It can finally be revealed.... HELL HIGH.

This is secret project that I have mentioned to some. I will be working on this alongside Byron with Ted Naifeh. This was an idea that came to me at last year's Comic-Con after a few too many drinks (or it could have had something to do with that live shrimp I ate.) I pitched it to Ted, who saw many of the bent possibilities of it. So, both of us will be writing it, I'll be illustrating it. Also, a few may remember that I've had several portraits of the characters in local art shows over the last year. Yes, this has been on the back burner for a some time...

Welcome to the Infernal Academy of Temptation, Torment, and other Demonic Arts!

It's Zak's, the son of Satan, first day at the Infernal Academy, Hell's most prestigious school. Its a harsh torturous place filled with great evil and spite that tries every demon's inner workings... and that's just the way they like it. Can Zak survive to fill his father's very large wicked shoes? Will Zak become a great force of evil? Does he even want to?

I will have previews of this at Comic-Con. Check it out. It's neat.



( Here's a couple pages under the cut )

Byron: Die, Byron! Die! #3 is now available at SLG Publishing's digital comic site Eyemelt for only .89 cents!!! Check it out HERE

'I Walked With the Zombie... I Drank With the Zombie...'

"Tiki Zombies!!! Attack!!!

Byron and his MySpace date fend off hordes of zombies and take refuge in a dingy back room of a long forgotten tiki bar. With a mad bartender and rum-fuled zombies at the door, how long will they last? Does Byron have a cunning plan to make their escape? Not really, but things are never quite as they seem.

Hi all,

I will be making an appearance at the SLG booth all throughout Comic-Con in San Diego (Thursday July 24th through Sunday July 27th.) If you are out in San Diego, please stop by. I'll be signing copies of the Byron GN, will have previews of issues #1-4 of the new Byron series Die, Byron! Die!, as well has previews of a new comic I'm working on (but you will have to specifically ask me for that. Trust me, it's cool. Those who have seen it have been laughing out loud.)

Here's my schedule at the SLG booth. I'll be signing, doing sketches, and explaining the differences between Classic economic theory and Keynesian economic theory. Barrel full of monkeys and other hairy simians!!!!

Thursday, July 24th: 10am-12pm and 4:30pm-6pm
Friday, July 25th: 10am-12pm and 2pm-3pm
Saturday, July 26th: 10am-12pm and 1pm-2pm
Sunday, July 27th: 10am-12pm and 2pm-3pm

• 09:25 Tired... wrote economics all morning, filming drunkard pilot all afternoon, inking all night... no end in sight... need IV of alcohol... #
• 09:32 Yet another reason why Yankees fans are a bunch of classless assholes:snurl.com/2zkr8 #
• 10:34 I am sick to death of economics. I want to hunt down the author of this project and beat him to death with a large tome of fiscal policy. #
• 11:56 Getting an IV of alchol might not be a bad idea. It would save me from having to look up from inking or even picking up a glass... #
• 16:45 Finally got hair cut. No longer look like savage #
• 16:47 Apparently there is a boycott of the Hyatt during Comic-Con. No problem. Hated the bar anyway. snurl.com/2zrkd #
• 17:16 Drinking while inking (hey! That rhymes!) Guinness and PBR mix: a Black and Blue. Not great, but not bad. #

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• 10:14 1 cover/12 pages to ink, letter, & print before SD. I have beer, whiskey, and frozen pizza. I will not emerge from my hole until complete!!! #
• 17:49 Just found a still wrapped melted Hershey bar at the bottom of my messenger bag. Anyone want it? #

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I may be dating myself here.

As few know, when rattling off favorite bands, My Bloody Valentine has always been somewhere near the top for myself. Incredibly loud, beautiful, shoe-gazing, noise... and there were only two albums (along with a string of eps and bootlegs.) So, it's always been a disappointment that MBV simply disappeared around 1993. There had been a couple rare sightings: a song on the Wire tribute album in 1996 and then Kevin Shields doing some of the music for the film 'Lost in Translation, but nothing substantial. The only official news that had come out was that (since 1993) they were still working on the new album. For 15 years, they have been working on a new album.

Then, about two years ago, I was in Dublin with K for a wedding. One night, I was introduced to a very nice gentleman and was told by a friend that he was the cousin of Colm O' Ciosoig, the drummer for My Bloody Valentine. I laughed, commenting that I was still waiting for another My Bloody Valentine album since Loveless in 1991. The gentleman simply shook his head saying 'Don't hold your breath.'

