Blog Archive: November 2025

Chris T-T At The 100 Club
I was back at The 100 Club on Saturday night, a venue that feels derangedly OUT OF TIME these days, as a classic basement club right slap bang in the middle of present-day Oxford Street. Twenty odd years ago when I first came down to old London town there were LOADS of venues and clubs in this area, but the 100 Club is pretty much the last one standing, and the fact that you have to go down a short office corridor to find it underneath the main street feels appropriate, like you're going into an archeological DIG. That makes it sound less good than it is, which is DEAD GOOD.

I was there to see the incredibly excellent Chris T-T, who it is permissible to CALL Chris T-T in this context as he was BACK in that guise for a one-off (with a few warm-ups) comeback gig to promote the VINYL reissues of London Is Sinking and 9 Red Songs. As revealed a little while ago, I am doing an ALBUM with Chris at the moment so have known about all of this for a good long while, and it was thus AMAZING to finally be there at the actual GIG that had been so long planned.

As soon as I wandered in I bumped into Mr P Joyzine and shortly after that was joined by Mr J Kell and Mr D Paton, all in time for the first set which saw a CLEARLY MOVED Chris come on for a solo set. This, to me, is QUINTESSENTIAL Chris T-T - I am of course AWARE of the fact that he is a ROCK STAR with a KICKASS band but the vast majority of times I have seen and/or played with him it's been in this singer-songwriter format, so it was wonderful to see him at it again. Actually, thinking about it, it WEIRDLY didn't feel WEIRD at all, like I'd just seen him play a couple of months ago rather than many years, and all the songs came flooding back as a room full of UTTERLY DELIGHTED people BELLOWED the words back at him. It was amazing!



The second half was pretty much the same except for with the aforesadi ROCK BAND, which sounded RUDDY IMMENSE. As I say, I'm used to him as a singer songwriter, so this WAS a bit weird. "Oh yeah," I thought, "He's got whole ALBUMS of proper ROCK BAND stuff!" There were loads of HITS again in this half, including the aforesaid ROCK BAND doing versions of songs like "7 Hearts" with their proper arrangements, and again the whole audience, your humble reporter included, having a FLIPPING WONDERFUL time.

It was a joy to see, and a testament to an AMAZING Rock Career what he has had and, as we saw that night, continues to have whether he's out there doing it himself or not. Afterwards I had a bit of a wander around and bumped into a whole HOST of friendly faces, some of which I hadn't seen for AGES before queueing up for a HUG from the great man himself. It is always a thing of joy to see your friends succeed, especially someone who deserves it as much as Chris, and I strode out into the night thinking "COR! Gigs are GRATE!" Because, clearly, they are!

posted 19/11/2025 by MJ Hibbett
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The Fox and Newt
After all the excitement of Comics Forum, it would have been nice to have A Bit Of A Sit Down on Friday night. However, that was not available to me for I had an appointment with ROCK!

Thus it was that I stomped back to my hotel in the TIPPING RAIN, collected all of my gear and then headed out into the MONSOON towards The Fox And Newt. It was a bit of a scary walk there, especially going over a PRECARIOUS pedestrian bridge over a massive motorway IN A HURRICANE, but it was worth it as the pub itself was LOVELY. I was soon joined by ace promoter and all-round good-guy Mr S Gibb aka STU BABOON, and after some HUGS we headed upstairs to get ourselves ready.

I always think it's going to be PEASY doing this show as I don't really need a soundcheck or anything, but things were complicated here because the equipment for the projector was right at the back of the room and could not be got anywhere near close enough for me to operate it from the stage. Luckily a) Stu had thought this might be the case and advised me to bring my own little projector b) I had done so and c) we had ace soundman Mr J Mazur on hand, who could not have been more PATIENT and HELPFUL in getting it all worked out. Between the three of us and some gaffer tape we managed to get everything set up, leaving time for me and Stu to have a bit of an old catch-up (it turns out we haven't seen each other in 9 years, and a LOT has happened since then!) and also for me to have my tea, which was BANGERS AND MASH. Cor, I tell you what, when you have A Bit Of A Dicky Stomach like what I had last week, there is NOTHING so lovely as some mashed potatoes. It was ACE!

At this point people started turning up! HOORAY! I had spent my day in the usual cycle of PANIC, alternating between thinking "Oh no, nobody at all is coming" and "Oh no, far too many people are coming and will have to be turned away" but in the end it was a pretty much perfect number, almost EXACTLY filling the number of seats we had available in the main room. PHEW.

The show itself was LOTS of fun - I mucked a few bits up because I was worrying about standing in front of the projector, and about how the TRAPEZIUM effect I'd had to use to make the screen fit was working, but I had done my usual "mistakes are SPECIAL" speech at the start so it was fine. The audience was also mostly people from Comics Forum with a few there via Thought Bubble, so it was an UNUSUALLY receptive audience for a lot of the comics theory stuff, which made it a LOT of fun, although I did worry before getting to the "like many unemployable people... I went to work for a University" joke, but it seemed to go OK!

