Liber Daemonica

Originally run on Issue 6, Volume 66 on 8 March, 2010 in the Union Weekly.

Hey there, junior acolytes! So, you’ve decided to engage in the ancient and atavistic art of demon summoning? Well, you’ve come to the right place. The Union Weekly has been summoning entities from the abyss since before you were even a look of abject fear in your father’s eye. Demons can aid you in everything from cheating on your taxes to making that girl at the yogurt shop who gave you the wrong number on purpose to make you feel like an idiot pay! Whatever the case is, the sky is the limit! Unless God is actually up there, in which case, He’s gonna be pissed!


1. CHANGE YOUR LOOK!
The first move of a nascent practitioner of the dark arts is to change your look. Toss those polo shirts and clerical robes in the garbage, you won’t be needing them in the exciting tomorrow of devil worship! Grow a goatee! Get questionable tattoos on your neck! Drive a motorcycle! Wear lots of weird, vaguely oriental jewelry! Drink Miller High Life! Just as long as you look like a three-way collision between a Russian Orthodox priest, a post-apocalypitic biker, and a Morlock, you’re set to draw monsters from the underworld!


2. SELECT THE RIGHT LITERATURE!
Many beginning sorcerers go for the obvious books on the dark arts like the Necronomicon, the Chronicle of the Yellow King, or The Fountainhead, but you should stick to the more basic books at this point in your career. Instead of buying a book bound with human flesh and written with blood, just buy Diabolry for Dummies. It’ll teach you everything, from how to perform a séance to changing blood into delicious sherbet! You’ll make a few bucks talking to dead people, plus you’ll be the belle of the next black sabbath you go to!

3. CHOOSE THE RIGHT DEMON!
There’re literally thousands of monstrosities inhabiting the horrific reaches of the outer dark, so finding the right demon for you is direly important! You don’t want to be an anorexic, baby-blood addict who binds Nurgle, Lord of Gluttony and Decay to his service, do you? That would be wacky! Sitcom wacky!

For example, these two unholy celebrities would be a dream for a beginning summoner!

PAZUZU
One of the greatest, all-star demons in history. As the god of Isuzus and of unnecessary sequels. So, he’s not only responsible for derailing John Boorman’s career into the sad parody of itself that it once was, but he is also the patron anti-saint of affordable Asian automobiles. Good for him.


KTULU
Although assailed by copyright lawyers and anti-Semetic dwarves, Ktulu has really made a comeback in the latter half of the 20th century. As Lord of Death Metal and Harbinger of Uncooked Seafood, Ktulu is a major player in the lives of countless ugly teenagers and Nordic countries. He’s bigger than lingonberries!



4. CHOOSE THE RIGHT SACRIFICE!
Let’s face the facts: No demon wants a realm filled with crappy sacrifices. Like anything else in the universe, they want their homes to be full of really cool shit. So, instead of sacrificing your broke-ass Doberman with back problems, try sacrificing a puppy. Or a kitty. Maybe even a pot belly pig. The cuter the better. Try dressing up your sacrifice with a funny hat or an ironic t-shirt (our favorite is the duck saying “I’m the boss!”). So, remember, a little less blobfish and a little more hamsters with hats! Animal sacrifice is a lost art, so help bring it back by doing it right!


5. MAKE BIG BUCKS!
That should be enough to send you well on your way to becoming a rich and successful conjurer of incubi. Of course, there’s some obvious downsides to becoming a full-blown wizard, like having to listen to more black metal than you might like or having to move out of your mom’s house or being constantly burned by holy water (it is a bigger problem than you might believe). You also might lose your soul in an incident that may or may not involve music. But that’s piddly crap, really. Just as long as you can get those blood stains out of the carpet, the world is yours to shape! (Just as long as you have the right spells or some Simple Green.)

Comics Are No Good For No One

Originally run on Issue 6, Volume 66 of the Union Weekly on 8 March 2010.

Who reads comic anymore anyways?

Not me, that's for sure!

Featured on the 22 of February of 2010 in the Union Weekly.

