Michael Molcher

@molcher.bsky.social

2338 Followers 435 Following

Eisner Award-winning author. History weirdo with @englishcivilwar.bsky.social Links: https://linktr.ee/molcher

THE CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED BOOK - NOW THE WINNER OF A PRESTIGIOUS EISNER AWARD! 'BEST COMIC-RELATED' BOOK, EISNER AWARDS 2024 'BEST BOOK ON COMICS', BROKEN FRONTIER AWARDS 2023 "Thorough and intelligent" - John Wagner, co-creator of Judge Dredd "Deals with a complex and often controversial subject in a nuanced and highly readable way" - Fortean Times "The in-depth analysis the strip has long deserved" -Garth Ennis, writer of The Boys & Preacher "Stunning ... An absolutely phenomenal piece of comics scholarship" - El Sandifer, author and critic "An absolute ripper of a book" - Spencer Ackerman, author Reign of Terror "A terrifying vision of the future as present" - Alex S. Vitale, author of The End of Policing "May be one of the most important books about sci-fi published this decade" - Hugo Book Club Blog "A book equally satisfying for a law geek and a comics geek" - David Allen Green, legal commentator ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ - SFX ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ - Fortean Times "I cannot recall a more timely book" - Nick Lezard, The Spectator "Radical, daring, hyper-intelligent and utterly vital" - lan Dunt, author How To Be A Liberal
A cat and a book on top of a duvet on top of a pair of legs (of which the feet are sticking out) on a sofa. A star lamp hangs in the tall, thin window behind them.
A big bottle of Gaviscon next to a pint of beer.
A cat. The best cat. Curled up on the carpet in front of a grey sofa.
A home office with green walls and a desk in the background. A pair of legs stretches out from a grey sofa into a red office chair. On those legs is a similarly long cat.
A red external harddrive sat on top of a tangle of wires next to a silver and black laptop.
An image by Kevin O'Neill of a robot whose body is fashioned like the armour of an English Civil War cavalryman.
A cat, laying on grey carpet under a desk in a green-walled room. It has twisted into a curl with its hind legs together in a prawn-like configuration
A screenshot from the Girls5Eva TV show showing Wickie Roy standing in the street. The words "An adult man into comics is just stupid" are in subtitles at the bottom of the screen
An image of a photo from the 1990s of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh with the suntitlw "[Lou] He has comic book collections".
Two frames of Brasso from Andor saying "Tell him ... I love him more than anything he could do wrong."
A man in a disheveled office setting, surrounded by walls covered in papers, notes, and graffiti indicating an apparent conspiracy. He looks crazy.
A garden wall. The garden is a bloody mess.
A portrait of a Spanish Habsburg king with a hell of a chin on him
A photo of my wife trying to read a book but our cat is mostly in her face
"To say that straight men are heterosexual is only to say that they engage in sex (fucking exclusively with the other sex, i.e., women). All or almost all of that which pertains to love, most straight men reserve exclusively for other men. The people whom they admire, respect, adore, revere, honor, whom they imitate, idolize, and form profound attachments to, whom they are willing to teach and from whom they are willing to learn, and whose respect, admiration, recognition, honor, reverence and love they desire... those are, overwhelmingly, other men. In their relations with women, what passes for respect is kindness, generosity or paternalism; what passes for honor is removal to the pedestal. From women they want devotion, service and sex. Heterosexual male culture is homoerotic; it is man-loving." Marilyn Frye, The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory
Zachary Quinto in an episode of CSI. He's wearing a dirty blue shirt and has the most appalling early 2000s scraggly mop top hair cut.
The cover to I Am The Law: How Judge Dredd Predicted Our Future by Michael Molcher. The cover by Pye Parr shows a riot policeman with the outline of Judge Dredd's helmet painted crudely on the visor of his riot helmet.
The cover to I Am The Law: How Judge Dredd Predicted Our Future by Michael Molcher. The cover by Pye Parr shows a riot policeman with the outline of Judge Dredd's helmet painted crudely on the visor of his riot helmet.
