SILENCE! #47
January 22nd, 2013
ANOTHER SELF PROCLAIMED HISTORIAN, WITH EINSTEIN AS A PASSENGER, AND A FLUX CAPACITOR IN HIS DELOREAN…
This… is… the voice of….Disembodied Narratorbot X-15735! Wooo! Scared you, you silly rabbits! Ha Ha, Disembodied Narratorbot X-15735 is all messed up as he has been drinking fermented battery acid and snorting big lines of pixels all afternoon…Disembodied Narratorbot X-15735′s wife left him you see, taking all the little Narratorbots with her..
NOT REALLY! Disembodied Narratorbot X-15735 is confirmed bachelor! NOT REALLY! Disembodied Narratorbot X-15735 is not even confirmed male…or human. Concept of love and marriage is as alien as the whirling purple dust motes of Jupiter, or the cold dark bottom of the Marianas Trench…Disembodied Narratorbot X-15735only likes hard facts, and of course SILENCE!
<ITEM> Usual masturbatory introductory fol-de-rol. [email protected]
<ITEM> SILENCE News with 1950′s news-hunks Danny Beastman and Gary Lactenberg, covering the annual Comics Readers And Producers award ceremony. Swoon!
<ITEM> Moonwalk into the Reviewniverse covering Black Beetle, Saga, Batman, Daredevil, Indigestible Hulk, Fashion Beast, All New X-Men, Lot 13, Craig Yoe presents Haunted Horror, Captain America, Captain Marvel, and Judge Dredd Case Files, with added discussion of painted art by Dermot Power, Dean Ormston and Colin MacNeil (‘The Dream Of The 90′s..”)
<ITEM> Mrs Schwartzberg reviews Savage Wolverine by Frank Cho
<ITEM> Beast’s Bargain Basement covers Strange Case of HP Lovecraft – hear him froth about Tony Salmons!
<ITEM> Talk of Utopia and Shaky Kane’s ‘That’s Because You’re a Robot’
<ITEM> NO MORE! Now clear off you meddling kids. Disembodied Narratorbot X-15735 has some etherware to smoke.
SILENCE! is proudly sponsored by the two greatest comics shops on the planet, DAVE’S COMICS of Brighton and GOSH COMICS of London.
Special thanks to Roberty Boberty for contributing to this week’s episode.
January 22nd, 2013 at 7:54 am
I’m slightly surprised Disembodied Narratorbot X-15735 didn’t feel the need to editorialise a little about a song called ‘That’s because you’re a robot’. I’d have thought he’d have pretty strong opinions about that sort of thing
January 22nd, 2013 at 8:26 am
…..aren’t robots a little ‘ last year ‘ ? Even Bendis is doing them these days.
January 22nd, 2013 at 12:33 pm
1) Danny Beastman was not made for headphone listening.
2) I didn’t say it last week but damn it all that’s a fine Edith Bunker impression.
January 23rd, 2013 at 1:57 am
Danny Beastman is amazing, he sounds like an old school blue color reporter type, he sounds like he looks like he was drawn by Jack Kirby. I’m surprised that guys like that are still around in the slick coporate world of American Comics News.
January 23rd, 2013 at 8:00 am
“The prestigious rusty face award” = big laughs, thank you Danny Beastman.
Danny B definitely sounds like he was drawn by Jack Kirby: I can pretty much taste the cigar smoke (with my ears) every time he opens his mouth.
January 23rd, 2013 at 9:32 am
Another great episode! Where did you guys read about that new comic Shaky Kane is doing? ‘cos i googled the shit out of it and didnt find any info.
January 23rd, 2013 at 9:50 am
Wow! A David Quantick comic! That’ll be the second best thing ever!
The best thing ever, (in case you were wondering) would be a comic from Quantick’s sometime writing partner Jane Bussmann, who wrote ‘The worst date ever’, which is a book about the war in Uganda which manages to be deadly serious and very, very funny at the same time. It’s probably my very favorite book and (as you can see) I’ll shoehorn my recommendation for it at any opportunity…
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Worst-Date-Ever-Africas/dp/0330457659
January 23rd, 2013 at 4:04 pm
Shaky Kane started putting up panels and talking a bit about it on Facebook. Remember Facebook? He’s on it. Be his friend!
January 23rd, 2013 at 9:49 pm
Fashion Beast is sort of an inherently imperfect (or ‘wanting’?) quantity as a comic, especially as a monthly comic, but I’m finding myself enjoying it more and thinking more of it with every issue. There’s just nothing else like it out there, and it is blast-from-the-past Alan Moore.
