I love February as it is:-
Doubtland Issue 1 Month - Doubtland is my redrawn and re-envisioned version of Jim Sternako's Outland - and I even got to hear from Jim himself!
This item is on sale here :- http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=160727755477
Now at less than half price! only £1 a issue! The printers finally dropped their prices and I am passing all the savings on to you!
and The "Feedback competition" is still on, more details are here ...
London Super Comic Convention
In just over 2 weeks on February 25th and 26th 2012 Images Degrading will be at the London Super Comic Convention - http://www.londonsupercomicconvention.com/
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
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