SILENCE! #117
October 7th, 2014
FIRST WE’LL DRINK TEA, AND THEN WE’LL FIGHT!
Butch & Sundance, Batman & Robin, Chip ‘n’ Dale, Steptoe & Son..? Fred & Rose? Those are all pairs aren’t they? Okay then that’s done. Can’t think why I was thinking about that.
Anyway, after last week’s spectaculatrix of glam-filled guest star party, it’s the inevitable come down, as the Beast returns from his hollibobs and runs slam bang into the loving arms of Gary Lactus. Well, after some HILARIOUS technical troubles. Just like old times… SILENCE! Just like Mama used to make: Starchy, thin and unsatisfying.
<ITEM> You might be able to make out a bit of celebrity Game of Thrones spotting, and maybe some discussion of Don Henley? In amongst some sponsorshunting of course.
<ITEM> After an abortive first try the boyce make their way into The Reviewniverse, and boy howdy is it just like slipping on yesterday’s undercrackers! Talk of God Hates Asttronauts, Jason Shiga’s Demon, Silver Surfer, The Silence Choir, Mike Allred’s scariness, Walking Dead, Captain America, Fantastic Four Annual Men Of Wrath, and a bunch more stuff. Heck the boys even come up smiling for some Twin Peaks bubbling.
<ITEM> So let’s knuckle down for the crunch, open your aureoles and get SILENCING!
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This edition of SILENCE! is proudly sponsored by the greatest comics shop on the planet, DAVE’S COMICS of Brighton.
October 8th, 2014 at 5:56 am
The Boys Are Back
I SAID
The Boys Are Back
The Boys Are Back
In Tow-aow-ow-aow-un
The Boys Are Back In Town
Na-Nanalana NA na,
Na-Nanalana NEH na,
Na-Nanalana NA-NA-NA-NA
na na nuhhh
I seg’d straight from last week-o-podde into this one, so am glad to hear talk of Reid Fleming again. I picked up the massive hardcover back in January, off the back of Tom Spurgeon’s regular reccos, but have yet to read it. I love that iconic nose, though.
Since last week’s show, I have read some boss comics. I mentioned Vince Hunt’s RED MASK FROM MARS (http://www.theredmaskfrommars.com), about a scientist who ends up with a star crab bonded to his head, endowing him with durability and strength, etc.. Well I picked up issue 1 at NottsCon and by honk it might be about the best first issue I’ve read in years. Solid, cartoony art married to sharp, snappy dialogue exploring a rollocking sci-fi action premise in which the eponymasque hero leaps out of a plane into our hearts, via the guts of a giant squid monster. Shaun Dobie’s colours are the delishiest, too. The free origin story is up at the above link, so definitely check that out.
I also re-read the first issue of FINGERS CROSSED, by Jim Pownall and Steve Roberts, in which a young shaver deals with teenage lust and jealousy as he suffers in the braggadocious shadow of his best mate. It’s a really accomplished and note-perfect depiction of the kind of life a certain sort of young British boy might live. Very grounded dialogue, clear emotional tones. The art is great too, having the appearance of naiveté but with solid and evolving chops. The shading is spot-on.
I also also read GI JOE VERSUS THE TRANSFORMERS, collecting the 80′s mini alongside the abysmal 1993 refit which saw Megatron turn from cool white metal gun to gash Creamfields tank. Honking. The original mini is pretty wack, too, apart from the GI Joes straight-up murdering an unarmed robot Beetle under the direction of a hypnotic robot beetle. Oh, and the Mark Harmon character walks out of a huge battle to go play Porkchop Sandwiches with a turncoat senator. Page to page, it switches from All Your Action Figures to Yuppie Knobbing, and in so doing, invents the Prismatic Age Of Comics.
