Mindless Ones

Being an irregular series wherein I spotlight some particularly beautiful cover runs, from some comics you might have forgotten about, or never seen before. This time it’s the turn of Martin Pasko and Rick Burchett’s Blackhawk…

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Or Flex Mentallo: A Moonrock Murder Mystery!!!!

Okay, as you [may or may not] know, Flex Mentallo is a very good comic by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely, a four issue Dennis Potter style drama in which a young man who [may or may not] have taken an overdose of paracetamol looks back at this life through the lens of superhero comics.

As you [may or may not] know, Flex Mentallo hadn’t been reprinted until now because of various preposterous legal issues.

Now it’s finally been reprinted in a very handsome hardcover package, you [may or may not] be aware that it’s been the victim of a strange recolouring job, the sort of recolouring that transforms Flex Mentallo’s greatest foe The Mentallium Man from a Jolly Rancher nightmare…

…into the grayest daydream you never had:

Now, I’ll throw a couple of kind words in the direction new colourist Peter Doherty in a minute, but it has to be said that anyone who thinks that a character called the Mentallium Man, who is an exaggerated parody of an old-fashioned comic book villain, needs to look all clean and boring like that is just plain wrong.

Actually, thinking about it, I’d go so far as to say that anyone who prefers this new incarnation of the character needs blasted with all five types of Flex’s own Kryptonite-derivative “Mentallium” at once:

Sadly we never find out what the fifth type of Mentalium, “Lamb and Turkey”, does to The Hero of the Beach, but I think we can take a guess and that our guesses will all be equally delicious.

Tasty tasy dogshit, mmmm!

The following piece appeared in the very fine Architects’ Journal, written by AJ’s Deputy Editor Rory Olcayto *. We’re proud to represent it here on Mindless Ones for your pleasure).

*aka Proto-Mindless One Brother Yawn

The vertiginous cityscape Moebius conjured for The Long Tomorrow is one of the most influential works of architectural art created in the past 50 years. It first appeared in cult magazine Metal Hurlant (Heavy Metal in the UK) in 1976, but its impact beyond comics, his medium of choice, is huge. Sadly the Frenchman, master of spatial representation in comic-book art, died of cancer a couple of weeks ago, aged 73. If you don’t know his work, here’s a short introduction.

In The Long Tomorrow, written by Alien scriptwriter Dan O’Bannon, a hard-boiled detective thriller unfolds on a planet-covering conurbation – an ecumenopolis (a term representing the idea of a worldwide city). Sky bridges and anti-gravity updrafts, now standard fare in Hollywood sci-fi, are set among towering monoliths defined by a stylised Brutalist and Art Nouveau mix.

It has been massively influential – particularly among filmmakers. George Lucas was ‘impressed and affected’ by Moebius, and Ridley Scott claimed The Long Tomorrow inspired his Blade Runner. The artist himself implemented his comic-book vision while production designer on Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element, the most literal transfer of his work to celluloid. The literary world was also in thrall, as William Gibson notes: ‘It’s entirely fair to say that the way Neuromancer-the-novel “looks” was influenced in large part by some of the artwork I saw in Heavy Metal. Those French guys, they got their end in early.’ Even Federico Fellini couldn’t resist Moebius’ art: ‘I have nothing but this to tell you, continue to draw fabulous for our joy, all of us.’

Moebius however was more than a science-fiction artist. He was first noticed for his Lieutenant Blueberry strips, a standard cowboy comic. And some of his most famous artwork depicts Venice, ‘a magical city out of time and space’. There is a typical Moebius twist – gondolas don’t float but fly, and canals have been replaced by deep ravines. Another image shows a floating Mont Saint-Michel, as if the citadel has uprooted itself from the shore below. This sense of breaking free from gravity is a recurring theme. Curiously given his mastery of the subject, Moebius confessed to having no special interest in architecture until he discovered Winsor McCay, the early 20th-century cartoonist who remains a key influence in comic-book art. ‘At first I was scared of architectural designs, because of their difficulty in terms of perspective, etc. When you draw as much science fiction as I do, it is hard not to dabble in architecture. But I remain an amateur. Winsor McCay was a master professional.’ Moebius. Modest. Magnificent. And very dearly missed.

