Was There Blood on the Sheets?

February 28th, 2014

(This article was originally posted to Vibrational Match on Saturday 29 August 2009)

The first thing I think of whenever I see the cover for Darwyn Cooke‘s adaptation of Richard Stark’s Parker: The Hunter

…is this page from Frank Miller, David Mazzuchelli and Richmond Lewis’ Batman – Year One:

Wanna know why? Click here to find out!

Edney and the Sheep

February 27th, 2014

A few years ago I drew a little strip for no discernible audience. Thought I’d put it here. Click on the images to enlarge them. Cheers.

CLICK HERE IF YOU’D LIKE TO READ IT!

During a heated bit of trolling at Mindless HQ, Brother Bobsy expressed his incredulity that “anyone watches US TV drama expecting it to be somehow better than TJ Hooker (which at least had Shatner and Locklear in it).”

Curious little Mindless that I am, I decided to expose his statements on the overwhelming silliness of American TV drama to the True Facts contained within my might brane… 

Properly Good American TV Dramas:

  • The Wire – Or ‘How the West Was Won and Where it Got Us’ part 2.  Like David Peace’s best work – his GB84 tells part 1 of this story, of course – The Wire ends up feeling even more mythological for its reliance on things ripped from the real.  If season five presses its argument home too hard then it’s a testament to the strength of the show that it’s details remain as crooked and cryptic and free even at the point where the system is finally completed.
  • The Sopranos – Embodies everything that’s annoying about so much popular serious drama, with its faux cinematic stories about serious men hurting each other (some of them are quite ugly,  THEY DO CRIME!) but nevertheless stays far ahead of its peers by allowing visuals, plot lines, and actors as much focus as they demand.
  • Mad Men – All the strengths of the Sopranos divorced from the macho genre weaknesses, plus this show deals with the protagonist problem that is inherent to this type of TV show more confidently than some of the reactions might have you believe.
  • Twin Peaks – Half of this is admittedly not so good, but the best stuff is still excellent at a lot of things that the rest of the shows on this list have approached only tentatively.
  • The first three episodes of the third season of Battlestar Galactica – Watch the first two series so you get the full impact of this story, which represents the point where the American military imagination somehow manages to conceive of itself in the Al Qaeda position. Watch the rest of it if you want: it’s neither as good as it threatens to be nor as bad as its worst episodes might suggest.  The board game is still totally amazing though!
  • Gilmore Girls – One of the few successful uses of the chatty American dialogue style, probably because it aspires to pseudo-Shakespearean fencing instead of pseudo-Shakespearean posturing.  Horrific warning signs such as “quirky,” “offbeat,” and “irreverent” somehow manage to stick without turning everything they touch to shite for a change. Also one of the few American TV shows to display and awareness of and willingness to investigate ideas of class, how money effects relationships, etc.  You will all disagree with me about this one but I am not wrong.
Good American TV Dramas
  • Girls – Generation Vice on autocritique, manages to be both massively cringey and genuinely empathetic at the same time; an exceptionally strong show, if narrow.
  • Generation Kill – Girls for boys.
  • Breaking Bad – Starts slow but builds to a sustained tension high before tipping all the way over into wonky Batman logic. Limited re-watch potential, but fuck me was it good, awful fun for a while there! (Richard Cooper makes a case for the first four seasons being Properly Good here.)
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer – Yeah yeah yeah, but fuck it, I don’t even give a toss about Joss Whedon anymore but this is the best adaptation of that Stan Lee/Chris Claremont style of self-aware soap opera to the screen, screw yer Marvel movies and yer Agents of S.H.I.T.E..  Shame the last couple of seasons are a bit duff though, eh?
  • The Corner – Somehow manages to be both more didactic and more anecdotal than The Wire, but it’s good even if it does feel like the materials for a modern myth than the real thing.
Shite But Entertaining American TV Dramas
  • Game of Thrones – Dynasty with actual backstabbing, Dinklage is phenomenal, it can get a bit racy, etc; don’t worry, I’ll get round to the books once people stop telling me that they don’t read fantasy but they do like to read Game of Thrones.
Ambitious and (Accidentally?) Relevant American TV Dramas That Aren’t Actually Very Good
  • Dollhouse – see Plok for the why of this.
Shite But Entertaining But No Wait They’re Probably Just Shite American TV Dramas
  • Dexter and True Blood – these shows are both full of high nonsense from the word go, but I’ve actually got more time for the increasingly absurd and unstable True Blood these days. I couldn’t pretend that it was good but it’s a fun train wreck that I can watch without worrying about my girlfriend’s enjoyment levels so we fuck with it every now and then just to make sure everyone’s entertained (basically, she just wants to bone Alcide).
American TV Dramas I’ve Not Seen Enough Of To Properly Judge But Which Might Be Good
  • Treme, Deadwood, Six Feet Under, True Detective, The Shield – actually I’ve seen a bit of SFU but I’d need to watch it again to get a sense for how good it is. Never watched more than a minute of the rest but they have their enthusiasts, so.
Having completed this survey I am now relieved to be able to confirm that while Bobsy isn’t right, he’s not entirely wrong either.
Tell me, friends – would you have it any other way?

