PRELUDE

In times like these as in all other times, you are allowed to be relieved when someone else has done the heavy lifting for you.  As such, it’s comforting to find that Clark has put together not only a series of thoughtful posts on the immediate impacts of Covid-19 on the comics industry, but also a run of weekly link blogs to keep folk up-to-date on what’s going on in this little corner of the world.

Free from any delusions of being thorough, I figured I’d write a short post drawing attention to a few free comics / comics related videos closer to home, and maybe highlight a couple of ways you can help the artists involved along the way if you’ve got the cash to do so.

PART 1 – FREE COMICS!

Lockdown has seen a number of comics artists giving away their work for free, or at a discount.  Here are a few such works that we’ve reviewed before, if you’re stuck in the house and want a sense of what you might want to amuse and enervate yourself without splurging your last few iso-bucks!

Sarah Broadhurst, Jules Scheele and an army of sharp feminist voices – Identity: An Anthology (One Beat Zines, originally reviewed November 2015)

DOWNLOAD IT FOR FREE HERE

This is not only a truly beautiful object but a useful one too.  From Sabba Khan‘s elegant self-reflections to Alia Wilhelm‘s too-close photography by way of Sammy Boras‘ more traditional use of the comic book form to explore difficult questions of sexuality, Identity always makes intersectional feminism feel as natural as it really is, despite what some commentators might have you believe, arranging all of these disparate voices and means of expression together in one powerful volume.

This might sound like damning with faint praise but it’s meant sincerely.   Seemingly taking its cue from the punchy, “here’s my point and I dare you not to take it” expressiveness of Scheele’s cover design, this collection of comics and essays transforms lived experience into a rallying cry against complacency, against the possibility of mistaking your own experience for the only one worth listening to.

I can’t recommend it highly enough.

WANT TO LEARN MORE?

SILENCE! #238

October 25th, 2017

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]

You can support us using Patreon if you like.

This edition of SILENCE! is proudly sponsored by the greatest comics shop on the planet, DAVE’S COMICS of Brighton. It’s also sponsored the greatest comics shop on the planet GOSH! Comics of London.