Blog Archive: September 2026

Doctor Doom At The Superhero Project
I spent most of the weekend in sunny EASTBOURNE, where I was attending the 10th Superhero Project conference. This was my THIRD visit - I don't go every year because I'm largely self-funding for this sort of thing, so can't afford to go to all the conferences I'd like to, but this time it was about SUPER-VILLAINS so it seemed rude not to.

Technically I wasn't presenting this time, as we'd arranged that I'd do a version of Data and Doctor Doom for the delegates. To be honest my VISION was to do this as a KEYNOTE SPEECH, but when the timetable was announced I found that I'd been advertised as just me, as part of a party celebrating the 10th anniversary. This made me rather nervous - as much as I personally think the show is Quite Good, it's not exactly a "party". I had visions of me performing in a corner while people wandered around chatting and eating CANAPES so asked if they'd rather I just do some of the songs like a GIG, but everyone seemed keen to do the actual show, so that's how it was set.

While I was worrying about this the conference itself was GRATE. The big themes were around the idea that superhero narratives are all about maintaining the status quo, and that therefore it's villains who take on the usually heroic role of trying to bring about change. It was gratifying to hear people saying this sort of thing as I wrote a chapter about exactly that last year for The Routledge Companion to Superhero Studies so it was nice to know I was on the right track, not least because the EDITOR of said volume was also there!

My spot was on the Saturday night, due to take place after the conference dinner which, as they always do, ran a bit late due to the restaurant having to serve approx 35 meals all at the same time. I WOLFED down my afters so I could get back to the hotel a bit early and be able to get the room all set up while I waited for people to arrive, then when they'd all got sat and had a drink I tried something NEW!

For LO! a few weeks ago the excellent Dr M Nguyen sent me a variety of DOCTOR DOOM MASKS what he had 3D printed especially for me, and so I put one of those on, put the hood of my Doom Cloak over the top, then turned to the audience and said "SILENCE DOLTS!" Cor! It was a GRATE way to get started, and I only regret that I wasn't able to keep the voice going for very long or indeed to keep the mask on for the whole thing, as it did rather make an impression!


(NOTE: I forgot to ask for someone to take a picture during the show, so this is me relaxing at home with the mask on)

I then launched into the show, which was slightly abridged for time - I took out a couple of songs and some of the autobiographical bits, but that all seemed to go OK, and what remained got honestly more laughs than EVER before. It turns out that performing for an audience STEEPED in superhero storytelling means that they got pretty much ALL of the jokes - who could have guessed?

I had an absolutely LOVELY time, especially after spending the past week or so PANICKING about whether I'd remember it and whether anyone would actually be bothered, and got to spend the rest of the evening and some of the final day saying "thank you" to people who'd come. I also got to hear it REFERENCED in a couple of papers the next day (e.g. "this character is thus like Spider-man... but better") which was highly gratifying.

It was also highly KNACKERING and my BRANE is still recovering from the influx of FACTS. Conferences, they are GRATE!

posted 7/9/2026 by MJ Hibbett
(click here for permanent link)


Rocking Twyford (Hants)
On Wednesday I set off for distant TWYFORD, HAMPSHIRE, in continuation of the Hibbett & Christopher tour. I was meant to get the train all the way to nearby Shawford, but a delay of 7 minutes meant I just missed my connection, but luckily Mr CJ Thorpe-Tracey was able to come and fetch me from Winchester instead, so all was well.

Chris was driving the same hire car we'd had to get to Found at the weekend, so I was able to recognise it as he approached. This gave me a sudden weird JOLT of memory - when I was a child I knew what cars the different adults in my life drove and could identify them approaching, but nowadays a) all cars are the same few colours and look basically the same i.e. like BIG GREY TRAINERS and b) I so rarely see adults I know in their cars that when I do they've usually changed them since last time. It felt nice to think "OH, there's Chris's car!" even though next time I see him in one it'll be a different one that he's hired.

Anyway, I got in and we zoomed through what I feel the local tourist board will one day be calling "Thorep-Tracey Country" to Twyford itself and the house of Oliver and Birgit who were our hosts. The gig was, basically, like HIBBETTFEST in that it took place in someone's back garden, with the only differnce being that instead of standing on a patio with a wooden outbuilding in it, this time we were INSIDE the massive wooden CHALET that they had. It was amazing - an actual small wooden venue in a back garden. It also smelt LOVELY, like the inside of a SAUNA, and by the end of the evning it felt even more like one too!



Chris and I did a quick soundcheck and then had a chat with the evening's main act, Mr L Rains III. Goodness ME but he was a lovely, lovely man. It helped that he had an AMAZING accent - he comes from Birmingham Alabama and talked like someone off the telly. I could have listened to him for HOURS anyway but he was also super-delightfully full of THORT and HUMOUR and also STORIES. Our conversation was only halted by being called into DINNER in the kitchen, which was all rather delightful and also reminded my of HIBBETTFEST. I guess the real difference here was events happened in "Swiss Cottage" (i.e. the chalet) all year round with different artistes, rather than just ME!

