Hopefully you will already know that Images Degrading Forever spent this weekend at The London Super Comic Convention at the ExCel in London Docklands
And it was a really great event. It is the first time I have ever been to an event of this size in any capacity, let alone behind a table as a exhibitor and it was a non-stop thrill ride!
The number of people coming through the door was staggering, almost as staggering as the diversity, if any more proof was needed that what was formally a cult is now mainstream, this was most certainly it
And all these people certainly got their money worth with a fantastic range of creators, with none other than Stan “The Man” Lee in his first official visit here since the 1970’s topping the bill.
I was literally just behind the likes of David Lloyd, Kieran Gillen, George Perez and Bob Layton and that was just the tip of the iceberg!
Saturday was absolute manic and I only managed to have a look around briefly before it started to get busy
The other discovery this weekend was “cosplay”! The number of people dressed in costumes was staggering and they all had taken some real time and effort in making some great costumes
Saturday Cosplay Highlights
Scarlett Witch and Valkyrie
“Classic” Sandman
Rouge
The Scarlett Spider
Sunday was a bit quieter to start off with so managed to get around a bit more, also there was much more room for creators to discover and talk to each other, which was great
Hope, Logan and Psylocke with Kieran Gillen (Having a story conference about A V X? )
It was a really great two days and the sense of fun just filled the whole building!
I think i am relatively safe in saying there will probably be another one of these events next year, if so it comes highly recommended
Of course a number of great things happened for me just by being at the event as well, but I am sure I will talk about them later, for now lets focus on everyone else for a change, all of whom together made this an event to remember - thank you everyone!
The "Feedback competition" is now closed. Thank you to everyone who made a contribution, especially Ryan Cecil Smith!
London Super Comic Convention
This Weekend 25th and 26th February 2012 at the Excel Centre in London Docklands, Images Degrading Forever will be at its' very first big comic event - The London Super Comic Convention
Quite what i am doing there is anyones guess! (hiding in a corner most likely)
Anyway - this is what will be on offer at the IDF table:-
FREE advanced show special preview copies of Images Degrading Monthly - Yes, this is the all new title and replacement for Images Degrading Forever weekly. This is a 16 page publication nearly half of which is brand new and never seen before material and will also contain in print for the first time Kirby's 2001 from the beginning
You will not have to ask for a copy I will most likely offer to put one in your hands just for walking past!
I have a lot of copies of this to give away so you will be in with a very very good chance of getting one of these
I will have around 10 copies of Doubtland issue 1 and another 10 copies of the advanced show special preview of Doubtland 2 both on sale at £1 each.
I will have around 10 copies of Images Degrading Forever Collected Edition Volume 1 also on sale at just £2 a copy
Plus a selection of A3 posters and Hand drawn artwork which will be FREE on a first come, first served basis, if you want one of these items come to my table as early as you can manage. I will offer preference to anyone actually purchasing something!
I will also be tweeting live on the day - so keep an eye on @imagesdegrading if you are unable to make it on the day
For those of you who can't make it to the event, Doubtland 2 will be on sale in March at the same price for the entire month. Images Degrading Monthly will also be available for FREE digitally, existing subscribers will automatically get this. To subscribe, just email me at robin.barnard@ymail.com and I will email back a PDF the week after next
There will also be a distribution of print copies of Images Degrading Monthly to Orbital comics the week after next
Thrown to the wall
Is what happens to Woodrow Decker in this next completed page of 2001:-
Last week, Woodrow and his colleague Mason decided to go exploring, even though their space ship had burst into flames (Don't ask). Mason had the hard luck to be grabbed by the tentacles of a very bug eyed monster indeed. Deckers reaction was this was to grab hold of a rock and start to hit the "life on mars"
A instant regression to both primitive behaviour and indeed primitive tools, which on the surface seems ineffectual…
Mason meets his untimely end in the very first panel…
Then our friendly B.E.M. hits back at Decker, so his efforts was not as ineffectual as we thought. Decker is thrown to the wall barely conscious
Mason is dragged down into the pit the "life on mars" came from - Decker recovering just in time to see the B.E.M. disappear - presumably to devour Mason (though this not made clear one way or another)…
But how does this fit in with the first half of the story?
