SILENCE! #97
March 18th, 2014
NO-ONE SAW THE CARNY GO…
It was a hot sticky day. The kind of day that makes dogs whine and men crazy. The moment she walked into my office I knew she was trouble..the kind of trouble spelt backwards if y’know what I mean? So..kind of elbuort..?. I poured myself a stiff glass of the hard stuff, only to find it was a bit too stiff and hard. It smashed my glass. I got that glass from Bentley Wildfowl Museum goddamnit! Eyeballing her I saw that she had the kind of body that could drive a man wild. Luckily I’m Disembodied Gumshoebot X-15735 and it takes more than a red hot dame in a slinky dress to turn my dials…A ZX Spectrum in suspenders on the other hand? She fluttered her eyelashes at me and asked me to light her smoke…I did it from across the room with my I-Beam and managed to set fire to her fur coat. I could tell it was going to be one of those days. Nothin’ left for it but to turn the fan up high, kick back and listen to the latest SILENCE!
<ITEM> After last week’s lumbering behemoth edition we hop into this week’s nippy little runaround with ‘classic’ combo meal The Beast Must Die & Gary Lactus.
<ITEM> Admin a-go-go with sponsorship, songs, Warwick Johnson Cadwell, Will Franken’s Things We Did Before Reality, Welcome to Night Vale, and *some* more…
<ITEM> A bold Julian Cope themed sing-a-long launches us into The Reviewniverse as the fancy boys tackle Beasts Of Burden, Hawkeye, Independence Days, Secret Avengers, Batman, Uber, Walking Dead, The Royals, Captain Marvel, Veil, All New X-Men, Superior Foes of Spiderman and more
<ITEM> The brief return of Larry Lactus & The Beast Must Dimbleby, and that’s your lot. What are you complaining about?
There are 10,000 stories in the naked city…this has been one of them. Could have had more nudity though.
Contact us:
[email protected]
@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.
March 19th, 2014 at 8:33 pm
Since the last SILENCE! I have read the conclusion to The Avengers Square Go The X-Men. In it, some murderers act like they were right all along, Hope Summers (real name: Irmtraud Tralfamadorian) Earns The Power Of Love (but wastes it on narcisstic drama junkie Ramona Flowers), and honest to god, Captain America stops in the middle of the final battle to pop a cross-eyed gurn like he was cardboard boxing to Out Of Space.
More seriously, it’s inward-looking superhero war nonsense. Is there a metaphor? Scott Summers going full-shitbag is interesting – the smugness, etc. – but Spider-Man getting his face bashed concave, Namor drowning Wakanda, Professor X. What were they trying to say? Was it worth it?
I liked Olivier Coipel’s art a great deal. The double-page spread layouts just plain don’t work, though. That’s a Bendisism that needs to pass like a train on a promise. The art disappears into the centre-fold, there’s all sorts of weird sub-pages and super-pages. I can’t imagine reading this in an expensive hardback format. I think I’d also like to see slightly different rendering on the cloth some of these characters wear, as well. Too many harsh spotlights, like they were wearing PVC. Gross.
Kubert turns up for the last bit, and does a nice trick with the Hulk being punched out of Sydney in Panel Two, in order to crash back to Earth in Sacramento (lit. “bag of mints”) in Panel Four. Very silly. :)
I hope The Fury literally murdered everyone he came in contact with in this new Secret Avengers comic. There’s your event: an implacable murder machine carves the heart out of the Marvel Universe. You can’t negotiate with it, you can’t beg it, you can’t survive it, and it runs like Michelle Jenneke with a bladder full of Tango.
Such a great design as well. If you saw it fresh today, you’d think “how modern.” But thirty years ago? Pheeeeewww! That whole CapBrit run, man. Jodhpurs and Jerkins. Brilliant.
//\Oo/\\
March 22nd, 2014 at 12:37 am
PS: I done a Reviewniverse song lyrics to “Two Worlds Collide” by the Inspiral Carpets.
