It’s the last in the series – and now you have a complete set of Cosmos Christmas cards! You’re welcome….
As is the regular tradition on Comic Fury, every year we do a Christmas-themed Crossover Exchange, where everyone’s characters get together for a bit of festive fun…. or utter mayhem, if you happen to team up with the Cosmos gang. The 2017 exchange kicks off at 6pm US time – and here’s everything you need to know to get your exclusive invite!
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I love crossovers. Comic Fury recently completed another of its fantastic multi-participant crossover exchanges, in which – as usual – I took part. Being October, the exchange was centred around Halloween, with the added theme-bonus of ‘Old movies’. We could interpret this in any way we wanted: our characters could be watching a cheesy horror or sci-fi movie, acting in a recreation of said movie, having monsters, ghosts and ghoulies run amok through their world, go trick or treating as classic movie icons…. Whatever. This time around, Cosmos got to cross over with the brilliant fantasy saga Serpents of Old, crafted by an enthusiastic lady from California who posts under the name of ‘HeSerpenty’:
http://serpentsofold.thecomicseries.com/archive
Clicked on the link yet? Well, you better have.
I will admit, when I first got the assignment, I was utterly stumped as to what story to do. How on Earth was I to link the faux-meideval world of Serpents with the sci-fi-ish contemporaneity of Cosmos; let alone have the characters interact through some sort of a movie theme? But then the lightbulb moment dawned: “Hang on…. the SoO cast are all serpent-creatures in human form…. and the main character can still revert to serpent form…. and if I stuck him on a film set and had him stomp on cardboard buildings….”
Sadly, the story pretty much wrote itself from there:
Given that it was a tale-within-a-tale, I gave myself four pages (rather than my usual three) to properly fit everything in…. plus cram in every Japanese monster movie trope and in-joke I could think of. The ‘black-and-white film’ in the movie sequence; the Toho log rip-off, sorry, ‘homage’; the blatantly-visible wires on the fighter jets; the zipper on the Anti-Monster Squad’s secret weapon….
And i must have done something right, because the response to my comic was overwhelmingly positive. Normally, when someone does a multi-page story, people leave an overall comment on the final page only – but with mine, each of the four pages had their own set of comments; left as people read one page, almost died laughing, and raced onto the next. It was a great feeling, I have to say, knowing that I had provided my fellow Comic Furians with such laudable entertainment!
Now I just have to figure out what to do for the Christmas Crossover Exchange….
Okay, so, a week back, this happened:
On the wondrous website Comic Fury, it was Crossover Exchange time again – but this time around, things were a little more complicated. The premise was that of a ‘Character Exchange’, i.e, due to a bit of multiversal jiggery-pokery, the main character/s from different webcomics abruptly swapped places; causing no amount of confusion, antagonism and general hilarity as they attempted to adjust to worlds (and, frequently, genres) utterly alien to them. Slice-of-life characters found themselves in fantasy comics. Fantasy characters ended up facing down science fiction. Superheroes battled unfamiliar foes, or found new allies. Oh, what fun!
Gene, for example, vanished from Cosmos; only to be replaced by a very large, very blue and very devout alien crusader (‘The Knight’) from the comic Arkian, by a very talented fellow called Aran Frogatt:
http://arkian.thecomicseries.com/
Given how very different Cosmos and Arkian were (happy-go-lucky hijinks vs. far-flung sci-fi drama), I decided to present the story from The Knight’s perspective, as he attempts to wrap his head around both his profoundly-changed circumstances and the relentlessly-cheerful creatures he finds himself amongst….
Being of a religious bent, he interprets his experience as a test or trial set by the deity (Triberius) his culture venerates aboard the colossal starship known as The Ark; attempting to ‘do unto others’ as his training as a warrior, diplomat and keeper-of-the-faith would have him do – no matter how perplexing the actions of the local inhabitants may seem to him. Artie, Jenny and the others, meanwhile, deal with the cosmic switcheroo in truly commendable fashion: although understandably freaked out by Gene’s disappearance, and the arrival of a relative giant in their midst (Cosmosians are only about three feet tall, of course), they make every effort to to welcome him into the fold and figure out a way to return him home; and even remain respectful of his religious beliefs and general philosophy, despite their far more secular upbringing – perhaps not something that would have happened if he’d ended up somewhere else. I felt that after so many years of hard slog in his own universe, where enemies were everywhere, The Knight deserved a bit of a chance to unwind!
