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Ineptitude Unveiled
As regular readers of this blog will know, I do love a bit of ROCK ADMIN. However, as anyone who has dealt with the RESULTS of my ROCK ADMIN will know, I am really not very good at ALL at muultiple aspects of it.

This realisation came upon me for the 17,000th time yesterday when I had a meeting with a Festival Organiser about maybe doing my DOCTOR DOOM SHOW at their event. It was a LOVELY meeting and I think it might actually work out as HAPPENING, but this was not helped in any way by MY efforts which were HAPLESS to say the least. For instance, right at the end we briefly touched on how to publicise it and I said "Oh, well I do have a mailing list of about 800 people, would that help?" That is OF COURSE the sort of thing you are meant to mention AT THE START, or indeed in the original proposal, and certainly NOT 20 minutes after a lengthy description of which nation's athletes* stayed in your flat during the Olympics (*San Marino - all of them).

Even worse is my ability to NEGOTIATE about FEES and suchlike. I have managed to build myself up to the point of nervously saying that I'm happy to do gigs if I don't lose any money - an improvement of my previous stance of saying YES PLEASE and then wondering, several months after the event, whether anyone was supposed to pay me - but the idea of someone e.g. FEEDING me or even PAYING ACTUAL MONEY never really occurs. This often leads - as in this case - to promoters gently talking up the fee FOR me, which is a bit embarrassing to say the least.

In my defence, I am QUITE GOOD at remembering to check that trains are actually running these days (after several years spent on rail replacement bus services), and unlike e.g. Bruce Springsteen I am doing all this alongside a) a day job b) trying to think up rhymes for "unified catalogue of transmedia character coherence"2, but still, you'd think I'd have got better at if over several ACTUAL DECADES.

Still, it's all a learning process, and MUSING upon my manifold failures this morning did remind my brain that - HEY - if I'm going to do an entire SHOW based on a BOOK, it might be an idea to let the people who published the book KNOW about it! OH YEAH! Thanks BRANE!

posted 17/1/2025 by MJ Hibbett
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You've Got To Have A Plan
Last Friday evening I submitted my first ACADEMIC TEXT of the year - a draft chapter for a book about superheroes, updating the research in my Doctor Doom book (that has now been out in the world for a whole year! amazing!) by doing a NEW survey of texts from 2023/2024 to see if and how he's changed in that time. No SPOILERS obviously, but what I uncovered was, I think, Quite Interesting. I mean, it might not be interesting to anyone else, but it was to me!

Getting that done - or at least done to the first draft stage - was a HUGE relief as I've been spending a LOT of time on it for the past couple of months, and there's other things that I can now be getting one with. The first of these, as discussed yesterday, was UNLEASHING AI Guy as a single. This has involved a FLURRY of activity, not least doing the video, but I don't have to worry about booking PROMOTIONAL GIGS as I've already got a gig booked in Middlewich in February, as well as an online show for the lovely people at the Internet Archive, which will be available for everyone shortly afterwards.

That means that the next BIG thing is to start working on the Doctor Doom SHOW - as mentioned previously I've already written some SONGS for this, but I need to get on with sorting out how it all WORKS. The first step is going to be devising ten minutes of stuff for my forthcoming appearance at An Evening Of Unnecessary Detail, when I shall be DEBUTING a couple of songs, and then working it up into a proper thing. I'm currently taking the first steps towards booking slots at some FESTIVALS, which feels a bit scary. In the past I've at least had a DRAFT of a show written before booking Actual Gigs, so it will be nice to have SOMETHING worked out!

Then there's also the SECRET PROJECT which continues apace - I've just finished recording the final (for the moment) batch DEMOES for my SECRET COLLABORATOR and then hopefully within the next month or two we'll get together to do the SECRET NEXT THING, at which point, all being well, I'll be able to tell you what it SECRETLY IS!

It all feels like quite a lot of different STUFF going on, and that's not even considering various WORK STUFF that's occurring. THUS I find it is very very VERY helpful and reassuring to have a PLAN written down for what I'm doing when. For example, the PLAN has been telling me for a couple of months that I've got to get that there DOOM chapter finished off BEFORE I allow myself the fun of doing the Doom SHOW, lest my BRANE get all confused. As stated earlier, that's done now so it's on to the next thing. I must admit I am feeling slightly a) AFEARED but b) EXCITED about it all. There's a lot to do, but if I just stick to THE PLAN all should be well!

posted 16/1/2025 by MJ Hibbett
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Early Release for AI Guy
Today I am DELIGHTED to announce that you do not need to wait until the end of the month to hear my new single AI Guy, because it is out NOW!

Well, it's not out on streaming services yet as I only decided to do this last night, but it IS very much available on bandcamp and also on YouTube, THUS:



Good eh? What happened was that I was watching the NEWS last night with everyone going on and on about AI and thought "Curses, I wish my single was coming out THIS week rather than in a fortnight, because then I could WEIGH IN on this GRATE DEBATE with the song!" A still small voice within me said "So why not release it now then eh?" and the more I thought about it the more sense it made. All right, unleashing it NOW means it won't be on Spotify etc straight away, but who cares about that? It's not like that's going to significantly hinder my REVENUE STREAM is it? And this way the song can be out and about in the THICK of the THORT, rather than rolling up a fortnight later like a television comedian telling a joke that everyone's already told each other on a panel show OR SOMESUCH.

So I consulted with my Internal Communications team, who said "DO IT", so do it I have! As ever with this sort of thing I would be extremely grateful for any SHARES or TWEETS (if anyone still does that) or POSTS or especially Mentioning To Colleagues On Internal Channels, which I think is where it will gain most of its POWER. Most of all though I hope it becomes a useful tool for lumping onto internet discussions like a two-minute-long "HA!" for those in THE KNOW!

posted 14/1/2025 by MJ Hibbett
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New Year! New Series! Old Comics!
Let joy be unconfined amongst all those who like listening to podcasts in which me and John Dredge talk about old comics, for LO! a new series of The Funny Comics Fan Club is upon us!

To be honest, we're only calling it a new series because that gave us an excuse to a) have an extra week off and b) send out press releases to various Media Organisations saying "we've got a new series, please mention it in your outlets", but the general idea remains pretty much the same i.e. we look at a specific issue of an old British kids' humour comic and talk about it, utilising a mixture of INSIGHT, vague memory, and occasional OUTRAGE at the other person's opinions. Obviously I am biased but I think it is QUITE GOOD - you can judge for yourself though by having a listen to tge latest episode HERE:



This first episode of the new series (AKA the eleventh episode overall) is about "Cheeky Weekly", which turned out to be a surprising and REVOLUTIONARY comic entirely unlike anything else we've looked at so far. As you will hear if you listen in, Cheeky Weekly is literally about what the character Cheeky does over a week, with his wanderings around his local town linking directly into each of the other strips, so it's sort of like one continuous story. I don't think there's ever been another British comic that does this - I do remember 2000AD doing something similar in Trifecta a few years ago, and I understand the recent Beano Christmas Special had lots of linked stories, but Cheeky did it every single week for months and months.

On top of that it was absolutely RAMMED with jokes, with them crammed into pretty much every panel and feature. As you'll know if you've listened to some of our previous episodes, that was not the NORM for a lot of British kids' comics, some (though not all) of which often felt like they were just going through the motions. Cheeky Weekly is a whole THUNDERSTORM of invention and extra LARFS!

