cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/19420084

Michael, 46, was back in Leeds from 2001 to 2011 and is now based in Oxford for his work. But Leeds holds a special place in his heart – not least, he says, because it is the home of comics in the North of England.

“The only thing that could tear me away from my favourite city was the ultimate job,” he says. “Particularly in Leeds, the comic scene has never been more vibrant and more diverse than it is now. And that's really fantastic. It's really been great to watch that over the last 20 years.”

Not only is it a student city, which fosters interest in comics, but it sustains three comic book stores – OK Comics, Travelling Man and Forbidden Planet International – which “all have their own identity and their own clientele,” says Michael. And lots of comic creators are from, or are based in Yorkshire, too, including Peter Doherty, Greg Staples, the late John Cooper.

“All the stars align over the head of Leeds and I know from my decade back that it always felt exciting to be in comics and to be around people who love comics,” says Michael, who is husband to Katherine.

It was in Leeds that he started to write freelance pieces about comics, going from consumer to somebody who worked in the industry. He has interviewed numerous names including Alan Moore, known for works such as Watchmen and V for Vendetta.

Now, Michael does have to “pinch myself” sometimes, he says, working for 2000 AD. He says: “I get to hang around with some of the most creative people on the face of the planet.”

But earlier this year, his own work was celebrated. In July, his book on the politics of Judge Dredd was named as Best Comics-Related Book at the Eisner Awards, in San Diego, California.

Blending comic book history with contemporary radical theories on policing, I Am The Law analyses how John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra’s character has reflected, parodied and predicted the rise of military-style policing.

For those who have never delved, what do comic books offer that other forms, such as novels, cannot? Michael sounds almost pained trying to answer what is such a big question for him. “People have quite literally written entire books about that,” he says.

So on this subject, Michael follows up by email. “There’s a great writer called Scott McCloud who has a lot to say about the way comics can mess with the illusion of time passing through the arrangement of different elements. That's comics’ central magic – the translation of space into time.

"Ultimately, comics gives your unconscious mind a workout by playing with symbols, images, and information to build a narrative. The effect of all that invisible mental effort is that the reader is so deeply invested that the emotional beats hit harder.

"The American cartoonist Will Eisner, after whom the awards are named, did so much to explore and expand on this idea. There really is no other artform like comics.

“The adult historical horror series Somna, by Becky Cloonan and Tula Lotay (an Ilkley-based artist), is a great example of how two creators can write and draw together in a mutually supportive way that puts across two aspects of a single narrative.

"I can't see prose doing quite the same thing and it demonstrates how art styles can affect meaning – art style is to comics as prose style is to fiction.” He also highlights, for instance, how Yorkshire artist Zoe Thorogood's It's Lonely At The Centre of the Earth is a “complex and layered narrative response to her mental health, often switching from speaking directly to the reader to third-person narration,” he says.

“One particularly brilliant visual trick is where she covers her face with narration boxes, making the narration even more intimate.” And Thought Bubble is the place where these artists and themes coalesce. "Loads of people from across the world converge on Thought Bubble,” says Michael. “It’s the show that comic creators tell other comic creators to attend.

"I was in Portland in Oregon at a convention and there was this American artist saying to another American to go to Thought Bubble. I was just like, that’s so strange – these two people on the other side of the world going: ‘You must visit Harrogate’.”

For line up details and ticket, visit: www.thoughtbubblefestival.com

Archive

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/19050032

In the 1960s and 1970s the British war comic was big business. Titles including War Picture Library, Battle Picture Weekly and Battle Action, mainly saw the heroic Brits triumph over the evil Nazis. But these comics were much more than just a tale of goodies versus baddies.

Many of them depicted full battles and therefore were an historical record of the First and Second World Wars. Sadly, many of them and their remarkable artwork were consigned to the bin when the genre dipped in popularity at the end of the Seventies. But a dedicated team of comic collectors and researchers at Rebellion Publishing have tracked down the surviving pieces and the results are shown in an exhibition telling the story of the British war comic currently at York Army Museum.

“Britain has been publishing comics continuously for over 130 years. During that time, conflict has remained a staple of comic book storytelling and by the 1960s and 1970s war stories were the most popular genre,” explains Rebellion’s Head of Publishing Ben Smith.

“But British comics boomed and then busted in the late Nineties and the glorious history that had taken a century to build was put in mothballs.

"The owners of the various archives didn’t make that work available so consequently the story disappeared and at Rebellion, which has been publishing 2000AD the Home of Judge Dredd for 25 years, we realised that if we didn’t go out and acquire the rights and the catalogue and ownership of these comic archives the story and the history of British comics was going to be lost.”

They founded the Treasury of British Comics in 2018 to conserve, curate and present the history of British comics.

