Mindless Ones

In a startling turn of events, the Mindless Ones will be at Thought Bubble 2024 in Harrogate this weekend. We’ll be at tables B3-4 in DSTLRY Hall on Saturday 16th and Sunday 17th November, trading comics for hard cash and pre-chewed vowels.

It wouldn’t be a Mindless meet-up without big massive genius Gary Lactus aka Fraser Geesin in the mix, so we’re all delighted to know that we’ll be able to look upon the face of bad backs this weekend. This time out Fraser will be debuting the latest issue of Pricks, his ongoing collaboration with Laurie Rowan.

Here’s a Mindless micro-review of the latest issue, just to get yr receptors tingling:

Ever feel everything closing in as you flop about in next door’s bins trying to find a new accessory? Ever wonder what’s happened to your brand, and how you were convinced to have it burned into your flesh in the first place? Ever find yourself not mad but laughing, actually? If so, congratulations, Pricks #4 is the comic for you! If not, amazing, Pricks #4 has experienced all those things so you don’t have to! 

The previous three issues of Fraser Geesin and Laurie Rowan’s Pricks established a tone and a set of characters, none of them particularly stable. Just when you think you’ve got a grip on what’s going on with Darren – hunched in a slum property, dressed in only a rubber glove for warmth – Pricks finds a new shape to squeeze him into. This is high, horrible absurdity that will appeal to fans of Michael Kupperman and Steve Aylett, made all the more potent by the way Geesin’s art grounds even the book’s wildest gags in the everyday.

Pricks looks and smells every bit as routinely abhorrent as the modern world. What a miracle, then, that it’s also the funniest comic of the year.

Alongside all four issues of Pricks, Fraser will be selling the following hand crafted wonders this weekend: his ace autobio comic The Cleaner; Ikea-themed anthology Komisk; prints depicting Ikea Products From Hell; his collaboration with big pimpin’ Andre Whickey, Tales From 500 Songs; the Pocket Chillers Speckle and Ash and Jeff (the latter with Dan Cox); and Journey To The Surface of the Earth issues #1-2.

As if all that wasn’t enough, Fraser will be stripping off his civilian identity and going full Gary Lactus at the SILENCE! to Astonish panel at 2pm on Saturday 16th November in Panel Room 2.

Goodie Lactus will be joined in this endeavour by his trusty co-hosts, The Beast Must Die and “Affable” Al Kennedy, and by special guests Chrissy Williams, Ram V, David Brothers and Stephanie Phillips. Expect odd questions, inexplicable challenges, and totally unexpected and double plus special guests in this, the ninth occurrence of comicdom’s most pointless and shambolic panel show.

IT’S LIKE A WHIRLPOOL AND IT NEVER ENDS

At last! It’s time for The Big Pivot! Welcome to the SILENCE! Sportscast! All the Action! All the balls! More kicks and hits than you could reasonably kick or hit! Who’s winning? YOU!

Unfortunately the sports chat gets somewhat derailed by talk about gigs and the 90s before Gary Lactus and The Beast Must Die get sucked into The Reviewniverse where they find Joe Wilkinson: My Autobiography, Elf Quest, Cerebus, Viz (Gary’s got a strip in it!) and Proustian comics in general.

Following that, there’s a lovely bit of SILENCE! (Because The Film’s Started) in which The Beast Must Die has seen The Flash.

All sport is finally forgotten as the hosts reckymend Comfort Blanket, Allan Quartermain and the Spear of Destiny (Jesus fucking Christ), Blood & Flesh: The Reel Life & Ghastly Death of Al Adamson and Gary just won’t stop going on about his Patreon. At this point in the blurb we usually say, “AND MORE!”.

@frasergeesin

@thebeastmustdie

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You can support us using Patreon if you like.

SILENCE! has not been sponsored by the greatest comics shops on the planet, DAVE’S COMICS of Brighton and GOSH! Comics of London for years but we still love them.

THE GAME WILL NEVER BE OVER BECAUSE WE’RE KEEPING THE DREAM ALIVE

Oh my goodness gracious! Ugh! What’s that unholy stench? Oh, I see. It’s bloody Gary Lactus writing the blurb. Why’s HE writing the blurb? He’s crap at writing the blurb, (and he smells). Huh? It’s The Beast Must Die’s birthday?! And Gary’s special gift to his best pal is writing the blurb for him? Man, that’s a shit present! Is that literally all he’s doing for him? What a chundering arsehole! I’m glad I don’t have a “friend” like Gary Lactus.

Welcome dearest of listeners to the closest thing The Beast Must Die will get to a birthday Party. Here’s a special podcast for a very special boy.

<ITEM>There’a a luxuriously long preamble where your main characters talk merrily about Big Train, Look Around You and The Geesin Family Output, The Lovecraft Investigations, The Beef And Dairy Network and  Petscop. Oh, and The Beast reviews Gary Lactus’s Journey To The Surface Of The Earth #2, still interminably available from FraserGeesin.com

<ITEM>Eventually they get round to talking about some comics.  What are those comics?  These are those comics:  Batman Annual #5, Judge Dredd: Crusade, Dog Man, Deathshead:  Body In Question and Jim.

<ITEM>As promised last week, The Beast takes Gary on the start of a choose-your-own adventure!  This could be the start of something beautiful.

<ITEM>Time to listen!