I could go on but then you wouldn't need to listen to the podcast, so I will simply say TUNE IN and also READ ALONG on our various SOCIALS (e.g. BlueSky, Facebook, instagram or twitter) where you can also see some of the strips we're on about. It's dead good, honest!

posted 13/1/2025 by MJ Hibbett
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New single on the way
Put on your Unleashment Hats and hang up the Engagement Bunting, for LO! I am here to tell you that there is a new single by ME on the way! SOON!

The single is called "AI Guy" and it is one of the songs what emerged in the recent song flood I have been experiencing. It was prompted by attending a CONFERENCE and sitting next to someone who talked about AI with the zeal of an evangelist but without any apparent knowledge of what it was, how it worked, and why people kept wanting to punch him when he told them their jobs were "mundane activity".

I played it live last month in Rainham, Kent and it went down pretty well, then afterwards Helen from Sassyhiya asked if/when it was going to be released. Up until that point I hadn't got any further than thinking about PLAYING it, to be honest, and thought "Oh yeah, releasing it would be a good idea."

Since then that THORT has grown and grown in my BRANE as I keep on seeing stuff about AI online and thinking "HA! I should post the video to my song AI Guy here because it would be ENTIRELY APPOSITE so to do". The world seems to be being taken over by MONEYED TWERPS who have never actually read a science fiction novel in their life but are entirely happy with the idea that there will be NO PROBLEM AT ALL with robots taking control of everything. This is then commented on by PILLOCKS who also have no idea how anything works and think that a CALCULATOR being able to spell "BOOBS" upside down is the same as HAL.

Over Christmas these ideas all coalesced and I realised that the only thing stopping me from UNLEASHING the song upon a needy world was the fact that I hadn't recorded it yet, so I DID that, checked the MIX with The Validators' in-house MIXOLOGIST Mr F A Machine, and then was about to punt it off to Emubands for streaming services when I remembered that online singles need cover images. There followed a day of piddling about with all sorts of daft ideas before I thought "Oh sod it" and went for the very straightforward image BELOW.



With that done and a tenner handed over for en-Spotify-cation all that remains for me to do is make a video, log it with MCPS, PPL and so forth, write a press release and sort out a mailing list, all ready for release on Monday 27 January. That's still quite a bit on the to-do list, but at least I've already got some tour dates sorted out!

More news as and/or/if it happens!

posted 9/1/2025 by MJ Hibbett
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The First Otway Of The Year
On Sunday evening I headed to London's fashionable Islington area of Islington, there to meet with my friend and colleague Mr S Hewitt for attendance at a ROCK SHOW!

For LO! we were off to see Mr John Otway playing at The Lexington. Otway is almost definitely the person I have PAID to see the most often out of anybody EVER - there are probably PALS I've seen more often, but that's usually been when I've been playing WITH them, whereas I've been paying CA$H MONEY to see John Otway for about 35 years now. I think the first time I ever saw him do a gig was at The Princess Charlotte around 1989 or 1990 and he was SO AMAZING cthat I have been to see him at least once a year on average ever since.

On that first evening I was surprised to see him hanging around in the bar of the Charlotte and asked him why he wasn't Chilling Out in The Dressing Room. He told me that he COULD do that, but then he'd be sat all on his own, whereas if he stood in the bar then people would come up to him and tell him he was brilliant and buy him drinks. This was one of those moments when you can FEEL your life changing around you, and I have followed this guidance ever since.

Thus when we arrived at The Lexington I was DELIGHTED to see him still following his own advice and sitting downstairs in the bar, this time with his BAND. The Otway Big Band has been together for about THIRTY of the 35 years I have been going to see him, and amazingly they have NEVER had a line-up change, which makes The Validators' mere quarter century without a personnel change seem PALTRY by comparison!

The gig itself was a thing of JOY. There's something really rather WONDERFUL about seeing a band who have been together for so long, as there's a RICHNESS and DEEP LOVE there that comes rolling out around the room. In Otway's case though there's also a) the AUDIENCE and b) the SET that has stayed constant too, so it feels like you're taking part in a RITUAL what SURPASSES normal one-off gigs and becomes part of a long LINE of them. During the gig Murray pointed out that this was Otway's 5,250th gig (again making my mere 1,014 so far seem LIGHTWEIGHT), and it's amazing to think of SO MANY performances stretching back through time, often with not only the same SONGS but an awful lot of the same JOKES as well!

A great part of the fun of an Otway gig is hearing these same jokes and the same PATTER done as if they were new each time, and it's even more exciting when you hear something NEW slide in as well. This time there was not only a whole actual SONG that I don't remember hearing before ("My body is making me") but a whole BIT about how they were going to be playing songs from the new album... which is a live album called (RATHER BRILLIANTLY) The Set Remains The Same. I of course purchased one at the first opportunity

It was a hugely delightful evening out, although possibly a rather high bar to set for OTHER gigs this year!

posted 6/1/2025 by MJ Hibbett
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A Midsummer Night's Dream
On New Year's Eve I went with The Lines In My Script to THE THEATRE, specifically to see A Midsummer Night's Dream at The Barbican. Executive Summary: it was AMAZING.

The amazingness was very much helped into being by the fact that The Barbican is a LOVELY theate, with VERY comfy seating which is roomy enough for you to put your legs out a bit, and also for people to GET BY without you needing to stand up. The show is pretty much sold out for the rest of the run as it has had RAVE REVIEWS, but we very handily managed to find two seats together near the middle in the sixth row which were FANTASTIC, although having been there before pretty much EVERYWHERE is a GRATE place to sit. The Barbican is, in this way at least, similar to The Bridge Theatre where we went to see Guys And Dolls last year and - unblogged but somehow also true - again a few weeks ago (as it was SO BRILLO) in that it has been designed to make going to The Theatre PLEASANT. Some of the older theatres in That London go out of their way to make it difficult with horrible cramped seats, loads of things in the way so you can't see, an average 0.3 toilets per 1,000 customers (0.1 for women) and terrible bars where you can't get served, but in the more "modern" (i.e. built in the last 50 years or so) places you get the impression that they'd like you to have a a) nice time b) drink c) wee at your leisure.

We were thus all set to have a nice time and BY GOLLY we did as the production was AMAAAZING. I have seen quite a lot of Shakespeare plays in my life, what with having done O Levels etc, but I have never ever LARFED quite as much as I did for this one. Usually when you go and see a Professional Production of The Shakespeare the "comedy" bits are APPALLING and unpleasant to sit through, but here they were ACTUALLY FUNNY. I mean, usually actors stick in extra bits of larking about (usually RUDE larking about) to get a laugh, but in this the ACTUAL SCRIPT had some jokes in it! I've never seen Midsummer Night's Dream before so maybe that is always the way with this one, but CRUMBS I wasn't expecting that.

Most of the publicity for the play has focused on Matthew Baynton From Out Of Ghosts playing Bottom, and to be honest you can see why because he was EXCELLENT and very very funny indeed, but the whole cast was great and especially the Rude Mechanicals. As I say, I've never seen or read this one before (i.e. I have never had to do so for an EXAM) so the whole AM DRAM bit came as a Rather Delightful SURPRISE to me, and it was ACE!

Having said that we did do SOME revision beforehand, so it all made SENSE (pretty much), which again is not always the case. Also the aforesaid Sound From My Speakers listened to the Creative Audio Description where members of the cast described what was going on for you with added jokes, which I am reliably informed was DEAD GOOD. I had some headphones too, but I couldn't get mine to work properly!

