I'm annoyed at writing this review. Not
because I lost my hands in a freak garbage disposal accident and that
meant that I had to carefully control my bashing of my now bleeding
stumps on the keyboard in order to type out actual words. No I'm
annoyed because my first review of the prequel to this series of
comics had a slight air of taking the absolute piss out of it because it looked like a massive piece of shit. But now I find, when we have
a few more words and some actual characterisation that it isn't
actually all that bad. Yeah none of it still makes any sense within
the context of it being based off of Coldplay's album Mylo Xyloto. I
still have difficulty this is what Chris Martin actually envisioned
when he wrote the thing, especially the song Major Minor is actually
a song about a large armoured alien dictator called Major Minor. It's
also funny to see story by: Mark Osbourne, writer of Kung Fu Panda,
and Coldplay in the opening page of a comic.
But it actually starts off pretty
strongly. It manages to hit all of the main points of a good
dystopia. It borrows heavily from a lot of other popular dystopias
though of course; from 1984 to Brave New World, it's all in there somewhere. But it also manages to put in enough of its own ideas that it doesn't become a rehash.

The idea though of people being able to
privately watch hardcore porn is still a terrifying idea. Is that
father in the bottom right, walking with his kid watching some extreme all anal action
gangbang right now as he holds his childrens' hands.
Another slightly stupid thing about the
feed is that it's wired, so I guess people just wander the streets,
always in their feed but only being able to walk about 20 feet from
their door. And if they do walk further, then that'd be even more
insane because check out that clusterfuck of wires getting dragged
around the street. I can barely take my laptop into my room without
the charger getting wrapped round the door handle and yanking the
thing out of my hands, without an entire city wandering around
aimlessly, all drugged up and tangling up the whole place. Sadly
however this tangling complaint I have is the basis for quite abit of
the plot. It's a story about tangling, but at least they know the
problems and are setting out to fix them. I can respect that.
Anyway so then our blue thing creature,
I guess we have to call them Silencians even though that's still a
stupid name, runs into a poster of The Eaters and goes nuts.
In order to keep the
peace the armed force of the Silencers hunts him down and “bag”
him. “Bagging” entails putting somehow literally into a big bag,
and not a state sponsored punishment of dipping your nutsack into
someone's screaming mouth to silence them.
And then hey look who it is. It's Mylo.
We last saw him in the prequel issue as a fat little baby with paint all over his hands, but here he is now a man. Even more shockingly
he's even a member of the Silencers. Either way though we have at
least learnt that this is set quite far into the future from the
prequel issue.
We also learn that Mylo is a dirty crack whore who
loves the hypnofeed and will even jack up in the middle of the street
with the feed of a man who they just dropped into custody.
I can complain about alot of things with this comic, but from an artistic standpoint, it does look damn pretty at points.

So that's the beautiful poetry there
that the revolutionist have chosen to litter their walls with. And it
all comes from the mind of a man who in a song, sang about planets
moving at the speed of light and birds flying at the speed of sound.
Or maybe that's the type of mindless thinking that got them into this
mess in the first place.
So they wash it off, as they do with
all graffiti, and this is when we're introduced to...
Major Minor. Now I really hated him in
the few strips he was with. He seemed so serious and boring, he
looked over the top compared to the rest of the characters and just
seemed so outrageously evil, but in a rehashed and trope riddled way.
However, here he's actually a character and completely unexpected to
me, he's a comedy character. As far as you can go with characterising
a giant alien slug middle manager who is the head of PR and face of a
dystopian government, they do it well and it's pretty funny at times.
He's horrific but is forced to host a show called
Miles of Smiles in front of a green screen which is full of asses and
fine alien bitches chowing down on high calorie foods. As soon as the
cameras are off him though he goes nuts. During the course of the
comic, simply for people faiuling to carry out orders he bags people
up himself, chucks people out of windows and smashes a guy's hand
with a hammer.
This is one cold motherfucker, in a very PG context, and in light of there
being no real other stand out characters, except for the angsty as
hell Mylo, Major Minor really stands out as the most enjoyable part
of the comic.
We even find out why he's so hostile to
those around him and yet has such a cheery persona when in front of
the camera or away from his men. Major Minor is scared because as I
said before he's a middleman, given the most menial tasks of PR, and
to pose as the cheery and friendly head of the government. But he
constantly has the other 12 members of the cabinet breathing down his
neck to get all the Sparks killed and maintain control of the world
of Silencia in preparation for what they describe as 'the next
phase'.
Within all this Major Minor is even taking time out of his
day to redesign the hypnofeeds into a wireless model known as the Hypnoflow (there's that
subplot I mentioned), and that in distributing this, they will have
limitless control over Silencia. The only problem is all the Sparks
must die for this to be achieved. Another problem is that Hypnoflow does sound like some kind of psychic laxative.
I know it sounds like I'm sucking on
Major Minor's big slug dick here, but he really is a genuinely funny
character. Given that it's by the writer of Kung Fu Panda, he does
come across as a one note , entertaining joke of a villain which
you'd find in most Dreamworks Animation movies. He's not the greatest
idea in the world but funny enough to stand out in what is primarily
a series about revolutionary graffiti artists. It's the kind of
fantasy that inhabits the masturbation realm of Banksy's self
perception.
