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Doctor Doom at The Leicester Comedy Festival
I was up in lovely LEICESTER at the weekend, there to bring Data and Doctor Doom to the Leicester Comedy Festival for, I think, my TENTH time at the festival, and the SEVENTEENTH anniversary of (the second night of) my first time there!

It's an amazing thing that the festival is still going strong 30ish years after it all began. I remember it getting going as a very local affair in the distant days when I still LIVED in Leicester and it's come a LONG way from there to its current status as a COMEDY BEHEMOTH. In some ways it feels a bit sad that it's lost some of the Fringe-y localNESS of those early days, and does feel a bit more focussed on Big Telly Comedians than an INDIE TYPE like me would necessarily prefer, but it's an incredible thing to see how much it's embedded in the city and generally accepted as PART of Leicester.

As ever when returning to that fair city I was delighted to see that the grand tradition of knocking down buildings has continued, this time with a great chunk of the street near the town square being demolished. Later research showed that this had been done YEARS ago but it was new to me and WEIRDLY there had never been a PUB on the site so I cannot even take personal responsibility its removal, unlike the many many other demolitions linked to my musical past in Leicester.

I arrived at the King Richard III Visitor Centre - another NEW THING to me - and met the lovely staff there, who were all VERY friendly and helpful, especially when I got into my room and needed some help getting the projector working. It was a GRATE room I must say, and after some mild PANIC about getting set up (largely caused by me not having done it in a while) I was just about ready to receive AUDIENCE.

And LO! Audience did appear, and was PACKED with PALS and familiar faces, as well as some NON-familiar faces also. I must admit I got A Little Bit Excited by it all, and had to use ALL my willpower to wait until it was actually time to start before getting going properly. Rather fantastically during this time Mrs E Pattison was able to grab a candid snap of THE COUNCIL, fully reunited for the first time in many years!



The show itself seemed to go OK - I was a little bit thrown by a) having some of my oldest PALS in the room GRINNING back at me and b) the projector set-up meaning I wasn't able to use Presenter View, and so couldn't see what was coming next, but I think together we all rose to the challenge and had a rather jolly time. I then got to lurk around and CHAT to a few people, including the marvellous Mr B Ennis who had PROMOTED the whole thing so ably (he was GRATE!), before we headed round the corner to yet ANOTHER place I had not been before, The Blue Boar.

COR, this was a really nice pub which, I think, had been an office when I last walked past it, and was now PACKED with so many beers that there were FOUR pages of screen listing them all! CHAT was had with the lovely friends who had rolled up, and stories were told of adventures that happened more DECADES ago than I would really like to admit. It was BRILLO!

Hugs were had, farewells were said, and myself, Mr T 'The Tiger' McClure and The Pattisons made our way along New Walk to The Marquis Of Wellington to find Mr and Mrs F Machine, who had arrived for our BAND CURRY, which took place over the road. This was ANOTHER delightful affair, during which we discussed plans for our next GIG (for about 3 minutes) and also TELLY (for significantly longer).

We popped back over the road for a final PINT and then it was time for us all to wend our weary - and, in my case, slightly WOBBLY - way home. I collapsed into my Premier Inn very happy, but also EXHAUSTED - that was a LOT of fun to pack into one day!

posted 10/2/2026 by MJ Hibbett
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I Take Full Responsibility For My Error
I come to you today as a much humbled, but hopefully wiser, Hibbett - for LO! my GRATE PREDICTION wot I made in a Major Entertainment Outlet about there being an "Avengers: Doomsday" trailer during the Superbowl turns out to be have been entirely INCORRECT!

I was sure that my divination of the Weird Numbers in the teaser trailers were all pointing towards a big reveal during yesterdays American Football Extravaganza, and this prediction was repeated in multiple OTHER Entertainment Outlets (as discussed recently) but alas this was not the case. However, despite all this, there appear to have been no implications whatsoever. The article what I wrote is still there, the other articles mentioning it don't seem to have been changed, and nobody has, as yet, been on The Socials to reprimand me for my inaccuracy.

It all feels a bit weird, almost as if... almost as if there's no penalty for being wrong in this sort of thing? As I pondered this thought this morning I was reminded of all those political pundits who show up in The Media to pontificate about what current party political leaders are doing wrong, despite the fact that most of these people are best known for cocking everything up entirely. I will mention no names - not least because there is probably a SECRET SOCIETY of such people and I might get invited to a DO or something - but I regularly see newspaper columns by people who have steered opposition parties to disastrous defeats, or the papers being reviewed by people who were sacked for being entirely untrustworthy, or indeed former chancellors of the exchequer responsible for one of the worst budgets ever popping up on telly to discuss what the current government should be doing instead. NO NAMES.

Thus I am providing this MEA CULPA to say that it's a fair cop, I got that one wrong, and will take some time to reflect upon my errors. I expect this to take at LEAST half an hour, at which point I shall once again be available to confidently predict Doctor Doom's future movements. When IS the next big Comic Con anyway?

posted 9/2/2026 by MJ Hibbett
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A Day Trip To Leeds
On Wednesday I headed up to distant LEEDS to do a talk about MY RESEARCH JOURNEY (i.e. Doctor Doom and how I ended up doing a PhD/Book/Musical/etc about him) at Leeds Arts University.

I'd been booked AGES ago so had been able to get an entirely reasonable ticket price for going first class, which was LOVELY all the way to Wakefield, at which point the train ground to a halt as, apparently, another train had broken down just ahead of us and now Leeds station was CLOSED. After twenty minutes or so someone burst into my carriage and annouced that a few BRAVE SURVIVORS were getting a taxi to Leeds if anyone wanted to join them and I LEAPT at the chance. I'd given myself a good TWO HOURS leeway for getting there but even so I was started to panic. THUS I ended up getting an EXCEEDINGLY reasonably priced taxi with a group of Professional People, during which I think I managed to just about hold my end up with the PROFESSIONAL CHAT.

Once arrived I strode across Leeds to FINALLY visit OK Comics (after not getting to do so at multiple Comics Forums), which was ace, and then walk the rest of the way to Leeds Arts University to be met by Mr H Gronnet, who had booked me. As I say, I was there to talk about my RESEARCH and how that had progressed from a PhD to a book to a musical and so on, but as soon as we discovered that Henry and I do pretty much the same job at our respective institutions there was also quite a lot of REF CHAT. That was GRATE!

I didn't really know what size or shape of audience I would have so, as ever, I simply assumed it would be STADIUM-SIZED and wrote my presentation to suit. I did a similar thing last year when I did The Lakes Festival - in fact I pretty much always do and I don't really why, as so far it never actually HAS been stadium-sized. This time around I was talking to a small group of academics in a normal-sized lecturer theatre, with a similar number of people attending online, so to start with I felt like some kind of LOONIE shouting and - especially - SINGING at them, but I adapted as I went along and, I think, so did they.

Another thing I always seem to do is entirely forget what I had actually SAID I was going to talk about, so when my original ABSTRACT was read out at the start I realised that I hadn't included HALF of the stuff I said I would, and so I spent a lot of time trying to SHOEHORN that in at appropriate moments. To be honest though, having to make great chunks of it up as I go along is what I enjoy MOST about doing gigs, so I had a lovely time, especially when we got into the second half of the session and QUESTIONS. Yet another thing I do in these situations is to become INTENSELY CONSCIOUS of the fact that I am talking A LOT, which is objectively fine because that is what they have asked me there to do, but still years of being AWARE of this in social situations is hard to shake off!

I did manage to shut up at some points and leave space for multiple INTERESTING THORTS and IDEAS from everyone else, which was lovely. However, all too soon it was over and after saying my farewells I headed back into town to pay a visit to North Bar, where I had had plenty of fun times after Comics Forum last year, and then to look sorrowfully upon a temporarily closed ZAM ZAMS, where The Validators have eaten so heartily in the past. Denied the chance to dine there I instead I paid tribute to other Validator Adventures by going to Doner Summer (yes, it was mostly the name that made me go there) for a DELICIOUS, also ENORMOUS plate of BERLINER (vegan) DONER and FRIED.

