Liam’s Cartoons No.3: Batman Beyond - a strange story with a strange Canadian DVD

by Liam Ellison

As someone who writes articles about obscure cartoons, it may not surprise you to learnt hat I am a comic book nerd. And as a comic book nerd, I can admit openly that most comic books are pretty stupid. You look deep enough into the history of pretty much any established character and you will find a whole crock of stuff that doesn’t make sense. Take Batman for instance: Batman has been around since the 1938, that’s a lot of reboots, re-imaginings, redesigns and stupid storylines, way too many to get into now, especially since the Batman cartoons have, by and large, been pretty damn good.

The classic Batman: The Animated Series (1992-1995) is widely accepted as an all-round awesome cartoon. Darker than it should have been, and colourful enough to keep the kids entertained, its only problem was that it was too damn good. DC comics, way before Marvel got onto the idea of doing a continuity based movies to showcase all their best characters, had the idea themselves and so “rebooted” the animated Batman series and turned it into The New Batman Adventures (1997-1999). This show focused more on Batman’s team of sidekicks: Robin, Bat Girl, and Night-wing. It also did some crossover work with other DC characters as well as the simultaneously running show Superman: The Animated Series (1996-2000).

So, what exactly does this have to do with a Canadian Batman DVD? Well, after these series started running out of steam (i.e their toys weren’t selling, and word-of-mouth was only getting worse), the suits said that phrase that usually spells the death of any art-form: “How can we make this cool?” Their answer: Batman…Beyond!

Batman Beyond (1999-2001) is Batman set in the future (here’s a totally random fact for you, it was called Batman of the Future in England and Ireland, but not in Northern Ireland…and I have no idea why; I’ve looked into this, but I can’t find any answers). Shows usually have to change their names because they conflict with the local idiom. For example, Nickelodeon’s Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005-2008) was renamed Avatar: The Legend of Aang in the UK because they worried about using the word “bender”. But anyway.

Batman Beyond wasn’t that bad a show. Nowhere near as good as the classic Batman the Animated series, but it had some break out moments ("Disappearing Inque,” May 8, 1999 has a top notch William H Macy role in it). Now I could go into the plot and the sometimes unsettlingly unrealistic character design, but If I ever want to the point and tell you about this Canadian DVD, I’m going to have to skip over all that and get right to it. Now hold on, because things get a little hectic here.

Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker (2000) was a straight-to-DVD movie based on the series and its premise is that the Joker (who as we know, from Bruce Wayne account, is dead) suddenly re-appears. As both a stand-alone movie and a continuation of the Batman legacy, it’s a good movie. You have to understand that Batman Beyond was an original idea, and DC later introduced a comic based upon it. So for them to go that long without referring to the best known Batman villain and saving it for a feature-length animation was ballsy move that really paid off. Another good move was bringing Mark Hamill back to play The Joker. One of the things that made Batman the Animated series, as good as it was, was the way Mark Hamill grasped the character of The Joker. Hamill brought the character to life more than anyone had ever done at that point (Joe Dimnation came close in the animated feature Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010)). So, you had Mark Hamill and Kevin Conroy resuming their role as The Joker and Bruce Wayne (now an old man) and the addition of Dean Stockwell (Quantum Leep’s Al) and Henry “to punk for your face” Rollins made this a stand-out piece. The movie becomes an action-mystery, with plot-twists and red herrings that culminates in a third act that is on par with the third act in The Dark Knight (2008). You would think, as I did for many years, that the “extended cut” didn’t have anything that would change it that much, except that it had a little tinny bit of child torture.



And why was that teenny wheeny bit of child electrocution cut out?

Columbine.

The movie came out a year after the Columbine shootings - a time in which everyone was up in arms about violence on TV, in the movies, and in music. The producers made the director cut a few things out of the movie, the main thing being the undoing of Jason Todd.

Now, to back track a bit, Jason Todd was the second Robin in the comic books. He was also the first major character to not only die, but have his death voted for by readers. They wanted him gone, and sure enough The Joker blew him up. Of course, since contemporary comic books are just as bad as contemporary movies, he came back years later, but Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker took the idea and put their own spin on it. In the movie The Joker is getting bored of the fun and games he has with Batman and decides he wants a child of his own, so he kidnaps and brainwashes Robin 2, Jason Todd. Even before it got made, the script was being cut: they removed all the implements of torture from the Joker’s lab and even had to change the comedic cooking apron he was wears in one shot from “Kill the Cook” to “Kiss the Cook”. Still, they got it made. The Joker is shown electrocuting Robin to get Batman’s identity out of him, which he does, and this huge breakthrough in the arc of Batman is made. But in the DVD/TV release they had to remove the scene, showing instead a reaction shot of Batman as The Joker shows him the film of the act, which is a bit more unsettling to be honest as you’re left to imagine what he is doing to Robin. What is shocking and what was scrapped right off the bat was the scene in which *spolier alert* Robin, now brainwashed into thinking he is Joker Jr. (or Little J) has a mental breakdown and kills The Joker by shooting him with his comic “boom flag” gun. It’s a scene you don’t see coming and it drives home the feelings of all the characters involved, it even leads to one of The Joker’s greatest moments when he is laying on a table dying, with a flag sticking out of his chest, and says “that’s not funny. That’s not funny at all”. In the cut DVD, you see Robin push the Joker into some wires and he slips in water and electrocutes himself. There is even a scene that was cut from the cut version where Bruce Wayne inspected the dead body of the Joker for clues and finds a note saying, “I know”.



The rest of the movie, apart from another Joker gun killing they had to remove, is pretty much as is, and is up there with the best of the DC animated stuff. The series was meant to go on hold after the airing of its last episode “Unmasked” (September 14, 2001) but thanks to another act of random violence, this time on a much larger scale, it was pushed back to December. The producers moved on to Justice League (2001 –2004), which was a big hit for all involved, and even kept the character alive with crossover appearances in their other less popular and doomed to failure show The Zeta Project (2001-2002) (episode “Shadows” April 7, 2001), and the more popular, but for the life of me I don’t know why, because it was awful on ever level: Static Shock (2000-2004) (episode "Future Shock" Jan 17, 2004).

It’s said that Bruce Timm (the man behind all the DC animations) wanted to do a proper send-off for Batman Beyond, but never got the chance. So in Justice League Unlimited (2004-2006), he took an episode to complete the character’s story in a brilliantly nerd-friendly way. It’s a common fact amongst our people that Batman always has a plan. It’s the premise of the straight-to-DVD movie Justice League: Doom (2012), and part of his bad-ass unbeatableness. In this episode of Justice League Unlimited (episode 26 “Epilogue” July23, 2005), we see Bruce Wayne as even older than he is in Batman Beyond, and the new Batman is pissed off and a bit confused as to why he is a perfect DNA match to Bruce Wayne. It turns out that Amanda Waller (one of the cross-continuity characters of the DC universe) decided that the world will always need a Batman, so she took some of his DNA, found a pregnant couple and overwrote the baby’s DNA to be a lil’ Wayne. It gets creepier: she also clocks on to the fact that tragedy is a big part of Batman’s motive, so she hires a killer (who turns out to be “Phantasm” the vigilante from the only Batman animated movie to play on the big screen, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993)), but bottles out last minute. In bittersweet irony, the new Terry the Batman of Batman Beyond ended up losing his father and becoming the caped crusader anyway.