But what about Gene? Confounding Artie and Co’s expectations, the character exchanges were far more random than Person A swapping directly with Person B (and I’m sure The Knight was very happy about that) – there was actually quite a bit of shuffling going on in mid-teleport. Well, with a bit of help from Professor Pod, Artie was able to mount a rescue mission, and track his erstwhile friend down:
http://crossoverexchange.thecomicseries.com/comics/712/
As you may have noticed, Comic Fury’s Crossover Exchanges generally conform to a seasonal theme – the usual inclusions being Easter, Summer, Halloween and Christmas, with a few wild-card entries thrown in to spice things up (*cough cough* as you’ll see in the next installment massive spoiler *cough cough*). For the Easter 2017 Crossover Exchange, I was served up the semi-autobiographical, partly social-commentary and sometimes risque comic XCP, short for ‘Xailenrath Comics Presents’:
http://xcp.thecomicseries.com/archive/
While mostly serving as a repository for random comics the artist – Octavius – can’t fit into his other webcomics (and he’s done a fair few, just sayin’), the majority are the pithy observations of a cartoon version of himself, sometimes joined by an equally cartoony version of his partner Lucy; so I decided to have the pair – the closest thing the series has to main characters – meet up with the Cosmos gang for some ‘slightly left of centre’ Easter fun. And what fun it was!
In a bit of a departure from my usual working process, I decide to draw all the characters in the final panel individually and lay them over the top of a vector art background created in Adobe Illustrator – this allowed me to A) give the high-tech looking room nice, clean-edged shapes, B) reposition the floor / walls / balcony (all on separate layers) so everything was at the right height relative to the characters and props, C) allow me to scale each character so they were all in proportion to one another, and D) create the ‘holographic keypads’ Gene and Octavius were using to play video games and easily slot them in between them and the other foreground elements when I did the final page assembly. A bit fiddly, but definitely a system I’d use again….
First there was one half of Cosmos’ Christmas 2003 comic strips – and now, as logic demands of us, here is the equal and matching other half! If there was any theme to the first selection (2003, part eight), it would be ‘general festive preparations and other assorted hi-jinks’: this time, however, there’s a definite ‘Christmas shopping’ focus (and even a loose sort of story, as 6 out of the 8 strips are set at the Stuff-U-Like department store in Pago Grandé) to proceedings. So make room in the car boot and prepare your bank account for some serious buyer’s remorse, ‘cause we’re heading for the mall!
Top: Peter and Timmy have plenty of enthusiasm when it comes to the spirit of giving, but sadly, beyond the standard clichés of novelty ties and decorative soaps, they’re a little out of their depth when it comes to buying gifts for their respective parents – especially when other people aren’t into action figures, comic books and all of the awesome things that ‘normal’ folks want for Christmas. Still, keep trying, lads!
Bottom: I’m sure people working in department stores view the sea of customers pressed up against the doors at 8:59am, mid-December, with a mounting sense of dread – in the same way that one would facing down a revving line-up of Indy-cars or a herd of enraged cattle of the cusp of a massive stampede. Sure, you’re receiving double hazard-pay, but being gored and trampled is still being gored and trampled!
Top: I think this guy fits into the category marked ‘way too much free time on his hands’, don’t you? Oh, but for your information, SIR, you are currently sitting in an
ARMCHAIR, not a COUCH. Check, and mate.
Bottom: remember these two? Gene introduced us to them in the original Stuff-U-Like story (2002, part 18) – it’s Meg and Darcy, queens of the Cosmetics Department! Darcy clearly has an abiding affection for all things nostalgically-Christmas-y…. as well as a certain Elf-hunk from Lord of the Rings. That begs the question, though: why do the majority of Christmas elves bear more resemblance to Yuletide-themed garden gnomes than proper, fantasy-novel elves? Are they different species, or something? Or does working in the Arctic simply stunt their growth? Someone launch a
scientific study on that, please….
