UPDATE
This afternoon the British Government FINALLY declared that the killing of unarmed civilians by British soldiers on Bloody Sunday in 1972 was “UNJUSTIFIED”.
Prime Minister Cameron said, “What happened should never, ever have happened.”
Only took them over 30 years to admit what EVERYONE else KNEW.
Here’s some links to the story:
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Thanks to both The Daily Cross Hatch and Robot6 for linking to GO HOME PADDY last week; it’s much appreciated.
Giving GO HOME PADDY it’s own site has increased readership tremendously. One of the interesting things that I’m noticing is that traffic spikes significantly the day after I post a new page, instead of on Tuesdays & Thursdays. Any idea why?
Also, it’s clear that I’m gaining new readers each day, as many people are coming and reading the whole story at once. All of this is very uplifting as creating in a vacuum can be depressing! Thanks to all of you who are reading, sending emails and leaving comments.
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TWO — THREE SENTENCE BOOK REVIEWS!
That Salty Air by Tim Sievert from Top Shelf Productions: This being Sievert’s first graphic novel, he comes out swinging with a first-rate tale of a struggle between man and the Sea. Really well done! I think Sievert is going to produce some great work in the future.
Silverfish by David Lapham from Vertigo: I was a HUGE fan of Lapham’s Stray Bullets, but this one just didn’t gel for me. And in my opinion, the ending came up terribly short. I really wish Lapham would return to Stray Bullets and finish that story.
F. Scott Fitzgerald: Novels and Stories 1920-1922: This Side of Paradise / Flappers and Philosophers / The Beautiful and the Damned / Tales of the Jazz Age from the Library of America: This Side of Paradise didn’t do too much for me; in fact, it seemed pretty damned pretentious. I guess that I just can’t relate to tales of snooty rich kids coming of age and that I had best just stick with O’Hara. Included in this collection is the short story “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button“ and it’s a really entertaining tale.
The Three Paradoxes by Paul Hornschemeier from Fantagraphics Books: A graphic novel memoir that succeeds due to using stylistic change-ups for different sections of the book. Hornschemeier is good, but I don’t think that this is his best.
James Sturm’s America: God, Gold and Golems from Drawn & Quarterly: A collection of three different stories, this graphic novel is EXCELLENT! Sturm is a master of the form and seems to be spreading it like the Gospel with his Center for Cartoon Studies up in Vermont. This collection features revivals, miners and mystical Hebrew baseball players; sounds nuts, but the stories are fantastic.
See you all on Thursday.
Like the beast in the water.
John,
That’s one hell of a coffin ship. Must have been some Atlantic passage on one of those things. Get your Dramamine Paddy!
MIke — Those ships must have been the stuff of nightmares. I’ve read several historians who claim that the Coffin Ships were worse than the slave ships, but I find that hard to believe.
Great “devil’s thirst” panel!
Actually, if I had to bet, the slave ships WERE probably better — at least structurally as ships — since they were carrying VALUABLE CARGO! Emigrant ships, by contrast, were just carrying refuse like Paddy and I’d wager that many of those were at the end of or past their useful lives.
I share your doubt that actual conditions on the slave ships for the SLAVES themselves could have been better than conditions for emigrants. I assume that, even if confined at times below, emigrants like Paddy weren’t chained and had freedom, on occasion, to get some fresh air on deck.
I bet you’ll have panels both showing Paddy down among the rats and pigs below, and cowering above deck as an approaching Atlantic storm begins to blow. Can’t wait to see your artwork for the ocean passage!