Comic Cover Art

 

Back in the day before graphics programs, everything was laboriously done with stick-on letters. They probably don't make them anymore, except for the large size commercial types. This features two familiar characters--Hecabano and Wicca, who has been pictured before using the Flying Skull spell. As far as where this part of the story takes place, it's where the dwarf ascends the Tower of Sorcery, tapping into a treasure trove of magic items. But the hibernating Lord of the Dead doesn't like it, counting on his minions to protect the place. 

If you can do your own comics, there's no sense in not doing your own cover, since it saves a bundle on production costs. This one was done on a laser printer (very expensive), and it's one way to get yourself in print--even if only friends and relatives ever see it. Acrylic is used here, with black and white edges to give the tiles a 3D look. So does the dwarf escape? Yep--the spell hits one of the bad guys and shrivels him up like a mummy. 

A Vampire Comes to Dinner

 

Eric kept a brave face during Thanksgiving dinner with Auntie and his visiting granddad. Aside from the unpleasant news he had for them, things were going well: he was a junior with a major in art history, had his own pad, even a potential girlfriend. Ironically, it was his art talent that led to the Dracula Brides being saved from extinction, to their escape to Outworld--beginning with the one he'd inherited from Gramps. 

They sat around Auntie's small living room, where Gramps sprawled in the recliner. "Washed-up athletes pimping insurance and reverse mortgages. Sad!" His pique shifted to Eric, seated next to Auntie and her perpetual white pony tail. "I know what's eating you, boy. It's Emmy--isn't it." Auntie started, bringing a hand to her sternum in matronly dread. 

"She's coming here," Eric blurted, which brought Auntie to her feet. "Be cool now--she's changed. I taught her sign language. She'll be able to explain some things you've always been bothered about." 

"Explain what?" Gramps asked suspiciously. 

His lion tamer act, handed down by his predecessors, had made Emmy a spitting, hissing terror that first day in Auntie's basement. Only crosses and mirrors enabled anyone to venture there after dark. Auntie boycotted it all the same, doing laundry at a laundromat, ill-assured that Emmy was bonded against any harm to the Harker clan. 

Eric gestured for Auntie to sit. "We'll get to that, Gramps. It was her idea to come here instead of just sending me a message. I'm sure it'll make things easier once you hear her out." 

"I knew it would happen," Auntie lamented. "That demoness has led you to perdition, just like I said she would!" 

"Auntie, please. You were going to stake her one day, and you're still alive."

Gramps had loosened his belt in the "fat and sassy" tradition following a feast. "Don't remind me. She called me on her cell, blubbering about being cornered down there. I told her to pass the phone to Emmy, and somehow convinced her to let your aunt go. Didn't know it at the time, because it sounded like the phone got crushed." 

"Close one to be sure." Eric nodded. "I set the coffee mug down there so she could have a last look around." In mist form, vampires could shelter against daylight in a dark canister. Eric had requested the coffin crate to remain, along with Emmy's original white gown and slippers. Since it was now dark out, he braced himself. "Okay, Emmy."

Gramps jumped up and stood beside Auntie when Emmy glided in. She wore the gauzy black dress she'd purloined from a professor's wife, shortly after Eric had freed her from the centuries-old bond. Perhaps to put everyone at ease, she took the vacated recliner with a short flurry of sign.

"She wants you to sit," Eric explained. He watched her sign again. "I'm not sure what she means--something about your late wife, Gramps."

"How she drove her mad?" Auntie charged. "--drove her to an early grave? She was my sister, you know."

Eric translated the indignant response. "Your wife got curious, Gramps. Just had to see what was in the crate. Emmy couldn't easily move, even in the near darkness, but she stared hard at your wife, who ran out in hysterics." More signs. "And that fishing buddy of yours that turned up dead--he crept down there one day and got a little personal, as long as his nerve lasted under that stare." 

"But how?" Gramps demanded. "We were setting up at the lake just after sunup, miles from the house. She'd never have made it back!"

"It was Emmy who came up with the canister idea. She had it pre-positioned, lured the man into a grove, and had a little revenge. Then it was into the canister."

"Well I'll be dim-damned." Gramps stroked his jaw, sinking onto the sofa next to an amazed Auntie.

