Terror In The Skies!

(And A Bit In The Water, Too)
And, NO! I am not talking about that daft side-story in "Disaster 1990", when our hero Bill Savage encounters a mad professor of ornithology, who is able to turn flocks of ducks into ferocious killers.  Really, killers, they peck your eyes out and everything.  Art?


     Er - yes, they're piranhas, not ducks, though the principle is the same <coughcough> and it looks as though our heroes are assured of a nice fish supper.  I suppose this screenshot will do for the Terror in the Water part of today's title concept.
     In case you were wondering, and even if you weren't, "Disaster 1990" was a series that ran in 2000AD, which Art can help with - 

Behold the bodge

     The thing about "Disaster 1990" was that it was utter bodge, filler material from second-rate artists with a stupid premise.  Something about a nuclear-powered ship having an accident in the Arctic and O NOES ALL THE ICE MELT!  There was sweet consolation when Bill gets shot with a spear gun and shows how hard he is by walking around with said spear, impaled, for a fortnight.  I can't find any pictures on teh interwebz and I'd need to haul out hundreds of back copies of 2000AD to find it, so you'll just have to take my word for it -

I found proof!  Proof, I tell you!

     Anyway, that's what today's articles are not about.  Don't complain, this is valuable practice for the day when reality starts to fray at the edges.  No, what I wanted to touch upon was the Ruffians latest shenanigans up in the Arctic.  Art?

Quite the question

      The reason this test's failure has raised eyebrows, hackles and dosimeter readings is because there was a radioactive component to whatever blew up, hence the spike in local readings.  At first the Ruffians, reverting to type, lied about the type of cruise missile they were testing, and the number of dead.  Bless 'em, they can't help it, being dishonest is in their official's blood.  It had exploded on a test platform in the ocean, hence that bit about water, too.
      When they came clean, it was to admit that the missile had a nuclear engine, at which point Your Humble Scribe's Uh-Oh Gland started to act up.  The concept of a nuclear-engined cruise missile is quite an old one, going back to the early Sixties and the terrifying Project Pluto with it's SLAM.  Art?

Death from above made concrete

      We don't know what the Ruffian design uses as an engine, the suspicion being that it's a ramjet as with the SLAM, for simplicity and effectiveness.  The big, big problem with this is that the exhaust is contaminated with nuclear fission products, so it can't be tested over your home territories.  Not on land, anyway.  A remote bit of the Arctic Ocean, however ...

     You'd also have to have it land somewhere, or, more accurately "crash".  Again, you don't want to do this on your own territory, as contaminating hundreds of acres for thousands of years tends to irk people.  Diving it into the Arctic Ocean?  Not a problem, especially if there's nobody around to witness it.
     The South Canadians abandoned their Hydrogen Hammer From Hell because they imagined if they built it, the Sinisters would, too, and you'd have a stalemate.  Nowadays, the South Canadians have gotten rid of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, which previously prevented them from re-creating SLAM.  You can bet your bottom dollarpound that some boffins and suits and generals are gathered together in a Pentagon room, heads together, coming to the conclusion that, if Ivan's got it, then we need it too.
     Interesting times, eh?
     I say, motley, would you like a bottle of iodine pills?

SLAM, bam, decontam

    Well, having hopefully terrified the tar out of you, let us turn to more wholesome matters, light and frothy subject nonsense like - oooh, I dunno, "The Walking Dead"?  A laff riot if ever there was one!

Charlie Adlard Has Worked Hard
Well he has!  In case you are unaware, Ol' Chas is the artist who has drawn TWD since Issue 7, a loooong time ago.  He is a Brit, and is based in the Pond of Eden (since it's raining again), and I think we might have a picture - 

Hmmm.  No, that's not Charlie.

     The gist of the article is that Ol' Chas has had quite enough of drawing zombies, which is understandable: he's been at it for 15 years.  Now comfortably off thanks to TWD - which, shock horror O NOES! has just finished after 193 issues - he can pretty much draw what he wants, when he wants.  Marvel, the utter plonkers, tried to lure him to work with them on a - zombie project.

Ol' Chas

     He turned them down.  Now, if it had been a "Fluffy Bunnies Go Effing Mental With Flamethrowers", they'd have had a chance.  And if that title ever comes into being, I want royalties!

ROYALTIES!

Today's Cryptic Crossword Quibble
I do this a lot, don't I?  Perhaps we should have a regular, bordered area on the blog where I rant and tant about strange words and abstruse clues, and how the compilers are, essentially, dirty cheating curs.  For example, of late we have had, as answers, "CRISES", this being the plural of "Crisis".  When does this word EVER get used?  The only instance I could think of was - actually it wasn't, I'd got the tense wrong.  Art?

It's a DC title.  Charlie?  I don't think there's any zombies in it.

     Not even there.  Then there was "AMBIT", which I had to guess at, since the letters seemed to fit, even if Conrad wasn't especially sure what it meant*. 
     And also "OAKUM", which again I had to guess at, since the letters I had seemed to fit.  Art?

Hay Pesto

     The clue was "Convicts used to pick it, though not out of choice!".  It's rope that's been pulled apart and used to caulk ships made out of wooden planking, so you can judge just how obsolete it is.  Convicts in pre-Victorian times, mayhap?  The only reason I know about it at all is because it features in the tales of C.S. Forester about Hornblower, which I have read, and I also have a retentive memory.  Think of all the unfortunates out there who possess neither advantage!
Finally -
I need something short to finish off with, and Hay Pesto! the word "Glissade" popped up in the forefront of my brain.  Doubtless, I told myself, a musical term, one of those complicated arrangements of scales and <thinks> arpeggios (which sound delicious!) and <thinks even harder> tarradiddles.
     Unfortunately the truth is a little less glamourous.  It's either a ballet move, which is dull dull DULL, or it's sliding down snowscapes with an axe under your nethers.  Art?

More interesting and hazardous indeed

     This seems a rather desperate measure.  Conrad could never attempt it: that Dog Buns! Coincidence Hydra has it's teeth in that place far too often!



*  The area of influence that a person or entity yields.  Not exactly a household concept, is it?