Mindless Ones

Occasionally, certain men of a certain age will run out of things to say to each other. Conversation grinds to a dry halt, and the only course of action is to resort to a comfortable zone of the collective consciousness, and wallow in the soft haze of nostalgia, of endless Saturday mornings in pyjamas, and Robots in Disguise. Let us call this place the Transformers Room. If you crack the door open and gently peer in, you can see the Mindless Ones sitting around, comparing their first Transformers and touching their winkies with excitement. Awwwwww! Come on, let’s go and join them…

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A weekly strip by Fraser Geesin

The book Dream Date by Tim Leopard and Fraser Geesin is available from Running Water Press or from Amazon.

Here in Mindlessland our habits and schedule are all over the queue-crammed shop at the moment. At this time of year half of us are likely to be so drinkfucked that, instead of being busy at our blog-desks we’re far more likely to be found sleeping underneath the pier, the night tide slurping away at our feet, kindly come to take us away from the brain-pained horror of waking up again. So with that in mind, all conventions merrily abandoned in the name of seasonal silliness, there’s no Tuesday Reviewsday nonsense tonight. What could have been a dispirited  recap of the (byrne-stolen, sorry) SWORD #2, I thought instead I’d concentrate on taking one of the characters from the issue, and nostalgically telling the world about why he is so ace, why British comic readers of a certain age are so giddily stupid when it comes to the galaxy’s deadliest freelance peace-keeping agent, Death’s Head.

What follows is an account of his finest moment. Better than when he went toe-to-toe with Galvatron even after having his arm ripped off. Better than when he took out the entire Incinerator Jones Clan. Better even than his first appearance, when he killed that barman for asking him to pay for his tab. Yes – it’s Death’s Head vs. Shockwave.

Look at Galvatron’s mental face! Calm down!

The Marvel UK Transformers comic occupied a special part of my young heart for a fair while back in the 80’s (I often think all boys of a certain era were actually built with a small Transformers shaped compartment in their heart) The weekly adventures of the Robots in Disguise came somewhere between Battle Action Force (UK GI Joe to you colonials) and 2000ad. What could have been a shonky toy cash in title had a unique flavour all of it’s own, mainly thanks to the stalwart work done by premier Trans-scriber Simon Furman. Under his guidance the Transformers mythos grew into something rich and strange. And violent. Very very violent… Alongside such Brit comics luminaries such as John Wagner and Pat Mills, Furman was one of the most prolific writers of the 80’s carving out a niche writing for Marvel UK, taking the Transformers mythos and running with it. Once the animated movie was released the strip really hit it’s stride, with the addition of Galvatron, Cyclonus and Scourge and the rest of the 2006 mob. Not to mention a certain freelance peace-keeping agent…yes?

Along with Transformers, Furman also created the wonderful robot bounty hunter Death’s Head, as well as the super violent futuristic sports mercenaries Dragon’s Claws. For a while Marvel UK became a hotbed of fun new comics that provided a well of young British comics talent the chance to cut loose.

Soon after Furman started working in American comics for Marvel, IDW, Dreamwave and Dynamite. He has also worked in animation, computer games and continues to write Transformers to this day. An extremely personable chap, with an extensive knowledge of exploitation movies, Simon kindly agreed to do a Mindless interview. Read on…yes?

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A hell of day-glo plastic after the jump