Friday, December 15, 2017
Some Slave Traders Were Very Fine People, Apparently.
The Bristol Post has given three column of its letters page over to a carefully researched essay by three academics, enumerating Edward Colston's investments in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and his profits from it, in great detail.
I refuse to be brow-beaten into submission and belittled, just because my views are different to university academics. I have a right to express my view... I suspect Roger Ball and Mark Steeds have a totally different mind set and agenda...Lets not forget that Marx, Trotsky and Lenin were all academics. Also Maclean, Burgess, Philby, Blunt and Caincross were all Cambridge University academics...
David Whittern.
I now realize those attacking the Colston name are just creating urban myth, where half truths and outright misinformation, if repeated enough, becomes accepted as fact, which it is not. There are those of a certain political persuasion who are very adept at creating these myths, and use the media very effectively. This is very much like social media fake news. Edward Colston's name has been much maligned by those with a particular agenda. Clearly our Georgian and Victorian forefathers knew much more of the truth of his conversion and good works. (*)
Also David Whittern
Notwithstanding his connections with the slave trade, my recent letters on the subject have always supported keeping Colston's name (warts and all) as an integral facet of what it means to be a dyed-in-the-wool Bristolian.
R L Smith
...Without sounding flippant I nominate "The Colston Hall" [as a new name] -- for that is what the venue will be forever known to me and thousands of other real Bristolians. It irks me that right-on, politically correct, middle-class softies who, after studying at the University, like it so much here that they decide to make Bristol their home, then start wanting to change our history. I can't remember a time when I didn't know of Colston...but I have never wanted to whitewash him out of our history (pun intended). Name one city that doesn't have a murky past? What next, is the Hatchet to be demolished because naughty pirates used to drink there? {**} My point is, I an proud to be Bristol born and bred and I have never wanted to leave, and this may sound infantile, but if you don't like it here, then clear off to Shoreditch with the other dreamers.
Name and address supplied.
(*)The idea that Colston was, like Newton, a Christian convert who was ashamed of having been a slaver forms no part of the Victorian Colston cult, and seems to have been invented by apologists since the Great Hall Kerfuffle -- i.e in the last eight months.
(**) It is true that there has been a pub on the site of the Hatchet since 1606, and the current owners claim that Blackbeard drank there -- although since nothing is known of Blackbeard's life before his alliance with Hornigold in 1716, it's hard to know where they get this information from. If Edward Teach really was a former customer of the Hatchet, he was a good deal more than naughty. Need it be added that no-one is proposing the demolition of Colston Hall.
Thursday, December 14, 2017
Stand Down
Creators & patrons: We've heard you loud and clear. We’re sorry, and we’re not rolling out the fees change. https://t.co/Fq7v5D1wkY
— Patreon (@Patreon) December 13, 2017
Tuesday, December 12, 2017
Doomsday Clock #1
Including…
Well, for example…
I’ll get right back to you on this.
We are in an alternate America; 25 years in the past but somehow a dark reflection of 2017. There is an international crisis going on, but the President is playing golf; “the wall” has come down and people are fleeing from the USA into Mexico; someone is holding a placard saying “make America safe again”. In the foreground, a riot is going on, possibly between liberals and conservatives; in the background news reports talk of Russia invading Poland and the US preparing a nuclear strike. The narrator, a masked man, leaves the riot zone and breaks into a prison; he rescues a woman, claiming to be able to reunite her with her infant son; and then her husband, who is mute and communicates in mime. The narrator expects to be dead by the end of the day. They travel through forests and sewers to a secret base where another masked man is waiting for them. There is much talk about other masked characters, some of whom are dead and some of whom are in hiding. The two masked men have a scheme to save the world by “finding God”. There is a final cutaway to two other characters, sharing a bed, one of whom has just dreamed of the day his parents died in a car crash. There is no suggestion of how these two characters connect with the rest of the action, although the dream-father tells the dream-son that whatever happens is part of God’s plan.
But this is not a comic book. It is a piece of conceptual art. It’s content is unimportant; it says what it says by virtue of existing.