@frasergeesin
@thebeastmustdie

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The big headline here is that JOURNEY TO THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH #2 is now done and you can buy it.  It’s £4.50 for the physical version and £2.00 for digital.  Let’s have a look at it shall we?

Sure looks good doesn’t it?  Yes.  Yes it does.  You are impressed.  Let’s not forget that issue one of Journey To The Surface Of The Earth is still available too.

Twenty pages pf A4 full colour and B&W goodness,  the first issue of Journey To The Surface Of The Earth was described as “a fittingly witty celebration of the mundane” by Broken Frontier’s Andy Oliver, who asked us all to celebrate “the unique mindscape of this seriously underappreciated mainstay of the UK self-publishing scene”. 

DARE YOU DENY HIM?

We’re not sure if Fraser knows how much his autobiographical comic The Cleaner has impacted how we think about life, art and what we’re actually doing when me make our lives into art, but we’re sure like you to find out for yourselves!

Click on the images below if you want a closer look at some of Fraser’s work, some of which is serious and all of which is intensely funny:

Fraser’s comics can be bought in digital and physical form via his website, and you can chat away to him on twitter here. 

THEY’RE BACK!

After an incredible eight-and-a-half year break, Fraser Geesin‘s hilarious comedy creations that defined a generation are back to make your sides explode so violently that the atoms of your ribs will be scattered beyond space, time and thought whilst you piss yourself with a laser-sharp yellow jet of endless, mirthful urine at a pressure so high it will cut the Earth in two.

 
Why not look further into the incredible mind of Fraser Geesin, maybe even give him some money by buying some of his products or simply bask in his seemingly endless genius then weep tears of sexual thunder as your soul is upgraded from the disgusting cesspool it was before you visited FraserGeesin.com.

As debuted at Thought Bubble, KOMISK, the Ikea themed comics anthology, is now available from Fraser Geesin’s webstore!

Featuring strips by Geesin, Kathryn Briggs, Gareth A. Hopkins, Tom Mortimer, Paul Jon Milne and David Allison (that’s me – hi mum!), KOMISK exists at the point where mild domestic ambition blurs into existential terror and where novel shelving solutions seem to mock you in your dreams.

“Darkly humorous… really very, very funny” – Andy Oliver, Broken Frontier

“Includes Fraser Geesin’s THE INCREDIBLE EVERYDAY, the best thing I’ve read all weekend” – Colin Bell, Thought Bubble 2018

As a wee taster, you can download an alternative version of one my contributions to the anthology, Spegelvärlden, RIGHT HERE!

The finished version of the strip is shorter, less oblique and packed full of words cos yer man Geesin was keen on providing value for money for paying punters, but I still quite like this version and hopefully it’ll give you a flavour of the ruined good that await you in the anthology itself!

Hey Kids – Stop snogging and listen to me!

Silence is back! And it’s smaller, longer and more claustrophobic than ever before! Welcome to The Temple of Lactus where the atoms of reality are comics and batman really is the god of my two fathers.

Cursing silver, Das Biest Muss Sterben drags his bloody pelt through the wilds of the black forest gateau and has NO TIME FOR PODCASTING, LOSERS. This means: homely, hirsute but dutiful farmer’s daughter Bobsy is kidnapped from his cosy homestead and forced into the servitude of the Spacelord and his menagerie of wives (x1) sons (x1) and cats (x2).

They strip down to their essentials and get down to business. Their business is comic book reviews and business is in no particular order –

Magpie 1&2, Triskelion 5 – Kathryn Briggs
The Cleaner 4 – Fraser Geesin
Rok of the Reds 1-3 – Wagner, Grant and Cornwell
Reads 4 – Avery Hill Publishing
Berserker 1 – Breakdown Press
Battle Action Force – Major Black
Here come the beautiful people and Counting Stones – Douglas Noble
Prismatik Man 1 – Stathis Tsemberlidis
Stone Focus and Propagation of… – Lando
STEELBLADE 1 by Steven Steelblade
Into the Black by Benjy Goldsmith and Cicy Reay
Generation Gone 1-3 – Ales Kot and Andre Lima Araujo
What is Left – Rosmary V-O
Mr. Higgins Comes Home – Mike Mignola and Warwick Johnson-Cadwell
Kid Lobotomy – Peter Milligan and Tess Fowler

@silencepod

@frasergeesin
@thebeastmustdie
@bobsymindless
@kellykanayama


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A few years ago I drew a little strip for no discernible audience. Thought I’d put it here. Click on the images to enlarge them. Cheers.

CLICK HERE IF YOU’D LIKE TO READ IT!

WARNING TEAM!

This week, still bereft of The Beast Must Die, Gary Lactus goes on a quest to find him. His journey takes him into a lonely Reviewniverse where he mutters to himself about Tank Girl: Solid State, Daredevil, Justice League, Hawkeye, Young Avengers, Superman Unchained, Batman, Ghosted, Astro City and Avengers Arena.

Then we venture into a whole new realm baring little or no relevance to the already fairly loose remit of SILENCE! Gary Lactus’ manufactured alter ego Fraser Geesin talks to lovely Dan Fardell about comedy, the Man Of Steel film, Ivor Cutler, Ron Geesin and other stuff. Dan is currently filling in for Kerry Herbert on Kerry On Comedy, every Tuesday 3pm on BHCR.

TRUTH ACCEPTED!

click to download SILENCE!#69

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