If it’s starting to feel a lot like Christmas, which is to say, if you’re heading to this year’s Thought Bubble comics convention in Leeds – we’re right there with you!

We’ll be at Table 80 in the Originals Marquee on Cookridge Street all day on Saturday 22nd and Sunday 23rd September.

The SILENCE! boys will also be teaming up with Al to Astonish for a live podcast spectacular at 11am on the Sunday morning.

SILENCE! to Astonish will take place at the Carriageworks Theatre, with special guests John McCrea, Matthew Rosenberg, Babs Tarr and Sam Humphries – expect jokes, games, insight, and a certain amount of hungover chaos.

We’ll also be flogging our wares to try to balance out the cost of booze and transport. So who’s bringing what this year?

DAN WHITE / THE BEAST MUST DIE 

Thought Bubble 2018 will see the debut of the first issue of Dan’s new horror anthology Sticky Ribs.

There’s always been a strong horror influence on Dan’s work, so I’m really looking forward to reading this and letting it seep through my fingers and into my bloodstream.

Living treat that he is, Dan will also be selling Cindy and Biscuit prints and the new fun-size edition of Cindy and Biscuit – Sundays.

FRASER GEESIN / GARY LACTUS

Fresh from drawing a wonderful comic about how cleaning is better than art, Fraser continues his bid for domestic domination with the Ikea themed anthology KOMISK.

Featuring Geesin’s work alongside contributions from Paul Jon Milne, Kathryn Briggs, Gareth A Hopkins, Tom Mortimer and some prick called David Allison, KOMISK will make you question the motives of that nice stool you use as a table.

DAVID ALLISON / ILLOGICAL VOLUME

I’ll be giving away copies of my Looking Glass Hearts comics, which are all about hauntings and the resilience of home.

You can read these comics for free on this website, but if you want a poorly stapled version you know where to find me. I’m not charging for this work because I’d rather you donated some money to Living Rent, Scotland’s Tenants Union, or a similar organisation closer to home.

Paul Jon Milne / Thrills

We’re pure buzzing to have the last copy of Paul’s Tussle Hunks card game for sale on our table this weekend.

Brutish and sensual, Tussle Hunks is the best thing you can buy at the con this weekend… UNLESS YOU’RE A PUNK!

Paul has just completed the sixth and final issue of Guts Power, so we’ll have that for sale alongside the rest of its grubby brethren.

As I said after a previous Thought Bubble adventure:

I’m stuck on Milne’s style, on the use of that old fashioned alt-comix grossness not as a mode for outrageous straight white guy funtimes, but as a way to genuinely queer the Sex-Men experience.

With its tentative dance floor adventures, “Pepto-bawbag particles” and alluringly grotesque cast, Guts Power manages the rare trick of making one man’s whims, stray thoughts and fancies seem like a genuine delight, probably because the combination feels fresh and true; would that the same could be said of all such ventures.

We’ll also have copies of issue one of Grave Horticulture up for grabs this weekend.

A gnarled delight, Grave Horticulture takes ’90s superhorror as the starting point for an honest-to-fuck aesthetic – get in now before Netflix adapt the expanded universe!

Ad, Andre Whickey, Bobsy, Maid of Nails and Mister Attack will also be in full effect this weekend – they won’t be trying to sell you anything, but their presence will make the con at least 500% better!

See you there/then?

Illogical Volume S.M.A.S.H.

February 5th, 2016

If you’re in or around London tomorrow, I’ll be speaking about comics art and community intelligence at this event.  I’ll be on a panel with Katriona Chapman, Hannah K Chapman, Maggie Chapman and Mark Stafford, so even if I’m reduced to shouting the words “ART PARAGRAPH!” over and over again, the other speakers should ensure that it’s not a total disaster.

As you can see from the poster above, I’ll be in good company, with friend-of-the-site Kieron Gillen, artist extraordinaire Alison Sampson and free-roaming Mindless element Kelly Kanayama/Maid of Nails also speaking words at the event.  The SILENCE! boys will be attendance, and the whole thing will almost inevitably end in drunken tears, so please – JOIN US!

 

For the third year running Team Mindless will be in (almost) full effect at the Thought Bubble comics convention in Leeds.  I’ll be there trying to shake off my current Brendan McCarthy inspired appearance in front of my adoring public, and I believe Andre Whickey, Bobsy, Gary Lactus, Mister Attack and The Beast Must Die will also be in attendance on Saturday and Sunday.

If you fancy stopping by for a chat or buying our wares, we’ll be at Tables 21-22 in Allied London Hall for the duration of the weekend.