Top: I’m sure there are those out there who can totally relate to the situation this guy found himself in – dealing with irate, illogical and borderline-homicidal customers (especially in stereo) must be a nightmare scenario no amount of training can prepare you for! But hang on: one of the angry women is clearly wearing flat-soled shoes (if panel 3 is any indication), and the other – being a Type-one Cosmosian – isn’t wearing shoes at all. So where in Bob’s name did that High heel come from?
Bottom: also mentioned in Gene’s 2002 story was this fellow – current Stuff-U-Like head honcho Jacob Pendelton-Smythe Jr.; seen here with his sycophantic (if morally conflicted) lieutenant-come-minion Bradley. I highly doubt whether Bradley exerts any sort of regulating – or even stabilising – effect on his boss’ avaricious excesses (he’s certainly not having any luck here!)…. But, bless him, I’m sure he tries.
Top: Ahh, ‘Last-minute gift anxiety’…. another one of those First-world problems exacerbated by the holiday season, right up there with ‘Greeting card text nit-pickery’ and ‘Action figure set completion-obsession’. Ain’t contemporary society wonderful?
Bottom: you had one job, you two. One. Job.
COSMOS: OLD SCHOOL WILL RETURN…. IN ONE OF TWENTY-THREE
RANDOMLY-SELECTED PROVINCES!
What?! Christmas already?! Well, I did tell you 2003 was a rather brisk year for Cosmos – what with New Century Starship Synergy, university work and everything else that was vying for my attention – so it’s no surprise we’ve reached the festive season more abruptly than in previous collections. Which is not to say this year’s Christmas strips (split into two installments for easy consumption) were in any way inferior to any of the others before or since…. Far from it! Both the A-team and B-team casts get in on the action, leaving no festive cliché unturned….
Above: if we include the title bar in the equation, ‘The unwritten rules of Christmas’ (in colour, no less!) is actually eight quick-fire gags for the price of one! Each panel is its own little story focusing on a different character/s – some from the A-team cast (title bar, panels 2, 7 and 8), some from the B-team cast (panels 4 and 5), and couple form the wider Cosmos community (panels 3 and 6) – in different situations related to the overall theme. And, of course, tradition dictates that one of them has to be the Annual Obligatory Christmas Junk Mail Joke!
Top: somewhere out there, I’m sure there is some lazy, sorry, ‘efficiently creative’ individual who has seriously contemplated doing this, regardless of how out-of-place their house will look for the other 11 months of the year. But it’s all in the name of making things easier, isn’t it? Right? Anyone?
Bottom: what is it with house-pets (especially cats) and Christmas trees? Sure, your owners have suddenly erected this mysterious, towering obelisk of pine-smelling vegetation that clearly must be climbed; and covered it in a tantalising, array of memserising things that dangle, sparkle and shine, all of which call to you in an irresistible Siren’s song; and when you can take it no more, and rampage after them through the branches, and the entire thing crashes down in a cataclysmic shower of–
Oh, okay. Never mind. I get it now.
Top: I think Gene’s problem is that he honestly believed a stern telling-off was going to diminish Murph’s tree-lust one iota…. especially when he then leaves said tree unattended, and Murph completely unrestrained! Silly boy….
Bottom: ever pulled the ‘let go of the Christmas cracker at the last possible second’ trick on someone? Or had it pulled on you? Given the rather elastic nature of both Cosmosian crackers and cartoon physics, I’m sure peter wishes the prank hadn’t existed in the first place! ‘My hands slipped’, indeed.
Top: lack of self-control? Check. Gluttony run amok? Also check. Complete disregard for the presence of anyone else in the buffet queue? Check a third and additional time. When Gene reaps what he sows, the results tend to be…. disturbing.
Bottom: Gene also appears to be prone to ‘It seemed like such a good idea on paper’ syndrome (but we already knew that, right?) A revolving Christmas tree linked to a hand-held controller? Marvellous. Giving it the power to spin so fast that it flings decorations off hard enough to impale them several inches deep in the wall? Should have given it a few more test runs before you unveiled it to Ax and the gang, methinks.
TO BE CONTINUED….
Last time on Cosmos: Old School – Eugene Carmichael Ellis fell in love!
