VNV Nation at the El Rey, Oct 22 2008

Taken a couple of songs before a humorous but clearly honestly felt observation on Ronan’s part wondering what the point of spending a show looking through a video camera was. (I was just taking a couple of still shots so I was innocent…uh, yeah.)

More seriously — another great show from VNV, and as I hoped it was the kind of energy charge-up I wanted going into these last couple of weeks. “The Farthest Star” hit harder for me than ever before, and hearing it at this point just before the elections, given the importance of the song in personally reenergizing me on the social and political front last year, was only appropriate. Crowd was way into it, a lot of first time VNV showgoers (hey, I was one of them last year!), Mark Jackson spoke from the stage (turns out he’s from Depeche Mode’s corner of the world — well, Essex at least) and at one point a man wearing a Borat-style thong and a horsehead mask appeared onstage, utterly befuddling Ronan, who then told a hilarious story about an evil clown. My kind of all-over-the-place show.

Ronan also confirmed return appearances next year along with a new album. This is a very good thing. (Also had a chance to chat with him *very* briefly a little before the show — a friendly fellow!)

Congratulations to my friend Matt Maxwell on the serialization of “Strangeways”

To explain a bit — you can find Matt’s site via Highway 62 over there in the blogroll. Great guy and great gentleman, and his comic series Strangeways is a damned good treat — in simplistic terms, a horror western, but much more than that.

Matt just sent around this note:

October 23, 2008

HIGHWAY 62 PRESS AND BLOG@NEWSARAMA ANNOUNCE JOINT SYNDICATION FOR STRANGEWAYS: THE THIRSTY

Matthew Maxwell, creator and author of the Western-horror graphic novel STRANGEWAYS, today announced the serialization of the sequel, THE THIRSTY, at Blog @ Newsarama. The series will debut on Monday, Oct. 27, with new pages posted every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

“I’m very pleased to enjoy this opportunity,” Maxwell said recently. “I talked to quite a few potential partners before deciding to serialize THE THIRSTY on Blog @ Newsarama,” Maxwell said. “It isn’t a typical webcomic, as it wasn’t written with online publication in mind. So, I sought a different kind of partnership. Working with a comics news and commentary site as opposed to one known for syndicating webcomics seemed an intriguing and beneficial arrangement. It’s my hope that many more readers who’ve never followed STRANGEWAYS will be introduced to the series now.”

THE THIRSTY follows ex-Union officer Seth Collins from the events of MURDER MOON as he drifts a little further west to a town called Cedar Creek, which is about to find itself under attack from people who are neither dead nor alive, but somewhere in-between. However, just as MURDER MOON was about a lot more than just cowboys and werewolves, THE THIRSTY is more than just cowboys and vampires. Those readers who liked the concept of “Lone,” which was the backup feature for MURDER MOON, will eat up “Red Hands,” which will serve a similar role in THE THIRSTY.

THE THIRSTY is illustrated by Gervasio and Jok of Estudio Haus in Argentina, who drew the story “Lone” in MURDER MOON. Luis Guaragna also returns in a backup feature, as mentioned above. “It’s great to continue my relationship with all of these artists,” Maxwell said. “They understand what the stories need visually, which is a deceptively simple task, it seems.”

A fine break, and a well-deserved one. The site in question:

http://blog.newsarama.com/

So start checking it out on Monday!