I picked up 1-3 of All-New Ghost Rider for £2, and I loved it. The new car-based GR replaces a terrible bike-based one who I only encountered in a run of Venom comics that were on sale at the ‘Ology. Sadly, they neglected to include the final part of her story, so I can’t tell you how she dies. I imagine it’s ha ha wonderfully ironic. Hit in the skull with a thurible on the back of a Vespa, no doubt. The new GR and his magical murder car are a great pair; a good kid unable to escape the dehumanising gravitation of his hometown, just trying to do good by his only slightly uncomfortably dialogued brother. The haunted car is a bad bastard as well. Scary. Tradd Moore’s art is swit-swoosh expressive, energetic stuff. A fine read.
I re-read WicDiv 1, which I bought on the digi-double-dip for 69p. Worth it to be able to really study McKelvie’s faces good and close. There’s a change happening here. Jamie’s drawing the eyes a little bigger, the faces are jjjjust a little, not looser, but more confident. The same ligne clarity, the same cool spacial placement, but just a little more…give. Noice.
I read the first issue of Supreme Blue Rose. I wanted to hate it. I mean, I wanted to hate. it. But I couldn’t. The art is lush, although I haven’t quite grokked all the blue lines through everything (connective veins/capillaries?). The usual Warren Ellis blah blah blah applies – writer, regurgitated word salad, some load of tot – but there’s at least one genuinely beautiful line in there, and plenty of really evocative concepts. It’s all a little Seventh Seal/start of From Hell, but no bad thing.
I managed to pick up an issue of The New Statesmen for a pound at Notts, as well. Bit dry by today’s standards, but still fab. Three to go.
Oh! And I read some of Remender, Moore et al.’s Venom, and while I hate the very thought of Flash Thompson being a superhero, the execition is perfect. Theme of fathers casting long shadows very strong and well-explored.
NottsCon was pretty good, in the end. Would’ve liked to have sold more, but I think that’s more about what I’m selling than the show. I only spent about £30 in total, but I could have easily spent it in about a hundred different combinations, even if you don’t include the Ghost Riders. So many ace new comicos to meet. So many oul’ muckers to touch base with. #LeamCon next.
Great podde from the #classic team, though. All the better for the Conquest of Trifling Baud.
//\Oo/\\
October 8th, 2014 at 9:43 am
Wanted to say, Matt, your guest star appearance went great the other week.
October 8th, 2014 at 10:48 pm
Congratulations on another great podcast guys. I thought Breaking Up Was Hard To Do but you proved me wrong!
Lesser podcasters would have considered an hour of technical mishaps interspersed with holiday stories (who doesn’t love those?) and rushed reviews wasn’t fit for broadcast but not Silence!
Keep up the good work, loving it.
October 8th, 2014 at 11:18 pm
Thanks. We do it for the fans.
October 9th, 2014 at 9:57 am
Yes. We do it on the fans.
October 9th, 2014 at 9:57 am
That was me.
October 9th, 2014 at 10:21 am
Couldn’t even do that right…
October 9th, 2014 at 2:33 pm
A strangely harrowing Silence!, bringing back memories of a long-distance relationship frequently scuppered by Skype.
Still! This latest podcast helped stop the banal horror of the fact I am typing this in my old teenage bedroom, in a bout of month-long regression due to being Between Flats.
God Hates Astronauts sounds like a right laff. Going to check that out. If it sounds funny just being described, then that’s a pretty good sign.
Siku’s Dredd makes me laugh, maybe because even though his face was drawn as a fossilised ballbag, there was a complete lack of humour to his work. Maybe it’s the ‘using one name’ thingy, it adds a sort of joy-sucking pretentiousness, perhaps?
Matthew Craig: I also am enjoying New Ghost Rider, sort of, in the sense that I like the bits where he’s hanging out in his haunted car with his Bleachy Hollow face.
The previous Ghost Rider, Alejandra, was indeed awful. Aztek-meets-GR is okay in theory, but the reality was pretty wretched, and I was incredibly irritated by the fact the flames around her skull were drawn as if they were long, flowing locks of flame-hair. Ye ken, ‘cos she’s a woman, eh. Fucksake. Tiny bit of ingrained comics sexism that stood out in the comic as there wasn’t much else TO stand out.
