Goth when it really meant something, or something — flipping through a French-language collection of Gustave Dore’s work, part biography and part sampling of his many efforts, led me to conclude I really need to find a good English langua[…]

BLOGS GROW UP! :(
probably there’s other mainstream American Style Bigwigs caved before wolcott – ex of the village voice years back, then of vanity fair, more recently also the new yorker – but he crystallises the coming problem p[…]

Why do people do those lists on Amazon. You know the ones: Ten Great Reads, Ten Books Worth The Wait. I guess there is a degree of vanity involved, and what is the web if not the home of vanity publishing.
Nevertheless how about this for a list. Grea[…]

Hey, What’s that Smell? Everyone sniff what’s going down.
I finished Patrick Suskind’s Perfume: The Story of a Murderer last night. I am still in awe of what a literary work of art the story was. I am also, subsequently, reeking fro[…]

the victorians were very extremely weird part 3567256
i sort of maintain an interest for professional reasons, and also bcz they helped create a pathway into the golden age of fantastical children’s lit and illustration, but is there a SINGLE […]

Super-villain Names News: uncharted territory entered (via ILC)[…]

The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists
I’m not going to review this book. On Amazon, dan2004 says “you certainly get a lot of laughs per pound” and “A reader” says “I kept putting itdown and down and down aga[…]

One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest – Edinburgh Festival
The Scottish tabloids were full of Christian Slater’s 35th birthday. Big Daddy O’s lap dancing club had thrown him out for ‘swearing’. ‘Hellraiser’ Slater […]

This Ain’t A Library
Expensive comics are killing the comics biz. Well, duh, no great analysis there. But the spiralling prices – as well as putting kids and casual readers out of the market – have an effect on my perceptions of sto[…]

Now I know more about 23 than ever before, I guess — by chance, as with the best of my library discoveries, I stumbled across Simon Ford’s 1999 book Wreckers of Civilization, his story of the folks behind COUM Transmissions and Throbbing […]