Five Years Of Blogging

Just because I need to tell someone – today is this blog's fifth birthday!

Gee, back in June 2004, the world sure was a different place. It sounds incredible now, but I typed my very first post in DOS, on a huge green ATARI TV, and saved it onto a 12" reel of tape that weighed about the same as two double-decker buses.

And then I checked my messages on PIXELBOOK. (or as it was more commonly known, 749352665. Ahh, telephone-emails, whatever happened to those?)

In fact, I guess I could go on and on and on about how much the world has changed in the last five years, how much my life has changed in the last five years, and, shucks, here's to the next five, but naw.

It might be more appropriate to consider just one question though, which is how has five years of blogging affected my life?

To answer that, it might be worth comparing why I started blogging, with why I still do it.

I started blogging because, basically, I like to write. Sure, there were other reasons, but I think that's the one that really hooked me.

So, why do I still post today?

Recently, in the comments of this post over on Brett's blog, I found myself answering the exact same question with the following:

I blog for several reasons...

1. It's my way of sharing my day with someone.

2. It's a terrific memory aid, because I get to sort out what I've done. At the end of 2003 I sat down and made a list of all the things I could remember having done that year, so that I could thank God for them. I thought it might come to maybe 20 things. I gave up after 100. That's about 80 experiences that I hadn't really retained afterwards. Blogging prompts me to process and think about things afterwards, rather than just dismiss them. It's a discipline.

3. I learn how to express my opinions. I've always been something of a nodder and a smiler, so it's a good opportunity practise expressing myself, figure out why I believe what I believe, and remember it better. I also learn to respect other people's viewpoints better. Sometimes I've gone to repost some stuff I've said in an email, but had to tone it down first. Othertimes in conversation I've found myself talking very concisely on a subject, because I'd earlier written about it on my blog.

In some ways, it's actually more personal to blog. You can open up without the immediacy of someone criticising you to your face in the next second. In the event that they comment negatively, I have time to reflect before replying.

4. Because I'm still six (now three!) weeks behind, and years ago I said that I would catch-up. So I will. Hey – I was 9-10 months behind!

5. Thanks to search-engines, about 50 more people a day discover that a Christian is interested in the same subject as them. Last year I wrote a post on reading the Bible in 40 days, which seems to get read by someone about once a day now. So I went back and touched it up to make it more encouraging.

6. As Rhett says, it helps me figure out who I am. It is a hobby, and a scrapbook, and I keep it for myself. But it wouldn't be worth doing if noone else read it. Where would be the fun, or confidence-building, in that?

So, basically, today it's all about me.

Which is something of a contrast to when I started and I made the whole site very much about God.

Today in my Bible reading – chapters 7-12 of 1 Chronicles in the God's Word translation, the daily prayer point in the sidebar coincidentally says the following:

Today
When you succeed
in a project at
work or school,
praise God for the
success rather
than assuming that
you accomplished
it because of your
own intelligence or
skills.

Is it fuzzier than that?

I have been tapping away at keyboards on both sides of the globe for five years now, often in the wrong order, and usually in some sort of retrospect. While I can obviously see a lot of me in that, I like to suppose that I also perceive something of God in it. Maybe there is a lot more of God than I realise, or maybe a lot less.

I do pray for God's will before composing all of this stuff, but while I find that makes writing much, much easier, I'm not sure that God wants to be thought of as responsible for much, if not all, of this. Just look at some of my more negative Doctor Who reviews - God sure doesn't seem to have been that involved in writing some of those.

So if I credit the whole achievement to God, then that includes blaming him for all my bad writing. If I say it's all mine, then I might, if God has been involved, be putting myself in God's place.

As I've said before, I like to think that God does stuff together with us. I think the best I can do is to credit the good stuff to God, and take the blame for the bad stuff myself. As for which is which, I'd better not make any firm decisions.

Perhaps breaking its contents up into its component parts is a false dichotomy in the first place. Maybe I should just acknowledge that I have attempted to follow God throughout writing all this, and just leave it at that.

However, while I continue to ask God to lead everything in my life, as I did when I started this blog, I don't ever want to lose sight of how lamely I follow him.


Fig. 1: In Auckland Central Backpackers in April 2005, looking forward to toasting this blog's 5th anniversary in four-and-a-bit years' time.

The Door Magazine September / October 2002

I was given this by Phil in Auckland back in '05.

Though its satire may now be some seven years out-of-date, the interviews contained therein with Christian humourists Ralph Wood and Sara Dunne contain a great deal of thought-provoking material. I found the actual joke articles more hit than miss, (well, it's satire) although a couple of them still reach their target.

For pure genius though, nothing tops the back pages' strip Spider-Man's Greatest Bible Stories! Perfectly executed, and still extremely funny, four years after I first read it.

That's one bit of satire that I suspect will continue to last.

Revelations: How To Find God

Jon Ronson's one-hour Channel 4 doco on the Alpha course (a ten-week church-run introduction to Christianity) doesn't really portray anyone in a great light, including the film-maker himself.

His narration sounds quite condescending towards the whole thing, but despite this he never quite points at anything as actually wrong.

For example, he seems to have a problem with the table-leaders getting prepped in advance on the participants' most likely questions. Of course, that's just sensible planning, so having gleefully paraded some of the associated pamphlets on the screen, he then passes no actual judgement on them.

Then on week one, in an interview away from the group, table-leader Sharon is filmed saying the following:

Sharon: "I think it's in these first couple of weeks where it's about the facts about faith that the same old stuff comes up, like, err, why do we need the Bible? Why do we need Jesus? Erm… those things."

On a later day, Robson re-interviews her on the same subject, but this time, presumably recalling her opinion from earlier, he words his question in a way that will make her affirmative answer sound horrible. He also asks it to her jokingly. Unfortunately, she falls for it.

Ronson: "Do you think the people who are all sort of belligerent and intellectual in a kind of agnostic way in an Alpha course sometimes aren't as clever as they think they are?"

Sharon: (smirks)"Yeah!" (chuckles) "Definitely."

Ronson: "Many people think they come up with really clever original thoughts, but in fact it's the same thoughts that…"

Sharon: "Yeah."

Ronson: "…everybody has? So much that Nicky Gumbel's even done pamphlets?"

Sharon: "Sheets…"

Ronson: "Yeah."

Sharon: (giggles) "Say yeah, there y'go, there's that." (giggles)

Later on, Ronson's editing also endows himself with the power of foresight. Throughout he claims to have been wondering which one of the participants would be the one to make a commitment at the end. Of course, he couldn't possibly have known that one of them would make such a decision until after the course had finished, following which he would have written his narration in retrospect.

Despite all that, Ronson's claim in Radio Times that he "wanted to make [a film] that both Christians and agnostics would like" is largely borne-out. As I said above, despite his tone, he passes no actual judgement on proceedings, and everyone comes across as a fairly regular person.

