Mindless Ones

Don’t call it a comeback! We been here for years (and years and years and years and)

ITEM Gary Lactus and Bobsy enjoy a return visit from The Beast Must Die.
ITEM Everyone really enjoys some more of Gary’s brilliant Slash Fiction, there’s some chat about the Thor: Ragnarok trailer, and The Beast tells us about Doomed! The Untold Story of Roger Corman’s The Fantastic Four.
ITEM It’s time to hold hands as these noble heroes sing you into The Reviewniverse and a great big long bit of talking about the final issue of Alan Moore’s Providence and great small shorter bits of talking about X-Men Gold, America, Batman, Black Cloud, Captain America, Akira, Champions, Hawkeye, Shade The Changing Girl and World War Tank Girl.
ITEM SILENCE! LIVE! Thursday 11th May 9-10 W Smithfield, London EC1A 9JR from 7PM
ITEM Dinner.

@silencepod
@frasergeesin
@thebeastmustdie
@bobsymindless
@theQuietusFilm
@kellykanayama
[email protected]

WHAT WHAT, MY POP ROCKS!

Gary Lactus hosts an epic mash up lash up* starring hard boiled gritty pre-Giuliani New York cop just two weeks away from retirement, Johnathan Dick and a hypnotic robotic Spare 5 who returns like the monster from an ever diminishing horror franchise! Better than that though is the explosive entrance of crime fighting duo The Beast Must Die and Mini-Beast, ready to deliver a 200+ megaton purple nurple right on the left boob of the London Underworld! Wanna know what we talk about? There was loads and load and plenty of it not comics. Here’s a list of words!

2000AD Titan Editions, akira, Animal Man, Beneath, Blair Witch, Cry of the Werewolf, Curse Words, Dennis Potter, Doom Patrol, Found Footage, Found Footage Films, Gabriel Hardman, Gi Joe Vs Transformers: The Movie, Hitman, horror, Invisible Republic, Johnathan Dick, Judge Dredd Deviation, Junji Ito, Justice League Trailer, Kong: Skull Island, Larry Cohen, Larry Fessenden, Lone Wolf and Cub, Manga no Manben, Mini Beast, Naoki Urasawa, Nemesis, Not Quite Hollywood, Roger Corman, Romaction, Romance of a different name, Sandman: Overture, Scratched Live!, Silence! Because the Film’s Started, Slaine Choose Your Own Adventure Comics, Stray Bullets, TBMD, The Beast Must Die, The Belfry, The Origin of Spare 5, walking dead

FEAR THE NIGHT!

*made you look!

@silencepod
@frasergeesin
@thebeastmustdie
@bobsymindless
@theQuietusFilm
@kellykanayama
[email protected]

The Beast Must Die: So frazzled, bedraggled and maybe even bedazzled we all arrived safely back from this year’s Thought Bubble 2012 comics festival in Leeds, which once again proved itself to be a thoroughly enjoyable experience for everyone. It gets the tone just right – an even balance between mainstream and fringe, with the small press rubbing shoulders with industry pros. Girls, boys, seasoned fans, neophytes, kids, pensioners, cosplayers and the just plain weird, the TB crowd is diverse, good natured and one of the best aspects of the whole affair.

Attending something like Thought Bubble also reminds you first and foremost why you love the artform, a welcome shot of 4-colour adrenaline to enliven even the most message board weary fan.

The Mindless Ones were there in pretty full effect, with Andrew Hickey, Gary Lactus and myself  joined by Legendary Weapons Bobsy & Illogical Volume, as well as Mindless Cadet, Mister Attack and the living juggernaut that is Plok. We were positioned on the right hand side of the newly christened New Dock Hall. Andrew was selling his arsenal of wonderful music and comics books, as well as a new volume of his short stories. Lactus had the collected full colour beauty of The Amusing Bros and Andrew & Steven in Knights Of The Realm, and I was touting Cindy & Biscuit, including the brand new 56 page issue no.3. Mr Attack had his comic Everyone’s Felt Like This Once for sale, and Bobsy brought along a free comic featuring both the current PM and Lord Horror no less. Together we formed like Bruticus and set about ensnaring the public.

On a personal level I don’t think I could have had a better time of it. The reception that Cindy & Biscuit received was heartening, and I sold almost everything I took with me. What was especially gratifying was the breadth of customers I had – I sold a lot to kids this year, which was ace. It’s great to think of them reading mys stuff at home, and I just hope they were all appropriately thrilled, amused or spooked by Cindy & Biscuit. Lots of nice people said lots of nice things about it too, from comics pro’s to fans who bought earlier issues the previous year. All in all I was pretty damn chuffed.

It was great chatting to friend of SILENCE!, Al Ewing, whose gift to us was surely the best comic con exclusive that has ever been. He and his lovely friends were all most accommodating to our frazzled selves in the hotel bar on Sunday evening. It was as nice to see Kieron Gillen as ever, and I enjoyed talking to ace 2000AD scribe Rob Williams about Low Life. I was too nervous to speak to John Wagner, and certainly too nervous to ask him to say ‘I AM THE LAW’ in his stentorian Hibernian brogue. We happened to be on the table next to British comics catalyst  Paul Gravett, along with comics artist and scholar John Miers and his lovely partner Megan, who co-runs the Comica Festival with Paul. Paul was his usual enthusiastic self, and did the circuits with his usual charm and aplomb. John and Megan were also  excellent company, and truly sympathetic hangover buddies on Sunday. John’s comics are here and info about Comica is here.

Add to that the thrills of our ongoing experiment in listener alienation with our SILENCE! Thought Bubble special, the epic drinkery at the post TB Saturday night bash at the Leeds Corn Exchange, and you have a pretty full weekend. As I stated earlier, the atmosphere at Thought Bubble is open, friendly and enthusiastic. I can’t rate it high enough, and will certainly back next year.

But really, I hear you pretty much scream, FOR THE LOVE OF AQUAMAN, WHAT ABOUT THE COMICS???????!

Well…