It was thus a very FULL but also very HAPPY Hibbett who staggered through the streets of Leeds to get my train home, this time without the need for taxis. More of this sort of thing please!

posted 28/1/2026 by MJ Hibbett
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Working The Algorithm
Later this week I am off to LEEDS to do a talk at Leeds Arts University about MY WORK. This came about because I advertised myself on a DATA mailing list a couple of months ago as someone who could talk about That Sort Of Thing and then got asked by the lovely people at Leeds Arts to go and do so, discussing the research process that took me from doing a PhD to the BOOK to the SHOW and indeed BEYOND. I was, obviously, utterly flipping DELIGHTED to say "YES PLEASE!"

I have thus been beavering away on my SLIDES for the past couple of weeks, working out what I need to say, and this has been a v v interesting experience. Obviously I think ANYTHING to do with me and my ouvre is objectively fascinating, but diving into it like this has been GRATE, as it's reminded me of all sorts of fun things that have happened along the way. My first go at the slides was basically an edited version of the SHOW, but then I realised that what they wanted was the STORY of how I got there, not necessarily an in-depth description of the methodologies, and my BRANE has been gradually catching up with this - yesterday, for instance, it reminded me that I did a whole work-in-progress show and then went to see Mr D Munro for DRAMATURGY, and that those might be something to mentione along the way!

A big part of the talk is going to be about the underlying purpose to get my name out there and into the ALGORITHM, so that when the films come out anyone searching for "Doctor Doom Expert" will find ME, so I thought it'd be a good idea to do a progress report on how all that's going. To my ENORMOUS DELIGHT I discovered that it's going REALLY WELL, and that if you do do a google for "Doctor Doom Expert" then my Radio Times article is (currently) the SIXTH thing that comes up! HOORAH!

Even more excitingly I discovered that this article - particularly my prediction that the "glitchy numbers" in the current trailers are counting down to a FULL trailer to be shown during the Super Bowl - has been quoted in a number of OTHER news outlets, notably Yahoo! News and - best of all - THE WEEK. This is EXACTLY what I was after, so I was RUDDY DELIGHTED to see that it had actually worked.

But there was even MORE excitement to come - as I was putting the slides together I thought "hang on, a high Google ranking is very 2010s isn't it? Surely these days THE KIDS are just asking AI?" I knew that if you just put "Doctor Doom Expert" into Google the AI starts telling you things that Doom is an expert IN, but if you do it properly like wot THE KIDZ do and ASK it an actual question like "Who is an expert on doctor doom?" then what do you think happens?

I'll tell you what happens - it says IT IS ME! HOORAH! And also ZANG! Getting THAT to happen has been a huge part of the POINT of doing all this, especially in these days of People Using AI, so I did a little WHOOP of JOY to see that it had actually WORKED! It turns out that getting the phrase "Doctor Doom Expert" onto lots of webpages again and again works just the same as putting "International Rock Star" into my press releases does, and the MACHINES believe it.

Now all we need is for Robert Downey Jr to ask the SAME question and it will be HO! for HOLLYWOOD and some Doom Chat around the pool. Bobby! CALL ME!

posted 26/1/2026 by MJ Hibbett
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Crystal Palace Session #2
Yesterday I headed off to distant CRYSTAL PALACE where I was due to attend the second recording session for the MJ Hibbett/CJ Thorpe-Tracey ALBUM PROJECT. The day got off to an excellent start when I got a BUS up the FLIPPING MOUNTAIN that Onecat Studio sits upon, thus avoiding both gradient and RAIN, and things continued in much the same way.

I met the aforesaid Mr CJ Thorpe-Tracey along with Mr J Blusher and, after some chat and also piano tuning, we got into ACTION recording a whole HEAP of songs. This time around we did piano tracks for When You Hear A Bird, Was This What You Wanted?, Chips And Cheese, Pint Of Wine (a re-do from last time), Wrong About Everything, 7 Hearts and Say It With Words, pretty much in that order I think.

One of the many wonderful aspects of the day was the PROCESS what some of these songs went through. Chris and I have PRACTICED them and indeed GIGGED most of them as well, but when we started recording Jon offered NOTES and SUGGESTIONS about how they could be done differently, which Chris then took up and DID. Some of this was entirely amazing to me, like when Chris took a piano part and played bits of in different octaves, or with different bass-lines, or even did the whole thing completely differently. It takes me literally WEEKS to re-learn something like that, but here they were doing it as if it was PEASY. When we started all this last year one of the things I was most keen on was to NOT stick to the original arrangements of all the songs, and here we were re-doing them on the fly, it was GRATE!

Another delightful aspect for me was that it was ALL Piano tracks. At the previous session I had got myself a bit worked up emotionally because I had to do lots of Proper Singing, but this time I was just doing guide vocals so didn't have to worry about it at all. Also this was now a studio and a set-up I was familiar with so could relax into it a lot more.

Along with all the ROCK ACTION there was also some ADMIN talk about doing another gig, what other songs to do, and indeed the need to get together some ASSETS like pictures and blurbs etc. It's all starting to feel a bit more REAL now - when I got home I realised we now have TEN (10) songs underway (not including our version of Mull Of Kintyre for Joyzine) which is bordering on ENOUGH!

It was a pretty brilliant day, all in all. Hopefully we'll be back there in a month or two to do one more batch of songs and also to do some SINGING, and then we move onto ARRANGEMENTS and so forth. I can't wait to be able to play these songs to people, they really are sounding Quite Good!

posted 16/1/2026 by MJ Hibbett
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The Promotions Of Doom
Next month I'm going to be doing Data and Doctor Doom in Leicester (Saturday 7 February, tickets HIGHLY AVAILABLE), which means it's time to start cranking up the old Promotional Machine again.

So far that means I have done a new version of the POSTER, shown below. As you can see, this is pretty much exactly the same as all the other posters what I've done for this show, just with different details in. I was INSPIRED to do this by the posters for PUB BANDS that I used to see around Leicester back in the early 90s, where the acts had run off LOADS of posters and just written the dates in in PEN. Back then it cost approx a million quid to get posters done, so that was Quite Sensible, and despite the fact that these days it is significantly less costly, even for glossy colour ones, it is a state on mind that I have not been able to shift!



This has been printed in both poster and leaflet form and sent to the marvellous Mr B Ennis, who is PROMOTING the show, which means that I must now turn my attention to other items, which as per is going to include various VIDEOS and also Banging On About It On Social Media. I've also got an idea that there's something in the fact that I'm doing a show about a Misunderstood Tyrant (V von Doom) in the vistor centre for another Misunderstood Tyrant (King Richard III) that I could do something with, but I'm as yet not sure what!

The main point of all this, to be honest, is to apologise in advance for the amount of SHOW SPAMMING that will be coming to my SOCIALS over the next few weeks. I will do my best to make it interesting in some way, honest!

posted 14/1/2026 by MJ Hibbett
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Telly What I Have Watched
Last week I discussed books what I read in 2025, so today I thought I might as well do the OTHER big list of Cultural Phenomena What I Have Enjoyed and look at TELLY.

I have a LIST of what telly series I watch because here in the space future of 2026 there is so MUCH of it that it's hard to keep track, so in recent times i have done myself LISTS of what's available and then noted what I thought of them. This is particularly handy in these times of multiple media vendors because it means I can look at the shows I PLAN to watch and say "right, those are ALL on e.g. Paramount Plus so I will get that and watch THE LOT in the space of a month". This is immensely satisfying and also probably a strike at the very heart of capitalism, so you can thank me for it come the revolution.

Anyway, using this list we can divvy up my 2025 viewing into specific categories, starting with Stuff Everybody Was Watching. As I have said many times before, I LOVE the fact that these days I can usually watch whatever it is that Everybody Is Watching if I want to by simply getting a monthly subscription to a channel, as opposed to the distant past when you needed a satellite or, earlier still, when you needed NOT to live in the Anglia Television region. I watched all sorts of things like this, including "Anthology" (LOVELY), "Black Doves" (FUN) , "Mitchell & Webb" (also FUN) and "Only Murders In The Building" (increasingly silly but FUN too). The BEST of these shows that everybody was going on about though were "Andor", which was just flipping BRILLIANT and recently "Stranger Things", ESPECIALLY the Very Long Ending which was GRATE and everyone who says not can frankly keep it to themselves.

