Reading Corpse talk season 1 by Adam Murphy and The boy who sprouted antlers written by John Yeoman and illustrated by Quentin Blake

Listening to Gojira, Magma

I sat facing the South Downs again, everything was dark green, the sky was wide and the brightest blue. It looked serene. There was repair work going on in the building so the pin-drop silence was punctuated by drills, hammers and the snap of the measuring tape. It seemed to make sense to listen to the new Gojira album Magma which was bold and kiboshed the din of activity.

Murphy’s book was a series of interviews with dead famous people in graphic novel format. Each dead person was interviewed as if raised from the grave and discussed their most significant achievement or their untimely death. Slightly dark, but then history is? I guess it was a bit like the Horrible Histories books or Parkinson for kids; somewhere between the two. The excellent illustration was often integral to the comic delivery. The front cover made me think of Alex Hirsch, (Gravity Falls) which is why I picked it up. I read Blackbeard, Nikola Tesla, Anne Bonny, Amelia Earhart and a couple of others. It was a different take on what and how you might learn in history lessons, books and TV programmes. The interviewer was occasionally threatened – evidencing pirates are violent and menacing… we all know this but situating it as a modern day interview scenario is pretty clever.

Retro maybe or just old; Yeoman’s book was first published in 1961. It’s illustrated by Quentin Blake. The story had this ‘just go along with it’ feel, a little bit of make believe/magic. It had the fantastical edge of a dream, like reading something intently just before sleeping. The best thing about it is the interspersed drawings which crawl across the page lifting the events of the story into a messy and jaunty visual.

Gojira’s album Magma feels a bit like alternative army marching music at times. You know – for an army of orcs. Gojira show off their extraordinary drummer in the opening track and the vocals continue, throughout the album, to be dark, hollowed and harmonious with an energising fury unleashed with every track.