Seeds Of Doubt

In the comic pictured above, Flash's sidekick, Kid Flash, runs so quickly that he travels millions of years into the past and saves mankind by stopping a catastrophe that would have altered history and prevented humans from evolving; meanwhile, The Flash runs into the future and saves humanity from itself.

There's something fishy about this story.

Until very recently, I used to accept comic-book superheroes as fact- how could so many comic fans be wrong?- but this Bad Science causes me to suspect that comic books aren't true. I mean, how could Kid Flash travel millions of years into the past when everyone knows that the world is only 6,000 years old? I think the writers might have made up the prehistoric element of this comic book story.

It makes me wonder if the futuristic element isn't bullshit as well. The Flash might be able to run fast enough to intercept 10,000 falling missiles, but he isn't strong enough stop them from landing. For that you'd need Superman. The men who wrote this story are trying to make us believe impossible, ridiculous things about the past and the future.

Writers spreading falsehoods? That's a disturbing thought. It makes me wonder if there really is such a person as The Flash at all. There are a nigh-infinite amount of comic books, toys, TV shows, posters, graphic novels and other ephemera depicting various aspects and incarnations of The Flash, but there has never been any conclusive documentation of the Flash's actual existence or his super-powers. I just figured he ran so fast that he was invisible, but maybe I was wrong.

What if there is no Superman either? Talk about scary thoughts.

Maybe superheroes are sorta like Santa Claus and his elves; they don't really exist but it makes us feel better to pretend that they do.

Perhaps Superman doesn't really exist and his images and associated ideals of Truth, Justice and The American Way are really just symbolic guidelines to aid us in our own decision making. A 'positive role-model', if you will.

This next cover (below) is more realistic. This is how the last week has felt for me. Obviously, the "radiation" shown below is a metaphor for natural tea and Firefly DVDs, but the writers of this story responsibly used high doses of radiation as a "stand-in" for the aforementioned vices...I mean, 'tea' makes you lazy and Sci-Fi makes you weird, so it's better to keep kids away from them.

There is also an element of Real Science involved here: if you pump enough radiation through living things, they will eventually stop moving. There is a famous experiment known as "Schrodinger's Microwave" that proves this.

The New Job has been a treadmill, but I'm keeping up, in fact, I just learned that my promotion goes into effect in ten days- exactly one month after my start date! I also like being directly involved in developing the workflow. As a career-long office temp, I'm accustomed to encountering workflow systems that appear to be collaboratively designed by Dr. Doom, Rube Goldberg and Dante. Our system will be designed by a blogger who believes in Superman and thinks that the Artificial Intelligence from the video game CIV IV would be a better leader than most humans.

Our system is gonna ROCK.

Logg Cabbin, M.D.

Mark Fail

Lone Star Romance

(If you click the pic, you'll be taken to a slide show featuring the entire comic)

This here is an unfinished rough draft of a comic that I wrote in the late nineties, art by Richard Menustik. I found it at the bottom of box of old books as I cleaned my apartment today.
I chopped it into a slide show for your amusement. I had forgotten this comic (but not the story)...
I suddenly feel like doing comics again. Too bad my drawings suck.

Note: It's much easier to read it if you hit "pause" and advance the slides manually.

Unpredictable

I just received a phone call from my Twin in Chicago.

"Killed...killed...bodies...killed...."

Whoa. Slow down. Who got killed? Are you OK?

He is OK. Physically.

The Twin was, as he is almost every evening, standing at the Cermak bus stop after work.
Unlike most days, today a runaway tractor trailer plowed into the station.
He felt the air move as the truck passed.
It was very close.

There was a deafening , exploding sound - louder than a hundred earthquakes- and suddenly bodies were flying through the air, people were screaming, blood was everywhere.
The Twin actually saw the truck coming in, but those who didn't thought it was a bomb or a derailed train.

After the shock, my brother and other bystanders tried to lift a piece of metal ( from his description, I think it may be the 'L' shaped beam directly in front of the truck's front tire) off of a pair of women who were pinned underneath. They were in a pool of spreading blood.
The women were not moving.

The rescue was not successful.

Two women died at the scene and nearly a dozen other persons are in critical care.

