23/8 AT THE END OF THE START OF THE DAY

PIC: KM 2026 after Henry Wallis 1830-1916

Mick Harvey - Chatterton (Official Audio)

NO BRAKES I DON’T MIND

Welcome to yet another brisk, brash, only vaguely biweekly roundup of all the news from round here, with an upbeat tempo and a black coffee beat to boot!

Thanks to everyone who supported the Kickstarter campaign for Magick and Symbolism, which raised a remarkable $213, 876. The cat colony sends its thanks in advance for the dinners!

Speaking of Kickstarters, I promised my pal Gabriel I’d link to this one for the audio book of Chapel Perilous, his fantastic biography of Robert Anton Wilson, as read by Gabriel himself!

(link)

Had a good call with Ben Wheatley last week on our favourite subject and other things!

Last week’s edition of the ever-reliable Mindless Ones newsletter -

That’s a question you should ask yourself

-drew my attention to Luke Haines’ new record ‘Izzy Wizzy Let’s Get Busy’, which I’m delighted to say was inspired by an e-mail I sent him last year before we finally spoke quite recently. Luke had idly suggested a collaboration, and I responded that I thought there was something to be done with the overwhelming influence of magic and the occult - via the Magic Circle’s David Nixon, Sooty, and the chimerical Ali Bongo - on UK children’s TV in the ‘60s-‘80s. It never came up again, and I figured Luke may have thought I was just taking the piss!

I went on to develop the notion into a piece - ‘Liber Sooty’ - which you can read here at Xanaduum on November 5th 2025, and Sooty – ‘wizard magician, super musician’ – showed up as our cover star last time around. As a fan, I’m absolutely thrilled that Luke took my idea seriously, expanded on it, and created a whole suite of songs around the notion! It’s really good too!

Izzy Wizzy Let’s Get Busy

The Aeon of Sooty proceeds apace (but what if Soo is Ma’at?..)!

Time for the times to come together!

What else? Spoke to my enthusiastic editor on one of the WFH/WTF comics projects I tease interminably. This one’s a character I’ve wanted to have a go at since I was wee. It’ll be announced later this year!

The artist Hayden Sherman sent me the first issue of their Legion of Super-Heroes relaunch at DC, in collaboration with writer Joshua Williamson.

I hesitate to say this is what comics should look like – because there are lots of great ways to do comics – but THIS is what comics should look like, and it’s nothing like TV or cinema. It’s a great take on the characters and concept, and Hayden’s art is spectacular and inventive.

Momus has started on his new album, the second of 2026, tentatively entitled Humperstinck, (an unappealing title I hope doesn’t stick), with three tunes released over the last week! I love that he just keeps making stuff and, in this manner, assists in holding my world together with song.

This week’s films were Bugonia which I really liked - Emma Stone continues an impressive run of commanding roles – and Weapons, which I hated immediately when that annoying voiceover started. Then I grumbled through the Rashomon structure that all the characters were unlikeable and the pacing was off. Then ‘Aunt Gladys’ came into it (Amy Madigan, with her Oscar-winning, bone-freezing turn) and the film finally got off the launchpad and became scary and disturbing. The whole backstory with Alex and his parents was so unsettling and grotesque, I was praying for Gladys to meet her end and cheered when it finally came to pass. For all I didn’t like most of it, the film has haunted me, which counts as a win.

I felt obliged to watch the first episode of Lanterns after criticising the glib dismissal of the colour green by writer and producer Damon Lindelof. I liked Aaron Pierre’s quiet and uptight performance as John Stewart, and thought Kyle Chandler anchored the show with a great turn as Doctor McCoy, but he wasn’t any Hal Jordan I recognised. Willpower and booze don’t mix for a start.