Next we have Sci-Fi Franchise TV Shows which can be divided up into DOCTOR WHO and STAR TREK. My Doctor Who list includes "The Rig", which wasn't particularly good but I kept watching because it felt like Peter Capaldi's Doctor was going to turn up soon, and "The Devil's Hour" which DID have him in it and was also SCARY. Actual Doctor Who was largely All Right I thought, although both the new series and also "The War Between the Land And The Sea" felt like they would have benefited from having endings that made ANY kind of sense.

Star Trek shows were overall BETTER I think - "Strange New Worlds" is just bloody lovely, and "Lower Decks" is the MOST STAR TREK EVER. "Section 31" was a load of old rubbish and so I only watched the first ten minutes of it, which I believe was for the best. Similarly I watched "Alien: Earth" which would have added a whole other Sci-Fi Franchise, except that I got through two episodes and realisd I was BORED so stopped.

Closely related to this categorty is SUPERHERO shows. COR, it is still amazing to me that such shows EVEN EXIST, and especially that most of them are DEAD GOOD. I must admit that I skipped to the end of "Ironheart" to see what happened because it was a bit boring, but this was more than made up for by "Marvel Zombies", which was FANTASTIC but seems to have passed most people by, "Daredevil" (FAB), "Peacemaker" (EMOTIONAL) and "Gen V", which was also ace, especially because I guessed the big twist about two episodes early. WELL DONE ME!

Other than that my viewing featured a couple of SUBTITLED SCI-FI shows because I am dead sophisticated. "The Eternaut" is basically "What if some Old Boys were in the apocalypse?" and was dead good and "THe Dark" is basically... er... actually, there is nothing basic about it and I needed an ACTUAL SHEET of all the characters to understand what was going on, but was still worth it.

There were plenty of other shows and films watched OBVS but I think that is more than enough to be going on with. It was a GRATE year of telly all round though, and I look forward to more SQUARE EYED activity to come. Telly is BRILLO!

posted 12/1/2026 by MJ Hibbett
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Back In The Radio Times Again
At the end of last year I saw that Marvel were going to be releasing a series of trailers for 'Avengers: Doomsday', which would be running before the new 'Avatar' movie in the pictures. I hoped/suspected that these would feature Doctor Doom, so I sent an email to various MEDIA TYPES what I have been in contact with to basically remind them that I exist and was available for LEARNED COMMENT.

As it happens Doctor Doom does NOT appear in any of the teasers, but this did not stop the lovely people at The Radio Times getting in touch to ask if I could write something about where he might be HIDING in them. This led me to several hours of watching and re-watching them, SCOURING the screens for hints of Doom-related activity, and eventually boiling it down to the salient and rigorously researched points raised in the article called What do the Avengers: Doomsday teasers really mean? Doctor Doom expert decodes every clue what has just been UNLEASHED on their website.

To be honest I was a bit worried about making all this COMICS LORE interesting to a wider audience, and so was up until the early hours last night re-writing it, but I think it came out all right in the end. It's VERY exciting to be back in the auspicious Radio Times, and it's also rather handy to be declared a "Doctor Doom expert" right at the top of the page. Apart from the FUN of it, part of the reason for trying to do more of this sort of thing is so that my name will pop up later in the year if anyone searches the internet for "Doctor Doom expert", so hopefully this will help.

Now all I have to do is wait until next month to see if my BIG TRAILER REVEAL prediction comes true!

posted 9/1/2026 by MJ Hibbett
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Books What I Have Read
Whenever I am a bit BORED and start with the DOOMSCROLLING I often stop and think "Hang on, is this really what I want to be doing with my precious time on planet Earth?" and the answer usually comes back as "No, obviously, you'd much rather be reading a BOOK". This is not always an option but when it IS I have been making a concerted effort over the past year to do THAT instead, which has been frankly DELIGHTFUL and resulted in my reading SIXTY SEVEN books in total.

I know this because I have also kept a RECORD of what books I have read, when I finished them (or in some cases GAVE UP because I am a grown-up and am allowed to do that now) and what I THORT. This was done for two reasons: firstly because I like having LISTS of things that I've done as it gives me a super-charged thrill of achievement, and secondly because I sometimes FORGET what I've read and end up reading it again.

Of the 67 books listed 32 were GRAPHIC NOVELS, a term I used ADVISEDLY to mean comics in BOOK form rather than actual comics which should always be called COMICS. Lots of these were re-reads, sometimes for FUN and sometimes for SERIOUS ACADEMIC REASONS, which meant I got to enjoy some of my FAVES like "All Star Superman" and the Alan Moore/Alan Davis "Captain Britain" all over again. Of the new (or at least new to ME) stuff that I read I think my favourites were "The Filth" (which I gave up on after two issues when it first came out but turns out to be BRILLO), Ryan North's "Star Trek Lower Decks" collections, "Badtime Bedtime Stories" by Leo Baxendale (which is AMAZING), "The Power Fantasy", "Asterix in Lusitania" and "Giant" by Mollie Ray which I bought while at The Lakes and is beautifully done and suddenly VERY MOVING.

Of the text-only books 15 were NON-FICTION and were mostly, though not entirely, to do with COMICS or THE BEATLES, of which probably "Cartoons and Comic Strips" by Terry Bave was my favourite, not because it's especially well-written or informative (it basically says he liked comics and he and his wife Shiela got their ideas from Seeing Kids Doing Things when they went for a walk) but because he came across as LOVELY. Terry and Shiela Bave crop up a LOT in the podcast and now whenever they do I feel a glow of AFFECTION towards them. Other than that my non-fiction FAVES were "The Ark Before Noah" by Irving Finkel (which was, to my surprise, VERY funny), a lovely memoir about a BADGER called "Brocky" by Sylvia Shepherd, and "How To Be In A Pop Group" by Alan Jenkins what I have spoke of before and still HIGHLY recommend.

That leaves 20 FICTION books, including the full Arthur C Clarke Award Shortlist, which was HIGHLY enjoyable this year. Amazingly, one of the ones I liked the most actually WON this time too!

I also read TWO (2) SCIENCE FICTION TRILOGIES last year, which is not the sort of thing I would usually want to get involved with. The longest running, for me, was the SPACE trilogy by CS Lewis, which I read over the course of nine months with GAPS in between to recover. This starts off FAIRLY normal in the first book, where it's a bit like HG Wells or something and then gets progressively more DERANGED as ACTUAL SPACE ANGELS turn up and then MERLIN. It's all quite good fun - especially the end of the first book where the hero basically goes "PUB!" - but A Bit Much and VERY LONG. The other trilogy was "Shards of Earth" by Adrian Tchaikovsky whose books I like a LOT. This wasn't QUITE as much fun as the standalone books or the ones with SPIDERS and OCTOPUSES in them, but I read them all one after the other in the space of a couple of months so they must have been pretty good!

That leaves nine other books, my favourites of which were probably "My Cousin Rachel" by Daphne Du Maurier (EXCITING!), "Mill On The Floss" by George Eliot (a bit long but also DEAD GOOD), the first two "Fermi's Progress" books by Chris Farnell (dead good, dead FUNNY) and "The Bullet That Missed" by Richard Osman, which I read entirely out of order but which I also read in about two days as it was V FUNNY.

There were a few books along the way that I didn't finish, and quite a few that I wanted to finish a lot sooner than I did (AUTHORS! Write shorter books please!), but for the most part it was a GRATE year of READING which was a whole lot more enjoyable than spending the equivalent time looking at rubbish stuff on my phone and thinking "Is that real or AI?" BOOKS! They are ACE!

posted 8/1/2026 by MJ Hibbett
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Things To Come in 2026
As we settle ourselves gently into the still slightly too hot, and yet also not quite yet warmed up enough (METAPHORS) waters of 2026, I thought I'd have a quick think through some to the things that are hopefully on the way over the course of the next orbit around the sun. This is partly to get them out of my HEAD, but also to offer something for the me of the futuristic space year 2027 to look back upon and say "Wot was he on about?"