So then Major Minor cracks out the big
guns. The idea is that he rewards individuals of the Silencers if
they catch a Spark, out of desperation to not defenestrated by his
fellow dictators.
Some stereotypical angry character gets
really angry at it. He's a regular stand up poster boy, who believes
in the cause and thinks that this selfish aspect will ruin the
unifying philosophy of survival through fear that Silencia is built
upon.
We then learn why he hates the Sparks
so much. It turns out that the two twats in the prequel comic started
a 'colour war', if there was ever an example for why revolution
through graffiti alone is funny then this has got to be it. A colour
war sounds more like an apartheid than a dick swinging contest, where
colour is the cure and Chris Martin's poetry is the weapon.
To sum all the character motivations in the last several decades then; the Sparks from earlier issue started a war and this got a lot of people killed including fat baby
Mylo's parents and the parents of his grumpy friend.
Who as you can see here was
even a grumpy baby even back then.
So the angry guy then experiences some serious PTSD in front of us
Mylo is so angry that he storms off like an angry teenager and
then...
The colours themselves are so beautiful
that they make Mylo orgasm so hard that jizz spills from his eyes.
And then as if he was before a giant
ass, he holds out his hand to touch it like the sick bastard he is.
But upon realising that it's just a
wall and so he can't have sex with it, Mylo becomes angry and then
chases the fleeing Spark.
Now what I do quite like here is that
the motivation of self interest introduced by Major Minor into the
system, does actually have consequences. Silencers become incapable
of capturing Sparks as a team because they don't want anyone else to
get a share of their prize, that prize being a lifetime supply of
hypnofeed and immediate retirement. So it's basically the modern day
equivalent of your pension package also including a lifetime supply
of heroin and blowjobs.
So Mylo lets the Spark leader, Fly,
escape. Not a big loss since he didn't put a lot of effort into
tracking her down, having accidentally stumbled upon her down a back
alley.
How no Sparks have ever been caught though is a mystery to me because she leaves such a shit dump of colour behind her, that she must be insanely easy to track.
I mean look at this, she must incontinent or something. It really makes me feel slightly sick because I don't really know what the colour is anymore. I guess it's just liquid that oozes out of them uncontrollably and just makes me ill at the thought of what I guess is just period paint.
Period paint that's alive as well. Look at that butterfly. What the hell is this stuff. It's paint, but it can also make portals, create life, yet is primarily just used to colour in walls. What a waste. To have miracle technology and to have so little imagination that to just squander it in such a pointless and mindless way is just such a waste and it's no wonder these people got enslaved in the first place if they're going to be so stupid and.... Oh I just realised that I was using the internet for this.
But aside from selfish motivation ruining the once great police
force of Silencia, we also find out two other things. One, that Fly
is a girl. And secondly, that Mylo can't shoot her for that reason,
because she's a pretty lady.
So we leave this particular issue to be
continued. What are the further adventures of Mylo Xyloto going to
be. Well judging by this issue. I'd say they're going to be fine, but
whenever there was a positive aspect to it that I enjoyed, such as
Major Minor and the consequences to his desperate attempt to impress
the higher ups, there was an equally uninteresting and sometimes
unintentionally funny aspect, such as Coldplay lyrics everywhere,
revolutionary graffiti artists as a major threat and some slightly
boring main characters.
Oh did I also mention this is based off
the album Mylo Xyloto. Yeah I know. But anyway I'm going to crack on
through these and review each one in turn. They're about £15 quid on
the Coldplay store for the set of six. At the moment they're half
entertaining, but there are a lot of better things to spend your
money on. But if you have money to throw into a pit, then you may as
well alternatively put that money into the bank, buy the Mylo Xyloto
comic series off of the irritating to manoeuvre Coldplay online store
and then invest your time in an alright comic. So far at least.
Alternatively, you can just come and check these reviews and I'll happily just spoil what happens anyway, saving you a pretty bit of dollar.
And if you don't like the comic for its story then you can always tune in for the numerous and sweet pictures of asses.
ASS ASS ASS ASS ASS ASS ASS ASS ASS ASS ASS ASS
And as a Jerry Springer final thought;
please find nourishment on this Fat Hamster, for the time being at
least.
Oh, I wasn't expecting this so soon!
ReplyDeleteGreatly honoured, by the way to be mentioned in the article, it's like a vicarious sort of fame.
I'm struggling to find the relevance of the tight rope sways, angel eyes, I'd be a princess by now if you weren't such a moron lyrics of the album to this comic. Nope, cant see it. Your comentary is fantastic, as always, but the storyline leaves me feeling like I dropped adiamond and picked up a walnut. Look forward to the next, especially as nagging you was such fun.
I fear the last line opens up more nagging to come very shortly. Be full and quenched for the moment at least. Although I quite enjoyed making this, and aside from cropping the panels, I think I'll follow the other ones faster.