Give me skeletons over zombies any time.

Zombies have no charge for me anymore. I mean, I get it. I understand completely why everyone obsesses over them, what they *mean*, but it took watching that sequence from Mean Streets again recently, where the drunk, bullet riddled barman continues to lurch towards his would be assassin even though he should’ve keeled over and died five minutes before, to make me feel horrified by the undead again. All the hallmarks of the zombie were there, the shambling flying dutchman of an un-person complete with lolling eyes and outstretched arms, persistance of movement and ‘mission’ inspite of massive structural damage…. But this time I needed a real body, something more literal, less of a symbol (and, now, not just a symbol for scary stuff we’d all rather not think about, but a portal to a whole genre of entertainment/fandoms/an industry, etc. – a tangled mess of associations, many of which I find boring/slash annoying), to make me re-experience the supernatural horror of undeath and thence the very real, physical body-horror it points to. It was an assbackwards way to get there, but it worked.

But we’re here to talk about skeletons, right?

Sonny Liew is an extremely talented comics creator working out of Singapore. He has worked on high profile releases for the Big Two, such as Re-Gifters and My Faith in Frankie for Vertigo, and Sense & Sensibility for Marvel. But his recently released collection of his own Malinky Robot comics through Image are perhaps the best indicator of his idiosyncratic and hugely engaging style.

We caught up with Sonny recently for a freewheeling chat about his craft.

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I’m taking part in an exhibition at London’s best comic shop, Orbital Comics. Here’s some info:

It is always interesting to see how artists portray themselves, so we asked a bunch of our favourite cartoonists to do just that!

The results will be on display at the orbital gallery this September/ October, with self-portraits by:

Adam Cadwell, Dan Berry, Dan White, David Hine, David O’Connel, Edward Ross, Ellen Lindner, Gareth Brookes, Garry Leach, Gary Erskine, Joe Decie, Josceline Fenton, Julia Homersham, Kristyna Baczynski, Luke Pearson, Mark Stafford, Paul Rainey, Philippa Rice, Richard Cowdry, Rufus Dayglo, Sammy Borras, Shaky Kane, Thorsten Sideboard, Timothy Winchester and Tom Humberstone.

This Sunday 18th September, the Orbital Gallery will host a private view to celebrate the opening of our latest exhibition: the Orbital Self-Portrait Show.

Including contributions from such incredible cartoonists as Shaky Kane, Garry Leach, David Hine, Rufus Dayglo and many more, this show is not to be missed, and you can be the first to see it by coming down to the launch party, where you’ll have the opportunity to meet many of the artists involved.

Doors open at 6pm.

If you’re in London on Sunday and fancy popping down, I’ll be there from 6 onwards. Come and say hello.

Otherewise the exhibition runs from Sepember 19 – October 15th.

Being: the first of three posts about Carla Speed McNeil’s “aboriginal science fiction” series Finder…

Reading one of Carla Speed McNeil’s Finder comics is like wandering through a strange new city without a reliable guide. Or a map, for that matter, but maybe that’s better in the end. After all, sometimes maps can cause a different sort of trouble:

A map can organize the world according to almost any principle of order…. All classificatory grids are arbitrary. They have no necessary or absolute status. It does not matter what kind of grid is used on the map. Any system of lines or points of reference can be imposed to provide orientation, although different mappings may serve very different interests…. For those who inhabit particular mappings, they are likely to be viewed simply as reality.

(Geoff King, Mapping Reality – an Exploration of Cultural Cartographies – via Dylan Horrocks)

Forget maps for a minute.  Let’s stick our head in there and see what we see…

Ah, well, as far as broad statements of intent go, that one’s as good a starting place as any for this post.  You see, unlike that other master of anthropological science fiction, Ursula Le Guin, McNeil doesn’t pretend to build up her world up systematically in front of your eyes.  Instead,  find yourself discovering information about the cultures in Finder almost accidentally, by watching the characters interact and keeping your eye on some of the key sights. No wonder Kelly Sue DeConnick compared the book to a shotgun blast!  Still, I’ll stick with my ‘strange city’ analogy, if only because of the comic’s pace.