Phantasm in “Mask of the Phantasm”


Phantasm in Justice League Unlimited some 13 years later

So there you go, that’s the story. Now you can get the full version of Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker anywhere, and even on Blu-ray, but for a long time there it was a cool geek secret you could only see if you bought it from a Canadian website, and all because of this scene:

Check out Liam’s collection of comics, Top Hats and Canes, available now on Kindle:

Art Fist needs you!
All of the content on artfist.org is submitted by volunteers looking to showcase their work. To submit your own work, simply send it to artfist@live.com for consideration. We accept: images, videos, poetry, reviews, features, comics, interviews, short stories, comedy, rants, opinion pieces... anything which is creative or about creativity.

For more information about contributing, check out our submission guidelines HERE.

In partnership with: Arts News North

Film review: The Dark Knight Rises

by Identity Crisis

It's difficult to know where to start when talking about this film. Like a lot of people, I've been looking forward to it just a little bit. I'm a big fan of Batman in almost any form, but I grew up on the Tim Burton films and Bruce Timm's Animated Series especially, only searching out famous stories from the comics later on. I can remember seeing Batman Begins for the first time and thinking that it was enough that it's ending could tie into the Burton films, but still being pleasantly surprised when The Dark Knight was announced. TDK immediately became one of my favourite films for numerous reasons, the beautiful full frame IMAX photography, the tense bank robbery that reminded me of Heat and Heath Ledgers unique take on the Joker among many - I didn't even care that Batman wasn't really the focus any more.

So I obviously had huge expectations of this film but I think I didn't have specific expectations of it, if that makes sense. I hoped it would be a good film but at the same time I trusted Christopher Nolan to do what he wanted and not just expect famous comic storylines in movie form. But if I was ready to trust Nolan, in some ways this feels like a film more designed to please fans. I certainly enjoyed it at the time, but it seems less of a complete package the more I think about it. Whereas The Dark Knight always felt like the furthest you could take a comic book character into the real world, this felt like it was embracing its comic book roots a little more. Things like its expository dialogue and characters hopping around the world felt like things that happen in comics a lot. Even though critics have levelled the same complaints at some of Nolan's other films, this was the first time that these issues particularly stood out to me.

I thought that it got off to a shaky start too, I don't think I've seen many reviews that didn't have some issues with the first act. There are a lot of new characters and multiple plot lines running at once, with a few taking a while to really go anywhere. There were a lot of things to hold in your head and I found myself uncertain of which characters were important. On reflection there isn't much of importance here and I have seen debates on whether parts of it could have been cut, as well as entirely different takes on how it could have opened.

Selina Kyle (as played by Anne Hathaway) is almost certainly the highlight of these early sections. She is receiving almost universal praised for her role, one thing I liked in particular was that her interactions with Bruce Wayne also provide a bit of humour in a largely dark film. I loved how she revealed her true self when she first meets him and deftly disarms him before making her escape. A lot of people seem to think that Bruce Wayne was faking his injuries at the start of the film but I'd like to think that he was actually surprised by her, which then intrigues him enough to want to track her down. You generally get the impression that she is capable of continuing to frustrate him, with the lines "My Wife?" and "Huh, so that's what that feels like" making me chuckle especially.

I think it was important that the rest of the villains in this weren't particularly sympathetic though. Almost everyone rooted for the Joker to some extent but Bane doesn't really have the same attractive personality and seems more likely to kill innocent people in his path. Some of the violence meted out actually made me feel like the film deserved more than a 12A rating, despite the fact that it never shows anything graphic. Though there isn't exactly much competition, I feel this was the best representation of Bane there has ever been. On occasions he seems like a strange mix, especially how his voice doesn't really feel like part of the scene but the calm delivery gives the impression of intelligence that he really needs. In the original comics, despite his strength increasing venom serum, it was always suggested that he only managed to defeat Batman by engineering situations that would break his spirit as well as his body. I certainly found myself on the edge of my seat wondering if he was going to do what he is most famous for in the comics.

What's perhaps hardest to argue against is that the film as a whole doesn't really say anything. Bane's aims and actions seem to have some common ground with this year's 'Occupy' protests (although likely written before they started), which initially seems like a negative commentary on them. But these ideas aren't really followed through and leave it feeling very half hearted. There seem to be a lot of points like this, where there is a spark of something interesting but it doesn't receive much focus. Then there is also the question of what is said by the ending but I'm not sure I can discuss that much without heading into spoiler territory...


*Fairly major spoilers from this point on*

Not everyone liked the ending and to some extent I can see their point, with the powerful message of Batman making the ultimate sacrifice being undone by him surviving - not to mention how much pain and anguish it would cause his friends. But despite all that, to me it felt like what Batman would have done and it specifically reminded me of the end of The Dark Knight Returns. In that story he may have faked his death to continue to train others in secret but giving up the role of Batman felt right for this series and felt like a much better way of introducing a possible new Batman than any attempt that has been made in the comics. I really appreciated what the whole trilogy has done with Bruce Wayne - even if it moves away from the established view of him, he seems more human on the whole. In Begins he initially struggles with the desire for revenge against those who wronged him, rather than immediately trying to fix the system. He wants the world to change so that he doesn't have to be Batman anymore and then even gives up the role after the loss of a loved one, questioning what he has left to fight for. I think it's totally fair that this film then allows his journey to come to an end.

People have said that the revelation of John Blake's real name being Robin made them roll their eyes but I just saw it as a little joke for the fans, especially since Nolan has stated he would never add the Robin we all know. It seemed obvious to me that Blake would take on the role of Batman or at the very least would be jumping straight into a 'Nightwing' like role. What I felt was important was that Blake's character had taken a different route to this point than Bruce Wayne, which indicated that he could be a different sort of Batman. Someone who would focus on the downtrodden and fight against abuses of power by those in control, rather than focusing on criminals amongst the poorest in society. This left me with the feeling that the film wasn't trying to be 'anti-99%' and to paraphrase The Dark Knight's final line, perhaps this new Batman could be the hero that Gotham and the world actually needs right now. I also felt that even though the film brings this trilogy to a definite close in a nice circular fashion, I would still be interested to see someone take it onward from this point.

So my final thought on what I took the film to say is that we will always need Batman - but Batman doesn't always need to be Bruce Wayne.

Art Fist needs you!
All of the content on artfist.org is submitted by volunteers looking to showcase their work. To submit your own work, simply send it to artfist@live.com for consideration. We accept: images, videos, poetry, reviews, features, comics, interviews, short stories, comedy, rants, opinion pieces... anything which is creative or about creativity.

For more information about contributing, check out our submission guidelines HERE.

In partnership with: Arts News North

I Met

by Matt Posner

I met the poet Philip Levine
In an auditorium
In Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
I asked him to sign his book on the page
With my favorite of his poems, “Dog Poem.”
He signed there and wrote also, “For all our cats.”

I met the short story writer,
Grace Paley,
At a reception on a hilltop house
In Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
She had rambled down some wooden steps and up again.
She finished all of the wine I brought for myself.
I met her,
But I had nothing to say to her.
I didn’t like her stories.
If what is made doesn’t speak to you,
How can you speak to the maker?

I met the giant of Hungarian letters,
Tamas Aczel,
At a cramped little reception
In a crooked wood-floor house
In Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
His back was twisted from the weight of what he knew.
His eyes were frog-lidded from so much seeing.
Were you, I asked, a writer first,
Or a statesman?
I'm not a statesman, he said.
But I was always a writer.
And I: is it responsible
With the world in Hell,
Just to write?
And he: don't worry about it. If you can
Tell the truth as you see it. That's
hard enough.

Check out Matt's website HERE

Art Fist needs you!
All of the content on artfist.org is submitted by volunteers looking to showcase their work. To submit your own work, simply send it to artfist@live.com for consideration. We accept: images, videos, poetry, reviews, features, comics, interviews, short stories, comedy, rants, opinion pieces... anything which is creative or about creativity.