Well... apparently everything has changed. Bauhaus reunited in 1998, Mission of Burma in 2002, The Pixies in 2004, and now My Bloody Valentine in 2008. Brilliant! The only downside being that they are only playing a handful of shows in America in September, the closest being in Chicago. There is also a show in San Francisco as well, so a road trip may be needed.

The funny thing is that I actually saw MBV perform in the early 90s (once at the TLA, once at the Troc.) I still have the tour shirt buried somewhere. It's pretty worn by now, but I have never been to part with it. There was also the set list from the Troc show that got destroyed in the infamous house fire of 1995. Those shows were probably the loudest I've ever been too. Now, from what I hear, these new shows are even louder. It's almost as if Kevin Shields is saying 'You've wanted this, this is what you get, you bastards!!!'

So, it all comes around. As a very young kid in the late 80's, we laughed at all the dinosaur rock bands from the 60s that were getting back together for aging hippies. Fuck, now I am that aging hipster.

Video from one of the London shows in June. Yes, it's loud....

Ha!! I just wrote 3 paragraphs comparing current oil speculation to comic book speculation in the early 90s!!! Take that academia!!

The Lowbrow Art show opened last friday at the Continental Club here in Denver. The idea for the show was to take a masterwork of art and lowbrow it, or recreate it in your own style. Of course, for this crop of artist, that generally means throwing in a lot of rockabilly or Big Daddy Roth/Rat Fink references into your work.

When I was asked to be a part of the show, I wanted to choose a masterwork that was easily recognizable, but also not that blatantly apparent. So, I didn't want to do Munch's 'The Scream', but I also didn't want to do 'Absinthe Drinkers' by Degas (go on... try to remember what that one looks like without looking it up. I dare you.)

So, I settled on Klimt's 'The Kiss'. I figured that it would be obscure, yet recognizable enough. It's an illustration that was always hanging on every woman's dorm room I ever knew. Still, I was surprised in that quite a few people at the show were unaware of it. Though, I was happy to see that another artist did his own version of Klimt's other famous painting: 'Judith and Holofernes' (go on... you can look that one up here.)

There was a good turnout for the show and I got a lot of great feedback. For those of you that missed it, the show will be hanging for all of July.

Here's the original painting.



( Here's my version under the cut: )

Has anyone seen this yet?

An interesting promotional gimmick for Hellboy II. Pretty funny.

Hellboy being interviewed by James Lipton:



Hellboy with Chuck (that guy from the TV show):

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Pretty funny. I also saw one with American Gladiators. Supposedly, there are more like this coming from other TV shows.

I’ve already mentioned this to a couple people. I haven’t been around to bars for the last couple weeks as a lot has been going on. After months of unemployment or picking up random commissions, I just received a fairly large freelancing job with massive potential for continuing work. In fact, the president of the company commented that if I do this well, he could keep work flowing to me for a long time. Even better, this is a writing job. I get to sit in cafes, wired on coffee, and put my mind to work for money.

The deadline for this first job is August 1st. So, I will be swamped with this project at the exact same moment I will be swamped trying to get artwork completed for Comic-Con. I also have to schedule to be ahead with the job since I will be away for close to a week in San Diego.

And you know what the joke is? I have to write a macroeconomics textbook for high school and early college kids. Of course, I know absolutely nothing about economics. Yes, weep for the children. They are doomed to poverty.

The funniest part of all this is that the client actually loves everything I’ve written so far. I’m about halfway through the project and I received an email last night (forwarded to me) in which the client commented:

‘Now we're talking...Those new lessons are great - it is like he is writing from the top of his head and giving his own take on the material. Nice job.’

Yep. Writing from the top of my head. You don’t know the half of it.

I also had an interview yesterday for another freelance job. This time it’s writing for a national auto trade magazine. Again, markets that I know absolutely nothing about are approaching me. Yes, they approached me. Sure, I just completed a job where I edited a massive amount of car reviews, but this is actually writing about cars. As far as I know, a car is simply four wheels, a couple of windows, runs on dinosaur goo, and you can smear jaguar blood on it to make it go faster. I think Kelly once had a Scab or some other kind of car. No worries. I’m guessing that I will have to watch a hell of a lot more of that ‘Top Gear’ show on BBC America (auto shows are always better with British accents.) The magazine is looking for someone to go out and cover auto events, write a quick article about it, and take a couple pictures. Of course, since it’s a trade magazine, I will have to tone down my sarcasm and satire to Ben Stein levels. They also asked if I would be interested in doing some graphic arts work for them as well. Designing ads for them and such. No problem.

