Ken Aldred

So much classic material in mid-to-late 80s Viz Comic. A Golden Age.

We should get Jimmers some Broons and Oor Wullie Annuals as well.

That's the joke. He could've suggested the Bunty Annual 1976. It was a British comic for girls. Only a couple of years or so early for Viz Comic.

Sadly, Viz wasn't around in 1976.

I remember going to the newsagent for a copy of issue 1. He wasn't impressed, said I shouldn't buy it, especially because of the rubbish art in the story at the back. It was drawn by Jim Steranko, so a bit off the mark there. Oi.....did he try and push you to Beano or something? He could be a bit sarcastic, so I can imagine him recommending Bunty.

Manchester?

I've just started Dishonored. Excellent game. Trying to do it using as much stealth as possible, but that's facilitated by a very interesting, short distance, 'Blink' or teleportation ability. It has a basic RPG structure, where you can do the main missions or veer off onto side quests, and a need to meticulously scavenge resources for coin to buy upgrades. Nice graphics and a pastel colour scheme, a striking contrast to the occasionally quite gory outcome of combat.

Eisner, Foster, Caniff, Cole, Raymond... they had proper artists back in those days.

I'm going to say the list is biased towards collectors born yesterday. As well as Liefeld I'd question the choice of Jim Valentino. From this time period, 80s onwards, how about Paul Smith, Tony Harris, Alex Ross, Travis Charest, Juan Gimenez, Matt Wagner, Steve Epting, Adam Hughes? Epting His work on Velvet with Brubaker has been such a treat. Even early on you could tell that Epting had very strong visual storytelling ability, and he just got better and better.

I'm going to say the list is biased towards collectors born yesterday. As well as Liefeld I'd question the choice of Jim Valentino. From this time period, 80s onwards, how about Paul Smith, Tony Harris, Alex Ross, Travis Charest, Juan Gimenez, Matt Wagner, Steve Epting, Adam Hughes?

There's only one on there that I'd say objectively deserves to be on a 'best comic artists ever' list, and that's Frank Frazetta. A genius.

I remember going to the newsagent for a copy of issue 1. He wasn't impressed, said I shouldn't buy it, especially because of the rubbish art in the story at the back. It was drawn by Jim Steranko, so a bit off the mark there.

I bought it on Monday at the supermarket, here in the UK.

I've just watched it for the first time on Blu-ray. Excellent, well-paced action film. As a fan of the Brubaker Winter Soldier storylines, I wasn't disappointed.

I once smiled when I was in the US, and an American was first confused and then impressed that I didn't have bad teeth. Highly complimentary.

Robert Kirkman was great when I met him, in 2006. Nice chat, gave me a free, signed copy of the Walking Dead Volume 2 trade paperback.

Someone asked for an anecdote about a comic artists' agent. There's one over here who's been a little jerkish with me, three conventions in a row now, all because of an unforgivable faux pas that I committed about 4 years ago. I'll get to that later. Basically, every time he sees me at the convention he'll angrily veer away, rushing off as fast as possible. The aggression in it is quite astonishing to observe. Well, this behaviour doesn't really get in the way of my con stuff, so I just find it pathetically humorous. This happens maybe a dozen times throughout the show, so it must get quite tiring for him over the long haul. However, as I was checking out of the hotel on the Monday after the event, as several comic artists were in the process of doing the same, hanging out around reception, the agent appeared again. He sees the group of creators on the opposite side to me and angrily barges straight into me, pushing past in order to somewhat desperately attempt to look important and powerful in association with these very, very talented individuals. One of the hotel guests looked a bit taken aback, so I explained... 'Oh, that. He's always having hissy-fit tantrums with me just because I didn't send him an email after a convention, about 4 years ago - that's all. Deeply insecure.' Then, I was off to catch a train.

it's dumb for them to do that for tomb raider 2 even though the 1st one sold more on the ps3 & ps4 then xb360 & x1. i give it 6 months before it shows up on the ps4. That's annoying. It'll be a while before I get a PS4, so I hope they backtrack on this decision. Either way, I won't be buying an X-Box One.

Get on it. There's a shortfall of at least 70 !

Wasn't that also a fairly expensive commission?

180 posts, no doubt a stack of carefully-selected graemlins, but I could be wrong? It's a slow, unproductive day. Yesterday you managed 250 new ones by the time I started reading. Slacking off.

No, it's not the comment, it's more about being herded into position.

Mentioning it maybe because by that stage I was getting extremely stressed out? Except that I made it clear at a certain point that I wasn't interested in his 'stuff', rather I wanted to leave it for another day. And, why would a comic artist be an expert on the subject of disability law? Nonsense.

For now, I'll describe the creator as a 'well-known comic book writer / artist'. First London convention, he was all alone at his table in artists' alley, so I went up to ask him to sign one of my books. Chatted away for about a minute, then he says he has to go to a signing booth at the opposite side of the exhibition hall. I say I'd rather come back and see him the following day, explaining that I'm very bad with crowds because of Asperger's Syndrome, very stressed, very burned out towards the end of the show, and so it would be better if I leave it for tomorrow. He then waffles on about one of his relatives having neurofibromatosis, which is absolutely nothing to do with autism, how he takes things like this very seriously, and insists I walk with him the whole length of the hall. We reach the signing area and then, pointing his finger, he aggressively demands... 'Get to the back of the queue!' I just turn and walk away, appalled. No 'clever' counterarguments here, please. If I explain that I have a disability which makes it extremely difficult to handle close proximity with large crowds, then I don't expect to be herded into position like this and ordered to do something which I have clearly stated I don't even want in the first place. Not only is this manipulative and abusive, it's also completely illegal under disability discrimination law, America and Europe. Always devastating when you discover that someone whose work you've followed for decades is such a pitiful excuse for a human being.