For more information about contributing, check out our submission guidelines HERE.

In partnership with: Arts News North

Keep or Cull No.1: A Perfect Circle - Mer de Noms

by Jon Cronshaw

Over the last couple of decades, I have amassed quite the CD collection. I have recently decided that my collection needs a cull, mainly because there are some albums that I probably haven’t listened to in over a decade.. Over the next few months, I am going to be reviewing each of my CDs and deciding whether to keep the album or give it to a charity shop.

First up we have A Perfect Circle’s 2000 album ‘Mer De Noms’. I first got into A Perfect Circle in summer 2001. At the rock nights in and around Keele University, the only people who seemed to wear A Perfect Circle hoodies seemed to be chubby insecure girls with pink hair and lip piercings, and so I dismissed them out of hand, assuming that they were essentially Tool for girls.

A friend of mine made me a copy of the album on mini-disc, urging me to listen to it. I thanked him, and put it in my bag, where the mini-disc sat, no doubt gathering the type of the dirt that only ever seems to gather in bags, for the next few months.

After my first year of university, I spent the summer with my family in Wolverhampton. After spending almost a year living on campus, cooking, sleeping, and getting in when I wanted, I quickly fell out with my parents. We get on great now, but as a petulant teenager who had recently discovered ‘freedom’, I had to get out of there, and went and spent a few weeks with a mate in a dodgy student house in Levenshulme, Manchester. It was a last-minute decision to go, so I threw a bunch of things into a bag, hopped on a bus, and got on the next train to Manchester.

On the train, I remember being sat next to a girl who was ranting into her mobile phone, I clocked her accent as being from somewhere like Stevenage: a hoarse southern accent, with the word “fucking” making up for all adjectives and adverbs in her lexicon. Annoyed, I rooted around my bag for my mini-disc player, only to realise that the player was empty. Panic set in as a hurriedly searched for my little box of mini-discs I was sure I’d packed. The only mini-disc I found was A Perfect Circle’s ‘Mer de Noms’ which had been sitting in a pocket of my bag for about six months and had never been played.

I don’t think I can put into words how much I enjoyed the album’s opener ‘The Hollow’, not just because the music blocked out the adjacent girl’s voice, but because the track was awesome: it had layers of subtle guitar; the vocal melody was dark and built to an awesome crescendo; and, most importantly, it rocked. Every track on the album was a revelation, with songs like ‘Judith’ and ‘3 Libras’ standing out in particular as superb pieces of music.

Revisiting the album in 2012 brought back a lot of memories from this period, but does it stand the test of time? Is it an album to keep or cull? The production sounds a bit dated, as like most metal records produced in the late-90s, too much compression is used on the mix, so the songs don’t sound as dynamic as they should or could with better production. Some of the lyrics on this album are laughably cheesy, drawing on all of the gothic clichés one could think of if asked on Family Fortunes. This being said, many of the songs are still excellent, and taking into account the nostalgia factor, it looks like A Perfect Circle’s ‘Mer de Noms’ is a keeper.

Sorry Scope, maybe next time.


Keep or Cull is now serialised HERE.

Art Fist needs you!
All of the content on artfist.org is submitted by volunteers looking to showcase their work. To submit your own work, simply send it to artfist@live.com for consideration. We accept: images, videos, poetry, reviews, features, comics, interviews, short stories, comedy, rants, opinion pieces... anything which is creative or about creativity.

For more information about contributing, check out our submission guidelines HERE.

In partnership with: Arts News North

The A to Z playlist challenge: U

by Dean Ellison

Usually I have more choice than this, but U finds me limited to two bands. I’d wanted to take the opportunity to listen to Underworld, one of those bands I hear on the radio and then am surprised to find out its them. But, I’m focusing on casting my ear back, not forward, so I settled on two select acts for the week, Ukrainians, The and Unthanks, The.

Ukrainians, The as you may imagine, sing in Ukrainian. They’re members of Wedding Present, The who felt they could bring something to the diaspora and secure regular gigs at the many Ukrainian clubs up and down the IK. It’s a nice market, and they fit it perfectly.

I learnt of Ukrainians, The from a friend who, through the power of Shazam, identified familiar sounding music at a gig as ‘Koroleva Ne Pomerla’, which, of course as we all know, is The Queen is Dead in Ukrainian.





Listening to them, I drifted from my original goal, to start an album and stick with it: I dipped in and out. This allowed me to balance their own compositions, which come across like bonkers Tetris music, and other Ukrainian language cover versions, such as ‘Чекання’ and ‘Анархiя’.





For me, the truly special thing about Ukrainians, The is remembering seeing them live at Leeds’ Ukrainian Centre, a hidden-away venue in Harehills. The place was packed, Ukrainian food was on offer (sadly, no Ukrainian beer), and the support act was a children’s choir singing traditional Ukrainian songs. It was surreal beyond belief, it felt like stumbling upon a secret fraternity, one which was incredibly accommodating and forced me to Cossack dance. Suffice to say, a chance to see Ukrainians, The should not be passed, and that every time I hear their CDs I smile and cast my mind back to that incredibly bizarre evening.

Unthanks, The are a bit more traditional, perhaps the epitome of traditional seeing as they continue to win a stream of folk awards. I never thought they would be my cup of tea, but my curiosity was piqued by ‘The Songs of Robert Wyatt and Antony & The Johnsons’: a live cover album, I thought it would be interesting to see how anybody took on the music of Hegarty, Anthony, a man of such a unique voice (sadly not covered in Week H due to the overwhelming amount of music to choose from) and to hear his songs, which predominantly focus on themes of gender identity, sung by a woman.





Perhaps it was best coming to this never expecting this to excel, but it certainly does come together nicely: it’s a noble effort at taking on a Herculean task. While there are many points that this idea works, it’s rather creepy, as admitted by the band themselves bantering, it is rather creepy to hear actual sisters sing ‘You Are My Sister’.

This album has also been the first time I’ve ever heard the music of Wyatt, Robert, which I feel I should have done by now given how loudly Mojo has sung his praises. I think I might like it more if I went back to the originals, I don’t think his songs were ever intended to feature clog dancing, what with him being in a wheelchair and all.





Finally, I listened to another Unthanks, The album, ‘Last’. This album deserves credit for the sheer Geordie tone maintained in the singing: it really helps tie the traditional songs on the record to our nation’s geography; it helps accentuate that they’re telling tales of our own land. Also, the cover of Waits, Tom’s ‘No One Knows I’m Gone’ has that rare power of being a cover of his that is fit to stand in the shadow of the original. Bravo ladies, bravo.





Well, slim pickings on the U front, but still enough to transport me to hidden away bastions of Eastern European identity and the world of incestuous North Eastern folk balladry. If that’s what can be extracted from the lean choices of U, I can only begin to imagine what the endless bounty of V will offer.

Art Fist needs you!
All of the content on artfist.org is submitted by volunteers looking to showcase their work. To submit your own work, simply send it to artfist@live.com for consideration. We accept: images, videos, poetry, reviews, features, comics, interviews, short stories, comedy, rants, opinion pieces... anything which is creative or about creativity.

For more information about contributing, check out our submission guidelines HERE.

In partnership with: Arts News North

Die Plankton - Ill Advised Teenage Moustache

Art Fist needs you!
All of the content on artfist.org is submitted by volunteers looking to showcase their work. To submit your own work, simply send it to artfist@live.com for consideration. We accept: images, videos, poetry, reviews, features, comics, interviews, short stories, comedy, rants, opinion pieces... anything which is creative or about creativity.

For more information about contributing, check out our submission guidelines HERE.