The set was AMAAAZING (I am using the word "AMAAAZING" a lot I know but that is because it WAS) with everything looking exciting ALL of the time and some astonishing EFFECTS. The one thing I wasn't quite sure of was the way that the EXTRA FAIRIES were done with ... er... well, FAIRY LIGHTS I guess you would call them, with the associated actors speaking their lines over the PA. It made it slightly confusing at times, for me at least, but did look Very Clever Indeed.

OH, and also also there was a LIVE BAND playing all the music, which was ALSO also also AMAAAAZING. There were positioned on TWO (2) balconies, one on each side of the stage, which worried me a bit but appeared to work all right. The last time I'd seen something like that was about 1,000,000 years ago when I went to see Belle & Sebastian in Manchester and they were split across two stages on either side of the room, which did not work AT ALL, but I guess TECHNOLOGY has come quite a long way since then!

At the end of it all I genuinely felt myself WELLING UP a bit, as it had been SO INCREDIBLE. It was, I think, one of the BEST EVER plays what I have ever seen at The Theatre, and was a pretty wonderful thing to do at the end of the year, especially going on a MATINEE as we did, so we had plenty of time to get home for New Year's Actual. It was a GRATE, and, in case I haven't mentioned it before, AMAAAAAAZING, experience, and one I would HIGHLY recommend!

posted 6/1/2025 by MJ Hibbett
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Out Of Office
"So this is Christmas", observed Mr J Lennon once long ago, before asking "so what have you done then eh?"

It's a pertinent question, which this year I would answer by saying "quite a lot actually John, thanks for asking". My 2024 activity log includes more ACTUAL GIGS than I've done for several years, putting out my book about Doctor Doom, releasing a compilation album that turned out to be a lot more fun to listen to (for me anyway) than I'd expected, and of course the commencement of The Funny Comics Fan Club. There's also been a late surge in SONGWRITING, a talk about HATS, articles about The Beano, Dennis The Menace and Doctor Doom (in The Radio Times!!), and even MORE chapters, posters and conference presentations various. All that and a new social media network too!

Put together it looks like quite a lot of ACTION, which is surprising as I thought it'd been quite quiet this year. That may partly be because NEXT year is looking like it's going to be BUSY, with a bunch of gigs already booked, a SHOW about Doctor Doom very much in the planning stages, and that other SECRET PROJECT set to get underway very soon too. There'll also be a load more episodes of The Funny Comics Fan Club, maybe some more WRITING and hopefully some of those Exciting Surprises that tend to come along.

Crumbs, just writing all of this down is exhausting, so I think I'm going to put the Out of Office on and head towards the sofa for a few days. I'll be back in the new year, but in the meantime thanks VERY much one and all for listening to me DRONE on here throughout the calendar, and I hope you have a BLOODY GRATE Festive Season, wherever and however you're spending it! Merry Christmas everybody!

posted 24/12/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Funny Comics Festive Finale
Today we are unleashing the FESTIVE FINALE of The Funny Comics Fan Club into the world and it is - IF YOU WILL PARDON THE PUN - a bit of a "cracker".

(because it's Christmas, see, when you have Christmas crackers)

For those who are blissfully unaware, The Funny Comics Fan Club is a podcast where Mr John Dredge and I talk about British kids' comics, reading through a single issue of a specific comic in every issue and offering THORTS and also REMARKS. For the first nine issues we talked about old comics from our respective childhoods in days long ago, but for this SEASON FINALE* (*we're having an extra week gap over Christmas but will be back in January for more) we thought it might be fun to talk about a comic or comic-associated item that is out RIGHT NOW, and so we alighted on this year's Beano Annual. You can find out what we thought by listening to the BELOW (or by streaming it from wherever you get your podcasts):



One is of course LOATH to give spoilers, but I think it's fair to say that we LIKED it. Personally i liked it a LOT as I am a big fan of the modern Beano, which I think manages to be very much a) MODERN and also b) THE ACTUAL BEANO. DC Thomson do a GRATE job of creating a comic that is recognisably the one that most of us grew up with, but which has also kept up with the world as it is lived now (which The Beano that I read in the 1970s and 1980s usually completely failed to do). Also it is ACTUALLY FUNNY, which I NEVER remember The Beano being in my day, and that especially is something I salute it for!

That's not to say we liked EVERYTHING about it, and there was one strip in particular where John and I had a heated disagreement, but you'll have to listen to it yourself to find out which!

posted 23/12/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Song Flooding Continues Unabated
I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was undergoing a song flood, with a total of FOUR new songs having been written. At the time that seemed like a big deal but I can now report that it was as NOTHING compared to the DELUGE that has continued since then, leading to the New Songs Total now standing at a mighty TEN SONGS! And counting!

THREE of these (or 30% if you prefer) are Doctor Doom songs, which are being lined up for next year's Doctor Doom SHOW. It's not going to be an Actual Musical or anything, as that would be complicated in terms of a) writing b) performing c) COPYRIGHT LAW. The plan though is to follow The Rule Of When Songs Happen In Musicals i.e. do them at moments when the emotions are so strong that it's impossible NOT to burst into song. As anyone who's READ my Doctor Doom book will know, there are moments when the emotions are SO STRONG that it's almost too much delight to cope with, so hopefully this will make it easier for everyone!

The rest of the songs so far (70%, fact fans) are a bit of a mixture. The PROJECT which has excited me into doing all this writing was originally meant to be concentrating on some of my old songs, and specifically the more "grown-up" ones, and so I HAVE written several like that, but I've also ended up doing a few that are ROCK BANGERS that will probably go into the BANK OF BANGERS for future Validators releases. I'm also wondering whether it might be a good idea to record a solo version of AI Guy for release early next year so that it's out in the world BEFORE The Terminators come and get us!

It's all VERY exciting for me, as it's been a reminder of how much FUN it is writing songs, especially when you've got one NEARLY finished and then have to spend three days trying to work out the last knotty rhymes. It's then possibly even MORE brilliant when you get one finished and can then spend the next week or so SINGING it to yourself all the time and giggling at your own COLOSSAL GENIUS!

Perhaps the BEST bit of all this is that it's reminded me of WHERE song ideas come from. Several decades ago when I first started writing songs I seemed to have ideas ALL the time - not necessarily GOOD ideas, but ideas nonetheless, and I had notebooks FULL of THORTS for things to write about. In the past decade or so that dried up a bit, as a) my BRANE was full of things like PhDs and so forth but also because b) I had lost track of where those ideas come from. For LO! it turns out that The Rule Of When Songs Happen In Musicals ALSO applies to when songs happen in real life i.e. when the emotions are so strong that it's impossible NOT to ... er... get a guitar out and spend hours and hours trying to think of a rhyme for "perceptible". Or to put it another way, when a THORT occurs to me and starts rattling around my BRANE I would previously just go and TELL someone about it, either in-house, in-pub, in-work or on THE SOCIALS. Now, however, I have remembered that if you let the idea MARINATE in your MIND for a little while it can start to RHYME and grow CHORUSES and so on and become an ACTUAL SONG. That's how I always USED to write songs, and now after many years it is how I am writing them again, and it's all rather lovely.

