Who's Who in the CBU 2008

Name: Regie Rigby

Regie is a strange, almost ethereal creature. Who can plumb the hidden mysteries of his dark and murky past - a past which contains a terrible secret. A secret that taught him that with great power comes great responsibility, that criminals are a cowardly superstitious lot and just who exactly knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men.

By day, he assumes the appearance of a mild mannered teacher, bringing the joy of literature and the English Language to classes of enthralled and enthusiastic students. But by night?

By night he goes home and writes lesson plans. Sorry. That's as interesting as he gets. Really.

The rumours about rooftop struggles with underworld uberfiends, the gossip about the hidden cave filled with hi-tec equipment and the suggestion that his car might be fitted with turbo lasers are all nonsense.

When he's not teaching he reads comics. Sometimes he combines the two activities. When he's not doing that he's either playing computer games or asleep.

All I Want for Christmas...

By Regie Rigby

Well, by the time the next column is due, it’ll be Boxing Day and Christmas will be over! Kinda creeps up on you, doesn’t it?

Incidentally, next week’s column will be devoted to the annual “FoolBritannia Awards”, which I’ve decided to call “The Jesters” from now on, mostly because I can, and it’s a damn sight easier to say. As regular readers already know, these are based mostly on my own preferences, but if you have a suggestion for a deserving recipient (or even a whole new category) do please feel free to swing by the message board and contribute to the Awards thread. Or e-mail me if you prefer.

But that’s next week. Things are beginning to wind down for the holidays here at FoolCentral, after a bit of a hectic few weeks with work pressures and computer failures and all manner of stressful things. But now, with the school holidays looming comfortingly on the horizon I’m finally able to consider that most important of Festive Questions.

“What do you want for Christmas?”

I mean there are some obvious answers. There’s a host of lovely hard cover collections and original graphic novels I’d love to get my hands on, but can’t quite justify the expense of buying for myself. My LCS, for example, has a lovely set of Dan Dare reprints from his days in The Eagle which would look quite charming on my bookshelf. There are some rather nice collections of that long running British classic war comic Commando too.

So many good things…

But that’s the rather mercenary and superficial answer and however “bah humbug” my attitude to the festive season might be (and you’re talking to the boy who never believed in Santa here) there is supposed to be more to the holiday than just getting stuff.

So, in terms of comics, what do I really want for Christmas?

The first thing would have to be time. Even semi regular readers can’t help but have noticed that over the last two years the posting of the column has become somewhat erratic. This is partly due to my lack of reliable computers and internet access since my faithful old PC blew up eighteen months ago, but it’s mostly down to lack of time. My day job is pretty demanding a lot of the time, and since they pay me it has to come first.

That impacts on the posting of the column, but far worse from my point of view, it means I can’t read all the comics I want to. You’ve heard about the infamous “to read” pile before, but I swear it’s getting bigger and bigger every week as I consistently fail to get through the pile collected from the comics shop the previous week before going out and picking up the current week’s pile. Darren, the ever helpful proprietor of my LCS makes this worse by constantly pointing out new titles I should be reading, and so my pull list gets ever longer.

Former Comics Festival Supremo Kev F. Sutherland once commented that he didn’t read all that many comics and he couldn’t really see how anyone could afford to. Well, the aforementioned day job takes care of the affording ‘em, but I don’t understand how people have the time to read the volume of comics they seem to.

The other non-material thing I’d hope that Santa cold find room for on his sleigh would be the ability to spot great comics just by looking at the cover to issue #1. If I could do that not only would I be a better columnist (making it the gift that would just go on giving) but I’d never miss those sleeper hits and – perhaps more useful long term, I’d make a fortune on e-bay…

My collecting history is full of examples of getting this wrong though. I could’ve picked up a copy of Sandman #1 when it first came out – I remember picking it up off the shelf and flicking through it. And then putting it back. Then there was Ultimate Spider-Man. I dismissed it out of hand and then had to catch up later when everyone else told me how good it was. I did recently get rid of my Ulity Spidey collection (because it rather tailed off after a while, I thought) and the lack of those first four issues meant I got rather less for it than I could’ve done.

Not that I ever buy comics intending to make a profit*, but when all the money ends up going on other comics, the more the better, right?

What I really really want for Christmas though, is the chance to read all those lost comics. The ones we were promised, but never saw – like the amazing Josh Middleton’s Sky Between Branches, which looked mind-meltingly beautiful but slipped into oblivion when Com.X went down. That particular crash also cost us the fascinating take on the Vampire myth that was Puncture, and the madcap silliness that was Bazooka Jules.

Sadly missed, all of them – but not alone. They line up with all those issues of NYX that never got done. Darkham Vale and others also spring to mind. Now, I know these stories ended because either the publisher hit the wall, or the creative team broke up, or some other unstoppable force rugby tackled them to the ground and beat them into oblivion. We’re talking about scripts that never got drawn, or even written down.

But they exist.

In somebody’s head, somewhere, these stories have been written. I know they must have, because I’ve got about forty issues worth of Sunset stories in my head right now, even though only four have got anywhere near to being on paper. I guess there are copies in Lucien’s library over in Dream’s territory, but frankly they’re no good to any of us mere mortals there.

So, this year for Christmas, you know there’s something I’d really like – and if you’re up there listening Santa, please don’t bring me another bike.** I want the lost stories for Christmas.

How about you?


So, everyone here at FoolBritannia – which is, um, well, me really – would like to take this opportunity to wish you a Merry Christmas, Happy Channukha, Joyful Eid al-Adha, blissful Solstice, and a jolly cheerful whichever else festival you might be celebrating now or over the next few days. I’ll see you next week with the 2007 Jester Awards – don’t forget to e-mail me or drop by the message boards with your suggestions!






*Because that way lies madness and bankruptcy.

**Yes, that’s a song lyric. There’s a random prize on offer to the first person to tell me where it comes from. Contest void if you’re the person that gave me the CD.