Mindless Ones

So you’ve skanked a hole in your Batsocks. It’s time to leave the basement. Head on up the stairs – feet light and stomach fluttering two steps ahead. Things go a bit strange and your head slides away into the ringing in your ears, just for a second, but when you pop out the top of the stairwell again, something very strange has happened. You’re not in the basement of some boring britshit revivalist toilet in an imaginary town in Northern England anymore. Like a fearless innovator of some time-tripping new dance move you’ve jumped up two storeys, spun through thirty three years, and flipped sideways three thousand odd miles. A downtown loft. New York. 197Something. It’s time to put your Spidey Socks on.

Witness birth of Disco Punk and HipHop! Thwipp Thwipp!.

The Mylestones – The Joker

There’s talc on the floor. A bag of ‘blues’ in your pocket, or so you like to think – dexys, mandys, but mainly ripoff caffeine pills. Door receipts are down – times are lean, leaner than the waists. Even the youngest acest faces are deep lined, adorned with feather cuts starting ever further up the head. The tribes have had to pull together and mingle even though the soul boy purists hate it, so for you, in those socks, it’s the basement mate – ska, rocksteady, and, of course, 2tone.

And take your porkpie hat with you, victim.

I honestly never intended for any of you lot to read this guff.

However!

When Zom found out I’d been writing comic scripts in my lazy hours, he insisted I put them up here.

And then he said he thought it might make us look like a bunch of conceited wankers.

And then he decided I should do it anyway.

So, if anyone digs it – I’m not that sure how good any of it actually is  – then you can look forward to seeing more of the same over at our soon to be unleashed sister site for, err, em>creative work</em>. It’ll be called The Warehouse of Broken Dreams, or something. Anything to keep the lawyers away.

Just a few thoughts before we get into this, because I know you’d offer up the life of your sister to read this shit, and we’d better get moving…..

If anyone slogged through our mindless ramblings over on Pillock’s intensely wonderful A Trout in the Milk blog, then you may remember – HOW COULD YOU FORGET?!!?! – me banging on about how much fun it’d be to write a Damian 666 comic. An alternate Batman from the universe next door, but, more importantly, a next generation Batman, would allow for so much more wriggle room – in fact I’d argue he’d demand it! His writer would almost have a duty to extend all the wild bat-conceits, themes and tonalities far, far beyond anything that’d come before. The son of the batverse would necessarily incorporate and reiterate in a far more concentrated and conclusive fashion all the tatty, flailing elements that constitute the present day Batman’s superbody. You really could have it all. And nobody would give a shit, seeing as it could all be dismissed as a *possible future*.

Realistically I’m sure a great deal of fandom would hate the book, but, fuck it, they’d only go and buy it anyway. And weep.

I’m not sure how much to tell you about the strip before we get this show on the road – I don’t want to spoil anything (Oh, the vanity!) – but I figure there’re some things it’d be nice to know (not necessary, I hope you’ll note, but nice). To begin with I want to stress that my Damian, in an attempt to remain truthful to Morrison’s original vision for the character, is far less morally rigid and considerably more ethically and tactically improvisational than his Father. He inhabits the twilight world of a new century where all the old certainties have flown out the window. A shifting Gotham whose suburbs and superscrapers are bleeding into the netherworld (PLEASE DON’T UNDERSTAND ME TOO QUICKLY), and where heroism is a flickering, ephemeral concept in permanent revolution. This is Batman at dusk, metaphorically speaking. Or is it dawn? All the usual suspects will feature – there’s a Robin, a Batmobile, a Batcave and plenty of fighting (I count four fights in the first issue alone, all jammed into 23 pages), but, as Moore describes Miller’s reimagining for his introduction to Dark Knight, ‘it’s all completely different’ (you see! I’m comparing myself to Frank Miller now! My God….). This Batman has a different family set-up – in fact family is pretty much the theme underscoring the first story arc – and is much more at home with all the weird psychedelia and wacky magical shit than Bruce Wayne. There just isn’t the same air of denial surrounding Damian. He’s at home in the DCU, entrenched in ways his predecessor wasn’t, and maybe finds it all kinda fun.

Anyway. Expect to be confused. It all moves pretty fast.

Without further ado:

It appears that the door to the Dark Dimension was left open, and something crept in.

The signs that marked its passing: wet footprints on the stairs, and a small scrap of moist paper, on which was written, in tiny, vicious handwriting, this, the very first post from a very doubtful guest…

Something giggles in the dark after the jump

Definitely in Greatest Hits mode at the moment, repackaging old tat to get ready for Christmas. 2.5% less VAT. Catastrophes averted by less.

Ancient Chinese Wisdom say: Jump! Juuuump!!

And you thought we’d forgotten. For the lucky uninitiated, check the Cape-Killer archive:

To catch a cape killer

Cape killer apokriffer

Join Us!

What are you waiting for? JOIN US!!

So. We caught one.. A genuine, real life, stone-cold Cape Killer. Hero-blood under the nails on her dialing finger.

Beware! The mind of a Killer lurks beneath!

Look at that! That’s The Beast Must Die‘s Haunted Mansion. A bunch of us Mindless Ones have just recorded a podcast (NSFW) there where we all talked about scary comics.

Download at your peril![audio:http://mindlessones.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/mopodcast007.mp3]

We also managed what will be our regular podcast features, Voyage Into The Negative Zone and Touchdown On Paradise Island where we slag things off and praise others respectively.

mopodcast008[audio:http://mindlessones.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/mopodcast008.mp3]

More after the jump…

The first mission of the Silent 73 (there’s about 14 of us now, I think, including half of all the people I know in the world. This could take a while.)

Will be to locate certain priceless documents pertaining to our quest. These are:

• The ‘missing’ scenes of Batman #428 (Earth-A version) – the scenes that they had on standby in case the Yes vote took it. When our final quest is completed, these pages will be the real deal, of course. These pages must ne made manifest in simulation before they can be brought into the real. (got scans?)

• The editorial/letters page of Batman # 427, where they explained the whole mad deal to the fans. I need to see them so I can feel the awkwardness and embarrasment in Denny’s ‘voice’ as he explains this weird little gimmick to his always-explosive and over-invested readership. Handle with care.

Help us, Silent 73. Find the treasure.

More after the jump…

I got my black shirt on.
I got my Black Gloves on.
I got my ski mask on.
This shit’s been too long.
…
Cape killer, better you than me.
Cape killer, fuck superhero brutality!
Cape killer, I know your whole league’s grievin’
(Fuck ’em.)
Cape killer, but tonight we get even.

– Cape Killer, by Ice-2 (the Ice-T of Earth-2)

A thought caught me, late last night, and it won’t let go. So let’s kick it around a bit, and see what we get out.

More after the jump…