I've never been on an Alpha course, though I nearly helped run one in Auckland once, (I clean forgot to show-up) but my main problem was that the course portrayed in this film appeared to be teaching just one strain of Christianity, rather than offering the diverse wealth of opinions that the worldwide church discusses.

For example, the answer to a question like "What about other religions?" here is given as that those believers will, unfortunately, be denied Heaven. A more honest answer would be that some Christians believe that, while others don't. Not everyone even believes in a literal Hell.

Had this Alpha group been encouraged to discuss some of the different and contradictory opinions that various Christian philosophies have about Christianity, then each person could have discovered which answers made the most sense to them personally. Were those who felt uncomfortable at the speaking in tongues section encouraged that there are many Christians who feel the same way as them?

It was sad to see so many members of the group, at the end, leave Christianity behind, apparently believing that this was the only version of it on offer. They had come openly willing to explore Christianity, but that searching had, on some level, been discouraged, it seemed.

Even sadder that so many TV viewers may have turned-off with the same blinkered misconception.

But maybe I'm the one with the misconception.

After all, it was TV.

Review of Revelations: Muslim School here.
Review of Revelations: Commando Chaplains here.
Review of Revelations: The Exhumer here.
Review of Revelations: Muslim and Looking for Love here.
Review of Revelations: Divorce Jewish Style here.
Review of Revelations: Talking to the Dead here.
Review of Revelations: How Do You Know God Exists? here.

Dune (movie)

Famous 1984 sci-fi flop which I found fascinating to watch, but that might be just because I knew it had been directed by David Lynch.

Lynch's trademark weirdness sure has its ideal home in a sci-fi film. From the outset there are some good original concepts in here such as the Navigator, and Paul's battle with that weird shield thing around him.

In fact, the tone of the entire movie is bizarre. So many characters paraphrase their motivations in voice-overs, that the word melodrama gets taken to a whole new level. There's even an in-vision narrator to clue-up the viewer on the complex political situation at the film's outset. With so little shame about such wooden conventions, the film confidently reeks of style from start to finish.

With so much post-production, I had to wonder if someone had later spotted how involved the plot was and judiciously gone through the whole film trying their best to clarify it.

Alas, in my opinion, they only half-succeeded.

The main players are so distant that I really never cared what happened to any of them, or what became of their worlds. In fact, I found the whole thing very Brechtian. I wonder if there's a director's cut anywhere without the voiceovers, but with lots of shots of characters saying nothing and just looking disturbed. Brrrrrr.

Overall I enjoyed it though. The visuals and ideas were awesome, particularly in the first half, but some fun and/or sympathy with a few characters could have made it involving.

If I hadn't known that it was directed by David Lynch, then maybe I would have hated it.

Today's celebrity Bible-reader is... Science-Officer Spock

A fool expresses all his emotions,
but a wise person controls them.

- Proverbs 29:11 (God's Word)

Lethal Weapon

It seems like whenever we see a topic that we are particularly familiar with portrayed in a movie, it has been dumbed-down for the less-familiar general public.

You routinely read of scientists correcting the science found in science-fiction films. If they've ever shot a flick around the town where you live, then I'm sure you despaired with your friends afterwards about how none of the geography worked. And as for the woolly adaptations of books one has read...

Bearing all that in mind, I have to wonder just what cops make of cop-movies like this one.

Despite its title and 18 certificate, Lethal Weapon is a cop movie with heart. There's just no missing that the reason why it spawned three sequels was because of the central matey relationship between Riggs and Murtaugh. They yell at each other, and they hate each other, but the time they spend together is a lot longer than that.

Without a doubt the best scenes in here feature the two of them on auto-pilot, bouncing off of each other's banter in the way... well, in the way you do with your mates. Neither one of them ever has to spell-out the obvious, thank God.

Mel Gibson, for all his fame, proves what a tremendous actor he actually is throughout this. I'm sorry to distance Danny Glover from that statement, but the script just doesn't offer him the same opportunities.

It sure is a good job that this central dynamic works so well because, as I alluded to above, the rest of this story doesn’t even aim for credible.

The number of people who get shot-at without any repercussions at all, the forensic omissions, the guy who's threatening to commit suicide by jumping onto a crash-mat...

At one point the two leads enter Murtaugh's home and the kidnappers immediately phone him. So I guess the bad guys must be watching the place then. So they must have just seen that Riggs is still alive too. Well okay then, maybe they weren't watching the place, and just happened to call at a lucky time, but it occurs to neither character that they might well have just lost the ace up their sleeve.

But hey, though well-intentioned, these two sure aren't the brightest cops on the force, which all fine as this film is far more interested in championing their abilities at physical violence rather than their brain-power. Yes, the two 'heroes' actually think that they are allowed to mistreat, hurt and kill people. Not even being in the right permits anyone to do that. (and no, it's not in self-defence either)

We all know that there are viewers out there who watch these sort of films and dream of being a cop. I suppose that some of them must actually become cops. I guess there are two ways they can deal with how mundane most of the real life job actually turns out to be: accept it, or change it.

Sadly, footage of thickie police beatings is a daily occurance on the news at the moment.

It's a fun movie, and it works because it is a fantasy.

Arrogance is also a fantasy.

(Review of Lethal Weapon 2 here)
(Review of Lethal Weapon 3 here)
(Review of Lethal Weapon 4 here)

Frantic #1

This might well have been mighty Marvel UK's move on the Mad Magazine market.

Perhaps 1980's satire is a little dated now. There's a major comic-strip about the proliferation of Dracula movies, complete with famous actors' likenesses, nearly all of whom I failed to recognise. My bad, or rather "my bat" as they might have put it, had that expression been in such general use then.

Despite other strips featuring Superman™ and the Muppets, my favourite one had to be the Howard The Duck episode. This featured a super-intelligent space-travelling vegetable – three ingredients that each communicated that the writer knew just what patent silliness he was aiming for.

"Frantic"? I hope it was in its day.

Star Trek (2009)

*** Contains spoilers ***

For a series with such a proliferation of time-travel storylines, Star Trek has always struck me as somewhat lacking in foresight.

Specifically, the number of episodes that feature a 'regular' crewman, paradoxically making their only appearance.

While I could forgive this in the episodes that had been made before I was born, the show's big revival in the 1980s surprised me by copying this shortcoming. How could the programme-makers not have spotted this recurrent flaw, when so many viewers had?

The biggest repeat-offender had to be the even later 1990s series Star Trek: Voyager. Right from the pilot it was firmly established that the ship was stuck in the Delta Quadrant on its own. There was a finite number of human personnel, which over the course of the series could only go down. Clearly, when the scriptwriters wanted to introduce a new crewmember, they would have to cast an existing extra from the background.