I'm not sure if the dead women were the ones he was trying to help or not; in any case it was a horrible scene and the Twin was very shaken, on the edge of tears...to make matters worse, someone stole the Twin's backpack, which he had dropped when he ran to help. It had his wallet, credit card, checkbook, cell phone...the works.

With any luck, the authorities picked it up while they were clearing the scene...maybe they thought it was a potential bomb and they took it somewhere and blew it up, it'll ruin your Blackberry but your ID will be safe.
I suck at comforting.

The Twin was still in a state of mild shock. He was afraid to watch the news...he didn't want to know how many people died. He started down the what if path:
-What if I hadn't stopped to tie my shoe?
-What if I hadn't seen the truck coming?

Don't think about that, I said.
Just don't take anything for granted, ever.
I don't.


There are degrees of near-death experiences. His was brief, unforeseeable and left him unharmed- dodging the proverbial bullet, as it were.

My own experience was a bit different. I didn't have a brush with Death, I had a long disagreement that went on for six days...I remember the doctor coming into my room and telling me that they had "lost me" a couple of times while I was on the operating table.

What operating table? I had surgery?

Yep. I went into alcoholic withdrawal while they were trying to repair my innards...I had a grande mal seizure while I had an endoscopic tube inside me. Everyone present was amazed that I survived. I used up four units of blood. This seemed like a pretty impressive statistic to the doc, he repeated it several times for effect.

Jesus. I'm glad I don't remember that. Doc, how long will I be in the hospital?

Not long, he said.

That's good news.

No, it's not. We expect you to die.

Die? When?

Today. Perhaps tomorrow.

That sucks. I don't feel like dying.

The doctors didn't believe me. Over and over again, I was asked the same questions in different forms...did I ever have suicidal thoughts? ...did I plan on drinking again?
I felt like screaming : of course I NEVER have any suicidal thoughts! I drank myself into a bloody pulp in a joyous, life-affirming manner!
I mean, nothing celebrates life like a 1.75 liter bottle of Bowman's Virginia Vodka... I sure could use a drink...but I didn't say that.

I lied and said : "No and no."

It's a good thing that I did.
I have since learned that if I had admitted to having "suicide ideation", I probably would have been placed into psychiatric care, which would have driven me insane...instead, I was left alone with Death, who can be a real asshole.

The smug, undying bastard was convinced that I was going to drink again.
"C'mon in, man", he said with a wink and a scythe, "the water's fine. One drink and you can swim here forever, you'll never feel any pain again."

"But", I protested, "that means I'll never feel anything good either."

"Dude", he said, using a condescending tone that only immortals can truly pull off, "your life sucks. You are a fat, used-up drunk with no job, no future and no friends. No one even knows that you are here...they won't miss you when you are gone. Loveless , hopeless, forgotten...that's you."

No. That's not me. Don't say that. No.

The Reaper grinned. "Why not? You say it every day. I'm just agreeing with you."

I had to admit that he was right.
I also had to admit that I was wrong.
Death was using my own words as a weapon against me.
That pissed me off.

It was then that I decided that I was never going to drink again.
I've been sober ever since.

Poor company, Death was, but I'm richer for having met him.

Sometimes persons, on hearing my story, will comment that I must possess remarkable strength.
Or courage.
Or willpower.
Or faith...or any number of other things that I don't have.

Those aren't the things that keep me sober.

The secret to my sobriety isn't a secret at all.
I don't want to die.

That's it.

*********************************

In 1996 I wrote a comic book mini-series titled "Destiny Angel". This is the opening page from issue #1:

In which my protagonist is asked the question:





Eerie, eh?


I thought so.

Oops!

I have jokingly heard masturbation referred to as "safe sex".

That wasn't true for legendary underground cartoonist Vaughn Bode.

He died masturbating.
More specifically, he died because he believed (or had learned) that cutting off a person's oxygen supply at the moment of sexual climax heightens the sensation of orgasm. In Bode's case it was called auto-erotic ass fixation , which I don't really understand- from his artwork, Bode seemed like more a breast man...in any case, it was a waste of a great cartoonist.

Still, I guess if you gotta get caught with a noose in one hand and your pecker in the other, you might as well be dead when it happens.
Otherwise it could be mighty embarrassing.