It must be strange to be in Mogwai, and to read reviews that chastise you for sounding too much and not enough like yourself.  It’s a familiar pattern, but then Mogwai are a familiar band these days.  Perhaps that’s the problem: when they started out with the ten minute songs and the Blur: Are Shite t-shirts and the Bucky rage they were easier to idolise.  Eight albums in, they’re a more difficult journalistic proposition.  As comfortable noise merchants, opinionated men who are adamant that their music carries no pre-determined meaning, purveyors of defiantly mainstream art rock, what exactly are we supposed to make of Mogwai in 2014?

These concerns seem relevant in blog posts and in music magazines, but in the context of January’s show at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall they seemed utterly meaningless, even absurd.  It’s an observation that’s tired enough to seem trite by now, but Mogwai are one of those bands who you really need to see live in order to fully appreciate.  2010’s Special Moves is an excellent simulation of the band’s live dynamics that doubles as a testament to the quality of their later work, but even played at an absurdly high volume it never threatens to capture Mogwai’s true range.

There’s something in the grain of Mogwai’s live show that’s never quite made it onto their records.  It’s in that washed out, trebley guitar sound that starts out sounding like an inner ear itch and then grows until it batters you bodily.  The physical impact of this noise would be near-impossible to recreate without the help of plush PAs like the one in the Concert Hall, but you can hear an echo of it Mogwai’s quieter recorded moments – it haunts Happy Songs for Happy People and provides the undercurrent of barely controlled rage in their soundtrack to Douglas Gordon’s Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, for example.  You can hear it on Rave Tapes too, but what was merely a whispered rumour on the album version of opener ‘Heard About You Last Night’ is screamed loud enough to ruin hairlines and destroy reputations in concert.  

Speaking of damaged reputations, click here if you want to see me do more violence to my own!

SILENCE! #94

February 24th, 2014

 CURSE SIR WALTER RALEIGH HE WAS SUCH A STUPID GET

<ITEM>Far too busy with everybody in the House of Love, Mister Must Die can’t make it this week, leaving macrosexual space god Sir Gareth of Lactus all a-lonesome to present and perfect this most recent edition of SILENCE! (it’s number ninety-four) all by hisself!…

<ITEM>….Not really! Unforch, bobsy didn’t have anything better to do, lo this Monday’s eve, so at the merest prompt went slinking back to Gary’s spaceship like an abused shihtzu to talk comics with the oversize eidolon for the first time in ever such a long.

<ITEM> Spectacularly failing to get an easy rapport going, Gaz and bobz circle warily for  a while before the less than welcome interloper rants about the recent not-cancellation of the much needed Regular Show comic. It’s her birthday this week! Have a heart!

<ITEM> And then, en route to the reviewniverse, our enervated excrementalists pause to prattle about a few recently encountered graphic novels (bit like comics, to hell with the kids, kids) including See More Warts’ Divine Comedy, Brighton: The Graphic Novel by the much loved Various, Blexbolex’s Seasons and Will Eisner’s Best of Preventive Maintenance Monthly.

<ITEM> Thencewise into the reviewniverse where Gary talks about his recent floppy issues, including White Suits (except not really), Midas Flesh, Forever Evil Justice League, Wonder Woman, Amazing X-Men, Captain America, Uncanny X-MenDaredevil and Iron Manual.

<ITEM>We leave the reviewniverse and have a wee at some point, and then are frankly at a total loss, proceeding to ramble for more time than you probably have to spare about in ICAN’TREMEMBER what particular order Comic Convention Rules, Brighton Buses, and Darren!

<ITEM>All this, and much more, and yet also somehow significantly less, await you in this week’s special, low-energy, unappealing late-Feb edition of SILENCE! It’s far from a classic (#classic), for which I can only apologise.

<ITEM> Catch you later William and Theodore!

Click to download SILENCE!#94

Contact us:



si************@gm***.com












@silencepod
@frasergeesin
@thebeastmustdie
@bobsymindless
@darrensherrell

This edition of SILENCE! is proudly sponsored by the greatest comics shop on the planet, DAVE’S COMICS of Brighton.
It’s also sponsored the greatest comics shop on the planet GOSH! Comics of London.

SILENCE! #93

February 18th, 2014

 

 I’VE GOT AN UNCONTROLLABLE URGE…

Hello camp councilors Welcome to Camp Spam! I’ll be your resident favourite lumbering backwoods maniac, Disembodied Slashbot X-15735! Are you ready for a long hot summer of canoodling, light drug use, and half-baked attempts at childcare…? There are just a few ground rules to keep in mind however; make sure you do don’t get separated, don’t run around in your skanties, don’t make fun of the locals, don’t mock urban legends or local superstitions, don’t diddle each other on a haunted native American burial ground, don’t run off into the woods trying to entice your boyfriend or girlfriend into a bout of impromptu midnight streaking, and whatever you do DON’T BE FEMALE!