LIBER MONSTERICUM

Originally run on 26 October 2009 for the Union Weekly.

LIBER MONSTERICUM
A People’s History of Monster Slaying

I want all of you to grab the nearest history book. Do it. You got one? Good. Now throw it out the window. Just toss that fucker. Why am telling you do to this? Well, it’s because your standard “history” books completely ignore large swathes of our past—the rad parts, mostly. Namely, the hidden history of man’s struggles with the wicked abominations that God deigned to put on this earth. Now, without further ado, here are four of our history’s greatest monster slayers.


SIEGFRIED
Dragon Slayer, Treasure Hunter, Cautionary Tale
WEAPON OF CHOICE
Spears, knives, and stabbing weapons.
HUNTING GROUNDS
The fetid hollows and squabbling city-states that were medieval Germany.
MOST FAMOUS KILL
Fafnir the Dragon, Bavarian banker.
MORTAL WEAKNESS
Gold! And lots of it!
FALLOUT
Cursed to be sung about for hours at a time by husky Italian women and proto-Nazis.


SAINT PATRICK
Catholic Missionary, Crypto-Limey, Saint of Binge Drinking
WEAPON OF CHOICE
The word of God, harsh language.
HUNTING GROUNDS
Ireland or as it was known at the time “Snake-soaked Hell-Bog.”
MOST FAMOUS KILL
Cúchulainn, a midget he mistook for a leprechaun.
MORTAL WEAKNESS
His love of God, whiskey.
FALLOUT
Every year his deeds are celebrated by hooligans vomiting on Cinco de Mayo.


PETER WASHINGTON
Zombie Killer, SWAT Team Member, Not a Ghostbuster
WEAPON OF CHOICE
M16A1 assault rifle, friendship.
HUNTING GROUNDS
Shopping malls, anywhere people hang out.
MOST FAMOUS KILL
Roger, his best friend. Stone. Cold.
MORTAL WEAKNESS
Has a tendency to shoot his friends.
FALLOUT
Despite murdering every single one of his friends, he’s still ultimately doomed. DOOMED.


LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD
Little Girl, Wolf Murderer, Hiking Enthusiast
WEAPON OF CHOICE
Gumption, spunkiness, dry-cool wit.
HUNTING GROUNDS
Where old people sleep (but not libraries).
MOST FAMOUS KILL
Her grandma (that turned out to be a wolf).
MORTAL WEAKNESS
Completely incapable of distinguishing a wolf from a grandma.
FALLOUT
Nothing. Children are immune to the harshness of the real world.


534 While most of the Nordic countries were busy stealing the entirety of Europe from their lazy neighbors, Beowulf was getting real shit done. After arriving in Denmark he slays the beasty Grendel by ripping off the monster’s arm and beating him to death with it, leading to the single most metal thing to happen at that point in history. This also lead to any girl’s name starting with a “G” to look that much uglier.


1572 Japanese warlord and inventor of karaoke, Oda Nobunaga, destroys the last of the oni (or “ogre” for you baka-gaijin) through a combination of mirrors, windchimes, and crooked bridges. As it turns out oni are really, really bad at doing anything besides messing up how a room “flows.”


1882 German philosopher and syphilis enthusiast Friedrich Wilhelm “Willy” Nietzsche accidentally kills the Judeo-Christian diety YHWH (known as the “King of All Monsters”) with his declaration “God is dead.” His demise is highly exaggerated, the creator of the universe returned three days later with the proclamation, “Nope.” Having been proven a liar, Nietzsche is doomed to be quoted by obnoxious college students for all eternity.


1947 In an ironic twist fit for a pulp novel, former führer Adolf Hitler’s frozen head is eaten by a member of his secret Nazi zombie army somewhere. Good night, sweet prince.


SPECIAL INTERNET BONUS Here is a mummy.

Li'l EXPLOSION!!!

Originally run on 12 October 2009 for the Literature page.

Send this comic back to hell!

Originally run on 12 October 2009 for the Comics page of the Union Weekly!