Sex makes us do dumb stuff, but , crimes of passion notwithstanding, there are ways to have sex without dying. Or if it does kill you, it might take years- and I don't mean from HIV or other diseases- I mean from shame.

This afternoon I was prowling local businesses with the purpose of selling radio ads. I wasn't having much luck with that, but I was enjoying flirting with the lovely young ladies working at some of the shops- I walked into one boutique and was greeted by one of the prettiest women I have ever seen.

She smiled broadly and gave me a big hug! We were old friends, hadn't seen her in years- seven, eight maybe...anyway, she looks better now than she did then and I was thinking
to myself : I would love to see her naked, preferably with that beautiful hair spilled across the head of my bed...

Then it hit me. I have already seen that. Many years ago.
I was too drunk to do anything about it, though.
It was pretty embarrassing...there are things a guy can do to stall for time, but if the dangle doesn't get an angle, that fact is eventually going to come up, so to speak.

There should be a book that teaches one what to do in awkward social situations:

#37: A chance meeting with a good friend with whom you have had bad sex.
What to do?

-Ask them for money.
I tried to sell her some ads. It might happen.

-Mention that you quit drinking.
Find out she's got a S.O. who might be a drunk. Change subject.
Too late...we briefly and sadly discussed mutual friends who have died of drug and drink... however, this was still better than talking about the boner I couldn't get in 1998.

-Give them your autograph.
My friend actually had a copy of my 2000 CD, Extinction, sitting in the stack behind the counter. There were only a couple dozen of these made - I made each one by hand, using a DAT deck for the master and a Phillips stand-alone CD recorder for the copies.
(Time required to record a 70 minute CD? 70 minutes!)
So she asked me to sign her copy, you know, in case I get famous, she can eBay it when I die hehehe...
I was happy to oblige:

Dear xxxx,
Sorry about last time,
Allan C...

Chinese Fire Drill -or- Why I Hate the Weather Wizard

Sweet Regina's gone to China,
cross-legged on the floor
Of a burning jet that's smoothly flying
Burning Airlines give you so much more
-Brian Eno

I don't think conspiracy theories need to be limited to paranoid delusions of malign collusions- it's pretty hard to look at this wreckage and imagine that anyone survived without some sort of mysterious but well-meaning outside help. You have probably seen the footage by now- the clip with the ant-sized passengers scurrying out of both ends of a winged fireball...even knowing how it ends, it's difficult to watch without halfway expecting the outcome to change for the worse...thankfully, it doesn't. How did they all survive?

This near-catastrophe bears the unmistakable hallmarks of a SuperHero rescue- a passenger jet, a mysterious disaster, a miraculous last-second save with lots of wreckage and minimal casualties...

When I heard that everyone survived , my first thought was that Superman must have saved them- but I have been told that Superman doesn't exist, so I am forced to conclude that this was the work of The Flash (pictured) and the Invisible Girl (no photo available).

I'm guessing that the Flash and the Invisible Girl were on board during the flight when the villainous Weather Wizard(see below) caused lightning to hit the engine, setting it afire; this was noted by the quick-thinking Invisible Girl, who kept a telekinetic force-field around the engine until the plane could land. Once it touched down, the Flash scooped the passengers up and got them to the exits before he and the IG dashed off to capture the Weather Wizard*, only allowing the flames to take over once all the passengers were safe. The duo, being super-humble as well as mindful of their Secret Identities, did not return to take credit for their derring-do.

It's comforting to believe that superheroes are looking out for us, but the truth is that The Flash and The I-Girl are the intellectual properties of rival comic publishers and they would never co-operate in real-life. They live in separate universes.

I have another theory, it's much less plausible than rescue by spandex-wearing heroes, but it's a possibility nonetheless.
Perhaps, sensing that things were seriously wrong on the plane, the passengers just instinctively went into action and did what they needed to do in order to escape. Maybe some ordinary people did some super-heroic deeds- we might never know that, but we can be pretty certain that nobody on board had time to change into their crime-fighting costume and spout a few expository paragraphs regarding their tragic Secret Origin and their subsequent quest for Justice...they had other problems to deal with.

They dealt.

