SILENCE! #38
November 6th, 2012
MMM…SKYSCRAPER, I LOVE YOU
Can’t talk, busy busy busy! Disembodied Narratorbot X-15735 here to talk up the fleshy exploits of those lovable human rogues The Beast Must Die and Gary Lactus in their BOOM! WHIZZZ! BANG! extra special November 5th/Fireworks special (it isn’t really special, but Disembodied Narratorbot X-15735 likes themes and was away last week – just imagine there are fireworks going off while you listen and all will be special times. WEEEEEEEEEEEE!)
<ITEM>
SILENCE! News with tales of treason and the All-Beard himself, Alan Moore no.1 teen heart throb.
<ITEM> Weekly Haul reviewing trash pamphlets a-go-go:
Action Comics Annual, Lot 13, Ghosts, Happy!, Masters of the Universe and TMNT annual, with digressionary discourse about Kevin Eastman and Tundra. Good times! Bad Times! Both Times!
<ITEM>
Silent Question comes from Hawkman and Aquaman, and includes answers such as Flaming Carrot, Shade The Changing Man, Legends Of The Dark Knight, and long lost Brit comic, Crisis.
<ITEM> Beast’s Book at Bedtime isMarvel Comics the Untold Story from Sean Howe.
<ITEM> There are no more ITEMS!
Disembodied Narratorbot X-15735 OUT! (drops conceptual microphone and flounces offstage)
SILENCE! is proudly sponsored by the two greatest comics shops on the planet, DAVE’S COMICS of Brighton and GOSH COMICS of London.
Click below for the SILENCE! Gallery…
November 6th, 2012 at 2:21 pm
That many Mindless Ones in one place is quite the thing.
November 6th, 2012 at 5:18 pm
“The Theme from ‘Speedcock’” really does make me want to draw a lot of cocks as fast as I can.
November 7th, 2012 at 12:16 am
Tonight’s first ever public speedcock tournament was a great success. In the end it was two women who volunteered. The winner, a lady called jess walked away with two slankets, a tiny nano bottle of whiskey and a dalek alarm clock. I don’t think there was a single person in the room who wasn’t inspired to draw the best cocks as fast as they can.
November 7th, 2012 at 1:56 am
That Michael Zulli comic sounds like the Turtles done PUMA BLUES style and now I want it desperately.
November 7th, 2012 at 2:07 pm
Curiously, the Turtles comic that came out in Britain to cash in on the cartoon’s success was pretty good. I gather it was reprints of the Archie Comics series? When I was reading it it featured solid cartoon art from Ken Mitchroney (?), cosmic stories, and people getting turned into cool action figurey monsters (I remember a creepy cockroach-vs-flatworm issue). And there was a manta ray mutant called ‘Man Ray’. I enjoyed that.
It set me up nicely for the ‘Turtles Tournament Fighters’ game on the SNES, too, which was (and is) pretty amazing, and one of the best 2D beat ‘em-ups of the time.
I’m just not enjoying ‘Happy!’, though. Poor old me.
November 7th, 2012 at 3:31 pm
In case you don’t know I think Mr Moore’s ‘The Decline of English Murder’ is a shout-out to an essay of the same name by George Orwell…
November 8th, 2012 at 3:35 am
Gary, after listening to that wonderful Speedcock theme (good luck, BTW) and that amazing analog-bluegrass TMNT theme cover, I have to ask: Any chance you’d compile all of the songs you have done for SILENCE! and put them for download?
November 8th, 2012 at 9:06 am
Yeah, we’ll do that. Maybe this Christmas as a special gift post.
November 8th, 2012 at 10:38 am
TMNT – Mateus Santolouco is currently working on a mini-series that looks quite great.
November 8th, 2012 at 10:48 am
TMNT’s got a real nice ‘science v. mysticism’ undercurrent happening right now, which offsets the nostalgia.
Eastman’s got a lot of street credit with my generation of artists, (we all hope to go from D.I.Y. slap-dashers to huge corporate sellouts – no irony). It was a dominating post-80s force but we didn’t realize that the original article’s rough, graffiti vibe actually did carry through all the silliness of the broader franchise and into our let’s say, mark-making and figurative work.
Eastman and Laird themselves are the first creators I ever discovered were actual human beings who will return your letters and have entire conversations with you, and I’m quite sure it was them responsible for my becoming an artist.
November 8th, 2012 at 11:14 am
By the way, aquaman and hawk man if you’re reading this, I’m sorry. Just picked up a brand new legends of the dark knight yesterday. It is currently in a state of uncancelment.
November 8th, 2012 at 12:25 pm
First of all, I’d like to join youse goize for a hearty chorus of Fuck the Dead Boy Detectives. As the Chief Plain Person of Great Britain once said in-between vomiting up lumps of pre-rotted WellerRock, “I’m not having it”.
Nice to hear the Ewing/Dayglo strip from Ghosts getting some love – that was a properly satisfying little short story, best in show, much as I did like Gilbert doing Gilbert.
The Pope/Hine collaboration was gorgeous but my eyes sort of slid off it as a story. Lovely colours though, The Beast Must Die was OTM on that front. Come to think of it, there was some good art chat during this part of the pod.
I like it when an art chat. More of that for longer please.
Re: Happy!, I’ll admit to being a teeny bit disappointed that it hasn’t so far turned out to be THE NEW FILTH, but like the reading of the comic as a critique of Ennis and Millar that you boyce refer to in the pod, that expectation has been imposed on the comic from outside rather than prompted by anything on the page.
Mozzer and Robertson are definitely drawing from the Ennis/Millar school of Cunty Comicks here, but while Morrison definitely has form for contrasting grim-dark badness with The Power of the Imagination(tm), I don’t see any indication that we’re supposed to be reading this comic and thinking “Yeah, fuck The Boys – that shit didn’t have enough HORSEPOWER for my tastes!”. Seems to me that the book’s reveling in the Cunty Comicks tone, if anything – the clash of unrealities is amusing, but it doesn’t feel particularly earnest in the way that, say, the ending of Final Crisis did.
So: it’s not a great comic, Happy!, but I enjoyed the second issue for the jokes and violence and for the beautiful Toy Story 3 colour tones, and I’m looking forward to the next two.
November 8th, 2012 at 8:41 pm
[...] you’re at all a fan of comics and aren’t reading Mindless Ones, and/or listening to SILENCE!, you should fix that. It might help if you’re a Morrison acolyte, or at least have [...]
November 8th, 2012 at 9:20 pm
I must admit, the scalpel to the roof of the mouth in Happy! was a good bit of comics violence.
Also: had ‘Speedcock’ stuck in my head today (a ha ha). Could not really explain this to anyone, though.
November 11th, 2012 at 11:21 am
No love for Fistor when thinking of Masters of da Universe? Friend of mine’s 8 year old son bounded into the kitchen shouting “behold – Fistor” with his action figure. She almost prolapsed she was laughing so much.
November 11th, 2012 at 9:17 pm
Just gone and had a look at Fistor. Had a look at a whole load of Masters toys actually. Not very good. Tiny legs. I like a nice big leg on my toys. Or wheels. Guns are best of all.
November 12th, 2012 at 1:19 pm
Gary Lactus is big leggy