In partnership with: Arts News North

Die Plankton

Art Fist needs you!
All of the content on artfist.org is submitted by volunteers looking to showcase their work. To submit your own work, simply send it to artfist@live.com for consideration. We accept: images, videos, poetry, reviews, features, comics, interviews, short stories, comedy, rants, opinion pieces... anything which is creative or about creativity.

For more information about contributing, check out our submission guidelines HERE.

In partnership with: Arts News North

How to sell Spider-Man to girls

by Liam Ellison

How to sell Spider-Man to girls The Amazing Spider-Man, a movie made for no other reason than Sony Pictures need to use the property every seven years or it will revert back to Marvel, who since their deal have merged with Disney.

You may think that a movie that gets made not out of passion or belief in the story, but rather because it has to be, may not be any good. You may think it would come across as a rushed and vain little film that leaves a hole in your pocket and a stain on your beloved memories of a classic comic book character. You’d be right.

As if that wasn't bad enough, the reboot went into development at the height of the Twilight craze. They only had to give Peter Parker a manageable fully-gelled head of hair to get a young audience in the cinema for what would turn out to be a fully fledged superhero movie. Instead what I found was “The Amazing Spider-Man” was made to not only appeal to teenage girls, but also treat them like idiots. I will illustrate this point using examples from the movie.

*mild spoilers ahead*

Peter Parker, a nerdy outsider kid who gets bitten by a spider and develops supper powers. He uses to help people, right? Well… no-one who looks like Andrew Garfield and has hair like Andrew Garfield and is a smart, sensitive, yet also brooding character like Peter Parker is is going to have no trouble getting laid in an American high school.It’s just not going to happen. If he knows four chords on a guitar, he is going to be knees-deep in action. And if he doesn't look enough like everyone else indie (not independent, indie: I mean stupid haircuts and expensive clothes indie), movie director Marc Webb also gave Peter a skateboard and a Ramones t-shirt. So he’s not a geek character. He’s an attractive one made to appeal to the female audience.

If style isn't their thing, maybe you the ladies care a little more about his emotional side, guess what? Peter Parker cries, like five times. He's as sensitive as a burn victim in a summer’s breeze. In the original Spider-Man (which don't get me wrong was no great work of art), Parker cries when his uncle dies and that's about it. Because that's what any man would do after something like that, shove those emotions down and never deal with them again. but not 2012 Spider-Man, he's weeping over every little thing.

So now Mark Webb has to find a way to connect the image of the emotional Peter Parker to the hero Spider-Man so Spider-Man takes his mask off, all the time, and for no reason. Even in the middle of a fight with The Lizard (which, by the way, has some of the worst CGI I have ever seen in a movie made in the 2000s), he removes his mask just so we can see his clean cut handsome guy face.

Whether it’s to show his vulnerability or not, every comic book fan watching is thinking "he's going to get his secret identify discovered if he keeps this up" Indeed, Parker tells Gwen that he's Spider-Man. Not only is this way out of character, but it creates this awful Twilight-esque vibe in the movie where the two characters are closer just because they share a secret. They basically bypass all of the “I cant share my secret identity with anyone for their own safety” stuff in order to sell him better to the teenage girl demographic. Peter is a romantic bastard and grabs Gwen and kisses passionately: it was totally out of character and I don't care how many ladies it made swoon, it is not something the geekish Peter Parker would do.

But Webb also has to show the sensitive side of Spider-Man, as he's already done with Parker so Gwen tends to his wounds (the wounds on his six-pac and chest) while he's in costume. She doesn't only have Parker submitting to her emotionally, but physically as well, If I were a psychologist, I would bring attention to the fact she if fulfilling her maternal needs and ticks off all the boxes on the "traits a man must have box" at the same time.

But to totally speak down to their young female demographic would be bad for business, so Webb has to show how Gwen is capable of taking care of herself. Gwen "helps out" in action scenes, so we think she isn't just another female character, she's a "sassy" one who doesn't need saving, although she does and is. In, each of the two action scenes she is in, she shown to be ineffective and then acutely removed from the action by a protective male figure.

I have all sorts of problems with this movie. The shoved together story, the lacklustre villain role, the obvious attempts at trying to be like The Dark Knight that fall flat on their face, but mostly, the fact the at no point does anyone say "with great power comes great responsibility," which is the MOST important aspect of the character’s back-story.

I can’t even say what they should have done, because there was absolutely no need for this movie to be made. They turned the movie "The Amazing Spider-Man” into “The Adventures of Peter Parker and Gwen Stacey”, which not only upsets and offends me as a comic-book fan and a movie-goer, but makes me feel sorry for the state of both.

Check out Liam’s collection of comics, Top Hats and Canes, available now on Kindle:

Art Fist needs you!
All of the content on artfist.org is submitted by volunteers looking to showcase their work. To submit your own work, simply send it to artfist@live.com for consideration. We accept: images, videos, poetry, reviews, features, comics, interviews, short stories, comedy, rants, opinion pieces... anything which is creative or about creativity.

For more information about contributing, check out our submission guidelines HERE.

In partnership with: Arts News North

The Weakling

by Stephen Vigors

I awoke sometime in the afternoon, lying on my back,
Naked.

The skylight of my attic apartment was open and it was letting in a cold breeze that was neither Uncomfortable nor comforting.

I rotated my head 45 degrees to the right and searched for a cigarette on my bedside table.
The ash tray needed emptying and cigarette butts stood in the ash like flags on the moon.
I decided not to smoke any of the dead remnants.

I lay lifeless and thoughtless and bereft of will.

I could stay like this forever,

I wallowed in self-pity for a few minutes more before a puny sparrow perched on the window cill.
I squinted in disbelief at the sight of this winged weakling and its nervous, erratic movements.
I was transfixed by the bird’s inability to remain still, unable to give anything true attention.

After a while the bird entered my room and rested on the plant pot of a cactus.
The sparrow continued moving spasmodically while I remained still.
Only my eyes had life as I stared at the sparrow.

Thirty seconds past before the bird flew to me, placed its twig-like legs on my chest and nestled within A Clump of curly hair.
For the first time the bird seemed to feel
Safe
And after ten seconds I was overcome with fever, delirium and desolation.
I slipped away.

I awoke sometime in the evening as the sun began to set and my bedroom became cold.
I turned on the lamp and squinted so that I could hide from the light.
When I could bare the brightness I found a small brown feather on my chest and remembered the Sparrow that had visited me earlier.

I placed the feather in the ashtray and I hoped that one day it would return.




Check out Stephen's website HERE.
You can follow him on Twitter @stephen_vigors

Art Fist needs you!
All of the content on artfist.org is submitted by volunteers looking to showcase their work. To submit your own work, simply send it to artfist@live.com for consideration. We accept: images, videos, poetry, reviews, features, comics, interviews, short stories, comedy, rants, opinion pieces... anything which is creative or about creativity.

In partnership with: Arts News North

Magic Mike: A straight husband's view

by Identity Crisis

Though my wife probably doesn't believe me, I did actually mean to tell her about this film before she randomly saw an advert for it. I'd heard about it a while ago with critics’ early opinions being pretty positive, and combined with the fact that it was directed by Steven Soderbergh, it sounded interesting to me. So when my wife demanded to be taken to see it, I didn't feel like it would be too much of a hardship for me to go along. I'd recently made her sit through Prometheus, so I owed her a movie choice anyway and I didn't think it could be much worse than that...