Decker was confirmed to be the multi great grandson of "he who hunts alone" last week, but does not appear to have inherited any of his traits as a consequence.
Decker so far appears to have been a combination of rash and or lucky. He is only still alive as Mason was a few feet closer to where the B.E.M. was which certainly does not seem to qualify as survival of the fittest.
If Decker had produced some futuristic weapon and killed the B.E.M that would be a different matter…
This at least to me seems to be a fairly fundament point. In the 2001 movie, David Bowman was a bit of a nobody, very passive and almost indifferent - whereas Poole seems to be suspicious and more likely to act.
Its Poole who HAL kills first, Bowman only kills HAL as he has no other choice, but in doing so proves that man is still more superior than the tools he has invented a genuine survival of the fittest.
One wonders what the outcome of the movie had been if HAL had been the only survival - presumably HAL would have gone through the monolith to be transformed as well?
Whatever the outcome may be here in this comic There is no similar elevation or re awaking for Decker…
But Decker himself doesn't get a moment to think or consider his actions as the entire landscape starts to disintegrate
And once again we ask will he survive and what does all of this actually mean?
Some of the answers will be here next week…
Images Degrading Forever Weekly 23
Its the penultimate issue as Turk crashes to the ground and the all-new text essay "lost in translation" comes to an end. Subscribe now and you will also get the first issue of Images Degrading Monthly when it comes out
Watch this space next week for a full announcement, including the reveal of the brand new publication due in March and available as a show exclusive preview!
Life on Mars!
That’s right it’s time for of those musical interludes, usually it’s a song with lyrics that have a parallel with the drawing in question, so without further ado here is the next completed page of Jack Kirby’s 2001:-
And yes, the song that came to my mind on seeing this page is David Bowie’s “Life on mars”
The song itself is nothing to do with space, science fiction, Martians, or bug eyed monsters though despite how alien Bowie himself may appear to be.
In short summary the lyrics of the song are a recount of the many things wrong with society exaggerated and rounded off with the statement if this is how bad things can get then life on mars does not seem so far-fetched, as to live in the reality Bowie is describing is hopefully more fiction than fact (just as life on mars is), but as ever it is up to us to make a choice that will actually stop this fiction becoming real.
Rather profound for a gloriously operatic piano driven ballad, but presumably that’s the entire point
The parallel between this song and the page of Kirby’s 2001 that I saw was of course on the third panel – where the question as to if there is indeed “life on mars” in this piece of fiction gets answered with a very resounding yes
As to my eyes the creature in question has a very clear ancestry from pulp science fiction from the 1950’s and 1960’s. Kirby himself drew lots of these kinds of pulp stories for National Comics (better known these days as DC) and of course Marvel, so it’s understandable to a degree.
But to coin a phrase, did the monster have to be quite so bug- eyed?
Well it fits in very well with what I have established so far, that very much unlike the movie, 2001 the comic purposely does not reside in any reality, it is clearly marked as fiction by its many inaccuracies, things that could not have happened for real in the past, but quite possibly could have happened in a parallel universe, presumably one where the monolith actually resides.
Like the Bowie song, most science fiction tends to serve as a cautionary tale, by showing you the predicted outcome if thing continue in certain direction.
2001 is dealing with the lofty concept of evolution combined with a prediction of the future, so the question becomes, what does the story being adapted tell us?
We pick up from last week with Decker and Mason still bickering, yet despite their situation (they are now stranded as their ship has burst into flames) they decide to go exploring – at which point the omniscient narrator interjects that Decker, now a confirmed direct descendant has the drive for discovery, but has lost the will to fight
Leaving aside the burning question as to what the connection between “he who hunts alone” and Decker is in the story for now as we are soon confounded further
As Decker does indeed fight back, when Mason by sheer bad luck of being in the wrong place gets crushed by “the life on mars” – but interestingly not with anything technology based like a laser or something similar but with the rather telling rock
It is almost as if by being in a high stress life or death situation, Decker reverts to more primitive and immediate reactions, which is exactly the case in reality
It is interesting to mirror this conflict with “he who hunts alone's” conflict with “the others” earlier on, as they are almost complete opposites
It obvious to us readers that a rock is not going to make much of a difference, so Mason is clearly not going to survive and Decker’s own survival is very much in doubt, how will Decker get out of this situation?
