Mindless Ones

Sophie B – Last Orders (self published, picked up at Thought Bubble comic con, 2019)

A confident comic book debut from the talent behind 2018’s You Can Be Anything™, Last Orders gives you attractive characters in an attractive setting then works to show you how much flavour can be achieved with just the right combination of ingredients.

Those elements being “Gays, Ghosts and Grub”, obviously.

Even a passing glance will tell you that every aspect of this comic has style to spare, but a more attentive eye will reveal a sense of purpose underpinning the design. After all, it’s not just the info boxes that tell us who Robin and Esther are.  The way their outfits reflect each other’s haircuts, the way their conversations move from friendly sparring to sparkling monologue by way of shared glances, the way that those info boxes drop down into the story itself as it progresses – all of this tells us the same story, with no single aspect overpowering the light feast of narrative detail.

That it manages all this and plot about unfinished business almost seems like too much to ask from a first issue…

 

Forty years I been a blurb-writer y’know? My father before me was a blurb-writer and his father before him. And he started the blurb-writers union and all – every blurb-writer worth their salt still talks in hush tones about the blurb riots of 1933. Wouldn’t have the rights we do today without my grandfather and his mates. It’s in the blood is what I’m saying. If you cut me, do I not blurb. Heh.

But it’s a dying art. It’s dead to be honest. Got these new machines that can write a blurb in half the time, and no chance of a spelling mistake or a missed deadline. Oh sure they don’t read the same, but when the bosses see those bottom line figures, you think they care? And the readers hardly notice, that’s the real kicker. In too much of a hurry to get to the content. Click the link, access the content. Content, content content. Well what about conTEXT is what I say? What’s the point. You probably aren’t even reading this anyway. Oh well. Sorry grandpa…I’m trying. I’m trying to do you proud. Once more unto the breach…

<ITEM> HA! A new SILENCE! and it’s only been a week? What is this – a regular schedule or something??

<ITEM> Gary Lactus & The Beast Must Die hold hands and do their merry aural dance for your ears only. Bit of Dadmin, some righteous Sponsorship, Gary’s Birthday and the Beast recounts his adventures in going VIRAL!

<ITEM> Reviewniverse shenanigans ensue with talky-talks of Fence, the DC House of Horror special, Bob Godfrey, 2000AD, Indigo Prime, Revere, John Smith, Captain America, Generation Gone, Not Brand Echhh and more, dammnit so much more. Also features some live John Constantine-ing.

<ITEM> I Reckymend features Paul Verhoeven’s brilliant Elle and the latest Adam Buxton Podcast.

And that really is, my friends, the end.

@silencepod

@frasergeesin
@thebeastmustdie
@bobsymindless
@kellykanayama
[email protected]

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
[email protected]