An extract from I Am The Law: Far from being the cold, hard truth, ‘law and order’ is the corrupting lullaby of power, a politics of fear spewing reassuring words. As we face a set of existential challenges, many of them ignored and exacerbated by the capitalist order that now seeks protection from the people it exploits, those same songs play out ever louder from TV screens, newspaper headlines, and internet op-eds. ‘To see Britain through the hard years ahead we need a leader able to harness the protective power of Leviathan,’ wrote former war reporter Aris Roussinos, as he lamented the lack of political will to tackle such crises.8 Yet to yearn for the Leviathan is to invite the same catastrophes that got us to this point. We may cross our fingers and hope that, this time, power will be good, will serve our best interests, will keep us safe, give us justice and be the brave, bad man that we think we need. ‘I truly believe that one good Judge is worth a thousand protest marches,’ Bennett Beeny wrote in a final note to his daughter America, named after the idealist friend he betrayed and who he has enrolled to become a Judge.9 Even after everything Justice Department had done to him and those he loved, he still believed that it was redeemable. But power only ever serves itself. If Dredd truly understood justice, he would know that it is not to be found in retribution. If we are to have justice in this world, we know that it will not come through the power of Leviathan, nor through cops and guns – it can only be achieved through the end of such things. Rather than embracing still further a view of the world based on control and war – which only fills the prison and the graveyard – true justice comes with cooperation, equality, and solidarity. As long as Dredd and his system persist, the future will struggle to be born.
Two goofy English Civil War reenactors. Just two nerds.
The Substack error screen, saying 'Something has gone terribly wrong :('
A cat on a lap, giving a human a low five. Plus a whisky glass half full of Michael's bourbon.
The Cheeke Sisters by Sir Anthony Van Dyck (circa 1640)
A vinyl sticker saying 'It is later than you think'
Copies of The Origin of Capitalism by Ellen Meikins Wood and Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies by Jodi Dean.
A wide card bookmark with a blue tassel. It is illustrated with a relief map of Marston Moor, near York, and the dispositions of the Royalist and Parliamentarian armies before the battle in 1644.
I have enclosed the receipt of the money you gave me for the relief of the poor woman at Kettering. Tho tis what you dont expect of me, tis what I think myself obliged to do. As in my reading I take particular notice of any thing that relates to your family. I send now you a passage which I think very extraordinary. You know to be sure the story of Urbain Grandier, curate of Loudon, who was in Cardinal Richelius time, burnt alive for bewitching the nuns of Loudon, & sending devils into them, tho I believe it was no other devil, but what La Fontaine calls metre le diable en uenfer.200 I mean not a spiritual but a carnal devil. You have an account of this affair in your library, in a book called The devils of Loudon.201 I met another account of it last weeke in the Paris journal for the year 1689, when among other proofs of the reality & truth of these possessed nuns, he saith that my Lord Montagu, having seen the devils go out of the body of the Mother Abbess was perfectly convinced of it, & related it to Pope Urban the 8th when he abjured his heresy before him, & made profession of the Catholick.202 But sure either this must be a notorious lye, or this Lord M[onta]gu must have been a very weak and silly man. But who this Lord Mon[ta]gu should be I cannot guess unless it was Walter Montagu of the Manchester line who turned Roman Catholick about that time, & had the Abbey of Nanteuel worth £3,000 a year. It can be any of the Montagus of Cowdray in Sussex, who have been papists before and since the Reformation.
Mick Jagger Keith Richards Ronnie Wood The Rolling Stones
Micky Dolenz Michael Nesmith Peter Tork Davy Jones The Monkees
Michael "Mikey" Walsh Brandon “Brand” Walsh Lawrence "Chunk" Cohen Clark "Mouth" Devereaux Richard "Data" Wang Andrea "Andy" Carmichael Stephanie "Stef” Steinbrenner The Goonies (1985)
Brian & Dennis & Carl & Mike & Al
Marty & Emmet & Lorraine & George & Biff
Mick & Keith & Ronnie
John & Cass & Michelle & Denny
Bruce & Vicky & Alfred & Jack
Micky & Davy & Michael & Peter
Andrew & Brian & John & Claire & Allison
Mikey & Brand & Chunk & Mouth & Data & Andy & Stef
A cat, whose name is Murray, on his bed in front of a small Christmas tree, whose base is surrounded by gifts wrapped in brown paper. It sits in the corner of green shelves filled with books.
An angel in gold foil
If you look at this image of angels made of gold relief foil you will go mad. TOO LATE
Copies on I Am The Law: How Judge Dredd Predicted Our Future and The Art of Carlos Ezquerra on a book shelf
A photo of the opening credits of The Mummy
The board during a game of Ogre, with a big tank thing surrounded by a cunning gambit of nimble hovercraft and heavy tanks. All seem poised to bring a world of pain down on the chunky interloper, but a mere roll of the dice will turn the tables! Curses!
A man in his mid 40s, wearing a T-shirt reading 'Shirley Jackson' in gothic lettering, laughing maniacally as he plays a human-sized Hungry Hungry Hippos game in an amusement arcade. Photo by Bobby McGill
A small boy in a red woollen jumper and black shorts beams with joy as he slides down a curving slide in a children's play area. It's around 1980 and things were ... simpler.