MindProbe
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mindprobe.bsky.social
MindProbe
@mindprobe.bsky.social
310 followers 1.6K following 140 posts
they/them. if you know a mindprobe (or @RefinedMicrobe) from somewhere else that's me, probably. hello.

with apologies to Dan Jurgens, I have no special affinity for the DC Comics character "Skeets".
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mindprobe.bsky.social
Frasier title card that says "One Seattle After Another"
October 29, 2025 at 7:55 AM
mindprobe.bsky.social
Neal Adams was so good, man
A page from from Batman #232 (June 1971), written by Denny O'Neil, pencilled by Neal Adams, and inked by Dick Giordano: Batman has been climbing a mountain in the Himalayas, scaling a sheer rock wall by rope, when a sniper has started taking shots at him, pinning him down. At the top of this page we see him fling himself away from the wall, still clinging to the rope, swinging around in an arc and across a chasm, landing in the snow. A caption reads: "Across the chill chasm he flings himself -- a final, desperate attempt to reach the steep slope fifteen feet away... a murderer in front, and yawning doom below...!" Then follows a sequence where the gunman follows to where Batman landed, searching the thick snow at his feet, looking to his left, then to his right. Batman's gloved hand rises stealthily out of the snow, then grabs the man's left leg, yanking it out from under him. As he falls to the ground, Batman knocks him out with a punch to the face, then strides away as the man lies unconscious in the snow.
March 26, 2025 at 4:46 AM
mindprobe.bsky.social
if only the author of the works of Shakespeare had dropped some subtle hint as to their true identity
Shakespeare's Sonnet 135: "Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy will, And will to boot, and will in overplus. More than enough am I that vex thee still, To thy sweet will making addition thus. Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious, Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine? Shall will in others seem right gracious, And in my will no fair acceptance shine? The sea, all water, yet receives rain still, And in abundance addeth to his store; So thou, being rich in will, add to thy will One will of mine to make thy large will more. Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill. Think all but one, and me in that one will." Shakespeare's Sonnet 136: "If thy soul check thee that I come so near, Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy will, And will, thy soul knows, is admitted there. Thus far for love my love-suit, sweet, fulfill. Will will fulfill the treasure of thy love, Ay, fill it full with wills, and my will one. In things of great receipt with ease we prove Among a number one is reckoned none. Then in the number let me pass untold, Though in thy store’s account I one must be. For nothing hold me, so it please thee hold That nothing me, a something, sweet, to thee. Make but my name thy love, and love that still, And then thou lovest me, for my name is Will."
March 15, 2025 at 6:29 AM
mindprobe.bsky.social
Grant Morrison seeing this strip like "I worked on this story for years and he just... tweeted it out"
A four-panel Nancy comic strip by Ernie Bushmiller, dated December 19, 1947. Panel 1: Nancy walks along the sidewalk. She says "Anything--". Panel 2: Nancy is suddenly in her house. She continues "Can happen--". Panel 3: Nancy starts walking up the wall. She continues "In a--". Panel 4: Nancy walks on the ceiling. She concludes "Comic strip".
March 4, 2025 at 5:26 PM
mindprobe.bsky.social
Batman's face here is so funny
Two panels from World's Finest #75 (written by Bill Finger, pencilled by Curt Swan) - Robin excitedly tells Batman about an adventure he's had with Superman: "Gosh, you should've seen how Superman stopped those crooks, Batman... he's terrific! And golly -- is it exciting flying through the sky with him!" Batman responds "Y-yes... it must have been a new kind of experience for you!" He then stares ahead with a look of blank-faced consternation, and thinks to himself: "After working with Superman, I wonder of Robin will find it dull working with me again? After all, I don't have any super-powers!"
March 2, 2025 at 1:59 AM
mindprobe.bsky.social
A publicity photo of a Silent from Series 6 of Doctor Who The title card from the opening titles of the Doctor Who episode Silence in the Library by Steven Moffat Lisa Simpson looking at a cane in a glass cabinet in a museum, labelled "The cane from Citizen Kane", as she complains "Wait a minute. There was no cane in Citizen Kane."