“This exhibition is a wonderful example of that,” says Smith.

“It tells the story of war comics across a century we go from the real boom in the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies and then individual stories about what made those comics interesting to people at the time and into the present day.

...

And it seem the exhibition is already proving a massive hit with visitors young and old coming from as far afield as London and Scotland to see it and footfall up 25 per cent as a result.

Into Battle: The Art of British War Comics is at York Army Museum, 3 Tower Street, York, YO1 9SB until November 17

"A new memoir, Cavalier George Buck and The Haunted Hamlet of Little Fenton – Ghostly Tales from The Heart of Yorkshire and Beyond, is out now and we caught up with its author to find out more.

This short book is a collection of about 30 true ghost stories emanating from the North Yorkshire hamlet of Little Fenton, situated ten miles south west of York as the crow flies.

The new book is in the style of a memoir and has been written by Ricardo de Fenton, the pen-name of a local 54-year-old gardener who claims he lives in one of the most haunted hamlets in Yorkshire if not the UK..."

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/17070373

Animal-lover Nicci Knight got the shock of her life when her beloved cat, Ted, arrived home – four days after he’d been cremated.

Nicci was halfway through a family holiday in Turkey when she received a heartbreaking message, revealing poor Ted had been found dead back home in North Yorkshire.

She was relaxing by the pool in the resort of Dalaman when the message came through on her mobile phone – via her video doorbell – in the North Yorkshire village of Newby, near Stokesley.

Nicci burst into tears when her neighbours’ children even held up five-year-old Ted’s distinctive black and white body to the camera as proof of his untimely passing after being found dead in their garden pond.

...

However, four days later, Elise, who was also popping in to feed Ted’s sister, Moosh, made a traumatised call to say: “You’re not going to believe this – Ted’s just walked in through the cat-flap!”

“I thought I was seeing a cat-ghost,” exclaimed Elise.

...

Nicci immediately called Heavenly Pets to alert them to the mistake but was told the cremation had already taken place.

“It’s not Ted – it’s a lookalike!” Nicci found herself yelling down the phone.

It led to the ashes of the doppelganger moggie being temporarily stored in a container labelled: “Not dead Ted.”

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/16825132

A Sheffield man has been banned from touching unattended vehicles after he tried to steal a van.

Ricky Roberts, 36, was arrested on July 24 after South Yorkshire Police responded to reports of a man trying to break into a Ford Transit van on Brompton Road, Sheffield. He was discovered in the process of forcing his way into a van and fled after he saw police officers.

He got on a pedal bike but was arrested less than 20 minutes after the initial call reporting the attempted theft. A bag Roberts dropped was found to contain several power tools which had been stolen from vehicles in Sheffield the night before.

...

Roberts, of Richmond Hall Road, Sheffield, was handed a two-year Criminal Behaviour Order which bans him from touching or entering any unattended motor vehicle, motorcycle, or pedal cycle without the permission of the owner. He has also been instructed to take part in a drug rehabilitation course.

"Over the past few years Leeds has emerged as a go-to destination for British institutions looking to venture beyond the M25.

Since 2018 Channel 4, the Bank of England, the Financial Conduct Authority and the UK Infrastructure Bank have all opened hubs or expanded their presence in the city, adding hundreds of new jobs and millions of pounds to the local economy.

While “North-shoring”—the practice of companies relocating from London to Northern England—isn’t a new trend, the recent surge of firms choosing Leeds over larger nearby cities like Manchester marks a shift.

So how is the West Yorkshire city holding its own?

The answer, according to the chief executive of Northern Powerhouse Partnership, Henri Murison, could lie nine miles west in the neighbouring city of Bradford..."

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/13205778

Hollywood bigwigs have been called on to look north to stage their latest box office hits after the UK film industry was dealt another major blow recently as £750m plans for a new film studio in Buckinghamshire were quashed.

Already home to Pinewood and Shepperton studios, planners at Buckinghamshire Council rejected proposals for a 36-hectare production site despite being backed by the likes of Avatar director James Cameron and actor and filmmaker Andy Serkis.

In the aftermath of the decision West Yorkshire Mayor Tracy Brabin took to X (formerly Twitter) to call on film supremos to consider investing in Yorkshire instead of always defaulting to the South East.

...

But while it appears the South might be falling out of love with Hollywood, the North is poised and ready to capitalise.

Last December work started on a film studio on the site of the former Littlewoods pools business in Liverpool, which when finished will create 40,000 sq ft of production space.

The recently approved Crown Works Studios in Sunderland, part-funded by the production company behind The Kardashians, will pave the way to create thousands of jobs across the north of England.

...

The vast majority of the UK’s large-scale film studios – categorised by the British Film Commission as having at least one stage over 15,000 sq ft – are clustered around London, with production facilities in the south outnumbering the rest of the country 25 to five.

