Mindless Ones

I’M CRUSHING YOUR HEAD!

This is it people – the ultimate listening experience you can do with your ears…comics, people, people talking about comics, comics talking about people, people talking about comics again….IT’S ALL HERE! IN SILENCE! no.32!!!

After the usual shit-bubbling from the two half-wits that pass for presenters on this farrago, the SILENCE! News comes and goes like a sex pest in the night, with a digression into Chuck Jones and Pat Mills. With nary a thought to listener safety or interest the podcasteers catapult themselves midrift first into the weeks comics. No muss, no fuss, let’s do this:

James Stokoe’s Godzilla, Justice League! no.0, Daredevil, Jordan Crane’s Uptight, The Shadow, The Walking Dead, Ghost, Revival, AVX: The Avengers, and Nite Owl.

The SILENT Question comes from Frank Castle and the answer involves Jim Woodring’s Frank, Jonny Ryan’s Prison Pit and Zenith: Phase 1.

Lactus reviews his underpants in notcomics, and after that adventrure in undercrackers The Beast talks up Nick Abadzis’ wonderful Hugo Tate collection and recalls Deadline in general. Then there’s a nod towards a fascinating interview with Brit comics mover and shaker, Dave Elliott, and Lactus pimps his wares like the painted French tart he so clearly is, with another Comedy Spot.

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

click to download SILENCE!#32

So Glenn “AMAZING!” Fabry came to Cartoon County back in April. It was almost literally like this:

LISTEN TO IT, FOOL!

[audio:https://mindlessones.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Glenn-Fabry.mp3]

 

Click here to download our Glenn Fabry interview

 

Cartoon County is an association of over 100 cartoonists and comic artists in the Sussex area. Our regular meetings are usually on the last Monday of every month at The Cricketers, Black Lion St, Brighton, from 6 til late. If you’re a cartoonist or a comic artist, or use those particular styles of drawing in your work as an illustrator, animator or storyboard artist, you are very welcome to join us.

One of the little tricks Steven Moffat has been playing to keep the fans onside is to have, as an undercurrent in his series, references to a specific previous era of the show. Last year, there were a lot of little nods to Patrick Troughton’s last year on the show, almost all of which will have passed the casual viewer by.

This year, Moffat seems to have chosen William Hartnell’s last year or so to pay a sneaky ‘homage’ to. In the year when Steven Taylor was the companion, there was a Dalek story featuring an actor who later went on to play a companion, in a different role (in fact there were two), there was a story about a space ark, featuring the crew interacting with extremely large animals, with a dubious moral message, a trip to New York (coming up tomorrow in this series)…

and the story often considered the worst in the series’ history.

Dave Sim, who since the death of Will Eisner has been probably the greatest living all-round comics creator, is releasing his classic graphic novel High Society as a Kickstarter-funded digital version on October 10.

To promote this release, he is doing a virtual tour of comics sites, including Mindless Ones, on October 10, answering interview questions. However, he’s doing it with a twist — he wants us to post the questions we’re asking here *now*, in advance of the blog tour, and leave comments open for readers to ask questions, some of which he will also answer. Anyone whose question is chosen will receive a free autographed back-issue of Cerebus, with a personalised head sketch.

Questions, and explanation of who Sim is, under the cut

WHAT ABOUT YOU MACREADY…YOU BELIEVE ANY OF THIS VOODOO BULLSHIT?

Yesyesyesyesyes…them boys will do us proud! Watch now as they lead us skipping merrily towards the churning, swirling waters of the River Styx…with the nudest podcast in comics, SILENCE!

Firstly Lactus has his guitar unsheathed and isn’t afraid to use it. Then it’s the SILENCE News (which is in all honesty an extended pimp session for Glyn Dillon’s Nao of Brown as well as a big-up of Brit comics hero Paul Gravett). THEN, the newly sponsored Beast and the always sponsored Lactus barge into the week’s comics like a couple of burly lady wrestlers.

And there’s a whole heap of comics to talk through too, like, oh let’s see…Rocketeer Cargo of Doom, the beautiful looking Winter Soldier, Saucer Country, Wolverine & The X-Men, Uncanny X-Force, AVX, AVX: Uncanny X-Men, Avengers Assemble, Shade, Incredible Hulk, The Creep, and Frankenstein Agent of SHADE.

