AXIOM magazine interview

Just realised that a print version magazine (remember those!) interview with me is now online, from AXIOM magazine a few years ago, with Jimi Okelana (who has his own comics out, and worth checking out too):
"I’m not sure about what your thought processes are, but it seems to be a very significant thing: what inspires people do things. It’s also what holds people back about doing creative work of any type, whether it’s comics, films, writing poetry, singing, playing the piano or whatever. In my opinion, the barriers mostly comes down to self-doubt. So people are holding themselves back, no one else is doing it, it’s themselves. So the first thing is figuring out what do you want to do, and then the second is just do it. That’s it! I mean that’s a key issue and it worries me a little bit that so many people don’t know what they want to do. I think it’s a key problem for many people, and for society in general, since their doubt is linked to the very nature of the society they are in. But don’t get me started on attacking capitalism, or we’ll be here all night!"

http://www.axiommagazine.jp/2011/09/10/comic-book-writer-sean-michael-wilson/




"Mate, if the good die young.. that means you and me must be a bit crap."
- the legendary Gandry Macallan.



Odd things i have learned from George Orwell’s essays (right or wrong!):

No human has green eyes.
Every child believes in the rules of adults even if they break them.
Toads are symbolic of freedom.
Every book is a failure.
It’s impossible to be a Christian and a social success.
Black rings round the eyes are a sign of masturbation.
His school ‘was pervaded by a curious cult of Scotland.’
That corporeal punishment works, ‘in its special mission’.
The Massacre of St Bartholomew was in 1587.
Charles Dickens was 'almost' a Marxist, and 'almost' a Catholic.
That Gandhi thought close friendships are dangerous.
Not to use words derived from Greek and Latin when a good old Anglo-Saxon word will do.
A lot of books are started in anger.
Good novels are written by people who are NOT FRIGHTENED.
Tea should always be drunk without sugar, and ten other points to making a good cup of tea.
That he got twopence for buying sweeties in his school, while the rich boys got sixpence.
And many others...
Seriously folks, Orwell's 1930 and 1940s essays are VERY interesting, enjoyable to read and free to read online from the Australian gutenberg. Check em oot like, ken. And in closing:
‘I wasn't born for an age like this;
Was Smith? Was Jones? Were you?’
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300011h.html

More from Georgie-porgie:
“Socialism is such elementary common sense that I am sometimes amazed that it has not established itself already…
The average thinking person nowadays is not merely not a Socialist, he is actively hostile to Socialism. This must be due chiefly to mistaken methods of propaganda. It means that Socialism, in the form of which it is now presented to us, has about it something inherently distasteful — something that drives away the very people who ought to be nocking to its support…
All that is needed is to hammer two facts home into the public consciousness. One, that the interests of all exploited people are the same; the other, that Socialism is compatible with common decency…
Socialism means justice and common decency.”
- George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier (various quotes I’ve taken from Part two of the book, the ‘difficult’ part). Which Sanders and Corbyn would do well to emphasize.





Fortean Times issue 338 (March) strongly recommends our GOODBYE GOD book.
Check out the Goodbye God book for yourselves please folks. By which i mean:
1. look at it
2. think about it
3. buy it
...and then look/think some more.
http://seanmichaelwilson.weebly.com/goodbye-god.html





A great review of our book 'The Faceless Ghost'
will appear in the March issue of BOOKLIST the review publication for librarians, book groups and book lovers at the American Library Association.
“This collection makes an excellent crossover title for those inexperienced with graphic novels as well as those unfamiliar with traditional Japanese ghost stories. Hand to fans of Emily Carroll’s eerie collection, Through the Woods.”
Nice!
http://seanmichaelwilson.weebly.com/faceless-ghost.html






Another daft analogy from me
regarding how the Stalin and Mao etc messed up communism and how people have made a big mistake of thinking that therefore communism/socialism/anarchism is impossible:
You try to hold an Beatles themed party. And everyone comes dressed up looking cool, ready to rock. but the band turn up all dressed as the Elvis. You say to them:
‘Actually that is not what we want - we want a Beatles theme’,
And they reply: ’This is the Beatles, this is what the Beatles look like.’
‘No, thats what Elvis looks like.’
‘No, this IS the Beatles - and if you say its not again then we are going to hit you. and if you still maintain that this is not the Beatles then we are going to shot you - comrade!’
And they proceed to enforce their distorted fucked up theme through violence and later through a variety of techniques of spying, conformism, fear,etc.
If that happened would it then be a reasonable and logical thing to decide:
‘Holding a Beatles themed night is an impossibility. It’s been tried and it turned into something totally different and horrible. In fact, Beatles themed parties are against human nature’.
Or would it be more realistic to say:
‘Those violent thugs ruined what could have been a really nice party. We will have to plan better next time.’





