A new Mindless Ones post, in which my other girlfriend Mister Attack writes about Simon Furman’s latest Transformers regeneration/recurrence, which might just provide a way out of this mess…
I wrote about Spring Breakers for Mindless Ones dot com.
WARNING: contains stealth reviews of The Host and G.I. Joe Retaliation, the latter of those by ambivilant enthusiast/all round good guy Mister Attack.
OR: Last Year I Went to the Movies and All I Got Was This Sense of Temporal Displacement
A new Mindless Ones post, in which I talk about the past and the future of pain in Dredd, Looper and The Master. This one came out alright, I think. Maybe not so alright that it justifies the fact that I seem to have just woken up my girlfriend by clattering around in the living room though. Hmmm.
I wrote and published a Mindless Ones post about this book yesterday that’s also about my current job situation and how both Eddie Campbell and me are probably fictional characters. I think it might actually pretty good.
Not as good as the comic, obviously, but you know: Eddie Campbell!
In case you missed it, I conducted two interview with the writer and artist behind CHANGE, Ales Kot and Morgan Jeske for Mindless Ones dot com.
If I was doing the whole thing again I’d try to rope colourist Sloane Leong and letterer Ed Brisson in to this too - maybe I’ll try to do another interview with them next month or something - but otherwise I thought these posts came out pretty well. Go see what you think:
In other news, as a head without a body I envy the dead…
A new Mindless Ones post, in which bobsy puts Shaky Kane’s work on Elephantman #33 under the knife.
Shaky Kane’s work with David Hine on the first issue of The Bulletproof Coffin: Disinterred is essential reading, by the way. It’s a timely warning about the dangers of using comic books as a wikipedia for life, and you really should check it out before it’s too late…
For those who came in late, here’s amypoodle on the first half of Batman Incorporated: Leviathan Strikes (the St Trinian’s for supervillains part):
Inspite of the thigh highs and stockings, which are a nod to genre convention more than anything else, this is is a book on the side of the angels. To begin with Cameron takes what in other hands could’ve been one dimensional, exploitative material and gives his characters actual personality, and then there’s the big reveal about who’s running Leviathan that puts the whole thing into stark relief. That Talia, a woman, so effortlessly co-opts the narrative, the entire bat-novel Morrison’s been writing these last six years, transforming Hurt into little more than a footnote, is a tiny comic book victory from an equal opportunities point of view. We thought we were in a another kind of story, where titanic masculine archetypes fought over a narrative which was always their’s in the first place, but it turns out we were wrong, and now, whoever wins the final battle, I’m pleased to see that Grant respects women enough to position Talia as the real threat. Okay, she’s neurotic and hysterical and a baddy and this isn’t perfect, but the reveal made me shiver. How often, and in how many writers’ hands, do you think that would happen? I want more badass girls in my comics. Women have had a real presence in Batman Inc, and whether or not their inclusion has been a conscious decision on Morrisons part – and for the record I think it has – this is a very good thing. The bullet holes in Green Lantern’s crotch confirm the writer as someone who’s not afraid to hit the Status Q where it hurts.
You can read the rest here.
Don’t worry, amy’s annocomentations for the second half of Leviathan Strikes (the Patrick McGoohan for the cape fetishists part) will be up soon.
Sing it in the style of Girls Aloud or don’t sing it at …
One Song For You’s Top Five bits of Mindless Bloggery 2011:
5)Mssrs Amypoodle and Zom, with Masters Andrew Hickey, Bobsy, Gary Lactus and The Beast Must Die The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Century: 1969 by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neil
In which a creepy walk on a summers day got even creepier and more summery with the help of the Mindless Massive. Still the best annocoms in town, no question, and the classic classics features and Kevin O’Neil interview were pretty fucking great too.
4) The Direct Marxist on The Communist Bullpen and The Theatre of the Direct Market
Because it felt good to broaden the conversation about the shitty ethics of your (our?) favourite concept farms that was ongoing throughout 2011, because the ”ethical capitalism” is a tired joke to be filed alongside “military intelligence”, and because FULL COMMUNISM »» Glibertarianism, always.
3) Bobsy vs Mark Millar for the Month of Bastards
Sometimes you have to work hard to break a bastard’s reasonable facade and expose the prime fucknugget within, but sometimes…. sometimes the bastards do all the hard work for you.
2) Zom vs. The Joker, Three Fools parts 1, 2 and 3
Brother Zom might think these posts needed more work, but for me this essay series was just more proof that my fellow Mindless Ones “get” the potential of these lurid fictions way more than most of the fatbalding awkwardmen who are paid to maintain them.
Heath Ledger? Aye, that guy’s Joker was pretty good in a prawn cocktail sort of way, but we’re talking about DINNER here, awright?
1) Amypoodle Presents: A Very Hauntological Reading of The Invisibles, in three parts
It’s a little bit annoying that my favourite bit of Mindless bloggery from 2011 didn’t actually appear on the Mindless Ones site, but on the other hand these posts are easily the best things to have graced the “pages” of the relaunched Comics Journal website so it’s not all bad!
Before I read these articles I was pretty sure I was done with The Invisibles. No comic had ever fucked me up so much before, and I didn’t (and still don’t!) expect any comic to ever fuck me up quite so much again, but at the start of 2011 The Invisibles seemed exhausted and embarrassing, like so much of my own past. And maybe it still is every bit as irrelevant to NOW as I expected it to be, but while I was reading these articles the comic seemed alive and inhabitable once more and (it sounds stupid to say it but this is how it felt so fuck it!) so did the future.
Say it once more with feeling, try to believe it:
Awright troops, if it seems like I’ve been quiet recently that’s only because I’ve been coordinating various nefarious activities with the FACELESS MINDLESS COLLECTIVE.
We interviewed top blogger and academic Marc Singer about his new book on Grant Morrison here. If you’re hot for hypostasis, or if you just like reading smart writing on good comics, you really need to check out both out interview and Marc’s writing.
(Marc’s running previews of the book on his blog right now - here are parts one and two of his take on Morrison’s JLA run.)
The FACELESS MINDLESS COLLECTIVE were feeling particularly sinister this week, so we also interviewed Patrick Meaney about his new Warren Ellis documentary, Captured Ghosts. We spoke to Patrick about his previous documentary, Grant Morrison: Talking With Gods just after I joined the site back in 2010, so it felt right to be coming up with questions for him again at the end of my first year on the site.
