Policy Police: Pretty vacant, part 2.

One of my colleagues used the word “slapstick” to describe the first part of this one. I think that’s right. Kind of carries on in the same vein, too. As I think I said last month, it was inspired by the humour that is born out of the dispiriting task of closing your own organisation. You can find the comic in THE STORIES tab, under the heading, Rapid Response.(NB: as the comic-book version combines parts 1 and 2, this link goes to the same place as part 1)
 I’m conscious that the current situation is pulling me towards some quite dark places in this saga. But there’s lots of humour about the place. Can’t help but be inspired by a general atmosphere of silliness around the office.

I like the idea in this story of the ones that “got away”, maybe being a bit like those wonderful Russian agents who were expelled from the US a little while back. Carrying the Soviet Union in their hearts.

Which reminds me of another story...  On the banks of what now is Lake Nasser (it was, before the valley was flooded, on a crag, overlooking the Nile) is the ruin of the fortress Kasr Ibrim. It was one of the furthest outposts of the Ottoman empire. Several hundred years ago a garrison of Bosnians was stationed there to guard the empire against whatever threat sub-Saharan Africa might pose. They were sent, and duly forgotten about. As is the way with empires. As the years passed, they must’ve realised something was up, because they took up with local Nubian girls and started families. To this day, there are red-headed Nubians in southern Egypt who think they’re a cut above the others…

Nana

A very oblique Policy Police influence this... Though I put snow in the current story because of Nana. I thought coldness was important for this story, chill winds and all that.

I've been reading the manga Nana since the Spring, then got a Region-free DVD of the anime series. I came to Nana by a roundabout route as I normally wouldn't have sought out Shojo (girls') manga. It's a story of the friendship between two young women, both called Nana, set against a background of sex and drugs and rock-and-roll.

I'm really fond of this manga cuz everybody's flawed in really human ways. It's something I try to bring into Policy Police, but this really shows how it should be done. The artist and writer of Nana, Ai Yazawa, was taken ill about a year ago and spent several months in hospital, so the manga has "paused" at quite a critical moment.

Anyway. Cuz I was in need of more Nana, I hacked my DVD player to make it Region-free, so I can watch Region 1 stuff now. So I got the first Nana (live action) movie and watched it last night. I was really impressed with the casting - I could watch these people and convince myself that they really were the 2 Nanas and the band, that the manga was drawn with them as models. Because the story had to be cut down for the movie, it focused more on Nana Osaki's back story than on Nana (Hachi) Komatsu's, so perhaps we understand Hachi's motivation a little less. But nice movie, so I'm Nana'd out for a bit and can delay getting the second movie for a while and keep fingers crossed for Yazawa sensei's recovery.

Policy Police: Pretty vacant, part 1.

This is the first of a two-parter. It's a bit of a diversion from what I was originally planning, but it's kinda topical so I thought I'd run with it. You can find the comic in THE STORIES tab, under the heading, Rapid Response.(NB: The comic-book version combines both parts in one. So this link and the one in part 2 both go to the same place)
Earlier in the summer, somebody reminded me of some work I did on the culture of our bit of the Organisation. That got me thinking about how culture might play out under stress in this parallel universe...

I wrote the bulk of what became this story while on a long weeekend with the family in a cottage in Wales. While they lay abed in the mornings, I'd be downstairs scribbling this lot.

Bonfire of the Quangos!

Well, not so much a bonfire as one of those fires that allotment gardeners make to try and burn the weeds they've just pulled up. Lots of smoke and not much heat. I've had a quick look at the long list of 900-ish NDPBs published by the British government, stating who is going/staying/merging/being-thought-about. The interesting thing for me was all the organisations that are not on the list. I wonder how many quango-yet-not-quango organisations there are? My gut tells me there's the same amount again of "sector organisations", lobby groups and the like who are wholly dependent on government finance, either directly or through some of the arms-length bodies on the list of 900. Be interesting to see what happens in these organisations when difficult money decisions have to be made. The PwC report today/yesterday said there'd be 500k private sector jobs (that depend on public sector work) going on top of a similar number of public sector.... There's a whole network of these things scratting around after tax money. I wonder how many people there are left who actualy do stuff...

...and another new Policy Police book

This time it's the novelisation (or, more strictly the short-storyisation) of the original story. I did this mainly for a partially-sighted colleague who is a great fan. It's been an interesting exercise. A bit harder than I thought it would be... or maybe I just got more ambitious for it having started. But it was interesting to get inside the characters' heads.  Anyway, its been such a short time since I put the black book in the right-hand column, I'm going to leave that as it is and just point you to the SHOP where you can find all three books.

I've been getting a bit behind with the next instalment, the first of a brand new story. Lots of reasons for this, partly cuz I've been spending my time on the books, and partly cuz starting a new story requires new characters and stuff, so more thinking time... Also I'm migrating to a new secondhand computer. I have been using a laptop with an external Wacom tablet, but I've now got one of those laptops with a swizzle screen that turns into a tablet. Much more comfortable to use, but has required a bit of set-up and getting used to. So... I'm guessing closer to the middle of the month than the start.

The new Policy Police book is out!

As you can see on the right or here...

Up close and personalised all brought together in one place. Also includes a bonus feature in which the kids in the boiler suits get their moment centre stage.

Policy Police: surplus to requirements

I wrote this episode shortly after the news broke that The Organisation was being closed down. You can find the comic in THE STORIES tab, under the heading, Rapid Response.

It was going to be this year's Summer Special, but I'm glad the collaboration with Rob produced something less sombre. It also allowed some time to pass so I could make a judgement on its "rawness". In the end, I've decided to let it stand as I first did it.