So yes, the total of new songs currently stands at TEN, but I am hopeful that it will grow significantly higher over the next few weeks. Stand by for further updates!

posted 19/12/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Cambridgeshire And Kent In One Day
Flipping heck I had a REALLY busy day on Saturday. It began, as many Saturdays do, with a trip to Peterborough for the football. The talk before the game was all about how rubbish it was going to be and so, of course, it ended up being an explosion of SEVEN GOALS with Posh winning 4-3 after a great deal of running about, hoofing, indelicate passing and shouting. Pretty much THE USUAL for this season, in fact.

Normally that would have been enough for one day, but this time I was also booked to head down to deepest KENT to play a gig for the lovely chaps of Careful Now Promotions at The Oasthouse in Rainham. THUS once the football had finished I nipped back to the nearby Premier Inn Peterborough where I had STASHED my guitar (using an APP to book it, for I am dead modern like that), did my usual trip back to old London Town, and then hopped on a High Speed train down South. I had spent AGES planning the whole thing out to make sure I could get there at a reasonable time but in the end I got different trains for pretty much every leg of the trip, just getting whatever was available. To my surprise this all WORKED!

Once in Rainham Kent (it feels wrong just sating "Rainham" as there's ALSO a Rainham in Essex and everyone seems to say "Rainham Kent" like that's the full name) I made the 2 minute journey round to the Oasthouase and said hello, did a quick soundcheck, and then wandered back out to the chip shop which, last time I was there, did HUGE portions of chips. They did again!

Back at the venue I was VERY SENSIBLE, as is my WONT these days, and stuck to alcohol-free beer before going on, and watched the EXCELLENT Sassyhiya who were on first. One of the many things I liked about them were that they LOOKED and SOUNDED like a band i.e. always looking round at each other, INTERACTING, and clearly having a GRATE time of it. I thought they sounded a bit like PO! but that may be due to my somewhat limited mental library of bands who sound a bit like that, but either way they were GRATE.

Then it was my turn to go on, and I did THIS:

Bad Back

AI Guy

The Peterborough All-Saints Wide Game Team (group B)

Clubbing In The Week

I'm Doing The Ironing

In The North Stand

Chips And Cheese, Pint Of Wine

20 Things To Do Before You're 30

It Only Works Because You're here

The Lesson Of The Smiths

As you can see I was VERY BRAVE and committed myself to doing a new song, AI Guy, which went down pretty well. I was not, however, sufficiently brave to debut a live version of Moshi Twistmas, as heard on the Joyzine Advent Calendar. I'd practiced it a few times, and had stuck the KEYWORDS to my guitar to remind me of the order, but I was a bit too NERVOUS to try it out. Maybe next year!

I think I might have slightly MISJUDGED the setlist too. Usually these days I find it's better to do the SLOWER songs and so did - including a somewhat slowed down version of The Peterborough All-Saints Wide Game Team (group B) - but this time I think more FAST ones might have been better. Still, it all seemed to go all right and I might even say that, once we'd all got past my terrible whistling solo during In The North Stand, it built up to a pretty good finish!

After that it was time for some ACTUAL BEER before settling back into watching Swansea Sound, who are not only an INDIEPOP SUPERGROUP but also a group who are... er... SUPER at indiepop (they can use that on posters if they like)! They sounded fantastically PUNCHY and POPPY and generally ACE, and it made me think once again what a difference today's modern PA systems make. Back in the dark days of the 1980s when this sort of music first emerged it was played through RUBBISH systems managed by generally unenthusiastic and/or inept soundmen, but nowadays we can hear what it was always SUPPOSED to sound like, which is GRATE!

I also really enjoyed some of the Advanced Stagecraft which went on, including getting the Careful Now chaps to REENACT the video for Marking It Down. Excellent work one and all!

Soon however it was time for me to dash off and get my train back to London, and then onto the Not Yet Officially The Night Tube version of the tube and home, seeing a) a Pearly King and Queen and b) the local Actual Fox on the way. I had a fab day but this final bit of the journey did remind me how I used to do gigs like this ALL THE TIME, sometimes 60-70 times a year, and I must admit that I was glad I don't do that anymore. I had had a lovely time, but I was flipping knackered by the end of it!

posted 15/12/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Moshi Twistmas
As you may or may not have noticed, to paraphrase N Holder, "It Is Christmas!" Or Advent at least, which means it's time for Christmas SONGS!

Regular pals will be EXTREMELY aware that there is a grand tradition of recording and releasing Christmas Songs around these parts, many of which were collected a few years ago on the album Christmas Selection Box. This contains 19 Christmas BANGERS (20 on the Bandcamp version!) recorded over the years as singles, requests, and very often for the Joyzine advent calendar.

Six years ago I thought that putting all the tracks onto an Actual Album (Actually Available on Spotify and similar streaming-type places) would mean my annual festive recordings would cease. However I have since been part of at least TWO more Christmas bangers - Christmas Time Is Here by John Dredge & The Plinths and Is It Too Soon For Christmas? by Jane and John - and now have ANOTHER, done under my own name, to unleash upon you.

For LO! I have recorded a version of Moshi Twistmas by the Moshi Monsters for this year's Joyzine Advent Calendar! This is a song that my late brother-in-law used to put on his MAMMOTH compilations of Christmas songs because it is AMAZING. It does not in any way NEED to be any good - they could have just stuck out a carol or something - but no, The Moshi Corporation seems to have thought "sod it, let's do a MASSIVE CHRISTMAS BANGER" and this is the result. I would like to apologise in advance for you getting it your head but I cannot because it is a WONDERFUL thing to have rattling round your brain. MERRY TWISTMAS everybody!.

posted 9/12/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Finishing Beginning Theory
For the past eight years or so - ever since I started doing my PhD (which I don't like to go on about) in fact - I have been struggling with Literary Theory. Every time I've been to a conference, or read a book, or talked to academical types it's been all Foucault this, Derrida that and structuralism the other, and I have not had a single clue what anyone was on about.

Well, I say not a SINGLE clue - I did do a bit of due diligence and looked some of the most often used words up, but even then I felt like I was missing the point. I distinctly remember, right at the start of it all, hearing people bang on about Michel Foucault all the time with regards to comics, and yet I could not for the life of me find anything he'd ever actually SAID about them. It was the same with Roland Barthes and all of them lot, while the only Philosopher I could find who ever DID say something about comics - Umberto Eco - wrote a paper RIDDLED with factual errors, in which he claimed for instance that the Marvel comics of the 1960s and 1970s (featuring that famous superhero "Devil", without the "Dare") were examples of the "oneiric climate" where all stories existed in a haze of present with little relation to any past or future. Er... don't think that's quite right Umberto!

Frustrated by my lack of understanding I signed up for a series of PHILOSOPHY SEMINARS at UAL. I thought this would sort me out but it was not great and I ended up not going to any after the first, very annoying, session. I then tried BOOKS, YouTube Videos, and all sorts of things like that but never ever got any closer to understanding what the heck was going on.

I was still moaning about this during the summer this year when I met esteemed colleague and pal Dr Martin Flanagan for a drink. He took this all very calmly and said "We usually recommend students get Beginning Theory" and later sent me details of the book he was on about - "Beginning Theory" by Professor Peter Barry.



COR! This was an EXCELLENT recommendation, for LO! it was EXACTLY what I was after. I started reading it around October and have spent the past couple of months up to my EARS in structuralism, post-structuralism, marxism, queer theory, feminism - THE LOT, basically. It's really really nicely written, with the tone of an ACE Professor explaining it all in a kindly way to a group of undergraduates who he will then take to the PUB once a term and get all the beers in for. In fact, it very much FELT like the dream ideal of what going to college should have been like, and indeed what I THORT it was going to be like when I set off for Leicester Polytechnic all those decades ago.

