Mindless Ones

Detective #854 surprised me. I expected JHW3 and Dave Stewart to knock the ball out the park, what I didn’t expect was to be so impressed by Rucka’s writing. Admittedly there was little in the way of conceptual, narrative or formal pyrotechnics – the sorts of things that I look for in Morrison’s work – but then with JHW3 on board there didn’t need to be. Instead Rucka provided us with a rock solid set-up issue on which to hang the astonishing art. Perhaps Rucka’s writing is usually this sturdy and it took this particular art team to get me to pay attention. Perhaps not. Either way the issue clicked like a gun being cocked. Time will tell whether it’s gonna jam.

But you know all this: you’ve read the book, you’ve read all the reviews worth reading, you’ve nattered about it with your mates. It’s one week later and ‘Tec 854 has thoroughly bedded down in your brain. Roll on 855. Shut up the Mindless Ones, late to the party as ever.

You’ve had enough, but after the jump you’re going to get some more!

A weekly strip by Fraser Geesin.

The book Dream Date by Tim Leopard and Fraser Geesin is available from Running Water Press or from Amazon.

Pantcyclopedia Bumtannica? Buttannica? Whatever. I’m thirty-one years of age you know.

Haven’t done a pant update for what seems like ages, but that’s not to say the world has saned-up and stopped selling them. Quite the reverse – the tide of new superpants is faster and stronger than ever before. Keeping track of them on-blog has partly* been a way of tracking the way the high street and concomitant fashion/cultural mores have responded to the superhero madness of he last few blockbuster summers. Our ongoing victory, if you will.

The mission is becoming an increasingly difficult, because – in no small part on account of this blog, obvs – these pants are more popular and common than ever before. They’re everywhere. Several of my fellow mindless can now be seen baring a splash of four colour idiocy by their bumcracks when they bend, and (and the pride I take in this is truly pathetic, I appreciate that) we received a genuine, honest-to-shitness Thank You email from a grateful reader whose girlfriend spied him checking out some of my hot strides, and is now the happy holder of a burgeoning collection himself. This post is dedicated to him.

*The other part? bumgags, bumface.

Don’t forget to check out my blog Milk The Cat

A weekly strip by Fraser Geesin.

The book Dream Date by Tim Leopard and Fraser Geesin is available from Running Water Press or from Amazon.

So the news about Captain Britain and MI-13 coming to an end hit just as I was halfway through a reread of the Alans Moore and Davis’s seminal run, and I’m left with the distinct feeling that had Cornell and Kirk engaged more closely with the question of haircuts that their tenure may have had more longeivity, or at least been more enjoyable from my own valuable perspective.

MI-13 never reached the heights of Cornell and Hairsine’s brilliant Wisdom mini. Even that series’ latter issues, the weaker ones, were comparable with MI-13 at its best. And Kirk’s art, sitting halfway between Mark Bagley and Brian Hitch, never rose above merely adequate. Perhaps if MI-13 hadn’t been creatively hobbled by a no doubt sales boosting tie in with Secret Invasion things would have been different; Perhaps if Cornell had opted/been permitted not to stretch the second arc to five increasingly tedious issues, and stuck to the snappy, smart high concept format which had worked so well for Wisdom I would be sad to see MI-13 end, but given that I’d just had the pleasure of wallowing in a youthful Moore’s kaleidoscopic take on the titular character I can’t say that the news bothered me overmuch. Yes it was half decent, yes it was one of the better books on the racks, yes I want to be a cheer leader for Cornell’s work because when it’s good it’s very good, but I know what I want to see in a comic featuring Captain Britain, and MI-13 wasn’t supplying it.

I want to see is a lot more of this…

Bad hair

The centrality of haircuts is discussed at length after the jump

Don’t forget to check out more of my work at Milk The Cat. Contact me at [email protected]

This is what last Friday afternoon looked like if you are a Mindless One (macrophageous Gary Lactus and the doughty, doughy Tymbus excepted, for some reason.) It was one of those doldrummy days, and this is how we killed the time: Email Style! I’ve caught a few of the bigger tyops, changed names, put a few links in, cut  mean or downright slanderous comments, and excised one-and-a-half shitloads of Ron Smith jokes for reasons of taste and such, and the following cascade of slurry is what remains.

Read the rest of this entry »

PREVIOUSLY IN BATMAN AND ROBIN 666….

In the aftermath of the Sensei’s attack on Nu-Gotham and a near lethal , three pronged assault on their friends by super-assassins contracted by one of the shadowy forces vying for control of the city, Batman and Robin are forced to make some tough decisions.

With his secret identity compromised and Lucius Fox hospitalised by the dreadful killer Action Figure, Damian Wayne decides its time to go public and unmask.

It’s the morning after the last of the assassins was defeated and most of the team are shored up in Bat Mountain, Batman’s hidden fortress folded into the architecture of Wayne Tower, but Nico the puppy-girl and new recruit Judah Runningdog are starting to get restless…..

This is what happens next….