Yeah, I know it ain't much compared to the daily global bloodshed we witness, but at least for one moment, when the chips were down and every flippin' second was literally life or death, a planeload of strangers were able to pull together, get out ; get out alive and unscathed. I doubt they had time to think, they just reacted. Apparently, they did everything right- all it would have taken was one person to seriously fuck-up and dozens of people could have been killed, but they didn't fuck-up and they weren't killed.

Superman can't save us and I often tend to think no one can...but we don't need Superman's help-all we have to do is wait- the Vulcans will eventually save us from ourselves.
I saw it on TV.

-----------------------------------------
* I have been harboring a super- grudge against the Weather Wizard for decades. The man has the Super-Power to change the fuckin' weather and he uses it to rob banks, hold up candy stores and play spin-the -hero with the Flash?
Pathetic.

If I was the Wiz, I'd sell rain to desert nations that could pay me in oil. I'd deflect hurricanes back out to sea- not out of the goodness of my heart, but for profit. Keep me supplied with weed and I'd make damned sure Jamaica never saw another tropical storm... I'd repair the ozone layer and turn global warming into a global protection racket. I would save the world and get rich doing it.

"Hey Flash! Why don'tcha thwart my evil plan to end this drought?"

Superheroes would be powerless in the face of this benign amorality.

I would call myself a Good Guy, even if my benevolence was just a front for my avarice- only in the comics do the Bad Guys give themselves convenient labels like The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, Doctor Crime, #7 or Turdblossom .

Hmmm. Maybe super-villains really are evil.

Next stop: Arkham.

Robo Cop-Out

Irene was looking for RoboCop when we met.

"Excuse me, but do you have any RoboCop books?", she asked as she flipped through the boxes of comic books on the table separating us. I should have told her no, I was sold out - the actor who played RoboCop, which was currently in the theaters, was a guest at the Big Comic Convention I was working- but I was immediately attracted to Irene and her fishnet-based Victorian Gothic fashion sense. I wanted to keep her at my table as long as possible. To do that, I'd tell her anything, including the truth.

"Well, I don't have any 'Robo' books down here, but I have some Robocop stashed in my room upstairs."

Her black-lined lips twitched. Was she repressing a smile or a snarl?

"That is flat-out the worst pick-up line that I have ever heard."

Her stare was an icy dagger of laughter.
Laughter?

Ha, she was teasing me! I like this. Keep going...

"But, but...I do have a few. I figured I'd hold some back in case the prices went up during the autograph sessions, but if you want I'll run upstairs and bring one down for you during my next break. No extra charge, of course."

Oh shit. I've just revealed book-dealer secrets to an attractive stranger after ten seconds of conversation. Mata Hari would have had no problems with me.

Irene looked a bit disappointed. When exactly, she wanted to know, was my next break and how much was a copy of RoboCop: The Comics Adaptation going to cost her?

"Now, and your eternal soul, to answer your respective questions."

"Excellent!"

And it was. It turned out that Irene was a student at the art school back home- we were neighbors, in fact. We both agreed that this was a good thing and that we would pick up where we left off after returning to our mutual hometown. Where we left off was the floor, the desk, the tub....well, you get the idea.

I wasn't paying much attention to conversational clues at this point. I overlooked a critical warning sign when Irene referred to my cat as an "animal companion" and I, thinking she was being sarcastic, replied that I preferred the term "feline-American".

I was kidding. She wasn't, and we had our first argument, but we were at the stage in our fledgling relationship where such things didn't seem to matter. I didn't have any problem adapting to her excellent vegan cooking and she 'overlooked' my leather shoes...it was fine for a few weeks.

Until our Big Romantic Date.

I had recently sold some Silver Age Spider-Man comics to a local restaurateur who was also a Spidey addict, and part of our negotiations included a candlelight dinner for two at his restaurant. After making sure that the kitchen could prepare a proper vegan meal, I asked Irene if she wanted to dine out, all formal-like.

Hell yeah, she said, as long as it's vegan.

So we went. It felt great, being greeted at the door and escorted to our table by the owner, being told that we were "V.I.P.s" and to feel free to order anything we wished. We were a young, poor and strange-looking couple; neither one of us was accustomed to being treated so graciously by a 'straight' establishment. It felt good.
I was doing alright by Irene, I thought.

