Comic Cuts - 29 July 2016

I'm beginning to believe the commonplace notion that 2016 has been a particularly bad year for deaths. Statistically it is roughly the same as other years, but this year has seen a greater number of people I knew, some well, others through correspondence. Just in my circle of comics' friends this year has taken Tony Luke, Scott Goodall, Gil Page, Derek Pierson... and now Roger Perry, who was a contributor here at Bear Alley. Sometimes a loss makes the world a little darker, a little less joyful.

Trying to raise the enthusiasm to get on with work hasn't been so easy, especially with so many distractions available at my fingertips. I've probably only achieved the minimum required of me, although thankfully, rather than waste time, I did some of the research I need to do for a future book. We all deal with these stresses in our own way.

We'd planned a little trip at the tail end of last week. We've lived a few miles from Brightlingsea for six years now and thought it might be fun to visit. A quick search for "things to do" and "sites to see" revealed that Brightlingsea has bugger all of interest—for meals the recommendation was to drive out to Wivenhoe and local attractions were five, ten and fifteen miles away. One was Colchester Zoo, which is local to Brightlingsea in the same sense that Colchester is local to London.

So we decided to stay at home and watch a film instead, followed by a walk down to the local chippie. We ate fish & chips and watched Flight of the Conchords, which Mel has never seen but is now becoming a fan.

I'm trying to catch up on a ton of TV. Finished watching Colony, starring Josh (Lost) Holloway, which was better than I expected. It's set in alien-occupied America but you never meet the alien hosts; instead its like the Vichy government in wartime France, with large, walled up areas ruled over by an elite of proxies chosen by the "Raps". A Resistance has grown up behind a figure known as Geronimo.

The show pulled the rug from under viewers a couple of times and I'm looking forward to seeing the second season, due in 2017.

So now I'm watching Firefly-wannabe Dark Matter, with a shipful of mismatched mercenaries who wake up with no memory of who they are or how they got onto the spacecraft. It's based on an old Dark Horse Comics' title I'm only four episodes in, but I'm definitely enjoying it. I'm told that Season 2 is even better.

Random scans... to try and lighten the mood, some titles that came up via a search for "laugh", "funny" and "smile" in my cover scans folder. It really does generate a weird and wonderful selection, including our column header by Josh Kirby.

The Digit edition reprinted the cover from Crest 165 but it's clearly using the original artwork as it shows more of the bottom of the art, including the signature of artist Barye Phillips.