It started off quite strong but towards the end I started to get really pissed off at it. Having read it over the course of 4 years with big gaps at some points I am re-reading it again.

Arc 1 – The Long Way Home

As an introduction this was excellent. Amazingly drawn covers and written by Joss Whedon. Four issues of one story and a one-shot about a Buffy decoy slayer.

The story picks up a few months after the last television series. Buffy and a gang of slayers have relocated to a castle in the Highlands. Dawn is inexplicitly a giant. Willow is awol. The first battle is beating up big demons who had just killed people with a weird scar on their chest. Later it is revealed Giles was on the side of the demons.

Amy returns and Warren animated with no skin. It’s all very weird. You don’t know if these choices have been made because of how much more freedom for the strange and bizarre when your special effects budget is just more pencils.

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He was really, really funny. Lot’s of nerdy material, references but also stuff non-geeks could get related to his attempt to appear on Britain’s Got Talent (but not the drivel on this show).

I did a search and eventually found his MySpace page. So he loses geek cred for having that as his only online presence, obviously. Was highly amused by a review I found.

Read what this cock has to say.

I could just imagine similar.

As a feminist, mother in law and lesbian I did not appreciate the comedy of Roy Chubby Brown.

Or the like.

Guess what, comedian is targeting his audience by saying it will be lots of geek humour, if you don’t know who Captain Kirk is you probably shouldn’t go along as you will probably be sitting there with a glazed look on your face you numpty.

Rob mentioned overhearing some people looking at his flyers and saying meh, it’s probably about capes n’ shit.

So hopefully he will still be kicking around next year and I can see him again.

Before Rob I also saw two other comedians.

The first, an Australian was ok, he had some good material but a lot was related to lols England sucks at cricket compared to Australia etc. Not only has it been done to death before but no one really gives a shit about cricket in Scotland. His other material was enjoyable though with his sperm test tale being very funny.

The second of the pair was pretty good. His stage persona was just verging on being more enjoyable than funny but his material was really good. Excellent on stage, ditching the mic and just going without.

These were free shows so at the end the comics had a whip round to pay for extravagances like food, rent and the like.

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It was quite fun, the weather was pretty poor at times (which you pay attention to when working outside!) but at its worst was not as bad as last years torrential downpours.

One of the reasons I like the fairs is that I enjoy blethering with people. To quote Kaylee from Firefly They’ve all got stories. Not just the public but the other exhibitors too. Every year there are new people and you are next to a different set of people so you get to know a bit about everyone. This year we also bought/swapped a bunch of stuff.

Gillian Kyle was opposite us and has pretty cool printed t-shirts etc with Scottish cultural logos.

Next to us was Will with his hand made Journals. These were really cool, Genna bought me a Serenity one. I will be contacting him at some point in the future to make another one too.

Gayle Robinson was just to the left. Her collagraphs were amazing. We got one and I was drooling over another really nice abtract landscape one in various shades of blue.

Sue from Look out scout! has totally awesome kiddies t-shirts with fun animal facts. Her website is really cool with lots of activities for kids. She had hers with her some days and they amused themselves giving everyone a quiz. My 5 out of 10 was not enough to win the packet of Oreos though . Her stand was really nice too with fake grass and animals etc all over the place. Sometimes you get a bit bored seeing a row of stands all day every day with the only variation being the colour of tablecloth and whether necklaces are on the right or left of the display. Really brightened up your day noticing new stuff all over.

Frans McAnaraks stall was even cooler this year. Steve from Highland Games made her buttons for clothing and they had so many requests from people they eventually caved in and started selling them too. Last year was a trial run with a small selection, this year there was a massive amount on day 1 and not so many on day 9 when we left. Her site has her selection of buttons on it but not her really funky one off coats etc. Genna now has 4 of her clothing items.

Stephen O’Neill had some really nice prints and we ended up getting 4. With the Rikki O’Neill print we got last month we can now make a wall of images of Dundee, Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Genna did really well too. I’ll dig out the spreadsheets etc later (we forgot to take the details of last year) but it was definitely worth going .

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It lists loads of prizes:

• VIP tickets to an exclusive Hellboy party
• Hellboy scarf
• Hellboy beanie
• the movie on DVD
• Cygnett MP3 player accessories pack

I got an e-mail saying I had won a prize and thought woo, hope it’s the DVD, and have been holding off buying it ever since.

Well, I got a package through the mail today, in it was:

• Hellboy scarf
• Hellboy beanie with horn stumps
• the 2 disc special edition of the movie on DVD £12.98
• earphones £14.98 on Amazon
• charging battery for iPhone/iPod £12.96?
• iPod nano silicon case ~£14
• mini rechargable speaker £20.96
• mini fm transmitter for iPod/iPhone £37.99
• larger rechargable speaker for iPhone/iPod £41.99
• speaker dock/alarm clock/radio for iPod £67.79

Holy shit!, that’s over £200 worth of iPod accessories.

The hat/scarf and DVD are mine. Genna was drooling over the rest of the kit seeing as she has an iPod and I don’t

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I also managed to read through a short Buffy novel Doomsday Deck. I picked it up for about a quid and it was quite enjoyable. I am always a bit weary of TV tie-in books but they are easy to pick up and carry on from, so perfect for reading on the bus early in the morning. Unlike the TV show though you already know that character A is not going to die and character B manages to escape without injury, especially ones set before the current time line in the universe. Ho-hum, it wasted some time and was a change.

I don’t know what my reading list is next year but Tayside Recyclers 10p specials have yielded me quite a varied bunch, I think for comedy’s sake I have to start the new year with Kilroy Silks autobiography from the 80s. It’s going to be baaaaaad.

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I started getting this about issue 6 (now 22) and it’s really good. The movie reviews are focused on SciFi/Fantasy/Horror/World Cinema type stuff so really covers most of my main movie interests. So far I haven’t noticed any signs of the reviews being biased by ads, they’ve been quite accurate for the most part. Quite the opposite of bought by adverts actually, they did a huge exclusive preview spread drooling over 30 Days of Night and then slated it in the review the next issue.

Today’s other new release is Viz. After really going down hill for about 8 months the last 4 or 5 issues have been superb. Last issues Profanisaurus was excellent.

The other release of this week which I won’t actually get for another fortnight is Buffy Season 8: Issue 19. The concluding part of the Fray arc of the Buffy comics looks to be good and after being hit by the curse of Fray and delayed so long it better bloody be.

I had never been a big comic fan (He-Man when I was young excluded) but Buffy Season 8 really sparked my interest. I have been getting Buffy, Angel, Spike, Serenity and a few other random TV related comics randomly. I obviously picked up the Watchmen and from one of the Angel staff got Everybody’s Dead which is a really silly/cool Zombie short series. I got Conan for a while then dropped but am enjoying Solomon Kane. Other random pick-ups have been X-Files and Lost Boys, I noticed there is an Underworld series coming out so I may pick that up to see what it’s like.

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