But during our meal, she kept staring at a woman a few tables over to my left. I should have said something, asked what was up...something...but I didn't. I was too busy enjoying the moment to notice how angry Irene was getting.
I wish I had, because before we ordered desert Irene finally stood up and approached the woman whom she had been glaring at all evening.

"Ahem. I can't help but notice that you are very proud of your fur coat. Well, I hope you are proud of all the animals who suffered and died in cages so you could prance around in their skins..."

"Well, I never...", the other, older woman stood up, " what gives you the right to talk to me..."

The woman's husband, older and much larger than me, also stood up. He didn't say anything, but his look was one of contempt as the two women started yelling at each other in the nearly full dining room. I tried to avoid his eyes.

"You murderous, evil bitch!"

"Crazy punk rock whore!"

"I'll fucking kill you..."

The entire dining room stopped moving, went silent and watched the argument escalate.

Clink, said a fork.

My friend, the owner, rushed over and stage-whispered to me: "Leave. Now."

"Irene! Irene!", I interjected, "we need to leave. Now. My friend is insisting that we go."

"Cunt!"

"Slut!"

On the walk back to her apartment I couldn't think of anything to say, so I sulked instead. I guessed, correctly, that this incident had cost me one of my best comics customers. I also felt the lurking specter of The End of my time with Irene.

When we got home, she started giving me crap about my leather shoes, my belt, the beef I had "hidden" in my freezer...I am a bit ashamed to admit that I wasn't the slightest bit prepared for this attack and I crumpled. I gathered up the things I had at her place and I went home. I spent the night alone with my beef.

A few days later, a mutual friend approached me. She said Irene had been "stressed" and needed to go back to her family for a rest period. She informed me that Irene wanted me to have something, but was embarrassed to give it to me herself, so she used our friend as proxy.

She handed me a comic book inside a plastic bag.

RoboCop.

Tying Lois

In the 1960's and 70's DC Comics published a seemingly endless number of spin-off comics featuring nearly all of Superman's friends and 'family'- Jimmy Olsen, Supergirl, Krypto the Superdog, Superboy and even Supertramp.

Superman fought Muhammed Ali. Supes lost in a repeat of the Great White Hope fiasco...I think space aliens intervened to make it a fair fight. Anyone got a copy?

Anyway, the longest running one was Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane. It was the book that Superman editor Mort Weisinger would assign to writers and artists he was miffed at. It was intended as a sort of punishment, but some of the writers may have enjoyed themselves, perhaps too much.

One has to wonder at the 'creative process' behind this cover. In the illustration, Superman's two rival 'girlfriends ' have grown tired of Superman's unwillingness to commit and decided to put themselves in suspended animation for 5,000 years to punish him. The note at the foot of their iceboxes reads:

"Goodbye Superman! We're tired of waiting for you to propose. When we wake up in the future , you'll be DEAD, DEAD, DEAD! Lois and Lana

That's a pretty hateful goodbye letter. Vicious and frigid.

I must admit that I'm appalled at Supe's reaction to this. He's agonizing over what to do when what he should be saying is:
"Thank God the two most fucked-up bitch-persons I know have removed themselves from my life for 5,000 years. I'm freakin' Superman- I should be able to find a girlfriend that isn't completely insane. "

Instead he's acting like a SuperWuss.




After Julie Schwartz took over as editor he tried really hard to boost sales. Lois Lane was tied-up and threatened with all sorts of bizarre defilements every thirty days. I'm not sure exactly who these comics were being marketed to and apparently neither was DC Comics; eventually they stopped publishing Lois Lane, but not before she got into some pretty interesting binds.


These covers
are fairly blatant examples of fetish art, yet they were approved by the puritanical
Comics Code Authority,
which once refused to 'approve' an issue of Amazing Spider-Man because it featured drug use.
In the story , a druggie got high and flipped out and Spidey had to save him from leaping to his acid-induced death, so it wasn't exactly a pro-drug story, but the mere mention of dope, even in a negative sense was considered to be unsuitable for children.
Marvel Comics ( with Stan Lee calling the shots) published it anyway, without the CCA seal of approval. This was very controversial at the time and some newsstand distributors wouldn't carry it but I have always been grateful to Stan Lee for having the balls to tell the CCA to get lost , helping pave the way for the 'Non-Code'
"mature readers'' books that came later.



