"The Strictest Law Often Causes The Most Serious Wrong."

Horror and fantasy have, as a genre, always been a scapegoat for society’s ills. Think back to the Victorian Penny Dreadfuls, Frderic Wertham’s clampdown on the EC and Warren horror comics in the 50s, the video nasty debacle of the 80s.

Now, it seems, creators of horrific or disturbing images are under attack again. And this time, ordinary law-abiding citizens who are completely unaware that they’re doing anything wrong may be as well.

Jane Longhurst, a teacher from my home town of Reading, was murdered in 2003. Her killer, Graham Coutts had strangled her to death, and police later found out that he was a regular visitor to strangulation websites.

Jane’s mother Liz, appalled at how easy it was to access this material, started a petition to ban violent pornography. She quickly gathered 50,000 signatures, and the support of an army of MP’s, including my own, Rob Wilson.

That petition has now been mutated into the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill, set to go before Parliament next month. I’ve chosen the word “mutated” with care, as the bill now seems to have changed from a well-meaning attempt to protect us from the worst excesses of the internet, to becoming a direct assault on the makers of horror and horror fantasy images, the BDSM community and even readers of some magazines that you can easily pick up in WH Smiths.

Here’s the problem. I’m quoting section 64 of the Bill, sub-section 6:

“An “extreme image” is an image of any of the following ~
(a) an act which threatens or appears to threaten a person’s life,
(b) an act which results in or appears to result (or be likely to result) in serious injury to a person’s anus, breasts or genitals,
(c) an act which involves or appears to involve sexual interference with a human corpse,
(d) a person performing or appearing to perform an act of intercourse or oral sex with an animal, where (in each case) any such act, person or animal depicted in the image is or appears to be real.”

See the problem? It’s that little word “appears”. With that word in place, prosecuting officers using the Bill can make it mean whatever they want it to mean. There’s no distinction between the kind of nasty, abusive porn coming over the borders from Eastern Europe, and horror films like Hostel 2, or indeed the simulation of violent sexual activity that could be coming out of a consensual scenario between two lovers. Think back to the Spanner Case in the 80s, when a group of BDSM enthusiasts were imprisoned for acts that caused no-one but the group themselves any damage. All of a sudden, we’re on the brink of legalising governmental intrusion into areas of our lives in which they have no fucking business. (scuse the pun.)

The situation takes a surreal turn, however, when you take note of the material that will not be covered under the Bill. Anything certificated under the BBFC, for example. That august body is required to abide by the Obscene Publications Act, and as long as the material it sees does not breach those guidelines, it’s legal. So, going back to Hostel 2, for example, a movie that contains the kind of images that would appear to be a shoo-in for prosecution under the bill. It’s filled with images of pretty American girls being tortured and abused. It’s director, Eli Roth, is the poster boy for the horror sub-genre that lazy journalists are calling “torture porn” or “gorno.”
It’s 18 Certificated. Perfectly legal to own and watch. Indeed, the BBFC are increasingly relaxing the rules. Sue Clark, the BBFC’s press officer, has said in a recent interview with Bizarre Magazine,
“Our guidelines have changed, in line with public expectations. This time, we polled over 11,000 people across the UK to come up with the current guidelines. The public told us that adults should be able to choose their own entertainment, within reason and law, so we do not intervene at 18 certificate unless the work contains illegal material.”

So the BBFC says that adults should have more choice over the kinds of stuff they watch. The new Bill takes the opposite view, but those in charge seem to have little idea how that Bill would be policed or enforced.
One thing is made perfectly clear though. If found guilty, the maximum sentence would be “imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years, or an unlimited fine, or both.”
The question remains, then, as to who exactly the Bill will, through it’s own fuzzy definitions, affect. Certainly not film-makers who have the money and backing to get their films a BBFC certificate. No, rather, it’s independent film-makers, who distribute through the web using their own sites and resources like YouTube that need to watch out. It’s people whose sex lives are played out in front of a camera. It’s people with an interest in the darker side of the human psychspace.
In at least two out of those definitions, the Bill is aimed at people like me. And hundreds of thousands of people like me.
The Bill was born out of a genuine desire to bring something good out of an awful act. What is happening is not even the opposite. A bad situation is being made worse by bringing the law into an area where legislation already exists, or where it has no place.