I’ll stick with it for the engaging Chandler. I’m keen to see how they introduce the more sci-fi elements of the concept. Otherwise on this outing, way too much tell, not enough show, and those comparisons to True Detective, invoking season 1 of that, show, only worked against Lanterns. The lack of costumes and ring effects was glaring but easily explained by budgetary constraints and a desire to create some distance between this and the unsuccessful Ryan Reynolds Green Lantern film (I found it odd, however, when Jordan compared not wearing his Green Lantern uniform to the decision not to wear a tie when you get older - the Lantern uniform is not a superhero suit or personal fashion choice, it’s the uniform of the organisation Jordan works for, and as with a policeman’s blues, it signals his affiliation and authority. Working cops don’t get to leave their uniforms and badges at home because they regard them as stuffy and boring, no matter how long they’ve pounded the beat..). Which only begs the question of why try to make a Green Lantern show on a budget at all? DC has a ton of ‘ground level’ heroes, or characters with low level gimmick powers to choose from, so why take this low-fi route with a franchise that should be competing with Star Trek or Star Wars?

Having said that, the approach seems to have worked, and mainstream reviews of the show are pretty positive, so fair dos.

Crimson Desert, my alternative life as a wandering murderer with a heart of gold continues, with new locations, creatures, treasure, bosses being discovered all the time. I currently enjoy za-zen sitting meditation by my coded fish pond with my rendered wyverns, watching the unreal sun come up over Howling Hill at 6 in the morning.

Haven’t read much since last time. Elsewhere, the news outpaces our ability to transform its base lead into the fools’ gold of oblique and surreal squibs.

Never mind that! Frank Quitely has FINISHED drawing and colouring ‘It’s a Dead Dead Dead Dead World’! As you might imagine, it looks incredible. He’s doing some subtle and unusual work with colour. Now all that remains is the lettering!

Paid subscribers only will be able to access this new Morrison/Quitely meisterstroke. I’m looking at the whole thing right now and can scarcely contain my arousal!

Here’s another preview to whet your appetite for our brain-devouring reinvention of the zombie genre…

PIC; Frank Quitely 2026

DEAN CAIN’S ‘FACE’ MISTAKEN FOR ‘WHOOPEE CUSHION’ BY SIGHTLESS FAN SHOCK

Richard Tice of the right-wing Reform Party in the UK - an infamous denier of human impact on climate change - has recently waded into the soup to propose that British people, (meaning mostly English people, as the weather here in Scotland has not been anywhere near as fiercely hot and dry as it has been down South), must accept the death of seasons, bid farewell to their former temperate climate, stop moaning about the end of the world, and instead embrace its many upsides, which are to include a laid back Mediterranean lifestyle and fine wines!

"Of course climate change is real, but where is the evidence that net zero is going to stop it? Where is the evidence? There isn't any…’

“Climate change has always happened, it always will. Maybe the smarter thing to do is to adapt to it, (rather) than think arrogantly you can stop it.”

Tice added: “I think when it’s a bit warm, let’s enjoy it. And if it means that English wine and sparkling wine gets better and better, fantastic. That means we can take on the French, fantastic.

"Let's celebrate some of these things rather than just be sort of doom and gloom about it."

Tice has a point – humans must expect to co-exist with a thriving fossil fuel industry – and he suggests we need to stop all the doomery and gloomism, and learn, instead, to celebrate as we’re boiled alive in our baths! Bravo, Mr. Tice, for saying what the mealy-mouthed libturds won’t dare utter!

We here at Xanaduum wish to add our voices to the choruses with an even more robust strategy that’s not for faint-hearted snowflakes - why stop at a balmy Mediterranean climate? We should be looking forward to the delights of a sub-Saharan biome, including daily camel rides across the dunes to our work at the Ministry of Love - MINILUV - in Central London, and looming ziggurats on the South Downs! Plucky, uncomplaining Brits would gratefully embrace a desert lifestyle! Who doesn’t love the beach? Now imagine it’s all beach! Beach and more beach outside your front step, all the way to the horizon!

