Return to the Quakes

Well - it has been a while between posts - and quakes for that matter. My overly long holiday of 1 month that took me around the world again (I stated after the last one in 2009 that I would never do it again) came to a conclusion. It was a fun holiday although I didn't plan enough lazy days.

Being home again for a few relatively quiet days was nice - although unexpected news was delivered to me on the Sunday. It was expected at some point depending on divergent destinies but I wasn't expecting it so soon. Anyhow, Monday's work was firstly disrupted by volcanic ash and then a prick of an earthquake that took down two of my comic shelves. About half an hour after fixing these up a much larger earthquake hit that took down the same comic shelves and brought down one of my DVD shelves. None of the previous earthquakes had brought down my DVD shelves.

This is getting a bit silly. Our puppy was quivering with fear afterwards and I was fed up. After initial mutterings that this was enough and I wanted to leave, I am now leaning towards the opposite opinion. I'll be damned if I am going to run away from this. That would be far too easy.

I'll try and post again before the next earthquake. Although who knows when that will be.

Earthquake - you didn't know?

I have had time to compose my thoughts on this and reflect. Here I go:

Surprisingly I was in Christchurch for the quake. My job often takes me away from home for long periods but I was home after a 6 week tour of duty and working at my old haunt in Cathedral Square.

One minute I was involved in everyday, jovial banter when the thunder hit and I commando rolled under the desk I was sitting at. I was literally thrown about like a rag doll and had to grab onto the leg of the desk or else I was going to be flung around. My personal cell phone is still somewhere in that pod at work. The scale of destruction hadn't quite set in at that point. A colleague pointed out bits of High Street that had fallen down but my office was relatively intact. Only once we got out and saw the Cathedral spire had gone and the windows had shattered in our building had it quite set in. And then another bloody aftershock it while we were dazed in Cathedral Square itself. Someone pointed out that we had better move away from the Chalice that was menacingly standing alone amongst the carnage.

The walking home bit really set it off. I walked north with another two colleagues down Manchester St. I saw first hand the PGC building. The roads were a mess with liquefaction and debris. I waded through knee deep water just getting through St Albans park. The street that I live in is relatively unscathed although several streets away are flooded. I have only ventured into the outside world once since and walked to Merivale to get some fresh air - or should that be fresh dust - as that was all there was. The same can't be said for other people. Traffic was busier at 11am that day than the normal 5pm work rush to get home. What are these people doing? Why are people using copious amounts of petrol queuing up for 1 hour just to get petrol? Our infrastructure is world class. There are ports north and south of Christchurch. Deliveries will come but it will take time. Why are people stockpiling at the expense of others who toil away during the day to remove the silt etc and get our precious city up and running again?

What will happen to this magnificent city? I won't be leaving it. We will rebuild and make this city better than what we had.

I am done writing.

In respect to those that have fallen I will not be posting any pictures. There is nothing new I can add to those photos elsewhere. Words can't really describe it. I almost certainly can't.

More Usagi

Easiest to answer the comments from the previous post here!

1) I would love to do the colour Mirage comics. However, those comics are a bit more expensive and harder to track down. It is achieveable and I may look to do so when I have enough issues for a 5th Usagi Dark Horse bind.

2) I did design the title pages myself. I also added an an image to the back of each title page. I have posted the below photos of each title page of the four volumes. There aren't any 'bonus' pages. I could have included the

3) I didn't see the need for a contents page - everything is Stan Sakai and the spine of the volume lists the issues contained in each bind.

4) I have attached some of the story pages. The margins are quite slim compared to the other binds I have. The book binder (a big shout out to Darren for all his help) glues the comics together so must first 'tidy them up' and a certain amount is lost on the margin - but still perfectly readable.

PS - thanks for showing an interest!




AA

USAGI YOJIMBO!

Due to popular demand (well one person demanded it anyway!) I now present my Dark Horse Usagi Yojimbo bound comics. The text below was sort of sent into the Usagi letters pages around November. I don't expect it to grace that letters column - but I have that tiny little bit of hope that it will!


It seems like I have been reading Usagi forever, so a big thank you to Stan Sakai for so many years of entertainment! I have always thought the digest sized, collected editions of Usagi are a little on the small side, but they are fantastic to grab off the the shelf and read. However, I appreciate Stan's artwork more in the slightly larger format of the individual comics, but they are harder to store than the trades and much harder to pull from the shelf to read in a quick sitting.


I wondered how I could have the best of both worlds, so I started thinking. A friend introduced me to a book binder when I returned to living in New Zealand (I have recently spent two years living in London, UK) and I have slowly begun binding a lot of my comics into the hardcover format for my personal collection. The first comic I thought of binding was Usagi, but there was a lot of preparation to be done and the project has been ongoing for the last 6 months. However, it is now complete!