Nice to see international corporations like Starbucks bending to a bit of people power.
But I'm looking forward to them declaring this:
"We realise now that we have made the world a worse place by pushing out interesting local cafes and the food made in those areas, and replacing them with shops and food that look 99% the same everywhere in the world. And of exploiting our underpaid, powerless staff all over the world. Yeah, that was our bad...
We will, from this day onwards change ourselves into a workers co-operative in which all our staff share in the profits and the decisions made… that we will involve local food producers in our process, in an equal manner, so that the culture and food of the area we are in is not pushed out of existence. Have a nice day!"
I'm waiting....





This Beatles point is a bit of an exaggeration, of course, i don't think that myself. But one very odd thing IS a reality, which we have never seen before in popular music,this: that mainstream style hip hop music has now been the dominant form of popular music, for about 20 YEARS! It's been the dominant style in the US, UK (and also here in Japan) since about the mid 90s.
I can not think of another form of music that stayed dominant for as long as that - if you look at popular music since the 50s, most of the styles were only dominant for an average of 3 or 4 years, and then some other new style become the mainstream (or sometimes there were a couple of mainstream styles, both very popular). That seems like a healthy thing, culturally, that styles moves forward. For example:
Rock n Roll of the classic 50s type: heyday 1955 to 1959 (4 or 5 years)
Skiffle: 1955 to 1958 (3 or 4 years)
Beatles mania/ Merseybeat style: 1962 to 1965 (4 years)
Etc...
We are now in the state - and its a very bad state, i think - that just ONE music style has been dominant for 20 years. Though, it's not been overwhelmingly dominant (like the Beatles style was in, say, 1963 to 65), but if you had to chose one style that was the majority music style in bars, clubs, music videos, and in young people's fashions etc in the last 20 years it would have to be hip-hop. Regardless of whether you like hip hop or not or any qualities it may have as a musical style, it's not a good sign that ANY one type of music has been dominant for so long. We should be moving on,musically - that is the norm since the 50s... but recently we have not. The record's stuck.
It would be better if the main, popular style of hip hop style had developed a lot in those 20 years, but as far as i can see, it has not changed much. NOTE THIS, FOR PEOPLE WHO THINK IM SLAGGING OFF ALL HIP HIOP: i know there are various more underground styles of hip hop, that perhaps have developed a lot, which is good - but that is not the point here. The MAIN, dominant style of hip hop not changed much - when you compare it with the historical norm - in 20 years. And even if it has changed more than i think, my main point is this:
That its not good that ANY one style has dominated for 20 years. We need breadth and change in music...
I wonder... will it go on forever?
Hip hop forever... I hope not.




Hihan shi nai de, demo... I don't want to be critical, but...
I'm having some doubts as to how good this cake mix will taste.






"British people especially are terrified that someone will call them pretentious, laugh at some detailed intellectual point they are trying to make and say ‘What a pretentious ponce!’ They thing is they say put downs like that as if they are being realistic, pricking pomposity, keeping things down to earth.
But some things are meant to fly off, they dry up and wither if they are keep tied to the ground. So, for me, I see backing down in the face of possibly being called pretentious as being basically a coward, an intellectual coward. It’s giving in to conformism.
If there’s someone who WANTS to make some poetic point, intellectual observation, mention some academic theory, whatever… but backs down because they are afraid folk will laugh and bring out the red card called ‘pretentious twat’.
- Coward!
Just say what you want to say - as long as it’s a genuine view you have - and bollocks to what anyone thinks of you. That’s intellectual bravery. Die fighting on the battlefield of ideas…"
- The legendary Gandry Macallan.



"Hyperbolic documentaries often say things like:
‘History as we’ve never seen it before!’
Well, If it's history then there is at least ONE group of people who
have seen it before: the people it happened to."
- The legendary Gandry Macallan.




The University of Edinburgh kindly features our book THE STORY OF LEE in its newsletter this month, including some visuals of scenes from the book that take place in the university itself.
Nice!
Check it out gals and gals:
http://seanmichaelwilson.weebly.com/story-of-lee.html