In comic news, SLG does have Byron: DBD Issue #3, which should be posted very soon. Issue #4 is also pretty much complete. I finished the cover the other night and simply need to do a couple of last minute edits before I have a couple people proof read it. This weekend, I need to start on Secret Project X in order to have samples ready for Comic-Con. Cross fingers on that one.

I may be at the Continental Club tonight to see Reverend Deadeye's farewell show. I haven't decided yet. I may because I know that after I receive the script back for Project X tomorrow, I will unlikely be seeing the light of day for sometime.

Did I mention that I was just did a two part interview at the Broken Frontier website? Check it out here:

Part One

Part Two

"The first thing that struck me (or rather, that I was viscerally reminded of), as I revisited the first issue and plowed through the rest, was that Byron is a unique reading experience, and Krumpholz’s voice a fascinating mix of low-brow shtick and high-end ultramodernism. The narrative is by and large Byron’s, though at times it transfers to the thoughts of the supporting cast, and in all cases it’s deceptively simple and transparent, the voices thinking and reacting in excessive ways. I say “deceptively” because Krumpholz wields a marvelously abstract, gut-level intuition in story flow, which allows the over-the-top comedy and blunt horror bits a certain avant garde execution. In the same way that Lovecraft wrote surreal and labyrinthine, dreamlike excursions into the individuality of the human experience, Krumpholz uses Byron to craft surprisingly complex, nightmare-themed scenarios to enhance the more accessible, undemanding humor of the book. What’s left is a series that remains unforgettable for its qualities, those being as familiar as they are brain-ticklingly bizarre." -Dave Baxter at Broken Frontier

Broken Frontier reviews the Byron: Mad, Bad, and Dangerous GN as well as the first few issues of Die, Byron! Die!. I was also interviewed for the piece, where we talk about Byron, my artwork, and digital comics. The interview was broken down into two parts. Check them out:

Part One

Part Two

I know if I don't post this, I will get a sharp stick to the eye the next time I'm on the East Coast. My family will descend upon me like a pack of ravaging birds. Didn't you see that? Why didn't you post it? Isn't she cute? Don't you love us any more? Is that why you moved across the country? To get away from us?!!!!

So to avoid that sort of confrontation, I'll post this. Now, I must point out that this is not compelling content in the least. It's a video about ... yawn... baseball cards... You know, the addiction for those guys who think comic books are geeky and trading cards are somehow manly. However, the little girl is my 2-year old niece, Alleigh (named because her parents found her in an alley, I'm assuming.) My parent's are constantly telling me that she has an uncanny resemblance to me when I was that age. Yes, I also find that slightly disturbing.

Oh, the other guy is my brother-in-law... Yeah... I know...

So, anyway...

I’m currently wired on black coffee while sitting in a café somewhere along 13th Avenue. The last cafe I sat in was up on Colfax and only played Jim Morrison/Grateful Dead mixes on the stereo. Such audio annoyances left me unable to get anything written or even done till I fled the premises. I found another dark café, while filled with hippie-hipsters (is there actually such a thing?), it has allowed me to be left alone in a corner and start working things out, as well as write a couple more scripts that all need to be done.

I sent Byron: DBD #3 to SLG last week. #4 is almost completed as well. I’m hoping (cross fingers) to have that complete before Comic-Con in July (about 7 pages left that still need to be inked/scanned, everything lettered, and that cover thing.) Speaking of which, beerkitty is going to be attending the show with me. Hotel, flight, and convention passes are all booked. I’m pretty excited about her coming since she is generally not a comic book person. I want to see how she deals with the whole thing. I’m thinking that it would be something of wide-eyed horror and amazement at some of the spectecle, characters, and general loud chaos about the place. I’m sure there will be pictures since she normally does that sort of thing.

