Mindless Ones

Thanks to our inability to arrange a piss-up in a brewery somewhere smack bang in the middle of the nation, the Mindless Ones will be at Thought Bubble 2024 in Harrogate this weekend. We’ll be at tables B3-4 in DSTLRY Hall on Saturday 16th and Sunday 17th November, trading our dazzling wares for coins, card transactions and wry smiles.

An angel in a pack of foul wretches, John Riordan will be with us once again this year. Why, he’s even made his own map to show where he’ll be sitting! It’s better formatted than the one we’ve used in our other posts, but we won’t hold that against him. Unloved creatures that we are, we can all still appreciate a little taste of the light.

We’ve interviewed John alongside his Hitsville UK collaborator Dan Cox at least twice previously, and I’ve written at length about Hitsville here. John’s a charming lad, as you can tell from his efforts to elevate the discourse that follows…

1. Who are you and why are you lying to us?

I am the Spectre of John Riordan, comic artist, catastrophist and William Blake nut. You may know him from his cult collaboration with Dan Cox, Hitsville UK and his solo work ‘Oh God what is happening and is it somehow my fault?’ I am lying because that’s what Spectres do.

2. What’s the best thing you’ll be selling at Thought Bubble 2024?

In a radical break with recent tradition I have a new comic. I’ll be selling LOS, the first instalment of my long gestated, labour-of-love comic based on the life of William Blake. It’s a 32-page, full-colour combination of pencil, ink, watercolour and digital trickery, and incorporates some Blake-style prints that I did on a replica 18th century printing press. As you do.

3. What are you looking forward to picking up at the convention?

I’m looking forward to picking up new stuff from my fellow Mindless Ones Fraser Geesin, Paul Jon Milne and that weird David Allison guy (do I get to call myself an honorary Mindless One these days? Surely I’ve put in the hours). Other than that, not sure really. One of the things that I really like about Thought Bubble is that I’ll inevitably discover wonderful new comics that I had no idea existed and filly my suitcase with them. Although I expect what I’m most likely to pick up is Covid. Ah well…

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Initiation into the Mindless involves an unplugged fridge, a draft of human piss, and a shroud of uncut darkness. Whether John has committed to this ritual is knowledge only our fellow adepts may share.]

4. …

I notice there is no question 4.

‘what Demon

Hath form’d this abominable void

This soul-shudd’ring vacuum? —Some said

“It is Urizen”’

Others said it was Illogical Volume. Next!

5. What sweetens your dreams?

Music, friendship, art, weird humans unable to resist following their own fascinations and making strange new things as a result.

6. What sours your nightmares?

Climate catastrophe, fascism, financialised capitalism, narcissism masquerading as power, power masquerading as religion, peanut butter.

7. Who will star in the inevitable Disney adaptation of your work and why will it be Gary Barlow’s giant son? 

How tall is Gary Barlow’s son? I’ve not looked. Presumably all that tax avoidance went into buying him protein shakes? If you put Mark Owen on Barlow Jr’s shoulders would they be the height of two average men? Blake was relatively short, but he had a bit of a thing about giants, so Toby Jones to play Blake and Gary Barlow’s son can play ’The Giant Albion’, and erm, Dexter Fletcher to play John’s Spectre. Er, that is, me. Lies lies lies.