I’m also quite liking All-New X-Men despite having generally ragged on Bendis (for good reasons, I’d say) for some time now. I’ve “only” read about 10% of his Avengers work, but what I see here with All-New X-Men is definitely much better writing with the Bendis-speak tics kept well in check. I’ve seen other reviewers complain ad nauseum over little off-character moments in the series so far, but from my point of view we’re still well within the margin of forgiveness. It’s definitely a good series so far.
Batman #16 — The most horrific thing about this was Snyder’s commitment to tortured metaphors and unnecessary monologues. I have been enjoying the story so far, but here Snyder’s love of his own overwrought writing got out of control.
January 23rd, 2013 at 10:28 pm
Yeah, fair enough comment regarding Snyder’s writing. It doesn’t bother me though. The metaphores and monologues I see as just being what Batman comics do post Miller. I have accepted this. I will, alas, probably never see my dream of a whole captionless Batman comic where he’s on monitor duty in the Justice League satellite, makes some coffee just how he likes it then sits down and drinks it.
January 23rd, 2013 at 10:39 pm
Actually, I’ve changed my mind. I want loads of captions in that comic. Tiny scattered boxes of short phrases like,
“Artificial gravity…hard to get good crema…come on!…gotta adjust pressure…cup too cold!…no hazelnut syrup, have to improvise…low on milk…come on, old man…”
etc.
January 23rd, 2013 at 11:07 pm
Good call on ‘Utopia’. I expected the worst, what with the worrying “it’s not a comic, it’s a graphic novel” thing at the start, and the general worry that anythintg comics-related on telly will be fucking awful, but on this podcast’s recommendation I gave the first episode a watch. I really enjoyed it, the baddies were properly horrible, like those two guys from ‘Neverwhere’ but not written as horribly whimsical evil lyrical cockneys, or summat.
Also, like Neverwhere, it had a Scotsman from ‘The Thick of It’.
Plus, like a good Morrison zealot fuckwit, I am going to claim that the kid in Utopia, Grant, is a Dane Fae Invisibles tribute (I say that jokingly, though part of me, the part that makes me sick to my stomach, perhaps doesn’t).
The comic in it, from 1985, has proper authentic ‘comics aren’t just for kids anymore!’ McKeanian stylings, as well.
Channel 4! It’s not just for shits anymore! (though it mostly still is)
January 24th, 2013 at 9:32 am
I like Utopia. Solid deaths, and good colours. The Morrison stuff in there is… of course, y’know.
January 24th, 2013 at 10:13 am
Invisibles continue to influence after the fact in all sorts of nice ways. Utopia feels *very* Book 1. Always my fave part of the whole thing anyway.
January 24th, 2013 at 9:59 pm
Re: Paper quality: I’m not sure if this is the case for the new trade editions, but when DC first put out the Fourth World Omnibi in hardcover, the paper was soft and gloss-free, just a cut or so above newsprint. While seemingly the entire internetz was in an uproar about this affront to the King, I actually loved the authentic 70s feel and the fact that I could read through the entire edition without confusing the shining reflection of my thumbprint for part of a panel. I see the move toward glossy paper in serialized comics as another misguided attempt to elevate essentially pulp material.
And in case Danny Beastman is reading: I’m not sure why you feel the need to humor your Euro correspondents by pronouncing “CON-truh-ver-see” as “cuhn-TRAH-ver-see.” You make the whole of US America look bad by pandering to those sissy foreigners.
January 24th, 2013 at 10:31 pm
I’m pretty angry about glossy, shiny comics paper AT ALL TIMES. You shouldn’t have to hold the comic at a special angle to avoid light reflections, really. Especially if you’re already holding it at a special angle so the ‘man on the street/in the bus’ doesn’t see that you’re reading a total embarassing piece of poorly-designed, advert-laden dogshit. COMICSSSSSNNRGHGHGHHH
About the only non-BW thing I’ve read lately that isn’t glossy and shiny is a Hellblazer trade. Perfect paper, that.
That Fourth World Omnibus Cass mentions sounds glorious, too.
January 25th, 2013 at 3:46 am
That Life During Wartime series ended up having some neat twists at the end. Maybe worth a reappraisal if you can find it cheap some day.
January 28th, 2013 at 10:05 am
For an experiment I listened to this week’s Silence at 2x – it lent it a gripping air of dramatic urgency!
For creators sticking idealised versions of themselves into comics, look no further than Howard Chaykin – esp American Flagg!
I got about 30 minutes into Utopia but couldn’t face much more, despite the comics link. I felt absolutely zero emotional involvement, and the stylised nature of it just felt like a low-energy Shadow Line. I’ve enjoyed stuff that the writer and director have done before, but this just seemed utterly empty.
Hope you had a happy Beast Day by the way!