Find out, next week
Images Degrading Forever Weekly issue 22
We are down to the last few issues of IDFW! This week we continue Frank Millers and Klaus Janson's Daredevil with "Teetering on the edge of greatness" in which Turks inevitable fall from grace becomes complete and also an all new never seen before essay "Lost in Translation" in which I discuss the line between a writer and someone literally translating a forgein language comic
“I am not freaking out, I am Just angry” Is Woodrow Decker’s own conclusion as to his own behaviour on this next completed page of 2001:-
Last week Woodrow made his debut by throwing what is described here by his colleague, Mason as “priceless artefacts”
And on this page Woodrow seems to not display much of what has been described as “The Right Stuff”, which is essentially courage and level headed thinking in the most desperate and dire situations, something which many military personal have to be able to achieve to a certain level before they would ever be put in harm’s way.
NASA possibly had more emphasis on needing “the right stuff” than even the military; I mean can you imagine being thousands of miles from anyone, in outer space, in a tiny metal capsule and running out of oxygen like what happened to Apollo 13?
That would be no place to put a drama queen for sure as that could mean the difference between life and death, so on has to wonder precisely what kind of vetting was done on the expedition to allow Woodrow Decker to be in this situation.
Woodrow himself seems almost on the edge of hysteria declaring the situation to be "some kind of cosmic joke", while Mason seeming to be much more level headed accuses Woodrow of letting his nerves do the thinking
Woodrow retorts he is just angry “at hitting the jackpot” (finding proof of intelligent alien life) “at his own funeral”
At which point the two have a literal face off, with Mason taking the role of the optimist to Woodrow’s pessimist as to their chances of survival
At which point the reader is forced to make a reassessment, as Decker seems to be in the right with the space ship destroying itself in flames…
Hang on a minute – in flames??
This is a zero oxygen environment right? Both people are clearly wearing a full space suit, so how can the ship be burning?
Well, what do you know I was not the only person who wondered that, so we return to the letters page of issue 4 2001 and again hear from Gary Sanger (in the same letter he addressed the “New Orleans’s faux pas”)
"The Asteroid sequence also has it's problems. There cannot be fire in space. The Oxygen in the ship must have dissipated almost instantly into the vacuum of space when the ship crashed, and without oxygen even the most flammable of materials will not burn."
And Marvels response was:-
"We must take issue with the seeming error of the flaming spacecraft, however. Like many such craft, the ship carried a goodly supply of liquid oxygen. And when said stores of the liquified gas ruptured, the resulting release was enough to provide for the otherwise impossible fire"
So apologies to Chief Montgomery Scott, chief engineer of the Starship Enterprise, but apparently you can change the laws of physics!
Just in case one was wondering, as the movie of Apollo 13 mission showed, oxygen leaking actually turns into a loose cloud of liquid which separates and dissipates in no particular direction – both the absolute zero temperature, lack of gravity and no other atmosphere combine to make this possible, so there is no way that oxygen leaking would help a fire happen!
And even if you overlooked all this the fire itself would not look like it was drawn, the flames would not be going in any direction, it takes wind and a atmosphere to make that happen!
So, all the guy at Marvel answering the letter had to was to say that the ship burning was included for dramatic effect and that would be fine.
I mean it’s fairly clear this story isn’t meant to be taken that seriously as it abounds in inaccuracies, one could almost say it revels in them and possibly keeps including them making the point absolutely clear, this story isn’t real
This is the complete anti thesis of the 2001 movie, where Kubrick went out of his way to ensure that as much as possible everything was real and defined within the laws of known physics, and any pure and obvious fantasy element like the monolith was completely abstract and purposely not defined at all and outside of any physical laws
So for example there certainly would not been a fire on the moon or anywhere else with zero atmosphere
Anyway laws of physics to one side for now will Flight Control be able to help Woodrow and Mason?