Cover of the Union Weekly!

Originally run on 28 September 2009. Colors by Clay Cooper.

Tales of Poltroonage

Originally run on 21 September 2009 for the Comics page.

Hey! There's art here too!

Thirsty, Thirstier, and Thirstiest

Originally run on 21 September 2009 for the Entertainment page.

More art found here!

A Political Comic for All!

Originally run on 31 August 2009.

More art can be found here.

Time Comic Time!

Originally run on 11 May 2009.

More art can be found here.

The Thin Red Line

Originally run on 4 May 2009. Illustration by me.

A Review of The Thin Red Line by James Jones.

As war nerd, it was only a matter of time before I began to chew my way through the great American literature on World War II, and with that one of the most critically acclaimed novels to come out of that war: The Thin Red Line. Written by James Jones (who also penned From Here to Eternity) in 1962, the novel follows a hapless band of soldiers in C-For-Charlie as they attempt to clear Guadalcanal, the bloodiest island in the Pacific, of the Imperial Japanese forces. The book was later adapted twice into film, once in 1968 and a second time in 1998. From what I can tell, the second film contains the best passages of the book, without the immense amount of chaff that makes up Jones' novel.

This isn't a criticism of the book, exactly—it's unfair to compare one medium to the other-- but what works for the film is that it's much better paced. Jones' novel is a rambling affair with no obvious rhyme or reason. Presumably, this is Jones' point since in war there's no clear objectives, romanticism, or selfless courage— there's only trying to get through the day. In this way Jones has made a unique war novel, one that is completely detached from the popular myths of the Greatest Generation.

The soldiers of The Thin Red Line aren't John Waynes or Audie Murphys, they're frightened mortals who cuss, retreat, develop pointless grudges, and, occasionally try to have sex with each other. While Jones manages to avoid the sentimentality of WWII, he also makes every person, place, and thing in his book completely unlikable.

The story lacks a central narrator and the reader isn't chained to a single character. What this results in is a story without a spine. It doesn't have distinguishable characters; it doesn't have set pieces, or even character development (unless one gets shot). The Thin Red Line is so generalized that it's almost reductive. The reader isn't given enough time with any character to properly care about him and when he does learn something about a soldier he finds that he isn't just flawed, but the character is a downright, miserable bastard. With the exception of Sergeant Welsh (who reads like he fell out of Catch 22) there's little to be interested in, or to sympathize with. Jones might be trying to make a point about the loss of individuality that occurs in the military, but I'll be damned if I care.

The style is primarily expressed through the viewpoints of about a dozen or so different soldiers. The author never indicates when he shifts from one character's perspective or another, either. Even though this unanchored narrative is what causes most of The Thin Red Line's problems, it's also the most interesting thing about the book. As readers we're left to figure out if these men are liars, crazy, or actually bothering to tell the truth. Jones is one of a select few writers that can shift between several dozen characters' narratives and make it appear seamless. Note to aspiring writers: Steal from this man.

Interesting literary techniques aside, as a novel, it falls short. There is no story, there's just drudgery, and a lot of descriptions of terrain that I can't make any sense out of. The Thin Red Line is a well-constructed book that I'm glad I got out of the way, but there isn't much I can give a shit about in its 500 pages. If it came down to it, I'd rather watch the movie again and spend the rest of my day napping in peace.

Bookvalache

Originally run on 28 April 2009 for the Literature page.

FUTURA!

Originally drawn for the Literature page on 20 April 2009.

The Trouble With Tunnel Vision

Originally run on 13 April 2009. Art by me!

The Trouble With Tunnel Vision:
Donut Seem Strange

I don't know if it's something the air or if it's a change in the electro-magnetic fields or if it's just the heat, but this past week I have seen a lot of cleavage. Now, besides the obvious fact that it has gotten a bit warmer, I imagine that there's could be another motive to wearing a revealing top: To show what the Lord has blessed you with. For better or worse, this is an accepted aspect of human nature. People gawk. Now I don't say this just to write an opinion on boobs (I am pro-breasts) and I don't say this as I warning (but, heads up, men are scum). I say this because it's the perfect example of a a social contract, an unspoken one, one that our society requires to function. It's a delicate peace that if we ignore and peel back the layers nobody wins.

