Okay so I’m four issues late to say it, but it’s still worth noting that somehow, in the middle of a run of spectacularly unspectacular comics, THIS happened:

THIS being, for what it’s worth, the 2012 superhero comic most acutely tuned in to the concerns of its moment. Oh, sure, there are a few other enjoyable superhero comics out there right – Hawkeye, Batman Incorporated, uh… Journey Into Mystery, if that counts?[1] –  but none of them feel like an inescapable product of their moment in the way that Action Comics #9 does.[2]

You might well ask yourself how worthwhile this is, and if you told me that you preferred the focus on individual action beats that you get with Matt Fraction and David Aja’s work on Hawkeye…

…then I’d have to concede that you might well have a point. What’s particularly interesting here is that the other twelve issues of Morrison’s Action Comics run can be seen as a generally unsuccessful attempt to transition Morrison’s recent  hall-of-mirrors scripting style into something more rhythmic and less meaning-intensive.[3] Something a bit more like what Fraction and Aja’s are attempting in Hawkeye, in other words, only done less well, almost a year earlier.

ART PARAGRAPH: UNFORTUNATELY, A LACK OF TRUE ARTISTIC SYNTHESIS HAS ENSURED THAT THIS PARTICULAR MACHINE (ACTION! COMICS!) HAS RARELY LOOKED LIKE IT WAS READY FOR  THE COMICS MARKETPLACE. THIS PARTICULAR ISSUE WAS DRAWN BY GENE HA, WHO PREVIOUSLY GRACED THE SERIES WITH GUEST ART FOR AN APOCALYPTIC SCENE SET ON KRYPTON IN ISSUE #3. HIS RIGID, RETRO-FUTURISTIC ARTWORK MAKES FOR A PURPOSEFUL CONTRAST TO THE RUGGED MALLEABILITY OF REGULAR ARTIST RAGS MORALES’ LINE, AND WHILE HIS DEPICTION OF SUPERMAN LACKS THE EASYGOING GRACE OF FRANK QUITELY’S VERSION, THE RELATIVE STRENGTH AND CLARITY OF HIS HAND IS STILL VERY MUCH APPRECIATED HERE.

As flagged by the inclusion of the Obama-riffic Superman from Final Crisis, issue #9 of Action Comics is an unashamed example of Morrison’s recent obsession with viewing the whole universe through the lens of superheroic fiction, a throwback to an era that’s not quite ended.

Click here for more about Superman, Siegel and Shuster, drones, Obama and all that!

August’s Cartoon County turned out to be the dawn of a bright new age for comics as David Lloyd and Bambos unsheathed their plans for the unique webcomic project, Aces Weekly.

 

Aces Weekly is a genuinely exciting venture which involves original new work from the likes of Herb Trimpe, Bill Sienkiewicz, Kyle Baker, John McCrea, Phil Hester, Steve Bissette, David Leach, Colleen Doran, David Hine, Henry Flint, Mark Wheatley, David Hitchcock, Lew Stringer, Carl Critchlow, Phill Elliott, Rory Walker and more!  Here’s how it’s going down:

[audio:https://mindlessones.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Aces-Weekly.mp3]

Aces Weekly

 

It really does seem like a great model for creators and readers alike so get along and subscribe!

Cartoon County is an association of over 100 cartoonists and comic artists in the Sussex area. Our regular meetings are usually on the last Monday of every month at The Cricketers, Black Lion St, Brighton, from 6 til late. If you’re a cartoonist or a comic artist, or use those particular styles of drawing in your work as an illustrator, animator or storyboard artist, you are very welcome to join us.

 

 

SILENCE! #32

September 24th, 2012

I’M CRUSHING YOUR HEAD!

This is it people – the ultimate listening experience you can do with your ears…comics, people, people talking about comics, comics talking about people, people talking about comics again….IT’S ALL HERE! IN SILENCE! no.32!!!

After the usual shit-bubbling from the two half-wits that pass for presenters on this farrago, the SILENCE! News comes and goes like a sex pest in the night, with a digression into Chuck Jones and Pat Mills. With nary a thought to listener safety or interest the podcasteers catapult themselves midrift first into the weeks comics. No muss, no fuss, let’s do this:

James Stokoe’s Godzilla, Justice League! no.0, Daredevil, Jordan Crane’s Uptight, The Shadow, The Walking Dead, Ghost, Revival, AVX: The Avengers, and Nite Owl.

The SILENT Question comes from Frank Castle and the answer involves Jim Woodring’s Frank, Jonny Ryan’s Prison Pit and Zenith: Phase 1.

Lactus reviews his underpants in notcomics, and after that adventrure in undercrackers The Beast talks up Nick Abadzis’ wonderful Hugo Tate collection and recalls Deadline in general. Then there’s a nod towards a fascinating interview with Brit comics mover and shaker, Dave Elliott, and Lactus pimps his wares like the painted French tart he so clearly is, with another Comedy Spot.