I know, I know, it sounded impossible when I said it in the last installment, and it still sounds equally crazy now – but it’s true! After a fateful meeting in the Pago Grandé Mega-Mall, Gene and his new lady-friend Jenny Masters (who, even more alarmingly, appears perfectly suited for Captain Nutjob) are going steady. As far as Artie, Ax and I could tell, this was a match made in Cosmos-Heaven, and nothing could go wrong….
Unfortunately, Gene forgot the cornerstone of any good relationship: honesty! As in, if you’re not totally open with your Significant Other, at some point – governed solely by Murphy’s Law – you will screw up, and they will find out! Ax knows this (from long and occasionally very literally painful experience – sorry, Darling!), so he comes clean to me with things pretty quickly. But seriously, Gene?! You expected to magically conceal your geek-boy-ness from Jenny forever, and have her never, ever find out?! My Grod, you were a relationship noob, weren’t you….
Personally, I think Jenny may have fled their romantic evening less because she realised Gene was a colossal nerd…. than because her dining companion had a freakin’ nervous breakdown five inches away from her face! Not exactly how you expect your dinner date to go, you know what I’m saying? But things were only about to get worse:
Wow. Geez. This part of the story is sort of hard to write about – I wasn’t there when Gene got back to his house, but when Ax told me what had happened…. well, it was like being punched with a truck. Sure, Gene can be annoying, and he rubs me up the wrong way a lot of the time, but…. I wouldn’t have wished anything like that on him, ever! Honestly, none of us knew what to do: as Artie said later on, “He just lost it – in all the time I’ve known him, I’ve never seen him fall apart like that! He was always the one who could handle any crazy situation and come away laughing…. But this?
He seems to have just…. broken….”
Jon actually had a couple more strips planned for this story – Gene doing some self-recrimination, us trying to coax him out of his room – but ultimately, he thought they would be just too grim; and just felt uncomfortable about putting everyone through the emotional wringer like that. So, he let us deal with all that off-panel, and instead jumped to the chase and gave us our mojo back (Thanks, Jon!):
Hooray! Now that’s what I call a happy ending! If there’s anything Cosmos doesn’t want too much of, it’s heavy-duty emotional stuff. It’s good for character development, sure (and boy, did we get some of it here!), but our strip is all about the crazy fun, right? There’s another statement I never thought I’d willingly endorse, but anyway…. Jon originally had a different plan for the end of the story, though – Gene would cut his losses, he and Jenny would go their separate ways, and – everyone a little wiser for the experience – we’d pick up our lives and move on. All very poignant and all, but in story-telling terms…. I call cop-out, jon! With only the strips he’d actually done, the story would have basically just…. stopped; and all of Jenny’s character building would have gone to waste (because that would be it for her). Besides, she – and Candice, for that matter – were so much fun, Jon would have been insane to throw them out! But he didn’t, and Gene and Jenny got their second chance….
Wow, that sounded all so happy-clappy touchy-feely. Can I have something less emotional next time?
TO BE CONTINUED….
Oh ho! Once again, my name has been drawn out to present one of these crazy blog entries – and this time, it’s a two-parter! Seriously, do I not have enough to do around here? Not only am I juggling umpteen-dozen exhibitions, commissioned pieces and my own sculptures and paintings; I also have to make sure Artie, Gene and Ax don’t create absolute chaos with one of their ‘clever ideas’! Fine, I suppose it’ll make a nice change of pace…. What have we got? A bunch of Randoms? Some concept sketches?
Oh.
Oh, wow.
You want ME to write up this story? Seriously?
….Well, okay then. At this point in 2003, Cosmos had itself a nice little status quo going. There was me, Ax, Artie, Gene, Murph and Newton (plus Tony, Professor pod and Dr. Nitro, of course), all living happily in Pago Grandé. We got up to hijinks – well, the others did, anyway…. Not Me!!! – and we went through Randoms, Stories and Sundays like an old-married-couple-with-extended-family who didn’t see much reason to change. However….
