Storm Front by Jim Butcher In Book One of The Dresden Files series, we meet Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden, a wizard in Chicago who does consultant work for the police (particularly with Karrin Murphy in the Special Investgations section, i.e. the unusual stuff nobody else wants). A death involving powerful…
Birds of Prey (issues #86–90 and #92–95) by Gail Simone and various artists I think it’s to my shame that I haven’t read any Gail Simone comics. Apart from reading her very funny You’ll All Be Sorry column, I haven’t picked up any of the actual comic books that’s she’s…
I Am Legend starts with banal television presenter banter about baseball predictions over the studio/production company credits (to contrast the silence and lack of background music that accompanies the film) before opening on a news anchor talking to an uncredited Emma Thompson as Doctor Krippin (now there’s some sledgehammer subtlety…
Marvel Zombies (#1–5) by Robert Kirkman and Sean Phillips Let's talk about one of those many library books I've been reading while I haven't been blogging. There are some story concepts that just don’t interest me – horror, continuity porn, superheroes stopping bank robbers – and to that list I…
This isn’t an anti-American thing, but I don’t like the title ‘The Golden Compass’. I can understand the need for a more universal title for Northern Lights (the first part of His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman) but The Golden Compass seems rather derogatory and denigrating towards the alethiometer.…
I’m sure there are many other posts of a similar nature to this one – resolving to blog more frequently and talking about why the previous timeframe was devoid of regular posting – but that doesn’t stop me from doing it as well. One tries to be an innovator, but…
Even though it was announced in September that Alan Davis would be working on a new series of ClanDestine, it is still the best reason for this Brit to be thankful for the Marvel solicitations for February 2008. Obviously, I have a lot of love for this series (it was…
My best mate went to the US to work and live before I did. When I went to visit him, he knew the head cue card guy at Saturday Night Live who got us in – we got to watch the rehearsals (around 2pm) and then we were in the…
I lived and worked in the US between the end of 2000 and 2002, so I finally got to watch film and television shows as they happened, rather than waiting for them for ages in the UK. I could see The Daily Show as Jon Stewart was hitting his stride,…
David Duchovny stars in Californication, a new show which trys to make writers look sexy (lots of shows about writers at the moment – 30 Rock, Studio 60; perhaps they should have a number in it?). He plays Hank Moody, a writer of a famous novel that has been turned…