SILENCE! #48
January 30th, 2013
AIM FOR THE FLAT TOP!
GET SOME! BRAKKABRAKKABRAKKA! GET SOME!
Get some what? Get some Disembodied Narratorbot X-15735 up in your grill, please. Back from interviewing the comicsphere’s glitterati.
Well if it isn’t my favourite fleshy ones, come crawling back from your sexy, rich upmarket Narratorbots who work on the podcasts from the fancy parts of the webisphere…well you know who has the good stuff don’t you? <ANSWER: Disembodied Narratorbot X-15735>
<ITEM> SILENCE! News with hot East Coast event coverage from newsthrobs Gary Lactenberg and Danny Beastman.
<ITEM> Follow the rabbit down the rabbithole into the Reviewniverse with triple hottt xxx opiniongasms about Young Avengers, Todd The Ugliest Kid In The World, The Answer!, Prophet, Mars Attacks The Real Ghostbusters, Battlefields, Wolverine & The X-Men, Wonder Woman, Avengers, Uncanny X-Force, FF, Dan The Unharmable, Judge Dredd and Zooniverse.
Now tell me that doesn’t make you want to haemorrhage with excitement? So grab your partner by the hand, swing ‘em round, you’re looking grand, and let’s SILENCE! together.
SILENCE! is proudly sponsored by the two greatest comics shops on the planet, DAVE’S COMICS of Brighton and GOSH COMICS of London.
January 30th, 2013 at 10:34 am
The girl at the beginning was Hawkeye and I thoroughly enjoyed the Marvel Boy perv scene!
January 30th, 2013 at 11:52 am
What particularly bothers me about Hickman’s Avengers is that he appears to be using the portentous narration and dialogue in place of actual writing.
Like how he eschews the basic writing principle of introducing a character before having them do something important like, say, resolve the entire conflict. It’s clear that there’s meant to be some mystery surrounding that character but it’s going a bit overboard when you’re barely even aware that they’re meant to be a part of the team.
He could have easily given this character a basic introduction (description of their abilities, reason why they’re on the team, name) in the second issue if he’d cut down on superfluous scenes like the recruiting of Carol and Jessica, or Tony and Steve waffling on for a whole page about, indeed, “Hey, we should get more Avengers”.
Also, I thought the idea behind graphs is that they’re meant to clarify, not confuse. Defining characters with an icon doesn’t work if the icon isn’t instantly recognizable as belonging to that character.
January 30th, 2013 at 11:57 am
CONTINUITY DEPT
With regards to Alan “less is not more, Moore is more” Moore’s upcoming appearance at Gosh (gosh!) comics in London, and The Beast Must Die’s excitement at the prospect of sneaking a recording device into Moore’s Might Mane – it seems odd to me that this notion would tickle TBMD so, when in an earlier episode (which I unfortunately do not have to hand right now) it was revealed that The Best Must Die had spent a week living in Alan Moore’s beard. While this certainly wouldn’t prohibit TBMD from wanting to make fresh field recordings in the portable wilderness of the wizard’s face, it does mean that the novelty of this idea should be somewhat reduced for the lovely lad.
UNLESS, that is, my theory is correct and we actually encounter a new The Beast Must Die every week – his earlier romps through the multiverse certainly suggest that this is possible, and I can’t help but wonder if TBMD’s newly fixed location is the overarching metaphor of SILENCE!, with an infinity of possible Beast’s and possible worlds contracting down to a series of minor variations on the same Beastly scenario.
Botswana Beast once described SILENCE! as a “low continuity show”, but it’s not really, is it? Not if you listen to it right!
Feel free to send my No Prize to the usual address.
GILLENMCKELVIE DEPT
I liked the Young Avengers too, don’t know if it’s really for me right now – it would appear that the gents bathrooms of Glasgow don’t lie and that I am excited by old man shit – but I appreciated the “clean eroticism” of McKelvie’s figurework (nice description Beasty!), and while I get where [BIG] Daddy Lactus is coming from when he says he wants to punch Noh-Var at the start the hawtness got me through. That and the sense that this was a very GILLENMCKELVIE take on the character: I was stupidly bummed out when I heard that he’d transitioned into the Marvel Universe proper, but this incarnation works fine for me because… the kid’s like a suit, you know? You can wear him to a Primal Scream release party or to yr local indie disco, just so long as you wear him with a sense of purpose.
The rest of the book was good too, with all its fresh-faced, cleanly defined young people being disgustingly young and fresh-faced and cleanly defined. Cunts.
January 31st, 2013 at 4:29 am
Bon podde. Happy hypersolar condensate partuitionniversary, Beast Must. Raising a mug in your dimension-terrifying honour.