Lois should be grateful that Superman never seemed into getting down with her. As writer Larry Niven points out in his essay Man of Steel , Woman of Kleenex:

... Superman's sex problems are strictly physiological, and quite real....Assume a mating between Superman and a human woman designated LL for convenience.

The problem is this. Electroencephalograms taken of men and women during sexual intercourse show that orgasm resembles "a kind of pleasurable epileptic attack." One loses control over one's muscles.

Superman has been known to leave his fingerprints in steel and in hardened concrete, accidentally. What would he do to the woman in his arms during what amounts to an epileptic fit?

Lastly, he'd blow off the top of her head.

Ejaculation of semen is entirely involuntary in the human male, and in all other forms of terrestrial life. It would be unreasonable to assume otherwise for a kryptonian. But with kryptonian muscles behind it, Kal-El's semen would emerge with the muzzle velocity of a machine gun bullet. (*One can imagine that the Kent home in Smallville was riddled with holes during Superboy's puberty. And why did Lana Lang never notice that?*)

I wonder if this is why they don't show 'Smallville' on my local cable?

*****************
Covers found here.

I'm In The Cut-Out Bins

I found this on the Intertube while I was trying to find copies of some old comics that I wrote. Note: I was able to find myself by googling (w/") "Dark Fantasies Comics" , which was the name of my publisher. The books are being sold in bulk lots on eBay, 10 books for 4 bucks...sigh...anyway, it's a weird feeling reading a review that mentions oneself by name.

This spinoff from Dark Fantasies tells the strange (and sometimes hard to follow) tale of an immortal woman/goddess/angel and her immortal husband/god/demon who is trying to kill her—or maybe just trap her on an astral plane. Allan Coberly’s story is more than a little convoluted, and he isn’t helped much by Ben Fogletto’s art or sense of page layout, which makes word balloon placement haphazard at best. If you’re a fan of Dark Fantasy Productions, though, then you’ve probably already cracked the verbal/visual code and shouldn’t have any trouble figuring out just who or what a “destiny angel” is, and why anyone would want to destroy such a gorgeous and powerful celestial babe as she.

It's an honest and fair review, although the site lists publication as 1986- it was 1996. And there was no "code" that I was aware of- it was just a mess. A train wreck of monumental insignificance.

I wrote the script and I had a hard time following the art... I remember getting a test copy of the book in the mail. It followed my script for a while and then it changed... my lead character was wet, nearly naked and carrying a gun. What the?...in the margin you can see my angry scrawl :" She doesn't bathe with firearms!"

What the hell?

"Holy Mackerel?" Nobody says that.

I called the publisher, who was also a close friend of mine.

"Man, have you seen the art for #1? It's totally off-script! It doesn't look like the thumbs at all! What happened to my dialogue?"

"Well, you have to live with it. I need you to re-write #2 and #3 and take out all the occult references and sex scenes."

"Uh...it's a vampire comic- for 'mature readers'- haven't you read it? You paid me to write about lesbian vampires and that is what you got."

"Well, now I'm paying you to re-write it without the vampires and lesbians. If you don't, I will."

"Why the change?"

"My wife won't let me publish the tittie vampire books anymore."

"What? You have a wife? Since last month?"

"Yeah, I met her at a Star Trek convention- I was drinking with her and her fiance, and he got hammered and went into their suite to pass out. While he was conked out in the next room , I fucked her and the next day she dumped him. Now she is pregnant , so we had to get married."

"Dude. Please tell me you just made all of that up."

"No, it's true. Her name is xxxxxx. Now she has my last name."

"Uh...um...Dude. You probably shouldn't be making lifetime commitments with someone who will fuck around while they are engaged. Like, with her man sleeping next door and all. It's a bad sign. "

"Screw you. Just rewrite the book, I'll pay you again."

"Uh...OK. Why, though?"

"She is a Jehovah's Witness and the vampire stuff is Satan worship and the nude parts are pornography, which is also Satanic. Or something."