So, I have been getting a couple art commissions lately, which is generally a good thing that keeps me busy. I also have a couple pieces in some shows coming up. There is a Lowbrow art show here in July where I will have one piece (I’m doing my interpretation of Klimt’s ‘The Kiss'), a Tiki Art Show sometime in August where I think I will have about five pieces, The Modern Drunkard Convention over Labor Day weekend (and the day after the DNC) where I will be having a solo show in the lounge area with roughly about 20-25 'Drunkard Portrait' pieces. There are also two other shows in the autumn that are strickly in the discussion phase right now.

( So, anyway, here are a couple pieces )

So what's been going on...

Well, all of last week I was assigned to my first temp job. Its been almost 3 years since I last worked in an office... and yes, it contained all the horrors I remember, but this time it also involved small smelly and sticky children as well. I mean, the good thing about being a temp is that there really is no commitment. The bad thing is that you are consigned to doing the worst drudgery that no one else wants to do (hence hiring the temp.)

I had to go through files of a local children's head start group here in Denver. Yes, children were always screaming in the background. It's what they do. I accept that and that's all fine. The problem was that I was placed in this small room with a horrible woman who was also a temp. The best way I can describe this large middle age woman is that she probably wears the same stained balloon sized Garfield shirts to corporate interviews and family functions. It probably says "God Don't Make No Trash" in large clown-like letters as well. At first, she was fine and I'm a tolerant easy going person (heh heh...), but by the end of the week I wanted to kill her with a sudden blow of my sharpened red pencil to the neck. There were multitudes of sins that she committed (like reading the confidential children's files and telling me how sad it was or simply not wanting to come to the job simply cause she didn't have bus fare), but I guess the best example happened on Tuesday. I was bored (going through files just melts the brain) and decided to put on my headphones.

"Are you going to wear your headphones?", she asked.

"Yeah", I replied. "But it's okay. I can still hear you if you need to ask me something."

"No, it's okay. But do you mind if I pray for a while over here? I've been going through a rough patch and find that praying helps."

She then pulled out her battered well-thumbed St. James bible. Our relationship only went down hill from there. I don't mind the praying (12-years of Catholic school not withstanding), but her sad sack eyes and constant complaining about her life made me want bludgeon her with a passing child. I was looking forward to Friday simply because it would be my last day with this drudgery and that horrible woman. However, the HR person approached us that morning asking if we would be available for another two weeks, not this week though, the following two weeks. They needed time to process everything we had been working on. I said that I would check in if I wasn't busy on another temp job. That was a statement born out of sheer blind hope for something else, but I knew that I would eventually have to continue with this job for another two weeks. Not only are there the ever-present bills, but I also have a trip and flight to San Diego to finance.

So, then there is the drama of the permanent job search. Two weeks ago, I was contacted by a job that I applied for: editing content on an auto advice website. I liked this job since I would be able to telecommute and after 2 years doing that with Pearson, I'm kind of used to and prefer it. I had my first phone interview a day or so later. It went well. The woman was located in Boulder, explained the position, about this large national company, and commented that she would like to send me an editing test. That happened a couple days later and from her later emails, I rocked the test. I was feeling pretty good about this job. Finally the woman said that the third part of the screening process would be an interview with her manager, the head of the company. That was scheduled for last Wednesday night. He was calling me from New Zealand.

Okay, I did the best I could, but I had the feeling that this guy simply didn't like me. I tried the small talk, asking where he was in the country and also mentioning that I had friends outside of Wellington. He was having none of it. The guy just sounded like a rich nerdy weasel of the worst shade. I'm also sure that by doing this interview, I was interrupting his special 'me-time' with the Thai she-male janitor, Xuwicha, and an oddly-shaped bottle of pudding. He asked if I was told what the job would entail. I replied that I would be editing and punching up car reviews submitted by freelancers.

"No, that is only part of the job! I will also need you to make sales calls as well as creating PowerPoint presentations!!! Do you have a problem with that?!!

"Not really", I replied. The added thought was "just as long as you paid me accordingly." We eventually got around to discussing compensation.

"I think this job was posted at $14/hour.", he told me. "We are such a small company, we can't afford to pay more. I think it's $14, but it might be lower. I have to check the budget."

