024: A guillotine rather than a rack
Hullo.
The Windy City is Mighty Windy that's why they call it The Windy City, you fool, stop wasting my time, just get away from me, you make me sick.
Contents!
C2E2: it's not a astromech, it's a con.
Reviewity
Av(ingitcheap)tar(verymuch)
Election
Byeeeeeeeeeee!
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We're at C2E2. I haven't been since the year of Young Avengers. Jamie hasn't ever been. Our plans include: having a lovely time. Join us! We will have a lovely time together.
We're at O-18 in artist's alley. There's some excellent merchandise available at the show. What is it? I will inform you, pictorially.
Yes, WicDiv Badges and Baphomet Tees. Fancy.
It's also the first week that THE COMPLETE PHONOGRAM is available, and we're abstractly here to publicize it. In practice, we're here to eat pizza. You want to meet us? Well, option one would be stake out every single Pizza place in Chicago simultaneously. Option two would be to come to one of these events. Do option 2.
Friday 21st April
12:00 – 1:30 – Signing at our Table. (O-18, right?)
14:00 – 14:30 – Twitch Livestream (C2E2 Live Stage Booth 1739)
14:45 - 15:45 - Signing at our Table
16:00 - 17:00 - Image Comics: Contemporary Storytelling Panel (Kieron) - S404
17:15 - 19:00 - Signing at our Table
20:00 - 21:00 - Artcred Panel (Kieron) - S405B
Saturday 22nd April
10:00 - 11:00 - Signing at our Table
11:15 - 12:15 - Image Comics: Storytelling Panel (Jamie) - S405A
14:00 - 16:00 - Signing at our Table
16:30 - 18:00 - Signing at our Table
Sunday 23rd April
10:00 - 11:00 - Signing at our Table
11:15 - 12:15 - Marvel: True Believers Panel (Kieron) - S401
14:30 - 15:30 - Masterminds Behind The Wicked + The Divine Panel (Everyone!) - S402
15:45 - 17:00 - Signing at our Table
And then we'll get home, and feel ashamed about the “Masterminds” in that panel title.
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Oh – Avatar are doing a mail-order sale of huge chunks of their hardbacks. 50% off. There's a lot of genuinely great stuff in here – Ellis, Moore, Ennis – and is well worth considering if you haven't go them.
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When I’m writing about politics, I’m normally wanting to impart some hope. In this case, I just want to do the “¯\_(ツ)_/¯” and step away from the keyboard. None of this is very useful. My first response was to tweet “Sigh” and my later responses are variations on that theme.
The UK’s called a General Election, in six weeks. Yes, foreign folks, that seems weird and confusing. Don’t worry. It’s weird and confusing for us too.
The irony is that we patched the hole in the law to stop this happening, and abstractly are running fixed terms. Rather than previously, when a party could do this shit, they have to take it to Parliament and pass at two-thirds majority. This is to prevent a party just calling an election when the opposition is simply unprepared to fight it, and so secure five years as cheaply as you can.
Of course, it turns out that an unprepared opposing party will vote for an election against their interests and the interests of the country anyway, because not appearing they want political power is a very bad look for a political party.
May’s cynicism is obvious, and you can theorise the many reasons why she’d do it. I’d lean towards a knowledge that the Brexit deal is going to be so bad she won’t be able to push it through parliament with the current majority. As such, due to the weakness of the opposition, it’s the time to maximise her seats. There is also the implicit idea that when 2020 turns around she’s unsure that she can win an election, in terms of where we’ll be by then. This buys extra years in hope things improve after whatever Brexit we end up with.
This is nasty political gamesmanship, and while Labour voting for it is idealistic it’s unlikely to end well, for anyone.
Were I leader, as a cynical min-max games player, I’d just go fuck it and campaign on either “second referendum with some actual options on what we actually want from the EU rather than a yes/no clearly designed by arrogant Eton schoolboys who never thought for a second it’ll turn up “No,” even if they campaigned for it” or just “Fuck it. No, we’re not leaving. Vote for us and we’ll pretend we were all just drunk in 2016.” That we’re going to act as if it’s a normal general election when it’s nothing at all like it seems ludicrous. It’s being called solely because of Brexit.
I admit, I don’t think the above would work (there seems to be an appetite for honouring the spirit of the referendum) but for an unprepared party heading into a snap election, it’s at least a simple message, and provides the populace with an actual choice.
It has every chance of finding whole new levels of being horrible. The language of the press, a year after an actual political assassination, is openly sickening. But still... it's a general election. They're always a throw of the dice, and in the last two years, democracy's dice are have their own ideas of how they should fall. It's entirely possible that there are surprises in store. I do cackle with joy in the idea of two Tory PM's in a single year having a politically opportunistic unnecessary vote exploding in their arrogant faces. I don't think it's likely, but it's a delicious idea.
Okay, that is skewing close to something like optimism. On the bright side, at least this fucker will be short. A guillotine rather than a rack. We've barely a chance to glance up and admire the blade before it falls.
In short: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Okay, that's enough. We have pizza to eat. Byeeeeeeeeeee
Kieron Gillen
London
20.4.2017