Obviously there will be more Data and Doctor Doom to come, not least because "Avengers: Doomsday" should FINALLY be out at the end of the year. Not only will there be more live shows (including a few as yet unannounced) but there should also be a PODCAST too. My plan is to do an AUGMENTED version of the live show, with more PRODUCED versions of the songs and indeed some EXTRA songs too, and release it as a short series so it's THERE for people who want to know more when DOOM enters the MCU. I've made a small start so far and it is sounding Quite Good!

Alongside that I'm also starting work on the NEXT big academic project, which is going to be called "Data and Judge Dredd". There's a LOT to be said about this and I'll save most of that for another time (READER'S VOICE: "PHEW!") but the general plan is to do the data gathering and analysis in the first half of this year then get it ready as a NON-ACADEMIC book which I'm hoping to SELF-PUBLISH - with another SHOW to go alongside it - in time for Dredd's anniversary in February 2027. Like I say, there's LOADS of THORTS about how this is going to work and why I'm doing it that way, but we'll save that for another time!

And then of course there's the ALBUM what I'm recording with Mr CJ Thorpe-Tracey. We're BOOKED into the studio next week to go and do some more tracks, and all being well we'll have at least one more similar session to get all the basic tracks done before we move into the exciting Putting Other Stuff On Top period, which is the BEST bit for all albums. If you've not heard it yet you can download a SNEAK PREVIEW of how it's probably going to sound via our version of Mull Of Kintyre which we recorded for the Joyzine Advent Calendar. I mean, obviously that's a song written by P McCartney and D Laine, rather than either of US, but it still sounds PRETTY GRATE! We'll also have some GIGS later in the year, at least one of which we may be able to announce fairly soon!

Finally, for this bit anyway, there's still a massive chunk of season three of The Funny Comics Fan Club still to come as well! John and I are currently just about two episodes ahead of ourselves, so I can confidently say there is some GOOD STUFF still to come as we work towards a GRAND FINALE around February time. The current thinking is that we'll stop the regular series with the end of this one, but there's still room in the future for some SPECIAL EDITIONS and, of course, changing our minds!

Those are the main THEMES for ROCK and ASSOCIATED ITEMS that I foresee over the course of 2026 but, as we know from our DELVINGS into HISTORY last year, there's always more ADVENTURES to come that you would never have thought about at the start of the year. Let's hope that they are a) KRAZY and also b) FUN!

posted 6/1/2026 by MJ Hibbett
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A Farewell To 2003
On New Year's Eve I posted the FINAL entry in my year long series of "Old Blogs", where I re-posted blogs from 22 years ago on The Socials and then added some commentary to explain what was going on. The idea of doing it was nicked from Mr Bob Fischer who did a wonderful year's worth of blogs a while ago revisiting his old school diaries, and as he packed that in after 12 months I thought it was only fair to complete the ripping off by ending mine at a similar point!

The original thought process behind it, apart from "This'll force me to actually POST something on an almost daily basis", was that I'd be able to shed light on some of the things that happened back then which I couldn't really talk about at the time. As it turns out, pretty much the opposite was the case, not least because back then I was A LOT more willing to say stuff on the blog that I definitely would not do now. These days I usually pause and THINK before slagging somebody off who could very easily GOOGLE themselves and see it, but back then I was not so considerate. I have been Quite Surprised at times to see my younger self being so indiscreet!

Another problem with the "shedding light" aspect was that I don't actually REMEMBER a huge pile of stuff that happened, so that when Younger Me dropped GNOMIC HINTS of things he was up to Modern Me usually had absolutely no idea what he was on about. The plus side to this, however, was that there were also many occassions when I was suddenly reminded of fun things that I hadn't thought about for over two decades!

The main lovely thing about it though was all the PALS who popped up along the way, the vast majority of whom (possibly ALL of whom actually) I am still in touch with, even if not quite so often in THE PUB with. I watched "It's A Wonderful Life Again" over Christmas, because of course I did, and one of the bits that really stuck out for me was at the very end where (SPOILERS) he gets a book from Clarence with the inscription "Remember, no man is a failure who has friends." There are certainly times when I inwardly BEMOAN my inexplicable failure to accrue fathomless RICHES through my ART, but when I get into one of them moods I am always reminded of the krazy adventures I've had and the krazy PEOPLE I've met along the way. That has very much been the case with the Old Blogs - there were certainly ADVENTURES in 2003, and there were definitely PALS too!

So thanks to all the pals who appeared in them, and thanks to all the pals who READ about them. If you wish to continue the journey into 2004 and beyond then all the old blogs are extremely available in the archives, but for my part I am hoping that 2026 is going to be a year when some NEW stuff happens. Tune in next time, or possibly in 2048, to find out what they might be!

posted 5/1/2026 by MJ Hibbett
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Mull Of Kintyre
HARK! What is that distant rustling sound? Why, 'tis the sound of ROCK HISTORIANS getting out their diaries to mark this special day, for LO! today is the day that the first fruits of the MJ Hibbett & CJ Thorpe-Tracey collaboration are unleashed upon a waiting world!

The fruit in question is our version of Mull Of Kintyre, which you can download for FREE from today over on the ever-wonderful Joyzine Advent Calendar. Both Chris and I have had tracks on this MANY times over the years, so when we were in the studio a few weeks ago it seemed only right that we should have a crack at something Christmassy, and then to see if Paul Joyzine would like to have it. He would, and he has!

I've been playing Mull Of Kintyre in various ways in various bands for DECADES, mostly for two reasons - firstly because I really really liked it, and secondly because it's really really easy to play. These two reasons made it a perfect choice to have a bash at in the studio, and I think it's come out rather nicely. I'm a bit ALARMED to hear my voice so loudly and without any JOKES at the start, but then when Chris comes in on vocals in the chorus... ooh, it sounds RIGHT CHRISTMASSY if you ask me.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this festive item, and if you do please be assured that there will be a LOT more to come next year!

posted 16/12/2025 by MJ Hibbett
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Christmas Commences At The King and Queen
Thursday afternoon found me heading into London's fashionable London area of London to do my final gig of the space year 2025, back once again at the lovely King & Queen. The idea was that I was going to meet Mr CJ Thorpe-Tracey in said pub at 5ish so we could go upstairs and have a bit of a practice, but things went AWRY as he got stuck in traffic, so I ended up having a whole extra hour to myself in the pub, which was both CHRISTMASSY (they have really gone for it, festivity-wise, this year) and LOVELY. It is SUCH a nice pub, even when RAMMED as it was that evening!

Eventually Chris staggered in and, after some much needed breath catching, we went upstairs to have a quick run through of the NEW songs what we were planning to do. The Highchurches then arrived, closely followed by Mr M Tiller so that, in an extraordinary feat of TIMELINESS, ALL acts were present and correct well in advance of 7pm. This made me very happy!

I was further delighted when the AUDIENCE also turned up with extreme punctuality, also in rather large NUMBERS (although with a surprising unwillingness to eat mince pies when THRUST upon them), so that we kicked off to a PACKED room at EXACTLY 7.30pm with a rousing rendition of the Totally Acoustic THEME SONG and then a GRATE set from Matt. Apparently this was his first gig for AGES but this was not apparent in the ROCKING nature of his set, which featured multiple "new" songs (as he said, they're technically new to The Live Environment but he'd actually written some of them years ago). My favourite bit of this part of the evening was seeing Matt WOW a bunch of people who had never seen him before, it was ACE!

We then had a break, a whip-round, and then brought on The Highchurches, who were once again FAB. One of the joys of Totally Acoustic is getting people to play with instruments that were DESIGNED to be played in this way i.e. you don't NEED to mike up a guitar, violin, ukelele voice etc when being played together, as they were BUILT to be the correct volume. It sounded FLIPPING LOVELY and again there were NEW songs deployed to a vast and also INTERESTED audience.