Allow me to introduce Jenny and Candice, the first properly new characters we’d had in Cosmos for quite a while! Since they’d already had three whole strips to themselves (which were clearly part of an ongoing story), it was obvious something important was going on. Apart from the fact that Jenny was in ‘Smash up the Furninture Looooove’ (What’s that, Ax? They’re failing what? The ‘Bechdel Test’? No idea what that is, Darling), there was the small issue of Ms. Masters’ mystery suitor. Who was he? Why was Jon making such a big deal out of it? I didn’t know, Candice clearly didn’t either, so….
Why all the secrecy?
Yehhhhh…. As plot twists go…. that was definitely one of them. Gene?!? The crazy, mentally-questionable ball of impulsive insanity had actually been earmarked by someone as boyfriend potential? And he’d actually reciprocated?! Given that Gene normally has the attention span of a sugar-drenched eight year old, and treats reality as his own personal amusement park, the concept was almost incomprehensible. So much so, the rest of us had a hard time wrapping our heads around it:
Well, sorry, Gene – if you’re going to blindside us with a truckload of well-overdue character development, you’ve got to expect a side-order of backlash with your breakfast cereal! (Wow, where did THAT come from? Uggh, I have been hanging out with crazy people for too long….) For once, we were the ones causing Gene aggravation, rather than the other way around: I would say it was karmic retribution, but, yeh…. We probably did go a bit overboard attempting to debunk the unbelievable….
I have to say, Gene was acting a lot more mature in those last two strips (certainly more than Artie and I were doing, just quietly) – so maybe he’s actually able to pull some common sense out of somewhere when it’s needed, huh? And I’m one to talk: before I met Ax, I was Little Miss Self-absorbed Sociophobe Pants! Jenny was good match for, and a good influence on, Mr. Ellis: she smoothed off his rough edges, toned down his manic impulses just by being around him, and gave him something to focus on other than himself! Perhaps this relationship was just meant to be….
Uh oh.
DEFINITELY TO BE CONTINUED!
I’ve just realised something – few, if any, of the scenarios I’ve come up with for Murph stories have been inspired by my experiences with actual cats! I love kitty-cats, and I’ve befriended any number of furry felines in my time…. but the adventures of Murph T. Catt seem to have arisen in spite of their presence, rather than because of them. I can certainly credit Jim Davis’ Garfield for his influence, in terms of anthropomorphic animals and snappy dialogue; but Murph’s personality and interaction with the rest of the A-team cast (especially Gene and Newton) appears to be the main well of inspiration for his strips, rather than cats per se. Not that he doesn’t face the same driving issues as Earthly felines, of course….
Top: wow, if I had a time machine right now, I’d go back to 2003…. and make myself think of a better punchline for this joke. It was supposed to be a hilarious misunderstanding by Murph of what Gene was talking about, but it just seems so…. contrived. To say nothing of the clunkiness of the dialogue, which also doesn’t help. The only problem is: what to replace it with? ‘Shots’ as in tequila? ‘Shots’ as in photos?
Some other, completely different reaction? I have a feeling
I wrote myself into a corner on this one….
Bottom: the ‘Can Gene understand what Murph is saying’ debate rages on! You would imagine that since Murph is ‘think-talking’ ala Garfield, his owner would not be able to hear any of it (and in earlier strips, that certainly seems to be the case) – but in panel four, Gene is responding directly to Murph’s question! Oh well, maybe in between Point A and Point B, Gene simply learned how to speak ‘Cat’…. Yeh, let’s go with that one.
Top: when I originally sketched out the idea for this strip, Artie and Gene’s roles were reversed; and it was Mr. Deacon’s fate to be constricted. However, it occurred to me that A) Artie doesn’t deserve that sort of treatment, B) Murph would be more likely to latch onto Gene in such a stressful situation, and C) it was far funnier if Gene was the one in dire straits, as it continued the pattern from the previous strips. Murph had hardly made reaching the vet a pleasant experience for his owner, so why would he stop heaping frustration on him once they got there?
Bottom: I think we can all agree that waiting to get an injection is just as terrifying as the moment they jam it in, right? It’s the whole ‘anticipation anxiety’ thing – why do we have to sit there waiting for so long? Does stewing in our fear-sweat for twenty minutes somehow make the vaccine work better, or something? And why on earth do they think saying ‘Don’t worry, it won’t hurt a bit’ will make it any less worse? You are inserting a razor-sharp sliver of metal Into Our Flesh!! We feel your pain, Murph.