The financial implications of this are huge.

Every 100,000 sq ft of stage space contributes between £60m and £80m to the surrounding economy, according to a 2024 study commissioned by Hounslow Borough Council.

The sector has already added £2bn to West Yorkshire’s economy alone, and employs 50,000 local people.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/12757380

A traffic cop who once warned speeding drivers "this is not Silverstone'' has been sacked for going 154 mph in a police car while on duty.

PC Adam Smith was dismissed by North Yorkshire Police after a misconduct hearing found him guilty of gross misconduct. Smith was caught driving at 154 mph and 98 mph on the same journey, shortly after filming a force publicity video aimed at cracking down on 'street racing' in Selby.

A council has provoked the wrath of residents and linguists alike after announcing it would ban apostrophes on street signs to avoid problems with computer systems.

North Yorkshire council is ditching the punctuation point after careful consideration, saying it can affect geographical databases.

The council said all new street signs would be produced without one, regardless of whether they were used in the past.

Some residents expressed reservations about removing the apostrophes, and said it risked “everything going downhill”. They urged the authority to retain them.

Sam, a postal worker in Harrogate, a spa town in North Yorkshire, told the BBC that signs missing an apostrophe – such as the nearby St Mary’s Walk sign that had been erected in the town without it – infuriated her.

“I walk past the sign every day and it riles my blood to see inappropriate grammar or punctuation,” she said.

Though the updated St Mary’s sign had no apostrophe, someone had graffitied an apostrophe back on to the sign with a marker pen, which the former teacher said was “brilliant”.

...

North Yorkshire council said it was not the first to opt to “eliminate” the apostrophe from street signs. Cambridge city council had done the same, before it bowed to pressure and reinstated the apostrophe after complaints from campaigners.

There was also an outcry from residents when Mid Devon district council considered making it a policy to do away with apostrophes to “avoid potential confusion”.

A Wetherspoons pub located in a Yorkshire seaside town has defended the installation of CCTV cameras in its toilets, causing customers to express concerns of potential 'stage fright'. The Lord Rosebery in Scarborough, part of the national pub chain, installed cameras in both the men's and women's facilities.

The news emerged when a bothered customer posted a photo of said camera on Reddit, leading to a discussion about the legal aspects of such an installation.

A variety of users responded with confusion, fearing that they might experience "stage fright" if they knew a camera was possibly watching them while they used the loo. JD Wetherspoon clarified that the cameras are not aimed at the urinals or cubicles, but instead to ensure 'customer and staff safety'.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/10162768

It was a “bonkers gig”, pairing heavy metal with a pipe organ – a musical curiosity that the bands thought would surely seldom be repeated, if ever.

But Pantheïst and Arð, the doom metals bands who performed the concert at Huddersfield town hall last year, have been inundated with requests to repeat the performance – with churches leading the way.

“We thought that churches would look at it as slightly heretical, – having a metal band playing in church – but that wasn’t the case at all,” said Mark Mynett, a senior lecturer in music production at Huddersfield University. “They really embraced this bold new world – some of them talked about bringing a new audience into church.”

The experiment last August saw Pantheïst and Arð accompanied by David Pipe, the cathedral organist at the Diocese of Leeds, playing Huddersfield town hall’s 1860 “Father” Willis organ.

Mynett said that after the Observer covered the event, it was featured on Radio 4’s Sunday Worship, prompting dozens of churches, among others, to get in touch with him and Pipe.

Now the new genre has its own name – “organic metal” – and a series of similar concerts is planned, starting with gigs this week at the deconsecrated St Paul’s church in Huddersfield.

It will feature Mynett’s band, Plague of Angels, alongside Pipe on the organ and Anabelle Iratni, a classically trained vocalist, who will sing an aria by Handel – as well as delivering death metal growls.

edit: Pantheïst's full set (they have more bits on their YouTube channel)

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/9985022

Hundreds of people have taken part in the annual World Coal Carrying Championships in West Yorkshire.

The event in Gawthorpe, near Ossett, sees runners haul sacks of coal across a distance of 3,320ft (1,012m).

Gawthorpe Maypole Committee, which organises the championships, said more than 400 people had signed up this year, including 200 children.

...

Traditionally, men carried 7st 12lb (50kg) sacks of coal and women carried 3st 2lb (20kg) from the Royal Oak pub to the village's Maypole Green.

However, this year Mr Smith said organisers had to make the switch to anthracite coal as house coal was banned from sale for environmental reasons.

...

Among those in the crowd this year was Gladiators star Jodie Ounsley, known to fans of the BBC One show as Fury.

She was there in support of her father Phil, a former winner of the men's open race in 2007.

Speaking after the event, he told BBC Look North: "I'd love to say I enjoyed it but I hated every minute of it.