We'd set it up to be a whole evening with an added Q&A session at the end, which meant there was an INTERMISSION, allowing me to use the special SLIDE what I'd made, shown in LIVE ACTION below:



Good eh?

The second half was deliberately shorter than the first - and felt possibly a bit TOO short - so as to leave room for the QUESTIONS, of which there were a LOT. I feel I may have RAMBLED ON a bit, especially when I got a chance to talk about some of my OTHER Doctor Doom papers, but hopefully people left FULLY SATED with Doom Knowledge. Actually, given the amount of Comics Scholars in the room it may have FATALLY SKEWED the entire FIELD in the direction of Latveria!

I packed up, thanked James heartily, and then me and Stu stomped off through the rain again to my hotel and its bar, there for an EXTREMELEY well-earned pint and a further bit of CHAT. It had been a BLOODY GRATE evening!

posted 18/11/2025 by MJ Hibbett
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Comics Forum 2025
I spent a big chunk of last week up in LEEDS, partly for the Comics Forum conference which this year had 'Industry' as its theme.

This was GRATE for me as it meant there were LOADS of presentations about the practical side of comics - I am very much an adherent to The Production Of Culture Approach, which (very basically, and probably poorly explained by me) suggests that we should examine culture by looking NOT at Special Geniuses NOR Philosophical Musings but rather through the practical aspects of production that are involved in it. So, for instance, we can say that the 'mature comics' boom of the 80s and 90s didn't happen because suddenly loads of Important Creators wanted to tell Important Stories (which happen to include a lot of boobs and explosions) but rather because the emergence of the 'direct market' distribution system meant you actually had somewhere to SELL things like that, and because the development of new printing technologies meant that it was affordable to make collected comics on nice enough paper that bookshops would sell them as well. It doesn't mean you can't still talk about the groovy stuff INSIDE the comics, but it's a way to explain what's going on around them.

I did my presentation - Who Cares About The Colourists? - in the first session of the first day, which was GRATE because it meant I could get it DONE and then concentrate on what other people had to say! I was doing a talk using the data from my research to show how people who completed my Doctor Doom survey almost completely forgot about inkers, colourists and letterers, trying to explain some of the reasons why I thought that was, and ending with a stirring rendition of Many Hearts. It went pretty well, I think, with some BRILLIANT questions at the end, but even though I've done early morning shows for this material before, it's still a bit weird singing before I've even had a second cup of coffee in the morning!

I stomped back to my hotel to drop my gear off and then came back for another really interesting session during which - EXCITINGLY - somebody actually referenced one of my papers (this one in fact)!! I then saw a load more GRATE stuff, including my favourite one for the day which was 'Smut Peddlers: How the Spicy Pulps and Publishers Shaped Superhero Comics' by Dr H Austin. I mean, with a title like that it was always going to be pretty good but Hailey STORMED through an extremely entertaining AND interesting talk about, well, exactly what the title says. It was BRILL.

The day concluded with a trip to the PUB where I met a bunch of Young People from DC Thomson, down for this and Thought Bubble afterwards and chatted to them and various other TYPES before pretty much everyone else went off for the conference dinner. Usually at this point there's a hard core left behind, but this time it was me and Professor B Woo, of whom I am a FAN. I think I managed to remain FAIRLY sensible, but cannot confirm 100%. He went off to get his tea and I decided to hang around for everyone to come back after theirs, but after an hour or so I thought maybe I had miscalculated. I eventually went to check the restaurant and found that they were only halfway through a multi-course FEAST so was very glad I'd checked, and went and sat down with a bunch of pals for further chat, before heading off for last drinks at the EXTREMELY NICE North Bar. Ooh, it was good in there!

I was trying to stick to low or no-alcohol booze due to having A Bit Of A Dicky Stomach, which meant the next day was pleasantly unhungover, although it was also VERY VERY WET INDEED due to WEATHER. It was also full of FAB talks, including some on the history of the British comics industry (who knew FAX MACHINES made such a difference?) and then a PANEL of Industry Types. This was VERY interesting indeed, as Dr I Hague had invited an impressive RANGE of people, from massive publishers to tiny indies, and it was clear that some of them had some HISTORY between them!

The day concluded with the aforementioned B Woo doing the KEYNOTE, which was AMAZING. Sometimes at these sort of things the keynote is Just Some Person Talking About Their Own Stuff, which isn't really what you're after. Ben did a big talk about The Production Of Culture, drawing in loads of bits from other people's talks across the two days - excitingly, including mine - and dropping cool stuff in like 'The 4 Myths Of Comics'. It was PROPER!

