Mindless Ones

Special “Repeat after me fuck queen and country!” edition – UPDATED WITH A RIGHT ROYAL REWARD FOR ALL OUR LOYAL READERS!

It’s been a while since the Mindless did some linkblogging, but it’s a sunny Friday morning and I’ve been working away like a good little republican (Best not mention the fact that you’re taking a day off in lieu eh? – Ed), so here we go!

• NOT COMICS: Here’s K-Punk with The Only Royal Wedding Commentary You Need.

• ALSO NOT COMICS: And here’s Stewart Lee with the Only Other Royal Wedding Commentary You Need. I’m not going to keep banging on about this one, I’m just not a fan of glorifying privilege, whether it’s of the active and systematic kind or of the twee, Tourist Attractiony variety. Also, did I mention that I’m working today when I could easily have been off? Yeah, this is all my own fault, but when has that ever stopped me moaning before?

• MEANWHILE, IN THE FUNNY PAGES: Matt Seneca talks to Shaky Kane and David Hine about The Bulletproof Coffin. Here’s a wee taste, just to get your juices going:
  

  When I first read Burroughs’ Naked Lunch it haunted me precisely because I didn’t understand half of what I was reading. It’s the same with David Lynch’s movies. You come out of his movies with your head spinning, trying to figure everything out and just when you think you have a grasp on it, it slips away like a greased pig. The best works of art always leave things unresolved. The only real criticism of The Bulletproof Coffin that I have seen is that maybe we tied things up a little too neatly in the end. But in fact if you take a close look you’ll see that there are more questions than answers. Not to mention enormous plot holes and dangling threads. All deliberate, of course.

• CRUCIAL INFORMATION: The only thing I love more than a Shaky Kane is a David Hine. The only thing I love more than a David Hine? A Shaky Kane. Shaky Hine. Good to see Kane and Hine confirming that the second Bulletproof Coffin series, Disinterred, is happening.  Just remember, you heard it here first (then here, w/extra swearing).

• HAKY SHINE VS. KAVID DANE: You’ve all probably seen Shaky Kane – Unravelled by now, but this documentary is a thing of beauty and it deserves to be remembered as such (via Mark Kardwell, originally).

• MINDLESS PLAGIARISTS WANTED: So it turned out that this guy hadn’t actually ripped off Zom’s excellent essay on David Bowie and the Joker, but maybe he should have? Just saying.

• “BORN IN THE USA” DEPT: Blah blah fuckity blah, Superman hates America now, oh noes, who will lie beside me at night and keep me warm as I masturbate over old glory?! Honestly, I’m struggling to keep my eye on this story because I’m still trying to work our whether the whole Barack Obama “birther” thing actually happened or not.

• “MORE THAN FRIENDS????” DEPT: While we’re talking about Superman, go check out Kate Beaton’s brilliant Lois Lane strips.  It’s been established that All Star Superman is the best, but I always felt that Lois Lane didn’t really get the scenes she deserved in that series. As such, I’ll be printing out these comics and stashing them in the back of my Absolute All Star Superman (AASSman) to redress the balance.

• FOR SERIOUS THOUGH: Despite what I  about Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy in my Kapow! write-up, you can rest assured that I didn’t write the words “Lois Lane strips” above as a cheap way of attracting a few quick, sleazy hits. This post is all about giving links, not receiving them, so take that into account next time you’re writing mean things about me on the toilet wall why don’t you?

• STILL ANGRY DEPT: Ah, fuck it, here’s another bit on That Bloody Wedding. This one’s by Charlie Brooker, so it’s all about what you fuckers are probably watching on TV right now.

• GOOD TIMES IN BAD COMPANY: Back to comics again, this time through the wonderful twin mediums of television and time travel for a 1988 Night Network interview with Peter Milligan and Brett Ewins. Milligan sometimes seems like the most elusive and least easily characterised of all his writerly peers, so it’s great to see him looking droll, detached and frankly cool as all fuck in this video clip (via the Mindless Hivemind).

• ESSENTIAL READING: Joe “Jog” McCulloch on Suckerpunch and the Frank Miller Spirit movie. You can tell it’s essential because Jog wrote it.

• ALSO ESSENTIAL: Two great articles on the backup strip in the latest Casanova reprint, one by Sean Witzke and one by David Brothers. It’s all about doing something new with your old obsessions; I think you can relate.

• BECAUSE NO ONE DEMANDED IT: Speaking of old obsessions, Nick Whitman has started up a blog dedicated to the Wu-Tang Clan’s weed carriers. Lots of good stuff there so far, including this public service announcement from Ghostface Killah, and this spotlight on ODB’s mucker 12 O’Clock. Re: Theodore Unit, I have detailed opinions on all of those guys if anyone wants to hear them? Heh, yeah, maybe in the comments.

• AGAIN, FOR THE FIRST TIME: Plok does Luther Arkwright. Sample:

There is always another “why”. Why should this earnestness be threatening, what is wrong with things being of their time? What is wrong with us twenty-first century readers that we might ask them to be anything more than that? Of its time, of its time…well, everything is of its own time, so why should we care, why should we feel the slightest embarrassment about it? We don’t feel embarrassment at Orphee or at the Bowery Boys…I Spy and Equus are not embarrassing to us, and for that matter neither is Dickens, or Ballard…so what’s between that time and this one, that LA’s New Wave concentrations pluck the string of? What aesthetic do we feel it touches, that persuades us for a moment to recoil before we are forced to swear the other way even more severely: “no, it’s damn good“?

• ROYAL RELATIONS DEPT: Just in case anyone thinks it’s all treason all the time round at Mindless HQ, I thought I should remind you all that we had our very own Royal Visit as part of The Amusing Brothers’ adventures as Knights of the Realm. Make sure you read that story to its stunning conclusion or you might miss the Right Royal Reward!

• FINALLY: Andrew Hickey hasn’t quite managed to write a whole book about Grant Morrison’s Seven Soldiers mega-series in a fortnight, but he’s still written a lot of great posts on the subject with the promise of more to come. Go read him talking about JLA Classified, Seven Soldiers #0,  Shining Knight, The Manhattan Guardian and Zatanna.  We’re still looking into allegations that Andrew uses sweatshop labour to get so much writing done – more on this story as it develops.

THIS POST WAS BROUGHT TO YOU BY IRN BRU AND SPITE, TWO GREAT TASTES THAT TASTE EVEN BETTER TOGETHER.