"Uh...lessee...you met this Jehovah's Witness chick at a Star Trek Con, got drunk with her and her man; ditched the dude, knocked her up in a hotel - now you are married and she thinks you are a Satanic pornographer? I didn't know Jeeho's even drank, much less do Con parties...
You are making this up, aren't you?"

"No. She went back to her faith after we got married. No more vampires. No more boobies. It has to be rated PG or G now."

"Um...so, like what do you want? I suddenly have a hundred pages to rewrite."

"I dunno. Whatever. Just follow the art. Keep it clean."

"Great. How soon?"

"Now."

Anyway, the new wife was OK with the gun and the not-quite naked woman. In fact, she didn't bat a lash when I inserted a deux ex machina gunfight that killed some of the characters that were important to the first version of the story but meaningless in the second version.

Hmmm...scantily-clad women and gun violence is OK, vampires and sexuality is not... so I wrote a lot of scenes like these below, lots of guns and bathing- feel free to insert your own captions.

Let's make it a contest:
I'll send a prize to the best entry- in other words, if you enter, you'll probably win. A cash prize!
Anyone still awake?
Here are a couple pages with the original dialogue removed. Fill in the blanks any way you want.

These scenes are from issue #3, which was never published. I never wrote another comic book but I'd like to someday ...who knows? Can you draw?

UPDATE: Contest ends like, whenever. Number of winners dependent on how many bags of cash I can scrounge up.

Thanking Viacom

I would like to thank the industrious surveillance staff at Viacom for responding so quickly to my frustrated appeal to John Hodgman for the return of my overdue fifteen minutes of fame.


Note: If you want Viacom to read your blog, create labels like the ones I have below. Depending on your traffic, it's a good bet that within 24 hours, you'll get a few hits from Viacom's IP.


To Viacom: There are no videos on this blog. There never have been. But I have great ideas for content- send my people an email. We'll do lunch.

It Could Always Be Worse

Have you ever been to Star Trek Convention? How about a Comic Book Show or Sci-Fi Con?
Wizard Con? Dragon Con? I used to get paid to go to them- which, IMO, is the only way to travel when it comes to Cons.

I ran a comic-book shop back in the VCR days, and in the summer my boss would have me work at the bigger shows when he couldn't go himself or he just needed an extra hand- San Diego , Chicago, Javit's, Atlanta- all fun places...I did it part-time for a few years even after the store closed.
We sold bootlegs of old Japanese and Chinese cartoons and Kung-Fu flicks- we never sold Hollywood stuff and we never had any FBI trouble. Back then there was no 100+ station cable TV and all the Interweb had to offer was 28.8k dial-up, so it was pretty hard to get copies of old TV shows like Space Giants and Astroboy- which people wanted, god knows why.

One summer- 1994, I think it was- my boss sent me to Baltimore to work a Trekkie Con. It was in a nice hotel right on the Harbor- I drove up there with my old Honda loaded with Trek 'Bloopers' tapes, X-Files 'collector' bootlegs and grainy-ass Dr. Who serials - of course I was late and barely got set up in time for the opening of the show- in hindsight, I sure wished I'd scoped the room out before I unloaded my car.

I sat behind my booth and waited for the money to roll in- as I said, I have no idea why adults would spend $25 on what is obviously a home-made VHS copy of a Japanese children's cartoon but they did- and I waited.

When I was done with waiting, I waited some more.

Nobody was buying anything.

A pimply Klingon approached the table, looking for something:

"Hey, how ya doin'? Anything I can help you with? Be glad to play anything you wanna see...$25 bucks each, or 3 for $50...", I began my well-oiled spiel.

"Hmmm...grunt... tapes... umm...where?"

"Well, the Sci-Fi is over here- with the blue labels...anything in particular?"

"No.Yorg. Other tapes. Grunk.Where?"

"I'm sorry, I don't speak Klingon- you'll have to use complete sentences. What other tapes?"

The Klingon from Starship Oxy-10 gestured around the room. "Tapes. Like them."

I had no idea what the hell the kid was talking about- I hadn't had a chance to check out the competition yet. Since I wasn't selling a damned thing, I figured I'd better see what people were buying, so I tossed a tablecloth and a "Back in Ten" sign over my merchandise and made the rounds.