DeletePlus, I should have edited out that piece of shit pikachu while i had the chance.
Oh yes, and there seems to be a piccachu in top left hand corner of 10th picture down which should delight you.
ReplyDeleteThere's a plot hole here. Why aren't the silencers joining forces with the sparks to lay a trap for the eaters(not hard given they are drawn to noise and colour) then the two forces lob the eaters down a colour portal. Job done.
ReplyDeleteWell the silencers are run by the government who has made the eaters up. They Sparks are trying to tell the people the eaters aren't real.
DeleteSorry if I didn't make that clearer. It seems coldplay have made fools of all of us.
You did mention it now I look. I wonder if this whole thing is an allegory, maybe of religious suppression. Or am I overthinking it? It would be dead clever if it was.
DeleteI guess with fear of consequences that aren't there I guess it could be going for that theme at a push.
DeleteBut then my mind remembers it's by coldplay and kung fu panda man and I just can't quite get over that barrier.
Hadn't really noticed that idea in there though, thanks.
What happened to the little cleaning robot? Is he on strike? Did he get eaten by mistake?
ReplyDeleteIt's been several decades. He's probably been replaced by a finer cleaning machine and is on a trash heap somewhere wondering with his basic mechanical brain, what he did wrong to be abandoned, but never quite being smart enough to work it out. A terrible and sad fate.
DeleteThere's a subplot! Forgot to thank you for doing this.Yes you wanted to anyway, but I did nag a lot and I do appreciate the time and effort.
ReplyDeleteIt's a pity they have abandoned the idea of making a film of this as the album tie in may have become more apparant, and I'd have gone to see it. Would you?
ReplyDeleteYeah, but probably more for the soundtrack.
DeleteI also found that even though it was a concept album and it is hard to tell a story through them, that the arc throughout mylo xyloto isn't that well done, so I'd have seen a movie to get a clearer picture of what they were going for. I can't really believe it was this though.
It's quite childlike (as opposed to childish) .I wish I understood the motivation behind it. Any ideas?
DeleteI assume it was just the artists behind it and Mark Osbourne helming it, since he's used to making family animated films, he's probably used to just developing stories in a strange setting, because apparently talking animals are more interesting than talking people. I doubt Coldplay asked for any of this and just went along with whatever Osbourne said because they thought it was just cool.
DeleteIt is strange though and I think it's all Osbourne and his background in animated family films, but I agree the motivation is fascinating and I think the creative talks between coldplay and Osbourne would be hilariously stupid.
Let me run this by you. Switch your phone off a minute. We've been trying to work out how the album lyrics fit with the comic. I urge you to get hold of The Wall, by Pink Floyd. The entire album describes the film, its angsty and iconic, I think you might like it. Coldplay have not done this. Chris Martin has tied the album with the comic purely by quoting his songs in the graffiti. That's it. Now he can say one is about the other and it's not. Even the track Mylo Xyloto is just an introduction to Hurts Like Heaven. They are linked, n ot tied and yet one will help sell the other.what say you?
DeleteUnfortunately you're preaching to the converted. The wall is a great album and I agree that the film fits with it much better than this.
DeleteI think that Floyd had more creative input into the wall film than coldplay did with this.also I think Floyd are slightly more talented and creative than coldplay too, to manage to pull it off.
I don't see this as a comparison though really. It's just a nice comic story under the same name. Fine, but definitely squandered as an opportunity.
Plus I managed to keep my phone on the whole time while doing both. Although I do run a site that picks things apart and criticises everything. So i don't really recieve many calls to disturb me.
Just out ofinterest, have you seen the film of The Wall? I think Pink Floyd were in a league of their own..so happy to find a fellow fan!
DeleteI've seen clips of it, but usually while looking for the songs online and they're in the background of videos. I agree though the videos at least reflect the tone of the song, so I assume the whole film follows that pattern. I've been told it's very good so I'm getting round to watching it all at some point.
DeleteOk. (Please tell me if you're bored with this).
ReplyDeleteTurned into a zombie, turned into a vampire, turned into a tory.
Not bored at all. Sorry if I've missed a question. Haven't been on the responding ball lately.
DeleteIf you've noticed a trend in my point of view through my articles, it's that I'm a selfish baby and have a crippling fear of death. Therefore I'll take vampire without a second thought.
It bodes well that you'd take vampire over tory.
DeleteAt least you can kill Vampires *gruff Mid-western voice*
Delete'Garbage disposal'? You american?
ReplyDeleteNope. Just your regular old Americanised British man
DeleteIf everyone went round trailing colours the place would look a complete mess and everyone would get migraines. That's how the silencers came into being. Just a theory!
ReplyDeleteInteresting theory, but these people are definitely characterised as colour whores. They'd fuck a colour if there was a hole to put a dick. You've seen Mylo's slobbering face.
DeleteYou mention 1984. So, what would your room 101 contain?
ReplyDeleteOh I think it'd have to be famine or war. Wait no that's way to boring and useful. Uuuuum I think I'd put JJ Abrams' left testicle in there, just to mess with him.
DeleteYourself?
Laughing too much to think now.
Delete