99% of you will have no idea who this man was. I only met him once at a convention, for about ten minutes, (during which time he sold me three excellent graphic novels I had never heard of) and haven’t had even passing internet-contact with him in years. But he was one of the good guys, as testified to by the fact that just about everyone I know involved with comics in any way is making a post memorialising him, and like a couple of people have said, for someone I barely knew, I find myself remarkably saddened to hear of his passing.

Rory was the owner of what must be a very serious contender for the title “Best Comic Shop In The World”, Comic Relief in Berkley – I popped in there on a visit to San Francisco a few years back, and even for someone spoiled by the likes of Gosh! in London, it was obvious they couldn’t hold a candle to his operation, and not just in terms of size.

He was a tireless cheerleader for excellent comics of any kind and the medium will be poorer for the lack of him. All the best, Rory.

I have not been out clubbing properly in bloody ages. I feel the need to do something about this, plus there’s a bank holiday weekend coming, I have nothing to do on the Sunday until 5pm, and I have next week off work. This therefore feels like an opportune weekend for going out and get ruined.

a) Anyone else fancy clubbing?

b) Anyone got any suggestions as to where? I would ideally like the pounding pounding techno music until stupid o’clock in a reasonably low-chav environment, and if I can avoid it, I would like it not to be Slimelight, but a quick google reveals nothing that sounds terribly inspiring on this weekend, so I may yet wind reverting to default option out of lack of imagination.

Anyone?

If you have a studio, with a website, or even just a sign on your door, or really, anywhere that lists your opening times, then you would be well advised to make sure your studio is open at something close to those times. And at the very least, if it isn’t, you might stick a sign in your window to explain that.

Living Image in Greenwich don’t seem to feel they need to bother with such basics as that, the dozy fuckers. I showed up there at 1pm, an hour after their listed opening time (on both the website and the door) and they were shut. “Fair enough” I thought. “Maybe the trains are being a bastard, and they’ll be along in a bit.” So I waited about for a bit, encountering 2 lads who, like me, were along to book an appointment, and one slightly addled chap who said he’d popped along to get a barcode done. Or may just have been high. He certainly admit to serious drug use when younger, and I’m not entirely sure he’d given them up.

Alarmed by the slightly addled chap who would not stop talking to me, I decided I go and get lunch, and then pop back, hoping that he’d be gone, and they’d be open. A fryup and a pint later, I returned at about 3 pm. He was gone, buy they were still shut. So I fucked off to Into You, instead, where I now have an appointment for Tuesday 24th June. (Must book afternoon off.)

All in all, not terribly impressive – that’s two hours out of my day they wasted by not having any sort of sign anywhere obvious that they were going to be closed today. Still, they lost my business, and that of at least two, possibly three, other people today, so I guess what goes around comes around.

I am sure I’m supposed to be doing something this weekend. I just can’t remember what. Can anyone remind me? Or failing that, and assuming I don’t suddenly remember what the hell it is, is there anything interesting going on?

I am rewatching Star Wars: Send In The Clowns, for what might be charitably called “research” purposes. This is painfully fucking awful. Really, really, fucking offensive. And I’ve got the third one to watch yet. I hope my memory is right, and it is slightly better than this…

Never let it be said I can’t take a hint when I’m battered about the head with it. That’s the third time in a fortnight I’ve dreamed about a tattoo I’ve been planning in a vague “well, I know I want it, but there’s no great rush” way for a couple of years. I woke up this morning, looked down at my leg, and something was missing. That’s the point at which I’ve got my other tattoos in the past.

One of the reasons I’ve been putting it off a bit, though is that well, there’s fuck all for the artist to do. It’s a simple Sephiroth design, in black. (The sephira are just going to be empty circles (barring two, one which will have an X through it, and the other will be just a dashed outline) rather than being filled with colours and the paths joining will be blocks of black ink. I have a strict policy of getting monochrome tattoos.)

I kind of feel that turning up with such a geometric outline design is going to be, well, fucking boring for the artist and/or an insult to their talent. Am I just being stupid here? People who know tattoo artists better than me: are they going to hate me, or are they going to be happy with a simple job in exchange for cash? Anyone got anywhere they’d particularly recommend, or should I go with the default choice of Into You?