I like to consider my Usagi binds the magnum opus of my comic collection. I have bound issues 1 - 120 of the Dark Horse series in four separate volumes with soft black leather covers and with silver foil logos (I had foil stamps made) to give the books a really professional feel. These volumes create an amazing compromise for the two formats of Usagi! I now have the readability of the trades with the bonus of the larger format, the colour front and back covers and all the letters pages to boot.


PS - Since I had these bound the Fanatgraphics special edition arrived on my doorstep two years after initially ordering it. Now that is a sturdy volume and complements by binds nicely!

Chronicles of NOVA

The Chronicles of Nova

I am actually around to post! I know – shock horror – well it is a public holiday for me.

When I started binding comics I always knew I didn’t want to start with my ‘magnum opus’ as there are always teething issues with anything. Ask any Action Figure customiser. You have to find the right materials, trust the right people and do your research. Low and behold my early binds were missing a few issues here and there that I didn’t even know about and I didn’t realise that spending an extra $10 bucks making a thicker foil stamp would save everyone a lot of time.

I had a streamlined process in place by the time I got to Usagi Yojimbo Dark Horse issues 1-120 which will always remain my favourite books. The combination of leather covers and the custom made dual foil stamps will always make that one a delight that stands out on my bookshelf.

My Nova project has been ongoing ever since I first started binding. I didn’t know what end point to use as a cut off as the series was ongoing. The Thanos Imperative gave me a pretty logical endpoint (thanks Dan & Andy!!) to finish up on so that aspect took care of itself.

I have the glorious oversized Hardcovers – but they stopped doing the Nova ones. I can’t understand that they just put out issues 1-12 when there are 3 hardcovers worth of material. Anyway, griping over.

I initially also had some trouble in tracking down the original Annihilation comics for a decent price. Why didn’t I just buy a trade of Annihilation and just throw it in there? I just like consistency. I can’t throw a trade willy-nilly into the middle of individual issues. I must have consistency across the whole spectrum of the bind. I also spent a bit of time ensuring the reading order was chronological in terms of Nova’s actual life. I couldn’t fit Secret Avengers in there without ruining the flow of the Abnett and Lanning comics so I placed them in an appendix at the back. Better than excluding them altogether.

Something that also stands out is a lot of the individual issues being signed by the creators when I was living in the UK. Here are some examples. Pretty cool and definitely personalised to me. I ain’t no scalper!

The dynamics of the Nova bind are:

Balck Leather covers with gold foil stamps.

Contents (not entirely in order):

Annihilation Prologue

Annhilation: Nova 1-4

Annihilation 1-6

Nova 1-36

Annihilation Conquest 6

Nova Annual

Thanos Imperative Sourcebook

Thanos Imperative: Ignition

Thanos Imperative 1-6

Thanos Imperative: Devastation

Appendices:

Nova No.1

Secret Avengers 1-4

What-if: Annihilation

A grand total of 65 comics – pretty much everything Nova has been in since Annihilation Prologue bar a few fleeting appearances here and there (e.g. Annihilation Conquest: Prologue etc).

I also chucked in a couple of pages of Sean Chen design sketches as well as a montage of sketches that Adi Granov, Alex Maleev and Kev Walker drew for me.

Interested in hearing peoples thoughts.

Death by Captain America Omnibus???

Well. To those that do know and those that don't know. An earthquake of 7.1 magnitude (the old Richter scale goes exponential didn't you know?) hit us at roughly 4.35am on Saturday morning. And things went a flying while I was in bed.

The top shelf that all my beautiful MOTU Classics were displayed on took a dive and landed on the top of the figures that preceded it. This was right next to my bed. Luckily the DVD shelves were intact and stayed where they were.

However, had I been in the 'spare room' things might have been a little different. Take the below photo. This is how that part of the room is supposed to look and will look on any normal day.

And then the Earthquake hits. Shelf on the far right tips over completely blocking access to the doorway with every single item being thrown off. Big shelf in the middle stays intact. Shelf to the left of the big shelf also takes a dive into the couch and empties. This is some serious force. Seven Marvel omnibuses way 30 pounds on that individual level alone. The result is below:

Mind you - it did look a lot worse than this. I had to fish all the hardcovers out of the way before I could even get in the doorway and take a photo.

So - a warning to you all. Keep your enemies close - but your Marvel Omnibuses further away!

Some shots from London...

Some shots from London while I lived there... There is probably a good reason why I never put them up on here before! My last day at work. They were trying to get me to chat up girls in that outfit as well. Big Love Batey would pick me up and sit me next to them.

My old Flatmate Tom & I at the Redback Tavern. I loved those shoes of mine but had to throw them away.

A fox having a dozy day in our tiny little backyard.

Matt Vincent kikcing my arse the one time I played a strategy board game against him. I was the green army.

At the head of the line for the Orbital Alan Moore signing. One of the the few photos I also have of Chan (on my right) before he passed away.