This newspaper strip style story has been a complete nightmare so far. I wouldn’t say the C.G model of a stadium I made was jaw dropping but it’s been about the closest thing to a success I have had for weeks. I decided at the start that I was going to use several methods for creating backgrounds and do a little experimenting to see which one comes out best. Some times it seems with drawing little background perspective drawings that building it in 3d would be just as easy as drawing it, that’s almost true, it is pretty much as easy but takes about 5 times as long, for a background that isn’t too overly complicated and is used a lot however it only takes as long as drawing it 5 times so starts to look like a productive tool. As most of Bosher is set in a football stadium on a football pitch the time I spent will probably work out about even.

I have decided to post the colour version, it was a bit pointless really colouring it, but it looks nice and I’m more inclined to show it off this way.

The reason Bosher has been so frustrating is simple, the frames are so bloody small. It’s clear from the script that Chris envisioned something larger, as did I. Fitting in any detail is pretty tricky and all my research and background design is starting to look pretty silly at about 6 ½ cm by 6 cm. I have only just started drawing the panels so things may start to look better as I work the problems though. My real concern is that it will end up looking less like the Hotsper football strips and Roy of the rovers and more like striker (which I guess it has more in common with.)

Working on this strip, like working on any strip, is far from a waste of time. If I can tell the story effectively in the size it’s a really funny and well written little strip and the format is a challenge to overcome not one to be defeated by. I have already learnt a whole bunch about backgrounds and am developing new working methods to add to my toolbox even from the first page. Without wishing to boast the art work should be better then the infamous striker and the less said about striker 3d the better. (I realise I do use 3d but only as a guide, it would take a whole lot of style to make me want to see it in a comic strip.)

I only have myself to blame for choosing such a tricky format, and as is my way I’m not going to back out now. I may not always think things though but I do follow them though and that’s how you learn so maybe I’m not such a fool after all.

We're now in a position to offer Walking Wounded #1 for pre-order.

Just to remind you, this is what it looks like:

I've been playing with the Massacre website and added the issue 1 write-up as well as exciting new Paypal Buy Now buttons.

If you're interested here's an extra sweetener. The normal price for the comic is £3.50 (inclusive of UK delivery) but loyal blog readers can get it for £3 by clicking here. The comic will ship on, or shortly after, the March 17th launch date.

And for an even better deal, come along to the UK Web and Mini Comix Thing 2007 for Cut-Me-Own-Throat style exclusive Show prices.

I'm changing day jobs starting tomorrow, so apologies in advance if updates now get a little more infrequent. Steve'll be back soon though, with some jaw-dropping CGI work he's been putting into Bosher...

This is the last movie we made as Clergyman Films. You'll note that we got round the problems of recruiting helpers by keeping it in the family. All duties in front of and behind the camera were performed by Steve, myself and our other brother, Peter.

Pete's the Investigator and I play the Scientist, if that helps you put names to faces.

Our earlier stuff isn't currently available on digital file, but hopefully they will be converted in the future and the the mystery of the Clergyman name can finally be revealed....

Before we focused on comics, Steve and I went through a film-making phase. At one point we had our own website (now defunct) with a couple of short movies on there and were trying to do something. Sadly, it's very expensive and relies on getting a cast and crew together which when you're not paying is really hard.

Still, the YouTube era at least makes distributing that sort of thing a bit easier, so here's one from the archives, a solo effort of Steve's:

So that was Paulie & Zue.

Reading it again, the first couple of pages seem perfectly decent, but the Robot Lawman sequence looks a tad pedestrian and then the ending is both rushed and weak. Ah well.

I can do better now (maybe!). Still, it's not in my plans to submit anything else for a while.

For the sake of completism, here's the short synopsis which 2000AD judged the story on:

Future Shocks: Paulie & Zue
Synopsis by Chris Denton

In a mildly futuristic Earth city, Governor Kennedy announces a major crackdown on mafia activity. There is subsequently a rush to assassinate the governor at his next public appearance, leading to a shortage of sniper positions and two rival mob killers, Paulie and Zue are forced to share the same vantage point.

Paulie is a handsome, dark-haired, young man and Zue is an attractive, blonde, young woman. Zue nudges Paulie just as he is about to fire, leading to the death of a hot dog seller. Zue apologises and offers to share the credit for the hit. She then shoots the governor.