There is a strong campaign against this bill already in place, and I urge you to visit Backlash and read up on the facts. The government is facing opposition from all kinds of unexpected directions, and this can only be a good thing. Get yourself heard, or run the risk of being silenced. Or worse.

Rule Comics Britannia

Comics Britannia again on Monday night, looking at the so-called Golden Age – 1955 through to the mid 70s. So the focus was on publications like Eagle and Warlord, and more interestingly, girls comics like Girl and Tammy. The sections on girls’ comics was a particular eye-opener, and deftly handled. I never realised that the great Pat Mills began his career on titles like Bunty, and the dark tone of some of the stories fascinated me. Orphan War Camp Slaves? Wasn’t that an Italian horror movie? 

I felt though that the programme skipped over the surface a little more than in episode one. Admittedly, in three episodes you can’t really do more than give an overview, but here I felt much more of an editorial hand in guiding the focus, particularly when it came to the subject of boys comics. Coming to the show as a newbie, I think you’d be under the impression that they dealt strictly with sport and war, and that just isn’t the case. 
Lion, for example, had a strong thread of fantasy and SF running through it, with strips like The Steel Claw, Robot Archie and (my personal favourite) supervillain The Spider really starting to develop the amoral vibe that would reach it’s culmination in the 70s comics like Action, and ultimately 2000AD. To skip over the stories and characters that meant the most to me as a kid was a bit of a disappointment, frankly. And I’d have liked to see a bit more on Joe Colquhoun’s contribution’s to Charley’s War. And nothing of Don Lawrence’s finest hour, The Trigan Empire! And really, no mention of TV21?
And and but but. I’m complaining, but mostly because the series is so good that I want to see more of the titles I love. I’m getting a real buzz out of the show, and I’m really looking forward to the final programme. Cue Alan Moore… 

The Craft Economy

Following on a bit from Saturday’s bitch about Fopp closing. As I hate the big chains with a passion, I’m now starting to use the web more as a source of cool stuff, and word of mouth and recommends from mags like The Word are becoming increasingly important. 

With traditional music retail and distribution going the way of the dinosaur, it’s blatantly obvious that small bands are much better off doing things in their own way. Myspace is the obvious example, but frankly you’re more likely to catch me in a dress than surfing that junkhole. Unless I get a very direct headsup to a specific band, I won’t be there.
Kudos, then, to The Craft Economy, who are using all the tricks of the new digital trade to get the word out. Posters to their local shows in Toronto have CDRs stuck to them with MP3s of their first EP, plus links to the website with tour dates, blogs and so on. If you like you can buy the album, complete with home-made covers. It’s a neat, cottage industry way of doing things, and I hope it works out for them. Plus the music’s good, which helps. Check out The Kissing Song.
Not sure if anyone’s doing anything similar on this side of the pond. The Horrors are good at throwing freebies around at their shows, including quite cool compilations, but nothing with quite this homebrew vibe.  

A Summer Of Discontent

I won’t mince my words; it’s been a rubbish summer. Much apart from the lousy weather, it’s seen the closure of my favourite record shop, cafe and local bookshop, and the death of my favourite author. There’s been little in the way of inspiring music or movies, and  even Virgin Media has seen fit to cut away the only TV channel with shows worth watching from my cable package. (actually this one’s my fault. Ill-thought out budgets cuts at Casa De La Verdad Fea. Doesn’t mean I won’t gripe about it though.) I’ve been generally grumpy, out of sorts, and unable to concentrate on much creatively.

It’s poo, and it needs to stop.  
I’m calling an end to the summer, and officially stating that this autumn will be the best one EVAR. We have an upcoming trip to sunny San Francisco, the London Film Festival and the best lineup of stuff at the Reading Town Hall Film Theatre, a new season of Battlestar Galactica and the new Springsteen album to look forward to as the nights draw in. Plus a little something I’ve been waiting for since January. 
Screw summer. I’m all about the season of mellow fruitfulness.

The Joy Of Comics

Monday night saw me happily planted in front of the first episode of BBC4s’ Comics Britannia. It was an utter joy, and had me loudly agreeing and reminiscing at the telly all the way through, while Clare rolled her eyes and got on with finishing the last bit of her final assignment before her October exams. She knows better than to disturb me when I’m wallowing in nostalgia. 