There is no shame in being an inferior talent. When we are talking about Alan Moore or Jack Kirby or even Steve Gerber more or less everyone is an inferior talent.
Swamp Thing was created by Len Wein. Len Wein also edited Watchmen as well as creating some character called Wolverine. The first issue of Doomsday clock is rather pointedly dedicated to him.
If you haven’t held the thing in your hands, it is hard for me to convey the sheer horror of the Doomsday Clock artifact. The title is printed in yellow on black text down the left hand side of the cover. There is a little yellow doomsday clock under the title, and a big doomsday clock on the back page, which is otherwise black. There is four pages of diegetic text after the main comic strip. There are four pages of in-house adverts, black and white with a single quote from each character.
Watchmen, of course, ended on a big question mark. Ozymandias has forced America and Russia to bury their nuclear differences by staging a fake alien invasion, but Rorschach has discovered the plan and posted his diary through the mail box of a right-wing newspaper. We are left not knowing if this package will ever be opened. Many interesting questions are thus left hanging: was Rorschach right to never compromise even in the face of Armageddon? If the paper discovers the truth, should they reveal it? Is the killing of millions to avert nuclear annihilation at any level justified?
Alan Moore didn't foolishly forget to tell us if anyone ever read Rorschach's diary, any more than Ibsen carelessly omitted to tell us whether or not Mrs Alving administered the suicide pill to her dying son. The whole point of the book is that it asks a question and doesn't answer it -- that it leaves both outcomes suspended as eternal possibilities. No one reads the diary; nuclear war is averted; but it is based on a lie and Ozymandias gets away with a million murders. Someone reads the diary; Ozymandias is exposed; everyone knows the truth; the world has to face the very real possibility of annihilation.
There is a riot going on, and we pick up a few things from news stations: Ozymandias is wanted for genocide; Robert Redford really is president; America and Russia are gearing up for war; American politicians still use the term "Ruskies".
Rorschach is still the main character, and still keeps a very wordy diary ("we split open the world’s belly, secrets came spilling out, an intestine full of truth and shit strangled us” etc etc.) He keeps making reference to “God” having turned his back on the world, and intends to somehow "call God down". Of course, at the end of Watchmen, Rorschach was inconveniently dead — atomized by Doctor Manhattan. This character insists that he is truly Rorschach, but he very definitely isn’t Kovacs — at one point he takes off his glove and reveals that he’s a black man.
(Please, god; please don't let him turn out to be the kid at the news-stand.)
How they are going to spin this out to 360 pages I cannot imagine.
I have no doubt you could augment an earwig to the point where it understood nuclear physics, but it would still be a very stupid thing to do!
The Second Doctor
If you have enjoyed this essay, please consider supporting Andrew on Patreon.
if you do not want to commit to paying on a monthly basis, please consider leaving a tip via Ko-Fi.
Doomsday Clock and Watchmen is copyright DC Comics. All quotes and illustrations are use for the purpose of criticism under the principle of fair dealing and fair use, and remain the property of the copyright holder.
Please do not feed the troll.
Tuesday, November 28, 2017
Amazing Spider-Man #30
"Petey! As I live and breathe! I haven't seen you since graduation."
This frame also makes little sense: why should Peter phone Betty (presumably from a phone booth) after he has already set out to visit her?
The word “groovy” became a universal term of approval in the flower power era (usage peaks in 1972). In 1965 it still retained its older 1950s jazz club connotations -- so Peter is saying that his Aunt’s pie was “up to the minute” “fashionable” or “of the moment”. The word “fridge” was certainly in use by 1965, but it hadn’t fully replaced “icebox” as a synonym for refrigerator. So Peter Parker misuses a slightly unfashionable word; his aging Aunt responds with an up-to-the-minute one.
The Claws of the Cat is not really about anything. It is an orphan issue, winding up threads from last month, setting up plots for next month, but not really about anything itself. Like issue #9 it seems to plunge us into the stream of Peter Parker’s life and make no attempt to connect the threads together.