Opening:
Gary is a space god from space.
The Beast is an unkillable fiend
They dance around a fire telling tales of the comical kind.
What have I got in my pile?
Is this the ‘verse where reviews collide?
Do we judge the pictures, the brush and sweep of the pen?
Or are the words supreme?
To separate them so would be a dark and insidious lie.
The stories that we read from people great and small
Providing what we need
Are we gourmands or the worst kind of overgrown child?
What have I got in my pile?
Is this the ‘verse where reviews collide?
What have I got in my pile?
Is this the ‘verse where reviews collide?
Closing:
Today we bought some comics from Dave
And Gosh they were a fabulous treat.
To hear us read more you will have to come back next week.
What have I got in my pile?
Is this the ‘verse where reviews collide?
What have I got in my pile?
Is this the ‘verse where reviews collide?
(Maybe some of it’s Batman
I hope there’s plenty of Batman
And the rest of it’s crap, man)
http://youtu.be/csxBQLG4-3Q
Sorry.
//\Oo/\\
March 22nd, 2014 at 3:57 pm
No need to apologise for such fabulous work. Can’t promise anything though, I reckon it’ll be pretty hard to find a karaoke version of that song.
March 22nd, 2014 at 10:13 pm
Pleasantly surprised by the reviewniverse theme this week! I’m curious about your take on the Nerdest Pod. Is it their pathological inability to get critical distance? Are you bothered by the self serving anecdotes of Mr. Wein? Failure to answer in the affirmative will be interpreted as an endorsement of Wein’s work on Before Watchmen and a defense of the hosts’ intellectual rigor.
March 23rd, 2014 at 12:22 am
Pretty much. “Everything is awesome” is fine until it’s something you care about and want to go deeper with.
March 23rd, 2014 at 3:14 am
If I’d picked I Want You by the Inspirals (as opposed to the Utah Saints U U U Utah Saints), we could’ve had Mark E Smith on backers!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Style-Inspiral-Carpets-Karaoke-Version/dp/B00BJHQTOE/ref=sr_1_1?s=dmusic&ie=UTF8&qid=1395544137&sr=1-1&keywords=%28In+the+Style+of+Inspiral+Carpets%29+%5BKaraoke+Version%5D
//\Oo/\\
March 23rd, 2014 at 10:06 pm
I thought Independence Day was almost utterly dreadful, with the pearl amongst the pigshit exception of the wonderful scene of Will Smith dragging the alien across the desert which is one of the best moments of big screen cinema ever
And gradually getting into Uber, it’s got that really wanting to know what happens next factor which seems to be missing from most mainstream comics these days. Although come to think of it, the same is also true of that title ‘The Auteur’ title I enjoyed on your recommendation recently…
March 24th, 2014 at 2:39 pm
I have a soft spot for Independence Day solely because it was the first film I ever watched in the cinema whilst drunk.
March 24th, 2014 at 4:15 pm
Snap – oh no wait that was The Piano.
I’m not joking sadly.
March 24th, 2014 at 6:47 pm
I went drunk on a date to see the Piano Teacher. Not a good date movie.
March 24th, 2014 at 6:53 pm
Leon (The Professional) was the film I saw on the best first date I ever had. Three of us in the theatre (not together; it wasn’t that great a date); me and the girlfriend of the time taking the mick out of the whole thing, Megatron cameo aside. Sting “Shape Of My Heart” comes on at the end and I’m out of my seat. A terrible terrible song that I only bought two variants of.
I’m teetotal.
//\Oo/\\
March 25th, 2014 at 9:41 am
Got completely smashed before watching Finding Nemo at the Swiss Cottage Odeon, via the Swiss Cottage pub.
March 25th, 2014 at 11:07 am
Got hammered before going to see the first Dredd film. My ‘friends’ love reminding me that I screamed ‘Don’t do it!’ as Stalone removed his helmet
March 25th, 2014 at 1:53 pm
Stallone should wear a helmet in all his films.