Mindless Ones

For the first time since the last time, 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 cash and WNDRNG WHT YRTS.

Some handsome bastard called David Allison will be there flogging zines and comics in the hope of attracting the right crowd. His first big new release of the weekend is An Intervention, his second Pocket Chiller.

An Intervention is a tale of random encounters, submerged responsibility, and concrete angels. Like a chimp attempting to make fire by hooting at some twigs, David has made a crude trailer for the comic, which you can watch below.

David’s other new release is The Grave and The Good, a Choose Your Own Adventure zine.

Here’s how David is trying to entice the unsuspecting this time out: “You wake up with the taste of earth in your mouth. Everything else about you is cold and damp, but you sense that you were on the verge of learning something horrible and true about the world. The only question is, can you dig deep into this feeling and survive?”

David will have copies of his previous Pocket Chiller, The Candidate, for sale at the weekend. If he gets his act together, he will also have a range of zines and mini-comics with him, including: Uncle Frank, Cut-Out Witch, and Mini-Witch (all illustrated by Shaky Ghost); Beyond Whiles (adapted from the work of Alasdair Gray); BARRY, or “The Robot”; and Grave Tidings, an eight page comic made of reprocessed art from The Grave and The Good.

Creator of the ultra-lucrative PHOTOCOPIED PICTURES OF BUILDINGS extended universe, David Allison aka Illogical Volume is a man of few words these days.  He charges £50 for a disinterested sigh and refuses to write even a paragraph unless you agree to follow him around the house praising him for how well he’s doing at life. 

He particularly likes it when you compliment him on his skill with the toaster, as we found out while procuring the following comments…

I’m David Allison and I’m a multidisciplinary fuck-up from Glasgow.   When I’m not writing about comics for this website or talking about them in random public spaces, I can usually be found working in and studying the housing sector.  Sometimes I find the time to make comics too!

For the last few years I’ve been working on my LGH comics, which are my attempt to document abandoned places and the people that live there.  You can still access those spaces, no matter what they say.  You just need to know the right entry points…

If you want to check out the LGH comics, portal #3 (Unfit) and portal #5 (Under the Water) should give you a sense of their style and what they’re about.

You can buy the complete set here for £3, and hey – who am I to stop you?  Those who’ve had physical copies of the first three issues pressed into their hands may note that this collection includes a new issue, Raptor, that brings this sequence to a close.

Cut-Out Witch is twenty five pages worth of lost souls and lo-fi monster magic – Lynne provided the pictures, which as a manifestation of her own inner world are the real reason you’ll want to read this.

The original print run has sold out, but Cut-Out Witch is now available in PDF format for the princely sum of £1!

Praise for Cut-Out Witch:

“Cut-Out Witch is really good… Lovely creepy stuff” – Twitter’s own James Baker

“You do seem to be able to dash such things off quite easily, I kind of wish I could do that…” – A Trout in the Milk

***

Finally, I contributed two strips to the sensational IKEA-themed anthology KOMISK.  Featuring work by Fraser Geesin, 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.

Like all good existential terror, KOMISK is available to buy in both digital and physical formats.

One of my KOMISK strips was a solo mission, the other was a collaboration with the phenomenal Kathryn Briggs, without whom Thought Bubble just isn’t the same.

Praise for my contributions to KOMISK:

“David Allison and Kathryn Briggs, meanwhile, conflate IKEA and a near vision of Hell in ‘Jörmungandr’, neatly merging Norse mythology and furniture retail in a twisting spatio-temporal paradox…  Allison’s own ‘Spegelvärden’ is a deliciously straight-faced parody.” – Andy Oliver, Broken Frontier

Hello there. This issue of SILENCE! has been put together from conversations between Gary Lactus and The Dear Listener. Normal SILENCE! service shall return soon.

CONTENTS!

Little Kieron Gillen is off school and talks The Ludocrats and Asterix with the recent passing of Albert Uderzo. He also bigs up Pulp by Brubaker and Phillips before getting on with his homework.

Spare 5 tells Gary about life at home right now where he’s found time to get round to reading Uzumaki and watching Galaxy Quest.

John Bishop tackles the topics of the sickness of collecting, his new dog, Ryan Brown and Blast Furnace.

Illogical Volume fulfills a diversity quota with his Scottishness. He tells Gary about The Drifting Classroom the newly colourised From Hell and Gary tells him about Billionaire Island and there’s speculation about our post-virus world.

Zom is our final caller even though he lives close enough to Gary’s spaceship in space to shout. He’s done a right good read of David Boring so the pals talk about Daniel Clowes and ponder what sort of Batman they are.

The end. Now wash your hands. Seriously, wash your hands.

