Mindless Ones

by Plok

Bono to vada, Bloggers!  It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

You know, writing something for the Mindless Decade has proved to be, for me anyway, an interesting challenge.  What do you get, for the blog that has everything?  Something thematic, probably…

But just what is the theme, of this multifarious 4D pink tentacled worm of a site?

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For my own contribution to the MINDLESS DECADE! I thought I’d go back to May 2015, when in one of my occasional bursts of productivity I wrote ten thousand words or so on Multiversity in a little over a day.

Since then, I’ve released that series of essays as an ebook, which you can normally find for sale here for ninety-nine cents (I also have a much longer book on Seven Soldiers and a collection of my Doctor Who essays that I posted here, but those cost more money).

However, for the next week, as part of MINDLESS DECADE, you can download the ebook version for free. Here’s the epub version for non-Kindle ereaders and here’s the Kindle version. These links will be up for the next week, so download, read, and keep these treasured nostalgic memories of the MINDLESS DECADE!

I’ve done almost shit all blogging on this site. Plenty of comics and podcasts but only one proper blog, so when it came time to choose my classic post my decision was incredibly easy. Here it is, nearly ten years old. It’s gone a bit stale, iPods aren’t a thing anymore and there’s plenty more magnificent millinery and hamazing headgear not included here which I have discovered since. Ten years! We’ll all be dead soon…

Hello, Gary Lactus here. I’m just sitting at home enjoying an Excelsior lager and thinking about The King’s Crowns.

More after the jump

The following steps may be taken whenever the taint of the fascist insect is felt. But to do it like they did it in the day, stake out thirty minutes beginning 11.30 on a Sunday morning.

Step 1.
A quiet room, not too bright. Clean the room with incense first if you like. Sit or recline, feet and hands together, facing London. If you’re in London, face Greenwich.

Step 2.
Clasp in your hands a piece of paper with your campaign objective written or symbolised upon it. Use this statement as your default until you receive further instructions:

Cosmic Law’s victory over unbalanced force is inevitable.
Though obliged to struggle, there is no need for fear.

Step 3.
Using psychic intuition – or common sense – imagine a visual picture that sums up the objective for you. Slow your thoughts and breathing, and listen to the image’s vibrations. Do this for no more than one minute.

Step 4.
In your mind, dedicate your self to the goodness of the supreme being, whoever yours may be. The goodness you will call through is for all, according to Cosmic Law.

Step 5.
Become a facet of the mind of our human species. Its life is your life, and yours to determine:

• Invoke the name of your god
• Open your being to the Masters of Wisdom

Step 6.
Refocus on the campaign objectives. You will begin to feel the presence of the Inner Circle, whose influence will shape the remaining imagery of your meditation. Let go to them. Continue in their company and record what you see.

Step 7.
Close down:

• Imagine a pair of blackout curtains drawn across the scene
• Stand and stamp your foot on the ground.
• Say aloud ‘IT IS FINISHED’
• Return to normal consciousness in good time for lunch.

Further campaign objectives and visual talismans will be issued in due course.

The above strategy was developed by the mystic Dion Fortune at the outbreak of World War Two to counter and defeat the psycho-spiritual components of the threat from the Nazi Reich. As an act of directed mass-psychism it stands as one of the most effective and critical workings on record.

Further instructions on how to save the planet below.

Hi, Mr. Morrison! Can I call you Grant?

Great. Great. Gotta say, fantastic job getting Happy! on TV and with Pax Americana changing the whole freaking game and everything.

Uh, listen. We need to talk. We’ve been going back over your oeuvre and, well, we noticed some points of…concern, so we just wanted to check on how things are going.

The Woke Liberal Fans? Nah, they love you. Don’t worry; you got that demographic locked down forever. No, what jumped out at us was the way a few of your recent-ish comics portray, you know, females.

I know you know women read your comics. But our research shows that for some reason women don’t like being treated as purely abstract concepts.

Like this, Grant. What is this?