This brings me to donut shops. The 24 hour ones. There's Bartha's on Ximeno, there's the one by the Hole Mole which always seems to be full of perfect specimens of rambling tramps, and there's the one on 2nd Street across from Shorehouse which looks like it's either being built up or torn down. Now, I'm not saying that these are money laundering operations, but they're probably money laundering operations. There's also one two blocks west of where I live, where on a nightly basis a drug deal goes down.

Realistically, I draw 90% of my information on the drug trade from HBO TV shows so I might not be an expert. With that said I am pretty sure that when an Explorer with mirrored windows parks with its engine running at 2am in Long Beach, I am certain that it is for nefarious purposes. But, I ignore it, because it's easier to do that than to tip-off the narcos (my lease ends in two months, what do I care?). Are the drug deals and the donuts connected? Who knows. We should probably get a wire up, though.

Theses things we ignore for the sake of society isn't always titties and donuts, either, sometimes it's our parents. We tell ourselves that, despite them being alive during the 1960's, in no way did they ever learned how to pack a bowl and in no way did they ever engage in a menage a trois with a Finnish guy named Merja. We also tell ourselves that they still don't do this stuff, too.

If we accept these things as part of our canon, this leads to a whole slew of problems. We have to rethink how the very basics of our relationship with society works. It leads to chaos. We would start vomting and never stop, doors would kicked in, there'd be no donuts after a hard night of drinking, and no more plunging v-necks. These probably aren't the best examples of the lynch pins of civilization, but a lot of things like this require us looking the other way. The benefits of willful ignorance probably isn't the best moral to pull away from this story, but as I've been told from behind an empty stein time and time again: Admitting that you have a problem is the first step to recovery. So, maybe it isn't accepting these social contracts, but being aware of them and going from there. I say this with more than a mite of trepidation, though, because if we have low-neck lines taken away from us, that would be too heavy a burden for my soul to bear.

WHO WATCHES THE WATCHMEN?

Originally run on 9 March 2009.

These Golden Years

Originally run on 9 March 2009. Illustration by me!

These Golden Years:
I Would Finally Make My Father Proud. Finally.

Time travel is something of a concern of mine. I’ve discussed this before—December, I think it was. What, I’m repeating myself? I don’t have a single original thought in my head? Fuck you, I’m talking about time! This effects us all! And besides, nobody ever criticized Jesus for talking about fishing all the damn time. So stow your snide comments for three damn minutes. The only feasible scenario that I see would have to be in some kind of Time Cop-type situation where I witness a time-based crime and I’d have to be put into the Time-Witness Protection Program. In this case I think I get to choose when and where I go back in time. Right? Who cares? Point stands.

Many would choose the 1960’s, but these people are cowards and probably mentally infirm. The time I would go with—because I’m not a 17 year-old girl—is New York, 1975. It’s post-coke, pre-AIDS, you’ve got the emerging punk scene on the one hand and coke-addled David Bowie in the other. It’d be great. On weekdays I could watch Woody Allen movies (back when he was good) and on my weekends I could get coked up and kick Andy Warhol in the head. It’d be great. If I’m not busy on that day, I could even save Ian Curtis—John Lennon too. Why not? Eventually I’d have to live through the 80’s, but they really aren’t so bad. Sure you’ve got rat-tails and glam metal, but at least I get to vote for Reagan. Eff yeah.

I mentioned this last time, but my second choice would be to stop Hitler. And afterwards, I’d punch FDR right in his gold-bricking, socialism-loving ass. Right in it. I’d get away with it, because I figure I’ve got plenty of lee-way after solving the whole Lebensraum issue (German for: “We is cunts.” German is a strange language). While punching said president, I’d hold my other hand out, palm first, towards the nearest camera. I would do this so that years later my future dad (past dad?) could look at my picture in the encyclopedia and high five his past son (future son?) across time. Then I could take a photo of him high-fiving the book and take this whole thing to Escher-esque proportions of chicanery. This is what we call the “Elektra Complex.”

