I’ve been geeking the fuck out lately, much to the amusement of my better half. I haven’t read this many comic books since I was 13. In fact I haven’t read this many comic books EVER, mainly because comic books are now available in much the same fashion as MP3s.

Yes, you can, in this enlightened age, download every comic book that comes out on the day it comes out. Should you so wish to. Me, I download complete runs of Grant Morrison written DC titles, but that is besides the point. The point is, back in the grizzly ole days, the only place you could get a comic book that wasn’t The Beano was a Proper comic Book Shop, and there were only a few of those in the country, and none in North Wales. This one time, when I was, like, eight years old, the hole in the tip of my penis closed up and I had to go to Liverpool Children’s Hospital (yes, I made a mistake in the lyrics of the song Liverpool, keen eared reader). I was pretty happy with this situation, because there were comic book shops in Liverpool, and my Dad got me a pile of small-sized American comic books, including the Todd McFarlane drawn Spider-Man with the lizard in it that was scary as hell, and some awesome Grey Hulk issues, and this really weird and pretty funny Plastic Man book. Oh, and some weird thing I have never seen since called Sleaze Brothers, that seemed to be some kind of Blues Brothers Vs Aliens weirdness. Anyone remember that?

Anyway. Aside from the fact that I got circumcised and no one told me, going to hospital in Liverpool was a great thing for me. My life would have probably been completely different without the influence of American comic books. For good or ill.

By the time I was 13 I had written, drawn, and published my very own book (I got fan mail and everything!), and I’ll be doing another one soon. I am excited about this, but I need to get LP2 finished first, really. Stephen Hague called me last week, and work on that should resume shortly. Anyway. Like I was saying, you can now, if you wish, download any comic you want to. But this isn’t hurting the comic book industry at all - sales are, in fact rising. This is probably because people who don’t live near comic book stores, or people who’d never go in them in the first place, like women, are discovering comics, so when they do go near a store, they can cop a collection of something they actually liked and want to own forever and read on the bog and stuff. That’s what’s happening with me anyway. There are probably lessons for the music industry to be learned here, but I don’t have time to g into all that right now, and anyway, my awesome insight is available for a fee, on a consultancy basis. Speak to my manager.

Yes. So. Watchmen movie cometh. Dave Gibson says its gonna be pretty faithful to the source material. Are we excited about this Or do we not give two craps? I am in the middle. I think comics are a better medium than movies anyway.

• Preacher On HBO?
• Consider This A Sigil
• Vide
• Reading
• Sac VS Pip Deny Stealing Godzilla Boy, Admit Striking Similarities Shocker!
• Let’s Dance Until Siesta!

Tags: american comic books, Beano, blues brothers, comic book shops, Dave Gibson, Download, Grant Morrison, Hospital, Hulk, liverpool, lizard, mp3s, music industry, north wales, plastic man, shop, Sleaze, spider man, stephen hague, Todd McFarlane, Watchmen, weird thing