I had high hopes of LOFTY IDEAS and INTELLECTUAL VISTAS but it actually turned out to be like a not very good sixth form college, and reading this book now I see that that's pretty much what it was! I remember one day we had a lecture where the lecturer said "Oh, and you can also do Marxist critiques or feminist critiques" but didn't explain it properly, or follow it up, or do anything at all. I mean, I know it was Leicester Poly rather than BRIDESHEAD UNIVERSITY or whatever, but looking back now I do feel mildly AGGRIEVED that we were fobbed off with pretty much O Level English again. Think of what I could have WROUGHT if I'd known all this stuff thirty years earlier!

I was also slightly gobsmacked to read the chapter on Marxist Theory and realise that, GOR BLIMEY, that appears to be ME. I keep writing all this stuff about how Comics Studies being ashamed to talk about The Beano is due to class snobbery, or how the culture of production of art is key to understanding it (especially with regards to Marvel comics), but hadn't realised that this is a big chunk of Marxist Theory. All this time and I have been DENIED the Donkey Jacket and annoying little cap that should have been mine all along!

So, three cheers for Martin and Professor Barry, no cheers to the Combined Arts faculty at Leicester Poly as was, and full steam ahead for the literary revolution. Let's go COMRADES!

posted 3/12/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Hibbett's Three Laws Of Robotics
On Sunday I carried out the ancient ritual of going through my recently filled up IDEAS BOOK and checking to see if any of the idea contained within are GOOD and therefore worth carrying on to the NEXT one. It's always quite an interesting job, for me at least, as it means looking back on LOADS of THORTS what I had urgently scribbled down over the past couple of years, thinking they might be VITAL, but which now often make no sense at all. Sometimes this is because they were written in the middle of the night EITHER in the dark AND/OR when I'd not put my glasses on, but sometimes it's because they just don't make any sense!

In amongst the deranged scrawls there were a few good ideas, like some ideas for songs, a few GAGS I'd forgotten about for the Doctor Doom Show, and a LOT of plans and schemes for a massive science fiction opus about a SPACE TREE that I should really get around to writing up properly one day. There was also something called "Hibbett's Three Laws Of Robotics" which I quite liked but have no real use for... except of course to delight you with today, dear reader. Here they are!

Hibbett's Three Laws Of Robotics

1. It's not going to look or act like a robot on the telly.
2. If it does then it's not actually going to be intelligent.
3. If it is then DO NOT SWITCH IT ON.

Clearly these were written after watching a LOT of TV shows where people who have never seen a science fiction film or read a book of any kind talk confidently and entirely wrongly about Artificiial Intelligence. I hope these rules will be useful to future generations - especially the third one!

posted 1/12/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Top Secret Secret Revealed
Yesterday I finished off a Christmas Song what I have been recording for the Joyzine Advent Calendar, and while doing the "mini-interview" bit I mentioned that there's a "top secret project" that I'm planning to do in 2025.

As I pressed "send" I MUSED on the fact that I seem to be FOREVER mentioning "top secret projects", usually on this here blog, and loads of them never actually happen. I was looking at some ANCIENT blog posts the other day for ANOTHER thing I'm thinking about - which is to retweet (or reSKEET I guess) some blogs on the 20th Anniversary of their publication - and they're FULL of me saying "Ooh there's a secret thing I can't tell you about" and in most cases I have NO idea what I'm on about. For instance, this one is probably one of the songs that ended up on Christmas Selection Box but I have NO idea which one. Also, why was I saying "I can't tell you about this" when I could have just not mentioned it at all. And why, more to the point, am I still doing it now?

So, with that in mind I thought I'd reveal one of the SECRET things that I have been alluding to for years in blogs, newsletters and pub conversations - DINOSAUR PLANET: THE NOVEL.

Our story begins seven years ago, in the distant era known as 2017, when I self-released a book called "Storm House". I had a lovely time, as it turned out that the process was very similar to self-releasing a record but you got to swank about saying "Oh yes my novel" which was LOTS of fun. Around this time I ALSO sent a copy of it to various LITERARY AGENTS, and one such got in touch very keen to REP it i.e. try and sell it to Actual Book Publishers.

This was all very exciting and led to about A MILLION re-writes so that it ended up being VERY different (and much better) than my original version, but then we had an Actual Year of trying to get somebody to buy it without much - or indeed ANY - success. It was all a bit disappointing, as LOADS of work had gone into it and I'd even written up outlines for a whole SERIES of books to follow!

Undeterred - all right, maybe a bit deterred but still - I decided to have a go at something else and thought "Hang on, Dinosaur Planet was a really good idea, why don't I write THAT as a kids' book?" This led to AT LEAST a year of writing, re-writing, re-re-writing and so on through I think SEVENTEEN drafts (and multiple Minor Revisions) pinging between me and My Agent until it was SUPER SHINY and wonderful. The main plot of the album and the live show remained but there were a whole BUNCH of brand new characters and BIG changes to most of the original cast to make it more like a children's novel. Again, all of these changes made the whole thing a LOT better, and now it's weird to think that some of my FAVOURITE bits (e.g. the new extended PC Darren ARC) weren't in the original.

That then went out to publishers and... nothing much happened. A couple of publishers said they liked it, but not really enough to BUY it, and after three waves of submissions it all came to a gradual halt. I think this time it was even MORE disappointing, as the book was DEAD GOOD and I had high hopes of going around the country promoting it in SONG.

I'd like to think that at least PART of the reason we couldn't get anyone to buy it was because I am Insufficiently Famous - whenever I go and look at the Children's Books section in the book shop it always CRAMMED with books "written" by famous people, and there don't seem to be ANY written by, say, someone who had a viral hit song about twenty years ago. It all reminded me of THIS rather excellent gag from the also excellent 2025 Beano Annual (which we'll be talking about in a future episode of The Funny Comics Fan Club):



I mean, OBVIOUSLY it might also be because publishers just didn't LIKE it, but I prefer this version!

I still have VAGUE hopes that it might get UNLEASHED upon the world one day. Next year I'm going to try and do a lot more STAND-UP and PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT about Doctor Doom and I know that there are some Public Intellectuals who have become sufficiently Public to be asked to write THEIR own children's books. If that happens I will be able to say "Here you go, already written one!" I've also got a PITCH out for a non-fiction book about Doctor Doom's daftest stories which isn't exactly setting the publishing world on FIRE at the moment, but hopefully will get a bit more interest when the Robert Downey Jr on-set images start coming out!

In the meantime "Dinosaur Planet: THE NOVEL" must remain in the vaults, but if anyone happens to bump into a Publishing Executive with an interest in space dinosaurs, giant robots, or the destruction of Peterborough, do send them my way!

posted 28/11/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Doom Ahoy!
This morning I received a message from Google Search Console to let me know that the Number One Search Term to this site has changed! EXCITING, right? I assume that the old top term was something like "International Rock Star" or "Unconventionally Handsome" or similar, but can you hazard a guess as to what the NEW top term is?

No, it's not "That Hey Hey 16K Guy" or "Mispelt Doctor From Off The Simpsons" (though I'm sure those are definitely in the top 7), it was in fact "DR DOOM"! HA! This fills me with DELIGHT as it has been an ongoing PROJECT of mine to make flipping well sure that MY name is associated with that of Doctor Doom as much as possible, so that when Robert Downey Jr starts appearing as him in FILMS it will be ME who the international media corporations call up to say WISE THINGS about it all, preferably at Glamorous Movie Premieres.