February 27, 2025 at 6:50 PM
mindprobe.bsky.social
"You will see strange and alarming things here. Do not be alarmed. Alarm is forbidden."
The opening splash page of City of the Damned, from a scan of Doctor Who Weekly #9 (Written by John Wagner with art by Dave Gibbons - The Star Beast was written by Pat Mills, with art also by Gibbons) - rows of blank-faced people in identical uniforms march through the streets of a futuristic city, overseen by guards with sci-fi goggles and truncheons. Four captions read: "WARNING: You are about to enter the city. Leave all personal items behind. They are not permitted. You will see strange and alarming things here. Do not be alarmed. Alarm is forbidden. Do not smile. Do not laugh. Do not cry. Do not care. Abandon hope. Hope is an emotion -- and emotion is a crime in... the city of the damned!"
February 19, 2025 at 9:03 AM
mindprobe.bsky.social
esp love Gibbons channelling his inner Kirby here
The opening splash page of Doctor Who and the Star Beast, from a scan of Doctor Who Weekly #19 - The title sits at the top of the page in big, dramatic letters. The rest of the page is filled by a massive spaceship, a sleek and powerful rocket with a full array of propulsion jets, flying low over the rooftops of a small British town as it crashes down to Earth. Three narrative captions read: "Good evening. Here is the nine o'clock news. Reports by local people that a U.F.O. flew low over Blackcastle last night have been scorned by official sources. "They should get their eyes tested," a spokesman said. "Blackcastle is the last place on Earth aliens would want to visit!""
February 19, 2025 at 8:52 AM
mindprobe.bsky.social
a lot of old-school comics artists' work has been greatly underserved by modern digital colouring and imo Neal Adams is a prime example. you see it in B&W and there's a tone and texture that the glossy final colours at best smooth out and at worst actively clash with & cheapen.
Neal Adams' original pencils for the cover of The Coming of the Supermen #1 The final cover of The Coming of the Supermen #1 as printed Neal Adams' black and white inks for his variant cover for First Wave #1 The final printed version of Neal Adams' variant cover for First Wave #1
February 19, 2025 at 6:14 AM
mindprobe.bsky.social
was bored; ranked the Dr Who title sequences (on further consideration Shalka moved up two spaces. ask me about the current one in a couple of years.)
1: Tom Baker V1 2: Eccleston/Tennant V1 3: Pertwee V1 4: Hartnell/Troughton V1 5: Smith V1 6: Tennant V2 7: McCoy 8: Capaldi 9: Troughton V2 10: Davison 11: TV Movie 12: Pertwee V2 13: Colin V2 14: Colin V1 15: Tom Baker V2 16: Smith V2 17: Whittaker 18: Shalka
February 12, 2025 at 3:39 PM
mindprobe.bsky.social
is there anyone who has provided a more noble and valuable service for Dr Who fandom
Chrissie's Transcripts Site: This is your one-stop site for who said what and when on BBC televised Doctor Who and UK free-to-view Star Trek, with some vaguely tangential Extras.