Nah.

Years into Voyager's run they were still hiring additional actors to fill these new roles, even despite scenes in which the whole crew had appeared to be present at once.

A few years ago I read an interview with J J Abrams (I now assume that it was with him) about his upcoming new series Lost. I was impressed that his new show about a finite group of people trapped on an island had addressed this very issue, and cast everybody in episode one. I don't know how that panned-out over time.

Now the same guy has found himself in charge of a reboot of the original Star Trek. Cool!

Except that this isn't only a reboot – it's also a continuation, and a What If? story.

After the events of the last Star Trek movie (the by-the-numbers Star Trek: Nemesis), the planet Romulus gets destroyed. This hurls its apparently last survivor, and Ambassador Spock (Leonard Nimoy – yay!), back through time to the early days of the original Starship Enterprise. Back when Captain Christopher Pike was still at the helm, and Kirk etc. were still meeting each other for the first time at Starfleet Academy.

For the first half of the film, as far as I could tell, everything tied-into established Star Trek lore more tightly than I could have possibly dared hope. There are so many tiny references to the original, and to witness events like Kirk's legendary rigging of the Kobayashi Maru test actually taking place made the whole thing, for me, very believable.

I was quickly won-over. These writers 'got' the original series, knew it inside-out, and cared. They also knew how to write a story well, weaving all these elements into a tale that, to a non-Trek-aficionado, must have looked like a fresh imagining. Nothing here seemed out-of-place for a completely original movie. (apart from, arguably, the plot)

Perhaps the greatest testament to all the trouble they'd gone to was in the realisation of the main characters. Young Kirk (Chris Pine), Spock (Zachary Quinto) and McCoy (Karl Urban) all just about resemble the original characters, albeit a little younger. So many tiny mannerisms are present from the original performers' interpretations, and they really have it in the eyes.

Here's McCoy having a go at Spock:

Dr. McCoy: "Are you out of your Vulcan mind? Are you making a logical choice, sending Kirk away? Probably. But, the right one? You know, back home we have a saying, 'If you wanna ride in the Kentucky Derby, you don't leave your prized stallion in the stable.'"

Spock: "A curious metaphor, Doctor, as a stallion must first be broken before it can reach its potential."

Dr. McCoy: "My God, man, you could at least act like it was a hard decision..."

Spock: "I intend to assist in the effort to reestablish communication with Starfleet. However, if crew morale is better served by my roaming the halls weeping, I will gladly defer to your medical expertise. Excuse me."

Dr. McCoy: [as Spock leaves] "Green-blooded hobgoblin..."

Quoting it out of context there, it almost sounds like a caricature of the original characters, but there is tremendous subtlety to nearly all these performances.

Simon Pegg was a tough sell as Scotty, simply because I'm so familiar with his other work. His was also the only character to elicit laughs from the rest of the London IMAX audience who I saw the film with, although this may be down to his more comedic take on the role. Pegg's Scotty has a joy that somewhat robs James Doohan's original portrayal.

Anton Yelchin's Chekov also is more of a comedy figure here, but in both these cases this is a good thing. Even Ben Cross' Sarek contained something of Mark Lenard's original musical delivery.

Zoë Saldana's Uhura was a bit hard to accept, but only because of her youthful appearance. Captain Pike's (Bruce Greenwood) greying temples had me trying to reconcile whether Jeffrey Hunter's The Cage had already taken place or not, and if so how Spock's appearance and/or age could therefore fluctuate.

But that's about where I jump off from examining this too closely. The precedent that the main characters can be reinterpreted by new actors was set decades ago with Robin Curtis' replacement of Kirstie Alley as Saavik in Star Trek III: The Search For Spock, so this is all consistent with that.

So, by the middle of the film, all was going extremely well. This was indeed Star Trek XI! Or, if your prefer, Star Trek 0.

Then Romulus' last survivor from the future – a guy called Nero (Eric Bana) who quite brilliantly looks like a cheaply made-up alien from the series' later years – destroys the planet Vulcan in the past, and along with it Spock's mum. (Winona Ryder)

This was a big surprise. Spock's mum had been alive in the later-set TV series, and the movies. Apparently they had thrown away all that story-integrity just for the sake of some short-lived emotional baggage for Spock to inwardly deal with. I didn't like that at all.

It had completely passed me by that Spock's whole planet had just done the big firework – a slightly more major continuity error. When I did realise this a few moments later, I supposed that the Vulcans could have all moved to another world, taking the same name with them. Then episodes like Amok Time could have retroactively just taken place there. But Spock's mum? There's no replacing her.

However, then there's a great scene in which they're all arguing about how to outwit this villain from the future, especially considering his tactical advantage of foreknowledge.

Kirk: "But you say he's from the future and knows what's gonna happen - then the logical thing is to be unpredictable!"

Spock: "You are assuming that Nero knows how events are predicted to unfold. The contrary - Nero's very presence - has altered the flow of history, beginning with the attack on the USS Kelvin, culminating in the events of today, thereby creating an entire new chain of incidents that cannot be anticipated by either party."

Uhura: "An alternate reality."

Spock: "Precisely. Whatever our lives might have been if the time-continuum was disrupted - our destinies have changed."

So, after half a movie of arguably canon Star Trek, the second-half shakes-off the inherent inevitability of prequels, and benefits tremendously from a completely open storyline. From this point on, we actually don't know what's going to happen.

Once those continuity-errors had been acknowledged, I was able to thoroughly enjoy the rest of the movie, secure in the knowledge that the writers weren't talking-down to me after all. As a result I found the rest of the movie to be a great mix of action, comedy, and that all-important characterisation that I was talking about above.

The film finishes with the timeline remaining changed, and almost none of the last 40 production-years of Trek mythology still intact. (Star Trek: Enterprise predates this film, so is safe)

Of course, as is usually the way with time-travel, this doesn't seem to have quite been thought-through. How many of Star Trek's other time-travel tales are necessary to have still taken place for history up until this point to remain intact?

For example, in the Star Trek: Voyager story Future's End, the time-travelling actions of the USS Voyager indirectly cause the computer revolution of 1990s. However, now that that future is uncertain, the USS Voyager may well never be built, so that crew are no longer certain to go back in time and cause that event. So... without the computer revolution of the 1990s, Earth's history is changed, and the events of this film cannot, and therefore do not, take place either.

Of course, you might argue that in this new history, Voyager still gets built and that event remains unchanged, but I doubt it. History has diverged, and will continue to do so, especially for someone like Voyager's Vulcan Tactical-Officer Tuvok.

You can't just wipe it all out that easily...

A popular misconception, which mistakenly drove the production of this film, is that the original Star Trek canon had become stale.

In my opinion, it's only the scripts that were stale.