THUS I am doing my best to get onto podcasts or to WRITE things about him, and in that vein I have been toiling away for a while on doing a Doctor Doom LIVE show in which I will explain how he works, based on the RESEARCH in MY BOOK. Until recently I've seen this as a sort of Stand-up Comedy Affair, with me talking HUMOROUSLY (and simultaneously INCISIVELY) about it in front of some SLIDES, but since the sudden rush of SONGS that I mentioned a little while ago I have come to the SHUDDERING REALISTION that I should include some MUSIC in there too.

This may seem an entirely OBVIOUS idea, mostly because it IS entirely obvious. Whenever I've mentioned the fact that I'm planning to do a DOOM SHOW almost everyone has ASSUMED that it would be a MUSICAL of some sort, which I have stubbornly resisted, not least because I would be crushed beneath a deluge of LAWYERS if I tried to do something like that. However, once I had FINALLY written a song about Doctor Doom - explaining who he is in comparison to Batman - I realised that actually it would really WORK if I applied Musical Theatre SCIENCE i.e. in musical theatre the SONGS are meant to appear when the emotions get so strong that the characters can't do anything BUT sing.

So, using that methodology, I could use SONGS in my explanations when it all gets TOO EXCITING to do anything else. oR to put it another way, if I write SONGS which encapsulate the most important BITS then I can use those as TENTPOLES for the show as a whole, writing it as movements beteween the key points. That sounds like a good idea to me!

The CLINCHER for my thinking though came from a PROBLEM: if I'm doing a presentation with slides, how do I keep those slides working when I'm playing guitar and singing at the same time? As you may know, it usually takes TWO hands to operate a guitar, which is 100% of my total hand capacity, so I'd be unable to operate a MAGIC SLIDE CLICKER at the same time. "Hang on though," I thought, "What if there was a GUITAR PEDAL for slides? Surely, here in the futuristic space year 2024, such a thing exists?"

Friends, I am happy to report that IT TOTALLY DOES! On seeing this my BRANE immediately filled with GRATE IDEAS for how I could muck around with it and do LIVE VIDEOS and so on, and that was pretty much it. I have now written a grand total of TWO (2) songs, but I'm hoping to get a few more done before Christmas, and then in the new year I'll start looking out for places to go and DO the show, maybe in the spring. I will of course keep you INFORMED of this as I go along, but I am quite excited about it - MORE GADGETS for me!!

posted 26/11/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Godot Returns
Yesterday I had the afternoon off in order to go to THE THEATRE, as I am dead sophisticated like that.

The play I was going to see was Waiting For Godot at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, and I was going to see it with my old pal Mr C Lawson, who was down in London especially for the occassion. The LAST time me and Chris went to see a play was ALSO Waiting For Godot, that time starring Captain Picard and GANDALF, and that had been BLOODY GRATE, so we had high hopes for this iteration.

When we got to the theatre we both said "Hang on, is this the same place where we saw it LAST time?" but it was only when we got to the BAR that we realised it TOTALLY WAS. This led to much discussion of coming to see this play EVERY 10-15 years or so in the same place, which to be honest would be fine by me.

It ALSO led to further comparisons with the Professor X/Magneto version, which I am afraid to say were not favourable for the current production, for LO! it was... sort of all right? As Chris said, it often felt like they were Saying The Words without hugely investing in what they actually MEANT. In places it was like one of those SHAKESPEARE productions where they've gone "This olde worlde speak doesn't make any sense, so let's say it loudly while making some extra noises and, if at all possible, miming something for LARFS". Also, they didn't seem to have decided whether it was meant to be PROFOUNDLY BLEAK or FUNNY or something else, so although there WERE laughs they were always slightly NERVOUS ones, as if the audience weren't sure whether they should or not.

The STAGING was dead good, I thought, as it looked like a PAINTING that had fallen slightly out of its FRAME, but there were some other aspects of The Production that seemed a bit daft. For instance, usually Vladmir and Estragon wear bowler hats but here they had WOOLLY hats on, which is FINE and looked good but then it meant that The Hat-Swapping Routine in the second half didn't work AT ALL. Also, Ben Whishaw's costume involved jogging pants, which is FINE similarly but then meant he had to MIME doing his flies up, which happens several times and made it feel a bit SCHOOL PLAY-ish.

There was quite a lot of that sort of thing, but then not really DIGGING the production did allow the ACTUAL PLAY to shine through A LOT. I have seen Waiting For Godot LOADS of times and INDEED have even DIRECTED it 300,000,000 years ago when I was a student (featuring Chris as Pozzo, in fact!) and so it was LOVELY to hear all the LINES and remember the different BITS as they happened. It really is BLOODY BRILLIANT, and it struck me that it would be AMAZING to do a version where you got Morecambe & Wise impersonators to do it AS Morecambe & Wise (Eric as Estragon, Ernie as Vladmir OBVS). I'm thinking about that again now and it is AMAZING!

It would have been nice if it had been BETTER but it was still FINE and we had a lovely time DISCUSSING it after, and also drinking BEER in various venues and also PIZZA - which, it turns out, is pretty much exactly what we did last time! Hopefully in another 10-15 years we can go back and see the Fassbender/McAvoy or Jackman/Reynolds versions!

posted 21/11/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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The Songs Are Flooding In
In yesterday's blog I mentioned that in Cambourne I had performed a BRAND NEW SONG what I had written, but that is not the ONLY new one on the go at the moment.

For LO! over the past few weeks I have written no less than FOUR new songs, with a couple of other ideas bubbling under also. This is more than I've written in the past few YEARS put together and has come about, as usual, because I'm supposed to be doing something else.

What happened was that I got talking to a PAL a little while ago and we agreed to have a go at doing a COLLABORATION. I won't go into any great detail about it here as we have still to hammer out the details, but the general GIST was to do some of my old songs together but in a different FORMAT to what I'd done them in before. I thus went home and thought "Right, the important thing to do now is to try out some of those old songs and see which ones might be suitable" and instead of that started writing a new song instead. Obviously.

That has since CONTINUED and I must say I am really really enjoying it. As regular listeners may have noticed, my lyrics have got quite DENSE over recent decades, largely because I LOVE trying to cram as many internal rhymes as I can into every single line. This takes a bit of EFFORT (and also means I need to stick to alcohol-free beer before a gig so as not to mess everything up!) but does feel GRATE when I'm doing it. It's also GRATE fun having a little BATCH of songs to ROCK through when I fancy a bit of SINGING, and that in itself is a lovely reminder of how much fun it is just to sit around with a guitar and BELLOW.

The HUGE advantage of coming back to this after so long in abeyance is that I have all sorts of THORTS lying around for songs. I usually like to PERCOLATE an idea in my BRANE for several years before turning it into a song - this may APPEAR to the uninitiated that I am sitting in pubs saying the same thing over and over again but NO, it is songwrting - so now have quite a few SEEDS to nurture into either ROCK EPICS or - to my great surprise after years of refusing to do so - songs about DOCTOR DOOM. Yes!

