Xenomorphs from Alien Sing Metallica’s ‘Fuel’

This is one for the petrolheads, Heavy Metal fans and aficionados of Mad Max. It’s another video from the Danny Huynh Creations channel on YouTube and is of another of his animatronic creations singing a rock song. In this instance, it’s a couple of the Aliens singing Metallica’s ‘Fuel’. This is an celebration of pure delights of speed and the internal combustion engine that would’ve delighted the Futurists as well as the presenters of Top Gear as well as bikers, obviously. I’ve said before that Huynh’s robots and vehicles have beaten, grungy look as if they’ve come from a dystopian future like that of the Mad Max movies. This is the case with the car in this video. If you also look carefully, you can also see other details from the Alien and Predator franchises. Mounted on the bonnet is a Predator head, whose faceplate lifts up to reveal the creature’s face. In the car’s passenger seat is a human figure, whose head is wrapped in a facehugger. And apart from Mad Max, it also reminds me a little of that other film about high octane future racing, Death Race 2000. Enjoy!

Danny Huynh Animatronic Sings ‘My Way’

Here’s a fun little video I found on Apuk Tube Channel and decided to put it up. I hope it helps to spread some seasonal cheer this Christmas/Hanukkah. It’s of one of the robots created by Danny Huynh singing that old Sinatra classic, ‘My Way’. Huynh tends to create robots and vehicles with a distinctly beaten, grungy look, as if they’d come from a Mad Max style future dystopia. I’ve put up a series of his videos where he’s had these robots and also the Aliens from the SF/Horror franchise singing. This one is no exception with this robot looking distinctly like it’s seen better days, quite in contrast to the dapper Sinatra. There are also videos about the robot’s creation and how it was given a suitable SF vehicle on Huynh’s channel. Enjoy!

Video of Robot Doing Push-Ups

It’s not a real robot, but a model created by Danny Huynh of Danny Huynh miniatures. Huynh makes these superb model robots and the aliens from the Alien franchise, that move, sing and play instruments, or drive around in souped-up cars straight out of ‘Mad Max’. This very short video, ‘Pumping Iron’, shows a robot with a car engine body doing its push-ups for the day. I’m putting it up here because it’s just a fun video, something we need in these harsh, depressing times.

Cartoonist Kayfabe on Trashman, 60s Underground Comix Anti-Hero

Here’s another video from YouTube comics creators and YouTubers, Jim Rugg and Ed Piskor, in which the two discuss one of ‘Spain’ Rodriguez’s best-known and most notorious characters, Trashman. Rodriguez was one of the major talents in ’60s underground comics. The two state he was first published by Evo and the East Village Other, and was part of a group of underground comix artists and creators called the Berkeley Tribe. Spain was fully part of the ’60s counterculture and Trashman was an explicit expression of that decade’s political radicalism and youth revolt. The Kayfabers remark that stylistically Spain appears influenced by mainstream comic artists, like the legendary Jack Kirby and John Romita at Marvel, he’s far removed from them in politics and content. Because Trashman was an agent of the ‘6th International’, gunning down the enemies of the people. The comic, The Collected Trashman, has the date ‘1969’ on it, but this doesn’t mean it was actually published them. Even so, it deals with the decade’s topics of distrust of the government, Vietnam, drugs, free love and hippies. There’s a lot of sex in it, so be careful about watching it at work. The two also compare Trashman to later heroes like Mad Max and Judge Dredd. Trashman careers about an urban environment in a souped-up car, to which armour and a set of tank tracks have been added, rather like one of the bizarre, demented vehicles in Mad Max: Fury Road. It might also be because of the mixture of automotive mayhem, extreme violence and urban dystopia that’s behind the Kayfaber’s comparison to Judge Dredd.

