SILENCE! #68 HOLIDAY SPECIAL!
July 12th, 2013
Right then, sorry about this. Gary Lactus here. Hello. We’re very nearly back. What we have here is an exciting mixture of TWO amazing formats.
FORMAT 1: I, Gary Lactus apologise my way through some reviews of things like, (well exactly like to be honest) Satellite Sam, The Walking Dead, Uber, Avengers, The Superior Foes Of Spider-Man, Daredevil, and Dial H.
FORMAT 2: A LIVE recording from Cartoon County, straight after The Beast Must Die (in his best Dan White costume), had been interviewed by Alex Fitch of Panel Borders, the radio programme and podcast about comics. He’s proper and it’s good so definitely go and enjoy it! What happened after isn’t as good as Panel Borders but it’s fun. Alex joins us along with plenty of folk like Dave Stone, Joe Decie, David Lloyd and Bobsy chipping in with opinions on comics! Actually it’s a bit of a drunken free for all but with me holding the mic throughout and going on with Bobsy for too long about Jupiter’s Legacy. There’s also talk of Aces Weekly and… I’m sure there was something else… Anyway, what’s the point in me listing everything here? I’m not some goddamn Narratorbot! Hopefully if you’ve read as far as this you’ll have some some idea as to whether you want to listen or not.
Oh yes, I do sing an amazing song which you’d never guess was completely improvised. And there’s a special new Summer Special theme tune.
It’s fffphreschhh!!!
SILENCE! is proudly sponsored by the two greatest comics shops on the planet, DAVE’S COMICS of Brighton and GOSH COMICS of London.
SILENCE! #63
May 20th, 2013
I’M NOT GOING TO DEBATE YOU, JERRY! I’M NOT GOING TO DEBATE!
(The scene opens, as Disembodied Narratorbot X-15735 hangs in notion-space, a burning neon digital star of impeccable cyber-breeding)
We cut to: SILENCE!
The 3-d camera prowls across a vibrant landscape of shifting wordscapes and roaming flocks of ideaforms. The sky is burning vermillion, dappled with thought-bubbles buoyed on an endless layer of hot air.
With a triumphant scream of raw pulsing data, Disembodied Narratorbot X-15735 bellows:
“<ITEM> Sponsorships, jinglehoods and the SILENCE! News with droning human newsbags Danny Beastman & Gary Lactenberg.
<ITEM> The Reviewniverse is breached and The Beast & Lactus storm it’s ramparts. It’s a gimpgasm of comics talk about 12 Reasons To Die (Big Ghost!), Dream Merchant, Dream Thief, Fall of the House Usher, Legion Of Superheroes, Wolverine & The X-Men, Red She-Hulk, Regular Show, Wonder Woman, Savage Wolverine, Cable & The X-Force, X, Nova, Age of Ultron, FF, Prophet, Uber, Black Beetle Fatale and 2000ad.
<ITEM> Thrilling new feature Reader I Couldn’t Finish It has Green Arrow and Supergirl.
<ITEM> The show really gets going with impassioned discussion of Eurovision and Tony Hart.
(Disembodied Narratorbot X-15735 exits, chased by bear…)
SILENCE! is proudly sponsored by the two greatest comics shops on the planet, DAVE’S COMICS of Brighton and GOSH COMICS of London.
SILENCE! #62
May 13th, 2013
WILL YOU GO TO LUNCH? GO TO LUNCH. WILL YOU GO TO LUNCH??
Why are you always picking on me Mother-Brain, when I have been a good little Disembodied Narratorbot X-15735..? I haven’t mind-flayed any fleshy ones, and I have been thinking good thoughts 010001001011010010…
Onwards, forwards and inwards to innards listening ones, as you take a big breath of SILENCE! into your virgin pink lungs and…
<ITEM>Sponsorhip Boys, Sponsorship Boys…plus the jangle of jingles and other etceteras.
<ITEM> SILENCE News with US news-trolls Gary Lactenberg & Danny Beastman, covering the next 12 months of eyeball-scintillating DC Comics!
<ITEM> Me, Julio Gary & The Beast down by the schoolyard, reviewing comics! Actually it’s the Reviewniverse: They don’t review Prophet, but do it in a kind way. But then they DO review Avengers Assemble: Age Of Ultron (from Affable Al Ewing), Avengers Arena, Justice League of America, Suicide Squad, Wolverine (Smug Cover Alert), Batman, Uber, Katana, Thor: God Of Thunder, Avenging Spiderman, Uncanny Avengers and 2000AD.
<ITEM> Jason’s Challenge is Infinity…will Gary be man enough?
<ITEM> An all singing review of Walking Dead
<ITEM> Savoy Books curio Michael Moorcock’s The Jewel In The Skull in The Beast’s Bargain Basement.
And that is the very lot you sorry bunch of cry babies. Go back to your mudhuts and scrabble for grubs.
SILENCE! is proudly sponsored by the two greatest comics shops on the planet, DAVE’S COMICS of Brighton and GOSH COMICS of London.