The only thing I'm lacking at the moment is GIGS. It was brilliant being able to try out a new song last week (and very helpful to THE PROCESS too, as it highlighted the fact that it wasn't really clear what I was on about!) but I've not go many opportunities lined up to do more of that sort of thing. Maybe I will have to get my CONTACTS BOOK out of storage too!

posted 15/11/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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A Whole Lot Of Hats
Last week I spent a DELIGHTFUL couple of days at the Figshare & Symplectic EMEA User Conference 2024.

To clarify, before we go any further, I'm not being sarcastic or anything here - I really did have a lovely time, spending two days with excellent colleagues talking about the two systems what I manage at work. HANG ON - no, I mean I AM being sarcastic, because obviously I am too cool and rock and roll to think it's really interesting to talk about the implications of the lack of REF guidelines for the future of academic impact data collection. THAT WOULD BE KRAZY.

Yes yes all right that was me and it was GRATE. As I have mentioned before, I am in the strange (for me) situation of really enjoying my job these days, and it turns out that that makes conferences a whole lot more fun to go to, especially when you're with WORK PALS who are similarly interested. The only downside of it all was that I was forced - FORCED, I tell you - to do a presentation about one of our projects. As regular readers will be aware I HATE showing off, as you can see for yourself in the video below:



The talk was about how we transferred an archive of The Piaggi Collection (a lot of HATS) from an old system and set up on Figshare. We did this earlier on in the year and, as you will see from the talk, there was a specific point in the data migration where I thought "OOH blimey, this will be AMAZING for a presentation" and took LOTS of screenshots. I won't spoil WHAT happened as it is a dead good bit in the presentation, and is worth seeing for yourself, honest! It's also worth having a look at The Piaggi Collection site itself as you can zip around looking at all sorts of aspects of the HATS for yourself. I have never been a hat fan before I must admit (having a GIGANTIC HEAD I have never really got on with them) but I must admit this experience has converted me. Maybe I don't need 800 of them though!

posted 14/11/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Back To 2017
It's been a WEIRDLY EMOTIONAL morning for me today, all to do with the long prophesied MASS EXODUS from Twitter finally actually (probably) happening.

I mean, I know poeople have been leaving there for a while now, but it seems like this week a decision been made by Nice People Everywhere to go over to BLUESKY en masse. As far as I can see this has been caused by D Trump offering E Musk a place in his government as an Efficiency Tsar, and I must say I can very much see the reasoning. After all, if you have millions fewer uses of your system you need a lot fewer STAFF, which I'm pretty sure is SUPER EFFICIENT all round. If all goes to plan next year I expect him to change the name of the country to The UXA and sort out immigration immediately by having a third of the population up sticks and move to Canada immediately.

I got EMOTIOANL about it this particular morning because of STARTER PACKS. These are basically lists of people with Specific Interests that you can use to find accounts to follow, and the first one I saw was for BEATLES people, forwarded to me by International Rock Star Pete Green. I was very merrily following those when I noticed that my notifications had gone NUTS. "60+ Notificatuions?" I thought. "Surely that can't be right?"

Mr R Manuel had set up a B3ta Starter Pack what had my name on it, and suddenly a whole HEAP of familiar names were popping up. I went through and did a whole load of Folows Backs of people I knew, and then all of a sudden my entire feed was EXACTLY LIKE OLD TWITTER! Nice people! Saying amusing things! Without adverts or Nazis!

I had a quick look over on twitter to make sure I wasn't IMAGING the huge gulf of difference, and saw that "Bluesky" was trending. However, when I looked at what people were SAYING it was mostly snide remarks by people (often with blue ticks) claiming that they'd been for a look but Bluesky was "just like twitter in 2017" AS IF THAT WAS A BAD THING!! Twitter in 2017 is pretty much exactly what I wanted, and now it appears to be BACK! Just not on twitter!

Other dreary people were OPINING that all the nice people leaving twitter was a Bad Thing as it meant that we couldn't ENGAGE with each other. Personally speaking I never really WANTED to engage with arseholes and Nazis, and I certainly didn't want them FOISTED on me repeatedly along with weird adverts for AI Products, so that is entirely fine with me!

Anyway, all of this is mostly to say a) HOORAY for something GOOD happening on the interweb and b) if you want to find me over there I'm on https://bsky.app/profile/mjhibbett.bsky.social. Do come and say hello!

(PS and if anyone can set up a Starter Pack featuring People Who Used Go To Indietracks Who I Haven't Seen For Ages, that would be much appreciated!)

posted 13/11/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Return To Cambourne
On Friday evening myself and The Flatness Of My Fen headed off to CAMBOURNE once again to play at an evening of Retro Gaming and SONG alongside the very excellent The British IBM.

When I played the same gig last year we had an horrendous time trying to get from Cambridge to Cambourne beforehand, so this time the aforementioned Stops On My Route suggested that we go via St Neots and get a taxi from THERE instead, which worked out MUCH better, enabling us to get to our hotel with LOADS of time.

It did not, however, stop me from getting LOST on the very short journey to The Hub where it was all taking place, although this did mean that I had the opportunity to see AN ACTUAL ROBOT! Cambourne has a PILOT SCHEME whereby you can get your shopping delivered by AN ACTUAL ROBOT, which people there seem to think is now entirely unremarkable but which I was AMAZED by. Dear Tech Bros: more of THIS sort of thing please, and less six-fingered art theft!

I got to the venue to find things in full swing, with BAR up and running and Aidy British IBM very excited to present me with a SURPRISE - bottles of HEY HEY 16K beer! This was FANTASTIC and, I can confirm, DELICIOUS!

There was chat and good times and then, just after 8pm, The British IBM went on and were FAB. They were a DUO this time but it still sounded ACE, helped along by a LOVELY amp which Aidy gave us a full purchase history for. It also helped that the songs were GRATE!

After that we had a short break and then I went on and done THIS:

The Peterborough All-Saints Wide Game Team (group B)

The Perfect Love Song

I'll Fetch Me Book

It's Hard To Be Hopeful

Cheer Up Love

I'm Doing The Ironing

Clubbing In The Week

20 Things To Do Before You're 30

Bad Back

It Only Works Because You're here

Hey Hey 16K

Looking at that list now it does seem like a slightly odd set - I was aware that it would be a very similar audience to last time so wanted to ensure they were hearing different songs, and that included a WHOLE NEW SONG what I'd written in the preceding fortnight. I made a few mistakes but it seemed to go OK, although I think I'm going to do a REJIG and swap the first and second verses around.

I also made a slight error at the end by saying that I was finishing with Hey Hey 16K rather than saving it for an encore - what I MEANT was that I was being dead classy and could do something ELSE for an encore, but everybody seemed to take it as me saying that was IT! Foolish Hibbett!

Afterwards there was much chat, some MERCH selling, and then further chat back at the hotel bar. It was a LOVELY evening, followed by a lovely next day when we had a bit of a wander around and saw MORE robots. I'm not sure if doing the same gig two years in a row at roughly the same time makes it an ANNUAL EVENT, but I do rather hope so!

posted 12/11/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Topper and Sparky
Like some kind of remorseless juggernaut OF FUN, another episode of The Funny Comics Fan Club has rolled around, and is available wherever you like to find your podcasts (spotify, Apple etc), on our own website or indeed right HERE:



This time we're talking about The Topper and Sparky, which is one BIG comic with a smaller one included in the middle. It was, as ever, a DELIGHT to chat with Mr John Dredge about it, and this time we got ourselves unnecessarily worked up about all sorts of things, not least the appallingness of Mickey The Monkey. Ooh, we were furious!

