The Weird World of a short Tuesday review
March 9th, 2010
The Weird World of Jack Staff #1, by Paul Grist (Image)
The future FUCK YEAH files #1: McCarthyism
November 3rd, 2009
We here at the Mindless Tower may not agree on everything, but one thing we’re very sure about. Brendan McCarthy is a sexy man-God, and this is going to be the most shit-hot book of next year. Bring it the fuck on.
Unearthed by Archaeologist of Tomorrow, the Bad Librarian.
2sday night reviews
May 6th, 2009
Just time for one last bite of the week-old bread before the supermarket chucks it in the dumpster, from where it will be cycled on to assorted tramps, birds and City sandwich-bar proprietors.
A (hidden) grammar
March 5th, 2009
Incredible Hulk pants V
February 27th, 2009
These are my favourite new pants. They bring the total of Hulk pants to five, making the mean green smashing machine a clear winner in the pantularity stakes. (Regular skidophiles will remember that for reasons unclear half the total Hulk pants feature him taking big licks from Iron Man. Technically this is only gamma pant solo mark three.)
1st birthday podcast: downtime
February 25th, 2009
Even my hero Galactus needs to take time out to Relaxus occasionally and we Mindless Ones are no different. For our first birthday we all got together on my spaceship and just hung out together and talked about how our favourite comic book characters like to relax.
Thanks to Brown Lantern for the editing.
The great sock weekender - roof
February 23rd, 2009
Things got a bit too much for a minute there in the loft. Get outside for some fresh air. There’s a balcony and it’s a warm night. There’s a crowd, chilled and clumped, sitting around, smoking, chatting too-earnestly, getting the feelings gained through the gnosis of the dancefloor spoken and out into the air before they vanish, quick as the sweat disappearing from your fringe. Take a deep breath and lean against the balcony railing, head back, breathe it out into the night. Look up. Something catches just the corner of your eye.
Why I love Daredevil: Born Again: part 1 - depression
February 16th, 2009
Sometime in the nineties the cry rang out: Marvel was gonna put the “character back into comics”.
This was news to me.
As far as I was concerned the Marvelverse, with the possible exception of the X-Men, was still firmly rooted in a pre-Watchmen era. It was only the energizing touch of the man Miller that rescued the company from my utter contempt. DC on the other hand, was, in my rather woolly analysis, the natural home of adjectives like mature, and visionary, the only company where character was likely to flourish. My case rested upon little more than DC’s willingness to publish The Dark Knight Returns, The Killing Joke, and Arkham Asylum, and the serious moonlight cast over the DCU by Watchmen, and the Vertigo imprint.
While I’m now well versed in the legacy of Marvel’s legendary creators, if I’m honest I remain skeptical about Marvel’s claims to the concept of character. I grant that Lee and Ditko’s willingness to subordinate super to man was likely revolutionary back in the late sixties, and that they quite possibly changed the landscape of comics, but the reality is that while character is certainly the focus of many Marvel titles the characters in question have seldom been allowed much more than superficial depth - the MU as a place of histrionics rather than history. That, even as its best, seldom produces character studies with more going for them than I’d expect to see in a well realized soap opera. Don’t get me wrong, I think good soaps have their own virtues, and, and this is important, I’m not sure that I want to see rigorous character studies in (many) superhero comics, but I think it’s worth pointing out that by treating the term character as a monolith, and not admitting to its multiple meanings - the different ways in which the centrality of the concept can be approached, from Dynasty to Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolfe - Marvel, and its die hard fans, are perhaps heaping undeserved glories on themselves. I mean, we’ve all read the Ultimates, right?
Testing, testing…. Batman 666 fan-fic comic script alert!
February 14th, 2009
I honestly never intended for any of you lot to read this guff.
However!
When Zom found out I’d been writing comic scripts in my lazy hours, he insisted I put them up here.
And then he said he thought it might make us look like a bunch of conceited wankers.
And then he decided I should do it anyway.
So, if anyone digs it - I’m not that sure how good any of it actually is - then you can look forward to seeing more of the same over at our soon to be unleashed sister site for, err, em>creative work</em>. It’ll be called The Warehouse of Broken Dreams, or something. Anything to keep the lawyers away.
Just a few thoughts before we get into this, because I know you’d offer up the life of your sister to read this shit, and we’d better get moving…..
If anyone slogged through our mindless ramblings over on Pillock’s intensely wonderful A Trout in the Milk blog, then you may remember - HOW COULD YOU FORGET?!!?! - me banging on about how much fun it’d be to write a Damian 666 comic. An alternate Batman from the universe next door, but, more importantly, a next generation Batman, would allow for so much more wriggle room - in fact I’d argue he’d demand it! His writer would almost have a duty to extend all the wild bat-conceits, themes and tonalities far, far beyond anything that’d come before. The son of the batverse would necessarily incorporate and reiterate in a far more concentrated and conclusive fashion all the tatty, flailing elements that constitute the present day Batman’s superbody. You really could have it all. And nobody would give a shit, seeing as it could all be dismissed as a *possible future*.
Realistically I’m sure a great deal of fandom would hate the book, but, fuck it, they’d only go and buy it anyway. And weep.
I’m not sure how much to tell you about the strip before we get this show on the road - I don’t want to spoil anything (Oh, the vanity!) - but I figure there’re some things it’d be nice to know (not necessary, I hope you’ll note, but nice). To begin with I want to stress that my Damian, in an attempt to remain truthful to Morrison’s original vision for the character, is far less morally rigid and considerably more ethically and tactically improvisational than his Father. He inhabits the twilight world of a new century where all the old certainties have flown out the window. A shifting Gotham whose suburbs and superscrapers are bleeding into the netherworld (PLEASE DON’T UNDERSTAND ME TOO QUICKLY), and where heroism is a flickering, ephemeral concept in permanent revolution. This is Batman at dusk, metaphorically speaking. Or is it dawn? All the usual suspects will feature - there’s a Robin, a Batmobile, a Batcave and plenty of fighting (I count four fights in the first issue alone, all jammed into 23 pages), but, as Moore describes Miller’s reimagining for his introduction to Dark Knight, ‘it’s all completely different’ (you see! I’m comparing myself to Frank Miller now! My God….). This Batman has a different family set-up - in fact family is pretty much the theme underscoring the first story arc - and is much more at home with all the weird psychedelia and wacky magical shit than Bruce Wayne. There just isn’t the same air of denial surrounding Damian. He’s at home in the DCU, entrenched in ways his predecessor wasn’t, and maybe finds it all kinda fun.
Anyway. Expect to be confused. It all moves pretty fast.