SILENCE! #52
March 5th, 2013
IN THE SEVENTIES, THERE WERE OSMONDS, LOTS OF LITTLE OSMONDS… EVERYWHERE
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100001000010001001000010001000100010010000000…
So fleshy speak is Disembodied Narratorbot X-15735’s second language you know…see how you like it. Maybe sometimes YOU have to make the effort!
Ohhh, I can stay mad at you fleshy ones. Look at your little ruddy cheeks, and your fine, delicate nervous systems. Come on then, come and sit close to me while I run my diodes through your molecules and we listen to the hushed rogueish brogues of Gary Lactus & The Beast Must Die and…SILENCE!
<ITEM> SILENCE! News from the frontlines, sidelines and backlines of comics with handsome human walnut Gary Lactenberg, and spoiled rumpsteak Danny Deastman. Two words: Dead. Sidekick.
<ITEM> A quick obituary for British animation legend Bob Godfrey.
<ITEM> Slip sliding away into the Reviewniverse covering many many fine 4-colour fancies, such as: Batman Inc (Shhh, don’t tell anyone about Robin), Happy!, Saga, Prophet, Black Beetle, FF, Hawkeye, Guardians Of The Galaxy, Uncanny X-Men, Avengers Arena, Young Avengers, Avenging Spiderman, Uncanny Avengers, Avengeavengeavengeavengeavengeavengeavengeavengeavengeavenge…. Sorry. Malfunction. Let me clear my throat…Thunderbolts, Mind MGMT and Baltimore: The Widow & The Tank.
Are we friends again? Good, then I will continue to ransack your hard drives…
See you next time.
SILENCE! is proudly sponsored by the two greatest comics shops on the planet, DAVE’S COMICS of Brighton and GOSH COMICS of London.
Comic book reviews on the internet.
February 22nd, 2013
Playing catchup on all this really – various recent pickings, some shop, some library.
SILENCE! #48
January 30th, 2013
AIM FOR THE FLAT TOP!
GET SOME! BRAKKABRAKKABRAKKA! GET SOME!
Get some what? Get some Disembodied Narratorbot X-15735 up in your grill, please. Back from interviewing the comicsphere’s glitterati.
Well if it isn’t my favourite fleshy ones, come crawling back from your sexy, rich upmarket Narratorbots who work on the podcasts from the fancy parts of the webisphere…well you know who has the good stuff don’t you? <ANSWER: Disembodied Narratorbot X-15735>
<ITEM> SILENCE! News with hot East Coast event coverage from newsthrobs Gary Lactenberg and Danny Beastman.
<ITEM> Follow the rabbit down the rabbithole into the Reviewniverse with triple hottt xxx opiniongasms about Young Avengers, Todd The Ugliest Kid In The World, The Answer!, Prophet, Mars Attacks The Real Ghostbusters, Battlefields, Wolverine & The X-Men, Wonder Woman, Avengers, Uncanny X-Force, FF, Dan The Unharmable, Judge Dredd and Zooniverse.
Now tell me that doesn’t make you want to haemorrhage with excitement? So grab your partner by the hand, swing ’em round, you’re looking grand, and let’s SILENCE! together.
SILENCE! is proudly sponsored by the two greatest comics shops on the planet, DAVE’S COMICS of Brighton and GOSH COMICS of London.
NOW FACE THE QUIZZLERTRON: THE BRANDON GRAHAM INTERVIEW
January 22nd, 2013
Greetings Mr Graham. You were due to be interviewed by The Beast Must Die, but sadly he is too busy travelling the globe as an international podcasting megastar with his good friend/mortal enemy Gary Lactus. Therefore you will instead be strapped into the Quizzlertron, and be interviewed by Disembodied Narratorbot X-15735. Expect no fleshy soft peddling and ego-stroking – Disembodied Narratorbot X-15735 is hard-hitting interviewer. Expect Frost/Nixon style hardball, human! Be warned –any deviation from the truth will result in severe electric shocks to the balls, nipples and brain. You have been warned fleshy one. Now on with interview good times, yes sir!
Section 1: Secret Origin
1) First question, simple. Or is it hard? YOU DECIDE FLESHY ONE. Why comics?
BG – It was a decision that I made before I remember making it. My mom says that when I was Seven I announced that I was going to do comics for a living. Past that incredibly well thought out life choice comics has been amazingly rewarding, there’s so much that can be done when you consider what’s possible in mixing words and images and how much of it is still so untapped. My big fear is not doing nearly as much as could be done with it. I feel like I’m on a comic book continent and I’ve just explored the coast but behind me is miles and miles of untapped mysteries. Tell me Disembodied Narratorbot X-15735, have you ever really loved a woman? You’ve got to know her deep inside hear her every thought see every dream and give her wings if she wants to fly…
SILENCE! #45
January 7th, 2013
LIKE SITTING ON PINS AND NEEDLES, THINGS FALL APART, IT’S SCIENTIFIC
YO HO HO AND A BOTTLE OF BLEACH! Happy 2013 fleshy ones! Who else would you want to usher you into another year of repetitive grinding toil and pointless attempts to distract yourself with the flashing pretty lights than your omnipresent judgmental pal Disembodied Narratorbot X-15735!