The bigger question is based on their actions / reactions so far – which one of these is the multi grandchild of “he who hunts alone”?
Find out … as the story progresses next week
Images Degrading Weekly 21
This week we continue with my look at Frank Millers and Klaus Janson's Daredevil with "You scratch my back and I will scratch yours" In which Daredevil already knows the New Stilt mans Achilles heel and the all new essay "considering design from every angle" concludes.
As ever Images Degrading Weekly is FREE digital publication, just send me a email to robin.barnard@ymail.com and I will send you back the issue, it could not be simpler!
Which is exactly what happens on this weeks completed page of Jack Kirby’s 2001:-
And I have to say it must be one of the most dynamic and artistic use of the 4 panel layout that I have ever seen…
But before we get to that -
Last time we left “He who Hunts alone” upgrading his knife into something else after being “scoffed at”” (He who hunts alone’s” interpretation, not mine) by the monolith
Now he is ready for the hunt, this time for a neo-antelope or similar, (thankfully this time the creature in question goes unnamed saving everyone a recount of the hysterical inaccuracy that has so far appeared) simply dubbed as “the fleetest of prey” and not only has he invented a new weapon but also seems to know exactly how to use it
He stands upright and pulls his arm back the weapon in hand …
And throws…
And then “A new age begins with the first throw of the spear…”
And we dramatically and instantaneously cut to the exact same pose of a figure with the same proportions a couple of film frames on, but of someone else a few hundred thousand odd years into the future wearing a space suit and throwing something else entirely...
These two panels are so artfully combined they are truly brilliant and this is the one point where Kirby has directly referenced the 2001 movie in a way that everyone will immediately recognise, as it is the movies most visually recognisable and definable breakthrough point and Kirby actually takes it further and uses it as a dramatic impetus to shift naturally across epochs in terms of characters, rather than hardware (which is what happens in 2001 the movie)
- it is almost unprecedented transition...
But before we jump into the future, let’s wrap up the threads of the pre-history story…
Well, this is the point where those threads are almost completely dispelled by one caption, which goes on to make it clear that other neo-men "will watch and emulate” he who hunts alone - and his children will carry on what he started and eventually roam the vastness of the space…
And also finally by achieving the level of spear thrower it is stated that “he who hunts alone” will “soon be known as beast killer”
Soon - thankfully being a non relative term in a comic that spans epochs
So we finally have our titular “beast killer” and we will side step the linguistic challenges presented by the use of that term thousands of years before language was even formed…
And instead ask the larger and more pertinent questions:-
What was the point of the schism between “he who hunts alone” and “the others”?
What was “the motivations” of the Monolith of only relating knowledge to “he who hunts alone” and no-one else?
What happened to “The Others” did they die out in starvation as logic might suggest?
Was there any point in this section at all other than to suggest the monolith is directly responsible for the innovation of weapons?
But the story has not finished yet, we are only just literally over half way through and there is more to discover, so we pin our hopes that the future child of “he who hunts alone” who is named as Woodrow Decker will provide not only the answer but also a character which has clearly benefited from “he who hunts alone's” own odyssey….
But will it go in that direction – already there is some uncertainty here as in his first appearance Woodrow appears to be acting in frustration?
… We will see…
I love February as it is
Doubtland Issue 1 Month - In case you was hiding under a rock a few days ago, I finally unleashed the first issue of my redrawn and re-envisioned version of Jim Sternako's Outland - and I even got to hear from Jim himself!
Images Degrading Weekly 20
This week we have a very special issue of Images Degrading Weekly with guest artist Alexander Hunt , who has drawn a fantastic page of Daredevil !
This week we examine the fall of Maxine Lavender and the start of a all new text essay "considering design from every angle"
As ever Images Degrading Weekly is FREE digital publication, just send me a email to robin.barnard@ymail.com and I will sen you back the issue, it could not be simpler!
January was a fairly busy month at Images Degrading Forever with one thing or another, but February is going to be even busier!