Soon people started to arrive and Chris and I retired to the green room/OFFICE where, after briefly toying with NOT doing so, I fully committed to the bit and put my suit on, with Chris also changing into stage garb. Similar to how I felt at Found, it was slightly odd to find myself putting a SUIT on the situation, and later a couple of people remarked on being surprised to see us so dressed, but if we're going to DO it this way then we should stick to it!

We also grappled for a long time with the setlist, as for time purposes we were going to have to drop a couple of the songs we'd done last time. The trouble was we loved ALL of them, so it took AGES to work out, but when we had we wafted across the patio towards SHOWTIME. The plan had been for Chris to start playing the intro to Say It With Words and then for me to stroll on stage, but once within the chalet I realised that it was SUCH a tiny place and also SO VERY PACKED that I was going to be in the way of everybody if I tried to do that, so instead went and stood next to Chris as we began a set that went a little something like THIS:

Say It With Words

Chips And Cheese, Pint Of Wine

When You Hear A Bird

The Perfect Love Song

7 Hearts

In The North Stand

Timewasters

It Only Works Because You're here

We had a LOVELY time! The audience were fab, and OOHED and LARFED and CLAPPED at all appropriate places. It's been odd, these past two gigs, hearing people still LARF at things - in my head, the idea of this whole project was to do the songs SERIOUSLY and say "LO! Witness the serious artistic craft of my OUVRE!" with people nodding and gently weeping in response, but that isn't how it's gone at all. If anything there seems to be MORE chuckling as people properly listen to what we're doing, but then there IS also quite a lot of nodding and also bits where everyone gets Quite Thoughtful. I guess that's a good thing, it just wasn't what I was expecting!

There was also further INTERACTION between Chris and I, which I find dead exciting. I often get distracted while singing by thinking "Ooh, what shall I say after this one?" but this time I was CONCENTRATING, partly because I had had but ONE (1) beer before going on stage (I know I said I wasn't going to have BOOZE at all before these gigs, but in my defence everybody else had a beer so it would have been rude for me not to), but mostly it was because I knew that either Chris would say something or my BRANE would sort it out, which indeed it did. And again, even more excitingly, some of the things my aforementioned BRANE came up with were NEW things! Amazing!

Chris was FANTASTIC, obvs, and my singing seemed to be OK too - whenever I sing in this sort of way I think to myself "Wow me, you are really crooning up a storm here". When we've been recording this illusion has been rather shattered by having to go and listen back to the INJURED BELLOWING I have produced, but here In The Live Arena it remained safely inside my imagination, where it sounds much nicer!

It was all brilliant, in fact, and afterwards Chris and I exchanged excited words about the fact that it seems to be WORKING. In the interval several people came over to say how much they'd enjoyed it, including Lee who was most effusive, especially about In The North Stand which he said reminded him of his own "Grandpappy". Lawks, it sounded SO brilliant him saying it like that, I was all of a dither.

We then went in to watch Lee himself, who was ace, and not just because he kept going on about how much he'd enjoyed our set (though NOTE TO FUTURE HEADLINERS: it didn't half help). He did lots of in-between song talking, which was GRATE, and then the songs sounded like proper left-wing STOMPERS - Chris said later that it sounded like it could be a SOUL REVUE and I think this was APT. I think he usually plays with a full band too, which would have been even MORE brilliant.



Soon it was all over and time for me to fly off to the station, pausing only for some hugs (including with an EXTREMELY sweaty Lee, who had after all just been ROCKING a SAUNA for 90 minutes) and farewells before Birgit ZOOMED me to the station from whence I headed home. It was a GRATE night on what is so far a GRATE tour. More please!

posted 7/9/2026 by MJ Hibbett
(click here for permanent link)


Flexing The Gram
As part of the ongoing Promotional Campaign for Data and Doctor Doom I have once again been trying to grapple with Social Media. This is something I don't really like doing, but feel I sort of have to after spending SO MANY MONTHS working on the podcast, like if I Current Me didn't do it he'd be letting down poor, young, naive Me Of Earlier This Year who put all that effort into making it.

The reason I don't like it is because it's such BLATANT self-publicising. Now, this may not be obvious to the casual observer, but I do quite like NON-BLATANT self-publicising (e.g. publishing over 4,000 seperate blog entries about ME). However, it's the fact that it's so obvious that what I'm doing is trying to get people to LISTEN to something that puts me off. I always feel that it's RUDE to barge in on everyone else's normal chit-chat to go "Yes but listen to MY things!", which I realise is a little bit daft in the current social media landscape, but it's still there.

Anyway, I have FORCED myself out onto the airwaves so to do, to somewhat different results. Bluesky, for instance, has been a DELIGHT, as ever reminiscent of Twitter from about 10 years ago when people would SAY things for humorous or public knowledge purposes and everyone would either go "Oh that's nice/interesting" or just ignore it. X Formerly Known As Twitter is just HORRID though - I haven't had any awful experiences or anything, it's just that when you go onto the site itself it's like you're stepping through a field that has recently had some nervous COWS in it, with really quite extraordinary OPINIONS dropped onto the grass of discourse (metaphor) everywhere you tread.

