Mindless Ones

Part 1, Part 3

Interview with Kevin O’Neill here

Welcome to the second part of our annocommentations. The idea with these things isn’t to compete with the excellence of Jess Nevin’s annotations, but to supplement them.  Jess doesn’t do much mulling over the meanings of his findings, and that’s what these posts are about. So if you ever wondered what Terner being from Performance says about the sort of sexual positions he likes, then you’re in the right place. Oh yeah, and the links aren’t just to dull old Wikipedia pages. Follow them.

We annocomment after the jump

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Download our LOEG Century 1910 annocommentations (pdf)
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Part 2, Part 3

Interview with Kevin O’Neill here

Zom: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen with its backstreets of reader memory, association and personal experience, along with its grand shared-universe vistas, is a sprawling city of a fiction, and as such actively encourages our meandering annocomments. Expect a few references, yes, but also commentary, meditations, criticism and reminiscence.

So pull down the seat in mindless hackney cab, guv, and prepare for a long, strange ride.

Part 1 of our Century 1969 annocomments over the jump

For the transcript click here

Here’s a recording of a Grant Morrison interview concerning mainly his new book Supergods.  Bobsy did the interview with small interjections from Gary Lactus.  Here’s the nice picture on the back of the book:

Lovely

Thanks to Grant and the folk at Jonathan Cape for their help in setting up this interview.  Apologies for sound quality.

EXPECT:

Inadequate speakerphone with buzzing!

Intrusive street noise!

Phone line breaking up!

Phone and recording device falling over!

We need to do a transcript which will appear here soon but we thought you might want to hear the whole thing.

Click to download
[audio:https://mindlessones.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Grant-Morrison-Interview.mp3]

If you’re new here you might want to have a look around. We have lots more thoughts on Morrison’s work.

Amy Poodle on the Invisibles for The Comics Journal
Illogical Volume on the Filth
Batman annocommentations (probably quite different from anything you’ve read elsewhere)
Seaguy annocommentations
Amy Poodle on All Star Superman

And that’s just the tip of a very big iceberg.

Here’s May’s Cartoon County podchat for your ears. This month we talked to Kino Club founder, Adam Whitehall about Steve Aylett’s documentary on notorious sci-fi author, Jeff Lint. Here’s a snippet.

The chat gets a little Brighton-centric at times but is filled with interesting ideas.  We also have a brief chat with Sean Duffield on his finally completed anthology, War: The Human Cost, and the announcement of Myriad Editions’ First Graphic Novel competition.

[audio:https://mindlessones.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Lint-The-Movie1.mp3]
Click to download

DC’s September reboot might have dominated the week’s comics news, but while the rest of you were all wondering whether Grant Morrison would be writing Watchmen 2: The Curse of Ozymandias’ Gold, I was out exchanging inky handshakes with any number of shifty characters in order to bring you a real scoop!

Here it is, don’t say we’re not good to you!

MARVEL COMICS PROUDLY PRESENTS: ‘THE MAN WHOSE HEAD EXPANDED’, A TWELVE PART XORN MAXI-SERIES BY WATCHMEN AUTEUR AND BEARDED FANCYMAN ALAN MOORE!!!

EVER WONDER WHAT WAS REALLY GOING ON DURING THE XORNETO DEBACLE? YOU MIGHT THINK YOU KNOW THE ANSWER, BUT MUCH FANCIED WORD-BURBLER AND PART TIME SWAMP THING IMPRESSIONIST ALAN MOORE KNOWS OTHERWISE, AND NOW – FINALLY! – HE’S AGREED TO TELL THE REAL STORY IN THE MIGHTY MARVEL MANNER!!!!!

WHAT’S THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE MAN WITH THE STAR FOR A HEAD, EVERYONE’S FAVOURITE LEATHERY NAZI-HUNTER, MARK E SMITH, AND A SINISTER GANG OF SCOTTISH SKINHEADS?!!?!! FIND OUT IN ‘THE MAN WHOSE HEAD EXPANDED’, A FIVE STAR RAVE-UP IN TWELVE SPECTACULAR ISSUES!!!!!!!!

