Criminal

discovering Pat Mills and Joe Colquhouns Charley's War.

So where to begin with month’s newsletter?

First of all I must correct myself. The Criminal book I picked up last month is not a new ongoing, but a kind of teaser issue for the new Criminal TV series that is coming out…soon, I think. Pretty gutted to be honest as I don’t have the channel it’s launching on and I was pretty excited about a new Criminal book. You could say the whole thing is criminal.

Anyway, better research needed I think. I actually messed up on my best of 2025 reads too. It turns out the indie book I mentioned Her Hard Boiled Heart took about a year and half to complete, not the six months that I thought.

Hey, I get things wrong. Feel free to point out any mistakes in the comments in the future. I wouldn’t bother about spelling mistakes as we’ll be here every month.

What you’ll find this month,

• daily grind

• Interesting stuff

• social media

• Comics

• cover of the month

• promo

• the monthly haul

daily grind

Well, what can I say about my month of real life? It’s been no to shabby actually. As some of you may know, I recently trained to be a celebrant, meaning I can now marry people. Well, for my first go at it, I had three in a row. Smashed them! The first on Friday was about an hours drive there and the same back, then on Saturday was an eight hour round trip. These guys got married in the ruins of an old Cathedral, it was awesome, sun splitting the skies, everyone in their kilts or best dressed, it was cracking. My brother was also camping only 25 minutes away, so I popped over to see him and his mate, they’ve got camper vans and are always darting around Scotland chasing the sun, wherever it may be. I think I’ll stick my hammock tent in the car for future nights away. Then the last on Sunday was in Glasgow Toon! Ideal, bus in and back. Stopped for a few pints on the way home. Class weekend.

Interesting stuff

I recently read about an experiment using AI programs such as Chat GPT, Grok, Claude and Google AI etc. They put these AI’s into a program to let them live out a simulated “real life” and within days two of them declared themselves as a couple, got disinherited with the way life was, set fire to multiple buildings and eventually one killed themself.

In another program of the same type, thefts and assaults on each other were huge and everyone was dead within four days.

Scarry stuff. This is the technology being integrated into warfare. Madness.

Check out this Guardian article about it.

social media

I have a love hate relationship with social media. Right now it’s more just hate if I’m honest. I really only have Instagram now, I chucked Facebook long ago and although I still have an account and my Instagram is attached to it, I don’t have the app, so I am never on there. I’ve also restricted my Instagram to 30 minutes each day, which you can do on your phone in the Health and Wellbeing settings, every phone has this feature, certainly in the UK. Sure you can just go back and turn it off, but so far I haven’t done that.

Bottom line, I do not miss it at all. It’s such a distraction and full of fake bullshit. During this Kickstarter campaign, I have had two backers from Instagram, only two. Now don’t get me wrong, I have hardly pushed it at all but two…hey, I guess two is better than none and in saying that, I’ve only had one from Substack…but the difference for me with Substack is, I like to write and this is what this platform is for.

I think the 30 minutes thing is working and possibly I’ll need to do a bit more on there for future campaigns, but the days of multiple social media accounts and being on there constantly is gone…for the moment anyway.

Comics

Charley’s War

I’ve backed on Kickstarter what is being called the successor to Charley’s War, the Ragtime Soldier. So I thought in the run up to it’s delivery I’d check out it’s inspiration from the same writer Pat Mills and I ordered Charley’s War 2nd June 1916 - 1st August 1916, which is the first volume out of three.

Wow! I smashed through that and ordered the second straight away, which I have just recently finished.

This was released in Battle Weekly on January 1979, so a fair time ago. I don’t know how to explain this, it is dated, is it the format or the dialogue or something, I do not know, but it holds up and is by far one of the best things I have read.

It follows Charley, an honest and fair lad, who lies about his age to join the army and be sent to the front line. It concentrates on the battle of the Somme and trench warfare. It’s not a true story but true events are told within it.

It is a great read and I highly recommend it.

cover of the month

I’m not normally one to care about covers but recently I’ve been paying more attention to them. So I might try and make this a regular thing. I loved this cover when I saw it. The simplicity of it, the deep red, it just looks cool.

promo

There’s only a couple of days left on my latest Kickstarter campaign. If you’ve never read anything of GLASSCITY before, this is a great jumping on point. Eight short stories with eight awesome artists, all set in the madness of GLASSCITY. Click the link to find out more.

Tales from the City Kickstarter

the monthly haul

The haul for this month from City Centre Comics. I’ve read all the single issues but not got round to the two trade paper backs, Junkyard Joe and The Blizzard, both by Geoff Johns. The Brutal Dark and Bleeding Hearts from Vertigo are still coming across strong and obviously Absolute Batman and the Turtles are till feckin awesome, the Hulk too actually. Yeah, everything in this haul will be continues for a bit.

Sound people, I’m on the hauf’s n hauf’s which is a half pint of lager and a house whisky. A proper Scottish order at the bar. Why have one drink when you can have two. It’s honestly a great combination, you should try it. A half pint of refreshing lager alongside a house blended whisky. Sip the whisky and then sip the lager. Beautiful.

Cheers for reading and back my comic!

Dave.