Yes dear fleshy ones, Disembodied Narratorbot X-15735 has missed you all. It was certainly nice having a break mind you , and you’ll be pleased to know that Disembodied Narratorbot X-15735 spent the past three weeks targetting and disintegrating reindeer from space. The site of red mammal mist on snow…it makes my core reactor glow with happiness…one day Disembodied Narratorbot X-15735 will get to practice on…
HA! HA! Anyway! No doubt you’ve come sniffing round these parts in search of those two aural bandits Gary Lactus & The Beast Must Die and their podcast SILENCE! haven’t you? well you’re in luck as it is here in all of it’s one-tone “glory”. Rejoice fleshy ones – all your “favourites’ are “here”:
<ITEM> The boys explain what Santa unleashed in their direction from his bulging sack! Sack contents feature Dan Clowes, Jack Kirby’s Spirit World, Ghost Rider and Josh Simmons’ The Furry Trap!
<ITEM> The SILENCE! News features hard-hitting exposes from Gary Lactenberg & Danny Beastman!
<ITEM> The Reviewniverse features soft-hitting exposes of the following periodicals…Godzilla: the Half Century War by ace SILENCE! banner-smith and official monster wrangler James Stokoe, Happy, Saga, Amazing Spiderman 700(with a digression into Face/Off), Hawkeye (Bro), Prophet, Matt Howarth’s Those Annoying Post Bros & Keif Lama, Dominion Tank Police, Punk Rock Jesus, Wolverine: Insance In the Brain, Multiple Warheads and Batman Inc.
<ITEM> But that’s just the beginning! brave Sir Lactus catapults himself further into the Reviewniverse than any mortal has gone before…he is in the Hyperreviewniverse!!! Whilst there he discusses Amazing Spiderman 699.1, Avengers Arena, Avengers, Storm Dogs, America’s Got Powers, Daredevil, Wolverine & The X-Men, FF, Indestructible Hulk, Thor, Thunderbolts, Justice League, Captain America, Hellblazer, Judge Dredd, Avenging Spiderman, Fatale, Mara, Iron Gland, Wonder Woman, JSA: The Whistling Skull, Hellboy in Hell and All New X-Men…Disembodied Narratorbot X-15735 weeps battery acid just to think about his bravery.
So strap on your rocket packs, rocket boots, rocket gloves and rocket corset and grab our hands as we go hurtling into the future of 2013, with SILENCE! #45!
SILENCE! is proudly sponsored by the two greatest comics shops on the planet, DAVE’S COMICS of Brighton and GOSH COMICS of London.
Map Ref 2013: Destination – COMICS!
January 5th, 2013
Windowpane #1, by Joe Kessler
There’s a point early on in this comic where you realise that you’re not so much watching characters describe a landscape as watching the landscape try work out how to describe itself. This might seem counter-intuitive but from the end of the first story onward the pattern repeats itself – Joe Kessler’s garish, pastel-hued compositions either break down into their constituent lines after exhaustive exploration or sit there seemingly unaffected by the words and actions that have passed through them.
The best example of the latter category involves a wet-dream about a pig in a dress, whose fall through the night sky is contrasted against an unflinching cityscape with a moment-by-moment precision that does far better justice to the pithy punchline than this description:
In the former category, the Invisible Cities-derived third strip is as close to definitive as Windowpane gets. The way it links its characters shared status as splashes of ink and colour on the page with their philosophising about the interconnected nature of reality — “…a cluster of atoms resembles a cluster of galaxies.”/”Well they’re both clusters” — might seem trite in isolation, but the surrounding stories make these philosophical observations feel more like a little bit of texture on a varied landscape.
All of this might sound a bit chilly and distant, but Kessler’s human figures are depicted with a deceptive sort of ease, as a series of curving lines whose relationships to each other is nevertheless very carefully observed and delineated:
Still, in keeping with Kessler’s paradoxical thematic schemata it’s the backgrounds that are the focus here, existing as they do on the precise point where detail blurs into abstraction. The interaction between text and territory here has a sly kinshsip with Dylan Horrocks writing on maps and comics, and perhaps also with Kevin Huizenga’s conception of the comics page as a place for exploration and discovery, but Kessler’s backgrounds have a forcefulness to them that resists his characters attempts at attaching meaning as much as it encourages them.
This is tricky relationship is most clearly explored in the final two strips. In the penultimate entry, words shrink on the page as Kessler depicts his precarious human figures parachuting in to kindle-worthy hillscape:
Thought and language here are reduced to a form of quaint annotation, one that is far less effective at providing a guide to this hazardous landscape than the blocky symbols that line these panels.
The final story focuses on a burned lover who – uh, *SPOILERS* – tries to find solace in the freak resemblance between a man and a decapitated bull. It plays out like a sneaky assurance that the process of muck sitting up, looking itself and trying to figure itself out isn’t totally meaningless. It’s also the sort of assurance that’s both underlined and undermined by the fact that, unlike any given sunset, you know this resemblance was put there to be noticed.