After centuries of miserable fog and rain, it’s Great Britain’s turn to sizzle like the surface of Mercury!

Heat exhaustion, drought, hallucination! Soon to be the familiar signs of a traditional British winter!

Nor is there any need for Merrie Olde Englande to give up any of our country’s cosy comforts in the sweltering 140-degree summers we can all forward to! The woke moaning minnies can say what they like but the rest of us will still be able to enjoy our regular pint of gently bubbling ale as we take in a blistering microwave sunset over the cremation grounds that once were pastures green where trod those feet in ancient time!

Cor blimey, guv’nor! Our English cricketeers need only buck up and switch to scorch-proof spiked plimsolls to play as easily on molten lava as they do on the bristling Bermuda grass it must replace! Fire retardant fielders can at last ditch boring old leather balls and instead hurl flaming fireballs at batsmen and wickets in an attempt to set the opposing teamto the torch! Yeah yeah yeah!

The laws of cricket already prohibit the watering of the pitch during play, so let’s take it all the way! The Ashes are all that’s left to play for! As for our firefighters, let’s see an end to the hostility, and a switch to more proactive firespreading tactics.

For God’s sake, readers, stop wrestling with the inevitable! Let the oil companies work their mighty will and let’s learn to rejoice in immolation! Rest assured, new gene editing therapies will very shortly be developed to provide human skin with an artificial flameproof epidermis of asbestos-infused ceramic tiles, and won’t the naysayers and doomsputterers have egg all over their faces then?

What’s wrong with you? Don’t you love the sun? Don’t you adore excessive suffocating heat? We do!

We will squeeze new wines from raisins! Our gardens will have clean, easy to maintain sand instead of ugly, writhing grass and toxic, pollen-emitting weeds. We will burn gently in the rays of our new killer star! Hurrah!

THE CLOCK STOPPED TICKING - STARTED TOCKING, OH!

I like to think about the large scale structure of the universe, with its illuminated filaments like a cosmic lace doily, and its sublime and silent interstitial voids, those unimaginably supercalifragilistiexpialifukkindocious vacuum spaces, them empty volumes bigger than anything you, me, or anyone else, except maybe the King of the Whales in the Sea, can truly imagine without going three-quarters-mad! Those light millennia of utter Nothing, have nevertheless been give names by microscopic human beings! I’ve resorted to them often in my stories – the denizens of the Hydra Void showed up in my Graphic India series Avatarex, while the Perseus Void made an appearance in The Green Lantern (DC have an omnibus edition coming out, featuring all the stories Liam and I did together. About time, says I! Now where’s that outsize Absolute Edition, so we can drown in the art?). The scale of the universe is so far beyond our conception that I find myself hooting with derision every time I consider our inflated and pompous sense of importance.

And never mind just ordinary voids, they have Supervoids!!!

In other news, we must consider the Magnetar, a dead Neutron star ten sullen miles in diameter and so dense a tablespoonful weighs 100 million tons! Searing gamma and X-Ray emissions from this stellar destroyer annihilate all life. The monstrous magnetic field will strip the electrons from all the atoms in your body. That’s instantaneous atomisation. From thinking, feeling human to perplexed aerosol.

What level of challenge would this lethal stellar object pose to Silver Age Superman?

Green Lantern?

Hal Jordan and Richard Tice have probably never crossed paths…

And that’s what I call the weeeeeeeve…

MAGNETIC FLUX DENSITY VS. UR MUM

These your contributions to the narrative followed by my notes and rambles…

Osiris – Hope you enjoyed Cornwall (when I lived in town, I was fond of the spectacular train ride from Glasgow to Penzance at Midsummer – it’s a 12-hour journey through some of the UK’s most beautiful landscapes – and booking into a little hotel in Mousehole – ‘Mouzel’ it’s pronounced locally) and sorry you didn’t make it to Scotchland on this go round!