Top: I’m not sure where Jim Davis got the idea for ‘cats singing on the fence at night’ from (regardless of how many creative ideas he’s got from it) – any time I’ve heard cats caterwauling at midnight, they haven’t been singing, or howling at the moon…. they’ve been about to beat seven shades of spit out of one another for being on someone else’s turf! Still, Murph is content to follow the grand Garfield-ian tradition,
so I suppose I can’t complain….
Bottom: pop quiz, Cosmos fans – how many fingers is Newton supposed to have? If you answered ‘three’, then you’re clearly more knowledgeable than I was when I drew these strips! Of all the characters in the A-team cast, Newton has probably had the most inconsistencies in his design over time: he’s had three-toed and two-toed feet, a stripy and non-stripy belly, four-fingered and three-fingered hands; and a tail that’s been thick and banded on the underside (like Murph’s), thin and stripy and thin and non-stripy. Poor guy.
Top: Murph is always ready to take advantage of unexpected circumstances when attempting to secure extra food at mealtimes – even if it’s a resource as ephemeral as a sneeze. Oh, sorry, were you going to eat that? Ugh, well, you won’t want to eat it now, will you? Still, I’ll be happy to take it off your hands….
Bottom: what does Newton do when he’s not hanging out with Murph? He indulges his passion for Packratology, of course! I wanted to expand Newton’s CV beyond ‘hapless comedy sidekick’, so I gave him a hobby that comes naturally from his nosy, inquisitive nature: rooting around in junk yards and trash heaps for nifty-looking artefacts to add to his collection (mostly stored under the shed in Artie’s back yard). He has an almost savant-like ability to find rare and unique items without even trying – which came in handy in later years, hunting down raw materials for Macy’s junk sculptures!
Top: sticking their pets in hideously-embarrassing ‘outfits’ may be fine for some pet owners (including Gene, apparently), but both Murph and I clearly agree that the practice is frankly shameful – especially since said pets rarely get a say in whether they want to wear these ‘fashionable’ items or not! A cat-sweater for Murph, by the looks of things, basically amounts to a giant neon-coloured tube sock…. hardly surprising, then, that he doesn’t want to be seen in public with it.
Bottom: on the other hand, there are clear advantages to living with Gene – namely, you have access to the best electronics and audio equipment money can buy! The other neighbourhood cats simply can’t compete….
Top: the firm friendship between Murph and Newton is one of the wonderfully counterintuitive things about Cosmos – in any other universe, they’d either be chasing each other around with cartoon mallets and dynamite; or Murph would be on an obsessive quest to turn Newton (and Newton alone) into lunch. But not here, though! Nonetheless, they are both aware of their ‘expected’ roles in nature, and Murph is clearly not above giving Newton’s gullibility a tweak now and again. He’s just funnin’ you, dude!
Bottom: you nkow that condescending look your cat gives you when you serve him up the same el cheapo cat food for the third night in a row, right before that turn their nose up and swagger off? Well, just be thankful you don’t have Murph to look after – being somewhat more sentient than the average house cat, he’s turned impromptu dining critiques into an art form!
TO BE CONTINUED….
Boy oh boy, do Artie and Gene love their movies. As long as I’ve known them – Artie since childhood, and Gene since he moved to Pago Grandé in early 1999 – the Dynamic Duo have always been keen followers of the latest cinematic releases; whether superhero,
sci-fi, fantasy or horror. Back in the Old School days, Jon tired his best to follow along with the big movies of the year, crafting several stories focused around our experiences with a specific release: such as Star Wars : Episode One (2001, part 16 and 17), and Jurassic Park 3 (2001, part 20). And in 2003, we got to get our Marvel on….
Top: the guys are quoting directly from the blurb of the Incredible Hulk comics of the 1990’s (especially during the stellar run by Peter David!) here, much to Macy’s dismay. Given that they couldn’t possibly find a better way to introduce the story, they decided to go for it, copyright infringement or not!
