Mindless Ones

Suds McKenna – Bunged (O Panda Gordo, 2018)

True to its origins as ‘an ongoing series of urban sketches’, Bunged looks like something that you might encounter in scraps, as a series of drawings that had been left around the house, flat share fragments that tell the story of a busy mind in a busy world. Thankfully for your future prospects of cohabitation, this mind seems to be a little bit scared of what it sees, but not to the point where the idea of humour has been made to seem miraculous:

You would feel puzzled but not deeply perturbed by these portraits.  You wouldn’t mention them to anyone, wouldn’t deem them any more necessary of commentary than the fact that a bar was crowded on a Friday.  Or indeed, that some of the streets pictured here – like Buchanan Street, above – were filled with bodies at the weekend.

It’s the distortions of the human form that give this work its non-banal aspect, suggestive as they are of both a deep subjectivity (as drawn into the page by your mystery flatmate/as read into the page by you) and of the fact that these people have more going on than you can fathom (as drawn into the page by your flatmate/as recognised from the world you’ve seen with your own damn eyes). This is itself is hardly a startling realisation, of course, but it’s vividly expressed here and comforting in context.

Monstrous as we are, it’s good to know that we’re not alone.

SICK ANIMALS ARE PEOPLE TOO, SO COME ON LET’S MAKE THEIR DREAMS COME TRUE

He had tried so hard. He had tried harder than any man had ever tried. All he wanted was to be the best at the thing he had trained for so long to best at. The thing he was born to be really good at. It was the only thing he cared about, his reason for living. It was the only thing anyone cared about. The world expected him to be the best there ever was or ever would be at the thing. The weight of the world pushed down on his shoulders as it now looked like he might not be the best at doing a thing. He couldn’t let this happen so he clenched his teeth, making his jaw muscles bulge in and out then he punched a locker and went on to become the best there is at doing the thing. Every day was like this for Tom Cruise.

Right, so this is SILENCE! #190 in which The Beast Must Die had to run off at the last minute for a very important and highly paid assassination leaving Gary Lactus to ask twitter for co hosts. He found:

Johnathan Dick, a nice chap from Virginia who talked Nick Spencer’s Steve Rogers Captain America #1 with Gary.

Al Kennedy from House To Astonish who talked DC Rebirth and Baker Street Peculiars.

The pair of them saved the day really so HOORAY FOR THEM!

It goes like this:

Click to download SILENCE!#190