@frasergeesin
@thebeastmustdie

si************@gm***.com

Thes city is afraid ay me…i hae seen its true coopon. th’ streets ur extended gutters an’ th’ gutters ur foo ay bluid an’ when th’ drains finally scab ower, aw th’ vermin will droon. Th’ accumulated filth ay aw their a scuttle an’ mudder will foam up abit their waists an’ aw th’ whores an’ politicians will swatch up an’ shit “sae us!”… an’ i’ll swatch doon an’ whisper “no.” They hud a choice, aw ay them. they coods hae followed in th’ footsteps ay guid men loch mah faither ur president truman. Brain new men fa believed in a day’s wark fur a day’s pay. insteid they followed th’ droppings ay lechers an’ communists an’ didne realize ‘at th’ trail led ower a precipice until it was tay late. dornt teel me they didne hae a choice. Noo th’ whole warld stands oan th’ brink, starin’ doon intae bludy heel, aw those liberals an’ intellectuals an’ smooth-talkers… an’ aw ay a sudden nobody can hink ay anythin’ tae say. OOSH!

It never gets old.

Come one, come all, come none…just COME! To SILENCE! with your gurning hosts The Beast Must Die and Gary Lactus. And who’s that peeping over the ramparts? Could it be…is it? Why it’s scorch legend Illogical Volume!

<ITEM> A bit of the old how’s your sponsor! Place your bets as to how badly the pair will f*ck up this simple task…

<ITEM> Roaming through the Gloaming! What the hell is a gloaming? What’s that? A sort of ye olde Reviewniverse? Okay then now you’re talking! Falling under the laughable ‘scrutiny’ are… 2000AD, Jem & The Holograms, ULTRA Comics (with a monologue from the aforementioned Ill Vol) We Can Never Go Home, Quantam & Woody, Miami Vice: Remix, Magnum PI, Darth Vader, Walking Dead, Past Aways, Death Wish and The Black Hood. Gertcha!

CORE! Sounds like a RIGHT GRIN! Where do I sign up?

Why just press play Dear Listener, just press play…

Click to download SILENCE!#137

Contact us:

si************@gm***.com












@silencepod
@frasergeesin
@thebeastmustdie

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! Comicsof London.

The Mindless Ones will be exhibiting their tawdry wares at this weekend’s Thought Bubble Comics Convention in Leeds.

Mindlessers Andrew Hickey, Dan White (The Beast Must Die), and Illogical Volume will be there for the full two days, so come by table 40 at Royal Armouries Hall and say hello. And buy things.

TBMD:

I shall be selling copies of all my comics

Terminus vols 1-3

Zip City Comics 1

Cindy and Biscuit 1

and the first print copies of Cindy & Biscuit: What We Did At the Weekend, as featured right here.

Illogical Volume: Since I’m a lazy, easily distracted bastard, I don’t have any books or comics for you to buy, and contrary to what some people have suggested, I probably won’t be selling sexual favours either. Probably.

What I will be doing is talking pish, touching heads, and possibly acting out bits of Gary Lactus’ epic Amusing Brothers story, Knights of the Realm, depending on how many “adult beverages” I’ve had.

I will also be helping Dan and Andrew (aka the man-mashed master criminal Dandrew) sell copies of their excellent books and comics, because they are excellent, and you should buy them, because did I mention that they are excellent?

Hnh. There is a reason I never became a salesman.

Anyway, if you’re going, please stop by so we can indulge in some mutual headtouching!

Mmmm… headtouching!

Andrew Hickey: And I, meanwhile, will be selling copies of my books Sci-Ence! Justice Leak! (about Darkseid, Doctor Who, Mister Miracle, the Liberal Democrats and fanfiction, amongst other things) and An Incomprehensible Condition, about Seven Soldiers.

(I’ll also have a small number of copies of my other books on hand, in case anyone has mistaken the comic convention for a 60s pop convention).

My books aren’t as good as Dan’s, because they don’t have many pictures in (and I didn’t even draw the pictures that are in them myself). But on the upside, they are more expensive.

I will also be available for head-touching, although you’re really better off not doing. I’m contagious.

There’s also other stuff to do there, if you don’t fancy spending two days just hanging around three comics bloggers and touching parts of their anatomy. You could, for example, stalk Bryan Talbot, as I did in 2009, or you could go and watch Mel Gibson talk about being a woman in comics. Or get Cameron Stewart or Paul Cornell to scribble their names on things. The possibilities are limitless.

The point is, Thought Bubble is great, and we’re great, so this is a winning combination, and you should come along and give us money.

This is his face

Terrifying… but also sexy

Since Illogical Volume a/k/a his govt. name, David Allison, joined the Mindless Ones the comics interent has never been the same again (although, thinking on it, wouldn’t it be odd for things to be the same, the exact same again? I don’t know what date I’d go back to, but I’d defo be younger, maybe some time 1998, or 2002, or 2004?) Anyway, ya boy has been droppin’ bombs from such a height as to make said comicsinternet look like Dresden, c.mid-February 1945, and we would have got round to doing this when he’d his own blog Vibrational Match, and you want it. Yeah, you want it, you sluts.

Here it fucking is, then. Eh? EHHH?!?!