Freshly re-released as part of this collected edition, Finder: Sin Eater is a brilliant, wandering introduction to a truly great comic book. It’s a twisted mess of a story, with family ties, military ties and cultural boundaries revealing themselves at a leisurely pace, all the better to fully appreciate the damaged contexts the cast of characters live in. McNeil’s art becomes more and less abstract as the story dictates, sometimes suggesting an expressionistic hybrid of Western alt-comics and manga tropes, at other points snapping into “realistic” focus to give us a better look at the thoroughly singular world she’s created.

Want to find yourself falling faster and faster until your body bursts into fire? Then click away dear reader, click away!

STARTS TODAY!

TO BE CONTINUED….

Starting this week, a brand new weekly Cindy & Biscuit strip, exclusive to Mindless Ones. Who are Cindy & Biscuit? Why don’t you find out for yourself?

And don’t just take my word for it. Look here and here for further proof!

And check back next week to find out what exactly they did with their weekend

Being: a speculative essay on the self-regulating limits of reality/a celebration of impurity/ a demonstration of the many sickening uses of human waste/ a manifesto for kinder, gentler wank fantasies/a failed attempt to write a feminist critique of The Filth/ and, finally, an embarrassed declaration that it’s time for something great …

1. In The End, Everybody Wins

There’s a moment in the last issue of Grant Morrison and Chris Weston’s scatological sci-fi horror comedy, The Filth, which seems to me to perfectly capture the panic of the moment. Greg Feely/Ned Slade, negotiator for the covert organisation known as The Hand and weird, porno-drenched bachelor, has finally snapped. After twelve issues of black comedy and painful existential eruptions, Feely has had enough. His pet cat Tony has died, depriving him of the only love he knew, and now he’s taking his protest right to the very heart of things, to his superior officer Mother Dirt.

As he storms through The Crack, Greg is confronted by his fellow Hand agent, Miami, who reminds him that he has been recycled into the very system he’s rebelling against. Before he was Hand negotiator Ned Slade, she claims that Greg “wouldn’t want to know” what he was:

You, Thunderstone, Bemmer… the whole crazy gang of social activists… You were all gonna destroy the foundation stone of the world.

The system is perfect, Ned. It has to be perfect; it’s all there is. Attacking The Hand is like attacking your own immune system. [1]

Does this seem familiar to anyone else? As the foundations are shaken and explosions go off all around, a wide-eyed Miami tries to stop Greg by telling him, what… that there aren’t any other options? It’s a statement that would seem perfectly at home in our current political climate. Don’t like the way things are going? Think that terrible acts are being carried out in your name? Feel a bottomless pit open up inside you whenever you even think about Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron or Nick Clegg? Find yourself choking on your own sick when you hear Chancellor/arch bastard George Osborne give a speech to the Tory party conference in which he lays the blame for Moneygeddon (© Charlie Brooker & co 2009) purely on the (admittedly very guilty) Labour party, as though Blair and the boys weren’t just following Thatcher’s lead?

What about when he goes on to tell the poorest UK citizens that they’re going to have to pull their socks up, or claims that he “believes” in public services – does that make you feel like punching your own face off?  Well, tough! This is the way the world works now, history has ended and there are no alternatives, so suck it up or go home. If you’ve still got one, that is.

Vote Labour or Vote Tory, hell you can even Vote Lib Dem if you like. This is what you’re getting, this half-cut shadow life.  All other options have been deemed non-mutual, incompatible with life as we know it! And may the gods help you if you want to make any bigger changes – under the current system, your proposals cannot be countenanced!

And what’s Greg’s response to all of this? How does he react to this bold statement?

Well, he storms out, eyes blazing like a fucking demon:

But hey, wouldn’t you? [2]

Immerse yourself in Morrison and Weston’s Filth after the jump!