SILENCE! #276

April 10th, 2020

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

[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.

 

SILENCE! #195

July 5th, 2016

 

RECORD  COMPANY MAN, I WON’T BE COMING TO DINNER

Imagine a blurb. A blurb like you’ve never seen. A golden, beautiful blurb that shines like the sun. A blurb that glistens like dew on morning grass. A blurb that sings like the strike of a tuning fork against an angel’s backside. Imagine a blurb like that. That blurb is here. Can you taste it?

<ITEM> It’s the return of The Beast Must Die, joining Gary Lactus for another ker-lassic episode of SILENCE! But wait! What’s this? It’s also a Bobsy episode! A Bobs-isode!

<ITEM>There’s some admin and a whole load of My Two Dads chat. Of course. And some self-promotion for the our sister and brother podcasts Diane and The Earth-Pig Diaries. And news of our various appearances at Small Press Day 2016

<ITEM>Three men in a Reviewniverse? It’s a king-size edition with more digressions than you can shake a fully painted graphic novel at. Transformers Vs GI Joe, 4 Kids Walk into a Bank, The Sweetness, Detective Comics, Providence, Beverley Hills Cop II, Bill Sienkiewicz, Midnight of the Soul, All New Avengers, Captain America, Captain Brexit, Sean Phillips, John Smith, Sexy Male Comics Creator Top Trumps, The Sound of Drowning and a whole lot more.

And we are done. Move along people.

Click to download SILENCE!#195

 

@silencepod
@frasergeesin
@thebeastmustdie
@bobsymindless
[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.

 

The Beast Must Die: So frazzled, bedraggled and maybe even bedazzled we all arrived safely back from this year’s Thought Bubble 2012 comics festival in Leeds, which once again proved itself to be a thoroughly enjoyable experience for everyone. It gets the tone just right – an even balance between mainstream and fringe, with the small press rubbing shoulders with industry pros. Girls, boys, seasoned fans, neophytes, kids, pensioners, cosplayers and the just plain weird, the TB crowd is diverse, good natured and one of the best aspects of the whole affair.

Attending something like Thought Bubble also reminds you first and foremost why you love the artform, a welcome shot of 4-colour adrenaline to enliven even the most message board weary fan.

The Mindless Ones were there in pretty full effect, with Andrew Hickey, Gary Lactus and myself  joined by Legendary Weapons Bobsy & Illogical Volume, as well as Mindless Cadet, Mister Attack and the living juggernaut that is Plok. We were positioned on the right hand side of the newly christened New Dock Hall. Andrew was selling his arsenal of wonderful music and comics books, as well as a new volume of his short stories. Lactus had the collected full colour beauty of The Amusing Bros and Andrew & Steven in Knights Of The Realm, and I was touting Cindy & Biscuit, including the brand new 56 page issue no.3. Mr Attack had his comic Everyone’s Felt Like This Once for sale, and Bobsy brought along a free comic featuring both the current PM and Lord Horror no less. Together we formed like Bruticus and set about ensnaring the public.

 

 

On a personal level I don’t think I could have had a better time of it. The reception that Cindy & Biscuit received was heartening, and I sold almost everything I took with me. What was especially gratifying was the breadth of customers I had – I sold a lot to kids this year, which was ace. It’s great to think of them reading mys stuff at home, and I just hope they were all appropriately thrilled, amused or spooked by Cindy & Biscuit. Lots of nice people said lots of nice things about it too, from comics pro’s to fans who bought earlier issues the previous year. All in all I was pretty damn chuffed.

It was great chatting to friend of SILENCE!, Al Ewing, whose gift to us was surely the best comic con exclusive that has ever been. He and his lovely friends were all most accommodating to our frazzled selves in the hotel bar on Sunday evening. It was as nice to see Kieron Gillen as ever, and I enjoyed talking to ace 2000AD scribe Rob Williams about Low Life. I was too nervous to speak to John Wagner, and certainly too nervous to ask him to say ‘I AM THE LAW’ in his stentorian Hibernian brogue. We happened to be on the table next to British comics catalyst  Paul Gravett, along with comics artist and scholar John Miers and his lovely partner Megan, who co-runs the Comica Festival with Paul. Paul was his usual enthusiastic self, and did the circuits with his usual charm and aplomb. John and Megan were also  excellent company, and truly sympathetic hangover buddies on Sunday. John’s comics are here and info about Comica is here.

Add to that the thrills of our ongoing experiment in listener alienation with our SILENCE! Thought Bubble special, the epic drinkery at the post TB Saturday night bash at the Leeds Corn Exchange, and you have a pretty full weekend. As I stated earlier, the atmosphere at Thought Bubble is open, friendly and enthusiastic. I can’t rate it high enough, and will certainly back next year.

But really, I hear you pretty much scream, FOR THE LOVE OF AQUAMAN, WHAT ABOUT THE COMICS???????!

Well…

Bunyan would have blushed

August 11th, 2009

or Crisis? What Crisis? (part one)

This one:

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Think of him as 2000AD’s awkward cousin. He and Tharg used to get on great for a bit, but while The Mighty One went into his teens still drunk on the heady surge of Thrill Power, Crisis was always a bit serious. Self consciously so, you could say. You know the routine: went veggie. CND badge. Amnesty membership. Morrissey lyrics sung at high volume to that face in the bedroom mirror. Didn’t make friends that easily, and sometimes seemed to try hard not to be noticed at all, but on rare occasions he’d come out with something that would really be worth paying attention to.

You’d get such a shock you’d probably jump in the ocean