The main format I have been trying to properly grapple with this time though has been INSTAGRAM. I've had an account there for YEARS but have largely ignored it, popping over every few months or so to see if it makes any more sense to me yet and then finding it doesn't. I mean, I THINK the idea is to stick pictures on there, but I've never really understood why you'd do so or how people are meant to consume it, so my profile page has always been a selection of brief SPLASHES of pics about a year apart each time, a historical record of me repeatedly trying it out before retreating, perplexed.

Currently, however, it is MORE than a splash, for I had a sudden REALISATION a few weeks ago that I have a whole SLIDE SHOW full of images from the live version of Data and Doctor Doom which I could fiddle with to make into a whole SERIES of shareable images. My resolution to have a go at Instagram with this was INCREASED HUGELY when I worked out a way to FORMAT the slides in a way that would make them the correct size for Instagram AND still look as I intended them to so do. You can see the results on my account NOW!

I was so DELIGHTED with the results that I went further and REVAMPED my old PhD Process Blog Account on twitter-as-was into a "Data and Doctor Doom" one instead, and used THAT to plug the show with the same images.

To be honest I'm not sure if it's particularly WORKED at all, but it HAS been quite a nice experiment, not least because it's given me YET MORE transferable skills which may come in handy later. If nothing else it means that I've been able to re-use some of those SLIDES and put them out into the PUBLIC ARENA!

posted 3/9/2026 by MJ Hibbett
(click here for permanent link)


Found Festival
Sunday morning found myself and The Beans In My Chilli getting our Festival Gear packed up and heading out to distant MILTON KEYNES, where we were due to meet The Thorpe-Traceys for a day at Found Festival. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: we had a lovely time!

We met Chris and Rifa at Milton Keynes station and then Chris drove us to the festival site, where everything worked super-smoothly. It was like a bigger version of Pop At The Lock or similar, as there was a small tent next to the entrance where we got our wrist-bands from, and then Chris went to park the car near our STAGE while the rest of us mooched through the site to the same destination.

Continuing the comparisons, inside it was like a slightly bigger version of Indietracks, with several stages, lots of food, and a LOVELY atmosphere. The only differences were that instead of CAN CRUSH they had ceilidh dancing and instead of trains they had a massive great STATELY HOME which stood overlooking the whole site like someone had forgotten to switch the Jane Austen off. It was amazing!

Much to my relief also the ground was NOT MUDDY despite the recent rains, so my entire week WORRYING about it had all been for naught!

When we arrived at the stage we found all-round excellent person Mr G Osborn, who we'd not seen for AGES, and exchanged HUGS. Chris then re-joined us and we had a rather delightful couple of hours sitting around chatting and drinking BEERS various, including Low Alcohol for me. I well remembered what happened almost ten years ago when I performed at Found's predecessor, Towersey Festival. In my MIND I recall being DRUNK and messing up the whole thing by continually wandering off stage for wees and beers during a set with Gav and Grace Petrie, but according to my own report of the time it wasn't QUITE that bad. Still, I wanted to do a good show so I remained SOBER!

Soon it was time to go and get ourselves together, so we got set up then went backstage and changed into our STAGE CLOTHES. Yes, you read that correct - STAGE CLOTHES! For LO! I have got a GIG SUIT now, although in all the excitement I'd put it on a bit early so we ended up hanging around in the backstage area/TENT for ten minutes longer than absolutely necessary before going on and doing THIS:

When You Hear A Bird

Chips And Cheese, Pint Of Wine

Wrong About Everything

Say It With Words

Was This What You Wanted

The Perfect Love Song

7 Hearts

In The North Stand

Timewasters

It Only Works Because You're here

It went really well! The audience got into the idea of it all, Chris was GRATE, and I managed to remember nearly all of the words, only forgetting one line in the first verse of In The North Stand which we went back and did again.

The songs, I think, sounded lovely and it was v exciting to be doing Timewasters for the first time EVER. The loveliest bit was being in front of other people while listening to Chris, and ADAPTING to what he was doing and vica versa, like when I could hear an extra SOLO was going to be needed and then being supplied, and also knowing when to start my bit again. This is perhaps not the CORRECT way to describe this kind of thing, but if felt pretty groovy at the time.

The bits in between songs also felt good, although weirdly different to what I'm used to. Obviously the PROFESSIONAL SOBRIETY meant that I may not have been quite as lugubrious as usual, and the fact that most of the songs are not regulars in my usual sets meant I do not have SHALL WE SAY pre-loved introductions for them, so that was quite an exciting Creative Experience as well.

It was a fabulous time all round really, and when we cam off stage it really felt like we were at the BEGINNING of something. I mean, obviously there's more gigs and indeed an ALBUM to come, but this also felt like an EARLY MEMORY for something that is going to accrue many more.

And then, to make a DELIGHTFUL day even MORE delightful, we got off site without any hassle, to Milton Keynes with ease, and then back home before midnight. What a GRATE day!

posted 2/9/2026 by MJ Hibbett
(click here for permanent link)