Then there’s a special guest review of Batman #0 from friend of the show The Wange, and the SILENT Question is brought to you from Machine Man (and the answers involve Ultron, Herbie, Call Me Kennneth, GI Robot and the ABC muthafuckin Warriors).

Add in ANOTHER Dredd (3D) review from The Beast and a recommendation to listen to the Nerdist podcast with Henry Rollins and you have a truly revolutionary audio-visual-taste explosion in 4-D…it truly is SILENCE no.31 and you’re not.

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

click to download SILENCE!#30

Not: Night of the Weirwolf

Do you remember that Wolverine story where he goes all edgy and kills some superheroes, and the only ones he in fact murders are disabled or gay? It was written by staunch defender-of-women / rape profiteer Mark Millar. Is this like that? Or is this latest casual extermination of the bald, wheelchair-bound one something different, serious, and maybe even Real this time?

Whatever – it’s clearly a great time to be killing off your disabled characters Marvel.

(Are you actually going to sit there and say ‘Hey smartarse he got his legs back and working again this time? Are you actually going to do that? Are you going to deny that Charles Xavier is disabled? Did he bring a wig back from space with him this time too?)

Brian Michael Bendis: ‘I don’t always write in a very Shakespearean way’. Don’t be modest Brian Michael.

I suspect this will be the hardest episode this series for me to write about. Normally there is something interesting to say about an episode, even if only about how it failed. And more importantly, normally I have something *different* to say from what other people are saying. But this time, my reaction can be summed up in the same sentence everyone else is using:

It’s not as bad as I expected, apart from the ending.

“TELL THEM ABOUT THE TWINKIE…”

“WHAT ABOUT THE TWINKIE?”

YO HO HO and a bottle of meths – it’s time for SILENCE!, the rough podcast, its hour come round at last, that slouches towards Bethlehem! Yaaay! I knew that English Degree would come in useful…

The Beast and Gary Lactus bring you all the usual half-baked treats straight from the dutch oven…treats such as: The SILENCE! News (featuring insight!), and Lactus pathetically pleads with Dear Listener to look at his stupid film. Then there’s full and hearty discussions of such 4-colour wonders like Fraction and A-Ha’s Hawkeye no.2, Action no.0, Dial H no.0, Animal Man no.0, Dan the Unharmable, Fashion Beast (with a brief detour into McLaren’s Ghosts of Oxford Street and Grant Morrison’s Sick Buildings), Sweet Tooth, and Amazing Spiderman. Grand!

The SILENT Question comes from robotic miseryguts The Vision, and the answer involves Lockjaw, Aquaman and tangentially the absolutely wonderful Batman: Brave & The Bold cartoon.

Then Lactus takes us to the movies (and tries to fondle us in the back seat) and reviews DREDD! 3D!

Finally The Beast directs us to the great blog Suggested For Mature Readers, and recalls Miracleman: The Golden Age, Gaiman’s finest hour. Oh and tells you to pick up the Prophet and Glory trades, quick smart!

Uptown, top ranking!

click to download SILENCE!#30

 

Way back in March, Cartoon County played host to two speakers.  They were nice and good.  There names were Karrie Fransman and Ian Hague.

Karrie Fransman has created comics for The Guardian, The Times, The Telegraph, The New Statesman and Psychologies Magazine and published a graphic novel The House That Groaned with Random House’s Square Peg.  This is what it sounds like when she speaks:
[audio:https://mindlessones.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Karrie-Fransman.mp3]

Click to download Karrie Fransman

Ian Hague is the director of Comics Foruma website and annual event which aims to increase the visibility and accessibility of comics scholarship. When he opens his mouth, this happens:
[audio:https://mindlessones.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Ian-Hague.mp3]

Click to download Ian Hague

 

Cartoon County is an association of over 100 cartoonists and comic artists in the Sussex area. Our regular meetings are usually on the last Monday of every month at The Cricketers, Black Lion St, Brighton, from 6 til late. If you’re a cartoonist or a comic artist, or use those particular styles of drawing in your work as an illustrator, animator or storyboard artist, you are very welcome to join us.