Mindless Ones

HEY PUT IT DOWN, THAT’S DAD’S SWORD!

It’s a Very Special Episode! The Beast Must Die is flying solo, with an episode-length exegesis on the myriad pleasures and horrors of the fabled Prestige Format Comic. It’s an epic for our times for sure, and when you look at these times that tells you everything you need to know about this epic…

<ITEM>Okay gird your girdles, stop your grinnin’ and drop your linen…here we go. The Beast talks about Batman: Gotham By Gaslight, Batman: Holy Terror, Batman: Full Circle, Batman: The Scottish Connection, Batman: Mitefall, Batman: Year 100, Batman: Manbat, Batman: The Cult, Batman: Run Riddler Run, Robin 3000, World’s Finest, Catwoman Defiant, Cosmic Odyssey, Legend Of The Green Flame, Blackhawk, Deadman: Love & Death, Deadman: Exorcism, The Horrorist, The Golden Age, Hawkworl, The Books of Magic, Martian Manhunter: American Secrets, Adam Strange: The Man of Two Worlds, Twilight, OMAC, Justice Inc, Black Orchid, The Prisoner: Shattered Visage, Breathtaker, Black Mask, Gilgamesh II, The Nazz, My Name Is Chaos,  Clash, The Psycho, Skull & Bones, Tempus Fugitive, The Griffin, Grendel Vs Batman… sweet christmas… I need a lie down.

<ITEM> Normal business resumes soon.

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If you were brave enough to come to the haunted spa town commonly known as Harrogate for last year’s Thought Bubble, you might have heard tell that Dan White was out there flogging  the second instalment of his new horror anthology, Sticky Ribs.  You might have struggled to substantiate this rumour – who could be sure of anything in that eerie mist? – but if you’re anything like us, it’s the sort of idea that would have stayed with you.  What is Sticky Ribs?  Is it safe to read?  Can it travel across the threshold of your grandmother’s house without being consumed by fire? Ever fond of a tall tale, Broken Frontier’s Andy Oliver decided to elaborate on the rumour of this harrowed comic in his usual comprehensive manner: 

This is prime White material with the juxtaposition of innocent, childlike diary entries and horrifying reality perfectly counterpointing each other and, through their contrast, making events all the more chilling. It’s Maurice Sendak by way of Cormac McCarthy, with wide-eyed innocence going hand in hand visually with a surrounding inescapable devastation.

This year, in the absence of the face-to-face contact and unquantifiable murk of a physical comics convention, we finally feel that the truth can be told to the shuddering masses.  Sticky Ribs is real… and you can buy it at Dan’s website! Don’t believe us?  Here’s the cover to the second issue:

Dan’s legendary kids comic Cindy and Biscuit can also be purchased at his website, with volume one now being available in tasty digital edition! 

If you want to encounter the digital edition of Dan you can do so here, but think carefully about initiating this encounter if you value your immortal soul. 

YOURS IS HOLLOW SOUNDING, FRANKLY YOU’VE BECOME SUCKERS

Alright pod-monkeys! I recorded a chat with the extremely talented comic creator, friend of the pod and all right super-mensch, Gareth Hopkins about his amazing new comic Petrichor. As it’s me, we’re out and about, so you get the aural delights of the Barbican as a background for our chat. Gareth was gracious, eloquent and honest so I hope you enjoy the chat.

Pick up a copy of Petrichor here.

Normal SILENCE! Service will resume shortly.

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MY NAME IS CHIP AND I’M DIFFERENT

Bit of a change of pace here dear listenoids. While Gary Lactus tutors Little Barry Lactus in the ways of cosmic righteousness, The Beast takes a solo sojourn into the 4-colour wastelands outside your window, till he finds himself knee deep in the comics slurry. There he encounters none other than Tom Oldham, of Breakdown Press and Gosh Comics.

The two proceed to have a nice long chat about the origins of Breakdown Press, and their newest release, the long awaited Good News Bible: The Complete Deadline Strips of Shaky Kane. It’s a rambling, yet laser-focused conversation taking in Deadline, 2000AD, Brett Ewins, Nick Abadzis, Bulletproof Coffin, Connor Willumsen, Fort Thunder, Michel DeForge, Steve Cook, music and comics, Beserker Magazine, Jonathan Chandler, Antoine Cosse, the comics virus, David Quantick, Richard Short, David Hine, Crossed, Worthing and a whole heap more.

It’s two hours of high qualidee chad, and you know you want it.

WARNING: Contains no discussion of My Two Dads

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THE MASTER HEALED MY WOUNDS… AND SHOWERED ME WITH FOOD

DID YOU KNOW there’s a word in German for the weight gained whilst overeating because of emotional distress? Amazing!
DID YOU KNOW there’s a German word for the witty come backs you think of later? Yeah, it’s true!
DID YOU KNOW the Germans have a word to describe the a longing for far off places? Our German cousins, eh?
DID YOU KNOW that in Germany they have a word for the conversations English speakers have about how Germans have words that describe really specific things?
DID YOU KNOW sharks can smell London from space?

<ITEM> It’s SILENCE! #225 with Gary Lactus, The Beast Must Die and special robot guest Spare 5.

<ITEM> We pay tribute to artist Edmund Bagwell.

<ITEM> Lots of film and TV chat including Alien Colon Covenant, the Blair Witch remake, The Void, Iron Fist, and there’s some Highlander and Judge Dredd fantasy elevator pitches.

<ITEM> we are hanging out on the new SILENCE! Facebook group

<ITEM> We enter the Reviewniverse where we find Bug The Adventures of Forager, Doom Patrol, Rocket, World War Tank Girl, Shade The Changing Girl, and John Smith’s Tyranny Rex text piece from the 2000AD Annual 1991

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Edmund Bagwell
SILENCE! on Facebook
SILENCE! LIVE!