Emmy's burning eyes settled on Eric, whose resolve looked to be failing. She came to sit on the coffee table's edge, obliging Eric to restrain the elders from a hasty exit. 

"Look here, girl." Gramps drew defiance from Eric's presence. "You got your freedom. What more do you want from my grandson? I'm looking forward to great-grandkids, and they don't need any Aunt Dracula."

That last word drew slender, pointed fangs, causing Auntie a sharp intake of breath. 

"Trigger word," Eric advised.

"Then let's have it," Gramps went on, undeterred. "What does she want?"

"She wants me to relocate to Outworld--permanently."

It took a full minute to get the oldsters calmed down. "I don't expect you guys to understand. There's this prophecy from the Sybils at Eolca. They say the home world doesn't have much longer to go. At least not the way we've always known it."

Silence ruled for a space, and it was clear the elders couldn't bring themselves to believe it.

"Why?" Auntie said simply, looking near tears. She ventured to actually touch Emmy's cold pale hand, her look going resentful. "Tell me what went on during those nights in the basement!" 

Through sign, Emmy related her confusion at Eric's persistence in spite of his fear. It wasn't curiosity of a freak, but a genuine desire to get to know her. Emmy struggled with her own temptation at the beckoning pulse so close at hand. Through chalk marks on the concrete floor, he'd elicited the name of her village; showed her magazines; introduced the wonders of music via headphones. And then--she displayed the pencil portrait that allowed her to see herself for the first time in seven hundred years.

Eric made a self-conscious grin. "She never lets that out of her sight."

Gramps put and arm about Auntie with a sigh of the inevitable. "What'll you do over there, runnin' with a crowd like hers? How soon do you end up sleepin' in a box?"

"Nothing like that, Gramps. She's a mom now. . . .adopted, of course; a boy who will forever be a boy if nothing happens to him."

Auntie had turned sullen at this "woman" who was taking her nephew away. "When do you leave?"

"In a few days. You won't see Emmy after tonight. She has some. . . .last minute business here."

"Eric--" Auntie glared fearfully at the vampire. "You made her agree to keep her. . . .urges. . . .confined to cattle at a farm in the Hamptons."

"Not anymore, I'm afraid. When the ship is going down, you get satisfaction from the idiots who ran it into an iceberg. You'll be seeing it on the news, and it won't be pretty."

Emmy rose, dissolved to a creeping fog, and flowed out a partly-opened window. Bad news had come to town. 

An AMOK Thanksgiving

 

An improvised table on the set of the Wicca Horror Show seated its four principals. Sunlight streamed in from the glass balcony door, brightening a take-out feast from Cracker Barrel. Somehow an obscure topic had taken hold of the festivities.

During a lull, producer Ed plated more fried turkey, wearing shades against the balcony light. "I hear Comrade Governor outlawed the holiday, including Christmas. And here we are without face diapers."

Talent agent Bigmon set his wine down hard enough to slosh some out. "Comrade Governor can go pound it. Does he know who I am?"

"Ahem." The dwarf Hecabano lingered over the wreckage of his repast. "Master Ed and I were debating the use of punctuation in dialog. I maintain that it can't be heard. Why use the more ephemeral elements like colons and semicolons?"

"It's all in the presentation," Ed maintained. "Suppose the speaker makes that slight pause before a clarification. That implies a colon."

"Or a double dash." Wicca tossed another chocolate scotch, as undead did not eat.

"Wrong again!" Ed glared at the chuckling dwarf. "A double dash is a hard stop for emphasis." Both looked to Wicca, who grinned impishly but took sides only when it complicated things. 

Hecabano wiped gravy with a finger. "It matters naught, as no one has ever thought about it. We crave only to get on with it, and discover the tale's outcome."

"Well," Bigmon said, tossing down his napkin. "This is almost interesting. You writers just come up with a show for Saturday night. I got a date with Bunny."

That engendered a classic Wicca eye roll. Bunny Prescott had won Bigmon's Wicca lookalike contest by filling out the costume with eye-popping finesse. Never again, the upstaged diva vowed. "Have a good time, Home Pie."

"And that's another thing," Ed said as Bigmon slung his coat over a shoulder and departed. "Lose the jive. You're like Spock on The Voyage Home. He couldn't get it right either."

"True," Hecabano pointed out, "but our Mistress of Malarkey has engineered a most refreshing colloquial subgenre." 

