MY SEARCH FOR THE MALAISE OF HYPER-MODERNITY
As the Sun's shallow arc dips through watered-down yellow and blinding barely-there negligee blue towards the scribbly scratchy silhouettes of the treeline less than an hour after noon here in Scotland at the year's arse end, the prodigal colours of the visible spectrum have made a welcome comeback after relentless monochrome months of 24-hour cloud cover and aggressive hammering rain. So many shades of blue and green and brown I've only seen on screens lately and had almost forgotten existed in nature!
A glossy young raven is perched on the roof gutter, reflecting the long low rays on feathers so black they've turned white, checking me out with a confident clever eye, a beak like black shears cutting bugs from the air. Seagulls screaming 'kiss her!' Everyone wants a piece of the sinking winter sun. Feral cats stalking feral patches of sunshine, curling up in temporary recreations of those summer corners where they grew and played as kittens before the concept of cold was a thing. The hourly bus on the coast road, clearing its engine's throat as it passes...
In the time it took to simulate this pastoral passing moment in prose, the sun has almost set behind the frayed black pyramids of the conifer wood. It's now 1.37 in the afternoon!
These shockingly brief budgie-smuggler days, stretched tightly over a handful of bulging hours are the price we, in the North pay for luxurious near-midnight sunsets in the midsummer simmerdim!
As we approach the end of the first year at Xanaduum, we're decking the halls for our big end-of-2022 blowout!
To get the brick rolling and say farewell in style to this often cruel and sadfaced latest turn around the sun, we'd like to invite our cherished paid subscribers and long-suffering regular readers to the inevitable, emotionally-overwhelming end of the year SALON EVENT!
Please submit your questions, queries, quips and enquiries on any subject - with extra nil-points for the seasonally inclined perhaps - and let's get this party stuffed and mounted! (the sharp-eyed among you may have noticed certain lines of questioning tend to be fruitless, for particular reasons I will explain in detail when the time comes... but generally I'm happy to gab about almost everything...)
TACKLES, TOUCHDOWNS AND DRAFT-DODGING DESERT TOADS
Clinging to the Christmas theme the way a remorseful daredevil clings to a disintegrating barrel going over a shark-infested waterfall, I promised a discreet nod in the direction of BOOM! Studios KLAUS Kickstarter campaign - the sumptuous compendium collects all the Klaus stories I've done with fan fave artist, the brilliant Dan Mora, and adds all manner of enticing extras in the form of exclusive hyperkitsch merch. It's running for the next week. Check it out if you've ever dreamed of owning some uniquely collectible Klaus-themed kit and kaboodle. And although it goes without saying that our tales of Santa Klaus as a hunky pagan superhero make an ideal Holiday gift for jaded youngsters no longer deceived by disguised parents or Mall impersonators, elderly cynics unable to let go of that last awkwardly shaped jingle bell of hope, and wide-eyed wonderstricken fools everywhere, of all ages, sizes and shapes - I'll say it anyway!
SCIENTISTS IDENTIFY 'BLISS BEEF' GENE
And as the blizzard of Christmas ads continue, what about the one with the open coffin and the 'Not yet, Noddy!' slogan? It's a thumbs up guarantee of another decade of two for the elderly Slade frontman! Rock on!
And don't forget that other one where there's a shortage of different coloured lightbulbs for the town illuminations and no-one knows what they'll do this year until some vets, who look a bit like the Three Wise Men, arrive in a broken down van in the dreary town square. In exchange for directions to a local barn, they rapidly diagnose the problem then, with a cheerful brisk efficiency, induce mass vomiting in quite a surprising number of local pet dogs who ate the merry strings of coloured lights in the first place! As the sound of church bells combines in a thrillingly modern and unexpectedly danceable way with the hacking, liquid wheeze of pumped canine stomachs, as the luckess mutts bring up dripping festive masses of glittering tinsel and tangled spangled wire, you, the viewer may begin to question whether or not this is an expensive advert for a popular supermarket chain, or the first fanfare in reality's latest spectacular public meltdown!
You may even ask yourself, as I did, what, if anything, does the baffling made-up ad with the dogs and fairy lights have to do with our next holiday recommendation?
If so, it would be morally wrong of us not to remind you to add Happy! to your list of perennial Christmas must reads and/or watches, along with Scrooge, It's A Wonderful Life, and Die Hard 4, the Stink of Xmas! The book, by me and Darick Robertson, is published by Image and fits perfectly into any roughly book-shaped Christmas stockings you conveniently have floating around!
For the full sound and fury experience of this holiday classic, the Happy! TV show can be found on Netflix along with most other things. Chris Meloni as fallen hero turned degenerate hitman Nick Sax out cartoons the actual animated 'horse' that haunts him through the story! It would be worth it for Meloni's mesmerising performance alone, but every other actor brings their personal A-game and they're all amazing to watch. Brian Taylor was immersed in every single aspect of making Happy! but he especially brought to directing our neo-Dickensian-noir fable of redemption his trademark hyper-kinetic intensity, mad humor, intelligence and fine detail, and it's one of the experiences as a writer I found most fun, collaborative and educational.
ALLURING BUT VOLATILE ULTRA-PROCESSED ENTHUSIASM
Brief hustle done and dusted, we look ahead to December's Xanaduum for an onslaught, an avalanche, not of snow or searing ash, but surprises! A fuck ton of surprises (equivalent to a 'fuck tonne' for our Metrically inclined European readers) in fact! Delivered directly and without fuss to your Kirbyesque 'devices'.
IS THE GOVERNMENT DOING ENOUGH KETAMINE?
We've been monkeying around the old pile for almost a year now: getting to know Xanaduum's nooks and crannies, possibilities and limitations, sorting through its relics, and peeking through that queerly-shaped keyhole into its eerily-radiating Laboratories where strange new life has been gestating all this time, complexifing to completion, gathering the strength it needs to break free and execute its planned attack on the unsuspecting year ahead!
New rooms, hidden passageways, strange treasures await!
Phase 2 is coming!
But first...
'Tis the the 'season', watch this space...
Happy holidays, Grant! As Christians and Atheists alike celebrate the birth of our savior, St Nicolas, I was hoping you could enlighten us to whatever happened to “The Savage Sword of Jesus Christ?” Do you see a future for it at the new Heavy Metal outlet(an imprint at a live sale app’s publishing arm)?
How are you feeling about 2000 AD's occasional use and continued reprinting of Zenith these days?