Reviewniverse
Bug The Adventures of Forager, Doom Patrol, Rocket, World War Tank Girl, Shade The Changing Girl, John Smith’s Tyranny Rex piece from 2000AD annual 1991

WHAT WHAT, MY POP ROCKS!

Gary Lactus hosts an epic mash up lash up* starring hard boiled gritty pre-Giuliani New York cop just two weeks away from retirement, Johnathan Dick and a hypnotic robotic Spare 5 who returns like the monster from an ever diminishing horror franchise! Better than that though is the explosive entrance of crime fighting duo The Beast Must Die and Mini-Beast, ready to deliver a 200+ megaton purple nurple right on the left boob of the London Underworld! Wanna know what we talk about? There was loads and load and plenty of it not comics. Here’s a list of words!

2000AD Titan Editions, akira, Animal Man, Beneath, Blair Witch, Cry of the Werewolf, Curse Words, Dennis Potter, Doom Patrol, Found Footage, Found Footage Films, Gabriel Hardman, Gi Joe Vs Transformers: The Movie, Hitman, horror, Invisible Republic, Johnathan Dick, Judge Dredd Deviation, Junji Ito, Justice League Trailer, Kong: Skull Island, Larry Cohen, Larry Fessenden, Lone Wolf and Cub, Manga no Manben, Mini Beast, Naoki Urasawa, Nemesis, Not Quite Hollywood, Roger Corman, Romaction, Romance of a different name, Sandman: Overture, Scratched Live!, Silence! Because the Film’s Started, Slaine Choose Your Own Adventure Comics, Stray Bullets, TBMD, The Beast Must Die, The Belfry, The Origin of Spare 5, walking dead

FEAR THE NIGHT!

*made you look!

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No Regular SILENCE! this week. We were all too stunned by the news that Rita Ora will be replacing Tyra Banks on America’s Next Top Model. Surely Rita can’t reach the preposterous heights of self importance that Tyra managed. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Instead we have the first SILENCE! Prestige Format, the special collector’s edition podcasts which was made available to C Unit Patreontologists back in January of this year. This is a nice chat between The Beast Must Die, Gary Lactus and Clark Burscough.

Named after the last son of Krypton, Clark is the assistant director of the Thought Bubble. We talk about many things including the broken reading experience,
The Amalgam Universe, his origins as a comics reader and Thought Bubble via the dad we all want, Invisibles, Grant Morrison, Marvel’s Doctor Who comics, 2000AD comics, comics comics, comics comics comics, the Thought Bubble party, his own writing for the Regular Show comic and Beef Ho Fun amongst many other things.

Do please enjoy.

Click to download SILENCE!Prestige Format #001

Fresh from his appearance at the debate on comics criticism at S.M.A.S.H. in London this Saturday (pictured above), here are 21 statements on comics criticism from The Beast Must Die:

1. Comics as an art form has the critics it deserves.

2. Comics critics are not as good as critics in other art forms.

3. Comics critics enlighten people about an art form that they might not know about.

4. Comics criticism lacks notable or significant figures in its canon; there are no Pauline Kaels, Harold Blooms or Roland Barthes [‘Bartheses’, surely?].

5. Comics critics are the best critics of all, because comics is an art form free of decades of critical debate and point-scoring and endless spiralling discussion.

6. Comics criticism is a place for juvenile people to snipe at each other pointlessly whilst keeping out strangers from their precious domain.

7. Comic critics who can’t talk about the art in a comic are no good as comics critics.

8. Comics podcasts are a popular avenue for criticism. They are the most ill-informed, badly thought out most lazy form of criticism.

9. Comics podcasts are a popular avenue for criticism. Comics podcasts allow for free-flowing conversation which generates genuinely interesting critical ideas.

10. Most comic criticism is on the internet, and as such often has little or no editorial input, meaning it is littered with mistakes, weak ideas and groundless opinions.

11. A lack of editorial input means that comics critics are free to think in original and interesting ways.

Click here to read the rest of the list at Broken Frontier!

TEENAGE CAVEMAN, ROCK WITH SKIN AND BONE!

So Gary Lactus, a The Beast Must Die and a Bobsy walk into a bar…and then they ordered everyone else of said bar, in order to record a podcast. Shortly after the podcast was finished recording the enraged bar patrons stormed back in and threw the three stringy upstarts out into the gutter, as a lifetime of reading comics had left them milky of complexion and frail of frame. Certainly not strong enough to stand up to a bunch of gammon-faced alcoholics with nothing to live for. Nonetheless the outcome is 2 hours of comics podcast magicccckks…let’s all go SILENCE!

<ITEM> There’s a ramblicious opening salvo with sponsorshunting, and a selection pack of tangential conversations… but out of the morass comes a single ringing plea..BUY CINDY & BISCUIT!

<ITEM> The Reviewniverse opens it’s hallowed doors to welcome The Grant Morrison Apologist Society Annual General Meeting starts here, as the boys go long for a discussion of the really quite good Multiversity: Pax Americana. Much too chew on, and chew they do…woo hoo!

<ITEM> More Moz, as they careen into the void of Annihilator, before carrying onto X-Force, X-Men, Wonder Woman, Punk Mambo, Harley Quinn, Wytches, Intersect, and the weirdly divisive True Stories from Derf…there’s a bit of chat about Supreme Blue Rose, Zero, Loki: Agent of Axis and more…

Have a great time y’all. And watch out for the Jibblers!

Click to download SILENCE!#123

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This edition of SILENCE! is proudly sponsored by the greatest comics shop on the planet, DAVE’S COMICS of Brighton.