"Ya!" Wicca's approval of the dwarf's support melted to suspicion. "What he said. I think." 

Hecabano pulled over a small wood crate filled with delicacies the diva disdained. "This was a worthy experiment, if a waste of money. You say limoncilla is flowery; amuselle is liquid candy; and gin is like juniper berry Kool-ade." 

"You see?" Ed jabbed a finger. "I can just smell your semicolons, because there was more of a pause than commas need."

"Gong," Wicca agreed. "He's got you, Imp Boy." 

"Can we get past this?" Hecabano peeled a gin. "I wonder how Team Dan is passing the holiday, or if they even remember, as it is unknown in Outworld."

Ed blinked in fond reverie. "Sure they do. They mark calendars from Earth so as to stay current. I'm sure they're thinking about us. More like wondering if the nutjobs have blown the place up yet." He reached a hand to each: Wicca's, soft yet cold; Hecabano's, rough and calloused. "What's left to be thankful for, except having a way out via the portal."

"Bring it," Wicca said. "I look forward to mounting expeditions here for some fun hell raising. If they think they have problems now, wait until my pact with you expires, Ted."

Her pact with Ed meant doing nothing without his approval as long as she had the horror show. He hoped the loonies wouldn't make it necessary to experience a real one. "To the time we have left here." All three toasted the sentiment. 

The Dreams That Remain

 

Empires rot from within according to that old adage. It's been patiently applied across a broad front by a relative minority of power-mad lunatics. Now the last stumbling block to absolute control--a place once called America--is  no more. Gone are the military and police. The Chinese control the west; Michigan is a caliphate with armed borders; and what's left is garrisoned by the UN. The latter faces the same problem experienced by occupiers 250 years earlier: it's a large territory, there's a brisk resistance, and the troops resent being so far from home. 

This is a world no longer looking outward to the stars, but obsessively looking inward to keep the lid on. Yet there are cracks in the kettle. With loss of freedom comes loss of dreams. Men are left with only a desire for revenge--in The Twilight Zone.

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Every day of Skink's seventeen years had been the same scrap for survival; only the weather ever changed. She awoke in the derelict barge shared with her mentor, Colby, and reached for a bag of Bugles. Yes, they still actually made those. The cheap plastic started a tear downward, but she remedied that by tearing it back toward the top. Now the stress was redirected in a harmless way. 

It was tempting to sleep in, listening to the gentle slosh of water outside, the occasional tink of the heater bar. These were magnetic strips designed to keep welded seams hot for a couple of days so they'd set in a stronger joint. Electricity was outlawed as an environmental hazard--except for the elites, of course--but there were ways to tap into it. On the other side, Colby's pallet was empty. He'd said something about this being a special day. 

Skink dressed as usual for utility, the same reason for keeping black hair short and out of the way, but razored for attitude. Being a poseur didn't mean much without the blocky F2000 Bullpup she slipped into a special pocket in her coat. Like others in her collection, it was courtesy of sloppy and defensive NATO troops, some of whom actively traded on the black market. Except for the Daewoo K11 grenade launcher, which was a grab of opportunity. 

Topside, she did a scan of the overcast sky for drones. Losses to ground fire had forced NATO to switch to the higher flying models equipped with infra-red. Even these were of limited use in the urban jungle, and every building they blew up only caused a blockage to UN vehicles. 

Colby lingered next to the six-foot tires of a long-abandoned cruise crane. He doled out orders to an unlikely trio: a bag lady, a grade school boy, and a man in a purloined business suit. Colby pulled a stocking cap over iron gray hair as the meeting broke up. "Skink! We're on a schedule here!" 

They skulked along back alleys, where they pushed aside a dumpster to reveal a hole in the wall, gaining entry to a ground level floor in a tenement. Skink knew it was another of Colby's lessons, but didn't waste time trying to figure it out. The boulevard outside was the province of NATO patrols, escorted by a hulking bot armed with frag rounds and missiles. Judging the time right, Colby nodded, and Skink pressed a button on her remote.

A rifle on the third floor began firing blindly. The NATO vehicle sped away, leaving the bot to pour rounds into the third floor. Its raised head exposed hydraulic lines. Skink targeted these with a fusillade of 5.56 millimeter shells. The bot's arms dangled impotently as it fell silent. It was too risky to loot the thing for ammo, because you never knew when a drone shot would take it out. "Yeah!"

