Beautiful Mutants: 1963

X-Men #2 (November) No One Can Stop the Vanisher.

Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Paul Reinman.

The guys take on the Vanisher, a villain who became something of a comedy turn in later years but here manages a degree of menace through appearing in a story which is itself of relatively light tone. It probably also helps that Kirby gave him a resemblance to my former upstairs neighbour, George, who was fucking awful. There's still no sign of the mutant hysteria we keep hearing about, although some guy reading a newspaper describes the X-Men as over-rated phonies, which would probably count as anti-mutant hatred these days. The cover image of the Vanisher on the White House lawn still gives me a bit of a chill. The high point of this issue (and possibly the twentieth century) is, for me, Cyclops and Iceman catching a lift to school in an ice-cream truck. There isn't enough room for everyone up front so Iceman travels in the refrigerated compartment and, naturally, helps himself.

The X-Book

Having recently spunked away fourteen months of my life reading X-Men comics, I've inevitably ended up writing about it. It would have been twelve months but I miscalculated how long it would take to work my way through 1,654 comic books. I started with X-Men #1 from 1963 and kept going until I reached September, 1991, the point at which it all went down the toilet so far as I'm concerned and coinciding with the end of the Chris Claremont era. As older readers may have discerned from the numbers, this wasn't just X-Men #1 through to #280, but also the associated books - New Mutants, X-Factor, Excalibur, all the solo titles, issues of Defenders and Avengers featuring the Beast, Champions, Dazzler and anything else to feature an X-person even if it's just Cyclops stood in the background of one panel whining about something. The book is, in part, an analysis of all that went wrong, but also of what made X-Men great in the first place. It was written mainly for fun, specifically my fun, and therefore should not be mistaken for a droning treatise on post-gender tropes in the Spongebob Squarepants movie or collector bullshit about which issues you "need" with lists of who appeared where. I'm sure there's enough of that shite already out there and nobody could possibly need another one. It therefore has very little in common with, off the top of my head, The New Mutants (2016) in which Ramzi Fawaz explains how the Hulk is an important non-binary character because Bruce Banner often has a bit of a cry when he's finished rampaging through the latest city, because crying is something that ladies do and is therefore counter-patriarchal or summink*.

If you're familiar with my Pamphlets of Destiny blog or the associated books, then you'll probably have some idea of what to expect. However, because this one is over 241,000 words and should therefore be considered a magnum opus (at least in quantitative terms) I'm going to post a series of twenty-nine daily trailers here on this blog, one write-up taken from each year covered in the book leading up to the launch, as we publishing bigwigs call it. The excerpts should give you some idea as to whether you'll want to read the thing which, being unofficial and full of swearing, isn't going to get any promotion beyond this.

See you tomorrow, possibly.

*: God how I wish I were making this up.

Sea of Tails

In the event of anyone having missed the memo, I recently published my wife's book, Sea of Tails, and before anyone's nostrils take to flaring, I published it because 1) I believe it's a good book, and 2) she's my wife and that's just how it works. We both spend a lot of time involved in cat rescue of one sort or another, although Bess has arguably been at it since childhood; so this is autobiography with particular emphasis on cats, published as a fundraiser for whatever cat charity we happen to be involved with each time Lulu sends out the wonga. Given that many of the cat charities we've dealt with have either come and gone, or else constitute just some altruistic persons who don't even have a formal title, much less a handy logo I could stick on the cover, you'll just have to take my word for it that we're not pocketing the money for ourselves or secretly putting it towards a yacht we've had our eye on.

Anyway, she wrote it about a year ago along with a second volume which I'll be sorting out when I get the time. I've spent a good few months editing it and sharpening it up, where needed. I also painted the cover and have drawn fifteen illustrations for the interior. My wife tells her story well in the warm tones of hearth and home without an excess of sugar, and I think it's a great book, which is why I published it. Thankfully everyone who has read it thus far seems to agree, and annoyingly* it's already outsold my own writing without promotion beyond the usual social media stuff.

Please buy one by following this link and help the kitty-cats.

*: Well, not that annoyingly.