Your GF is right (no shit…)! The hypersigil is doing its work. Don’t get in its way (it’s certainly too late for that)! Skydiving to charge a sigil is peak! I find your dispatches from Shanghai and the school utterly fascinating, so no worries there!

The thing to do is forget the desire, forget and don’t wait for results but make sure you have given the desire clear ‘real world’ paths along which to manifest. You can maintain a tingling anticipation as a background hum, but it should feel that you’ve launched the self-driving rocket programmed to reach its destination. Meaning you can now go and make the tea, metaphorically (or literally if you fancy a brew). You turn your back on the sigil and ‘forget’ the desire, which is to say you remain aware of it, but you have moved on. This is hard when it’s something important to you, but I’ve found that switching to another project, even if it’s just researching something or planning, is a reliable way of letting the subconscious intent do its thing and work down paths you’ve prepared for it to travel.

It’s never foolish to write as if your life is on the line! Never settle for less!

I’ve always been open to the inoculation theory of evil in stories, where a little taste allows us to develop an immunity.

The take on evil you describe is very much in line with the world-destroying concept monster U-2315 from There Is No Anti-Memetic Division - it seeks to disfigure what is beautiful, to humiliate what is proud, to mutilate what is healthy.

And on that happy note…

Where can we read your work?

Patrick – That’s very interesting about John Lennon Like You and feels quite validating. Along with that scene in the first issue of The Invisibles, and a general creative nitrous boost, the song emerged as a kind of afterglow or by-blow of the Psychedelic God Lennon ritual I performed in 1993.

Give that the song was ‘downloaded’ from a field of pure and concentrated Lennon-ness, I’m delighted to learn it’s close enough to his vernacular to convince AI. And it’s no surprise that the latter section didn’t scan as Lennon with the same fidelity, as that’s the bit where the transmission ceases and I return as myself with ‘John Lennon like you…’!

I really appreciated your covers of the songs. I was quite touched, and they’re great!

Never Find Time and Love Hurts were both written and sung by Danny Vallely, (with backing harmonies by me and Ulric Kennedy) and are more influenced by the Hollies, the Kinks and Buzzcocks than the Beatles, so the low-Lennon content AI rating tracks there too.

Speaking of Danny, he was the real musical talent in the band. We were blessed with four singer/songwriters but he was the best singer, a prolific and gifted songwriter, and an inventive producer who could work technical wonders with only 4 tracks in the early days. This is him doing his take on Pepper-era Beatles/Harrison.

The Stars Will Lead You

The Stars Will Lead You was recorded on a mere 8 tracks with Danny singing and playing all the instruments. He’d borrowed a sitar for a couple of days and created a song around his first efforts with the instrument (I tried to play it and found my fingers slithering around the huge fretboard like novice ice skaters, so it’s not something you just pick up in a day unless you’re a musical savant). This was completely off the cuff - written, arranged, played and recorded over those 50 or so hours as a demo to showcase the on-loan sitar. I’m still impressed.

I enjoyed the back and forth with drowzeezachary. While it’s true that we can all be ‘bad’ now and again, or that we can even entertain profoundly evil thoughts if we choose to, (as a writer, creating lurid pulp stories with monstrous villains I’ve found myself contemplating the murkiest swamps of villainy and sin on occasion), I like to think most of us would hesitate before doing something truly evil.

I second a re-read of Ungrounded! My copy is upstairs somewhere…

Drowzeezachary – your take on Man of Steel and the Snyder Superman is fascinating and well thought out. I must admit I was only able to watch that movie once. I like Henry Cavill, and think he made a fantastic Superman, but the whole thing was too dour for me, and I found the neck snap to be a boring and unimaginative - which is to say human and not superhuman - way out of the conflict. Where is Superman’s super-sense of humour in these dour and ponderous gloomfests? I understood many of the reasons why Zack Snyder did it – some monsters are just so terrible you have to kill them, as in Weapons – but for me it comes across instead as a lack of imagination and an unwillingness to take seriously what Superman is and what he is capable of.

