Mindless Ones

Right then. Quick blurb.

Blurb.

There we go.

In this episode Gary Lactus is sad but happy to be podding with his best pal The Beast Must Die.

They’re going to be doing SILENCE! To Astonish! at Glasgow Comic Con. Fine.

In this issue they talk about Pope Hats, Poo Pants, Mad Magazine, Superman Year One, End Of The Fucking World, Immortal Hulk, Sonata, To The Death and other digressions. Also The Beast has seen Into The Spiderverse and loved it just like everyone else, the sheep. Why couldn’t he just have a hot take on it for the click bait? Oh yeah, and there’s another Beast Unboxing in a toilet.

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I KNOW YOU WANNA HOLD MY HAND, I KNOW YOU’RE GONNA LOVE MY BAND

BEEEEEP

Listen, I know you’re there, so pick up the phone. I can wait….Look I know you, I’ve been your agent for 20 years. I know when you’re ignoring me. Listen, they just need this blurb okay? Correction – they needed it yesterday. So just write the damn thing William Shakespeare! Get back to me.

*CLICK*

BEEEEEP

ANSWER THE GODDAMN PHONE! COME OUT FROM UNDER THE TABLE, GET OUT OF THE BATHTUB, WHATEVER! Just…it’s not that…hard. Just write me a god-damned blurb for this god-damned podcast! It’s not art! It’s not literature! But it pays the god damned bills and keeps the god damned light on. So please. For me. Pick up thy god damned quill, and write! Get back to me.

*CLICK*

BEEEEEEP

I’m coming round. I’m bringing weapons…

<ITEM> HOO HAH! It’s only a ruddy SILENCE! guv! Here to fondle your charlie browns and brighten up your day. Gary Lactus & The Beast Must Die have dug themselves up and are ready to talk comics, comics, comics!

<ITEM> Adminge. Sponsorhitz. And ‘SILENCE! Because The Film Has Started…‘ with The Beast’s review of Ant Man & The Wasp and more importantly In Bed With Chris Needham.

<ITEM> PISSCRIME!

<ITEM> When Wakes The Reviewniverse? RIGHT NOW PUNX! Lotsa chat including Swamp Thing 60, League of Extraordinary Gentelemen: Tempest, Grave Horticulture, Demon by Jason Shiga, Eve Stranger, Immoral Hulk, Immortal Hulk, Hey Listen!, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and The Freshmen Force, Green Lantern, Hellblazer 40 and probably more. Oh and probably Game of Thrones. But more importantly The Shitpipe Chronicles.

<ITEM> NEW FEATURE ALERT. The Beast Unboxes, featuring the thrilling sounds of a man opening packages in the toilet!!

<ITEM> No more, greedy guts!

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Guest contributor Strontium Cat takes a look at how Judge Dredd arrived at the most recent John Wagner penned epic, Machine Law.

2000 AD’s recent Machine Law (progs 2115-2122) is one of my favourite ever Judge Dredd stories and deserves some attention. The Galaxy’s Greatest comic and its signature strip have now been going for forty two years, so it’s easy to take it for granted and overlook what remarkable, interesting work John Wagner continues to do with his creation.
READ THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE

TURTLES HAVE SHORT LEGS, NOT FOR WALKING

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UUUURB!

<ITEM> Oh look it’s another SILENCE! Or is it? Yes it is.

<ITEM> Gary Lactus & The Beast Must Die mix background noise and prattle in a delicious, perfectly seasoned slow-cooked stew. Sponsorship! True Piss Crime! The Rule Of Three podcast on Leo Baxendale’s Willy The Kid! Black Summer! Admin! Something different in every spoonful! Tuck in!

<ITEM> Come with us to Reviewniverse with Myfanwy Tristram’s Ladies Of The Lakes, Grave Horticulture, Animal Man, Rad Erwank and Conspiracy Dog, Batman: Venom, Batman: Proficiency, My Pretty Vampire and a proper good discussion of Kieron Gillen and Caspar Wijngaard’s Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt.

<ITEM> Reckymends: Andrew Hickey’s A History Of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs

<ITEM> Shall we?

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I’M JUST LIVING IN A LIFE WITHOUT MEANING. I JUST WALK AND WALK AND DO NOTHING

Imagine a blurb, stamping on your comics. Forever.