Just in case the Time Cops are reading this, these are the following times I will UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES travel to. This is non-negotiable. Let the fucking future criminals freeze me in carbonite or rape my fourth-dimensional sex organs with screwdrivers. I don’t care. Death would be a better alternative to these time zones.

No Civil War. It has long since been established that the Civil War is the lamest of all possible eras. It’s full of nothing but itchy clothing, twirling mustaches, and fervent assholes that think that the n-word is acceptable in polite conversation (but not mixed company, strangely). It’s also the nerdiest war of all time. Nerdier than ‘Nam, nerdier than WWII, and even nerdier than the Revolutionary War (which is pretty goddamn nerdy). Plus, the Civil War tapers right into the epoch of train nerds, and those poor souls are the untouchables of the nerd caste system.

No Napoleonic Europe either, because that’s basically just the Civil War but for British dorks. I’d probably get a whole lot less Dr. Who references, but it would come at the cost of having to look at the dentifrice-free zone that they call mouths-- those crooked, decaying punji pits that erupt out their tuber-white flesh. Ugh.

I don’t know—So, yeah, time travel. Know it, love it, live it. By the way, if anyone knows a safer way to time travel, that’d be grand. I’m not too keen on the idea of being a witness to a time-crime. I get this creepy sensation that it’d drive me insane. God knows the last thing the past needs is more crazy people.

The Future of Books

Originally run on 23 February 2009.

The Future of Books
Is All a Bunch of Cockamamie Bullshit

On the way back from a drunken rampage, NPR made me aware of this thing called a "Cell Phone Novel." The idea offended me on a personal level, so it only makes sense that it came from Japan—traditional home of the banzai charge, methamphetamines, and girls shitting sea life out of their asses for the sexual pleasure of people with no souls. Other than the silliness of reading a literary work on a device you typically use to find out “What’s up?” or “Where’s the party again?” there really isn’t anything inherently terrible about it, that is until the journalist started speculating about how the Cell Phone Novel might replace the book.

This, as you know is bullshit. Remember when HD-DVD and BluRay were duking it out over who would reign supreme in the high-defintion wars? (You probably don’t because you didn’t have a thousand dollars to throw at away at a new TV, a player and a new movie collection, you’re also probably not an unrepentant dork like myself). At the time there was a cadre of idiots who got together and sided with HD-DVD, because like VHS before it, it would include pornography in its library unlike BluRay (and the deceased Beta Max). These people turned out to be wrong for a number of reasons, but they represent a need in people predict the future despite basic logic disagreeing with them. NPR did this with their prediction Cell Phone Novel story—and, I imagine so did the inventors of smell-o-vision (which was discussed in another NPR story I overheard).

The shortfalls of prophesying can be expressed through one idea better than any other: Blue jeans. No matter how elaborate or well thought out a vision of the future is, everyone seems to leave out blue jeans. It’s all silver track-suits and clear, plastic rain coats. As though people would suddenly stop wearing one of the most popular and iconic pieces of clothing of all time and decide to look like robotic sex criminals. And what’s with the flying cars? Sure, they look way cooler than normal cars, but I don’t think, as a race, that we’re ever going to top the wheel any time soon. In the same way we’re not ever going to top the paper-back.

This glittering future we’re being sold is the result of some very skilled hucksters. Your post-humanism, your post-literary society, your singularity, and everything else can go suck on an egg. Jesus ain’t never coming and neither is that USB port in your head. Banking on either of those things happening in your life-time is just going to make you one disappointed SOB on his death bed.

I’m going to predict that there is never going to be that point in time where we get rid of all of our old crap and replace it with something new and shiny, either. Take Europe for example. There is still people living in three-hundred year old houses because the old buildings work just as well as the new ones. They didn’t tear everything down when we discovered plastic or the date had a few more zero’s than usual. A future without novels is a future without blue jeans.