On the other hand, I don’t mind BvS which I’ve watched a few times. And I like the 4-hour ‘Snyder cut’ of Justice League well enough to have watched it twice. It’s one of those rare and curious films where no matter how often I watch it, I have no idea what happened, so it feels new each time… (the Star Wars prequels are like that, also the Hobbit films…)

I can’t see a scenario where Superman could ever choose evil. While it’s true that fictional characters can be made to do or be anything, part of the fun of being an iconic franchise comes from the simplified rules of one’s existence; Superman has a basic program - he is a strong man who protects the weak and vulnerable from the powerful and cruel. If he stops doing that, he stops being Superman. A Superman who realises that God is Evil and that morality is a pathetic joke designed to break the decent and exalt the monstrous would still be unlikely to join Evil in making the lives of the vulnerable miserable; he would more likely fight harder to protect them. I myself often have my nose rubbed in the intractability of evil and the obsessive will to destroy of bad people, but not once has it caused me to reconsider looking after the cats, for instance. Even if God were to appear on my couch with the face of Darkseid and explain to me that the fundamental engine of the universe is powered by radical Evil, I’m unlikely to think ‘oh well, must become a sadist now and start torturing things I care about…’ That’ doesn’t seem a realistic response.

For me, there’s no convincing scenario where Superman willingly decides to create horror and havoc simply because the arc of the moral universe is revealed to bend towards injustice and cruelty. He would turn into turning a different character, one of many that already exist in comics and movies - like the Plutonian, Homelander, Brightburn, or Ultraman - and makes him redundant. Best to stick to what he’s good at or he loses his relevance.

The reason there are so many ‘evil’ Supermen analogues is because the nature of the original cannot be changed effectively. There’s an argument to say that Homelander had to be created because we needed a more honest, contemporary super-representative of ‘the American Way’ than Superman is capable of being.

The idea that Darkseid is the God of Superman’s universe is the conceit behind the Absolute books, isn’t it? But even Ultimate Superman has not given into darkness.

For me Superman is the cartoon embodiment of our greatest idea, - the Renaissance Humanist conviction that we are copycats with the ability, and frankly, nothing much better to do with our brutish selves, than to live up to our finest ideals and paragons. We have imagined ourselves out of savagery and want and could easily extend those privileges to the whole human race if we tried.

I’m afraid I know nothing about Avatar: the Last Airbender other than the fact that it exists and whatever bits of stray lore I’ve picked up from the general mediasphere. Nevertheless, you have the knack of making things sound incredibly interesting, so I’ll try to check it out if I get a chance …

Sean – as I said on the Seth Myers show when I was promoting Luda, superheroes and drag are barely separable. Ordinary citizens in work clothes slip into closets and phone booths to emerge as their resplendent best selves! Superheroes are queer to the core, as I insisted on the promo tour for Luda!

Look forward to your take on Magic!

The graphic novel sounds very interesting but two years is a long wait for an artist if there’s no evidence of work being done or contact being maintained. I’m seriously out of the loop with artists, as I’ve discovered on my new projects, so not much help here.

Bobby – Glad you liked TVPs – they’re probably still my favourite band along with the Beatles. They have loads of amazing songs; poignant, funny, romantic, clever…

TVPs leader Dan Treacy - who scored our pure and heartfelt youthful dreams with hope and raised us up when we were down - ended up an addict, then homeless, and is currently ‘recovering’ in a nursing home in the care of his sister. He’s one of my lifetime heroes, and a true genius of pop who saved and salved so many young souls.

Congratulations on finishing another one! How do you feel your work has been developing between your own stuff and adapting Wilson?