That said, it was quite a strange experience to see the theatre slowly fill up with women, I can't think of another film I've seen with a similar audience ratio. I wasn't the only guy in there, but there were only a couple more and they looked a lot more miserable about the prospect than me. However, being on the back row right under a spotlight I guess I stood out. "Oh my God there's a man in here! I feel so sorry for you mate!" came a cry from someone finding their seat in front of me. All I could do was chuckle to myself and give a wave of thanks for the sympathy. I did wonder whether the crowd would get a bit rowdy as there was a loud shout of "Oh Yeah!" down to my left the first time Channing Tatum's ass appeared on screen, but for the most part it settled down.


It struck me that one of the characters you meet early on worked quite well as a way for men to get into the film. Adam/'The Kid' (Alex Pettyfer) is thrown into the world of these strippers quite unexpectedly and his initial reactions are probably similar to any men in the audience. There is a lot of comedy in these early scenes, as long as the whole situation doesn't just make you feel awkward. What I found the funniest section in the entire film might make some people just want to curl up into a ball and cover their eyes (the same effect that The Office and Alan Partridge often have on me).


The movie as a whole is more focused on the title role of 'Magic' Mike (Tatum) than Adam's story. In fact, I was quite surprised that there was very little attention paid to Adam "learning the ropes", which was pretty much handled in one scene - very different from something like The Full Monty, where the preparation for their first performance is the entire film. Mike is a mentor to him in a more general sense and also just a friend, with their relationship becoming strained as Adam is drawn into more destructive aspects of the stripper's lifestyles. It's that question of where you draw the line when trying to look out for someone and at the same time let them make their own decisions.


Mike's own story is a familiar one, both in terms of having a dream that he would give up stripping for and also issues that you hear people struggle with in the real world right now. He works non-stop to save up money and runs into problems trying to get any kind of loan from a bank. It quickly becomes obvious that his life is not perfect and you question whether he really fits in to the world of stripping. Tatum's performance is great, which I probably wouldn't have expected before seeing 21 Jump Street earlier in the year. I particularly liked how he struggles and stumbles over what he's trying to say in one scene, which came across as completely natural and believable when it could well have turned out disastrous. In fact the response to this bit of dialogue feels much more scripted and kind of takes you out of the moment, reminding you that you're just watching a film.

As for the actual stripping routines, they are generally not too explicit and didn't make me feel uncomfortable. A lot of the dances are pretty cheesy and even my wife admitted that most of them didn't do much for her, it was more the confidence that all of the dancers have that makes them attractive. I would say there is one routine that almost anyone could appreciate though, especially if you are a fan of groups like Diversity, which is set to Calypso by Excision & Datsik.

If I had any complaints it would be that the ending doesn't feel all that satisfying, I'm not sure whether that is down to it aiming to be realistic or to leave things open for a sequel. But because 'The Kid' doesn't really learn anything from the whole experience, you are left with the impression that he could just continue on his downward spiral. Overall I would say that men shouldn't be scared to go and see this film though. It tells an interesting, believable story, with a good mixture of humour and drama. You just might want to avoid peak times...

Art Fist needs you!
All of the content on artfist.org is submitted by volunteers looking to showcase their work. To submit your own work, simply send it to artfist@live.com for consideration. We accept: images, videos, poetry, reviews, features, comics, interviews, short stories, comedy, rants, opinion pieces... anything which is creative or about creativity.

In partnership with: Arts News North

Jon's great games No.2: Mayhem in Monsterland (C64)

by Jon Cronshaw

There were few Commodore 64 games that pushed the system to its limits like Mayhem in Monsterland. Back in the day, this game was awarded a 100% rating by Commodore Format magazine. In the months leading up to its release, Commodore Format chronicled the game’s production from its initial sketches to its completion. On the front cover of each issue they would give away a cassette featuring a few games demos. I must have played the demo of Mayhem in Monsterland dozens of times. The game was only available by mail order, mainly because at the time of its release in 1993 the Commodore 64 was a redundant machine with most games stockists having long-stopped selling C64 games, with only occasional shops having a bargain-bin full of dusty cracked cassettes. I finally saved up enough pocket money to buy the game, and I wasn’t disappointed. I remember thinking: ‘this game is awesome!’

Mayhem in Monsterland was produced by Apex Productions, a company that had already gained a reputation for producing innovative and bizarre games. Amongst their back catalogue is the fantastic and underrated Creatures, as well as its equally impressive sequel, Creatures 2: Torture Time. Both games boasted a wicked sense of humour, which was replaced in Mayhem in Monsterland by a sense of wonder.

In the game, you control Mayhem, a super-fast, super-cute yellow triceratops who happens to play and look a little bit like Sonic the Hedgehog. The narrative is simple: it is your mission to make the world a happy place by getting rid of all the monsters (note that yellow speed-freak dinosaurs are not considered to be monsters). Looking back at the game, it now seems like a generic platformer with clear nods towards Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Mario Brothers (even the title screen looks as though it was directly lifted from Super Mario World). At the start of each stage, you are given a quota of Magic Dust and Stars to collect. Without fulfilling your quota, you are forced to re-explore the level in order to find the remaining collectables – this gives the game a very free and open feel that later games would eventually capitalise on. Magic Dust could be found each time you killed a monster in the usual platform fashion of jumping on their heads. Once you collected enough Magic Dust, the level becomes ‘happy’ and you are then able to find the Magic Stars. The Magic Stars are a little trickier to find, and feel important due to the musical fanfare that played each time you collect one.

Mayhem in Monsterland was a game that rewarded players who, for whatever reasons, had stuck with their trusty C64s. I did, and I loved it: the game looked fantastic; its colour-pallet and stylistic design were excellent, making the best out of the C64’s limited graphics. Visually, it looked as though the designers had looked at the Green Hill Zone in Sonic the Hedgehog and imagined what it would look like with some of the green pipes from Super Mario Brothers added in. What made Mayhem in Monsterland stand out though was the game’s speed: this game was fast, and not only that, it was smooth to play and had great level design. Though most Commodore 64 games were played using the keyboard, or a joystick, to add to the console feel of the game, I tried out my Sega Master System pad (they had the same socket as the joystick port), and, lo and behold, it worked! There was something about playing such an advanced game (for the C64 at least) with a control pad that added to the experience. I remember a few years back, I had a drunken conversation with a guy who went into great detail about the little tricks and work-arounds that the designers utilised to make Mayhem in Monsterland play and look like a console game. I didn’t really understand what he was talking about, but it sounded impressive.

Games are released all the time today with countless bugs and glitches in them which are later ‘patched up’ by the game’s creators by downloading and updating the games. When Mayhem in Monsterland was released, I was surprised to find a sheet of paper in the box that required you to enter a few lines of code in BASIC before running the game in order to fix a bug in the game that accidently gave you unlimited lives.

1993 was probably the last gasp of the C64: the Megadrive and SNES had established themselves firmly as the home systems of choice, with almost instant access to the games (no ten minutes sat around waiting for the games to load (or not as was often the case)). Indeed, just over a year later, the Sony Playstation would come along and blast all of these systems out of the water with its arcade-quality graphics, awesome sound and its genre defining games like Final Fantasy VII, Metal Gear Solid and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skateboarder.

In its context, this game as the C64’s last hoorah. It may not rate as one of the greatest games of all time, but it certainly has a special place in gaming history. Though it played beautifully, there was nothing particularly groundbreaking about the game-play, but its legacy is secured due to the sheer technical wizardry that the game’s designers employed in creating this title. The 100% awarded for the game seems laughable, but we have to take this number in its context and ask ourselves: could the Commodore 64 do anything better than this? The answer is probably not.

Art Fist needs you!
All of the content on artfist.org is submitted by volunteers looking to showcase their work. To submit your own work, simply send it to artfist@live.com for consideration. We accept: images, videos, poetry, reviews, features, comics, interviews, short stories, comedy, rants, opinion pieces... anything which is creative or about creativity.