And then after another break it was time for Chris and I to prepare ourselves. As we consulted over the setlist I realised that I was EXCITED about doing this gig - I mean, I always AM a bit excited about doing gigs, but this felt different somehow, like we were about to lay something NEW on people - and it was in that vein that we turned to the audience and did THIS:

The Perfect Love Song

Chips And Cheese, Pint Of Wine

Was This What You Wanted

When You Hear A Bird

I've Been Wrong About Everything

7 Hearts

In The North Stand

It Only Works Because You're here

It was, from my point of view, PRETTY FLIPPING SPECIAL. The new songs went well - which was a relief as nobody had heard any of them before - and there was much chat and DELIGHT. With all of this stuff it gets a bit EMOTIONAL for me, as they are EMOTIONAL songs and I am denied my usual hiding place of LARKS etc. This is especially the case where there are instrumental sections where I don't even have a guitar to stand behind, and am left to just listen to Chris's AMAZING playing. It is, as I say, very very different to what I'm used to, but also lovely.

There was also a section where Chris gave a short speech about how GRATE my songs are which on the one hand was very lovely INDEED of him, but on the other TERRIFYING. I've sort of got used to the idea that nobody's hugely bothered about my songs, so having an Actual International Rock Star say that sort of thing to a room full of lovely people was a bit of a Sensory Overload. I think the only solution is for it to keep happening so that I can get used to it!

So yes, it was all LOVELY and ended with BOWS etc before we concluded the evening with BEERS and CHAT and more People Saying Nice Things. The only thing that would have made it even more delightful would have been people finishing off the mince pies, but I guess you can't have everything!

posted 5/12/2025 by MJ Hibbett
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Operation Mincemeat
I was out and about once again on Monday evening, meeting Mr P Myland for a trip to the THEATRE!

For LO! we had booked tickets to go and see Operation Mincemeat, which I have been itching to see for AGES. To my surprise Mileage had not read the book, which I thought was THE LAW for people of our age and disposition, but I VERY MUCH have and was eager to see how this AMAZING story would work out in the musical theatre environment.

SPOILERS: it worked our very well, but before we get to that bit I have to contribute a PUB REVIEW, thusly: after stumbling around various PUBS in Covent Garden and being surprised to find them BUSY on a Monday night we ended up in The Marquess Of Anglesey which from the outside, and indeed the inside too, appeared to be a completely Bog Standard Central London Tourist Pub but was staffed by a DELIGHTFUL range of Pleasant Young People, one of whom, DISTRAUGHT that a barrel was finished so they could not serve us full pints, came over a little later with FREE PINTS! We were astounded!

Anyway, duly refreshed we went a few steps down the road to The Fortune Theatre which, apparently, is one of the smallest theatres in London's Glittering West End. It was certainly tiddly depth-wise, with only about 7 rows of seats in the dress circle where we were, but all was perfectly comfortable within, possibly helped by FREE PINTS earlier.

The show itself was DEAD GOOD - it felt very FRINGE-Y, possibly because it SORT OF is. As far as I can tell it was never actually an actual Fringe show, but the manic pace, the fact that everything is done by five people, including moving sets around and so on, and the general air of "We are all in this together" certainly made it FEEL that way. Also, different characters were partly denoted by minor costume changes - OBVS there was ACTING involved, but it did remind me in many ways of the shows me and Steve did, with the major difference being that this was in The West End and ours... er... ESCHEWED such capitalistic affronts to culture. Yes, that's it.

My only minor gripe was that sometimes the songs PELTED by at such high speed with the musical backing slightly too loud that I couldn't understand what they were actually SINGING at several points, but I guess that is probably more a problem for me than for them. The songs were very Musical Theatre-type songs, although GOODNESS ME there is one called "Dear Bill" near the end of the first half that hit the audience with a WALLOP. It was sung by a clearly young man doing a comedy-ish impersonation of a middle-aged woman in the middle of a Decidely Daft show, but GOODNESS ME there weren't half some EMOTIONS.

So yes, it was dead good and lots of fun, and once we'd said our goodbyes I headed off into the cold and the London transport system full of the joys of THE THEATRE, with a very slight side helping of MILD JEALOUSY. Is it too late to pitch a revival of Hey Hey 16K: THE MUSICAL? Andrew Lloyd-Webber! CALL ME!

posted 26/11/2025 by MJ Hibbett
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Return Of The Scene
On Sunday evening I headed into London town to meet Mr S Hewitt for a GIG, but this was no ordinary gig - for LO! it was an extra final tiny gig at the end of The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart tour which sought to RECREATE their first EVER UK gig, almost eighteen years ago. Eighteen years ago! CRIKEY!

THUS they were playing in The Betsey Trotwood, as they had back then, and the support acts were all people who had played back then as well, but all of them in their current bands. So, we had Sunny Intervals with Andy Pocketbooks (as he will always be to me) representing Pocketbooks from the original bill, Pink Opaque feat. Pete Green, and All Ashore representing The Parallelograms. The only band playing under the same name as before were The Pains!

The actual GIG bit was really good - Andy was splendid, doing apparently his first gig for 13 years, and even did some old Pocketbooks songs. Pink Opaque were fab, and I was especially delighted to FINALLY get to see them at last, and All Ashore made a right proper Indiepop RACKET that I for one am entirely there for.



However, the main thing for me was to just SEE so many old pals again! When I went to the original gig in 2008 I got Quite Emotional about the fact that I appeared to be on a SCENE, or at least SCENE-adjacent. Being on a SCENE is really good fun as you get to go to loads of gigs knowing full well that there'll be PALS there who you can yack to, and I must admit I've missed it, especially since Indietracks came to an end a few years ago. As my blog at the time said, I was always a bit nervous about it because I was sure that, at some point, everybody would turn round and say "Hang on, what are you doing here?" but it never happened and, INDEED, did not happen on this occassion. Instead it was a whole room full of people WAVING at each other from other sides of the room and then tottering over to say "What have you been up to?"

Last time I went I completely missed The Pains, so it was good to see them at last this time, although again I didn't see the whole show as I was KNACKERED, and so slipped off into the night, full of happy memories and a great delight to see everyone doing so well. It was entirely lovely, and a wonderful thing for Marianthi and Ian to organise for us all. Part of me is now thinking "DO INDIETRACKS NEXT" but that might be a bit much to ask for!


posted 24/11/2025 by MJ Hibbett
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Chris T-T At The 100 Club
I was back at The 100 Club on Saturday night, a venue that feels derangedly OUT OF TIME these days, as a classic basement club right slap bang in the middle of present-day Oxford Street. Twenty odd years ago when I first came down to old London town there were LOADS of venues and clubs in this area, but the 100 Club is pretty much the last one standing, and the fact that you have to go down a short office corridor to find it underneath the main street feels appropriate, like you're going into an archeological DIG. That makes it sound less good than it is, which is DEAD GOOD.

I was there to see the incredibly excellent Chris T-T, who it is permissible to CALL Chris T-T in this context as he was BACK in that guise for a one-off (with a few warm-ups) comeback gig to promote the VINYL reissues of London Is Sinking and 9 Red Songs. As revealed a little while ago, I am doing an ALBUM with Chris at the moment so have known about all of this for a good long while, and it was thus AMAZING to finally be there at the actual GIG that had been so long planned.

As soon as I wandered in I bumped into Mr P Joyzine and shortly after that was joined by Mr J Kell and Mr D Paton, all in time for the first set which saw a CLEARLY MOVED Chris come on for a solo set. This, to me, is QUINTESSENTIAL Chris T-T - I am of course AWARE of the fact that he is a ROCK STAR with a KICKASS band but the vast majority of times I have seen and/or played with him it's been in this singer-songwriter format, so it was wonderful to see him at it again. Actually, thinking about it, it WEIRDLY didn't feel WEIRD at all, like I'd just seen him play a couple of months ago rather than many years, and all the songs came flooding back as a room full of UTTERLY DELIGHTED people BELLOWED the words back at him. It was amazing!



The second half was pretty much the same except for with the aforesadi ROCK BAND, which sounded RUDDY IMMENSE. As I say, I'm used to him as a singer songwriter, so this WAS a bit weird. "Oh yeah," I thought, "He's got whole ALBUMS of proper ROCK BAND stuff!" There were loads of HITS again in this half, including the aforesaid ROCK BAND doing versions of songs like "7 Hearts" with their proper arrangements, and again the whole audience, your humble reporter included, having a FLIPPING WONDERFUL time.