Persefonie – The eclipse was a bit disappointing compared to the spectacular total blackout I witnessed in Cornwall in 1999 - it got a little gloomy and the birds shut up for a bit but that was it! Your Galadriel-esque epiphany sounds a lot more fun!

fylGja – Thanks for the closing thoughts on the Black Parade. I feel I’ve reached my limit on this subject and have nothing useful to add! My interpretation as an audience member is perhaps overly simplistic - Draag has no government, or agenda, it’s a fictional construct made to carry a great deal of metaphorical weight - but I’m not the originator of the Draag concept and can only speculate, like you, where things will lead…

MagicK – You’re welcome!

1.This would have been a standalone reimagining of the Legion and not part of continuity. It was my attempt to do a whole epic Legion history in one story. The plan was to have a big Star Trek sweep with a United Planets backdrop. I wanted to play the story of the Legion as the rise and fall of a youth cult, on a galactic scale. It would start with three hipster kids – Garth Ranzz from the planet Winath, Imra Ardeen, a telepath from Titan and Rokk Krinn of Braal. We’d play them like the ‘Bromley contingent’ of punks led by Siouxsie Sioux – clever, provocative and stylish - but instead of being into decadence and Cabaret, these Legion kids were obsessed with old time ‘superheroes’ from the 20^th and 21^st centuries. They decide to dress like superheroes and give themselves superhero names - Lightning Lad, Saturn Girl and Cosmic Boy.

Pretending to be superheroes, they save the life of squillionaire RJ Brande, who, like Brian Epstein with the Beatles, or Malcolm McClaren and the Sex Pistols, sees ‘potential’ in these young trendsetters. They swiftly become stars, the height of cool. The superhero thing would then get bigger and more successful, with new members joining the newly-created ‘Legion of Super-Heroes’ from all points in the sky – we’d follow the rise and then the fractures, the ‘musical’ differences, the originals splitting off as the original idea is mangled or forgotten – with breakaway factions of Substitute Heroes and Wanderers doing their own thing – until what had been a universe-changing style, jargon and philosophy, would wind up in every space variant of Hot Topic, and every kid would be dressing in some watered down version of the hero look - then cosmic war - and so on – it would have been three 40 page issues telling the whole story, with a bittersweet ending where the last of the originals get together to reminisce and the solution to a central mystery is finally revealed…

2. I have no personal relationship with the ‘Five Years Later’ Giffen Legion run, as I wasn’t reading the book at the time! All I remember about that run is disliking the 9-panel grid and the ‘grim’ Legion, and preferring Giffen’s work with Paul Levitz in the early ‘80s (those were the books that got me back into reading comics in my early 20s). I liked him a lot and got on well with Keith - he was a one-of-a-kind madcap acerbic creative mind - but I didn’t connect with that version of the Legion at all.

3. Quitely and I were invited to contribute a story to Action #1000 but as I recall we didn’t have anything great in mind and by that time I felt we’d said our piece with All-Star Superman.

Nathan - I have around 30 or so strays to look after these days, with five new kittens taking the places of some much-missed old faces.

Writing a book about the colony is a good idea to preserve its characters in fictional form - I had a similar idea and started a fantasy novel about the local cats, in a Watership Down mode…

Ben – I didn’t get that far! I could be persuaded to watch a whole movie from Cringer’s POV.

Tomi – Nice to hear from you again! James is a band that never really connected with me, although I love Sit Down as much as the next ‘90s veteran. I remember Tim with hair, and perhaps he remembers me with hair.

Mark – I’m looking forward to Coyote vs Acme. Me and Coyote have history…

Jimmybayls – I’m glad your son enjoyed The Third Policeman, although I’m sure being paid to read helps sweeten the deal! You should definitely read it next! Hope your niece finds JLA entertaining!

I have met Lynne Ramsay! She lived just round the corner from my place in Glasgow!