Colby grinned. "You think small."

"Here it comes." Skink holstered the gun just as a chunk of plaster fell onto her shoulder and sideswiped her cheek. She brushed at it, ignoring the hurt. "Not a good day for my face. So then--what's the moral? I say we hurt them, because those bots are expensive."

"Chump change," Colby said. "Remember that gizmo I had you plant at the refinery yesterday? It's a timer." Only NATO and the elites were allowed gas-powered cars, and to enforce the edict, they kept the remaining supplies under guard for their own use. 

The ground shook with a titanic detonation, which heralded a pall of black smoke over the skyline. The blast chained others in succession. 

"Rad," Skink mused. "If I'm reading you right, this is why we keep going day after day--to make them pay a price."

"A man has to dream," Colby said, "when it's the only thing they haven't taken away."

Restaurant Caricatures

 

This 16x20 poster turned out to be a huge gift idea back in the day. The old-style camera flash caused some problems because of the frame's glass. You can work from memory or a photo, the idea being to showcase--and exaggerate--the good times. 

The center figure is taking home her entire plate; the one at left frets about the hit to his wallet; the one at right is aghast at the bill. Everywhere is bounty and merriment. Not to worry if you don't draw, because you probably know someone who does. Just get them a good photo to work from and make a list of the fun things to concentrate on. I went on to do others, which always meant having to reproduce them in various sizes so everyone could have a frameable copy. There was Memorial Day with its outing on the backyard deck; Labor Day with same; and even a church restaurant outing (gotta be a little reserved with the humor there). As the ad TV pitchman says: makes a great gift idea.

Crafting the Gothic Horror Tale

 

Origin

Gothic is defined as "medievalism with horror and romantic elements". The first Gothic novel was The Castle of Otranto, written in 1794 by Horace Walpole. It was Walpole himself who coined the term, adding "A Gothic Tale" to the second edition of the wildly popular book. Prior to this point in the eighteenth century, most ghost stories were written by women, featuring damsels who cleverly get themselves out of supernatural peril. Things took a more sinister turn in the nineteenth century, when the genre reached its zenith under authors like Sheridan Le Fanu, R L Stevenson, and M R James. 

Mechanics

Science was coming of age, and modern man liked to pit himself against the powers of primordial darkness (which seldom ended well for him). Authors flaunted their education, using Latin without a translation, in the assumption their readers didn't need one. The writer's voice was as much part of the entertainment as the story--a chatty style where 100 words did the work of 10--since there were no time constraints like those we face today. Flowery prose lent itself to the required over-the-top drama.

Today

Hollywood adaptations of Frankenstein, Dracula, and The Mummy aided the transition to America. The speaking style lives on in characters like Jack Sparrow, since American English is uninspired by comparison. If you plan to use this method, you'll need to be widely read in it. A good place to start is Victorian Ghost Stories, edited by Cox and Gilbert. At the very least, your character will stand out by his speech alone. 

A Question of Trust (conclusion)

 

Previous  Orchidia's AI rejects the Bot Queen's program in favor of a jointly-designed astrogater. It will backtrack the ship's movements, allowing them to return to their future. 

Commander Moast fought the insane illusion of taking a fatal plunge to the big blue orb far below. His mag boots prevented that, gripping the port wingtip's flight bay strut. 

Looking down from the perpendicular, an unsuited Wicca said, "And you call me crazy." She was unable to teleport through the ship's antiproton hull, leaving Cambris to pull off a stunt the designers never intended. 

"Orchidia," Moast said into his mike. "Final instructions for getting this thing installed." The astrogater resembled an old style water heater with a bad hangover; protruding data ports made it look about to sprout alien parasites. 

"I have chosen a subsystem isolated from main power. Deadspace cubicle 3847 was the last constructed, and so has handoff hardware to prevent dock workers being trapped inside."

"In other words, it's a tougher job than it needs to be. But I can appreciate your caution against the Bot Queen."

"Inside is a manual switch that will open the hatch for ten seconds." The avatar silently activated a hulking servobot, which ripped out a secondary maneuvering thruster.