Fans of word/face combinations should note that the beautiful mugs behind our SILENCE! podcast will be performing SILENCE! Live (in 3D) at 11.40am on Saturday morning at the Speech Bubble Panel Arena in Armories Square.   As if the prospect of matching face to voice wasn’t exciting enough, Mssrs Beast and Lactus will be joined by comics’ own Kieron Gillen, Brandon Graham, Al Ewing, and Ales Kot as they discuss love, life, and (obviously) comics in bottom-wetting detail.

Back in Allied London Hall, those of you lucky enough to have pennies in your pocket will be able to exchange them for the following shiny treats!

In his secret identity as “Fraser Geesin,” Britain’s Next Top Cosmic Apocalypse Gary Lactus will be glad to take your Earth currency in exchange for…

Headrust – a collection of 20 years worth of family strips

The Cleaner #1 – about a true hero of our times

Knights of the Realm – as serialised on this very website!

The Amusing Brothers Collection – as featured in your least haunting dreams

Scott “Mister Attack” Mackattack (Sorry, I’m a dick – Scott McAllister, that’s his name.  This is his website.  Go show him some love!) will be selling the first two collections of his Wake Up Screaming comic (Everyone’s Felt Like This Once and A Head Full of Maybes) alongside Points on a Graph, his new comic about the growing crossover between post-human entities and customer service work.

He’ll also be giving away samples of his new Webcomic, The Weegie Board, as written by some prick called David Allison.

The Beast Must Die might have had to pretend to be a mere mortal called Dan White in order to have his Cindy and Biscuit nominated for Young People’s Comic Award at this year’s BCAs, but that doesn’t lesson his achievements at all.

Cindy and Biscuit is one of the best comics around.  Check it out:

When pressed for details as to what its host body would be selling this weekend, Andrew Hickey‘s beard made the following statement out of its many gorgeous tendrils:

I will have the first ten copies ever printed of my collection of essays about Doctor Who, Fifty Stories For Fifty Years, available — it comes out tomorrow, the day of the anniversary itself (I haven’t even looked at the copies myself yet, so they’re unproofed — caveat lector). I will also have copies of my book about Grant Morrison’s Seven Soldiers, An Incomprehensible Condition, and my essays about comics and Doctor Who, Sci-Ence! Justice Leak!, as well as my short story collection Ideas And Entities. I may have one or two copies of my music books as well if I have any left over from last year (I haven’t checked). I will also scribble in the books if you wish.

Bit weird how the beard thinks it’s in charge, but I’m not brave enough to contradict it so we’ll let that pass for now.

Finally, I’ll be there with copies of Cut-Out Witch (a book full of melancholy ghosts and lo-fi monster magic, as drawn by my friend Lynne Henderson and captured in caption by my good self) and issue #1 of Looking Glass Heights, a mix of comics and essays on a set of common themes (housing, hubris, reality, the weather):

There might be a few other tricks and treats for you if you stop by over the weekend, but I won’t ruin them for you by spoiling them now.

Thought Bubble is easily the best comics convention I’ve ever been to, and if you can make it to Leeds this weekend I’d urge you to attend even if you don’t want to have to look at us/give us money/touch our many gorgeous heads.

Excelsior?

For the second year running, the Mindless Ones will be hawking their tawdry wares at the Thought Bubble comic convention in Leeds.

We’ll be at table 46 in the recently renamed New Dock Hall, so feel free to stop by for headtouching and pishtalk if you’re at the convention!

Last year’s convention was generally agreed to be one of the best comics related gatherings that Team Mindless had ever attended, so we’re coming team handed this year.

Cick here to find out quite how many hands our team is likely to have!

 

The Mindless Ones will be exhibiting their tawdry wares at this weekend’s Thought Bubble Comics Convention in Leeds.

Mindlessers Andrew Hickey, Dan White (The Beast Must Die), and Illogical Volume will be there for the full two days, so come by table 40 at Royal Armouries Hall and say hello. And buy things.

TBMD:

I shall be selling copies of all my comics

Terminus vols 1-3

Zip City Comics 1

Cindy and Biscuit 1

and the first print copies of Cindy & Biscuit: What We Did At the Weekend, as featured right here.

Illogical Volume: Since I’m a lazy, easily distracted bastard, I don’t have any books or comics for you to buy, and contrary to what some people have suggested, I probably won’t be selling sexual favours either. Probably.

What I will be doing is talking pish, touching heads, and possibly acting out bits of Gary Lactus’ epic Amusing Brothers story, Knights of the Realm, depending on how many “adult beverages” I’ve had.

I will also be helping Dan and Andrew (aka the man-mashed master criminal Dandrew) sell copies of their excellent books and comics, because they are excellent, and you should buy them, because did I mention that they are excellent?

