Mindless Ones

To celebrate the end of Mad Men Season 5 we thought we might do things a little differently, so we’ve invited blogger, journalist, writer, and fellow Mad Men fan Sean T Collins to join us. We’ve linked to Sean’s thoughts about this season in just about every post. I suggest you check them out if you haven’t already.

And while you’re at it, pay a visit to Sean’s A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones tumblr, All Leather Must Be Boiled, and his Game of Thrones column for Rolling Stone, for perhaps the most even-handed discussion of the books and TV show on the web.

Sean: Thanks for having me, Mindless Ones. Do I get a nickname? Can I be Destructor? (I’ve given this some thought.)

Ad: Yes you may (and yes you have). In all seriousness, lovely to have you with us, Sean.

Take it away, Amy

Amy: What lies beyond our rotting, aging, imperfect bodies?

‘You only live twice, or so it seems.
Once for yourself and once for your dreams.’

The Phantom of the episode’s title was, in the end, the ghost of lives that could, could not and might possibly come to pass. Sometimes the way to the spirit world was clear, sometimes occluded, some characters would dally there only to be forced to return home. In other cases, for good or ill, residency was more permanent.

There were haunted, painful absences, like a tooth-cavity: Lane, Adam, Beth in all her many different iterations pre ECT. But these absences were filled by other things, other fantasies, anything to stave off the grey cloud.

Peter dreamt of being a carefree bachelor in the city, Peggy Don, Megan a movie star, SCDP an agency with a second floor, Trudy a happy homemaker sipping ice tea with her equally happy and sun drenched husband around their swimming pool, and Don…..

All of them got one significant step closer to achieving their dreams this time around. Whether or not all of them should is another thing entirely. There is a violent push and pull between the physical and dream lives. Occasionally they collide and the results are devastating. The problem is that these are all individual dreams and sometimes they clash with the dreams of those around us.

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TOUCH ME, I’M SICK!

Behold SILENCERS, they’re back from the piddling interferences that waylaid them last week. Back to bring you comics chat like you JUST NEVER HEARD BEFORE! It’s SILENCE #17!

No songs this week, so get that thought out of your minds. Those twin 4-colour Liberace’s can’t just produce this stuff like musical milk from their creative udders you know…GAH!

But they do manage a bountiful, overstuffed SILENCE! news, before careering like the Dukes of Hazzard into a twelve car pile-up of comics. They discuss (get ready) Earth 2, Animal Man, Swamp Thing (both the current version and Alan Moore’s seminal run, in  a crow-barred in Beast’s Bargain Basement), Dial H, America’s Got Powers, Action Comics, Mud Man, Dan The Unharmable, Avenger’s Academy, Bill Watterson, Hulk, Stormwatch, JLI, Rocketeer Adventures, Journey Into Mystery, Superman Family Adventures, and The Walking Dead…

But wait! How could we forget the comics event of the Millennium???

The two take on the awesome genre-atomizing Watchmen 2: beyond Watchmen. And I think it would be fair to sat that those boys sure did have their brains fried!

Plus, Lactus works out the best way to review comics – by counting their panels.

Finally the Beast brings it home with a discussion (ie monologue) about the latest film from horror director Ti West, The Innkeepers in notcomics.

Now what rational person could want more from life? Don’t answer that!

And it’s all in the best POSSIBLE taste!

click to download

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Guest post by Hollistic Tendancies

“I need you all to make me have not said that. I need you to have make me unsaid it.”

Ah, here in episode 2 of Veep, we The Thick of It fans are in familiar territory: this could have come from the episode where the press conference had to be about nothing.
And yet, this is again very definitely America.

Our Andrew Hickey reviews Before Watchmen

This post has moved to Adam and Amy’s new Mad Men tumblr, She’s an Astronaut, the new home of all their Mad Men posts.

http://shesanastronaut.com/post/47395391411/commissions-and-fees

Hi gentle Silencers! Sadly once again this is a Silent SILENCE! week due to our big, busy, bulging schedules. We promise not to let Earthly concerns get in the way of our Cosmic mission ever again…and we’ll be back next week with a show stuffed full of comics giblets, so just hang on to your happy hats till then.

In the mean time, why not check out the  Nintendo version of ‘There Will Be Blood’:

Milkshake!

Or the Pingu version of John Carpenter’s ‘The Thing’:

MacReady!

And if that’s not enough you could do a lot worse than reading Michel Fiffe’s cracking interview with a take-no-prisoners Tony Salmons over at The Factual Opionon:

Comics nourishment
 

Fiffe is probably my favourite comics critic writing at the moment – he writes with intelligence and passion about comic art without bringing his ego into play, and has tremendous taste in picking out artists that you may have forgotten about or overlooked. His pieces on Trevor Von Eden, Ty Templeton, Larry Stroman and others are absolutely essential reading, and you can add this Tony Salmons one to the list – what a phenomenal, explosive artist! See you next week!

This post has moved to Adam and Amy’s new Mad Men tumblr, She’s an Astronaut, the new home of all their Mad Men posts.

http://shesanastronaut.com/post/47391522503/the-other-woman

QUIT F*CKIN AROUND AND BE A MAN! YOU SHOULD BE EARNIN’ A MEDAL FOR THIS SH*T!

Ten’hut SILENCERS! SILENCE #16 is upon us, and whilst it walks like a man, it has a beating simian heart.

After a FLIP FLOP (FREESTEEZ) intro from the Beast, and the epic spacerock of ‘JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY’ from Lactus (wherein the giant mangod makes a little boys dream come true), those rum buggers plough through the SILENCE! News covering all the important business, such as where Batman likes to put his winker, and the question of precisely how crap a real life supervillian can be.

Then, they get on it and mad dog it through the following vibrant periodicals:

Grant Morrison and Chris Burnham’s splendid Batman Inc, the increasingly awesome Prophet, Mind MGMT from Matt Kindt, Fantastic Four 606, Resident Alien from secret legend Steve Parkhouse and ex-revolver editor Peter Hogan, JL Dark (Nowhere) from Jeff Lemire (with a slight digression into the Milliganverse), Jason Aaron shows us how The Incredible Hulk relaxes and Secret Avengers (shhh).

Then Crossover Classix has poor Lactus grinding his way through Owlfight and AVX stuff. TAKE YOUR FILTHY PORRIDGE LACTUS! Just like Bane broke the Bat, an Owl  has broken Lactus.

The Beast has a very brief dip into the Bargain Basement with another issue of Glamourouss, and then talks up the various works of renegade British hero director, Alex Cox, including a misty-eyed appreciation of Moviedrome.

Finally they make ANOTHER little boy’s dream come true when they answer a Judge Dredd-based quizzler from Chris Burnham.

Let it rain tears of sexual thunder dear listeners.

Let it rain.

click to download

My first thought upon hearing that Armando Iannucci was making a Thick of It-esque show for America was YES! Awesome! Because I love The Thick of It and, even though I’m from there and thus know what it’s like, I love America.

My second thought, of course, was how are they going to fit in all the swearing? There aren’t going to be any “we’ve negotiated for 100 ‘fuck’s per episode” type rules on that side of the pond. Even if it is HBO. The BBC has people on the Today programme say “cock-up” like it’s official government terminology. I don’t think America can compete with that.

Of course this is not the only thing different about America. Here’s how the Veep travels:

Police cars and police motorcycles, sirens blaring, lights flashing, a row of big black bulletproof versions of the strangely bulbous American SUVs that everybody drives. We’re clearly not in the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship any more!

Beep beep, who’s got the keys to the Veep? Click here to find out, vrrrmmmm!