Mindless Ones

Part 2, Part 3

Andrew: First impressions, this is a truly strange comic. I mean, it’s *good*, but it’s an attempted critique of modern pop-culture by someone who has no idea what modern pop-culture *is* (outside of the work of Armando Iannucci, anyway). I haven’t owned a TV in my adult life, and yet I have a better idea of what the pop-cultural feel of 2009 was than Moore seems to have.

And it’s a shame, because the story Moore wants to tell — of the deterioration of culture since the 1960s — is one that could be plausibly made. But to make it work, one has to criticise the 60s counterculture. Most of the problems in the world today stem, ultimately, from the utter self-obsessed infantilism of the generation that were young adults in 1969 — Moore’s generation, the generation that voted in Thatcher, the generation that made up Blair’s cabinet — but rather than admit the link, Moore has instead basically taken a line of “Weren’t the 60s great until Charles Manson and Altamont, but now the world’s full of young people with their hippity-hoppity music and their pinpods, and I wish it would all be like it used to be.”

But all that said, this is still a great comic and a great conclusion to League Volume 3.

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I’LL SHOW YOU THE LIFE OF THE MIND! I’LL SHOW YOU THE LIFE OF THE MIND! 

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Ha ha! Hello SILENCERS! Under the brand spanking new SILENCE! banner from celebrity orc-peddlar James Stokoe, you will find the latest hot shot comics rot from notorious 4-colour sex pests The Beast Must Die and Gary Lactus. Quake, then, frail ones at SILENCE! no.19…special early morning edition.

A slightly frazzled and sleepy pair take on the release of the recent Dredd trailer for SILENCE! news, then the coffee starts kicking in and they barrel into some full-blooded discussion of comics, including 2009 the third volume of Alan Moore and Kev O’Neill’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century series. Also spoken of: Saga no. 4, Hellblazer (Biz + werewolves), Secret history of DB Cooper no. 4, Journey Into Mystery, AVX something or other, and Daredevil. The Beast brings back ‘You Should’ve Known Better’ with his take on Tony Daniels’ Detective Comics and then things peeter out as an over-excited Lactus realises he got up way too early.

It’s an hour and ten minutes of comics shpoonk, and it comes in a handy ear-pill sized format. So jump up, jump up and get down with the comics podcast that the world believes might change everything for everyone….SILENCE!

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I AM AN EFF BEE AYE AYE-GENT!

That’s right Los Pollos Hermanos, it’s time to roll up your trousers and step into the shallow, but deadly waters of this week’s SILENCE!

Suddenly! The galaxy’s greatest podcasteers blunder into the hot SILENCE! news of the day covering the recent demi-knighthood of Sir Grant Morrison and Alan Moore’s recent tabloid controversy. Then it’s onwards, ever onwards with nary a thought for the safety of passers by, as they discuss Kane and Hike’s Bulletproof Coffin, AVX VS AXV no.whatever, Shade no.9, Planetoid, BatOwl, Amazing Spiderman, and finally Michel Fiffe’s terrific Suicide Squad love letter, Deathzone. Then, in an extended notcomics section Lactus talks up recent cinematic thing Prometheus, while the Beast tackles Game of Thrones and The Hunger Games books. Then it’s off to bed with the haunting sounds of The Beast’s song Aquaman: King Of The Sea.

It’s all jimmied into an hour and a half of solid bronze comics chat, all for you the beloved SILENCERS. So let’s all go down to the meadow to pray, worry about that good old way and get listening!

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Guest post by Hollistic Tendancies

Finally someone asks the question that needs to be asked. “You guys, are we seriously going to let the guy with the police-sketch face of a rapist tell us what to do?”

The Veep’s daughter comes to visit, and that Selina starts out by describing this as Parental Ground Zero is a good indication of how views this special relationship. “God, today is like the perfect storm,” she snarls when told her daughter will be there in two hours.

“Tell her I’m canceling the lunch that was supposed to prove there is nothing more important than Catherine, because something more important than Catherine has come up.”

She’s quiet; people talk over her and make perfunctory attempts to talk at her which only provide a painful juxtaposition to their immediately switching gears and ignoring her hesitant replies. She’s taking an experimental theater course and wants to get a dog based on a photo that makes Amy say “It looks astonished, like it’s attached to jumper cables or something” because she thinks “it’s cute.”

