I've just finished transcribing the second part of a really long interview I did recently with the artist Gunnar (you can find it in Skin Deep #272 and the forthcoming #273 - I had to split it over two issues to get it all in even with serious edits). As we got towards the end, we talked about creative people like Tex Avery and Walter Lantz and magazines like Mad and EC comics and how we were exposed to a dark kind of creativity that doesn't exist anymore. Hopefully it doesn't come across like two middle aged men longing for days gone by because that's not the spirit it was conducted in at all. It was more about how most people are only really exposed (and happily so) to the top ten search results you get back from google.

Such is the machine that you built.

Anyway, it struck me that so far as I know, there aren't a lot of places online that will really dive in to investigate little known authors and raise a flag for them - which begs the question, have I got the inclination here to begin such a thing? I think I have but it will be intermittent that's for sure. Maybe I'll make a shortlist of half a dozen of my favourites I think other people would get a kick out of reading, go back revisit their work and write about it here. I'll keep you clued in... well, you'll probably notice.

It's been my habit whenever I'm sending out books during the last couple of years, to throw some extras inside. Sometimes a postcard, sometimes a type-written letter, sometimes a hand written letter... that 'something' is anything I have at hand to make the experience of getting a parcel in the mail a little more personal. Things come and things go and we leave no trace in the world anymore - that's not a good thing.

I love the phrase 'tread lightly' but not when it comes to the things you spend the days of your life creating with blood. That's the one time you should leave a scar otherwise you may become one of those mentioned above. One of The Forgotten.

Take a look at this:

If that isn't a good reason to take a few moments out of your day to commit yourself to the history of the real world instead of the history of the digital, I don't know what is.

Oh the irony of blogging...

It's that time of year again. The time of year when I make a valiant attempt to plough through as many books as I can in the face of an ever mounting drift of festive tomfoolery. Actually, does anybody remember that show? It was the sort of thing they ploughed out on TV during a Sunday afternoon between a bout of Tex Avery and Walter Lantz while adults got on with grown up chores like mowing the lawn or cooking, thinking it would keep us amused - and they were right! Oh, how easily us children of the 70s must have been to keep occupied and out of the way as suburbia revolved on its axis.

Whatever happened to cartoons on TV? I can't remember the last time I saw a Tom & Jerry, a Droopy or a Mister Magoo cartoon. Here's a reminder - and it's a classic:

Lost my train of thought there. Next on the reading list after STONER (which is so damn good, I've already bought another three copies to hand out to people that I think will appreciate them - so much for not buying any more books huh) is this:

I like a good rock n roll story, particularly when it comes from the early years of the band I worshipped on my knees for far too much of my life. The three years that this book covers and maybe a couple more tagged onto the back end up until maybe 1977 are all I need from them. I'll have finished it by tomorrow so luckily, sitting right next to it in the shelf is this:

And if you can't tell what it's about from the cover alone, you came to the wrong place. Sheesh - all you have to do it read that big round sticker type thing and that's it in a nutshell. I don't give that much longer than 24 hours either to be honest.

And then? I'm not sure where to head next, probably back into something hefty and story-like. Maybe a book from somebody who's doing nothing more than wandering around the avenues and alleyways of the world with their teeny-weeny finger curled - and ain't that Thomas O'Malley theme from The Aristocats one of the greatest movie soundtrack songs of all time? Let me see if I can find it...

I wish I had a theme tune like that. Perhaps I should change my name instead?

•••

I've made it sound like I've been doing nothing but reading and watching crap on YouTube but that's not true! No Sir. Wrapping up the first edits of The Eternity Ring here which I'm really pleased with but I now need to throw it in a drawer for a week to get some editing distance 0n it. Also made some serious impact on The Family Of Noise as well but tomorrow I'm in full author mode to see exactly how much of that I can nail down.

There's nothing but a small (though getting bigger) dog standing between me and success on that front.