In partnership with: Arts News North

The A to Z playlist challenge: T

by Dean Ellison

Tardiness is becoming my downfall. I now find myself in the position of writing up my notes about the music I’ve been rediscovering a week after the event. This does allow me to relive the memory, but it does lead to some jilted writing. So please bear with me, as the end is in sight.

Once upon a time there was Horrors, The. They released an awful first album that got shoved down our throats, and made them seem a bit of a joke. Their follow-up however, Primary Colours, was something of a revelation: when I heard it playing in record stores, or on the radio (6 Music, naturally), my ears pricked up: I liked it. Then I found out that it was Horrors, The. I’m not alone in having gone through this upset, there are others, and in our defence the drastic improvement was largely down to Portishead man Geoff Barrow all but turning them into a tribute of his excellent side project Beak.

But preconceptions are a difficult thing to shake, so perhaps it’s best to keep aware off or human limitations when listening to recent Horrors, The support act Toy.

Toy consists of former NME-flavour-of-the-week, Joe Lean and the Jean Jang Jong, who only ever released one single before thankfully disappearing. Does such fame-whoredom dismiss a band’s artistic credibility? It’s hard to say, Bowie, David, as covered in recent BBC4 documentaries about the 40th anniversary of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust took many ill-guided steps in a desperation for fame before finding something that worked for him. Costello, Elviis, despite starting out in lemonade adverts went on to be a successful racial abuser of Charles, Ray.

In their favour, Toy have made their debut single available for free download at their website, making it easier to listen to them without discovering if they sport backcombed hair, skinny trousers, or the dreaded ill-advised teenage moustache.

Considering the actual music, the two tracks show promise: although my preference has to be for B Side ‘Clock Chime’ because it sounds like Barrett, Syd era Pink Floyd composing music for Sonic the Hedgehog 2.





A-Side ‘Left Myself Behind’ just doesn’t do it for me: perhaps because it sounds like an angry Pet Shop Boys. The lyrics are also awful, which is why most bands revisiting psychedelic grooves and krautrock, such as the excellent Cosmic Dead keep them to a minimum. Or, if you’re Wooden Shjips, just drench them in effects so people have no idea what you’re talking about, both ideas work better than this.




In addition to not judging Toy on who they used to be, it will perhaps be best to reserve judgment on them until they release an album. Right now they’re out there on tour learning their chops, getting into the music business by touring (rather than by wearing the right clothes) and releasing some decent tunes. They’re forming their own sound instead of copying their producer’s, and the album is out in September.

Nottingham’s Tindersticks, The are a hard band to categorize. They have an element of soul, a hint of jazz, and almost always sound like a film score. Maintaining this niche for 26 years must be no easy task, but then when you listen to them, it’s hard not to be converted.

Simple Pleasures captures them wearing their soul influences on their sleeve, just check out the organ driven ‘Before You Close Your Eyes’, and listen to those backing vocals. Nice.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9QOrmcJ7gM&feature=player_detailpage
The album just maintains an amazing collection of love songs with such tender ambience; it has an openness on par with The Boatman’s Call. Such high praise can easily be justified by listening to ‘If She’s Torn’.





This is an album of highlights; I can’t recommend listening to it enough. But if you have your doubts, your reservations, please at least listen to this one track, album closer ‘Cf Gf’: it’s simply a pleasure.





I wish I could say more about Thompson, Richard, but I just can’t find the words. I listened to a few albums and while they all have a charm to them, it’s hard to say what it is about them that makes them feel so special. He has clear talent, he has a unique voice, and he has fantastic playing style and is a great lyricist. He has been described as “Our Bob Dylan”, but that feels like selling him short as ultimately I think Richard Thompson is our Richard Thompson. I’m sure he deserves more credit as a national treasure, but I think it’s going to take a better writer than me to explain why. Perhaps listening to his work yourself will be the best way to find some conclusion to this rambling.

Dream Attic is a good starting place: it’s the album my wife used to introduce me to Thompson, Richard just a few years ago. It’s his last album, I’m sure there are more classics out there to go and devour, but my week has only so much time. The songs range from the murder ballad ‘Sidney Wells’, to the foot-stomper ‘Demons in her Dancing Shoes’.







Triffids, The could be the best band to come out of Australia. The lyrics are dark, the soundscape is as wide and sparse as the outback itself

Triffids, The have benefited from a revised interest following a reissue series starting in 2007, which made life much easier for me, as until then I’d been scouring second-hand record stores and struggling with the then newly emerging Napster to build up enough material to muster even a mix tape.

In The Pines captures the band at their most uncorrupted. Saints, The came roaring out of Australia having forged their own punk sound only to discover that other people had beaten them to it. I think when it came to Triffids, The’s turn to break the UK, they got there only to find Smiths, The had stolen their shtick.

In the Pines is an album consisting of early tracks recorded in a shed on a sheep farm in Western Australia and it’s an album of top rate song writing, both musically and lyrically. Music has a great ability to expand one’s mind, teaching you new things: this is especially true of lyricists who just go that little bit further to find the right word (Zevon, Warren was a master of it, he can send you running for the dictionary so that you can understand what you thought was a common language). McComb, Dave of Triffids, The shows off his lexicography skills in ‘Jerdacuttup Man’, the tale of a man murdered and pushed into a peat bog only to be discovered centuries later and put on display in the British Museum.





Now I never knew that this preserving process was known as Jerdacuttupation, meaning I learnt something new. Well, I might have, had this actually been the case and Jerdacuttup wasn’t simply his home town in Australia. This I learnt it import never to assume you’ve deduced the meaning of a new word. Dictionaries exist for a reason,, and one of them is to stop you making a tit of yourself by misusing fancy words. Triffids, The, it’s fair to say, lean towards the same dark lyricism of fellow Australian Cave, Nick, they also take a similar sentiment-free approach to romance, as there mere song title of ‘One Soul Less on Your Fiery List’ leads you to imagine the scorn the song might contain, while ‘Do You Want me Near You’ and ‘Might Just Fade Aware’ are both tales of an emotional distance equal to the great expanse of the Australian Outback.





But it’s not all super heavy, there’s always the lighter charm of ‘Once a Day’ and the Valentine’s Day in waiting serenade of ‘Sure The Girl I Love’

Despite his talents, singer McComb, Dave was gone at a young age. A crash resulting from drunk driving left him in a frail state, and a few days later he died as a result of his heart transplant being rejected and heroin toxicity. What a way to go.

As I press on, and as hopefully you take some time to listen to Thompson, Richard, I now prepare myself for the difficult weeks ahead as my quest nears completions. Bands beginning with U or Y? I’m going to have some difficulty, so please, get those recommendations in and help me through these final turbulent seas as I approach my final week of listening to nothing book Zappa, Frank - chronologically.

Art Fist needs you!
All of the content on artfist.org is submitted by volunteers looking to showcase their work. To submit your own work, simply send it to artfist@live.com for consideration. We accept: images, videos, poetry, reviews, features, comics, interviews, short stories, comedy, rants, opinion pieces... anything which is creative or about creativity.

In partnership with: Arts News North

Artists' Showcase: Jason Howgate

From top:
Mount Analogue Oil on canvas 80cm x 120 cm
True like ice, like fire Oil on canvas 80cm x 120cm
View from Dodd Naze Oil on canvas 40cm x 50 cm

Art Fist needs you!
All of the content on artfist.org is submitted by volunteers looking to showcase their work. To submit your own work, simply send it to artfist@live.com for consideration. We accept: images, videos, poetry, reviews, features, comics, interviews, short stories, comedy, rants, opinion pieces... anything which is creative or about creativity.