When the scripts get stale, what you do is hire new writers for their new ideas.

With the whole universe to choose from, even the sky is not the limit for any space-fiction's theories. Star Trek can be about anything, absolutely anything. The only limit is the creators' imagination and budget.

The people who were in charge of Star Trek should never have restricted their creativity to such a flat formula. There were plenty of fresh writers out there who would have helped.

You want proof? Well, how about these guys?

Had they employed the creative team behind this movie on, say, Star Trek: Nemesis, then I very much doubt that Trek would have died the awful protracted death that it did.

We'd have had Picard and co. in a fresh, original and exciting film like this one. Instead Nemesis' script retrod safe familiar ground again, so of course Trek became stale.

So here's my beef with this current - otherwise terrific - film:

While this is a very well put-together Star Trek film, its remit to dismiss all ten movies and 24 TV series looks like creative and financial suicide, because it offers only one film as a better alternative.

I've seen the film now, it's over. So - how are you going to make any money from me now, Paramount? Maybe with just one more film that you won't have ready for another two years? It's hardly the ubiquity that the original popular product so excelled at.

Maybe Paramount are hoping that, as a result of seeing this film, I'll go out and buy the original TV series on DVD? Ah, no, wait, there's no point, those stories didn't happen any more. Well, maybe some of those episodes still took place. Nobody's quite sure now. Well okay then, how about The Next Generation? Nope, same problem, I watched seven years of that for nothing. Deep Space Nine? Oh, maaan...

I've chosen to bale Paramount out and suppose that, when 'our' Spock travelled back in time, he also unknowingly slipped into a parallel universe, as opposed to the alternate history that this appears to be. (Uhura is wrong above)

Maybe one day he'll make it back again, and hopefully take the audience, and these writers, back with him.

Refresh the creative team, sure, but not our reason for watching them.

Proverbs 15:33

Today
Find a proverb in
this chapter that
you should apply
during the next
month. Ask God to
help you put his
word into action.

The fear of the LORD is discipline leading to wisdom,
and humility comes before honor.

- Proverbs 15:33 (God's Word)

Marvel Team-Up #144: Spider-Man and Moon Knight – My Sword I Lay Down!

Story: Cary Burkett
Pencils: Greg LaRocque

There's a gang-war in Chinatown, and Spider-Man and Moon Knight have to stop it, without actually interfering.

It's all something of a dilemma, until the latter discovers that one of the antagonists secretly is an outsider, and suddenly he has an in.

Spider-Man meanwhile is trying to track-down a bomb, and fretting about his old school-pal Phil, who's caught-up in a leadership battle within one of the two sides. Basically, everyone wants Phil to be their leader, except Phil, who's renounced fighting and become a pacifist.

This is really where the story's meat is. Spidey also wants Phil to stand-up to his people's oppressors, but over the course of the story, the webslinger finds his opinions swaying. When Phil gets publicly beaten-up, refusing in front of everyone to try to protect his own life, the web-head is forced to at least wonder.

By the end, there are no neat conclusions to the old pacifism vs. self-defence debate here, but the moral convictions of all the three leads make this good reflective stuff.

The Sarah Jane Adventures – Comic Relief Special

There is an urban myth that when a TV show makes a special sketch for broadcast on a telethon-night, it's not to be taken too seriously.

In fact, the pressure to perform on a telethon-sketch is far higher than on a regular episode. When a telethon-sketch fails, then viewers turn off, and further down the line people actually die as a result.

Somewhere out there, some poor people are dead because of this sketch.

Well, that's not technically true. For on a telethon night, the higher pressure is more accurately placed on us viewers, to like everything regardless.

So when I cringed through the same joke five times tonight, it was really my fault.

That joke, by the way, was somebody breaking wind. Yes, five times in a five-minute sketch. Four of them weren't even the first time.

Comparisons are inevitable with Doctor Who's last awful outing on Comic Relief – the marginally less flatulence-dependent Curse Of The Fatal Death. Even the "that was me" joke from there is reused again in this.

But that's the only element that I had a real problem with here. My other problems were minor.

- Rani's surprise at an Earthquake in Ealing.

- K-9's return from space to reveal that said alien visitor is indeed a Slitheen. He's not so diligent the rest of the time, is he?

- Said Slitheen's description of K-9 mark 3 as "a computer crammed with secrets from the past and the future."

Like I said, minor.

Where the sketch does take-off and succeed though, is in its presentation of countless Ronnie Corbett-related in-jokes, without ever actually breaking the fourth wall. Having a story with a beginning, a middle and an end is to be applauded too. And the production-values - there are a lot of effects in this. It's like watching a short film.

Lastly, consistent with the last series, I feel I should mention that it was all about a character who turned-out to actually be someone else inside.



Not sure why he changed, especially as he didn't try to kill them.

Maybe he'll explain later?

(Don't take my whinging word for it, watch it here! :))

Toys

I have seen two-thirds of this film before.

The bottom two-thirds.

Way back in the day, old friend Brian and I went into what was commonly known at the time as a "Video Rental Shop".

These were a bit like today's local DVD-outlets, only instead of hiring out movies on DVD, customers would be given a "Video Home System cassette", called "VHS" for short.

These comically huge things usually cost about thirty pounds each, and had to be kept indoors at room-temperature for a minimum of two hours before they could be played. They were often only in mono, too.

A popular misconception is that, after the "video-tape" (slang term) had been inserted into the top of the equally criminally-named "video-recorder", they would take an entire two seconds to "thread-up" before playing the recording.

Obviously, since today's DVDs take more like two minutes to get started, that seems rather unlikely.

Anyhow, that particular halcyon day, Brian and I hired-out a video-cartridge of Robin Williams' talking-picture Toys, took it back to his place and, after waiting the requisite two hours for it to warm-up to room-temperature, placed it into the VCR ("Videographic Cinematronic Repeatarama™" unit) to watch and enjoy.

Alas, despite the unit featuring a cool "tracking" device, we were unable to get the rotating heads to exactly line-up with their helical tracks on the tape, resulting in their falling in-between two adjacent ones.

In layman's terms, the result was that for the entire two hours of the photoplay, we could only see the bottom two-thirds of the picture. The top-third was just interference. Or maybe it was the other way around. Ironically, of the picture that we could see, I have since wiped nearly all of my own memory. Vote Major.

Fast-forward to the present, (little in-joke there) and this afternoon Toys was enjoying a special screening on Channel 5. (NB. that's "Channel 5" the present-day TV station, not "Channel 5" the rather rashly-named VHS label operated by W H Smith in the 1980s – sheesh this is confusing)

Anyways, today I decided that it was high time I found-out just what had been going-on in that mysterious remaining third of the screen, all those years ago.