The first love - Doubtland issue 1
Firstly, February is going to be Doubtland Issue 1 month – this has already been printed once and all the copies on offer sold out from eBay
But what is Doubt Land?
That is an interesting question!
Doubtland is my redrawn and re envisioned version of Jim Steranko’s original Heavy Metal Masterpiece.
Long-time readers of this blog will already know I redrew all of the art, but not that I actually went further than this and made it into a complete comic with all new dialogue
In the dialogue I have attempted to combine the experience of redrawing it and parts of the blog entries that went along with it into the framework of the story as I remembered it!
It seems to have worked I have heard from a number of people who I sent preview copies too saying they didn’t even notice the story changes and / or they loved it
The original Steranko art has never been republished in English and is very hard to find in its original form and even the Drawings of Sternako web site which used to show the entire comic online now only shows the first instalment, so this is now the only place to get a complete version of the art (even if it is just redrawn by me)
There will be 4 issues in total, each issue will be 16 pages and will come out monthly, issue 1 February, Issue 2 March, Issue 3 April and finally Issue 4 in May
I have made a promotional video for issue 1 for you to watch
Issue 1 of Doubtland is now reduced down to £1 (which covers print costs, no profit is made from this) and is on sale via ebay
Firstly for the Comics Changed my life event I felt I need to have an actual comic on sale and Images Degrading Forever Weekly (or its collected edition) is not a comic.
Also at the same time I listed a couple of issues of Doubt land on eBay and to my surprise these actually sold!
Finally and possibly the most interesting reason to you readers is that the project has come to the attention of none other than Jim Steranko himself!
Yes I got an email from Jim Steranko, part of which I reproduce below:-
"Quick note to congratulate you on your OUTLAND project, a massive undertaking and thoughtfully executed.
Had I known, I wouldn't have put so much into it! But glad you survived the ordeal."
I don’t think I could possibly add any more than this, so buy a copy now
The Second Love:- The London Super comic convention
Also in February is the London Super comic convention and Images Degrading forever will be there in force
At the show I will have a very large amount of print copies of Images Degrading Forever Weekly 23 to give away for FREE on a first come, first served basis
Also I will have copies of Images Degrading Forever Collected Edition Volume 1 at £3.00
At this event will be 2 show exclusive previews
Doubtland issue 2 will be on sale at the show just ahead of its March release at £2.50
And a brand new to be announced title of which will I be giving away a few FREE preview copies – Rest assured this is already 99% complete and will be at the show I am just not ready yet to announce what this title is until the show date this will be released to everyone in March
There will also be a few other oddities which will be on offer as well
You can also see me in person– no-one has so far so that’s probably a good thing
Watch for more details as the month goes on!
Heartbroken: Images Degrading Forever Weekly to finish
As soon as the current run of Frank Miller / Klaus Janson Daredevil completes IDFW will come to a natural close, this will be the first week in March with issue 24
This title has been so successful that it has far outgrown its single sheet of paper format and will be given a long overdue expansion and revision into a much bigger title to come out in March, what the new title will be called and what will be inside will be announced – yes it’s the same brand new title that will be on exclusive preview at the London Super Comic Convention and yes it will still be FREE
Share the Love: Feedback competition
Just to update on this the feedback competition is still open, some of the prizes have already gone and what appears here is all that is left over to choose from – so I will close the Feedback competition just before the London show, if there is any prints left over, these will go on the table at the show for FREE first come, first served. If any IDFCV1 remain these will be held over for something else…
To enter the feedback completion is simple all you have to do is either post a comment on the be log or send me a email to robin.barnard@ymail.com containing some feedback on this blog. It does not have to be that in-depth or long, but it does have to contain some rationalisation / explanation / justification for the line of thought
For example you would need to say why you thought the blog was bad or good
I need more Love: Is that all that’s happening in February?
Certainly not, but it’s all I feel safe in announcing right now!
I am always working on something, so please keep looking on the blog for all the latest details! Of course the weekly visit to Kirby’s 2001 has another 9 or so weeks to go yet, so join me Friday for this weeks episode!