Rather more problematic to contemporary readers is Spain’s highly sexualised view of women. A number of underground comix creators were accused of sexism and misogyny, such as Robert Crumb, and I think Rodriguez may have been another one. But the Kayfabers argue that Rodriguez was doing it when feminism was emerging, and so was probably trying to get more publicity through notoriety.

It’s an interesting look at one of the best-known and remembered of the decade’s underground heroes. I don’t know if such a comic would be possible now. Certainly the decades of terrorism that followed the 60s from groups like the Baader-Meinhof Gang in Germany, the various radical terrorist groups running amok in Italy, and the IRA and the loyalist paramilitaries in Northern Ireland would probably make such a character deeply unappealing to large sections of the public, quite apart from the Fall of Communism. Trashman was going to be controversial even in the 1960s, with the rise of terrorist groups like the Weathermen and the violence at the Democratic National Convention. There’s even a story in the comic in which Trashman shoots that up.

Nevertheless, there are still students sticking posters of Che Guevara on their walls and the rise of Black Lives Matter and strong initial support for former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in Britain and Bernie Sanders in the US shows that a sizable section of the British and American electorate want far more radical change than the right-wing cliques that have seized control of the Labour party in Britain and Democrats in the US are prepared to give them. Not that either Corbyn or Sanders ever remotely endorsed terrorism and violence, despite the vilification of the former by the British political and media establishment.

One of the complaints among some comics creators and fans is that Marvel and DC, the two main comics companies in the US, have moved too far leftward. Instead of producing good, enjoyable stories with strong plots and characters, the two are instead concentrating on explicit statements about social issues and promoting characters based solely on their gender, race or sexuality. This is putting readers off, and as a result American comics are in decline as people turn instead to Japanese manga, which eschews these issues. This is the view of Ethan van Sciver and the Comicsgaters. I can see their point of view, although the Guardian pointed out in an article a few years ago that comics have always dealt with political and social issues. That’s quite true. One episode of the Superman radio series in the 1940s was applauded by NAACP and the Anti-Defamation League as the Man of Steel had gone after the Klan. In the 1970s both Marvel and DC dealt with racism and the collapse of American self-esteem following Watergate. There were several issues of Captain America in which the Captain forswore his patriotic identity to call himself ‘Nomad’ following his own, brief loss of faith in his country. There were also a number of Hulk stories which showed a very strong critical attitude to the military, doubtless influenced by the unpopularity of the Vietnam War. However, Stan Lee, the man responsible with artists like Kirby and Ditko, for so many of Marvel’s most iconic heroes, also said in an interview that he was careful not to let the political content alienate those readers who didn’t agree with it.

The Kayfaber’s state that Trashman is a product of its times, though it can also be seen as a period piece set in that decade because of its timeless quality. Back in the 1990s the Heil went berserk at a similar radical, underground comic on sale in the shops. This was an anarchist version of Tintin, in which the boy detective was shown joining the struggle against the cops and the state. Of course, the book had absolutely no connection to anything Herge actually wrote or did. However, the rise of the internet has provided would-be comics creators with an opportunity for launching their own comics without the hindrance of the mainstream comics publishing industry. It’s therefore possible that as Thatcherite neoliberalism continues to collapse and show itself corrupt and bankrupt, underground comix heroes like Trashman may rise to stick it to oppressive capitalist authority once again. And especially if less radical ways of changing the system or expressing dissatisfaction are suppressed by Blairites and Thatcherite Labour leaders like Keir Starmer.

Ash Sarkar Destroys Sun Hack over Climate Change on Jeremy Vine

This week the UN issued a report stating that climate change was now ‘Code Red’ for humanity, and that irreversible damage had been done to the environment. So the right-wing press immediately got their best and brightest to dispute this. Thus Jeremy Vine had on his show Mike Parry, who I believe is one of Murdoch’s minions. He’s a former hack on the Scum, the Depress and now a host on TalkRadio. Which is owned by Dirty Rupe, that walking affront to responsible, civilised journalism. And it ain’t just me that says this. When he took over one of the leading Ozzie newspapers in the 1970s, its journos went on strike complaining that they didn’t want to see the paper they worked for and loved turned into a laughing stock. And when Murdoch took over an American paper later in the decade, the hacks did the same there. The subplot of Superman 4, in which the staff at the Daily Planet protest at being taken over by a right-wing publisher of yellow journalism, seems to have been inspired by these real events. Facing him was the awesome Ash Sarkar, the main woman in Novara Media. And she handed Parry his ample rear end.