As it turns-out, and this is the sentence that sums-up this whole review, Toys is about the most visual talkie I've ever seen.

There's scarcely a single shot that doesn't have some sort of subtle gag hiding behind it.

Sorry, does that make it sound like it's a comedy? Well maybe it is, but rarely does it ever feel like one. Its plodding pace makes the whole thing run very slowly, and several of the performances just don't have much vaudevillian spark going on in them. The whole 118 minutes feels like a rough cut.

For all that, if you can invest the time in it, then this is wall-to-wall fascinating. Nothing is in any hurry to happen though, so you mustn't be either.

While I found the ideas and the concepts to all be brilliantly clever, it is a shame that Zevo Toys just does not come across as a very fun place to work at the outset. In fact, it feels downright sinister. As a result, when General Leland takes over the running of the company and imposes his own oppressive regime on its employees, it just doesn't feel much different to before.

There are so many good comedy scenes in here though, all of which seem quite assuming and happy about themselves, and with no interest whatsoever in whether or not you get the joke. The whole MTV sequence is contrived, subtracts from the narrative, and is completely unnecessary, but it is still terribly well executed, and highly watchable for it.

I really liked this, and its message about balancing passivity with discipline, without going too far to either extreme, is one that usually scores points with me.

Tremendous. Nine out of ten.

(last time I assume I only gave it six)

The Transformers (UK) #1-8: The Transformers / Power Play! / Prisoner Of War! / The Last Stand (G1)

Writers: Bill Mantlo, Ralph Macchio, Jim Salicrup
Pencils: Frank Springer

Before we begin, let's get one thing clear:

The original 4-issue US comicbook series titled The Transformers was reprinted across these 8 issues - also titled The Transformers - here in the UK.

I have, however, read the first 4 of those UK issues (that's the first 2 US issues) from when they were subsequently re-reprinted the following year in the UK in Transformers Summer Special 1985. (now retrospectively referred to as Transformers Collected Comics #1)

The US issues #3 and #4 (that's the UK issues #5 - #8) were re-reprinted in the UK's Transformers Collected Comics #2, but I didn't buy that.

As a result of all this transforming of Transformers, there are countless removed page-numbers, empty narration-boxes, words that begin and end in two different styles of handwriting, and pieces of new narration in the margin covering where at least one page seems to have been cut-out.



They were also all later re-re-reprinted in the UK's The Transformers – The Complete Works #1 and #2, but we'll come back to that at the end.

Got that? Clear? Good. (whew)

These four/eight (delete as applicable) strips are therefore the very first Transformers stories ever, unless you consider the TV cartoon to have come first. (the two G1 canons began roughly simultaneously)

As such, these issues cover everything from the old peaceful regime on the planet Cybertron, through the Autobot / Decepticon war breaking-out, their crashing and reawakening over four million years later buried under Mount St. Hilary on Earth, their first encounters with humans (specifically with Buster and Sparkplug Witwicky), their attempts to secure a new power-source and, in a cliffhanger ending to the series, their apparent deaths at the hands, err, barrel of Shockwave. (again – coming back to the alternate ending in The Complete Works later)

Authors Bill Mantlo and Ralph Macchio had gone to quite a bit of trouble to take a foreign toy range and rationalise it into a concept that could be believed-in. The initial break-out of war on Cybertron is really a difference in ideology, as Megatron seeks to champion chaos over order as a more productive course for his race.


The scenes in which the ark's sensor-drone investigates the Earth's teeming machine-life, whilst completely blind to its organic inhabitants, are fascinating, as is our heroes' later sad realisation that the cars they meet actually have no sentience, and cannot defend themselves.

Although the US Transformers comic was originally planned to be just a four-part limited series in the US, it ultimately kept on going all the way to issue #80. The UK title ran to #332, partly thanks to padding-out the storyline with new locally-produced episodes.

I can't speak for the later issues of either run, but these early ones seem quite story-driven, concerned as they are with the protagonists' simple need for survival in a strange new environment.

Issue #2 (US) / #4 (UK) / Summer Special 1985 (UK) / presumably Complete Works #1 (UK) ends with the Autobots collapsing due to running low on fuel, without having secured either a new supply, or a means of converting it. This desperate situation leads both the Autobots and the Decepticons into a race against time in the remaining issue(s), as both factions attempt to secure a new Earth-based fuel-source before the other does and wipes them out.

Like so many epics, there are also Biblical references aplenty, with the narration even acknowledging that "every paradise has its serpent".


One curiosity from this original US limited series is that Marvel were initially treating these events as taking place within the larger pre-existing Marvel universe. Consequently there are trademark cameos from other Marvel characters throughout.


As Earth's powers-that-be take note of the giant alien robots, Marvel's shameless continuity is out in full-force too...


That's the new editor of the Daily Bugle on the right there, (new since Amazing Spider-Man #251) speaking words consistent with his request in Marvel Team-Up Annual #7 that Peter Parker go photograph someone other than Spider-Man for a change! But maybe I'm reading too much in, after all, this fair-haired kid hardly looks like Pete...


Of course, one could also argue that in the new alien costume he doesn't look much like Spider-Man either, especially since, at the time of publication in the US, it had just been written-out of Spidey's main titles. Despite this, in Marvel UK's initial reprinting, this was its very first appearance!

Which is why the webslinger's extensive guest-appearance in here will always be a special memory for me.

These UK issues were the ones that first got me interested in Spider-Man. It was around this time that I also read an item on collecting old Marvel comics in my dad's Book And Magazine Collector periodical, and I read this episode assuming that Spider-Man had been out-of-print since those early days.

To me, Spidey's inclusion here in a cool new costume appeared to be a hopeful revival of the character.

Spidey himself still seems to be thinking along traditional Spider-storylines though. Despite his new ability to transform his clothes' appearance using only the power of his thoughts, when faced with sneaking the Autobots through the military cordon, he still prefers to borrow a soldier's helmet to disguise himself with instead. Not so updated now.


Well, y'know, we can't really see his costume too clearly there, so maybe he did change its appearance from the head down.

It's all good comicbook stuff anyway, with twists and turns, strategies, risks, and a few jokes thrown-in along the way.

In some ways I guess it's a shame that, after a further reference to Reed Richards, and Shockwave's battle with the Dinobots in the Savage Land, subsequent issues ultimately dropped the grounding in the Marvel universe, but maybe that was for the best. How often would the Avengers have had to have been subsequently called-out to intervene in yet another giant robot scrap?

As mentioned above, the final issue ends with the Decepticons defeated, whereupon Shockwave materialises and apparently destroys the Autobots. Or that's what I've always thought.

Tonight, thanks to www.tfarchive.com, I found-out about a rare alternate final page to this story.