That was when I got pissed off, but I didn't say anything over the phone. I do have 'tact.' First of all, if it said that amount for compensation, I wouldn't have applied for the position. I'm pretty sure it actually said 'D.O.E' (Degree of Experience.) That's about 30K a year from a man who owns houses in New Zealand and Boulder. A significantly lower amount then I used to make at my old position with Pearson. And also, isn't this suppose to be a large national company? Not a small start-up thing? However, after 6 months unemployed and knowing how horrible the publishing industry is in Denver (people just don't read), I would have accepted that position if I only had to edit content from home. However, this guy wanted me to make sales calls, create presentations, and be basically his personal assistant. For that paltry sum? No fucking way. I can get the same amount filing.

So that experience has left me even more frustrated and bitter. I also received a phone call from my temp agency asking me to stop in this week cause they were missing some of my paper work. When I stopped in yesterday, all the missing paperwork was in my file. I'm dealing with morons on every front.

So, there is no work this week and I'm doing much needed catching up with my artwork. Issue #4 is about half inked and scanned in. I also have to put aside time for several Tiki commissions, a low-brow art piece, a business logo, and a tattoo design that I was asked for. With all the sturm und drang of the work search, I'm trying to make a life as a struggling artist, but that has it's own frustrations as well. No wonder all of us are tormented.

Thanks to everyone who sent sympathies about Rumpus.

In artwork related news, I finally picked up a Wacom tablet about a month or so ago. I've been playing around with it for some time now. First, I redesigned the Byron logo. I was never quite sold on the original logo and wanted to make it a bit more dynamic. Then, I worked up the cover of Byron Issue #3.

Let me know what you think.

Check them out! What do you think?



( The Logo and Artwork separated under the cut )

Rumpus died this morning. He was close to 21 years old and passed in my parent's bed. He was old and rough the last time I had last gotten to see him over the holidays in Philadelphia, but was still the undisputed master of the house, too tough to die. He was my first monster-sized cat, cool, affectionate, and had a good long life as the terror of the area. In the area around the house, he killed a lot of bird, squirrels, and even a duck. I'll miss him.

"Four hundred more injections and I shall be an invertebrate... Free of this human form... Free of this opposable thumb... "

Incredibly busy weekend. Friday night, The Lady and I were down at the Continental Club for Rich English's bday. I also met a couple other artists, was able to get into another art show starting in July, and secure a large tiki collection (can't have enough of them) from a friend leaving Denver. We did not stay late at the Continental, since on Saturday morning I had my first temp job (and I didn't want to appear hung over.) I was a fake juror for a law firm to practice their legal arguments. It was odd, though kind of cool. Paid okay for doing close to nothing.

During my last trip to San Francisco, I found two of Crispin Glover's books at the brilliant Paxton's Gate in the Mission District. They were also already signed as well, though I got my chance to have them personalized on Saturday night. The Lady and I went with Boyd Rice and a couple others to see Crispin Glover perform his spoken word/slide show as well as see his film 'What Is It?'. I thought that the spoken word was by far the better (though the film was very good as well.) All of us were in the first row when Crispin came out. He had long hair and a big bushy beard. I was told later that the reason for the beard was that he had just completed a film about the Donner Party. A single red spotlight shown on him as he read excerpts from his many books with slides of the pages being projected behind him. His books are actually books that were written a hundred years ago that he has gone through, altered, illustrated, and formed into a small story. When I first read them a year ago, it seemed like random nonsense. Now, I love them all the more since I was able to hear his recitation, the beats and flow of the text straight from the author. Yes, he read from his book 'Ratcatching', but I found the book 'Round the House' so much better. Crispin later commented that he had close to twenty books, though he has only published three.

Crispin then showed his film 'What Is It?'. I have never seen it, though have been told much about it from Boyd and others. Yes... it is all pretty fucked up. Actors with Down's Syndrome, naked women wearing monkey masks, minstrels in black face, Charlie Manson songs, paintings of naked Shirley Temple with swastikas, and much salt being poured on slugs. I found it all pretty funny and slightly disturbing.

You can check out the What Is It? trailer HERE. It's worth it.

Afterward there was a Q/A as well as a book signing. I got to briefly meet him. Now, I don't talk much to people, especially celebrities. I mean, what are you suppose to say that the person hasn't heard already? I found it amusing that when I did get to meet Crispin, he did all the talking. Brilliant evening all together.