It was a joy to see, and a testament to an AMAZING Rock Career what he has had and, as we saw that night, continues to have whether he's out there doing it himself or not. Afterwards I had a bit of a wander around and bumped into a whole HOST of friendly faces, some of which I hadn't seen for AGES before queueing up for a HUG from the great man himself. It is always a thing of joy to see your friends succeed, especially someone who deserves it as much as Chris, and I strode out into the night thinking "COR! Gigs are GRATE!" Because, clearly, they are!

posted 19/11/2025 by MJ Hibbett
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The Fox and Newt
After all the excitement of Comics Forum, it would have been nice to have A Bit Of A Sit Down on Friday night. However, that was not available to me for I had an appointment with ROCK!

Thus it was that I stomped back to my hotel in the TIPPING RAIN, collected all of my gear and then headed out into the MONSOON towards The Fox And Newt. It was a bit of a scary walk there, especially going over a PRECARIOUS pedestrian bridge over a massive motorway IN A HURRICANE, but it was worth it as the pub itself was LOVELY. I was soon joined by ace promoter and all-round good-guy Mr S Gibb aka STU BABOON, and after some HUGS we headed upstairs to get ourselves ready.

I always think it's going to be PEASY doing this show as I don't really need a soundcheck or anything, but things were complicated here because the equipment for the projector was right at the back of the room and could not be got anywhere near close enough for me to operate it from the stage. Luckily a) Stu had thought this might be the case and advised me to bring my own little projector b) I had done so and c) we had ace soundman Mr J Mazur on hand, who could not have been more PATIENT and HELPFUL in getting it all worked out. Between the three of us and some gaffer tape we managed to get everything set up, leaving time for me and Stu to have a bit of an old catch-up (it turns out we haven't seen each other in 9 years, and a LOT has happened since then!) and also for me to have my tea, which was BANGERS AND MASH. Cor, I tell you what, when you have A Bit Of A Dicky Stomach like what I had last week, there is NOTHING so lovely as some mashed potatoes. It was ACE!

At this point people started turning up! HOORAY! I had spent my day in the usual cycle of PANIC, alternating between thinking "Oh no, nobody at all is coming" and "Oh no, far too many people are coming and will have to be turned away" but in the end it was a pretty much perfect number, almost EXACTLY filling the number of seats we had available in the main room. PHEW.

The show itself was LOTS of fun - I mucked a few bits up because I was worrying about standing in front of the projector, and about how the TRAPEZIUM effect I'd had to use to make the screen fit was working, but I had done my usual "mistakes are SPECIAL" speech at the start so it was fine. The audience was also mostly people from Comics Forum with a few there via Thought Bubble, so it was an UNUSUALLY receptive audience for a lot of the comics theory stuff, which made it a LOT of fun, although I did worry before getting to the "like many unemployable people... I went to work for a University" joke, but it seemed to go OK!

We'd set it up to be a whole evening with an added Q&A session at the end, which meant there was an INTERMISSION, allowing me to use the special SLIDE what I'd made, shown in LIVE ACTION below:



Good eh?

The second half was deliberately shorter than the first - and felt possibly a bit TOO short - so as to leave room for the QUESTIONS, of which there were a LOT. I feel I may have RAMBLED ON a bit, especially when I got a chance to talk about some of my OTHER Doctor Doom papers, but hopefully people left FULLY SATED with Doom Knowledge. Actually, given the amount of Comics Scholars in the room it may have FATALLY SKEWED the entire FIELD in the direction of Latveria!

I packed up, thanked James heartily, and then me and Stu stomped off through the rain again to my hotel and its bar, there for an EXTREMELEY well-earned pint and a further bit of CHAT. It had been a BLOODY GRATE evening!

posted 18/11/2025 by MJ Hibbett
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Comics Forum 2025
I spent a big chunk of last week up in LEEDS, partly for the Comics Forum conference which this year had 'Industry' as its theme.

This was GRATE for me as it meant there were LOADS of presentations about the practical side of comics - I am very much an adherent to The Production Of Culture Approach, which (very basically, and probably poorly explained by me) suggests that we should examine culture by looking NOT at Special Geniuses NOR Philosophical Musings but rather through the practical aspects of production that are involved in it. So, for instance, we can say that the 'mature comics' boom of the 80s and 90s didn't happen because suddenly loads of Important Creators wanted to tell Important Stories (which happen to include a lot of boobs and explosions) but rather because the emergence of the 'direct market' distribution system meant you actually had somewhere to SELL things like that, and because the development of new printing technologies meant that it was affordable to make collected comics on nice enough paper that bookshops would sell them as well. It doesn't mean you can't still talk about the groovy stuff INSIDE the comics, but it's a way to explain what's going on around them.

I did my presentation - Who Cares About The Colourists? - in the first session of the first day, which was GRATE because it meant I could get it DONE and then concentrate on what other people had to say! I was doing a talk using the data from my research to show how people who completed my Doctor Doom survey almost completely forgot about inkers, colourists and letterers, trying to explain some of the reasons why I thought that was, and ending with a stirring rendition of Many Hearts. It went pretty well, I think, with some BRILLIANT questions at the end, but even though I've done early morning shows for this material before, it's still a bit weird singing before I've even had a second cup of coffee in the morning!

I stomped back to my hotel to drop my gear off and then came back for another really interesting session during which - EXCITINGLY - somebody actually referenced one of my papers (this one in fact)!! I then saw a load more GRATE stuff, including my favourite one for the day which was 'Smut Peddlers: How the Spicy Pulps and Publishers Shaped Superhero Comics' by Dr H Austin. I mean, with a title like that it was always going to be pretty good but Hailey STORMED through an extremely entertaining AND interesting talk about, well, exactly what the title says. It was BRILL.

The day concluded with a trip to the PUB where I met a bunch of Young People from DC Thomson, down for this and Thought Bubble afterwards and chatted to them and various other TYPES before pretty much everyone else went off for the conference dinner. Usually at this point there's a hard core left behind, but this time it was me and Professor B Woo, of whom I am a FAN. I think I managed to remain FAIRLY sensible, but cannot confirm 100%. He went off to get his tea and I decided to hang around for everyone to come back after theirs, but after an hour or so I thought maybe I had miscalculated. I eventually went to check the restaurant and found that they were only halfway through a multi-course FEAST so was very glad I'd checked, and went and sat down with a bunch of pals for further chat, before heading off for last drinks at the EXTREMELY NICE North Bar. Ooh, it was good in there!

I was trying to stick to low or no-alcohol booze due to having A Bit Of A Dicky Stomach, which meant the next day was pleasantly unhungover, although it was also VERY VERY WET INDEED due to WEATHER. It was also full of FAB talks, including some on the history of the British comics industry (who knew FAX MACHINES made such a difference?) and then a PANEL of Industry Types. This was VERY interesting indeed, as Dr I Hague had invited an impressive RANGE of people, from massive publishers to tiny indies, and it was clear that some of them had some HISTORY between them!

The day concluded with the aforementioned B Woo doing the KEYNOTE, which was AMAZING. Sometimes at these sort of things the keynote is Just Some Person Talking About Their Own Stuff, which isn't really what you're after. Ben did a big talk about The Production Of Culture, drawing in loads of bits from other people's talks across the two days - excitingly, including mine - and dropping cool stuff in like 'The 4 Myths Of Comics'. It was PROPER!

Happily full of COMICS STUDIES we trooped back round the corner to Browns for traditioanl post-conference drinks. However, it was to be just one drink for me for LO! I had a SHOW to do that evening, details of which will follow... TOMORROW!

posted 17/11/2025 by MJ Hibbett
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The Football!
I haven't spoken about THE FOOTBALL on here for a while, partly because I'm not sure that it entirely fits with what people expect from my CORPORATE BRAND, but mostly because it's been bloody awful.