Even the cover is weird: our hero is so small you could easily overlook him. A tiny Spider-Man, a tiny man in a green boiler suit on a rope. Way, way down below, tiny police and tiny onlookers shine search lights at the building. We’re observing Spider-Man from a distance. A small figure involved in a small crime. You could be forgiven for thinking that this was the latest issue of The Amazing Collapsing Water Tower.
The splash page warns us that Spider-Man is going to “encounter a brand new foe”, but in truth the Cat barely rises to the level of foe-hood. We see him on page 1 running through a montage of faces -- Aunt May, Betty, Ned, Flash, Liz, Jonah Jameson and some guy in a purple mask. The message is clear. The Cat Burglar is simply one of many things which happen to Peter Parker this issue. He is a nobody, and he knows it:
“That was a close call! If Spider-Man had just turned his head, it could have been the end of the Cat Burglar’s career! But I’m just small potatoes to him! He’s only interested in super-powered world menaces!”
It takes a serious nudge from our old friend "an inscrutable fate" for Spider-Man's life to become entwined with that of this criminal non-entity. The Cat Burglar just happens to burgle the New York apartment of one J. Jonah Jameson and J.J.J. offers $1,000 reward for the thief's capture. So naturally, Peter decides that he is going to capture the Cat and claim the reward --- partly because he could do with the money but mostly because it will annoy Jameson. "Jolting ol’ Jonah is fast becoming my favourite indoor sport”. There is no longer any doubt that the relationship between J.J.J. and Peter Parker is one of mutual bullying.
The first great cycle of Spider-Man stories is nearly at an end, and Peter Parker is still no altruist. He goes after the Cat for money, and for fun, and as a distraction from his personal troubles. When he accidentally stops a businessman from being murdered by a disgruntled former employee, he is positively disappointed. "Heck! It wasn't the Cat Burglar after all!" What was that you said about power and responsibility?
The multiple plots keep interrupting each other and ostentatiously failing to come together. Peter rushes out of Aunt May's house because he wants to see Betty, and runs right into a gal who is coming round the corner...but it isn't Betty it’s, Liz from school. She is still trying to avoid Flash Thompson. This incident is itself interrupted when Peter Parker thinks he spots the Cat through an upstairs window, and stumbles on the murder-in-progress. It's a fun little scene, of course, but it has no bearing on the Cat, or on Betty or on Aunt May or on anything else.
Ned Leeds drops in on the way to work and asks Betty Brant to marry him, as one does; Peter fortuitously drops by a few minutes later. Much of the rest of the issue is driven by humour and a sense of fun (Spider-Man seems to be thoroughly enjoying all the fight scenes). But the big confrontation between Peter and Betty is incredibly emotionally charged, borrowing its visual vocabulary from horror comics. Betty tells Peter the news; Peter loses it completely and storms out of the apartment, saying that he never cared about Betty to start with; Betty is left on the other side of the door, crying that Peter Parker is the only person she has ever loved,
Peter is behaving appallingly. Since Bennet died, he has known that Betty will never accept him as Spider-Man, but he has continued to passively date her -- or at least flirt with her in the office. He knows that Betty and Spider-Man are mutually exclusive; but he somehow thinks the situation will magically resolve itself. When he thought he had lost his powers (in The Sinister Six) almost his first reaction was that he could now marry Betty; and when he was ready to give up his double life (in The End of Spider-Man) settling down with Betty and making a life as a scientist was one of the attractions. He cannot accept that Destiny -- Mr Stan Lee -- will force him to remain Spider-Man forever. At some level he still thinks that being Spider-Man is a phase he will grow out of.
On the splash page, Stan Lee talks about Peter Parker being “beset with the same old problems”. As we come to the end of the Lee-Ditko era, I fear that the Lee-Romita Spider-Man is beginning to show his irritating face. This is the received Peter Parker, the Peter Parker of the movies and the cartoons, the angsty Peter Parker who walks the streets with his hands in his pockets, vaguely blaming the universe for whatever harm he has inflicted on himself this month. Superheroes with super-problems, as the fellow said.