Other than that we can all look forward to a happy summer of carefree kicks and denim hotpants. So settle down round the campfire while we tune our radios to Gary Lactus & The Beast Must Die and the latest edition of SILENCE! I’ll just nip off and sharpen my machete…*ahem* I mean fetch the marshmallows…

<ITEM> A glorious longform admin, with sponsordrizzle, and a discussion of both Harvester restaurants and The Chapman Brothers

<ITEM> A song in our hearts and we’re through, through, through to the Reviewniverse…taking on allcomers with reviews of Ms Marvel, She-Hulk, Juice Squeezers, Stray Bullets, Walking Dead, Punisher, Wolverine, Fred Savage, How I Met Your Mother, The Royals: Masters of War, Batman: Black & White, Batman, Astro City, Secret Avengers, Justice League of America, Captain America, and Jason’s Hey Wait…

<ITEM> Just time to detach the Reviewniverse, for the Beast to big up his new favourite site Dc Comics In The 80s, the brief tease of Gary Dimbleby and The Beast Must Dimbleby, and then it’s lights out…for summer.

FOR EVER.

(RIP Bob Casale:

click to download SILENCE!#93

Contact us:



si************@gm***.com












@silencepod
@frasergeesin
@thebeastmustdie

This edition of SILENCE! is proudly sponsored by the greatest comics shop on the planet, DAVE’S COMICS of Brighton.
It’s also sponsored the greatest comics shop on the planet GOSH! Comics of London.

An Aversion to SILENCE!

February 15th, 2014

I’m reliably informed that there’s no SILENCE! this week, but in the absence of fresh podding from your favourite UK-based space god and his beastly (~plus annoyingly handsome/talented) friend, here’s a short video directed by Con Chrisoulis and featuring one half of the SILENCE! crew talking about Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and just generally doing stuff:

 

They’re already here. In fact, they’ve been here since you were a child. What, you don’t remember?  Go have a look at your old photograph album — see those unfamiliar figures in the background?  Have they always been there, teaching you, getting you ready for a new world, a world with a different religion?

I know what you’re thinking, but this isn’t some dull UKIP propaganda piece, with the fear of Empire blowback writ painfully small and self-regarding  — there’s something stranger, more familiar, more plausible going on here.

Anyway, this isn’t some grand sci-fi conspiracy theory or allegory: it feels more like the sort of weird dream that might just be worth sharing, a rapidly decaying memory with little bits of understanding peaking in through the slim cracks in the darkness. Everything looks static, undisturbed, but something’s broken, something’s wrong at home, something’s wrong with her. Time keeps on slipping, and similar looking scenes can hold terrible differences if you catch them in the right light.

When are you going to come home?

When are you really going to come home?

SILENCE! #92

February 4th, 2014

 

YOU DO YOUR JOB PENCIL-NECK, AND I’LL DO MINE!

He was a tough, embittered Disembodied Ex-Copbot 15735 on the edge, waging a lonely war against a sea of scum and internet indifference…they were a plucky odd-couple of podcasting upstarts with a holster-full of half-baked opinions and a healthy disrespect fro doing things by the book. Add in cute little ginger orphan, a basketball playing dog, Iranian terrorists, time-travel, a hooker with a heart of gold, a show-stopping musical number, nazis, aliens and a sinking ocean liner and you have the MOVIE (comics podcast) OF THE YEAR (week)!

<SCENE 1> Sponsorship admizzle, a rambling account of back issue bin snooping at Krypton Comics (featuring Suicide Squad, Mr X and Lloyd Llewellyn), VHS Rental shops from the eighties and finally an ACTUAL demonic summoning that leads us into…

<SCENE 2> The Reviewniverse! Covering Black Science, Saviors, Miracleman 2, Midas Flesh, Saga, Guardians Of the Galaxy, All New X-Men, Wolverine & The X-Men, Revelutionary War: Knights of Pendragon, George Romero’s Dinner Dance of The Dead

<SCENE 3> Finally it’s new segment…Discussion Point! The twosome take on real world references in comic book worlds, and this scintillating debate takes in Dazzler’s pop career, Marvel Vs DC, The twin Towers, Britney Spears, Zenith, Cloud 9, Robot Archie, Spacehorse & The Teen Riders and more. INTENSE!

It’s the movie event of the Summer! It’s McConaughey back at his hunky best! It’s about time you were afraid to go back in the water! IT’S WALL ST…ON ACID!!!

It’s….SILENCE!

click to download SILENCE!#92

Contact us:



si************@gm***.com












@silencepod
@frasergeesin
@thebeastmustdie

This edition of SILENCE! is proudly sponsored by the greatest comics shop on the planet, DAVE’S COMICS of Brighton.
It’s also sponsored the greatest comics shop on the planet GOSH! Comics of London.