“Hacking forward from the back/leave the other one attached/an ugly fleshy flap”

Caspar of Antonisea was given a choice: either watch his great love, Annarelis, sentenced to death by a thousand insects for sheltering dissidents and in turn meet his own doom, or to join the temple of Zoroaster and become a priest, bound by oath to give fielty to the Emperor until death took him.

Dirty bugger chose to watch.

More after the jump

In Poodle’s Perry Bible Fellowship post he tacitly (or not so tacitly, I can’t remember) exhorted us to pay more attention to the small things. To give detail a chance to speak before it’s drowned out by our boorish information culture, and it’s to that end that I want to take a look, over a series of posts, at comic panels that have have a special place in my heart. Tucker Stone, you might want to look away now.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOgTsCkhvik]

More after the jump

Just a couple of things before we dive in: keen minds have already pored over this issue, so I don’t intend to cover all the bases, instead I’ve decided to offer up a subjective and personal response (nothing new there, then), served up with some bat-thoughts you won’t have read anywhere else. Also, I haven’t included the ads as *pages*. Has anyone noticed DC was generous enough to grant us 24 pages of story this month? I don’t know if that means they’re getting stingier with the specials, or if they’re getting more generous with the regular books. Regardless, big boys, can we have our comics this fat all the time now please?

And now, without further ado….

‘To the Batmobile, let’s go!’

Annotatin’ action after the jump…

Look here!

That’s the recently published Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers Omnibus! It’s got every single Freak Brothers adventure ever published plus a couple of previously unseen pages. Tymbus and I interviewed creator and underground comics legend, Gilbert Shelton and will be casting that pod in due course. First up though is this chat with Knockabout’s Tony Bennett.

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Hello, Mindless reader – today we begin what will hopefully be a series of interviews with our peers in what some like to call ‘the comics blogosphere’. We begin with the excellent one-time Countdown blogger (said focus didn’t last long, fear not) Andrew Hickey, who now posts his everything at the plenarily, and accurately, entitled Thoughts on music, science, politics and comics. Mostly comics. You should read it, he write good. Onward, then!

More after the jump…

SUPERMAN SAYS “NO!” TO DRUGS

It was 2005 when I decided to paint my walls ASS pink and give up dope.

I was a smug bastard about it too.

I think the catalyst for it had something to do with a very nasty about of drug fuelled morbid self-analysis, which saw me pacing my then matchbox of a bedroom, backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, for at least half an hour, in an attempt to disperse the soul-shredding anxiety and paranoia, through, if anyone should have really been spying on me via evil satellite link, embarrassing levels of exercise. Thankfully the munchies eventually kicked in, the clouds lifted and I decided enough was enough. It would be the last time I raided the fridge for Ryvita and sweetcorn relish (anything tastes good when your in the throws of, as my Mum’s friend put it, ‘the delicious eating’) at four in the morning, and it would be the last time I performed like a crazy monkey-man for the entertainment of the evil bastard demons plaguing my befuddled noggin.

After that everything shifted.

More after the jump…

I got my black shirt on.
I got my Black Gloves on.
I got my ski mask on.
This shit’s been too long.
…
Cape killer, better you than me.
Cape killer, fuck superhero brutality!
Cape killer, I know your whole league’s grievin’
(Fuck ’em.)
Cape killer, but tonight we get even.

– Cape Killer, by Ice-2 (the Ice-T of Earth-2)

A thought caught me, late last night, and it won’t let go. So let’s kick it around a bit, and see what we get out.

More after the jump…

VS

Synchronicity. Whilst finishing up Vol 2 of Fraction and Brubaker’s extremely enjoyable but flawed Iron Fist, I was reminded of John Carpenter’s wonderful (and prescient) love letter to the Shaw Brothers martial arts movies of the 60’s and 70’s, Big Trouble in Little China. Lo and behold I got home late last night, turned on the TV and there it was in all it’s ridiculous glory (Hail Jack Burton, greatest and most misunderstood action hero of all time!). Something about that film’s giddy and gleeful mish-mashing of East and West pulp genres has seeped it’s way into the current incarnation of Iron Fist. Or maybe it’s always been there. Western culture has long evidenced a love affair with Martial Arts and ‘Eastern Mysticism’ (in the form of green smoke, immortal warriors, and exotic sounding fighting styles rather than any, y’know, actual Eastern mythology). Post-Enter The Dragon the 1970’s went Kung-Fu crazy, and whilst the obsession may have dimmed slightly (or at least been transferred towards fighty computer games) you can guarantee that school yards still resound with the clamour of ill-conceived ‘Special Moves’ and misjudged spin-kicks.

More after the jump…

Okay, so this is the last bit we recorded. Here we each slag something off then big something up whilst sat on special hover chairs on my spaceship in space. No photos exist of this bit as my camera was on the floor and I couldn’t reach it because my hover chair was hovering too high. I think we’re going to make this a regular feature on our podcasts but we’re going to call the two sections “Voyage into the Negative Zone” and “Touchdown on Paradise Island” as we can travel to both of those places in my spaceship which is mine.

Download(NSFW)[audio:http://mindlessones.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/mopodcast004.mp3]

We’re planning to cast our pods again around Halloween when we’ll have a scary special edition from The Beast Must Die’s House of Haunted Horror! If you’ve listened to any of these aural assalts then: thankyou, glad you enjoyed it/sorry, well do better next time (delete as appropriate). So until next time…

KEEP IT COSMIC!