An Open Letter to the Republican Party

Originally run on 2 February 2009.

Dear Republican Party,

What happened to you, Republican Party? You used to be cool, man—Well, you were never cool, but at least you had something going for you. Smaller government and lower taxes, how can you screw up that formula? Not too long ago, you had the world in your hand—the Supreme Court, both Houses, and the Presidency—Now look at you. You’re the sick man of DC, and it’s high time you got your shit together.

I’m not here to rag on you, though. I was raised with my dad yelling at Clinton for most of my childhood—plus if he ever found out that I was trashing the party, I’d be out of a free meal ticket. The biggest reason that I’m not stooping to kick a man while he’s down is that America needs you guys. A healthy democracy requires a healthy competition. Without a serious competition we end up with Communist China or Soviet Russia or, more innocuously, six of the past eight years. America requires the other party, even if we don’t like them. Especially if we don’t like them, actually.

Your current incarnation is an intellectual and a spiritual dead-zone. On the one hand we’ve got professional scum like Ann Coulter, who wear their arrogance on their sleeve, like it’s a chevron for an elite force of loud-mouthed jerk-offs. Not to say that cockiness can’t be charming in small doses, Bill Mahr made an entire career out of this, but when he isn’t right at least he’s funny. The only service the current generation of conservative pundits supply is infuriation. They’re infuriating because they’re speaking about something that matters—our democracy—and they turn it into this hideous bitchfest that sucks in all forms of thought and rationality into the abyss.

Then there’s the granddaddy of whining Republican pundits: Rush Limbaugh, the creaking gastropod that he is. A man so edgy that he turned on McCain because of the fact that he hated Mexicans less than the other candidates. Campaigning against the best candidate the party has had in 20 years isn’t punk rock, it makes you a fat, petty asshole. Where’s William F. Buckley when you need him?

Oh, yeah. Spinning, no doubt.

The actual political wing of the party isn’t much healthier than the ideological one. Just look at the crop of runner ups in your camp last year. There was Giuliani, a man so inept that he managed to fumble being a hero on 9/11—a move only slightly less dumb that John Kerry being called a pussy for killing VC by a trust-fund baby. Then we have Mitt Romney (a known replicant) who is a believes in a religion that up until 1978 thought that the color of black people’s skin was a curse from God (a known space alien)—not that his religion is any of our business. Then we’ve got Mike Huckabee, who despite being something of a Bible-thumping nightmare, actually managed to be likable, if only because he never had a serious shot at turning the country into a theocracy he wants it to be (“All hail Presi-pope Huckabee III,” we’d all chant). This leaves us with Sarah Palin. Which one of you thought that was a good idea?


Obama beat you jerks for a lot of reasons: Exploiting the internet, being able to mobilize an entire generation of voters (and rake in their cash), and by sending out a message other than “Terrorists/Mexicans/Obama is going to kill you/steal your job/take your guns.” You lost because they were used to not having anyone to run against. You got complacent and sedentary and now here we are.

Honestly, when was the last time conservatism gave America anything to look up to? We need you to do this, not just for your own sake, but for our democracy’s sake. We need you out there making sure that Obama is doing the best job possible, because if we get a president that thinks his job is safe, we end up with Bush.

Four years, Republican Party, that’s all you need to turn yourself around. That’s how long it took for the Democrats to go from championing Yuppy Frankenstein and Droopy Dog to being spearheaded by a shiny, new racially progressive Messiah. That’s how long you have to purge the sycophants and hypocrites from your company and to actually forge something that is worth believing in. You brought this mess upon yourself and you’ve got every opportunity in the world to think your way out of it. Four years, plenty of time.

Yours Truly,
James Kislingbury, ESQ.

PS: Again, Sarah Palin, seriously? I mean, I love my mom too, but I’m not going to vote her into office.

Vampire Attack!

Originally run 26 January 2009
Drawn for Jason Oppliger's article "The Bleeding Wound That is Sundance."