Rainey’s marathon ends

I have many buckets of man-love for cartoonist and wit Paul Rainey. I don’t see him that often these days but on those rare occasions he suffers many man-hugs from me. He is a good person and I like him. In a manly man way.

Recently he completed a blogging project. As someone who has dabbled in the odd blogging project over the years and failed on numerous occasions, and given the aforementioned man-affection, I feel not obliged but honoured to make formal note of this achievement. I shall let Paul explain by quoting the email he just sent to his mailing list. (Now on his blog too.)

In November 2006, after an impetuous ill-thought out bid on eBay, I won the first 1188 programmes of 2000 AD. Rather than just have them sit piled up in my bedroom collecting dust tormenting me about how much money I had spent on them, I decided I was obliged to read them all. I thought, rather than just read them why not blog about the experience too. So, I started the 2000 AD Prog Slog Blog where I review every other issue of the Galaxy’s greatest comic and many of it’s associated publications.

So far so good. Many obsessives have trod these planks before. It’s the next paragraph that illuminates, for me, the reason Paul makes my heart do a man-throb.

Well, after three and a half years of thrill power intensity turning my mind into a boggled mess and over 700 entries , the blog is due to come to it’s intended conclusion this weekend. Of course, I would like to tell you how proud I am to have got this far but there’s a part of me that feels ashamed at having used up so much time on a project which, let’s face it, is obsessive and stupid. All I can say for certain is, ‘it’s been emotional’ and ‘thank God it’s over’.

Let’s hear it for Paul. Not only has he done something stupid, he knew it was stupid yet still saw it through to the end without anyone forcing him. Now that’s heroic.

I mentioned above that Paul is a cartoonist, which of course is how I know him. If you fancy some self-loathing laffs from a man who lives in Milton Keynes seemingly out of choice you could do worse than order his Book Of Lists for a mere £10.95.

Well done Paul.