Here's a slight example of sideshow I found on YouTube. It's an old video and Crispin's performance had improved a hundred fold:

So, I'm still looking around for freelancing or any other job opportunities that I can pick up. Send another resume or email out into the void with little to no reply back. Even the agencies I deal with have nothing. No one is hiring and the few that are want people with massive experience that will settle for little pay. I find it all pretty depressing when I look around to everyone else I know in Denver and see the same sort of grey resignation. Everyone is struggling. I know so many people that are unemployed, looking for work, or stuck in some shitty job that they are utterly overqualified for. I know so many bartenders, waiters, line cooks, retail wage slaves, and cabbies all working long hours or multiple jobs just to make ends meet.

You'd think that Denver's job market would be better with the Democratic Convention coming this summer. Only a year ago, Denver was being called one of America's fastest growing cities because of tech development and the economy. Now, everything is looking like Colfax avenue. Barren, depressed, and grey, with crackwhores everywhere offering $10 blow jobs for just another fix. No wonder Denver smokes, drinks, and beats their kids so much.

So, have another smoke, have another drink, lay back, and think of greener pastures as the pock-marked whore oils up her tools and goes about her business. Shhh... It will only take a moment. Be sure to exhale.

I was just informed by a librarian friend that the Byron is now at the Denver Public library. Not only that, but a copy is even checked out. Immortality is mine.

Also, I joined the Twitter network. Yes, now you can read about the various minutia of my life in close to real time. You can find me over in THIS direction.

It's been kind of funny. I've been unemployed for 6 months now. I send out resumes almost everyday and almost never get any response back. The temp agency I've been in contact with has no jobs either. I actually applied for a part time retail job as well just for something. Things on that front are pretty bad.

But, strangely enough, I have more illustrations jobs coming in then ever before. It's just that none of them pay very well (if at all.) The latest job is for a group art show debuting tonight. Here's the details:

Shout @ The Devil
Hosted By: FAIM WORLDWIDE FAIM WORLDWIDE
When: Friday Apr 04, 2008 at 7:00 PM
Where: 238’s gallery
238 santa fe dr
Denver, CO 80210
United States

So, I'll be at the art show tonight and, likely, at The Continental Club afterwards for the close of Bob White's show. The idea of the for the Shout @ The Devil show is that all the artists paint a ceramic hand in the shape of that Ronnie James Dio hex-pose. The blank hand as well as images of my painting under the cut.

( Shout @ The Devil )

After that, I was contacted by Image Magazine here in Denver about doing a comic. Now, this is not a magazine that I don't normally read (LoDo club culture is not on the top of my reading list), but a job is a job. I'm not writing it, just illustrating it. The strip was suppose to appear in the most recent issue (which I think came out this week), but was pushed back to the May Issue. The strip is about a local club dancer and her trip to Japan. The strip is under the cut.

( Go Go Easy )

The there was the illustration I did for 3z13 which is a sort of blend of a squid and squirrel. It's under the cut.

( SquidSquirrel )

Again, all this free time is giving me a lot of time to work on the comic. I've been attempting to promote the book on MySpace with some success (I've been getting a lot of weird emails in response back. Most good, but some just weird.) I've also sent out previews of the GN to over 80 comic reviewers and podcasts. Hopefully something will come from that. As for the comic itself, Issue #4 is drawn, but not inked. I went back to Issue #3 and, after reviewing it, decided to redraw a lot of it before eventually submitting it to SLG (hopefully by later this month.) It looks a lot better, especially after resizing it. Because of that, I also decided to resize Issues #1 and #2 as well. This not only allows me more control in formatting, but also gives me room for full bleeds, which makes the story a lot more dramatic. I'm hoping to work on the cover of #3 this weekend.

Right now, I'm trying to catch up with 'Battlestar Galactica' (marathon on SciFi right now.) I have not seen this show since living in Boston (that would be 2 and half years for those of you still counting.) I'd basically given up on the show. What made me rethink and go back to the show (aside from the constant barrage of promotions on TV and the web) was a conversation that I had at the pub last weekend. I was talking to two guys, who I would never guess would be into the show. They gave it glowing reviews and talked abit about what was going on. Sounded interesting, so I'm trying to catch up.

In further geek news, the new 'Dr. Who' series starts on SciFi on April 18th. I don't know how I feel about this. I heard, like always, that the Christmas special was wretched. The new companion in the series is being played by Catherine Tate, who was utterly annoying in a previous awful Christmas special and by all news is one of the worst actresses in Britain. Do I really need to see that?