Kennedy’s replacement, Governor Corleone, returns the city to the status quo. The mob throws a party in honour of the two assassins, who figure that they make a pretty good team. Soon, Paulie’s boss gives the pair their first joint assignment. Cyberville Corp. has been developing a Robot Lawman that could spell trouble for honest criminals.

Paulie and Zue sneak into Cyberville’s headquarters and locate the huge stainless steel Robot Lawman. They blast the robot with massive weapons but when the smoke clears there’s not a scratch on it. Paulie and Zue then make a desperate escape pursued by the Robot. They are both injured but manage to flee.

Paulie’s boss is very upset that the hit went so badly. He blames Zue and orders Paulie to take her out. Paulie will be murdered himself if he refuses. Later, in his apartment, Paulie, who has evidently told Zue of the problem, declares that he has thought of a way of keeping their partnership together.

The Robot Lawman is then seen on a busy street, enforcing parking regulations. From behind, Zue and Paulie put a bag over his head and surround him with chains. Zue asks if the plan is to redeem themselves by taking out the robot at the second attempt. Paulie says not, and shows it by then gunning down Zue in cold blood.

The story ends with Paulie in his apartment. The Robot Lawman is also there, now wearing a blonde wig. Paulie says that it was a shame to have to kill the original Zue, but he thinks that Robot Zue is just as good.

Still, could have been worse. My working title was "Feeling Paulie"!

Right, now I'd better devote some time to sorting out the Massacre website.

PAGE FIVE

1) Back in the Boss’s office. The Boss is sitting behind his desk, furious. Paulie, head bandaged and arm in a sling, is looking at the floor in shame.

BOSS: LAST NIGHT WAS A DISASTER! NOW THE FEDS ARE CRAWLING ROUND HERE AND WE CAN’T DO ANY BUSINESS!

PAULIE: IT WASN’T MY FAULT, BOSS!

BOSS: I KNOW. IT WAS ZUE’S. YOU GOTTA RUB HER OUT.

2) Closer on Paulie and his Boss. Paulie is looking aghast and his Boss implacable.

PAULIE: NOT ZUE!

BOSS: IT’S HER OR YOU, PAULIE.

3) Paulie’s apartment, a small but elegant place. Zue is sitting in a chair, her leg in plaster and a walking stick by her side. Paulie stands behind her.

PAULIE: ….BUT I’VE WORKED OUT HOW WE CAN STAY TOGETHER DESPITE THIS CONTRACT ON YOUR LIFE!

4) The side of a road. There is a parking meter gone into the red zone and a vehicle beside it. Paulie and Zue are behind the Robot Lawman who has been writing out a parking ticket, but has now dropped the pad as Paulie covers his head with a sack and Zue wraps him in chains.

PAULIE: YOU’RE COMING WITH US, OFFICER!

ZUE: SO KIDNAPPING HIM WILL SAVE MY LIFE, YES?

5) As the Robot Lawman lies tied up on the street, Paulie shoots Zue.

PAULIE: NOT QUITE!

ZUE: AAARRGGGH!

6) Back in Paulie’s apartment. This composition is very similar to frame 3 except that instead of Zue in the chair the Robot Lawman sits there, now wearing a long blond wig. Paulie is smiling ecstatically.

PAULIE: IT WAS A SHAME TO HAVE TO KILL THE ORIGINAL ZUE, BUT YOU’RE JUST AS GOOD, EH, ROBOT ZUE?

ROBOT LAWMAN: AFFIRMATIVE.

CAPTION: THE END.

PAGE FOUR

1) The air vent. Close in on Paulie and Zue, who are both firing their weapons, creating a volley of bullets and laser blasts.

ZUE: OPEN FIRE!

FX: BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! KA- ZAM!

FX: SHOOM! SHOOM! SHOOM!

2) The laboratory. A whirl of mist and smoke obscures most of the room. Professor Genias is visible, though, emerging nervously from behind a work surface.

GENIAS: OH MY GOODNESS! ROBOT LAWMAN, ARE YOU ALRIGHT?

3) The smoke clears to reveal the Robot Lawman in all his metallic, totally unharmed glory. He is eight feet tall, and incredibly broad, his stainless steel body covered with the appearance of overdeveloped muscles and biceps. The Lawman has big glowing red eyes, a straight mouth and two huge pistols in holsters around his gigantic waist.

