Mindless Ones

This week, instead of the usual preamble, I thought we might go for a straight up ‘story so far’ blurb. Afterall, most of our regular readers will have made up their minds about this strip by now and nothing I can say or do will convince the skeptics, the haterz, or the just plain old don’t-give-a-shitters among you that they should read it. But there’s always newbies flooding into Mindless Ones who deserve a little context, even if they can’t be bothered to read what came before. Do bear in mind though, guys, that there’s an awful lot of stuff you won’t have a clear idea of, a lot of context you WILL miss, and a huge amount of panel description that might not make any sense if you opt to drop in at the top.

THE STORY SO FAR….

When you laugh, when you cry, here comes Mickey Eye! AGAIN!!!

Sorry about the delay, Superteam. I would have posted this on Friday if it wasn’t for Zom’s notepad fucking up my shit. I was so angry I couldn’t face redoing the entire deleted file until today – I’m sure you understand.

So… this time round there’s a lot more talking – denser panels and whatnot – there’s more wildlife and a sprinkling of magic. BTW, I’ve been checking loads of comics and people break the 25 to 20 words a panel rule ALL THE TIME so I don’t feel that bad about it any more. Obviously if the action’s supposed to be fast paced you can’t go shoving soliloquies in character’s mouths, but if it’s just talking heads, or even a teensy bit of implied movement, then it doesn’t matter so much. Again, I won’t be coming over all Bendis or Kevin Smith.

I wrote this one under the influence of the mighty Melchior Productions Ltd, Vangelis (obviously, but specifically his Apocalypse Des Animaux stuff), Telepathe and Atlas Sound, so it’s all a little downbeat…. Apart from the parts that take place in the Engine Rooms, which I wrote while drinking and chatting with a mate. We had Stay High and Thunderheist on repeat. That LBG tune’s a corker (thankyou, Wrong Tom!).

STOP!

GET READY!

GO!

And so ends part one of our batbook. I hope you like it. I can’t tell you how fun it is writing this stuff, and in my not so humble opinion, it’s a million times better than most superhero comics out there. But then, like all fan-fic people, I’m writing it because it’s what I want to see. This one over-runs by a few pages, but hopefully the book’ll be so popular by the time we get to the fourth installment DC editorial won’t mind! I know I should’ve reigned this monster in, but I want you to be able to read the uncut version. And I wasn’t ripping off Grant – I wrote it before…. YOU KNOW ALL THIS……

There’s lots of fighting this time. Some secrets are revealed. Others will have to wait. There is an overall arc to this stuff.

I’ll get back to some real criticism next week

Hello again.

We start with more apologies (sorry Pillock).

Okay, to begin with, I reiterate: I finished scribbling down this and the next ish at least a couple of days BEFORE I read Final Crisis #7, so any similarities in theme and/or imagery are ACCIDENTAL.

I do not give a fuck for ripping off other writers. Morrison just seems to be ransacking my head at the moment.

OUT, DEMON !

Also: sure, I admit that this one’s pretty continuity heavy, but Damian does emerge from another continuity and I promise this’ll be the last time I bog the story down with it – there’s too much good shit going on in Nu-Gotham to bother with fusty old Brucey for more than a couple of issues. And, yeah, it is all a bit confusing, but this is the penultimate episode of the first arc and things are always supposed to get a little strange at this juncture. I’ll explain everything away next time I promise.

Well….. maybe.

So what have we got this time: bat-zombies, magic spells, more TNT and flying masonry than you can shake a stick it, Supermen Sans Frontieres, the Sensei’s winter retreat and zero fighting.

Something we’ll rectify with #4

Don’t worry – I haven’t gone all Brian Michael Bendis on your ass

“I thought this was, frankly, going to be so far up it’s arse it could taste itself.

It weren’t though.

Really enjoyed this…”

Our hopes and fears for this fan-fic extravaganza captured by our good friend Triplets in the comments thread for part one.

Give these a go, it’s not like Amy doesn’t rush off into fan-fic territory every time he writes one of those Rogue’s Reviews you all seem to love so much. In the opinion of this mindless, this is just as fun, if not more so.