"It was absolutely brutal and I remember now why I hadn't done it in the last 16 years."

...

This year's women's race was won by Danielle Sidebottom from Dewsbury, who took the title for the third time after completing the course in four minutes 45 seconds.

Andrew Corrigan from Driffield claimed his sixth win in the men's race, finishing in 04:22.

The women's veterans winner was Nicola Marr with a time of 05:19, while men's veterans winner Matthew Gillard crossed the finish line in 05:53.

The oldest contestant was 77-year-old David Page who finished the race to huge applause.

About 5,000 years ago, the Thornborough Henges in what is now North Yorkshire would have dominated the surrounding landscape.

What would have been three striking white monuments, now known as the "Stonehenge of the North", were covered in gypsum and their banks are believed to have towered up to 23ft (7m) high.

According to historians, anyone stood inside the circular earthworks in Neolithic times would only have been able to see the vast sky above them.

Cut off from the landscape and enclosed in this huge human-made arena, our ancient ancestors would have felt "centred within nature" and could even have had a "cosmic experience", they say.

It is an experience that, in 2024, people can perhaps finally get just a taste of once again.

In February, public access to all three monuments was guaranteed when the whole complex was reunited under one owner - English Heritage - for what was believed to be the first time in 1,500 years.

...

Dr Wexler said that while the site had been "historically ignored" until the 1990s, from the viewpoint of 2024, things were very different.

The focus was now on "access and conservation work", she said.

"With new non-invasive technology, we hope to better date the henges and work out the sequence in which they were built."

Dr Wexler added that everyone involved was "so excited" to have the Thornborough Henges reunited and ready for people to retrace ancient footsteps.

"There is so much more to discover. They are magical," she said.

"It is like stepping back in time."

The levels of sewage spills for Yorkshire Water for 2023, 516,386 hours, has more than doubled on the figures for 2022 which were 232,054 hours.

A [Yorkshire Water] spokesman said:”The weather experienced in the region in 2023 included a very wet summer and prolonged heavy rainfall towards the end of the year resulting in groundwater infiltration into the sewer network. Nevertheless, we know there is more to do, and we are making headway with a £180m programme to reduce discharges across the region by April 2025.”

​In response to the figures, a spokesperson for industry body Water UK said: “These results are unacceptable and demonstrate exactly why we urgently need regulatory approval to upgrade our system so it can better cope with the weather."

The water companies say they want to triple investment to £10bn over the period 2025-2030 to tackle the problem, which would be paid for through consumer bills.

A new version of the Monopoly board game based on the Yorkshire Dales has been launched.

Instead of the traditional playing pieces like the Scottie dog and boot, the Yorkshire Dales edition features local tokens, including a slab of Wensleydale cheese and a miniature dry-stone wall.

Players must also 'pass GO' to land on more than 30 local landmarks, including Malham Cove, Aysgarth Falls and Fountains Abbey, as voted for by the public.

The national park was chosen for a spin-off edition ahead of other contenders, including the Amazon rainforest and the Grand Canyon.

Transport secretary Mark Harper confirmed that dozens of "state-of-the-art", "zero-emission" buses would hit the road as part of efforts to decarbonise public transport by replacing diesel models. His department said it would provide £5.7m in funding towards the cost of the rollout.

Meanwhile, the £2 bus fare cap will be extended until the end of 2024. The investments are part of a £1bn package for the North and the Midlands, paid for out of money saved from the scrapped northern leg of HS2.

Announcing the move, the Department for Transport said the buses "will also improve the passenger experience, providing users with considerably quieter and more comfortable journeys" while "helping improve local air quality both for bus users and the local communities". The new vehicles will meet enhanced accessibility standards and will include features such as wi-fi and USB charging sockets.

The funding is part of the nationwide Zero Emission Bus Regional Areas (ZEBRA) programme, which includes a £143m investment in new electric buses. Today's announcement follows a pledge of almost £330m for transport scheme in Hull and the East Riding, to be provided over seven years beginning in April 2025 with councils able to decide how best to spend it.

My TL;DR:

Bus services in West Yorkshire will be brought under public control, as it becomes the third major region of the north to reverse four decades of deregulation.

West Yorkshire follows Greater Manchester and Liverpool in deciding to return to a franchised system, where private operators must win contracts to run routes and timetables decided by the local authority, which also sets fares and takes revenues.

Under devolution, metro mayors have had the right to take buses under local control since the 2017 Bus Services Act, although the legal and political processes required remain arduous.

The region’s mayor, Tracy Brabin, who was elected in 2021 on a pledge to bring buses under public control, is also hoping to bring a wider mass transit system to Leeds and Bradford, two of the worst served cities for public transport in Europe, which will also include a tram.