DeeSee – I agree. Wasn’t there always a sense of bitterness with Oddie? I think he felt he was the multi-talented one. and didn’t get the respect he deserved. Graeme Garden was my favourite Goodie but it was really a show for 12 year olds who weren’t allowed to stay up to watch Monty Python’s Flying Circus. There were some inspired moments - ‘Kitten Kong’ etc - but it was often threadbare playground absurdism…

I’m a big fan of Oliver Reed as an actor – another one who never reached the heights he was capable of (he’s a magnificent young and brooding presence in Beat Girl, and he’s peak with Oliver!, Women in Love and The Devils) thanks to a serious drink problem that was indulged then as ‘hellraiser’ behaviour - but that drunken debacle on the Aspel show was just sad (he attempted to sing Wild One there, not Wild Thing, but had recorded both songs previously). A sober version would probably have been great, but he wasn’t just drunk in that clip, he was shit-faced, falling down fucked.

I remember the Yummy Fur from posters around town but I’ve never seen them play.

My pal Gordon plays guitar for Simple Minds but, as you can imagine, their music has never rung my bell! As you probably know, they were Johnny and the Self-Abusers in their punk genesis, before wisely settling on a somewhat less offensive and more commercial name.

I stand by the suggestion to seek out music you don’t normally listen to – but you don’t have to like all of it! Some things just strum the strings of the soul straight away, others you learn to love, or appreciate, and some leave you cold no matter how hard you try to give them a go.

Musical taste is like fingerprints and snowflakes.

For me, Gaga was best out the gate – especially that double punch of instant classics with Poker Face and Bad Romance - but I rate her quite highly as an artist, even when the work doesn’t always appeal to me.

The evil Aunt Gladys in Weapons was what you describe – she did what she did, however sadistic, in order to prolong her existence. Supernatural evil has different rules, as the Grimm fairy tale ending demonstrated.

I still maintain that humans are ‘plex beings’ as you call it. We are congregations of alternate selves, parallel versions, that sometimes get together to achieve great things but more often spend their/our lives in internal conflict.

kevinS – Having written her adventures, and spent time with the character, I really like Zatanna and think she’s my favourite magical superhero but…running a close race, and a clear first choice if you asked 14-year-old GM, would have to be Dr. Fate. It was the simple but incredibly striking and appealing costume that did it for me as a kid – that Pharaonic blue and gold, the epaulettes and gauntlets, the faceless Spartan helmet – when I saw Fate for the first time on the cover of DC 100-page Super Spectacular #6 drawn by Neal Adams in a mind-boggling crowd scene that introduced me to an exciting treasure trove of Golden Age heroes. I was instantly captivated and wanted to know more. Then there was his HQ in a windowless stone tower on some blasted heath outside Salem! I loved the Martin Pasko/Walt Simonson Doctor Fate story from 1st Issue Special #8. That’s a great one-shot. The original stories by Gardner Fox have a bizarre, dreamlike atmosphere – ‘The Lambent Flame’ – and a strange sideways Lovecraft influence with names like Nyarl-Amen. In spite of my love for the character, I’ve never chosen to write him – everything great about Doctor Fate exists in the costume and in a handful of stories for me, and that design, and anything else is superfluous. I was pleased with my pulp Earth-22 ‘Doc Fate’ character, combining Doctor Fate and Doc Savage, and could have written him again.

I was a big fan of the Engelhart/Frank Brunner Doctor Strange stories and love the eerie atmosphere of the early Lee/Ditko stories, but I’ve never been a big fan of the character. The Ditko Doctor Strange was my Uncle Billy’s favourite. His dad, my grandad loved Mandrake the Magician, so we have three generations of favourite fictional wizards, at least. Otherwise, I like most of the ones DC ended up with – especially Ibis the Invincible and Taia.

And John Constantine – he’s a good one!

An atheist in the DC Universe would be like a Flat Earther here – a denier of the self-evidently true! Although I suppose a committed DCU atheist could say that if some of these powerful superhuman beings are aliens or mutants then maybe all of them are. Heaven and Hell are other planets or dimensions! That’s if they even exist and it’s not just a big conspiracy put about by one faction or another…

Be seeing you…