Hatch, Match & Dispatch – Oct 2020

Welcome to the new-look edition Hatch, Match and Dispatch, readers! It's mostly just the comics' details and cover image this time -- and far, far less of the usual rambling trivia from me. The excision of said rambling trivia saves me time writing it, and saves you time reading it: we're all winners! (See also …

Advanced Comic Storage

For many years I've been storing my US-sized comics in standard comic boxes... ... and while they are pretty handy for keeping the comics together -- and safe -- it can be a bit awkward when I need to dig out a particular issue. Because of the cruel nature of this dimension in which I …

Comics on TV: The Deceived

The Deceived is a four-part contemporary thriller created and written by Lisa McGee (of Derry Girls fame) and Tobias Beer. It's recently finished airing on Virgin Media One here in Ireland, and for me, personally, it was an absolute triumph. Not because of the story or the acting or the scenery or whatever, although there …

Comic Storage!

After forty-three and a half years, I've finally managed to get my 2000AD collection properly organised. Each box contains two calendar years' worth of 2000AD issues: the box labels -- right -- list the first and last issue and the relevant years. When I posted about this on-line a few people asked for more details... …

Happy 30th Birthday, Judge Dredd Megazine!

(Bear with me, folks... this one is going to ramble a bit. For a change.) Long before Judge Dredd The Megazine was launched in 1990, the words "Judge Dredd comic for older readers" were being whispered in the hallowed halls of comicdom. Although only around since 2000AD's second issue in 1977, Dredd had proved to …

Euphobia

Comics come and go, as we all know. No publication lasts forever, except maybe The Beano which is still going strong after eighty-two years (with over 4000 issues published) -- long may it continue. But I'm sure that just about all comic-book fans know the sting of discovering that one of their favourites has been …

Noncomics: Superman – Last Son of Krypton

In the 1970s and early 1980s streaming a movie was called "reading the novelisation" (except in America, where they instead had novelizations, with a zed, which they pronounce as "zee"). Every major movie -- and an awful lot of minor ones -- was given a second life in the form of a prose adaptation. And …