What

the

fuck?*

Read the rest of this entry »

I’M GONNA MAKE YOU SICK. I’M GONNA MAKE YOU SICK OF ME. THEN I’M GONNA GIVE YOU THE  ANTIDOTE

• The year is 2099.
• Jokesss! It’s 2 0 1 8  and we are 10 tears old, or maybe just six tears, the way man counts these things
• It doesn’t matter. Here we fester yet. Dry your eyes because it’s SILENCE! #246 missus and Beast is having a break to look after the Mini-Beast or whatever so this week it’s a bobsy week where he and Gary get well comfy and COCKS OUT in the cosmic cupboard.
• Clever blurb? Do one you poncey nonce
• SO they start by letting  Ole Aimless out of the bag (comicsgate and oh no no no, the 2000AD SciFi Special, the Big Sick + Trash for Cash Wednesday) and then handclasp it into the reviewniverse where they  get busy with the books of the week:
• IN roughly the order they were discussed, skipping fans: Twisted Romance, The Beautiful Death, Atlas & Axis, Grave Horticulture, VS, Wicked & Divine 1923, Batman: Metal, Batman: White Knight, MILK WARS, Doomsday Cock, The Amazing Fruit of the Future, Justice League: Film

@silencepod
@bobsymindless
@frasergeesin
@thebeastmustdie

[email protected]

Because everything is entropy right? It’s always all downhill. Part of our ten-year challenge has been to find old posts that we like and can bear to  bring up and choke on again.

This is where I realised that the first post I wrote for the site was my best and favourite, and also offers an excellent opportunity to rededicate myself to John [E.] Smith –  comics greatest lostest poet, who even pops up in the comments on the original because blogs make dreams come true.

Apologies for my bad writing and any broken 10 y.o. pic links or whatever. “Enjoy.”

Dee do dough don’t dee dough? or why Hellblazer #51 is the title’s best issue

If I have to make up a bloggy reason why this post was written, it’s recent noise from the Factual Opinion that Andy Diggle’s current run on Hellblazer is the best it’s been in years. I picked one up, saw with relish that the colour palette they’re using still contains every conceivable shade of mud, put it down. To say it’s currently firing on all cylinders isn’t saying much, as Vertigo’s old horror warhorse is a perpetual disappointment, which it shouldn’t, because the basic ingredients are so solid. It’s about the street-sorcerer John Constantine, magic, and a bit of London grime, all mixed together with a quip and a crafty fag. Despite these perfect alchemical elements something inevitably goes wrong with the final potion, which rarely drips the creep and splatter I hunger for from anything so keen to proclaim itself a horror comic.

More after the jump

I’ve tried to hide from the truth, but wherever I go it finds me… whatever age I might claim to be, right here, right now, I’m an Internet Grampa.

As soon as a columnist finishes the first draft of an article bemoaning the hordes of trolls that lurk under every digital bridge, I’m knocking at their front door, ready to warn them that they’re at risk of demonising dissenting voices, that they might just be confusing those guys who’re always two clicks away from a rape threat with those who simply don’t want to bow down to the guy who wrote The IT Crowd.

Whenever a young man is about to serve up a freshly baked Game of Thrones meme, I’m limbering up so I’m ready to come crashing through the rafters like the world’s shitest Santa!  As soon as that image is sent out into the world, I’m there, covered in plaster dust but still willing to deliver a pointless lecture about the good old days when you needed more than thirty seconds on their phone and a snazzy font to contribute to a fandom.

And don’t think you’ve escaped my reign of tedium! Next time you like something that a casual acquaintance has posted online I’ll be there, tucked up in your jumper drawer, just waiting to have a conversation about why Livejournal was a better platform for conversation than whatever the fuck it is we’re using now.

To my fellow Internet Grandparents, all I can do is offer you condolences and love!  You’re at least as wrong as you are right, but like you I feel the pull of the copper-clad garden, and like you I’m not quite ready to give up on the whole damned thing!

But let’s go back a bit, see if we can figure out what the damage is and where it was done…

What’s The Story?

The Gotham City Stock Exchange is rocked by a series of bizarre trades, causing wild swings in stock prices