Mindless Ones

(CN: Rape)

When the sixth issue of Providence came out we talked about not wanting it in our houses.  We made nervy comments about custom raids, then talked about taboos and how sometimes – just sometimes – they were there to serve a valid social function.  We said the usual stuff about how the culture warriors of the ’60s and ’70s might find themselves fighting for the other side now without even realising it, and we mocked ourselves for saying it too.

We acknowledged that saying there was a lot of rape in Alan Moore’s comics didn’t really constitute new information at this point, but agreed that this was no excuse for ignoring it.  We talked about the way Providence #6 played with perspective on a visual and narrative level on a way that made us complicit while also putting us in the role of the victim, comparing the derangement of time in the issue to the derangements of character and culpability experienced by the protagonist.  We weighed the argument for the book’s implicit condemnation of authority, and came back again and again to the potential impact of all its cleverness on survivors.  We made defenses then talked ourselves out of them.

We were rattled, shook.

Mostly though we talked about how we didn’t want it hanging around our living rooms and how we were going to burn it/chuck it into a charity bag/hurl it deep into the pit.

Sophie B – Last Orders (self published, picked up at Thought Bubble comic con, 2019)

A confident comic book debut from the talent behind 2018’s You Can Be Anything™, Last Orders gives you attractive characters in an attractive setting then works to show you how much flavour can be achieved with just the right combination of ingredients.

Those elements being “Gays, Ghosts and Grub”, obviously.

Even a passing glance will tell you that every aspect of this comic has style to spare, but a more attentive eye will reveal a sense of purpose underpinning the design. After all, it’s not just the info boxes that tell us who Robin and Esther are.  The way their outfits reflect each other’s haircuts, the way their conversations move from friendly sparring to sparkling monologue by way of shared glances, the way that those info boxes drop down into the story itself as it progresses – all of this tells us the same story, with no single aspect overpowering the light feast of narrative detail.

That it manages all this and plot about unfinished business almost seems like too much to ask from a first issue…

HOLY HECK! WHAT THE FUN IS THAT?! PARDON MY FRENCH BUT WHAT THE ACTUAL FUN IS THAT?! THERE! UP THERE! LOOK!! IT’S DOWN THERE TOO! IT’S… IT’S… BLURB!!!!

Gary Lactus and The Beast Must Die are back together, just like the good old days, talking over Skype, drinking beer, and being total legends forever cruising down the highway until they crash into the Sun and the sky explodes!

<ITEM> Talking! Covid 19, crumpets, Closed comic shops, the collapse of television, lunch and dinner and The Beast has seen the sci-fi horror, Await Further Instructions.

<ITEM> Come with us to Reviewniverse and hear tell of Steed and Mrs. Peel, Modesty Blaise, Punisher: Soviet, Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters, Jimmy Olsen, Ilya’s second collection of his End Of The World Club strips, Timewarp and a whole lotta diverging chat about revisionism, the death of Gary Lactus and bladders.

<ITEM> The end of the episode

<ITEM> Hey listen!

@frasergeesin
@thebeastmustdie

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Hello there. This issue of SILENCE! has been put together from conversations between Gary Lactus and The Dear Listener. Normal SILENCE! service shall return soon.

CONTENTS!

Little Kieron Gillen is off school and talks The Ludocrats and Asterix with the recent passing of Albert Uderzo. He also bigs up Pulp by Brubaker and Phillips before getting on with his homework.

Spare 5 tells Gary about life at home right now where he’s found time to get round to reading Uzumaki and watching Galaxy Quest.

John Bishop tackles the topics of the sickness of collecting, his new dog, Ryan Brown and Blast Furnace.

Illogical Volume fulfills a diversity quota with his Scottishness. He tells Gary about The Drifting Classroom the newly colourised From Hell and Gary tells him about Billionaire Island and there’s speculation about our post-virus world.

Zom is our final caller even though he lives close enough to Gary’s spaceship in space to shout. He’s done a right good read of David Boring so the pals talk about Daniel Clowes and ponder what sort of Batman they are.

The end. Now wash your hands. Seriously, wash your hands.

@frasergeesin
@thebeastmustdie

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Esther McManus – Windows (See You at the Potluck, 2018)

This one comes from what my partner calls the “They Saw You Coming” side of the comic/zine world.  Every time I visit a comics festival or zine fair I come back home with at least 2-3 books full of pictures of buildings, or parts of buildings, or spaces where buildings used to be.  I rarely regret it.

Esther McManus’ Windows is an excellent example of the form, a series of portals that have been removed from any supporting context in a way that serves as startling prompt to the imagination:

The work demanded by this zine doesn’t just come in the form of having to reconstruct the urban environment – that’s the most immediately striking element, of course, a natural by-product of the composition of the piece, but it’s the start of a process rather than its final conclusion.