SILENCE! is proudly sponsored by the two greatest comics shops on the planet, DAVE’S COMICS of Brighton and GOSH COMICS of London.

click to download SILENCE!#32

So Glenn “AMAZING!” Fabry came to Cartoon County back in April. It was almost literally like this:

LISTEN TO IT, FOOL!

[audio:https://mindlessones.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Glenn-Fabry.mp3]

 

Click here to download our Glenn Fabry interview

 

Cartoon County is an association of over 100 cartoonists and comic artists in the Sussex area. Our regular meetings are usually on the last Monday of every month at The Cricketers, Black Lion St, Brighton, from 6 til late. If you’re a cartoonist or a comic artist, or use those particular styles of drawing in your work as an illustrator, animator or storyboard artist, you are very welcome to join us.

Doctor Who: A Town Called Mercy

September 22nd, 2012

One of the little tricks Steven Moffat has been playing to keep the fans onside is to have, as an undercurrent in his series, references to a specific previous era of the show. Last year, there were a lot of little nods to Patrick Troughton’s last year on the show, almost all of which will have passed the casual viewer by.

This year, Moffat seems to have chosen William Hartnell’s last year or so to pay a sneaky ‘homage’ to. In the year when Steven Taylor was the companion, there was a Dalek story featuring an actor who later went on to play a companion, in a different role (in fact there were two), there was a story about a space ark, featuring the crew interacting with extremely large animals, with a dubious moral message, a trip to New York (coming up tomorrow in this series)…

and the story often considered the worst in the series’ history.

Aardvark Comments?

September 19th, 2012

Dave Sim, who since the death of Will Eisner has been probably the greatest living all-round comics creator, is releasing his classic graphic novel High Society as a Kickstarter-funded digital version on October 10.

To promote this release, he is doing a virtual tour of comics sites, including Mindless Ones, on October 10, answering interview questions. However, he’s doing it with a twist — he wants us to post the questions we’re asking here *now*, in advance of the blog tour, and leave comments open for readers to ask questions, some of which he will also answer. Anyone whose question is chosen will receive a free autographed back-issue of Cerebus, with a personalised head sketch.

Questions, and explanation of who Sim is, under the cut

SILENCE! #31

September 18th, 2012

WHAT ABOUT YOU MACREADY…YOU BELIEVE ANY OF THIS VOODOO BULLSHIT?

Yesyesyesyesyes…them boys will do us proud! Watch now as they lead us skipping merrily towards the churning, swirling waters of the River Styx…with the nudest podcast in comics, SILENCE!

Firstly Lactus has his guitar unsheathed and isn’t afraid to use it. Then it’s the SILENCE News (which is in all honesty an extended pimp session for Glyn Dillon’s Nao of Brown as well as a big-up of Brit comics hero Paul Gravett). THEN, the newly sponsored Beast and the always sponsored Lactus barge into the week’s comics like a couple of burly lady wrestlers.

And there’s a whole heap of comics to talk through too, like, oh let’s see…Rocketeer Cargo of Doom, the beautiful looking Winter Soldier, Saucer Country, Wolverine & The X-Men, Uncanny X-Force, AVX, AVX: Uncanny X-Men, Avengers Assemble, Shade, Incredible Hulk, The Creep, and Frankenstein Agent of SHADE.

Then there’s a special guest review of Batman #0 from friend of the show The Wange, and the SILENT Question is brought to you from Machine Man (and the answers involve Ultron, Herbie, Call Me Kennneth, GI Robot and the ABC muthafuckin Warriors).

Add in ANOTHER Dredd (3D) review from The Beast and a recommendation to listen to the Nerdist podcast with Henry Rollins and you have a truly revolutionary audio-visual-taste explosion in 4-D…it truly is SILENCE no.31 and you’re not.

SILENCE! is proudly sponsored by the two greatest comics shops on the planet, DAVE’S COMICS of Brighton and GOSH COMICS of London

click to download SILENCE!#30

AVX #11: Suck and Chuck

September 15th, 2012

Not: Night of the Weirwolf

Do you remember that Wolverine story where he goes all edgy and kills some superheroes, and the only ones he in fact murders are disabled or gay? It was written by staunch defender-of-women / rape profiteer Mark Millar. Is this like that? Or is this latest casual extermination of the bald, wheelchair-bound one something different, serious, and maybe even Real this time?

Whatever – it’s clearly a great time to be killing off your disabled characters Marvel.

(Are you actually going to sit there and say ‘Hey smartarse he got his legs back and working again this time? Are you actually going to do that? Are you going to deny that Charles Xavier is disabled? Did he bring a wig back from space with him this time too?)

Brian Michael Bendis: ‘I don’t always write in a very Shakespearean way’. Don’t be modest Brian Michael.

I suspect this will be the hardest episode this series for me to write about. Normally there is something interesting to say about an episode, even if only about how it failed. And more importantly, normally I have something *different* to say from what other people are saying. But this time, my reaction can be summed up in the same sentence everyone else is using:

It’s not as bad as I expected, apart from the ending.