ALIEN HAMSTER KOLLEKTIVE

MY LIFE AS A COMIC BOOK SUPERHERO

You know what it's like.

You're driving home in the early hours of the morning with nothing to focus on save some glib pop on the radio - Duran Duran's The Reflex - and the roadkill on the motorway (gruesome). On the passenger's seat, pages of The Dark Knight Returns comic book flickers in the breeze from the open driver's window. You suspect the weather is changing and about to develop into a storm.

Sure enough, It starts to rain, and soon it is torrential. Lightning suddenly licks the doomladen charcoal grey skies above you and somewhere between Edinburgh and Glasgow you have one of those magic realism moments of inspiration.

'Why' I say to myself, 'Don't I start a blog and invite some of the most creative people I know to contribute? People who can write about art, film, literature, music, drama, philosphy, politics and the human condition. Guys who can write with spectacular dynamism and verve - well let's just start with those that can write!!! Intellectual, clever people who can dazzle with their thought, enlighten with their discussion.'

I decided in that moment to invite those creative souls I knew to the 'blog party' and started to assemble a team of bloggers fit for purpose. People ready to achieve their sunflower seed targets and able to give insights into the kind of underwear superheroes wear over their trousers. Some of the finest alien hamsters on the planet in fact.

Curly haired thespians, weirdly dressed drama queens and curiously morose trainspotters, for whom Wednesdays are no longer put aside for cleaning out their sock drawers. Individuals, who take great delight at wearing stripey pyjamas in the face of adversity and in the teeth of howling gales. An elite squad of superheroes proudly displaying talent and ability as well as being convinced that there is life on Mars. Each with their own unique catchphrase...and erm... and security tags.

Literary revolutionaries of the third kind, art gorillas - sorry - art guerrillas, urban armies of the musical night.

Quite simply the blinking lights of a dying galaxy taking the trip - nice reference to the psychedelic sixties. An editorial team of brilliant, but alas, totally naive blogsters. Ready and willing and grinning like maniacs, their crayons poised at the ready...red...green...blue...pur

SERGIO (February One 2007)