Mindless Ones

When James Joyce, modernity’s mightiest mind, was busy melting the conceptual cusp between language and music, he gave the following as the closest possible textual rendition of the melody of flatulence: ‘Pprrpffrrppffff.’ That fifteen-letter fart probably took him weeks to perfect. Cheers Jim, next one’s on me. Today, when I want to know how to capture the evanescent sonic resonance of a flatus* expelled through the anus, I have serendipity, pants, and The Incredible Hulk to help me out. Whaddayasay, big green?

Sorry mate, didn’t quite catch that, sounded like maybe you said ‘AAAAAARRRR’? Can you run that by me again?

Oh right, that’s what I thought you said. So just to check, that’s ‘AAAAAARRRR’?

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Sorry, the pictures in this post are not in 3-D, it was just the first pun title that came to mind. As far as I’m aware it’s not even possible to do blog posts that extend beyond just the first two Ds. Odd really, you’d have thought they’d have worked it out by now – what else are all those boffins at NASA, Microsoft and McDonalds doing on their smoke breaks if not working out how to universalise multidimensional online entertainment? Blue and red contact lenses stapled to newborn babies’ eyes maybe? Get to it Gates, or if you’re not clever enough for the challenge, why not make way for…

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Although we are now into the second post dark-age age of comics, yea verily is it a golden age of pants. As the comments on yesterday’s post have revealed, we as well as our children are living in a four-colour consumerist paradise where superhero pants for young and old alike are available almost anywhere. When I was a child such pantly treasures were impossible to imagine. Whither did this underwear wonderland come?

These next ones are my favourite pants. As you can tell from the fading, they’re the oldest in the set, the ones that really gave me the collector’s bug. These skids must go back to the heady days of, well I don’t know really, about 2005 or so? Makes these pants about three years old, which is about as long as I’m comfortable admitting to having worn the same pants for, I suppose. Is that too precious of me? Do pants last several years, decades even? Can’t be sure. The superhero movies summer blockbuster dreamland that we’re all living in was well established when these beauties were bought for me – without the big market driver there’s no way even the Herald of Galactus would have found his way to the local H&M. I wonder how many millions the first Spiderman movie had to clear before someone in the merchandising office shouted ‘Make some Silver Surfer Pants!!!!’

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It had to happen. My underwear collection is famous throughout D-wing, and I am justly proud. Mr. Mackay says laundry privileges are out unless I humiliate myself before the internet. (I rely on him for protection from Fletcher and his mindless thugs.) So this is it. My pants. (EDITOR’S NOTE: in America, they use the word ‘pants’ incorrectly, mistakenly believing it to mean ‘trousers’. This post, and those subsequent, are using the word in its UK meaning of ‘underpants’. Clearly, a week or so of blog posts about superhero trousers would be ridiculous.)

To start with, here are my newest and favourite pants. Featuring both Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk, they are the living, breathing blockbuster fashion pant of Summer 2008. At least until I get me some Batman ones.

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I can’t actually believe it’s been 15 years since we last had an actual Ambush Comic on the shelves. Barring a few minor cameos the last comic fully dedicated to Irwin Schwab was 1992’s Ambush Bug: Nothing Special. The best thing about this new mini, is that Giffen & co. have picked up exactly where things were left. Same supporting cast (Cheeks! Argh!yle! Jonni DC), same relentless punning and bad gags, same irreverence for the DCU at large (the best joke involves literal women-in-refidgerators, and gives DC editorial a rightly deserved kick to the balls).

Giffen’s art is relatively unchanged – slightly looser perhaps, which might in part be due to the fact that he’s spent the last decade doing breakdowns for other artists. But it’s a joy to see him on full art duties, and the Bug brings out the best in him. Also Robert Loren Fleming is back on dialogue. Where did he go? Do you think he left comics in pursuit of *shudder* artistic credibility? Well this should put the kibosh on that…

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Aww, who am I kidding? I always loved the jokercopter.

Especially in the first issue of Grant’s new run. Now I don’t know if it was included as a direction in the panel description, but there’s something so Outer Church about the blank, *eyeless* goggles the pilot wears. I couldn’t help wondering, ‘Who is that guy? Where did the Joker get him from?‘ But it wasn’t in some wanky, anally retentive comics fan kinda way, it was more, uh…*fearful* is probably the right word. The dude was just plain creepy and his anonymity made the whole thing that little bit more delicious. Ditto the copter itself. No backstory. No explanation. Just like in the old days. We’re expected to just take the thing at face value. It’s the Joker, he has special supervillain vehicles: nuff said. But this is the post-DKR age and everything needs a rationalisation, doesn’t it? Providing a mature readers-style take on this shit has become so important over the last decade or so and it’s got to the point where things have come full circle. In this reader’s estimation, mystery has, once again, become the most important ingredient in any good superbook. Modern comics readers/stories are so overburdened by the weight of our need to justify and apologise for all the sumptuous, childish conceits (spandex, superhorses, Robins, etc.) that flooded the superstories of yesteryear, that in the end the only antidote for this exhausted trend has to be ? cranked up to the power of n.

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So David very kindly agreed to do an interview with Mindless Ones, as we’re all tremendous fans of his disturbing, enthralling and brilliant comics.

That’s one way to put it.

Another would be this. Posing as travelling Bible salesmen, we drugged Lapham up to the eyballs, dressed him up like a little girl, and tied him to a chair. Then we set Mr Stairs, our resident knife-wielding monkey to work on that pretty face of his.

After a few hours with Mr Stairs, he was very keen to answer our questions. There’s lovely!

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