In its gradual blurring of the distinction between windows and the shapes that frame them, its removal of the human from the urban environment, and its finding of new ways to recombine familiar shapes, Windows is ultimately more Ballardian in its effects than it may initially appear.

Moving beyond brutalist cliches, this is a work that re-imagines the city as something that is no longer for us – a space that exists on the other side of the portal, where there is nothing to be reflected except windows looking on windows looking on windows all the way down.

It is March 2020.  I suspect that this scene is more familiar to many of us now than it would have been at any previous point in my lifetime.

ALL HAS BEEN FORGOTTEN AND THE PLASTIC TURNS TO ROTTEN
RAYS AND SMELLS

Look, long story short, I had this dog that fed on anger. I got into an argument with a mate and it was too much for the dog and it exploded a red mist which covered the city, making everyone furious. The more angry everyone got, the more the red mist grew. Eventually the world burned, everything collapsed, billions died and now I’ve got a cat that eats guilt. So that’s why I didn’t write a blurb.

<ITEM> Welcome to our special foil-embossed anniversary issue! To celebrate we have more interruptions that any SILENCE! ever!

<ITEM> There’s some prime preambling here with talk of Marvel Comics The Untold Story and Steve Gerber. There’s some great Ash Wednesday chat and we say absolutely nothing new about Dan Didio. Oh, and we go on about whether there’s any point in comics continuity.

<ITEM> We enter The Reviewniverse where The End Of The Century Club, Sandman, Elektra Lives Again, Silver Surfer: Black, Deadline and Protector are all covered alongside the usual digressions.

<ITEM> Some of the most spectacular backmin chat you’ve ever heard!

@frasergeesin
@thebeastmustdie

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AND THEY’RE WONDERING WHY WE CAN’T CONNECT WITH THE RITUAL OF THE TRASHED GUITAR

You can earn money from home! Blurb writers urgently required to fill space at top of podcast post. Competitive rates. No real talent or wit required! Hurry hurry hurry!

<ITEM> S…S…S…SILENCE! (turn and face the strange). Gary Lactus & The Beast Must Die bringing you another hot shot pod rocket from out of their undercrackers and into your earholes.

<ITEM> Look, there’s probably some rambling nonsense and sponsorship and admin at the start. I can’t remember though. You have a listen and tell me about it in the comments.

<ITEM> The Beast Unboxes his latest treat-bundle for your listening pleasure

<ITEM> Into the glacial embrace of the Reviewniverse with the gasbags gasbagging about House of the Black Spot, Jamie Delano’s Animal Man, Baby by Philippa Rice, Lone Wolf & Cub, The Man Who F#@cked up Time, Chosen: the New Messiah, Eightball #23 (Death Ray) and probably more, maybe less??

<ITEM> I have a hangover. Go away.

@frasergeesin
@thebeastmustdie

[email protected]

FRIENDS. This is Rosie speaking, you may know me from Mindless-sphere podcasts Diane or The Shadow Trap. I am here to ask you a question. Do you like video games? Do you like the stuff that’s in video games? Yes? Well then it’s nothing but good news!

getObject is a new podcast about things in games. Each episode me and my co-host Paul try to find the spirit of an object and the way it lives in games. The first three episodes are up so you can join us for discussions of KEYS, MAPS, and GORE.

Please enjoy, and if you do enjoy please rate and review us on your favourite podcasting service and follow us @getobjectpod. CHEERS!

EVERYBODY INHERIT THE EARTH? WHY NOT?

What was the name of that guy..? You know, that guy with the…with the …you know all the words. That guy. Real talkative type. A regular wordsmith…what was his name? Chatterbox, he was. Flapping those gums all the time. Oh, what was his name?? It’s on the tip of my tongue. Bob? Bill? No….Blair? It was Blair I think. No, that’s not it…

BLURB!! THAT’S IT! BLURB!

Yeah. Hate that guy.

<ITEM> Explode into action! It’s 2020! New SILENCE! New DANGER! Old Gary Lactus & The Beast Must Die! Oof.

<ITEM> Bit of chat, bit of admin, bit of Sponsorship – Get down to the GOSH Comics sale which finished on 12th Jan! And a reckymendation for the Gossipmongers podcast.

<ITEM>Into the Reviewniverse with both feet! SPLOSH! Let’s chew the fat about Olympia, Milk & Cheese, Punisher: Soviet, Sandman Mystery Theatre, Pink Lemonade Holiday Grab Bag, Pirate Corp$, The Spectre, Sludge, Destroyer Duck and lot more you sexy sexpots.

<ITEM> Gary Lactus’ Best of The Decade!

<ITEM> SILENCE! Because The Film Has Started! and The Beast watched the recent Hellboy reboot and some of Shazam! Superheroes – they’re the great new fad that the kids can’t stop talking about!

THAT’LL DO PIGS

@bobsymindless
@frasergeesin
@thebeastmustdie

[email protected]