Into the fist-sized hole Moast pressed a conical rubber boot sealed around the steel canister containing the mist form of Cambris, which would otherwise fly apart in the icy vacuum of space. She would reform on the other side, press the switch, then re-enter a second canister taken from her belt. A sudden buffeting heralded pressure loss as the rectangular hatch cycled upward. Moast wrestled the astrogater inside, then crammed a rubber cone into the hole left by the missing thrust pipe. 

"Pressurize." In the wan glow of his helmet beam, the magnetic canister clung to the hatch frame where Cambris had left it. Moast tapped it three times to signal the all clear. Cambris misted out in vaporous tendrils.

Moast removed the helm, uncomfortably close to her in the cramped space. The unit stood between them, and wrangling it into place would be a disturbingly intimate experience.

Compelling eyes had a light of their own in the gloom. "What purpose has this far-flying closet?"

"The ship has thousands of them. In days of sail, they were called various things: innerbottom, cofferdam. They serve as a buffer against collision."

"You bear resemblance to my eon-lost husband."

Epic.

"Do you find it so hard to believe in me?"

"Orhidia feels your race arrived here in antiquity, though I don't find evidence of your kind anywhere in the future."

"My sisters and I are the last who are capable of converting others. The Outworld is full of bastardized types beneath our  notice." The way she looked at Moast's neck unnerved him. "And how does your ghost woman," meaning the avatar, "explain Wicca?"

"She ascribes to the Bot Queen's native force theory: stored metals in the brain are converted to energy by means unknown."

"So shall it ever be for unbelievers, trapped in their five senses." Cambris' nose crinkled in distaste at the scent of digestion on Moast's breath. She wasn't accustomed to being this close without setting off predatory instincts. "Let the device be installed. I weary of it being in the way." Under Moast's direction, it was coaxed overhead, turned horizontal, and linked with remote data ports. "So ends my dream of seeing the stars."

"There isn't much to see up close," Moast said hastily. Her lips parted in a way suggesting she'd get some compensation from the whole thing. "They're big balls of fire too bright to look at." Inspiration seized hold. "Orchidia, have Wicca establish a comlink."

"What is it, Spaceman? Has Cambris done you already?"

"I'd like to do something for her. Since you're being so lavish with. . . .magic. . . .I thought you could expend a little more. We're coming out." He avoided looking directly into those hypnotic eyes. "I've trusted you, Cambris. Now I ask yours in return."

Reluctantly she misted back into the canister. Its lid screwed shut. 

Moast put his helmet on. "Depressurize." He plucked the canister off the frame and pressed the switch. Starlight flooded in as the hatch pulled upward. A perpendicular turn brought him atop the port wingtip, where he set the canister on the hull. "I want Cambris to see this."

Wicca's mouth rounded. "I'm using gonzo magic as it is!" Seeing Moast's determination, she walked over and tapped on the container. A tendril cautiously snaked out, quickly becoming the full manifestation. "Like Jeannie coming out of her bottle."

Cambris gawked at the planet's night side. "It is indeed round!" Australia rotated up from the horizon. "And a globe, not a disk!" She flitted higher up the broad plane of the wing.

"Stay close, missy!" Wicca cautioned. "It's all I can do to keep this soap bubble going!"

Now Cambris turned to take in the seemingly endless curves and angles: hyperlight engines rising on graceful pylons; wings that cuddled flight bays like chicks; a long  neck with an equally predatory droop. "It is the size of a kingdom. . . ."

"Actually," Moast said, "she's modest compared to the heavier warships, but I'll stack her against them any day."

Wicca snapped open her curious "flying stick", bidding Cambris to mount up behind. As they lifted off, Cambris was too enthralled to think of looking back, though Wicca threw a jaunty wave. 

"Well," Moast said to the avatar, "you're looking pensive about the caper."

"The cyborg has attempted to insert a virus, though was handicapped by the primitive satellites she commandeered. I recalled her taunt against the fanged one, which appeared an effective distraction, and sought advice from the corpse woman."

"Oh, brother, I can't wait to hear this."

"When I disrupted the exponential loop, I inserted the comment 'Too slow!'. When I locked out the program, I inserted "Nyah nyah!', though  I am unable to find an adequate definition."

Moast laughed. "Why would you do that?"

"To make the cyborg believe I have allied with the corpse woman."

"Now there's a scary thought. Helm, bring the astrogater online. Let's get the hell out of here."