Happily full of COMICS STUDIES we trooped back round the corner to Browns for traditioanl post-conference drinks. However, it was to be just one drink for me for LO! I had a SHOW to do that evening, details of which will follow... TOMORROW!

posted 17/11/2025 by MJ Hibbett
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The Football!
I haven't spoken about THE FOOTBALL on here for a while, partly because I'm not sure that it entirely fits with what people expect from my CORPORATE BRAND, but mostly because it's been bloody awful.

For the past few years I've been fulfilling a long-cheished LIFE GOAL by being a season ticket holder at Peterborough United. Yes, that's right - some people dream of climbing Everest or having their own organic chocolate empire, but I have always longed to spend approximately alternate Saturdays in the East Midlands, complaining.

Actually that's not really the full story - there IS a lot of complaining, especially over the past year or so, but also loads of LARKS and good-times with the Old Boys who inhabit The Family Stand. However, I've always had to miss loads of games, especially midweek ones, so this year I relinquished my season ticket and went down to a 10 game FLEXI ticket.

At the start of the season I thought "That might be TOO MANY" tickets, as the actual matches were AWFUL, but this Saturday just gone something wonderful and amazing happened. FOR LO! it was really really really good and we THRASHED Wimbledon 5-0! FIVE NIL! That's a third of our total goals for the whole season so far! Also, it was dead exciting with SKILLZ and WALLOPING and very little Titting About At The Back (if - WHEN - I am asked to take a role as Director Of Football my first move will be to BAN Titting About At The Back).

It was fabulous, and all down, it seems, to our BRAND NEW Manager, Luke Williams. I say "brand new" because we have previously gone through a rolling programme of hiring Darren Ferguson, sacking Darren Ferguson, hiring Grant McCann, sacking Grant McCann, hiring Darren Ferguson and so forth. THIS time however there is a NEW bloke who seems to have brought some MAGIC POTION with him, possibly from a small village in ancient Gaul, and made everything WORK.

It was AMAZING and I confidently predict that things will continue in this way for the rest of the season. NOTHING CAN GO WRONG.

Afterwards there were loads of disgruntled Wimbledon fans moping about on the platform with me while we waited for the train home. I was shocked by the way they were MOANING - come on guys, support the team! - and was delighted when one chap, about my age, said to his colleagues as the train arrived, "There better not be any Peterborough on this train, I'll tell you that." He glanced up and saw me smiling. "Are you Peterborough?" he asked. "Yes," I replied. "Oh," he said. He looked like he wasn't sure what to do, so said. "Er... after you" and off we went back to London town.

FOOTBALL!

posted 10/11/2025 by MJ Hibbett
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Johnny Domino VS Doctor Doom
I have previously mentioned my great joy in listening to This Are Johnny Domino, a DELIGHTFUL podcast featuring Mr G and Mr S Woodword AKA Giles and Steve from ace band Johnny Domino.

It follows the traditional format of Two Blokes Talking To Each Other, but what makes it GRATE for me is that they're theoretically talking about the songs they recorded together as the aforementioned band, who were very much affiliated to Artists Against Success. Not only did AAS release some of their records but me and The Validators regularly GIGGED with them too, notably on the "Players with Words" TOUR to plug their album Players and our album Say It With Words. Good times abounded and so it is always nice to hear them talk about their AMAZING songs, and also to hear them wander off into other topics, often about other people we both know and what they're doing too.

Even if you DON'T know the ins and outs of The Derby Scene at the turn of the century though, it's also good for the THORTS and the occasional forays into NEW STUFF of various types that they venture into. In the current episode, for instance, they go through a whole BATCH of new stuff to listen to, and also talk about my recent "single" Like Batman But Better.

I say "single" because although technically it IS one, available on all your modern streaming services, it's more of a PUBLICITY TOOL to try and promote the current run of gigs. I hadn't really thought of it as something that you'd want to LISTEN to in and of itself, so it was a bit of a surprise to hear it spoken of as such. INDEED, if you listen to the show, you will find that Giles and especially Steve are a little surprised by it too, considering it to be full of FACTS and more like a lecture - which, in a very real way, it IS!

When I've done these MUSICAL EXTRAVAGANZAS in the past there's usually been a song or two I've been able to EXTRACT for wider use - We Did It Anyway being a prime example, first appearing in Moon Horse VS The Mars Men Of Jupiter, getting re-used in Hey Hey 16K then released with The Validators on Still Valid and played at gigs to this very day. It's lovely when that happens, but the very nature of this show, with its many FACTS, means I've always known it was unlikely to happen this time. I did TRY playing the song at a gig once, at the King's Lock back in February, but it didn't really work on its own to people who may or may not have opinions about Batman, let alone Doctor Doom.

It was lovely of them to play it, and as I say I HIGHLY recommend Liking and also Subscribing to their show, but it did remind me that I need to get on with making some STANDALONE HITS once this is all wrapped up!

posted 2/11/2025 by MJ Hibbett
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