ROBOT LAWMAN: AFFIRMATIVE.

4) CU of Paulie and Zue, wide-eyed in astonished horror.

PAULIE: NOTHING COULD HAVE SURVIVED THAT!

ZUE: I THINK WE SHOULD GET OUT OF HERE!

5) The lab again. Genias, now enraged, is pointing to the vent, now blasted away so Paulie and Zue are just visible. Robot Lawman is drawing his pistols.

GENIAS: OVER THERE, LAWMAN. KILL THEM ALL!

6) The outside of Cyberville’s HQ again. Paulie and Zue are desperately leaping over the fence as volley of bullets fly all around them, emerging from Robot Lawman’s distant guns. Both have been wounded, Paulie in the arm and Zue in the leg. A bullet grazes the side of Paulie’s head.

PAULIE: OW!

FX: BLAM-BLAM-BLAM-BLAM-BLAM-BLAM!

PAGE THREE

1) Wide shot of a big mob party. Paulie and Zue are standing on a small stage in front of a large banner. They are both wearing party hats, smiling and waving.

In front of the stage are a large group of MOBSTERS, also wearing party hats, cheering and clapping.

BANNER: CONGRATULATIONS ZUE AND PAULIE!

MOBSTERS: FOR THEY ARE JOLLY GOOD FELLAS,
FOR THEY ARE JOLLY GOOD FELLAS,
AND SO SAY ALL OF US!

2) Close in on Paulie and Zue at the party, both very happy, some time later. They still have their party hats on and are now toasting each other with flutes of champagne.

ZUE: WE MAKE ONE HECK OF A TEAM!

PAULIE: YOU CAN NUDGE ME ANY TIME!

FX: CLINK!

3) A spacious and tastefully decorated office. In the foreground we see Paulie and his BOSS. The Boss is a short, middle-aged, bald man with a black moustache and an old-fashioned suit. He has his arm paternally around Paulie, who is thrilled with the gesture.

CAPTION: SOME WEEKS LATER…

BOSS: THERE’S THIS NEW ROBOT LAWMAN IN THE WORKS THAT COULD SPELL TROUBLE FOR OUR FAMILY.

LINK: YOU’RE MY TOP WISEGUY NOW, PAULIE. I NEED YOU TO HANDLE IT.

4) Outside the CYBERVILLE CORPORATION HQ, at night. There is a huge fence and a huge glass building beyond it. Paulie and Zue, both now wearing black and with huge blaster weapons strapped to their backs, are scaling the fence.

A sign beside them reads “Cyberville Corp. – Techno Techno Techno”

ZUE: NO ALARMS TRIPPED, SO LET’S MAKE FOR THE AIR VENT AS PLANNED.

5) A claustrophobic shot of Paulie and Zue lying beside each other in a small air vent. They are both now holding their blasters in front of them. The only light is coming through a grate to their side.

PAULIE(WHISPER): THIS SHOULD BE THE ROOM.

6) A view of a laboratory, through the grate. PROFESSOR GENIAS, a white-coated boffin is standing over a broad shouldered silhouette with a large-sized head. This is the ROBOT LAWMAN.

ROBOT LAWMAN: SWERVE THE PUBLIC TRUST, DEJECT THE INNOCENT, UPSTAGE THE LAW.

GENIAS: HE WILL BE PERFECT – IF ONLY I CAN GET THE PRIME DIRECTIVES RIGHT!

PAGE TWO

1) Close in on the two assassins. Paulie is nudged as he fires by one of Zue’s elbows.

PAULIE: I HAVE YOU… NO!

FX: BLAM!

VOICE OFF FRAME: HOT DOGS, GET YOUR LOVELY HOT… AAAARGGH!

2) A wider view of Paulie and Zue, this time from inside the room they are perched in. It is a bare and disused place, with uneven floorboards and just a couple of cardboard boxes strewn around.

Paulie is making a furious gesture at a placatory Zue.

PAULIE: HE WAS IN MY SIGHTS! YOU’VE COST ME A WHOLE LOTTA GLORY, LADY.

ZUE: RELAX, I’LL DO THE HIT AND WE CAN SHARE THE CREDIT.

LINK: AND MY NAME’S NOT LADY, IT’S ZUE.

3) A small, circular frame, seen as if through the sight of a sniper rifle. We see a bullet in the foreground, flying towards Governor Kennedy’s head.