February 10, 2025 at 6:18 PM
mindprobe.bsky.social
also reminds me of this from Ursula K. Le Guin's introduction to The Left Hand of Darkness, one of my favourite pieces of writing about writing
"In reading a novel, any novel, we have to know perfectly well that the whole thing is nonsense, and then, while reading, believe every word of it. Finally, when we’re done with it, we may find – if it’s a good novel – that we’re a bit different from what we were before we read it, that we have changed a little, as if by having met a new face, crossed a street we never crossed before. But it’s very hard to say just what we learned, how we were changed. The artist deals with what cannot be said in words. The artist whose medium is fiction does this in words. The novelist says in words what cannot be said in words. Words can be used thus paradoxically because they have, along with a semiotic usage, a symbolical or metaphorical usage. (They also have a sound – a fact the linguistic positivists take no interest in. A sentence or paragraph is like a chord or harmonic sequence in music: its meaning may be more clearly understood by the attentive ear, even though it is read in silence, than by the attentive intellect.) All fiction is metaphor. Science fiction is metaphor. What sets it apart from older forms of fiction seems to be its use of new metaphors, drawn from certain great dominants of our contemporary life – science, all the sciences, and technology, and the relativistic and the historical outlook, among them. Space travel is one of these metaphors; so is an alternative society, an alternative biology; the future is another. The future, in function, is a metaphor. A metaphor for what? If I could have said it non-metaphorically, I would not have written all these words, this novel; and Genly Ai would never have sat down at my desk and used up my ink and typewriter ribbon in informing me, and you, rather solemnly, that the truth is a matter of the imagination."
January 19, 2025 at 5:53 PM
mindprobe.bsky.social
Alister Pearson's cover for The Greatest Show in the Galaxy by Stephen Wyatt Alister Pearson's cover for Survival by Rona Munro Alister Pearson's cover for The Curse of Fenric by Ian Briggs Alister Pearson's cover for Battlefield by Marc Platt
January 17, 2025 at 4:39 PM
mindprobe.bsky.social
thinking about Alister Pearson's Target book covers
Alister Pearson's cover for The Underwater Menace by Nigel Robinson Alister Pearson's cover for The Edge of Destruction by Nigel Robinson Alister Pearson's cover for Paradise Towers by Stephen Wyatt Alister Pearson's cover for Ghost Light by Marc Platt
January 17, 2025 at 4:37 PM
mindprobe.bsky.social
this is so great
A wide panel of Bruce talking to the woman, Susan. He stands on the left of the panel, with her sat in the middle glancing back at him, and the huge, dreamy, sketchy image of Batman fills the right side of the panel, deep in thought. Bruce: "Saw what, Susan?" Susan: "A big man -- obviously in trouble! A trail of blood -- my husband helping him in! Couldn't see his face..." Bruce: "Was he limping? Holding his leg?" Susan: "Not that I noticed!" Bruce's inner monologue, represented by the ghostly image of Batman on the right of the panel: "Hmm -- the paper said the killer was a gunshot victim --- and since every doctor has to report such cases to the police..." Bruce leans in to face Susan, the ghostly image of Batman behind him. Batman, in internal monologue: "... the patient must have murdered Jonah -- AFTER emergency treatment -- to prevent identification! In which case, there's a killer at large -- still suffering a bullet injury! And if he limped --- we'd have some clue to start on!" Bruce: "Go on, Susan!"
November 30, 2024 at 7:12 PM
mindprobe.bsky.social
hell yeah
Three panels from Batman #217 (1969), written by Frank Robbins, pencilled by Irv Novick: Panel 1: A shot of Bruce Wayne talking to a woman, shown in silhouette through a window. Bruce: "Then that's settled! Wish we could find your husband's killer as easily!" Woman: "How could you --- when even the police are up against a blank wall?" Panel 2: A shot of the woman, shown over Bruce's shoulder. Bruce: "I have a --- friend --- who specializes in "blank-wall cases" --- Batman!" Woman: "You KNOW him? But why would he --- I mean, this case is so unimportant to such a brilliant crime-fighter..." Panel 3: A bold, heroic shot of Bruce, angled slightly upward, with a dreamy Batman drawn in a sketchier style looming symbolically behind him. "You don't know him --- like I do, Susan! ALL humanity is important to Batman -- ANY life, no matter how insignificant in the public eye!"