STOMP! Take that, you chromatic, fully painted, prestige format, limited edition, ashcan piece of sh*t!

Are we having fun yet?

<ITEM> It’s been a while but we’re back in style. well, not really. We’re just back. In a way we’ve sort of slunk in the back and tried to sit down without anyone noticing. SILENCE! What? We’ve always been here.

<ITEM> Gary Lactus & The Beast Must Die bringing you our usual mix of incompetence and insouciance – comics opinionating just the way you like it. Admin, Sponsorshiup? Yup! Discussion of Comics Crossovers as euphemisms for Toilet Breaks? Right here baby!

<ITEM> Reviewniverse time! There’s a hefty discussion of Heroes in Crisis (Cry-sis more like amirite??) The Skrulls, Zack Soto’s ‘Secret Voice’, the 1989 Catwoman series, and a bunch more that I can’t remember cos it’s been so long since we recorded. Find out for yourself! Life’s like a box of chocolates apparently.

<ITEM> Some reckymends? yeah probably

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PUT A RED NOSE ON YOUR CONK AND LET’S STONK

Imagine world. Go on, close your eyes, imagine a world. Come on, Imagine a world. A whole world. Quickly! COME ON! NO, NOT THAT WORLD, IT’S TOO MUCH LIKE THIS ONE! THINK OF A BETTER WORLD! Ah, forget it. No, don’t bother.

Imagine a blurb. Okay? Good.

<ITEM>Uncharacteristically scorchingly hot on the heels of SILENCE!#263 comes SILENCE!#264!  Too much?  Never enough?  Never mind, Gary Lactus and The Beast Must Die remain consistently inconsistent.

<ITEM>We hope you enjoyed the SILENCE! Special with Gareth A. Hopkins, pick up a copy of Petrichor here.

<ITEM>BIG NEWS! We will be joining Al Kennedy for a special SILENCE! To Astonish Live! at the Glasgow Comic Con on June 29th.  Come along and make it good!  Not only that but The Beast Must Die will be exhibiting at the Leicester Horror Con!  

<ITEM>The Beast has a few choice words to say about Neil Gaiman’s Writing Masterclass and Lactus has a few random words regarding the experience of watching Ant Man and The Wasp on screens of various sizes.  Mr. Die has also seen half of Ready Player One but I hardly think that’s enough for him to have formed an opinion about it.  THINK AGAIN!

<ITEM>Come with us to Reviewniverse, with The Female Furies, Doomsday Clock, X-Force, Captain Clyde, Emotional Data: Test Tube Sugar Baby, The Quiet Place, the Captain Marvel Movie and you of course!

<ITEM>To see you out there’s some Dadmin regarding Hey Duggee (good) and Bing (anxiety inducing).  Gary bemoans the ridiculousness of iTunes (please rate and review us) and The Beast recommends the Chart Music podcast.

<ITEM>No more items, just listening.

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I’VE GOT THIS BIRD’S EYE VIEW AND IT’S IN MY BRAIN

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(What?)

Id cursus metus aliquam eleifend. Elit ut aliquam purus sit amet luctus venenatis. Convallis a cras semper auctor.

(WHAT?? How dare you! How dare you accuse me of phoning it in!)

Venenatis tellus in metus vulputate eu. Lacus vel facilisis volutpat est velit egestas.

(LOOK I REALLY RESENT YOU INSINUATING THAT I’M NOT TRYING WITH THIS BLURB! I always give it 100% you swine, and I won’t have my reputation besmirched. What do you mean am I still in bed? What’s that got to do with anything? Are you suggesting that I need to be in the office in my suit in order to write an appropriate blurb? Sorry pal, that’s not how ‘Le Muse’ works. Now shh. I’m composing)

Porta lorem mollis aliquam ut porttitor leo. Felis bibendum ut tristique et egestas quis ipsum suspendisse ultrices…

<ITEM> Gary Lactus & The Beast Must Die are here to turn the world’s frown upside down. Or failing that, turn the world upside down so that frown feels better. It’s only another SILENCE!