4) A side view of the Governor’s limousine. Governor Kennedy has been blasted out of the car and mostly out of the frame so only his legs are showing. His wife is oblivious, looking the other way and waving.

FX: KA-BOOSH!

5) Back to the window, from outside looking in. Zue has just pulled back from her gun, delighted. Paulie, now without a weapon, is equally ecstatic.

PAULIE: GREAT HEAD SHOT, ZUE! MY NAME’S PAULIE AND I’M REAL GLAD TO MEET YOU!

ZUE: ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL, EH PAULIE?

6) The whole frame is taken up by a newspaper, The City News. Beside the main headline is a picture of Governor Kennedy looking startled.

HEADLINE: GOVERNOR KENNEDY DEAD

SUB HEADLINE: “SUICIDE” SAYS ACTING GOVERNOR CORLEONE

Forbidden planet sometimes put a short small press strip in there catalogue, all you have to do is submit, now how cool is that? Your comic creative skills advertised in the country’s best known specialist retailers catalogue, that’s just an opportunity too good to miss and in colour no less. Being the ever intrepid coverage whores we are, that was taken as a call to arms and in no time at all a script was written and the artwork has just been completed. Here’s the snag, it’s a football strip, don’t get me wrong, it’s a good football strip for one page and only 5 frames. I’m fairly happy with the art and the writing, it’s a good football gag. A little dated maybe and slightly inconsistent to be a proper satire, being basically a joke about Southampton’s Matthew Le Tissier from the 90s but casting him in Tottenham because that’s who Chris supports. So any way a clever football joke for football supporters who remember Southampton players from 10 years ago.

I’m not really sure that many people who pick up the forbidden planet catalogue are into football let alone into it enough to get any of the references. I could be wrong but it seems to me like another case of not thinking about your target audience before embarking on a project but Chris did already deal with his lack of ambition in this blog and who needs another crappy superhero or art student looking strip any way. I’m pretty sure it will be the only football strip they see and it may even find itself an audience in an unexpected place.

I have just completed a short (6 page) horror story for future quake press, the venerable small press publishers of future quake (saw that coming didn’t you) and something wicked. The most interesting thing for me about the project was working with a new writer. It’s been about ten years since I last drew a story by any one other then Chris or myself and that was in my first stab at small press comics, I would like to think I have improved.

My problem always used to be finishing work, I would start brightly trail off into sloppy rubbish then just give up all together. Everybody's small press nightmare, an artist that seems good but when it comes down to it is just rubbish. It was also frustrating for me, I could see that some were there was the ability to be a perfectly good comic artist in me, there were good frames and some times even good pages but never more then a few at a time. The vast majority of my work was rushed and poorly executed and incredibly derivative. If I did do a good frame chances are it was stolen from some one else’s work. If I had also been a massive success that must be what being Rob Lifeield is like. So this then was a fairly big test for me.

Really, the only challenge was getting used to another writer's method of lay out and frame brake downs, other then that it was business as usual. The only insight I got into my working method was that I have improved over the last 10 years. Unbelievable I know. The things that used to stump me no longer do, it’s good to know I can take on a job and just do it. Maybe there is hope for me yet.

PAULIE & ZUE
By Chris Denton

PAGE ONE

1) Medium shot of GOVERNOR KENNEDY, a smartly dressed, handsome, youthful-looking middle-aged man. He is standing at a podium, his face is resolute.

CAPTION: EARTH, 2106.

KENNEDY: THIS CITY IS SICK OF THE CRIMINALS, SO I AM ANNOUNCING A MAJOR MAFIA CRACKDOWN.

2) An establishing shot of an open top limousine passing through a crowd of cheering spectators in a built up area. Two figures are waving from the back of the limo.

The car is conventional-looking, except that it has no wheels and is hovering just above the road.

CAPTION: THAT AFTEROON...

3) The back of the limo. Governor Kennedy is smiling and waving, beside his glamorous WIFE, who is doing the same.

KENNEDY: JEEZ, HONEY, TAKING ON THE MOB SURE IS POPULAR…

4) The rooftops and high windows above the parade. Every conceivable vantage point is chock full of assassins sporting sniper rifles of some description, or indeed bazookas.

Inevitably, there is a sign going down one of the buildings that reads “Bookstore”.

CAPTION: “… I CANT THINK WHY NO GOVERNOR HAS EVER DONE IT BEFORE!”

