Mindless Ones

Meanwhile, the people at Big Finish had been busy. They’d got the license to create new Doctor Who audio adventures, initially featuring the fifth, sixth and seventh Doctors, and had started with a range that was more-or-less straightforward pastiche of the TV show, although generally with a standard of writing that was much higher than it had been during the time those Doctors were on the TV.

Colin Baker, in particular, had been very well served by his first few stories.

Dead Romance is one of the best novels I’ve ever read, and it’s a novel that will never, ever, reach the readership it deserves.

The problem is this — Dead Romance is a novel that was originally published in the New Adventures series.

HELLO.

HELLO.

IT’S GOOD TO BE BACK.

Rejoice fleshburgs – it’s everyone’s favourite cyber-Uncle, Disembodied Narratorbot X-15735 returned from his cyber-vacation, tanned to within and inch of my half life and riddled with exotic viruses from the far-flung corners of the nanosphere.

And to double your fantasy I’m bringing the return of errant Silence-son, The Beast Must Die, who rejoins with pod-partner Gary Lactus in an reunion event which Variety describes as ‘mawkish, hackneyed and uninspired! Happy Happy Joy Joy fleshyones, couldn’t you just POP?

Well go on then. POP!

Hrrrmmn. Disembodied Narratorbot X-15735 can wait along time you know.  While we wait, let’s blurb:

<ITEM> Gary’s quest is over and the pair are reunited. WARNING TEAM!

<ITEM> No time for news, through the tears, but always time for sponsorshizzle.

<ITEM> Down a dusty path, through a hole in the floor, and into the REVIEWNIVERSE! Covering Gamma, Hawkeye Annual, Tank Girl: Solid State, FF (Beach Blanket Bingo), Justice League of America, Justice League Dark, Constantine in spandex and booties, The Bounce, Catalyst Comics, Lazarus, The Wake, Young Avengers, 2000AD, Max Landis, Wolverine, Wolverine & The X-Men, The Wolverine film, and Where’s Wolverine (maybe), The Hunger, Green Team and more, more more (how do you like me?)

<ITEM> A shout out for the Nerdist Jeff Bridges interview, and the Nerdist Comics Panel, and it’s farewell from the boyce, but they can both sleep restfully knowing that balance has been restored, yin has been yanged and Turner has been Hooched. Huzzah!

All this and the knowledge that Disembodied Narratorbot X-15735 is here, watching you all. Waiting. For you to POP.

BZZZZTZTZZKKKKK

click to download SILENCE!#71
 

SILENCE! is proudly sponsored by the two greatest comics shops on the planet, DAVE’S COMICS of Brighton and GOSH COMICS of London.

While the Eighth Doctor Adventures had taken over the Doctor Who name and character, the Virgin New Adventures series hadn’t given up. In fact, freed from being a Doctor Who series, at least in name, it had something of a late flourishing.

The stories instead followed the character of Bernice Summerfield

Over the course of our history we’ve seen that there have been a handful of creative figures who have dominated particular periods of Doctor Who. When those figures have fit with what one might call the spirit of the show — people like David Whitaker, David Maloney, Robert Holmes, or Christopher Bidmead — the results have occasionally been stunning.

Here, with Alien Bodies, we see the introduction of Lawrence Miles as the latest in the line of dominant figures in the series, the heir to Whitaker and Holmes.

This week Gary Lactus continues his tediously thrilling quest to find The Beast Must Die. Along the way he finds a BUMPER CROP OF JINGLES!

In the reviewniverse he bravely tackles The Mysterious Strangers #1&2, Wonder Woman #22, Animal Man #22, Justice League of America #6, Batman 66 #1, Number Cruncher #1, Avengers Assemble #17 and FF #9.

Then we have a Cartoon County chat with Solid State Tank Girl artist Warwick Johnson Cadwell.

Strap on and let’s go!

click to download SILENCE!#70

SILENCE! is proudly sponsored by the two greatest comics shops on the planet, DAVE’S COMICS of Brighton and GOSH COMICS of London.

“Paul McGann doesn’t count!”

You might not know it, but you gamble every time you pick up an issue of Dial H: the ink in which this comic is printed contains a rare sort of toxin, exposure to which dials up one of three parallel universes.  Before your eyes make contact with the page, you know that any given episode has a 33.333333333% chance of being: (A) a sloppy pastiche of the Morrison/Case Doom Patrol run, (B) a snazzy pastiche of a good proto-Vertigo comic (like the Morrison/Case Doom Patrol run) or (C) a genuinely effective post Alan Moore/Grant Morrison superhero comic.

Issue #12 of Dial H saw China Mieville, Alberto Ponticelli and co rolling(dialing?) the reader into a hopelessly tangled version of their own story in which none of the lines (whether in the art, plot or dialogue) connected meaningfully. Issue #13, meanwhile, provided a clear and direct line to the best of all possible worlds(/comics).

Comics being a collaborative medium, Alberto Ponticelli’s pencils tighten up with Mieville’s script, and the unstable environments of issue #12 are forgotten in favour of an information-dense, two-layered landscape.  Ably assisted by inker Dan Green and colourists Tanya and Richard Horie, Ponticelli works for maximum accessibility at every turn, framing our regular cast as pedestrian browsers walking through a block in which comics sprawl on every wall. Thanks to the arr team’s heroic efforts, we’re always able to read what’s going on as we glance past our heroes’ shoulders:

It might seem strange that an issue that breaks to recap the plot of the previous few issues should be better than anything being recapped, but Dial H is that rare superhero comic that actively thrives on exposition.  Other standout issues in this series have explained where the powers Nelson and co dial up actually come from (#0, #11), and explored the difficulties that arise from contact with unreconstructed racist fantasies (no not Game of Thrones, issue #6).

Dial H is at its best when explains its own mechanics because theme is built into the design of this revamp more clearly than it’s expressed by any of the action on the page, a quirk (or fault, depending on your tolerance for this sort of thing) that only strengthens the book’s Karen Berger-edited pedigree.

Just think of the many walking tours through authorial interests that characterised that first flush of post-Alan Moore, British invasion comics, all those scary strolls through the green, trips out into blue forgotten worlds, the evening walks that lead you right underneath the Pentagon and straight on into the heart of the American scream.

The walking tour we get in Dial H #13 is made possible by pleasantly mixed metonyms, by a double act made of dual purpose characters, Open Window Man and his new friend, a young boy in a world of chalk.

WARNING TEAM!

This week, still bereft of The Beast Must Die, Gary Lactus goes on a quest to find him. His journey takes him into a lonely Reviewniverse where he mutters to himself about Tank Girl: Solid State, Daredevil, Justice League, Hawkeye, Young Avengers, Superman Unchained, Batman, Ghosted, Astro City and Avengers Arena.

Then we venture into a whole new realm baring little or no relevance to the already fairly loose remit of SILENCE! Gary Lactus’ manufactured alter ego Fraser Geesin talks to lovely Dan Fardell about comedy, the Man Of Steel film, Ivor Cutler, Ron Geesin and other stuff. Dan is currently filling in for Kerry Herbert on Kerry On Comedy, every Tuesday 3pm on BHCR.

TRUTH ACCEPTED!

click to download SILENCE!#69

SILENCE! is proudly sponsored by the two greatest comics shops on the planet, DAVE’S COMICS of Brighton and GOSH COMICS of London.