If you want to read along with us you can find pretty much all of the strips that we talk about on our socials - that's Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Bluesky - and if you enjoy it we'd be very grateful indeed if you could share it with other people, whether that's by modern TECHNICAL means or just by mentioning to somebody. We're having a LOVELY time banging on about these old comics, and we rather hope that other people might get something out of it too!

posted 11/11/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Talking About TV Comic
The latest episode of The Funny Comics Fan Club has just gone onto the interwebs, and I think this is my favourite one so far. I wouldn't necessarily expect that to be the case, as it's about a copy of TV Comic from 1970, so it contains a bunch of strips that I'm almost entirely unfamiliar with, but it turned out to be a CRACKING 49 minutes and 51 seconds of me and John nattering on about a wide variety of topics, some of which were actually to do with the comic we were reading, but many not. You can hear it for yourself HERE:



I keep meaning to say that, as hinted at above, although it is based AROUND a particular comic, it isn't an entirely dry assessment OF that particular comic. Also, although we do OF COURSE offer intellectual insight into the history of British comics and various theories about them, it is not ENTIRELY DRY and may feature items of interest to people who are not British and/or not hugely invested in the world of comics. This episode in particular features quite a lot of TITTING ABOUT that is not directly relevant to either of the above, especially late on in the episode when we get to the adventures of Popeye and the nature of hoedowns.

As you will be able to tell if you have a listen, John and I rather enjoyed ourselves recording this one, and I hope that others might get some pleasure from it too. We're both keen to get the word out about it to more people if we can, so if you, dear reader, are able to MENTION it somewhere that would be highly appreciated. As they say in the world of professional-type podcasts, please do like and subscribe!

posted 28/10/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Lonely Tourist and Mr Spoons
Last night we gathered once more at The King And Queen for a rather spectacular evening of Totally Acoustic, with guest artistes Lonely Tourist and Mr Spoons. It all went very well indeed!

I knew it was going to be good when BOTH of the guests arrived early and were DELIGHTFUL, but then things got rapidly better and better as a multitude of Unexpected Pals appeared, not least Mr G Urquhart, who had travelled down from Glasgow FOR THE EVENING just to be there! Amazingly he wasn't the ONLY person to have come from Scotland for the gig either, as a couple of other people told me they'd done the same. We also got visits from Mr P Clarke, Mr C T-T and the legendary Mr P Buckley-Hill, as well as some International Rock Stars, various pals and regulars, and first-time attendees. All of which meant that, by the time we kicked, off pretty much every seat in the room was full. This made me very happy!

We kicked off with a rendition of the theme tune as usual, and then I did THIS:

Bad Back

I'm Doing The Ironing

It Only Works Because You're here

That all seemed to go all right - I had a lovely time anyway - and then it was Mr Spoons' turn. As he said, he was a bit nervous as it was his first time doing a gig of mostly his own material, but it went GRATE. I particularly liked the genius idea of kicking off with a song ABOUT the fact that he was playing a ukelele, and explaining to the audience that it was all going to be FINE. It was dead good, and I confidently predict it will not be the LAST time he rocks out in such a fashion.

We then had a break for MAXI-CHAT and then Lonely Tourist came on for a STUNNING set. I must admit that I was quite surprised to see him kick off with what I consider to be two MASSIVE bangers that I'd've expected to come at the END, but then he kept on in pretty much the same way in a set of just GORGEOUS songs full of emotion and humour and... well, it was very good indeed, and the inter-song CHAT was brilliant too. It was the first time I'd seen him play live, after listening to and loving his records for a few years, and I'm going to make a proper effort to get out and see him again as soon as is sensible, he was GRATE!

When that was all done there was the usual AMPLE time for chat, and discussions ranged widely and included some rather exciting POSSIBLE PLANS for future stuff. I also got talking to a couple of chaps who'd not been before, one of whom said "Did you write that song... what's it called?" and I thought "AHA! Obviously he is thinking of Hey Hey 16K" but NO! To my GRATE delight he meant Agile, which pleased me IMMENSELY. Apparently it is being POSTED in work chats, which was basically what it was written for. HOORAY!

This was a high point in an evening what was FULL of them - it really could not have gone much better, and I'm very much planning to do another one soon. Well, soon-ISH anyway!

posted 25/10/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Dark Star and Hush
This week I have been consuming TWO (2) alleged classics of their respective genres - the film Dark Star from 1974 and Batman: Hush from 2002. I had Differing Opinions of them!

I read "Hush" mostly because it's just come out as one of DC's Compact Editions i.e. a nice thick SLAB of comics in a slightly smaller than normal format at a MUCH cheaper than usual price. It's basically NINE QUID for a trade paperback of twelve comics that would usually cost three or four times that much, putting it very much in the ACTUAL AFFORDABLE category that comics used to be in. I've read a couple of stories in this format and it is WONDERFUL to be able to cacth up with the so-called "classics" of superhero comics in this way, especially for someone like me who has HEARD about stuff like this for years and never got around to reading it.

It's been a SURPRISING number of years for me with "Hush", as I thought it came out ten years ago at MOST but is actually TWICE that far ago in the past, which led to me being a bit confused when it talked about Tim Drake as Robin rather than Damian Wayne. Apart from that, and Batman having PANTS on throughout, it felt pretty similar to how most Batman comics are in my opinion i.e. not very good. I didn't understand what is/was supposed to be so good about it AT ALL - it's basically lots of STERN PEOPLE standing around looking a) STERN and b) INDISTINGUISHABLE from each other. It's drawn by Jim Lee who I've always thought of as one of the GOOD artists from that school of 90s art where all men are eight foot tall and made of MUSCLES, all women have impossibly large bums and boobs, tiny waists, and a spine that can twist through about 300 degrees, and EVERYTHING has ten million lines over the top of it. This makes it really difficult to tell who is meant to be who, as everyone looks IDENTICAL, especially when they're standing around STERNLY at social events where tight fitting tuxedos or very very short dresses. It also seems to rely on the reader knowing who all Batman's baddies are and what their powers are - which I sort of do - as well as caring one way other the other which, by the end of it, I didn't!

After that I put the telly on and saw that "Dark Star" was being recommended to me by Amazon Prime's Algorithm. This used to be a thing of magic and wonder, way back at the start of the century when we were unused to such things, but these days it feels like a forgetful elderly relative who has looked in your shopping bag, seen the things you have just bought, and is insistent that you should buy them all again. Nonetheless, I had vague and happy memories of watching the first half of "Dark Star" one Friday or Saturday night in the late 70s when I guess it will have been on BBC2 and we were allowed to stay up. There was a beachball monster and a LOT of beards, was my main memory of it.

I gave it a go and I am happy to report that my memory was accurate - there was a beachball monster and an awful lot of BEARDS - but also that it was a LOT more fun than I remember. I vaguelly recall it being all right, but a bit confusing to my young BRANE, as I'd been expecting it to be more like STAR WARS and less like Some Hippies Having Workplace Issues. Watching it again now I was AMAZED that it had been made fifty flipping years ago, as it felt very FRESH and MODERN, especially with the way all of the characters kept having hissy fits at each other and loping around the universe like they didn't know what they were up to. It was also wonderfully SHORT - 83 minutes, which is about how long I think ALL films should be. It was, in fact DEAD GOOD and, unlike "Hush", I would recommend it to anyone with easy access.

Next time I expect to be reviewing a GEORGE FORMBY movie and probably ALLY SLOPER!

posted 24/10/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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