I wished I'd stayed home.

It was a Star Trek Sex Con. No kidding.

Two booths down from me a handsome older woman was drawing freehand fantasy sketches for $35 a pop. She was good- and quick- but was being asked to draw some stuff that was clearly making her a bit uncomfortable...I was walking by and I heard a girl wearing a Next Generation uniform asking if the artist could " please make Kirk's cock bigger"- just the sort of question that makes one stop and wonder- and look.

Sure enough, the poor artist was drawing Kirk and Spock in a lover's embrace- holding each other's peckers, to be specific- but the client wanted Kirk to be 'bigger'...the poor woman who was drawing this had a look of dumbstruck incredulity on her face; she didn't seem to know what this particular Con was about and the prospect of spending ten hours drawing homoerotic pictures of William Shatner looked like it was causing her to have some serious thoughts about a career change.

It made me need a drink, but it was 10 am and the bar didn't serve until 11, so I walked around some more...every booth had some sort of Sci-Fi erotica- some of it I was familar with: your typical Frazetta-clone titties and broadsword stuff; the Japanese SchoolGirl cartoons (Hentai, if you need to know) ; Catwoman clothing etc...but it went much deeper than that. People were selling "fan-fiction" and I was dumb and bored enough to try reading one of these Xeroxed masterpieces...it was a first-person account of Spock's internal dialogue: how could he reconcile his Human love for "JTK" with his own emotionless Vulcan personality?

I couldn't finish reading it, so I don't know how it ended. Probably in tears.

Ahhhhgghhh!! Thank Godzilla the bar was finally open.

"Gimmee a draft and a double shot of Wild Turkey."

This breakfast combo didn't even make the jaded hotel bartender blink. Surely he was used to early morning boozers- besides, he was busy gawking at the Animal Girls.

"Get a load of that", he said, looking behind me.

The Animal Girls are a non gender-specific type of FanPerson you can find at most Cons if you look hard enough- but this Con was for them, it seemed. The AG's like to dress as "sexy animals"- tight rabbit suits and fishnet cat cotumes being common examples for the females - Lions, Klingons and Bears for the guys...I'd seen it all before, but not quite so openly displayed.

" How is that cat-tail attached to that costume?" I wondered aloud, looking at a purple Catwoman with a long tail- her costume had no ass and her cheeks were hanging out, which was fine with me and my bartender buddy- but how about that tail? What held it in place?

"It's gotta be a plug," observed the barkeep, his eyes fixed on her ass.

"Nah. All day with that? No way", I remarked, showing just how naive I was at that time.

"Free drink if I'm wrong, five bucks if I'm not", offered up the bartender, who I was beginning to think was the only sane human being in the entire hotel.

"Deal." We shook hands and I ordered another round, which I dispatched in two gulps.

Fortified, I went back to the sales room. I had my "Vendor" badge and didn't have to wait in line, but I needed to get a closer look at the catwoman ass- I mean, a free drink was hanging in the balance ; a bet is a bet and I always honor my wagers.

So it was in the interest of sportsmanship and fairplay that I slipped into line behind the purple catwoman and started in with my very best pick-up line:

"Uh, are you from around here?"

"Yes."

"Oh. Wherabouts? I used to live here, but I haven't been up here for a long time..."

Catwoman looked at my 'civilian' attire and my Vendor tag and her face clouded with contempt.

"You. Are. A. Dealer."

"Well"...I stammered defensively, "I'm just working for someone else, but I don't think I'll make much money today. I brought the wrong stuff."

She looked me up and down and saw less than nothing.

"Yes. Yes, I'm sure you did."

By this time, even my dumb, drunken self had figured out that I was never going to bed this particular Kitty, so I dropped my veneer of gentility. The 101 proof Bourbon coursing through my arteries helped considerably.

"Say, that's a neat outfit...did you make it yourself...?"

"Yes. And yes, it's up my ass."

"Oh."

So I took myself out of line and went back to the bar.

"Draft and a double Turkey?"

"You got it. And here's an extra five for you."

I Want One

From The Roadie's Tale by Dave Jackson and Phil Wagstaff