Parry had tried to counter her by stating that as the majority’s of today’s carbon dioxide emissions come from China, who were also about to open several more coal power stations, it was absolutely useless Britain trying to do anything to stop greenhouse gas production. Sarkar responded by stating that we could pass laws banning British corporations from investing in fossil fuel and polluting industries in China. She also pointed out that historically, Britain was responsible for a vast amount of carbon dioxide emissions. Her co-host, Michael Walker, produces the stats to support her case. Historically, Britain is responsible for 22 per cent of the carbon dioxide produced. America and China both are responsible for 29 per cent, but India, despite its growing economy and vast population, only 3 per cent. Walker acknowledges that Parry is correct about the Chinese opening new fossil fuel power stations and that it’s a problem that needs to be tackled. But he also makes the excellent point that industrialising nations are right to be outraged at western demands to cut their carbon emissions, when the west has benefited so much from its own industrialisation that produced much of it.

Here’s the video. I’m afraid it’s a bit long, at over 21 minutes, and I haven’t watch more than a few minutes of it, but it is very informative and does expose the poverty of the right’s arguments.

Mind you, at least Parry was able to marshal some good, intelligent arguments, unlike Sky News Australia. I found a video from them which was so stupid I actually felt less intelligent after watching it. And I only watched it for a few minutes. The host, another right-wing blowhard, got their pet climate expert on to poor scorn on the left’s desire to cut carbon emissions. Because carbon dioxide is plant food, and if we cut carbon emissions, they’ll all die off. How stupid, they sneered.

Er, no. No-one is talking about totally removing carbon dioxide from the planet’s atmosphere. What they are talking about is getting rid of the excess carbon dioxide, or halting its production, which is responsible for rising temperatures across the globe and the consequent damage to the environment. But Murdoch and the right doesn’t want people knowing about this. It’s why the Koch brothers, who own a vast amount of the American oil industry, spent much of their money buying up and closing down independent climate and environmental research laboratories, which were then replaced by their own pet scientists and astroturf organisations. It’s why Donald Trump passed a tranche of legislation preventing the Environmental Protection Agency from publishing anything actually showing the damage being done to the environment. This is all being done for corporate profit, not for the benefit of ordinary folks, who will be left with the legacy of horrendously polluted countryside. Thanks to the oil industry, much of the Louisiana swamplands, for example, is seriously contaminated.

My guess is that the right will only start taking climate change seriously when their parts of the world, like the Cotswolds in Britain and Jacob Rees-Mogg’s part of BANES, becoming howling dustbowls and the dunes start advancing on Westminster, Kensington, Chelsea and Knightsbridge. Douglas Murphy in his book, Last Futures, a history of brutalist architecture, states that in the 1970s the scientists behind the report Limits to Growth ran computer models to predict the future. And with only two exception, they all predicted that if current trends continued, civilisation would collapse and humanity be all but extinct by the end of this century. The report’s been criticised for the simplicity of its models and the technology used, but its seems that much of it still stands up. He also states that when the environment eventually breaks down, the rich will retreat into specially engineered artificial biodomes, leaving everyone else to fend for themselves in the wilderness outside.

Great. The rest of the world becomes a Mad Max battleground while the rich retire inside something like the Eden Project, hoping that nobody like Sean Connery comes inside to wreck their utopia like the plot of Zardoz.

