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Jonathan Hartley — Sat, 31 May 2025 14:24:15 GMT

by Richard McGuire (the 304 page graphic novel, not the original 6 page comic.)

If you dug Understanding Comics then you will probably like this. Every panel is a view of the exact same space, occupied by a modest living room in our time, but the frames span a vast time period, and are presented in a chaotic, overlapping, non-chronological way that heightens the drama of several stories that happen, at times, to pass by that location. Experimental stuff.

I hear there will be a movie. Reminds me of the movies of Alan Moore's comics, which entirely missed the point that he was exploring what could be done in the comic medium which doesn't work in others.

TIL: Constructing a PDF from .jpg image files

Jonathan Hartley — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 14:55:18 GMT

I have some folders of .jpg images that make up a comic. I want to convert them into a PDF to read on my tab and other devices, and import into my Calibre bookshelf.

1. Install some prerequisites

sudo apt install imagemagick pdftk

2. Do the conversion

The versatile ImageMagick has a 'convert' command that seems to handle it:

convert *.jpg output.pdf

But this has some issues:

2.1. Failure due to security policy

'convert' currently refuses to generate PDFs: 'attempt to perform an operation not allowed by the security policy'. Apply the fix described on StackOverflow. :eyeroll:

2.2. Failure due to cache space

You might not need this fix if you generate smaller documents, or generate chapter-by-chapter as described below, but here it is in case.

Don't close that editor! In the same policy.xml you were just editing are resource size declarations for memory and disk. If 'convert' barfs with an error about running out of cache space, then bump up the disk resource size. I set mine to 8GB. StackOverflow again for details. :eyeroll: again.

3. Include a table of contents

I want to add bookmarks to the generated PDF marking each chapter.

Put the .jpgs into subdirectories by chapter, eg:

src/
|--chapter01/
|  |--0001.jpg
|  |--0002.jpg
|  |  ...
|--chapter02/
|  |--0001.jpg
|  |--0002.jpg
|  |  ...
|
...

Pad the chapter numbers with preceding zeros so that they sort into the correct order. I added an artificial 'chapter00' containing the front cover, separate from individual chapters.

Now we need to generate individual PDFs for each chapter. We can then use 'pdftk' to count the number of pages in each chapter, and use those counts to place bookmarks on the correct pages when pfdtk combines the chapters into one final output PDF.

I ended up regenerating each chapter a bunch while I tweaked the content, such as deleting adverts from the images. So I put these commands into a Makefile:

help: ## Show this help.
    @grep -E '^[^_][a-zA-Z_\/\.%-]+:.*?## .*$$' $(MAKEFILE_LIST) | awk 'BEGIN {FS = ":.*?## "}; {printf "\033[36m%-12s\033[0m %s\n", $$1, $$2}'
.PHONY: help

chapter_dirs=$(wildcard src/*)
chapters=$(chapter_dirs:src/%=%)
chapter_pdfs=$(chapters:%=%.pdf)
bookmarks=bookmarks.txt
output=output.pdf

clean: ## Delete all generated PDFs
    rm -f $(chapter_pdfs) $(output)
.PHONY: clean

chapter%.pdf: src/chapter%/*.jpg ## Each individual chapter, use 2 digits
    convert src/chapter$*/*.jpg $@

$(bookmarks): $(chapter_pdfs)
    ./make-bookmarks >$(bookmarks)

$(output): $(chapter_pdfs) $(bookmarks)
    pdftk $(chapter_pdfs) cat output - | \
    pdftk - update_info "$(bookmarks)" output "$(output)"

all: $(output) ## Build final output PDF
.PHONY: all

Where 'make-bookmarks' is a bash script that generates the intermediate 'bookmarks.txt' file:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

set -e # exit on error
set -u # treat unset vars as errors
# set -x # debugging output
set -o pipefail