5) A small window of an old apartment building, seen from outside. Two assassins are crammed into quite a small space, both holding large sniper rifles. PAULIE, a young, good-looking, dark-haired man in a sharp suit is taking aim, whilst ZUE, a young, attractive, blonde haired woman in an equally sharp suit is loading her gun.

PAULIE: GIVE ME SOME ROOM, LADY!

ZUE: HEY, I WAS HERE FIRST!

When I got back into comic writing, a couple of years ago now, I was writing scripts according to my own unique method, which was basically dialogue with the odd direction. Here's a sample from an early effort, a soon abandoned Russian Front thing called Stormtroopers:

Speech (Krantz): “Seems quiet so far”.

Speech (Kohl): “Too quiet. Like there’s nothing alive here.”

Speech (Krantz): “Don’t let superstition get the better of you, Sergeant Kohl.”

Speech (Kohl): “No Sir”.

A burnt out camp fire, in a clearing. The squad congregate in it.

Speech (Kohl): “It’s several days old, the people who made this are long gone.”

Speech (Krantz): “Don’t be so sure…”

Another soldier, alarmed, attracts Krantz’s attention.

Speech (Soldier): “Look, sir, Druids.”

It's possible to see how an artist might turn that into a comic page, but pretty lazy really. Fortunately, the lure of professionally published glory quickly led me to the 2000AD submissions guidelines and I duly sent off for a sample script so I could copy the style.

Well, that was certainly a revelation. The script was much longer than what I'd been doing and contained lots of description explaining exactly what was going on in each panel of each page. Seemed a bit like hard work but I persisted and soon had knocked up Paulie and Zue, my very own Future Shock, inspired in part by a strip that Steve and I had worked on an age ago but also, it must be said, in part too on Prizzi's Honor.

Sadly the story's not great (Damn, I hate twist endings!) and it was rejected out of hand by 2000AD's editor, and rightly so. Still, as a technical exercise the writing was invaluable and I've been doing scripts correctly ever since.

In fact, despite its flaws there are things in Paulie and Zue I really quite like. Over the next few days I'll reproduce it here, it may be instructive if only in a "what not to do" kind of way.

Continuing the them of digging up old relics of mine on the Interweb, I have just spent a nostaglic few minutes looking through some old writing of mine on the the entertainments website Garbled Communications.

Garbled was a really cool site, edited by my good friend Alex Finch, that covered all sorts of interesting parts of the media. It did get quite successful at one stage but then stagnated a bit and is now not being updated anymore. I contributed all sorts of articles, including reviews, opinion pieces and humour over what must have been a five or six year period. Steve even got involved at one point and if you look closely you'll find his wonderfully surreal Big Bob page.

About three or four years ago I did a comic-related article for the "Say Anything" strand. It's rather out of date now, but looking back I like to think I was right...

COMIC MOVIES

Johnny Depp's new movie, FROM HELL, is a fairly decent Jack the Ripper flick, that gets away with it's leading man's Michael Caine impression, not to mention the leading lady's equally uncreditable mockney (her character is Irish, but no one has told Heather Graham this!). In fact, the single most notable thing about the Hughes' brothers' film is that it's an adaptation of one of the greatest graphic novels ever published.

The humble comic has never had much of a profile, especially in the UK where 2000AD struggles on alone in the marketplace. It may be surprising to some, then, that the medium is actually dominated by British writers and artists, and that From Hell's author, Northampton-based scribe Alan Moore, is the reigning genius of world-wide comicdom.

Moore has not really translated into other mediums, a solitary, unloved novel apart, and his most famous work, Watchmen, is most well known in cine-circles as a Terry Gilliam project that never got off the ground. Yet, in his own field, there's no one like him. His short Batman story, The Killing Joke is arguably the best caped crusader adventure ever published and it's pretty indicative of a level of sustained quality that will see him onto the national curriculum sooner or (more likely) later.

Unfortunately, his failure to dazzle the non-comic reading wider world has been shared by the two other most notable comic writers. Frank Miller, who is most famous for the Killing Joke's chief rival in the all time bat-stakes, The Dark Knight Returns, has a worse movie history than Moore, with the proposed Clint Eastwood version of Dark Knight refusing to become reality, and little but two execrable Robocop sequels to his co-credit.