In partnership with: Arts News North

It's tough

by Jamilla Bailey

It’s tough.
Being heart broken by a man’s whose heart you never owned
A man’s whose laugh you never started
A man’s whose sex drive you never enflamed.
It’s even tougher
When he is the sole owner of your heart
Beating so fast in his hands
Loving him for all he is and isn’t
When he makes you not only giggle
But he calls laughter roaring through your chest
You start to feel happiness within you
Over a stupid joke that accidentally escaped his lips
When just a few words spoken in whispers
Has your kitty purring
Nipples erect and back arched
Wanting him to take your body for all that it has
Wanting him to love you for all that you have
To offer a man in his place
Loving his faults
Praising his skills
Honoring who he is and will be
Preparing him for a better day
You are the woman who makes him smile
You are the woman who inflates his ego
With your own tired breaths
Instead of breathing them into someone who loves you
You heaved everything you have into him
This man
Who you can’t quit for one day
Because you’re afraid he wouldn’t even notice
You’re afraid he would be fine without you.
This is the man you love
And it’s tough
Because he doesn’t love you back
And he probably never will
And what’s tougher
Is that he is your soul mate.


Part of the #ArtFistPoetryFestival.

Art Fist needs you!
All of the content on artfist.org is submitted by volunteers looking to showcase their work. To submit your own work, simply send it to artfist@live.com for consideration. We accept: images, videos, poetry, reviews, features, comics, interviews, short stories, comedy, rants, opinion pieces... anything which is creative or about creativity.

In partnership with: Arts News North

Flag

by Ben Fisher

If the lion's book is open
Venice is at peace

If the lion's book is closed
Venice is at war

For the time being
my book is open


Part of the #ArtFistPoetryFestival

Art Fist needs you!
All of the content on artfist.org is submitted by volunteers looking to showcase their work. To submit your own work, simply send it to artfist@live.com for consideration. We accept: images, videos, poetry, reviews, features, comics, interviews, short stories, comedy, rants, opinion pieces... anything which is creative or about creativity.

In partnership with: Arts News North

Attention

by Rehan Qayoom

Is it her? (It cannot be) avert your gaze
That jutted jaw-line and the same bare legs
Do your chink and tangle ugly bits amaze?
My loner moon amongst a crowd of stars begs

Words Socratic, words messianic
Your slapdash words go a long way here
Words delivered to prevent a panic
Whispered gently like the doleful air

The unconventional is to me conventional
They tied me up last night with his will
Is it conventional to be conventional?
Puddle-jump highways and byways still!


Check out Rehan's fantastic blog HERE.


Part of the #ArtFistPoetryFestival.

Art Fist needs you!
All of the content on artfist.org is submitted by volunteers looking to showcase their work. To submit your own work, simply send it to artfist@live.com for consideration. We accept: images, videos, poetry, reviews, features, comics, interviews, short stories, comedy, rants, opinion pieces... anything which is creative or about creativity.

In partnership with: Arts News North

Eulogy for my Grandfather

by Matt Posner

Morris Posner was a righteous man.
He loved to learn, but his father tore up his schoolbooks.
So Morris went to work.
His work bore down on him,
Made him ill,
But he lived a long time.
His heart desired to live.
He was a righteous man.

The Glassheims had their troubles.
He helped out however he could.
Celeste Glassheim then married him,
For he was a righteous man.

The war came.
He was in Brooklyn and built ships.
He toiled responsibly. Asbestos fouled his lungs.
He smoked, too.
After the war, my father was born.
Morris Posner started a print shop.
The old steel printers banged,
hour after hour, year after year,
in that shop,
Till his hearing went.
But his heart desired to live.
He was a righteous man.

One time he was asked to do a crooked thing and refused to consent.
Thugs were laying for him. He fled to Miami Beach.
It would be easier to take the bad deal, but he was a righteous man.

When he saw a liar, he called “Liar” and pointed his finger.
He spoke his mind in public.
He called a bum a bum.
He taught me chess.
He fenced his pool.
He made my cousin an engineer.
He moved to Florida.
He ate schav and gefilte fish.
His house burnt down.
All the photos were lost.
He fought ITT.
He built another house.
Celeste, a good tired woman, died.
He grew weak.
A rotten bitch stole his money.
But he was not ready to be done.
There was more for him.
He carved wooden toys.
He bought me my first car.
His heart desired to live.
Morris Posner was a righteous man.

He was sick a long time.
He walked by the green pool, browned by sun.
He coughed up tar from his lungs.
His heart desired happiness.
He spoke to Celeste when no one seemed to be around.
He asked my new wife to mend his shorts.
She gave him pistachio kulfis.
It was not much longer.
He called the condo president a bum.
Three generations, he, my father, and I owned condos in one place.
That will not happen again.

I saw his body lying in the hospice,
Mouth yawing open like a mounted bear’s head.
I was frightened and wept, a long time.
Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad.
I went back, said I loved him and said goodbye.
I should have done better.
But we are not all righteous men.

I have said very little about Morris Posner.
He was infinite beautiful shadows.
This is his eulogy:
His heart desired to live with Celeste.
There must be a heaven because that would be right,
And he was a righteous man.


Part of the #ArtFistPoetryFestival.

Art Fist needs you!
All of the content on artfist.org is submitted by volunteers looking to showcase their work. To submit your own work, simply send it to artfist@live.com for consideration. We accept: images, videos, poetry, reviews, features, comics, interviews, short stories, comedy, rants, opinion pieces... anything which is creative or about creativity.

In partnership with: Arts News North

Observing the Zombie Apocalypse

by Grant Tarbard

The Zombies considered the window display at Debenhams
Lulled by the man-made fibres and taut fabric; the last spark of those Norfolk Broads holidays,
Stitches weaved by innumerate fingers, pulled across the sea from those painted spires of former empire.
The Undead's thoughts on imperialism were not clear,
Their thoughts on brown nylon were surprisingly positive.

The Zombies shuffled past the make-up counter poking at samples of violet blusher
Offering a face of healed complexion, cheeks coloured apricot bruise,
They were unlikely to buy any lipstick but it was good to see what was on the market.
A groan went up as the mass squeezed past the mirrors, whether this was recognition or fear will be debated.
The Undead could use a smattering of talc. None was purchased.

The Zombies fumbled with a harmonica, one managing to warble what can only be described as dead air
Through the blow holes, the tune resembled nothing more than a small dogs asthma attack. Perhaps a Pomeranian?
Whether the rotting lips wrapped about the reed plate knew anything of the history of the blues harp, or French harp as it is also known remains unclear.
What can be accurately ascertained is that the Undead seem to enjoy the sound of a free reed wind instrument.
Zombies, it may be said, are the folk club congregators of the monster pantheon.
This is also up for debate.


Part of the #ArtFistPoetryFestival.

Art Fist needs you!
All of the content on artfist.org is submitted by volunteers looking to showcase their work. To submit your own work, simply send it to artfist@live.com for consideration. We accept: images, videos, poetry, reviews, features, comics, interviews, short stories, comedy, rants, opinion pieces... anything which is creative or about creativity.

In partnership with: Arts News North

The Hunter

by Jon Cronshaw

Waves dance like ghosts over God’s green ocean,
The killer awakens but never sleeps,
Her lust satisfied in flesh and blood,
An endless and unquenchable need,
The white shimmer of the hunter,
God’s ocean turned red in her wake.


Part of the #ArtFistPoetryFestival.

Art Fist needs you!
All of the content on artfist.org is submitted by volunteers looking to showcase their work. To submit your own work, simply send it to artfist@live.com for consideration. We accept: images, videos, poetry, reviews, features, comics, interviews, short stories, comedy, rants, opinion pieces... anything which is creative or about creativity.