For the past few years I've been fulfilling a long-cheished LIFE GOAL by being a season ticket holder at Peterborough United. Yes, that's right - some people dream of climbing Everest or having their own organic chocolate empire, but I have always longed to spend approximately alternate Saturdays in the East Midlands, complaining.

Actually that's not really the full story - there IS a lot of complaining, especially over the past year or so, but also loads of LARKS and good-times with the Old Boys who inhabit The Family Stand. However, I've always had to miss loads of games, especially midweek ones, so this year I relinquished my season ticket and went down to a 10 game FLEXI ticket.

At the start of the season I thought "That might be TOO MANY" tickets, as the actual matches were AWFUL, but this Saturday just gone something wonderful and amazing happened. FOR LO! it was really really really good and we THRASHED Wimbledon 5-0! FIVE NIL! That's a third of our total goals for the whole season so far! Also, it was dead exciting with SKILLZ and WALLOPING and very little Titting About At The Back (if - WHEN - I am asked to take a role as Director Of Football my first move will be to BAN Titting About At The Back).

It was fabulous, and all down, it seems, to our BRAND NEW Manager, Luke Williams. I say "brand new" because we have previously gone through a rolling programme of hiring Darren Ferguson, sacking Darren Ferguson, hiring Grant McCann, sacking Grant McCann, hiring Darren Ferguson and so forth. THIS time however there is a NEW bloke who seems to have brought some MAGIC POTION with him, possibly from a small village in ancient Gaul, and made everything WORK.

It was AMAZING and I confidently predict that things will continue in this way for the rest of the season. NOTHING CAN GO WRONG.

Afterwards there were loads of disgruntled Wimbledon fans moping about on the platform with me while we waited for the train home. I was shocked by the way they were MOANING - come on guys, support the team! - and was delighted when one chap, about my age, said to his colleagues as the train arrived, "There better not be any Peterborough on this train, I'll tell you that." He glanced up and saw me smiling. "Are you Peterborough?" he asked. "Yes," I replied. "Oh," he said. He looked like he wasn't sure what to do, so said. "Er... after you" and off we went back to London town.

FOOTBALL!

posted 10/11/2025 by MJ Hibbett
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Johnny Domino VS Doctor Doom
I have previously mentioned my great joy in listening to This Are Johnny Domino, a DELIGHTFUL podcast featuring Mr G and Mr S Woodword AKA Giles and Steve from ace band Johnny Domino.

It follows the traditional format of Two Blokes Talking To Each Other, but what makes it GRATE for me is that they're theoretically talking about the songs they recorded together as the aforementioned band, who were very much affiliated to Artists Against Success. Not only did AAS release some of their records but me and The Validators regularly GIGGED with them too, notably on the "Players with Words" TOUR to plug their album Players and our album Say It With Words. Good times abounded and so it is always nice to hear them talk about their AMAZING songs, and also to hear them wander off into other topics, often about other people we both know and what they're doing too.

Even if you DON'T know the ins and outs of The Derby Scene at the turn of the century though, it's also good for the THORTS and the occasional forays into NEW STUFF of various types that they venture into. In the current episode, for instance, they go through a whole BATCH of new stuff to listen to, and also talk about my recent "single" Like Batman But Better.

I say "single" because although technically it IS one, available on all your modern streaming services, it's more of a PUBLICITY TOOL to try and promote the current run of gigs. I hadn't really thought of it as something that you'd want to LISTEN to in and of itself, so it was a bit of a surprise to hear it spoken of as such. INDEED, if you listen to the show, you will find that Giles and especially Steve are a little surprised by it too, considering it to be full of FACTS and more like a lecture - which, in a very real way, it IS!

When I've done these MUSICAL EXTRAVAGANZAS in the past there's usually been a song or two I've been able to EXTRACT for wider use - We Did It Anyway being a prime example, first appearing in Moon Horse VS The Mars Men Of Jupiter, getting re-used in Hey Hey 16K then released with The Validators on Still Valid and played at gigs to this very day. It's lovely when that happens, but the very nature of this show, with its many FACTS, means I've always known it was unlikely to happen this time. I did TRY playing the song at a gig once, at the King's Lock back in February, but it didn't really work on its own to people who may or may not have opinions about Batman, let alone Doctor Doom.

It was lovely of them to play it, and as I say I HIGHLY recommend Liking and also Subscribing to their show, but it did remind me that I need to get on with making some STANDALONE HITS once this is all wrapped up!

posted 2/11/2025 by MJ Hibbett
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A Brief Word From Doctor Doom
Today is The Last Working Day Of The Month, which means it is NEWSLETTER DAY!

That means that this month's issue should be falling through digital letterboxes worldwide, with news of gigs, podcasts, fanzines and the NEW album project. It's also got a message direct from DOCTOR DOOM himself about the forthcoming Leeds gig, which I thought I'd share with you here:



I wouldn't normally hassle everyone with an advert for one specific gig, but I was really pleased with how this turned out so thought I'd do a little bit more INFLICTION of it on everyone. Hope you like it!

posted 31/10/2025 by MJ Hibbett
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Crystal Palace Session #1
On Tuesday morning I was up bright and early to head to distant Crystal Palace, there to commence recording sessions on the ALBUM what I am recording with Mr CJ Thorpe-Tracey. I was last round that way back in February when I went to see Ben Moor preview 'A Three Thing Day', which was GRATE. The studio I was headed to was very close to where that had been, which meant I had to climb up the HUMUNGOUS HILL again, although this time when I got to the summit it was daylight so I could see the AMAAZING views over London. I still don't like hills (why can't people live somewhere flat?) but this was pretty good!

The studio in question was OneCat, under the guidance of Mr J Blusher. Chris had been there LOADS for his own band stuff and also with The JimBob Big Band so had recommended it as a good place, and he was entirely correct. It's been YEARS since I was last in a Studio Environment so it was lovely to be back, although it seems things have ADVANCED somewhat since then. After one recording, for instance, I said "I might need to do that again, there was some popping on the mike" and Jon looked at my funny, perhaps unsure if I was joking. "We can fix that on the track" he said. COR!

The plan for the session was to record piano and vocals for the six songs we'd played in Brighton in August, which is very nearly what we did. First of all we did the PIANO and guide vocals for In The North Stand, It Only Works Because You're here, Born With The Century, Chips And Cheese, Pint Of Wine and The Perfect Love Song (in that order, I think) with a break towards the end to pop out to fetch some lunch. We were going to do 7 Hearts too but Chris wasn't quite ready for it so instead we did a DIFFERENT cover version what we worked up there and there in the studio like some kind of ROCK WIZARDS. I'll save the details for another time, as it's hopefully for a THING that'll be out soon, but it sounded dead good.

After that we started doing some Actual Vocals, which I must say I found Quite An Experience. Usually when I do gigs I BELLOW the words to get them across, which I am very happy with doing, but here I was trying to do something more like ACTUAL SINGING. Millions of years ago, when we recorded Say It With Words I made a determined attempt to sing that way, but in the decades since I've not done it so much, so this was a bit weird for me to start with. Also, it was in a different setting from usual, with someone else in charge, and most of all the SONGS were all RATHER EMOTIONAL, so it rather got to me. By the end of the day I was hankering for a MASSIVE DUVET to go and hide under as I was feeling VULNERABLE AS HECK!

Luckily for me Chris and Jon were both LOVELY about it and v encouraging, although sitting with them and listening back to raw tracks of me singing like this was still EXCRUCIATING. However, a wonderful and magical thing happened as Jon expertly COMPED the tracks (i.e. sticking together the best bits from each take) until it sounded Pretty Good. It was a hugely reassuring process, like having a really nice haircut or something where someone you trust Makes It All Better!

It was, not to put too fine a point on it, a fantastic day, and listening back to the recordings now I'm even MORE happy about how it worked out, as they sound FAB. The plan is to try out some more songs in December when Chris and I do our gig together at the King & Queen then head back into the studio with Jon to do some further recording. Once we've got a nice batch it'll be time for some ARRANGING and so forth, so it'll be a while yet before we're ready for public consumption, but as I say there should be SOMETHING available before the end of the year. It is all PRETTY EXCITING, and I can't wait to UNLEASH some of this stuff on people!

posted 29/10/2025 by MJ Hibbett
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Prolapse at The Lexington
Sunday evening found me heading for London's fashionable LONDON area of London, where I was due to see young people's art rock band PROLAPSE at The Lexington. Executive Summary: it was GRATE!