The British born exile Neil Gaiman of Sandman fame, has written quite a lot of prose, and when it's good it's very good (read Stardust now!) but this is all too rarely. Furthermore, Gaiman was responsible for the very silly BBC TV series Neverwhere a few years back, that stretched a thin conceit about taking London place names literally (An Angel called Islington and so on) well past breaking point for most people.

The new Spiderman movie proves once again that the only way Hollywood can cope with comics is to nick their characters and make up a new narrative. This is how X-MEN, BATMAN and SUPERMAN all became studio mainstays. However, until someone manages to successfully bring a really decent comic story to the screen - Gaiman's Books of Magic, Miller's Sin City or Moore's Top Ten, for instance, the graphic novel will remain a medium on it's own.

Moral: Don't hold your breath waiting, start reading graphic novels.

Interesting blog post from Jason Cobley, Bulldog Empire writer here, alluding to the problems he's had capitalising on the small press comic success he's enjoyed over the years.

Could be a tad disheartening for a wannabe comic writer like myself, but in fact I'm not too worried about making it as pro. I have no particular wish to write for either DC* or Marvel and so it's particularly doubtful that I could ever make a decent living doing comics anyway.

For me, the pinnacle's really 2000AD (or the Judge Dredd Megazine) but even if I scaled it I'd probably still carry on with my life pretty much as it is.

So, with nothing really riding on my success or failure in the comics world I can pretty much do what I like. At the moment that's Massacre for Boys.

I was interested too in Jason's allusion to the fact that success is easier for artists, as embodied by the meteoric rise of his Bulldog Empire illustrator Neil Cameron. Whilst I'm not sure I agree entirely with that, it does seem weird that there are so few decent comics writers around.

I guess rubbish scripts are sometimes easier to get accepted then rubbish art, and the big companies sometimes don't seem to care how bad the writing is. Maybe they don't believe comics and good writing go together. If so, they are very very wrong.

Oh, and after my last post I discovered another Massacre mention, this time courtesy of Silver Bullet Comic Books. God bless 'em!

*Well, having said that, I do quite fancy a crack at Earth-2...

Some nice mentions of (and links to) Massacre for Boys have been cropping up recently.

I was delighted to see a namecheck and accompanying URL in Judge Dredd The Megazine this month. Page 37 of Meg 255 to be precise. Certainly it lessened the disappointment of our contribution to the Small Press strip not appearing yet again. Kudos to Matthew Badham for thinking of us in print.

The blog of all things Small Press, Bugpowder has picked up considerably now Dan Fish has seemingly taken the reins, and it was nice to see an unsolicited link to our site turn up there, even if we're not actually "in the vein of Solar Wind" at all!

Another kind soul to post a link to us is Joe Gordon, writer of the excellent Forbidden Planet Blog, and all because I emailed him with a query about the FPI catalogue submission we've got in the works.

Last, but not least, I see that an excerpt from Island of Terror has made it onto the UK Web and Mini Comix Thing home page. This was solicited (in that I submitted it!) but I'm glad the "comics professors" found it suitable anyhow

If you're too lazy to click, here's what you'd see:

All this exposure makes me feel that the Massacre For Boys project is really going somewhere, although the real test of that obviously will be how well the actual comics go down.

Speaking of which, excellent progress has been made on the printing front, so fingers crossed we'll be ready for the Thing as planned!

A slow evening led inevitably to Googling myself and the re-discovery of some decade-old drabbles, penned during or slightly after my time at Uni.

Originally written for a small press fiction magazine, these drabbles (short stories of exactly 100 words) somehow ended up on the web long after I'd forgotten all about them.

To be honest they are pretty forgettable, although I have a soft spot for this one:

'Got off at Nuremberg' by Chris Denton

My name is Mister Rookie. I used to be a Vampire Nazi, but, having got off at Nuremberg, these days I write film reviews for a reactionary newspaper. The transition was not particularly difficult. It's the same targets, just different weapons. Some left-wing liberal pinkos have questioned the mentality of a man who spends half his time lambasting politically correct 'killjoys' and the rest demanding anything remotely decent be banned from our shores. Obviously, they don't know that I'm a blood-thirsty undead fascist psychopath. Still, as our Education Minister often said, 'What you don't know can't harm you.'

Ah, I really did hate that particular film critic. Note also how I was using Vampire Nazi imagery in those days. I've certainly come a long way...

I really must do another drabble soon, for old times sake!