I’ve blogged about this before, but for those seeking genuine information on the climate crisis, books are available. I came across one in one of the secondhand bookshops in Cheltenham. It covered the whole world, and I think it was one of the set texts by the Open University. For younger readers, last month’s Postscript catalogue contained one published by Dorling Kindersly, Dan Hooke’s Climate Emergency Atlas. The blurb for this stated that Hooke

offers a clear explanation of the science behind climate change, with concise text supported by numerous diagrams. World maps show the environmental impact of different countries, detailing issues such as their population growth, consumption and deforestation, as well as how they have been affected by the rise in global temperatures. A final section describes the actions being taken in response to the crisis, and the part individuals can play.

The catalogue says it’s suitable for ages 10+. It’s normal price was £12.99, but they were offering at £6.99. I don’t know if it’s still available.

Ignore Murdoch, the Koch brothers and right-wing politicians like Trump, Blair. and as it looks like now, Starmer. It’s people like Hooke, the Open University, Ash Sarkar and the other peeps at Novara Media and, indeed, just about every respectable climate and environmental scientist on the planet, who are actually an unashamedly telling the truth.

Murdoch is publishing disinformation and lies. It’s now more than ever important to listen to the Left and mainstream science, and stop the profiteering from trashing the planet.

The Influence of Metal Hurlant on Science Fiction Cinema

Yesterday I put up a piece I found on YouTube about the influence French Science Fiction comics had on Star Wars. This short video by the same poster, Abstract Looper, explores the profound influence the artists of the French adult SF comic, Metal Hurlant, known to the Anglophone world as Heavy Metal, has had on modern Science Fiction cinema. Metal Hurlant was founded in 1974 by Les Humanoides Associees Jean ‘Moebius’ Giraud, Dionnet and Philippe Druillet. The video shows the striking visual similarities between scenes and designs in the comic’s various strips, and the films Mad Max, Alien, Blade Runner, Nausicaa – Valley of the Wind, Avatar, the original 70s Battlestar Galactica TV series, Hellboy, Prometheus and the Matrix. There’s a clip of Ridley Scott saying that when he made Alien, he was influenced by the visual material produced by Moebius and the French magazine. Guillermo del Toro also confessed that he was influenced by Richard Corben, another of the magazine’s artists. Terry Gilliam also states that the magazine was an influence on him. As does James Cameron. Rutgar Hauer, who played Roy Batty in Blade Runner also appears, telling how the producers visualised the future as already old. In fact, the producers of Blade Runner based their vision of Los Angeles on the towering cityscapes of Philippe Druillet. As well as Druillet, Dionnet, Corben and Moebius, another of the comic’s creators, the Franco-Yugoslavian artist Enki Bilal, was also influential. Also making the point are the similarities between the comics’ art and the concept drawings produced for the Alien and Matrix movies.

You could also add the Judge Dredd movies to this list as well. 2000 AD’s creator, Pat Mills, hates superhero comics. When he launched the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic way back in the 1970s, he was influenced by the French SF comics. Which naturally includes Metal Hurlant. Judge Dredd’s look was created by Carlos Ezquerra, a Spanish artist living in London, who has an artistic style very similar to Moebius.

As an aside, I was also pleased that the interview with Ridley Scott also had Russian subtitles. This shows how much the world has changed since I was at school. This was the years of the new Cold War, created by Thatcher and Reagan, when there were real fears of nuclear Armageddon. I felt profoundly optimistic when the Berlin Wall fell, along with Communism. There seemed at last a real possibility of a genuine, lasting peace between eastern and western Europe. I believe very strongly that it has been a massive improvement in world affairs that the peoples of the former eastern bloc can come to Britain to live, work and raise families.

And I am appalled and angry that Trump and the Democrats are pushing a new Cold War with Putin, and thus endangering the world all over again.