Gary Lac, that’s a shame about your comics. I been there! (by which I mean both Gosh! and the “we ain’t takin’ yer dead dog comics, bub,” albeit in another store). Shelf space is precious, esp. wrt sp OGNa, and there are few things worse than going in to a comic shop to collect your cut only to come out with unsold copies of your assorted unassailable masterpieces.
My books are available from Nostalgia & Comics in Brum (also Legacy Comics Halifax/Laredo), as fine a bunch of lads as you’d ever want to sell your comics, but by crikey, walking in there and seeing the Platonically-stocked indie and small press sections is a humbling thing.
Declaring bias, natch, but I’m keen to see people join me and sundry on Comicsy. Easy to set up and tinker. You could even do what I do and sell digital downloads (or both).
(I might also suggest you pick up a copy of this month’s load of jizz Viz, if only for the strip “We Buy Xmas,” which is the best thing I’ve read all year, but also for the submission address, hint hint)
One thing that I haven’t seen in a goddamn comic book yet, so I suppose I’d better do it, is that way that urchins of a certain age SUDDENLY BECOME INCREDIBLY LOUD THE BAS. You know, like if you’re wandering around Tesco looking for a macaroon and some halfwit in a onesie – because that’s a reasonable thing to be wearing to the supermarket at 9-nickety-45pm in midwinter – honks like a grieving goose in your direction “OUURRAAUURAAUURIIGHT, JEEEzUUS?!”
I think that’s half the problem with yout’ – we all go through that phase when the hormones hit and the switch goes on and suddenly everything is hilarious. But on turning 20ish, the switch goes off again and suddenly that slightly too loud conversation about which version of T-Bag was the fittest (Estensen or we step outside) is both annoying and intimidating. Plus, you know, we resent them the novelty of their prime and apparent/relative lack of responsibility, the bas.
Christ, I was pretty happy when I was seventeen. Twenty years ago (today!), I was making all my University visits and having great adventures doing so. If I knew then what I know now…I’d probably screech like a widowed ptarmigan.
I mean, I get what you mean about being the wrong age for something – I found what little I saw of Skins incredibly off-putting, and the hellacious Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon is overwound and shrill, to a point where I wonder if it’s as much to wind people up as it is hit a specific post-Miley audience demographic – but I don’t know if that’s a bad thing, so much as an annoying thing.
I am enjoying My Mad Fat Diary though, despite the anachronisms and the overpowering Shine 5 soundtrack. In MMFD, though, the characters and their experiences ring true (enough), so the nostalgia gimmick doesn’t get in the way (if, indeed, it wasn’t just something tacked on to a pre-existing story).
There’s plenty of at-male gaze in MMFD (and check those Scott Pilgrim Eyes!). Fewer shapeshifters, mind…unless they’re really good at it!
//\Oo/\\
January 31st, 2013 at 8:13 am
Happy Birthday, Craig Matthews.
January 31st, 2013 at 8:18 am
Thank You, Omnicorporeal Sir by your divine guidance, but my birthday is a June! It’s twenty years ago today(!) since my trip to Birmingham University to see if I wanted to study there (and yesterday to UMIST, where I went, primarily because of the splash page to Spitfire and the Troubleshooters #1).
But thanks, all the same. :)
//\Oo/\\
January 31st, 2013 at 9:07 am
Save it for later, poppet. X
January 31st, 2013 at 2:43 pm
YES! NO! MAYBE!
Uh… where was I? Oh yeah, the back-up strip in Prophet #33 is by Sloane Leong, who you might recognise as the colourist for CHANGE. She’s great and you can see more of her stuff here.
I feel a bit silly for arguing that Prophet #32 blended in seamlessly with the Graham-scripted issues when that’s clearly not true. I’d still argue that the formula is well-established enough that Roy’s script still read as a new model Prophet story, but as with the shifting art duties, there was a shift in rhythm and emphasis there for all to see.
Still the best monthly comic out there right now? I think so.
Though, shit… there was a new Dan the Unharmable out?
I think I’m a couple of issues behind on that. To be remedied.
January 31st, 2013 at 4:14 pm
If your discussion about Battle has piqued anyone’s curiosity, here’s a good article (including a fun interview with Pat Mills) that I’ve just found.
http://tearoomofdespair.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/my-head-is-not-yet-full.html
January 31st, 2013 at 4:17 pm
Oops! actually the battle article link is the link below although the above link I accidentally posted (about how our brains are capable of memorising a phenomenal amount of essentially irrelevant crap is also well worth a read)
http://thequietus.com/articles/11158-best-of-battle-pat-mills-interview
January 31st, 2013 at 6:38 pm
I forgot to do a Birthday wish :(
February 8th, 2013 at 1:01 pm
Really late with this I know, but Dan the Unharmable is finishing after issue 12. I’m slightly disappointed as enjoyed him