Yes, Peter. A bad thing has happened. But it is the bad thing you have been setting yourself up for, every day, for months. You can't bring yourself to tell even a white lie to your Auntie but you are happy to tell the most blatant lies to the girl you think you love, every day, for years. You could have told her you were Spider-Man. You chose not to. So go ahead and tell yourself that every day is like this due to some metaphysical entity called "the Parker luck."
However, in the current issue Stan Lee believes that the Purple Minions work for the Cat Burglar rather than the Master Planner. "Only the cat could have thought up a scheme like this!" they say, as they steal uranium from a moving vehicle. Stan has not remotely understood what is going on: the whole point of the Cat is that he is a skilled, but otherwise unimportant “second storey man”. The idea that he’d have secret agents stealing nuclear material from Iron Man is obviously bonkers.
When the Minions report back to base, their mysterious boss talks like a super-villain:
But Lee really thinks that the Cat has something to do with the Minions: on page 13 he is shown thinking "I'll grab a bundle and then think of a plan to get rid of Spider-Man!" even though he has never met Spider-Man and regards himself as beneath his notice. Even more oddly, Stan gives a random Purple Minion a thought balloon (while he is being knocked out by Spidey) that says:
...as if he thinks that either the Cat or the Master Planner is one of the goons carrying out the uranium heist.
The Cat says that it is “getting dark” on page 14, so a whole day has passed between Peter visiting Betty and him leaving the house as Spider-Man.
Our day 2 has to be a weekday since Liz, Ned and Betty are all at work. One possibility that very nearly makes sense looks like this:
Fight with Scorpion (issue 29)
Sunday 22 August
Afternoon: Everyone recovers.
Evening: Cat robs Jameson, Purple guys rob the van.
Monday 23 August
Morning: Betty and Peter have a row.
Afternoon: Peter mooches round feeling sorry for himself.
Evening: Cat Burglar caught
Tuesday 24 August
Morning: Parker sells pictures (issue 30);
Evening: Spider-Man encounters Master Planner's men (issue 31)
Wednesday 25 August
College registration.
Thursday 26 August
Aunt May sick; Classes begin.
If you have enjoyed this essay, please consider supporting Andrew on Patreon.
if you do not want to commit to paying on a monthly basis, please consider leaving a tip via Ko-Fi.
Amazing Spider-Man was written and drawn by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko and is copyright Marvel Comics. All quotes and illustrations are used for the purpose of criticism under the principle of fair dealing and fair use, and remain the property of the copyright holder.
Please do not feed the troll.
Thursday, November 23, 2017
The Last Star Wars Article
Where do we go when we watch Star Wars?
We know where we go when we watch Doctor Who. No such place ever actually existed, but everyone claims to have been there. It was a very long time ago: everything was black and white. We were very small: small enough to fit into the interstices between walls and furniture. TVs were very big. Pieces of furniture in shared family spaces, not electronic toys in our private rooms. “Putting on the TV” was a positive choice. The pictures were both real and not real. We wanted to look at them and hide from them at the same time. Middle-class. Suburban. Domestic. Ubiquitous. Safe.
Modern Doctor Who has written about that space almost obsessively, but it has never remotely taken us there.
Yoda voice: That is why it fails.
Where do we go when we watch Star Wars?
The Walkers arrived in Empire Strikes Back. They were a replacement for the Death Star. Never quite as magical. But magical just the same.
There are white alien goats on a snowy background. I suppose if there are Walkers there has to be Snow. First films have Sand and Second films have Snow. The third film will go back to Jakku, you mark my words.
The Millennium Falcon is being chased through a fiery red cave by TIE Fighters; which makes us think of the wrecked Star Destroyer from part VII and the Death Star superstructure from part VI and the space worm from part V and coming out of hyperspace near Alderaan in part IV. This will come very near the beginning of the film, as a warm up, to tell us that Star Wars has started again and the toys are all intact.