It seems that, back when the original US Transformers comic was originally planned to only last for four issues, it was going to all wrap-up with the Decepticons defeated. When the title became an ongoing one, the last two panels were changed, and a further page added with Shockwave's cliffhanger.

Of course, legendary syndicators that they were, Marvel UK managed to print this original ending at the close of 1987's The Transformers – The Complete Works #2, which was also the final issue in this optimistically-titled reprint series. Whether the printing of this alternate page was deliberate, or just a happy accident, who cares?

The ending is just a two-panel zoom-in on Optimus Prime, as he speaks about how with the Decepticons apparently dead, they must now protect the humans from evil in its other forms.

Most pleasingly, this version doesn't actually contradict the Shockwave ending, and can easily be viewed as simply missing dialogue that takes-place immediately before his sudden entrance. Since publication by Marvel, I think it's canon.

All the same, having discovered this version of the ending at this juncture, I think I'll take it as an excuse to draw a line under my re-reading of early Transformers comics. This is now how the story ends, for me, if not for anybody else.

How convenient that there was actually more to this last issue than meets the eye.

Sorry...

The Transformers: Man Of Iron (G1, UK) here.
The Transformers (G1, UK) #13-17: The Enemy Within here.
The Transformers (G1, UK) #18-21: Raiders Of The Last Ark here.

Inauthenticated

I'm afraid that I've now reached the nerdy stage where, when watching the news, no matter how tragic or awful or harrowing the issue being talked about is, much of my attention is filled instead by the abysmal state of the picture-quality.

Channel 4 News recently showed us Barack Obama addressing an audience apparently made-up of people who were very fat. Yep, all their audience-shots had been filmed in a different aspect-ratio to the President, and had been stretched to fill-up the same frame. The following day a friend remarked to me how Obama had, comparatively, appeared to be "a short guy".

You've spotted this sort of digital-stretching going on yourself, don't pretend.

This afternoon I went to church to enjoy the singing of a choir of visiting Ugandan orphans. This was live, so hopefully they should all be the right shape.

The singing itself was absolutely beautiful, and the show was very well-rehearsed. These kids were nothing short of brilliant.

However the accompanying music was cranked-up so loud that it rather drowned-out their beautiful vocals. Overproduction? Or am I the one being cranky here?

Their songs were intersperced with the charity's video-clips of the kids' home life in Uganda, which had been edited so funkily as to be unwatchable. Despite having presumably started out as a crisp full-colour digital file, some kind soul had removed the colour, obscured the picture with fake film-dirt, made the edges fuzzy, added computer-generated flickering... please, just show us the footage.

I did enjoy the show, but at the end of the day, I would really have liked to have simply heard the kids who were singing in front of me, and seen the footage of Africa they had shot. Like Channel 4 News, this charity had once had some good material to present, but someone had set about subtracting from it.

They asked for donations to their work, but it's difficult to donate to something you just don't feel clear on.

How Many Children Did Job Actually Lose?

I hope the above title doesn't sound flippant, because it's a serious, and obviously tragic, question.

My quest for answers began on 25th May, when I read the following words of Job, as he was suffering incalculable illness and disease throughout chapter 17 of the eponymous book Job in the online God's Word Bible:

My breath offends my wife.
I stink to my own children.

- Job 19:17 (God's Word)

Whoa! Hang on a sec - back in chapter one, didn't it say something along the lines of all ten of Job's children having died?

While he was still speaking, another messenger came and said, “Your sons and your daughters were eating and drinking wine at their oldest brother’s home when suddenly a great storm swept across the desert and struck the four corners of the house. It fell on the young people, and they died. I’m the only one who has escaped to tell you.”

- Job 1:18-19 (God's Word)

Hmm... it just says "they died." No total is actually ascribed to the value "they". So when saying "they", could the messenger have possibly been only referring to some of Job's kids, therefore leaving a few others alive and well enough to complain about Job's personal hygiene by chapter 19?

Of course, the God's Word is just one of the many English translations of the Bible that there are on offer. So, not being fluent in Hebrew, I decided to have a quick flick through some of the other English translations, just to find out which, if any, categorically stated that every single one of Job's children had died in that tragic disaster.

Most weren't quite that explicit, but a few were. First-up, ever one to break things to us gently, was the Contemporary English Version.

That servant was still speaking, when a fourth one dashed up and said, "Your children were having a feast and drinking wine at the home of your oldest son, when suddenly a windstorm from the desert blew the house down, crushing all of your children. I am the only one who escaped to tell you."

- Job 1:18-19 (CEV)

Well, that states that they all got crushed, but stops short of confirming that they all died. Some may have survived the accident. So, no hard conclusion there.

Next, here's the New Living Translation:

While he was still speaking, another messenger arrived with this news: “Your sons and daughters were feasting in their oldest brother’s home. Suddenly, a powerful wind swept in from the wilderness and hit the house on all sides. The house collapsed, and all your children are dead. I am the only one who escaped to tell you.”

- Job 1:18-19 (NLT)

"all your children are dead." That's sounds pretty definite, doesn't it?

And yet, I suspect that the use of the word "all" might just refer to all of Job's children who were present in the house that day. As the preceding verse 18 just says "Your sons and daughters were feasting in their oldest brother's home", this may not have meant that all of them were there in the first place. For example, it might just have meant that most of them were there. Even their oldest brother may not have actually been present for the meal.

In fact, none of the quotes above are specific about how many of Job's offspring were definitely at the house before the disaster struck.

Also, if other people's children had also been feasting there with them, then the phrase "all your children are dead" could just refer to those kids present who belonged to Job's family, to distinguish them from the other casualties. Still no definite conclusion.

In fact, I've been through every English translation that I can lay my hands on (about 20), but all of them have stopped short of definitely stating in no uncertain terms that every last one of Job's children died in that awful event. Some, such as the Darby Translation, even just describe "the young men" as victims. And the young women?

However, even if you do find the wording of the New Living Translation above convincing enough, when it catches-up to the later remark in 19:17, it translates "children" as the somewhat cagier "family".

Could it be that my original reason for asking the question was flawed?

My wife can't stand the smell of my breath,
and my own brothers won't come near me.

- Job 19:17 (Good News)

Sheesh, wheels within wheels...

So, somewhat inevitably, I gave up on the English translations, went to biblos.com and clicked on the Lexicon tab to take a look at the original Hebrew language after all, and even that seems to be a bit vague about it. I find that encouraging however, as it means that the ambiguity of the original text has not been strained-out in translation.

So, given Job's arguable later reference to them in chapter 19, did all of Job's kids actually die in chapter one?

The answer, obviously, is I sincerely hope not.

Insomnia (2002)

So last night I watched Chris Nolan's version of Insomnia, after which I lay awake for about five hours unable to sleep!

I was still awake at 6am, and had to get up for church at nine. Maybe I should have done this before the film, in order to promote empathy with the lead character while watching, instead of aftewards?