Warning: Heavy Metal was an ‘adult’ comic, which means that there’s some cartoon nudity. This was the magazine that was filmed as The Heavy Metal Movie, and which became notorious for the female nudity of the ‘Taarna’ sequence, which in turn inspired the episode ‘Major B***age’ in South Park. This may have changed, however. In an interview in the comics press a few years ago, its British editor stated that the magazine was dropping the nudity, because it was irrelevant given the amount of real nudity on the Web. He promised that the magazine would still be sexy, however.

Mutants from a Post-Holocaust Future: The Hunt Lobby and the British Aristocracy

Boxing Day is traditionally the day when fox hunters up and down Britain ride out to satisfy their bloodlust. Since 2004 it’s been illegal to hunt them with hounds, but this hasn’t stopped the Countryside Alliance from continuing to campaign for the repeal of the law. Mike reported over at Vox Political that a quarter of a million fox hunters were expected to ride to hounds on that day. And David Cameron wanted to see parliament repeal the law. You shouldn’t be surprised at that. He is, after all, a blue-blooded aristo, so the hunt’s almost certainly in his primal nature. Along with snobbery and an absolute contempt for those he regards as merely human animals, like the poor, disabled and working class.

Cameron was to be disappointed. The general public don’t want the ban lifted. Mike reported the findings of a poll, which said that 83 per cent of people don’t want a return to hunting with dogs. There’s also very strong support for the ban inside Cameron’s own party, with 70 Tories MPs stating they would vote against lifting the ban.

See the following articles on his blog: http://voxpoliticalonline.com/2015/12/26/opposition-to-fox-hunting-hits-all-time-high-with-even-most-tory-voters-opposed/

Fox hunting: David Cameron’s desire to reverse ban ‘doomed in face of Tory opposition’

Mike also quotes the BBC News, where Tracey Crouch stated that Parliament has far better things to do than debate fox hunting.

Fox hunting: Parliament has ‘better things to do’ than repeal Act

So who are the proud supports of fox hunting? Well, from the experience of a group of my friends in Cheltenham, aristocratic Tory grotesques. I was up visiting them once, when they’d gone out for the day to enjoy themselves at the races. They’d had a good time watching the horses, and had even won a bit a money gambling, but came back in a foul mood.

What had spoiled their day? The fox hunting crew.

They’d been drinking in one of the beer tents, when a group of the local Tory aristocracy came in along with a squad of very loud supporters of fox hunting. These two groups were horrendously snobbish and condescending towards their social inferiors, as well as physically repulsive. One of my friends wailed in support of this observation that ‘They had no chins!’

So it’s true. The British aristocracy really are chinless wonders.

One of the women was so annoyed with the crew that she immediately sat down to play a particularly violent computer game. It was set in a post-Holocaust future, so presumably she was getting the urge to beat horribly deformed mutants to death out of her system.

It all rather reminded me of one of Robert Rankin’s fantasy novels: Armageddon – the Musical. This is an SF tale in which Elvis Presley and Barry the Time Sprout combat the forces of the Anti-Christ in a Britain devastated by a nuclear holocaust. Among the book’s villains are a sect of cannibals, the Devianti. Whereas other cannibals in SF books set in a post-Apocalyptic future tend to be an extrapolation of the poor White trash in the American Deep South, or violent urban subcultures, like the Bikers in the Mad Max films, the Devianti are true blue aristos. As an indication of their exalted social status, they wear their Barbour waxed jackets outside their anti-nuclear survival suits.

Going by what my friends said that day, I don’t think you have to travel into a future devastated by nuclear war to encounter mutants like them. They’re already here, deformed through generations of inbreeding, and with an insatiable thirst for blood and violence. This is shown in foxhunting, and in the massive bullying that goes on at the elite Public Schools. And they aren’t leaving it for a nuclear war to destroy Britain. Their policies are already doing that, as they seek to vent their hatred of Britain’s poor, sick and unemployed.

This ain’t Science Fiction any more. The mutants are here, and called Tories.