Millarworld

My pal’s teenage son did Covid tests continuously until he got a negative so he could go and see this. I asked him why he didn’t just wait a week and he said ‘you don’t understand. This is like your age group going to see a new Tarantino film. I had to be there opening night.’ Note: This is likewise my favourite of all Edgar’s flicks.

As a kid I had no idea Batman was a comedy. I remember being mad when my Dad would laugh during what felt like high tension to me. It worked on so many levels.

WOW! I actually prefer prelim illustration to finished art a lot of the time. There's such a mad energy to an artist's first instincts. It's like the picture is breathing.

This could be incredible. I think they need a really strong stable of established BBC writers for this next crucial stage. I'd love to see Mark Gatiss in there and a couple of Moffat guest spots too, of course. Oh, and Peter Harness from Young Sherlock and my buddy Matthew Graham. It needs to be UNBELIEVABLY high end now.

This is interesting. The first comic I ever read was the end of a long storyline and I had no idea what was happening, but I was hooked and wanted to find out more.

Scottish singer Lena Martell has died, aged 86. The album below is the only album I ever remember my Mum actually buying. Like Billy Connelly, she was one of those rare Glasgow talents who cracked America, duetting with Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr too. RIP!

My Top 10 Bonds, in order...

1. The Spy Who Loved Me
2. Goldfinger
3. From Russia With Love
4. Goldeneye
5. Live And Let Die
6. Dr No
7. You Only Live Twice
8. Casino Royale (1967)
9. OHMSS (but only in a cinema)
10. Casino Royale (2006)

Very early in my career my big ambition was to work at DC Comics and write Batman. It feels a million years ago now, but I actually did it once and was lucky enough to work with Steve Yeowell and the legendary Dick Giordano on a little Batman Christmas story, aged 23...

Norm Breyfogle, Frank Miller, Dave Mazz and Alan Davis all drawing Batman in my teen years had my friends and I so spoiled.

Someone mentioned to me the other day that Barbara Castle, Tony Hadley from Spandau Ballet, @DrDStarkeyCBE, former Foreign Secretary George Brown and Arthur Mullard were all neighbours at one point in North London. What a reality show this would have been!

My GOD!

2034. Just 7 years away in January! yes, this convention in Birmingham last weekend really did take place in a beautiful chruch!

I'm 100% still going to see this. Cruise could have taken the easy route with Jor-El and alternate Earth Tony Stark, but he likes to take big swings and that appetite for risk is what makes him the biggest movie star in the world.

Alex Grand's timeline is pure joy. I check it out all the time. I love this clip below, Adam West's comic timing going toe to toe with even Milton Berle. Incredible.

Amazing! The future is bright and people are the solution. Never listen to Malthusians!

Burning through SAS Rogue Heroes at the moment, starring my favourite actor Jack O'Connell. How the Hell was I not watching this?

I love this guy's stuff. Give him a follow.

I haven't had much time to do comics for a while, but Psychic Sam volumes two AND three coming your way next month plus some HUGE news second week in October. Sign up to mrmarkmillar.com/newsletter for a free heads up before anyone else.

Very sad to hear an hour ago that my friend Tony Currie has passed away after a recent illness. Tony was the face of Scottish Television and BBC Scotland when I was growing up, the first voice ever heard on Radio Clyde. He was the father of my friend, the comedian and broadcaster Julia Sutherland and he and I bonded some years ago over an obsessive love for vintage TV, radio, lounge music and comic-books. I remember seeing him on Glen Michael's Cartoon Cavalcade when I was 9 showing viewers his comic-book collection and was delighted to become a good friend of his as an adult.

Tony was such a laugh, an Encyclopedia Scotlandia of all things pop culture and the most incredible name-dropper in the biz. I was talking about a famous actress over lunch one day and he looked delighted, showing me a birthday message she had recorded for him some days before. I mentioned Herb Alpert and he scrolled down his texts to show me one from him too. There was nobody he didn't have an amazing story about and even as a pro of some years standing my pals and I would sit at his feet and hear tales from the great man. When he and his beautiful wife, the broadcaster Karin Spalter, moved to their beloved Lismore this still continued with friends and I sometimes takes a dinghy across the water to this spectacular Scottish island, making an annual pilgrimage for lunch and to listen to some new vinyl he had picked up or new band he had discovered. Selfishly, I'll miss our chats and his weekly radio show on the non-profit channel he started radiosixinternational.com. The Lively Lounge was the highlight of our week.

But the real condolences are for his three children, Karin having predeceased him shortly after their move from the mainland. Karin, some may recall, was our Starlight Granny in a Millarworld marketing campaign a decade back and just as much fun as Tony.

God bless all the Curries on this sad day. Rest in peace, T!

Interestingly, I got into 13 in column one and 6 in column two. My own personal top ten below for no particular reason...