# Generate a bookmarks file for all the matching PDF files

fmt="BookmarkBegin
BookmarkTitle: %s
BookmarkLevel: 1
BookmarkPageNumber: %d
"

declare -a files=(chapter*.pdf)
page=1
for file in "${files[@]}"; do
    title="${file%.*}"
    printf "$fmt" "$title" "$page"
    num_pages="$(pdftk "$file" dump_data | grep NumberOfPages | awk '{print $2}')"
    page=$((page + num_pages))
done

Now make all will produce the final output.pdf. You might want to open up the generated bookmarks.txt and edit the placeholder "chapter01" names. Then run make all again to regenerate the final output PDF with your fixed chapter names.

Doomsday Clock

Jonathan Hartley — Fri, 23 Sep 2022 01:57:55 GMT

By Geoff Johns (writer), Gary Frank (pencil) & Brad Anderson (colors). (2017-2019)

Watchmen is a seminal 12-issue superhero comic by Alan Moore (writer) & Dave Gibbons (artist), published from 1986 to 1987, that transformed the comics world. A superhero tale in which all-but-one of the superheroes have no superhuman powers at all.

The decades since have spawned a number of remakes, sequels, prequels and spin-offs. Zach Snyder's movie adaptation has its adherents, although I am not among them - one of Moore's goals was always to explore what makes the comic medium unique, developing and advancing the boundaries of what you can do in a comic but cannot do in other media. For example, a reader absorbs a comic at their own pace, and will often voluntarily flip back to clarify overlooked aspects of recent panels. What use, then, a shot-for-shot remake in the medium of video, which steamrolls the viewer along, heedless of their desire to cross-check important details? The HBO miniseries sequel, on the other hand, was excellent - better than I imagined any Watchmen sequel could be. But other than that they have not been very good.

I initially thought the 12 issue sequel Doomsday Clock comic would fall solidly into this group - indeed, it was decried by many review headlines, so I passed it by when it came out a couple of years ago.

But on reading it last week, I really enjoyed it. It really swings for the fences, providing a smashing tale, with good arcs for both old and new characters, and a genuine attempt to advance the conversation that Watchmen started by deconstructing the superhero.

spoilers

We last saw Dr Manhattan at the end of Watchmen, having been isolated from humanity by Adrien Veidt's plans, tired of his entanglement in the messy complexity of people's lives, threatening to leave the galaxy "for one less complicated".

![Manhattan's departure at the end of Watchmen](/files/2022/doomsday-clock-watchmen-manhattan.webp)

In Doomsday Clock, Adrian Veidt, genius that he is, invents a means to follow Dr Manhattan, seeking his help with the re-emergence of imminent nuclear war brought about by the revelations in Rorschach's journal, and it becomes clear that the "simpler place" Dr Manhattan has journeyed to is the DC universe, populated by Superman, Batman, and the whole stable of DC heroes.

Various other Watchmen characters make their way, or are transferred to, the DC universe. This has been described across the comic industry as "the crossover event nobody wanted", but personally I felt it was really well done.

Two of the most prominently deceased Watchmen characters are brought back into play, using mechanisms I thought were legitimate and, on occasion, laugh-out-loud satisfying as they reached their resolution.

![Doomsday Clock Watchmen Comedian Alive](/files/2022/doomsday-clock-comedian.webp)

In particular, they find a way to bring back Rorschach. Or, at least, a Rorschach. Another individual picks up the mask. This seems like the most controversial of the many decisions in the book, but it's handled deftly, and there are both similarities and differences between the old and the new Rorschach, making it an interesting character in its own right. In some ways this transformation is reminiscent of HBO Watchmen's treatment of Hooded Justice - retaining everything we already knew about the character, but performing an astonishing piece of narrative ju-jitsu to utterly transform everything about what that meant.

