoes of old comic books as I do. 

Decorum: That's all I have.

- Decorum #4 (2020) 

Art by Mike Huddleston 

Words by Jonathan Hickman 

Letters by Rus Wooton