<ITEM> Admin, Admin, gertcha Admin! The Beast’s Newport Convention, Tom Oldham & Nat Metcalfe on Book Shambles, Seth Myers, The Movies That Made Me and sponsorschism…it’s all right here baby

<ITEM> Let’s hot foot it into the Reviewniverse, and barring a #classic technical fuck up, the pals talk up Eagle Comic, Punisher 2099, Marshal Law Vs Pinhead, The London Comic Mart, Mr X, Alien Legion: Grimrod, Mike McMahon, Toxic, Armageddon 2001: Justice League Annual, Mark Hollis (RIP), The Green Lantern, The Terrifics, LOEG: The Tempest, Big Guy & Rusty The Boy Robot, and Mr X (slight return)…Phew?

<ITEM> YOU’RE AN ITEM!

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YOURS IS HOLLOW SOUNDING, FRANKLY YOU’VE BECOME SUCKERS

Alright pod-monkeys! I recorded a chat with the extremely talented comic creator, friend of the pod and all right super-mensch, Gareth Hopkins about his amazing new comic Petrichor. As it’s me, we’re out and about, so you get the aural delights of the Barbican as a background for our chat. Gareth was gracious, eloquent and honest so I hope you enjoy the chat.

Pick up a copy of Petrichor here.

Normal SILENCE! Service will resume shortly.

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Last time we caught up with the Hitsville boys, they were young and reckless, caught up in that pop life and looking forward to the end of their story. That end finally came with the publication of Hitsville UK #7 last year. Dan Cox and John Riordan are broken men now, no longer a pair of jolly cartoon heroes…

…but a couple of real live humans, with families and feelings:

As such, it didn’t seem right to feed them the same recycled Smash Hits interview questions we’ve used a few times over now. This time round we would do it right, with glib, insultingly stupid questions of our own.

As far as a general overview of what Hitsville is and why you should read it, I can’t much improve on what I wrote last time around:

More than any other comic about bands or music, Hitsville UK mimics the thrill and excitement of its subject.  Somewhat perversely, this comes from its overwhelming commitment to the comic book form.  Where other comics about music feel like extrapolations of zine culture or traditional adventure stories themed around pop stars, Hitsville UK actually feels like music.  By reveling in the joys of putting weird looking characters into even weirder situations, trusting that they can keep a rush of daft words and pictures coming and that they can keep it relevant, Riordan and Cox capture something of the hyped up love buzz of being into music.  A mix of wanting to keep up with the story and wanting to feel part of the moment as it happens around you.

What I will say is that the issues of Hitsville that have been published since then have had an increased sense of urgency to them. The boys may not have set out to create a fantasy of communal resilience in an age that seems increasingly under threat by undead attitudes, shambling zombie racism, and the endless monetization of your every passing daydream, but fuck me if they didn’t do it anyway!

Hitsville UK is great, kaleidoscopic fun. You should probably buy it.

But don’t just listen to me. Listen to handsome hunk Dan Cox and bedazzled urchin John Riordan, who were generous enough to give me their time while they were in the middle of preparing their lush summer survival bunker, rumoured to be located in the abandoned underwater garden of a shady octopus…

1. When the first issue of Hitsville UK was published back in 2011, David Cameron was out in the wild hugging unsuspecting hoodies and Malcolm Tucker impersonations were still just about socially acceptable.

Are you the same people you were back then? Have you switched faces? Traded names? Sold parts of your souls in return for those sweet comics dollars?

Dan Cox: Switched faces, traded names, switched back, rinsed and repeated. I’m pretty sure we’re back to being the other. It is depressing looking at our cameos as I go from this svelte long-haired snake-hipped lovely to a portly beardy man. Interestingly John hasn’t seemed to change much, I’m sure this is nothing to do with him being the artist and everything to do with healthier lifestyle choices and superior grooming regime.

John Riordan: Working on Hitsville has been like a nine-year version of Face/Off (NB. I have never seen Face/Off). My favourite review of the comic credited it to Dan Riordan and John Cox. I don’t think I bothered drawing us into the last two issues of Hitsville. Prior to the final issue coming out we both became dads and we now both resemble post-war criminal Tony Blair. I drew my baby daughter into a crowd scene in issue 7 instead. I’m fully embracing vicarious living through the next generation now.

DC: We were the DJ act opening for Gwillum!

<strong>JR</strong>: Oh yes, good point! See, my brain is crumbling as well as my looks.