Mindless Ones

When I started doing these posts a few weeks ago, I titled the series ‘Season 6B’ as sort of a joke for Doctor Who fans. I say sort of a joke, because it’s a geek joke, which is to say something that isn’t actually funny but references something else.

In this case, I was referencing the idea in fan circles that there was an unseen-but-‘canonical’ ‘season 6B’ of Doctor Who, which came between series six (Patrick Troughton’s last) and seven (Jon Pertwee’s first), in which the Troughton Doctor had various adventures, including his parts of the multi-Doctor stories The Three Doctors and The Five Doctors.

So it was sort of a joke, in a way, because the current series of Doctor Who has been split into two halves, and it’s the sixth series of the revived show, and so I’m reviewing season 6B for real. Do you see?

But I’m increasingly of the opinion that Moffat made the joke himself…

Danny Noble’s cartoon diary of abstinence. You can also read her new Monday Morning strip, updated pretty much daily here. Older work can be found here.
Click on the images to enlarge.

Click here to see the rest of the week

More vile shite here.

‘Multi award-winning writer Mark Millar has revamped the X-Men, launched a number one Spider-Man title, brought Captain America into the 21st Century and made Superman a communist. He is also the writer of the US industry’s biggest-selling comic book of the past decade, Marvel’s Civil War, published in 2007. His Wanted comic series was the industry’s biggest-selling creator-owned book of the last ten years until he smashed his own record with Kick-Ass, each issue selling more than Spider-Man and X-Men from issue one with an unprecedented five printings every issue. Both properties were sold as movies before the first issue hit the stands and everything Millar has ever created is in various stages of theatrical development. Wanted starred Angelina Jolie and James McAvoy. Kick-Ass stars actor Nicolas Cage.’

As that other great villain John Bender says, ‘The world’s an imperfect place’.

Still, Nicolas Cage though…

Ok, so there are some big Wire *SPOILERS* coming up here, so anyone who hasn’t got to the end of the show would do well to sit down and play catch up while we discuss a young man called Marlo Stanfield.

Like GZA said, it’s a cold world, so make sure you’re holding heat before you click for more!

Awright troops, Illogical Volume here, with a bit of fine
imported basterdry for ye!

Like another recent guest post, this one started with a tweet from Bostwana Beast.

I’m not sure that aka the Original Eyeball intended to start a fight here, but he should’ve known no tae challenge a proper weegie baistart like my pal Scott McAllister, aka Mr Attack, aka The Boy Fae the Heed, because a man like Scott disnae back down fae fuck aww.

Well, at least not when there are Transformers involved. Anyway, that’s enough of my pish. Here’s what the lad Scott had to say about Thunderwing:

It’s another day at the office in Marvel UK in the late 1980’s. Creative license tells me that at this point in history, it would be dark all the time, and it would be raining. A package has been couriered over from Hasbro, and contains the latest information on new products that must be featured in future issues of Transformers. By this point, the engineering has gotten less interesting, and the toys can be changed in about two or three moves. Quite often these days, they are accompanied by a humanoid shell to contain them in, like a a sarcophagus with arms that can only rotate at the shoulders. A quick glance of the villains line-up reveals it looking more and more like the cover to an Iron Maiden single.

On top of that, with Budiansky departing the American book, it seems the personalities of the toys have fallen into the doldrums, with each character little amounting to endless variations of “he is so bad, so very, very bad”, “he is soooooo good it hurts”, “he is evil because he is mental and robots don’t do meds” or “he’s sort of a good guy, but if we’re honest he’s a bit of a wank”.

Now, if you’re one of the cartoon writers, you stare into the mirror, remind yourself you’re too good for this shit and that you’re only in it for the money, so you recycle the plot of some other show you wrote, and have the new villain you’ve been requested to début elect to secretly build some giant weather-controlling device, or hypnosis booth or some shite, and have him turn up at the end as the mastermind of it all, to get his ass kicked.

But, you’re not one of those guys. You are Simon Furman. Simon Furman only has one question in his head EVER. “How can I make this guy interesting so that he’ll be remembered long after I kill him to bits?”.

Wanna see a masterclass in how to make people give a fuck? Then click on dear readers, click on!

Part 11:

Parts 1 – 10

Who are Cindy & Biscuit? Why don’t you find out for yourself?

Huge spoilers from the start

I struggled with this one for all of five seconds until I remembered that my favourite TV series ends as it began, with the threat of many more bodies wrapped in plastic

The battle between BOB, the evil spirit that haunts the woods surrounding Twin Peaks, and Special Agent Dale Cooper, is nothing less than a Manichean struggle between good and evil. BOB is the home invader, the predatory paedophile, the serial killer. He’s every tabloid nightmare made fantasmal flesh. Worse, he’s the madness that made the good man Leland Palmer rape and kill his daughter, Laura, wrap her corpse in plastic and throw it in the river. Dale Cooper on the other hand is the answer to the question, what if Buddha were a policeman? In constant communication via dictaphone with his forever absent personal assistant cum spirit guide, Diane, Cooper’s a coffee loving, pastry chomping saint with a badge. The kindly face of authority come to rescue us from All Bad Men, and guess what? He fails, and he fails catastrophically.

Fire walks with you after the jump

I come to you, a lapsed Squaxx.

I stopped reading the Galaxy’s Greatest in any sort of regularity a long time ago. More than 15 years ago I reckon. That wasn’t always the way though. For a long time 2000AD was the most important comic in my life. I don’t really need to list the reasons – you’ve heard it all before no doubt. English comics fans proudly informing their bored US counterparts that they don’t know shit son, cos they weren’t there. But fucking hell man sometimes it was hard not to gloat – Millligan & Ewins on on the scorching psychedlic war strip Bad Company; Morrison & Yeowell on Zenith;  Mills & O’Neill on the utterly original and frankly just plain crazy Nemesis; Mills & Bisley on the heavy metal nihilism of ABC Warriors; the incredible John Wagner (whose contribution alone to absolute fucking rock solid thrill power for the last 35 years means that, really, we should have a National holiday celebrating the man…); Brendan McCarthy; Mike Fucking McMahon; Bolland, Gibbons; Cam Kennedy’s incredible shattered war torn planetscapes that still absolutely kill it; Brendan McCarthy again; Halo Jones (Alan Moore’s best work, and it is so fuck off and it’s a proper tragedy but also kind of beautiful that it’ll never be finished); John Hicklenton (RIP); DR & Quinch; Big Dave;Dredd’s boots….JOHN MOTHERFUCKING SMITH….

Fuck, I did it anyway. Sorry…

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We know it doesn’t matter,
Cause what you came to see
Is what we’d love to give you,
And give it one, two, three!

But there may come three, two, one, two
Or jump from nine to five,
And when you see the end in sight
The beginning may arrive!

For those who look for meaning,
And form as they do facts,
We might tell you one thing
But we’d only take it back

Not back like in a box back
Not back like in a race,
Not back so we can keep it,

But back in time and space!