Mindless Ones

WHAT ARE THEY DOING?

THEY’RE WATCHING SNOW WHITE. AND THEY LOVE IT.

I am Disembodied Yulebot X – 15735. HO HO HO HO HO <RUN>

Tis the season to be jingle. Yo ho ho and a bottle of eggnog. Silent Night Deadly Night… Disembodied Yulebot X – 15735 hopes that you have all been good little dear listeners, because you are about to be rewarded with a mammoth extra length merryjingle edition of SILENCE! The Beast Must Die and Gary Lactus are joined by that stocking filler Bobsy for a rambling end of year round up fuelled by festive cheer and just a little bit of yuletide imbibement. But beware. If you’ve been naughty little dear listeners, then Disembodied Yulebot X – 15735 will hunt you down and feed him to his robo-reindeer…

In this free-jazz take on the podcast, the boys discuss (in no particular order)…

Dr Who, Ken Campbell, Mark Gatiss, M R James, the KLF, Illuminatus, Chester Brown’s Paying For It, Michel Fiffe’s COPRA, Jerry Sadowitz, Wimbledon Green, the Canadian Cartoonist’s Newspaper strip, Josh Simmons’ Furry Trap, Avengers Arena, Art Spiegleman’s Co-Mix, Chris Ware Whooppee Cushions, Chester Brown Condoms, All New X-Men, Nina Conti and Ventriloquism, Marvel Superheroes Bath & Shower sets, Artcomix, broseph porn comix, Jim Woodring’s Frank, Fran and Congress of The Animals, Robert Crumb, Joe Matt, English storms, the joys of Coach travel, and believe me when Disembodied Yulebot X – 15735 says, a whole bulging sackload more…

There’s even time for some admin, a couple of toilet breaks, the occasional belch and a Band Aid sized amount of seasonal goodwill.

So take it, shove it into your gullets on top of all the dead turkey, chocolates, cheese, port, brandy, beer, wine and mince bloody pies and head for the mistetoe, where Disembodied Yulebot X – 15735 will be awaiting, diodes glowing…

click to download SILENCE!#87

Contact us:

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

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.

By the early 1990s, it had become clear, despite the BBC’s occasional claims otherwise, that Doctor Who would not be returning to the TV any time soon.

While the New Adventures were an acceptable substitute for many Doctor Who fans — and in the opinion of many even an improvement on the TV show — there were those who simply weren’t satisfied by words on a page, and needed to see old character actors being menaced by improbable monsters before they could feel fully happy.

Enter BBV Productions, producers of Who Methadone.

Yes, I’m a week late with writing this one, but that’s because it’s quite difficult to find much to say about it.

It’s Trad, Dad!

Mark Gatis has, in the past, been the most infuriating of writers for new Doctor Who. While most of the ‘name’ writers on the series have done precisely what one would expect of them, with Neil Gaiman writing a Neil Gaiman story and Richard Curtis writing a Richard Curtis one, there’s always been the sense that Gatiss could do far better.

His first story for the new series, The Unquiet Dead, was, apart from a few dud lines, one of the better ones from the 2005 series, (though as Lawrence Miles pointed out, it had an entirely unintentional anti-immigration subtext that leaves a nasty aftertaste), but after that, every episode with any involvement from Gatiss either as writer or actor has been nearly universally regarded as the weakest of the year.

It’s very odd, because on paper, Gatiss is the perfect writer for the show. He’s clearly an imaginative, witty writer, as both his work for the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and his novels have shown. He’s also a longtime fan of the show (his first professional filmed work was a direct-to-video series called P.R.O.B.E. which is required viewing for anyone who ever wondered what it would be like if The X-Files were made in Britain for a fiver, and had a middle-aged pipe-smoking woman who used to be The Doctor’s companion instead of Mulder and Scully), and seems hugely enthusiastic to be working on it. Yet a Gatiss episode is now always the one everyone knows to avoid.

This time though, he has done the best work of the series so far.

More after the evil disembodied eye stops looking at you…