And just when I’m all psyched up to find her as annoying and useful as a stubbed toe, she starts to come alive.

How good can a story be before its bad aspects are excusable?

The Talons Of Weng-Chiang is notable for many things — it’s the last story for Philip Hinchcliffe as producer (and he let the show go so far over budget to make it a good one that the budget was slashed for future series…), it’s the last story that David Maloney ever directed for the show, it’s one of Robert Holmes’ best scripts — but there are two things that make it especially notable — the blatant racism, and the terrible special effect of a rat

To celebrate the end of Mad Men Season 5 we thought we might do things a little differently, so we’ve invited blogger, journalist, writer, and fellow Mad Men fan Sean T Collins to join us. We’ve linked to Sean’s thoughts about this season in just about every post. I suggest you check them out if you haven’t already.

And while you’re at it, pay a visit to Sean’s A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones tumblr, All Leather Must Be Boiled, and his Game of Thrones column for Rolling Stone, for perhaps the most even-handed discussion of the books and TV show on the web.

Sean: Thanks for having me, Mindless Ones. Do I get a nickname? Can I be Destructor? (I’ve given this some thought.)

Ad: Yes you may (and yes you have). In all seriousness, lovely to have you with us, Sean.

Take it away, Amy

Amy: What lies beyond our rotting, aging, imperfect bodies?

‘You only live twice, or so it seems.
Once for yourself and once for your dreams.’

The Phantom of the episode’s title was, in the end, the ghost of lives that could, could not and might possibly come to pass. Sometimes the way to the spirit world was clear, sometimes occluded, some characters would dally there only to be forced to return home. In other cases, for good or ill, residency was more permanent.

There were haunted, painful absences, like a tooth-cavity: Lane, Adam, Beth in all her many different iterations pre ECT. But these absences were filled by other things, other fantasies, anything to stave off the grey cloud.

Peter dreamt of being a carefree bachelor in the city, Peggy Don, Megan a movie star, SCDP an agency with a second floor, Trudy a happy homemaker sipping ice tea with her equally happy and sun drenched husband around their swimming pool, and Don…..

All of them got one significant step closer to achieving their dreams this time around. Whether or not all of them should is another thing entirely. There is a violent push and pull between the physical and dream lives. Occasionally they collide and the results are devastating. The problem is that these are all individual dreams and sometimes they clash with the dreams of those around us.

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TOUCH ME, I’M SICK!

Behold SILENCERS, they’re back from the piddling interferences that waylaid them last week. Back to bring you comics chat like you JUST NEVER HEARD BEFORE! It’s SILENCE #17!

No songs this week, so get that thought out of your minds. Those twin 4-colour Liberace’s can’t just produce this stuff like musical milk from their creative udders you know…GAH!

But they do manage a bountiful, overstuffed SILENCE! news, before careering like the Dukes of Hazzard into a twelve car pile-up of comics. They discuss (get ready) Earth 2, Animal Man, Swamp Thing (both the current version and Alan Moore’s seminal run, in  a crow-barred in Beast’s Bargain Basement), Dial H, America’s Got Powers, Action Comics, Mud Man, Dan The Unharmable, Avenger’s Academy, Bill Watterson, Hulk, Stormwatch, JLI, Rocketeer Adventures, Journey Into Mystery, Superman Family Adventures, and The Walking Dead…

But wait! How could we forget the comics event of the Millennium???

The two take on the awesome genre-atomizing Watchmen 2: beyond Watchmen. And I think it would be fair to sat that those boys sure did have their brains fried!

Plus, Lactus works out the best way to review comics – by counting their panels.

Finally the Beast brings it home with a discussion (ie monologue) about the latest film from horror director Ti West, The Innkeepers in notcomics.

Now what rational person could want more from life? Don’t answer that!

And it’s all in the best POSSIBLE taste!

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Guest post by Hollistic Tendancies

“I need you all to make me have not said that. I need you to have make me unsaid it.”

Ah, here in episode 2 of Veep, we The Thick of It fans are in familiar territory: this could have come from the episode where the press conference had to be about nothing.
And yet, this is again very definitely America.

Our Andrew Hickey reviews Before Watchmen