My love for the Beano stems from the era when I was a little speccy thing. My uncles had a thick pile of annuals from the 60s that they’d collected as boys. They’d left them at my Nan Gwen’s when they moved out. A surefire way to keep me quiet during visits to the grandparents would be to point me at that pile and tell me to dive in. Sometimes I’d have to be forcibly dragged away from them at the end of the visit. I was mesmerised by the Bash Street Kids, and Leo Baxendale’s extraordinary, annotated grotesquerie. Equally, Dennis the Menace and his smalltown anarchy resonated deeply with me, as a thin, meek shortsighted child who would never tear ass the way that spiky-headed terrorist would. 
Interestingly, I’d never realised just how crude and energised Davy Law’s artwork was until I saw some of the loving closeups that Comics Britannia layered thickly through the show. The word “punk” was used a few times, and pretty appropriately too. You could almost feel the glee with which ink was slashed over hasty pencils in an adrenalised rush. His art was impressionistic, anarchic. Small wonder I enjoyed it so much. 
On occasion, I would be allowed to take one of the precious volumes with me, and I would inevitably treat them with the respect with which I treated all of Doug and Sam’s valuables. 
They were read to bits, then swapped for the latest Whizzer and Chips annual. 
In mint, some of these early books are worth hundreds of pounds. To me, mint is something that comes in a tube labeled Polo. Books were a commodity, not a collectible. To some extent, I still think that way. I’ve binned, or more recently donated a ton of books and magazines over the years. 
Only the most priceless of volumes are worth hanging onto. And by priceless, I mean priceless to me. The dog-eared Kurt Vonneguts I picked up from my favourite second-hand bookshop in Woodford will always be with me, because at the time every book of his I bought was new to me, and because they were bought with my best mate Chris in tow. We were, and still are, serious bookhounds, and many of our happiest moments were spent scouring bookshops for strange and interesting stories. The Vonneguts, Asimovs, Ellisons and Harrisons we snarfed for pennies a go have history ingrained in every page, and informed the kind of reader and writer that I am now.  They are passports to memory, and as dear to me as any other possession.
I appear to have wandered off the point. Nostalgia will do that for you.

Mister Drumpants

Most people that know me must be aware of my nervous habit of nervous drumming and tapping on just about any available surface. What can I say, I’m a percussive kind of guy.

News, therefore, of odbol productions and their production of a pair of strides loaded up with midi trigger pads – turning the wearer into their own drumkit – will fill them with dread.
I can’t wait to snag a pair. And I’m much better than this dude…

The Ugly Truth About Immigration

The implied racism in any conversation about “illegal immigrants” always makes my blood boil. Any Daily Mail reader worth their salt will happily blather on for hours about how “they’re taking our jobs” and “they’re not paying taxes”. It’s ill-informed nonsense and I don’t have the patience for it.

Orson Scott Card, noted SF author and  rightwing thinker takes these lazy arguments and gives them the thorough reaming they so richly deserve. I’m thinking of memorising it. Or carrying a printout around in my back pocket.

Monday Ephemera

The new volume of Rian Hughes‘ comics work YESTERDAY’S TOMORROWS is framed with a couple of beautifully drawn (as his stuff always is) endpapers featuring the interior of a scruffy looking 50s caff. Although he’s shifted the ablutionaries closer to the front, I’ll be darned if it’s not closely modelled on the interior of the New Piccadilly. A fitting tribute – Rian’s work is heavily front-loaded with retro charm – much like the NuPic itself!

On my way back from lunch and a Forbidden Planet splurge (Martha Washington Dies, Coward, Desolation Jones vol. 1 and DMZ – Death of a Journalist, thank you for aksing), I very nearly walked straight into Julian Cope. He’d planted himself in front of the windows at Macari’s Guitars on Charing Cross Road, and was toting a very heavy looking guitar case. The arch-drude does not do disguise. He was done up in full Freak Stormbahnfuhrer mode, head to toe leather and a German Army cap jauntily atop the whole ensemble. And shades. Biiiig shades. 
It’s nice to know some of us are still keeping up standards…
UPDATE…
while walking home tonight thanks to the three-day tube strike that’s going to make my life real interesting this week, I saw Simon Le Bon stepping out of a limo outside the Sony offices on Golden Square. Boy, he’s let himself go. Sweatpants and a beer-gut. Hadn’t shaved in a week. Brown Crocs.
Just kidding. He was disgustingly dapper. The hand-made brogues he was rocking must have cost more than this here laptop. 
Bet he never has to walk to Paddington from Soho…