D-Generation

I've written something for D-Generation magazine, the first issue of which will be out fairly soon with a free CD of music from underground legends the Apostles, Rapoon, Val Denham, and We Be Echo, also Retirement Community which is myself and therefore substantially less legendary. I'm sure you can work out the names of other contributors from the above and appreciate why I'm honoured to be included. As should be obvious, it's a physical magazine and you can order your copy here, here, or here; or from Timeless if you live in France. I understand it should also be stocked by Cold Spring in the UK, Tesco Organisation in Germany, and Soleilmoon in the US, but you may have to nose around on their respective sites. It's probably going to sell out fast so buy now while stocks last.

No. There isn't an electronic version. If you weren't able to work out that much from the above, then it probably ain't for you, twinkle toes.

More of More of This Sort of Thing!

Careful Now Promotions of Medway, Englishland have finally come up with a fourth issue of More of This Sort of Thing!, a proper print fanzine like nature intended which you won't be able to download to your silly overpriced portable telephone. This issue features writing by the excellent Vic Templar, author of the highly recommended Taking Candy from a Dog, which should be sufficient recommendation by itself; also Bob Collins, Stuart Turner and myself returning to strip cartoons for the first time in fucking ages (me, I mean, not Stuart or Bob) with Dennis the Drum Kit, a typically puerile rearrangement of the same old poo jokes which served me so well back in the late 1700s, back when everything was better than it is now.

There's not much point waiting for any of this stuff to be posted online or reproduced in some digital format, so if you want it, you'll either have to go back in time to the Careful Now gig at which they were giving them away for free (Heavenly and Treasures of Mexico, May 13th), or possibly badger someone on the associated facebook page. There's a notice in the fanzine saying further copies can be had for 50p and an SAE sent to CNP Towers, but with no address given, so that would probably be the Oast in Rainham, Kent, which is where CNP stage all of their fab pop concerts. Each issue of More of This Sort of Thing! is actually designed to be read at its associated gig whilst waiting for the next band or for bar staff to pour one's sixteenth pint of the evening, but is a satisfyingly substantial read in its own rights.

The Tragedian

I never really intended to be a publisher of anything besides my own material, but I really wanted to read Andy Fraser's first novel, and it turned out that the easiest way to do so (given that I hate reading off a screen) was to make a copy for myself; then I sent one to the author - figuring that he should at least see it - and one thing led to another, and here we are...

I've known Andy (whom you may remember as a contributor to Kiss of Life) on and off since the eighties. He's one of those people who has proven difficult to pigeonhole, but he always makes things interesting; and his writing is as distinctive and possibly as unique as his music so I'm disgustingly proud to be in the position to make this available to a slightly wider audience. The Tragedian is approximately autobiographical, alternately funny, tragic and emotionally powerful despite a shitload of writing conventions having been thrown out the window. As I've said elsewhere, it's a novel which does what it does because no-one told it that it couldn't.

Buy your copy here, then review it on Goodreads so it will appear successful to future potential readers, who may then buy it, read it, review it on Goodreads, until it eventually achieves critical mass and takes over the world; which will at least be preferable to the singularity.

Figures in a Landscape

I have a new collection of short stories, mostly written around the time of Against Nature but previously unpublished and freshly tarted up around the end of last year. They're mostly science-fiction by a definition which allows for wiggle room, and I'm inappropriately pleased with all of them, particularly Evolution of Language and The War Against Continuity, both of which are fucking excellent; and yes, I do indeed say so myself. Some are long, others are short (just a couple of pages), and Life After Games probably counts as a novella. If you've read anything I've written, you probably have some idea of what to expect, and that's what you'll get except it'll be better, quite frankly. If you like to read, then there's a reasonable chance you'll enjoy this collection. If you don't like to read, just fucking buy one anyway.

Make your purchase(s) by clicking on this link.

No, there isn't an eBook and nor will there be. Same goes for the possibility of an audiobook, specifically that there isn't one. Much as RA the Rugged Man doesn't want fans who don't know who Kool G Rap is*, I intend to maintain a certain standard in terms of my readership, such as it is, and am keen to discourage riff raff.

*: The album came out twenty years ago. There's no good reason for you not to have known this.