There is Chewbacca on the flight deck, as if he was escaping from Mos Eisley, except that Han has been replaced by a Penguin. Every saga has a Jar Jar. Every trilogy has an Ewok. We complained about George's silliness but we missed it when it wasn't there. The Penguin will have a very small part. He may only appear in this one scene. Everyone will always have heard of him and he will even eventually have his own comic, but all he will actually do is shout “It’s a trap!”
There is battle with big space ships and TIE fighters and X-Wings and a stirring speech about lighting the flame that will become the spark that will burn the fascists down although we all know that the fascists won’t burn down until the last ten minutes of Episode IX. There is Po Dameron looking resolute and Finn fighting the shiny gold lady Stormtrooper officer with a a big glowy laser-chainsaw. This will happen at the end. Po and Finn will be blowing things up resolutely while the Proper Plot happens somewhere else.
The Proper Plot will be about Rey turning to the Dark Side, and Ren turning back to the Light. Or perhaps about Ren resisting the light side and Rey resisting the Dark. That is the Proper Plot of every Star Wars movie except Star Wars. Someone is tempted by the Dark. Someone is tempted by the Light. Indeed, that is the plot of every possible movie. (I think Joseph Campbell said that.)
Where do we go when we watch Star Wars?
Tuesday, November 21, 2017
White People's History, Update...
...The snowflakes trying to obliterate the parts of history that they don't like.
....All the P C do gooders wanting the name Colston remove well you can not change history
....Pathetic - you can't erase history, you should learn from it and make sure it never happens again....And the Colston Hall will AlWAYS be the Colston Hall to me because it's part of my history!
''''Edward Colston did not start slavery. It was started by African tribes capturing and selling other Africans.
.....The PC Brigade win again. Pity some people have no guts to stick it out.
....This is the slow but sure erosion of white peoples' history in within the city and nation, the same thing is happening in America with their monuments, it won't ever be satisfied until it is completely erased....
....but Colston Girls School has decided to leave the name as it is.
....As we live in a democracy, why not let the people of Bristol decide whether we change the name of the Colston Hall,,,,no hold on a moment, the powers that be would realise that the vast majority of true Bristolians would want it to stay as it is,,,,THE COLSTON HALL
....Changing a name and trying to airbrush history is easy, righting modern day wrongs and the suffering of those currently living is much harder.
....Fantastic news!!! the Lefty in charge of the Colston Hall is still pressing ahead though, forcing their will on us like any true Libtard!
....Excellent news - should not be hiding the past - all this politically correct nonsense is highly frustrating. Colston Hall take note !!
.....These "do-gooders" trying to re-write history are getting into dangerous waters
Friday, November 17, 2017
The Tables Turned
Opening caption, Amazing Spider-Man #29 |
Stan Lee introduces Amazing Spider-Man #29 with the following words.
"On the surface, this may seem to be a super-hero action thriller! But if you probe down deep, if you analyse each subtle nuance, if you dissect each philosophical phrase, if you study each non-existentialist panel you’ll discover that it actually is… a super-hero action thriller!”
And what the heck does he mean by "non-existentialist"?
An existentialist thinks that human beings create their own meaning in an essentially meaningless universe. So I suppose a non-existentialist must believe the opposite: that life does have some kind of meaning and purpose if you are prepared to look for it.
Analogies between God and The Author have been a bit overdone, not least by me. I doubt if Stan Lee has read The Mind of the Maker or The Death of the Author. But he does talk about creating all the Marvel superheroes and resting on the seventh day. Being a writer and being God are sort of kind of the same. If you are a non-existentialist, then the universe has whatever meaning and purpose God intended it to have. So surely the Marvel Universe must mean whatever Stan Lee says it means.
If you have enjoyed this essay, please consider supporting Andrew on Patreon.
if you do not want to commit to paying on a monthly basis, please consider leaving a tip via Ko-Fi.
Amazing Spider-Man was written and drawn by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko and is copyright Marvel Comics. All quotes and illustrations are used for the purpose of criticism under the principle of fair dealing and fair use, and remain the property of the copyright holder.
Please do not feed the troll.