The DC heroes slowly realize their world is being altered by Dr Manhattan's manipulations, tying this crossover into the latest of the DC universe's "crisis" events, as Manhattan experiments with this reality, in order to understand it. In doing so, he uncovers deep truths that affect the inter-relationship between all the DC time-lines and universes, establishing that historical stories, such as Superman's original appearance in Action Comics of the 1930s, represent realities that still exist, out in the multiverse, unaffected by subsequent commercial re-ploughing that forever drives Superman's origin story further forward in time over the years. All these worlds, including the various DC pre-crisis worlds, are accessible to Manhattan's powers.

Incidentally, this enables DC to undo the changes wrought by the last few years' unpopular "New 52" era. This meant nothing to me when I started reading, I know basically nothing about American comics, only being familiar with the fabulous British 2000AD. I was spurred into reading around the DC lore, and by the time I was done, I understood that the New 52 reality included things like The Justice League's alternate roster, the early death of Clark's parents, which distances Superman from humanity and changes the character dramatically, the loss of the Justice Society of America from Earth, and the loss of Wally West's Flash. All these and more are written off as the effects of Dr Manhattan's meddling, isolated and preserved in just another spun-off part of the multiverse, while being jettisoned from the privileged metaverse, the core template from which all subsequent multiversal threads are forged, as it reverts to more-or-less its former state when Manhattan's changes are undone during Doomsday Clock's story.

In doing all this, Manhattan exhibits his usual clinical detachment from the human consequences of his actions, setting himself up as the villain of the piece, an uncaring "being of inaction", in contrast to Superman, the literal "man of Action".

![Doomsday Clock: Superman & Manhattan](/files/2022/doomsday-clock-superman.webp)

This forms a genuine riposte to Watchmen's criticism of the superhero genre. Yes, the DC heroes inhabit a simpler world, but the simplicity serves a purpose. Escaping the mundane enhances the mythological power of what they represent as symbols. Particularly the value of hope, as personified by Superman, which, although possibly somewhat overwrought in the telling - quite literally, in this tale - makes all other things possible.

I was especially pleased with the quiet, understated places Doomsday Clock goes with Mothman's, back-story. The character in Watchmen was only a punchline, a recurring throwaway reference to instability and alcoholism, telegraphing his subsequent mental breakdown. But here, we see him fully fleshed out.

Like the rest of the Watchmen heroes, he has no magical superhuman powers, but is still able to pull off entirely unexpected and superhuman-seeming stunts, merely by the virtue of his own unique kind of extreme mental and emotional resourcefulness. Flawed, but aware of his faults, and able to pull it together when he needs to, he befriends the younger Rorschach II during their overlapping stays in a mental institution, becoming a beacon of warmth, kindness, and generosity to the younger man.

He acts as a symbol, if you will, that just as Watchmen's ruthless gaze influenced the wider world of comics, so the comic world gazes back. They see us, all the real-world, fully-rounded humans, trapped in the depths of our pathos, and they wonder, when will each of us learn to transcend our humdrum limitations, to finally act on our hopes and dreams, and fly...

![Doomsday Clock: Mothman](/files/2022/doomsday-clock-mothman.webp)

The Electric State

Jonathan Hartley — Mon, 14 Feb 2022 01:32:45 GMT

by Simon Stålenhag (2017)

I listen to a really fantastic science fiction podcast by Damien Walter, which is fascinatingly cerebral. Damien selected Stålenhag's work for his recent round-up of the 21 most significant science fiction storytellers of the 21st century (so far).

This is the same artist whose work inspired 2020's Tales from the Loop, and Damien's selection spurred me to engage more fully than just browse around Stålenhag's images all over the web.

I wasn't disappointed. The word count is low enough to be considered a short, but the main event is the accompanying illustrations, which are downright startling in their contrasts of the mundane and the fantastic.

Charting the journey of a runaway teenager and her small yellow robot, through a ruined near-future American landscape, littered with the debris of a high tech consumerist society addicted to an all-encompassing virtual-reality system. As they approach the edge of the continent, the world outside the car window unravels at an ever faster pace, as if somewhere beyond the horizon, the hollow core of civilization has finally caved in.

