4501

I eagerly look forward to TB’s “WTF is…” of Vietnam '65. Or even his reaction to Tom and Bruce’s review.

4502

If ‘1984’ or ‘The Trial’ had been a children’s book, Mr Messy would be it. No literary character has ever been so fully and categorically obliterated by the forces of social control. Hargreaves may well pay homage to Kafka and Orwell in this work, but he also goes beyond them.

We meet Mr Messy - a man whose entire day-to-day existence is the undiluted expression of his individuality. His very untidiness is a metaphor for his blissful and unselfconscious disregard for the Social Order. Yes, there are times when he himself is a victim of this individuality - as when he trips over a brush he has left on his garden path - but he goes through life with a smile on his face.

That is, until a chance meeting with Mr Neat and Mr Tidy - the archetypal men in suits. They set about a merciless programme of social engineering and indoctrination that we are left in no doubt is in flagrant violation of his free will. ‘But I like being messy’ he protests as they anonymize both his home and his person with their relentless cleaning activity, a symbolism thinly veiled.

This process is so thorough that by the end of it he is unrecognizable - a homogenized pink blob, no longer truly himself (that vibrant Pollock-like scribble of before). He smiles the smile of a brainwashed automaton, blandly accepting what he has been given no agency to question or refuse. It is in this very smile that the sheer horror of what we have seen to occur is at its most acute.

Somewhere behind this blank expression though is a latent anger - a trace of self-knowledge as to what he once was - in the barbed observation he makes to Neat and Tidy that they have even deprived him of his name.

The book ends with a dry reminder from Hargreaves that just as with the secret police in some totalitarian regime, our own small expressions of uniqueness and volition may also result in a visit from these sinister suited agents.

Indeed.

4503

The quality of the writing has a huge impact on whether or not the inclusion of political themes is annoying or adds thematic depth to the plot.

4504

Certainly. A little over a decade ago I was big into Tom Clancy style military thrillers. The early ones were fairly good, but as the writing turned more and more towards being Mary Sue vehicles for the authors wish fulfilment I became quite tired of them. The paranoid, slightly conspiratorial type stuff turned me off. So bad writing plus neocon style military misadventures was a bad mix.

But those books have an audience and a right to exist. I may find them a bit disturbing now, with the undertones being hat they are, but there was obviously a market for them. It simply was no longer me.

That would be the inverse of that for me. I don’t follow the comics myself, and that level of writing wouldn’t likely draw me in as I have no investment in the series. But given the sales numbers I’ve seen for female Thor I’d say their audience has different tastes than me.

4505

Thorina has been cancelled btw, along with 33 others (don’t worry, most are white cisgendered hetronormative males who identity as superheroes) due to the Secret Wars. I only remember the first Secret Wars so no idea if this is a reboot or a regular thing and if i google it I’ll be reading Marvel lore til 3am.

4506

Is it really? This is why I don’t do comics. Always with the constant rebooting, refocusing, crazy gimmick stories.

4507

Yeah, the plot manatees are restless.

4508

^^ This. Seriously, every time I like something in comics, it gets cancelled.
It’s almost as bad as SkyFy or whatever they call themselves these days.

At least with novels, the series usually gets finished at least up to the end of the trilogy!

pwk - lol “plot manatees”.

4509

I am glad they don’t do that with movies and TV.

4510

Given the abysmal sales of the comic linked to above (which is not Thor, which is doing well), it seems clear virtually nobody has those tastes. Heavy-handed and just unfunny is a bad recipe if you’re going to break the 4th wall to inject some political crap.

4511

Social commentary doesn’t make comics bad. Indeed, it can make them really good. It can elevate them to real art.

But it needs to be done well. You can’t just jam it in there, as was seemingly the case with Thor.

I mean, even folks who didn’t inherently dislike the notion of a female Thor cringed at the terrible dialog they had.

4512

Completely agreed. Fiction can be a fantastic avenue for political commentary. Literature and pop fiction alike are wonderfully rich in examples. To be effective, however, it must first and foremost be good writing. Bad writing is just bad, irrespective of any political aspects.

4513

Indeed. The writing in the Thor comic was so bad I wonder if it was deliberate sabotage by those who didn’t like the idea.

4514

He’s still an idiot because that is clearly not the current state of affairs and not ever likely to be.

4515

Yup. I’ve only seen samples, but my response to what I’ve been shown is absolutely “really?”.
And the sales reflect that.

On the other hand, Ms. Marvel - Kamala Khan - has been well written and has both been critically acclaimed and sold well.

4516

I honestly believed that it was a joke, with some kind of intentionally terrible dialogue photoshopped over the comic.

But nope. Just terrible.

4517

Purely coincidental I’m sure.

4518

Not quite;

“To highlight the final point: @TheBlockBot will continue to run in its current form into the future, but as a project, it’s at an endpoint.”

Also, no, the DPA is a dead letter (twitter handles are NOT personal information under the DPA), and it’s always been hosted in the USA. As to the Libel accusation, I believe Arkell vs Pressdram was raised. Oh, and thanks to the Defamation Act 2013, there’s no case anyway. (Before? Yea, before there might have been but UK defamation law was messed up before)

There’s no conspiracy, they just feel it’s a blunt instrument and want to block in a different way in the future.

4519

lol things happen quickly.

http://www.theblockbot.com/?page_id=270

They are back, more diverse, more culturally aware and more blocking than ever before. Yay. I guess the new categories will be

  • trans-exclusionary feminists
  • kin-exclusionary feminists
  • feminists we don’t like
  • Physicist TV Presenters who are husbands of feminists we don’t like (Brian Cox, if any Brits are curious, his missus says sarky things about Tumblrinas)
  • LGBT activists we dont like
  • Gators
  • Sealioners
  • academics we dont like
  • white male atheists
  • fuck it, all white males, everywhere
  • the Official Randi Harper Online Abuse Prevention Initiative Bitches I Don’t Like List.

They are so easily offended they are better off having a white list to be honest.

4520

People can ignore anyone they like on twitter - it’s not like there’s any requirement to pay attention. Honestly, if you just want to filter out the noise you’d be using GGAB anyway, not BlockBot.

And I see you’ve never had 2,000 people saying “U SUCK” in many ways across a communications platform. (Neither have I, but I know people who have)
Often for things you didn’t even do, things which you are.