Even now I find my consciousness entering into Will Dormer's (Al Pacino) first stages of sleep-deprivation, as I type at this keyboard with both curtains pulled-across to feebly block-out the blinding sunshine outside. Boom! There – I just had one of his blink-and-you'd-miss-it flashbacks of the movie itself last night.

Yep, my waking/sleeping self can still see snatches of that bleak Alaskan landscape... the girl whose murder he and his partner were dispatched there to investigate... his partner's accidental death at Dormer's own gun... now I'm getting snatches of Dormer's own flash-hallucinations of his dead partner's accusing stare at him through the trees...

There's a phone to my right. I really hope that doesn't ring.

"Well, Mr Goble, I see it's 17:47 British Summer Time, meaning that in the last 30 hours you've only spent three of them asleep. So how is your review coming along? Starting to ramble a bit? Going off at tangents and just writing-down your own dreamy stream-of-consciousness yet?"

I could blame it all on director Chris Nolan, but over the years he's quietly managed to become one of my favourite directors.

His tale of an arrogant cop whose slight loss-of-faith in the US judicial system turns into a slippery slope to his own ruination is not only well worked-out but, as usual for Nolan, told very very clearly.

Despite this being a murder-story, I kept track of who everyone was, and was pleased to find that this was much more an examination of the subtle flaws in each of the players' ethics.

There's no bland love story or dumbed-down realisations of obvious simple truths here. This is a good, thoughtful film.

Just this once, Nolan actually resists the temptation to tell the narrative in non-chronological order, like he did in Following, Memento and Batman Begins.

Well, mostly. Like I said above, Dormer's sleeplessness due to Alaska's sun never setting does increasingly riddle his attention with flashbacks and daydreams, but these last barely a second, so hardly count as scenes. I'm getting flashbacks of those same flashbacks now...

I was confused by the amount of time that Dormer spends pursuing Walter Finch (Robin Williams) in secret, as Dormer's colleagues must surely have some false perception of his whereabouts during these sequences. I did wonder if maybe these daylight scenes were set at 'night' while they were all asleep, but the crowds of civvies that Dormer chases Finch through suggest otherwise. I guess a clearer timeframe, eg. more shots of clocks, might have helped.

A strong story, with strong characters, well-acted, competently directed and which never even threatens to descend into sentimentality.

Apart from the swearing, this is what I watch dramas for. Excellent work Mr Nolan. Ahh, what the heck - ten.

I must be dreaming.

Today's celebrity Bible-Reader is... Dr. Seuss

Wise son,
glad father;
stupid son,
sad mother.

- Proverbs 10:1 (Message)

Marvel Team-Up Annual #7: Spider-Man and Alpha Flight – The Collected Spider-Man / No Place To Run

The Collected Spider-Man:
Writer: Louise Simonson
Penciller: Paul Neary

No Place To Run:
Story: Bob De Natale
Pencils: David Mazzuchelli


Fig. 1: GREAT cover from John Byrne and Paul Neary, actually enhanced by the barcode-box!

It's been years since I last read of the adventures of Alpha Flight, and other than that they are based in Canada, I've retained very little of it. Which is a real shame, as this story is from the same era as those.

The villain here – the Collector - is an elder of the universe who freezes examples of species with which to repopulate existence should his vision of its doom ever come to pass. (that's what he claims, anyway)

Well, guess who he collects – Spider-Man, and Alpha Flight's Marrina.

When the latter's team-mates show-up to rescue her, what ensues is a huge long fight on board the Collector's spaceship, during which all manner of weird beasts get accidentally released into the fray.

It's therefore really one very long fight-scene, with a couple of more mundane pieces topping and tailing it. I found it a bit long-winded, but fighting is in the nature of team-ups.

There's also a five-page back-up strip about a couple watching super-news-events on TV. As I have no idea of the context of this, or whether it is a purely self-contained story, I was somewhat lost by it.

Doctor Who: The Next Doctor

First up – the zombie count.


Urrrrrrrrrr...

I say count. Actually I've stopped counting. Which is a shame, as there haven’t been any zombies in Doctor Who for two whole stories now. Yes, I know, I counted.

The Next Doctor gives the Doctor a new companion in the form of his future self. Except that even before we've reached the opening credits, they've already telegraphed the story's reveal. Taking his cues from the script, David Morrissey plays the part as a parody of the Doctor - specifically of the tenth Doctor - rather than with a fresh interpretation of the role. He certainly isn't intending to take over and do that for maybe five years.

Storywise, I thought there were a lot of unanswered questions as usual. For example, in the opening scene both Doctors use the phrase "Allons-y" in unison, to imply that Morrisey's character is indeed the future Doctor, although that's only a tenth Doctor-ism. When it later turns out that he's not the Doctor after all, Lake's having learnt of the Doctor through his data-stamp doesn't really explain his use of this term. Even the Doctor himself doesn't use the phrase very often.

The Diet-Cybermen return. They build a spaceship that's also a giant robot with a Diet-Cyberman factory inside it. (a vending machine?) This might have rung more true if they'd been the original Cybermen, who were accustomed to travelling through space, unlike these new ones. Likewise, the Doctor's recognition of the ship would also have made more sense.

The show's past also brings the biggest relief here though, as the Doctor projects his own data-stamp onto a wall. Blurring like a standard 8 ciné-movie, the images of Doctors 1-4 flash-up, at which point we cut back to him watching them. I think they were toying with us. We then cut back to the data-stamp and see clear images of all the remaining Doctors, including the ones who've been pussyfooted around in the modern series. That's Doctors five, six, seven and eight. (Nine was there too)


Back in history again: Doctors 5-8 with alien film-damage.

Although the Doctor remarks that these images must have been stolen from the Daleks, according to drwhoguide.com, they have nearly all been taken from stories in which the Daleks were not present. So let's all just assume that the Daleks stole the info from the Time Lords' Matrix, and say no more about it.

Anyway, it's a weight off this fan's mind to see the usual avoidance of the John Nathan-Turner years hopefully ended at last. It's a scene that really belonged four years ago in Rose though. (I still don't think the doodles in Human Nature bear any concrete resemblance, no matter what publicity-stills they may have originally been based upon)

Overall, I found this outing to be one of this author's better stories, although that's not paying it the great compliment that I would genuinely like to.

In a positive sense, I found the story to simply not be that strong, which is preferable to a story that is full of contradictions. For example, it made little sense to me for the Doctor to prove his identity to the Diet-Cybermen, but that's not an event that is impossible. Likewise, while the baddies' cessation of killing the Doctor in order to answer his questions is one of this writer's traits, it is still theoretically possible for such an event to take place over and over again. The zombies? Well.