I demand John Blaze’s flame-heid be drawn like a fiery mullet, in recompense!
Dinnae think she died, though, she just stopped being Ghost Rider and was forgotten by everyone except me.
I don’t know when I got so into Ghost Rider. But I did.
And it hurts. I crave the 90s hit of Midnight Sons and the weird feeling provided by its whole “Saturday morning cartoon version of John Carpenter’s Vampires” thing.
Remender’s ‘Venom’ is a real good superhero comic, but suffers when Tony Moore’s not drawing it. He hit a real Party Spot around that time, what with his Frankencastle and Venom and Jason Aaron Ghost Rider art.
Shame he’s being wasted on Deadpool. Why doesn’t he draw the characters I like? WHAT ABOUT MEEEE?
Ahem.
Wish I was going to attend Thoughtball this year! All my plans to do so collapsed. Same with the Lakes Comic Art Festival (which was just fantastic last year), though I do have some art up in a gallery window for it (plugsy for me), so it is like I’m there, in spirit. Or in a way that involves me spending lots of money having art printed up that I can’t actually go and look at.
Hey, I could have condensed this comment into a few concise sentences, but then I wouldn’t be as much like one of those pointlessly verbose dipshits that writes into the Kermode podcast.
October 9th, 2014 at 3:02 pm
“I don’t know when I got so into Ghost Rider. But I did.”
I still can’t believe I’ve been reading Daredevil comics non-stop since 1998. (Well, apart from that wack Echo story. Yes, we get it, you’re a talented painter, shut up and throw a bloody pie).
My main recollection of visiting Glasgow City Centre in 1994 is of paving stones on the periphery of vision, as I walked from comic shop to comic shop reading back issues of Ghost Rider.
(well, that and nearly driving full-pelt into Glasgow Central station because me Da hadn’t realised that the road layout had changed in the thirty years since they left)
//\Oo/\\
(PS: cheers, Adam!)
October 9th, 2014 at 3:55 pm
I think Kieron Gillen touched on it last podcast and it ties in nicely with what the Beast Must Die was talking about this podcast with the whole punk ethos, you guys have a great vibe and are so far removed from the usual navel gazing comic review wankery that it’s really refreshing.
Also chalk up another comment about how all last weeks guests were great, from me.
October 10th, 2014 at 10:38 am
God Hates Astronauts sounds a little bit like Ryan Cecil Smith’s SF series, anyone read that? It’s really good, stream-of-nonsenseness laughs delivered through brushed inks both scrappy and sweeping.
Really enjoyed Jason Shiga’s Demon, some/all(?) of which is available for free online at http://www.shigabooks.com/ Happy to wait for paper installments, myself. I got the sense from the afterword that it may soon diverge from my particular tastes – does he mention South Park, or something? – but we’ll see. Great cartooning, in the meantime.
October 12th, 2014 at 10:38 am
Nice to have mummy and daddy back, even if there is an air of non-sexual tension in the air.
I’m just starting to read The Walking Dead (hello from 1978) from the get-go. Does it differ much from the TV series? I like the start in a straightforward fun sort of way.
I also watched this short Frank Quitely doc which I have an uneasy feeling you’ve mentioned already but here’s the link anyway http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03v2vcb/what-do-artists-do-all-day-9-frank-quitely it seems it’ll be on there for a few Months and worth a check. Doesn’t look much of a fun life to me but he obviously loves it. Interesting like…
October 12th, 2014 at 11:18 am
Silence: the Kramer Vs Kramer of podcasts
October 12th, 2014 at 12:20 pm
“An air…in the air”. Christ what am That? Tautology-fest
October 13th, 2014 at 4:12 pm
I think we should call Game of Thrones fans “Thronies.”