November 30, 2024 at 6:56 PM
mindprobe.bsky.social
Moffat in a 1996 fanzine article where he contentiously argued that Peter Davison was the best Doctor (reddit.com/r/gallifrey/...), and RTD in the pitch document for series 1
"So what makes Davison — for me — the best, and his episodes the ones I wouldn't mind watching in the company of my most cynical and sarcastic friends? I'm certainly not claiming the show was suddenly high art or great drama — it was after all, the adventures of space man in a frock coat who lives in a flying telephone box — but for a brief three years it seemed to take the job of being an entertaining, adventure-romp for kids of all ages with just the right mix of seriousness and vivacity, the way Lois And Clark does so adroitly now and the leading man, bless him. was really delivering." "The fate of the Time Lords could be developed through the first series. Slowly, carefully. Tiny details. Something attacked the Doctor’s people… something which might be returning… How far will the Doctor go, to find out the truth? To be avenged? The best US shows – Buffy, Angel, Smallville – have a mythology-story which ticks away in the background, climaxing in the final episodes. But I wouldn’t enslave us to that idea just yet, because the new mythology mustn’t become as tangled as the old. It’s just a thought; it can simmer."
November 11, 2024 at 2:57 AM
mindprobe.bsky.social
👍
A little badge that says I joined bluesky on July 27, 2023, and that out of bluesky's first ten million users, I was number 392,042, with a little stamp on it that says "First 10% - Certified Bluesky Elder"
September 18, 2024 at 5:11 PM
mindprobe.bsky.social
randomly came across Roger Ebert's review of Johnny Be Good (1988) and the sudden escalation of this last paragraph always cracks me up
"The people who made this movie should be ashamed of themselves. There are a lot of good screenplays to be filmed and only a limited amount of money to go around. This movie is simply financial leakage, a squandering of resources equivalent to polluting a river or plowing under a rain forest. I’m serious. We’re desperate for things to think about in this society, and these guys contribute to the situation by providing us with 86 minutes of zip. They oughta have their pictures on the post office wall."
May 20, 2024 at 3:16 AM
mindprobe.bsky.social
sadly it cuts off partway into the second half of the interview (I checked, this is all there is), so we miss out on moments like this
"GROTH: Sounds like you can relate to Dan Pussey. MCFARLANE: To who? GROTH: Dan Pussey, “Young Dan Pussey”? MCFARLANE: Dan Pussey?"
April 24, 2024 at 6:53 AM
mindprobe.bsky.social
these Mike Wieringo Superman covers are so great
The cover of Adventures of Superman #598, January 2002: A glossy, stylised rendering of Clark Kent emerging from a retro-modern phone booth - a shiny glass cylinder with a bronze roof - as he looks to the sky with determination and starts to pull off his tie, the top buttons of his shirt already open to reveal the Superman logo underneath The cover of Superman: The Man of Steel #120, also January 2002: A mirror image of the first cover with Superman emerging from a similar phone booth in the opposite direction, also looking to the sky; his eyebrow raised, his hands in fists, ready to leap into action
March 28, 2024 at 2:15 AM
mindprobe.bsky.social
is this secretly the best variation of the McCoy logo
The logo used on the cover of Doctor Who Magazine in the late 80s and early 90s, from issues 135 to 169: a variation on the McCoy era logo, the word "Doctor" in amber yellow and the word "Who" white with a red streak across it, in front of a slightly tilted blue oval with a red border and a scattering of small yellow spots, like stars.
March 18, 2024 at 3:59 AM
mindprobe.bsky.social
!!! previously uncollected early DWM strips alert !!!
Doctor Who: The Return of the Daleks - The Complete Doctor Who Back-Up Tales Vol. 1
March 17, 2024 at 10:40 PM
mindprobe.bsky.social
Hydrogen Bomb vs Coughing Baby
March 13, 2024 at 3:01 AM
mindprobe.bsky.social
Fantastic Four fancast
Peter Capaldi as the Doctor in Doctor Who Jenna Coleman as Clara in Doctor Who Joivan Wade as Rigsy in Doctor Who Dan Starkey as Strax in Doctor Who
February 15, 2024 at 8:48 PM