The Incal

Jonathan Hartley — Wed, 05 Jan 2022 19:56:03 GMT

Written by Alejandro Jodorowsky, art by Jean Giraud (aka Mœbius), 1980-88

I grabbed this in the English translation from the original French, having been intrigued by the Pocket Essential Alan Moore's description of it as a contender for "the best comic in the medium's history".

This creative pairing also worked together on the unproduced 1970s movie of Dune, the one whose cast was to have included Salvador Dalí, Orson Welles, Gloria Swanson, and Mick Jagger, and presumably would have been pretty trippy - I mean, even more trippy than the David Lynch one turned out to be. The artist, Mœbius, has had a long and glorious career, knighted for his art in his native France, and he worked on other movies such as Alien, Tron, The Fifth Element, and The Abyss.

Echoes of all of these are visible throughout the consistently stunning artwork of The Incal, and it has been explicitly noted as an influence on the expansive decayed futurescapes of Akira and Blade Runner, and the flamboyant visuals of the Star Wars prequels.

The writing really swings for the fences, a sprawling tale of a reluctant hero's journey, taking in societal commentary, intergalactic travel, spiritual transformation, iconic incarnations of good and evil, and a deep thread of mysticism.

For me, it does have a very evident "foreign" feeling - small social nuances with which I'm unfamiliar. Equally clearly, this is part of its exotic charm. And while the story touches on, perhaps even consists of, deep themes, it doesn't so much articulately explore them, but instead simply incorporates them. This is not a comic for people who are not already comic fans.

In lesser hands, it might have been undisciplined. But wherever the story roams, the artwork is endlessly enthralling. I especially liked the touch of protagonist, John DiFool, starting out distinctly ugly, but being rendered more handsomely on the rare occasions he manages to get in touch with his more noble aspects. Jodorowsky manages to keep it all together, bringing it around to a splendidly satisfying theatrical close. Bravo!

Demon

Jonathan Hartley — Mon, 31 May 2021 16:08:52 GMT

by Jason Shiga (2016)

I'm just discovering the works of Jason Shiga, creator of mathematically-inspired nonlinear comic-books, e.g. stories drawn on complex origami structures, that can be folded in various ways to represent either branching story-lines, or else to manage state such as 'inventory'. Construction of these more elaborate paper constructions doesn't scale, (ie. I'm not likely to ever own one) but you can try some of his other creations on the web.

This is Demon, a regular linear web-comic.

The storyline is 'math-inspired' too, in the same way that the movie Primer is - intense, absolute, ruthless, narrative exploration of logical implications, while continually, dizzyingly, escalating to the next level.

Swamp Thing, Vol 1: Saga of the Swamp Thing

Jonathan Hartley — Mon, 24 Jun 2019 02:50:43 GMT

by Alan Moore, Jogn Totleben, & Steve Bissette

spoilers

Moore's deconstruction of existing characters continues. Originally Swamp Thing was Alec Holland, miraculously transformed by an infusion of artificially stimulated plant matter. When Alan Moore takes over the writing, Swamp Thing's ostracization and existential dread is compounded by the discovery that this origins story has been a delusion all along. Alec Holland was killed outright in the accident, and an accumulation of plant matter grew around his decaying form, integrating the physical remains of his memories into a creature that yearned to recapture its human form, but was never human in the first place.

Miracleman, books 1, 2 & 3

Jonathan Hartley — Thu, 20 Jun 2019 15:17:46 GMT

by Alan Moore, Alan Davies, & John Totleben.

I spent a little time digging out earlier works of Alan Moore. These inter-library loans didn't disappoint.

Originally published as Marvelman by Mick Anglo, from 1954-59. Legal battles re-branded the character as Miracleman in 1985.

spoilers

The opening pages reprint one of those campy early stories, involving primary-colored moralizing while flying around to punch time-travelling Nazi super-scientists.