As is traditional for gigs at The Lexington I popped round the corner first to have my tea at Indian Veg, which was as delightful as ever. This included a trip to The Toilets Of Propaganda, which informed me in no uncertain terms that vegetariansim/vegansim is EXCELLENT - thanks, The Toilets Of Proaganda in Indian Veg, I did know that but it is always nice to be reminded!

My next stop was The Three Johns to meet Mr S Hewitt for a couple of delicious pints and similarly delicious conversation, and then on to the venue itself for the first night of their NEW ALBUM TOUR. I was looking forward to this, not just because Prolapse are dead good, nor even that the new album is ALSO dead good ("It sounds like THEM!" is the general consensus) but because I was also convinced it would be a room full of old pals I hadn't seen for decades. My BRANE was thinking this because that was the case several years ago when they did their FIRST reunion gigs, but this time it was a room filled with people who LOOKED like the sort of people I remembered, but for the most part were not. Almost as if they have fans that I don't know?

We went up stairs to say hello to Mrs E Pattison, who was talking the J Jervis role in the merch booth, and saw the end of the support band, Moderate Rebels. My GIG INSTINCTS kicked in when I looked at my watch and realised the night was running late, and had to keep saying to myself "This is not your problem, also it will all be fine" and indeed it WAS, and Moderate Rebels were dead good too - very Prolapse-y, in fact!

We struggled round, through the SOLD OUT crowd, to our Usual Spot in the Royal Box (made difficult because, as Steve pointed out, it was an audience full of people who would normally stand at the back) and discovered Dave and Jasper, last seen in Whitstable. Chat was had and then it was ROCK O'CLOCK, as Prolapse came on and were - as discussed earlier - BLOODY GRATE.

As with going to see Allo Darlin' recently, this was different to recent gigs of theirs because it was NOT a Greatest Hits Set celebrating the fact that they were BACK, but rather a NORMAL gig to promote their new album. There were still a lot of HITS, but also some really old songs (including ones I didn't recognise) and LOADS of the new ones, which were ACE. Best of all though it was back to some of the CHAOS and BLOODY RACKET I remember from Back In The Day - INDEED the stage set up and the place where we stood kept reminding me of seeing them at The Charlotte, where it would ALSO be a bit of an old racket and also also unpredictable.

Watching them it made me realise what a weird old thing it is they do - you've got four blokes on guitars looking Quite Stern (except on the occasions when Dave got on the stage-side Remark-O-Phone) and Tim bashing HECK out of his drums, making a sound that, on its own, can veer towards STADIUM GOTH (in a good way), whereas in the middle of it all is a very very different act in the shape of Mick and Linda, especially when they get going on the between song chat. Then when the whole LOT of them get going there is this huge and chaotic BLOODY RACKET that sounds like it's going to go horribly wrong any minute but then DOESN'T. I mean, that's what they've always sounded like really, but having it presented like this with sound that was a) GOOD but also b) still a BLOODY RACKET was pretty flipping wonderful. My only criticism was that a no point did Linda read from a book, or Mick smash up an old TV set, like in OLDEN TYMES!

It was BRILLO basically, and afterwards there was a little while to say WELL DONE and to have a quick chat with the merch supremo before heading off into the night and to home, even though a part of me felt like I should be going to a School Night Indie Disco for more BOOZE and dancing to TAD!

posted 27/10/2025 by MJ Hibbett
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Judge Dredd Data
About a year and a half ago I kicked off the next phase of my ongoing Journey Into Comics And Data by asking people to help me gather data about Judge Dredd.

This went really well, with LOADS of people completing a survey about what experience of the character wnd who they thought he was. I then cleaned that data up, did a brief analysis of it all and sent that out to everyone who'd taken part and then... um... well then didn't really do anything else with it. Lots of other stuff came up, not least Data and Doctor Doom, and so my plans got a little bit waylaid.

However, I have now FINALLY got back on track with it, nearly, sort of, and am planning to try some more CROWDSOURCING soon to gather data on actual Judge Dredd TEXTS, rather than people's memories of him. I'm currently having a LOVELY time working up a data entry system for it all, with a grand hope of asking for volunteers for THIS bit before the end of the year, but for now I thought it was probably about time that I unleashed the ACTUAL DATA into a wider world.

THUS I've uploaded THE LOT onto the University of the Arts London research data repository, so you can download it and have a look for yourself. I am aware that some STRANGE people may not find the prospect of a massive spreadsheet of data as thrilling as I do, and so for those poor souls I have also uploaded the ANALYSIS of it all, so you can see what everybody thought were Judge Dredd's characteristics.

Fans of Judge Dredd may find some SURPRISES in there, and I'm hopeful there'll be a few more when we start collecting the next stage of data and then comparing the two together. As I say, I'm planning to get started on THAT bit in the next month or two, so if you took part in the original survey do stand by your inboxes, there'll be something heading your way soon-ish!

posted 22/10/2025 by MJ Hibbett
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A Reunion In Whitstable
Sunday lunchtime found me at Stratford Not Really International Station, from where I would usually be heading into town on the short journey to St Pancras Actually International Station to work or similar. THIS time however I was heading SOUTH, to distant Whitstable and a GIG!

For LO! a few weeks ago Mr T Pattison of The Validators had asked if I fancied coming and playing a GIG with him and Mrs E Pattison at Tim's sister's BIRTHDAY party. I definitely DID want to do that, and so it was that I found myself stomping through the aforesaid Whitstable where Amanada lives and to her HOUSE, which was entirely full of PEOPLE eating leftovers from the previous night's party - she was having TWO parties! ROCK!

After some GRUB me, Tim and Emma got set up for a practice. Partly this was due to us not having played together for AGES, but also because we hadn't played some of the songs Amanda had requested for OVER A DECADE. The Database Of ROCK would have come in very handy here, except that it wasn't working at the time (a pre-cursor, I think, to the more widespread AWS outage), so it was not until later in the day that we worked out quite how long it is since those songs had last been played in public.

It was lovely to all be playing together, and it sounded DEAD GOOD, so we set off to the venue a little later full of confidence that it would be GRATE. This took a very slight knock, for me at least, as the evening went on as I realised that this was a PARTY attended by loads of PALS who very much wanted to see and CHAT with each other rather than watch people playing music. In the circumstances this is ENTIRELY understandable and easy just to give up and go along with, so it was BRILLIANT to see the first act, Amanda's son Jasper, doing a PROPER set where he went for it with his own stuff and also did some VERY WISE cover songs to get people listening.

It was therefore excellent to be able to follow him, once he'd done all the hard work of setting it all up, and do THIS:

20 Things To Do Before You're 30

Mental Judo

Better Things To Do

Girlfriend Alarmed

It Only Works Because You're here

Easily Impressed

We Did It Anyway

It sounded REALLY GOOD and it was wonderful to see people listening to us intently and GETTING it - it was especially lovely to see The Young Cousins actually singing along with some of it, making me suddenly realise that - YIKES - for them we had ALWAYS existed and been part of their childhood as their parents' friends and BAND. There were people there I had held as TINY BABIES who now have their own GARAGES and BIG FREEZERS, how is this possible?!?

The best bit though was playing with Tim and Emma, which was LOVELY. When I look back on some of the many gigs we've done one of my main memories is of WORRYING and constantly looking round to check everyone's OK, but this felt PEASY, like we were falling into some kind of MUSICALITY with each other. I was listening to them, they were listening to me, and together we were MAKING something. Maybe this is me finally MATURING into someone who can actually play with other people properly, as it's a feeling I've had when I've been practicing with Chris down in Brighton too. Have I become a - YIKES! - MUSICIAN after all these years?!?

Either way it was great fun, and just a shame that I had to FLEE shortly afterwards to head back to That London. It was a lovely day and a GRATE gig - maybe our future is as a BIRTHDAY BAND?

posted 21/10/2025 by MJ Hibbett
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