The fact that this episode explained the Diet-Cybermen's absence from the void in Journey's End was a relief, although someone really should have asked that question at the time.

It was refreshing to see a mystery in Doctor Who again, and the final scene between the Doctor and his sometime namesake was a cheery one that made me smile.

Blue Velvet

David Lynch. Directing a STORY! :)

Nonetheless, the scars from having sat through all three hours of Inland Empire a coupla' months back still haven't completely healed, and maybe never will. As a result, watching this much earlier work of his this morning, I found that I could never quite trust it until the very end to resolve its tale in a satisfactory manner.

Ironic, given that the story is reasonably straightforward, and the way Lynch introduces us to the characters proves that he does know how to do regular storytelling as well, if only he can stop drowning it all in his regular weirdness.

But who would honestly want him to do that? Lynch goes to so much trouble over every scene. He's known not just for his images, but his eerie sounds too, and there are several places in this when the two can be found working together. In a regular film it's usually the soundtrack that makes you feel a particular way. Here the picture alone can do it, not that it's ever left to.

The movie opens by drawing you in with lots of bright, happy, contrasty colours, not unlike the colours you find on children's toys. Hey, this looks like a nice film, I'll watch this. By the time we've slid into the dark underworld of Lumberton however, Lynch has sneakily replaced those early joyful hues with much more subtle tones.

The film's weakness is its sexual content and swearing, which carries the usual pretentious air of student filmmakers trying very hard to look worldly. Unfortunately it almost always makes them look like students. David Lynch therefore, 40 when he shot this, really should have known better.

As is usually the case with Lynch though, his confidence, his patience, and his uncompromisingly personal approach to his work make his productions ones that you wouldn't want to change a single thing about. Of the few I've seen, his films have been so unmistakably his.

Jeffrey walks through the darkness, and in the distance we can make-out the echoing hoot of a steam train's horn. Brrrrrrr, rabbits.

Nope, still not over Inland Empire...

Marvel Team-Up #142: Spider-Man and Captain Marvel – Foiled! / #143: Spider-Man and Starfox – Shifts and Planes

Plot / Script: David Michelinie
Pencils / Breakdowns: Greg LaRocque

As megalomaniac baddies with a personal agenda for solving the world's problems go, the abominable Dr Paulson's in a league of his own.

Dr Paulson: "I created P.R.I.D.E. -- Population Reduction by Inter-Dimensional Expulsion – A system utilizing a new form of energy my researchers discovered –

-- An energy that breaches dimensions, and was used both to bring forth a creature to combat Captain Marvel, and to transport my field crews to where they could obtain Technafoil and the Windstone, needed to conduct and focus the energy for my P.R.I.D.E. generator!

That generator will be used to open space-time gaps around all world capitols, causing them to be instantly drawn into other habitable dimensions!

World population will be cut drastically in a matter of seconds!"

Whew – thanks for saving me the trouble of explaining all that plot, Dr Paulson.

Spider-Man and Captain Marvel succeed in disabling the P.R.I.D.E. machine, by turning it on itself, thereby transporting it into another dimension. Unfortunately the resulting interdimensional interference from the machine prevents the Captain from accessing the plane where her human body is stored whenever she becomes her energy-form. As a result, she cannot transform back into her physical body ever again.

Spider-Man and Starfox hop over into the other dimension to turn the machine off, but discover that many weeks have passed local-time since its arrival, and its use has become essential in a tribal war. Consequently, they have to finish the war so that they can destroy the machine, and go back home.

I can't recall ever having read a Starfox story before, but, for me, he makes for a more entertaining team with Spider-Man than Captain Marvel does. His clipped way of speaking had me reading his part in a British public-school accent, and his politeness lends itself to obvious comedy.

HERE HE COMES! #25

Script & art: Jack T Chick LLC

Generally speaking, comics produced by religious or educational organisations get a pretty bad rap. Well, they usually do with me, anyway. To mis-quote Jerry Seinfeld, they don't offend me as a Christian, they offend me as a comic-reader.

I well remember once picking-up a creationist comic-book, only to find that the entire strip inside consisted of two people talking about the subject that it was conveying. Nice artwork. Not much story.


Chicks Publications' Here He Comes! #25 (that's the only title on it) held my attention throughout.

It's a tract that I found years ago sitting by a bus stop in Wellesley Street, Auckland. I didn't know whether it had been thrown away, or left there intentionally, and almost immediately I felt sorry to have missed the preceding 24 issues. (like all shrewd comic-publishers, they had included a footnote-box referring me back to the previous one)

Alas, my merriment was because I was laughing at it.

I found the whole thing to be such a graphically over-the-top depiction of the Book Of Revelation, that it was riveting. I'd enjoyed it, yes, but for the wrong reasons. Today I've calmed down a bit, and am a little more respectful.

To be clear - this post is not a discussion of the opinions expressed in this issue, but purely a review of its merits as a comic. I regularly review comics on this blog, and this is a comic, so they must have got something right there.

Damien is a new Christian, but he suffers a horrific nightmare about the end of the world. Consistent with the creationist comic I mentioned above, his friend Bob takes him through the events that he believes will all take place in the last days.

There are almost non-stop references to Bible-quotes in the footnote-boxes throughout, and this interpretation not only takes it quite literally, but also chillingly portrays the final book of the Bible taking place in contemporary society. The depiction of the Pope as the false prophet makes an intriguing link into the familiar real world.

In seeking to appeal to comicbook readers, there's disturbing violence on display throughout. There are also unexpected moments of sick humour, which I found odd, because tracts usually treat this stuff so seriously.


That's The Matrix's Agent Smith, isn't it?

At the end we snap back to the present with Damien realising that the approach of the apocalypse that Bob has just conveyed to him is the reason why the gospel must be preached.

Then, in the final panel, Bob actually turns to the reader, and delivers the following chilling warning:

Reader, if you reject Jesus and miss the Rapture, you will probably take the mark of the Beast to survive and be cast into the lake of fire. THIS IS NO JOKE! This may be your last chance."

I don't know whether the preceding 24 issues went through the rest of the Bible or what, but today I look at this comic and see it with two hurdles to overcome:

1. It's presented within the context of a tract, which alone makes it tremendously hard to take seriously, and

2. There's little room for characterisation, which automatically makes such characterisation as there is appear simplistic, and therefore unintentionally funny.

But none the less, with 21 (small) pages of great black-and-white artwork, this must be the most readable Bible tract I've ever seen.

Back in the days when I found this, I had often come across other, more text-based, Bible tracts, and regularly redeployed them in a particular nightclub toilet. What else was I going to do with them?

This one I kept.

Website: www.chick.com
Copy of the tract I read here.

(Both comic panels in this post are copyright Chick Publications 2003 and the images have been cited according to 'Fair Use' laws.)