Bottom: given that this was one of the earlier Marvel movies of the 21st century, and 99% of the characters in previous films were played by actual people, the prospect of a CG hulk was still a big deal at the time – so stop laughing! Yeh, it’s as common as muck now, but back then, simply not cheaping out on a guy in green body paint was a revelation. Oh, and a note from Jon – he came up with the ideas for most of these strips before he’d seen the movie; but after watching it, he changed the scene in panel four from a generic ‘guy tries to mug Bruce Banner in an alley’ to an actual scene from the film: Bryan Talbot beating up Bruce while he’s in captivity in the underground military facility. But shouldn’t Talbot have a moustache, Jon?
Top: ahh, spoilers – both the best thing and the worst thing to happen to movie nerds in the electronic age. Isn’t it crazy that movies can be pre-judged (and often pre-rejected) before they’ve even been released; based solely on a teaser trailer and some concept art? Quite a few have been justifiably trashed, I have to say – but that’s a whole ‘nother story! Artie and Gene, though, will take all the info they can get….
Bottom: I swear, it took several days for Macy to stop giggling over Gene’s ‘Hulk hands’ incident – every time she so much as glanced at him, she’d collapse in fits of laughter. I hate to say this, Gene, but I have to thank the guy at the toyshop: that was the best mood Macy had been in all month!
Above: Macy described the situation to me thus – “Having assembled some disturbing shrine of Hulk merchandise they’d bought over the past week, Artie and Gene tasked me – for some dumb reason – to dash off and get a couple of magazines they Had To Have Right Now, so they’d be free to pre-book their movie tickets. Following their wonderfully micro-managed instructions (‘Make sure it’s a first printing, with the metallic-green Hulk logo, not plain matte….’), I returned only to find they’d both turned into crazy fighting monsters and were smashing holes in Artie’s house! See?! This is why I’ve resisted Geekism for so long – the deeper you go, the crazier the stuff that happens to you! I don’t want to become an orange rock-monster, you know?” Aw, but you’d look adorable….
Top: the big ‘Vs.’ matches of the Marvel Universe are always great fun – Hulk vs. Thing, Wolverine vs. Sabretooth, Angaar the Screamer vs….. uh…. Frog-man…. So why not go whole-hog with them here? I think we went through most of our monthly sound effects budget with this story, though – but it was worth it!
Bottom: enter – Me! When Macy rang me up with the special call-sign Bad Moon Rising (code for ‘Artie and Gene are doing something stupid and possibly catastrophic for national security’), I knew it was time to make for Casa del Artie with all due haste. What I had not expected, however, was to walk in on a live-action reenactment of Fantastic Four #25 when I got there! And to answer your question in panel four, Macy:
yes, my dear, I’m very much afraid that you are….
Above: uh oh – if there’s one thing a large-scale super-slugfest is sure to attract, it’s a star-studded range of guest stars…. at which point (especially in a throw-everything-in-and-run Jon Kay story), it’s pretty much a slippery slope into Crossover County. And where did all these off-brand nutcases come from, anyway? Was there a cosplay convention in town we somehow didn’t know about? The interesting thing is, they’re all from Marvel movies that accompanied Ang Lee’s Hulk film into cinemas: the X-men, Spiderman, Daredevil and Elektra. I think Jon was trying to cash in on multiple movies
for the price of one here, don’t you?
Top: Chaos! Madness! Optic blasts! Punching! I think there’s enough superhero battle action going on in the first two panels to fill an olympic-size swimming pool! (Yeh, that’s right, Daring-devil; take on Storm. That’s not going to end horribly for you, or anything.) Hang on, why am I yelling “Briiiiiing!!” in panel three? Bring? Bring what?
Oh, wait, I see what’s going on….
Bottom: seriously, Jon, the old ‘It was a Dream’ cliché?! Really, I must say I thought you had more writerly creativity than that – even back in 2003! And if Macy dreamed the whole thing (for a non-geek, she sure seems to go on a fair few pop culture-themed vision quests, doesn’t she?), does that mean I wasn’t actually in the story at all? How does this affect my pay? Does it count as overtime, or is there some clause that’s going to cheat me out of an extra five bucks an hour? Ugh, Cartoon Class is hard….
TO BE CONTINUED….
When Nonsense Collides! 