In partnership with: Arts News North

Shopping List

by Ben Fisher

4 pints skimmed milk
eggs
carrots
plum tomatoes
shallots
brown bread
cheerios
cheese - port salut
or 5 counties
fresh juice
ready roast chicken
cat food
biscuits
soft toilet paper
red wine
baked beans
something for the missus


Part of the #ArtFistPoetryFestival.

Art Fist needs you!
All of the content on artfist.org is submitted by volunteers looking to showcase their work. To submit your own work, simply send it to artfist@live.com for consideration. We accept: images, videos, poetry, reviews, features, comics, interviews, short stories, comedy, rants, opinion pieces... anything which is creative or about creativity.

In partnership with: Arts News North

Unstable

by K Shemesh

One step

I fall

I wake

I recall

Places that made me feel safe

One step

I fall

I ache

I call

Faces that once helped me pave

A road, a harmonious path without fear

A road which is lost now, is it anywhere near?

One step

I fall

I cry

I stall

Unstable

Unable to find ‘safe’ anymore.


Part of the #ArtFistPoetryFestival.

Art Fist needs you!
All of the content on artfist.org is submitted by volunteers looking to showcase their work. To submit your own work, simply send it to artfist@live.com for consideration. We accept: images, videos, poetry, reviews, features, comics, interviews, short stories, comedy, rants, opinion pieces... anything which is creative or about creativity.

In partnership with: Arts News North

Flames

by Jamilla Bailey

Am I too intense?
Are these words too heavy
As they weigh on your ears
And deflate the mind you hold dear?
Am I too direct?
Speaking ones thoughts
Often leads to trouble,
But the trouble is what you asked for
When you stayed after I sent you away.
Did you think it was a joke?
When I said I was insane,
Out of my mind,
Needy,
Lonely,
Depressed,
Awkward,
Helplessly falling for you,
A dangerously lost cause?
When did the laughter stop?
When I threw myself off of the cliff?
When I bloodied myself and swam with sharks?
When I smoked?
When I drank?
When I did whatever I wanted to do?
Did the laughter stop
When I came out of my shell and
Exposed the disgusting, soft skinned infant
That cries nightly inside of myself?
Did the laughter stop
When I started to slip into
Winter’s darkest forest,
Depression ready to make its mark again?
Did the laughter stop
When I asked you not to care about me?
Did the laughter stop
When you realized you cared about me
After swearing off holding hearts,
Hugging, holding hands, and emotions?
Did the laughter that soothes me
Stop when you realized
You were falling for a mad woman
And me, her, myself, she
Couldn’t be saved from herself?
Am I too intense?
Too dramatic, too wild
Too emotional, too crazy
Too needy, too verbose
Too demanding, too oddly perfect for you?
Am I too intense?
In the way I continue to fight
For something I pray you feel like
Static shocks lighting up dusk skies
You are my lightning
My electrical current
Bringing me back to life,
My second chance at life
And no one worth spending time with,
You’re gone...
Am I too intense?
If there’s no you then who
Do I bother myself with?
Who can I bother now?
Who can I run to?
Who can I trust?
Who can I expect to not judge me
For the disturbing beast I am?
Am I too intense?
Did you scare you?
You brave men run at the sight of
A true woman, in her natural habitat,
Teetering on the edge of lunacy.
Am I too intense?
Please, let me dial it down
I will snub my fire out
Become Sheila, Kim, Tracey,
Anyone you want me to be;
Is this promise too intense?
The fact that I will ration myself
For you if it means I will win you?
A thousand bears line up the wall,
I knocked the glass milk bottles down
One by one, one by one, one by one
A thousand bears line up the wall,
And I want you.
Am I too intense?
Or worse...
Am I wrong?


Part of the #ArtFistPoetryFestival.

Art Fist needs you!
All of the content on artfist.org is submitted by volunteers looking to showcase their work. To submit your own work, simply send it to artfist@live.com for consideration. We accept: images, videos, poetry, reviews, features, comics, interviews, short stories, comedy, rants, opinion pieces... anything which is creative or about creativity.

In partnership with: Arts News North

Why are we fighting?

by Martin 'The Godfather' Nettles

When the towers come down
and the walls are being pounded.
Cluster bombs drop
on the innocent, dumbfounded.

They look to their leaders
with pain and hate.
So what do they do?
The re-taliate

On the other side
they’re just like you and me.
Hiding in the basement
from an RPG.

They say to their leaders,
‘Enough please for today.’
The leaders turn a blind eye,
and fire back anyway.

Bombs on the left
grenades on the right.
Here come some humans,
quick let’s start a fight.

Why are we at war
you and me?
We may be on different sides,
but we’re all humanity.

Peace and love
John Lennon said it best.
why can’t we just get along
and let the past to rest?

It’s an easy thing,
to start a war.
But to advocate peace,
seems so much harder by far.


Part of the #ArtFistPoetryFestival.

Art Fist needs you!
All of the content on artfist.org is submitted by volunteers looking to showcase their work. To submit your own work, simply send it to artfist@live.com for consideration. We accept: images, videos, poetry, reviews, features, comics, interviews, short stories, comedy, rants, opinion pieces... anything which is creative or about creativity.

In partnership with: Arts News North

Love is better than wine

by Rehan Qayoom

Don't evade your realm because you think you're weak
Sanctify our hole-and-corner warm white day
Stay and fight the battle with your own physique

Go away and pray

If I ever pass along your street again
Will you hire your boys to hurl abuse at me?
Can we ever (in the same way) meet again

Speaking Silverly?

I learn to live with what I've got and just then
Teeming tears of grief, flaccid pain
Tell me what I never had and where and when

My eyes can't contain

Light enough to know our days won't return
And it feels like I am close to passing out
Now the wings of tiny little angels burn

What's love all about?

Grace me with your Chardonnay kisses tonight
Scintillating stature in fur coat soused in
Bathed luminosities and glinting light

Let our life begin


Part of the #ArtFistPoetryFestival

Art Fist needs you!
All of the content on artfist.org is submitted by volunteers looking to showcase their work. To submit your own work, simply send it to artfist@live.com for consideration. We accept: images, videos, poetry, reviews, features, comics, interviews, short stories, comedy, rants, opinion pieces... anything which is creative or about creativity.

In partnership with: Arts News North

Halo Factory (while overlooking dancers warming up before practice, the Towngate Theatre 21st May 2012)

by Grant Tarbard

The dancers congregate for gossiping words
Sniped from the bell tower of looked down nostrils
The legs stretch, thigh's flesh
Sheathed in the blackest tights like an eel on the bottom.

The summer dresses of buttercup yellow
Dance seductive light with all the mirror suitors
Watchers, well wishers
One night standers waiting to happen
Revving to start the race towards acceptance
Towards forgiveness.

Stand and deliver your braids of hair
Carelessly twirled outside of the make-up mirror
Where your ghost lies beyond Glencoe mist,
Another widow of the halo factory.

Such music, her movement
Is a fingertip touch glanced upon the eyes
Such a dance, her body arches over
Its beauty means never having to say sorry
Or accept its scant offering.

The door closes to the auditorium
That world inside is lost
A tea clipper corked inside a bottle,
Unobtainable
Like the figures creating movement's breath beyond the mortar.


Part of the #ArtFistPoetryFestival.

Art Fist needs you!
All of the content on artfist.org is submitted by volunteers looking to showcase their work. To submit your own work, simply send it to artfist@live.com for consideration. We accept: images, videos, poetry, reviews, features, comics, interviews, short stories, comedy, rants, opinion pieces... anything which is creative or about creativity.

In partnership with: Arts News North