Hnh. There is a reason I never became a salesman.

Anyway, if you’re going, please stop by so we can indulge in some mutual headtouching!

Mmmm… headtouching!

Andrew Hickey: And I, meanwhile, will be selling copies of my books Sci-Ence! Justice Leak! (about Darkseid, Doctor Who, Mister Miracle, the Liberal Democrats and fanfiction, amongst other things) and An Incomprehensible Condition, about Seven Soldiers.

(I’ll also have a small number of copies of my other books on hand, in case anyone has mistaken the comic convention for a 60s pop convention).

My books aren’t as good as Dan’s, because they don’t have many pictures in (and I didn’t even draw the pictures that are in them myself). But on the upside, they are more expensive.

I will also be available for head-touching, although you’re really better off not doing. I’m contagious.

There’s also other stuff to do there, if you don’t fancy spending two days just hanging around three comics bloggers and touching parts of their anatomy. You could, for example, stalk Bryan Talbot, as I did in 2009, or you could go and watch Mel Gibson talk about being a woman in comics. Or get Cameron Stewart or Paul Cornell to scribble their names on things. The possibilities are limitless.

The point is, Thought Bubble is great, and we’re great, so this is a winning combination, and you should come along and give us money.

That’s what I wanted to call Andrew Hickey’s new Seven Soldiers reader, The Miser’s Coat, but he’d only gawn an’ bleedin’ had another idea for the title of his own work first, so. An Incomprehensible Condition should be available from finer internet shops by the time you read this; and he’s only gawn an’ bleedin’ joined the Mindless Ones for his pop-culture critic hat, we’re over the bloody moon to have him, so this interview serves a twofold purpose: to promote and discuss the book and to welcome him to our plated bosom.

Read the rest of this entry »

DC’s September reboot might have dominated the week’s comics news, but while the rest of you were all wondering whether Grant Morrison would be writing Watchmen 2: The Curse of Ozymandias’ Gold, I was out exchanging inky handshakes with any number of shifty characters in order to bring you a real scoop!

Here it is, don’t say we’re not good to you!

MARVEL COMICS PROUDLY PRESENTS: ‘THE MAN WHOSE HEAD EXPANDED’, A TWELVE PART XORN MAXI-SERIES BY WATCHMEN AUTEUR AND BEARDED FANCYMAN ALAN MOORE!!!

EVER WONDER WHAT WAS REALLY GOING ON DURING THE XORNETO DEBACLE? YOU MIGHT THINK YOU KNOW THE ANSWER, BUT MUCH FANCIED WORD-BURBLER AND PART TIME SWAMP THING IMPRESSIONIST ALAN MOORE KNOWS OTHERWISE, AND NOW – FINALLY! – HE’S AGREED TO TELL THE REAL STORY IN THE MIGHTY MARVEL MANNER!!!!!

WHAT’S THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE MAN WITH THE STAR FOR A HEAD, EVERYONE’S FAVOURITE LEATHERY NAZI-HUNTER, MARK E SMITH, AND A SINISTER GANG OF SCOTTISH SKINHEADS?!!?!! FIND OUT IN ‘THE MAN WHOSE HEAD EXPANDED’, A FIVE STAR RAVE-UP IN TWELVE SPECTACULAR ISSUES!!!!!!!!


ART BY FRANK QUITELY; COLOURS BY BRENDAN MCCARTHY/STEVE COOK.

STARTS 6th JUNE 2012

What Alan’s done here, and it’s quite clever, but basically he’s taken the idea – what if a man had a star for a head – and he’s sort of pointed out all the ways in which it doesn’t make sense. Because it doesn’t, really, when you think about it. A man with a star for a head. Ridiculous.’ — Stewart Lee, CLiNT Magazine

‘I’m dead me!’ — William Blake, Wizard’s Top Colourist, 2003-2005

‘Don’t worry Grant, I’ll probably only manage two or three issues this year! – Frank “the shank” Quitely, chin expert

Cindy & Biscuit update

May 10th, 2011

cindy-and-biscuit-int2

Cindy & Biscuit has just received an extremely glowing review from Forbidden Planet International’s Richard Bruton, which you can check out RIGHT HERE.

The FPI blog is a great source of info, reviews and all round comic goodness, so have a nose around while you’re there.

So if you haven’t already done so, you can pick up your very own copy of Cindy & Biscuit at  Milk the Cat. Hurry you fools!

Aggregator aggravator

April 29th, 2011

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!

IMAGE COMICS, Kane & Hine style!

Every time you click this link a hero dies!