They then continue with Alan Moore's postmodern 1980s reboot. This recasts the simplistic tales of the original period as a placating dream, fed to a captured Miracleman by his nemesis. His hokey origins story is similarly re-ploughed. The ensuing tales are dark and introspective.

One thread follows the emotional stresses placed on Miracleman when incarnated as his human alter-ego, the frail and fallible half of a godlike being. He's unable to conceive a child with his wife, although it turns out Miracleman can, and succumbs to self-loathing and jealousy, culminating in a touching scene in which he climbs a mountain, leaves a forlorn monument, and changes into Miracleman one last time, never to change back.

Yes, this is more uneven than Moore's later works. Yes, it's unashamedly an underwear-on-the-outside superhero story. But nonetheless I loved it, and scenes like the above stayed with me for months.

Also this month:

The Atrocity Archive by Charles Stross. The conceit of Lovecraftian horror rationalized to a mathematical or computable topic is appealing to me, and kept the pages turning, but I didn't ultimately find it life-changing.

Nightwings by Robert Silverberg. A fantastical far-future tale of humanity split into occupational castes, guarding the world against prophesied invasion. Not my thing.

From Hell

Jonathan Hartley — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 03:34:22 GMT

by Alan Moore (author), Eddie Campbell (artist) (1989)

Moore has almost single-handedly transformed the definition of the comic industry in the last 20 years, and this fetishistically researched comic-book dramatisation of the dark and macabre Jack the Ripper murders is no exception to his visionary high standards.

spoilers

Moore plunges headlong into the sensational conspiracy theory that Royal Physician, Dr. William Gull, killed East End prostitutes to silence the story of an illegitimate royal baby, under the direct orders of the implacable Queen Victoria herself.

Dr Gull regards his mission as the great work of his life, which will not only quash the threat to the crown, but also fulfil ancient pagan destinies, reasserting the male dominance over matriarchy that began when the Romans reclaimed London and slew Queen Boadicea. Gull knows this because he has knelt before his God, who told him just what needed to be done. As a doctor, Gull knows that these visions are madness, brought about by his stroke of the previous year. As a man, however, he responds that "If this is madness, who'd be sane?", and, embracing the subjective reality of his hallucinations, he goes about his work with gusto, confiding along the way in his witless coachman and reluctant accomplice, Nettley.

The story is a tapestry, woven on many levels. The iniquities of wealth and power are richly depicted as the poverty-stricken residents of the East End are contrasted with the powers-that-be, who move swiftly and decisively to ensure that Gull is never caught nor found out, for fear of scandal, even while he goes on killing with impunity.

The appalling violence of the murders and dismemberment of the victims is shown in unflinching detail, one pivotal 34-page chapter "The Best of all Tailors", consisting solely of the actions of Gull, a renowned surgeon, with his victim in a tiny, squalid room, which made me profoundly grateful that the sketches are only in black-and-white.

Such graphic nastiness is not for no reason. Gull is convinced that the act of violence is a pivotal part of the ancient and grisly prophesies he is enacting. Under the psychological strain of each successive murder, Gull experiences increasingly vivid hallucinations, symptoms of his condition. But then, something altogether strange starts to happen. As his visions become more vivid, Gull begins to experience glimpses of the future. Visions of our time. At times and places where people have historically claimed to have seen the ghost of Jack the Ripper, Moore cunningly reverses the perspective, allowing Gull to see them also. By the end, Gull's visions have him stalking the sterile hallways of the modern world in blood-soaked shirtsleeves, roaring at oblivious office workers, exhorting them to look up and remember the history from which our century was birthed in blood. The ancient magic that Gull raved about was real, while we have lost our connection to our violent and animal past, and with it, our very humanity.

Rating: 10/10. Cor blimey it's a classic.