ART BY FRANK QUITELY; COLOURS BY BRENDAN MCCARTHY/STEVE COOK.

STARTS 6th JUNE 2012

‘What Alan’s done here, and it’s quite clever, but basically he’s taken the idea – what if a man had a star for a head – and he’s sort of pointed out all the ways in which it doesn’t make sense. Because it doesn’t, really, when you think about it. A man with a star for a head. Ridiculous.’ — Stewart Lee, CLiNT Magazine

‘I’m dead me!’ — William Blake, Wizard’s Top Colourist, 2003-2005

‘Don’t worry Grant, I’ll probably only manage two or three issues this year! – Frank “the shank” Quitely, chin expert

It’s unsurprising that the editors decided to pull the text above out of it’s original introductory caption box and give it’s own page in the anniversary edition of Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow, transforming it into a full blown preamble.

This is what Wikipedia has to say about the closing sentence, Alan’s Moore’s last word on and celebration of Superman:

“This is an Imaginary Story… Aren’t they all?” The legend is a triple entendre:

1. It could be interpreted that the story is non-canonical.
2. It could be interpreted that the story is canonical, since all comic books are “imaginary stories”, so it is as valid as any “official” Superman comic
3. It could be interpreted that the story is canonical, but for this incarnation of Superman, as the upcoming John Byrne reboot would render the earlier series as “imaginary”.[citation needed]
4. It could be interpreted that that the story is the end of the Earth-One Superman had the Crisis on Infinite Earths never happened.

Isn’t that a quadruple entendre? Whatever. There’s something missing from that list. It’s what gives the line it’s awesome fuck yeahness, but as it doesn’t speak directly to comics it doesn’t surprise me that it often goes overlooked. Yes, Moore was quite possibly concerned that the Superman stories of his youth had just been relegated to the bin of history by Crisis on the Infinite Earths, yes he could be railing against the strictures of canon, but personally I’ve always read that line as a celebration, not just of a certain view of Superman or a certain incarnation of Superman, but of the imagination full stop.

After all, isn’t Superman, the guy who can do anything, the superhero who best encapsulates all that’s good and beautiful about the infinite possibilities of the imagination?

It’s unlikely that the Alan Moore of the mid-eighties had quite such well-formed views on the subject of meaning and story as he does today – to the best of my knowledge he didn’t talk much about Idea Space in interviews back then – but to suggest that he put great stock in fiction doesn’t strike me as much of stretch, in fact I see the line above as evidence that his thoughts were heading in the direction that would ultimately bring us From Hell and Promethea.

When Moore writes “aren’t they all” he is putting Superman stories in the same broad category as the Bible, Noddy, personal historical narratives, and the mythology of predatory paedophiles, which isn’t to say that he’s explicitly arguing that all stories are of equal importance, just that stories have the potential to be very powerful indeed, and that, hopefully, this one is amongst the best. This point is reinforced by the juxtaposition of the legend with the opening splash page featuring a memorial statue of Superman.

Memorial statues carry with them connotations of timelessness, of permanence, of stories that cannot and should not be forgotten.

Bryan Talbot creates Alan Moore, from Brainstorm Comix #1, 1975

Cheers to the Keeshman for the gimme.

Moore and Bolland, Miller and Varley, Morrison and well… a lot of different people. Three creative teams. Three definitive takes on the Joker.

Part 2 here

Prior to The Killing Joke’s publication the Joker was ahistorical except in a strict continuity sense. Post TKJ the character had if not a definite origin, the possibility of one. A less thoughtful writer might have failed to understand the importance of keeping history at one remove from the Joker, and a less skilful one might well have struggled to introduce its shadow into the Joker’s world without anchoring the character to specifics, but it’s with his usual elegance that Moore manages to maintain some distance between the origin and its subject.

Go loo-oo-oony after the jump

For this next bit of our 2010 get-together, Bobsy brought along Clint and Dodgem Logic for The Beast Must Die, Zom, Gary Lactus and Amy Poodle to talk about. This is what it sounded like:
[audio:https://mindlessones.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/mo10-2dodgemclint.mp3]
Click to download