-Zom

Like he said.

My only concern about this one is…. Well, you’ll probably understand what’s thorny about one of the themes about halfway through. I might need to add a bit more dialogue somewhere to prove I’m not a racist. There’s some dodgy ground.

Batman meets the candyfloss horizon after the jump

I honestly never intended for any of you lot to read this guff.

However!

When Zom found out I’d been writing comic scripts in my lazy hours, he insisted I put them up here.

And then he said he thought it might make us look like a bunch of conceited wankers.

And then he decided I should do it anyway.

So, if anyone digs it – I’m not that sure how good any of it actually is  – then you can look forward to seeing more of the same over at our soon to be unleashed sister site for, err, em>creative work</em>. It’ll be called The Warehouse of Broken Dreams, or something. Anything to keep the lawyers away.

Just a few thoughts before we get into this, because I know you’d offer up the life of your sister to read this shit, and we’d better get moving…..

If anyone slogged through our mindless ramblings over on Pillock’s intensely wonderful A Trout in the Milk blog, then you may remember – HOW COULD YOU FORGET?!!?! – me banging on about how much fun it’d be to write a Damian 666 comic. An alternate Batman from the universe next door, but, more importantly, a next generation Batman, would allow for so much more wriggle room – in fact I’d argue he’d demand it! His writer would almost have a duty to extend all the wild bat-conceits, themes and tonalities far, far beyond anything that’d come before. The son of the batverse would necessarily incorporate and reiterate in a far more concentrated and conclusive fashion all the tatty, flailing elements that constitute the present day Batman’s superbody. You really could have it all. And nobody would give a shit, seeing as it could all be dismissed as a *possible future*.

Realistically I’m sure a great deal of fandom would hate the book, but, fuck it, they’d only go and buy it anyway. And weep.

I’m not sure how much to tell you about the strip before we get this show on the road – I don’t want to spoil anything (Oh, the vanity!) – but I figure there’re some things it’d be nice to know (not necessary, I hope you’ll note, but nice). To begin with I want to stress that my Damian, in an attempt to remain truthful to Morrison’s original vision for the character, is far less morally rigid and considerably more ethically and tactically improvisational than his Father. He inhabits the twilight world of a new century where all the old certainties have flown out the window. A shifting Gotham whose suburbs and superscrapers are bleeding into the netherworld (PLEASE DON’T UNDERSTAND ME TOO QUICKLY), and where heroism is a flickering, ephemeral concept in permanent revolution. This is Batman at dusk, metaphorically speaking. Or is it dawn? All the usual suspects will feature – there’s a Robin, a Batmobile, a Batcave and plenty of fighting (I count four fights in the first issue alone, all jammed into 23 pages), but, as Moore describes Miller’s reimagining for his introduction to Dark Knight, ‘it’s all completely different’ (you see! I’m comparing myself to Frank Miller now! My God….). This Batman has a different family set-up – in fact family is pretty much the theme underscoring the first story arc – and is much more at home with all the weird psychedelia and wacky magical shit than Bruce Wayne. There just isn’t the same air of denial surrounding Damian. He’s at home in the DCU, entrenched in ways his predecessor wasn’t, and maybe finds it all kinda fun.

Anyway. Expect to be confused. It all moves pretty fast.

Without further ado:

Ah, we come to it late this week, and we also come mob handed. Poor Amy is having to deal with Real Life and couldn’t devote quite as much time to his annocommentations as he normally would. So we multiply, much as do the art teams on this ultimate event comic – if you think of amy as JG Jones, whose panels are the sole ones bordered in sheer black, Zom as Pacheco and I also, the Bots’wana Beast, as Marco Rudy. Perhaps bobsy will write about #7, filling the Doug Mahnke role. (p.s. if you’re expecting amy this week for Superman Beyond, tough shit, because I – that is, the BB – have called dibs on that and wrote about #1.)

As usual all things Final Crisis are occurring out of sequence because of delays and so forth, but let’s not worry too much about that, eh?

into the singulariiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiity!

Somebody must have mentioned it at the time. I’m sure I missed it. I mean, how could that little image in the right hand of the panel go unnoticed?

more after the jump